How Would You Answer this Gun Control Argument?

[GreatBarren]

How bout this read them all pay careful attention to the first and last quote

"The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." -- (Thomas Jefferson)

"No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." (Thomas Jefferson, Proposal Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334,[C.J.Boyd, Ed., 1950])

"...to disarm the people - that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them." (George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380)

"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." (James Madison, The Federalist Papers #46 at 243-244)

"the ultimate authority ... resides in the people alone," (James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, in Federalist Paper #46.)

"...but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights..." (Alexander Hamilton speaking of standing armies in Federalist 29.)

"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation. . . Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." (James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, in Federalist Paper No. 46.)

"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms....The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants" (Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William S. Smith in 1787. Taken from Jefferson, On Democracy 20, S. Padover ed., 1939)

‘‘The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjected people to carry arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subjected peoples to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the underdog is a sine qua non ["something essential" lit. "without which not"] for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let's not have any native militia or police.’’ Adolph Hitler, Edict of March 18, 1938

now all but the last one wrote or signed the Constitution, that means anyone now who tries to interpret the 2nd amendment are Wrong the quotes tell you the meaning on the second amendment, not anyone else... after all they were there...

[NineseveN]

First, I think part of where gun banners are veering in the wrong direction comes from a distinct lack of understanding as to what the Second Amendment means, the reasoning behind it and what it actually stands for. The Second Amendment was not intended to solely or even primarily record the right to hunt or engage in a recreational activity with a firearm. The primary purpose of enumerating the Second Amendment was to provide for legally binding language to cement the right of the people to resist a tyrannical and oppressive government using the implements that would be used against them, i.e. arms. To clarify for simplicity's sake, the Second Amendment provides protection for the private citizen to arm themselves in order to fight against a standing army or force (foreign or domestic) using military arms. So whatever the soldiers have in the way of arms, the citizens have the ability to arm themselves equally. This is also in accordance with service in the unorganized militia. Private citizens, reporting for militia duty (which is not the national guard as some people erroneously believe) were to equip themselves with arms comparable to those that were fielded by soldiers. In the 1700's, that was a musket, today that should equate to an automatic rifle as used by our modern military.

Private citizens were meant to have the ability to defend themselves against a tyrannical government, it is absolute absurdity to think that the founders, who went to great lengths to enumerate that right, would handicap the very citizens they meant to protect by mandating that the military should have stronger and more useful arms. If you meant to secure the right for someone to defend themselves against something, you don't hand them slingshots when their opposition has cannons. To think otherwise is completely bereft of logic.

The founders also knew that with rights came certain inherent dangers to society, but they felt that individual liberty was more important than the security of the whole. This is exactly why they enumerated the right for people to be secure in their persons, papers and homes even though it would obviously make the state's job of investigating and prosecuting crime more difficult. Do you not think society as a whole might be safer if the government had the right to arbitrarily walk into any home it wants without needing a warrant to investigate and arrest people for any criminal acts or contraband they find? We might be more safe, but we'd also be less free. Freedom has a price, but the benefits far outweigh the costs. Benjamin Franklin reportedly once said, “Those that would sacrifice essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” That's the spirit behind the notion that in a free society, the rights of the individual outweigh even the most compelling popular interests.

On the surface, passing laws criminalizing the possession of certain items to combat crime almost makes logical sense, except that making something illegal does not make it vanish from the face of this earth. Criminals get guns and they break the law to do it. Making more laws will not hinder or hamper the criminals because the very thing that makes them criminals is that they willingly break the law. Only the law-abiding abide by laws. If you want to see this phenomenon in action, look at the current war on drugs. They're illegal, yet criminals still manage to get them and run their criminal enterprises around them. Has the war on drugs and the countless drug laws hindered and reduced the flow or proliferation of illegal narcotics? No, it has not. In fact, since the so-called “war on drugs” was waged, drug smuggling, sales and use have risen dramatically.

Furthermore, it goes back to the argument above that even if guns in and of themselves did cause crime, the purpose of having a society of armed individuals is to have a free society that can effectively resist oppression and tyranny in the form of a government or army (foreign or domestic). Crime has no bearing on this whatsoever. However, if it did, it is interesting to note that despite the fact that legal gun ownership is on the rise (and has been for many years), according to the FBI's 2006 Uniform Crime Report, “for the 10-year trend (2006 compared with 1997) violent crime fell 13.3 percent.”

An interesting part of this discussion is where we talk about school and workplace shootings. The problem with the Virgina Tech massacre and others like it, is that by forbidding civilian gun owners from carrying firearms in such places, you give the perpetrator the opportunity to kill fish in a barrel. One needs only to realize that the far and wide majority of such incidents take place in so-called “gun-free zones” to understand this.

Why does a person pick their school to play executioner instead of say, their own neighborhood where his or her classmates likely also live or somewhere else? It’s the same reason why the KKK doesn’t go to Harlem to lynch black folks, and why skinhead gay bashers don’t head off to Pink Pistol rallies to go curb some homosexuals. It’s why gang bangers don’t assault police stations for initiation rights and it’s also why terrorists hijacked and flew commercial planes into commercial buildings instead of hijacking military vessels and flying into Fort Bragg. It’s like sucker-punching a nun who has one arm. It’s not fair, but it’ll work, and if you can find a one-armed nun to punch that also happens to be blind, well, even better. This is how the kinds of cowards that kill unsuspecting innocent people think, remember that.

Think of the whole thing as choosing the path of least resistance and putting the odds in your favor by using your strengths and your target's weakness against them. If you want to kill a lot of people, you have to have a lot of people available to kill and you have to live long enough to kill them. So the obvious solution is that you go to where there are no guns, few armed police officers and enough people for you to kill a lot of them quickly. That’s why people perform massacres at schools and why they shoot their co-workers at work; firearms are generally prohibited in both places. And it’s also why wolves hunt in packs and lions hunt at night.

School shootings like the Columbine and VT incidents and workplace shootings like we saw at the postal offices in Edmond, Oklahoma in 1986 and Goleta, California, in 2006 are relatively rare. There have been approximately 30 incidents of actual massacres in schools since 1966.

* University of Texas at Austin massacre - Austin, Texas; August 1, 1966
14 dead (not including his wife and mother whom he stabbed to death before the shooting), 31 wounded (2 hunting rifles, an M1 Carbine and three handguns)

* Orangeburg Massacre - Orangeburg, South Carolina; February 8, 1968
3 dead, 27 wounded - the shooters were Police Officers

* Kent State shootings - Kent, Ohio; May 4, 1970
4 dead, 9 wounded - the shooters were members of the Ohio National Guard

* Jackson State killings - Jackson, Mississippi; May 14-15, 1970
2 dead, 12 wounded - the shooters were police

* California State University, Fullerton Library Massacre - Fullerton, California; July 12, 1976
7 dead, 2 wounded (.22 caliber rifle)

* Cleveland Elementary School - San Diego, California; January 29, 1979
2 dead, 9 wounded (.22 hunting rifle)

* Parkway South Junior High School shooting - Saint Louis, Missouri; January 20, 1983
2 dead (not including the shooter who committed suicide), 0 wounded (2 handguns)

* Stockton massacre - Stockton, California; January 17, 1989
5 dead (not including the shooter who committed suicide), 29 wounded (Ak-47)

* University of Iowa shooting - Iowa City, Iowa; November 1, 1991
5 dead (not including the shooter who committed suicide), 1 wounded (.38 revolver and a .22 handgun)

* Simon's Rock College of Bard shooting - Great Barrington, Massachusetts; December 14, 1992
2 dead, 4 wounded (SKS rifle)

* Richland High School shooting - Lynnville, Tennessee; November 15, 1995.
2 dead, 1 wounded (.22 rifle)

* Frontier Junior High shooting - Moses Lake, Washington; February 2, 1996
3 dead, one wounded (hunting rifle and 2 handguns)

* Pearl High School shooting, Pearl, Mississippi; October 1, 1997
2 dead (not including his mother whom he stabbed and beat to death), 7 wounded (hunting rifle) - NOTE the shooter was stopped by the Assistant Principle who went to his car and retrieved a .45 caliber Semi-automatic pistol and confronted the shooter.

* Heath High School shooting, West Paducah, Kentucky; December 1, 1997
3 dead, 5 wounded (22-caliber handgun, two hunting rifles and two shotguns)

* Jonesboro massacre - Jonesboro, Arkansas; March 24, 1998
5 killed, 10 wounded (two semi-automatic rifles, one bolt-action rifle and four handguns)

* Thurston High School shooting - Springfield, Oregon; May 21, 1998
2 dead (not including his parents, teachers at a local high school, were killed in their home that morning, not in the school), 25 wounded (.22 rifle, a .22 handgun, and a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol)

* Columbine High School massacre - Littleton, Colorado; April 20, 1999
13 killed (not including the shooters who committed suicide), 24 wounded (Intratec TEC-DC9, Hi-Point 995 Carbine, Savage 67H pump-action shotgun, Stevens 311D double barreled sawed-off shotgun)

* Heritage High School shooting - Conyers, Georgia; May 20, 1999
0 dead, 6 wounded (.22 rifle, .357mag revolver)

* Santana High School - Santee, California; March 5, 2001
2 dead, 13 wounded (handgun)

Appalachian School of Law shooting - Grundy, Virginia; January 16, 2002
3 dead, 3 wounded (.380 caliber semi-auto handgun) - NOTE: the shooter was apprehended by armed students who were also police officers)

* Rocori High School shootings - Cold Spring, Minnesota; September 24, 2003
2 dead, 0 wounded (.22 handgun)

* Red Lake High School massacre - Red Lake, Minnesota; March 21, 2005
7 dead (not including the shooter who committed suicide or the two people he killed before going to the school), 7 wounded (.22 handgun killed one person before school, all other shots came from a stolen 9mm Glock and a Pump Action shotgun - stolen from his grandfather, a police officer and one of the people he killed before he went to the school)

* Campbell County High School - Jacksboro, Tennessee: November 8, 2005
1 dead, 2 wounded (.22 handgun)

* Platte Canyon High School shooting - Bailey, Colorado; September 27, 2006
1 dead (not including the shooter who committed suicide), 0 wounded (handgun)

* Amish school shooting - Nickel Mines, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; October 2, 2006
5 dead (not including the shooter, who killed himself), 0 wounded (9mm semi-automatic handgun and a shotgun)

* Weston High School shooting - Cazenovia, Wisconsin September 29, 2006
1 dead, 0 wounded (brought a shotgun, but that was taken from him, killing was done via a handgun)

* Virginia Tech massacre - Blacksburg, Virginia; April 16, 2007
32 dead, 17 wounded (.22 handgun and a 9mm Glock)



If my math serves me correctly, that's 130 dead and 222 wounded in those 27 massacres (9 of those that died and 48 that were wounded were at the hands of military or law enforcement) over 41 years (that's 3.25 dead and 5.55 wounded people being accounted for per year).

Some conclusions:
It seems that .22 caliber weapons are prevalent amongst school shootings. Note that .22 caliber weapons are not normally carried or used for self defense, their use is relegated to hunting and recreational shooting (the very kinds of firearms many gun grabbers say they'll let us keep). Hunting weapons accounted for more shooting incidents than semi-automatic weapons that would normally be used for self defense. If need be, we could surely do the mathematical analysis to come up with some solid ratios, but I think it is overwhelmingly obvious that most school shootings do not involve the types of guns that gun banners seek to ban or further restrict. So for some to say that they're not targeting hunting rifles because they're not the problem is simply disingenuous and intellectually dishonest given the facts. Even if we go outside of the realm of school shootings, so-called non hunting guns rarely factor into crime at all. In fact, reports from the FBI, law enforcement agencies, the Department of Justice, criminologists and other studies (many of which can be found in the Gun Facts publication noted at the end of this post) show that so-called assault weapon are used in less than 2% of violent crimes.

Furthermore, as horrific as they are, those types of school shootings occur infrequently (more people are killed by swimming pools), coming in at a rate of about 0.66 per year. Even if you add the few smaller and lesser-known incidents, the rate is less than one a year and the number of wounded and dead don't increase very much at all. It's also, it is apparent that when such killer are confronted by other armed individuals, the massacre stops (note the Appalachia and Pearl High School incidents).


As for workplace shootings, according to a study by Handgun-Free America (which seeks to ban private handgun ownership) there were 164 workplace shootings in the United States between 1994 and 2003, in which 290 people were killed and 161 were wounded. 164 shootings divided by 9 years = 18.22 workplace shootings per year.

How many people owned guns during those years? 514,707. So that means that 0.03% of firearm owners assaulted someone at work with a gun. Oops, actually, that’s not how many people owned guns during those years, it’s how many people applied for Concealed Carry Permits in the state of Pennsylvania alone from 2000 to 2004.

86706 (2000)
101206 (2001)
101440 (2002)
118070 (2003)
107285 (2004)
Source: The Pennsylvania State Police.


So how many people really did own guns during that time frame? Surely the number is much larger, right? The answer: 2,250,867. So that means that 0.0073% of firearm owners assaulted someone at work with a gun. Oh, wait one minute, wrong figures again. That was simply the number of firearms legally purchased from 1998 to 2003…in Pennsylvania. Those numbers exclude all 49 of the other states in this country.

374,356 (1998)
396,709 (1999)
381,441 (2000)
318,228 (2001)
388,001 (2002)
392,132 (2003)
Source: The Pennsylvania State Police.


So then, how many people really owned firearms during that period? We don't truly know, but here is some information from the U.S. Department of Justice

“From the inception of the Brady Act on March 1, 1994, to December 31, 2002, nearly 46 million applications for firearm transfers were subject to background checks. About 976,000 applications were rejected.”

The number of gun owners in the United States of America is generally estimated to be between 60 and 80 million or more. The reason we don’t know for sure is that tracking and requiring a background check for firearms purchases did not begin until 1994 with the Brady act, so we can only estimate what happened all those years prior to that process being put into place. Considering that we had 45 million legal gun purchases during those 8 years alone, I think the ‘80 million gun owners’ figure is probably closer to the real number, but it's still probably a little low.

According to the FBI there were 1412 justified homicides during the span of 1987 to 1991. Under the FBI definition, a killing is counted as a justified homicide only if the shooting was defensive in nature (i.e. someone protecting their own life or the life of another) and it occurred during the commission of a felony, and obviously only if the felonious individual wound up dead. During the last ten years, sources from the FBI say that number has risen approximately 33%. The number of justified defensive killings (where the deceased was not in commission of a felony or felony charges were not involved) is thought to be at least four (4) times that. Now that’s only killings. What is the number of defensive shootings or defensive uses of a gun without shooting in the US each year? The National Self-Defense Survey, a privately conducted survey indicated that there were 2.5 million incidents of defensive gun use per year in the U.S. during the period of 1988-1993. Even if that number is not statistically sound, justified homicides alone outweigh the number of school and workplace shootings, indicating that firearms do more good than harm (and predominately do only good in the hands of non-criminals).

As free people, we reserve the right, as provided for by our creator and enumerated by the constitution of this republic, to secure the means necessary to defend ourselves against a tyrannical and oppressive government when all other legal remedies have failed. The soldiers or tyrants, enemy invaders and criminals will not be armed with hunting guns, but instead with the very arms the gun banners seek to ban.

As far as advocating using other means of self defense such as a knife or pepper spray (which many anti-gunners say is a reasonable alternative to firearm ownership), using a knife in such a capacity is a messy struggle, it is in no way like the movies portray it. In oder to stop an attack using a knife, you would have to do so much damage that the aggressor would lose enough blood to die or fall into shock or some other debilitating condition. To do something like that in a defensive struggle requires a lot of endurance, strength and time. In the time that you can bleed someone out, they will also be injuring you, possibly with a knife of their own or a gun. The end result is that you might even die first, or you might both die. Self defense is not about killing the aggressor, it's about stopping the attack before harm can be done to you. Knives and pepper sprays do not afford one that opportunity, despite what the movies tell you. Even pepper spray is not 100% effective, and if you spray someone holding a gun to you, they can still fire at you without aiming, possibly injuring or killing you and/or bystanders in the process.

Again, the entire underlying premise of the Second Amendment is to provide a means for us to secure a defense against the very people the gun-banners seek to arm with guns they would not have in civilian hands. It's to ensure that someone such as Hitler cannot come into power in our country (Hitler was constitutionally chosen to be the Chancellor of Germany and the Germans that exterminated the Jews were government soldiers following orders given to them by their commander in chief). In the end, this can be a rational argument, but first those on the side of banning or further restricting guns need to possess all of the facts instead of going on hoplophobia, innuendo, anecdotal evidence and logical folly alone.


Links and Sources:
www.gunfacts.info
http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-fa...4-2-Screen.pdf

The National Self-Defense Survey
http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/kleck2.html
Gary Kleck
Marc G. Gertz

FBI Uniform Crime Reports
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm

Heller vs. D.C. (formerly Parker VS DC via http://www.dcguncase.com/blog/)
http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/...3/04-7041a.pdf

[Brick]

So after wading through all of the chaff you included in your post, I can only guess that the argument in favor of gun control that you want answered is: "When the founding forefathers wrote the constitution and put in the right to keep and bare arms, I think it is important to remember that there was no such thing as a glock or semi-automatic rifle."

You are correct in that they could not have forseen the developement of semi-autos, full-autos or even repeating firearms (even though "repeaters" of a type did exist experimentally at that time). What the Founders did intend to to protect was the state of the art military firearm and that is what is supposed to be protected today. The state of the art military firearms of the 1770s were muzzle-loading flintlock muskets and pistols. Today's state of the art military firearms are select fire assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols. It isn't the type of firearm that is protected, it is the purpose of the weapon (protection of the nation against both foreign and domestic enemies) and who may own it (the people) that is protected.

One thing as an aside, the design principles behind semi-automatic and full automatic weapons are over 100 years old. The first semi-auto rifle was introduced by Mannlicher in 1885.

[MartinBrody]

My argument would be...

The constitution & the 2nd amendment is not about hunting, or even personal protection, it is about a "free state". An unarmed populace is vulnerable to tyranny and oppression. As is a populace that cannot assemble, freely communicate, or be detained by the gov't without due process.

The founders foresaw these freedoms being attacked. They knew the gov't would attempt to confiscate weapons in the name of law & order, they knew the freedom of speech would be impinged by those claiming national security, they knew warrants & due process would be circumvented in the name of fighting terrorism. That is why they gave these freedoms the ultimate protection, era or circumstance have no bearing on them!

The founders did foresee Glocks & "automatic weapons", advancements in weapons had been made prior to & during their lifetimes that they could assume would continue. A caveman knew a stick or rock was better than a fist, when they wrote the constitution they knew guns that loaded faster were better than those that were slow to load, why wouldn't they foresee improvements being made.

I don't understand why the thought of oppression is so foreign to some people, is is happening all over the world right now.

[tmascal]

I do apologize, but i didn't read the whole posting. I was too busy laughing at the "keep and BARE arms" part.

It's "keep and bear arms"

Remember, an armed society is a polite society. Regardless of who has or does not have a gun, you're less likely to run into trouble if the possibility is there that you COULD have a gun.

If you were a criminal, would you rather mug someone in NY, NY or anywhere in PA? I know my answer, but then again, I'm not a criminal.

[novice]

Originally Posted by lostintrainstations

From: http://www.progressiveu.org/032811-t...ntrol-argument

...the guns that are currently available to the public are far beyond what any civilian needs...

In any case, I do believe that this is an argument which could be settled with reasoning and compromise - then again, I feel that way about most arguments...

This is a judgement that is always made by gun control advocates. Compromise isn't really an option unless you have two equally reasonable arguments...that doesn't exist here. It isn't reasonable to suppose the public should surrender their civil rights.

Arms are what made this a free country. They didn't call out the army to fight the British at Lexington and Concord--there wasn't any army to call . They called out their neighbors and went up against the greatest world power ever to exist at that point with whatever they had hanging over the mantelpiece.

[dragonoff]

I think if everyone carried a gun those that would do harm would be out numbered by those that want a safer place to live, can you imagine some punk, @55hole, POS crook pulling a gun in a supermarket, corner store, bank, full of honest upstanding citizens!? It would be a big mistake I can tell you! Our forefather knew axactly what they were writting, and they knew what they were saying, and they knew that weapons would evolve, they were not stupid! it was all written down so the citizen of the future wouldnt have to go through what they went through to be free of tyrants! I dont want to sound anti USA as I love my country but sometimes a people must rise up to show that the leaders are wrong about something, how are we to do this thing if we are naked as the day we were born? If you or whoever wrote this wants to be a part of the sheep thats great, but dont try to take us with you because someday, when the crap hits the fan, youll be glad that we fought for the right to bear arms If you can imagine a world where the criminal has the advantage over everyone else, and the government, and local law inforcement has virtually no control over the streets in which we live, Oops! Thats the way it is know!

[Mtbkski]

The founders of the Contittution didn't forsee the Internet. But we have freedom of speech.

You can go on about just about all of the Constitutional Amendments. But Freedom of Speech is the easiet

I think we shouldn't have as much Freedom of Speech either. I mean you have access to news that allows you to see wars as they happen. Hear about school shootings moments after they start. We shouldn't be able to find pornography on the internet. Be it animal sex or straight sex. We investigate our political leaders.We find garbage on them and tell the world. The fore fathers never seen this happening. They didn't mean for us to have this much Freedom of Speech.

Where do we draw the line??????? Give up one inch. You give it all up.

[FentFV]

I hate guns - they terrify and sicken me

And herein lies the crux of her argument. As much as gun control advocates like this author try to present "logical" arguments, it all comes down to their irrational fear of an inanimate object and their projection of that fear onto everyone else.

That would be the first thing I'd point out.

The author (according to her own words) grew up in an armed household, but was never injured by any of these firearms. She most likely was raised by a respectable, law-abiding parent or two. Yet still she thinks that the "guns" are the problem.

That's the second thing I'd point out.

And the author fails to mention that every shooting that she listed occurred in "gun-free" zones. At the risk of beating a long-dead horse, a single person with a concealed weapons *may* have been able to end any of those situations.

That's the third thing I'd point out.

My fourth point would be all of the constitutional arguments outlined by previous posters. The Second Amendment ain't about hunting, and it ain't about militias. Never was.

And in answer to her question, I *do* believe that the framers of the Constitution would have no problem with a Glock on every hip (except mine, of course...I like my Bersa). What they *would* have a problem with is the society of weaklings we have today, a society that is perpetuated by socialist government schools that produce a parade of mush-heads (like the author), and a welfare society that produces generations of people that have no sense of self-reliance or self-respect.

[NineseveN]

I'm dying to see if SmellyCat13 responds to my comment on her blog. I think I might have caused her head to explode due to information overload.