VikingVince
Explorer
DaktariEd said:
Yes, right...and I believe the shooter went voluntarily to that court-ordered outpatient counseling. Right? And that's why he was able to buy the gun legally.
Fireside Chat: Guns and a Culture of Violence?
- Thread starter DesertRose
- Start date
Yes, right...and I believe the shooter went voluntarily to that court-ordered outpatient counseling. Right? And that's why he was able to buy the gun legally.
Jonathan Hanson
Well-known member
I stand corrected. I wrote based on information I read several days ago; now I see that the "involuntary" part apparently did not apply.
Which brings me back to my endorsement of a nationwide firearms license, which would grant the holder broad second amendment freedoms after a thorough background check and competency test.
I know many gun owners will disagree with that statement; nevertheless I believe that with rights come responsibilities. And I believe a society has a right to expect an individual to show competency with a firearm. Then, as I said, it's hands off. If I want a full-auto HK MP5 to bust cans with, it's no one's business but my own.
All the post-Virginia-Tech hand-wringing about "How can we prevent this in the future?" misses one salient point: In any society of 300 million people there will always be a few cunning murderous lunatics, and there ain't a thing you can do about it in advance, unless you're willing to submit to totalitarian psych-control. I'm sure if someone calculated how likely it is the average student will become the victim of a mass shooting, the odds would be pretty small.
But you can still be in control of your own situation.
Which brings me back to my endorsement of a nationwide firearms license, which would grant the holder broad second amendment freedoms after a thorough background check and competency test.
I know many gun owners will disagree with that statement; nevertheless I believe that with rights come responsibilities. And I believe a society has a right to expect an individual to show competency with a firearm. Then, as I said, it's hands off. If I want a full-auto HK MP5 to bust cans with, it's no one's business but my own.
All the post-Virginia-Tech hand-wringing about "How can we prevent this in the future?" misses one salient point: In any society of 300 million people there will always be a few cunning murderous lunatics, and there ain't a thing you can do about it in advance, unless you're willing to submit to totalitarian psych-control. I'm sure if someone calculated how likely it is the average student will become the victim of a mass shooting, the odds would be pretty small.
But you can still be in control of your own situation.
Lost Canadian
Expedition Leader
Nice post. I do have one question though, and pardon my ignorance, but the term "arms" as in the right to bear "arms", is there a narrower definition or a constitutional limitation on what that means, includes, excludes? Just curious as to how far reaching that term is.Jonathan Hanson said:
DesertRose
Safari Chick & Supporting Sponsor
OutbacKamper said:
Touche, Mark!
[QUOTE_OutbackKamper]The "gun culture" that has been discussed here is NOT an exclusive American thing. [/QUOTE]
I've been thinking about this a bit, and I agree - I think we can all agree that it's a human thing. Media (which includes the internet) makes it more or (in the absence of media) less apparent.
Jonathan Hanson
Well-known member
Trevor, that's a good question. Constitutional scholars generally agree that it's reasonable to assume some sort of limit on the term "arm" as it applies to second amendment rights, since it could theoretically include anything from slingshots to Glocks to RPGs to nuclear weapons.
Where that limit is drawn has been the subject of endless debate. There are strict rules for the purchase of fully automatic weapons in the U.S., but it is possible for individuals to buy them after a background check and the payment of a $200 tax. We now have various arbitrary laws on barrel length and certain features. Suppressors are controlled in a similar fashion to full-auto weapons. It is a never-ending back-and-forth struggle, with the gun-banners constantly trying pernicious first steps toward their ultimate goal, and groups such as the NRA resisting every one.
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DesertRose
Safari Chick & Supporting Sponsor
navara-au said:Yes your right it was very gutless of me to make a passing statement like that and I apologize.
Yes from my little contact I have of genuine American citizens (opposed to what I get from media) is that you are very polite, courteous, moral; bunch of folk..... Which makes it even harder for me to see such broad range acceptance of guns IMHO.
I am a member of another American 4x4 forum, which someone started show us your guns type thread. Expecting to see a few hunting rifles, shot guns and the odd pistol (which was the main type of gun on the thread), but there were people proudly showing off there full on assault type weapons and enough ammo to do a lot of damage. Now my reaction was BLOODY HELL! are they legal?,why would you want to own guns like that? To which I got the usually its part of our constitutional right blah blah we dont subscribe to liberal views blah blah (Sorry there was a little more than that but you get the picture).
OK do you now the thing that disturb me the most was that no one and I mean no one seemed to see a problem with those types of weapons, it was all just a lot of "cool", "that's a nice (insert what ever type of gun that was)". Also I see other people in various poses (not unlike the way that maniac in the campus masica posed) showing off there guns.
Then I see someone post do you carry a gun when you go camping thread here. Again there is what seems to be the total acceptance that when you go somewhere in America you pack a gun. The only one who seem to question this philosophy seems to be the foreigners??
Look I'm 42 years old have a wife and 4 children. Left school when I was 15 and worked as a plumber in the construction industry ever since(that explains my poor grammar.....thank god for spell check)). Ive always been an outdoorsy bloke (much rather be sitting on a beach somewhere with a beer in one hand and a fishing rod in the other than a 5 star resort). When I was in my teens and early twenties a lot of my mates had guns for hunting. (and that is all we ever used them for. Never for self protection, if we weren't going hunting we didnt take the guns).........Now the point I'm trying to make is that I'm just an average citizen who if I lived in the states probably would think the same as you do about guns.....but I dont, sure I could buy guns if I wanted to there is a gun shop several blocks from my house and a shooting range 1 mile away and its not that hard to get a gun license, but I have no desire to own one and would have to say most of my neighbors and friends think the same.
Does that make any sense???....probably notI guess what I'm basically saying is that why there is still violence in my society its for the most part avoidable. I cant see how having a gun would change anything for the better.
Great post, now we're getting somewhere toward understanding!
I totally understand that would give you the "heebee-geebees" - it would me, too.
What you say to describe yourself and your neighbors' interest in firearms is also what I'd call typical in the U.S.
But I'd just like to return to the media that delivers the images that have caused your impression of Americans to form.
Let me just speak hypothetically: the subject by far the most-used on the internet is . . . pornography.
If we had access to data (I haven't looked - afraid to!) that told us which countries had the most per-capita usage of pornogrphy, would I be fair in thinking every person or even the majority of people in the country were perverts?
I don't think so - I think it's just that things like guns just make people uncomfortable, when in fact things like automobiles and hospitals kill more people annually by far than guns (DaktariEd correct me here - but I think I just read that something like 90,000 people die in the U.S. each year from infections they get in hospitals . . . most often from poor hygeine of - hand washing - of the health care professionals). . .
All this drivel is just to say . . . it's how the information is delivered, how we process it, and ultimately make our decisions about forming our impressions that matters.
This forum and discussion proves we can do so with a lot of enlightenment and hopefully some future shared libation!
Pskhaat
2005 Expedition Trophy Champion
Jonathan Hanson said:
Can't agree and here's why: background checks and public data retention firms are run primarily by private companies. This will involve SSN and credit checks which will lower one's financial credit scoring and which should have nothing in common with a Constitutional right.
This would also be a fantastic win for total information awareness and databases containing nearly everything about you; all at the ready for whomever wishes to pay.
Some rights however are ``unalienable rights,'' bound not by condition. Some may argue the Bill of Rights does not fall to those rights establsihed by the US Constitution; I would argue they are bound the same.
DaktariEd
2005, 2006 Tech Course Champion: Expedition Trophy
VikingVince said:
Actually, from what I heard today on some morning news/talk show (This week w/George Stephanopoulous), the fact that the judge ordered him into counseling as a danger to self or others constituted grounds for NOT allowing him to purchase a weapon. Problem was, there was no link between these court orders and the Nat'l Instant Criminal Background Check System.
DaktariEd
2005, 2006 Tech Course Champion: Expedition Trophy
DesertRose said:
My understanding (though I hate to admit it!) is that it's not infections per se, but "medical errors" in general (and that term is loaded because some of the causes are not errors at all but side effects), that kill people. Prescribing a med someone is allergic to, a lethal side effect, not responding to a medical crisis appropriately, not attending to an intubation during surgery, that sort of thing.
robert
Expedition Leader
Here's an interesting read on the subject:
History: A Drafting and Ratification of the Bill of Rights in the Colonial Period
As heirs to the majestic constitutional history of England, the intellectual and political leaders of the new Colonies intended nothing less than to incorporate into their new government the laws and liberties of Englishmen, including the well-established right of the law-abiding citizen to keep and bear arms.
Yet, while engaged in bringing about one of the most radical political changes in the history of the Western world, the Founding Fathers remained conservative republicans who valued tradition and their English heritage ― the dynasties of the Angles, Saxons, Picts, and Jutes; 1066 and the Norman Conquest; the Magna Carta; the reigns of the Norman, Lancastrian, Plantagenet, Tudor, Stuart, and Hanoverian kings, the Civil Wars; the Restoration; the Glorious Revolution; and, most particularly, the Age of Enlightenment and the Whig philosophies that came to dominate English political thought during the hundred years preceding the American Revolution.
They revered English customs and law. Chief Justice Howard Taft observed that:
"[t]he Framers of our Constitution were born and brought up in the atmosphere of the common law, and thought and spoke its vocabulary. They were familiar with other forms of government, recent and ancient, and indicated in their discussions earnest study and consideration of many of them; but, when they came to put their conclusions into the form of fundamental law in a compact draft, they expressed themselves in terms of the common law, confident that they could be shortly and easily understood."
This analysis by Chief Justice Taft explains, in part, the confusion that has developed, especially in this century, over the interpretation of the language of the Second Amendment. The meaning of such words as "militia," "keep arms," "bear arms," "discipline," "well regulated," and "the people" was the meaning of these words as they were used in the English common law of the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries ― not as they are used today. As Chief Justice Taft further commented:
"The language of the Constitution cannot be interpreted safely except by reference to the common law and to British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed and adopted."
Thomas Jefferson, by no means an imprecise thinker, was well aware of this consideration. In commenting upon how the Constitution should properly be read, he said:
"On every question of construction let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning can be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one which was passed."
Yet despite this clear evidence, gun control and prohibition proponents attempt to squeeze out of the text of the Second Amendment the meaning that only a “collective” ― not an individual ― right is guaranteed by the amendment. They argue that the words of the amendment allegedly apply only to the group in our society that is "well regulated" and "keeps and bears arms," the National Guard. But they are wrong.
David I. Caplan, who has examined this issue in depth, provides this analysis:
"In colonial times the term ‘well regulated' meant ‘well functioning' ― for this was the meaning of those words at that time, as demonstrated by the following passage from the original 1789 charter of the University of North Carolina: ‘Whereas in all well regulated governments it is the indispensable duty of every Legislatures to consult the happiness of a rising generation…' Moreover the Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘regulated' among other things as ‘properly disciplined;' and it defines ‘discipline' among other things as ‘a trained condition.'"
Privately kept firearms and training with them apart from formal militia mustering thus was encompassed by the Second Amendment, in order to enable able-bodied citizens to be trained by being familiar in advance with the functioning of firearms. In that way, when organized the militia would be able to function well when the need arose to muster and be deployed for sudden military emergencies.
Therefore, even if the opening words of the Amendment, "A well regulated militia…" somehow would be interpreted as strictly limiting "the right of the people to keep…arms"; nevertheless, a properly functioning militia fundamentally presupposes that the individual citizen be allowed to keep, practice, and train himself in the use of firearms.
....
These self-proclaimed interpreters of the Constitution also ignore the Second Amendment's specific reference to "the right of the people." The fact that the "rights of the people" appears in the Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments as well--and that the courts have ruled repeatedly that these rights belong to individuals--matters little to them. They retreat to their standard charge that the Founding Fathers never intended for the people to have the right to keep and bear arms.
http://www.madisonbrigade.com/library_bor.htm
"The Bill of Rights does not grant rights to the people, such that its repeal would legitimately confer upon government the powers otherwise proscribed. The Bill of Rights is the list of the fundamental, inalienable rights, endowed in man by his Creator, that define what it means to be a free and independent people, the rights which must exist to ensure that government governs only with the consent of the people."
Jeff Snyder in his essay, "A Nation of Cowards," in Public Interest Quarterly/Fall 1993:
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." Thomas Jefferson
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms. . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." Thomas Jefferson
"The said Constitution [shall] be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms." Samuel Adams
"A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves . . . and include all men capable of bearing arms. . . To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms... The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle." “To preserve liberty, it is essential that of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.” Richard Henry Lee
"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American . . . . The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." Tench Coxe
"What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. . . Whenever Government means to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise a standing army upon its ruins." Elbridge Gerry
History: A Drafting and Ratification of the Bill of Rights in the Colonial Period
As heirs to the majestic constitutional history of England, the intellectual and political leaders of the new Colonies intended nothing less than to incorporate into their new government the laws and liberties of Englishmen, including the well-established right of the law-abiding citizen to keep and bear arms.
Yet, while engaged in bringing about one of the most radical political changes in the history of the Western world, the Founding Fathers remained conservative republicans who valued tradition and their English heritage ― the dynasties of the Angles, Saxons, Picts, and Jutes; 1066 and the Norman Conquest; the Magna Carta; the reigns of the Norman, Lancastrian, Plantagenet, Tudor, Stuart, and Hanoverian kings, the Civil Wars; the Restoration; the Glorious Revolution; and, most particularly, the Age of Enlightenment and the Whig philosophies that came to dominate English political thought during the hundred years preceding the American Revolution.
They revered English customs and law. Chief Justice Howard Taft observed that:
"[t]he Framers of our Constitution were born and brought up in the atmosphere of the common law, and thought and spoke its vocabulary. They were familiar with other forms of government, recent and ancient, and indicated in their discussions earnest study and consideration of many of them; but, when they came to put their conclusions into the form of fundamental law in a compact draft, they expressed themselves in terms of the common law, confident that they could be shortly and easily understood."
This analysis by Chief Justice Taft explains, in part, the confusion that has developed, especially in this century, over the interpretation of the language of the Second Amendment. The meaning of such words as "militia," "keep arms," "bear arms," "discipline," "well regulated," and "the people" was the meaning of these words as they were used in the English common law of the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries ― not as they are used today. As Chief Justice Taft further commented:
"The language of the Constitution cannot be interpreted safely except by reference to the common law and to British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed and adopted."
Thomas Jefferson, by no means an imprecise thinker, was well aware of this consideration. In commenting upon how the Constitution should properly be read, he said:
"On every question of construction let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning can be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one which was passed."
Yet despite this clear evidence, gun control and prohibition proponents attempt to squeeze out of the text of the Second Amendment the meaning that only a “collective” ― not an individual ― right is guaranteed by the amendment. They argue that the words of the amendment allegedly apply only to the group in our society that is "well regulated" and "keeps and bears arms," the National Guard. But they are wrong.
David I. Caplan, who has examined this issue in depth, provides this analysis:
"In colonial times the term ‘well regulated' meant ‘well functioning' ― for this was the meaning of those words at that time, as demonstrated by the following passage from the original 1789 charter of the University of North Carolina: ‘Whereas in all well regulated governments it is the indispensable duty of every Legislatures to consult the happiness of a rising generation…' Moreover the Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘regulated' among other things as ‘properly disciplined;' and it defines ‘discipline' among other things as ‘a trained condition.'"
Privately kept firearms and training with them apart from formal militia mustering thus was encompassed by the Second Amendment, in order to enable able-bodied citizens to be trained by being familiar in advance with the functioning of firearms. In that way, when organized the militia would be able to function well when the need arose to muster and be deployed for sudden military emergencies.
Therefore, even if the opening words of the Amendment, "A well regulated militia…" somehow would be interpreted as strictly limiting "the right of the people to keep…arms"; nevertheless, a properly functioning militia fundamentally presupposes that the individual citizen be allowed to keep, practice, and train himself in the use of firearms.
....
These self-proclaimed interpreters of the Constitution also ignore the Second Amendment's specific reference to "the right of the people." The fact that the "rights of the people" appears in the Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments as well--and that the courts have ruled repeatedly that these rights belong to individuals--matters little to them. They retreat to their standard charge that the Founding Fathers never intended for the people to have the right to keep and bear arms.
http://www.madisonbrigade.com/library_bor.htm
"The Bill of Rights does not grant rights to the people, such that its repeal would legitimately confer upon government the powers otherwise proscribed. The Bill of Rights is the list of the fundamental, inalienable rights, endowed in man by his Creator, that define what it means to be a free and independent people, the rights which must exist to ensure that government governs only with the consent of the people."
Jeff Snyder in his essay, "A Nation of Cowards," in Public Interest Quarterly/Fall 1993:
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." Thomas Jefferson
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms. . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." Thomas Jefferson
"The said Constitution [shall] be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms." Samuel Adams
"A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves . . . and include all men capable of bearing arms. . . To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms... The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle." “To preserve liberty, it is essential that of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.” Richard Henry Lee
"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American . . . . The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." Tench Coxe
"What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. . . Whenever Government means to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise a standing army upon its ruins." Elbridge Gerry
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Jonathan Hanson
Well-known member
I share those concerns, Scott. I just wonder if a single national system wouldn't be less susceptible to fraud and misuse than the hodgepodge of state systems now in effect. I know, I'm sounding like some sort of twisted socialist second amendment proponent, but I'm trying to face reality and imagine the best way to keep as many rights as we have now in the face of increasing anti-gun sentiment among the great herd of sheep that comprises modern American society.
I agree again. Yet both of us probably also agree that there are reasonable limits to the definition of "arms" as the second amendment applies to private citizens, as I earlier wrote. So right there we're putting conditions on an unalienable right.
The "not bound by condition" argument has been used to completely pervert the first amendment, so that using vile language in public is now considered an "unalienable right." Give me a break. No one can tell me the founding fathers intended to protect anyone's "right" to spew obscenities in public.
mightymike
Adventurer
Just another thought: Before Katrina hit, did thousands of Americans stop to think that they could not call 911 and even if they could that it might be several days before help arrived? I think a part of gun ownership is the concept of self-reliance. If you can summon help and can wait for help to arrive, by all means do so. If not, I think you should be able to take care of you and yours. I've carried for over 25 yrs, almost every day.
Pskhaat
2005 Expedition Trophy Champion
Jonathan Hanson said:
If we must be qualified for 2nd Amendment rights, must we all register as journalists/bloggers for the 1st? Or have a requisite qualification and registration of interest to keep us from search & seizure. ?
These should be by definition and practice come with natural consequences: your friends disrespect you and everyone laughs at you. I maintain my stance however even in this situation that yes I should and will fight to have the right to utter profanity in public. Inasmuch as I would so do to maintain ``...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...''
mountainpete
Spamicus Eliminatus
Very interesting statistics from the New York Times that may relate to the discussion:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/04/21/weekinreview/20070422_MARSH_GRAPHIC.html#
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/04/21/weekinreview/20070422_MARSH_GRAPHIC.html#