Gun Ownership is a Privilege, Not a Right

Orphia Nay

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Orphia Nay
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Owning a gun is not a right - it's a privilege... that few people deserve.

Just because a bunch of guys named gun ownership a right a few hundred years ago doesn't mean it really is a right. Guns were different then.

It's not a right to own Anthrax, for example.

It's time America emerged from the past.
 
Well if this tragedy doesn't change anything (and it won't), nothing will.

A few Americans who support the status quo are honest enough to admit that school and mall massacres are the price they are willing to pay for their gun culture. Too few admit this though.

Very sad.
 
I feel the biggest problem with the gun debate in the US, is it seems to be framed as 'They want to take away our guns' vs 'We want to take away your guns' which gets nowhere fast. The reality is, most people seem to believe in some sort of weapon control, the debate should be framed at where to join the line. I think a more effective way to debate gun control is to look at what type of gun(s) need to be controlled and in what way (gun control doesn't necessarily mean taking them away, it can also be stricter licensing.. etc). I've sort of been on both positions of the gun control issue (Stricter laws or softer laws) in the past, though one thing that I've always kept constant is the thought that a country where so many people feel they need to keep a gun for self defense, can't be a healthy idea.
 
Although I can't prove causation, the fact that there haven't been any firearm massacres since semi-automatics were banned in Australia leads me to brlieve that this is a good place to start.
 
Orphia Nay said:
Owning a gun is not a right - it's a privilege... that few people deserve.

Just because a bunch of guys named gun ownership a right a few hundred years ago doesn't mean it really is a right. Guns were different then.

It's not a right to own Anthrax, for example.

It's time America emerged from the past.
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So using your logic any type of currently protected speech transmitted through any technology not available in 1788 is not a right easier. After all there were no telegraphs, telephones, radios, televisions or the internet back then either.

Taking away everyone's rights because of a few people that abuse that right is a very dangerous path to go down.
 
Didn't Americans once have the right to own slaves?

Rights can be granted and withdrawn as societies grow up.
 
According to press reports, Connecticut has some of the toughest firearms restrictions in the nation, and the weapons used in this massacre were properly registered and legally possessed by the killer's mother. The killer murdered his mother and stole the guns. Unless you are prepared to ban private possession of firearms and conduct house-to-house searches to confiscate them, changes in firearms laws could not prevent this kind of crime. What might make a difference is that when someone displays evidence of a severe psychiatric disorder, as this guy apparently did, as the Virginia Tech and Colorado shooters unquestionably did, etc., treatment should be mandatory and legally enforced, just as it would be if someone made himself a public threat by spreading typhoid or TB.
 
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Orphia Nay said:
Speech doesn't blow holes in people.
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That wasn't your argument, your argument was that because technology changed that the right to keep and bear arms was antiquated and that that changed a specifically enumerated right into a privilege.
 
Mass Murderers Agree on Gun Control

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lionking said:
Didn't Americans once have the right to own slaves?

Rights can be granted and withdrawn as societies grow up.
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Actually the slave provisions took away rights from the slaves. They also allowed states to decide individually whether or not to allow it in their states. The amendments that addressed them simply gave them back regardless of the state, as most successful amendments do.
 
Bob001 said:
According to press reports, Connecticut has some of the toughest firearms restrictions in the nation, and the weapons used in this massacre were properly registered and legally possessed by the killer's mother. The killer murdered his mother and stole the guns. Unless you are prepared to ban private possession of firearms and conduct house-to-house searches to confiscate them, changes in firearms laws could not prevent this kind of crime. What might make a difference is that when someone displays evidence of a severe psychiatric disorder, as this guy apparently did, as the Virginia Tech and Colorado shooters unquestionably did, etc., treatment should be mandatory and legally enforced, just as it would be if someone made himself a public threat by spreading typhoid or TB.
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Does CT have laws about gun storage?

Sam.I.Am said:
That wasn't your argument, your argument was that because technology changed that the right to keep and bear arms was antiquated and that that changed a specifically enumerated right into a privilege.
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Sorry if I didn't say everything I could have said in my OP. And apples aren't oranges.
 
lionking said:
I'd be grateful if you could show me the scripture which endorses the ownership of powerful firearms.
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Are you really asking for stuff out of the bible that promoted becoming armed and doing violence unto others? That's like, half of the old testament (after all of the begetting of course).

The concept of a man with a sword is more powerful than the man without one and all of that is not new.
 
Sam.I.Am said:
Are you really asking for stuff out of the bible that promoted becoming armed and doing violence unto others? That's like, half of the old testament (after all of the begetting of course).

The concept of a man with a sword is more powerful than the man without one and all of that is not new.
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Well I wasn't asking you, but thanks for answering "No".
 
Orphia Nay said:
Sorry if I didn't say everything I could have said in my OP. And apples aren't oranges.
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Technology is technology and it's absurd to think that the founders didn't think that eventually more powerful weapons than muskets wouldn't be coming along at some point seeing as they did have a bit of knowledge about the history of warfare and how their current version of the assault rifle came to be. It could be easily argued that the advent of electrical and electromagnetic communications were much closer to what we now call science fiction to them than the idea that more powerful weapons would be available several years down the line.
 
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lionking said:
Well I wasn't asking you, but thanks for answering "No".
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If there were firearms 2,000+ yeas ago then based upon what is in there the answer would be yes. But there weren't. Swords, spears and bow and arrows were pretty much the assault weapons of their time.
 
lionking said:
Although I can't prove causation, the fact that there haven't been any firearm massacres since semi-automatics were banned in Australia leads me to believe that this is a good place to start.
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I think that enforcing such a law in the U.S. would be Sisyphean at best and downright dangerous at worst.

Great numbers of armed Americans believe that widespread gun ownership is the only thing that prevents their government from taking away other rights in the Constitution.
 
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