Is there room for compromise in gun rights vs gun control?

I dont follow the NRA closely, but if the pres said 'every american' i thinks its reasonable to preseume he meant 'every *legal and responsible* american'. I know for a fact the NRA doesnt promote criminals and children carrying firearms, for example.
Currently, roughly 1 out of every hundred people you encounter is legally concealing a firearm, and and about the same number is illegally concealing a firearm. Given the number of people you come within 'shooting distance' of by simply going to the grocery or the mall, you have encountered hundreds or thousands of people carrying guns in your life. How often have you witnessed or been in close proximity to someone firing their weapon criminally or irresponsibly? On what trend or pattern are you basing the fear that more people with legally carried guns are going to substantially increase the rate of public shooting to 'hollywood western movie set' levels?

 

And criminals do not need the 2nd amendment to obtain their guns.

 

I agree completely with your #1, and partially with your #2, except that I don't see the need for unlimited access to automatic weapons for the general public.

 

If what you say is true about 2 out of every 100 Americans carrying a concealed firearm at any given time, how does that make America a better place?

 

well, currently, theres about a 2% chance that anyone you try to mug, rob, rape or kill has a lethal means of fighting back. Its a deterrant. More deterrant = less victims in the long run.

 

Good reply. I'll accept that.

 

Compromise doesn't work when it involves unalienable rights. I'm not going to compromise on freedom of press, religion, bearing arms, or any of the other enumerated rights. Compromising on freedom is not a compromise it's a capitulation to totalitarianism.

 

No offense, but you are almost totally ignorant of the actual laws you spout about above. First of all, there are currently background checks in effect for every gun sale by licensed gun dealers. Those are the laws you are speaking about, and they were enacted in 1994 (known as the Brady Bill). Those laws are still in effect and haven't changed. Honestly, people like you don't need to be commenting on issues you don't understand and obviously haven't researched.

There has been no change in laws about forbidding sale to people with a record of mental illness. The law today is the same as they have been--anybody that has been adjudicated as mentally ill and a danger to self/others is not allowed to legally buy a gun. The law change you are incorrectly referencing is that the Obama administration was wanting to add any person who had another person taking care of their financial affairs to the mentally ill list. This change was only implemented at the end of December 2016, and was removed in early February 2017.

The crime rates currently are fairly low, and are close to the rate they were in the early 1960s, when the FBI started systematically recording them. Our murder rate today is around half of what it was in the early 1990s.

 

When was the last time a legally-owned automatic weapon was used in a crime?

 

Legally owned by the united states federal government, or a private individual? Should the query be limited strictly to the territory of the united states, or should war crimes abroad also be considered?

 

There has never been such a law, federally. Why in the world are you saying "renewed." . The 1994 Brady bill only required background checks for purchasing a gun from FFL (federal firearms license) dealers. It's still in effect today.

See the above. That law is in place, with the legal definition being that a person has to be adjudicated as being mentally ill. This means that a judge has to decide, and due process has to be in place. This is so that a rogue psychiatrist can't decide you are insane. The problem with using a vague statement like "history of mentall illness" is that it's broad, and can be applied to almost any person.

Again, you show your ignorance. Automatic weapons are already banned from sale to the general public. To buy an automatic weapon, first you have to find one that was manufactured/imported before 1986, then you have to go through fingerprinting/background check, and get permission from your local sheriff, as well as pay a $250 tax.

 

Please show me a link to the current president of the NRA making such speeches.

 

Here's a better question. How would any of what you just said have any reasonable effect on curbing gun related crime?

 

When the U.S. Constitution was written, the U.S. had 13 states, about 3 million almost totally rural population and a wilderness west of the Appalachian Mountains that required guns for survival. Today we have 330 million Americans in an urban nation with no wilderness areas left to settle, and no areas where a gun is a necessity for survival. The gun lobby interprets the 2nd Amendment as granting any person the right to own any gun at any time without any standards or criteria or controls of any sort whatsoever. But the Constitution is a document designed to be interpreted and reinterpreted by each generation as change in our living conditions demand. The U.S. has changed beyond all recognition from 1789, and our interpretation of the 2nd Amendment needs a different interpretation than it had then. Neither I nor most gun-control supporters want to get rid of the 2nd Amendment, but we DO want to bring it into the 21st Century and control SOME of the qualifiers for gun purchases. Compromise here is NOT capitulation. It's simply common sense.

 

Slippery slope fail that sets bad precedents. If THIS Constitutional right is something that needs to be "interpreted and reinterpreted by each generation as change in our living conditions demand." then how long before some other left wing progressive extremist group starts advocating for a different Constitutional right they don't like to follow suit? (Oh wait that's already happening)

What or who decides what Constitutional rights need "updated", how and when? Should we change the 1st amendment because a bunch of sjws and pc snowflakes get butthurt when people say things they disagree with? What if at some point in the future there's a group that wants to bring slavery back? Would it be ok to change the 13th amendment then?

 

I'm referring to several speeches made by the president of the NRA during the last presidential campaign. I found them deeply disturbing and have absolutely NO INTEREST OR DESIRE to see them again. They may be on YouTube, but since 2nd Amendment rights isn't one of my deep concerns or interests, I'll leave finding them up to you and wish you the best.

 

So Amendments to the Constitution can never be changed? The Constitution itself can never be changed? The Founding Fathers allowed for change to any part of the Constitution when that might be warranted. They didn't want to make it easy and there is good reason for that, but they certainly didn't say or indicate in any real way that it should be impossible.

The 2nd Amendment was done when we had a very small standing Army and a large one was not anticipated, the FF very much resented the idea of a large standing Army as the assignment of such to the Colonies was one of the main reasons for the Revolution. Now we have what is one of the largest, and certainly the most powerful, Army that has ever existed. I think some reconsideration of the 2nd Amendment may be warranted in light of this.

 

As we discuss gun control laws, the question refers to the private individual.

 

Lots of things change. This is why the Constitution has an amendment process.

Unsupportable nonsense.

Lots of things change. This is why the Constitution has an amendment process.

I asked before and I will ask again:
What are you willing to give the pro-gun side to get what you want?

 

Lots of things change. This is why the Constitution has an amendment process. Get busy.

 

When was the last time a legally-owned automatic weapon was used in a crime?

 

You do not understand that the original Bill of Rights was/is considered inalienable and recognized as given at birth by the creator and NOT by the Constitution. The Constitution merely states that they cannot be taken away by the government. The 2nd Amendment is the guarantor of that. That is its one, true purpose. It isn't aboit simple self defense in rural areas, or a larger standing army, or hunting or sport shooting.

The 2nd Amendment is there as a tool to protect the other inalienable rights from a potential tyrannical government.

 

So in other words, you can't or won't show me, probably because they don't say exactly what you claim they say.

 

I disagree, the rights the Founding Fathers saw as Inalienable were in the Declaration and were Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The Founding Fathers were lawyers, they knew better than to leave important things unclear. Had they meant the Bill to be inviolate they would at least have said so, if not written it into the body of the Constitution.

As I understand it, the Bill was an afterthought, an inspired one as the entire Document was, but an addition after the entire Document was written put on largely to satisfy some states that already had something similar in their Constitutions. Many objected to it, saying that the Constitution's purpose was not so much to enumerate the rights of the people as the duties of the state and that any list of rights might be interpreted as comprehensive and used to preclude rights not included. (Which, indeed, is something of a favorite tactic of conservatives today.)

Your view of the 2nd amendment is both absurd and dangerous. The Founding Fathers were not fools, they did not give the people the "right" to murder them, or the members of any government to succeed them, should they ever disagree with them enough and find the mechanisms for resolving such disagreements insufficient. By your logic the 2nd Amendment has exactly the function of the famous Enabling Act by which the Weimar Constitution was overthrown

 

It isn't absurd. It is dangerous. Life and liberty are dangerous. Sometimes when enough people don't want another group of people telling them how to live, there is no other way to resolve large scale "disagreements". Sometimes, violence is the unfortunate answer.

http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/09/22/2nd-amendment-original-meaning-and-purpose/