The constitutional protection for firearms, what there is of it, is nonetheless a fluid, not a rigid, concept, allowing the superseding principle of "reason" to largely trump any cries for unrestricted access, and the like.
The claim that gun control cedes "freedom" is a cockamammy notion and dumb in the Age of Bush II, but especially when analyzed under the "rationality standard" implicit in all our law-making and jurisprudence.
[Firearm ownership] is a right that must be earned and should be severely regulated.
| Last year Virginia legislators considered a bill that would have overridden policies at public universities that prohibit students and faculty members with concealed handgun permits from bringing their weapons onto campus. After the bill died in committee, The Roanoke Times reported, Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker welcomed its defeat, saying, "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty, and visitors feel safe on our campus." Maybe Hincker was right. But as Monday's horrifying mass murder at Virginia Tech vividly demonstrated, there is a difference between feeling safe and being safe. The university's gun ban not only did nothing to protect people at the school; it left them defenseless as a cold-blooded gunman methodically killed 32 of them over the course of two and a half hours. |
| "We can't have an armed guard in front of every classroom every day of the year," Virginia Tech campus police chief Wendell Flinchum said after the shootings. Given the reality that police cannot be everywhere, it is unconscionable to disarm people who want to defend themselves. |
"We can't have an armed guard in front of every classroom every day of the year," Virginia Tech campus police chief Wendell Flinchum said after the shootings. Given the reality that police cannot be everywhere, it is unconscionable to disarm people who want to defend themselves.
Guns are specifically made for killing people or animals. Yes, they are used to shoot targets but that is just playing at killing people or animals in the same way that javelin throwing is a sport and the real used for a javelin is to kill animals or people.
[Banning guns is never going to happen in violence-addicted, imperialistic America though I think it should. (If they won't ban guns, they should at least legalize pot. I'd people be mellow than drunk and have guns.) What can happen though is we can regulate the hell out of guns and make them more difficult to own and use.
The self-defense argument FOR guns is sort of ridiculous. This is anecdotal and not evidence but let me tell you about a couple of things. My grandparents' bought a house in a neighborhood in the '50's here in Memphis. That neighborhood went way down over the years and before she had to move into a home, my grandmother was there by herself one night and she was broken in on. The man who broke in had a gun and my grandmother was about to open the draw where she had my grandfather's pistol.
The man matter-of-factly told her that he wasn't there to hurt nobody and as long as she didn't pull no guns or nothin', he'd just leave with the tv. She didn't. He did as he said he would and nobody got shot.
The self-defense argument FOR guns is sort of ridiculous. This is anecdotal and not evidence but let me tell you about a couple of things.....
For every piece of anecdotal evidence of this sort you bring up, I can bring up multiple ones on the other side.
For every piece of anecdotal evidence of this sort you bring up, I can bring up multiple ones on the other side. I know of at least two incidents in the last couple of years where 70+ year old grannies pulled guns and held the armed perps at gun point until police arrived. One in Georgia and one in Florida. I can dig up as many similar incidents to this as you'd like.
To be honest, I find it shameful that the gun control and NRA lobbies are making this into a political issue.
Js, with all due respect, the "NRA lobbies" are simply responding to the typical gun control lobby's attemt to take this tragedy and use it to fuel their agenda. In no way have they been an instigator in this. Or perhaps you can show us some headline that demonstrates such.
They are also used for self defense.
And a time lock on a case, as you suggested, makes them useful only for the "bad guys". A person cannot use them for self defense anymore.
"Please, Mr. Home Invader, wait 5 minutes before shooting me and my family while the timer counts down on my lock box."
Of course, Mr. Home Invader thought this out long enough in advance to open his box.
Many of your other suggestions are just as silly. For example - recording the serial numbers on ammunition purchases. I have multiple firearms that all shoot the same ammunition - who is to say that I don't buy the ammunition for one firearm and use it in another? Like, one that was purchased illegally and used in the commission of a crime?
They perpetuate it and live for this kind of moment as much as the gun control lobbies. Saying "they started it" is rather juvenile. One side claims that the ease of purchasing a handgun is to blame and the other claims that an armed student body would have prevented it. I honestly don't think it matters who instigated anything. They both feed off of tragedy and that is disconcerting.
To be honest, I find it shameful that the gun control and NRA lobbies are making this into a political issue. Thirty-three human beings are dead and twenty-nine injured, most young and one their way to learning more about an academic field and life in general. Yet, we have to hear the same old tired arguments that are typically taken to the extreme by both sides over some bullshit.
Go ahead and call me self-righteous and whatever other terms you find necessary to criticize this messenger, but there is much more profound in Blacksburg (a campus I've actually been to) than stupid squabbles over petty partisan politics.
I'll be saying prayers for the deceased and those that survived.
Yeah, by killing attackers who are more than likely carrying a gun during the attack. A gun's purpose is to kill a living thing. Self-defense and attack are simply context for the ending of a living thing.
Guess it would be better if the pro-choice crowd just shut up when the pro-life crowd started pushing anti-abortion laws, huh? Hold the higher moral ground and all?
Think that would work?
To be honest, I find it shameful that the gun control and NRA lobbies are making this into a political issue.
Js, with all due respect, the "NRA lobbies" are simply responding to the typical gun control lobby's attemt to take this tragedy and use it to fuel their agenda. In no way have they been an instigator in this. Or perhaps you can show us some headline that demonstrates such.
Yeah, by killing attackers who are more than likely carrying a gun during the attack. A gun's purpose is to kill a living thing. Self-defense and attack are simply context for the ending of a living thing.
As I pointed out previously, my handguns must all be defective, then. I've used them lots, including two uses for self-defense, and none of my handguns have killed anything.
Self-defense does not always include killing something.
QuoteJs, with all due respect, the "NRA lobbies" are simply responding to the typical gun control lobby's attemt to take this tragedy and use it to fuel their agenda. In no way have they been an instigator in this. Or perhaps you can show us some headline that demonstrates such.
They perpetuate it and live for this kind of moment as much as the gun control lobbies. Saying "they started it" is rather juvenile. One side claims that the ease of purchasing a handgun is to blame and the other claims that an armed student body would have prevented it. I honestly don't think it matters who instigated anything. They both feed off of tragedy and that is disconcerting.
The fact that the self-defense didn't result in death is happenstance. Did you shoot to wound? Or would you have killed the person if you could guide the bullet mentally?
A hammer is a tool that is designed to make nails go into wood. Yes, hammers can be used to bash in peoples' heads but that is not their intended use.
Guns are specifically made for killing people or animals. Yes, they are used to shoot targets but that is just playing at killing people or animals in the same way that javelin throwing is a sport and the real used for a javelin is to kill animals or people.
The leap from banning guns to banning anything that might be used to kill someone is common among people who think that there is nothing that anyone shouldn't be able to own. The common reversal for that argument is that we ban people from owning atom bombs. Sure, an atom bomb can kill millions but two guns just killed 33 people. It's a matter of degrees. Is it ok to have guns in homes to kill people who might attack or invade but then draw the line at who may have an atom bomb? Not if you're an objectivist/libertarian type.
See you're holding to a dogma of property rights but your common sense kicks in when people want to have atom bombs. Suppose Bill Gates and George Soros and Rupert Murdoch all decided that they had to have protection from whole nations (let's just say Iran, for kicks) and they wanted to go pick up a couple of A-bombs just in case those wacky Iranians go all jihady, wouldn't that be their god-given right?
The real problem with guns is that they are small, concealable, and too convenient for immediate use.
The real problem with guns is that they are small, concealable, and too convenient for immediate use. The way to resolve this issue is to mitigate these attributes. Every gun should be sold in a locked case that is not easy to open or has some kind of time delayed lock. That way when a person is angry or drunk and thinks that killing Bubba is a good idea right now, they might have to think about it for a minute. It would also hinder children from getting hold of a gun.
Guns should be registered to owners at sale. Cars are registered. Everyone knows who owns what house. Drugs must be prescribed and records kept of that. Guns should be no different. A person who owns a gun should have to produce proper identification and the serial number of their gun when buying ammunition. That serial number must be verified in a national database before the sale can be completed.
All gun buyers should have to produce a gun owners license before purchasing a gun. That license should only be awarded to those who have completed an in-depth gun ownership class that includes direction on proper storage and risk.
The self-defense argument FOR guns is sort of ridiculous. This is anecdotal and not evidence but let me tell you about a couple of things. My grandparents' bought a house in a neighborhood in the '50's here in Memphis. That neighborhood went way down over the years and before she had to move into a home, my grandmother was there by herself one night and she was broken in on. The man who broke in had a gun and my grandmother was about to open the draw where she had my grandfather's pistol.
The man matter-of-factly told her that he wasn't there to hurt nobody and as long as she didn't pull no guns or nothin', he'd just leave with the tv. She didn't. He did as he said he would and nobody got shot.
Now, in no way am I saying that anyone who breaks into a house is going to be as polite as this guy was. That is one of the few things that I have ever even attached the ridiculous word 'miracle' to and it is not the norm, of course. The reason I mention it is because suppose my grandmother HAD gotten to the drawer before he saw her and had gotten to pistol. I suspect due to her frailty, she wouldn't have been that good a shot. In fact, I would guess that she hadn't even shot a gun in 50 to 60 years. If she had missed and not killed him, he would have definitely killed her.
Property is not worth dying for or killing for.
Ironically, to protect my family is also the reason I DON'T want a gun in the house. I went into the kitchen one day to see what my kid was doing when he was being too quiet and he had a stool by the counter and was stretching and straining to get to the knife holder. That was when he had just turned two. Imagine him as 12 and curious about the box on the top shelf of my closet. No sir, not me.
They perpetuate it and live for this kind of moment as much as the gun control lobbies. Saying "they started it" is rather juvenile. One side claims that the ease of purchasing a handgun is to blame and the other claims that an armed student body would have prevented it. I honestly don't think it matters who instigated anything. They both feed off of tragedy and that is disconcerting.
Guess it would be better if the pro-choice crowd just shut up when the pro-life crowd started pushing anti-abortion laws, huh? Hold the higher moral ground and all?
Think that would work?
QuoteJs, with all due respect, the "NRA lobbies" are simply responding to the typical gun control lobby's attemt to take this tragedy and use it to fuel their agenda. In no way have they been an instigator in this. Or perhaps you can show us some headline that demonstrates such.
They perpetuate it and live for this kind of moment as much as the gun control lobbies. Saying "they started it" is rather juvenile. One side claims that the ease of purchasing a handgun is to blame and the other claims that an armed student body would have prevented it. I honestly don't think it matters who instigated anything. They both feed off of tragedy and that is disconcerting.
The elusive Second Amendment
(JS's protestations are at once vacant and typically holier-than-thou.)
Thus, it is within this arena of rationality that the instant discussion should proceed, or not at all.
"...the Founders were not frivolous people. They didn't emblazon someone's hobby into the constitution...."
whether it is a "militia right" or a "personal right,"
First, the Second Amendment is elusive because throughout it 225+ year history, the matter whether it is a "militia right" or a "personal right," seemingly fundamental concerns, has not been authoritatively determined. And then, as they say, let the party begin. Secondly, Second Amendment litigation has been, shall we say, restrained, leaving intact various state and federal regimes of control openly at odds with the literalist orientation you favor. Indeed, it is so elusive that it has yet to be determined whether the states are even covered by the provision, or just the federal government.
As for JS, he and I have established a pattern of fending for ourselves in our sharp and lively exchanges. Your overture in that regard is piling on, and unwelcome.
The ten amendments of the Bill of Rights applied at signing only to the federal government, by their terms and by context.
"State" can refer to a nation, as in statesmanship, but more importantly, the language restricts federal government action, not state action, since under your interpretation, it is the states' militias that are being protected. Note that there is no restriction on a state's treatment (or abolition) of its own militias.
Well, Sirs, there's a raging debate til this day on whether the "bear arms" language applies to individuals (a personal right) or whether it is derived, by the structure of the sentence itself, among other reasons, from the first-mentioned necessity of militias. I come down, without further study, on the "personal right" side. Yet, and this is the main point, so far as I know, only the federal government (yes, after all these years) is restricted by the amendment, and so far (I think) states are not.
Aside from concerns about mustering a militia, a now-defunct factor,
How's this for a compromise: Require a psychiatric exam or the presentation of a "certificate of sanity" from three prominent members of the community, in addition to existing restrictions, before an individual can purchase a firearm?
That was true until the war between the states. As a result of the Southern Militias being organized to go to war against the Northern Militias, the federal government created what we now call the National Guard. That resolve the issue of the militias, creating joint control by state and federal authority, but the new thinking at the time did not move to take guns away from the individuals of the states.
I'm trying to be nice,
but you don't think, you regurgitate the NRA line.
Whatever state militia exist today are for the most part ceremonial groups. It is the National Guard that Governors call up in a time of trouble.
I agree, however, selective service would have to be reestablished by congress. I don't think that anyone who would be conscripted would say they are a member of the U.S. Militia. They would be a conscript of the U.S. military or better known, a draftee.
Exactly. There is no such thing as an official U.S. Militia today.
Exactly. There is no such thing as an official U.S. Militia today.
Sure there is. It's defined in 10 USC 311.