Wow. 236 dead. Out of 330,000,000. That's less than 1 in a million. Doesn't seem to be a big deal, especially when you're talking about a 20 year time-frame. Am I willing to accept a less than 1 in a 1,000,000 chance that I or someone I love will be killed in a school shooting, in order to retain my right to self defense. Yes. I am.
when your ticket number is called, it doesn't matter how you are taken, you are. And why would it matter to you? You're just as dead. You can do with your personal, individual Rights as you chose. If you believe that you are safer defending your home and life against multiple intruders by using paper clips against guns, feel free. martial arts? Really? in defense of your home against armed intruders? For real? bud, even Bruce (*)(*)(*)(*)ing Lee wasn't that good and he was considered the best. did you die on your knees begging for you life? Then I guess it didn't matter at all...............you wasted your only chance to exercise your 2nd A Rights to defend your Life,,,so much for protecting your family, too.
Would you consider genocide a crime? Because that is the eventual result of disarmament. It has happened time and time again across the world, and the first thing those dictators do is disarm the public or a certain sect of the public. If your logic is correct, then Detroit, Chicago, and LA would be the safest places in the US, but they are not. Our murder rate has gone down 54% since 1992 according to the FBI. When Washington D.C. banned handguns, crime went up while the rest of the US went down. I agree to the statement that I would rather have a gun on me in Detroit or Chicago than not, regardless on who the perpetrator is.
I provide facts, you bring emotion. I can promise you that someone who lives on a violent street in some urban wasteland is going to face more threat of violence and physical harm than a cop who works in some small peaceful community. Every single one of the bad areas in all of the 10 Most Dangerous Cities in America and the 25 Most Dangerous Neighborhoods in America are majority Black or Hispanic (in fewer cases). http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mlj45jggj/1-detroit/ http://www.dailyfinance.com/photos/most-dangerous-neighborhoods/ Now, please give me one tiny shard of evidence that the vast majority of violent crimes in these above places are being done by other ethnic groups. Anything? Anything? Speaking of cherry picking, you would be the last person to allow the hapless innocent people living in these bad places the right to keep and bear firearms. You efforts to keep guns out the hands of felons is as useless as the effort to keep narcotics away.
Wait.... Are you seriously suggesting that I was getting emotional, and then you use an appeal to fear as justification for your position?! You're also throwing in an association fallacy at the same time... Why not break up crime by socio-economic demographic rather than by racial? I believe the correlation would be stronger.... Similarly, why not look at who the victims of the violent crimes in the places you mentioned are on the basis of racial makeup, rather than only looking at the racial makeup of the offenders? Bigotry isn't pretty. Once again, your statement that I was "bringing emotion" is shown to be hypocritical by your use of an unfounded ad hominem personal attack. Stay classy.
First of all, I'm a supporter of gun control, which is not the same thing as a gun ban, so your whole point is moot. Please illustrate how many countries have committed genocide, and compare it to a list of countries that have gun control measures. I think you'll quickly realize how pathetic it is to use a Reductio ad absurdum. Once again, I'm not talking about a ban, I'm talking about control. That being said, comparing an individual city (with no physical borders, customs, etc) to a country is a false analogy.
Background checks for all purchases, as well as registration, insurance and training commensurate with that we have on vehicles.
l Background checks I'm cool with. Registration I am not. History proves that it inevitably leads to confiscation. Insurance is unnecessary, though I'm fine with training requirements for carry permits.
Gun bans are a form of gun control. It is an eventuality to gun control. Germany, Russia, China, Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Ottoman Empire, Dominican Republic, North Korea, Cuba, Rwanda. The United States against the American Indians is also such a case. All had gun bans against their citizens. Would you like more? Gun control is not about guns, it is about CONTROL. It is legitimate case because it shows that gun control does not work. Chicago is a war zone but by your logic it should be the safest place in America.
Should have mentioned it before but it is my understanding that the 1A is designed to protect unpopular speech not popular speech. Though you or I would not find ourselves behaving as you described above...I strongly expect the ACLU and others could certainly make a case for the behavior described above as covered by the 1A. Not that laws couldn't be made contrary to any right in the Bill of Rights or the Amendments but the law will stand only until successfully challenged as unconstitutional.
you dont give me anything to argue with. But for emphasis,yes, the unpopular, the weak, the different are just what needs protecting. My experience in a tightly controlled society is that for the most part, and for most people, the restrictions are not visible nor constraining. Just dont try to go getting original! And all I really had to say was that all rights have to be tempered with some sanity. The least restrictions, the better, as a general thing.
Of course my facts are dead-on, accurate. The most violent areas of the US have almost a 1:1 correlation to the ethnic groups who live there. Crime rates there have no basis on what gun laws are present. Trying to blame socio-economic status on crime problems there is just another dodge, another attempt to deflect the blame where the blame needs to be placed. If you look at the ethnicity of the victims, you will find that 90%+ of the time they died at the hands of their own people. As much as liberals want to blame the Skinheads and the KKK for the thousands of dead bodies in urban hell-holes, there is no evidence to support it. You repeat the same silly nonsense about gun registration, restrictions, background checks and all the rest of it---believing it will keep violent felons from harming others. I say punish the felon, and don't waste time on laws that don't work. Any adult street/prison gang member who is in on murdering someone should be put to death. That's for any crime done in or out of prison. Another law would demand speedy justice, as it was practiced before liberals raped the justice system. No appeals in death penalty cases should last more than 6 months before execution. Just those two common sense laws alone would bring crime levels down to pre-1963 levels.
Everyone but the insane wants gun control. The only serious discussion is about how much of what kind, a continuum, there is no possibility of either extreme being achieved anyway.
I understand your stance but rights are not really about need. Your right to vote isn't about your need to vote rather it is about being a good and engaged citizen, a steward of the government you can affect by your participation. Likewise a 2A right may not be your need (at this moment or ever) but it is about preserving this right (among the others) that we (I believe) have a duty to present to the next generation of Americans, it is then their duty to convey the same to their posterity. All the circumstance you cite as things you don't do with your 2A right is not the (at least the primary) reason why a 2A was included in the Bill of Rights. The BOR was primarily written to protect us from living under political (tyrannical) oppression. Throughout world history many national leaders have been able to enforce their will using the brute force of government via arms...often expressed in the more modern era by projectiles leaving the barrel of a firearm...and many of those same leaders thought it useful to disarm those who could possibly resist their tyranny by employing their arms. GW45, wouldn't you rather our legacy of rights be delivered whole, in their entirety, to the next American generation as their birthright rather than have future Americans battle for surrendered rights paid for in blood that generations of preceding Americans lost their lives acquiring then defending, rights that have been entrusted to you and I to enjoy and preserve, protect and defend? Why is it, in a free world, that the force of government would rather restrict the rights of the citizen than expand them? Who truly benefits, whose interests are primarily being protected when the rights of the individual citizen are trampled?
Your viewpoint is noted; I don't see it as "my duty" to ensure these rights to future generations; instead they'll have decide in their time what is important to them to maintain or discard.
You make the all too common mistake of focusing only on your perceptions, GW45, without allowing for the whole picture. The truly transcendental aspect of our Constitution is that it does allow for the development of the whole big picture. If the matter of the development of life on earth was up to you, we might have humans as we are today, but no dolphins in the sea. If you were running the kitchen, we might have wonderful veggies, but no baking soda in the biscuits. This is why the entire Constitution needs to be preserved for posterity. Society needs to evolve with the benefit of every advantage we can afford and provide, because we have no way of knowing which advantage will prove to be more useful. We do know that any limitation will prevail as a limitation, unto perpetuity, or until another war is fought to regain the advantage.
Most people are. Given this, I have a theory as to why it hasn't happened: Unless someone wants to suggest that criminals steal guns straight from the manufacturer, it is clear that manufacturers get paid for all guns they produce - even those that get into the hands of criminals. As such, given that they are profit-driven corporations, there is no motivation for them to close the loopholes that allow criminals to get guns. In addition, they can use the fact that criminals have guns to motivate (through fear) law-abiding people to purchase guns for protection. In other words, they actively protect their profits (regardless of the source or impact on society) and use the situation they create/protect (armed criminals) as a marketing strategy targetting those stupid enough not to see through their BS. It's not big secret that the NRA is one of the most influential lobby groups in Washington, and it's also no secret that over half of their funding comes from firearm manufacturers and dealers... That's simple "bumper sticker" rhetoric. Sure, there are some examples of national confiscation, but there are also examples of registration that has not led to confiscation, so "inevitably" is overstating. Any attempt to confiscate would be prevented by SCOTUS as unconstitutional, even if there were a registry. Besides, registration would impact the ability of people who purchase firearms to sell them to people who can't pass a background check, directly taking a major source of firearms (straw purchases) out of the hands of criminals. You know how you can get certain premium deductions on car insurance by having a car alarm, a lockable garage, etc? It kinda encourages people to secure their vehicle safely... We need to establish this culture with firearms too, rather than having regular stories about some idiot's toddler accidentally shooting friends/family with dad's gun. That'd be a start, but I'm talking about safety courses and range time for anyone purchasing a firearm. After all, carrying the firearm isn't inherently risky, the risk is largely from people who own without actually knowing when and how to fire it (or how to do it safely) - often as "dust collectors" sitting in a drawer someplace.
Your attempts to derail the thread with an appeal to bigotry are clear. I find it amusing that some people who make so much noise about "Constitutional Rights" are so quick to suggest that different policies should apply to different classes of individuals - determined on the basis of race - which is clearly a direct assault on the Constitution. Hey, you know what would work even faster? Maybe we could just burn criminals at the stake when there is eye-witness testimony. That worked great in Salem. Seriously, preventing a percentage of crimes from occurring by reducing the criminals' ability to commit the crime easily is obviously a better outcome. After all, why do you want a firearm to protect yourself if it's not about making it more difficult for criminals to commit crimes?
A form, but not the form I'm advocating, so this is irrelevant. By all means, illustrate how confiscation would occur in contemporary America with SCOTUS in place to prevent violations of the 2A. Naming a bunch of third-world countries and dictatorships that have nothing to do with a first-world democracy is irrelevent. That's a nice bumper sticker, but please illustrate how it's not about guns. Yup, legislation limiting access to firearms in a small geographic area - while doing nothing to prevent firearms from being transported into that geographic area - does not work... How does this apply to national policy for the country that is the world's primary source of firearms?
Wrong else it would be law ahhh, another big bad big business hater, wouldn't gun haters everywhere tie gun manufacturers to a prolific increase in gun crime...ooops it seems it's going the other way. Blow that theory away...NEXT! Just more liberal bashing big business propaganda. LOL must be a reason for the NRA being the most influential eh and there are not enough firearm manufacturers in the world to have the cause and effect you suggest Surely you can figure this one out by yourself eh coming from the rhetoric professionals of the world that is quite humorous I find the examples of national confiscation quite disturbing considering the fact that the promise is always the same from the gun control freaks....ummm we're not coming for your guns WOW are you ever on the wrong side of the tracks on that issue. Cha right....what path is the ignorant harry reid leading us on? DOH! ERRRR wrong....criminals wouldn't attempt it (they may be stupid but not as stupid as you seem to think) and without the database your proposals are worthless. You do know there are already both criminal and civil liabilities associated with gun ownership yes? Do something stupid and you can be both charged criminally and sued civilly. It kinda encourages people to secure their weapons safely. Blows that theory out of the water too....eh? When we start (and you advocate for) requiring safety courses for every object that could potentially cause death and injury to other citizens I'll take your silly opinions seriously, until then your obvious bias towards weapons while ignoring objects that cause more death and destruction to people is quite apparent and belies a desire to control and not enhance everyday life. Nuff said
What a crock. "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." This clearly says that the security of the State, supported by a "well regulated Militia" is the purpose for people keeping arms. If only the founding fathers had actually documented what they believed constituted a "well regulated Militia"... Oh, wait. They did. The Founding fathers spelled out exactly what they meant with the Militia Act in May of 1792... The Militia Act conscripted every "free able-bodied white male citizen" between the ages of 18 and 45 into a local militia company. (This was later expanded to all males, regardless of race, between the ages 18-54) Militia members, referred to as "every citizen, so enrolled and notified," "...shall within six months thereafter, provide himself..." with a musket, bayonet and belt, two spare flints, a cartridge box with 24 bullets, and a knapsack. Men owning rifles were required to provide a powder horn, 1/4 pound of gunpowder, 20 rifle balls, a shooting pouch, and a knapsack. Some occupations were exempt, such as congressmen, stagecoach drivers, and ferryboatmen. Otherwise, men were required to report for training twice a year, usually in the Spring and Fall. Talk about an “individual mandate”.... The militias were divided into "divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions, and companies" as the state legislatures would direct. The provisions of the Act governing the calling up of the militia by the President in case of invasion or obstruction to law enforcement were also spelled out in the Act. Court martial proceedings were authorized by the statute against militia members who disobeyed orders. When’s the last time one of our “lawful gun owners” reported to muster, had their weapons registered and inspected, obeyed the lawful orders of senior officers... In line with the original intent of the Founding Fathers in writing the Second Amendment?
