I have no problem with believing that reducing access to guns reduces gun deaths. Seems like Economics 101 to me. If you reduce access to cars, you’ll save even more lives.
How much prosperity is created and lives are saved because we have access to cars?
I’d suggest that hundreds of millions of people have their lives enriched unimaginably by cars. Whereas guns, generally sit there and don’t do much at all to enrich someone’s standard of living. At least, if you don’t use them to rob gas stations.
So the comparison seems very very silly.
Actually, this does raise an interesting point. If said 17 year old happens to be an able-bodied male citizen, by US law he is a member of the militia of the United States. Does not the second amendment apply to him? I think a good case could be made that the age of 17 should be the cutoff, not 18 or 21.
I hate this bullshit: trying to conflate self-defense with gun ownership and only gun ownership. :rolleyes:
The core right of the 2nd amendment is self defense and the handgun is the quintessential self defense weapon. Surely there are other means to defend oneself but it seems reasonable shorthand to think the right to purchase a handgun goes hand in hand with the right to self defense.
Plus there actually is a slippery slope here. Nations with strict gun control usually restrict knives, pepper spray, and stunners as well.
There are only three constitutional privileges or rights limited by age. The right to take office as President, after election, is limited to age 35 and above. The right to take office as a Senator, after election, is limited to age 30 and above. And the right to take office as a member of the House of Representatives is limited to age 25 and above. But I don’t think that’s what you really mean by a right. For Bill-of-Rights type rights, there is no age limit. Here’s why:
As far as limiting rights to the law-abiding, this is a much newer concept yet. The restriction on felons buying guns were introduced with the Gun Control Act of 1968.
Only if the twentieth century militia law trumps the second amendment.
It is unreasonable to assume that without a gun, no self-defense is possible. It is, therefore, unreasonalbe to suggest, imply or infer that without a gun, a person is defenseless.
You needn’t assume that no defense is possible without a handgun. The core right in the 2nd amendment is self defense and that is recognized with the most popular choice in the nation being a handgun. To deny the ability to purchase a handgun denies the ability to exercise the core 2nd amendment right. Simply saying defense is possible by other means is no cure for the constitutional infringement.
As Doug stanhope once said, put Miley Cyrus in a cage with Chuck Liddell(UFC fighter) and she’s gonna get choked out. Give her a Glock and things are a lot more even.
Pepper spray, stunners, batons, etc., are very useful, but for the weak a gun is the best insurance.
This is a good point.
There also may be a slippery slope in which nations with weakening gun controls also start legalizing the most dangerous sorts of knives. US state laws against switchblade ownership have been, in recent years, disappearing:
Mr. Ritter is right. The second amendment does not mention firearms. Nor does it mention small arms. Limits on switchblades, and, for that matter, on artillery, are just as much an infringement of the original second amendment as are limits on pistols.
How is a knife that opens up with a button any more dangerous than a folding knife, or a machete?
I’ve been working with my state assembly rep trying to get the law on switchblades repealed here. It’s an archaic throwback to the 50’s and West Side Story. People can walk around openly carrying an AR15 but a spring assisted knife is somehow so much more dangerous that the penalty for having one is 9 months imprisonment and a 10K fine? Ludicrous! There isn’t even an exemption for law enforcement those knives are so dangerous! :rolleyes:
Unless homicide rates have fallen, it’s rather irrelevant whether gun homicide rates have fallen. The dead person doesn’t care what weapon you used.
If you ban tennis shoes, tennish shoe jaywalking will also be reduced. Jaywalking itself, not so much.
Also you need to look at certain crimes like home invasions. If those have gone up, it would mean criminals have caught onto the fact that the law abiding are disarmed.
Of course, modern gun control laws do not and cannot go that far any longer. I have no problem with sensible gun regulations to keep them out of the hands of criminals, at least at the state level. The feds should really not be messing around with guns except as it pertains to imported weapons.
Seriously?
I cannot think of any right in the constitution that is absolute and without some restrictions. Even free speech is limited (e.g. slander or yelling “fire” in a crowded theater when there is no fire is not protected speech).
It is just weird to think that the 2nd amendment should come with no boundaries whatsoever. By that thinking the 2nd amendment says the right to bear “arms” shall not be restricted so in your world civilians buying anti aircraft missiles and grenades and yes, even nukes, should be allowed because hey…those all fall under the definition of “arms” and all restrictions are unconstitutional right? :dubious:
Hogwash. Why haven’t you moved to a more gun unfriendly state since Pennsylvania has been sending you a very strong message for a very long time that we like guns here? Answer: job, family, etc. outweigh the gun issue in importance to you. The same is true of people who like guns. While I will not say it has never happened, I have never personally known anybody on either side who moved solely due to gun politics.
I don’t think so. Philly Guy is in favor of broad forms of gun control if I recall correctly and is making poor arguments in shallow attempts that seemingly support 2nd amendment rights for a reason only he knows.
As a side note, a survey just came out from Rasmussen that claims the majority of people feel safer where guns are allowed as compared to a place where no guns are allowed.
No idea the validity of this survey but it seemed on point.
If the data in the link is correct, it looks like this is an example of data mining. The Connecticut gun homicide rate relative to the rest of the country went up for three years after the law passed, then went down for seven, then went back up for five years. By choosing to look only at the next 10 years the study got all of the relative decline and none of the relative increase that followed it. In fact the gun homicide rate in Connecticut as of 2010 was higher relative to the rest of the country than it was before the gun control law.
It seems to me that looking at the data the gun control law seemed to have no effect on the gun homicide rate. That is what has been seen in other studies which have shown no impact on homicide rates and only impacts on suicide rates.
I think you are arguing for the proverbial foolish consistency.
Age of majority has nothing to do with constitutional rights, I don’t see anything about age of majority in the constitution. A 12 year old enjoys the same constitutional rights as a 22 year old. They have the right to an attorney, they have the right to free speech, they have the right be free from unreasonable search and seizure. Why limit the right to bear arms but not to speech? The notion of majority and competency is separate from the notion of when constitutional rights attach.
If I am a homeless 14 year old, why don’t I have the right to self defense? Why can’t I own a gun? If I am a 14 year old in a gang ridden neighborhood where 14 year olds get jumped and killed on a somewhat regular basis, why can’t I have a gun? What if I’m 12? What if I’m 8?
That’s because state laws against switchblade ownership were passed in response to panic over an essentially non-existent threat. They parallel the reefer madness era pretty closely.