This is an incredibly complex issue that I can’t possibly present comprehensively in one OP. So instead of attempting a coherent “essay” on the subject, I’ll employ an alternative format:
NOTES ON "GUN CONTROL"
Gun control is the opposite of banning guns or repealing the 2A: control means management, not abolition. 2A will never be repealed in the lifetime of any person reading this. Not to mention that for now, and I believe well into the future, any politician with national ambitions understands that a platform of total gun abolition is political suicide, and no such proposal would stand a chance of making it through both houses and onto the Resolute desk. It literally will not happen in our lifetimes.
The common conservative refrain that “guns don’t kill people, people do” is a beautifully simple and precise statement of the liberal position on guns. Gun safety proposals, in the main, are strategies to keep lethal weapons out of the hands of people who can’t be relied upon to act responsibly*, without affecting the 2A rights of conscientious, responsible gun owners.
It’s my belief that most conservatives believe the opposite of this because of a culture created intentionally by the NRA’s decades-long and incredibly successful campaign of misinformation. This has created such an immovable wall of suspicion and distrust that the general consensus on one “side” is an absolute refusal to even contemplate a dialog. The effective policy is “We don’t negotiate with terrorists,” with the terrorists in this context being defined as anyone who proposes to address and discuss potential strategies to reduce the likelihood of children being gunned down in their classrooms.
This absolute intractability, this post-hypnotic suggestion the NRA and its legislative dependents have instilled in the minds of many gun owners that the certainty that mere discussion will invariably end with concentration camps and forced castration, is a position that has ultimately led us to the stalemate in which we find ourselves. A logjam. Built entirely by the millions of adherents to the cult of the NRA.
It’s my opinion that this absolute refusal to participate in finding a solution to the American pandemic of gun violence must, at some point, be taken at face value, and the process must continue without their participation. By their vehemently stated choice not to engage in a dialog.
This will inevitably result in policy proposals that the gun absolutists disagree with. Oh well. The door to the debate chamber (I just decided that there’s such a thing as a debate chamber) has been open for DECADES. The invitations to join in the discussion have been embossed and hand delivered, air dropped, broadcast on all channels, for DECADES. It’s time for the rest of us to move on.
Let’s please remember the actual text of 2A: “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.” I’m not even going to touch “well regulated” and comma placement. I just want to point out an obvious omission that so many people seem not to have noticed. What word is absent from this single sentence? What central word, at the heart of this entire question, isn’t even present in this endlessly debated and fought over statement of principle for so many Americans? The missing word is guns. The phrase is "to keep and bear arms, not guns. This one word expands the relevance of 2A well beyond .38 specials and deer rifles to include machine guns, bazookas, on up to nuclear missiles. We accept the limits on these arms in the name of public safety, just as we daily accept certain limitations on the First Amendment**. We draw a line, with both Amendments, between those rights which, when practiced responsibly, are unlikely to harm others,*** and those rights which, if exercised irresponsibly, are destructive to public safety.
We all understand that the concept of “arms” has altered almost inconceivably since the Constitution was written. We accept the line drawn between front-loading muskets and tactical nukes. As technology advances, exponentially in the era we’re living through now, we must–as we have–renegotiate the placement of that line as its technological context continues to evolve. I.–and I can’t stress this enough–E., to maintain our collective responsibility to public safety.
OK that’s the hardware argument as I see it.
The software–i.e. people–is of course at least as important an issue. And, despite my overlong logorrhea above, forms the basis of gun safety advocates’ approach to reducing gun violence. Which brings us back to the guns-v-people debate. Which isn’t even a debate: another disingenuous invention of the NRA. The only legitimate response to “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”–from either side of the debate–is DUH. But due to the mind numbing mist of bullshit deployed by the NRA, so many people don’t understand that addressing this exact issue, addressing the current failure to keep lethal weapons out of the hands of dangerous people, while leaving conscientious, responsible gun owners undisturbed, is literally the problem to which BOTH sides are seeking a solution. But due to the absolute proscription of respectful, productive engagement mandated by the NRA, this discussion isn’t happening.
Aaaand I’ve typed myself straight into the path of an approaching migraine. So I’ll stop here, and add any other thoughts I may have in the ensuing thread. If such a thing ensues.
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*I understand that agreeing upon a definition of this idea will require much debate and compromise, and will probably rely upon the word “reasonable,” which (it’s my theory) is a word that means “this may have to be dealt with on a case by case basis and decided by a judge.” I’m OK with this.
**1A, as written, is even more absolute than 2A because it doesn’t include the qualifying phrase “well regulated.”
***This is also the central principle at the crux of the quarantine restriction debate. . . . A screed for another day.
I think health care and particularly mental health care are going to be a better solution to this problem then gun control. Trying to solve the why will be beneficial for everyone in society and nicely sidesteps the how question.
And it has the added benefit of being almost unsolvable because of all the complications involved, meaning you can divert attention away from gun control for a hell of a long time, while claiming that you are working on the problem.
@Oredigger77, do you mean that for every person who’s mentally broken in such a way that they pose a danger to others, we fix their brokenness? Because that’s pretty much the hardest conceivable technological problem anyone could ever possibly come up with.
Now, what’s considerably easier, and possibly even attainable, would be to at least diagnose who those broken people are. So let’s say that we can do that. Then what? Do we allow those broken people to have guns? If yes, then what good did it do to diagnose them? If no, well, that’s the gun control that we’re talking about here.
The reasons that it’s absolutely the other way around are these:
Health care is an extremely imperfect science and the idea that individuals that pose a risk to society can reliably be identified is pure fantasy. The idea that they can be reliably treated is, if anything, even more fantastical.
Even if the above (reliable identification and treatment) were possible – and it absolutely is not – the reality is that anyone, faced with a sufficient level of stress, anger, and perhaps exacerbated by substance abuse, can become a dangerous person with no prior evidence of such behavior. And the easy availability of guns is precisely the factor that makes them that much more dangerous than in countries where this isn’t the case. Most of those countries have their own challenges dealing with mental health, but nowhere even close to the rate of gun violence in the US.
And regardless of those two factors, what the American experience clearly shows is that the extremely easy access to guns, even exceptionally dangerous guns that are highly restricted or prohibited in other countries, is associated with a much higher degree of gun violence even aside from mental health issues.
In keeping with my stated position that it’s time to move the conversation forward, without those who refuse to engage in good faith if necessary, I’m going to try not to respond to this kind of comment, which is nothing but the same old ultimatum and precondition intended to prevent productive debate.
It depends on what the brokenness is I’d guess. It seems some types are fixable while others need to be kept away from society. Having a healthcare system where people are able to seek help and have their close relations cause them to seek help would certainly seem to do more than complaining about whether the guy chose to drive a car into a crowd or shoot them with a pistol or start stabbing people.
I’m fine with taking away guns from “broken people” Colorado has a red flag law that allows for that already on the books. Obviously that wasn’t enough. So what is your solution that would have actually done something in this case?
We did have a Supreme Court case on this (Heller) which discusses at least these two points. “Arms” in the Second Amendment are defined as personal arms capable of being “borne.” So nuclear missiles are just right out because they are not those types of arms that a soldier would bear. Further, yes, “reasonable regulation” is present in every right, but one cannot eviscerate a right simply because it is now disfavored under the guise of regulating it.
IOW, it is perfectly fine to say that a church must have a sprinkler system and comply with generally applicable fire codes. However, you can’t pass a law prohibiting a church from doing something just because you might think that religion is dangerous and that a “reasonable regulation” of religion would be to reign in churches that teach, in your (the general you) mind falsely, that there is a deity. No different with guns; you cannot pass a “reasonable regulation” of guns which boils down to your thought that people shouldn’t have many or most guns anyways.
To your second point about flintlock muskets, the Court said that the argument “border[ed] on the frivolous” to state that the only weapons protected were those in existence in 1789. Just as free speech applies to the internet and television, the RKBA applies to modern descendants of those firearms in use in 1789.
“but one cannot eviscerate a right simply because it is now disfavored under the guise of regulating it” is an entirely disingenuous response which checks off more than one logical fallacy.
Modnote: This thread is close to being closed. Pro-gun posters are of course welcome to state their views on this subject that will never get anything close to agreement. But an Op that doesn’t want a debate having a thread in Great Debates will mean no reason to leave it open.
@Oredigger77, not really appropriate. No warning though.
I’m open to debate. I’m only making it clear that I, personally, will only be responding to good faith arguments. I’ve made no suggestion that the rest of the thread’s participants should be bound by this. With all respect and complete seriousness, are you suggesting that I as an individual poster am obliged to respond to every commenter, even if just to retread arguments that have been chewed over thousands of times? Please understand that I am asking for clarity, and not trying to make any larger point.
The very point of my OP is that I believe it’s time to move the debate forward and not continue to be hijacked and hobbled by old worn out arguments that serve no purpose but sabotage. I honestly feel like that’s a legitimate subject for this forum.
My hope is that people will join in and offer practical solutions solutions for moving forward. What can we actually do? That’s the intent of this thread; not to relitigate, infinitely, the points that tend to make up most discussions on the subject.
I hope we can have that kind of forward looking discussion here, so to that end I personally will be focusing on that aspect of the subject. Thanks.
First, because since McDonald, the Supreme Court has not revisited the rather confusing standards it announced in Heller. One could argue that knives are not militia weapons, well suited for self defense, or that indeed these laws run afoul of Heller. The Court hasn’t even held that carrying guns outside of the home is part of the Second Amendment, which seems a logical extension of Heller. So, your guess is as good as mine.
The common conservative refrain that “guns don’t kill people, people do” is a beautifully simple and precise statement of the liberal position on guns. Gun safety proposals, in the main, are strategies to keep lethal weapons out of the hands of people who can’t be relied upon to act responsibly*, without affecting the 2A rights of conscientious, responsible gun owners.
The main focus of the gun control has seemed to be trying to ban assault rifles. The AR-15 is the most popular gun in America and rifles are used in about 2% of murders.
Do you have any citations to back up “The main focus of the gun control has seemed to be trying to ban assault rifles.” (emphasis mine)? Otherwise I recognize that hyperbolic claim as a just another thread in the propaganda net woven by the NRA.
It’s my understanding that the main focus of current efforts is taking background checks more seriously and closing the gun show loophole.
After every mass killing there are always people chanting “ban AR-15s!” But that doesn’t make it the main focus of legitimate efforts. Just the loudest at the moment.
Apparently the NRA mind control rays go all the way to the top ““I don’t need to wait another minute, let alone an hour … to urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to act,” Biden said, noting that Congress had passed a ban on assault weapons back when he was a U.S. senator from Delaware.”
The door to the debate chamber (I just decided that there’s such a thing as a debate chamber) has been open for DECADES. The invitations to join in the discussion have been embossed and hand delivered, air dropped, broadcast on all channels, for DECADES. It’s time for the rest of us to move on.