Mass Shooting Las Vegas...

[rogue06]

So it's just a coincidence that your chart starts in the exact year with the highest ever gun homicide rate and omits the preceding years when it was lower? The PEW reports I can find state that while the number of guns in the US is rising, gun ownership is dropping. More guns owned by less people.

It was also when the level of gun ownership started to rise sharply^[1] according to studies conducted by the Department of Justice, the CDC (long a source for anti-gun studies including more than a few of questionable validity) as well as PEW

gunownership.jpg

They are the ones who picked the dates because of this "coincidence"

And it isn't just violent crime but all crime

guns-and-crime-large.jpg

Now I'm not saying that the increase in gun ownership caused this drop but rather that this flies in the face of the claim that the availability of firearms leads to an increase in firearm related crimes including murders and assaults.










1. It was when the Clinton Administration was pushing through a bunch of gun control legislation (some of which has since expired) that they had no real interest in enforcing (see footnote in post #173 for instance) but caused people to rush out and start buying firearms. A similar thing happened during the Obama Administration

Gun stores often had pictures of Obama in their stores over the caption "Salesman of the Year"

[seer]

So I guess the First Amendment doesn't cover conversations over telephones, news broadcast over TV and radio, or anything over the internet since they weren't around then

Exactly!

[Sparko]

Yes, firearms are regulated, and so they can be further regulated, and those regulations can be strengthened. According to the logic you people seem to be using, the people should be able to have nuclear weapons.

Like rogue said, we don't even enforce the regulations we have now most of the time. How about we start there and see what happens? What further regulations do you envision? If you want to outlaw bumper-stocks, that is fine. What else?

[Joel]

It's not like the removal of the Second Amendment suddenly makes guns illegal. It just means the issue is actually up for debate in terms of passing laws

If the Constitution is amended to repeal that right then no, he is no longer law abiding when he resists. The premise is the hypothetical repeal, remember?

To help clarify things for this particular debate, you (Teallaura) and Sparko are talking past each other because of different assumptions about the nature of the repeal amendment. If it simply says something like "The second Amendment is hereby repealed", then Sparko is right. All it does is take away an explicit protection of a right. It wouldn't repeal the right, as the 9th Amendment says, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." It also wouldn't change the fact that infringing that right is not one of the enumerated powers. So then, Sparko is right, that if the federal government tried to ban guns, that would still be an illegal (unconstitutional) law. The Federalists had argued that such amendments as the 2nd were redundant and unnecessary.

Teallaura said people resisting the ban would be engaging in lawlessness. However one could argue (as did people like John Locke the American revolutionaries) that it would be the federal government in that case that would be engaging in lawlessness, and the resisters would be the ones defending the law (and defending the Constitution, in particular).

If, on the other hand, the repeal amendment explicitly denied the right, and granted power to Congress to pass laws to ban guns, then what Teallaura is saying makes sense. And the only way around that would be to appeal to a higher law (e.g. Justice) than the Constitution to justify opposing the Constitution.

[rogue06]

Exactly!

anyone-using-their-ist-amendment-rights-on-the-internet-to-2882600.jpg

[Sparko]

A well regulated militia. Get it? That was the purpose of the law, the need for a militia, and the only firearms were muskets. Those were different times, for one thing we don't need a militia any longer, and for another, firearms, and the sale thereof, can be regulated. The idea that the 2nd amendment allows for people to possess any kind of firearms they want, lets say nuclear weapons, is ridiculous, and when interpreting the constitution one needs to take into consideration the nature of the times in which it was written. I'm sure there would be no controversy today over the 2nd Amendment, and the peoples right to bear arms, if the only firearms available were still muskets!

btw, muskets were not the only weapons available at the time the second amendment was written.

Behold the the assault rifles of the time,

https://www.nrablog.com/articles/201...t-musket-myth/

[rogue06]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24301[/ATTACH]

A few others

1st-amendment-2nd-amendment.jpg

bf4835abb3dc403b128fb247fa4585f5d66fba9cd334dd9b1bbf4fb55a898420_1.jpg

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[rogue06]

btw, muskets were not the only weapons available at the time the second amendment was written.

Behold the the assault rifles of the time,

https://www.nrablog.com/articles/201...t-musket-myth/

There was also the Girandoni air rifle invented in 1779 which had a magazine holding twenty .46 caliber projectiles with an effective range of 150 yards similar to the range of a musket. Lewis and Clark took them on their journey and praised them as being their most effective tool

[Roy]

Again Roy, the gun homicide rate is still lower today than it was in the early 70s or 80s ...

I just posted a chart that shows it's about the same.

[Joel]

A well regulated militia. Get it? That was the purpose of the law, the need for a militia, and the only firearms were muskets. Those were different times, for one thing we don't need a militia any longer, and for another, firearms, and the sale thereof, can be regulated. The idea that the 2nd amendment allows for people to possess any kind of firearms they want, lets say nuclear weapons, is ridiculous, and when interpreting the constitution one needs to take into consideration the nature of the times in which it was written. I'm sure there would be no controversy today over the 2nd Amendment, and the peoples right to bear arms, if the only firearms available were still muskets!

1. At the time, "well regulated" meant "functioning properly", not "subjected to lots of legal restrictions". And the militia cannot function without the people being free to own and bear arms.
2. It doesn't say regulated by whom. And the 10th Amendment says, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.", so it certainly doesn't mean federal regulations.
3. Why not downsize the standing military and bring back the militia? It's not like the drafters didn't foresee that a military could supplant the militia. Indeed it was something they saw as a thing to be avoided. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," was a statement against and a hedge against a standing military.

Yes, firearms are regulated, and so they can be further regulated, and those regulations can be strengthened.

There is no constitutional authority for the existing federal regulations. That the feds are currently breaking the law (the Constitution) is a poor justification for them doing more of it.

[Sparko]

There was also the Girandoni air rifle invented in 1779 which had a magazine holding twenty .46 caliber projectiles with an effective range of 150 yards similar to the range of a musket. Lewis and Clark took them on their journey and praised them as being their most effective tool

And cannons.

c63753ab62f4b7be835c5ec377b39a30--american-war-american-history.jpg

They didn't exclude any of them from the second amendment. I wonder why?

[Sparko]

I just posted a chart that shows it's about the same.

ok let's go with that.
The gun ownership has dramatically increased, yet the gun homicide rate has not increased. Pretty much the same point rogue was making. Gun ownership does not cause increase in gun homicides

[seer]

I just posted a chart that shows it's about the same.

It is lower for both and handguns (by a little) and lower for other guns (more so).

[One Bad Pig]

btw, muskets were not the only weapons available at the time the second amendment was written.

Behold the the assault rifles of the time,

https://www.nrablog.com/articles/201...t-musket-myth/

The volley gun features prominently in the later books of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series.

[Zymologist]

The volley gun features prominently in the later books of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series.

Would you recommend the series? I've read Agincourt.