# Repealing the 2nd Amendment **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 14, 2016, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326 "2016-06-14T04:05:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2016, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/141 "2016-06-17T01:38:54Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > Likewise, illegal prostitutes don’t have the option of voluntarily reporting their illegal prostitution wages to the social security administration so that they can get eligibility for social security disability coverage. We’re not obligated to respect people’s illegal activity within our legal framework. After guns are all outlawed, there won’t be any legal market for guns except as scrap metal. Actually your interpretation of self employment income would be incorrect. The IRS and its tax collection mandates only that you report your income, they do not care about the legality of said revenue stream nor do they disclose it to other agencies without an appropriate warrant. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2016, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/142 "2016-06-17T01:44:07Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Because it’s the fucking Center for _Disease_ Control, not the center for public safety or whatever. > > And it has shown itself to be very anti-gun biased. Well, yeah, doctors and nurses and other medical personnel that have to put the pieces back together after people get hurt can be really negative about some stuff - go figger, right? Like not liking motorcycles (except for the number of organ donors they get from them), or bungee jumping, or guns. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2016, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/143 "2016-06-17T05:03:42Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Well, yeah, doctors and nurses and other medical personnel that have to put the pieces back together after people get hurt can be really negative about some stuff - go figger, right? Like not liking motorcycles (except for the number of organ donors they get from them), or bungee jumping, or guns. Well, I think they need to work on their unnecessary killing rate before they take on anything else. And their covering of bad medicine practices and practitioners makes the thin blue line look like saints. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2016, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/144 "2016-06-17T13:30:09Z")
The difference being that someone actually does track bad medical outcomes and studying bad gun outcomes is being blocked due to political reasons. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2016, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/145 "2016-06-17T19:00:41Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > The difference being that someone actually does track bad medical outcomes and studying bad gun outcomes is being blocked due to political reasons. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19412491&postcount=68](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19412491&postcount=68) I have heard this several time from various sources which I agree with. IIRC, many of the things put out by the CDC were straight political propaganda with bad base info. Because the NRA pointed it out did not automatically cause the CDC to get their hand slapped. Unless a majority of congress critters are on the take for NRA money. If that is the case we need to worry more about the government than the NRA and if the NRA really showed congress that the CDC was overstepping, maybe the CDC are not the right group to do a study of this type. IMO 😛😉 ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2016, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/146 "2016-06-17T19:03:09Z")
> [@Whiskey\_Dickens](#): > > Take a look at the rest of the rich countries in the world. Are there regular mass shootings? Oppressive totalitarian governments? Hell yes. In the last 100 years _governments_ have killed _tens of millions_ of their own citizens (not counting the wars); indeed it was countries like the US and others that allied themselves to liberate Europe during their periodic civil wars. Don’t like any of it, but don’t kid yourself. Free, wealthy (“middle class”) people are the exception in history, not the rule, nor is civilization the default. This is a lesson that people have to learn the hard way, over and over. Tyrannical governments always disarm their subjects, and then kill a metric crap ton. What is troubling is the pattern developing here in the last 25 years, over and over the latest jihadi was well known to authorities, as in past slaughters, many different people and agencies sounded the alarm for years and years - and nothing was done, apparently because he is considered a “politically correct” group. The press likes to make a point that he was a “citizen” - but he was clearly not American. There is no assimilation involved here from that standpoint. It looks like a whole lot of people want to make this about “gun control” and avoid discussing the real issues. Blowing up people on the other side of the world has consequences. Importing them to the US is certainly ill advised no matter what your view may be on the government foreign policy. They are literally importing the war here, the borders are wide open. Pretty easy for anyone to make a cogent argument that the various governments around the world has gone cukoo for cocoa puffs. Good luck everyone. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2016, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/147 "2016-06-17T19:46:11Z")
TL;DR To reply to just a few from page 1: > [@Czarcasm](#): > > The “majority of the people” are not the ones who pay the lobbyists and contribute to the congresscritters’ warchests-It’s the NRA and it’s ilk who have the ear(and balls) of the government. And why is that? Why isn’t it the Brady Campaign that congresscritters fear? Maybe because the majority of people who say they want gun control sit back and wait for it to happen, while gun owners are politically active and fervently fight attempts to limit their right to possess firearms. They lobby, demonstrate, fund pro-gun organizations, track their legislators’ voting records- you know that “democracy” stuff they talked about in school. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Since the bad guys get their weapons\* from\* the “law-abiding citizens”, that’s not so. In 20 years, anyone with a few thousand dollars to spare will be able to buy a 3D printer capable of turning out firearms. And if illicit labs can produce tons of meth, propellant and primer shouldn’t be a problem. Illegal guns will be as hard to shut down as bathtub gin was during Prohibition. > [@BobLibDem](#): > > You have to start somewhere. Make manufacture illegal. Make selling illegal. Make ownership illegal. Make ammunition sales illegal. **Send teams door to door nationwide with gunpowder-detecting dogs** and if they find weapons, seize them and imprison the owners. It wouldn’t be long before guns started filling up the dropoff bins at police stations. Never mind the Second Amendment, that would be against the Fourth Amendment. > [@friedo](#): > > Require gun manufacturers to include better tamper-resistance for serial numbers, e.g. by including RFID chips within the receiver body FWIW, special methods can recover even serial numbers that were filed or etched off the gun; I’m unaware that “untraceable” guns are currently a problem. > [@ftg](#): > > No need for repeal. Just get all the pro-gun judges new glasses so they can read the whole 2nd Amendment: > > "A _well regulated_ militia being necessary to the security of a free State, … " You do know that _Heller_ and _McDonald_ covered that subject in minute detail? > [@](#): > > Oh, the whole point is for things to be “well regulated”. So, regulating guns is fine. Why else would they have bothered to put that phrase in there at all??? Try well-regulated to mean “well-trained”, not “subject to as many disqualifications as possible”. Kinda hard to be well-trained in firearms if nobody is allowed any. > [@](#): > > And maybe, just for kicks, they get a course in what the word “militia” means. Maybe you should. As constructed from Latin, militia is a _plural_ noun. People aren’t members of “a” militia, and none of the documents contemporary with the Second Amendment use that construction. The term consistently used is THE militia, and in contexts where it’s inarguably referring to the population at large. > [@jtur88](#): > > The so-called “well-regulated militia” that is currently in place has no chain of command, no roster of troops, no inventory or armory of weaponry or ordnance, no system of logistics… It is not well-regulated by any possible definition of that term, no matter how archaic or whimsical. Is that gun owners’ fault? The states abandoned the requirement to hold regular musters in the 19th century. And yes, people at the time worried that the right to assemble in arms would fade away. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2016, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/148 "2016-06-17T20:11:40Z")
I have never heard of any founder which thought that disarming the population would lead to an increase in liberty or good government. It seems disingenuous to imagine that they would have written the second amendment in order to give congress the right to disarm the people since that is the exact opposite of the words written. In fact most seemed to feel that standing armies and central banks were the greatest threats to a free people, and that a well armed populace was the final check on tyrants. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/149 "2016-06-18T19:49:51Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > I have never heard of any founder which thought that disarming the population would lead to an increase in liberty or good government. It seems disingenuous to imagine that they would have written the second amendment in order to give congress the right to disarm the people since that is the exact opposite of the words written. In fact most seemed to feel that standing armies and central banks were the greatest threats to a free people, and that a well armed populace was the final check on tyrants. ↑ ↑ ↑ This X 42 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/150 "2016-06-20T03:28:45Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I continue to be amused that gun nuts continually refer to their “ **rights rights rights**!” without having the cognitive consonance to question whether those rights are good or bad. This is why I refer to the Second _Commandment_. Note that some gun nuts actually refer to guns as a “God-given right.” Other gun nuts, forgetting the U.S. idiosyncrasy of 1791, call guns a “universal human right.” :smack: > > I’d love to postulate an alternate universe in which the 2nd Amendment referred not to guns, but to the right to parade naked down Main Street while fornicating with ocelots. If the words of the gun nuts were taken seriously they’d be defending that right just as vociferously. Yes, the right to own guns is good. Abrogating the rights of others is bad. Glad I could answer that for you. I’m amused that the left, which is predicated on resentment, refers to people defending their right to own guns as whiners. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/151 "2016-06-20T04:01:45Z")
Nice whine there. ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/152 "2016-06-20T04:19:45Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Breaking through the claim of gun ownership and use being a \*right \*is necessary to end the pandemic. That’s why the Second, and all the excuses it permits, needs to be repealed. What would be the gun-rights argument _then_? The right to own firearms isn’t granted by the second amendment, simply protected by it. If the second was repealed, there would still be a right to own Also, Elvis would be disgusted by your stance on guns. ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/153 "2016-06-20T04:47:05Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > If you graph homicide rates by gun ownership, they go down the more guns there are. > > If you perform a linear regression using other statistics like income disparity (the main one), ethnic diversity, gender gap, government stability, corruption, etc. gun ownership is the least important variable involved and is still **negatively** correlated to gun ownership (i.e., the more guns, the fewer homicides). > > So, that’s why there isn’t a large effort. It’s trivially easy to slap down any objection to guns, if you look at the numbers. > > The best that liberal statisticians have been able to do is show that there maaaaay be a vanishingly small correlation between the prevalence of guns and the percentile of homicides which use a gun as the instrument of death. And, personally, I’m happy to give that to them. But, fundamentally, dead is dead. I’d rather there be fewer homicides than a change in the percentiles of weapons used to cause death. > > If you don’t believe me, go ahead and start grabbing statistics out of the Wikipedia and plugging them into here: > > [Javascript Multiple Regression](http://shodor.org/chemviz/tools/multireg/index.html) > > Put the homicide rate in as the Y column and any variables which you think might affect it (guns, income disparity, etc.) into one of the Xn columns. > > [List of countries by intentional homicide rate - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate) > [Estimated number of civilian guns per capita by country - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country) > [List of countries by income equality - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality) > [List of countries by GDP (nominal) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IMF_ranked_countries_by_GDP) > [List of countries by Fragile States Index - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Fragile_States_Index) > [List of countries by ethnic and cultural diversity level - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_ethnic_and_cultural_diversity_level) > > Based on the range of the output numbers and the range of the values in a column, you can determine what percentage of the input was actually used to decide the output. If the multiplier is positive then there’s a positive correlation. If the multiplier is negative, there’s a negative correlation. > > Gini coefficient is the principal variable, that I’ve seen. Reducing guns causes deaths (though, not at a meaningful level). Reducing the gini coefficient saves lives. If you want to save lives, support the 2nd amendment and measures which reduce income disparity. Very informative post. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/154 "2016-06-20T06:08:51Z")
> [@Waymore](#): > > The right to own firearms isn’t granted by the second amendment, simply protected by it. If the second was repealed, there would still be a right to own . . . So, the right to same sex marriage and abortion exist, even if outlawed? Nice to know. ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/155 "2016-06-20T06:25:52Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > So, the right to same sex marriage and abortion exist, even if outlawed? Nice to know. Do you believe a right is given by the government? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/156 "2016-06-20T06:54:03Z")
> [@Waymore](#): > > Do you believe a right is given by the government? A constitutional right? It’s given by the Constitution. Were the second amendment never to have been enacted, there would be no constitutional right in the US to keep and bear arms. Were it to be repealed, there would again be no constitutional right in the UK to keep and bear arms. People might of course continue to assert a _moral_ right. But neither the legislature, the exetive or the judiciary would be constrained by a moral right in the way that they are constrained by a constitutional right. ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/157 "2016-06-20T06:56:21Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > A constitutional right? It’s given by the Constitution. > > Were the second amendment never to have been enacted, there would be no constitutional right in the US to keep and bear arms. Were it to be repealed, there would again be no constitutional right in the UK to keep and bear arms. > > People might of course continue to assert a _moral_ right. But neither the legislature, the exetive or the judiciary would be constrained by a moral right in the way that they are constrained by a constitutional right. See my original post. I never prefaced it with constitutional right. Do you believe a right is given by the government? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/158 "2016-06-20T07:38:28Z")
Other than the constitutional right to keep and bear arms, I don’t believe there is any right to keep and bear arms. The only right to keep and bear arms that actually exists is the one granted by the consititution (not the government). Others may assert that there is a right to keep and bear arms which is not granted by the government or the constitution, but merely recognised and respected by them. Those others are wrong; no such right exists. ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/159 "2016-06-20T07:41:01Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Other than the constitutional right to keep and bear arms, I don’t believe there is any right to keep and bear arms. The only right to keep and bear arms that actually exists is the one granted by the consititution (not the government). > > Others may assert that there is a right to keep and bear arms which is not granted by the government or the constitution, but merely recognised and respected by them. Those others are wrong; no such right exists. Do you believe a right is given by the government? Not just the right to keep and bare arms, but rights in general. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2016, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326/160 "2016-06-20T07:58:29Z")
> [@Waymore](#): > > Do you believe a right is given by the government? Not just the right to keep and bare arms, but rights in general. It does depend on what you mean by “right”. A _legal_ right exists, obviously, only to the extent that the law provides it. We may assert, say, the right to vote as a democratic norm. But if the law says you have to be 18 (or 21) to vote, then a 17-year old (or a 21-year old) doesn’t have the right to vote. And if you live in a society that doesn’t conduct elections, then _nobody_ has the right to vote. So, a _legal_ right to keep and bear arms exists if, and only if, the law says so. As it happens, US law does say so. But if it didn’t, then there would be no legal right to keep and bear arms. If you understand law to be something that “government” does then, yes, legal rights are given by governments. Pretty much by definition. Of course, we can assert moral rights, which are not given by governments. If the government strips Jews of citizenship and orders that they be rounded up, sent to concentration caps and murdered, then we can say that in that society Jews are denied civic rights and rights to liberty and life; they have no legal right to any of these things. But we can also criticise that society, and its government, for failing to respect what we might assert to be _natural_ moral rights to life, to liberty, to equality of treatment, etc. Rights in _that_ sense are not conferred by government. The question really comes down, though, to “so what”? If the second amendment is repealed and the US enacts strict gun control legislation, gun rights advocates may assert that the US is failing to respect a natural or inherent moral right to keep and bear arms whose existence they believe in. But it’s already the case that the US routinely ignores rights whose existence is asserted by some; nothing is achieved by complaining that a particular governmental action fails to respect what is asserted to be a natural, inherent moral right. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/repealing-the-2nd-amendment/757326.md?page=9)