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Gun control (and other oxymorons)

Keleynal

Jesus Freak
In the wake of the recent massacres in Colorado and Connecticut, the United States is once again going completely nuts over the gun control issue. For the life of me, I can't understand why lawmakers and regular citizens alike cannot see the need for strict control of deadly weapons. In many cases, it's more difficult to buy and own a car than it is a gun. I believe this needs to change immediately.

I'm a big supporter of the 2nd Ammendment. I think the right to own and bear arms is an important liberty that needs to be preserved, but I also think that right needs the same level of regulation and guidelines as free speech and press. To that end, I offer my simple plan for gun control:

1. Ban assualt rifles immediately. They are not practical for home protection or hunting. These weapons are designed to kill many people very quickly. This is very useful for military personnel, but not civilians. I would be in favor of police special forces using assualt weapons and also allow specially licensed gun ranges to have then available to the general public for recreational shooting.

2. Require photo ID licenses for all gun owners. Just like for operating a car, you would need a license for your gun. There could be levels of licenses depending on the type and number of guns owned by an individual. You would have to pass background checks and safety classes on a regular basis to keep your license.

3. Mandated paper trail on gun sales. Right now, I could buy a gun from another individual and do no paperwork on it. All guns should be tracked by serial number and owning an unregistered firearm should have strict penalties. Some of this is in place already, but I don't think it goes far enough.

I think that no matter what gun control laws are passed, we will always see senseless violence. There's no way to stop it all. However, I think we can do better and need to do better.
 
Banning weapons won't solve anything but i do agree that they need to make it harder to get a weapon.

The media is going crazy over this... but if the went in there with butterknives and did the same thing i wonder if they would say " OMG we need to ban butterknives right now"

I own a good deal of firepower and continuing to broaden my collection. The ban won't work because criminals will always find a way to get their hands on the weapons. Its the same thing with america and drugs. They still find their way onto the street.

To go hunting you need to take a hunters safety course. I think to own a gun you need to take a gun safety course. Just like Kelynal said, we need to keep track of who buys what weapon better. I bought a rifle a month ago, all i needed was a license and a background check. Simple as that. Nothing spectacular and away i went.
 
Banning weapons won't solve anything but i do agree that they need to make it harder to get a weapon.

The media is going crazy over this... but if the went in there with butterknives and did the same thing i wonder if they would say " OMG we need to ban butterknives right now"

I own a good deal of firepower and continuing to broaden my collection. The ban won't work because criminals will always find a way to get their hands on the weapons. Its the same thing with america and drugs. They still find their way onto the street.

To go hunting you need to take a hunters safety course. I think to own a gun you need to take a gun safety course. Just like Kelynal said, we need to keep track of who buys what weapon better. I bought a rifle a month ago, all i needed was a license and a background check. Simple as that. Nothing spectacular and away i went.

Problem is there is no checkups to see if you are still qualified to own a gun. If anyone did a family background check maybe they would not have let them have the gun in the first place.

I think the 2nd amendment is a bit outdated since we are not in NEED of hunting for our food anymore or that kind of protection. But I don't have a solution for it.
 
I agree with Baldoraxx. If someone really wants to get possession of a gun, there are many routes (especially illegal) that they can take. Assault rifles are probably a bit much, and I think Kel makes an excellent point in that only specially licensed ranges should provide them for recreational use. Obviously this is a complex issue, where no one solution will solve the problem. However, I think better psychological and mental health support is needed. In every mass shooting the killer was disturbed in some way. No matter your stance on public healthcare, I think we can all agree that we need to help these people before they go on these kinds of deadly rampages.
 
Stricter gun control is the easiest step to take though, and with arguably the biggest pay off in preventing these mass murders, or even homicides in general.

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http://www.businessinsider.com/shooting-gun-laws-2012-12

And anyway, the second amendment is an amendment. You know, a change to the constitution. There's nothing sacred about any of the amendments, or even the constitution. We're supposed to look at it every few years and decide whether certain parts are still relevant or if they need tweaking. It's not the freaking Bible. Shit, even the Bible got edited plenty.
 
There was a study done about mass shootings in the US. All but 1 shooting were located in an area that forbid carrying concealed firearms. Law abiding citizens were not allowed to defend themselves. The 1 exception was the church shooting in TN. Shooter killed someone in the parking lot, 2 more in the lobby and that was it. After that he was pinned down by members of the congregation.

Also, the 2nd amendment was never meant for hunting. It was meant to thwart an oppressive government.

Israel had this problem in the 70s with people storming schools and killing kids. They found a way to fix the problem. Nobody will look at what others did to fix the problem in a reasonable manner. Instead they will try to pass knee-jerk laws. Not going to solve anything.

This is just my 2 cents, don't take me to seriously.
 
Also, the 2nd amendment was never meant for hunting. It was meant to thwart an oppressive government.
Considering treason is the only crime expressly defined in the Constitution, I find this to be highly dubious.

The second amendment provides for the maintenance of "a well-regulated militia," which protects the nation against external threats, not an imaginary fascist takeover by its own government. In fact, Article I, Section 8 describes a militia's duties as "execut[ing] the Laws of the Union, suppress[ing] Insurrections and repel[ling] Invasions." So basically the opposite of what you're describing - they're the force standing in the way of armed revolt.

Think about it - are you [hypothetical you] really keeping a gun with the intent of overthrowing the government? Because we have a tendency to prosecute that sort of thing with lethal force.
 

Except one can hold a lot more rounds in the magazine and is easier to wield indoors.


Okay, let's say they were there to massacre the family instead of just robbing them, let's say the homeowner did do the right thing in getting himself shot and having to live with the knowledge that he ended another human being's life. Stricter gun control would still only make that situation better. The homeowner would still have his gun, and the criminals might or might not have any. At worst, same deal.



Lol.
 
Considering treason is the only crime expressly defined in the Constitution, I find this to be highly dubious.

The second amendment provides for the maintenance of "a well-regulated militia," which protects the nation against external threats, not an imaginary fascist takeover by its own government. In fact, Article I, Section 8 describes a militia's duties as "execut[ing] the Laws of the Union, suppress[ing] Insurrections and repel[ling] Invasions." So basically the opposite of what you're describing - they're the force standing in the way of armed revolt.

Think about it - are you [hypothetical you] really keeping a gun with the intent of overthrowing the government? Because we have a tendency to prosecute that sort of thing with lethal force.
The 2nd Ammendment has 2 parts- (1) A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, (2) the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The first part enables citizens to band together for defense. This is less necessary than it used to be with every state having a National Guard and an armed police force. The second part is an individual's right to posess weapons.

I think the Founders were concerned that the government of America could become tyrannical. That's why many states insisted that the Bill of Rights be added to the Constitution before they ratified it. They wanted to make sure that the government's power was limited and people had the means to resist oppression without havign to rely on a state controlled military.

Many of the first 10 ammendments were in direct response the oppression that the colonists had been feeling from England- no unreasonable searches, no excessive bail, public trial by jury, forbidding soldiers from comandeering people's homes, and protecting weapons form confiscation. These were all in response to actions taken by their current government.

It was the hope of our Founders that the government would think twice about oppressing the people if they knew that many of us were armed and dangerous.

Mech- You said that Israel found a way to stop it, but didn't say what that was. I have a feeling it probably involves soldiers with AKs at the school doors, and I would really like to avoid that here if at all possible.
 
All I'm going to say is that even if they banned Assault Rifles it wouldn't stop school killings. Schools are simply vulnerable, and the only way to change that would be to put armed guards on the doors. I honestly feel that stricter gun control won't even begin to help deviate this from ever happening again. Because a guy can simply walk into a school with a knife, hammer, axe, or a machete and still do just as much damage. Honestly I would feel a lot safer knowing my next door neighbor has 14 assault weapons than if he had none. But what the hell do I know, I'm just a backwoods pecker-head.
 
It takes a whole other class of disturbed to go on an up close and personal, blood on your hands stabbing spree though. Also, nobody is saying stricter gun laws are somehow magically going to stop stuff like this from ever happening again or will usher the world into some sort of hippie utopia. But they should help. We don't go "yeah, fine, you found a cure for cancer, big whoop. We still got AIDS and diabetes and all this other shit, why'd you even bother?", yet somehow when discussing gun control that's exactly the stance a lot of people seem to take. Well, not exactly, it's a pretty flawed analogy, but you get the gist. It's not because it won't fix the problem 100% that it isn't worth pursuing.

I personally don't see the need for ARs, a handgun will do just as well for personal defense.
 
All I'm going to say is that even if they banned Assault Rifles it wouldn't stop school killings. Schools are simply vulnerable, and the only way to change that would be to put armed guards on the doors. I honestly feel that stricter gun control won't even begin to help deviate this from ever happening again. Because a guy can simply walk into a school with a knife, hammer, axe, or a machete and still do just as much damage. Honestly I would feel a lot safer knowing my next door neighbor has 14 assault weapons than if he had none. But what the hell do I know, I'm just a backwoods pecker-head

I would argue that it takes much more time and energy to kill 26 people with a knife or even a 6 shooter vs a 30 round assualt rifle. Banning assault rifles will not stop all killing, but it will make it more difficult to obtain the kinds of weapons that do it teh most efficiently, and I think that's a good thing.

If my neigbor has 14 assault rifles, I would feel safe if he was responsible enough to lock them all up and not leave them loaded all around the house. The problem doesn't always lie with the gun owners. In the Connecticut shooting, the shooter did not use his own guns, he stole them from his mother. I don't know if she gave her unstable son access to her weapons or if he somehow broke into a gun safe. If your neighbor is able to maintain control of all 14 of his weapons, more power to him, but I think one double-barelled shotgun would be more suited to home protection.

Personally, I feel safer knowing that a perp (or a kid) isn't going to find a gun laying around in my home. If guns and ammunition are locked away properly, it can be impractical to reach them in an emergency situation, and if you leave them where it's easy access, you're an idiot. So I don't see a big win for using guns in home protection. A good alarm system and a baseball bat are sufficient for most situations.

I don't feel that armed guards are the only way to stop shootings. I am in favor of police officers being at schools as much as possible. I think the doors could be a little more resilient. Installing that wire mesh stuff that keeps people from entering even if they shoot out the glass would be a good start. Most schools by me have that already.
 
The 2nd Ammendment has 2 parts- (1) A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, (2) the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The first part enables citizens to band together for defense. This is less necessary than it used to be with every state having a National Guard and an armed police force. The second part is an individual's right to posess weapons.

I think the Founders were concerned that the government of America could become tyrannical. That's why many states insisted that the Bill of Rights be added to the Constitution before they ratified it. They wanted to make sure that the government's power was limited and people had the means to resist oppression without havign to rely on a state controlled military.

Many of the first 10 ammendments were in direct response the oppression that the colonists had been feeling from England- no unreasonable searches, no excessive bail, public trial by jury, forbidding soldiers from comandeering people's homes, and protecting weapons form confiscation. These were all in response to actions taken by their current government.

It was the hope of our Founders that the government would think twice about oppressing the people if they knew that many of us were armed and dangerous.
Again, this is doubtful because the Constitution itself prohibits treason. The two parts of the second amendment are causal - the right to bear arms shall not be infringed because a well-regulated militia is necessary. Doesn't say anything about resisting government takeover. Yes, historically that's in there because the British confiscated their weapons, but the Constitution is written so that doing so (as well as performing other acts of tyranny) is impossible.

Remember, if you take up arms against your own government, that is treason. You're defying the Constitution. We had a whole big thing about this.

I don't feel that armed guards are the only way to stop shootings. I am in favor of police officers being at schools as much as possible. I think the doors could be a little more resilient. Installing that wire mesh stuff that keeps people from entering even if they shoot out the glass would be a good start. Most schools by me have that already.
Posting this article because it's relevant. I doubt the NRA would be as on board with the idea of the federal government placing armed guards in every school if our fascist-communist-socialist-Kenyan-Muslim-atheist president were the one who suggested it.
 
The Constitution was written by traitors. I think it was Thomas Jefferson that said "A little revolution is a good thing now and then."

Our country was founded on the principle that if a government become tyrannical, it is the right and even the duty of citizens to oppose it by any means that become necessary. They did not rush to a violent solution and nor should we, but they certainly recognized that normal citizens should be empowered to forcibly hold their government accountable. It's only treason if you lose.
 
The 2nd Ammendment has 2 parts- (1) A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,

A double-barrel isn't going to help your Militia that much. Also Shotguns have loads more killing power in schools than ARs do.

I would argue that it takes much more time and energy to kill 26 people with a knife or even a 6 shooter vs a 30 round assualt rifle.

Yes it does but that doesn't make our schools any more safer or it any less likely to happen. Since 2010 there have been 7 non-suicide school shootings. 5 with a handgun, 1 with a shotgun, and the Sandy Hook shooting. Since 2010 there were 10 school attacks with melee weapons in China. Total of the U.S. 33 killed (27 of which which was from the Sandy Hook shooting), 9 Wounded. Total of China 25 deaths, 101 injured. Even in the Virgina Tech Massacre in 2007 33 people were killed by 2 HANDGUNS.
 
It is time the critics of the Second Amendment put up and repeal it, or shut up about violating it. Their efforts to disarm and short-arm Americans violate the U.S. Constitution in Merriam Webster’s first sense of the term—to “disregard” it.

Hard cases make bad law, which is why they are reserved for the Constitution, not left to the caprice of legislatures, the sophistry and casuistry of judges or the despotic rule making of the chief executive and his bureaucracy. And make no mistake, guns pose one of the hardest cases a free people confronts in the 21st century, a test of whether that people cherishes liberty above tyranny, values individual sovereignty above dependency on the state, and whether they dare any longer to live free.

A people cannot simultaneously live free and be bound to any human master or man-made institution, especially to politicians, judges, bureaucrats and faceless government agencies. The Second Amendment along with the other nine amendments of the Bill of Rights was designed to prevent individuals’ enslavement to government, not just to guarantee people the right to hunt squirrels or sport shoot at targets, nor was it included in the Bill of Rights just to guarantee individuals the right to defend themselves against robbers, rapers and lunatics, or to make sure the states could raise a militia quick, on the cheap to defend against a foreign invader or domestic unrest.

The Second Amendment was designed to ensure that individuals retained the right and means to defend themselves against any illegitimate attempt to do them harm, be it an attempt by a private outlaw or government agents violating their trust under the color of law. The Second Amendment was meant to guarantee individuals the right to protect themselves against government as much as against private bad guys and gangs.

That is why the gun grabbers’ assault on firearms is not only, not even primarily an attack merely on the means of self-defense but more fundamentally, the gun grabbers are engaged in a blatant attack on the very legitimacy of self-defense itself. It’s not really about the guns; it is about the government’s ability to demand submission of the people. Gun control is part and parcel of the ongoing collectivist effort to eviscerate individual sovereignty and replace it with dependence upon and allegiance to the state.
Americans provisionally delegated a limited amount of power over themselves to government, retaining their individual sovereignty in every respect and reserving to themselves the power not delegated to government, most importantly the right and power to abolish or replace any government that becomes destructive of the ends for which it was created. The Bill of Rights, especially the Second and Ninth Amendments, can only be properly understood and rightly interpreted in this context.

Politicians who insist on despoiling the Constitution just a little bit for some greater good (gun control for “collective security”) are like a blackguard who lies to an innocent that she can yield to his advances, retain her virtue and risk getting only just a little bit pregnant—a seducer’s lie. The people either have the right to own and bear arms, or they don’t, and to the extent legislators, judges and bureaucrats disparage that right, they are violating the U.S. Constitution as it was originally conceived, and as it is currently amended. To those who would pretend the Second Amendment doesn’t exist or insist it doesn’t mean what it says, there is only one legitimate response: “If you don’t like the Second Amendment, you may try to repeal it but short of that you may not disparage and usurp it, even a little bit, as long as it remains a part of the Constitution, no exceptions, no conniving revisions, no fabricated judicial balancing acts.”

Gun control advocates attempt to avoid the real issue of gun rights—why the Founders felt so strongly about gun rights that they singled them out for special protection in the Bill of Rights—by demanding that individual rights be balanced against a counterfeit collective right to “security” from things that go bump in the night. But, the Bill of Rights was not a Bill of Entitlements that people had a right to demand from government; it was a Bill of Protections against the government itself. The Founders understood that the right to own and bear laws is as fundamental and as essential to maintaining liberty as are the rights of free speech, a free press, freedom of religion and the other protections against government encroachments on liberty delineated in the Bill of Rights.

That is why the most egregious of the fallacious arguments used to justify gun control are designed to short-arm the citizenry (e.g., banning so-called “assault rifles”) by restricting the application of the Second Amendment to apply only to arms that do not pose a threat to the government’s self-proclaimed monopoly on the use of force. To that end, the gun grabbers first must bamboozle people into believing the Second Amendment does not really protect an individual’s right to own and bear firearms.

They do that by insisting on a tortured construction of the Second Amendment that converts individual rights into states rights. The short-arm artists assert that the Second Amendment’s reference to the necessity of a “well-regulated militia” proves the amendment is all about state’s rights, not individuals rights; it was written into the Bill of Rights simply to guarantee that state governments could assemble a fighting force quick, on the cheap to defend against foreign invasion and domestic disturbance. Consequently, Second-Amendment revisionists would have us believe the Second Amendment does little more than guarantee the right of states to maintain militias; and, since the state militias were replaced by the National Guard in the early twentieth century, the Second Amendment has virtually no contemporary significance. Gun controllers would, in effect, do to the Second Amendment what earlier collectivizers and centralizers did to the Tenth Amendment, namely render it a dead letter.

The truth is, the Founders understood a “well regulated” militia to mean a militia “functioning/operating properly,” not a militia “controlled or managed by the government.” This is clearly evidenced by Alexander Hamilton’s discussion of militias in Federalist #29 and by one of the Oxford Dictionary’s archaic definitions of “regulate;” “(b) Of troops: Properly disciplined.”

The Founders intended that a well-regulated militia was to be the first, not the last line of defense against a foreign invader or social unrest. But, they also intended militias to be the last, not the first line of defense against tyrannical government. In other words, the Second Amendment was meant to be the constitutional protection for a person’s musket behind the door, later the shotgun behind the door and today the M4 behind the door—a constitutional guarantee of the right of individuals to defend themselves against any and all miscreants, private or government, seeking to do them harm.

The unfettered right to own and bear arms consecrates individual sovereignty and ordains the right of self-defense. The Second Amendment symbolizes and proclaims individuals’ right to defend themselves personally against any and all threatened deprivations of life, liberty or property, including attempted deprivations by the government. The symbolism of a heavily armed citizenry says loudly and unequivocally to the government, “Don’t Tread On Me.”

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence said, “When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”

Both Jefferson and James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, also knew that their government would never fear a people without guns, and they understood as well that the greatest threat to liberty was not foreign invasion or domestic unrest but rather a standing army and a militarized police force without fear of the people and capable of inflicting tyranny upon the people.

That is what prompted Madison to contrast the new national government he had helped create to the kingdoms of Europe, which he characterized as “afraid to trust the people with arms.” Madison assured his fellow Americans that under the new Constitution as amended by the Bill of Rights, they need never fear their government because of “the advantage of being armed.”

But, Noah Webster said it most succinctly and most eloquently:
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.”

That is why the Founders looked to local militias as much to provide a check—in modern parlance, a “deterrent”—against government tyranny as against an invading foreign power. Guns are individuals’ own personal nuclear deterrent against their own government gone rogue. Therefore, a heavily armed citizenry is the ultimate deterrent against tyranny.
A heavily armed citizenry is not about armed revolt; it is about defending oneself against armed government oppression. A heavily armed citizenry is not about overthrowing the government; it is about preventing the government from overthrowing liberty. A people stripped of their right of self defense is defenseless against their own government.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/lawrenc...certain-virtues-of-a-heavily-armed-citizenry/
 
Dudebro's right, it's time the Dems put on some big boy pants and go for the repeal and replace it with some actual laws. As long as the Second Amendment's there people like him are going to keep getting their head stuck firmly up the 18th century's ass.
 
Dudebro's right, it's time the Dems put on some big boy pants and go for the repeal and replace it with some actual laws.

Except everything that was just said was a legitimate reason as to why we have the Second Amendment and whey it has never been repealed. It works, it hasn't failed us yet. In your average person owning an assault rifle is perfectly fine. But not everybody is average, many people are plain disturbed. Taking away our rights to own assault rifles or any arms isn't going to stop another Sandy Hook from happening again. You think it will be harder for it to happen again yet we look back on Virgina Tech, that was a more fatal shooting with simply 2 handguns. Could there be more restrictive laws that maybe stop assault rifles from falling into the wrong hands? Possibly. Will more restrictive laws stop another Sandy Hook? I'll bet not. Simply put guns do not kill people. Other people kill people, and they will continue to do so even if we did not have any guns.
 
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