I own firearms. I have built firearms. I have a a CCW. I support gun rights. I find it amusing (to no end really) when people treat my arguments as if I want to ban guns because I do not mindlessly repeat bumper sticker catch phrases without thought or reason. 1. Please stop comparing guns to cars, cans of oven cleaner, or roller pins. Just stop. I will stop dismissing this silly argument when you start carrying a rolling pin over a gun. You contradict yourself out the gate with this one, you claim that rolling pin can be used to kill and is just like a gun. Then why not carry a rolling pin for a concealed weapon? Whats that? Oh, yeah, firearms are a more effective way of maiming or killing someone than something as silly as a rolling pin. I carry a gun because it is the most effective way of stopping an attacker. It is a deadly weapon. Stop using silly and intellectually dishonest means of dodging the issue. 2. I am not anti-gun. I do not live in a Libertarian utopia where everyone is responsible and would never ever think of harming anyone. We live in a world where if people have an opportunity for X they will pursue it. We will never ever prevent determined people from acquiring firearms. Ever. Pro-gun control advocates, read this, understand it, and drop the whole "Well if he didn't have a gun this wouldn't have happened". It doesn't work that way. Pro-gun people, just because people break a law does not make it ineffective. Just because someone breaks a law does not means it should be repealed. We can do our best to prevent people from acquiring firearms legally. It protects our rights, it protects gun dealers, and makes it harder to pass further gun control. You have to wait thirty minutes for a background check? Big whoop. 3. More guns less crime. There is no link between guns and crime. Period. I have not found a trend between states. Too few guns are used for self-defense and even a smaller number used in crimes. More guns = more gun crimes. The more prevalent guns are the more crimes that will be committed with firearms. Simple fact. Silliness like "more guns means less gun crimes" is silly and has no basis in reality or common sense. Please save your Gun Cite links, thank you. 4. Stop talking about waging war with the government. It is silly. Makes us all look like paranoid right wing militia members. You are not going to battle the US government with sporting rifles. The idea of waging war with the government became obsolete with the advent of armor and air power. Also, you talk about revolution on a public forum? Amusing. 5. You cite the Foundling Fathers. Thats cool. They also lived two hundred years. Oh, and they registered firearms for public use should the need ever arose. But wait, you oppose gun registration. I guess barring firearms from blacks was also a noble thing. Oh wait, racism isn't cool anymore. Late night thoughts.
While the notion of fighting a government with rifles is not as valid as it once was, it has still not lost validity. This could be the topic for a whole other thread, let's not debate this here. And no one is even suggesting war against a democratically elected government. The idea is to help ensure that the government stays democratically elected. The argument is to not let the government hold a monopoly on the means of force. If the government is truely "of the people", there is no reason that the government should be trusted with guns more than the citizens.
What you say is not without merit. Though I do disagree with some points. To me a firearm is a tool, nothing more. I can put a loaded firearm on the street and it can sit there for 100 years without hurting someone because it is an inanimate object. It has no free will and will not do anything unless a human being makes it do something. I would honestly be more comfortable with a firearm pointed at my head than with a snake around my neck, as many of the customers at my job do, because that snake has free will, and can make the choice to turn and cause harm. That being said I am all for background checks for gun ownership. I would like to see a zero tolerance policy with gun crime. While felons cannot own guns currently, I believe that it should be expanded to include violent misdemeanors. Additionally mental health checks would not be a bad idea if they were implemented properly. Your argument of waging war on the government. I truly hope it will never come to that in this country. While it is not spelled out in the Constitution, if you read the private comments of the Founding Fathers it is clear that they wanted an armed population in case the government overstepped its authority. Personally I don't think a member of the U.S. military would ever fire on a U.S. citizen or a pilot would bomb a U.S. neighborhood, but that point is irrelevant. I certainly don't think I could ever pull the trigger on a U.S. soldier, but again, I hope it never comes to that. You claim that the founding fathers lived two hundred years ago and that we should not just accept everything that was written. 200 years ago radio, satellite and tv communications didn't exist, but we have not limited those rights, in fact we have expanded free speech laws. Just because times change I don't believe we should gut our Constitution.
The whole point of the Gun Control Thread is debating how effective laws that control guns have been. All and all, the laws that focus on guns themselves, and not the people who use them, are of no great consequence in reducing crime. Real crime control must focus on hardcore justice for anyone who commits violent crime---whether guns are used or not.
My argument is very simple. I need the means to protect myself. Nobody has a legitimate reason to deprive me of that right.
revolution, it's not such an impossibility. people, who think it is, think that every trooper is some kind of robot. it's not true. once they know the truths they'll be off doing their own revolution. and to be honest no revolution has ever been done without extrinsic influences. if we were to begin a substantial revolution we WOULD be invaded by foreign forces and they would take one side or the other. it actually wouldn't be too difficult to take and occupy the white house. if a few thousand people descended on the white house and just pushed our way in it wouldn't be a terribly difficult building to gatecrash without weapons at all tho i'm sure such a force might suffer a number of fatalities. but if yer trying to tell me that weapons could possibly stop a dedicated revolution even a completely unarmed dedicated revolution, i think you're just a pundit or something.
hardcore justice - well that isn't much of a deterrent either. the issue is people feeling like they have no choice but to commit crime. also it's comes from a lack of faith that a particular crime should be illegal in the first place. it also comes from social divisions do to the extreme size and multicultural nature of the population. it's a salad bowl not a melting pot. amaricans dont feel like americans especially the people out flying the flag. they all feel like a lone person in a jungle where they have to take sides join groups and make a stand against one another. it's too big for a collective sense of family. everyone is just predator and prey. that's just how it is i guess.
I dont think anyone is arguing that you dont have the right. The question comes down to, how far can you take that right? Should machine guns be widely available? After all, that would be great for home deffense wouldnt it? Should I be able to drive a tank to work with a shoulder mounted bazooka to protect myself from drive bys? If you want defense? There is no better means of defense than a shot gun. No need for handguns or assault rifles. Like to hunt? Single shot rifles are just fine for that. I dont need to throw 20 slugs into a deer in under 30 seconds. Most people wont argue that we have the right to defend our self. The questions revolve around, how far does that right go?
Machine guns are fine. I trust our sevicemen to carry them. I carried one during my tour and still have the physical wherewithal to keep and bear one. Affording ammunition on full auto is the challenge. Depends on the challenge one faces that can influence what is best. Why do you want control of your fellow citizens choices? Unsat argument to deny another their constitutional right. Always had the thought that whatever firearms the common US fighting man is supplied with and carries should not be a problem for his civilian counterpart to keep and bear.
From my liberal perspective, this issue seems more of a leadership problem on the part of municipal governments, since a well regulated militia is what is specifically enumerated as necessary to the security of a free State, and therefore, its organs. We could be lowering our tax burden and our war on crime, through recourse to a well regulated militia to better ensure the domestic tranquility of our free States.
the right to bear arms is not tied to nor dependant upon any militia. the SCOTUS has been quite clear on the distinction
I'd say that comparisons depend on what the particular issue being discussed is at the moment. For example if the issue were mass killings, a gun is not the deadliest thing out there. Homebrewed explosives and vehicular attacks have resulted in higher death tolls. Melee weapons lag somewhat, but not a lot. I'm assuming you've heard of gun town USA already, but let me know if you haven't. But generally yes, studies have a hard time finding relationships between gun prevalence and overall crimes rates, at least to the extent that the effect of guns is dwarfed by other effects. However that's for overall crime rate. Guns have other effects that come out more clearly. Being armed signifianctly reduces that odds a woman will actually be raped if attacked. A rapist attacking a woman with a firearm probably doesn't affect averaged statistics, but there it is. There is also the question of the sorts of crime perpetrated. The way studies are typically structured if an old lady shoots an intruder that might count as a homicide (and depending on the laws in the state and the details of the encounter the charges might stick). But even if that goes down as reduced crime, a few drug dealers shooting it out will equalize things at a high level. Also the presence of guns does seem to alter whether criminals choose to engage in home invasions vs burgleries where no-one is present. Which also doesn't actually change the crime rate. Take those for what you will. If you're actually interested I could try and dig up sources at some point.
Potential alone isnt reason to regulate. You have to weigh potential and actual harm. You dont like the car example but its a good one - good potential for doing harm, and causes more harm than firearms, yet almost totally unregulated. I find room for agreement with that. Read the book, review the studies, then talk about "more guns less crime". Tell that to the Taliban. They will be amused. So will the Vietnamese. Insurgents dont fight your strength, they fight your weakness. Time doesn't make the truth less relevent. Or less truthful.
OK, I agree that there is no valid "more guns less crime" or visa versa validity in measured studies but I just could not resist this.
Im certainly not a member of the survivalist / arm to defeat the government if need be set. They may have a sound concept, maybe not; I dont know. I just dont see myself taking to the hills and making a success of it. Quick segue to a book, "The Turner Diaries". I read part of it, then, feeling a bit ill, threw it in the trash. The part where people like me were to be hung from light posts was what did it. The part relevant here was that the account starts with the government deciding to seize all the guns, followed by guerilla warfare against the government. The concept was to make so many attacks in so many places that the capacity of law enforcement to successfully investigate was compromised and then broke down entirely. Obviously doing a concord bridge stand against the army would not be such a success now.
I haven't heard of the book. Sounds gruesome but civil war can be very cruel and disgusting. This idea that a govt is all powerful is foolish. Look at Iraq. The US swept them off the battlefield in a week but it took 8 years, $1T, and 5,000 casualties dealing with pissed off peasants with AKs. That was against an originally unarmed and enslaved population who actually supported the US at first. Ditto Afghanistan. And Vietnam and Cuba and even the US revolution. Look at Syria right now. History is full of powerful govt's losing to "rebels". A head to head engagement wouldn't be wise but not because it would be a bunch of yaahoo's up against an armoured division. A state doesnt have the resources to mount a full strength military but it has plenty of resources to be effective. Each state has a National Guard with equipment, many have had multiple tours in Iraq/Afghanistan. There are many ex-military with combat experience and extensive training in insurgency warfare. There are the state/local law enforcement. Finally there are the many people with arms and basic ability. If this happened in your state, you might be on the sidelines at first, but that changes. Once people "invade" your home, you tend to take sides quickly. Go back to Iraq, how many people fought us because all the little things started to add up, the home searches at 2 am, their mother and sister disrespected, patrols in the streets, the checking of papers and questioning, quality of life suffers, etc. Or a civilian is accidentally killed, or something was blown out of proportion and the propaganda machine went to work. It becomes personal.
It is not a good one. The 50,000 who die in auto accidents die in accidents. Not homicides. They are not comparable. I used to subscribe to that belief until I did my own research. There is not a correlation between guns and crime. They also had more than sporting rifles, the argument is moot. Sure it does. The 2nd Amendment today is not used in the same matter as it was way back when. The 2nd Amendment in the context of the original writing has very little relevance today.
I actually agree with just about everything here. I do not believe that the use and misuse of guns effects an overall crime rate in a significant way. The overall effect seems to low or non-existent, but as you said, on an individual basis the effect is important. The crime rate is largely unaffected by CCW, but to the person who is able to utilize it, it is rather important.
the right to bear arms is in no way tied to nor dependant upon any militia. we've already been down this road, and you lost.
WTF? You fight me for days against the idea of banning LCM's with no substantial argument and now you post this? One of us is very confused about how they feel about guns.
Rahl, I only lost your special pleading argument, which by no latitude of construction should ever be considered anything more than sacrificing the end to the means; contrary to the "dictates of plain reason and legal axioms". The Second Amendment merely exempts a well regulated militia (of the United States) from State gun control (laws) in favor of federal gun control as prescribed by our federal Congress.
