DeletedUser29191
Thank you sir... new to posting just trying to stir up chat...hope new debate is ok i think its crazy butFlyingmadman, I've merged your posts with the main thread you seemed to be responding to.
Thank you sir... new to posting just trying to stir up chat...hope new debate is ok i think its crazy butFlyingmadman, I've merged your posts with the main thread you seemed to be responding to.
In fact the right to keep and bear arms already existed in the colonies as it was inherited from the same right under English law. Perhaps the reason it was reaffirmed in the constitution was to remind people of their duty to (not from) the state. The right evolved over a thousand years starting with a subject's duty to the king to help defend the country from vikings and other invaders. Was the right granted to englishmen simply to enable them to uphold their obligations to their lords? Is this what the founders intended? Doesn't really matter anymore.You present valid arguments about the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Unfortunately, our founders wrote the laws being a little vague in some ways and specific in others. To be quite honest, I've never researched why they added the first part. I supposed they felt it was necessary to explain why. Maybe they felt hunting and self-defense wasn't a good enough reason to make it a right. Remember that it was written because of what just happened with England. They were trying to take guns away and if they had succeeded, we wouldn't be the United States of America today. At least not in the way we know it.
However, I will disagree with you about the part only being for threats outside our own government. Technically OUR government was England before we declared independence. It was not a foreign government. The English king was our king. We were only a colony. It was only when OUR government started taxing us without representation and attempted to disarm us is when we finally rebelled. Even then it wasn't unanimous primarily because a lot of colonists didn't believe we could beat the most power military in the world with only shopkeepers and farmers. It took a lot of guts for our founding fathers to declare independence knowing full well that we were declaring war.
Is this what the founders intended? Doesn't really matter anymore.
The how does matter. Toddlers kill people with guns, because many gun owners don't secure their weapons. People that have easy access to guns kill people when they might not if they had to work at it. Even responsible gun owners accidentally kill people they don't intend to through mistakes. Not to mention the idiot a couple of years ago that tried to be a hero and stop a robbery, unaware that there was a second person involved. Then there's the situation in Dallas where there was a shooter, but police had trouble figuring out who and where he was, because there were so many people present openly carrying firearms. Restricting access to anything more than hunting rifles (not semi-automatic) and pistols for home defense, and returning to the enlightened days of no concealed carry, would go a long way to making this country safer.
Sorry, but on the issue of guns, you can't just pick which part of the conversation to have. And the accidental deaths are a big part of why a lot of people object to them. None of the other things you mention have death as their primary purpose. Guns do.Accidental deaths... ok, here we go.
Deaths a year from Drowning: all ages: 3482
Deaths a year from Accidental Gun Discharge: all ages: 776
Location of those drownings:
Bathtub: 15%
Pool : 50%
Natural Water: 15%
All other: 20%
Now.. do we want to compare to: Cars, Ladders, Chairs, Stairs, Fires, The string used to let your blinds up and down??
3 kids where I live went on to someone else's property because they had a pond. They got into a canoe the guy had and took off across the lake.
Anyone ever been in a canoe knows, they can tilt very easily and throw you out. Sadly, all 3 kids drowned.. found floating in the pond.
2 kids got on a neighbor's property, and got into an old house that needed to be torn down. They got up on the second floor and the floor caved in, which caused part of the ceiling to above them to cave in also, one was crushed to death, one had a broken leg, concussion and other injuries and will have to live with it the rest of their lives.
Sadly.. accidents happen, and I was not talking about Accidents.. I was talking about just plain ol' MURDER.
Now.. you are correct.. if you are a gun owner, you need to be responsible. You need to keep them locked and safe from children.
If you own guns and have children, you need to make sure they are educated in firearm safety and in use. (when they are old enough to learn)
Yes, if you don't and someone gets killed, you should be held responsible.
Sorry, but on the issue of guns, you can't just pick which part of the conversation to have. And the accidental deaths are a big part of why a lot of people object to them. None of the other things you mention have death as their primary purpose. Guns do.
Still not relevant, as this ignores how many are killed intentionally with guns. Once again, you have to look at the whole picture, and accidental deaths by other means are irrelevant to the discussion of guns in America.My comment was more of why people killed, so yes, you are correct, I apologize.
It is pretty sad though that pools were invented for fun, kills more people a year than something that was invented to kill.
There are an estimated 11 million pools in America... averaging 1600 accidental deaths a year.
There are an estimated 300 million Guns in America... averaging 776 accidental deaths a year.
Thank goodness we don't have 300 million pools in America.
(and don't forget, I am not including accidental deaths from Drugs, Alcohol, Cars, Stairs, Ladders, etc....)
I would prefer death by coconut, at least it would be sudden with no warning or fear
for those seeking facts on the gun control issue -- http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp
For example:
* Roughly 14,249 murders were committed in the United States during 2014. Of these, about 9,675 or 68% were committed with firearms.[17]
* A 1993 nationwide survey of 4,977 households found that over the previous five years, at least 0.5% of households had members who had used a gun for defense during a situation in which they thought someone “almost certainly would have been killed” if they “had not used a gun for protection.” This amounted to 162,000 such incidents per year. This excludes all “military service, police work, or work as a security guard.”[18]
162,000 is greater than 14,249...
additionally
* Based on survey data from the U.S. Department of Justice, roughly 5.9 million violent crimes were committed in the United States during 2014.[19] [20] These include simple/aggravated assaults, robberies, sexual assaults, rapes, and murders.[21] Of these, about 600,000 or 10% were committed by offenders visibly armed with a gun.[22]
* Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology,[23] U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year.[24]
989,883 is greater than 600,000
based on the above in my opinion there were significantly more individuals stopping a crime with the use of a firearm, then individuals committing a crime with a firearm. -- understandably the word significantly is subjective i.e why it is an opinion
Facts? A pro-gun website cherry-picking data to use, most of it from surveys of questionable reliability. Two things I did notice on the website were that: 1) In states that passed right to carry, murder rates either matched the overall U.S. trend downward (did not exceed it) or stayed above the U.S. average per capita, and 2) Murder rates in the U.S. have been at least double the per capita rate in England, and sometimes as high as 5 times the per capita rate. (England has strict gun-control laws.) Both of these kind of shoot down (no pun intended) the point of your post.
Guns make it easier for people to kill other people. Especially if the gun is fully automatic or semi automatic, or semi automatic mofifirled to be automatic.
Except that it's not a protected right. The 2nd Amendment has been distorted from its original meaning to justify the gun industry's agenda. That's why gun rights advocates always ignore the part about a "well regulated militia". The 2nd Amendment became meaningless when the U.S. went to a professional Army rather than relying on state-provided militias. Should have been repealed then.Especially if it's a protected right under the Constitution.
Except that it's not a protected right. The 2nd Amendment has been distorted from its original meaning to justify the gun industry's agenda. That's why gun rights advocates always ignore the part about a "well regulated militia". The 2nd Amendment became meaningless when the U.S. went to a professional Army rather than relying on state-provided militias. Should have been repealed then.
My personal view is that handguns for home defense (not to be carried out in public) and hunting rifles/shotguns should be allowed. And not an unlimited amount of any of them. Outside of the military/police there is no valid argument for carrying weapons in public or owning military type rifles, or owning a large number of handguns/rifles/shotguns. The 2nd Amendment was written and applicable for a different social/military structure that no longer exists. It should be repealed and replaced with something that allows for home defense and hunting, but not unlimited gun ownership or any kind of military type weapon ownership.But saying categorically that we should not allow guns period?