I’m still waiting to hear about these Magic Laws that will make everyone safe? I mean we have had such massive success with Banning things. We won the fight against Alcohol in the 30’s. We stopped the use of smoking that evil Weed in the 50’s. And please don’t forget our amazing success with the war on cocaine in the 80’s, 90’s. So we should have no problem with controlling guns.
I mean it’s not like it will just go blackmarket.
[quote]four60 wrote:
I’m still waiting to hear about these Magic Laws that will make everyone safe? I mean we have had such massive success with Banning things. We won the fight against Alcohol in the 30’s. We stopped the use of smoking that evil Weed in the 50’s. And please don’t forget our amazing success with the war on cocaine in the 80’s, 90’s. So we should have no problem with controlling guns.
I mean it’s not like it will just go blackmarket. [/quote]
I don’t know anyone on stteeeerrooidzzzz, either.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]Cortes wrote:
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
I never went deeply into the issue but can’t really come up with a good reason for giving the average Joe the right to arm himself.
[/quote]
Well thankfully our Constitution was not drafted by people like you. [/quote]
Actually, it was drafted by people like him, specifically James Madison.
The original intent of the 2nd Amendment was simply to allow for public armories that could arm a militia in the event of invasion or something along those lines. It was not intended to allow for every citizen to privately arm himself against other citizens. Madison knew that many anti-Federalists would be suspicious at best of a large, federal standing army, so the 2nd Amendment provided for each state to have an armory that could arm the populace in times of insurrection.
Up until about the 1960’s or 1970’s even gun rights advocates and the NRA did not fight to allow automatic or semiautomatic assault weapons into the hands of citizens. The NRA didn’t lobby against the ban of automatic weapons early in the 20th century, nor did they fight against banning carrying concealed weapons. Shit, carrying concealed weapons was outlawed throughout most of the country even as far back as the early 19th century, including today’s ardent gun-control-opposed states like Texas, Alabama and Kentucky.
And up until the early 1970’s people rarely, if ever, challenged the 2nd Amendment’s language. In U.S. v. Miller the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the 2nd Amendment did not apply to private citizens but only to the right of the public to provide for individual states’ protection in the form of a well-regulated militia or other such armed forces.
In the 1970’s, as a reaction to the liberalizing times, people’s individual rights became a large political issue. Turning the 2nd Amendment into a matter of private gun ownership rights distorted the actual intent of the Amendment and turned it into a political issue that conservatives could hang their hats on, since liberals seemed to have monopolized most of the other individual rights issues.
It’s the conservative version of judicial activism, in a way. The language of the first section of the 14th Amendment, along with some other areas of the Constitution, has been liberally interpreted to mean that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” somehow confers upon women the right to abort children. In much the same way, the language of the 2nd Amendment has been liberally interpreted to mean that “a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state” confers upon people the right to own any and all sorts of assault weapons for recreational purposes.
I love guns. I own three 12 gauge shotguns (Weatherby, Remington and Browning), a S&W .500 Magnum (instant erection when that big fucker comes out of its case) and an old snubnosed S&W .357 Magnum. I like shooting them, a lot. It’s one of the simplest, purest forms of recreation there is.
But at some point we need to ask ourselves if this sort of fun is a right or a privilege. I think in light of this latest tragedy it’s an entirely appropriate time to examine the issue further. And clearly, a conservative interpretation of the Constitution reveals that we have never really had the “right” to privately arm ourselves for recreational purposes. I prefer a more liberal interpretation, but liberal interpretations can go too far, as I feel the Court went with Roe v. Wade and now with its protection of expanded gun rights. Because that IS what has happened. Our gun ownership rights have been liberally interpreted and have expanded every decade, with little lasting contraction, since the 1970’s.
And let’s not forget that guns aren’t the final factor here. Crazy, disillusioned, maladjusted cowards are the REAL problem here. But you know what? A disillusioned coward with mommy and daddy issues with a knife or a baseball bat who is hellbent on killing a lot of people simply aren’t going to kill as many people as a disillusioned coward with two handguns and two 20-round clips or a fucking assault rifle.[/quote]
Your perception of gun rights and the Second Amendment is ridiculously misaligned. You straight up do not know what you’re talking about, Bert. You’re not even close to being as well educated on this matter as you think. It doesn’t matter what degree you having on your wall, you need some schooling.[/quote]
Bring. It. On. Pal.
If I may make a small request, could you please take each of the alleged falsehoods I put forth and show why each is inaccurate, one by one.
Please start with the original intent of the 2nd Amendment and tell me why it was allegedly intended to arm private citizens and NOT, as I have pointed out, to ensure the people a means of repressing a tyrannical federal gov’t led by a large federal army.[/quote]
Step out of the minor league if you can: Bob Costas and the 2nd Amendment - Politics and World Issues - Forums - T Nation
Barking about “no individual right” comes with no bite whatsoever. It is a thoroughly debunked idea. You will get flayed alive, Bert. You can look at 1789 and/or you can look at D.C. v Heller and McDonald v Chicago. Travel far and wide throughout American history right up til the current day and your argument is still vanquished. It was, and I repeat was, the last bastion of gun control dumbos. That bastion has been breached and your ilk are now POW’s or KIA.[/quote]
Obviously you didn’t read my post Push. I said that UP UNTIL the 1970’s, there were very few challenges to the 2nd Amendment’s language in the Supreme Court. You just gave me two cases that are less than 5 years old. My point is that UP UNTIL that point in time, even the NRA did not lobby against limiting people’s access to assault weapons. This shift in attitude is a recent phenomenon, one that has been expressed by judicial activists sitting on the bench and the gun lobby.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Please start with the original intent of the 2nd Amendment and tell me why it was allegedly intended to arm private citizens and NOT, as I have pointed out, to ensure the people a means of repressing a tyrannical federal gov’t led by a large federal army.[/quote]
Fuck. You’re not even in the minors. What was I saying? Sheesh. You’re in T ball.
How do you not arm private citizens AND ensure the people a means of repressing a tyrannical gov’t led by a large federal army? Are you high?
C’mon Bert. For cryin’ out loud.[/quote]
Push, I’m talking about the right to arm oneself to be protected from a tyrannical gov’t, which was the aim of the 2nd Amendment. Madison and Mason were concerned with maintaining people’s right to protect themselves from the federal gov’t, not each other. In Europe, the populace was not armed and as such, they felt that the populace was vulnerable to a tyrannical gov’t. The French Revolution confirmed as much for them.
[quote]cwill1973 wrote:
[quote]Rico Suave wrote:
[quote]cwill1973 wrote:
[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
[quote]butcherman7 wrote:
[quote]thethirdruffian wrote:
[quote]howie424 wrote:
Why do things like this happen? I just don’t understand. Do we blame guns?[/quote]
Because there are crazy and evil people.
Guns are no more at fault than a fork made Rosie Odonnel fat.[/quote]
^^well said[/quote]
No we can’t blame guns. On the other hand, if the perpetrator only had a knife…[/quote]
[/quote]
so, are you saying less people would be injured/dead?[/quote]
I’m saying it’s intellectual laziness to blame the tool a psychopath uses to perpetrate his evil deeds.
[/quote]
It’s equally intellectually lazy to think that the availability of such tools is not part of the problem.
In fact, it is probably the easiest aspect of this entire phenomenon to change. I don’t know what was going on in Lanza’s head, nor do I really care. It was probably something that sounded like something along the lines of “Requiem for Soprano, Mezzo Soprano” by Gyorgy Ligeti.
Anyways, the point is that we’ll rarely ever have the chance to really delve into these psychopaths minds since they pretty much always turn the gun on themselves as some sort of warped grand finale. Obviously these people are mentally disturbed, but for reasons that can run the gamut. PTSD, the abuse of pharmaceuticals or illegal drugs, a genetic chemical imbalance, a horrible childhood, oversaturation with violent video games and images in the media, some exotic combination of these factors, or none of the above can be behind these peoples’ actions.
But you know what can give people a chance to reach these psychopaths before they go off the deep end and do their best impression of Leonardo DiCaprio in The Basketball Diaries is to make it harder for them to get their hands on the types of weapons that exist solely to make people more efficient at killing other people. Because THAT is what an assault rifle is for; it’s for killing people, plain and simple. It isn’t for recreation and it isn’t for hunting.
So limiting or ending access to them can certainly be a very good first step. It’s certainly more effective than barring the sale of NIN’s music or Gears of War or something like that. It is NOT the only step, and it may not be the best step in the process. But it is A step in the right direction.
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
[quote]four60 wrote:
I’m still waiting to hear about these Magic Laws that will make everyone safe? I mean we have had such massive success with Banning things. We won the fight against Alcohol in the 30’s. We stopped the use of smoking that evil Weed in the 50’s. And please don’t forget our amazing success with the war on cocaine in the 80’s, 90’s. So we should have no problem with controlling guns.
I mean it’s not like it will just go blackmarket. [/quote]
I don’t know anyone on stteeeerrooidzzzz, either.[/quote]
If nothing else banning things does tend to make them more cost prohibitive. Not to mention that people who sell illegal goods tend to be more involved and aware (cautious) of their customers than people who work regular retail. At least in my experience.
That said, guns don’t kill people. People kill people. Unfortunatly people are invariably stupid and crazy. Good thing I’ve got my gun or I’d have nothing to shoot back with. Well, except for my cross bow. And my bow. Neither of which require a license.
[quote]Rico Suave wrote:
[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:
[quote]PB Andy wrote:
also, a friend of mine posted this on his facebook status, I though it was quite enlightening.
Morgan Freeman’s statement about these random shootings…
"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here’s why.
It’s because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single victim of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he’ll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.
CNN’s article says that if the body count “holds up”, this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer’s face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer’s identity? None that I’ve seen yet. Because they don’t sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you’ve just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.
You can help by forgetting you ever read this man’s name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem."[/quote]
Why does the news report it like this? Ratings. Why do they get such high ratings? We watch it. If one news station decided not to air any news covering the shooting, they would lose viewers to competing stations. It’s not the fault of the news imo. Why do we have to always find some scapegoat (media, videogames, gun laws) in tradgedies like this?[/quote]
Why do we have to find some scapegoat? Ummmmm maybe to put a stop to all of these tragedies???
You’re not actually being serious with that question are you?
In your opinion, what are we supposed to do? Just accept that it is some crazy wack job and move on?
When things go wrong, we tend to find out WHY and then try to SOLVE the problem. I thought this was obvious.
Of course banning guns is not that solution, nor is banning video games or taking it off the media. The fact that we’re trying to figure out why this is going down is however a step in the right direction.[/quote]
I agree, finding possible solutions is important.
Possible solutions (while ofcoarse some will disagree): increasing security, more restrictive gun laws, less restrictive gun laws allowing teachers to carry, etc…
But saying “Oh the media doing their job by reporting on this is causing it” is not finding a real solution, it is finding a scapegoat. Saying “oh that videogame is cauing this” is finding a scapegoat, not a real solution. Much different. Like you said, no one is going to ban guns or videogames or violent movies, so why even bring it up?
And nobody is ever going to solve the problem of a small percentage of people that have the desire to kill others for their own personal satisfaction. Can someone solve Jeffrey Dahmmer? Ted Kuklinski? They would become a very rich man.
I wonder if part of this has anything to do with a decreasing tendency towards having a strong nuclear and extended family tradition.
[quote]four60 wrote:
I’m still waiting to hear about these Magic Laws that will make everyone safe? I mean we have had such massive success with Banning things. We won the fight against Alcohol in the 30’s. We stopped the use of smoking that evil Weed in the 50’s. And please don’t forget our amazing success with the war on cocaine in the 80’s, 90’s. So we should have no problem with controlling guns.
I mean it’s not like it will just go blackmarket. [/quote]
Gun control brings out high levels of emotion on both side that generally argue it and with emotion you get lack of rationality. Every year we have about equal levels of DUI deaths and murders by firearms and yet we have people who would make guns illegal and not alcohol and we probably have people who would ban alcohol and not guns. Yet rationally if you want to ban one you must want to ban the other as each has he same contributary effect as the other. You cannot have firearm deaths without firearms and you cannot have DUI deaths without alcohol.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Well, it might if dump trucks were designed in such a way that they were EXTREMELY efficient at killing people AND they were being used in more and more tragic killings at an accelerating rate.
[/quote]
Oh but they are.
Automobiles in general are the most efficient killers in all of modern society. 3,000 - 80,000 lbs “bullets” criss cross our land in numbers that absolutely dwarf that of bullets that travel out of the ends of barrels. Tens of thousands of deaths every year.
But don’t mischaracterize the privilege of operating a motor vehicle with the natural, inalienable right of self defense which includes firearms - even the firearms you would so eagerly sacrifice for society’s “safety.”
And don’t ever forget the Law of Unintended Consequences. “Fixing” something today is “breaking” something tomorrow.
[/quote]
The thing is that dump trucks, or any other vehicle for that matter, are not designed specifically to kill people as efficiently as possible, which is the case with assault rifles.
On a separate note, because vehicles ARE so dangerous when driven at high speeds I wouldn’t have a problem at all with putting governors on all vehicles that don’t allow them to go above 70-75 mph. After all, there is no right to drive above and beyond the speed limit anyways, so why provide people with cars that can go well beyond it and become exponentially more dangerous the further above it that they go.
I totally agree with you about the Law of of Unintended Consequences. 26 people just fell victim to it yesterday.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]NikH wrote:
[quote]Airtruth wrote:
Most of these shooters die but unless we get into the minds of these people there’s no real way to prevent this. He could easily have killed on armed security guard, or bought a gun illegally.[/quote]
Easily preventable by not selling semiautomatic rifles to civilians. And the only rifles should be sold to hunters which are not automatic either. Why does any civilian need to have a bushmaster assault-rifle? It’s meant for killing people not hunting.
If you are paranoid and need a gun for safety a handgun might do as well.
If you think ‘oh we needz ak47 cuz criminals have them’ well those criminals arent gonna attack with automatic rifles unless you are doing some really shady business.
All these schoolshootings are done by depressed twisted white male ‘non-criminals’ who dont plan to survive, and your gun stores sell the best tools for killing people. Wadap.
USA is pretty much the only ‘developed’ country in the world that has metaldetectors in schools. :<[/quote]
hooves clattering ^
See what I mean, folks? Never let a serious crisis go to waste. SOMETHING, ANYTHING MUST BE DONE! Right, wrong or indifferent, DO SOMETHING!
If the nutjob had driven a dump truck on to the school grounds and killed 26 people would the clamor of “Ban Dump Trucks” have resounded across the land? Umm…I doubt it.
[/quote]
Let’s be honest here, you’re not killing 26 people with a dump truck driving it through a school playground or whatever hypothetical you were using. You’re probably not even killing 5. You’d be better off driving it into a wall of the building and hoping that wall was a classroom and shit collapses. That’s of course if you somehow evade arrest for stealing a dump truck/other large vehicle.
If ‘dump truck killing’ really became some rampant problem we could just build some shit around vulnerable areas of public property to prevent vehicles from driving to them, thus not requiring a ban on dump trucks. Hey that sounds like logic, something people having a healthy discussion on whether some further amount of regulation of firearms than we currently have are using to feel out if we could prevent them from being used to harm large amounts of people in public settings.
[quote]four60 wrote:
I’m still waiting to hear about these Magic Laws that will make everyone safe? I mean we have had such massive success with Banning things. We won the fight against Alcohol in the 30’s. We stopped the use of smoking that evil Weed in the 50’s. And please don’t forget our amazing success with the war on cocaine in the 80’s, 90’s. So we should have no problem with controlling guns.
I mean it’s not like it will just go blackmarket. [/quote]
The examples you provided bear no comparison here. First of all, the addictive nature of alcohol and drugs make them FAR more complicated when it comes to prevention methods. People will go through FAR more shit to get their hands on booze and drugs than they will guns.
Case in point: I am a recovering alcoholic and at one point my drinking was so fucking bad that I would puke every morning. There was so much fucking booze in my puke that I would literally puke right into a big fucking cup and then pound the whole thing to my face to start my day off on the right foot. Can you imagine someone going through anything remotely similar to that to get their hands on an assault weapon?
Also, the manufacture of booze and drugs is WAY easier to do and to get away with than it is to mass-produce guns without anyone finding out about it. Any jackass with a rudimentary understanding of chemistry and a few Pyrex beakers can make some good crystal meth and growing weed is so easy and so prevalent these days that my entire neighborhood smells like a huge garden from about June to early October.
So if something is illegalized but it can still be easily manufactured AND there is a huge amount of people who are addicted to that product, it just doesn’t disappear from society at all. It just goes underground. The same cannot be said for assault rifles. It’s easy to modify a gun but it is another thing entirely to make one from scratch, let alone mass-produce them in the same numbers that booze or meth or weed or perhaps even opium poppies can be produced.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]punchedbear wrote:
[quote]batman730 wrote:
[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
Also blaming a tool just isnt gonna cut it. An individual killed those people not a gun. Dont take responsibility off of that asshole by saying well clearly it was guns that killed. Guns didnt kill he did.[/quote]
An individual killed those children…with a gun.
Your argument is kind of like saying that alcoholism didn’t kill the drunk driver, the pavement that his head hit at 70mph after being ejected from his vehicle with a .25 blood-alcohol level killed him.[/quote]
No my argument would be that the idiot who consumed all that alcohol and then got in a car killed whatever got killed. making excuses or blaming things that we either need to consume or use to kill is so silly. The individual is the one responsible end of story.