The second amendment is biggest mistake the founding fathers made.

(Actually, the current interpretation is the mistake.)

I doubt the speech will be stopped, the idiot will probably claim that more guns would have helped.  Like it does in Mexico. :-(

What about bombs?

Would more bombs help?

I mean, like grenades. In case one guy needs to quickly defend himself against a crowd with guns.

Founding Fathers had grenades and rockets, by god.

(/snark Glad everyone’s okay.)

I’m a Texan and actually, conservative talk radio guys are already saying that this is the reason that more guns should be brought on campus.

I’m very pleased to hear that this all ended with minimal injury and loss of life.

Cancel that speech? Are you kidding? That guy will double down.

In the final analysis, isn’t the whole reason you want a gun, so you can double down on stupid?

From Full Metal Jacket:
[referring to Lee Harvey Oswald and mass murderer Charles Whitman]
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Do any of you people know where these individuals learned how to shoot?... Private Joker.
Private Joker: Sir. In the Marines, Sir.
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: In the Marines. Outstanding. Those individuals showed what one motivated Marine and his rifle can do. And before you ladies leave my Island, you will all be able to do the same thing.

...

Comment #3: Selena777 on 09/28 at 02:48 PM

I’m a Texan and actually, conservative talk radio guys are already saying that this is the reason that more guns should be brought on campus.

They say that after every shooting.  They’ve got this macho fantasy going where they kill the “active shooter” and save dozens of peoples lives, without (a) getting shot by another macho guy with a gun who mistakes them for the shooter, (b) shooting another macho guy with a gun that mistakes them for the shooter, (c) getting shot in self-defence by another macho guy who realizes that macho guy #1 is about to shoot him because he mistakes him for the shooter, or (d) getting shot by a cop who mistakes him for the shooter.  Because, you know, they took a one hour long gun safety class 10 years ago.

Everything else was canceled today, so that’s why I suspect the speech will be.

Charles Whitman is notorious historical figure in Austin, of course.  Most people probably don’t know what he looks like, but most everyone in Austin recognizes his picture immediately.

Way back in the early 90s, I had a subscription to SPY magazine, and they had this very funny (ok, very dark humor) little chart about how the NRA argues that many of the nation’s worst shooting sprees would have been mitigated if the victims had been armed as well. So then the broke down a series of (admittedly pre-Columbine) shootings with three columns: What happened (Charles Whitman, armed with sniper rifles and sawed-off shotguns, opened fire on students from tower at University of Texas. 14 killed, 32 wounded) , what would have happened if the shooter had been unarmed (Charles Witman, armed with mother’s rolling pin, injures 15), what would have happened if the victims had been equally or superiorilly (sic) armed (living in Texas, you would think the UT students were equally armed. Lacked however, high ground. 14 killed, 32 wounded). There was also something about the Stockton, CA elementary school shooting about how the children, even if properly armed, would have lacked proper training and esprit de corps and the death toll would have been in the dozens.

On a more serious note, while I was doing some quick Wiki for the previous post, I came across An article on the bombings of the Bath School, and I just have to say something: I grew up in Mid-Michigan, not far from Bath. And while this happened half a century before I was born, I paid attention in history class, and we never learned about this. It happened on our doorstep and no one talked about it.

But God—looking at the description of what happened, and thinking about people who live in and around Bath Township, it just goes to show that people just don’t fucking learn. Some asshole, all pissed off that someone had the audacity to levy a property tax to pay for a school, went and fucking blew up the school and killed 38 kids and 7 adults. 

And just last week, Ben Stein was complaining that he had to pay property taxes to pay for schools even though his kids don’t/didn’t go to public schools.

I would have more hope for this country if I had even the slightest indication that Americans could learn from their mistakes.

Everyone in North Korea has a gun. And they have no violent crime. It’s obviously true.

Charles Whitman is notorious historical figure in Austin, of course.

He’s one of the first mass-murders whose name I recall.  When I was younger, there was a TV movie about him, <a >The Deadly Tower</a>.  I can still picture scenes from it.

Something needs to be done about the violence in the messages our culture transmits, such as violence as a method of problem solving. I know that conflict creates drama in media but in games, a major form of popular culture, often violence is not only a way to solve the games puzzles or objectives, but in multiplayer, sometimes it’s the only way to interact with other people.

I don’t want censorship, but I think that messages critiquing violence in media needs to be louder and perhaps presented in a way that can’t be blown off with the “it’s just fantasy/a game” line.

James, no part of our Bill of Rights is a fucking mistake you douche.

Makes you wonder how many events weren’t covered before the advent of national communications and televised news.

WTF #16: didn’t you learn in Sunday school that idolatry is a sin?

I imagine his speech about how we can stop gun violence by having even more guns available will be canceled.

HA! He’ll probably say he would have burned the guy down with his trusty .38, or whatever it is he carries.

Everything else was canceled today, so that’s why I suspect the speech will be.

Right Wing Watch is reporting it canceled. Perhaps Mary Rosh will fill in for Lott.

Apparently, Kinky Friedman was a classmate of Charles Whitman. I did not know that.

Sacundim at 8, not only do they have the macho fantasy of saving a bunch of lives (and most likely a woman is involved somewhere to) but they really think that it is possible for people who only used guns previously in very controlled and calm places, i.e. firing ranges, to maintain the necessary calm in a very hectic scenario. Many people get frustrated and frazzled during traffic, so I fail to see why they would do better in a shoot out.

    In other rightist wackiness, DeMint is threatening to turn Congress into an even bigger Polish joke:

  http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/09/liberum-veto/

Ever wonder why natural gas has a smell to it?:

Background

In the mid-1930s, the Great Depression was in full swing, but the London school district was one of the richest in America. A 1930 oil find in Rusk County had boosted the local economy, and educational spending grew with it. The London School, a large structure of steel and concrete, was constructed in 1932 at a cost of $1 million (approx $15.75 million in 2009 dollars). The London Wildcats (a play on the term “wildcatter”, for an oil prospector) played football in the first stadium in the state to have electric lights.

London School before the explosion

The school was built on sloping ground, and a large dead-air space was contained beneath the structure. The school board had overridden the original architect’s plans for a boiler and steam distribution system, instead opting to install 72 gas heaters throughout the building. [2]

Early in 1937, the school board canceled their natural gas contract and had plumbers install a tap into Parade Gasoline Company’s residue gas line in order to save money. This practice, while not explicitly authorized by local oil companies, was widespread in the area. The natural gas extracted with the oil was seen as a waste product and was flared off. As there was no value to the natural gas, the oil companies turned a blind eye. This “raw” or “wet” gas varied in quality from day to day, even from hour to hour.[3]

Untreated natural gas is both odorless and colorless, so leaks are undetectable. Gas had been leaking from the residue line tap, and built up inside an enclosed crawlspace that ran the entire 253-foot length of the building’s facade. Students had been complaining of headaches for some time, but little attention had been paid to it.[4]

Friday’s classes had been canceled to allow for students to participate in the neighboring city of Henderson’s Interscholastic Meet, a scholastic and athletic competition. As per the school’s normal schedule, first through fourth grade students had been let out early. A PTA meeting was being held in the gymnasium, a separate structure roughly 100 feet from the main building.
[edit] Explosion

At some time between 3:05 and 3:20PM Central (local) time, Lemmie R. Butler (an “instructor of manual training”) turned on an electric sander. It is believed that the sander’s switch caused a spark that ignited the gas-air mixture.
The remains of the London School after the explosion of March 18, 1937

Reports from witnesses state that the walls of the school bulged, the roof lifted from the building, and then crashed back down and the main wing of the structure collapsed. The force of the explosion was so great that a two-ton concrete block was thrown clear of the building and crushed a 1936 Chevrolet parked nearby.[5]

Estimates of the number dead vary from 296 to 319, but that number could be much higher, as many of the residents of New London at the time were transient oilfield workers, and there is no way to determine for certain how many of these roughnecks collected the bodies of their children in the days following the disaster, and returned them to their respective homes for burial. Approximately 600 students and 40 teachers were in the building at the time; only about 130 escaped without serious injury.

The worse loss of life in a school building in American, and many folks never heard of it.

If we all had back pack nukes it would be a great deterrent to terrorists.

And Chapin wrote a song about it.  Certainly misogynistic towards mom, but from the bios I’ve read….somewhat accurate.  And daddy was an authoritarian asshole by all counts.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB5_N-D5sv0

This all happened within a stone’s throw of the first school shooting in the nation, when Charles Whitman climbed the UT tower in 1966 and started firing.

Hate to be pedantic but I’m sure there were school shootings prior to Whitman, just no particularly notorious ones. I seem to remember reading about one that took place somewhere in the early 1900’s. I mean I mention it to make the point that despite conservative hysteria, a lot of the bad things we think of as modern have been happening for a long time.

James wrote:

The second amendment is biggest mistake the founding fathers made.

Why, then, is there no movement at all to repeal it?

Most of our major cities try to get gun control laws imposed, and a substantial portion of the population believe we ought to have stricter gun control laws, but the Second Amendment stands in the way; why has there never been a serious movement to repeal it?

This is not a snarky or rhetorical question.  It would take a constitutional amendment, meaning 2/3 of each House of Congress followed by 3/4 of the state legislatures ratifying it, so it would be a major undertaking, but no one even seems to try.

“Makes you wonder how many events weren’t covered before the advent of national communications and televised news.”

Things like the Bath bombing were covered, though.  The KKK blamed the bomber being Catholic for his murderous opposition to public schooling.  They had to raise funds across the state to help bury the dead and care for the injured—it wasn’t a big enough town to just absorb the chaos and keep going.  It’s just not the sort of thing that makes it into general history books.  Something horrible happened, but there weren’t a lot of ramifications for people outside the immediate vicinity.  It’s kind of like the Peshtigo fire.

#8 Sacundim…

You forgot (e) macho guy misses and shoots one or several fleeing people.

Except I know that at my high school, there was an event in the 70s that never made national coverage, where a dozen kids were killed.  I wonder how many earlier events weren’t covered, or were covered up?

You point out Bath, where they didn’t have the resources - but what about when less people were killed or injured?  We hear about this all the time.  But there are historical evidences of people going postal long before we had a word about it.  For instance, when the US had the Philippines as a colony, they had trouble covering it up since the Army was involved in the response.

And just last week, Ben Stein was complaining that he had to pay property taxes to pay for schools even though his kids don’t/didn’t go to public schools.

Knowing him, I’d think he’d want to have lots of schools around. Good hunting grounds.

When the asshole at Virginia Tech killed all those people with his guns, I was teaching at a different school in the UVa system. My two right-wing colleagues (yes, there are right-wing professors, though they’re usually the libertaridouche version) waxed eloquent about how each of them would have gone to their cars to get their guns, brought to campus in flagrant violation of both university policy and the law, and would have tracked down that killer and put a bullet between his eyes. They totally had their own little hero scenarios all worked out. It would have been funny if it weren’t so tragic.

@27: Dana - Because the response would be retaliatory efforts to repeal any or all of the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights, and/or those pesky 14th and 19th amendments.

I dont know if I’d want gun right repealed. I want safer laws so you dont have extremists being able to own them and limits on who can own them but if someone breaks into my house what am I supposed to do;karate chop?

@35 - That VA tech shooter had a recorded history of stalking and emotional issues and was able to buy a gun OTC with no background check. A year or two later, there was another school shooting and the shooter bought his gun from the very same store. The store owner was ever-so shocked and horrified, the dimwit.
But there’s massive fucking lobbying efforts to prevent such things as background checks or cool-off periods. The NRA is huge.

I was wrong.  They just moved the speech off campus.

The second amendment is biggest mistake the founding fathers made.

Oh, I dunno.  There never was a successful revolt of slaves against the Southern States, so it was Working As Designed.

I’m a Texan and actually, conservative talk radio guys are already saying that this is the reason that more guns should be brought on campus.

Because, you know, waving guns around in front of nervous cops looking for a second shooter couldn’t possibly go wrong.

Why, then, is there no movement at all to repeal it?

And this, folks, is why Dana is considered a weasel. 

His favourite schtick runs along the lines of “Why, if nobody wants to die in a fiery car crash, do people drive above 20 mph on our roads?  Therefore people don’t mind dying in fiery car crashs.”  Reduce a complex situation knowingly down to a single unrealistic dimension, and then use this to support whatever bullshit argument he may have without, you know, providing evidence supporting his own case, or weighing the evidence for and against both cases.

Whenever I hear someone talk about how we can solve school shootings by encouraging people to bring their own guns, I imagine this scenario:

Someone starts shooting (accidently or intentionally) and immediately ten people who have guns from different parts of the room pull their guns out to confront them.  One person kills the shooter, but someone sees him shooting and thinks he’s the first shooter and bam, that guy’s dead too.  Then another one sees him and shoots him and another one comes and shoots him.  Soon, 11 people are dead before anyone knows it.

@Comment #27: Dana on 09/28 at 06:10 PM

4/10

Technically, it would be a false dilemma, a logical fallacy.  Besides science, the right often exhibits the same type of willful ignorance towards logic.

I grew up in Michigan, but not near Bath or Lansing, so I never knew about this until I actually met someone from Bath.  The memory of the attack has never gone away from what I’ve heard people in Bath say; a few people who were students at the school are still alive.

I grew up in the Lansing area, and there is NO local history taught to the students. I didn’t know until I went to New York City for college and read his autobiography that Malcom X grew up in our area. I literally did not know about the Bath bombing until this afternoon when I was looking up information on Columbine while replying to this post and “Bath Township” was mentioned as an aside. I thought “It can’t be…” and clicked and was nearly sick at how I was never told about this.

Unfortunately, the mindset that would cause someone to bomb a school because you don’t want to pay property taxes on it is still the majority opinion in Bath. It’s no Howell, but you’d think that having that horror visited upon your community would make you re-order your priorities.

I’ve pretty much given up on the idea of any realistic gun control in this country.  The simple fact is that there are just too many guns and too many yahoos.  Most guns are not in the hands of yahoos, but any yahoo can get a gun if the desire is anything above tepid.

The idiot fantasy about being the shooter of the shooter is just that: idiotic.  All I know for certain is that if someone wants to start killing people, the most effective way is to just start shooting.  Even a bunch of well-armed citizens are going to run first and hide second.  And a committed killer is going to get a lot of shots off before even the best trained people with ready firearms would be ready to even consider shooting back.  Even police and soldiers duck first and assess second, and then call for backup before engaging a shooter.

I fear morons in automobiles more than people with guns.  If anything needs some more education and training before use, it’s the car.

Tyro, why would you care about idolatry and Sunday school? You’re a morally bankrupt heathen, aren’t you?

Charles Whitman wasn’t even close to the first school shooter in western civ.

The first school shooting was in 1764. Indians with rifles shot and killed the teacher and killed several students with hand weapons, as part of Pontiac’s Rebellion. Not a particularly school-oriented killing, but it happened.

After that there don’t seem to have been many shootings - at least not recorded ones - in the early 19th century, but they start up again around 1890 and then it’s a steady stream into the present day. There were bunches. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school-related_attacks for a list. Not all were shootings; one of the worst ones was a bomb attack.

Whitman may have been the first guy to climb a bell tower with a a rifle, but there was absolutely nothing exceptional about his attack.

I know that conflict creates drama in media but in games, a major form of popular culture, often violence is not only a way to solve the games puzzles or objectives, but in multiplayer, sometimes it’s the only way to interact with other people.

Christ, not that hoary old chestnut again.

Despite all the studies showing the lack of a causative relationship between violence in the media and video games to real life violence (and ignoring the studies that show there’s an inverse relationship in some cases), every goddamn time something like this happens we get the blame the TV/movies/video games bullshit.

And that’s what it is: bullshit.

By any measure it is safer to be the average person, pretty much everywhere in the world, right now than it has ever been in history.  Urban violence has trended down for centuries.  And even violent crime rates, outside of situations like the drug war in nortthern Mexico, have been going down for decades.

See, the vast, vast majority of people are able to differentiate between victional violence, which they either observe passively in movies, TV, read in a book or online, or participate in via gaming, and real life.  The only people who can’t or don’t make that distinction are people who are just as likely to be set off because of personal stress and a possible physical condition (like Whitman), and the people who blame the incident on the media.

KeithM

I’m an artist. If I didn’t think messages could influence thoughts and opinions I wouldn’t be an artist, since crafting and influencing thought is the whole point of the exercise. Art is communication.

I take messages seriously, I have to, and I think loud, systemic, and near ubiquitous messaging that says pointing a gun at your problems will make them go away needs to be criticized and counter messaged against.

It’d be intellectually dishonest of me to give certain mediums free passes while I criticize the sameand similar messages bouncing around society from other sources.

@35 Beans:
You really think you would shoot at someone?

I’m a Texan and actually, conservative talk radio guys are already saying that this is the reason that more guns should be brought on campus.

There’s always a heavy dose of white male privilege behind that thought process. Because cops and bystanders will just know you’re not a crazed shooter bent on killing people, dontcha know? It’s similar to those asshats that want to take their guns into coffee shops. Because the employees will just just know you’re not there to rob them even though you have a gun strapped to your side. After all, it’s never white men that shoot up the place.

Way to ignore responsibility for your own messed up beliefs, WTF

I wonder what was going through the minds of those police officers in the picture. I know it’s all about training, but if you’re not in the middle of the shit at that moment, I wonder what the brain does.

The second amendment is biggest mistake the founding fathers made.

(Actually, the current interpretation is the mistake.)

To clarify—include the whole quote for context.

The text:

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.

The mistake was to write such a horribly ambiguous sentence, and the real mistake is the current interpretation, which seems to have dropped the first thirteen words.

A well regulated Militia...

This tells me that there can be a law that requires any person who wishes to keep and bear arms to register and enlist with that state’s National Guard (the “well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.)) and undergo the requisite training and service for that guard role.

I know the current Supreme Court would knock that down, since the first thirteen words have been erased from their memory of the amendment…  Hence, the worst mistake is the amendment (poorly written) or the current interpretation.

It seems to me that security of a free State that is defending the country has also been forgotten at least in popular pro-gun rhetoric that I hear a lot.

The way the right is acting one would think, scratch that, one knows that they believe the 2nd amendment is a right to revolt against the country cause they don’t like how the majority of the electorate voted.

Thanks to these assholes, as I live in a very red part of Nevada, I pack a lot of firepower, will pack more when I can afford it, and I’m going to get my CCW permit soon. I don’t trust my neighbors’ ability to restrain themselves.

Yes, Lott’s talk moved from the Law School to Brave New Books.

A well regulated Militia…

This tells me that there can be a law that requires any person who wishes to keep and bear arms to register and enlist with that state’s National Guard

One of the oldest statutes still current in the United States Code defines the militia otherwise: The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and under 45 years of age . Over the years, the statute has divided the militia into the organized militia (today’s National Guard, a century-old) and the unorganized militia (all the remaining 17-45 year old able-bodied males). Women may join the National Guard, and certain people above 45 may continue to serve in it. But male Americans become part of the militia automatically, without formalities.

“Well-regulated” misleads many who have been familiar with government regulations since birth. Considering how “well-regulated” was historically used to describe children, young ladies, households, and ships, “acts as it should” is perhaps the closest synonym. Paraphasing the Second Amendment: If you want a properly functioning militia, then everybody should be able to be armed.

There’s nothing a well-regulated child hates so much as regularity.—Lewis Carroll
CHAPTER V. A FREAK OF FORTUNE. MISS GALE is standing at her window in the hotel, looking absently out into the street. Her room is well located and the cavalcade of gay equipages and people passing before her is calculated to cheer and amuse any well-regulated young lady of twenty-one. —Clara Louis Burnham
An ill-regulated, ill-assorted household is a place from which to flee. A well-regulated household is a refuge, a sanctuary, a true home.—Margaret Sangster
In a well-regulated ship, within one hour from the time when these scenes of riot are at their height, order is restored, the decks are washed and swabbed up,...—Captain Basil Hall

A friend who works at UT posted a picture taken by a photographer who snuck up behind one of the SWAT teams that was investigating reports of a second shooter. Nobody really seems to have a clue about guns.

Snobographer wrote:

Dana - Because the response would be retaliatory efforts to repeal any or all of the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights, and/or those pesky 14th and 19th amendments.

Well, I wouldn’t be too concerned about losing the Third, but you raise the right point: we have the Second Amendment in the form that it’s in precisely because we don’t want to mess with the obvious wisdom of the rest of the Bill of Rights.

Our legislatures try to creep in on the Bill of Rights all the time; the First Amendment specifies that “Congress shall make no law .  .  . abridging the freedom of speech,” yet the Congress has tried several times, usually under the idea of doing good for our society to do just that: pornography laws and campaign finance laws are the most obvious ones.  We already over-finesse the Fifth Amendment, by allowing a form of double jeopardy by having separate state and federal trials for the same offense.

The gun assholes go to a gun class once and then they spend their entire lies fondling that damned gun and fantasizing about that one moment in their lives when they get to be a hero instead of a loser.  But they never join the military and they never know about what it’s like to be fired at. 

There’s one (female) asshole from the Luby’s shooting who’s very heavy into gun laws, who promotes this shit because she’s sure if she had had her gun with her she could have shot and killed the guy.

Instead, I wonder how many of these guys would be killers themselves if they had guns on them.  I doubt they handle traffic—-as someone said above——with any degree of patience.

I’ll give you my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands.

If you don’t like guns, then don’t buy one. Or move. Please… just move.

Yeah, dipshit, that’s the way to talk about a subject.  “Love it or leave it!”

Why is he still here? 

I guess we need a demonstration of the intellectual level of your basic gun nut and he does that ably.

@Hector B.

Given your (I think accurate and reasonable) definition of “well-regulated”

Considering how “well-regulated” was historically used to describe children, young ladies, households, and ships, “acts as it should” is perhaps the closest synonym. [...]Paraphasing the Second Amendment: If you want a properly functioning militia, then everybody should be able to be armed.

then that would seem to support extremely strict gun control (as long as such control focused mainly on controlling owners during their militia-membership years).  A “well-regulated” household by definition contains “well-regulated” household members, so a “well-regulated militia” would not only behave as it should, but be made up of those (men) who similarly behave as they should, and have behaved as they should ever since becoming a part of that militia at 17.  If we are even going to be half as strict with “well-regulated” militiamen as history was with “well-regulated” women, then really it is only reasonable to be able to deny the “right to bear arms” as part of/a member of the militia to anyone with a history of breaking the law up to and including parking tickets.  In other words, we need a militia and everyone gets to have a gun to support it/join, but that militia must be well-regulated/well-behaved/properly functioning, which means policing the members of it while leaving membership itself as open as possible.  (Of course, that is also weighing in on the whole crazy Second Amendment grammar debate, as is my next point….)

Although, your paraphrase (with the interpretation of the comma changed) also seems to support the we need guns to fight off the government (among other things) crowd: Since we have to have a militia for our country to function, we’d better let everyone else have guns just in case.

Sorry…can’t help myself.

I’ll give you my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands.

Well, that should be much easier once someone shoots you. If you and the other gunman managed to shoot each other, well then, lucky us!  Two guns to take from cold, dead hands.

Seriously, I’m pretty sure there isn’t anything stupider than “I’ll give you my thing likely to cause death, which completely coincidentally is causing death lots of places right now because of my political stance, once my death has been caused.”  You have one side shouting all about how they love their guns so much they are willing to get shot by them, the other side shouting all about how they love people so much that they don’t want anyone to get shot, and somehow people think that it is the latter who have no values or love of the American people.

As most folks in this conversation seem to hold a pretty hard-line anti-gun stance, I’d like to try and throw a couple moderating throughts into the mix:

It’s unfair to characterize all legal gun owners as wackos who masturbate to the idea of mowing down perceived baddies, because there are also such things as subsistence hunting and sport target shooting.

If one were sorting social/political issues into Venn diagrams, I believe subsistence hunting belongs in the same set as the local foods/whole foods/paleo foods movement, as well as the environmental movement. And sport target shooting, as a healthy sport that’s accessible to all, belongs in the same set as favoring more of a focus on healthy lifetime sports for everyone as opposed to profit-driven corporate controlled sports only accessible to elite professionals (like NFL).

I think hard-line blanket anti-gun rhetoric that condemns biathletes and subsistence hunters as being part of the same monolithic set as murderers or the “patriot” wackos is probably going to have a counter-productive “cold dead hands” effect that will prevent anything useful from being achieved.

@cuchulainn

I won’t try to speak for everyone, but I am not anti-gun, I am pro-gun control.

The “cold dead hands” people, IME, are exclusively anti-gun control.  If a person thinks that their ability to get and own any gun without the government caring at all is more important than the effects of those policies, then yes they are “wackos who masturbate to the idea of mowing down perceived baddies.”

I have never heard “cold dead hands” as a serious argument/challenge from subsistence hunters or those who use guns for sport just as I have never heard “cold dead hands” from someone in reference to their co-op box or golf club.

Seriously, I’m pretty sure there isn’t anything stupider than “I’ll give you my thing likely to cause death, which completely coincidentally is causing death lots of places right now because of my political stance, once my death has been caused.”

No, but it’s a really great psychological prop.  All you have to do is utter it and you are immediately transported to a fantasy land where you are a rugged revolutionary bravely resisting the tyranny of government oppression through your indominable will and possession of a hard powerful phallic substitute.  It’s like D&D;for people who can’t use dice to imagine.

@PiaToR

it’s a really great psychological prop.

Certainly, but it is still incredibly stupid to think that a private fantasy will do much to convince those arguing about things in the real world.

On the other hand, it is a lot more compelling than the stupid (even for her beloved Tea Party) argument my mother came up with this afternoon when, after disagreeing with practically all of the NRA’s lobbying efforts declared that she had to support them because they are “nice people.”

we need guns to fight off the government (among other things) crowd

This is notably the rather circular “we need guns to fight off the government that would take our guns” crowd. Or “the government that would mandate we buy health insurance” crowd. The militia is instead the vast reserve force of the Federal government against foreign invasion or, equally likely, insurgents. While it is remotely possible the US would get a totalitarian government, tyranny does not consist of a marginal tax rate of 34%.

And I agree that any right to bear arms should be denied to those who are not responsible enough to handle it.

The UT shooter will doubtless turn out to be an extremely disturbed individual who should never have been allowed to buy firearms.

No seriously, vote in a politician willing to ban, or seriously regulate the sale of guns.

if someone breaks into my house what am I supposed to do;karate chop?

I once wrote a detailed description of the things I could do if an intruder broke in right that minute. It included everything from throwing my chair/glass of soda/pot of boiling beans at the intruder to running out the back door or locking myself in the bedroom and calling the cops, and all of the options I detailed were faster (assuming I had the presence of mind to use them) than getting a gun, getting the separately stored bullets, loading the gun and taking aim (assuming I had the presence of mind to do that).

Of course, I don’t have to worry about it now because I have a big loud dog. She is demonstrably successful at chasing off attempted intruders, and has the advantage of never being liable to kill or seriously wound anyone accidentally.

I fail to see how having a gun around would improve my situation at all.

Hector B wrote:

And I agree that any right to bear arms should be denied to those who are not responsible enough to handle it.

Perhaps any right to freedom of speech should be denied to those who are not responsible enough to handle it?  Or perhaps we need to impose a licensing and permit requirement on freedom of religion?

Gee, the Framers sure were impractical people, writing that Bill of Rights in such absolutist terms.

Kristin wrote:

I fail to see how having a gun around would improve my situation at all.

And that’s just it: it is your choice not to keep a firearm in the house.  I’m an absolutist supporter of the Second Amendment—it seems to me that when the Constitution says that “the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” it means that “the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”—yet I don’t have a firearm in my house, either.

@Dana

Fire in a crowded theater, asshole.

If you think a GUN is not in that league, well…I wouldn’t be surprised at all.

If the Second Amendment said only what you decided to focus on, then maybe you would be right.

Perhaps any right to freedom of speech should be denied to those who are not responsible enough to handle it?

If you want to arm the disturbed, make a better argument. A nut with a bullhorn is at worst annoying. A nut with an AKS can eliminate a lot of the citizenry. If you have historical evidence that lunatics and felons were armed at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified I’d be glad to see it.

@Hector B.

It’s just a bit before ratification, but here is the historical evidence you are looking for.

And once again, Dana, you’ve forgotten the preceding words in the Second Amendment.  Does context mean nothing to you?

Now, I’m not American, and I don’t live in the USA, so I have no ball in this game, but I’d like to point out that for all the influence that the American Constitution has had on consitutional law throughout the world, not a single nation has repeated the Second Amendment, or anything close to it.  None of the regional or international human rights instruments has felt the need to include such a right. Perhaps that should give you a clue that this one is not like the others.

Kristin @69——on more than one occasion I have used an airborne, frozen Cornish game hen to great crime-fighting effect. They have not only surprising heft but can develop a nice spin if you snap your wrist just so. 

  Katherina, context is clearly a liberal plot. Watch Dana slither away when he gets cornered on this.

Now, I’m not American, and I don’t live in the USA, so I have no ball in this game, but I’d like to point out that for all the influence that the American Constitution has had on consitutional law throughout the world, not a single nation has repeated the Second Amendment, or anything close to it.  None of the regional or international human rights instruments has felt the need to include such a right. Perhaps that should give you a clue that this one is not like the others.

Yes, yes, but America blah blah blah FREEDOM blah blah exceptional, bitches blah blah European monarchies blah tyranny!!!!ELEVENTYONE!!

And this from the same people who think it’s hunky dory for the Administration to declare they can kill anyone just on their say-so, and the courts can’t stop them.

Katherine wrote:

And once again, Dana, you’ve forgotten the preceding words in the Second Amendment.  Does context mean nothing to you?

Context means a great deal, but if the Framers had meant to limit the right to keep and bear arms to the militia, then they should have written the independent clause, “the right of the Militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Consider the time in which te Framers lived: the population was mostly rural, and hunting for food was a common activity.  There were many Americans living on opur expanding frontier, and no one would have thought that the government had a right to disarm them in the face of the Indians.

Now, I’m not American, and I don’t live in the USA, so I have no ball in this game, but I’d like to point out that for all the influence that the American Constitution has had on consitutional law throughout the world, not a single nation has repeated the Second Amendment, or anything close to it.  None of the regional or international human rights instruments has felt the need to include such a right. Perhaps that should give you a clue that this one is not like the others.

I’d refer you here to the English Bill of Rights of 1689, which had a strong influence on the Framers.  One of the complaints of Parliament, in the preamble, was that the late King James II “did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the protestant religion, and the laws and liberties of this kingdom, .  .  . By causing several good subjects, being protestants, to be disarmed, at the same time when papists were both armed and employed, contrary to law,” and said “That the subjects which are protestants, may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions, and as allowed by law.”

The Framers were greatly influenced by the concepts of natural law in the eighteenth century, and Hobbes second postulated natural law included the right of self-defense, and that each man who claims it must recognize that right for others as well.

It might be true that subsequent constitutions by other nations nowhere replicate our Second Amendment, but what of it?  The Second Amendment is part of our Constitution, the basic law under which we live.  If people think it’s a bad idea these days, then there ought to be a movement to repeal it; I see none so far.

Of course, other democratic nations have provisions like our First Amendment as well, yet somehow, the freedom of speech in Europe and Canada and a few other places isn’t quite as absolute as our own: Canadians can be punished for hate speech, while several European nations criminalize, and prosecute, Holocaust denial.  Somehow, I see our system as better.

Atheist, a Feminist, wrote:

Fire in a crowded theater, asshole.

Technically, you have every right to yell “Fire” in a crowded theater; it is that freedom of speech does not protect you from the consequences of your actions.  If you yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater, and a panic ensues, and people are harmed, you are liable for that consequence.  But if you yell “Fire! and no panic ensues, and no one is hurt, then sorry, but you have committed no crime and are liable for nothing.

The Pentagon Papers case, though it dealt with freedom of the press rather than speech, is instructive: the Supreme Court said that The New York Times could not be subject to prior restraint just because the government thought that they might publish something harmful.  Likewise, the government cannot pass a law banning people from going to the movies just because someone might yell “Fire!”

I’d refer you here to the English Bill of Rights of 1689, which had a strong influence on the Framers.

Yes yes Dana, except I’d refer you to the fact that that is no longer current law - we grew up and moved with the times.  The fact that an law from many years ago is based on a law from even more years ago is meaningless, except as historical interest, although it does highlight my basic point, which is the historical context of the thing.

</i>It might be true that subsequent constitutions by other nations nowhere replicate our Second Amendment, but what of it?</i>

My point, which you seem to have missed wholesale, is that no one else in the world - either nation states, regional organisations, or international collection of nation states, view the ability to carry a gun as a fundamental right of a human being.  Perhaps this should tip you off that it’s a bit different from most of the others perhaps?

“That the subjects which are protestants, may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions, and as allowed by law.”

“Suitable to their conditions” meant appropriate for their station in life. Not every Brit was allowed to own a firearm, only, as it turned out, yeomen and above. The rabble had to settle for edged weapons.  “As allowed by law” meant the Bill of Rights did not overturn any existing law relating to arms.

no one else in the world - either nation states, regional organisations, or international collection of nation states, view the ability to carry a gun as a fundamental right of a human being.

The Russian Revolution inspired fear of the rabble taking arms against the establishment—that provoked the first serious gun restrictions in England:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7056245.stm

Most nation states, etc. prefer that the recognized governments have a monopoly of armed force. Probably a legacy of their monarchical/feudal form of government—the King had all the power and the subjects had only as much freedom as the King saw fit to give them.

Hector, we our Supreme Court, or our laws for that matter, should not poll other jurisdictions. Period.

Just adding to Dana’s context fail is that he responded to my post, which had to do with the mistaken belief that one is helpless against an intruder without a gun, with blabber about the legal right to own a gun.

I am pretty sure he would respond to serious challenges about the legal right to own a gun with blabber about the practical advantages of having a gun should someone scary appear. It’s all part of the slithering.

Kristin wrote:

I am pretty sure he would respond to serious challenges about the legal right to own a gun with blabber about the practical advantages of having a gun should someone scary appear. It’s all part of the slithering.

Nope!  I’ve never made that argument, because I don’t base the notion of our rights on whether or not it is practical to exercise them.  Our rights are our rights, whether one chooses to exercise them positively (owning a firearm or speaking in public) or negatively (choosing not to own a firearm or keeping quiet.)

Katherine wrote:

Yes yes Dana, except I’d refer you to the fact that that is no longer current law - we grew up and moved with the times.  The fact that an law from many years ago is based on a law from even more years ago is meaningless, except as historical interest, although it does highlight my basic point, which is the historical context of the thing.

Which brings us back to my first point on this thread: if people believe that the Second Amendment is outdated, why has there been no serious move to change it? 

The Framers provided us with a mechanism to amend the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights exists because the first states were concerned that, without such, the federal government would abuse our rights.  They also chose to write some of the amendments in the Bill of Rights in absolutist language; they were concerned that temporary majorities would infringe on the rights of the people. 

If you believe that we need to somehow “grow up and move” with the times, then you have to deal with the idea of repeal.  If that is truly what the public want, then the idea of repeal will actually go somewhere.l

The idea of repealing any amendment in the BoR is so unfathomable, I don’t know why we’re still talking about it like its a good idea.

@Right-Wing Assholes

The Pentagon Papers case, though it dealt with freedom of the press rather than speech, is instructive: the Supreme Court said that The New York Times could not be subject to prior restraint just because the government thought that they might publish something harmful.

Prior restraint for speech/press is a bit different than stopping someone from purchasing a gun for obvious reasons.  Yeah, you get in trouble after shouting “Fire” in a crowded theater BECAUSE IT IS ILLEGAL TO DO SO if you put people in danger.  Similarly, if you buy a gun and it has been decided that it is dangerous for you to do so, you should get in trouble.  The fact that the government enforces its laws after they have been broken is obvious, but the law applied earlier.  You stop someone from buying a gun the same way you stop them from shouting “Fire” or making threats.  The fact that punishment comes after the act is just the way our fucking government works.  (The only way your “rebuttal” would make sense is if people were proposing that we lock up everyone who wants to buy a gun to keep them from getting one.)  The main point was that none of our rights are without restrictions, but for some insane reason idiots like you think the second was is different.

Context means a great deal, but if the Framers had meant to limit the right to keep and bear arms to the militia, then they should have written the independent clause, “the right of the Militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

And if the Framers had meant for every single person in the US to own a gun regardless of any other consideration then they should have written just the part that you want to go with.  (That is leaving aside how ridiculous the “original intent only” argument is anyway.) 

The best way to make sense of the Second Amendment is to take away all the commas (which, I know, means that only outlaws will have commas). Without the distracting commas, one can focus on the grammar of the sentence. Professor Lund is correct that the clause about a well-regulated militia is “absolute,” but only in the sense that it is grammatically independent of the main clause, not that it is logically unrelated. To the contrary, absolute clauses typically provide a causal or temporal context for the main clause.

The founders — most of whom were classically educated — would have recognized this rhetorical device as the “ablative absolute” of Latin prose. To take an example from Horace likely to have been familiar to them: “Caesar, being in command of the earth, I fear neither civil war nor death by violence” (ego nec tumultum nec mori per vim metuam, tenente Caesare terras). The main clause flows logically from the absolute clause: “Because Caesar commands the earth, I fear neither civil war nor death by violence.”

NY Times Editorial

The idea of repealing any amendment in the BoR is so unfathomable, I don’t know why we’re still talking about it like its a good idea.

Just because something probably will not happen doesn’t mean it is not a good idea.  If courts are going to be all gun-crazy in their interpretations of the Second Amendment, then repealing (or maybe even passing an amendment clarifying the fucking thing) would be, to many of us a good idea.  That is unrelated to whether or not it is a PRACTICAL idea.  (Also, “unfathomable”...that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.)

I’m sure WTF would be all in favor of repealing some items in the BOR if it gave him more control over those pesky wimmens and furriners.

A,aF wrote:

Yeah, you get in trouble after shouting “Fire” in a crowded theater BECAUSE IT IS ILLEGAL TO DO SO if you put people in danger.  Similarly, if you buy a gun and it has been decided that it is dangerous for you to do so, you should get in trouble.  The fact that the government enforces its laws after they have been broken is obvious, but the law applied earlier.  You stop someone from buying a gun the same way you stop them from shouting “Fire” or making threats.  The fact that punishment comes after the act is just the way our fucking government works.

You get in trouble for yelling “Fire!” only if your actions actually cause trouble.

I’m not sure what your statement, “The fact that the government enforces its laws after they have been broken is obvious, but the law applied earlier,” means; are you lamenting the fact we can’t punish people for crimes before they commit them?

We do have restrictions on the ability of convicted felons to buy firearms; by committing felonies, they have lost some of their constitutional rights.  But what you seem to be seeking is taking away people’s rights before they commit a crime, because they might commit a crime.

Actually, I don’t.

I was wrong. The UT shooter, Colton Tooley, was described as quiet and studious. The 19 year old sophomore math major lived with his parents, and gave no indication that he was emotionally disturbed.

@Dana

The argument for gun control is that more guns =  trouble.  Thus, selling lots of different types of guns to pretty much anybody is the same as shouting “Fire” is a crowded theater where that action causes trouble.

I’m not sure what your statement, “The fact that the government enforces its laws after they have been broken is obvious, but the law applied earlier,” means; are you lamenting the fact we can’t punish people for crimes before they commit them?

It was in response to you:

The Pentagon Papers case, though it dealt with freedom of the press rather than speech, is instructive: the Supreme Court said that The New York Times could not be subject to prior restraint just because the government thought that they might publish something harmful.  Likewise, the government cannot pass a law banning people from going to the movies just because someone might yell “Fire!”

If you want to compare this to firearms, what that means is that wanting to own a gun is fine and the government can’t lock you up for wanting one (or going to a store where guns are sold).  It is buying the gun that is the issue.  Prior restraint of speech (or the press) is stopping something that might be bad before it occurs, gun control laws stop something bad at the point it does occur (the sale of the gun).  Now, you seem to think owning a gun isn’t inherently dangerous at all, but many others disagree with you.  That point is relevant to a debate about guns.  Assuming that owning the gun is the same as having a dangerous thought, and so we must treat the two the same by law is a strange argument to jump to.  It is even stranger to insist that all responses to such an asinine claim are responses to your conclusion and not your assumption.  Your logic skills are pretty poor even on a good day, but this may be a new low.