Some facts about guns in the US

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by James R, Dec 17, 2012.

  1. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    It referred to proper and functioning equipment, as well as personal discipline and training. For example, a British Navy midshipman who made sure that his area of the ship was well regulated, as was his explicit duty, would make sure that the right kinds and amounts of rope were present and properly stored. More examples: http://www.constitution.org/cons/wellregu.htm
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    And conversely a deep mistrust of the gun advocates who seem to want to give criminals and the insane an unlimited right to own weapons. Both extremes do damage to any progress on the front of gun legislation.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,479
    you really want to go there. cause if you do at that time the phrase bear arms was used in a completely military sense. hell even to do most people still view with a heavily military connatation despite the best efforts of NRA propagandists.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    What "poor reasoning and abuse of statistics?" The number of Americans killed every year by Americans with guns is roughly equal to the number who are killed in road accidents.

    Highway safety has been a major crusade in the USA since I was a child in the 1950s. Why is gun safety not? You have to have training, insurance and a license to drive in the USA--and cars have a useful purpose that makes them indispensable. Why can any doofus buy a gun?

    Cars have sprouted safety glass, rear-view mirrors, safety belts, air bags, soft bumpers and myriad other safety accessories. Meanwhile, heavily-traveled roads have become limited-access and monodirectional with no cross traffic, and peppered with Bott's Dots and now rumble strips to wake us up if we drift.

    What safety improvements have guns sprouted? The simple expedient of making it impossible for anyone but the owner to fire a gun--which would eliminate the sad instances of clever children finding them as well as their use by criminals after being stolen--has drawn more opposition than mandatory motorcycle helmets did.

    Americans with guns have killed one hundred times as many Americans as terrorists have in this century. Why have we turned the country upside down and destroyed what little stability the Middle East ever had in a failed attempt to wipe out terrorists, but have done virtually nothing to curb gun deaths at the hands of our own people?

    Is this what you refer to as poor reasoning and abuse of statistics?
     
  8. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    No, nothing has changed in the Constitution, just the convenient way of interpretation of the words.

    From wiki:
     
  9. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,479
    what is probably meant is the statistics don't agree with a pro gun ideology so the people that are tired of seeing innocents die must be loony people misusing statistics.
     
  10. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    That is not true. It's not even true right here, in posts you can read for yourself in this thread of this forum. It is doubly false in the common rhetoric of political discourse available on television and in speeches and in comments by people with real political power as quoted in my newspaper every week for many years now.

    Take the bizarre and illiterate misrepresentations of it out of the gun controller's rhetoric, and the argument vanishes.

    American's have, guaranteed to them in writing, a Constitutional right - that's a right, the big R, equivalent to freedom of speech and religion, on a par with fair trial and protection from "cruel and unusual punishments" - to keep and bear firearms appropriate for a well-equipped militia should the need for one ever arise. Start there, with universal recognition of that plain fact.

    That and every other post of yours on this topic, yes indeed. You are exhibit A around here whenever anyone challenges the irrationality, flagrancy, ubiquity, and political significance of the vendetta-addled authoritarian gun banisher. The governmental policies you advocate, and especially the justifications you demand we accept for imposition of authoritarian force and abrogation of Constitutional rights, are a bigger threat to most American citizens than the bizarrely irresponsible and inadequate gun governance we suffer under now.

    Why yes. As I have now posted about fifteen times around here, this is one of the very few - and possibly the only - US political issue that actually seems to be polarized into two sides of equivalently irrational and hazardous extremists with public platforms and political influence. And as evidence of that, I point to the failure of the wingnut Right to take refuge behind the "both sides" rhetoric they normally employ to obscure their own role, in this debate.

    And in further parallel with the fantasy setup the "both sides" yakpointers attempt to build in the poisonous air of other issues, the reality here is of a large and moderate and sane central position of potential agreement.

    Almost everyone, including the large majority of NRA members let alone gun owners in general, wants to have every gun buyer pass a background check that excludes the violent, the criminal, and the mentally ill. They want everyone carrying a firearm in a populated place, so that it might pose an immediate threat, to have received some formal basic instruction in gun safety and management, and to act in conformance with specific regulations designed to protect the people around them. We know this by having taken surveys and polls, and engaged in debates, and so forth.

    So given this basic situation, what has been in fact the major obstacle to general agreement and enactment of sensible regulation? And related to that: Why is it that the people digging in their heels and rigidly opposing the actual political enactments proposed are so often members of the large majority of the reasonable, as identified by inquiry?

    Try this possibility out: maybe the inability of so many gun "control" advocates to read the 2nd Amendment for its plain meaning is a symptom, an indication, of their actual agenda here - and it's dangerous. It's a threat.
     
  11. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    OK, let's do that. But let's start with accurately quoting the 2nd Amendment, shall we?
    QUOTE iceaura;
    What "plain fact"?

    Please cite the passage in the 2nd Amendment where it says "well equipped" instead of "well regulated".
    Then also, there is this little qualifier.
    wiki:
    Seems you may want to revisit the Second Amendment and quote it correctly, instead of posting a bizarre and illiterate interpretation of the "intended meaning" in context of a time in history of single shot black powder long rifles, instead of shoulder mounted missiles, as well as sawed off shotguns, which i find odd if compared to a modern automatic weapon, such as:
    Damn, I gotto get me one of them puppies. It's legal, right? And as i live in No Idaho, we have this occasional bear going through our garbage.

    Just hook up a motion sensor and NO ONE comes close to MY garbage!
     
  12. sculptor Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,466
    wow
    puff never had it so good
     
  13. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    When I am quoting something, you will be able to tell by my inclusion of it in a quote box, or my use of quotation marks. When I am not using quote marks or boxes, I am not quoting or intending to quote. Literate English language readers know this, it's part of a liberal arts education.

    Meanwhile, the part where the 2nd Amendment says "well regulated" includes (and emphasizes, in context) well equipped. That's part of what well regulated means, in a Constitution written in English in the late 1700s. That's why the term was used there in direct reference to equipment - firearms - that would be necessary to a well regulated militia. You can't have a well regulated militia unless the private citizens assembling themselves into that militia have brought militia quality firearms, because a militia without appropriate firearms is not well regulated. See the links above.

    The writers of the Constitution did not throw in tangential side comments not directly relevant to the intended meaning. They meant what they said. The 2nd Amendment does not pause to observe the importance of the militias of the US following good rules, on the way to talking about this other matter of guns. It is all about the guns.

    I used well equipped to describe the critical aspect of the meaning of the Amendment because I am familiar with the confusions common to people who do not have decent liberal arts educations, are unfamiliar with subordinate clauses, and have not read a single book or essay or letter or manual or anything written before 1900 and using the term "regulated". It's natural to mistake the term as referring to regulations in some narrow sense of written rules and procedures only. It does not. They are included, of course, as is everything involved in a well regulated militia, but the specific aspect dealt with in the 2nd Amendment is the crucial one of armament.

    No Constitutional rights are unlimited and without legal restriction or governance.
     
  14. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    So, you just made that up then? I believe in Liberal Arts this would be called "poetic license".

    Define well equipped in context of joining a militia and how that has any bearing on the right to own a gun, providing that the ownership of that gun is and remains well regulated.

    Or perhaps by referring to well equipped you mean, "my gun is bigger than your gun"?

    I find it very creative to turn a constitutional right (oh, with a capital R) into a "condition" of being well equipped. I always thought that the 2nd Amendment gave a person the right to own a gun, after meeting certain required regulations.

    I wonder what SCOTUS would have to say about your interpretation of the term "a well regulated militia" into a "well equipped militia".

    Perhaps you should stay with your Liberal Arts endeavors instead of trying to interpret Constitutional Law.
     
  15. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    I attempted to clarify what is obviously unfamiliar language and rhetorical structure for you and others here. You could check for yourself - read a British Navy midshipman's manual from the time, follow up on the link I provided above, get hold of a good dictionary (the complete Oxford any edition, the American Heritage Third) and read it carefully, something; several avenues of information are available to you.

    Doubling down on your investment in ignorance is not recommended.

    Again? You are really struggling with this, apparently.

    Once again: Well regulated militias are necessary, in the view of the author of the 2nd Amendment, to the security of the State. To be well regulated, a militia has to be appropriately armed. To be appropriately armed, a militia has to be assembled from an appropriately armed civilian population. To help secure the existence of an appropriately armed population, and thereby the ability to form well regulated militias, and thereby the State, the right of that population to keep and bear such arms was therefore guaranteed.

    It's clever wording, because the common excuse given by the aristocracies and autocrats and monarchs and rulers familiar to the author, for disarming regular citizens (a routine preliminary to oppression and tyranny throughout history as the author knew it), was that it was necessary for the security of the State. That line of justification was preempted, nullified in advance, by the phrasing of the 2nd Amendment.

    The 2nd Amendment does not mention any regulation of people - there is certainly no reference at all to any "regulations" that any person not at the moment joined to a militia would have to "meet".

    And you have it backwards: Constitutional rights by their nature as rights are automatically in a citizen's possession, and can only be abrogated by a State that has met certain "required regulations" we usually describe as "due process". The Constitution was written to limit the State, not the citizenry.
     
  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    Well, that and abortion. And climate change. And immigration. And health care.

    Agreed, but that's true of most such contentious issues.

    I don't think most people who oppose (or support) gun rights have this hidden agenda that is so often ascribed to them. As you mention above, most people are pretty moderate.
     
  17. Truck Captain Stumpy The Right Honourable Reverend Truck Captain Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,263
    PLEASE NOTE: this is not directed AT anyone, I am just using the words from a specific post because I thought of some relevant data that I wanted to add to the picture.

    Please note that the above actually says
    the MILITIA was called upon from the general populace, so there is no way that any founding father ever meant to disarm the public.

    what I actually find fascinating is that people are so willing to polarize the issue with their fear rather than take an objective look at the situation and address the actual root causes for the concern regarding guns.
    as long as there are lawyers, there will be people willing to argue over the meanings of the words.
    Actually, you are wrong about taking those weapons away, as proven by the governments recent tactics in various places like New Jersey and New York, or with Veterans.

    Here is a thought: WHY are the politicians addressing guns? really ask that question to yourself. If you go to http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/ or to http://www.justice.gov/ and really start looking at all the numbers, you will see that screwdrivers and hammers are more likely to kill you than guns. Where is the regulation for them? Any fool, child, mentally disturbed person, etc (add fearful or shocking adjectives for a group of people here) can purchase them without a license. But there are no BANS being considered for them.

    The gun is a tool. nothing more.
    it is a lump of metal that is inert until properly (or improperly) utilized by a human. there are no moral attachments to this tool until a human uses it in a certain manner, and then we attach the intent of the person to the tool.
    The ROOT CAUSE is the use by humans and the attached moral issues that should be considered, not the restriction of the tool (like the above reference about hammers, etc)

    If you go to Colion Noir's web site and watch his video's (found here: http://www.mrcolionnoir.com/ and here: https://www.youtube.com/user/MrColionNoir ), you will see a well thought out logical assessment of the situation regarding the gun issue. He is PRO-gun.

    throw away the fearful baggage and the stereotyping and learn to look at the situation with objectivity. Making comments like "no one really needs a gun" is comically stupid and worse than ignorant because no other person can possibly know the situations of every other person on the planet.
    one last thing: historically, places like LA, Chicago, New York and more have been anti-gun and banned them (regardless of what the Supreme Court says)... take a look at the actual crime statistics for those places. the crimes are getting WORSE because only the criminals are armed.

    think about it.
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2014
  18. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,479
    why aren't you a prenticious. gun control advocates have read the second amendment and actually understood it. unlike you who have eaten up the NRA propaganda about the second amendment. so please don't insult me simply because you've decided to go whith the NRA's new precedent rather than the one that's existed before. you pro gun agenda and inability to actually you know understand the history of the debate on it show. I suggest rather than getting on your pedastel and lecturing people who you know are actualy right and have done the research and get of high horse and do the research. the second amendment as written and for the first 3 quarters of the US did not provide for a right to a gun. the second amendment as written provides for one to have a military grade weapon yes but only for militia duties. actually the closest example of how the second amendment is written would be switzerland. no where in the second amendment is there a provision for a right to a weapon for personal use. that idea was NRA propaganda that started 4 to 5 decades ago.
     
  19. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    Let's NOT go to the British Navy Midshipman's manual and stay with the actual wording of the 2nd Amendment, shall we?

    Doubling down on your investment in legal nonsense is not recommended.

    No, I am struggling to follow your convoluted thinking and intended purpose of your interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.

    And who is responsible for the well equipping of the general population, before they are called to defend their country?

    Of course we are a democracy and we have the Right to vote them out of office for malfeasance if necessary. It is called "due process"

    The 2nd Amendment does not mention any regulation of people - there is certainly no reference at all to any "regulations" that any person not at the moment joined to a militia would have to "meet".[/quote]
    Exactly, but you are throwing in terms like "well equipped militia". How about training, pay, supplies, communications, in peace time?

    Where does it say that the State must be regulated in context of its citizenry? Does the State need to be regulated for a citizen to own a car or is ownership and use of a car on public roads.
    Does the car needs to be well equipped, other than meeting the regulations for driving on public roads? These regulations consisting of registration and proof of ownership, insurance, and a driving test to insure the user is competent to drive?

    and
    The term well regulated militia is to prevent the formation of an independent unidentifiable internal terrorist army which could be used to overthrow the government. IMO the KKK was (is) a militia and a very dangerous one at that as it appears that they are now (and probably always have) infiltrating State and Local law enforment agencies.

    This whole debate is ridiculous. When you buy a gun, have it registered, so that the government knows who to call in times of emergency or can identify the gun and owner if it was used in a crime. No one wants to take your (legal) gun, just as no one wants to take your car if properly registered.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_(United_States)#Concern_over_select_militias

    p.s. I am a gun owner myself and I see a need for appropriate regulation. Regulations don't bother me. It does not seem to bother my black powder shooting friends who must register when buying black powder for their single shot long rifle.
    But my daughter was nearly killed by a stray bullet from someone shooting his gun a quarter mile away.

    But anyone can walk in and buy a semi-automatic assault weapon with custom large capacity magazines and 1000 rounds of bullets???

    And to the person who compared a gun to a hammer. How far can you throw your hammer or screwdriver? It is a false equivalency.
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2014
  20. Truck Captain Stumpy The Right Honourable Reverend Truck Captain Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,263
    actually, this is far more "prenticious" than any comment to which you are replying. Did you mean pretentious? Because your comment was that as well...
    see this link: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prenticious
    just a couple of questions here:
    1. HOW do you know that there was no research done?
    2. can you give references or show this with quotes from the statement? The quote you used appears to be a personal opinion about one persons understanding of what was being posted here by gun control posters. Where is the need for research in that?
    3. Would this include utilizing reference material like dictionaries?
    no where in the second amendment does it say or imply that it is ONLY for militia duties. If you will note, militia from the time period was drawn from the general populace (see post number 734 regarding the definition of militia)
    And you can prove this?
    Where in the written historical documents including the Constitution does it say that there is no right for a weapon for personal use?
    like I pointed out above in post 734, the MILITIA was called upon from the general populace, so there is no way that any founding father ever meant to disarm the public. Too many calls to arms required the member to have their own weapon.
    Rifles for hunting and defensive/battle as used by the 'minutemen' of revolutionary days were one and the same. Frontiers rifles were expected to put meat on the table first and then keep Indians,etc at bay. Each personal hunting rifle was handmade by a gunsmith and lovingly cared for by it's owner. This was not a militia-issue firearm.

    Some historical information from Virginia:
    provided from the following link: http://www.constitution.org/mil/virg_rev.htm

    again, the above is just some "simple research" done with an eye on a quick easily made point about the second amendment.
    IF the second amendment intended only for the militia to be armed, how would militias arm themselves considering that typical practices were to require each militia man to provide firelock, cartridge box and ball, etc? IOW - reiterating the point I already made: The founding fathers were well aware that the general public needed to remain armed to insure that tyranny could not flourish.

    The laws are written for the law abiding citizen, not for the criminal, who, by definition, ignores the law.
    So many people tend to ignore this simple fact when pushing for gun control. Just because someone lives in a gated controlled community with its own police force and doesn't need a gun doesn't mean that all people live the same way. See: South Miami,, NYC, Chicago, L.A. and so many other places for proof of this.

    Disarming the general public only makes targets of the general public. No one wants to pay for a police officer until he is needed (proven by the fluctuations of officer positions in the states), then everyone wants to complain that there aren't enough cops. Well, the only sure way to protect citizens once disarmed, is to have each one carry a cop. NOT cost effective... the alternative?
    yep. a gun.
     
  21. Truck Captain Stumpy The Right Honourable Reverend Truck Captain Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,263
    Not to pick a fight, but that is not necessarily the case.
    NY, NJ, and some other states, including the one I am in, confiscated weapons from combat veterans. There was no justification in most cases, and some cases said that the vet used anti-psychotic meds to regulate PTSD.
    with that happening and having a DOJ memo pretty much calling veterans a threat to national security (see copy here: http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/041609_extremism.pdf ) it is apparent, IMHO, that the use of force to disarm a segment of the populace is a test ground to see if it can be applied elsewhere.
    Disarming a public that has NOT committed a crime, and forcing regulations on a segment of the public which abides by the rules is ridiculous when the facts are that the bulk of the problems with guns comes from the criminal...
    THE CRIMINAL is, by definition, NOT going to abide by the LAW. This is the definition of criminal, isn't it? A person who refuses to abide by the laws?

    The issue of gun control is touchy because the groups supporting gun control want everyone else to give, but are not willing to also give in return.
    Colion Noir addresses this issue on his site in a very short video that is well spoken and cogent to the argument. http://www.mrcolionnoir.com/

    the Gun rights advocates have given and given and given... when will it end?
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2014
  22. Truck Captain Stumpy The Right Honourable Reverend Truck Captain Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,263
    I used to be this way as well until recently when the VA tried to seize my .50 cal for being an anti-aircraft weapon.
    I own a Tennessee Long Rifle Black Powder Percussion cap .50 cal. ...

    also, I can understand how some would not argue about regulations, as I never considered it in the past, but when segments of the population are targeted regardless of whether they are committing crimes, then something is wrong in the system.

    The registration tactics today are designed to make the general populace frustrated. There is also the fact that we have some really, REALLY great laws that are NOT ENFORCED (How many felons captured with firearms were prosecuted and returned to jail for said firearm infractions? this number should be 100% but it is NOT, which only goes to show that laws are arbitrarily enforced)

    again, I understand the laws and I used to not worry... until recently when the government started treating its veterans like criminals just because they defended their constitution and served in a combat situation.
     
  23. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    Yes, do you believe mentally unstable persons should have the right to own a gun?
    Fox News is your research reference?

    Who is disarming anyone except by "due process"? You think that no background checks should be performed?

    My wife is a nurse and she is required to regularly update her nursing skills and certifications and if she switches employers, each time she must submit to a criminal background check., She is a NURSE, dedicated to making people well. But you argue that a gun buyer who intends to shoot something, should be exempt from a criminal or mental background check?
    yes, that is why at time of sale the gun should be registered, It'll prevent a lot of criminals from walking into a store or gun show and buy a gun.
    What would you expect gun regulation advocates to give, in return for simple common sense regulation of dangerous "tools" designed for killing something at long distances.
    What on earth are you talking about? What have gun rights advocates given up? The right to fire a gun within city limits? The right to have shoot outs at the OK corral? The right for 6 guys armed to the teeth walking into a restaurant and scaring diners out of their wits?
    NOTE: many restaurants are now prohibiting guns on their premises. You believe this is robbing the gun toters from their rights? Is that the government who wants to take your gun away?

    Name me one single major concession made by gun ownwers. In fact the NRA (when they still consisted of hunters and competitive sport shooters) used to be for regulation, which they now fight tooth and nail, because there is PROFIT in selling weapons.

    People advocating gun regulations only want "common sense" regulation, not confiscation from law abiding citizens.
     

Share This Page