For the first time in the nation’s history, the highest court has told a state it can’t exercise its inherent police powers to the degree it wants and, more importantly, has always been able to, on gun regulation. I think that counts as a new right.
It wasn’t a matter of “no need,” it was a matter of “couldn’t” because it was settled the BOR didn’t apply to the states directly. The only way to get application was via “incorporation” and the 14A.
The Heller case did determine the original meaning of the 2A - that was the case before McDonald that was straight 2A question because the government entity was DC (federal, not state). That’s when the Court established a 2A individual right (as against the federal government) based on, inconceivably, the right of personal-self defense, but allowed a ton of exceptions that restrict the right, particularly the exception of “dangerous and unusual weapons”, which pretty much guts the idea that SCOTUS thinks that citizens are entitled to military grade firearms as part of the right.
I would tell you that 1) such data would be very difficult (and expensive) to acquire (that’s the ‘impossible’ part); and 2) the results of such a ‘study’ would be very difficult to interpret, but doing so would just lead to you accusing me of intellectual snobbery again.
This again. So much for functionality as the primary design goal.
It’s not that so much as life’s too short to spend it interacting with people who insist on being unnecessarily unpleasant.
Your proposed study looked at ALL homicides–not gun homicides.
Bingo.
All I have ever said is that our gun culture is a factor in our country’s outsized gun-violence problem. Not that it was the only factor; not that it was the most important factor.
Give me time. At the least, I’ll provoke you into winging me in the leg.
Actually, the comparison is pretty appropriate. Think of SA as a dystopian US where negative trends in society are exacerbated to the maximum.
Oh, and I’m not sure how they got to such a low percentage of gun ownership in SA - virtually every white person I’ve met owns multiple guns, often assault rifles, not to mention the extensive arsenals in possession of criminal elements. SA is awash with guns.
Firefights between the police/private security companies and criminals occur with depressing regularity. And I won’t even get into armed carjackings… Shootouts with assault rifles resulting in multiple casualties is the order of the day…
I guess the women and children in townships drive the gun ownership percentage down, or it’s just that they like pangas more.
My sister lived in Polokwane (former Pietersburg) in SA for 5 years. In those 5 years she experienced 2 armed carjackings and two shootouts with burglars - shootouts meaning you’re in your bedroom on the first floor and you’re exchanging fire with AK-47 wielding criminals on the ground floor.
That is a very good description, and I also agree with the analogy.
I knew a guy from SA for a good while. He was raised during apartheid and served in the SA army.
That dude was a whole different animal than any thing or any one in the US. You can take the most violent racist “skinhead” from the worst prison in the US and that dude would not hold a match to the dude from SA. The level of violence and casually methodical ways that he described it being carried out is mind bending.
Aside from that he was a great guy though. He was one of the best home health aides we ever had for my brother- until a black guy showed up to pick them up in the Access (wheel chair) van.
Wow. Hope she got out unhurt. After the first armed criminal encounter I might think it’s a fluke. After the second I’d be house hunting in a different neighborhood/city/country.
S.A. law is really weird. We are re-engineering the corporate structure of our S.A. subsidiary. We need to sell exactly 5% of it to a black-owned hedge fund and give them a seat on the board. This is a 150 year old family owned private multinational company. The family has never given anyone an ownership stake anywhere.
I think @pfury’s point is, your description of the ubiquity and severity of violence in SA would seem to belie your assertion that it is an apt comparator for the US.
@Uncle_Gabby, when I accused you of improvising your argument, I did not know you were a professional firefighter/EMT. (I would not have leveled such an accusation had I known.) In light of your training/experience-based opinion, I decided to do some Google ‘research,’ and am now convinced that I was overestimating (in my head) the risk posed by seatbelts vis a vis drowning and/or burn injuries in an MVA. Thank you for the education.
That’s why I said “dystopian US”. Think of it as a scenario analysis - if you’d change the input parameters - turn the dials so to speak - of the US to get the worst possible scenario you’d get SA.
Although it’s tempting to compare the US to Western European countries, they’re facing somewhat different challenges that cannot translate directly to the US.
Like I said, if you want to see how a worst case scenario would have unfolded (or can unfold) look no further that South Africa. Massive unemployment, massive inequality and the abject failure of the top-down affirmative action policies… with the upcoming automation of menial and low-skilled jobs, who knows?
Incidentally, the white Afrikaners have completely copied many stereotypical aspects of certain cross sections of US subculture - so it’s assault guns, cowboy hats and boots… and love for Donald Trump.
Forgot to mention that she lived in a gated community What’s worse, her experiences weren’t that out of the ordinary. Luckily, she moved out after realizing the importance of living in a country deep down on the homicide per capita list
Doesn’t happen nearly enough in virtually any aspect of life, let alone on the interwebs.
I didn’t want to interject in a conversation I’m not totally invested in, but re- seat belt safety/failure is why virtually all first responders carry and recommend a sharp sturdy knife and some type of window breaker for your vehicle.
At least you were already wearing your seatbelt. The old wives tale about the seatbelt trapping you in a burning car is old, and I think dates back to when safety standards were lax to non existent, and the danger of burning to death was significant.
The only time I have ever had to use a seatbelt cutter on an actual incident was when the patient was so obese I couldn’t reach around her to hit the release.
I think the comparisons of the United States to South Africa are much more apt than Western Europe.
Where in Western Europe do we find geographically-isolated pockets of violence that are entirely unlike what you will find in the vast majority of locations in this country?
Where in Western Europe do you have small networks of people measured in the thousands who are producing murders measured in the hundreds, all taking place in a few square miles?
There is no average level of violence for an American, or for any other way you want to group people up. Even in the neighborhoods where violence is rampant, it is only a small percentage of the inhabitants who are doing these things to other people. These extraordinarily small groups of people are what drives America’s levels of violence up from what is considered normal in other countries where people expect each other to be polite and not kill each other.
Why are so-called compassionate liberals blaming a nebulous “gun culture” and pleading for this or that gun regulation, and not looking for the “why” behind these small groups of people so incredibly disposed to violent acts?
When will an NFL player take a knee for Takiya Holmes?
Of course, demanding answers to these questions opens one’s public self up to attacks of racism, because you can sure as shit bet that starting a real conversation about how Takiya Holmes ended up dead is going to trigger some lefties.
If you want to virtue signal about violence in America, it is so much more fashionable to use mental gymnastics to blame non-violent NRA members when scumbags decide to pull the trigger when an 11 year-old is in their sight picture.
What’s worse, her experiences weren’t that out of the ordinary. Luckily, she moved out after realizing the importance of living in a country deep down on the homicide per capita list