We are all parents on here, so we do not have the excuse of the younger generation that basic civics was not taught.
Folks, the Constitution does not create any fundamental rights. The history and structure of the document show that it was meant as a limitation on what the Federal government could do with respect to preexisting rights. No “right to keep and bear arms” is created by the Constitution; the document simply (ha!) limits government in what it can do with respect to that preexisting right (“shall not be infringed”).
Analogously, there is no explicit “right to abortion” created in the Constitution. If it exists at all (a debatable proposition of course), it is contained within a general and preexisting right to privacy. The same reasoning applies to gay marriage. In either case, the Constitution (as recently interpreted) prevents the states from interfering with those (newly-discovered) rights within the general preexisting right to privacy.
No discussion of gun rights would be complete without a discussion of the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment. See McDonald v. Chicago, and Justice Thomas’s concurrence. To protect newly freed slaves, the 14th Amendment was created to protect among other rights, an individual right to bear arms against infringement from state or local governments. This was done to protect African Americans, as the KKK wanted gun control and to disarm AA.
For most Americans, the remote theoretical threat of a fascist government is offset by the very real threat of fascists with assault rifles shooting up schools, malls, and concerts.
My state is one of the most lenient regarding gun ownership, and the criminals around here don’t follow even the few rules we have - we don’t allow convicted felons to own or even have access to guns, and you can’t possess a gun while intoxicated (alcohol or drugs.) Guess what the felons (justice involved persons?) and druggies have lots of? Guns. So more rules won’t change that.
Many of the suggestions above would keep guns out of the hands of law-abiding poor people. Insurance, storage requirements, MANDATORY PERIODIC INSPECTIONS!!!
Although many of the low income people around here don’t register, license, or insure their cars because they can’t afford to do that either.
I’m all for working on the situations that lead to crime, not so much the tools. We incarcerate enough people already.
But I would still love to see the following information about every mass shooter - how recently he wet the bed, who turned him down for dates, what math tests he failed, who successfully bullied him, what sports he was terrible at, what jobs he was turned down for. Every single failure of his miserable life in bold font. Maybe the next one would think twice.
By “these shootings,” do you mean mass shootings resulting in multiple casualties? If so, I totally agree. What sociologically accounts for the meteoric rise in the number of (almost always) white males willing to mow down random strangers with high powered weapons? I’m old enough to remember the University of Texas clock tower massacre of August 1, 1966. Previous to this, there was apparently little precedence for such behavior. Since then, however, the numbers have increased exponentially. What are the sociological drivers for this phenomenon? The ones behind inner city gun violence perpetrated by black males have been studied and enumerated ad nauseam. But the cold, what—rage(?) that motivate these massacres…Unless we can identify and address it, how can we ever hope to stop it? The greater question in my mind is, why have we been rendered so helpless in the face of them? Do most of us feel the problem is not yet urgent enough to demand action? That not enough people are killed in this manner to tackle it head on? What if these shootings were being carried out by individual Muslims shouting Allahu Akbar? Would it stir more than thoughts and prayers then?
Just FYI, Muslims are about 1.1% of the population, about 60 times less than non-Muslim whites. I’d say they are more than holding their own in the mass shooting leaderboards.
I’m sorry, roethlisburger, I wasn’t being clear. I what I meant to ask is, what if most of these mass shootings were being carried out by radical Muslims who were also US citizens?
Can you expound upon that, dropbo77177? In what way were the rights outlined in The Constitution known to be pre-existing by the Founding Fathers? Had they ever existed in Great Britain, which is where most of these men’s ancestors originated? Freedom of religion, for instance. Were not the social, religious, and economic strictures exerted by The Church of England/The Crown the primary reason those ancestors crossed the ocean in tiny ships for parts unknown? Was there ever a time when freedom of speech, worship, assembly, governmental petition etc., thought by England’s populace to be inherent and inalienable rights? How was it ever reckoned as ‘self-evident’ that all men are created equal (Yes, I know these words are not in The Constitution, but in The Declaration of Independence.)? Now, you’ve really got me thinking. Thank you.
Since we are so focused on mass school shootings, I checked those: 172 total killed over the last 40 years, in K-12 schools and colleges/universities. Most victims were killed with handguns, not “assault” rifles, including the single instance with the greatest loss of life: the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, which accounts for 32 of those deaths. In fact, of the 17 listed school shootings, only 4 involved assault rifles.
@poetsheart - Interesting questions, and it would take forever to even scratch the surface. Let me think a little and see if I can’t refer you to something a little more accessible than the Federalist Papers themselves!
But just to get the intuition: we commonly speak of a limited government, governed by consent of the people, as one of the distinguishing characteristics of our system versus, say, an autocracy by divine right. In creating that limited creature - government - did we cede all rights only then to receive certain ones back from the government? To the extent that it makes sense to speak of “rights” at all, the Founders, following in the Scottish Enlightenment tradition, conceived of certain rights as divinely bestowed upon individuals. Perhaps a convenient fiction for some, but it is hard to argue with the success of the American experiment.
I applaud you for your professed pride in our country in post 118.
I’m curious as what makes someone a criminal. These people were responsible gun owning law abiding citizens until the second they weren’t. Would they have become criminals if they didn’t have easy access to a weapon, I guess we’ll never know.
I just don’t buy the argument that only criminals break the law, if so then our view of criminals is flawed. So many shootings are impulse or accidental shootings. Every gun started out as a legal weapon, if people were responsible how did so many weapons get into the hands of criminals.
I’ve read every comment on this thread and I will never understand the gun culture and the thought that the right to bear arms is more important than the right of life and liberty. https://www.newsweek.com/pastors-wife-gun-parking-lot-1457652?amp=1
I used to smoke cigarettes and I was very good about coming up with (lame) excuses for not quitting, especially on that day in November that is the day where every smoker should try, just this one day, to quit.
It reminds me very much of the gun culture and its (lame) excuses. Squabbling about how one particular law wouldn’t have prevented one particular mass shooting, or surmising things about hurricanes hitting LA, or javelinas attacking Times Square, or expecting some person online to be a Constitutional scholar, etc., are all signs of this ailment we have. We have too many guns. We are far too sloppy in who we let own guns. We are ridiculous in how we regulate them less than ladders. We are stupid in how we don’t register them nationally. We are idiotic in that we don’t allow insurance companies to ask if you own a gun (but they can ask about trampolines). We are criminally insane in that we made it illegal for doctors to talk to parents about guns in the house and the dangers they might pose. And, we are completely corrupt in some of our laws, like making it easier for mentally impaired people to purchase a gun.
We don’t have more mental illness than other countries. We don’t play more video games. We have more guns.
Some people don’t share your interpretation of our Constitution. Many of us consider it the core document which forms our national identity and the foundation of our government.
The right to life can be construed many ways, but fundamentally it means that the government does not have a right to deprive you of life unless it follows its own procedures as in the case of capital punishment. It's not a guarantee that you will live a long life (or in some cases not be murdered).
The right to liberty is based on the freedom of movement and not being unlawfully detained by the government.
When an individual deprives you of your life they are held criminally liable.
In relation to guns its much easier to kill someone with a gun then any other weapon available to the public.
This won't likely change any time soon due to the supreme court rulings on the second amendment.
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), is a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms, unconnected with service in a militia, for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home, and that the District of Columbia’s handgun ban and requirement that lawfully owned rifles and shotguns be kept “unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock” violated this guarantee.[1]
The supreme court has never deterred the government from allowing any government to apply restrictions on the sale of guns via background checks, etc., but that fundamentally will not solve the problem. If you are a citizen, have no criminal history or mental illness, you can buy a gun and like I said that is not going to change in the near future.
Gun culture is here to stay for the foreseeable future, albeit with more restrictions on the "how" one goes about buying one.
What might be insane is expecting doctors to be social workers or offer parenting classes. Doctors should be in the business of treating medical conditions not trying to teach parents how to childproof their house: “make sure your kid doesn’t drink bleach” or “stick a fork in the electrical socket” or “put their hand on a hot stove”.
Many people in my area are not "responsible gun owning law abiding citizens until the second they " aren’t. They are convicted felons out on parole who got guns illegally. Two such people have been shot and killed by police near me in the last week. There is a lot of that going on here.
There are also people who are law abiding citizens who own guns who either decide to get famous by shooting up a bunch of strangers, or whose kids get access to their guns and shoot up a bunch of strangers. That is a different pathology. The shooters seem to crave fame. Which is why I suggest they get a large helping of derision and ridicule instead. What have we got to lose?