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Old 12-18-2012, 11:05 AM   #1
Lamplighter
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It takes only 5 people to end gun violence in America.

It takes only 5 people to end gun violence in America.

Banning gun sales to those with mental illness is not effective enough
Background checks on criminals are not effective enough
Banning the sale of assault guns is not effective enough
Limiting the number of shells in gun magazines is not effective enough
Fences and locked doors on every public facility are not effective enough
Armed guards/teachers/doctors/salespersons/clergy in every public place is not effective enough

We rationalize limits on the 1st Amendment Right to Free Speech in the greater good.
- children's exposure to pornography
- adults shouting "Fire" in a crowd

We can rationalize limits on the 2nd Amendment Right to Bear Arms.

The US Supreme Court has made mistakes, and their decisions have been re-evaluated, and even reversed.

Our Forefathers envisioned domination by a foreign government's military.
Our Forefathers envisioned a "well regulated militia" for the common good.
Our Forefathers envisioned guns as flintlocks and muskets, not our modern guns.

Limiting gun possession to flintlocks and muskets is a "conservative" view.
Limiting gun possession to the maintaining of a militia is a "conservative" view

It only takes 5 Supreme Court Justices to end gun violence in America.
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Old 12-18-2012, 11:12 AM   #2
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Y'know, I totally get that people wouldn't want a total ban on guns. Too many cultural associations, too much a part of growing up in some communities, and too necessary as a survival tool in some parts of the country.

But assault weapons? If you need a battlefield weapon that pumps out mega quantities of bullets to hunt a deer or a bear than ur doin it rong.

If all that lad had been abe to acquire was a simple shotgun or hunting rifle the death toll would have been significantly lower.
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Old 12-18-2012, 11:14 AM   #3
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It is not, in my opinion, acceptable or desirable for people to be allowed to drive tanks down the public highway willynilly. They weren't made for use in that setting. Doesn't mean i want to ban all motor vehicles.
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Old 12-18-2012, 11:17 AM   #4
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Originally Posted by DanaC View Post
It is not, in my opinion, acceptable or desirable for people to be allowed to drive tanks down the public highway willynilly. They weren't made for use in that setting. Doesn't mean i want to ban all motor vehicles.
I like your analogy, Dana, and I agree with your balanced view on the subject.
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Old 12-18-2012, 11:37 AM   #5
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Our Forefathers envisioned a "well regulated militia" for the common good.
It seems to me that if you are making the argument that guns are only protected under the Constitution for militias, then you need to allow machine guns. After all, they are military weapons for a military organization. So if we want to restrict guns that look like machine guns, what we need to do is to change the interpretation of the Constitution so that the Constitutional purpose of guns is not to arm militias. Ironically, the Supreme Court did just that when they overturned the DC handgun ban and held that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual's right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia.
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Old 12-18-2012, 12:41 PM   #6
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Originally Posted by Lamplighter View Post
It only takes 5 Supreme Court Justices to end gun violence in America.
Just like it ended drinking in America? Just because something is made illegal doesn't mean it will automatically go away.

Is there actually any unbiased evidence that banning guns has an effect on lowering gun deaths? From the data I've seen, banning handguns in D.C, Chicago, etc. didn't really do anything when comparing against the national average. I could see it having an effect on suicides but that is preventable through other measures as well.
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Old 12-18-2012, 12:48 PM   #7
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A few other points:

Most gun deaths in the US are a result from handguns, not "assault" rifles and every polls suggests that the majority of Americans are against banning handguns (myself included). I would be supportive of regulation measures, but not outright banning.

Second, while the argument has been mutilated by extremist in the NRA and too many people abuse their powerful weapons, a right to self defense is still a powerful argument. While guns result in many deaths, they do actually prevent robberies, property damage, attacks, etc as well. Those benefits cannot be quantified so it makes it difficult to make comparisons.


I would personally like to see more regulation with guns in general and restrictions on certain aspects of guns. For example, I'm don't see how low capacity high velocity bullets hold and weight in a self-defense or hunting argument. Instead of blanketing every gun death as "gun problem", we should look at specific aspects and how those specific aspects can be improved.
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Old 12-18-2012, 01:28 PM   #8
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Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45 View Post
From the data I've seen, banning handguns in D.C, Chicago, etc. didn't really do anything
Think about that for a second. Were people free to leave DC and cross the bridge into Virginia where gun laws are lax? If there is a nation wide ban, would there be such an easy path around the law?
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Old 12-18-2012, 04:33 PM   #9
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This post and the article it links to/draws from is fantastic, and talks about a side of this issue that's almost never discussed.

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The eighth-grade students gathering on the west lawn of the state capitol in Sacramento were planning to lunch on fried chicken with California’s new governor, Ronald Reagan, and then tour the granite building constructed a century earlier to resemble the nation’s Capitol. But the festivities were interrupted by the arrival of 30 young black men and women carrying .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns, and .45-caliber pistols.
The 24 men and six women climbed the capitol steps, and one man, Bobby Seale, began to read from a prepared statement. “The American people in general and the black people in particular,” he announced, “must take careful note of the racist California legislature aimed at keeping the black people disarmed and powerless. Black people have begged, prayed, petitioned, demonstrated, and everything else to get the racist power structure of America to right the wrongs which have historically been perpetuated against black people The time has come for black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late.”

Seale then turned to the others. “All right, brothers, come on. We’re going inside.” He opened the door, and the radicals walked straight into the state’s most important government building, loaded guns in hand. No metal detectors stood in their way.

It was May 2, 1967, and the Black Panthers’ invasion of the California statehouse launched the modern gun-rights movement.

[…]

Opposition to gun control was what drove the black militants to visit the California capitol with loaded weapons in hand. The Black Panther Party had been formed six months earlier, in Oakland, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Like many young African Americans, Newton and Seale were frustrated with the failed promise of the civil rights movement. Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were legal landmarks, but they had yet to deliver equal opportunity. In Newton and Seale’s view, the only tangible outcome of the civil-rights movement had been more violence and oppression, much of it committed by the very entity meant to protect and serve the public: the police.

Inspired by the teachings of Malcolm X, Newton and Seale decided to fight back. Before he was assassinated in 1965, Malcolm X had preached against Martin Luther King Jr.’s brand of nonviolent resistance. Because the government was “either unable or unwilling to protect the lives and property” of blacks, he said, they had to defend themselves “by whatever means necessary.” Malcolm X illustrated the idea for Ebony magazine by posing for photographs in suit and tie, peering out a window with an M-1 carbine semiautomatic in hand. Malcolm X and the Panthers described their right to use guns in self-defense in constitutional terms. “Article number two of the constitutional amendments,” Malcolm X argued, “provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun.”

Guns became central to the Panthers’ identity, as they taught their early recruits that “the gun is the only thing that will free us — gain us our liberation.” They bought some of their first guns with earnings from selling copies of Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book to students at the University of California at Berkeley. In time, the Panther arsenal included machine guns; an assortment of rifles, handguns, explosives, and grenade launchers; and “boxes and boxes of ammunition,” recalled Elaine Brown, one of the party’s first female members, in her 1992 memoir. Some of this matériel came from the federal government: one member claimed he had connections at Camp Pendleton, in Southern California, who would sell the Panthers anything for the right price. One Panther bragged that, if they wanted, they could have bought an M48 tank and driven it right up the freeway.

Along with providing classes on black nationalism and socialism, Newton made sure recruits learned how to clean, handle, and shoot guns. Their instructors were sympathetic black veterans, recently home from Vietnam. For their “righteous revolutionary struggle,” the Panthers were trained, as well as armed, however indirectly, by the U.S. government.

Civil rights activists, even those committed to nonviolent resistance, had long appreciated the value of guns for self-protection. Martin Luther King Jr. applied for a permit to carry a concealed firearm in 1956, after his house was bombed. His application was denied, but from then on, armed supporters guarded his home. One adviser, Glenn Smiley, described the King home as “an arsenal.” William Worthy, a black reporter who covered the civil-rights movement, almost sat on a loaded gun in a living-room armchair during a visit to King’s parsonage.

[…]

Newton had discovered, during classes at San Francisco Law School, that California law allowed people to carry guns in public so long as they were visible, and not pointed at anyone in a threatening way.

In February of 1967, Oakland police officers stopped a car carrying Newton, Seale, and several other Panthers with rifles and handguns. When one officer asked to see one of the guns, Newton refused. “I don’t have to give you anything but my identification, name, and address,” he insisted. This, too, he had learned in law school.

“Who in the hell do you think you are?” an officer responded.

“Who in the hell do you think *you* are?,” Newton replied indignantly. He told the officer that he and his friends had a legal right to have their firearms.

Newton got out of the car, still holding his rifle.

“What are you going to do with that gun?” asked one of the stunned policemen.

“What are you going to do with *your* gun?,” Newton replied.

By this time, the scene had drawn a crowd of onlookers. An officer told the bystanders to move on, but Newton shouted at them to stay. California law, he yelled, gave civilians a right to observe a police officer making an arrest, so long as they didn’t interfere. Newton played it up for the crowd. In a loud voice, he told the police officers, “If you try to shoot at me or if you try to take this gun, I’m going to shoot back at you, swine.” Although normally a black man with Newton’s attitude would quickly find himself handcuffed in the back of a police car, enough people had gathered on the street to discourage the officers from doing anything rash. Because they hadn’t committed any crime, the Panthers were allowed to go on their way.

The people who’d witnessed the scene were dumbstruck. Not even Bobby Seale could believe it. Right then, he said, he knew that Newton was the “baddest motherf***er in the world.”… After the February incident, the Panthers began a regular practice of policing the police. Thanks to an army of new recruits inspired to join up when they heard about Newton’s bravado, groups of armed Panthers would drive around following police cars. When the police stopped a black person, the Panthers would stand off to the side and shout out legal advice.

Don Mulford, a conservative Republican state assemblyman from Alameda County, which includes Oakland, was determined to end the Panthers’ police patrols. To disarm the Panthers, he proposed a law that would prohibit the carrying of a loaded weapon in any California city. When Newton found out about this, he told Seale, “You know what we’re going to do? We’re going to the Capitol.” Seale was incredulous. “The Capitol?” Newton explained: “Mulford’s there, and they’re trying to pass a law against our guns, and we’re going to the Capitol steps.” Newton’s plan was to take a select group of Panthers “loaded down to the gills,” to send a message to California lawmakers about the group’s opposition to any new gun control.

The Panthers’ methods provoked an immediate backlash. The day of their statehouse protest, lawmakers said the incident would speed enactment of Mulford’s gun-control proposal. Mulford himself pledged to make his bill even tougher, and he added a provision barring anyone but law enforcement from bringing a loaded firearm into the state capitol.

Republicans in California eagerly supported increased gun control. Governor Reagan told reporters that afternoon that he saw “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.” He called guns a “ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will.” In a later press conference, Reagan said he didn’t “know of any sportsman who leaves his home with a gun to go out into the field to hunt or for target shooting who carries that gun loaded.” The Mulford Act, he said, “would work no hardship on the honest citizen.”

The fear inspired by black people with guns also led the United States Congress to consider new gun restrictions, after the summer of 1967 brought what the historian Harvard Sitkoff called the “most intense and destructive wave of racial violence the nation had ever witnessed.” Devastating riots engulfed Detroit and Newark. Police and National Guardsmen who tried to help restore order were greeted with sniper fire.

A 1968 federal report blamed the unrest at least partly on the easy availability of guns. Because rioters used guns to keep law enforcement at bay, the report’s authors asserted that a recent spike in firearms sales and permit applications was “directly related to the actuality and prospect of civil disorders.” They drew “the firm conclusion that effective firearms controls are an essential contribution to domestic peace and tranquility.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...ngle_page=true
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Old 12-18-2012, 05:23 PM   #10
piercehawkeye45
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Originally Posted by glatt View Post
Think about that for a second. Were people free to leave DC and cross the bridge into Virginia where gun laws are lax? If there is a nation wide ban, would there be such an easy path around the law?
I don't see much difference between a hypothetical gun ban in the US with prohibition on alcohol, weed, cocaine, etc. Would there maybe be some initial instability? Probably. However, if there is a demand for guns, I'm sure the black market would be more than happy to supply. It already does in many urban areas.

We have over 300 million guns in this country and only a very very small proportion of those are used to kill people. I would imagine that a ban on guns would greatly reduce the number of guns that are being used responsibility but have little impact on the number of guns being used irresponsibly. Any gun regulation needs to address this IMO.
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Old 12-18-2012, 05:32 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45 View Post
Just like it ended drinking in America? Just because something is made illegal doesn't mean it will automatically go away.

Is there actually any unbiased evidence that banning guns has an effect on lowering gun deaths? From the data I've seen, banning handguns in D.C, Chicago, etc. didn't really do anything when comparing against the national average. I could see it having an effect on suicides but that is preventable through other measures as well.
Here is all the surprising, inconvenient, confusing, complicated, and non-soundbite-worthy evidence.

It's not simple.

http://justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp
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Old 12-18-2012, 06:22 PM   #12
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Might as well not make anything illegal.
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Old 12-18-2012, 06:32 PM   #13
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Less than 24 hours after the killings, a local Convention Center had it quarterly gun show. Only hours after routine killing of children (this time in the same location), the gun show clearly had its largest crowd. Only a national dog show had a crowd as large.

Gun shows are where one buys the most deadly weapons and ammunition without even a background check. Dead kids promote more gun sales. Because those who most need guns are the same emotional type who make decisions based in fear and ego.

What to do with a kid who (according to his mother) had mental problems? Take him to gun ranges to practice with weapons once restricted only to trained soldiers. Keep him out of school because his emotional problems must be traceable to the school system. Does that make sense? Of course not. Decisions based in emotions explain why the mother purchased a large stockpile of assault weapons. And hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

Some people think like adults. They use reason rather than feelings. Others who need to entertain the emotion of a bigger gun to prove their adulthood. She was not a victim. If alive, she should be prosecuted as an accessory to the crime. But we still do not hold gun owners responsible for their actions. It would be a threat to their feelings. After all, the least adult among us need more guns. And hundreds of rounds of ammuntion only useful for killing people.

And so the gun show had its largeest turnout only hours after children were massacred. The mentality is strongly associated with those who most need bigger guns.
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Old 12-18-2012, 06:58 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by footfootfoot View Post
Here is all the surprising, inconvenient, confusing, complicated, and non-soundbite-worthy evidence.

It's not simple.

http://justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp
Quote:
James D. Agresti, the president and primary researcher, holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Brown University and has worked as a designer of jet aircraft engines, a technical sales professional, and chief engineer of a firm that customizes helicopters. He is the author of Rational Conclusions, a highly researched book evidencing factual support for the Bible across a broad array of academic disciplines.
Oh lord, here we go again.

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7:00 Sussex County Creation Science Club, Sparta, NJ (Sussex County)
We will be hosting speaker, Jim Agresti, an author and creation speaker who will be speaking on the "Cosmos and a Super Natural Creation"
So the head researcher for justfacts is a 'creation scientist'? While this might give him a different viewpoint, sort of like inviting Jeffrey Dahmer to research a book on food safety, it argues against unbiased collection and interpretation of facts.
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Old 12-18-2012, 08:08 PM   #15
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"end gun violence" ???
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