I don’t have time at the moment to go line by line with you. I gave you three cases where gun registries were established and later closed. These all met constitutional muster unless you can show me where the registry closure was challenged and later found to be unconstitutional. If a nationwide registry was established, and then closed, as was the case of the NFA registry less than 30 years ago, all new gun sales would be blocked as they could not be added to the registry.
If I am wrong please tell me. I have shown precedent at the Federal level where a firearm registry was created then closed, and remains closed today. If I should not be concerned by what has happened, in my lifetime, I’m all ears.
I couldn’t care less if unusual collectible things are expensive. So are comic books coins and stamps.
The important thing about the NFA registry is that it is a gun registry that has been working for decades, and it’s never been abused in any way that the NRA claims.
That’s not the point. The list of players is small due to the high cost of admission. It’s easy to point at the registry and claim great things. When you peel back the layers and figure out the “why” it is so awesome, it isn’t a slam dunk approach.
What claims has the NRA made that the NFA registry has been abused? Usually they act as though it doesn’t exist.
Czarcasm quoted the following without quite taking it on, so I’m going to give it the proverbial shot.
Those are statistics on anecdotes people told interviewers. If we are going to use statistics on stories people tell about their personal experiences as proof, than we’ll have to say that statistics on people having personally experienced God’s presence prove the truth of religion. But, really, all such statistics would prove is that a lot of people have experiences congruent with their beliefs. So you are right to rarely post those kind of statistics.
What you should want are statistics on gun deaths, both because the statistics on death are gathered more carefully than most statistics, and because, well, life and death is pretty important.
So: If America’s gun culture was actually saving lives, Alaska, number one for gun ownership, would have few gun deaths, when they actually have the highest gun death rate of any of the fifty states. Likewise, If going unarmed actually costs lives, Hawaii, last for gun ownership, would have boatloads of gun deaths, when they actually have the lowest gun death rate of any of the fifty states.
Here’s your problem: Your premise is flawed in that you have vastly different states and populations. Alaska: a mostly frozen waste-land, the lowest ration of women to men in the nation, half the population of Hawaii (a tropical paradise), completely different demographics, different sets of minority groups … Hawaii is the state with the most millionaires, Alaska is number 14, coming in behind Illinois.
This problem of attributing violence to the existence/ownership of firearms completely misses the other contributing factors.
In another thread months ago, I described a study I did in college in the 70s, where my research showed that, removing Black perpetrators from gun crime statistics, Americas gun deaths were about on par with England. I’m not making a racial point, I’m making a statistical point. You just can’t compare Alaska and Hawaii, and you just can’t compare America with other smaller countries that have different components to their populations.
Anti-gunners, at least the smarter ones, know this, but they still bring up the idiotic idea that the U.S., having really very few parallels with any western European countries, or even Canada, should have gun violence numbers similar to these other nations. Really?
Take away guns, perhaps gun crime is reduced. Remove minorities, perhaps gun crime is reduced. Neither solution is acceptable. We are created equal and we all have the right to live here as legal residents, so we can’t get rid of anyone. Period. And for now, we have, according to the Constitution, the right to go armed, even though the Government clearly has agendas to the contrary.
Will you anti-2nd Amendment people at least take all the other factors that contribute to violent crime into consideration before you compare apples and oranges? America has a unique makeup, a Rainbow of Diversity, so-to-speak, and it’s really foolish to foster the notion that, but for a single pesky Amendment, we’d have the same crime levels as some foreign country. It’s ridiculous.
For the record, The UK, as of 2011, has something like 3% Black population, vs. the USA with over 13%. Canada’s Black population is something like 1/6 of 1%. Now, I’m biracial … I’m not castigating half of my relatives here, I’m just making it clear that there are more numbers and statistics to consider here than gun numbers. Maybe we’ll never be as peaceful and secure as our European or Canadian neighbors. Maybe Freedoms and Rights cost us some Security and Safety. Maybe it’s worth it.
I don’t know about the 1970’s. But culling recent data from Wikipedia and the US Justice Dept., I’m calculating a 1.2 per 100,000 homicide rate in the UK for all offenders, and a 2.4 per 100,000 homicide rate for white offenders in the US. I leave it to you to calculate what the white-only homicide offender rate is the UK – I’m thinking it’s around 1.0.
As for Alaska, it is 3.3 percent black and 55 percent of people live in urban areas. Yes, Hawaii has even fewer African Americans and is more urban.
All US states are racially diverse. have differences from one another, and share aspects of a common culture. I’m not saying one factoid, like the high correlation between a state’s gun ownership rate and its gun death rate, puts the debate to rest. But it sure isn’t good for your POV.
And by the way, Hawaii not only has the lowest gun ownership rate, and the lowest gun death rate, it also has the lowest overall homicide rate – any weapon. And the number 3 gun death rate state, Wyoming, has half the percentage of blacks as Hawaii.
The number 2 gun death state, Louisiana, does have an unusally high percentage of African Americans. I’m not saying that one factor, guns, explains everything. But it explains a lot.
The figures I gave on the United Kingdom - US comparison were for homicide, all weapons. But your exact claim was that
So I probably should have just looked at gun homicides, in which case the white-only US to UK ratio would have been more like 5 to 1 than the roughly 5 to 2 ratio I estimated.
A great many Americans are exercising this right precisely because they think it’s going to give them, as you put it, Security and Safety. If more Americans understood that it’s unlikely to work out that way, we in Pennsylvania would be, weather excluded, closer to Hawaii.
If people are going to try to cobble up estimates and statistics, I’d rather they started from some specific facts, even if they are only a subset of the instances of gun use, rather than adding up anecdotal evidence and “well, my brother once…”
If all we get are solid numbers on how many people get killed with revolvers, or shotguns, or (in the case of this thread), swords, knives, crossbows and helmet spikes, then fine. At least then we’ll have someplace to start from.
I claim nothing about myself except to state facts. In the 70s at least, the FBI statistics to which I had access cross-referenced for race. Whether records are currently categorized in a similar manner, I have no idea. How I define racial traits is irrelevant, as I refer to statistics gathered in the 70s. “Black” was whatever the FBI record keepers intended, and I presume they meant African Americans who self-identify as “Black” on the Census or on a drivers license.
I think you already surmised this. If you’re dubious enough to advertise it, why don’t you actually say what you’re dubious of?
You’re taking examples of individual states and comparing them in ways that fit your assumptions. Apples and oranges. Hawaii is a small set of beautiful Islands, Alaska is an enormous deep-freeze.
The studies I made in the 70s say nothing about the data of our present day, but much on the subject of taking additional conditions into account besides gun totals. Consider this … when you say the words “gun crime”, a gun-hater will focus on the word “gun”. The problem with gun crime is the criminal, not the gun. Say the words “Black crime”. The bigot will focus on the word “Black”, but the problem isn’t “Black” people, it’s criminals.
Statistics can say whatever you like, if you narrow your focus enough, but the information presented is only a commercial for the agenda you push, because actual social demographic study is infinitely more complex than “State A has a lot of guns and a lot of gun crime, and state B has few guns and few gun crimes”.
I learned what the records of the 70s had to tell me. I didn’t go into the project expecting the results I got, it just came out that way. The best insight I have to offer is that I believe fearful people will trade anything, including the Freedoms of their fellow citizens, in return for a little perceived safety. I doubt the Authorities push gun-control to reduce crime, I suspect they have motivations more along the lines of having all of the arms for themselves.
It’s funny how saying “higher gun ownership = more gun violence” is “flawed” and then without a hint of irony you say “more blacks = more gun violence.” And then:
Boy ain’t that the truth. So, did you take into account all the other factors involved with gun violence, or did you just jump right to “blacks = gun violence.”
That’s the disturbing thing about the gun rights folks. First thing they’ll do is say they aren’t racist and the second thing they do is say something racist.
I feel bad for gun aficionados who aren’t racist or crazy, but it’s so rarely I meet them.
I don’t compose FBI records about gun crime. The records are data. The data exists independent of my discovery. One of the ironies of the facts at hand is the very concept you’ve missed … that if statistics can say “number of guns” correlates to “number of crimes”, the statistics may also be able to say "Number of (insert minority of your choice) correlates to number of crimes. What you’re blind to is that I’m making the point that in all cases, it’s the criminal that’s the problem, not anything else.
This thread should be about non-firearm weapons, so I’ll self-limit my responses hereafter so as not to derail the thread further. I’ll add that ad hominum attacks on me are irrelevant … and shouldn’t even be suffered on these boards. Implications from you that I’m a racist is evidence of your own poor comprehension issues. I don’t hate myself.
Any chance of getting this back on-topic?
What weapons that aren’t guns are covered by the 2nd amendment? Can it be expanded to any sort of weapon that can be carried by an individual?
I would expect spears to be covered - after all, that’s what a rifle with a bayonet on the end is - but I raised the OP in the hopes of finding out for sure.
And I’m telling you that closing a national gun registry would clearly violate the second amendment.
That’s the thing, noone ever challenged any of the gun bans. The NRA never expected to win in court, thats why they tried to kill the Heller case. The NRA (and it might come as a surprise to some of you but the NRA is about as moderate as they come in the gun lobby) takes so many ridiculous positions (that they KNOW are ridiculous) that they can’t tell their rights from their orthodoxy and desires anymore.
Yeah, because the second amendment would not permit the closing of a national registry and frankly the NFA registry is probably unconstitutional as well (if imposed by the federal government against the objection of the states) but it is clear that the states in conjunction with the federal government can ban machine guns and silencers and none of the states seem eager to let their citizens have machine guns.
The cost of admission was not high in 1985. I don’t think a registry is a slam dunk but its about the only thing that has any chance of working within the bounds of the second amendment and frankly we have some evidence that it works. We have some idea of the mechanics of why it works. An AWB was always a bad idea because it wouldn’t work. You are saying a registry is a bad idea even though it might work because it might lead to some unconstitutional act in the future. Heck the same can be said of a standing army.
What might make a better comparison is if you removed the poor from American statistics. My understanding is that private gun ownership has become more and more expensive in England over time and is now largely reserved for the wealthy. If you break down gun crimes by income, you might see some parity. The reason blacks seem to correlate to gun violence might be more an issue of blacks being really poor (especially before 1970’s).
The vast majority of gun crime is intra-racial not inter-racial. Blacks killing blacks, whites killing whites, hispanics killing hispanics, asians killing asians. See domestic violence and gang violence.
I doubt it. The vast majority of gun murders are committed by criminals. Hawaii also has the benefit of being a bunch of islands in the middle of the pacific ocean. Its a lot easier to enforce a statewide gun ban as an island with nothing but water for hundreds and thousands of miles around than to enforce it in on a continent with porous land borders neighboring states that might have very lax gun laws.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. I think there are two rights in the second amendment.
The judicially created personal right to self defense that Scalia pulled from the penumbra of the bill of rights. This entitles the individuals to effective self defense. I don’t know what this means but I think it means just about any semi-automatic weapon including scary looking semi-automatic rifles that have telescoping stocks and pistol grips and detachable magazines.
The state right to maintain a militia. I think this right gives the states the right to arm their citizens (or permit their citizens to arm themselves) with whatever you might arm the common foot soldier with.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SirGalahad View Post
removing Black perpetrators from gun crime statistics, Americas gun deaths were about on par with England. I’m not making a racial point, I’m making a statistical point.
What might make a better comparison is if you removed the poor from American statistics. My understanding is that private gun ownership has become more and more expensive in England over time and is now largely reserved for the wealthy. If you break down gun crimes by income, you might see some parity. The reason blacks seem to correlate to gun violence might be more an issue of blacks being really poor (especially before 1970’s).
Quote:
Will you anti-2nd Amendment people at least take all the other factors that contribute to violent crime into consideration before you compare apples and oranges? America has a unique makeup, a Rainbow of Diversity, so-to-speak, and it’s really foolish to foster the notion that, but for a single pesky Amendment, we’d have the same crime levels as some foreign country. It’s ridiculous.
The vast majority of gun crime is intra-racial not inter-racial. Blacks killing blacks, whites killing whites, hispanics killing hispanics, asians killing asians. See domestic violence and gang violence.
Damuri, you quoted me twice, with commentary with which I essentially agree. I dispute neither point, and haven’t in any of my posts. On these two matters, we are in accord. I’m not sure why you seem to think otherwise.
On the subject of non-firearm weapons, at the time of the signing of the Constitution, many weapons were in common use by the American Revolutionary type soldiers and Militia. Tomahawks, large knives, swords, for example; even pikes and crossbows were not unknown in the new world.
It seems that the intent of the 2nd Amendment is to protect “we the people” from infringement of our right to bear any arms that would be of any conceivable use by a Militia made up of men of fighting age. That can really include nearly any handheld weapon, since the Revolutionary forces were a guerilla band, at least part of the time.
Daggers to silence sentries. and garrottes, too, for that matter, would seem to be weapons of a commando. According to my reading of the Second Amendment, there aren’t any non-firearm arms that were conceivable in the late 18th century that wouldn’t be covered by that amendment.
I was just clarifying not disagreeing. But when you associated bad things with race, it comes off the wrong way, it can sound a bit racist, you’re old enough that casual racism might come easy for you. You might just be repeating FBI statistics which break things down by race rather than income but anything to do with race tends to derail threads unless it gets cleared up.
“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free STATE…”
I don’t think the militia right is a personal right, I think the militia right is a state right. The personal right is the right to effective self defense. So no tanks or jet fighters in the garage.