I don't get liberal gun laws.

[Josh_Kablack]

The real issue is that the law wasn't written based on how dangerous a given gun is,

And I urge my fellow American citizens to look at the specifics of the fairly recently expired "assualt weapons ban", which had similar craziness in it. Yet everybody agreed that it worked as intended - which I couldn't figure out until my buddy Will pointed out that these crazy laws about what shape the grip was and where a gun was manufactured gave prosecuters an extra charge to tack on against criminals.

[PhoneLobster]

I fail to follow the excessively stupid argument currently being put forward.

Is it that because some current gun laws include some flaws we simple should therefore have no gun laws at all?

Because thats a really dumb argument people.

Might as well say the same thing about running a fricking civilization in the first place.

[Draco_Argentum]

No the arguement is that a bunch of fucks shouldn't be writing law.

Alternatly, Australian gun law isn't all that and a bag of chips. Better than the US mess, but thats really frigging easy.

[Lago_AM3P]

This is thread necromancy of the worst sort, but even if guns were 100% effective as an intruder/crime deterrent isn't the number of people who get killed/hurt in accidental shootings greater than the number of people who get killed by criminals?

[Crissa]

Yes.

The number of people hurt in accidental shootings is high. The number of people shot by their own guns by intruders is nonzero. The number of intrusions which target the firearms exclusively is enough so that homes with firearms are broken into more often.

It's really not something that's studied, because gun owners are anathema to having anything recorded.

-Crissa

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Here's a question for the anti-gun people.

Do you beleive in gun control enough to see other people die for it?

I ask that because if they criminalized gun ownership, there would be civil war. There's nothing around, no logic or words you could use that would make gun owners agree with you.

It would involve sending in armed soldiers to people's houses to get the guns and more than likely they would respond with deadly force.

Would you fight for gun control? Would you die for gun control? Or would you gather in Starbucks while other people fought and died for your cause while talking about how great it is to be a socialist?

I'm curious.

[Prak]

except that criminals don't follow laws in the first place, that's kinda why they're criminals. If we make it harder to obtain guns, I personally, IMHO, think it would just result in a lot of unfortunate victimizations between people with illegally obtained guns and law-abiding people that could have been easily avoided if the law abiding person had a nice 12 gauge that can scare off most criminals just by the sound of it being pumped.


"When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."

The basic idea, at least this was the idea when damn near everyone carried swords, is that an armed society is a polite society, because if you don't know how good the other guy is with that rapier at his hip, you won't want to piss him off unless you are cocky or know with certainty that you can handle yourself.

Of course this doesn't work nowadays, because we are not a society that, by and large, knows the meaning of the word "polite".

[Cielingcat]

Prak, I think Frank explained, in detail, why that is wrong in this very thread.

[Koumei]

He did. Page one.

Also, I learned something new and important in reading this:

Bears are CRAZY! 5 million people a day!

[Cielingcat]

Second, Koumei, second.

[Prak]

1194069158[/unixtime]]Prak, I think Frank explained, in detail, why that is wrong in this very thread.

meh, I didn't feel like reading the whole thread... so sue me.

[Cielingcat]

We won't sue you, but we sure won't listen to what you have to say.

[Crissa]

Especially when it leans into moon-bat loon territory.

Sure, you can say someone can defend themself with a firearm, but at the same time you are hand waving away the additional deaths from accidents, theft, and weapons turned upon their owners.

There is no data to support the conclusion that more firearms makes for less murders, violence, of crime of any sort. In fact, much the opposite seems to occur - at least the less death part.

-Crissa

[PhoneLobster]

There is also no evidence of a civil war scenario either.

Meanwhile the gun owners in many cases are already holding society to ransom and, on occasion, running rampage killing people as part of various random insane agendas.

These people can and will organize to do political lobbying and engage in other actions essentially sanctioned by society. But what if any evidence is there that they would actually attempt to overturn society in organized rebellion?

To suggest that there would be any reaction that is in anyway measurably worse than the status quo seems a bit wing nutty.

And even if it were true, I mean holy crap, a group of people that want to protect their right to cause needless death (however inadvertent it may usually be) by threatening to deliberately cause more needless death?

What the heck?

Is there an empathy angle in there because I'm not seeing it.

It looks more like an attempt to exploit beaten wife syndrome to me.

[Cielingcat]

Well, a lot of gun-nuts say that they will in fact resist any attempt to take their guns away with deadly force. Whether this is internet bravado or plain lunacy, I cannot say.

[MrWaeseL]

Whenever I hear that I think of rednecks named chuck that use terms like "shootn gun" and "varmin".

[Koumei]

Oddly enough, so do I.

[Sir Neil]

1194086132[/unixtime]]Well, a lot of gun-nuts say that they will in fact resist any attempt to take their guns away with deadly force. Whether this is internet bravado or plain lunacy, I cannot say.

Was the civil rights movement lunacy? You have to understand that Americans can take their Constitutional rights very seriously.

Since this board is filled with commies and socialists, imagine how they'd flip out if people were urging that we repeal other ammendments they like more than the 2nd and 10th. Heck, you don't even have to imagine -- you can watch them flip out because they see President Bush as weakening the 1st and 8th.

[Koumei]

Which one is which, again?

And the board is filled with Socialists and Commies? Woah. Being a foreigner (to America), I guess that'd make me one of the Communists, right?

[Prak]

So was the revolutionary war lunacy?

anyway, I can understand the rationale in taking away everyone's guns in hopes of a safer society. Really, I can. What I can't understand, is the fact that some people seem to honestly think that gun crime would go down any significant amount... Sure, accidents would go down. Course accidents would also ostensibly go down if we actually trained people to use their guns correctly and if parents made damned sure their kids either couldn't find the guns, or, better to my mind, that their kids know what guns do and are trained in gun safety. My girlfriend has been shooting since she could hold a gun, and she's never accidently shot anyone... now her dad has been accidently shot by a hunting dog, but he's a dumbass like that... I've never shot a real gun in my life, but I knew what the hell they did, and that you don't point a gun you just found in some cabinet at your friend, regardless of where you found the cabinet. Basically, children need to stop being coddled, and need to be taught guns are made to kill people and that society looks very dimly upon this. Saturday morning cartoons are to blame for the problem of
"Hey cool! A gun!"
"Is it loaded?"
"I don't think so, heheh BANG!"
-apparently it was loaded-
"OH SHIT!"
because they don't show that guns kill people.

look, if you actually teach people, accidents should go to the lowest possible level without taking guns away altogether.

[Username17]

1194102309[/unixtime]]Which one is which, again?

OK, here they are:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Basically it says that the United States needs to have armed forces and that people have a right to fight in those armed forces on behalf of the State. So technically it's unconstitutional to kick someone out of the army for being black, or gay, or any other adjective. Heck, it might seriously be unconstitutional to kick people out of the army for being fat or blind. You know, depending on what you mean by "well regulated".

This bill gets kicked in the nuts all the time, since of course unpopular groups get kicked out of the army all the time. And while I'm opposed to that sort of thing on a strictly strategic level, it's indeed hard for me to care over much. I personally worked in the paramilitary Emergency Medical System rather than the actual military, so my right to join the actual militia is not something which I am ever intending upon exercising.

Of course, the crazy-hat part is that the NRA keeps insisting that they should be allowed to fight on behalf of the nation on their own time - that is that the 2nd ammendment actually allows them to form their own militias and go out and fight vigilante style. I am unable to follow this line of logic, since the amendment specifies a well regulated militia that is defending the state, and not for example a completely unreglated militia that defends whatever they feel like defending.

And that kind of weakening of the amendment I am deeply opposed to. That's straight bullshit and it offends me when people do it.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

This one is pretty much completely meaningless. Since the federal government has the ability to speak "for the people", there really isn't any net effect of this ammendment. Sometimes someone in one state or another will try to get all uppity and use this as justification for something or other, but it basically never ever works because of the weasel words put into the original statment. In 1931 the Supreme Court stated this fairly explicitly with the statement that the 10th ammendment "added nothing to the [Constitution] as originally ratified."

So really, if the 10th ammendment were "weakened" or taken away entirely, I wouldn't even notice. It doesn't do anything now, so it's removal from the Constitution would cause me no more pain than the removal of the 18th.

Now, the ones that indeed I am shaken with shame at the weakening of:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Torture. I am opposed to it. Your nation cannot claim the moral high ground if you do it.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This one I'm actually a little shaky on, because the way it has been intrepeted (that those with the money to own the press can do whatever they want and the rest of you can stuff it) is actually a method to establish a plutocratic and hereditary fourth estate. I'd like that to not happen.

-Username17

[power_word_wedgie]

1194105309[/unixtime]]I am unable to follow this line of logic, since the amendment specifies a well regulated militia that is defending the state, and not for example a completely unreglated militia that defends whatever they feel like defending.

And that kind of weakening of the amendment I am deeply opposed to. That's straight bullshit and it offends me when people do it.

I think the thing is that it says "well regulated," not "well regulated by the government." Thus, it introduces latitude to the source of regulation. However, as was shown by Washington's response to Shay's rebellion, a very plausible argument could be made for the latter interpretation and that it wasn't meant as a check and balance to the US government.

At any rate, if I was to get in a rebellious mood, as is shown in Iraq, I'm not going to be using a gun; I'm going to be using IEDs - I'll leave it to Homer to try to stop a M1A1 Abrams with a pump-action shotgun ...

[tzor]

1194049502[/unixtime]]This is thread necromancy of the worst sort, but even if guns were 100% effective as an intruder/crime deterrent isn't the number of people who get killed/hurt in accidental shootings greater than the number of people who get killed by criminals?

It's only 6 months, I've seen some that have been 2 or more years.

I am a firm believer in the 2nd Amendment of the constitution. I believe that all Americans have a right to own black powder muzzle loading flintlock muskets as the founding fathers believed it was necessary for a well regulated militia. Pity I don't actually own any black powder muzzle loading muskets; they actually have a special hunting season for them, as they do bow hunters.

So let's take the second amendment and ignore it. It's really a diversion to the real argument just in the same way people use Roe v Wade to ignore the real issues in the abortion argument.

Let's face it, guns kill people. Cars kill people to and I see a whole lot of people out on the road who really should not be behind a wheel. Even with requirements for diver's licenses we get people behind the wheel doing very dangerous things. I am a firm supporter of a system that ensures that not only people who should not have arms not get arms but that people who have arms should at all times be aware of the potential danger of those arms and should be at all times responsible for them.

I still consider myself a hunter even though I haven't hunted in many years. I remember my trips to Maine, driving through the interstates of Mass unable literally to exit the interstate because technically I would be in violation of the law for possession of a hunting rifle necessary to hunt bear with. Yes even though the ammo was in a locked box in another part of the car, only the federal laws of the U.S. Interstate system allowed me to bring my own gun into Maine.

We had a crazy this week (on Halloween by the way) with a shotgun loose in the area after being spotted at the local Hess gas station. We have had some people enter other people's homes. And this is a "nice" area. I can see the possible need for people to protect themselves. Not everyone needs such a protection but some may need the potential of the possibility of such protection. (The uncertainty that someone might have a gun in their house is just as effective a deterrent as having a gun in the house. It doesn't help that in our current insane legal system it is better to kill an intruder than to wound one.)

There needs to be a happy medium on the question of gun ownership. Actually there always has been a happy medium. It's all on how you define the arms of the second amendment. We regulate things like fully automatic weapons, we limit the types of weapons that can be used for hunting in various areas and even when those weapons can be used. We probably need to rewrite the second amendment.

Personally I think every child should be required to know how to properly load, fire and clean a revolutionary war black powder muzzle loading rifle, because we need those experts for a proper militia!

[CalibronXXX]

I greatly advocate education as the solution to the gun accidents problem. And while illegalizing guns would likely make gun related crime less common if it was paired with a concerted effort to collect and melt down or otherwise destroy non-government owned guns, it certainly wouldn't wipe it out entirely; and it would make citizens and businesses less able to defend themselves from criminals who do go to the lengths to acquire guns.

I'm in favor of making/keeping it mildly difficult to acquire a gun, especially a hand gun, but requiring sufficient firearm education course for both gun owners and their families.

1194105309[/unixtime]]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This one I'm actually a little shaky on, because the way it has been intrepeted (that those with the money to own the press can do whatever they want and the rest of you can stuff it) is actually a method to establish a plutocratic and hereditary fourth estate. I'd like that to not happen.

-Username17

What? I can see how that stops the government from forcing the press, who is controlled by some of the people with the most money/power, to tell the whole truth, or even the truth at all, but you completely lost me on the whole plutoctratic fourth estate thing. I'd appreciate a link or explanation if you can spare one.

[Username17]

The concept of the Fourth Estate is that in a society which is run regularly or irregularly on popular referendums, that whoever controls what people know about the contents and effects of those referendums essentially dictates much of public policy. In short, that the republic is based around the concept of focussing the outrage of citizenry in order to affect change. Thus only issues which receive a lot of public discussion can be subject to intervention by the body politic.

And thus, in any sufficiently large society control of the press is equivalent to controlling the judiciary or the legislature. A public debate on how much we should invade country X can really only lead to invading that country, for example.

The United States has a guaranty in the constitution that the people who own the press can do pretty much anything they want. And that's obviously pretty dangerous. It got us into the Spanish American War, for example. Hell, FOX News is an explicit propaganda arm of a man who isn't even an American!

---

I would like to see a press that was responsible in some way to the people it purportedly serves. Either by having some sort of actual non-partisan national media run by technocrats or by having a parliamentized body of truthtelling in which peoples' actual views were in some manner expressed in the editorial boards.

The thing we have now, where society is too large for individuals to get their message out without the cooperation of the media, and the media is owned by powerful and frankly evil plutocrats - that's not a good system. So while I'm in favor of "free information", the "free press" has not turned out to mean that in our implementation.

-Username17