Guns, Guns Guns

Seeing as the latest shooter was another white guy so the inevitable "this was a mental health issue" explanations will be thrown around, just a reminder:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tr ... al-n727221

If you own a gun you are more likely to get shot and die. So, to everyone expunging the joy of owning a gun - make sure you have life insurance and updated your donor card.

The reason for this is that people owning a gun behave differently in certain situations, ie "I got a gun, I can defend myself!" and promptly behaves in a way that may trigger an assailant to shoot them.

And this 2nd amendment, why don't people in the US also go rabid about the curtailing about the rest of the amendments? The government are walking all over the 1st, the police couldn't care less about the 4th and routinely robs people ("ah, this money may be from drugs so we are taking it... and your car... and everything in the car... and since you parked on your driveway we are taking your house too...")

And regarding the 2nd, why aren't all the gun owners in a regulated militia? That's why they are allowed to bear arms in the first place. So I can't really see how anyone are allowed to own a gun unless they are in a militia.

But I guess it all boils down to cherry picking the parts you like and suppress the knowledge about the other parts out of convenience.

Joat, it's not cheery picking to say that the 2nd Amendment entitles me to own a gun. Even without being part of a militia. The Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that the right to own a gun was distinct and separate from service in any militia.

Many many people who own guns have survived their whole lives without being shot. What makes you more likely to be shot as a gun owner is a mental attitude of invincibility and perceived capability. Not the ownership of the gun.

As for when the other Amendments are violated, feel free to pick up a pen and write your Congressman, write reporters, build a public hue and outcry that could effect change. But don't point to one thing as being wrong and than say that if it's wrong, than it's alright to be wrong over here on a different issue.

There are plenty of rabid supporters of the 1st and loads of people on almost every topic you can think of.

Fireflair wrote:Joat, it's not cheery picking to say that the 2nd Amendment entitles me to own a gun. Even without being part of a militia. The Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that the right to own a gun was distinct and separate from service in any militia.

Many many people who own guns have survived their whole lives without being shot. What makes you more likely to be shot as a gun owner is a mental attitude of invincibility and perceived capability. Not the ownership of the gun.

As for when the other Amendments are violated, feel free to pick up a pen and write your Congressman, write reporters, build a public hue and outcry that could effect change. But don't point to one thing as being wrong and than say that if it's wrong, than it's alright to be wrong over here on a different issue.

There are plenty of rabid supporters of the 1st and loads of people on almost every topic you can think of.

Can you explain what you mean by many? How does that amount compare to non gun owners? And owning a gun do change your mental attitude - even if you don't notice it.

The whole reason the 2nd amendment came into being was because of the anti-federalists where afraid that the federal government would be able to disarm the militias. Every other interpretation is just word-wrangling in my opinion.

And no matter what, as it stands right now there's very little discipline or regulation in owning a weapon in the US.

Actually Joat, a large part of the 2nd is the major slave owning states worrying about their slave hunting parties being disarmed.

Heller was a change in precedent predicated by years and years of legal manouvering.

Hell it's a varyation from the philosopy that is used, in part, to justify the decision.

Annachie wrote:Actually Joat, a large part of the 2nd is the major slave owning states worrying about their slave hunting parties being disarmed.

Heller was a change in precedent predicated by years and years of legal manouvering.

Hell it's a varyation from the philosopy that is used, in part, to justify the decision.

I would say it was a very very small part. Not counting the idea about having an armed populace being inherited from the English Bill of Rights, the basis of the 2nd amendment was as a check against governmental tyranny which isn't that surprising with the war of independence in fresh memory. You can also trace some of the thinking behind the amendment as a reaction to the French revolution that was unfolding at the same time - ie. the need for a well regulated militia as a contrast to the French mob rule.

So, any possible fears that the slave owners had was very secondary to how the 2nd amendment came to be.

Joat42 wrote:I would say it was a very very small part. Not counting the idea about having an armed populace being inherited from the English Bill of Rights, the basis of the 2nd amendment was as a check against governmental tyranny

Except the check wasn't that everyone just *have guns*... it was that the militias be the primary source of military power for the national government rather than giving that government a large permanent standing army of its own. The theory being if the person/people running the country have to ask the states/people for the soldiers to subjugate themselves they are not going to get very far.

(And that check being a very very secondary failsafe on the primary check, which is the requirement to regularly stand for election.)

That failsafe has kind of gone out the window in the modern United States considering the size of its permanent standing military and how it dwarfs the military capability of the citizenry.

Ever read the English Bill of Rights?

"have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law" 

Notice the important bit missing there.

I don't deny that when the 2nd Amendment was written, it was quite likely founded in the notion that the average citizen would be part of the state's militia, which would make up the large portion of the standing army. The idea being, as previously pointed out, that the federal government couldn't establish a tyrannical government over the states if the army was the people of those states in the form of militias.

Regardless of how the 2nd was established and formed, what matters in this particular point in time is how the Supreme Court interprets the 2nd Amendment. Not how the amendment was established, what was said then or since, but what the current legal standing of the courts is.

Again, if you don't like that standing, feel free to try and change things through the courts, through laws or any other legal method. Until the Supreme Court changes it's mind I don't need to be part of a militia to have a gun.

As for how I would define 'many', I would judge that the majority of the 120 million people in the US who own guns have never fired them in self defense, nor threatened anyone with them. That majority would be the 'many' who have also not been shot. About a third of the country claims to own a gun. There are about 300 million guns in the country. So I feel confident that when I say it is not ownership of the gun but your attitude toward guns which increases your propensity for being shot. (And note that I don't deny a person with a gun is more likely to be shot)

I would suggest that the attitude which gets people shot in a bad situation is one where they believe a gun makes them the equal of whomever is threatening them. Simply having a gun, shooting targets and carrying the gun around does not make you capable of pointing the gun at a living person and pulling the trigger. There are a variety of psychological stressors and moral restrictions involved. The person threatening you is likely already well past those restrictions, so when you up the ante by pulling your own gun they have less hesitation in firing first.

There's a lot of reasons why the military stresses the men and women who join, why they are trained so heavily with their weapons in so many different ways. It's not an easy thing to do that first time you pull the trigger on another person, despite how the media would present it.

Fireflair wrote:..snip..
I would suggest that the attitude which gets people shot in a bad situation is one where they believe a gun makes them the equal of whomever is threatening them. Simply having a gun, shooting targets and carrying the gun around does not make you capable of pointing the gun at a living person and pulling the trigger. There are a variety of psychological stressors and moral restrictions involved. The person threatening you is likely already well past those restrictions, so when you up the ante by pulling your own gun they have less hesitation in firing first.

Just owning a gun statistically increases the risk of being shot by a significant margin.

It doesn't really matter if people think they aren't influenced by owning a gun, their behavior changes on a sub-conscious level.

Of course there are other factors that can increase or decrease the risk of being shot, but on the whole just owning a gun puts you at higher risk than not owning a gun.