Another shooting in the USA. Remind me about the reason for having guns again. - by SubJeff
Chimpy Chompy on 28/8/2012 at 18:01
If you're going to link a 181 page pdf, at least tell us which figures you're looking at! I'm on pg 131 which shows gang deaths rising in the 90s but still being a substantial way below Felony and Argument. But I guess "one young inner city guy killing another" could fall into any of the three.
Vivian on 28/8/2012 at 18:27
Quote Posted by Chimpy Chompy
If you're going to link a 181 page pdf, at least tell us which figures you're looking at! I'm on pg 131 which shows gang deaths rising in the 90s but still being a substantial way below Felony and Argument. But I guess "one young inner city guy killing another" could fall into any of the three.
Yeah, good point. Federal stats dump shows contemporaneous spikes in handgun murders (pg 136) in large cities (pg 152) where both offenders and victims were black males (pg 62, 75, 78, 81), aged 14-24 (pg 14, 138). Biggest relationship and circumstance group between murderer/murderee were both 'unknown', (pg 83 ,130), which yeah, could mean anything I guess. Academic paper claims (pg 25) to show statistical correlation between the upswing in inner city gun murders and an upswing in arrests involving crack, as an index of crack use and dealing. I'd say the pattern fits pretty well.
gigagooga on 28/8/2012 at 18:35
Theres no bad weapons! Only people with bad thoughts.
jay pettitt on 28/8/2012 at 19:16
Quote Posted by gigagooga
Theres no bad weapons! Only people with bad thoughts.
This. It's just that in America you let them have guns.
catbarf on 28/8/2012 at 20:26
Quote Posted by Vivian
Ha ha, what the fuck. Rest of your post you might be right, dunno... but people have owned guns in the UK for as long as there have been guns. The first piece of gun control legislation was in the 1600s.
Yes, but you can't really say that the UK has historically had a similar gun culture to the US. It just isn't the same at all.
Quote Posted by Vivian
(I'm seeing the Brady Act and the anti-assault weapons act in 93 and 94, smack-bang in the middle of that downturn in gun violence you're attributing to more guns and less legislation.
The Brady act added a background check to purchasing firearms, which is still very much in effect, and I even suggested it be expanded and 'upgraded' to be more stringent and also check for mental illness. Still, straw purchases have never been the primary source of handguns used in crime. As for the assault weapons ban, it had nothing whatsoever to do with what weapons were actually being used by criminals, and is the perfect example of a useless feel-good gun control bill.
Quote Posted by Vivian
I'm not convinced. You don't think maybe the explosion of crack cocaine dealing and use might also be involved in the rise of mid-late 80's inner city gun crime?),
An excellent point, and one which only reinforces the notion that the problem stems from drugs and the criminals trafficking them, not from civilian ownership of firearms.
PigLick on 29/8/2012 at 01:47
maybe should just go back to "open carrying" so people can see you have a gun, and will be extra polite to you.
Peanuckle on 29/8/2012 at 03:39
The reason for having guns again is because the second amendment guarantees our right to own firearms. The actions of a few madmen should not cause that right to be taken away.
demagogue on 29/8/2012 at 04:17
That's the easy answer (understanding "our" only applies to the USAmericans, but to no one else in the world), but even for the US it begs the question a bit. If we were writing a constitution today and being honest about it, it's unlikely that a right to a firearm would be be considered a constitutional basic human right on par with speech, voting, and the right to life.
It's something you should be able to legislate for with a normal law, sure, like a right to wheelchair access or to buy cigarettes despite the risks, but a basic constitutional right? It doesn't really make sense in the modern world, and it should have been amended out of our constitution ages ago. People have guaranteed ways to make their political opinions heard through a free press, assembly, voting, etc., without needing a firearm like they might have thought 250 years ago. Or do you have a good argument why it still make sense on a constitutional level ~250 years after that was written?
june gloom on 29/8/2012 at 05:55
The key thing to remember is that America was built as a rejection of another government -- the British. This distrust of government has persisted on some level for over 200 years. There's a reason the right to keep and bear arms was placed directly behind the first amendment (i.e. the right to free speech.) In today's world, is it really likely that things would get so bad that there would be widespread armed revolution against the government? Probably not. But that's no reason to abolish the 2nd amendment, and neither is the occasional spree shooting. To my mind, the Bill of Rights -- and the Bill of Rights alone -- are sacrosanct.
Look at the other parts of the Bill of Rights -- the ones that protect us from occupation, unreasonable search and seizure, the rights to due process and fair trials, protection from unfair punishments... All of these are specific examples of negative liberty, that we would not be interfered with by the government (or anyone else.) More to the point, look at the 9th and 10th amendment, which leaves things open-ended by saying that just because some fundamental right is not listed in the Constitution doesn't mean it can be infringed upon, and that powers not specifically granted to the government or prohibited to the states are reserved to those states or to the people.
Sure, we have rules for how to handle abuses of these rights given to us -- hate speech and obscenity, to use the first amendment as an example. Using a gun to murder someone, or several someones, is an abuse of the 2nd amendment. But we shouldn't use someone screaming racist epithets as an excuse to restrict speech, nor should we use a guy shooting up a movie theater as an excuse to restrict gun rights. Why? Because abusing the rights given to us means infringing on someone else's rights. If I have the right to own a gun, and I use that right to purchase a gun, and I shoot someone in cold blood, I have abused my right. The other person had a right to not be interfered with in such a manner -- i.e. he had the right to not be shot by an asshole with a gun -- and I infringed upon that right. It's why we have laws against murder, and laws against giving guns to assholes who shouldn't be running around with guns. The difference is, if he's coming at me with a gun, for example, he is abusing his own rights and infringing upon mine, and shooting him in self-defense is a defense of my personal rights.
And to go back to the free speech thing -- knowing the difference between "I hate black people" and "let's kill black people" is the mark of an effective free speech law. Inciting violence upon another person or group of persons is an abuse of freedom of speech, and it is a violation against that person's liberty. The problem arises when people seem to think "free speech" means "only speech I approve of," and some of these people are in political office.
Beleg Cúthalion on 29/8/2012 at 07:29
Quote Posted by catbarf
Handguns became heavily restricted in the late 80s, and gun crime shot up almost immediately. [...] There just isn't any reason to think criminalizing handguns will reduce gun crime. It might eliminate straw purchases, but that's a drop in the bucket compared to what the drug cartels are up to.
Just to make things clear for an outsider: "gun crime" means that someone uses a gun in a way he's not supposed to and it doesn't mean he's illegally owning one, right? Otherwise it would be obvious that gun crime increased after restricting gun ownership.
Quote Posted by dethtoll
In today's world, is it really likely that things would get so bad that there would be widespread armed revolution against the government? Probably not. But that's no reason to abolish the 2nd amendment, and neither is the occasional spree shooting.
If you take away this actual...let's call it "reasonable use" which stands at the end of a weapon owning right, you don't consider the whole thing a bit unbalanced? Not only the revolution aspect is obsolete today, I'm pretty sure weapon ownership and/or use is still disproportionately high in relation to areas where it really matters as a means of self-defense. Not all Northern Americans live close to a drug crime center, do they? The problem I see with the justification of "it's a right and as long as its abuse is illegal, you can keep it" is that it still allows things that have become blown out of proportion. If these regular spree shootings tell one thing, it's that the aspect of public safety should be seriously balanced with this old weapon ownership (and self-defense etc. etc.) right. Being part of a big tinderbox that could do a lot of harm should be more worrisome than giving up an anachronistic right for self-defense or revolution against the state.
