Hey now, let’s not be heckling teacher’s unions. They’re about to pay my ass straight cash for doing nothing 3 months out of the year.
But, really, all I’m referring to is heavy manufacturing and steel making and the like…you know, jobs where people lose limbs on an hourly or sometimes tri-hourly basis.
And Washington was a fine president, in that he was incredibly ahead of his time, and actually accomplished something worthwhile in his lifetime…only he accomplished like 8,000 worthwhile things. One of which was making a nation that didn’t suck in a world that was nothing but sucky nations that sucked.
Other possibilities include: Lincoln, Truman, and Kennedy.
In which case, I have no opposition to certain state-mandated safety regulations. Not only do I think that no one should have to accept a job involving the risking of life and limb, I think no one is entitled to accept such a job unless the risking of life and limb is somehow inextricably linked to the job (like police work, which is impossible to do without risking one’s life).
Okay. You’re obviously a smart guy. You have plenty of good points.
This is not one of them. It does follow that with this particular object, being designed to be shot means being designed to kill. You’re argument is like saying “a sword is designed to stab. It does not follow that it is designed to kill.” A gun propels a piece of metal at high speed toward its target. This damages the target heavily. That would be the point.
You acknowledge that aesthetics and deterrence are secondary purposes for the gun. Claiming that shooting, as opposed to injuring or killing is the purpose is disingenouos and semantic. Shooting is not an act with any meaning or purpose in and of itself. While you may be referring to shooting at a range or whatever, that is also not the primary purpose of a gun, just as shooting at targets is not the primary purpose of a bow.
The gun is designed to inflict heavy piercing damage on a target. Because inanimate objects don’t care when holes are poked in them, it is intended to be used on living beings, whether animals or humans. Its purpose, however, is to kill or injure. Shooting is not an end in itself.
You seem to have gotten lost in the rambling insanity of your own argument. The point about cars was in answer to your position that there are no good reasons to own mulitiple guns. There are also no good reasons to own multiple cars, and cars are dangerous, polluting, and require a relatively large input of resources. What I was demonstrating was that your argument was poorly defined; that is, it could be used to demonstrate that car ownership, or ownership of anything, really, should be restricted to one of each class of item.
Very well. I concede this. I am won over by your argument. No family should be allowed to own more than one car per member. The volume of pollution created by cars, and the unsustainability of our oil use, outweigh whatever pleasure Bill Gates may get from having a dodge viper in every color of the rainbow or whatever.
However, any argument against owning multiples of anything will still need to be warranted separately.
I will admit that cars are actually a particularly apt comparison: You cannot drive more than one car simultaneously the way an accomplished chef might handle several cuisinart.
What . . . are you talking about? You are aware that riots have in fact occured in the past, yes? And that stores were looted, burned, and otherwise destroyed during said riots? These aren’t abstractions, these are peoples lives. Peoples lives were actually destroyed by these riots. “Waving a gun in the air” may have saved these stores, thereby preventing the wasteful and illegal destruction of private property that ensued.
Yes, I am aware that riots have occured in the past. However, they are not a particularly common occurence in this great nation. Thus, I find it hard to justify an entire nation’s worth of assault rifles based on these extreme situations.
Further, I never suggested firing the gun. In fact, it was pretty clearly suggested that one shouldn’t fire the gun, as firing it would be illegal (yes, even into the air). I was laying out a lawful way to protect a piece of property.
Also, I never mentioned “negros.” I would like to point out that it was in fact you who brought the assumption that rioters need to be negros into this debate.
The negroes were a metaphor here, though perhaps an inappropriate one. I postulated a fantasy of racial warfare as I talked about your class warfare. No, you don’t want store-keepers to have assault rifles to protect them against Blacks. You want them to have assault rifles to protect themselves against the poor.
Yeah, the police have always done a fantastic job of preventing riots, and punishing rioters afterward. No one would ever need to protect their own property.
I concur. The police in this country can always use improvement.
There is no reason why we could not ban guns and improve the police. Also, again, riots are something of a rarity in this country, particularly the kind that loots and burns stores.
I would also argue that waving a gun around is not always enough to stop the mob.
Well, there are a few examples of this. One is the geographical argument you’re so fond of, but since I don’t buy that I won’t get into it. For direct evidence I would suggest John Lott, More Guns, Less Crime.
.
Not really direct evidence…
Though btw, as right-wingers go, I rather like John Lott (he shot down Anne Coulter during one of her bitch-fests).
Again, murder is a poor crime to hinge on, as murder is hard to prevent even with a gun. Further, the statistic that a gun in the home increases the likelyhood of murder is rife with problems. I am aware of the numbers you are using, and the primary problem with them is this: the study took cases of murder, and counted those where a gun was present in the home. They calculated the percentage of the murdered population that owned a gun, and compared it to the overall population. Unfortunately, this method is statistically unsound. This is because “homes with a murder” is not a random sampling of “homes.” Most murders occur in high-crime areas, so this study was skewed because they basically had a random sample of high-crime area homes, which they compared to the entire population of homes. Now, high-crime area homes are more likely than other homes to have guns, because people in low-crime areas who don’t hunt (this is most low-crime area people, by the way) don’t feel a need to own a gun, whereas in a high-crime area people are far more likely to feel threatened. Furthermore, individuals who feel that they are in danger personally are more likely to purchase guns than other individuals. This is true both in low- and high-crime areas. So, what that statistic demonstrates is that people who feel themselves to be in some sort of specific danger and/or live in a high-crime area are likely to own guns. Big shocker, there. And, of course, as mentioned above, guns are not much protection against attempted murder, unless you spend all your time behind a sand bags with your gun trained outward.
So, that statistic tells you nothing.
Very interesting. You’re probably right. There’s still the home invasion outcome statistic from earlier, though.
Yep. Proven to work in D.C. and Baltimore, anyway, what with those cities strict gun laws and low, low murder rates.
I must take issue with the generally held view of the D.C. statistics.
D.C. D.C. U.S.
Year MNNM Homicide MNNM
There is clearly a certain amount of fluctuation in murder rates between year to year. However, if we simply take averages, we get:
D.C. D.C. U.S.
MNNM Homicide MNNM
1969 to 1975: 34.8 33.4 8.7
1976 to 1987: 29.7 28.7 8.8
An insignificant national increase, but a 5-pont drop in homicides.
Does that provide you with some measure of gun-control efficiency?
Note that murder is a fine crime to work with here, as the ability to defend against it is irrelevant: the murder rate here has been reduced. While there maybe other factors (there always are), is it not reasonable to conclude that it is likely that a reduced availability of guns contributed to a significant decrease in murder?
You actually don’t need to measure those, although I’m sure the number is sizable. No, I was referencing the between one and two million crimes that are stopped by private citizens each year with the aid of guns. (One million is the number reported to the Justice Department, but as using a gun for self defense is so legally suspect in many areas the lowest estimates run considerably higher than that; even the Justice Department itself figures that a good number of foiled crimes are never reported, for one reason or another. Two million is the highest estimate I have seen)
I couldn’t find those stats with a brief search, though I did find a very small number (about 250) for justifyable homicide. As you point out, of course, it is hard to justify homicide under U.S. laws.
I was making the point that comparisons across geography are senseless. Russia is lawless, yes, but compared to Japan or Great Britain so is the U.S. Laws restraining police activity are a joke in those countries compared with our own, and as such it is much more difficult (in Japan, dammed near impossible) to commit a crime and get away with it, especially a serious crime. I suspect that the latitude given police officers, and law enforcement in general, is fairly important in establishing a low crime rate. Far more important than any variation on gun policy.
I don’t know about Japan, but restrictions on UK police officers are even tighter than those on American ones. It’s hard for UK police to even get guns.
The murder rate in Wyoming is less than that in D.C. And I question your “knowledge” about D.C.
See above.
This statement is logically unsound. Correlation does not imply causation. Of course, even if it did, I would still ask that you demonstrate a falling murder rate. Because as LPFab has mentioned, the studies we know about demonstrate a null effect on murder rate.
See above.
Look, you’re wrong about the market for illegal guns, so at least drop that, and shorten these posts up. One would exist, plain and simple. Further, you need to be more careful with your statistics. I’d love to seem some, but make sure that they are being used responsibly. So far, in two posts you’ve made two bogus statistical arguments.
All right, I’ll concede the black market arguments, except for this:
If guns are illegal, then you can bust criminals just for having them. This certainly would make the life of the police much easier. Also, some (though not all criminals) would find it harder to obtain weapons.
This certainly reduces the risk to police officers and others.
Now. You want some statistics.
1)In 1978, Canada passed C-51, a law which banned non-grandfathered automatic weapons, required the registration of other firearms, and generally tightened restrictions on their transportation and use. This was accompanied by a substantial drop in the firearm homicide rate:
Gun murders down. Other murders don’t increase to pick up the slack.
an experiment by the Kansas city police done in the early 90s, in which they went into a bad neighborhood and systematically and repeatedly devoted manpower solely to siezing illegal guns. The result? Gun crimes went down by more than 50% after 6 months. Searches followed all legal proceedings. No types of crime other than gun crime was significantly affected. There was no corresponding increase in gun crime in surrounding areas. Gun crime levels slowly returned to normal after the experiment ended.
It is possible to keep guns out of the hands of small-time crooks.
In general you are correct, shooting is not an end in itself. However, there are still more ends that require shooting than simply killing. This, though, is not really that important.
The reason that the multiple primary purposes of a gun are relatively unimportant for this debate is the importance, in this case, of secondary purposes. When I spoke of an active purpose, all that I meant was that it is designed, actively, simply to be shot. Its secondary purposes are very important, however. To try to say that police officers carry guns strictly so that they can kill criminals is just silly. In fact, criminals don’t even carry guns strictly for the purpose of killing people.
Very well. I concede this. I am won over by your argument. No family should be allowed to own more than one car per member. The volume of pollution created by cars, and the unsustainability of our oil use, outweigh whatever pleasure Bill Gates may get from having a dodge viper in every color of the rainbow or whatever.
However, any argument against owning multiples of anything will still need to be warranted separately.
The ‘multiples of anything’ argument follows in a trivial way: first, labor used to produce whatever is being collected is “wasted” in the sense that it could be used to produce something objectively useful, and second, the material used to produce the item is a further waste. In that there are no objective benefits to be acrued from individual collection of any item, the drawbacks on individual collection of any item outweigh the benefits; thus, collecting anything should be illegal.
I will admit that cars are actually a particularly apt comparison: You cannot drive more than one car simultaneously the way an accomplished chef might handle several cuisinart.
Well, actually, owning multiple cars can provide significant convenience, as different cars are designed for different things. The same, of course, goes for guns.
Yes, I am aware that riots have occured in the past. However, they are not a particularly common occurence in this great nation. Thus, I find it hard to justify an entire nation’s worth of assault rifles based on these extreme situations.
They are only extreme if you consider them as “number of riots,” and not “aggregate number of crimes committed during a riot.” Besides which, while assualt weapons are in many ways well-suited for dealing with riots in particular, they are also well-suited for dealing with any number of other property defense issues. You see, the one of the main benefits of an assualt rifle - assuming that the individual(s) you are defending yourself against have a reasonable expectation that it is a real, loaded assualt rifle - is that it looks scary. People have a fear and respect of assualt rifles, above and beyond that of “regular” guns, that can’t be explained merely by the differences between them. There is something about the look of an assualt rifle that frightens people, and this in turn makes deterence far easier.
Actually, it would probably be a good idea for us to stop arguing about assault rifles. You think that all guns should be restricted, so there really isn’t, from your point of view, anything special about assault rifles. As such, I can assume that you are making this argument for my benefit; but from my point of view, guns are useful as a deterent, and assault rifles are the most useful in this area, and should thus be allowed. Thus, you won’t convince me to ban assault rifles until you convince me to ban guns in general, and the same is true for me convincing you to allow them. This argument, then, is pretty pointless. I think that we’ve both been wasting our time.
The negroes were a metaphor here, though perhaps an inappropriate one. I postulated a fantasy of racial warfare as I talked about your class warfare. No, you don’t want store-keepers to have assault rifles to protect them against Blacks. You want them to have assault rifles to protect themselves against the poor.
Well, not exactly. I mean, I don’t really consider businessmen of any race, or suburban soccer moms, or, you know, anybody you would expect to be politically moderate to riot. In fact, I really woudn’t expect the truly poor to riot either; homeless people are a little bit too busy trying to survive to join a riot, I suspect. So, in the sense that I would like to see store owners (usually not in the rich “class,” mind you) be able to meaningfully protect their stores during riots, I would like them to be able to choose, if they wish, to own an assault rifle to defend themselves against anyone who might riot. And, obviously, the conditions that lead to a riot are not limited to race or class; the riots that have occured during meetings of the WTO, for instance, or after MSU plays a sporting event of any kind and with any outcome, have involved persons from very diverse backgrounds.
I concur. The police in this country can always use improvement.
There is no reason why we could not ban guns and improve the police. Also, again, riots are something of a rarity in this country, particularly the kind that loots and burns stores.
I was trying to make a much broader point here as well. Police in this country give a fairly poor showing at catching and convicting criminals, but I really don’t have too many proposed solutions to this problem, and nor was that really the main point that I wanted to make. My main point is that it is nearly impossible for police to stop a crime that is in progress, unless they are actually in the area when the crime starts. This is very unlikely, especially in large cities. Thus, I think that private citizens should be afforded the opportunity to defend themselves should a crime be perpetrated against them.
I would also argue that waving a gun around is not always enough to stop the mob.
That’s true, it won’t always be enough. Sometimes store owners will simply have to accept that their store is going to be looted/destroyed, but in the absence of a means to defend themselves that “sometimes” becomes “everytime.” I agree that guns are not a perfect method of stopping all crime, but that does not mean that they should not be allowed as a useful method of stopping some crime.
Very interesting. You’re probably right. There’s still the home invasion outcome statistic from earlier, though.
From earlier you mean an earlier post of yours, right? In which you demonstrated, effectively, that the outcome of a home invasion is nearly never affected by the presence of a gun? My answer to that was that you had shown nothing; the important statistic is number of home invasions. Since the outcomes are largely the same, the crucial fact is which system features a lower rate of home invasions.
I must take issue with the generally held view of the D.C. statistics.
D.C. D.C. U.S.
Year MNNM Homicide MNNM
There is clearly a certain amount of fluctuation in murder rates between year to year. However, if we simply take averages, we get:
D.C. D.C. U.S.
MNNM Homicide MNNM
1969 to 1975: 34.8 33.4 8.7
1976 to 1987: 29.7 28.7 8.8
An insignificant national increase, but a 5-pont drop in homicides.
Does that provide you with some measure of gun-control efficiency?
Okay, this is possibly significant, but for you to take an average like that you would need to demonstrate some expectation that, absent gun laws, the distribution of murders would be similar across this time period. I mean, maybe it means what you think that it does, maybe it doesn’t. It is, for example, highly suspect that starting from a point of no or limited laws and going to a point of strict laws would result in a significant change in the first year after enactment strictly for reasons related to gun availability. Notice that, after 1976, the rate begins to return to its pre-law rate, moving back into the low thirties. Another explanation for this data would be that gun laws have a limited, short-lived effect related largely to supply adjustments, but that the rate returns to its normal rate over time; you can see in the data that murder rates seem to run together over time, and it is highly possible that the mid-eighties rate was simply lower.
Look, I really can’t tell from this data. The rate in D.C tracks pretty well with the national rate, with only two meaningful deviations withing your data points: 1969 and 1979; this is true both before and after the law, and this includes simultaneous lows in the year of passage. The rate in D.C. seems to fluctuated, broadly, in the same direction, just more wildly (as you would expect). You would have to run a serious statistical analysis to try to demonstrate a significant change, an analysis that accounted for, for instance, shifts in the national rate.
Note that murder is a fine crime to work with here, as the ability to defend against it is irrelevant: the murder rate here has been reduced. While there maybe other factors (there always are), is it not reasonable to conclude that it is likely that a reduced availability of guns contributed to a significant decrease in murder?
Unfortunately, given the difficulties with the data (fluctuating levels, tracking with the national level, myriad causes of murder rates), it really wouldn’t be responsible to make that conclusion. Further, this is a single example; to make the conclusion that you want to make you would need a lot more examples.
I couldn’t find those stats with a brief search, though I did find a very small number (about 250) for justifyable homicide. As you point out, of course, it is hard to justify homicide under U.S. laws.
Those stats actually come from More Guns, Less Crime.
I don’t know about Japan, but restrictions on UK police officers are even tighter than those on American ones. It’s hard for UK police to even get guns.
I’m sorry, I should have been more clear. I wasn’t talking about their respective ability to obtain guns, or even to stop crimes that are in progress. I was talking about relative freedom and ability to conduct investigations after that fact. The greater success in investigating crimes in these two countries stems from two differences between these countries and the U.S. First, there are far fewer restrictions on police in other countries. Second, for cultural reasons private citizens are far more willing to assist police in their investigations. For these two reasons, committing any crime in one of these nations is dangerous, not because you might be harmed while committing it but because of the likelyhood that you will be caught and punished. This is part of the reason that crime rates are lower in these countries, which in turn contributes to a lower demand for firearms. I believe that my original argument on this point was, in fact, that for many reasons demand for firearms is lower in other countries.
All right, I’ll concede the black market arguments, except for this:
If guns are illegal, then you can bust criminals just for having them. This certainly would make the life of the police much easier. Also, some (though not all criminals) would find it harder to obtain weapons.
This certainly reduces the risk to police officers and others.
I doubt that many criminals would have a difficult time in obtaining guns. Further, police would only be able to bust someone openly carrying a gun, which by and large criminals don’t do - and you can be sure that none of them would if they knew that it would lead to their arrests. Concealing a hand gun especially is not very difficult, yet another reason that banning assault weapons is so silly: the vast majority of criminals wouldn’t want an assault rifle anyway, as they are next-to-impossible to conceal.
Now. You want some statistics.
1)In 1978, Canada passed C-51, a law which banned non-grandfathered automatic weapons, required the registration of other firearms, and generally tightened restrictions on their transportation and use. This was accompanied by a substantial drop in the firearm homicide rate:
Gun murders down. Other murders don’t increase to pick up the slack.
Why aren’t pre-1974 data included? First, the results aren’t that spectacular - they might not even be statistically significant. Second, the fact that so many years are excluded is an indication that this study may have been conducted with a desired outcome in mind - that is, data were selected that would support a conclusion already reached. Third, as mentioned above, there are myriad possible reasons for a fall in the murder rate.
an experiment by the Kansas city police done in the early 90s, in which they went into a bad neighborhood and systematically and repeatedly devoted manpower solely to siezing illegal guns. The result? Gun crimes went down by more than 50% after 6 months. Searches followed all legal proceedings. No types of crime other than gun crime was significantly affected. There was no corresponding increase in gun crime in surrounding areas. Gun crime levels slowly returned to normal after the experiment ended.
It is possible to keep guns out of the hands of small-time crooks.
Right, enforce the laws you already have on the books, and gun crimes fall. Note what Kansas City did: they didn’t outlaw guns, they just went after the ones that were already illegal. It is true that in the U.S. nearly all gun crimes are committed with illegally purchased guns. So, yes, devoting police power specifically to taking illegally purchased guns out of the hands of criminals can reduce the rate of gun crimes. Of course, any type of proactive policing can lower the crime rate substantially.
Also, you will note that they were not keeping guns out of criminals’ hands, they
were taking those guns out of those hands. This was necessary exactly because efforts to keep the guns out of their hands in the first place are so unsuccessful.
She said the reason conservative talk show hosts do better than liberal ones is because they have a pre-packaged audience: people driving to their jobs in cars. How is that not witty?
I feel like it’s okay because I have little to no Adam’s Apple to speak of, so she’s really just balancing out the universe. I’m a fag, she’s a dyke… even Steven
As a general point, More Guns, Less Crime is a partisan source. I don’t really consider his statistics valid… unless, of course, he is quoting from an unbiased study, in which case you could give that. The statistic sources should be in the endnotes or something.
I would argue that this, too, is secondary to the debate. Because if either gun control or gun freedom significantly reduce crime, then this riot thing becomes pretty irrelevant.
I was trying to make a much broader point here as well. Police in this country give a fairly poor showing at catching and convicting criminals, but I really don’t have too many proposed solutions to this problem, and nor was that really the main point that I wanted to make. My main point is that it is nearly impossible for police to stop a crime that is in progress, unless they are actually in the area when the crime starts. This is very unlikely, especially in large cities. Thus, I think that private citizens should be afforded the opportunity to defend themselves should a crime be perpetrated against them.
I would really like to see something besides just argument (i.e. statistics, and not ones from More Guns, Less Crime) that show that private citizens with guns are really able to stop crime.
That’s true, it won’t always be enough. Sometimes store owners will simply have to accept that their store is going to be looted/destroyed, but in the absence of a means to defend themselves that “sometimes” becomes “everytime.” I agree that guns are not a perfect method of stopping all crime, but that does not mean that they should not be allowed as a useful method of stopping some crime.
My argument is that guns cause more trouble than they solve. To this end, the geographical argument really does make a big difference.
The US has the most guns per capita, and the most gun deaths per capita. Switzerland is second in both. After that there is a significant drop off to Canada. Murder, as you’ve said, is a hard crime to defend against. So we can therefore say that a decrease in the murder rate probably implies a decrease in the attempts at murder, or at least a resort to a less effective weapon.
From earlier you mean an earlier post of yours, right? In which you demonstrated, effectively, that the outcome of a home invasion is nearly never affected by the presence of a gun? My answer to that was that you had shown nothing; the important statistic is number of home invasions. Since the outcomes are largely the same, the crucial fact is which system features a lower rate of home invasions.
So… you’re arguing that the lack of gun control inherently reduces home invasions simply because people might have guns?
(I am not going to argue on about the Washington statistics. I just want to point out that, as you say, the issue is muddled. It doesn’t disprove the geographical argument. Anyway, getting guns from the rest of the nation into DC is relatively easy compared to bringing them across national borders. DC gun laws would be a lot more effective if the rest of the nation was with them).
I’m sorry, I should have been more clear. I wasn’t talking about their respective ability to obtain guns, or even to stop crimes that are in progress. I was talking about relative freedom and ability to conduct investigations after that fact. The greater success in investigating crimes in these two countries stems from two differences between these countries and the U.S. First, there are far fewer restrictions on police in other countries. Second, for cultural reasons private citizens are far more willing to assist police in their investigations. For these two reasons, committing any crime in one of these nations is dangerous, not because you might be harmed while committing it but because of the likelyhood that you will be caught and punished. This is part of the reason that crime rates are lower in these countries, which in turn contributes to a lower demand for firearms. I believe that my original argument on this point was, in fact, that for many reasons demand for firearms is lower in other countries.
Firstly, I’d argue that the drop in statistics is far too great to be explained simply by deterrance. I doubt that the average criminal actually considers this in detail. Plus, we have the death penalty. I would imagine that a smaller chance at a greater penalty would at least balance somewhat with a greater chance at a smaller penalty. Lastly, you would need to support your argument with statistics showing that rates of all crimes are lower in those countries.
I doubt that many criminals would have a difficult time in obtaining guns. Further, police would only be able to bust someone openly carrying a gun, which by and large criminals don’t do - and you can be sure that none of them would if they knew that it would lead to their arrests. Concealing a hand gun especially is not very difficult, yet another reason that banning assault weapons is so silly: the vast majority of criminals wouldn’t want an assault rifle anyway, as they are next-to-impossible to conceal.
First, the kansas statistics show that it is possible to keep guns out of the hands of criminals if we make the effort. And while restricting guns in the U.S. obviously won’t totally eliminate the gun trade, it will certainly make it much more difficult for criminals to replentish their supply of guns.
You said that the British police were unable to stop some assault rifles getting into the UK, but the gun death rate is still much, much lower.
Just because gun control won’t have 100% efficiency doesn’t mean its a bad idea.
Why aren’t pre-1974 data included? First, the results aren’t that spectacular - they might not even be statistically significant. Second, the fact that so many years are excluded is an indication that this study may have been conducted with a desired outcome in mind - that is, data were selected that would support a conclusion already reached. Third, as mentioned above, there are myriad possible reasons for a fall in the murder rate.
Dunno why pre-1974 data wasn’t included. If you (or any canadian on this board) wants to check it out, I would be very interested in what the previous rates are. I still don’t think that your arguments are enough to discount the data entirely.
Right, enforce the laws you already have on the books, and gun crimes fall. Note what Kansas City did: they didn’t outlaw guns, they just went after the ones that were already illegal. It is true that in the U.S. nearly all gun crimes are committed with illegally purchased guns. So, yes, devoting police power specifically to taking illegally purchased guns out of the hands of criminals can reduce the rate of gun crimes. Of course, any type of proactive policing can lower the crime rate substantially.
Unfortunately, the legality of guns makes it a hell of a lot easier for criminals to replenish the gun supply. I am aware that a black market will always be there, BUT, just like you claim stronger policing powers will deter many lesser criminals, I would argue that stopping people from legally buying guns, and prosecuting them merely for their possession would certainly have a similar (if not much greater) effect.
And the particularly hardened criminals who pick up illegal weapons on the black market would probably win out agains homeowners that were armed.
Also, you will note that they were not keeping guns out of criminals’ hands, they
were taking those guns out of those hands. This was necessary exactly because efforts to keep the guns out of their hands in the first place are so unsuccessful.
And I will always argue that stopping people from illegally buying guns will do a lot of that job. True, there will always be a black market, but it will never equal the real one. Again, there is a black market everywhere gun control has been successful, too.
Not that I want to get back into this argument, because I long ago decided that it has reached silliness, but I feel I have to point out that, regardless of what the two of you (I’m talking about T and Detritus) decide, it’s not actually possible to ban guns in the United States. There’s a bit in the Constitution that rather specifically states that that’s not allowed. The amendment process being what it is, that’s not likely to change either. So even if Jesus descends from on high to inform us all that salvation is impossible unless we outlaw guns, we’re just going to have to tell him he’s out of luck.
Freedom’s a bitch, Detritus. It requires people to be responsible.
In spite of extensive recent discussion and much legislative action with respect to regulation of the purchase, possession, and transportation of firearms, as well as proposals to substantially curtail ownership of firearms, there is no definitive resolution by the courts of just what right the Second Amendment protects. The opposing theories, perhaps oversimplified, are an ‘‘individual rights’’ thesis whereby individuals are protected in ownership, possession, and transportation, and a ‘‘states’ rights’’ thesis whereby it is said the purpose of the clause is to protect the States in their authority to maintain formal, organized militia units. Whatever the Amendment may mean, it is a bar only to federal action, not extending to state or private restraints. The Supreme Court has given effect to the dependent clause of the Amendment in the only case in which it has tested a congressional enactment against the constitutional prohibition, seeming to affirm individual protection but only in the context of the maintenance of a militia or other such public force.
Certainly not, but no Supreme Court I know is going to allow the federal government to ban all ownership of guns. I think everyone is clear that the Second Amendment does not allow enough room for total prohibition.
Whatever the Amendment may mean, it is a bar only to federal action, not extending to state or private restraints.
This is only partially true. The privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment makes it perfectly clear that all constitutionally-protected rights must be protected by the individual states as well. The Supreme Court has never given the weight to this clause that it rightfully deserves, but have, by and large, reached the correct conclusions anyway through the application of substantive due process (see again the Fourteenth Amendment). Substantive due process is clunky and textually unfounded, but I have little doubt that the Supreme Court would be more than willing to use it to protect the rights of citizens to own guns… though certainly they would not protect the right to own, say, assault rifles.
The Supreme Court has given effect to the dependent clause of the Amendment in the only case in which it has tested a congressional enactment against the constitutional prohibition, seeming to affirm individual protection but only in the context of the maintenance of a militia or other such public force.
Do you know which case this was? I’d love to read it.