Debate For All

Did you read my entire post Ricky? The Constitution does not create right s for citizens. It limits the power of the government. There is no need for the Constitution to create a right that is held in the people. What it does is prohibit the gevernment from infringing on those rights.

Citizens owning arms is their right. It is not granted nor removed by the government. As far as a militia goes the minimum requirement is armed citizens. Forming on an "ad hoc" basis is what makes them a citizens militia and not a standing army.

 

Let me get this straight in my mind...

The Constitution is simply there to limit the power of the Government.
So if the Constitution says: 'citizens can form militias', then the government cannot stop them.
If the Constitution says: 'citizens can walk naked on 4th July' (a fatuous example) then the government cannot stop them.

Which does lead to an interesting discussion on amendments to the Constitution by the Government... but we won't go there!

Ok, that is useful to know. Thanks.

Does it mean, therefore, that the Government would be within its rights to clamp down on anything not adequately covered by the Constitution? (as a side question, and a complete deviation)

Now, a militia.
Define Militia. It is not easy - especially as the definition has changed slightly over time. Essentially, it is an armed force of citizens, rather than a standing army. Take a look at the dictionary definitions I posted. Typically, a true militia will recieve training, have a command structure and so on, not unlike an army (though often with differences in the how/where/why/etc). The key difference is that the military aspect is essentially on a (very) part-time basis for the members - not unlike the National Guard or the British Territorial Army, the important distinction being that they are not in the army, and cannot be called upon by the army. Good examples would be the militia of the Swiss Cantons in the 17th Century, or the militia of the Italian City States before they began relying on mercenary armies.
Certainly, this fits the definition of a 'well regulated militia'. You may notice that I keep coming back to that phrase!

Any rabble of civilians can be a militia. But a 'well regulated militia'?
To me, that is the important phrase, and that is what the current state of gun ownership is not.

Technically, if my line of reasoning is correct (!), the US government could turn around tomorrow and say that any citizens bearing arms but not in a well regulated militia must surrender them. It is within their power as limited by the constitution.

 

I always get a bit dubious when counter argument hinges on long explanation of the constitution and bill of rights. But that’s just a thought.

Okay official start to my counter argument.

The US constitution dates from 1789. I doubt anyone can serious argue that the world in general and America in particular have changed a lot since then.


All argument based around weapons ownership as a means of defending personal liberty is out dated. In 1789 any 10 random gun owners were probably the equal of any 10 random American soldiers. This is no longer the case. If you're relying on personal gun ownership to defend liberty you've already lost.

Guns on crime:

Criminals, terrorists, freedom fighters etc etc will always be able to get hold of guns, it's one of life’s unpleasant realities. The question is does allowing gun ownership reduce crime. Experience to date has come out with a clear no.

One comment I made many, many post ago was that I don't believe the average person can be trusted with a gun, I continue to hold that opinion.



** digs a fox hole, sets up his over head protection, puts on flak jacket and helmet**

Okay gun lobby fire at will.

 

True, but carrying a gun can turn an fist fight, mugging or any number of other crimes into murders

I completely agree, and will jump into the foxhole myself

 

Ricky wrote:

Not at all. That is the exact opposite of the intent of the framers.

It would be a mistake to key in on those few words(well regulated) to the exclusion of what was the clear intent of the amendment.

once again:

 

Ebar wrote:

lol...when the debate involves the US Constitution what should be examined if not the Constitution and the intent of it's framers?
Would you be dubious about a debate on the subject of the theory of Special Relativity that relied heavily upon Einstein's 1905 paper?

This opinion while debatable is irrelevant to the issue at hand. The issue of the wisdom of the framers intent is a separate one from determining what the language means and what their intent was.

Again, there is a diiference between one's opinion on the wisdom of owning guns and the power of the federal government to ban them.
As to whether the average person can be trusted with a gun; in this country the political philosophy has always been that until ,if and when ,a citizen demonstrates his untrustworthiness (such as felons being barred from possessing guns) he is assumed to be trustworthy.
Inasmuch as citizens are the masters of the government and not vice versa no other interpretation is rational and consistent with that philosophy IMO.

 

It may just be me, but it seems as the key issue here is whether or not it is a human right to own a gun. My opinion is, no, it is not. It is not a human right to own a gun, just as it is not a human right to drive a car. You should in both cases first prove that you´re competent and responsible enough. But, as I said, that is just my opinion.

 

All a bit of a moot point really. America seems to have someone go nuts with a gun every couple of months not to mention the day-to-day killings. None of it has made any real difference.

It is one of those topics is untouchable since it would more or less be suicide for any politician to try to significantly alter things.

Another countries equivalent is teaching of the Irish language as a compulsory subject in Irish schools. It has been admitted recently that despite millions spent the vast majority of Irish school leavers and barely string three word together in their supposed native tongue. Effectively the Irish have done in fifty years what the English couldn't in eight hundred. Still as with America the Status Quo will prevail.

 

We, as a people, (referring to US) may delegate certain rights to the state. We may decide that it is permissible for the state to license people to drive automobiles for instance. While it would be within the rights of the people to delegate the right to license gun ownership to the state also it is somewhat different than driving a car. The right to keep and bear arms was specifically mentioned in the Constitution as an area for the state not to infringe upon thus it would likely require amending the Constitution.
As long as one remembers that it is the people who rule the state and not vice versa it will be difficult to wield the power of the state against the wishes of the people. May it ever be so

 

Media attention makes these rare cases seem like everday occurrences.
Crime in America is all tied up in socio-cultural and racial issues. Leaving aside the rare high media profile cases, like the school shootings, the majority of gun crimes and a significant portion of violent crimes in general occur in urban black and Hispanic neighborhoods. Avoid these places and living in America is much like living in Western Europe insofar as crime is concerned. It is not politically correct to discuss such issues, no matter how true, so you will not find much discussion along that line in any media analysis of "Crime in America" of which there have been many.

 

Unfortunatly though many people don't prove themselves to be untrustworthy with guns until they have blown someone elses brains out

 

You are correct. The thing is, we consider the risk of that to be outweighed by the possible risk of being subjugated by a tyrannical government. Once we decide to allow the state to rule rather than to serve it is very difficult to reverse those roles.

 

Actually, of what I know of the American media the one thing that gets too much coverage in relation to its share in total criminalty is that committed by blacks and other minorities. Of course you can choose which medium to believe, but it seems hard to link criminalty to race since the two are independent of each other. Overemphasizing one side is as easily done as the other.

On the other hand, the figure of over 11,000 gun killings a year in the US stands. On average this is more than daily, in fact if it were equally divided it means more than 30 deaths by gunfire every day. As far as I know this figure is unequaled in any country.

The high school shootings, for example, are not related to crime and therefore the "criminals will always get guns" point doesn't always apply. These things could have been avoided by restricting gun ownership. Now perhaps these things get way too much coverage in the US and abroad and so should be judged with a grain of salt, but they happened and they had nothing to do with common criminals.

Now to move on to the constitution. Obviously it provides the American citizen with the right to own guns, and it denies the state the ability to infringe that right. Now let us consider the context in which the document was written. First of all, "the US" was nothing but a loose federation of 13 states faced on the west by vast stretches of land inhabited by potentially dangerous Indian tribes, and faced on the east by an almighty world power having fought to get its colony back. Any constitution written then would obviously involve the ability for each state to defend itself and for civilians to have guns to protect themselves (as part of a militia). Secondly, the majority of the population would probably be armed; Machiavelli already argued in the 16th century that nothing drives up the fires against a government quite like disarmament of the population. It was therefore impossible not to grant them the right to bear arms. Thirdly and most importantly, the American constitution was based on some very advanced European enlightenment ideas of the time; equality, liberty, human rights - all based on the assumption that man is a reasonable being able to act responsibly when given the opportunity. Granting civilians the right to own guns fits entirely into the idea that they would never act irrationally with these guns; only the mentally ill would, and they would be quickly put away when spotted.

Based on these three points I would say that the constitutional right to own and bear arms is completely outdated. The United States can no longer be threatened from the outside because of its powerful regular armed forces; the American state, like all states in modern times, is powerful enough to enforce its legislation even against the will of its people if the need would arise (and the popular vote would allow); and most importantly, in the 19th century the vast majority of the intellectuals of the world gave up great parts of the Enlightenment ideas of the rationality of human beings in favour of Darwinist, Nietzschian and Freudian theories of human nature, because they lost the belief that human beings were truly rational and responsible creatures. It's a scientific fact that human beings are not only led by their ratio, but by several other factors beyond their control. This leads to Skua's argument that people should first be able to prove they are responsible enough to do something before they are allowed to do it, by an impartial higher institution which has been given the right to judge them on this part (the state).

Several of the worst despotic governments of history have met with vast public approval on its accession (Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, Napoleon in France, to name just a few). The rise and fall of despotic governments, as far as I know, has never had anything at all to do with the state of arms of its citizens. I'd say the argument that guns will allow you to overthrow a tyrannical government is both far-fetched and historically unproven.

 

I'm probably in a significant minority of Brits who are pro- Gun ownership.

I would say that I do not agree we in Britain need Guns for "Home Defence", and I would not want to go down the road of the open availability of US Gun Laws, but I feel English Gun Law is too restrictive, and has too many holes and flaws.

Examples of what I consider the flaws in English Gun Law are that something as deadly as a Crossbow is available to anyone over the age of 17, all you need if the shop asks for it is ID to show your age, however any air-rifle with a muzzle energy of greater than 12 foot-pounds counts as a fire-arm in the same category as a .22 rimfire rifle.

A can of CS spray like the police use is a section 4 fire-arm (I believe I've got the section right, could be slightly wrong though), completely illegal to the general public and in the same category as a machine-gun, counted as more "illegal" than a pistol.

We have in Britain unfortunately got into the habit of banning things. After Dunblane Tony Blair was instrumental in getting cartridge firing handguns banned, even though the Dunblane enquiry did not recomment this. Why? Well it was a popular if highly questionable law that won him a few more (Mainly Scottish) votes. :angry: This also takes in air-pistols with a muzzle energy higher than 6 foot pounds.

Black-powder pistols are permitted still, with a licence.

After Hungerford in the 1980s, all centrefire semi-automatics were banned, the practical effect of this was that the only semi-automatic you can now obtain legally with a licence is a .22 rimfire. Another weapon to fall foul of the Hungerford Laws was any centrefire pump-action. No-one ever explained why.

Did either of those two laws prevent crimes involving legally help guns? No. The Hungerford law was a fairly draconian piece of legislation, yet it did not prevent Dunblane, and the Dunblane law was a draconian piece of legislation yet it did not prevent the high-profile killings of two sisters in a New Year's eve drive-by shooting.

The best argument I heard against the 1995 Firearms Ammendment Act ran as follows, the government at the time claimed that they would be getting 50,000 weapons off the streets, not true, firstly these weapons were not on the streets to begin with, they were legally held in gun safes and used at target ranges. In any case rather than that they would have achieved far more getting 5,000 illegally held weapons actually off the streets.

The Police Chief Constable of Birmingham said a couple of years ago that he did not think that the '95 act had prevented a single gun-crime in Birmingham (That was around 2001-ish). In the UK less than .1% of gun-crime is committed with weapons that have ever been legally held - this includes legal weapons stolen from legal owners, deactivated weapons that have been "Reactivated" and blank firers and replicas that have been converted to fire real rounds.

So does gun legislation here work? I don't think it does.

Legal gun-ownership in the UK is not the problem, it's the illegally held weapons in the hands of criminals and terrorists that are the problem.

However... I do not think we should go down the road of the US laws. I think that with something as deadly as a Firearm the individual should have to prove their suitability for ownership, it is I think too chancey to assume that just because an individual has not caused a problem in the past they will not in the future.

I can appreciate the point of view of the US pre-gun lobby, however I would like to bet that a large number of those whose lives were ended staring down the barrel of a legal gun would rather in retrospect have taken their chances with a government that had introduced some form of gun-control, if they had the chance.

I'm probably coming over as a bit of a fence-sitter, and may well be setting myself uo for the wrath of both sides.

What I would like to see in Britain is the repeal of both the 1984 and 1995 Firearms Ammendment acts, allowing the licenced ownership of semi-automatic rifles and cartridge firing pistols. The main reason for this is that neither law actually achieved anything apart from the erosion of shooting in the UK as a sport, as I said legal weapons in the UK are not the problem.

I would also like to point out that in the cases of crimes where legally held weapons are involved whether here or in the US, it is the media which blames the access to weapons, where illegal weapons are involved it's not the guns that are to blame but usually a "Gang-land Culture".

In the case of legal gun crime, it is very, very rarely questioned how the individual got the guns, neither Michael Ryan at Hungerford nor Thomas Hamilton at Dublane should have had a Firearms licence, yet the question of how they got their licence and weapons has never been answered.

Well that's just my two pennies worth, I do not believe in the necessity in Britain for guns for home-defence, however I do hate the culture of banning pretty much everything and I hate the steady loss of shooting as a sport. I have shot air-rifles, semi-automatic rifles, bolt action rifles, break action shotguns and cartridge firing pistols, of those two out of the three are now banned, they also happen unfortunately to be the two I enjoyed shooting the most.

 

Is that a fact? I would be curious to know what are your sources for American media reports? Our left leaning media follows the politically correct path the vast majority of the time and the only time you will find the news media discussing race in relation to crime is in the relatively rare cases of high profile white on black crimes. Perhaps you are aware that according to FBI crime statistics approximately 60% of violent crimes in the US are committed by blacks who compise less than 12% of the population? This is not race baiting or bigotry just straight data.

Insofar as i have seen the statistics don't seperate gun crime from other murders however the vast majority of murders in the US are gun crimes.
If Blacks and Hispanics committed murders at the same rate as whites in the US the rate would still be somewhat higher than in most European countries however interestingly enough, it wouldn't be astronomically higher, such as it is now.

Everything you wrote after this point may be interesting as a side note however your opinion that our Constitution is outdated is irrelevent to most Americans. Unless we decide to replace John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Madison, Franklin et al with the political philosophy of Roel...lol..don't hold your breath

Are you seriously suggesting that the writings of Freud (now discredited and essentially ignored in Psychology) and Nietzsche ( misunderstood and misrepresented and never accepted widely) represent the prevailing philosophy of mainstream western intellectual thought?

Exactly why those examples are not relevant to the issue.

One doesn't have to overthrow a tyrannical state if one can prevent the ascension in the first place. We think that an armed citizenry is a deterrence to potential despots and by your standards (a lack of data) we have established it as a fact since it hasn't happened here yet

 

camanbridge , i was reviewing a report on weapons trafficing , and an albanian guerilla group was purchasing all their "heavy" firearms there , such as .50 calibar rifles , anti-armour rifles , and , etc . One congressmen said the gun problem is miserable.this is because of the ease to buy the firearms and the selection and quantity of firearms

 

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I have absolutely no problem with the way gun ownership is handled in the US.
The reason for their high murder rate is obviously due to social problems and personally I doubt they would be much lower with gun control.
I do own several rifles myself, and I can think of lots of reasons why I do.

But the argument that liberal gun ownership prevents despotic governement sounds rather ridiculous to me.(Sorry if that sounds rude)
I can think of numerous states where gun ownership is something natural and yet these countries had ruthless despotic governements.

I think that is largely a myth, a remaining from the founding years of the US where formerly opressed people thougt(rigthfully) that now that they can freely posess fire arms they'll be able to defend their newly won freedom.
It's a bit like folklore, but has nothing to do with modern realities.

 

You may be right on the part of crime committed by minorities, since my sources will probably be called unreliably leftist (which doesn't necessarily mean they present outright distortions of the truth). However, I don't see why blaming social problems and "racial" inclinations changes the fact that too many people in the US are able to kill others and do so because access to guns is so easy. Or are you implying that the high crime rate in minorities means these murders could not be prevented by legislation since criminals get their guns illegally? If I were an American black or Latin I'd be pretty insulted by now.

In any case, blaming gun murders on racial criminalty doesn't change the fact that on several occasions American white kids have caused massacres at their schools. I'm sure more incidents are known where the only reason why killings happened was the simple fact that guns were readily available. Lying around the house, for example. Gun legislation not only could, but would have prevented this, since the only comparable event in Europe was an incident in a German school where a fully licensed gun owner went berserk - it's never happened before or since.

It may be irrelevant to most Americans but it is simply my view on the debate. Obviously no American will start rewriting the constitution because I said so (rather they would listen to an Austrian bodybuilder, but that's beside the point), however it is for you and other defenders of the quote from the US constitution to consider here in this topic. Plus, most of this political thought is not mine but Machiavelli's.

During and especially after their lifetimes they had profound influence on the thinking of intellectuals of the time, yes. They are not the only ones but represent the vanguard of a movement of science (albeit gradually outdated now) which denounced the rationalism of the previous age. And whatever they did then isn't even my point, my point is that nowadays, official documents like constitutions no longer rely on the pure rationality of the people it applies to. In other words: Locke, Jefferson, Franklin and Madison are as outdated as Freud and Nietzsche.

If despotic governments that were in fact favoured by the citizenry are irrelevant then I cannot think of any despotic regime that has been - lastingly - imposed upon any citizenry. Again, whether they were armed or not is irrelevant.

"My standards" are not a "lack of data", I see a lack of evidence from historical truth as a lack of probability of your scenario. Has there ever been any attempt at all to establish a despotic government in the US? There hasn't. It's the famous "this rock scares the tigers away, because I'm holding this rock and I see no tigers" reasoning. However in countries that have had despotic governments, these were either in due course overthrown by popular demand or managed to evolve into more sustainable states, neither was caused by the civilians' armory.

So you think that because the people have guns, there will be no American dictator and democracy will be preserved, am I right? Now like I said, first you need a situation to prove that it works, and there hasn't been any. There isn't any case of an attempted dictatorship that failed because the civilians rose up in arms to prevent it, unless those civilians were supported and led by the threatened state and its army. Until there is a situation like the above described, the reasoning in favour of gun ownership is the same as the rock-tiger reasoning.

 

I don't see that race plays a part so much as culture. Race is the dividing cultural line...not that there is a racial or genetic component. In other words, Blacks and Hispanics have a somewhat separate subculture within the overall American culture. That culture is more driven by gangs,drugs and violence and the result is often what one expects, violent crime, including murder

So easy access to guns somehow drives otherwise law abiding citizens to crime? Is that your contention?

What would you be insulted about? Does data insult you? How do you think that legislation will "prevent" the high crime rate, as you say?
Isn't crime ,by defintion , already prohibited by legislation?

Do you think that there is inherent evil residing in guns? The only reason that the crime happened was the availability of guns you say? I suppose that is why the gun murder rate is so high in Switzerland wouldn't you say?
Wait, what are you saying..there is no high gun murder rate in Switzerland? Yet in Switzerland virtually every home that has a military age male in the home has firearms..even fully automatic firearms. Oh the carnage that must ensue in Bern. Zurich and the idyllic Swiss countryside

And I'm not ridiculing your opinion (except jokingly) but the fact is; if we are to have a meaningful debate we must first define our terms. Otherwise we are comparing apples to oranges and talking at cross purposes. The issue of what the Constitution of the US says and means is one issue(no.1) and your opinion of the wisdom of the US Constitution(no 2.) is a different issue.
My responses on this thread were originally related to interpretation of the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution or issue no.1
As to issue no.2..well it is such a large issue that it probably should be tackled separately.

I think that the only way to determine whether they are outdated or not is by how much influence they(their philosophy) continue to have. There is no doubt that at least on this side of the ocean the framers of the US Constitution (and their intellectual and philosophical forebears) continue to influence contempory thinking and philosophy. Nietzsche and Freud, on the other hand are little more than interesting historical footnotes.

 

Grieg: I agree with 100% of your posts so far. They are well thought out and excellently presented. Unfortunately, I don't think you are making any head way. Non-Americans can't understand us just like we can't understand them.

This is why I usually limit myself in anti-gun or political conversations. Both sides have made up their minds and nobody is going to change. Sometimes bad feelings can come about as well.

As far as armed citizens and despots are concerned, please remember that we ourselves fought one to gain our liberty. He was a man named George III. I think our Brit friends may know of him. If it were not for our "ad hoc" militias, we couldn't have even started the Revolution much less form a real military force.

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