Personally I have a more complicated response. As an avid environmentalist I know the value regulated and responsible hunting has to keep some animal populations under control ( even if I don’t chose to hunt myself) given the lack of predatory species ( have not heard any clamoring to bring back timber wolves in Weston to control deer).
I also live in a safe small town neighborhood and do not know the pressure one feels living in the urban wild lands.
On the surface I don’t agree that the 2nd amendment guarantees an absolute right to bear arms as the complicated ” well regulated militia” clause of that statement tempers it to what would now be an archaic reality ( like the 3/5’s compromise of 1787 or life before the 19th amendment giving women the vote). With a Police Force, State Troopers, National Guard and the Military branch, having rouge militia’s roving the back woods seams bizarre.
But neither do I favor some outright ban, recognizing that this issue gets complicated by the savagery of modern rapid fire assault weapons and the street gangs that have acquired them, hence the argument made by Mr. Levy.
Whatever the out come the decision by the 9 jurists will ring large in our Democracy as did Brown vs. Board of Education and Roe v Wade. In all the endless primary clamoring and economic hand wringing this is one important discussion that should be being had.
because the countless generations before ours realized that the Bill of Rights were a set of 10 individual rights that protected the people from an overreaching government. The generations that preceded us probably couldn’t understand that anybody would take the words “shall not be infringed” and think that well that only means if you belong to a militia.
<
p>I think the supreme court as currently constituted is going to send a seismic shockwave through the progressive and anti-gun community when they realize that there has always and will continue to always be an individual right to gun ownership so that the masses can protect themselves from tyranny. Which is why the article was written into the Constitution in the first place.
our own military or mercenaries like Blackwater, we’d probably need some automatic weapons, bazookas, grenades, jet fighters, and other stuff. Aren’t even machine guns banned in some states?
I don’t think there’s too many people nuttier than the NRA-type crowd.
<
p>I just heard a report that some states (AZ, OK, and a couple others) are considering legislation to allow students on campuses to carry guns (or, more accurately, absolutely forbid the ability of state schools to determine whether they can ban guns on campus).
<
p>So after two deadly shootings on campus recently, some want to put MORE guns in schools — that is completely insane. Now in addition to the large quantities of alcohol consumed on campuses, they can throw guns into the mix. What a great idea!
before you label something as “completely insane”.
<
p>Try reading this.
<
p>While you may feel it is “insane” to allow students to lawfully carry guns to school others think it is their personal right to defend themselves. I wonder how many less kids may have been killed at Virginia Tech if someone in one of those classes had a gun and killed or subdued the shooter.
even after reading your anecdotal evidence. Particularly in light of studies of development that tend to show that college-age people don’t have all the moral machinery one would want in an armed citizen.
<
p>Putting aside your calculation of rights, can you show this is safe?
I don’t understand that idea at all. Are you suggesting that people 18-23 years of age don’t have as good a moral compass as somebody older? I always thought that we’re more morally oriented (hence, young & idealistic, no?) rather than less. But besides that insult, we arm 18-23 year-olds all the time…see: any army, ever.
Of course, the Army arms individuals in the context of a very disciplined, regulated way. Allowing 18-25 year-olds to simply bring a gun on campus is certainly not close to the Army example.
<
p>This has nothing to do with “moral machinery” and everything to do with the practical reality that college campuses may be just about the least safe place to have a gun lying around.
And we let these moral imbeciles vote?!
They’re obviously too immature for that too.
that we liberals read too much psychology?
<
p>Well, we do.
it was the poeople who disagree with liberals who do so because of some pathology called “conservatism” and wanting to physically abuse their children.
<
p>Maybe these kids would be all moral-like if someone would just frame not shooting people in a drunken rage as “cool.”
deserves another.
<
p>The example you cite has two versions, it was full of confusion. But one of them says that Besen took down the shooter.
. The person who took the shooter down was a trained officer and a marine — not your everyday person who happens to own a gun.
<
p>What you’re proposing is vigilantism, where if somebody breaks a crime, we have the right as individuals to take the law into our own hands to do justice. But you base it on a case where the vigilante was no vigilante at all, but a law enforcement officer and marine acting as private citizen. Your rational for allowing students to carry guns around campus is based on people taking the law into their own hands.
<
p>So my question to you is the following: Are we a nation of men or laws? Are we a nation that approves of vigilantism or are we one of order? Can we find no solution to this problem other than turning our classrooms into the Wild West?
When I already know what the link is to before I even click on it. I knew it because it’s one of a very small handful of examples that the gun lobby always trots out to defend an insane (yes, insane) position.
<
p>For every case in which a gun is used to prevent a school shooting such as this, there will be many, many more cases in which a legally-owned campus gun is used for illegal purposes. Here’s a simple forumla for you: 18-25 year old males + alcohol + guns = a much higher possibility for violence. Any campus police officer could and would tell you this. Campus police are the ones trained to deal with emergency situations, not some random student with a gun. The gun lobby, on the other hand, overlooks the obvious problem with the policy in favor of the exceptions.
<
p>I’d add that allowing guns on campus simply raises the similar problem that the reality of dozens of dead children who have shot themselves with a parent’s gun raises — a gun, believe it or not, can be taken and used by someone that that is (1) not capable of correctly using the gun or (2) not legally allowed to use a gun. In the context of a college campus, complete with plenty of alcohol-fueled carousing and fooling around, putting easily accessible guns into the mix is particularly idiotic.
<
p>So thanks for brining this up, because now I can amend my original statement that this policy is “completely insane” to add that, actually, it’s completely batshit insane. That’s a bit closer to the truth.
to see this one on the evening news: remember the case last year of campus police tazing a student who refused to leave the library after not being able to produce his student ID? in the next episode, that scene will end with the campus police being encircled by gun-pointing students who are upset that they are tazing their fellow student.
<
p>just wait – it’ll happen.
Ever. Not impressive.
<
p>Seriously, if it’s that big a deal, why not just create a university where students are allowed to carry guns? If people don’t feel safe attending or working at a normal university, they can go there – “Charlton Heston U.” so to speak. See how many people apply.
<
p>I would never attend or work at a college or university that allowed everyone to carry a concealed weapon.
To acquire a class A LTC in Massachusetts, you must be at least 21 years old, no criminal priors or mental health problems, and must be vetted and approved by the local or state police authority.
<
p>Pretty much eliminates most of the “everyones” on your average college campus.
<
p>Just the sort of regulations that the NRA works hard to undermine and reverse.
The Israeli Army and police are armed to the teeth and everywhere with automatic weapons. Schools, university, synogauge.
<
p>Go out west, Montana, Idaho, Dakotas, Minnesota, Washington—everyone has rifles and shotguns in their trucks.
<
p>Scandanavian military and reserves ( as in their own homes) have all of their military weapons and ammunition.
the Israeli police and army are armed — not your everyday citizen.
Israel is in an ongoing armed conflict.
I think it is telling that the first amendment begins with a more absolute “Congress shall make no law..” while the second concludes with what sounds to me a much softer “shall not be infringed”. Never mind that you ignore the well-regulated militia part entirely. States are free to regulate their militia as long as they are not arbitrary about it. I suggest licensing the operators and registering the instruments, just as we license drivers and register cars. Sure the RMV can be tortuously inconvenient, but everyone wants everyone else to be safe operators. Also, nobody is claiming that the state is one step away from taking away our cars.
<
p>There is definitely a chance you are correct about the Supreme Court, but if they were to ever rule that no regulation is constitutional then some of us will be forced to advocate repeal of the second amendment. One advantage to this debate would be that the NRA would have to stop hiding behind the Constitution and argue their firearm free-for-all position on the merits, and I welcome that debate.
you’d have to amend the constitution through an actual Constitutional amendment than through the Judiciary. The horror!
I still think my own interpretation passes constitutional muster without formal amendment. It’s just that last time I checked I was not a member of the Supreme Court. I am a firm believer in John Marshall’s statement that it is the duty of the Court to say what the law is. If the Court rules that no regulation is constitutional then I can no longer argue otherwise. I could only advocate amending the Constitution to make it so.
Because in a real debate, hyperbolic assertions such as the NRA having a “firearm free-for-all position” and nutty hypotheticals about rampant vigilantism and wild west scenarios on college campuses would have to be backed with real facts.
…back when its primary purpose in life seemed to be to promote sportsmanship and firearm safety and training. More recently it has moved further to the extreme and it is hard to get more hyperbolic than Wayne LaPierre. Even Charlton “from my cold dead hands” Heston could put a reassuring face on the organization. I certainly don’t know of any reasonable regulation they would support. Even when they say we should enforce the laws already on the books keep in mind that many of those laws were opposed by the NRA when first enacted. So yes, I can understand that “free-for-all” may sound hyperbolic, but in this case I stand by it.
<
p>From my standpoint I’m not sure statistics, which is how I interpret “real facts” in your comment would really be the issue. To me just the potential of having more people walking around with a quick trigger finger is enough to concern me. I’m not looking for an arms race among the populace, but rather a reduction in arms to levels similar to other industrialized countries which incidently have drastically lower murder rates. Coincidence? What do you think?
is rendered null and void if the 2nd Amendment is tampered with. Voiding the 2nd Amenment would precipitate the dissolution of the union.
<
p>My my.
If Montana left the union, would it make a sound?
<
p>(Or, more to the point, would anyone actually care?)
would have to bring their passport. So, there’s that.
Also, Montana has 2 Democrat Senators so losing the state from the Union wouldn’t be all bad.
lots of pacific northwesters. i guess you would be surprised at how many pac-nwers have ties there.
<
p>i know you were just kidding around, but i find regional “people from place X are soo stoopid… how stoopid are they?…” humor so lame. when i was growing up in michigan, the butt of the idiot jokes was always “polocks”. when i lived in california, the butt of the same jokes was michiganders. i’d like to know – whose butt are you, massachusetts?
has an easy answer
States either join the Union or they don’t, but once in its forever. I’m pretty sure this was settled in the 1860s. I seem to recall a pretty bloody Civil War, but maybe that’s just me. Even before becoming a state the territory that would become Montana was bought and paid for as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Unlike the original states who could plausibly argue they created the United States here it is the other way around. The United States created Montana (and just about every state west of the Mississippi except for Texas).
<
p>Of course Montana would have an opportunity to weigh in like every other state in the amendment process and maybe its legislature would surprise us. Besides, many state constitutions, including Montana’s, have their own similar provisions which would not be affected by repealing the second amendment.
The only other possible view is that the framers wanted people to keep the tools of warfare in their homes, which is a distinct possibility given that King George III was still pissed.
<
p>However, the tyranny argument gets made all the time in the context that individuals are protecting themselves from their own gov’t, and that is pure nonsense. That little thing we call the Civil War kinda’ settled that point effectively.
<
p>But what puzzles me is that if the 2nd amendment means what the gun rights folks say it does, then it means that I should be able to procure and keep any weapon I want. And that is NOT what they argued. The lawyer for the litigant said plainly that machine guns, etc… should still be regulated. That totally contradicts his, and your, argument.
What?
<
p>Just as an FYI—I was having a hypothetical discussion with some former servicemembers who I served with to wit: Could you (as a member of the armed forces) ever be placed in a situation where you would use deadly force on fellow citizens?
<
p>Care to guess what the response was?
I always thought liberals thought the War Between the States was about slavery, not about the hyper-expansion of the power of the federal government.
<
p>In any event, that federal government is, at least, still bound by the Second Amendment.
<
p>Recall that, in no small measure, The Shot Heard Round the World occured right here in our very own Commonwealth of Massachusetts because the British decided to seize the black powder stored at Concord, which would effectively disarm the populace. In the face of this and other provocations, the colonies gathered together and penned a manifesto to the world defending their right to overthrow a tyrannical government. It is no coincidence that this manifesto also describes the American ideal to which we have always aspired.
and I agree that it’s an important discussion, but your comment that:
<
p>
<
p>is a little over the top. I would think that about as far as the Court would go is to say that a near-complete ban on guns (more or less DC’s law) is unconstitutional, while saying nothing about other regulations elsewhere (assault weapons ban, trigger locks, registration). It will be more of a mixed decision than a clear statement either way, I would guess.
The lawyers in the case have structured it so that the court must rule whether or not there is an individual right to bear arms. That is the central issue in the case.
And they likely will decide that issue, but my point is that even if the Court does find an individual right (which they probably will), the decision will leave wide latitude for reasonable regulations of that individual right.
<
p>So unfortunately for the terrorists out there, people won’t have an individual right to carry around nuclear weapons or automatic assault rifles.
There are all kinds of people that own machine guns. There is a small community in Massachusetts that has a huge automatic weapon “shoot off” every spring. Folks from all over New England come and blow off a few thousand rounds.
<
p>In all the discussion about Bush and his ability to stack the Supreme Court and its impact on abortion rights, this is the one no one was paying attention to. If the ruling goes strongly toward an NRA position it will send shockwaves. However EaBo you did forget one major constituency of the pro gun regulation lobby.
<
p>The Majority of Police Forces in America.
Hows this for an archaic reality for you: You are a member of the Massachusetts Militia.
<
p>
… but speaking of archaic rules, Mass tops the list.
So would an “illegal immigrant/undocumented alien” (pick em) be a member of the MA militia, so long as he declares intent to become citizens?
<
p>I wonder if there’s a way to leverage that into some sort of “Hey, I’m in the darn militia, can’t I get in state tuition?”
Which makes it really hard to explain.
<
p>But do look at the meaning of “strict scrutiny” which is the standard being proposed here for gun rights, and what that would require in terms of actual regulation.
<
p>Take a look and google laws that have been struck down as being insufficiently justified under “strict scrutiny” to see what I mean.
<
p>Take a look at these:
<
p>http://www.lcav.org/content/se…
<
p>http://www.lcav.org/library/re…
<
p>http://www.nraila.org/GunLaws/
<
p>They just scratch the surface on an enormously complicated area of law…
Has to read the liveblog going on right now of the arguments over at the SCOTUS blog. Great reading. I disagree with Justice Kennedy on a lot of things, but he is very convincing,
<
p>Maybe not all the way to Weston, but we did bring Kevin Garnett to Boston!
The idea that gun ownership is an “individual fundamental” right is made up out of whole cloth. There were laws regulating gun ownership going back to colonial times. In 1939, the Supreme Court unanimously held in US vs Miller:
There is no legal precedent declaring an individual right to bear arms based on the US Constitution (although State constitutions that include a reference to the defense of self have been held as individual rights). The Founder’s didn’t discuss the Amendment as an individual right. When neither the intent or accepted meaning of the words of the Founders nor a necessity to fulfill the ideals by which this nation defines itself suggest a ruling supporting “fundamental individual rights”, it is incorrect.
judging from oral arguements.
Would you all be comfortable if the only people allowed to own guns were soldiers and cops?
or do you actually mean “used at work”? because my answer may vary based on that distinction.
A “new Constitutional amendment.” Period.
Democratic Party adopts new platform on guns; every single Democratic voter who lives in a rural area changes registration to GOP; Dems expected to lose 47 states in next national election.
As a political issue, there’s no doubt that gun control is not a good issue for Democrats, so they have to finesse the issue or just outright take the NRA position. Doesn’t make that position “correct”, but it’s political reality in large parts of the country where (for example) arming college students is considered sensible policy.
<
p>I’ll fully admit that I’m on both the minority and losing side of the gun control issue, no doubt about it.
This is one of the great political frustrations. I have seen polls over the years which suggest that not only 3/4 of all Americans, but 2/3 of gun owners, would favor stronger gun laws. You may be on the losing side, but I’m not convinced you are in the minority.
I have never heard anybody advocate for a mass roundup of legally obtained firearms and I do not support such myself. I think 47 states is a bit exxagerated. We would keep HI, CA, OR, WA, MA, CT, RI, NY, NJ, and maybe a couple of others.
They actually hunt upstate. The outright ban was proposed, in jest (I hope) above. I once spent some time in Terrel County, Texas. West Texas, right on the border. Extremely sparsely populated: 2300 square miles, and fewer than 1,000 people. The place is highly travelled by potentially unscrupulous coyotes. If one of those residents needs to call the police, the response time is measured in hours, not minutes.
Consequently, residents maintain in their homes what we would consider to be absurdly expansive arsenals, and with justification.
Gun policy that makes sense in Texas makes no sense in Massachusetts, and vice versa. Likewise, gun policy that makes sense in New Hampshire makes no sense in Massachusetts, and vice versa. Gun policy that makes sense in Boston makes no sense in Princeton, MA, and vice versa. In other words, people from Cambridge insiude Rte 128 preaching about gun policy generally think they know more than they do.
I'm very glad the Democrats have abandoned this issue. It is no coincidence that their big 1990s gun control push immediately preceded the loss of Congress, and their abandonment of the issue preceded their recovery of Congress.
…but I still think downstate NY outweighs upstate on this issue. I’ve also commented elsewhere on this thread about polls showning 2/3 of gun owners would accept stronger gun laws. Besides, hunters really have nothing to worry about under any proposal I have heard or support myself anyway.
Maybe so, but the thread above proposed ban and confiscation. As long as this position commands any support whatsover, I think it reasonable for any gun owner to regard any regulation as the first of an infinite series leading inevitably to ban and confiscation. It might be that this Supreme Court decision might, by recognizing an individual right, open the door politically for reasonable regulation, by cutting off the slippery slope.
<
p>For now, I think it is fair to say that liberals, if sufficiently empowered, want to enact bans and confiscation across the board. Therefore it is reasonable for hunters and other gun owners to oppose any regulation at all, for the same reason that abortion rights advocates oppose any regulation of abortion, no matter how reasonable.
To me that’s a non-starter, not to mention that I was taught in logic class that it is the definition of a logically fallacy. One proposal at a time I say. I don’t support confiscation and have never heard anyone propose it. I do support a ban on the most dangerous types of firearms which are not needed for either sport or defense. Even without the second amendment confiscation would still have constitutional issues from the property angle. It is no more reasonable for a gun owner to think that each regulation is a step toward confiscation than it is for a car owner to think that registration and licensing is a step toward taking away the car. I completely reject your second paragraph. The first sentence just isn’t true as far as I know and the second is unreasonable for both gun owners and pro-choicers. I am basically pro-choice, but favor late term bans and parental consent. I’ll only start crying foul when I think the procedure itself is threatened.
… was about a localized regulatory ban. Can a locality restrict otherwise legal property and or actions when they become a problem. The answer to that is absolutely. The details of what are permissible restrictions under what circumstances are the details. The question before the court is about one particular instance of such restrictions. Presumably we will get some better guidelines from the court about permissible contexts for restriction. I’d really be surprised if they came back with an ‘absolute right’ ruling.
This seems to match the situation in comparable countries such as most of Europe. These are also perfectly free countries who don’t seem to be concerned that their government will turn on them any time soon.
<
p>This is not to say I would definitely vote for this policy. I’m sure there are plenty of people who were glad they had a weapon handy to fight off an intruder before police could arrive.