Not an unrestricted right. I can’t legally carry here in California for example. Doesn’t mean they have taken away my rights.
Soup, stupid should always get a lesson. Carrying a shotgun with you when you sight-see a riot deserves a whoopin’. 
Heller v. US and McDonald v. Chicago.
Really? In that case, I have a natural and inalienable right to bone your wife.
I am a staunch supporter of the 2nd amendment. However, as long as this country has capital punishment, you cannot use the “I have a right, whether the law reflects it or not,” argument.
We call all agree that on a basic, fundamental level, depriving someone of life is one of the most egregious violations of personal liberty. As long as the government can do that, within the understood confines of the Constitution, you cannot make the reasonable argument that the Government doesn’t have the legal authority to infringe upon your rights.
So, perhaps I’m derailing the thread (not my intent), but my point is the same: If you support the death penalty, you can’t say you have any inalienable rights. (I don’t know why that I decided to share that, but I did.)
And I have an inalienable right to stop you.
No you don’t. Every government has some restrictions on weapon ownership. Where on earth do you think your “right” comes from, apart from the law?
I HAVE had to evac during emergencies, I didn’t take a gun, and it would not have come in handy if I had. Why does everyone that HAS to have a gun during evac think they need one?
Do you not understand the principles upon which the US is founded?
The US was founded with the idea that the rights of individuals are there, and the government must recognize them – that the government recognizes rights, not creates them. Whether you agree with it or not, you should understand the system.
I would rather not rely on assumptions about what authorities might or might not do in various hypothetical situations. Also, regardless of what they would actually do, I would rather that the law formally recognize my rights and not describe me as any class of criminal, consequences or no.
If you believe the National Guard is more likely to shoot you on sight than criminals are, I’d say you’re the one with jackboot-thug fantasies. I’m reasonably confident that in most disaster situations, I’m safer armed than unarmed, or no worse off. Also, in areas like mine there is little chance of ever seeing a National Guardsman during a serious extended emergency–if they manage to mobilize, they’ll be deployed toward bigger cities, not here. In many places, the security will be armed private citizens or nothing.
Actually I believe unloaded open carry is legal in California with a few exceptions (schools, etc.); loaded open carry of course is legal on your own property, many wilderness areas, etc.
This is too hard: even when I vow to carefully avoid disturbing anyone’s favorite heroic-armed-self-defense ideation, it’s still impossible to get some people to view even a hypothetical disaster affecting thousands from a perspective other than “what about my gun?”
Both common sense and my experience (my job is in public safety/emergency management) support the proposition that the last thing the authorities will do in a state of emergency is delay traffic along evacuation routes by searching cars for guns or any other kind of contraband. Of course, openly flaunting guns may get you in trouble. It should. spark240 wants the law to “formally recognize” his rights? Oh dear. First, as has been pointed out, the NC law doesn’t violate the second amendment. Second, let’s get it right. If you break a law, the problem is not that the law “describes you” as a criminal – that’s how, well, criminals think.
And of course the NC law allows people to protect their homes with guns. It just wants them to be there while they do it.
Which leaves the only sticking point: whether people should be allowed to roam around armed inside a disaster zone. To me, the two main perspectives from which the answer is yes are those of (a) libertarians and legalists existing on a plane of total abstraction, and (b) gun owners who feel that their safety and freedom is maximized thereby. I know better than to address the former, but there is an appeal I’d like to make to the still-minority view that 21st-century America is too scary to face without easy lethal recourse at hand, while *still *keeping my vow.
Here it is: there are lots of ways to increase our personal safety. In a state of emergency, the best one is to evacuate. That’s been covered. Second best is to go to a shelter (where you will be required to turn in any firearms, but even without them, you still will be safer, with more and better food and clean water). If it turns out that you want to stay in your home with your guns, you’re picking the third safest option, and your claim that you need your gun to protect yourself and your home looks more like risking yourself and whoever’s with you for the sake of protecting your home and your gun. When those others, say, your family, are involved, that seems a little backward, but the fact is that the NC law still allows you to do that. But out there, off your property and on that of others, where the law applies, your gun enhances your safety only by making you more dangerous to others. Like driving a giant SUV, the gun makes you incrementally safer at the expense of everyone else around. This is not the action of someone who believes in a cooperative and civil society, and that’s why you shouldn’t insist on the maximization of this particular freedom when everyone’s safety is endangered.
You just might have missed the point.
Speaking for myself, I’m happy to talk about hypothetical, or real, disasters from plenty of perspectives. I’d consider some of those perspectives more important than anything related to the bearing of arms. But this thread is specifically a discussion of the bearing of arms during disaster situations; if you want to turn the focus of disaster discussion to something else, start a thread on that other perspective.
I believe in natural rights; I believe self-defense is such a right. In my view, the Second Amendment itself is a “recognition” of this right, just as every other Constitutional provision or legislation enshrining a natural right is a recognition, not a revocable grant. I understand many people disagree with the notion of natural rights, and this thread isn’t the place for that debate. My mention of the Constitution earlier was not intended to mean that I saw that as the basis for my rights.
Criminality, in a sociological sense, is not just a technical condition of being in violation of a law. Almost everyone has broken this or that law at some point in time, sometimes without even knowing they’ve done so. Are all these people criminals? Does society benefit by treating them all as criminals? No. Such an attitude is seriously counterproductive; it breeds contempt for the institutions of the law, and in some cases encourages people who would otherwise not be criminals to become more antisocial in outlook–more truly criminal.
No. Being armed makes me more dangerous to those who threaten me. Not to everyone. Not to anyone who means me no harm. Given that those who would do me harm are likely willing to do others harm as well, my being armed may well increase the safety of some of the latter.
Presumably unconstitutional. SAF is currently suingthe relevant parties in NC over this law. Gura is on the march. I’m sure you know this, but for the other readers, Gura is the one who won McDonald and Heller so I’m optimistic.
Yes, it does mean exactly that. CA has no provision for carry and in several counties are on the verge of losing lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the carry scheme in CA. See Sykes vs. McGinness and Peruta v. County of San Diego.
Gura is involved in the Sykes case as well as a sister case in Washington DC, Palmer v. District of Columbia. All of these cases will define carry and I’m optimistic, but I expect that laws like the ones referenced in this thread will eventually be dead.
If I understand correctly, the government is the people, and the law the codification of the will of the people. As I said before, neither the US government nor any other I know of allows unrestricted gun ownership, so if not from the will of the people, where does this right come from?
To make it clear, what I’m objecting to is the idea that the government cannot stop people being armed under any circumstances - if it’s an inalienable right, it must apply to everyone - children, criminals, the dangerously mentally ill. That doesn’t seem to me a good idea.
Inalienable rights have never been presumed to apply to children, criminals or he mentally ill.
Children do not have freedom of speech, or protections under the fourth or fifth amendments, neither do the criminally or dangerously insane (in fact, insane people can be held almost indefinitely without trial, legally, in the USA, against their will).
Children don’t have the right to vote – that doesn’t mean you can remove the right to vote from someone otherwise legally allowed to vote simply because it doesn’t apply to children. In the same way, children don’t have the right to purchase firearms (because they’re not responsible for themselves) – that doesn’t mean you can remove the right from someone otherwise legally allowed to own/carry a firearm because it doesn’t apply to children.
Law is a codification of the will of the people the majority elects – but in the USA we have a constitution to prevent a simple majority from imposing tyranny on the minority. The Bill of Rights specifically exists to prevent the majority (via the government) from imposing laws which deprive individuals of their liberties and/or rights.
To make it clear, what I’m talking about isn’t that the government cant restrict individual rights - it’s clear it can from imprisonment (deprivation of liberty) felony charges (deprivation of 2nd amendment), etc etc. However, it cannot do that without a trial, and it cant do it to groups who haven’t committed a crime.
There are very specific procedures for changing the US government. A long, arduous process called amending the constitution – if you want to change the government recognition of firearms from a “natural” right to a “given” right that can be taken away at the whim of the government it needs to be codified in such a way. As it stands now there is no way for a government to simply choose when to or not to recognize rights – if there were, they wouldn’t be rights, they’d be privileges.
I have a question, who gives you your right to free speech? The government? Your neighbor? Or do you have a right, even a duty, to exercise free speech, especially when the government seeks to stifle it?
I’m not American, so I’m not going to get into an argument about American law. My point was rather about the nature of rights in general. My understanding is that there are those rights, fundamental human rights, that apply in all circumstances to everyone, and no-one has the right to infringe them. Then there are legal rights, given or removed by governments according to their rules. I understand weapon ownership to be in the second group. As to free speech, if it doesn’t apply to everybody it’s not a fundamental right, it’s one granted you by the society you live in.
Apologies if this doesn’t answer your question, it’s a large subject to cover!
Rights are those which are fundamentally yours, and can only be suspended under absolute necessity – you are a danger to society, and need to be imprisoned for a crime you’ve already committed – and under the most strict of supervision possible (the criminal justice system).
Privileges are those which are granted to you, and taken from you. For instance, you are granted the privilege of driving, or you have your driving privileges revoked, they should also be be administered under the most strict possible system, but those can also be curtailed, as necessary, by the government.
The US tends to have a far different view of “rights” and “privileges” than other countries, by large. For instance, our right to privacy is somewhat more expansive than other countries – and we do view it as a right, not a privilege.
In the US, there’s also a very pervasive senses that self defense, even with lethal force if necessary, is a right – not a privilege. As such, means to that self defense need to be protected, and a firearm in that means for many people – there are alternatives, but they aren’t as effective, and insisting people use that instead of a more effective self defense method effective curtails their right to self defense. And you can’t curtail a right without due process.
Sorry for my absence. Shortly after posting this, I went to the ER for my annual kidney-stone festival. I was in and out of the hospital, and am currently in a narcotic-induced fog as I type, but not to worry! I have several guns close by!
I don’t think there’s anything misleading about my poll. Sarcastic and snarky, yes, but that only reflects my opinion of NC lawmakers.
Full disclosure: I’m in Georgia; our laws are a tad different than NC. And I’m an ex-cop, a libertarian, and a realist. Those are my filters.
The law in NC allows licensed(checked-out-by-FBI) gun owners to wander their streets at will. But because of the SOE delclared by the Governor, they can’t? Why? Did they suddenly become violent killers and thieves? Rapists and robbers?
No.
The only thing that changed is that the police are now occupied with extra duties that don’t include driving by your neighborhood to keep things quiet.
Oh, and true criminals know that, so they take advantage of the scarcity of law enforcement.
Now should I find myself in need of food or supplies for my family, I may head for a store to get those things. Why on earth should I leave a gun behind, when I may encounter Bad Guys along my way?
Staying at home may not be an option for me. Perhaps we’ll be safer at Uncle Bob’s out in the country. Should I leave all weapons and hope no Bad Guys see us on the way to Uncle Bob’s?
Then there’s this kind of crap:
I know you tried playing nice for a bit there, but you just went off the rails and negated your whole statement and lost all credibility with this fun slogan.
I have carried a firearm or 2 every single day for over 25 years. So have thousands of cops, and millions of Americans. The only persons in danger around a trained, CCW permit carrying citizen are the criminals who draw their attention and require a response of some kind.
Do you also believe that people with AIDS shouldn’t walk around because of the astronomically small possibility that they could infect someone else? I suppose it’s possible, but just as unlikely to happen as a law-abiding, CCW permit holder deciding “to hell with it, I need a big-screen TV”.
Republican lawmakers in NC tried to include language that would exclude permit-holders from this knee-jerk gun-grabbing crap, but no, the Democrats wouldn’t stand for that.
A state of emergency is just that, whether declared or not, and it makes no sense to me for a government to restrict my rights to defend myself or my family in any set of circumstances that we can or cannot foresee.
It would seem to me that the average person who does not want me to be able to defend myself is the one who won’t defend himself.
The non average people are the ones who want to have power over others.
YMMV
The average person doesn’t care if you can defend yourself, but would rather not be shot himself.