My point is, saying “You have a natural (or God-given) right to have a fully automatic rifle, but not to the optional grenade-launcher attachment” pretty clearly implies to me that there is some degree of “balancing” going on here between the “natural right to self-defense” and various other social needs, other people’s “rights”, etc. Just saying “it’s a right” doesn’t automatically shut down the argument.
Which I think was the point of the OP of this thread to begin with.
:rolleyes: And once again we hear the old cry, “If you believe people should own be able to own guns, it means that you believe people should own nuclear weapons.” Please. How many times do we have to explain the difference between firearms and ordnance? One more time…
A grenade, a mortar, nuclear/biological/chemical devices, explosives, etc. are area weapons. A gun has to be pointed at its target.
Johnny, could you please respond to the argument MEB actually made, instead of the one you just wrote for him?
His point is more accurately paraphrased as: “If you say that people have a right to own weapon x, but should be prohibited from owning weapon z, then you must recognize at some level that all individual rights within the context of a society are limited according to their impact on other members of that society.”
More clear?
What he said was: “You have a natural (or God-given) right to have a fully automatic rifle, but not to the optional grenade-launcher attachment…” I pointed out that there is a difference between a grenade and a firearm. Of course grenades should be prohibited because they are area weapons and are indiscriminate.
But you mention “mpact on other members of that society.” According to this, from the 103rd Congress, only 1 or 2 percent of the guns used in crimes are “assault weapons”. How many is that? Well, there are something close to 300,000,000 privately held firearms in this country. I don’t know how many firearms are used in crimes (and “used in crimes” includes those firearms that are just incidentally in the possession of a criminal whether or not they were actually used in the commission of the crime), but last time I had the figures it worked out to less than one tenth of one percent. In addition, there are between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 people per year who use their firearms defensively according to the NRA (of which I am not a member). Clearly, guns in our society are more beneficial than detrimental.
Yes, we have to “draw the line somewhere”. I think it is reasonable to draw the line between discriminate weapons, such as firearms, and indiscriminate weapons, such as explosives or NBC devices.
This whole direction of “humans have an innate right to self-defense” with regards to gun control issues tends to just move into a rathole.
Certainly, any just society allows for self-defense. But that doesn’t necessarily equate to some innate right to own handguns.
Should you be born into a society without a proliferation of guns, then you would have no need for a “right to bear arms” for self-defense. In this case, I can easily agree with Johnny L.A. when he says “it is reasonable that the defender should have access to tools at least equal to those that may be used against him or her.”
So you see a gun confiscation argument coming, right? Wrong. In the US, at least, the second amendment guarantees the citizens right to bear arms to protect the peoples, not the person. But that implies, and even requires, some proliferation of guns.
That leads to the justification for the use of arms for self-defense purposes. And it further leads to suggest that the line should be drawn at those weapons that are “at least equal to those that may be used against him or her.” And that tends to argue for the status quo.
I fail to see how the arms/ordnance distintion is all that helpful here. Are fully automatic machine guns “arms” or “area” weapons? Are they discriminate, or indiscriminate?
And how are “reasonable restrictions” somehow an affront to these ideals? Can we all agree that convicted felons lose their right to own and bear arms? Can we all agree that concealed carry by everyone, everywhere is not a good thing?
If so, the OP asks a valid question. Where do you draw the line?
And for me, it is damn near where the line is already drawn - the status quo.
Johnny (and anyone else interested): Here’s the USDoJ Bureau of Justice Statistics page on Firearms and Crime Statistics.
Due to the fact that crimes prevented are rarely reported, there are no solid statistics available on DGU’s. Here we have the BoJS data showing about 82,000 DGU’s annually (generally* considered too low an estimate). At the other end of the scale, we have Kleck’s 2 million + estimate (generally* considered too high an estimate).
*“Generally” meaning by most of the nonpartisan discussions I’ve read or participated in. YMMV, of course.
“A gun puts a projectile at one target and colateral damage is restricted to misses or ricochets, or less frequently by the projectile going through the target. Your NBC argument is utterly silly.” -Johnny LA
Obviously not that silly since you mention misses and ricochets in the previous sentence.
Anyway, my original point was that the 2nd Amendment is useless. It doesn’t help in any gun control debate and, if anything, its ambiguity allows any Joe Schmoe to believe that he has the right own a weapon that is capable of ending lives.
So let’s throw the 2nd amendment out the window and start all over. I think that we’re smart enough as a society to figure out what’s better for us.
I don’t have time to answer everyone right now, so …
And while we’re at it, why not get rid of the Fourth Amendment? It would make it much easier to catch and punish criminals if we didn’t have to deal with those pesky warrants.
Oh, and the First Amendment allows those protesters to gather in Seattle, and you saw what happens when we allow people to protest! Violence! As long as we’re picking apart the Bill of Rights, we’d better get rid of this one. If we take away the right to assemble, then we won’t have eny more riots!
There are two ways of modifying the Constitution: Either pass an Amendment that repeals an earlier Amendment, or hold another Constitutional Convention and start from scratch. If we start from scratch, that means everything is up for grabs – even our precious First Amendment rights. I don’t think you want to do that.
I think I have a cunning plan that will satisfy the arguments on both siddes of the 2nd ammendment fence.
We make it mandatory for every household to be armed, in order to provide for the common defence, etc. However, this would be limited to a smoothbore musket and a brace of flintlock pistols. Powder and shot would be freely available at all convenience and hardware stores. All other firearms would be illegal.
Householders could protect their belonging and fight off those black helicopters, yet dirtbags wouldn’t be able to hose down their local Wal-Mart because the their girlfriend dumped them.
pretty slick, eh?
I’d vote for that !
Can you do anything to revise those other tricky amendments ?
Jacknifed Juggernaut
Are you kidding!!! First of all, the 2nd Amendment isn’t useless. It’s one of the basic rights that our Founding Fathers wanted to make sure we had the ability to retain…that of being able to defend our rights against a government trying to take them away! I’m NOT talking about being able to defend ourselves against criminals…that was such a basic principle that it was considered equal to breathing…not even worth discussion.
It (the 2nd Amendment) may be confusing to people who seemingly want to see it written in today’s legalese, so that every possible permutation and consequence is covered, but that’s just not the case. Sorry.
And having the right to “own a weapon that is capable of ending lives”…does this also extend to baseball bats, which can be used to kill? Cars? Chair slats? 2x4’s? Nail guns? Jacknives? Hands?
Yes, Yes, I know…a gun is specifically designed for killing, where the other items will kill only if mis-used. But that kind of begs the question, doesn’t it? EVEN IF we were to somehow outlaw ALL GUNS…OF EVERY SIZE, SHAPE AND MAKE…human beings will find other ways to kill each other. So the basic idea that getting rid of guns makes this world somehow a safer place is, almost by definition, a nonsensical argument.
NONE OF WHICH has to do with what I consider to be the reason for the 2nd Amendment in the first place: to give us (the citizens) the ability to defend ourselves against our own government. There is another thread going on here that covers pretty much this same discussion…if I can only figure out how to do the URL’s, I’ll post it.
Toaster52- Yeah, it’s just as easy to kill 20 people in McDonalds (or office) with a 2x4. Go tell that to the survivors of 101 California, or any of the other massacres.
People kill people, but guns make it a whole heckuva lot easier. And don’t give me that BS about protection. The US is far and away the leader in death by firearm (in the developed world). Seems like the citizens of Sweden have plenty of protection without having a trusty .38.
I should say up front that, all things considered, I like the Second Amendment and don’t favor a ban of firearms in the U.S. Some of the arguments in this thread, however, need to be addressed.
These posts are actually talking about two different things. The first is dealing with the moral right to own firearms, to which the law should apparently conform (i.e., what the law should be). The second is dealing with the liberties that the law actually recognizes (i.e., what the law is). I happen to think a great deal of confusion is caused by the fact that we don’t have separate words to adequately describe these different concepts.
Of course, to the extent that one believes law is inherently tied to morality (that “immoral” law is no “law” at all), this distinction may be moot.
Johnny L.A.:
Sure, but this is really quite beside the point that those who favor strict arms-control are trying to make. The question is not whether you’d prefer to have a gun when defending yourself against someone else with a gun, but whether you’d prefer the situation in which your attacker is likely to have a gun and you may have one, or the situation in which neither you nor the attacker are likely at all to have a gun.
See above. If yor aim is to reduce gun violence, then it is certainly not clear that guns are more beneficial than detrimental.
As has been touched upon, your “between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000” figure is essentially a guess; it strikes me as high, but I could of course be wrong. We can say, with a considerably higher degree of certainty, that there were about 533,000 serious violent crimes in the U.S. in 2000 in which the attacker had a gun, and about 10,200 murders committed with a firearm (from the DoJ site that xenophon linked). While much of this crime could doubtless be committed in much the same way in an environment without guns, the presence of guns certainly makes many of the crimes more feasible, effective, and/or deadly. Given that the downsides of widespread availability of firearms are well documented and serious, and that the benefits of said availability are largely unquantifiable, it hardly seems “clear” that guns are generally beneficial to society.
Tedster:
Can you provide any evidence to back this up? Have you conducted a psychoananlysis of millions of people, most of whom you’ll never meet, that leads you to this conclusion?
Seriously, though: do you honestly believe that gun-control advocates are basically leftists who are fearful of a (presumably more conservative) populace which is a threat to them when armed? It’s possible, I suppose, but is that the simplest or most likely case? I think not, especially when there is a perfectly reasonable argument to be made for gun-control from a public policy standpoint. From this site, describing gun violence in the UK, where private gun ownership is essentially forbidden (sorry, my brief search turned up nothing more authoritative, but the numbers below jibe with what I’ve read and heard elsewhere):
Compare those numbers – from 7 to 39 – with the 10,000+ U.S. gun homicides in 2000.
Given the above statistics, can we agree that there is a strong causal link between widespread availability of guns and actual gun violence? Can we also agree that violent crimes involving firearms – on balance, over time – are more dangerous and/or destructive than violent crimes involving lesser weapons (kinives, bats, etc.)?
If we can agree on these things (and, to a large extent, even if we can’t), I would suggest that calling gun-control “evil” isn’t particularly helpful. There are perfectly reasonable arguments to be made by both sides, and there is plenty of room for rational, informed men to disagree. Besides, the moral issue is hardly as clear-cut as you make it out to be. Some could argue, for example, that the availability of guns makes crime (and, hence, society in general) more dangerous, and thus threatens the security of everyone, especially those who do not wish to purchase firearms (or can’t afford to). The gun-owner’s perceived security, then, would come at the expense of the non-gun owner’s security. Any natural “right to bare arms” (stemming from a right to self-defense, supposedly) has to be balanced against this.
Great Dave
Sorry, but I’ll have to, as it seems you’re missing my point. When you are talking about the citizens of Sweden having “plenty of protection without having a trusty .38”, I can only assume that you’re talking about them having to defend themselves against criminals. Why? Because I don’t happen to see the citizens of Sweden FIGHTING OFF THEIR GOVERNMENT.
I’m NOT talking about the 2nd Amendment being in place so that we can defend ourselves against intruders, I’m talking about the 2nd Amendment being in place to give us (hopefully never, but IF NECESSARY) a means to prevent us from the government arbitrarily taking away our rights and freedoms.
Toaster – So, we have much more reason to fear our gov’t than the people of, say, Sweden (or any other liberal democracy). I’m a little skeptical. Do you really think that our gov’t will try to take away our rights and freedoms at gunpoint? G.W. Bush, et al, seem to be getting a lot done under threat of national security. And if, IF, there comes a day where the military is deployed to shoot at their fellow Americans, do you think they really would? And do you think that having a few handguns and a shotgun will really put you at an advantage over a well trained (albeit outnumbered) force with tanks? Both seem higly unlikely.
Of course there’s a causal relationship between guns and crime.
Problem is, most, if not all, legislation enacted only affects law abiding citizens, rendering large areas de facto “Unarmed Victim Zones.”
If I agreed that Americans should be disarmed (unlikely, but for the sake of argument) and every single weapon could be magically confiscated (impossible) then I could see how this would be OK apart from the tyrannical aspect. (insane)
With all that, then, the folly of gun control is an incremental and creeping confiscation which leaves law abiding citizens unarmed and prey to criminals with firearms. We’ve witnessed decades of carnage and slaughter in part because of this.
Honestly, what is the likelihood of US or Swedish citizens having to fight their government and therefore requiring guns?
Pretty low. I know it never hurts to be prepared, but this argument about having to resist the government in case it suddenly turns evil strikes me as paranoiac and undemocratic (because gunfire would be used to resist the government instead of the avenues of democracy, which have worked even under the steel grip of Milosevic).
Besides, if the mightiest army in the world wanted to subjugate its population, they could probably do so quite easily thanks to superior technology and training. They could gas entire areas of land and then pick off any gas-mask owners while sitting comfortably behind something armoured. They could bomb trouble spots to teach everyone a lesson, while never coming within gun range. Rabble citizen militias worked a few hundred years ago, but could they resist the government today? I doubt it.
Assuming the US government takes away all the rights and freedoms of citizens, I guess firearms would be handy, even if they probably couldn’t match the capability of the equipment the government could use against citizens. The question is, if that is why so many people in the US feel they must own a gun, why aren’t they handled the way they are in Switzerland, for example, where they are kept locked safely away until the moment they are needed?
Anyway, from my observations people own guns because guns make them feel powerful, not because the government might suddenly deny its citizens basic rights.
[Neanderthal]Og say, man who puts faith in pointy stick sees angry cave bear everywhere.[/Neanderthal]
xeno: You can have my pointy stick when you pry it from what remains of my cold dead hands after the cave bear is finished gnawing on my corpse.
I can’t believe I hadn’t ever considered this before, but the comparison of those two numbers strikes me as excellent evidence that the DGU numbers are greatly exaggerated. I simply cannot fathom how guns are used to prevent crimes between two and four times as often they are used to commit crimes when:[ul]
[li]Most households don’t even have guns[/li][li]Those that do have guns aren’t likely to be anywhere near them when a crime occurs, whether because they’re out of the home or they just don’t have time to get it[/li][li]The bad guys nearly always have the element of surprise on their side[/li][/ul] Anyway, that’s an excellent observation you made, and I plan to steal it for future debates. 
Abe wrote:
Wow!! Who are these people that you’ve observed? I wouldn’t want to hang around that gang. Do you think that they own guns to compensate for something they maybe lacking?