I've heard this argument before, but it misses two things. First, cost. The idea isn't necessarily for random citizens to be able to fight off the entire U.S. military. And we have no reason to think any government we've had so far has genuinely contemplated something so totally over the top that would provoke armed rebellion. But if they do, I want them to consider the fact that it would not be an easy thing. Remember, things like constitutional provisions aren't for the government we have now, it's for this one and all the next however-many. Second, and related to this, morality. The reason the U.S. (and other Western countries, for that matter) has struggled so much to deal with an insurgency is that they're simply unwilling to wipe out large sections of the populace. I don't believe that any government faced with an armed rebellion in the U.S. would be willing to kill the numbers of people that you ultimately have to if that insurgency is sufficiently resolved. So, I say all this not because I think this scenario is likely. But it's worth understanding the thinking behind the Second Amendment itself (in order to understand what it says and hope it operates from a legal perspective) and also to understand that no, people who think this way haven't just ignored the changes in military technology. If you're going to argue against a position, you need to understand what that position actually is.
Oh, I see what you mean. As with anything else, it's about balance. I'd never advocate totally doing away with gun laws altogether, nor would I be in favor of the opposite extreme. I'm definitely in favor of some restrictions that don't currently exist, or only exist in watered down forms: the so-called universal background checks, good communication between mental health authorities and the background check database, and continued restrictions for domestic abusers and those subject to a protective order (and most states do some form of all of these). I would be in favor of things like limits on how many weapons you can buy within a certain period, as well (my state used to have one of those until it was repealed). I also believe we should do more to compile data, both on criminal uses and on how often guns are used in self-defense. The latter especially is, I expect, under-reported as part of the national conversation (just look at the defensive gun usage subreddit, which also shows misuse). More data is rarely a negative. The big thing I would add is more training requirements, while simultaneously breaking the NRA's monopoly on firearms training. To get a concealed carry permit in Virginia, for example, requires laughably little training, for example, and that needs to change. But it needs to be handled like any other professional certification or a driver's license: certain standards are established, and then whoever wants to set up a training facility may do so. Hopefully enough competition can keep costs down, since I don't want to totally price low-income people out of this (although shooting is already an incredibly expensive hobby, so I'm not sure how much worse this would really be). I'd also like to remove the distinction between owning a handgun and doing the things you have to do to get a concealed-carry. I think if you're going to buy one, you should have to meet the requirements (training and background) to get a CCW. I believe this will have a couple effects. First, it'll hopefully remove a lot of the anxiety on the part of non-gun owners. People aren't nervous about cops having guns, even though plenty of cops do not keep up with their skills and are terrible shots. (And this is referring to non-shootout situations, not when they're facing someone else with a gun.) Regardless, if people know that those of us who are armed have taken the time to learn it, it does more to reinforce the idea of the "responsible gun owner." The other thing is, hopefully, a cultural change: if it's something we take seriously, my hope is that this may actually help stop crime. Good old fashion cultural pressure on people to not abuse gun ownership can, I think, make a difference. Don't get me wrong, it's not going to magically halve the homicide or suicide rate, but I think it can make a difference, maybe even a bigger one than we'd expect, while also helping to see being a gun owner as a responsibility in addition to a right. Finally, just look at the crime rates among CCW-holders, which tend to be much lower than elsewhere. (It's hard to find good data on this, but see here and here). I wouldn't be in favor of registration, despite the driver's license analogy, both because I don't think it does much as a crime deterrent and because I'm worried about people trying to dox gun owners (something that has happened before).
That is not a refutation. You saying "he's a liar" proves nothing, and is a worthless ad hominem.
No. But I'm not citing a research paper. I'm stating a fact https://econjwatch.org/articles/yet-another-refutation-of-the-more-guns-less-crime-hypothesis-with-some-help-from-moody-and-marvell http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/john-lott-guns-crime-data/ http://www.juliansanchez.com/2003/02/13/red-herrings/ https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/10/03/discredited-gun-researcher-john-lott-s-misleading-las-vegas-massacre-claims-are-falling-apart/218120 https://www.google.com/amp/s/thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/amp/ I can support all sorts of positions with disreputable sources. You need to be skeptical of claims from any side whether they agree with you or not and the easiest way to do that is to question where the information is coming from
All your sources are biased too, so they must be wrong. Huh, that was easy, I can see why people do it. Anyway, none of those links get to what I was talking about, which was solely the idea that crime rates are lower among CCW holders. Meanwhile, looking at the VPC numbers he's refuting, they are pretty crap. Of 904 incidents, 44% are suicides (so have nothing to do with whether CCW holders are or are not more likely to commit a crime), and they also by their own admission count 93 (10% of the total) cases where the person hasn't been convicted. They also conveniently neglect to say how many CCW holders there are, or to make any kind of meaningful comparison. The Crime Prevention Research Center, which is John Lott's project, is the only place I can find a total for the number of CCW permits nationwide, although there is a smattering of articles talking about significant increases in the number of permits sought. Here is a study that looked at data from Texas from 2001-2009. They found that concealed-carry permit holders had lower conviction rates than those without. This report from the Michigan State Police says that 2,553 permit holders were convicted of a crime. But that's any crime; they revoked 2,054 in the same time period, but I'm not sure what that means. Still, given that they issued over 170,000 permits in the same time period, I can't imagine that's a significant percentage. Other research has suggested that right-to-carry laws lead to an increase in violent crime overall, but even then I haven't seen anything to suggest CCW holders themselves have higher conviction rates. Clearly something is going on, but that's outside the scope of what I was talking about.
I don't go looking for unbiased sources. I understand the bias of my sources. One of yours is accused by his peers of falsifying data. I don't get the impression that you want to actually have anything like a discussion about this topic because no one who disagrees with you can live up to your self imposed standards. There's no reason to disqualify someone's about guns because they don't know ad much about them as you do. It's this easy: guns kill people. The ultimate denial of freedom is to deny someone their life. You claim you want a civil conversation about guns but what I've observed is that you want your opinion validated, you don't respect anyone who you feel isn't qualified to comment on the issue and you want to have the conversation on your own terms. Which includes changing the subject and saying we're not in a position to do anything so the status quo is acceptable until the conversation can be had on terms you accept, by people you respect and using research and data you agree with for whatever reason. Like, what do you even want? I've never seen you pleased by any argument outside the National Review and some NRA funded think tank. But my sources are biased? OK. Look at their sources. Academics in the field that guy works in say he's not an ethical researcher. They're biased in the reporting they choose but those aren't opinion pieces or poorly and deceptively performed polls. They're facts they're presenting. And they may skew in a direction but calling a spade a spade isn't really that biased. Didn’t you say jutists are grappling with this issue because it's so complicated? It wasn't until the NRA made it complicated with some fucked up interpretation of the second amendment that never existed in the courts for over 200 years. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/nra-guns-second-amendment-106856 There you go. Several generations of judges had this shit figured out until Wayne Lapierre and Charlton Heston decided.... I don't even know what they want. They just really like guns or something. This was all an irrelevant argument until the interpretation of the amendment was reinterpreted by a lobbying group. I think you need to reevaluate your motivations for what you believe. I get a strong sense of dishonesty from your arguments. They're dismissive. They're pedantic. They're maybe a little elitist. If you really feel that there needs to be reform maybe back down from some of the red lines you've drawn in this debate because I don't feel that they're serving any point except making conversation more difficult and you come across as an ideologue who won't admit to being one. You like guns. That's it. People are fucking that up for you. You gotta give up some freedoms sometimes when other people abuse them. It's called living in societyOn June 8, 1789, James Madison—an ardent Federalist who had won election to Congress only after agreeing to push for changes to the newly ratified Constitution—proposed 17 amendments on topics ranging from the size of congressional districts to legislative pay to the right to religious freedom. One addressed the “well regulated militia” and the right “to keep and bear arms.” We don’t really know what he meant by it. At the time, Americans expected to be able to own guns, a legacy of English common law and rights. But the overwhelming use of the phrase “bear arms” in those days referred to military activities.
Though state militias eventually dissolved, for two centuries we had guns (plenty!) and we had gun laws in towns and states, governing everything from where gunpowder could be stored to who could carry a weapon—and courts overwhelmingly upheld these restrictions. Gun rights and gun control were seen as going hand in hand. Four times between 1876 and 1939, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to rule that the Second Amendment protected individual gun ownership outside the context of a militia. As the Tennessee Supreme Court put it in 1840, “A man in the pursuit of deer, elk, and buffaloes might carry his rifle every day for forty years, and yet it would never be said of him that he had borne arms; much less could it be said that a private citizen bears arms because he has a dirk or pistol concealed under his clothes, or a spear in a cane.”
With the sources thing, I was more pointing out the hypocrisy of you saying "I'm going to counter your biased source with biased sources of my own, since that's better." I then supplied alternate sources for the only thing I was citing Lott to suggest, namely that CCW holders commit crimes at lower rates than the general population, a point that you still have neither addressed or refuted, just as you haven't refuted any of the suggestions I made anywhere in this thread. (And I don't count insulting me personally as a refutation, even if it appears that you do.) You mean except for all the other links I've posted? And all the ways in which I've suggested increased controls and restrictions? In all this, you've yet to establish any kind of position of your own. Are you suggesting doing away with the 2nd Amendment entirely? Some specific set of additional laws? A gulag for anyone who's read the National Review? You accuse me of having red lines (which is inaccurate), but are unwilling to define your position at all. It's awfully easy to defend a moving target, and to criticize another's opinion without actually establishing what those criticisms are. All you've done so far is hand-waive any contrary position without giving the slightest support. When I showed other countries with higher gun-ownership-to-homicide rates, you dismissed those as "third world" countries, which (as I pointed at, and to which you haven't replied) proved the point I was making. But you then repeatedly infer my position on things without any actual support for that inference, but then that's somehow my fault too. On to the substance. The Politico article you linked reads like someone who's decided what Heller said without actually reading it. The majority addresses and refutes every single point that they made. Ok, except this is a misunderstanding of how the Constitution works. The Supreme Court has noted that some parts of the Bill of Rights United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 553 (1876). And yes, the Second is one of those rights: Ibid. So why would there be argument over something that was taken for granted? As for the interpretation of the phrase, this too is not as clear cut as the link you posted makes it seem. He cites a Tennessee court decision, but ignores contradictory interpretations from other states (e.g. Pennsylvania and Ohio). Heller devotes a good amount of time to determining what this phrase means (and I again recommend that you read the majority opinion), but here's one excerpt: District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. ___ (2008) (slip op. at 13). And lest you think this is some conservative golem, here's Justice Ginsburg: Muscarello v. United States, 524 U.S. 125, 143 (1998) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting, quoting Black's Law Dictionary 6th edition) (emphasis added). So, that's how I'd address this most current shift in your goal posts. You're welcome to dismiss things like "looking at legal history" as elitist, but if having a cogent, thought-out, and at least minimally-researched position on a specific question is elitist and pedantic, I'll wear those labels proudly. You don't like guns. That's it. People and the law are fucking that up for you.Like, what do you even want? I've never seen you pleased by any argument outside the National Review and some NRA funded think tank.
There is not a single word about an individual’s right to a gun for self-defense or recreation in Madison’s notes from the Constitutional Convention. Nor was it mentioned, with a few scattered exceptions, in the records of the ratification debates in the states. Nor did the U.S. House of Representatives discuss the topic as it marked up the Bill of Rights. In fact, the original version passed by the House included a conscientious objector provision. “A well regulated militia,” it explained, “composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.”
assume[d] the existence of the right [...] and protect[] it against encroachment by Congress. The right was not created by the amendment; neither was its continuance guaranteed, except as against congressional interference.
The right there specified is that of 'bearing arms for a lawful purpose.' This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress.
In any event, the meaning of “bear arms” that petitioners and Justice Stevens propose is not even the (sometimes) idiomatic meaning. Rather, they manufacture a hybrid definition, whereby “bear arms” connotes the actual carrying of arms (and therefore is not really an idiom) but only in the service of an organized militia. No dictionary has ever adopted that definition, and we have been apprised of no source that indicates that it carried that meaning at the time of the founding. But it is easy to see why petitioners and the dissent are driven to the hybrid definition. Giving “bear Arms” its idiomatic meaning would cause the protected right to consist of the right to be a soldier or to wage war—an absurdity that no commentator has ever endorsed. See L. Levy, Origins of the Bill of Rights 135 (1999). Worse still, the phrase “keep and bear Arms” would be incoherent. The word “Arms” would have two different meanings at once: “weapons” (as the object of “keep”) and (as the object of “bear”) one-half of an idiom. It would be rather like saying “He filled and kicked the bucket” to mean “He filled the bucket and died.” Grotesque.
Surely a most familiar meaning [of "keep and bear Arms" is] "wear, bear, or carry . . . upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person."
You like guns. That's it. People are fucking that up for you.