Real world events that are connected with what is under discussion would be nice, as opposed to those you drag in just because they’ll paint those who disagree with you in a bad light. Shall I just save you the effort of posting that Hitler was a gun owner?
Here is my view on the deterrent nature of guns.
In the current situation in which few of the public is armed, the armed assailants will approach you ask for your wallet and have a pretty good idea that he will have the upper hand. He makes off with your wallet, his gain your loss. You report him to the police, maybe they catch him maybe not, maybe crime pays maybe it doesn’t but in any case your out 60 bucks.
Distrubed by this situation you join the NRA and get a concealed weapons permit. When the assailant approaches you pretend to reach for your wallet, but really grab hold of your trusty peacekeeper and blast the SOB between the eyes. (of course there is a chance that he sees what your doing and plugs you first but we’ll ignore that for now). you take his wallet from his cold dying hand, and feel the righteousness of justice flow over you. Of course now there is an investigation and although you are acquitted due to self defense you still have $25,000 in legal bills but at least you saved your $60.00, and that punk won’t go hassling anyone else.
On the good side you got your name in all the papers were named NRA’s man of the year and get a book deal and a movie contract. Pretty soon everyone is following your example. It’s the NRA’s dream come true. Street punks are dropping like flies. Nearly half of the people walking the street are armed. Any punk who threatens someone asking for his wallet is taking his life in his hands. So mugging go way down. Life’s good. But there is a slight problem. Realizing that they are likely to get shot if they ask for the wallet, the local toughs decide that its better to play it safe, so the next time you go out, they just walk up behind you and plug you in the back of the head taking your wallet from your cold dead hands. So once again you’re down $60.
Personally I like it the way things are now.
Why am I taking the dead robber’s wallet?
Random rare bad events happen all the time but the fact they do doesn’t mean squat as far as the general population goes, it would be silly to make plans on a potential lottery win too.
It is with great fortune that for most Americans have a minimal risk of being the victom of violent crime, if they avoid buying or selling illegal drugs and avoid hanging out with felons.
Today is also the safest time as an individual in statistical history and our violent crime rate is going down and has been for over a decade. This is despite (and not because) a massive increase in the number of firearms in private hands and a broad adoption of “shall issue” carry laws.
Those laws are a godsend for those who need them, the gun enthusiasts, who will probably never be in a situation that would require their use are thankfully like most humans and don’t want to kill others.
FWIW Zimmerman was only legally carrying because of plea deals, with his history of violence he should have been disqualified. I assume (with absolutely no evidence) that this violence was also why he washed out of a law enforcement career.
Tell that to someone who’s loved one was killed even though they handed over the money expecting the robber would just skip away.
It’s not about $60. Or $25,000. It’s about living.
FYI, I thought this question was worth a separate thread, so I started one using Pleonast’s any my opinions as the starting point, and I hope some of our attorneys will step in and lend an opinion.
Also, I figured the authors would perceive SOME way for the Court to step in and stop an attempt at an amendment contrary to the provisions of article V. So I asked how that would work too.
It’s not silly to wear seatbelts whenever you drive even though your chances of being in a violent crash where you need them are small.
No amendment has ever attempted to change a part of the Constitution prohibited from being amended. If the Supreme Court can’t invalidate an amendment that makes a prohibited change, then the prohibition is useless.
If the part of the Constitution that prohibits certain amendments can itself be changed, then, again, there’s little purpose in prohibiting certain amendments.
Which is a more likely scenario:
1. The States can never be denied equal representation in the Senate.
or
2. The States can be denied equal representation in the Senate, but only after an extra-long amendment process.
Scenario 2 seems absurd to me.
Please respond in Can I get some legal (and other) opinions on Article V of the Constitution? - In My Humble Opinion - Straight Dope Message Board
Stats on how often that happens.
Most robbers are not sociopaths, most are trying to get some money to go get a fix.
The fact that you think it is easy to draw on someone who will already have you in a position of control tells me that you have no formal self defense training?
Are you familiar with the Tueller Drill? Most pistol wounds will not stop an attacker immediately.
I am fully for self defense but if someone wants your wallet, give them the wallet.
I thought it was clear that I was talking about either a) amending the constitution or b) imagining we were drafting a new one, and were considering what to junk from the old one as an anachronism.
And of course I know it’s practically impossible, politically to do such a thing, but not for any good reason. It’s just resistance to change. Gun rights are not an essential part of liberty in the way they may have been in the 17th century.
It’s so comforting to know that if I sustain a headshot in my own kitchen the police will be there in a jiffy to photograph the scene of my homicide and make “what kind of idiot brings a frying pan to a gun fight?” jokes. You know, before the second round is fired.
The old “the criminals will just escalate as far as they need to” argument: “We have to surrender, fighting back will just make things worse”. I don’t buy it. Most criminals might be willing to take on a helpless victim at the risk of at most the term for armed robbery; thankfully there are few psychos out there who’ll commit Murder One for a couple of sawbucks. And if more robbers were desperate enough to try it, you think the reaction of society wouldn’t be swift and draconian? Forget about a trial after a delay of months and a sentence of 25 to life with possibility of parole for good behavior- they’d set up gallows in the schoolyards and hang people by the dozen every Saturday until sheer Darwinian selection took care of the problem. And statistics seem to bear out the contention that raising the personal risk of committing crime does have a deterrent effect. High rates of legal gun ownership seem to corrolate with reduced crime.
I am familiar with the Tueller drill. Whether a pistol wound will stop an attacker immediately depends on where that wound is made, but we’ll go with your “most” for the sake of discussion. My shot is unlikely to immediately stop him seems to be your point. By the same token, his is unlikely to stop me. In fact, since I have training and practice regularly, and most criminals do not, I’d say my chances are better than his of surviving the encounter. There is an attitude here that I am foolish for risking my life over what is in my wallet. The actuality is that the robber is the one placing both our lives at risk over what is in my wallet. He has already shown by initiating the robbery that he thinks it is worth my life. I intend to protect my life at the expense, if necessary, of his.
Martial arts training, tactical pistol training.
When a robber engages his prey, he commonly puts the gun in their face to initiate the terror factor. He then pulls the gun close into his body so as not to be visible to passersby. The gun is no longer aiming at the victim.
Been there, experienced it myself. If I had been armed it would have been my pistol I was pulling from my jacket pocket and I would have fired directly into the robbers face before he could react. Bullets to the brain reduce the ability to blink much less pull a gun up and aim.
If someone wants your wallet, give them your wallet. If you’re not armed. Otherwise have some say in whether you live another day.
The issue with this theory is that it is far less likely that someone will commit murder to steal your $60 than it is that someone will commit robbery or armed robbery to do so. I know that if I were to go out and mug someone tonight, my chances of being caught are actually pretty damn low, and therefore with appropriate need and motivation, I may be convinced to do just that. I also know that if I went out and murdered someone to take their money, my chances of being caught are much, much higher, since significantly more resources are put into catching murderers than muggers. This means that the need and motivation would have to be vastly higher in order to give me sufficient incentive to go commit murder.
Additionally, I’m not sure that people do rack up such large legal bills in relatively clear self-defense cases. I haven’t thoroughly studied it and may therefore be wrong, but it’s my understanding that in most clear self-defense cases there isn’t a prosecution at all, meaning that the person who defended themselves makes a statement, the initial evidence at the scene is collected, and if it corroborates the story, the person can often (perhaps even usually?) be released on the same day. There is usually still a more thorough investigation, but generally the person will not be detained for a significant period of time, or incur extraordinary expense, unless evidence points to the self-defense claim being invalid for some reason.
Because when you kill something, you loot it. Haven’t you ever played a video game? 
By why reasoning do you claim that the US will be immune from a military junta in the future? It is your claim that it is not essential that I think no one has given any reason to in this thread.
Even outside the “power of the people” argument it is not out dated.
I as one who gained a violent stalker because I was nice enough to take a guys cat, who was in jail due to domestic violence to the pound so it wouldn’t starve. They didn’t remove my name from the booking sheet when he retrieved the cat and he was convinced I ran off with his wife.
Over a period of 10 months I had over 20 tires punctures fixed (nice he did it at work across from Firestone, they did it for free after a while) 2 windshields and 2 side windows but I paid for every one of those. I also had the pleasure of receiving abusive phone calls where he described in vivid detail what he wanted to do to me.
He was kind of a smart guy, in that he always acted in a way that was hard to prove it was him although too dumb to figure out I had only met his wife once. I took no joy in carrying, you have to dress odd and I felt like I was taking on more responsibility than safety but it was the most prudent thing to do (outside of dropping everything in life and moving away)
When you have this type of experience you end up finding out there are lots of people in that situation due to differing causes of course. But you argument seems to discount the real need some people have as if it is an irrational fear, when you have not presented evidence that it would be better to do away with the amendment.
My stalker hung himself in jail, the detective that called to tell me tried to do so in an upbeat voice, that it was “over”. I, like most humans, still feel sadness and guilt due to that, even though I didn’t force him in any action from the harassment to his own death it bothers me.
This is normal, most people are good and don’t take joy in the death of others, we wouldn’t be where we are today if we did.
I haven’t shared this much detail with even my family but it is important that people know that there are lots of people out there, who have no desire to be tough guys or who are making up for some ego issue. It is anecdotal but every person I have ever spoken with who was required to use force would have preferred it never happened.
But that not for any good reason. It’s just “resistance to change”
Ah yes criminals are a suspicious and cowardly lot, maybe you need to dress up like a bat. That’ll show em.
So let me get this straight, few criminals are willing to risk their lives for commit murder for a couple of saw bucks, but you are willing to kill as soon as someone threatens you and asks for your wallet.
That seems to put them in a less reckless light than it does you.
And again I would much rather lose my wallet to a mugger than every couple of weeks then end up with the mob justice you describe in the last part of your post. The thing is that I’m not even strongly in favor of gun control. It’s more that I’m strongly against Dirty Harry wannabes.
I’d like to see a cite for this that accounted for correlated variables such as Rural vs urban living. As I understand it the crime rates in England and Japan are pretty low.
It’s frustrating when you say things like this, John, because it is patently false. You are expressing exasperation that the government cannot regulate firearms, or, specifically, that the people cannot vest the government with the ability to do so. They can. They have. They do. Shall I show you Pennsylvania’s Uniform Firearms Act (or that of any other state in the Union)? Must I copy and paste the entire text of the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968, the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, the (now expired) Assault Weapons Ban of 1993, or the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban of 1996 (the Lautenberg Amendment)?
You want a new law? Compose one, lobby for it, convince people you’re right, and get it passed. That is how it’s done.The people have always been vested with this power, as have your elected representatives.
Why, precisely, you decided to toss out a purely emotional, and in the context of the United States and its form of government, irrational, argument is beyond me. We have a truly vast number of laws regarding firearms, all the way down to the minutia regarding the look of them. Either you don’t know that or you don’t want to know it.
You can fight for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment. The 1st Amendment gives you the right to do exactly that. I in turn will use my 1st Amendment rights to oppose you. But “who is going to stop you”? How petulant.
Can we do that with speech, abortion, religion, assembly, cruel and unusual punishment and the like as well? I like this, one state a utopia and one a cruel, unblinking dictatorship.
[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
It’s frustrating when you say things like this, John, because it is patently false. You are expressing exasperation that the government cannot regulate firearms, or, specifically, that the people cannot vest the government with the ability to do so. They can. They have. They do. Shall I show you Pennsylvania’s Uniform Firearms Act (or that of any other state in the Union)? Must I copy and paste the entire text of the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968, the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, the (now expired) Assault Weapons Ban of 1993, or the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban of 1996 (the Lautenberg Amendment)?
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, not sure where John was going with that. He never responded when I pointed out similar things and asked him similar questions earlier. Maybe he’ll respond to you though.
I’ve come to realize that the reason for this stems from the fact that some people, especially on this message board, think the 2nd is irrelevant and an anachronism…and they are frustrated by the fact that a majority of Americans still disagree with them. They know, inside, that they CAN’T fight the Amendment through the mechanisms in place to do so…instead, they try and fight it through back channel methods. And it worked for a long time…the anti-gun movement were really successful in basically redefining the Amendment to allow for the outright banning of firearms to US citizens in some places (such as DC)…or banning whole categories of firearms based on things ranging from the fact they were concealable to ‘well, they really LOOK scary!’. Just redefine the message and ignore the original intent of the people who wrote the thing, or make their intent irrelevant, and Bob’s your Uncle…you get what you want without having to go through all the mess and bother of trying to do it using the mechanisms that the creators of the Constitution and the BOR put in place to handle that change. It’s pretty convenient, especially when you realize that you CAN’T use those mechanisms to push through your own vision and agenda wrt person arms in the US…you can’t because it won’t work (yet). Too many Americans disagree that the 2nd is an anachronism and that, really, free citizens shouldn’t be allowed to possess, own, keep or use arms.
-XT