Renzatic on 28/2/2018 at 02:47
...and speaking of which.
Vae on 28/2/2018 at 03:21
Quote Posted by Renzatic
I think the real question that lies at the heart of everything is why is it that we've become such a massive, seathing ball of aimless, reactionary hatred over the last couple of decades.
If one is not willing to accept an uncomfortable truth about a critical societal circumstance, they become part of the problem by supporting a misguided and ineffective solution...Ironically, this enables the continuation of the reactionary hatred that they despise.
Renzatic on 28/2/2018 at 03:35
I think you need to realize that the imperatives we strive for as a true, freethinking society nests solely upon the zeitgeist we inhabit. By denying the problem we face in these degenerate times, you yourself become a part of a problem that strives to become real through the very denial of its existence. It's a vicious circle, you see. The only solution is to become part of the problem, to better enable yourself to eat away at the core of the lie that continues to assert its dominion upon us.
Trance on 28/2/2018 at 04:20
That felt like Vae talking to Vae there.
LarryG on 28/2/2018 at 04:58
I think Vae has the right idea: we should encourage more gun owners to suicide. And since gun suicide statistics don't matter (that's the point of the video, right?) no one will notice or if they do, they won't care. Problem solved.
Seriously! Statistics don't lie, but liars can use statistics to grossly mislead you if you don't recognize that there is a difference between the data and the liar's incorrect interpretations of the data. That video had some statistics which I assume are correct, but the presentation of the data as percentages rather than raw numbers grossly misleads the viewer. The logic presented, no matter how compellingly presented, isn't actually backed up by the data.
Look instead at (
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2017/10/19/states-with-looser-concealed-carry-laws-have-more-gun-deaths-study-says/?utm_term=.b2965fb8e802) States with looser concealed carry laws have more gun deaths, study says. That's a real, peer reviewed scientific study.
Renzatic on 28/2/2018 at 05:13
Quote Posted by Trance
That felt like Vae talking to Vae there.
It's Vaes all the way down.
Starker on 28/2/2018 at 07:05
Not only are armed vigilantes a dubious solution to the mass shootings, they are a poor solution to the larger problem of gun violence and gun deaths in general. They are not going to stop a guy murdering his family or a toddler getting killed while playing with a firearm or a depressed office worker about to blow his brains out.
LarryG on 28/2/2018 at 08:29
I've been looking over a facsimile of the second amendment.
Inline Image:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/SecondAmendentoftheUnitedStatesConstitution.jpgIf you look carefully at the text, you can see the use of commas intended to make the meaning clear. From a grammatical perspective, the amendment is a single sentence in which the first clause (called “proleptic” by grammarians) serves as the premise of the second clause. The two clauses are interlocked.
Those who added it to the constitutional text were well aware of the centrality of the militia issue in Anglo-American history. In the, then, recent English civil war (1641-49), both sides claimed command of the militia, there being no “standing” (national) army. The royal and parliamentary combatants fought each other over this unsettled issue, at least in part. The framers of the U.S. Constitution and its first ten amendments knew this history and sought to guarantee that command of any “well regulated militia” belonged to the people of the states, not to Congress or the president. Further, a careful linguistic analysis of the Bill of Rights makes it clear that when the framers intended to guarantee personal and private rights they used the word “persons,” but when speaking of a collective right they used the word “people” - as here. So the 2nd amendment can be read to mean that the people, collectively, have the right to bear arms in order to ensure the security of a free state by participating in a well regulated militia.
Supporting this linguistic analysis is the textual evolution of the 2nd amendment as it was discussed and debated in Congress:
Quote:
James Madison's initial proposal for a bill of rights was brought to the floor of the House of Representatives on June 8, 1789, during the first session of Congress. The initial proposed passage relating to arms was:
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.[113]
On July 21, Madison again raised the issue of his bill and proposed a select committee be created to report on it. The House voted in favor of Madison's motion,[114] and the Bill of Rights entered committee for review. The committee returned to the House a reworded version of the Second Amendment on July 28.[115] On August 17, that version was read into the Journal:
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms.[116]
In late August 1789, the House debated and modified the Second Amendment. These debates revolved primarily around risk of "mal-administration of the government" using the "religiously scrupulous" clause to destroy the militia as Great Britain had attempted to destroy the militia at the commencement of the American Revolution. These concerns were addressed by modifying the final clause, and on August 24, the House sent the following version to the Senate:
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.The next day, August 25, the Senate received the amendment from the House and entered it into the Senate Journal. However, the Senate scribe added a comma before "shall not be infringed" and changed the semicolon separating that phrase from the religious exemption portion to a comma:
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.[117]
By this time, the proposed right to keep and bear arms was in a separate amendment, instead of being in a single amendment together with other proposed rights such as the due process right. As a Representative explained, this change allowed each amendment to "be passed upon distinctly by the States."[118] On September 4, the Senate voted to change the language of the Second Amendment by removing the definition of militia, and striking the conscientious objector clause:
A well regulated militia, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.[119]
The Senate returned to this amendment for a final time on September 9. A proposal to insert the words "for the common defence" next to the words "bear arms" was defeated. An extraneous comma added on August 25 was also removed.[120] The Senate then slightly modified the language and voted to return the Bill of Rights to the House. The final version passed by the Senate was:
A well regulated militia being the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.The House voted on September 21, 1789 to accept the changes made by the Senate, but the amendment as finally entered into the House journal contained the additional words "necessary to":
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.[121]
On December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution) was adopted, having been ratified by three-fourths of the states.
((
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Drafting_and_adoption_of_the_Constitution))
The progressive and evolving language of the 2nd amendment prior to passage makes it clear that the framers were concerned in this amendment about the need for a militia of the people to preserve the freedom of the state and that the right of the people to keep and bear arms was intended to be in conjunction with that purpose.
heywood on 28/2/2018 at 15:52
I agree with you that the purpose of the Second Amendment was to protect the militia.
But it's important to know that the right to keep and bear arms does not originate from the Second Amendment. The Constitution and its Amendments do not grant any rights. We don't live in a totalitarian system where the source of all power lies with the government and the government grants rights to the people. We live in a system founded on concepts of natural law, where rights are innate and the government is granted powers by the people. A nice succinct explanation is in the Declaration of Independence:
Quote:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
All that the Bill of Rights did was take certain restrictions on government power that were already present in our body of law, and make them explicit to prevent the new government (and particularly the Federalists) from abusing Constitutional powers through creative interpretation. Here's the preamble to the Bill of Rights:
Quote:
THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
In hindsight, the fears of the anti-Federalists seem well founded. The Federalists took the commerce clause and used it to drive a truck through the Constitution. But I'm getting off topic.
We have a common law system and the right to keep and bear arms was part of our body of law before the Constitution. It doesn't originate with the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment was about preventing the government from disarming the militia as George III had tried to do.
catbarf on 28/2/2018 at 16:40
Quote Posted by uncadonego
Schools, night clubs, movie theaters, concerts....no shortage of soft targets, and nutjobs have taken advantage of all of them.
There are soft targets all over the world, and mentally ill all over the world. The difference could just be that there aren't 310 million guns in the hands of citizens in other parts of the world.
Compare all other factors, and the only difference is the crazy ass availability of guns.Is that why Serbia, a developing country with the next-highest density of firearms after the US (at 58.1 per 100 people), has a gun murder rate of 0.6? That's just over one-
sixth the firearm homicide rate of the US. Their firearm purchase laws are very similar to ours, so it's not like firearms are dramatically harder to get there either, and as far as I'm aware they haven't had the mass killing problem that we've had.
I've said repeatedly that availability of guns exacerbates our violence problem, but we're not going to solve that problem as long as people keep pointing at guns and saying 'that's literally the only thing separating you from the rest of the world'. It ignores our demonstrable problems with mental healthcare, poverty, urban decay, the drug war, economic inequality, a news cycle that glorifies mass killers, and all the other factors that combine to make our country dramatically more violent than even a developing nation awash with guns. Serbia may not be a rich country, but compared to dirt-poor American cities like Flint, Michigan, where the homicide rate is nearly 50 per 100,000, it's practically utopia.
I'd like to see better gun regulation in areas where it really makes an impact, but I'm really tired of the national debate about violence becoming politicized solely as a matter of guns vs no guns. That's only one facet of a much more complex situation and we're never going to really fix it as long as we keep trying to slap band-aids on a diseased society.
