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Seems pretty clear to me, want to place limits on it, get support for a new amendment.
@freemo right on. And before someone posts the "well regulated militia" argument, the militia at that time was the able-bodied male population. The 2a is definitely about the general public being armed and trained to repel either invasion or tyranny.
If the Federal government wanted to take the 2a seriously, they should be expanding the Civilian Marksmanship Program and offering free rifle lessons in high school.
@mike805 @freemo even if that were the case (it's isn't), you still have them "well-regulated" bit. Also, if the first part is to be taken for sacred, by your interpretation then only white men should have the right to bear arms?
The reification of an old document is a choice. One that is killing our children. Guns are the number one cause of death for children in America! Our life expectancy is way lower than all other advanced countries. Choosing this mortality for an interpretation of an old text is the definition of a death cult. One that is imposed on a majority of Americans who do not want it.
@thatguyoverthere @mike805 @freemo @lmrocha
Bingo! You've got it!
Nobody wants to ban guns and nobody is coming for your guns. We just want to be sure that they don't end up as easily in the hands of a person that may start shooting indiscriminately in a school or other public place.
Even the founding fathers had some "well-regulated" criteria for who can and who cannot have a gun (white men with wigs yes, founding mothers and people with slightly dark complexion no).
The criteria arguably changed from then but the principle stands.
People have literally banned entire classes of guns such as handguns and imaginary "assault rifles".. not only arr thry coming for our guns, they are explicit about it...
@pj @thatguyoverthere @mike805 @lmrocha
Also no, there was never a well regulated criteria. That was an exemplarly clause as is explicitly stated, not a qulifying clause. Thry have been quotes countless time saying as much.
Yes, they don't explicitly state in the constitution who is and who isn't allowed to have guns, but I think it is pretty clear what would have happened if one of their slaves went for a gun.
You can't run a society without qualifying clauses.
@pj @thatguyoverthere @mike805 @lmrocha
Surr thry do, thry explicitly state the right shall not be infringed. Pretty clear that means all people.
I believe the definition of "people" at that time, as @lmrocha pointed out, might have been very narrow.
You've said it is not the gun that is a problem, it is the person, and I agreed with that.
I just don't agree that we all should have to protect ourselves (supposedly with more guns) from bad persons with guns, instead of, as a civilized society, minimizing the chances these people can do harm.
Yup in fact criminals already have big barriers (and i think its ok to make access to criminal records easier).
So by its very nature one would expect good guys with guns to far outweight bad guys with guns from the start. Which implies most of the protection from guns is going to be against unarmed people.
Id say even extremely violent people should have a path to get their rights back, the key shoukd be recovery and eventually entering society again... that said they may have to jump through a lot of hoops to get there since thry woukd have to show quite clearly they have been reabilitated.
> I just don't agree we should all have to protect ourselves
I mean you don't have to protect yourself, but we do hold some level of responsibility (not all) for what happens to us. Back to the car analogy for a moment, you put on your seat belt right? If you live in an area where you actually feel your life is in danger you should take steps to minimize that danger. What steps you choose are entirely up to you. We have police who will put in some effort (using firearms) to execute the laws which can sometimes be enough to protect people or make people feel safe. You also have the right to own a firearm and become proficient with it so that if you should need to use it (god forbid) you can adequately protect yourself. You can also always look for an area where you don't feel like you are under constant threat. I live in a state with constitutional carry. I never feel like I am in any serious risk when I leave my home. Sometimes I carry. Sometimes I don't.
If we have laws about murder, assault, theft, rape, etc already, I don't see why we need to nitpick about how the person commits the crime.
@thatguyoverthere
You had to "drag me back in"๐
In my opinion if you have to use guns to solve anything (even in case of the police) it means we as a society suck.
@freemo's argument that women use guns to protect themselves from bad penises is also dubious. I think taking a self-defense training or even a bear spray would be much more effective.
In my opinion if you have to use guns to solve anything (even in case of the police) it means we as a society suck.
Then every society on earth sucks, and I wont disagree with that… Until you eliminate rape and violent acts from even being attempted then you will never be able to rely on cops. Cops will always be some distance away and it will always require you to have access to a phone and early enough warning make the phone call.
Usually if someone is being raped or held at knife point or assaulted in the overwhelming majority of cases there was never a chance to even reach out to the police in the first place.
So yes I am happy to eliminate guns, if the criteria for it is you must first eliminate all violent crimes so you can ensure we dont need those guns in the first place.
When a guy is twice your size physical defense training is perhaps going to help the womans odds slightly but she will still be at a huge disadvantage, afterall men and women can both get that same training so its not a equalizing force.
@thatguyoverthere And SCOTUS recently confirmed this, regarding the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas shooting: "An official has a duty to protect individuals from harm by third parties only when the individuals are in the officialโs custody."
https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201914414.pdf
This is a special carve out specifically in the case of an official being given domain over your safety. This is not how it works "in the streets"
@thatguyoverthere Yes, that was my point.
@thatguyoverthere You've still missed the point. I was agreeing with what you said, not arguing against it.
@freemo @pj @thatguyoverthere @lmrocha in that case, Japan sucks less than most. The police there go most years without firing a shot. They are trained to use their batons with modified sword-fighting techniques to disarm a knife attacker.
However... in the absence of guns, the Yakuza was able to run extortion and protection rackets with basic strong-arm thugs, and force small businesses to pay them a substantial percentage. That's the downside of being gun-free. Organized muscle dominates.
Japan has a much healthier social environment built on respect, and much much better access to mental health than americans... So Japan is just as well explained by the two criteria I already gave earlier than by access to guns.
yep. Humans are terrible with a few exceptions. We are actually like a lot of other animals except we reflect on our terrible behavior and from what I can tell others don't.
a 110 lbs woman with a can of mace somewhere in her purse that she's never used may or may not be able to fight of a 230lb monster in the middle of the night.
@thatguyoverthere @freemo @lmrocha @pj only a minority of humans seem capable of rationally overriding their emotions. We have rational thought but the ape mind controls all the rewards and punishments. The rational mind just exists to figure out how to satisfy the ape desires.
@pj
guns arent to protect yourself from a bad person with guns... not sure why you keep repeating something that everyone has told you isnt the case or what is being argued...
We have access to guns to protect you from bad people with knives, or fists, or a penis and muscles they intend to use to force you into submission and rape you... Guns are the great equalizer and to use them against other guns is not remotely the point, yet somehow anti-gun people keep repeating the same nonsense like a broken record to disagree with an argument no one ever said.
@thatguyoverthere @mike805 @lmrocha