Every day, 20 US Children Hospitalized w/Gun Injury (6% Die)

[John Cuthber]

Most of the school shootings I have read about have been done by someone who has obtained a weapon without going through the proper chanels.(Be it a kid stealing the gun from his father or whatever) So how is even more regulation the people that follow the law going to help?

 

Because, if the regulations make it difficult for daddy to get a gun, he won't have one for junior to steal and take to school to shoot the place up.

Did you really need someone to explain that to you?

Whatever.

Now that it has been explained, does that address your view that "This is the one reason why I do not agree with more gun control. It is a good idea in theory, but I do not think it will help at all.".

 

I hope so, because, you should now see that gun control is a good thing. the "One reason" that you didn't agree, isn't valid.

As iNow pointed out, it's not going to make all gun related problems go away. But it will reduce them.

[MigL]

I'm just examining other possible factors Zapatos, because the data available doesn't support more gun control.

The availability of guns is HIGHER in Switzerland than in the US. Almost every home has a gun !

The gun numbers for the US are skewed by collectors who own hundreds of guns, but the number of homes where a gun is present is way lower.

 

I'm just saying that if someone or something can hitch-hike across Europe and Canada with no incident, but after two weeks in the US, that person/thing comes to a violent end, maybe we don't have enough data for a pervasive study, but we can still draw some conclusions.

#1- Don't hitch-hike in the US .

[iNow]

...because the data available doesn't support more gun control.

What data, specifically? This claim seems completely unfounded and has even been demonstrated as such right here in this very thread. Please cite up the source(s) that leads you to this conclusion, because it runs counter to everything I and others have shared.

 

The availability of guns is HIGHER in Switzerland than in the US.

Sorry, but this is trivially false: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

 

The gun numbers for the US are skewed by collectors who own hundreds of guns, but the number of homes where a gun is present is way lower.

Yes, some collectors skew the statistics given their massive arsenals. The problem, of course, is that even when you control for that by looking instead at households we see that yet again your claim here is trivially false.

 

It's unclear what math you're using to draw such a conclusion, but for anyone looking at the actual data we see that in the U.S. ~43% of households own a gun whereas in Switzerland only ~29% of households do. See here: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/more-guns-less-crime-the-switzerland-example/267165/

[zapatos]

I'm just saying that if someone or something can hitch-hike across Europe and Canada with no incident, but after two weeks in the US, that person/thing comes to a violent end, maybe we don't have enough data for a pervasive study, but we can still draw some conclusions.

#1- Don't hitch-hike in the US .

I'm just trying to point out that you cannot draw conclusions from one data point. If you could, then no one would want to remain in Alabama.

 

The first modern instance of a meteorite striking a human being occurs at Sylacauga, Alabama, when a meteorite crashes through the roof of a house and into a living room, bounces off a radio, and strikes a woman on the hip. The victim, Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges, was sleeping on a couch at the time of impact. The space rock was a sulfide meteorite weighing 8.5 pounds and measuring seven inches in length. Mrs. Hodges was not permanently injured but suffered a nasty bruise along her hip and leg.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/meteorite-strikes-alabama-woman

[MigL]

I assumed that was a given,Zapatos. No-one wants to stay in Alabama.

 

I also made the unjustified assumption that since males of a given age are required to be in the military and 'house' their weapon, most homes would have a weapon in them. I just assumed the Swiss number was higher.

My bad, iKnow. Its actually 50% higher in the US than Switzerland.

( what the he*l is the matter with the Swiss, don't they have any male kids ?)

[overtone]

What the Swiss have is lot more houses harboring assault rifles, and a lot fewer harboring handguns, than the US. (percentage).

 

Another factor: in regions of Switzerland, as in a lot of European countries, hunting went through a phase where it was aristocrat's recreation only. It's something wine drinkers did, layabouts, the children of the idle rich before inheriting their father's titles and lands, noblemen practicing for military command by getting to know their landscape etc. It's a different cultural role.

[zapatos]

I assumed that was a given,Zapatos. No-one wants to stay in Alabama.

I just heard that a review of security cameras near the site of hitchBOT's untimely demise show a video of some guy in a Philadelphia Eagles jersey kicking hitchBOT to 'death'. Maybe people should stay clear of Philadelphia football fans too!

Edited August 10, 2015 by zapatos

[Acme]

FWIW

 

Why the U.S. is No. 1 -- in mass shootings

 

The United States is, by a long shot, the global leader in mass shootings, claiming just 5% of the global population but an outsized share -- 31% -- of the world's mass shooters since 1966, a new study finds.

 

The Philippines, Russia, Yemen and France -- all countries that can claim a substantial share of the 291 documented mass shootings between 1966 and 2012 -- collectively didn't even come close to the United States.

 

And what makes the United States such a fertile incubator for mass shooters? A comprehensive analysis of the perpetrators, their motives and the national contexts for their actions suggests that several factors have conspired to create in the United States a potent medium for fostering large-scale murder.

 

Those factors include a chronic and widespread gap between Americans' expectations for themselves and their actual achievement, Americans' adulation of fame, and the extent of gun ownership in the United States.

...

[StringJunky]

FWIW

 

Why the U.S. is No. 1 -- in mass shootings

 

"...Those factors include a chronic and widespread gap between Americans' expectations for themselves and their actual achievement, Americans' adulation of fame, and the extent of gun ownership in the United States...."

 

Guns are a symptom of a deep-seated collective inadequacy, perhaps.

[Ten oz]

In my opinion gun violence and our (USA's) love of guns is a dark off shoot of our political values. We lead the world in incarceration, top 5 for execution, our police kill copious amounts of citizens, we preemptively invade sovereign nations, are the only people to use Nuclear weapons on a population, and etc, etc, etc. Part of wanting somethings, everything, is the belief or desire to one day use it. It is nonsensical to provide police tanks and military grade rifles with the assumption that it will somehow how minimize the use of such things. That if everyone simply had a gun than somehow everyone would be safe from guns. It is religious like logic that requires an illogical foundation of ideas.

 

Basic concepts of supply and demand go straight out the window. Good guys need guns because bad guys will always find a way to get guns makes no sense. Guns are mass manufacturer by "good guys" to be sold to "good guys". It is from that infrastructure that "bad guys" wind up with guns. There are not underground bunkers in poor heavily policed communities manufacturing guns. Illegal guns sales as a market does not keep the gun industry afloat. Bad guys with guns are not the reason why guns are so abundant and easily obtained.

 

Private ownership of guns does not make people more safe. Statistically gun ownership only increase various dangerous variables like suicide and accidental shootings. And of course theft is one of the main ways "bad guys" get guns. From Columbine to Sandy Hook the weapons used were legal one purchased with safety in mind which were taken by a mentally ill family member and used to kill many.

 

It is what the 2nd Amendment decrees is nonsense. It is a cowardly call for inaction that seeks victory through false formality. We have amended the constitution numerous times. Rather than debate the intentions of people whom have been dead for a couple hundred years why not do as structured and intended by the Constitution and amend it. Make the language clear and the law reflective of modern society. Article Five is, unlike the 2nd Amendment, is unambiguous and exists free of challenge or debate.

 

Ultimately though we citizens of the United States must first stop wanted to kill. We accept that killing is not necessarily a bad thing. We empower our government to kill and even torture. So it is no surprise we empower ourselves with the means.

[overtone]

Statistically gun ownership only increase various dangerous variables like suicide and accidental shootings

Gun "control" designed to prevent suicide will be gun confiscation. Advocating gun "control" using reduction in suicides as a target benefit is advocating near universal gun confiscation.

 

 

 

 

It is what the 2nd Amendment decrees is nonsense.

No, it isn't. None of the Bill of Rights is ill-considered or without appreciation of its actual meaning, none of it is trivial.

 

 

 

 

We have amended the constitution numerous times. Rather than debate the intentions of people whom have been dead for a couple hundred years why not do as structured and intended by the Constitution and amend it.

Good idea. Tell it to the faction that is trying to make such a big deal out of reinterpreting, denying, or even discarding, what is and has been perfectly clear language, because they don't like their neighbors owning guns.

 

 

 

 

We empower our government to kill and even torture. So it is no surprise we empower ourselves with the means.

We did not empower our government to torture until quite recently, and it is a violation of the Constitution, existing only because it is and has been officially denied. What needs to be denied to exist has not been granted. We have always granted the ordinary citizen of the US the right to keep and bear arms.

 

 

 

It is nonsensical to provide police tanks and military grade rifles with the assumption that it will somehow how minimize the use of such things. That if everyone simply had a gun than somehow everyone would be safe from guns.

Here and elsewhere the apparently unconscious shifting between government and citizen is both typical of the gun confiscation crowd and quite threatening to people less sure of the harmlessness of a rich and powerful elite facing a disarmed citizenry.

Edited August 28, 2015 by overtone

[Ten oz]

@ overtone, this thread is 19 pages long and I have made several posts. Not once have I advocated for a confiscation or complete prohibition of firearms. I have yet to read a post were anyone has truly advocated that position. In my opinion your need to extrapolate into and outright change the discussion in responses is an indication of how weak your arguments actually are on there own merits. Just as saying "Happy Holidays" is not an affront against Jesus or Christians "gun control" is not dog whistle for confiscation.

Automobiles kill tens of thousands of people per year and injury hundreds of thousands. So we have put laws in place governing seat belts, airbags, number of passengers in a vehicle, speeds at which you can drive, where you can drive, health conditions for driving, age restrictions, registration requirements, licensing requirements, law enforcement assigned specifically to enforcement, and etc. Automobiles have a tremendous amount of regulation and yet most everyone in the United States who has a desire to own and operate a car is able too. The majority of working adults spend time operate an automobile every single day. Regulation and prohibition/confiscation are not one in the same.

[Endy0816]

You don't have to confiscate, simple biometric locks would do the trick to eliminate a sizable number of them.

 

You know realistically if the "Powers that Be" wanted to do anything draconian they would simply establish control over the food supply and/or bring long range weaponry to bear.

 

Honestly, the potential for IED's would be more concerning. Everywhere you turn there's an automatic sensor that could be adapted.

[overtone]

@ overtone, this thread is 19 pages long and I have made several posts. Not once have I advocated for a confiscation or complete prohibition of firearms

For starters: You have consistently invoked suicide prevention as an expected benefit of gun control; you have consistently quarreled with the plain language of the 2nd Amendment's guarantee of the right of an American citizen to keep and bear arms; you have consistently compared gun control with safety regulations for cars; and so forth.

 

All I have done is point to the obvious real life meaning of that. As with things like seat belt laws and air bag laws and the like, the effects of gun control proposals are not limited to the good intentions of their oblivious advocates - and the more oblivious the advocates, the bigger the threat.

 

 

 

 

You know realistically if the "Powers that Be" wanted to do anything draconian they would simply establish control over the food supply and/or bring long range weaponry to bear

We don't have to speculate here - the methods found expedient by the powers that be in the many examples world wide of attempted or accomplished "draconian" control are matters of record,

 

including the methods employed in the US to oppress various non-white groups, fresh in the memories of the perps as well as the targets.

Edited August 28, 2015 by overtone

[Ten oz]

@overtone, I have always listed suicide along side other things like accidental shootings and have never claimed gun control would 100% prevent anything. You are taking things said, placing them in isolation, and then quantifying them in exaggerated terms. It is also hyperbolic to insist only confiscation could effect the number of suicides with firearms. The positions and measures I have advocated revolve around gun locks and gun safe. Some suicides by firearms are committed by people who use a parents, spouse, or friends firearm. So in my opinion a law which encourages firearm owners to keep their weapons out of the reach of others would in fact have an affect on firearm suicides. I also think tighter regulations on people with diagnosed mental conditions purchasing firearms would have an affect as well. Neither of those is confiscation or a ban.

 

You can not find a single post where I have indicated that the 2nd amendment was not written with the intention of allowing citizens to keep and bare arms. What I have argued is that society presently exists beyond the conditions envisioned by the founding fathers and amending the language in the 2nd Amendment is in order. The Constitution allows for that. It has been done already to protect of other rights. As information and environments changes ideas and theories must be updated. Nothing in the Constitution is religious doctrine decreed by god(s) meant to stand all time. The Founding Fathers themselves dispensed all together with the doctrine of old and wrote their own laws. The Founding Fathers did not allow the past to dictate their present. It is ironic that the laws they wrote are now treated as monolithic by people who claim to honor or best understand their intentions.

[Endy0816]

We don't have to speculate here - the methods found expedient by the powers that be in the many examples world wide of attempted or accomplished "draconian" control are matters of record,

 

including the methods employed in the US to oppress various non-white groups, fresh in the memories of the perps as well as the targets.

 

How has the access to weapons helped people of lower socioeconomic status?

[iNow]

you have consistently quarreled with the plain language of the 2nd Amendment's guarantee of the right of an American citizen to keep and bear arms;

Emphasis mine.

 

You act as if the text has only one possible interpretation and as if it's been interpreted the same single consistent way since it was written. That is false, and this article expertly dismantles such a claim: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2132&context=fss_papers

 

If that's too long, another summary below:

 

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/so-you-think-you-know-the-second-amendment

Does the Second Amendment prevent Congress from passing gun-control laws? The question, which is suddenly pressing, in light of the reaction to the school massacre in Newtown, is rooted in politics as much as law.

 

For more than a hundred years, the answer was clear, even if the words of the amendment itself were not. The text of the amendment is divided into two clauses and is, as a whole, ungrammatical: “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.” The courts had found that the first part, the “militia clause,” trumped the second part, the “bear arms” clause. In other words, according to the Supreme Court, and the lower courts as well, the amendment conferred on state militias a right to bear arms—but did not give individuals a right to own or carry a weapon.

 

Enter the modern National Rifle Association. Before the nineteen-seventies, the N.R.A. had been devoted mostly to non-political issues, like gun safety. But a coup d’état at the group’s annual convention in 1977 brought a group of committed political conservatives to power—as part of the leading edge of the new, more rightward-leaning Republican Party. (Jill Lepore recounted this history in a recent piece for The New Yorker.) The new group pushed for a novel interpretation of the Second Amendment, one that gave individuals, not just militias, the right to bear arms. It was an uphill struggle. At first, their views were widely scorned. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, who was no liberal, mocked the individual-rights theory of the amendment as “a fraud.”

 

But the N.R.A. kept pushing—and there’s a lesson here. Conservatives often embrace “originalism,” the idea that the meaning of the Constitution was fixed when it was ratified, in 1787. They mock the so-called liberal idea of a “living” constitution, whose meaning changes with the values of the country at large. But there is no better example of the living Constitution than the conservative re-casting of the Second Amendment in the last few decades of the twentieth century. (Reva Siegel, of Yale Law School, elaborates on this point in a brilliant article.)

But frankly, it's all moot anyway. Nobody is talking about banning guns so you're engaging yet again in a red herring and/or strawman fallacy.

 

The 2nd amendment does NOT prohibit regulations and limitations around ownership, and even if people here were actually arguing for outright ban, your response that "the text of the 2nd amendment is clear" and the "language plain" is both laughably and trivially false. See also: Differing SCOTUS Justice opinions in every single court case that's taken place on this subject.

Edited August 28, 2015 by iNow

[John Cuthber]

It seems that, if you explain what guns actually do, fewer people wish to buy them.

https://video-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hvideo-xpf1/v/t43.1792-2/11052628_904950219556802_2076527557_n.mp4?efg=eyJybHIiOjE1MDAsInJsYSI6MzY5NH0%3D&rl=1500&vabr=951&oh=5af530948b8dfc750dd296db770678ab&oe=55E1A3CF

[waitforufo]

Nothing in the Constitution is religious doctrine decreed by god(s) meant to stand all time.

Where does the Constitution suggest that my natural rights are changeable?

The Founding Fathers themselves dispensed all together with the doctrine of old and wrote their own laws.

Yes they did because the "doctrine of old" did not respect the natural rights of individuals. The laws of old protected the rights of tyrants.

 

The Founding Fathers did not allow the past to dictate their present.

How could they when their philosophical influence came from philosophers like Immanuel Kant who claimed to derive natural rights through reason alone and John Locke who emphasized "life, liberty and property" as the foundation of natural rights. Thomas Paine in Rights of Man emphasized that rights cannot be granted by any charter (Constitution) because this would legally imply they can also be revoked and under such circumstances they would be reduced to privileges.

 

You see our Founding Fathers were revolutionaries determined to create a new nation based on modern philosophy. A modern philosophy centered on the natural rights of individuals.

 

Emphasis mine.

 

You act as if the text has only one possible interpretation and as if it's been interpreted the same single consistent way since it was written. That is false, and this article expertly dismantles such a claim: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2132&context=fss_papers

 

If that's too long, another summary below:

 

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/so-you-think-you-know-the-second-amendment

 

But frankly, it's all moot anyway. Nobody is talking about banning guns so you're engaging yet again in a red herring and/or strawman fallacy.

 

The 2nd amendment does NOT prohibit regulations and limitations around ownership, and even if people here were actually arguing for outright ban, your response that "the text of the 2nd amendment is clear" and the "language plain" is both laughably and trivially false. See also: Differing SCOTUS Justice opinions in every single court case that's taken place on this subject.

Red Leader, your links are nothing but sour grapes opinions of those that lost or who were upset by the loss of Heller and McDonald with respect to gun control. The only important quote from those documents is this...

 

 

The Second Amendment is clear, or ought to be. It appears to leave little if any leeway for the gun control advocate. It reads: "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."

....

The econd [A]mendment gives the individual citizen a means of protection against the despotism of the state.... [T]he rights of the individual are pre-eminent.

 

The founding fathers had seen, as the Declaration of Independence tells us, what a despotic government can do to its own people. Indeed, every American should read the Declaration of Independence before he reads the Constitution and he will see that the Constitution aims at preventing a recurrence of the way George III's government treated the Colonies.

......

There are those in America today who have come to depend absolutely on government for their security. And when government fails they seek to rectify that failure in the form of granting government more power. So, as government has failed to control crime and violence with the means given it by the Constitution, they seek to give it more power at the expense of the Constitution.

 

But in doing so, in their willingness to give up their arms in the name of safety, they are really giving up their protection from what has always been the chief source of despotism - government.

 

- Ronald Reagan

Emphasis mine.

 

Reagan's quote fits in nicely with Thomas Paine's opinions does it not.

[dimreepr]

It seems that, if you explain what guns actually do, fewer people wish to buy them.

https://video-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hvideo-xpf1/v/t43.1792-2/11052628_904950219556802_2076527557_n.mp4?efg=eyJybHIiOjE1MDAsInJsYSI6MzY5NH0%3D&rl=1500&vabr=951&oh=5af530948b8dfc750dd296db770678ab&oe=55E1A3CF

 

 

The problem is people like ‘waitforufo’ considers they’re immune to danger, much like a child considers they’re immortal.

 

And much like a spoilt child they throw a tantrum whenever someone suggests they’re wrong.

[Ten oz]

1 -Where does the Constitution suggest that my natural rights are changeable?

Yes they did because the "doctrine of old" did not respect the natural rights of individuals. The laws of old protected the rights of tyrants.

 

2 - How could they when their philosophical influence came from philosophers like Immanuel Kant who claimed to derive natural rights through reason alone and John Locke who emphasized "life, liberty and property" as the foundation of natural rights. Thomas Paine in Rights of Man emphasized that rights cannot be granted by any charter (Constitution) because this would legally imply they can also be revoked and under such circumstances they would be reduced to privileges.

 

You see our Founding Fathers were revolutionaries determined to create a new nation based on modern philosophy. A modern philosophy centered on the natural rights of individuals.

 

Red Leader, your links are nothing but sour grapes opinions of those that lost or who were upset by the loss of Heller and McDonald with respect to gun control. The only important quote from those documents is this...

 

Emphasis mine.

 

Reagan's quote fits in nicely with Thomas Paine's opinions does it not.

1 - Article Five of the Constitution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_States_Constitution

 

2 - "[a] strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means." President Thomas Jefferson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Constitution_is_not_a_suicide_pact

[overtone]

You act as if the text has only one possible interpretation and as if it's been interpreted the same single consistent way since it was written.

No, I act is if the language were plain and not open to any dingbat rereading that comes down the pike.

 

Even the plainest of statements in the US Constitution has many interpretations in a changed world. The 2nd Amendment, among the plainest, offers rich ground for interpretation regarding - say - exactly what arms are now suitable for a militia, or what "bearing" arms now means after the invention of the car and the concealable handgun. But confusing the police or the National Guard with a militia, not knowing what "well-regulated" means, etc, is not an option. At least, not an honest and informed one.

 

 

 

 

Nobody is talking about banning guns so you're engaging yet again in a red herring and/or strawman fallacy.

A large fraction of the public oblivious to the consequences of what they are trying to do is more, not less, threatening. You, too, have offered us suicide statistics as arguments in favor of gun control - for example.

 

 

 

2 - "[a] strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means." President Thomas Jefferson

1) The Constitution is not written law, that citizens are to observe. It is our curb on legislation and governmental power itself. The foolishness of allowing a government to use utilitarian arguments to justify abrogating the civil liberties and rights of citizens is well established in history and common sense.

 

2) Guns ain't that big a deal. The risk to the non-suicidal and the non-criminal is very low, even given the current insane lack of enforced responsibility in managing them. With reasonable regulation, it would likely become negligible. The country itself, its laws and so forth, is not threatened by the 2nd Amendment however scrupulously adhered to.

 

3) The risk to us all from people advocating that the Constitution be set aside whenever the government deems a large enough benefit can be obtained thereby, is serious.

Edited August 30, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

No, I act is if the language were plain and not open to any dingbat rereading that comes down the pike.

And, in doing so you are ignoring reality.

At best you are making a mistake if you think it's plain; it is anything but- partly because the world has changed in the intervening two centuries.

It is open to interpretation, not just by (as you put it) every dingbat, but by judges and such whose job it is to try to interpret that sort of thing.

 

To be blunt, the 2nd amendment is a logical non sequiteur.

You have "the right to keep and bear arms" but you have no "well regulated militia".

The militia doesn't follow from the right to have guns.

So the premise of the amendment doesn't actually hold true.

[Ten oz]

No, I act is if the language were plain and not open to any dingbat rereading that comes down the pike.

 

Even the plainest of statements in the US Constitution has many interpretations in a changed world. The 2nd Amendment, among the plainest, offers rich ground for interpretation regarding - say - exactly what arms are now suitable for a militia, or what "bearing" arms now means after the invention of the car and the concealable handgun. But confusing the police or the National Guard with a militia, not knowing what "well-regulated" means, etc, is not an option. At least, not an honest and informed one.

 

 

 

 

A large fraction of the public oblivious to the consequences of what they are trying to do is more, not less, threatening. You, too, have offered us suicide statistics as arguments in favor of gun control - for example.

 

 

You are ignoring what has actually been said on the matter and insisted that your perspective is the only viable one. Constitutional scholars and lawyers have debated these same issues at length a hundred times over. On the suicide issue you single it out as evidence of some sort of logical fallacy or dog whisper for a confiscation but ignore the context or actual stated goal being proposed. When you did it to me earlier I responded in post #366 bothering to provided a couple means by which gun control could reduce suicide. You choose to ignore it. A real conservation where the merits of various proposals are discussed apparently isn't your interest here.

 

"The positions and measures I have advocated revolve around gun locks and gun safe. Some suicides by firearms are committed by people who use a parents, spouse, or friends firearm. So in my opinion a law which encourages firearm owners to keep their weapons out of the reach of others would in fact have an affect on firearm suicides. I also think tighter regulations on people with diagnosed mental conditions purchasing firearms would have an affect as well. Neither of those is confiscation or a ban."

 

And, in doing so you are ignoring reality.

At best you are making a mistake if you think it's plain; it is anything but- partly because the world has changed in the intervening two centuries.

It is open to interpretation, not just by (as you put it) every dingbat, but by judges and such whose job it is to try to interpret that sort of thing.

 

To be blunt, the 2nd amendment is a logical non sequiteur.

You have "the right to keep and bear arms" but you have no "well regulated militia".

The militia doesn't follow from the right to have guns.

So the premise of the amendment doesn't actually hold true.

The premise held true once upon a time. I think advocates would simply harken back to that time and pretend on some fundamental level nothing has changed. I agree broadly though. The 2nd amendment is no longer applicable as the conditions and government structure it was designed for no longer exist. Applying the 2nd amendment word for word to society today would be like applying some old horse and carriage law to the FAA claiming that by carriage the founders meant transportation and sense planes transport people planes are actually carriages.

[iNow]

No, I act is if the language were plain and not open to any dingbat rereading that comes down the pike.

Yes, we all agree that's how you act. The larger point, however, is that we also agree that on this particular point you are quite clearly mistaken.

 

Even the plainest of statements in the US Constitution has many interpretations in a changed world. The 2nd Amendment, among the plainest, offers rich ground for interpretation regarding - say - exactly what arms are now suitable for a militia, or what "bearing" arms now means after the invention of the car and the concealable handgun. But confusing the police or the National Guard with a militia, not knowing what "well-regulated" means, etc, is not an option. At least, not an honest and informed one.

You continue arguing against a caricature in your head, and not against any direct participant here. Progress would be much more likely if you would stop doing that.

 

The risk to us all from people advocating that the Constitution be set aside whenever the government deems a large enough benefit can be obtained thereby, is serious.

As has already been pointed out by people here and also the SCOTUS itself, the constitution need not be "set aside" and does not in any way prohibit regulation and intelligent restrictions, which is the actual subject under discussion.

 

The fact that you must continuously strawman the position of others to make your points (as well as disparage and demean those making them) indicates robustly just how weak your position here truly us. Further, while your hyperbole makes for fun reading and theatrical experience, it is not terribly relevant here given its fictional nature. Regulations and restrictions are not prohibited by the constitution as you continue to imply. The only thing you're convincing others of is your extremist, impervious to logic and fact, pseudo-religious stance on this subject.

Edited August 30, 2015 by iNow