<p>South Dakota is lower than Canada at 0.012. South Dakota has very liberal gun laws. New Hampshire is next at 0.017. And then Iowa and Vermont at 0.019.</p>
<p>The murder rate is interesting but other statistics such as home invasions, robbery, assault (with any kind of weapon), etc. would present a more accurate picture of crime rates.</p>
<p>“Exactly my point. Ban them and the criminals will get them from somewhere.”</p>
<p>Naah. That can’t be true. We’ve banned illegal drugs and criminals can’t get those.</p>
<p>Enabling the People to resist tyranny, especially government tyranny, involves social cost.</p>
<p>The Founders obviously believed that government tyranny was worse than a fairly minor use of firearms in crime and accidents (which when closely analyzed actually shows far lower social cost than, say, using automobiles). They fought a revolution to cast off government oppression, against the most powerful military force in the world at the time, to ensure the right of the people to do this.</p>
<p>The right of the people to keep and bear arms ensures that the right to free speech, assembly, privacy and so on survives.</p>
<p>*What a load of crap! Of course Obama is a politician. What else would he be? We’re about to elect him (or maybe not) to a politician’s job. My biggest concern about him is that he’s not enough of a politician. For some people, being an amateur seems to be an attractive job qualification.</p>
<p>Anyway, one doesn’t have to be much of a pro to recognize that the positions one represents as a state senator from a district that combines African-Americans in poverty and the University of Chicago are not the same positions one represents as the leader of the nation. As a resident of Philadelphia, there is nothing I would like more than to ban assault weapons and severely restrict handgun distribution. It is not even a close policy question. Hundreds of people die within a few miles of me every year, who wouldn’t die otherwise, simply because a lot of people have guns. As a lawyer and a citizen of the nation, I believe that the Supreme Court was right about this case, and I recognize that my personal position is not shared by more than a fraction of my countrymen.</p>
<p>So if I were running for President, my position would be to accept a fairly strong individual right to bear arms. That’s the only responsible position for a Presidential candidate to take. That’s the way our system works. Politicians compete to represent the people. We want them to have their own ideas, sure; we want them to lead. But we want them to respect what we believe while they are doing that. Obama’s moderating his position on gun control as his scope widens is exactly what we want candidates to do.*</p>
<p>If this is true, then perhaps we should begin to evaluate Senator Obama as a regular politician - a Northern, liberal Democrat, with little or no executive experience and questionable personal associations. </p>
<p>Obama for Change apparently means Change = liberal, urban Democrat</p>
<p>Sure. There’s no greater form of government tyranny than the power to pick people up and hold them indefinitely, in secret, while denying them the opportunity to prove that the government picked up the wrong guy. Yet the administration argues that we need to just bow to that tyranny, because enabling people to resist it (i.e., habeas corpus) might carry a social cost (letting a guilty person go due to insufficient evidence).</p>
<p>That’s open to debate, but assuming that the government is right about the social cost, the fact that there’s a social cost does not end the debate. There are plenty of freedoms so important that we tolerate social costs in order to preserve them. For example, the police fail to catch lots of guilty criminals because of the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.</p>
<p>Should the U.S. Constitution be extended to non-citizens? That appears to be what you’re proposing, to enemy combatants, no less.</p>
<p>I say “no”. Our Constitution is for U.S. citizens and peaceful immigrants as allowed by U.S. law.</p>
<p>Non-state enemy combatants should be glad they aren’t shot on the battlefield. State supported enemy combatants are addressed under the various Geneva Conventions.</p>
<p>“For example, the police fail to catch lots of guilty criminals because of the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.”</p>
<p>They do manage to catch a fair number of innocent people though. The Duke Lacrosse Hoax is a recent good example. And the political actors in that case were in which party? Tyranny is bipartisan.</p>
<p>“Should the U.S. Constitution be extended to non-citizens? That appears to be what you’re proposing, to enemy combatants, no less.”</p>
<p>The administration extended its argument to a US citizen captured on US soil. So citizenship, or lack thereof, had nothing to do with their argument.</p>
<p>Habeas Corpus is a different argument.
(I am glad that the SCOTUS ruled in favor of more rights for people.)</p>
<p>Societal factors are extremely complex, and (IMO) the proliferation of firearms and laws surrounding them are not a major factor in crime. Has anyone seen research on this?–correlations between social factors and crimes, that is.</p>
<p>“eventually this will be addressed by the U.S. courts.”</p>
<p>It pretty much has been, and the administration’s arguments were roundly rejected by the Supreme Court. But that hasn’t stopped people from making those arguments.</p>
<p>I think the solution established by Congress should have been allowed to work. I think the SCOTUS was wrong in extending HC to the GITMO gang.</p>
<p>I agree with Senator Graham:</p>
<p>*“Furthermore, the habeas trials will put great burdens on our military forces. Enemy combatants potentially may be able to sue American troops for money damages and federal judges will now be in charge of the day-to-day military prisons and the interrogation of prisoners. This will empower activist lawyers and interest groups to intervene in basic military matters for the first time in history.</p>
<p>“The Court ruling establishes a dangerous precedent for our country by conferring upon non-citizen enemy combatants the same rights as American citizens in a criminal proceeding. They ignore the fact these combatants are warriors, not common criminals. It is why I continue to believe the legal rights of enemy combatants should be governed by the law of war, not domestic criminal law.</p>
<p>“The Court’s ruling makes clear the legal rights given to Al Qaeda members today should exceed those provided to the Nazis during World War II. Our nation is at war. It’s truly unfortunate the Supreme Court did not recognize and appreciate that fact.*</p>
<p>But p2n, our all the people incarcerated in Gitmo “enemy combatants?” That is one crucial question. How about the Uighurs? They may be enemies of the PRC but what have they done to the US or plotting to do? But they’ve been at Gitmo for six years. How many more were minor or even reluctant recruits/combatants who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time?</p>
<p>We cannot get rid of terror completely. Should we suspend habeas corpus indefinitely?</p>
<p>No, we should not. But I believe Graham of SC established rules by which such things are resolved in a military context. I think Congress passed the law…but maybe not. I can’t find it at the moment.</p>
<p>I am not persuaded. The “military context” has not worked; the government has done everything to drag its feet, including in the case of those Uighurs.</p>
<p>Regarding the original topic:</p>
<p>Lawsuit filed over Atlanta airport barring guns</p>
<p>ATLANTA: The busiest airport in the United States dueled with gun rights advocates Tuesday over whether a new Georgia state law allows visitors to carry firearms at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.</p>
<p>No persuasion intended, marite, on the subject of HC and Uighurs. If you would care to post some links I’ll see if I can form an opinion. If its necessary to hang someone immediately then I propose we hang Congress, since they can write good law when they’re not bickering. </p>
<p>The rush of cases as a result of A2 will occur for a time while the limits are tested and opinion formed.</p>