Guns and the Supreme Court

Every freedom is messy and has some cost. Freedom of speech and assemby, for example, occasionally require the police to guard marchers or demonstrators for unpopular causes, which costs money. Once you accept the idea that everyone is entitled to personal liberty, then the right to defend one's person follows immediately, and the statistics regarding gun violence are interesting, but irrelevant.

Brandon9000 wrote:

Every freedom is messy and has some cost. Freedom of speech and assemby, for example, occasionally require the police to guard marchers or demonstrators for unpopular causes, which costs money. Once you accept the idea that everyone is entitled to personal liberty, then the right to defend one's person follows immediately, and the statistics regarding gun violence are interesting, but irrelevant.

You might be surprised to learn that I feel exactly the same as you do about self-defence.
But here, our policemen don't carry guns. Our burglars don't either. And so I don't feel I need one.
It's a whole different approach.

McTag wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

Every freedom is messy and has some cost. Freedom of speech and assemby, for example, occasionally require the police to guard marchers or demonstrators for unpopular causes, which costs money. Once you accept the idea that everyone is entitled to personal liberty, then the right to defend one's person follows immediately, and the statistics regarding gun violence are interesting, but irrelevant.

You might be surprised to learn that I feel exactly the same as you do about self-defence.
But here, our policemen don't carry guns. Our burglars don't either. And so I don't feel I need one.
It's a whole different approach.

Actually, I don't own a gun, never have, and probably never will. I'm talking in the abstract, but I do feel strongly about the principle. If one knew for sure that one would never be confronted with violence, then there would be no need to be armed, but one can't really know that. I think it's perfectly reasonable to have a gun in one's house just in case that terrible day ever comes. I don't want to hurt anyone, but if I or my wife were threatened, and I had a gun, and the level of the threat put me in fear of imminent harm, I would use it.

People firing guns have killed and injured far less people than people driving motor vehicles.

H2O wrote-

Quote:

People firing guns have killed and injured far less people than people driving motor vehicles.

I read, but don't know if it's true, that more Americans have been killed by motor vehicles than have been killed in all the wars they have been in put together.

If you justify gun ownership on those grounds then, if that is true, you have justified war and anything else with a lower statistic.

It is not a valid argument.

Brandon9000 wrote:

Every freedom is messy and has some cost. Freedom of speech and assemby, for example, occasionally require the police to guard marchers or demonstrators for unpopular causes, which costs money. Once you accept the idea that everyone is entitled to personal liberty, then the right to defend one's person follows immediately, and the statistics regarding gun violence are interesting, but irrelevant.

You might be surprised to learn that I feel exactly the same as you do about self-defence.
But here, our policemen don't carry guns. Our burglars don't either. And so I don't feel I need one.
It's a whole different approach.

According to Home Office figures, there were 59 firearms-related homicides in 2006-07 compared with 49 in the previous year. That is an increase of 18% in just one year. There were 507 serious injuries from firearms - more than one incident a day.

You are now six times more likely to be mugged in London than New York. Why? Because as common law appreciated, not only does an armed individual have the ability to protect himself or herself but criminals are less likely to attack them. They help keep the peace. A study found American burglars fear armed home-owners more than the police. As a result burglaries are much rarer and only 13% occur when people are at home, in contrast to 53% in England.

When guns were available in England they were seldom used in crime. A government study for 1890-1892 found an average of one handgun homicide a year in a population of 30 million. But murder rates for both countries are now changing. In 1981 the American rate was 8.7 times the English rate, in 1995 it was 5.7 times the English rate, and by last year it was 3.5 times. With American rates described as "in startling free-fall" and British rates as of October 2002 the highest for 100 years the two are on a path to converge.

Types of firearm include air weapons, imitation weapons, rifles, shotguns and
handguns, as well as CS gas and pepper sprays.

David wrote-

Quote:

Since the day of my birth,
I have always been a very selfish person.

Everyone shud be.

A mere affectation old boy I'm afraid.
Whistling up one's independent spirit when lost in a snowstorm.

H2O wrote-

Quote:

People firing guns have killed and injured far less people than
people driving motor vehicles.

I read, but don't know if it's true, that more Americans have been killed
by motor vehicles than have been killed in all the wars they have been
in put together.

If you justify gun ownership on those grounds then, if that is true,
you have justified war and anything else with a lower statistic.

It is not a valid argument.

Choosing to walk thru the world
in a state of defensive nakedness,
of conscious HELPLESSNESS,
is a variation on the theme of
playing Russian Roulette.

If you justify anti-gun ownership efforts because you " don't like reading about all the mall and
school slayings, and the guys in car trunks with sniper rifles. " then your argument is not valid.

I think you have a non-sequitur on your hands.

Brandon9000 wrote:

Every freedom is messy and has some cost. Freedom of speech and assemby, for example, occasionally require the police to guard marchers or demonstrators for unpopular causes, which costs money. Once you accept the idea that everyone is entitled to personal liberty, then the right to defend one's person follows immediately, and the statistics regarding gun violence are interesting, but irrelevant.

You might be surprised to learn that I feel exactly the same as you do about self-defence.
But here, our policemen don't carry guns.
Our burglars don't either.
And so I don't feel I need one.
It's a whole different approach.

McTag wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

Every freedom is messy and has some cost. Freedom of speech and assemby, for example, occasionally require the police to guard marchers or demonstrators for unpopular causes, which costs money. Once you accept the idea that everyone is entitled to personal liberty, then the right to defend one's person follows immediately, and the statistics regarding gun violence are interesting, but irrelevant.

You might be surprised to learn that I feel exactly the same as you do about self-defence.
But here, our policemen don't carry guns. Our burglars don't either. And so I don't feel I need one.
It's a whole different approach.

Actually, I don't own a gun, never have, and probably never will.
I'm talking in the abstract, but I do feel strongly about the principle.
If one knew for sure that one would never be confronted with violence,
then there would be no need to be armed, but one can't really know that.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to have a gun in one's house just in case
that terrible day ever comes. I don't want to hurt anyone, but if I or my
wife were threatened, and I had a gun, and the level of the threat put me
in fear of imminent harm, I would use it.

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 commandments, 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.

Brandon9000 wrote:

McTag wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

Every freedom is messy and has some cost. Freedom of speech and assemby, for example, occasionally require the police to guard marchers or demonstrators for unpopular causes, which costs money. Once you accept the idea that everyone is entitled to personal liberty, then the right to defend one's person follows immediately, and the statistics regarding gun violence are interesting, but irrelevant.

You might be surprised to learn that I feel exactly the same as you do about self-defence.
But here, our policemen don't carry guns. Our burglars don't either. And so I don't feel I need one.
It's a whole different approach.

Actually, I don't own a gun, never have, and probably never will. I'm talking in the abstract, but I do feel strongly about the principle. If one knew for sure that one would never be confronted with violence, then there would be no need to be armed, but one can't really know that. I think it's perfectly reasonable to have a gun in one's house just in case that terrible day ever comes. I don't want to hurt anyone, but if I or my wife were threatened, and I had a gun, and the level of the threat put me in fear of imminent harm, I would use it.

Yeah, me too.
But these hypotheses make the head hurt.
Is the fear of crime worse that the reality?
I think the media stoke it up, and folks get twitchy and paranoid.

McTag wrote:

The founding fathers didn't envisage space travel either.

They were, however, familiar with your argument that entrusting guns to common citizens would mean blood in the streets. John Adams mentions it as characteristic of continental European states, and devotes a few paragraphs to arguing against it in his Defence of the Constitutions of the United States. (Plural, because he's defending the state constitutions as well as the federal constitution.) I'm too lazy at the moment to look up these paragraphs in Adams's 300 page book. But if the point is very important to you, I'll give it a, well, shot.

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 commandments, 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.

Remember the ladies and gentlemen in various Muslim countries who burned Danish fags
and torched Danish embassies because of the Muhammad caricatures?
They would agree with you, and apply the same reasoning to
First Amendment rights like the freedoms of speech and of the press.

The founding fathers didn't envisage space travel either.

They were, however, familiar with your argument that entrusting guns
to common citizens would mean blood in the streets. John Adams
mentions it as characteristic of continental European states,
and devotes a few paragraphs to arguing against it in his Defence of the Constitutions of the United States. (Plural,
because he's defending the state constitutions as well as the federal constitution.)
I'm too lazy at the moment to look up these paragraphs in Adams's 300
page book. But if the point is very important to you, I'll give it a, well, shot.

Thomas wrote:

McTag wrote:

The founding fathers didn't envisage space travel either.

They were, however, familiar with your argument that entrusting guns to common citizens would mean blood in the streets. John Adams mentions it as characteristic of continental European states, and devotes a few paragraphs to arguing against it in his Defence of the Constitutions of the United States. (Plural, because he's defending the state constitutions as well as the federal constitution.) I'm too lazy at the moment to look up these paragraphs in Adams's 300 page book. But if the point is very important to you, I'll give it a, well, shot.

I need to amend this in the interest of balance: Adams also believed in tight legal regulation of the militia, because there would be blood in the streets without them: "To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, countries or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws"

Remember the ladies and gentlemen in various Muslim countries who burned Danish fags