320 Years of History
Gold Member
I don't have the time right now to provide sources, so I make no claim. However, I challenge the assumption that "Gun-Control" laws have any real effect on the number of violent crimes involving a gun. I also challenge the assertion that defence of the 2nd is backed by an irrational fear.
You may find this informative:
- A scholarly study of the impact of gun control laws on crime rates (not specifically gun-related crime):
"Finally, despite our belief that the NRC’s analysis was imperfect in certain ways, we agree with the committee’s cautious final judgment regarding the effects of shall-issue RTC laws: “with the current evidence it is not possible to determine that there is a causal link between the passage of right-to-carry laws and crime rates.” Our results here further underscore the sensitivity of guns-crime estimates to various modeling decisions. If one had to make judgments based on panel data models of the type presented in the NRC report, one would have to conclude that RTC laws likely increase the rate of aggravated assault. Further research will be needed to see if this conclusion survives as more data and better methodologies are employed to estimate the impact of RTC laws on crime." - A scholarly study on Firearm Ownership and Violent Crime in the U.S.
- "These analyses do not support the hypothesis that firearm ownership deters violent firearm crime. Instead, this study shows that higher levels of firearm ownership are associated with higher rates of firearm-related violent crime. Public health and legislative stakeholders should consider these results when responding to or engaging in the gun control debate."
- The Relationship Between Gun Ownership and Firearm Homicide Rates in the United States, 1981–2010
"We found a robust relationship between gun ownership and firearm homicide rates, a finding that held whether firearm ownership was assessed through a proxy or a survey measure, whether state clustering was accounted for by GEEs or by fixed effects, and whether or not gun ownership was lagged, by up to 2 years. The observed relationship was specific to firearm-related homicide. Although we could not determine causation, we found that states with higher levels of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides."
- Gun violence: experts explore critical issues from multiple angles
"Relative to medicine, public health is underfunded; within public health, the injury prevention field is underfunded; and within the injury prevention field, the firearms area is particularly underfunded. A 2013 report of the Institute of Medicine emphasized the critical need for research into preventing firearm injuries."
["Killing two birds with one 'stone,' "as it were, with the remarks in the third bullet point below ...FA_Q2, this is part of the reply I owe you. The remarks you made and that pertains to the content in the third bullet is just below.]
Then you would be mistaken. While the quote has been shortened rather needlessly IMHO, the meaning is not changed.
What is clear to me is:
- There are folks, like Don B. Kates, who suggest that we should determine the cause(s) of gun violence, yet those folks haven't been among the folks whom I've observed to also advocate for the repeal of Dickey-Wicker. Dickey-Wicker is a key reason the research studies above have little to no data to support inferences about the causality of gun crime. Moreover, to the extent those studies were funded by federal/CDC grants, they are legally prohibited from including causality in their scope.
- Regardless of what Mr. Kates claims are the reasons people use guns against others or themselves, the fact is neither he nor any other writer has any directly relevant (i.e., non-anecdotal) empirical evidence to support those claims. Dickey-Wicker is the reason that is so. So no matter whether you read/hear folks "on about" why folks do "this or that" with guns, know that the only thing they have to go on is their own judgement as to why that is so.
I'm not saying that their proposed causes are implausible, I'm saying that no matter how plausible or implausible they be, they no better or worse reasons than anyone else can propose. I don't care what side of the gun-control issue one falls, failing to admit that reality is a mark of one's fleeting integrity and commitment to actually preventing the occurrence of gun-related crime and deaths. - Just as there is no clear causal link between gun-carry laws and crime rates, the converse is too so. Were that not so, folks wouldn't spend their energies trying to find one or the other such relationships.
- There is a wealth of written information from the founders that can support both the position of the gun rights and that of the gun control side of the issue.
That said, you'll notice that Kates, rather than providing Thomas Paine's sentences in full, as does every other conservative who cites it, removes the parts that make it clear Mr. Paine wasn't at all writing about an individual right:
From the House of Commons the troops of Britain have been exhorted to fight, not for the defence of their natural rights, not to repel the invasion or the insult of enemies; but on the vilest of all pretences, gold. “Ye fight for solid revenue” was vociferated in the House. Thus America must suffer because she has something to lose. Her crime is property. That which allures the Highwayman has allured the ministry under a gentler name. But the position laid down by Lord Sandwich, is a clear demonstration of the justice of defensive arms. The Americans, quoth this Quixote of modern days, will not fight; therefore we will. His Lordship’s plan when analized amounts to this. These people are either too superstitiously religious, or too cowardly for arms; they either cannot or dare not defend; their property is open to any one who has the courage to attack them. Send but your troops and the prize is ours. Kill a few and take the whole. Thus the peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and abandoned, while they neglect the means of self defence. The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. And while a single nation refuses to lay them down, it is proper that all should keep them up. Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them; for while avarice and ambition have a place in the heart of man, the weak will become a prey to the strong. The history of every age and nation establishes these truths, and facts need but little arguments when they prove themselves.
-- Thomas Paine
One need only recall that John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich's, speech before Parliament to understand that the ministry strategy which Paine writes need be repelled is not a personal one, one for which the Second Amendment need grant an individual right, but rather a governmental one. It is in this context that it becomes clear that Paine had not in mind whether you or I should have a gun for our defense against individual ruffians. The man wrote of the ruffians who acted at the Crown's behest.
As if various mid-paragraph elements in that oft cited Paine passage didn't make it clear that individual rights have nothing to do with Paine's intent, his concluding remarks in it make it patently clear that he wasn't thinking in the least of a right granted for the sake of allowing individuals self-defense for their own sake rather that for the sake of the nation, the state. Even the title of the work in which Paine's paragraph is found, "Thoughts on a Defensive War," doesn't suggest that the overall subject has a damn thing to do with individuals, but rather with nations. The opening metaphor Paine develops -- Israelites vs. Pharoah -- conjures not images of persons defending against personal assault, but of people collectively fighting tyranny for the sake of their tribe, albeit stateless at the time.
As if that weren't enough, the paragraph following the one quoted above drives home the central theme of Paine's essay pertains to the use of arms to protect against state oppression and infringement on collective liberty.
It is clear to me, having read Mr. Paine's essay, that any use of his statements to support the assertion that the Founding Fathers intended the Second Amendment as a protection of an individual's right to bear arms must take the man's words completely out of context. Do that is the misrepresentation of which I wrote earlier.
As with any misrepresentation perpetrated by overlooking contextual relevance, one must ask why one or a group might be inclined to do so. I wrote, "the 'huge arms industry' has distorted the Founding Fathers' intent; the reason why they would do is clear. Profit. One need only look at a profile of the small arms industry to see how strong a motivator that is, that is if one can't discern its singular inspirational value without doing so.
FA_Q2: here ends the comments I present in reply to your quoted remarks.
-- Thomas Paine
One need only recall that John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich's, speech before Parliament to understand that the ministry strategy which Paine writes need be repelled is not a personal one, one for which the Second Amendment need grant an individual right, but rather a governmental one. It is in this context that it becomes clear that Paine had not in mind whether you or I should have a gun for our defense against individual ruffians. The man wrote of the ruffians who acted at the Crown's behest.
As if various mid-paragraph elements in that oft cited Paine passage didn't make it clear that individual rights have nothing to do with Paine's intent, his concluding remarks in it make it patently clear that he wasn't thinking in the least of a right granted for the sake of allowing individuals self-defense for their own sake rather that for the sake of the nation, the state. Even the title of the work in which Paine's paragraph is found, "Thoughts on a Defensive War," doesn't suggest that the overall subject has a damn thing to do with individuals, but rather with nations. The opening metaphor Paine develops -- Israelites vs. Pharoah -- conjures not images of persons defending against personal assault, but of people collectively fighting tyranny for the sake of their tribe, albeit stateless at the time.
As if that weren't enough, the paragraph following the one quoted above drives home the central theme of Paine's essay pertains to the use of arms to protect against state oppression and infringement on collective liberty.
The Jewish kings were in point of government as absolute as the Pharaohs. Men were frequently put to death without trial at the will of the Sovereign. The Romans held the world in slavery, and were themselves the slaves of their emperors. The madman of Macedon governed by caprice and passion, and strided as arrogantly over the world as if he had made and peopled it; and it is needless to imagine that other nations at that time were more refined. Wherefore political as well as spiritual freedom is the gift of God through Christ.
-- Thomas Paine
Immediately following that paragraph, Paine goes on to expressly write of "political liberty" and further using metaphors that call the reader to consider matters of state, not matters of individuality. So tell me, why would a man like Thomas Paine, in writing "Thoughts on a Defensive War," put in just one sentence about individual rights when over and over again he makes clear that the theme of the whole essay has to do with protecting the state? The reality is that the only way one can construe Mr. Paine's words as pertaining to individual rights for the sake of the individual is to deliberately want to use them for that purpose.-- Thomas Paine
It is clear to me, having read Mr. Paine's essay, that any use of his statements to support the assertion that the Founding Fathers intended the Second Amendment as a protection of an individual's right to bear arms must take the man's words completely out of context. Do that is the misrepresentation of which I wrote earlier.
As with any misrepresentation perpetrated by overlooking contextual relevance, one must ask why one or a group might be inclined to do so. I wrote, "the 'huge arms industry' has distorted the Founding Fathers' intent; the reason why they would do is clear. Profit. One need only look at a profile of the small arms industry to see how strong a motivator that is, that is if one can't discern its singular inspirational value without doing so.
FA_Q2: here ends the comments I present in reply to your quoted remarks.
- Anti-gun control proponents are quick to cite crime patterns in Washington, D.C. and Chicago, two localities that had gun ownership prohibitions, but they fail to recognize that nearby jurisdictions have no such limitations and for which there exist no restrictions on interjurisdictional travel.
- Anti-gun control proponents cite violent crime rates in cities like D.C., but they ignore just who is committing those crimes. In my part of D.C., "west of the Park," crime rates are generally low. (Two areas "west of the Park" have somewhat high rates of gun-related crime -- Woodland and Sheridan. I don't know why, and I should for I live in one of them.) In the less economically advantaged parts of town, the rates are generally high(er). I am certain that poor folks travel to wealthier parts of town, but I'm inclined to think that well off folks rarely travel to poor parts of town, and -- I'm going out on a limb here -- I doubt when they do go there, they (often) have cause to shoot people or accost them with a gun.
- An absolute prohibition on gun ownership is a tactic that has not been tried across the board in the U.S., thus it's no surprise that making limited areas like D.C. or Chicago be gun-free zones had little impact.
- Gun ownership has been (roughly) universally permitted in the U.S. and we see where that's got us as goes gun-related violence. It seems to me that trying the opposite tack is at least worth a shot.