As Frank Schaeffer points out, the tragedy of the Tucson Massacre is not just about political rhetoric, or Left vs Right, or cute little cross-hairs surveyor’s symbols on political hit lists.
It’s about guns.
When the Founders wrote the Second Amendment, the guns they knew about were flintlock pistols and rifles. A British Brown Bess, one of the best rifles of the Revolutionary Era, had a firing rate of, oh, one shot per 20 seconds or so (15 seconds for highly trained troops).
In the video below is someone firing a Glock 19, the kind of pistol that Jared Lee Loughner used.
You’ll notice how quickly and efficiently the Glock 19 fires. You’ll also note the very large magazine. That’s an extended magazine that carries (in this case) 33 rounds of 9mm ammo. Plus one in the chamber, if you are so inclined.
Loughner apparently had a 30 round extended magazine, which was why he was able to shoot so many people so quickly, firing off all 31 rounds in about 15 seconds.
He also had another 30 round clip magazine, plus two “standard” 15-round clip magazine on him. He was tackled while reloading.
People think of someone carrying a pistol like a Police .38 — 6 rounds in a cylinder. Or perhaps 7 rounds in a .45 clip.
The Glock 19 carries 15 rounds in its normal capacity, and, as noted, twice that with the expanded cartridge magazine (illegal in a couple of states, but quite available in Arizona).
31 rounds in 15 seconds. Someone better trained can do it in half that time.
20 people shot. 6 of them fatally — in detail “a federal judge, a 76-year-old church volunteer, two elderly women, Giffords’s 30-year-old constituent services director and a 9-year-old girl who had recently been elected to the student council at her school and went to the event because she wanted to see how democracy worked.”
This is not “protecting yourself from burglars.”
This is not “safeguarding our tradition of game hunting.”
This is not “a well-regulated militia.”
There are gray areas one can argue about in all of those, when discussing gun control. But it’s difficult to understand how someone can argue the social value of someone being able to legally and easily purchase a weapon that can throw out 31 rounds in 10-15 seconds. That can be (legally) carried concealed (though with difficulty, with the longer clip magazine). That someone who was rejected from the military for drug use can purchase with no problem.
Unless you’re a flack for the NRA, what sane argument can you give for allowing that kind of a weapon — something orders of magnitude more deadly than the Founders ever envisioned* — to be out on the street in civilian hands? Including in the hands of a nutjob like Jared Lee Loughner?
*I’d be fascinated to hear what an “Constitutional Originalist” like Justice Scalia would make of the proposition that the Founders only envisioned weapons being in civilian hands that could throw out four rounds a minute, and thus anything that can fire faster than that is not Constitutionally protected.
UPDATED: Corrected (as noted) the references to magazines as clips.
Do you believe, with everything that has come to light in the past few days, he would *not* have taken up any other weapon to kill people? What if he’d decided to research fertilizer bombs instead?
I believe the founders intended the 2nd Amendment to allow citizens to protect themselves from an abusive government. Every law in place now punishes only the law-abiding, as criminals still seem to have no problem getting their hands on guns, and somehow mysteriously ignore so-called “gun free zones.”
You cannot control every move of a crazy person. You cannot legislate away their options when it comes to monstrous acts. All the legislation does is punish everyone else.
Certainly I believe he would have taken up other weapons. “Darn, can’t get a Glock 19 with a 30-round clip. Better just write an angry letter.” It’s quite possible he could and would have shot Rep Giffords first anyway.
But assuming he stayed with the general class of weapon of choice (he could have used a fertilizer bomb instead in real life; obviously acting with a gun fit with his decided actions), it’s highly unlikely he would have shot (and killed) so many other people.
Take it the other direction. If he could have as easily obtained a small fully automatic weapon with a 60 round clip, he could have killed even more. He didn’t because he couldn’t. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
Regarding the purpose of the Second Amendment, I agree that it was primarily meant by the Founders as a defense against tyranny, individually and as states. (I also agree that, even though not being spelled out in the Constitution, protection against criminals and use for recreational purposes are worthwhile purposes.) But I’ll also suggest that things have changed quite a bit — Bob with a Glock isn’t going to stop a tyrannical modern army, national guard, or even determined police from establishing an abusive state (it may make it a bit more dangerous, but hardly impossible). And Bob with a Glock is a lot more dangerous, potentially, to his fellow citizens than Bob with a Musket was.
To that end, I think legal restrictions are appropriate. I don’t think banning firearms overall is the right answer, but I think restrictions on getting to ownership, and restrictions on the types of arms available, can be reasonably applied.
That criminals are able to obtain guns is not an argument that gun control “only punishes the law-abiding” — given the patchwork of gun laws in the country, that’s hardly a surprise (I’d rather see more uniformity), but regardless, were there no restrictions on gun sales I suspect that criminals would have an even easier time.
I agree that we can’t make things perfectly safe, or control every potential option that a crazy (or, to use a parallel case, a terrorist) could do, and trying to do so does, ultimately, hurt society and our rights more than the bad guys do. But it’s not a binary choice, either — imposing a tyranny to stop madmen or letting madmen have their way. Reasonable compromises to guard against some acts of madness can be found.
Thinking that a population armed with only small arms cannot defeat a modern army, you ignore history. History is replete with examples where this has been proven false:
Afghan population versus the USA, Iraqi insurgents versus USA, Somali warlords versus USA, Hezbollah versus Israeli Defense Forces, Afghanistan versus Soviets, VietCong versus USA, Warsaw Jews versus the German Army, Warsaw ghetto 1940.
Even if we accept that small arms are not sufficient to prevent an abusive state, your argument actually supports loosening the restrictions on arms, until there is a parity of force between citizens and government.
Until 1934, machine gun ownership was unrestricted. Until 1968, anyone could order guns by mail through catalogs. Until 1986, one could buy a new machine gun with a background check and a $200 tax. The gun owning citizens of this country have been “compromising” for nearly 100 years, but each compromise winds up being a starting point for yet another compromise, and even though those who propose such compromises admit that restrictions will not fix the crime problem or prevent madmen from murdering others, each heinous act committed by those madmen is used as the grounds to remove yet another right under the banner of compromise.
Suppose that the same restrictions and compromises were applied to other Amendments?
For example, the first: (to prevent pedophiles, and those who would incite violence)
– No one may write a newspaper article or book without an author’s license.
– No one may sell written materials without a license, and must keep a record of everyone that they sell those materials to for 20 years.
– No one may buy any book or newspaper without a background check, nor buy more than 1 book or newspaper every 30 days.
– All written materials with pictures of children without clothing, or pictures that could easily be made to look like children, are illegal without a $200 transfer tax. No pictures of children without clothing are legal, if taken after 1986.Say goodbye to baby pictures.
– It is illegal to leave any written materials where a child can access them.
Since you point out that the founders intended to only apply to the guns of the period, the same argument could easily made that the First Amendment does not apply to Television, Radio, Internet, or telephones.
There was a story about voting in the south during the 1960’s that was told to me by a black college professor who was active during the civil rights marches. It seems that to register to vote, there used to be a literacy exam, which consisted of you reading the headline of a newspaper to the election official. When this particular black man went to register to vote in his home state of Georgia, he was handed the newspaper to read.
It was printed in Chinese. Remember that when you advocate restricting the rights of people.
A right that is subject to restrictions is not a right at all.
@divemedic:
Though in the cases you cite, RPGs (and IEDs) played a significant role, as did the presence of more powerful automatic weapons and rifles than what we’re talking about here — Iraqi insurgents are using AK47s, not Glocks.
True.
Agreed. And I’ve decried that tendency around responses to terrorist attacks against this country.
But it seems to me there’s some value in trying to restrict obvious opportunities that enable heinous acts, even if one can argue that heinous acts might be carried out by other means.
I understand your point. And, in fact, we continue to fight against those who would restrict First Amendment rights in the name of protecting children, etc., when such restrictions carry a high cost and seem ineffective in carrying out their purpose.
I’m considering why it feels that gun ownership, or restrictions on gun ownership, is different, but I haven’t found a reasonable way to articulate it yet.
If one could identify a substantive difference in what the technologies do, and unanticipated significant dangers that such technologies create, I’m sure you could find folks who would make just such an argument.
For example (and I’m cobbling a metaphor out of thin air here), let’s say the Internet was seen to be similar to the free speech and press that the 1st Amendment protect, but 1 out of a 1000 times you sent an email, the person on the other end of the phone died. Would my free speech rights trump that previously unexpected danger?
Rationally (and minimally) restricting rights, while arguable on its own merits, is not the same as abusing legal procedure to take rights away. The analog would be, “You can only have a gun if it is registered, but we’re closing the registration desk except for a randomly selected hour each week.”
But there are no absolute rights. My right to privacy is subject, under due process and for compelling reasons, to infringement or restrictions or penalties (a court ordered search). So is my right to free speech (classified material). So is my right to a free press (closed hearings; libel laws).
The restrictions are, or should be, the results of the rights of others, and certainly should be the minimum needed to meet that compelling societal interest. And, even then, yes, they should be considered very carefully.
There are just some things about your society that you take for granted. My mother would not accept anyone calling after 9pm because that was just rude. I generally feel the same way. My children have no problem with people calling them at any time if they are up to answer the phone.
My point is, I believe the founders didn’t mention a lot of things in their writings and the BoR (leaving it to the 9th amendment) as they felt that it didn’t need to be said. As a matter of fact, certain founders didn’t think that the 2A needed to be included because it was obvious that people had the right to defend themselves. I gather that they figured that someone would do it with whatever they could get a hold of, be it a knife, pistol or rifle.
Huh…
So by this logic we should do away with all laws and restrictions on freedom and liberty, since clearly, all right minded folks will do the right thing while those with criminal intent or who are insane will not, so there is no point in Government or for a Government to apply said laws.
The 2nd Amendment is currently far too broadly interpreted. Pistols have nothing to do with a well-regulated militia, and pistols are not necessary for home protection or hunting. The 2nd Amendment would allow every adult citizen to own a single long rifle.
Well-regulated means that you need to be licensed and have passed a competancy exam before that long rifle can be sold to you.
In no way should further firearms be made illegal, but if you want more than that minimum guaranteed right, then regulations should be quite tight, especially for easily concealable weapons like pistols.
Frankly I don’t even care if fully automatic weapons are legal, but regulated heavily.
Yes, a truly motivated assassin is almost impossible to stop, but it’s a lot harder to sneak past a guard with a long rifle than with a pistol.
“Well regulated” meant “well equipped” which is why we refer to troops as “Army Regulars”- meaning that they are all outfitted with similar weapons and equipment.
@divemedic – I believe Regular (in terms of the permanent/”standing” Army) is in reference to their centralized control, not their equipment. Hamilton in Federalist 29 uses the terms in regards to training and discipline, not equipment, and that’s the generally accepted definition.
Sorry, but your information is so far off base it’s scary.
The whole “The founding fathers couldn’t have foreseen semiautomatic handguns” is a strawman. They couldn’t foresee the Internet, does that render the 1st moot? They couldn’t foresee xray or backscatter devices, does that render the 4th moot?
No, they were 100% for arms in the hands of the populace. This included muskets and concealed weaponry.
The phrase “well-regulated” was in common use long before 1789, and remained so for a century thereafter. It referred to the property of something being in proper working order. Something that was well-regulated was calibrated correctly, functioning as expected. Establishing government oversight of the people’s arms was not only not the intent in using the phrase in the 2nd amendment, it was precisely to render the government powerless to do so that the founders wrote it. (From Constitution.org)
You’ll also notice your ignorance showing here. The fact is a Glock trigger is not any different than any other brand of DA striker fired pistol is lost on you. ANY gun fires as fast as you can pull the trigger. If you think semi-autos give you an advantage, you’re sorely mistaken. In fact, watch as this guy fires 6 rounds, reloads, and fires another 6 rounds, hitting his target, UNDER 3 seconds. With a revolver. He also puts 8 rounds on target in 1 second.
Magazine capacity is irrelevant as well. While Travis is a pro, most people can reload a firearm in about 2 seconds or so. So 1 30 round magazine (not a clip. Again, if you’re going to argue about something, please know what you’re talking about. A clip holds ammunition to be fed into the magazine) is a 2 second difference than 2 15 rounders like I carry.
Finally, about 51,999,999 million households are responsible for the legal care of 259,999,999 guns. The actions of one lone whacko do not indicate that guns are a problem. Here in Florida, 1 in 24 people have a concealed weapons permit. If, by your assertions, guns are really a problem, we would see dozens if not hundreds of murders a week here in the Sunshine state. But we don’t because it’s not an issue. I carry a ‘hi capacity firearm’ on me at all times.
You trust random people to operate a multi-ton piece of metal traveling at high velocities, sometimes withing inches of you and often in the opposite direction thousands of times a day on your daily drive, yet you think a handgun, of which 80% of people shot by one survive, is somehow a problem? Why is that?
Actually, I wonder what Justice Scalia (“The folk who passed the 14th Amendment didn’t think it would apply to women or gays, so it really doesn’t”) would say about that. (I disagree with his reasoning, by the way.)
The distinction, though, is the principle they were putting forth — the idea of guns as a protection against government tyranny. That value they were protecting did not have to be balanced against the idea of someone abusing that right to gun down twenty people in fifteen seconds.
Actually, Hamilton (in Federalist #29) made it clear that well-regulated, related to militia, referred to being well-trained, and, in fact, suggested that it be under the control of the national government.
Regarding how quickly a world champion is able to fire a pistol, or even, under ideal circumstances and preparation, reload a revolver, is not terribly relevant. Regarding magazine capacity, reloading, even if you can two it two seconds, is still a big pause in a volley of gunfire — and is, in fact, the opportunity during which Loughner was taken down. That he didn’t have to reload until after fifteen seconds of firing thirty-odd rounds simply meant he was able to fire a lot more rounds than he would have otherwise.
Thanks for the correction between “magazine” and “clip.”
Your observations on the overall number of guns, and how few folks go on crazy rampages with them, is worth noting — the problem being, when someone does go on such a rampage, the ease with which they can attain, legally, a quick-firing weapon with a huge magazine capacity, despite a history of mental illness, means that they are much more likely to cause even greater havoc. Perhaps that’s a risk worth taking.
For the record, since I went and dug the numbers up, in 2009 there were 1,017 murders (5.4 per 100K pop), of which 695 were committed by firearm, 412 by handgun. Is that too high, too low, or amenable to reduction by more stringent, or less stringent gun control?
Because the folks driving around me are, presumably, out to protect themselves and their vehicle. Conceivably they might suddenly veer over in order to do some sort of lunatic attack on me — but that seems an even more uncommon occurrence.
As to the 80% survival rate, the percentage seems not quite that high in this particular instance.
Math fail.
Actually, there were 20 people shot. 6 killed, and 14 wounded. That is a 70% survival rate. This is well within the 95% confidence interval for a sample size of 20.
In a normally distributed population where 80% of all shooting victims survive being shot by a handgun, 95% of the time a sample size of 20 shooting victims will have between 10 and 18 who survive. This is well within the observed results.
That’s why I said “in this particular instance,” and didn’t extrapolate it out to question your particular statistic.
I’m also not sure it’s a comfort to the families of the dead that they were simply part of the unlucky 20%.
Probably not a comfort to the families but at least one of them doesn’t have the knee-jerk reaction to cage society because of the insane. John Green even through his grief realizes that the alternative to not having a free society is not worth it.
@Patrick: I’d agree that having a perfectly safe society (were such a thing possible), at the cost a free society, is not worth it.
I also think a perfectly free society at the cost of all safety is undesirable as well.
The question is, how do you maximize both values. It’s not an either-or question. And while I value freedom a fair amount more than safety, I think there are reasonable compromises one can try.
Those who carry firearms around me are, presumably, out to protect themselves. Seeing that many people carry legally, I would say that shootings are uncommon as well.
You don’t mention the number of people who do end up running their cars through crowds of people or drive drunk or just cause deaths because they wanted to drive 100 miles an hour while they put on their make up. People can be stupid. We punish stupid people. We don’t legislate the adults who can handle responsibility because of those who can’t.
Actually, we do legislate responsibility. We have (to take the auto example) requirements for training/testing, we limit speeds, we restrict alcohol intake — we do all these things prior to someone doing something stupid.
Ultimately, most legislation is to either punish bad acts, or to restrain people from committing them where possible.
Is it possible to go too far in doing so? Sure. Finding the balance in protecting people from themselves (and each other) proactively while still respecting freedom and personal choice is the real trick.
The problem is that you can make requirements and laws until the cows come home, but how effective are they and what are the unintended consequences? Seat belt laws saw an increase in fatalities after they were passed. Why? People ‘felt’ safer driving unsafely. They weren’t, and it took a lot of deaths to figure that one out.
In my world, many people have ended up shooting themselves or others negligently because they relied on the numerous ‘mandated safeties’ to prevent the gun from going boom.
As for drivers licenses, you really believe that we test people adequately? I live in Florida, and after so many years of dealing with elderly drivers, I assure you that little piece of plastic does nothing to guarantee the blue hair in front of you is capable of being on the road.
But you’re on the right track here – the laws can be there to punish people. But do you punish the guy with the 500HP Muscle Car for having the car or do you punish him for driving recklessly and plowing into a group of orphans on a field trip from the missionary?
Should we ban 500HP cars because some idiot might drive poorly?
That’s what happens with guns, and it happens from people who fail to understand the mechanics, the physics, and the construction of firearms. Gun are easy to make. They’re a tube, sealed at one end. The trick is getting them to be reliable. Criminals would just as soon start using zip guns (totally untraceable) if that’s all that was available.
See, there’s no way to accurately describe a gun in terms of it being something that criminals would use that would find no other legal use. Thus, there’s nothing to ban that will lower misuses of guns.
What I posit is that we increase education – the Eddie Eagle and other programs like it are very successful. I’ve had first hand experience with that. We then start focusing on the criminal rather than the tools they wield. There are more stabbings per year than gunshots IIRC. Murder is rarely a first offense.
I also believe in getting more people into the shooting sport would help, because honestly, I’m not saying this to be a pompous ass, but ignorance is our (the pro-gun community) worst enemy. It’s blog posts talking about how lethal the Glock 19 is when that is clearly a falsehood that make me jump over and get into the foray again (something I keep swearing I’m done with).
Thanks for letting me talk. If you’d ever like to do a podcast debate or just a phone call, I’d be more than happy to defend my position. And if you’re ever in the Tampa area, my offer stand to take you shooting at absolutely no cost to you.
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Always a valid concern. Along with how they can abused.
Can you point to a citation for that? I find predictions that will happen, but no actual stats to back it up. (The suggestion is that while they are safer in a crash buckled vs unbuckled, that may be offset by increased crashes due to less safe behavior.)
I would be willing to accept that there are cases where people act stupidly because they are now “protected.” That the mandated safety equipment (unless itself unsafe) is actually leading to more deaths (rather than ironic deaths) would require some convincing.
I didn’t say we adequately test drivers — but there is testing, and in different states testing can be forced in case of an incident, or in some states there is more required testing (including actual driving testing) at regular intervals above a certain age.
Is it adequate? Does it eliminate incompetent drivers? No, but it helps, better than doing nothing.
Generally speaking, we take a middle course and punish him for driving recklessly regardless of whether anyone is injured (on the supposition that next time someone might be).
No, but we can define limits of driving poorly that don’t involve actual accidents occurring — speed limits and other traffic laws — and punish those who violate them.
Also quite a bit more dangerous to the user, and neither as cool nor as effective as a “real” gun. So, yes, certainly they would (because they did), but gang violence in the age of guns is a lot deadlier (to gang members and passersby) than it was when gangs were more West Side Story.
I am definitely in favor of gun education. Heck I’d support gun education for all kids (for much the same reason that I’d support sex education for all kids), even if the parents were to assure us that “there’s none of that going on in our household.”
True. But I suspect the survival rate from stabbings is even better than that from handguns.
Since I have the FL stats around, firearms were involved in 26% of violent crimes in 2009.
I don’t disagree that looking at criminals, causes for crime, etc., aren’t part of the equation. Anyone who argues that banning guns, or any sort of gun control, will bring about a bucolic paradise is trying to sell you something. But I think that looking at all sides of the problem — reducing criminals on the street as well as the capabilities they can acquire for committing crime — is the best solution.
It would be interesting to see more coverage of shooting sports in the sporting media. I’ve always thought the biathlon was one of the more cool Winter Olympic sports.
Well, we know that under certain circumstances someone armed with a Glock 19 and a 30-shell
clipmagazine can kill 6 people in a very short period of time. That seems lethal enough to me. I would suggest that there are things we can try (far short of trying to ban all guns) that might make that less likely.You’re welcome. Thanks for approaching the topic with civility and an interest in presenting your case. We don’t agree on everything, but discussion beats lack thereof (or worse).
It’s not a neck of the woods I get down to, but if I do and opportunity permits, you’re on.
Now, go look at those numbers and determine murders (different than homicide, which self defense covers) by people who legally owned the firearm. You can count Senior Crazy Pants from AZ.
The numbers are so low as to be statistical noise.
Now, if deaths are so important to you, how about lives saved? Here’s a great website to show you thousands upon thousands of recent stories of self defense with firearms – http://www.thearmedcitizen.com. For every gun control law you want to put in place to prevent a rare occurrence, you end up killing a lot of innocent people who, due to the inability for them to obtain access to firearms die at the hands of superior numbers or more powerful predators.
Again, you are woefully ignorant of firearms if you think that it takes a professional to shoot rapidly. What makes those gentlemen amazing isnt’ their ability to pull the trigger, practically anyone can shoot just as fast. What makes them amazing is that they hit their targets.
Another failure of gun control is the mistaken assumption that firearms and high capacity magazines are somehow difficult to make. I have an entire section on y blog dedicate to homemade firearms. For the hundreds of millions of firearms in civilian hands, there must be billions of magazines. How, pray tell, do you make them all disappear? Make them illegal? Because the last time I checked, drugs were illegal and we still seem to have a lot of them running around.
Still, since you seem hellbent on restricting access to guns over rarities (the 24hr news cycle amplifies a tragedy’s impact which many people confuse for ‘occurring more’) then why not vehicles for the same reason?
Same with setting some arbitrary limit on the number of cartridges a gun can hold. If capacity is the issue, then why not demand that all firearms can only be capable of holding 1 round at a time? What’s the limit? 3? 10? 50?
And when you make that law, how do you get the criminals and crazy people who don’t follow the law to turn in their “hicap” magazines? Maybe you can get the criminals to turn in their guns too since it’s illegal for them to own them.
Face it, the only way to do gun control is complete confiscation, and then you’ll have the same number of murders as you’ll never be able to get the guns away from the criminals. England’s murders are spiking, and there’s plenty of murders with guns, knives, etc. even with their orwellian systems.
Nothing you can do will prevent another AZ incident. The best you can do is make a police state where the free are punished for the crimes of the insane and the criminals. Demanding that I disarm before going into Place X does nothing to deter a criminal. Neither does limiting magazines, purchases, caliber, or any other thing that lawmakers who can’t even label the correct parts of a firearm try to ban (see McCarthy, Carolyn who wanted to ban barrel shrouds and couldn’t identify what they were when asked)
Now, go look at those numbers and determine murders (different than homicide, which self defense covers) by people who legally owned the firearm. You can count Senior Crazy Pants from AZ.
Those numbers were for Florida (which was the state being referenced), and they are murders. http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/Content/getdoc/332e1b3d-2648-4b06-8be5-d322f340c95d/1971_fwd_murder_firearms.aspx
.
First off, I’m not proposing ridding the population of guns. Some take that position. I’m not.
Second, looking at the top stories of “self defense with firearms” I see:
– a guy shooting someone who was stealing shingles from a job site.
– a guy who shot some armed thieves who were making off with some survey equipment.
– a guy who shot armed robbers who were demanding money.
– a gal who shot and killed an armed man breaking into her house.
– a gal who shot and killed a burglar who had just broken through her sliding glass door.
How many of these were lives saved? Property saved, certainly, and potentially injury or death. Three deaths we know of, though those are arguably self-defense (and not listed as murders).
If we got rid of guns, yes, there would likely have been some killings in these cases, and perhaps in some additional cases as the “herd immunity” of the risk of being shot when doing something illegal to someone went down. But not every use of firearms is saving a life (regardless of whether one is taken in doing so).
Um, agreed, but that wasn’t my point. The ability of a gun itself to shoot very quickly, coupled by a copious supply of ammo, and a crowd, means you’re going to have a lot of people hit and killed in a circumstance like what happened in Tucson.
And back in the days of the Jets and the Sharks they had zip guns to go with their switchblades and chains.
So, yes, DIY gunmen can make their own guns. But apparently not a lot of people do, vs. buying them at the store (or stealing them from people who have bought them), because most of the guns on the street aren’t home-made.
If 30-round magazines hadn’t been available, would Loughner have made one of his own? It seems unlikely. Had he been restricted to smaller magazines, having to reload in-between, would he have been able to shoot (and kill) as many people? It also seems unlikely.
Obviously you can’t — you can’t even make a worthwhile systematic attempt to do so (without causing more problems, and bloodshed, than would be worth it). But that doesn’t mean the answer is to shrug and ignore the problem.
Make them illegal? Because the last time I checked, drugs were illegal and we still seem to have a lot of them running around.
If there were a reasonable incremental way to make vehicles and driving safer without removing the other values they provide, I’d support it.
But, then, we already have registration of vehicles. We already require testing and retesting of fitness to drive vehicles. We already have safety features built into vehicles to assist in avoiding accidental deaths and injury. We have mandates for insurance coverage for vehicle owners.
But, then, vehicular ownership and driving are not protected constitutional rights.
So the reasonable alternative is no limit and hope that you end up with one more bullet to fire than the other guy?
It’s like saying (to go back to the driving thing), if I think driving too fast is dangerous to a person and those around them, why not restrict cars to 5 mph? How do we determine the proper limit — 5, 10, 40, 70 mph?
But the alternative to that scheme (at least as adopted by society) is not to eliminate all speed limits everywhere, from freeway to school zone, and only punish those who actually plow into another car or a kid.
Obviously you can’t. On the other hand, making such hicap magazines illegal changes the cost/benefit equation for crooks who might think of carrying or making one. And not making it as easy as wandering down to the local gun or sporting goods store to buy one is going to reduce their casual availability, as well as their availability to theft from law-abiding citizens.
There will always be crime and criminals and crazies. They can’t be eliminated. But I believe there are things you can do to tighten down the firearms ecosphere to make it quite a bit more difficult for them to get what they want.
I disagree.
We already have some measure of gun control, in terms of certain weapons that aren’t available (or as easily available), background checks (in some areas), etc. I believe there’s room for a measure of fine tuning in a way that will not threaten the freedoms that firearms are said to protect, but which can make life a bit safer in itself.
If the criminals had all the guns they’ll ever need, they wouldn’t steal them or try to smuggle them in. But, yes, you will never get all the guns away.
I disagree, or else there no point to any laws whatsoever.
Based on your stance, the internet, and your blog isn’t protected by the 1A, since the Founders could not of envisioned it.
@cubby: Only if I can’t show the significant identity between online expression and what the Founders imagined, and someone else can show that they are substantively different.
On the other hand, maybe a constitutional originalist would disagree.
So what would this conversation have been if the shooter had driven a car or truck into the crowd? More likely killing more people and being almost impossible to stop.
It’s not the inanimate object that is at issue, it’s the user.
Unfortunately, your post and the commenters that were allowed are pretty far off when it comes to actual facts.
Members of Militias could and commonly did carry handguns.
The Founders didn’t envision the fast firing weapons, but they did know of the sword and other close quaters weapons that could do a huge amount of damage quickly.
The Founders didn’t envision modern weapons, but they didn’t envision the internet, the modern printing press, the television or most of the modern media, does that mean the first amendment has no place in modern society?
If you think that ownership of a handgun is only relevant to the militia, you may wish to actually read the Heller decision and see the discussion on the understanding of self-defense that is discussed therein. The Right to self defense was understood to be self-evident beyond the militia. In fact it was understood in early English common law. Restriction to a militia is irrelevant.
And as for social benefits of handguns or any other guns for that matter, compare that to the social benefits of having a car that can go 100 mph. A handgun can aid me in protecting myself, but that car gets me nothing. So should we regulate all cars to only go 5 mph because someone wants to make a moral argument that it isn’t a social benefit? If you start there, where do you stop?
@Nylarthotep:
Clearly the discussion would have been different (we probably would been talking more about how his mental problems might have been earlier detected and dealt with (a discussion that still ought to be going on).
On the other hand, he didn’t use a car or truck. He specifically used a gun to the purpose. So that choice seems relevant.
I think it’s a matter of both.
True. Though not as their primary firearm, I’d expect.
I suspect somewhat less, though. Nor did the Founders feel the need to protect the right to bear swords (assuming that’s not encompassed in “arms”).
The Founders didn’t envision modern weapons, but they didn’t envision the internet, the modern printing press, the television or most of the modern media, does that mean the first amendment has no place in modern society?
The nature of something and how it is identified and protected by rights (and balanced by other considerations) is often includes a risk component. So the modern printing press is not substantially different from printing presses of the day, and one can draw the connection to the use of the Internet or TV or modern media as being a close analogy — in purpose and issues — with the press and street corner of 18th Century America. In other words, the difference is primarily in speed and convenience, but the social and political issues raised are not substantially different, and the risks/dangers/costs are similar.
The question of whether the vastly increased lethality of modern firearms — the pistol here, or fully automatic weapons or machine guns, or grenades or whatever else one might broadly consider as arms — changes the nature of what it was the Founders were protecting in the Constitution (or their purpose in doing so) is more open to discussion, I think.
But we’re talking about rights as lined out in the Constitution — which clearly framed the right to bear arms in terms of a well-regulated militia. That said, Heller made the current Supreme Court understanding of the 2nd Amendment to include protection / self-defense.
That’s what society does — weigh costs and benefits, including the benefits of personal freedom.
First, “Need” does not automatically translate to “Right”. And a madman does not trump the Bill of Rights.
A well-regulated militia is a group of people who train to arms. Those of us who consider ourselves the unorganized militia practice with our firearms. “Well-regulated” means “in working order, adjusted and calibrated”, not “government controlled”. Otherwise, why even have the 2A? And in modern times, such a weapon could be very useful to the militia.
As far as the guns themselves, 10 rounds or 33 rounds, no problem With practice, I can switch magazines (not “clips” dammit!) within a second. I’ll just carry three or more, already loaded. So your extended magazine ban is moot. And what if someone is facing a gang? Not an impossible scenario in today’s world. An extended magazine may be very useful to the good guy then.
The “Brown Bess” was a smoothbore musket, not a rifle. The Kentucky Rifle, more properly the Lancaster Rifle was one of the few rifles that saw service in the Revolution, and that was on our side. Now, of course, we have full-auto firearms, which are heavily regulated, and no new ones may be sold. And one must pass an FBI check that is far more rigorous than the normal background check. However, if you wish to limit us to muzzleloading rifles, then may I suggest that you give up your cell phone, computer, and the Internet, and limit yourself to manual printing presses. After all, the Founders could not envision the Internet or computers, just like they could not envision the modern firearms we have now. Attack the Second Amendment; give up the First, I say.
@Crotalus:
Well, given the governmental (and social) response to 9/11, I’m not sure about that.
Again, apologies for the improper terminology.
A second (or two) of interval between clips can be a life-saver, as this incident demonstrates.
So would, in theory, a flame thrower, but I’m not okay with folks wanderning around with those, either. And unless you’re actually in a full-blown gun-fight with a gang, it doesn’t seem that an extended magazine is going to help much.
Ouch. I knew that.
But one would sure be handy against a gang, right?
Actually, it’s fascinating that what I tossed off more as a criticism of Justice Scalia’s (highly selective) originalism is being taken as a serious policy proposal on my part.
That said, if cell phones were (actually) causing cancer, or the Internet was being used to send literal email bombs (that actually exploded) to congressfolk, I suspect that there would be calls for regulation of them.
None of the enumerated rights in the Constitution are absolute — even Heller noted that. I don’t recommend restrictions or regulations around them lightly — but while one can argue that the Second Amendment serves as one of the guarantors of the others, it’s also one that carries with it a substantial death toll.
Please consider learning something about either guns or law before shooting off your mouth. Please also remember that the Colonists bitched and complained about taxation without representation and a host of other infringements on their rights. It wasn’t until the Crown sent troops to sieze the arms of the colonists that the shooting started. You should carefully consider that precedent. It isn’t 1934, 1968, or even 1994 anymore. Your side no longer has a monopoly on the press. We know how many of us there are relative to your side. We won’t simply aquiesce to demands that we disarm, even partly.
oh yeah, Molon Labe.
Nothing like a thinly veiled threat to keep things light and airy, eh Sean? And Conservatives wonder why people think their rhetoric is too over the top.
There’s nothing thinly veiled about it. At that point when the government attempts to sieze weapons, we’ll give them to you. Hot and empty. Do you really want to go down that path? Maybe it’d be better for you to just respect the Constitution and leave me and my guns alone.
The press is no longer a monolithic leftie enterprise. You can’t talk past us and you can’t shout us down anymore. The (now defunct) 1994 Clinton Gun Ban was the high water mark of gun control. Give it up. You’ve lost.
No one has suggested that the government take away all your guns, but anything in the way of reasonable discussion on the topic is apparently beyond you. It’s idiotic mindsets like yours that led to the Waco disaster and Ruby Ridge and we how poorly those situations turned out for the gun nuts.
Personally, I have no problems with reasonable gun ownership and I recognize that the vast majority of gun owners are responsible individuals. That said I wouldn’t be all that comfortable living next to someone who owned a working Howitzer either.
The press has never been a monolithic leftie enterprise and anyone who thinks it was is displaying an amazing amount of willful ignorance.
Why not? How many people with howitzers (you do know they are legal, right?) cause problems?
Now, let’s go to the other extreme – How many criminals ply their trade with .380s and .22LR pistols? Quite a bit.
In fact, the majority of crimes in this country are committed by a fraction of the populace. The problem isn’t the caliber of gun or the number of rounds it can carry, it’s the criminals that should be locked up but instead are walking around with rap sheets measured in reams that are the issue. Crazy attacks like this one are statistical noise, rare as hens teeth.
Instead, too many uninformed people try to make laws that make a cash register their idea of ‘stopping the bad guys from getting guns’. If you are assured that a person is too dangerous to be allowed to buy a gun, then why is that person walking the streets and not in jail?
Ruby Ridge? You mean where the government chased some jerk up his mountain and then shot his wife? All for the crime of having a shotgun 1/2″ too short? A crime he was aquitted of because it was entrapment?
Waco? Where the government machinegunned and burned an entire community because the guy running it was a firearms dealer and “stockpiled firearms?”
Have you ever wondered why these things never happened again? I suggest that you read “To Shake Their Guns in the Tyrant’s Face.” Do not make the mistake of believing that by convincing the government to kill me to sieze my guns you have solved the problem. You have only created a problem. The reason we haven’t seen any more Wacos is because the government has been told that another such outrage and the shooting stops being one way.
There are no reasonable discussions. You’ve been told no. Like it or lump it. Shall not be infringed.
Wow, Sean. I’ll keep an eye on the papers to see if you make the headlines someday. I hear Sarah Palin has a handy map.
@Robb: I agree that these sorts of crazy sprees are statistical anomalies. So are planejackings. The 3,000 killed on 9/11 are a small number compared to people killed by tobacco-based products or on the nation’s highways (or, for that matter, by folks with guns). That doesn’t mean, of course, that we try to solve the latter before we do anything about the former.
We’ve actually gone through quite a spree of locking people up as fast as we can. Sadly, nobody wants to pay the taxes to support a prison system that houses more people behind bars than any other country in the world. If the problem is that we aren’t locking up enough people, we’ve got other problems.
I’m not sure on your other prison comment — is your suggestion that if someone has done their time they should be allowed to buy whatever firearm they want? Or that if we aren’t going to allow someone to buy a firearm, or aren’t convinced they are safe enough, that we should just keep them in jail?
Dave, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
What has a greater chance of killing a large number of people? A 9mm gun with 30 rounds (remember, 80% survival rate) or a gallon of gasoline? Gasoline flows under closed doors. The fumes spread rapidly. The liquid soaks into things. A bullet has a very specific path. It cannot turn corners and once it hits something, its velocity is transferred and after transferring too much, the bullet is for all intents and purposes, inert. Things tend to keep burning long after the gasoline is gone.
Now, I’m libertarian by nature, so you’re not going to get an argument out of me that our prison system is FUBAR. Locking people away for ingesting what they want is counterproductive in my opinion. So is locking up for simply having a magazine that holds 11 rounds rather than 10. When you talk about banning objects, you start getting into the realm of pre-crime. Simply having something doesn’t mean you’re going to use it illegally.
@Robb: So, you point in an earlier post to a fraction of the population commit crimes, but then talk about not crowding people into prisons. So how do we work to reduce the incidence of criminal violence? (Note: I do not just say deaths, there’s a lot more to this than simple deaths, injuries and firearms used in other crimes)
I know some folks advocate arming everyone as a deterrant, but I know an awful lof of really great folk who would be a tremendous hazard to themselves and everyone around them with a firearm.
I work in Corrections, so I’d love to hear your ideas.
@Robb:
(Actually, can you provide some citation for the 80% survival rate? That seems to cover a lot of ground, so I’m curious how it was calculated.)
Hmmm. I see your point, but there would seem to be some bounds on the matter. I mean, “Yes, officer, that’s 5 kilos of cocaine, but my having it doesn’t mean I’m going to use it or sell it. It’s … art.” Or anthrax spores. Or …
In the circumstances of the Tucson incident, I seriously doubt that the guy could have killed 6 people with a gallon of gasoline.
Wait a minute. You are trying to sell that the intent of the founders could be satisfied by expression online, but you don’t see a similar relation between the functionality of guns at the time of the founders and now?
Sounds suspiciously like you’re trying to have different rules for different rights.
@Nylarthotep: The question is, can I offer a substantive difference between them.
Then: “I am standing here on this street corner, telling anyone who passes that I like candidate X.”
Now: “I am sitting on the Internet, telling anyone who loads my page that I like candidate X.”
Sounds like a pretty similar activity, with much the same issues or potential problems that can be addressed in similar ways.
Then: “I am allowed to carry a weapon that can (assuming an 80% survival rate) shoot up to 4 people per minute (assuming I have time to reload and hit with each shot), killing only one of them.”
Now: “I am allowed to carry a weapon that can shoot up to 120 people per minute (taking Lougher’s firing rate, assuming a second or two for changing clips), killing 24 of them.”
A difference in degree, perhaps, but I think the Founders might have considered the latter case a bit more dangerous.
Or maybe they would have the former, too. As I said, it’s a speculative question.
There is a major difference from being able to reach 100 people who walk by vs. literally billions. There’s also the fact that the cost of printing was also a major factor, and not just monetary but time wise as well.
Take Artillery’s problem with ‘coordination’. He sees my blog post, which reaches a thousand+ people a day or so, as some nefarious coordinated attack on your blog. Take the false story about the Koran getting flushed down the toilet. That lie traveled so fast, people died over it.
As to your speculation on rounds fired = kills, sorry to bust your bubble there, but 80% of gunshot victims survive, not 20% of shots fired = 1 death. You really need to hit a range one day (if you were in Tampa, I would offer to take you for free as I would cover the entire cost). At 7 yards, many people have a hard time hitting the black of the target, and they’re standing still without anything shooting back at them or possibly trying to tackle them.
The fact is there is a very, very, very small area where handguns are effective at causing instant death. It’s not like the movies where you shoot a guy and he goes flying back 30′ and his chest explodes. Not to belittle Rep Gifford’s situation, but she got shot *point blank in the head* and wasn’t killed instantly. It’s not a guarantee.
The other thing you should be aware of is the physics behind firearms. Energy is the result of 1/2 mass * velocity^2. Since the kinetic energy increases with the square of the speed, an object doubling its speed has four times as much kinetic energy. Why is this important? Because to cause tissue damage, you need to impart kinetic energy. In handguns, the barrel is very short so the bullets themselves are heavier. Double the weight, you double the kinetic energy. However, since the barrels are usually 2 – 5″, you can’t get the bullet going very fast unlike a rifle where you have several feet.
Handguns, by their very nature, are underpowered. They trade power for concealability / portability. Thus, most people survive because a handgun doesn’t impart enough energy generally to damage surrounding tissue. This means you have to hit very precisely if you wish to stop your target (as well as describing why most suicides are successful – the bullet hits critical CNS).
It sounds counterintuitive, but you want the bad guys using pistols rather than long rifles. A 9mm 115 gr bullet going at 1180 fps imparts 383 ft/lbs of energy. A .223 (the standard AR15 round) weighing in at only 55 grains (a grain is 1/7000th of a pound) traveling at 3240fps imparts 1282 ft/lbs. And that’s considered medium powered. A standard 30.06 hunting round delivers 2914 ft/lbs. We’re talking exponential differences here, not linear.
So we can have the discussion whether the differences in scale or cost or speed or whatever, and the danger associated with aspects of the new technology, outweigh the resemblance in purpose and ability that the Founders protected (and their rationale for doing so). I think the match between the printing press and the Internet is much closer than between a flintlock and a Glock, but that may be just me.
I am assuming in both equations that 1 shot = 1 hit (we’re in a crowd). But it’s the same number for both equations so we can set it to whatever we want (arguably a flintlock pistol is going to be less accurate, but I won’t factor that in). 120 shots, 120 hits, 20% fatality rate = 24 deaths. That’s what I noted.
Understood. (And thanks for the invite. I’d actually love to go to a range some day.)
(Thanks also for the stats — they don’t change any of the questions at hand, and they fit my overall understanding, but it’s good to see them spelled out.)
Seems you caught the eye of someone’s ‘action alert’ bot, Dave!
No, no action alert. My blog just happens to be popular and I linked this article because of the misinformation. The link was given to me by a mutual friend of Dave’s.
I have never received any sort of email from the NRA or any other organization telling me to go comment on a blog somewhere. I know it’s difficult for collectivists to imagine that individual action can still result in mass effects without coordination, alas it’s true.
Just as it’s, apparently, difficult for you to envision someone who disagrees with your position as anything but an enemy. What, exactly, do you know about me (other than the posts above) that gives you enough information about me to put any of your labels on me? So, I’ll kindly ask you to keep your opinions of my personal views to yourself until we’ve had an opportunity to actually discuss them. Then if you feel a need to label me, so be it, until then, as the kids say STFU.
And you linking to an article and pointing out ‘inaccuracies’ there to people who share your point of view is EXACTLY coordination.
Arty, to be fair, I’ve been known to link to articles and point out (on my blog) what I see as inaccuracies to folks here (most of whom share my PoV on an array of topics). I don’t consider that coordination, unless he’d said, “Hey, everyone go over there and file a critique on this asshat’s drivel.”
I was only speaking to Robb’s assertion that there was no ‘coordination’ to the reactions to your post, when the link post on his blog specifically expected his readers to come here and post. To his credit he did ask them to ‘be nice.’
True. My initial read had been his talking about comments there at his blog.
I still wouldn’t call it really coordinated; unless he says otherwise, I assume it was more, “Hey, look at what this idiot wrote, here’s my comment, if you go there be nice.” That’s a bit different.
I didn’t assume any sort of action bot myself (I’m far too small potatoes) — I’d guess someone spotted “guns” on Twitter, but word of mouth isn’t necessarily a surprise.
I did resent the assumption by some on your blog that moderated comments (as you have) meant that I’d simply reject anything that didn’t agree with my position, but I suppose I can thrash that out over there if I choose to.
Nope, mutual friend of ours Dave. Namely, the very first commenter 😉
And you are allowing the comments through. I only warned that Reasoned Discourse (a term coined by Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign where he decried how we shut down discussion all while his group deleted comments that proved their positions wrong) may break out. It’s a rare event when it doesn’t happen, and I’m thankful you’re allowing comments here.
Yes, I sent Robb over because he can argue quite articulately – and civilly – about 2A issues, where I blew my entire load on my first comment. 🙂 I apologize on the behalf of anyone who got out of hand, whether they like it or not.
I had figured (once Robb said he had been referred) that it was Stacy. I know it’s a subject she feels passionately about, and I was actually impressed with how civil her initial comment was. 🙂
@Stacy: No worries — you’ve nothing to apologize for as far as I’m concerned.
@Robb: I don’t think I’ve ever shut down comments on a post on my blog, and the only non-spam comments I’ve ever deleted (which I can probably count on the fingers of one hand) involved personal attacks on a loved one or other egregious offenses — and I made a note that I’d done so.
If I get to a point where I feel it’s not worthwhile continuing the discussion, I’ll simply drop off from it.
When you have declared yourself our enemy by taking the position that our pistols should be illegal
then you have no business bitching when we treat you as an enemy.
And if we work together in reminding you that you are wrong, so what?
@Sean: Read the whole comment. I NEVER said illegal. I noted in my comment that arms beyond those necessary for assuring the 2nd amendment rights be available, but regulated. You’ll also note that I included that all the way up to fully automatic weapons, which are currently completely illegal in the US.
That said, welcome to the United States of America. One of our most important founding prinicipals is the right to disagree with one another. I do NOT consider you my enemy, even if I do not agree with some of your stances. Now, if you actually threaten me or my family, then, yes, enemies would be the correct term.
I’m not threatening you, are you offering a threat to me?
All Sean seems to know how to do is to toss threats around. At least based on his comments here.
It’s almost like he’s trying to compensate for something…
Oh good Lord. Les, that’s so cliche, I have a $#&*( ICON just for people like you.
May I ask what the ladies who carry guns are compensating for? Vulva sizes?
Nice jump from me specifically talking about Sean to you applying my comment to all gun owners.
For the record, not that you care, I have plenty of friends who own guns as well as numerous family members. My grandfather taught me how to shoot and hunt and I occasionally did both with him up until his death. I don’t claim to be an gun expert and I don’t own one myself, but I don’t particularly have a problem with the Second Amendment in general. I do think there is plenty of room for regulations related to and restrictive of that right just as there are regulations and restrictions on the 1st Amendment.
Your boy Sean is in full-on Internet Tough Guy mode and it’d hilarious if he weren’t so deadly serious about it. In my experience those sorts of folks tend to be gun nuts because they’re complete pussies without one.
You’re quite correct.
I don’t care.
No more than I care about a guy who thinks black really are a lower class of citizens but hey…. he has black friends.
And you, with your holier-than-thou rants on my blog saying how ridiculous we were from reading a single entry and making assumptions, are here making assumptions.
Interesting.
Oh yes, I totally see how the two situations are completely the same.
I wasn’t making an assumption. I was merely relating past experience. Sean may or may not be a pussy without his gun, but based on my experiences and his comments to date I’d give it good odds that he is.
really? That’s what you are arguing about? Usually people who start making dick jokes are the ones with the compensation problem.
All I wanted you to think about is that we will not disarm. We will not accept more gun control. If you are threatened by this, too bad.
I will say that getting called a pussy by a guy who plans on sending the authorities to do the gun confiscation instead of being a man and doing it himself is pretty rich. So, level with us. If the government does as you wish and decides to ban handguns, will you pull on the brown shirt and be the first guy through the door? Or will you be hiding in your house?
Sure, you could send in the SWAT team in the middle of the night to shoot my dog, my wife, and me, but are you willing to deal with the consequences? Once the shooting starts, it won’t stop until one side or the other wins. Numbers are on our side.
Like I said earlier, maybe it’s better that you don’t go down this road. Maybe just respecting the Constitution is a better plan for everyone involved. Think of me as a signpost on a dark road. The sign says “Bridge Out.” Don’t blame the sign if you are stupid enough to keep driving. I’m just warning you of the consequences of your actions. You are the one choosing them.
That may be a problem for you then if some of the new legislation being proposed in the wake of this shooting manages to get signed into law. Not that I’m expecting it will, but if it does then I suppose we’ll be seeing you in the news sooner rather than later.
Apparently you have a reading comprehension problem as well as penis insecurities. Please show me where I have ever stated that I wish the government would ban handguns? I’ve never said that because it’s not something I wish for.
So now you’re not responsible if you decide to take up arms and shoot people because you disagree with a law? How convenient for you.
As for respecting the Constitution all I can say is that I have the utmost respect for it. But that doesn’t mean it’s perfect nor beyond modification. We have added, and removed, amendments in the past as well as adapted new amendments that eliminated things previously encoded in the Constitution proper, such as Slaves counting as 3/5th’s of a person. Hell, Republicans are suggesting repeal or modification of the 14th Amendment removing citizenship by birth to prevent so-called “anchor babies.”
That said, I do not advocate the repeal of any of the amendments as the currently stand including the 2nd, but I don’t agree with the argument that it allows for a gun free-for-all.
Why, do you feel threatened? I’m not responsible for how you feel.
no they are not. NFA 34 simply made them subject to federal registration and a $200 transfer tax.
The Supreme Court has already said that handguns are firmly within the Second Amendment. You need to keep in mind, we’re basically done having the ban it/regulate it out of existance argument. All we are arguing now is the gun control side’s terms of surrender.
But SCOTUS said that some measure of regulation of guns, short regulating them out of existence, was legal. So what we’re arguing now is, in fact, where we set the provisional borders — that may be a “loss” for the gun ban types, but it’s also a loss for the “any and as many as I want” types, too. I hope it’s a win for the citizenry.
let’s face it. The gun banners couldn’t even defend a handgun ban. How exactly do you think they can defend much else? The AR-15 is the most common competition rifle in the US. It’s also the most common rifle in the US. It’s becoming the most common hunting rifle in the US. How exactly do you think that the gun banners are going to reinstate the “Assault Weapon” ban?
And if you can’t ban pistols or “Assault Weapons” what are you going to ban?
37 states are Shall Issue concealed carry, and 3 are Constitutional carry (Vermont, Arizona, and Alaska) Wisconsin will have either Shall Issue or Constitutional Carry within a year. By the next election, the only places that will not be Shall Issue or better will be California and some of the north eastern States.
Some form of Open Carry bill is almost assured of passing in Florida and Texas, leaving only a few places where open carry isn’t allowed.
Hell, what’s left? It will take time to disassemble some of the old laws, but basically the gun banners have lost. All that is left is to get the surrender documents signed.
As a general note, this post is now the second-most commented post on my blog, at 59 (well, 60 now). Hopefully it won’t vie with number one post about US bank — I don’t think I have enough strength in my fingers for that.
Dave, I disagree with the premise of this whole discussion. I don’t think that guns are the issue. They are one issue, but another issue is the ability of society to detect and take action to prevent behavior like Loughner’s. A third issue is the costs and benefits of restrictions on handgun ownership and whether or not the benefits outweigh the costs.
While I think those who are arguing against gun regulation here are doing so in ways that are rhetorically ineffective, and I deplore their ad hominem attacks on your intelligence and character and (in some cases) their apparent anti-intellectualism, I think they are correct in suggesting that the second amendment protects handgun ownership for good reasons, and that handgun ownership should not be prohibited. In response to your request for a rational argument in favor of allowing the ownership of weapons like the Glock 19 and a 30-round magazine, I think that the greater effectiveness of modern weapons held by government agents demands that citizens must have access to more effective weapons in order to safeguard the right of citizens to effectively resist unjust government action.
At the same time, I think there is a strong analogy between motor vehicle ownership and handgun ownership. Like those who own or operate motor vehicles, I think gun owners and operators should be required to have proper training, to prove their competence, and to carry liability insurance to provide assistance to those who might be injured by a handgun. I also think that gun manufacturers should be required to meet certain requirements for handguns manufactured and sold in the United States just as manufacturers of motor vehicles must meet certain safety requirements. Many arguments in favor of regulations for motor vehicle ownership, operation, and manufacturing (which I won’t review here, but which revolve around cost-benefit analysis) seem to me to apply to handguns.
The chief legal difference between motor vehicles and handguns is that the second amendment protects handgun ownership, but there doesn’t appear to be a similar protection for motor vehicle ownership. That suggests to me that regulations governing handgun manufacturing and ownership should be subject to a strict constitutional test to be sure that they do not violate the second amendment, but it does not suggest to me that all such regulation is unconstitutional. It’s widely recognized that we have a fundamental right to travel, and since motor vehicles are the principal means of travel today, motor vehicles should be subject to some constitutional protections. So, I think the dis-analogy between handguns and motor vehicles is not strong enough to prevent us from enacting some regulation of handgun ownership, but at the same time, I don’t think those regulations can go so far as to prevent a law-abiding citizen from owning handguns of the type used by Loughner.
As I suggested above, I think that handguns are not the sole problem illustrated by the Tuscon shooting. The other problem lies with society’s apparent inability to detect and assist a mentally unstable person before they do something tragic. Loughner was reportedly expelled from the school where he was taking classes, but no one notified the authorities who could have taken stronger action. School administrators may not have been aware that a mechanism existed for this. Even if they had notified the proper authorities, it is not certain that the actions necessary to prevent the Tuscon shooting would have been taken, and we don’t want government to be able to abuse mental health regulations in a way that would enable it to stifle dissent or otherwise violate a citizen’s rights. So far as I am aware, most legally owned weapons are never used in an illegal act. Like most owners of motor vehicles, most handgun owners are able to control themselves, and do not use their possessions in improper ways. The owner or operator of a handgun is responsible for its use, and society needs better mechanisms to detect people like Loughner and intervene before they do something tragic.
All that said, I think there’s one further issue to be raised. As I mentioned above, when we consider the possibility of government action, we must consider the costs and the benefits. Yes, we might obtain the benefit of reduced gun violence to some degree by restricting gun ownership by private citizens. But would the costs outweigh the benefits? I think a strong analogy exists here between the first and second amendments. Just as we accept the cost of upholding the first amendment in the form of objectionable speech, I think we must accept the cost of increased risk of improper handgun usage in order to uphold the second amendment. What we want to do is manage that risk while continuing to have the benefits those who enacted the Bill of Rights saw in the second amendment.
There’s more to be said, of course, regarding cases like the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine High School tragedy, and others. But this is getting long, and I think I’ve made my main points. Gun ownership is not the only issue raised by the Tuscon shooting, and there is a middle ground which I think is consistent with existing social policies and with the constitution, and which I think is more justifiable than either a ban on ownership of Glock-19 -like weapons or a complete absence of regulation.
Wow, I do love reading Dave’s comments, even when he is commenting on my comments. 🙂
You say this and I immediately think of Rev. Fred Phelps, who yet again has found a moment to shine in this tragedy. This is a man who can make my blood boil… and I would not cry if he fell into harm’s way.. yet I do support his right to say what he wants because once you start regulating things, the regulators start getting happy and suddenly all things are illegal. I do not want that and never have.
I, for one, am also against setting a law that protects Congress from threats of a symbolistic nature. There is to much of an opportunity to make innocent people criminals and not doing a single thing to protect the Congress people. And since we are at it, why would they be only people protected from such a law? Now we are raising our leaders to the royalty we have strived to get away from.
@Dave N:
I agree completely.
Well, I think that’s part of the first issue.
I agree, on all counts. Though there have been times when I’ve been in favor of more comprehensive gun bans, I think there are ways to manage/restrict gun ownership and use that will help (but not completely solve) the problems here.
Hrm. Honestly, for all that I mistrust government power abuses, I just don’t see an armed rebellion or resistance as either practical or needed. But maybe that’s just me.
Agreed.
The Supreme Court seems to agree.
While a principle of freedom travel is recognized, but generally not afforded the same sort of explicit protection. While there’s some recognition legally that road travel is an essential part of life, driving on public streets is still seen officially as a privilege, not a right. Thus you have no right to a drivers license.
Add to that Arizona has been systematically defunding and dismantling its public mental health support system.
But, yes, by the same token (and looking at how the Soviet Union used to act), making it too easy for the government to judge individuals as mentally ill and requiring incarceration for treatment is seriously not a good thing, even as a temptation.
“Yeah, but, John, if the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists.”
When the First Amendment is abused, people don’t necessarily end up bleeding to death in the streets.
I agree that a middle ground approach is necessary. Outright bans are unlikely to be effective, and carry with them other unpleasant consequences. On the other hand, relying on having more ammo for shooting it out doesn’t seem to be the best way to handle the situation, either (esp. given how those on the scene who actually had firearms ended up).
I’m disgusted with your complete lack of knowledge of history. It is typical of your lacksadaisical approach to research that others here are criticising.
Flint lock weapons would be 2 rounds a minute, not four.
It is also apparent what is the problem. In the UK, where gun ownership is strictly controlled (to stop a Bolshevik revolution), murders per 100,000 from all causes is much lower than murders in the US from hand guns alone.
In Switzerland, where every male under 45 is a member of the army reservists, forming the bulk of the armed services, and thus they all keep their military equipment at home to assemble at short notice, the murder rate is also far lower than in the US.
It is therefore obvious. Access to guns has nothing to do with murder.
It’s being a fucking Yank.
Yeppers, pretty much.
I use to have a running argument with a coworker at the Flats. He use to say “An armed society is a polite society” and I would point to places like Afghanistan, South Africa, Ulster and the Middle East and then point to Switzerland and respond “You need a Polite Society before you can have and Armed Society.”
And yes, it all comes down to Culture and Society. If your Culture is based on violence, I got mine – screw you, Individuality at all costs it is going to lead to a culture that is selfish and paranoid, and since non-totalitarian Governments reflect the society they govern, of course you are going have a continual struggle between the Government and the Governed.
As too the Gun Laws verses the Auto/Driving Licensing argument…in the US both of them are insanely lax. But this is for several reasons, but mostly because we have the best government money can buy.
20,000 laws on the books regarding firearms are…too lax?
The problem is that you rely on laws to keep you safe when what laws do is give us a framework to decide on what actions a person takes are punishable. For a quick example, where was the last place you ate at. Now, what was their sanitation grade? You didn’t look did you? They could have received a C, stayed in business, and you could have been eating off dirty dishes that had a noticeable amount of rat droppings on them.
But people ‘feel’ the law keeps them safe so they don’t even bother to check.
Laws don’t have a magical power to stop a criminal. Nobody has responded to my question above (or below, I get confused in threads) but what law would cause someone who is ready to commit armed robbery, possibly resulting in the death of another human, to go “Whoa… I could get the death penalty or life in prison, but the extra 5 years for having an illegal magazine is too much. I’m staying home!”?
Take DUIs. Penalties have gotten stiffer, people’s lives have been ruined over ridiculously low (and quite faulty) BAC readings, and drunk driving has… Bueller? Bueller? Gotten better? Worse? Yeah, pretty much still exists although you have a LOT more ‘drunk’ drivers being that a single drink is all it takes these days.
Same for gun laws. Why is a barrel that is 18″ legal, but one that is 17.9″ not unless it has had a $200 tax paid on it? That’s not a law that benefits society. Neither is the one that says you can buy a fully automatic firearm, only if it was made before ’86. Why is an auto less legal simply because it was made in ’87 or later?
As I see over and over, even here several times, people confuse the legitimate thought of “There are too many laws, most of which are ineffective at their stated goals” with “I don’t want no dang laws at all! ANARCHY!!!!!”. I am a computer programmer, and if my code was as bloated as the gun laws in this country without providing the stated benefits of the design, I’d be fired.
Can anyone show me statistics where gun ownership has increased and crime increased? Every place in the US that liberalizes (funny word that… one would think liberals would be for that! This classic liberal is *very* much for it, but I seem to be a black sheep) their gun laws has never shown an uptick in crime. More and more states have switched to shall issue, Open Carry is coming to my state and others within the next year or so, and gun sales are through the roof. Then why isn’t crime (especially that with guns) going up?
I *WANT* to lower violence rates. But I’m not naive in believing that simply demanding laws be passed while requiring others to put their safety on the line so I don’t have to is the way to do it. The cops are minutes away when you need them right this second. And I shouldn’t have to worry about a plethora of laws and if I’m using bullets with the incorrect ogive or my pistol is long enough just to defend myself.
Correct.
But the problem you seem to be having is quantity vs quality.
One unified national law would go a long way to getting rid most of those crazy quilt of laws. One way to deal with this woud be to allow citizens to have whatever type of weapons the police decide that they need, and that would be the baseline…for the whole country.
Also, allow only open carry, for *everyone*.
@BD: I concur. The 20,000 laws figure is deceptive because firearms laws are subject to local and state twiddling as well as federal laws. Indeed, that same mish-mosh makes it nigh-impossible to study the effects of gun laws. What good does it do for City X to ban guns when City Y next door (or in nearby State Z) makes it easy to buy them?
One of the ostensible strengths of our federal system is that it allows for local variations, experimentation, and voice. That’s also one of its weaknesses.
@Robb:
I’m not thrilled with how the threadedness in the comments is working here. I might change that in the configuration.
I don’t know. How many armed robbers go into it actually planning on killing? How many think they will be caught? How many are concerned about being caught with an illegal magazine on top of some other violation, or as something that would constitute breaking parole?
Crazy Killer? That kind of worry is not so much an issue — but lack of availability at the local sporting goods store might play a role.
As do we all, but as long as there are guns, they will be used in violent acts, there is no way around that little bugaboo. And yes, getting rid of guns will only lead to higher rates of murders some other way. And also, yes, the horse of gun control has long sense left the barn, there is no practical way of rounding up all of the guns out there currently.
But, as long as we have a society and government entrusted to craven politicians that will do anything for a buck, or to placate the masses by being “Tough on Crime”, we are going to keep getting more and more pointless laws that do nothing but enrich the prison industry.
So, what to do?
Well, unless and until the Culture of the US goes through some sort of drastic change, nothing, since it will be as pointless as all the past attempts. Unless and until the root causes of our societal problems are dealt with, any change from above will be resisted until it’s a moot point.
Violence, and the use of guns to commit that violence will be like every other change in this country, something that will ahve t come from below like civil rights, and every other leap forward in the past 150 years. Perhaps it might even come from the NRA, when its members grow tired of mouthing platitudes like “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”, or “Molon Labe”, or the members of the NRA grow tired of defending all of the gun violance in this country and set out to make people more responsible with their guns.
Just a thought.
@Robb:
Drunk driving-related fatalities as a percent of overall driving fatalities down from 60% in 1982 to 37% in 2008. Link
Between 1991 and 2008, the rate of alcohol impaired driving fatalities per 100,000 population has decreased 38% nationally, and 55% among those under 21. Link
Now, is that because of better enforcement of existing laws, more draconian BACs (I’m inclined to agree with you, but …), changes in society, better education …?
Regarding the fire rate for Brown Bess, Wikipedia says
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Bess, also supported by http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_brown_bess.html).
With the caveat that Wikipedia and the web in general can often be incorrect, it suggests that Dave’s figure is not outside the realm of what is reasonable. Even if you were right, one error does not demonstrate “complete lack of knowledge of history”. To suggest otherwise is to commit the fallacy of hasty generalization. Perhaps you have other instances of ***Dave’s purported lack of historical knowledge in mind, but in my experience, having known him for more than 25 years, ***Dave is pretty well-versed in history. In any case, phrasing your point as you do amounts to an attack on ***Dave’s intelligence or character rather than a reasoned response to his argument, making it an instance of the ad hominem fallacy.
As for your blanket condemnation of all “Yanks”, if it’s intended as a further reason to doubt what ***Dave has said, it is a guilt by association fallacy. If not, I believe it’s an oversimplification. Yes, the murder rate in the USA is higher than that in England and Switzerland. It’s also lower than the murder rate in Northern Ireland or South Africa if you believe the statistics presented here. A better conclusion is that there’s no simple correlation between gun ownership and murder. I think it’s probable that there are many factors involved in the murder rate in a given country or region. Suggesting that it’s simply a matter of being a resident or citizen of any given country or region seems to me to be highly unlikely. To give just one example, it seems clear that crimes of passion are much more likely to occur when people may carry a loaded weapon, so there’s a good prima facie case that accessibility of handguns will have some effect on the murder rate.
Your accusations of ignorance and shoddy research are fallacious and without substance. In the traditional metaphor, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
As Dave N. commented, I used both Wikipedia (3+ rpm for the Brown Bess); other sites mention 4-5 rpm optimally — I went with 4).
OK, somehow the threading in here got confusing and I can’t respond directly to a comment.
Dave, what’s more dangerous? A crazy guy with a 30 round magazine or me, pissed off at the world with my 15+1 Glock 20? Before you answer, remind yourself that I not only hit the range on a regular basis, I also do competitive shooting so I can move and still hit my target?
So, in this instance, the magazine doesn’t matter as much as the skill of the shooter.
Now, let’s talk about Charles Whitman. He didn’t have high capacity magazines and he managed to kill 16 people and wound 32 others. Again, if you *really* want to stack up a body count, handguns are a poor choice. Most people totally forget that the MAIN weapon at Columbine were bombs, but they failed. Instead, people focus on “the guns”. Now, if you want to make headlines, by all mean, use a standard firearm that they give cops.
The 80% survival came from a book about shootings that was sourced and noted, but not one I have on hand. Check out Dave Grossman’s writings. A lot of it comes from our advances in medical skills. Looking at a quick Google search of Handgun Survival Rates shows most people in agreement – around 80%. But I need to compile a more definitive list.
@Robb:
Yup. Tempted to turn off the threading right now. This is one of the most complex set of comments I’ve hosted, and clearly there are limitations.
How many crazy shooters (or even conventional criminals) are so well trained?
Are we talking about going after a particular target (and at what range), or trying to inflict maximum casualties, or a combination (as in, apparently, Tucson)?
(For those just joining us, Whitman was the UTA Tower sniper in 1966).
But he had plentiful opportunity to reload and, initially, nobody recognized that shooting was going on or from where. There’s a huge difference between a sniper in a tower and a guy in the middle of a crowd.
Depending on the circumstances.
Given that nobody was killed by the bombs (not by design), and 13 by gunfire, it’s not surprising that guns (Tec9 handgun, semi-automatic rifle, and two shotguns) get most of the focus.
.
Which would be the flip side to the lethality rate during the Revolution mentioned earlier. I would imagine there would be a fair amount of variance based on the range and the caliber (or load) of the ammo.
I am curious. Do people actually worry that the Federal government will send in troops to take over the states by physical force? I have heard this argument in favor of gun ownership and am uncertain as to how real and common this belief is. I have no fear of that eventuality, but of course I haven’t engaged in any research that would lead to such a concern. Is such an action seen as imminent by a substantial portion of the populace?
I can’t speak for all of them, but I can say that for quite a few of them it’s a real (and irrational) fear that they have. When Obama was elected President the gun nuts rushed out and started stocking up specifically because they were worried he was going to try and ban all civilian gun ownership:
To be fair to the gun nuts, Obama did say on his campaign website that he would like to reinstate and make permanent the ban on assault weapons that expired in 2004. However, that’s about as far as he wants to go with regards to banning guns:
Clearly it’s not a huge priority, though, otherwise he probably would’ve tried to get it reinstated during the first two years when Democrats controlled both halves of Congress. Now that the House is in Republican hands I’d be very surprised if he bothered to even attempt it. I think he has other higher priorities things he plans to focus on instead.
Let me be clear and say that not all gun owners live in fear that Obama is going to sweep down on them and try to take away their guns, but there are plenty of them out there who do.
Avo, I’m not sure you’re responding to my post, but since I made an argument like the one you’re asking about, I’ll give another $0.02 worth. I don’t see an imminent threat of Federal takeover of States or any other Governmental act that I would call tyrannical or worthy of rebellion. Others may see such an imminent threat (certainly some stuff I’ve seen on the internet suggests that there are those who do). But from a long-term preparedness point of view, and because we can’t always accurately predict the immediate future, I think it’s reasonable to act in ways that will preserve the ability of the citizenry to revolt if necessary. It’s the same kind of motivation that leads me to keep a first-aid kit in my car even though I’ve never needed it in 30 years, and I don’t anticipate needing it any time soon.
Avo, it has been the standard meme of the rightwing radio for decades.
The USA Patriot radio network use to provide me with more insight into the Paranoid Style of politics, and more laughs than Art Bell.
Is it possible? Yes.
Is it probable? Depends on several factors. The culture of the society, and if there is some sort of trama to tilt the balance farther toward “Safety” vs “Freedom” than it has been since 911.
It is a periodic concern in some quarters. Though it’s usually framed less as the Feds invading the States as the general Government oppressing the Citizenry.
I just wanted to thank all you gentlemen for a very enjoyable read. What happened here does not happen enough in this ongoing clash of beliefs.
Also I just wanted to poke the bear a little if I may. I’ve reread his posts repeated and am still unsure if Sean D Sorrentino is trolling or not.
Hopefully I have not further confused things by flattening out the comments. I’m hoping that will make finding the newest comments easier.
Remember you can use @postername to preface your comment to make it clear to whom you are responding. Use of the “b-quote” button also lets you quote and blockquote snippets you are replying to.
~gah~
Things have gone all higgeldy-piggeldy!
@Sean:
I won’t make suppositions as to physical or emotional motivations, Sean, but, jeez, you come across like a young Robert Conrad with a chip on your shoulder, five Red Bulls in your gut, and your date watching from the sidelines. We get it — cold, dead fingers, ours or yours, huyah, and Molon Labe. I’m sure you even wear the t-shirt.
@BD:
Things were already higgledy-piggledy. I believe I’ve made them just piggledy.
@Pop:
Thanks. I’ve found it very interesting, in between some of the odd notes. I’ve certainly learned a lot, and it’s helped me clarify some of my own beliefs.
That’s certainly a possibility. I tend to give folks the benefit of the doubt as to being authentic, even if that’s not necessarily complementary.
@***Dave
But the old system was working for me, but then again I can be very nonlinier at times. =P
I was finding it (a) confusing when folks were responding higher up in the thread, so that I missed it, and (b) after two or three levels the REPLY link would vanish, making it more difficult to reply to a given post.
I think nested comments work best on a discussion board, not a blog. Or at least not an active blog post.
Man, I didn’t mean for you to go and totally change your blog format! I didn’t realize I had such power. Don’t worry, I promise to only use it for good.
I’ll try to wrap up with a final comment (unless people ask me direct questions).
First off, the NRA does not suggest that we a) allow every person under the sun to own guns, b) that we give guns to preschool children or c) that we scrap every gun law on the book. I work for a non-profit gun rights group in Florida and honestly, our biggest challenge is… the NRA. They push for the status quo. In fact, they fought tooth and nail to keep Heller from reaching the SCOTUS. My support for the NRA is lukewarm at best, and only because the non-lobbying wing does well for education. The NRA-ILA irritates the crap out of me.
Second, strict gun laws will not prevent another AZ. I have irrefutable proof – Chicago, Il & Washington DC. Both have crushing gun laws and tend to volley each other for “Murder Capital”. Claiming that controlling guns based on arbitrary features will lower violent crime is patently false.
Now, go look up the 10 most deadly and violent cities in the US. You’ll find most places have strict gun laws on the books, while others will have fairly lenient ones. Clearly, this indicates that No, Virginia, there is no correlation between guns and crime.
Now, to pop even more antigun shibboleths, we’re not #1 in murders. We’re not even in the top 10. Many of the countries have complete and utter bans on civilians owning firearms and yet, their murder rate is above ours.
Japan has a complete ban as well, yet their suicide rates make the US look like a happy place.
If you look at all these data items, in my opinion, one thing is quite clear – what drives crime and violence more than any other factor, to include the availability of weaponry, is the culture. Most of the violent cities in the US tend to be urban and poor. The countries with the higher murder rates also tend to be lower income driven. Japan has a culture of honor that increases their suicides. England’s crime rate is going up (even while they’re intentionally under reporting it). Knife and gun crime has been on the rise, and yet they’re an island with laws stating you cannot buy kitchen cutlery without a license and yet…
Focusing on things like caliber, magazine capacity, and whatnot doesn’t change any of this. I’m not saying ignore the problem, I’m saying focus on the REAL causes. By continually screaming for bans on this and that, you’re just doing ‘something’ rather than ‘the right thing’ and in my opinion, causing more harm than good.
I’m open to any legislation that has a proven effect, but so far, 20k Federal laws plus a patchwork for each state hasn’t changed a damned thing while each state that liberalizes their gun laws do not see any increase (and quite often a decrease) in crime. ‘Feeling’ that if we just ban X, Y, and Z doesn’t negate the fact that it’s never worked.
Thanks to everyone who has added and discussed this. If anyone here is in the Tampa area and has never fired a handgun before, I am more than willing to take you out to the range on my dime.
Quick comment on the cars vs guns comparison, specifically the 500hp engine arguement:
You do know that there are modifications to cars and engine types that mean a vehicle is not ‘street legal,’ right? Those laws are as locally capricious and unevenly enforced as any you can find. They are primarily instituted as a method to target gang activity, but are almost always couched as public safety regs (i.e. no windows tinted beyond a certain %, no neon lights under the car, etc.). There are also cases, such as Massachusetts, where any car that isn’t annually inspected cannot be legally driven.
So, it’s already law to ban certain types of cars, so that’s a false comparison in the gun control debate.
100!
That post says “99,” BD.
Sounds suspiciously like you’re trying to have different rules for different rights.
That’s exactly what Dave is doing. It’s the standard, specious, “but guns are DIFFERENT” argument. It has no intellectual merit.
The internet allows for widespread, virtually instant dissemination of ideas, yet the 1st Amendment protects speech on such a medium as well as on radio, TV, literature, etc. etc. My speech isn’t limited to quill pens and printed newspapers. similarly my 2nd Amendment rights aren’t limited to muskets & flintlocks.
I guarantee the founders would’ve had an easier time envisioning AR-15’s, full auto weapons and Glocks than they would’ve envisioning internet, blogging, or television.
That makes me 100 and “first!”
OR 102 and 103, dangit, 2nd page got me!
@dave
You said,
How does this differ from I, Robb, or any other peaceable citizen carrying a gun? When I carry I am carrying for my own protection and the protection of my family, nothing more. Sure, I could randomly pull out my gun & shoot someone, just like I could randomly drive up onto the sidewalk and run someone over. As you correctly point out that’s extremely uncommon. Given how uncommon it is, why the heck do you want to place more restrictions upon me.
A crazy dude with a gun kills a handful of people and suddenly I and 80 million other people who didn’t kill anyone should suffer, give up our rights and give up our means of self-defense? I’m sorry, but I will never allow that. No way in hell.
So then you support restricting magazine capacity for police officers as well? Or are they special because they have a badge? I would rather have 15 or 20 rounds and only need 11 should I have to use my gun than need 11 but only have 10 because of some stupid restriction. Then of course there’s the fact that many guns were originally designed to hold 12, 15, 18, or more rounds. Restricting mag capacity by law means changing weapons design to something that is less reliable. I know, I have a factory Sig Sauer 10 round magazine (manufactured to comply with the old assault weapon ban) My gun was not originally designed for such a mag. The mag does not work in the weapon at all. It routinely fails to engage the magazine catch.
What do you mean “those who had firearms ended up?” As far as I know no one who was carrying on the scene ended up being killed by the psychopath. Guns aren’t a magical talisman, but they do give you an option & means of fighting back.
Dave – I’d like to commend you for (so far) staying above any personal attacks, dick jokes etc.
I can’t say the same for Les. He can’t intelligently respond to Sean, so out come the petulant attacks and dick jokes. It’s sad, but something I see consistently from anti-gun folks.
naw, except by recognizing my photo, you wouldn’t know me in a crowd. I have probably not explained myself as well as I could have. Let me try again.
All governmental action is based on force. If you don’t believe me, try not paying your taxes and see how eventually a man with a uniform and a gun will come around to your house to collect you. When you propose to make something illegal, you are saying that you would like these nice young men in uniforms to come round my house and stick their guns in my face and demand that I comply. That’s not very nice.
Clearly you do not understand what the 2nd Amendment says. Here’s some definitions for you.
Well Regulated – In proper working order
Militia – 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.
People – the people
Arms – weapons useful for fighting with
I say this not to be pedantic or insulting. I just want you to understand that there is a clear understanding of what the Amendment means. We can debate this on all sorts of utilitarian grounds, but the bottom line is that this Amendment protects military grade weapons. There is a very strong argument that basically any man portable weapon (ie. machine guns) is covered under this Amendment. Your argument that a 30 round mag is not appropriate for civilian use misses the very large point that the reason for the Amendment is to protect militarily useful weapons. The same banning of this particular 30 round mag would ban the standard US Army 30 round mag for an AR-15 pattern rifle.
Back to the concept of “resistance.” I am not going to participate in disarming. I say that not as a brag nor as some way to burnish my pro-gun street cred. Neither the US Government, nor any of the political subdivisions (thank you McDonald) have the authority to infringe on my right to keep and bear arms. They’ve infringed enough. We are pushing back the laws that exist, and will continue to do so. The important thing for you to understand is that without my cooperation, the only way to get me to comply with unconstitutional laws is to force me to. Do you want to do that? I am sure that you would prefer me and tens of thousands like me to just fall in line and do as we are told, but we won’t. What you aren’t understanding is that even if these laws were passed, there’s no particular reason that anyone would start shooting. There are other remedies before we get to the shooting part.
Let me spin you a scenario. Let’s say that you get the Congress to ban “high” capacity mags. My pistol has two 10 round mags and five 13 round mags. I will publicly declare my intention to ignore the law, and parade up and down the street waving my (empty) magazine. To avoid any unfortunate mistakes on the part of law enforcement, I’ll even do it unarmed. It’s the Gandhi approach to legal protest. I probably won’t be alone when I do it. Same thing goes for registration of firearms. I won’t register, and I won’t hide the fact that I won’t register. I plan on being a monumental jerk about the whole thing. I figure Martin Luther King managed to protest unconstitutional laws without running about murdering people, I should be able to do the same. The only reason it would ever come down to “cold, dead fingers” is if your side (well, the government side) decided to start shooting. The only reason they would start shooting is if the people like you who want to push gun control started insisting on them forcing the issue. You need to understand that your actions (well, potential actions) would be the ones leading to the fight. You need to understand that the fact that you aren’t pulling the trigger doesn’t make you innocent. Whatever government does, it does in your name.
This is a difficult argument to make, and with me making it, it’s probably even harder to understand, but it’s the situation we find ourself in. Consider yourself and think what laws the government might pass that would make you get off your behind and out into the street. Grant that this issue is as important to me as whatever issues are to you. The government has limits, and when the government tries to exceed those limits, I’m not going to comply. I would hope that you would feel the same way.
I’ll endevor to be less of a jerk about how I explain myself in the future.
@Robb: Your comment only solidified what I was already thinking.
I think that’s oversimplifying things. Assuming that the “murder capital” thing isn’t in fact because of the tight gun laws, are the tighter gun laws in response to the problem, and would it be worse without them?
Beyond that, it’s fine for DC to try to crack down on guns, for example — but if MD and VA (and every other state and municipality nearby) don’t crack down in the same fashion, it’s nearly useless. That harkens back to the posts above about national standards.
I’m certainly not claiming that gun laws are the magic bullet to solving whackos or crime. They are, I think, a potentially useful tool, along with a number of others.
No, we’re #24 — well above most of what folks would consider First World nations. I mean, I’d kinda hope we’re doing better than Mexico, or Kyrgystan, or Russia. Are we happy being nestled between Bulgaria and Armenia, when France is #40, UK is #46, etc.?
.
Of course. And we need to try and change those aspects of our culture (both that of folks who commit crimes and that which creates an environment conducive to crime). Indeed, that’s the core disease we need to treat — but I think there are some symptoms we can tackle, too.
Robb – congratulations. Your errors in criticising my research, compounded by your errors on the crime rate of Britain, compounded by your lack of knowledge on British Law compounded by your fact that you are completely unable to recognise irony, sarcasm, parody and intentional hyperbole (pronounced Hi-Per-Bowl).
Most of the historians I have sitting on my bookshelf for the 18th and 19th centuries agree 2 round a minute for a musket, maybe a little faster by the American Civil War. Nosworthy quotes a theoretical 5 per minute, but if it was ever done I can only imagine that was done parade ground – and back during the War of Spanish Succession 1 round a minute may have been closer to the mark- the increase in rates of fire being down to the invention of the iron ramrod. Wikipaedia is written by amatures, many of whom wish to stamp their version of reality. My books are written by lecturers at Sandhurst and Westpoint.
The whole paragraph was a pastiche of those internet posters who think finding a minor error in an argument renders the whole post invalid – did you really think that an argument about the rate of fire by a Brown Bess has any bearing on the thrust of the original post?
Violent crime and crime against the person is going down – though it’s a minefield to pick how that is worked out. Crime against property is going up- its a recession, theft always goes up during a recession.The Daily Mail likes to scream how ‘Fear of Crime’ is going up, but as Dara O’Briein says, Fear of Zombies is at an all time high, doesn’t mean we have to panic.
I don’t know what mad right wing sources you get your information from, but you do not need a licence to buy a kitchen knife. You do have to be over 18.
Incidentally, the second amendment is infringed everyday, and I wonder how many people would say “well that’s OK”
The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
That is an absolute. It makes for no provisions of any exemption. Laws usually do – You can’t be incarcerated without a fair trial etc. A law is interpreted on it’s text not ‘what was meant’. Additionally a law can not make exception, without an amendment changing the consitution, otherwise that law is unconstitutional.
I take it the unconstutional ban on prisoners in jail is still in force? How about those states that unconstitutionally ban ex-prisoners from keeping a gun.
@Mike
Certainly the technological leap from then to now is more straightforward with firearms than communications technology.
On the other hand I think one can make a plausible argument that the Founders (or some of them) would be horrified by that much firepower in a madman’s hands, such that it would temper their consideration of how limitless the Second Amendment should be. You could also make a plausible argument that the Founders would be appalled at the idea of any Tom, Dick or Harry being able to spread rumor and innuendo into every household, instantly.
Of course, the Founders were appalled at the idea of partisanship, so God only knows what they would think of our nation today (even after they got past having a Negro as President and women serving in office).
@Mike:
My immediate answer is that guns are designed to kill, or threaten to kill, and serve no other purpose beyond what cause they are enlisted to do so (self-defense, sport, aggression, or lunacy), whereas vehicles are providing some sort of other service (transportation of person, persons, and/or cargo).
But I don’t want to disregard the value of self-defense (which is why I don’t advocate banning private gun ownership), but just as we mitigate the potential for injury by vehicles (barriers between opposing traffic, prosecution for unsafe behavior or road rage, etc.), some measure of restrictions to mitigate the potential for bad or careless acts with firearms seems reasonable.
Or let me put it another way: there are very few people on the “pro-gun” side of things whom I have read who advocate complete and utter freedom for firearms — no age restrictions, criminal record restrictions, gun type restrictions, training restrictions, whatever. Most accept that there is some value in some level of controlling who can have what sort of firearm. To paraphrase the old joke, we already know what you (society) are, we’re just haggling over the price, i.e., what are the costs/benefits of what sort of restrictions? We have different views on that, but it’s a difference in degree, not substance.
@mike w. writes…
I see your reading comprehension skills are as bad as Sean’s. I’m not anti-gun and I’ve said as much many times. I have not called for the banning of any weapons. Cite one instance of me calling for a ban on guns if you can.
I’m sorry if my low tolerance for Sean’s Internet Tough Guy routine offends your sensibilities. Actually, I’m not sorry. Sean’s acting like a testosterone overloaded frat boy who thinks he’s impressing the girls with his “big weapon.”
I’ll make you a deal, though. When you get Sean to drop the machismo act and say something intelligent then I’ll consider responding in kind.
@Mike:
So then you support restricting magazine capacity for police officers as well? Or are they special because they have a badge?
They are special because (a) they are granted by society the power to use force against citizens, (b) they undergo special training in appropriate and legal use of that force, and (c) they are charged with directly confronting criminals. As such, I think that they should be armed more than civilians need to.
(I also believe that the police should be subject to greater oversight and “great power / great responsibility” restrictions than they are. I have a tremendous respect for the police, and a correspondingly tremendous contempt for those who abuse their power.)
Sure. But in how many circumstances will you actually need 11 rounds?
It sounds poorly designed as an alternative “legal” magazine. That sounds like a bad implementation, rather than a matter of principle.
There were two people on site who were armed. Neither was in time or position to stop the shooting. Both pulled their weapons; one nearly shot the other (after running up to the scene), thinking he was the shooter. More (inflammatorily couched) info here.
@Sean:
Granted. Government is, by definition, force. In our system, government ought to express the will of the people, within constitutional bounds, but that’s still an expression of power.
True. But that’s true of any law making something illegal or compulsory.
I disagree with your definition of “well-regulated” (it seems to mean, in historical context, well-trained/disciplined), and to my reading (though the most recent SCOTUS ruling would indicate otherwise) the Amendment is focused more on state militias, esp. as a counter to centralized/federal power.
But to that extent, yes, I can see the argument that it would defend possession of military-grade weapons.
What can be permitted for a governmental (authorized by the people) agent (the military) may be forbidden to individual citizens.
The purpose of the Amendment, it seems to me, is not to protect militarily useful weapons per se, but to protect state militia possession of same.
See, it’s not a matter of “prefer” and all that. And, yes, I understand, even appreciate, a principled stand. On the other hand, I cavil a bit at the “from my cold, dead fingers” thing.
I agree. (Especially for certain values of “laws passed.”)
Well, in all our name’s. But I agree that the most righteous protest on principle is a Ghandian protest of the sort (I do have problems thinking of Ghandi protesting on behalf of higher capacity magazines, but …).
My fear is that, while you say you would practice social disobedience on behalf of Second Amendment rights, others would take a more direct and bloody course. Nor am I willing to concede that the blood spilled would be solely the responsibility of the government.
It’s difficult for me to appreciate a love of weaponry as much as a love of free expression, even where the former is intended to safeguard the latter (though, ironically, such a peaceful protest seems counterintuitive).
That said, I would certainly respect a peaceful non-compliance and protest, and would certainly, while expecting the process of law, consider the merits of a principled stand.
You certainly don’t seem to be acting like a jerk to my mind. I may disagree with you, but I don’t assume that means that you are (or I’m not) a jerk per se.
@Last Hussar:
There are few constitutional rights without some measure of exception — can’t practice free speech that’s libelous or puts others in immediate danger; can’t practice religion that engages in human sacrifice (or, generally, drug use); can’t bear arms that are deemed too dangerous to someone too untrusted.
Most folks agree with these exceptions (except when it’s their own ox being gored). Then again, most folks don’t think through the ramifications (“Oh, we don’t need Due Process when it’s someone we’re told is a scumbag terrorist — what could possibly go wrong?”).
Not quite as true what it seems. The original intent of the law (or constitutional provisions), as illustrated by the debates over its passage, are often parsed to overcome provisions that are vague or badly written — or to pursue a political agenda, in some cases. Thus one can find (to cite once again) Justice Scalia arguing that the Equal Protection Under the Law clause of the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to women because, well, that’s not what the folks who were writing it intended.
You know the quote,
peaceful protest seems counterintuitive until you think about it strategically. If I started shooting, I’m the problem. Even when you have a serious political beef, it isn’t appropriate to kill people. It’s certainly legitimate to fight defensively. If you’re the one getting murdered, by all means, shoot back. But no one would be attacking me, at least not yet. The point would be to place the authorities in the situation where they have to either ignore the “crime” and refuse to enforce the law, or initiate violence to enforce an unconstitutional law. The reason the film out of Birmingham was so shocking was not the dogs and firehoses. It was the fact that they were used on people that didn’t deserve it. Were they a rampaging mob of would be murderers, dogs and firehoses would have been applauded as the model of restraint. If I ran around shooting at people the whole country would cheer my death.
except that by law and old custom, the militia is everyone. None of the other Amendments say “people” and mean “government.” It may seem shocking, but the weapons that the 2nd Amendment most protects are the weapons most useful for killing people. The important question for you to ask yourself is, do you believe that there is a justification for killing people? If you don’t believe that a private person may morally kill another human being, or to participate in the violent overthrow of an oppressive government, then we are having the wrong argument. We are arguing over the tool when we should be arguing over the job that the tool is used for.
Someone has to be the aggressor. Since it isn’t going to be me, whose responsibility would it be?
Why? Police officers are not permitted by law to do anything you cannot do. They are granted a certain amount of legal leeway called Qualified Immunity because they have to act even in unclear situations where civilians can merely walk away. The concept you are trying to describe is “Delegation of Authority.” You are trying to advance the theory that because their authority as police is delegated to them by the people, they have powers that no one else has. That misses the very large point that no one can delegate power that they themselves do not possess. Police cannot search you or your papers, or your property without a warrant, or some other legal authority. Were a judge to hand you an warrant, it would authorize you to do the search the same way the police do. We don’t do that anymore since we have a professional police force. It saves a lot of effort on the part of civilians having to investigate crimes on their own like they used to have to. You may not be aware, but police rules of force are basically the same as yours. Obviously police are never required under law to retreat, but in most states, neither are civilians. Pretty much, if a cop could shoot a person, in the same situation, so could you.
I don’t think we will end up in a position where anyone (except the psychos or the truly loony) starts shooting at each other. The federal government learned their lesson after Waco. The federal police agencies were told that if the federals stormed the Montana Freemen compound that they would provoke a shooting war. Instead of pulling a Waco, they just waited the idiots out and had a decent trial like they were supposed to. That’s the way things are supposed to work. If they aren’t shooting at anyone, there’s no reason to shoot at them. I’m willing to bet my life that the feds have learned that lesson. I also know that any widespread belief that they have abandoned that lesson will provoke a terrible response. Since I hope to die peacefully in bed at a very old age, let us all hope that they have taken the message and re-written their playbook permanently.
that’s charitable of you, but I was being a jerk. I forgot to explain myself in a way that you could understand and then acted like you were the jerk for not understanding.
@Sean: I think you have pegged the concept of non-violent protest. I hope that, should it come to that, that’s the course that folks would take. I am, hopefully understandably, concerned that when it comes to protests about gun rights, those seeking to protect what they hold dear will prove the point of their opponents. Indeed, that’s what your earlier rhetoric implied.
But the militia is everyone as a local organization. The militias of the Revolutionary period were not individual volunteers to the national cause, but organizations from the states (as organized by the state governments). That was what was being driven at by the Constitution — protection against a centralized, federal military.
I believe that both can be necessary, though I think too many folk are too quick to act on the former (and too many to threaten the latter). Looking at the site that Robb, I believe, pointed at earlier, the first half-dozen cases had just a few where one could say, “Yeah, I am in danger of my life, so I have to protect myself.” Using lethal force against thieves strikes as far less defensible.
That sounds attractive in theory, but in practice I suspect it’s a bit more complicated than that. I don’t care for private individuals acting to enforce the law except when absolutely necessary, just because it’s far more open to misuse and abuse.
Yeah, but I suspect the DA would cut a cop a lot more slack (rightly or wrongly or both) than me.
One would hope (though the federal govt has yet to figure out that “precision surgical bombing” isn’t and “short victorious wars” aren’t, so …).
@Sean D Sorrentino
I was actually starting to wonder if someone was using your ID. THIS is the more calm rational Sean I have come to know. That was a much better way to explain your (and to a large part my) position
@nobody in particular….
I think many of the strong positions here come from the fact that we comment on a number of anti-gun blogs and “know” that they have certain beliefs, no matter how many times they say they don’t. So we see certain things and make an assumption. Maybe it is a bad assumption, but I can’t tell you how many times someone has said “we don’t want to ban your guns” even when they are talking about doing that very thing, incrementally. Sure, they aren’t talking about banning them today, but they want to get there and have said that on previous occasions. Then we hear “I’m not anti-gun” simply because they have a hunting rifle. What they won’t tell you is that they only think people should have a hunting rifle or in their heart, don’t really think anyone except for themselves, of course, because after all, they would never use it for harm. People say things based on their definition of the words and sometimes can’t see the bigger picture.
I have to give credit that you have been very good about posting the comments, keeping up a good debate, etc..
Thanks, Patrick.
I make an effort to assume people are being up front and honest in what they say, unless they give me specific reason to doubt it. Others, perhaps more used to a variety of intense debates, are quicker to attribute the sort of behavior they’ve seen before (that applies to people on all sides of the position).
The idea that the “Founders” could not imagine a gun that fired faster than four rounds a minute is simply a false statement. There were many multi-barreled volley guns in existence in 1787.
@SPQR: And, as noted, they knew about cannons and other powder-based weapons of mass killing. I suppose it’s not impossible that there were members of “well-regulated militia” and frontier farmers who had some of the 18th Century hand-held volley guns that existed, but I’ve not read anything to support that, and volley guns were not among the types of guns listed for militia purposes in the various Acts of the period.
So it is theoretically possible that the Founders were aware that someone might walk into a crowd and fire off a volley gun, and weighed that into their judgment about personal ownership of firearms. It just seems unlikely, esp. given the rarity of the weapons then, vs the ubiquity of semi-automatic arms.
Do you have a sane argument for restricting such a weapon? And if they’re so darn dangerous then why allow cops to carry them? Virtually all police agencies issue weapons with a capacity above 10. There’s nothing about a Glock that makes it especially dangerous.
@mike w: Because they are highly dangerous and unlikely to have their full capabilities used by ordinary citizens outside of occasions like this. Cops, by the nature of their jobs, are much more likely to encounter circumstances where use of such arms are needed; we send them after criminals who we know are armed.
How are they “dangerous?” Can you show me any pattern of behavior of concealed carriers that indicates that they are likely to hurt anyone?
Here’s the most important question. Where has any gun control law had any net positive effect on violent crime rates? Since no one has ever been able to point to a positive effect, why should we have any gun control laws at all?
What you are doing is attempting to legislate based on your policy preferences lacking any empirical data to show that your preferences are better for society than our preferences. You have a high hurdle to cross. You have to show that your aims are legitimate government ends, that your preferences are likely to work in the manner that you say that they will work, and that your preferences are the least restrictive method of doing what you claim. It might also help to be able to point to the part of the Constitution that authorizes the Federal government to tell the citizens which guns are acceptable to own.
I think we’ve just seen a demonstration of how dangerous this particular weapon was.
I believe we can demonstrate that, in the cases where they’ve chosen to do so, they have been much more lethally effective in doing so than those armed with bricks, knives, or fists.
That’s true, and it’s not an easy hurdle, particularly the last one.
I believe we can establish a legitimate government end (assuming we’re talking Federal here) with any number of the Preamble clauses — common defense, general welfare. Even this Supreme Court, while allowing that guns couldn’t be just outright banned, indicated that some manner of regulation, in process and type of weapon, is allowed.
That it’s likely to work is not a legal requirement, but a functional one. There aren’t enough days in the year to play battling statistics over gun control measures (heck, there aren’t enough pages on the Internet). I believe one can reasonably assert that there would be positive effects (and possibly some negative ones) with any given gun control measure.
That it’s the least restrictive method? I don’t impose on freedom lightly, but I’m drawing a blank here. I think regulation of types of guns, and the process for obtaining them, are less restrictive (and more Constitutional) than outright bans.
.
I leave that to the Courts to demonstrate (as commented upon in the Heller decision: “It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home.”) I have no doubt that any restrictions of class or type would be addressed through the courts to try to pin this down further.
You’re not answering questions Dave.
How is a Glock “dangerous?” Also, since you claim it is dangerous then how can it cease to be so when carried by a cop. It is an object. If it’s dangerous then it is so whether I own one or whether my police officer brother owns one.
FYI – I own a weapon identical to the one my brother carries on duty. If the one he carries is not dangerous then neither is the one I carry. To claim otherwise is flatly illogical.
A very good thing for you, since when we argue statistics gun control advocates lose every single time. The facts are simply not on your side.
A cop can call for backup and have other armed men come to his aid. When he responds to a crime where a criminal is known to be armed he is almost never responding alone. He’s also carrying openly and can thus more easily carry extra ammunition. A CCW holder defending himself from a violent crime does not have those same advantages.
Besides, what does “need” have to do with anything and who are you to tell your fellow citizens that a basic, modern semi-auto sidearm is overkill and not “needed?” Do you think we should all be restricted to 1700’s era single shot flintlocks, or would you object to the carrying of those by citizens as well?
You have addressed the end, which is crime control, and the preferred means, which in your case seems to be weapon type and capacity restrictions. What you haven’t done is establish that these preferred means will have some net postive effect on your defined end.
Let me put it this way. Let us assume that you have a swimming pool you wish to drain. You have a defined end, empty swimming pool. You decided to start tossing toilet paper into the pool. (I have deliberately picked a stupid solution to illustrate my point, I’m not saying that you’re dumb enough to do this) Now, you own the pool and the toilet paper, so no one is in any legal position to tell you that you can’t do this. The problem is that chucking toilet paper into the pool will have no net positive effect on your water level. All you will have done is waste toilet paper.
When you define and end, you must match your means to that end. If the means you chose will not help you reach your desired end state, you are wasting your time. The point is, when you propose limiting the rights of citizens to possess certain types of firearms, or magazines above a specified capacity, it is incumbent on you to show that your means will lead to the ends you have specified. The burden of proof is on you to show how magazine limits will achieve a reduction in crime, not up to me to show that they won’t. Since there is no way to show that gun control has had any effect on crime rates, why should we have it at all? We can’t make laws that take away peoples rights based on the fact that it would make you feel better. You have to show that it would work. Otherwise we’re just throwing toilet paper into a pool.
That’s one of the central problems with gun control Sean. Those who advocate it can’t demonstrate efficacy, either of the laws already on the books or of further restrictions they seek to impose. If you can’t demonstrate that those restrictions will be effective, nor demonstrate that those you’ve already achieved are effective then why should I consider your position credible?*
*and I say this without even getting into the obvious Constititutional problem with gun control.
How is a Glock dangerous? “In 1999, 3,385 children and youth ages 0-19 years were killed with a gun. This includes homicides, suicides, and unintentional injuries” and “73 were of children under five years old” (National Safety Council, 1999).
It’s hard to take seriously people who imply that weapons are not dangerous. Guns would be useless except as paperweights (or as clubs) if they weren’t dangerous.
I am strongly in favor of requiring training and licensing for gun owners. The idea that any inept clod like me can buy a gun and risk innocent lives with it is very frightening. If I were to buy a gun, it would be after I had taken classes to learn how to use it safely and responsibly. I wish that were true of everybody.
🙁
Reference:
National Safety Council. (1999). Gun safety for kids and youth. Retrieved from http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/guns.htm
Avocet, how sad that must be. You live in fear of an inanimate object, and you live in fear of yourself. Who taught you that you were an inept clod? Why did you listen? If you think you are inept, why haven’t you done something to fix this problem? Perhaps it’s time to stop taking counsel of your fears. Also it’s rude to assume that since you think you are an inept clod, so is everyone else.
Exactly how much training do you think it takes to operate a tool that has only 3 controls? A Glock has a trigger, a slide lock, and a magazine release. I could teach you how to operate one in an hour. So could anyone else familiar with a semi-auto pistol.
What sort of training do you think it takes to learn to use something “responsibly?” Responsibility is not dependent on what you are holding. Responsibility should have been learned from your parents. I can teach you (or you could read) what the capabilities of the gun are. I can’t teach you not to run around murdering people with it. That sort of responsibility you should have learned long ago.
More people are killed by cars each year than are killed with a gun. “But, but, but” you’ll say, “Cars weren’t ‘designed’ to kill!” Imagine that. Cars were designed to transport people around, and they still kill more people than tools designed as weapons. Even if you accept the idea that a gun is only useful to kill, (and I don’t) there are still fewer deaths by gun than by car. I can take out my gun and set it on the tabletop fully loaded. It will sit there until the end of time and harm no one. There are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous people. Identify those dangerous people and institutionalize them.
In truth, you aren’t scared of the gun, you’re scared of yourself. Having a weapon capable of ending the lives of the people around you is a serious responsibility. You’re just afraid that you can’t handle the responsibility. I don’t say this to be insulting, but get some psychological help. A good counselor will help you figure out why you feel the way you do and help you find safe and responsible ways to address these feelings. Once you have done that, go to your local gun range and take a introductory shooting lesson. The National Shooting Sports Foundation (the Actual gun manufacturers lobby) has a free program called “First Shots.” Even if you never shoot again, how cool would it be to be able to do something that scares you and do it safely and responsibly.
Sean,
I have poor hand-eye coordination. Just watch me play a video game. I do very poorly in “shooters.” I have no reason to believe that if you showed me in one hour how to use a gun that I would then be more likely to hit an assailant than an innocent bystander.
Your claim that I believe that all people are like me is bogus. I do, however, believe that many people are like me in this respect. Do you seriously feel safe with the idea that everybody could walk around armed with semi-automatic or fully automatic weapons after one hour of training? I do not.
You are quite right to assume that I dislike responsibility. I do not want to carry a gun that can cause injuries if I forget to use the safety (and considering how often I leave my car’s turn signal on, it’s a good bet that I wouldn’t check it as often as I should).
I also do not trust myself not to pull a gun in anger. I usually avoid acting on road rage (I am a cautious driver, and am constantly cut off by people who resent the three-second gap I leave in front of me). I worry that if I had a gun, I would pull it out, if only for intimidation. That could, of course, have terrible results.
No, this country is safer if I don’t go around armed. I have no desire to strap on a weapon just because it would be “cool.” I do thank you for your concern, though!
🙂
@Sean:
Faramir in The Two Towers: “For myself, I would see the White Tree in flower again in the courts of the kings, and the Silver Crown return, and Minas Tirith in peace: Minas Anor again as of old, full of light, high and fair, beautiful as a queen among other queens; not as a mistress of many slaves, nay, not even a kind mistress of willing slaves. War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Númenor, and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom. Not feared, save as men may fear the dignity of a man, old and wise.”
Cool quote.
@mike w:
I wouldn’t argue that it isn’t dangerous in the hands of anyone. Whether by accident or design, someone with a firearm can kill (or cripple, or wound), at a distance, in but a moment. I consider that dangerous.
Not all dangers are absolute, and not all dangers warrant rejection. As has been noted, my car is dangerous, to me and to others. To some degree, it’s a matter of risk analysis — do the costs outweigh the benefits. The specific class of circumstances can also play a role: the risk may be more acceptable with a cop, than with an average citizen, than with someone with a criminal record.
A cop can call for backup and have other armed men come to his aid.
If knowingly going into a dangerous situation, yes. As can a civilian. Though cops are called upon to go into dangerous situations as part of their job.
Arguably both cops and civilians might find themselves unexpectedly in a dangerous situation. Cops can still usually radio for backup (though there’s a time lag); civilians might be able to call for assistance (ditto). I would suggest, though, that cops would find themselves in unexpectedly dangerous situations much more often than civilians.
True. But it is not always known that the criminal is armed, or that the person is a criminal, or that the criminal is alone.
.
Though the time for reloading is short, I suspect most cops in a potential gunfire situation would rather not have to if they could avoid it.
A CCW holder defending himself from a violent crime does not have those same advantages.
As I said, I think cops find themselves in dangerous situations more often than most civilians, including CCW holders. Further, unless their job calls for it in some fashion, a civilian’s role in a violent situation is different from a cop’s. A cop is out to defend themselves, but also to apprehend the criminal; a civilian is only responsible for the former. (Putting themselves in further danger to try and take down or capture a criminal maybe sounds good, but I think it can unacceptably add to the risks to both the person, the criminal, and passersby.)
I suggest it, but I certainly can’t command it.
But, then, “basic, modern semi-auto sidearm” covers a wide array of weapons (not to mention variations in ammo and magazines). Would you accept that there are certain firearms (and accoutrements) that your fellow citizens don’t “need” or shouldn’t have?
I’ve already gone on record saying I’m not calling for the ban of handguns (even if the Supreme Court allowed for it). I think there are reasonable restrictions on them and the process of obtaining and carrying them that would serve the purpose of allowing people needed self-protection while still reducing the overall firepower available for accidents, lunatics, criminals, or losses of temper.
@Sean:
I think you can apply reason to the question in a way that statistics don’t allow. (I disagree that you can’t make an empirical case for gun control; I just don’t think I’m enough of an expert to argue it against folks who rally different statistics against it.)
Take the case at hand. If Loughner had not been able to obtain the weapon he had, through whatever regulation (from outright ban to more careful screenings and waits before purchase to not being able to go out at 7 a.m. and buy ammo at the the local Wal-Mart — I’m not suggesting any of these per se, but going to a more core question), would Rep. Gifford be lying in a hospital with a bullet hole through her brain, would 6 people now be dead, and 14 others injured in some fashion?
Well, he could have wielded a knife or a bat or something of that sort. He might well have been able to attack Rep. Gifford before being taken down. I doubt the toll would have been so high.
He might have driven a car or truck into the crowd. But, then, he might have done that regardless, and with far less trouble. Obviously, there was something about using guns that fit his pathology.
He might have built a fertilizer bomb and taken out the block — but it’s not clear he’s that bright, nor that he wanted to take out the whole block, nor that he’d be interested in committing suicide as some sort of suicide bomber. Again, if he had, why didn’t he?
Guns seem to be what he wanted to use, and what he was able to fairly easily obtain. And of a sort that did, in fact, allow him to kill 6 and wound 14 others in a matter of 15 seconds.
I think we can say that, without the availability of guns that he had, Loughner’s attack would have been less effective, at least.
We can’t (or probably shouldn’t) make a policy based on a single incident (TSA security theater aside). But I think we can apply some reason to this, along with looking at the data, to see what we can do, and if it is worth it.
@Sean: There are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous people. Identify those dangerous people and institutionalize them.
There are dangerous people whose capabilities are magnified by firearms, how about that as a compromise statement.
Upon consideration, “Identify those dangerous people and institutionalize them” is, as a policy statement, a lot more terrifying than gun control, to me. Preemptive institutionalization of people considered “dangerous” is a common tool of repressive regimes or societies.
He was a Royalist. As an American, I prefer “The strongest among you may not wear a crown.” 🙂
As a concealed carrier, I think that this is absolutely true. I am less concerned with the risks the criminal suffers, but no matter how you view the social benefit of one less criminal, shooting an innocent passerby isn’t a fair trade.
My pistol is a .45, and I carry it with the two magazines that it came with. I have a shorter 10 round mag designed to make it more concealable, and a longer 13 round mag that I carry as a spare. 10 + 13 + 1 in the chamber is 24 rounds. I have to survive whatever comes my way, and I only get 24 bullets to do it with. After that it’s teeth and a pocketknife. They might not sound like much, but I’m pretty attached to those last 3 bullets I wouldn’t have if I carried two 10 round mags. I’ve always been of the opinion that no one ever complains about having too much ammo in a shootout.
True, but I was not suggesting we should do this. We have to respect people’s fundamental rights. However, once they demonstrate to the satisfaction of a court that they are loony or criminal, we the people should give them adequately secure housing until we are satisfied that they are no longer a danger to themselves or others.
This is why I think a critical step the long term plan to reduce total crime and violence is to decriminalize drugs and sell them in the local equivelent to ABC stores. This does two things. First it gets the drug users out of jails freeing up space for more dangerous people. Second, it cuts the legs out from under the drug smugglers. Can you imagine drug smugglers trying to compete on price with the multinational drug companies? The drug smugglers would be out of business in a minute, completely ending the reign of terror of the drug gangs. This is certainly not without cost. Many people would die of drug overdoses. The sad fact is that I think that it’s better for them to die than for the innocent to get shot in the crossfire.
There are so many things wrong with your original post it’s hard to know where to start.
A Glock 19 fires no more quickly or efficiently than any other Semi-auto firearm.
And for the most part they would be wrong. There may be a few very small police dept’s in the country who still carry either a revolver or a .45ACP 1911, but most carry sidearms much like the one carried by Loughner (if not that exact model Glock 19)
It is similarly difficult to understand how anyne could argue the social value of limiting magazine capacity to 10 rounds (or any other arbitary number) particularly given that those wanting such restrictions cannot show that they have had ANY positive impact on violent crime in this country. As always, the onus is on those wishing to restrict my rights to prove the efficacy of their policy proposals, something gun control proponents have failed at miserably. This isn’t surprising of course, since they policy proposals are a failure at everything except disarming the law-abiding. Hell, we lifted the gun ban in DC and they’re seeing the lowest crime rates there since the earlly 1960’s.
Your claims about the deadliness of modern weapons are similarly false. I give you the henry repeating rifle Here we have a 150 year old rifle that would be banned under the old 1994 AWB and the new restrictions gun control folks want to pass.
And here we have a handgun made in the 1790’s that could fire more than one shot at a time, so again your claims about the weaponry of that time period do not align with the facts.
@Sean:
Yeah, but it’s a bit different when you can point to your royal family actually being descended from those blessed (in outward, demonstrable ways) by the divine spirit. 🙂
True. On the other hand, how many shoot-outs does the average gun owner actually get into that require 24 bullets (or that require all of the “only” 24)? Or how many extreme cases, rather?
I suspect Loughner regretted not having more ammo. I’m not sure his victims did.
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I agree. However, the bar to making such a demonstration is (and should be) very high. And housing and treatment need to be adequate.
Arizonans have the ability to petition the courts to commit someone — but it’s not an easy or quick thing to do, and clearly the folks that were worried about him found it easier to simply find ways for him not to be around.
More vigorous entry (and money to pay for it) of mental health and criminal records into gun background check systems would also be useful.
I agree fully that there are a lot of drugs, no worse than alcohol, that can and should be legal, which would, as you note, cut into a lot of drug violence.
@mike w
I don’t think I said it did.
I’m not sure the applicability of a Civil War era repeating rifle in a discussion over the Founders’ intent, fifty years earlier.
And the description of the Henry Rifle indicates a firing rate of 28 rounds per minute, which is about a fourth of the rate that Loughner managed.
The pepperbox didn’t achieve popularity in North America (nor, as far as I can tell, anywhere else) until 50 years after the Constitution was written and the technology had advanced to enough to make it useful.
Sounds like you feel the same way about them that I do. I would treat foreign royals politely, as I am well brought up and wouldn’t wish to insult their subjects, but the first one that tries to set himself up over me is going to regret it.
Look at us, in wholehearted agreement. One of the surprising things you learn when you concealed carry is exactly how close each of us is to ending up in jail if you run across the wrong cop on the wrong day. We have rights. They mostly just don’t care. The anti-gun left is missing a huge opportunity here. The serious concealed carriers are acutely aware of how often police officers trample the rights of the citizens. We get really adamant about it. Those ACLU types who have fought exactly this battle since before I was born are missing a natural ally in us.
Not often. Since you are not likely to have taken much in the way of firearms classes, you may not be aware of the training assumptions. In the movies, 1 shot generally does the job unless the opponent is a monster, and then 25 isn’t enough. In real life, 80% of pistol wounds are survivable with proper medical care. We get trained to shoot until the person stops doing whatever it is that they were doing that made you shoot him in the first place. This may take 1 shot, it may take 6 or 8. We are generally trained to shoot a minimum of two shots, but we are always cautioned that we might have to shoot many more times than that.
My father carries a 1911 pattern pistol. He is limited by the design of the pistol to 8 round magazines. My first mag is 10, plus the one in the chamber, for an initial load of 11 for me, 9 for dad. The extra 2 rounds mean that I’m likely to be able to handle 3 or 4 attackers vs 2 to 3 for my father, before reloading. I carry one spare mag, he carries 2, for a total of 24 rounds for me and 25 for dad. One hopes never to face any, but if you’ve already have gone to the trouble of carrying a pistol, extra ammo is a minimal burdon. This is something that you would have to go through a self defense shooting class to appreciate. Just understand that, for the most part, we approach these choices based on how we expect to fight. Without having that instructional background it might be difficult for you to understand.
I can’t justify to myself the hassle of carrying a second spare mag. I have made the personal calculation that 24 is likely to be more than enough. I certainly have more 13 round mags, and could carry them if I wanted to. Other people will make different calculations. I have chosen a relatively large caliber pistol with a relatively low (compared to a Glock 9mm) number of rounds. I can certainly understand the attraction of 19 rounds of 9mm. It would make it that much more unlikely you would have to reload in a self defense situation.
@ Dave
I didn’t bring up the Henry to refute your claims about the founders intent. You’ve lost that argument. I can’t say that gun control advocates ever had any chance of winning that argument though. I brought it up (and the pepperbox) to point out that the founders most certainly could have envisioned firearms with a higher rate of fire than muskets & flintlocks. I also brought it up to highlight the absurdity of the “reasonable” restrictions gun-control folks want to push on us. Under the 94 AWB and current restrictions their ilk wants passed a 150+ year old rifle would be banned as an “assault weapon.” These laws aren’t about public safety, they’re about banning guns. Period. I used that example to highlight this truism.
How many major car accidents does the average driver really get into? By that “logic” no one really “requires” airbags or seatbelts either. A 90 horsepower car can exceed any posted speed limit, so who really “needs” a car with more than that? Hell, who really needs a fire extinguisher in their home or car? (and a “high capacity” one at that) That’s the responsibility of the fire department right?
The thing is we can’t predict the future. I’d rather have more ammo than I’m likely to need.
Yup, the ACLU’s animosity towards the 2nd Amendment really hurts them. They’d have the support of most gun owners if not for that. That is not to say that some local ACLU chapters are pro 2nd Amendment.
@Sean:
I agree.
I suspect we agree on much more than we disagree on.
I think you could find some traction with the ACLU viz police abuse. On broader Second Amendment matters, the group considers 2A to be a collective, not individual right (acknowledging but disagreeing with Heller).
Just understand that, for the most part, we approach these choices based on how we expect to fight.
I think I asked it earlier, of someone here, but do you believe any restrictions on firearms are appropriate?
My inclination is to wind down this discussion, since I think we’re talking mostly in circles. (@mikew, you can consider this a victory of “I can’t answer your arguments,” if you like). I don’t think I’ve changed my fundamental belief that some regulation of the acquisition of guns and some sort of restriction of magazine capacity would be of net benefit to our society without significant impact on the ability of folks to use them for self-defense and recreation, short of outright banning of weapons.
It’s certainly been educational (and I mean that mostly in a positive way) having the discussion. If nothing else, I’ve learned the difference between “clips” and “magazines,” but I think I also understand the positions of gun rights individuals a lot better.
It actually worked the other way around. The ACLU has been fighting police abuse for a long time. We middle class white people haven’t had to deal with too much police abuse, plus without the internet to distribute video documenting the abuses, it was difficult for people like me to believe the complaining. It’s us that have come to accept that the police have a nasty tendency to abuse the rights of people. The ACLU was already there. Too bad that they lack the sense to come along with us on the Second Amendment.
In what way? I don’t think it is appropriate for people in jails to have guns. But I’d repeal the NFA’34 and the GCA’68 and go back to the days when you could buy machine guns by mail order. This whole insistence that “felons shouldn’t have guns” ignores two things. First, you can be a felon in North Carolina for stealing pine straw from a pine straw farm. The level of offense constitutes a felony in modern America that is absurdly low. Secondly, if a person isn’t safe enough to own a firearm, why are you letting him out of prison? We need to restrict the concept of “felony” to really bad crimes. Then when people commit them, we invite them to stay in jail until they are safe in society. If they never get out, well, too bad. I’ve said before that chucking massive numbers of people in jail for taking drugs is stupid. We need to restrict the use of prison to actually dangerous people. And then they need to stay there. I think that is a better way to run society than to restrict the rights and choices of free people.
makes sense. I think we’ve said what we intended to say.
Truth be told Dave I didn’t expect you would be able to offer a substantive, factually based position or be able to offer similarly substantive responses to what I said. I mean sure, It’d have been refreshing if you had at least tried, but the facts aren’t on your side so I can’t really blame you.
I wonder though if you at least realize that your “belief” is just that. It’s akin to religion. You believe it to be so, and so it is, evidence be damned. That’s fine for religion, but unacceptable for policy proposals, especially ones which infringe upon my rights.
As a matter of undeniable fact such magazine restrictions DO have an impact on my rights and my ability to use my firearms for both defensive use and recreation. I’m not going to change your belief about magazine restrictions being a “net benefit to society.” See what I said about religion above. That said, your “belief” is in no way supported by logic or facts and thus it should not be considered to have any credibility whatsoever.
Your “belief” espoused above is a position that has absolutely no intellectual merit. I think it is imperative that us pro-rights folks point this out when it is the case. A belief unsupported by logic and evidence lacks credibility and should be exposed for what it is. Of course that doesn’t mean you aren’t entitled to such false beliefs, only that you should expect to be corrected when you speak of them.
@Sean:
I agree, to at least some degree. At one time, historically, a “felon” was a major crime, subject to harsh penalty. Now it is literally anything that carries with it a prison sentence of over a year. The bar is far too low, but the stigma and effects of a felony conviction (whether disenfranchisement, inability to serve on juries, or being barred firearms) reflect something much more serious. Another result from our “getting tough on crime (to impress the voters)” legislatures (and the voters who allow themselves to be impressed by it).
That said, I don’t agree with the idea of open-ended sentences “until we’re sure you’re safe.” I think there’s room for a distinction between a crime that warrents 5, 10, 20 years, and a crime that’s essentially life with the possibility of parole.
I didn’t really mean it as an open ended sentence, more as a philosophy of sentencing. The judge and jury need to ask themselves how long they need to lock the guy up so that when he’s out, he’s not a danger. I’m certainly ok with the three strikes and you’re out laws, because once you’ve committed that many felonies, you’re basically telling us you can’t be controlled. We just need to restrict which crimes are felonies. I think even you’d be stunned at what crimes in NC are considered felonies. I was shocked.
Try this on for size
I just looked at your \About me\ tab. You’re from my home town area. I was born in Montebello and raised in Walnut. I spent 3 years at Cal Poly Pomona before I dropped out to join the Army. I’ve lived on the east coast ever since.
@Sean: Well, that’s the trick. There are a lot of “three time losers” in California (with one of the toughest three-strikes laws) that are in jail for life for a non-violent offense. And then they wonder why they’re spending so much money on the prison system and why judges are ordering prisoners released to relieve overcrowding.
Ah, I’m familiar with that area (or was, 20 year ago, though my folks still live in the Glendora area). I never attended Cal Poly Pomona, but took some summer classes there. They also have a great hospitality school restaurant that’s fun to eat at.
Crap, the link didn’t work. here it is in raw form
http://ncguns.blogspot.com/2010/10/laws-of-north-carolina-that-need-to_20.html
Given the ongoing discussion here, I thought you folks might find this interesting:
Our friend there thinks assassinating members of Congress is OK and totally an American thing to do and you’ll never guess what he thinks of us “Lefties.”
So I suppose, given all the tough talk on here from Sean and Mike and the rest, that you guys will be saddling up to head out to MA to get this fellow his guns back, eh? After all, they took his gun license and guns away from him without charging him with a single crime. Surely you can’t stand for that, right?
@Les: Actually, if they aren’t accusing him of a crime, I don’t see how they can or should have seized his guns and revoked his license. That seems like a Due Process issue, if not a First Amendment one, and smacks uncomfortably of civil forfeiture ripoffs … er, laws.
Not that I’m thrilled about dude having guns when he’s ranting and raving like that. I would be curious, though, to understand more about the legal basis for the confiscating and forfeiture of license without a chance for him to defend himself against charges that have not been made.
oh jeez, Les. You’ve crawled out from under your rock to piss and moan about TJIC? Just to let you know, this has been the subject of much discussion amoungst us recently.
The standard for “threat” is pretty high. A guy during Vietnam was charged with “threatening the President” (a Class D Felony) for saying “If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L. B. J.” His Supreme Court case overturned his conviction on the basis that there was no threat.
What TJIC wrote was no more “threatening” than what this guy said.
The basis is, possession of a firearm in Massachusetts is not a right, but a favor granted solely at the whim of the local police chief. If the Police Chief says you can own a gun, you can. If he says no, you can’t. He doesn’t have to justify his decision, and as far as I know, there is no appealing it.
I think that it is a travesty. A right should not be dependent upon pleasing a government official. Right before the election, Rasmussen released a poll that said 65% of those polled said they would be in favor of replacing the entire Congress. I joked that the reason it was only 65% was that the poll question said “replace,” not “machine gun.” Had Rasmussen asked, “Would you be in favor of machine gunning the entire Congress and starting over,” they’d have gotten 85% easy, and if they had made it clear that respondents would not be expected to pay for the ammunition, it’d be 95%. The laughter that I got whenever I told this story (to lefties and righties both) was pretty amazing. Why would anyone think that it was a threat?
unfortunately, some people enjoy telling others to shut up. They are not afraid of dragging the law into it. Witness the whole “we aren’t going to ‘target’ political opponents” garbage. You may not like what I have to say, but you aren’t going to stop me from saying it. So go ahead, you can have my keyboard when you pry it from my cold dead fingers. 😉 (That one was for you Dave. Hope it makes you laugh.)
Then there is this guy
I think that he spent a lot of time proving that he was unfit to be a free member of society. It’s pretty sad that we can’t manage this behavior some other way, but he really needed to be in jail.
@Sean:
Based on Heller, I would be surprised if a case challenging that law, as you present it, would prevail.
That said, I find jokes about machine-gunning people — especially related to politics — distasteful at best.
And if we had an infallible way to know whether someone was going to escalate to multiple murders, I’d believe in it.
I would, as we described, feel better about three strikes, if the actual crimes involved demonstrated a threat to society. Possessing a “felony” amount of pot? Not so much.
Are you saying that you think that the Supreme Court would let this stand? I don’t think so. There are no other rights in the Bill of Rights that are dependent upon the whim of a government official. By definition, if your ability to do something is based upon whether or not the cops like you, it isn’t a right. Since the guy wasn’t charged with a crime, the police cannot claim a legal justification for taking his guns away. If they charge him with threats, they’ll lose badly in court. I think that the police have handed the Second Amendment Foundation an easy case to use to overturn the Massachusetts firearm permit system. They will end up having to re-engineer their system to reflect the fact that owning a firearm is a right, not a privilege. I don’t think that there’s any chance of getting rid of licensing entirely, but the licenses must be easily obtained and based upon objective, justifiable standards.
Quite a few jokes are distasteful. That doesn’t stop people from laughing at them. A person’s rights should not be dependent upon whether or not he tells distastful jokes. Nor if he holds political views that the authorities find distastful.
Dave – Glad to see that unlike Less you are capable of rational thought on the TJIC case.
Amen Sean. If I need to get a discretionary permit in order to exercise a “right” it is not in any way, shape or form a true right. The Chief of police could revoke a permit because you fucked his ex-wife. If you have to ask government permission AND said permission can be arbitarily revoked at any time without cause then you have no rights
As for what TJIC actually said. I don’t condone it, but I will absolutely fight for his right to say it. If I don’t fight for the rights of those who say things I find offensive and distasteful then who will stand up for mine when it’s my rights under fire?
Sean writes…
Who’s pissing and moaning? I just figured that, with you and Mike carrying on about how you weren’t going to stand for this sort of thing and implying that you’d rise up in armed revolt the next time some poor innocent gun owner had a run-in with the government, you’d want to know about it.
@mike w.
What did I say about it that was irrational? I don’t recall saying I agreed with the government taking his guns or not. I think TJIC is an idiot, but then I think a lot of people are idiots and yet I don’t advocate for their guns being taken away on that basis alone.
You and Sean can’t seem to get past your preconceptions about my views on gun control. Neither of you have provided any evidence that I’ve ever advocated for stricter gun control. You’re still butt-hurt that I dared to defend ***Dave’s right to speak his opinion on the topic. Something you claim to do for idiots like TJIC.
And what
@Sean:
No, quite the opposite. If they follow the precedent of their recent Heller decision, I’d expect such a provision would be shot down, for just the reasons you state.
Certainly objective and justifiable standards. How easy that makes it might vary depending on what one can justify.
True. Garnering laughter doesn’t make them “right,” though.
I fully agree.
\I am, hopefully understandably, concerned that when it comes to protests about gun rights, those seeking to protect what they hold dear will prove the point of their opponents. \
It seems unlikely. I’ve seen quite a few militia members and firearms enthusiasts be arrested and sent to prison for a looooong time and not one has fired a single shot in defense of their lives, liberty, and property. Instead they prefer to protest non-violently. I recall one storage shed in particular filled with goodies that got the man an effective life sentence. IIRC he had not only a rocket launcher but also rockets. The only exceptions to this rule are Ruby Ridge and Waco, and in both cases the government shot first. The government routinely kills people and their dogs – but firearms enthusiasts who possess superior firepower consistently show far more discretion in their use of the means of destruction.
“I think we’ve just seen a demonstration of how dangerous this particular weapon was.”
Yes, we did. The conclusion? Not that dangerous. 20 were shot and 6 were killed, at point blank range. These numbers are very similar to the mass knifings in China (and I believe Japan has had at least one).
“I believe we can demonstrate that, in the cases where they’ve chosen to do so, they have been much more lethally effective in doing so than those armed with bricks, knives, or fists.”
I haven’t seen any evidence of that. An edged weapon in the hands of a minimally trained lunatic would be deadlier than a firearm. Bullets often miss and often fail to kill – witness Giffords who survived a point blank gun shot to the head. A box cutter running perpendicular to any of the major arteries is far more likely to result in death.
“As I said, I think cops find themselves in dangerous situations more often than most civilians, including CCW holders. ”
Most surely true, but it is also most surely that citizens are put into MORE dangerous situations. Consider a woman facing an armed rapist/murderer. The cops have body armor, the AR and or shotgun, handgun and plenty of ammo, radios and back up that will show up ASAP. The woman has whatever she has, and a prayer/hope that the cops might show up…eventually. That’s why she should have as much firepower as she is comfortable with and can afford.
“Would you accept that there are certain firearms (and accoutrements) that your fellow citizens don’t “need” or shouldn’t have?”
Yes. Those which you can not afford to purchase, can not trade for, and can not acquire as a gift you don’t need and shouldn’t have.
“I’ve already gone on record saying I’m not calling for the ban of handguns (even if the Supreme Court allowed for it). I think there are reasonable restrictions on them and the process of obtaining and carrying them that would serve the purpose of allowing people needed self-protection while still reducing the overall firepower available for accidents, lunatics, criminals, or losses of temper.”
Such “reasonable restrictions” will put innocent people into prison while doing nothing to stop evil doers and doing nothing of consequence to reduce firepower. So long as diesel fuel and fertilizer are sold in this country we should be thankful that lunatics prefer pea-shooters.
“I think we can say that, without the availability of guns that he had, Loughner’s attack would have been less effective, at least.”
In Mexico guns are far less available, you can’t just go buy a Glock as Loughner did – yet you can easily acquire fully automatic assault rifles/battle rifles because guns are far more available.
“True. On the other hand, how many shoot-outs does the average gun owner actually get into that require 24 bullets (or that require all of the “only” 24)? Or how many extreme cases, rather? ”
How many commutes does the average car owner have that require a speed of over 65 MPH (or 75 MPH in some states)? None. Shouldn’t all vehicles have governors installed so speeding isn’t possible?
“I think I asked it earlier, of someone here, but do you believe any restrictions on firearms are appropriate?”
Let me ask you a question – do you advocate any restrictions on firearms that will result in hunters, target shooters, people prepared for self defense, collectors, etc serving prison time for their currently lawful activities???
“This is certainly not without cost. Many people would die of drug overdoses. ”
There are four primary causes of over doses.
1. Unknown and widely varying dose.
2. Interactions between multiple drugs, most commonly alcohol.
3. Misidentified drugs.
4. Ignorance regarding dosing.
All of these will be reduced greatly if prohibition were to end.