What actually are the constitutional limits to owning weapons?

[Quantum Windbag]

I don't know what the effect gun control has on gun violence in armed robberies. However, only 21% of the murders with firearms are in connection with a felony. Murders during armed robberies are only a small part of the problem.

In these states as in all states, most murders are crimes of passion that occur among people who know each other; in the home, in barrooms, or street corners, among family, friends and acquaintances. When heated situations arise, the presence of firearms makes a murder or permanent maiming far more likely.

About 60% of those that die from gun shots are suicide victims. A Harvard study found that a suicide was 17 times more likely in a home with firearms than one without. Other studies have found juvenile suicide is 10 times more likely in a home with firearms.

Another frequent occurrence is when young kids get access to guns, not realizing that they’re actually loaded, they play the typical kids’ "bang-bang" game, where one pretends to shoot the other dead, and actually ends up killing a sibling, relative or friend, because they don’t realize that the gun is actually loaded. Without the guns, these deaths simply would not occur.

Gun violence in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gun Control: Why It's Important | MyFDL
The gun toll we?re ignoring: suicide - Ideas - The Boston Globe

What the fuck? Do you think someone dies every time a gun is pulled during a felony?

Drop the fucking fixation you have on murder and look at all the numbers. California has a higher than average crime rate despite the gun laws, and actually trends above the national average for violent crimes. These numbers are easily available, even if it is harder to pull out the crimes that involve firearms. On the other hand, if we look at armed robberies we can assume that they are more likely to walk into a jewelry store with a gun than a knife.

California’s crime rate has been declining since 1980 and is now below the national rate.

Crime Trends in California (PPIC Publication)

One more time.

I am talking about violent crimes, not all crimes, and not just murder.

Here is the data according to the 2010 census.


https://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0308.pdf
http://www.infoplease.com/us/statistics/crime-rate-state.html

 

[Flopper]

You can buy a drone for about $400. Most people could easily hook up a semi-automatic pistol or rifle to it, and operate that with a radio controled device that you can adapt from a radio controled toy boat or airplane. With a 50 round magazine, you could become a terrorist in your nieghborhood, or you might want to spray the upper floor windows of a secured government building. Until you sent the electronic signal that fired the weapon, you would be a law abiding citizen, and nobody would even have the right to take the damned thing away from you.

Great post! I think the focus on expanded background checks and such is simply a matter of political expediency. To be truthful, people who commit such atrocities obtain guns from law abiding citizens who bought them legally. Looking at things from that perspective, as long as guns are privately owned they will be stolen, borrowed, lost, and found by anyone lucky enough to find them.

Gun control can not stop all gun violence but it can reduce it. The major cause of deaths from firearms is suicide. Most murders are crimes of passion. Accidental shootings are the third largest cause of gun deaths. Most of this gun violence is due to the easy access of guns. Less guns in the homes will mean less deaths.

 

[PaulS1950]

There are over 6000 times each day that people protect themselves with guns in this country. If you take away the guns then you have just made 6000+ new victims of violence. That would increase the violent crime in this country to over 400%.
Now tell me again how disarming the lawful owners of firearms will reduce violent crime.

 

[Flopper]

There are over 6000 times each day that people protect themselves with guns in this country. If you take away the guns then you have just made 6000+ new victims of violence. That would increase the violent crime in this country to over 400%.
Now tell me again how disarming the lawful owners of firearms will reduce violent crime.

Your argument that gun control would take the guns away gun from people attempting to protect themselves and would have no effect on the criminal's access to guns doesn't make sense. The NRA says this so much, that people actually believe it.

People buy guns to protect themselves, but the fact is most fatal gun shots don't come from criminals but are self inflicted.

 

[Ernie S.]

I doubt if the Continental Congress had any thing BUT single shot muskets in mind when they promulgated and included the 2nd amendment to the Constitution. It might be noteworthy to consider that as personal weapons evolved, subsequent amendments should have been initiated to allow for each technological change! Under the present 2nd amendment only black powder muskets and flintlocks should be in the hands of the citizenry. There is no constitutional right to own anything else. The fore fathers who made the law were incapable of seeing what was to come.

I am sure you are right -- how could the FFs have predicted the future of weaponry? Impossible.

However, the legal Supreme Court decision Miller did legitimitize modern weapons, not just muskets. The Miller decision is because all the Constitutional protections apply to modern conditions: we don't have any Amendments in formaldehyde sitting on a shelf.

The question is simply ---- what modern weapons? What limits and why? That has never been rationalized. There are a few piecemeal laws against this and that, but so far no real body of law dealing with the problems of the Second Amendment that have led to all these madmen mass murders.

Are you fucking serious? Of course there is a body of law dealing with murder, mass murder, firing a weapon in a school etcetera. There are thousands of laws that should prevent a crazy man from shooting first graders, but problems or limitations of the 2nd Amendment do not lead madmen to mass murder. I'm throughly convinced people go on shooting rampages because they are driven insane trying to rationalize Liberal "logic" like that in red, above.

 

[Vandalshandle]

" I'm thoroughly convinced people go on shooting rampages because they are driven insane trying to rationalize Liberal "logic" like that in red, above. "

...and statements like this from the Right, along with "The solution to the gun problem is more guns", are the reason that I bail out of conversations like this thread. When people compare gun regulation to banning hands because they hurt people, and toys because they are dangerous, then I know that the thread has been taken over by the radical right, and that the train left with all their baggage long ago... However, I take comfort in knowing that the majority of Americans favor stricter gun control and magazine size limitations. While the paranoia on this thread is so pervasive that nothing short of a zombie uprising will surprise many of these posters, I am heading back into the real world, where first grade teachers are not going to be trained to use automatic weapons against bad guys in the cafeteria.

 

[M14 Shooter]

You can buy a drone for about $400. Most people could easily hook up a semi-automatic pistol or rifle to it, and operate that with a radio controled device that you can adapt from a radio controled toy boat or airplane. With a 50 round magazine, you could become a terrorist in your nieghborhood, or you might want to spray the upper floor windows of a secured government building. Until you sent the electronic signal that fired the weapon, you would be a law abiding citizen, and nobody would even have the right to take the damned thing away from you.

Time to ban model airplanes...or maybe all electronic signals.

You know, more people are murdered in America with hands and feet than assault rifles and shotguns. Should we register appendages as well? Oh heck, let's ban toes and fingers. You can't make a fist without fingers.

It's for the children!

Just because no one has wiped out a school yet with an assault rifle doesn't mean they should be allowed.

No... the fact that assault rifles are -exactly- the sort of weapon protected by the 2nd is why they shoudl be "allowed".
'Assault weapons' come in a close second.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Gun control can not stop all gun violence but it can reduce it.

Interesting, then, that most gun violence is found in places with the tightest gun control.

 

[Flopper]

Gun control can not stop all gun violence but it can reduce it.

Interesting, then, that most gun violence is found in places with the tightest gun control.

Not true. States with higher gun ownership and weak gun laws lead the Nation in gun death. The analysis reveals that the five states with the highest per capita gun death rates were Alaska, Louisiana, Montana, Alabama, and Wyoming. Each of these states had a per capita gun death rate far exceeding the national per capita gun death rate for the 50 states of 10.25 per 100,000 for 2010. Each of these states has lax gun laws and higher gun ownership rates. By contrast, states with strong gun laws and low rates of gun ownership had far lower rates of firearm-related death. Ranking last in the nation for gun death was Hawaii, followed by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New York.




Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: The data is clear; gun control works | Examiner Editorial | Editorials | San Francisco Examiner

 

[M14 Shooter]

Gun control can not stop all gun violence but it can reduce it.

Interesting, then, that most gun violence is found in places with the tightest gun control.

Not true. States with higher gun ownership and weak gun laws lead the Nation in gun death.

"Gun death" is but a tiny, and not wholly relevant, component of gun violence.
Your rebuttal fails. Please try again.

 

[Flopper]

Interesting, then, that most gun violence is found in places with the tightest gun control.

Not true. States with higher gun ownership and weak gun laws lead the Nation in gun death.

"Gun death" is but a tiny, and not wholly relevant, component of gun violence.
Your rebuttal fails. Please try again.

Not relevant?

 

[PaulS1950]

Alaska has the highest suicide rate in the entire US. Yes, guns are used most often in these deaths but no ban would limit the suicide in Alaska that is caused by seasonal depressive disorder - the lack of sunlight which is also part of the problem with drinking in Alaska, which leads to more depression and accidents.

You can't point to guns as the cause of anything - there has to be a person on the working end of a gun for it to do anything. Understand that and you might be able to make a difference in gun violence.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

There are over 6000 times each day that people protect themselves with guns in this country. If you take away the guns then you have just made 6000+ new victims of violence. That would increase the violent crime in this country to over 400%.
Now tell me again how disarming the lawful owners of firearms will reduce violent crime.

Your argument that gun control would take the guns away gun from people attempting to protect themselves and would have no effect on the criminal's access to guns doesn't make sense. The NRA says this so much, that people actually believe it.

People buy guns to protect themselves, but the fact is most fatal gun shots don't come from criminals but are self inflicted.

Just for fun, let's assume your statement is true. That leads to the next question, which is, so what?

 

[M14 Shooter]

Not true. States with higher gun ownership and weak gun laws lead the Nation in gun death.

"Gun death" is but a tiny, and not wholly relevant, component of gun violence.
Your rebuttal fails. Please try again.

Not relevant?

Read what I said.
Gun violence involves a lot more than just deaths related to gunfire.
Only statng the number of gun relaterd deaths proves nothing as it does not desscribe the huge majoprity of violence related to guns has nothing to do with killing someone.

Your rebuttal fails. Please try again.

 

[Flopper]

Alaska has the highest suicide rate in the entire US. Yes, guns are used most often in these deaths but no ban would limit the suicide in Alaska that is caused by seasonal depressive disorder - the lack of sunlight which is also part of the problem with drinking in Alaska, which leads to more depression and accidents.

You can't point to guns as the cause of anything - there has to be a person on the working end of a gun for it to do anything. Understand that and you might be able to make a difference in gun violence.

I agree that guns are not the cause of violence. Murders which are mostly crimes of passion are more likely to result in death or serious injury if guns are present.

Nearly 20,000 of the 30,000 deaths from guns in the United States in 2010 were suicides, according to the most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Guns are particularly lethal. Suicidal acts with guns are fatal in 85 percent of cases, while those with pills are fatal in just 2 percent of cases, according to the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. Like murder, guns don't cause people to attempt suicide, but they just make it more likely to be lethal.

 

[Flopper]

"Gun death" is but a tiny, and not wholly relevant, component of gun violence.
Your rebuttal fails. Please try again.

Not relevant?

Read what I said.
Gun violence involves a lot more than just deaths related to gunfire.
Only statng the number of gun relaterd deaths proves nothing as it does not desscribe the huge majoprity of violence related to guns has nothing to do with killing someone.

Your rebuttal fails. Please try again.

I haven't found your post that explains why gun deaths are irrelevant. Are you referring to the 75,000 nonfatal gunshot injuries.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Not relevant?

Read what I said.
Gun violence involves a lot more than just deaths related to gunfire.
Only statng the number of gun relaterd deaths proves nothing as it does not desscribe the huge majoprity of violence related to guns has nothing to do with killing someone.

Your rebuttal fails. Please try again.

I haven't found your post that explains why gun deaths are irrelevant. Are you referring to the 75,000 nonfatal gunshot injuries.

I explained it twice.
3rd time:
Only statng the number of gun relaterd deaths proves nothing as it does not desscribe the huge majoprity of violence related to guns has nothing to do with killing someone.

 

[whitehall]

Yesterday there was a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Rivkin and Grossman on "Gun Control and the Constitution." I didn't think it was particularly good, but it did remind me that constitutional protections of all kinds have repeatedly been infringed by the government. The authors say of abridging constitutionality that "Any measure must be justified by a legitimate government interest that is compelling or at least important."

There has been a lot of silly talk by not-very-bright people of the kind that think it's somehow an argument to call people "idiots" and "bitches" who don't seem to get at any part of the real arguments. I find that frustrating, because this is quite an important issue, but there is little clear thinking about it.

Stupid argument 1: The government can't and doesn't infringe our gun rights ever ever ever ever and if they ever did this would be the end of the world world world!!!!!

Not so: the government has infringed this Constitutional right all along: no grenades, no submachine guns, no sawed off shotguns, no nukes. Could we please dispense with this sort of non-think?

Stupid argument 2: It's a slippery slope greased with Crisco! Butter! No. 30 motor oil!! If they take away Bubba Boy's 14 assault rifles and his 26 100-round high-capacity magazines, or even just make it illegal for the poor guy to buy the other 17 he wants, that means they'll come after the pistol everyone else keeps in their sock drawer for home defense and the burglars will kill us all!!!!!

Not so: weapons confiscation hasn't happened ever, and they banned the assault rifles for ten years already and none of that happened.

The government "infringes" on constitutional liberties all the time: speech and religion as well as the many prohibition on weapons ownership already in place.

So does anyone who is able to talk coherently on this (leaving aside, I hope, the nasty name-callers incapable of thought whom I have already or will soon discard and report, as usual) have any ideas on this difficult issue of how much and why the government is entitled to infringe on the Second Amendment? Or any Constitutional protection? We know it already does infringe, so ---- what else, if anything?

Not surprising that the union based education system causes people to be confused about the Constitution. There are no Constitutional limits. The Constitution gives us freedom. Laws restrict that freedom. The question isn't about the Constitution but the Constitutionality of the laws.

 

[Flopper]

Read what I said.
Gun violence involves a lot more than just deaths related to gunfire.
Only statng the number of gun relaterd deaths proves nothing as it does not desscribe the huge majoprity of violence related to guns has nothing to do with killing someone.

Your rebuttal fails. Please try again.

I haven't found your post that explains why gun deaths are irrelevant. Are you referring to the 75,000 nonfatal gunshot injuries.

I explained it twice.
3rd time:
Only statng the number of gun relaterd deaths proves nothing as it does not desscribe the huge majoprity of violence related to guns has nothing to do with killing someone.

Adding another 75,000 people injured only strengthens the argument for more gun control.

 

[M14 Shooter]

I haven't found your post that explains why gun deaths are irrelevant. Are you referring to the 75,000 nonfatal gunshot injuries.

I explained it twice.
3rd time:
Only statng the number of gun relaterd deaths proves nothing as it does not desscribe the huge majoprity of violence related to guns has nothing to do with killing someone.

Adding another 75,000 people injured only strengthens the argument for more gun control.

You refuse to understand. Not much I can do for you.