Of all the arguments supporting easily obtainable guns, this one is the most ridiculous.
“If you don’t like guns, don’t buy one. Simple.”
Of all the ridiculous arguments made by gun lobbyists, this one stands out as especially ludicrous. To put any weight in this talking point is to release your grasp on reality.
This particular phrase attempts to piggyback onto a similar defense of same sex marriage; “If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t marry a gay person.” But this argument doesn’t work on lots of levels when applied to guns.
Two people in love wanting to get married is one thing. Firearms are quite another. Other people’s marriages are their own business, it’s none of yours. They generally don’t affect your life very much at all. Firearms can indeed affect you, and very seriously at that.
The “don’t like it, don’t do it” argument works in the case of gay marriage. Stopping people from getting married because you discriminate against them is impeding their freedom, and their right to the pursuit of happiness. Whether it’s based on your religious beliefs or because you just think it’s icky, same sex marriage doesn’t affect your life and liberty. Instead, you are impeding theirs, and you have no right to do so.
A gun is another realm entirely. A firearm is a heavy responsibility, not just for you, but for everyone around you. You are not the only person you affect when you own a gun. You are now responsible for your family, your neighbors, and for a number of other people, even when your gun isn’t in your possession.
What happens when firearms are left unattended and children get a hold of them? “Don’t like guns, don’t buy one” suddenly doesn’t mean anything if your child is killed because somebody else was careless with a pistol.
Whether you’re basing this on an Amendment to the Constitution, or your religious beliefs, owning a gun will not only affect your life and liberty, but it will most definitely impact the life and liberty of other people.
You cannot equate the argument supporting same sex marriage to your right to own a gun, just as you cannot compare a vehicle to a firearm, just as you cannot compare apples to oranges. You don’t get to drag abortion into it either. Now we’re talking about false equivalencies, semantics and pivots. The conversation is about guns and the issues inherent in owning one. Nothing else. And you aren’t the only person involved.
If you’re unable to take responsibility for the violent consequences of carelessness with firearms and have to shift to a false equivalency, then how are you responsible enough to own a gun? If you can’t even handle a debate about guns, we can’t believe you can then handle a gun.
Contrary to the talking point, it’s not those with a criminal record that we need to worry about the most. Many victims are the spouse of the shooter and most mass shooters had no previous criminal record. Just look to the FSU shooter, or Aurora, or Sandy Hook, or any of the growing number of shooting tragedies. Nobody saw them coming and their firearms were obtained legally.
Oh sure, we need to have a conversation about mental health too. But violently mentally ill people seem to be getting guns easily enough. That can’t be argued, and it has to be stopped. Oh, you could try telling those who were shot by the mentally ill, or their families, that if they “don’t like guns, don’t buy one.” But the reaction you get will not be pleasant.
Hell, you’d need a gun to be brave enough to say something so awful to those people, and then you’re carrying a gun for absolutely the wrong reason.
The main problem in America’s rampant gun violence issue is that firearms are too readily available and nobody is taking responsibility for them. Gun laws are unstable; gun show loopholes are exploited; background checks aren’t in use; and people who shouldn’t have guns end up with them. That’s a problem for everyone, not just non-gun owners, so “don’t like guns, don’t buy one” becomes even more ridiculous.
What it boils down to is that no other Western nation has this discussion so regularly. No other Western nation has this level of gun violence. No other Western nation has virtually unrestricted access to guns. And most chillingly, no other Western nation has so many people fighting to keep it this way.
The Second Amendment was ratified as being necessary to the security of the state. The overwhelming prevalence of gun violence; the prominence of fraudulent data supporting unfettered firearms access such as John R. Lott provides; the endless manipulation and undermining of gun laws making the nation uneven from state to state; the careless and irresponsible attitudes of Open Carry extremists and their intimidation tactics; and the baseless and distracting arguments of many gun advocates is now contrary to the security of the state.
Gun owners need to be constantly constantly constantly aware of the heavy responsibility that firearm brings, not just to them, but for everyone around them. You don’t own a gun to act like a tough guy. You don’t display firearms in uncontrolled environments. You realize that guns aren’t toys, and are aware of the dire consequences that come when firearms fall into the wrong hands.
You won’t say “If you don’t like guns, don’t buy one” because you’re responsible and mature enough to know that it’s not all about you.
If you can’t see that; if you can’t see how easily obtainable weaponry affects everyone and not just you; if all you can think is “Don’t like guns, don’t buy one” then you aren’t responsible enough to own one yourself. Because all you are saying is “I refuse to see your point of view, but you better respect mine!” That is not at all the principle the USA was founded upon.
This is the attitude of bullies. The unreasonable. The immature and irresponsible. The gun nuts. If this is your attitude, then congratulations, you’re the problem.
And if you’re like that, then you shouldn’t own a gun.
People will kill people regardless of the implement, (yes its TV but just an example)
watch Game of Thrones. NO guns but 5+ people a show die and that is based on a time when there was no guns and people where killed off all the time. They have found neanderthal with evidence of murder. Stop blaming the “guns” blame the “murderers”.
Just one more reason to despise libtards.
Wow!
I agree 100% with this article Chad wrote. Our country has so many more murders by gun than any other civilized country in the world. That alone should tell all you gun nuts something. Your problem is you don’t have any critical thinking skills. The evidence is right in front of your eyes and you can’t see it.
This country has to do something about all the irresponsibility that causes children and women to lose their lives at the hands of someone who got a gun and shouldn’t have. All I see in these right wing nuts who “Must have” all the gums they want, is obtuseness. Someday, and it’s not going to be all that long, gun laws will change and maybe even the second amendment as it was written long long ago and has outlived its antiquated usefulness in modern times.
Men who “Need all their guns” including automatic assault weapons that were designed and made for use in the theater of combat and have absolutely no usefulness in the hands of the average Joe, seem to be afraid. Afraid and paranoid. Open carry laws are ridiculous and I only see tiny men wielding power and control over others. And that’s a very sad observation on my part. Fear is not the right reason to possess a firearm and that’s the majority of right wing gun nutzoids.
And because the second amendment does not specify that a person who is legally, or totally blind, some states with Conservative powers in charge don’t have the common sense to NOT SELL GUMS TO NLOND PEOPLE! That alone shows you how outdated the second amendment is!!M
You are blowing your own premise: Out country DOES NOT have so many more murders by gun than any other civilized country in the world. In fact, our country is 111th down the list of so-called “civilized countries” in the number of homicides per 100K population per year. And our rate has been falling for years as more and more of our people accept the responsibility of being armed in their own defense, while other nations’ rates have been increasing as they work harder and harder to deprive their citizenry of their fundamental rights. Those who oppose our fundamental natural right to be armed in our own and community and State and national defense had better get used to disappointment: We will not allow you to deprive us of our rights. We will not allow you to sucker us into the civilian disarmament that has preceded everyone one of the more than 12 genocides that have occurred in the last 100 years. In short, we will not comply with your tyranny.
Perhaps the word civilized was incorrect. And I won’t respond to another gun nut so if you wish to waste your time, please feel free to type away.
There is an interesting article from this past October looking at all the different aspects of deaths by gun. It is a website: Humanosphere.org and the article is under Science and was written on Oct. 2, 2015
But if you truly are a gun nut, you won’t even bother
Well, Carleen, I guess you have to respond then, because I am not a “gun nut.” I’m sure you will agree that your pejorative “gun nut” is synonymous with your oft-used pejorative “gun lover,” and that doesn’t apply either because unlike liberal “useful idiots” (V. I. Lenin’s words describing followers of his anti-gun version of hell on Earth), I prefer to love people and use things, instead of the other ‘way ’round.
As further proof (at least according to your terms) I am not a “gun nut,” I did in fact go read your recommended article on Humanosphere.org, published by a formal organization whose mission statement is based on the destruction of the whole concept of reward commensurate with achievement and the enforcement of charity at the point of government’s gun, by “gun nuts” of the Marxist Mafia persuasion.
I will add that I give zero credence to the anti-liberty propaganda spewed forth by any organization supported by the likes of subversive Bill & Melinda Gates, who contributed a million dollars to subversive Michael Bloomberg’s effort in Washington State to con the citizens into asking government to destroy their 2nd, 4th, 5th, 9th, and 10th Amendment rights to be secure from government tyranny by compelling them to ask government permission before exercising their fundamental rights.
Now, since I have done as you asked and read the bogus statistical construct Marxist subversives ALWAYS use to justify their call to submission to feudal tyranny under the Marxist gun, the least you can do is view a short video you, too, may find “interesting.” It’s at http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=wHITTLE+NUMBER+ONE+WITH+A+BULLET&view=detail&mid=6E00CCF80026F138FB106E00CCF80026F138FB10&FORM=VIRE.
Now, Carleen, you will no doubt find additional pejoratives to call me and my compatriots, who believe in the liberties our nation was founded to preserve and protect (and you and your compatriots are trying to destroy), but you may take stock in the following facts: Your efforts are in vain because 1) we will not comply with any color of law depriving us of our fundamental liberties our nation was founded to preserve and protect, and 2) we will not be starting any “revolution,” but when your revolution against our Constitutional form of government goes hot — most likely in the near future, unless you folks miraculously see the error of your ways — we are the ones equipped and motivated to arrest, prosecute, convict, and imprison those of you in violation of 18USC2383 — armed insurrection.
Have a good day, Carleen. And you might give some thought to those liberties you are trying to destroy: If you empower government to do it to us, you are empowering government to do it to you.
Well, Carleen, I guess you have to respond then, because I am not a “gun nut.” I’m sure you will agree that your pejorative “gun nut” is synonymous with your oft-used pejorative “gun lover,” and that doesn’t apply either because unlike liberal “useful idiots” (V. I. Lenin’s words describing followers of his anti-gun version of hell on Earth), I prefer to love people and use things, instead of the other ‘way ’round.
As further proof (at least according to your terms) I am not a “gun nut,” I did in fact go read your recommended article on Humanosphere.org, published by a formal organization whose mission statement is based on the destruction of the whole concept of reward commensurate with achievement and the enforcement of charity at the point of government’s gun, by “gun nuts” of the Marxist Mafia persuasion.
I will add that I give zero credence to the anti-liberty propaganda spewed forth by any organization supported by the likes of subversive Bill & Melinda Gates, who contributed a million dollars to subversive Michael Bloomberg’s effort in Washington State to con the citizens into asking government to destroy their 2nd, 4th, 5th, 9th, and 10th Amendment rights to be secure from government tyranny by compelling them to ask government permission before exercising their fundamental rights.
Now, since I have done as you asked and read the bogus statistical construct Marxist subversives ALWAYS use to justify their call to submission to feudal tyranny under the Marxist gun, the least you can do is view a short video you, too, may find “interesting.” It’s at http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=wHITTLE+NUMBER+ONE+WITH+A+BULLET&view=detail&mid=6E00CCF80026F138FB106E00CCF80026F138FB10&FORM=VIRE.
Now, Carleen, you will no doubt find additional pejoratives to call me and my compatriots, who believe in the liberties our nation was founded to preserve and protect (and you and your compatriots are trying to destroy), but you may take stock in the following facts: Your efforts are in vain because 1) we will not comply with any color of law depriving us of our fundamental liberties our nation was founded to preserve and protect, and 2) we will not be starting any “revolution,” but when your revolution against our Constitutional form of government goes hot — most likely in the near future, unless you folks miraculously see the error of your ways — we are the ones equipped and motivated to arrest, prosecute, convict, and imprison those of you in violation of 18USC2383 — armed insurrection.
Have a good day, Carleen. And you might give some thought to those liberties you are trying to destroy: If you empower government to do it to us, you are empowering government to do it to you.
Just another Lunatic Liberal with his head up his A_$$. Maine Now has carry concealed without a license for all citizens that have had a back ground check. Very few crimes here because the criminals KNOW what will happen to them !
What communist wrote this nonsense?
Huh?
Just goes to show why this guy is a jackass. Why doesn’t he move to Russia or some other dumbass place (France etc.) and leave us alone. This happens to be the USA.
Show me in the constitution where one has the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Then show me where the 2nd amendment was repealed. I lice in Kansas where we just got constitutional carry. One of the sfest states in the country.
The author admonishes us not to use the slogan “If you don’t like guns, don’t buy one”, but then includes a cartoon that is equally trite and oversimplifying. He apparently has little to no concept of how freedom is no absolute requirement in order for a civil society to function.
So here it is I will say what most people who own guns won’t. If you can take every criminals gun first, I will give you mine. If not why should I give them up?
The 2nd Amendment exits. No about of verbiage or semantic gymnastics will make it vanish. the vast majority of states, mine included (Michigan) have even greater protetions of the right in their state constitutions.
Whether I own or carry firearms is not your business, and in now way infringes ANY of your rights. You cannot even tell if I own 1, or 20 or 150 or more. so tell me then, how are your rights directly infringed?
The fact that guns make you feel icky, or violate your religious views do not give you the right to remove my rights.
Well, there it is. The dumest thing I’ll read all day.
Well, the it is. The dumest thing I’ll read all day.
Whoa, “same sex marriage doesn’t affect your life and liberty” Where do you get that, what do you think the tax code says about that?
The tax code does not give you the right to unconstitutionally discriminate.
“The tax code does not give you the right to unconstitutionally discriminate.”
“Unconstitutionally” discriminate? Please identify the Article, Section, and Clause of the United States Constitution making my freedom to associate or not associate when whomever I choose “unconstitutional.”
If you can’t, thank you, I will discriminate against whomever I choose. It is my right, and I claim it.
This ridiculous strawman your best shot? As that was not my claim, why would I bother to want to try to support it.
It was not my strawman; it was yours. You used the phrase “Unconstitutionally discriminate.”
Well, there is one equivalency between marriage between gays and owning a gun: The latter is a fundamental natural right and the former should be. And oh, what a batch of misperspectives follow your premise in the above article!
For example: “Whether it’s based on your religious beliefs or because you just think it’s icky, same sex marriage doesn’t affect your life and liberty. Instead, you are impeding theirs, and you have no right to do so.” Just as you have no right to impede our fundamental natural right to keep and bear arms.
“Whether you’re basing this on an Amendment to the Constitution, or your religious beliefs, owning a gun will not only affect your life and liberty, but it will most definitely impact the life and liberty of other people.” True. the mere presence of a firearm in lawful hands deters criminal conduct of all kinds.
“If you’re unable to take responsibility for the violent consequences of carelessness with firearms and have to shift to a false equivalency, then how are you responsible enough to own a gun? If you can’t even handle a debate about guns, we can’t believe you can then handle a gun.” I will not take responsibility for the violent consequences of carelessness with firearms of others, but I will certainly handle a debate about guns with you and any other liberal doofus who wants to destroy the first nation in the history of the planet founded upon principles of personal liberty: And liberty has responsibilities; if your exercise of liberty harms others, you should be held responsible for that harm. OTOH, you should never be held responsible for the harm caused by the irresponsibility of others. Your claim that we should is YOUR false equivalency, Chad MacDonald.
“Just look to the FSU shooter, or Aurora, or Sandy Hook, or any of the growing number of shooting tragedies. Nobody saw them coming and their firearms were obtained legally.” Which destroys the myth that background checks, waiting periods, or government interference in our right to keep and bear arms in any manner would prevent such atrocities — however, recognizing the DUTY of citizens to be armed in the exercise of their responsibility for the safety of their community would have stopped the FSU, Aurora, and Sandy Hook shooters in their tracks with a minimum loss of life if any.
“But violently mentally ill people seem to be getting guns easily enough. That can’t be argued, and it has to be stopped.” And their massacres with those guns have been stopped — everywhere there is no “Gun Free Zone” signs are not posted. Those mental defective may be insane, but they aren’t stupid: They’ve never tried to commit a massacre anywhere they knew people were likely to be armed, have they? Oh, yeah, I think there was an attempt once, at a gun store or pawn shop or something, where everyone was armed. The attempt failed with extreme prejudice to the doofus.
“The main problem in America’s rampant gun violence issue is that firearms are too readily available and nobody is taking responsibility for them. Gun laws are unstable; gun show loopholes are exploited; background checks aren’t in use; and people who shouldn’t have guns end up with them.” ‘Too readily available?’ When you have to waive your Fourth Amendment Constitutional right to be secure from an unreasonable search of your papers and effects in the absence of probable cause of wrongdoing to buy one from a dealer, and fascist jerks are now spending millions of dollars to make that a requirement between private parties? When your right to due process is violated to gain “permission” (government has no authority to issue or deny) to exercise a right? When you have to cooperate with government mandates neither government nor the people have the authority to impose upon your rights? When you have to waive rights in order to exercise rights, a violation of fundamental legal doctrine hundreds of years old? To the contrary, dude, the problem is too many people refuse to take responsibility for the protection of their fellow man and community because government has illegally and unconstitutionally made it too difficult to do so.
“What it boils down to is that no other Western nation has this discussion so regularly. No other Western nation has this level of gun violence. No other Western nation has virtually unrestricted access to guns. And most chillingly, no other Western nation has so many people fighting to keep it this way.” And no other nation is founded on principles of liberty for the individual citizen that trumps the arbitrary whim of the king or prince or dictator wannabe or government thug, be he fascist or a freaking Progressive thug like our current president. Here’s a question for you, Mr. Progressive Pundit: Why do you want to set precedent destroying our Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Tenth Amendments, and making our rights totally dependent upon what the judiciary calls “government’s compelling interest” (read “arbitrary whim”)?
“The Second Amendment was ratified as being necessary to the security of the state.” Yep. From federal government overreach, such as you are actively advocating.
“The overwhelming prevalence of gun violence; …” which has been decreasing for at least twenty years now, thanks largely to the increase in firearms in law-abiding hands …
“… the prominence of fraudulent data supporting unfettered firearms access such as John R. Lott provides; …” which is not fraudulent at all and was known intuitively and by empirical observation by gun owners since before our nation was founded …
“…the endless manipulation and undermining of gun laws making the nation uneven from state to state; …” which is easily dealt with by rescinding ALL unconstitutional color of law restricting the exercise of rights and hereafter obeying the U.S. Constitution as amended …
“…the careless and irresponsible attitudes of Open Carry extremists and their intimidation tactics; …” There is nothing extremist about the exercise of fundamental natural rights guaranteed by our Constitution, and if you are intimidated by that exercise, that says to me you have an agenda of some kind of tyranny and oppression you are chafing to impose, and you are objecting to being prevented from imposing it … which is exactly why we have and will continue to exercise our right to keep and bear arms, if necessary to get your attention, ‘in your face.’
“…and the baseless and distracting arguments of many gun advocates is now contrary to the security of the state.” Well, that’s a bunch of crap. It is only baseless and distracting to those whose liberal (and/or fascist) agenda is continuously defeated thereby, and that is the rightful purpose of the arguments.
“Gun owners need to be constantly constantly constantly aware of the heavy responsibility that firearm brings, not just to them, but for everyone around them. You don’t own a gun to act like a tough guy. You don’t display firearms in uncontrolled environments. You realize that guns aren’t toys, and are aware of the dire consequences that come when firearms fall into the wrong hands.” In the order listed we are; we don’t; WE will control the environment in which they are displayed, thank you very much; we do, and we are … and you don’t like it. Tough crunch, old man.
“If you can’t see that; if you can’t see how easily obtainable weaponry affects everyone and not just you; if all you can think is “Don’t like guns, don’t buy one” then you aren’t responsible enough to own one yourself. Because all you are saying is “I refuse to see your point of view, but you better respect mine!” That is not at all the principle the USA was founded upon.” Oh, yes it is: America was founded on the principle of private rights trumping government whim every time, no exceptions, no excuses. If seeing your point of view requires the destruction of our private rights, you can go pound sand, because we intend that you will respect ours and those of the rest of our nation who have the right to live free of your tyranny.
“This is the attitude of bullies. The unreasonable. The immature and irresponsible. The gun nuts. If this is your attitude, then congratulations, you’re the problem. And if you’re like that, then you shouldn’t own a gun.” Only a wannabe tyrant would believe the attitude of free men and women is the attitude of bullies. We aren’t bullying you. We are protecting your rights and ours to reject government and private tyranny. If you don’t like private rights to be secure from government and private tyranny, then obviously you are trying to sell us something we don’t want, and that makes you a carnival huckster trying to rip people off.
And we aren’t buying any. Have a good day.
Yes. To pretty much all of that.
Very, very much to the point. Too bad that idiot box – the television – doesn’t ever convey that point of view. Because that’s where all those bozos sitting on the couch eating MacDonalds get their beliefs from!
The CDC did a study for Obama and he was disappointed with their findings. The CDC study found that firearms are used at least as often in self-defense as they are used in crimes. Why would you think you have the right to deny someone the right to defend himself?
Show us a link to where it shows he was disappointed. Show us the link to the CDC where you got that information. I am not saying it is true or not true. It is just people like you radicals support guns for everyone and have no clue where you got the information accept from some right wing pro gun site. No one is refusing anyone the right to defend them self. Where did you come up with that? Obama is coming to get your ammo and guns. Quick run to the gun shop and stock up. I am a gun owner as well and I am tired of the NRA feeding its base propaganda. It raises the price of the product for me. You Idiots.
Show us a link to prove you are a gun owner. Show us a reason explaining why people who believe the U.S. Constitution means what it says are somehow “radical” as opposed to “straight down the middle of the road moderate.” Show us a link where we “support guns for everyone,” and then — since the Constitution says rights are for everyone — tell us what far-out political agenda makes you claim that is somehow “radical.” Tell us what kind of idiot denigrates our right to keep and bear arms in the most vicious terms and then has the unmitigated idiocy to claim “No one is refusing anyone the right to defend them self. (sic)” And then, since you ask “Where did you come up with that?”, I will answer: We came up with that from the mouth of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schumer, Frank Lautenberg, Harry Reid, Barak Hussein Obama, and the U.S. Senate record, to name just a few of the many. Now, you tell the assembled masses sandbagging this forum what kind of idiot makes the remarks you have made above.
Link to the June 2013 CDC report Obama requested
(go to pages 15 & 16 for defensive gun use info):
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=18319&page=R1
“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010).”
“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was “used” by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies (Kleck, 1988; Kleck and DeLone, 1993; Southwick, 2000; Tark and Kleck, 2004).”
Cherry-picking data is bad.
From the same page: “On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey (Cook et al., 1997). The variation in these numbers remains a controversy in the field. The estimate of 3 million defensive uses per year is based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys. The former estimate of 108,000 is difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.”
Also, from the next page: “Even when defensive use of guns is effective in averting death or injury for the gun user in cases of crime, it is still possible that keeping a gun in the home or carrying a gun in public—concealed or open carry—may have a different net effect on the rate of injury. For example, if gun ownership raises the risk of suicide, homicide, or the use of weapons by those who invade the homes of gun owners, this could cancel or outweigh the beneficial effects of defensive gun use (Kellermann et al., 1992, 1993, 1995). Although some early studies were published that relate to this issue, they were not conclusive, and this is a sufficiently important question that it merits additional, careful exploration.”
Read the whole thing, then base your conclusions. You can’t just find he data you want to prove your point and assume that the rest follows.
The statement you made that my possessing a firearm affects the life and liberty of other people is not only spacious, but it’s intentionally dishonest. In no way, except in the mind of those who vehemently (and illogically) oppose the private ownership of firearms, does the ownership of a firearm by ANYONE affect the freedom of another. So yes, it’s a valid argument to say “don’t like guns, don’t buy one.” Because yes, it really is that simple. Now, the proof that you are being intentionally dishonest?
This statement: “The main problem in America’s rampant gun violence issue is that firearms are too readily available and nobody is taking responsibility for them. Gun laws are unstable; gun show loopholes are exploited; background checks aren’t in use; and people who shouldn’t have guns end up with them. ”
Firearms are too readily available for who??
Gun laws are unstable? I wonder why….maybe it’s because the laws that have been suggested, and those that have been passed, have been proven to be pointless power grabs with no basis in factually preventing crimes or deaths by firearms, thus that’s the exact result we get.
Gun show loopholes? There isn’t one.
Background checks aren’t in use? Then explain how there were nearly 20 million background checks to purchase a firearm last year alone? TWENTY MILLION.
But the kicker…
“people who shouldn’t have guns end up with them.” Yes, yes they do. And there isn’t a single thing you, I, nor the government can do to prevent it. Not background checks. Not waiting periods. Not a complete abolition of every firearm. It takes a dishonest person who doesn’t know what they are talking about to say anything otherwise.
Actually, you should take a look at states that have universal background checks – there is a SIGNIFICANT decrease in gun fatalities, particularly in the realms of domestic violence and suicide (other forms of suicide didn’t rise, incidentally). So, YES, laws like expanded background checks do have a factual basis and do reduce gun fatalities.
We have a federal law that requires background checks when guns are purchased from licensed gun dealers. This law does not apply to sales between private parties. Only 17 states have expanded background checks to private sales. When 33 states allow between 25-40% of their gun sales to happen with no background check, that isn’t a loophole. That’s a hole so big, you could drive a truck through it. In any case, poll after poll after poll has shown that about 90% of Americans favor universal background checks. It’s actually not controversial at all. The problem is that we have a leadership that has long pandered to the gun lobby. It’s a sad state of affairs that just four months after 20 first-graders were gun downed in their classroom, and with the support of 90% of Americans, Congress wouldn’t pass universal background checks.
I can think of nothing more dishonest (or selfish, frankly) than claiming that there isn’t “a single thing” we can do to prevent gun violence. Like it or not, you share space with other people. When I take my kids out in public where people are carrying weapons, I want to know that they’ve passed a background check and have undergone some training. When I send them to play at a friend or neighbor’s house, I want to know that any guns there are stored safely. I want to know that a person who is considering going on a violent rampage isn’t able to access a gun with one push of a button. If you really believe that’s too much to ask, you have no business owning a gun because you clearly have zero respect for what it can do.
Background checks only show the information that is in the system and there is a wide variance of reporting from state to state. There is a need for standardizing access to mental health records for background checks. That is a great step toward treating the subject of criminal violence (not just gun violence) as the “community health problem” that anti gun people wish to see. I would like to see basic firearms safety education and public service announcements to teach people the process of reporting anyone with violent tendencies with penalties for vindictive false reporting. But we don’t need more laws until we start better using the ones we have. Good post Liz, appreciate someone who brings substance, even their opinion doesn’t match mine.
Thanks, David. I agree that reporting into the NICS needs drastic improvement. We need to penalize states that don’t submit complete records, and we need to standardize the process. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t close the private sales “loophole”. Gun violence IS a public health crisis. It amazes me every day that we tolerate it the way we do. I am not anti-gun; in fact, I really do respect why most people choose to own weapons, and I don’t have an interest in banning guns. What I want is to have a real conversation about gun violence and the steps we can take to prevent it without violating people’s rights. What does responsible gun ownership really mean and how do we make that the law?
It looks like teaching kids gun safety in schools. It is no different in principal than teaching them sex-ed. if kids are left to explore these things on their own we shouldn’t be surprised when bad things come of it.
The answer to that question is simple: You do it the same way to deal with every other irresponsibility in society: When someone hurts someone, they have created a tort for which they a liable. If someone is killed by someone else’s failure to take due care, that’s manslaughter (with hair-splitting differences between “involuntary” and “voluntary”). You don’t need to deprive people of their right to privacy, to security from government tyranny, to due process, to self defense, or start a counter-revolution against the leftist revolution we are currently enduring, to deal with a problem the system is already well-equipped to deal with, and for which the statistical incidence is decreasing annually anyway.
There is no need for standardizing mental health tests; that’s the kind of thing wannabe tyrants would just love for us to accept because thing they can claim anyone who believes in the right to keep and bear arms is mentally ill. (Gun banners have already speciously claimed this on several occasions, whereas licensed mental health professionals like Sarah Thompson has shown that hoplophobia — fear of weapons — is clearly a mental illness — see “Raging Against Self Defense” at http://jpfo.org/filegen-n-z/ragingagainstselfdefense.htm. It is also a form of cowardice; its believers can’t face the prospect of ever having to stop an evil event like murder, massacre, mayhem (etc.) in progress, so they want everyone else to be as helpless as they are so they won’t have to. They also think their gun ban agenda absolves them or at least vindicates their cowardice, but they are wrong. Oh, and David … do you really want a tattletale society where everyone has to live in fear of government finding out what they do? Can you say “1984” by George Orwell? You need to think things through, David.
doncline, I didn’t say standardize mental health tests, I said standardize access to mental health records. Some states provide this information better than others for background checks. The debate is over protecting a doctor/patient relationship that ultimately allows violent people with mental illness to possess firearms. I don’t want our government in our lives intrusively and for that reason I don’t support doctors asking if a citizen owns firearms. If someone is violent for mental health reasons though, we should be able to access that information to keep them from possessing firearms or other weapons. Isn’t the idea we can agree on to keep firearms away from the crazy and the criminal and not take them away from the law abiding?
“doncline, I didn’t say standardize mental health tests, I said standardize access to mental health records. Some states provide this information better than others for background checks. The debate is over protecting a doctor/patient relationship that ultimately allows violent people with mental illness to possess firearms. I don’t want our government in our lives intrusively and for that reason I don’t support doctors asking if a citizen owns firearms. If someone is violent for mental health reasons though, we should be able to access that information to keep them from possessing firearms or other weapons. Isn’t the idea we can agree on to keep firearms away from the crazy and the criminal and not take them away from the law abiding?”
Let me put it to you this way, David: The government has no business obtaining mental health records. The federal government has no authority delegated to it by the Constitution to even ask for mental health records (nor to license gun dealers, nor to issue or deny permission to exercise any right, the right to keep and bear arms or other right). It is not necessary to address the doctor/patient relationship regarding a violent mental patient being able to possess arms because if he/she is a violent mental patient, he/she is and rightfully must be institutionalized by said doctor and has no opportunity to possess firearms. There is no confidentiality breached thereby.
The whole point here, David, is that if you want a free country, tell government to mind its own business as specified in the Constitution of the United States. You don’t need government intruding into anyone’s mental records to decide whether or not to issue or deny permission government doesn’t have the authority to issue or deny in the first place.
Government is not the nanny of a free people. Every time — every single time — you allow government to stick its beak in where it has no authority to go, liberty for everyone takes a hit, and the hits accumulate until people get used to satisfying government functionaries instead of themselves.
Do what I suggest above and the number of truly violent people who have not been diagnosed and therefore institutionalized become vanishingly small, and when they do erupt they get stopped by law-abiding free citizens exercising their rights. Problem solved. (And usually solved before they erupt, because even insane people are smart enough to seek help for their rage if they see venting it is going to result in being stopped with extreme prejudice because people have the right to not put up with it.)
There are only two legitimate Constitutional reasons to strip someone of their rights. Felony conviction and court declaration of mental incompetence.
Do you really want to open up the can of worms that seeking any sort of mental health help instantly results in you being stripped of your rights? Does such stripping involve all rights in your world or just the ones you do not like?
I can imagine little more detrimental to national mental health than in putting it into law that if you seek help, you are no long a real citizen and your rights can be removed willy nilly with no due process of law.
And I can think of no one as dishonest as someone who advocates violating our Fourth Amendment right to be secure from government-mandated search in the absence of probable cause of wrongdoing, and advocates violating our Fifth Amendment right to be secure from violation of our right to due process in the destruction of our rights, and violating our Tenth Amendment right to a federal government exercising no power not delegated to it, and violating our Tenth Amendment right to State government exercising no power prohibited to it, and in the exercise of all the above violations of our fundamental liberties our nation was founded to preserve and protect, and further advocates using all the illicit, illegal, criminal powers government can bring to bear to deprive US citizens of their right to be secure from being compelled to peacefully waive all the above fundamental rights as a precondition to receiving or being denied government “permission” — which no level of government has the authority to give or deny in the first place — to exercise a fundamental right that has existed since before government was ever organized.
Okay, Liz: If you can argue in favor of destroying the above rights to advance your criminal agenda, tell us all why you should not be required to endure an interrogation under penalty of perjury mandated by government, and a search of your papers and effects, as a precondition to posting your idiocy on this forum? And as a precondition to you being allowed to march in a protest rally carrying signs? And as a precondition to you being allowed to cross state lines on vacation? And as a precondition to where you will be permitted to live and how many rooms in your abode you will be allowed for your personal use? And as a get-out-of-jail card if some government functionary want to put you in a cell until you confess to some crime? (They do that in Japan.)
Are you real sure you want to destroy the personal fundamental liberties our nation was founded to preserve and protect after fifty centuries of governments based upon the Divine Right of Kings to Govern, in which kings and princes have done exactly those things to their hapless vassals and peasants with total and complete impunity?
The political ideology you espouse, Liz, is exactly the political ideology of Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin, V. I. Lenin, Pol Pot, Robert Mugabe, and every other tin pot thug in history. They each dressed it up in nice intellectual crepe paper to identify it as communism, fascism, Nazism, feudalism, or some other hair-splitting label for university boffins to argue about, but at the street level it was all the same: Toe the party line or be tortured or murdered or both for the fun of it by some narcissistic lunatic with a government commission. We don’t do that here, and we gun owners intend to make damned sure we are not going to do that here.
Now tell us why you want our government to do that here. Try to redeem yourself.
What I do in my home, and how I exercise my rights are frankly none of your business until the point comes wherein I directly infringe your rights.
You cannot take rights away from people because somebody might somewhere go ballistic. An absurd claim.
Nor do i recognise the Constitutional validity of background checks. the right to keep and bear arms is a right. If I have to bend knee and seek permission in order to exercise it, they have stripped me of my rights.
“Nor do i recognise the Constitutional validity of background checks. the right to keep and bear arms is a right. If I have to bend knee and seek permission in order to exercise it, they have stripped me of my rights.”
Whoa-ho! Your earlier post led me to believe you are one of the looters of our rights; now I see you aren’t. You are absolutely correct. Background checks not only deprive us of our right to due process protected by the Fifth Amendment; they also deprive us of our Fourth Amendment right to be secure from search or seizure in the absence of probable cause of wrongdoing, and they deprive us of our Tenth Amendment right to a federal government exercising only those powers we the people have delegated to it, and to State government exercising only those powers not prohibited to the States.
Chad MacDonald and the other looters of our rights are engaging in insurrection against our Constitution, and if they keep it up they may find themselves prosecuted (once we have a Constitutional government again) under Title 18 USC Section 2383, which provides a ten year prison term for engaging in rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States government (which, not to put too fine a point on it, is exclusively the Constitution of the United States.
Mr. MacDonald, are you against anyone having a firearm? Should we take them away from our military and police, since they misuse them on occasion? How would you propose to determine who is responsible enough to possess firearms? Do you advocate mandatory firearms education for everyone since they may inadvertently come in contact with a gun? Who do you trust to provide such education? Have you taken steps to educate yourself in the handling of firearms? I hope you will respond to these questions; I am very interested to get your perspective.
Hi, David. Remember how I pointed out the semantics, false equivalencies, and pivots used to get away from the subject of responsibility?
Yes, I rememeber and I see you aren’t interested in solving the question you raise. Guns have a valid purpose in the right hands and they are incredibly destructive in the wrong hands. I was hoping you had something meaningful to say. I thought maybe you had access to a crystal ball to tell us who the responsible people are. Turns out you just want to bitch and hide behind “false eqivialencies.”
Not at all. You’ve made it clear that you’re attempting to form my words to your agenda. I’m not participating in that. Rail away. That’s why you’re here. And thanks for helping to illustrate my points. Have a nice day.
I rail, you rant while we both enjoy the freedom to do so. A nice day to you also sir.
doncline has done a pretty good job rebutting. The rest is supplied by the author: “I refuse to see your point of view, but you better respect mine!” Understanding takes work – and motivation.
He won’t answer you, David; it would require him to address his own false equivalencies about responsibility to protect innocents from slaughter, and that would shatter his Karl Marx agenda in front of everyone.
Rusty love that “well regulated” part even though the SCOTUS says it doesn’t mean what he thinks it means. I prefer the “will not be infringed part” or even the more important “we the people”.
You miss understand Scalia’s point about regulation of firearms. The federal government has no lawful authority whatever to “regulate” firearms except on property specifically ceded to them, such a military bases, government installations, etc. The States, on the other hand, have the Police Power to regulate the USE of firearms — where, safety regulations, etc., and the States can even legislate the definitions attending to self-defense, at least until they get to onerous. But here’s the point: Neither the States nor the feds may lawfully regulate the right to keep and bear arms. The Constitution says so. And any attempt by the feds to do so violates not only the Second Amendment, but also the Tenth. And some backdoor attempts, like background checks, also violate the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. The feds don’t even have lawful authority to license gun dealers.
Sorry, folks (check that; I’m not sorry) but you have no chance whatever of lawfully imposing restrictions on the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and if you try to do so under color of law, sooner or later the people will get fed up with it and start defending themselves against the tyranny they should have tarred and feathered the legislators for years ago.
What part of ‘well-regulated militia’ escapes Zero’s comprehension?
Only whackos think they need guns. THEY put my life in danger. You want your militia-go join ISIS!
Only whackos want to disarm anyone else and think it makes anyone more safe.
If you want a discussion or a debate, Ritchie Kunnemann, state an argument. An expression of your cowardice and fear is not an argument.
what part of it escapes yours? you are interpreting Militia in our context, however ours and theirs is quite different. the “militia” was at the time every able bodied male of mature age. Such is said in the federalist papers which were published by the founding fathers to help explain their reasoning of the amendments during the period that the bill was being ratified by the states. In fact had that not been the intent behind the bill it would indeed not have been ratified by the states to begin with.
The same as the part about upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, and faithfully executing the laws of the United States to the best of his ability so help him God. He’s a narcissistic Marxist; all those things are in his enemy agent job description.
I was referring to Zero-Bama, not “Zero” on this forum.”
What part of subordinate clause escapes you? This is basic grammar.
It’s not a subordinate clause. Both he founders of our nation and now the Supreme Court is clear that the right of every individual citizen is in no way limited by any requirement of militia membership and, simultaneously, membership in the unorganized militia is automatic for males between the ages of 18 and 45, and anyone else who wants to be.
It is “the right of the people”, not a right of the militia.
“well regulated” applies to the militia, not “the right of the people”.
Membership in a militia is neither a requirement nor a prerequisite to exercise the Right, through simple grammar, history, legal precedent or intent of the authors.
http://www.libertygunrights.com/4pg2A%20Diagram.pdf
http://www.largo.org/literary.html
http://www.constitution.org/mil/embar2nd.htm
http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa46.htm
P.S. The militia still very much exists.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/311
When called up, you can regulate the hell out of it. (And we do so.)
Translation, “I don’t like guns, so you shouldn’t have one.”
Not even close.
oh idk, i think he hit the nail pretty hard on the head.
I think you have it wrong though, i don’t care if you respect my opinion i just refuse to let yours affect me.
Like it or not but one of the founding principals of the united states is the right and the responsibility of the individual to keep and bear arms for the security of the state.
Now that being said i totally agree that we have far too many people who have a total disregard for the responsibility one has upon taking possession of a firearm. however i fail to see how gun control policies that you and many others espouse will rectify that. To be quite frank i see them being excessively detrimental to that effect.
You seem to be under the impression that the only option of a solution to our problem is to make guns less accessible. however i would say that since owning a firearm is one of our most fundamental rights as a U.S. citizen that it is our duty to teach respect and safe usage of fire arms in public schools. The reality is as of right now the vast majority of kids are exposed to guns in video games and that is the long and short of their experience with them. if we continue to not teach kids firearms safety in school but play such games on a regular basis we should not be surprised that when a kid does actually pick up a real gun that they behave as if they were in a video game.
The good thing about ^this^ guy’s name is that it’s the same as his level of credibility.
Just an ad hominem, nothing to to refute anything in his comment??? I am shocked, I tell you. Shocked!
@ZERO: Did you consider the possibility that you might be stretching it just a bit when you write that “owning a firearm is one of our most fundamental rights [as U.S. citizens]?” I don’t want to debate the Second Amendment issue of “a well-regulated militia” and its relationship to gun ownership—a discussion of Scalia’s activism and disdain for his own “originalist” stance per interpreting the Constitution as exhibited in Heller is for another time, perhaps—but I think it to be right debatable that gun ownership “is one of our most fundamental rights.”
Seriously, “one of our most fundamental rights?”
Considering that one of the fundamental rights is the Right of Life, then yes, preservation of that life would be a fundamental right. Another fundamental right it would be covered under is the Right of Liberty and the exercise and preservation thereof. Although, thankfully, over the last 150 years we have not had to exercise that Right against our fellow countrymen.
The fact that it is the second amendment to the U.S. constitution is no accident. at the time even the idea that the government could or would restrict the right of the citizen to own and use a fire arm for legal purposes would have been enough to start another revolution.
Yes, one of our most fundamental rights if not THE most fundamental right: It preserves the right of the individual to reject tyranny, to repel attack whether on his person or on his rights, and, as pointed out in the Declaration of the United States, ‘…whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, …” (the rights of the people) “…it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Our Government (not the rogue occupation government currently in power, but our Constitutional government) governs by the Consent of the Governed, Rusty. How’re you going to withhold Consent from this current rogue occupation government and alter or abolish it, if you are not armed?
Rats. “Declaration of Independence,” not “Declaration of the United States.” My typo.
Yes. One of our most fundamental rights, and the existence of which is further protected by three other of our most fundamental rights, i.e., the 4th, 5th, and 10th Amendments, which also prohibit any State or federal interference in a fundamental right.
One of the “Founding Principals”?!!!
Please go on…
As close as your argument gets.