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Another School Shooting

Sorta. IMHO you need more to get people to accept that times have changed.

In the 18'th century, there was no real difference in gun use between a hunter shooting a rifled gun at a rabbit and one using it as a sniper in the revolutionary army. You just had to give them just a little more training to stay in a line, and you had an army. Even just knowing which end to point at the enemy was already half the training you'd ever need.

And not just in the USA. That's also why "Jäger", i.e., "hunters" was still a type of infantry in Germany and Austria. In fact, IIRC it's still the name for foot infantry in Austria. Yes, at one time the folks who already had experience using a firearm in civilian life (e.g., as hunters) were quite valuable for an army.

Or why before that, England actually WANTED people to own a bow and train with it.

Problem is: that no longer applies in modern days, and didn't even apply by the end of WW1 any more. War is FAR more about cohesive unit and combined-arms action, and infantry does a tiny fraction of the actual killing anyway. It's the big guns who actually do the killing, while the infantry is mostly there to keep them pinned or occasionally storm room-to-room in a house. And even the latter is done more with grenades. Nobody benefits in any way, or even gives a flip, about your already knowing to shoot a gun from civilian life. In WW2 literally most soldiers in combat situations weren't even pointing their gun at any enemy, much less be effective at aiming, and it worked just as well.

And more importantly, we've already figured out training programs to TEACH you the stuff you actually need to know.

So yes, times have changed. Your already having a gun no longer does Jack Squat for national defense. It just creates a danger for others.
 
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HansMustermann said:
Sorta. IMHO you need more to get people to accept that times have changed.

In the 18'th century, there was no real difference in gun use between a hunter shooting a rifled gun at a rabbit and one using it as a sniper in the revolutionary army. You just had to give them just a little more training to stay in a line, and you had an army. Even just knowing which end to point at the enemy was already half the training you'd ever need.

And not just in the USA. That's also why "Jäger", i.e., "hunters" was still a type of infantry in Germany and Austria. In fact, IIRC it's still the name for foot infantry in Austria. Yes, at one time the folks who already had experience using a firearm in civilian life (e.g., as hunters) were quite valuable for an army.

Or why before that, England actually WANTED people to own a bow and train with it.

Problem is: that no longer applies in modern days, and didn't even apply by the end of WW1 any more. War is FAR more about cohesive unit and combined-arms action, and infantry does a tiny fraction of the actual killing anyway. It's the big guns who actually do the killing, while the infantry is mostly there to keep them pinned or occasionally storm room-to-room in a house. And even the latter is done more with grenades. Nobody benefits in any way, or even gives a flip, about your already knowing to shoot a gun from civilian life. In WW2 literally most soldiers in combat situations weren't even pointing their gun at any enemy, much less be effective at aiming, and it worked just as well.

And more importantly, we've already figured out training programs to TEACH you the stuff you actually need to know.

So yes, times have changed. Your already having a gun no longer does Jack Squat for national defense. It just creates a danger for others.
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Counterpoint: Koreatown during the LA riots. I don't think times have changed all that much. When seconds count, the police are still minutes away.
 
HansMustermann said:
I'm pretty sure that that's not what 2A actually says it's for.
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I'm pretty sure that's exactly what the 2A says it's for: Defense of self and others when a community is under threat and there's no national army to come save you.

That's the context in which it was written. Local communities were at risk of native raids, slave uprisings, loyalist and imperialist insurgencies... and the Union at that time had no standing army. Let alone an army that could rapidly deploy to any emerging hot spot anywhere in the colonies.
 
Again, that's not what it SAYS. And it's always been kinda funny how many people will argue about what a document says (be it the bible or the constitution) without actually knowing what it says. They just imagined it, so it must be true :p

Here's the actual text of 2A: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

It says NOTHING about defense of self and others, communities, or whatever. It's literally only about national security.

Also note the keywords: "A well regulated Militia". Yeeah, about that... That meant a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency. Basically what you'd call supplementing your armed forces with conscripts.
 
HansMustermann said:
Again, that's not what it SAYS. And it's always been kinda funny how many people will argue about what a document says (be it the bible or the constitution) without actually knowing what it says. They just imagined it, so it must be true :p

Here's the actual text of 2A: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

It says NOTHING about defense of self and others, communities, or whatever. It's literally only about national security.

Also note the keywords: "A well regulated Militia". Yeeah, about that... That meant a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency. Basically what you'd call supplementing your armed forces with conscripts.
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Right, and what did a militia actually DO? It defended itself and the community. That's why the courts have consistently interpreted its intent as being separate from formal militia service.

In any event, just as the other rights have been expanded to modern times without bitching and moaning about original letter of the law, so has the second.
 
No, I'm saying quite literally that the term "Militia" at the time meant "conscripts", not every idiot thinking they're defending anything else. It even comes from the Latin "milites", via the Old English "milite", both meaning literally "soldiers". Even when it was each colony/town for itself, it actually meant people conscripted or otherwise co-opted by those local governments as a defense force, NOT every idiot with a gun thinking he can just shoot someone. Not only at the time, but at LEAST as late as the Militia Act of 1903, it was defined that way, and the only difference made was between

- "Organized militia" (you know, well regulated... get the idea?), comprising the National Guard and Naval Militia (pretty much the same thing for the Navy at the time), i.e., men in some degree of active service

- "Unorganized militia", meaning every able bodied man under 45 years old that could be conscripted, and was not already in an "Organized militia"

It literally had NOTHING to do with a bunch of Hatfields thinking they're defending their community from those evil McCoy's who shot grandpaw's pig :p

It literally just meant, "conscriptable population."
 
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HansMustermann said:
Again, that's not what it SAYS. And it's always been kinda funny how many people will argue about what a document says (be it the bible or the constitution) without actually knowing what it says. They just imagined it, so it must be true :p

Here's the actual text of 2A: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

It says NOTHING about defense of self and others, communities, or whatever. It's literally only about national security.

Also note the keywords: "A well regulated Militia". Yeeah, about that... That meant a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency. Basically what you'd call supplementing your armed forces with conscripts.
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It is neither what it says nor what it meant when it was written. The notion that individuals should have virtually unrestricted rights to keep firearms for self protection is an invention of the modern SC.
 
sarge said:
It is neither what it says nor what it meant when it was written. The notion that individuals should have virtually unrestricted rights to keep firearms for self protection is an invention of the modern SC.
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Bingo.
 
Nobody cares and nothing will be done.

Besides, there are far more important issues such as fake stories about Haitians stealing pets, and something about trans people.
 
jt512 said:
As I said, the U.S. constitution guarantees that a citizen has a right to keep and bear arms. That makes it next to impossible (at least under the current Supreme Court) to pass gun control laws that would pass constitutional muster, and it is next to impossible to amend the Constitution.

Everybody is quick to say how easy it should be to fix the gun violence problem in America, but when pressed, nobody can ever think of a viable solution.
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jeremyp said:
As I understand it, people who have been convicted of a felony are not allowed to own guns. This is a gun control law that the supreme court has not struck down (as far as I know: the current SC might just do it). This gives the lie to your assertion.
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You are mostly correct that felons are legally barred from owning guns, but that fact certainly does not "give lie" to the fact that it is next-to-impossible under the current SC to pass gun control laws that would pass SC muster. The myriad law suits against gun control measures and criminal firearms cases currently working their way through the courts in the US are almost impossible to keep track of. If the composition of the SC does not change, the overwhelming majority of these legal challenges to restriction on firearms will ultimately be sustained by the courts. Even the ban on felons owning guns is under legal challenge insofar as it applies to felons convicted of only non-violent crimes.

Mandatory insurance would probably be a good one. The government can't place restrictions on gun ownership, but insurance companies can refuse to insure bad risks or raise the price to the point where owning a gun is not attractive.
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But insurance companies would do neither, because they want gun owners' business and their premiums must therefore be competitive and reflect actual risk, rather than the social goals of anti-gun activism.

Liability for crimes committed with your gun would also help. If your gun is used to kill people, you are in the frame for a hefty prison sentence. A few well publicised cases would concentrate gun owners' minds on that one.
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These laws already exist.

Banning the carrying of firearms in public spaces would help. Even just banning the carrying of firearms in business spaces where permission is not expressly granted would also have an impact. Going to a restaurant with the possibility of being arrested and doing jail time would be a strong incentive to leave your gun at home - or not own one.
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Such laws have already been ruled unconstitutional.

You just need to think creatively and not go round wailing that you can't do anything because of 2A.
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And yet you, like every one else who tells how simple the solution must be, have not presented a single viable solution.
 
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RolandRat said:
Is that true? Seems to be a hell of a lot of people in the USA that want stricter gun laws. Just seems the politicians listen to the vocal minority.
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Passing common-sense gun legislation is not the same as amending the Constitution. The latter is much harder.

jt512 said:
These laws already exist.
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Yeah? How are they doing? All good over there is it?
 
jt512 said:
Well, they don't, so there you go.
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Currently, no. Which is why as I have outlined in the past, any attempt at repealing the 2nd Amendment will have to start with a generational education and outreach initiative to change people's hearts and minds.

When nobody's grandfather still thinks they need a gun, then the process to repeal the 2nd may begin.
 
sarge said:
The constitution says whatever the Supreme Court says it does. To any high school graduate with a brain the 2A links bearing arms with participating in the national defense. We don’t need to change the constitution.
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We need to improve high school education.
 
Darat said:
Why not require that all guns when not being used must be stored locked up and the same for the ammunition (separately from the gun)?
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Because one of the main reasons for owning a gun is to protect yourself and your family from attack at home. To defend yourself against a home invasion your gun to be loaded and quickly accessible.
 
arthwollipot said:
Passing common-sense gun legislation is not the same as amending the Constitution. The latter is much harder.

Yeah? How are they doing? All good over there is it?
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So you are agreeing with me that the suggesting that I was responding to was unhelpful: the suggested laws already exist, yet gun violence persists.
 
Every time I see people argue about the meaning of some clause or amendment in the Constitution, I'm reminded of the arguing people do over some verse of passage in the Bible. Of course, the couple thousand years makes a bit of bigger mess than a couple hundred years...but while in general I think the Constitution was an admirable idea, the contortions and squabbles that have succeeded it often make me ponder if perhaps it needs to go the way the Bible needs to go--into antiquity.
 
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