They aren't personal infantry weapons. If at some point we arm our soldiers with wrist-mounted laser guided mini-nukes, yes, citizens should be allowed to own them.
The definition of "arms" is NOT "personal infantry weapons."
If the logical consequence of the Second Amendment is that anyone should be allowed to own nuclear weapons, there is something wrong with the Second Amendment.
If the government created a law that necessarily ended up with the creation of concentration/extermination camps, then there would be something flawed about that law.
Tanks are arms. A10 gunships are arms. Chemical and biological weapons are arms. Nuclear weapons are arms. No one seriously disputes the fact that we get to infringe on bearing arms, the question is only where to draw the line. Why do you insist that semi-automatic weapons must not be infringed but not tanks and nukes?
Gun fanboys generally try to wriggle out of by saying that "arms" are anything you can carry. I think they're confusing a term for weaponry with the word for human upper limbs.
You are simply proving the OP's point that the NRA and many gun advocates are entirely unwilling to compromise, and fall back on "the Constitution" as though it were some Holy Writ engraved on tablets by God, rather than the human-created document it so clearly is, which needs to be adapted to changes in society (e.g. letting non landowners and women vote)..
It's like the Constitutional fundamentalists who still moan about the abolition of slavery and call Lincoln a traitor. Well, fuck them.
I don't suppose it's occurred to you that you're putting the cart before the horse, and that the reason kids are on drugs is because they have an actual medical/psychiatric condition that needs treating?
Under current law, you can make a gun yourself, and use it
Which is absurd and illogical, assuming you have any gun control laws. Whether you believe in the right to own whatever guns you like or not, having some sort of licensing system that you can circumvent by making your own is ridiculous. It's like saying "you have to road tax for your car (in the UK), but if you build a car yourself you don't need to bother."
someone like you is afraid of law abiding citizens and inanimate objects
It's the old problem of, if you let the good people have their own H-bombs to play with, one day, a bad person might steal one of them and use it to be naughty with.
You assume the purpose of shooting somebody is to kill them. That is not true. The purpose of shooting somebody is to stop them from doing what they are doing. It has been found that multiple bullets to the chest is the most reliable way of doing that. Whether that kills the person is not the point.
If you wanted to stop people from doing what they are doing, you'd just shoot them in the leg or something (and, yes, I know it's harder to hit). In the army, you fire a couple of rounds into the chest as it is pretty certain you'll get a kill, but it's easier than a head shot.
3) Fix the school system. A lot of the things that would improve education overall (less focus on rote learning, stop keeping everyone generalists until college, smaller schools with a lower teacher/student ratio, etc) would also reduce student stress immensely.
There are many countries in the world with far tougher education systems than in the US, and they don't seem to produce anywhere near the same number of dysfunctional, psychotic mass murdering children.
What worries me about gun control is the idea that the government wants to control ownership of a piece of metal that anybody can fabricate in a day in their home
Bullshit. I certainly couldn't manufacture a working gun and ammunition in my home now. Even if I had all the metalworking tools, raw materials and a detailed set of plans I doubt I could produce something that wouldn't blow my hand off the first time I fired it.
Anyway, it's missing the whole point of having such easy availability of guns as you do in the US. You don't need to be rich, clever, skilled or desperate to lay your hands on one easily.
and to which there are lots of lethal alternatives.
I suppose this is another "but madmen can always build bombs" argument. As with the manufacture of guns, no, it's really not that simple. And you certainly can't just walk (sorry, drive) to your nearest Walmart and buy a couple of bombs. I hope.
There are three times as many automobile related fatalities each year as firearms related fatalities:
At best, that's just an indication that the US could do with better driver training, safer cars, or whatever. And if they're all purely accidents, then there's nothing you can do about it, whereas you can do something about guns
Even better, there are more people killed with hammers and clubs than with firearms:
No, your linked article says that more people are killed with hammers and clubs than with rifles, which is a rather different point.
I have seen studies which say that about 1 in 3 people suffer from mental illness at some point in their lives. That's a lot of mercy killing.
And can you tell me at which point you snuff the guy who suffers a nervous breakdown from job related stress or gets depressed when his wife dies?? What if he recovers completely after a few weeks or months of treatment? Or do you have some surefire "spot the crazy killer" test you can use to decide who's dangerous or not?
I sure don't support laws that say only the military and police can have the most powerful weapons
Can a (very rich) private citizen in the US legally own a fully weaponised tank, fighter jet or attack helicopter (never mind a cruise missile or atomic bomb)?
Because if not, I think the laws are already tilted in the military's favour.
I'd like to point you at the difficulties out Armed Forces have had dominating unruly indigenous populations in the Middle East lately, when all the locals have are crappy beat decades-old AK-47 and home-made IEDs. With the weapons and training that a large fraction of the population has access to in the US, suppressing a rebellion here would be nearly impossible, even for the US Armed Forces.
But the point is, what would the rebellion be about? In Afghanistan and Iraq, the insurgents were fighting a foreign army, that wouldn't be the case in your scenario.
And who would be on the rebels' side? If you add all the US military, law enforcement and so on together, that's a fuckton of people on "the government's" side.
I tell you what, the best way is to rise up against "tyrants" who don't have any real interest in emotely controlling your country. You were lucky in 1776 that we hadn't really got into the whole Empire thing properly.
That is just a compelling argument for limiting access to dynamite and other explosives, as well as guns.
It's a bit like saying "guns are trivially dangerous compared to the threat of a terrorist/maniac exploding an H-bomb and wiping out a whole city of millions of people."
Well, yes, that's why we don't let civilians own H-bombs.
Because it is impossible to cause large scale death and destruction with absolutely nothing else? Because it is impossible to do it with knives or more likely gas bombs or half a dozen other things any of us could easily think of?
Making viable explosive devices is a lot harder work than buying an automatic rifle and a few hundred rounds of ammo. Agreed, a nutter with a knife can do a lot of damage, but it's still nowhere near as much as with a gun.
If Anders Breivik had turned up to that island armed with just a knife, I doubt he'd have killed 69 people. You can attack and disarm a knife-wielding maniac a lot more easily than a gun-wielding one.
Hell, look at all the bullying stories in the last several years. Do you really think that those incidences would have occurred had the bully been taught empathy by his or her parents? Someone that goes into a crowd and starts shooting has a distinct lack of empathy. Is there perhaps something we can identify in that behavior and perhaps take action against?
Do it Bladerunner style. Ask them why they kicked the tortoise onto its back in the desert. If they get angry or confused, shoot them in the head.
Once a government turns the army on its own people, it is a mainly a question of how far that army will follow orders to kill civilians. Once they start doing that, then you will likely get a true civil war, all bets and laws are off, and the population will arm itself with fucking axes and sticks if necessary and overwhelm the oppressors by sheer weight of numbers. If they're not prepared to die doing that, they wouldn't be prepared to die doing it with guns, either.
He was incarcerated and killed for his beliefs. Funny how all those pro-gun people who trot out the "we need to defend ourselves agaisnt the government" revile Mcveigh rather than actually look up to him for doing exactly what they claim they need their guns for!
Wow, this is truly one of the stupidest things I have ever read in my life. Timothy McVeigh was incarcerated and "killed" (as you put it) for murdering 168 innocent people. He was not defending himself or his beliefs. He was not engaged in combat. He just drove a bomb up and killed them. That is not something people should "look up to him" for. I would assume you're a troll if you had posted AC. Since you logged in, perhaps you are just crazy?
You're missing the point of why he murdered 168 people. It was because they represented the evil government who had dared to storm the compound at Waco because of all the guns being stockpiled there and the threat that David Koresh posed to society.
And that is exactly the sort of thing that all the armchair revolutionary gun nuts on the internet always say they will do. "You can pry my gun from my cold dead fingers", no?
Slashdot Mirror
How exactly do you compromise with people being driven entirely by fear and anger?
Well, you could start by not saying thy're driven entirely by fear and anger.
They aren't personal infantry weapons. If at some point we arm our soldiers with wrist-mounted laser guided mini-nukes, yes, citizens should be allowed to own them.
The definition of "arms" is NOT "personal infantry weapons."
If the government created a law that necessarily ended up with the creation of concentration/extermination camps, then there would be something flawed about that law.
Tanks are arms. A10 gunships are arms. Chemical and biological weapons are arms. Nuclear weapons are arms. No one seriously disputes the fact that we get to infringe on bearing arms, the question is only where to draw the line. Why do you insist that semi-automatic weapons must not be infringed but not tanks and nukes?
Gun fanboys generally try to wriggle out of by saying that "arms" are anything you can carry. I think they're confusing a term for weaponry with the word for human upper limbs.
It's like the Constitutional fundamentalists who still moan about the abolition of slavery and call Lincoln a traitor. Well, fuck them.
actually combat poverty
That's socialism, so good luck doing anything about it in the US.
I don't suppose it's occurred to you that you're putting the cart before the horse, and that the reason kids are on drugs is because they have an actual medical/psychiatric condition that needs treating?
Under current law, you can make a gun yourself, and use it
Which is absurd and illogical, assuming you have any gun control laws. Whether you believe in the right to own whatever guns you like or not, having some sort of licensing system that you can circumvent by making your own is ridiculous. It's like saying "you have to road tax for your car (in the UK), but if you build a car yourself you don't need to bother."
someone like you is afraid of law abiding citizens and inanimate objects
It's the old problem of, if you let the good people have their own H-bombs to play with, one day, a bad person might steal one of them and use it to be naughty with.
Simple enough to understand?
You assume the purpose of shooting somebody is to kill them. That is not true. The purpose of shooting somebody is to stop them from doing what they are doing. It has been found that multiple bullets to the chest is the most reliable way of doing that. Whether that kills the person is not the point.
If you wanted to stop people from doing what they are doing, you'd just shoot them in the leg or something (and, yes, I know it's harder to hit). In the army, you fire a couple of rounds into the chest as it is pretty certain you'll get a kill, but it's easier than a head shot.
3) Fix the school system. A lot of the things that would improve education overall (less focus on rote learning, stop keeping everyone generalists until college, smaller schools with a lower teacher/student ratio, etc) would also reduce student stress immensely.
There are many countries in the world with far tougher education systems than in the US, and they don't seem to produce anywhere near the same number of dysfunctional, psychotic mass murdering children.
What worries me about gun control is the idea that the government wants to control ownership of a piece of metal that anybody can fabricate in a day in their home
Bullshit. I certainly couldn't manufacture a working gun and ammunition in my home now. Even if I had all the metalworking tools, raw materials and a detailed set of plans I doubt I could produce something that wouldn't blow my hand off the first time I fired it.
Anyway, it's missing the whole point of having such easy availability of guns as you do in the US. You don't need to be rich, clever, skilled or desperate to lay your hands on one easily.
and to which there are lots of lethal alternatives.
I suppose this is another "but madmen can always build bombs" argument. As with the manufacture of guns, no, it's really not that simple. And you certainly can't just walk (sorry, drive) to your nearest Walmart and buy a couple of bombs. I hope.
If you think cops with guns are more dangerous than the average citizen with a gun, then you shouldn't fucking arm your police in the first place.
There are three times as many automobile related fatalities each year as firearms related fatalities:
At best, that's just an indication that the US could do with better driver training, safer cars, or whatever. And if they're all purely accidents, then there's nothing you can do about it, whereas you can do something about guns
Even better, there are more people killed with hammers and clubs than with firearms:
No, your linked article says that more people are killed with hammers and clubs than with rifles, which is a rather different point.
The only cure for mental illness is euthanasia
I have seen studies which say that about 1 in 3 people suffer from mental illness at some point in their lives. That's a lot of mercy killing.
And can you tell me at which point you snuff the guy who suffers a nervous breakdown from job related stress or gets depressed when his wife dies?? What if he recovers completely after a few weeks or months of treatment? Or do you have some surefire "spot the crazy killer" test you can use to decide who's dangerous or not?
I sure don't support laws that say only the military and police can have the most powerful weapons
Can a (very rich) private citizen in the US legally own a fully weaponised tank, fighter jet or attack helicopter (never mind a cruise missile or atomic bomb)?
Because if not, I think the laws are already tilted in the military's favour.
That went so far over your head you didn't even hear the whoosh, you grubby little oaf.
I'd like to point you at the difficulties out Armed Forces have had dominating unruly indigenous populations in the Middle East lately, when all the locals have are crappy beat decades-old AK-47 and home-made IEDs. With the weapons and training that a large fraction of the population has access to in the US, suppressing a rebellion here would be nearly impossible, even for the US Armed Forces.
But the point is, what would the rebellion be about? In Afghanistan and Iraq, the insurgents were fighting a foreign army, that wouldn't be the case in your scenario.
And who would be on the rebels' side? If you add all the US military, law enforcement and so on together, that's a fuckton of people on "the government's" side.
I tell you what, the best way is to rise up against "tyrants" who don't have any real interest in emotely controlling your country. You were lucky in 1776 that we hadn't really got into the whole Empire thing properly.
The deadliest school mass killing in US history didn't involve guns at all.
That is just a compelling argument for limiting access to dynamite and other explosives, as well as guns.
It's a bit like saying "guns are trivially dangerous compared to the threat of a terrorist/maniac exploding an H-bomb and wiping out a whole city of millions of people."
Well, yes, that's why we don't let civilians own H-bombs.
Because it is impossible to cause large scale death and destruction with absolutely nothing else? Because it is impossible to do it with knives or more likely gas bombs or half a dozen other things any of us could easily think of?
Making viable explosive devices is a lot harder work than buying an automatic rifle and a few hundred rounds of ammo. Agreed, a nutter with a knife can do a lot of damage, but it's still nowhere near as much as with a gun.
If Anders Breivik had turned up to that island armed with just a knife, I doubt he'd have killed 69 people. You can attack and disarm a knife-wielding maniac a lot more easily than a gun-wielding one.
Hell, look at all the bullying stories in the last several years. Do you really think that those incidences would have occurred had the bully been taught empathy by his or her parents? Someone that goes into a crowd and starts shooting has a distinct lack of empathy. Is there perhaps something we can identify in that behavior and perhaps take action against?
Do it Bladerunner style. Ask them why they kicked the tortoise onto its back in the desert. If they get angry or confused, shoot them in the head.
Once a government turns the army on its own people, it is a mainly a question of how far that army will follow orders to kill civilians. Once they start doing that, then you will likely get a true civil war, all bets and laws are off, and the population will arm itself with fucking axes and sticks if necessary and overwhelm the oppressors by sheer weight of numbers. If they're not prepared to die doing that, they wouldn't be prepared to die doing it with guns, either.
He was incarcerated and killed for his beliefs. Funny how all those pro-gun people who trot out the "we need to defend ourselves agaisnt the government" revile Mcveigh rather than actually look up to him for doing exactly what they claim they need their guns for!
Wow, this is truly one of the stupidest things I have ever read in my life. Timothy McVeigh was incarcerated and "killed" (as you put it) for murdering 168 innocent people. He was not defending himself or his beliefs. He was not engaged in combat. He just drove a bomb up and killed them. That is not something people should "look up to him" for. I would assume you're a troll if you had posted AC. Since you logged in, perhaps you are just crazy?
You're missing the point of why he murdered 168 people. It was because they represented the evil government who had dared to storm the compound at Waco because of all the guns being stockpiled there and the threat that David Koresh posed to society.
And that is exactly the sort of thing that all the armchair revolutionary gun nuts on the internet always say they will do. "You can pry my gun from my cold dead fingers", no?
Out of interest, how come he wasn't armed?
I expect the granny just out-drew him, Western gunslinger style. It's about as likely as the whole story.