March 2, 2013
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Fuck Your Second Amendment
In this recent chapter of the gun rights debate, I don’t think either side is willing to budge. In fact, when discussing this with some of my right-wing friends on Facebook (always a productive thing to do), even when I was willing to try and meet in the middle I couldn’t get one millimeter of movement on their behalf towards the center.
First I bring up that guns should be registered on a national level. This includes closing the gun show loophole, which allows private citizens to sell guns to people with no registration or oversight whatsoever. Around 40% of all gun sales in America fall under this category according to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, and at least 10% of gun violence in this country is committed with guns purchased legally with this loophole according to the U.S. Department of Justice. To put that in perspective, that equates to about 26,000 firearms used in crime. It seems perfectly reasonable to require at least as much registration and documentation with your guns (which are used for no use other than to destroy people, animals or things) as you do with your car (which, if you’re a sane human being, is only unintentionally used to destroy anything). Yet currently it’s legal to buy a gun with no record of the purchase, while the same is not true of a car.
Wait, do I have to register this or not? Is it a car with guns, or guns with a car?
“Well even if we have these laws,” counters the gun nut as he caresses his AK-47 with more love than I’ve shown any of my pets, “criminals will just break them. After all, that’s what makes them criminals! So what’s the point?” I should hope that anybody with a 5th grader’s understanding of logic can see the gaping hole in this argument: that just because somebody will break the law doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have the law. To be extremely hyperbolic about it, why outlaw murder if people are going to murder anyways? To give a much more reasonable example, everybody speeds, so why enforce a speed limit? If you’ve ever seen that asshole switching lanes without signalling while driving 110mph through traffic, that answer should be obvious to you. And even if your argument is “no new laws, but enforce the existing laws,” how many of those people are backing the idea that people with unregistered guns should get an actual prison sentence, not the slap on the wrist that the US (and most states) give us right now?
Fucking pigs don’t respect my RIGHT to drive 85 through a school zone. FASCISTS!
So let’s assume I’ve brought up a lot of other points that basically every other leftie has brought up in this debate already, almost all of which are completely obvious to other civilized western nations (just look at Australia, which saw a mass shooting as a reason to reform their gun laws).
So far in this meager blog, we’ve run the (admittedly weak) gauntlet of reasonable solutions to the indisputable issue of gun violence in this country. So now that we’ve covered almost all the field with reason, where does the gun nut retreat? To the corner, which they defend with “SECOND AMENDMENT, MOTHERFUCKER!”
Now don’t get me wrong, for the time in which they were written, the Bill of Rights (aka the first ten amendments to the Constitution, which include the only parts of the Constitution that most people know) were incredibly insightful and prescient. That being said, our Founding Fathers™ were not infallible. They were men as limited by their age as we are by ours. That being said, men (as angelic as American history texts may portray them to be) are limited in their scope, and these men of the 18th century could not possibly foresee what the weapons of the 21st century would be like. When these men drafted the 2nd amendment, the most powerful arm a man could bear was a musket, or a canon if the man was particularly wealthy and/or had very strong arms.
My point is, the Constitution is a document limited by the time in which it was written, which obviously makes it, at best, partially-applicable today. The Supreme Court even upheld that the militia part of the 2nd amendment wasn’t crucial in post-slavery America. which to me means, in law parlance, that the Constitution is a “living document” that changes to one extent or another with the time. So really, who gives a shit what Thomas Jefferson thought? He owned and fucked slaves. Is this really the man you want to base our country’s morality on?
This show is much more difficult to watch given the historical context of the name.
The fact is, the Founding Fathers™ were not prophets. They couldn’t possibly know what the country they were creating would be two and a half centuries later. The Bill of Rights is not the end all be all of law, which is why we’ve added over a dozen laws to it. So don’t whip out your cock and jerk it while shouting “SECOND AMENDMENT, MOTHERFUCKERS!” to defend your right to own assault rifle that can fire 100 rounds in a minute. Our Founding Fathers™ weren’t picturing a time when it was a CNN orgasm to have some dude walk into a school and shoot as many people as possible before he had to reload. Just because they gave you the right to bear arms doesn’t mean they had the foresight to see the insanely overpowered rifles that would be used to mow down 7-year-olds.
So let’s break this down. Let’s exclude the (idiotic) notion that “THE CONSTITUTION [generic argument that is functionally retarded and basically says if you limit my right to buy death machines from whoever whenever for whatever and if you disagree you hate Americuh]“. Let’s look at the real world, not the dream the Founding Fathers™ were so excited about that they, at some point, let drip through their hand (that’s a masturbation joke). Fuck the Founding Fathers™. Let’s look at this practically, assuming that the Founding Fathers™ aren’t influencing our lawmaking abilities, and let’s try to make laws base upon (gasp!) common sense.
Then again, common sense isn’t something we have an overabundance of in this country.
Comments (119)
[when discussing this with some of my right-wing friends on Facebook (always a productive thing to do), ]
Wait, you have right-wing friends on Facebook? I think you’re lying…
You want sex with the strangest things. Dude these arguments so suck. The fact that gun control laws have never lowered crime rates, murder rates, suicide rates. Matters not to you. The fat that gun are used to stop crimes far more than they are used to commit murders matters not to you. You watch movies where you learned all you know about guns. Guns scare you, you want the to magically make go away.
2003 CDC Study on the Effectiveness of Gun Control (Spoiler: No Evidence They Work.)
Obama solution to that is… well hundreds of studies are not enough, we did not get the results we wanted to see … even though the CDC is super anti gun.
I think all this talk about “gun violence reduction” legislation is the best thing the NRA could possibly have hoped for. It has resulted in a new arms race in America with people arming themselves before it becomes illegal which, knowing my beloved legislators, won’t likely happen on a Federal level. After all, even if the law is passed, who’ll pay the ATF to enforce it? Last I checked, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is amongst the most gutted agencies in our nation.
Well written. It’s true. The Constitution is and should be a living document that has been and should continue to be adjusted to include common sense needs of the time. We have grown and changed as a country.
The 50 million people killed by their governments last century, after being disarmed by those governments, might disagree with your logic. Yes, I said 50 million. If you trust this, or any government to protect you, you not only don’t understand our laws or the evil that lies within us, you also have forgotten most of the history of the 20th century and the world. Ever hear the old maxim, “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”? I’m pretty sure our founding father’s understood a timeless principle on this one.
All you have done here is underscored the fact that the left is anti-American, and completely divorced from the principles upon which this country was founded. You know, if England had instituded gun control there would have been no revolution, and ultimately that is what gun control is about, preventing revolution and insurrection. It has jack all to do with public safety. I don’t understand why people on the extreme left don’t get up and move to other countries that practive their ideology to a greater degree, like England or Venezuela.
Just because it’s so fun, I’m going to use your own arguments against you. lol
Actually, a lot of gun owners support gun registration and closing loopholes. It’s a big problem that many do not like. For example, most folks out there couldn’t begin to tell you how to properly change the registration of a gun from one person to another when selling a gun in a private setting. Even say, if I were to buy guns from my brother. The problem isn’t in the registration legislation, but the other stuff they usually try to add to it.
Cars. Yeah, that’s a tired and old argument. Folks keep saying “you register a car and it isn’t designed to kill people.” But they do, and they kill more people than guns do. Yet the argument remains on guns, which really makes it look like the argument is just about arbitrarily restricting guns and not saving lives. If that’s what it is, fine, just be honest about it.
I also love the speeding analogy. However, in order for it to me more accurate, it would be like this:
There are too many people dying from speeding (even though speeding is never a sole cause of an accident, it only makes the accident worse). So let’s lower the speed limit down to 35 on the freeway! This would mean the law abiding folks would slow down, and those that could care less about laws will still go 95. That doesn’t make it safer. It would actually make it more dangerous as well as increase congestion. The answer would be to actually enforce the laws that already exist, and possibly add stiffer penalties. But that isn’t the argument of the gun control crowd. They still scream “lower the speed limit!”
So really, the gun control crowd is the one avoiding common sense.
I also find it extremely funny that you yourself once posted a meme about live preservers and drowning, as an answer to banning abortions. (Even though it doesn’t correlate to abortion very well, but that’s beside the point. However, it is a great counter-argument to the fundamentalists that want to ban birth control.) That same meme can be applied to the gun control crowd. “Ban guns, it will just stop the killing.” Even though murder has been around much longer than firearms.
Oh, and Australia’s own government admitted that their gun ban had pretty much no effect on the murder rate there. Violent crime has been on the increase since that ban went into effect. source
In your own wiki link, you ignore United States v Miller, that states the gun in question was not ” any part of the ordinary military equipment” which would mean that military style weapons can indeed be owned by private citizens (though appeals of laws enacted since the DC v Heller ruling also rule that “assault” weapon bans did not violate the 2nd Amendment). Basically, there are also several cases that support gun rights in the areas that some want banned.
The Gun advocates arguments are annoying because they require ignoring reality. You must refuse to admit the reality that there IS a line, It exists and almost everyone accepts it.
They scream 2nd Amendment!!! and argue we need guns to protect ourselves from the government and it is our right. Following this logic, anthrax, RPG’s, Landmines and ANY weaponry should be available to the public and one must assume with no background checks which is a strange requirement that gun nuts hold onto.
Almost everyone would agree making Anthrax Spores available at Wallgreens without a background check wouldn’t be wise and would endager the public at large. A few Psychpaths “freedom” to have Anthrax isn’t worth the damage they could inflict.
Our laws try and balance Personal freedom and public saftey and gun control is no different.
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - @trunthepaige Yea….and because anthrax is illegal there is more crime and we cannot have a revolution.
@tendollar4ways - I’ll address your illogical argument once you answer the question I’ve asked you several times. Why do you support the rape of women?
@trunthepaige -
Thanks for the link.
Quick question: How comfortable are you in going in the direction that the consequentialist arguments lead? For me, I’m fine with either more guns spread around the citizens or guns more tightly regulated, based on whatever will do the best job of decreasing violent crimes, injuries, and deaths. Do you feel the same or are the consequentialist arguments non-determinative to you?
I’ll address all these points soon enough, but I wanted to just quickly point out that:
@grim_truth - [I also find it extremely funny that you
yourself once posted a meme about live preservers and drowning, as an
answer to banning abortions.]
That was about removing condoms and sex ed in hoping to prevent pregnancies, just like removing life preservers would help stop drownings. It was in a post ABOUT abortion, but that particular analogy wasn’t directly related to abortion.
@GodlessLiberal - my apologies, then. However, the rest of it still holds true lol
@grim_truth -
Lowering the speed limit would reduce deadly accidents (even if was lowered to a very low speed like 35 mph). But you’re right that it would increase congestion (on a related note, it probably would lower economic efficiency). So trade-offs are being made by policy makers.
@grim_truth - While I generally support legalization of most all Drugs….I don’t think Ruffies should be legal because of the ease it allows rapists to apply their trade.
@lightnindan -
Based on this logic, citizens should be allowed to own tanks, whatever explosive devices they want, etc.
I’m all for exploring the academic question of whether the citizens of a country should always have the means of overthrowing the government, but the thing is that question is much different today because of technology. The reality today is that U.S. can’t overthrow the government and regulations on handguns won’t change that. The best U.S. citizens could do is cause giant headaches and linger around (but they wouldn’t be able to overthrow anything). Give citizens tanks, rocket launchers, drones, etc., and they might have a better chance, but I really don’t want citizens to have those things.
On a related note, how do you feel about cuts to the military’s budget? That would help the goal of making the U.S. more susceptible to be overthrown by citizens (though still very, very unlikely).
Laws do not change a person’s heart.
@tendollar4ways - But you still support increase in rape rates, why?
@whataboutbahb - How would it lower deadly accidents? If the new limit was enforced, maybe. But based on history of horrible enforcement, there will still be folks that will still go 95, increasing the danger. I probably should have been a little more clear on that part and said “lower the speed limit to 35 but not enforce it.”
@grim_truth - You are precisely the Jackass this post is about.
If we eliminate 30 round clips and require background checks rape rate will go up because in England and Australia where there is a total gun ban rape rates went up?
You are a fucking lunatic….or good troll!
@grim_truth -
You would lower the speed limit with incremental changes. Most people speed relative to the posted speed limit. Even if most people do end up speeding relative to the posted speed limit of 35 mph, they would only be going around 10-15 mph over that posted limit. Deadly accidents would happen less at 45-50 mph then they would at 60-70 mph. (Plus, you can basically “trick” most people into following the new limits by having heavy enforcement of the new speed limits initially, and then scale back enforcement. Thus, behavior has been adjusted to a new baseline. There will still be drift from that newly established baseline, but the situation won’t be that many people still will be going 70 when the limit that is posted is 35.)
@tendollar4ways - You have referenced those bans as successful. So if they’re successful, and rape goes up, that can only mean you support rape.
Also, I find your complete and total hypocrisy quite funny. You go around saying “yeah, because banning 30 round clips and assault rifles are the same call calling for a total ban.” You sit there and bitch about folks taking your supposed (I say supposed because you clearly are more for total gun bans based on your comments elsewhere) stance and taking it to an extreme, when that is exactly what you do with every stance that is in disagreement with yours. Such as telling folks if they want a smaller government, they must actually be for no government at all, or that if they call for lower taxes they hate the poor.
And you have the nerve to call someone else a troll? That, sir is more laughable than most of the stuff I see on lamebook.com!
@whataboutbahb - Oh, I agree that it could be done and be made safe. However, the argument that comes from many (not necessarily you) is new laws and bans immediately. Now, many, if not most, folks will go that 35 as they should by law. But those that realize there is no enforcement, will still go 90. That’s why the OP’s speeding argument doesn’t hold water (of course, the fact that there is no consitutional right to drive also would come into play lol). It also ignores the reasons for the “speeding” fatalities, erratic driving, distracted driving, etc. The issue with gun deaths isn’t guns but the mental health of those using the guns, and the hatred that drives those individuals to kill. Just as roads can be made safer by enforcing traffic laws that already exist, gun violence can be reduced by enforcing gun laws that already exist. Traffic fatalities can also be lowered by better driver education programs, and mass shootings by mentally unstable folks can be lowered by taking a serious look at mental health treatment/diagnosis in this country.
@grim_truth - Well, it’s probably better to address what would likely happen with regulations on guns, which would probably be incremental steps (though there are extra difficulties that would make the transition less smooth than a switch in speed limits).
And I still disagree with the idea that people who don’t think there is enforcement will go 90 in a 35 mph zone. Very few people will actually do this. Have you ever gone substantially faster than the cars around you while driving? It’s pretty frightening. People speed relative to the posted limit and other cars. But this is a tangential disagreement that really isn’t as relevant.
I completely agree there are other ways to lower traffic fatalities. Speed limits is one of those many ways though. There are plenty of laws and regulations that address public policy concerns without directly addressing the underlying problems. That doesn’t mean these laws and regulations are inherently flawed–it’s just one approach, that may or may not be better based on the end results when compared (or combined to varying degrees) with other methods.
@whataboutbahb - Even if very few speed, it’s still enough to kill innocents, just as it’s very few that violate gun laws. It’s those few that do kill innocents.
Speed limits only partially serve to slow down traffic. The goal isn’t to slow down traffic, or really to even lower the number of fatalities. They actually serve to change the charges that can be brought by the deaths. If someone is following traffic laws, and kill someone, let’s say they hit a patch of black ice for example, they may not even be charged. If they are it would be a lesser charge than someone doing 90 in a 35. However, if those charges are not ramped up for the speeder, then there is no incentive to follow said limit. The same can still be applied to gun ownership and bans. There are already laws on the books that, if enforced properly, could lead to a reduction in crime and murder. Even in incremental steps, there will still be those few that feel they are above the law or think they can get away with it. However, they would likely be inclined to think twice if the penalty were severe and the law enforced with vigor.
The difference in the speeding analogy and murder is intent. The intent is to speed, not to kill. Maybe it’s for saving time, maybe it’s for the joy of it. The intent with murder is hatred and malice, regardless of the case. Few laws will stop hatred and malice. They may get someone to think twice, but it’s unlikely. I know a lot of folks are going to be confused by this (though probably not you), but yes, I do fully agree with the OP on tougher sentencing for those violating gun trafficking laws, and illegal possession.
That’s where a big part of the problem lies. Folks think they know the stance of the other side, when they actually have no clue. (not saying you do)
I agree with some of the points of the gun-control crowd. Registration. Education for gun owners. Background checks.
I do not agree with banning certain weapons (especially weapons that are labeled with political terms that sound horrifying but actually have no effect on the lethality of the weapon), or banning high capacity clips (a good shooter can change clips before you can blink, it’s really not that damn hard).
Many of the gun-rights crowd agree with me, even with registration, education, background checks, etc. I feel those areas should be focused on. Anytime there is a common area, it definitely warrants consideration. However, it seems that many (and it may just be personal bias here, though I really don’t think so) are dead set on that and refuse to see that there is common ground. This comes from both sides, but it seems to come more from the gun-control crowd, just as the OP that tried to make it sound as if the gun-rights crowd wants guns and ammo for all with no background checks, registration, or education.
@grim_truth - For Fucksake, successful is a relative term. You must define what you mean by success. I said the Australian gun law was successful AT reducing gun deaths. If you define success as reducing gun death, it was in fact successful.
Chemotherapy is successful at treating cancer. It however isn’t successful at preventing temporary hair loss.
@grim_truth -
You’re right that both level of enforcement and level of penalty affect overall deterrence. (But the latter starts to give you marginal returns (when it comes to length of incarceration) when you increase it higher and higher though–there are economic explanations for this (people value present day more than than future) and psychological (hard to comprehend long sentences, and further increases just don’t have the same effect at that level).)
I disagree with you about the goals of speeding laws. The goal of speed limits is usually an effort to balance concerns about fatalities, congestion, and pollution. Similar charges can be brought against someone who kills someone doing 90 in a 60 compared to 90 in a 35. If the charge is something like voluntary manslaughter (requiring culpability of recklessness) it can be shown in either situation (depending on the facts). A difference in speed may affect sentencing in this example, but not proving the offense.
I agree with you that deterrence is not nearly as effective with crimes of passion (but that doesn’t mean it’s completely gone in all these types of cases). But I think it’s a mistake to think that the point of regulating firearms is to solely try and prevent crimes of passion. Of course that’s where politicians organize the focus to gain political support, but regulations are directed at all crimes involving firearms (e.g., a policy argument might be that if there can be a reduction in robberies involving guns, there can be a reduction in ACCIDENTAL shootings resulting from those crimes, and apply that argument to a lot of different crimes) and accidents involving guns (accidental shootings of self or others, shooting an innocent person in a mistaken self-defense situation, etc.). I claim no knowledge about what certain regulations would do to both these categories–that’s why I’m fine with a lot of guns if they end up having the best consequences or fine with stronger regulations if that actually ends up having the best consequences.
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-riddle-of-the-gun
A good read about guns.
I get the impression that you think all gun happy people are right-wing conservative religious nuts. You talk a lot about religion. Maybe you should take the next step and start investigating things like minarchy or anarcho-capitalism. A lot of so-called free-thinkers and atheists tend to go that route. Less government, less control. Just because there are right-wing religious nutjobs that subscribe to some of those ideas doesn’t mean all those ideas are bad ideas.
Apply to re-enter the Empire, or rather to join in raising it from the dead. Your more professional regiments will be declared Royal regiments of the line and issued with scarlet overcoats. They”ll soon disarm the nutjobs. Hemp rope and tree branches does wonders to have people comply with the suggestions of Her Majesty’s loyal colonial Parliament. Another way to deal with unregistered weapons is to introduce punishment battalions and send ‘em with their very own personal weapons to sort out the Afghans, or vice versa.
@trunthepaige - ”Dude these arguments so suck.”
Seriously, you are probably the last person that should be saying that. I agree with you on nearly half the things you write, but when you have the opportunity to actually make a decent argument you usually throw a hissy fit and make broad blanket statements. Even when I have agreed with something you say initially in the past, I have actually changed my mind on several things after seeing you argue it with someone solely because you were making terrible irrational statements with someone that was actually using facts, figures, and polite speech. You should be grateful that not everyone that shares your religious and political viewpoints argues like you or those causes would have died out a long time ago.
Or not. Irrationality and arguing with emotions does come natural to humans. I should know.
Since this posting starts off in such a genteel and respectful manner (Fuck Your Second Amendment), all I can say here is that the sentiment is mutual from at least my corner of the gun rights side.
Never mind that most of the gun-related crime that you profess to be opposed to happens on your turf – Chicago, DC, urban California – when the numbers are calculated on a per capita basis.
Your problem is that there’s way more of us than there are of you, we have significant numbers of supporters in both law enforcement and the military, and if this particular “cold civil war” ever turns “hot,” well, we’ve got the guns and you’ve got your pissy attitude. Who wins that fight?
What’s even better is that most of America’s area devoted to food production is our territory, while you’re packed into the big cities. We can live without you, but you can’t live without us.
@whataboutbahb - The facts show that increased gun ownership and ability to carry them in public decreases crime. I have links for that as well if you want them. Any laws that would actualy do some good if they did not restrict the ability of citizens to keep in bear arms I would be willing to consider. Restrictions by age, criminal record and sanity come to mind
@snarkius - sure if you want to call truth telling a hissy fit, you go for it buddy. Nothing like a good personal insult to make an argument when you have nothing else to say
@tendollar4ways - dude back to the real argument gun control has never worked to lower murder rates, none of it has anywhere. And yes the Constitution is important
@TheSutraDude - Exactly it needs to be ignored
Something I’ve always wondered, and perhaps it’s naive thinking on my part – I don’t know. Is it possible to limit the sale of ammo to individuals or to legally record and recall when anyone buys it and from where ?
Or is it possible for individuals to construct their own custom ammunition to defeat this measure ?
Granted there are a large number of guns out there. As the saying goes, “the government will take my gun from my cold dead hands,” well yes we don’t need to go there.
But if ammo is legally rationed, limited, scrutinized, and counted, would that help in the long run ?
I own a few guns. I have them for a variety of reasons. I have no problem with various forms of firearms legislation. I think every gun owner ought to take a safety and awareness course, and be trained in the proper handling and safe storage of their firearms. Guns not being used ought to be locked or disabled. Guns designated for personal defense, hand guns, hunting implements ought to be registered. A person should be required to posess a license to carry a loaded firearm. (Hunters in NY are required to be licensed when carrying a firearm in the field.) Or be accompanied by a licensed parent or guardian for underaged shooters. These legislative steps will not eliminate unwanted shootings, but with responsible gun ownership there will be a significant reduction in unwanted gan related injuries and deaths.
There is no law that any government will ever pass that will eliminate armed criminal activity. I spent three months in Ecuador where it is illegal for any citizen to possess a firearm, yet armed robbery is more prevolent per capita than here in the United States. I think also that it is important for our legislators to proceed from the standpoint of reason, using statistical data, and historical perspective rather than kneejerk reactions to an emotionally driven public opinion, from either side, when composing gun laws and regulations regarding manufacture, sale, use and ownership. I see no reason why any average citizen should not be allowed to posees and keep a firearm in their own home, nor resrict the trasportation of an unloaded and locked down firearm, nor not allow for specific locations where the free use and practice of shooting can take place. Even in my home when I had children, three curious boys no less I kept multiple fire arms safely yet accessible.
As for the foresight of our founding fathers, I believe their vision over 200 years ago exceeded that of the average citizen today. The second amendment is as valid today as the day it was first penned as also are the first and third which stand on either side of it. You and I both, in our intellect and reasoning would be lucky to be able to craft a document of such simple eloquence and dutiful conciseness to which a nation of hundreds of millions could look up to and hold as dear as we have our constitution.
Meh~
Without the 2nd Amendment, there can be no 1st Amendment.
Our right to our thoughts, ideas and speech (without government interference) is meaningless without the right to use lethal force as protection.
That means that the 1st Amendment is meaningless without the 2nd Amendment.
We live in a civil society where at present we are protected by military and police. But such a temporary circumstance can change on a dime. So if we value our right to free speech and religion, we must also value our right to protect that freedom with lethal force.
Ultimately, the individual is responsible for his rights, not the government.
I say establish a well-organized militia to go out and remove the guns from people that have no business owning them. Mainly the ones that rant incoherently about owning guns, they are obviously mentally damaged. If you think that Hollywood movies and video games are the problem then ban everyone that has played a video game or saw a movie from owning a gun. Since guns are not the problem, ban all bullets, they seem to do the most damage.
Doesn’t seem like you made any move in YOUR thinking!
@grim_truth -
Look. I don’t really care whether Americans shoot each other. None of my business. But don’t quote Australian figures using what I assume is an pro-gun American website as a source. Gun deaths have reduced VERY significantly since the gun buyback. http://guncontrol.org.au/ will give an indication of just by how much.
@bundyinspeedos – The mandatory turn-in program was never a “buy-back” because for the Australian government to buy the guns back, they would have had to been the original owners of them.
@mikewb1971 - WHAT?????
@trunthepaige -
These two sentences seem to be in some conflict:
“Any laws that would actualy do some good if
they did not restrict the ability of citizens to keep in bear arms I
would be willing to consider.”
and
“Restrictions by age, criminal record and
sanity come to mind”
Are you saying that you would consider gun laws that do some good as long as they don’t restrict the ability of citizens to bear arms? The restrictions you mentioned, while very reasonable, do very much restrict the ability of citizens to bear arms. My guess is that you are against overly restrictive gun laws, but where is the line for you? If the data shows in the future that very restrict gun laws would decrease deaths, violence, crime, injuries, etc., would you be willing to consider them or do you have other non-consequentialist considerations in place that draw the line for you at a certain place? (And if so, where would that line be drawn for you?)
@ImNotUglyIJustNeedLove -
Have you ever taken a constitutional law class? It doesn’t seem like it.
And your argument seems to be there is no rights of citizens in general without the second amendment (seems weird to limit it to 1st amendment–why would it only mean that there is no 1st amendment and, not, say, the 8th amendment?). Keep in mind that 2nd amendment wasn’t even incorporated against the states until McDonald v. Chicago in 2010. So I guess all other incorporated rights against the states were meaningless until McDonald?
@trunthepaige - yea…I have already been told Chemotherapy in unsuccessful.
@ImNotUglyIJustNeedLove -
I was aware that there are people writing that the development of second amendment jurisprudence should look to the development of first amendment jurisprudence, but I haven’t read anything that argued that one of the most important roles of the secondment amendment was to protect the first. But I just did some quick research and saw that Sanford Levinson has linked an insurrectionist reading of the Second Amendment with the First Amendment. See Sanford Levinson, et al., The Second Amendment as Teaching Tool in Constitutional Law Classes, 48 J. LEGAL. EDUC. 591 (1998). So, my bad for thinking that drawing a substantive relationship between the two was dumb. That said, while I haven’t read it, I am doubtful that he thinks the first amendment could not exist without the second. (Feel free to correct that assumption though.) If you have any scholars/articles that claim that, feel free to share. The last thing I last read was an article arguing that an insurrectionist reading of the Second Amendment actually conflicts with the First Amendment. See http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2009125 .
Sorry if my reaction was on the rude side, but 99% of people who mention bring up constitutional law absolutely butcher the topic.So that’s the lens I read comments through, which is dumb and unfair on my part. I’m only a student, but it bothers when a topic gets so badly butchers it.
We at Table 54 concur with this post emphatically. Forget the Republicans. When are WE the people going to stop being the country of STUPID?
-Y
You know what? When your so-called *Liberal* President Obama puts down his homicidal, terrorist-breeding dones; his nuclear arsenal, his grandmother-groping airport thugs, his Orwellian surveillance programs, and his intervention-happy army–on that day I will put down my guns.
Statistically, **assault** weapons with 30-round clips account for a tiny proportion of gun deaths. Most gun deaths are gangbangers offing each other with handguns. So to have any effect you would have to ban handguns, which would only create more victims: when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
It would also create more prisoners by turning innocent people into criminals overnight–but I’m sure the Demopublicans and their buddies in the Prison-Industrial Complex would love that.
Gun control also destroys American jobs (such as the 300 jobs lost in Conneticut) which is something that cannot afford to be done right now. Do you want to tell those familes that mommy lost her job in the middle of an absolutely shit economy, all because of mass hysteria?
@dw817 - It wouldn’t work. It would be viewed as a backdoor gun ban, be immediately challenged, and likely struck down in court. Municipalities can pass local laws requiring all ammunition sales to be logged, but restricting or preventing the sale of ammunition wouldn’t work, especially not if it’s only a local government trying to do it.
The nearest large city to my university was Sacramento, CA, and all ammunition sales legally had to be logged into record for law enforcement purposes. If you bought a box of ammunition in Sacramento, you had to provide your ID, plus a right thumb print which went into the Sacramento Police database. However the law only applied within the Sacramento city limits; the end result? People just drove a few minutes to a neighboring city to buy their ammunition instead of buying it in Sacramento.
@whataboutbahb - A rudimentary understanding of basic junior high civics is all that is needed to understand the meaning of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
That’s the way the Founders designed their great work.
But to gain a greater understanding of the Founders’ great achievements it is necessary to go back in time to discover their original intent, not forward in time to the Progressives whose raison d’etra is to destroy the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.
@whataboutbahb - It is simple common sense that basic human rights mean nothing without the force to defend them.
I suggest dispensing with the constitutional law propaganda and start learning about the original intent and philosophical thought of the Founders. It is trivial and should go without mention that to understand the original intent of the Constitution, it is necessary to understand the thinking of its authors.
After all, the Founders are the authors of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. If you have no knowledge of how they thought or where their political philosophy comes from than it is impossible to understand the authentic meaning of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The Constitution is based on human nature, which never changes. Therefore the notion that the Constitution is a “living, breathing” document is poppycock.
@ImNotUglyIJustNeedLove -
“A rudimentary understanding of basic junior
high civics is all that is needed to understand the meaning of the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights.”
That may be how the constitution was designed, but that’s not how it works anymore, whether you’re an originalist or a non-originalist. Each amendment invokes a doctrine that’s developed by the courts, and people discussing the constitution can’t ignore those doctrines.
Also, if you’re going to be an originalist, you’re better off joining with the new originliasts (or sometimes called the new, new originalists) and accepting a public meaning originalism; intentionalist originalism is now a very small minority within the larger camp (and for good reason).
And this is why it’s annoying to discuss constitutional law with most people on xanga–they don’t have a fucking clue about very basic things. (This is not me trying to act superior (I’m no con law expert); rather, this is me begging for people to have a basic knowledge of the constitution before invoking constitutional arguments.)
@tokyoexpressman - Hmm … I see. Well, I guess it’s like anything else. I noticed recently that some torrent sites are now IP banned from the Internet and the sites retaliated by creating proxy servers that number in the hundreds as active mirrors. No way for an ISP to catch them all …
I guess there will always be a way to circumvent protection, one way or another, for anything that is limited or restricted.
Thanks for the info … Φ ≡
The Constitution of the United States of America forms the basis of law in the United States. It grew out of the Articles of Confederation (our first constitution), and while that document is no longer the basis of our legal system, it does provide a valuable historical insight into the definition of militia.
The decisions of the Supreme Court matter, even when they are mistaken, and even when they cannot understand basic English.
The second amendment is a single paragraph consisting of one theme and four sentences. The subject is militia. There are three sentences which refer to the subject, which is militia. To take any one sentence out of the paragraph, and defend that sentence as having a separate meaning, is inappropriate, inaccurate and careless.
The second amendment was crafted in an age when people already owned and used guns. The supposed right to own and use guns was a given. People didn’t need an expressed amendment or law relative to owning weapons. It hadn’t always been possible or lawful for the ‘common’ citizen or subject of England or her colonies to posses weapons, but English laws were changed in the late 17th century, and it became lawful for people to own weapons. By the late 18th c, in America, it had been lawful for people to own weapons for almost 100 years.
When the constitution was written, there was absolutely no question that individual citizens could own guns; bear arms. No law or statement was necessary on that point. Such an inclusion in the constitution would have made as much sense as saying citizens have the right to breathe.
Militias were under the supervision of government. One can settle that question by asking, who is going to regulate this well regulated militia? Presumably the very people who were, by virtue of the constitution, making up that amendment. The most accessible historical reference would be the Articles of Confederation which discuses militias, their organization, purpose and equipage.
National Guard units might be the nearest thing, conceptually, to the militia of the 1780’s.
What might b needed today is a new amendment that clarifies the second amendment, then additionally makes provision for personal weaponry in the 21st century – the number of weapons, the kinds of weapons, the purchase of weapons, the registry of weapons, age limits for ownership, gun permits and proper gun usage training, exclusions for people who have had felony conviction and for people with known mental problems, the lawful use of weapons at game preserves, gun ranges, or whatever.
The NRA does not want a constitutional battle. They want to have this public controversy that will eventually fade from the media when Justin Bieber’s pats fall off in public, or Anne Hathaway makes a sex tape with Sponge Bob Square pants.
In the meantime, Bubba is still trying to figure our what hyperbolic means. I think you lost there long before he got to prescient.
I’m not certain that founding fathers is as accurate as founding farters might be.
@ImNotUglyIJustNeedLove -
I never disputed that (the meaning of the constitution matters and to understand the meaning there is a lot of different things to examine). I think original public meaning, intent of the founders, the influence of certain enlightenment thinkers on certain founders, etc. can all be very important in determining constitutional law. I just don’t think it’s determinative. And even someone is an originalist, it is still very possible to have a non-insurrectionist view of the second amendment and believe that the bill of rights do not become obsolete without the secondment amendment. (On a more practical note–the insurrectionist view of the second amendment doesn’t track our current reality: citizens couldn’t overthrow the U.S. government right now if they wanted to, regardless of whether they have handguns or not. Maybe we should push harder to allow citizens to have tanks, subs, drones, etc.?)
On a final note, I guess you think Thomas Jefferson is a no-good, commie?: ““The earth belongs to the living and not the dead.”
@ImNotUglyIJustNeedLove -
Why delete your last comment, which my previous comment was responding to?
I am pretty sure the founding fathers would think differently if they visited the inner city today.
Well said. I think most of the so called debate is only coming form nuts like Paige up there in the comment section. Nothing you say will get past the noise she makes and others just like her. But on the bright side, despite the lobby and the stupid, things will get changed.
I want to be careful to say that while I think a 0 gun policy is the only safe policy, anything that limits sales of assault rifles and large magazines is a step in the right direction. The current drive isn’t something new at all, there has been pressure for some time to enforce gun laws and end gun shows, along with banning certain weapons of all types. It’s the recent shootings that have brought the subject into the public eye, so naturally it was seized upon by gun control people. I don’t think gun control will specifically stop the kind of violence we’ve seen lately, but like I said, it’s a step in the right direction.
@brown_buffalo – Let’s break the bullshit down:
I want to be careful to say that while I think a 0 gun policy is the only safe policy,
So much for the “no one wants to take your guns” hype.
It’s the recent shootings that have brought the subject into the public eye, so naturally it was seized upon by gun control people.
Wasn’t it Rahm Emanuel who said “Never let a crisis go to waste?” So when your cause has been stagnant for the last ten years, 27 dead in Connecticut is just what you needed to bring it back to life, isn’t it?
I don’t think gun control will specifically stop the kind of violence we’ve seen lately, but like I said, it’s a step in the right direction.
“It won’t do much of anything to save lives, but let’s just do it anyway,” is that it? No thanks.
The anti-gun crowd makes denying reality look so easy. That is something I could never do. It goes against the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics.
@mikewb1971 - See, this is what’s wrong with people having guns. They aren’t smart enough to make decisions that could involve a gun. Take yourself for instance; “so much for the “no one wants to take your guns” hype.” You are one of those people who constantly makes the mistake the A must follow B when it does not. Anything that limits sales of assault rifles and large magazines is a step in the right direction, because fewer guns means fewer guns to shoot people. It’s simple math.
I can see how you’d get all caught up in the Merica BS and think you have some sort of god given right to be a bad ass, probably comes from watching to much violence on TV, but how some one can get so far off the mark of common sense is really something of a spectacal to me. You folks really think that escalating violence potential is going to make you MORE safe. This kind of reasoning is insane to my thinking and that’s why I don’t like people like you having guns.
Here is a little more proof that you and the folks like are not quite right in the head. Go over to Trunthepaige’s site where I asked one simple question, “What supportable reason do you have for wanting to own a gun?” To which you, Paige and some other ass hole have given no answer and heaped abuse on me for asking. It’s pretty obvious that one over there can answer the question, so instead they bluster. Blustering is nothing new on Xanga, it’s what conservatives do best here these days.
@wordwarrior39 - Why not take a few minutes to educate us on reality as you see it.
@brown_buffalo - I don’t have that much time. You don’t have that much money.
@mikewb1971 -
“Your problem is that there’s way more of us than there are of you, we have significant numbers of supporters in both law enforcement and the military, and if this particular “cold civil war” ever turns “hot,” well, we’ve got the guns and you’ve got your pissy attitude. Who wins that fight? What’s even better is that most of America’s area devoted to food production is our territory, while you’re packed into the big cities. We can live without you, but you can’t live without us.”
This attitude is exactly why it bothers me that people like you own guns, it’s your ultimate argument, the barrel of a gun. You have exposed your real intent. You want to go around shooting people that don’t agree with you.
@brown_buffalo – If this particular issue does go “hot” by turning into a shooting war, I have no intentions of initiating force (starting the fight), but I want my side to be the winning side. If that time comes, I will use physical force if necessary to defend myself, my family and my friends. None of us are forcing you to buy guns or even to live amongst those who choose to own guns. Yet you have every intention of forcing your ways upon us, because you “know better” than the rest of us.
Go over to Trunthepaige’s site where I asked one simple question, “What supportable reason do you have for wanting to own a gun?” To which you, Paige and some other ass hole have given no answer and heaped abuse on me for asking. It’s pretty obvious that one over there can answer the question, so instead they bluster.
Considering that I don’t tell you what items of personal property you should and shouldn’t be allowed to own, you’ll have to settle for “Because I want one” as the answer.
@mikewb1971 - Mike, I asked a question and never got to speak because Paige didn’t post it for a conversation, she’s just ranting again. She has read what I have to say and it’s on my site plain as day. I’m not trying to take away anyone’s guns. There is a philosophical and a practical side to this. Philosophically anything that takes us to 0 guns makes us safer from guns, that’s as airtight as the abstinence sex education. No guns, no gun violence. Now the practical side is that we will never be rid of guns, so having that as a goal is not practical. Yet when making decisions about guns and the responsible control of guns, we should be guided by the philosophy that there really is no safe gun and opt to deny more types of weapons which resemble military capabilities. In other words, I want to limit the gun types to hand guns and hunting guns. Also enforce existing laws governing purchases and end gun shows. I don’t like the idea that someone could be carrying a gun and be crazy at the same time, or that all they have to do is go to a gun show and give Cletus 1000$ and get an unregistered gun. I don’t think my position is unreasonable and I’m not trying to take away your gun unless it’s deemed by society that it is dangerous. However I never really got to say any of that on Paige’s site because there was no intention of hearing anyone but the choir on that post.
Besides I like the points made here much better. Rather than look at it as if a certain amount of people are trying to tell you what kind of personal property you can own, look at it like it is, a bunch of people who don’t want the danger of having these weapons in society are expressing their concern for safety. It’s only natural for them to feel this way in the wake of the recent shootings. Its a good thing that people are talking about it, because that is how it works in America. What will happen remains to be seen, but you and I have no control over that.
@mikewb1971 -
Sorry to break the news to you, but the government already regulates a lot on what you can and cannot own. You can’t posses a sawed of shotgun, tanks, and all sorts of other weapons that might be effective in protecting you from others. So it looks like your answer of “Because I want one.” doesn’t currently work for a lot of things.
(On a tangent: If citizens should be able to own whatever personal property they want just simply because they want it, how do you feel about private citizens owning nukes? I am personally uncomfortable with that idea.)
@mikewb1971 - We aren’t talking about knives. I specifically said Gun Violence.
False analogies like cars and chainsaws are useful tools to everyday citizens, guns are not.
“There I will never agree with you – I have been around military-type firearms, both the real ones (M60 machine gun, M249 SAW, M203 grenade launcher, etc.) and the civilian-legal copies of them since 1989. Yes, I have encountered stupid people who have them. My solution to people like that is to avoid contact with possible and spread the word. My side sees a safer world when more civilians have access to these types of guns, and the knowledge of how to use them properly.”
Knowledge of how to use them properly…Does that include what they are used for, mowing people down, because that’s what they were made to do. So the fantasy that I’ll be safer if some crazy redneck actually took a class on how to effectively kill just gets all kinds of respect from me.
@brown_buffalo - No guns, no gun violence.
What about violence committed with knives and blunt objects? That sort of thing has been around since recorded history began – thousands of years before guns ever existed in the first place. So now the Brits and Aussies are outlawing certain types of knives deemed to be “inappropriate” because “no one needs to have knives like that.” Not the road I want to go down.
we should be guided by the philosophy that there really is no safe gun
Just as there really is no safe car, no safe motorcycle, no safe chainsaw, and no safe knife. The answer there is education and training about the safe and proficient use of firearms. As long as public schools exist, they should justify their existence by teaching kids how to handle firearms properly, including the relevant legal stuff about self-defense. Throw in some martial arts and wilderness survival, too.
and opt to deny more types of weapons which resemble military capabilities.
There I will never agree with you – I have been around military-type firearms, both the real ones (M60 machine gun, M249 SAW, M203 grenade launcher, etc.) and the civilian-legal copies of them since 1989. Yes, I have encountered stupid people who have them. My solution to people like that is to avoid contact with possible and spread the word. My side sees a safer world when more civilians have access to these types of guns, and the knowledge of how to use them properly.
Rather than look at it as if a certain amount of people are trying to tell you what kind of personal property you can own,
Well, that does seem to be one of the end effects of it.
a bunch of people who don’t want the danger of having these weapons in society are expressing their concern for safety.
Have you ever been to a shooting range and tried one out? If you start behaving unsafely, any decent range operator will stop you in a second.
@whataboutbahb – Yes, I’m quite aware of this. The original question didn’t seem (to me, at least) to be about the current legal state of affairs, but rather the more philosophical kind.
And once again the “what about nukes” strawman comes out to play.
@brown_buffalo – So it’s not really about stopping people from initiating violence against others, but about taking guns away from others because, in the end, you just don’t like them?
@mikewb1971 -
The tangent was addressing the more philosophical question.
And the nuke question isn’t a strawman–you stated in the comment that people should be able to have any private property that they want to have. I wanted to see how committed you actually were to that principle. So are you fully committed or not? (The linked post seemed more like a tongue-in-cheek piece, than an actual answer.)
We probably have a lot of overlap in views on what people should be entitled to own or do. I am generally for the idea of legalizing drugs, legalizing prostitution, etc. (But I am also for regulating those areas as well.) But I have no problem with some items being banned. Example: I don’t really care if my neighbor wants to own a tank; I think it’s probably better for society that he isn’t allowed to. I have no strong opinions when it starts to get to less extreme weapons, but my point is that lines do exist for me (and they are probably based on consequentialist grounds). Thus, your comment of people should be able to own whatever they want, seems like an extremely radical position.
@mikewb1971 -
“So it’s not really about stopping people from initiating violence against others, but about taking guns away from others because, in the end, you just don’t like them?”Not just me, but yes, you do describe how things are changed in society. Sometimes we just don’t get what we want. I’d like to buy a bag of weed at the liqueur store, but some people don’t like that. So you do what society tells you to do via laws.
@tendollar4ways - I might support greater availability of anthrax for purposes of scientific study. The fact is our government is stockpiling cultures of the stuff, so we need the private sector able to study the disease and produce fast acting cost efficient cures.
In any case, the analogy is asinine. You are attempting to argue from a strange combination of straw man fallacy and reductio ad absurdum. The fact is the 2nd Ammendment exists to protect all of the other ammendments. What does it mean? It was intended to guarantee that the people had the same kinds of weapons that the government had, so that if ANOTHER revolution was necessary it could be carried out. Home defense was only the secondary goal of the ammendment, but that is also another valid concern.
The Constitution attempted to balance personal safety and freedom, the current MO of the government is all about increasing control and decreasing freedom a little at a time.
@tendollar4ways - So you don’t care about the overall murder rate, or the number of rapes, or violent crime? You just want to reduce the number of people killed by firearms, such a narrow vision is dangerous. So 100 people killed with a gun is horrible, 100 people killed with pencils is okay because it wasn’t with a gun. Now of course such logic is held by no one.
You have to look at the big picture, what where the trends before the ban went into affect, what is the trend after the ban? Using this logic there is little evidence to support the claim that the Australian gun control methods enacted have helped reduce the overall crime rates. In 2002 the Australian Bureau of Criminology said there is no correlation between gun control and the use of firearms in violent crimes.
Lets look at the big picture here.
Firearm homicide rates were dropping prior to the NFA taking affect, immediately after the NFA went into affect they continued dropping at the same rate. What that means is that the trend prior to the ban was unaffected by the ban, meaning that taking guns away from people did not cause the drop in firearm homicides.
Suicides? Again the use of firearms in suicide was declining prior to the NFA, that trend accelerated after the NFA took affect. HOWEVER, suicides by other methods increased. So again, the law reduced the number of people killing themselves with a gun, but it failed to reduce the number of people killing themselves.
Lets look at some numbers, lets compare the United States, and Australia and their crime rates from the years 1995 to 2007
In that time frame the murder rate in Australia dropped 31.9%,
In that time frame the murder rate in the United States dropped 31.7%
so the difference between the two nations is one has a gun ban, and one does not. The question now is, is the .2% difference in murder rates worth the consequences, what is the big picture?
In that time frame the number of assaults in Australia rose 49.2%
In that time frame the number of assaults in the United States dropped 31.8%
So the nation with a gun ban saw an increase in the number of assaults, while the nation without a gun ban saw a decrease in the number of assaults.
In that time frame the number of robberies in Australia rose 6.2%
In that time frame the number of robberies in the United States dropped 33.2%
So the nation with a gun ban saw an increase in the number of robberies, while the nation without a gun ban saw a massive decrease in the number of robberies
In that time frame the number of Sexual Assaults in Australia rose 29.9%
In that time frame the number of Sexual Assaults in the United States dropped 19.9%.
So the nation with a gun ban saw an increase in the number of sexual assaults, while the nation without a gun ban saw a decrease in the number of sexual assaults.
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex -
From skimming over what he wrote, seems like tendollar4ways was using a reductio, not a strawman, against an insurrectionist reading of the second amendment. And reductio’s are completely legitimate arguments. You are inviting such an argument when you say things like this: “[The Second Amendment] was intended to guarantee that the people
had the same kinds of weapons that the government had, so that if
ANOTHER revolution was necessary it could be carried out.” — So it seems like you are arguing that citizens should be allowed to own tanks, submarines, bazookas, aircraft carriers, submarines, fighter jets, drones, nukes, etc. Is that right?
@obamawatch -
I’m all for data to try and make sense of whether regulations work or not. But simply comparing crime rates of two countries is not going to get the job done. There are just too many other variables in play (and the countries and their cultures are very different to begin with) to draw any sort of reliable conclusions.
250,000 deaths caused by medical treatment in the US each year. Since real Americans are keeping their guns regardless of any opinion, it seems this would be a great place for this energy to be transferred, IF stopping death is truly the agenda.
@whataboutbahb - It’s true that a modern revolution would be more difficult than it was to have a revolution back in the day. But let’s watch and see what happens.
@ImNotUglyIJustNeedLove - You’re forgetting the effort to undo all the left-wing brainwashing students frequently get in the public schools. That takes maturity and experience.
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - But such a revolution would be easier if we got rid of those pesky restrictions regarding tanks, bazookas, drones, nukes, etc., right?
@soccerdadforlife - I don’t get it. So someone will eventually gain U.S. Constitutional Law knowledge after shaking the “brainwashing” of public schools through maturity and experience? Understanding how constitutional law works in this country requires a decent amount of reading. It’s not just knowledge that “appears” with age.
@whataboutbahb - Well if DHS has those things and is planning on using them on us then it is only fair and logical for us to have them too.
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex -
At least your consistent. But no, I don’t think citizens should be able to own things like that.
@whataboutbahb - And I don’t think the government should be able to unleash such things against the citizens. Why do they need to deploy tanks and drones in the US? Why are they stockpiling ammo? Why is DHS even still around when the war was officially declared over by the Obama adminstration? Our government wants to turn this country into a goolag, and as for owning weapons, I trust my neighbors more than I trust a government which has taken an adversarial position toward the citizens.
@obamawatch - So your argument is if we ban Anthrax or automatic weapons yet don’t ban hunting rifles or hand guns……all the statistics you cited will come to pass.
The dishonesty of conserves is what bugs me. It is relentless and shameless. Total bullshit..you bug dude.
@tendollar4ways - I find progressives such as yourself fascinating. The way you try to destroy an opponent is always entertaining. That being said, I have said this before and I will say this again, it is not the gun that is the problem, it is the society that creates the gun man. You can take away guns, you can make them harder to buy, but evil men, twisted men, confused men will still find a way to enact their terrible deeds. We have to fix society, not just limit human rights.
Also, the scope of the second amendment is not limited to hunting. The purpose of the second amendment is to defend ourselves from tyrants. Be that foreign powers, be that an over oppressive government here at home, or be it the tyranny of a thug who feels he is entitled to all that is yours. That is why civilians use guns to defend themselves over 900,000 times a year in this country, according the Journal of Quantitative Criminology. Where as in the year 2008 10,688 murders where committed with a firearm. So tell me, how would making it harder for people to defend themselves prevent crime?
@whataboutbahb - I am glad that you brought that up, because it hits on the true problem facing our nation. It is not that we have too many rights, that causes our problems, it is the fact that society is crumbling. We live in a nation where a the family unit is being torn apart. Where a progressive movement has removed the sense of responsibility, they have created a world where actions have no consequences. “Oh so and so didn’t mean it, we’ll look the other way this time”, or “he doesn’t know any better”, mentality is rotting this nation from the inside out. We are told to lay down when we see injustice, rather than stand up to fight it. Defending ones self is now seen as a crime by many. I have said it before and I will say it again, the problem is not our RIGHT to own and bear arms, the problem is our sick society. Maybe if we focused more on fixing the societal woes of this nation, instead of engaging in pissing matches over whether or not the government can take away our rights, we would make head way.
The information about Australia demonstrates this fairly well. They passed gun control legislation, and murder rates went down, however they were dropping before the law was enacted and after the law went into affect they continued to drop at the same exact rate. What this shows is that the law had little to no affect on the murder rate. What drove this drop, a positive change in society.
Look at cities in this nation. Let us start with Chicago. The city suffers from massive crime rates, that have been completely unaffected by their gun laws. Let us look at the hand gun ban that passed in 1982 the number of murders in the city was on the rise. After the ban, the number of murders started to drop. Clearly than this is an example of success for gun bans. The city decided to ban the weapon of choice of the murders, unlike these modern day radicals who after someone is shot by a hand gun jump to ban semi-automatic rifles. However, the overall murder rate does not tell the whole story. Yes murder rates started going down, but what about the number of people killed by hand guns? If gun control worked, the number of people killed by hand guns would also drop. Initially after the ban went into affect, the number of people killed by hand guns did in fact drop, however this rate was dropping before the law took affect. After the law took affect the rate continued to drop at the same exact rate, meaning it had no affect on the rate. However, sense the 1987, the number of people murdered with hand guns in Chicago has sky rocketed. The end result being that you can’t have a handgun in Chicago unless you owned it, and registered it before the law went into affect and the number of murders committed in Chicago with a hand gun has averaged 40% higher than before the ban went into affect. In 2005 despite the ban 96% of all murders in Chicago were committed with a hand gun.
A little more information on Chicago, I said earlier that yes in fact after the ban went into affect murder rates dropped, they dropped by 17%. So does this actually mean that gun bans reduce crime rates? Looking at just Chicago you can’t prove this. What is the big picture, what did the murder rate in the rest of the country do in that time frame? If Chicago gun laws were affective that would mean that Chicago would have seen a larger decrease in murder rates than the rest of the country, that didn’t ban guns. However this is not true, in that same time frame the murder rate in the United States averaged 25% lower. So was the gun ban the driving cause?
What causes people to turn to crime, what causes people to give up their humanity? More often than not it is because they feel as though they have no choice, they are squeezed and have to find a way to survive.
The mid to late 70′s where not good economic times in this nation,we had hyperinflation, massive federal deficits, continuing economic recession, and threats to our security all around the world. It comes as no surprise that the nation lost faith in the system, and crime rates were on an upward trend.
Then look at the time frame from the 1980′s-2007, these were very good years to be alive. The Reagan Era, the first Bush administration, the Clinton Years, The second Bush years, the economy was growing, there were jobs to be had, our nation was in a state of economic prosperity. Times were good (cue the progressive “your a heartless monster who feeds on the souls of puppies), as such crime rates went down.
So I will say it again, banning guns, making it harder to get guns, treating law abiding citizens as criminals (such as Ms. Feinstein advocates), will not lower the crime rate. It does not address the problem. The problem is not that we have guns, it is that our society is no longer geared towards helping each other. The problem is that progressive leadership has driven this country into the economic dirt. Massive spending, and printing of money is devaluing our currency, interests rates are too low to keep up with the inflation, the economy is stagnate, and we have a government where 2/3rds of the system just cries about how unfair the other group is. We have been trained by a radical progressive movement that the government should help our neighbor, that we are not capable of helping ourselves, let alone others. Until you address the failings of society you will not be able to lower the crime rates. You can ban guns, cars, knives, pencils, baseball bats, and chewing gum and it won’t make a difference. People pushed passed the edge will do whatever is necessary to survive.
@whataboutbahb - Sure, it requires some effort and a general approach that the conventional wisdom (i.e., brainwashing) must be scrutinized. If people tend to be very impressed by the ideas of the “smart set”, they’ll never undo the brainwashing, of course. They may even be college-educated and live in the northeastern U. S., but that will likely make it more difficult for them to undo the brainwashing because they’ll think that they are smarter than most people and that they came up with their ideas all by themselves or at least were influenced by a region that’s smarter than other regions or because of their college education. When confronted by opposition, they’ll never believe that others scrutinized their cherished ideas and rejected them because the ideas wouldn’t pass scrutiny. They’ll just think that their opponents are stupid.
@soccerdadforlife -
What you just said is very stupid, not because I have been brained-washed, but because the content itself is just silly. This is coming from a person who had a very conservative high school and college education (both small, christian schools). I know and respect people with conservative upbringings and liberal upbringings–neither group are necessarily “brain washed” by their education. The myth of the liberal “brain wash” education is just silly. I really enjoyed learning in high school, college, grad school, and law school. I’ve had great teachers at all levels (and I actually have a greater mix of liberal and conservative professors at the grad and law school level; at the high school and college level teachers and professors were all pretty much very conservative). And at all levels, my favorite teachers emphasized critical thinking, not group thought.
This conversation all sprung from the idea that constitutional law can be understood and taught by a basic civics class in high school. I don’t know any constitutional scholar (conservative or liberal) who would buy that (not because you have to be oh-so-smart to understand constitutional law, but because U.S. constitutional law and doctrines are formed by case law–and there is a lot of case law out there to know).
@obamawatch -
Based on your analysis “progressive” European countries should be experiencing a lot of violent behavior (more than the U.S. seeing as they are more progressive and devalue the family more). But yet, it’s the U.S. that is one of the most violent western countries. Or it could be that violence and crime are very complicated phenomenon that aren’t merely the result of the politics of a particular area or the particular gun laws. (Both may have an affect, but neither can come close to painting a very complete picture).
@whataboutbahb - Things have changed a bit since you were in school. So you are silly. Brainwashing can occur by conservatives, of course, but most teachers tend to be liberal. So you are very silly. Public school teachers generally belong to a union, which strongly tend to support liberals. Now, not all teachers’ union members are liberals, but their leaders are, and their leaders are elected by the rank and file. Hey there, Silly Goose.
If public school teachers care about kids (or teachers of any kind, for that matter), why don’t they arm themselves in order to protect their students? It seems like common sense to me. Not really relevant to the Constitution. Just wondering…
As regards case law and the Constitution, not all of us follow Marbury. Funny that for
75 whole years
after Marbury, Marbury wasn’t used as a precedent to overturn any laws. Makes ya wonder whether using it as a precedent to overturn laws isn’t a bit off??? So, yeah, all those Constitution scholars (liberals and conservatives) are buffoons if Marbury shouldn’t be used as a precedent to overturn laws and the Constitution CAN be understood by high school students.
Did you know that the Constitution Convention considered giving the Supreme Court the power of judicial review and decided against it?
@soccerdadforlife -
1) I’m still in school right now.
2) I am friends with a good amount of college graduates who have gone on to become school teachers. Like most of Texas, they are mostly conservative. I’m not saying that most school teachers are conservatives, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say there are plenty of conservative teachers, especially in the south.
3) Most school teachers in Texas don’t belong to a union. (I actually think only a very small amount are a part of a union, but I’m not 100% sure on that.)
4) I don’t really have a strong opinion on whether teachers should be allowed to be armed or not. That said, this article is pretty lulzy: http://americablog.com/2013/03/texas-school-employee-shoots-self-at-training-class-to-arm-teachers.html
5) Stare decisis is a very different concept than judicial review. We inherited stare decisis from England. The importance of caselaw comes from stare decisis.
6) If there was no judicial review in our country right now, constitutional law would be just as complicated, if not more complicated, since it would be a lot more messy with the other branches getting involved. (And I bet trying to figure out the boundaries on separation of powers would be a nightmare, since all three branches would have their own versions of what the borders should be.) So, no, a high school class would still not be able to properly teach it.
7) Judicial review is a part of this country now, just like the administrative state, whether you like it or not. You are free to think Marbury was wrongly decided–I don’t think that’s too controversial, but the thing is, where does that leave you? It’s become an integral part of the country (and now other countries who have copied us) and there’s no way to get rid of it, short of rebuilding the whole system of government. Same with the administrative “branch.”
@tendollar4ways - Again, do some real research. Even the Aussie gov’t (link above) admitted the bill did nothing to reduce gun deaths. But you have yet to acknowledge the fact that rape increased. Why are you ok with rape? You honestly just equated rape with losing hair during chemo. Wow. I think most people would be ok with temporary hair loss in order to save their own lives. Yet, you expect women to be ok with getting raped for absolutely nothing.
So, I’m going to ask you one more time. Why are you ok with rape?
This is so great because your true colors shine through so much in your “debates.”
You make some persuasive arguments, GL, but the fundamental problem with your post is that you seem to be conceding that the Second Amendment was intended by the Framers to provide individuals the unbridled and historically unparalleled gun rights some conservatives want. That simply is not the case. Prior to Scalia’s 2008 Heller decision (which was an unequivocal act of judicial activism, something conservatives are supposed to be against), the Second Amendment simply was not interpreted to protect an individual’s right to own a gun outside of militia/military participation. Several federal district courts (and appeals courts, if I am not mistaken) had looked at the historic record and concluded that the Framers did not intend for Second Amendment to protect those rights (though local, state, and federal legislators could theoretically create legislation to protect those rights if they wanted).
Furthermore, as legal historians like Saul Cornell have written about at great length, many 18th and 19th century historians who investigated this very question concluded that the Framers did not intend for the Constitution to protect an individual’s right to own guns outside of militia/military service. Basically, that right was created out of thin in 2008, not the 18th century. Conservatives with a tenuous grasp of American history like to pretend that unmitigated gun rights were viewed as fundamental to the Founding Fathers and earlier generations of Americans, but that’s simply false. You don’t even need to know that much history to understand why. Wild West towns like Tombstone, Kansas City, etc. were notorious about having outright gun possession bans in their cities for the very reason many modern Americans are calling for tougher gun regulations: guns are inherently dangerous and unfettered gun ownership directly promotes violence. Period. It’s common sense today just like it was common sense in 1800. Moreover, courts in the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries all upheld these cities’ outright gun bans (or comparatively strict gun regulations) because legal scholars viewed those regulations as constitutional (again, nobody honestly believed the Framers intended for citizens to have the gun rights modern conservatives have literally created out of thin air).
The fact that many of these gun enthusiast conservatives claim to be “strict constructionists” or “constitutionalists” is just another example of their hilariously ironic ignorance. Prior to Reagan’s Administration promoting gun rights in the 1980′s as an election ploy, literally no legal scholars would argue that horseshit, whether they lived in 1800 or 1970.
@grim_truth - Back to the original spirit of the post by GL, I am willing to compromise and try and find the most sensible solution taking alot of the stuff you and OBW etc are saying into consideration. However, you highlight what GL was saying with the utter unwillingness to compromise and you continue to spout nonsense that people who think background checks or any other regulation is paramount to supporting rape.
@whataboutbahb - 1. Which grade? Do you know what’s being taught in other grades or in states besides Texas?
2. Since you came from a conservative background, I wonder whether a lot of your friends aren’t also conservative and whether that is an accurate representation of most Texas teachers. How would Texas teachers compare with New York or California teachers?
3. What are the teachers’ colleges like that trained Texas teachers? Has Texas fired/retired the most liberal academics at their teachers’ colleges?
4. I bet a lot of male teachers in Texas take a day off/skip out of class when hunting season opens. Do you think that gun safety courses ought to be required of teachers and/or high school students–especially the males?
5&7. How would stare decisis be relevant to con law if Marbury were wrongly decided? And you still haven’t replied to my point about Marbury being viewed as irrelevant as regards judicial review for 75 years after Marbury was issued. Sounds like you’re granting that point since you dropped it. So, judicial review is tyrannical. Stare decisis is only relevant as long as judicial opinion thinks that it is. There are plenty of examples of case law being overturned. If Marbury was wrongly applied, then it’s only a matter of time before it’s overturned. Getting rid of the judicial review opinion that wrongly applied Marbury is as simple as a single Supreme Court decision. Not complicated at all. And the U.S. economy probably wouldn’t even notice it. Lots of liberal academics & media types would proclaim the end of the world, of course, lol. Predictable CLAMs.
6. I see no reason to think that con law would be any more complicated if judicial review were to be dropped than it was for the first 75 years after Marbury. Surely, many lawyers would have to find another branch of law to practice–not that con law is lucrative.
On a side note about Marbury–I read the opinion and I follow the thinking of those who read it for the first 75 years. Marbury was a case of mandamus, meaning that the apellant wanted the Supreme Court to force the President to give him a job based on a state law and a promise by the previous President. The Supreme Court said that it wouldn’t support any such thing because it thought that the appellant’s request was unconstitutional. The early thinking about Marbury was that its opinion should be applied narrowly to mandamus questions which are essentially asking the Supreme Court to issue a decision which would compel action by some govt. official. The Supreme Court has a right to decide whether someone is asking it to do something unconstitutional. It doesn’t have the right to decide that for other govt. officials/bodies. Hence the problem with Marbury’s wrong application today.
Back to the OP: Have you read The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms? Halbrook shoots down pretty much all of Saul Cornell’s deceptions. If you haven’t read it, Saul Cornell might seem plausible. It makes Cornell look really bad because Halbrook wrote it long before Cornell started pushing his rubbish.
@tendollar4ways - I never said anyone that supports background checks support rape. If you ever actually paid attention, you would have seen me state several times that I support background checks. You talk about compromise, yet I’m wondering what compromise has to do with rape, which you apparently support.
See, it’s actually you and your ilk that refuses to compromise when there is already compromise present. A huge majority of folks are ok with gun registration and background checks, even a majority of the “evil” NRA support these measures. Instead, you focus on differences, as you always have, and look for red herrings, ad hominem attacks, and strawman arguments.
I will continue to bring up your support of rape as long as you refer to the Aussie gun ban as being successful, in any form. Until you can answer why you are ok with rape, then your arguments will continue to hold no water. If you would actually bother to ever sit back and think about policies, proposals, and social issues, you could quickly get me to drop it. But you won’t because you don’t take the time to think. You have proven time and time again you are nothing more than a troll that is completely disinterested in compromise, instead totally focused on insulting the other side.
@grim_truth - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/02/did-gun-control-work-in-australia/
@soccerdadforlife - Actually, that book doesn’t address almost any of Saul Cornell’s arguments (or arguments by Robert Clinton and the vast majority of legal historians, who are largely in agreement with Cornell’s arguments). I know this because I skimmed through Halbrook’s book while trying to find refutations of Cornell’s arguments last year for a scholarly article I was editing.
For instance, it completely avoids the issue of why pre-Heller courts consistently held that the Second Amendment did not provide an individual right to bear arms outside the militia/military service (while upholding incredibly strict gun regulations or outright bans in cities like Tombstone). Most importantly, it also completely ignores the fact that 18th century legal scholars like Benjamin Oliver (probably the most revered anti-bellum historian), Justice Joseph Story, etc. all concluded that the Second Amendment did not provide that right. At best, the book tries to argue that federal district courts have been consistently misinterpreting the Second Amendment according to the Founders’ originalist intent. It never really provides a compelling explanation for why 18th century courts would make that mistake.
The book also has a lot of fundamental issues that undermine its credibility and persuasiveness, not the least of which being that Halbrook simply isn’t a historian and doesn’t have a very strong grasp of historical analysis or the historical evidence. Basically, he examines a bunch of excerpts, news clippings, etc. of what some Framers said they believed and tried to derive an interpretation based largely on that evidence. The obvious problems with this approach are (a) that historical evidence is very incomplete and unreliable for his purposes (e.g., this evidence is only available for a very small minority of the people involved in creating the Second Amendment); (b) the Framers were politicians and lawyers, and their stated opinions in, say, newspapers, are simply assumed to be candid rather than political, which is not a terribly great assumption (particularly for a non-historian with little background in that era); and (c) his quotations are (as is characteristic of a lot of fringe conservative scholarships) deceptive at best and often doesn’t support his final conclusions. In fact, if I recall correctly, the book never even defines who it considers to be the Founding Fathers/Framers, which is pretty central to the entire issue (some historians argue it’s only the people directly involved in writing the Bill of Rights, others say it’s everyone involved in the various state conventions, and others have different definitions). Obviously, the interpretation/intent of one group may differ with that of another group.
That is why Halbrook’s scholarship (or at least the book you cite to) is not respected among even conservative legal scholars. In fact, I have never seen a major conservative jurist or scholar cite his work, whether it’s Justice Scalia or conservative libertarians like Randy Barnett. That’s pretty strange to me, as I have read dozens of law review articles and books arguing for a conservative interpretation of the Second Amendment.
Lastly, Halbrook didn’t publish that book before Cornell began publishing his (widely accepted and largely unimpeachable) Second Amendment scholarship. For instance, Cornell published this in 1998, ten years before Halbrook published that book in 2008. So, whatever legitimacy Halbrook’s claims had by simply being older (which is a curious assumption) is lost.
@soccerdadforlife -
1&2) Law school. And here’s a hint: most of Texas is
conservative. Here’s another hint: some other states are conservative, some
aren’t. Conservative states are more likely to have a lot of conservative
teachers; liberal states are more likely to have a lot of liberal teachers. Teachers
are not this block of liberal people that seek to brainwash kids.
3) What is a “teachers’ college”? I never heard of something
like that—everyone I know who is a teacher now just went to a regular college.
4) Most of the teachers I know are women. I don’t see why
you would force a person who does not own or use a gun to take a gun safety
course. No strong opinions on how to regulate those who do own or use guns.
5&7) “How would stare decisis be relevant to con law if
Marbury were wrongly decided?”
This statement alone shows that you don’t understand our
legal system very well. Stare decises is a guiding principle for courts—its
existence is not tied to the concept that courts can strike down acts by
Congress or actions by the executive. Stare decisis would still be relevant if
there was no judicial review, because it would still guide courts on the
judiciary view of the Constitution.
And no judicial review would greatly complicate things
because you would have 1) judiciary view of the Constitution, 2) legislative
view of the Constitution, and 3) executive view of the Constitution. If
conflicts occur, that’s too bad for the branch with the least amount of
enforcement power (*cough* judiciary). It also means the branch with the most
enforcement power (executive) would gain a LOT of power, especially considering
the power of administrative agencies (which are completely unaccounted for in
the original constitutional design of our government). An overturn of Madison
would be close to anarchy, not because it would result in the different branch
views of the Constitution as just described but because it would
instantaneously overturn thousands of Supreme Court decisions, leaving huge
gaping holes in guidance on what is constitutional and what is not, that would
need to be provided by the other branches of government ASAP. It’s not that it
would be the end of the world—but it would be an entirely different way of
government.
6) “I see no reason to think that con law would be any more
complicated if judicial review were to be dropped than it was for the first 75
years after Marbury.”
Judicial review in one context or another was happening after
Marbury sooner than 75 years. See, e.g.,
Fletcher v. Peck; Dredd Scott. And my claim wasn’t that in the first few
decades of the birth of this country that a U.S. with no judicial review would
be much more complicated than a U.S. with judicial review. My claim was that
teaching con law to high school students in a high school class TODAY would
still not be possible in a U.S. where judicial review never took hold and it
would probably be more complicated than the current body of law. This is
because bodies of law get more and more complicated over time, because more and
more legal issues arise over time that need to be addressed. And no judicial
review would be more complicated because there would be three bodies of
constitutional law to learn and be aware of: the legislatives, the executives,
and the judiciaries, as opposed to just one body of law from the judiciary on
the topic. (Plus, as already noted, separation of powers would become a lot
more complicated (and much more important).) Also, the amount of “constitutional
lawyers” out there is miniscule.
“And you still haven’t replied to my point about Marbury
being viewed as irrelevant as regards judicial review for 75 years after
Marbury was issued. Sounds like you’re granting that point since you
dropped it. So, judicial review is tyrannical. Stare decisis is
only relevant as long as judicial opinion thinks that it is. There are
plenty of examples of case law being overturned. If Marbury was wrongly
applied, then it’s only a matter of time before it’s overturned.”
Sorry for not point out you were wrong in my earlier post.
Let me correct that mistake: You are wrong. See the earlier cases I cited. Also
just because Marbury may have been a legally incorrect decision, does not
automatically make it a tyrannical one.
Also, you’re wrong about the idea that if a case is wrong, it is only a
matter of time before it’s overruled. Slaughterhouse was probably wrongly
decided regarding what it did to “privileges and immunities.” The result?
Incorporation is done through the due process clause, and Slaughterhouse
remains. Brown v. Board of Education might be wrongly decided (at least how it
is written). I doubt that’s getting overturned.
Bolling v. Sharpe is probably just plain wrong, but it’s not getting
overturned.
“Marbury was a case of mandamus, meaning that the apellant
wanted the Supreme Court to force the President to give him a job based on a
state law and a promise by the previous President. The Supreme Court said
that it wouldn’t support any such thing because it thought that the appellant’s
request was unconstitutional. The early thinking about Marbury was that
its opinion should be applied narrowly to mandamus questions which are
essentially asking the Supreme Court to issue a decision which would compel
action by some govt. official.”
This is why I don’t like to talk about constitutional law on
Xanga. I’m not going to teach you Marbury or point out all the different ways
you are getting things wrong. Go buy chemerinsky. Or audit a con law class at a
law school near you. Or just read the Wikipedia entry. JFC. (Note that I’m not
saying there aren’t issues with Marbury; I’m not committed to this idea that
judicial review is 100% constitutionally based. But I don’t really care, b/c it’s
a pointless question since Marbury is never going to be overturned—not because
liberals want to protect it so bad, but because it has become a basic part of
the current framework of our country. Also, it’s worthless to have a conversation
about the case when don’t even have a basic idea of what the case involved.)
@whataboutbahb - 1. Here’s a hint–even in “conservative” states, most teachers aren’t conservative. Most teachers are liberal, like most journalists. In conservative states, a higher percentage of teachers might be conservative than in liberal states, but by no means are most conservative even in Texas. And here’s another hint: the educational system is oriented towards liberalism. The textbooks, the trendy literature that student are fed, the films, the posters–the brainwashing is systemic. Even the anti-gun atmosphere that school administrations create shows a liberal bias. Here’s a hint: even in Texas, public schools are gun free zones. Teachers don’t carry guns in Texas schools legally. Really, the educational brainwashing is systemic and was designed to mitigate the impact of conservative teachers. You need to read more about John Dewey and his impact on the American education system. If you audit middle and high school classes, you’ll find that conservative positions are sometimes scrutinized and rejected, while liberal ideas are wholly unscrutinized, for the most part, but are simply swallowed whole. And I won’t even go into how liberal most of the universities are….
Not that it’s really all that germane, but I read online that 45% of teachers are dems and 27% of them repubs (the NEA was given as the author). I figure that almost all dems are libs and maybe 50% of repubs and independents are. If I’m right, then teachers are about 72% lib and maybe 10% moderate and 18% conservative. Those proportions may vary from state to state, of course.
Interestingly, academics are mostly libs, while conservatives are mostly better informed, from research I’ve seen. Guess that means that libs are smart and politically ignorant, while conservatives are dumb and politically knowledgable. People who watch Fox’s evening shows were found to be more knowledgable than those which relied on the MSM (and this study was done by libs). (Yeah, not having an advanced degree doesn’t mean people are dumb. But you couldn’t convince most libs of that. They think that most conservatives are hicks, despite the fact that many are professionals who don’t have advanced degrees. Deluded by their own propaganda….)
2. Teachers College at Columbia University. Teachers College at Ball State Univ. Etc. They pretty much teach the people who teach the teachers. You must be one of those low-information law students.
3. So, you can guarantee that no teacher who doesn’t own a gun will ever buy one or borrow one or use one? It’s called gun safety for a reason. Gun rights require responsibility. So, we should offer gun safety courses for the same reason that we have driver’s license tests–for public safety. If requiring gun safety courses can prevent even one accidental shooting of a child, we ought to require them, right?
5. “
And no judicial review would greatly complicate things
because you would have 1) judiciary view of the Constitution, 2) legislative
view of the Constitution, and 3) executive view of the Constitution. If
conflicts occur, that’s too bad for the branch with the least amount of
enforcement power (*cough* judiciary).” And that would be different how from the first 75 years when Marbury wasn’t cited in any SC cases?????? What a bunch of crap students are being fed in law school. Maybe it’s a case of lawyerly self-interest? Maybe the lawyers don’t want to lose the power afforded by a misinterpretation of Marbury?????
“
An overturn of Madison
would be close to anarchy” That’s Marbury, not Madison. And most of the nation would yawn and life would continue, excepting official prayer might get back in public schools. Oh, the horror!!!!
And it’s not Marbury that was incorrect, but the decision in 1878 or thereabouts that relied on the notion that Marbury established judicial review (to overturn a law). Taking power without authorization is tyranny. Judicial review takes unauthorized power if the judicial review is unauthorized by the Con; even if the mistake is accidental, it’s still tyranny. You need some more focus in your thinking. It’s true that judicial review was in the common law and that the U.S. Constitution pulled in the common law, but judicial review was controversial for almost the first 100 years of our nation’s history. And it’s true that the Con Con(vention) didn’t explicitly include judicial review even though it was discussed. Another point you dropped.
Clearly, you haven’t shown that I don’t understand the precedent system (stare decisis), so let me just say that you are wrong and your accusation is unproven and should be regarded as false. I can only come to the conclusion that you have lied.
I did read various entries on Marbury, though I relied on my memory regarding the President being the official in question–it was the Sec of State. Other than that, I’m unaware of any errors in my previous comment.
And LOT of SC decisions have been overturned by subsequent decisions. Maybe you think that you’re God Almighty and know which decisions will never be overturned…. lol
I’ve read discussions about Marbury in the past and the actual case as well and came away convinced that Marshall was a lot more circumspect about the application of his decision than most lawyers are. His opinion should be read narrowly, considering the times and legal context. The judiciary wasn’t considered to be all that powerful until Marbury was used to hornswoggle people into accepting SC judicial review. The “three branches of govt.” notion came about long after 1878. The “Great Compromise” at Con Con was between the big states and small states–our bicameral legislature. That was the power balance that the founders discussed. It takes reading a bit of history to find all that out. The presidency and Congress were the powers to be balanced, within the scope of the Con. The unenumerated powers were to be reserved to the states and people, many of which sadly have been tyrannically stolen by the hyper-federalists.
Ya know, if Marbury has been misinterpreted, then all your text about Slaughterhouse and Brown doesn’t amount to a hill of beans and the decisions aren’t worth spending any time on.
You need to maybe work on scrutinizing your own ideas just a schmidgen?
@soccerdadforlife -
Reading your posts make me feel dumber.
1) You can’t even understand a very simple point about stare decisis. It wasn’t controversial. It wasn’t complicated. I’m not sure how you don’t get it.
2) You aren’t able to understand that our current government includes judicial review as one of the basic building blocks. It’s fun to think about counter-factuals where judicial review never took hold, but that’s not the reality.
3) You don’t understand how badly you don’t understand the basic background of Marbury v. Madison.
@whataboutbahb - On one hand, much of what you write is not intuitive and pretty much impossible for people to understand without having gone to a good law school with a strong constitutional law professor. I certainly didn’t know any of it until I was fortunate enough to audit a con law class taught by Geoffrey Stone. You really can’t expect people to understand these issues without that educational background, and that’s particularly true of “far-right” political conservatives because constitutional law and constitutional theory basically destroy their entire world view. From federalism to commerce clause jurisprudence to civil rights history to the rise of the federal administrative state, a properly taught constitutional law class will effectively dismantle most fundamental aspects of right-wing conservativism (which is one of the reasons why the Federalist Society membership typically shrinks considerably between first and second year law school classes).
On the other hand, you are talking to SDFL, one of Xanga’s most dedicated retards. The frustration you experience is largely your fault; only an intellectual masochist (like me) or an ignorant fool would even acknowledge him. For example, he would never read anything by Chemerinsky. Ever. What SDFL would do is Google Chem-Chem and see that some hack right wing bloggers label him a lunatic liberal. Then, SDFL would claim to have read his works while linking you to blogs, dubious websites, and other disreputable sources that he has been led to believe (by the unreliable internet sources he cites to) refute Chemerinsky’s scholarship. That’s basically the most you can expect out of him. Being “right” or learning aren’t SDFL’s priorities; they aren’t even really on his radar. SDFL’s one and only priority is to defend/spread a very particular subset of fringe conservative beliefs. So, there is no genuine discussion or debate to be had. There is only an insular, incestuous, conservative masturbation. By acknowledging him, you only give him a crowd and a reason to continue stroking himself.
@whataboutbahb - Also, just wanted to point out that you are entirely correct about Marbury v. Madison. For example, “early thinking” was not that it was a narrow decision only addressing the mandamus question. No early courts applied the case by ignoring 90% of the opinion (only about 10 to 20% of the opinion, if I remember correctly, is directly related to the mandamus question). Why would any court assume that 80 to 90% of a lengthy SCOTUS opinion was intended by the Court to be ignored? His argument is not only demonstrably wrong based on a cursory reading of the case law (or Chemerinsky’s treatise), it’s completely nonsensical at face value. While it’s true that the opinion was later used to promote ideas beyond the intended or foreseen scope of its impact, it’s preposterous to believe that the opinion was only intended to address the mandamus issue and not resolve other fundamental con law issues.
Similarly, SDFL is simply wrong when he asserts that Founding era politicians, legal scholars, etc. didn’t view the government in terms of “the three branches notion”. The Constitution was structured by the Founders with the express intent to promote this view (e.g., Article I deals with the legislative branch, Article II the executive, Article III the judiciary). Furthermore, the idea of a “separation of powers” advocated by Locke and Hobbes was very influential to the Founders, and directly contributed to the way they structured the government and the Constitution itself. That’s particularly evident when reading the Federalist Papers, which goes to great lengths to promote the notion of a centralized, federal government with three branches.
@tendollar4ways - Your source is a blog??? Really? Percentages mean nothing when the rates were already low. Funny how that BLOG didn’t point that out. If there are 2 murders a year, and the next only one, that would be a 50% drop. Does it mean anything? No, because the number is already low.
But, let’s play your game. That means you admit gun control isn’t worth looking into when we look at the complete failure known as Chicago.
But you still have yet to explain why you’re ok with rape. Remember, rape went up after that law went into effect in Australia. Why are you supporting that?
@grim_truth - If it wasn’t for you meddling kids, I woulda gotten away with it!!!!
Ya got me I support rape.
Background checks and not allowing convicted racists to have weapons was just a small part of my ingenious plan but the key was the ban on assault rifles!
Most people would think that a women could be better served and better equiped to deter a rapist with a Derringer or smaller handgun which is easier to weild than a cumbersome AR-15 but this is where they are FOOLS!!! FOOLS I tell you.
30 round clips too!!! Damn You!!!! We know women are a terrible shot and they need 30 rounds or else rape will go up!!!
Foiled again!!!!
@UTRow1 -
The irony is that my conversation with SDFL began on the topic of whether we could teach this stuff in a high school class. Maybe the majority of high school students could grasp this stuff (and not just completely whiff like SDFL did on what is the most basic stuff–facts of the case, procedural history, issue(s) of the case, etc.), but it seems just like a lot of content (with some of it being a bit complicated–though it’s not rocket science). (On a side-note, I hope for your sake that Stone didn’t use his own book for that class. We had to use it for my 1L con law class and it was one of the more annoying casebooks I’ve encountered in terms of layout and overcomplicating things (or just ignoring teaching the basics and moving immediately to the more fun issues that you should only talk about when everyone knows the basics).)
You might be a bit too harsh on right-wing conservatism. There are a decent number of “more conservative” powerhouse figures in the U.S. (e.g., Kozinski; Posner; Esptein). I do agree that far right fringe thinkers clash with a lot of current thought and established doctrine, but that is true of far left fringe thinkers as well.That said, in terms of “social conservatism,” I completely agree that it is a position mostly abandoned in higher education (probably, like you alluded to, because its track record in the U.S. has the bad habit of always being on the wrong side of civil rights movements). Overall, I don’t think someone’s politics in certain areas necessarily means anything about intelligence (some areas, yes, but many areas, no). I know and respect a lot of very smart people in Fed Soc, just like I know respect a lot of very smart people in ACS. (I’m not in either.)
It is frustrating to me that the link between politics and legal theory is so emphasized by a lot of people. Yes, decision makers use their politics to try and craft legal doctrine in a way to reach the result they want, but the legal theory is not always going to be consistent since what is driving things is the politics and not the theory. (Thus, politics is useful for understanding case outcome but can it in the way of understanding theory.) It just seems weird to me when people in the general public take hard stances on legal theory because they think their politics dictate it. Saying the following might make SDFL’s head explode but conservatism doesn’t necessitate an originalist view of constitutional interpretation; nor does being an originalist mean a person is necessarily a conservative.
@mikewb1971 - Something else I wanted to mention about something you said regarding a shooting war if it came to that. Most of the hardcore shooting republicans are in the country side. They are spread out and would be systematically taken out relatively easily or at least prevented from assembling in mass.
Guns don’t protect freedom, the mind protects freedom. The very people you seem to fight against are the very people trying to save your country.
@whataboutbahb - I lost IQ points reading your comment.
1. You don’t understand that stare decisis depends on the opinion of the moment. Proof: SC decisions are overturned fairly often. Hence, case law that relies on the overturned decisions is null and void. Doh!
2. You aren’t able to understand that our current legal weather (NOT govt. and not climate) may change with the wind tomorrow when some SC decision is overturned.
3. You don’t understand how bad your communication skills are if you can’t even explain any of my errors in minimal detail. Don’t see how you’ll be able to communicate with clients who have less of a law background than I do. BTW, I got an A in Contract Law. It was so easy. My family said I had a first rate legal mind and ought to have gone into law, including my lawyer brother. I’m a first rate witness and I’ve had experience with winning several law cases. Once I helped spring someone from jail on a habeas. So I have real experience with the law as well as academic experience. The American legal system has serious flaws.
@soccerdadforlife -
1) You claimed that knowing case law wasn’t important to knowing constitutional law (since we should just all pretend that Marbury v. Madison didn’t happen). I said even assuming there was no judicial review, case law would still be important because of stare decisis. You responded by saying, “How would stare decisis be relevant to con law if Marbury were wrongly decided?”If you don’t understand how stupid this makes you look, I can’t help anymore on this point.
But to further point out the stupidity in your latest response: “Hence, case law that relies on the overturned decisions is null and void. Doh!” Guess what? SCOTUS writes opinions that involve the constitution that do not rely upon judicial review. I stated this point in an earlier comment. Let’s assume Marbury v. Madison was overturned tomorrow. Yes, like I said before, thousands of SCOTUS opinions would be instanteously overturned. But there still would be plenty of SCOTUS opinions that are not. (On a bit of a tangent: It is actually helpful to learn constitutional law by reading important constitutional cases that HAVE been overturned–but this is a tangential point and is neither here nor there in terms of your displayed inability to understand the relationship between judicial review and stare decisis.)
2) Of course I am. But, to give another example I mentioned earlier, whoever is in office will not change the fact that administrative agencies are essentially a fourth branch of the government. Same for Marbury v. Madison not being overturned. Or Brown. Etc. You just simply aren’t able to comprehend that the legal system and our entire government would look completely different without judicial review. It wouldn’t just get rid of SCOTUS opinions you didn’t like. It would change how our basic legal system and government functions. But I’m sick of beating a dead horse on this point, so think whatever you want.
3) If you want to pay me to tutor you in con law, I’m open to negotiations. (I could make $100/hr tutoring the LSAT, so negotiations would probably operate around that number.)
Also:
“BTW, I got an A in Contract Law.” + all your other wonderful legal accomplishments
=
http://i.imgur.com/JGqj3B7.jpg
@whataboutbahb - Clearly, you have a problem with literacy. If jr were to be rejected, then all branches off of jr would be dead. That is all that I meant. The application of stare decisis depends on what is currently accepted. I don’t know why this seems so difficult for you to accept.
Yes, SCOTUS offers opinions about the Con that don’t rely on jr. So what? More red herrings? Why should their opinions about the Con be more important than anyone else’s? Guess what? This was the position of presidents for most of the nineteenth century. This seems to have been their attitude: “Justice Marshall has given his opinion. Now let him enforce it.” While we can’t find explicit support from Jackson for the quotation, we
can
find support that it represents his attitude from one of his letters about the Georgia case. I seem to recall reading of similar attitudes from John Adams and Jefferson regarding controversies with SCOTUS. This goes back to a time when people took oaths to support the Constitution seriously. They didn’t delegate their responsibility to SCOTUS.
Plz show me the earliest case that cites Marbury as the case which unequivocally establishes jr. I can’t seem to find my book where that case is mentioned. It’s been more than a decade (maybe two) since I looked at all deeply at Marbury, so my book is likely boxed up in the attic somewhere.
@soccerdadforlife -
“The application of stare decisis depends on what is currently accepted. . . . Yes, SCOTUS offers opinions about the Con that don’t rely on jr.”
You’re finally getting it! Took you long enough, but I’m proud!
“So what? More red herrings? Why should their opinions about the Con be more important than anyone else’s?”
You’re now getting my point about without judicial review there would be three bodies of constitutional law! You’re on a roll! Unfortunately, you don’t seem to realize how this connects to our earlier discussion about how this could make learning constitutional law more complicated (and maybe not very plausible to do in a high school class). So you only get one gold star, not two. Sorry.
“[Rant on judicial review]“
I don’t care.
“Plz show me the earliest case that cites Marbury as the case which unequivocally establishes jr.”
SCOTUS opinions are usually not unequivocal about most things they write about. But if you’re searching for the roots of judicial review, start with Madison v. Marbury. Then it’s probably important to go over Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee and Cohens v. Virginia (the two cases which help establish the idea that SCOTUS can review state court decisions). Then Cooper v. Aaron (fed. courts have the authority to review the constitutionality of state laws). McCulloch v. Maryland is a really important in regards to the relationship between the states and the federal government (and also another example of SCOTUS trumping the views of a state court on what is constitutional or not). If you’re looking for next time SCOTUS struck down a federal statue, that would be Dred Scott v. Sanford. And Taney fucked that up.
Consider this a sample of what you get with tutoring lessons! (And with the lessons, I’ll include cites to and reading assignments from Chemerinsky!)
“You’re finally getting it! Took you long enough, but I’m proud!” You are about five chapters behind me in the book, sorry. I understood your point long ago but you were too thick to realize it. When I started using more single-syllable words, maybe you understood.
“You’re now getting my point about without judicial review there would be three bodies of constitutional law!” You’re still as clueless as ever. This was the case for the first 100 years of the federal govt., which point you’ve studiously avoided. Why should it be any worse than our current judicial tyranny?
Guess you couldn’t find the 1878 (or thereabouts) case either using the online search. JR was pretty much controversial until then, as I recall.
And oaths apparently mean nothing to you, marking you as unprincipled. You’ll do well as an atty.
@soccerdadforlife -
When you say things like “How would stare decisis be relevant to con law if Marbury were wrongly decided?” it’s obvious that you didn’t have a clue what you were talking about. Feel free to pretend that you did though.
“You’re still as clueless as ever. This was
the case for the first 100 years of the federal govt., which point
you’ve studiously avoided. Why should it be any worse than our current
judicial tyranny?”
I already answered this in a previous post.
“Guess you couldn’t find the 1878 (or
thereabouts) case either using the online search. JR was pretty much
controversial until then, as I recall.”
Huh? No case made judicial review uncontroversial. There still is worries, concerns, and difficulties with judicial review. See, e.g., the counter-majoritarian difficulty. The thing, that despite all this, marbury v. madison is never getting overturned because it’s become a basic building block used in making our country’s government and legal system. I don’t know why that’s hard for you to understand, so I’ll stop wasting my time.
“And oaths apparently mean nothing to you, marking you as unprincipled.”
lol.
@whataboutbahb - ”When you say things like “How would stare
decisis be relevant to con law if Marbury were wrongly decided?” it’s
obvious that you didn’t have a clue what you were talking about.” No, it’s obvious that you’re illiterate. You can’t figure out that the context demands that my statement apply to case law regarding jr. Feel free to pretend that you’re literate, tho.
“I already answered this in a previous post.” In your fantasy world, I suppose. Dream on.
“No case made judicial review uncontroversial.” Bollox. It’s been generally well accepted since about 1878. I’m pretty sure that the book I was reading wasn’t referencing Dred Scott. See your statement that “marbury v. madison is never getting
overturned because it’s become a basic building block used in making our
country’s government and legal system.” When did this happen????????????????????????????????????????????? Again with the dodging. Clearly, history isn’t your strong suit. And without history, you won’t understand the legal context of the time. Merely considering cases where you assume that jr is uncontroversial won’t give you any understanding of the actual historical situation. It’s like reading the Bible and imposing 21st century evangelical assumptions on the text. Will law school won’t teach you historical contexts to any significant degree? I hardly think so–they’re there to take your money and give you some feel for case law, but minimal historical context since they aren’t a history dept. You can go to Barton, but check his facts. Same with almost anyone writing about the time–especially when they have an axe to grind.
What was Jefferson’s view of judicial review? Was it paramount in his mind? Did he free those who had been convicted of violating the Alien and Sedition Acts because he believed that those acts were unconstitutional? Was review to be held exclusively by the judiciary, or was it also to be held by all those who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, including the Congress, President, and others?
@soccerdadforlife -
To the repeated claim that having no branch have an authoritative view on the constitution in the present time would be less complex than just having the courts have the authoritative view on the constitution because in the early history of our country the latter view wasn’t clearly established:
I said this on the previous page:
“And my claim wasn’t that in the first few decades of the birth of this country that a U.S. with no judicial review would be much more complicated than a U.S. with judicial review. My claim was that teaching con law to high school students in a high school class TODAY would still not be possible in a U.S. where judicial review never took hold and it would probably be more complicated than the current body of law. This is because bodies of law get more and more complicated over time, because more and more legal issues arise over time that need to be addressed. And no judicial review would be more complicated because there would be three bodies of constitutional law to learn and be aware of: the legislatives, the executives, and the judiciaries, as opposed to just one body of law from the judiciary on the topic. (Plus, as already noted, separation of powers would become a lot more complicated (and much more important).)”
Repeating the same discussion is pointless. We can just copy and paste our replies from here on out if that’s what you want to do. (On a side-note: If you’re under the impression that I’ve been defending judicial review as better than having all three branches have equal say on constitutional interpretation, I never committed myself to such a point. Why haven’t I? Because as I have been repeating over and over and over and over and over again, it’s a moot point.)
“Bollox. It’s been generally well accepted since about 1878.”
lolololol. You said UNCONTROVERSIAL in your previous comment. Try being more precise and we can actually have a more direct conversation, rather than side-arguments because you keep equivocating. And if you are going to keep on saying 1878, say a case name. I’ve already named plenty of cases that provided a framework for judicial review and a case that was judicial review in action again. I don’t expect you to respond to the framework cases I provided, since you don’t know constitutional law (which is fine, I don’t mean that as an insult), but if you want to attack judicial review, you’ll need to have story for what those cases stood for (especially the cases involving the courts finding state statutes unconstitutional).
“[Another rant about judicial review."]
I’ve answered this before too: I don’t care. (Though, a quick protip: the U.S. had politics back in the 1800s too. And political statements and ends are not always attached to good theory.)
I see your point. As a kid who witnessed the LA riots, people who HAD guns saved their families and businesses. Those that didn’t were raped, beaten, even killed. I was a target just for being the wrong skin color. I will never be gunless. But… people need to register guns. But I just see that as a scheme for big brother to make more money to blow on coke for politicians.
@TheSutraDude - BUNKO dude. The Constitution is a set of legal principles that DEFINE the kind of country we should remain. Political Tyranny is what we want MOST to protect against and THAT’S THE MAIN REASON for the populace to be armed, that, and self-defense of course. What the anti-gun craze must focus on is REMOVING guns from CRIMINALS. true, the last child killer Lanza had no criminal record, which makes it tough to catch that. But…well…it doesn’t really matter much anyhow…because the USA has ALREADY been taken over by tyrants and isn’t even the United States anymore…it’s some other Fascist state yet to be named. Who’d have ever thought a coup like the intelligence agencies have waged would have happened right under our noses, and idiots like you don’t even realize it. Sorry for the demeaning term…potheads is probably more correct.
NO CHANGE IN GUN LAWS, which are wise laws now, UNTIL AND UNLESS THE USA STOPS SELLING SMALL ARMS TO MILITANT GOVERNMENTS WORLDWIDE TO TERRORIZE AND SUBJUGATE THEIR POPULATIONS TO AFFIRM U.S. GEOPOLITICAL DOMINANCE.
suck it up dude.
@mortimerZilch - You’ve just demonstrated by your comment which of the two of us is the idiot and pothead and I know it’s not me.
that is a lame-o retort.