The right to idiocy

You are right.

It is odd that so many Americans get so excercised over the issue of the right to bear arms and yet the right not to die of a treatable illness becuase you happen to be too poor to pay for healthcare is one that seens to not bother them at all.

With regards the US murder rate, I have seen it seriously argued that is becuase the US is a more violent society. It may well be, but one would have thought that the more violent a society is the fewer guns you would want to have around.

What's the murder rate in Switzerland where people are compelled by law to keep assault rifles at home and there is one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland
After turning 18, any individual can buy singleshot or semiautomatic long arms (breech-loading or muzzle-loading) without a permit. Likewise, members of a recognized rifle association do not need a buying permit for purchasing antique repeaters, and hunters do not need one for buying typical hunting rifles.

Murder rates have nothing to do with the right to own firearms, and everything to do with a violent culture.

wheyghey,

The number of murders carried out using firearms in Switzerland is one of the highest in Europe, although the overall murder rate is lower than average. Can you explain that ? Can you explain why you failed to mention that ? If the level of gun ownership has nothing to do with the murder rate there will be no correlation between gun ownership and the number of people murdered using guns. Yet there is. That correlation needs explaining, and you have not bothered to do so.

uhh.... Gun violence and health care rights have nothing to do with each other.

Regardless of what the constitution says or does not say I certainly have the right to protect myself in any manner that I see fit.

There are also plenty of countries with even higher gun ownership rates and even less gun violence than the U.S. To use your health care analogy - eliminating guns is like treating illness, often the drug is only covering up the symptoms not getting at the route of the problem.

Matt,
If you could get to school by walking or driving which would you choose? If there were no cars you would have to walk to work - but since there are cars most people would prefer to drive. It's just easier.

Cars aren't the reason people go to work.

ohh... and one other thing... gun ownership should be regulated like hell...

Steve,

The point of gun rights and healthcare is to demonstate how screwed up the moral values are of those Americans who think they have a right to bear arms, but refuse to counterance anyform of social healthcare system.

There are certainly countires with a higher rate of gun ownership than the US, and with a lower murder rate. I suspect if you reduced the number of guns in those countries the murder rate would be even lower. However the US seems to be a violent society. The idea that in such a violent country, and the US in comparison to Western Europe, Australia or New Zealand is a very violent place, guns should be so freely availible seems bizzare.

To turn the analogy of healtcare back at you, sometimes the symptoms need to be dealt with, even whilst dealing with the cause of the disease. If you have a headache which is down to a brain tumor you will not cure the problem with painkillers. You can howver make it more bearable. You argument would deny people painkillers on the grounds they do not cure the disease.

Along with wheyghey, I don't think ownership of weapons itself causes a problem, uneven ownership and natural tendency for violence across the whole society causes the problems. I'm looking at a research document right now, don't know where the numbers are from but it shows that from the period of time spanning 1977-1994 states with concealed carry laws before that span had a homicide rate of 6.88 per 100,000 people as opposed to states with no conceal carry laws which stood at 9.75 homicides per 100,000 across the same time. States that implemented concealed carry laws during the study actually were the worst ones, with a pre-implementation rate of 10.96 per 100,000 that dropped to 9.95 per 100,000 after concealed carry laws were made.

Table can be found at,
http://tinyurl.com/5sok3c

We may have high homicide rates, but in the places where someone else can carry a gun under their jacket just as easily as you can, the amount of deaths is actually lower.

"We may have high homicide rates, but in the places where someone else can carry a gun under their jacket just as easily as you can, the amount of deaths is actually lower."

I dispute that claim. Did you take into account all the accidental deaths caused by guns ? If not, can you do so and confirm if that claim still stands. All I also do not like the use of the term accidental. Accidental implies no blame, and yet I imagine in most cases where someome is killed or injured by a gun there is either intent or negligence.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html

The U.S. has a higher non-gun murder rate than many European country's total murder rates. On the other hand, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Mexico have non-gun murder rates in excess of our total murder rate.

Violent culture = more murders

In 1993 a Swiss professor, Martin Killias, published a study of 18 countries concerning gun ownership, homicide and suicide. He in part concluded there was a weak correlation between total homicide and gun ownership. For a partial criticism of his study see Dunblane Misled where using the countries studied by Killias, these researchers found a much stronger correlation between firearm homicides and car ownership.

Using homicide and suicide data from a larger sample of countries, 35, (International Journal of Epidemiology 1998:27:216), Kleck found "no significant (at the 5% level) association between gun ownership levels and the total homicide rate in the largest sample of nations available to study this topic. (Associations with the total suicide rate were even weaker.)" (Targeting Guns, p 254.)

A more recent study, by Killias, concludes "no significant correlations with toal suicide or homicide rates were found, leaving open the question of possible substitution effects."

...from the period of time spanning 1977-1994 states with concealed carry laws before that span had a homicide rate of 6.88 per 100,000 people as opposed to states with no conceal carry laws which stood at 9.75 homicides per 100,000 across the same time.

Which, unfortunately, tells us almost nothing. There's no attempt to account for counfounding factors; perhaps more rural states are more likely to implement concealed-carry laws, whereas gun crime is more prevalent in urban areas, for instance.

States that implemented concealed carry laws during the study actually were the worst ones, with a pre-implementation rate of 10.96 per 100,000 that dropped to 9.95 per 100,000 after concealed carry laws were made.

And that tells us even less. If in each of those states gun crime started out high and gradually declined throughout the period in question, you'd get similar results.

There are certain complexities to the situation that are ignored by the attempt to boil this problem down to empirical figures of murder rates. I live in the District of Columbia, and I consider myself a liberal (heck, my law firm even represented the District in defending the gun ban). I disagree with the Supreme Court's decision on a number of levels, but I am personally glad that the law will disappear.

In order to eliminate guns in one part of a highly mobile society like the US, it would be necessary to ban guns everywhere. After all, there are no licensed gun dealers in Washington D.C. (that I know of), but I am told that it is a trivial matter to get a gun directly or indirectly from Virginia, North Carolina, and other states to the south.

In order to eliminate guns in Washington DC, it would be necessary to eliminate them in all of those other places. Not only might a "one size fits all" law not be ideal in every application, there is also a strong argument to be made against dictating uniformity amongst the states. The recent debates over same-sex marriage demonstrate the corollary. Some states have taken the courageous step of allowing same sex marriage, even though a majority of states would probably like to prevent them. Are people in California, New York and Massachusetts prepared to take direction from Virginia, North Carolina etc. on that issue?

One of the downsides of the "laboratory of democracy" that is our federalist republic is that the people of the individual states should be allowed to make their own choices. The Sup. Ct.'s decision is bad because it subverts the overwhelming democratic will of the District's residents, but (as I said) I am personally glad because I think that democratic will is misguided -- when all of the states in the region clamp down on the gun trade, then I would support banning them here too. For now, if guns are so easy to get, I don't want to be a criminal for getting one too (if I choose to do that).

The fact that the will of the majority can be restricted makes this country worth living in. I don't want your right to free speech and religion voted away. I also don't want creationism taught in public schools, etc.

... Thanks, Founding Fathers....

Time to grow up America.

Yes- we as Americans prefer to not be subjects- if you have no right to defend yourself against the crimes of others (including potentially your own government) then you are subject to whatever their will is. One of Hitler's first steps in his genocidal plans was to rid everyone of their means of defending themselves- yes- first it was gun registration- then all of the guns were taken away. Look at the worst dictatorships across the world and those in power control those who are not because THEY have the weapons- the power. Do I want to control the world? Of course not (who has the time?;-) but I can tell you that I don't want the will of my government imposed upon me should it go off the deep end. Additionally, we may have a high number of gun related deaths- but I imagine our death by knife and beatings is far lower than in our own country- homocides happen everyday without guns- and far more brutally. I have to wonder- had the professor or one of the students at Virginia Tech had a gun- would the shooter have been able to kill so many? Probably not---

correction to above- the rates of death by beating and knife killings (ie machete) is far greater in other countries than our own.

Being a Veteran and a female, whom is an absolute advocate for the right to bear arms, I had to add my piece. Violence is not relevant to the tools used to carry out violence, at least in the manner points are made in this forum. A high death rate due to falling in bathtubs, does not make bathtubs the cause. They exist on singular plains. Without guns, violent acts are still carried out. This is due to humans being violent. If you evaluate the difference between accidental deaths caused by guns verses the beneficial aspects of being able to protect your own life, it is an unsolvable conundrum. People seem to be lost in the numbers and fail to recollect the real purpose of being able to carry a gun. The real purpose is a combination of the natural right to protect one's own life as well as the ability to partake in the power that a government holds and to hold that power should citizens need to cross the government in order to set it right. If you strip arms from civilians, you strip the ability to combat power gone awry. Giving away your rights to coincide with individuals in power still having those rights, only segments the layman from the leaders. This segmentation is far more detrimental to our existence and survival than accidental deaths caused by humans accidentally killing other humans. If you question the detrimental attributes of power, just look at the Iraq war and the countless deaths as an outcome of one man�s decisions. It is not simply a marketing strategy to state that guns don't kill people, people do. It is fact.

KAS

SnBelle,

Fantastic points. I am pleased to read another comment of reason. We can learn no more than to evaluate our past and then to modify our future to avoid the same outcomes.

KAS

KAS - People might kill people, but its generally easier to take out a whole McDonalds with a handgun or assault rifle than it is with a steak-knife or large piece of wood with a nail hammered into the end of it...

The research I'm most familiar with is Australia and New Zealand. Both have seen significant drops in gunshot inflicted death since restrictions on ownership and type. The effect on the suicide rate is probably the most dramatic.

One of Hitler's first steps in his genocidal plans was to rid everyone of their means of defending themselves- yes- first it was gun registration- then all of the guns were taken away.

First of all, that's not true. Gun control in Germany was introduced under the Weimar Republic, rather than under Hitler. The Nazis did introduce more gun restrictions in 1938, but that was just a modification of existing law.

Second, I'm not sure what is supposed to follow from that anyway. Yes, dictators prefer it if individuals don't have guns. That doesn't mean that individuals lacking guns makes genocidal dictatorships more likely, or that gun restrictions are the first step towards dictatorship.

"The research I'm most familiar with is Australia and New Zealand. Both have seen significant drops in gunshot inflicted death since restrictions on ownership and type. The effect on the suicide rate is probably the most dramatic."

And the rest of the violent crimes have gone through the roof since the ban. I cannot think of a single country that has had any sort of positive affect caused by a gun ban. Frankly, I don't think it matters if the shooting rate goes down when the stabbing rate in any given country rises to fill that gap and then exceeds it. Never mind the break-in rates and everything else that comes with the fact that criminals know they have a good chance of getting away with whatever the hell they want as long as they get in, do their job, and get out before the cops arrive.

As for 'well-regulated militia' and 'shall not be infringed' there is no contradiction there if you understand what was meant by a 'militia' - this was every man who was in healthy, fighting condition and could theoretically go to war if necessary. The idea behind this was that a majority of the population should have similar weapons as the military would in case a revolution had to occur. 'Well-regulated' simply means that there needs to be some form of order so it doesn't turn into mob rule. Of course, they didn't directly factor in personal self-defense since the idea that we would reach a period in time where people would want to take away the best available means to self-defense to suit their paranoia was the farthest thing from their minds.

I fail to see the ambiguity in the words of the second amendment. Merely an addressing of more than one of the reasons to keep and bear arms.

I don't see any reason to add to what SnBelle, KAS, Thomas M. and Joseph Brenner have said.

It is nice to see that some people still understand the actual meaning and importance of the second amendment even if Mr. Hrynyshyn does not.

I'll give him credit for at least saying that it "has to go" rather than trying to parse its meaning to fit his political opinions. There are plenty of people that want to "interpret" it into some idiotic declaration of the right of the military to posses weapons.

guns are bad, people!

Guns should be banned. No room for argument. There is no need to own a gun, guns serve ONE purpose and ONE purpose only...to kill. Who are you al you gun owners planning to kill? And what is this "self-defense" thing, if people are attacking you that much to the point you have come in your life you need to carry a gun to protect you...maybe you should stop pissing people off and provoking them to want to kick your ass all the time. Just because someone dosen't own a gun dosen't mean they are going to be assaulted and just because you have a gun dosen't mean you won't. Besides, having the "right" to do something dosen't mean you should constantly inititiate that right and use it whenever and wherever you want! That is where common sense comes in..I mean freedom of speece if a right; so does that mean because it is a "right" that is acceptable for me to stand up during a funeral and give a political speech? Just because I have that "right?" Every single person I know that owns a gun, and crows on and on about "gun rights" are the last people on earth that should ever be given any type of weapon at all. Responsible, mature, educated and stable adults that know how to function like adults...don't need guns to make them feel empowered, they have their mind to do that.