Re: SCOTUS Solidifies Gun Rights

But our rights to hunt deer must NEVER be infringed. As soon as you ban handguns, my 30-06 is next. (spoken partly in jest – I don’t own a gun)

Ahh…the public safety argument.
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I’ll bet it would be a lot safer if the state were able to, say, listen to every phone conversation, and read every email, looking for clues about terrorist activity. Bomb plots could be a thing of the past, once we knew about them from the very first communication.
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And what about domestic criminality? I’m sure law enforcement would love to have the legal ability to know what crimes were being planned, what potentially violent situations might be brewing, what dangers were about to be unleashed. Why break down doors, why not just use advanced magnetic resonance imaging to see what’s inside every home? There are a multitude of violent crimes that could be prevented from ever happening, if we were to just let the police see inside of every home at will. Think of the children! That Fourth Amendment seems rather antiquated, doesn’t it?
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Hey, public safety first, right?
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The individual liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights come in distant second compared to keeping folks safe, everyone agrees…

Do not let reality conflict with ideology. Both sides.

And I do own guns

Is this post suggesting a cause and effect?

It’s only a matter of time before the conservatives justices discover that guns have all the rights of citizens too, and therefore are entitled to unrestricted free expression.
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As for those people who don’t want to be shot, they can pound sand.

Nobody can quantify how many lives have been saved via the ban; we can only count the number offed.

In relation, check out 6.

The unemployment rate in Chicago is approximately 11%.
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If correlation equals causation, I can point to that stat as a driver of increased violence.
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“If”

I’m trying to find Scherer’s point…is he saying the number of people being shot will go up because the ban is lifted or that the gun ban was largely irrelevant anyway?

There is little empirical evidence to suggest that looser gun regulations either promote or reduce crime. However, there is a link between guns and impulse suicides and accidents.

That said, legally the ruling is hard to criticize. Gun ownership rights are protected by the constitution, and obviously the Bill of Rights should apply to state laws. Originalism is a problematic legal philosophy, but I’m very wary of re-interpreting individual rights in a way that reduces their scope.

The U.S. has a fire-arm homicide rate of 2.97 per 100,000.
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Columbia is at 51.8 per 100,000. Guns are legal to purchase and own in Columbia, with background checks and licensing handled by their military.
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Switzerland is at a rate of .56 per 100k. Switzerland has one of the highest gun to owner ratios in the world, due to a ‘every home must have a gun’ rule.
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My point to all of this is that different places need different laws. What makes perfect sense in DC or Chicago, makes less sense in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. And vice versa.
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But thanks to the NRA, we’ll never have a reasonable conversation about this topic, so I apologize for wasting everyone’s time with ‘facts’.

Data from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence

What makes perfect sense in DC or Chicago, makes less sense in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. And vice versa.
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Can you expand on this idea?
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What is it about these places that differentiates them?
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Why are DC or Chicago different? Is it something about the people who live there who are different?
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What is it exactly that “makes perfect sense”? We know that these places are different from one another in many ways, but what do those differences have to do with handgun ownership?

Actually, I think that orginalism wasn’t in evidence today.
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That the Court affirmed the right of self-defense that doesn’t exist anywhere in the written constitution is a victory for an interpretive view of the document, it seems.

Time magazine asserts (predictably): “ten people were killed by guns after 54 people were shot over the weekend.”

“[T]en people were killed by guns”? Wow. I need to get myself one of those firearms that loads itself, identifies its targets on its own and then, all by itself, causes the firing pin to collide with loaded shells. If a firearm “kills” someone, what criminal penalties does said firearm face? Will the convicted firearm be sentenced to a month of reading Time magazine? I need to avoid those firearms (and SUVs) that murder people all on their own.

“Can you expand on this idea?”
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The odds of getting attacked by a bobcat or timber wolf are much lower in DC or Chicago than in northern Idaho. It’s not as much the people that are different, as it is the environmental requirements are different.
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This is a separate issue, but I also think the impact of guns on the local community are a factor. If there’s an excess of gun violence, then stricter gun ownership laws are probably a good idea. If there isn’t any problems with gun violence, then prohibitive action via the law seems intrusive. This might be an issue that’s handled better on a local level, than on a national level.
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If all things were equal, Switzerland would have a higher gun violence rate than Columbia. Since that’s not the fact, maybe the premise is faulty.

Out of curiosity, how many people were shot in Afghanistan and Iraq over the same period?
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If the numbers on a weekend in Chicago are even comparable to one either war zone, that would be a sad stat. It also wouldn’t shock me.

I work across the street from City Hall in Chicago. The people that live in the neighborhoods that see the most gun violence are out there demonstrating on a nearly daily basis asking the mayor to do something about it. When they make moves to reduce the number of guns on the street, like passing this law, the NRA and other gun supporters come running and insinuate themselves into an argument that has nothing to do with them. Conservatives are all for local autonomy right up until it rubs against their guns, god, or abortion. The handgun ban was very heavily supported here but that doesn’t matter to the 2nd amendment bullet heads. It’s not their children that are getting hurt or killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can’t believe that someone can argue with a straight face that reducing the number of guns on the streets wouldn’t result in fewer gun related injuries and fatalities.

The odds of getting attacked by a bobcat or timber wolf are much lower in DC or Chicago than in northern Idaho. It’s not as much the people that are different, as it is the environmental requirements are different.
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If there’s an excess of gun violence, then stricter gun ownership laws are probably a good idea.
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Leaving aside the question of whether gun violence tracks other violence rates…
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Hmm…Could you clarify, please?
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Are you not taking into account the odds of being attacked by people, for some reason?
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Why is it reasonable to have less handgun restrictions in Idaho because of the increased risk of timber wolf attacks, and more restrictions in DC or Chicago, where there may be greater risk of being attacked by people?
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Why are the bobcat and timber wolf more dangerous other human beings, and therefore require a less restrictive personal defense policy?
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Is that your view?

no. an irony.

While I personally don’t think there is any need for an ordinary citizen to own a gun — apparently there are those who feel it is necessary for personal protection. That is not my issue. I STRONGLY object to the type of weapons used by criminals which are more appropriate for the battlefield. Why should someone own a weapon that rapid fires dozens of rounds per minute? Why should someone be armed with weapons that are more deadly than those of the police force? Why should the mentally disabled own guns? Why should it be so easy for homegrown terrorist to buy weapons to use against the US? There are far too many weapons in the wrong hands. There are far too many innocent people being killed on a daily basis. I don’t think the Supreme Court did anyone favors.

…and a million well-regulated militias were born. Sure hope John Roberts or Sam Alito don’t run into any in the federal city. Stare decisis, b!tches!

Well said

I love this pro-gun counter argument, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” While that’s a true statement in the most technical sense, guns sure make it a hell of a lot easier.

Your analogy goes something like this:
HIV positive people having unprotected sex do not kill, it is the AIDs that kills.

I was referring less to this particular ruling and more to the wider debate about whether the 2nd amendment should be radically re-interpreted. (Yes, I know that’s a controversial and inadequate framing of the debate) I haven’t read the opinions, but I had understood that this ruling centered on the applicability of the Bill of Rights. The portion of Stevens’ dissent that Altman quoted in the other thread addressed that wider debate:
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And it makes especially little sense to answer questions like whether the right to bear arms is fundamental” by focusing only on the past, given that both the practical significance and the public understandings of such a right often change as society changes. What if the evidence had shown that, whereas at one time firearm possession contributed substantially to personal liberty and safety, nowadays it contributes noth­ing, or even tends to undermine them? Would it still have been reasonable to constitutionalize the right?
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The concern runs still deeper. Not only can historical views be less than completely clear or informative, but they can also be wrong. Some notions that many Ameri­cans deeply believed to be true, at one time, turned out not to be true.

Republicans are in favor of states rights as long as the states are red.

Agree.
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RE 13.2: tongue-in-cheek w/the ‘red’ comment?

Again, I think local factors are important. It’s not just a matter of relative personal safety, its also a matter of what is the expectation of safety in any given community.
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I’ve spent most of my life living in the heart of major metropolitan areas, but I’ve also spent some time in very rural areas. If someone’s trying to break into my place in the city, I call 911. Emergency services response times in the city are much shorter than in the country, so I’m confident help will arrive within minutes. A similar situation in the country – whether bobcat or human intruder – my expectation is that response times are slower and I’ll likely be dependent on my own protection for a longer period of time time than if I was in the city. In fact, I’d be just as likely to call a neighbor in the country, due to the neighbor being closer.
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There’s also the impact on the community. If the community is coexiting with guns without undue shooting of each other, why change the laws? If teenagers are randomly shooting at passerbys, you may need to crackdown on some aspect of gun ownership or enforcement.
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If I’m reading you right, Stuart, I think you’re coming from a position where all things are equal and all people should have just as much right to protect themselves from each other as everyone else (or as little right, depending on your specific attitudes about guns.) I’ve see guns help a community and hurt them, I’m no longer convinced there’s a one size fits all solution to this. It almost feels like there’s a population density to gun violence ratio, but that would be hard to regulate around that. Which is why I tend to see local solutions to this problem over federal remedies. Within reason (no one needs a rocket launcher).

“Why is it reasonable to have less handgun restrictions in Idaho because of the increased risk of timber wolf attacks, and more restrictions in DC or Chicago, where there may be greater risk of being attacked by people?”
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Um, because wolves don’t shoot back? Unless you think the right public policy solution to people being attacked by other people is to give everyone a Glock to defend themselves, establishing the government policy that those who deserve to live are those with the best aim. Yeeehaw!

I was referring to the beginning of that quote, in which Stevens says:
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JUSTICE SCALIA’s position is closer to my own than he apparently feels comfortable acknowledging.

Alex,

As an attorney who used to do closings for houses, under the Patriot Act, I was required to run every client against a Terrorist Watch List, to make sure the person I was representing was not a terrorist. And according to the law, I was not supposed to tell the client, in violation of my ethics as a lawyer. Thanks to the NRA, if you want to purchase an assault weapon, your name is run against a criminal background (if you are not purchasing from a private dealer) but your name is not checked on the Terrorist Watch List.

So the government is concerned about terrorist buying and selling homes, but it is not concerned about terrorist purchasing assault weapons.

Unless you think the right public policy solution to people being attacked by other people is to give everyone a Glock to defend themselves, establishing the government policy that those who deserve to live are those with the best aim.
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That’s a bit of hyperbole, isn’t it?
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The right public policy solution to stopping stalkers from attacking women has nothing to do with those women having the right to defend themselves from stalkers.
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There’s no “establishing government policy” by acknowledging the right to self-defense, just like it doesn’t signal a breakdown in municipal fire-fighting for folks to have fire extinguishers in their homes.
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Can you also see how topping that hyperbole off with “Yeeehaw!” might be the kind of debate that can be exploited by identity politicizers?

“That’s a bit of hyperbole, isn’t it?”
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Is it? Aren’t you saying that to protect themselves from others, people shouldn’t expect laws, the police and courts to protect them, they should go out and buy a gun? And what do you think we get in a city awash in semi-automatic handguns, more public safety? It’s not a trick question (we have the hard data) or hyperbole.
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“Can you also see how topping that hyperbole off with “Yeeehaw!” might be the kind of debate that can be exploited by identity politicizers?”
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Can you see why I couldn’t give a sh!t what “identity politicizers” do?

I don’t think law enforcement officials need to have x-ray vision to help fight crime… but a ban on smaller, automated, concealable handguns that have the potential to do the most damage might help.

“So the government is concerned about terrorist buying and selling homes, but it is not concerned about terrorist purchasing assault weapons”
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So it makes perfectly logical sense (to some) that the intellectual capacity that has created the laws for buying/selling homes should be involved in our HC, Banking, financial markets, energy policy etc

I am from the government and I am here to help you. Lord save us from our government helpers

Actually, its the bullets that kill. Guns don’t kill people unless you hit them real hard with it.
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(ducks and runs)

Anyway, you can call my argument hyperbole if I can call yours sophistry. Other than pure libertarian antipathy toward government control of individual liberty*, I can’t think of a single reason why the 2nd Amendment is useful or relevant. It’s not for establishing and maintaining a well-regulated militia, the exact purpose of the Amendment, nor can it protect us from government tyranny, unless you want to take the “shall not be infringed” wording to it’s natural conclusion and start putting strike fighters, battle tanks and battlefield nukes on the market.
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The point is, it is perfectly reasonable, to have “more restrictions in DC or Chicago, where there may be greater risk of being attacked by people” because their greatest risk factor in being attacked (or shot accidentally) may be the exact result of the easy availability of handguns. I’ll add that a city’s ban on handguns doesn’t infringe on anyone’s right to defend themselves because a shotgun is a better home defense weapon, if only because it makes it less likely to shoot yourself or someone else accidentally. The five-member majority is completely full of sh!t, factually, rationally, and Constitutionally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Dred_Scott_v._Sandford
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SCOTUS has created quite a mess out of this. If you can detect a coherent thread in this judicial history, you are better than I.
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The very clear words of the Founders are obviously unworkable in a world with bazookas, tanks and predator drones. Bill Gates could easily outfit himself, in the event that his right to bear arms was not infringed, to be sure that there were no pesky Apple stores in his vicinity, ever.
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But the Court has pretty clearly acted in weird activist ways:
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1856: For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it …. would give to persons of the Negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to … keep and carry arms wherever they went.[133]
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1875 (re Cruikshank): The Court dismissed the charges, holding that the Bill of Rights restricted Congress but not private individuals. The Court concluded, “[f]or their protection in its enjoyment, the people must look to the States.”[135]
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The Court stated that “[t]he Second Amendment…has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government….”[136] Likewise, the Court held that there was no state action in this case, and therefore the Fourteenth Amendment was not applicable:
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The fourteenth amendment prohibits a State from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; but this adds nothing to the rights of one citizen as against another.[137].
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Thus, the Court held a federal anti-Ku-Klux-Klan statute to be unconstitutional as applied in that case.[138]
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1886: In rejecting his case the Supreme Court reaffirmed Cruikshank, and held that the Second Amendment prevents neither the states nor Congress from barring private militias that parade with arms; such a right “cannot be claimed as a right independent of law.” This decision upheld the states’ authority to regulate the militia and that citizens had no right to create their own militias or to own weapons for semi-military purposes.
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1897:“The law is perfectly well settled that the first ten amendments to the Constitution, commonly known as the “Bill of Rights,” were not intended to lay down any novel principles of government, but simply to embody certain guaranties and immunities which we had inherited from our English ancestors, and which had, from time immemorial, been subject to certain well recognized exceptions arising from the necessities of the case. In incorporating these principles into the fundamental law, there was no intention of disregarding the exceptions, which continued to be recognized as if they had been formally expressed. Thus, the freedom of speech and of the press (Art. I) does not permit the publication of libels, blasphemous or indecent articles, or other publications injurious to public morals or private reputation; the right of the people to keep and bear arms (Art. II) is not infringed by laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons;…”[145]
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1935:The Court further explained:
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to any preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.
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Myself, I have always believed the Constitution needs to be amended, and these issues thrashed out explicitly.

“Why are the bobcat and timber wolf more dangerous other human beings, and therefore require a less restrictive personal defense policy?”
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Interesting question. I’d feel much differently if I had to kill a person, than if I had to kill a bobcat. Other than instinctual empathy for humanity, I have a hard articulating the difference between the two, but it sure feels profoundly different.
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A comparable solution could be offered in the inverse – The law should ban both bobcats and handguns, the objects of violence. After all, bobcats don’t kill people, nature does! I’m not sure I’d want use that approach, though, any more than “everyone gets guns because there are tygers in the woods”.
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The constitutional issues just seem to muddy the waters. From the right angle, the 2nd amendment can appear to support almost any point of view. I keep going back to the people of DC having voted to ban handguns in the city limits. That should stand. Atlanta has fairly liberal handguns laws. That should stand as well. Let the communities decide.

Oh boy, gun rights! Right up their with abortion on my list of topics to avoid like the plague. That said, I lend my liberal voice in support of the Wongster’s position (& recent addition Jay-Ack’s). That democrats (at the behest of spineless DLC borg) gave up this fight long ago doesn’t mean rank & filers are down with this lunacy.

Thanks, jc. Though, considering Stuart’s strongly-felt concerns, this might be a good time to admit that I’m not reflexively supportive of all gun restrictions – they must reasonably and meaningfully address a real public safety issue – and am also a gun owner. I just think these 2nd Amendment arguments are pure hokum, which is why reasonable measures to protect public safety – say, urban handgun bans or magazine limits – aren’t the same thing as encroachments on individual speech rights or liberty from unwarranted government searches and seizures.
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I also understand his concerns about the political cost of rational policy-making about gun ownership – they are quite rational – but, again, the embargo of real, liberal voices who can make a reasoned argument and who aren’t kowtowing to Beltway “conservative” political correctness is the biggest problem, not that people can’t be persuaded that there can’t be reasonable limits to protect the public.

It seems as if nearly all conservative arguments are based upon a concept that the US is the only country in the world or that only Americans either fear being shot (as if there is a country where being shot to death is fun for the whole family and a regular evening ritual) or want guns for recreational purposes.

Since the constitution does very strictly forbid checkpoints preventing lawful and/or potential unlawful goods such as guns (lawful by the state or municipality but not by another) easy to get guns in Virginia do result in those very same guns being used by criminals to shoot cops, victims and bystanders in NYC. (It may be the safest major city in the US, but, it would be even safer if those Virginia guns weren’t here).

So, compare the patchwork system in the US to the single system of other countries and you can have some stats you can really work out.

United States 14.05 Deaths involving firearms, per 100,000 persons, by country (1997)

Canada 4.08
United Kingdom 0.57
Germany 1.47
Spain 1.01
Australia 3.05

It appears very clear that we are doing something very wrong somewhere such that Americans are shooting one another far, far more often than anybody else in the developed world.

How about an annual accounting for gun owners to enter the police station and show that they are still the legal owners of such guns and have no sold them to terrorists or other unlawful persons as a place to start?

Secondly, for home defense, a shotgun would be amazingly good as it would be for hunting. For robbing a convenience store, however, that same weapon would have the clerk locked in a back room hiding from you while the criminal fumbles with the cash register until the police arrive.

Why not distinguish what guns are more of a public safety threat than others as well as Canada has easy access to shotguns, but, very limited access (basically none) to individuals with handguns?

“I am from the government and I am here to help you. Lord save us from our government helpers.”
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I hope somebody keeps that in mind when you need government.

So then, are you in favor of the extremely tight control of ammo, since it’s technically the ammo that kills someone? Heck, that would even be constitutional (according to conservative logic, anyway) because it’s not a firearm. Finally, we agree!!

The link:
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http://www.allcountries.org/gun_deaths_by_country.html

Patrick, I think you’ve forgotten one key point–Americans are exceptional. If it’s to be a Glock in every bookbag, so be it. Most of the world’s disdain for such practices leads to 1/2 price Xmas stockings of ammo. Old west mythology coupled with saturation criminalism on the telly = utopia. Resistance is futile.

“If it’s to be a Glock in every bookbag, so be it…”
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So you, also, heard the NRA’s version of the Virginia Tech shooting: if all of the students were armed, trained in gun use and hypervigilant it would have had almost no deaths.
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I guess the same is true for Columbine, too: if every teenager had an uzi , then this would have been a non-issue.
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We should have a charity for this: guns for tots- no bullying anymore, ever!

“no. an irony.”

What’s ACTUALLY ironic is that anyone could actually believe this story is good for disparaging the Supreme Court decision instead of pointing out the FAILURE of the Chicago gun ban.

54 people shot and 10 killed, this happened before the ban was struck down. So what good has the ban done?

But we can compare U.S. cities with similar populations and other conditions who have different laws… but then we’d find that those with such bans tend to have worse crime rates, so let’s not do that.

Hey shepherdwong:
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Just to answer your question:
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Aren’t you saying that to protect themselves from others, people shouldn’t expect laws, the police and courts to protect them, they should go out and buy a gun?
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, the answer is “Yes.”
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Unfortunately, that’s true –people should not expect laws, the police and courts to protect them at this current moment in history.
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I’m not making this up, it’s just the case.
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Here’s my reply to Dirks when the subject of those expectations came up, hopefully this will clarify things:
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Paul Dirks:
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One of the things that is often lost when discussing the current value of Second Amendment rights to individuals vs the potential dangers to “the public” is the dire fact that courts have repeatedly found –with the most recent example being the US Supreme Court in 2005– that “It is well-settled fact of American law that the police have no legal duty to protect any individual citizen from crime, even if the citizen has received death threats and the police have negligently failed to provide protection.”

TOWN OF CASTLE ROCK, COLORADO, PETITIONER v. JESSICA GONZALES, individually and as next
best friend of her deceased minor children, REBECCA GONZALES, KATHERYN GONZALES, and LESLIE GONZALES ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
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[June 27, 2005]
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Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court.
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We decide in this case whether an individual who has obtained a state-law restraining order has a constitutionally protected property interest in having the police enforce the restraining order when they have probable cause to believe it has been violated.
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The horrible facts of this case are contained in the complaint that respondent Jessica Gonzales filed in Federal District Court. (Because the case comes to us on appeal from a dismissal of the complaint, we assume its allegations are true. See Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N. A., 534 U.S. 506, 508, n. 1 (2002).) Respondent alleges that petitioner, the town of Castle Rock, Colorado, violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution when its police officers, acting pursuant to official policy or custom, failed to respond properly to her repeated reports that her estranged husband was violating the terms of a restraining order.1
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…[after a great deal of Scalia going on and on about the nature of property interest]…
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We conclude, therefore, that respondent did not, for purposes of the Due Process Clause, have a property interest in police enforcement of the restraining order against her husband. It is accordingly unnecessary to address the Court of Appeals’ determination (366 F.3d, at 1110—1117) that the town’s custom or policy prevented the police from giving her due process when they deprived her of that alleged interest. See American Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40, 61 (1999).14

The fact is that, unlike anywhere else in the world, the responsibility for one’s own protection truly lies with the individual, and not with the state. The state does not have a recognized compulsion to enforce the law, even when there is an obvious necessity –even a matter of life and death.
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Law enforcement has no legal duty to respond to or to prevent crime, or to protect crime victims. While this reality should not be interpreted to be in any way disparaging of the many heroic officers of the law who put themselves in harm’s way saving the lives of citizens every day, it is the case that our own duties to our families require us to be the last line of defense against violence, not the authorities.
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The Second Amendment right to possess a firearm is the only real means for an individual to perform that responsibility for their own protection. In the case of Jessica Gonzales’ three dead children, the Supreme Court’s decision makes it quite clear that it was the only chance they had at life.
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How can we even think of repealing the Second Amendment without ratifying another amendment to the Constitution: a right to individual protection by the state from criminal violence, PD?

, I think you’re coming from a position where all things are equal and all people should have just as much right to protect themselves from each other as everyone else (or as little right, depending on your specific attitudes about guns.)
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That’s about right.

I’ve heard that argument before from the NRA.
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If all the students were armed, there would’ve been about the same number of casualties.
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Someone sees another person pull a gun and shoot, they pull a gun and shoot. Someone seems the second person pull a gun, and, not knowing why, that person pulls a gun and shoots. On the flip side, someone who’s carrying could just as well freeze up and not do anything. If happens to soldiers in combat, so it definitely could happen in the civilian world.
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As Alex pointed out earlier, it’s not who should be armed, but what are they armed with. Why does a civilian need a semi-automatic pistol with a 15-18 round magazine? Police officers carried revolvers for years, and only had to move up to the semi-autos because of the increased threat.
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I also don’t understand the need for large-capacity magazine rifles. On December 5, 2007, at The Von Mauer store at Omaha’s Westroads Mall, a 19-year-old whackjob took a commerical Norinco Type-56 (a Chinese copy of the AK-47) that had two 30-round magazines taped together, and fired off almost all 60 rounds at 12 people. He killed 8 of them. It was the worst shooting in my hometown that I had ever seen.
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Why this type of weapon, which was originally designed to be used as an offensive weapon in combat, has to be made available for civilians to buy is just uncomprehensible.

The point wasn’t about x-ray vision, it was about the Fourth Amendment.

NewsBusters: TIME’s Scherer Gratuitously Blogs About ‘Ten People Killed by Guns’ in Light of Supreme Court Ruling
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2010/06/28/times-scherer-gratuitously-blogs-about-ten-people-killed-guns-light-su

Stuart, let me explain where I stand specifically.
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First, some highly densely populated areas like Manhattan, Brooklyn, the majority of Queens and Hoboken, for example, should be gun free except unloaded hunting riffles to be used elsewhere even if stored in an apartment.
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Second, for the other 90% of the US, in a private home with no serious risk of hitting a bystander from shots fired inside of a home, it should be reasonably easy to able to keep a loaded shotgun in your bedroom (or wherever it is best for you) since that can stop a charging intruder from attacking you even better than a hand gun. But, if you and lovelybride are out on a trip and somebody breaks in and steals it, he will not have a prayer of hailing a cab and surprising the driver with it among many other crimes he can not commit with a gun that big.
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Third, if transporting cash is a part of your job, a handgun license should be easy for you granted that you do not have a record of any kind (as I am sure that you do not).
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Fourth, it should not be too difficult for a person residing in a full, separated house to have a handgun without the right to carry if a shotgun is too cumbersome and you want to go practice shoot at a legally designated range.
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Fifth, every year all gun owners should be required to present their arms to the local police station to make sure that they are still the owners and, if a gun has been stolen that an investigation follows. So, responsible people like you would need, say, 30 minutes a year to show that you have not become a criminal and sold [one of] you gun[s] to a local drug dealer or other criminal.
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If a person fails to show up by a particular due date or earlier set months in advance several years in a row and/or has several guns disappear with an explanation, they should be forbidden from buying more guns since it is clear that, through negligence or criminal activity this person is letting unauthorized people have guns for illicit purposes.
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I really do not see this as too much to ask considering the fact that guns are such incredible killing instruments and, unlike knives, do not have a duel function.

Theft is a crime. So is assault and battery and breaking and entering etc. etc. Those with the desire to commit these acts will do so, law bedamned, and those who wish to carry guns for criminal reasons will do so ban or no ban.
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Gun bans take away the right of law abiding citizens to protect themselves. They serve no other purpose.

can’t rob anything w/ a shotgun? guess you’ve never seen Omar in action

if a self defense interpretation of the amendment prevails, i wonder if better non-lethal arms technology could solve some problems. I think thats a bad interpretation but I also think its a bad amendment. just looking for any possible way this could be resolved without completely disregarding the 2nd.

“…can’t rob anything w/ a shotgun? guess you’ve never seen Omar in action.”
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I was watching the first season for a second time on Friday. The Wire has got to be one of the best shows ever made and Omar is just such a baffling character.
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You did notice, though, that Omar pays off the entire neighborhood of drug addicts with free heroin and, for non-addict paupers a huge share of his stolen cash.
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You can’t waltz through a neighborhood with a shotgun and stolen goods unless you are in a damn poor and highly drug addicted place and ready to share. After Omar shares, nobody ever saw Omar or heard of anybody named Omar.
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BTW: do you really think there are many cops who are as drunk as McNulty who can, also, get away with constant insubordination? I don’t think so.

“Law enforcement has no legal duty to respond to or to prevent crime, or to protect crime victims.”
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Who has a “legal duty” to do anything? Yet, they do, reasonably well, in most communities across American (the places they tend to fail are high-density places overrun with handguns).
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I also choose to keep a gun for home protection but you know that relatively few people take the precautions necessary to keep them from actually increasing risk in the home and fewer still could use one effectively in a combat situation (again, without increasing the risk to themselves or some innocent bystander). Even trained LEO shoot the wrong person (or themselves) frighteningly frequently. The net benefit of keeping firearms (especially handguns) for home protection is murky, particularly when compared to the clear benefits of the many non-NRA-approved methods of protecting yourself and home.
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My answer is to try to make those high-density places overrun with handguns more like the high-density places not overrun with handguns (even if that means a local ban) and try to reduce access to weapons, magazines, etc., that are made specifically for killing large numbers of people in short order. You’re of course free to argue for easier availability of weapons as a response to violence but I just don’t see how that helps. You can also argue that there’s a moral principle that government shouldn’t interfere with an individual’s right to try to protect himself, even if it often winds up to be a generally misguided effort and more people end up dead as a result. That one is tougher but I still come down on the liberty rights of those extra people to not be dead.

“Gun bans take away the right of law abiding citizens to protect themselves. They serve no other purpose.”
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So, you are either saying that Canadian, English, German, Australian and all of the criminals in all other developed countries in the world are much better people than ours since they do not shoot people as often or you are in denial of the fact that legally bought guns get resold to the people who will shoot law abiding citizens (armed or not).
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Hey, don’t talk about Americans that way!
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We are not fourteen times worse than Spaniards!
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If you think that Spain has people who are fourteen times better than Americans, why don’t you get out of America and move to Spain!
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(How do you like being called “anti-American” and told to go to another country as you do us, you wingut?)

patricksartor
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First, some highly densely populated areas like Manhattan, Brooklyn, the majority of Queens and Hoboken, for example, should be gun free except unloaded hunting riffles to be used elsewhere even if stored in an apartment.
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Why?
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I mean, flamethrowers, grenades, anti-tank weapons, surface-to-air missiles –all of these present great risk to the general population in an area during their use. Defending one’s self from attack with these weapons necessarily exposes others to harm. That’s the bright line that a weapon must cross in order to run afoul of the Second Amendment. The weapon must be something like a napalm canister or a mortar, where there is no escape from the immediate physical damage and destructive power for others in their own homes and in public places.
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Personal firearms, on the other hand?
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Why should a densely-populated area be bereft of legally owned handguns? Why unloaded hunting rifles, if the whole point of a weapon is self-defense? If the risk to others is in the discharging of a weapon in an apartment building, then the smaller the gun, the better.
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I’m not making light of the possibility of danger from such a discharge, not at all. It’s just that there’s another increased danger that comes with densely populated areas, too, and that’s from violent people. I’m all for reducing risk to others while at the same time protecting the rights of individuals to defend themselves against attack. That means smaller, lighter, less powerful weapons should be more available, not less available.
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The bottom line is that, if you’re saying that the only acceptable danger is from illegally obtained and possessed firearms, that’s not enough to overcome the individual right to self-defense, in my view. I’d like to do as much as possible to mitigate the risk to others, but if the only certainty is in giving up liberty enumerated in the Bill of Rights…well, you know what we liberals always say about those who would give up liberty for security when we’re talking about the Fourth Amendment and the Due Process Clause…
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Second, for the other 90% of the US, in a private home with no serious risk of hitting a bystander from shots fired inside of a home, it should be reasonably easy to able to keep a loaded shotgun in your bedroom (or wherever it is best for you) since that can stop a charging intruder from attacking you even better than a hand gun. But, if you and lovelybride are out on a trip and somebody breaks in and steals it, he will not have a prayer of hailing a cab and surprising the driver with it among many other crimes he can not commit with a gun that big.
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Dude, it’s just not up to you.
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It’s not your call to make. It’s not up to you to decide whether it’s reasonable or not for LB to be able to wield a shotgun. It’s just not. It’s LB’s right to choose to defend herself using the firearm which best suits her abilities and strengths. I could make another argument about the public dangers of shotguns vs handguns, but I won’t, because it isn’t necessary. It’s an individuals’ right to make that decision.
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I understand you have a great rationale about some firearms being easier to steal than others, but that’s not really the point, is it? You can come up with a number of reasonable rationales for the NSA to be listening to citizens’ phone conversations, too, but it’s just not the free society that we prize to do so. The Fourth Amendment protects us from unwarranted search and seizure, even if there’s a great case to be made that we’ll all be better off if more illegal handguns are confiscated that way.
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Let’s say we have biometrics embedded into our firearms, such that they won’t discharge unless we’re the individuals wielding them…would that really solve your problem?
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Probably not, because you view the threat from firearms to be greater than the threat of other human beings, and view the Second Amendment’s guarantees as less important than security, just like the conservatives view the Fourth Amendment’s guarantees to be less important than security.
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That last argument should answer the next few rationales, i.e. “nice idea, but it’s not your call,” so I’ll move on to:
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Fifth, every year all gun owners should be required to present their arms to the local police station to make sure that they are still the owners and, if a gun has been stolen that an investigation follows. So, responsible people like you would need, say, 30 minutes a year to show that you have not become a criminal and sold [one of] you gun[s] to a local drug dealer or other criminal.
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OK, no problem. I really don’t see how this is an issue, beyond the paramilitary fantasies of the popular right.
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Totally fine with that. No infringement there.
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I really do not see this as too much to ask considering the fact that guns are such incredible killing instruments and, unlike knives, do not have a duel function.
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It’s not in any way too much to require at all. The “dual function” rationale has nothing to do with anything, however.
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The fact is, my friend, that even less-than-lethal weapons are outlawed in New York State. Dude, you can’t even carry the wrong kind of pepper spray. There are basically no legal ways to protect yourself beyond your physical person. If you’re a woman on the smaller side, you’re f*cked. No authority will help you until a crime has been committed, either.
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This is the New York Penal code outlawing stun guns, which present no danger to persons outside of one’s apartment, nor are generally lethal:

Section 265.01 Criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree

A person is guilty of criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree when:

(1) He possesses any firearm, electronic dart gun, electronic stun gun, gravity knife, switchblade knife, pilum ballistic knife, metal knuckle knife, cane sword, billy, blackjack, bludgeon, metal knuckles, chuka stick, sand bag, sandclub, wrist-brace type slingshot or slungshot, shirken or “Kung Fu star”; or

It goes on and on, patricksartor.
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The idea seems to be that it’s more important to keep people from hurting other people than it is to allow people to defend themselves from other people who want to hurt them.
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That’s the liberty/security trade-off right there.
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I’ll save you the trouble of reading any further, if you’ll just think about why it is that liberty shouldn’t be traded for national security in the case of the Fourth Amendment, but liberty should be traded for security in the case of the Second. If there’s a principled, Bill of Rights-protecting, liberal argument that can be made for one but not the other, I don’t know what that is.

I’m with you there.
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Non-lethal devices could be the route to both public safety and individual rights.

Uh Patsy, coming from a blowhard like you, the insults have little effect. Your bloviating is less interesting than phlegm.

You can also argue that there’s a moral principle that government shouldn’t interfere with an individual’s right to try to protect himself, even if it often winds up to be a generally misguided effort and more people end up dead as a result. That one is tougher but I still come down on the liberty rights of those extra people to not be dead.
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You know, I really respect your arguments, shepherdwong.
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I say that because I really want you to think about the resemblance between that last declaration – I still come down on the liberty rights of those extra people to not be dead– and this one:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/05/jane-norton-gop-candidate_n_411967.html
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“[Abdul Mutallab] should have been identified as an enemy combatant and gone through military tribunal. Now he goes though, with all the constitutional protections, our criminal process. We are letting people go from Gitmo without a good plan of what to do when we close down Gitmo. We are returning guys to Yemen who then plot against us. And what I believe is happening… is the fact that the rights of terrorists are more important in this administration that the lives of American citizens .

The point isn’t that this person is wrong, and corrupt in ways that you obviously are not, nor that anti-Second Amendment proponents are advocating state-sponsored torture, that’s not the case at all.
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The point is that there is a similarity to arguments like “the first right is the right of the American people to not be killed by terrorists” (imagine thunderous GOP applause) and the argument that the individuals’ right to self-defense is trumped by preemptive public safety concerns.
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The similarity is in the prioritizing of the Bill of Rights with security.
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I mean this as an honest question, not a rhetorical one:
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How can these two positions –that the Fourth is paramount over security, but the Second is not– be consistent coming from liberals?

Actually, it’s a little inconsistent (we liberals are pragmatists, remember, not ideologues).
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I would just say that freedom from prosecution by government for what you publish on a blog or from government spying or confiscating your property without due process (which the government now does routinely in drug crime allegations, for one) is of a different order than not being able to legally own a banana clip or keep a handgun within the city limits. I guess I’m willing to sacrifice a very little bit of liberty for the sake of public safety – Franklin be damned – and I’d guess you are too (OK with mandatory seat belt laws and banning texting when driving, etc., I assume). Guns simply aren’t sacrosanct to me.

Seriously, two thirds brain, you have not answered the question.
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Either legally purchased guns go onto the black market and make themselves available to criminals or Americans are fourteen times worse than Spaniards.
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If your answer is that legal guns go black market, you’ll have to say that gun control more like Spain than we have now will save many law abiding citizens.
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If you say otherwise, you are saying that America is a place of despicable, homicidal people.
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Choose.

Thanks for your honesty, shepherdwong.
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It’s not that guns are sacrosanct to me, it’s the right to personal defense. It’s not a fetish, just like dedication to the Fourth isn’t fetishizing locks and keys.
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Since I’m not an originalist, if there’s a non-lethal weapon available that’s just as effective as a handgun, I’ll accept that, just as I’ll accept a ban on rocket launchers. The constitution says “arms,” but I don’t particularly care if they meant firearms or not.
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It’s not the firearm that’s most important, it’s the right.
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If you’re one of the many Jessica Gonzales’ of this country, it’s not a “little liberty,” it’s what you might have to do to survive.
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Unlike many folks, I actually think about what it would take to end male-to-female rape as we know it. I actually consider by what means true equality between the genders can be achieved. I’ve come to consider the possibility that, in addition to widespread martial training and inculcation in protector social roles previously reserved for males, armed and trained women might be part of the solution. I think that a little liberty might go a long way toward the achievement of a number of goals, maybe even a drastic reduction in the violence that make hate crimes laws appealing to some.
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If we can do that, if we can have women and traditional victims of aggression join men en masse in the protector role, instead of an enforced role of protected/victim, by means of other weapons, maybe less lethal than firearms, I’m all for that.
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It’s not the gun, it’s the right.
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If there’s anything to be ideological about, it’s individual freedom, shepherdwong. It’s not really a different order, it’s just a different right. I’d rather err on the side of ideology and the consistent application of the Bill of Rights than of a pragmatism that seems quite expedient, and quite at home in the expediency of the context of the War on Terror.

shepherdwong
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I also choose to keep a gun for home protection but you know that relatively few people take the precautions necessary to keep them from actually increasing risk in the home.
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The “relatively” is a weasel word, but my experience is that most people who keep a gun for home protection do take those precautions.
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Which, of course, makes these weapons less useful for home protection. And is there really any property you own that justifies shooting somebody over? Or worse, dying for?
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Stuart gets to the central argument–that the reason to have a gun is as an equalizer in an instance where you are physically overmatched. Mind you, not over a crime of property; it is hard to make a liberal case for shooting a guy who wants to steal your tv. I also do not think there is a libertarian case to be made either; you go to court and get restitution from the thief. Killing him over property is out of proportion; he may have some valid claim for this action, which cannot be adjudicated if he is dead.

The only justifiable reason to pull a gun on somebody is when they are threatening to assault you or your loved ones physically.
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Stuart argues that providing citizens who are routinely threatened physically with the capacity to respond effectively is as much a freedom argument as permitting citizens to speak freely. While I get the freedom argument, and if we can extend those freedom arguments more extensively than simply to use of guns, I will be more persuaded. (I am perfectly happy to drop all gun regulation if we can drop all restrictions on reproductive decision making as part of the deal), the current policy choice is whether to restrict a very dangerous consumer product that has its sole purpose the killing of people. I am unpersuaded that the broader freedom arguments Stuart would use will result in greater safety for those currently threatened.

“…if there’s a non-lethal weapon available that’s just as effective as a handgun, I’ll accept that, just as I’ll accept a ban on rocket launchers. The constitution says “arms,” but I don’t particularly care if they meant firearms or not.”
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I find that most people can increase their personal security multi-fold just by “wising up a bit”, and taking a quick trip to Loews. OTOH, you can’t beat Mr. Mossberg in a pinch.

SZ, just have a little patience. All our brides and daughters will be fine in due time:
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‘Three hundred million years ago the Y chromosome had about 1,400 genes on it, and now it’s only got 45 left, so at this rate we’re going to run out of genes on the Y chromosome in about five million years.’
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8060289.stm
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Then again, perhaps the gun as phallus will become literal at that point… In the meantime, my daughter will begin aikido and kendo training next month.

First, what if next door at 3:30 in the morning somebody follows my nurse neighbor home from work and her husband shoots three times: once into the attacker’s leg, once into his head and the first shot, straight through the drywall into my bed where I am promptly killed?
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This is reason number one for an exemption for population concentration as an exemption.
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Since it is my bed against another household’s wall which, absolutely should give me the right to decide if that neighbor is going to have a gun which may be fired through the drywall. If there were a couple of hundred feet, two walls and, maybe, a white picket fence, this would not be my problem out in the suburbs.
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Secondly, NYPD as well as many densely populated areas, have far, far quicker response times than suburban police and, far, far faster than rural police. A couple of screams from my neighbor and her would-be attacker and I’ll be calling 9-1-1 and be opening the door for the police in about two or three minutes. In suburban areas that might be ten minutes and in some very rural areas half an hour or even longer.
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The exemption to an exemption should be for unloaded hunting guns. Why? Well if you live in, say, Queens and go hunting three times a year in two or three far away locations, where else would you store your gun?
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Shotgun vs Pistol
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Try getting a NYC taxi to stop for you if you are holding a four foot long object that looks anything like a shotgun…. You’ll be standing there for a week.
By contrast, with a .38 caliber in your pants people will just think that you are well endowed.
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Shotguns have more kick to them and can knock a person lunging at you back and away from your person better than most pistols. It is, at the least, the equal of pistols.
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Also, Canada has as many guns per person as the US, but almost no civilian access to pistols. So, pulling the four foot long gun off your roof rack usually gives ample warning time to the convenience store clerk to hide in the back room and wait for the mounties to save his butt while a pistol is easy to hide. Look at the difference in gun violence with just that difference.
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Why is opposing gun control conservative?
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Conservatism is about the individual not having to do anything at all or very little for the greater good when the benefit to the many far outweigh the costs to the few.
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Taxes paying for care for those unable to work. Conservatives believe that the wealthy should not be required to sacrifice a small part of their income for the survival of the poor.
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HCR, paying for medical services costing more over a lifetime than you, yourself, are likely to use is liberal since it is about sacrificing for one another just in case we or a loved one are the unfortunate one who needs far more than average health care.
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Gun control, you take a very minimal risk that you will be severely injured or killed during a home invasion between the time you start yelling for help (or making similar noise) until I open the door for the police to save you four minutes later.
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Liberal, to me, is about community. You may not be the down and out one today and, possibly, may never need any kind of care for yourself or your family, but, just in case, you pay into it. You may be the scared person with a home invader not knowing if I sleep through your home invasion today, but, just to make sure that you are not (thankfully hypothetically) not me getting shot in my bed through the drywall by you fighting off home invaders.
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Conservatism: the lone yeoman in the fictionalized romanticized view of the American West.
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Liberal: Yo, man, I am going to need a government loan to pay for this tuition so I can do something that really contributes to society.
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Who do you see holding the gun, the cowboy lone yeoman or the potential college student in, say, Long Island City?

“Which, of course, makes these weapons less useful for home protection. And is there really any property you own that justifies shooting somebody over? Or worse, dying for?”
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Two excellent points. Though, to be fair, I never said I would shoot someone over mere property and I don’t get the sense that’s what Stuart is talking about either. This is about protecting the family in those extremely rare instances when only a firearm will do it. Though I also really do enjoy the range.

Non-lethal weapons, my belief is that they should be registered, presented, like guns should be, once a year and kept away from people convicted, in this case, of violent felonies. I’ve never been mugged even once in part because of my height. If a criminal has pepper spray and a stun gun, a fourth grader is running away with my wallet.
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With those things, even Bernard Madeoff really is one of the undead and lives to see 150 years old and gets paroled he can have his own pepper spray so long as he doesn’t sell it to a wife beater. (It can be used to help beat the crap of somebody if it is in the hands of a violent and malevolent person).

BTW, if we expended a fraction of the oxygen spent debating gun rights addressing poverty, we might get somewhere as a society. Gun rights are like prisons (yet another industrial complex) in this regard–nearly all of our energy and budgets are focused on reacting to crime as/after it takes place as opposed to creating a more egalitarian society, which is pie in the sky fantasy talk.

How fitting–I just got to Krug’s column: “We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression.”
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Ohhhh sh!t

patricksartor:
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Yep, you (and a number of people) have a different view of liberal than I (and a number of people) have.
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See, when you say “community” and not “individual,” I think of communities of people of one religion imposing it over the individual consciences the Bill of Rights protects.
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When you say “community” and not “individual,” I see the public safety arguments of profiling being applied over the rights of individuals not to be pre-judged by the state as a group, which the Bill of Rights protects.
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When you say “community” and not “individual,” I hear “if you’re not doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?” arguments for being searched and spied upon at will, regardless of the individual right to privacy, which the Bill of Rights protects.
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Conservatism isn’t about individual rights at all, although it certainly elevates the property rights of individuals –corporations, really– above all the other rights human beings possess. That’s just because such imbalance protects and serves the hierarchies of traditional societies, which is what the popular right are really all about. They want above all else to preserve communities.
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Conservatives aren’t pro-individual rights –they’re the ones against privacy, and for communities to make the call about ending pregnancy that are the sole provenance of individuals’ consciences and bodies (I know you disagree).
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Conservatives think that freedom of religion means freedom for communities to impose a religion on everyone, individual conscience again be damned.
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Conservatives are all for community –when the supposed safety concerns of the community trump the individual rights afforded by due process to the accused.
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I think that you’ve bought into conservative marketing, patricksartor. They’re nothing like that fictionalized, romanticized view –as you, yourself put it– of individuals. When push comes to shove, they’re all about obscenity laws and making gay sex between consenting individuals illegal.
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They’re all about community standards, patricksartor. That’s the popular right.
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Liberal, to me, is about community. You may not be the down and out one today and, possibly, may never need any kind of care for yourself or your family, but, just in case, you pay into it. You may be the scared person with a home invader not knowing if I sleep through your home invasion today, but, just to make sure that you are not (thankfully hypothetically) not me getting shot in my bed through the drywall by you fighting off home invaders.

You have the whole thing backwards.
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It’s not that I may never need that care for myself or my family, it’s that I may need that care for myself or my family. It’s the freedom that kind of guarantee gives me that compels me to ensure it for others. It’s not out of some altruistic love for people I’ve never met, it’s because that guarantees the most freedom from misfortune, and mitigates the worst risks involved in taking chances on good ideas, or changing jobs in the hopes of living up to my potential.
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I want this freedom for all Americans, it’s not some kind of sacrifice I have to make!
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And yes, the scared person with the home invader has the reasonable –not flamethrower, not nuclear weapon– right to self-defense that outweighs the public safety concerns of people who aren’t going to get up out of their beds to see what’s going on and what the screaming is about.
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The person whose home is being invaded isn’t required to sacrifice themselves and their kids’ lives because their neighbors want to be as safe as they can possibly be, and her kids’ lives be damned.
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What gave you the idea that liberalism is about some kind of weird sacrifices that individuals have to make for the greater good?
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We’re not socialists, patricksartor. We’re not communists.
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We’re not about the cult of individual sacrifice, far from it.
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We’re not lunatics, and we understand that powerful, wealthy individuals need to be prevented from forming cartels with their power, and exercising it over the rest of us, but that’s Bill Gates, not some poor lady in her apartment being strangled by the disturbed, stalker ex-husband, because a handgun might endanger the neighbors.
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You sound like what the conservatives say we are, patricksartor. We want sacrifice, sacrifice, always for the greater good, always for someone else, never for ourselves.
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We’re not like that. Liberals just want a fair playing field for individuals, that’s all, not sacrifice. I respect my fellow Americans enough to desire liberty for all of them! That’s the meaning of the Bill of Rights, that’s something that liberals know. That’s why we will fight to protect the right of an individual we hate to burn the flag, even though it rightfully offends our American community.
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Doesn’t this make sense to you, patricksartor?
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Where did you get the idea that we were about communities and not individuals, instead of understanding that we liberals are all about communities of individuals, each of whom deserves their birthright of respect for personhood under the Bill of Rights equally?
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Where did you get these strange ideas about sacrifice, my friend?

You’re right and he’s right, JC.
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Oh sh*t is also correct.

JC:
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In the meantime, my daughter will begin aikido and kendo training next month.
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So will mine, whenever @lovely_bride and I get around to conceiving, that is.
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In the meantime here’s this essay called Rape as a Weapon of War by Claudia Card,

Women who lack martial training are an easy mark for those who would communicate the message of domination. Women in patriarchies are commonly unarmed and untrained for physical combat. Perpetrators need fear little direct reprisal. Where there is concern about reprisals, the only troublesome witness is easily eliminable. This suggests that strategies of resistance would have women become armed and skilled in the use of weapons and in other methods of defense and self-defense, not only by martial arts and other civilian classes (perhaps funded by the state) but also by infiltration of the military at every level. Not only do females need to be able to call on skills when attacked (for which conventional military weapons may not be helpful) but the social meaning of female needs to be changed so that it no longer connotes victim. Perhaps females would do better to construct independent military organizations. At any rate, the long-range goal would be to terminate both domestic and international protection rackets and thereby change the symbolic meaning of rape at the same time as that of female.
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A major long-range aim of resistance to martial rape would be to eliminate patriarchal and protectionist values. One good way to begin is to reject the idea that women should not be armed and skilled in weapons use. The idea here is not simply to equip females for self-defense against rapists but to equip females generally to need no more protection than males. Just as the domestic protection racket must be dismantled for us to be safe in our homes during times of so-called peace, the transnational protection racket, where men on all sides claim as their reason for going to war that they are fighting to protect their women, must be dismantled as well. One way to undermine it is for women to have the same access to weapons and to military training as men have presently. Probably the best all-around training in combat at the present time, certainly the most expensive (supported by general taxes), is in military institutions, although even military institutions might be encouraged to give more attention to rape resistance, incorporating relevant attitudinal training from feminist self-defense practices. Suppose the response to martial rape were not for men to reject wives, mothers, and daughters, nor for women and girls to commit suicide, run away, or hide, but rather for those raped to get abortions, if pregnant, and for women generally to become informed, armed, trained, and fight back, as Alexandra Stiglmayer reports (1993, 91-93, 98-99) that Hatiza and Razija did after they were raped in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Suppose women entered military institutions in large numbers, at every rank, in every department. There would be, first, fewer civilian females to be raped, although there would still be children, the old, the sick, and their caretakers. But what is the likelihood that males would rape in war if they fought side by side with equally trained and armed females and under the command of even more powerful females, in a society in which this phenomenon was not exceptional? Gang rape is an unlikely instrument of heterosexual peer bonding. All-male armies might still treat female soldiers of other armies as Achilles is reputed to have done with the Amazon Penthesilia during the Trojan War, but female soldiers would not be easy targets.5 It seems unlikely that rape could continue to symbolize dominance if women could dominate as well as men.
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Many, not only extreme pacifists, will object to this strategy of resistance as a perpetuation of values that we should wish to replace rather than instantiate.6 Is it possible to participate in military institutions without succumbing to martial values? Without getting so caught up in supporting military practices that we lose sight of the goal of dismantling protection rackets and instead come to enjoy participating in the rites and rights of the masters?
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It may be possible to participate to a greater extent than most women in the United States do today in some military institutions without succumbing to indefensible values. What counts as participating in military institutions? Those who pay taxes without withholding a portion that would support military institutions already participate. Yet one may feel ambivalent about that, regarding it as, at best, a questionably tolerable evil rather than something to be expanded. More important from a feminist point of view is the example of the women’s self-defense movement. Since the 1970s major cities throughout the U.S. have been sites of martial arts training of women by women for the purpose of both physical skill acquisition for self-defense and attitudinal change with respect to options of resistance involving uses of violence. Such relatively informal individual training for one-on-one encounters by acquaintances or civilians has been important in saving and transforming individual lives.7 Yet it puts only a small dent in protection rackets in a world in which formally organized violence, such as war, is an ever-present possibility. We may need to be able to rely on each other in a more organized way than the women’s self-defense movement has recognized so far, not simply on our individual raised consciousnesses and on our readiness to defend ourselves as lone individuals. If it makes good sense to be prepared to defend ourselves as individuals, why does it not also make sense to be prepared to defend ourselves as communities? When wars of self-defense are fought not primarily by those who enjoy war but primarily by those who hate it and are inclined to do it only under grave duress, there may be significantly less likelihood that military values will come to dominate the societies of those who participate in the fighting. This is one reason to prefer a universal draft to reliance on mercenaries or exclusively on voluntary enlistment.

This is about protecting the family in those extremely rare instances when only a firearm will do it.
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That’s exactly right, although I think the threat isn’t so extremely rare for women.

First, I am of the Daniel Patrick Moynahan Social Democrat type of Democrat, so, I do not find some enlightened uses of the word “socialist” insulting.
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(He was a regular speaker for the Social Democratic Party but, since they never got a spot on the ticket in NY never officially was a social Democrat).
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“We’re not like that. Liberals just want a fair playing field for individuals, that’s all, not sacrifice.”
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Where we miss one another that in order for those who have the incomes to pay for the best private schools to be taxed for local schools they do not send their children to for those other children to receive a good education is a sacrifice and it is a sacrifice not for the sake of sacrifice but for the sake of creating an equal playing field.
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If you follow sociology or socio-economics, wealth constantly goes to those who began with the most money. See GWB. If I were half as incompetent with money as he was, since my family was middle class, I would be sleeping on the sidewalk not planning for a run for congress.
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I do, absolutely, see that the conservative ideal of individualism in reality turns into freedom for corporations above individuals as you say.
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Here is where we approach things differently (but come to similar conclusions very often): conservatism is about not imposing anything upon the individual for any economic reason no matter how much it would benefit all or many other individuals. Such as, if a 2% tax increase on the wealthiest 5% could dramatically improve the education of the lowest 30% of Americans, conservatives would oppose it. Since it would create a more even playing field, being liberal means one must support it since the cost to the few is so low and the benefit to the many is so great.
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Yes, there is, also, conservative views on non-economic issues where gays and/or minorities can face discrimination if the majority says so.
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Here is my POV: if two dudes walk past me holding hands on the street, how does it impact me or anybody else on the street? It does not. Hence, neither I nor anybody else will benefit from gays not being able to hold hands in public, speak in an effected way (which not all do, I know, some come across as heterosexual).
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I, myself, am an atheist and do not support any of the agenda of prayer in school or any government support or encouragement of any religion over the other nor of religion to being without religion.
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For security matters, above and beyond the hypothetical, it is incredibly rare when bugging a phone or searching a random individual will result in solving a crime relative to doing so exclusively for persons when probable cause has been achieved and not using such a standard poses a danger to any political opponents of the party in power.
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Yes, there is a duality to conservatism in that they want all of their lone yeomen cowboys to act exactly alike, pray in the same church, not be like the cowboy in Brokeback Mountain and otherwise be very conforming.
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Communists believe in sacrifice above and beyond providing the most basic sustenance to the poor and a level playing field but sacrifice as a goal unto itself and imposed from the government.
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I do not know for sure, but, I don’t believe gays did very well under Stalin or in the Soviet Union and I do know that religious minorities were badly persecuted (where the right to be religious I believe is exactly the same as the right not believe and is a basic human right).

The saying goes that Guns do not kill people, people do. Maybe we can just outlaw people!
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I think we have lost common sense.

Guns are so different than other issues because guns can be used to take away the rights and even the life of another person.
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I think one major difference is how you imagine that gun.
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Is the gun being held by the little old lady at the mugger or did the mugger buy a gun illegally from a legal owner from Virginia for $200 pointing it at the little old lady?
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Sure, if it were permanently attached to my right hand at all times everywhere I went I would be more comfortable with everybody armed rather than nobody armed. But in any realistic scenario – like the fact that I, also, need my right hand for writing, holding things and eating, this concept of allowing everybody to walk around with guns creates the fearful environment it aims to correct.
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Are rapes more common in countries with strict gun laws?
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As far as I know they are identical.
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The same goes for the robbing of little old ladies.
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When it comes to safety rules I approve of seat belt laws, motorcycle helmet laws and even bicycle helmet laws. In all cases, I would never want to be the one and only guy in town to wear a helmet on when riding my bicycle, but, if I am the one millionth, I don’t mind.
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I do not believe that we must defend the freedom to be stupid.
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Unless the fines were outrageously high or if enforcement were draconian, I do not see it as a nanny state kind of a thing to be worried about.
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When it comes to bicycle helmets, if you fail to wear one, I don’t end up dead. Maybe you do, but I don’t. Other people’s guns can become my problem at a moment’s notice. Just because it has not as muggers, burglars, rapists, arsonists computer hackers have not been my problem, does not mean that I want to be open to that potential risk because of you or any other gun advocate.

stuart: I have to ask, are you against gun registration? Do you approve of the loopholes allowed for gun shows? Where does a “well ordered militia” fit into the SCOTUS decision?

54 people were shot!?!? But how, Chicago has a total ban on handguns!

Are you telling me criminals were IGNORING THE LAW? That makes no sense!

canofsand> Probably because the places that are desperate enough to introduce such laws are the most lawless and worst hit places [b]before[/b] they introduce any such laws. And obviously while the laws might help or not they aren’t silver bullets (no pun intended) that instantly removes all the problems that city/state faces.
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Thus by your method they will always look bad – which I guess was your reason for stating it?

How I view the NRA as right wing and not liberal in a song (sang to Woody Guthry’s This land is your land)
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This land is my land
It is not your land
If you don’t get off
I’ll blow your head off
I’ve got a shot gun
And you aint got none
This land is private property.

I don’t want to have to carry a gun everywhere I go in case of armed hotheads who easily got hold of a gun, but, let everybody have as many guns as they like and make it easy for them to sell them illegally, then I will have to keep a gun on my person when I really don’t want to.

My experience suggests that the people most likely to insist on having a revolver for protection are the people least likely because of geography from actually needing it.
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Having said that, I have to also say that we can’t pick and choose which parts of the Constitution we like (unless we’re prepared to amend it.) The Second amendment was put in place for a reason. If we want any credibility when it comes to defending the Bill of Rights, we have to include all of them.

Thanks for asking, apr2563.
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are you against gun registration?
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No, I’m all for it.
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Do you approve of the loopholes allowed for gun shows
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No, it’s a loophole. It shouldn’t be there.
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Where does a “well ordered militia” fit into the SCOTUS decision?
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Like I’m saying, the supposed originalists are ignoring the whole purpose clause to find that there exists a right to self-defense, just like an earlier Court found a right to privacy implied by the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unwarranted search and seizure.
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Because I’m a liberal, I’m OK with that. An expansive reading of the Bill of Rights is great.
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Coffee is done! I’ve got to pour myself a cup now.
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I hope that answers your questions, apr2563.

Thank you Supreme Court for recognizing our right to defend ourselves.

This entire comment thread has been hijacked by this multi aliased Stuartzechman. Is Time magazine really this apathetic to the repeated statements I have made about this individual and his criminality?

It is beyond the pale that he is free and even worse roaming around online commenting and God knows doing what else to unwitting innocents.

LM
http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/network-security-criminals-can-crash-planes/

“This entire comment thread has been hijacked by this multi aliased Stuartzechman. Is Time magazine really this apathetic to the repeated statements I have made about this individual and his criminality?”
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You’ve lost your mind.
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I told you that, if you believe that I am anybody other than J. Patrick Sartor contact me (please nobody else) at Level group using, if you wish, an anonymous email or with a caller ID blocked (if you prefer) to ask me who I am. I am not Stuart and, I can safely say, that nobody but Stuart Zechman is Stuart Zechman.
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(Please, nobody but Lawyermommy contact me since I do need to get work done sometimes – it’s been an excellent week.)

Without knowing all of the particulars, I agree with the Supreme Court decision. This may be surprising to those who know me as a proud Liberal, but I believe that the Second Amendment applies to state and local government as well as the District of Columbia.

That said, Conservatives should think twice before they rejoice. This is a case of an activist court imposing its view of the Constitution, ignoring precedent, and taking a matter out of state and local control. As a Liberal, I am all about individual rights, including owning a gun. However, there is nothing in the Constitution which guarantees an individual the right to defend himself against a crime. The Second Amendment has been interpreted to refer to a state militia. This Court has expanded its definition. As a Liberal I am not against expanding the definition of the Constitution, but for Conservatives, they should think about this victory.

As a side note, I hear the claims that gun control laws only help criminals. The problem is not the law, but the proliferaion of guns. Do you know where criminals get their guns? They buy them off the street. The sellers are usually those who have broken into homes and stole them from law-abiding citizens. Just recently in my home town, a woman was beaten up by a burglar who broke into her home. Oh, by the way, he stole two guns from her house. Having a gun or two did not save this woman from being beaten up and now two more guns are out on the street to be used in a crime.

Also, one guy from a guns rights organization, who happy about the Supreme Court decision, is now working to allow those who have been convicted of misdemeanor domestic assault to be allowed to purchase a gun. Just what we need: to put guns into the hands of men who beat up their wives. Does anyone else see this as a recipe for disaster?

Before the gun ban, bad crime. After the gun ban, worse crime. Granted, you can muddy the water with other stuff you say happened in the mean time (growing population or something, though that’s not always the case), but in any case there’s NO solid evidence that the ban helped. Meanwhile, many cities without gun bans have had a decrease in crime rates over the same period. And of course, criminals themselves tell us they prefer targeting people they know are unarmed. It’s only logical.

But overriding all of that is that EVEN IF the ban helped in some small degree, it’s STILL trumping citizens’ RIGHTS, so whatever else you might say in favor of gun bans only demonstrates you don’t think highly enough of individual rights.

Reply 10.9 makes a few interesting comments. The first is as follows: “The point is, it is perfectly reasonable, to have “more restrictions in DC or Chicago, where there may be greater risk of being attacked by people” because their greatest risk factor in being attacked (or shot accidentally) may be the exact result of the easy availability of handguns.” If I’m reading this correctly, it seems that the writer thinks since criminals(who already break gun laws by using guns to commit crimes) are more prevelant in Big Cities, it is a good idea to add even more laws that these criminals will break. As a reminder, criminals in Chicago are breaking Federal Laws against minors possessing guns, convicted felons from possessing guns, as well as Federal Laws against using guns in the operating a criminal enterprise. This is on top of willfully breaking Chicago’s laws prohibiting handguns, and laws against rape, robbery and murder. I bet they’ll obey a “reasonable restriction”.
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The 2nd dusey is “I’ll add that a city’s ban on handguns doesn’t infringe on anyone’s right to defend themselves because a shotgun is a better home defense weapon”. There are two flaws in this. First, to Infringe means to tresspass or encroach upon, to violate or break. Telling me an entire class of arms is off limits, is an encroachment, and therefore is an infringement.
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Your comment about a shotgun being a better home defense weapon also shows a general lack of knowledge. A shotgun can be more effective in certain situations. In others, like extremely tight quarters, the short length and rapid pointability of a handgun can outweigh the superior power of the shotgun. If a person is not strong enough or large enough to confidently use a 12 gauge shotgun, even a .38 special is a far better home defense weapon… FOR THEM. You also forget about situations where the homeowner has only one hand free for the weapon. Holding a criminal at bay with a shotgun precludes calling 911 for help, using a .45 doesn’t Lastly, if you haven’t done it yet, try firing a shotgun in a dark hallway sometime. You will find yourself blinded and deafened by the blast. Hard to tell if your family is still in danger when you can’t see or hear anything.

Read more: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/06/28/re-scotus-solidifies-gun-rights/#ixzz0sHJirpNL

I am Spartacus. No wait, I am Stuart Zechman.

It would be laughable if the crimes this low life commits were not so dastardly.

Even worse, technology provides a fertile hiding ground for worms like this man and his wife Eve Sharon Moore who WITHOUT technological advancements and their ability to hide themselves while tracking, molesting and violating innocent folk would have probably been on death row for the sheer viciousness of their crimes.

There is an immutable fact about crimes and it has lasted for centuries. The types may change, the mode of effecting them may be altered but these vagrants once fingered are eventually caught.

It is silly for this StuartZechman and his multi aliased drones to be here and posting with no vigorous effort mounted to examine the veracity of my strong statements that this man, Eve Sharon Moore and their cohorts are CRIMINALS of the worst sort who use technology to rob and violate in the worst manner imaginable.

*Sigh* sometimes I wonder how different we are from a banana republic when criminal scum can glide under the radar undetected, un-apprehended and free on account of a gleefully unaware public.

Time, time time. The criminal always gets caught, always.

LM
http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/stalking-criminality-the-law-and-women/