Repealing the 2nd Amendment

In My Humble Opinion
121

spamforbrains

I know with 100% certainty that not having a weapon did not keep my 18 year old daughter from being murdered.

I know with 100% certainty that not having a weapon did not keep one of my sisters from being raped by a total stranger in her own home.

I know with 100% certainty that having loaded weapons in the house allowed my father to stop a crazy man who kicked in the front door to our house were my parents and all 7 of us kids were eating dinner.

He was a total stranger, crazy dangerous.

I know that when my car was the victim of an attempted car jacking that I stopped it and me & my date were not harmed as I was armed. No shots were fired, no one died that time.

Oh, the SCOTUS disagrees with you about the Second Amendment. I bet you could change their minds if you could get them to listen to you.

Just how many legal CCW folks do you know who have killed or harmed anyone with a firearm at all?

You live in a place other than your parents?
You are male or female?
You are married?
You have how many kids?
You live rural, town, city or big city?
I live semi-rural right now, been in towns, cities, never lived in a place with over 1.5 million in the local area according to the census numbers but that is a pretty big city to me.

You are how old?
I am 72, male and had 2 kids. My son has 5 children.

I have seen the scary headlines you seem to have seen also.
I have read articles that debunk your opinion as to the situation in the US of A.

I am very much the protector of my family as I have been shown again & again that the police do not stop bad people, they only sometimes chase them after they have done bad things.

There are more bad people around than you have any idea about.

Being able to be armed is not a gift from Government, it is a natural right of free people. It is not mandatory for you.

But…

The founding fathers knew from personal experience & history that governments were more likely than not to disarm their peoples if they could so they drafted the second amendment to make it clear the government was not having the legal power to do that in this country.

It can be done if a very large percentage of the people ( not the governing body ) want it changed but apparently that has not come to pass yet. The process is in place, but it needs to be wanted by more than a simple majority and it does not even have that yet.

Have you ever told a parent to their face that the death of their child was their own fault because the kid got to a gun in the house? If not, why not? You have the facts and the opinion which is the correct one, or so you claim but do you stand up and personally be counted? And identified?

I am also wondering what your advice is for women who are being raped in their homes? What are you going to do if you are female. If you are a male and unmarried, IMO you opinion on this is not worth anything. If you are married, your wife is OK with you just calling 911 while she is being raped?

You have some of the factual reasons why I want weapons to hand and I think the fact of these reasons trumps opinions from those who have nothing to loose or ever been in harms way.

I am a vet so does that count against me IYO??

Talk to me and explain why I should do as you say or agree with you.

122

Since you mention studies, perhaps the place for us to start would be for the NRA to stop working to get comprehensive research into gun violence in America blocked. I mean, if guns are so intrinsically important to our safety, why are the NRA so keen that the CDC not collect data on actual gun usage? It’s almost as if - I dunno - objective scientific review might reveal that the NRA have been spewing bullshit for decades. Then we could consider how best to reduce the level of gun-related deaths.

Naturally the NRA would classify any such research as inherently biased against them, but then they would, wouldn’t they?

123

The right to bear arms is a natural right (i.e., it is part of the right to defend oneself and loved ones) and thus does not require approval from anyone.

However, the need to defend strangers (such as one’s countrymen) is not a natural right, and thus requires government enforcement. That is the role of the Second, which uses a natural right to justify mandatory military service. It is gun control in the sense that it requires all male citizens of a certain age range to take military training. This was soon replaced by conscription, then registration:

Finally, some more points to consider:

“The Secret History of Guns”

124

This is a bit nitpicky, but, in fact, you can NOT repeal a US constitutional amendment. You can only further amend the document.

That is why the 19th Amendment, prohibiting alcohol, is still on the list. The 21st Amendment invalidated the 19th, it did not erase it.

Nothing.

Amending the constitution is difficult by design. It would, at best, take years and be a lot of work. I think most people wanting more gun control feel that working with regular legislation would be more cost-effective than attempting an amendment.

We actually did do that for automatic weapons - see the National Firearms Act of 1934 which is the one that essentially banned things like machine guns and sawed-off shotguns for civilians.

So… it’s possible and constitutional if the legislation is properly drafted and enforced.

125

One would think this not terribly controversal. I was thinking of starting a thread on this topic, partially just to educate myself on it.

126

To nitpick your nitpick, the 18th prohibited alcohol, not the 19th, To further nitpick, Section 1 of the 21st Amendment says, in it’s entirety:

“The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.”

So the guys who wrote it & ratify it think it’s OK to say an amendment was “repealed”.

127

n/m (beaten to my point)

128

Well, it was supposed to be funny. :slight_smile:

As for the later, even if we assume those giving the orders felt that way, do you really think all of the people carrying out those orders are in lock step? Especially when we are talking about military people who have families and friends, some non-zero number of which would also be gun owners (or whatever reason we are giving to unleash the military on the civilian population). That’s the thing…no matter what the reasons for such a fight would be, there are going to be a large number of US military personnel who are going to refuse to carry out their orders to attack the American population…and a large number of them who are going to take their arms and equipment over to the other side. This happened in our last civil war and I see no reason it wouldn’t happen again.

Of course, I think it’s highly unlikely and just an excuse for both sides in this particular debate to talk past each other and build strawmen arguments for the other side so they can bat them down while ignoring the gaping holes in their own arguments.

129

I also think it is highly unlikely. But there are people who think it IS likely. In fact, there are people who think it is going on right now, or that Obama will declare martial law and remain president and TAKE OUR GUNS!!!211!

The strange part is making fun of these people gets one treated like an anti-gun person, or someone who wants to ban guns, or other such nonsense.

130

A lot of the pro-gun discourse in this thread reminds me of the Onion headline:

“‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens”
Take a look at the rest of the rich countries in the world. Are there regular mass shootings? Oppressive totalitarian governments?

It’s almost like there’s a solution, and that solution is strict gun control.
Signed, a gun collector who is increasingly looking at his collection with shame.

131

Of course there are solutions, though frankly I don’t think even an outright ban would do that much to stop violence in the US. Comparing us to other countries is really apples to oranges, IMHO, though of course many of the anti-gun types will disagree (since it helps their case). My own though on this is that, even if it would help, and even if it were politically possible (both things which I have some doubts about), it’s something we should do only if a majority of Americans really WANT to do it (banning all or most guns…I do think gun controls, depending on what they are, are completely acceptable wrt the Constitution and the 2nd Amendment). And that majority would be reflected in using the actual process we have to remove or nullify an Amendment…one that there is precedence for, since we did it using the 21st to nullify the 18th. Was it hard? Yeah…it was hard for the prohibitionist to get the 18th put in place in the first place, and hard to get the 21st in place to remove it. It would be equally hard (impossible today, since you don’t have a majority in favor of removing the 2nd) to get rid of the 2nd…but that’s what we should do, if we, the people are serious about this. Anything else, again IMHO, cuts to the heart of our very process, because if you can basically circumvent an Amendment by NOT going through that process then which Amendments will be safe in the future? That’s really my prime issue with all of this talk of banning and skirting around the 2nd. I’m not even a gun owner…I just don’t think we should lightly toss aside our process and try and circumvent it because it’s too hard (and the side doing it knows the majority of Americans STILL don’t support the effort).

I think that’s a silly attitude, but assuming you really are a gun collector and you really are ashamed of your collection you should sell it to someone who would appreciate it, or if you think that every other gun owner is an evil killer take it to your local sheriff and have them break it up.

132

They’re rare enough here that I don’t understand the fuss.

133

People are pretty bad at judging relative risk and doing risk assessment based on probabilities…and at processing very large numbers verse small instances of events that are sensationalized in the news.

134

Don’t understand the fuss? Sounds like the discussion and editorials about death by gun sure are causing you a spot of bother.

Maybe we’ll see meaningful change in gun laws when the odds become significant that we’ll be killed by a gun. Great. Rest in peace the people who die before we get to that point. Try not to cause too much of a fuss on the way out.

I think it’s time we started treating “gun ownership for the sake of gun ownership” the same as we do drunk driving. People’s mindsets need to change regarding risky behaviour, it needs to become socially unacceptable.

135

In your mind does the risk of owning a gun (full stop) equate to the risk of driving a vehicle drunk?? :confused:

136

The funny thing is that “gun nuts”, particularly ccw holders, are the most law abiding segment of our population. According to the Florida department of justice ccw holder crime rates since they first instituted ccw in 1988 have been a consistent 0.02%.

137

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.

138

Why do you believe that those words mean that? And a related question: does “freedom of speech” mean that a law forbidding the burning of the US Flag is impermissible?

In other words, are you willing to apply whatever rules you’re using to interpret the Second Amendment to the others? Or does the Second get a special method of interpretation?

139

I used Marijuana as a simple analogy. I could easily have used meth, heroin, coke. By the way, do you have a current prescription for all the pharmaceuticals in your medicine chest? More people die of OD’s than firearms, especially after suicides are taken out. While we/they are checking your house for firearms, you implicitly gave TPTB permission to make sure you are in 100% compliance of ALL other laws. In 10-15 years after the firearm people are taken care of and since the structure is in place, how about we combat other social miscreants that are in violation of any laws? Any song / video downloads on your electronics that shouldn’t be there? Where in the sand do you draw the line?

140

Hardly a bother. I don’t own guns or find them terribly interesting. But it’s interesting to watch the worried specimens who jump at lightning strikes, stranger danger, and pocket knives on airplanes. Such a scary world they live in.
If we’re going to focus national attention and legislative manpower on improving health and safety and general well being, mass shootings just don’t make the cut.

You clearly do not understand the CDC’s function. It’s certainly not the only agency/department/etc. with a name that doesn’t fully describe it (Department of Energy anyone?). Gun violence and prevention are well within their scope, along with motor vehicle safety, suicide, prescription drug overdoses, elder abuse, and violence prevention.