SHUD BURGLARY VICTIMS BE HELPLESS ?

To clarify on my above question the "if guns are illegal only outlaws would have guns" argument addesses law as it there were no mechanism for enforcement.

The same argument could be applied to any law:

"If rape is made criminal then only criminals will rape"

"If entering a domicile without permission is criminal only criminals will enter a domicile without permission"

In the US, in situations Sugar described where gang violence is a real and present concern I used to carry a gun.

Ultimately I found that it bought me more trouble than it prevented but I understand the motivation of those who wish to be armed in an area in which arms are prevalent and in irresponsible hands.

But the argument that gun control is, in effect, a means through which the population is left defenseless ignores the premise that law serves as a protection and that it should be backed up by enforcement.

I personally believe it would be difficult to enforce gun control in the US (due to the gun culture). But that does not mean that this is axiomatic to the issue of gun control.

In nations where guns are not prevalent (note that the US has a hundred times as many guns per person as some areas) the question is different in that altering gun laws would introduce the weapons and not reduce them.

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I've never implied that people should not have firearms. What I have said is that I do not agree that children should be packing guns.

I have guns in my home. As a child, I was told to keep my hands off of them and I did. If a child is going hunting with his or her father, that's a different story. However, I disagree that children should possess guns in the general public, and I am opposed to children carrying guns for the sake of 'protection'. That is an adults responsibility - one that is already dangerous. I am not confident that they would be more safetly used by children.

There are many laws created to protect children and I believe gun possession laws fall into this category. Buying a boy a hunting rifle for the sake of hunting isn't what I'm arguing. But a .45's purpose is to shoot people, and I don't think a child should have that power or responsibility.

I doubt that anything will ever keep anyone from guns, criminal or regular joes. But letting my son carry around a gun "in case" he gets bit by a dog is totally unacceptable to me - and that was your original argument.

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D'artagnan wrote:

Sugar wrote:
I'm not sure where you live, but it sounds like some perfect little community...

Actually, where Om lives (at least in his head) sounds kind of dreadful. A place where all that's remembered are weird incidents in which guns saved the day. Where children carry guns to school--and it's a positive thing. Where a person is defenseless if he or she isn't always armed.
A place where a kid reaches for a gun when someone moves in the house.

What kind of place is this?

Other things are remembered, but not pertinent to this discussion.

There was nothing dreadful; nothing bad ever happened with
anyone's gun. More people were killed by Ted Kennedy's car,
than by any of our guns. We enjoyed our guns.

I participated in gunnery practice,
tho I was not sufficiently accurate to make the school team.

"Where a person is defenseless if he or she isn't always armed."
Well, that's a fact. The animals have built in defenses.
We are a toolmaking species; our defenses arise from use of our minds.

"A place where a kid reaches for a gun when someone moves in the house."

I did not say, nor imply, such paranoia,
but it WAS a comfort to have our guns around. It still is.

I enjoyed my childhood, including its gunnery and archery practice.

Note that I never met anyone who was addicted to any drug,
as I was growing up,
nor were contraband drugs ever sold in my presence.

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Sugar wrote:

I've never implied that people should not have firearms.
What I have said is that I do not agree that children should be packing guns.

I have guns in my home. As a child, I was told to keep my hands off of them and I did. If a child is going hunting with his or her father, that's a different story. However, I disagree that children should possess guns in the general public, and I am opposed to children carrying guns for the sake of 'protection'. That is an adults responsibility - one that is already dangerous. I am not confident that they would be more safetly used by children.

There are many laws created to protect children and I believe gun possession laws fall into this category. Buying a boy a hunting rifle for the sake of hunting isn't what I'm arguing. But a .45's purpose is to shoot people, and I don't think a child should have that power or responsibility.

I doubt that anything will ever keep anyone from guns, criminal or regular joes. But letting my son carry around a gun "in case" he gets bit by a dog is totally unacceptable to me - and that was your original argument.

I remember some years ago, 199Os maybe the 8Os,
I saw on Peter Jennings World News Tonight ABC NEWS
a story of "the school where the students must bring guns to school"
(or something close to that). They showed some students aged
8 to 12 who walked to school everyday in one of the northwestern states.
I don't remember which state.

They were required to carry rifles, because pistols were not powerful enuf.
Each day they put their coats on the coatrack, their hats on the hatrack,
their guns on the gunrack, they studied arithmetic n geography
(and HOPEFULLY, fonetic spelling, but I doubt that).
AT the end of the day they took their stuff n went home.
They were interviewed.
There was never any trouble with the guns.

Apparently, the local fauna had been harvesting too many
of the students on the way to school, thus the rule.

As a child, I went just about everywhere alone,
from age 8 on up; rode my bike, or took a cab or a bus.
Security is important; a matter of life n death.
ITS A SAD FACT THAT KIDS HAVE FALLEN VICTIM
TO FATALLY VIOLENT CRIMES.
In the early 2Oth Century, my mother (as a child)
suffered permanent very, very grievous wounds (lifelong)
in defending her sister from an attacking ex-"boyfriend"
I wish that in 1912 my mother had some heavy duty ordnance n blasted that guy.
Maybe a nice .45 revolver, as u mentioned.

NO MATTER WHO U ARE, if an emergency arises,
u must have the necessary equipment to resolve that emergency,
or perhaps suffer unacceptable results.

The predator might not necessarily accept
the excuse that "I'm too young to be a crime victim."

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OmSigDAVID wrote:

Sugar wrote:

<snip...> But letting my son carry around a gun "in case" he gets bit by a dog
is totally unacceptable to me - and that was your original argument.

"

When my mother first found out that I had armed myself,
she was somewhat alarmed; she did not like it eeither,
but I appointed myself in charge of THAT decision;
NOTHING cud be more personal than the decision of
whether I can defend myself or not.

She even stole my gun, at first. It took some effort, but
I replaced it, n subsequently got back the original one.

No harm ever came of it, and I lived with peace of mind.
That's worth something

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OmSigDAVID wrote:

I'm not quite sure whether I correctly understand your position,
as set forth hereinabove.

Perheps because it's a conflicted one.

I like guns, but disagree with many of the arguments against gun control in America because I feel they are sometimes tainted by a perspective from one of the most weaponized cultures in history.

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Do u allege that it is possible for government
to disarm criminals, long term ?

Tough one. I think that the degree to which it's possible to acheive 'long term' disarmament is worth pursuing but don't believe the short term results will be attractive enough to bring about the actions it would necessitate.

But your question might take the scope of eternity and when you say 'long term' and 'disarm' you might mean 'forever' and 'without exception'.

Your use of anecdotal evidence herin makes that a danger.

OmSigDAVID wrote:

If so, I believe that history has disproven that notion.

Dunno, i think historry has compelling cases for both.

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Indeed, it is not uncommon for criminals to secretly make guns
EVEN IN PRISON. We know because every once in a while,
a loud noise is heard, and a lot of blood is found when they accidentally
shoot themselves. I am acquainted with some retired prison personnel
(guards, teachers, counselors). In one case, some criminals made
their own fully functional submachinegun in the prison workshop,
one-part-at-a-time, with the guards around; shot their way out.

Criminals are certainly craetive sorts. Heck in Brazil tehy frequrntly have cell phones and run criminal activity from within.

They manage to get all sorts of contraband flown into the prisons by kites.

I digress, the moral of my anecdote is that in Brazil kites are common.

OmSigDAVID wrote:

With that as background,
WHAT IS THE LIMIT of what they can make with free
and unsupervised access to the hardware stores of America,
when they are not incarcerated ?????

There will certainly be people who can craete their own weapons. As a child I believe that was my only pursuit so I know that there is also the motivation. But I do not think this realization imperils the notion that gun control might be a good thing.

OmSigDAVID wrote:

As a young boy, altho I had a goodly number of commercially made
guns, I made some guns of my own, because it was FUN; quick n EZ,
as did the other kids in the neighborhood.
We also had fun making and detonating bombs in our backyards in Arizona.
They were faster to make than guns.

I agree, bombs were always easier. Less precision needed. Not as fun though. I always liked the precision of guns.

OmSigDAVID wrote:

In America, prohibition has NEVER been successful;
not alcohol; not marijuana; nothing that I can think of.

Denying the human spirit (read rebellion) of humans is, indeed, hard to do.

This is why, until America is at the point at which it wants gun control (i.e. a significant majority do) I think it will be impossible to effectively effect gun control.

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Anyway, it was never the function of government
to protect anyone from his own poor judgment.

I've never put much thought into what a traditional function of government has been. Lots of people are very adamant about traditionally defined governmental purposes and oddly I haven't.

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Craven, I'm VERY impressed with how u can
separate what I said from your response,
as u did, and over n over, cyclically. In different colors, yet !

I did not think that was possible !
(shows how much I know)

Very nice job !!!

How the Dickens do u do it ????????

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Setanta wrote:

OSD wrote:
The 2nd Amendment is not age specific.
It simply deprives all governments of any authority
to interfere with the citizens' possession of guns.

This is a patently false statement, for the following reason:

"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."

One would then naturally ask what is the meaning of a well regulated militia.

Well-regulated means that the militia is skilled enough to fight as a single coordinated unit, as opposed to a bunch of individuals.

Note Alexander Hamilton's use of the word:

The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day or even a week that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry and of the other classes of the citizens to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions as often as might be necessary, to acquire the degree of perfection which would intitle them to the character of a well regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labour of the country to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expence of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labour and industry to so considerable an extent would be unwise; and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_15s9.html

Setanta wrote:

This is answered in Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 of the Constitution, to wit:

"To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress."

That certainly refers to the same militia, but it doesn't answer any questions about the meaning of "well-regulated".

Setanta wrote:

Therefore, the Constitution very clearly grants to the Congress the right to provide for the arming of the militia. If the Congress were to decide that machetes were to be the specified arm of the militia, no appeal to the second amendment would have any legal force--it says the right to keep and bear arms, not the right to keep any damn fire arm i please.

Incorrect. The very reason they put the Second Amendment in was to prevent such an abuse of their power to arm the militia. Assuming the courts are interested in upholding the Second Amendment, an appeal to the Second Amendment would most definitely have legal force.

If we assume they are not interested in enforcing it, the appeal would not have legal force then, but the same could be said of any other right that the courts chose to ignore.

It is true that the right does not apply to "any firearm you want". In today's world, it would apply specifically to automatic rifles, and probably also AP ammo for those rifles.

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The ban on assault weapons ended a few weeks ago, oralloy. In fact, any US citizen can now legally buy automatic rifles...AK47s...you name it.

Bush & the republican majority in Congress allowed it to expire. Sure, some waved their arms and made a few noises saying they didn't want it to happen, but as far as I can tell, not one of them lifted a finger to prevent it. They were just covering their bases with law enforcement agencies, etc. without actually doing anything to upset the NRA, which of course celebrated the end of the ban.

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Eva wrote:

The ban on assault weapons ended a few weeks ago, oralloy.

This is a good start.

Eva wrote:

In fact, any US citizen can now legally buy automatic rifles...AK47s...you name it.

Unfortunately this is incorrect.

These guns are still unconstitutionally restricted for most people.

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