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Citizens having firearms helps keep the government from intruding into our lives even more than they do now.
That's a fascinating comment. I'd be interested to learn what you think might happen if you took up arms against the government?
Also, the Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the right to bear arms was a byproduct of the times. You may have heard something about a Revolution. What people do during wartime isn't necessarily what they do during peacetime.
That's a fascinating comment. I'd be interested to learn what you think might happen if you took up arms against the government?
Also, the Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the right to bear arms was a byproduct of the times. You may have heard something about a Revolution. What people do during wartime isn't necessarily what they do during peacetime.
Absolutely correct. The Constitution with Amendments were written because we had just used our arms against a tyranical Goverment that we had to overthrow. They call it "lessons learned".
Last edited by ElkHunter; 08-31-2012 at 09:10 AM..
That's a fascinating comment. I'd be interested to learn what you think might happen if you took up arms against the government?
Also, the Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the right to bear arms was a byproduct of the times. You may have heard something about a Revolution. What people do during wartime isn't necessarily what they do during peacetime.
Oh man, I find these comments so horrifying, I am seriously aghast! I am ashamed for you. Seriously. First of all the Constitution was ratified after the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War. I think you may be thinking about the Decleration of Independence - dude that is not the same as the US Constitution.
But, regardless, it's not a "might", there are plenty of examples in history, including recent history. What would happen if 200 million armed citizens took up arms against a tyranical government? My money is on the people. Do we really need to answer? My God man, do you read the newspapers? It's going on today in other countries.
But you are missing the point - it's part of the check and balance system, as much as the 3 party segmentation of government is. No one is suggesting a revolution (except a few extremests both on the far right and far left), because we live in a free republic. But not every human on earth lives under the same free government we do. This is to ensure that we remain a government of and by the people. As one of my earlier posts indicated - weapon ownership has been a principle of human rights since the time of basic edged weapons - the tyrants of those times attempted to control and outlaw pivate ownership - swords, axes, lances. Hence why it's part of the consititution known as, repeat after me: "THE BILL OF RIGHTS" (that's right class)...the same as freedom of speach, etc. Our part of the world isn't run by tyrants anymore, and private ownership is one of the tools to ensure we stay that way. Why does our government need nukes? Do you know what would happen if we ever had to use them? No one needs or wants to use them. But, it kepts a cold war from becomming hot btweeen two competing superpowers for 50 years of world history. Same principle.
And I will go on, using your example (which was incorrect at the core, since at the time the Revolution was over) you can say "well the revolution is over - we don't need any of that pesky freedom of speach or freedom of religion anymore".
That's a fascinating comment. I'd be interested to learn what you think might happen if you took up arms against the government?
Also, the Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the right to bear arms was a byproduct of the times. You may have heard something about a Revolution. What people do during wartime isn't necessarily what they do during peacetime.
Well so far I have only tried this twice and the Govt i got was cops.
The first time it was 4:30 in the morning and my great dane woke me up to noises. I opened the door with a side by side in 12 and the first thing i saw was a revolver pointing at my dogs head and so i stuffed the 12 ga up the gun mans nose, who turned out to be a cop. He said nothing and left instantly, which was the right thing to do. His partner did the same. I called the cop shop some pissed off, and was told 'wrong house'.
At the same house I came home to cops on my door steps, talking to my then wife. I had been out hunting upland birds with that same shot gun. I got out of my pick up with the gun in hand opened even and the same thing happened; both cops shut up and left instantly.
My wife told me the dog had chased someones geese, and I still have no idea who that could have been, and think it was a lie.
Lesson: Cops don't like side by side 12 ga shot guns in the hands of a private citizen.
Oh man, I find these comments so horrifying, I am seriously aghast! I am ashamed for you. Seriously. First of all the Constitution was ratified after the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War. I think you may be thinking about the Decleration of Independence - dude that is not the same as the US Constitution.
But, regardless, it's not a "might", there are plenty of examples in history, including recent history. What would happen if 200 million armed citizens took up arms against a tyranical government? My money is on the people. Do we really need to answer? My God man, do you read the newspapers? It's going on today in other countries.
But you are missing the point - it's part of the check and balance system, as much as the 3 party segmentation of government is. No one is suggesting a revolution (except a few extremests both on the far right and far left), because we live in a free republic. But not every human on earth lives under the same free government we do. This is to ensure that we remain a government of and by the people. As one of my earlier posts indicated - weapon ownership has been a principle of human rights since the time of basic edged weapons - the tyrants of those times attempted to control and outlaw pivate ownership - swords, axes, lances. Hence why it's part of the consititution known as, repeat after me: "THE BILL OF RIGHTS" (that's right class)...the same as freedom of speach, etc. Our part of the world isn't run by tyrants anymore, and private ownership is one of the tools to ensure we stay that way. Why does our government need nukes? Do you know what would happen if we ever had to use them? No one needs or wants to use them. But, it kepts a cold war from becomming hot btweeen two competing superpowers for 50 years of world history. Same principle.
And I will go on, using your example (which was incorrect at the core, since at the time the Revolution was over) you can say "well the revolution is over - we don't need any of that pesky freedom of speach or freedom of religion anymore".
I agree with you. My own son is in the Mil and I doubt he would ever come to gun down Dad.. He ain't to terrible fond of the Leader in Chief either.
The CONS and Bill of Rights was written years after the Rev War was over. The Dec of Indy was written as a declaration of WAR.
We seem to have a lot of folks still liking George Rex huh?
Objection! Debate leads to deeper understanding. I have enjoyed this one and learned quite a lot.
'Completely agree about 1940. That was merely 1 lifetime a go (not a long time) and was made possible in part because of a turbulent economy (in Germany). Its not that much of a stretch to think that it might not have been the last time.
The whole Hitler banning guns thing and the oft repeated quotes, signs and slogans that go along with it are not true. The Weimar Republic (pre-Hitler coming to power) did pass laws that were largely ineffectual in an attempt to force registration of guns in order to disarm the Nazi's and communists who were pretty much engaged in open brawls and warfare at the time. The Nazi's did re-write these laws in order to target Jews and other "non-citizens" in 1938. What is important about that date is that it was AFTER Hitler came to power and had been granted full dictatorial powers to the thunderous applause of the German people. Hitler in no way needed to ban guns to gain or keep power. The entire, "Hitler banned guns" thing is completely false and basically nothing more then a clever marketing slogan, because let's face it, most people don't know the inner-workings of Hitler's Reich in the 1930's and such a thing seems reasonable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper 88
The topic would have been much better suited fior the P&OC forum if it was truly meant for meaningful discussion and debate, NOT a gun enthusiats forum. That said, I agree with the poster below. I'm glad the thread was started and have actually learned much through the process of reading and responding to it. It's caused me to look at things at angles I may not have considered it if weren't for this threads creation.
Agree 100%
To both you and stevo6 I agree that this has been an excellent discussion with good points made by all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimboburnsy
As an afterthought, it is absolutely fascinating to me that there are otherwise intelligent and contemplative people who fail to recognize the inherent futility and inherent weakness in the strategy of disarming the populace to effect the end of domestic firearms violence...
Disarming the American populace is virtually impossible and should NOT be done. However, I think there is room for better control of the licensing, registration and sale of firearms at a national level and that such legislation can be done to ENHANCE the rights of legal gun owners while drastically reducing the ability of criminals to get weapons.
"The estimated total number of guns held by civilians in the United States is 270,000,000"
"The rate of private gun ownership in the United States is 88.82 firearms per 100 people"
When the number is expressed as guns per person it makes the number of firearm owners seem much higher then it actually is.
Overall, only 30% or so of Americans actually own a gun. An additional 12% live in a home where a firearm is present, so 42% of Americans live with a firearm in their home and roughly 58% of Americans do not possess a personal firearm nor do they have one in their homes. This isn't unbelievable when you consider that most gun owners own multiple firearms. Gun owners truly are a minority.
The more interesting thing to me has been the changing outlook of Americans on the topic of gun control. In the 1950's when firearms ownership was well over 70% of Americans, people were generally in favor of stricter gun control regulation to the tune of around 60% in favor. Even the NRA itself was originally an advocate of gun control to preserve the rights of legal gun owners while meeting the needs of a changing society. However, today there is an inverse effect. The number of people who actually own guns has declined dramatically, but now a slight majority are against gun regulation. It's an interesting statistic. One would assume the more "armed" the populace the more they would be against gun control, but the complete opposite it true.
Also, if anyone is interested in the actual death statistics by cause, here is the link to the CDC that has all of the numbers:
There are two groups, one is for 2008 and 2009 independently, while the other is the average of 2005-2007. I pulled some of them out if anyone is interested:
Cause............................................. ........2009.............2008
Motor Vehicle Accident..............................25,445...... ....28,120
Motor Vehicle Accident by DUI/DWI..............10,839.........11,711
Total Motor Vehicle Accident......................36,284..........39,8 31
Homicide by Firearm..................................11,406... .......12,209
Homicide no Firearm..................................5,185.... .......5,628
Total Homicide.........................................1 6,591..........17,837
Suicide by Firearm.....................................18,689 .........18,251
Accidental Firearm Discharge.......................588..............5 87
Total Firearm Related.................................30,683.... ......31,047
Total Firearm Related (non-suicide)...............11,994.........12,796
So, roughly one thousand more people die from guns ever year (not counting suicides) then die in drunk driving accidents. Only pointing that out, because someone had made mention of it earlier.
Of the homicide it would be interesting to know how many were criminals using guns as a weapon from that of private citizens using guns as a self defense weapon.
Throwing both groups into one bunch just makes another lie.
Another stat I'ld like to know but am too lazy to study is how many times a firearm isn't fired, but the bad guys still go away.
I was curious about the assault statistic, because it is rather meaningless unless we look at the number of assaults committed with a firearm vs. those not and then compare that to the numbers who died. One of the foremost arguments of gun control folks is that guns are more deadly, while the counter from the pro-gun camp is that these crimes/deaths would occur anyway. So, here are the numbers from 2009...
There were 421,215 Aggravated Assaults in the US that year. Of those 20.9% were committed with a firearm. That means 88,034 assaults were committed with a firearm and 333,181 used another type of weapon or no weapon at all. We can compare this to our CDC death statistics...
Type of Assault...........Total Committed...Total Deaths....% of Total Resulting in Death
With Firearm................88,034...............11,406 ............12.9%
W/out Firearm..............333,181..............5,185... ..........1.5%
Total..........................421,215............ ..16,591...........3.9%
Interesting statistic, you are nearly 8.5 times more likely to die in an assault committed with a firearm then you are when a firearm is not used. Makes sense considering the relative power of a firearm, but I had never seen an actual number to support either position.
Just to provide my own critique, it is flawed if we logically assume that people who really wanted to kill someone simply chose the best tool for the job. So, that logical assumption would skew our numbers to a higher death rate for assaults committed with a firearm.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac_Muz
Of the homicide it would be interesting to know how many were criminals using guns as a weapon from that of private citizens using guns as a self defense weapon.
Throwing both groups into one bunch just makes another lie.
Another stat I'ld like to know but am too lazy to study is how many times a firearm isn't fired, but the bad guys still go away.
Mac, I'd love to see numbers on it as well, they are very hard to come by. I've seen pro-gun sites and publications that site the figure that "twice as many criminals are killed each year by civilians then are killed by police officers during the course of an arrest". According to the FBI 667 people are killed by police officers during an arrest. However, they also keep numbers on "justifiable homicide", which would be a victim killing someone in self-defense. That number averaged 213 per year between 2005 and 2010. So, on the surface, the oft repeated claim of "double the criminals killed by civilians then police" is completely false.
If I take the CDC number of 11,406 total deaths...
Subtract 667 for those killed by police = 10,739
Subtract 213 for those killed justifiably by civilians = 10,526
So, 213 criminals are killed by firearms in a given year and 10,526 people are killed by the criminals.
The guns deterring crime statistic is one of the hardest to pin down. There is a common cited number on pro-gun sites of 800,000 to 2.5 million per year, but that is a ridiculous number. If that was true every last one of us would know someone (actually multiple people) who has deterred a crime with a gun or done so countless times. That's simply not the case.
There were some deep flaws in that study. It was done in 1995, but most of the survey data was from the late 1970's and early 1980's when the crime rate was much higher then what it is today. The questions about defensive gun use on the survey's from which the number per year was calculated are also flawed. The question did not define what "use" meant. It is believed that many of the affirmative answers were simply people responding that they possessed or carried a gun to deter crime, not that they had actually deterred crime with it.
We can also try to poke a hole in it this way. We know only 213 criminals are killed by civilians in self-defense each year. For the 2.5 million number to be true, it would mean that only .00852% of instances of a gun used as a deterrent resulted in the death of the criminal, that's an extremely low number.
We can try to look at it through crime statistics relative to gun ownership, but that shows an inverse relationship. We know gun ownership has declined from around 70% of households owning a gun in 1970 to 42% of households today. At the same time, the overall crime rate has decreased 9.4% and the violent crime rate has fallen nearly 40% since its peak, but is slightly elevated (+3%) over where it was in 1970. So, we had a drastic decrease in the rate of gun ownership, with almost no change in the relative crime rates.
Indeed when we expand that to a state level and look at crime rates relative to gun control laws, there is almost no correlation between rates of gun ownership, gun controls and the crime rate. Some states with the strictest laws still have high crime rates and some states with the loosest laws still have high crime rates. These are all anecdotal cases that could 'prove' a point either way.
The last thing I will say is that there was a study done of crime rates in Bodie, NV during the silver rush in the late 1800's. This was considered a "case study" in what happens when virtually everyone is armed and carries openly and what impact this would have on crime. What they found was that robbery and other petty crimes, including bank robberies were FAR lower then what we have today. At the same time, the murder rate was roughly 30 times what ours is today. I don't think that study proves anything, but it was interesting. People seemed to be less likely to commit property crimes, but there was a much greater rate of people killing each other.
Ultimately, I don't think it is a statistic we will ever know for sure. Certainly guns prevent a certain number of crimes and save a certain number of lives, however, the ambiguity of not knowing the numbers for sure leads to one group inflating and the other deflating the number.
Of the homicide it would be interesting to know how many were criminals using guns as a weapon from that of private citizens using guns as a self defense weapon.
Throwing both groups into one bunch just makes another lie.
Another stat I'ld like to know but am too lazy to study is how many times a firearm isn't fired, but the bad guys still go away.
I don't know if statistics go into that detail. But one thing you can extrapolate by other crime statistics - the vast majority of gun violence occurs by a very small segment of the population - people with drug problems, low income and poverty areas, people with mental issues, usually not the legal and typical gun owner.
That's why gun control measures are never successful, people address the symptoms (or the tools) and not the cause. In another post on another forum I addressed that a bunch of medical doctors got together and are treating gun violence as an epidemic and a public health desiese (kind of melodramatic statement, but that is not the point) - and applying scientific problem solving skills to the issue. They found the same results that I listed above - gun violence is limited to a small segment of the population. The answer even to them, objective scientists with perhaps a liberal tendency, is not gun control but addressing those people that cause gun violence. Recognize patterns that result in gun violence, recognize host factors, recognize environmental factors.
there is nothing muddled at all about the 2nd Amendment. the Bill of Rights is just misnamed. it should read the limits of goverment upon the people.
also, with the 2nd Amendment if you read it with proper english, the comma is seperating the 1st part from the 2nd part. dems and repubs alike keep forgetting that little comma.
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