Gun Control & RKBA
Related: About this forumCops: Robbery suspected in fatal South Shore shooting
By William Lee Tribune reporter
2:12 a.m. CST, December 20, 2011
Authorities suspect robbery in the shooting death of a South Shore man discovered lying in the vestibule of his South Side apartment building.
The shooting happened about 5:40 p.m. Monday in the 2000 block of East 68th Street in the South Shore neighborhood, Chicago police said.
The victim, 31, was using his key to enter the building's outer vestibule when the gunman approached from behind and shot him in the head, police said.
The man, whose identity police withheld, was later pronounced dead.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-cops-robbery-suspected-in-fatal-south-shore-shooting-20111219,0,761286.story?track=rss
Another shooting in America's homicide capital...
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We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)doesn't appear your ideas actually work in practice does it?
hack89
(39,181 posts)since criminals don't like to obey the laws.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)From a owner who didn't secure his property. 
SteveW
(754 posts)ellisonz
(27,776 posts)We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)You're more than welcome to point one out with appropriate supporting links, or you owe him an apology.
Atypical Liberal
(5,412 posts)Which "demonstrably false suppositions about the crime rate" are we talking about?
The fact of the matter is, Chicago has a very high crime rate, and some of the strictest gun control in the country.
SteveW
(754 posts)hack89
(39,181 posts)ellisonz
(27,776 posts)hack89
(39,181 posts)ellisonz
(27,776 posts)hack89
(39,181 posts)am I culpable if I don't accept things like random sobriety stops because I think they have no place in a free society?
We don't restrict fundamental rights "just in case" someone does something bad. We punish those that make the choice to do bad. Why are you so willing to absolve violent criminals of their responsibility. Not once have you mentioned a single reform to the criminal justice system that is focused solely on criminals - not once.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)And yes, we do restrict alcoholics right to drive when they're caught.
I don't think the problem is criminals - criminality can't be fixed. What it can be made is less destructive.
We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)You're suggesting restricting the rights of the innocent because someone else did something wrong.
hack89
(39,181 posts)and if criminality can't be fixed then why are crime rates at historic lows?
Atypical Liberal
(5,412 posts)But we only restrict the rights of those people convicted in a criminal court of law!
We don't go out and restrict the rights of everyone who drinks alcohol just because of people who get DUIs.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)One must be 21 to legally buy or possess it - you can be prosecuted if you provide to a minor - your ID is checked. Those are all counter to your argument. How many times have you heard - you're going to card me? I'm 35. That is society taking reasonable precautions to protect itself. Establishments will not serve someone who is intoxicated. Public intoxication is a crime in most jurisdictions.
MicaelS
(8,747 posts)You want to punish everyone for misdeeds of a few.
As an extrapolation, if you treated alcohol like guns, you would require breathalyzer interlocks in every vehicle in the US on the grounds it "might save X number of lives a year due to DUI." Even though the majority of people do not DUI, you would punish everyone because of your moral posturing.
In other words everyone is guilty until they prove themselves innocent.
That is not the way this country works.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)X_Digger (1000+ posts) Tue May-17-11 10:48 PM
Response to Original message
1. I'm sure it's the Robert Bork 'moral harm' principle in action...
As writer Dan Baum said in a recent Harper's article (August, 2010)...
.....My friends who are appalled by the thought of widespread concealed weapons aren't impressed by this argument, or by the research demonstrating no ill effects of the shall-issue revolution. "I don't care," said one. "I don't feel safe knowing that people are walking around with guns. What about my right to feel safe? Doesn't that count for anything?"
Robert Bork tried out that argument in 1971, in defense of prosecuting such victimless crimes as drug abuse, writing in the Indiana Law Journal that “knowledge that an activity is taking place is a harm to those who find it profoundly immoral.”
It’s as bad an argument now as it was then. We may not like it that other people are doing things we revile—smoking pot, enjoying pornography, making gay love, or carrying a gun—but if we aren’t adversely affected by it, the Constitution and common decency argue for leaving it alone. My friend may feel less safe because people are wearing concealed guns, but the data suggest she isn't less safe....
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)Frankly, I don't feel safe knowing how easy it is for criminals and the deranged to get guns. I'm done arguing the same point over and over. Have a political cartoon.
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)And others far more eloquent than I have pointed out that there is no "right" to feel safe.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)I see no need to continue arguing the safe thing over and over; that is the definition of insanity.
MicaelS
(8,747 posts)Means I know the law, so I don't DUI. Thus I don't endangered myself, nor others.
Punishment means that you put a breathalyzer interlock in my vehicle and every vehicle. Even for those who do not use alcohol. Said interlock is installed and maintained at the expense of the owner. Said interlock also prevents the owner from starting the vehicle and leaving an area, even though they might be under threat from harm.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)Please address the question directly - the bottle and a handgun have radically different properties. No one is going to steal my Jack Daniels and commit a crime. The same can't be said of a gun.
Atypical Liberal
(5,412 posts)But firearms are already handled this way.
If you buy them from a store, then you have to be a certain age, your ID is checked, and a background check is performed.
Response to Atypical Liberal (Reply #31)
friendly_iconoclast This message was self-deleted by its author.
one-eyed fat man
(3,201 posts)Except for your drug habit, what keeps you from breaking the law? Do you believe criminality is situational? You would steal something you wanted if you were sure you weren't going to be caught?
Do you believe some things are just intrinsically "wrong" and you could not do them?
Do you think criminals kill someone over a 200 dollar pair of sneakers because they are starving?
Rapists are just unloved?
There is an absolutely a way to reduce criminal behavior. You just don't want to know what it is.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)I'm just going to suggest you actually study sociology and stop talking out of your ass. 
"There is an absolutely a way to reduce criminal behavior. You just don't want to know what it is."
Shoot them all? Imprison all criminals for life?
spin
(17,493 posts)While it's hard to obtain reliable studies, the ones available show that firearms are used in self defense between 64,615 times annually and 2.45 million times.
Gun violence in the United States
***snip***
Self-protection
Between 1987 and 1990, David McDowall found that guns were used in defense during a crime incident 64,615 times annually.[62] This equates to two times out of 1,000 incidents (0.2%) that occurred in this time frame.[62] For violent crimes (assault, robbery, and rape), guns were used 0.83% of the time in self-defense.[62] Of the times that guns were used in self-defense, 71% of the crimes were committed by strangers, with the rest of the incidents evenly divided between offenders that were acquaintances or persons well-known to the victim.[62] Of all incidents where a gun was used for self-defense, victims shot at the offender 28% of the time.[62] In 20% of the self-defense incidents, the guns were used by police officers.[62] During this same time period, 1987 and 1990, there were 46,319 gun homicides,[63] and the National Crime Victimization Survey estimates that 2,628,532 nonfatal crimes involving guns occurred.[62]
The findings of the McDowall's study for the American Journal of Public Health contrast with the findings of a 1993 study by Gary Kleck, who finds that as many as 2.45 million crimes are thwarted each year in the United States, and in most cases, the potential victim never fires a shot in these cases where firearms are used constructively for self-protection.[64] The results of the Kleck studies have been cited many times in scholarly and popular media.[65][66][67][68][69][70][71]
McDowall cites methodological issues with the Kleck studies, stating that Kleck used a very small sample size and did not confine self-defense to attempted victimizations where physical attacks had already commenced.[62] The former criticism, however, is inaccurate — Kleck's survey with Marc Gertz in fact used the largest sample size of any survey that ever asked respondents about defensive gun use — 4,977 cases, far more than is typical in national surveys.[72] A study of gun use in the 1990s, by David Hemenway at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, found that criminal use of guns is far more common than self-defense use of guns.[73] By the Kleck study, however, most successful preventions of victimizations are accomplished without a shot being fired, which are not counted as a self-defense firearm usage by either the Hemenway or McDowall studies.[62][64][73] Hemenway, however, also argues that the Kleck figure is inconsistent with other known statistics for crime, citing that Kleck's figures apparently show that guns are many times more often used for self-defense in burglaries, than there are incidents of bulgaries of properties containing gun owners with awake occupants.[74] Hemenway concludes that under reasonable assumptions of random errors in sampling, because of the rarity of the event, the 2.5 million figure should be considered only as the top end of a 0-2.5 million confidence interval, suggesting a highly unreliable result that is likely a great overestimate, with the true figure at least 10 times less.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States#Self-protection
My daughter may well be alive today because she had access to a handgun and used it to stop an intruder breaking into our home. He was undeterred by the fact that a burglar alarm was sounding and a 60 pound black Lab was in the home but fled when my daughter pointed a large caliber revolver at him. My mother also stopped an attack by a man who was hiding behind some bushes and rushed her while she was walking home from work in the 1920s. She fired two shots over his head from her small revolver and he also ran.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)I can equally demonstrate that there are other deterrent measures......and that often criminals are armed with stolen firearms. I fail to see how having a dozen weapons or thousands of rounds of ammunition influences either of these cases. You'll notice - I've simply said that having a mini-arsenal is not the answer. I've said that when not in use, firearms should be kept under lock and key. In fact, I've said many of the same things the more reasonable posters here have said.
But because I object to unlimited ownership, I've been castigated as non-informed, when quite the opposite is true. The truth is that the crime rates are down for many reasons and that increasing gun ownership is not a major contributor. Americans have always had weapons. They just haven't had multiple weapons of unlimited kinds to use as toys. I'm not against keeping a non-semi automatic handgun, I'm not against having a shotgun, I'm not against having a hunting rifle; I'm against having as many weapons as one likes for no good reason.
I think it is very revealing of the intellectual dishonesty of the gun rights movement that they are afraid of common sense measures to prevent the spread of illegal guns.
gejohnston
(17,502 posts)that is the thing about undefined terms. I don't think most of yours are common sense.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)...and attributing it to "business disputes" between drug dealers.
Atypical Liberal
(5,412 posts)And yet violent crime rates are at their lowest point in decades, continuing their downward trend, in spite of record numbers of firearms in circulation.
spin
(17,493 posts)And why would the amount of ammo that I have stored make a difference.
I have what you would probably consider to be a mini-arsenal although I would call it a small collection. I enjoy target shooting with handguns so the majority of my firearms are target quality handguns which would be challenging to conceal as they are large and heavy.
Since I do have a concealed weapons permits, I own several handguns that work for that task and are smaller and lighter but not as accurate at long range. The concealed handgun I carry depends on the outdoor temperature in the area of Florida where I live. A small snub nosed .38 caliber revolver which I carry in my pants pocket is my primary carry weapon, but during the winter months I often carry a heavier .357 magnum revolver in an inside the waistband holster covered by a jacket.
I also have a shotgun and an old Swedish Mauser bolt action rifle and a couple of .22 caliber rifles.
I've accumulated these weapons over 45 years of shooting. They all have been used extensively on the range but are still in good condition. I do secure my firearms.
I was also wise enough to stockpile ammo before the price skyrocketed. I fail to see how owning a larger quantity of ammo makes me any more dangerous than a criminal who owns one half of a box.
Out of curiosity, how many firearms and how much ammo do you feel I should be allowed to own?
We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)...since you own less, there is less to be stolen, hence less of a chance of something entering the criminal environment.
This is akin to making it illegal to have cash to cut down on muggings or not being allowed to own a car to reduce car thefts...
DanTex
(20,709 posts)...have been rising. You're absolutely right that there are many factors that influence crime rates, so in order to study the effect of gun availibilty, simply looking at national changes over time doesn't tell you much. Various studies that have looked at the issue at a more granular level have shown that higher gun ownership is associated with higher rates of homicide.
Nevertheless, the often-repeated NRA talking point that gun ownership has been increasing for decades while crime rates have dropped is simply false. Actually the opposite is true. Gun ownership has been decreasing for decades. And there was a particularly steep decrease in the late 90s which was the same time that there was an especially sharp decrease in homicide rates.
It's strange that this myth is so pervasive, because the data is pretty clear. Here's the GSS data on gun ownership, which is considered the most accurate source of survey information by social scientists:
http://www.vpc.org/studies/ownership.pdf
And here are homicide rates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ushomicidesbyweapon.svg
We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)Sorry - i think I'm going to go with such things as the raw data from the FBI and BATFE indicating gun sales are way up and crime is way down.
Hey - you can believe the VPC "study" all you want.
DanTex
(20,709 posts)People familiar with social sciences know what the GSS is. I think we all know which category you fall into.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Social_Survey
By the way, the FBI does not conduct surveys on gun ownership, nor does the ATF. The GSS is considered the best source of gun ownership data by social scientists. I know that science is held in very low regard inside the NRA bubble, but a little education never hurts.
As for raw data, the GSS publishes it all, so if you really think that VPC is lying, you can go ahead and look up the data yourself, and put into excel, and then plot the graph yourself.
We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)However, a survey is just that - a survey. As we all know - people aren't exactly always 100% truthful.
Besides, I cannot speak for everyone, but in my case, I have never stated that more people are buying them - merely that far more are in circulation - and that is an absolute fact you cannot deny.
I also cannot speak for those in the NRA "bubble" as you call it, but for myself, empirical data is critical. Again, empirical data indicates gun ownership is up and crime is down. No, the FBI and BATFE do not conduct surveys, they merely report on crimes and actual sales (NICS checks). Again, these facts are just that - facts. Not extrapolations from surveys of a sample set, but hard totals of actual events.
As far as the VPC lying, quite frankly, with the amount of, shall we say, questionable information they have released over the years, if they said the sky was blue, I'd seek independent confirmation.
If you want to stick with actual science and fact, then perhaps you could demonstrate to us the actual science and fact which indicates firearms ownership is harmful? Please do not embarrass yourself by pulling out Kellerman either.
DanTex
(20,709 posts)Again, empirical data shows that gun ownership is down since the early 90s, and that the big drop in gun ownership occurred about the same time as the big drop in homicide.
Actual science and fact? You mean peer-reviewed studies, like these?
http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/dranove/htm/dranove/coursepages/Mgmt%20469/guns.pdf
http://home.uchicago.edu/~ludwigj/papers/JPubE_guns_2006FINAL.pdf
I'm sure that at NRA camp they stuffed your pockets with anti-Kellermann talking points, and they teach you to distrust anything that comes from any major university or research institution. Instead, you've got your talking points and gun blogs, and your own version of "science". Speaking of which, you don't happen to be a creationist or global warming denier, by any chance?
Anyway, there's plenty of science out there, but I'm sure you'll find some way to ignore it all. Pro-gunners are very skilled at keeping their heads buried in the sand.
spin
(17,493 posts)She found it challenging to get many people to tell her how many people lived in their house.
Many of the firearm's owners that I know would never tell a stranger that they own guns. It doesn't matter in the least what survey the surveyor represents. I happen to know that they own firearms because we shoot at the same range.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)...they're cherry-picking. I haven't heard the GSS referenced in probably 4 years now...oh the memories 
Thank you for your efforts in this matter. 
We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)Please explain it to us. We are but mere simpletons in the shadow of your powerful intellect.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)In which you claim: "Nothing in our Constitution places society above the individual, and in fact, makes it quite clear that the individual is superior to society."
And my rebuttal: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1172&pid=2634
It would behoove you to stop accepting the NRA playbook as gospel and to look at things more objectively and with greater consideration to the lives of others.
We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)With all rights come an expected responsibility. Yes, you have the right to free speech, but if you use that speech to harm another, you will face consequences. Yes, you have the right to keep and bear arms, but if you misuse that right and harm someone, you will face consequences. Yes you have the right to be secure in your papers and effects, but if you're suspected of a crime and a warrant is issued, your papers and effects will be searched.
None of those things in any way diminish the right of the individual or place society above the individual.
None of what I have stated is out of the "NRA Playbook" (Got a copy of that? I'm not an NRA member and I've never seen it, or heard of it before today).
one-eyed fat man
(3,201 posts)come through a tunnel from Tijuana to San Diego along with the nickel bag you bought last weekend...and delivered by the same retail capitalist.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)Generally speaking, drugs go North, cash and guns go South. Also, please please please smoke some pot; it might make you love your fellow man more than your right to gun possession as you please.
We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)Until you actually start using actual facts and don't keep vomiting forth such easily refutable garbage, you may wish to keep your recommendations on the education of others to yourself.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)It is back. 
We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)Besides, someone who isn't so closed minded and believes your bullshit may learn something.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)
We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)Doesn't change my rights in any way.
clffrdjk
(905 posts)Seriously elli you posted a photo denouncing gun violence using a pump action shotgun as the big bad baby killer?
Leaving out the the long arm crime statistics, that I know have been shown to you, that is just plain a poorly thought out message. You are alienating the one section of gun owners gullible enough to come to your side. And proving to the rest of us just how far outside of reasonable your desires for gun control really are.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)It's making you miss the blindingly obvious statistics below.
DanTex
(20,709 posts)By saying things like "I like making fun of you", people might get the idea that pro-gunners are brooding unpleasant types who don't play well with others and compensate by indulging violent fantasies. But there are actually plenty of wonderful people who are capable of owning and enjoying guns without developing extremist views or hostile antisocial personality traits.
We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)And yes - i enjoy making fun of the foolish. Has nothing to do with the gun culture - it has to do with simply finding humor in making fun of people who think so much of themselves.
If you consider what I have to say extremist, violent or hostile, by all means, point it out. I am plain-spoken and tend not to bother to express my opinion with an abundance of concern for the feelings of those who will not think, but that doesn't make me any of what you claimed.
Atypical Liberal
(5,412 posts)I do not see it? Where is the ignore function?
petronius
(26,696 posts)open up to the right along that line (the same as the row of buttons that used to be there in DU2)...
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)Guns don't reduce crime, and frankly they don't make anyone any safer on average.
PavePusher
(15,374 posts)ellisonz
(27,776 posts)
rl6214
(8,142 posts)gejohnston
(17,502 posts)If your dream comes true, the guns will flow with the drugs, just like Europe. The cartels are not getting their rocket launchers and machine guns from gun shows in Texas.
A 50 billion dollar a year industry that builds its own submarines and armored cars, they can make their own guns.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts) gejohnston
(17,502 posts)The characters, other than maybe the Cuban officer (forgot his rank), were cardboard stock from some other high school movie.
one-eyed fat man
(3,201 posts)Even potheads draw the line at flying in airplanes flown and maintained by dopers.
I was born in Munich in 1942, but my mother moved in with my father's parents in a small town outside of Weimar. We escaped to the West in 1954.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)
Glassunion
(10,201 posts)The phrase translates: To each his own.
If I'm not mistaken.
one-eyed fat man
(3,201 posts)The saying is an idiom, on the surface it means "to each his own," but in that case it meant "everyone gets what he deserves."
In 1946, the camp was taken over by NKVD the Soviet secret service. Because no contacts of the camp inmates to the outside world was permitted, it was also called Schweigelager or "silence camp." In 1950, it was handed over to the East German Ministry of Internal Affairs.
One of the things I noticed in 1954 when first enrolled in school in the US was getting ribbed over my accent, but I could speak pretty well with a lot of my classmates grandparents. The second was that not a single teacher told me my duty to the State was to inform on my family.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/koehler-stasi.html
I didn't leave that behind just to have someone like you espouse it here.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)You have no idea what you're talking about. You have no clue what the word "militarization" means in these contexts. 
one-eyed fat man
(3,201 posts)
I'd wager I have more experience in applied foreign policy.
As for the KZ Lager, by the time I was six or seven I had a pretty good understanding of what that place on Ettersberg was and what had happened there.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)...who posts images of Buchenwald/Stasi headquarters to make his point.
You're arrogance of power is mislead - and may I remind you that we lost that war.
one-eyed fat man
(3,201 posts)You didn't do anything. You weren't there. You still haven't done anything.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)If people like me had their way, that stupid war would have never been fought like it was with hundreds of thousands of Americans sent to fight and die for a losing cause.
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)If that were the case Mary Hanchett Hunt, Harry J. Anslinger, and Fredric Wertham would be hailed as intellectual giants
instead of rabble rousers and ideologues....
era veteran
(4,069 posts)To chip in on you and ellisonz's conversation.
Some parallels in life here.
The concentration camp gate represented to me futility, with not having any means to fight back when evil walks among us.
I was a tanker too and was a few years behind you in the Army, and thanks for your wartime service.
I, and a lot of Americans were against that war but some of us still understood that you do your service if called. A few years after the '68 photo in post #53, one-eyed fat man and I served on the same Kaserne in W Germany. Different units and we did not know each other. During that time I went to Berlin for a week. We went across the border into the Communist, Stasi controlled East at Checkpoint Charlie. This was the showplace of Communism rebuilt from the war with magnificent buildings. The East though had a drapery of grey and gloom over it. The West, Berlin still, was the most vibrant alive city I visited abroad. Standing at Checkpoint Charlie you could feel the need of your 2nd Amendment Rights. That or maybe we pass through a gate ourselves someday.
Re Senator Kerry, Washington , 1971. I was in Washington that week with half a million other Americans protesting for the end of that stupid war. 2nd Amendment supporters also stand and show their faces to power, unarmed but with the knowledge that they have their not so insignificant tool to own. Oppressive governments do not want an armed citizenry.
Having a weapon does not mean you have to use it but not having one means you surely can't. Criminals understand that too.
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)Having said that- I wonder what some of our louder posters actually *did* vs. the Vietnam War? I believe that opposition
to the war by veterans like Sen. Kerry and yourself was far more influential than is generally credited.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)...the invasion of Iraq.
We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)They're not even close to the same thing.
That is not meant as a slight to anyone who has served in Iraq, but a recognition of the challenges faced both at home and abroad by the military during that period.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)A couple questions.
1. Do you think Americans should be allowed to take guns to town halls and other political events?
2. Do you believe the Constitution forbids government from limiting the number of firearms one may own?
3. Do you believe there is an accurate comparison between efforts at gun control, intended to bring levels of gun homicide down to the levels of other modern Westernized country, and to life under totalitarian regimes such as the one's you are describing?
You seem to be the more reasonable sort. I maintain that if we are to pass through that gate it will be with the gun of our fellow citizens, wrapped in our own back. This in fact is the exact vision of so many right-wing gun fanatics.
We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)1) Yes.
2) Yes
3) May want to rewrite the question clearly.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)Did you behave like this in school?
We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)not school.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)You seem to be craving attention. I'm just going to put on you on ignore so that I can have conversations with other posters. Goodbye.
era veteran
(4,069 posts)1. Yes, but, I do think open carry at public political events is tacky.
Yes
2. both are guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment
3. Not exactly sure what you are asking but
a. We are militaristic society and have always been, Ever seen a Junior High School girl carry a rifle in a drill team? We were once also highly encouraged and subsidized to be a citizenry of marksmen with the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP). To a lesser extent now.
b. If we did not have our 2nd Amendment Rights would we be as free as we are now?
c. Economic oppression causes a hell of a lot of violence.
With all that said my sympathy to the family of the unarmed vicim of someone else's violent impulse.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)...either that or some posters here are just unable to engage in substantial discourse without falling back on simplified talking points and personal attacks.
1. Do you think this has the potential to undermine civil discourse in this country by introducing a degree of danger in participatory politics that is fundamentally antithetical to the principle of a free and fair vote.
2. What regulations do you think government can enact to establish "a well regulated Militia," if not perhaps taking measures to prevent attacks upon government and the general public?.
3. (a) I wouldn't say we are a militaristic society any more than we're a society that respects the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" from being abridged consistent with the 9th Amendment which clearly states that - "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." - does not the bearing of arms at political events not deny and disparage the First Amendment rights of others?
(b) Does this require standing against ineffectual regulations that are not "necessary to the security of a free State" such as stockpiling weapons and continued negligence in regards to allowing weapons to reach the hands of criminals and the deranged?
(c) I thin that great reckoning known as the Civil War aptly demonstrates that there are times when the supposition of economic rights ahead of political/human rights is a necessary evil. Do you think the opposition to taxes and the stockpiling of weapons are not indicative to clear opposition to Constitutional government?
Thank you for understanding that such actions cause great pain to many communities.
We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)What level of security do you want? Theft proof? There is no such thing.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)How about in-built low jack for guns. That's what any responsible gun owner should want.
Edit: We have the technology.
We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)There is currently no way to make a LoJack device for a firearm. If you even think there is, then you really don't seem to understand the technological challenges.
As far as the "best security money can buy", you're forcing an undue burden upon someone to exercise their rights. You want to buy it for me at your expense, go for it. You want to force others to pay for it, that's a different story.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)Like I said, we have the technology, just not the will.
We get it; you don't care about victims rights.
We_Have_A_Problem
(2,112 posts)That's what you don't seem to understand.
I wont get into the technical challenges - you can look them up.
I DO care about victims rights - however, a victim does not have a right to victimize the rest of society simply to make himself feel better. Hence, I feel no obligation to engage in self-flagellation for his benefit.
ellisonz
(27,776 posts)
LAGC
(5,330 posts)...our high homicide rates wouldn't change.
You need to address why people resort to violence in order to bring down those numbers, not try to control the particular tools people happen to use to commit that violence.
PavePusher
(15,374 posts)PavePusher
(15,374 posts)ellisonz
(27,776 posts)PavePusher
(15,374 posts)And, for the record, I secured the firearm to comply with a law and the wishes of a particular business that did not want firearms brought in.
What is the moral/legal culpability of the business owners who made the request and the legislators and governor who created the law?
rl6214
(8,142 posts)I say it was a gang banger that bought it from an ATF agent.
Remmah2
(3,291 posts)Robbery does not require a firearm either.
I'll bet the shooter was a registered, confirmed, CCW, licensed and permitted NRA member too.
era veteran
(4,069 posts)rl6214
(8,142 posts)DissedByBush
(3,342 posts)1) They have some of the strictest gun laws in the country
2) They have some of the highest levels of gun crime in the country
What do New Hampshire and Vermont have in common?
1) They have some of the laxest gun laws in the country
2) They have the lowest gun crime rates in the country
You don't even need a permit to carry concealed in Vermont.