[ryan933]

The Second Amendment, as passed September 25, 1789:
"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."

Recent history has seen politicians like Clinton and Flynn use images of police officers alongside anti-gun propaganda to give the appearance of law enforcement support for their anti-constitutional agenda. :BM:



Ryan

 

[TheFuzz357]

I agree with some checks and balances in place. What we have now can be over restrictive to people who may be responsible enough to own and use a firearm. But I don't believe that "everyone" should be allowed to own a gun. We have very specific laws in place right now that we could enforce and probably clear up more than half of the problems we face with illegal gun use but the courts are wishy-washy on actually following the laws. Minimum Mandatory sentencing only works if it is "mandatory" and our liberal court systems has a very hard time abiding by those laws.
Ryan I think you need to have another choice up there. Possibly, "I agree to responsible gun ownership for those who have proved their responsibility."
The next step of course is to define "responsiblilty". That's where people will have disagreements. If more people legally carried firearms and our criminals didn't know who was carrying and who wasn't they may think twice about who they assault with a dangerous weapon. The way the laws are right now we have effectively taken firearms out of the hands of responsible gun owners/would be gun owners because of "scairdy-cat" politics.
:sb:
I haven't voted yet because I can't agree with any of the possible answers. :2c:

 

[Officer Dunngeon]

The Second Amendment, as passed September 25, 1789:
"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."

I think our forefathers meant for the right to bear arms to provide protection against takeover by another country or even "Big Brother." The right to bear arms was invoked during Shay's rebellion in the late 1700's when farmers used armed force as a way of action for lower taxes and judicial reform against the newly formed government. The founding fathers kept the Bill of Rights at the time of it's birth flexible enough in their meanings so that future generations of Americans could intrepret them as needed for whatever new issues would arise.

It's scary to think about firearms landing in the hands of the wrong people, both legally and illegally, but we need to keep this freedom for the general good of the people. Right now I think the pot is merely simmering - but who knows how life will be when we are long gone? Anyone read 1984, Farenheit 451, etc.?

 

[USMCTrooper]

DISCLAIMER: The following is in no way inferred to represent Flynn or anyone whose view is more anti than pro gun*******



"This year will go down in history. For the first time a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient and the world will follow our lead into the future".


Any guess who said this and when???

 

[Otto]

Hitler, 1939?

 

[ryan933]

Adolph Hitler...just before he went on a tear across Europe!

The disarmament of the populace has preceded every reign of tyranny in modern history.

Don't think it could never happen in the good old USA!

Ryan

 

[ryan933]

MSP357, I agree with you 100%.

Ryan

 

[Officer Dunngeon]

The disarmament of the populace has preceded every reign of tyranny in modern history.

Don't think it could never happen in the good old USA!

My point exactly.

 

[ryan933]

Dunngeon,
I have to disagree with you concerning the founding fathers intent of the second amendment.

The "Federalist Papers" were written by the framers of the constitution to clarify the true intent of the constitution to the common man. It clearly states the importance of the right of the people to be armed, and the reasons for it. One very important reason is obviously to keep our government in check, but that was not all. I highly recommend everyone read it at least once. You can find it at your local library.

What follows are quotes that reveal the mindset of our founding fathers in designing the constitution. While I do believe in reasonable checks and balances with respect to gun ownership, I am minimalist in that belief.

This is a bit long, but worth the read. You will find that while the concept of the militia runs throughout, it is also made clear that the militia is composed of the body of the people. This means the founding fathers recognized that more people with guns is better than a few who fall into certain categories.

==========================================
Patrick Henry:

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined. The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun."
==========================================
Thomas Jefferson, in an early draft of the Virginia constitution:

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms in his own lands."
==========================================
Samuel Adams:

"Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life, secondly to liberty, thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can."
==========================================
John Adams:

"Arms in the hands of the citizens may be used at individual discretion for the defense of the country, the overthrow of tyranny or private self-defense."
==========================================
Richard Henry Lee, Additional Letters form the Federal Farmer, 1788:

"Militias, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves and include all men capable of bearing arms. To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
==========================================
Trench Coxe, writing as "the Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, 1788:

"The power of the sword, say the minority of Pennsylvania, is in the hands of Congress. My friends and countrymen, it is not so, for the powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from 16 to 60. The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? It is feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress has 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 governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."
==========================================
ANTECEDENTS Connecticut gun code of 1650:

"All persons shall bear arms, and every male person shall have in continual readiness a good musket or other gun, fit for service."
==========================================
Article 3 of the West Virginia state constitution:

"A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and state, and for lawful hunting and recreational use."
==========================================
Virginia Declaration of Rights 13 (June 12, 1776), drafted by George Mason:

"That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."
==========================================
From "A Journal of the Times", calling the citizens of Boston to arm themselves in response to British abuses of power, 1769:

"Instances of the licentious and outrageous behavior of the military conservators of the peace still multiply upon us, some of which are of such nature and have been carried to so great lengths as must serve fully to evince that a late vote of this town, calling upon the inhabitants to provide themselves with arms for their defense, was a measure as prudent as it was legal. It is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the [English] Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defense, and as Mr. Blackstone observes it is to be made use of when the sanctions of society and law are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression."
==========================================
George Mason's Fairfax County Militia Plan, 1775:

"And we do each of us, for ourselves respectively, promise and engage to keep a good firelock in proper order, and to furnish ourselves as soon as possible with, and always keep by us, one pound of gunpowder, four pounds of lead, one dozen gunflints, and a pair of bullet moulds, with a cartouch box, or powder horn, and bag for balls."
==========================================
Patrick Henry, 1775:

"They tell us that we are weak-unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Three million people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us."
==========================================
Thomas Paine, writing to religious pacifists in 1775:

The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them; the weak would become a prey to the strong."
==========================================
Noah Webster, 1787:

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword, because the whole of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops."
==========================================
James Madison, "The influence of the State and Federal Governments Compared, "46 Federalist New York Packet, January 29,1788:

"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, that could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it."
===========================================

Alexander Hamilton, "Concerning the Militia," 29 Federalist Daily Advertiser, January 10, 1788:

"There is something so far fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or raillery. Where, in the name of common sense, are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow citizens? What shadow of danger can there be from men who are daily mingling with the rest of their countrymen and who participate with them in the same feelings, sentiments, habits and interests? What reasonable cause of apprehension can be inferred from a power in the Union to prescribe regulations for the militia, and to command its services when necessary, while the particular states are to have the sole and exclusive appointment of the officers? If it were possible seriously to indulge a jealousy of the militia upon any conceivable establishment under the federal government, the circumstance of the officers being in the appointment of the states ought at once to extinguish it. There can be no doubt that this circumstance will always secure to them a preponderating influence over the militia."
==========================================
A proposed amendment to the Federal Constitution, as passed by the Pennsylvania legislature:

"That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and their own states or the United States, or for the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury from individuals."
==========================================

Ryan

 

[mpd61]

I would like to admit up front that I get teary-eyed thinking of the Constitution, those who have died defending it, and the lame shit-birds who want to focus narrowly on the militia part, while ignoring the "people"
part of the Second Amendment.
:shock:

As Professor Akhil Amar (Yale) said;

"When the Constitution means "states" it says so... the
ultimate right to keep and bear arms belongs to "the people"
not the "states"...Thus the "people" at the core of the Second
Amendment are the citizens-the same "we the people" who
"ordain and establish" the Constitution and whose right to
assemble is at the core of the First Amendment.

The founding fathers intent, in pledging the right to keep and bear arms, was not solely to depose oppressors. They conceived the right to bear arms as conclusive to their belief in a cardinal right for each individual.

Thomas R. Dye, author of Power & Society stated;

"Governmental power must be balanced against individual
freedom. A democratic society must exercise police powers
to protect its citizens, yet it must not unduly restrict
individual liberty."


Finally, as Police officers, we have neither the resources, nor the responsibility to be there for each of our citizens. The U.S. Supreme Court made it quite clear that we as individuals are on our own when it comes to protection. In the landmark case of Warren v. District of Columbia (1981) the court held that "government and it's agents are under no general duty to provide public service, such as police protection, to any individual citizen."

The simple fact is that ultimately, we are responsible as citizens to provide for our own personal protection, not our government.
Anyone of you thinks otherwise, I pray you have time to call 911 and get to your panic room. YIKES!!!!
:HS:

 

[Killjoy]

As one could probably tell from my earlier posts, I am solidly pro 2nd amendment. This in itself is a strange statement if one thinks about it; I have to let people know that I am in favor of the constitution. I have never seen the ACLU in their fevor to release criminals who they believe to be convicted unconstitutionally or overturn laws they view as unconstitutional run to the defense of the 2nd amendment....I'm sure it doesn't fit in with their left wing views. As a police officer I view responsible private ownership of firearms as a positive thing. We certainly cannot be everywhere at once; in fact, most policing is reactive in nature, with the crime already been committed. It has been said that an armed society is a polite society, and this is true. Criminals that have been interviewed have said time and time again that they prefer a public without access to firearms to defend themselves. One only has to look at the quagmire that is our nations capitol. Practically no private citizen in Washington DC can own a firearm and their certainly is no "carry conceal" program, yet the crime rate there is horrible, and after nearly 30 years allegedly without firearms, the city is worse off than is was before. In that great, safe "firearms free" bastion of England, the crime rate has skyrocketed in the last ten years. In London violent crime is up six times from what it was in the early nineties. The early ninties, incidentally, is when England banned the last vestiges of private firearm ownership. It is more dangerous to walk the streets of London than New York, Detroit or LA. Score one for the anti-gun people!!

I believe the relentless march against firearms ownership is indicative of a plague infecting the psyche of the US; the belief that no one is responsible for anything. Convicted of robbery?; blame your parents for poor upbringing. Convicted of rape?; blame the media for its negative portrayals. Convicted of murder?; its society's problem for alienating you. Slip and fall?; blame the department store. This attitude bleeds over into feelings about self defense. I once read a paper in which the author stated his disgust at the fact that in our society it is considered strange or crazy to have any sort of knowledge of self defense. If someone is a black belt in Karate or possesses a knowledge of firearms that person is viewed with mixed suspicion and fear. It is not "normal" in our society to have this attitude. Someone break into your house? Call the police and pray for the best; its not your job to defend yourself. I would rather have my girlfriend blow .38 caliber holes through some asshole that broke into our apartment than sit like a lemming waiting for police. I once listened to a 911 tape of some piece of crap raping a girl who had dialed 911 and the phone happened to be next to her the whole time. In fact,the mope didn't even flee; you could hear the police come into the house and grab the guy. All I could think when he was breaking down her door was, "I wish she had a gun in her room so she could blow that sick f*ck out of his socks".

Of course certain checks are needed in our society; licensing is a necessary evil. Proper training is also necessary; an untrained person with a firearms is more of a danger to themselves than any criminals (I feel this way about some cops, but that is another story). In conclusion it has never been PROVEN that a reduction in firearms leads to drop in crime. Many "gun rich" environments like Arizona have fairly low crime rates, statisically speaking. Leave the 2nd amendment alone!

 

[Guest]

Anybody find it ironic that so many who flip out about defending and broadly interpreting the First Amendment, are so against the Second one?

 

[SRRerg]

To quote Charlton Heston: The Second Amendment is the right that guarantees all others."

 

[Joe B]

2nd

To quote Charlton Heston: The Second Amendment is the right that guarantees all others."

That's absolutely correct, hypothetically speaking if you lost the 2nd Amendment and were suddenly faced with loosing the rest of the amendments, just how would you defend the Constitution?

 

[ryan933]

That is absolutely correct! The second amendment is our insurance policy.

Sadly there are many people who do not understand this.

Keep this in mind when you go to vote in November.

Ryan

 

[Otto]

Without arms, our Constitution is just words on paper. I don't know who said it first, but I think it very true.

 

[John J]

=D>

 

[Nightstick]

People fear guns. Yet, while guns make it easier for bad things to happen, they also make it easier for people to protect themselves.



With the avalanche of horrific news stories about guns over the years, it's no wonder people find it hard to believe that, according to surveys (one I conducted for 2002 for my book, "The Bias Against Guns," and three earlier academic surveys by different researchers published in such journals as the Journal of Criminal Justice) there are about two million defensive gun uses (search) each year; guns are used defensively four times more frequently than they are to commit crimes.

The rebuttal to this claim always is: If these events were really happening, wouldn't we hear about them on the news? Many people tell me that they have never heard of an incident of defensive gun use. There is a good reason for their confusion. In 2001, the three major television networks -- ABC, CBS, and NBC -- ran 190,000 words' worth of gun-crime stories on their morning and evening national news broadcasts. But they ran not a single story mentioning a private citizen using a gun to stop a crime.

The print media was almost as biased: The New York Times ran 50,745 words on contemporaneous gun crimes, but only one short, 163-word story on a retired police officer who used his gun to stop a robbery. For USA Today, the tally was 5,660 words on gun crimes versus zero on defensive uses.

Just take some of the 18 defensive gun uses that I found covered by newspapers around the country during the first 10 days of December:

-- Little Rock, Ark: After the assailant attacked him and his son-in-law with a poker, a 64-year-old minister shot a man dead on church grounds. The attacker had engaged in a string of assaults in an apparent drug-induced frenzy.

-- Corpus Christi, Texas: A woman shot to death her ex-husband, who had broken into her house. The woman had a restraining order against the ex-husband.

-- Tampa Bay, Fla.: A 71-year-old man, Melvin Spaulding, shot 20-year-old James Moore in the arm as Moore and two friends were beating up his neighbor, 63-year-old George Lowe. Spaulding had a concealed weapons permit.

--Bellevue, Wash.: A man shot a pit bull that lunged to within a foot of him and his family. Police said the man's family had been repeatedly menaced in the past by the dog.

-- Jonesboro, Ga.: A father out walking with his 11-year-old daughter was attacked by an armed robber. The police say the father shot the attacker in self-defense and will not face charges.

-- Houston, Texas: Andrea McNabb shot two of the three men who tried to rob her plumbing business on the afternoon of Dec. 1.

-- Philadelphia, Pa: A pharmacy manager fatally shot one robber and wounded another after the robbers threatened to kill workers at the store. The wounded robber escaped.

Part of the reason defensive gun use isn't covered in the media may be simple news judgment. If a news editor faces two stories, one with a dead body on the ground and another where a woman brandished a gun and the attacker ran away, no shots fired, almost anyone would pick the first story as more newsworthy. In 2002, some 90 percent of the time when people used guns defensively, they stopped the criminals simply by brandishing the gun.

But that doesn't explain all the disparity in coverage. It doesn't, for example, explain why, in some heavily covered public middle and high school shootings, the media mentioned in only 1 percent or fewer of their stories that the attacks were stopped when citizens used guns to stop the attacks.

The unbalanced reporting is probably greatest in cases where children die from accidental gunshots fired by another child. Most people have seen the public-service ads showing the voices or pictures of children between the ages of four and eight, never over the age of eight, and the impression is that there is an epidemic of accidental deaths involving small children. The exaggerated media attention given these particularly tragic deaths makes these claims believable.

The debate over laws requiring that people lock up their guns in their home usually concentrates on the deaths of these younger children. The trigger and barrel locks mandated by these laws are often only considered reliable for preventing the access to guns by children under age 7.

The truth is that in 1999, for children whose ages correspond with the public service ads, 31 children under the age of 10 died from an accidental gunshot and only six of these cases appear to have involved another child under 10 as the culprit. Nor was this year unusual. Between 1995 and 1999, only five to nine cases a year involved a child wounding or killing another child with a gun. For children under 15, there were a total of 81 accidental gun deaths of all types in 1999. Any death is tragic, but it should be noted that more children under five drowned in bathtubs or plastic water buckets than from guns.

The gun deaths are covered extensively as well as prominently, with individual cases getting up to 88 separate news stories. In contrast, when children use guns to save lives, the event might at most get one brief mention in a small local paper. Yet these events do occur.

--In February, 2002, the South Bend, Indiana Tribune reported the story of an 11-year-old boy who shot and killed a man holding a box cutter to his grandmother's neck. Trained to use a firearm, the boy killed the assailant in one shot, even though the man was using his grandmother as a shield.

--In May, 2001 in Louisianna, a 12-year-old girl shot and killed her mother's abusive ex-boyfriend after he broke into their home and began choking her mother. The story appeared in the New Orleans Advocate.

--In January, 2001, in Angie, Louisianna, a 13 year-old boy stopped for burglars from entering his home by firing the family's shotgun, wounding one robber and scaring off the other three. The four men were planning on attacking the boy's mother--an 85-pound terminal cancer patient--in order to steal her pain medication.

As a couple of reporters told me, journalists are uncomfortable printing such positive gun stories because they worry that it will encourage children to get access to guns. The whole process snowballs, however, because the exaggeration of the risks--along with lack of coverage of the benefits--cements the perceived risks more and more firmly in newspaper editors and reporters minds. This makes them ever more reluctant to publish such stories.

While all this coverage affects the overall gun-control debate, it also directly shapes perceptions of proposed legislation. Take the upcoming debate over renewing the so-called assault-weapons ban. This past summer CNN repeatedly showed a news segment that starts off with a machine gun firing and claims that the guns covered by the ban do much more damage than other guns. CNN later attempted to clarify the segment by saying that the real problem was with the ammunition used in these guns. But neither of these points is true. The law does not deal at all with machine guns (though the pictures of machine guns sure are compelling)--and the "assault weapons" fire the same bullets at the same rate, and accomplish the exact same thing, as other semi-automatic guns not covered by the ban.

The unbalanced presentation dominates not just the media but also government reports and polling. Studies by the Justice and Treasury Departments have long evaluated just the cost guns impose on society. Every year, Treasury puts out a report on the top 10 guns used in crime, and each report serves as the basis for dozens of news stories. But why not also provide a report--at least once--on the top 10 guns used defensively? Similarly, numerous government reports estimate the cost of injuries from guns, but none measures the number of injuries prevented when guns are used defensively.

National polls further reinforce these biased perceptions. Not one of the national polls (as far as I was able to find) gave respondents an option to mention that gun control might actually be harmful. Probably the least biased polls still give respondents just two choices: supporting "tougher gun-control legislation to help in the fight against gun crime" or "better enforcement of current laws." Yet, both options ultimately imply that gun control is good.

But if we really want to save lives, we need to address the whole truth about guns--including the costs of not owning guns. We never, for example, hear about the families who couldn't defend themselves and were harmed because they didn't have guns.

Discussing only the costs of guns and not their benefits poses the real threat to public safety as people make mistakes on how best to defend themselves and their families.

John R. Lott, Jr., a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "The Bias Against Guns" (Regnery 2003).

 

[Otto]

About a week ago, the (anti gun) Center For Disease Control published the results of a recent study they conducted (commisioned?) which concluded essentially that stricter gun control laws have not had any impact on crime.

For some reason the mainstream media didn't give it much airtime.

 

[Killjoy]

Excellent post Nightstick! Covered almost evry point!