Geez, the pathetic ass clowns in Washington have seen fit to shut down the government to make a point….so what shall we post about these days?
Remember Newtown? I ask because we Americans have a very short memory, especially if it does not involve us directly….we are very sympathetic in the moment and then we slip into apathy……
After Newtown there was a whole conversation about background checks, expanding them which everyone was in favor of several years ago and then the NRA decided that it was not a good idea and began buying votes in Congress…..and being the dutiful whores of special interests Congress went along willingly……
A recent survey by researchers at UC-Davis have found an astounding amount of people that favor background checks……
The survey found that most respondents (55.4 percent) supported a comprehensive background check requirement, with 37.5 percent strongly favoring it. Of those who favored comprehensive background checks, the strength of their support corresponded to the degree that respondents agreed it is too easy for criminals to get guns, recommended more severe sentences for illegal firearm purchasing and provided higher estimates on the prevalence of illegal gun sales by other retailers.
By wide margins, respondents endorsed three existing policies that deny handgun purchases to individuals convicted of aggravated assault involving a lethal weapon or causing serious injury, armed robbery, or domestic violence. They also strongly supported six of nine potential denial criteria proposed in the survey. The percentage of support for existing (*) or proposed criterion for denial of handgun purchases are detailed below:
- *Aggravated assault, involving a lethal weapon or serious injury, 99.1 percent
- *Armed robbery, 99.3 percent
- *Assault and battery on an intimate partner:/ domestic violence, 79.6 percent
- Publicly displaying a firearm in a threatening manner, 84.8 percent
- Possession of equipment for illegal drug use, 80.7 percent
- Assault and battery, not involving a lethal weapon or serious injury, 67.4 percent
- Resisting arrest, 53.1 percent
- Alcohol abuse, with repeated cases of alcohol-related violence, 90.1 percent
- Alcohol abuse, with repeated cases driving under the influence (DUI) or similar offenses, 70.7 percent
- Serious mental illness, with a history of violence, 98.9 percent
- Serious mental illness, with a history of alcohol or drug abuse, 97.4 percent
- Serious mental illness, but no violence and no alcohol or drug abuse, 91.2 percent
“Respondents very strongly supported an array of criteria for denial of handgun purchase by wide margins and in some cases nearly unanimously,” Wintemute said. “Support fell below a two-thirds margin in a single case: resisting arrest.”
And now I am going to do something that I have NEVER seen a right wing blogger or news person do before……I will give you the other side of this debate……….
This is taken from a statement made by the National Shooting Sports Foundation………
Anti-gun researcher and activist Garen Wintemute and his colleagues at the University of California at Davis have begun sending out surveys to firearms retailers across the country. A letter accompanying the survey, signed by Dr. Wintemute, claims the aim of their research is to better understand “the unique perspective of firearms licensees on important social issues and the firearms business itself.”
Dr. Wintemute, who serves as the director of the Violence Prevention Research Program
at UC Davis, is perhaps best known for authoring the anti-gun report “Ring of Fire: The Handgun Makers of Southern California.” More recently, Dr. Wintemute and his team conducted “undercover operations” of gunshows for their report, “Inside Gun Shows: What Goes on When Everyone Thinks Nobody is Watching.”Given Dr. Wintemute’s history, it is clear that this firearms retailer survey will be used as a tool to justify and support legislation to curb the lawful commerce of firearms and the individual rights of law-abiding Americans.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) — the trade association for America’s firearms industry — is urging extreme caution should retailers decide to participate in this survey. NSSF is encouraging all sportsmen, gun owners and firearms enthusiasts to contact Dr. Wintemute and his research team to politely express their objections to this agenda-driven, anti-gun research.
Come on…you have to admit that a statement from a group that makes its cash from the firearm industry would have anything good to say? We would have better conversation if everyone was willing to state both sides of the issue even if you do not agree with what is said……..
You talk about the NRA buying votes in Congress. Ever think about the drug makers, the pharmaceutical companies? They make 100X the profits of the personal firearms industry and some of their drugs may in fact create killers.
Guns And Drugs
http://free2beinamerica2.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/guns-and-drugs/
lwk
What is a “comprehensive background check”? Oh that’s right, it’s the one criminals have to go through to buy a gun.
I hate to say this but there is already a stringent Federal background check requirement that all FFL dealers must conduct before selling a gun. It seems there are absolutely no increase in penalties for those involved in committing crimes while using a gun. Does it not seem logical that stiffer and enforced penalties for those crimes may help to give pause to someone pondering committing a gun-related crime, thus having the potential of reducing “gun violence?
Yeah, everyone favors background checks … something that’s already in place. If that’s already in place I fail to see your point. Unless your point is that if I want to personally sell or give one of my guns to my brother-in-law I have to somehow conduct a background check on him … that seems somewhat overreaching. What I fail to understand is why people do not get the fact that criminals are … well … criminals by definition … in other words, they are not going to submit to any law or governing body before obtaining a gun.
Also, considering the source of anything from California really undermines the credibility and accuracy of any opinion that could be considered a nation-wide view.
Think: Democrat politicians in Colorado …
” It seems there are absolutely no increase in penalties for those involved in committing crimes while using a gun.”
Also, it is a Federal offense to lie on the Form 4473 when purchasing a firearm. Sometimes it is fairly innocent – a person had a problem when they were a teenager and didn’t realize it barred them from purchasing. But many are not innocent.
From what I have read prosecutions for lying on the 4473 are way down under the Obama administration compared to Bush. Biden was asked about this and his reply was something likke “we are too busy right now.”
Chicago is becoming the murder capital of the U.S. it seems. A very large part of this involves inner city black youths in gangs. Often by the time one of these guys kills someone and is caught you find he has had many contacts before, may have been found with an illegal gun, and basically did not suffer really serious consequences.
But if you start putting them in jail for having an illegal gun then civil rights folks will be screaming bloody murder that it is racism because so many blacks are already in jail. But FBI stats for 2011 for homicide show that where the race of the offender is known it was black 52.4% of the time, although blacks then were less than 14% of the population. Blacks are way over-represented in the crime stats, and many of those represent violent crime (aggravated assault), although prostitution, gambling, and robbery are also prominent.
“Yeah, everyone favors background checks … something that’s already in place…”
The antis will say no background check for private sales though. So I put together a proposal for universal background checks that I think many gun owners could support.
Universal Background Checks
http://free2beinamerica2.wordpress.com/2013/08/28/universal-background-checks/
lwk
Yes, there are many blacks in jail. However, and this is a fact, they commit most of the crimes, especially in places like Chicago. I know how that sounds, but sadly it’s true. You see though, this is where being politically correct and the fear of being called “racist” has contributed greatly to the problems the nation is facing. But what people are missing is the law reads the same for everyone. I doubt it says “if you’re black and commit a crime using a gun, the penalty is this.” and “if you’re white and commit a crime using a gun, the penalty is this.” But racism is alive and well and will always be as long as there are Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons around promoting it.
“I hate to say this but there is already a stringent Federal background check requirement that all FFL dealers must conduct before selling a gun. “
And you think this is the same thing as a “comprehensive” background check. Criminals don’t buy their weapons through licensed dealers. They buy them off individuals like you who, as a non-licensed dealer, are not mandated by law to do a background check. You can choose to do it but you would not face any criminal charges if you didn’t, even if the weapon you sold to someone wound up being bought by the next mass killer.
Why the angst over pushing the envelope just a bit further to prevent even one more death by a gun in this country? How could you even conclude that yours or anyone else’s 2nd amendment rights were being violated here in doing this? Or even threatened?
“And you think this is the same thing as a “comprehensive” background check.”
The FBI NICS check in principle is fine. The idea is that it is a negative database of people who have proven they are not competent to exercise a Constitutional right by either criminal activity of serious mental problems. If there are issues with it they are issues of execution not design.
I have written a proposal for a universal background check which would extent the check to all sales including private sales. I mentioned it earlier, but here is the link again:
Universal Background Checks
http://free2beinamerica2.wordpress.com/2013/08/28/universal-background-checks/
“Criminals don’t buy their weapons through licensed dealers.”
And this is not going to change. We can’t keep illegal drugs off the streets of Chicago so why do you think that the same people couldn’t import guns if the profit was there? Of course we have a reservoir of privately owned firearms now probably sufficient to supply criminals for a century at least.
So obviously all the laws you want to pass are mostly going to affect law abiding people who are not the problem and hardly inconvenience criminals at all.
The U.S. is often compared to the U.K. where most guns have been banned. But guess what? Their gun crime rate – always low compared to the U.S. – has DOUBLED in recent years.
“…as a non-licensed dealer, ”
A person who privately sells a personal firearm and is not in the business of selling firearms is not a dealer. If a person is a not an FFL licensed dealer and they are in the business of selling firearms then they are a criminal. Period. The BATFE arrests a number of these people every year (although some would argue the BATFE is a gang of clowns who could hardly find their own ass with both hands).
“Why the angst over pushing the envelope just a bit further …”
Because it is an obvious attempt to emulate the U.K. and Australis where “reasonable” laws turned into confiscation.
“to prevent even one more death by a gun in this country?”
Because you can’t do that. Criminals don’t follow laws and if it suits them to kill someone they will. What you most likely happen though is that people need a firearm in self defense won’t be able to get one.
So how about this. What is your laws kill people? Kill people who don’t have a means to protect themself. Cause women to be raped because they didn’t have a gun?
Research shows that Americans may use firearms up to 2.5 million times a years to protect themselves and property and up to 400,000 lives may be saved. See:
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (Northwestern) Guns and Violence Symposium, vol. 86, no. 1, 1995: 150.
ARMED RESISTANCE TO CRIME: THE PREVALENCE AND NATURE OF SELF-DEFENSE WITH A GUN
Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz
http://www.saf.org/lawreviews/kleckandgertz1.htm
“How could you even conclude that yours or anyone else’s 2nd amendment rights were being violated here in doing this? Or even threatened?”
I guess by seeing people try to take those rights away for about 60 years or so. Sen. Diane Feinstein said a while back she would take everyone away if she had the votes in the Senate (speaking on the 1994 AWB).
lwk
“We can’t keep illegal drugs off the streets of Chicago so why do you think that the same people couldn’t import guns if the profit was there?”
Because Chicago is an island in a sea of loose laws allowing easy access to most types of firearms preferred by gangs. If Chicago were in Australia, Japan or Great Britain there would not be the high incidences of crime we see in an American Chicago. We need greater national gun control laws that restrict the number and types of weapons available to citizens. Your 2nd amendment rights, according to Justice Anton Scalia in his 2007 ruling of District of Columbia vs. Heller stated that the 2nd amendment doesn’t mean you can own any and every type of gun you desire.
“The Second Amendment right is not unlimited. We do not cast doubt on concealed-weapons prohibitions, laws barring possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, laws barring firearms in sensitive places like schools and government buildings, and laws imposing conditions on commercial sale of arms. (54-55) Also, the sorts of weapons protected are the sorts of small arms that were lawfully possessed at home at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification, not those most useful in military service today, so “M-16 rifles and the like” may be banned. (55)” SOURCE
“The U.S. is often compared to the U.K. where most guns have been banned. But guess what? Their gun crime rate – always low compared to the U.S. – has DOUBLED in recent years.”
From what? 2 to 4? Give me some sources on this. Currently the UK has 0.25 firearm related deaths per 100,000 population compared to the U.S.’s 10.8 per 100,000. Iceland for god’s sake has five times the crime rate of the U.S. but only 1.25 gun related deaths per 100,000 population. SOURCE
Don’t tell me that sane gun control measures don’t save lives.
“Research shows that Americans may use firearms up to 2.5 million times a years to protect themselves and property and up to 400,000 lives may be saved. “
Research also shows that those communities and states that have less restrictive gun laws have higher incidences of gun deaths and that’s not the killing of people who are supposed to be invading your home.
Guns have one purpose. To kill. People are still violent and will use whatever is at their disposal to carry out their nefarious deeds but we don’t need to make it easier for them to kill more people quicker and more deadlier than it has to be.
“I guess by seeing people try to take those rights away for about 60 years or so. Sen. Diane Feinstein said a while back she would take everyone away if she had the votes in the Senate (speaking on the 1994 AWB).”
Oh dear god in heaven. Someone in Congress expresses an opinion out of frustration and you act as if the sky is falling. Less restrictive legislation, NOT more restrictive legislation, is the reality today. You’re reacting in alarmist fashion my friend.
“Yes, there are many blacks in jail.”
Yes, that is very true. There are those that argue it is largely due to racism. They will say that racism is subtle and systemic, etc. However I probably agree with you and think that their “subtle and systemic” really means “we think it is racism but we can’t really prove it” therefore the stats themselves prove it (meaning that they are claiming that correlation proves causation).
“I know how that sounds”
Some would say “racism.” I would say facing the facts as they are.
The problem with many on the Left is that they have reached their conclusion – racism – and therefore all data that seems to agree with their conclusions must prove their conclusion.
Reasoning with them can be frustrating. Instead of talking about facts they will being analyzing -your- hidden racism which they feel fully qualified to diagnose based on largely little or not evidence than actually recognizing facts, for example, like FBI reports on crime.
lwk
“…Chicago is an island in a sea of loose laws allowing easy access to most types of firearms…”
And Chicago is also “in an island in a sea of … laws allowing easy access” to drugs? Or do a lot of those drugs, cocaine and heroin for example, get smuggled across our borders. It is just a matter of supply and demand. Right now the price point is not there for smuggling guns made in Brazil by Taurus, but if you change the equation, someone will step up to supply the demand. And of course drugs will fund the demand and pay for it.
“…according to Justice Anton Scalia in his 2007 ruling of District of Columbia vs. Heller stated that the 2nd amendment doesn’t mean you can own any and every type of gun you desire.”
The Founders absolutely intended for civilians to be able to own the latest technology in “military grade” firearms. That is not even debatable if you have read Madison and the Federalist Papers.
But we departed from that in 1934 with the National Firearms Act. In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) part of the ruling was that the right applied to “those [firearms] in common use for lawful purposes.”
AR-15s are in enormous “common use for lawful purposes.” I own one myself (and an M1A which is a version of the M14 service rifle).
Re U.K. gun crime you asked:
“Give me some sources on this.”
Google “gun crime in U.K. doubled” and check a few references, for example one of the first from a British paper:
“Gun crime doubles in a decade”
“Offences involving firearms have increased in all but four police areas in England and Wales since 1998, figures obtained by the Tories reveal.”
“One part of the country has seen the problem increase almost seven fold as the availability of guns, and criminals’ williness to use them rises.”
“The number of people injured or killed by a gun has also doubled under Labour.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6438601/Gun-crime-doubles-in-a-decade.html
There are lot’s more. The U.K. was declared the most violent country in Europe not too long ago. Maybe they don’t kill as many people with guns, but they are far from a peaceful country any more.
“Currently the UK has 0.25 firearm related deaths per 100,000 population compared to the U.S.’s 10.8 per 100,000.”
You 10.8 figure is actually double the current rate in the U.S. For 2012 look here for FBI statistics:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/1tabledatadecoverviewpdf/table_1_crime_in_the_united_states_by_volume_and_rate_per_100000_inhabitants_1993-2012.xls
Current homicide rate in the U.S. is 4.7 down from 9.5 in 1993. And those are _all_ homicides, not just guns.
Rates today are approaching historic _lows_ in the U.S. not seen since I was a teenager in the 1960s.
In the U.K. the homicide rate is approximated 1.2 per 100,000. So maybe the gun rate is lower, but they still kill each other.
And guess what? If you take out the gang bangers and drug dealers shooting each other up in the inner cities our homicide rate would be a _lot_ closer to that U.K. rate.
The gun violence (not includeing suicides) is very largely concentrated in inner cites.
“Don’t tell me that sane gun control measures don’t save lives.”
Gun control measures often cost lives by denying people a means of efficient self defense.
“Research also shows that those communities and states that have less restrictive gun laws
have higher incidences of gun deaths..”
Actually there are a lot of problems with those studies, including the fallacy that correlation proves causation. They are obviously “painting with too broad a brush” and I don’t have to have a Phd to know that.
Simple refutation. My town in Texas has about as un-restrictive gun laws as any place in the U.S. I can legally own a fully automatic machine gun (if I can afford it, but I would probably buy a new Suburban, about same price). If I go down to GT Distributors in Austin I can buy a fully legal suppressor for a rifle or a handgun (a Class II device regulated by the BATFE). I own enough guns I am shopping for a much bigger gun safe. And I have lots of neighbors with tons of guns.
Earlier this year there were so many people getting concealed carry licenses you had to stand in line sometimes to get a spot to shoot at the local range. My point is this. You will find fewer places in the U.S. that have more guns per square mile than where I live right now. For a while there were models you couldn’t buy at the store (AR-15s). They were backordered. Until a couple weeks ago every box of 9mm ammunition that hit the store was bought in 30 minutes after it hit the shelves (panic buying by a lot of people).
But what do you think our homicide rate is? Usually in my small town it is 0 per 100K. And like I said we are loaded down like an armory. Now Austin, a liberal town not too far away has a real inner city (though nothing like Chicago), and their homicide rate is closer to the national average.
Now go to Chicago with some of the harshest restrictions in the U.S. High homicide rate. You can say all you want about easier localities around them, but why do not those other localities have the same crime rate as Chicago?
Elementary my dear Watson. It is not guns. It is inner cities, a War on Drugs and serious social problems in places run by Democrats for decades.
“Guns have one purpose. To kill.”
Not true. They are designed to have the ability to kill, but that is not how most people use them. Most people use them to threaten criminals and aggressors with.
That is one of the great values of Dr. Kleck’s research. Regardless if his overall conclusion on defensive gun uses is exactly right, one thing he showed is that in the vast, vast majority of cases people do NOT fire the gun. They threaten.
If you actually really want to understand that then read “On Killing” by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (it is on Amazon).
In fact most people use a gun to threaten, not kill. That is why counting the number of people killed in justifiable self defense doesn’t come remotely close to giving you a correct figure for defensive gun use.
“People are still violent …”
Actually the majority of people _cannot_ kill deliberately (or at least not without some very special training). Read “On Killing.”
“Someone in Congress expresses an opinion…”
Feinstein, Schumer, Boxer, Biden, and thankfully the dead Kennedy are just a few. Don’t tell me that there are not a lot of politicians who want to take away firearms. I am not quite that senile yet.
There are quite a few who would like nothing better than to make us exactly like the U.K. where if you want to buy a gun, one of the few still permitted, you have to submit a valid justification and self defense is no longer acceptable as a reason.
—
Here are some things you might find interesting:
—
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (Northwestern) Guns and Violence Symposium, vol. 86, no. 1, 1995: 150.
ARMED RESISTANCE TO CRIME: THE PREVALENCE AND NATURE OF SELF-DEFENSE WITH A GUN
Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz
http://www.saf.org/lawreviews/kleckandgertz1.htm
—
WOULD BANNING FIREARMS REDUCE MURDER AND SUICIDE?
A REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL AND SOME DOMESTIC EVIDENCE
DON B. KATES* AND GARY MAUSER**
Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf
—
regards,
lwk
”And Chicago is also “in an island in a sea of … laws allowing easy access” to drugs?”
WTF?!? So you are saying there are commercial outlets in Chicago that sell heroin, cocaine and other illegal drugs to anyone who wants them?
”The Founders absolutely intended for civilians to be able to own the latest technology in “military grade” firearms. That is not even debatable if you have read Madison and the Federalist Papers.”
No they didn’t because if they had, Anton Scalia, who claims to know the Federalist papers backwards and forwards, would have cited this in Heller. But he didn’t. That’s why he made the claim he did that the 2nd amendment is not unlimited.
”In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) part of the ruling was that the right applied to “those [firearms] in common use for lawful purposes.””
The full text refers to the era that the Constitution and the 2nd amendment were written. Are you suggesting that there were semi-automatic, assault style rifles back in the late 18th century? Look at the syllabus of the Court’s brief that Scalia wrote:
“Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. [United States v.] Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.” SOURCE
”Google “gun crime in U.K. doubled” and check a few references, for example one of the first from a British paper:”
I didn’t dispute the claim that gun crime had doubled in the Great Britain. I was asking for the research that showed actual numbers What was the figure that doubled. Do you have that?
”The U.K. was declared the most violent country in Europe not too long ago. Maybe they don’t kill as many people with guns, but they are far from a peaceful country any more.”
Yes, that’s the basic ancestry of what makes up the American public who tend to favor least restrictive gun laws in the world. But this is a moot point. Actually you have demonstrated an iportant point about the benefits of sane gun control laws because if they are as you claim, “the most violent country in Europe” then how much worse would it have been had they easy access to any and all style of guns? Their actual numbers would likely match those here in the U.S.
”Gun control measures often cost lives by denying people a means of efficient self defense.”
That’s a specious claim. NOT a verifiable fact.
”Actually there are a lot of problems with those studies …”
Yeah, right. Always problems with theother guys studies but not the ones you cherry pick to defend your perception, eh? Whose your main source? John Lott and his More Guns, Less Crime book?
“Such statistics are misleading, said John Lott, an economist and author of More Guns, Less Crime. That’s because gun-related homicides and accidents have gone down, while suicide deaths by firearm have gone up, he claims.
He said there’s no need for legislation: Since the assault rifle ban ended in 2004, he said there has been twice as large a drop in firearm deaths.
But experts from the National Academies of Science’s National Research Council have taken issue with his numbers, which also don’t gel with the CDC’s findings. In 2004, there were 11,624 gun homicides — up from 10,828 in 1999. When the assault rifle ban ended, the numbers shot up to 12,632 in 2007 before slowly coming back down to 11,098 in 2010. There has been a corresponding decrease in violence in those years, leading researchers to say a correlation between the end of the ban and fewer gun murders is impossible to make. Deaths from accidental discharges dropped from 824 in 1999 to 600 in 2009. Firearm homicides rose from 10,828 in 1999 to 11,493 in 2009, a 6% increase. SOURCE
”Simple refutation. My town in Texas …”
One subjective case does not serve to demonstrate universality
”Not true. They are designed to have the ability to kill, but that is not how most people use them. Most people use them to threaten criminals and aggressors with.”
Nice tap dance around the truth. Do most people use automobiles and chains to “threaten criminals and aggressors with.”
”Don’t tell me that there are not a lot of politicians who want to take away firearms. I am not quite that senile yet.”
No just a little paranoid though. Please demonstrate how anything that anyone has said has eliminated your right to own a gun in the manner that the founding fathers intended.
For some reason my links to sources about gun related deaths in the U.S. and other countries didn’t get attached. Here’s the source – http://www.amjmed.com/webfiles/images/journals/ajm/AJM12080.pdf
I have plenty more if you’re interested lwk2431
“…are saying there are commercial outlets in Chicago that sell heroin, cocaine and other illegal drugs to anyone who wants them?”
Obviously not. You need to consider the context of the statement.
You said that the reason you had a problem with illegal guns in Chicago is because there are surrounding areas where guns are easy to buy legally. So people buy them legally in Indiana, for example, then sell them illegally in Chicago.
I am saying that people smuggle illegal drugs to Chicago from S. America and the Middle East. Chicago doesn’t have an illegal drug problem because people can easily buy heroin in Indiana.
So why do you think they couldn’t sell cheap guns manufactured legally in S. America, or even China, and smuggle them illegally to gang bangers in Chicago, if the profit was sufficiently attractive?
Assume you could pass gun controls equal to Chicago’s all around it, maybe even the entire U.S. Initially there would be a large reservoir of guns already owned to supply criminals at the right price. But the law of supply and demand says that eventually you will need to go farther afield and at some point start smuggling them in like drugs, just as long as there is profit in doing so, and drug dealers, criminals of various types, and gang bangers are willing to pay for them.
So basically the idea that the root cause of illegal guns in Chicago is easy availability nearby is transparently false. The root cause is that people doing illegal things believe they need guns and are willing and able to buy them. Period.
—
“No they didn’t because if they had, Anton Scalia, who claims to know the Federalist papers backwards and forwards, would have cited this in Heller. But he didn’t. That’s why he made the claim he did that the 2nd amendment is not unlimited.”
I cover that a little here. Read this little excerpt and you will see that Scalia was basing his conclusion on something other than the Federalist Papers.
http://free2beinamerica2.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/2nd-amendment-and-ar-15s/
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” Are you suggesting that there were semi-automatic, assault style rifles back in the late 18th century?”
Are you suggesting there were computers and the Internet back then? No? Well then the First Amendment guarantees of free speech should NOT protect what you write on the Internet, right? Those technologies weren’t available back then so obviously they are not protected? Of course that is nonsense, and the idea that the only guns protected are those availabe in the 18th century is nonsense.
Scalia and the court found correctly that the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual right. But not all of their reasoning was really based on what the Founders wrote. That is not atypical of the way the Supreme Court often tries to find some middle road between what the Founders intended, what previous courts have found, and whatever biases the individual judges have.
But there is no doubt what the Founders intended and anyone with a high education able to read the Federalist Papers, as I pointed in the url above, can figure out for themselves.
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“That’s a specious claim. NOT a verifiable fact.”
Kleck& Gertz. 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year. 400,000 lives saved. If you took guns away in some of those cases or denied their purchase people would be victimized or murdered. QED.
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” Always problems with theother guys studies but not the ones you cherry pick to defend your perception, eh”
Actually all studies have some issues that can be nitpicked, no matter how good.
The claim though that there is a causal correlation with more guns and more crimes is easily refutable without resorting to advanced mathematics or statistics (see below).
—
“”Simple refutation. My town in Texas …”
“One subjective case does not serve to demonstrate universality”
You can see the same example over and over again of rural areas with high legal gun ownership and low crime. Conversely you can see over and over again examples of inner cities with low legal gun ownership and high crime.
That is so obvious, and well documented, that even a third grader ought to understand it.
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“Nice tap dance around the truth.”
No tap dance. The majority of people who buy guns for self defense will _never_ fire them at an intruder, or if they do it will be a warning shot designed to miss. Only in a tiny number of cases – relative to the total number of uses – will a person deliberately shoot an intruder. Again, see “On Killing” by Grossman.
—
“No just a little paranoid though.”
I have seen gun control debated for over 60 years now and seen the players and what they have sought. If you refuse to see it then that is your failing, not mine.
regards,
lwk
”So why do you think they couldn’t sell cheap guns manufactured legally in S. America, or even China, and smuggle them illegally to gang bangers in Chicago, if the profit was sufficiently attractive?”
Have you got some valid evidence that this is occurring or is this another of your specious arguments you’re throwing out there to see if it will stick?
”But the law of supply and demand says that eventually you will need to go farther afield and at some point start smuggling them in like drugs, just as long as there is profit in doing so, and drug dealers, criminals of various types, and gang bangers are willing to pay for them.”
The reality is that countries who have strict gun control laws are not being affected by it in the manner you suggest here. Why do you think that is? Isn’t it it just as likely that demand dries up as the supply gets tougher to acquire? If not, why not?
”Read this little excerpt and you will see that Scalia was basing his conclusion on something other than the Federalist Papers.”
Who cares what he based it on? He’s a pro-gun, uber-conservative, original-intent constitutionalist who clearly stated in 2007 that the the 2nd amendment is not unlimited.
”Well then the First Amendment guarantees of free speech should NOT protect what you write on the Internet, right? Those technologies weren’t available back then so obviously they are not protected?”
Oh puleease. Are you serious? It’s the printed word the 1st amendment was guaranteeing. Not the technology it was conveyed on. What Scalia was referring to were the types of guns people used to defend themselves with and kill food for survival purposes. Nobody expects that to mean people today have to use muskets and powder-loaded pistols. Newer weapons that replace these fall within this category like handguns and semi-automatic hunting rifles. Not weapons that are designed for military use or an arsenal that even an combat infantry unit would be jealous of. No one is talking about limiting a person’s right to protect themselves with a gun, merely limiting the firepower unnecessary to accomplish that.
And the paranoid view that we have to defend ourselves against tyranny requires people to arm themselves to the hilt is pretty silly. When’s the last time you were suppressed by tyranny in the form of jack-booted troops storming your home or town?
”But not all of their reasoning was really based on what the Founders wrote.”
Oh I see. They didn’t read your version of scriptures that tells the REAL thinking about what was going through the mind of the “founding fathers”, did they?
“But there is no doubt what the Founders intended and anyone with a high education able to read the Federalist Papers, as I pointed in the url above, can figure out for themselves.”
Oh bullshit. The Federalist papers were written by three people, Madison, Hamilton and John Jay. These three men couldn’t possibly represent all those who helped found this country and framed its constitution. Hell, though originally agreeing for the need to form a more central government during the constitutional convention, Madison changed his mind later while Hamilton remained a firm believer in what has become the norm today. There were a variety of disagreements among the delegates at the Constitutional Convention as Richard Beeman illustrated in his excellent historical book, Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution. Wouldn’t this be indicative of disagreements by the people of the time as a whole?
In forming the wording to the 2nd amendment it might be note worthy from an original intent mind-set that some of our earliest political leaders viewed arming its citizens as part of a “well-regulated militia” – not separately and privately as noted in the Journal of the Senate, p. 63 in 1789
“A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.”
If we are to presume that the words in the 2nd amendment “shall not be infringed” are to be taken without qualification, then one could legitimately argue that anyone shall not be denied the right to possess such firearms, including children, mentally ill people and of course criminals. Yet even back then it was clear that some infringements on who was to own a weapon and of what nature were spelled out.
“On May 8, 1792, Congress passed “[a]n act more effectually to provide for the National Defence, by establishing an Uniform Militia throughout the United States” requiring:
[E]ach and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia…[and] every citizen so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear, so armed, accoutred [sic] and provided, when called out to exercise, or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack.” SOURCE
“Kleck& Gertz. 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year. 400,000 lives saved. If you took guns away in some of those cases or denied their purchase people would be victimized or murdered. QED.”
Could you please provide me your link to this statement.
“The majority of people who buy guns for self defense will _never_ fire them at an intruder, or if they do it will be a warning shot designed to miss”
Do they shout “Halt! Who goes there?” before they fire the warning shot?
This is a moot point. Those who do use them don’t always fire them at an intruder and with roughly 300 million guns in the hands of many Americans today, if only 1% of those were used to kill someone it would amount to 300,000 people. Not that that is an actual number but to say that a majority won’t use their guns misconstrues that even a minority of gun owners in America represents thousands and thousands of people.
”If you refuse to see it then that is your failing, not mine.”
Oh I keep forgetting. It is only YOUR perspective here that sees the real truth. How silly of me to forget that. Well I guess calling you a fanatic alarmist will only fall on deaf ears then.
Source for “On May 8, 1792 Congress passed …” http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=394”