View Full Version : Stand By for the latest Ban Handguns effort
Eric Stoner
04-19-2007, 08:09 AM
The Second Amendment was second. Right after the First Amendment showing how important the Founders thought it was to guarantee PRIVATE gun ownership.
Washington D.C. has the strictiest gun control in the country and the highest rate of gun violence.
The urban police generally don't like private citizens to have guns because they fear that we won't need so many of them to "protect" us even though 99 % of the time when a real incident goes down the police arrive too late to actually do anything . The victims are dead or wounded; the property's been stolen; the woman has been raped.
After Florida passed a "right to carry" law violent crime in Orlando went down. Attacks against women were cut in half AND none of what the "doom and gloomers" predicted would happen actually occurred- no Wild West shootouts; in fact no increase of actual gun USE. The knowledge among criminals that their victim MIGHT be armed and mere BRANDISHING of a firearm were more than enough in most cases.
Florida as a whole had a similar experience. Remember all the car-jackings ? After the 'carry' law was passed criminals switched their focus to tourists. Why ? They'd be very unlikely to be armed.
In NYC we've had the Diallo and Sean Bell shootings where neither the judgement nor marksmanship of the police were any good. Private citizens certainly haven't been any worse.
I've never understood disarming the law-abiding. Criminals always get their hands on guns. Where I part company with the NRA is that I think owning a gun is like owning a car and there's nothing wrong with reasonable training, licensure and registration.
Incidents like VaTech illustrate our flawed mental health systm far more than a gun problem. Cho was diagnosed as mentally ill months before his rampage. While there are databases to check for criminal histories; there are none for mental histories. Someone with mental illness ought to be presumptively ineligible to legally own a gun same as an epileptic who suffers from grand mal seizures ought not be licensed to drive a car.
The problem today is the wide polarity of view regarding guns. Politicians are either for total confiscation ( performed incrementally or outright ) or for unfettered freedom. For instance, nobody except the police and military needs a 16 or even 18 round Glock automatic. Sensible regulation would limit ammo capacity to no more than 8 to 10 rounds.
The Swiss have a serious gun culture but very little crime. Israel has wide ranging private gun ownership but very little gun crime. We in the U.S. seem to have the worst of both worlds when it comes to guns.
Yekhefah
04-19-2007, 08:53 AM
Are you actually, seriously suggesting it'd be safer to allow 18, 19, 20 year-old college kids (emotional, impulsive kids) to walk around campus with handguns?
I know there have been a lot of people wailing about all the "children" over the past few days, but college students are adults. They are not children. They are young adults, true, but we as a society have established 18 as the age of legal majority and hence college students from age 18 up should be accorded the same rights as any other adult.
I went to the University of Tennessee my freshman year. I would bet that more than half my classmates - probably an even higher percentage of the males - knew how to responsibly carry and use a firearm. I could. I believe that teaching your children gun safety is every bit as important as teaching them to swim; just telling them to stay away from water isn't going to save them from drowning in a crisis.
I'm not saying we should arm anyone who is unwilling, but I do believe that people who would like to responsibly carry a legal weapon should be allowed to do so. Concealed-carry permits save lives.
And BTW, not all college students are 18-20. A good many are ex-military, and parents, and adults of all ages.
leilanicandy
04-19-2007, 08:54 AM
Not to mention, The right to bear arm, protect us also from goverment offical. Our fore fathers, did not want the goverment in our lives. Like they where in the old country. Now tell me this, who will potect us from the bad cops. The ones that go in to control people and have power over them! Our fore fathers new if you give to much control to one person or one group of people. Things gose wrong, yet if you allow people to have freedom. Life will be more pleasent.
If we have a serious gun culture. I dont think people will take crime lightly, because they know if they try something more and likely they will go down! If every one in the school was allow to carry a gun. Then the attack could not plan his attack, with guns to get his desire results. He will never know who is arm. He would have to use another alternative weapon such as bombs. Yet since he know his victim will be unarm this is the perfect time. If he was in a country that support guns. He know he will have find a way to do destruction to his victim with out getting hurt to accomplish is goal.
leilanicandy
04-19-2007, 09:02 AM
We need to educate kids about guns. I am not talking about the gun kill educations. Because if we stop drilling in thier head that gun kill. That gun give the result of what angry person at that time want, maybe guns will not look so desireable. It also seem that the people who use guns are eithier pyscho or cant deal with certain emotion. Which proubarly mean, how promblems are not with guns. We need to regulate the way we rear children. Maybe we should start teaching a wellness class in school. That help people understand thier emotions. Maybe this is telling us if we pay more attention to out children. Maybe we would not have this promblem. IT is not the sane person going around killing people. It is not the happy person going around killing people. The sad and angry pyscho people are killing the nice people. Why should we give up are right to bare arm. When they are attacking us! They are the ones who should not have the right to bare arms.
JustJayda
04-19-2007, 09:16 AM
Are you actually, seriously suggesting it'd be safer to allow 18, 19, 20 year-old college kids (emotional, impulsive kids) to walk around campus with handguns? Or maybe you're using political irony here. I freaking hope so.
What does age have to do with it?
I mean honestly, at 18 I earned my Marksman's Badge(Ar-15 & M-16, with a cluster for 9mm). Granted I was in the military, but I accomplished this after about 8hrs or less of classroom training & 2 or 3 hrs on the range firing.
Not much training at all. I bought my first legit personal handgun as soon as my next payday came.
I don't see how age is relevant.
Eric Stoner
04-19-2007, 11:29 AM
What does age have to do with it?
I mean honestly, at 18 I earned my Marksman's Badge(Ar-15 & M-16, with a cluster for 9mm). Granted I was in the military, but I accomplished this after about 8hrs or less of classroom training & 2 or 3 hrs on the range firing.
Not much training at all. I bought my first legit personal handgun as soon as my next payday came.
I don't see how age is relevant.
We have minimum ages for drivers. Why not for guns.
Chicagoeditor
04-19-2007, 01:03 PM
I know there have been a lot of people wailing about all the "children" over the past few days, but college students are adults. They are not children. They are young adults, true, but we as a society have established 18 as the age of legal majority and hence college students from age 18 up should be accorded the same rights as any other adult.
I went to the University of Tennessee my freshman year. I would bet that more than half my classmates - probably an even higher percentage of the males - knew how to responsibly carry and use a firearm. I could. I believe that teaching your children gun safety is every bit as important as teaching them to swim; just telling them to stay away from water isn't going to save them from drowning in a crisis.
I'm not saying we should arm anyone who is unwilling, but I do believe that people who would like to responsibly carry a legal weapon should be allowed to do so. Concealed-carry permits save lives.
And BTW, not all college students are 18-20. A good many are ex-military, and parents, and adults of all ages.
Let me get this right. You'd really feel more, not less, secure on a campus at which dozens, maybe hundreds, maybe thousands, of kids--I'm sorry, young adults-- were packing heat? When you want to go back to school, Yek, you might consider Baghdad University. I hear the American Lit department there is da bomb.
All kidding aside, America's appalling gun statistics are not going to be addressed by giving more guns to more people. Moreover, the NRA fantasy about using a gun to defend house and home from invaders is belied by the data on firearms involved in domestic violence, accidents and suicide.
JustJayda
04-19-2007, 01:15 PM
We have minimum ages for drivers. Why not for guns.
Okay Stoner, let me be more clear. If you're old enough to die for your country w/o mommy signing to get you in...........
Yekhefah
04-19-2007, 02:53 PM
Let me get this right. You'd really feel more, not less, secure on a campus at which dozens, maybe hundreds, maybe thousands, of kids--I'm sorry, young adults-- were packing heat?
No, I'm saying it wouldn't make any difference. There are plenty of cities in this country where lots of people have concealed-carry permits and are legally carrying handguns. They don't automatically turn into the OK Corral just because the guns are there (in fact, those cities have lower rates of violent crime). Anyway you're suggesting that if guns were allowed on campus, absolutely everybody would have one. That's silly. Even at the University of Tennessee my freshman year, a Southern, politically-conservative university with a large percentage of students from a rural background, I'm not aware of many people who would've wanted to go to class packing heat. We all knew how to shoot, but that didn't mean we all ran around like Wyatt Earp.
OTOH, after I transferred to a commuter school where I lived off-campus, I DID consider packing. That university had a very high rate of violent crime on campus; there were several rapes and abductions every semester, and a couple of murders while I was a student there. One of my classmates was raped in a parking lot at 10 a.m. on a Wednesday. Guns weren't allowed on campus but you bet your ass I would've carried one if they were. And I bet if they started allowing the law-abiding students (who WERE the majority) to carry guns, the crime rate would drop. Even the police agreed that the reason so many criminals were attracted to the campus was the relative helplessness of the students and faculty.
All kidding aside, America's appalling gun statistics are not going to be addressed by giving more guns to more people.
Nobody's saying we should be "giving guns" to anybody, just allowing law-abiding citizens to keep and bear them if they so choose. As for the NRA, well yeah, I think we're all in agreement that they're over the edge.
Melonie
04-19-2007, 03:51 PM
And I bet if they started allowing the law-abiding students (who WERE the majority) to carry guns, the crime rate would drop. Even the police agreed that the reason so many criminals were attracted to the campus was the relative helplessness of the students and faculty.
This speaks to the heart of the matter. It is an absolute certainty that any criminal who wants to obtain a gun will obtain one regardless of local laws to the contrary. Thus, with the exception of a 1 in a million nut case, the true question of gun control boils down to criminals versus unarmed law abiding victims, or criminals versus well armed law abiding citizens. You're totally correct that in general the more strict the gun control laws in a particular city, the higher the crime and murder rates are !
There's also the issue of counting up actual crimes versus reported crimes when attempting to make comparisons. It's a well known but little publicized fact that 'inner city' crimes in both large European cities and large US cities are significantly under-reported. Thus any attempt to draw conclusions in regard to comparative crime rates in large cities has much in common with attempting to draw conclusions in regard to comparative tax rates in dancers' dressing rooms - i.e. there is a huge gap between the 'officially reported' numbers and the 'real' numbers. And in many cities, even the under-reported 'official' crime and murder statistics are appalling.
Where the VA Tech nutcase is concerned, if we really want to solve this problem we shouldn't be talking about gov't legislating more gun control ... we SHOULD be talking about gov't having already legislated laws which prohibit universities from expelling mentally ill students, laws which prevent universities from reporting to parents findings of mental illness in their student children, laws which prohibit universities from forcing mentally ill students into treatment programs, and laws which allow extremely expensive civil suits to be brought re 'discrimination' on the basis of mental illness etc.
(snip)"Last month, Virginia passed a law, the first in the nation, prohibiting public colleges and universities from expelling or punishing students solely for attempting suicide or seeking mental-health treatment for suicidal thoughts.
“In one sense, the new law doesn’t cover new territory, because discrimination against people with mental health problems is already prohibited,” said Dana L. Fleming, a lawyer in Manchester, N.H., who is an expert on education law. “But in another sense, it’s ground-breaking since it’s the first time we’ve seen states focus on student suicides and come up with some code of conduct for schools.”(snip)
(snip)" Universities can find themselves in a double bind. On the one hand, they may be liable if they fail to prevent a suicide or murder. After the death in 2000 of Elizabeth H. Shin, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who had written several suicide notes and used the university counseling service before setting herself on fire, the Massachusetts Superior Court allowed her parents, who had not been told of her deterioration, to sue administrators for $27.7 million. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount.
On the other hand, universities may be held liable if they do take action to remove a potentially suicidal student. In August, the City University of New York agreed to pay $65,000 to a student who sued after being barred from her dormitory room at Hunter College because she was hospitalized after a suicide attempt.
Also last year, George Washington University reached a confidential settlement in a case charging that it had violated antidiscrimination laws by suspending Jordan Nott, a student who had sought hospitalization for depression."(snip)
For those with a good memory, there are definitely some 'Willie Horton' culpability issues re Cho Seung-Hui. Some degree lies with the university, but IMHO a much larger degree lies with the legislators who passed laws which effectively prevented Cho from being removed as a risk factor and remanded to receive treatment for his mental illness. An even larger degree of culpability goes to the trial lawyers and civil trial juries who forced college administrations to take a 'hands off' position for fear of being bankrupted if they do take action and that action is later deemed 'wrong' in a civil suit proceeding.
I am also very surprised that the first mainstream media outlet having the balls to raise this issue was the NY Times !
~
doc-catfish
04-19-2007, 04:37 PM
Let me get this right. You'd really feel more, not less, secure on a campus at which dozens, maybe hundreds, maybe thousands, of kids--I'm sorry, young adults-- were packing heat?
Yes I would. Because the likelihood of any of those people using their gun for deviant purposes would be deterred by the fact that their neighbors had them too. The majority of college students don't have a death wish.
I'm really not sure why some people think allowing people to carry weapons leads to a OK corral mentality where everyone has a piece on their holster. Most of the time the guns are concealed (either legally or illegally) and 99.9% they stay that way because 99.9% of the time there's no need to brandish the weapon. The whole point is to be ready for that 0.1%.
For the record, I don't believe in much of the gun lobby fear mongering that possession of a firearm is necessarily a "get out of being raped/mugged/murdered" card. Such a simplistic rationale doesn't take into account that every scenario in which a person may encounter danger is different.
The most dangerous thing an assailant has isn't that he's bigger, stronger, faster or meaner. Its the element of surprise he imposes upon his victims. A woman packing heat to protect herself from a campus rapist may only have a few seconds to react. Someone hearing gunfire down the hallway while taking an exam will have plenty of time to react.
In any regard, even without guns, I think we need to teach people in situations like VT and Columbine to be more reactive when things like this occur. This guy has the right idea.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18174900/
If you have a madman in your classroom hellbent on killing everyone including himself, there have got to be better means of ensuring your survival then sitting there like a duck and begging the assailant to spare your life. Flinging projectiles at the gunman (bookbags, desks, chairs) would have been better than nothing.
smartcookie
04-19-2007, 08:01 PM
Yes I would. Because the likelihood of any of those people using their gun for deviant purposes would be deterred by the fact that their neighbors had them too. The majority of college students don't have a death wish.
Sorry - do you have any concrete, non-anecdotal, peer-reviewed research that proves that gun proliferation equates to less crime? Because American homicide statistics would seem to prove just the opposite.
Does your rationale apply to nuclear armament too? Just curious.
ArmySGT.
04-19-2007, 08:27 PM
Florida and Texas
Nicolina
04-19-2007, 08:53 PM
What does age have to do with it?
I mean honestly, at 18 I earned my Marksman's Badge(Ar-15 & M-16, with a cluster for 9mm). Granted I was in the military, but I accomplished this after about 8hrs or less of classroom training & 2 or 3 hrs on the range firing.
Not much training at all. I bought my first legit personal handgun as soon as my next payday came.
I don't see how age is relevant.
I just got distracted from the debate by a mental image of Jayda in camo pants & combat boots, dogtags & a tight army-green tee, firing her sidearm and looking all ridiculously bodacious.... :eye-poppi :drool: :drool:
Oops. Did I just say that out loud?
Sorry. Carry on. ;D
Eric Stoner
04-20-2007, 07:49 AM
I just got distracted from the debate by a mental image of Jayda in camo pants & combat boots, dogtags & a tight army-green T-shirt, firing her sidearm and looking all ridiculously bodacious.... :eye-poppi :drool: :drool:
Oops. Did I just say that out loud?
Sorry. Carry on. ;D
I'll bet she looked GREAT !
The Snark
04-20-2007, 07:50 AM
The Second Amendment was second. Right after the First Amendment showing how important the Founders thought it was to guarantee PRIVATE gun ownership.
If it was really so important to them, don't you think they would have included it in the original Constitution, rather than in an amendment? (Especially given that the Bill of Rights had little effect on the interpretation of American law before the twentieth century.)
The Second Amendment was drafted in a clearly military context. As several people have noted, Anglo-Americans in the eighteenth century were fearful of a standing army and wanted to ensure that their military would be manned and paid by the people, rather than the state. As ArmySGT points out, "well regulated" in this context means a militia that is trained and disciplined, like the National Guard.
If I'm not mistaken, James Madison's original draft of the amendment included an exemption for Quakers and other conscientious objectors to military service.
The point of a militia was to make a standing army unnecessary. This was a longstanding principle in British whig circles. Under the British constitution, only the House of Commons could levy money bills. If there was no standing army, the king would have to call Parliament every time he wanted to wage a war. So the presence of a militia strengthened the hand of the House of Commons in their struggles with royal prerogative.
The notion that the drafters of the Constitution passed the amendment because they wanted citizens to have the right to resist their own government is ludicrous. The whole point of drafting a constitution was to replace a system of government that was too decentralized and ineffective (the Articles of Confederation) with one that gave the federal government greater scope of action.
Look at the document. Article III, Section 3, Clause 1 states that it is treason to levy war against the United States; Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the powers to raise, support and regulate the army and navy. Clause 15 of the same section actually states that the purpose of the militia is "to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions." So the Second Amendment was included, in some measure, to help the government suppress resistance, rather than enable it.
Eric Stoner
04-20-2007, 08:26 AM
If it was really so important to them, don't you think they would have included it in the original Constitution, rather than in an amendment? (Especially given that the Bill of Rights had little effect on the interpretation of American law before the twentieth century.)
The Second Amendment was drafted in a clearly military context. As several people have noted, Anglo-Americans in the eighteenth century were fearful of a standing army and wanted to ensure that their military would be manned and paid by the people, rather than the state. As ArmySGT points out, "well regulated" in this context means a militia that is trained and disciplined, like the National Guard.
If I'm not mistaken, James Madison's original draft of the amendment included an exemption for Quakers and other conscientious objectors to military service.
The point of a militia was to make a standing army unnecessary. This was a longstanding principle in British whig circles. Under the British constitution, only the House of Commons could levy money bills. If there was no standing army, the king would have to call Parliament every time he wanted to wage a war. So the presence of a militia strengthened the hand of the House of Commons in their struggles with royal prerogative.
The notion that the drafters of the Constitution passed the amendment because they wanted citizens to have the right to resist their own government is ludicrous. The whole point of drafting a constitution was to replace a system of government that was too decentralized and ineffective (the Articles of Confederation) with one that gave the federal government greater scope of action.
Look at the document. Article III, Section 3, Clause 1 states that it is treason to levy war against the United States; Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the powers to raise, support and regulate the army and navy. Clause 15 of the same section actually states that the purpose of the militia is "to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions." So the Second Amendment was included, in some measure, to help the government suppress resistance, rather than enable it.
You're correct BUT guarantees of individual and state rights were not included in the original Costitution- not free speech ; not habeas corpus; none of them. Part of the compromise necessary to get the Constitution approved and then ratified was the inclusion of a separate Bill of Rights i.e. the first Ten Amendments.
The Bill of Rights originally apllied ONLY to the Federal Gov't. " CONGRESS shall make no law .... " because every state had its own Constitution which guaranteed certain rights to its citizens- read the Massachusetts Constitution written mostly by John Adams and I think Jefferson wrote most of Virginia's.
If you READ what the founders wrote at the time you'd see that they DID want citizens to have the capacity and means to resist despotic or tyrannical government. For one thing, that's how the U.S. came into being in the first place. Literally by an act of TREASON against the King. Secondly, if they wanted arms bearing to be so limited then they would have directed the Amendment to the STATES guaranteeing their right to raise and maintain militias which they didn't do. If they didn't want citizens to be able to "keep and bear arms" they would have said so by requiring that all arms be kept at the local fort or armory instead of in the home or on the person.
No less a personage than Washington said and wrote that the right to bear arms was ESSENTIAL to a well ordered scheme of LIBERTY. That's the crux. Armed citizens would be able to fight for and maintain their own liberty while disarmed citizens as in many European countries of the time could not.
doc-catfish
04-20-2007, 01:40 PM
Sorry - do you have any concrete, non-anecdotal, peer-reviewed research that proves that gun proliferation equates to less crime?
Yes I do. Texas passed a right to carry law in 1995. Here's what happened to the number of victims both prior to said passage and after.
http://bjsdata.ojp.usdoj.gov/dataonline/Search/Homicide/State/RunHomStatebyState.cfm
YEAR # of Homicide victims
1990 2389
1991 2652
1992 2239
1993 2147
1994 2022
1995 1693
1996 1477
1997 1327
1998 1346
1999 1217
2000 1238
Does your rationale apply to nuclear armament too? Just curious.
Depends on who's holding the bomb. Most of the countries that hold nuclear weapons understand the principle of Mutually Assured Destruction pretty well. India and Pakistan I'm not so sure about, but nevertheless, they've both had nuclear weapons for around a decade now and as of yet haven't vaporized one another. I certainly would not feel safe about a non-state entity like Al-Queda getting their hands on one.
In any regard, whether it be a common handgun or a nuclear warhead, technology has already brought the genie out of the bottle, and any notion that some form of prohibition on possessing the technology in question can put it back in is just plain asinine. Bad guys hellbent on mayhem don't pay attention to laws and treaties, in which case you might as well make sure that people who aren't hellbent on mayhem have access to that technology to defend themselves against those bad guys.
Melonie
04-21-2007, 08:38 AM
^^^ Yup ! Also, the reverse statistical analysis applies i.e. New Orleans, Washington DC etc. that have very strict local gun control laws also have very high crime / murder rates.
However, IMHO one of the best example of the benefits of gun ownership rights I have ever heard of is as follows ...
The Snark
04-21-2007, 05:53 PM
If you READ what the founders wrote at the time you'd see that they DID want citizens to have the capacity and means to resist despotic or tyrannical government. For one thing, that's how the U.S. came into being in the first place. Literally by an act of TREASON against the King. Secondly, if they wanted arms bearing to be so limited then they would have directed the Amendment to the STATES guaranteeing their right to raise and maintain militias which they didn't do. If they didn't want citizens to be able to "keep and bear arms" they would have said so by requiring that all arms be kept at the local fort or armory instead of in the home or on the person.
No less a personage than Washington said and wrote that the right to bear arms was ESSENTIAL to a well ordered scheme of LIBERTY. That's the crux. Armed citizens would be able to fight for and maintain their own liberty while disarmed citizens as in many European countries of the time could not.
I have read what the founders wrote, at length. And I've read enough--and I know enough about eighteenth-century history--to tell you that much of what pro-gun advocates write about the original intentions of the framers consists of misrepresentations and outright lies.
When people such as George Washington referred to "the people", they meant it in the collective sense--not in terms of individuals. The way in which eighteenth-century Americans understood the meaning of liberty was deeply coloured by the struggles between King and Parliament that had taken place in the previous century. And the key point here is that these struggles were fought NOT between citizens and the government--but between Parliament and Crown. Leaders such as Washington saw the American Revolution in these terms: as a war fought to protect the rights of representative governments, not as a libertarian struggle against government itself.
The Bill of Rights was neither original nor distinctively American--it was essentially a rehashing of the Declaration of Right that English Parliament passed in 1689. The Declaration of Right included a provision guaranteeing the right of all Protestants to bear arms, as well as a clause forbidding standing armies. This was in reaction to attempts by Charles I and James II to rule without Parliament earlier in the century. If there was no standing army, the framers of the Declaration of Right reasoned, future kings would have to call Parliament in order to fund their armies.
As for the contention that the founders wanted arms to be stored in private homes rather than public armories--that's just plain wrong. At the time of the Revolution, the arms of militias were stored in public armories. That's why British troops marched on Lexington and Concord in 1775--to seize caches of weapons that belonged to local militias.
A lot of what pro-gun advocates write about the Second Amendment is just an attempt to project present-day libertarian values on to people who lived in the late eighteenth century. And that leads to all kinds of distortions. The framers of the Constitution were deeply conservative men whose political attitudes were essentially British in character. For them, the meaning of liberty was forged during the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and the crowning achievement of this revolution was not the elevation of individual rights--but the protection of representative government.
Jenny
04-21-2007, 07:06 PM
Okay - I don't know nearly as much about 18th century history as Snark.
However.
May I make the rather obvious statement - that clearly and obviously this "tyrannical government" thing is... well, a paper argument? I mean, saying it doesn't make it so. The kinds of weapons that would be necessary now to stand up to the United States government are NOT available or allowed to citizens; and honestly, I don't think that anyone is supporting the rights of citizens to possess nuclear weapons. I mean - I can't be the only person to whom this seems obvious.
May I also point out that MOST countries have some form of gun control, frequently closer to prohibition; it doesn't seem to be vitiating the rule of law or liberty in them. Yes, I know - it will be a shock to those of you who have never left the 30 foot circumference around your house, but the rest of the world is not living in abject slavery, with no rule of law because carrying handguns is difficult or impossible. So OBVIOUSLY there is no strictly causal or even correlative effect.
leilanicandy
04-21-2007, 07:11 PM
I guess when people up and let the goverment handle everything, just give all are rights and freedom. Than maybe just maybe people will enjoy the freedom we have today.
If a crazy person wanted to get a gun they will! If you wanted to plot a murder you could! THe answer is this because we do not have somebody babysitting every single person moves. to decrease murders and rape. We will have to mointor every single person.
America is a free country, we also do not do cruel treatment here, like other country. Maybe if we cut off your dicks for raping women. Maybe women would not be rape. Maybe kill you for the murder maybe you would not be so tempted to murder people. Maybe if we lock up people with mental disorders maybe we would not how to worry about them! But we dont! In order to be free from a lot crime we will have to scarfice our freedom. Put our lives and freedom in the hand of some one else. By the judge of our president we have now, I dont think we should do that! People have been killing other people since the begining of time. Which is a horrible thing! I say this if we could not stop it by now, I say we stay arm to protect us, from those crazy people.
leilanicandy
04-21-2007, 09:44 PM
By crazy people I should said people who suffer from narcissism. Or people whom are just plain sociopaths.
ArmySGT.
04-22-2007, 11:43 PM
The Second Amendment was drafted in a clearly military context. As several people have noted, Anglo-Americans in the eighteenth century were fearful of a standing army and wanted to ensure that their military would be manned and paid by the people, rather than the state. As ArmySGT points out, "well regulated" in this context means a militia that is trained and disciplined, like the National Guard.First the National Guard does not resemble the Militia as directed by the Forefathers. Don't let a State name in front of National Guard fool you into thinking it is an apparatus of the individual State. Nothing could be further from the truth. The National Guard is a Federal orgaization. The Armories are Fedral Property, The Arms and Equipment are Federal Property, The Pay comes from the Federal Government, The Selection of it Soldiery and Officers is done by the Federal Government. The National Guard is an all ways a Federal organization with compenents on loan to the various States unless directed by the Commander inb Chief.
"A Well Regulated Militia" is often misinterpreted as Laws. The Regulations as I pointed out confer with Major General Von Steuben "Blue Book" on how the Militia is to conduct itself in the Field and Parade. How to Drill and Fight as it were. The Laws that would Govern the Militia and limit it's use would be enacted by the various States.
The point of a militia was to make a standing army unnecessary. This was a longstanding principle in British whig circles. Under the British constitution, only the House of Commons could levy money bills. If there was no standing army, the king would have to call Parliament every time he wanted to wage a war. So the presence of a militia strengthened the hand of the House of Commons in their struggles with royal prerogative. From the British Perspective yes and the influence it had on the political thought of the times as well, conceded. Let us not forget that many of the Original Framers and the Public they were beholden to had just suffered the consequences of a Standing Army that was not at War. The British Army with troops Quartered in peoples homes without recompense.
The notion that the drafters of the Constitution passed the amendment because they wanted citizens to have the right to resist their own government is ludicrous. The whole point of drafting a constitution was to replace a system of government that was too decentralized and ineffective (the Articles of Confederation) with one that gave the federal government greater scope of action. Not really ludicrous since they just fought a War and many lost everything throwing off just such a Government. It was realized that the Articles were unwieldly and that operating as a collection whole was nigh impossible. I think you find no love for a Govenrment that does more than Referee diputes however.
Look at the document. Article III, Section 3, Clause 1 states that it is treason to levy war against the United States; Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the powers to raise, support and regulate the army and navy. Clause 15 of the same section actually states that the purpose of the militia is "to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions." So the Second Amendment was included, in some measure, to help the government suppress resistance, rather than enable it. There have been several Armed insurrections one or two that occurred before the Constitution was even drafted. Yes the Militia can be called out to suppress insurrections but, as a Militia made of Citizen Soldiers with Officers appointed by the States; the Militia would be an unlikely instrument of a despotic Federal government . Unlike a Federal Army raised by Congress, paid for with Federal funds, and Commanded by Federal appointees.
Eric Stoner
04-23-2007, 07:31 AM
I have read what the founders wrote, at length. And I've read enough--and I know enough about eighteenth-century history--to tell you that much of what pro-gun advocates write about the original intentions of the framers consists of misrepresentations and outright lies.
When people such as George Washington referred to "the people", they meant it in the collective sense--not in terms of individuals. The way in which eighteenth-century Americans understood the meaning of liberty was deeply coloured by the struggles between King and Parliament that had taken place in the previous century. And the key point here is that these struggles were fought NOT between citizens and the government--but between Parliament and Crown. Leaders such as Washington saw the American Revolution in these terms: as a war fought to protect the rights of representative governments, not as a libertarian struggle against government itself.
The Bill of Rights was neither original nor distinctively American--it was essentially a rehashing of the Declaration of Right that English Parliament passed in 1689. The Declaration of Right included a provision guaranteeing the right of all
Protestants to bear arms, as well as a clause forbidding standing armies. This was in reaction to attempts by Charles I and James II to rule without Parliament earlier in the century. If there was no standing army, the framers of the Declaration of Right reasoned, future kings would have to call Parliament in order to fund their armies.
As for the contention that the founders wanted arms to be stored in private homes rather than public armories--that's just plain wrong. At the time of the Revolution, the arms of militias were stored in public armories. That's why British troops marched on Lexington and Concord in 1775--to seize caches of weapons that belonged to local militias.
A lot of what pro-gun advocates write about the Second Amendment is just an attempt to project present-day libertarian values on to people who lived in the late eighteenth century. And that leads to all kinds of distortions. The framers of the Constitution were deeply conservative men whose political attitudes were essentially British in character. For them, the meaning of liberty was forged during the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and the crowning achievement of this revolution was not the elevation of individual rights--but the protection of representative government.
You did ? You read Madison's commentaries on the 2d Amendment contained in Federalist No. 46 ? How about Hamilton in Nos. 28 and 29 ?
Did you pay particular attention to what Alex wrote in No. 28- the part about an armed citizenry being able to take action if "THEIR REPRESENTATIVES " usurped or abused their authority. Our founders went FAR beyond what English Parliamentarians argued and fought for
against two absolutists- Charles I and James II respecting arms and the citizens. The Second Amendment was NOT a grant of authority. It was a GUARANTEE of a pre-existing right of SELF- DEFENSE ! Without bogging down in semantics; "people" is plural but to get "people" you have to add up "persons". Anyway the 2d amendment says "People" and guarantees their right to KEEP and BEAR arms; not States; not cities, not towns and not villages.
You're wrong about Lexington and Concord. Yes there were caches of gunpowder and some publicly owned arms to hand out to live bodies who could not otherwise afford to buy their own during time of emergency. Rifles and muskets were rather expensive and not everyone could afford to buy their own. The "minutemen" kept their guns at home along with a supply of ball and powder. Most of what the British actually seized and destroyed on April 19, 1775 consisted of gunpowder. It was considered safer to store it in an UNHEATED armory to keep it away from fire for obvious reasons.
The 2d Amendment was passed before State Police; municipal police forces; the FBI and BATF and self protection was both an individual and a collective responsibility.
What do you SERIOUSLY propose ? That we continue to disarm the law-abiding ?
The Snark
04-24-2007, 07:23 PM
I don't have very strong opinions either way on the issue of gun control. My feelings on this issue remind me of a Seinfeld episode in which Jerry discovers that his dentist, who has just recently converted to Judaism, has been telling Jewish jokes. Someone asks Jerry if this offends him as a Jew. "No," he answers, "it offends me as a comedian."
The rubbish that people write about the Second Amendment doesn't offend me as a gun control advocate; it offends me as a historian. The origin of all this rubbish is a small coterie of wingnuts who publish in the Tennessee Law Review--not exactly a beacon of intellectual enlightenment. Their whole modus operandi is to quote the founders out of context, to omit key passages and to generally ignore the entire historical background of the Constitution. A few passages are then republished in NRA literature, and circulated to the general public through fora such as this board. It's actually a fascinating example of how a modern-day system of disinformation works.
Anyway, it's entirely predictable that you'd cite Federalists #28 and #46, which are mainstays of NRA propaganda. Both are very good examples of the gun lobby taking quotations out of context. Both Madison and Hamilton were arguing against the Antifederalists, states' rights advocates who were insinuating that the federal government could somehow usurpt the authority of the states and establish a tyrannical government. Both authors held that the Antifederalists' position was delusional, in that both federal and state governments were rooted in popular sovereignty--that is, they were elected by the people themselves. Remember that the central struggle of this time was not between government and individual freedom, but rather absolutism (government derived from divine right) and representative government (government derived from popular consent). The gist of both #28 and #46 is to show how untenable the states' rights position was--not to argue that the private ownership of guns was a bulwark of liberty.
Note that Madison's comments in #46 are made entirely in the hypothetical mode, outlining a paranoid scenario that he clearly considered to be absurd. His attitude toward the militia is perhaps better captured by his comments he made to Virginia's constitutional convention in 1788:
[Patrick Henry] says that one ground of complaint, at the beginning of the revolution, was, that a standing army was quartered upon us. This was not the whole complaint. We complained because it was done without the local authority of this country— without the consent of the people of America. As to the exclusion of standing armies in the bill of rights of the states, we shall find that though, in one or two of them, there is something like a prohibition, yet, in most of them, it is only provided that no armies shall be kept without the legislative authority; that is, without the consent of the community itself. Where is the impropriety of saying that we shall have an army, if necessary? Does not the notoriety of this constitute security? If inimical nations were to fall upon us when defenceless, what would be the consequence? Would it be wise to say, that we should have no defence? Give me leave to say, that the only possible way to provide against standing armies is to make them unnecessary. The way to do this is to organize and discipline our militia, so as to render them capable of defending the country against external invasions and internal insurrections....
There never was a government without force. What is the meaning of government? An institution to make people do their duty. A government leaving it to a man to do his duty or not, as he pleases, would be a new species of government, or rather no government at all.
The Snark
04-24-2007, 07:47 PM
"A Well Regulated Militia" is often misinterpreted as Laws. The Regulations as I pointed out confer with Major General Von Steuben "Blue Book" on how the Militia is to conduct itself in the Field and Parade. How to Drill and Fight as it were. The Laws that would Govern the Militia and limit it's use would be enacted by the various States.
You're absolutely right--von Steuben's manual was in fact one of dozens that were published at this time, chiefly in Europe. Drill manuals originated in the seventeenth century, chiefly in response to the military reforms enacted by Gustavus Adolphus in Sweden and copied elsewhere in Europe. "Regulated" in this sense derives from the Latin regula, meaning rule or rod. A well regulated militia is one that is trained and organized into some regimental form. Which means that the Second Amendment does not apply to private citizens who are untrained and who do not belong to some form of military organization.
I don't know how many times I have to repeat this, but the revolutionary generation was not fighting against government; it was fighting for representative government. The value of a militia was it helped defend popular sovereignty--that is, it strengthened a government that was elected by the people. The militia was intended to be used as an agent of the government--to protect a popularly elected institutions against their internal and external enemies.
Standing armies were considered dangerous, on the other hand, because they were viewed as agents of absolutism--as a means by which popular sovereignty could be overthrown. That an elected government could turn against its own people (the spectre that you all seem to be raising) was a logical impossibility in the minds of Madison and other founders--that's essentially the main point of Federalist #46.
Nicolina
04-24-2007, 11:39 PM
You're absolutely right--von Steuben's manual was in fact one of dozens that were published at this time, chiefly in Europe. Drill manuals originated in the seventeenth century, chiefly in response to the military reforms enacted by Gustavus Adolphus in Sweden and copied elsewhere in Europe. "Regulated" in this sense derives from the Latin regula, meaning rule or rod. A well regulated militia is one that is trained and organized into some regimental form. Which means that the Second Amendment does not apply to private citizens who are untrained and who do not belong to some form of military organization.
Thank you. That's kind of how I've always read it too, but I am sort of an idiot when it comes to history, and I didn't know much about the historical context.
I don't know how many times I have to repeat this, but the revolutionary generation was not fighting against government; it was fighting for representative government. The value of a militia was it helped defend popular sovereignty--that is, it strengthened a government that was elected by the people. The militia was intended to be used as an agent of the government--to protect a popularly elected institutions against their internal and external enemies.
Standing armies were considered dangerous, on the other hand, because they were viewed as agents of absolutism--as a means by which popular sovereignty could be overthrown. That an elected government could turn against its own people (the spectre that you all seem to be raising) was a logical impossibility in the minds of Madison and other founders--that's essentially the main point of Federalist #46.
Thanks for your excellent contributions to this thread. :)
ArmySGT.
04-25-2007, 05:57 PM
You're absolutely right--von Steuben's manual was in fact one of dozens that were published at this time, chiefly in Europe. Drill manuals originated in the seventeenth century, chiefly in response to the military reforms enacted by Gustavus Adolphus in Sweden and copied elsewhere in Europe. "Regulated" in this sense derives from the Latin regula, meaning rule or rod. A well regulated militia is one that is trained and organized into some regimental form. Which means that the Second Amendment does not apply to private citizens who are untrained and who do not belong to some form of military organization.
I don't know how many times I have to repeat this, but the revolutionary generation was not fighting against government; it was fighting for representative government. The value of a militia was it helped defend popular sovereignty--that is, it strengthened a government that was elected by the people. The militia was intended to be used as an agent of the government--to protect a popularly elected institutions against their internal and external enemies.
Standing armies were considered dangerous, on the other hand, because they were viewed as agents of absolutism--as a means by which popular sovereignty could be overthrown. That an elected government could turn against its own people (the spectre that you all seem to be raising) was a logical impossibility in the minds of Madison and other founders--that's essentially the main point of Federalist #46.
Von Steuben's "Blue Book" was the only drill manual used by the Colonial forces. All Males 16 years and older were the Militia. Every member of the Militia provided his own Musket, powder, and shot in addition to other accoutrments. Since every Militiaman provided his own weapon; how can you say that personal weapons are not protected. This was a Right clearly written for the PEOPLE not the Federal government or any State. Why is it when talking about the First Amendment "the People" refers to individuals, however when refering to the Second Amendment "the People" now means the State.