Looks like we're gonna haf-ta ask our teachers to explain in better detail the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution cuz so many people have such touble understanding who and who not to shoot. You ain't 'pose-ta shoot your own family, freaky people. Use your guns to protect "the security of a free state," you dummy.
Today's example:
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4 Dead, 2 Wounded in Atlanta Shootings
By GIOVANNA DELL'ORTO
Associated Press Writer
July 23, 2007, 11:50 AM EDT
ATLANTA -- A man neighbors described as a retired factory worker shot three people to death and wounded two others before killing himself in a southwest Atlanta home Monday, authorities said.
All of the victims were believed to be related, Atlanta police spokesman Eric Schwartz said.
24 comments:
You always forget to mention the 150 million or so gun owners who made it through the day without shooting someone. A visitor from planet Jupiter might stumble upon your blog and be led to believe that all gun owners are or will be murderers.
My grandparents, both sets, owned firearms and kept them in their home. Between them, they had ten children.
All their adult children own firearms, and keep them in their homes. Between them, they had 25 children.
Every one of my grandparents' adult grandchildren and great grandchildren own firearms and keep them in their homes.
Four generations going back to the 1920s owning firearms and keeping them in their homes. Hmmm. I guess none of us ever heard the evil guns whispering to us in the night, because not one person in my entire, very large, immediate family has ever shot anyone, or been shot, unless you count a neighbor kid whacking me in the leg with a BB gun when I was eleven.
Don't hold the actions of a mentally disturbed man against millions of people who act rationally and reasonably.
BTW, forgot to mention I love the Frost reference. My favorite is "The Road Not Taken" I know, kind of pedestrian choice, but what can I say, I like it.
GBW
Just wondering greatbluewhale, how do you know the guy was "mentally disturbed"? The neighbors are saying, as neighbors often do when such things happen, that he seemed so nice and normal.
However, you make a good point that most people who own firearms don't shoot other people, otherwise there would be no one left. All of which doesn't discount the very high number of dead every year, many of whom were simply just standing there before they hit the ground.
Wow!!! You sure struck a raw nerve with this one!!! See what people care about? Alice
Let's see. Murders three people, tries to kill two more, and commits suicide. Hmmm. Sound normal to you? I doubt that. Sane people don't do that. BTW, neighbors say that about gangbangers, too. How many times have you heard, "He was a good boy, just trying to turn his life around," about a 20-somthing criminal killed doing a drug deal or armed robbery.
Numbers. Give me some. Then go look at the figures for automobile accidents(Cars aren't in the Constitution), drowning accidents (swimming isn't in the Constitution), falls, knives, and so on. About 20,000 people die every year in highway accidents where alcohol was involved. Drowning 3-4000, and so it goes. I know this sounds hard-hearted, but it's a hard world out there.
And Alice, I volunteer at 3 non-profits, give about 15% of my income to charities, and love my family and friends. And if, God forbid, someone were to threaten the life of me or someone in my family, I'd like to have an option other that waiting for the police to draw a chalk outline around a loved one's corpse on the floor. THAT's why I care about my 2nd Amendment civil rights.
"gbw" -- Thanks for your comments.
I do agree with you that there is a 2nd Amendment right of some sort. I just do not agree that it is unrestricted. I believe it was intended to be limited, and it should be in modern society.
You've hit one of those arguments for unrestricted guns that I understand least.
I never understand the desire to compare guns and cars because the mayhem in auto accidents is inadvertent while most of the gun mayhem is deliberate. The gentleman in the article who you call not sane, for example, was not handling the guns negligently, his victims were not accident victims. He was doing just what the guns are designed to do and his victims were deliberately shot. It is in the nature of guns that you can use them against anyone you want, whenever you please. You yourself claim that privilege in your comments.
Society has made an enormous effort to regulate automobiles in order to make them less dangerous. Users are licensed. Sales are tracked and recorded...safety devices ... ignitions lock when not in use...etc. Will you allow society to make similar efforts to regulate guns and their use and their ownership and their safety? No-o-o-o way!
I think you should let us regulate guns as vigorously as we regulate cars.
Guns are an important part of a free society. It is unfortunate that free societies are sometimes inconvenient. But there is a clear choice between a free society and a convenient one. I choose the former.
Of course, the government, who should be trembling in fear of its armed populace, has learned that if we can have all the guns we want, we'll be unlikely to use those guns to question government authority on other issues. Note that they don't care to watch individual gun transactions much, but they are vitally interested in (and usually respond severely to) organized groups of armed people who call themselves militias.
I should also inform the writer and readers of this blog that many pro-gun groups (those less mainstream than the NRA) advise that we acquire guns through illegal channels so that the government will have no record of us having acquired them (currently, gun shops keep this info on file and give it to the BATF on demand). This is the result of the fear that someday an BATF squad will descend on our homes with a list of our registered guns and demand that we turn them over.
Verdant Country says: ... many pro-gun groups (those less mainstream than the NRA) advise that we acquire guns through illegal channels so that the government will have no record of us having acquired them
I'm not surprised. In some quarters scoffing at the law is considered a positive good --- in others it's considered simply empty bluster.
"Let's see. Murders three people, tries to kill two more, and commits suicide. Hmmm. Sound normal to you? I doubt that. Sane people don't do that."
Neither do people armed with brass knuckles, baseball bats, or fists.
"THAT's why I care about my 2nd Amendment civil rights."
To which well-regulated milita do you belong, GreatBlueWhale?
I'm not necessarily opposed to gun ownership. But I am opposed to gun worship, which is what we often have in this country.
Incidentally, the first President to put down an armed rebellion was George Washington. He personally led the U.S. forces into action from horseback during the Whiskey Rebellion in western PA, the only time a Commander in Chief has led troops in the field. He also chaired the Constitutional Convention.
The idea that the American people could ever pose a serious challenge to its vastly more sophisticated military is a romantic fantasy of gun owners everywhere. The military is so infinitely more well-equipped than Joe Gunowner that it's pure fantasy to believe an insurrection would last very long.
And to Verdent Country: There are many free societies on this planet which do not have our unfettered rules of gun ownership.
First this for Scot, since he asked.I belong to the whole body of physically fit civilians eligible by law for military service. If you have a very loose definition of physically fit. :^)
Bud, appreciated your comment on my blog. I have prepared another comment for yours, but I ended up getting a more than a bit verbose. Since the comments windows are so small, I decided to post it on my blog. I think it will be easier to read there. I hope you'll drop over and take a look.
www.greatbluewhale.com
"The idea that the American people could ever pose a serious challenge to its vastly more sophisticated military is a romantic fantasy of gun owners everywhere. The military is so infinitely more well-equipped than Joe Gunowner that it's pure fantasy to believe an insurrection would last very long."
Scot, I thought you would be aware of the surprisingly effective and long-lasting insurgency being waged in Iraq with crude weapons and seemingly little organization. I thought you'd also be aware that George Washington was enormously unsuccessful in his battles against British forces. But his guerrilla tactics and persistence and political popularity wore them down long before they lost the tactical ability to wage more battles.
Of course, it's possible that you're arguing that the citizenry needs better weapons to cope with an increasingly threatening central government?
The level of freedom in the societies that lack unfettered gun ownership is a matter of opinion.
"I'm not necessarily opposed to gun ownership. But I am opposed to gun worship, which is what we often have in this country."
I'm not necessarily opposed to people listening to country music, but I am against them enjoying it too much.
Bud, I apologize for splitting comments on your post. I should have made it clear over at GreatBlueWhale that comments should have been posted on Birches. Any other comments I have will be posted here on your site.
Now, let’s get something out of the way.
I have now twice been accused of claiming to have the right to use a firearm on whomever I please whenever I feel like it, implying that I hold the opinion I could, for example, walk into a crowd of people in a public place and open fire just because it is my right. I strongly resent the implication.
I have said no such thing. Nor have I said anything from which that may be inferred. In fact, I addressed this issue in my second comment to Bud on his original post and in my long post on my personal blog.
As my views on the use of firearms generally and for self defense specifically have been clearly stated, I must conclude some have commented without reading what I wrote, or accused me thus in order to “score points” in the argument by attempting to make me look like an uncivilized, uncontrollable barbarian who has no regard for the lives or rights of others. Regardless, it is an ad hominem attack which does nothing to advance a position.
I have not, nor do I intend to resort to name-calling or innuendo. I have argued my points logically and with civility. When I left my first comment, I had no illusion that I was going to change anyone’s mind with my arguments, but thought that my comments may help someone to see the stereotypical gun owner was just that, a caricature born of prejudice and political bias, and that there are those of us who hold a “pro-gun” position because we choose to after considerable and careful study.
Please respect this intent and refrain from ad hominem remarks.
GBW:
Did I misunderstand that you claim there are times when you have the right to shoot people?
We have a legal right to self defense that may, MAY, require the use of deadly force. There is no "right" for anyone, anywhere, to just "shoot people" that I know of.
Bud, did I screw up in one of my posts? Do you see something that would make you think I claimed such a right? If so, I'd like to specifically adress it.
Also, in general, please keep in mind that I am speaking from the perspective of the specific jurisdiction in which I live. Since we have total bans to nearly no regulation at all state-to-state, it would be impossible to speak generally about every aspect of this topic.
(scot s w made these comments over on GreatBlueWhale, so I am reposting here with my comments bracketed by GBW. Just trying to keep the thread coherent after screwing it up.)
scot s w >
I appreciate your eloquent defense of your position, and agree that you make some compelling points. I responded to your comments over at Bud's blog, and since you've continued the conversation here, I would like to as well.I understand that there is a political philosophy behind the desire to protect gun ownership, and you assert that you are defending a natural human right. I think it's worth pointing out that this is an opinion, not a fact, and that it's not an opinion shared by everyone. You may believe deeply that every person has a right to carry a gun (or, hell, drive a tank). But that's YOUR opinion, and it is NOT an assertion of fact.
GBW - It is a fact that, personal religious implications aside, the Founders give us a philosophy of transcendent rights. It doesn’t matter whether they believed they came from God, Gaia or the Easter Bunny, or if they just said it that way to convince a poor, misled populace It is what they gave us, regardless of its considered origin. Rights are enumerated in the Constitution, not given. I do not believe every person has a right to carry a gun. I am TOLD every person has a right to carry a gun. You are right; I should never have said civil rights. I was much more accurate with human rights.
- GBW
scot s w >
Keeping and bearing arms is a right protected by our deliberately amendable Constitution. I think it's worth remembering that this Amendment was born of a particular political environment, and that other democracies born in different environments have chosen, through democratic processes, a different set of values regarding firearms. Many of those countries enjoy no less democracy (and have shown more respect for human rights than our current government).
GBW - Then amend it. In the mean time, why use disingenuous arguments like the “other countries” to make it mean something it doesn’t. I appreciate the fact that our particular brand of republicanism is not universal, and that through the years we see some things somewhat differently. So, again, amend it.
I will not expand my comments to the current Administration. Do a separate post somewhere, and maybe I’ll weigh in, maybe not. You might get surprised.
- GBW
scot s w >
The Constitution is a legal document and NOT a religious document, though you may opine that it enshrines some divine order. Jefferson's line about our rights being "endowed by our creator" is a nice flourish, but it's not law. Non-believers are protected equally by our Constitution.
GBW - Again, regardless of their motivation, we have what the Founders gave us. The law says don’t murder. It doesn’t matter if I refrain because I believe the Bible, or if I just have an aversion to lethal injection. Don’t get hung up on the religion thing. I don’t. I think I’d have the same views of the Constitution even if I were a non-believer like, oh, say Jefferson.
- GBW
scot s w >
So my point is that gun ownership rules are ultimately a matter of public policy. In our country, it is recognized as a "right" because it is enshrined in the Constitution, not because our Creator gave us as humans the inalienable right to pack heat. (You may rebut and say you think He did, but others would counter that they're not willing to agree He exists. Ergo: It's opinion, not fact.) I also don't believe that trial by a jury of peers is necessarily a birthright of all sons of Adam -- I think that's a product of the Anglo-American judicial heritage. Somebody might find ways to protect your rights that doesn't include that mechanism.
GBW - I think a careful reading would show that I, too, think it’s partly a public policy matter. Congress has, on numerous occasions passed laws defining public policy on this issue, and I expect more will be forthcoming. The question is to what degree. I have described what I believe to be the appropriate framework from which public policy on the Second Amendment issues should come. You have a different opinion, and so the battle for hearts and minds goes on. Even when we want to change it, we have to work within the system we have, unless it’s done through revolution. It doesn’t matter what system someone else has or may find; until it is legally adopted or forced upon us as OUR system, it is of no consequence. And again, it doesn’t matter whether one believes in the Founder’s Deity or not. What they intended was a concept of transcendent rights.
-GBW
scot s w >
Read literally, the 2nd Amendment also calls for a "well-regulated militia," which does not currently exist in this country. When gun nuts (and I'm not sure you're one) talk about the sanctity of the Constitution, this phrase is treated like a red-headed stepchild.
GBW - Neither the Constitution nor the Second Amendment defines militia, and until militia is legally defined in an amendment or Supreme Court decision, the one I used in an earlier comment is as good as any. People on your side of the argument get all hung up on the subordinate phrase and want to minimize “…the right of the people” in the main phrase. I have absolutely no problem talking about the militia clause at all.
- GBW
scot s w >
Finally, I'm most frustrated with the pro-gun lobby's callous position on the tens of thousands of victims of gun violence, as though they were legitimate collateral damage in some profound Godly mission to protect our rights. Other countries have different gun laws, and they don't have our murder problem. I believe that the lives to which they are entitled trump and outweigh your perceived right to kill when you deem it necessary.
That's just an opinion, but I hold it pretty strongly. Since I believe in democracy, I'm willing to allow this disagreement to be settled as a matter of public policy through the democratic process. But the NRA and its ilk want that off the table. They argue that their rights are inalienable, and then buy the politicians necessary to secure that "right".
GBW - Please remember the NRA represents MILLIONS of PEOPLE. People like me. So how about what I could call a callous disregard for my life and the lives of the tens of thousands of victims who would be disarmed and at the mercy of criminals? You speak of "gun violence" like the firearms are what we have to worry about. Murders are committed by people. If everyone who hated guns would direct their anger, appropriately I might add, toward the people who commit the crimes rather than the tool they use to commit it, we would be light years ahead in doing away with "gun violence". By the way, the only way to get the numbers to include "tens of thousands" is to include criminals murdering other criminals. Don't believe me? Go to the CDC site and run the numbers yourself. (I don’t minimize the value of their lives, but you have to admit it’s a bit more difficult to work up sympathy for them.) I have included links to three news articles and an essay below. Read them if you want to see better where I'm coming from.
Why the gun is civilization
http://munchkinwrangler.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-gun-is-civilization.html
Forced to kill: 4 stories of survival
http://www.charlotte.com/breaking_news/story/215469.html
Disabled vet shoots alleged carjacker. “…I'm not going to be the victim who can't defend himself anymore."
http://www.myfoxkc.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=3879017&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.1.1
Learning the rules for carrying a gun…
http://www.wilsontimes.com/LIfe/Feature/289455703503417.php
- GBW
I don't want to get distracted by quibbles -- your post is clearly thought out in general. But you say: "When your actions have unintended but harmful results, they are not inadvertent or accidental; they are criminal."That is so sometimes, but certainly not always. For example, Dick Cheney shot his friend in the face. Your blanket statement adjudges him to be a criminal. Reflect on that. Shall we impeach?
GBW - The line you quoted was not intended as a blanket statement. I intended it to refer back specifically to those who drink and drive. I could have been clearer. You’re right. As a blanket statement, it sucks.
The gentleman shot by Vice-President Cheney refused to press charges. The local District Attorney didn’t press for an indictment. I don’t think you’d get an impeachment for that even with the Democrat-controlled Congress. Was he careless, even negligent? I think so. Should charges have been preferred? They certainly could have been. The victim didn’t think so. Without all the information, I can’t make a call on that one. Just for perspective, many victims of hunting incidents like that one do not press charges against the shooter. Some do. We can second guess the legal system as much as we want, but it’s like teaching pigs to dance. It frustrates us and annoys the pigs.
-GBW
I apologize, gentlemen. I forgot the courts have spoken to the subject of militias. In the 1939 "Miller" decision, the court ruled that a militia was
"...all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense..."
GBW,
In response to several of your above comments:
Re accidental vs. criminal: Thanks for clarifying that you weren't making a blanket statement.
Re ad hominem attacks: No, I'm not trying to make an ad hominem attack (and I know Bud isn't either), and I don't think you personally would be inclined to use guns unsafely or irrationally. But you do, in your comments, reserve the right to use them when you deem it necessary. And by that, I perceive that you claim the right to KILL when you deem it necessary. And when that moment comes, there's no appeal to anyone else's judgment -- it's yours and yours alone. And you're also asking me to trust the judgment of "all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense." I'd rather trust the women, frankly, but the Court apparently doesn't want them to own guns. Or cripples or old men, either.
So you see the concern, eh? We have to trust all these people with all these guns. And all the NRA gives us to comfort ourselves is the demonstrably false notion that a nation of millions of gun-owners is safer than a nation without so many guns.
The proliferation of guns generally is certainly tied to the murder rate, unless you think insanity and criminal tendancies are unique to the American genome. Firearms are an "enabling technology". The old saw that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" is hogwash. It's just as true that "Cars don't get you to the airport, drivers get you to the airport." Sure, you can do the job with a rickshaw, but it requires a greater commitment. Likewise, killing's much easier with a gun. That's why they cost more than knives.
I also reject the notion that "the gun is civilization." No, awareness of and respect for rights is the basis of civilzation." Ancient Greece had no guns. And I don't find Soviet Russia, the Medellin cartel, the Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings, the Sudanese janjaweed, or the Iraqi insurgency to be terribly civilized. It's a dangerous romantic notion enabled by fanciful flights of revisionist history.
Gun-rights defenders often imply that all our rights depend on good people owning guns, and keeping the government honest. As This Verdent Country has pointed out elsewhere, the government has been violating a number of our constitutional rights lately, and it doesn't seem like all our guns have done much to stop them. Defending rights is more about political awareness than it is about potential violence.
You speak of “the demonstrably false notion that a nation of millions of gun-owners is safer than a nation without so many guns.” So millions of gun owners make out nation less safe? I’m not sure you can support that. I’m not talking raw numbers; I’m talking clearly analyzed, scholarly, statistical studies that illustrate your point. I would agree that proliferation of weapons among criminals makes any nation less safe.
I am not, however, aware of any peer-reviewed studies correlating legal firearms ownership with increased crime. If there are , I’d be happy to take a look at them. There ARE multiple peer-reviewed studies showing a decrease in violent crimes rates with the advent of shall-issue concealed carry laws in the mid 1990s. (And before you go off about Lott’s “flawed research” you should know he has just won a libel suit against his chief detractor, Levitt, for lies about the accuracy of Lott’s peer-reviewed study.)
There are also peer-reviewed studies which show that countries with stringent firearms laws do not have the reductions in murder and suicide that would seem to be “common sense” to many people. In that bastion of gun rights, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, researchers Kates and Mauser recently asked the question, “Would banning firearms reduce murder and suicide?” (See link to article below) Their study of international statistics said no. These gentlemen are not right-leaning gun nuts, either. Their research shows essentially the same results that such studies have been giving for at least 15 years. I quote their conclusion below.
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CONCLUSION
This Article has reviewed a significant amount of evidence from a wide variety of international sources. Each individual portion of evidence is subject to cavil—at the very least the general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific evidence cannot remotely approach the persuasiveness of conclusions in the physical sciences. Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra. To bear that burden would at the very least require showing that a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that have imposed stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide). But those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared across the world.
Over a decade ago, Professor Brandon Centerwall of the University of Washington undertook an extensive, statistically sophisticated study comparing areas in the United States and Canada to determine whether Canada’s more restrictive policies had better contained criminal violence. When he published his results it was with the admonition:
If you are surprised by [our] finding[s], so [are we]. [We] did not begin this research with any intent to “exonerate” handguns, but there it is—a negative finding, to be sure, but a negative finding is nevertheless a positive contribution. It directs us where not to aim public health resources.
© 2007 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy
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The article may be found in its entirety at http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf. It is 46 pages and not a bad read for a statistical article.
So no, I don't understand your concern. You're telling me you won't trust law-abiding people who jump through all the hoops of legally purchasing and owning a firearm. You won't trust law-abiding people who take classes in the law and firearms safety, usually at considerable personal expense, so they can responsibly carry concealed? You say you won't trust law-abiding people who only want to go about their lives in a peaceable manner. You won't trust law-abiding people who you would never know owned a firearm unless you attacked them, broke into their home or otherwise forced them to defend themselves or their loved ones. Well, who can you trust?
You know you can't trust criminals, and you don't say one word about them. Criminals don't get a background check when they get a firearm. They steal it or buy it illegally. They don't care what the law says and they "don't need no steenking" permit to carry concealed. All they care about is what they want. All they think about is how to get it, and that usually means one thing. Force. They force themselves into our homes and cars. They force themselves onto our persons. More often than not, they use weapons to force submission. And too often, even after their victims submit, they murder anyway.
Kind of like this. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/25/national/main3095614.shtml
Allow me to paraphrase Alexander Hamilton from the Federalist Papers. Remember, living peaceably will not always be left up to us; no matter how peaceable and well intentioned we may be, we cannot count on our peaceable attitude and intentions, or hope to extinguish the wickedness of criminals who choose to do us harm.
And you want to take away my guns I would use for protection because you THINK guns are bad and we might be better off without them? You’ll have to do better than that.
Here’s my suggestion. Don’t promulgate any new “gun-control” laws for five years. Instead of trying to pass laws which only affect law-abiding citizens, let’s make a real effort at ‘criminal control” and work to get, and keep, these uncivilized criminals off the street. Something like…
First convictions for a non-capital violent felony committed with any weapon – Judge has the option of adding an extra 10 years without parole to the sentence. (Every now and then someone may deserve the benefit of the doubt)
Second conviction for a non-capital violent felony committed with any weapon – Mandate an additional 25 years without parole to the sentence. (Second time around shows this person has some serious socialization issues and needs to be kept off the streets)
Third conviction for a non-capital violent felony committed with any weapon – Mandate a sentence of life in prison without parole. (Third time around shows this person has no place, ever, in civilized society.)
Then enforce the laws on the books, ala Giuliani and New York City. This will get the career felons off the streets and behind bars. We’ll need to build some new prisons. I’d gladly pay more taxes for that.
This approach wouldn’t stop all murders and violent crime, but it is something that can and should be done. Then let’s talk about the next steps.
Looks like some URLs I posted did not paste complete. I will post the links over on www.greatbluewhale.com for convenience.
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