Another major school shooting today ... Newtown, Conn

@spendius,

Talking about The Guardian (a male reporter, mind you, Spendius), I found there a map about gun ownership and gun homicides rates.

Looking at it the US doesn't rank that bad.

The US has by far the highest gun ownership rate in the world - an average of 88 per 100 people. Even the number two country, Yemen, has significantly fewer - 54.8 per 100 people.
But the US does not have the worst firearm murder rate - that prize belongs to Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica. In fact, the US is number 28, with a rate of 2.97 per 100,000 people.

Of course, it could do better, Switzerland ranks number 3 in gun ownership, with 45.7 firearms per 100 people and has a rate of 0.77 gun related murders per 100,000 inhabitants; about one fourth of the US. But, as a whole, you could say Americans handle their guns responsibly.

The question, I believe, is not about gun possession, but about the kind of weapons Americans can easily buy. Assault weapons with hundreds of rounds, machine-guns for Christmas with a discount.
Assault weapons are behind the mass-murders in the US. And on this kind of massacres the US stands on first place. By far.
It's not the quantity of firearms; it's their quality.

I thought the 2nd amendment's "right to bear arms" was applied to weapons that were not specifically designed for military use. Dumb Mexican me.

3 Replies

@spendius,

spendius wrote:

Does your bottle go Oralloy when it comes to the right of women to vote? Are you not up for being opposed to that measure?

Why in the world would I oppose that?

Sheesh!

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Or if we are not going to ban all firearms just so call assault rifles the families would feel better having their children kill with a riot shotgun or even an old level action rifle who magazine and rate of fire could do the killing without any problem also.

If they were able to ban assault weapons (setting aside the fact that the Supreme Court would toss out the ban), the killer would not even need to step down in technology. All they'd really have to give up is the pistol grip and flash suppressor.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

There is nothing in the constitution which prohibits the regulation of firearms. I suggest you read the decision in The United States versus Miller, where the Court acknowledged the Congress' right to regulate firearms under the provisions of Article One, Section Eight.

You do indulge hysteria, and name-calling, when you throw out inflammatory remarks to the effect that those who do not agree with you hate freedom, and that one of the two major parties hates the constitution. That's hyperbole, as Frank said, that's hysteria, and it's typical of your inability to deal with contradiction.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

As far as I'm concerned your position is politically on a level with female Guardian columnists and their lickspittals and lackeys.

Way to make your point clear and unambiguous, spendi.

1 Reply

@fbaezer,

fbaezer wrote:

The question, I believe, is not about gun possession, but about the kind of weapons Americans can easily buy. Assault weapons with hundreds of rounds, machine-guns for Christmas with a discount.

A machine gun is not easily bought in the US.

fbaezer wrote:

Assault weapons are behind the mass-murders in the US.

No they aren't.

fbaezer wrote:

It's not the quantity of firearms; it's their quality.

An assault weapon is just a gun with harmless cosmetic features like a pistol grip and a flash suppressor. That is hardly a qualitative difference.

fbaezer wrote:

I thought the 2nd amendment's "right to bear arms" was applied to weapons that were not specifically designed for military use.

Where did you get that idea? It is a pretty complex issue that covers both.

But regardless, having harmless cosmetic features like a pistol grip does not make a gun "designed for military use".

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

There is nothing in the constitution which prohibits the regulation of firearms.

That depends on the regulation. There are certainly some regulations that are not prohibited.

But there are other regulations that are most definitely prohibited. For instance, there is no question that the government is forbidden from banning assault weapons.

Setanta wrote:

I suggest you read the decision in The United States versus Miller, where the Court acknowledged the Congress' right to regulate firearms under the provisions of Article One, Section Eight.

Their expansive use of the Commerce Clause was a bit over the top.

That said, I'm not really making a Tenth Amendment argument at the moment.

Setanta wrote:

You do indulge hysteria, and name-calling, when you throw out inflammatory remarks to the effect that those who do not agree with you hate freedom, and that one of the two major parties hates the constitution.

Not at all. All I'm doing is telling the truth.

Setanta wrote:

That's hyperbole, as Frank said, that's hysteria, and it's typical of your inability to deal with contradiction.

No, telling the truth is neither hysteria nor hyperbole.

What inability to deal with contradiction?

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

Constitution says you aren't allowed to ban assault weapons.

The Constitution says no such thing. And we previously had an assault weapons ban.

The Constitution also originally didn't give members of my gender the right to vote--but it does now.

The Constitution is also subject to continuing charges in interpretation, and we may soon see that with the "right to bear arms".

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Since you can't show me arguing for a ban, your arguing against that is a classic straw man. It matters not what my position is. It matters whether I have argued for that position.

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@oralloy,

There is no such prohibition, you just want to interpret the document that way. The portion of the decision in The United States versus Miller to which i referred was the Court's statement to the effect that they had no knowledge that Congress had designated shotguns having a barrel of less than 18"as a weapon of the militia. That's why i mentioned Article One, Section Eight. I didn't mention the commerce clause--try to keep up, 'K? You haven't been telling the truth. Your quixotic and idiosyncratic interpretations of the constitution are not truth, they're just opinions, and not well reasoned opinions at that.

1 Reply

@firefly,

firefly wrote:

oralloy wrote:
Constitution says you aren't allowed to ban assault weapons.

The Constitution says no such thing.

Yes it does. A ban on harmless cosmetic features like a pistol grip and flash suppressor would not even make it past Rational Basis Review, to say nothing of even stricter standards of scrutiny.

firefly wrote:

And we previously had an assault weapons ban.

Yes. You are guilty of a grave atrocity against innocent Americans.

firefly wrote:

The Constitution also originally didn't give members of my gender the right to vote--but it does now.

If you want to try to amend the Constitution to repeal our freedom, feel free to try.

firefly wrote:

The Constitution is also subject to continuing changes in interpretation,

No it isn't.

firefly wrote:

and we may soon see that with the "right to bear arms".

In other words, vote for Republicans, because the Democrats want to pack the courts with judges who hate the Constitution.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

You're in fantasy land.

We previously had an assault weapons ban and we can reinstate another one--hopefully one with fewer loopholes.

Some of us cherish the "freedom" of children to be able to sit in their kindergarten classses without fear that their bodies will be riddled with bullets from the currently preferred weapon of mass muderers.

These children, who are being buried today, were denied that freedom

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/908828/thumbs/s-MATTIOLI-AND-REKOS-large.jpg?6

So, why don't you tell us why the weapon used to kill those children is the currently preferred weapon of our mass murderers, oralloy? What are it's attributes that make it such a preferred weapon for these killers?

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

the killer would not even need to step down in technology. All they'd really have to give up is the pistol grip and flash suppressor.

I know that Oralloy but they seems not be be able to understand that simple fact so I went away from all semi-auto weapons to try to get it through their heads that there are one hell a lot of firearms that are just as deadly as a modern rifles assault or otherwise.

These people seems incapable of understanding anything about firearms no matter how you try to explain it to them.

Assault rifle equal a battlefield weapon that must be far more deadly then any civilian weapon and that is just not true.

In fact due to trade offs of weight and amo load out they tend to be of shorter range and less likely to kill a person with one hit then a hunting rifle of the larger calibers.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

There is no such prohibition,

Yes there is. Any ban on harmless cosmetic features like pistol grips would violate Rational Basis Review, to say nothing of even stronger standards of scrutiny.

Setanta wrote:

you just want to interpret the document that way.

It's the only way it can be interpreted.

Setanta wrote:

The portion of the decision in The United States versus Miller to which i referred was the Court's statement to the effect that they had no knowledge that Congress had designated shotguns having a barrel of less than 18"as a weapon of the militia. That's why i mentioned Article One, Section Eight. I didn't mention the commerce clause--try to keep up, 'K?

Nope. You referred to where they acknowledged the Congress' right to regulate firearms under the provisions of Article One, Section Eight.

The Miller Ruling upheld the government's ability to regulate firearms by using the Commerce Clause.

Setanta wrote:

You haven't been telling the truth.

Yes I have.

Setanta wrote:

Your quixotic and idiosyncratic interpretations of the constitution are not truth, they're just opinions,

A straightforward statement of the fundamental principles guiding all interpretations of the Constitution is neither quixotic nor idiosyncratic.

Nor is it opinion.

Setanta wrote:

and not well reasoned opinions at that.

I note your inability to show a single flaw in my reasoning.

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@BillRM,

Quote:

These people seems incapable of understanding anything about firearms no matter how you try to explain it to them.

And you're denying the fact that most mass murders in this country in the past decade or so have all been accomplished with the use of the same types of firearms.

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@firefly,

firefly wrote:

You're in fantasy land.

Nope. I'm just pointing out that Constitution that you hate so much.

firefly wrote:

We previously had an assault weapons ban

Yes. As I said, you are guilty of a grave atrocity against innocent Americans.

firefly wrote:

and we can reinstate another one--hopefully one with fewer loopholes.

You seem to have forgotten both the NRA and the Supreme Court.

In the extremely unlikely event that you get your assault on the Constitution past the NRA, you won't be getting it past the Supreme Court.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Legally, congress can pass laws. However, if those laws fail constitutional muster, the judicial branch will overturn them.
So far Only one Constitutional amendment has ever been repealed, the 18th Amendment, the one that established "prohibition".

Article V of the US Constitution lays down the procedure by which an amendment may be altered, added to or removed and has been used at least 25 times to do so, however it is notoriously difficult to change, as Chapter VIII specifies:

1) An absolute majority in the House of Representatives and Senate

2) A referendum of the people in which there is returned not just a simple majority but a majority of the people in a majority of the states.

The second part is what makes it difficult to achieve easy change. However, if enough people do want stricter gun laws and gun bans, it will happen just like it did in Australia. The difference between us and Australia being that the vote is directly by the People, not their state assemblies.

More importantly for this debate though, the issue of gun sale, license, control and law was NEVER a federal responsibility, as that was one of the functions the Constitution reserved to the States. The Federal Government's authority in this matter was restricted to the the import of weapons.

2 Replies

@firefly,

firefly wrote:

BillRM wrote:
These people seems incapable of understanding anything about firearms no matter how you try to explain it to them.

And you're denying the fact that most mass murders in this country in the past decade or so have all been accomplished with the use of the same types of firearms.

That is hardly a fact.

And even in the cases where an assault weapon was actually involved, the pistol grip did not make anything any deadlier.

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@firefly,

Quote:

And you're denying the fact that most mass murders in this country in the past decade or so have all been accomplished with the use of the same types of firearms.

An all I can do is shake my head at the idea that if some sick SOB wish to do mass killing and could not get his hands on a so call assault rifle he would just decide that it must be a rifle with a pistol grip and a flash suppressor and if not he would not go ahead with his plans to do mass killings!!!!!!!!!!

Give me a break if all the rifles label assault weapons would disappear I can not see one life being save.

We should address the problem of safety in schools from mass killers but not by wasting resources by doing things that have zero chance of helping.

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@Val Killmore,

Val Killmore wrote:

Article V of the US Constitution lays down the procedure by which an amendment may be altered, added to or removed and has been used at least 25 times to do so, however it is notoriously difficult to change, as Chapter VIII specifies:

1) An absolute majority in the House of Representatives and Senate

2) A referendum of the people in which there is returned not just a simple majority but a majority of the people in a majority of the states.

The second part is what makes it difficult to achieve easy change. However, if enough people do want stricter gun laws and gun bans, it will happen just like it did in Australia. The difference between us and Australia being that the vote is directly by the People, not their state assemblies.

That will never happen.

They are going to be pushing their luck even trying to get Congress to pass a law with the NRA breathing down their necks.

Val Killmore wrote:

More importantly for this debate though, the issue of gun sale, license, control and law was NEVER a federal responsibility, as that was one of the functions the Constitution reserved to the States. The Federal Government's authority in this matter was restricted to the the import of weapons.

True. But on the other hand, the Second Amendment is a better method of restraint, because it restrains state and local governments along with the feds.

The Tenth Amendment may be more complete in it's restraint of the feds, but it does not restrict state and local laws at all.

1 Reply

Another major school shooting today ... Newtown, Conn

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