Supremes Affirm Right To Own Guns

[amicus]

You come across as saying you are taking your panties and going home when the party is just beginning. And that is being generous as all you really have done is state your beliefs and turn your nose up at any that disagree.

That is fine if you choose to withdraw in a huff, most call names and fume a bit first.

There is no point in discussing religion with a believer, a deist, who functions on faith without evidence or logic. You, and many others, occupy the same pew. Again, that is fine but when you go public you leave yourself a fool to state your belief and then bow out.

I object to the government interferring with my body, you do not.

You object to the government limiting access to weapons, I do not.

I object to the government rolling over the rights of defendents, you do not.

You object to the government raising taxes on corporations or the rich, I do not.

We have been through your first objection many times before on this forum and I personally have been defending life since Roe v Wade became law. It will be overturned and the value of a human life will once again be protected under the Constitution.

It is not your body the government wishes to interfere with, it is that of a new life that qualifies for Constitutional protection. That time is arriving, sooner than you think as anyone who murders a woman and her unborn child are being charged with two counts of premeditated, first degree murder.

You object to the ennumerated right to bear arms in our Constitution, fine, move to another country.

Our laws, including habeus corpus, apply to American citizens, not enemy combatants, but then you all know that. If one can morally justify extending rights to an Iranian citizen who takes arms against Coalition forces, then, logically, one can invade Ruanda or the Congo and protect the individual human rights each person has.

We might get around to that as soon as we protect the human rights of the Afghanis and the Iraqis, just give us a little time.

A Corporation is a legal entity, by law, qualified for protection and equal treatment under the law, just as an individual is.

Your greedy appetite to steal from the rich and give to the poor is very Robin Hoodish and very naive. Corporate enterprise puts food on your table, the more you tax them, the more your food costs. Aside from being a bit silly, it is also non productive and destructive of both individual and corporate enterprise and weakens and impoverishes society in general.

It is called socialism and one would think you would see the writing on the wall that that form of oppression does not work.

But you are a believer and when you die and go to the socialists nirvana, I hope you will find satisfaction.

I really doubt it.

Amicus...

 

[keeblercrumb]

It is called socialism and one would think you would see the writing on the wall that that form of oppression does not work.

But you are a believer and when you die and go to the socialists nirvana, I hope you will find satisfaction.

Raising taxes on those that can afford it to pay off the staggering debt incurred in our little adventure in Iraq is called "socialism"? Really?

Gee.... I thought fiscal conservatives (not that you are one, apparently) believed in balanced budgets. Just goes to show... And looking around for someone to pay off this debt.. Well.... who do YOU recommend we tax?

I admit I was a late believer in this balanced budget thing. I had believed for a long time that attempts to balance the budget just would trigger recessions based on what happened under Ike.... Clinton and the boys proved me wrong. It seems you can have your cake and eat it too.

But other than that, at least we agree on what we do not agree on (you missed a few, but you were obviously hot on that tax thing)... and except for when you go rambling off into Ann Rand never-never-land and seem to lose the twist, that's pretty good for a day's work here!

Thanks...

-KC

 

[ozymandiask]

I have read the verdict . Have you??

America is about to see a massive redefining of sensitive areas.

There will be a lot of shouting & hollering but this verdict has quite a few holes in it. Scalia said too much and his qualifications will be used to erode the basic decision.

Tell me if you think I'm wrong but read it first and doubts will soon creep in.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

It is a far more likely outcome of having guns in your home, is to have it be used to "settle arguments" than to defend against some home invasion.

This is why murder rates are so high in rural or traditional or communities where gun ownership is nearly universal. It's why the Swiss - where every householder has a machinegun in the closet - mow each other down in such alarming numbers.

Oh wait a minute . . . violent crime and murder rates in those places are actually vanishingly low.

I wish people would please stop spouting nonsense in this thread and refer at least a little bit to empircal reality. High violent crime rates are caused by cultural factors, as are low ones - not by the presence or absense of guns. Can't you see how absurdly illogical and immune to facts these realities make you appear when when you assert that "more guns = more homicide?"

 

[keeblercrumb]

Soviet Era Condom

I have read the verdict . Have you??

America is about to see a massive redefining of sensitive areas.

There will be a lot of shouting & hollering but this verdict has quite a few holes in it. Scalia said too much and his qualifications will be used to erode the basic decision.

Tell me if you think I'm wrong but read it first and doubts will soon creep in.

Yes I read it and, given my opinion on the subject to begin with, I have, of course, found it to be rather tortured logic It makes the words of the 2nd amendment mean something they clearly do not. The key absurdity in my mind being the justifying opinion:
"that, furthermore, the 'militia' referenced in the prefatory clause "comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense"; An astonishing interpretation which not only ignores "well regulated" but renders the whole clause as to be meaningless.

And this brought to us by Justices who are supposed to be literalists and strict constructionists....

Clearly the founding fathers assumed that all citizens would want to be and required to be part of a "well regulated militia" and it did not even occur to them that there would be citizens who would NOT be in the militia..

But I am not terribly surprised by this.... The constitution and the bill rights which we so cherish was flawed from the get go. It seems our founding fathers were human, not mythic.

Moreover, this document has been routinely ignored by the Court to suit popular opinion throughout our history. so here we go again. No big deal, as someone here would say.

Oh My God... Did he say the constitution was "flawed"?

Yeah... Until modified by amendment and subsequent interpretations, it somehow allowed slavery, easily the greatest abomination to human rights in the history of the human race. I call that flawed. In several places it tacitly acknowledges (and by therefore endorses) this truly evil institution and it's bastard stepchild "segregation".

Oh My God... Did he say the constitution was "ignored"???

Yeah, that too, whenever and where ever the court and popular opinion wanted to ignore it. Japanese Internment, property seizure in drug cases... oh fuck, there are a million of them...

These wild assed interpretations were not ALWAYS bad, of course. Brown v. Topeka Board of Education heads the list here, and THAT took some tortured logic as well but it least it was the right thing to do. Some of the other "right" ones which fit in here include Miranda and Roe v. Wade; those "hot-button" conservative ones..

So.. this is not a big shock to me. This making up words and strained interpretations in order to come to a pre-determined political opinion.

But to have the avowed "strict constructionists" here chortle with delight over this decision, I find as predictable as it is ironic. Suddenly, the words do NOT mean anything..... and that is okay!

Absent the Supreme Court doing the "right thing", our only salvation is a free and unfettered press and the power to vote the bastards out who appointed these clowns...

Uhhhh the last bit just being my opinion, of course.

But it was an entertaining read....

-KC

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Anti-gun people often deride the "gun culture" that seems to shower these inanimate objects with love and affection, darkly hinting at psychological dysfunctions.

The deep animus against those same inanimate objects in the face of all empirical evidence suggests that anti-gunners' attitudes are generated by their own brand of psychological dislocation. It's actually disturbing to listen to one of those who, before the fact, predicted with absolute faith that liberalizing concealed pistol laws in a state would cause mayhem and anarchy, a few years later espousing opposition just as fervently, even though none of the predicted mayhem occurred (in most cases just the opposite - crime fell a little).

 

[keeblercrumb]

This is why murder rates are so high in rural or traditional or communities where gun ownership is nearly universal. It's why the Swiss - where every householder has a machinegun in the closet - mow each other down in such alarming numbers.

Oh wait a minute . . . violent crime and murder rates in those places are actually vanishingly low.

I wish people would please stop spouting nonsense in this thread and refer at least a little bit to empircal reality. High violent crime rates are a caused by cultural factors, as are low ones - not by the presence or absense of guns. Can't you see how absurdly illogical and immune to facts these realities make you appear when when you assert that "more guns = more homicide?"

Crime, first and foremost, correlates almost universally to rates of poverty, a condition wholly unrelated to the availability of guns. Correct. "Culture" is little bit of a stretch, but clearly shooting it out with AK-47's seems to be an intrinsic part of the Somali culture.. so perhaps.

The presence or absence of guns in areas of poverty, however, DOES correlate to much higher rates of deaths. That's why they are used to begin with! I would have thought that is intuitive and obvious.

"Homicide" by definition involves deadly force. Guns are demonstrably and statistically more lethal than are other "weapons" and are therefore much more likely to be used in homicides.

So... let us modify your logical conundrum "When used in acts of attempted deadly force, More guns = More Homicide." I trust you will agree with that.

THAT is why the DC law existed! Did this law reduce lethal crime? Hard to know, but it had to have helped somewhat, or the police would not have wanted it.

But let us ask the reverse... Will a sudden further proliferation of handguns in the city reduce homicides? Hmmm?

As if that is not enough, add in accidental gun deaths and crimes of passion (another "lethal" thing), frosting on the deadly cake.

And THAT, Roxanne, is the point of trying to get rid of the fucking things!

Can you kill someone with a knife? Of course, but it takes a lot more work, guts, strength and is a pain in the ass to do while driving by. Guns are lethal. That is why the 82nd airborne uses them.

And the Swiss model.... I really do appreciate your bringing that one up. Again.

The Swiss do not offer automatic weapons down at the Swiss Wal-Mart. They epitomize MY interpretation of the 2nd amendment.

"A well-regulated militia...." is EXACTLY what the Swiss have. The country's level of crime of all kinds is low, but then so is poverty and we already talked about that.

Of course, there was that little incident in 2001 when 14 lawmakers were shot dead with a Swiss Army automatic weapon by a Swiss nutcase.. but shit happens.

There is nonsense being spouted here, Roxanne, for sure, but you only need to listen to yourself to find it.

(Just so you know, this last gratuitous and probably un-deserved insult, was engendered by your "nonsense" line. Not agreeing with you or the Supreme Court does not make my opinions, in of themselves, "nonsense", even if they are... )

-KC

 

[stickwork]

Supremes Affirm Right To Own Guns
hahahahahaha

Diana Ross has always taken a stand.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Crime, first and foremost, correlates almost universally to rates of poverty, a condition wholly unrelated to the availability of guns.

Correllation is not causation. Poverty was endemic in the Great Depression, but there was no massive crime rate increase. Poverty is endemic in places like rural China, but there is no massive murder rate. Many other examples could be cited.

That leads us back to culture. In the US, certain cultures are associated with poverty. In particular, the culture of the underclass. That same culture is associated with high crime rates. Which correlation is more likely to be causal? I've already falsified your hypothesis regarding poverty = crime, so we are left with culture.

I acknowledge that if one is determined to kill another a gun is better than a knife or other implement. It is also true that the US underclass has created its own "gun culture." However, do you doubt that if guns disappeared tomorrow a substitute would be found, perhaps a "blade culture?" Uma Thurman in "Kill Bill" would become the icon, not Dirty Harry. Japanese martial arts would become popular. Shurikens and mini-crossbows would be common.

Mortality rates among the participants in that culture might drop a bit, but how many more innocent people would suffer and die both in and out of that culture because the most effective means for the weak to defend themselves against the strong would also be gone? "God made men and women; Sam Colt made them equal."

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Bad people always chase out good people. The bad people bring their poverty with them. Theyre impoverished because theyre antisocial and stupid.

 

[LordMithras]

Every dictator has started off by disarming the people. Wonder why? Sometimes, it is necessary for the People to be able to coerce the State, not just vice versa.

 

[Pure]

ami's trouble with the BR

ami Our laws, including habeus corpus, apply to American citizens,

the sixth amendment reads

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,

one wonders: is ami a liar or a fool?

==

Keebe: good postings! the Swiss example is quite relevant, IMO.

ODD how rox, ami and others, mostly show NO signs of having read the decision, though i posted its url. The right has this problem with facts....

 

[Pure]

note to rox

rox posted:

The deep animus against those same inanimate objects in the face of all empirical evidence suggests that anti-gunners' attitudes are generated by their own brand of psychological dislocation. It's actually disturbing to listen to one of those who, before the fact, predicted with absolute faith that liberalizing concealed pistol laws in a state would cause mayhem and anarchy, a few years later espousing opposition just as fervently, even though none of the predicted mayhem occurred (in most cases just the opposite - crime fell a little).

care to cite a source for this plagiarism?

read the decision yet?

best,

 

[Liar]

Every dictator has started off by disarming the people. Wonder why? Sometimes, it is necessary for the People to be able to coerce the State, not just vice versa.

For the American People to be able to coerce the state by force, a gun in every citizen's hand wouldn't do much. They'd need tanks.

 

[Liar]

The deep animus against those same inanimate objects in the face of all empirical evidence suggests that anti-gunners' attitudes are generated by their own brand of psychological dislocation.

Ok, so empirically speaking...

Nuclear bombs haven't killed all that many people. In the big scope of things, niether have landmines. Or napalm.

Is it ok for me to have animus against those inaminate objects?

 

[amicus]

It was a ragtag army of volunteers who rushed to Lexington and Concord with minimal weapons that harassed and pestered the RedCoats all the way back to Boston and they did it without a leader.

The British Army, controlling a world wide empire, with control of the seas to boot, got its Royal ass kicked by the right of all citizens to bear arms.

We don't need tanks. A scoped 30.06 will keep the local gendarmes at bay until we can organize and confiscate the contents of local armories.

The Founders insured and underlined the eternal vigilance necessary to prevent a ruling body from becoming too full of itself and imposing upon the people edicts they did not want.

I have been advocating Revolution for forty years, for ten years running, I ended each program with, "Up the Revolution!"

Go ahead, start drafting our kids again. See what that gets you. I qualified as a Marksman a long time ago, wonder if I can still shoot accurately at a distance, damned bifocals anyway.

Amicus..

 

[Pure]

it's pop psych, liar; psychobabble that confuses us lefties all the time.

it's not even rox's words.

The deep animus against those same inanimate objects in the face of all empirical evidence suggests that anti-gunners' attitudes are generated by their own brand of psychological dislocation.

not our rox. betcha $100.

 

[sr71plt]

We don't need tanks. A scoped 30.06 will keep the local gendarmes at bay until we can organize and confiscate the contents of local armories.

My are you living in the past. We have toys, soft lives, and an extra forty pounds on us now. Most of your "patriots" couldn't make it out of the Laz-Y-Boy--and wouldn't want to leave the game showing on the TV until it ended even if they could. And then, obviously, many of the big talkers are just doing it on Internet discussion boards.

 

[xssve]

Is the National Guard "a well-regulated militia"? By 18th century standards that was what was meant by a militia.

If so, it could be said that the people do not need to bear arms UNLESS they are part of the National Guard.

Og

The intent is fairly simple to discern taken in context of the times, the rest of the constitution, and the social order it overturned, i.e., the feudal order where power and privilege were obtained and sustained through force majeure, in favor of a system of consensus.

Force can be applied either explicitly or implicitly, and in a society governed by force, the threat of force is often sufficient to elicit conformity to even a very narrow and highly unpopular consensus, i.e., it enable those who wield this force to ignore the broader consensus, to act unilaterally and without regard to the larger consensus.

Thus, the right to keep and bear arms probobly ought to be interpreted in much the same light as other, similar amendments in the bill of rights: the government cannot quarter troops in private residences, a common practice under feudal regimes, as this would almost certainly have a "chilling effect" on free speech, the first amendment - the most critical of all of the amendments, as free speech is the very mechanism of consensus formation - it is not possible to form an opposition consensus without the freedom of association and speech, the suppression of these freedoms is the signal attribute of any tyrannical regime, as it effectively renders dissent illegal, and erects significant barriers to it's propagation and growth in into a broader consensus that might result in demands for changes in policy or regime.

The establishment clause of the first amendment is similarly, designed to circumvent collusion, and conspiracy to abuse power between government and religious institutions, another common tendency of which the framers were well aware, this being the tail end of about four centuries of religious warfare and violent repression on the part of both Catholics and Protestants, typically in collusion with the Crown.

Next, the American militia of the Eighteenth century was itself designed to further counteract the possibility of coercion by a strong central authority through either the application of threat of force by forming the army required to oppose the British and enforce the constitution and Declaration of Independence by raising militias comprised of local volunteers - the concept here is simple: it's theoretically more difficult to induce a militia of local citizens to fire upon their own friends and families that it is to induce non local or foreign troops to do so - i.e., it's easier to fire on strangers than it is to fire on people you don't know.

So, local militias were fairly loose and often raised on an ad hoc basis - besides often being poorly trained and disciplined, they were prone to returning home to take take care of their farms and families at inconvenient moments.

Hence, eventually a standing army was formed, which is essentially what nobody wanted, and the reason behind the whole militia concept, and restriction were placed instead on the use of troops for combat operations on American soil, in order that it would be more difficult to transform standing army from a defensive role to an offensive one and turned to the purposes of domestic repression.

This caveat, has of course been violated on occasion, usually with predictably tragic and unfortunate results - most recently, the Kent State massacre, but you could throw the Indian wars, a number of labor disputes in the Nineteenth century, back the the Civil War, draft riots, hunger riots, etc.

In any case, the "well organized militia", phrase, which I would deem the independent clause of the whole sentence, clearly implies that firearm ownership is subject to regulation, taken in it's broadest sense, in any as yet unnamed manner that falls short of the abrogation of the right to own firearms completely - and when I say "in any manner", I mean that such regulation need not necessarily even be function of federal, state of local governments, even if mandated by same, but could be handled informally, i.e., a gun safety class conducted by the NRA, of some other regulated organization would satisfy the provisions of the militia clause - with the caveat of course, that this informal handling of the thing did not result in some other violation of the amendment, of some other right guaranteed by the Constitution or the bill of rights.

I made this argument to one of those "god given right" gun nuts, and he threatened to shoot me, which of course mainly served to solidify my stance on that "well ordered" bit.

 

[oggbashan]

It was a ragtag army of volunteers who rushed to Lexington and Concord with minimal weapons that harassed and pestered the RedCoats all the way back to Boston and they did it without a leader.

The British Army, controlling a world wide empire, with control of the seas to boot, got its Royal ass kicked by the right of all citizens to bear arms.

...
Amicus..

There were also the small matters:

the (Royal) French Navy assisting the rebels

the Native Americans fighting on both sides

the British citizens (and voters) who thought that it was an unjust and unnecessary war

Without their assistance and the mind-boggling incompetence of British Generalship, the US could easily have lost. That would have been the wrong result.

Og

 

[xssve]

THAT is why the DC law existed! Did this law reduce lethal crime? Hard to know, but it had to have helped somewhat, or the police would not have wanted it.
-KC

The statistics in general support and argument that DC is the last place something like a gun ban is likely to work: it's a very violent town, and guns are readily available in nearby states.

The statistics do indicate that the DC homicide rate, which has risen and fallen along with the rest of the country over the last couple of decades seems to have tapered off more quickly:

"Almost as sharply as violence in the District increased in the late 1980s, it declined through the 1990s, a drop that researchers attributed partly to the burning out and aging of a generation of crack hoodlums. Again, the shift was not peculiar to the District; it reflected trends across the country. While the D.C. homicide rate decreased from 81 per 100,000 residents in 1991 to 35 in 2005, the national rate fell from 9.8 to 5.6."

B01Crime Data Underscore Limits Of D.C. Gun Ban's Effectiveness

By Paul Duggan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 13, 2007;

As the title suggests, the data is ambiguous, though if anything, the ban theory holds a very slight edge, i.e., the national rate dropped by a little less than half, the DC homicide rate a little more than half, but one could probably argue other correlations, and one cannot automatically infer a direct correlation there.

It is true, that to me, the most disturbing aspect of the SCOTUS decision to me is not the decision itself which I happen to agree with and perfectly in keeping with a clear reading of constitutional intent, but the smarmy glee of sweaty palmed wingnuts everywhere, and the usual bullshit statistical distortions that have caused me to lose my last shred of faith in any semblance of objectivity in CNN, which appears to have shit the bed and largely become another right wing propaganda organ like FOX.

It's good news for fans of the constitution, bad news for Black pizza deliverymen everywhere.

"huh, I thought he stole them pizzas, hyuck, hyuck!"

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Ok, so empirically speaking...

Nuclear bombs haven't killed all that many people. In the big scope of things, niether have landmines. Or napalm.

Is it ok for me to have animus against those inaminate objects?

In a way it's just as irrational - they are just things, after all, and morally neutral in themselves. Certainly those objects may incite disgust at man's propensity to resolve conflict through violence, including of the most extreme sort. Given that propensity, those things may be used to initiate force against another, or may be used to prevent it (nukes, hopefully), or defend against it (landmines, napalm.)

The responsible use of those things in self defense is not in itself immoral - Poland sewing it's borders with mines in August, 1939 could hardly be criticized, for example, or its use of napalm against panzers on Sept. 1 had it existed at the time. The irresponsible use - sewing landmines indiscriminately without proper safeguards in areas sure to be traveled by civilians, dropping napalm on villages - is immoral, and disgusting. The things themself are still morally neutral, however.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

rox posted:

The deep animus against those same inanimate objects in the face of all empirical evidence suggests that anti-gunners' attitudes are generated by their own brand of psychological dislocation. It's actually disturbing to listen to one of those who, before the fact, predicted with absolute faith that liberalizing concealed pistol laws in a state would cause mayhem and anarchy, a few years later espousing opposition just as fervently, even though none of the predicted mayhem occurred (in most cases just the opposite - crime fell a little).

care to cite a source for this plagiarism?

read the decision yet?

best,

it's pop psych, liar; psychobabble that confuses us lefties all the time.

it's not even rox's words.

The deep animus against those same inanimate objects in the face of all empirical evidence suggests that anti-gunners' attitudes are generated by their own brand of psychological dislocation.

not our rox. betcha $100.

Really? Am I channeling? I drafted those very words this morning, but it's certainly possible I've read something of the sort in the past. Not recently, though, because I haven't read or heard any gun-nuttery for a while.

I have not read the 150-page plus decision, but I'm quite familiar with what it does and does not say. Are you hinting that I'm under the illusion it prohibits any government regulation of firearms? I am not. It is slightly ambiguous as to where exactly the line is crossed between reasonable regulation and the individual right to "keep and bear arms," but that is the nature of such things. What is not ambiguous is the affirmation of that individual right. Breyer says it's can be qualified by a "balancing" test between the purposes of the state and the rights of the individual. Scalia rebuts: "The very enumeration of the right takes [it] out of the hands of government. Like the First, [the Second Amendment] is the very product of an interest-balancing by the people – which Justice Breyer would now conduct for them anew." (emphasis added)

 

[xssve]

In a way it's just as irrational - they are just things, after all, and morally neutral in themselves. Certainly those objects may incite disgust at man's propensity to resolve conflict through violence, including of the most extreme sort. Given that propensity, those things may be used to initiate force against another, or may be used to prevent it (nukes, hopefully), or defend against it (landmines, napalm.)

The responsible use of those things in self defense is not in itself immoral - Poland sewing it's borders with mines in August, 1939 could hardly be criticized, for example, or its use of napalm against panzers on Sept. 1 had it existed at the time. The irresponsible use - sewing landmines indiscriminately without proper safeguards in areas sure to be traveled by civilians, dropping napalm on villages - is immoral, and disgusting. The things themself are still morally neutral, however.

How about sowing a country with ton upon ton of depleted uranium?

 

[Liar]

In a way it's just as irrational - they are just things, after all, and morally neutral in themselves. Certainly those objects may incite disgust at man's propensity to resolve conflict through violence, including of the most extreme sort. Given that propensity, those things may be used to initiate force against another, or may be used to prevent it (nukes, hopefully), or defend against it (landmines, napalm.)

The responsible use of those things in self defense is not in itself immoral - Poland sewing it's borders with mines in August, 1939 could hardly be criticized, for example, or its use of napalm against panzers on Sept. 1 had it existed at the time. The irresponsible use - sewing landmines indiscriminately without proper safeguards in areas sure to be traveled by civilians, dropping napalm on villages - is immoral, and disgusting. The things themself are still morally neutral, however.

Careful there, you are treading on grounds that could easily make you look like a moral relativist, a nihilist even. Oh woe.

From my morally absolute perspective, violence is always evil. It may sometimes be nessecary, but that doesn't stop it from being evil. And by proxy, tools crafted for the purpose of violence are definitely not neutral. A weapon is a tool for attack. It is designed to do harm and end lives. Point hollow end of gun at person. Pull trigger. Presto. That's the essence of a gun. Don't tell me it's neutral.