The right to bear arms

[prendrelemick]

For protection against an unfair government. Plain and simple. An intelligent and well armed populace is not an easy one to control.

I think I owe Mr Rumfield an apology. He is exactly right, that is one of the main reasons why the 2nd amendment exists. For insurrection against a tyrannical Government. To have that written into your constitution must be very effecting.

[Delta40]

Careful with stats. I was caught out by "shootings" rather than "killings" this morning. However according to three different sites, violent crime is down by about 9% in Britain , but the perception is that it is up.

Good point Pren. Couple stats with perception and who knows what the truth is. Under these circumstances, it's best to stick to one's own.

[Varenne Rodin]

This is what I get for talking about this stuff. My google ads are now for things like "Concealed weapons courses." Sigh.

Flowers, music, art, love, pandas, tigers, lions, invention, science, discovery, magic, beauty, feeling, books, peace, wisdom, words. Process that, action software.

[prendrelemick]

Just heard President's speech, Will anything change? Politicians are only effective when going with the flow.

I can't deny that the case for cause and effect is not watertight, you can't say that guns cause massacres, but you can say they facilitate them. Perhaps a small start is needed, something within the terms of the second ammendment. Perhaps on the type of weapon, like they did in Australia. People need to realise that owning a gun is a great responsibility.

[Varenne Rodin]

All I know is that I don't want to live here anymore. The response among my friends and family has been to proclaim passionately that they are going out to buy more guns.

The gunman's mother was a gun enthusiast who made him go shooting with her. He didn't want to. She bragged about it. The reaction from the US community has been shocking. This is grotesque. All of it.

[Sancho]

From The Onion (El Sancho’s favorite news source)

WASHINGTON—In the wake of yesterday’s gruesome mass shooting that claimed the lives of 27 people, including 20 schoolchildren, the United States ratified a new constitutional amendment this afternoon guaranteeing American citizens the right to live life in a perpetual state of abject horror. “The provisions of the 28th Amendment will fully protect the right of all individuals to spend every waking moment utterly terrified at the thought of a deranged stranger with a semiautomatic combat rifle gunning them down,” said House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), explaining that the measure also permits Americans to suffer panic attacks anytime their loved ones go to work, school, malls, or virtually any other public location. “In addition, the new amendment prevents the government from ever infringing on a citizen’s inalienable right to lie awake at night visualizing the images of crying children being ushered out of a school and wondering where it could happen next.” The new amendment comes on the heels of numerous other proposed changes to U.S. law, including a highly contested bill that would protect the right of Americans to ignore a widespread, deadly problem until it is far too late.

Sometimes, it seems to me, satire gets at social issues better than serious news, just as good fiction gets at history better than, well, history.

I think this shooting may be a debate changer in the United States. And, in my humble opinion, it’s been a long time coming. (Don’t give up on us yet, Varenne. We need your voice)

[LaMaga]

For protection against an unfair government. Plain and simple. An intelligent and well armed populace is not an easy one to control.

"Let’s see, what else… oh, then there’s the “rebellion” argument. You know, how we need guns in case the government ever becomes tyrannical (or because it apparently is, in the eyes of alarmists). Because clearly, if the government ever did actually become tyrannical (as opposed to providing healthcare), you would surely be able to fend off stealth bombers dropping bombs on you from 40,000 feet with handguns, and your assault rifle is really going to chip the paint off their tanks."

[Alexander III]

"Let’s see, what else… oh, then there’s the “rebellion” argument. You know, how we need guns in case the government ever becomes tyrannical (or because it apparently is, in the eyes of alarmists). Because clearly, if the government ever did actually become tyrannical (as opposed to providing healthcare), you would surely be able to fend off stealth bombers dropping bombs on you from 40,000 feet with handguns, and your assault rifle is really going to chip the paint off their tanks."

Sure we may laugh now, but during the second world war my great-uncle was a partigiano and with a few pistols rifles and improvised explosives they managed to do a hell of a job despite all of Mussolini's Fiat made Bomber and Fighter planes and all those Armored cars and tanks. Remarkable how difficult it is for a government to suppress violent revolutionaries with its great technologically advanced weapons, particularly because if that tank or that bomber accidentally hits a family home instead of a partigiano, the next day the Partigiani had a whole neighborhood of new young men as recruits.

Most of the technological advanced made by armies are effective when fighting wars on soldiers, for fighting against civillian rebels, as we have seen in Iraqe and Afganistan those great weapons of mass destruction are rendered useless exactly because they are weapons of mass destruction rather than accurate destruction. Killing more civillians then rebels has historically never suppressed a revolution.

[Emil Miller]

"Let’s see, what else… oh, then there’s the “rebellion” argument. You know, how we need guns in case the government ever becomes tyrannical (or because it apparently is, in the eyes of alarmists). Because clearly, if the government ever did actually become tyrannical (as opposed to providing healthcare), you would surely be able to fend off stealth bombers dropping bombs on you from 40,000 feet with handguns, and your assault rifle is really going to chip the paint off their tanks."

An interesting comment because it mirrors what is happening in Syria now. The government has been perceived as tyrannical by a section of the Syrian public and despite the fact that the government has a modern arsenal of planes tanks and heavy weapons, the rebels are fighting them to a standstill. I have no interest in who's victorious but it does demonstrate that it isn't necessarily those with the biggest guns who win. Another consideration, if a similar situation were to prevail in the USA, is the reliability of the military: for although the President is the commander in chief, it's a constitutional requirement that could be ignored if a sufficient number of the armed forces felt it necessary to do so.

[Volya]

"Let’s see, what else… oh, then there’s the “rebellion” argument. You know, how we need guns in case the government ever becomes tyrannical (or because it apparently is, in the eyes of alarmists). Because clearly, if the government ever did actually become tyrannical (as opposed to providing healthcare), you would surely be able to fend off stealth bombers dropping bombs on you from 40,000 feet with handguns, and your assault rifle is really going to chip the paint off their tanks."

I'm just gonna point out that all those bombs and advanced weaponry have in the past been proved to be ineffective in fighting a guerilla force. Take a look at Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, damn near every war the US has been in recently.

And Varenne, the point about his mother being a gun enthusiast is really the stupidest thing I've heard. His mother liked shooting guns, which is why he snapped and butchered a bunch of kids? Yeah, right.

EDIT: Oh, looks like two other people got there before me...

[Alexander III]

An interesting comment because it mirrors what is happening in Syria now. The government has been perceived as tyrannical by a section of the Syrian public and despite the fact that the government has a modern arsenal of planes tanks and heavy weapons, the rebels are fighting them to a standstill. I have no interest in who's victorious but it does demonstrate that it isn't necessarily those with the biggest guns who win. Another consideration, if a similar situation were to prevail in the USA, is the reliability of the military: for although the President is the commander in chief, it's a constitutional requirement that could be ignored if a sufficient number of the armed forces felt it necessary to do so.

I'm just gonna point out that all those bombs and advanced weaponry have in the past been proved to be ineffective in fighting a guerilla force. Take a look at Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, damn near every war the US has been in recently.

And Varenne, the point about his mother being a gun enthusiast is really the stupidest thing I've heard. His mother liked shooting guns, which is why he snapped and butchered a bunch of kids? Yeah, right.

I appreciate how Lamaga's post sparked the same and instantaneous train of thought in all of us.

[Varenne Rodin]

Volya, that is not what I said at all, but I don't think the answer to the gun problem is for everyone to go out and buy more guns. My friends are talking about arming and training their kids with firearms ASAP. This is my personal experience with the reaction to this tragedy. If you don't like it, the mob might be who you want to talk to.

People have been saying we should look at the shooter's mental health and his upbringing instead of just talking about gun control. I do think it's pertinent information that he was a straight A student, a nerdy guy who liked sci-fi and video games, and in the last five or six months of his life, his mother made him go shoot things when he didn't want to. He shot her to death before he left the house to kill those kids. He wasn't connected to the school. All of the adults he killed were women. These are huge points of interest to me in trying to determine motive. If you want to dismiss or discard any of it, you're free to do so. I will not be training my children to blow people away. Keep directing your anger at me if you want to. I won't be angry back.

[Lokasenna]

I wonder whether it is more of a mental thing than a legal thing? I'll admit I am to some extent making suppositions, given my status as an observer from across the pond, but it seems to me that the gun culture in America is too celebratory generally. There seems to be a trend, certainly in the American media that makes it over here, that guns are cool and macho - and ownership of them seems so blazé as to make a Brit seem shocked. One of my dearest friends is a bubbly, happy, sweet-natured, very Catholic Texan girl, who nevertheless frequently claims to miss the revolver she habitually carried in her handbag over there, and loves telling the story of the time her sweet old mother machinegunned a rattlesnake in the back yard. It scares the hell out of me.

I own a .22 air rifle, just about the most powerful thing you can own without a licence here in Britain - and I'm a damn good marksman with it. But I treat it with care and respect, and use it only for the purpose for which it was purchased, which is shooting vermin. I would never, never shoot a fellow human being with it.

Ultimately, I don't think legal action is the solution, or perhaps not the complete solution - the strict gun-control measures brought in over here following the Dunblane massacre did nothing to stop, say, Raoul Moat or Derrick Bird. I think first and foremost there needs to be a change in the way guns are percieved. Only then will the situation improve.

[Varenne Rodin]

Oh, and the guns he used were registered to his mother. All of them obtained legally. She was described as "an avid gun collector and enthusiast."

To the people claiming criminals are the ones we need to watch out for if we impose stricter gun rules; most mass shootings are carried out with legally procured and registered weapons. I'm not going to be intimidated into becoming a thug to defend myself against other thugs in a thug world. Please yourselves.

[Varenne Rodin]

I wonder whether it is more of a mental thing than a legal thing? I'll admit I am to some extent making suppositions, given my status as an observer from across the pond, but it seems to me that the gun culture in America is too celebratory generally. There seems to be a trend, certainly in the American media that makes it over here, that guns are cool and macho - and ownership of them seems so blazé as to make a Brit seem shocked. One of my dearest friends is a bubbly, happy, sweet-natured, very Catholic Texan girl, who nevertheless frequently claims to miss the revolver she habitually carried in her handbag over there, and loves telling the story of the time her sweet old mother machinegunned a rattlesnake in the back yard. It scares the hell out of me.

I own a .22 air rifle, just about the most powerful thing you can own without a licence here in Britain - and I'm a damn good marksman with it. But I treat it with care and respect, and use it only for the purpose for which it was purchased, which is shooting vermin. I would never, never shoot a fellow human being with it.

Ultimately, I don't think legal action is the solution, or perhaps not the complete solution - the strict gun-control measures brought in over here following the Dunblane massacre did nothing to stop, say, Raoul Moat or Derrick Bird. I think first and foremost there needs to be a change in the way guns are percieved. Only then will the situation improve.

I agree. The people here get into frenzies. I've heard several say that they wish the gunman was still alive so that they could torture him to death. They say they wish he could have been given to the families to be torn apart. The pack mentality is horrendous.