to answer the OP’s question (going strictly by the subject line):
Should police officers carry guns?
Yes. If I can carry one, so should police. I don’t even care if they have an AR-15 in their patrol car. the problem isn’t that the police are armed, it’s that too many of them reach for their weapon when it isn’t necessary.
The second amendment doesn’t say that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, excepting those who frequently use their guns. It says the right shall not be infringed. If you pick and choose where and when and by whom the guns can be borne, you are a gun controller, and no more of a second amendment supporter than other gun controllers.
Are you for the US constitution at all? The whole idea of the electoral college, and indirect selection of senators and judges, and separation of powers, was to protect elites against the mob AKA the will of the people.
By the way, I don’t think your OP proposal is crazy, especially if flexibly carried out. See:
Now, personally, I think that guns are, except for hunting, generally unhelpful. More Icelanders should follow the lead of their police officers.
Hang on a minute. Are you suggesting that a person who, say, thinks people who have been convicted of a violent felon shouldn’t be able to own a gun, but otherwise opposes gun control measures, is functionally the same as someone who thinks guns should be banned outright?
Nowadays, almost everyone thinks guns should be banned outright for some groups of people but not others. Captain America thinks they should be banned outright for ordinary police.
AFAIK, there was no gun control in the US, anywhere, before 1813 or so, except maybe for people of color. Back then, white people really did believe the right to keep and bear arms should not be infringed for any and all other white person. And, by the way, it wasn’t just small arms. There was no rule against having a live artillery piece on your front lawn.
This of course changed in the nineteenth century. That’s why the lawmen of the old West engaged in those gunfights over whether outlaws could keep and bear weapons in town.
The idea of banning supposed bad guys from carrying weapons not just in a town, but statewide, is pretty new. Prove me wrong, but I think that, in most states, fifty years ago, there were no special restrictions on violent felons buying a gun. The felon ban is a sign that hardly anyone really believes in the old time second amendment, as written and intended.
In the eighteenth century, which produced the second amendment, life was cheap. Just think about the kind of society that saw dueling as honorable. This later changed.
The fact that it’s from the Declaration isn’t relevant - the point is that only there are any rights described as “God-given” in any sense.
1)(a) If you want to argue that “endowed by… creator” isn’t synonymous with “God-given”, be my guest - the point is that there certainly isn’t any more explicit statement of rights being “God-given” anywhere, and certainly not the RKBA.
Again, the point here is that the well-regulated militia has a sight more to do with the RKBA than any God-given right does, so far as anything is set down on the matter in paper and ink. It’s not my fault that the authors of the Second were bumbling incompetents who couldn’t actually say clearly “A militia is a good thing. Unrelated, the people should have all the weapons they want” or “The people should be armed, so that the state can enjoy the security of a militia”, which would have saved a lot of argument.
Goodness me, so it does, and to think I never noticed.
So, everyone is a “gun controller,” and no one is a “second amendment supporter?”
That seems to rob the distinction of much of its purpose.
Not everyone.
There are still many Americans who think ex-cons should be able to keep and bear arms.
There are still many Americans who think kids should be able to keep and bear arms.
There are still many Americans who think full-automatic weapons should be legal.
And there are many Americans who favor Vermont carry (no permit or licensing exam required).
There probably are also Americans, albeit fewer, who would agree that larger armaments like artillery are protected by the second amendment.
So there are some genuine second amendment supporters.
But most of us do believe in gun control, just not the same controls. Although I think guns are bad in approximately the same way I think cigarettes are bad, I would be very wary of taking away freedoms from those who have served their time. So one kind of gun control conservatives often like, I don’t. This gives me no right to proclaim myself a second amendment supporter.
If they are so dangerous they can’t be trusted with the means to defend themselves, why are they free?
And there are people who think a kid has a right to do whatever they wish in “their” bedroom and parents have no right to police that. Both wrong. Minors do not have full rights
They are.
What’s a “licensing exam”.
So, I happen to think libel laws are a good thing. Does that mean I can’t call myself a 1st amendment supporter?
Some states (Kansas, for example) require a written test as part of the concealed carry class, which must be completed in order to apply for a permit. Others (example: Kentucky) require only attending a class and passing a range test.
I’ve just never heard it called a “licensing exam”.
Whatever you want to call it, it is this kind of scandalous Virginia joke:
Matched in Texas:
You can call yourself whatever you want. In the spirit of the first amendment (one of the better parts of the IMHO generally mediocre US constitution), I support your being allowed to do so.
One defense that could be given, in your case, that you really might be a first amendment supporter, is that the ratifiers of the Bill of Rights knew about libel law and didn’t think they were stopping it.
In the case of the second amendment, the framers and ratifiers had no expectation that they were allowing restrictions based on the type of arm (small vs. artillery) or whether the bearer was an ex-con. So supporters of the second amendment, who also want to disarm violent people who have paid their debt to society, at least don’t have the dodge of saying that they are following original intent.
Here’s something else semi-nice I can say about your POV:
The worst second amendment hypocrites aren’t gun rights proponents on the web. The worst second amendment hypocrites are the Supreme Court judges who vote to allow public bearing of guns in Anacostia, but not in their courthouse. If guns make us safer, it would apply just as much on Capital Hill as in the poorer parts of the city.
Thread hijack – yes I am guilty.
So, edging back into the thread: Limiting where and when police can bear arms is one of those good ideas that is against the plain wording and intended meaning of our constitution.
According to an Emory University study (AL Kellermann et al.; J Trauma. 1998 Aug;45(2):263-7; Injuries and deaths due to firearms in the home), a gun 7 times more likely to be used against an innocent victim than against an attacker or an intruder.
Gun deaths in the US run at over 30,000 per year or 40 times the British murder rate (the US population is only 5 times the UK’s) i.e. you are 8 times more likely to be shot dead in the States than murdered in the UK.
The figures don’t stack up. The US is a gun happy nation full of firearm accidents. The 2nd amendment should be repealed, it simply doesn’t work.
Here in Godzone, the Land of the Long White Cloud (New Zealand) the police are not normally armed but do have access to tasers (and if needs be, there is an armed squad). Society isn’t crumbling from mass attacks by criminals.
One doesn’t need to take any training or test to keep a firearm in the home. And in many states one doesn’t need a license/permit or any training or test to open carry.
Why does concealing the weapon all of a sudden mandate training or testing? What changes? Besides nothing.
You’re not even in the U.S. and you have the gall to tell us what to do with our Constitution?
You should be aware that most states have a “right to bear arms” clause in their state constitutions. Even without the 2nd the right would exist in most states.
How do you know the Emory University study (AL Kellermann et al) is correct, or unbiased? Many of these anti-2nd studies are prone to manipulating the numbers to reach their pre-determined conclusions. Who paid for the study? Sarah Brady?
Gall?
Is Great Debates only for Americans?
I have the gall to tell Canadians what to do with their constitution. Keep it! Don’t adapt ours!
If I knew more about theirs, I might say the same to New Zealanders.
Maybe “permit exam” would be more accurate.
You are comparing a gun death total (which includes suicides, among other things) to a homicide total (though you call it a rate, I assume you mean total?).
The U.S. gun-homicide total (2013 data) is 11,208, or 69.5% of all (16,121) homicides. The gun homicide rate is 3.5 per 100,000; the overall homicide rate is 5.1.
Per this source, the (2012) British figures are: 44 gun homicides, or 6.8% of all (640) homicides. The gun homicide rate is .07 per 100,000; the overall homicide rate is 1.04.
The figures are disparate enough without resorting to distortion or sloppy comparisons.