stricter gun regulation and the second amendment

[adjusterjack]

It just occurred to me that we may have been victims of an internet troll.

An internet troll is someone who makes intentionally inflammatory statements online to elicit strong emotional responses in people. Most trolls do this for their own amusement.

Toyanne is sitting back and laughing at us.

 

[Bali Hai Again]

I haven't seen any gun control law yet that stopped any drug crazed lunatics. Have you?

No.

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

No. Research how to get in touch with the victims of Sandy Hook among too many other victims of gun wielding, drug crazed lunatics and ask that question.

So if you or a family member gets run over by a car are you then an expert in automobile safety?

 

[Taxing Matters]

If I were writing the research paper I would go on to show how the Supreme Court proved him dead wrong in the Heller and MacDonald decisions.

The Court did not prove him dead wrong. Political rights are not something subject to scientific proof. The decision is one of opinion that is supposedly based on sound interpretation of the Constitution. Hence the reason why court decisions are called opinions in the law rather than indisputable fact. The Heller Court majority simply decided the matter differently than Burger would have voted on the matter were he still on the Court at the time. I personally think there is some merit to Burger's argument, but it is the Court that has the final say in our system on that. In the end, any paper like the one the OP is to write will end up also being a matter of opinion.

To what end? It's not the amendment that GIVES us the right to keep and bear arms. Nor do the amendments GIVE us the right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc. Those rights already exist and that's what the Bill of Rights is acknowledging.

There was a faction of the founders who thought certain rights were so fundamental that they need not be mentioned in the Constitution. But the majority of the founders did not wish to rely on that view holding for any period of time and thought it better to ensure the rights were protected in the Bill of Rights. As it turns out, the majority was correct. American and English legal history has demonstrated that just assuming a right is fundamental and exists is not sufficient to guarantee that right will last for any particular period of time. While the founders would say that the Bill of Rights enshrines in law those rights that god had already given them, the fact is that they presumed the right was given to them — just by God rather than any government or group of persons. Considering that this country is far less religious today than in 1789 it was a good call to enact the Bill of Rights. Those who don't believe in God aren't going to believe that God granted them any "inalienable rights" as the Declaration of Independence put it.

Keep in mind that it was British citizens that took up arms against a tyrannic British government in the War for Independence.

The mistake of the King and Parliament was in not granting the colonists representation in Parliament. Had they done that, the colonists would have had a voice in the decisions made in London that affected them. It was that mistake that made for the tyranny you mention. Had the colonists had that representation we might today be citizens of the United Kingdom rather than the separate nation of the United States of America.

 

[LdiJ]

I haven't seen any gun control law yet that stopped any drug crazed lunatics. Have you?

Better laws might keep guns out of the hands of at least some of them. The laws as they stand today don't have a real hope of doing so.

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

Better laws might keep guns out of the hands of at least some of them. The laws as they stand today don't have a real hope of doing so.

There are states and jurisdictions where the laws are close to outright bans. And some of those jurisdictions have the worst gun crime. There are more guns than people in the country. You could not get rid of them if you repealed the 2nd Amendment today. The outcome would be only the government and criminals would have guns. Not two groups I'd be willing to trust my life to.

 

[Taxing Matters]

You could not get rid of them if you repealed the 2nd Amendment today. The outcome would be only the government and criminals would have guns. Not two groups I'd be willing to trust my life to.

You seem to think that the only possible result of a repeal of the 2nd Amendment would be an outright ban on all gun ownership by private persons. But there are a lot of possibilities that fall short of that drastic step. We regulate the use of many objects in this country and the result of that regulation hasn't resulted in an outright ban on most of them. Automobiles are a great example of that. Using the argument that repeal would inevitably lead to confiscation of everyone's guns isn't a good logical argument. It's simply a scare tactic to frighten gun owners. With millions of gun owners in this country who also vote, repeal of the second amendment would not likely lead to a complete ban. There wouldn't be the votes in Congress for that. There would likely be more regulation of guns, and people have legitimately differing views on just what kind and how much regulation is needed to help address the large number of deaths to firearms that we have in this country. A number of other democratic countries have far more restrictions on gun ownership without an outright ban and they have very low deaths from gun shots and don't have the tyranny that you are concerned about. A repeal would only guarantee one thing: that the government could regulate guns to the same degree that other objects are regulated. What regulation would finally result from that is impossible to say with any high degree of confidence, except that I think a complete ban is not the most likely of outcomes.

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

You seem to think that the only possible result of a repeal of the 2nd Amendment would be an outright ban on all gun ownership by private persons. But there are a lot of possibilities that fall short of that drastic step. We regulate the use of many objects in this country and the result of that regulation hasn't resulted in an outright ban on most of them. Automobiles are a great example of that. Using the argument that repeal would inevitably lead to confiscation of everyone's guns isn't a good logical argument. It's simply a scare tactic to frighten gun owners. With millions of gun owners in this country who also vote, repeal of the second amendment would not likely lead to a complete ban. There wouldn't be the votes in Congress for that. There would likely be more regulation of guns, and people have legitimately differing views on just what kind and how much regulation is needed to help address the large number of deaths to firearms that we have in this country. A number of other democratic countries have far more restrictions on gun ownership without an outright ban and they have very low deaths from gun shots and don't have the tyranny that you are concerned about. A repeal would only guarantee one thing: that the government could regulate guns to the same degree that other objects are regulated. What regulation would finally result from that is impossible to say with any high degree of confidence, except that I think a complete ban is not the most likely of outcomes.

Because the political climate would cause a close to complete ban. The President of the United States called for a ban on a certain very popular rifle in the State of the Union speech just a couple of weeks ago. And that is a gun that is used for a very small percentage of crime.

Name any sort of regulation on firearms that you think might reduce gun violence. The only way to do that is to get those that would commit such violence off the street.

 

[Zigner]

Name any sort of regulation on firearms that you think might reduce gun violence. The only way to do that is to get those that would commit such violence off the street.

Would it be so hard to give basic thought to trying something?
The kneejerk position of the far right (that you seem to exhibit) is just as senseless a reaction to the problem as the kneejerk reaction of the folks on the far left who might actually think a total ban would be effective. I'll be honest, I'm more in the middle, as I think most Americans are. (No cite for that!) We need to figure SOMETHING out. We can't just throw up our hands and say "I give up!" any more than we can run around grabbing every firearm from every person in the U.S.

 

[cbg]

It just occurred to me that we may have been victims of an internet troll.

An internet troll is someone who makes intentionally inflammatory statements online to elicit strong emotional responses in people. Most trolls do this for their own amusement.

Toyanne is sitting back and laughing at us.

Y'all have only just now twigged to that? Must be a slow day.

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

Would it be so hard to give basic thought to trying something?
The kneejerk position of the far right (that you seem to exhibit) is just as senseless a reaction to the problem as the kneejerk reaction of the folks on the far left who might actually think a total ban would be effective. I'll be honest, I'm more in the middle, as I think most Americans are. (No cite for that!) We need to figure SOMETHING out. We can't just throw up our hands and say "I give up!" any more than we can run around grabbing every firearm from every person in the U.S.

What is the "something" you want to try? If we aren't going to keep people in prison that break the laws, whatever they are, how is it going to have any effect?

We did have a reduction in crime when the Clinton era mandatory sentences were in place. I'd have no problem if we passed a law that anyone that uses a gun in the commission of a felony goes to prison for life. But the left doesn't want to blame people for the problem they want to blame inanimate objects.

 

[Taxing Matters]

Because the political climate would cause a close to complete ban.

How do you figure that? Most gun regulation bills introduced in Congress fail to pass now, and those are far short of a complete ban. There are a substantial number of gun owners out there that vote. Representatives and Senators from areas with a significant number of gun owning constituents aren't likely to vote for a total ban. Not unless they don't care about being voted out of office in the next election. So unless there is a huge shift in this country to far less gun ownership I don't see a complete ban ever making its way through Congress.

Name any sort of regulation on firearms that you think might reduce gun violence. The only way to do that is to get those that would commit such violence off the street.

I think it would be great to help prevent as much gun violence as possible, not just lock up the shooters (assuming we can find them, a lot of those crimes go unsolved) after the fact. We already know that harsh sentences haven't worked to significantly prevent others from doing the same thing. So as much as I support locking up the criminals, if that's all we do we will never reduce the gun violence problem in this country. We need to be looking at ways that would help prevent the crime from occurring in the first place. Unfortunately, the most ardent gun rights supporters don't want to talk about that out of fear that their rights might be impacted to some degree. For them, any restriction on their gun rights is too much. With that kind of attitude, they are basically saying they are okay with all the deaths and injuries we have to gun violence so that they can have complete, unfettered freedom to own whatever guns they want without any restrictions on where they can take the guns or how they can use them, other than they'll (sometimes grudgingly) concede they cannot commit murder with them. I'm not okay with the numbers of deaths we have to gun violence in this country, so I think its worth exploring some ideas to help prevent the violence, even if that may impose some restrictions on gun owners. If you can come up with a way that would significantly reduce the gun violence without any restrictions on firearms, I'd be happy to hear them. I've asked you for that before and you've not provided any good way to do that. All you end up doing is defaulting back to the line of locking up those who commit those crimes. That's no help for the persons that got killed or injured by the gunfire. I just don't understand why so many gun owners are resistant to even try coming up with ideas to deter gun violence. They just seem to throw up their hands and say it can't be done.

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

How do you figure that? Most gun regulation bills introduced in Congress fail to pass now, and those are far short of a complete ban. There are a substantial number of gun owners out there that vote. Representatives and Senators from areas with a significant number of gun owning constituents aren't likely to vote for a total ban. Not unless they don't care about being voted out of office in the next election. So unless there is a huge shift in this country to far less gun ownership I don't see a complete ban ever making its way through Congress.

When was the last time an anti-gun law failed in Washington or California?

We already know that harsh sentences haven't worked to significantly prevent others from doing the same thing.

That's not true. We saw a trip in crime in the 90s due to mandatory sentences and over the last 3 years we've seen a spike due to a reduction of sentences or simply liberal catch-and-release programs. I'll use this luckily now dead scum as a data point.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/15/us/michigan-state-university-mass-shooting-wednesday/index.html

 

[quincy]

Y'all have only just now twigged to that? Must be a slow day.

Slow day.

This thread was reported for moderator review awhile ago, by the way.