Guns and the Supreme Court

I'm getting pretty fed-up with "inalienable rights" ad nauseam and 230-year-old declarations treated like Moses had come down from the mount with them tucked under his arm.

I'm getting pretty fed-up with "inalienable rights" ad nauseam and 230-year-old declarations treated like Moses had come down from the mount with them tucked under his arm

Gun owners: When you clean and load your guns, do you see yourself more closely resembling

a) Davy Crockett

b) Billy the Kid

c) Audie Murphy

d) James Bond

e) George C Scott as Gen Patton

f) Other (Annie Oakley)

?

I'm getting pretty fed-up with "inalienable rights" ad nauseam and 230-year-old declarations treated like Moses had come down from the mount with them tucked under his arm.

McTag wrote:

I'm getting pretty fed-up with "inalienable rights" ad nauseam and 230-year-old declarations treated like Moses had come down from the mount with them tucked under his arm.

I don't see the merit of this comparison. The right of the people to hold and bear arms can be repealed by amending the American constitution. The ten commandmends, quite unfortunately in some cases, can't. If it's nauseating to you that your opinion isn't shared by enough Americans to repeal the Second Amendment -- well, tough. Your being fed up is irrelevant to the rights guaranteed by the US constitution.

Thomas wrote:

McTag wrote:

I'm getting pretty fed-up with "inalienable rights" ad nauseam and 230-year-old declarations treated like Moses had come down from the mount with them tucked under his arm.

I don't see the merit of this comparison. The right of the people to hold and bear arms can be repealed by amending the American constitution. The ten commandmends, quite unfortunately in some cases, can't. If it's nauseating to you that your opinion isn't shared by enough Americans to repeal the Second Amendment -- well, tough. Your being fed up is irrelevant to the rights guaranteed by the US constitution.

Some rights good, some rights bad. The founding fathers didn't envisage space travel either.

You are all carefully skating round the point. Which is rather like "an eye for an eye makes everybody blind". People have guns because they don't trust each other. And the ready availability of guns causes nasty incidents (nobody has yet answered my previous question). Wouldn't it be good if more people would try to grasp this particular nettle?

McTag wrote:

I'm getting pretty fed-up with "inalienable rights" ad nauseam and 230-year-old declarations treated like Moses had come down from the mount with them tucked under his arm.

LOL !! who really cares if you're fed-up or not.

Our inalienable rights are more important than the declarations Moses shared.

Im not asking that you care about me. Only that you think about you.

May. 6, 2005 12:00 AM

The police are not required to protect individual citizens.

In Warren v. District of Columbia 1981, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled "official police personnel and the government employing them are not generally liable to victims of criminal acts for failure to provide adequate police protection . . . this uniformly accepted rule rests upon the fundamental principle that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular citizen . . . a publicly maintained police force constitutes a basic governmental service provided to benefit the community at large by promoting public peace, safety and good order."

Also in Bowers v. DeVito 1982, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, "there is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen." advertisement




Armed law-abiding citizens are just doing what is needed to do to be safe from criminals and madmen in their homes, cars, bars or restaurants.

But there is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen.

"....a publicly maintained police force constitutes a basic governmental service provided to benefit the community at large by promoting public peace, safety and good order."

If I was going to set about doing that, from first principles, one of the obvious steps would be to take away the guns from the bad guys.
And since there's no way of telling the good guys from the bad, that would have to mean everybody.

Seems like common sense to me, and you don't have to get bogged down in sonorous statements about inalienable rights. What about my rights not to be shot?

McTag wrote:

I'm getting pretty fed-up with "inalienable rights" ad nauseam and 230-year-old declarations treated like Moses had come down from the mount with them tucked under his arm.

I don't see the merit of this comparison. The right of the people to hold and bear arms can be repealed by amending the American constitution. The ten commandmends, quite unfortunately in some cases, can't. If it's nauseating to you that your opinion isn't shared by enough Americans to repeal the Second Amendment -- well, tough. Your being fed up is irrelevant to the rights guaranteed by the US constitution.

And you in Georgia too. I hope you're not struck by a lightning bolt this weekend. :wink:

Thomas wrote:

McTag wrote:

I'm getting pretty fed-up with "inalienable rights" ad nauseam and 230-year-old declarations treated like Moses had come down from the mount with them tucked under his arm.

I don't see the merit of this comparison. The right of the people to hold and bear arms can be repealed by amending the American constitution. The ten commandmends, quite unfortunately in some cases, can't. If it's nauseating to you that your opinion isn't shared by enough Americans to repeal the Second Amendment -- well, tough. Your being fed up is irrelevant to the rights guaranteed by the US constitution.

Some rights good, some rights bad.

The founding fathers didn't envisage space travel either.

You are all carefully skating round the point. Which is rather like "an eye for an eye makes everybody blind". People have guns because they don't trust each other. And the ready availability of guns causes nasty incidents (nobody has yet answered my previous question). Wouldn't it be good if more people would try to grasp this particular nettle?

"....a publicly maintained police force constitutes a basic governmental service provided to benefit the community at large by promoting public peace, safety and good order."

If I was going to set about doing that, from first principles, one of the obvious steps would be to take away the guns from the bad guys.
And since there's no way of telling the good guys from the bad, that would have to mean everybody.

Seems like common sense to me, and you don't have to get bogged down in sonorous statements about inalienable rights. What about my rights not to be shot?

Mc Tag
Your treading on dangerous ground
when you try to take away a U.S. citizens right to act like John Wayne.

Mc Tag
Your treading on dangerous ground when you try to take away a U.S. citizens right to act like John Wayne.

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Setanta wrote:

Thomas wrote:

McTag wrote:

Okay since there are honestly-held but polarised legal opinions on this matter, a clarification is obviously required, and a revision to the wording of the Constitution, written as it was all these years ago for a completely different world.

Maybe something along the lines of

"Whereas it is recognised that the function of law enforcement is nowadays undertaken by the police, and the function of defense of the state is undertaken by the armed forces, and no citizen has need to shoot his slaves or the indians or his neighbours or the redcoats any more,

and whereas many of the the people who own guns seem to be the very last people who should be let anywhere near them,

and due to a large number of regularly recurring regrettable incidents, for the better governance of the country and the safety of its citizens the previous widely-assumed "right of the people to bear arms" is hereby rescinded."

Congratulations, you get it! Now all you have to do is persuade two thirds of each house of Congress to pass this amendment, then get three quarters of the states to ratify it -- and you're done!

Thomas, Thomas, Thomas . . . you're so naïve.
First he has to found a special interest group with more money
and a wider base among the electorate than the National Rifle Association
(an organization which seems much more interested in handguns and
machine guns than in rifles).

It is worthy of note
that democracy cannot work
without such special interest groups as NRA
or the 2nd Amendment Foundation et al,
because the electorate wud endure in a state of woeful ignorance
of what governments are doing on all levels, fed, state n local.
We RELY upon SIGs to alert us to what is in the works
before its too late, so that we can contact our representatives
and threaten to disemploy them if thay fail to represent US
and just do as thay damn please.




David

We use journalists for that.
You know, impartial and disinterested people with investigative skills.

US Gun Statistics
Various Sources
2-2-5

(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.
(B) Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000.
(C) Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.

(Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Health Human Services)

Guns
(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000.
Yes, that is 80 million.

(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.
(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.000188.

Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.
Remember, "Guns don't kill people, doctors do."

FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.

Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand!

Out of concern for the public at large, I have withheld the statistics on lawyers for fear the shock would cause people to panic and seek medical attention.