The Second Amendment and the "Right" to Bear Arms

Nessie said:
What about armed US settlers against armed Indian tribes? Were there not massacres there. How about the Mutiny in India where the armed British colonists were slaughtered by Indian troops?

Even with guns how does a small group stop a massacre by a much larger group?
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While there were isolated local massacres as a whole there was no genocide.

And the greatest weapon against the Indians, and the one which finally pacified the last defiant tribes, was General Sheridan's* policy of exterminating the bison, the Plains Indians main food source. This is what finally forced them to settle in reservations, not killing them in battle.

*Sheridan was also the architect of the scorched earth policy in the Civil War, made famous by Sherman's "march to the sea", which similarly deprived the Confederacy of the food they needed to fight on. He later did the same with the Plains Indians.
 
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newyorkguy said:
In looking for something else, I stumbled upon this interesting SCOTUS case from this past April.




I understand the "right to bear arms" and the (apparently non-existent) "right to carry a concealed weapon" are separate issues. I was not aware SCOTUS had refused to even hear a challenge as to whether gun owners have a 2nd Amendment right to carry a firearm in public.

Score one for our side, the anti-violence side. ;)
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I wouldn't read too much into that, more likely they were waiting for pending Circuit Court decisions before tackling the issue. The 7th Circuit, for example, ruled that the Heller decision granted the right to carry in public, thus Illinois was forced to pass a concealed carry law.
 
The 7th Circuit, for example, ruled that the Heller decision granted the right to carry in public, thus Illinois was forced to pass a concealed carry law.
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And on the very same day 10th Circuit in Colorado ruled that there is no Second Amendment right to carry a concealed weapon in public.
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You appear to see irony or contradiction where there is none.

The Heller decision was not about concealed carry; concealed carry fell out sideways. The 2nd amendment doesn't guarantee right to concealed carry, it prevents the Federal g'vt from restricting ownership.
 
WildCat said:
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The 7th Circuit, for example, ruled that the Heller decision granted the right to carry in public, thus Illinois was forced to pass a concealed carry law.
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ApolloGnomon said:
You appear to see irony or contradiction where there is none.

The Heller decision was not about concealed carry; concealed carry fell out sideways. The 2nd amendment doesn't guarantee right to concealed carry, it prevents the Federal g'vt from restricting ownership.
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Who are you addressing this to?
 
ApolloGnomon said:
The Heller decision was not about concealed carry; concealed carry fell out sideways. The 2nd amendment doesn't guarantee right to concealed carry, it prevents the Federal g'vt from restricting ownership.
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The Heller decision did mention the right to carry - to "bear arms" is to carry, and there is a long recognized right to self defense. As the 7th Circuit noted, the right to self defense doesn't end at your property line.
 
WildCat said:
The Heller decision did mention the right to carry - to "bear arms" is to carry, and there is a long recognized right to self defense. As the 7th Circuit noted, the right to self defense doesn't end at your property line.
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Right. But "carry" =/= "concealed carry."
 
newyorkguy said:
Can you explain that?
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It was about a states ability to make their own laws about concealed carry. A Washington resident wanted to carry In Colorado, Colorado does not recognize Washington concealed carry permits. Colorado does issue concealed carry permits, and honors those of states whose permitting regulations meet their criteria.
 
arthwollipot said:
Living in Australia, with no right to bear arms, I do not find my right to life, liberty or security infringed.
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Move to Detroit and see how you feel.

I currently live in one of the safest cities in the US and I don't feel the need of a gun to protect myself but I have lived places where the opposite is true for various reasons. Whether you are attacked by a criminal or a puma, having a gun handy can indeed save your life.
 
Information Analyst said:
Anyone would have to be pretty stupid to assume either, considering the handgun ban affected 50,000 people out of a population of more than 50 million. Taking sporting firearms away from 0.01% of the population isn't going to stop anything other than a licensed recreational shooter from blowing away a load of primary school kids.
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Yet it's precisely the argument that many present in this thread that the less guns (or more stringent gun control) the fewer murders committed.



Cite for this "good evidence"? In fact, the opposite has been the case, with the Home Office widening the definitions of crime reporting, but these changes are well known and understood, so can be adjusted for (e.g. criminal damage used to rely on a fixed value that was not updated for inflation, but has now been removed totally). And, of course, you can't really get away with under-reporting homicides.
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Nah, not going to provide evidence in this thread due to the continued derail.
 
newyorkguy said:
Can you explain that?
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In a nutshell, the petitioner claimed that Colorado law that restricted Colorado permits to in-state residents violated the 2nd and 14th Amendments. The lower court found there is no constitutional right to concealed carry and that one state is not bound by the US Constitution to recognize a permit from another.

The idea that there is no constitutional right to concealed carry does not necessarily conflict with recent opinions such as Heller and McDonald. Those opinions allow for reasonable restriction but together prohibit states and municipalities from enforcing total bans. In the case of McDonald v. City of Chicago , for instance, forced Chicago to adopt handgun registration inside the city and the state government either to adopt a concealed carry registration scheme or render its prohibition on open carry unenforceable.

IOW, state and local governments can adopt permitting schemes with relevant criterion (e.g. state residents only) but cannot enforce wholesale bans on either keep or carry.
 
newyorkguy said:
I'm not claiming it leads to a rise in violent crime. I am suggesting the more people you have walking around with a gun on them the more likely you are to have violence. That is New York City's rationale for restricting carry permits in the first place.
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I do not think there is more likely to be violence. I think the gun means there is more likely to be a death from any violence.

Let's be clear. I'm non-violent. Violence is something I don't believe in. I'm also philosophically opposed to the idea of arming citizens.

Look at the motorcycle-SUV thread. How that's turned into a gun thread, the numbers of people who are suggesting it would've been better for the SUV driver to have shot some of the bikers. Would it have been better?

As it stands, no one got killed. Only one person was seriously injured. I'm sorry the SUV driver got roughed up. I'm glad no lives were lost.

What I'm arguing is, from the perspective of the SUV driver this incident did not turn out too well. From the perspective of society as a whole it could've been much worse. Someone using a gun would've made it worse.
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That incident helps to evidence my claim. There was violence, there was no gun, that means a reduced chance of death, there were no deaths.
 
WildCat said:
While there were isolated local massacres as a whole there was no genocide.

And the greatest weapon against the Indians, and the one which finally pacified the last defiant tribes, was General Sheridan's* policy of exterminating the bison, the Plains Indians main food source. This is what finally forced them to settle in reservations, not killing them in battle.

*Sheridan was also the architect of the scorched earth policy in the Civil War, made famous by Sherman's "march to the sea", which similarly deprived the Confederacy of the food they needed to fight on. He later did the same with the Plains Indians.
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What is your evidence that both sides having guns was the only thing that stopped both the Indian Mutiny and the stripping of land and rights from American Indians from becoming genocides?
 
Information Analyst said:
You say that like you think other countries/governments don't have similar "issues." Yet again, this smacks of American exceptionalism.
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How many other nations:

- incarcerate 1% of their population
- engage in blatantly racist drug policies
- have had scandals comparable to Vietnam/Watergate/War on Terror/Extraordinary Rendition/NSA
- have a lot of their minority communities live in rampant poverty

Americans already distrust their government utterly for these reasons and more, so what makes you think "Imma take your guns" will go down well?
 
arthwollipot said:
Okay, I've thought about it. I have a bit of a problem with the premise of the question. I understand its use to get someone to think about possible falsifications for their argument, and if there's nothing that can convince them then they're just being religiously dogmatic.

Here is the problem. I don't know what might convince me. If I could think of an argument that could convince me, then I would already be convinced. I am open to the possibility that such an argument may exist, but I haven't come across one, so I don't know what form that argument might take.

I guess I'll know it when I see it.
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In a world where everybody else is armed, would you want to be armed too?

Seriously, it seems so ridiculously easy to obtain a firearm in some places in the US that I can see a real argument that, if everyone else is armed, I'd want to be too.

Of course, that way lies a handgun arms race. Which is where the US is now, it seems.
 
3point14 said:
In a world where everybody else is armed, would you want to be armed too?

Seriously, it seems so ridiculously easy to obtain a firearm in some places in the US that I can see a real argument that, if everyone else is armed, I'd want to be too.

Of course, that way lies a handgun arms race. Which is where the US is now, it seems.
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Have you ever been here? There's no race to own guns, the people are nice, we make one or two decent Hollywood films and year, Disneyland on both coasts. This is a great place full of nice folks and you should visit sometime. You won't get shot and likely won't ever see a gun unless you see a police officer.
 
Monketey Ghost said:
Have you ever been here? There's no race to own guns, the people are nice, we make one or two decent Hollywood films and year, Disneyland on both coasts. This is a great place full of nice folks and you should visit sometime. You won't get shot and likely won't ever see a gun unless you see a police officer.
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I understand that. I've been. It's nice. Although those people I spoke to over there seemed to be under the impression that I had an accent. Outrageous.

I didn't see any guns, except at Heathrow. I can't go these days cos I would never go anywhere that fingerprints you on the way in.


My point, perhaps badly expressed, is that those law abiding citizens who want guns for their own protection mostly do so (as far as I can tell, I'm far from infallible) because other people have guns. this seems like an arms race/cold war type situation to me.
 
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