# Guns: Newsweek proposes a compromise **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 16, 2015, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345 "2015-07-16T18:10:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/381 "2015-08-01T21:11:43Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Fine, and you’re entitled to your opinion. My position is that Arthur Kellermann is not only the author of more than 200 well-regarded research papers on emergency medicine, injury prevention, and gun violence, but he’s also had an [outstanding career of such high distinction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Kellermann#Career) in some of the nation’s foremost institutions – including Emory University, the RAND Corporation, the US Congress, and the National Academy of Sciences – that he’s one of America’s truly distinguished research scientists, and holds numerous awards including career achievement awards for Excellence in Science from the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine and from the American Public Health Association. I make no claims about any of Kellerman’s other work. In the paper you cited, these are some of the things were part of the study: [ul] [li]having a control group dissimilar to the test group[/li][li]not controling for guns brought into the home from another source[/li][li]finding that many other factors presented greater risk factors than firearm existence.[/li][/ul] His credentials don’t really come into play with the evaluation of whether or not those factors make a good study. Consider the 2nd item - included in his totals of homicide were incidents where the deceased was killed by a gun brought into the home by a non-resident. Does that make sense to you? It’s absurd to conclude that if you possess a gun in your home, and you are killed by someone else’s gun not in your home, then your own gun was somehow the cause and a demonstration of increased risk. > [@](#): > > I leave the reader to make his own judgment. The funny part is that there isn’t even an argument here, because if Kellermann wasn’t correct, then the very clear numbers on gun fatalities wouldn’t be what they are in the US, and they wouldn’t be what they are in the rest of the world. If this is the level of reasoning you’re engaged in, I’m not surprised you agree with Kellerman. The validity of Kellerman’s work does not depend on his predictive value, you’re excluding a very very large middle. Logically, he could be correct or incorrect, and the level of gun fatalities could still be higher, lower, or the same. > [@](#): > > I already did. The papers were cited in support of the following two statements: You cited more Kellerman - in other words more useless agenda driven research. And wait, a Mother Jones article that read like Buzzfeed, the top 10 trivialities, the first of which was so clearly false the res was tainted. > [@](#): > > Yes, I said those things. I didn’t say them about _ **you** _ personally. Oh, right. If I said, man, _ **people who believe in Kellerman’s work, those people are really just terrible goat people with the reasoning ability of a starfish. But not you though.** _’ But here’s the thing, you characterize Reason as nutjobs, you call Scalia an idiot and a disgrace, you accuse people who disagree with you of being dishonest, fanatics, and not exercising rational assessments. Keep clinging to the false notion that you aren’t accusing people who disagree with you of those things. > [@](#): > > I’m not personally invested in either side. Another exercise left to the reader. Why gun control folks have to claim these false notions - they aren’t invested, they don’t want to ban guns. It seems purposely obfuscatory. What’s wrong with admitting being invested? I am. I consider gun ownership, possession, and carry to be civil rights. Being invested in the issue is why my side of the debate is winning. > [@](#): > > First of all there are many facts that belie any supposition that this was a clear-cut and obviously correct decision, or that it will stand the test of time, which I personally believe it will not, like other bad SCOTUS decisions that were eventually reversed. Three facts that come immediately to mind: > > [ul] > [li]SCOTUS had been trying to avoid this issue for decades, because the problem of putting a definitive individual vs. collective-rights interpretation on the Second Amendment has no solution that is 100% supportable, and it’s a political minefield.[/li][li]The ruling, when it came down, was the usual 5-4 ideological split, with strong dissent.[/li][li]There is a strong body of opinion among constitutional scholars, supported by the wording of earlier drafts of the Bill of Rights, that the Second Amendment granted a collective right to arms for the protection of the early nation, and not an individual right for citizens to shoot each other. In a saner world the Second Amendment would simply have become as obsolete as the third, the one about quartering troops. Instead, this piece of obsolescence was re-animated and sanctified as a constitutional _carte blanche_ for national gun violence.[/li][/ul] **Tell me, have you even read Heller?** What you write makes me think you haven’t. You put forward the collective vs. individual rights interpretation. What do you think Heller’s take on that was? That you advance it here betrays a fundamental ignorance of the source material. Here is from the opinion: > [@](#): > > It was clearly an individual right,having nothing whatever to do with service in a militia. > > … > > There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms. But the ruling was 5-4. So what did those who dissented say? From Steven’s dissent which was signed by all four dissenting justices: > [@](#): > > The question presented by this case is not whether the Second Amendment protects a “collective right” or an “individual right.” **Surely it protects a right that can be enforced by individuals.** From Breyer’s dissent which was signed by all four dissenting justices: > [@](#): > > ``` > The Second Amendment says that: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” In interpreting and applying this Amendment, I take as a starting point the following four propositions, based on our precedent and today’s opinions, to which I believe the entire Court subscribes: > > (1)  **The Amendment protects an “individual” right—i.e., one that is separately possessed, and may be separately enforced, by each person on whom it is conferred.** See, e.g., ante, at 22 (opinion of the Court); ante, at 1 (Stevens, J., dissenting). > > (2) As evidenced by its preamble, the Amendment was adopted “[w]ith obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of [militia] forces.” United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, 178 (1939) ; see ante, at 26 (opinion of the Court); ante, at 1 (Stevens, J., dissenting). > > (3) The Amendment “must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.” Miller, supra, at 178. > > (4) The right protected by the Second Amendment is not absolute, but instead is subject to government regulation. See Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 275, 281–282 (1897) ; ante, at 22, 54 (opinion of the Court). > > ``` Even the two dissents adopted the individual right interpretation. You are clinging to a collective rights interpretation which is dead. Do you think that 5-4 decisions have less validity than 9-0 decisions? > [@](#): > > Here’s my explanation for Roberts ruling sanely on the latest ACA decision but not on DC v Heller. Yes, when he agrees with you, he’s a rational jurist concerned with his legacy. When he doesn’t agree with you, he’s a dishonest ideologue pandering to conservatives. > [@](#): > > The real issue with the NRA is that this intractable ideology is coupled with an immensely powerful network of lobbying organizations. If that’s not a marketing slogan, I don’t know what is. Sounds like I should make another donation. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/382 "2015-08-01T23:21:57Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > His credentials don’t really come into play with the evaluation of whether or not those factors make a good study. Consider the 2nd item - included in his totals of homicide were incidents where the deceased was killed by a gun brought into the home by a non-resident. Does that make sense to you? And would you care to tell us how much this alleged anomaly affected the total numbers? Kellermann’s distinguished reputation and credibility is indeed relevant when he is accused of what is effectively scientific fraud. So is the fact that other independent studies support his conclusions. To me it is oddly reminiscent of how some of the most prestigious climate scientists have been falsely accused of scientific fraud by someone who usually turns out to be a paid shill for the oil companies. > [@Bone](#): > > You cited more Kellerman - in other words more useless agenda driven research. No, I did not. The second quote is a Kellermann study, but that’s a different issue. The first quote is the one that is pertinent to the dangers of a gun in the home – “Owning a gun has been linked to higher risks of homicide, suicide, and accidental death by gun” – and that one is supported by the three different studies by other investigators I mentioned, **all of which independently support Kellermann**. Since those links were embedded within the article I linked, here they are directly: > **[Association between handgun purchase and mortality from firearm injury](https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/9/1/48.full)** > > Objective: To determine the association between mortality from violent or firearm related injury and previous handgun purchase. > > Methods: Case-control study of 213 466 Californians ages 21 and older who died in 1998; cases were the 4728 violent or... > **[Guns in the Home and Risk of a Violent Death in the Home: Findings from a...](https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/160/10/929/140858?redirectedFrom=fulltext)** > > Abstract. Data from a US mortality follow-back survey were analyzed to determine whether having a firearm in the home increases the risk of a violent death > **[Firearms in US homes as a risk factor for unintentional gunshot fatality](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001457502000490)** > > This study used national data and a matched case-control design to estimate the relative risk of death by an unintentional gunshot associated with hav… > [@Bone](#): > > Oh, right. If I said, man, _ **people who believe in Kellerman’s work, those people are really just terrible goat people with the reasoning ability of a starfish. But not you though.** _ “People who believe in Kellerman’s work, those people are really just terrible goat people with the reasoning ability of a starfish.” Hey, I like that! I would give that an A+ in creative writing! 😃 Seriously, if you really believe I’ve accused you of being “dishonest” or any of those other things, then get a ruling from the mods, or else please stop going on about it. I’ve made a general characterization of how I regard the pro-gun collective as a group and the fallacies of their most prominent rationalizations. It’s the nature of debate. I have no idea what motivates you to support this side nor do I care to speculate. I can say in all frankness that I respect your style of debate and your willingness to engage in a substantive discussion – even though, as we are about to see once again, I disagree with your interpretations. Insulting you would be the last thing I would want to do. I am genuinely sorry that you interpret my arguments that way. > [@Bone](#): > > Another exercise left to the reader. Why gun control folks have to claim these false notions - they aren’t invested, they don’t want to ban guns. It seems purposely obfuscatory. What’s wrong with admitting being invested? I am. I consider gun ownership, possession, and carry to be civil rights. Being invested in the issue is why my side of the debate is winning. Not having a vested interest is usually how one judges impartiality. > [@Bone](#): > > **Tell me, have you even read Heller?** What you write makes me think you haven’t. You put forward the collective vs. individual rights interpretation. What do you think Heller’s take on that was? That you advance it here betrays a fundamental ignorance of the source material. Apparently you need some interpretive assistance: Stevens asserts that the Second Amendment (1) protects the individual right to bear arms **only in the context of military service** and (2) does not limit government’s authority to regulate civilian use or possession of firearms. **He describes the majority’s individual-right holding as “strained and unpersuasive”; its conclusion, “overwrought and novel.” Stevens was joined in his dissent by Justices Breyer, Ginsberg, and Souter.** In his dissent, Breyer argues that even if the Second Amendment, in addition to militia-related purposes, protects an individual’s right of self-defense, **that assumption should be the beginning of the constitutional inquiry, not the end**. Breyer contends that there are no purely logical or conceptual ways to determine the constitutionality of gun control laws, such as the District’s law. Thus, a sounder approach would be a “balancing test” that focuses on “practicalities” to determine what gun control laws would be consistent with the amendment even if it is interpreted as protecting a “wholly separate interest in individual self-defense.” Breyer concludes that under a balancing test that takes into account the extensive evidence of gun crime and gun violence in urban areas, the District’s gun law would be constitutionally permissible. Breyer was joined in his dissent by Justices Ginsberg, Souter, and Stevens. [https://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0578.htm](https://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0578.htm) > [@Bone](#): > > If that’s not a marketing slogan, I don’t know what is. Sounds like I should make another donation. It appears that as more and more facts emerge from research on gun policy, more and more money is directed to the NRA to fight the facts. Funny, that. The NRA also expends considerable sums suppressing such research. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2015, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/383 "2015-08-02T03:18:22Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > And would you care to tell us how much this alleged anomaly affected the total numbers? No. Is it necessary to determine this before concluding the factors I listed would make for a questionable study? Do you think those factors strengthen the conclusions or weaken them? > [@](#): > > Kellermann’s distinguished reputation and credibility is indeed relevant when he is accused of what is effectively scientific fraud. But this isn’t about Kellerman per se, though he tends to make similar methodology choices that yield similar results. I’m raising a criticism of his data and analysis. > [@](#): > > No, I did not. The second quote is a Kellermann study, but that’s a different issue. The first quote is the one that is pertinent to the dangers of a gun in the home – “Owning a gun has been linked to higher risks of homicide, suicide, and accidental death by gun” – and that one is supported by the three different studies by other investigators I mentioned, **all of which independently support Kellermann**. Since those links were embedded within the article I linked, here they are directly: > [http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/9/1/48.full](http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/9/1/48.full) > [http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929.full](http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929.full) > [Firearms in US homes as a risk factor for unintentional gunshot fatality - ScienceDirect](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001457502000490) Ok, let’s ignore the second Kellerman link for now since it’s basically a regurgitation of his same findings, tainted by his same methodology, and carrying much of the same weaknesses. If you want to talk about one of his studies specifically, I can do so in a more dedicated post. Onto the first link, which you’ve excerpted these three specific studies. The first study, by Grassel and others, suffers from similar weaknesses as Kellerman’s work. There is no control for the firearm used in the homicide or suicide vs. the one that was purchased as was the focus of the study. In other words, the death could have been caused by a firearm not possessed by the resident. The obvious implication is that people who may purchase a firearm for protection could have fallen victim to the thing they were trying to protect against. The relationship between gun purchase and death may be reversed. The control group in the first study also has weaknesses that of course skew in the way the conclusion points. For example, the population of those that died were near 80% men. The control population was just under 50% men. Among the group that died, the race of the person was 59% white, ~21% black, and ~12% hispanic. Among the control population, the numbers were ~76% white, ~10% black, and ~8% hispanic. Essentially oversampling minorities. Similar results with marital status. The second one was actually posted in [post #46](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18525734&postcount=46) by **Moriarty**. I replied in post [#193](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18536051&postcount=191) (quoting myself): > [@Bone](#): > > This is the study that was published in 2004 and relied on data from 1993, a peak of violent crime in the country, oversampled black persons less than 35 , doesn’t distinguish between lawful and unlawful possession of firearms, and didn’t distinguish between a gun that was in the home with the one that casued the death - between scenarios where someone not living in the home brought the gun to the home. > > I wouldn’t say you are abusing statistics - just that this isn’t a useful study. The third study you link is unavailable due to site maintenance. I’ll have to look when it’s back up. > [@](#): > > Seriously, if you really believe I’ve accused you of being “dishonest” or any of those other things, then get a ruling from the mods, or else please stop going on about it. I’ve made a general characterization of how I regard the pro-gun collective as a group and the fallacies of their most prominent rationalizations. It’s the nature of debate. I have no interest in appealing for mod action. I raise the point to illustrate how rather than respond to actual points raised in criticism of data presented, your common refrain is to instead disparage. For example, I raised specfic criticism of Kellerman’s work, as well as quoted criticism from the Reason article. But instead of responding to those, you disparage Reason itself. It’s revealing. It’s why I don’t engage in saying things to the effect of, _‘large group of people who don’t agree with me are bad/dishonest/etc. people, but not you though!’_. It’s not persuasive. Instead, I choose to respond to the specifics that are being put forward. I recommend it. > [@](#): > > Not having a vested interest is usually how one judges impartiality. Right. Because Kellerman and yourself are supposed to be impartial? I make no claims about being impartial or not being invested. I am, I am an advocate. Kellerman is an advocate. > [@](#): > > Apparently you need some interpretive assistance: > [INDENT]Stevens asserts that the Second Amendment (1) protects the individual right to bear arms **only in the context of military service** and (2) does not limit government’s authority to regulate civilian use or possession of firearms. **He describes the majority’s individual-right holding as “strained and unpersuasive”; its conclusion, “overwrought and novel.” Stevens was joined in his dissent by Justices Breyer, Ginsberg, and Souter.** > > In his dissent, Breyer argues that even if the Second Amendment, in addition to militia-related purposes, protects an individual’s right of self-defense, **that assumption should be the beginning of the constitutional inquiry, not the end**. This line of discussion is relevant because of you raised the issue of collective vs. individual rights wrt the 2nd amendment. This is not about the subsequent analysis of each dissenter which was not adopted by the court. The dissenting opinions obviously came to different conclusions. But with regard to individual vs. collective right, your attempt to imply uncertainty in this area is baseless. Essentially, in the idea of a collective right vs. an individual right, the court adopted the opinion that it was an individual right, 9-0. \*\*Do you dispute that? \*\* > [@](#): > > It appears that as more and more facts emerge from research on gun policy, more and more money is directed to the NRA to fight the facts. Funny, that. The NRA also expends considerable sums suppressing such research. The NRA has no more ability to suppress research than you or I. They lobby congress to not fund junk. If you’d like to research, I’m sure the NRA will not try to prohibit you. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2015, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/384 "2015-08-02T03:42:15Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > The third study you link is unavailable due to site maintenance. I’ll have to look when it’s back up. It looks like it’s back up, but it’s just an abstract. Is this the one: _Firearms in US homes as a risk factor for unintentional gunshot fatality_ by Wiebe? In any event, I can’t access the full study. This one’s focus is unintentional firearm fatality - and it focused on 1993 data. But as I mentioned in post [#142](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18530477&postcount=142), the total number of unintentional firearm deaths: 1991: 1441 2001: 802 2010: 606 A 24% drop in the last 10 years, and a 58% drop in the last 20 years using 2010 data. This is a problem, and a tragedy - but comparatively the figures are low in a country of over 300M people, and decreasing. But again, like suicide, I concede that if you possess a firearm in the home, the risk of unintentional firearm death is increased. This is not controversial. And also like suicide, the causes and remedies for unintentional injury death from firearm are different from the causes and remedies for homicide. Studies that blend the two (like the 1st link), give misleading results. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2015, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/385 "2015-08-03T02:53:25Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Why is stopping gun crime a worthy goal? What is it about gun crime that makes it worse? Is a murder with a gun worse than a murder with a knife? Is a rape committed with a gun worse than a rape committed with a knife? > > I’d say the goal ought to be overall crime reduction. That seems like a worthy policy goal to me. Gun crime is a subset of crime. A subset that we are focusing on in this thread. I am responding to the notion that because a lot of crime is committed with guns, we should tighten restrictions on guns. If all those gun crimes are being committed by people who do not legally possess those guns in the first place then those tighter restrictions won’t have very much effect. But if it turns out that all of those gun crimes are being committed by people who legally owned the guns, then that’s a different story. I am confident that we will find that the majority of people who commit gun crimes do not legally own their guns. I would be curious to learnt he rate of criminality among legal gun owners compared to the general population. We already know that concealed weapon permit holders are more significantly more law abiding than than the average citizen (and even more law abiding than the average cop), I would be interested to know if gun owners generally are more or less law abiding than the general population. And of COURSE we should focus on crimes committed with guns. The fact of the matter is that there is a lot of shit a criminal can do with a gun that they cannot do with a baseball bat or a swimming pool. Do you honestly think that if we could magically make all guns disappear tomorrow, it would have no effect on our murder rate? The majority of murders are committed with guns, do you honestly think that these murders would all have occurred anyway if there were no guns? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2015, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/386 "2015-08-03T04:10:12Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > What results are you targeting? Similar results of however you envision is not the purpose of the NICS check. The sole purpose is to determine whether or not a purchaser is a prohibited person at the time of sale. Increased mandatory reporting to NICS is a step towards making the system more effective at accomplishing its purpose. You propose to expand the purpose of this system towards other ends - I don’t. So it sounds like you might be in favor of universal background checks as longa s we burn the records. I don’t think universal background checks is enough. How would you prove that a private party transaction conducted a background check if there was no surviving record of that background check? I think the relatively minor intrusion of keeping those records on file at at a federal agency can be part of comprehensive gun control reform. > [@](#): > > I think this is a solvable problem. How? What would prevent me from using the NICS system to check up on neighbors or people I don’t like? > [@](#): > > I don’t share your optimism on multiple fronts. > > First - for the vast majority of people in CA, there is no ability to carry. San Francisco has a city ordinance that requires firearms to be rendered inoperable with a trigger lock in the home when they are not being carried on a person, in [direct contradiction to the ruling in Heller](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/08/412917394/supreme-court-rejects-nra-challenge-to-s-f-gun-rules). SCOTUS denied cert in the litigation. How is the second amendment protecting against these burdens? That is weird. Is SCOTUS saying that because you can carry an operable gun, it is OK to prohibit leaving an operable gun laying around? That doesn’t sound that crazy to me. I wouldn’t pass that particular law if it was up to me but I don’t see how that is in direct contradiction to the ruling in Heller where the trigger lock was required at all times whether you were carrying the gun or not. Here, you are allowed to keep an operable gun if you have it in your possession. > [@](#): > > Second - It is not clear we are heading in the direction of intermediate scrutiny. I don’t know what basis you use to form that conclusion. Yes, intermediate scrutiny was applied in the 2nd circuit, and in Palmer in DC, but that is no panacea. In the 4th circuit the strict scrutiny went the other way than it did in the 2nd circuit, but SCOUTS elected not to resolve the split. In the 5th circuit, the federal appellate courts conduct analysis that renders scrutiny decisions moot, saying that certain conduct doesn’t even burden the 2nd amendment - like the complete prohibition of 18 year old adults to purchase handguns for possession in the home. So not only is it not clear that intermediate scrutiny is the direction we are heading, it’s also not clear that intermediate scrutiny would be sufficient. Intermediate scrutiny may not be sufficient for YOU but what horrible thing happens to the second amendment under intermediate scrutiny? I understand that some courts are lacing “historical standards” into their intermediate scrutiny analysis but I’m not terribly concerned about it. > [@](#): > > Marijuana is not germane to this topic, except that it’s imported into the country illegally at times. Firearms would be too. Burdening the vast majority of gun owners who are not criminals, in a way that purports to be benign but is really a mechanism that can be used to confiscate, is not worth the potential benefit that IMO, would be unlikely to be realized. Most gun smuggling is in the form of American exports not imports. I suppose once it gets tougher for criminals to buy guns domestically, they might be willing to smuggle them in. Heck, a good machinist can probably make me a better gun than one I can get off the shelf. But both of these options greatly increases the cost of guns for criminals. It doesn’t have to create an absolute bar for greater restrictions on guns getting into criminal hands to be effective. Criminals tend to use cheaper guns, I don’t think there are a lot of criminals that are using a Colt Python or a Les Baer 1911 (or even a Kimber 1911 for that matter). How much do you think the average black market gun costs? How much do you think it would cost if it had to be smuggled into the country? > [@](#): > > No. No difference. I would not countenance the division of firearm owners by targeting specific weapons only - this is the method of gun control advocates who wish to divide the support blocks. _Not this gun, but only ‘that’ gun. Not hunters or police, just other people._ No. The only reason I think it might make sense to cut it up that way is because so much crime is committed with handguns and so little crime is committed with long guns. I don’t think it is a meaningless and artificial distinction. Its one thing if I say lets BAN handguns but not rifles, its another thing (I think) if I say, lets register handguns but not rifles. You can have both but the government will only know about the handguns. If you are concerned about the government coming around to take all your guns, then if you only registered your handguns they won’t even know about your rifles (and frankly if it became a matter of fighting tyranny, I’d rather fight with rifles). > [@](#): > > Good luck with preempting all state laws. I don’t think this is realistically possible - and could easily be changed by a future legislature. About the only way I would ever consider supporting a registry, is if it was in exchange for a constitutional amendment making firearm ownership, possession, and carry a suspect class, and that any law related to this class was subject to strict scrutiny. Strict - not intermediate. ANYTHING can be changed by a future legislature. Strict scrutiny baked into the constitution is a BIG ask for something that is already constitutional and actually in place in several states (yours for example). > [@](#): > > It would certain limit some supply. How much would be replaced by firearms obtained from other means? Reducing guns in the hands of criminals, reducing gun crimes, and reducing all crimes - these are worthy policy goals. There are lots of worthy policy goals. It’s just a question of priorities and what you’re willing to give up. I don’t think this would eliminate the flow of guns into criminal hands but there is a natural attrition of guns in criminal hands as cops confiscate guns from criminals. We just need to reduce the inflow to some amount less than the outflow. In your case, you would be giving up very little considering California’s handgun registry. I would be giving up significantly more but what I give up would mostly be filling out a form I didn’t have to fill out before. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2015, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/387 "2015-08-03T22:41:01Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > No. Is it necessary to determine this before concluding the factors I listed would make for a questionable study? Do you think those factors strengthen the conclusions or weaken them? You keep bringing this up again and again as if it was actually a valid argument. I’ve already pointed out that with 30+ thousand people dying every year from gunfire, the attempts to discredit gun policy studies like Kellermann’s are a joke. But let me address it in a bit more detail. Most of the criticisms of Kellermann et al. such as those you bring us from your libertarian magazine are specious attacks brought by gun advocates for entirely ideological reasons, often involving giveaway buzzwords like “government confiscation of guns”. The problems with these arguments are numerous and basic, beginning first of all with the clever ruse of accusing Kellermann et al. of experimental study design flaws when this isn’t an experimental study paradigm at all. This was an observational study, and specifically a type of observational study called a case control study. Sometimes neither controlled experimental studies nor large-scale cohort studies are practical, and case control studies of this type are common and extremely useful in epidemiology. These are the kinds of studies that eventually established, for instance, among many other things, the indisputable dangers of tobacco, with tobacco companies of course challenging them at every turn with many of the same allegations – they failed to conduct controlled clinical trials to see how many people died when force-fed cigarettes 24x7, ergo the case-control studies were worthless! Incredibly, that’s now happening with NRA-backed groups trying to show that guns aren’t dangerous and there’s no correlation whatsoever between having a lot of guns and a lot of people getting shot! The further problem with these criticisms is the large number of independent corroborating studies on just about every aspect of gun hazards, and it’s telling that when I cite a few such studies, why, surprise surprise! – you claim that all these studies are completely flawed, too. Apparently there has never been a valid study done, ever, that showed that a gun might actually hurt someone! Kellermann states that the self-defense argument has never withstood scientific scrutiny, and if the self-defense arguments were true they would have found that homes in which homicides occurred were less likely to contain a gun than similar households in which a homicide did not occur. They found the opposite. Kellermann also notes that associations with other behavioral risk factors were, in fact, accounted for in the study. So it’s not surprising that so many other studies corroborate the same results. And finally, of course, the absolutely stunning, shameful, and tragic off-the-chart numbers of US gun injuries and fatalities and the ever-inconvenient statistic of incredible US gun ownership rates. The entire body of attack against gun fatality studies is ideologically-driven claptrap. > [@Bone](#): > > Right. Because Kellerman and yourself are supposed to be impartial? I make no claims about being impartial or not being invested. I am, I am an advocate. Kellerman is an advocate. How do you know that? Because he’s done research whose conclusions you don’t agree with? According to climate change denialists, every single climate scientist is also an “advocate” because they all say nasty things about fossil fuels and CO2. Do you also believe that climate researchers are all “advocates”? The analogy is apt. I have no personal stake in either guns or fossil fuels. I have been drawn to the positions I hold by the inexorable force of facts. I’m sure I would be very unpopular in Texas. > [@Bone](#): > > But with regard to individual vs. collective right, your attempt to imply uncertainty in this area is baseless. Essentially, in the idea of a collective right vs. an individual right, the court adopted the opinion that it was an individual right, 9-0. \*\*Do you dispute that? \*\* Asking this question smacks of argumentative desperation after I pointed out that your cherry-picked quotes c **ompletely omitted to include critically important conclusions** from the dissent, and it makes me seriously question your interest in having a fact-based debate. When we talk about collective vs individual rights with respect to the Second Amendment, we are specifically talking – as Stevens importantly noted in the part that you failed to quote – about the question of its intent with respect to the collective militia and the goal of securing the nation (through means, I might add, that were meaningful in the 18th century but completely meaningless today). Versus the question of whether or not it conveys the individual right to own a gun for any purpose whatsoever. **This is the central and substantive meaning of “collective vs. individual rights”.** One has only to read the dissent I quoted to clearly see this. Here it is again: Stevens asserts that the Second Amendment (1) protects the individual right to bear arms only in the context of military service and (2) does not limit government’s authority to regulate civilian use or possession of firearms. He describes the majority’s individual-right holding as “strained and unpersuasive”; its conclusion, “overwrought and novel.” Stevens was joined in his dissent by Justices Breyer, Ginsberg, and Souter. Obviously any collective is **always** composed of individuals, but trying to amplify this frivolous irrelevancy into an allegation that the Heller ruling affirmed individual rights 9-0 is just as totally wrong as the conclusion one might reach from your cherry-picked partial quotes. > [@Bone](#): > > The NRA has no more ability to suppress research than you or I. They lobby congress to not fund junk. If you’d like to research, I’m sure the NRA will not try to prohibit you. No? I cited a paper showing that they will and they do. Who defines “junk”? The NRA works to suppress all research that opposes their interests. When it comes to guns, that means pretty much all legitimate policy research. Because when it comes to guns, the only good news is no news. Hey, if you believe having a gun makes you safer, if this seems perfectly intuitively obvious, then go for it. We don’t need no steenkin’ facts. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2015, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/388 "2015-08-03T23:18:13Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I have been drawn to the positions I hold by the inexorable force of facts. While I’m on the gun-skeptic side, I can’t buy this. Not because it is false, but because it is utterly unknowable. > [@wolfpup](#): > > Stevens asserts that the Second Amendment (1) protects the individual right to bear arms only in the context of military service and (2) does not limit government’s authority to regulate civilian use or possession of firearms. He describes the majority’s individual-right holding as “strained and unpersuasive”; its conclusion, “overwrought and novel.” Stevens was joined in his dissent by Justices Breyer, Ginsberg, and Souter. I pay so little attention to the justifications political appointees give for their decisions that I admit to having assumed Bone was probably right about the 9-0 business. But checking it out, you are correct. Here’s the whole dissent: [https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZD.html](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZD.html) It’s ironic that Stevens limits the individual right to a military context. Ironic – because there’s hardly anyplace in America, this side of the Supreme Court’s doors, where the right to keep and bear arms is more circumscribed than on a military base. Of course, Stevens – appointed by Gerald Ford, who tried, and failed, to ban low-cost “Saturday night specials” – didn’t mean to grant anyone, soldier or civilian, a new right to guns. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/389 "2015-08-04T02:56:49Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > While I’m on the gun-skeptic side, I can’t buy this. Not because it is false, but because it is utterly unknowable. What is “utterly unknowable”? I think you may have misunderstood me, and perhaps I wasn’t clear. It would have been more accurate to say that “I have been drawn to the positions I hold by the inexorable weight of evidence.” > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > I pay so little attention to the justifications political appointees give for their decisions that I admit to having assumed Bone was probably right about the 9-0 business. But checking it out, you are correct. Here’s the whole dissent: > > [DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZD.html) > > It’s ironic that Stevens limits the individual right to a military context. Ironic – because there’s hardly anyplace in America, this side of the Supreme Court’s doors, where the right to keep and bear arms is more circumscribed than on a military base. Yep. Although on the last bit, I don’t see any irony because the military context was an 18th century military context, which is completely irrelevant today – as the dissent states, “the need for state militias has not been a matter of significant public interest for almost two centuries”. And the “individual right” interpretation to own a gun for any purpose whatsoever was, as the dissenting justices argued, never intended at all, arguing that it is “… abundantly clear that the Amendment should not be interpreted as limiting the authority of Congress to regulate the use or possession of firearms for purely civilian purposes” and that the majority’s individual-right holding was “strained and unpersuasive” and its self-defense interpretation “overwrought and novel.” ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/390 "2015-08-04T05:27:22Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So it sounds like you might be in favor of universal background checks as longa s we burn the records. Burning the records isn’t a sufficient condition. It’s but one aspect of ensuring the system isn’t abused. I haven’t seriously considered all of the implications or necessities since I don’t think it a realistic outcome. > [@](#): > > I don’t think universal background checks is enough. How would you prove that a private party transaction conducted a background check if there was no surviving record of that background check? I don’t know. For me to really care though, you’d have to demonstrate that the majority of people committing gun crimes would pass a background check. I don’t think this is true but I can’t find good info on it. Off the top of my head, perhaps the purchaser can retain the record. Of course, with no registry no one would be able to determine what firearms should have had a background check in the first place so it’s really moot unless there is a registry. > [@](#): > > I think the relatively minor intrusion of keeping those records on file at at a federal agency can be part of comprehensive gun control reform. You say reform, I read “control” and in the back of my mind, confiscation. I have zero desire to make that process easier, however unlikely that may be. > [@](#): > > How? What would prevent me from using the NICS system to check up on neighbors or people I don’t like? I don’t know, but off the top of my head perhaps require two party consent? > [@](#): > > That is weird. Is SCOTUS saying that because you can carry an operable gun, it is OK to prohibit leaving an operable gun laying around? That doesn’t sound that crazy to me. I wouldn’t pass that particular law if it was up to me but I don’t see how that is in direct contradiction to the ruling in Heller where the trigger lock was required at all times whether you were carrying the gun or not. Here, you are allowed to keep an operable gun if you have it in your possession. SCOTUS isn’t saying anything - they denied cert. There is nothing further to read into that. This is a silly law. CA already criminalized firearm storage where a minor would have access and they commit certain acts. Under this SF ordinance, if a person is carrying a firearm in their home it is fine, but the moment they set it down, it needs to be trigger locked, even if they live alone. Heller said: > [@](#): > > In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment , as does its prohibition against rendering **any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense.** This hair being split is so fine it’s non-existent. This is a perfect example why your acquiescence and reliance on intermediate scrutiny having teeth is misplaced. What good does Heller and McDonald do in CA if the civil rights they protect are trampled by the localities within the state? LA just voted to ban possession of magazines with a capacity greater than 10. So one day they are legal, the next, you are banned from possessing them. The same thing happened in Sunnyvale. There is no compensation here, just, destroy them, turn them in, or remove them from the city. Do you think for a moment if there was registration of these items it wouldn’t be used to pursue all who own them? > [@](#): > > The only reason I think it might make sense to cut it up that way is because so much crime is committed with handguns and so little crime is committed with long guns. I don’t think it is a meaningless and artificial distinction. Its one thing if I say lets BAN handguns but not rifles, its another thing (I think) if I say, lets register handguns but not rifles. You can have both but the government will only know about the handguns. If you are concerned about the government coming around to take all your guns, then if you only registered your handguns they won’t even know about your rifles (and frankly if it became a matter of fighting tyranny, I’d rather fight with rifles). The fact that ‘register’ and ‘ban’ are simply on a spectrum of comparison is enough to disapprove of this scheme. Crime isn’t committed with the lawfully possessed handguns of those that would register them. This divisive tactic is how gun control advocates seek to divide their opposition. I would never countenance it. > [@](#): > > ANYTHING can be changed by a future legislature. Strict scrutiny baked into the constitution is a BIG ask for something that is already constitutional and actually in place in several states (yours for example). I think you mis typed here. What I seek is not in place in my state, CA. The most populace state in the union. It’s a big ask in return for a big ask. I think you downplay how big a registry would be, but it’s bigger than an assault weapon ban. It’s like the third rail of whatever the shit that expression is. A registry is like, no fucking way. You say that since CA already has a registry that it’s not giving up very much. This assumes the status quo will be a registry in CA forever. I’d like to see it dismantled. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/391 "2015-08-04T06:37:35Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > You keep bringing this up again and again as if it was actually a valid argument. I’ve already pointed out that with 30+ thousand people dying every year from gunfire, the attempts to discredit gun policy studies like Kellermann’s are a joke. But let me address it in a bit more detail. The reason the weaknesses in the studies presented remain part of a valid argument is that you’ve made no attempt to address them. Indeed, I asked you direct questions about those specific weaknesses and you have demured, yet again. That you continue to conflate suicide with homicide in an overall analysis of gun crime and gun violence is revealing. The thing is, and this is just my opinion, while people believe suicide to be a tragedy, not a whole lot of people consider suicide to be justification for imposing restrictions on law abiding people. That’s why you see folks like Brady, Bloomberg, and the various Bloomberg shills like Everytown and MAIG always use the higher number without informing their audience that fully 2/3 of that figure is suicide, and of the remaining 1/3, most of those homicides are committed by people not lawfully able to possess firearms. > [@](#): > > Most of the criticisms of Kellermann et al. such as those you bring us from your libertarian magazine are specious attacks brought by gun advocates for entirely ideological reasons, often involving giveaway buzzwords like “government confiscation of guns”. I made 3 specific criticisms of Kellerman in Post #381: > [@](#): > > In the paper you cited, these are some of the things were part of the study: > [ul] > [li]having a control group dissimilar to the test group[/li][li]not controling for guns brought into the home from another source[/li][li]finding that many other factors presented greater risk factors than firearm existence.[/li][/ul] In your response that again, included derision of Reason and a foray into criticism of tobacco companies, were no actual connection to the criticisms that I leveled. It seems evasive. **Do you think these items make the results more reliable, less reliable, or no impact?** If you pick ‘more reliable’ or ‘no impact’ I guess we’re done with this line of discussion. Readers can decide if they think a study with these characteristics is persuasive. To me, the 2nd item is the most damning. Because if a person possesses gun A, Kellerman makes not distinction whether or not that person is killed with gun A, or gun B that the person does not possess. And then Kellerman concludes that gun A is part of a higher risk that the person is subjected to, as if gun A was the cause. That’s laughable. Really, I laugh. > [@](#): > > Asking this question smacks of argumentative desperation after I pointed out that your cherry-picked quotes c **ompletely omitted to include critically important conclusions** from the dissent, and it makes me seriously question your interest in having a fact-based debate. Again, a direct question that could easily be answered, but you choose to deride. I assume you in fact dispute what I wrote. I try not to assume but in lieu of you responding to the actual questions posed I don’t have many options. It’s odd that you accuse me of cherry picking quotes when I’m quoting from the actual source material, the SCOTUS opinion and dissents, with a link, and you use an opinion piece. Why not quote the actual source material that supports your position? Here is from Breyer’s dissent again (my bold): > [@](#): > > The Second Amendment says that: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” In interpreting and applying this Amendment, I take as a starting point \*\*the following four propositions, based on our precedent and today’s opinions, to which I believe the entire Court subscribes: > > ``` > (1) The Amendment protects an “individual” right—i.e., one that is separately possessed, and may be separately enforced, by each person on whom it is conferred. See, e.g., ante, at 22 (opinion of the Court); ante, at 1 (Stevens, J., dissenting).** > > (2) As evidenced by its preamble, the Amendment was adopted “[w]ith obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of [militia] forces.” United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, 178 (1939) ; see ante, at 26 (opinion of the Court); ante, at 1 (Stevens, J., dissenting). > > (3) The Amendment “must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.” Miller, supra, at 178. > > (4) The right protected by the Second Amendment is not absolute, but instead is subject to government regulation. See Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 275, 281–282 (1897) ; ante, at 22, 54 (opinion of the Court). > > ``` So Breyer, and the three other justices who signed on to this dissent, believes the entire Court subscribes to the proposition that the amendment _“protects an “individual” right—i.e., one that is separately possessed, and may be separately enforced, by each person on whom it is conferred.”_ Do you think it likely that the dissenters believe that the individual right that is described only exists in connection to the militia to be exercised collectively AND that the 5 in the majority think this too? Breyer is adopting the individual right interpretation that the majority takes. After that, the analysis leads to different conclusions both on the scope of the amendment and the possibility of regulation, but as to the individual right aspect, your position is dead. I accept that dissenter’s view of the right is minimalist and/or only in connection with militia service, but all nine justices specifically said that the right is an individual right. > [@](#): > > I cited a paper showing that they will and they do. Who defines “junk”? The NRA works to suppress all research that opposes their interests. When it comes to guns, that means pretty much all legitimate policy research. Who defines “junk”? Me? The Congress? Whatever the NRA desires to lobby for, the Congress certainly has to have the votes to enact anything. So when you say the NRA suppresses research, you are saying that the people, through their elected representatives suppress research. Feel free to do all the government funded research you want in Canada though, the NRA’s mind control powers don’t go north of the border. * * * > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > I pay so little attention to the justifications political appointees give for their decisions that I admit to having assumed Bone was probably right about the 9-0 business. But checking it out, you are correct. Get back to me when you read Breyer’s dissent. This whole line of discussion though, is meaningless. The dissent - they are called that because their opinion did not prevail - criticizes the majority reasoning of being unpersuasive. That is the ironic part. It was persuasive enough to be the majority. And 5-4 decisions carry just the same weight as 9-0 ones. I raise the issue simply to point out the collective right theory is dead and all 9 justices supported the individual rights interpretation. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/392 "2015-08-05T02:18:18Z")
It has to be remembered that the militias were not “state armies”- the federal constitution explicitly forbids the states from having standing professional military forces, with a few exceptions. The militia was the _posse comitatus_- every able-bodied man with a gun who could be summoned in an emergency to defend against attack or to uphold the law. If you doubt this, take Alexander Hamilton’s word on the subject and read the Federalist #29, where in every occurrence it’s clear that the “militia” refers to the body of the citizenry, after the original Latin meaning of the term. Given that context, the meaning and purpose of the Second seems clear enough: that the federal government is denied the authority to disarm the civilian population. The debates recorded in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, as well the history of different proposed versions of the Second Amendment, make it clear that a privately-armed population was considered the best possible check against a potential tyranny. This attitude dates from well before the American Revolution- it in fact goes all the way back to the upheavals of 17th century England, and how the idea of a civil population keeping arms independently of government authority began in the first place. I recommend [The History of the Second Amendment](http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndschol/89vand.pdf) for an excellent look at the “backstory” to the Second Amendment. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/393 "2015-08-06T05:18:59Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > The reason the weaknesses in the studies presented remain part of a valid argument is that you’ve made no attempt to address them. Indeed, I asked you direct questions about those specific weaknesses and you have demured, yet again. > > I made 3 specific criticisms of Kellerman in Post #381: > > To me, the 2nd item is the most damning. Because if a person possesses gun A, Kellerman makes not distinction whether or not that person is killed with gun A, or gun B that the person does not possess. And then Kellerman concludes that gun A is part of a higher risk that the person is subjected to, as if gun A was the cause. That’s laughable. Really, I laugh. I laugh, too, though not for the same reason! I laugh because you are now into flat-out reality denial, and I think I’m about done wasting my time here. For the record, I’ll just itemize the specific areas in which you apparently refuse to accept reality even when it’s staring you in the face. It’s amusing as a kind of object lesson in how the gun advocates will cling to any sort of fiction in support of the almighty dogma of gun worship no matter what the evidence. I have to ask, if someone can manage to delude themselves into believing that in _Heller_ the Supreme Court really unanimously endorsed a right to civilian gun ownership, what else might they be able to believe? Just about anything pro-gun, I’d say, including the belief that no statistic showing the dangers of guns has ever been correct – ever! Like the Kellerman studies, or any other studies showing that a gun might be dangerous. But the rantings of the NRA are entirely credible, right? Let’s look at this again one more time. I already posted a detailed explanation about the nature of case-control studies like the one Kellerman study you choose to pick on, and how they differ from cohort studies and experimental-control studies. An interested party might have found the explanation informative. You, however, chose to ignore it and plowed ahead repeating your meaningless question. I didn’t answer the question directly because you chose to frame it in such a way that no meaningful answer is possible – the question itself serves to avoid the facts rather than illuminate them, much like the “yes or no” question that a slimeball defense lawyer will direct at a witness when he knows his client is guilty as sin and wants to deflect the discussion. And if it will end this sorry business I’m more than happy to further elaborate on the facts. The arguments you think you raise and the questions you ask have validity **ONLY** if one can quantify or at least establish some shred of evidence that these factors might have materially altered the results. I asked you, for instance, just how much the alleged “outside gun” theory affected the results. You didn’t answer. Of course you didn’t. **You can’t answer** , because the whole thing is a baseless fabrication of the gun-nut side that first appeared in a gun-nut critique sent to the NEJM and since repeated all over the Internet. Perhaps you might be forthright enough to acknowledge the rather marked similarity with climate change denialism. I might point out for example, that climate denialists have tried to argue that some weather stations have overestimated the temperature because of the influence of urbanization around a particular station. **Does that strengthen or weaken the argument** for global warming? “Answer the question – yes or no!” the slimeball lawyer will shout at the witness. And of course the real answer is that everyone interested in objective information rather than pushing an agenda seeks to understand any such criticisms in perspective, in this case, in the context that the preponderance of consistent evidence from so many different lines of evidence is so overwhelming that such a detail, even if real, has no discernible impact on the results. In other words, no objective party interested in finding the facts really gives a shit because they understand relative uncertainties and how this plays out in all research. But boy this is hot stuff to the denialists, because these sorts of misdirections are terrific propaganda pieces that lets them try to cast doubt on the results in the eyes of the unscientific, the uninformed, and the gullible. It’s the same here. So to summarize the answers to your specious objections, one by one: [ul] [li]_having a control group dissimilar to the test group_[/li]If you read the methodology section of the paper – which I doubt you’ve actually done – it describes in detail how a control group was randomly selected in each neighborhood, in accordance with accepted standards for case-control studies, and therefore provided a good approximation of relative risk. [/ul] [ul] [li]_not controling for guns brought into the home from another source_[/li]And this happened how often relative to the results? Kellerman stated that in 62% of the homicide victimizations studied, one or more guns was kept in the home, as compared with 35.8% in the control group. This is a huge statistical difference. Without evidence that the stated criticism has any validity at all, let alone being statistically significant – evidence which the gun defenders cannot provide because it doesn’t exist – the criticism is just baseless noise. [/ul] [ul] [li]_finding that many other factors presented greater risk factors than firearm existence._[/li]So alcoholism is a risk factor for homicide. Of course it is. So is having anger issues or being an asshole. So what? Kellermann has stated that these risk factors contribute independently to the risk of homicide and were taken into consideration in the final model. The inescapable fact, again and again, is the **consistent correlation of gun fatalities with gun ownership and gun proliferation**. [/ul] Finally, of course, as always, there is the factor of many other independent parallel studies – I already mentioned [Grassel et al.](http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/9/1/48.full) and several others, and there’s also [Cummings et al.](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1380933/), and many others, all of which no doubt you will also find to be fraudulent in some way. And the worldwide statistics from civilized countries that actually have gun control. Of course, according to you, these studies and all the international statistics are all flawed and useless because … well, apparently just because. And because you like the idea of owning guns. The facts about guns are not on your side and never were, although they’re great things to have when fighting in a war zone. Ironically a war zone is what gun proliferation is threatening to eventually create, while some gun nuts have been persuaded by NRA demagogues like Lapierre that they already live in one, and owning a gun is matter of survival. At its worst it’s nothing short of clinical paranoia, a kind of mental illness leading to irrational behavior – the principal bogeymen to the self-described “law-abiding gun owner” being apparently a mass of congenital criminality threatening them on one side and an evil, oppressive government on the other. This kind of thinking certainly doesn’t characterize all gun owners or necessarily even a majority, but it’s the kind of thinking actively promulgated by the NRA, and it defines enough of them that it makes the idea of keeping guns out of the hands of lunatics a kind of self-defeating oxymoron. > [@Bone](#): > > It’s odd that you accuse me of cherry picking quotes when I’m quoting from the actual source material, the SCOTUS opinion and dissents, with a link, and you use an opinion piece. Why not quote the actual source material that supports your position? > > Here is from Breyer’s dissent again (my bold): > > So Breyer, and the three other justices who signed on to this dissent, believes the entire Court subscribes to the proposition that the amendment _“protects an “individual” right—i.e., one that is separately possessed, and may be separately enforced, by each person on whom it is conferred.”_ Do you think it likely that the dissenters believe that the individual right that is described only exists in connection to the militia to be exercised collectively AND that the 5 in the majority think this too? Breyer is adopting the individual right interpretation that the majority takes. After that, the analysis leads to different conclusions both on the scope of the amendment and the possibility of regulation, but as to the individual right aspect, your position is dead. > > I accept that dissenter’s view of the right is minimalist and/or only in connection with militia service, but all nine justices specifically said that the right is an individual right. > > Get back to me when you read Breyer’s dissent. You say I quoted an “opinion piece”. I provided direct quotes from the decision – they happened to come from a Connecticut government site whose excerpts, _ **unlike yours** _, were in context and not wildly trying to spin a contrarian interpretation of what was really said. The fundamentally contentious issue about the 2nd Amendment that SCOTUS had been avoiding for decades is the militia (collective defense) vs. civilian (personal defense) right to own guns, commonly referred to as the “collective” vs. “individual” interpretation. Here are some of the relevant and very clear quotes (bolding mine): Surely [the Second Amendment] protects a right that can be enforced by individuals. But a conclusion that the Second Amendment protects an individual right does not tell us anything about the scope of that right … it is equally clear that [the Second Amendment] _ **does** _ encompass the right to use weapons for certain military purposes. **Whether it also protects the right to possess and use guns for nonmilitary purposes like hunting and personal self-defense is the question presented by this case**. The text of the Amendment, its history, and our decision in United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174 (1939) , provide a clear answer to that question … **a review of the drafting history of the Amendment demonstrates that its Framers rejected proposals that would have broadened its coverage to include such uses**. **not a word in the constitutional text even arguably supports the Court’s overwrought and novel description** of the Second Amendment as “elevat[ing] above all other interests” “the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home.” … the Miller Court unanimously concluded that the Second Amendment did not apply to the possession of a firearm that did not have “some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” … The majority cannot seriously believe that the Miller Court did not consider any relevant evidence; the majority simply does not approve of the conclusion the Miller Court reached on that evidence. Standing alone, that is insufficient reason to disregard a unanimous opinion of this Court, upon which substantial reliance has been placed by legislators and citizens for nearly 70 years. **The opinion the Court announces today fails to identify any new evidence supporting the view that the Amendment was intended to limit the power of Congress to regulate civilian uses of weapons. Unable to point to any such evidence, the Court stakes its holding on a strained and unpersuasive reading of the Amendment’s text** _From the Breyer dissent:_ **The majority’s conclusion is wrong for two independent reasons. The first reason is that set forth by Justice Stevens—namely, that the Second Amendment protects militia-related, not self-defense-related, interests.** These two interests are sometimes intertwined. To assure 18th-century citizens that they could keep arms for militia purposes would necessarily have allowed them to keep arms that they could have used for self-defense as well. But self-defense alone, detached from any militia-related objective, is not the Amendment’s concern. The second independent reason is that the protection the Amendment provides is not absolute. The Amendment permits government to regulate the interests that it serves. Thus, irrespective of what those interests are—whether they do or do not include an independent interest in self-defense—the majority’s view cannot be correct unless it can show that the District’s regulation is unreasonable or inappropriate in Second Amendment terms. This the majority cannot do. [https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZD.html](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZD.html) Read it. It’s not hard to understand. Breyer was only affirming the existence of this frivolous interpretation of “individual rights” which does not in any way touch on the central question of military vs. civilian (or personal, or individual self-defense rights, or however one wants to phrase it) that is the real crux of the issue. Indeed the Stevens dissent begins with the statement that such an interpretation isn’t what the case is about, but rather, the deeper interpretation of whether the 2nd Amendment grants civilian rights such as the right to self-defense. Four of the justices strongly, vehemently disagreed with the contention that the 2nd Amendment grants any sort of arbitrary individual civilian right such as self-defense, and called it “overwrought and novel” and a “strained and unpersuasive reading” of the text. But this is just what “individual rights” has really meant in common parlance in at least a half century of constitutional debate about it, because of course that’s the crux of the issue. That’s the crucial matter that needed to be decided. And there is strong dissent about it, with the dissent seeming to have a lot more reason and history on its side than the other, as in the Miller precedent. Get over it. Stop reading and believing gun-nut websites that are always spinning the truth to advance the gun agenda. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/394 "2015-08-06T05:23:10Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > The militia was the _posse comitatus_- every able-bodied man with a gun who could be summoned in an emergency to defend against attack or to uphold the law. Yet as noted by the dissent in _Heller_, this is an 18th century concept that has been utterly obsolete for at least two hundred years. It has had absolutely no place in the modern world, with the possible exception of lynch mobs. :rolleyes: > [@Lumpy](#): > > This attitude dates from well before the American Revolution- it in fact goes all the way back to the upheavals of 17th century England, and how the idea of a civil population keeping arms independently of government authority began in the first place. Began, and, quite properly, ended. England, to its credit and its subsequent modern history of gun-free civil peace, has never seen the need to extend 17th century concepts of mob armament into the 21st. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/395 "2015-08-06T13:12:32Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Yet as noted by the dissent in _Heller_, this is an 18th century concept that has been utterly obsolete for at least two hundred years. It has had absolutely no place in the modern world, with the possible exception of lynch mobs. :rolleyes: Does a dissent establish truth in all cases, or only when they are wrong? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/396 "2015-08-06T15:25:24Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I laugh, too, though not for the same reason! I laugh because you are now into flat-out reality denial, and I think I’m about done wasting my time here. For the record, I’ll just itemize the specific areas in which you apparently refuse to accept reality even when it’s staring you in the face. It’s amusing as a kind of object lesson in how the gun advocates will cling to any sort of fiction in support of the almighty dogma of gun worship no matter what the evidence. > > I have to ask, if someone can manage to delude themselves into believing that in _Heller_ the Supreme Court really unanimously endorsed a right to civilian gun ownership, what else might they be able to believe? Just about anything pro-gun, I’d say, including the belief that no statistic showing the dangers of guns has ever been correct – ever! Like the Kellerman studies, or any other studies showing that a gun might be dangerous. But the rantings of the NRA are entirely credible, right? Let’s look at this again one more time. Remember how earlier in this thread I remarked on your tendency to denigrate groups rather than the person you are directly addressing? That this seemed like a tactic to castigate an individual who you think shares beliefs of a certain group without targeting that person? You’re doing it again. Imagine if I said: _I have to ask, if someone can manage to delude themselves into dis-believing that in Heller the Supreme Court really didn’t unanimously endorse an individual right to civilian gun ownership, what else might they be able to believe? Just about anything anti-gun, I’d say, including the belief that every statistic showing the dangers of guns has been correct! Like the Kellerman studies, or any other studies showing that a gun might be dangerous. And the rantings of MAIG, Bloomberg, and CSGV are entirely credible, right?_ That would be utterly trite. > [@](#): > > I didn’t answer the question directly because you chose to frame it in such a way that no meaningful answer is possible – the question itself serves to avoid the facts rather than illuminate them, much like the “yes or no” question that a slimeball defense lawyer will direct at a witness when he knows his client is guilty as sin and wants to deflect the discussion. And if it will end this sorry business I’m more than happy to further elaborate on the facts. > > The arguments you think you raise and the questions you ask have validity **ONLY** if one can quantify or at least establish some shred of evidence that these factors might have materially altered the results. I asked you, for instance, just how much the alleged “outside gun” theory affected the results. You didn’t answer. Of course you didn’t. **You can’t answer** , because the whole thing is a baseless fabrication of the gun-nut side that first appeared in a gun-nut critique sent to the NEJM and since repeated all over the Internet. This criticism is diversionary which I assume must be on purpose. Consider, if it was discovered Kellerman even slightly fabricated some of his results, like Andrew Wakefield, would it be necessary to quantify how much this fabrication affected the total numbers? No, the entire data set would be in doubt. It’s not necessary to quantify the magnitude of the impact of bad data to raise the challenge of the data. See what I did there? I made a narrative link between Kellerman and Wakefield. The two are completely unrelated, much like someone who denies climate change and a gun rights advocate. Talk about misdirection. Those types of tactics would work in the eyes of the uninformed and gullible. > [@](#): > > [ul] > [li]_having a control group dissimilar to the test group_[/li]If you read the methodology section of the paper – which I doubt you’ve actually done – it describes in detail how a control group was randomly selected in each neighborhood, in accordance with accepted standards for case-control studies, and therefore provided a good approximation of relative risk. > [/ul] And if the control group that was selected was sufficiently different than the test group, would you still think the results after extrapolation were valid? Even if the methodology was consistent with accepted standards, after performing the analysis if the actual control groups selected turned out to be significantly different than the test group, it doesn’t call into question the standards for case control studies - it does call into question the results of this study. Compared to the control group in this study, the victim group had significantly higher rates of renting (70% vs. 47%), living alone (27% vs. 12%), consuming alcohol and various issues at home and work as a result, household illicit drug use (31% vs. 6%), household fighting, and members of the household being arrested (52% vs. 23%). In other words, the victim group had a riskier lifestyle. You think think this is a good approximation of relative risk? This is what I mean when the control group was dissimilar to the test group. Regardless of the methodology used to select the control group, these were some of the results. These results make the conclusions of the study less reliable. > [@](#): > > [ul] > [li]_not controling for guns brought into the home from another source_[/li]And this happened how often relative to the results? Kellerman stated that in 62% of the homicide victimizations studied, one or more guns was kept in the home, as compared with 35.8% in the control group. This is a huge statistical difference. Without evidence that the stated criticism has any validity at all, let alone being statistically significant – evidence which the gun defenders cannot provide because it doesn’t exist – the criticism is just baseless noise. > [/ul] This reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the criticism being raised. The criticism is not that more guns were kept by the victim group. It’s the notion that a person killed in the home with their own gun vs. being killed by someone who is not a member of the household with a different gun, and that these two events are treated the same for the purposes of this study. The increased risk identified in the study is implied to be caused by the presence of the gun. But what happens when the gun is possessed as a result of a pre-existing risk identified by the resident? It’s as if the study is saying that the gun in the home is a magnet for violence. > [@](#): > > [ul] > [li]_finding that many other factors presented greater risk factors than firearm existence._[/li]So alcoholism is a risk factor for homicide. Of course it is. So is having anger issues or being an asshole. So what? Kellermann has stated that these risk factors contribute independently to the risk of homicide and were taken into consideration in the final model. The inescapable fact, again and again, is the **consistent correlation of gun fatalities with gun ownership and gun proliferation**. > [/ul] Here, you have to exercise a bit of critical thinking. For example, the study found that a living alone presented a higher risk than gun possession. Does living alone cause homicide and suicide? And yet the victim group in the study had a significantly higher number of people who lived alone vs. the control group. > [@](#): > > The facts about guns are not on your side and never were, although they’re great things to have when fighting in a war zone. Ironically a war zone is what gun proliferation is threatening to eventually create, while some gun nuts have been persuaded by NRA demagogues like Lapierre that they already live in one, and owning a gun is matter of survival. At its worst it’s nothing short of clinical paranoia, a kind of mental illness leading to irrational behavior – the principal bogeymen to the self-described “law-abiding gun owner” being apparently a mass of congenital criminality threatening them on one side and an evil, oppressive government on the other. This kind of thinking certainly doesn’t characterize all gun owners or necessarily even a majority, but it’s the kind of thinking actively promulgated by the NRA, and it defines enough of them that it makes the idea of keeping guns out of the hands of lunatics a kind of self-defeating oxymoron. A war zone? Like the one where gun crime has been decreasing for 20 years? I think the country is now safer than ever. Perhaps the paranoid irrational behavior is creating a bogeyman out of the NRA. > [@](#): > > You say I quoted an “opinion piece”. I provided direct quotes from the decision – they happened to come from a Connecticut government site whose excerpts, _ **unlike yours** _, were in context and not wildly trying to spin a contrarian interpretation of what was really said. The fundamentally contentious issue about the 2nd Amendment that SCOTUS had been avoiding for decades is the militia (collective defense) vs. civilian (personal defense) right to own guns, commonly referred to as the “collective” vs. “individual” interpretation. But here you go on to say that Breyer affirmed the existence of the “individual right”, rather than the collective: > [@](#): > > Breyer was only affirming the existence of this frivolous interpretation of “individual rights” which does not in any way touch on the central question of military vs. civilian (or personal, or individual s\*\*elf-defense rights, or however one wants to phrase it) that is the real crux of the issue. \*\*Indeed the Stevens dissent begins with the statement that such an interpretation isn’t what the case is about, but rather, the deeper interpretation of whether the 2nd Amendment grants **civilian rights such as the right to self-defense.** You seem to be trying to change the focus of this line of disagreement. You initially said: > [@](#): > > SCOTUS had been trying to avoid this issue for decades, because the problem of putting a definitive **individual vs. collective-rights interpretation** on the Second Amendment has no solution that is 100% supportable, and it’s a political minefield. The case is clear, the interpretation is now definitively an individual right. Stevens thinks the individual right is only exercisable in the context of the militia. It’s nonsense to think that Stevens thinks the right is a collective one. His focus on the militia circumscribes the limit to which he believes the individual right may be exercised, but he acknowledges that it is an individual, NOT collective right. So when you say that the case is about a “deeper interpretation … such as the right to self-defense”, that’s not about whether the right is individual or collective, but rather the scope of the individual right. Your point of contention is mooted from the get go. Breyer states as a starting point that he believes all 9 justices agree that the amendment protects an individual right. He signed on to Steven’s dissent so presumably he believes this exists in the context of the militia, but it is individual none the less. The idea that there is a collective right and not an individual one is dead. > [@](#): > > Four of the justices strongly, vehemently disagreed with the contention that the 2nd Amendment grants any sort of arbitrary individual civilian right such as self-defense, and called it “overwrought and novel” and a “strained and unpersuasive reading” of the text. You cling to this language in the _dissent_ calling the \*majority \*opinion unpersuasive. The irony. > [@](#): > > But this is just what “individual rights” has really meant in common parlance in at least a half century of constitutional debate about it, because of course that’s the crux of the issue. That’s the crucial matter that needed to be decided. Correction - the dissent disagreed that the 2nd amendment recognized a pre-existing right of self defense. They were wrong of course. You seem to be conflating who may exercise the right, and the scope of that right. If you wanted to argue that 4 of the justices didn’t agree with the right of self defense being recognized by the 2nd amendment, that’s fine. I wouldn’t disagree with that. That is the matter of the scope to which the right extends and their opinion did not carry the day regardless. The question of individual vs. collective, that is the matter of who may exercise the right. The answer is individuals and your interpretation is wrong. On the matter of who may exercise it, all 9 justices agree that it is individuals. They of course disagree on what those individuals may do. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/397 "2015-08-06T15:27:52Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Yet as noted by the dissent in _Heller_, this is an 18th century concept that has been utterly obsolete for at least two hundred years. It has had absolutely no place in the modern world, with the possible exception of lynch mobs. :rolleyes: > Began, and, quite properly, ended. England, to its credit and its subsequent modern history of gun-free civil peace, has never seen the need to extend 17th century concepts of mob armament into the 21st. Aside from the question of whether or not citizen-soldiers are militarily obsolete, are you of the opinion that the 18th century proponents of arming civilians were flatly wrong? That philosophically Hobbes was right, and the government can and should exercise irresistible power over the population? Or that our modern forms of government can never or will never turn despotic, and therefore rebellion will never be necessary? ETA: to really load the question, do you think the American colonists were wrong to revolt against the properly established authority of the British parliament? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/398 "2015-08-06T18:59:33Z")
There is some risk of going off-topic here, but I’ll try to answer your questions. > [@Lumpy](#): > > Aside from the question of whether or not citizen-soldiers are militarily obsolete, are you of the opinion that the 18th century proponents of arming civilians were flatly wrong? I am of the opinion that this isn’t the 18th century, and we’re not talking about handing out muskets to colonials in 18th century revolutionary times. We’re talking about what has become a major problem and public safety risk in modern society due to effectively unrestricted access to handguns and semi-automatic weapons. > [@Lumpy](#): > > That philosophically Hobbes was right, and the government can and should exercise irresistible power over the population? Or that our modern forms of government can never or will never turn despotic, and therefore rebellion will never be necessary? Are you of the opinion that every democracy in the world that has strong gun controls – and that would be every democracy in the world except the US – has an oppressive government exercising “irresistible power over the population”? Are you of the opinion that these governments are all despotic, or are at risk of turning despotic any day? The follow-on to that: are you of the opinion that if the US government DID turn tyrannical and despotic, that citizens with their little pop-guns could overturn the entire US military? Is this fantasy a wise way to implement checks on the government when the year is 2015 and not 1776? I must admit every time I think about it, I picture the armed citizen rebelling against the government the way that cartoonist Jen Sorensen likes to draw him, wearing a colonial three-cornered hat with teabags dangling from it. The ridiculous image fits the concept perfectly. There is a really deep irony here. The Supreme Court that turned the entire nation into a gun-happy shooting gallery in _DC v Heller_, giving all gun nuts the _ **illusion** _ that the government had better keep them happy or they will just shoot it down, is the same Supreme Court that did a great deal to undermine the _ **reality** _ of real democratic checks on power. Namely, in _Citizens United_ they gave unlimited power to the ruling oligarchy to control the hearts and minds of the voting public, turning the democratic essential of an informed public into a public increasingly dominated by unlimited propagandizing to shape their thinking. There’s more to democracy than having elections – it also requires a public that knows and understands what they’re really voting for. Would you disagree that in the real world _ **that** _ – and not guns – is the key essential of government accountability and a free democracy? > [@Lumpy](#): > > ETA: to really load the question, do you think the American colonists were wrong to revolt against the properly established authority of the British parliament? A loaded question indeed, and this isn’t the place to get too deeply into it. Suffice to say that the answer may be far from as clear-cut as you may think. The Pulitzer-prize winning American historian Bernard Bailyn has said that “it is not much of an exaggeration to say that one had to be a fool or a fanatic in early January 1776 to advocate American independence”. And so it might have been had it not been for historical accidents, like the arrival in America of one Thomas Paine, a failed English merchant who could turn a phrase and generate emotional diatribes like no one else. Indeed the historian and US Navy admiral Samuel Eliot Morison has noted that in 1776 Americans were arguably the freest people in the world; they enjoyed a free press, economic mobility, and paid minimal taxes (about 1/50 as much as Britons at the time) and those were largely for the protection of the colonies. Bailyn believes that the impetus for revolution was less about the colonists’ current condition than it was about their fears about the future, fears fanned by pre-revolutionary pamphleteers; as Bailyn has noted, the colonists believed the British intended to establish a tyrannical state that would abridge the historical British rights. But this didn’t happen anywhere else and other nations subsequently evolved to become sovereign within the Commonwealth without violent revolution. It’s a complicated story, and like all complicated stories it has at least two sides, is all I’m saying. What I suppose is regrettable is that all that gunfire has shaped the values of subsequent history, including the quagmire that the Second Amendment has become, the impact and misreadings of which I’m sure the founders could never have foreseen. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/399 "2015-08-06T19:59:16Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Are you of the opinion that every democracy in the world that has strong gun controls – and that would be every democracy in the world except the US – has an oppressive government exercising “irresistible power over the population”? Are you of the opinion that these governments are all despotic, or are at risk of turning despotic any day? That wasn’t the question, or at least not all of it. The question was [QUOTE=Lumpy] That philosophically Hobbes was right, and the government can and should exercise irresistible power over the population? [/QUOTE] Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345/400 "2015-08-07T00:43:59Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > ETA: to really load the question, do you think the American colonists were wrong to revolt against the properly established authority of the British parliament? This has nothing to do with the thread. Lots of loyalists believed in the ideas behind the second amendment: [As colonies of British empire, communities in the New World were required to keep up an active duty militia of armed men and artillerists with working cannon.](https://historyandancestry.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/the-american-revolution-and-the-debate-over-gun-control/) It’s true that the British wanted to seize rebel arms caches in the American Revolution. This wasn’t because they wanted to enslave the rebels (as rebels claimed), but for was for the same reasons that in almost any war each side tries the get the other side’s weapons. As for the causes of the American revolution, I believe that the primary cause was the British attempt to make peace with the natives by slowing down settlement west of Alleghenies, and attempting to do so by purchasing land rather than stealing it. And that came not from parliament, but from the the king: > **[How the Proclamation of 1763 Sparked the American Revolution | HISTORY](https://www.history.com/news/remembering-the-proclamation-of-1763)** > > It's been overshadowed by other events, but King George III’s decree was the first in a series of British actions that led to the American Revolution. The best explanation of his position viz-a-vis British rule is that George Washington was a major speculator in native American land: [http://lehrmaninstitute.org/history/founders-land.asp#washington](http://lehrmaninstitute.org/history/founders-land.asp#washington) The reason most here think the rebels were justified is that they won. If they had lost, we’d all agree that while eighteenth century British colonial policy was defective, rebels aims were worse. And we’d be celebrating how our forebearers joined in alliance with native Americans to save us from the threat of cynical upper class rebels, half of them slaveholders claiming to fight for freedom. Then we’d go on to argue about the traditional gun rights of Englishmen they way the friends of the guns do in Canada: [http://www.lowe.ca/Rick/FirearmsLegislation/RightToArms.htm](http://www.lowe.ca/Rick/FirearmsLegislation/RightToArms.htm) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-newsweek-proposes-a-compromise/725345.md?page=21)