# "Shall Issue" gun carry has not led to a gun holocaust. What does this teach us? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 31, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-issue-gun-carry-has-not-led-to-a-gun-holocaust-what-does-this-teach-us/611251 "2012-01-31T01:28:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-issue-gun-carry-has-not-led-to-a-gun-holocaust-what-does-this-teach-us/611251/101 "2012-02-03T18:46:58Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > You seem to put great store by the fact that you say there is no other instance of the ACLU disagreeing with the Supreme Court on a case that incorporated any other part of the Bill of Rights. So what? I have no dog in this fight and don’t even live in the US but I guess as a lawyer I’m qualified to say that the 2nd amendment appears to me to be ambiguously drafted. There is in my view, at the risk of severe understatement, a great deal of room for reasonable people to differ about what the hell it is supposed to mean, particularly in a modern context. Sure, but it is telling that the 2nd is the ONLY amendment (of the ones that have actually been incorporated) that they have trouble incorporating. Most others are also in some dispute and/or ambiguously drafted. Hell, the 1st amendment specifically says “Congress shall pass no law…” Congress. Not a state legislature, but Congress. That couldn’t be more clear, but the ACLU has no problem holding states to the 1st amendment. Why the freedom to make pornographic art, but no freedom to bear arms? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-issue-gun-carry-has-not-led-to-a-gun-holocaust-what-does-this-teach-us/611251/102 "2012-02-03T20:30:16Z")
Because the wording of the 2nd Amendment just as conspicuously suggests it’s only a limitation on the federal government. > [@](#): > > A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. In any event, the whole point of the 14th Amendment is that it guarantees certain fundamental rights regardless of whether they were _originally_ protected from state interference. I’m a bit dubious about the whole idea of incorporation via the Due Process clause, and particularly about the process by which rights have been incorporated, but that was only necessary because SCOTUS fucked up on the Bill of Rights the first time\*. \*in the Slaughterhouse Cases, when they inexplicably decided that the federal constitution wasn’t a limitation on state authority unless it specifically said so. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2012, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-issue-gun-carry-has-not-led-to-a-gun-holocaust-what-does-this-teach-us/611251/103 "2012-02-03T21:06:05Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > What about this do you think we’re sidetracking? It’s a sidetrack because the thread was not about Constitutional issues, and only tangentially related to gun control. It was about how “shall issue” policies did not cause the streets to run red wit blood, and how they did not contribute to any increases in gun violence because there weren’t any such increases. Yet somehow this turned into gun argument #8675309 on a Constitutional/states’ rights basis. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-issue-gun-carry-has-not-led-to-a-gun-holocaust-what-does-this-teach-us/611251/104 "2012-02-08T12:01:24Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I’m a bit dubious about the whole idea of incorporation via the Due Process clause, and particularly about the process by which rights have been incorporated, but that was only necessary because SCOTUS fucked up on the Bill of Rights the first time\*. > > \*in the Slaughterhouse Cases, when they inexplicably decided that the federal constitution wasn’t a limitation on state authority unless it specifically said so. Spoken like Clarence Thomas. 🙂 Actually, I agree. The PorI clause neatly incorporates basic rights to the states where substantive due process requires mental gymnastics to get to the same result. Just overrule Slaughterhouse and apply the entire Bill of Rights to the states. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-issue-gun-carry-has-not-led-to-a-gun-holocaust-what-does-this-teach-us/611251/105 "2012-02-08T12:13:24Z")
Getting back to the OP, I think it is just common sense why shall-issue carry doesn’t cause an increase in gun violence. First, the people you are allowing to carry have proven not to have a serious criminal record to begin with. If they had violent proclivities to point that they would start blasting away over line jumping at the movie theater, they would certainly at some point have some arrests for battery, road rage incidents, domestic violence, etc. The idea that people are otherwise normal, but given a gun they turn into homicidal monsters is silly at the outset. Second, criminals don’t take training classes, stand in line, and pay close to $100 to get a permit to comply with a concealed carry law which is usually a misdemeanor, when they plan to commit felonies with the gun. That said, in fairness to the anti-gunners who were wrong, I think that the pro-gun side made some pretty hefty claims about how crime would dwindle because every criminal would be afraid to rob anyone for fear that the potential victim would be packing. I’m not saying that the logic was necessarily wrong, but that hasn’t happened because very few people get permits, and when they do, very few of those carry a gun. If I’m a criminal, it’s a pretty safe bet that the average Joe on the street isn’t carrying a gun. ---
**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:** [February 8, 2012, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-issue-gun-carry-has-not-led-to-a-gun-holocaust-what-does-this-teach-us/611251/106 "2012-02-08T14:18:32Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > SCOTUS fucked up on the Bill of Rights the first time\*.\*in the Slaughterhouse Cases, when they inexplicably decided that the federal constitution wasn’t a limitation on state authority unless it specifically said so. Well, perhaps not inexplicably. This wasn’t so many years after the end of Reconstruction and the court was evidently resisting anything that would expand Federal power or further weaken the states. This didn’t affect just the Slaughterhouse cases but also Presser v. Illinois, where in 20/20 hindsight Presser and his lawyers doomed their case the moment they uttered the words “Fourteenth Amendment”. Which is a shame because Illinois’s militia laws set the stage for restricting the right of ordinary citizens to keep and bear. Presser attempted to raise Second Amendment issues in his case, and the court didn’t dispute them so much as it ignored them, following the state of Illinois’s lead in focusing with surgical narrowness on the technicalities of Presser’s conviction. The court in essence said “we see no 2nd Amendment case here- oh, and by the way: THE PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES CLAUSE DOES NOT LET THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OVERRULE THE STATES!!!” ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2012, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-issue-gun-carry-has-not-led-to-a-gun-holocaust-what-does-this-teach-us/611251/107 "2012-02-08T14:23:56Z")
Well, that’s okay. I was thinking of _Barron v. Baltimore_ anyway. :smack: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shall-issue-gun-carry-has-not-led-to-a-gun-holocaust-what-does-this-teach-us/611251.md?page=5)