The FAST Approaching Gun Ban

[Ben]

Costa Rica Hunting Ban Passed Unanimously By Congress:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...gn=scribol.com

[martin48]

What you should be worried about in the US!

Who says, "Guns don't kill people..."? In the case of homicides, no coroner ever pronounced a human being to be an immediate cause of death nor the underlying cause of death. The reported underlying cause may refer to arteries torn or severed by penetration wounds, blockages caused by lodged projectiles etc.

Bullets are the underlying cause of death in approximately 70% of the homicides in the U.S. Those bullets were fired with guns. Yes, those guns were fired by murderers. Yet as the availability of high tech firearms increases, those murderers have become more efficient: even though firearm related crime in the U.S. is high, the nonfatal firearm-related crime is down.

[Ben]

The Founding Fathers vs. The Gun Nuts:

[robertlouis]

With visibly unhinged conspiracy nuts like Alex Jones on the loose - who achieves the impossible by making Piers Morgan look like a reasonable human being - the gun lobby needs more credible spokesmen. This man is crazy. Maybe he should be deported instead of Morgan.

yahoo.com/alex-jones-piers-morgan-interview-cnn-rant-on-gun-control-113924767.html#MUeDtfn

[Ben]

With visibly unhinged conspiracy nuts like Alex Jones on the loose - who achieves the impossible by making Piers Morgan look like a reasonable human being - the gun lobby needs more credible spokesmen. This man is crazy. Maybe he should be deported instead of Morgan.

yahoo.com/alex-jones-piers-morgan-interview-cnn-rant-on-gun-control-113924767.html#MUeDtfn

I'm not sure what to make of Alex Jones. I mean, he's entertaining. I don't take him too seriously. But a lot do.

[Ben]

Alex Jones...

Armed Mafia Are Stalking Us: Post Piers Morgan Debate:

[Prospero]

Wowww......Alex Jones is seriously scarey - and I suspect he has his followers here. He broadcasts to millions, god help us. Little children die, but these nutjobs insist they've the right to own military style guns Jones is unhinged and his bellicosity is truly frightening.

I have just spent nearly a month in the US and it terrifying to see the level of violent hatred and ignorance levelled by the gun lobby against anyone who dares to suggest that there be any further restrictions on guns.

AI remained convinced, as i was on the day of the Sandy Hook slaughter that there will be no successful move to limit this madness. The NRA is too powerful - and the new Congress will blockl all and any attempts to dent this growing madness.

The next big shooting - thirty, forty, fifty deaths?. No chance of change following that either.

The second amendment calls for the right of a "well regulated militia" to have guns - not every ordinary man and woman on the street.

[NYBURBS]

The Founding Fathers vs. The Gun Nuts:

Some quotes which would seem to refute much of what he claims about the Founding Fathers and early America's perception about the right to keep and bear arms:

"No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." (Thomas Jefferson, Proposal to Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334,[C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950] )

"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." (Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William S. Smith in 1787. Taken from Jefferson, On Democracy 20, S. Padover ed., 1939)

"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."

George Mason
Co-author of the Second Amendment
during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788

"The great object is that every man be armed" and "everyone who is able may have a gun." (Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution. Debates and other Proceedings of the Convention of Virginia,...taken in shorthand by David Robertson of Petersburg, at 271, 275 2d ed. Richmond, 1805. Also 3 Elliot, Debates at 386)

"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
(James Madison, The Federalist Papers #46 at 243-244)

"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves …"
Richard Henry Lee - Delegate to the Second Continental Congress
writing in Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic, Letter XVIII, May, 1788.

"… the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms"
Philadelphia Federal Gazette
June 18, 1789, Pg. 2, Col. 2
Article on the Bill of Rights

"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the Press, or the rights of Conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; …"
Samuel Adams
quoted in the Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, August 20, 1789, "Propositions submitted to the Convention of this State"

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States" (Noah Webster in `An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution', 1787, a pamphlet aimed at swaying Pennsylvania toward ratification, in Paul Ford, ed., Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States, at 56(New York, 1888))

"Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state government, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people" (Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788) -PA Delegate to the Continental Congress

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike especially when young, how to use them." (Richard Henry Lee, 1788, Initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights, Walter Bennett, ed., Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican, at 21,22,124 (Univ. of Alabama Press,1975)..)

[NYBURBS]

On a related note, I personally think that any bans on certain types of firearms or magazines should also apply to both federal and state law enforcement agencies. If something is truly a "weapon of war" then the FBI and state/local police have no business owning it either.

[Dave32111]

~snip~
The second amendment calls for the right of a "well regulated militia" to have guns - not every ordinary man and woman on the street.

That's not even how it reads - perhaps you missed the USSC clarification of an individual's right to possess arms? Wiki of DC v. Heller