Australians Have A Warning For Americans

[Mike on a bike]

iCoopernicus Ok now that post makes sense to me, you live in an area of little or no crime, very sparsely populated. Would you still fell the same way if you lived in a high crime area with thugs running around with no value for human life even their own, I think not. So the balance of unnecessary risk changes and so might your position although I doubt it.

Risk reward can be applied to many things not just investments in your case you maybe right but here in the states we have , ok go check your own stats. And we have those stats and take our chances it is our choice, we are Americans we like choice and are risk takers by nature.

[Mike on a bike]

Ken "A regulated militia has nothing what-so-ever to do with armed civilians and everything to do with police, army, National Guard etc etc"

 

 The whole point of our founding fathers thought process was those entities are government controlled they serve the government, the people are armed to keep a balance between gov. powers enforced by those entities and the people.

[KB]

I would like to see the passage which clearly states the people are armed to keep the government in check.

 

It has been stated enough times now can someone please show this to me in print?

 

As far as I am aware it simply says....

 

 

Amendment II

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.

 

 

 

Ken

 

Edit to add....Mike I think your forefathers used the word Militia for a reason.

[JoeyB]

A regulated militia has nothing what-so-ever to do with armed civilians and everything to do with police, army, National Guard etc etc

 

Yes it also states the right of the people to bear arms but they are 2 different entities.

 

Ken 

A "militia" is manned by civilians. 

[JoeyB]

I would like to see the passage which clearly states the people are armed to keep the government in check.

 

It has been stated enough times now can someone please show this to me in print?

 

As far as I am aware it simply says....

 

 

Amendment II

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.

 

 

 

Ken

 

Edit to add....Mike I think your forefathers used the word Militia for a reason.

That is the passage. "necessary to the security of a free state". 

 

From the Declaration of Independence

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

 

I believe this is what the 2nd Amendment is in reference to. 

[KB]

Of course it is Joey, Police, Army Navy they are all regulated militias and the are all civilians

 

The point is because everyone in your bridge club has a gun that does not make them a regulated militia, nor even a slapdash militia, it makes them civilians with guns.

 

The whole point is moot anyway, the whole discussion is not about the 2nd Amendment it is about people not wanting to give up semi automatic weapons and they claim it's their constitutional right to keep them, the funny thing is that even the legal people do not truly understand what the Amendment means.....

 

 

 

 

In spite of extensive recent discussion and much legislative action with respect to regulation of the purchase, possession, and transportation of firearms, as well as proposals to substantially curtail ownership of firearms, there is no definitive resolution by the courts of just what right the Second Amendment protects. The opposing theories, perhaps oversimplified, are an “individual rights” thesis whereby individuals are protected in ownership, possession, and transportation, and a “states’ rights” thesis whereby it is said the purpose of the clause is to protect the States in their authority to maintain formal, organized militia units.1 Whatever the Amendment may mean, it is a bar only to federal action, not extending to state2 or private3 restraints. The Supreme Court has given effect to the dependent clause of the Amendment in the only case in which it has tested a congressional enactment against the constitutional prohibition, seeming to affirm individual protection but only in the context of the maintenance of a militia or other such public force.

 

The above is from the Legal Information Institute.

 

 

Ken

[Mike on a bike]

We are getting caught up in minusha  gentlemen myself included did they say that, where is it in writing, their intent was ?............. this all you need to read posted by Ken from another post but it is the accurate;

"the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."  No ammo limits no types of guns prohibited nothing of the kind you can have arms end of story . "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." that is the point.

[Mike on a bike]

Goodnight .

[KB]

And you don't feel it is necessary to bring that wording up to date?

 

Will it still be cool when people walk around with lasers? 

 

The guys that wrote that were politicians not Gods, they would have been the first to admit there would need to be further Amendments and such as situations change in the future.

 

 

Ken

[JoeyB]

Of course it is Joey, Police, Army Navy they are all regulated militias and the are all civilians

 

The point is because everyone in your bridge club has a gun that does not make them a regulated militia, nor even a slapdash militia, it makes them civilians with guns.

 

The whole point is moot anyway, the whole discussion is not about the 2nd Amendment it is about people not wanting to give up semi automatic weapons and they claim it's their constitutional right to keep them, the funny thing is that even the legal people do not truly understand what the Amendment means.....

 

 

 

 

 

The above is from the Legal Information Institute.

 

 

Ken

No sir, Police, Army Navy  are not regulated militias. They are manned by professionals. 

 

The point, and subject are obviously not moot. 

 

While there is someone somewhere that wants to ban all, some, certain and/or special weapons, the subject in the U.S. by the majority is not about banning semi-automatic weapons. The subject  is  controlling firearms. Few want semi automatics banned or confiscated. High volume clips and assault weapons are the most discussed right now. 

[KB]

I'll just leave you to read your own reply through a few times.

 

Maybe the penny will drop...maybe not.

 

 

Ken

[Guest zeleni kukuruz]

I'll just leave you to read your own reply through a few times.

Maybe the penny will drop...maybe not.

Ken

Hahahahahaha

[rrari1]

Should the second amendment also include explosives? Such a milita might need bombs landmines etc. if the average civilian should have military equipment to defend themselves, maybe they are under armed? In a school shooting situation a teacher with a few grenades for example could defend the children? Why do the NRA only care about guns? Maybe it is that the explosives lobby is too weak...

[JoeyB]

I'll just leave you to read your own reply through a few times.

 

Maybe the penny will drop...maybe not.

 

 

Ken

I'd suggest you read it a few times. 

[lloyd]

What everyone keeps missing about the crime rate in America is that with all the gun sales, it is dropping like a rock. The press is breeding hysteria and people are falling for it.

 

Homicide rates have dropped steadily in U.S.

By Neely Tucker,December 19, 2012

 

 

"The national homicide rate for 2011 was 4.8 per 100,000 citizens — less than half of what it was in the early years of the Great Depression, when it peaked before falling precipitously before World War II. The peak in modern times of 10.2 was in 1980, as recorded by national criminal statistics.

 

“We’re at as low a place as we’ve been in the past 100 years,” says Randolph Roth, professor of history at Ohio State University and author of this year’s “American Homicide,” a landmark study of the history of killing in the United States. “The rate oscillates between about 5 and 9 [per 100,000], sometimes a little higher or lower, and we’re right at the bottom end of that oscillation.”

 

Last year’s rate was the lowest of any year since 1963, when the rate was 4.6, according to the Uniform Crime Reports compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Don’t relax quite yet: Americans still kill one another at a much higher rate than do citizens of other wealthy nations.

“By international standards, we never really get to ‘low,’ ” Roth says.

 

And, no matter what your favorite politician says about gun control or the lack of it, the homicide rate has been near stagnant or falling for 21 consecutive years"

 

 

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-19/lifestyle/35929227_1_homicide-rate-randolph-roth-gun-control

 

Let's stick to facts not media induced hysteria.

 

Do you anti-gunners think that the politicians should have armed guards while the rest of the population is unarmed?

 

Edited January 6, 2013 by lloyd

[lloyd]

The Federalist #46

 

The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism. Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. 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, who 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. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors. Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment, by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it.

 

http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa46.htm

[lloyd]

_{"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))}

 

_{"...if raised, whether they could subdue a Nation of freemen, who know how to prize liberty, and who have arms in their hands?" (Delegate Sedgwick, during the Massachusetts Convention, rhetorically asking if an oppressive standing army could prevail, Johnathan Elliot, ed., Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Vol.2 at 97 (2d ed., 1888))}

 

_{"...but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights..." (Alexander Hamilton speaking of standing armies in Federalist 29.)}

Edited January 6, 2013 by lloyd

[lloyd]

"The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to Congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both." [William Rawle, A View of the Constitution 125-6 (2nd ed. 1829)

[kbh]

I love that graph posted above with firearm homicides at the bottom of the list. I just read in the paper that all gun deaths, both accidental and purposeful, just surpassed deaths from motor vehicle accidents in the US this year.

 

VERY selective use of propoganda to compare accidental  auto deaths to intentional gun deaths.

[Watchmeister]

On a different note, I read through the Harvard paper and found it very interesting. And basically what it asserts is that there is no correlation between gun control and murder - either way. But the one thing that it does scream out is that 90% of gun deaths are by bad people with prior violent pasts. So I say, kill or exile all the violent people and the violence will be gone. I bet if you enacted a law which says two strikes and you are excommunicated, killed or whatever would have a larger impact than any gun control on violent crime. Don't really mean it as that is too draconian but in my heart of hearts I know that getting rid of violent people is the only way to meaningfully reduce violent crime.

[lloyd]

On a different note, I read through the Harvard paper and found it very interesting. And basically what it asserts is that there is no correlation between gun control and murder - either way. But the one thing that it does scream out is that 90% of gun deaths are by bad people with prior violent pasts. So I say, kill or exile all the violent people and the violence will be gone. I bet if you enacted a law which says two strikes and you are excommunicated, killed or whatever would have a larger impact than any gun control on violent crime. Don't really mean it as that is too draconian but in my heart of hearts I know that getting rid of violent people is the only way to meaningfully reduce violent crime.

 

And now we reach the heart of the problem, people.

[icoopernicus]

Violent people are made that way, maybe if we stopped creating a system that favours the rich and puts all of the burden on the poor and old. Maybe if we weren't afraid to "punish success" we could avoid creating a huge population of disparate people with no access to education and easy access to firearms. I don't think we should discuss getting rid of the violent masses that our greed creates. Sort of another topic.

[JoeyB]

On a different note, I read through the Harvard paper and found it very interesting. And basically what it asserts is that there is no correlation between gun control and murder - either way. But the one thing that it does scream out is that 90% of gun deaths are by bad people with prior violent pasts. So I say, kill or exile all the violent people and the violence will be gone. I bet if you enacted a law which says two strikes and you are excommunicated, killed or whatever would have a larger impact than any gun control on violent crime. Don't really mean it as that is too draconian but in my heart of hearts I know that getting rid of violent people is the only way to meaningfully reduce violent crime.

I understand what you are saying, and that you know we can't do that. Laws do not stop "sick" people from doing violent crime. And then we get into who determines who is "sick" or not, violent enough to someday stage a mass killing or not. We don't have, and I'm not sure we want, thought police. It is a very difficult problem not easily solved at all. But one thing is certain, it is people that are the problem, obviously.

[maxman]

If someone wants to break into my house and murder me, I guess they can go right ahead. In the meantime the rest of my family, my neighbours, and my friends will be safe because I don't have a stockpile of guns for them to accidentally shoot each other with (see my last post with links to the plethora of accidental shootings that happen on a weekly basis) 

That would be your choice. I just wonder If your family were hurt, raped or killed.....and I truly hope nothing like that ever happens. But If It did and you survived....I wonder how you would feel. If you had the opportunity to save them and did nothing but tell everyone how safe everyone around you were since you had no gun to protect those loved ones.

 

There's a lot of bad people out there doing a lot of bad things.  But again....your choice.

 

Mike

[icoopernicus]

I would really want to protect them, I don't know what it would be like to live through something like that. Of course, I'm also not sure how I would feel if my son or daughter were killed by a gun that I was keeping in my house for protection. Accidental shootings happen a lot, see the list of links I posted yesterday and for me that is a far more real danger. This is not a problem with no answer, it's a problem that we refuse to address. We make constant justifications for owning guns that will only be used for target practice or to accidentally shoot our neighbours kid. Justification for guns that have the potential to be used in mass murders, guns that are only slightly modified versions of military weapons. This isn't a movie and the bad guys aren't running rampant with guns, but you better believe that when someone decides they want to do something bad with a gun, they have all the access they could dream of, all because someone, clouded in their own cognitive dissonance, justified it.