Most places say only one (the police officer to which you refer), but I've seen a couple claim two, and I really don't have the time to research it myself - so I went with "no more than two."
Regardless, one unlawful use or two over 70 years, that is one of the best safety records I could imagine for nearly any product.
Killing at a distance or killing nearby isn't really the issue to me - killing, period, is. A man with a knife killed 8 high school kids in China last week. He didn't need a gun. This isn't the first deadly knife attack in China. In August, a janitor stabbed 14 children, killing one. In September, a bus driver slashed 24 children. In April, a college student hacked four classmates to death. None of these incidents involved guns in any way. If the "bad guys" had guns, there might have been more victims - but conversely, if a bystander or the first victim in each incident had a gun, there might have been fewer (I'm not advocating arming children). We'll never know. But what we do know, is that in the U.S., defensive uses of firearms occur from 1-2.5 million times per year, and there are over 200 million firearms across the country. It is only a tiny minority of gun-possessors that misuse them. I don't believe the law-abiding should be punished for that.
And yes, I *do* want access to weapons like M249's and PK's. Not every conceivable weapon, no - I'll agree to that. Individuals shouldn't have WMD's - nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, or high explosives. That's the limit I think rational. I have no problem with individuals owning tanks or warships or jets - they're just vehicles, which are already regulated, and the ammo and bombs they use are already covered by current laws.
In fact, here in Arizona where I live, I can own fully-automatic firearms. I can own true Ak-47's, M-16's, belt-fed machine guns. It takes extra effort to fill out and wait for the paperwork, and it gets quite expensive. That - cost - is the only reason I myself don't any machine guns. I have friends that do, and believe me, they are FUN. Since the National Firearms Act regulated full-auto firearms in 1934, no more than two *legally-possessed* full-autos have ever been used in crime. Once I get out of law school and start making some money, I *will* have my own, future laws allowing. I hope that doesn't scare anyone - it shouldn't.
So why wouldn't you advocate allowing citizens to own M249's? Cars are far more powerful, and kill significantly more people. Anyone can walk up to a fuel station and buy gasoline (here, at least, I don't know where you are or what it's like there) - and gasoline is pretty explosive. Knives can be easily acquired or made by nearly anyone, and they can be used quite violently.
Why don't you trust your fellow citizens with firearms? As long as I too can be armed, I would trust someone with a firearm more easily than I would trust them with a vote.
I've never quite understood this "escalation" argument against guns. Proponants of this argument never have a problem with locking their doors or windows, but that surely invites an escalation of the tools used to break into one's home.
Criminals will know that you're armed, so the logical step is to get a bigger gun and to be more inclined to use it.
Criminals will know your house is locked, so the logical step is to get a bigger crow bar/lock-picking kit and to be more inclined to use it.
What's the difference? That guns can kill, is not an acceptable answer. Crow bars can easily be used for violence. They're a tool, like a gun, that can be used or misused, nothing more. Further, as pointed out by others, criminals DO avoid homes of armed individuals - they don't want to be shot, and criminals have better access to (illegal) firearms than law-abiding citizens.
Frankly, all I want is equality - I want legal access to the same weapons and tools to which criminals have illegal access. Why is that too much to ask?
Slightly off topic, but related to your statement you can't give someone the right to "wave the gun around" without giving them the right to shoot it.
Actually, under Arizona Revised Statutes 13-407(A), you are legally justified in threatening to use or actually using physical force to protect against a criminal trespass, and legally justified to threaten to use deadly physical force (but not actually use deadly physical force) to protect against a criminal trespass. So to protect against a criminal trespass, you can threaten deadly physical force (wave the gun around), but not actually use deadly physical force (shoot the gun).
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.
That comma causes more problems... but the subject of the sentance is "A well regulated Militia" and not "the people."
I'm no grammar expert, but I'd like to point out that some people miss 1 or 2 of the commas in the 2nd Amendment. From the Library of Congress version, there are 3 commas. "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." This sentence has 4 phrases. Not one of these phrases alone is a clause and cannot stand independently; no phrase has the proper subject-verb relationship to convey a complete thought. The phrase "being necessary to the security of a free state" is a present participle; it acts as an adjective modifying the noun "[a well regulated] militia." It contains neither the subject nor verb of the sentence. Taken together, "a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state," is an absolute phrase; absolute phrases do not modify any specific word in a sentence, but rather modify the entire sentence by providing context. "The right of the people to keep and bear arms" is the subject phrase of the sentence. The subject is "the right." "Of the people" and "to keep and bear arms" are prepositional phrases modifying "the right." "Shall not be infringed" is the verb phrase of the sentence. "Shall not be" is an auxiliary verb string modifying the main verb "infringed."
Therefore, the main idea conveyed by this sentence is "the right shall not be infringed."
I disagree that light arms are almost useless in an armed conflict against a well-equipped military. First, even with a disparity in weapon power, there are many more civilian guns and civilians with guns in this country than there are members of the military. Second, many if not most members of the military would likely refuse to act against U.S. civilians, and some would certainly join them, taking their superior firepower with them. Third, superior firepower can be captured, even with "only" civilian weapons.
Although the Iraqis had large numbers of light weapons, they weren't a deciding factor because they didn't offer much opposition. The majority of Iraqis, and thus also the majority of Iraqi light weapons, did not oppose our military.
There are, literally, hundreds of millions of civilian firearms in this country. There are over 50 million gun owners. The U.S. military numbers around 3 million. And the fact is, even with their planes, ships, and missiles, they would be fighting a force in their own cities, their own backyards, and surrounded by the rest of the population, the people the military is supposed to be protecting. For the most part, Bubba and his friends don't have to worry about the Abrahms and Stingers, and wouldn't be at a huge disadvantage without them.
Vehicles don't have quite the same protection as homes, but they are highly protected nonetheless. The 4th Amendment protection against unreasonable search & seizure, the 5th and 14th Amendment protections of Due Process all apply to vehicles as well as homes.
We're not talking about what you do or what you say within the car, but how do you DRIVE the car.
I think the black box is much more than that. If the police want to follow me around with a camara, recording how I drive, they can do that. The black box seems to capture much more than just how i drive. It captures very specific, very detailed information that is impossible for the police to know without the black box.
The license plate outside your car allows it to be identified from a distance, thus blowing any kind of anonymity you believe you have.
The license plate only tells them to whom the car is registered. It doesn't tell anyone who the driver is. Sometimes I let my friend borrow my car. Sometimes I drive my friend's car. Sometimes cars get stolen. License plates are unique to the car, not the individual.
Likewise, the event recorder merely records how you do DRIVE the car. So your privacy, within your car, and subject to what is visible from without through the windscreen and windows, is still safe.
I disagree that it merely records how you do drive the car. I think the details are much more specific than what is publicly viewable. It's an issue of what's in public view or plaint sight. If a police officer sees something illegal in your car, in public view, it can be used against you. If he searches without probable cause or warrant, and finds something illegal, generally it can't be used against you. I propose, that the black box and the information it collects are absolutely not within public view.
And, in any case, the event recorder is State property (just like your licence plates), so they can damn well interrogate it at their whim, like anybody can read your license plates.
I still don't know where it says the black box is state property. Perhaps I've misunderstood, and we're discussing your proposed video-capable event recorder that's accessible from a distance? The actual black boxes discussed in the article, though, are not even required to be installed on vehicles. Some manufacturers put them on to retrieve accident information, ostensibly to improve their vehicles. The bill mentioned in the article is only about protecting the rights of the owners of the car against improper use of the black box information, when present in the vehicle. Let me know if I'm mistaken.
The event recorder is State property, thus granting it the same status as a surveillance camera and therefore exempting it from the 14th amendment.
I don't understand where you're getting this from. I've read the article, and I don't see anything about the black box being state property. The car manufacturer builds the car, including the black box (which someone pointed out is probably just more functionality within the onboard computer system). I buy the car, including the black box. Far as I know, the state doesn't have anything to do with it.
Surveillance camaras are not necessarily exempt from Due Process protections. The state can't put a state-owned camara in a state-owned public restroom, just because it's state-owned. It's all about expectations of privacy. Your earlier analogy to picking your nose in front of Sak's was completely correct. If you do that, you expect that the people around you can see what you are doing. When you are driving on a public road, you expect that the people around you can see how you are driving. You do not expect that they can know your engine RPMs, what gear you're in, the force you're applying to the brake, if the AC is on, the level of your engine fluids, etc. There is an expectation of privacy in regards to these things.
I might be out driving on a PUBLIC ROAD, but I still retain a freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. There are expectations of privacy which are constitutionally protected, no matter how "public" the location may be, and talk of anonymity is really talk of privacy. A police officer can't pull me over and search my car merely because I am driving on a public street. While walking down the street, they can't grab me and search my person merely because I'm on a public sidewalk. If I am talking on a cell phone in public, the police officer may be able to hear me speaking, but he cannot electronically intercept the other side of the conversation, merely because I'm in public. All actions in public are not "public actions" as you define them, and even truly public actions do not deprive you of all privacy.
>Shall we also say again that driving a car is a mere PRIVILEGE and far from being a right????
Sure, you can say that; but a Driver's License, once granted, is still subject to the protections of procedural Due Process guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535, 539 (1971). Know what one of those protections is? The protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
Also, your argument should be more specific that driving a car on public land (for example, a highway or street) is a privilege granted by license. In most states, no license is necessary to drive on private land. For example, say I own a large ranch; I don't need a license, don't need to pass a test, don't need the state's permission to drive on my own land. Rather than asking what right an individual has to use a car, try asking what right the state has to regulate my use of a car.
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Regardless, one unlawful use or two over 70 years, that is one of the best safety records I could imagine for nearly any product.
And yes, I *do* want access to weapons like M249's and PK's. Not every conceivable weapon, no - I'll agree to that. Individuals shouldn't have WMD's - nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, or high explosives. That's the limit I think rational. I have no problem with individuals owning tanks or warships or jets - they're just vehicles, which are already regulated, and the ammo and bombs they use are already covered by current laws.
In fact, here in Arizona where I live, I can own fully-automatic firearms. I can own true Ak-47's, M-16's, belt-fed machine guns. It takes extra effort to fill out and wait for the paperwork, and it gets quite expensive. That - cost - is the only reason I myself don't any machine guns. I have friends that do, and believe me, they are FUN. Since the National Firearms Act regulated full-auto firearms in 1934, no more than two *legally-possessed* full-autos have ever been used in crime. Once I get out of law school and start making some money, I *will* have my own, future laws allowing. I hope that doesn't scare anyone - it shouldn't.
So why wouldn't you advocate allowing citizens to own M249's? Cars are far more powerful, and kill significantly more people. Anyone can walk up to a fuel station and buy gasoline (here, at least, I don't know where you are or what it's like there) - and gasoline is pretty explosive. Knives can be easily acquired or made by nearly anyone, and they can be used quite violently.
Why don't you trust your fellow citizens with firearms? As long as I too can be armed, I would trust someone with a firearm more easily than I would trust them with a vote.
Criminals will know that you're armed, so the logical step is to get a bigger gun and to be more inclined to use it.
Criminals will know your house is locked, so the logical step is to get a bigger crow bar/lock-picking kit and to be more inclined to use it.
What's the difference? That guns can kill, is not an acceptable answer. Crow bars can easily be used for violence. They're a tool, like a gun, that can be used or misused, nothing more. Further, as pointed out by others, criminals DO avoid homes of armed individuals - they don't want to be shot, and criminals have better access to (illegal) firearms than law-abiding citizens.
Frankly, all I want is equality - I want legal access to the same weapons and tools to which criminals have illegal access. Why is that too much to ask?
Actually, under Arizona Revised Statutes 13-407(A), you are legally justified in threatening to use or actually using physical force to protect against a criminal trespass, and legally justified to threaten to use deadly physical force (but not actually use deadly physical force) to protect against a criminal trespass. So to protect against a criminal trespass, you can threaten deadly physical force (wave the gun around), but not actually use deadly physical force (shoot the gun).
A.R.S. 13-407
I'm no grammar expert, but I'd like to point out that some people miss 1 or 2 of the commas in the 2nd Amendment. From the Library of Congress version, there are 3 commas. "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." This sentence has 4 phrases. Not one of these phrases alone is a clause and cannot stand independently; no phrase has the proper subject-verb relationship to convey a complete thought. The phrase "being necessary to the security of a free state" is a present participle; it acts as an adjective modifying the noun "[a well regulated] militia." It contains neither the subject nor verb of the sentence. Taken together, "a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state," is an absolute phrase; absolute phrases do not modify any specific word in a sentence, but rather modify the entire sentence by providing context. "The right of the people to keep and bear arms" is the subject phrase of the sentence. The subject is "the right." "Of the people" and "to keep and bear arms" are prepositional phrases modifying "the right." "Shall not be infringed" is the verb phrase of the sentence. "Shall not be" is an auxiliary verb string modifying the main verb "infringed."
Therefore, the main idea conveyed by this sentence is "the right shall not be infringed."
I disagree that light arms are almost useless in an armed conflict against a well-equipped military. First, even with a disparity in weapon power, there are many more civilian guns and civilians with guns in this country than there are members of the military. Second, many if not most members of the military would likely refuse to act against U.S. civilians, and some would certainly join them, taking their superior firepower with them. Third, superior firepower can be captured, even with "only" civilian weapons.
Although the Iraqis had large numbers of light weapons, they weren't a deciding factor because they didn't offer much opposition. The majority of Iraqis, and thus also the majority of Iraqi light weapons, did not oppose our military.
There are, literally, hundreds of millions of civilian firearms in this country. There are over 50 million gun owners. The U.S. military numbers around 3 million. And the fact is, even with their planes, ships, and missiles, they would be fighting a force in their own cities, their own backyards, and surrounded by the rest of the population, the people the military is supposed to be protecting. For the most part, Bubba and his friends don't have to worry about the Abrahms and Stingers, and wouldn't be at a huge disadvantage without them.
Vehicles don't have quite the same protection as homes, but they are highly protected nonetheless. The 4th Amendment protection against unreasonable search & seizure, the 5th and 14th Amendment protections of Due Process all apply to vehicles as well as homes.
We're not talking about what you do or what you say within the car, but how do you DRIVE the car.
I think the black box is much more than that. If the police want to follow me around with a camara, recording how I drive, they can do that. The black box seems to capture much more than just how i drive. It captures very specific, very detailed information that is impossible for the police to know without the black box.
The license plate outside your car allows it to be identified from a distance, thus blowing any kind of anonymity you believe you have.
The license plate only tells them to whom the car is registered. It doesn't tell anyone who the driver is. Sometimes I let my friend borrow my car. Sometimes I drive my friend's car. Sometimes cars get stolen. License plates are unique to the car, not the individual.
Likewise, the event recorder merely records how you do DRIVE the car. So your privacy, within your car, and subject to what is visible from without through the windscreen and windows, is still safe.
I disagree that it merely records how you do drive the car. I think the details are much more specific than what is publicly viewable. It's an issue of what's in public view or plaint sight. If a police officer sees something illegal in your car, in public view, it can be used against you. If he searches without probable cause or warrant, and finds something illegal, generally it can't be used against you. I propose, that the black box and the information it collects are absolutely not within public view.
And, in any case, the event recorder is State property (just like your licence plates), so they can damn well interrogate it at their whim, like anybody can read your license plates.
I still don't know where it says the black box is state property. Perhaps I've misunderstood, and we're discussing your proposed video-capable event recorder that's accessible from a distance? The actual black boxes discussed in the article, though, are not even required to be installed on vehicles. Some manufacturers put them on to retrieve accident information, ostensibly to improve their vehicles. The bill mentioned in the article is only about protecting the rights of the owners of the car against improper use of the black box information, when present in the vehicle. Let me know if I'm mistaken.
I don't understand where you're getting this from. I've read the article, and I don't see anything about the black box being state property. The car manufacturer builds the car, including the black box (which someone pointed out is probably just more functionality within the onboard computer system). I buy the car, including the black box. Far as I know, the state doesn't have anything to do with it.
Surveillance camaras are not necessarily exempt from Due Process protections. The state can't put a state-owned camara in a state-owned public restroom, just because it's state-owned. It's all about expectations of privacy. Your earlier analogy to picking your nose in front of Sak's was completely correct. If you do that, you expect that the people around you can see what you are doing. When you are driving on a public road, you expect that the people around you can see how you are driving. You do not expect that they can know your engine RPMs, what gear you're in, the force you're applying to the brake, if the AC is on, the level of your engine fluids, etc. There is an expectation of privacy in regards to these things.
I might be out driving on a PUBLIC ROAD, but I still retain a freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. There are expectations of privacy which are constitutionally protected, no matter how "public" the location may be, and talk of anonymity is really talk of privacy. A police officer can't pull me over and search my car merely because I am driving on a public street. While walking down the street, they can't grab me and search my person merely because I'm on a public sidewalk. If I am talking on a cell phone in public, the police officer may be able to hear me speaking, but he cannot electronically intercept the other side of the conversation, merely because I'm in public. All actions in public are not "public actions" as you define them, and even truly public actions do not deprive you of all privacy.
Sure, you can say that; but a Driver's License, once granted, is still subject to the protections of procedural Due Process guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535, 539 (1971). Know what one of those protections is? The protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
Also, your argument should be more specific that driving a car on public land (for example, a highway or street) is a privilege granted by license. In most states, no license is necessary to drive on private land. For example, say I own a large ranch; I don't need a license, don't need to pass a test, don't need the state's permission to drive on my own land. Rather than asking what right an individual has to use a car, try asking what right the state has to regulate my use of a car.