Why is gun control so difficult in the US?

[Xelor]

Again, the Federalist Papers and the anti-federalists leading up to the ratification of the Constitution argued against putting the people at the mercy of the standing military.

However true that was in the Age of Enlightenment, it's pragmatically absurd in the 21st century. I mean, really. No citizen or citizen group has the resources necessary to oppose successfully the standing armed forces of the U.S., if those forces were to collaboratively support a leader (whoever it be leading them) who be of a mind to use the military to squash citizen uprisings, be the uprising(s) moral, immoral, just, unjust, legitimate or illegitimate.

 

[Xelor]

Well you have a vote and it counts for something, so if enough people think like you then it should be so.

While I suspect I understand the normative sentiment you've expressed, in reading it, I'm reminded of Mill and his remarks about tyranny of the majority in On Liberty and, of course, de Toqueville's Democracy in America.

The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
-- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty​

 

[iceaura]

No, the active military was composed of the militia and its existing arms. There was no difference, nor was there any indication there was intended to be.

That's silly. Read George Washington on the subject, or some of the other command of the Continental Army - there was an army, there were militia, and they sure as hell were not the same things.

To place any dependence upon militia is assuredly resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender scenes of domestic life, unaccustomed to the din of arms, totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill ... makes them timid and ready to fly from their own shadows.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to the President of Congress, Sep. 24, 1776

Or here: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/washington-blames-militia-for-problems

In his letter, Washington wrote, “I am wearied to death all day with a variety of perplexing circumstances, disturbed at the conduct of the militia, whose behavior and want of discipline has done great injury to the other troops,

There were militia, and there were the better disciplined (and - in Washington's view - more effective in combat) "other troops".
Fast forward eighty years, and the difference between the Confederate Army and the secessionist militia became especially striking after the war - when various militia simply refused to disband, and became outlaw gangs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantrill's_Raiders.

The recurrent problem of discipline inevitable with militia is what led to the establishment of the US military, and has since led to that military's usurping all foreign and some domestic combat functions of the various militia in the US, with the sheriffs and police taking some of the domestic violence chores.

There is zero evidence that militia is intentionally distinct from the people or the military, since the militia is given as justification for an armed populace, and could be called upon to serve the nation and form the military (select militia).

That would be clear evidence - in fact proof - that the militia was distinct from the military. The standing militia were favored, the formation of a standing army was opposed. The amateur armed populace was favored, the trained professionals holding a monopoly on arms and violence opposed.

Again, the Federalist Papers and the anti-federalists leading up to the ratification of the Constitution argued against putting the people at the mercy of the standing military.

Again drawing a clear distinction between military and militia.

 

[iceaura]

However true that was in the Age of Enlightenment, it's pragmatically absurd in the 21st century. I mean, really. No citizen or citizen group has the resources necessary to oppose successfully the standing armed forces of the U.S.,

That's not how it works. (It's a strawman objection, basically).
A disarmed population is far more vulnerable to domestic oppression, because the oppressor does not need to get an army rolling and coordinated. An armed population cannot resist a professional army, but it can resist anything much less - a domestic oppressor does require such an army to overpower it. That's far more difficult to arrange. Such an army would have to have been raised from among the same people being overpowered, for starters - its uniform loyalty would be questionable, more easily subverted than the small cadre of thugs that suffice to terrorize a disarmed population. Tyrants seldom use a domestic army against their own people, because it isn't reliable and it is both clumsy and expensive. They use death squads, Tonton Macoutes, KKK chapters, Brownshirts, Blackshirts, that kind of force - and that requires a disarmed population.

 

[Xelor]

That's not how it works. (It's a strawman objection, basically).
A disarmed population is far more vulnerable to domestic oppression, because the oppressor does not need to get an army rolling and coordinated. An armed population cannot resist a professional army, but it can resist anything much less - a domestic oppressor does require such an army to overpower it. That's far more difficult to arrange. Such an army would have to have been raised from among the same people being overpowered, for starters - its uniform loyalty would be questionable, more easily subverted than the small cadre of thugs that suffice to terrorize a disarmed population. Tyrants seldom use a domestic army against their own people, because it isn't reliable and it is both clumsy and expensive. They use death squads, Tonton Macoutes, KKK chapters, Brownshirts, Blackshirts, that kind of force - and that requires a disarmed population.

??? What? The extent of force a committed oppressor needs to deploy depends largely on a few things:

• How much revenue the segment of society that concurs with the oppressor can generate to sustain themselves, the jurisdiction/nation and its government.
• How committed the oppressor be.
• How committed the opposition be.

Quite a lot of folks can be oppressed without resorting to a "rolling army," however, with enough folks on either side of a matter, a "rolling army" is what's needed, and that's exactly what'll be used. That is, after all, how every civil war has come about.

 

[Dr_Toad]

I've been in confrontations with people who owned guns and probably would have shot me if I stayed in town

How did you piss them off? Spewing stupidities, or trying to control their thoughts and actions via virtue signaling? It speaks to the self-control of responsible gun owners rather than the Chicken Little garbage you feed on and repeat.

 

[Dr_Toad]

Why be competent at shooting a target other than fear of missing an attacker?

For the pleasure. Pratice. Rather than go down to the city for a movie and a meal, spend two hours on the road and $100 including gas and food, I can target shoot as I've done for 50 years.

I hunted when I was younger, might need to again, or I might have to shoot a predator. Practice. We have coyotes and cougars here, and I have dogs. I've seen what a pack of coyotes can do to a dog.

Not on my watch. Practice.

Rounds are cheaper than gas or movie tickets, and they make holes in paper a long way off.

What's your point?

 

[Vociferous]

However true that was in the Age of Enlightenment, it's pragmatically absurd in the 21st century. I mean, really. No citizen or citizen group has the resources necessary to oppose successfully the standing armed forces of the U.S., if those forces were to collaboratively support a leader (whoever it be leading them) who be of a mind to use the military to squash citizen uprisings, be the uprising(s) moral, immoral, just, unjust, legitimate or illegitimate.

The projected active duty end strength in the armed forces for fiscal year 2017 was 1,281,900 servicemembers,[4] with an additional 1,281,900 people in the seven reserve components.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces#Personnel

So 2,563,800 (round up to 3 million) soldiers, including cooks and other support, against 97,500,000 (say 97 million) gun owners. That doesn't even take into account that the soldiers all have family, many of which gun owners, and that those gun owners have enough guns to distribute to the entire 325 million US population. Or that states control their own National and Air National Guard.

That's silly. Read George Washington on the subject, or some of the other command of the Continental Army - there was an army, there were militia, and they sure as hell were not the same things.

Prior to the Constitution and ignoring the motives behind the 2nd amendment.

That would be clear evidence - in fact proof - that the militia was distinct from the military. The standing militia were favored, the formation of a standing army was opposed. The amateur armed populace was favored, the trained professionals holding a monopoly on arms and violence opposed.

Actually it was the much greater number of equally armed civilians was deemed a safeguard against the much smaller standing military.

Again drawing a clear distinction between military and militia.

With emphasis on similar weaponry.

 

[Xelor]

The projected active duty end strength in the armed forces for fiscal year 2017 was 1,281,900 servicemembers,[4] with an additional 1,281,900 people in the seven reserve components.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces#Personnel

So 2,563,800 (round up to 3 million) soldiers, including cooks and other support, against 97,500,000 (say 97 million) gun owners. That doesn't even take into account that the soldiers all have family, many of which gun owners, and that those gun owners have enough guns to distribute to the entire 325 million US population. Or that states control their own National and Air National Guard.

What does any of that have to with what I wrote? Nobody's, certainly not I, is suggesting that if a militarily supported tyrant were of a mind to subdue some share of the citizenry, it'd happen instantly or overnight. Yes, the size constraints mean it'll take some time, but I can assure you that no quantity of guns civilians hold are enough to overpower the means a would-be and committed tyrannically led government 21st century Western government has at its disposal to quell any rebellion. For such a so-inclined tyrant, how long it'd take is a matter of will and time, not wherewithal.

The extent of force a committed oppressor needs to deploy depends largely on a few things:

• How much revenue the segment of society that concurs with the oppressor can generate to sustain themselves, the jurisdiction/nation and its government.
• How committed the oppressor be.
• How committed the opposition be.

Quite a lot of folks can be oppressed without resorting to a "rolling army," however, with enough folks on either side of a matter, a "rolling army" is what's needed, and that's exactly what'll be used. That is, after all, how every civil war has come about.

 

[iceaura]

Quite a lot of folks can be oppressed without resorting to a "rolling army," however, with enough folks on either side of a matter, a "rolling army" is what's needed, and that's exactly what'll be used. That is, after all, how every civil war has come about.

Civil war is a failure of oppression.
Civil war is proof that an armed population can sometimes take on the national army with the outcome in doubt.
Civil war is largely beside the point.

We are informing ourselves by studying history, and history shows us that an armed population is much more resistant to tyranny than a disarmed one, maybe in part because the imposition of domestic tyranny does not easily or normally involve overcoming resistance with domestic military force. Instead, small cadres of terrorists are the normal means. An armed population can deal with that kind of threat.

Knowing that, potential oppressors apparently (by the absence of event) moderate their aims and adjust their strategies - setting about disarming the target population, for example, prior to applying the screws, or even making different plans entirely. The tyranny that never happened joins the burglary of an occupied dwelling that never took place, and the other "silent" manifestations of the employment of guns in self defense.

The US, for example, has yet to be the target of even a likely looking attempt by a Caesar. That's almost as long as the Roman Empire made it under Senatorial auspices. And it's not that far-fetched to posit that some of the reason for this longevity sans strongman has been the discouraging details of the prospect of terrorizing the armed population of this country.

 

[iceaura]

Prior to the Constitution and ignoring the motives behind the 2nd amendment.

No. Concurrent with the writing of the Constitution, and directly addressing those motives, the future first President of the United States wrote and spoke on the topic of militia and armies. They were very different entities, in his view and that of pretty much everybody else at the time.

Actually it was the much greater number of equally armed civilians was deemed a safeguard against the much smaller standing military.

Yep. Again: militia vs military - distinct, different entities.

With emphasis on similar weaponry.

The militia had a kind of rifle not possessed by the military. The military had much more in the way of cannon, mines, explosives in general, ships and wagons, engineering resources. The distinction in weaponry grew over time, as technological sophistication and financial resources concentrated on the military disproportionately - leading to present day circumstances, in which the difference in weaponry is extreme.

 

[CptBork]

And we are supposed to take that seriously, do work to inform you of what has with complete certainty passed before your eyes at least a half a dozen times on this forum alone, and in the outside world is common knowledge?
Let's just throw in background checks, magazine restrictions, and special restrictions on "assault rifles" however they are identified. You never saw such proposals, you claim.

But you want to throw out the US Constitution because it interferes with laws you want to pass, and have London ban knives from its city limits.

Those aren't reasonable gun control measures, they do almost nothing to prevent crazy people from snapping at a time of their own convenience and shooting members of the public. You can't catch most of these people until after the crime has already been committed, and even a simple handgun is enough to do some serious damage. Why does there need to be a middle ground consensus to implement measures that don't violate the constitution anyhow, these things can already be done in any state where there's majority support.

And yeah, what's wrong with a London knife ban? I'm assuming there will be reasonable accomodation for professional uses, I very much doubt Gordon Ramsay is going to be forced into using safety scissors. People shouldn't be allowed to walk around in public with weapons meant for the Yakuza, and if they get caught with such weapons even incidentally, the punishment should be almost draconian. Don't friggin' tell me having a knife makes you safer against other people with knives, unless you're Steven Segal.

 

[CptBork]

How did you piss them off? Spewing stupidities, or trying to control their thoughts and actions via virtue signaling? It speaks to the self-control of responsible gun owners rather than the Chicken Little garbage you feed on and repeat.

Well, on a fairly recent trip, one guy I heard ranting to his buddies about shooting someone while I was around the corner having a smoke, I was on the other side of a fence. Probably the guy didn't end up doing anything, but no psychiatrist would think it's a good idea to let that man have a gun. As another example, I had a friend with me on that same trip, some random douchebag fell in love with her, and I got in the way of them spending too much time together because the guy was a douchebag, which led to obvious tensions. The guy was legally armed and sold drugs in his spare time, another of your fine creations turned even more dangerous by the ease of firearm possession. That's just a couple of examples of people I've either known or overheard while traveling in the US, never mind all the people who were armed around me without my explicit knowledge.

Self-control my ass, I just gave two of many examples of hotheads like you clearly demonstrating why they have no business coming near a gun with a ten foot pole, and these weren't street rats, they were employed average Joes in your country. The one guy I can only assume didn't end up doing what he was talking about, maybe he did for all I know, and the other guy (the one who fell in love with my friend) was completely unstable and often high on crack, cocaine and other things while walking around with his legal gun hidden somewhere nearby, and based on the other threats he ultimately made to my friend, I know it would have only been a matter of time.

There's even been hotheads I've known in Canada who had guns and threatened to use them, so I'm not sure Canada's laws are strict enough either, and we're already way ahead of the curve compared to you guys. No, folks like you don't have self-control, especially when you get old and fat and still want to prove how tough you are with your toys, spending countless hours on the firing range so you don't have to spend them in the gym.

 

[spidergoat]

What's your point?

That you might actually be experiencing a normal human emotion. I could be wrong, you could be psychopathic.

 

[Dr_Toad]

Y'all are so good at telling yourselves what I am and how I think. Maybe you should be using those gifts in a professional way?

I think maybe circus clowns or traveling mentalists. If anyone would hire you..

 

[pjdude1219]

That's silly. Read George Washington on the subject, or some of the other command of the Continental Army - there was an army, there were militia, and they sure as hell were not the same things.
Or here: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/washington-blames-militia-for-problems There were militia, and there were the better disciplined (and - in Washington's view - more effective in combat) "other troops".
Fast forward eighty years, and the difference between the Confederate Army and the secessionist militia became especially striking after the war - when various militia simply refused to disband, and became outlaw gangs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantrill's_Raiders.

The recurrent problem of discipline inevitable with militia is what led to the establishment of the US military, and has since led to that military's usurping all foreign and some domestic combat functions of the various militia in the US, with the sheriffs and police taking some of the domestic violence chores.

That would be clear evidence - in fact proof - that the militia was distinct from the military. The standing militia were favored, the formation of a standing army was opposed. The amateur armed populace was favored, the trained professionals holding a monopoly on arms and violence opposed.

Again drawing a clear distinction between military and militia.

but you want to ignore the same people explicetly saying the second amendment was all ways about the military? why cant you be honest?

 

[iceaura]

Those aren't reasonable gun control measures,

So: they aren't reasonable? they aren't measures? they don't control guns?

they do almost nothing to prevent crazy people from snapping at a time of their own convenience and shooting members of the public.

So I started you off small, with a couple of the obvious from the large body of stuff you said you'd never seen, and your objection is the list is too short and doesn't cover the entire universe of gun violence?
Let's agree that a little something is not nothing, there are many aspects to gun violence in the US, and the three measures I posted there - if enacted properly - would almost certainly have prevented the recent Florida school shooting that made the big headlines.

Why does there need to be a middle ground consensus to implement measures that don't violate the constitution anyhow, these things can already be done in any state where there's majority support.

Exactly the matter under consideration in this thread. Welcome to page 44.

And we see you are ready to illustrate the aspect most in the focus of what I post on this topic:

And yeah, what's wrong with a London knife ban? I'm assuming there will be reasonable accomodation for {various special circumstances}

That's quite an assumption. The analogous assumption in the US, regarding guns, is rather the core of the problem, you see. The pivot seems to be this: are you assuming it's the knife employers (the common citizenry, most of whom own knives of some kind) accommodating the government, or vice versa? Because it almost looks as if you are assuming the government is accommodating the special needs of professional knife wielders, granting carefully limited favors and exceptions that one must qualify for.

And the perceiving by reasonable people that this is the approach of those in charge of gun control advocacy in general, those who will be drawing up and enacting and managing the enforcement of gun control laws whatever they may be - derived from repeated experience of loud repetitions of what can hardly be interpreted any other way, filling the airwaves and public discourse - imho has poisoned the well / jambed the discussion / queered the pitch / "bothsided" the issue / muddied the waters / - - and especially: crippled the politics.

Of course there's the other side, the other lace in the knot, the evil and irrational wingnuts in the mirror. But they are not liberals. They have no base of authority in reason to begin with, no allegiance beyond lip service to liberal and democratic governance. And they are a fairly small minority, even in high-percentage authoritarian America.

 

[Vociferous]

What does any of that have to with what I wrote?

No citizen or citizen group has the resources necessary to oppose successfully the standing armed forces of the U.S.

And that didn't even take into account how much trouble the modern US military had in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., against lesser armed foes.

Nobody's, certainly not I, is suggesting that if a militarily supported tyrant were of a mind to subdue some share of the citizenry, it'd happen instantly or overnight. Yes, the size constraints mean it'll take some time, but I can assure you that no quantity of guns civilians hold are enough to overpower the means a would-be and committed tyrannically led government 21st century Western government has at its disposal to quell any rebellion. For such a so-inclined tyrant, how long it'd take is a matter of will and time, not wherewithal.

Again, you're ignoring that soldiers often have gun owning family, and that states control their own National and Air National Guard.

No. Concurrent with the writing of the Constitution, and directly addressing those motives, the future first President of the United States wrote and spoke on the topic of militia and armies. They were very different entities, in his view and that of pretty much everybody else at the time.

Washington was not an author of the Constitution.

Yep. Again: militia vs military - distinct, different entities.

You seem to be missing the point that, whenever the distinction was made, it was clear the population should be better armed than the standing army.

The militia had a kind of rifle not possessed by the military. The military had much more in the way of cannon, mines, explosives in general, ships and wagons, engineering resources. The distinction in weaponry grew over time, as technological sophistication and financial resources concentrated on the military disproportionately - leading to present day circumstances, in which the difference in weaponry is extreme.

Madison said private citizens could use cannons. What they "had" doesn't reflect what they were "allowed." A better funded armed force will be better outfitted. Again, the population was always meant to be comparably armed.

 

[iceaura]

Washington was not an author of the Constitution.

Why are you posting irrelevancies?

You seem to be missing the point that, whenever the distinction was made, it was clear the population should be better armed than the standing army.

That's not true. There was no comparable standing army when the distinction was made, for starters - and as soon as there was, it had all kinds of heavy artillery and stuff that no militia ever had, which everybody treated as a normal state of affairs.

Madison said private citizens could use cannons.

But nobody wrote that into the 2nd, and very few militia had them, and they would of course be regulated up the wazoo if some militia folks armed themselves with anything of the kind now. So?

What they "had" doesn't reflect what they were "allowed."

But it does reflect what was meant by well-regulated - a properly outfitted militia did not need cannon.

Again, the population was always meant to be comparably armed.

Only when there was no army to compare it with.

It wasn't then, and it doesn't need to be now for good regulation. You are going to lose that case, because it's silly.

 

[Xelor]

Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed, and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal Government; still it would be not going to far to say, that the State Governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms.

This proportion would not yield , in the United States, an Army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men.

To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted that a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops.”
-- James Madison, Federalist 46​

Civil war is a failure of oppression.

Be that as it may, it's irrelevant because from the standpoint of the winners and their disciples, of course, it is, and it doesn't matter who, what side, wins for that to be so.

Civil war is proof that an armed population can sometimes take on the national army with the outcome in doubt. Civil war is largely beside the point.

First:

In one sentence you proclaim that "civil war is proof an armed population can sometimes take on the national army." In next, you declare it's "beside the point." It's either so momentous as to illustrate the application of Madison's ideas in Federalist #46, or it's not.​

Second:

In the eighteenth century, technology had not advanced to the point that the sheer weight of numbers possessed by an armed citizenry was insufficient to overpower the military might the federal government could bring to bear were it, lead by a tyrant, acquiescent to subduing and imposing its/his/her will upon the land. Times have changed, and that is no longer so. Hell, today's U.S. military doesn't even have to put "boots on the ground" to wage the opening salvos of any rebellious uprising.
​