Oh the Irony

[kenberg]

I think this argument that guns are needed to protect the citizenry from an oppressive government really needs to be put out to pasture. If a group of individuals wants to seriously attack the U.S, or other major, . government., we know how this is done in the modern world. Hijack a plane and fly it into a building. Put poison in the water supply. Use biological weapons. Civilians using guns to take on the U.S. government is the approach of the Lee Harvey Oswalds and Squeaky Frommes of the world. If I see some guy walking down the street with an AK-47 and he tells me that he is out to protect me from the oppressive federal government I first get the hell out of there and second call the cops.

 

Actually, like Cherdano, that reminds me of an incident. Quite a few years back I was driving to downtown D.C. and picked up a hitchhiker near the University. I thought he was a student. He wasn't. He went on and on about various affronts, and as we got near the NRA building he asked me if I thought they could help him. I said yes. I was sure they could. I would have said that McDonald's could help him if that would have gotten him out of the car. Then I did stop and tell a cop about this. I think the cop thought that it was me that was nuts. Anyway, I guess there was not much he could do.

 

 

At any rate, for all those who wish to arm themselves to protect me from Barak Obama's plan to turn this into a socialist Islamic state, I plead that you leave me out of your plans.

[Fluffy]

I had this random thought today: US haven't been conquered ever, and I think there is a real chance that they won't ever be, but if they were all those guns would probably make the conquer harder. Maybe slightly or maybe really tough, not sure.

[BunnyGo]

I had this random thought today: US haven't been conquered ever, and I think there is a real chance that they won't ever be, but if they were all those guns would probably make the conquer harder. Maybe slightly or maybe really tough, not sure.

 

There are no shortage of alternate history and apocalypse books about this subject...

[nige1]

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The NRA twists this to justify possession of hand-guns and rifles. But do these toys really qualify as state-of-the art armaments? We, who take our constitutional duties seriously, would never settle for less than a tactical nuclear weapon. My family keeps ours in a secure kitchen-cupboard, to which only we have keys. It affords us effective protection. Alone at home, my seven year old daughter was able to get rid of an annoying busybody, simply by threatening to take out half the city.

Nuclear weapons don't kill, people do

[kenberg]

The simple fact is that most of the scenarios put forth by the NRA and it's supporters seem downright nuts to the rest of us. Take the suggestion that we put armed guards in every school. I don't know how many schools we have in this country, but reasonable estimate is that there are a very great many. Now puttinh a gun into someone's hand does not automatically make him a responsible user of the weapon. Unless these guards are highly trained, it would make matters worse. And it really cannot be just train them, post them, forget them, they have to be monitored. Surely someone with a conservative bent can understand that such a massive program will have its weaknesses. No doubt some instances of serious weakness. And to the extent it is successful, what is the result? A large number of highly trained personnel sitting around on their duffs doing nothing. But of course then work will be found for them. Johnny mouths off to the teacher and he is sent to Officer O'Reilly who will stand there with his gun in his holster, I hope it stays in his holster, giving the kid what for. We want this do we? I don't.

 

Susan Eisenhower grew up with armed guards watching over her. Necessary for the granddaughter of a president, but she didn't much like it or think that this is the best way to bring up kids.

http://www.washingto...fecd_story.html

 

Of course Ms. Eisenhower is one of those wild-eyed liberal commies no doubt.

 

At any rate, I find the arguments put forth by the NRA to be totally nuts. Not just wrong, nuts. This does not mean that I think we should totally ban weapons. We need a serious discussion. But we have to realize that the NRA does not really discuss the issue or work toward common sense solutions, they are adamant and unyielding. Charlton Heston's comment about his cold dead hands frames their views very clearly. Perhaps we can come to a solutino, perhaps not, but the first step has to be the realization that there is not a snowball's chance that the NRA will play a productive role. The public should ignore their pronouncements, and insist that their elected representatives do likewise.

[billw55]

Actually, many schools already have police officers on duty. My wife works on the discipline team at a medium size high school. They have an officer on site full time, and he has enough work to do. The other two public high schools in town also have an officer. Grade schools do not.

 

The problem with the public ignoring the NRA, is that a fair number of the public support the NRA and their actions; and want their reps to listen to them.

[Trinidad]

So, what does a police officer at an American high school do all day that justifies his full time presence? Is the crime rate in a population of a couple of thousand American teenagers so high that it justifies permanent supervision by a law officer?

 

I can envision assigning a police officer to a school, in the sense that this is the officer you turn to when the school needs one. I can see advantages of combining a police station and a school in one building. But I cannot see that a school would give a police officer a full work week.

 

Rik

[blackshoe]

As for Jefferson, I'm old enough to recall those heady days before 2008 when the second amendment wasn't viewed as an individual right.

I very much look forward to returning to such interpretations of the Constitution.

Your memory is flawed.

[hrothgar]

 

> I'm old enough to recall those heady days before 2008 when the second amendment wasn't viewed as an individual right.

>I very much look forward to returning to such interpretations of the Constitution.

 

Your memory is flawed.

 

No, it's realities well known liberal bias.

 

Here's the opening paragraph's to Wikipedia's write up on the 2nd amendment

 

The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court of the United States first ruled in 2008 that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess and carry firearms.[1]

 

In 2008 and 2010, the Supreme Court issued two landmark decisions officially establishing this interpretation. In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm, unconnected to service in a militia[1][2] and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home within many longstanding prohibitions and restrictions on firearms possession listed by the Court as being consistent with the Second Amendment.[3] In McDonald v. Chicago, 5 61 U.S. 3025 (2010), the Court ruled that the Second Amendment limits state and local governments to the same extent that it limits the federal government.[4]

 

If you prefer, here's a quote from former Chief Justice Warren Burger regarding the "Individual Right" interpretation of the second amendment. Admittedly, this wasn't written as part of a formal opinion, however, its pretty hard to get the interpretation wrong.

 

"...one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word ‘fraud,’ on the American public by special interest groups that I’ve ever seen in my life time. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies--the militias--[preamble] would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment [referring to the preamble] refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires."

[blackshoe]

It helps to substitute the word "weapon" for the word "gun". I think it is obvious, even to the most rabid gun advocate, that not all weapons should be legally available to the general public. There is a gradient involved. How damaging does a weapon have to be, for banning it from ordinary citizens to be acceptable? I am pretty sure we don't want just anyone to own a nuclear bomb for example, or nerve gas bombs, etc. How about a fighter plane, should I be able to buy one if I am rich enough? An attack submarine? A tank? Rocket launcher, machine gun, etc ... ? Eventually there has to be a cut off between what we do and do not allow common citizens to own.

 

So Blackshoe, where exactly is the line? (I am not taunting you, just genuinely curious). Fully automatic, burst fire, semi automatic, caliber limit, magazine limit ... what is the upper limit weapon you are advocating for?

In US v. Miller, one of the arguments presented by the defense was that the Second Amendment prohibited the government from regulating sawed off shotguns because a sawed off shotgun was a militia weapon. The Supreme Court declined to rule on this point because the defense did not present any evidence to back up the argument. This in spite of the fact that several justices had served in the militia and knew damn well that a sawed off shotgun was indeed a weapon used by the militia. Had they ruled in agreement with the argument, which seems likely, I think it would be clear that any weapon that would be used by the militia falls under the individual right to bear arms protected by the Second Amendment. That includes tanks, rocket launchers, machine guns, fighter planes and probably submarines.

 

I note that "machine guns," for example the M2A .50 caliber machine gun, are legally available to the general public (last time I checked, anyway), provided that Mr. Public obtains a ($200, again last time I checked) tax stamp. Of course, the government is not AFAIK currently issuing such stamps, but that's just an end run around the Amendment.

 

I would formulate the Golden Rule as the Wiccans do: "An' it harm none, do what thou wilt." On that basis I would have no objection to a private citizen (I think the term "common citizen" is an attempt to demean the citizenry) owning whatever weapons he or she wants, provided that anyone who does harm to another with such weapon(s) other than in self defense or defense of others pays (as in "makes reparations," not as in "goes to jail") for it. And I'm not talking about some minor fine - if you put someone in the hospital, you pay his hospital bills, and his rehab bills, and provide the equivalent to the salary he was earning before you did that until he can go back to work. If you kill someone, you take on all his legal financial obligations - pay his debts, support his family, whatever. If you go broke doing that, too bad.

 

Practically speaking, the liberals and other anti-gun types in this country will never stand for this. So I would compromise. Where to draw the line, though, is a matter of negotiation. I would say that I would accept nothing less than "all individual weapons fall under the Second Amendment". Crew served weapons, WMDs, tanks, ships, and airplanes are negotiable.

[barmar]

So, what does a police officer at an American high school do all day that justifies his full time presence? Is the crime rate in a population of a couple of thousand American teenagers so high that it justifies permanent supervision by a law officer?

Probably the same thing that the guard at a bank does. Most banks are never robbed, and the guards just stand around all day. But the fact that they're there probably serves as a deterrent, and justifies their presence.

 

I suspect police in schools have a little more to do. They can break up fights, deal with drug-related incidents, trespassers, etc. I'd expect cops in inner-city schools would be busier than those in suburbs.

 

However, I'm not with the NRA in believing that this is the solution to gun violence in schools. It might be necessary, but doesn't obviate dealing with the root causes.

[kenberg]

Actually, many schools already have police officers on duty. My wife works on the discipline team at a medium size high school. They have an officer on site full time, and he has enough work to do. The other two public high schools in town also have an officer. Grade schools do not.

 

 

 

If a school; really needs an armed guard, it should have one. The decision should be made on a school by school basis. As far as I know, there are no armed guards at any of the schools that my grandchildren attend. It is most regrettable that some schools need them.

 

There were many rough things that happened in the high school that I attended. Some were adequately addressed, some were not, none would have been more adequately addressed by the presence of a security guard.

 

Issues must be dealt with, no doubt. Arming everyone is not the best choice of methods. I realize many think that it is. They are wrong. As you can tell, I am not undecided on this issue.

[barmar]

Are you saying it's not an accident if it's caused by negligence? Also, nowhere did I claim the probability is anywhere in the same ballpark, I'm just saying there are a lot of different types of ptentially lethal accidents.

Extremely unlikely accidents are not very interesting in a cost-benefit analysis, unless the potential impact is high.

 

I'm not saying they're the same word, but the way I use the word "accident", negligence is one of the possible causes.

When I wrote "humans to cause" I was thinking in terms of more active involvement.

 

And I'm still unsure what kind of accidental electrocution you're talking about. I said "such severe accidents", meaning accidents that can easily injure or kill several other people.

 

There are accidents like a toddler drowning a pool because it was not properly fenced in or the gate was open. Tragic and preventable, certainly, but there's a qualitative difference between this and a car or gun accident (and why was the toddler unsupervised in the first place?).

[hrothgar]

I would formulate the Golden Rule as the Wiccans do: "An' it harm none, do what thou wilt." On that basis I would have no objection to a private citizen (I think the term "common citizen" is an attempt to demean the citizenry) owning whatever weapons he or she wants, provided that anyone who does harm to another with such weapon(s) other than in self defense or defense of others pays (as in "makes reparations," not as in "goes to jail") for it. And I'm not talking about some minor fine - if you put someone in the hospital, you pay his hospital bills, and his rehab bills, and provide the equivalent to the salary he was earning before you did that until he can go back to work. If you kill someone, you take on all his legal financial obligations - pay his debts, support his family, whatever. If you go broke doing that, too bad.

 

Practically speaking, the liberals and other anti-gun types in this country will never stand for this.

 

Just to be clear, our current legal structure allows for both criminal and civil suits.

The system that you describe is in effect right now.

 

The issue isn't that liberals "will never stand for this", rather the real problem is how do you plan to collect any significant amount of money from someone who (best case scenario) is currently serving 15-20 for assault with a deadly weapon?

 

The only time that you see these laws used is in cases like the civil suits against OJ

The defendant needs to have very deep pockets to justify the efforts required to collect.

[TimG]

I would formulate the Golden Rule as the Wiccans do: "An' it harm none, do what thou wilt." On that basis I would have no objection to a private citizen (I think the term "common citizen" is an attempt to demean the citizenry) owning whatever weapons he or she wants, provided that anyone who does harm to another with such weapon(s) other than in self defense or defense of others pays (as in "makes reparations," not as in "goes to jail") for it. And I'm not talking about some minor fine - if you put someone in the hospital, you pay his hospital bills, and his rehab bills, and provide the equivalent to the salary he was earning before you did that until he can go back to work. If you kill someone, you take on all his legal financial obligations - pay his debts, support his family, whatever. If you go broke doing that, too bad.

There is also a similar rule in effect in most states regarding auto insurance, yet there are many uninsured motorists driving around.

 

I would go a step further than blackshoe and assign responsibility to the gun owner for acts committed by others with his gun. Maybe that is also covered under the current laws as described by hrothgar, but I think the responsibility should be criminal as well as civil.

[awm]

The vast majority of shooters don't have the resources to cover Blackshoe's financial compensation. The fact that a lot of them end up dead (committing suicide after their shooting spree is over) or in jail (I assume murder should still be a crime? otherwise you are legalizing the killing of homeless people since the moderately wealthy could afford the fine?) doesn't help either. Financial penalties also don't act as much of a deterrent to the Adam Lanzas of the world.

 

The only realistic way to enforce such a rule would be to require an insurance policy for the owner of a firearm, much as we do with auto insurance. The cost of this policy will obviously depend on things like degree of arms training, any criminal record, mental health, and so forth (and probably be a lot more expensive for men than women given the gender of almost all mass shooters). However, there will still be plenty of people who try to obtain guns without paying for insurance (just as we have for automobiles). Enforcing the insurance requirement will basically require a database of all weapons that the police can cross-check against insurance company records. Realistically, we will have to go after gun sellers who don't check for insurance before making a sale, which means basically all sellers will have to report all their transactions to the government. When you put all this together it's not all that different from the policies Obama is proposing!

[TimG]

If a school; really needs an armed guard, it should have one. The decision should be made on a school by school basis. As far as I know, there are no armed guards at any of the schools that my grandchildren attend. It is most regrettable that some schools need them.

Around here, rural/suburban Maine, there are regular patrols of schools, but not permanent armed guards. It is common to see a sheriff's vehicle outside the high school my kids attend -- and by common I mean 4 out of 5 times I will see it parked outside the front entrance on days that I drop my kids off. There is at least one deputy at every dance or football game held at the high school (I suspect there is a maximum number of expected attendees for a special event before school policy requires a police presence -- I haven't noticed any officers at field hockey or lacrosse games).

 

In a neighboring town with their own police department (my town is served by the county sheriff's department) there is a specific police officer assigned to respond to calls from the middle school and high school. He is also the "Officer Friendly" that would visit schools and talk to students. I know that just last week he arrested a student who pulled a fire alarm ("false public alarm" or some such) and escorted the cuffed 7th grade student to the police station.

[mikeh]

 

 

I would formulate the Golden Rule as the Wiccans do: "An' it harm none, do what thou wilt." On that basis I would have no objection to a private citizen (I think the term "common citizen" is an attempt to demean the citizenry) owning whatever weapons he or she wants, provided that anyone who does harm to another with such weapon(s) other than in self defense or defense of others pays (as in "makes reparations," not as in "goes to jail") for it. And I'm not talking about some minor fine - if you put someone in the hospital, you pay his hospital bills, and his rehab bills, and provide the equivalent to the salary he was earning before you did that until he can go back to work. If you kill someone, you take on all his legal financial obligations - pay his debts, support his family, whatever. If you go broke doing that, too bad.

 

 

 

 

This sort of response comes from conservatives (maybe more accurately, libertarians) on many topics. Specifically guns, of course, but we have similar appeals to individual 'rights' and the need for people to 'take responsibility' with US health care and social welfare systems.

 

These arguments are all founded on a model of human behaviour that is utterly disconnected from reality.

 

Guns are not a problem so long as they are not in the hands of real life humans. We are all perfectly safe so long as the humans who own the guns never:

 

1) get angry

2) get depressed

3) become mentally ill

4) get careless

5) allow kids to play with the guns

6) get drunk or high

 

or some combination of the above.

 

Yes, people who do some of these things are dangerous even without guns. However, when someone goes nuts with a knife, and decides to attack a school filled with unarmed teachers and kids, it is truly horrible but few, if any, die. That's exactly what happened in China concurrently with Sandy Hook...and no-one in China was killed by the assailant.

 

The blackshoes of the world model their view of society on a form of human who doesn't exist. They claim that those who commit gun violence are somehow 'different' and that we should be able to identify them and keep them away from guns.

 

Firstly, this is nuts. While some of the mass killers, and probably a good number of the one-off killers, are mentally ill at the time they committed the killings, it seems reasonable to assume that they weren't always nuts and even more reasonable to assume that many people suffering from some form of mental illness are not a hazard at all.

 

And it is also fairly clear that some killings happen because of short-term emotional issues. Two somewhat intoxicated people get into an argument outside or inside a nightclub. A gun gets pulled and shots are fired, perhaps (often) hitting innocent bystanders.

 

A husband loses his job, and faces social humiliation, and sees the gun....he commits murder-suicide...it is so much easier with a gun.

 

And so on.

 

Then add to this that very few of us are in the position of a Jobs, who could drive without a licence or insurance because his net worth was such as to make insurance redundant. In the US, in particular, when 1% of the people own a staggering percentage of wealth, and the top .1% are even more disproportionally weathly, the great bulk of the people can't possibly pay the indemnities blackshoe suggests. And forget insurance: no insurance company ever insures people against the consequences of intentional wrong-doing, so most gun violence will be done by people without available insurance.

 

Real life is difficult for libertarians to accept, since people don't act in the rational manner that is required for libertarianism to even come close to functioning. Personally, as a member of a species of animal that has evolved to be an interdependent social animal, I think that any philosophy that has as its main tenet a belief in the paramountcy of the individual is doomed to failure. I am part of a society and cannot function without others, and that imposes on me obligations to my fellow humans, as well as allowing me to have expectations about how they will treat me.

[mikeh]

The vast majority of shooters don't have the resources to cover Blackshoe's financial compensation. The fact that a lot of them end up dead (committing suicide after their shooting spree is over) or in jail (I assume murder should still be a crime? otherwise you are legalizing the killing of homeless people since the moderately wealthy could afford the fine?) doesn't help either. Financial penalties also don't act as much of a deterrent to the Adam Lanzas of the world.

 

The only realistic way to enforce such a rule would be to require an insurance policy for the owner of a firearm, much as we do with auto insurance. The cost of this policy will obviously depend on things like degree of arms training, any criminal record, mental health, and so forth (and probably be a lot more expensive for men than women given the gender of almost all mass shooters). However, there will still be plenty of people who try to obtain guns without paying for insurance (just as we have for automobiles). Enforcing the insurance requirement will basically require a database of all weapons that the police can cross-check against insurance company records. Realistically, we will have to go after gun sellers who don't check for insurance before making a sale, which means basically all sellers will have to report all their transactions to the government. When you put all this together it's not all that different from the policies Obama is proposing!

I already touched upon this in my response to blackshoe, but as an insurance lawyer, I can tell you that no insurance company would ever underwrite the peril of the insured deliberately shooting another person. Insurance law is much the same in most (perhaps all, but I don't know enough to say 'all') countries with a legal system based on the English Common Law, such as the UK, the USA, and Canada/Australia. Indeed, I have cited US cases in Canadian cases when the facts have been so unusual that there were no Canadian cases on point.

 

Every insurance contract I have ever seen excludes liability to indemnify the insured against the consequences of criminal acts (in fact., the exclusions are far broader than that). To insure someone against the consequences of intentional wrong-doing creates what is known as a 'moral hazard'. It either encourages or at least eliminates constraints against the doing of events that expose the insurer to liability.

 

There are some exceptions, of limited utility. For example, here in British Columbia, our automobile insurance entitles the victim of an accident to have access to the wrong-doer's insurance even in the event of some forms of criminal conduct...the insurer gets to sue the wrong-doer in an often futile attempt to get the money back, but the victim isn't affected by that. This is a public policy governmental decision, and I suspect it may not be universal, especially in the US.

[mike777]

I suppose if you want to pass more laws and make more stuff illegal that may reduce gun violence, at least that seems to be the operating theory. If nothing else it should put more in prison and into our justice system assuming we have the money for the courts and prisons given all the reports of letting people out of jail due to lack of money.

 

 

With over 300 million guns in the USA and that number is increasing it is amazing that gun violence is actually down.

 

btw the text of the Second Amendment does not create any right to bear arms.

 

----

 

 

MikeH post is another thread but as a Catholic I agree with his last sentence. :)

 

I am part of a society and cannot function without others, and that imposes on me obligations to my fellow humans, as well as allowing me to have expectations about how they will treat me.

[billw55]

... I would have no objection to a private citizen (I think the term "common citizen" is an attempt to demean the citizenry) owning whatever weapons he or she wants ...

Well, I don't really know what to say about that. I have not met many who will come right out and say this.

[billw55]

So, what does a police officer at an American high school do all day that justifies his full time presence? Is the crime rate in a population of a couple of thousand American teenagers so high that it justifies permanent supervision by a law officer?

 

I can envision assigning a police officer to a school, in the sense that this is the officer you turn to when the school needs one. I can see advantages of combining a police station and a school in one building. But I cannot see that a school would give a police officer a full work week.

 

Rik

Yes, he has enough to do. Investigating criminal issues such as possession of weapons or drugs; serving arrest warrants; and subduing violence. On top of that, his full time presence has value as deterrent.

 

Wherever you live that you cannot imagine a school having enough use for an officer, I rather envy you.

[Fluffy]

finalcianl punnishment and insurances could be better than not having them, but for those to apply the first thing you need is to catch the guilty guy. As Mikeh said it is impossible when he is dead, but it is also not foolproof when he is not.

 

Another thing that could be improved (as far as I know the laws) is the self-defence non self-defence thing. The line between them can be difuse, having an all or nothing formula leads to unfair results, not sure how to perferm it but a more progressive formula would be better IMO.

[Trinidad]

Yes, he has enough to do. Investigating criminal issues such as possession of weapons or drugs; serving arrest warrants; and subduing violence. On top of that, his full time presence has value as deterrent.

 

Wherever you live that you cannot imagine a school having enough use for an officer, I rather envy you.

Feel free to envy me -I am a happy man- but I think you have it backwards. I grew up and currently live in The Netherlands, I work in Germany, my wife is from Finland. I have lived in Sweden and the USA and have spent a lot of time in France. I think that I can compare Europe to the USA. In this list of countries there is only one where there are police officers stationed in schools: the USA.

 

I have never seen a police officer in the school during my entire school career in The Netherlands. There once was a police officer... On the day we did our traffic exam in fifth grade. He checked in the school yard whether our bikes were in good condition and afterwards he handed out the certificates over there. (In fifth grade kids have to do a 'road test' over here.)

 

My kids have never seen a police officer in their school career up to now (elementary and middle school), except for one father on career day (and maybe when they did their traffic exams). I have never heard of any news that required police assistance in any of the elementary, middle or high schools where I live (an industrial town of 70,000 people). The idea of stationing a police officer in a school would be absurd.

 

From what I have experienced, the USA is simply much more violent than any of the other economically developed countries (excluding Israel, but there violence has a different background).

 

Rik

[billw55]

From what I have experienced, the USA is simply much more violent than any of the other economically developed countries (excluding Israel, but there violence has a different background).

I have not traveled outside the USA, but I often read or hear something similar from others who have. I suspect it is correlated with poverty but have no hard data to back this up.