Only if you think that the sole reason people do illegal things is they have no choice, being addicted and all. But, ok…how did the crackdown on the black market work in the Soviet Union to prevent citizens from buying jeans and other things even though the government had harsh penalties against it? How does it work in North Korea stopping pirated South Korean dramas and music in? Or in China stopping citizens from surfing the web using VPNs, even though you could go to some pretty harsh jail time for doing so? Or do those analogies also not work because they aren’t in the US?
If the federal govt repealed the 2nd, that would free up states or even cities to make their own gun laws. Chicago could declare itself a gun free zone, and arrest anyone in it with a gun. California could ban 30 round magazines.
Repealing the second amendment doesn’t automatically make guns illegal, it just gives states the right to regulate them within their borders.
Any jackhole with a farm and a chemistry set can manufacture drugs anywhere they can get a private moment. Guns and ammo, on the other hand, are manufactured in large rather visible factories. Whose inventory and sales in-country can be tracked. Yes, smuggling would remain an issue, but few people are going to carry a pistol in a baggie shoved up their butt. (And even fewer would do that with a rifle.)
I’m really not sure the situations are comparable.
So… imaginary boogeymen, then.
Know what? That’s pretty much what us gun non-owners think about you, when we ponder how much better off we’d all be without you having the means to threaten us and others with them.
So who should stand down? Should the amendment, a “bad law” as you describe it, be revered or repealed?
The three laws I listed could be enacted at the federal level, forcing the states to deal with it. And I would fully expect the states to use their new freedom to make further laws customized to their preferences and populaces. For example I would expect Texas not to ban ownership of guns, whereas California might just say ‘screw you’ and seize the lot of them.
Is buying on the black market as convenient and inexpensive as walking into a store and buying the product you are legally allowed to have?
Why are people trying to get weed legalized, when they can just get it on the black market?
Oh, sure, the fed could enact such laws, and maybe they should, but, just kicking it back to the states, and allowing the states to set their gun policies would be a pretty big step.
Chicago already can arrest almost anyone with a gun. There is an ocean of guns in the city, and legal ones are just a drop in it. So being able to arrest almost anyone with a gun doesn’t do Chicago much good does it?
A pretty big step towards what? Is your opinion that things would be better if the fed did nothing other than throw open the door to all kinds of gun law and then stood back to quietly watch the results?
Me personally, I think that allowing the states to stratify too hard as “gun-having” and “gun-hating” states could develop into a cultural schism that could invite more trouble than just having guns everywhere currently does.
The proper measures are: passage by two-thirds of the U.S. House of Representatives, passage by two-thirds of the U. S. Senate, and then ratification by majorities of the legislative houses of 38 states.
In a world where this happens, the “various factions” are quite different from this actual world, so it’s difficult to hazard a guess. I’d probably need to know what types of changes happened to allow this kind of political will to exist. In other words, the free-standing repeal of the Second Amendment without other changes in the nation’s politics is not possible.
If your hypothetical is, in effect, “Well, just imagine that it is possible without any other changes,” I can’t, because your next questions relate to reactions. Does the same magic spell that quelled political opposition to the repeal affect other attitudes as well? The various factions will react in whatever way the spell mandates, I guess.
This is a bit like asking, “What if Jesus returned and the world ended with Armageddon, as described in the Bible: what would the atheists do?” The atheists for the most part would, I assume, no longer exist, having gotten evidence of their error. But that’s the kind of event that would change so much that it’s simply not meaningful or possible to extrapolate future behavior. “Would the atheists admit they were wrong?” Who knows? Maybe they would, acknowledging new evidence; maybe they wouldn’t, saying that their original posture was justified by what was known at the time; maybe our new celestial existence would make such speculations meaningless.
So in order to answer this question I’d have to know what changed to make the repeal sail through as it did.
I don’t and never have owned a gun.
Many people who think outlawing guns will do any good disprove their own point by using illegal drugs. They’re banned but people get em, right?
Not sure. How does it work in Japan and England? Why aren’t there roaming gangs of criminals with guns terrorizing the unarmed populace?
Most of which come from next door in Indiana, where their sale is virtually unregulated. FTR.
Criminals? I know that’s a hard one for you to get your head around.
Your best case is to end up like Canada.
Your worst case is to end up mostly like Canada with some large pockets that are simply too rude to be like Canada so you either let them secede or have Civil War II.
If there are legal ones in the mix, then it does make it harder to arrest anyone you see with a gun. If someone is going to sue your officers for having his civil rights violated because they asked to see his gun registration, then they aren’t going to check anytime they see a gun. If people are discouraged from calling the police when they see someone with a gun, because they are “just exercising their second amendment rights” then they aren’t going to check on people who are carrying around guns.
Better? Not really, but more politically feasible, sure.
Different states have different populations and different needs. A one size fits all from the fed may not work as well as could be desired. At least some level of input from the states should be considered.
Everytime we have a massive shooting like this, and those of us who are concerned about the death toll are told that there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it as long as 2A exists, you undermine 2A’s power in the eyes of the public. A few more shootings like this, and continued unreasoning refusal to compromise, and the public will be having a very serious conversation about repeal. You think the friends and family of those wounded or killed are going to support your right to keep the things that killed their loved one?
This will not be the last shooting. There will be more. Copycats and other assholes. If we change nothing, then we change nothing.
A couple shootings like this a year? One a month? Every other week? Once a week?
You tell me what level of violence the public will accept before they decide to take away that shield?
Which is why there is no move to legalize marijuana, because it is so easy to get ahold of.
If criminals are such a real and present danger, why isn’t there a gun in your trousers?
The numbers of guns held by private, law abiding citizens in the US is quite mind boggling. People point to the Australian example where a relatively few guns were turned in, and say it can be done in the US too.
Although the FBI data on back ground checks is not a direct correlation with actual purchases, it is pretty close and can be used to illustrate the scope of gun purchases and ownership in the US.
These background checks run about 2 million checks each and every month. The often quoted 300 million guns in the US is wildly out of date. It is probably double that.
To remove these guns would require a police state not yet seen on this planet. And the will to follow through with it.
I’m not sure political feasability is an issue if they just repealed the goddamn second amendment.
And I spent several seconds - perhaps even many seconds - coming up with a list of laws that could probably be enacted at the federal level without instantly causing revolt, and which would, given time (a very long time) have the effect of diminishing the number of free-range guns in this country. (And also one law to stop gun-toting mobs from storming through towns because holy fuck.) While I can easily imagine other laws that would, as you say, not work as well as desired at the federal level (like mass seizure), I’d think those three would be fine. Certainly the first two, at a minimum.