Oh, come on, now. It’s not like the U.K.'s gun laws are the result of the Queen issuing a decree than anyone caught with a gun is to have his head chopped off. British monarchs haven’t had any real power in generations. The U.K.'s gun laws were passed by politicians (Parliament) who were elected by the British people in democratic elections.
The lack of a Second Amendment–or of any formal, entrenched constitution–certainly gives Britain more flexibility on this sort of thing. In addition to the obvious procedural hurdles posed by the need to pass a constitutional amendment in order to carry out sweeping disarmament of the population here, an American-style written constitution also both reflects American political culture, and in turn helps shape that culture, greatly influencing how people conceive of their rights.
If insurgencies work so well, how come Assad is still in power?
How would you compare the military resources of a tinpot dictator like Assad to the military resources of the US Government? What chance do you think a ragtag collection of “insurgents” bearing their constitutional arms would have at overthrowing the US government and the entire US military when they can’t even overthrow said tinpot dictator?
If you think their chances are terrific, how come Obama is still in power when so many southern good ol’ boys don’t want him to be?
Is this a sensible way to protect democratic freedoms as opposed to protecting the integrity of the democratic process? Do gun nuts have any idea how a democracy works, or why it works that way? Do gun nuts even know what a democracy is? Maybe they don’t, because they’re so busy playing with their guns that they’re letting billionaires buy and own the entire political process and lobbyists like the NRA dictate the law and put the entire American public at risk to serve the needs of the gun manufacturers and a tiny minority of raving loon gun nuts. And then when they see that the government isn’t working well for them, they… buy more guns.
However, my point was to ask how come Lumpy considers English law from a couple of hundred years ago such as awesome lesson about the importance of owning a gun, but forgot to mention English law as it is today after the English had a couple of hundred years to think about and improve it and adapt it to modern civilization.
What other countries do is only relevant to the US if you want to solve the problem. If you’re fine with almost 34,000 deaths a year, of which 12,000 are homicides and accidents and the rest gun-enabled suicides, then fine. If you don’t want to solve the problem there’s no point in arguing about solutions.
The majority of your fellow citizens don’t own a gun and most of them see value in stronger gun control. It doesn’t matter. Nothing is going to happen as long as the NRA – and the minority of gun nuts who empower it – owns politicians and effectively writes the laws.
Where on earth did you get the idea that the right to bear arms was “unrestricted” here in America? There are a TON of restrictions on it. There are so many gun laws in this country it’s virtually impossible to keep track of them all.
This poll is not quite up to date. There is a more recent one from the same source. No dramatic changes from last December, but it appears that the pro-gun-control side has slightly pulled ahead once more. (50% pro control, 47% pro gun rights.)
Not quite. What it actually said was "That the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law. "
It is asserted, earlier in the document, that James II had sought to disarm Protestants and arm Catholics, on what evidence I don’t know; but clearly this provision is intended to meet the circumstances of the late seventeenth century, as is the provision against a standing army without the consent of parliament (which is why the Army Act had to be approved by parliament every year up to 1955).
In any case, “suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law” is exactly the principle on which all our gun laws are based: you have to have a reason to have a gun (other than you just feel like it), you have to be assessed as not posing a threat to public safety, and you have to keep it under conditions prescribed by law and regularly checked.
Nonsense twice over, and on stilts. Citizens are citizens. Parliament is accountable to the citizens through elections, as in any democracy. Every tightening of the gun laws has been in response to public concern that the existing laws and procedures weren’t stringent enough, most recently following Dunblane; candidates in the elections after that who set out to make the kind of arguments as your NRA makes got absolutely nowhere.
The purpose of the 2nd Amendment was never to facilitate popular resistance to the government, it was never to facilitate home defense or hunting, it was to prevent reliance on a standing professional army for national defense, by making sure there would be enough men keeping muskets at home to be ready for militia service at any time. Why do we need it any more? We’ve been relying on a professional standing army for national defense for more than a century now and it still has not turned into an instrument of tyranny. The FFs were simply wrong on that point. And not even the NG relies on privately-owned firearms anyway, not any more.
The Queen? What does Freddie Mercury have to do with this?
The term “Crown” refers to the executive, legislative, and judicial governance/branch of the government.
*The Crown
In jurisprudence in the Commonwealth realms, the Crown dependencies, and any of a realm’s provincial or state sub-divisions, the Crown is the state in all its aspects. In countries that do not have a monarchy, the concept may be expressed as the State or the People, or some political entity, such as the United States, the Commonwealth, or the State of [name].
The Crown is a corporation sole that represents the legal embodiment of executive, legislative, and judicial governance. It developed first in the Kingdom of England as a separation of the literal crown and property of the nation state from the person and personal property of the monarch. The concept spread through English and later British colonisation and is now rooted in the legal lexicon of the other 15 independent realms and the three Crown dependencies. In this context it should not be confused with any physical crown, such as those of the British royal regalia.
The term is also found in expressions such as crown land, which some countries refer to as public land or state land, as well as in some offices, such as minister of the crown, crown attorney, and crown prosecutor (other terms being district attorney, state prosecutor, or public prosecutor).*
[QUOTE=One of Those Pushing for “Common Sense” Gun Control]
We know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths. So the notion that gun laws don’t work or just will make it harder for law-abiding citizens, and criminals will still get their guns, it’s not born out by the evidence.
[/QUOTE] Cite.
Let’s hope this above bozo doesn’t mean this study, because
Thank God no one is trying to politicize this tragedy by misrepresenting the data.
Really? I believe most reasonable pro-2nd-Am Doper’s have already made up their minds. Preaching to the choir isn’t going to change the choir’s mind, nor will it change the non-choir’s mind.
