January 23, 2007
This City Doth Protest Too Much
We thought that this week's protest-related excitement was over. It was just yesterday that the Right To Life movement made their yearly descent upon Washington, with their de rigeur horde of earnest teenage virgins in tow. They stood outside Planned Parenthood, were politely avoided by the President, and have already faded from most of our memories.
But the pro-life crowd isn't the only protest in town this week. The Virginia Citizens' Defense League is protesting outside of the Capital Hilton right now. You remember the VCDL, right? They're the Virginians responsible for protecting freedoms like the right to carry concealed firearms in Lowe's stores, and the right to act like it's perfectly normal to wear a holstered gun into a restaurant.
Apparently, New York's Mayor Bloomberg is in town for a conference about illegal firearms and, naturally, this is deeply threatening to the rights of self-avowedly sane gun owners like the VCDL, so they're out marching. Unfortunately, things haven't gotten off to a blockbuster start — there are only about a dozen protesters outside the Hilton as I write this. But the VCDL press release says that they hope to bring their three-hour protest to a crescendo around 5. If you feel strongly about the second amendment, or just think that there's something mighty suspicious about this Bloomberg fellow, you might want to head on down.
UPDATE: It's funnier than we thought. An anonymous tipster passes along this tidbit:
Funny thing about the VCDL protest at the Capital Hilton - they're in the wrong part of town.
The Bloomberg/Tom Menino summit of Mayors Against Illegal Guns was held at the Cannon House Office Building from 9:30 am to about 3 pm. The evening reception is scheduled for the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill.
The Capital Hilton is hosting the winter meeting of the US Conference on Mayors, which starts tomorrow.
So, oops.
To the VCDL's credit, the attending mayors do appear to be staying at the Capital Hilton — but as the tipster points out, none of the conference's events are occurring there. As a result, it's unlikely that any of the summit's attendees were anywhere near the protest while it was going on. Oops, indeed.
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Frailty, thy name is protester.
No one's denying that it's not normal to walk into a restaurant carrying a holstered pistol. The key point is that it's legal. Thus, those people don't have to care whether you and I think it's normal.
I used to be the biggest handgun control guy you've ever seen. But as I get older and crankier, I'm starting to wonder. My faith in the DC police to keep me even relatively safe and my faith in the DC government to even care a tiny bit is stretched pretty thin these days. I'm sick to death of years of crime in this city, to the point where I would consider the merits of relaxing handgun rules.
Yes, I know crime is way down from what it used to be. But it's still FAR from acceptable, and apparently never will actually recede to the point where the city would be considered reasonably safe, outside of a few highly gentrified areas, and even those areas aren't nearly as safe as we've convinced ourselves.
I'm not saying I'm all for tossing out handgun bans. I'm just saying I'm sick of business as usual, which clearly ain't working.
First off, the DC gun ban needs to be overturned. It's a blatant violation of the constitution.
Besides that, Hillman's right.
Yes, because "a well-regulated militia" = a bunch of random Virginia rednecks with guns strapped to their belts in the Olive Garden.
The South is America's best argument for emigration.
And think about it - would it be any better if every gang member in SE could just walk around with a gun without any compunction? I would tend to think that making gun ownership harder would at least reduce the number of people walking around with ready access to guns for use in spontaneous crimes.
Using the same logic, should we just allow liquor stores to sell any quantity of alcohol to any child who shows up just because kids who want to get drunk will be able to get alcohol on their own?
It's clearly very difficult to get a gun into the city from Virginia. It's how far again?
Funny thing, Bloomberg moved his events at the last minute. The VCDL knew about the move, but decided, unlike Bloomberg, to stay with their original plan since protesting was not allowed at the new location....
Oh, and by the way, it IS normal to wear a gun into Lowes and restaurant and many other places.
Maybe you should go to one of their meetings and see what they are all about. Obviously you have been misinformed up to this point.
Are all of your readers this confused or just this stupid?Here's a little something from a lady named Julia Gorin.Seems to descibe most of the men here.
The Anti-Gun Male:
LET'S be honest. He's scared of the thing. That's understandable--so am I. But as a girl I have the luxury of being able to admit it. I don't have to masquerade squeamishness as grand principle-in the interest of mankind, no less.
A man does. He has to say things like "One Taniqua Hall is one too many," as a New York radio talk show host did in referring to the 9-year old New York girl who was accidentally shot last year by her 12-year old cousin playing with his uncle's gun. But the truth is he desperately needs Taniqua Hall, just like he needs as many Columbines and Santees as can be mustered, until they spell an end to the Second Amendment. And not for the benefit of the masses, but for the benefit of his self-esteem.
He often accuses men with guns of "compensating for something." The truth is quite the reverse. After all, how is he supposed to feel knowing there are men out there who aren't intimidated by the big bad inanimate villain? How is he to feel in the face of adolescent boys who have used the family gun effectively in defending the family from an armed intruder? So if he can't touch a gun, he doesn't want other men to be able to either. And to achieve his ends, he'll use the only weapon he knows how to manipulate: the law.
Of course, sexual and psychological insecurities don't account for ALL men against guns. Certainly there must be some whose motives are pure, who perhaps do care so much as to tirelessly look for policy solutions to teenage void and aggressiveness, and to parent and teacher negligence. But for a potentially large underlying contributor, psycho-sexual inadequacy has gone unexplored and unacknowledged. It's one thing to not be comfortable with a firearm and therefore opt to not keep or bear one. But it's another to impose the same handicap onto others.
People are suspicious of what they do not know-and not only does this man not know how to use a gun, he doesn't know the men who do, or the number of people who have successfully used one to defend themselves from injury or death. But he is better left in the dark; his life is hard enough knowing there are men out there who don't sit cross-legged. That they're able to handle a firearm instead of being handled by it would be too much to bear.
Such a man is also best kept huddled in urban centers, where he feels safer than he might if thrown out on his own into a rural setting, in an isolated house on a quiet street where he would feel naked and helpless. Lacking the confidence that would permit him to be sequestered in sparseness, and lacking a gun, he finds comfort in the cloister of crowds.
The very ownership of a gun for defense of home and family implies some assertiveness and a certain self-reliance. But if our man kept a gun in the house, and an intruder broke in and started attacking his wife in front of him, he wouldn't be able to later say, "He had a knife--there was nothing I could do!" Passively watching in horror while already trying to make peace with the violent act, scheduling a therapy session and forgiving the perpetrator before the attack is even finished wouldn't be the option it otherwise is.
No. Better to emasculate all men. Because let's face it: He's a lover, not a fighter. And he doesn't want to get shot in case he has an affair with your wife.
Of course, it wouldn't be completely honest not to admit that owning a firearm carries with it some risk to unintended targets. That's the tradeoff with a gun: The right to defend one's life and way of life isn't without peril to oneself. And the last thing this man wants to do is risk his life-if even to save it. For he is guided by a dread fear for his life, and has more confidence in almost anyone else's ability to protect him than his own, preferring to place himself at the mercy of the villain or in the sporadically competent hands of authorities (his line of defense consisting of locks, alarm systems, reasoning with the attacker, calling the police or, should fighting back occur to him, thrashing a heavy vase).
In short, he is a man begging for subjugation. He longs for its promise of equality in helplessness. Because only when that strange, independent alpha breed of male is helpless along with him will he feel adequate. Indeed, his freedom lies in this other man's containment.
We know about Bloomberg moving his press conference that morning. As of a few days ago, the Hilton was planning on hosting the event, which we confirmed with a phone call. For some reason (hmmmmm) Bloomberg changed the venue at the 11th hour and sent it over to a very different location. We debated and decided to stay at the Hilton as the other mayors would be coming and going during that period and would have a chance to see our signs. And indeed they did. In fact several came over to have a friendly chat with us on the issue.
Regards,
Philip Van Cleave
President
VCDL
If the writer of this piece has a logical point to make, he might want to try not being insulting or condescending. But that would open him up to an argument based on logic, which is a contest anti-gun people lose everytime they play.
So, for starters, explain to me why you think you have no right to defend yourself in a Lowes or in a restaurant, or in the parking lot, which is where many crimes occur. Then explain, logically, why wanting to secure the right to defend yourself and your family isn't "sane", as you sarcastically put it.
Oh, and by the way, it IS normal to wear a gun into Lowes and restaurant and many other places.
Right. So, it's reasonably for polite society to, say, expect people to take off their baseball caps in a restaurant, or not use their cell phones in a restaurant, but it's wholly unreasonable to expect them not to bring WEAPONS THAT CAN KILL THE OTHER PATRONS? Please.
I think there's a real conversation to be had about the constitutionality of gun control laws, the effectiveness of firearms as a means of self-defense, and the crime in this city in general. But the VCDL comes off as buffoons. Stop pretending that suburban Virginia and Deadwood are identical.
The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the high powers" delegated directly to the citizen, and `is excepted out of the general powers of government.' A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the lawmaking power." [Cockrum v. State, 24 Tex. 394, at 401-402 (1859)]
And think about it - would it be any better if every gang member in SE could just walk around with a gun without any compunction?
Because they're not doing that already? And how does someone walking into a restaurant with a gun on their hip affect you? To me, it's about as uncomfortable as same-gender public displays of affection. Odd at first, then you get used to it, then you find it annoying.
Would you feel more comfortable if there was a concealed weapon right-to-carry law? Because they've had that in VA since the 90s. Chances are, if you've gone out to eat in VA in the past 10 years, someone near you has had a concealed weapon. As opposed to, say, the UK where their gun ban resulted in rise in violent crime and illegal gun traffiking.
And statistically, violent crime was a lot lower in Dodge City back in the 1870s. The "wild west" mythos is largely a Hollywood construct. But hey, don't let historical fact get in the way of a nice, juicy rationalization.
But it's a moot point anyway. Nobody's going to lift the DC ban, and VCDL has little pull in the current Congress. But thanks for playing!
I for one agree that half a dozen protesters outside of a different (not wrong, thank you) venue is one of the more fascinating (and occasionally amusing) things about living in DC. I love the anti-circumcision folks who show up in the most unexpected corners.
And on guns, I just can't stop reading all these news stories about common joe heros who whip out their gun in the Lowe's and shoot to maim (not kill, of course) the evil bad guys. Or the club kids in SE who whip up a frenzy of justice and get back at those thugs.
Oh right... that doesn't happen except in comic books and hand gun rights activists' imaginations.
So, it's reasonably for polite society to, say, expect people to take off their baseball caps in a restaurant, or not use their cell phones in a restaurant, but it's wholly unreasonable to expect them not to bring WEAPONS THAT CAN KILL THE OTHER PATRONS?
Ban Fan - You can expect those things, but you're not going to get them. People stopped taking off their hats in restaurants long ago and unless you're someplace that doesn't get cell reception, people are constantly blabbing on their phones in restaurants. Why would you think that folks wouldn't roll into the Sizzler while strapped?
Rocky Stone - Hyperbole like yours prevents thoughtful debate.
Hill Rat - That wasn't even Rocky's hyperbole. It was ripped off from one Julia Gorin, who appears to be an Ann Coulter acolyte (hence the shitty argument chock full of strawmen).
Monkey:
Maybe you should be introduced to the Pink Pistols, the gay handgun group (ok, even I'm a little embarrassed by that unfortunate name). They could make out in front of you, fingers on the trigger, so to speak....
Oh, the metaphors I could use here.... barrels crossed at sunset, long barrel vs snub nose, premature firing, a well-oiled chamber, firing blanks, etc., etc., etc.....
as Homer put it.
"If i didn't have this gun the King of England could just walk in here any time he wants and start shoving you around. Do you want that? Do ya!"
Who knew DCist readers were so pro-gun?
I grew up in the South and around hunters and guns. I'm a terrible shot, but guns don't make me squeamish. So, while everyone I knew had a gun, no one carried one into the Waffle House for protection. Very few people owned handguns at all. (Frankly, when they did, they were usually novelty pieces from another century.)
Moreover, I don't particularly trust the DC police to keep me safe. Still, random citizens walking around with guns in no way makes me feel safer. Having one in my house would not make me feel safer. Nor do I trust you to have one in your house. Because its deadly if you screw up and I don't trust you. If you fail to keep yourself in training, or if you just shoot like me, or if you don't lock your gun up so it can be stolen by some kid, or if you make the wrong decision when midnight noises frighten you, somebody dies.
Anecdotally, a friend of mine from high school shot his face off by accident. He was reasonably intelligent, believe it or not. That girl who was murdered outside the go-go club was murdered "accidentally."
Incidents like those are a lot more common than someone successfully using a handgun to defend his/her home or bust up a mugging. And that is still true where citizens are allowed to carry guns. (For that matter, I've never been impressed by the defend-the-home rationale. Citations are failing me, but I think that almost all home break-ins are burglaries and almost all of those are unarmed. In other words, adding a gun to a burglary only increases the chance of someone dying. I would rather have my TV stolen by some stupid, greedy punk than kill the same punk, but maybe that's just me.)
So, it's not really about whether I trust government; it's about whether I trust you. Nope. Not for a minute.
Simple legal gun possession and concealed carrry permits do in fact make it easier for criminals to get guns. Obviously, many of them get guns anyway. But not all of them and they are damned expensive. The most obvious proof that lax gun laws lead to more guns in the hands of criminals are the studies about where handguns in NYC and other east coast cities come from. They come straight up I-95 from states with laxer gun laws.
Also, I would add that strict gun laws give prosecutors a good hook for prosecuting criminals. Gun possession is damned easy to prove. Our justice system has a host of problems, of course . ... The whole damned drug war. But as long as we are prosecuting said stupid war, we might as well take people off the street who are actually dangerous.
written by ban fan: "...not to bring WEAPONS THAT CAN KILL THE OTHER PATRONS? Please."
Do you mean I have to stick to the steak knives? Candle sticks? and chairs that the place provides?
I take my hat off inside. Say a prayer before I eat, and I put my chair back under the table.
To me, the gun is the last thing I would use, but I have it just in case. WHat do you do? Give in? Give the criminal what they want? What if they want your child?
I pray that your mind is never changed by an event in your life or the lives of those near you. You, or your family, may not live through it.
I invite you to come to a VCDL meeting to find out what it is about, but I believe you are not big enough of a person to accept.
Monkey, I'd have to see some stats to back up that claim about the UK crime rate. In the first place, the UK has for the past century never had any type of mass gun ownership like what exists in the US. As for the rise in crime rates (at least in London, I'm not sure about the rest of the country), I think a large portion has to do with the Metropolitan Police adopting a touchy-feely, "multicultural" strategy of making all the minorities feel loved rather than actually doing police work. That and lots of angry Jamaicans coming in and starting up drug gangs. UK gun laws have not changed substantially enough to make your point a valid one.
Oh, and by definition, if you make X illegal, then of course the amount of illegal X that goes on is going to increase. By the same logic, making child abuse illegal immediately resulted in an increase in illegally beaten children. Does that mean that we should permit child abuse, just like we should permit gun ownership?
What I'd like to hear from the gun advocates is why the US has one of the western world's highest rates of violent crime, most of it gun-fueled, when all the gun-banning countries where citizens are supposedly at the mercy of evil thugs, criminals, and government cabals are much safer.
Also, why are the parts of the country where guns are more available (e.g., the South), so much more crime-ridden than those places where gun control is more stringent (e.g., New England)?
And using DC as an example in this argument is idiotic. Crime and violence rise in tandem with poverty, and (flame away, but you know it's true) black urban neighborhoods have some of the highest rates of violent crime in the US. Saying DC's crime rate is due to its gun control laws is patently ridiculous - there are lots of other factors that need to be accounted for, and unless someone does a study that uses sound methodology to quantify those factors, they need to STFU.
^^^^^ Flame war coming!!!
So you think that the piece I posted was hyperbole,huh?Care to explain why?
Do any of you even have the foggiest idea as to what the protesters are standing up against?It bothers you when someone carries a harmless inanimate object into a retaurant yet it doesn't bother you when the mayor of NYC violates all sorts of federal laws and srews up a whole bunch of federal investigations just so he can fool idiots like you into thinking that "He's really doing something!"How rich is that?!
What's even funnier is that you people all seem to think that some law against carrying a gun into a store or a restaurant will stop a crook from doing just that.How gullible and out of touch are you people?Like the crooks gonna say;"Oh dear!I'll have to go rob someplace else because no handguns are allowed in here."
No the real truth is that he'll just be the only one in the place with a gun and your emasculated arse will just be another sitting duck.
Notgoing guy -
I realize its possible to kill someone with a table knife, but you at least have to be trying and said person could reasonably defend themselves with, say, a chair.
"WHat do you do? Give in? Give the criminal what they want?" Well, it depends on the situation. If they stick a gun in my face and say "give me your money", i would most likely give them my money. If I had a gun on my hip, I would probably also give them my money as my only other choice would be to try to draw my gun (really quickly) and kill him. If he wanted my child (highly unlikely, even if I had a child), I would start screaming bloody murder most likely. Again, if I had a gun, what would more likely happen is that I would try to draw quickly and get shot. Or maybe I would get a shot off and kill some other bystander. As previously mentioned, I'm a terrible shot.
But a lot more likely than some random person deciding to steal my (hypothetical) child (kidnapping is just a lot easier when the parents' backs are turned), is that my (hypothetical) child would steal mommy's gun cabinet key one day and go play cops and robbers with his friend.
I know a lot of people who have said they want a gun because they don't want to be helpless in the event of a highly unlikely event. But guns just don't necessarily make you any safer.
All I want is a sane registration process for shotguns...
"a harmless inanimate object"
Bitch, please.
Technically, mercury is a harmless, inanimate object, too. It's only harmful if you touch or inhale it, after all. So why shouldn't I be allowed to carry it into my office building or play with it on Metro?
Asbestos is a harmless inanimate object in most cases. So why can't I cover my child's crib with it?
People like this are why I like Canada better. Moron.
Canada? Really? Why would leave America to go to America Junior?
'cause that's going too far.
err, make that, "Why should we leave America to visit America Junior?"
Yes,an inanimate object.Guns don't kill people ya know!People do and sometimes they use guns to do it.That gun is perfectly harmless until someone picks it up and uses it for wrongdoing.This just goes to show that the piece I posted(The Anti-Gun Male) is right in that you're all just so cowardly that you're even scared of an inanimate object.What a laugh.
Hoodrat,I think it's rather telling the way you project situations where a firearm may not help you out as perhaps commonplace,yet dance around the one where it may help you and treat it like an improbability.Oh and try getting those kids enrolled in a firearms safety class.Much like the ones that where mandatory in our school in the 8th grade.Kids screw up with guns because they don't know anything about them.Mainly because of the demonized false image that persons like you and the liars over at organizations such as "Peacaholics" and the Brady Campaign give them.
Rocky - When you start talking about guys forgiving someone for raping their wife in front of them while its happening, you've strayed over into hyperbole. Your "point" is silly; not everyone who is opposed to people walking around with handguns all the time is an emasculated eunuch.
Personally, I'm on the fence about the handgun ban in the District. As far as I know, the best currently available research shows that having a handgun in the home increases the possibility that someone who lives in that house will be shot by a gun. OTOH, the handgun ban in DC has been woefully ineffecctive at preventing gun violence so why continue to pursue an ineffective strategy?
As far as protecting your home goes, anyone who knows anything about guns will tell you that a handgun is a terrible choice for home defense. You're much better off with a shotgun for home protection, racking a shotgun is a distinctive sound that will scare most intruders out of your home without firing a shot.
I think Hoodrat put it best,"...it's about whether I trust you. Nope. Not for a minute."
Sophia, you might want to ask Susan Gratia Hupp about what happens when you are not allowed to carry a gun into a restaurant. Google her name and read and weep about what happened to her.
As far as not reading about people defending themselves with a gun, this happens over 2 million times a year and you do not hear about it because the MSM is mostly as stupid as as most of you anti - Americans.
Hillrat, where do you dream up this nonsense? The "research" you are talking about is the long discredited Kellerman study which has been proven to be junk science at best. I can't believe this lie has such long legs.
I happen to know a lot about guns and I would never tell anyone a handgun is a terrible choice for home defense. A shotgun can be good as well, but not everybody can handle a shotgun, like a lot of women, the elderly, the infirm. You simply have no idea what you are talking about.
sorry if this posts twice.
Rocky -
Both I and the kid who shot his face off took and passed one of those mandatory gun safety classes. I am very strongly in favor of such classes in places where hunting is commonplace. Hell, I'm in favor of some such class, and regular recertification, as a prerequisite for having any sort of gun at all.
The fact is, people (adults or children) doing stupid things with guns is really quite common. Most of the hunters I know ignore basic gun safety rules on a regular basis, and they should know better. See Dick Cheney . . .
I'm not saying that there is no situation where a gun would be of use. I am saying that such situations are not as common as situations where guns don't help at all or even make us less safe. Allowing people to walk around with handguns on the whole makes people less safe. So, I don't want one. And I don't want other DC residents to have them either. If that means making it harder for Virginia residents to get them too, I'm for it.
I realize I've said a lot of things without citing much evidence, but a lot of places collect statistics on accidents with firearms and gun availability linked to gun violence . . . Very brief googling turned up this: www.med.umich.edu/1libr/yourchild/guns.htm
This is so much more fun to watch than working...
But still, i am anxiously awaiting a proponent of gun rights to answer #21's questions.
Hoodrat, are you just dreaming this stuff up? Allowing? Allowing? Perhaps you are the victim of a public school education, but, in case you forgot or weren't told, this is the US, where we recognize natural rights. Among these natural rights is the right to self-defense. There is NO allowing to a natural right, get a grip on yourself.
As far as your link to ever more junk science, why don't you do a little research yourself and find out what the truth is instead of imagining things?
I'd find the pro-gun people much easier to take seriously if they weren't always trumpeting their god-given right to possess automatic machine guns capable of firing dozens of rounds at once without being reloaded. Oh, and of course without having to register these "harmless inanimate objects" with any police authority, because, you know, the evil UN global Nazi police might take them away.
Henry- Even the biggest pro-gun organizations state that a shotgun is the single best choice for home defense. Sure, not everyone can handle a 12 ga loaded with slugs, but my 5'3" wife is going to do a hell of a lot better with a 16 gauge and #4 shot than she is with a .38- and have a whole hell of a lot more stopping power. The handgun ban is blatantly unconstitutional, so I'd like to see it overturned on those grounds, but I'd personally be happy with being able to keep a shotgun in my house without having to go through a (basically) impossible registration process.
The only question I see from #21 is why is New England's crime rate lower than the South's? Well, what are we talking about here? If by New England you mean Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, then we are talking about States that are "Shall Issue" CCW States, except for Vermont which has no laws regarding the carrying of a concealed weapon, you may do so at your leisure. No License, no permit, no nothing, just carry. If by New England you mean New York and Mass. then you are talking about States with much higher crime rated than anywhere in the South, so #21 doesn't know what he is talking about.
Jason is another victim of the failed public school experiment. For your information, you cannot own a fully automatic machine gun in most States and haven't been able to since 1934. A few States "allow" you to own one, as long as it was made before 1986, you pass a federal background check like you were applying to the FBI and you pay the BATFE $300.00, non-refundable of course.
As far as registration goes, why should I be required to register by property with the government? I don't have to register anything else, why should I register my guns?
Sorry, Henry, but you're the clueless moron here, not me. Behold the attached link - I just did a cursory scan of the total crime index for Mass. and compared it to Texas and Mississippi, and Mass. had a much lower overall crime rate in 2005.
www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
Oh, and NY isn't in New England, dumbass.
Brody, I never said a shotgun wasn't a good choice, I clearly stated that a handgun is NOT A TERRIBLE CHOICE as Hillrat claimed.
Two states full of Katrina refugees had their crime rates go up? Unpossible!
I'd find anti-gun people much easier to take seriously if they knew what the hell they were talking about when it came to how firearms function, the scope of existing gun laws, and the reality of who is committing crimes with firearms.
I'd also find the gun people a lot easier to take seriously if they didn't malign anyone who disagrees with them as being part of "the failed public school experiment."
I thought the rednecks were supposed to be anti-elitist? Apparently not.
God, sometimes I wish we'd let the South leave when we had the chance.
Oh, and Hoodrat - have you ever *been* to Canada? Maybe it could have been called America Junior in the 50s, but that's certainly not the case anymore. I'd certainly pick Ottawa, Montreal, or Toronto over DC in a heartbeat, even with the malevolent gun ban behind which the castrated, fearful men cower.
What BS.
Boobberg broke several gun laws. If antis really believe in what they were saying they would be screaming for his incarceration.
Wash, DC has the strictest gun control laws in the nation and the worst crime problem, how come?
The fact is, that no law, not one, ever proposed or passed is going to affect the criminal posession of a firearm...BECAUSE CRIMINALS DO NOT OBEY THE LAW...that's why they are called criminals. Every law targets law abiding gun owners and does nothing to prevent crime.
www.fuckthesouth.com
why the US has one of the western world's highest rates of violent crime, most of it gun-fueled, when all the gun-banning countries where citizens are supposedly at the mercy of evil thugs, criminals, and government cabals are much safer?
Sorry Jason, but you are wrong again as usual. You are comparing apples to oranges so your argument falls flat on its face. You are comparing one small State, Mass. with two much larger and more populous States, Texas and Mississippi while all the time leaving out Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. You also fail to correct for the illegal immigration crime in Texas. Cherry picking the data that promotes your cause is the favored method of the anti-Americans.
Great Britain is riding a crime wave since they banned guns as is Australia. Japan has a suicide rate that dwarfs ours but guns are completely illegal there. Switzerland is safer, but all of the men own fully automatic rifles and ammunition. What IS your point Thisisagood?
Hill rat said...
" the best currently available research shows that having a handgun in the home increases the possibility that someone who lives in that house will be shot by a gun.
That is a very old 'fact' that was pushed by an anti-gun group. The number they used was 43 times more likely, but it has since been proven untrue. So you should take that out of your "best currently available research" file. See below...
--------
Those who oppose the use of firearms for self-defense have for fourteen years quoted a study by Arthur Kellermann and Donald Reay published in the June 12, 1986 issue of New England Journal of Medicine (v. 314, n. 24, p. 1557-60) which concluded that a firearm in the home is "43 times more likely" to be used to kill a member of the household than to kill a criminal intruder. This "statistic" is used regularly by anti self-protection groups which surely know better, and was even published recently without question in a letter to the Ann Arbor News. Representative Liz Brater cited this "43 times" number in a House committee hearing just a year ago. Thus the original study and its conclusion deserve careful analysis. If nothing else, the repeated use of this "statistic" demonstrates how a grossly inaccurate statement can become a "truth" with sufficient repetition by the compliant and non-critical media.
The "43 times" claim was based upon a small-scale study of firearms deaths in King County, Washington (Seattle and Bellevue) covering the period 1978-83. The authors state,
"Mortality studies such as ours do not include cases in which burglars or intruders are wounded or frightened away by the use or display of a firearm. Cases in which would-be intruders may have purposely avoided a house known to be armed are also not identified…A complete determination of firearm risks versus benefits would require that these figures be known."
Having said this, these authors proceed anyway to exclude those same instances where a potential criminal was not killed but was thwarted.
How many successful self-defense events do not result in death of the criminal? An analysis by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz (Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, v. 86 n.1 [Fall 1995]) of successful defensive uses of firearms against criminal attack concluded that the criminal is killed in only one case in approximately every one thousand attacks. If this same ratio is applied to defensive uses in the home, then Kellermann's "43 times" is off by a factor of a thousand and should be at least as small as 0.043, not 43. Any evaluation of the effectiveness of firearms as defense against criminal assault should incorporate every event where a crime is either thwarted or mitigated; thus Kellermann's conclusion omits 999 non-lethal favorable outcomes from criminal attack and counts only the one event in which the criminal is killed. With woeful disregard for this vital point, recognized by these authors but then ignored, they conclude,
"The advisability of keeping firearms in the home for protection must be questioned."
In making this statement the authors have demonstrated an inexcusable non-scientific bias against the effectiveness of firearms ownership for self defense. This is junk science at its worst.
This vital flaw in Kellermann and Reay's paper was demonstrated clearly just six months later, on Dec. 4, 1986 by David Stolinsky and G. Tim Hagen in the same journal (v. 315 n. 23, p. 1483-84), yet these letters have been ignored for fourteen years in favor of the grossly exaggerated figure of the original article. The continual use of the "43 times" figure by groups opposed to the defensive use of firearms suggests the appalling weakness of their argument.
But there's more. Included in the "43 times" of Kellermann are 37 suicides, some 86 percent of the alleged total, which have nothing to do with either crime or defensive uses of firearms. Even Kellermann and Reay say clearly
"…[that] the precise nature of the relation between gun availability and suicide is unclear."
Yet they proceed anyway to include suicides, which comprise the vast majority of the deaths in this study, in their calculations. Omitting suicides further reduces the "43 times" number from 0.043 to 0.006.
"Reverse causation" is a significant factor that does not lend itself to quantitative evaluation, although it surely accounts for a substantial number of additional homicides in the home. A person, such as a drug dealer, who is in fear for his life, will be more likely to have a firearm in his home than will an ordinary person. Put another way, if a person fears death he might arm himself and at the same time be at greater risk of being murdered. Thus Kellermann's correlation is strongly skewed away from normal defensive uses of firearms. His conclusion is thus no more valid than a finding that because fat people are more likely to have diet foods in their refrigerators we can conclude that diet foods "cause" obesity, or that because so many people die in hospitals we should conclude that hospitals "cause" premature death. Reverse causation thus further lowers the 0.006 value, but by an unknown amount.
In conclusion, if we use Kellermann's data adjusted for reality, a firearm kept in a home is at least 167 times more likely to deter criminal attack than to harm a person in the home. This number is some 7000 times more positive than the "43 times" negative figure so often quoted. Should groups and individuals that knowingly perpetuate a figure that is at least 7000 times too large be given any credence at all?
With two million defensive uses of firearms each year, both inside and outside the home, the value of protection against criminal assault provided by firearms vastly exceeds any dangers that they might present.
David K. Felbeck
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Director, Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners
www mcrgo org
Did i present any antagonism? My point was to get you to answer the question jackass!!! Since it was being ignored. If you noticed the verbatim methodology used by my brilliant copy, cut, and paste technique, you would recognize the posture as being neutral. Did i say i was looking for a loaded answer? NO...I am merely fostering debate so i may come to my own conclusions. See maybe if you weren't so damned hostile people wouldn't mind giving you a gun.
Um, Henry:
You said Mass. had a much higher crime rate than anywhere in the South. I pointed to statistics that showed you were wrong. Now you move the target.
Also, you say I'm comparing Mass. to much larger states. Mississippi is not a large state. This is a false statement.
You also keep referring to "anti-Americans." Who are these people? Would New York City people be anti-Americans? How about Californians? Massachusetts? Suburban Chicago? All of these people have voted for pretty strict gun laws. They also have rejected calls to repeal these laws. All of these people get taxed by the IRS. All of them send kids off to fight in Iraq as part of the US military. Apparently you find them to not be true Americans. I find that to be offensive.
Basically, you're a lying, ignorant, whitey redneck asshole pursuing an agenda that facts and argument cannot modify. Don't you have a White Pride party to go to or something?
Why should my rights be limited or infringed based on the behavior of criminals?
Why, exactly, should my wife be disarmed and prevented from possessing effective self defense tools?
We seem to have sufficient laws to allow prosecution for assault and felony. What will MORE laws do to reduce these crimes?
"I don't have to register anything else, why should I register my guns?"
Can we assume you don't have a car, then? Or a bike? (Yes, you're supposed to register!)
Did someone say, "White Power"
Jason -
re: Canada -- kidding, kidding. it seems lovely. i don't actually consider homer simpson a model for my thinking on many subjects, except maybe monkeys.
www.dribbleglass.com/Jokes/homer-simpson.htm
www.snpp.com/guides/simian.refs.html
Dunno, Thisisagood1too, why does Virginia have a violent crime rate 1/2th that of MD and 1/5th that of DC? What about New Hampshire, and especially Vermont? Virtually no gun laws, virtually no crime.
Why has the violent crime rate in the US been on the decline since the early 1990s, despite more than 60 million new guns being sold, and yet England's violent crime rate has been soaring in that same period, despite a near total ban on civilian gun ownership?
It's much, much more complicated than guns/no guns. Claiming otherwise is intellectually dishonest. This is the most diverse country in the world, with cultural and socioeconomic issues no other nation has.
And frankly if you're willing to relinquish all responsibility for your personal security and let the State have the sole monopoly on power, you don't understand the concept of liberty. And if you think "rednecks" wearing pistols in Lowes or Outback or whatever are part of the problem, you're quite delusional.
And Jason, are "whitey redneck assholes" committing the most crime with firearms or something? I wonder if most of those crimes in Texas and Mississippi you can't stop talking about were committed by ethnically diverse gangbangers in Houston/DFW and Jackson, who were largely forced into that way of life by the silly War on Drugs, the welfare state, and various other cultural and socioeconomic factors which all contribute to the grinding poverty they have the misfortune to live in. But I guess pointing that out would be racist or something, despite wanting desperately to do something meaningful about it.
Back to work for me, gotta earn money to buy more guns and ammo before the nitwits in Congress who share your way of "thinking" shove more dumbass gun laws down our throats.
a firearm kept in a home is at least 167 times more likely to deter criminal attack than to harm a person in the home.
However incorrect my original statement may have been, this defies logic.
Hell - we're supposed to register our DOGS and that's in part because they can be considered a threat to our neighbors. "Dangerous Dogs" cost more to register (all just fact-checked in Fairfax Co gov't site).
The natural right to self defense is not directly equal to the right to have a gun. I note that some say "effective defense" and this might have more merit but it gets into sticky issues of efficacy. I protect myself with mace, self-defense classes, a scary looking (but completely cowardly) dog...
Again though, this idea that having a gun makes us safe doesn't hold out well in action. No gun-advocate was there to pick off the snipers. No one was there to stop the threw gas on his wife. Kids are kidnapped by people when parents are not looking. When my husband was mugged in Adams Morgan (knifepoint), he didn't have time to use a gun. Same in NYC.
So I hear this Susan Gratia Hupp would have protected her family if she'd been closer to her gun... Big If. All the pro-gun folks, please, tell us a REAL story of someone who actually heroically protected someone from random violence. Someone who used their rifle to catch a burgler. I'm not fighting on this point - I'm asking for the stories. If this is the big reason everyone's petite wife needs to carry a gun, show me when this happens, not in fantasy.
Here's a chance to sway a mind. Please don't just shout.
Quick question on the DC hand guns ban, was it passed by the Feds or from the DC government?
I ask because if it is the former, I am not sure how that is not unconstitutional. Although, I would be shocked that the House and Senate could have passed such a ban - where was the NRA during this?
If it is the later, the Bill of Rights only applies to what the Federal government can do. Of course people will point to the 14th Ammendment and how that makes it apply to the states, which is incorrect. The 14th has been expanded to mean that the Bill of Rights applies to the states with exceptions - in this case the 2nd Ammendment was never included in what is known as incorporation. Only if DC has a state constitution guaranteeing guns would this be a constitutional issue. Leaving the people of DC to make their own choices. I live in VA and was born in MI, I let the good people of DC choose whether or not to have guns to themselves. In VA we can have a different debate and discussion.
Notgoing guy -
hmmm, it sounds like the Kellerman study had its flaws or at least that citing it for the 43 times number is somewhat misleading, but it is not the only study to conclude that having a handgun in the home increases the possibility that someone who lives in that house will be shot by a gun. See the website I cited earlier.
moreover, the flaws you point out aren't particularly damning.
first, the study did not incorporate an estimate for thwarted attempts that we cannot know about (i.e., where burglars somehow knew there was a gun in the house and decided not to break in). That there are unknown (and possibly unknowable) factors that go into the question of whether or not gun ownership "works" does not affect the question of whether the gun is more likely to be used to kill an outsider or a resident. In other words, the Kellerman study is not conclusive on the question of whether or not gun ownership "works" but it does prove one thing to be considered - how likely it is that the gun will be used against someone there. Admittedly, that is a limited point, as gun owners claim that their are other values to having a gun than shooting criminals, like deterring criminals. On the other hand, deterrence is probably impossible to measure, making it difficult for you to PROVE any benefit from it.
I don't know enough about the Kleck study to criticize it, but the figure 1 in a 1000 seems suspect to me for its very roundness and for the fact that I don't know how he would measure deterred attacks.
Second, you criticize them for including suicides, but suicides are clearly relevant to the question of whether guns are more likely to be used to kill a resident or an intruder. If your point is that those people would die even without guns, the evidence tends to point the other way, that the availability of a gun (an "easy" suicide) increases the likelihood of suicide. Miller, M, Azrael, D and Hemenway, D. Firearm availability and unintentional firearm deaths. Accident Analysis & Prevention 2001; 33:477-484.
Third, reverse causation. That's a possibility - that the numbers are skewed because people in violent professions (drugdealers, cops) are more likely both to have guns in the home and to be shot by a gun. With sufficiently detailed data, it would be possible to run a statistical analysis that would fix that problem. As it is, I can only doubt that a significant percentage of those deaths are drugdealers . . .
sophiagrrl wrote:
The "Armed Citizen" page in the NRA Magazine "America's 1st Freedom" or "American Rifleman" publishes these.
There are various sites online that aggregate these stories, as well as Forums where members relate experiences.
thehighroad.org is one of these and is focused on issues relating to Self Defense.
What you'll find in many cases is that the media ignores these sorts of stories, or doesn't mention cases where an armed citizen was involved. This means that if you haven't heard about these cases you haven't been looking for them.
Anyhow, Gonzales v. Castle Rock and Warren v. District of Columbia are all the justification a rational citizen should require for owning and carrying a firearm.
Sophiagrrl:
Google "clayton cramer defense blog" for one example. There are many other sites out there with similar info, but I don't want to spam this site with a bunch of external links.
And heck, you live in FFX county, one of the safest counties of its size in the entire country, and certainly safer than any other region in the DC Metro area (Alexandria and Arlington notwithstanding), and yet this area has very liberal gun laws and is teeming with gun owners. That should tell you something right there.
Tim- (#59) The federal/state dichotomy might work if the handgun ban was passed by Virginia. However, since the District of Columbia is not a state, but rather a federal district, the concerns of vertical federalism are modified somewhat. I dont think there's an easy answer as to whether the 2nd amendment directly applies to residents of DC, is subject to incorporation, or is otherwise applicable. For instance, DC public schools were ordered integrated on a federal constitutional rationale several years before Brown v. Board of Education.
In any event, there's a current case regarding the handgun ban in federal court where DC is claiming an interpretation or "militia" to mean the National Guard. While it's been decades since this was addressed on the Supreme Court level, it's clear that particular argument has never, at any point in our nations history, held water.
Sophia, you show you naiveté and ignorance if you have never heard of the millions upon millions of self defense gun uses every year. There are thousands of sites, but I can't post them here without jumping through more hoops. Look it up for yourself.
What do you mean, Susan saving her parents is a big if? What do you base that on? If you actually read her story, you would know that she had the perfect opportunity to shoot the lunatic that murdered her parents and all of those people. Your bias is showing.
I don't have to register anything where I live, so your registration story makes no sense for me. And, no you do not have to register your car if you are going to use it on your own property, there aren't any requirements for a license either. The only reason we register our cars when we use them on the roads is because it is a good revenue stream for State and local governments.
Sean - Fairfax county lacks lots of causal factors for crime, unrelated to gun ownership. An interesting breakdown would clearly be socioeconomic-sensitive studies of particular areas.
I would hypothesize, for example, that there is very little difference between gun violence in Fairfax County versus a similarly solidly upper middle class county with strict gun control laws. The most interesting comparison, of course, would be a comparison of gun-related deaths in two very poor, urban neighborhoods, one with and one without much gun control.
Anybody know if there are such studies?
sophiagrrl-
While not a handgun, I've got a very personal story of a shotgun in the home preventing violence. My own mother deterred a home invasion when she was home alone by pumping a load of buckshot through the kitchen floor, at the feet of someone trying to force the back door open. I'll only use it for as far as it goes- to advocate my position that regardless of what happens with the handgun ban, ownership of shotguns for home defense should largely be unregulated, or at least made more possible.
This brings me to something that I have a gut feeling about, but don't have the personal ability to argue in a way I'm satisfied with- the fact that there is an inverse correlation between private gun ownership and home invasions. Home invasion robberies, particularly while residents are at home, are rare in the United States- not so in the UK and other countries where private gun ownership is largely prohibited.
Ahh little Jason. You really are proving yourself to be quite ignorant. You are the one who moved the target. You stated New England first, when I called you on that you changed it to Mass. Well, Mass. is a small state, ranks 44 in area. Mississippi is much larger, ranking 32 in area.
Yes, Jason you are anti-American, since everything you believe and want to force down everybody's collective throats goes against the founding principles of this country. You believe you are perfectly justified in forcing people to behave the way you want them to, to the point of sending some government agents with GUNS to do the dirty work for you if the they do not agree. Like most do - gooders, you believe you are morally superior to the rest of your countrymen. You think you have the right to rule over others and you do not. I am glad you are offended, because nothing offends me more than ignorant, shallow sheep thinking they have to dictate to others how to live their lives. Sorry, boy, not on my street. Do us all a favor and make good on your promise to move to Canada.
And now we see why moderates like myself can never win in this debate- take a bow Henry! You're the reason!
seriously? anti-american? what are you, the vice president of your high school young republicans club? if so, why are you posting when you should be in class? wait . . . probably the same reason I'm feeding the troll when I should be working . . .
Henry -
Seriously? Anti-American? What are you, the zealous new deputy vice president of your high school young republicans club? If so, why are you posting when you should be in class? Oh, wait . . . probably the same reason I'm feeding the troll when I should be working
I think Henry just told us a *lot* more about his background than he expected to when he just called me "boy."
I'm just sayin' is all....
And now we see why moderates like myself can never win in this debate- take a bow Henry! You're the reason!
You are correct sir! We probably agree about this issue more than we disagree, but as usual the debate is hijacked by extremists.
Sophiagirl -- one notable case of a gun used in defense of others during a random violent crime was the deadly shooting at Appalachian School of Law in Virginia in 2002. When Peter Odighizuwa opened fire, a student retrieved his handgun from his vehicle and he and another student used the threat of shooting to distract Odighizuwa long enough for him to be tackled and disarmed. Odighizuwa had already killed three people (including the dean of the school) and was shooting everyone else who came across his path at the time that his spree was ended.
Sophiagirl -- one notable case of a gun used in defense of others during a random violent crime was the deadly shooting at Appalachian School of Law in Virginia in 2002. When Peter Odighizuwa opened fire, a student retrieved his handgun from his vehicle and he and another student used the threat of shooting to distract Odighizuwa long enough for him to be tackled and disarmed. Odighizuwa had already killed three people (including the dean of the school) and was shooting everyone else who came across his path at the time that his spree was ended.
Given the "Jim Crow" roots of a great deal of the gun control laws in this country I find it interesting that gun owners and 2nd Amendment supporters are painted as "racist rednecks" in this thread.
Ad hominem arguments really aren't useful.
Merrial -
True. The rescuers were a couple of former police officers. But weren't the shootings also committed with a legally obtained semiautomatic handgun? I'm sure it was a handgun, anyway. And I don't think he was charged with illegal possession; so it was probably legally obtained. So it's kind of hard to tell which way that one cuts.
If it was legally obtained any time shortly before the shooting, its hard to argue that it should have been legal because he had a history of mental illness and violent outbursts. www.law.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/View&c=LawArticle&cid=1028321297491&t=LawArticle
(I think he was later found competent.)
mnd - I've never heard the argument that gun control legislation is a relic of Jim Crow, care to cite an article or website?
Google "racist roots of gun control", first link.
Explain to me how "Saturday Night Special" laws are not not rooted in racism?
Interesting article, but don't you think it's a little disingenuous to portray "right to bear arms" activists as being motivated by racial justice?
An admittedly quick read.. but it looks like that document is based on dissents and out of context quotes from other tenuous judicial opinions. Its examples are almost all from southern states and from the 19th century (there is one example from 1920 Ohio).
What about the other states? Hell, what about DC? That law is only 30 years old, passed by a black mayor (I can't find much information on the council, except that Barry was on it). Tell me again how that's racist.
I'm not anti-gun, nor pro-gun, but I can say that you're not helping your cause with such silly arguments.
Hill Rat sez:
I made no claims as such, you simply asked for a citation, and there you go. While it's not the main catalyst behind the present RKBA movement, it is most certainly a factor.Hoodrat sez:
Precisely, the presence or absence of guns has seemingly little to do with the level of violent crime in a particular area. However it has a lot to do with whether law-abiding people are seen as free, trustworthy, self-reliant citizens, or merely wayward subjects which must be coddled and micromanaged by "the authorities".
It amuses and saddens me that the capital city of our great Republic is nothing more than a fiefdom of serfs and masters, where the citizens have no voice, the government has no scruples, and criminals literally run portions of the city.
It saddens me more that otherwise intelligent people accept this, and in many cases wholeheartedly approve.
I am thankful my work no longer requires me to cross the river.
Hill Rat said:
Actually I'm questioning the motivations of "gun control" advocates.Why do they want to disarm black people?
(An informed person would bring up the Sullivan Act in response to my obvious hyperbole.)
While it's not the main catalyst behind the present RKBA movement, it is most certainly a factor.
You can't be serious with this statement.
Are you maintaining that the RKBA movement does not contain any blacks?
Well grow a pair and pick a side. Then ask yourself what black leaders stand to gain by maintaining the status quo.
Thread winner, everyone go home.
Time to leave myself. It's been real :)
sean -
i didn't mean to imply that guns were irrelevant to levels of gun crimes, only that you can't prove guns are irrelevant by looking at one area without a lot of gun crimes and looking to see if there are nonetheless guns. you would have to compare fairfax county to someplace with similar other causal factors and see if gun availability made a difference. My hypothesis would be that there is not a great deal of difference in crime in comparably wealthy counties with gun control, but that gun accidents are still higher in areas with more liberal gun availability. In comparably poor areas, I would guess that gun availability makes a greater difference to gun crimes.
if your point is that there are more powerful factors affecting crime rates than gun availability, i agree. i'm also for reducing poverty ...
Are you maintaining that the RKBA movement does not contain any blacks?
I never said anything of the sort.
Well grow a pair and pick a side. Then ask yourself what black leaders stand to gain by maintaining the status quo.
Are you maintaining that Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, et al. are the driving forces behind gun control legislation all over the country? Puh-leeze!
I appreciate Politburo's willingness to listen to both sides of the debate without having to subcumb to the illectual laziness of binary thinking.
wait..
henry wrote:
"I don't have to register anything where I live, so your registration story makes no sense for me. And, no you do not have to register your car if you are going to use it on your own property, there aren't any requirements for a license either. The only reason we register our cars when we use them on the roads is because it is a good revenue stream for State and local governments."
Again, Henry may not have the same realities as the rest of us. I'm thinking this magical place is NOT in the DC Metro area, eh?
Hoodrat said "So, it's not really about whether I trust government; it's about whether I trust you. Nope. Not for a minute."
I agree. I dont trust YOU either which is why I own guns.
I too would rather have some punk steal my TV than do something worse. But dont you dare take away my ability to protect my wife from rapists. I dont keep a knife in the bed room because I dont want to fight off a rapist or murderer or you with a knife. I keep a .357. And if you think its so easy to take a gun away from someone, try and take away mine.
Jason - Nice job drawing a parallel between gun advocacy and child abuse. Touche. Maybe next time you can toss in a few child molesters and stinking hippies burning flags as well.
Guns, like reefer or even birth control, should only be possessed by adults trained in their abuse. They really are just inanimate objects and aren't evil in and of themselves. Unless you have some sort of satanic condom/.357 puppet you aren't letting the rest of the class in on.
Having examined this issue for years, gun control doesn't really have that much effect on violent crime one way or the other. No real deterrent effect and for what you get, we have to tolerate an awful lot of hot air (as witnessed by this thread). Google "UK gun ban crime rise," since I'm too lazy/drunk. As with the DC gun ban, it was followed by a spike in homicides, and a gradual decrease. The problem becomes the old correlation/causation one: did the legislation actually cause the spike/decline?
And your "what if everybody walked around with a glass of mercury" argument is a stroke of genius! I have to use that at my next kids party instead of inviting Stinky the Pyroflatulating Clown.
Now can we please go back to making fun of emo kids and trying to find a decent doner kebab simulacra?
Hill Rat - One of the Black Panther Party's major issues with the Oakland police was gun control. There was a concealed weapon's law, but nothing against openly carrying longarms. So they made a big to do about carrying rifles and shotguns openly. This is one of the issues that put Huey behind bars.
Also, during the SNCC days in Mississippi in the 1950s, there was an more militant splinter faction that took to arming local blacks in the face of Klan lynchmobs. Frontline did a piece on their leader, whose name escapes me.
Point is, Afro-Americans (as they called themselves back in the day) got a little tired of whitey trying to lynch their asses and decided on a little direct action. Replace the Klan with Antwayne on the corner running smack, and you have a contemporary equivalent.
Wowsa, boys and girls. Congratulations to ourselves. We've made even the smoking ban threads seem like love-ins by comparison.
I only have one useful comment. To those comparing DC crime rates to states like Virginia, that's not really a fair comparison. DC is ALL urban. Virginia, clearly, is not. A better comparison would be DC to Richmond or New Orleans. All three of these areas have a lot of similar demographics. I'm no expert but I believe Richmond and NO have very lenient gun control laws. DC has the opposite. And guess what? They all have heinous crime, and lots of it.
And, yes, there are some of us out there that are undecided on this issue. That doesn't make us some sort of wishy washy pussies. It means we realize it's a complicated issue, full of nuance and theory, but at the end of the day it has very real blood and death consequences for a good many of our fellow citizens.
There is a long, sad list of massacres in and near restaurants and other places where guns are prohibited. With visible carry mandatory, or any gun carry prohibited, criminals know that if they don't SEE a gun, there ISN'T a gun. That's who they choose to rob: the unarmed. It's less risky.
I once saw a gang fight brewing in the parking lot of a very nice restaurant evaporate when a man who had illegally carried his gun concealed into the restaurant pulled it out and fired one shot into the air. Lives might have been saved. If he had obeyed the stupid law, who knows? I might not be here to write this. There wasn't time to get to his car to get a gun or get away before the fight erupted.
Google "Luby's Cafeteria" "Killeen, Texas."
One armed person could have saved dozens of lives. Instead, state law prohibited guns where alcohol is served. A madman drove his truck THROUGH the front of the place and started executing families. The law didn't matter to him at all. Criminals are like that.
Some good and bad debate here.
I read it all with my .357 holstered at my side. The beauty of this is a lot of people don't realize what's great about this debate. In the U.S. you have the choice of arming yourself should you deem it necessary. But, I don't see that as justification that others should regulate where and when I can carry what if I choose to.
I'm still waiting for the author to tell me why the right to protect myself in Lowes or a restaurant doesn't exist.
And I'm waiting for an apology from those of you who call me a redneck or other insults because I want to be free.
Hill Rat - One of the Black Panther Party's major issues with the Oakland police was gun control.
I thought about the Black Panthers not long after I made my last post yesterday. As you pointed out, Huey ended up in the clink and other militant armed movements among Blacks have been relatively brief and obscure.
It's not so much that I doubt gun control has some sort of historic link to racism, but the idea that present day 2nd Amendment activists are making common cause with the Civil Rights movement is laughable.
2nd Amendment supporters are dealing with the Civil Rights movement's failure to cross the finish line. Its kind of like fallout in that respect -- around long after all the noise and bright lights are gone.
So again, why do "gun control" advocates want to disarm black people? Maybe this issue has less to do with crime than it has to do with bigotry, fear and intolerance?
MND, why do you need to post imaginary fights for the rest of us to read? No one is advocating the disarming of black people. Or anyone else, really.
And seriously, trying to argue that the VCDL is trying to finish what the Civil Rights Movement didn't, well . . . you can pat yourself on the back for advancing the cause of Stupid.
As for the motivation of most gun control advocates, I'd say that it's pretty simple - they'd like less dead people. So spare us your bullshit.
And I type this with a handgun in a safe near by, and having just had a really bad day this past weekend shooting sporting clays at Bull Run.
MB wrote:
Yet they keep pushing for laws that aren't effective towards achieving those ends.To bring this full circle, why aren't the "gun control" advocates calling for Bloomberg's head? He's broken the laws they support, and want more of!
This is a ridiculous conversation. I might have a bit of respect for the pro-handgun lobby if they seemed to genuinely give a damn about what DC people wanted. The majority do not want to lift the handgun ban. Think I'm wrong? Then why hasn't this been put to a ballot initiative? At least the sleazy-slot people had the balls to do that.
If the myopic and selfish pro-gun lobby is so concerned about OUR constitutional rights, it would do well to apply itself with the same zeal to getting us a even more fundamental right- congressional representation. Until they show they actually give a damn about us for our sake, and don't view us as convenient pawns in some national ideological game, they'll never have much credibility.
BrodyV [63] - I did some checking to make sure and it was the DC City Council that passed the ban. As far as I can tell this is a perfect use of incorporation and how it has not been used to apply the second amendment as it has been for other rights. Even if you argue that DC is not a state, it is a city and city's actually would have wider latitude to ban rights that the Federal government cannot. Heck, a neighborhood association has wide latitude to disregard the constitution (for example limiting political speech by banning campaign signs).
My point is simply that this is all ridiculous. It is not a Constitutional issue and therefore it should be left up to the people of DC. It is not clear to me that such bans are effective nor is it clear to me that it is worth the effort. But it is not up to me - I should have no say in it. Let DC debate it and those in Michigan (from earlier in this thread) or Virginia can go debate gay marriage or the episcopal church.
Mark, tim.
Article 1, Section 8 - Powers of Congress
Now, go re-read the first two Amendments. Notice that one explicity limits Congress and the other limits everyone. Even if you believe that the 2nd only limits Congress, or the Federal Government, the governance of the District is the exclusive domain of the Congress.Congress no more wants to arm DC citizens than DC citizens want to. Sure, they like to talk tough (at DC's expense) for the people back home, but give me a break. If they wanted to repeal the ban, they would have. It's self-evident. And the whole recent homeland security thing just makes that much less likely. No credibility. None.
Tim [103]- To follow up on what mnd cited, even if you were to limit the second amendment to preventing congress, not the states from restricting the right to bear arms (an interpretation for which I don't know if there's much case law one way or another), Art 1, Sec 8 makes it clear that such an exercise in DC would be unconstitutional, even if it wouldn't be in Virginia. Congress has "exclusive legislative authority." They've chosen to delegate some of that power to a municipal DC city government- something that they don't have to do, and for many years did not do. But even with that delegation, congress cannot delegate more authority than it already has. It does not have the authority under the 2nd amendment to ban handguns. Therefore, the city cannot have that authority, since it couldn't have possibly been delegated by congress.
Your comment about DC "being a city" and therefore having more power than a state to enact restrictive ordinances has two flaws- first, there's no constitutional protection for painting your house chartruse, or having a pig farm in a subdivision. There is a constitutional right to gun ownership. Second, DC isn't a city in the same way that Richmond is a city. Because of its status as a city within a federal district, a different constitutional analysis applies.
Go to 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."
Clearly an awkward sentence designed by committee. The Bill of Rights states the areas where the federal government has no power to regulate. The states may or may not have that right, but DC isn't a state. Anyway, the people who wrote this stuff felt that either they had to spell out clearly what powers the government didn't have. Others felt more along the lines of the drafting axiom "To list is to limit"--i.e. that by spelling all this out it implied that anything unlisted might be reserved to the feds--hence the long-forgotten 10th amendment which reserves un-enumerated powers to the states.
Anyway, there was a general fear of standing armies, and citizen militias were favored. Those are now known as our national guard, which are now much more federalized. In the thinking of the time, guns were important for people to have so that they can repel the british, the french, the local fauna, or maybe native americans who wanted their land back.
Nowadays there are a lot of arguements for and against people having guns and what type of "arms" they should be able to carry. Some have made great distinctions of what was considered civilian arms and what was considered artillery or heavier military munitions back in the day. Court cases might turn on whether a sawed off shotgun is considered a protected class of weapon, or as too much a military/non-civilian type of arm.
Personally, I don't own or want to own a gun, but I can certainly see the deterrant effect of a shotgun in the house with no firing pin and no ammo. I assume that without the firing pin it still makes that distinctive warning sound when being cocked and loaded.
I've certainly read articles about the importance to battered women having the right to bear arms when it can be hard for them to enforce restraining orders against abusive ex-bofriends.
On the other hand, the police have occasionally gotten a little trigger happy and have shot kids when they are running around after dark with a toy gun, so people with children should likely be under a duty to take extra precautions around young kids and educate their older kids about gun safety if they are going to have the things around.
Whether you are for or against gun ownership, people can have guns now, so the important thing is safety education and gun responsibility around children, who often think of guns as toys.
...what is obvious is that we love to discuss our firearms...
...at the range I really enjoy a magnum 45 as with a few initial rounds I seem to be able to hit the forehead, forearm, and groin-very good stress reduction therapy...
but, at dinner, it would just get in the way.
i grew up in a household that had a gun. none of the children ever played with it, nor was it anywhere within our reach or sight. however i do not own a gun as an adult and do not plan to ever have one in my house. i could easily justify owning one by the neighborhood i live in [SE DC] where gunshots are prevalent when the weather gets warm, and emergency vehicles frequent. and if that wasn't enough, all i would have to say to any of you is that i am a victim of two violent crimes.
anyone ever had a gun held to their head while they were raped?
i'm assuming not.
interestingly enough, i still don't keep a firearm in my home to protect myself. because i don't think guns are the answer.
i am a firm believer that it is the person we should fear, but i also fear the weapon they choose to use.
the argument on this forum seems to be about people who carry weapons into public places [in order to protect themselves].
i've witnessed a case that is relevant to this discussion. it involves a man who chose to carry a gun into a restaurant to keep his family safe. his family was safe right up until the point where he got into an argument with another man. he threatened the man verbally and then drew his weapon. the unarmed man raised his hands in defeat, but the armed man fired anyway. killed him with one shot to the temple. the bartender drew his weapon and fired what should have been a disabling shot at the armed man. except the armed man now turned and proceeded to fire into a crowded bar. the bartender was shot, [paralyzed], and several patrons at the bar were shot and subsequently killed. the children of the armed man, watched their father kill innocent people.
again, people are not the ones to be trusted. but when these same people choose to use a weapon that takes another person's life [whether for "protection" or for a criminal act], i'm not for it.