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The Second Amendment Demands Gun Control
The Second Amendment supports those of us who would CONTROL guns---and
thus prevent the insane slaughter that compromises our security.
James Madison and the Founders of this nation would be enraged to see
the Second Amendment being used to put guns in the hands of the Tucson
shooter and so many others like him.
The debate over the violent hatespeak of Sarah "Lock & Load" Palin and her Foxist ilk is long overdue.
But so is a careful national reawakening to what the Second Amendment actually 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."
Of the first Ten Amendments, this is the only one that contains a rationale for what it requires.
The Bill of Rights is the law of the land, clearly stated. Guarantees
of religion, speech, assembly, the press, freedom from torture and so
much more are natural rights, inherent to the human condition.
But the right to bear arms is granted only in the context of a well-regulated militia and thus the security of a free state.
A National Guard, yes. Heavily-armed lunatics roaming the streets unregulated? Never.
Lawyers and the courts have been fighting over guns for 220 years, since
that great day in 1791 when this magnificent document was ratified.
The essence of the Founders' intent was embodied in the Supreme Court's
1939 Miller decision, the prevailing judicial view until the recent
coming of a hard right NRA-based court very much out of synch with the
sane balance our nation has tried to maintain between gun rights and the
public good.
As we've just seen in Tucson, these faux "conservatives" have allowed
renegade ownership of rapid-firing instruments of wholesale slaughter.
This imbalance clearly threatens "the security of a free state." The
Second Amendment says access to these weapons must be strictly
regulated.
As a free and lawful people, we have the legal duty to end this unconstitutional madness.
Make no mistake: this murder and mayhem has been made possible by the claim to a Constitutional right that is not there.
The assassins and mass murderers who continue to threaten our national
security make ever so clear the reason for the Founders' demand that gun
ownership be regulated.
These are dark times for those who demand sane regulation of gun
ownership. But courts come and go. Public opinion and political power,
like the common law, change and evolve. These murders in Tucson--just
the latest in a long, horrifying, thoroughly avoidable procession of
senseless, gun-inflicted tragedies--underscore once again that this is a
struggle we can never abandon.
And in continuing to do this work, gun control advocates must not cede a
legal inch. We are the the ones with a more accurate "Second Amendment
remedy"... the clear Constitutional demand for a "regulated" gun
ownership that serves rather than destroys the "security of a free
state."
Comments
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166 Comments so far
Show AllThanks Harvey. This rebuttal to advocates of unregulated gun ownership has virtually vanished in the last decade. I have no doubt that school children today don't even know about this reasoned argument. Such is the nature of our modern corporate owned media and the fallacies they are able to foist upon the populace.
They do not. A friend's kid was in school and they were learning the Bill of Rights and had to learn a couple by heart, specifically the 1st. When she asked the teacher about the 2nd Amendment, the teacher told her, "That isn't an important one, we don't teach it here." That was a public school in California.
Can't say I learned it in school either. That said, you couldn't read an article in the newspaper about gun ownership without that interpretation of the second amendment being brought up.
I think it is brought up for a lot of reasons, but the Heller and McDonald decisions are pretty current so they might have some place in an article.
When I was in School, we had to learn all 10 even the 3rd which seems pretty dead at this point, obviously it was a problem at the time, but I haven't heard of this happening since the Civil War.
School Districts' attorneys tell teachers not to consider the second amendment important for fear that the NRA will sue the School District if any controversy ever results.
The NRA will do whatever it takes to sell more weapons and ammo.
Look at the Citizen United decision. The courts have been exceptional at shredding the US Constitution. Whether it be freedom of speech, militias, habeas corpus, illegal search and seizure, the list is endless. Heller and McDonald is just another decision which ignores the words of the Constitution and finds in favor of big business/big government.
That teacher obviously doesn't know what she's talking about, if she thinks that the Second amendment of the U. S. Constitution isn't important. It is important, especially since so many people, both on the right and the left, interpret it as the right for anybody who wants to be armed with firearms to be armed, and to carry. When are people, including that teacher of your friend's kid's teacher going to learn that "a well organized militia means a National Guard, and/or a military", and that only citizens who're presently serving in either of those branches, such as the Army, National Guard, or law enforcement or security personnel, can and should legally carry guns.
Those on the right and left who think that the 2nd Amendment applies to all civilians are sadly mistaken, especially since this country's obsession with guns has come home to roost, in more ways than one. Gun control is a necessity, because too many Jared Lee Loughners are running around out there.
"a well organized militia means a National Guard, and/or a military"
Well that is not the founders interpretation, not in the Constitution or the Federalist Papers. That is not the interpretation of the Supreme Court in Miller in 1939. That is not the interpretation of the Supreme Court in 2008 or 2010 in Heller and McDonald. It is not the definition of militia in the US law. Whenever that interpretation is brought out, it is shown again and again to simply be wishful thinking.
I disagree, JohnShade. I stand by my position that the 2nd Amendment does mean that the only people who have the right and authorization to carry arms are law enforcement and security personnel, as well as citizens who're serving in our military/Army/National Guard.
It's one thing for an ordinary civilian to own a hunting rifle, and/ or a certain kind of rifle if s/he likes to go to the range to target-shoot at the range just for sport. It's one thing for go out and hunt for dinner when the money runs low. In these two cases, I'm willing to make exceptions. Other than that, firearms, imho, really don't belong in civilian hands.
Had that been true, the amendment would not have been worded that way. The first clause strengthens the second, it doesn't weaken it.
It could have been worded differently (and would have were the opposite meaning intended.) For example:
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms can under certain circumstances be infringed to protect public safety."
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms only applies when they are in a well regulated militia."
"The people have a right to bear arms, only so long as the government authorities are the only ones doing so."
You are entitled to your position, but you really should give more attention to every court ruling defining that amendment. Your own interpretation is certainly a minority one, possibly a minority of one.
The legal and historical definition of "militia" is quite different from what you and Wasserman propose, and has been so completely debunked in court, up to the Supreme Court as to make the entire argument a strawman.
From a legal dictionary:
Militia --
n.
1.An army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers.
2.A military force that is not part of a regular army and is subject to call for service in an emergency.
3.The whole body of physically fit civilians eligible by law for military service.
As a citizen of my state, I am enrolled in the state militia and am subject to call for civil and natural disasters. I suspect, that if you read your own state's constitution, you may be too.
What is your point Walt. "That all depends on what your definition of is is?"
This Loughner guy could have tried and joined the state militia and they would have found him to be unfit much like the US Army found him unfit. He would have been told that he couldn't own a gun. He could have then hired a taxi cab to drive through the crowd. Any delay in that whole decision making process that led to this massacre gives him the opportunity to rethink his decision. Unfortunately, no delays were placed in his path.
The curious thing is that everybody refers to the "individual right to bear arms,' but you rarely read about the "readied militia." If you read Art 1 sect.8 of the US Constitution, subsection 15 and 16, you will find that it pretty much defines the militia as well as the constraints placed on the militia. It's very clear that the meaning of the 2nd amendment is about a National Guard and not the individual gun toting individual that we hear so much about in today's conversations. It seems to me that the founders gave us that large central government that Hamilton and many others who helped to frame The Constitution desired to control those crazed gun toters. The several territories came together as a collective to put down the Shay's Rebellion in 1786 and the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794. I believe Washington was the president during the Whiskey Rebellion. I wonder how the supporters of "individual right to bear arms" would explain that?
There were Supreme Court decisions that interpreted the militia to mean National Guard. It's this present Court, whose members claim to respect "stare decisis" that overturned previous decisions.
My point is that perhaps we should consider or at least have an honest discussion about The Constitution and the protections that it guarantees and oppose those ideo-logues who would interpret or perhaps I should say misinterpret The Constitution in ways that will prove harmful to this country and to certain groups within this coun-try. We had one Civil War in which over six hundred thousand lives were lost. We don't need another.
You know what else? The Civil War nearly destroyed the United States...for good.
Do you have a cite for this? I'd like to read the decisions.
There have been Supreme Court decisions that have contradicted and demolished every item in the Bill of Rights, there have been Supreme Court decisions that said that a Black person was not a human being and that corporations were.
I have a question, how can the 2nd Amendment apply to the National Guard? The 2nd Amendment was enacted with the Bill of Rights, the National Guard was not created until 1921.
You people seem to think that a militia and a standing army were the one and the same when in fact they were both legally functionally quite different. The Miller opinion makes this distinction in the footnotes.
You cannot consider the National Guard to be a militia, since the National Guard is subject to the UCMJ and the laws of war, when generally militias were not.
I like how the author highlights just two words of the whole clause. So not only is he wrong on his facts and history, but seems to have a poor grasp of constitutional interpretation. Fortunately Justices Scalia and Alito overruled this concatenation of lies, falsehoods, frivolous statements that could not even remotely be considered constitutional law.
On the subject of comparing cars and guns, can one show me in the Bill of Rights where it says a person has a right to drive a vehicle on the nation's roadways?
This
":On the subject of comparing cars and guns, can one show me in the Bill of Rights where it says a person has a right to drive a vehicle on the nation's roadways?"
is totally f**king bullshit, mtmoelle. As was pointed out in another post on this thread, a car is designed for transportation.
Guns, on the other hand, are weapons of war that're designed to kill other human beings. The comparisons that you and tons of other ardently pro-gun people make between cars and guns is not only wrong, but ludicrous on the face of it, since they're both used for totally different things. The only reason people get killed or badly hurt in car accidents is because someone used a car irresponsibly.
Guns, on the other hand, are a whole different matter. They can go off with even slightly careless handling, be stolen, and used in a homicide, hold-up, or any other kind of assault on another person.
Government military forces would be carrying weapons with or without an amendment. Why then does the amendment exist?
What other Bill of Rights amendments do not apply to individuals, but rather only refer to rights that people have once they are working for the government?
By the same logic you are using, is not speech control also a necessity, because too many Glen Becks are running around out there?
It is the only argument used against the Second Amendment and it is used all the time. "Vanished in the last decade?" Hardly.
The argument is that the first clause negates the second. That is clearly improbable and illogical.
"A well regulated public library being essential to public knowledge, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed."
How could that be construed to mean that the government has the right to restrict book ownership?
The Second Amendment does not say:
"A well regulated people being necessary to the security of the government, the power of the government to prevent people from keeping and bearing arms shall not be infringed."
If I did say that, would people claim that the first clause negated the second clause?
I don't know of any argument that the first clause negates the second. The first clause provides the context of the second clause. If they were two separate sentences, you might be able to make a general claim about gun ownership. As it stands, you can bear arms as part of a well regulated militia. Those are your Constitutional rights. Nothing more, nothing less.
As for the MSM, I see it tossed around constantly in the last decade. It is ALWAYS in the context of gun ownership rights, NEVER in the context of a well regulated militia.
"The right of the people shall not be infringed (by the government)" contradicts "you can only do it if you work for the government."
Of course.
The first clause describes why the second is necessary. That is what is literally says. The necessary well-regulated militia REQUIRES free and unfettered owning of firearms.
If it meant "you are free to carry guns if you are in the government" it would say so.
Vincent Goodridge says it a lot better than I do. You should check out all his posts.
vincent goodridge January 16th, 2011 4:40 pm
It appears that you want to flush The Constitution down the toilet and be led by survival of the fittest. I do not believe a modern society could long survive with those conditions. Like it or not, The Constitution is the law of the land, but no matter how I phrase the issue we will never reach an ageement because you have a fundamental issue with The Constitution and apparently the US society as a whole.
According to the 2nd Amendment the purpose of the right to bear arms is to assure a readied militia to assure the security of a free state. That militia was not as well an organized force prior to the writing of The Constitution as it needed to be, thus the succeeding amendments and interpretations of the meaning of the 2nd amendment over the years.
We now have SCOTUS dominated by ideologues who are not guided by prior interpreta-tions, but by their desire for a certain kind of society. As such we have to live with those interpretation for now, but there will be reversals and reversals of the reversals in the future. Keep tuned!
I'm sure one or more guns, with ammo, as my private property wouldn't endanger anyone at all, as I'm convinced of my own sanity. But as most of us would say that, gun-control by society is a must; we all have our off-days, don't we? Besides, a well-regulated militia does seem to indicate some kind of control anyway, no matter what some people say.
I do not know the impression that Madison would have of our current policies on gun ownership, nor, I think, does the author.
If the rationale of this article is carried to its logical(?) conclusions then the insane slaughter on our highways should lead to the banning of automobiles. I understand that this statement will not be popular to many who read it, so be it, it is an honest opinion.
Madmen will always be with us I fear, criminals are characterized by their willingness to break the law, including obtaining firearms. This horrific action by an obviously deranged individual, and those like it that occur both inevitably and infrequently, always brings out the ban all guns contingent. If only these folks would expend as much energy in trying to end the ridiculous and expensive wars, expensive both in lives and in MIC profits, we engage in, and wars we cannot win.
I own guns, I will own them whether or not the laws are changed , I will just not register them obviously. An unarmed populace is a more easily controlled one in my opinion. Those who reject our increasingly violent society are correct in their objections, but incorrect in their approach I think.
As a grandfather of 15 I see the violence on TV, in video games, in the fabric of our childrens lives, in society as a whole. Yet all the focus seems bent on demonizing gun ownership as if that would stop madmen and criminals from getting guns. No, all it will do is stop honest citizens from owning guns.
I taught my kids gun safety and operation, I have taught my older grandkids the same. My eldest grandson just killed his first buck with a rifle that his father used to get his first as well, and one that I used succesfully on hunts in the past. I hope that my great grandchild will get the same opportunity, and I do so unabashedly and honestly.
Events such as that in Arizona are certainly horrific and should make us all think and ponder solutions. Perhaps, as this particular individual was observed to be erratic to say the least, and removed from a school because of that trait, society was at fault for not getting him treatment. Perhaps society is at fault for being such a violent culture as well, perhaps parents should control the viewing of repetitive violence by their children, perhaps there are many factors involved in these all too frequent events.
But all we seem to get is an outpouring of sentiment to ban all guns, which runs its course and then dies away until the next incident. Now flame away.....
Hi DD,
Hope all is well. I think automobiles are an excellent parallel. Let's say we implement a gun owner licensing program that parallels our driver education program in this country. Two or more months of classes, on-hands training at the gun range, written test. Would you be adverse to such a thing? You look at a guy like Loughner, do you think he would have had the wherewithal to go through such training? If he did, do you think he could have successfully disguised his mental illness to a trained teacher?
FWIW, I would NOT be opposed to a system based on what you propose.
I was at the range last night and there was a young guy with an AR15 at the end of the benches and he had three of these bedecked, anorexic, future-housewives-of-orange-county girls with cameras and cell phones with him. He was "teaching them how to shoot". I have to tell you it really scared me that they could touch a gun when it was obvious that they were incompetent (with a gun at least...)
The Range Safety Officer sat with them the whole time and sort of instructed them and protected us at the same time.
Worked out, but I can see some mechanism of training or certification.
In California there are two short courses that are required, one for handgun ownership which is a cursory test, but you do have to take and pass it if you want to own a handgun. The other is still too short, but very useful, that is the Hunter Education Class that you are required to take to get a hunting license. That class, except for no hands on work, is quite good and could start as a model for a real general safety class.
While I certainly agree that responsible driving serves as a logical social parallel to responsible gun use, there is a problem with it in legal terms:
Driving is a privilege. Gun ownership is a right. Both are subject to regulation. Firearms are, by definition, more difficult to regulate. Not because they are dangerous, but because they are specifically enumerated as a right. Short of a Constitutional Amendment, most attempts to regulate will fail. Most courts, and certainly most of the current federal judges and the Supremes fall heavily into the "guns are as hard to regulate as religion" camp.
Further, there are already laws banning sale of firearms to the mentally ill. Any sane nation, like one, say, with universal health care, would have treated this guy for his apparent mental illness and he would have been in treatment or already cured, rather than skulking around getting more paranoid and armed. We can criticize the parents who apparently hadn't a clue that their live-in son had slipped around the bend, but again, in any decent society it would be very difficult for folks like this to reach the point where their illness manifests in predictable ways.
The problem is not that a few loons are killing people. They always have. But as I said, a real society would seek to minimize the causes of these illnesses, rather than using them to foster an agenda of disarming a populace that has begun to show the first grey dawning awareness of creeping fascism. So everyone--the media, that is--hype up the tragedy and the saccharine Obama speech and ignore our daily slaughter of hundreds of innocents and the millions of children alone who've died in our wars of the last ten years.
The irony, and the Naked Emperor surreality of Obama whingeing for peace at home whilst cluster bombs and phosphorous grenades and trained torturers attempt to impose a formerly tumescent empire's shriveled will on the world is multiplied a hundred million times by all who believe that this violence somehow erupted completely unexpected, like a volcano bursting forth in a cornfield in Illinois--
The accused, if he indeed did what he's been accused of, represents simply a chicken coming home to roost. It could be the "no care for mental illness policies started by Reagan and continued to this day" chicken, or it could be he was absolutely sane and decided voting just doesn't work anymore" chicken, or the "violence against innocents" chicken--you get the idea.
But whatever it turns out to be, this focus on the tragedy and teh shooter's personality problems and the issue of gun control will be used so long as it is distracting us from the utter lack of rights at all. Habeas corpus is gone, and none of the other "rights" can then exist.
Cheers.
The article points out that no right of gun ownership exists in the US Constitution. The words are black and white. Whose rights are really being abridged when a person can't walk down the street without worrying about some gun toting fool? You might think this incident is some bizarre tragedy but it is being played out on the streets of America on a daily basis. The only reason it gets headlines is because a US Congresswoman was shot. Who cares about the rabble. The gun companies are dumping guns by the millions onto the streets of America and it is high time we put some teeth back into the US Constitution. This would include habeas corpus and illegal search and seizure.
Whose rights are really being abridged when a person can't walk down the street without worrying about some gun toting fool?
-------------------------------
Such a problem exists in the person's head, not in the world. That's a description of an anxiety disorder. The reality is that 99.9% of all USAians will go through their entire lives never so much as hearing a gun fired in the street, never mind being hit by a bullet. People who are emotionally healthy do not over-value such risks.
C'mon Mairead. My brother was shot walking down the street for his jacket. The bullet missed his heart by about an inch. Fortunately he survived. I had a friend commit suicide with a cheap 22 cal handgun that was floating around the neighborhood. I had another friend who was shot and killed in a road rage incident. Unless you live in some sort of bubble, I suspect gun violence has touched your life in some shape manner or form. Perhaps in your lily white cul-de-sac neighborhood, you don't worry about violence. The bars on the door and windows of the neighborhood I grew up in tell a different story.
A car load of kids lost control on the stretch of freeway I drive each day. There was one survivor. Does this mean that I shouldn't worry about taking care when I drive? Do these gun deaths mean that I shouldn't worry about my own safety and not use common sense and care when I go about my business? No and No. Does this mean that my life is overrun with fear and I now find myself seized with anxiety? No.
People who are emotionally healthy realize that some things in life are indeed dangerous. People who look to society for mitigation of these dangers are not emotionally unhealthy. Reckless people who engage in dangerous behavior and who enable dangerous and risky behavior are emotionally unhealthy.
No, there's no "c'mon" about it, Lefty. Look at the statistics.
Let's say (I don't really have the time to chase down the CDC data, but if you do I'd be interested in seeing it) there are 100K homicides and malicious injuries due to shooting, and that they all take place in public streets where passersby can hear the shots. I'm almost certain that overstates the case by at least 20K but I'm trying to bend over backwards.
There are 330M people in the US. That means there would have to be 3000 people close enough to hear each episode. Do you think that's realistic?
The reality is that the same few people hear *many* of the gunshots because they live in small areas rich in desperate poverty and destitute of choices, while the vast majority, better off, never hear any. That's the reality.
I'm happy your brother survived. Your suicidal friend doesn't count: it was his choice. Your friend killed in the road-rage attack was apparently *extremely* unlucky unless he lived in one of a very few places. Road-rage apparently affects some 2K people per year in the best stats I could quickly find, but in those cases the weapon was a car not a gun. I can't find anything for guns, though anecdotally drivers in Dallas, Houston, and Miami do risk being shot if they irritate the wrong person.
Yes, my life was touched by gunfire. One member of my family shot another member intentionally, because of untreated paranoid schizophrenia. Fortunately the victim recovered fully.
That episode, scary as hell at the time (I was 13), nevertheless did not tip me over the edge. I was aware that my experience was unique among my acquaintances despite our living in the second-poorest part of town, amid neighbors who, like us, struggled to make ends meet and had few choices available to them. That's the only shot I have ever heard fired in anger in the US (and even that was in the house, not the street).
And I have never in my life lived in a privileged neighborhood.
I can't hear the bombs exploding in Afghanistan but I still want our wars of foreign aggression to end. You and I have both experienced gun violence in our lives and I suspect most every American on this board has also been touched by such violence, either directly or indirectly. Nothing unique about that.
Lefty, These agenda driven discussions will never be resolved, because people are positioning themselves based on the kind of country that they desire, "tote that bail," etc. The interpretation of "individual right" was never even a consideration until several decades after the Bill of Rights was written. We know that the country was divided over the twenty-year moratorium placed on bringing Africans into this country for the purpose of slavery.The slave holding states knew that slavery would be phased out eventually if slaves could not be imported, and that was the reason for the push for right to bear arms, limited government, etc.
The Federalists prevailed and gave us a Central Government that was large enough to put down any revolution. After the Shay's Rebellion they wanted to be certain of that. Sam Adams told us that to rebel against a republic should be a capital offence. We all know what Jefferson said about rebellions every so often. He also said that rebellions would not only rid the country of some patriots, but of some rebels as well. He made those statements while safely removed from any likely action
thousands of miles away in France. Jefferson took so many seemingly contradictory positions that Orwell would probably refer to it as double speak.I believe that he freed his slaves upon his death and after he had depleted the soil on his planta-tion of necessary minerals. This "survival of the fittest" battle will never end.
If you want a very interesting discourse on conservatism, read an article on the internet by Philip Agre,"What Is Conservatism And What's Wrong With It? The arg-ument that he presents gives some clarity and understanding about what's going on in this country and why. You hear talk about limited government, right to bear arms,lower taxes, end social security, end the Department of Education etc., etc.,etc. It's all about the many ways to keep certain folks "in their place."
We pretty much have a caste system in the US, and some want to keep it that way. Paul Krugman told us many years ago that social mobility is pretty much a myth in this country. He said that people stay pretty much in the class that they were born into. If you grant the majority population the right to bear arms and the many things that you hear conservatives demanding then the status-quo as far as race is concerned will remain as is. We live under The Federalist System of a big powerful Central Government. We have a collective right (National Guard) to bear arms, thus Art 1 sections 8:15 & 8:16. Why would they (Federalists) join together to put down the Shay's Rebellion and charge the rebels with crimes against the country, and a few years later put down The Whiskey Rebellion if they wanted rebels to be capable of overturning the Federal Government? LET'S GET REAL!
Its rather easily done, statistics wise:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated 52,447 deliberate and 23,237 accidental non-fatal gunshot injuries in the United States during 2000. The majority of gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides, with firearms used in 16,907 suicides in the United States during 2004.
....
Homicide rates in the United States are two to four times higher than they are in countries that are economically and politically similar to it. Higher rates are found in developing countries and those with political instability.
Prevalence of homicide and violent crime is greatest in urban areas of the United States. In metropolitan areas, the homicide rate in 2005 was 6.1 per 100,000 compared with 3.5 in non-metropolitan counties. In U.S. cities with populations greater than 250,000, the mean homicide rate was 12.1 per 100,000.[28] According to FBI statistics, the highest per capita rates of gun-related homicides in 2005 were in D.C. (35.4/100,000), Puerto Rico (19.6/100,000), Louisiana (9.9/100,000), & Maryland (9.9/100,000) .[29] The Bureau of Justice statistics from 2004 do not include D.C or Puerto Rico. see "Gun violence in the United States by state". Wikipedia. 2004. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state.
Homicide rates among 18- to 24-year-olds have declined since 1993, but remain higher than they were prior to the 1980s. In 2005, the 17 through 24 age group remains significantly overrepresented in violent crime statistics, particularly homicides involving firearms.[30] In 2005, 17- through 19-year olds were 4.3% of the overall population of the United States.[31] This same age group accounted for 11.2% of those killed by firearm homicides.[32] This age group also accounted for 10.6% of all homicide offenses.[33] The 20- through 24-year-old age group accounted for 7.1% of the population,[31] while accounting for 22.5% of those killed by firearm homicides.[32] The 20 through 24 age group also accounted for 17.7% of all homicide offenses.[33] Those under age 17 are not overrepresented in homicide statistics. In 2005, 13- through 16-year-olds accounted for 6% of the overall population of the United States, but only accounted for 3.6% of firearm homicide victims,[32] and 2.7% of overall homicide offenses.
People with a criminal record are also more likely to die as homicide victims.[11] Between 1990 and 1994, 75% of all homicide victims age 21 and younger in the city of Boston had a prior criminal record. In Philadelphia, the percentage of those killed in gun homicides that had prior criminal records increased from 73% in 1985 to 93% in 1996. In Richmond, Virginia, the risk of gunshot injury is 22 times higher for those males involved with crime.
In 2005, 75% of the 10,100 homicides committed using firearms in the United States were committed using handguns, compared to 4% with rifles, 5% with shotguns, and the rest with a type of firearm not specified. Due to the lethal potential that a gun brings to a situation, the likelihood that a death will result is significantly increased when either the victim or the attacker has a firearm. The mortality rate for gunshot wounds to the heart is 84%, compared to 30% for people who sustain stab wounds to the heart.
All from Wiki, footnoting removed but still accessible there for those who wish to delve further....
All of which supports the conclusion -a conclusion that once was better known even among "liberals"- that intentional firearm violence against other people is in the vast majority of cases caused by a lack of other choices, the remainder being the violence chosen by psychopaths as a tool of domination (the history of the labor movement is replete with examples), and, far down under the tail of the distribution, the violence perpetrated by the few people who suddenly lose their minds in that particular way.
Violence, regardless of the tool used, is rarely if ever committed by healthy, well-socialised non-psychopaths who perceive themselves to have other choices.
That's precisely why so many soldiers come back from killing zones all screwed up: they're not psychopaths, they are aware that on a global scale there are other choices, and yet they're forced into situations where they personally have to commit violence whose victims often include the innocent.
It's also the burden of Milgram's findings.
Time after time, his subjects obeyed the "experimenter" even when they were personally distressed and wanted to stop. They felt they had no choice but to continue. The complex expectation of obedience that begins to bind the working class in infancy had them completely in thrall to the will of the "experimenter".
We don't have too many guns, we have too few choices in the world and almost no training in how to be autonomous adults.
There is much wisdom in your words.
I suggest that good citizens strive to make their nation better in preference to leaving. I further suggest that these boring one liners you prefer to actual opinion or fact are not as worthy as you seem to believe.
The article can point out anything it wants, but that doesn't make it so.
The jurisprudence on the second amendment has always held, consistent with the constitution, that the right to bear arms is guaranteed. It is however, like speech (no yelling fire in a crowded theater) subject to regulation (no felons, no fully automatic weapons, etc.) Courts decide if regulations are constitutional.
I'm uncertain what your point may be.
My point was that this supreme court will not uphold many, if any, regulations on firearms.
My other point was, at the end of the day, we in fact have no rights at all when habeas corpus no longer exists.
You can't exercise your right to speech or religion or assembly or to choose or to vote etc when you may be abducted at any time and imprisoned forever. This includes search and seizure.
Habeas Corpus predates the Bill of Rights by about 600 years. Without it, the Constitution is literally meaningless.
You can point out anything you want and that doesn't make it so. That's sort of obvious. What the article points out is that any sane interpretation of the Second Amendment yields the obvious fact that the amendment provides for well regulated state militias. If you butcher the English language to the extreme, of course you could come up with interpretations which benefit gun companies. The same way freedom of speech has been bestowed on corporations. I can't imagine what butchery they used to shit can habeas corpus but they sure did it. Basically we live in a lawless society and these corporate fascists just make up shit as they go. We are literally seeing the disintegration of civil society. The results are going to be mind boggling. Keep that Glock close to you.
I'm not "pointing out." I'm telling you the law, and how the courts have interpreted it. I am qualified to do so. 15 years. Licensed in three states, three U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, and the SCOTUS.
Forgive me if I maintain that I know what I'm talking about. I gave you easy examples, and they were too much for you. Whether the English language was butchered by the various courts in the last 230 years affects matters not at all. Stating that the second amendment is interpreted to benefit gun companies is irrelevant to whether it is constitutional. The Courts have consistently struck down gun regulations, to varying degrees, for literally centuries now. They tack heavily, at this point, toward less regulation.
And if civil society ceases to exist--as though it exists now in any meaningful way--the absence of firearms will not prevent mass violence.
Good luck.
This hasn't been going on the last 230 years. The assault weapons ban was killed in 04. The clip this guy used was illegal in 04. Note the deception you use.
We tack heavily towards deregulation? You don't say? That's a good thing in your mind's eye? Note the reverence to authority that you hold.
I gave you the easy example of the butchering of the language like Citizens United. Note the condescending tone of your words.
Like I said, keep your Glock close to you.
I ignored your example because it demonstrated you didn't understand how the CU decision came about, not due to any reverence for authority. The SCOTUS didn't butcher any words; they did worse. They brought an issue before the court that was not on appeal, a move unprecedented since Marbury v. Madison, and now corporate spending is unfettered, so long as it's disclosed.
I have not supported or rejected any position of my own. I have simply stated how the courts will deal with the issues. Whether I agree with their handling of it is irrelevant to how they will actually handle it...sorta like a doctor who tells you the pancreatic cancer is going to kill you. The doctor's opinion about you as a person whether he regrets your death or rejoices in it, is irrelevant to the medical fact that you're dying.
I said good luck, because from here it appears you argue mostly with yourself.
Don't like the harsh reality of constitutional law? Come up with another method to change things, then. But put down the Glock. You sound edgy, like Loughner did a couple weeks ago...
You are the one arguing for the Glocks, not I. You are the one claiming that guns can't be regulated because of the courts. The court didn't strike down the assault weapons ban. It died in the legislature due to inaction. Nothing is stopping sane regulation of handguns outside of the gun industry lobby. That's it in my opinion.
Your points are well understood regarding habeas corpus. If we take the doctor analogy, this might not be pancreatic cancer. If it's a curable disease, you seem to be washing your hands of the case a bit early. You claim to be a legal expert. How do we attack this problem short of a Constitutional Convention? I'm all ears.
That's my point. Short of a Constitutional Convention--or an Amendment--we're not likely to see regulations that curb availability of firearms.
So now--and this is my opinion of course--we have to decide what else can be changed. I'm uncertain anything can be, but to dash your head against the current system will only result in dashed brains--Citizens' United is an abomination that essentially guarantees corporate rule. Normal citizens (ie, non-corps) will never be able to outspend the Corporations.
One thing that's been suggested is to impeach Roberts for lying to Congress about judicial activism. One can't be more active than forcing them to appeal an issue they had not. Rep. DeFazio of Oregon claims he's looking into it.
It'll fail, of course.
I personally think things will get much worse before they get better. Homelessness, hunger, lack of health care, education and infrastructure will either force that convention to occur, or we will trampled under until enough folks finally realize there's nothing left to lose.
On the specific issue of firearms, I still think that a just society obviates the need to restrict them, because sane happy folk don't turn or resort to violence. Firearms make murder easy, it is true, but we are stuck with them for now. When society is more just, people's paranoia will wane, and they'll drop the weapons. I am tremendously sorry that you have been close to firearms victims. I have thus far been lucky. But the tragedies caused by improper use of firearms has never outweighed--in most courts' opinions--the right to bear them.
A constitution barring forever corporate personhood would go a long way...so would one specifically holding that all crimes committed by the corp subject the Board to punishment.
However, from a cold, hard, reality perspective, I don't think any of the normal channels are open to people. There may have to be massive strikes and so on, like in Europe. It is unfortunate but true: Americans at this point are not about to change the second amendment by any conventional means. (no pun intended)
Having said all that--and probably too much--I think we are likely to see attempts to ban extended magazines and semi-auto assault weapons--including handguns--in many states. There will be intense lobbying to prevent it, but many will pass and be upheld for years. By the time the SCOTUS gets them, we may be lucky enough to have the votes to win.
But really, I'm not at all certain what can work, given teh Citizens United case. It really just fills me with despair.
Thanks for the engaging discussion. Let me also say I didn't know before people close to you were victims of gun violence. I am very sorry to hear that, and I would have been a little less harsh in my responses.
Cheers.
That's not the reply I wanted to read but it falls in line with how I feel. They aren't going to relinquish the levers of power voluntarily and we're in a helluva bind.
You weren't harsh at all and I don't need to play the emotion card on this issue. Unfortunately I felt it was beyond pertinent in regard to Maireads post. Shit happens in all our lives and the best of us learn to accept it and forge ahead.
A lucid and worthy argument,puffin, and thanks for it.