It's more of an argument for enacting and enforcing the right (and just) laws. Laws like gun bans should insult every civilized person.

The enactment or demand for such a law states a disgusting ideal that the general population's behavior must be modified using the criminal's behavior as a standard.

Because criminals kill people with handguns it must follow that the 99% of the humans who will never use a handgun to hurt someone can not purchase or own a handgun. What a sad and morally destitute thing to do to a society.

Gun bans treat everyone as a criminal sans conviction . . . Hey, we let ya have a gun you're gonna kill somebody; don't bother denying it. Just the fact that you want a gun tell us in charge you are a troublemaker.

Sorry, for those with some affection for rights and liberty and government staying within its legitimate scope of power we must say NO.

The criminal code; federal, state and local, each address infractions of the social order under accepted practices of due process. Laws are written and enforced regarding assault or murder with a firearm just as laws are written and enforced regarding child pornography. However, no one advocates the blanket restriction of digital imaging technology, computers and internet accounts to address the criminal misuse of 1st Amendment protected items and actions. . . why do firearms get such special dispensation?

How can a gun-ban be anything but prior restraint? If someone advocated the ban of all internet transfer rates exceeding a 28.8k modem because they are "child-porn pipelines" they would be a laughing-stock. Anti-gunners can demand gun bans because they consider a certain gun to be "the criminal's choice," and they get news face-time and positive editorials in newspapers.

ONLY WITH GUNS IS THE RIGHT ATTACKED IN ADDITION TO THE SPECIFIC CRIMINAL MISUSE.

There is no such thing as a gun problem . . . it is a criminal problem.

Are you of the opinion that a provision of the Bill of Rights could be rescinded? How can that be possible if the rights of the citizen are considered inalienable by the government? By what authority could government be empowered (understanding that this is a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy) to "take back" what it never possessed?
Good God man, you don't see how utterly backwards you are? The "will of the people" is what kept slavery and discrimination alive for so long! It was the principles of equal rights that the Constitution unwaveringly stands on that eliminated the scourge of slavery from the USA.

I would recommend reading The Unconstitutionality of Slavery by Lysander Spooner. Please note, this was published in 1845, twenty years before slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment.

This begs the question, what was the holdup in abolishing slavery? (a), the principles of the Constitution or (b), the "will of the people?"

I think the question can be unequivocally answered noting the simple fact that the last of the states existing in 1865 finally got around to ratifying the 13th Amendment twelve years ago! Hear Hear! for the "will of the people" championing the rights of the minority!

Which begs the question, how could you possibly be so utterly and fundamentally wrong on all of it then????? It defies explanation except if you have an agenda . . .
Sir William Blackstone is an NRA wacko??? Oh Bloody Hell, whodathunkit?
No they die in the name of an ineffectual criminal justice system that can not keep violent predators out of society.

"It's more of an argument for enacting and enforcing the right (and just) laws. Laws like gun bans should insult every civilized person."

Once again, this -- along with the rest of your argument -- is well put. Like you, I have noticed a basic, cynical mistrust for people in general runs through anti-gun arguments.

The problem never has been firearms, it's been a lack of education about them/lack of respect for them.

And those who would use them for ill purposes WANT easy, unarmed targets.

As I said in an earlier post, being civilized is not having the mechanisms to inflict harm forcibly removed from your possession - - - being civilized is having those items in your possession but choosing not to use them. Such a concept is lost on collectivists and statists like you though; I do not expect you to understand.
Yes, definitely.
That you do not understand these concepts does not mean they are incorrect or illogical or nonsensical. You have been brought up with a different mindset which has led to your conditioning and acceptance of your type of government . . . Nothing inherently wrong with that, it's just different.
You poor thing, you really don't get it do you . . . A gun ban is "making an accommodation" for the criminals that dwell amongst us? Really, is that your argument?
There is no legitimate process to apply more weight or less weight to a provision of the Bill of Rights . . . It is not a buffet where one can take a little of this and a little of that and say, "no thanks" to one item.

The same reasoning that one uses to define the 1st Amendment must be used to define the 2nd, there is no sliding scale of protection . . . To borrow from Ingrid Newkirk, a church is a newspaper is a house is a gun. Perhaps the Supreme Court of the USA can make the point more eloquently:

"As no constitutional guarantee enjoys preference, so none should suffer subordination or deletion.... To view a particular provision of the Bill of Rights with disfavor inevitably results in a constricted application of it. This is to disrespect the Constitution." -- ULLMAN v. US, 350 U.S. 422, (1956)

"[T]he full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution. This `liberty' is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints, . . . " -- PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN PA. v. CASEY, 505 U.S. 833 (1992) (quoting Justice Harlan In Poe v. Ullman)

What would be embarrassing is if you tell me the Supreme Court are a bunch of NRA wackos!
Perhaps that's true in your "will of the people" utopia where rights may only be exercised with permission from the magistrate. . . But not in the USA.

The right to arms is what is called a pre-existing right; the founders found the right being freely exercised before the Constitution was written and as no power was granted to government to impact the private arms of the citizen, none can be LEGITIMATELY exercised. That concept is not of the NRA's construction, it is well demonstrated in our history and well represented in the decisions of SCOTUS.
Since drugs are banned I guess you are right! Really, how can there be a drug problem when their possession is completely - even for medical purposes - outlawed? It'll be different with guns though, right?
Sorry, incorrect! The provisions of the document can not be used to violate it!
And how many slaves were there in the British Isles? Now, in the various and assorted colonies of Britain (esp in Africa and West Indies) I guess this was a big deal but the real slavery of all (via colonization) proceeded unabated. You are a fool for arguing such a position. All those dark-skinned peoples maltreated without the "encumbrance of a Constitution". . . I'm really impressed, all those wonderful things Britain permitted itself to do without a pesky Constitution . . .
Thanks for the chuckle!
Now the straw men come out . . . Do I really need to respond that I'm not arguing that criminals should be armed? Law-abiding citizens being free from "purposeless restraints" is not analogous to criminals killing with impunity.
Yes, America will always be in the lead.

You must not appreciate that a large proportion of the murder problem exists in a small segment of our population and specific geographic locations. For great expanses of America the murder rate is on par with Britain's. As I said in the other thread, Blacks comprise 13% of the gen-pop but they account for over 50% of the murder victims. What does that say to you? Can the factors that are driving over half of America's murders be applied to the whole nation or is it specific to certain geographic locations and the sociological / cultural issues found there?

Simple "yes or no" questions: are the actions of the Yardies representative of the British as a whole? Should all subjects be treated as if they are Yardies?

Being "civilized' certainly has many qualifiers. That I speak of how I view the state forcibly removing (at the point of a gun I might add) weapons from the citizenry "for our own good" as being hypocritical of the concept of being "civilized" is apropos in this present discussion. That you don't seem to recognize that it is an appropriate topic for discussion tells me that perhaps you should be the last person deciding what actions are appropriate for "civilized" people.

Just forcing your (those in authority) will on others is exactly the type of action that scream that you (the elite left) do not consider the common, little people, civilized. Such a mindset is not surprising though, it springs from the inability to discriminate between those who are wholesome members of society and those who are the rule breakers . . . using the actions of the lawless to establish the code of conduct for all, is not civilized on any level.
WTF are you talking about, you're the one talking about the law abiding "making accommodations" for the lawless, not me . . .
Well Dr. Phil, when we are ready for your European solution we'll ask for it.
What makes you think that I think that the 18th Amendment was a legitimate exercise of governmental power? Certainly words can be changed or stricken, but the uniquely American condition is that the principles upon which the Constitution rests are deemed more binding than the document.

You have severe fundamental defects in your understanding of the American governmental system.
That proves nothing . . . The "right" to own slaves came from the right to own property; when slaves' status changed the "right" to own them evaporated. I think you should read DRED SCOTT v. SANDFORD, 60 US 393 (1856) for an example of the thinking of the times.

As for women voting, voting law is generated in the states; it was the federal constitution which forced the states to remove their discriminatory qualifications based on sex. The "will of the people" as expressed in the state legislatures was insufficient to secure the rights of women to vote. Big Surprise!
Yes, we should get rid of drug laws criminalizing the use of non-prescribed drugs but not for the reason you offer, and yes, since no power was granted to the federal government to criminalize the use of non-prescription drugs there is none (if such a power could be said to exist it resides in the states).
So the answer to modifying the behavior of 15,000 murderers is to restrict liberty for 299,999,285 Americans?

Excuse me while I politely tell you to go pound sand.


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Will you please learn the posting software, the quoting operation in particular. Your posts are difficult to read with the red font and hard to follow (and reply to) with your reply inside quoted text which does not show when the "quote post" button is clicked.

Demonstrate you are smart enough to post correctly and maybe your demands on how America should conduct its affairs will be taken more seriously.

Ollie Gerclamwell wrote:Yes, some guy in Alabama shoots somebody, and they want to take a gun away from some guy in Texas. Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it???

Well of course the action would be violative of the 2nd Amendment but it also would violate the basic principles the Constitution rests upon.

I doubt you are up for such a discussion so I will just say that since the right to arms is not granted, transferred, given, established or otherwise conferred to the citizen by the 2nd Amendment, modifying or striking the words of the 2nd from the Constitution would not empower government to do, what it previously was forbidden to do. That attempt to "take back" that which was never under its control would be an illegitimate action and would expose the government to the original purpose of the 2nd Amendment; the people rescinding their consent to be governed.

We could get into a long discussion with quotes from various Supreme Court decisions but if history is any guide you shy away and ignore such answers to your questions and sadly, return to purely emotion based debate.
Since many of them did not exercise the right to be armed and their right to self defense then perhaps no "accommodation" should be made for them.

People who rely on the state for protection and think that they are absolved of being responsible for their personal security are sadly mistaken. The government and police in particular are not responsible for your safety; they are completely exempt from being duty bound to protect anyone. The individual is responsible for their personal security; not taking the duty seriously is rolling the dice . . .
It's not a strawman just because discussing it makes people uncomfortable! You don't want to allow the topic to be breached because the label of racism is so easily thrown about. The FACTS can not even be discussed because some are afraid of being labeled.

I'm not a racist, I'm a realist and I do not shy away from discussing all aspects of this problem.

Is it your contention that the fact that murder is so over-represented in the black community should not be a factor in the discussion of remedies?
You are a kook.
As usual you have it completely backwards . . . Should regular citizens be treated as Yardies? Should the conduct and actions of everyone be ruled and mandated by the government's reaction to violent drug gangs; that's the question.

And we have our answer . . .

Wow, that sure does demonstrate where you place the blame for such tragedies.

You recognize that such criminal acts are only representative of a small population of criminals in a very localized area but you argue that the rights of all should be surrendered in order to respond to the actions of that small number of localized criminals.

What a ridiculous position / argument. Allow me to paraphrase your statement into one that demonstrates logic and non-elitist, non-authoritarian tendencies.

Infact they are only a tiny, localised problem. Hardly a justification for disarming a whole nation saying we are risking another Dunblane/ Virginia Tech style massacre if John Q. Citizen doesn't give up their guns.

There, that's much, much better!

I know, It's like the old joke,

A guy sees an Orthodox Jewish person sitting at a table in a cafe walks up to him and punches him in the face. The guy yells, "that's for sinking the Titanic!" The Jewish guy gets up perplexed and says, "the Titanic was sunk by an iceberg!" The assaulter says "iceberg - Goldberg, there's no difference!"

Such it is with anti-gunners making no distinction between gun-owning criminals and gun-owning proper citizens!