TargetTalk

Zuckerman the article still misses the point, the 2nd amendment isn't about hunting.

All this talk about the Constitution being out of date is really silly, there are ways to to amend the Constitution, so if parts are seen by some groups as needing change then get to it, and good luck.

here is another unattributed anti-gun point:

Maybe, in a magical world, if I got to make it stick, the point to me seems to be that a lot of people are
okay with our society being an armed society. Concealed weapons everywhere. 300 million firearms.
I'm not okay with that, and it's not just the sickening deaths by firearm. It's also a tacit embrace of violence.
A society that accommodates guns because some people think they are "fun", that nods at concealed carry permits,
that ultimately absorbs the definition of resolution of disagreement as including what a gun is intended to do, is not a normal society.
So I'm saying this new inclusion of arming an entire country is in itself a departure from democracy, not an embrace of it.
It changes our national dialog, our national viewpoint on conflict resolution, in an entirely negative way, notwithstanding
the tragedy of Sandy Point, and others.
An armed country is the antithesis of democracy. Guns subvert personal freedom.

That said, what to do?
Get rid of the guns.
The First Amendment has been substantially altered by the NDAA and the Patriot Act,
anyone disagreeing with that fact is merely playing with words.
The Second Amendment is not sacrosanct anymore then the First.
Our current gun culture is approaching a level of intrusion in our daily lives comparable or greater than
that of terrorism.
Legislate around the 2nd. Get rid of the guns.

487 gunshot deaths since Sandy Hook.

The problem with try to use science or physics to identify a dangerous gun is history. The most dangerous rifle is the Civil War era single shot using a soft lead round ball.

A previous post seemed to ask what gun owners can contribute to this discussion to stop the violence and to mitigate the damage to the shooting sports due to gun control legislation.

The gun control crowd claim the high superior ground. We have offered good advise but it doesn't resonate with their superior morality. As a example I have read them claim in effect that a defenseless dead rape victim lying at the feet of her attacker is moraly superior to an attempted rape victim holding a smoklng gun standing at the feet of her attacker. School teachers have made it clear their position of a gun free school with 20 murdered little kids is moraly superior to our position of advocating self defense.
This warped superior moral ideology is not open to the only common sense solution. FIGHT BACK
I get the sense that some in the shooting sports community would gladly sacrifice others. Do some believe that 50 meter pistol should sacrifice the "rattle battle" at Camp Perry? The sport of shooting has no virtue or honor. The skill of self defense does. Seeking a medal for personal glory is not in the same league as those who risks or risked all for their fellow man.
The tyranical gun control crowd uses the strategy of "death my a thousand cuts" and "divide and conquer".
These people never offer to give up any thing. We are fools to let them keep "cutting" us.
These people are not interesting in protecting the weak and innocent, only in promoting their superior morality.

Ray Odle wrote: The gun control crowd claim the high superior ground. We have offered good advise but it doesn't resonate with their superior morality. As a example I have read them claim in effect that a defenseless dead rape victim lying at the feet of her attacker is moraly superior to an attempted rape victim holding a smoklng gun standing at the feet of her attacker. School teachers have made it clear their position of a gun free school with 20 murdered little kids is moraly superior to our position of advocating self defense.
This warped superior moral ideology is not open to the only common sense solution. FIGHT BACK

The thing is if the only answer you have is to "FIGHT BACK" than you aren't really offering anything but an eye for an eye and a form of vigilante justice. That's not attempting to solve a problem by trying to find common ground. It's sort of like saying the problem with drunk drivers running into people is that you need to hit them first with a bigger car.

By using your example who is morally superior: a women who kills an attacker with lethal force or one who disables an attacker with non lethal force (pepper spray) and then testifies towards that persons conviction?

I think that sort of question is very much at the heart of the discussion. I'm curious what your answer would be and how you would defend it.

Gregor

That earlier comment on muskets and cannonballs has started the old gears in my feeble mind turning.

First off I do commend JamesH for mentioning that the 2d Amendment stood for state of the art arms from the day. I get so sick of hearing about hunting ducks etc. You would think it was Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Ducks!

I once heard Justice Scalia addressing some school children who had been misinformed by their teacher that the Constitution was a living document; Justice Scalia said the Constitution as a document is just as dead as can be. It is meant to be applied as adopted.

Things have surely changed but the Constitution remains relevant, i.e.

The 1st Amendment was adopted when they were using quill pens and parchment; look at our medias available today.

The 2d and the developements in arms.

The 4th and searches / evidence / privacy; DNA, email etc.

The Constitution still applies and works as written. The founding fathers got it right.

If you don't like the Constitution there are provision to change it right in the Constitution. I suggest they who want to remove rights get at;


The first method is for a bill to pass both houses of the legislature, by a two-thirds majority in each. Once the bill has passed both houses, it goes on to the states. This is the route taken by all current amendments. Because of some long outstanding amendments, such as the 27th, Congress will normally put a time limit (typically seven years) for the bill to be approved as an amendment (for example, see the 21st and 22nd).

The second method prescribed is for a Constitutional Convention to be called by two-thirds of the legislatures of the States, and for that Convention to propose one or more amendments. These amendments are then sent to the states to be approved by three-fourths of the legislatures or conventions. This route has never been taken, and there is discussion in political science circles about just how such a convention would be convened, and what kind of changes it would bring about.

‎"Government seems to operate on the principle that if even one individual is incapable of using his freedom competently, no one can be allowed to be free." --Harry Browne

‎"Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself." --Mark Twain

sakurama wrote:

Ray Odle wrote: The gun control crowd claim the high superior ground. We have offered good advise but it doesn't resonate with their superior morality. As a example I have read them claim in effect that a defenseless dead rape victim lying at the feet of her attacker is moraly superior to an attempted rape victim holding a smoklng gun standing at the feet of her attacker. School teachers have made it clear their position of a gun free school with 20 murdered little kids is moraly superior to our position of advocating self defense.
This warped superior moral ideology is not open to the only common sense solution. FIGHT BACK

The thing is if the only answer you have is to "FIGHT BACK" than you aren't really offering anything but an eye for an eye and a form of vigilante justice. That's not attempting to solve a problem by trying to find common ground. It's sort of like saying the problem with drunk drivers running into people is that you need to hit them first with a bigger car.

By using your example who is morally superior: a women who kills an attacker with lethal force or one who disables an attacker with non lethal force (pepper spray) and then testifies towards that persons conviction?

I think that sort of question is very much at the heart of the discussion. I'm curious what your answer would be and how you would defend it.

Gregor

I'm sorry, but DEFENDING yourself is NOT vigilante justice!

To use your woman/attacker scenario. I have a 10yr old daughter and I am thinking of her in a few years. So now you have a 100lb young woman minding her own business and no matter where she is, at home, in her car, walking down the street, and lets say a 250lb muscle bulging whacked out on drugs man grabs her and has a knife, gun, both? She's gonna control this guy with pepper spray until the cops can come maybee 10min later? Are you kidding me! Considering what some of these people are capable of doing to a woman lethal force is absolutely justified in a case like this. And no it's not like hitting a drunk driver with a bigger car first. She's not going out looking for some guy to shoot just because he looks scary. She's DEFENDING herself. She's sitting in her car at a red light and the criminal started this. He is showing his willingness to use lethal force and if that is what he gets back then... I still have a daughter and one less criminal is out there to do who knows what next.

Scott

Sakamura, this thread isn't really about reasonable responses to the problem of random violence. It's about political chicanery and a socialist agenda being foisted on the US.

It's about politicos using tragic situations to further their careers and has NOTHING to do with any "common sense", assault rifles, right-to-carry, or large magazines.

The sooner we wake up to that and resist instead of engaging in "thoughful discussion" as a means of enabling those agendas the better for the US.

sakurama wrote:

Ray Odle wrote: The gun control crowd claim the high superior ground. We have offered good advise but it doesn't resonate with their superior morality. As a example I have read them claim in effect that a defenseless dead rape victim lying at the feet of her attacker is moraly superior to an attempted rape victim holding a smoklng gun standing at the feet of her attacker. School teachers have made it clear their position of a gun free school with 20 murdered little kids is moraly superior to our position of advocating self defense.
This warped superior moral ideology is not open to the only common sense solution. FIGHT BACK

The thing is if the only answer you have is to "FIGHT BACK" than you aren't really offering anything but an eye for an eye and a form of vigilantist justice. It's sort of like saying the problem with drunk drivers running into people is that you need to hit them first with a bigger car. . That's not attempting to solve a problem by trying to find common ground. It's sort of like saying the problem with drunk drivers running into people is that you need to hit them first with a bigger car.

By using your example who is morally superior: a women who kills an attacker with lethal force or one who disables an attacker with non lethal force (pepper spray) and then testifies towards that persons conviction?

I think that sort of question is very much at the heart of the discussion. I'm curious what your answer would be and how you would defend it.

Gregor

"Fighting Back" is the best advise one can give to fellow human being.
This is not the movies. I once had a woman in my pistol class that was part of the rape victim hotline. She had pepper spray scattered through out her car and house. She saw first hand the ineffectiveness of it. Police have gotten away from pepper spray for the stun gun. Never use pepper spray in doors or up wind. Some people are immune to it.
Why is protecting the attacker at the expensive of the innocent so important to you? Yes, I know the answer. This is why we are on different sides of this issue.

"It's sort of like saying the problem with drunk drivers running into people is that you need to hit them first with a bigger car."
You sort of realize that a drunk in a Volkswagen Beetle running into a tank does prove my point? Unless you believe the drunk should be the survivor.

Just to give a little Bible truth. The Bible's "eye for an eye" is under the judicial code. It is the maximum sentence for that charge that a judge could hand down upon "due process" of the accused.
The gun control crowd claiming self defense is "vigilantism" doesn't offer anything to this discussion.

JamesH wrote:

You're on shaky ground there, since it was written the 2nd amendment has been steadily whittle down, partly by the passage of technology, from "any state of the art weapon of war" to "semi-automatic small-calibre small-arms at most".

I don't think so. Where have you ever found "any weapon of war"? The militia were to make themselves available with weapons equivalent to those used by the army. Same today, as the supreme Court stated in Heller. And they refer to "bearing" arms, individual arms, not crew served weapons. This is one of the restrictions on the Amendment.

and cannons were state of the art, the army and populace could own both.

Reference?

you can't own a bazooka, grenade launcher, even buy new fully-automatic military rifles

Wrong again. All these can be owned by private individuals in the US. You do have to have an additional license and pay an additional tax ($200) to do so.

The US has already had a ban on 'assault rifles' which wasn't judged unconstitutional, if its put in place again it won't be judged unconstitutional.

Because it never got to the court level where it was argued for or against "constitutionality".

Deleting the 2nd amendment won't give you new unlimited inalienable rights

Wow!! We finally agree. Inalienable rights don;t come from a government, but are natural rights that people have becasue they are people. In most of the world the people have allowed the governments to usurp, or at least infringe, this right. Not so here.

You live in a country, as do many, where the government is the sovergn, and gives rights to the people. In America the people are the sovergns, and have given certain powers to the government while retaining other powers and their rights.

"We the people....do ordain and establish this Constitution... for the United States of America".

Gerard has not been banned from this forum, nor did I threaten to ban him. I said I would remove any posts that did not directly answer my question, or other serious questions asked of him. He did not answer my question, or even acknowledge it, and therefore I deleted his post.

In a civilized society, we expect people to be polite and fair in debates. When asked questions from an opposing viewpoint, it is expected that you should answer the question proposed you or at least attempt to do so. You do not have an option to disregard the tough questions, which Gerard has repeatedly done both in this thread and the previous one. Therefore he is acting more as a troll than someone wishing to engage in honest debate.
Unless he can come in and honestly engage and answer questions of him his posts will not be allowed to remain.

Constitutional rights asside, it must not be forgotten that a major factor in these incomprehensible acts of violence such as school shootings, are mental disorders.

What can be done to help promote mental health programs and support legislation?

Although it wouldn't help in comon crime, it could help in those acts commited aparently by persons with mental problems.

Zuckerman,
I just put in google “medical malpractice deaths per year” and these links were the first ones to come up.
http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm
http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences/ ... ACTICE.htm
http://www.justice.org/cps/rde/justice/hs.xsl/8677.htm
180,000 to 225,000 deaths per year due to iatrogenic reasons (physician caused)Hmmmmm……….


Taking the LOW figure of 180,000 malpractice deaths per year in the US, I come up with 493 deaths PER DAY by medical incompetence.
It’s been about 24 days since the Sandy Hook tragedy. By your count in those 24 days we still are not up to the single DAILY DEATH RATE caused by incorrectly applied medical practices.

Which is the greater threat to human lives Zuckerman?

The CDC says you are 9 times more likely to die from your physician than from a gun . Is that true? Read through these various considerations.
http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/quest ... ed-by-guns

So should we be outlawing guns? Or should we be outlawing medicine?

I don't suppose it would be really fair to include the deaths caused by "crazies" in with physician caused deaths.

Or would it?

I wasn't going to get involved in this mud-wrestling party, until Rover posted this:

...this thread isn't really about reasonable responses to the problem of random violence. It's about political chicanery and a socialist agenda being foisted on the US.

It's about politicos using tragic situations to further their careers and has NOTHING to do with any "common sense", assault rifles, right-to-carry, or large magazines.

The sooner we wake up to that and resist instead of engaging in "thoughful discussion" as a means of enabling those agendas the better for the US.

Probably half the people I know who favor thoughtful discussion are doctors. Many, including my own brother in law, are gun owners and shooters; but in Rover's black or white universe they are all either socialists or dupes or otherwise knowing or un-knowing agents of a massive international (United Nations) conspiracy.

Resisting thoughtful discussion is the technique of the Inquisition, the Klan and the closed minded mullahs of the Taliban. At least Rover warns us in advance that thoughtful discussion with him is impossible, so any attempt to engage him will be a waste of time and effort.

Oh, by the way, "random violence" is a very polite way of saying mass murder. And there's very little random about it, is there?

Actual Rover there is another potential party involved in this, the pharmaceutical industry. If anyone things the gun lobby is big try the pharmaceutical lobby they make the gun lobby look like the Girl Scouts.

And no I'm not against pharmaceuticals but they have been caught playing fast and loose with data many times.

I need a definition for "thoughtful discussion".
I thought this discussion encompassing both sides was thoughtful. I sense a frustration from the "protect the attacker " crowd. Their talking points are consistantly being logically shot down and that is just not "thoughtful" of us gun nuts.
Our refusal to except their Utopia is just not "thoughtful", I suppose. Perhaps I am not suppose to discuss my beliefs, but am required to except theirs without question. Would that then be "thoughtful discussion"?

so you ask me if medical deaths are related to gun deaths and I ask how? and is this obvious false flag argument question the same type of "serious question" that, if I do not respond to, would get Gerard banned, and probably myself also?
regrettably, Americas health system is in sorry shape, we have more infant deaths than many countries, our costs are higher, fewer people are allowed access to health care, and according to a WHO survey in 2000, we rate last in a comparison of health care. Costa Rica rated higher than the US. Because the WHO survey is, by some "experts" considered flawed, Commonwealth Fund did a survey of 7 developed countries in 2010, and it found the US in last place.

And by the way, you said: "The CDC says you are 9 times more likely to die from your physician than from a gun. Is that true?"

I admire the courage you took to admit that guns kill people.

Rover, I have to agree with William. To disdain "thoughtful discussion" is to disdain everything that is right with this country. Not having or allowing thoughtful discussion is more equivalent to idealogies such as Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Dictatorships, etc.