The 2nd Amendment solution to gun violence

Squeegee Beckenheim said:
So, yeah, you definitely do want to avoid the subject of whether or not "personal protection" is selfish, if said "personal protection" involves owning or carrying a gun, which it does in the context of the article you linked to and the specific quote you posted. Seems an odd choice on your part to post something you wanted to evade discussion of, but each to their own.
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Actually I said personal protection in general can be selfless. This includes doing so with guns. I don't see how I'm being evasive at all.
 
Ranb said:
I know it's an opinion piece. But the writer is trying to convince us that some states are exempt from gun registration requirements; something he should not be doing since it is false.
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Of course nationally very few guns need to be registered.
 
Ranb said:
Actually I said personal protection in general can be selfless. This includes doing so with guns. I don't see how I'm being evasive at all.
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No, what you did was post this quote "How different would our gun debate be today if the focus weren't on the selfish right to personal protection but on our responsibility to serve our country?" and respond to it with "Since when is personal protection selfish?", and then you have studiously avoided discussing whether the "personal protection" that is part of the "gun debate" is or is not selfish.

I mean, seriously, are you trying to have us believe that when the sentence quoted above was written that the author was talking equally about owning a gun and, say, putting your hands up in front of your face when someone is trying to punch you? I don't think you believe that any more than I do.

If you're telling the truth that you want to discuss this issue as it relates to guns, then why not address my post where I offered my opinions, which you only quoted 8 words of before dismissing it as "evasive" because it was talking about guns?
 
Cloud the issue all you want, but I think self protection is not always selfish.
 
Ranb said:
Cloud the issue all you want, but I think self protection is not always selfish.
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But does having guns make you safer? And of course your friends and relatives who are at risk of you shooting them? It would seem by statistics that having a gun is a bigger threat to you and yours than it reduces threats.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Universal background checks is a popular proposal, politically. As far as the reporting has shown, I don't see any reason to believe that any of our recent mass shooters would have failed a background check.
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Wouldn't that depend on how comprehensive the background check was, and what items on the background checks showed up?

For example, I suggest the following should rule a person out from being allowed to own or use firearms

1. Any criminal conviction
2. Any conviction for drug use or possession
3. Under any legal restriction such as a trespass, stay-away or restraining order
4. Any conviction for a breach of firearms laws
5. Any conviction for domestic abuse

Under that list, 35% to 62% of spree shooters would not have been allowed to own a gun.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12784068&postcount=62
 
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smartcooky said:
For example, I suggest the following should rule a person out from being allowed to own or use firearms

1. Any criminal conviction
2. Any conviction for drug use or possession
3. Under any legal restriction such as a trespass, stay-away or restraining order
4. Any conviction for a breach of firearms laws
5. Any conviction for domestic abuse
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Doesn't #1 make #2-#5 redundant?
 
smartcooky said:
Wouldn't that depend on how comprehensive the background check was, and what items on the background checks showed up?

For example, I suggest the following should rule a person out from being allowed to own or use firearms

1. Any criminal conviction
2. Any conviction for drug use or possession
3. Under any legal restriction such as a trespass, stay-away or restraining order
4. Any conviction for a breach of firearms laws
5. Any conviction for domestic abuse

Under that list, 35% to 62% of spree shooters would not have been allowed to own a gun.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12784068&postcount=62
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If you actually read the federal law, you'd discover that it's slightly more restrictive than your suggested list already.
 
Re: Personal Protection...

On a related note, this is why the notorious Tyson tweet was so silly. Gun owners correctly note that the average person sucks at risk assessment and it's vanishingly unlikely we will be gunned down. So what's the number one reason people own guns? For protection, especially strangers. There are gun owners who "feel naked" if they're unarmed in public If they were truly interested in the safety of their family, they'd eat heart-healthy plant-based diets, exercise regularly, and wear a helmet at all times.
 
smartcooky said:
Wouldn't that depend on how comprehensive the background check was, and what items on the background checks showed up?

For example, I suggest the following should rule a person out from being allowed to own or use firearms

1. Any criminal conviction
2. Any conviction for drug use or possession3. Under any legal restriction such as a trespass, stay-away or restraining order
4. Any conviction for a breach of firearms laws
5. Any conviction for domestic abuse

Under that list, 35% to 62% of spree shooters would not have been allowed to own a gun.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12784068&postcount=62
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How about DUI? Drunk people and guns do not mix well.
 
Ranb said:
Cloud the issue all you want, but I think self protection is not always selfish.
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Addressing the issue directly is not clouding the issue. What you're doing, however, is continuing to avoid discussing the subject. Why are you unwilling to talk about this after you brought it up?
 
psionl0 said:
For a law like that to survive a constitutional challenge, the SC would have to re-interpret the 2nd amendment so that it reads as "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people in the Militia to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
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It'd take the memory of a proverbial goldfish to need to be reminded that they're still talking about the militia by the end of the sentence. And this sort of pathetic word-game non-argument is why Scalia was reduced to consulting dictionaries for his opinion in Heller rather than carefully researching the historical record (his "bear arms" claims are also incorrect.* The purpose of the amendment was to clarify earlier references in the Constitution to the militia, and ensure a limitation on federal power/standing armies. And that's how it was generally understood for almost two hundred years. The vaunted militias proved ineffective, a reality that became undeniable when the Brits set the capital ablaze. The Second Amendment was rescued from irrelevance by fanatical ideologues and hobbyists.

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...e8-b2b8-08a538d9dbd6_story.html?noredirect=on
 
Besides which, the 2nd Amendment is an alteration of the original document of the Constitution.* If the Constitution can be altered, then the Constitution can be altered. So even if it did require the insertion of "in the Militia" into the 2nd Amendment, that in and of itself, shouldn't be a barrier.

*Albeit one that says something that was planned to be in the Constitution from the start - although that is not true of every Amendment, so the point is moot.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Besides which, the 2nd Amendment is an alteration of the original document of the Constitution.* If the Constitution can be altered, then the Constitution can be altered. So even if it did require the insertion of "in the Militia" into the 2nd Amendment, that in and of itself, shouldn't be a barrier.
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The constitution doesn't have to be altered - just re-interpreted. The same way that "self incrimination" replaces "give testimony against himself" in the 5th even though the words are still the same.
 
Since motor vehicles driven by stupid or otherwise mentally-unfit people cause deaths and maimings in numbers which are many orders of magnitude higher than those by similarly stupid or mentally-unfit people with firearms ever will, I suggest that legislative efforts (in the US or anywhere else) to save lives would be better be directed at the former issue.

Or is someone going to argue that everything that can be done about road safety has been done?
 
psionl0 said:
The constitution doesn't have to be altered - just re-interpreted. The same way that "self incrimination" replaces "give testimony against himself" in the 5th even though the words are still the same.
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I know. What I'm saying is that even if it did have to be altered, then so what? It's not been immutable from the moment it was written onwards.
 
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