Should you be able to bear Arms?

[MrMookMook]

Hi All

 

This topic was going to come up sometime, so what do you think? I personally think that this is giving everyone around the World a very bad view of Americans, especially with the shootings that have recently happened at schools. It is scary thought that every Tom, {censored} and Jane would be carrying a handgun.

 

Mr Mook Mook

[Paranoid Marvin]

Personally, I don't think anyone should have a gun, whether they be civilians, police or even soldiers.

It's the 21st century, we're not cave men any more. We shouldn't need weapons. We shouldn't have anything to fight over (eg, food, water, land)

 

But let's be realistic here

[Descalzo]

The recent Supreme Court decision doesn't say, 'any gun, anywhere, any time.' It just says you can own a handgun. There have been lots of times crimes have been prevented with the use of guns. There are enough illegal guns out there that I don't see this adding to the number of armed criminals substantially.

 

Like Marvin said, it would be nice if there were no guns at all, but there ARE guns. I personally agree with the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution, and believe that we have a right to bear arms. It seems clear to me that this was intended to be for our own personal protection.

 

There's a lot of disagreement about this. I have finally come to see both sides of the argument a little bit more clearly.

 

FYI, I don't own a gun.

[Running With Scissors]

No.

[iPirate]

I'm in that {censored}-de-sac of the world called Australia, so my opinion might not count as much as an American. But if you take the opinions of the greater world outside the United States, an American's opinion doesn't count for much at all. So that's a bit of a paradox there. Thus, my opinion may or may not be worth an American's opinion... but enough of that.

 

Guns don't cause crimes, people cause crimes. Guns don't stop crimes, people stop crimes. Guns just make both situations a hell of a lot more life-threatening to all parties involved.

 

So now we have two problems: Guns are dangerous, and People are violent.

 

So let's stay on the topic of guns for now. Why keep guns? To protect yourself. From what? Other people with guns. So if they didn't have guns... would that mean you still need guns yourself? Probably not. So that means guns are a total yes or total no thing. All or nothing, seeing as if one person has a gun, everyone else will want a gun to "protect themselves" against them.

 

Ah, but what about the police, security, military, etc, surely they need guns for their line of work? Yes they do. So what is the worry here? That someone who has guns at work will bring them home and act violently with their weapon?

 

The problem there would not be the gun, but a combination of the security of where it is kept (eg: if kept at work when the person is not in uniform, that prevents home acts of violence) and the mental state of the person themselves.

 

Which brings us to to the topic of people who are violent. We see that guns are only a problem if the people are a problem. So people can keep their guns, so long as they are not causing any problems.

 

So, how to fix the people? We must look at why they would use guns for unnecessary violence. Reasons would include social dissatisfaction, mental health problems, and temporary insanity... amongst others.

 

Social dissatisfaction is caused by significant rifts in accessibility to community and resources. That is why religion is such a big thing, a community that does not require everyone to be equally resourceful. Resources would include access to health services, finances, basic human needs. So closing the gap between rich and poor would help that, making sure everyone has a home, basic health cover and a minimum liveable income would help sort that problem out. Hence there would be less people using guns for robbery (in fact less robbery in general).

 

Mental Health is a big one. Without proper health care for everyone (and Australia is apparently better than America on that one, but Australia still isn't good enough) people who are mentally unstable are free to mingle amongst the non-deranged community. So when a deranged person decides that everyone around them is the spawn of satan, he might go and commit grievous acts of violence against many around him. This does, however, help the argument against guns, seeing as a gun makes it far easier to kill many in a short amount of time (ie: before help arrives) than say, a knife, or baseball bat.

 

Temporary insanity cannot always be helped. Incredible jealousy by a spurned lover is an example. But a more common example would be the taking of hard drugs (such as ice, LSD, etc). This leads to problems like the mental health example, but the person may be non-deranged for most of the time with only brief episodes of insanity. Causes of drug-taking can be social dissatisfaction and lack of health services providing safer places for people to do these things (people will always take drugs, may as well admit it and make it safer for everyone in the way they do so), and another effect of drug taking is the depletion on finances, which causes addicts to steal (and use guns to aid in that).

 

But back to guns. While typing this up I have done a little research into American gun culture and found an interesting article saying that gun culture only really started up after the Civil War (Clicky). The loose implication of that is that Americans only really got into guns because of a combination of Marketing, Southerners wanting to have a do-over of the Civil War to get their slaves back, Northeners to prevent such an event from happening, racism, blacks protecting themselves from racism, and now marketing today being the most popular method of ensuring that people spend money on guns to look "Macho". Ok, that's a bit of a stretch of logic, but from an outside perspective it makes sense.

 

Even if you tried, you probably wouldn't ever get completely rid of guns in America, but you can help the people to stop killing each other. So I vote to help the people, instead of banning the guns.

 

That said, the sale of military grade weapons to civilians is just plain silly. There is no excuse for the sale of sub-machine guns, sniper rifles, and anything that would obliterate an entire limb. You're just asking for trouble there.

 

I'm in that {censored}-de-sac of the world called Australia, so my opinion might not count as much as an American. But if you take the opinions of the greater world outside the United States, an American's opinion doesn't count for much at all. So that's a bit of a paradox there. Thus, my opinion may or may not be worth an American's opinion... but enough of that.

 

Guns don't cause crimes, people cause crimes. Guns don't stop crimes, people stop crimes. Guns just make both situations a hell of a lot more life-threatening to all parties involved.

 

So now we have two problems: Guns are dangerous, and People are violent.

 

So let's stay on the topic of guns for now. Why keep guns? To protect yourself. From what? Other people with guns. So if they didn't have guns... would that mean you still need guns yourself? Probably not. So that means guns are a total yes or total no thing. All or nothing, seeing as if one person has a gun, everyone else will want a gun to "protect themselves" against them.

 

Ah, but what about the police, security, military, etc, surely they need guns for their line of work? Yes they do. So what is the worry here? That someone who has guns at work will bring them home and act violently with their weapon?

 

The problem there would not be the gun, but a combination of the security of where it is kept (eg: if kept at work when the person is not in uniform, that prevents home acts of violence) and the mental state of the person themselves.

 

Which brings us to to the topic of people who are violent. We see that guns are only a problem if the people are a problem. So people can keep their guns, so long as they are not causing any problems.

 

So, how to fix the people? We must look at why they would use guns for unnecessary violence. Reasons would include social dissatisfaction, mental health problems, and temporary insanity... amongst others.

 

Social dissatisfaction is caused by significant rifts in accessibility to community and resources. That is why religion is such a big thing, a community that does not require everyone to be equally resourceful. Resources would include access to health services, finances, basic human needs. So closing the gap between rich and poor would help that, making sure everyone has a home, basic health cover and a minimum liveable income would help sort that problem out. Hence there would be less people using guns for robbery (in fact less robbery in general).

 

Mental Health is a big one. Without proper health care for everyone (and Australia is apparently better than America on that one, but Australia still isn't good enough) people who are mentally unstable are free to mingle amongst the non-deranged community. So when a deranged person decides that everyone around them is the spawn of satan, he might go and commit grievous acts of violence against many around him. This does, however, help the argument against guns, seeing as a gun makes it far easier to kill many in a short amount of time (ie: before help arrives) than say, a knife, or baseball bat.

 

Temporary insanity cannot always be helped. Incredible jealousy by a spurned lover is an example. But a more common example would be the taking of hard drugs (such as ice, LSD, etc). This leads to problems like the mental health example, but the person may be non-deranged for most of the time with only brief episodes of insanity. Causes of drug-taking can be social dissatisfaction and lack of health services providing safer places for people to do these things (people will always take drugs, may as well admit it and make it safer for everyone in the way they do so), and another effect of drug taking is the depletion on finances, which causes addicts to steal (and use guns to aid in that).

 

But back to guns. While typing this up I have done a little research into American gun culture and found an interesting article saying that gun culture only really started up after the Civil War (Clicky). The loose implication of that is that Americans only really got into guns because of a combination of Marketing, Southerners wanting to have a do-over of the Civil War to get their slaves back, Northeners to prevent such an event from happening, racism, blacks protecting themselves from racism, and now marketing today being the most popular method of ensuring that people spend money on guns to look "Macho". Ok, that's a bit of a stretch of logic, but from an outside perspective it makes sense.

 

Even if you tried, you probably wouldn't ever get completely rid of guns in America, but you can help the people to stop killing each other. So I vote to help the people, instead of banning the guns.

 

That said, the sale of military grade weapons to civilians is just plain silly. There is no excuse for the sale of sub-machine guns, sniper rifles, and anything that would obliterate an entire limb. You're just asking for trouble there.

 

Anyway, just my 2 cents on this topic.

[MrMookMook]

iPirate it seems you have repeated your self many times, so maybe you should go back and edit.

[apowerr]

But a more common example would be the taking of hard drugs (such as ice, LSD, etc)

Hard and soft drugs

While Meth is as hard as you can go, LSD is very different in terms of physical effects and addiction.

 

As far as guns go, sure. If you want to own a handgun go for it. If there was a way to get rid of every single gun in the United States I would go for it. But thats impossible, so guns can be available if one would like them. Strict regulations are fine, but keep them available. Its in the constitution.

 

 

Before anyway pro gun person likens gun control to Hitler or Stalin's regime: seriously? Gun control implemented by elected officials for public safety is completely different.

[JonTheSavage]

Our laws say that you have the right to bear arms, and the government can't do anything about it. So tough {censored} for those who oppose liberty, and favor tyranny. You will get your way on a cold day in hell. Reguardless of what you say, what your ignorant filled opinion is, or your government's. You will never get them.

 

EDIT: The problem is the fools that think they can solve everyone else's problems. Hitler thought the same thing. That he could create some utopia of his. Yeah, it was his utopia of course. Foolish people with the mind of a 14 year old, and delusions of grandeur.

 

Crime doesn't have anything to do with guns. I could just as easily kill someone with my bare hands, or a ball point pen as I could with my 9mm Luger in case you are wondering. My BAR saves money on food during deer season, and my .12 guage makes sure you don't break into my house, or {censored} with my property. The 4 SKSs, and 10k rounds of ammo, and 2 UZIs in my safe insure that you, or your government don't try to take the rest of my guns.

 

Reguardless of what your "opinion" is. The facts remain. The real world remains. You won't take them. End of story. The entire arguement is senseless, ignorant, pointless, and foolish. You can't stop people from dying any more than you can reach another galaxy. Man will ALWAYS foolishly murder his brother, reguardless of what his weapon of choice is.

[Maxintosh]

Our laws say that you have the right to bear arms

When the Second Amendment was written there were nothing but muskets.

 

I have no problem with you owning a musket

[JonTheSavage]

When the Second Amendment was written there were nothing but muskets.

 

I have no problem with you owning a musket

 

I would love to see your dumbass try it.

 

EDIT: And to let you in a little secret. The people that wrote the 2nd amendment were also 1,000 times wiser than you. They are in the history books. You aren't, and never will be.

 

Here, in the south, If you want to disarm one man, you better call in an army.

[Maxintosh]

I would love to see your dumbass try it.

That doesn't even make any sense as a reply, but comsidering you wrote it I guess it's no more nonsensical than anything else you've ever posted

 

You aren't, and never will be.

That's right folks, the all knowing, all seeing JonTheSavage will look into his crystal ball and make his predictions. Next show is at 8:00

 

If you want to disarm one man, you better call in an army.

Better do it before noon time or you'll all miss "Paul Harvey" on the radio

[brainbone]

The cat's already out of the bag in the US. What would you do? Kick in everyones door to force them to turn in their guns? What about criminals / criminal organizations? How would you capture their weapons when you can't do it now? What about the police? There's already a huge divide of power between the average citizen and their police... should this be widened? How do you plan on capturing all these weapons without an extremely well armed police force? Do you really trust your local police force that much?

 

That said, personally, I choose not to keep my guns in my home (lake home is the preferred location) since I'm subject to hypoglycemia and would rather not be responsible for making poor judgment while impaired.

[iSkylla]

iPirate, no one is going to read that wall o' text.

[Sabr]

JonTheSavage & Maxintosh:

 

If you two don't get your act together, I will take the pleasure of suspending both your accounts for two weeks. Your extremely childish and stupid behaviour not only degrades the quality of discussion but makes yourself look bad too, and I'm sure, as well as me, everyone else here is getting fed up having to skip over your little flamewars that no one apart from you two seem to be bothered about.

 

If you have problems, take them up in a PM!!

[Daniel Felstead]

In my opinion it shouldn't be allowed in an ideal world where the manufacturing of weapons would just stop so people could get on peacefully, however as this is not the case I believe it is a needed symbol of power and also a defense against some of the evil people who are out there.

[JonTheSavage]

JonTheSavage & Maxintosh:

 

If you two don't get your act together, I will take the pleasure of suspending both your accounts for two weeks. Your extremely childish and stupid behaviour not only degrades the quality of discussion but makes yourself look bad too, and I'm sure, as well as me, everyone else here is getting fed up having to skip over your little flamewars that no one apart from you two seem to be bothered about.

 

If you have problems, take them up in a PM!!

 

I'm sure you are used to restriction of speech in the EU aren't you? Enjoy your cameras, and police state {censored}s. l8r.

[Numberzz]

I'm sure you are used to restriction of speech in the EU aren't you? Enjoy your cameras, and police state {censored}s. l8r.

This forum isn't a country, or a democracy for that matter. He can do whatever he wants.

[apowerr]

I'm sure you are used to restriction of speech in the EU aren't you? Enjoy your cameras, and police state {censored}s. l8r.

 

Don't take it that way man, you contribute a lot here. Little flames directed to one or two people don't really contribute to the discussion and do make you look bad, take it as a helpful warning/reminder.

[(MoC)]

This forum isn't a country, or a democracy for that matter. He can do whatever he wants.

 

Yeah, there's no International Law of whatever here.

 

Don't take it that way man, you contribute it here a lot here. Little flames directed to one or two people don't really contribute to the discussion and do make you look bad, take it as a helpful warning/reminder.

 

Please listen to erei33 and Sabr. Long story short, cool off a little.

[djet]

Yeah Jon it seems that when anyone tries to disagree with you, you unleash a storm of comments about their intelligence, and less about their post.....

 

Take a deep breath and respond.

 

Kind of an odd idea, maybe ban people other than law enforcement from having guns outside of their house or "building." Maybe would keep people from using it other than self-defense.

[7TH SFG]

Hello , I'm new to the forum----great forum, I was surprised to come across this topic on a computer related forum.

I'm gun owner and a stanch supporter of the second ammendment rights of all law abidding US citizen, I served in the US Military 25 years .

 

Our constitution in the USA affords it's citizens the right to keep and bare arms. In the USA gun ownership is not a privledge, It is a right, a right ingained in the fabric of our nation,a right engrained before and after the founding fathers wrote the document .

 

Of the constitutional amendments, amendment NUMBER 2 on the list,is even ahead of things like unreasonable searches and seizures, and the right to a speedy trial. While I suspect that the Founding fathers held all the rights and amendments as equal, the right to keep and bare arms is second, and not as an afterthought.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

There are 2 parts to the above, the Justification clause which basically explains why the Founding fathers feel the need to put in the action part, and the Action clause, which is the law part.

 

The first part is the Justification clause: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state

 

Let’s look at this sentence backwards.

 

First they say STATE. This does not mean a single State like Maryland, or Delaware, but the country like the State of Israel It could also mean a state of being, but certainly was not intended to mean a single state like Maryland.

 

Second, Notice the use of SECURITY OF A FREE STATE, not the defense of a free state, or in times of war or other sayings, but the SECURITY. Security means protecting a state from enemies both Foreign and Domestic. Our founding fathers understood that security of the state was only possible if the citizens could keep a government in check. If a government is the only one who has arms, then they can and history has shown us that they will, end up controlling a people, and imposing their will upon a populace. Our Founders understood that only three things keep a government in check, elections where the government officials can be replaced, the threat of violence against the government, if those officials refuse to step down and actual violence against the gov.

 

 

An armed man is a free man, and a free man does not need goverment to watch his every move or provide cradle-to-grave care. An armed man can say No, That is why some of the first steps Hitler, Stalin, Lenin among other tyrants took was complete abolishion of firearms. And that is why the Soviet Union and Red China so easily conducted massive purges, and stamped out every hint of individualism and send a clear message, This is what happens when you don't toe the line.

 

Gun control effects only the law abidding citizen, the Criminals and thugs will get guns as easy as falling off a log backwards if they so desire through illegal means.

[Colonel]

Even if the court did remove the right to bear arms, that wouldn't stop criminals from obtaining them. They're not just gonna say, "Oh darn, i wish i could shoot this guy, but the government won't allow me to have a gun. Oh my good golly gosh." NO, the only thing outlawing guns would do is removing ordinary citizens' ability to defend themselves against people that DON'T follow the law and DO have a gun.

 

[moroes]

I am so so on this issue, if someone wants to do harm to a person etc they will find a way to do it. Now Letting everyone have a gun would make this easier for them to do, at the same time having good citizens with guns would some what out weigh the good/bad people and make them think twice(hopefully).

[m16]

In the united states there is a purpose for hunting... some animal populations are out of control and they need to be hunted ie deer. But for this you can use a rifle. A handgun is superfluous and not ideal for hunting. When the bill of rights was written handguns were much more primitive than they are today and could not be as easily concealed. Handguns serve only one purpose which is to kill other people. 18th century "handguns" were one shot and you are done ordeals and they were probably 3-4 times bigger then todays glock. They were so big that they were designed so you could hit someone with the non shooting end of the gun and do some damage. Try killing someone with one of these:

 

 

The people writing the bill of rights probably didn't foresee pistols like the colt .45 and they didn't appear until almost a century later in the infamous wild west... At the time the bill of rights was written the United States supported slavery. Slavery was such a great thing in this country that we stole texas from Mexico to continue enslaving people... not everything in the past was good and these gun laws are outdated. Handguns hurt society by making murder very easy. Rifles do have a purpose.

 

"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."

 

What? Since when is a militia necessary to the security of a free state? Do you honestly think that in an age of guided missiles ,F-22s flying faster then sound and dropping cluster bombs that a bunch of rednecks with hand guns will stop the government from taking the rights away from civilians? Opposing gun registration and regulation in a country like the US where murder rates are incredibly hight is absurd and ignorant...

 

Furthermore, on the the insaner interpretation of what you said, do you honestly think that if the united states was under attack by a foreign force that civilians would be able to make a difference with their rinky dink rifles and handguns?

[Maxintosh]

A handgun is superfluous and not ideal for hunting. When the bill of rights was written handguns were much more primative than they are today and could not be as easily concealed. Handguns serve only one purpace which is to kill other people. 18th century "handguns" were one shot and you are gun ordeals and they were probably 3-4 times bigger then todays glock. They were so big that they were designed so you could hit someone with the non shooting end of the gun and do some damage. The people writing the bill of rights probably didn't forsee pistols like the colt .45 and they didn't appear until almost a century later in the imfamous wild west... At the time the bill of rights was written the United States supported slavery. Slavery was such a great thing in this country that we stole texas from mexico to continue enslaving people... not everything in the past was good and these gun laws are outdated. Opposing gun registration and regulation in a country like the US where murder rates are incredibly hight is absurd and ignorant...

Well said