The FAST Approaching Gun Ban

[fivekatz]

The problem is that you cannot cherry pick which rights you like or dislike. It's like the far right with their attempts at censorship over the years, they didn't necessarily see those attempts as really abridging the right to free speech, but the reality is that it did.

I guess my contention is that the right as interpreted today by the NRA in fact does not exist. The second amendment does not state that the right to arms has no obligation of registration, nor does it have a restriction on type.

Using the NRA's definition of this right, I have the right to own a fighter jet fitted with nuclear warheads and a half a dozen drones. Not only would I not need a license for the weapons, if I bought them from a private party I would have no need to even have the purchase recorded.

Since the NRA pivoted in the late 70's as an interest group for gun enthusiasts into a powerful lobby for gun manufacturers the issue has become dramatized in my opinion.

It is now painted as a total assault on individual gun ownership as opposed to an issue of having a responsible framework for gun ownership that contributes to the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans.

All I know is that the status quo is out of hand. Far more Americans per capita die from senseless gun violence than any other country in the developed world.

If the assault in Newtown had been by terrorists with IEDs instead of an American kid with assault weapons, the cries for a Patriot Act II would be deafening.

Laws as interpreted regarding guns today IMHO are as out of touch with the 21st Century as were the ideas that women could not vote and African slaves were 3/5 of a human being.

[buttslinger]

Section A of the Washington Post today was all gun talk, some highlights:

Reagan was pro gun control in 1968 because he was afraid of the Black Panthers walking around strapped. Back then the NRA accepted new gun conrol measures because it didn't affect sportsmen.

One of the presidents of the NRA had shot and killed a 17 year old kid, got off on appeal,,,self defense.

The NRA played a big part in Gore's loss for President, they swayed Democratic gun owners in Tennesee and Kentucky.

In the decade 1900-1910 there was ONE mass shooting in the US.
The Brady Bill had seemingly no affect on mass shootings.

[trish]

The Brady Bill was shot full of loopholes (the gunshow loophole for one), rendering it ineffective.

http://community.seattletimes.nwsour...ug=gunchecks22

[buttslinger]

My damn memory is full of loopholes, Trishikins, but this chart would seem to prove that crazy is here to stay.


EDIT The math on my left chart doesn't add up with the chart on my right.
so nevermind

[jennylicious]

Changing the culture is a pretty tall order. Even more of a challenge than restricting some of the weapons in my view.

In the US last week i looked at some of the gun magazines. Apart from the vast numbers of adverts, the articles are either very technical (understandable) or tend to glorify the weaponry - and its role in making America great. The position is essentially an aggressively nationalistic one. Lots of stars and stripes.

In the advertising there were several of scantily clad and glamorous young women - some girls in bikinis - toting big guns - conflating sexuality with weaponry.

This is what the government should stop. Not their right to sell, or the right to own, but the deliberate glorification, sexualisation, and intrinsic association with national identity.

When the tobacco industry finally admitted there was a link to cancer they said on television that "There would be no Marlboro man". It's time companies took responsibility for how they market guns.

[broncofan]

I appreciate that the cultural dimension is getting a discussion here (see Prospero and Jenny's posts) because there's not a flattering portrait of gun owners to be painted.

To me, the emphasis on guns reflects the frustration and marginalization of many men who have failed to make the transition to adulthood. I know that sounds judgmental, but that's my take. They realize that being an adult man means doing things that don't explicitly call upon their full androgenic capacity like balancing a checkbook or showing up day after day to work. They yearn for conflict, for usefulness; all of the things they thought were going to define them as men when they were kids. They want to be tough, to be menacing, to be the bad boy and not the balding bureaucrat.

The social construct of masculinity is driven by the imperative to push to further extremes of ridiculous and out-moded behavior in order to define one's status as a man. In that sense what could be more masculine than buying a weapon that is more likely to blow off your child's face than harm an intruder? To them, being a man doesn't mean having utility in the world as we find it but in the world as it would be constructed by some poorly adjusted adults nostalgic about their youth. You can't take away their guns because with it you steal away their fantasies.

[Ben]

American author William Blum: "The crazed and the disturbed will always walk amongst us. What we must do is strive to deny them the facile ability to engage in mass murder. Everything else being equal, if the Connecticut killer's mother didn't have an arsenal of guns at home, including an assault weapon, the story would probably have been a very different one. Ah, but I hear you asking – on the left and on the right – so you wanna let the government have all the guns and the people nothing to defend themselves with? To which I reply: Do you really think the people could hold their own in an armed battle with the police and the military?"

[fivekatz]

Great point Ben. The idea that the citizens would over take a government run a muck in armed combat is pretty silly to me. Much more could be done through non-violent actions to bring about regime change should things ever come to a point where it would be necessary.

While mass murder tends to create temporary news cycles that create national conversation about gun safety standards (it IMO the real issue is about public safety not control) only a small % of the 11,000 a year that perish in the US do so in mass shootings.

[Ben]

THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT
University of California at Davis Law Review:

http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Bogus2.htm

[fivekatz]

Great read. 27 words with so many interpretations...