Thoughts on gun control

It seems to me the tyranny in the USA on this topic is coming from the members of the NRA.
It is they who wish a plague of firearms on the country, with wholly detrimental effect.

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old europe wrote:

Amigo wrote:
Shooting accidents? We don't ban cars because of car accidents.

No, but you have to get a driver's license if you want to drive one.

Not for driving on your own property;
just for use of the public roads.
David

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And Bingo ! ! !

Gunga Din invokes Godwin's Law . . .

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McTag wrote:

Amigo wrote:
McTag wrote:
Amigo wrote:
Guns are inert objects. They are extensions of the hand, the hand an extension of the mind.

When we talk about gun control we are really talking about suppressing a increasingly violent and troubled society/culture.

I think it is a mistake to fucus on gun control as some kind of solution. Gun control is only a way of treating one of many symptoms in a larger problem that should not be suppressed but more widely acknowledged and confronted.

I'm totally against gun control. I always think about that guy on T.V. fighting the military with rocks in dressshoes

Yes but the difference between your society and mine (where the ratio of gun slayings per capita America:Britain is about 200:1) is that, although we also are human and sometimes fly into rages with each other....when there is no gun around, no-one gets shot. And kids don't have shooting accidents in the home.
Yes, but what is the historic down side of gun control?

Are we going to endorse a "brave new world"?(have you read the book?)

What is the ultimate outcome of a completely unarmed populace and a government armed to the teeth? Has our nature changed in the last 100 years? I am somebody who reads up on things like the East Timor Massacre. Things like that give me a different view on gun control.

People form opinions with a very narrow scope of information.(I don't mean you)

http://www.vvawai.org/sw/sw39/east-timor.html

Shooting accidents? We don't ban cars because of car accidents.

I suppose if you think of your "government" as your enemy, or potentially your enemy, you could hold views like that.
We have an inbuilt safeguard however, called democracy.
I don't envisage anytime soon taking up arms against Her Majesty's Armed Forces. :wink:

Point of Information:
what is the CORRECT RESPONSE
if the government ( perhaps after citing to some emotional emergency,
like a government owned building burning down ),
declares a suspension of elections, indefinitely;
( says: " democracy is really very nice,
but don 't call us. We 'll call u,
qua scheduling the next election.
In the meantime, the leaders will remain incumbent,
and protests will be deemed seditious, in this time of crisis. " ) ?
David

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McTag wrote:

gungasnake wrote:
McTag wrote:

I don't envisage anytime soon taking up arms against Her Majesty's Armed Forces. :wink:

Picture this. Sometimes it's just one stupid law or one stupid official the people need to take up arms against and not her Majesty's entire government.

The idea of the "no knock raid" arose under Nixon's administration due to paranoia concerning drugs. A worse law is not even imaginable.

It quickly became a favorite passtime amongst people who knew no better to finger people they didn't like as drug dealers (anonymous calls) and sit back and watch the excitement as the cops broke down the victims doors and ransacked their domiciles at two or three AM in the morning, without bothering to knock.

Now, all of that flies in the face of the very oldest tenet of AngloSaxon common law, i.e. the idea that a man's home is his castle and, in the United States at least, a person is legally entitled to shoot and kill anybody doing such a thing, whether they happen to be government agents or police or whatever.

Naturally enough, somewhere back in the mid to late seventies before the internet age, out around western Maryland, the situation got out of hand. There was a salesman whose entire life consisted of salesmanship, farmers daughters, and pistol contests, and somebody fingered this guy as a drug dealer because he was sleeping with a farm girl the fingerer thought was his, and the guy was lying asleep in a hotel room with a 44 magnum caliber pistol he'd been working on that night lying on a night table when five police and federal agents broke his door down at 3 AM in the morning. Only the salesman survived.

At the ensuing trial, the salesman's lawyer correctly pointed out that Al Capone's employees had been dressed as cops for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago in 1929 and that, when people break your door down at three in the morning, their manner of dress is basically irrelevant, and you have to assume the worst. The jury took fifteen minutes to reach a decision to acquit.

I kind of like that, and view it as a benefit of having an armed society. It tends to keep **** in positions of authority in check somewhat.

It went for years afterwards and you never heard about "no knock" raids again and, unfortunately, lessons like that do not tend to stay learned forever and you're starting to read about no knock raids again, but I assume it will only be another year or so and some similar case will materialize, and the no knock idea will be gone for another twenty or thirty years at least and hopefully somebody will figure the whole thing out and ban the idea.

Somebody (in authority, legally and honestly pursuing what he believes to be his duties) breaks down a door and gets shot dead, and you "kind of like that"?

I don't like that at all. It is perverse.

In your option of what to " like "
u can choose :
authority
or
liberty.
I favor liberty.
David

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What you are proposing is anarchy, not a regulated, civilised society at all. Have we really not moved on since the wild west, 1850?

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McTag wrote:

What you are proposing is anarchy,
not a regulated, civilised society at all.
Have we really not moved on since the wild west, 1850?

That is factual error.

In America, freedom of self-defense existed
well into the 1900s; later than that it was legally curtailed only by
demanding that guns be shown openly,
rather than concealed.

After that, came discriminatory licensure,
with government ( in the person of the police )
granting or withholding legal access to vital emergency equipment,
at their most capricious whims.

In 1986, the State of Florida enacted CCW
( since followed by 39 other states )
denying the power of police to withhold licensure
from any applicant to carry concealed guns
unless there was something DRASTICLY rong with him.
During legislative debate of the original bill,
it was predicted that this uncivilized scheme wud result in
blood running in the streets, with bullets flying as thick as mosquitos in a swamp.
In fact, crime dropped, and the leader of the legislative opposition
( a Mr. Silver, I believe ) admitted that his predictions had been in error.

I believe that I read somewhere
that the English were free to bear arms in their own personal defense
until around the First World War; is that historically accurate ?

Was England " uncivilized " or in a state of " anarchy " until then ??

David

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Amigo wrote:

Guns are inert objects. They are extensions of the hand, the hand an extension of the mind.

When we talk about gun control we are really talking about suppressing a increasingly violent and troubled society/culture.

I think it is a mistake to fucus on gun control as some kind of solution. Gun control is only a way of treating one of many symptoms in a larger problem that should not be suppressed but more widely acknowledged and confronted.

I'm totally against gun control. I always think about that guy on T.V. fighting the military with rocks in dressshoes

I know it is lame to quote myself. But I think it is the (my) strongest point on the subject. If we have to suppress men to the point that they do not destroy eachother then civilization is a failure.

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McTag wrote:

What you are proposing is anarchy, not a regulated, civilised society at all.

Have we really not moved on since the wild west, 1850?

The Bill of Rights,
including its 2nd Amendment remains INTACT
as it was in 1791 or in 1850 ( as u inquired ).

Thus, government is deprived of jurisdiction
to legislate in this area and can do so only by USURPATION
of ultra vires activity
with the same authority as a schoolyard bully.

David

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Amigo wrote:

Amigo wrote:
Guns are inert objects. They are extensions of the hand, the hand an extension of the mind.

When we talk about gun control we are really talking about suppressing a increasingly violent and troubled society/culture.

I think it is a mistake to fucus on gun control as some kind of solution. Gun control is only a way of treating one of many symptoms in a larger problem that should not be suppressed but more widely acknowledged and confronted.

I'm totally against gun control. I always think about that guy on T.V. fighting the military with rocks in dressshoes
I know it is lame to quote myself. But I think it is the (my) strongest point on the subject. If we have to suppress men to the point that they do not destroy each other then civilization is a failure.

It is the innermost essence of the leftist
collectivist-authoritarian point of vu
that the answer to every complaint or to any problem
is to REDUCE someone 's freedom,
that there is an insufficiency of chains upon the body politic;
that Utopia will be achived when the citizens have too many chains upon
them to allow any movement at all.

David

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American gun laws to the extent that they exist at all, are typically assinine. The guns which are typically most regulated are the items which appear most frightening to de-moker-rats.

In the typical WalMart outlet which still sells firearms, if you had to pick the very last thing you'd ever want to get shot with, it would be the hundred and fifty dollar black-powder 50 caliber muzzle loading deer rifle, which is legally equivalent to a slingshot. Nothing other than the $150 is needed to buy it.

Moreover, no organ of American government gives a rat's ass about archery eqipment. Consider that Aftershock Inc. has damned near made firearms obsolete for purposes of hunting, and is claiming ten second kills on cape buffalo with its heavier mechanical broadheads.

http://aftershockarchery.com/

http://aftershockarchery.com/images/layout/hypershock_sm3.gif

Their website shows a girl with a 45-lb bow and a 450 lb boar hog she killed with it:

http://aftershockarchery.com/images/prostaff/wohlfeil_1.jpg

Why haven't all the fricking leftists and pinkos and what not waxed paranoid over that one yet??

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I think I'm out of my depth here....it's way too shallow for me.

When I was a (young) kid, I was intrigued by big-bladed knives, crossbows, weapons of all kinds. But I grew out of it. I like to look at them in museums, sometimes.

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Setanta wrote:

And Bingo ! ! !

Gunga Din invokes Godwin's Law . . .

It took THAT long?

Shocked

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McTag wrote:

I think I'm out of my depth here....it's way too shallow for me.

When I was a (young) kid, I was intrigued by big-bladed knives, crossbows, weapons of all kinds. But I grew out of it. I like to look at them in museums, sometimes.

Motivation you ask? How much do you know about the way meat animals are raised any more? How good do you feel about eating cows and chickens and pigs which grow up on a steady diet of hormones and chemicals and antibiotics?

Wouldn't you rather be eating Bambi?

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/images/bambi_review.jpg

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Interesting argument there Gunga...

Number of murders committed with firearms in 2004 - 9.326

murders committed by bow and arrow - Not listed as a category.

murders by other weapon or weapon not stated - 856

It seems the biggest category for weapons used in murders is firearms, 65% of murders. 5 times the next weapon of choice.

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/documents/CIUS_2004_Section2.pdf
table 2.9

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Very mixed feelings about this news item from Sweden... but it made me think, so I thought to just throw it in the mix here:

Quote:

Doctors not telling police about who shouldn't have guns

Many Swedes with gun licences are medically unfit to have them, according to the country's National Board of Health and Welfare.

Its statistics show that the number of doctors reporting such concerns about psychiatric patients to the police is low.

Laws have recently been tightened which means they have to report aggressiveness or poor mental judgement in their patients, whether they think they have a gun licence or not.

Earlier this week, there were calls for weapon licences to be even more stringently controlled, after a member of the Home Guard opened fire in a Stockholm suburb, injuring a woman before killing himself.

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gungasnake wrote:

McTag wrote:
I think I'm out of my depth here....it's way too shallow for me.

When I was a (young) kid, I was intrigued by big-bladed knives, crossbows, weapons of all kinds. But I grew out of it. I like to look at them in museums, sometimes.

Motivation you ask? How much do you know about the way meat animals are raised any more? How good do you feel about eating cows and chickens and pigs which grow up on a steady diet of hormones and chemicals and antibiotics?

Wouldn't you rather be eating Bambi?

I'm beginning to get a handle on this fast-moving argument....which appears today to be "The People shall be entitled to Bear Arms, not necessarily as part of a Well-Ordered Militia, but because there is too much Growth Hormone in the Peoples's Livestock."

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Any argument dependent upon the supposition that "Militia" entails an organized military, paramilitary, or quasi-military entity is sillyness which needs be put to rest, it is specious, under law:

Quote:

U.S. code - Title 10, Section 311:

Sec. 311. Militia: composition and classes

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

(b) The classes of the militia are -

(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and

(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

The able-bodied male citizenry and those non-citizens with declared intent of citizenry, between the ages from 17 to 45, plus as well such female citizenry as who freely choose to participate under separate provision, are, by US Law, The Militia, irrespective of organization or membership in the military. Except as provided specifically in regard to voluntary participation on the part of female citizens, The Militia is the entire able-bodied male citizenry aged 17 to 45. Effectively, The Militia is The People. Period. End of Discussion. That's The Law, like it or not.

Now, with that sillyness put to rest, lets examine the grammar of The Second Amendment:

Quote:

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.

Clearly, the ordinate clause, the primary expression of thought, is the fourth, final clause in the sentence; " ... the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.", with the first, second, and third clauses subordinate to, explanatory of, establishing the premise for, the fourth, and operative, clause.

Now, with that in mind, consider that The Bill of Rights in its entirity is a bill of particulars limiting the powers of government, not granting powers to government. This explicitly is set forth in the final two amendments, Amendments IX and X resectively:

Quote:

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

So, what does all the foregoing mean? Quite simple, really, and summed up unambiguously in 14 easy-to-understand words;

Quote:

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Like it or not, under The US Constitution, that's the law.

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You express yourself forcefully, a always, and with the emphasis of font-size, color, bold-face, italic and underlining. Nevertheless, the Supremes have found that the Second Amendment binds the Federal government and not the Several States, so long as the states apply the same standard for militia participation to all citizens.

See Presser versus Illinois, 1886, from which:

Quote:

We think it clear that the sections under consideration, which only forbid bodies of men to associate together as military organizations, or to drill or parade with arms in cities and towns unless authorized by law, do not infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms. But a conclusive answer to the contention that this amendment prohibits the legislation in question lies in the fact that the amendment is a limitation only upon the power of congress and the national government, and not upon that of the state.

Furthermore, on the issue of whether or not firearms may be regulated without doing violence to the concept of infringement, see United States versus Miller, 1939, from which:

Quote:

n the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than 18 inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.'

There, there's some more silliness disposed of . . .

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Under The Constitution, individual states may enact such laws as they see fit, subject only to the provision that the laws of no state may be contrary to The Constitution. Presser v. Illinois essentially says a state may determine the parameters under which a quasi-military body may assemble and conduct itself. US vs Miller establishes merely that certain types of firearms may be proscribed. In neither instance is there any indication the government may infringe upon the overall right of the populace to keep and bear arms.

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