http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/court-a-co ... -to-a-gun/ Not that a more liberal court in the future wont find an indirect way to overrule THAT. ... At least it makes a definition of what can and can't be directly legislated.
no Supreme Court decision has ever approved a limitation of 2nd Amendment rights. No Supreme Court will. No Supreme Court should. Decisons affecting DC are always dicey for the Court, since (a) the national government plays a much larger role in that city's governance than in any other city and (b) citizens of the nation's capital have no congressional representation. I don't think that the Supremes [regardless of who appointed them] are all that comfortable with this reality as it runs counter to the whole concept and process of Constitutional government. Maybe it's just me, but "scotusblog" sounds like a serious skin disorder of the nether regions! yuch.
i got a compromise that the anti-gun and pro-gun lobbies will love: ban handguns. all of them. seriously, the sole purpose of a handgun is to kill another human. you don't use it to hunt. you don't use it to "protect" yourself. its simply constructed to kill with the most ease. i'm very torn about the second amendment, but one way to quell the astronomic homicide rate in this nation is through that step. and yes, Don, scotusblog does sound like a VD.
Even speaking as someone who's usually a gun control proponent, I'm not really sold on the idea that handguns can't be/aren't used to protect oneself. If I wanted to buy a firearm for home defense, a handgun would seem to make a lot more sense than something larger.
the whole point of being an American is that you can't tailor the Bill of Rights to your opinion. You have to put up with that which you abhor; as a matter of fact, you have to celebrate it. The Constitution is NOT a Chinese menu. You can't take one from column A and one from column B.
You left something out - hand guns are also meant to be concealed so you can hide it before you kill someone and so you can run away with it in hand as the person is dying. Hand guns should be banned. If someone wants to protect their hearth and home then use a shot gun or rifle or security system. If we didnt have hand guns people wouldnt need to protect themselves so much. Violent criminals would be a little more obvious walking around with shot guns instead of hand guns. The courts will not rule against the 2nd Amendment nor is it their place to. Congress needs to abolish the second amendment or modify this outdated right. It was written when the country did not have or did not want a standing army. It's purpose was to have an armed citizenry ready to come to its nations defense. This is no longer the case. We have one of the best and biggest armies in the world. Couldnt agree with you more timmyg but there are far too few of us.
Because all criminals who use handguns purchase them legally and have concealed carry licenses. You'll still have them in existance for the military and police as well as every other nation that doesn't ban them. Pretty safe bet they'll find their way to a black market near you as a result. Provide me the stat showing where licensed concealed handgun owners are responsible for a significant number of shootings and I'll consider your argument. Guns aren't only for self-defense and hunting, btw. And not all of their uses are nefarious. Don - that sounds a whole lot like something from a movie I saw. Can't place it though.
For example, my father, owns on the order of 20 handguns, and at least as many rifles. He is a collector and used to be a competitive shooter. He has never shot anything other than targets. He thoroughly enjoys the sport, even though it has some small danger to it. He now works at a range (retirement job) to ensure safety is practiced by those using their guns at the facility. I have also known bow-hunters to keep them in case they run across an angry bear, in addition some wilderness guides will carry them for the same reason. My two cents, I read a book a year or so ago called 'Freakeconomics'. Very interesting read and look into how we 'Freak' as a nation about issues that don't always have the statistics to back up. Not saying anyone is doing that here, just the suggestions that the only use for something is 'such and such' usually comes from 'our own' view of the world and we should be willing to accept that others may view it differently, such as this particular issue. I'm almost certain cars kill more people than handguns (this is not based on any facts I have) however because of practical concerns, we are willing to accept the side effect of their use. Handguns are a different animal and their practical use is a more debatable issue, thus we tend to disagree more on them.
I wont argue with you that registered handguns cause crime, because they dont. Its all illegal guns that are from the black market or once legal guns with the number filed off. And I'm not going to pull a Michael Moore and wax rhapsodic about purchasing guns at Wal-Mart because thats too easy. But if handguns were illegal period, then there wouldn't be this nebulous state that we live in with complicated laws and diverging messages from the media and morass from the politicians. I dont hope that by removing altogether or adding caveats or whatever to the 2nd Amendment that we'll change our definition of America or what it means to be an American and not a "Euro-weenie". But it should begin to gradually change the culture away from such ends. And handguns are not just for nefarious deeds, but proportionally thats what they're used for. Honestly, for purposes other than sitting on one's mantle (in which case the barrel would be molded shut), can anyone give me personal one reason why you should have a Beretta? Or a Colt? Or a Glock? Yet if we bring that up in the public sphere, somehow we're going against the fiber of America? And Don -- one cannot tailor the Constitution and Bill of Rights to their opinion. They just need a powerful lobby with a lot of money and eventually their elected representatives will do it for them.
Plenty of crimes are commited with legally purchased weapons. The Virginia tech shooter purchased his guns legally. In fact, most of the school shootings are done with the legally purchased handguns of the shooters parents. A young girl was gunned down two blocks from my house by some guy obsessed with her. It was 8 am in the morning, she was walking to school and happened to be in front of city hall and the police station when she was shot. You would have thought she would be perfectly safe at that time and place; but no not with our idiotic right to own handguns. She died instantly from one shot from a legally purchased handgun. Too bad someone didnt tell her Chinese father before he immigrated to the US to give his children a better life, he shouldnt bother. Why do you need statistics large enough, representing enough unnecessary death to justify this insanity. People are killed by legally owned guns every god damn day! You can protect yourselves with other weapons, you can hunt with other weapons, you can target shoot with other weapons or non lethal ammunition - you do not need a handgun. A handgun's use is to carry, conceal, and kill. If we can put a man on the moon we can get rid of most of our handguns. Once they are illegal and a black market forms it wouldnt be that hard to crack down on it. Most criminals eventually get caught. Also, if you make hand guns illegal, you may not always have the need for policemen to carry guns. When I lived in England there was plenty of theft but policeman did not carry guns they carried clubs.
Not to rile anyone up, but I got curious about what happens when handguns are eliminated and found this one example of reporting of 'knife' related incidents in England. It is appalling. 54,000 'incidents' in one year in London alone. There are headlines on the BBC about stabbing related deaths being epidemic. http://www.insight-security.com/facts-k ... %20numbers Some people will always find a way to conduct evil on other people. The instrument and method seem to be irrelavant.
Well you have stab someone about 20 times before you kill them unless you're OJ. You cant accidentally stab and kill someone the way you can with a handgun. The Virgina Tech shooter would have killed no one with a knife - I guarantee. Also, knives are useful in everyday lives for useful purposes. This is just a silly, ridiculous argument that reaches past common sense in a futile attempt to justify our truly sick need for handguns. Like after the Dunblane murders of preschool children when Prince Phillip said that a Polo club (stick - dont know what it's called) could be used as a weapon.
Personally, target shooting, the occassional rural living incident (presently not an issue for me). An example of the latter, clearing a troutline. You get turtles and gar that eat the fish on the troutline and subsequently get hooked. Gar can run up to 4-6' and believe me, you don't want to put your hand anywhere near their mouth. The turtles I'm talking about are fairly large as well (2' long or so). Can't do it with a shotgun/rifle, as you have one hand on the line and are too close anyway. So address those instances with laws. And if the laws we have aren't strict enough, tighten them up. I have no criminal record and have no problem jumping through more hoops. I also have my firearms secured, but more importantly, was brought up properly around them. As for the VaTech shooter, he broke multiple laws to do what he did. Is it that big a reach to assume he'd have pursued an illegal firearm if a legal one weren't available to him? Or another tool with which to carry out the act? Because you're making an argument to take away peoples' rights. You owe them to provide facts. Also, for perspective. For example, what killed more people last year in the US? Cars or guns? Why aren't you arguing to ban cars? And one more reason? There are plenty of ways to make this argument so much more effectively than you're doing it. Look, I understand that bad things happen and I don't like it any more than you do. But we'll never put an end to all evil. It's natural to want to try, but we need to make well-reasoned and well-informed decisions when trying to improve something and the answer is very rarely as simple as "ban this". I find that first statement to be very naive. Look how well we do with stopping the flow of illegal drugs, or people for that matter. As for getting caught, sure, after they commit a crime at best and after they've committed multiple crimes more often than not. I'd rather be shot to death than stabbed, personally. Accidental killings with a handgun are so minimal as to make them irrelevant as an argument. As a rule, if you get shot, someone was trying to shoot you. And back to the cretin from VaTech, that's one poor guarantee. It would be incredibly easy to stab someone in an auditorium classroom environment. He would not have gone about it in the same manner. And why assume a knife? You can easily make explosives and gasses from fairly readily available items. The "how to" ain't hard to find either. If you want to "get back" at a large number of people, it's an easy and effective method. I'm surprised, honestly, that it hasn't been done in that manner. You'd have a greater chance of getting away with it and the scope of the damage would be far greater. The notoriety seems to be 1/2 the motivation for these people. Not at all, and Thank God. Although I'm sure Fulham could use the pork I'd hope you'd send their way. Actually, I figured it was intentional and you'd tell me which movie it was b/c it was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't reach it. I'll look it up, intentional or otherwise, I KNOW I've heard that before...almost verbatim.
You have great points FulhamAg, and our discourse goes to show that this issue is very sensitive and won't be solved for a long time, if ever. Its just the city of Baltimore has had under 20 homicides in the past two weeks, and 100 so far this year, and almost all were by guns. And when I interned at a paper, it was my job to fact check the murder ink column, and this year has been actually low compared to others. So just understand that I'm not approaching this as wanting to take away individual's rights and tell people how to live their lives. But rather just wanting a way to end this madness.
Sorry, Mo. I aint buying the 'hard to murder with a knife' gambit.. it's hard to 'accidently kill' with a knife. 2. Britain already has the gun prohibitions, now it's working on knives. Meaning anything that can be USED like a knife against another person. I'd also like to point out that it doesnt seem that carry, or concealed carry was covered under this. It didnt even strike down mandatory registration, did it? It only covered possession in the home with reasonable ability to use it to defend. But the decision caused me to reconsider the meaning of well regulated militia keep and bear arms The idea that the founders were talking about a citizen army or 'national guard' is the first thing to be debunked. - Those units have never kept and borne arms in their homes, near as I can tell. Those weapons are kept in their armories. While militia HAS been used to describe units trained by military organizations, it also describes ordinary armed citizens who can be enlisted in defense of the community. Think 'posse' in the that sense. 'Well regulated' is used both ways. I believe that when you tie well regulated in with a citizen posse, the idea was to prohibit vigilantism. Doesnt that make sense? 'keep and bear' DEFINITELY says those weapons are NOT locked away in some weapon storage space. If you want to know WHY conservatives are so dismissive of liberal views on the subject, read this: LATimes: Judicial activism by conservatives It's worth noting that Chemerinsky, the author of this treacle is the same who had been first appointed, then unappointed by the new UC Irvine Law School, and who owes his position largely to conservatives, especially California conservatives protesting the grounds on which he was rejected: That his appointment might offend conservative donors! In other words, he got it after all, based on 'conservative activism'! - the argument by conservatives, in siding with liberal proponents, was that he accepted and did not inhibit the conservative position in his previous assignments.
Pettyfog is right to point out that the Supremes decided on a single case. They did not make overarching decisions because those decisions didn't apply on this case. The fact is that there will be challenges to similar laws in other cities. That's undeniable. But the bunk that I heard on the radio yesterday -- that this will enable weapons to be carried on public transport or in parks -- is just that, bunk. Everyone sees "a slippery slope" in every decision. Sometimes it's there, but a decision on a case is just that. Finally, to the 2nd Amendment: To those who say that, like the third amendment, this arose from frontier 18th century sensibilities, I say I agree with you. To those of you who say that handguns are designed only to kill and that they contribute to the effects of crime, I say I agree with you. To those of you who say that politicians and politics are controlled by the NRA, I say "duh." To those of you who cite tragedies of innocent bystanding children, and how wasteful all of it is, I say I also sympathize. To those of you who say that the amendment only covers an organized militia, I disagree completely. "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." The underlined portion of that sentence is what we like to call a subordinate clause. By definition, it is subordinate to the main sentence -- that part that isn't underlined. The 2nd Amendment says what it says. Outmoded it may be, abused it may be, but it says what it says and it's part of the Constitution that makes us the US of A. You don't have to love it, but you do have to honor it. I don't own a gun. I hunted as a kid, and I handled weapons in the military, but I don't like weapons -- especially handguns -- and I don't want to be around them. I don't agree that anyone is safer having one in his home or in his car or in his waistband. I remember clearly what a policeman told me right after I bought my first home in SA. It was not in the best of neighborhoods, and I considered getting a gun. He said: "Well, when somebody breaks into your house, if he doesn't have a gun when he gets there, he'll have one when he leaves." Made sense to me. And, as I used to tell my students, in the US we talk about smokers rights, and victims rights, and patients rights, but we really only have TWO kinds of rights -- individual rights and government rights. The Bill of Rights informs what government CANNOT do to abridge individual rights. Overturning the 2nd Amendment -- banning gun ownership and the like -- may accomplish some good, that's arguable. What is NOT arguable is that it will increase government control over its citizens, make it more intrusive, and make us more powerless and subservient. To me, that is ALWAYS the worst possible outcome.
I should have kept a link to a story by a Brit, now in the US who wrote he had come here with some trepidation that he was immersing himself into an armed camp. He allowed as, once he got here, he lost his fears and he had never felt so safe in most parts of England. And I dont suppose any of your views would be swayed if I posted crime statistics on states and cities where concealed carry is allowed. In some parts, open carry, not concealed is allowed and, 'strangely enough', very few people actually are compaining about it.
