According to USA Today, "Nearly three out of four Americans — 73% — believe the Second Amendment spells out an individual right to own a firearm, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of 1,016 adults taken Feb. 8-10." Now all we need is five out of nine.
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A nation of gun nuts
28 Feb 2008 11:06 am
Comments (69)
Okay, now MY brief take:
1A was about restricting the federal gov. and thus doesn't speak to whether it is a state right or an individual right. See 10A which reserves everything not given to the fed to either the states or the people.
All this means is that the text isn't helpful for either side, so the question should be whether a state restricting an individual's right to free speech is prohibitted by the 14A's right to due process or the 14A's right to the privileges and immunities of citizenship in the US.
I find it hard to say due process protects a right to free speech, but privileges and immunities might be a good argument. But, keep in mind that 14A was written after the suppression of a rebellion, so it may be difficult to argue that the 14A intended to guarentee an individual right.
We know Scalia loves to stroke his rusty rifle with Dick Cheney, and all he has to do is tighten Thomas' gimp mask to exercise his second vote. Alito and Roberts are Rove's prison bitches, so that's four. And Kennedy's balls are smaller than a female gnat's.
You win.
Regardless of what your take on the 2A is, (and since it says "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", I don't take it to mean unrestricted access for everyone to own a gun which is issued at birth.) whether 73% of people who answer a USA Today poll is hardly the way I want public policy determined.
Wasn't that about the same number of people who thought Saddam Hussain had directly attacked the US on 9/11?
Megan, you just don't understand the results of this poll. Americans would be perfectly willing to ban all guns if it could be nearly 100% effective. What we have here is a collective action problem- I won't give up my right to bear arms unless everyone else does so.
Couple of points, as compared to the 1A which expressly only applies to Congress (ok so the courts have largely ignored that limitation) the 2A is supposed to be an absolute bar. See the bit about "shall not be infringed" that limits all state actors, see the supremacy clause, and even if it did not apply to the states at the time of ratification, the whole notion of incorporation against the states as a consequence of the 14A is silly if it didn't also apply to the 2A.
No, most of us would not give up our guns if others did as well. I suggest you visit a gun state if you really think otherwise. Maybe we are just paranoid, that is our right.
Crooked Thinking,
Would you provide a link to the study on which you base your assertion that "Americans would be perfectly willing to ban all guns if it could be nearly 100% effective."
Thank you
Kate,
So public policy shouldn't be based on public sentiment? I find that hard to believe. Unless you think polls aren't useful? Or just USA Today?
Mike
Crooked Thinking wrote: Megan, you just don't understand the results of this poll. Americans would be perfectly willing to ban all guns if it could be nearly 100% effective. What we have here is a collective action problem- I won't give up my right to bear arms unless everyone else does so.
TIIIMMMMMMMbeeeerrrr! *crash*
Seriously though, your parody not withstanding, it's probably closer to some sort of truth than you think. There is a collective action of sorts, and always will be, because the criminals are not going to give up their guns. To the extent that many people might be willing to (1) do without if they believed (2) they would not be threatened with armed violence, they know (2) is vanishingly unlikely and therefore many will never concede to (1).
Ed Reid: your sarcasm detector is broken. Take two televised political debates with a shot of battery acid, and call me in the morning.
anony-mouse,
Not broken, just insufficiently sophisticated. My bad!
100% effective against WHAT?
The purpose of the 2A was not for hunting. The purpose of the 2A was singular: to keep the government in check. The founders knew that no matter how they set up our government, sooner or later it had the potential to be perverted. We're all fallen humans, after all.
Gun bans should be the proverbial line in the sand, since once the guns are gone the government can do whatever they like with no fear of repercussion. See countries where weapons and speech are restricted as an example.
Even if there were no crime somehow, we still need protection against a potentially tyrannical government.
Kate: "Well-regulated" means "well-trained", in 18th century English.
And note:
1) Thanks to the Militia Act (10 USC 311), all able-bodied male citizens from 17 to 45 years of age (and all women in the National Guard, and arguably all women, period, if it was ever challenged) are members of the militia, so even were it so that the clause mattered, it wouldn't change much except to allow for disarming women (!) and people past middle age.
2) The justification clause, as it's called, does not limit the right enumerated.
For example, had the First Amendment had a clause saying "A well-informed populace being necessary to the maintenance of the Republic,..", it would not follow that speech that was not "suited to well-inform the populace" was not protected.
Jpenfold: Congress has "ignored" that limitation of the First Amendment to Congress because of the 14th Amendment, is my understanding of the legal issue. Not so much "ignored", as "it was modified by later amendments".
Coasties just don't get it. Brian Schweitzer does. From the Economist article on Montana this week:
Governor Brian Schweitzer is so unpretentious that he seems, well, a little pretentious. I walk through the door and one of Mr Schweitzer's border collies rushes to get a sniff of me. Mr Schweitzer takes one of his dogs, Jag, with him to the capital, and pictures of the dog are on the governor's website.
Mr Schweitzer revels in rural wit: in a previous interview he said he has "more guns than I need and fewer than I want." Montana has six guns for every resident, he tells me, after asking me if I own one. "In Montana we think gun control is hittin' what you're shootin' at…Out here in the West we Democratic governors are just as likely as Republican governors to be packing a pistol." . . .
. . . He bats away my question about whether the Democrats have given up on gun control. It's not a liberal-conservative issue, he says, it's an urban-rural one, and Mr Schweitzer brags that he doesn't take direction from Democratic strongholds on the coasts. "I'm not so closely tied to the intelligentsia of the American Democratic party", he tells me. In fact, his lieutenant governor, Jim Bohlinger, is a Republican who supports John McCain.
I think the use of polls as policy arguments is a bit overrated. They tend to be pushed when they support your view and marginalized when they don't.
Just because 73% of Americans say something, doesn't make it right or true. That's not to say that it shouldn't influence votes on the House floor, but if we're going to argue whether or not guns should or should not be regulated, I don't think "that's what she said" is a very strong argument.
NutellaonToast,
Ideally, having discussions about the underlying moral, ethically and legal implications of a policy would be great. Problem is there isn't much to debate there, since shared premises are hard to find.
We use "that's what she said" to determine who gets to pass laws, but apparently you think it should stop there and congress should do the "scientific" reasoning about laws. I think that's just pollyanna-ish. Also, I don't here much along this line of reasoning when Iraq, Healthcare or other democrat supported polls come up.
No, I'm not really dictating what congress should or shouldn't use to determine their votes. I think that is far too complex. I'm talking about what citizens should do when they're discussing topics. I'm talking about what should be used in discourse, not necessarily decision making. I certainly hope that congress looks at "scientific" reasoning when they make their decisions, but I'm not going to say that they should ignore polls altogether. It is obvious, however, that the majority can be wrong.
I find it hard to say due process protects a right to free speech
The test for Due Process is whether free speech (right to bear arms) is an integral part of the american concept of liberty. I understand that you and others disagree, but I think it is a harder argument to say gun ownership is part of the american concept of liberty, than it is to say that free speech is an integral part of the american concept of liberty.
the whole notion of incorporation against the states as a consequence of the 14A is silly if it didn't also apply to the 2A
This was a big fight in the court, but it is well settled that the 14A did not incorporate all of the bill of rights in toto, but rather the court looks to each right individually and determines whether it is to be incorporated.
If 2A were interpreted as broadly as 1A, we would be more like Switzerland. Every adult would be issued a rifle along with mandatory training on safety and use. We would also be required to store ammo and keep our guns maintained.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland
The upside is we'd need a smaller military as no other country would risk invasion.
Could I point out to all you video-gamers or other fantasists that even if you each had a fully automatic assault weapon you really wouldn't be able to hold off the gov't., or even your local police, who are now heavily armed w/ miliatry surplus gear?
If our professional military (as opposed to a bunch of draftees) decides that the civilian leadership is correct & the people must somehow be repressed, you'll be unable to do anything against tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, experienced combatants, etc.
Please note that it's the 21st century, no longer a world in which the military-police complex is no bettter armed, equipped, or trained than the rest of the population.
Gun terrorism has always been and will always be a far greater threat to Americans than ANY other form of terrorism short of nuclear terrorism. Every year about 10,000 Americans are murdered by gun terrorists - equivalent to one 9/11 every 4 months.
I have yet to meet a "proud" gun owner, one who goes on about his guns, who I would consider a morally fit person to handle a lethal weapon. The people who talk most about their guns all appear to have serious social and inter-personal problems. Perhaps that goes with their libertarianism. I guess, for them, libertarianism is just another way of supporting gun terrorism.
MB wrote: Could I point out to all you video-gamers or other fantasists that even if you each had a fully automatic assault weapon you really wouldn't be able to hold off the gov't., or even your local police, who are now heavily armed w/ miliatry surplus gear?
Please commit this statement to paper and carry it with you, as you will need to have it available once you actually find some of those people to address.
The point of an armed citizenry is not to have one person be prepared to take on the entire town. (We had a nut actually do that in Colorado, and his choice of tool wasn't a gun, it was a large front-end loader onto which he had welded numerous steel plates as armor. He then took it around town like a tank, and demolished multiple buildings before his spree finally came to an end.)
The point of an armed citizenry is to remind those in authority that they cannot simply walk over any and every right they deem inconvenient to their next power grab without risking violence. Believe it or not, even cops with SWAT gear fear for their personal safety, and are less likely to pursue any goal they please when they know that a false move could result in a well-placed bullet coming from the other direction.
Contrawise, Britain was once a very well-armed society, but the law-abiding gradually gave up their guns in a systematic imposition of the same types of ninny-nanny regulations that gun-control advocates in the US propose for "our own good", and lo and behold, an extraordinary degree of civil rights forfeitures have slouched in on the coattails of those regulations.
Malignant Bouffant,
How does your theory address Iraq? Is there any conceivable political situation that could be faced in America where the US Army would be under _less_ restrictive rules of engagement and _weaker_ public pressure than they face in Iraq right now?
That, and the simple observation that the number of Jack-Booted Stormtroopers (tm) willing to risk getting shot while executing the will of the state is invariably smaller than the number willing to do so at no personal risk. A man with a gun telling you not to do something powerfully concentrates the arguments against doing so.
ndm wrote: I have yet to meet a "proud" gun owner, one who goes on about his guns, who I would consider a morally fit person to handle a lethal weapon. The people who talk most about their guns all appear to have serious social and inter-personal problems. Perhaps that goes with their libertarianism.
Perhaps it goes with your spiteful and prejudicial views on gun owners?
At any rate, there are far more gun owners than the ones who would fit your description. Most of them own guns the same way a workshop hobbyist owns power tools -- i.e., stored in an appropriate place until used, used in an appropriate manner when an occasion presents itself, and primarily discussed with persons who share the interest and know the hardware well enough to have a meaningful discussion.
Also, most people who actually have a nice gun collection do NOT brag openly about it for the same reason that people who have lots of power tools or nice electronics avoid spreading the word far and wide: they tend to come back from a vacation and find that the entire works was stolen in a well-organized heist.
Kate - Notice it doesn't say "the right of the militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".
The "a well regulated militia" clause doesn't modify the 2nd clause, it only provides justification and rhetorical support for it.
anony-mouse writes:
The point of an armed citizenry is to remind those in authority that they cannot simply walk over any and every right they deem inconvenient to their next power grab without risking violence.
Would you like to tell us all precisely how your guns have prevented the Bush Administration walking all your civil rights during the last seven years.
You talk about Britain. At least there Parliament is trying to prevent the Government from passing legislation allowing pre-charge detention of up to 42 days. Here, without so much as a nod or a wink towards the Constiution or the Congressional Branch, the Bush Administration claims it can hold American citizens without charge forever. I don't care how big you think your arsenal is it is still insignificant when faced with the United States' arsenal.
Indeed your entire comparison with Britain is utterly specious. First of all Britain never was a "very well-armed society." Gun controls were tightened following the Dunblane massacre - notice the word MASSACRE. Since then Britain has signed European Human Rights laws directly into British law making it far easier for Britons to exercise their human rights in the Court of Law than it was before. When British gun control goes against US gun rights I am afraid it is a runaway victory for gun control.
Would you like to tell us all precisely how your guns have prevented the Bush Administration walking all your civil rights during the last seven years.
I propose you explain to me when and how this took place, since I was apparently too preoccupied to notice it. I was born during the Carter administration and the present year is 2008, and the only way my liberties have changed noticeably between birth and now is that at age 16 I obtained driving rights, at 18 I was required to register with the SE and was granted rights of voting and tobacco purchase, and at 21 I obtained the right to buy alcohol.
As I understand it, these have been going on a long time before Dubya came into office, so I don't think he had much to do with them. In fact, the only things Bush has done that meaningfully impacted my standard of living in any way were to reduce my tax liability while leaving me with more uncertain public debt obligations in the future. There are varying schools of thought on the merits and liabilities of those fiscal angles, but the sun didn't stop rising in the east on account of them, and I continue to live and work as I always have. Maybe the sun is different where you live.
And in any case, I have far less to fear from the undue activities of federal agents than I would from the introduction of corruption and graft into the local Zoning Commission, whose activities are largely unaffected by recent federal activities other than Kelo v. New London (which was hardly Bush's fault). And I dare say twenty pissy, armed citizens could get some significant behavior changes out of the Zoning Commission.
Sorry, Selective Service, not SE.
What do you mean, we need 5 out of 9? You already have 5 out of 9. Gun control has become anathema in this country in the last 10 years. There is zero chance, zero, the Roberts court will enable sweeping new gun control.
God, if there's one thing I'm tired of, it's McArdle's constant canard of victimization and marginalization. Your side is in a dominant position on this issue. Drop your pose as a beleaguered truth teller fighting against the powers that be, please. It's embarrassing.
When British gun control goes against US gun rights I am afraid it is a runaway victory for gun control.
...and this, I should add, is utter ignorance. History began before 1996, although your style of argument suggests you may not personally remember much of it. There's no shame in that -- each of us is born when we are born -- but I suggest you educate yourself with extended reading before commenting further.
ndm,
According the ICVS (article in telegraph here ) violent crime rates are significantly higher in Australia, the UK and Canada than in the US. Surely these are not directly relatable to gun laws, but also note that crime rates are falling faster in the USA than in the UK, so this is only getting worse.
anony-mouse -
There is some irony in that even as you boast how the point of "an armed citizenry is to remind those in authority that they cannot simply walk over any and every right" you remain ignorant of the constraints the Bush Administration has imposed on your civil rights over the last seven years. Since these constraints have been well documented ignorance of them at this point in time must be deemed willful.
So remind me again why you have guns because they have not stopped the Bush Administration infringing on the civil rights of you and every other American. You need a better excuse because the one you gave just does not fly.
The approximately 3 million members of the US military would not all turn on the citizens of the United States. Many would go AWOL or otherwise refuse orders. Of those remaining, they would be facing a well-armed populace, armed with pistols, shotguns, and hunting rifles. Hunters alone would be very deadly as they are effectively snipers. Many of them own gear that would allow them to survive in the wilderness for a time.
The US military would crush any organized resistance by civilians. It would NOT, however, be able to maintain a tyranny for long under guerilla action by armed citizens.
Likewise, an invading force would face attack by hunters and "gun nuts" in the same fashion.
As for the clamp down by the Bush Administration goes, I notice that celebrities and politicians are free to call him all kinds of names, threaten to assassinate him, demand his impeachment, etc... without repercussion.
The War on Drugs has done far more to damage civil liberties than any other act by the government. The War on Drugs has strong bipartisan support. Everytime I buy allergy medicine, my privacy is invaded by the government as I have to present ID. Everytime I have a prescription refilled and can't get any refills because it's a controlled substance, my ability to get health care is compromised.
While I am anti-gun-control, I would be tempted by a magic gun obliterator that would cause 100% of the guns to vanish and make sure they stayed vanished. Otherwise, a gun ban would require a massive invasion of civil rights to implement and enforce.
ndm,
Since anon is as you say willfully ignorant, can you list the civl rights you lost in the last 7 years as a result of executive order? If not just those, how about those done by statute or act of congress? This way we are all on the same playing field for our discussion.
skullberg -
Just to give the topical one. I think we can start with the right to make a phone call without it being illegally and unconstitutionally wiretapped.
As I pointed out in my earlier comment if you don't know or care about actual losses to your civil rights you can not use defending these rights as an excuse to justify gun possession.
"Since anon is as you say willfully ignorant, can you list the civl rights you lost in the last 7 years as a result of executive order?"
Let's start with habeas corpus, cruel and unusual punishment and privacy. It just happens that the people we've done it to are dark skin and Muslim (and are started to be convicted as terrorists) so there hasn't been much of an outcry. However, if the federal government started taking dissenters off the street, you can bet there would be an uprising.
ndm,
I think the wiretapping issue is pretty clearly a gray one, with legal scholars of merit falling on both sides of its constitutionality. Regardless, I'm not convinced unfettered international communications is a "civil right" like property rights or voting. Surely we can have a distinction between actions we dislike and civil rights violations.
Let's start with habeas corpus, cruel and unusual punishment and privacy
I agrees, lets start with them.
Can you point to some executive order where Habeas Corpus has been suspended?
Can you point to some executive order where the ban on cruel and unusual punishment was lifted?
Can you point to some executive order where the penumbral right to privacy was lifted?
Also, for any examples you cite, have they been addressed through non-executive powers (courts or congress)? Democracy expects over-reaches and rightly put checks on those powers. If the executive acts unconstitutionally, the other brnaches need to rectify it.
Your phone calls have been wiretapped? Pardon my skepticism. I think there may be a record somewhere of overseas phone numbers that you may have dialed, if any of them were associated with terrorists.
Except for the unfortunate Mr Jose Padilla, I'm unaware of any citizen who has been denied Habeas Corpus. If the Federal Government were taking dissenters off the street, you'd be right to be worried. They aren't and you're not.
I'm of the opinion that Padilla should have been dealt with like the Nazi saboteur during WWII. The one who turned his buddies in got life. The rest were shot.
ndm is hilarious when he contrasts the US to the UK. Perhaps he hasn't heard of Britain's version of the Enabling Act, which essentially allows ministers to change the law on the fly, without that nuisance about the legislature.
ndm's slurs against gun owners are so hateful and filled with loathing that I wonder:
Is he projecting his own repressed violence and lack of self control upon others?
Is he a gun rights advocate masquerading as the extreme stereotype of the gun control advocate?
All I have to say to the fence sitters on this topic: Visualize gun licensing. And then visualize ndm as the bureaucrat in charge of gun licensing.
And Megan, thank you for your defense of a fundamental right.
ndm:
Seems Newt Gingrich and John Boehner could be illegally wiretapped and that was just fine with Democrats like Rep Jim McDermott. That was some ten years ago, long before President Bush was elected.
Posted by Skullberg:
According the ICVS (article in telegraph here ) violent crime rates are significantly higher in Australia, the UK and Canada than in the US. Surely these are not directly relatable to gun laws, but also note that crime rates are falling faster in the USA than in the UK, so this is only getting worse.
Skullberg, thanks for the link. While there is no doubt some difference between countries in how things like "violent crime" is defined, it is interesting that the US, land of gun nuts doesn't even show up in the violent crime graph.
Maybe an armed society is a polite society ...
Sounds like 27% need remedial reading lessons.
I have no idea what Megan is trying to say here.
Gun control is a dead issue. There are far more pressing problems to deal with right now. Besides, we do have gun control. Not as much as some would like, but it's not the Wild West either.
Maybe an armed society is a polite society ...
ROFL
Even if all the people in the country gave up their weapons, I somehow doubt that the bears would. There will always be a need for guns in some remote parts of the country.
I would be tempted by a magic gun obliterator that would cause 100% of the guns to vanish and make sure they stayed vanished.
Broadswords! Shortspears! Crossbows! One stroll down the MLK Blvd. brigns you 100 experience points!
Can we abolish cars too, while we're at it? I'll look stupid with a lance sticking out through the windshield of my Audi...
Skullberg -
I noticed you refer me to a 2001 article from the Daily Telegraph. Describing crime as worsening is, of course, the red meat of the Daily Telegraph - it needs to scare the old fogies who read it.
Let's consider a more recent and reliable source (pdf), The Violent Crime Overview, Homicide and Gun Crime 2004/2005 (England and Wales):
Between 1995 and 2004/05 British Crime Survey (BCS) violent crime has fallen by 43 per cent and the composition of violent crime has changed.There were 839 deaths initially recorded as homicides in England and Wales based on cases recorded by the police in 2004/05. This is a decrease of two per cent on 2003/04.
As in previous years, the most common method of killing was with a sharp instrument. Twentynine per cent of all victims were killed by this method. The second most common method used against men (19%) involved hitting or kicking whereas female victims were more likely to be strangled or asphyxiated (19%). In 2004/05, shootings accounted for nine per cent of homicides: 11 per cent of male and five per cent of female victims. There were 77 deaths by shooting in 2004/05 compared with 69 in 2003/04 (Table 2.03).
There were 78 homicides involving firearms in 2004/05, up from 68 in 2003/04 but fewer than in the previous two years. One homicide involved the use of an air weapon. There were a further 553 firearm crimes that resulted in serious injury, down seven per cent from 594 in 2003/04. Overall, 631 resulted in serious or fatal injury, down five per cent on 2003/04. However, this accounts for only 2.8 per cent of all firearm crimes.
A total of 78 people were shot to death in England and Wales in 2004/2005. This is admittedly an increase from the 69 people shot to death in 2003/2004 - and that increase is regrettable.
And now look at the equivalent situation in the United States. In its Crime in the United States 2004 report the FBI writes:
The UCR Program’s homicide data for 2004 showed that for the first time in 4 years, the estimated number of murders in the United States decreased. An estimated 16,137 persons were murdered nationwide, a decline of 2.4 percent from the 2003 figure. An analysis of 5- and 10-year trend data showed that the 2004 estimate increased 3.5 percent from the 2000 estimate, but decreased 25.3 percent from the estimated number of murders a decade ago (1995).
Of those incidents in which the murder weapon was specified, 70.3 percent of the homicides that occurred in 2004 were committed with firearms. Of those, 77.9 percent involved handguns, 5.4 percent involved shotguns, and 4.2 percent involved rifles. Approximately 12.4 of the murders were committed with other types or unspecified types of firearms. Knives or cutting instruments were used in 14.1 percent of the murders; personal weapons, such as hands, fists, and feet, were used in 7.0 percent of murders, and blunt objects (i.e., clubs, hammers, etc.) were used in 5.0 percent of the homicides. Other weapons, such as poison, explosives, narcotics, etc., were used in 3.6 percent of the murders. (Based on Table 2.9.)
Let's summarize all this.
In 2004/2005, 78 people were shot dead in England & Wales and shootings accounted for 9% of all homicides. By contrast, in 2004 more than 11,000 people were shot dead in the United States and shootings accounted for 70.3% of all homicides. So a country with strict gun control has a gun homicide rate that is one-fifth that of a country with virtually no gun control. The US suffers almost 10,000 excess deaths over that of the Britain due to the extraordinarily high-level of gun homicides in the US. If even half of these excess murders could be prevented by stricter gun control that would still leave the US with an excess death total that exceeds one 9/11 every year.
When you oppose gun control you support the most prevalent form of terrorism the US faces today - gun terrorism.
You guys are compelling. Since a military coup is high on my list of worries, I'm going to go arm myself now. What else will keep me safe?
ndm,
How about we start with stricter sociopath/psychopath controls and see where that gets us?
Maybe we ought to address car/truck terrorism first; the potential for reducing excess deaths is far greater.
ndm, what was the rate of burglary of an occupied home in the UK vs. the United States? How many people in the UK used a firearm to deter a mugger in the UK vs. the United States?
Murder rate is only one of many metrics.
How many of those murders that used guns would have happened anyway, just with a knife? How many people would have been killed, raped, or mugged who weren't because of our less strict gun laws?
Your use of the word terrorism, like your emphasis on the numbers (11,000 vs. 78), is clearly intended to appeal to emotion to bolster your argument... is your point that weak?
There is some irony in that even as you boast how the point of "an armed citizenry is to remind those in authority that they cannot simply walk over any and every right" you remain ignorant of the constraints the Bush Administration has imposed on your civil rights over the last seven years. Since these constraints have been well documented ignorance of them at this point in time must be deemed willful.
Again, which ones? My exercise of rights hasn't changed at all since Bush came into power, and in any case, his actions during a time of war are downright tame (and imminently more reversible) than what took place in this country during either of the World Wars. Or for that matter, any war since then with the exception of Gulf 1, since the draft was still in force for Korea and Vietnam.
So remind me again why you have guns because they have not stopped the Bush Administration infringing on the civil rights of you and every other American.
Who said I have guns?
I happen to find them fasicnating from an engineering standpoint, but presently own no firearms and have no plans to buy any. I do have a couple non-lethal CO2 pistols which I use for recreational target shooting. In that regard my gun interest and ownership are no different from the average continental European.
However, I object to stupid and plainly ideological areguments made against guns or gun owners by naiive twits who haven't experienced how the world works, and thus think their good intentions trump reality.
You need a better excuse because the one you gave just does not fly.
Its flight skills are not what is in question here. If anything, you seem to be mainly interested in pissy hissing directed at the Bush Administration at the expense of logic or context.
Before your arguments will have any weight, you need to show that (1) gun control actually controls guns, as opposed to merely removing them from the possession of the law abiding and (2) nation-states that have enacted draconian gun laws have successfully curbed violent crime.
In the case of the United States, (1) is effectively impossible, and places that have tried it have merely provided violent criminals with soft targets; and (2) is irrelevant because violent crime in the US has tended to track broader social and economic trends without regard to gun control.
In the case of Britain, (1) has failed to remove guns from criminal circulation in spite of the draconian penalties and the obvious advantages afforded by having a comparatively small land mass surrounded by water, and as for (2), although violent crime is presently lower than the US overall, it has been rising steadily.
Earnest Iconoclast drives deep into the ditch by suggesting:
your emphasis on the numbers (11,000 vs. 78), is clearly intended to appeal to emotion to bolster your argument... is your point that weak?
I guess Earnest doesn't like the facts getting in the way of his opinions.
The reason for focussing on murder rate is that murder is the most serious of all crimes and its reporting is pretty standard across nations. Someone who is shot dead looks pretty much the same in Britain and the US - there's just an enormously larger number of them in the US. Oops, that's another fact.
Someone who is shot dead looks pretty much the same in Britain and the US - there's just an enormously larger number of them in the US. Oops, that's another fact.
Great, you've got the letter portion of "fact" part down. Now go look yourself into two other interesting aspects of facts: the context, and the trends.
It just struck me that fellow libertarians got distracted with the looney spoilers. The real issue has been raised by more serious opposition:
There is zero chance, zero, the Roberts court will enable sweeping new gun control.
Gun control is a dead issue. There are far more pressing problems to deal with right now.
Oh, indeed, Freddie & liberalrob, gun control is a dead issue for your side. Because right now you can't advance it. Now for those of us who'd like to roll it back it is very much alive -- and the Heller case is exactly about it.
I'm a little off on the tone of Megan's post. She may be pointing out that, this being a question of the Bill of Rights, it really doesn't matter what 73% of Americans think it says; if 73% of Americans thought the First Amendment guaranteed a right to Federally supplied free beer nuts that wouldn't mean it was true. But it seems more likely that she's expressing a hope that 5 out of 9 justices agree on the individual right to bear arms. In that case, I'm wondering why. I mean, I don't think Megan actually believes much in the argument that individual private gun carrying deters crime, so I don't think she's looking forward to being able to protect herself with a Dillinger in her pocketbook in DC. And I don't think she's a gun geek who wants to have a wall rack full of AK's and Glocks. And I don't think she actually believes that private guns keep the US from turning into a totalitarian dictatorship. I think it's more that she thinks the 2nd Amendment does, on the face of it, guarantee an individual right to bear arms, and she thinks the Court's rulings that disagree are obfuscatory dodges. So basically she's interested in this question in the same way I'm interested in seeing people use "its" and "it's" properly -- as a matter of clarity and correct usage. But is that really enough of a reason to express such an "all we need is", I'm-rooting-for-the-home-team sentiment regarding the Supremes' sympathies on the 2nd Amendment?
Or maybe I completely misunderstand where Megan's reasoning lies on the 2nd Amendment; if so I apologize.
> Someone who is shot dead looks pretty much the same in Britain and the US - there's just an enormously larger number of them in the US. Oops, that's another fact.
Someone kicked to death looks pretty much the same in both countries as well.
I mention kicked to death because the murder rate by kicking, hitting with sticks, and hitting with hands is higher in the US than in the UK.
Is there "foot control" in the UK? How about "hand control" and "stick control"?
If the UK's gun control worked, folks would be posting the before and after rates, showing how the UK's gun control laws reduced the with-gun murder rate from US levels to the UK's current levels. The reason that they don't is that the UK's with-gun murder rate did not go down with gun control. (Which, BTW, started decades ago.)
being able to protect herself with a Dillinger in her pocketbook in DC
Let's change it to S&W .38 Airweight or Kahr nine in a purse and it's no longer ridiculous. Unfortunately the chances of DC becoming a shall-issue jurisdiction are rather slim.
Andy Freeman writes:
If the UK's gun control worked, folks would be posting the before and after rates, showing how the UK's gun control laws reduced the with-gun murder rate from US levels to the UK's current levels. The reason that they don't is that the UK's with-gun murder rate did not go down with gun control. (Which, BTW, started decades ago.)
The UK has never had the same affection for gun terrorism that the US has had. If Andy Freeman genuinely believes that gun control in the UK has not reduced gun terrorism far below levels seen in the US then he should provide the figures to demonstrate it.
On this thread I appear to have been the only person to provide raw data - none of which is favorable to those who support gun terrorism. If supporters of gun terrorism don't like the raw data I provided the onus is on them to provide contrary evidence to my hypothesis that gun control has significantly reduced gun terrorism in the UK over its levels in the US.
...Max... writes:
Let's change it to S&W .38 Airweight or Kahr nine in a purse and it's no longer ridiculous.
Oh, don't you just love that masturbation over firearms. I think that a dildo in the purse would be far more fun as well as being far safer. But, hey, that's the real world for you.
You recommend women carry a weapon to prevent rape and/or murder and his mind jumps straight to masturbation.
I think we are really delving deep into ndm's mind now...
ndm,
If gun control works, please explain Washington, DC's gun crime rate versus rural Maryland or Virginia's gun crime rate versus Helena's.
Also please explain http://law.bepress.com/expresso/eps/1564/ and http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/134/11/1245
which both seem to suggest that the easier it is to obtain concealed carry permits the less violent crime you get in the US. See Florida's violent crime rate from '92 on...
By all measures I have seen, the gun crime rate is a factor of the underlying aggravated assault rate, not the prevalance of guns in general.
> The UK has never had the same affection for gun terrorism that the US has had. If Andy Freeman genuinely believes that gun control in the UK has not reduced gun terrorism far below levels seen in the US then he should provide the figures to demonstrate it.
ndm concedes my point. The UK's gun control laws didn't reduce the UK's with-gun crime rate.
Perhaps ndm will argue that gun control will work in the US even though it didn't work in the UK. After all, now that he's arguing that the UK and the UK are different in relevant ways ....
I note that ndm doesn't mention the UK's foot and hand control, despite the fact that it has the same effect that he credits to the UK's gun control.
BTW - Outside of certain communities, the US with-gun crime rate is the same a/lower than the UK's with-gun crime rate. Are those the only US communities that are outside of gun control?
Andy Freeman must be illiterate if he thinks I concede the point
The fact, and so far it is the only fact introduced into this thread, is that decades of gun control in England and Wales has reduced gun terrorism there by more than 70% relative to its occurence in the United States. Anyone who disagrees with the facts and my hypothesis is more than welcome to provide their own facts and their own hypothesis. But, I venture it will be pretty difficult to come up with an explanation so simple and so obvious as to why a nation with strict gun control has achieved a 70% reduction in relative gun terrorism over a nation that has almost no gun controls.
ndm,
You make a bold claim: gun control in England and Wales has reduced gun terrorism there by more than 70% relative to its occurence in the United States
But there is simply no support for it. Deaths by gun, knives and physical assault are all lower int he UK. So it appears more is at work here than gun control.
What would be good to know is the murder by gun rate in the UK now relative to pre-gun ban. Without that, there is no way to draw a correlation between the gun ban and the murder by gun rate.
I provided facts that show the states with the laxest gun laws also have lower crime rates, even when compared with themselves before the relaxation. Care to respond?
Skullberg -
One last time. In an earlier comment I wrote:
In 2004/2005, 78 people were shot dead in England & Wales and shootings accounted for 9% of all homicides. By contrast, in 2004 more than 11,000 people were shot dead in the United States and shootings accounted for 70.3% of all homicides.
In the US, gun terrorism accounted for 70.3% of all homicides.
In England and Wales, gun terrorism accounted for 9% of all homicides.
Consequently, England and Wales has suppressed gun terrorism so much that it makes up only 9% of all homicides as opposed to 70.3% in the US. Since these numbers are expressed as percentages of all homicides it does not matter that other forms of homicide also occur less frequently in England and Wales. This suppression of gun terrorism from a 70.3% to a 9% rate actually corresponds to a suppression of significantly more than 80% (I wrote the wrong number earlier).
The excess death count from gun terrrorism in the US is truly horrific. As I pointed out earlier it far exceeds that of 9/11. If the US managed to suppress gun terrorism to English levels it would reduce the gun terrorist death total for the entire nation to below that of New York City today.
Keep using the term "gun terrorism", ndm. Orwell would be proud.
ndm, anonymous Internet is not real life. In real real life, I could offer you a 5' staff, thrust either end first -- internalize THAT dildo at your leisure.
ndm,
Newsflash: The US and UK are different places.
You haven't shown any evidence that the UK's gun laws have had any effect on gun deaths (GD). You've shown that the UK has less GD's, and less as a percentage of all deaths (GD%). You've shown no information to support why that is.
What if, and this is hypothetical, the # of GD's and GD% in the UK were unchanged or at least the trends unchanged from 91-96 and 97-2001? That would prove the reason for those numbers isn't the ban.
Once again, you've proven no causation, no correlation, just coincidence. I however have shown you the rates in FL went down after the gun laws were relaxed. That actually proves correlation and in some papers causation of laxer gun laws and lower crime.
The US and UK record their statistics differently too. In the UK, it is not a murder unless someone is convicted of the crime. In the US it's a murder as soon as foul play is suspected.
Gun Control is an a right that every American has and it cannot be controlled or taken away by anyone except that person. And the only way it can be taken away is if they do not agree to follow the law. This does not mean controlling guns it mean the law that are already in place.
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My brief take:
2A was about restricting the federal gov. and thus doesn't speak to whether it is a state right or an individual right. See 10A which reserves everything not given to the fed to either the states or the people.
All this means is that the text isn't helpful for either side, so the question should be whether a state restricting an individual's right to bear arms is prohibitted by the 14A's right to due process or the 14A's right to the privileges and immunities of citizenship in the US.
I find it hard to say due process protects a right to bear arms, but privileges and immunities might be a good argument. But, keep in mind that 14A was written after the suppression of a rebellion, so it may be difficult to argue that the 14A intended to guarentee an individual right.
Posted by Rob | February 28, 2008 11:15 AM