Mr. Saturday Night Special/Got a Barrel That’s Blue And Cold

Belle rules.

What does a crap ski-jumper have to do with gun control?

No one is a 2nd amendment absolutist, because everyone agrees that there are some types of arms which private citizens may never have, such as tactical nuclear weapons.

James Nichols doesn’t agree with that in Bowling for Columbine. Admittedly, he’s not exactly representative, but it’s false to say nobody is an absolutist.

I know it sounds stupid, but the 2nd amendment to the constitution really is about the people retaining the ability to overthrow the government by force if the government starts pissing them off.

It doesn’t sound stupid at all. What sounds stupid is having this constitutional right and then banning advocating the overthrow of the government by force.

There has to be some deterrent effect to would-be burglars to know that most homes they might want to break into at night are armed. There just has to be.

Yes. That what they’re doing is illegal and they might go to gaol.

Oddly enough, in arms controlled Australia, the three burglaries in my houses have all been during the day. It’s almost as if the burglars have wanted to go about their business undisturbed by the presence of home-owners, armed or not.

Thank you: that is the best-written essay on the firearms / 2nd Amendment issue I have ever read.

I will also point out that not all European countries ban private ownership of firearms. Last time I checked Belgian citizens owned both handguns and long arms, and Italian citizens long arms (of course that was a while ago and may have changed). The Belgians I worked with didn’t get involved in the “you Americans are nuts” discussions at dinner, but neither did they call the American situation (or contradiction, as you describe) crazy.

sPh

James Nichols doesn’t agree with that in Bowling for Columbine.

A lot of them don’t agree. They say: whatever weapons US military has – citizens should be able to have them too. That’s consistent with the idea of having the ability to overthrow the government by force if necessary.

Any of the other 10 amendments about the rights of state governments vis-a-vis the federal government? No? Oooh, snap!

Er, the tenth? I believe it says, “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.”

Not that your reading of the second is wrong, but dude.

doctor slack,

Um, you do realize that the incident you are refering to was accomplished using a rental truck and a large quantity of fertilizer – not any sort of firearms?

A little con law might help here. The Bill of Rights was originally thought of as applying ONLY to the federal government. So, for example, the federal government couldn’t establish a religion, but states could. (Massachusetts didn’t abolish its established church until 1833). It was only after the Civil War and the 14th Amendment that the Supreme Court held that some (but not all) of the Bill of Rights would apply to the states. The Court did this by concluding that certain rights were so important that violating them would deprive people of “due process of law,” which, the 14th Amendment says, the states must provide. Because the rights are said to be “incorporated” into the due process clause, this is known as the “incorporation doctrine.”

The Supreme Court has never held that the Second Amendment is incorporated into the due process clause, and it wouldn’t make sense to do so. If you read the amendment as applying only to the Federal government, it makes sense. “A well-regulated militia” – regulated by the states. The right of the people to bear arms “shall not be infringed” – infringed by the federal government.

So the right way to read the 2nd Amendment is that it permits extensive gun control by the states, but that federal gun control must not extend to the point that it would “infringe” the right to keep and bear arms.

In my personal view, the amendment would not bar federal registration and permitting, but that’s something many would disagree with. But it is certainly the case that the amendment would not bar state registration and permitting.

We should have the right to own guns and shoot people, but we should have to give em three steps, give em three steps Mister, give em three steps towards the door first.

12: Um, you do realize that the incident you are refering to was accomplished using a rental truck and a large quantity of fertilizer – not any sort of firearms?

I also realize that the ultranationalist Patriot militia movement the attack came from was (and its descendants are) demonstrably firearms-obsessed, raising the likely prospect that many would be just as capable with turning their guns on other Americans as bombing them. (Once, of course, they had come to identify them not as fellow Americans at all, but as enemies on a battlefield — like Timothy McVeigh apparently did.)

…much of the actual history of heavily-armed societies consists of various factions battling for tyranny: their own.

Why, the Swiss have what one could call a ‘well-regulated militia’; every male citizen keeps his military assault rifle at home plus a sealed box with ammo. Nothing terrible has happened so far; I’m not aware of any factions battling for tyranny.

Apparently it’s very easy to buy and own hunting/sporting guns here, but almost impossible to get a handgun permit.

3. If there werenÂ’t any handguns in America at all, many fewer people would get killed. I guarantee that exactly zero children would be killed as they sat in their homes by a stray knife from a knife-fight going on outside

Um, ninjas?

21: Dsquared and Doctor Slack think that gun owners are more totalitarian in their potential political behavior.

Hmmm. I was about to say that neither of us set anything about “gun owners” generally, but Dsquared did use the word “majority” and I did say “exactly.” Which was a bit careless of me, because I actually don’t think that gun owners per se — or even a majority thereof — are more totalitarian in their potential. It’s more that pervasive armament tends to significantly empower a profoundly dedicated and non-democratic subset of people.

To me there’s a difference between a guy who buys a gun for hunting or home defense and people who spend large amounts of time learning to be relatively ruthless and organized with their violence… and while it’s usual that the latter type will have an edge if actual violence breaks out, it’s not always or even often that they’re going to be the principled democrat in the room. (Not even if he learned his trade in, say, a military organization whose ostensible purpose is the defense of democracy.)

I think they confuse social oppression with totalitarianism.

It’s possible to do so, fair enough. OTOH it’s important to remember that totalitarianism usually succeeds to the extent that it can harness social oppression to its objectives. (Much of the once so virulently anti-government Patriot movement can now be found enlisting itself to supposedly support the state in more “mainstream” initiatives.)

24: In other words – are you arguing that we should restrict ownership of firearms because there is a fringe element that might use these firearms to kill people

The point is confusing you because you’re losing track of its original context. Dsquared’s original point was that broader human experience and history doesn’t give us reason to believe that heavily-armed societies are all that tyranny-resistant. The ultranationalist right in the States, which has a documented history of violence against fellow-citizens (albeit not large-scale firearms violence) strikes me as a concrete illustration of why that broader history should at least seem relevant to American experience.

As for whether I’m arguing that guns should be restricted because of the urges of a fringe element… of course I am. That’s usually the reason one restricts any sort of military hardware. I’m sure most people wouldn’t be tempted to use larger military hardware frivolously if they could do so, either, but for similar reasons you can’t just walk into any old gun shop and buy an anti-tank weapon, right?

Last time I checked Belgian citizens owned both handguns and long arms, and Italian citizens long arms

The latter is probably still true, since Dick shot Harry in the face with an Italian shotgun. And, of course, the Swiss militia has already been mentioned, with a model that, if applied to the US, would certainly be keeping to the spirit of yer well-regulated militia.

(That amendment’s a truly crappy bit of eighteenth-century prose, in part because of the desire to appease both the states that did their own regulating, and those that trusted individuals to train by shooting bottles on the fence.)

And I do very much doubt that yer Founding Daddy-os were as obsessive about the details of arms-bearing as most American gun enthusiasts (commenter no. 14 being representative here). And it’s that which, I think, comes across as somewhat creepy, in the way that trainspotting would be even more creepy if the spotters were using trains as potentially deadly weapons.

Barry,

I’m tempted to call BS on that idea; our current military can’t control Iraq, let alone the USA.
My only doubt is that I feel that the average Iraqi is both better-armed and more ornery than the average American.

But the most effective terrorist firearm in Iraq has been the dragunov, usually used from DC sniper type positions. Most gun carrying US citizens don’t have assult rifles, but they do carry rifles as accurate, or more, as the dragunov. Never mind that most of the US Army would just go home if they were faced with a general uprising. Can anyone see officers like Ohio’s Hackett ordering assults on US militias?

And Peter is dead on. Pistols are something you use to get to your rifle/shotgun. Just the sound of a 3.5″ shell going off inside a house will temporarily deafen everyone in there, hopefully scaring the intruder off.

Cool post, but in my Olympics mode, I am somewhat disappointed that it wasn’t about THE Eddie the Eagle

Nick #29 S, Peter #14 is not being particularly train-spotty by US standards. For many gun owners, being well-informed about one’s hobby is a sign of responsible ownership.

I kind of wish more car owners emulated this practice, actually. To me, cars are much scarier than guns. I’ve only been in a dangerous situation with a guy and a rifle two or three times in my life — hunting season + beer = fun! — while I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in danger because of some maniac on the road.

can you give a date on that case?

1939.

Jacob T. Levy: Thanks. 1939 makes sense. I think these shorter barrel shotguns are a more modern military phenomenon.

I’m sorry if that creeps you out, but I’m not sure why. Would you prefer that gun owners know very little about their weapons?

Oh, quite the contrary. But I’m sure I’m not alone among the Brits here: save that, as an expat in the US, I have actually been shooting and could follow what you said.

(The person who educated me on the differences between the large set of handguns in his collection also offered anecdotes of blowing up trees with black powder while growing up in rural South Carolina. I don’t think his experience was atypical, judging from Belle’s post.)

Anyway, I think it’s the imagined scenarios which have the capacity to appear creepy, because you’ve obviously walked through the Cheneyising of an intruder in your head, just in case the unfortunate situation arises when you feel the need to do so.

“(Non-US citizens may be interested to know that private individuals can totally own tanks and artillery and stuff. Which is pretty awesome.)”

There’s a billionaire in Portola Valley, up the hill from Palo Alto, who has about ~80 tanks and two scud missile launchers. Basically, he loved playing with toy tanks as a kid, and now can do it full-scale. So he has a collection of armored vehicles more extensive than ~100 of the world’s countries.

Turns out buying a second-hand tank costs about the same as buying a new sedan. Transporting it and maintaining it, however, takes serious $$$.

My reaction? I want to see Portola Valley invade Woodside.

I haven’t anything to add to the gun control debate, but I just wanted to remark that I liked the Myles reference.

My first choice for home defense is an 85-lb German Shepherd Dog, since she’s more likely to deter would-be thefters before they break and enter, and I’m more comfortable when kids play with her.

I would not mind a world in which many people had hunting rifles and very few people had handguns. I was just posting this morning about how the presence of handguns in the United States makes the streets feel much more dangerous.

nick s: Your probelm with Uncle Say raises another important point. If you are in a situation where there is an intruder in your house, he or she or they may well have already struck nearby, drawing in the police. If the police see that your door or window has been forced, they are likely to enter in pursuit. This makes it even more critical that you be extremely cautious and conservative, lest you put law enforcement in harm’s way. One should never take the aggressive stance this guy appears to advocate. Even if you are legally cleared, the moral burden will be awesome and forever. You hold your fire until you are basically a dead man if you don’t.

Peter, thanks, but this is a very old, solid, and tiny house. The walls aren’t an issue, but maneuverability is. As is the liklihood that if I can see a burglar in the house, I’ll be between him and his exit unless I’m still in my bed. And he’ll be about 15′ from me.

And I think folks are taking SU’s bluster way too seriously. I’ve worked closely with a lot of guys who profess the same over the top, aggressive attitude toward any kind of conflict…and they often get their way by putting up this front, but when the time comes for action they act like everyone else.

Convince me that the person who wrote those words doesn’t, on some level, want the opportunity to act out that scenario.

You are confusing willingness with eagerness. I have zero desire to shoot anyone and hope to go my whole life without ever having to shoot someone. However, I have made a conscious decision regarding my actions because 2:30 in the morning with someone monkeying around in my home is not the time to be having that philosophical debate with myself. Not everyone who owns a gun has some desire to act out a Rambo/Lethal Weapon fantasy. Try again.

You shoot someone when you are backed into a corner with NO options left.

The law disagrees. So do I. When you enter my home, you mean me harm in the eyes of the law. I have a child and my primary objective at that point is to get to her and ensure her safety and I will intentionally have willful disregard for anyone who is in the way. My objective is not to cower in the corner pondering her fate but to do what I can about it. However, if I were single and had no one else to be concerned about in my home, I would likely arm myself in the bedroom and phone the police. Now, however, that is not an option.

Sayuncle,
First of all the law is a funny thing. It is possible to get indicted for shooting someone who enters your home in some states, depending on the circumstances. And civil liability is a whole other issue: there simply are not those kind of guarantees in civil court.

Second, I’ll offer a cautionary tale. I once heard this story through a friend (so I have 2 degrees of separation from the person it happened to), and I’m pretty sure the tale is true. Basically, this guy was living in an apartment and was armed. He heard strange noises emanating from the living room/dining room area and, gun in hand, went to check it out. He observed the silhouette of someone moving through the place, but thought there was something odd about their movements. He decided to play it very cautiously and took a defensive position with easy retreat to another room and clicked on the light. And there before him was a 75 year old woman in her nightgown. Basically, she had lived there two tenants before him, still had her key, now lived two blocks away, had alzheimer’s or some other form of diminished capacity and in her confusion walked back to this familiar place from her own house. Once this guy’s blood pressure dropped back down from 500/300, he called the authorities and helped this very scared and disoriented old person get home. Any prior certitude about your rights (even if the law confirms it) would mean nothing against the knowledge that you had just blasted her.

I’m also surprised that having a child gives you more certitude about how you would act. If anything for me that would tremendously up the number of variables I’d have to think about and really make me even more cautious. Why not redouble security on the child’s room, so that it is essentially impossible to get in?

The Navy has all but two of the armed watches on my ship (LHD2) carry 9mm, if you don’t count the guns that are physically part of the ship. That’s 15 or so hand guns when we’re at normal watches, which is when we’re in port, and I’ve been aware of up to 30 when we’re really worried.
(There are probably more, but that’s the sort of thing you try not to know. Op sec.)
I will never buy a 9mm “biter” gun– they are a waste of cash. But at least two military groups do use them, extensively. (Navy and Marines)

The thing with dogs is that you don’t control them. You can train them and hope, but you don’t control them. And if the little old lady mentioned above had been mauled by a dog, it would have likely killed her, while a strong young villain with a knife or gun can kill a dog first.

For the argument above that since the states don’t want militas people don’t get the right anymore– it doesn’t say that the right is limited by what the state wants right now. It just says that the right is there so folks are *able* to act.

Interesting post.

My concern with protecting the 2nd amendment has always been in protecting all the others. If political interests are allowed to eliminate a protected freedom through language phrasing, what is to prevent other rights from disappearing in the same manner? If the second amendment right becomes a group right defined by the state, what is to stop the freedom of the press from following the same path? After all, one could argue that the press really refers to a group and not an individual. Expand the argument a little and freedom of religion or assembly could follow. It is far more dangerous to define a right out of existence compared with allowing people to own guns.

Sailorette,
Most dogs (including Pit Bulls and other Bull/Pit type dogs) can in fact be controlled (in the sense of making an unauthorized attack by them less likely than being hit by lightning) if raised and continuosly handled in the correct environment and manner for the breed. Malcolm Gladwell had an interesting piece along these lines in the New Yorker a few weeks ago in an article about pit bulls and the trouble with profiling. Study after study of dog attacks has demonstrated a pronounced pattern of serious human mishandling of the dogs that, for instance, maul children. Dogs are like guns in this sense: some technical research is important before owning one. Most people don’t really take the time to think about the way the world looks to a dog before designing their training (thats one reason I love shows like The Dog Whisperer). If you do it is amazing how well you can control the probabilities of various behavioral outcomes.

Sayuncle: I appreciate the problem of delayed police response (I face the same issue), but I still don’t see why that necessarily justifies such an aggressive posture. And a lot can be done to make your home one hell of a difficult target and/or facilitate the “hunker down and wait for the cops strategy”. And as you can tell from my earlier posts, its certainly not like I am the sort who is hostile to guns or gun rights or the ultimate intrinsic right to self-defense. I just don’t see why such an aggressive approach is necessary. Generally speaking you don’t have to hurt someone until your back is really against the wall.

Peter, I didn’t interpret it as hostile to guns or gun rights. I took it as hostile to me since you did call me nuts. Of course, since the post is sort of in a vacuum, it’s a conclusion I can see you taking. Hence, my need to explain my reasoning and my particular situation. I assume my readers know that but some person who wonders over from the comments section of a blog would not.

And you can’t be all bad. You like bull dogs. I happen to as well.

By the by, Say Uncle’s link shows what I believe is an American Bulldog (am I right?). Mine are somewhat smaller (comparable to most Pits in size) English Bulldogs. But look at that American Bulldog: by the standard of the media image of the Pit, it looks like a man-killer. And yet it likely isn’t. American Bulldogs are rarely responsible for any kind of attack. Why? They are out of the thug price range.

We are getting off topic here, buts interesting you mention the motivation for the AB. As you know, it is controversial (since no one really knows what the pre-modern bull-baiter English bulldog looked like-all we really have is some Courier and Ives-esque images of them). My guess from what I’ve read is that the modern AB and EB split the difference. I suspect the bullbaiter was more heavily built than AB’s like yours but certainly more long and gracile than those two little cannon balls I own. But I think you would agree that the English Bulldog has all of the same intrinsic capabilities as the Pit. Its all a matter of handling.

And I am sorry I called you nuts.

Two hundred years later, the states have decided, for various reasons, to do without their militias, or to convert them into the National Guard. This tends to undercut the original purpose of the Second Amendment, but only because the world has changed since 1789.

Did the states decide that, or did the Feds decide that for them? What if the states decide to convert back to separate militias after President Hillary is elected, or are they not allowed to change their minds once ‘delegating’ power to the Feds?

“The world has changed” is BushCo’s favorite post 9/11 rationale for their violations of Constitutional restrictions on Fed power – if you accept that premise, what argument do you have left against them?

By the way, James (#59) and Scott (#69): well put.

Yeah, right. You’ve imagined ‘goblins’ (oh, how I love that term, with all its connotations) in your home, and you’re going to see one before you see what’s really there.

First of all, I live alone. Anyone in my house at 2am is an uninvited guest who doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt concerning his violent intentions..

Any sane person who lives w/ others can be legitimately expected make sure of his target before blasting away at his teenager sneaking in from a date. If you assert someone would gleefully blow away his own kid out of an eagerness to shoot ‘goblins’, you have zero credibility.

To break the growing tension here, I have a funny story that speaks to the nutty edge of the gun culture (well, every culture has a nutty edge) along the lines the Belle hints at. A little while ago I got a Springfield Tactical Operator .45 (a very fun gun to shoot). Anyway, as usual there was a ton of paperwork to fill out, even in my Red state. For the first time I noticed a clause that both the dealer and I had to initial stating that I was not dressed or behaving in such a manner as to bring into question my moral capacity for gun ownership. I thought this was pretty funny and asked him if wearing white after Labor day would be an example of questionable dress in this context. He laughed but then told me that they have rejected some buyers for this reason. Examples:
-The guy who came in decked out head to toe in military camo, including face paint.
-The cute, courteous (in that old Southern way) and conservatively dressed little old lady who wanted a pistol. But when they asked her why she wanted it: “Basically, I’ve had it with my neighbor. I’ve lived next to that bitch for 40 years and its time to teach her a lesson.”
-The guy who asked how easily the pistol of his choice could be fired from a moving car or a rubber dingy in his swimming pool (????). I truly don’t know which is more unnerving.
-The guy who wanted to know how effective his gun would be for hunting in his closet (???).

You can’t have a dog in Singapore???

Apropos of many of the dog posts, did I miss something, or did a bunch of people start assuming that we were all talking about dogs that have been trained to be aggressive? I’ve done a lot of training with my GSD, but none of it involved aggression.

I don’t think the issue is training to be aggressive. Instead it was about whether certain breeds are inherently aggressive.

Clearly if home defense is one consideration, you want to choose a dog with some ability to get it done (in this sense a shephard trumps a chihuahua). It was then suggested that dogs in general, and pits in particular, pose real reliability problems. The rest of the discussion was mostly about that. I train my dogs to behave well, and assume that if we were ever threatened, protective instinct would take over. I certainly don’t train them to be aggressive.

Precisely backwards.

I’d say it’s a subtler construction. If, at some future point, a well-regulated militia is demonstrably no longer necessary to the defence of a free state, then that would be an argument for revisiting and amending (not re-interpreting) the second amendment.

There’s a temporality acknowledged in that ‘being’: the author understood that the right is conditional, rather than absolute, but it also makes the One Big Condition something that hasn’t been refuted in 200+ years, and probably won’t be refuted for a while longer.

Btw, it’s nice of Brave SayUncle to run away to his own blog to call me an idiot. I’ll just say that if you don’t want people to think you’re busting to cap someone, don’t write blog posts sounding like you do. The person who took me shooting the first time, in spite of his tales of adolescent hijinks, didn’t need to pull the machismo.

I suspect it has more do to with the current sidearm on offer for most of our troops: a type-92 9mm Beretta… and many feel that the 9mm lacks stopping power against fanatic opponents (like, oh, say, the Taliban). I bet that if the army went back to the old .45 acp, using one of the updated 1911-style tactical models (from Springfield, Kimber, etc.), you’d see sidearm carrying shoot back up…if a 1911-style .45 acp were available, I would definitely take it.

Specialized units do in fact often still use .45’s, many of them 1911’s.

Army Special Forces uses a non 1911 Heckler and Koch .45 called the Mark 23. 1911’s are being used by Los Angeles S.W.A.T., FBI S.W.A.T, and the Marine unit assigned to Special Operations Command. L.A. and the Marines are using Kimbers, and the FBI is using a Springfield.

Maybe you’re usage

God I must be tired, I actually mixed up “your” and “you’re.” Good night all.

Just out of curiosity: the amendment in question covers “arms”, rather than just firearms, right? So would one also have a constitutional right to carry a sword? Personally, I’d reckon it would have a lot more deterrent value against muggers than a concealed pistol – much more difficult to injure yourself with one, too, and you could leave it lying around without worrying that the four-year-old would accidentally shoot himself. Plus – looks good.

I have never blown up a tree. That sounds ridiculously dangerous. And pointless.

Uhh, you left off the all-important phrase, “and FUN!”

#88, fine, but then you’d have to start wearing a cape, too. :-)

With all due respect, bullshit: you don’t lick your lips at the prospect of putting out a fire or meticulously describe the way you’d deliver a tight group of CO2 blasts.

What a beautiful thought. I’m tempted to start a blog about that. Photos of fire extinguishers, photos of them being used, with captions. “Nice tight group.” “The Kidde FA110G demands precision. You have to make every shot count, because fires don’t wait.”

Photos of little kids using fire extinguishers on fires, and old ladies doing it.

Fire extinguisher safety rules.

And maybe at the bottom some fire extinguisher safety photos.

Photo of little kid shooting fire extinguisher at burglar. Caption: Never ever aim a fire extinguisher at a person’s face, you might hurt them.

Photo of old lady shooting fire extinguisher at burglar. Caption: Never ever aim a fire extinguisher at a person, unless he is on fire.

Photo of Daddy aiming flamethrower at burglar. Photo of little kid shooting fire extinguisher at burning burglar. Caption: Appropriate use!

I have a bad sinus infection but I’m not on any mind-altering sinus medications. Maybe it’s just the pain.

gswift (#84):
I completely agree. The 1911 model either never left or has made a comback in some units. Probably the biggest unit in the military is the Marines you refer to. But the issue is the average soldier (remember, I said “most”), whose only option is still a 92 type 9mm Beretta.

When you say “FBI is using a Springfield” I assume you refer to their tactical units, right? I think regular field agents usually carry a .40 S&W Glock.

93: Slack, I doubt i’m the first to use ‘over the top’ rhetoric.

Nor are you the first to resort to whingeing about how the other guy must be an idiot when you get called on it. But put it this way: if it made you look like a nut to Peter, who doesn’t strike me as anyone’s definition of a “soccer mom” (and what is it about “soccer moms” that their opinion would only be worthy of disdain, anyway?), it should be occurring to you that you’re not doing yourself any favours.

Seriously, people tend to want a foolproof method of home protection and there just isn’t one.

If you have a dog then a determined invader will kill the dog. Because of that a loud dog is likely to be better than a quiet dog — he’s more likely to warn you before he gets killed. And a small loud dog is a smaller target. On the other hand, a casual invader is more likely to get scared off. Dogs are good, people who won’t kill a dog to get onto your property will be deterred.

Any kind of gun will help you feel safer from home invaders. On the other hand, it makes you less safe from an irate spouse. Make sure your spouse is sane and doesn’t drink much (or stays sane while drunk). You can lock your guns away to protect them from your spouse, but then they aren’t instantly handy when you need them.

Make sure the police know you’re an upstanding citizen who will never need a SWAT team to invade your home. This applies whether you have a gun or not. But if they do invade your home you’re better off without a gun. Depending on the ratio of SWAT team invasions versus lethal criminal invasions, you might be better off to just surrender and hope it’s the police. Dial 911 instead of trying to defend yourself and possibly the police will come.

Any time you’re away from home, criminals might possibly break into your home and steal your guns. This is an argument for owning only cheap guns. If you get a gun that everybody knows is only good for 6 or 8 shots, burglars might not even bother to take it. And if you need more shots than that, you’re probably going to lose anyway.

The suggestion of keeping a weapon that doesn’t pass walls is very good. It has an advantage that wasn’t mentioned — if a SWAT team does break into your house and you shoot one of them before you find out who they are, it probably won’t hurt them. Of course you might be beyond caring….

Moving on to concealed carry, I found the kind of women I liked didn’t like it. What with one thing and another after a little while I resolved to only carry it when I thought I might need it. And the third time I started to do that, I had a sudden insight. Namely, is this an activity I want to participate in at all? It was a lifestyle choice. I had the luxury of mostly staying out of things that looked likely to be dangerous, and I took it. Some peoplea aren’t so lucky. I felt pretty stupid about those first two times, looking back on it.

J Thomas said:

A very good point and one (in fact, two points if you include the effect on your career of seduction) that has received insufficient attention so far.

More fundamentally, the decision between dogs and guns, or between either one and a combination of the two, comes down to this: how much risk are you at of being attacked in your home by someone who is vicious enough to kill your dog, armed enough to do so, determined enough to carry it through despite all the attention-grabbing barking, and motivated enough to actually go on and kill you – but can’t outdraw you?

Surely most people who would break into your home, not turn back when confronted with a great barking hound, kill the dog, and then come for you rather than taking your DVD player are gangland hitmen or similar. It’s probably fair to say they will be better at their job than you will, especially coming prepared and having murdered your dog for a warm-up. And if people like that are your problem, surely that warrants more serious security measures – such as guards with both dogs and guns?

Slack, I use soccer mom for the same reason I use other rhetoric: to make a point that sticks. Sure, it may well be that such rhetoric isn’t doing me any favors in terms of convincing some folks. It is, I think, an effective way of getting someone to address it. After all, had I used language designed for delicate sensibilities, would we be having this conversation?

A couple of points that need to be addressed:

1. re the popularity of handguns in the armed forces. They have been an integral to the US military since the Civil War. In fact, during the 1st World War, every front line soldier was issued a handgun. That practice has faded, but they are still standard issue for officers, senior NCOs, MPs, crew-served weapon teams, SOF and anyone else who can get their hands on one.

2. The fear of potential (but as yet unseen) right-wing gun violence. Contrast this with the actual gun violence demonstrated by radical left-wing groups in the US during the 60s-early 80s. SLA, Weathermen Underground, MOVE, Black Panthers and other fringe groups were certainly not voting Republican.

3. A dog as a substitute for a firearm. I don’t take seriously anyone who suggests this, but I would argue that any dog that is truly capable of being violent towards an intruder would be more dangerous to the owner and family than a firearm. The dog cannot be fully controlled, having its own personality. The firearm is an inanimate object. I’m sure someone will say “what about accidental discharges?”, so I suggest looking at the statistics in the US and you’ll see that death and injury from accidental firearms discharge is smaller than that from dog attacks. Second, people are overly focused on home defense, while ignoring threats when you are outside the home. The dog is not going to be with you 24 hours a day, while you are out of town or a multitude of other situations where you may be threatened. The firearm will be.

Alex, if we accept that there’s no absolute defense, then the question turns to how much expense and risk do you accept to get whatever level of home defense you want.

Good locks and windows that can’t be forced open are a very good start. People who just casually want to break in will look for an easier target. But you need a good fire escape-plan. A good burglar alarm seems to me like the next step, if you live in a community that supports them. Somebody breaks in, the alarm goes off, the police will show up in an hour or possibly less, they don’t have a lot of time to do whatever they’re considering.

If you want more than that, a good answering service might be the next expense. If somebody with a crisscross directory and a cellphone is going down the street in the early afternoon calling each house to see if anybody’s home, a human being who answers “Alex’s residence” is a big improvement over a recorded message.

If you want a dog, get one. You can rationalise what kind of home defense it provides after you see what kind of dog it is.

It helps if you marry somebody who isn’t interested in conspicuous consumption. Don’t look like a target. And an aggressive neighborhood watch helps too, instead of shifting problems to your neighbors you can help shift them to some other neighborhood.

But in general you’ll have a lot more problems with criminals and crazy people if you live cheap. Once I lived in a cheap rental complex. Lots of freeway noise and mosquitoes. I was on the second floor and the guy beneath me introduced himself, he explained he’d been arrested for a felony so he couldn’t legally have a gun but he had one anyway. He’d rather go back to jail than be dead. He said he got lots of crazy people bothering him. Every week or so we checked in with each other. “This guy came knocking on my door at 2 AM, he said he wanted Dolores. I told him Dolores don’t live here. He said he wasn’t going away until Dolores talked to him. I told him Dolores don’t live here. He kept knocking on my door and finally I opened it and I pointed my gun at him and told him ‘This is Dolores, you want her to talk to you?’. He got it that time and he went away.” “This guy came and said he was going to get the money I owed him. I told him I don’t owe him any money. He didn’t even know who I was, but he said he was going to get his money and he shot through my door. So I shot through the door back, not aiming at where I thought he was. He ran then.” I’d noticed three new bullet holes in his door and I’d heard three shots but I didn’t ask. I never had any trouble like that. He was on the first floor and all the trouble came to him. The closest I had to trouble was a guy lying on the floor moaning outside my door. He seemed to be in pain. I warned him that if he didn’t get up and leave I’d call the paramedics. He just lay there so I did. He left before they got there but he didn’t go far and I pointed him out to them. He tried to look normal and said he didn’t need any help and they gave him a lecture and went away.

If you live in a violent neighborhood you need to be ready for violence. Much nicer to have the choice not to, if fate gives you that choice.

In comparing guns to dogs, I’m surprised no one has yet pointed out that guns don’t need to be fed and walked every single day, they don’t need to be looked after when you’re out of town, and they don’t destroy your property if you don’t give them enough attention.
If you don’t want a dog generally, forgetting for a moment their home-security benefit, you’ve probably not got the commitment to be a dog-owner and shouldn’t consider owning one as a burglar deterrant.

But the issue is the average soldier (remember, I said “most”), whose only option is still a 92 type 9mm Beretta. When you say “FBI is using a Springfield” I assume you refer to their tactical units, right? I think regular field agents usually carry a .40 S&W Glock.

Yeah, I was referring to FBI S.W.A.T. I believe you’re right about the Glocks still being the standard issue. I think they went to the Glock .40’s around 1998 or so.

They really need to ditch those Beretta’s. There’s two many good alternatives. Kimber has been churning out good production 1911’s for 10 uears now. The HK USP .45’s, whose design I’ve read was heavily influenced by the 1911, has been around since 1993.

“how much risk are you at of being attacked in your home by someone who is vicious enough to kill your dog, armed enough to do so”

I’d say the odds of any intruder being armed and willing to use it is a lot higher in a society where intruders know householders will have guns.

Which is the big problem with laws and customs that encourage people to shoot intruders. The intruder will be much more inclined to pre-emptively shoot you as well as the dog.

It’s quite irrelevant who’s a member of the militia, in as much as it’s a right of the people, not of the militia. A well armed people contribute to the maintainance of a militia, by providing a pool of people, properly armed, and aquainted with the use of those arms, from which a militia may be raised at need. It follows, then, that the arms whose possession is guaranteed are military arms of the sort soldiers are expected to carry and be familiar with. This is the only relevance of the militia to the right.

As for Miller, I find it difficult to believe anybody takes that case seriously as Constitutional analysis. Leaving aside the whole trial in abstentia problem, Miller was heard after “the switch in time that saved nine”. The outcome of the case was predetermined, regardless of the merits, by the fact that the Supreme court had been bullied into giving up on enforcing the Constitution. Miller was going to lose, end of story, no matter what rationalizations the Court had to invent.

We may, in fact, be thankful that Miller was not represented, because it allowed the Court to uphold the law in question on the most minimal grounds, failing to take notice of the fact that a sawn off shotgun DID have military usage, simply because the AG refrained from mentioning it. Rather than rejecting in detail every argument proving that the NFA was unconstitutional.

The Supreme court is therefore free to uphold the 2nd amendment as an individual right, without having to violate it’s own precidents. If it ever deigns to take a 2nd amendment case, of course, having refused cert. without comment to every test case in the last 70 years.

114. It’s quite irrelevant who’s a member of the militia, in as much as it’s a right of the people, not of the militia. A well armed people contribute to the maintainance of a militia, by providing a pool of people, properly armed, and aquainted with the use of those arms, from which a militia may be raised at need. It follows, then, that the arms whose possession is guaranteed are military arms of the sort soldiers are expected to carry and be familiar with. This is the only relevance of the militia to the right.

No. You refer to the “right” as if it’s scope is self-evident. Not so. (Analogously, we all agree that we have a right to free speech, but not about the scope of the right.) The language of the Second Amendment suggests that the scope of the individual right is to be determined by reference to the end of ensuring that there is a “well regulated militia.” So you have a right to bear arms in connection with militia service.

I pointed to Miller simply to illustrate that the “well regulated militia” referenced in the Second Amendment is what it sounds like, and not an odd way of refering to the public at large.

Further to 116.:

If the Second Amendment said something about guaranteeing the right to bear militia-style arms, then your interpretation would make more sense. But on what theory should the amendment protect the rights of people who aren’t serving in the militia to carry military style weapons? They aren’t contributing to a well regulated militia.

Re 116 & 118

The militia is historically composed of all able bodied males over 17 years of age (if i remember correctly, there is actually a federal statute laying this out). My guess is that in modern times an argument could be made that it would also apply to women.

Tyrone Slothrop quots the Constitution:

The Constitution as originally adopted granted to the Congress power-‘To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress’

Translation: Congress is authorized to call forth the Militia – ONLY to suppress insurrections and invasions – and to organize, discipline (i.e. enforce the code of military justice), and arm the Militia when it is called out. The States are granted sole jurisdiction over Militia training and naming of officers. The States are not prohibited from peacetime training (mustering) of the Militia.

The Second Amendment cites private gun rights as a precondition for maintaining a “well-regulated Militia,” and Article 1 Section 8 denotes the separation of powers over training and deploying the Militia. Nothing here implies that the Militia is something other than its historic definition, the general draft-age citizenry.

I am no lawyer, but I do know grammar. If the majority in United States v. Miller disagrees with this assessment, then the majority is wrong. It wouldn’t be a first.

You may ask, “If the States are going to be training the militia in peacetime, then why is private gun ownership necessary?” Because mustering served to teach not how to shoot but how to fight as a unit. Common sense says that teamwork skills take more training than individual skills. The States can put more effort in the teamwork stuff if the men already know how to shoot.

Why do any of you have this fantasy about your home being invaded? Is it realistic? Surely not.

I’m a little taken aback by this as well. I live in a pretty place in the American South, but we have had several deadly home invasions in our community in the last few years. There have been several within a few miles of parents in NY (my parents area is pretty affluent and the most recent jarring example there was a bloody home invasion by some as yet undetermined axe-wielding individual). A few facts about these:
1. The intruder was not always armed with a firearm, but managed to kill, sexually assault or both the usually unarmed occupants anyway.
2. Most unnerving, roberry does not appear to have been a motive in some of these cases.

If you want just one specific example from not far from where I live, look at the death of Stephanie Bennett (http://www.wral.com/news/3250286/detail.html). She lived in a pretty nice part of Raleigh too. This case readily comes to mind only because they recently caught the nutjob behind it and it would seem from what has been released in the press that
a. She was not his only victim. There may have been numerous others.
b. From what was seized by police from his home it would seem that he was planning to repeat the basic MO he had used against her (eg he appears to begun casing out the movements and homes of other women to go after them).

You may decide that you don’t want a gun in your home, and thats cool. But don’t argue that a real risk is only apparent.

Why do any of you have this fantasy about your home being invaded? Is it realistic? Surely not.

My parents lived in a quiet suburb of a small town. Their house was broken into twice in 35 years, both times while they were away on vacation. When one of their neighbors was on vacation thieves came with a moving van and started to carry out everything, including all their furniture. A neighbor who didn’t believe they were moving called the police. But it does (rarely) happen that upper-middle-class people come home from vacation to an empty house.

I have lived in a variety of not-affluent neighborhoods and my places have only been broken into twice that I know of. I think this is partly because I didn’t look like a good target, there were always better places nearby. Also, I didn’t keep much of value. Only minimal automotive tools, and cheap ones. Minimal cheap carpentry tools. Expensive computer stuff but specialised and no obvious resale value. No consumer electronics. One time I got broken into and they didn’t take anything but a case of canned beef and a case of canned peaches.

I don’t have good numbers on how serious an issue burglary is. On the one hand, a lot of people don’t bother to report it, especially in poor neighborhoods where it’s considered a crime to call the police about anything. On the other hand, some people have insurance that covers theft, and they might be actively inflating the dollar values. But people naturally don’t want it to happen to them.

Also, it’s a racial issue. It’s mostly people who can’t get good jobs who steal. Who would risk jail time and loss of a good job for a pile of junk that sells cheap? And once somebody’s arrested for it they can’t get good jobs. A disproportionate number of american blacks can’t get good jobs and a disproportionate number of blacks get arrested for theft.

A lot of people believe that black criminals tend to be rapists when they can get away with it. It’s hard to get good data about that since most people believe that many rapes are never reported — and interracial rapes might be reported at a different rate. There could be a question of cultural cues, too. Like, I didn’t join a fraternity in college, but members of two fraternities told me that any girl who went into their house without a protector, and who flirted, and who drank there, was just asking for it and deserved whatever she got. It’s possible that some blacks and some whites disagree about what a woman has to do to be “asking for it”. At any rate, the perception is there, and it’s perfectly understandable that a man might rather fantasize about shooting an intruder than fantasize about a couple of big black armed robbers making him watch them rape his wife and daughters.

A little bit of our problem might be related to drugs. There’s the widespread belief that some drug addicts steal to get money. Now, given so many people going to prison for selling drugs it would seem to make sense they could get those jobs, but if you’re marketing drugs there are people that you just don’t give a whole lot of drugs to, hoping they’ll sell them and bring back the money to get more. I’d expect these people not to be particularly good at theft either and to get caught quickly — but still it’s a widespread belief.

So there’s your fantasy — one or more big black thieves who do drugs and might likely be HIV+, who break into your house hoping for money but are happy to do a lot of rape on the side. Widespread belief. And it might actually be very rare — I don’t have any reliable figures — but how rare should it be before you tell your wife “Just don’t worry about it, honey, it hardly ever happens.”?

You can laugh at this stuff, but if you do remember that you’re laughing at somebody else’s culture and it works for them.

120. The militia is historically composed of all able bodied males over 17 years of age (if i remember correctly, there is actually a federal statute laying this out). My guess is that in modern times an argument could be made that it would also apply to women.

OK. But if you read Miller, you see that members of the militia had duties, like mustering regularly.

121. The 1792 Militia Act required all men between 18 and 45 to be armed with military-capable muskets and thirty rounds of shot. If the 2nd Amendment only applied to the Federal government, then they could not pass such a law….

Please read Article I, Section 8. Or maybe I’m missing your point.

122. [T]he image that seems to mean something, that is a live cultural meme that troubles people, is that your home is being attacked in the middle of the night.

That is the idea you want to play with, the itch you want to scratch.

This is very true. I’ve known gun nuts and recognize this tendency, but have never been really able to understand it.

123. Nothing here implies that the Militia is something other than its historic definition, the general draft-age citizenry.

If you had a Fourth of July picnic, and everyone in town came, you wouldn’t say, “Look, the militia is here.” If all the same people were on the village green, appropriately armed and in formation, for military drill, you wouldn’t say, “Look, the general citizenry is mustering.” The militia may be comprised of the general citizenry, but the word means something distinct.

112: I’d say the odds of any intruder being armed and willing to use it is a lot higher in a society where intruders know householders will have guns.

For instance, compare and contrast the common patterns associated with housbreaking in South Africa (a culture more trigger-happy than the US) and housbreaking in Western Europe. In the former, the pervasiveness of armament has made housbreaking into a profession conducted by heavily armed and extremely violent gangs, with entire families frequently reported tortured, raped and killed. In the latter, housbreakings are much less frequently associated with violence and multiple victimization.

I’m not opposed to people owning firearms for home defense (although I think it’s fallacious to assume that a firearm is necessarily going to be more useful or effective than less violent security measures), but the highly aggressive posturing that seems too common among many firearms enthusiasts turns me off for exactly the reason that, if acted upon, it motivates the nastier elements of society to up their levels of organization and viciousness as well as turning some of the people who imagine they’re just “defending” themselves into unintentional menaces in their own right. And that’s to say nothing of rank insanity like Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law.

Peter, I would expect to find more crazy violent white americans than crazy violent black americans, because there are more whites. Also, mostly nobody bothers whether violent poor people are crazy, a lot of the time they’re ready to assume it’s economic. I suppose that arrested black suspects might result in easier convictions so there might not be as much of an attempt to connect to other cases.

But most important, there aren’t many crazy serial killers. It’s big news when they catch one, partly because it doesn’t happen very often. Economicly motivated criminals usually get away with their crimes — but maybe they usually get caught eventually because they do so many. Like automobile accidents and military disasters etc, really bad results come not when one thing goes wrong but when several critical things go wrong together. One set of things goes wrong and they get caught. A different set of things goes wrong and they find themselves in a house with somebody who lives there. It could easily happen far more often than the crazy serial killer, but it isn’t as news-worthy.

But as you point out, that is the other fantasy. It isn’t just the HIV+ armed black robber/rapist. There’s also the armed insane white rapist/serial-killer. The two fantasies don’t compete, they complement each other.

134: There is no way any reasonable person can clearly interpret the constitution as protecting that right but not the right of law-abiding citizens to bear arms. You can nit-pick all you want, but by any reasonable reading the consitution far more explicitly speaks to a individual gun right.

Actually, I haven’t seen a very convincing response at any time to the argument that the Second Amendment is about militias (see Alan Henderson’s 123 above). Most attempts at this usually end at the kind of bald, unconvincing declarative that you provide here.

Somewhat along these lines, I guarantee you the above commentators have been right: take away this right and it will NOT be the last one to fall.

I find the pretense that the Second Amendment is the guarantor of other rights nonsensical. Armed societies are demonstrably not necessarily freer societies, and societies with stricter firearms laws than you’re accustomed to are not necessarily less democratic. And in the United States itself, the assault on due process and the rule of law has proceeded perfectly well while leaving the Second Amendment untouched or even as radically pro-NRA interpretations of it have established footholds (cf. Jeb Bush in Florida). This should all hint to you that there’s a slight problem with how you’re thinking about this.

136: Point 1 is becoming a dialogue of the deaf, so I’ll just leave it.

Okay… it’s just that making that case is kind of important if you’re going to portray firearms ownership as a fundamental right that’s distinct from and unattached to the militia as an institution. As I’m sure you know.

You give an inch on any rights, and all others will eventually crumble as well.

Except that whether or not firearms ownership is or should be construed as a basic right on a par with, say, the freedom of speech is the very point at issue, right? And in order to contend that its erosion would beget the erosion of other rights, or that the erosion of other basic rights would conversely lead to the erosion of firearms ownership, it would be useful to have some concrete real-world examples supporting a consistent pattern in this regard. For example, we should expect dictatorships to have low levels of firearm ownership the better to oppress their citizenry… except that this isn’t reliably the case. And we should expect the freest societies to have high levels of personal armament… except that that isn’t reliably the case, either. So, that’s a bit of a problem.

Oh genius Slack,

except that this isn’t reliably the case.

I challenge how you’ve framed this. Instead of choosing the relationship of firearm ownership to democracy, I’d look at the relationship between firearm ownership and oppression of minorities. Kind of changes your empirical evidence (which you allude to, but never show) now doesn’t it.

Oh, and incidentally, 139: (which you allude to, but never show)

For an illustration of the lack of correlation between high levels of small arms ownership and either security or freedom, one need not look further than the Middle East, though it’s hardly the only example.

And Dr. Slack, I do not care about your analogies to other societies. This is an American issue, and I plan to resolve it in an American context. I don’t look to dictatorships or middle eastern societies for much guidance on other great questions of the day before our society. And even in the case of other wealthy, liberal democracies, I look to them only to the extent that their traditions, culture and on the ground realities have a sufficient similarity to ours with regard to the issue at hand that some reference to their experience makes sense. And that does not make me an anti-Internationalist. It makes me realistic. I would not ask a French person or an Egyptian to slavishly follow our leade.

142:

A few points in no particular order here, and then I have to dash:

I am firm believer in the idea of a militia at large. You are obviously not. The rest basically becomes an argument between us about which founding father said what.

It would also be nice for it be an argument about the practical effects in today’s America of the concept of the militia at large. Can the militia at large be “well-regulated”? Sure, given the right cultural context. Is the US such a cultural context? You would say yes, I would say probably not. But I’m more interested in arguing that point than in which Founding Father said what.

I’ve also seen it commonly argued that this concept is essential to maintaining personal freedom from government tyranny and security from violent crime, but I’ve not seen either point argued all that convincingly. As far as I can see, firearms do not serve as a reliable guarantee of freedom from tyranny, and higher levels of ownership can just as easily render societies more violent and less secure.

And the larger issue is, in part, (and for me personally) the question of whether the state should have a monopoly on violence for the purposes of insuring my personal defense.

Well, no, that actually isn’t the larger issue. At least not from where I’m standing. I can think of any number of countries that have stricter gun control laws than the United States norm which do not, in doing so, contend that citizens don’t have a right to self-defense or must turn over that right to a “government monopoly.” Canada would be the obvious and most frequently-quoted example.

Though I disagree with Uncle Say about what is ideal for this purpose, our differences are within the realm that reasonable people can have, and thus I woulf argue forcefully that the weapons he prefers should be legally available. But no one needs a nuke, machine gun, artillery, etc. to fulfill these goals.

In other words, you agree that some weapons should be prohibited, you just have (or think you have) a different threshold from me about which should be prohibited. (And maybe you’re right; I honestly have no idea, not having gone into that.) That seems respectable to me, though I don’t see quite how you square that with your contention that “you cannot cherry pick freedoms” and that guns-are-a-right-period-end-of-debate. Someone who does think he needs an assault weapon in daily life could just as easily accuse you of cherry-picking, and having defended guns generally as an absolute right I don’t see how you would go about answering them.

And in any case, guns ARE a right. That alone should end the discussion.

Well no, it shouldn’t. You yourself already agree that not all guns are a right. I don’t see how, given that, you feel comfortable with saying that you get to determine what “the facts on the ground” are without reference to anyone else’s sneeringly-dismissed “social sensibilities” (as if genuine safety concerns couldn’t possibly be entering into it) and in the same breath talk about how you can’t “impose terms” in a Republic. That just doesn’t make a lick of sense to me.

And the logic being applied by many of the critics of gun rights could in fact be easily extended to undermine other rights.

You see, what I actually see happening is proponents of “gun rights” being suckered into pursuing the red herring of defending their preferred level of armament as a “right” out of the false sense that defending that “right” will prevent the erosion of their freedoms more generally. Having acquired a false sense of security thereby, many don’t notice that the insidious creeping undermining of freedom that they fear is already happening, and well-advanced, and that the number of small arms they can own and carry hasn’t done a thing to impede it.

Peter said:

142. …And by the way, a militia at large can be well-regulated (by dint of reasonable gun laws). Those weapons necessary to fulfill the goals of a militia at large should thus be available to law-abiding citizens….

Can the militia be regulated such that militia members have to show up for training and duty regularly? That’s certainly the way it was in colonial times.

I might as well take a stand on this.

I don’t see that individual gun ownership is actually guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. But so what?

The Bill of Rights didn’t give us any guarantee that individuals could own drinking alcohol. We tried taking away that right and we got a lot more problems than it was worth.

The Bill of Rights didn’t give us any guarantee that individuals could own recreational drugs. Same thing.

I strongly doubt that we could get effective gun control without getting at least as much trouble as we got from Prohibition. Would it be worth it? I don’t think so. The benefit we’d get would be a possible reduction in deaths from accidental shootings and intentional shootings. The disadvantages would include a new black market like the drug market, more people in prison like the Drug War, a lot of people angry and upset, the partial destruction of more american industries (We couldn’t very well produce ammunition for the whole black market and just sell it, we’d have to at minimum ship it out of the country and smuggle it back, and we might lose market share to foreigners), etc. It just plain is not worth it.

I don’t see that gun owners have any sacred rights, and if it was 5000 of them who’d be affected and there’d be some significant good I’d say go ahead. But given the numbers, it’s just plain stupid. Gun control — if it was enacted — could not possibly be worth the cost. And while it isn’t enacted it provides an issue to mobilise stupid wingnuts to support corrupt Republicans. It’s a stupid idea. Forget it. Bring it up in 20 years and see how many people object then.

Peter is correct that pushing for gun control will lead to other lost freedoms. It already has. It has already helped create a Republican-controlled government. A lot of the people who’re so upset about gun control would be paying more attention to actual lost freedoms if there were no gun control attempts being made.

What we might do instead is start a national debate about a new amendment to the Constitution to establish gun rights. The 2nd amendment is hopelessly muddled by now and it was probably intended to be muddled from the beginning. We can rewrite it clearly, and eventually get it passed, and then we can stop arguing about it.

Sorry, I meant to say “significant minority”.

#152: I don’t necessarily have a problem with this and think it probably is reasonable if the government can draft people. But it is not necessary to meet the nut as a militia according to the second amendment, which refers to “militia” and not “militias”. States had formal* militias at that time, but in the singular “militia” would in all likelihood refer to the militia at large. You generally did not have to participate in the militia in the comprehensive sense that you have to, for instance, serve in the Israeli military if you are a male of a certain age in that country. But you could be called in the same sense that you and I (assuming you are in the US) could in principal be called to serve in the US military. I was even told once by a police officer that as an armed and fit (well….) male in my state I could in theory be pressed into service for law enforcement in a truly great emergency. I wonder if this is true. On the plus side I live in a state with abundant supplies of Krispy Kremes.

*One has to make a distinction between principal and practice here. In practice many state militias, and the local units thereof, were in terrible order and completely unprepared to do any real fighting as a unit.

It really must be emphasized that this argument about a militia really being a formal, regular thing and the main show in the context of the time of the Consititution can be stretched too far. While militias did formally exist, they were often in awful condition and, then as now, in practice, for most American males membership in a militia at large (ready in principal to fight, especially for their own homes) as such was probably a lot more of a meaningful reality. The problem with formal militias back then is that their leaders did not have the vision to pre-suppose things like free Buffalo wings, which might have boosted attendance. All kidding aside, the poor state of most militias makes sense: their usually was no mass local threat, and hence no need in an operational sense to move beyond the militia at large. If the French and their Huron allies came-a-raidin’, I suspect the formal militia whipped themselves into shape. Otherwise, the operational realities were in all likelihood generally not much different than today (ie a militia at large being pretty much the whole story).

Okay, so before I hit the sack, 148 / 150:

If you’re still reading this:

And I do not always ignore the lessons of other societies. But that does not mean that I always have to accept them either.

Okay, then I’ll confess I’m a bit curious as to what your standards are for when you’re willing to acknowledge those lessons and when you aren’t. I don’t mean to tar you with the sins of others, but it just seems that in this context it’s too common a practice for this standard to consist of something like “if the experience of other countries might cast doubt on some aspect of my argument about gun control, then America’s cultural uniqueness means that that experience must be ruled irrelevant while we ‘solve this problem in an American context’.”

First, I’m not sure why you bring up the tyranny argument in response to me.

You’re not into wild-eyed “Red Dawn” theories, but given that you’ve argued that firearms restrictions would lead to the destruction of basic freedoms, the tyranny argument remains generally relevant. I particularly see you as invoking it when you attempt to compare gun control to restricting press freedoms, interning Japanese-Americans and so on.

As for the second, all that you, or I, can offer is our own subjective view of causality with regard to personal gun ownership and aggregate violence.

Perhaps another time we can get more into this aspect of things. I’m not an economist or statistician by profession, merely an interested amateur, so some meaty content on the aggregate violence issue is always of interest to me.

Well, yes, actually, that is the larger issue for me and many others.

If you’re going to contend that it’s the larger issue in the debate, that means you need to contend that some significant portion of the people you’re debating with are actually arguing for — or arguing a position that pragmatically results in — a “government monopoly” on your personal self defense. I know of almost nobody in even the most radically pacifist circles who would argue for any such “monopoly,” nor of any real-world data that conclusively demonstrates that stricter firearms laws than you’re accustomed to must lead to any such “monopoly.” So, the larger issue (or at least a larger issue) is that you can’t always expect other people to simply accept the way you choose to frame the debate. This is not to “tell you what you’re thinking,” it’s to point out that it’s possible that what you’re thinking is mistaken.

Yes, Canada is a different country which has settled this question differently. And that is their right. So what is your point?

The point, Peter, is that if there are societies in existence — one of them very closely related to America both historically and culturally — who have managed different firearms standards than you without establishing any “government monopolies on force,” that rather weakens your contention that such a “monopoly” should be viewed as the larger issue framing the whole “gun rights” debate.

So lets talk about some other misgivings about rights other chunks of our society have

See, for me stuff like this is a little like listening to some libertarians* talk about how speed limits are an “initiation of force” by the government and properly belong in a communist state. I find it not just overwrought, but plainly inaccurate to compare strict firearms laws to wanting to eliminate the free press, intern minorities or oppress women. And one of the main reasons it seems absurd to me is precisely that democratic societies have clearly, in a wide variety of cultural contexts, managed the trick of controlling firearms to various extents without inevitably indulging in the orgies of dictatorial evil that you envisage.

It’s unpleasantly ironic that you should bring up a woman’s right to choose in this context. The sarcastic part of me is tempted to ask if you have some ideas for how women in South Dakota can use small arms to get around the new abortion ban there, short of simply shooting themselves in the belly of course. And yes, that’s catty. I’m tired. Sorry.

(* Nothing against libertarians, mind you. But God love ’em, some of them can be truly crazy…)

I’m approaching it as if this really was the military: what would be an appropriate order of battle in the weapon sense to deal with this? That’s the best answer I can offer.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me, but if I were theoretical Devil’s Advocate heavy weapons guy, the obvious response is “who are you to try to restrict my order of battle? If I think I need a tank for personal defense, then dammit, I need a tank, and you’re not going to tell me different.”

And the second amendment clearly speaks to this idea of reasonable limitations.

As well it should. And I would argue that it does so, and is able to do so, precisely because it does not delineate gun ownership as an absolute “right;” it invokes it as a “right” specifically in relationship to the functioning of a militia, however one chooses to define that. Sorry, but I don’t think it’s “creeping erosion” to acknowledge that.

But you and I both know that a repeal of the 2nd Amendment has zero chance of succeeding.

Nor would it be necessary. And I’m not sure why you feel the need to imply that I’m arguing for a blanket ban on firearms, since I’ve done no such thing at any point on this thread, nor is any such ban necessarily the point at issue in “gun control” more generally.

And that should give you some yardstick to measure whether you represent the overwhelming, inevitable and reasonable public will.

Hopefully, “public will” is something that can still be influenced by reasonable debate with reference to the facts and the real world. As such, my only hope is to represent the most reasonable argument with reference to the practical issues; the “public will” can take care of itself.

I am not being suckered into anything.

I put the point intemperately. I apologize. Suffice to say that I think, for reasons already stated, that your view of the 2nd Amendment as it relates to “rights” is simply mistaken. I don’t mean to imply that you’re being thoughtless, however.

…

And I’m out of steam, so I’m going to have to end there for now.

The Second Amendment looks vague only to people who are too lazy to research 18th century grammar. For Bill of Rights language that requires a judgment calls, you have to turn to the Fourth Amendment – word in question: “unreasonable.” Unfortunately, the use of an open-ended term in that case is unavoidable; one could not fathom all the circumstances in which searches and seizures are reasonable. I would have added to the amendment an “unreasonable searches consist of, but are not limited to, the following” clause.

(“Well-regulated” isn’t explicitly defined, either, but it doesn’t need to be. The Second Amendment tells us that uninfringed gun rights are the first ingredient for a well-regulated militia. Aside from drawing the state and federal jurisdictional lines, it is neutral on the remaining ingredients.)

That hypothetical “sane and competent” clause could be used by government to deny gun ownership to a lot of people that its framer does not intend. Everybody is insane to some degree, so such an amendment would have to specify what level of insanity marks that line in the sand in order to avoid abuse.

The Second Amendment looks vague only to people who are too lazy to research 18th century grammar.

Go to the Library of Congress. Order all the books by congressional scholars that are specifically about the 2nd Amendment. Weigh them. Read them all and look at the range of interpretations.

Is this due entirely to dishonest scholarship?

Or can you see a possibility that the wording is vague?

That hypothetical “sane and competent” clause could be used by government to deny gun ownership to a lot of people that its framer does not intend.

Yes. It’s an issue that has to be faced. First, it isn’t just guns, it’s weapons. Gunpowder-weapons are the particular fetish that people are upset about, but why should the right be restricted to those? People have the right to any weapon they can afford or create, provided they’ll use it responsibly.

But how do we guess who’ll use a weapon irresponsibly? For non-WMDs, whatever method we choose to sort people out, allow the weapon to half the ones who shouldn’t get it and see how much that group is actually mis-using the weapon. Publish the results. If the people who are thought not to be sane-and-competent actually are not much worse than the general population, then we have an argument to change the rules.

I’m saying that there is a right to bear arms, and that what it protects is your right to bear arms in connection with your service in an organized militia.

It doesn’t say that. It doesn’t place a condition on the right to bear arms, that service in militia mustering is the only context in which the right to bear arms exists.

The Bill of Rights consistently defines “right” as something unalienable (“right of the people peaceably to assemble”), unless exceptions are explicitly stipulated (Amendment IV’s exception to protection against searches and seizures). Nowhere is “right” defined as something the citizen may do when and only when forced into government service, such as being mustered into militia duty. Because there is no such right. No rights are conditional on government intervention. “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” has to mean something.

Besides, it says the right of the PEOPLE, not the right of the MILITIA.

Learn some sentence structure.