Every day, 20 US Children Hospitalized w/Gun Injury (6% Die)

[overtone]

Wait, why does training have to be free? The guns are not free either and gun purchases can be taxed. So I do not see that paying for training would be an infringement.

For the fiftieth time: The 2nd Amendment applies to the US government. It limits what the US government can do.The US government may not impose an undue burden on the exercise of a Constitutional right. It cannot, for example, require that one post bond guaranteeing the nonexistence of contraband in one's home, in order to be immune from arbitrary search and seizure.

 

 

So I'd go easy with the "tax" language, too: that's thin ice. As long as the tax is low, the same as is paid on anything else, etc, you can get away with it - maybe.

 

 

 

Leaving a loaded gun around is a felony if children get hurt with it.

 

Of course all ordinary negligence laws apply, right now. They are not good enough - guns are particularly dangerous, not ordinary objects.

Edited October 19, 2015 by overtone

[iNow]

More data: most Americans are in favor of more gun control.

Quite right. What seems to slow us down, however, is that intensity of those voting to keep the status quo tends to be higher than intensity among those who support improvement to the current status quo.

 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/186248/quarter-voters-say-candidate-share-view-guns.aspx

Quarter of U.S. Voters Say Candidate Must Share View on Guns

 

• The issue is now more salient than in the year after Columbine
• Conservatives more likely than others to say issue matters to vote
• Americans slightly favor GOP as reflecting their views on gun control

More than one in four U.S. registered voters (26%) say they would vote only for a candidate who shares their views on gun control -- about double the 11% to 15% who said this in the year after the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. The majority, 54%, say it is one of many important factors in their vote, while 17% do not see guns as a major voting issue for them.

<snip>

<snip>

Republicans, individuals who identify as conservative, gun owners and those who believe gun control laws should be made less strict are the most likely to say that a candidate must share their views on gun control.

<snip>

Most American voters don't identify as single-issue voters when it comes to gun control, however -- though a larger percentage do now than did 16 years ago. <snip> Republicans and conservatives are more likely to say a candidate must share their views on this issue.

Edited October 20, 2015 by iNow

[overtone]

Quite right. What seems to slow us down, however, is that intensity of those voting to keep the status quo tends to be higher than intensity among those who support improvement to the current status quo.

On the other hand, most of the people who think the status quo is best actually favor specific improvements when asked specifically - more than 80% of the population, including a significant majority of NRA members, favor strict background checks at all gun sales, for example. In principle.

 

So the question of why they appear to favor the status quo, which does not have these things they favor, is a key question to answer.

Edited October 20, 2015 by overtone

[iNow]

So the question of why they appear to favor the status quo, which does not have these things they favor, is a key question to answer.

And that answer is not difficult to find.

 

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21647627-prevent-gun-deaths-politicians-offermore-guns-why-gun-lobby-winning

The gun lobby’s winning record has done little to make its members less angry. The National Rifle Association (NRA), a deep-pocketed group with 5m members, accuses Barack Obama’s administration of a “relentless assault” on the constitutional right of citizens to keep and bear arms. Actual evidence of federal tyranny is a bit meagre—in part because the NRA is so good at whipping Washington politicians into line. No matter. A current “trending” alert from the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action sounds the alarm about a rule tweak for hunters taking guns on overseas trips, who—rather than filling out a form at home—may now have to wait at the airport while a customs officer enters their details into a computer. This, the NRA asserts, raises alarming questions about hunters’ information being stored by the feds, and is part of a “pattern of abuse” suggesting that Mr Obama’s final years in office may be the “most challenging” in the history of American gun-ownership.

 

Meanwhile children keep getting shot at school, sometimes by other children.

<snip>

How can this be so, when such a huge majority favour background checks? The answer is that background checks are tools of the state and trust in the state has plunged in the past decade, notably on the right where it blends with loathing for Mr Obama. Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s charismatic frontman, told a conservative crowd in February that when criminals attack, or wives, sisters and daughters face assault through “a kicked-down door”, “laws can’t protect you…You’re on your own.” That is the authentic voice of the gun lobby in 2015. Fear smothers rational debate. It is meant to.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/06/charleston-and-public-policy

 

But to best understand why gun laws in this country are not about to change, one must also recognise the disproportionate power of the gun lobby. The NRA rallies supporters with a masterful use of fear and distrust of government, and intimidates Republican politicians by turning support for gun rights into a defining test of conservative values. The group consistently and successfully diverts attention away from guns to mental illness.

 

There is also a painful dilemma that honest advocates of gun control must address. It is not clear that limited gun control, of the sort that might be politically possible in America, would actually make gun massacres much rarer, or even stop the country from topping rich-world lists for gun deaths by a mile. For once guns are reasonably common in a society, it is easy to see why some people will feel safer arming themselves. The sort of gun control that has had dramatic results in other countries, such as Britain or Japan, essentially involves no guns, or making it essentially impossible for private citizens to own handguns. This is not about to happen in America.

 

Here is one last reason why gun laws are so hard to change: America is becoming an increasingly polarised society.

 

Americans of different political beliefs live ever-more different lives. That adds an element of raw tribalism to what should be dispassionate questions of public policy. Guns are a grim example. Consider polls that show Americans are becoming more hostile to gun control, and more willing to say that guns are necessary for self-defence. The headline numbers are striking enough. But as so often with headline numbers, they conceal vast and widening gaps between different regions, races and classes.

<snip>

In short, questions over guns are becoming questions of identity. When Mr Obama or the mayor of Charleston says that gun control would be a logical response to Wednesday’s killings, the message triggers a tribal response. The America that believes that guns make the country more dangerous—urban, educated, Democratic America—is proposing to disarm the America that is sure (indeed increasingly sure) that safety lies in keeping firearms close by. As a result, nobody is about to disarm anyone.

Edited October 20, 2015 by iNow

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

 

Several posts discussing broader issues of the US constitution have been split off

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/91691-history-and-the-us-constitution-split-from-gun-injury-thread/

 

apologies if the split wasn't as precise as it need to be; I can only move entire posts

 

[MonDie]

For those feminists, guess which sex overwhelming (95% of the time) is the one using a gun to "justifiably" kill somebody. It's table four.

http://www.vpc.org/studies/justifiable15.pdf

 

Alas, they're also around 77% of homicide victims.

 

https://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_02.html

https://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_02.html

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-2

Start with the police, then. Just to demonstrate good faith.

 

 

So organized crime (and possibly the police) are armed, and everyone else has their guns confiscated.

 

The mere threat of that will ruin the career of most politicians in most States. And rightfully so.

 

You're an American, right? Check out how the KKK actually operated, in the local society's oppression of its carefully disarmed target population. Any adult over age 50 in the Jim Crow regions has teenage memories of this. It isn't ancient history.

 

That's how it works - in the Latin Americas, in Africa, in Indonesia, in Central Europe before WWII, in medieval Japan, in the British Isles before about 1850, all over the planet and all through history.

 

 

Guns work against pepper spray, and they work against people who are younger, bigger, stronger, more numerous, etc. They also work in advance, rather than only at the crisis moment, by threat. That is in theory their dominant, most common legitimate use in self defense - the trouble that never happens.

 

Exactly. So where, today, would you expect to find such people? In which lines of work, say?

 

Okay, let's start simple. One person is hostile toward another. In situation A they're both armed, and in situation B neither is armed.

 

You mostly argue that efforts toward B will fail to achieve B and become counterproductive. This may be difficult to consistently defend, for you must sink every possible approach to achieving B.

 

I only said that B, if it's achievable, would be better than A. If you can sink that, you'll have done some serious damage. The closest you came to attacking this position was here.

"That is in theory their dominant, most common legitimate use in self defense - the trouble that never happens."

Edited October 20, 2015 by MonDie

[iNow]

At least once every single week this year, people are being killed by a toddler... A tiny human that's less than 3-years old.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/14/people-are-getting-shot-by-toddlers-on-a-weekly-basis-this-year/

Roughly once a week this year, on average, a small child has found a gun, pointed it at himself or someone else, and pulled the trigger.

 

These numbers are probably an undercount. There are likely instances of toddlers shooting people that result in minor injuries and no media coverage. And there are probably many more cases where a little kid inadvertently shoots a gun and doesn't hit anyone, resulting in little more than a scared kid and (hopefully) chastened parents.

 

Notably, these numbers don't include cases where toddlers are shot, intentionally or otherwise, by older children or adults.

To whit:

There are policy and technical responses to preventable childhood gun deaths as well. States and localities could require guns to be locked up at home, a policy supported by 67 percent of Americans. Various types of smart gun technology, which prevent anyone other than their owners from firing a given gun, exist as well. But gun lock requirements and smart guns have been vehemently opposed by the National Rifle Association and its allies.

[John Cuthber]

 

 

So the question of why they appear to favor the status quo, which does not have these things they favor, is a key question to answer.

I guess it isn't their kids who are dead.

[ydoaPs]

For the fiftieth time: The 2nd Amendment applies to the US government. It limits what the US government can do.The US government may not impose an undue burden on the exercise of a Constitutional right.

Except, you know, that it explicitly talks about regulation.

[MonDie]

I found this search for supreme court rulings on the Cornell Law website.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/search/

 

Here's a pretty recent one.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZO.html

 

a. “Well-Regulated Militia.” In United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, 179 (1939) , we explained that “the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.”

 

[...]

 

Finally, the adjective “well-regulated” implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training. See Johnson 1619 (“Regulate”: “To adjust by rule or method”); Rawle 121–122; cf. Va. Declaration of Rights §13 (1776), in 7 Thorpe 3812, 3814 (referring to “a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms”).

It doesn't seem consistent to me. If only a subset of men have this "proper discipline", how can the militia simultaneously include all men and require proper discipline?

The only reasonable conclusion is it's a very high standard of what constitutes "physically capable".

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

 

Posts discussing the source of human rights has also been split

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/91730-the-source-of-our-rights-split-from-gun-deaths/

 

 

[waitforufo]

If gun control is so popular as some in this topic believe, why is the NRA so popular in America.

 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/186284/despite-criticism-nra-enjoys-majority-support.aspx?g_source=Politics&g_medium=newsfeed&g_campaign=tiles

 

 

How many political candidates are that popular?

Edited October 23, 2015 by waitforufo

[iNow]

If gun control is so popular as some in this topic believe, why is the NRA so popular in America.

simple. It's because so many members of the NRA also support gun control.

 

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/01/28/strong-majority-of-americans-nra-members-back-gun-control

The survey purposely over-sampled gun owners and those living in homes with guns to better estimate the differences between gun-owners and non-gun owners. For the most part, the study found there was little difference in support between the two.

 

"Not only are gun owners and non-gun-owners very much aligned in their support for proposals to strengthen U.S. gun laws, but the majority of NRA members are also in favor of many of these policies," Daniel Webster, co-author of the study and director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, said in a statement.

[overtone]

It doesn't seem consistent to me. If only a subset of men have this "proper discipline", how can the militia simultaneously include all men and require proper discipline?

It becomes consistent when the meaning of the term "militia" is comprehended - militia exist before they are "regulated", and independent of that "regulation". It is possible to have a poorly regulated (ill equipped, undisciplined, untrained, etc) militia, under any circumstance, and this was common at the time (specifically, in the British Empire). It is not possible to raise and train a well-regulated militia from an inadequately armed population, is the key circumstance. That circumstance, that physical reality, is what the 2nd Amendment refers to. It guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms, with the justification of then being able to raise a well regulated militia from among them.

 

What that justification prevents is disarmament under the pretext that serious weapons - firearms, the high quality rifles possessed at the time by many Americans - are too much firepower for peasants. This pretext would have been available to the central government with less specific language. That pretext is forestalled, by the language of the Amendment.

 

 

So the question of why they appear to favor the status quo, which does not have these things they favor, is a key question to answer.

I guess it isn't their kids who are dead.

 

You guess wrong. It is.

Edited October 23, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

 

You guess wrong. It is.

http://xkcd.com/285/

[MonDie]

It becomes consistent when the meaning of the term "militia" is comprehended - militia exist before they are "regulated", and independent of that "regulation". It is possible to have a poorly regulated (ill equipped, undisciplined, untrained, etc) militia, under any circumstance, and this was common at the time (specifically, in the British Empire). It is not possible to raise and train a well-regulated militia from an inadequately armed population, is the key circumstance. That circumstance, that physical reality, is what the 2nd Amendment refers to. It guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms, with the justification of then being able to raise a well regulated militia from among them.

 

Your points don't quite hit the mark. How can the militia be regulated if it exists independently of regulation? In order to regulate the militia, you must have requirements, and of course anybody who fails to meet these requirements must be excluded. How is this possible if every citizen, each being the subject of this unalienable right, is automatically included?

 

I'm done arguing for this post, but here is more from Cornell on the individual/collective right distinction.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZO.html

 

1. Operative Clause.

a. “Right of the People.” The first salient feature of the operative clause is that it codifies a “right of the people.” The unamended Constitution and the Bill of Rights use the phrase “right of the people” two other times, in the First Amendment ’s Assembly-and-Petition Clause and in the Fourth Amendment ’s Search-and-Seizure Clause. The Ninth Amendment uses very similar terminology (“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”). All three of these instances unambiguously refer to individual rights, not “collective” rights, or rights that may be exercised only through participation in some corporate body.⁵

Three provisions of the Constitution refer to “the people” in a context other than “rights”—the famous preamble (“We the people”), §2 of Article I (providing that “the people” will choose members of the House), and the Tenth Amendment (providing that those powers not given the Federal Government remain with “the States” or “the people”). Those provisions arguably refer to “the people” acting collectively—but they deal with the exercise or reservation of powers, not rights. Nowhere else in the Constitution does a “right” attributed to “the people” refer to anything other than an individual right.⁶

What is more, in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention “the people,” the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset. As we said in United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U. S. 259, 265 (1990) :

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/billofrights

The bolding is mine.

 

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

 

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

 

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

 

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

 

 

Preamble of the US Constitution - Wikipedia

 

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Edited October 23, 2015 by MonDie

[overtone]

You guess wrong. It is.

http://xkcd.com/285/

You need a citation for the observation that it's the children of gun owners who are primarily shooting themselves and each other by accident? That it's the communities with lots of gun nuts and loose regulation whose children are most at risk?

 

How can the militia be regulated if it exists independently of regulation? In order to regulate the militia, you must have requirements, and of course anybody who fails to meet these requirements must be excluded.

The term is "well regulated". The "requirements" you are talking about are usually unrestrictive in the extreme - the US militia as defined in the links above by inow, for example, right now, includes every adult man under age 45 and all women in the National Guard. Obviously more effort - including perhaps sending some guys home with a handshake, and raising the first units from the already militarily trained and personally well-armed - must be expended to make a militia raised from that population "well regulated". But it exists, by definition, ready to be raised at any time, whether that effort has been expended or not.

 

In the early colonies, when the Constitution was written, commonly every grown man not crippled was in the local militia. In many communities every man had to possess a firearm in good working order by ordinance, as a duty of their militia membership.

 

Ordinance, btw, is another of those words that connects equipment and discipline, good order and adequate resources kept handy, imposed law and personal equippage.

Edited October 23, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

 

You guess wrong. It is.

http://xkcd.com/285/

You need a citation for the observation that it's the children of gun owners who are primarily shooting themselves and each other by accident? That it's the communities with lots of gun nuts and loose regulation whose children are most at risk?

 

 

 

No I don't.

I did not make that observation.

There are two problems there.

The first is that what I actually said was "I guess it isn't their kids who are dead."

And I don't need to cite a source for what is clearly my own guess.

(BTW, that makes it clear that you are wrong)

 

And, what I guessed was not what you are claiming I guessed.You said "So the question of why they appear to favor the status quo, which does not have these things they favor, is a key question to answer. "

In short, why do people favour the status quo.

My reply was

"I guess it isn't their kids who are dead."

Now, unless you can show that those whose kids are dead favour the status quo, you haven't a valid point.

It's a bit like your claim that

"Amendments were made.

They have given rise to problems.

Times have changed.

One of the amendments has been revoked.

And I pointed out an ongoing fact:

The other might be revoked in the future."

was invalid.

That claim of yours wasn't true (there's another thread about it).

 

 

Is there a theme here?

 

You seem to have to keep saying things that are simply not true in order to bolster your position.

Did you consider changing your position in order to maintain integrity?

[overtone]

No I don't. I did not make that observation.

? You made the demand for a citation, for that observation. I was wondering at your demand. The observation seems unremarkable.

Now, unless you can show that those whose kids are dead favour the status quo, you haven't a valid point.

Two directions:

 

1) And that is what I pointed out. The kids getting killed in these accidents, domestics, suicides, etc, are - in the US - predominantly the children of the people who consistently oppose gun control advocating politicians, and gun control efforts. This is kind of simple - those are the people who more often have guns around their kids.

 

2) Your language is slippery, evades issues I consider important. It's not that these people favor the status quo - as several have noted (myself more than anyone iirc) most everyone in the US favors - in principle - better regulation of firearms; including specific measures such as rigorous background checks at purchase, and the like.

 

 

 

That claim of yours wasn't true (there's another thread about it)

The other thread verified my claim, in detail. Nailed it down to specific States and specific dates and specific times. Completely and clearly and obviously and unquestionably proved it. The Constitution of the United States went into effect when nine of the thirteen original States ratified it, which was after - not before - the Bill of Rights was guaranteed incorporation into it. There was never a single minute of US government under the Constitution without the Bill of Rights at least in the process of being added, and a majority of the States having already added it.

 

That doesn't mean it can't be changed, and it doesn't mean the Rights are unrestricted even without change, and in fact it doesn't really matter one way or the other to anything you've posted (your comparison with Prohibition and Repeal is still backwards, and your advocacy of that comparison is still politically obtuse and an example of the extremism noted below, regardless of whether or not the Bill of Rights was tacked on later in the normal amendment process), but you seem to find it important - so.

 

 

Is there a theme here?

Yes. Gun control advocacy is overshadowed in public by an entire faction devoted to irrationality, illogical claims, denial of reality, bogus statistics, invalid arguments, exaggerations of danger, appeals to emotion, authoritarian threats, the entire panoply of extremist political efforts they ascribe - accurately - to the gun rights fanatics. And that deadlock is why we can't have nice things like reasonable gun control in the US.

 

That even goes a long way to explaining why we can't have a productive discussion of how to reduce gun violence in the US - the gun control deadlock prevents even that.

Edited October 24, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

You made a bold claim; I asked you to cite evidence.

That's what is expected of people here on this site.

Did you think you were exempt?

re

"The other thread verified my claim, in detail. Nailed it down to specific States and specific dates and specific times. Completely and clearly and obviously and unquestionably proved it."

Yes, that thread did cite the times and places where the amendments were made.

You seem to have forgotten that your (rather strange) claim was that the 2nd amendment was not an amendment.

Anyway, leave that discussion in the other thread.

 

And you are right that there are elements of this

"Gun control advocacy is overshadowed in public by an entire faction devoted to irrationality, illogical claims, denial of reality, bogus statistics, invalid arguments, exaggerations of danger, appeals to emotion, authoritarian threats, the entire panoply of extremist political efforts they ascribe - accurately - to the gun rights fanatics."

on both sides.

But the side that is responsible for the continued death toll is also the one that has to pretend that the amendment isn't an amendment.

So I think it is pretty clear which side is the logical one.

​Why are you on the other?

And, if you find my use of language problematic in some way, perhaps you should seek clarification rather than trying to put words in my mouth. That way you may avoid silly things like the idea that repeating the revocation of prohibition is repeating prohibition.

Edited October 24, 2015 by John Cuthber

[overtone]

You made a bold claim;

No, I didn't.

 

I asked you to cite evidence.

Of what? Whatever muddle you post?

 

That's what is expected of people here on this site.

Really. I would expect them to apologize for such behavior as yours. Not seriously, of course - but then I don't dress myself as the weather, in the passive voice of reality.

 

Did you think you were exempt?

No more than you are making sense. You make no claim on me in this fashion, certainly.

 

And, if you find my use of language problematic in some way, perhaps you should seek clarification rather than trying to put words in my mouth. That way you may avoid silly things like the idea that repeating the revocation of prohibition is repeating prohibition.

I have three times now pointed out that you are in error about what you propose. You are confused. It is not, as you claim, similar to repealing Prohibition, but is instead similar to imposing it. I listed similarities, and pointed out exactly where you had become confused.

And I said something completely obvious as well as relevant, providing you with information you appear to lack: no American is going to regard a Constitutional amendment allowing the government extra powers of gun control and restriction as similar to the repeal of the amendment allowing the government extra powers of alcohol control and restriction. If you mention Prohibition as your model, they are going to see the obvious parallels the obvious way. And they are going to be right, and you are going to be wrong.

Like this, for example, from my local paper just the other day, and typical of many who refuse to vote for most gun control advocates despite favoring more and better gun control: http://m.startribune.com/thought-experiment-could-gun-prohibition-work/331835721/

But the side that is responsible for the continued death toll is also the one that has to pretend that the amendment isn't an amendment.

You badly and inexcusably misrepresent my posting by assigning it to such a side. Not for the first time.

Meanwhile: far from being "pretend", my actual observation (somewhat different) was reasoned, from evidence. Evidence you have not acknowledged, reason you have not answered, an observation that itself you refuse to word straightforwardly. Is that, also, how things are done on this site?

Edited October 25, 2015 by overtone

[iNow]

John mentioned prohibition to demonstrate, via use of direct and specific historical example, his point that amendments can be overturned, a fact for which you have already stipulated your own agreement and understanding many times over.

 

He mentioned this in response to the suggestion by many here and elsewhere, both implicit and outright, that the second amendment was somehow chiseled into granite and carried down Mount Sinai by Moses himself, unchanging and eternal, without possibility of edit, revision, or revocation.

 

John said nothing of how palettable the US populace would find the prospect of repealing or rewriting the second amendment nor how accepting they would be of such an idea or event, an event that you rightly point out is unlikely in the extreme within today's political climate and culture.

 

Perhaps, just maybe, we can all move on now beyond this boring, unnecessary, unproductive quibble and on to something more interesting and potentially more progress focused?

Edited October 25, 2015 by iNow

[John Cuthber]

While I agree with iNow's point that this is dull and repetitive, I think I ought to address the questions, partly because it's good manners (and required by the rules) but also because it's important to see the "debating" style some people employ here.

No, I didn't.

 

Of what?

Yes, you did.

The bold claim you made was this

"It is. "

[ made in respect of my observation that I didn't think the people saying the status quo was good, were the ones whose kids hadn't been shot]

And what I asked you to cite evidence for was that claim.

[ the post where I tacitly asked you to cite evidence only included an external link and this phrase-

"You guess wrong. It is. "

a quote attributed to you. It is difficult to see how it could have been unclear what I was asking you to cite evidence for]

 

I can't see how that wasn't clear to you from the context.

I am sure others will come to their own conclusions as to whether

it was genuinely unclear in the thread;

you are not able to understand it; or

you are being deliberately obtuse.

 

And, perhaps you would like to cite the evidence that shows that my guess was wrong; and that the people whose kids got shot support the current state of affairs with rather limited gun control and an apparently unending stream of dead children.

 

Maybe they do- I never claimed to be sure of it- just that it seem likely to me that those whose children died might want to prevent that tragedy happening to others.

But- you said I was wrong.

Presumably, you can show that to be the case.

All you have to do is show that I was wrong to believe that those people who don't support increased gun control are not those people whose children were shot.

I still think the ones with dead kids are likely to support gun control over the status quo.

[overtone]

John mentioned prohibition to demonstrate, via use of direct and specific historical example, his point that amendments can be overturned - -

Which foolishness and naivety - by him, and you - perfectly illustrated my point: gun control advocacy is as fully immured in irrationality and unreal delusion as the gun rights advocacy, and the issue is trashed.

 

His "historical example" makes no sense.

 

 

He mentioned this in response to the suggestion by many here and elsewhere, both implicit and outright, that the second amendment was somehow chiseled into granite and carried down Mount Sinai by Moses himself, unchanging and eternal, without possibility of edit, revision, or revocation.

Like I said - deadlock, irrationality etc etc etc on both sides. Hopeless.

 

Look: Note that he "mentioned this" in "response" -> to my posting <- - specifically and personally and with directed insult. I have made no such "suggestion", ever, but instead the complete opposite direct statement and elaborated argument, in plain English, many many many times. Always. Without possibility of reasonable mistake. And yet that - not just from him, but also from you and soon other gun control advocates. You have a problem, you guys. It's not just the gun nuts who are dealing the weird bs here.

 

 

John said nothing of how palettable the US populace would find the prospect of repealing or rewriting the second amendment nor how accepting they would be of such an idea or event, an event that you rightly point out is unlikely in the extreme within today's political climate and culture.

What I pointed out is that it doesn't actually make sense as an approach. That the "climate" has reason on its side.

 

 

Perhaps, just maybe, we can all move on now beyond this boring, unnecessary, unproductive quibble and on to something more interesting and potentially more progress focused?

No, "we" can't. For some reason.

 

You have demonstrated your inability to extricate yourself from this tar baby so thoroughly as to base a recommendation that the entire matter of gun control be set aside, and other issues that offer more hope of progress in reducing gun violence (for several reasons, actually) be brought forward, in the spirit of the thread. Do you remember how that has been greeted - by you among others?

 

And it doesn't matter in the least how many times I or anyone posts that attempt, for months now. You guys are stuck.

 

I can't see how that wasn't clear to you from the context. I am sure others will come to their own conclusions as to whether it was genuinely unclear in the thread; you are not able to understand it; or you are being deliberately obtuse.

I was being deliberately polite.

 

We are all at the mercy of any audience - especially me, if past experience with these kinds of profound intellectual subtlety is any guide. But I don't treat your bs with respect from worry about them. I answered you well, and fairly, and by way of addressing the issue as brought forward (exactly whose kids are getting shot, a matter of ethical import too often overlooked), and passing on the obvious insult - that is, without making too pointed the observation that you were once again exemplifying my description of the deadlock, the fatheaded and unproductive extremist mudslinging (appeal to emotion, irrationality, etc) that characterizes - uniquely - "both sides".

 

The source of the "pox on both your houses" response of the reasonable that you and others repeatedly mischaracterize as favoring this miserable status quo.

Edited October 25, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

I'm still wondering.

Do you actually believe that, if only the rich and powerful had guns, the rest of us would be slaves?

That seems to be the basis of the opposition to the revocation of the 2nd amendment. and it doesn't seem to me like the way people actually behave.

Edited October 25, 2015 by John Cuthber