Mass Shooting at DK premiere in CO!

[trish]

That's actually kind of along the lines of what I was trying to point out. In that situation the crack is the actual cause of the gun crime, not the guns themselves. If all the energy that was focused by the citizens and the police was on getting rid of guns and not the crack, the true cause behind the crime would still be prevailent.

Once you realize crack heads uses guns to commit crimes you need effective GUN REGULATION to keep guns out of the hands of drug abusers.

[Queens Guy]

Can I suggest you look at the figures and explanations for the decline in gun-related crimes in Washington DC since the 1990s? A key cause of such crimes was the crack cocaine epidemic and turf wars among the dealers. One part of the decline was harsh policing; but another was the generation who watched their parents and elders getting shot when zonked out of their brains who decided to 'just say no' -thus the market for crack cocaine declined, and with it the gun-related crime: cause and effect. Has gun ownership in Washington DC declined? I don't know, but its use in crime does seem to have.

There is NO LEGAL GUN OWNERSHIP in Washington, DC. At least there wasn't until the recent lawsuit by the name of Heller vs. D.C. which was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Heller, the lead Plaintiff in the lawsuit, was a Special Police Officer at the U.S. Supreme Court Library. He wasn't some 'ordinary Joe'. He was trained and was armed while at work. But, Washington, D.C. wouldn't give him a license to carry his gun when he went home.

Chicago, until the recent decision of McDonald vs. Chicago, didn't allow any civilian to own a gun in his own home. Again, not even in his own home. McDonald, the plaintiff who wanted to protect himself in his home in 'a bad part of town' was in his 60's or 70's and never had trouble in the law. As of today, Chicago still don't allow ANY civilian to carry a weapon on the street.

The laws of D.C. and Chicago is one of the reasons why 'gun rights' people don't trust 'gun control' people when they speak of 'passing reasonable gun control legislation'. In Chicago and D.C. 'reasonable' was determined to be a complete ban. Those 2 cities have a lot of gun violence, with not 1 legal gun on the street.

[shaustin]

"I didn't know it was loaded!!"

Anyone who ever says this after a shot is fired deserves to have the next one hit them in the forehead. Like I said, if your going to own a gun and have children, educate them. If you pick up a weapon you always check for ammunition, period. No adult who isn't a child mentally would ever say that, and no child who isn't mature enough should be allowed access to firearms. Anyone who uses "I didn't know it was loaded." is full of shit or was failed by an adult who should be held responsible in their place.

[loren]

The modern interpretation of the Constitution and how it would be applied by the present court is relatively clear on the issue. The actual Constitution is not so clear on application. What is made clear in the Constitution is one of the founding intentions, namely the recognized state militias will in part be armed by the private expenditures of the soldiers themselves, be they drafted or volunteers. It was a cost cutting procedure. There is absolutely no evidence it was originally intended so that the citizens would be enabled to carry out an armed revolt against their own government. The explicit intent was to arm the government in part at private expense.

Umm no. The Second Ammendment is quite clear: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State (Each State used to have it's own militia. The closest modern equivalient we have is the National Guard. These State Guard units were for all intents and purpposes private armies that the governors could call upon to deal with civil disorder, incursions, securing the State's borders, etc.), the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed (it doesn't say the right of the militia, it says the right of the people)."

And as for your statement that it was never intended that the citizens should be able to rise up in revolt against the government; firstly, in the Declatation of Independence it says, "...That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, ..." The Founding Fathers envisioned a day when the very government they were forming would turn against it's citizens. Furthermore, the wording of the Second Ammendment gives the people, not the militia. (BTW the militia mentioned in this ammendment doesn't really concern the Army which was already established in the Constitution.) It only mentions that the militia should be well regulated while giving the people the individual right to own and possess firearms.

[loren]

Anyone who ever says this after a shot is fired deserves to have the next one hit them in the forehead. Like I said, if your going to own a gun and have children, educate them. If you pick up a weapon you always check for ammunition, period. No adult who isn't a child mentally would ever say that, and no child who isn't mature enough should be allowed access to firearms. Anyone who uses "I didn't know it was loaded." is full of shit or was failed by an adult who should be held responsible in their place.

[buttslinger]

In high school, one of the twins I had known since he was a little kid shot himself to death.playing Russian roulette. In elementary school, my buddy two doors down shot himself accidentally. Twice. Years later his big brother shot a hole in his leg with a .45 and had to crawl a long ways through the woods, bleeding profusely. The safety had been on. The cop actually shot it off again in the house with the safety on.
Moral of the story: Guns are Dangerous!!!!

[trish]

Umm no. The Second Ammendment is quite clear:

Yes. Citizens have the right to bear arms. One reason for this right is to make it possible for private citizens to join or be drafted into a state militia and provide their own weapon. I never said those two aspects of the amendment were unclear. But those are the only two aspects of the amendment. Everything else is unclear. What sort of arms? Tactical nukes? Bazookas? Surface to air missiles? Automatic assault weapons. None of these existed even in the dreams of our founders. How the 2nd Amendment is to be applied is not at all made clear by the amendment itself, but is rather delineated by the history of precedents set by the various courts over the course of time. As the amendment continues to be interpreted by each new court its meaning and application will vary and evolve. How and in what direction is as unclear as the future.

And as for your statement that it was never intended that the citizens should be able to rise up in revolt against the government

Yes the founders thought that U.S. citizens should revolt against the U.S. government.

[BluegrassCat]

Yes the founders thought that U.S. citizens should revolt against the U.S. government.

Exactly. That's why George Washington joined the Whiskey Rebellion and led them to victory, overthrowing the newly formed United States.

[shaustin]

Yes the founders thought that U.S. citizens should revolt against the U.S. government.

This is actually a known fact. The founding fathers may have lived in another time, but they knew just about as much about tyranny and corruption as anyone today. They foresaw the possibility that the institution they were establishing could be used against the people just like any other ruling party throughout history. So in plain language, they stated their wish that were such a time to ever come the people uphold the same obligation they themselves felt during their fight for independence. They wanted to ensure that the government they bled to create would always be used to serve the people, and that the people it was founded to protect would never be oppressed by the governments whim.

[trish]

They wanted to ensure that the government they bled to create would always be used to serve the people...

And to do so said government has to survive and not be overturned, otherwise it would be some other government serving the people and the founders wouldn't be our founders anymore. In spite of the "known facts" the founders obviously never intended U.S. citizens to overthrow the U.S. government. They instead did their very best to create a system of checks and balances with an amendable Constitution just to avoid that eventuality.

The Declaration gives the then British citizens in the colonies rousing arguments to rise up against Britain. When those words were written the U.S. didn't exist yet. The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution does not explicitly harken back to those words in the Declaration. It would have been easy to explicitly write down such a connection when composing the 2nd Amendment. The writers chose not to.

Very little is clear when it comes to the 2nd Amendment's raison d'etre. It is the courts that need to apply that interpret it and provide the current intent of the Amendment. None of those precedents (as far as I know) entail the need for U.S. citizens to defend themselves against the U.S. government or to overthrow said government.