Time to change 2nd Amendment

[rat_avatar]

@ElvisL1ves

If you have a practical, acceptable way to do that, then let’s have it. While you’re at it, please provide a practical, acceptable means of locking up anyone with a tendency to get angry from time to time.

If you can’t, then kindly acknowledge that you’re simply making an excuse for inaction.

False dichotomy.

We do need to revisit rules around involuntary commitment but IMHO it would be far more productive to reduce the stigma related with obtaining help for mental issues.

Most of these people had planned their attacks for months if not years, there is time to reach them.

The fact that your argument was based on “locking them up” is actually part of the problem we have in this country.

There is a stigma and an imagined cost for seeking help. Some people think they will have permanent labels and avoid treatment if it is even available to them.

This is a very very complex problem and it is “icky” and doesn’t drive people to the polls.

[ElvisL1ves]

… And it makes a fine feel-good excuse for refusing to act on saving lives.

[rat_avatar]

@ElvisL1ves

… And it makes a fine feel-good excuse for refusing to act on saving lives.

I can’t tell if that is a personal attack or just some non-related rant.

How about a cite showing any gun control in the US where you can show it saved lives?

[Magiver]

@ElvisL1ves

No. It’s for the sake of saving lives. :rolleyes:

no its not unless you can show me that a gun can act of it’s own accord. banning one gun is meaningless and you’re not going to repeal the 2nd amendment. You’re asking for feel-good legislation.

[Magiver]

@jsgoddess

Are you going to say okay to having, say, a mental profile done before you can buy a gun? I don’t know if that’s the crazy people control you have in mind, but is it okay?.

The gun is not the problem.

[wonky]

@Magiver

The gun is not the problem.

Okay, so what are you suggesting? That people need screened somehow before they do something? What is the mechanism, and are you willing to pay for it?

[Magiver]

@jsgoddess

Okay, so what are you suggesting? That people need screened somehow before they do something? What is the mechanism, and are you willing to pay for it?

why are you bringing up money? Are the amendments for sale?

[wonky]

@Magiver

why are you bringing up money? Are the amendments for sale?

You said that you want “crazy people control.” I’m trying to figure out what that means.

[Magiver]

@jsgoddess

You said that you want “crazy people control.” I’m trying to figure out what that means.

I said the problem was crazy people not guns. What’s the name of this thread?

[wonky]

@Magiver

I said the problem was crazy people not guns. What’s the name of this thread?

And I asked what can be done about crazy people not guns. If crazy people are the problem, what’s the solution?

[Magiver]

@jsgoddess

And I asked what can be done about crazy people not guns. If crazy people are the problem, what’s the solution?

Start another thread and see what you get.

Now if you asked what could be done at an office or school then that’s a security issue. Again, that’s another thread.

[SRM-ND]

Very briefly, I am a new member who first heard of SD via a book compiling columns, found in a thrift store in the 1990’s.

Re: Kleck’s stats, purportedly up to 2.5 million defensive uses of guns in a year, there is considerable criticism of his methodology and conclusions, enough that I don’t see how they can be invoked as gospel (btw, they date from, I believe, 1992 for whatever that is worth). Kleck’s claim that people underreport use of guns for defensive purposes because their use or possession is against the law seems a stretch to me. People routinely provide information about, say, heroin possession and use to the ongoing (for decades) federal surveys on drug and alcohol use.

What else do we not know? Probably plenty of uses of guns in criminal activity that are never reported because all the participants are linked to the criminal activity (right there with the unreported defensive uses).

Of homicides, haven’t had a chance to look for stats, and one needs to break down, I suppose, between prosecuted and non-prosecuted (on whatever charge, e.g. criminal negligence) gun homicides. Most homicides are perpetrated by relatives or acquaintances of the victim, yes? So: how many of those are perpetrated by legal owners of the guns used? How many of those shooters have no gross misdemeanor or felony record prior to the event? Anyone know?

What about age? We don’t currently allow adults under 21 to possess alcohol in most (all?) states. How about increase age for non-hunting weapon possession to, say, age 30?

How about those gun shows? How about we do not permit public gatherings of private gun-sellers? How about we ban private sales which cross state lines?

The amount of human recklessness is mind-boggling. We have cops whose toddlers manage to get their mitts on Daddy’s gun. (We had a local detective forget to lock his squad car in his driveway, leading to the theft of a bulletproof vest, a few ammo clips, and handcuffs. The last item was recovered when somebody couldn’t get them off and called the police for help). Not to mention affluent suburban stay-at-home mothers of young adults with big, big, problems.

Are we “well-regulated”? If not, our gun laws, such as they are, arguably violate the Second Amendment.

I would submit that the recent rush to purchase yet more guns indicates a lack of rational capacity in those gun buyers. Plato wrote a couple of thousand years ago about not letting an irrational person have their hands on guns.

I have never been able to derive from the Second Amendment that the idea was to fend off the government. The entire document is geared towards restraining the government by other means.

Where is it you can now shoot a cop if you think they have no business on your property?

[SRM-ND]

Kleck responds to criticism of his estimates, including the statement:

“DGUs usually involve unlawful possession of a gun by the gun-wielding victim”.

Now, why would this be? For one thing, that means that the victim is committing a crime himself or herself. By definition, he is referring to criminals (defined as one who commits an unlawful act–not just any unlawful act, such as, say, failing to pay sales tax to one’s state on goods purchased in another state where sales tax wasn’collected–but the act that is being counted. So his estimates are based in part of the presumption that these criminals are not telling the truth?)

Not sure whether the threats these unlawful actors are protecting themselves would be construed as lawful.

Huh.

[QuickSilver]

@Magiver

I said the problem was crazy people not guns. What’s the name of this thread?

The name of the thread is “Time to change the 2nd Amendment”. The first sentence claims that it was written to be maliable.

Rational people may disagree on the methods and means by which gun violence can and should be reduced. What I’m not hearing is you and your fellow gun enthusiasts (admitedly, not all) saying that there is room for improvement (much less compromise) on any kind of additional gun control. Seems to me, you feel that option is off the table. In other words, they’ll have to take your guns out of your cold dead hands. That does not stike me as a rational stance in face of ever mounting evidence that guns and society don’t mix well. Some may call it crazy.

What’s more, you wash your hands of having to explain your rational.

It’s a long thread and I’ve read several in the past few days. If I’ve mischarectarized your position, please correct me.

[ElvisL1ves]

@Magiver

no its not unless you can show me that a gun can act of it’s own accord.

People who don’t have the deadliest of weapons readily available to them cannot kill as many innocents as people who do. Right?

you’re not going to repeal the 2nd amendment.

No? Why not?

And what *do *you propose to do about the crazy-people problem?

[Kimstu]

I said it before and I’ll say it again:

@Kimstu on 10-21-2007

Liberal/lefty here. I have nothing particular against guns (unless somebody’s pointing one at me) and do not favor draconian gun control measures. I personally would prefer to live in a culture with fewer guns and less gun violence, but I think if a significant number of Americans feel differently, their views should be respected.

However, I think that the concept of gun ownership as an individual “right” is silly and counterproductive. It made some sense back in the late 18th century when individual weapon ownership actually could have some impact on government control. At this point, though, individual gun ownership doesn’t do jack to protect individuals from the government, nor does it have any connection with the concept of a “well-regulated militia”. The only practical purpose served by the Second Amendment today is to give a few militaristic hotheads an excuse for fetishizing gun ownership, and for pretending that the mere ownership of firearms somehow counts as some kind of noble stand for liberty.

People (at least, rational law-abiding people) who like guns and want to own them are fine in my book. People who want to glorify gun ownership for its own sake, on the other hand, range from merely tiresome to downright scary. I say we keep the guns and get rid of the Second Amendment.

@Kimstu on 02-24-2012

This is why I favor both legal gun ownership and repealing the Second Amendment.

I think owning guns is fine for (most of) the people who want to own them, and I see no merit in draconian gun bans for law-abiding people. But I think treating gun ownership as an inalienable right just clouds the issue.

It may have been different back in colonial times, but at this point there’s no more intrinsic sense in a constitutional right to own a gun than in a constitutional right to own an axe or a car. Keep the guns but lose the Second Amendment, sez I.

[QuickSilver]

So that would make gun ownership a privilege, not a right. I suppose people may treat it with slightly more respect than a given right because a privilege can be lost. But people with criminal records (for example) already have their rights abridged with respect to gun ownership, is that right? So can you explain how this will be beneficial in reducing gun violence?

[Kimstu]

@QuickSilver

So that would make gun ownership a privilege, not a right. I suppose people may treat it with slightly more respect than a given right because a privilege can be lost. But people with criminal records (for example) already have their rights abridged with respect to gun ownership, is that right? So can you explain how this will be beneficial in reducing gun violence?

By reducing the exaggerated veneration and paranoid militancy that many foolish people associate with gun ownership. As Magiver rightly notes, “the gun is not the problem”.

The fundamental problem is the (minority of) people who romanticize the concept of gun ownership and gun use to the point where it overwhelms basic common sense about safety precautions. The Second Amendment, with its aura of plucky-underdog patriotic heroism and Freedom and Liberty and so forth, just exacerbates that response (if indeed it isn’t the primary inspiration for it).

Practical measures for directly mitigating gun violence in specific contexts will of course be much more local and smaller-scale, and many if not all of them can be implemented even with the Second Amendment still in place. (For instance, more stringent requirements about securing guns when not in use, and so forth.)

But AFAICT, this thread is not primarily a ways-and-means discussion of what practical reforms in regulation would be the most effective measures against disastrous misuse of guns. Rather, it’s an exploration of whether and why we should radically re-examine or renounce the notion of gun ownership as a fundamental Constitutional right.

And I think we should, for the reasons I quoted. IMO, the core of our problem isn’t gun ownership but gun worship. It’s not the mere enjoyment of shooting guns and the realistic recognition that they can sometimes be useful that ultimately leads many American gun owners into stupid and reckless behavior.

Rather, it’s the cultural miasma of crazy impractical fantasies about guns somehow automatically making you heroic and patriotic. These fantasies are largely fueled by our uniquely American cult of the Second Amendment, and I think it would be healthier for all of us (and more conducive to sensible and moderate gun regulation) to de-pathologize guns by giving up that cult.

ETA: Oh, and I meant to add: hello SRM-ND, and welcome to the Straight Dope!

[John_Mace]

@Kimstu

I said it before and I’ll say it again:

Agreed. As I have said before as well!

[QuickSilver]

I agree. I think it would be a big step in the right direction. Thanks for elaborating.