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Build Your Own Gauss Pistol
BdosError writes "A Russion software developer has developed a homemade Gauss pistol. It's not very powerful yet, but as a proof of concept, it's interesting. Nice, non-chemical slugthrower that should appeal to fans of Science Fiction and related games, like Traveller and many others."
Niiiiiice. Ramp up the power a bit more and you have the perfect sniper gun. You could shoot someone and people around them would not even know a shot had been fired, let alone what direction it came from.
Interesting concept. Just one Q though, as it doesn't seem to be discussed on the site in the link, and that is how does it achieve the effect of a normal rifled barrel in causeing the iron bullet to spin and therefore be stabilized in flight?
The guns used by those kids were:
1. Illegally purchased (They were purchased by someone who could purchase them legally, but with the intent to illegally provide them to minors, which makes the act of purchasing them illegal.)
2. Illegally owned (In the state of Colorado handguns may only be owned by persons 21 and older.)
3. Illegally possessed (In the state of Colorado it is illegal for a person under 21 to possess a handgun without supervision.)
4. Illegally carried (Carry of a concealed handgun is only allowed by permit.)
5. Illegally possessed (It is illegal for non-LEOs to possess a firearm on public school property without a concealed carry permit. Yes, this makes it "doubly" illegal for them to have had them.)
6. Illegally carried (It is illegal to carry a concealed firearm on school property without a permit . . . ditto above.)
So, discounting all the petty things (like illegally possessing handgun ammo, etc) the young lady and boys involved broke no fewer than SIX "gun control" laws before a single shot was fired.
Any insinuation that this situation would have somehow been improved by more "gun control" laws (aka further erosion of the second civil liberty enumerated in the Bill of Rights) amounts to strong evidence of a hopelessly irrational mind.
-Peter
I'm only going to concentrate on this part of your post as the rest goes into what are very well factual things but have absolutely no bearing on the intention of the 2nd ammendment.
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
You are correct on the beginning, but the ending is what really gives it a punch. This is a -SINGLE- sentence. The beginning nearly states why the following occurs. The 2nd half of the sentence states what actually is being guaranteed.
" the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.". This is the -ONLY- "action" of the sentence.
Granted, I didn't write it, and it's meaning is still up for debate apparently but there are a few people out there that agree with my interpretation of it:
Thomas Jefferson:
"Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state."
George Washington:
"A free people ought to be armed." Speech Jan 7, 1790.
Thomas Jefferson:
"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." Letter to William S. Smith, January 30, 1787, in Jefferson, On Democracy , pg. 20 (S. Padover ed., 1939)
John Adams:
"Arms in the hands of individual citizens may be used at individual discretion...in private self defense." A Defense of the U.S. Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787-88)
James Madison:
The Constitution preserves "the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." The Federalist #46.
Thomas Paine:
"...arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property...Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them," Thoughts on Defensive War, (1775)
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." Quoting 18th Century criminologist Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and Punishment (1764)
Richard Henry Lee:
' A militia when properly formed is in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms...To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms..." Additional Letters From the Federal Farmer 53 (1788)
Samuel Adams:
"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." During Massachusetts' U.S. Constitution Ratification Convention (1788)
Alexander Hamilton:
"Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year." Federalist Papers, Article 29 January 10, 1788
OK, I'm a pro-gun-ownership person myself, although I don't own any guns. I also happen to be a strict constitutionalist, meaning I hold the framers and their ideas in very high regard and the current legislative Supreme Court in equally low regard.
But I will point out that if you read not only the clause, but the text of the different colonies' suggested amendments and correspondence around this issue, it is abundantly clear that the reason the various "right to keep and bear arms" proposals were made were entirely in the context of PREVENTING the establishment of a standing army in the United States.
One could thus either say that SINCE we have a standing army, private ownership of guns should be strictly regulated since the point is now moot.
OR, one could conclude that, with the establishment of a standing army by the United States government, we have progressed DIRECTLY down the road toward an over-intrusive and domineering Federal Government. In which case the citizenry should fight ever stronger AGAINST the further restriction of firearms because it is exactly this which the Founding Fathers prophecied in the case of an over-powerful Federal system: the disarming of the citizenry as a prelude to tyranny.
Take your pick.
-Styopa
"Thank you for officially beginning the obligatory Second Amendment flame-war. I will counter by making the obligatory mention of Columbine. "Columbine". Your turn."
... And I in turn will make the obligatory rest-of-the-worldian observation
"wow, aren't these crazy Americans obsessed by guns?"
Maybe someone Swiss can throw perspective on this. The Swiss murder rate is low, gun ownership is very high [the stats I've seen are for handguns, but as in Canada a higher proportion of guns are rifles than in USA]. (I'm not going to karmawhore with links to stats--the gun debate uses stats like bullets, anyway--google away.)
Even in Canada, where we have very low handgun murder rates compared to our neighbour, we don't just leave rifles unattended in public spaces. What that spoke to me of was a trust that everyone else around is more or less responsible, understands and respects the rules around guns, and is not desperate.
Since the country has survived with great stability through some incredible historical pressures, I figure the trust wasn't naive. (Maybe things are different in the EU now.) They had/have a cultural understanding around guns and poverty, about getting along politically, perhaps, an expectation of honesty, smaller town sizes...?
Everyone was involved in public military service in some way, at various times. They certainly weren't a big melting pot at the time. Who knows. But it's obvious that gun proliferation is damaging to US society... Not because of the arming of the people, but what they're arming with, and why. Maybe gun advocates should also be anti-poverty activists, in order to achieve their goals.
Damn those pesky terrorists