Thread: Supreme Court finds individual right to own guns

Originally Posted by Brother Jeeter

Sir,

I have handled firearms for well over forty years. I have owned guns for almost that long. I have loaded my own ammunition for twenty years. I used to shoot seven to eight pounds of powder per year. That Sir, is an average of over fifty rounds a week. ... A gun is not malicious. It doesn't have a will. It is a tool...a highly specialized tool and it is entirely subject to the will of it's possessor.

Regards,

Jeeter

Sir,

your attitude towards firearms is commendable.

I take the same approach towards motorbikes. When I got my bike I immediately completed a safe driver course. I always ride, not only with a helmet, but with proper footwear, gloves, and leathers. I've driven across North America a couple of times on my bike without incident. When I see young guys spend ten minutes writing a learners exam and then running out to purchase something with a better thrust to weight ratio than the Space Shuttle, using it to drag one another and practice wheelies on public streets - it drives me crazy. They are giving me a bad name, driving up my insurance rates, driving up the price of helmets, bikes, and safety equipment (through pointless lawsuits). I think if people want the advantages of riding a bike but are unprepared to accept the responsibilities of doing so - well too bad for them. Licensing and registration exist, but I think proper mandatory training would go a long way to fixing the problem, as would restricting the kind of bike you can ride on a learner's permit. It won't eliminate it but I believe it will help. And it doesn't impair my enjoyment because I already use safe riding practices - if it had been mandatory it wouldn't have affected my attitude or my respect towards riding. Just because there will always be some wheelieing idiot on the streets doesn't mean we should throw the baby out with the bath water.

I know that my actions and attitude does affect others in this regard, just as theirs affects me. We don't live in isolation from one another.

If I were a responsible gun owner it would drive me equally crazy to see people treating firearms with undo respect and wisdom. Surely the people who go out and buy a hand gun, who have no training in handling one, and leave it lying in their underwear drawer where kids can mess around with them unsupervised, or from where a burglar could very easily make off with it when no one is home to threaten him with it - surely these people, besides creating most of the societal problems with guns, are also making the lives of responsible gun owners more difficult.

If we can all agree that approaching firearms with a degree of respect is the key to safety, why is registration and training so onerous? There will always be people who disregard the rules of our society. We can't legislate against them, as has been pointed out above. We can however make it harder for them to do so without preventing people who take gun ownership seriously from enjoying their passion and desire for self defense.

It is obviously a regional issue. I suspect the gun crime rate in Wyoming is not the problem that it is on the east coast. Shouldn't cities affected by the problem be allowed to address it in this manner. Starting in 1993, when the Brady law went into effect gun crime stats decreased every year. There are solutions to these problems as long as it is approached in good faith and with a reasonable attitude by everyone - as an example, in my opinion it would be silly for anyone with military experience using firearms to take more training when purchasing their own weapon.

The thing in this thread seems to be to quote my earlier post, so let me do that as well.

Originally Posted by Pudu

For both sides it should be about solving the current problems we face. That will take compromise.

Calling for no restrictions whatsoever on weapon ownership will serve you about as well as screaming for a ban on all weapons would serve me.

Originally Posted by Pudu

If we can all agree that approaching firearms with a degree of respect is the key to safety, why is registration and training so onerous? There will always be people who disregard the rules of our society. We can't legislate against them, as has been pointed out above. We can however make it harder for them to do so without preventing people who take gun ownership seriously from enjoying their passion and desire for self defense.

Registration is ornerous because there is no purpose to it. It will neigther aid the owner in getting a stolen gun back, nor modify in the least any unsafe practices that person has with regards to guns. The only possible purpose for the Government knowing where every gun is is so that upon their desire they can come and take them. As for mandatory training, I addressed the abusive limiting way it is possible for a tyranical government to use that to infringe on the rights of ownership.

Originally Posted by Pudu

It is obviously a regional issue. I suspect the gun crime rate in Wyoming is not the problem that it is on the east coast. Shouldn't cities affected by the problem be allowed to address it in this manner. Starting in 1993, when the Brady law went into effect gun crime stats decreased every year. There are solutions to these problems as long as it is approached in good faith and with a reasonable attitude by everyone - as an example, in my opinion it would be silly for anyone with military experience using firearms to take more training when purchasing their own weapon.

I will compromise. Respect the constitution and my rights to not be infringed in my desire to own a gun, and I'll allow you to live in the US. Thats all there is to it. When one side wants Guns and the other side specifically wants to keep them from owning them, there can be no compromise. Thanks to the foresight of the founders of this Nation there is no need to.

pudu-> which brady laws are you referring to? the waiting period or the assault weapons ban? both are frequently referred to by that name, not sure which you mean.

Originally Posted by Nord Jim

...They love creating gun-nuts -- those folks who convince the rest of the country that gun owners aren't to be trusted. Not only do they do absolutely nothing to counter the negative image of gun owners, they actually go out of their way to promote it. Within days of the Columbine shootings, the NRA was in Columbine holding rallies and taunting the grieving families. It was unbelievable.

...
j

Not sure where you got your information from (I hope not from Bowling for Columbine), but that NRA meeting was planned way ahead of the Columbine massacre. If anyone is to blame is Eric and Dylan for shooting up the school right before an already planned NRA event. In fact, due to the tragedy at Columbine, the NRA canceled most of their events.

The NRA scaled back its long-planned Denver convention after the April 20 bullet-and-bomb rampage by Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, that left 15 people, including the two shooters, dead. But the group refused a request by Denver Mayor Wellington Webb to cancel the meeting entirely.

emphasis mine

CNN - NRA comes to town on heels of Colorado school massacre - April 30, 1999

I can't remember which documentary it was that I watched, it may have even been a video produced by the NRA, so what I'm going to say next is up to you to decide.

The video said that the only reason they continued with the meeting is because it was an executive annual meeting which was mandatory because of the NRAs "lobby" status. Or something like that.

I'm not and never have been an NRA member. I have mixed emotions about them. But the least you could do if you're going to imply that they were being insensitive for arriving shortly after Columbine is at the very least disclose the fact that they had that meeting planned long beforehand and it wasn't in response to Columbine.

Originally Posted by jockeys

pudu-> which brady laws are you referring to? the waiting period or the assault weapons ban? both are frequently referred to by that name, not sure which you mean.

Your absolutely right. Crimes involving assault weapons obviously decreased, but gun crimes overall decreased as well, so both I guess. I don't know much about assault weapons except that the police forces aren't big fans of people using them.

Originally Posted by Wildtim

...
I will compromise. Respect the constitution and my rights to not be infringed in my desire to own a gun, and I'll allow you to live in the US. Thats all there is to it...

Riiiiiiiiight.

I think it's best if we agree to disagree on this one and leave it at that, at least as far as SRP is concerned.

Originally Posted by Pudu

Your absolutely right. Crimes involving assault weapons obviously decreased, but gun crimes overall decreased as well, so both I guess. I don't know much about assault weapons except that the police forces aren't big fans of people using them.

crimes involving assault weapons did NOT decrease during 94-04. And they didn't go up after 2004. They were less than 1% of shootings to begin with, and less than 1% of shootings during and after. The AWB was the most flawed piece of legislation I've ever seen, apart from the Bridge to Nowhere in ALaska. The AWB did not ban machine guns or assault RIFLES, it made up a new category of weapons based ENTIRELY on cosmetic features and nothing more. All it accomplished was to raise magazine prices for law abiding citizens, and force a bunch of law abiding AR15 owners to file their bayonet lugs off. That's it. [/rant]

Why didn't the 2nd amendment have to be repealed before any anti-gun laws could be passed anywhere at all? I need to ask my lawyer friend, maybe he knows

Originally Posted by jockeys

crimes involving assault weapons did NOT decrease during 94-04. And they didn't go up after 2004. They were less than 1% of shootings to begin with, and less than 1% of shootings during and after. The AWB was the most flawed piece of legislation I've ever seen, apart from the Bridge to Nowhere in ALaska. The AWB did not ban machine guns or assault RIFLES, it made up a new category of weapons based ENTIRELY on cosmetic features and nothing more. All it accomplished was to raise magazine prices for law abiding citizens, and force a bunch of law abiding AR15 owners to file their bayonet lugs off. That's it. [/rant]

I double checked my source on this (a widely published book) and it confirmed what I thought it had said about assault weapon stats. But then I realized it was still third party information. So doing some more checking it seems to be a pretty contentious issue as to whether the ban did reduce assault weapon crime.

First off you're 100% correct that the two laws are completely different and often confused:

1993: Congress passes the The Brady Handgun Violence Act, establishing the National Instant Criminal Background Check System gun dealers are to use before selling a gun. The law is named after former White House Press Secretary James Brady, who was shot in the head during the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

1994: The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act becomes law. The law banned the manufacture, use, possession and import of 19 types of assault weapons, including AK-47s and Uzis. The law expired in 2004.

from NPR - U.S. Gun Laws: A History : NPR


I haven't found anyone actually citing hard stats (I avoided those places with an axe to grind - bradycenter.org, NRA.org and the like), but I did find a good NPR news report from Sept 13, 2004 (in streaming audio alas) that seems to back up completely your take on the assault weapon ban - " a swiss cheese law".

Ten-Year Assault Weapons Ban Expires : NPR

I remember when the AWB was first being pushed, and was outraged to a point. There was a huge media push in favor of the AWB, but every time I saw anything about it, they would have someone on television demonstrating a (real) assault weapon, firing it on full automatic fire until the magazine was empty. It is all a moot point now, but until this big push, the term "assault weapon" meant a selective fire weapon capable of either semi-automatic (one bullet each time the trigger is pulled) or full automatic fire. This is also what, in my home area, was demonstrated on the news. Obviously those were not the weapons being banned, and so media outlets ran stories on semi-auto's (but demonstrating full automatic or trigger modified weapons) and the ban got wide support. They then proceeded to ban every firearm that they felt was somehow more "deadly" due to its cosmetic features (What? a pistol grip instead of a straight stock!?? Black metal? NO!!) magazine capacity (which doesn't make the weapon more deadly-hits do that) or the ability to take a bayonet. This was obviously aimed at aficionados of service rifles and at less wealthy people whose only option was surplus Chinese, Russian, and other, military rifles should they want to shoot.
I know I'm rambling a bit, but I seriously dislike the tendencies to redefine a particular word to make it apply to whatever the lawmakers/media/etc. want it to apply to, rather than what it actually is.
True Assault rifles have been heavily regulated as class III weapons since at least the 1930's, yet there seemed to be no qualms on the part of the media in misleading the public in order to have them believe this was what the AWB concerned.
I for one am glad that piece of legislation and indeed restriction on citizens' rights, fell through. After all, if there weren't any advantages to being a citizen here, why would anyone choose to serve, why would anyone even stay, when it means working 12-15 hour days and still struggling to make by.
It is the freedoms.
Just my opinion.

John P.

Originally Posted by JohnP

True Assault rifles have been heavily regulated as class III weapons since at least the 1930's, yet there seemed to be no qualms on the part of the media in misleading the public in order to have them believe this was what the AWB concerned.

John P.

correct, this was addressed by the NFA in 1934, partially in response to the St. Valentine's day massacre and the outrage is caused.

fyi, fully automatic weapons were STILL LEGAL before during and after the AWB. all it did was make my AR15 illegal because of the bayonet mount, while a Mini14 (same magazines, same ammunition, same rate of fire) was legal because it had a wooden stock and didn't look all tactical and scary.