Christina-Taylor Green went to the “Congress on your corner” event with Representative Gabrielle Giffords because she wanted to see how democracy worked.
She wound up dead because a deranged individual was allowed to purchase a Glock semi-automatic that he used to unleash mayhem by emptying a full clip into a crowd of bystanders. (She was baseball great Dallas Green’s adored grand-daughter, as it happens: a sad memorial here).
No Glock, presumably no dead nine year old.
Today, the amazing thing about the reaction to the Giffords shooting is that virtually all the discussion about how to prevent a recurrence has been focusing on improving the tone of our political discourse. That would certainly be great. But you do not hear much about the fact that Jared Loughner came to Giffords’s sweet gathering with a semiautomatic weapon that he was able to buy legally because the law restricting their sale expired in 2004 and Congress did not have the guts to face up to the National Rifle Association and extend it.
An originalist might argue the Constitution allows citizens the right only to bear flintlock muskets and pistols. Personally, I think that is too doctrinaire. But the interpretive contortions required to find a Second Amendment right to bear modern assault rifles are equally extreme.
What do you think: was the rampage in Arizona permitted in part by lax gun control laws? Should our currently weak gun control laws in Massachusetts be tightened?
why you think MA guns laws are weak?
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p>It is my impression that they are some of the most severe in the nation.
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p>For example, (last time I looked) if you, Bob, carried a gun without a permit, what do you think would happen? Maybe you feared for your life, or got invited to target practice, and temporarily borrowed your dad’s gun or something. Or maybe grandma put grandpa’s gun in her purse one day after being assaulted or robbed the previous day.
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p>What would this result in, just carrying the gun? 1 year in prison. Mandatory minimum. Didn’t know? Sorry. Just put your life and job up on a shelf for a year while you cool it in jail.
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p>Maybe this law has recently changed but in any case I think its safe to say that the state agrees with your interpretation of the constitution: That there is no absolute right to bear arms. Not even close. Same thing would happen to you if you were carrying a musket, btw. There is no musket exception.
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p>I mean, what more would you support? A total ban on guns for private citizens? Would our laws cease to be weak in your eyes, then?
Here is an informative list of gun control laws around the world from Wikipedia.
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p>Anyway, answer the question.
That sounds about the right place to start.
I don’t think Massachusetts’ laws are particularly lax. I think that our gun problems are caused more by our lax neighbors like Vermont, plus southern states.
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p>I appreciate that many people like guns for sport or even protection. That said, I don’t think that the second amendment should be interpreted to give people a right to arm themselves with whatever firepower is necessary to balance the power of government or criminals.
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p>We have a lot of gun crimes here in Springfield. And while it is true that the laws on our books aren’t stopping them, I think it is equally true that laws that aren’t on the books of other states are enabling them. Most of the guns used in crimes here are owned contrary to Massachusetts laws. But they were purchased legally somewhere, usually elsewhere (many others were purchased legally here, then stolen in a house break).
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p>I like the fact that when a gang member is pulled over and an illegal gun is found, that person can go to jail for it. We don’t have to wait until someone is shot, the crime is possessing the gun without registration. If we eliminate our gun laws, that means that these gang members could legally carry weapons without any repercussion. I believe that makes usage of them that more likely.
and the other victims would have been less likely to be shot had stricter gun laws been in place. We can discuss what is reasonable from very limited restrictions as in Arizona or very strict as in most other Western democracies, but you can’t get away from the fact that the more freely guns are available, the more gun-related deaths we will have.
If the focus is to reduce the number of deaths, our policies will be to enact stronger gun-control laws. On the other hand, if it is to ensure that a particular interpretation of the US Constitution is followed, a divergent policy with a set of laws liberalizing fire-arm possession must be enacted.
In fact, if the Constitution is to be interpreted as giving all citizens the right to bear arms (which is the current position of our federal judiciary), it would seem that any law should be considered unconstitutional that limits gun ownership (other than to legally designated dangerous people) or type of arm or munition.
With regard to the type and size of the arm, clearly the 2nd Amendment isn’t intended merely to protect the rights of hunters or even those who feel a need to protect their family from intruders. The text of the amendment begins with a declaration of the needs of a secure and free state. To be faithful to the current interpretation — which in my estimation is total folly — there really can be no limits imposed by the government on what kind of arms people should be allowed to keep.
The only remedy is a Cheyneyesque decree that the Constitution is not a suicide pact (snark)
I could not disagree more. Yes, the 2nd Amendment is now clearly an “individual right.” So is the right of free speech – yet, you cannot falsely shout “fire” in a crowded theatre, as the saying goes. Nor can you libel someone. All constitutional rights have limits, despite the seemingly unrestricted language in which they are couched.
And while I do think a complete ban on individual rights to bear arms, like those in DC and Chicago, are unconstitutional and I agree with the President and the Supreme Court that they were, the Brady Bill, and other similar regulations dictating what kinds of guns people can purchase and what kinds of people can purchase, those do not seem to infringe upon individual rights.
but if you look at the text of the amendment
it looks to me that the SC majority interpretation couldn’t have just ignored the first half of the sentence and then ascribed a right to bear arms to individuals outside of the context of the security needs of a free state. If this understanding is correct then we’re not talking about merely the weaponry necessary for hunting and self-protection but weaponry that is adequate to the needs of securing the state.
My own understanding is that the framers didn’t envision a standing army but rather a collection of citizen militias. As a result disarming the citizenry would be tantamount to disarming the militias and compromising the security of the state. Once state-run militias were instituted and a standing army was in place, the 2nd amendment became obsolete. This is why it was essentially never enforced nor talked about during the first 150 years of our existence.
The NRA and right-wing anti-government zealots have more recently seized on this amendment to make a case for no restrictions on gun ownership. The recent Supreme Court ruling unfortunately appears to validate this position.
Do you disagree?
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p>Given the manner in which the country they drew up was formed, do you think they would want the only armed people to be the institutionalized military of the government?
because the purpose of the militias at the time was to guarantee against an overbearing federal government and provide for the security of the nation. With more formalized state militias and federal standing armies, these two needs were addressed.
The second amendment is an affirmation that the people have a right to be armed and the government cannot disavow them of that right. The founders were pretty clear that an armed citizenry is a the best defense against a tyrannical government. Come up to Lowell some time, I’ll introduce you to some of my Cambodian friends. They’ll tell you the first thing that the Khmer Rouge took from them. Hint, it goes bang.
Here’s the constitutional quote:
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p>In the context of the time and the document being prepared (powers being transferred from the states to a federal government), it is pretty clear that this was not adopted to allow individual citizens to defend against a tyrannical government — it was inserted to allow state governments to defend against a tyrannical federal government, and to prevent the federal government from disarming the people and thus rendering the states defenseless.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/J…
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p>Read this article from the Christian Science Monitor. Read the founding documents behind the constitution. Yes, yes it was. The second amendment guarantees the other freedoms enumerated in the bill of rights.
I read your link. It consisted of nothing more than people restating what you said, that the 2nd amendment was meant to allow citizens to rise up against the government. No proof was offered. As such, it is just opinion (and unreasoned at that, since there was no rationale, just assertions).
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p>I offer an alternative opinion with rationale; the word “State” doesn’t mean “the United States” or “the federal government”. It literally means each single State. This is what the constitution was all about — converting a loose confederation of states into the United States of America with a Federal government.
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p>At the time, people were nervous about a FEDERAL government — they weren’t nervous about government in general, they were just fine with their own state governments.
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p>So now read the amendment in that manner:
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p>The Founders didn’t want the federal government to have the power to take away guns from people in the States. That’s an important distinction because it completely defines the purpose of the amendment. Instead of insuring the rights of individuals against the government, it insured the rights of states against the federal government. They wanted to ensure that a state could round up a militia if they so chose.
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p>So under that reading, it was not envisioned that individuals would take up arms against “the government” — it was envisioned that states would take up arms against the federal government.
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p>What’s the difference, you ask? Governance. The state — elected officials — would have to decide to take up their arms.
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p>It is the same difference as between a pure Democracy and a Republic. Informed parties would make such a decision.
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p>Under that reading, it is reasonable to argue that the states retain the rights to limit firearms, because, after all, they decide if they want their citizens to take up arms against the federal government.
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The second amendment is NOT an affirmation that nutcases who both the military and local community college reject as emotionally disturbed can nonetheless buy, possess and ultimately murder with automatic weapons.
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p>I’m pretty sure that whatever the founding fathers had in mind, it was NOT crackpots holed up with arsenals of fully-automatic weapons and ammunition. Even if they did, they were mistaken.
We all know that there is no way for citizens to take on the military might of our government without much more massive weapons than hand guns and rifles, but do you honestly think that the Court is going to actually throw out laws that prevent people from owning such weapons? Of course they won’t.
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p>You can cite as many Founders documents as you like, but the fact is that the meaning of the Constitution is determined by the Judiciary, and they have already determined that the 2nd amendment doesn’t mean what you would like it to.
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p>I aways find that arguments based on the Founders to be largely empty given how strongly they disagreed with each other over pretty much everything. The Founders were men no smarter or wiser than the people of today, and with considerably less experience of Government than we now have.
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United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939)
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p>The Supremes have said that as long as the weapon has military value than the second amendment protects it.
Unless by “protects” you mean “protects up to a point, subject to reasonable restrictions.” Scalia:
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p>Which, of course, is exactly what I’ve been saying all along.
What notion do you ascribe to?
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p>1) The bill of rights are rights that the government gives to people and can be limited.
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p>2) The Bill of Rights are a Declaration of the rights people inherently possess and are a set of limitations placed on government.
you don’t know what you’re talking about. You are, as usual, posing false choices. I stand by what I said my comment, and elaborated on in my subsequent post. If you’ve got some Supreme Court case, or commentary from someone who actually knows something about this subject, that calls into question what I said, I’m happy to review it.
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p>Otherwise, spare me your Fox News talking points. I’ve heard them all before.
If there were no Bill of Rights there would be no protection of speech, press, religion, against search and seizure, due process rights, etc. As for the current debate, you cannot just ignore the well-regulated militia clause. Even the right to keep and bear clause only says we have the right to be armed in some way, but does not guarantee us the most high-powered weapons without question, just like the free-exercise clause would not prohibit laws against human sacrifice.
nobody “ascribes” to notions. You meant “subscribe.”
It isn’t possible to ban guns, or practically anything else. All you can do is make it illegal to own/possess them.
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p>In this case, how would the legal status of the gun in this wackado’s possession have made a difference? The inference is that running afoul of gun laws would have made him disinclined to commit murder.
If we more tightly regulate guns and ban semi-automatic and automatic guns like the one used in this shooting, there would be fewer of the guns on the market.
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p>Gun laws can limit the supply by reducing the profitability of manufacturing guns, by limiting the distribution network where the guns could be purchased.
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p>Guns aren’t like heroin. Much of the production occurs in the US and the government can affect the overall supply through tight regulation. Sure, there would be illegal foreign produced guns or guns stolen from the police or military (or the market in already existing guns), but over time, it’d be much tougher to acquire weapons of this kind.
I can’t agree with your assertion that we will have any success limiting in any meaningful way the importation of illegal guns into this country. If you limit the number of guns made and sold legally here then more will be made outside our borders and smuggled in to meet the demands of the “market”. I don’t see why it’s so different from drugs.
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p>Early reports suggest that this attack was planned somewhat carefully. Are you suggesting the guy scraps his plans to kill a sitting US congresswoman because he can’t obtain a semi-automatic gun legally? That seems extremely improbable to me.
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Even though they are illegal.
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p>It does not follow that the correct legislative response is simply to acknowledge this reality and legalize murder.
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p>So much for this line of argument.
My comments were directed at your presumption that if there had been different laws on the books then there would have had a different outcome in this case. I do not think there would have been.
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p>I think it is completely reasonable and appropriate to legally distinguish between firearms that are owned for self defense and recreational purposes and those that aren’t. Guns ain’t my thing so I have no idea where the line should be drawn.
Until a few years ago, a line was drawn at high-capacity magazines. Given that the AZ shooter was overpowered when reloading after emptying his thirty-round magazine, that old line could well have prevented some deaths. I’d call that a different outcome. Any one of several other possible laws might have prevented him from buying a gun at all. Unless he was resourceful enough to get one illegally, he would have had to find some other way to express himself.
This guy didn’t need a semi automatic gun with an oversized, nonstandard magazine clip if the congresswoman was the only thing on his mind. He clearly planned on doing a lot of damage and he was on a mission. I think he shows up armed in a manner consistent with his intentions irregardless of the gun laws in place, but maybe not. Again, I have no problem with laws that make it harder or impossible to own the type of weapon used in this attack.
You wrote “I do not think there would have been” a different outcome if different handgun laws were in force. The implication is that the outcome would still be that Rep. Giffords was shot. That ignores the rest of the outcome, including the subject of this thread.
Prevent Gun Violence gives our gun laws a score of 54 out of 100, but when contrasted with the rest of the country, we look pretty good with only California and New Jersey receiving (much) higher scores. I’m not sure I agree with all the Brady Campaign’s requirements–I haven’t read them that closely. It looks like we could do more.
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p>For all the “guns are bad” banter we can dig up–it reminds me of people pointing out the stupidity of war–I don’t think we here in Massachusetts understand how out of step we are with the rest of the country, and improving public safety through additional gun laws require, I think, more than the actions of one state.
Of course we could start by not handing over millions to gun manufacturers…
The father of Christine-Taylor Green has asked that his daughter’s tragic death not be used to further place restrictions on American citizens, particularly on gun ownership.
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the victims of crime don’t write our laws.
What should happen is that people discuss the issues raised by the event, to see if it could have been prevented or made less likely. That is what is happening on this thread, more or less.
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p>Personally, I think the fact that relatively more people die from gun violence in the US and that guns are relatively easier to get here than in much of the rest of the world are probably connected.
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p>Moreover, many people see the prevalence of gun ownership as a restriction on their freedom because some people who have guns use them to oppress. Criminals are a case in point.
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p>If we controlled some kinds of guns more tightly — for example, hand guns and semi-automatic weapons, we would almost certainly have fewer deaths from guns and we might be more free too.
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is the same problem many people have with naming bills after people. You are using the image of the girl who tragically lost her life to push your agenda. Her father has specifically asked that this not be done.
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p>Also people aren’t even buried yet. Politization of this tragic event without the families being able to grieve is amazing. I have always striven to be respectful at times like this to not begin the politization process until after the dead have been buried. You’ll note I held off talking about the reasons behind the Sheriff DiPaola suicide until after he was buried. It is a respect more in a way for the living than for the dead.
the Fox clip unless this supports a political position you hold.
But I don’t really see why you want to introduce that whole topic into this discussion about control of semi-automatic weapons.
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p>Fox may have taken the view that one subject that cannot under any circumstances be discussed as a result of the attempted assassination of a Democratic congressperson is gun control, but that doesn’t mean we have to follow their dictates here.
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p>It is interesting that you bring up the issue of coverage of Sheriff DiPaola’s suicide on your site, the esteemed RedMassGroup, because that did, in fact, trigger a real version of the kind of politicization you are attempting to insinuate here:
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p>Guy commits suicide and a user who writes he was “just behaving like a typical democrat” gets not a word of reprimand from you on the site that you own and manage. Yet here you magically become a reincarnation of the Watch and Ward Society.
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p>Spare us the self-serving crocodile tears.
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p>If you have a substantive point to make, please do so. I’d be interested to hear your position on gun control. But please leave these transparent efforts to turn everything into a political version of bipolar disorder for talk radio deviants. You can do better! We’re all rooting for you!
RMG accepts all sorts of opinions, just like BMG does (although IMO in an ever so slightly more tolerant fashion, feel free to disagree).
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p>That does NOT mean that every shlub who posts something on RMG represents RMG’s “official” option. Any more than I represent you guys.
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p>Clear?
named after them:
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p>Jessica’s Law
The Lindbergh Law
The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act
Megan’s Law
The Brady Bill
Kristen’s Law
Donda West Law
Jenna’s Law
Buster’s Law
Kathy’s Law
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…that weapon should not have been available in the first place, and it wasn’t for awhile under tougher prohibitions. I too am leery of allowing one emotional incident to inform public policy, but really common sense, not to mention evidence of comparisons to places where such weapons are not widely accessible, dictates that restrictions on weapons have an impact on crime rates.
If safety could be assured by banning firearms I’d be for their prohibition. I’d support a constitutional amendment. But, like the alcohol prohibition, I doubt the result.
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p>All that can be done is to prohibit legal firearms. Leaving the 100 lb. waitress walking home from her job at 2:00am at the mercy of the 280 lb. serial rapist. Or the young man fleeing a carload of baseball bat wielding homophobes without chance of survival. And there are places in this country where people take firearms to the outhouse with them for protection against animal attack. What will we do for them? Call the police? Maybe government civil servants won’t be your best line of defense. Firearms can be used as an equalizer when faced with people that wish to do you and your loved ones harm. Would you take that away?
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p>We’ve all seen the use of alternatives to firearms. We’ve seen the results at the Murrah Federal Building, World Trade Center, or the use of planes, cars, sharp instruments, blunt instruments, poisons, fire. A firearm prohibition won’t stop determined evil.
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p>“After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.” –William S. Burroughs
There’s nothing wrong with a little protection, but it need not be of the high-powered variety. Unlike you’re quoted Mr. Burroughs, I’d be fine with guns being the province of police and military. The waitress is free to own a gun so long as she is licensed and it is registered, IMO.
has ruled that the 2nd Amendment prohibits government restrictions to bear arms.
It seems to me that gun control and this interpretation of the Constitution are absolutely incompatible.
you only read the second half of it.
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p>But maybe we should go back to the original framer’s intent and only allow people to carry muskets.
…is that they threw out a very strict DC ordainance, but if you’re correct then it’s time to advocate for a constitutional amendment.
years ago would have prevented Laughner from being able to buy the massive weapons clips that allowed upwards of 30 rounds.
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p>I think we should be able to agree that these massive-round clips are too dangerous to have — this tragedy would not have been so large had he not had easy access to a semi-automatic with so many rounds. It actually would have been even worse, save the fact that his second clip appears to have failed.
A 61-year-old woman, Patricia Maisch, took it away from him. She is one of the heroes of this wretched business.
From the NYT
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p>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01…
that is a different version of what happened than the Guardian article, which quotes her directly.
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p>Regardless, she acted very bravely.
And that level of federal policy control is not incompatible with Heller or Lawrence.
Has our lax attitude towards “crazy” people walking freely on our streets cause many other violent crimes to occur?
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p>Many years ago we had institutions filled with people who were mentally ill. Many, if not most of those institutions are now closed. Where are all the crazy people who used to be there? They are walking on the street beside us, shopping at Stop & Shop next to your family, living in the apartment next door… I’m not say ing there were people institutionalized that should not have been, but we now have thousands who should not be free.
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p>I know the left is seizing this moment to pounce on the right, but the real problem with this tragedy is we had a total nutbag kill/maim a bunch of people who had a long trail of unstable behavior. We have a fellow student who said she sat by the door so she could run out when this nut came into school shooting.
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p>Why? Why do we live in a country where we all know a few people who are “kooky” but nobody really does anything about it? I’m not talking about the person you know who is little “off”, I mean the person who’s kooky. But these kooky people live among us with no questioning by any member of our government. The ACLU has done a great job protecting these people’s rights but at the cost of them committing acts like this.
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p>We need a mechanism to have some members of our society “checked out”, and yes, that would apply to some of the right-wing nutbag clan. Gun laws were a factor in this but this nut could have just as easily stabbed her or something else. The problem which so many want to avoid is we had a nut walking freely out there among us who finally acted.
I could respond to you two different ways.
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p>I could raise points about the merits or drawbacks of moving people with mental illness from institutions to other settings like halfway houses.
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p>Or I could scream loudly that you are proposing that a government panel should be created to remove people from society, and I could call it a “imprisonment panel”. I could then go on and on about how I don’t trust the government to determine who to imprison and who not to imprison, and I could cite many examples of government screwing things up to prove my point.
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p>Which would you prefer?
unless you have a thought on how to fix it. I said in my remarks…
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p>So I’m not suggested we go back 100% but what I am saying whether you like it or not, is there are crazy people like this shooter walking around everywhere everyday. Some days they kill, some days they rape, somedays they talk total nonsense about aliens, government conspiracies or the “voices”. They are sick and need help but I’m more concerned about our safety.
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p>To ignore this problem of mentally ill people walking the streets is to be part of the problem when the next Seung-Hui Cho (who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007) or Jared Loughner kills more of us.
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p>Your solution is…
Especially dangerous people, one might argue, should be tightly controlled, just like especially dangerous guns and other especially dangerous things.
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p>These are not mutually exclusive solutions.
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p>As a practical matter, however, it is easier to see the danger in semi-automatic handguns than in a given mentally ill person.
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p>Rifles are perfectly adequate to protect liberty. Hand guns do not offer any libertarian advantage.
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p>As to the Constitution, as I wrote before, an originalist would argue it only permits muskets and flintlock pistols. No regulatory issue there, at least if Scalia et al were to be intellectually consistent.
Seems to me that handguns offer the significant advantage that they can be easily carried about one’s person (or in a purse) without hampering day-to-day life.
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p>I don’t quite get the flintlock argument, can’t really imagine any of the founders thinking in this way. Its a right to bear arms, not flintlocks. Flintlocks just happened to be some of the arms available at the time.
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p>In any case you’d still do a year in jail today here in MA for carrying a flintlock.
along with weak mental health care and irresponsible political rhetoric lead to the death of a child. We need a national gun control policy. It doesn’t matter if one state gets it mostly right(clearly, Arizona has it all wrong) if the state next door does not. What’s sad to me when I hear people argue against a police state(ie the intrusive airport checks, FISA, etc.) and yet they don’t want to regulate firearms. If you allow access to such firearms as glocks to the general public, particularly the mentally ill, then of course the safety net to find the whackos is going to be that much wider. The rest of us are going to lose even more access to our elected representatives because the pols and many of their supporters, Left and Right, won’t take on the NRA.