Guns And The Second Amendment

Open Forum in English
1

The other day we had this discussion about guns in the US with adamant positions on either side of the argument. I just read this on CNN and the whole debate came back to me:

"Relative shoots costumed girl after mistaking her for a skunk

A little girl was fighting for her life early Monday after she was shot outside a Halloween party by a relative who mistook her costume for a skunk.

Police in western Pennsylvania’s New Sewickley Township said the 9-year-old girl was dressed in black with a black hat for the Saturday evening party.

As the two to three dozen guests milled about, the girl went to hide on the edge of a hill.

It was past 8 p.m. and the sun had long set. A relative spotted the dark figure in the distance, mistook it for a skunk and fired his shotgun, said Officer Greg Carney with the township police.

The girl was hit in the neck, back and arm - and flown to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, about 30 miles away. There, she remained in the intensive care unit, Carney said.

Police will determine later Monday whether they will charge the shooter, whom they did not name. Nor did they say how he was related to the girl.

They did add, however, that the man had not been drinking. "

2

In Spain the news was full of another tragic shooting in Spain. Yet more people die from knives, and even from suicide, not to mention cars and falling into swimming pools. And there is Syria and Africa…human beings are a nasty sort some of the time.

3

And what about smoking - how many folks does that kill each year?

Are we gonna ban cigs too? (Germany first on that one…)

4

Smoking related deaths are mostly self inflicted and cause the smoker to die some seven years earlier on average. I think it is rather cynical to compare smoking to this tragic case.

The point I wanted to make is that while often the gun lobby says: “Oh, if only people had a gun in that situation and could have taken out the shooter…”, I suspect that in many cases like this it rather is “Oh if only that person had not had a gun…”

5

This sad case shows the total lack of education of the gun’s owner.
Before firing, you MUST see your target CLEARLY. This is a basic rule.

I know 2 Americans who own guns, rifles, machine-guns (!!)… They know HOW to fire, but have no idea WHEN to fire !

As a professional (I’m a cop), I can tell you that the average knowledge of the average gun’s owner is pathetic.

6

@Juju: “…This sad case shows the total lack of education of the gun’s owner. Before firing, you MUST see your target CLEARLY. This is a basic rule.”

I agree.

@Friedemann
You can put away those dirty crude 1900s style smokes, and try some 21st century technology:

http://www.bullsmoke.com/

(A rare example of engineers creating a genuinely good product!)

7

It’s a tragic story and the gun owner is irresponsible and should face prosecution, but the argument that this justifies more unconstitutional legislation of the 2nd amendment is very weak. I expect you’ll at least be consistent and suggest banning all cars whenever someone else gets a DUI and hits someone, or banning all knives the next time somebody else’s kid takes one off the counter and cuts himself or someone else with it, etc. The government can’t regulate stupidity right out of society and it shouldn’t punish the majority of citizens because a very tiny fraction of citizens are irresponsible.

And I disagree with Juju. I think most gun owners know much better than this and this is not an example of the average gun owner. 7 year olds know not to shoot a gun at anything that they can’t identify. The average gun owner is not a threat to anyone. In fact, I bet we’d find that statistically the “professional” officers are more dangerous than registered gun owners and members of gun clubs.

We’ve seen police officers using their position of power to execute members of minority groups because these LEOs know they can get away with it. Refer to my previous post, where I mentioned the NYPD’s abysmal 34% accuracy rate when firing in the line of duty. We even saw a recent example a couple months ago of NYPD’s finest in action at the Empire State Building, where they shot 9 innocent bystanders, injuring more people than the bad guy they were intent on stopping.

And some people want to give these lethally negligent dangers to society the small arms monopoly? Sounds like a losing strategy to me. The 2nd amendment needs less legislation, not more.

8

“We’ve seen police officers using their position of power to execute members of minority groups because these LEOs know they can get away with it. Refer to my previous post, where I mentioned the NYPD’s abysmal 34% accuracy rate when firing in the line of duty. We even saw a recent example a couple months ago of NYPD’s finest in action at the Empire State Building, where they shot 9 innocent bystanders, injuring more people than the bad guy they were intent on stopping.”

I agree with unravelingmind, and they rarely get prosecuted for obvious abuse of their power, as there are so many programs out there like “above the law”. Don’t get me wrong, I believe most police officers are good guys, but some are crooked like in any other profession. I heard this story too. My thoughts are the guy should definitely be held accountable. You can’t just shoot at something because it’s small and black, seriously, if this guy is this stupid they should take away his guns, not sure as to what kind of jail time, but if she dies he’s responsible. I’ve heard of other stories where hunters were shot who didn’t wear their blaze orange??? Never seen too many deer who wear clothes and stand up right. I remember this program where this woman shot here husband with a high powered rifle at dusk, while bear hunting, she thought her husband was a bear and got off the hook… unbelievable. Looking through a scope at dusk a bear looks like a bear and a man walking looks like a man walking especially under 100 yards in a scope.

9

I never understood the US-Americans’ paranoia about being able to defend themselves against their own government. Look at countries awash with weapons like Libyia, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan. I don’t think the citizens in those countries are any safer from violence because of their access to guns. The ideas that an authoritarian government supported by an army can be overthrown by a bunch of gun affecianados is just laughable.

10

People don’t flip one day after getting the sack and stab everyone in their office.

They don’t eye up a skunk on a treeline, break a bottle and go looking for it.

It is the availability and legality of guns which is causing a lot of people to die. Arguing with gun nuts is pointless though. I remember going to my old Chefs house in America for a beer one day. I liked him, real good guy. He decides to show me his arsenal and in this house of him, his wife and 3 young kids he could account for 3 of his 7 guns. I’ve shot guns, it was fun shooting guns because shooting guns is fun. However this little kick of fun for an hour just doesn’t equate with John Q Yahoo being able to snaffle one up at a gunshow, and walk into a (name one of the numerous without-motive mass killings this year) and start killing innocent people.

“Wife must have moved them, man”, was what he said by the way…

In short: People are stupid and shouldn’t be allowed guns.

11

Who will guard the guns?

12

These gun discussions are interesting, but I don’t know how to participate. It’s basically inconceivable to me that some people think it’s a good idea for ordinary people in modern Western democracies to be able to buy automatic weapons and keep them in their house. I don’t see how any good can come of this.

But the gun mentioned in the article was a shotgun, presumably a hunting weapon, and that sort of gun is not going to get banned or heavily restricted in North America. That’s just the way it is - lots of people still like hunting. There’s no momentum to ban hunting weapons, so we have to accept that these sorts of accidents will happen from time to time.

13

@Bortrun: “…so we have to accept that these sorts of accidents will happen from time to time.”

That’s it - in a nutshell.

Obviously the person who shot this girl was being stupid and highly reckless - but sadly a small minority of people are like that.

If the control freaks out there really wanted to save lives (and I mean LOTS of lives) which are needlessly lost every single day in Europe and North America they could start campaigning for stuff like:

1.) making it illegal to drive any motor vehicle within 48 hours of consuming alcohol

2.) introducing a mandatory 25-year jail sentence for those caught driving with any detectable level of alcohol or illegal drugs.

3.) introducing a mandatory 6 month jail sentence for those caught exceeding the legal speed limit on public roads (with an extra 5 years for those exceeding the limit by more than 7mph, and an extra 20 for those exceeding by more than 15mph)

4.) banning the sale of all tobacco products (with a mandatory 30 years in jail for those caught supplying)

Of course anyone calling for the above measures would (rightly) be considered a complete safety-nazi. Yet how many 1000s of lives would be saved each year thereby, I wonder?

The world is a difficult and dangerous place - that’s just the way it is.

14

I agree with JayB’s basic point, but one important difference between cars and guns is that cars serve a useful, and in fact necessary, function in society. Guns are certainly not necessary, and in most cases not even useful. Hunting is a hobby - it’s not necessary for us to go hunting for animals with rifles and shotguns. And smoking is also different because it primarily harms the smoker - at least now after laws banning people from smoking indoors.

I’m from Canada, and it’s not that difficult to get hunting weapons in Canada, and these weapons don’t seem to be causing big problems. Most gun homicides, as I understand it, are committed with illegal guns smuggled in from the States. While I think the rules about guns in the States are absolutely insane, I don’t think hunting weapons are the big problem.

15

@Bortrun: “…Guns are certainly not necessary, and in most cases not even useful”

Bortrun, if you were a pest such as a fox or a rat (or, indeed, a skunk) wouldn’t you prefer to be shot quickly and cleanly by a farmer, rather than be poisoned or ripped apart by dogs?

(Of course, any reasonably intelligent farmer would make quite sure that you actually were a skunk, and not some kid in a skunk-suit, before opening fire…)

16

"I never understood the US-Americans’ paranoia about being able to defend themselves against their own government. "

Most Americans never worry about this type of thing since it’s logistically impossible for a military takeover in the way that you’re talking about. A fringe of people may worry about the US government fighting against the people, but they are a small minority and probably way overhyped by the media who feeds on the idea of pumping up radical and fringe groups for their own benefit.

Let me ask you something: Do you think American kids would ever really attack their own brothers and sisters? Not a chance! I have several family members who have served and are serving in the US military. I’m 100% sure that my family and friends would never go along with any plan to hurt American citizens or disarm them. I’m not afraid that my brother or some other member of my family serving in the military will be busting down my door anytime soon to start a totalitarian takeover. It would take a foreign army to invade, and I don’t think I need to explain to you why having 300 million+ extra guns and trillions of extra rounds of ammunition would be useful in a war the scale of which would be required to fear a mainland US invasion.

American soldiers are mostly good kids that just want to serve their country. A lot of them are only in for some quick money or education so they can move on to other things. They’re definitely not going to go in for 2 years and then turn on their family. It’s completely unrealistic. And if your argument is that it’s unrealistic that we should have guns because no army can invade the US since the US army would never turn on us, then that must surely be a trick to get us to disarm so you can invade us unsuspectingly and only fight the military! We know those Brits want their colonies back you’re probably just lulling us to sleep with your sweet talk, so they can prepare to attack us when we’re at our weakest! :wink: Joking aside, Americans own guns for a variety of reasons. Staving off an invading force is just one of many good (but highly unlikely) reasons people might own firearms.

“People are stupid and shouldn’t be allowed guns.”

Well, people are brilliant and creative, but yes, people are also stupid. However, this argument only looks good on the surface because of the ‘stupid people’ element:

People are stupid and shouldn’t be allowed alcohol.
People are stupid and shouldn’t be allowed to drive.
People are stupid and shouldn’t be allowed knives/hatchets/axes/chainsaws…
People are stupid and shouldn’t be allowed to text while driving.

By the way, you said people so I assume you mean everyone in the world, since stupidity is ubiquitous in every level of society? Or do you just mean certain elites and bureaucrats would keep their guns and the slave populace would get rid of theirs?

“Guns are certainly not necessary, and in most cases not even useful.”

If guns are “not necessary”, then why do the governments around the world have so many? If all guns are unnecessary, are you suggesting a total gun ban, or only a ban for people who aren’t rich enough to pay for the government-certified bodyguards with machine guns to follow them everywhere? Would the US have risen to the status of a “world power” and have a “world reserve currency” if guns were “not necessary”? The higher standard of living Westerners enjoy compared to many other nations are a direct result of guns and military power; I’d say that guns, and more specifically military power, is very crucial to shaping world history/maintaining society and I’d define that as “necessary”. I think it’s obvious that being able to defend yourself, your nation, and your sovereignty, leads to a better quality of life.

If you’re a proponent of a totally gun free planet, I’m interested to know how you’d implement a total destruction of all guns worldwide and subsequently prevent their manufacture forever thereafter to give us a gun-free world. Even more challenging is the confiscation of the firearms from private owners and doing it in a nonviolent way. Ironically, the only feasible practical way to confiscate guns would probably be at gunpoint under the direct threat of force.

With the rise of things like 3D printing (which is expensive now, but as we’ve all seen, technology moves at breathtaking speed and only gets cheaper, smaller, and better as time goes on) and other future technologies that we can’t even fathom, it could conceivably become impossible to stop independent owners of such machines from printing copies of firearms and assembling them right there in their living room. I don’t believe that all of the regulations in the world would be enough to stop black market developers of these types of things, so what do you do when everyone can print a machine gun?

“Hunting is a hobby - it’s not necessary for us to go hunting for animals with rifles and shotguns.”

Maybe you’ve never lived on a large property or on a farm (you’re not missing anything, farmers work all day and barely have anything to show for it nowadays), raised livestock that needs protected from predators, or hunted and grown your own food. I’m pretty sure you’ve never been in bear country if you think guns are useless, because karate kicks and begging doesn’t work with bears (not that I’ve tried, I’ll leave that test to the anti-gun crowd). I can imagine you trying to explain to farmers and people who use guns on a regular basis that guns are unnecessary, and I think they’d strongly disagree with you. You seem far removed from nature, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Someone has to grow that food that ends up on the table or slaughter it before you get it, and not all of us live in an apartment in the middle of a big city.

It seems to me that you’re taking your own personal experiences and extrapolating on that by reasoning that since YOU don’t need firearms, NOBODY should need them. That’s like someone who lives in the city saying driving is unnecessary because public transport can take you anywhere. Sure, it can take you anywhere in the city and that’s great if you live in the city, but people in the country know that public transport doesn’t come out here and if you want to get to town you had better own a vehicle unless you plan on walking, biking, or going on horseback. Your unique situation in your unique part of the world is different than mine and many others.

Most of the people who talk about abolishing or perverting the segment of our constitution that gives us the right to bear arms are insincere. They don’t really want to get rid of all guns, just certain people’s guns, like poor and “undesirable” people. They want a society in which certain elites and bureaucrats would keep their guns, while the slave populace would get rid of theirs and turn to the government in blind faith for protection. As is ALWAYS the case with people like Bloomberg, Rosie O’Donnel, and other rich elites who desire a supremacy for the oligarchy & gov’t, they will preach on and on about how guns are bad for the public, while maintaining armed thugs who follow them to every place they go. Their actions are akin to just saying, “I’m important enough to be defended with firearms, but you’re not.” I can’t understand how anti-gun activists can fail to realize that Bloomberg and the likes do not care what the laws are because they will always be able to use special exemptions (for only them of course) to circumvent them. Sorry, but I don’t think Bloomberg is more important than me and I don’t think his life is greater than mine.

Americans will never accept a stratified society where there are special groups with guns and the rest of the citizens are disarmed. Individual liberty, freedom, and an egalitarian populace without kings and queens at the head telling everyone what to do is quintessential to the American belief structure, and it’s what America was founded on. At least not today’s America. Maybe a terribly decadent American society will one day decide that oligarchs should have a small arms monopoly, but I hope they never stratify society in such a way.

17

@unrav: “…I’m pretty sure you’ve never been in bear country if you think guns are useless, because karate kicks and begging doesn’t work with bears”

Excellent point.

We should send these anti-gun folks for a trek in bear-country, and give them a choice between a gun or their principles! (My money would be on them taking that wicked old gun! :-D)

18

@ unravelingmind :
“Most Americans never worry about (…) but I hope they never stratify society in such a way.”

Are these arguments the best ones you can give to defend the 2nd amendment of your constitution ?

19

@ Jay_b :
“We should send these anti-gun folks for a trek in bear-country, and give them a choice between a gun or their principles! (My money would be on them taking that wicked old gun! :-D)”

How much would you give me to do this ?

20

Juju, I’m not paying anyone to commit suicide by bear! :slight_smile: