Actually, the 20th century proved that the safest person in the world, is an armed American citizen carrying a gun.
Disarmed people in other countries troughout the 20th century have been raped, robbed, murdered by criminals, but they also have been attacked by foreigners, and even killed by their own nations’s police and army.
I would guess that hundreds of millions of unarmed defenseless people of other countries were killed in the 20th century - by criminals, by foreigners, even by their own governments.
Disarmed non-Americans in nearly half the world in the 20th century were either killed, or the people feared for their lives. Meanwhile back in the good ole U.S.A., we were pretty darn safe, from everyone, for the past century.
If you look at people getting “murdered” from ALL!!! causes, the United States had about the lowest murder rate in the entire world for the past 100 years.
I consider myself “safer” in Las Vegas while I am carrying my revolver, than I could possibly ever be in Cambodia, Kenya, Mexico, or even on the streets of London.
That the those in the UK should break the cycle of the culture of violence they live in, and take a lesson from Kansas?
Seriously, unlike most folks on here I’ve lived on the US and UK. You can’t compare the two countries evenly for a number of reasons. Gun access is a part of the difference, sure.
Read the actual quote in context on the first page, instead of someone’s paraphrase. He’s saying that the majority opinion in this case is a threat to our constitutional structure. I’m not sure I agree with him, but it’s not an outlandish idea. He’s making the argument that the 2nd amendment is, by its nature, not applicable to the states and should not be incorporated.
Unless, of course, all you want to do is jump on the reactionary bandwagon and register outrage.
So we finally come to your position in all this. You’re a prohibitionist.
BTW, unless you remove the handguns from the cops, you’re going to still have a source of leaks to the criminal element. You must be familiar with the long-enshrined policy of “uh oh, something’s missing from the evidence locker again…oh well?”
If the general people have no handguns, then there’s no compelling reason for cops to have them either. Only the actual military - those covered under the Uniform Code of Military Justice - should be allowed to have them, if you’re going to have a ban.
But you’re the one who claimed the gun violence was causing an inability to enforce any laws. So that’s what I responded to.
If you were claiming that we need more gun control because guns caused cancer, I’d disagree with that premise as well. That doesn’t make me pro-gun or pro-cancer. What I am is pro-logic.
Compared to a comparison of a wide selection of nations, yes. Let’s look at Canada, New Zealand, the US, Australia, and the UK for example. These are all countries closely related.
Canada sits on the border of the country with the most guns per person of any on the planet. New Zealand is an island nation with fewer legally owned guns per capita than Canada, its only neighbor is across a body of water and has even fewer guns, and…it has a higher homicide rate than Canada. Australia has the same number of guns as South Africa, and yet Australia is nearly at the bottom of the homicide chart and South Africa is at the top. The UK has fewer guns and fewer crime than just about anyone, but within its range of gun ownership, there is plenty of countries with amazingly high levels of homicide.
The point is if you allow handgun sales with ease at things like gun shows or in states where laws are lax then it is a simple matter to get around more stringent gun laws in other places. So what if Chicago bans them when you can drive to a suburb and buy them?
I said I was fine with rifles and shotguns. Handguns are far, far and away a bigger blight in society and have fewer legitimate uses. Yeah I know, you need guns to protect yourself from criminals with guns. That circular argument might work if you could show a substantial number of people fighting off bad guys with guns but so far no one has provided that. Should 9000+ people die every year (and lots more shot but live and more still having a person threaten them with a gun in the commission of a crime) so a hundred or so can successfully defend themselves?
The paranoia on display here is stunning. Susanann Godwinizing the thread with dire warnings of the Gestapo waiting to get us if handguns are banned. Nevermind that other countries with very restrictive gun laws this has not happened and nevermind that the populace will still have a metric shitload of rifles and such which I think would be more useful when the jackbooted thugs with body armor start kicking in everyone’s door.
Why the police should be disarmed I have no idea.
Yeah some weapons will always leak into the system. Police “losing” their guns and smugglers and such. Point is guns would be harder to come by and far more expensive. Joe Crackhead probably can’t get one.
If not an outright ban then a national registry, mandatory training class and fingerprinted. If you have a habit of “losing” guns you lose the right to buy more. If you lose a gun and do not report in a reasonable timeframe and it is used in a crime you are liable.
Something to put some teeth into gun laws rather than the joke hodgepodge that exists today.
We’ll try a different analogy then that will answer the first question.
The Constitution grants a right to bear “Arms”. It does not say “guns” or “rifles” or “mortars”. That is a very all inclusive word.
So, by a textualist reading you should have the right to buy a TOW missile. A tank. A nuke. Whatever weapon you want and can afford really.
I know of no one though who seriously advocates letting anti-aircraft missiles be available for sale to the general public. Why? Because Joe Citizen has no actual use for one. Although I suppose if you worry along the lines of Susanann and some others here the real threat is the government so Joe Citizen really should have access to those for when the government comes to get you.
For most of us though there is a cost (societal cost)/benefit analysis done here and few think functional M1 Abrams should be available to anyone who can afford one.
So, the cost of handguns to society versus their benefits can be assessed. We already restrict your rights to bear some arms and it is deemed constitutional. The line we draw is arbitrary. It can be drawn at handguns.
So yeah, I can ask you to defend where that line should be drawn despite it being your “right”. SCOTUS does it all the time.
I’d say a reasonable understanding of “keep and bear arms” would be that citizens can keep any arms they can bear–that is, any weapons that can be carried and used by a single person.
…but I’ll wager not all rifles and shotguns. Am I right? For example, I’ll bet you are opposed to semi-automatic rifles which have removable magazines, yes? Or semi-automatic shotguns with removable magazines? Also categorized as “assault weapons” by many…yes? In fact, haven’t you posted in the past about setting restrictions on rifles and shotguns as well?
I have a right to effective self-defense, and my State allows me the use of deadly force to protect myself. Does this mean I carry .22-250 or 12-gauge around with me in public? Or rely on something of very limited effectiveness such as a stun gun or knife?
No one said they should be disarmed completely. Why can’t they use rifles and shotguns? What are they afraid of? If handguns are such an ineffective defense weapon, as the anti-gun folks claim, then surely the police ought to be looking for something better. We owe it to the women and men in blue.
So I assume that means you completely back my having my concealed handgun permit, as I’ve been through written and practical training; local, State, and national background checks; been fingerprinted and photographed; had my mental treatment records (if any) open to inspection, and had the chief of police, sherriff, local attorney general, and State attorney general’s offices all approve my permit.
If there’s a correlation between gun availability (x-axis) and gun deaths (y), it’s not obvious. Your contention that unavailability will curtail gun deaths doesn’t seem to stand.
What amendment? You need an Amendment to get access to even more damaging weapons else live with SCOTUS drawing an arbitrary line which may move someday in the distant future under a different court.
No, you are not right which is not surprising. Cosmetic stuff is not a concern of mine.
If you have a right to effective self defense then you should be allowed to have hand grenades. In some situations they can be more effective than your handgun. Should you be allowed to have those?
Fine by me.
If everyone in the country, via a national law and not up to the states, had to do that then I could live with that (get rid of gun show loopholes…any purchase of a firearm, even between two citizens, needs to be checked).
Let me know when everyone who wants a gun has to do that.
Why don’t they go after the perpetrators of gun violence?
Other than drugs, we don’t try to solve other crime issues by preventing people from owning objects which can be used in crimes. We don’t outlaw cars because of drunk drivers, or even alcohol for that matter. One reason because we know it doesn’t work, and the same can be applied to gun control. Gun control doesn’t work either. We don’t prevent people from owning knives just because people go around stabbing each other. We don’t outlaw rope because people strangle each other. Seriously, other than climbers, who the fuck needs rope? It should be sold by permit only! (lol) We don’t stop selling rat poison because people poison other humans with it. Hell, we don’t even outlaw the ownership of swords when one could argue that they have no lawful use.
The idea that we should ban things because they can be used for harm is based on the premise that the Government should control everything and that Humans should be controlled in every aspect of their lives so that they cannot harm themselves or others, or do bad things. I’d think that the entire 20th Century stands in epic evidence (See: Communism, Fascism, et al) that this is a failed ideological ideal and that Humans have to have the freedom and opportunity to fail in order to have the freedom and opportunity to be themselves and thus be happy and productive.
I don’t need an Amendment. I need a SCOTUS sympathetic to my viewpoint. As already noted they circumscribe our rights all the time (free speech is not unrestricted for example).
Since the line is arbitrary they can make it handguns and leave you rifles.
Probably because you haven’t yet had a politician stupid enough to try to restrict your right to purchase and own food, water or shelter. When such a politician appears, then you’ll see the need for this 28th Amendment.
Culture can explain away a very great deal here that you are ignoring in favor of explaining away with the whole “gun control” argument. I call Confirmation Bias.
