Well, this is gonna be long. Just trim what you can use. I'm going to try to give a couple of angles of attack for each and not wax wordy-like:
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Try as I might, I just can’t see it. I go over and over the pro-gun arguments, and they all come up empty or deeply flawed.
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Don't hurt yourself (this one is not recommended for your reply, just my fun.)
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Take, for example, the claim that we need guns to protect ourselves from bad guys. Does owning a gun really make us safer? Well, when you consider the fact that America has by far the highest gun death rate in the civilized world, one of the highest violent crime rates, and the highest prison population except for Russia, it is impossible to conclude that gun ownership makes our society safer. In fact, easy access to guns is making America one of the most dangerous countries to live in.
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That all depends on who you define as the "civilized world." Who exactly are you defining that way? And let's not forget that you're talking about right now, this year--1% of this century. In their heyday, Nazi Germany and the USSR were part of the civilized world.
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Then there is the argument that without the Second Amendment, our First Amendment rights would be in peril. Nonsense. Virtually every other industrialized democracy in the world practices strict gun control, and none of them have sacrificed their freedom of speech in the process. Japan, England, Germany, Australia, etc. all have the same freedom of speech, religion, right to assemble that we Americans have, and they haven’t needed guns to enforce those rights. They also have the freedom of not burying dozens of their citizens every day who have fallen victim to gun violence.
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If you plan to debate, check your facts. Germany has free speech? That will be good news for the people who are sitting in German prisons right now for violating their laws against "harming the memory of the dead." These laws are currently used mostly against holocaust revisionists, neo-Nazis and other undesirables, but how long do you think that will last?
Japan has free speech? Have you even TRIED to check into this?
Here's an experiment: Go to Germany. In a private conversation with a government official, tell him that you believe the Holocaust didn't really happen the way the Allies say it did (yes, I know, but if you want freedom of speech you MUST let them say these things.) That's what a historian from Australia did and he is still in prison in Germany as far as I know.
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There are those who insist that the Second Amendment guarantees their right “to bear arms.” That is true to a point. The men who wrote those words lived in a world where “arms” consisted mainly of muskets, dueling pistols and early rifles, each of which required a full minute or more to reload and all of which were used primarily to put food on the colonists’ tables. These “arms” were essential to life on the frontier. No one today would starve if deprived of their semi-automatic.
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Oh, so the 2nd is there to protect hunting weapons? I could have sworn it mentioned something about a militia, didn't it?
And by the way, let's apply this more broadly. For instance, in the founders' day, speech was limited to unamplified voice, handwriting, or slow, messy, expensive mechanical printing. Does the right of free speech apply only to people who use those mediums? The very reason they used the word "arms" was that it was anticipated that people like you would come along, and that if they specifically said "muskets" that you would use this argument. They tried to foolproof it but someone made a better fool.
Arms technology had been advancing for several thousand years by the 1780's. The rifle was just beginning to appear. Do you really expect me to believe that the founders were idiots who thought technology would freeze 20 years after they wrote the document?
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(It is also appropriate to remember that many of our Founding Fathers were slave owners, and they did not provide Constitutional suffrage for women or blacks. They were human, not God, and the constitution has had to be amended many times to correct situations that our evolving society has come to recognize as unjust.)
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While forgetting the lesson that the consequence of the biggest change we made LIMITING personal liberty was a decade of near-chaos? Or have you forgotten Prohibition?
Also note that the changes you're talking about were made to increase personal liberty, not restrict it, and they turned out well. There's a lesson there.
Finally, the Bill of Rights are amendments in name only. They were necessary in order to ratify the original contract (the Constitution) and thus are part of the original contract. Remove one and the contract is void.
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Furthermore, we already infringe on the rights of private citizens to bear many kinds of “arms”, including bazookas, shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, surface-to-air missiles, nuclear warheads, etc. These modern, sophisticated arms were beyond the wildest imaginings of our Founding Fathers, and it is our present-day society’s burden to determine which weapons belong in the hands of our next-door neighbors and which do not. The Constitution says nothing about preventing convicted felons, or five-year-old children, or clinically insane people from “bearing arms”, yet we as a society have decided that it is in the best interests of public safety to infringe on certain people’s 2nd Amendment rights. The question is really one of weighing whether one set of “rights” infringe upon other, more fundamental rights such as life and liberty.
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If prior infringements justified future infringements, then those changes you mentioned in suffrage would not have happened. After all, women and blacks had always been oppressed before, hadn't they? Why not keep going? You're not ready to hear the reasons why the infringements you listed are kinda stupid. Come back in awhile.
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One of the most annoying claims made by gun fanatics is that, without an armed citizenry, the government will “take over”. This concept is flawed on several counts. First of all, WE are the government. If we don’t vote a dictator into office, and vote to eliminate the checks and balances our Constitution provides, the possibility of “government takeover” is probably no greater than the chances of an asteroid hitting the planet.
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You're describing democratic elections in a Constitutional republic. I think that's a nice concept, but the Weimar Republic chose Chancellor Hitler the exact same way.
Do you even know the chances of an asteroid strike? Can you even approximate it? Not to be picky, but you throw out a lot of false facts. Are you a liar or an idiot?
(Again, I don't recommend that you use that last line. DG)
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Additionally, as any one who has served in the armed forces knows, soldiers take an oath when they join the military. They solemnly pledge to “protect and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic.” If the President of the United States issued an unlawful order to “take over” the military would have not only the right but the duty to disregard such an order.
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So . . . . you don't mind making yourself defenseless and helpless because you don't believe that people break oaths? Well, that's your opinion and you're welcome to it, but don't expect me to go along with such idiocy and don't try to force it.
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It would also be prudent to remember that our government is strongly influenced by business interests, and any totalitarian political movement that threatened the sacred doctrine of “laissez-faire” would unlikely to survive even an embryonic state.
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Business is not above the government, it is entwined with it. And if you expect Microsoft, Sprint, Visa, NBC and General Mills to be the guardians of your freedom, you're a good deal feebler than I thought.
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What makes me most angry is the insistence of pro-gunners that “law abiding” citizens mustn’t be inconvenienced by things like waiting periods and background checks when they purchase guns. Excuse me, but wasn’t that day trader from Atlanta a “law abiding citizen” until the day he shot nine people in a rage over his failing finances? Our own local villains Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were basically “law-abiding” till last April 20th. How many estranged husbands and boyfriends, angry drivers, unjustly fired employees, and rejected suitors are “law-abiding” until someone makes them really really angry and they pick up a (semi-automatic, easily concealed, readily available) gun?! How many suicides and accidental shootings occur among the “law-abiding”? I’ll bet at least half of all gun crimes are committed by regular old “law abiding” citizens.
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Inconvenience? Who's talking about inconvenience? Was it a simple matter of "inconvenience" during the Rodney King riots, when several thousand people desperate to protect their lives in L.A. (after the cops had abandoned the worst neighborhoods to fend for themselves) had to leave gun stores empty-handed because of the waiting period? Meanwhile, one block of Korean shopkeepers had thought ahead. They had rifles at the ready, and after the riots were over they were all alive and their stores and families safe. But just go on blathering about "inconvenience."
And hey, you're right, Klebold and Harris were wonders of sweet, sweet goodness. So if we tack ANOTHER weapons charge on top of the other weapons charges, murders, etc., I'm sure that will stop the next ones. I wouldn't worry too much about a culture of violence and abandonment.
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Then there is the gun lobby’s insistence that guns are no more dangerous than knives or fists, that it’s the person behind the gun and not the gun itself that is the problem. Well then, ask yourself which weapon you would rather see in the hands of, say, the men who have just high-jacked the airplane you are on – guns or knives? If an armed intruder breaks into your home, which weapon will more likely result in your survival, regardless of whether you have a pistol locked in your night stand drawer? If your three-year-old daughter sneaks out of your grasp and pulls out a pair of kitchen scissors, is she more or less likely to die than if she pulls out a loaded gun? The fact is, guns are in and of themselves more dangerous weapons than knives or clubs or fists. They can k8ill more people more quickly and with less possibility of defense on the part of the attacked. Most of us can fight back against a large variety of “weapons”, but none of us can dodge or outrun bullets. People who deny the lethal superiority of guns ought to be prohibited (by reason of mental incompetence) from ever owning one.
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It all depends on distance. If the guy is 20 feet away, I prefer the knife. If he is within 5 feet, I prefer the gun. They are different weapons.
And no, no one I have ever known has said that knives or fists are more dangerous than guns. But don't you find it interesting that murders in the US using everything EXCEPT guns still way outnumber murders in places like Japan using everything, INCLUDING guns? It's the culture, stupid.
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Concealed carry? Well, how about the scenario in which my high-school-teacher sister, who often has potentially violent students, packs a pistol while at school, and a mean kid comes in late, and refuses to show his office pas, and refuses to go get one, and then starts to reach under his coat, and fearing for her life she pulls her gun and shoots him, only to discover later that he was merely reaching for the requested pass – this is the kind of school environment the NRA approves? The logical conclusion is that such mass arming of citizens will result in more, not less violent deaths. (And to those who claim that cities with concealed-carry show a drop in gun crime, I say let’s compare gun crime rates to cities where NO ONE carries!)
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Straw man arguments? You must be desperate.
Every single state in the union would convict your sister of murder in that situation. If that's really the way she'd act, then you've succeeded in making an excellent argument that your sister is too stupid to be allowed to own guns. How to separate your sister from the rest of us (and get her the help she needs) is the next question.
But don't think you can claim that the NRA or anyone else would "approve" of this.
(Perhaps you should have him email Coinneach and Ernest--both certified NRA instructors--and ask them if they would "approve" of this crap. That should be fun.)
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The bottom line is that uncontrolled, unrestricted access to guns is killing tens of thousands of men, women and children every year, and injuring or crippling many thousands more. My children have a greater chance of dying from gunfire than from cancer. Yet despite the fact that the majority of Americans want to enact some reasonable gun control measures, our politicians continue to turn a deaf ear to the will of the people. It’s interesting that the NRA, who by their own estimates claim 5,000,000 members or 2% of the population of this country, get to “work with legislators”, basically dictating what kind of gun laws the NRA will allow to pass, while the vast majority of us are essentially being ruled by this tiny, tyrannical minority.
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Access to guns doesn't kill anyone. If you can show evidence that access to a gun killed someone, I will eat my wristwatch. Bring it.
Also, "uncontrolled, unrestricted access to guns" doesn't exist in the USA. If it does, please email me to tell me where. I'd like to see this place and possibly move there.
(you can certainly tell him you have a friend who'd like to know where to move to get "uncontrolled, unrestricted access to guns. dgwinn@monm.edu)
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As far as the “let’s enforce the laws already on the books” sound bite is concerned, I do hope that that these same folks are willing to put their money where their mouths are. We will have to hire many more police officers, court clerks, lawyers, judges, not to mention allocating large sums of money for more prisons and guards in order to convince and imprison everyone who violates gun laws.
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I personally disagree with them as well, though I disagree because the laws they're talking about are mostly unconstitutional and should legally be void. But if it's a bad idea to fill prisons with offenders for other reasons, why is it a good idea to fill prisons with little old ladies who keep revolvers in their purses? You aren't even trying to be consistent in your own arguments.
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And from what I observed during the gun bill proceedings in the Colorado Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on January 24, 2000, the laws “on the books”, as well as new ones proposed, contain so many exceptions, exemptions and ambiguities as to be virtually unenforceable to begin with. It was a sad testimony to the truth of the claim that “gun control doesn’t work”. Not the way it’s currently written! We should simplify and strengthen our laws so they have real “teeth” to begin with, and not allow the NRA to gut the legislation from the outset.
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You're damn right they're ambiguous, and if you think yours are bad you should try Illinois. They were designed that way so they could be broadly interpreted and snare more people than they were originally "openly" intended to get.
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As far as I’m concerned, my fundamental rights are being violated by the gun fanatics. Since Columbine, my kids’ elementary school has been locked down like a prison, restricting their freedom of movement. All Americans now have to live in fear of being shot at, whether we’re driving down the highway, sitting in school, working at the office, standing in line at the post office or kneeling in church. All just to appease the irrational, uncompromising portion of the population who believe, despite the reality, that guns are more sacred than life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It’s time for things to change.
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What fundamental right? Do you think you have a right to be safe? The world owes you safety and security? Well, it's a free country so go ahead and sit around waiting for the world to hand you safety and security out of the goodness of its heart. Just don't interfere with my right to create my own safety and security. Resist the urge.
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On final note: yes, I know that car accidents kill more people each year than guns. Maybe that’s why all cars are registered, require a license and insurance, and are subject to endless safety requirements and recalls. Manufacturers whose vehicles have mechanical or safety flaws can be sued. Many states are imposing a graduated licensing program to reduce the number of annual deaths among young, inexperienced drivers. And remember that Mothers Against Drunk Drivers persuaded the federal government to put pressure on states to raise their legal drinking age to 21. This resulted in a significant reduction in the number of drunk driving deaths and injuries. Did we unfairly penalize responsible 18-year-old drinkers? Probably. But the lives we saved were worth the inconvenience of having to wait a little longer to have the right to drink. These are the kinds of public safety decisions we make every day.
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(All the stuff you probably already know about why car registration is NOTHING like gun registration.)
