One of the easiest changes to make is to ensure that all gun purchasers undergo a criminal background check. Clear evidence exists that these work to reduce deaths, which shouldn't surprise anyone since determining if the guy using the internet to buy a 9mm was recently arrested for domestic battery and false imprisonment would, after all, be a good thing that exact thing happened in our town recently - he used the gun to kill his wife and then himself while the kids were nearby.
This includes a majority of Republican voters and a majority of gun owners. Thank you for your insightful comments. I agree that our country needs the three-pronged approach you suggest to reduce gun deaths. Gun ownership is emblematic of of psychological impairment. If you need a gun, you are clearly very insecure.
The language of the 2nd amendment clearly refers to an earlier time when militias were responsible for law and order, a time that has long passed. As a Christian nation we have lost sight of the 6th commandment, as well as Jesus" command to forgive and turn the other cheek.
If you are insecure enough to need a gun, you are mentally ill and should not have one! Obviously, the great barrier to restricting gun ownership is the weight of money in our political system. Gun violence is as costly as it is profitable. In many respects the the fruits, the profits, are limited to a few, and as is the burden, excepting for the anxiety, fear and general disruption of peace.
Perhaps, the greatest short term defense against the maze of hurdles and traps is taxation - but no small tax. Any tax would need to be so pernicious that that the ownership of assault weapons would become prohibitive. Of course, those who profit from gun manufacturing and all the ancillary industry that is part of the gun culture, which is immense, will scream bloody murder, but, we can not be terrorized as a society by a proliferating gun culture and the purchase of politicians that enable it.
This really goes to the role money plays in politics and whether there is a right to profit. The issue is much larger than merely guns, it goes to the very nature of society and its purpose. Sort of a Natural Rights question, unfortunately, this may be a bit too broad for the shortsightedness of a profit based society. But, these questions, like so many in our political culture, are subject to the marketing strategies of the moment, and have very little to do with reason or discourse or the acknowledgment of the existence of a culture intent on the obliteration of reason as a human trait.
Welcome to the reality of the human condition addicted to the allusion of a profit-centered existence which isn't mentioned in the Constitution, and therefore, should be subject to state regulations - of course, this brings us back to money in politics, perhaps we should think of the problem as the tyranny of money in politics.
Short term, the answer is to overthrow the profit class through the ballot box - which we seem to be witnessing. Taxation of manufacturers and sellers and strict licensing and training requirements for gun owners are two common sense solutions. Jake, you note, "Any tax would need to be so pernicious that that the ownership of assault weapons would become prohibitive. Would a second tax, so pernicious that money in politics would become prohibitive, perhaps have merit?
The gun control argument always fails to make an important distinction - and that distinction is between evil and the instrumentalities of evil. In the absence of an available firearm, is it so hard to imagine the El Paso shooter still making his trip and planting a bomb or setting fire to the store and perhaps impeding the exits. Could not the Dayton shooter have crashed his car into the bar and set off an explosive, perhaps killing more than he actually did.
There was a "mass" stabbing the other day, are we to start regulating knives? And an earlier commenter maintained there would have been no Civil War without firearms. Really, there were no battles or wars before the invention of gunpowder? The ancient Greeks and Romans would beg to differ.
Place the focus where it belongs, on the perpetrator of these evil acts. Removing all guns, even if it were even remotely possible, only forces the evil-doer to be more creative. There are fewer creative evildoers than evildoers. Citizens do not need semi-automatic weapons that rapidly fire high velocity projectiles. We do not need to be awash in these weapons.
Stanley, with respect, the argument that there are fewer "creative" evildoers is pretty weak, not to mention likely not even true. There are somewhere between and million firearms in the US. How do you propose getting them?
Lastly, as a matter of accuracy, a semi-automatic firearm fires one projectile with one trigger pull. The Aussies took their advanced weaponry away from their private citizens and there's no evidence the previous death toll was maintained with bombs and automobiles as substitutes.
There are not M high powered semi-automatic rifles in the US. Perhaps single digit millions. I am aware that it is one trigger pull per firing. But the lethality and woundings by the Dayton shooter in a matter of 32 seconds speaks for itself. When I said million firearms, I was referring to all types, including handguns. The number is imprecise because the government doesn't keep track of firearms by type.
You may only care about the AR, but the author of the article and many others at America wish to work around the 2nd Amendment for all firearms. Re Australia, their crime rate was declining before the ban and continued after the ban. An island country with a homogeneous population that is a small fraction of the US is a poor comparison. Lastly, don't forget the US did ban "assault rifles" in the 90s - not much effect observed on crime rates, which had and still are in decline.
I was merely clarifying. My concern is mainly AR type weapons which are instrumental in the terroristic mass shootings which are becoming more common and egregious. I consider the status of other small arms to be a separate issue.
It is obvious Ellen has done more extensive research than many that oppose the Second Amendment Rights of American Citizens, she deserves credit for that. I do take exception with her making up her own facts to back up her opinions. How would she react to proposals to do away away with the First Amendment?
She is abusing and misusing her First Amendment Right to free speech by using it in an effort to deny our Second Amendment Rights.
It should clear and understood that the founders did not intend that the Bill of Rights be turned against each other. That is wrong. It would be equally wrong to advocate the right of free speech, religion, or right to assembly be denied through the exercising of Second Amendment Rights.
The First Amendment is often abused and misused. The same is true for the second Amendment. To paraphrase a previous comment - Nobody needs free speech! Is it not true that free speech can do great harm to many people?
Should we deny , diminish, or eliminate First Amendment Rights of everyone because a few abuse them? We have a Bill of Rights, not a Bill of Needs. The right of a person to defend themselves is God given. The framers of the Constitution listed it in the Bill of Rights to prevent infringement by the government. Do you think God intended we should be defenseless against evil?
Do we not have enough sense and understanding to realize that firearms are inanimate objects, tools that have no soul or will? Untouched they can lay for a century. They have no power to do anything A human is required for a firearm to do anything.
How a firearm is utilized is totally dependent on the intent of the human being holding it In the hands of an evil person it can be used to do evil. In the hands of a good person, it can protect you from evil. Should be easy to understand If we are concerned with the evil some men do, does it not make sense to give our attention to the man and not the tool he uses?
Should we outlaw all religion because we are offended that there are a few false religions? There is this amnesia or ignorance in this Nation that thinks Constitutional rights are Government given? No, they are inalienable which means bestowed by a Creator, not a Government.
It is,all a contract which means we the People get all these freedoms and Government answers to us, not vice versa. Our rights are, for political purposes, what just enough people in positions of power say they are. Though an individual may hold a right to be inalienable, until just enough people in positions of power say it is, one can be arrested by the powers that be for exercising this inalienable right.
A right may be inalienable in ones hearts only. So for example, there was a time when many people thought they had a God given right to be engaged in gay relationsi but it was not until there were "just enough people in positions of power"; state judges then SC and then the populace coming along, can it now be said that its an" inalienable right" to live a gay life style.
There was a time one could be imprisoned for having gay sex. The same for other freedoms once prohibited by law on the grounds they were not constitutionally protected inalienable rights. The Constitution can be interpreted to mean whatever we want it to mean. Our inalienable rights are only "recognized'when just enough people in positions of power have declared them so.
Recognition is hindsight. In our hearts one can believe that our rights are God given[ for a person of faith, for an atheist they conform with human needs and wants]but in the world; of governments, of laws, of powers to punish,these rights are political rights arrived at though political frameworks.
For a country that professes to be by and for the people, with a Constitution that girds this contract,we are quite paranoid about our government,[ our military too? Where is the outcry or debate about that?
Or is pointing a figure at that demigraphic taboo, but NRA members are okay to denounce? Why is that? User Tools. Sign In. Skip Nav Destination Article Navigation. Close mobile search navigation Article navigation. Volume 51, Issue 4. Previous Article Next Article. Article Navigation.
March 01 The Case for Repealing the Second Amendment? Konig David T. Louis School of Law. This Site. Google Scholar. Author and Article Information. More recently, liberal activists started a group called Guns Down after the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando to promote a more aggressive political and policy campaign against firearms. The new players in the gun-control advocacy space have not, however, dramatically widened the scope of proposals to reduce gun violence.
The main ask for most advocates remains a universal background-check system that closes loopholes that allow people with criminal records or mental illness to buy firearms at gun shows or from private dealers. The groups largely also back a ban on assault-style rifles, limits on high-capacity magazines, a crackdown on straw purchasing, and an end to the prohibition on federally-funded research into gun violence as a matter of public health.
In an interview, he floated ideas like licensing and mandatory training for gun owners, as well as a buyback program to reduce the more than million guns estimated to be in circulation nationwide.
Like the nine other additions to the Constitution that form the Bill of Rights, the precise wording of the Second Amendment emerged from considerable debate. James Madison considered proposals from state ratifying conventions and leaned heavily on the declaration of rights from his own state of Virginia.
But the language ratified in is indisputably awkward:. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
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