Posted on 02/05/2013 5:56:38 AM PST by Kaslin
I stand out among my conservative friends in disliking guns. I favor reasonable restrictions on the Second Amendment, such as bans on fully automatic weapons, background checks for purchases and forbidding the sale of guns to those with histories of mental illness or criminality.
Yet I cannot agree with liberals that more gun control will lead to fewer gun crimes.
President Obama's choice for defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, actually illuminated one of the weaknesses of the gun control case. Hagel had been closely associated with Global Zero (though he's since repudiated it), a movement dedicated to "the elimination of all nuclear weapons." Hagel isn't alone in endorsing this cause. President Obama supports the concept, as well.
Liberals like Hagel and Obama think nuclear weapons are a problem in themselves. Call it the instrumental view. It's the weapon, rather than the person wielding it, that presents the danger. But American possession of nuclear weapons didn't threaten world peace. On the contrary, our nuclear arsenal arguably kept the peace for the whole second half of the 20th century. On the other hand, a nuclear weapon in Iran's hands would be a profound threat to the world.
By the same instrumental logic, many ask how we can tacitly tolerate Israel's possession of nuclear weapons while declaring that Iran must not be permitted to obtain them. The answer is the same. No matter how awful the weapon, the relevant question is about the weapon's owner. Israel is a peace-seeking democracy whose nuclear weapons are clearly intended purely for defense. Iran is ruled by a terrorist gang that managed to gain control of a country.
To propose, as Hagel did, that the existing nuclear powers completely divest themselves of nuclear weapons wouldn't make the world safer. It would make it profoundly less safe because the U.S. would be powerless to prevent smaller powers that acquired nuclear weapons after we had destroyed our own from bullying the world -- or worse.
Wouldn't it be a better world if nuclear bombs had never been invented? That's hard to say. History isn't over. The U.S. military projected casualties from an invasion of the Japanese mainland between 500,000 and 1 million American dead and between 5 and 10 million Japanese dead. Dropping two atomic bombs, as terrible as that was, cost about 200,000 lives.
Similar arguments animate the gun control debate. The ready availability of guns, we're told, is responsible for America's extremely high rates of gun crime and for the horrific mass shootings we've experienced in recent years. Possibly, but there are other nations with high rates of gun ownership, such as Switzerland and Israel, that have low rates of gun crime. In our own recent history, we know that many high schools hosted rifle teams and many had ranges in their buildings. Yet school shootings were exceedingly rare and mass shootings unheard of.
We are told that studies have shown that gun ownership does not make home owners safer, but that, on the contrary, having a gun in the home makes it much more likely that the homeowner will be shot by a family member. This claim rests chiefly on a study by Arthur Kellerman that compared 420 homicide victims with others living in the same neighborhood. As Prof. Gary Kleck observed, the subjects of the study lived in a crime-ridden neighborhood, and Kellerman did not control for membership in gangs or participation in the drug trade. Additionally, only 4.7 percent of the homicide victims were killed by spouses, lovers, other relatives or roommates using the gun that was kept at home. The overwhelming majority of the deaths were the result of guns brought into the home from elsewhere.
It's doubtless true that more guns in homes are correlated with more gun accidents, gun suicides and gun homicides. It's hard to find gun deaths in homes without guns. But there are no swimming pool deaths in homes without pools either. There is also no doubt that Americans defend themselves and others with guns quite frequently. Data are difficult to come by for complex reasons including reporting errors, varying state laws and even lying by gun owners. But when the CATO Institute studied news reports of defensive gun uses over an eight-year period ending in 2011, they found more than 5,000 documented instances of gun owners preventing mayhem (murder, rape, robbery and assault) with guns. Interestingly, they found only 11 cases in which the criminal was able to disarm the gun owner, but 227 cases in which the criminal was disarmed.
We can no more make guns disappear than we can uninvent nuclear weapons. The key in both cases is whose finger is on the trigger.
The part where you apparently want us all to jump through more unConstitutional hoops to exercise said Right.
Wow. That post is rife with problems, and problematic assumptions, and double-think.
Wrong assumption #1: The second amendment was a right created by government, and which it can limit to whatever is currently deemed by some legislating power as “reasonable”.
Truth #1: The right to protect yourself, family, community, nation, or other nations is God-given, inalienable, and existed BEFORE the constitution, and is only acknowledged in the constitution to prevent the government from doing exactly what you propose, that is infringing upon that right in the name of “reasonableness”. You are denying basic rights, and in direct opposition to the supreme law of the land and clearly stated founding fathers opinions.
“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 government, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people” (Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788)
Double Thinking #1 The problem isn’t the weapon, it is the user, vs. fully automatic weapons are a problem and need to be banned regardless of the user. “The double-minded man is unstable in all his ways” James 1:8
Double Thinking #2 Iran is a naughty(“ruled by a terrorist gang”) country( because we disagree with their beliefs, and they have attacked one other country in the last 30 years?) and we are the righteous nation. Vs. Israel the “peace-seeking” democracy who decided to get nation to recognize a populated land as theirs, and then move there, and as immigrants forcibly by war, take that land from its inhabitants and deny basic freedoms. Or the righteous U.S. who has engaged in numerous wars in the last 30 years, and is currently run by a usurper “elected” to office by the crime capital districts in the nation, so they can have the government steal more tax dollars from the workers to give to them.
Double Thinking #3 The people of America deserve to have the right to protect the country using weapons like nukes. Vs. The people of Iran are subhuman and don’t deserve the right to protect their nation with weapons like nukes. The right to self protection by whatever means is not yours to decide it is a right.
Double Thinking #4 Preventing Iran from getting nukes is good, because they are bad. Vs. the unspoken Allowing the USSR to have them in the cold war was ok, and China to have them was ok, and North Korea to have them is OK. Let’s hear your call for the immediate destruction of the North Korean regime by force. They are worse than a terrorist gang.
Ultimately all of these go back to the same thing. You simply do not believe in rights or liberty at all. You believe YOU get to decide who bad or dangerous guys are, and you or government [collective you], being God, get to determine their right. For you, God, have decided that the following people do not have rights:
Anyone with a fully automatic weapon is a criminal, unless of course they are with the government, because we know the government and everyone in it is trustworthy.
Anyone with a mental illness is dangerous and you, God decide what mental illness is. Current things discussed as mental illness are homeschoolers, opposition to homosexuality etc.
Anyone who fails a background check, i.e. a convicted felon guilty of any law who you, God, decide is a crime worthy of stripping all rights to vote, and defend oneself. Felony Examples:
The nineteen year old who drove home from a party drunk and cause serious property damage, got a felony dui, and hasn’t had a drink again in the last ten years.
The guy who carried a handgun on a New York City street at night for protection without a permit, and someone saw it in his coat and turned him in.
Forgery, counterfitting, drug abuse, liquor law violation, fraud, curfew violation etc. etc.
A whole host of non-violent crimes can get you permanently stripped of rights, no matter what your life is currently like.
No! You, and no 300 million more of you, have a right to take away my right to defend myself with the weapon of my choice. You are NOT God! Neither is the government. This is why our founding fathers warned against democracy. It is mob rule. We are supposed to have a republic, which has representatives ruling by law. The law is natural, supreme, from God and unchanging.
I have to disagree with some of the listed differences between conservatives and liberals.
#10 – A constitutional amendment cannot take away a right the constitution did not give. The second amendment only acknowledged a pre-existing God given right. Man cannot take it away, period.
#8 Capitalism and free-enterprise are not the same. True conservatives believe in free-enterprise. Search for capitalism vs. free enterprise. Good reading.
#6 “confronting and defeating enemies…before they can harm” This sounds like the very kind of thought crime, I’d guess you would oppose if it were our government implementing it, and you were on the receiving end. What makes you the international thought control police attacking people before they harm?
So, are you assuming that "mental illness" is incurable? That somebody with a "history" can never again own a gun?
Liberals like to pretend that good intentions are all that is required before legislation is justified. I'm glad that your intentions are good.
But you must realize that there are degrees of mental illness, don't you? You must realize that "mental illness", however measured, is unlikely to be a constant with any given individual, but rather is likely to be quite variable?
What is it about "a history of mental illness" that is compatible with being at liberty with respect to all freedoms except that of keeping and bearing arms?
As to whether we "shrug our shoulders", the NRA suggested that every school and every teacher should consider being able to protect our loved ones with arms. That is what virtually every person with the resources to do so has done, whether using their own wealth or that of the government.
I guess there might be a question about whether we should allow teachers who have "a history of mental illness" to be armed in the classroom; or even in the classroom at all.
Several liberals that I have talked to don't trust themselves with arms. They wish to allow themselves the luxury of uncontrolled anger and they suspect that, if armed, they would kill others over trifling matters. How very sad.
If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one.
If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.
And of course this goes for the entire list
Nope, I'm not. But let's remember, those people are insane, not stupid. They often don't purchase the guns they use, although some have while managing to appear sane while they did so. I might note the seeming ubiquity of SSRI medications may contribute to their seeming normal. In other instances, the signs and signals which in retrospect seem clear indicators of psychological problems were ignored by family, friends, and even authorities--all people who should have known the potential for trouble.
But, aside from those we all might not be comfortable around, by imposing psychological criteria you open the door to who defines what as "mentally ill". Few enough people have the paperwork to prove they are "sane".
We frequently, on this very site, describe Liberalism as a "mental illness".
When you open the door to defining people as insane based on certain beliefs, you open the door to refusing the RKBA to people who believe such things as:
Humans make no significant contribution to climate change...
More guns equal less crime...
Or even that a child was born to a virgin over 2000 years ago, lived a flawless life, and was crucified for the sins of all mankind, that humanity could be forgiven for their sins and spend eternity in paradise in spiritual union with their creator.
It depends on who gets to define what is "mental illness".
I'm a Christian, a scientist and signatory to The Petition Project, and a firearm owner, but hopefully you see what I mean... Anything at all could be defined by someone (usually a professor or group of such from the Liberal/Communist education/research establishment) as a "mental illness" and cause to prohibit firearm ownership.
After all, "normal" is a statistical parameter, based on the behaviour of a population, not a set group of behaviours exhibited by any one individual regardless of contest.
If everyone walks around talking to themselves, that becomes "normal", If everyone believes water runs uphill (in defiance of fact), that belief is "normal", and only the heretics who believe based on fact will be considered "insane".
So, that slippery slope awaits and we must tread carefully lest we go cartwheeling down it.
If so, then we might as well shrug our shoulders if something like Aurora, the Newtown shooting, etc happens again.
Culturally, we feel sad for the victims, express horror at the crime (with some fascination at the anomalous behaviour involved), and move on, thanking The Creator it did not happen in our town to our children, and reaffirming our willingness to personally do what we can to prevent it from happening "here", to defend our offspring from the horror of such an incident.
Only the incessant barrage of media hype (at this point) keeps the wound open, and that is clearly for political purposes--namely, removing the population's Right to be able to pose a significant threat to the abuse of power by our own government, defend ourselves and our community, and keep property we own which has never been used in any crime.
The level of exploitation, especially when the results of the official investigation are not supposed to be out for some six months, is unconscionable. The rush to discard a tradition of the Right to be armed going back to the Magna Carta without waiting for even the results of the investigation is "insane".
Perhaps you think the victims shouldn't have been there.
Behind a glass entry door in an enclave which was by law and definition an area where none could defend them against any violent threat, and which was advertised as such?
You tell me if that's nuts.
Statistically insignificant. Of course, it is bad WHEN it happens (and it will ALWAYS happen at some very low level...see the story of the cop who took off his service weapon at home....kid/kids got it and one dead).
The news media blows these incidents WAY out of proportion BECAUSE they are rare. And then the GG's use the hoopla to push ever more onerous and draconian laws.
Personal note, I grew up in farm country. NOBODY had "gun cabinets/safes". There was almost always a loaded rifle stuck in the corner closest to the exit door both at my home and pretty much every other home I had occasion to visit. Number of kid-related incidents......ZERO over at least a forty year time span. On this topic, the NRA is once again correct.....TRAINING WORKS. ALL of us kids were taught from earliest understanding the difference between "toy" and "real" and NEVER to touch "real" unless an adult was present. If we could pick it up, we knew the differnce and how to handle it.
Of course, the anti-gun/scared of guns crowd DOESN'T train their children, so those poor kids are disproportionately likely to mis-handle one. But is that the fault of the gun owner, or the fault of the parent. IMO, the latter applies.
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