Here in Switzerland ownership of rifles is common and even promoted by mandatory military service. What’s different is that gun owners are vetted and trained by their military experience. Thus a well-regulated militia is maintained. Also ammunition is highly controlled and kept under lock and key in regulated facilities. There are sensible laws about ownership of military assault rifles and high capacity magazines as in virtually all Europe. Mass murders (let’s just stop calling them shootings) are likewise unheard of except in the news from America.
439
@Ex Patriot
Don’t forget New Zealand and France.
1
@Ex Patriot
Ex Pat—studies show anyone with a gun in their house is much more likely to be harmed by it themselves rather then ever to actually use said gun in self defense.
I have read the Swiss are experiencing more suicide and domestic violence and murder issues, and are rethinking their policy. Let's all look to Japan.
We need restrictive legislation on bullets— ID them, no armor-piercing, no depleted uranium—no assault weapons, and—as you say—training, testing, licensing, no straw purchases, buybacks—everything.
20
@Mon Ray Read the article that Nicholas Kristof re-published the other day. The incidents in New Zealand and France are outliers, exceptions that prove the rule.
15
We have an insane gun culture in this nation. Of course, this situation stems from the fact our politicians are mostly craven toadies of the NRA. There is no reason in heaven or on earth to have civilian ownership of military style weaponry--not to mention huge capacity magazines. Defending one's home or family never includes a protracted gun battle--a double barrel shotgun or 'sixshooter' will do the job admirably.
Long ago the SC banned automatic weapons and sawed off shot guns. This action did not lead to confiscation of citizen's guns. The seizure of firearms by government is a false fear initiated by NRA and promoted by gun manufacturers. Owning and driving a car has many restrictions, but they are still ours to keep.
We call ourselves a civilized society. One would have never guessed that by our repeated gun mayhem, It appears that 'our prayers and deep concern ' no longer works. We've needed substantive laws and enforcement for a long time. Let's put people in our Congress who will act outside the influence of entrenched manipulators of gun policy.
52
@FJG
Actually these weapons were not banned. A sawed off shotgun can be owned with the appropriate license. Automatic weapons can be owned with the appropriate license also but the cost is quite prohibitive.
1
i applaud the argument but it’s not enough. someone trained or who takes the time to be proficient even with their shabby AR15 and AK47 knockoffs can, with enough practice, consider themselves a marksperson in the proper use of that weapon. that person doesn’t need twenty or thirty rounds of ammunition. that weapon is deadly even with only a single round in the chamber and five in the magazine. as an urban combat infantry veteran and paratrooper, i say that assault rifles, not just high capacity magazines must be legislated out of existence. buy them back, provide safety training, encourage civilian marksmanship through an independent civilian program, impose real restrictions on ownership by implementing a licensing program - hey we get licensed by the DMV to drive and freely provide info for medical care and government benefits.
when i joined the nra at 15, it was a decent organization that supported sportsmen. i don’t belong today because todays nra is nothing more than a shill for the armaments industry, a cover supporting toxic masculinity and an apologist for the cowards in government who will not take proper action to restore civility, restore common ground, protect the Constitution, end the slaughter of civilians and support law enforcement.
to the commenters who invoked the Second Amendment, think about why it was written and realize it wasn’t intended for a posse communitas or for an 8chan terrorist.
49
Any gun control legislation will be blocked by the aptly named "Grim Reaper", Massacre Mitch.
7
This has always been about accessibility to guns. Have fun once some nut kills gun lovers at the Indy 500 or Cracker Barrell.
Abolish the second amendment, confiscate the guns and if it has to be from “ my cold dead hands” that’s fine too.
I tired of worrying about some wack job teenager or a fat, bald middle aged man deciding to take out a crowd of people because they are idiots.
7
Only a "well-regulated militia" has a right to "keep and bear arms" under the Second Amendment. If the NRA believes that these mass killers are a "well-regulated militia" then the NRA should be committed to an insane asylum.
8
In the past, racist politicians and judges interpreted the 2nd amendment very differently than todays right wingers. This was to keep weapons out of the hands of native americans, abolisionists, afro-americans, and to use a somewhat resent example, Regan vs the Black Panthers.
The founding fathers, writers and signers of this most defective 2nd amendment, only intended what they knew, muzzel loaders. They were not Si-Fi visionaries who saw forward to the benifit of todays gun nuts and merchants of death.
5
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
- Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774-1776
My opinion is this, if Thomas Jefferson was alive today he would drive a Abrams tank flanked by two A 10 warthog .
The second amendment doesn't say the government can restrict or ban any type of weapon . Still the truthful fact remains that anyone hell bent on murdering anyone has not and will not obey any gun control law, period..They will buy a weapon that is offered for sale on the black market .
1
Like others have said, limit second amendment protection to technology available at the time of the signing. Black powder. Muzzle loading. Flintlock, not even percussion caps. Massive buyback as well to decrease number of weapons out there.
3
Took me 6 weeks to register my little 50cc scooter. Took 48 hours to register and load my 1911 Desert Eagle.
We need to change or we will not survive as a nation.
6
The technology at the time the Second Amendment was written (1789) was hand made muzzle loaders, each of which had its own ball mold (because the size of the muzzle bore was generally not standardized), and a ball that fit one gun would likely not fit another. Interchangeable parts were not invented until 1808.
So I suggest we all be permitted to own all of the muzzle loaders we want.
They are only accurate to about 50 or 100 feet, and they take about 15 seconds to load, if you are well practiced.
So I can see it now. I offend you, and you go to pull your muzzle loader down from over the mantelpiece. If I am still standing there 15 seconds later, I deserve to get shot based on stupidity.
Anybody using such a weapon in a terrorist attack would probably be beaten to death with their own muzzle loader.
Works for me.
5
Why does the Times give space to people who are IGNORANT about our history?
The Framers weren't concerned about Duck Hunting. No one questioned that. They were concerned about an oppressive government; and that means that citizens must be able to keep and bear arms at least as powerful as the government might use against its own citizens. (The government didn't use muskets at Waco.)
2
So I guess we should all have nukes??
1
There are just as many deaths each year caused by people using their cell phones while driving, as there are deaths caused by gun violence.
Where is the public outcry?
Other killing tools that have been used in this country:
Bombs (big ones!)
Airplanes Cars & Trucks
Knives
Baseball bats
Poisons
Ropes
Pills
Guns are meant to kill. Aside from bombs none of these things are designed to kill and particularly to kill as many people as a weapon of war.
1
Mitch McConnell is proud to be known as the "Grim Reaper." It is more apt than he'll ever admit.
I sympathize with the commonsensical desire to prohibit civilians from acquiring large capacity magazines, but I’m skeptical that the second amendment would countenance such a prohibition. Here is why I’m skeptical. It appears to me, from my reading of early 19th century authorities, that the reason for the 2nd amendment was the lack of a standing army: The thinking was that citizens should be permitted to bear arms to supply that lack, as the introductory clause of the amendment signals. Thus, when you read cases from about 150 years ago—cases that were much closer in time to the ratification than we are—they hold that the government can ban such miniature weapons as Derringers and daggers precisely because such weapons are more fit for a brothel or an alley than a battlefield. So, “reasonableness,” according to the second amendment would mean no to a tiny-caliber pistol and yes to an assault rifle (and up). In short, the problem is the 2nd amendment, a disastrous anachronism.
2
Since the Supreme Court passed Citizens United and deemed corporations to have the same voice as the individual citizenry, shouldn’t large family corporations such as Walmart stop selling guns? Dick’s Sporting Goods has done so. I realize that Walmart may not stock automatic weapons but they need to take a stand in protection of all of our families. Aren’t they Americans?
6
It takes only 13 states to block ratification of a proposed amendment to the Constitution. Trump won 30 states in 2016. If one assumes that a state for Trump is a state against repeal or modification of the Second Amendment, then the Southern states that went for Trump are alone almost enough to reach 13; throw in just two or three states from elsewhere for good measure, and the proposal fails. Whether one would be for or against such a proposal, it is not going to be adopted anytime soon.
1
The abridgement or (its kissing cousin) the infringement of a right historically implies the limiting or suspension of a right for a specified group of citizens who are deemed incapable of exercising a right. Infringement by limiting instances of exercising that general right has been recognized and honored through the entire course of rights affirmation. There is not a single enumerated constitutional right that does not have judicially certified limits, apart from limits applied to classes of individuals. It is a grave error for a court to affirm that the Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms" is an unlimitable, carte blanche, individual perogative. This right surely may be, and is, restricted by age and competence. And it may be restricted by type of exercise; just as one may not frivolously shout "Fire!" in a theatre, one may not keep and bear assault rifles.
2
As a survivor of domestic gun violence and a school psychologist, I believe we should ban semi-automatic weapons, enhancements that allow these guns to fire rapidly and large cartridges (above 10). Washington state recently passed a number of sensible gun laws, including Extreme Risk Protection Orders for youth. We have few windows of opportunity to intervene prior to a mass shooting. Better laws regarding domestic violence to remove weapons permanently from those who have shot people or brandished guns. My ex brandished a gun in an assault in 2010, resulting in his 24 guns being removed for one year. Within months of their return he shot me in 2012. He had 23 guns and his gun rights restored in 2017, as soon as he completed his probation. He did have to forfeit the gun that he used to shoot me. Since a domestic violence incident is the most common precursor to a mass shooting, I beleive we should not restore guns to men who have shot someone or used a gun in an assault.
11
Why can’t we restrict the use of assault weapons along these deadly high capacity magazines? What purpose do they serve? How important is it that a sportsman has the right to buy and own one of these deadly machines for his pleasure?
5
Assault rifle ban.
Universal background checks.
Now.
5
Thomas's lament that the Second Amendment was a "constitutional orphan" is a profound and misguided interpretation of the Second Amendment. There were several attempts to explicitly include hunting and self defense in the Second Amendment. These attempts were overwhlemingly defeated. The Second Amendment was never intended to apply to individual defense but mutual defense. Even the oft repeated and curious term "to bear arms" is a 17th century British term refering exclusively to an organized military formation like a militia. The Times recently listed firerms per person in various countries and Switzerland stood out in Europe as having many more firearms per capita than surrounding countries. This is not because of any NRA mentality but because Switzerland has, like Israel, a huge reserve army. The powerful assault rifles in Swiss closets have nothing to do with personal protection. This is largely how the the courts have interpreted the Second Amedment for over seveal hundred years. The Second Amendment is not an "orphan" but was adopted as intended with the United States going a different way from the Swiss and Israelis as it became a world power and developed a large standing army. Shays' Rebellion in Western Mass with farmers burning court houses in a to erase their debts was in fact a catalyst for the Convention. It was finally put down by well regulated militia payed for by John Hancock and authorized by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
3
Maybe someone here can help me. I would like the number of that Well-Regulated Militia I hear so much about.
2
Has there ever been a mass shooting in an elite gathering? A
polo match? A high fashion event? A charity ball? You get the idea.... perhaps only when this insanity reaches the 1% will the 2nd Amendment be reviewed for the crazy ruling it is in this day and age.
2
Arguing about the clip capacity of a weapon that should have never been in civilian hands is ridiculous. The civilian population should not be allowed to own anything but manual bolt operated rifles.
All the damage done in Dayton occurred in 24 SECONDS. Nine dead in 24 SECONDS.
9
We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis.
4
The only reason I can see owning a semi automatic or machine gun as a citizen is because it is fun to shoot. When the words “Form a Militia” were used, I do not think this is what our forefathers envisioned.
3
Can anyone explain why SCOTUS and federal courts of appeal consistently ignore the first 13 words of the Second Amendment?
4
I can. Because the actual meaning of the 2nd became patently insane in the early 20th Century. So everyone just pretends it doesn't say what it says.
5
That would be according to the bylaws of the well ordered militia to which one belonged.
No. Spitzer is all wrong. Don't go down the rabbit hole trying to speak the language of gun lovers, i.e., get into gun tech discussions. Just interpret the 2nd Amendment as a good Federalist Society member: you can own one musket. There, I fixed it.
3
The "originalist" argument can cut the other way. The musket was the most advanced military long arm at the time the 2nd Amendment was ratified, yet settlers and pioneers owned muskets and hung them over their mantels at home.
1
The second amendment specified a well-regulated militia; owning any kind of gun anywhere isn't. It was written just after independence from aristocratic governments the founders deemed tyrannical. All they had was individuals coming together; no real military that was well-regulated. Their starting conditions in no way resemble ours today.
In addition, the argument that gun controls punish "law abiding citizens" is empty, because in most (if not all) cases these shooters never did anything until they decided to kill 10 or 20 or 50 people. In other words, they were "law abiding citizens" before breaking the law by committing mass murder.
There's no reason there can't be controls on gun ownership. You have to buy insurance to drive a car, so you should have to buy insurance to buy a gun. That's taking responsibility for potential accidents just the way car insurance is there for potential car accidents. Furthermore, when you move to a new location you have to inform DMVs of your new location, as well as taxing authorities and in order to register to vote, so when you move you could also be required to notify the government of your new location and - more importantly - the location of your gun(s). That's also taking responsibility.
Most citizens don't need a machine used only to kill. Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are not needed by most citizens.
Last, life should trump everything else. Your right to a gun should not trump my right to stay alive.
7
@Not Amused
The 2nd amendment also says this, after referring ti the militia:
"...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
That's absolutely clear.
2
This is spot on. The 2nd Amendment has become a cult for some people. For goodness sakes, the Founding Fathers we’re talking about muskets. The things that saddens me the most is that people love their guns more than people. Every thing else is to blame except access to these weapons. They are also responsible.
4
The argument that the 2nd Amendment is there to defend ourselves against the government is no longer valid. If you think the average well-armed citizen can take on the US military with its massive arsenal of weapons, I’d say you might be living under certain mistaken illusions. When we accepted a large standing army and the massive military we have today, we pretty much agreed to exchange that right for “security”.
3
I suppose the ACLU is "cultish" about the other Amendments in the Bill of Rights?
1
Guns do not kill people, video games do!
1
Slippery slope, slippery slope! if you ban high-capacity magazines, next thing you know they'll be banning cop-killer bullets, then .45s, then anything bigger than a .22. Soon enough we'll be defenseless serfs at the mercy of those jack-booted government thugs.
P.S. I'm sure if I had time to look through all the posts there would be several that make this same argument in all seriousness. I guarantee you they'll make it at the NRA.
3
Gun enthusiasts who want high capacity magazines and military style weapons should just admit the truth - they simply like shooting them. Claiming it's for self defense or hunting is a farce. They want to be Rambo.
3
There has to be some nuance to this gun rights thing. To say that it’s all anything goes is just plain crazy and is not what the founding fathers conceived when they wrote this.
3
@Vivien Hessel
We'll see what the USSCT says. They are the ones who will get to decide in the end. We'll have to amend the Constitution to regain control over guns in this country.
The second amendment exists in our Constitution so that The People can protect themselves from abuse, especially from a corrupt or oppressive government.
It is the only reason the second amendment is there, not for hunting and target shooting...not for fun.
I am always dismayed that people are so willing to give up their right to defend themselves and their rights.
There are no such things as inalienable rights in this world, except within the context of our Constitution, and even those aren't real. You show me an "inalienable" right, and I'll show you a right that can be taken away.
The only rights that really exist are those that are given by others, and those that you take and defend for yourself.
As for the illegitimate use of firearms, that is a societal problem, not a problem of guns. If it isn't guns, these people will find other ways to kill, and have.
We need to identify and help those who perpetrate these horrible crimes, and prevent them from happening in the first place. Even the 911 attacks could have been averted if people had acted (and these did not involve guns).
4
@Raz This thinking has grown so stale. Given the military spending we've been doing for decades, do you really think the single citizen or small band of like- minded, home- spun militia stand a chance if bad actors are afoot?
I think we can get rid of guns that kill big groups of people in a matter of seconds though. It only seems fair to give THOSE victims a fighting chance.
If you MUST own a Rambo gun to feel whole, I am all for having the gun owner responsible for whatever causalities their registered assault weapons bring about. Criminally.
3
@Raz
You really think that guns protect you from a corrupt and oppressive government? How does that work? because many think we have a pretty corrupt and oppressive government right now and it's not at all clear how guns are going to solve the problem.
This is not a rational or sensible argument. It's an illusion.
3
@C
Didn't I refer to "The People"?
Remember how our country came to be? I'm not talking small scale. I'm talking about US.
Don't assume this country will last forever, or that the status quo will last forever.
The second amendment is about being prepared.
1
I am tired of the catchy phrase, gun sense, gun control. We should be talking about disarmament and how every gun owner needs to have insurance if they want to keep their guns.
1
I question the necessity of being armed at all, though, there may be some justifiable circumstances. But assault rifles, cartridge magazines, semi- or automatic weapons, No! It is as simple as that, no justification at all.
2
At the time when the second amendment was carefully considered, written, and ratified. The firearms were musket. These weapon were single fire, with reload consisted of time consuming steps.
Why can't this be the guideline for practical rights on weapon ownership today? This limitless capacity of military weapons must be reasonable halted Otherwise the repeated massacres of innocents will continue.
2
Somehow, I don't think the ball and powder muskets the founding Fathers refer to had large capacity magazines.
It is insane - sorry, there's no other world for it - to say that the government has no right to limit the type of weapon, ammunition or accessory that may be owned.
And there will still be thousands of guns that a person could own is they meet ownership requirements and choose to do so.
Vote Democratic in 2020.
Every seat, every office.
Don't vote for anyone who takes money from the NRA.
7
I am NOT a republican, but I see a free market solution to this whole problem. Allow anyone to have any type of weapon they want. But require every weapon to have insurance with policy limits of $1 million per victim. Put a 10 year jail sentence on anyone caught with an uninsured gun. Anyone who doesn't feel like paying for gun insurance can turn in unwanted weapons for destruction. The insurance industry will figure out a way to evaluate the risk of each individual gun and owner, and will price the policy accordingly. There will still be a few that slip through the cracks. But at least those victims will have access to some compensation. No constitutional amendment is necessary under that scheme.
5
@Steve Hemmert
An excellent idea. And that should be extended to exercise of religion and speech.
If someone practices a religion that promotes violence and that person becomes violent and kills 50 people by setting fire to a structure in the name of religion, they certainly should be able to compensate the victims. So, to practice any religion, one must have similar insurance as you propose. Anyone caught practicing a religion (including possessing a Bible or other religious text, an artifact such as a cross, or gathering in person or online to discuss religion) without such proof of insurance should be imprisoned for 10 years.
Similarly, people can incite violence with their speech (online, in person, in protests etc). So, such insurance should be required in order to state one's opinion as well.
Fortunately, you believe that "No constitutional amendment is necessary" to implement these reasonable safeguards.
Hint, blatant attempts to infringe on rights via economic back doors are not viewed kindly by the courts. For example, do you think that the courts would really uphold a $10,000 state tax on abortion (which is not even an enumerated right)?
Really, you're going to have to repeal the Second Amendment to achieve your ultimate goals or accept that all other enumerated rights will be subject to similar intrusion (which will require overturning some Supreme Court precedents).
5
@Steve Hemmert This is so common sense, I totally. Progress.
The right to bear arms as embodied in the 2nd Amendment is directly related to a sentence found in the Declaration of Independence, to wit:
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
The people of the United States have that authority vested in them. And the only way to exercise that authority is to maintain a weapons cache under personal, local, or state control independent of federal regulation.
Our nation had that ability until the early 20th century when the Militia Act of 1903 established the state National Guard (militias) units as a reserve force to the US Army. That was followed by the National Guard Mobilization Act of 1933 which incorporated the National Guard into a component of the US Army itself.
By allowing the National Guard to act as a suppressing force under the authority of the federal government, you have eliminated all possibility of the people exercising the right and duty to throw off a despotic federal government.
Our founding fathers knew this well and provided for our right to bear arms for that purpose. They also provided for a militia, the same militia that was subsumed into the National Guard.
When the federal government usurps that power from the states, it is the beginning of tyranny. We are well past that point.
1
Saving those fetuses (forced birthing) & killing everyone else. Mitch & 45 & their evangelicals through these judges will poison our society long after they're gone
3
As a forensic scientist who has worked on hundreds of shooting cases, I would point out the following:
1. High capacity magazines jam much more often than 10-30 round magazines.
2. With a little practice, you can change magazines in a couple of seconds.
3. A person can carry a quite a few preloaded magazines.
4. The solution is to ban rifles that use removable magazines. Reloading a rifle that does not accommodate a removable magazine takes much longer, usually a minute or so, instead a few seconds. Many hunting rifles do not use removable magazines, so the technology already exists.
5. This does not work for virtually all pistols, their design requires a removable magazine. You could ban pistols and go back to revolvers (they generally hold six rounds and are slower to reload).
6. Good luck in confiscating the few hundred million pistols and rifles that use magazines that are currently owned by Americans.
Finally, Google: Barrett 50, legal in most States and has an effective range of 1800 meters. That’s 1.1 miles and humans are almost always killed by the .50 caliber projectile. The rifle is expensive, but some versions are not considered assault rifles. They are designed as sniper rifles. I have encountered a few in casework.
3
If anything demonstrates the risibility of the assertion of a number of "conservative" judges that they are "strict constructionists" or wish to confine their reading of Constitutional provisions to the "intent" of the framers of those provisions it is the interpretations routinely given to the 2nd Amendment. Yes, it refers to the "right to bear arms" (think muskets with affixed bayonets) BUT, and this is critical, does so in the context of a "well-ordered militia" (not in the context of an assault rifle with a high-capacity magazine in the hands of every man, woman & child who might covet one )! Strict construction, it seems to me ought to commence with an interrogation of what, precisely, the framers of the 2nd Amendment intended, and what right they thought they were protecting. In an honest inquiry along these lines, I suspect the answer would be very different, given that the purpose of the right to bear arms is to enable, should it be necessary, the formation of a citizen's militia (and note, the amendment specifies "well-ordered").
3
@Sandra You didn't truly believe that 'strict constructionists' would mean what they say, did you? None of them have ever intended anything other than to hoodwink and dupe the people of this nation into trusting them and their ilk with the court system of the United States so that they could remake that branch of the government into their own image.
2
If anything demonstrates the risibility of the assertion of a number of "conservative" judges that they are "strict constructionists" or wish to confine their reading of Constitutional provisions to the "intent" of the framers of those provisions it is the interpretations routinely given to the 2nd Amendment. Yes, it refers to the "right to bear arms" (think muskets with affixed bayonets) BUT, and this is critical, does so in the context of a "well-ordered militia" (not in the context of an assault rifle with a high-capacity magazine in the hands of every man, woman & child who might covet one )! Strict construction, it seems to me ought to commence with an interrogation of what, precisely, the framers of the 2nd Amendment intended, and what right they thought they were protecting. In an honest inquiry along these lines, I suspect the answer would be very different, given that the purpose of the right to bear arms is to enable, should it be necessary, the formation of a citizen's militia (and note, the amendment specifies "well-ordered").
1
I know someone who works for a Europeans weapons company. He told me that the culture at his company is very serious. They are all very deeply aware of the human damage their products can cause, and they manufacture weapon systems exclusively for the armed forces of stable, democratic countries. There is no way they would ever sell deadly weapons with enlarged capacity magazines in the civilian market (which in Europe is tightly regulated anyway).
This person also tells me that at his company nobody can understand the sociopathic mindset of the myriad of small American weapons manufacturers that are churning out more and more assault weapons and larger magazines on the open market, when they know perfectly well that the only purpose of their products is that of facilitating mass murders among the civilian population.
I think the people who manufacture and sell these weapons and magazines represent the most putrid, self-serving, sociopathic, greed-driven extreme of American capitalism. They should be named and shamed publicly on social media, every day, until they go out of business.
9
@Andy
Africa lacks an indigenous arms industry. And it is awash with weaponry from among other places, Europe. So forgive me if I don't take your friend's word about how he works at such a wonderful responsible weapons company.
1
I just wonder how the Second Amendment was rewritten to:
The people have no right to regulate a militia of one person.
That certainly is "an original" interpretation.
4
And yet it's illegal to own an artillery piece. There are lot of military grade weapons that can't be owned privately. I say this constantly and get eye rolls. If I can own an AR-15 why can't I own a howitzer? I'm sure the powdered wig guys would've recognized the need for average people to shell targets 15 miles away.
3
The framers would have been perfectly OK with militias having a field piece. The 2nd was written to specifically allow citizens to own and train with military weapons. All existing weapon bans, and there are many, necessitated by technical advances just ignore the actual meaning of the language in the 2nd. Because that language has become insane.
1
@Bob If you can own a howitzer, why can't I own an Abrams tank to defend myself from you and your Broncos-loving cadre? I'd include the Jets and Giants in that group but they don't really play NFL football, now do they?
Chris’ no brainer, common sense, second amendment is an individual right, gun control policy.
1. You can own any six-round capacity (max) revolver.
2. You. An own any six-round capacity (max) internal magazine-fed long gun.
3. No external magazine-capable weapons allowed.
Done.
5
Repeal and replace ... the Second Amendment. No more handguns, no more assault weapons, bumpstocks, all this insane artillery. Where is the limit? Nuclear weapons are "arms." Pistols for law enforcement; rifles for hunters. That's it.
The NRA has so much blood on its hands! They lobbied relentlessly for the Supreme Court to stop focusing on the "well-regulated militia" part and switch to the "shall not be infringed" part. Before 2008, there had never been an individual right to carry guns. The NRA is a domestic terrorist organization and they should all be in jail. Their only reason for existence is to promote gun sales.
5
Debating about the size and number of magazines is a piecemeal, waste of time approach to this problem. Maniacs will just learn to reload faster and bring more firearms.
The approach has to be at who gets to have a firearm.
No one thinks the 2nd amendment means we have to allow any adult to possess a firearm. Otherwise one could argue a 16 year old, whom is old enough to drive should be able to own a firearm.
We need to focus attention on weeding out potentially dangerous people. That means those with convictions for violent offenses, those who have demonstrated they may have a propensity to commit violence such as domestic batterers.
We need to identify through a thorough "vetting," process to see if a person wanting to buy a gun has a history of mental illness, a history of violence, a history of espousing and promoting hate.
Many new and good measures will be hamstrung for the next 30 years by this misguided Supreme Court. It's almost too sad to think about it, but we need to be prepared for it. Perhaps enlarging the Court the next time we have a Democratic President and Senate is in order.
3
The Supreme Court instead of being the solution has become the problem in our quest for gun and ammunition control. The Federal courts have become the problem instead of the solution. The Republican Senate and Presidency have become the problem
instead of the solution.
5
Lives of the innocent are for sale, the buyer is the NRA and the currency of payment is political campaign donations.
4
What, or, which, "well regulated militia" did either one of these murderers belong to?
4
Enough judicial overreach!!! Activist SCOTUS and noted homophobe Scalia basically made up his own reality when he incomprehensibly interpreted the right to a well-regulated militia as saying citizens had a cart balance right to weapons. No one has the right to weapons of destruction. Overturn the 2A and melt guns down into actually useful, life-saving things.
3
I would hope one of the issues of all Presidential candidates is to get legislation to outlaw the AK-47 AR-15 type of weapons and to outlaw them asap. Owners who return them to our government
should get a tax credit for their purchase when they were legal.
We can use the defense budget to purchase all of them (from those that wish not to volunteer them say to the FBI .
These guns are not for self defense or to kill a moose they are to kill people rapidly,and don't give me back the argument that we can't do this or that "cars can kill, as well as knives" these rifles can be hidden ,knives though deadly cannot kill and injure 29 people in one minute. Cars are to large to carry into a church or temple or a Walmart store. Why do we even have to debate this after Sandy Hook and other murders.
3
The only Second Amendment right currently recognized by the US Supreme Court is the right to keep a gun in your home. That’s it - read the Heller decision.
1
There's no first amendment right to the internet.
Doubtful that many lawmakers really shoot guns all the time. They just want the cash from the NRA so they can keep their cushy jobs. Get rid of the secret political contributions and all of a sudden lawmakers are free to do what they know is right. Vote for strict gun control candidates!
2
That amendment just refers to muskets that have to be reloaded the old fashioned way, not automatic rifles & machine gins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_infantry_weapons_in_the_American_Revolution
3
@cassandra Then why didn't they word it: right to keep a musket? Our Founders were smarter and had more forethought than that, they obviously knew technology would advance and wanted a bill of rights to cover free citizens long into the future.
1
The rest of the world has long given up trying to understand the USA's love of guns. If you can't take the simple steps to help yourself, you are obviously not the great country you frequently claim to be. But you are young and immature. Maybe in another 200 years you will have grown up and joined the sensible outside world in banning guns for members of the public. But I wouldn't bet on it.
1
Many of us focus on the people who are murdered with these guns of war. What about the wounded? These bullets explode people. The wounded may have permanent physical injuries that are incredibly disabling. In addition to their mental trauma, they will live with physical issues that remind them everyday of the horrendous event that changed their entire lives.
I saw a clip of Trump telling an audience at one of his rallies that Democrats want to “take away your guns.” Yes. We actually do, as do many clear-headed, intelligent citizens. We want to do away with assault rifles. You don’t need to shoot a deer with an assault rifle, You’d tear up its body so that it’s useless for food. The only reason to own a gun like that is to kill a lot of people in a short amount of time. And you need that gun, WHY? To feel like a tough guy? To act out hatred? To shoot the imaginary federal agents who are coming to take your guns? How incredibly stupid. How embarrassingly gullible you are to believe the President’s nonsense.
This is a terrible sickness, unique to the United States of America. The President’s rhetoric foments paranoia and hatred. Any vulnerable, mentally unstable individual will be encouraged to act out with violence.
It is getting worse and worse with no hope of progress. The Republicans will do absolutely nothing! No wonder some of them are retiring early - the ones with a conscience. This inaction is shameful in the extreme. It is inhumane.
5
@Kathryn
No one has to justify usage of his constitutional right to you.
Do you beltway windbags understand what a RIGHT is?
In order for a free state to be secured, the people have the right to be armed to protect themselves from tyranny when needed. Any concession tilts the balance of power squarely in favor of the government.
@T.Warren, Sorry but if we ever reach the point where individuals with civilian weapons (yes even with assault rifles) are expected to save us from our armed forces all is already lost.
Almost any fun you may own would be useless against any armored vehicles, and then there are always cannon, shoulder fired missiles, and of course armed drones, smart bombs, the list goes on.
What is the ‘free state’ that you are planning to protect should it come to that? Furthermore, in line with another comment, don’t you think in this day and age that you’re gonna need tanks, rocket launchers, etc. to really do that job of protecting your ‘free state’? Signed, definitely not a Beltway windbag
The right to bear arms was for purposes of having local militias. That is what is says. The gun people pick a phrase in the sentence and hang their hats on it. The rest of society apparently lets them get away with it. I cannot imagine the founding fathers would sanction the current situation in which there are well trained police and other law enforcement in 2019 that did not exist in the 1700s. Big difference. Why not treat the use and ownership similar to cars-- license the individuals and the guns and require periodic training. Sure there are millions of guns that won't be licensed, but with time, society would adjust to the new norms, just like with auto safety, seat belts and other innovations that save people from themselves.
2
Every gun should be insured in case of causing accidental or intention death. Payouts to victims, to victim's families, to police departments for the costs of dealing with accidental deaths, murders, acts of multi-murder terrorism should be high. Every registered gun and every new gun purchase would care the mandatory insurance paid by the gun owner.
The standard equation is: guns don't kill people, people kill people. The same could be said of cars: cars don't kill people, drivers kill people. Not all cars kill people; not all guns kill people. But cars must be insured against property loss and loss of life - like it or not, that is the law of the land. A similar law should apply to guns.
If you want a gun you have a right to buy and own one, the same for a car. But gun ownership should come with a responsibility. Insuring a gun would be part of that responsibility. The NRA claims to be an association of responsible gun owners. They would surely endorse gun liability/injury insurance as part of their national program; they could help their members secure such insurance and recommend liability/injury insurance to non-members. The NRA could help make this a national movement.
We need to start thinking about guns and gun ownership in new ways.
4
New York's SAFE act has stood up in the courts, with minor revisions (including some involving magazines). Let's just copy that nationwide.
2
@Robert David South
People have ignored many provisions of the NY SAFE act.
https://hudsonvalleyone.com/2016/07/07/massive-noncompliance-with-safe-act/
Even Antonin Scalia, the author of the egregious Heller decision, pointed out that the so-called right to bear arms was not limitless, and that reasonable safeguards could be enacted.
Apparently, the NRA and the vast majority of Republicans (but not gun owners) didn’t pay attention to Scalia; their position defies Constitutional law and logic by asserting an absolute right to own and purchase weapons of war and enough ammunition to wipe out a crowd at a high school football game.
No right under the Constitution is absolute, and Congress could and should place a clarifying amendment to the 2nd Amendment that would help put the brakes on what has become a runaway train.
4
Forget their thoughts and prayers. Make the Republicans look at all police photographs of the crime scenes and make them acknowledge what a military weapon does to a three-year old.
7
@Julia G
And make any woman who wants an abortion look at photographs of aborted fetuses.
Good lord it's as clear as day to the rest of the world watching this.
There will be no changes to any gun laws until republicans are the targets.
Then the changes will be enacted so fast your heads will collectively spin.
I'm not advocating anything here - just stating an obvious fact.
3
When a government can no longer reasonably protect it's own citizens, it ceases to be a legitimate institution. We Americans are enslaved to one of the most poorly worded documents in our brief history; the miserable second amendment. To be under the iron heel of an archaic 18th century document, with apparently little, or no recourse to amend, the United States sits helpless, mute and imbecilic. As we continue to venerate and fetishize our constitution and the Founding Fathers, we will continue our morbid and sick relationship to firearms.
6
High powered machines for killing and maiming bunches of people, and allowing abusers to keep their victims down?
What is OK about that?
I lack the faith in basic human goodness that says someone who gets angry should have ready access to such a machine. Nobody is entirely free of anger management issues.
Our roads, our communities, our schools, etc. etc. are ever more dangerous. And who cares? The otherblamers, who want to be able to stage an armed rebellion if they perceive themselves in the minority.
Minority rule is very much the thing in America today. Too bad! People who long to dictate to the peaceful majority should not have ready access to the means to ensnare us all on a rapidly degrading planet.
4
The next time trump or some republican says something inane about mental illness or video games and not guns being the cause of this American carnage, someone should ask them whether they have video games or mental illness in Canada or Australia or any of the other advanced countries where these massacres don’t occur every other day.
7
Living in Australia we are so glad semi automatic weapons were banned. Mass shootings are a rarity. How can a civilised country allow military assault rifles in the hands of civilians is beyond me. Every time you have a mass shooting we grieve for you. It appears to me the NRA, the gun industry and the Republicans are the problem. Your current POTUS also staggers credibility. All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. What will be the tipping point?
43
Support the right to arm bears. Polar bears are diminishing and they have the right to defend themselves.
11
Two completely ignored words from the 2nd Amendment for the pro-gun crowd and their judges: "well regulated".
4
@Billy Baynew not ignored, it's been defined based on what those words meant in the 1700's- in proper working order. Definition was well recognized for over 100 years before the time of writing in Bill of Rights
The right to bear arms does not prohibit the government from placing restrictions on the type of arms the public can own. Everyone should have a musket and flintlock to maintain our well regulated militia. Oh wait!. we have no real need for a well regulated militia we have a very expensive professional military. Most of the crazies who talk about the second amendment talk about waging war on the government if they disapprove of its actions. Not really part of the second amendment.
The real war on the second amendment and our Constitution is being waged by the NRA and our right wing nutty militias.
4
Tell you what, though. A lot of people in Canada are thinking about cancelling their holidays in the US and going somewhere else, somewhere safe.
I won't set foot in the US again, ever. You're now one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
9
@LauraF
The US is not even among the top 50 most dangerous countries in the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country
But as Curly Bill might say..."Well Bye!"
Heller was WRONG.
The founding fathers allowed citizens to possess TOP OF THE LINE military weaponry.....conditionally.
Without a standing army to defend Revolutionary airfields,
private citizens, woven into a well regulated (state) militia, could maintain and own state of the art military weaponry.
Please note that President X (I will not publicize this criminals name) has a standing army and the Popo Love the guy.
Granted, we all need to be prepared for the American Tyrant, and the use of police forces and military might to suppress the freedom of the people.
It just might be necessary for military might in the hands of private citizens to defeat these forces of tyranny.
Or is it to resist the zombies?
1
Put down your computer and write me a letter with quill and ink explaining why the 2nd Amendment does not include semiautomatic firearms and 30 round magazines. Put the letter in an envelope and have it delivered to me by a man on a horse and THEN I'll explain to you why you are wrong.
5
My far-right son-in-law keeps bringing up the failure of the assault weapons ban under Clinton, tormenting me by saying "The definition of insanity is repeatedly doing the same thing but expecting different results." He then says passing feckless gun control legislation is nothing more than virtue signalling for preening Leftists who are more concerned with appearing politically virtuous than achieving actual change.
Could this be true? Somebody please arm me with arguments against the facts in the following article. https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/we-banned-assault-weapons-before-and-it-didnt-work/
@Francisco Amat. He's probably right, similar semi auto magazine fed weapons have existed for 100 years. Even war surplus available by mail after ww2, but almost no mass shootings. We all want a solution, but the guns or power of cartridges haven't changed much. This is not an easy problem to solve. Even if we ban them all, criminals the commit 80% of homicides will still have them.
1
Now that the USA is a terrorist country, because we have a significant excess of amateurs and anarchists wielding guns and bombs, and are exporting our hate others and kill philosophy worldwide, we need to address reducing the inventory of lethal guns and unsafe gun storage.
Ammunition kills people. The US exports more guns and bombs that any other by a wide margin.
There's no second amendment right to automatic and semi-automatic rifles either. And so-called "strict constructionist" (i.e., traditionally conservative) justices and judges know this better than anyone in the White House or on Capitol Hill.
If a truly conservative justice were to pass judgment on the case, only single shot pistols and flintlock muskets would be approved for home protection. Indeed, only a judge who endorsed an "evolving" and progressive sense of Constitutional standards and principles, in line with current practices and technology would approve an automatic rifle with a large-cap magazine.
2
@DLS But you are wrong. Conservative justices have already 'evolved' the meaning and understanding of the Second Amendment to do what you seem to believe (and decry) what 'liberal' justices would do.
These problems will continue until the Supreme Court reverses itself on how the Second Amendment is interpreted. The Court took 58 years to overturn Plessy v Furgeson with Brown v Board of Education, finding that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. The 2008 case, District of Columbia v Heller, disconnected the right to arms from service in a militia and is partially responsible for the paralysis we see in implementing better protections against newer armaments technologies in the hands of people who should never be near them. Interpretations of the constitution should be more practical and less theological. Until then these problems will likely get worse.
1
Banning high capacity magazines is not effective. Do you require all in existence to be turned in! Even so, someone with basic metalworking skills can fabricate one relatively easily. The answer is to buy back all semi-automatic rifles and handguns. Permit civilians to only own manually operated (bolt, lever or pump action) long guns with restricted magazine capacity and revolvers.
This only addresses the mass shooter problem. To make a real dent the number of firearms needs to be reduced by about 80% if you want firearms deaths due to suicide, domestic violence, road rage, etc, to decline.
2
@Barry Borella But criminals will still have them to commit crime and homocide, likely at a higher rate than currently. CDC reported during the last presidency that guns were used in self defense aprox 1 million times per year.
The cause of these suicides would likely just shift to other means, like drugs. Society needs to do a better job at addressing suicides, likely many of the same causes as mass shootings.
The arms that are being referenced in the second amendment ARE military weapons.
It is the only reason the second amendment is there, not for hunting and target shooting...not for fun.
The second amendment exists in our Constitution so that The People can protect themselves from abuse, especially from a corrupt or oppressive government. It is not there so we can go hunting.
I am always dismayed that people are so willing to give up their right to defend themselves and their rights.
There are no such things as inalienable rights in this world, except within the context of our Constitution, and even those aren't real. You show me an "inalienable" right, and I'll show you a right that can be taken away.
The only rights that really exist are those that are given by others, and those that you take and defend for yourself.
As for the illegitimate use of firearms, that is a societal problem, not a problem of guns. If it isn't guns, these people will find other ways to kill, and have.
We need to identify and help those who perpetrate these horrible crimes, and prevent them from happening in the first place. Even the 911 attacks could have been averted if people had acted (and these did not involve guns).
3
@Raz But you have a functioning democracy, why do you need to arm yourselves to the teeth to defend yourselves from a corrupt or oppressive government? And why do people in other countries not feel the same need? The USA is unique in its paranoia about oppressive governments. You should get out of Montana and go visit countries with sensible gun laws, you might learn something.
1
Research statistics from law enforcement in other First World Countries, and see that violent crime is much less without guns. Sure there will always be a way to kill, but it is madness in America!
1
Whatever happened to the “A well-regulated militia” part of the 2nd Amendment? Conveniently lost, I’m afraid.
2
Read English. The Second Amendment is only one sentence long. It clearly was intended to apply to well regulated state militias made up of citizens of the state in which they reside.
The thousands of people lost in gun related deaths in the United States are the direct consequence of fraud, political corruption, and greed, pure and simple.
11
@PacificNWer
The second amendment applies to ALL people, not just those in a militia.
Our country is impervious to MILITARY invasion, because of the massive number of guns owned by our citizens...that's a heck of a militia.
1
@Raz I think you are wrong. Will any of those 'massive number of guns owned by our citizens' truly be able to defend against ICBM or cruise missile attacks? Or a T-14 Armata battle tank? I think not.
If I had to pick a weapon to ban, it would be handguns. We could lop off 75% of all gun homicides right away. The UK allows rifles, but bans handguns and has a very low crime rate as a result.
1
@Ken Hardly anyone in the UK owns firearms of any description as the laws are extremely tight on any form of firearms. People who shoot birds at the weekend with shotguns are about as much as you get. But people in the UK just aren't interested in owning guns anyway. It isn't part of our culture. The contrast with the US couldn't be more stark. But we don't have massacres and you do and you will continue to suffer them until the American mindset changes.
We regulate automobile and pet ownership in America, yet people who want to responsibly own cars and pets are free to do so.
Why all the paranoia surrounding guns? Ensuring that people are well-trained in firearms safety and haven’t been involuntarily treated for serious mental disorders isn’t going to prevent responsible gun ownership.
In Oregon, gun rights groups are fighting a proposal to allow stores the right to choose a higher age for gun sales. So while conservatives defend the right to refuse cake sales to homosexuals, they fight the right to refuse to sell military-grade weapons to high school students. This would be absolutely laughable if it were comedy, but it’s true, and it’s resulting in unnecessary deaths.
5
It's time to stop focusing on magazine size and rifle type. A 10 round magazine can be taped to another and voila, a 20 round magazine. Shooter can, and have, used other weapons with equally lethal effect, including shotguns and revolvers. Bans are a fool's errand. No proof limiting magazine size stops or impedes shooters. Many of the recent shooters used 10 round magazines.
Manyh of these individuals have a clear history of a troubled mind. Better to devote resources to identifying them and intervening, and expanding concealed carry legislation so that armed civilians can step in when needed.
While there are many errors of omission and framing that create a false narrative here the one point I wanted to make is that high capacity magazines, those being 40-150 rounds, are far more likely to jam and become non-functional, requiring major maintenance. The author alludes to this when it is mentioned the Aurora shooter experienced a jam that likely saved lives. Using the "common sense" logic, high capacity, less reliable magazines should be required and more reliable 10 round magazines should be banned. On YouTube a sherrif shows why magazine capacity does not impact rate of fire in any meaningful way. There's far more to this than the magazines, but it appears the strategy of a thousand cuts is even failing. Defying your own logic and anecdotal evidence is an odd move, though.
In reality, the Second Amendment has long outlived its original purpose, now that we have a large standing military and a large standing National Guard, and well-organized state and local police forces. We no longer depend, except in the most remote locations, on well-armed citizens for national or local defense, and haven't for decades.
Possession of rapid-fire, high capacity weapons capable of firing high-energy, high-velocity bullets by untrained, undisciplined and entirely unregulated private citizens is anathema to a peaceful, law-abiding civil society. The 33% of the population who insist on possession of such weapons, whose only real purpose is to kill, have failed to devise any effective means to such those weapons out of the hands of those who would use them for anti-social purposes.
In light of this failure, the 67% of the population who are trying to get along without such engines of death cluttering up their lives have rights, too, including the right to control the risk of some random malcontent spraying death in an otherwise peaceful situation. As some have suggested elsewhere, high-energy, high-velocity ammunition should be strictly controlled, and not allowed out on the street. Period!
5
In DC v Heller Antonin Scalia wrote:
Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues.
The "Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons"
There's no law or SCOTUS decision that prohibits the regulation of these weapons. They only thing stopping it is the republican controlled Senate and WH.
7
What a cynical little cry-baby twit Scalia was. Sure, practically unlimited access to firearms, he says, except around the Supreme Court and other government buildings. I think that’s exactly where high-powered weapons not only should be allowed but should be mandatory.
In a speech dated June 5, 1788, Patrick Henry complained that Article 1, section 8, of the Constitution granted Congress the exclusive power to arm state militias. His fear was that Congress would then fail to provide militias with any guns: "If they neglect or refuse to discipline or arm our militia, they will be useless: the States can do neither, this power being exclusively given to Congress:" Congress addressed Henry's concerns by adding the 2nd Amendment, which begins with the phrase, "A well-regulated militia being necessary for the security of the state." It seems so obvious that the 2nd Amendment was written to address this issue; the right to bear arms is related to service in the militia. But we're at a point now where the words on the page don't mean anything, and there is no lie judges like Clarence Thomas won't tell to satisfy the right-wingers.
5
There really isn't any constitutional right to bear firearms that don't resemble those widely used in the United States in late 1791. Indeed, the entire concept of a magazine that allows multiple bullets to be loaded concurrently, or even arguably of a bullet that didn't require the separate addition of gunpowder to the gun, is totally alien to the thinking of those who drafted the second amendment. That these points haven't occurred to our so-called originalist judges is simply embarrassing.
3
Originalism does not apply in cases where corporate profits are threatened in that case fascism applies.
3
If you are a strict constitutional "originalist" as Justice Kavanaugh describes himself, there should be no right to a firearm more advanced that the US Army Contract Rifle, a muzzle-loading flintlock, nearly 3 feet long, with a rate of fire of 2 – 3 rounds per minute and an effective range of a few hundred yards. This was the state-of-the-art weapon when the 2nd Amendment was ratified in December 1791.
15
The desire for large capacity automatic weapons, evinced in the comment that sales are going through the roof, illustrates the desire of one half of this country wanting to go to war with the other half.
6
There is no need for the Second Amendment, but the Supreme Court ruled that all individuals are entitled to bear arms. The Second Amendment allowed the southern states to keep their militias in order to get them to get them to approve the Constitution. The southern militias were specifically designed to keep the slaves under control.
4
@dbsweden
Yep, and the Democratic party used gun control very effectively to keep blacks powerless and segregated in the south for 100 years after the Civil War.
Are we supposed to now believe they have our best interests at heart with their current calls for gun control?
"But large-capacity magazines — generally defined as ammunition-feeding devices holding more than 10 rounds — are arguably even more dangerous than the guns themselves"
A distinction without much of a difference.
A quickly replaceable 10 round magazine can be nearly as deadly as a quickly replaceable larger magazine. A semi-automatic pistol with quickly replaceable 10 round magazines has been the weapon of choice for many mass murders.
Reduce the magazine size to 1 and you're now describing the weapon the 2nd Amendment was designed to allow, a single shot muzzle loader.
Any ban short of this is like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon.
8
@Michigander
The 1st Amendment "Freedom of the Press" was specifically referencing the Printing Press. Using your logic then radio, TV and the internet are not covered under that.............
1
There is no 2nd amendment right to anything beyond single-shot flintlock pistols that were available when the 2nd amendment was written.
11
There are laws that regulate speech (Fire!) and assembly (permits!). Why is there such a fervor against regulating guns and bullets, which arguably are more likely to be used against public safety than is, say, a peaceful demonstration.
12
@Rich Patrock
They are already heavily regulated. There are 20,000 gun laws already in this country.
When we have 20,000 Speech laws call me.
1
Twenty thousand! Really? Difficult to believe.
No progress on this issue unless Republicans voted out of office. Ditto for healthcare and climate change.
16
@J Davis. Trump has done far more than President Obama regulating guns ie. bump stocks.
Politicizing and not looking at the root of the problem isn't going to solve this. If you think a D or R is going to solve these problems, you will be waiting a long time. Society needs to come together and work on these issues.
Nobody, on either side, wants to deal with what the 2nd Amendment actually says. Which is that it is explicitly about MILITARY weapons. The words "arms" has never been a synonym for "guns" – but has always meant "weaponry" in the broadest sense. The purpose of the 2nd is to support the maintenance of a competent ("well-regulated") citizen military capable of repelling some military force of tyranny. Citizens, then, need to be able to keep and bear arms so they can train with them.
When the 2nd was passed allowing any citizen to possess military weapons may or may not have been wise, but it was certainly not insane. By the end of WW! the advance of military tech had changed that in no uncertain terms. By 1920 a militia would have had no chance of insuring "the security of a free state" without, at a minimum, the use of machine guns. Yet, after use of sub-machine guns by bootlegging gangsters became common during Prohibition, machine guns were banned. And those bans were upheld by the courts, making the actual language of the 2nd amendment functionally meaningless. Eventually we wind up with the Orwellian Heller decision that asserts the 2nd applies to individuals for self-defense and does not preclude prohibitions on "the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons." Hunh??
What we have then, is a standard that it is no standard. A text that can mean anything, and go both ways at the same time if it suits the powerful.
The only way to resolve this mess is to repeal it.
8
We need only appoint reasonable S.Ct. justices to resolve this mess. Unfortunately, we won't get those with this version of the GOP in power.
@DJT
Can you cite any founders that agree with your position?
They left copious amounts of correspondence on the subject, for instance:
"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." George Mason, co author of the 2nd Amendment
No reasonable justice can resolve this because the base language will always support a totally unreasonable position. No precedent will necessarily hold as such, and we'll keep having this fight forever.
It seems so utterly nonsensical that this country hasn't enacted common sense gun laws, that my conspiracy thoughts run amok.
How else can this be rationalized?
Call me insane, but in the most sinister way, it feels like foreign governments (or one in particular) has commandeered the NRA and has funneled lots and lots of money to American politicians. Said politicians and the POTUS, having knowingly accepted or even solicited their donations, are now terrified to take a stance against the NRA...lest they be exposed as accepting foreign money.
Trump's cotton mouthed "speech" this morning, which blamed everything BUT lack of gun control, is proof positive he's protecting something; sadly and once again it's not Americans.
3
I believe that the Second Amendment should be upheld.
Everyone-should be allowed to own as many muskets as he/ she wishes.
11
@Daniel Messing
By that logic freedom of speech should not apply to anything written over a computer. The right to be secure in your effects unless the police have a warrant shouldn't apply to your phone or vehicle. And so on.
"There’s No Second Amendment Right to Large-Capacity Magazines" ,,,
Or anything else, unless as a component of a well regulated militia.
13
Guns should be like cigarettes; socially unacceptable and recognized as a public health threat.
Let the military buy back the weapons and ammo during an amnesty period. They need weapons and have a massive budget.
After that period, semi-automatic weapons and ammo should be banned and confiscated.
Trained hunters can keep shot guns and single shot rifles at their gun clubs. Trained sportsmen can keep pistols at the shooting range.
5
@JW A sane voice!
Here is an idea.
Since most of these are Assault rifles are registered, let's collect them, give the owner a credit on their taxes. Give everyone a couple months to turn them in. If you choose not to turn it in, and your registered weapon is used in a mass shooting, you are on the hook regardless. This should make securing your weapon a top priority.
It's time to stop talking and start acting...
5
@C
First of all there is no Federal registration of firearms in the U.S., only background checks.
Secondly, Assault rifles, or intermediate cartridge rifles capable of full auto fire, are hardly ever used in crimes—even mass shootings. What you probably mean by "Assault rifles" are Semi-Automatic rifles that are incredibly common throughout the U.S..
Your suggestion that the government should confiscate firearms seems to me like a recipe for disaster that plays directly into the hands of the white supremacists who's clearly stated goal, in their manifestos, is to provoke a civil war in the U.S. by forcing confiscation through mass shootings.
Perhaps the most coherent response is to not do what the mass shooters want us to do.
2
@John Yes, I mean the ones conceived for killing multiple people at a time within 20 seconds. The reason we need is.....oh right, we don't. That nameless home invader wouldn't be more or less neutralized by those weapons. And if your fear is government having better toys, sorry, they do.
Let's use the background check to assign that registration that doesn't exist. thanks for the suggestion.
And finally, many of these young shooters are getting their guns from some irresponsible party. Sadly, likely to be in their family. Let's share the responsibility, and make these adults act like adults because with this awesome power, we DO need more responsibility.
The Republican Party Platform: We'll take away your health care and fight for your right to own assault weapons.
7
There's no 2nd amendment right to individual ownership of a gun.
What part of "A well regulated Militia" did right-wing, gun-worshipping Scalia not understand?!
2nd Amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
For over 200 years the federal courts interpreted the 2nd Amendment correctly, and there was never an individual right to own a gun until the Heller decision written by Scalia in 2008.
Scalia, legislating from the bench, created a brand new right under the US Constitution, using the 2nd Amendment as an EXCUSE!
Now look at what Scalia has caused! Just imagine the death, violence and destruction Scalia's unconstitutional, unlawful decision has caused all across America. And it's far from over. Thousands more innocent Americans will die because of Scalia's decision and his right-wing, gun-worshipping philosophy.
Scalia was in favor of the death penalty for those who committed murder. As far as I'm concerned, Scalia has murdered thousands of innocent people, men, women and children. Scalia's death has allowed him to get away with contributing to mass murder. Remember the 20 tiny tots and 6 adults shot to death in Sandy Hook, CT! That was just 4 yeas after Scalia's Heller decision.
Australia has taken the right approach to mass murder. They've change their gun laws and confiscated most guns. Australia is now free from mass murder by gun.
10
In addition to blaming video games, mental health, Democrats and investigative fact-finding and reporting,...
...the Trump folks, the GOP, and Fox & Friends forgot to blame MOVIES this week!
The movies etc. did it, and my dog ate my gun license and receipts for ammunition.
Not to blame; the insane gun culture and profits they have promoted and profited from for decades and spread to central and south America and more broadly infecting the world.
The real problem...we make and sell the most guns and bombs and are exporting our brand of terrorism and hate.
Trump and our other hate-mongers are exporting hate and guns and bombs.
Mexico is the first country to confront our lawlessness and corruption. The rest of the world will follow. Esp. in the wake of Trump tariffs wars and canceled treaties. Think about this, we are now a terrorist country.
There's no 2nd Amendment right to military style assault weapons either. Give all the gun nuts muskets that'll satisfy the 2nd Amendment and stop the senseless slaughter.
6
Netflix's "The Great Hack' is on the enormous database of the US Citizenry. No doubt a nation-wide database of those with excessive firearms/ammunition could be compiled and published. Let the Repubs try to criminalize that one.
1
Based on second amendment, I would like to ask why can’t we regular citizens own tankers, missile launchers or fighter jets. Allowing citizens to own high capacity assault rifles without tight regulations is irresponsible. Please don’t blame video games or mental illness that exist in all other countries. Only USA congressmen who take no action against NRA are to be blamed. Shame on satan politicians.
5
I’m with Cris Rock on this one:
“Everybody gets to have a gun.
...BULLETS cost $5,000 each.
4
@Michael B.
Poll tax and abortion tax too!
The second amendment needs to be repealed and replaced. It was not on a tablet handed down to Moses. And send the NRA to the dustbin of history. Signed, a former gun owner and hunter.
5
I think this is the compromise: banning magazines over 10 rounds.
Gun owners can still have their AR-15s for hunting, etc, but there is no need to magazines over 10 rounds for self-defense or hunting.
In hunting, game wardens and regulations in many states limit magazine capacity to just 3 or 5 rounds.
3
So under our Constitution and our political and judicial systems we can't get gun regulations to save lives. We can't get universal health insurance to save lives. Why did the Founding Fathers even bother to say their idea was about the "unalienable right" to "life" when all they meant was "liberty"? And why did they write in the preamble to the Constitution that "ensure domestic tranquility" and "promote the general welfare" were two of its purposes? When the system doesn't protect lives but protects the rights of murderers and domestic terrorists, when it doesn't guarantee medical care to the sick and injured but gives greedy corporations all the rights, something is very wrong. Life and liberty sometimes come into conflict. If we can't even find a middle ground to protect both life and liberty under our present form of government we need a new constitution.
7
Scalia and the conservative Supreme Court majority fashioned a ruling in Heller (and then used it in the McDonald case) that fits its partisan agenda. These decisions were political not constitutional. Moreover, these rulings did not prohibit all gun restrictions. Of course, the court did not provide a list of allowable restrictions, leaving the issue to be decided in future cases.
1
Nor is there a 2nd amendment right to personally owning artillery, rocket launchers, or Abrams tanks, although they are legitimate equipment for a "well-ordered militia," which of course is what the 2nd amendment is about. Justice Scalia, pretending to stand for the "original intent" of the framers of the Constitution made entirely specious argument that the 2nd amendment was drafted to protect the right of private individuals to bear arms. Nonsense. At the time the amendment was drafted that would have been the equivalent of an amendment guaranteeing the right to breathe (as I am not the first to say). With the vast majority of the people living in agrarian communities, nearly everyone owned a gun, primarily to hunt. What is involved in the amendment is a guarantee that the states and territories of the USA would have their own militias and would not need to rely on a federal army for their protection. The particular fears were of slave revolts wherever their were plantations, Indian attacks on the frontier, and perhaps also urban riots. Any serious attention to the "original intent" of the framers of the 2nd Amendment would have attended to this context. It's time to revisit the case and overturn the majority opinion drafted by Scalia.
2
I don't need any government entity trying to decide how I live. They have no right deciding how I choose to protect myself and the second amendment was established to stop things such as this from becoming laws in the first place.
3
@Bryant - That's where you're wrong. The drafters of the Second Amendment never contemplated the epidemic of gun violence or the weapons we confront today, wielded by a minority of the population against the vast majority of us who do not own guns, have no intention of doing so, and want more that anything else to be protected from the violent minority.
The Constitution does not guarantee the right of a small minority of heavily armed Americans to use the rest of us for target practice, with high powered weapons of war in hand. That's called murder, and a civilized society has every right to take steps to prevent it and punish it; and if you can't live with that, I suggest you consider life in small, remote colony of similarly lawless criminals who can arm themselves and fire at one another with impunity.
This ain't the Wild West; and it ain't a Hollywood cowboy movie. It's the 21st century, and we're supposedly living in a civilized society. If that ain't your cuppa tea, try another brew.
7
@Bryant Oh really? So I suppose you should have the right to have a bazooka, or a mortar or a small bomb too? The government has no right to decide if you try to "protect" yourself with those either?
4
Your constitution is old, outdated and needs revision.
America is no longer unknown, unexplored territory that requires new explorers to protect themselves with guns.
i am not a lawyer, nor a judge... i did not study constitutional law, but it has always seemed to me, after many readings of the second amendment, that the amendment was not meant to place weapons in the hands of anyone who wanted them for any reason, but in the hands of a "well-regulated militia" ... of the people, so that no president or congressman or senator could form a private army to terrorize or subdue the general population. our current president seems to think the army and gun toting citizens are his own private playthings to do with as he wills. expensive and unnecessary military parades, threatening unarmed migrants at the border who are *legally* seeking asylum, and rousing up citizen rabble to take actions into their own hands. it's time for a serious study of our constitution and the second amendment. the first amendment does not allow for shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, the second should not allow heavily armed individuals to use weaponry to enforce or impose their own warped beliefs. gun legislation and rules need to be amended and enforced.
6
@bronxbee
Bronx boy here, too... (originally)
Extremely well thought out comment and well stated!
Right-wingers love to skip over that part "A well regulated militia"... That's exactly what Scalia did when he legislated from the bench in the Heller decision.
Scalia's breach of judicial trust as cost THOUSANDS of innocent people their lives. Untold suffering has already resulted from his Heller decision in 2008, and many, many more innocent American will be injured or killed in the years to come. All because of Scalia's decision in 2008!
We in NYC think that anyone who owns a gun is a criminal, because in NYC we NEVER knew anyone who owned a gun that wasn't a criminal. My thinking on this will never change. If you own a gun, you're a criminal in my mind at least.
Go Bronx!
1
A limit on magazine capacity primary affects the unpracticed. Changing them takes on the order of 5 seconds, less if they're taped together. Large capacity drum magazines have a long history of jamming, as the one in the Dayton incident did. Sales of the larger capacity magazines are going up because there is a fear their sales will be banned. While it is my judgement that the chances of a firefight with a gang is very low, they want to be prepared.
Net, is my judgement a ban will accomplish little or nothing with respect to mass shootings.
4
@Paul George
Changing a magazine takes ONE second with practice. An experienced pistol or rifle shooter, with practice, can effect a magazine change in about one second, definitely under two. Modern firearms and magazines are constructed to allow rapid changes, just ask any soldier that's gone through basic firearms training, or any LEO who's had range training. Magazine capacity is a red herring, if magazines were made to hold less, people would just carry more magazines.
2
@Paul George Shooters bring larger magazine capacities to their mass murders. They must believe larger magazines aids them in their task, and who can argue with the impressive results?
Large capacity? So? A single shot can kill anyone anywhere. Period.
The issue is any kind of gun and easily accessible to anyone.
The issue is a distortion of the 2nd Amendment that puts all our lives at risk.
The issue is lgalized bribery of our political system ok'd by our supreme court with warped interpretation of the 1st amendment that mega money in elections is protected free speech.
The issue is gun profits, and lobbyists in congress.
The issue is legalized profit priority over our public safety and our democracy.
4
Sensible gun control advocates are always preaching against the choir of people ruled by fear and anger, not sense. There is something wrong, mentally-emotionally, with a man or woman who "needs" a large-capacity magazine or a dozen or more guns or rifles. When the subject turns to mental illness, we are bogged down in the unknowable: Not only the shooters, but also the millions who don't shoot but need to be in the heavily armed bunker of their mind.
4
The original sin in Second Amendment jurisprudence was the Supreme Court's acceptance of the argument that the Constitution provided for an individual right to possess arms. With that principle now enshrined, how to define its outer limits. After all, in light of the “well regulated militia” clause, the right to bear arms - as a constitutional matter - is not limited to self-defense against criminals or animal attacks but stands as a protection against the US government itself should it ever become destructive of constitutional rights. Viewed through that lens, limiting the number of bullets can easily be seen as a core violation of this constitutional right.
What can limit this individual right, short of overturning the underlying decision? The recent Republican talking point, it’s not about gun regulation but about individuals who are mentally ill and own guns, provides another opportunity. No one going forward can purchase a gun until he has been evaluated for mental fitness with recurring tests annually.
Looked at more broadly, perhaps every state Governor can declare that each gun owner is automatically enlisted in a state militia - and must come when summoned (like jury service) for training and mental and physical fitness evaluation. Failure leads to surrender of all weapons.
Are these ideas really so far fetched?
3
As a french canadian, it is my impression that US people elevate a lot of things to rank of religious beliefs.
Your constitution and right to bear arms are not religions.
It looks to me that you will never be able to change anything until you accept that.
It is the same with your constant reference to what you constantly promote as your status as the greatest place to live in the ni World...
I visited several region in your country and worked with many americans over the years and I do not envy your status of life.
Also, I do not feel like the US bas any moral superiority over Canada or other western democraty.
I think that we are very much aware of all the great things the US did and still does in the world.
However, I think that we are better able to get more variety in our informations.
Anyway, there is no lack of talent or courage on your side of the border!
I wish all the best for you all.
3
@Jacques Berube Religious beliefs - you got that exactly right. If I move to Montreal, can you help me choose a nice neighborhood in which to live?
1
@Jacques Berube
Do you have any idea how many SKS rifles exist right now in Canada? That those SKS rifles can be used with a 30 round magazine? Now, do you know how easily anyone who has that rifle in Canada can disable the rivet/pin used to limit that 30 round magazine to just 5 rounds? You have thousands of people with that gun, able to use that magazine but no mass shootings with SKS that I know of has happened in Canada. Why do you suppose that is? The weapon exists, the magazines exist, the ability to disable the limiter exists, what is lacking? Did you legislate what it is that is lacking or is just a happy accident?
1
@Jacques Berube
With all the shooting of each other that goes on in America, you would think we would embrace health care for all. Of course we would rather pay money to hospitals for saving our lives after a person who would never enroll in the military ( like our president ) where they could learn responsible gun ownership.
Trump couldn't even remember the town where the shooting took place, nothing will change, Handwringing and people will vote for the do nothing GOP
The founding fathers stated a purpose for the 2nd amendment: the need for "a well regulated militia." In its last evaluation of the amendment the Supreme Court chose to disregard that purpose. So let's focus on the nature of the weapons the founding fathers had in mind and let everyone have a musket.
4
Here in Israel, one is allowed to take home 50 bullets. Each Magazine holds at least 15 bullets. However, only relatively few are allowed to have guns and their mental and physical health must be prior certified by a doctor. Moreover, retraining and re licensing is required every three years, and safety rules include storing the gun in a locked safe when not on person. There are also very strict rules about when a gun can be fired (clear self-defense). Gun ownership is also limited to semi-automatic handguns.
2
@barry The difference is that every citizen of Israel has serve their compulsory 3 years in the military, and presumably received even basic firearms training,
If we had a similar system here in the US, I suspect gun violence would drop significantly, even if the actual number of guns didn't decrease.
The main issue is that Americans see guns mainly as toys or movie props, rather than as dangerous weapons of war. Sometimes you need a dangerous weapon of war to be safe, but you ALWAYS need to maintain it carefully and be well trained in its use or else you are just creating a greater threat instead of decreasing it. We have an entire culture built around people thinking they are John Wayne, and as long as they have their gun, no matter what happens they will be able to react calmly and eliminate the threat, which is one of the most laughable notions I've ever heard. And yet tens of millions of people buy into it.
I would personally be fine if gun ownership levels in the US remained the same, if every citizen had to undergo mandatory firearms training conducted by the military.
1
Millions of the weapons and millions of the clips are out there already. If we ban production and sale in the future, what does that do to eliminate the problem? Perhaps: Ban the production and sale of the ammunition used in the weapons.
I find it fascinating that a judge thinks high capacity magazines are a core part of the 2nd amendment. When that was written magazines had not yet been invented. A gun held a single shot.
2
@Liz Beader
Girondoni air rifle.
Red, Purple or Blue, rural or city, everyday experience with automobiles indicates that educated, licensed, insured, conservatively policed drivers are WAY less likely to endanger themselves or others than unprepared, unlicensed, uninsured scoff-laws suddenly off on a murderous ‘lark’.
States should license and regulate firearms AT LEAST to the extent they regulate motor vehicles. They should stop playing the Russian Roulette Game of Open-Sales-Open-Carry-Anywhere and let their counties and neighbourhoods benefit.
Consider just one benefit: if YOU injure ME with an insured automobile, an insurance company pays the hospital bills, not me. Why should I -- let alone government services at any level -- pay for injuries inflicted by some perverse shooter's firearms? Let the perverse one’s insurance company take the beating and, thereby, bring some 'free market forces' to bear. Market forces: remember those?
Nobody in this context is saying "Do without cars or trucks." Nobody (in my household at least) is saying "Do without guns". Just get real. The Republicans', the NRA's and the Rush-n-Fox 'News' Teams' open-armed approach to gun violence is not working. It will not work in times of zombie apocalypse either. It is time to get real, America. Education, Innovation and Cooperation are the way forward, not civil war. It is time to get real.
4
Yes, PLEASE, enough with the assault weapons and the senseless mass killings. They should have ended long ago. ENOUGH!
1
Each bullet represent a potential innocent human life taken - killed! Where is the so called pro-life lobby in all of this gun slaughter epidemic?
4
@PAN
We're making the case that being pro life means supporting the right to self defense.
1
@Sean
So you really want to live in a society where you need to be perpetually on guard to defend yourself? You want your kids to defend themselves constantly from deadly force by perps with arsenals more militaristic than yours? Can you afford it? You want your grandma trained to shoot back as she visits her grand kids or goes shopping with them?
Sorry, but there is no self-defense against a bullet with your name on it.
Every member of the NRA needs those hi-capacity magazines in case they encounter a HERD of DEER at the car wash, or movie theater, or going to the mailbox, or visiting Granny, or going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. They are always ready to kill deer !
3
@LouAZ
I'm guessing you've never tried to deal with a herd of invasive wild hogs.
@LouAZ There's an old South Park episode where one of the uncle of one of the characters is lamenting some change to the hunting laws, that says he can only shoot an animal if it poses a threat. The solution is to see a deer, shout "It's comin' right for us" and then fill it with holes.
Whenever these fools are defending their right to fire off 30 rounds in less than a minute, it makes me think of that.
1
What self respecting herd of deer would stick around for more than a second?
Only a perspective produced in the most hermetically sealed kind of white privilege and security, could react to what's happening in this country by arguing that poor, working, minority populations should be disarmed and so absolutely outgunned by the state (do those images of cops in military hand-me-downs make YOU feel safe?) and the growing body of malignant, cowardly, hateful white nationalists and xenophobes.
"The unpreparedness of the educated classes, the lack of practical links between them and the mass of the people, their laziness, and, let it be said, their cowardice at the decisive moment of the struggle will give rise to tragic mishaps."
-Frantz Fanon
2
@SD
But note that one reason the local police are now running around dressed like invading soldiers is because more civilians have guns! So what we have is an arms race! If I get a gun, then you want two guns, and if you have two guns, then I want three guns and so on and so forth as the scale of carnage goes up and up and up! This is crazy!
I agree. If we disarm the populace there is no need for the police to carry weapons other than pepper spray.
@Heather
"This is" what it looks like when one of "the wealthiest countries in the world," who lives at the expense of the vast majority of the rest of the world, finally reaches a point of TERMINAL decline...
I was defense counsel during the height of the crack epidemic in Washington, DC. Defendants were able to obtain cheaply built, basement built, guns. They even managed to get illegally manufactured machine guns!!!! Bullets, of course, are easy to make. Those who did not have access to the basement manufacturers made zip guns.
But the current problem is caused by a lack of hope. This lack of hope was caused by the destruction of the working class when jobs were moved overseas, thanks to the Clinton trade agreements with Mexico and China. The Democrats and yes, the Bushes, allowed illegal aliens to pour into America for cheap votes and cheap labor, further reducing the opportunities for blue collar white workers.
Next, there is resentment over the demonization of white people by the liberal elite.
Violent video games, movies, and television then teach the young that murder is an acceptable answer to a problem. As religion has declined in America, the computer becomes the new church, teaching that murder is the Answer.
The fuse is set, and lit. El Paso and Toledo are the end results.
2
You too with Toledo? Really?
1
What happened in Toledo? @Jonathan E. Grant
@SP Eh. Wait a couple of months and it'll be right.
Mr Spitzer,
Putting aside the infringements on personal liberty your suggesting, your call for magazine restrictions is outdated and impractical. People have been making homemade magazines almost since their inception. The belief that you can ban a box and a spring is neither practical nor realistic. You might suggest that homemade magazines would not be as reliable as commercially available magazines, and, while that might be generally true, 3D printing has changed that. The NYT and Vice had an article a while ago about the progression of 3D printing and how people like Cody Wilson have made essentially flawless 30 round plastic magazine schematics that are widely available online. Now anyone with access to a printer and springs can make as many magazines as they could ever want.
The die has already been cast, Mr. Spitzer, and there is no rolling back this change. Perhaps you could write a more useful article examining how many of the first gun control measures were racially motivated and how the 1934 machine gun ban was easily avoided by wealthy Americans who could afford a $200 tax stamp instead of advocating for more policies that only make people feel safer rather than actually making them safer.
4
@John I think the point is to limit weapons that can USE magazines.
For hunting, target-shooting, and home defense (the only legitimate purposes for owning a firearm) how could you possibly need more than a 6-shot revolver, a double-barrel shotgun, or a bolt action rifle?
What is the legitimate nonmilitary purpose for being able to fire a dozen rounds in the span of a few seconds? Any weapons designed to do so, has one purpose, and one purpose only; killing human beings. And no civilian needs a tool that has no purpose whatsoever other than killing other human beings.
@John So your argument seems to be that because such magazines can be produced by 3D printers, that a ban on commercially produced magazines shouldn't happen - which is essentially like saying that we should not have laws because people will break them anyway. Logic is lacking here..
@Samuel
People have used AR-15s for home defense.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/03/14/8-times-law-abiding-citizens-saved-lives-ar-15/
If three people break into your home, perhaps a bolt-action rifle might not be the best choice. Or maybe it is for you. But that should be your choice. I would never be so certain as to tell someone else what their defense choice should be.
Regrettably, this (controlling weapon to lessen mass murder) won't happen. You are fighting the human id. Let's imagine a less politically fraught analogy: we can eliminate almost all traffic deaths if we build cars that can't go over 35 mph. Would you give up your lust for speed, power and "saving time" to alleviate 35,000 deaths? Very few would.
If it is feasible to privately own helicopter gunships, you can bet people will buy them and use them...
2
When the shooting at the Garlic festival happened I felt relief:"only 3 this time." I have become so desensitized to your extreme levels of vuolence. I couldn't help but notice such a stark contrast between the NYT page and our own CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company). One of our big stories was about a couple stranded at the airport. Yours was about a double slaughter. Canada has problems (a deep racism towards our indigenous population for starters) and we are not totally immune to this kind of violence. But surely one day America will realize it's at war with itself. This is madness. And it just keeps going....
3
"The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Keeping and bearing seems not to endorse any right to use: with malicious intent toward a specific target; indiscriminately; accidentally, or otherwise. Furthermore, the second amendment does not qualify or quantify its definition of "Arms". If the respect and upholding of the Second Amendment requires that citizens be encouraged to keep, bear and use weapons of mass destruction (nine deaths in 30 seconds, et cetera) does this also mean that it protects the right to strap on an explosive vest and ignite in a crowd, or to drop a glass vial of bio-chemical weaponry onto the floor during rush-hour at Grand Central Station? Did the framers really envision a world where this clause of their amendment might be so horrifically exploited?
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State." The radical militia that hunts and kills and violates; whose actions seem enabled by defenders of the second amendment, are totally unregulated, and their protection undermines the security of a free state.
1
Strict constructionism. Great idea! Let’s limit all guns and ammo sold to civilians to what could have been used in 1787.
6
If Sandy Hook didn’t do it, why will a few hundred more slaughters? Tough to be proud of our country.
5
It's time to start suing the gun and ammunition manufacturers. A lawsuit is filed against an automaker every time there is an accident, even though cars are designed to be transportation. Why not the gun manufacturers who make devices specifically designed to kill?
6
@Speedo
This wasn't an accident. Functioned as advertised. The rifle design is Russian and the maker Chinese--guessing here.
American is the largest gun producer and exporter in the world. Living next to America and trying to legislate gun controls given our porous shared borders is difficult but has largely worked for Canadians. America produces the weapons, embraces the toxic gun culture and lacks the political will to keep its citizens safe from its other gun toting citizens. Every other industrial country has social media, violent video games and mentally ill white angry males. What we all lack is the number and ease of access to guns!
That ultra-right-wing judge who struck down the 10-round limit is just going with the logic of the ultra-right-wingers who say that they should have the same weapons as the police and the military. EXACTLY the same weapons, including rockets, tanks, etc. This is pretty much what the arm fetishists want - more and more and more . They will not stop their demands. And they now have a fanatically ultra-right-wing Supreme Court to give them what they want. WE, the normal people, have to stop them. WE have to get all repubs out of office. It really is up to the normal Americans to stop all this nonsense.
3
@Joe Rock bottom
Just have to carry more magazines. Skilled operator can switch them out in a second or two.
2
@Alice's Restaurant And how many lives might be saved by that additional second or two? Is that not worth it, or is your convenience that much more important than human life?
Neanderthal mass murderers used spears and rocks, medieval mass murderers used swords and axes and modern mass murderers use current technology. 100 years from now some mass murderer will fly his jet car into a crowd and then use his ray gun on the fleeing people. If there is a will, there is a way. Remove assault style rifles and high-capacity magazines and criminals will turn to poison, bio attacks, etc. Drop magazine capacity to five and criminals will carry 10 magazines - - only takes a few seconds to change magazines with practice.
The point is, while the tools change to commit these crimes, the underlying factors that lead to the crime itself remain the same.
3
@Kenny B
So why were there 15,549 gun homicides in the United States in 2017 compared to 32 gun homicides in the United Kingdom? Even adjusted for the population different, the UK's all would be only 160. Why are Americans the most murderous civilians on Earth?
2
@Heather
I would say that the Brits are far better educated, more up to current events and far more civilized than their American counterparts. Some countries, like Finland, have similar gun ownership rates per capita, and far less gun related crime. Finns are civilized, educated people, Americans are not.
1
@Kenny B Nobody in the Middle Ages ever killed 9 civilians in less than 30 seconds, unless you count crushing an occupied house with a boulder thrown by a mangonel.
You think these random hillbillies who are shooting up places like this have the intelligence or capacity to manufacture or acquire poison or chemical weapons? At the very least, it is a lengthy process to acquire the materials, which leaves them open to the FBI investigating who is buying materials necessary for a bio-weapon.
Your argument is literally. "Well people are gonna murder anyway, so we might as well make it as easy as possible for them to rack up body counts."
Why even bother making murder illegal, if people are just going to do it anyway?
1
According to Trump, Mitch McConnell and the NRA, the only answer to a "bad guy with a large capacity magazine assault weapon" is a good guy with one.
So watch for ads announcing big sales on these weapons of mass slaughter at your local gun stores everywhere...because for the NRA, every mass shooting is an opportunity to increase sales.
3
First Bowling Green, now Toledo...
4
Methinks the (liberal) professor only supports “liberal” judges.
2
It seems to me that my right to enter Walmart or Target and shop peacefully has been dismissed in favor of a gun owner who sees me as a threat and has the right to shred me to pieces.
4
Forget it America. With all the guns, assault-type weapons, & high-capacity magazines already in private hands there is no meaningful arms control possible in your country. Just keep dipping your flags, holding prayer vigils, wringing your hands, & making useless speeches. You’ve lived your country’s lifetime venerating the gun and you’ll continue to die by it. If it’s any consolation you’re still safer then Pakistanis, Afghanis, Sudanese, or Yemenites though that’s not really anything to be proud of.
5
If the Second Amendment means what gun rights defenders say it means, then any individually operated weapon that would be useful in resisting a tyrannical government should be legal. If assault rifles are legal, then antitank rockets, short-range antiaircraft missiles, and perhaps mines should be legal. If these things can be outlawed (as they now are), then the same logic will allow assault rifles to be banned.
They are still allowed because people are not logical. The armed forces make the rules that ban these other weapons from ownership by private citizens, but the armed forces is too political to ban what is currently popular with people who support the funding of the armed forces.
2
If mass shootings are deemed acts of terror, wouldn't the Patriot Act apply: forfeiting the perp's right to a trial and lawyer and instead packing him/her off to Guantanamo?
1
We are forbidden by law to own grenades and bazookas. How did that law pass? I guess saner minds prevailed back then.
6
@Janice
Trump can fix that.
1
There is no second amendment right to ANY ammunition. Let them keep the guns, just ban any and all ammo that can be used in a firearm.
Make possessing ammo a Class A felony, akin to possessing cocaine.
Or we could tax ammo at $500 per bullet, retroactively. Create a stamping system PER BULLET that MUST be paid even on bullets already purchased. That way gun nuts, hunters and historians can happily keep their guns, but if they want to kill people it'll be prohibitively expensive.
Make ammo verboten or at the very least more expensive than therapy, then we might see some changes.
Remember everyone, GUNS are protected by the 2nd amendment, NOT AMMO.
4
@Wellington
I agree. But Trump's judges won't.
I think a reasonable tax of $1 a bullet might pass muster. And requiring they all be tagged so they can be traced easily. Even those two acts would discourage hate crimes.
@Wellington
Nice try but Constructive Ban equals Ban, and no lawyer who passed the bar will try to argue differently.
1
If as a thought experiment we consider the extreme boundaries of the gun controversy, we can admit that even though certain wealthy individuals could own ICBMs and equip them with weapons of mass destruction, we do not allow that. Working downward on the scale, other military weapons, including fully automatic machine guns, are not permitted for civilians. The second amendment does allow "arms" to be owned by civilians, hence the question is where should the red line be drawn. Spitzer argues for a red line forbidding high capacity magazines. In addition, some states have passed laws that showed licensing for firearm ownership can reduce firearm fatalities. There seems to be many opportunities within the second amendments freedom to reduce gun violence. We limit the guns for waterfowl hunting to a magazine capacity of 3, shouldn't humans deserve the same as ducks?
414
@Solon Rhode
No, the 2nd Amendment does NOT allow citizens to possess arms. It allows for a well-regulated militia.
52
@Solon Rhode Bravo Solon!
5
@Solon Rhode
You may legally own a machine gun. A tax must be paid in order to do so - but then, Big Brother would know about you and the gun. With the development of semi-automatic weapons and high capacity magazines, the distinction between the destructive capability of a machine gun and semi-automatics is essentially erased.
The solution is apparent.
16
Crazy. Just crazy. Your country lacks any kind of perspective on this issue. Somehow you equate guns with freedom, but that freedom kills. You're killing each other, fellow Americans, and no-one has the moral courage to put a stop to it.
Failure to address this white domestic terrorism, and that is what it is, reflects the deep corruption of your governments, both state and federal, and in the end it is your people who allow this to happen.
To those of us in the civilized world, we see you as a dangerous, backward society where the right to own a gun is greater than the right of a child to live his or her life. And that is the highest moral failing of all.
We fear for you, but we also despise you for it.
7
@LauraF
Ahh the civilized world talking about the lives of children when 6 children every single minute of the day dies as a result of starvation. Tell you what. When you put an end to that problem I'll listen to your argument about our Right to have a firearm. Till then I suggest if you are so concerned about the lives of children you will start helping us solve that problem and make sure no child starves to death anywhere.
1
@JustaVET Classic "whataboutism." -So we really need to solve the problem of starvation before we save our children from weapons of war? Incredible....
@JustaVET
Children dying of starvation in other countries has NOTHING to do with this discussion. Nothing It's a red herring.
Gun lovers always distract. They never actually deal with the issue head on.
Tell me what you think about mass slaughter in your country by white men with high-powered guns. Tell me about that, and stop deflecting.
Unless someone is with the military, police, FBI etc. they don't need an assault weapon. A simple handgun or rifle should be more than enough for regular folks to protect their home or hunt for food. Stop selling assault weapons to civilians.
2
I am a gun owner (for home defense) and I SUPPORT reasonable gun control--background checks, confiscation of assault rifles (machine guns, in theory, are banned already, so why not certain other guns?), banning of large magazines, and registration of guns (just as we register cars).
When Obama was President, The American Rifleman (the mag of the NRA) was filled with over-heated editorials about how Obama was coming to take away our guns, even though through two terms the Obama administration never did any such thing.
During Obama's Presidency, I could not find ammo (for target practice) because the gun stores and Walmarts in Boise sold out of all ammo as soon as it arrived at the store. Someone is preparing for war.
Let's be clear: Many "Second Amendment" supporters envision a literal shooting war between American gun owners and our own government if that government becomes "tyrannical" (as they see it)--a political view explicitly promoted by the NRA.
The "Second Amendment" crowd imagine that unrestricted gun ownership will allow them, if necessary, to fight off the US Army (which is why they want military weapons for themselves)
I am no fan of "Big Government," but the idea of "patriots" waging a literal "citizen gun-owner" war against the US Army is just nuts and adolescent and suicidal. And treason.
Our job is to use politics to prevent the US from becoming a tyranny.
The Second Amendment is notoriously ambiguous. Time to repeal and replace.
9
Sell all the guns you want, heck, even sell bazookas. Just don't give the owner an unrestricted ability to fire hundreds of rounds in minutes.
There is only one reason for developing high capacity magazines, and it’s not deer hunting.
These feed the narrative that the federal government is coming after its citizens someday, and only the all-white (surprise!) militias will protect the citizens from the government.
Why are they even allowed to be manufactured? They kill just as crack cocaine does.
5
Friday afternoon around 5:20 pm my friend was shot while driving.
There are no answers and no provocation for this act of violence.
Driving on Route 1 A in Revere, MA and someone shoots into his car.
A father of two young children, a family man is holding on for his life in Mass General.
Is this a hate crime because my friend has brown skin?
Is this a mental patient off their medication?
Is this the result of AM talk radio propaganda and Fox News fear and a president that calls himself a nationalist and attacks all of his critics.
GUN LAWS NOW!
Responsible gun owners need to own this argument.
Politicians need to stop using gun rights to separate and manipulate the voters.
When and where will the next shooting be?
Will one of your loved ones be a victim or will it be you?
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness - Struck Down by the Second Amendment protecting any nut bag from owning an assault weapon or hand gun without asking why or showing a need for the weapon.
Responsible gun owners need to own this argument!
It is my right as a human being to live safely.
Please hug your family and friends.
Between the police and the general public no one is safe in this country.
7
@john
I'm very sorry to hear about your friend. It's insane that we live like this. I know more people killed or injured by guns than I know people killed or injured in car accidents...
2
@john sullivan I'm so sorry for this tragedy. It shows why we are all *less* free when any lunatic can possess weapons.
2
So MA has very strict gun laws already.
There is no second amendment right to own a gun, unless you are part of a well-regulated militia!
6
@Robert Antall
The polis is the "well-regulated militia".
@ Armando A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. A well regulated Militia. Militia. That’s well regulated. What don’t you understand?
2
@Carabella
If we want to get technical the "well regulated" phrase in that Amendment doesn't really mean what the same words mean today. In the 1780s, "well regulated" meant something closer to "in proper working order" rather than "subject to regulations by the government."
To make the argument you want to make, we should be focusing on the PURPOSE of the Amendment. The reason we need these militias is because they are necessary TO THE SECURITY OF A FREE STATE. Those are the key words we should focus on. It doesn't say that gun ownership is necessary for the protection of personal property and home safety. It doesn't say that gun ownership is necessary for hunting or sport-shooting. It doesn't say that gun ownership is necessary to secure our individual liberties.
"FREE STATE" is key. That means a state (or nation, to use a term more common today) that is free from outside influence and not beholden to anyone but its own government.
The purpose of this Amendment is to ensure America's freedom from Britain. At the time, Congress was too poor to conscript and equip an army, so they had this idea where anyone who wanted a gun could have one, and in exchange they could be called into service if the British invaded, bringing their own guns and thus saving Congress the expense of having to equip its soldiers.
Anyone who says that the Second Amendment exists to protect their personal property, body, or freedom, is either a liar or has no clue what they're talking about.
2
How any judge, legislator, citizen, human being with common sense can look at the following chart; and continue to rationalize, defend, promote a nation's Second Amendment right is beyond understanding. Guns kill. We are stupid if we sit back and do nothing.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081
2
There is no 2d Amendment right to possess a musket absent a militia. But thanks for playing.
4
News flash
Just like anyone can buy meth or weed or heroin, EVEN THOUGH ILLEGAL,one can buy large magazines.
This is a colossal waste of time and political capital.
But it makes us feel good to ban something!! GREAT!!! ENJOY!! Too bad it won’t do any good
1
@Ari Weitzner Can oyu just walk into a store and buy Heroin? No, you have to track down a drug dealer, convince them you're not a narc, then make a risky purchase where either of you could be arrested at any moment, or robbed by the criminal with whom you are interacting.
No, banning things doesn't make them disappear. but it does make them harder to get. And when things are harder to get, people are less likely to get them.
Yes, I understand that you are upset that you might lose your right to murder other people with impunity, but that's just the price we pay for living in a civilized society. If you don't like it, move to the jungle, and the government will never try to tell you what you can or can't do ever again.
2
Classic asinine attack on me, suggesting I like these guns or magazines. I don’t. But good point, pal.
Sir- political capital is not infinite. We either use it for something useful, or something that is not. You prefer the latter. Good luck.
Prohibition also was a failure. I learn from these failures. That’s where we differ. You double down.
Any half way motivated lunatic who wants to kill will have zero trouble getting these illegal magazines. To think otherwise is pure fantasy land.
You remind me of those geniuses who think that socialism always fails....but this time is going to work for sure!!!
1
The argument seems to be "My right to kill trumps your right to live."
5
@Marie
Last time I checked it murder was against the Law in every single State in the US. So you have no right to kill.
1
@JustaVET - The justification for owning guns is to protect oneself or to defend the people against an oppressive government with a weapon for which the sole purpose is to kill. People defending themselves are not arguing for the right to wound or to make a threatening display.
And you know, while there are laws against murder, by standing against all reasonable actions that could make guns and gun ownership safer they are indeed preserving the rights of those who would kill to do so.
So, yes, the argument is that the right to kill (all guns all the time) outweighs the right to live.
1
@JustaVET Why should we bother making murder against the law? People will just do it anyway.
Isn't that the same argument you people love to use about why banning guns wouldn't even work? So why is murder even illegal, if people are just going to break the law?
3
I feel sorry for these judges that are having to engage is ever more vigorous logical gymnastics to ensure American's access to guns. It is high time that the NRA focus on the real problem--the second amendment. It needs to be brought up-to-date! Back when it was written Patriots could never have imagined the firepower accessible in department stores these days. We need to rewrite the second amendment to keep up with the times! And if you think this is ridiculous, then I suggest you read today's selection of right wing whacko talking points.
3
The Framers of the US Constitution could not have imagined the weapons we sell to citizens today. Stretching the 2nd amendment to the maximum limits of human imagination got us to where we are today.
Does the 2nd amendment give people the right to own portable nuclear weapons or chemical or biological weapons delivered by guns?
“Who is more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?”
― Obi Wan Kenobi
2
If “conservative” judges really wanted to allow guns as the authors of the Second Ammendment, they should consider limiting the allowed weapons to flintlocks and muzzle loaders.
4
I think we should do away with our traditional decorum surrounding judges and publish the names of the individual judges who make these decisions. Even in this article criticizing political judges, the author doesn’t name the judge who ruled against California. We must bring these people into the light and publicly shame them for using their position for political gain.
4
How many guns were used on 9/11? How many guns were used at the Murtha Office Building? The fact is, people who want to kill a large number of people will do so whether they have a gun or not. Unreported was that at Columbine High School, the two perp-students planted bombs that failed to detonate.
We must demand that Hollywood stop de-sensitizing our children to violence. It is the violent imagery that has lead to these mass murders. Maybe we need to regulate the First Amendment and leave the Second Amendment alone. After all, as King George III found out, an idea can be more dangerous than a gun.
4
@Jonathan E. Grant
What you don't seem to get is that we're making it easy by selling devices specifically designed to kill people en masse available in stores for $1000.
9/11 and Murtha took time and planning. You have to know something to make a reliable bomb (to your point the Columbine bombs didn't go off).
1
@Jonathan E. Grant
" the two perp-students planted bombs that failed to detonate."
You just undermined your entire own argument here. The bomb failed to detonate because bombs are not actually that easy for an amateur to build. You know what is easy for an amateur to do? Walk into a room with an AR-15 and spray bullets until their fifteen 30-round magazines are empty.
You people twist yourself into these ridiculous logical pretzels, because you want to justify making it as easy as possible for one person to kill another.
Are you genuinely arguing that every one of these White Nationalist terrorists, if they were unable to get their hands on a gun, would say "Well, I guess now it's time to hijack a plane and fly it into a building?" Do you not even realize how stupid that is? Or do you realize, and are just saying it to obfuscate, because people being brutally murdered is OK with you?
2
Justice Thomas builds his jurisprudence on the Equal Protection assurances of the 14th Amendment. So far the Supreme Court has built its holdings on the Due Process clauses of the 14th Amendment. As long as the public has access to assault weapons blacks will assert rights of self defense in like terms. Which comes first, the carriage or the horse?
99.8% of all gun owners have never committed a crime. Think about that. Only a very small fraction of a percent of gun owners, and a smaller fraction of guns, are ever used in a crime, and many guns which are used in crime are used in multiple crimes.
Of the 30,000 people killed by a bullet, many are suicides, others are righteous killings (by police, self-defense, etc), and a few are accidents.
Contrast this with the 150,000 people killed by medical malpractice, the 450,000 killed by tobacco, the hundreds of thousands who die directly or indirectly by alcohol, & the many thousands killed by sugar and red meat.
Do we ban couches and potato chips because such a lifestyle kills more people on a higher percentage than guns?
Or do we tackle the root problem, which is a) violent imagery of movies, television, and video games which are brain washing our children that violence is acceptable and b) a lack of religion? So many Americans are no longer a member of a church or synagogue, and some feel that religion and the Ten Commandments are no longer relevant in today's technological society.
Perhaps we need to stop banning G-d. and start banning video games in our homes. Put "Tom Sawyer" on your children's bookshelf instead of "Grand Theft Auto."
6
@Jonathan E. Grant
Banning G-d? Where is G-d banned in this nation? We have religious freedom! The last I read, there are more than 375,000 congregations across the United States. Here in San Diego, I can walk to any of about ten churches within twenty minutes.
I would certainly love to see more fostering of peace. But gun safety is part of that; there is no reason that we can't have the exact same gun safety measures that are common in Canada, where personal references are needed before people can purchase guns.
2
@Jonathan E. Grant - operation of motor vehicles, and flaws in their designs, killed far more people in the past then they do today. That's because society addressed the behavioral issues and also forced a reckoning with the safety issues of the vehicles.
Yet you don't want us to address the safety issues of guns? You instead blame video games and godlessness. Thoughts and prayers, sir. Seems an awful lot of the shootings happen in god-fearing parts of the country.
Too many guns is a problem as long as we can still do searches like the following and find lists of murders.
"man returns to bar with gun"
"man shoots ex-wife/girlfriend and co-workers, shoots self"
"child finds gun, kills friend/sibling/parent"
2
This old saw again. The most important point in the ammunition capacity debate is- who decides what is a "reasonable" amount of ammunition?
Some here say no limit. Others say 10 rounds. Some 5, or 3, or even 1 (sorry pheasant hunters). It's all arbitrary. Would you want such arbitrary-ness decision-making around other basic constitutional rights, like freedom of speech or religion? No, of course not! You'd want some explicit, grounded rationalization as to why your rights are limited.
I'm not saying that there isn't a reasonable option to limit magazine capacities. I AM saying that it needs to be a considered, researched limit that respects the involved constituencies.
You could say "if it saves one life, then why not impose the strictest limit possible." Ask yourself- should we restrict a similar right, e.g. free speech, to the strictest limit possible, because it can (and has) incited violence? NO- we are reasonable about it.
Let sober reasonableness, not driven by pathos (however tempting), prevail, and you will have the support of this and other gun owners.
1
@Gideon Strazewski
Please take a look at Canada's Application for a Possession and Acquisition Licence Under the Firearms Act (for Individuals Aged 18 and Over):
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/form-formulaire/pdfs/5592-eng.pdf
Why can 't we have the exact same application? Note that the purchaser must have three references (none of whom can be their spouse) that attest to the following:
"I declare that I have known the applicant for three (3) years or more. I have read the information supplied by the applicant on this application. To the best of my knowledge and belief, I find it to be accurate and I know of no reason why, in the interest of safety of the applicant or any other person, the applicant should not be given a licence to possess and acquire firearms."
Please, please, please tell me why we can't do the same as our northern neighbors?
2
@Heather
Heather, this is not what I was addressing but some parts in the form you've shown me seem to be related to argument I was making.
The form specifies some prohibited firearms, but the limits appear to support the point I was making- who decided these limits? What do they prevent? Evidence of absence is not absence of evidence.
I think we keep saying "common sense" when it's clear that we all disagree on what common sense actually entails.
@Gideon Strazewski
Well, we are a democracy, but so far none of us get a chance to even vote on gun safety options. I think a majority of Americans would vote for three personal references before a purchase and would support controlled access to guns that are designed specifically for mass human killing. But we are never going to get to know what the majority of American prefer because we, the people, have no say! The gun makers and the NRA decide the rules!
When a proper new President is elected, the President can call upon "emergency powers" to simply outlaw all semiautomatic weapons, etc., and require new registration of all guns. Thus this bypasses many restrictions. The current President has set the precedent.
3
All you need to know is one fact from this piece: sales of these most-efficient killing machines have "gone through the roof."
Tragically, even the most compelling arguments in the world have no power against the bottom line.
2
RBG: "The Second Amendment has a preamble about the need for a militia...Historically, the new government had no money to pay for an army, so they relied on the state militias," she said. "The states required men to have certain weapons and they specified in the law what weapons these people had to keep in their home so that when they were called to do service as militiamen, they would have them. That was the entire purpose of the Second Amendment."
"Its function is to enable the young nation to have people who will fight for it to have weapons that those soldiers will own. The Second Amendment is rooted in a time totally allied to the need to support a militia. So ... the Second Amendment is outdated, its function has become obsolete."
In the Heller case, decided by the court in 2008, Ginsburg says the court erred in its decision.
"If the court had properly interpreted the Second Amendment, the Court would have said that amendment was very important when the nation was new," she said. "It gave a qualified right to keep and bear arms, but it was for one purpose only — and that was the purpose of having militiamen who were able to fight to preserve the nation."
Our country spends over $700 billion on weapons defense? Time for the SC to revisit the 2nd. Let's also address the fact that the US is the largest arms producer in the world.
This is an international crisis now esp. regarding our canceling of arms treaties. Mexico may be the first country to confront US terror.
5
@Anne She's right.
1
The amendment prohibiting alcohol use was repealed with another amendment. The vague language of the second amendment could be clarified, if not outrightly dismissed, by a new amendment which could account for the technology enabling mass murder. They are called "amendments" for a reason.
565
@Lawrence Zajac
Further limitations on guns and high-capacity magazines are needed and should be consistent across states.
That someone can legally purchase a particular type of rifle and magazine legal in state A and carry it into state B, where they are illegal, shows the inherent problem in allowing each state to set its own definitions of what kinds of guns and magazines are allowed. (Of course, guns and ammunition can be also be obtained illegally, too.)
That said, I believe the author weakens his argument by using the vague term “military-style” rifles without defining exactly what military-style means. Indeed, I believe he uses the term “military-style” (and others use “assault rifle”) because it sounds somehow more powerful or dangerous or sinister than “rifle” used by itself. Guns of any size and type are potentially dangerous—no need to indulge in hyperbole like “military-style.”
Mass shootings grab our attention—and headlines and air time—even though they are a minute percentage of annual gun deaths in the US. According to the CDC, and as reported last December in the NYT, nearly 2/3 of the 40,000 annual gun-related deaths in the US were suicides. A disproportionate number of the remaining 14,000 or so gun killings were black-on-black homicides in inner cites, which along with suicides receive scant attention in the media.
Seeking a Constitutional amendment currently seems beyond reach; surely there must be a path to a Supreme Court resolution.
9
@Mon Ray: Professor Spitzer's argument is clear as a bell, referring as it does to magazines. No need to concoct diverting arguments which he foresaw and answered. One can merely read.
Guns can be obtained illegally? By whom? Surely, gun people fancy law and order. After centuries of gun progress, guns must have resolved crime long since. Surely, gun owners would not obtain guns illegally. Would they? Houston, have we a problem to resolve?
11
The Patron Saint Anton Scalia of all conservatives and strictly originalist interpretation of the Constitution and Second Amendment should not object to the right to bear arms, but the arms MUST be MUZZLELOADING SMOOTHBORE MUSKETS which were the weapons at the time the US Constitution was written.
64
It is unfortunate that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the 5-4 majority opinion in the 2008 watershed case, "DC V. Heller," and four of his colleagues, chose to dismiss the words at the beginning of the Second Amendment as prefatory only:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
In Scalia's mind, the Second Amendment could just as well have been written:
"The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Certainly the second wording above is all that the NRA, other gun rights groups and organizations and many gun owners seem to know about.
The Court's interpretation in "DC V. Heller" was critical to the key result of the case: An individual's right to own and bear arms did not depend on the individual's being a member of a militia. Individuals could own and bear arms for the sole purpose of self defense.
it is my opinion that there are very few gun owners who have read even the summary of "DC V. Heller" which can be found on the web. If they had, they might have noticed that the Court was clear in writing that the right conveyed by the Second Amendment, like all rights, is not unlimited.
2
The use of a detachable, high-capacity clip or magazine, usually 20 rounds or more, is the only trait common to all assault rifles and is the key characteristic that separates assault rifles from traditional hunting or target-shooting rifles. The word "assault" has a very specific meaning in a military context, it means to attack a target by overwhelming the people in it with as much gunfire as possible, so that they are forced to take cover and cannot resist the attack. The removable clip makes it possible to fire lots of rounds at the target and reload quickly to do it again and again. A detachable box magazine is not necessary for hunting, traditional hunting rifles use internal magazines that have a limited capacity, usually less than 10 rounds and have to be reloaded slowly, by hand, one round at a time. Banning the removable magazine would go a very long way towards denying terrorists an extremely lethal weapon but it would not be easy to do. There are already immense numbers of assault rifles and removable magazines in the hands of private owners in the US, a small but significant group of whom would be unwilling to peacefully surrender them to the government. A black market for these items would arise immediately.
1
Nothing in the Second Amendment specifies what "arms" are, and the "arms" of the late 18th century were limited to flintlock rifles and pistols, swords, knives and cannons. So a literal interpretation would be that any restriction at all on "arms" of any kind is unconstitutional. A tank, a rocket launcher and a helicopter gunship are all "arms." Besides, many in the NRA believe the right to keep and bear arms is essential to guarding against a tyrannical government. Of course, that government has some pretty large and destructive "arms." Shouldn't regular citizens have the same right? The absurdity of it all - The Supreme Court relied upon a minute examination of the Founders Intent in the 1700s. No high capacity magazines then.
1
I read this and it makes sense, but in an era of climate change and burning fossil fuels, why then should a car with twelve cylinders still be legal whereas these high capacity magazines not? In a world of nothing but contradiction, logic is useless.
1
Outlaw all detachable magazines, collect them and to build a national monument to the victims of gun violence. Anyone further convicted of possessing illegal magazines deemed Registered Gun Offender with loss of all gun ownership privileges.
3
@kel 150,000 a year people die of medical malpractice. Should we build a memorial to these victims out of their bones, or out of syringes?
2
Outrageous that people are proposing these steps to limit 2nd Amendment rights. We should be able to acquire whatever we want to protect ourselves and our families from oppressive government all the way up to small tactical nukes. After all, how can we stand up to the government which is armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons if we can't have our own? /s
9
Ed,
Please let us know when you will start to take on the might of the US Armed Forces.
1
28th Amendment to the US Constitution:
Section 1.
No person, except for sworn law enforcement officers, shall possess any gun magazine, clip, or other device capable of holding more than ten rounds of ammunition.
Section 2.
Violations shall be a felony.
15
No guns should be available that have clips of any kind. You want a hand gun get a revolver (you have to load one bullet at a time). You hunt, not a problem, but if you don't hit your prey with the first shot you're not going to hit it at all. (Source, my uncle who hunted until he was 94.) Hence, you don't need an automatic rifle of any type. These limitations along with stiff gun registration laws would seriously limit idiots who just have to go out and shoot someone for what ever reason their weak egos seem to require.
16
@Riverwoman
But what about those deer armed with submachine guns hiding behind trees? /sarcasm
(Ref: A Signe Wilkinson cartoon from years back)
4
@Riverwoman I guess that is why the automatic weapons you mention have been banned since the 1930's.
2
@Jane S Really? I thought I was pretty vague when it came to types? Guns with clips are everywhere. I didn't say assault rifle. Automatic rifles are every where. I hear them with in a couple of miles of my house all the time. As well as a couple that sound like 50 calibers. Those I don't worry about they are a little too cumbersome to carry around.
Why can't Americans simply repeal the Second Amendment?
116
@Carsten Neumann
It would take an agreement of two-thirds of the states to amend the Constitution. Given the way that NRA propaganda and NRA campaign contributions have utterly corrupted our political process, getting two-thirds of the states to agree to a repeal is an extremely difficult task.
Still, if we ever have another constitutional convention, that will have to be on the agenda.
11
@Carsten Neumann maybe because in the 20th century the precursor to every Mass Slaughter involve the government taking away firearms from the citizens. Or maybe because even with mass shootings rifles kill less than a thousand people a year in the United States while you're right to go have a drink kills like 15 or 20 thousand people every year from DUIs
6
@Carsten Neumann
That's a broader problem. Americans seem unable to solve any of their problems anymore. Their government is dysfunctional, crippled by a flawed and hopelessly out of date 18th century Constitution and by a culture that assumes America is the greatest nation that ever did or could exist and that therefore any suggestion it might be improved must be condemned as a disrespectful insult to the manifest greatness all around. Call it the United States of the Helpless and the Hopeless.
32
Truth be told, there is a second amendment right to own only a single shot black powder muzzle loader. (Have a couple, if you like) That’s the type of arms the founding fathers were referring to. I wonder why those so-called strict constitutionalists don’t see that?
36
@Mike O' the right to bear arms means arms as in what's available at any given time not just at the time of the writing that's like saying the right to free speech only means ink pens and talking in person but not the internet or Twitter. They didn't specify because they know things change. If you read any of the founders documents the intent was that average people owned military grade weapons.
@Armando That is your interpretation (that you have posted numerous times in this comment thread). It isn't supported by common sense, or even more people's interpretation of what the second amendment language says. It also isn't supported by reality, since we don't have access to most military weapons, just the guns that the gun lobby makes such huge profits off of.
7
They are only strict constitutionalists when they want to be.
5
It seems as the Second Amendment read by some people is "the right to kill people".
18
You can't be both pro-life and anti-gun regulation.
45
If the 100-round circular magazine did not jam (thank God), the shooter in the Aurora Colorado movie theater would have killed everyone in the theater instead of dozens. BTW - even Scalia also famously wrote that there isn't even Constitutional rights to handguns!
13
Staunch Republican here:
1. Ban high powered rifles capable of multiple shots.
2. Ban high capacity magazines.
3. Stop the sale of all new handguns.
4. Eliminate the lawsuit protection from gun manufacturers.
5. Stop the seismic shift we are having in this country away from punishing criminals.
With great freedom comes great responsibility. We have a high incarceration rate because we give people more than enough rope to hang themselves with. And a lot of people are dumb. They do not belong living in our society.
86
@Ny Surgeon - The party you staunchly support will do none of these things, and you know this because they never act on this. They are already talking only about mental health and video games. So will you keep supporting and voting for them? If you do then regardless of what you say you support their point of view and enable them.
34
@Ny Surgeon
Well said, Ny Surgeon. Yet you vote for people who will do the opposite.
Is your being a staunch Republican an hereditary position?
23
Only 2 and 4 on your list are necessary to dramatically increase safety in this country. And, they are the most palatable options. We should start there.
2
“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Its our national motto, and I agree. But an argument can be make that people only kill about the first 3-4 people in our numerous mass shootings. If we were honest we would admit that guns are actually responsible for killing the 4th and 5th on up to around 50 citizens by their capacities. Are you yawning through the daily slaughters with time on your hands? Write your congress persons. Tell them you are concerned about the quality of the people that are murdering us. Tell them you prefer our mass shooters, more often than not, to only kill 3 to 4 of us at a time. In all fairness to those of us still standing after we are initially surprised by the first rounds, we should have the right to have time to run away while our fellow citizen reloads. I think this can be framed as within the spirit of fair play. Our other national past times do have some rules. Reducing the capacity of our most admired weapons would allow time for the killing person, again, to be reinstated as the primary reason people are murdered,, and preserve our national motto. As of now the capacity of our most popular weapons share credit in the outcomes of our national past time events. The people firing our domestic weapons need to take back their standing as the most obvious reason for the body count. Vote to make mass murders more directly responsible for our national kill rates, not diluted by errant repetitive rounds not keenly guided by the human hand.
And let’s refer to them as assault rifles then discuss the need of citizens to assault anyone.
I’m waiting for the presidential candidates to have the courage to lead the way to a total repeal of the Second Amendment. While they’re at it, they should replace it with an amendment doing away with corporate personhood. Are there any leaders out there? Mayor Pete, how about you?
3
Just for discussion purposes: What if there were no second amendment? What then would the gun zealots give as their best argument against stringent regulation, the type that exists in civilized countries?
3
1. Moscow Mitch is largely responsible for these extremist right judge appointments.
2. What is the cost of a human life for these companies? $0. They are not liable per our laws. (Auto manufacturers are, the gun manufacturers, no.)
Pick up the phone and call your state and federal reps to demand action. Until the election, it's all we've got.
5
Arguments based on law, morality, ethics, decency, and humanity have had no apparent affect on the GOP's preference for gun rights over human life. Since NRA-owned Republicans remain unmoved by the numbers of people--including children --murdered in mass killings, or by the thousands who die every year from accident, murder and suicide, perhaps they should consider gun violence as an economic problem. Republican legislation prohibits the NIH from collecting data on the incidence of gun violence, but health insurers could provide information on costs of the medical aftermath. How many billions are spent each year on the medical needs of the people whose lives have been shattered by the weapons of war so freely sold for use against civilians? How many family members have given up work outside the home to care for someone permanently disabled? What are the costs of such withdrawals? The psychic wounds to individual victims, to their families, to their communities, and to the national soul are beyond calculation, but there are some costs we could begin to describe. Let he NIH start collecting the facts, so that we can begin hearing the truth.
2
Trump could make big points by immediately banning the importation of cheap surplus ammunition from Russia and China and the importation of military-style firearms from those countries. There is absolutely no reason that cannot be done now.
4
Justice Clarence Thomas turns out to be not an originalist, supervising matters as they were, but a liberal wanting weapons to be more dangerous and modern and carriable into all government buildings including the Supreme Court because that is imaginative. It breaks hearts that intelligent graduates of Yale Law School conceive Constitutional Law as inventing choices that risk known-harms to living persons. If the Supreme Court intends to promote video game concepts, then the 2d Amendment must be repealed to protect the living from the Supreme Court, gun nuts and weapons manufacturers. No matter how the 2d Amendment benefited the American people at its origin, today it risks incorrigible, accelerating and unnecessary harms and has caused eternities of harms to the nation’s families in the last fifty years. Mostly but not entirely from flagrant magazines. Someone has forgotten to balance whatever the Supreme Court is bound to balance including rights of the living to live.
The second amendment is impossible to decipher. Instead of constitutional lawyers interpreting it, we should have English professors give it a shot!
1
When the 2nd amendment was written, 50 caliber muzzle loaders were what they had in mind.
3
And there's nothing in the Constitution about a woman's "right" to have an abort, either.
So what's your point, Spitzer, NYT "Gun Control" Committee of Public Safety should be in control of the Second Amendment?
1
@Alice's Restaurant
There's nothing in the Constitution that prohibits it, either. So there.
4
@Alice's Restaurant There's also nothing in the Constitution forbidding a woman from choosing whether to carry a pregnancy to term. The Constitution is a high-level framework that deliberately does not intend to be all-encompassing. The legislature has the right to pass laws on matters not explicitly covered. The courts have the authority to decide whether or not laws infringe on matters covered, explicitly or implicitly, by the Constitution.
Spitzer's point is that the 2nd Amendment is vague on the concept of "arms". You can't own a machine gun without a permit, for example, and no one seems to debate the legality of the underlying law. Wait, let me correct that. I'm sure some people think they should be able to walk to their nearest gun store and buy any weapon they want. In fact I once read a post from someone saying the Constitution doesn't forbid private ownership of nuclear weapons. Fortunately for society, the majority disagree.
So how about large-capacity magazines? Their main use for private citizens seems to be slaughtering civilians. As such, I don't see why they shouldn't be subject to regulation.
2
@Richard
Wrong--"bear arms"--nothing about bearing babies. All the Cultural Marxist stomping can't change that.
In the 18th century, "arms" meant any weapon of offense or defense. So, are you legally permitted to possess a hydrogen bomb? Smallpox bioweapons?
Of course not: it would be insane.
So is allowing any American -- no matter how crazed, savage, or conspiratorially motivated -- to get their hands on something like an AR-15.
When you spread weapons like that everywhere -- as we've done at the behest of the NRA and the Republican Party -- crazed, savage, and conspiratorially minded people get them. Then this happens -- over and over and over and over again.
3
@Bill Camarda
Unfortunately the Supreme Court doesn't recognize insanity as a valid policy argument.
1
Sadly, these mass murders don't learn their violence from video games. They learn from us, the USA. How does the USA solve any issue? We either use our military or our money to bully, even though they don't work very well. There's no Defense Department, just a Department of War Power.
Learn about Racism? USA.
Learn about the immigrant "problem"? USA.
Learn about killing, bombing, invading? USA.
3
"In March, a Federal District Court judge struck down the 10-round magazine limit long established in California law. [...] the judge concluded there is a Second Amendment right to own bullet magazines holding more than 10 rounds, calling it a core” right of the Second Amendment."
Because that was the flintlock of choice during the founding of our nation. Why'd the judge stop at that? Why ban missile batteries and bazookas?
2
Yes, but also true that there is no right to own these WMD at all. The scalia take, the special inetersts' take, on Amendment II is a fraud pure and simple:
Conservative SCOTUS Warren E. Burger (1969 - 1986):
"[The Second Amendment] has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime."
3
"Most AR15s fire 223 Remington or 5.56 NATO ammo, although AR15s have been chambered with a number of other ammunition types, including 22 long rifle, 204 Ruger, 6.5 Grendel, 6.8 SPC, 300 AAC Blackout, and 458 SOCOM. AR15s can also shoot pistol ammo, such as 9 mm, 40 Smith & Wesson, and 45 ACP." according to 'Ammoforsale.com'.
Ban bullets over 9mm. The 223 Remington bullets do considerably more damage than a smaller caliber bullets. Ban the 223 Remington and 5.56 NATO ammo.
2
The exit velocity of the AR 15/16 is 3200 Feet per second. The Speed of sound is 1125 fps. The round leaves the weapon traveling three times the speed of sound or Mach 3. This is a weapon of mass destruction or WMD.
2
The law, and by extension, the constitution, is what the court says it is. This is why she really needed to win!
There’s no 2nd Amendment prohibition against them either.
It is very, very hard to think there are no members of the NRA willing to stand for more gun control restrictions.
Can it be that these folks are so uncaring, so weak that they cannot get together and leave the NRA to start a new, better organization that promotes legitimate gun usage.
One might say gun owners have rights, but for God’s sake, so do people who are happily, innocently gathering to shop, enjoy a concert..whatever. These people have the right to live!
2
No hunter or target shooter needs a semi-automatic, with any capacity magazine. Single-shot bolt action is all they need. Rapid fire degrades accuracy---leave it to the military.
4
@Jonathan Katz
First, technically, a double barreled shotgun can be called a semi-automatic. Second, people do hunt with semi-automatics.
Most important, however, is the fact that the Second Amendment is not about hunting. It is about having an armed populace that serves as a check against a large government which can and will impede on the other Bill of Rights. (Read the Federalist Papers). Some argue that in an age of tanks and aircraft, an armed populace cannot act as a check against government, but such logic is faulty. Just as the Viet Cong what they achieved with small weaponry against the US military.
2
Does the person who sold this weapon and high capacity bullet reserve have either civil or criminal liability related to the terrorist act?
6
Sooner or later someone is going to use an RPG and a mortar backed with a 30mm Oerlikon cannon. That should sort out the semi automatic weapons. Then someone will recommission an M54 and sort out the RPG and mortar. Then someone will get their hands on a second-hand Harrier, and then....
2
It is time to stop using the word conservative when talking about the Right in America. The Republican Party has become the party of right white reactionaries and the one percent. The Federalist Society judges being planted on our courts by the Trump regime and Mocow Mitch Mcconnell are not there to conserve anything, they are there to advance the Republican elites’ cosolidation of power and wealth. In service to this goal is keeping the little people frightened and easily herded, and mass slaughters both advance that goal and fill the bank accounts of the wealthy one percent gun manufacturers, seen as a win-win situation by Republican “leadership”.
4
In our country money talks so why aren't we using the tools Ralph Nader gave us to combat automobile fatalities decades ago? By the late 1960s over 50,000 Americans died our our roads and highways a year. We were a nation of 192 people back then too. Today, thanks to the financial pressure put on the automobile industry from insurance companies to make safer cars we had 36,000 deaths last year and we are a nation of over 330 million souls.
Why can't we do that for gun owners? They'll get safer guns and we'll get safer streets . . . money talks. Let's make it scream.
What say you?
3
@John Thomas Ellis Automobile possession and manufacture is not a Constitutional right.
1
The entire 2nd Amendment discussion in the US is completely nonsensical. The idiotic Supreme Court ruling, which perverted the English language to eliminate the leading cause ("well regulated militia") is one aspect.
The other is that the Framers at the time were primarily concerned about the still powerful British forces, and wanted an armed and ready militia to repeal any renewed attempt to take back the Colonies - their concern was NEVER for the individual gun owner.
Lastly, there is a persistent undercurrent in the "gun rights" fanatics, that they need the military style guns to potentially rise up against the government. In this day and age, that is pure insanity.
There is a strong political science thread, which holds that to be a "sovereign country", the government must have the monopoly of armed force, the military for external threats, the trained police forces for maintenance of law and order. If we think we must keep arms at the ready to rise up against our own government, then we are no better than all the Middle Eastern and Latin American countries which are in continuous violent revolution mode.
21
@Claus Gehner
The leading clause is clearly prefatory. It's not eliminated by the ruling, but rather confined to its proper role. There is no rule of construction of the English language by which the rest of the text could be read as being modified or nullified by the prefatory clause.
The Federalist Papers are quite clear about the intent of the founders being that individuals own their firearms and be able to be organized if necessary by the states to overthrow a tyrannical government. No person whose ever read Federalist 46 (see its ninth paragraph) could honestly say otherwise.
2
By your argument the founders saw gun owners as part of state militias to oppose a tyrannical federal government. If that were the case, then the founders would also have given the states the power to regulate its gun owners, both to form the militias and to keep guns out of the hands of federal sympathizers fighting the state government.
It doesn’t make sense to argue that unelected federal courts should strike down state gun laws because of states’ rights to resist a tyrannical federal government.
2
@Claus Gehner So you want a country like, say Venezuela, where the government has all the guns.
1
All this fussing over maximum capacity misses the point: no one on earth outside the military for military purposes needs these weapons and they should be banned altogether because they are dangerous - especially when deranged individuals have access to them, chips on their shoulders and use them. It doesn't take a genius to understand this - only politicians who are not corrupted by the NRA and who have the guts to face down the opposition in order to do what is right: ban them and confiscate them.
9
As with most of these white shooters, and thorough background check would have revealed all kinds of danger signs which would have prevented them getting guns. If a woman has to wait 72 hours for an abortion, and young white male can wait 72 hours for a gun. Mitch McConnell is despicable for blocking the bipartisan legislation on background checks passed in the House.
15
May I remind the readers that the Virginia Tech shooter kill 33 people with a 9 mm pistol and a 22 caliber pistol? A trucking France ran down 77 people a homemade bomb in Oklahoma killed hundreds of people and the shooter in Norway killed 70 some kids without using an assault rifle or high-capacity magazines.
This article is literally blaming a problem in society on in adamant objects and then assuming that if those objects were taken away people who have that much hate and murder in their heart are simply going to be like well okay I guess I won't go kill tons of people.
If you think this problem goes away just because you magically limit magazine capacity which is basically impossible and an unenforceable law then you haven't really thought about this problem or issue or studied it.
Rifles kill less than a thousand Americans a year meanwhile DUIs kill tens of thousands of people year and nobody is saying that people shouldn't have the right to have a drink just because other people abuse it.
It's access to Firearms was the problem we should have had more mass shootings when automatic weapons were actually legal prior to 1986. But that didn't happen because we didn't have the same problem in society.
The problem of the internet acting as a sounding board compounding a person's hate give them the opportunity to be famous and isolating them from people who might have helped them.
But tell me again how it's the gun's fault
5
@Armando We're tired of this highly specious argument. It gets trotted out every time, always with a sardonic final sentence like yours. No sentient human infers that any firearm has a conscience or wherewithal to fire itself. You might as well say that it is isn't the weapon that did the killing - it was the bullet fired from the gun by the person pulling the trigger. We look at the person who found the capacity to aim such weapons at other humans to see whether he was a basket case and decide that's the problem. No, it's not the gun's fault. But while cars, knives and bats, even a broken bottle can be turned into lethal weapons, guns have been celebrated in America as the ultimate way to end a conflict, whether it's in the shooter mind or in a movie. Getting rid of guns, as so many nations have done or regulating the so tightly as the Swiss have done, will not cause a rise in massacres by steak knife or Ford F 150.
6
Actually I’m pretty sure alcohol is denied to some adults (18-21 year olds) because of a propensity to abuse it.
1
@Armando
In 2017, there were 15,549 gun homicides in the United States. In the United Kingdom, there were 32 gun homicides.
Multiple academic studies show a correlation between gun ownership and higher levels of violent gun use, including suicide.
You apparently believe that Americans (among all citizens around the globe in developed nations) are uniquely angry human beings who would be running down the streets stabbing each other with knives and clubbing each other over the head if they didn't have access to military-style, multi-human slaying, rapid-kill guns.
You apparently also believe that if every American had the ability to push the nuclear button (if such a button appeared on their computer screens) that not one single American would click that button because ease of access to a nuclear weapon would have NO impact on encouraging someone to do something so devastating and having that button would be no different than no button.
Study after study has shown that ease of access and the law of the "attractive nuisance" prevails. There's a reason that Amazon has "one click" shopping. Because studies have shown that a shopper who is interested in purchasing something won't make that purchase if it's difficult, but will make that purchase if it is easy.
Sure, guns don't run around by themselves. But they make killing EASY. And military guns make mass killing easy. We have one-click shooting in this country. Other countries do not, so they have less slaughter by fireman.
2
It would be nice if life was good enough for people so they didn't need to brandish guns to feel powerful. In the meantime, yes, please limit clip capacity.
5
Okay, here's my proposal:
Ban all semi automatic weapons, rifle and handgun
Ban all weapons with greater than 6 cartridge capacity
Ban all weapons with detachable magazines.
And confiscate non conforming weapons.
This would not affect hunters, would not ban revolvers or ban home defense weapons like shotguns.
I am not anti gun, I'm a life long Democrat and I've shot since I was a child. I was on the rifle team at school.
5
Actually, if you look at the weapons owned and used by private citizens around the end of the 18th century, you will see they had access to way more powerful weapons systems than Americans have access to today.
This op-ed is historically revisionist.
@Out of the
What's more, it completely discounts all the history of the United States prior to the 1920s! How can it be claimed that the history of the US shows there's no right to something in the Constitution, when for most of our history at least the federal government if not the states observed that right as inviolable?
@Out of the
Huh? How is Brown Bess-a muzzle loading non rifled musket-more powerful than a modern semi auto rifle? Even a Kentucky long rifle is a muzzle loader.
@PDB
I think he's taking about cannons. Which civilians did own.
What the author does not understand is the it only takes a few seconds to change from an empty magazine to a full one..with only a slight bit of practice, one can change a magazine so quickly it seems like it's still the same magazine.
1
The Second Amendment of the US Constitution protects the right of free American adults to possess individual small arms commonly used by soldiers, which today means a selective fire M4 Carbine and 30 round magazines. If you have a problem with that you can change the Constitution, or get soldiers to use semi-automatics with 10 round magazines so civilians can be limited to such weapons. Simple.
It’s an issue of branding. A person is either pro-life, or pro-gun. A good Christian must choose!
6
A conspiracy minded, testosterone driven, young man, whose prefrontal cortex is not developed, cannot by definition be part of a well regulated militia. We may not be able to take his guns, but we can take the ammo. Russian support of the NRA and oligarchs’ millions in donations to Mitch McConnell are two reasons Congress has not passed meaningful legislation.
7
@JW. You can’t possibly believe Dems don’t take money from the NRA. Why do you think Harry Reid never got gun control passed?
@JW The real ammo is violent Hollywood imagery.
Hunters of migratory must modify their shotguns to hold no more than three shells. Why not the same for all guns.
8
If only the founders had been a little more specific with the 2nd amendment and state the right to keep and bear single-shot muskets instead of the general term "arms".
1
Why is nobody talking about what to do with the high capacity weapons and ammo ALREADY OUT THERE? We need a mandatory buy back program for the weapons and ammo immediately, in addition to banning future sales of both. And then go after the manufacturers.
While we need to stop future sales, we also need to get these weapons of war off the streets they are already on and implement ways to do
it!
Private, law-abiding citizens do not need assault weapons, even for their “ recreational fun.”
The national/political conversation protecting the “rights” of assault weapon owners is insane, as is the desire to own/possession of an assault weapon as a private citizen....
Enough is enough!
8
@MJW
When the Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed, there was an amnesty period for persons having unregistered machineguns, sawed-off shotguns, supressors and the like to register them and pay a $200 transfer tax per item and pass an FBI background check, or turn them in for destruction. The same thing could be done with the existing ARs and AKs out there. Amend the National Firearms Act, Title II, §202, Oct. 22, 1968, 82 Stat. 1235, herinafter referred to asd the NFA, to include semi-auto rifles and handguns with detachable magazines holding over ten rounds. Curio and relic exceptions could perhaps be made for historical firearms produced before 1950, such as the US M1 carbine of WW2. Ban importation manufacture and sale of new NFA listed firearms. Current owners who want to keep theirs get fingerprinted, pass the FBI check, register them and pay the tax. If not, turn them in for destruction, obtain a receipt from the Feds and claim a one-time tax deduction for the fair market value of the relinquished property.
1
Hunters of migratory must modify their shotguns to hold no more than three shells. Why not the same for all guns.
In our country today, the 2nd Amendment does not give the vast majority of people any right to own any gun.
1
The 2nd Amendment begins as follows: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state. . . ." It is time to well regulated the possession of firearms in accord with the 2nd Amendment. Even the Heller case which wrongfully ignores this introductory language still upholds the rights of the federal and state governments rights to restrict possession of military style weapons, to require universal background checks and to either require gun registration or the licensing of gun owners. I am a gun owner and hunter and believe that we should restrict possession and sale of military style weapons, high capacity clips and require universal background checks for all firearm sales or transfers. Lastly all gun sales and transfers should have to go through federally licensed gun dealers!
5
I think the ideal model is a modified version of the Canadian model (To Be Explained Later In Comment). Banning guns is NOT the solution, guns and the 2nd Amendment are both needed for many reasons. But just like the First Amendment and everything else in the bill of rights we can impose reasonable limits. For example even though Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos could field and arm nuclear equipped ICBMs with their fast money; the Federal government would quickly move in and stop them. If the 2nd Amendment truly provided an unlimited right to weaponry to protect against any threat (and one could argue an ICBM use would be for protection) then anyone with the means would be allowed to an ICBM, but we see that destructive properties of WMDs outweigh the protective benefits for civilian ownership. This proves that it is fully Constitutional to impose limited and reasonable restrictions on the 2nd Amendment. -- We should break weapons into three categories (like in Canada): Prohibited (Government, Military, Law Enforcement Use Only), Restricted (Certain Civilians Who Meet Strict Requirements), and Non-Restrictive (Any Law Abiding Civilian Over 18 would be allowed to own). WMDs, destructive devices, and fully automatic weapons would be mad into Prohibited Weapons. Semi-Automatic weapons would be Restricted Weapons. Manual Operation Firearms and Revolvers would be Non-Restricted Weapons. -- This method would divide weapons based on destructive properties.
6
Prof. Spitzer makes an excellent point: a move to ban large-capacity ammunition magazines is more likely to succeed than an effort to ban so-called "military-style" or "assault" rifles. It is those magazines that give such rifles their lethality. The ban on assault rifles (ambiguously defined) in effect from 1994 to 2004 did not have a significant effect on firearm homicides; such rifles are not commonly used in homicides. Hand guns can also be used to commit mass shootings, as in the 2018 Thousand Oaks shooting in California, which also involved high-capacity magazines.
3
@Charles Chotkowski Good point. Now tell us why any lethal firearm should not be banned. They have only one purpose and since I'm not a deer or pheasant, should I not be free from worry? Should I live life as though some person otherwise normal in appearance is going to open fire with his legally-purchased large caliber weapon?
1
@JDStebley:
Although used for criminal purposes, the constitutional purpose for keeping firearms is self-defense, as recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court, whose interpretation of the Second Amendment is not likely to change in the foreseeable future. We in the U.S.A. have always lived in a high gun ownership country. Our task now is to understand the causes and cures for the sharp increase recently seen in mass shootings. Totally abolishing private gun ownership is not an option.
@Charles Chotkowski The 2nd Amendment, like the 19th Amendment, has outlived its original purpose and should be amended or repealed and replaced with regulations and restrictions that keep self-defense in the home limited to intruder-stopping. And present ownership should include that all-horrifying thing called a gun registry. It need not require black ops to do so in a decent society. But barring a sea-change of the almost religious fervor for private arsenals made up of Armalite style rifles, magnum load pistols and revolvers and other semi-automatic weapons, I'm fully aware of the crisis we face. I'm a long-time owner of guns - I turned in or melted down those weapons in my late father's collection that were above and beyond their usefulness for home defense leaving me with a pistol and a long gun. I will be the first to turn those over should we reach a quorum on the subject. You articulate that abolishing private gun ownership is not an option; I argue it is. So where is the middle ground on which we can shake hands?
There will be action when, like with the Black Panthers in the 60/70's minorites become conspicuously armed.
Imagine if the Milita movement became dominated by POC?
And the other impetus would be a series of shootings targeting conservatives and oligarch interest.
The Las Vegas shooting was unusual because it was a Country music concert, that freaked out the right. The shooters original target had been a R&B concert, which would have been considered "business as usual".
The same with the shooting at the Congressional baseball practice.
But until these stop being outliers there will be one side of politics that will see it as not their problem…
3
Legislation is already in place. The National Firearms Act of 1934 regulates automatic weapons, sawed-off rifles and shotguns, and "other weapons" used in committing crimes. The Act sets up a procedure for permitting and registering them, and penalties for unlicensed possession. The permitting and enforcement process is already organized and in place. Violations are a federal felony, punishable by up to ten years in prison. The act, which has withstood most Court challenges, could be amended to include detachable magazines of over 10 rounds capacity as a regulated item.
Any competent House or Senate staffer could draft an amendment in 15 minutes. Let it die in the Senate this year and bring it back in 2020.
5
Nobody is talking about the real cause of the violence, and that is that we bathe our children in violence by the entertainment they are allowed to view. Video games where people are shot, run over or have their heads cut off, and television shows, movies, & computer entertainment showing every form of violence and gore desensitize children to violence and murder. By the time a child is 18, he or she will have seen thousands and thousands of simulated murders thanks to the entertainment industry. It is fair to note that most mass murderers are under the age of 25. This is not by accident as this is the age group most exposed to these new forms of media.
Many people have posted here that semi-automatic weapons were not invented when the Second Amendment was written and thus the right to ownership is not protected. This is an erroneous interpretation of the Constitution, BUT following this logic, it makes more sense to have the government ban or seriously censor video games, movies, television shows, etc.
It's time to get to the root of the problem which lies in Hollywood's anything for a dollar approach, and parents' lack of involvement or control of their chidren's lives. No longer can parents simply give their children money to buy a video game.
And maybe a little church and synagogue morality wouldn't hurt either. It has become the elite's view that religion is not important in a child's development. It seems the Ten Commandments are more important now than ever before.
1
@Jonathan E. Grant
What this fails to address is that virtually every Western nation has access to the same "violent" video games, movies, tv shows, etc. and yet the rates of mass violence via guns don't even TOUCH the rate of mass murder in the US. Every Western country in the world has seen the same decline in religion in every day life as the US, and yet don't face the almost-daily news of these shootings.
What, then, is the difference between the US and every single other Western country (and even most non-Western countries)? Access to guns. Period.
Also, to say that people JUST in the last few decades have become exposed to violence is just not correct. There's been more violence committed in the name of "God" (including, yes, the god of the Christian faith) than for any other reason in history.
9
Did anyone else notice that Mr. Trump only mentioned the word “gun” once in his speech. And the word “firearms” was mentioned only three times. Write your members of Congress, go to their town halls ( if they still have them), support organizations like Giffords, Everytown for Gun Safety, March for Our Lives - it is time for sensible gun safety/ control legislation in this country.
3
I asked a friend in Germany what it takes to get a hunting license. Here is what he said. He and his son (aged 15) both took the course.
"The course itself took 130 hours - 16 days no break - 8 hours a day. But it's so much stuff to learn that it's not enough to attend the course only. My son learns since 6 weeks (his entire summer school break time) each day for many hours.
On top the shooting test; especially clay and trap shooting is for most a challenge. So most students spent many hours with personal trainer to dial this in on top of the official course.
The tests last for two days; first day the shooting test and a written test. On the second day the final verbal / oral test happens. In my case, the verbal / oral test took 5 hours. There are a few differences between the states in Germany what exactly is required. In Thuringia the shooting test was less hard - but the verbal / oral test more stringent. Therefore, I took the test in Thuringia. In Bavaria, 60% of the students fail the test.
The back-ground security check takes 4 weeks.
When a students is under the age of 25 an additional psychological evaluation is required.
Also, it's required that you own an approved safe to store your guns. The police department makes unannounced random home visits where they control these safes and the guns. As soon as something is out of sync or you get involved in some other legal trouble they revoke your license.
3
@Jemenfou
Germany also lacks our free speech and free exercise of religion protections as well.
Gun lobbyists and the NRA are entrenched in their standard response to gun violence: Focus on the deranged individual, not the weapons he used. Fine, let's make sure that deranged individuals can't get their hands on assault weapons. But why do they believe that individuals who are mentally stable should have access to assault weapons? I disagree with people who want to ban all firearms. I would never own a handgun or any other firearm but I do not begrudge anyone from using a hand gun for protection or a rifle for hunting. It's the assault weapons that are the problem. Most mass shootings involve assault weapons and there is absolutely no logical reason that anyone should own them.
5
@nzierler I agree with you 100%. But gun advocates will quibble with technical terms, such as what constitutes an assault rifle, don't trample on my god given right to own firearms, knives and cars can kill, so should we ban them too, etc. etc. It is extremely difficult for them to comprehend that we do not want to outlaw the right to own a legal firearm, but that we need regulations to promote the public safety. It is disheartening to hear that the SC may lean this way too.
@nzierler
More to the point, anyone who seeks out a 100-round magazine proves, by the very desire to own such a killing machine, that he is not mentally fit to own a firearm.
1
Banning large capacity magazines would be a good thing, but only a tiny step. It only takes a few seconds to change magazines on a modern assault rifle, although occasionally those could be valuable seconds. Get rid of the rifle and you don't have to worry about the capacity of the magazine.
See Nicholas Kristof's excellent article from November 6, 2017, that argues for a public health approach to reducing gun violence.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/06/opinion/how-to-reduce-shootings.html
Although candidly, until we set about reducing the vast arsenal of military weapons in civilian hands in this country, I don't know how much good any regulatory approach will do. Still, it's worth trying, and something has to be done.
If the Supreme Court conservatives continue to ignore the "well regulated militia" proviso of the Second Amendment, it may come down to whether we are willing to pack the court to reduce the death toll.
5
California has very strong gun laws on the books. The murderer teen in Gilroy bought his gun in Nevada and walked it across. Any new gun legislation must become Federal law and apply to every state. Unfortunately, that will never happen.
5
The second amendment refers to gun ownership in a specific context. It refers to a "well regulated militia" The second amendment was written before we had a standing Army. The second amendment is out of date. There is nothing "well regulated" about non military folks with assault rifles. There are no longer local militias. Instead we have the National Guard, Army, Navy, and Air Force. They are our "well regulated militia."
16
When the second amendment was written arms meant muskets which can be fired about once a minute. We should make it unlawful to sell guns that can be fired more rapidly than that.
7
"The judge’s suspect, downright strange ruling is on appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where it may in the end be overturned."
These magazines are "in common usage" so this decision is correct under court precedent.
Scalia in Heller:
“nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.[Footnote 26]
We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.”
It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in
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Ban's on assault weapons, national gun registration, stringent licensing, requiring the owners to license the guns, large magazine bans, stringent background checks will cut the gun death rate to that in Massachusetts, high but much better than now. The last mass shooting in MA was in 2000. These are relatively simple measures yet we lack the political will to do this. Its too bad that we are so backward in this respect and have so little concern for the safety of our people.
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@Michael Cohen Your neighbors in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine all enjoy some of the lowest violent crime rates in the country. Another thing they share is allowing their citizenry to carry either concealed or openly a sidearm with no licensing whatsoever (which in fact, Vermont has allowed since the Constitution's ratification). It's not the gun laws which makes a place safe, but the people living there and their attitudes towards crime.
@Michael Cohen
States can do that, the federal government does not have that power.
The 2nd and 10th Amendment get in the way of your desires.
@Independent Observer
And Texas has open carry, concealed carry and campus carry laws. Ohio has similar laws;
So, you know, we could never have a mass shooting in either of those states. Right?
Maybe if you are right, we should stop trying to deport Mexicans and start deporting white nationalists and Trump supporters since they seem to be the ones that like to kill people.
The wrongly decided Heller case created this travesty, another example of a radical activist Supreme Court that continues to discard precedent and ignore the deadly consequences of their GOP agenda. That 5-4 decision fully misrepresented the second amendment and their false doctrine has caused thousands of innocent Americans to be murdered by guns. Many of our founders believed we would have no "standing army" (and we did not until after WWI). In 1787 a rifle could fire one bullet abut every 2 minutes and pistols had a useful range of 20 ft. Modern bullets and rifles were not invented until 1860, contributing to a massive increase of fatalities during the Civil War even though only about 1/2 of the soldiers carried modern guns. Find the short video by Chief Justice Berger who underscores the correct interpretation in context. To continue to take no action to stop this bloodshed is criminal.
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@Marksjc
So using your logic about guns then "Freedom of the Press", which was referencing the Printing Press would not cover radio, TV and Internet "News".
As for a "correct interpretation" of the 2nd Amendment I look to the founders:
"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." George Mason, co author of the 2nd Amendment
Can you cite any founders that back up your interpretation?
@Tommy Rath
As it turns out, IMHO, G Mason was wrong. I don't think many, if any, citizens of any number of countries with reasonable gun laws feel 'enslaved.'
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Judges determine what rights are granted by the Constitution.
And as anyone can clearly see, judges are appointed for their political views -- more so with Trump judges than others.
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Following Australia's lead and banning/buying back all semiautomatic firearms is the single most effective way to meaningfully reduce firearms deaths in this country. Anything less, including magazine size reductions, is meaningless.
For those of you who would, instead, incrementally build up to such a ban, think of the daily 93 killed and hundreds grievously maimed for life, and ask yourself if, perhaps, a bold legislative act is the way to go.
Whining about Supreme Court Justices makes great copy, but does nothing for safety.
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This is an excellent idea. I also like the idea of a hefty tax on gun and ammunition related purchases. Funds from this tax could be used in turn to fund gun buybacks, in which guns are bought back at a significantly higher dollar value than they were purchased for. For instance, if a gun was purchased for $500, then the buyback program could offer $1000, with higher incentives for AR-15s.
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@Jeremiah Crotser Give us a heads up before this plan is done so I can load up on weapons and double my money.
Most buy back programs take guns that are not a threat to anybody. Out of the "millions and millions" of guns out there, few are used in such crimes. This is all about people...we need a crazy/racist/terrorist detection program.
@David You're talking about a Philip K. Dick science fiction novel. People are not murderers until they have committed a murder. Moreover, we do have a racist detection program, and apparently it is the presidential election, only the racist won. So what do you do with that?
The time has come to go for full repeal of the 2nd amendment. If gun owners want to negotiate the kinds of guns they may keep (shotguns, small caliber hand guns, and bolt action rifles) then they are welcome to do so. You can hunt with the guns I mentioned, but it is harder to hunt humans.
My children mean more to me than your right to fantasize about fighting tyrants.
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Don’t need to repeal the Second Amendment. There are several Constitutional Clauses that address the “Militia”, and define the Congressional role in its function. Interpretation of the Second Amendment in that context leads to a recognition of the goal of ensuring individuals had ready access to arms, while those individuals were also a member of the militia, subject to militia rules and regulations.
@Johnson You can try. We couldn't even agree on an Equal Rights Amendment.
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@Johnson
Try repealing the 2nd Amendment.
But if just these states (Alabama, Arkansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, Georgia, South Carolina, Michigan, Kentucky) disagree, as I am confident they would, you will fail.
Who made up the paranoid fantasy that the second amendment related to resisting a tyrannical government. It is about maintaining militias which were critical to the defense of the northern border. If British troops were to incur, the necessary communication with the capital would have taken days or even weeks during which much damage could have been done. Border security, which was a real issue in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had to be maintained by local forces. At the same time guns were very expensive. Economic historians show that they cost as much as a small house or a good team of draft horses. There was resistance and resentment at the idea of being obliged to own one. None of these conditions, not the smallest one, obtains now,
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@Bill H: The framers chose a "well-regulated militia' for the purpose you mention, border security, but other concerns were equally important and endured far longer than concern about a potential invasion from the north. Slaveholders needed an armed militia to round up fugitive slaves. Frontier communities supported an armed militia to kill "merciless Indian savages" and take their land.
What's more, the framers were concerned at the failure of the Articles of Confederation to provide an effective response to Shays' Rebellion and the militia was intended to address that need -- to suppress, not facilitate insurrection. And that's just what President Washington did to put down the Whiskey Rebellion -- he called out the militia.
The ungrammatical, incoherent and historically irrelevant second amendment should be repealed and replaced with sensible legislation providing for the training, licensing, registration, and control of all firearms. Peace.
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Frightening to consider where non-stop technological advancement leads. There seem to be no bounds acceptable to ardent gun supporters, so in 20 or 30 years we'll probably be arguing about laser guns with 10 thousand rounds.
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@Brendan McCarthy That's because it's not so much about the weapon as the killer. We do see knife attacks, fertilize+fuel bomb attacks, arson attacks, car/truck attacks, etc.
But we do learn from our government that power and the military is how to resolve international problems, and more cruelty and violence is used to solve drug problems and the homeless/mentally ill problems and the refugee/immigrant problems.
Part of the solution to this public health epidemic of gun violence is to treat firearms like automobiles. There needs to be a national registry of ALL firearms. There needs to be mandatory liability insurance. There needs to be a comprehensive background check. Once you treat firearms like automobiles you close the loopholes of sales at gun shows and private sales. Let the insurance industry help solve this problem.
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@Carmel Mcfadden Automobiles are a privilege, guns are a right. Big difference.
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@Jane S
Voting is a right. And it is pretty well regulated and even highly restricted (in Republican leaning states, for example).
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@Carmel McFayden Most of the guns used are registered, at least in the sense they were legally purchased, with background checks and federal forms. Insurance won't help because the risk of a gun accident is low, and someone who is about to murder others doesn't care about whether they violated the insurance law.
My understanding is that we have the 2nd Amendment so that citizens can defend against a tyrannical government. "It's not about hunting," as they say. If that's true, then large capacity magazines and other killing maximization configurations are required, to go up against some future tyrannical US Government.
That said, I'd like to see the 2nd Amendment repealed.
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@Aaron
We have the second amendment because the founders realized the dangers and high costs of a standing army and because we had a perpetual threat of invasion by the British on our northern border. We no longer live in that world.
Remember, one of the first things George Washington had to do was put down an insurrection outside of my current city due to a protest against a very legal and constitutional excise tax on whiskey. His actions as a founding father contradict the "tyrannical government" argument.
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@Aaron
Your understanding is wrong. That is a myth promoted by the NRA. Read the 2d Amendment. The purpose was to allow for a “well regulated” militia, due to the fact that we had a small standing army.
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As a Second Amendment supporter, I have no issue with limitations on the capacity of gun magazines. On the other hand, I question whether it will make much of a difference. There is an interesting video u-tube of a person firing off a full magazine of bullets, and then ejecting the old magazine and inserting a new one - in less than one second. That takes some skill and practice, but changing magazines can be accomplished in a matter of seconds by most people.
The problem with assault weapon bans is that they are ineffective unless they address more than just cosmetic features. What makes a weapon an assault weapon is (1) it is semi-automatic or automatic and (2) it has a detachable magazine. Everything else - folding stocks, flash suppressors, pistol grips - is purely cosmetic and can easily be worked around. Unfortunately, the vast majority of rifles and handguns sold in this country are semi-automatic with a detachable magazine.
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@J. Waddell
Excellent post. I strongly suspect making a meaningful difference in risk to the public will ultimately require a cultural change and take a long time. Large retailers like Wal Mart and others can restrict what they sell until most people think "buying a gun" means buying a double-barrel shotgun or bolt-action rifle, not a 9mm pistol or a semi-automatic rifle.
At the risk of suggesting something unpopular, it might help if police also stopped using these weapons so they are no longer "normalized" or associated with heroic acts.
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@J. Waddell
Of course limiting the size of magazines will make a difference. Yes, a very good shooter can reload quickly, but any shooter can fire 30 rounds more quickly if they can be fired without reloading. And these mass murderers don't even have to be particularly good shooters if they are aided by a 100 round magazine.
As far as defining assault weapons effectively, that can be done by having, first, a law that establishes guidelines for what constitutes an illegal weapon and, two, an agency that has to review each gun and gun accessory before it goes on the market and make a judgment whether it falls within the legal guidelines or outside of them. If I were writing the law, I would have some kind of point system that establishes demerits for all of the following:
1. Magazine capacity and ease of reloading (can it hold a lot of rounds or allow for rapid reloading)
2. Ability to fire many rounds rapidly (what is the action and does the gun have adequate cooling features to not overheat under rapid fire)
3. Handling characteristics, portability, and ease of concealment (is the gun well-suited for use in combat-like situations, is it designed to be easy to control when fired rapidly, and is it easy for a criminal to transport or conceal)
4. The nature of the load (how lethal is the load, what kind of organ damage does it do, and can it scatter shot over a wide area quickly)
This really isn't too hard despite what gun enthusiasts like to claim.
@J Waddell - you left off the third key attribute of AK-47 like or AR-15 type semi auto rifles. Whenever I read articles from medical professionals in the aftermath of these incidents, they alway talk about the damage done by the high velocity rounds from these guns. I can accept semi-auto fire and say magazines up to 20 rounds as inevitable (30 to 100 round magazines don’t fall into the “reasonable” category). But what about bullets designed for battlefield situations? They are made to do do the most damage in the shortest period of time - to humans. That appears to be consistently the case in these kinds of attacks.
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So why not at least ban the sale of body armor to the public? It makes sense for law enforcement but certainly implies a private citizen intending to go into battle. And the Founding Father's didn't offer it up even in an obscure way that can be argued.
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@Andy. I’ve never owned a gun or touched a gun. And now you want to limit my ability to reduce my chances of being injured by someone else’s gun??? Tell you what. If serious research shows that limiting magazine sizes saves less lives than banning body armor, I will gladly limit some of my rights. What will you do?
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I believe that had the NRA stayed true to its original mission of gun safety and education rather than becoming a lobbyist for the weapons industry, our country would be a much different and safer place today. Had Congress and/or the judicial branch realized long ago that the Second Amendment reflected a time when all citizens were required to help provide the security and defense of the State, and therefore that the amendment had outlived its relevance, thousands of lives may not have been needlessly cut short. We cannot allow gun violence to become our legacy to future generations!
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The Second Amendment was written at a time when we feared the British Empire of the 1700s desired strongly to have its colonies back into the fold. Additionally, the weapon of the day was a single-shot, front loading musket, useful to frontiersmen who were essentially hunters and gatherers, and game was a welcome addition to the dinner plate. If "individuals" were allowed firearms, it was to harvest or defend against wildlife.
Other than that, there was a reason our Founding Fathers stated "a well-trained militia," because very country should be able to defend invasion with its "well-trained militia."
I believe, in the United States, they go by the names USN, USMC, USA, USAF, USCG, ROTC, state and municipal law enforcement.......... They are allowed to use weaponry.
Does anyone else need anything but a sport rifle or shotgun for leisure activities?
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@ultimateliberal Those "weak" weapons were powerful enough to stop the British Empire's Army and Navy.
Also, many states have more pronounced gun rights laws that make it clear states didn't just think it was for a militia.
@ultimateliberal..You do not understand the second amendment . It is to stop a tyrannical government from taking over the country. The military you mention are who it is designed to protect us from. Germany, Russia, China are examples.
My own belief is that those who have a passionate, perceived "need" for the weapons discussed in this article are invariably people who feel and often are, otherwise powerless and marginalized in American society. As an embarrassed and reluctant owner of similar weapons myself, l can understand and relate to that feeling. Mine are disassembled, with the parts stored separately. This renders them inoperable until the parts are retrieved and put back together, a process that takes time and effort.
l am not a hunter and have used my weapons solely for practicing marksmanship on paper targets, but l am now even less inclined to do so. The only safe place to for that is a rifle range. That requires interaction with people who "love" their guns. Since l prefer to avoid any interaction them, l am increasingly disinclined to engage in an otherwise challenging and enjoyable activity. Nevertheless, l am reluctant to dispose of my guns. However irrational it may be, the ownership and possession of deadly, military style weapons, provides the strong illusion of somehow being less powerless. l recognize that feeling in myself. lt appears that passionate gun owners and gun rights activists are unable or unwilling to recognize that subconscious motivation in themselves.
Unless and until the Second Amendment is either sensibly reinterpreted or repealed and the US becomes a more just society, we are in for yet more senseless, murderous bloodshed.
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@Frank Miller There are millions of guns in the US that aren't being used in crimes. That's because it's not the gun, but the criminal that's the issue.
The USA solves its problems with guns, so we're taught that violence is key to solving problems and for safety.
Guns require ammunition to work. Ammunition is a consumable supply. Banning ammunition will render gun into expensive bricks in a few years. As this happens the death rate will plummet. We need to ban the sale and distribution of ammunition with the full knowledge that it will go before the Supreme Court, who may or may not rule in our favor. We therefore also need to gear up for repealing the 2nd Amendment. The Constitution is supposed to serve the people, not trap them in a nightmare. This is a fight we have been avoiding, but it is time to take it on. It is our moral duty to do so; we must end the slaughter.
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@Bruce1253 So put a ban on ammunition and make people go to through the black market to get it? That means you can't go to a range and shot because ammunition is banned and no home protection because you can no longer buy ammunition. I bet criminals still will find a way to get their ammunition and use it correct? Since they get guns illegally anyways why not? Punish law abiding citizens from getting any ammo! Their gun is now a brick and useless as you said, end of violence right? I guess being Guns are not the top cause of death from violence as you are portraying in this post. When a sad tragedy happens like recently it is unfortunate and I agree some gun control laws are needed and further back ground checks etc. even though that still will not totally solve the problem it might save lives here and there. What about the person without any priors who gets a gun legally and then flips out and uses it? How do you stop that? Any ideas? Ending the slaughter goes way deeper than you are thinking there, way deeper than just guns it's about mental health and why there is so many messed up people out there today? What is it making the? Media? TV? Music? Drugs? There is a lot of stuff to look in to and it goes way deeper than just banning guns or bullets....
@Bruce1253 Reloading used ammunition is very easy.
"when the weaponry we have now was the stuff of science fiction."
The packaging has changed but the calibers and mechanics haven't changed; for example the Thompson sub-machine gun.
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Nonsense.
A Thompson fires .45 slugs, is heavy, is hard to use.
A Bushmaster is a radically different weapon.
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@Robert The Thompson has full auto, greater rate of fire than Bushmaster, and high cap magazines how is a Bushmaster the "stuff of science fiction"?
And .45 is still a VERY common caliber.
Radically different - I think not, perhaps even
deadlier at close range than the Bushmaster.
Some thoughts from a gun owner and hunter.
In California when bird hunting, I'm limited to no more than 3 rounds in my gun at a time. Certainly something to pause and think about. Even the ducks and quail have a better chance than the folks in a mass shooting!!!
How about mandating technology for civilian assault weapons that requires a slower multi-part release for changing magazines? There is no reason the average sport shooter should be bothered by the few extra seconds to reload their rifle at the range no matter what the size of their magazine, but extra time can mean more innocents escape and/or have a chance at taking down the gunman. Not ideal but perhaps more practical as a start than trying to force through "dead in the water" total prohibitions.
The technology already exists through biometrics to key weapons to their owners, not allowing anyone else to fire the gun. Another partial measure for sure, but it would at least have potential for discouraging the troubled teen who shows up at school with their parents weapon. Other creative uses of this technology that would limit access to unauthorized use come to mind as well.
Universal background checks and denial of weapon sales to anyone who has had ANY arrest or conviction for ANY (even minor assaults) violent incident should be the rule. There is no excuse for handing a weapon to someone with violence and/or anger management issues in their background.
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@Mike Z, I appreciate your thoughts but answer me this: what do we do about the reported 300 million guns already out in the public's hands? They are not going away...
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@Mike Z
‘...civilian assault weapons...’ - an oxymoron if ever there was one...unless of course you still fancy forming “a well-armed militia”. But then the question for you
is against whom or what?
1
Offer $ to turn them in.
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Real simple for "strict constructionists"... everyone who is a citizen can own 1791 era arms: single shot, muzzle loading limited to the size a person can "bear". So, a citizen can own a muzzle loading single shot gun as big as he can carry...if he is in a well regulated militia.
That is what the Constitution said then, and it hasn't changed.
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@live now, you'll be a long time dead
Yes, but the Supreme Court has found in its Heller decision that the right to bear arms is NOT dependent on being part of a regulated militia, thus overruling about a hundred years of Supreme Court precedent.
One can only hope that Chief Justice Roberts understands that his Court is in a precarious position. An outright repeal of the A.C.A. or Roe v. Wade (as opposed to the death by a thousand cuts that the Court is planning to inflict) or now, any rulings that make it more difficult to prevent the next El Paso or Dayton would be dangerous for the Court and give Congress a reason to pack the Court or use its Constitutional power to greatly restrict the Court's appellate jusisdiction.
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@live now, you'll be a long time dead Cool, now let's restrict your right to freedom of speech and of the press to 1791 era technologies. That means you have no right to use the internet, TV, radio, or newspapers, magazines, or books printed using modern technology.
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@live now, you'll be a long time dead So that applies to free speech, the press and religion, too? Does our right to trial only account for crimes at the time? Can taxes be limited to only those taxes in place at the time?
1
Why doesn't the Federal Government do what it was designed to do...Tax and spend.
$1000 per gun and $100 per bullet tax would be a good start. use the money to improve infrastructure and improve people's quality of life.
People may have a "right to bear arms" but they don't have a right to cheap weapons and ammunition.
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@Oliver High taxation is already proven to be a scheme for restricting rights. Otherwise, we could have a "press tax" and a "religion tax" etc. In fact, taxing religions just like all others is considered unconstitutional, as if giving religions legal preference is less "establishment" than treating them like all other groups.
Why oh why is there not a move to clarify the true meaning of the right of American Citizens to arm themselves as members of a "well regulated militia"?
Militia: a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency.
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@Michael Davias Largely because the militia has a fairly consistent historical definition. Even US v. Miller, often endorsed as a "collective rights" interpretation of the second amendment states the following:
"The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militia -- civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion.
The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. "A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline." And further, that ordinarily, when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time."
Regardless of what the scope of 2nd amendment protections are, the militia existed even when not currently called to muster.
1
It would be helpful if the author, Mr. Spitzer, had actually read the 2nd Amendment. Note the first part: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Our founding fathers created the 2nd Amendment during the late 1790s when the US Army was returning to Washington after a long campaign to drive Native American Indians out of their tribal lands in north central US.
That was to offer good land to arriving European immigrants. But the potential threat of the US Army to return and overthrow the US government brought on the 2nd Amendment. Note "militia." That gave the states the right to form their own militia (armies) and enforce the separation of powers upon which we have a democracy. The NRA only spouts the last half of the 2nd Amendment.
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@FSO ret.
That’s an NRA myth. Read Federalist 29.
1
This is an incredibly weak argument—indeed there is no legal argument at all, just a policy preference. The issue is whether LCMs are in common use. Given Mr. Spitz’s claims regarding their ... commonality ... I think he answers his own question.
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I believe the conservative value is that guns are necessary for citizens to defend themselves against an unconstitutional government run amok. Ok, ignoring the fact that said government also has tanks and drones, they must be willing to acknowledge, that in the land of the free, any individual can start his own revolution against whatever he deems objectionable. Do even staunch conservatives want to live in a country where any man can start his own little war over perceived wrongs? Is that the type of freedom that we are demanding, the freedom to kill multiple people on a whim? If this weren't a red/blue issue, wouldn't we find some more sensible solutions to this problem? Oh and by the way, if this isi a mental health and video game issue, what do conservatives intend to do about those things?
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@alan
Of course, it's the tanks, airplanes, and other sophisticated weaponry that mean the Taliban have no chance of prevailing in Afghanistan.
@alan: And the conservatives are dead wrong in their argument. The colonial revolutionaries championed the need for an armed citizenry to rise up against an oppressive monarch. Once in power, the constitutional framers became more concerned with preserving, not overthrowing authority. They were alarmed that the government under the Articles of Confederation failed to respond effectively to Shays' rebellion. Accordingly, they empowered the military force they favored, a "well-regulated militia" to suppress, not facilitate revolt. And that's just what President Washington did when he called out the militia to put down the Whiskey Rebellion.
Of course the militia was also enlisted to round up fugitive slaves and to fight, kill and take more land from native Americans. The ungrammatical, incoherent, and historically irrelevant Second Amendment should be repealed and replaced with laws ensuring that all gun owners are trained, licensed, and insured and that all firearms are registered and purchased according to restrictions approved by we, the people. Peace.
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People, we’ve become so inured to, so numbed by the gun-related violence and our institutional gridlock that we don’t even notice what an absurd reality we live in! We read Op-Ed pieces like this one that make a plea to limit high capacity magazines because imposing any limits on military style assault weapons isn’t even considered an option anymore. What kind of a country have we become? We’ve reached the point where we accept as normal something that should never be accepted at all. We’ve sunk so low that we’re reading serious essays about how to make the unacceptable and the abhorrent a little less so!
I wonder what it will take for this country to stir from its zombie-like state of acceptance, of rationalization. A mass murder of a 100, 200, 300?
People from other countries look at us and rightfully wonder what planet we come from, what kind of genetic defect has led us into this moral and institutional dead-end.
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Mr. Spitzer correctly focuses the debate on the use of high capacity magazines. Large magazines, especially drum magazines that can hold up to 100 rounds have no legitimate purpose aside from enabling mass casualties on the battlefield and the mass murder of people off the battlefield.
It is important to stop misusing the term assault rifle or “military style” weapons as it only confuses the debate. An assault rifle is defined as a weapon capable of fully automatic fire and has nothing to do with the aesthetics of the weapon. Semi-automatic rifles, including the AR-15, are equally deadly regardless of how they look. What makes them extremely deadly is the number of rounds in the magazine.
Calling for an assault rifle ban appears ignorant to people with a knowledge of guns. Such a ban already exists. Fully automatic weapons are banned. What people are really advocating for when they call for an assault rifle ban is the elimination of rifles that are styled to look like military rifles. The styling is not what matters. The rate of fire and the size of the magazine do matter.
In the wake of these tragedies, let’s enact policy that actually helps solve the problem. Let’s also take a hard look at what is isolating and radicalizing our young men.
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@JG One could easily define assault rifle as any rife designed primarily for combat, as the AR-15 obviously is. Even if it just comes down to cosmetics, such things obviously matter or these guns wouldn't be so ubiquitous at the scenes of the most deadly mass shootings.
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@Jeremiah Crotser An AR-15 is less powerful then your grandpa's shotgun..and it is the most popular hunting rifle in America.
@JG: You had a reader riveted until you wasted the comment, asking to “enact policy that actually helps solve the problem” without a suggestion. You convinced the reader of your bona fides but left us anticipating, like a 98 yard punt return ending in a fumble short of the end zone. This nation is short of the end zone. Seriously. Come back, Shane.
For all the "originalists" who see the Constitution as written and done and not to be shredded via "interpretation", why don't we look at the 2nd Amendment that way? That Americans have the right to bear arms, as long as those weapons are of 18th century design -- single shot, muzzle loading, with a barrel that's not rifled, and fires a ball, not a bullet. That's what people used back then, so let's honor the original intent of the 2nd Amendment.
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@Gene W. Actually, the term "arms" in late-18th Century parlance didn't mean "guns" alone, but referred to the armament that would be useful to a "well-regulated militia," including the most common types of "arms" that were used in the Revolutionary War, which were knives, swords and pikes.
In the 21st Century, the full range of "arms" available could be said to include everything up to nuclear bombs. I'll bet that even the most avid NRA 2nd Amendment gun nut -- and Even Clarence Thomas -- will agree that it should be illegal for private citizens to own atomic bombs, or surface-to-air missiles, or tanks. So, we already ban possession of some "arms." Why can't we do the same for rapid-fire, high-capacity-magazine-equipped rifles? Other than the fact that the pistol and rifle manufacturers have bought and paid for the Replublican Senate?
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Because that is not what the original intent was. The Framers did not live in a vacuum: they were aware that technology advances yet specifically chose not to limit “arms” to muskets (why not swords? Knives? Brooms?).
Additionally that wild treat the second amendment differently. Ironically you made this comment on the internet—something that did not exist in the 1780s. Should the government be able to restrict your 1A rights on this platform because the Framers “couldn’t foresee” the advent of the New York Times comment section?
1
Right on! It’s the bullets that kill; and ammunition control is more important (and practical) than weapons control. However, with open borders, ammunition control by one state, though well intended, doesn’t mean much when a shooter can simply drive a couple of hours to avoid the law. Fixed magazines and ammunition control must come from Congress and the President.
3
Sadly, nothing is going to happen. All this is about money. The gun industry is the key. The largest revenue in the US comes from it. Despite all the tragedies and loss of lives, the gun industry is releasing a new generation of assault weapons. Not for war, not for the army, but for domestic sale. For them, is not about morals, ethics, protection or the 2nd amendment. It´s plain greed.
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@Aguadejamaica rifles kill less than a thousand Americans a year meanwhile the right to have alcohol kills at least 15,000 people a year. If you care about Lives why are you not trying to get alcohol banned? Not only that alcohol is present in more than half of domestic violence cases. So why should millions of responsible Americans have the right to have a drink when a few of them mess it up and kill Mass amounts of people?
@AguadejamaicaThat is with anything in this country not just guns, yes EVERYTHING is all about the money and not me and you etc. and this is NOTHING new it has been going in since the beginning basically and the greed will not stop. Dollar signs is all folks see.
Would it be Constitutional to permit people to own and use high-speed, high-power, high-capacity weapons BUT mandate that they be stored and fired ONLY at a licensed, bonded shooting range, for safe use and secure lockup between uses.
5
@Naomi first of all high-powered and high-capacity are made up words all rifles are high powered by definition and putting ammo that fits is just called normal capacity.
If the government wants to say that certain types of weapons have to be kept and stored in licensed and bonded facilities and checked out for you that's fine but here's the thing... if someone wants to use them for evil they're going to find a workaround just like the shooter in Norway did in his very restrictive country and he ended up killing 77 children with no high-capacity magazines and no assault rifle
3
@Armando The point is to make it much harder to do so. Simple logic; not a complete solution, but any solution is going to be more complex than that.
1
@Naomi, NO. Your arena to shoot is not the one the constitutional amendment meant to clarify. If you want to shoot a weapon of war, you must be a member of a "well regulated militia".
Militia: a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency.
Lets get those militia regulated, and responsible both criminally and financially for any of their members's use in a crime.
With rights come responsibilities. I am a gun owner who takes that responsibility seriously and I see no reason for civilians to have that kind of firepower. If you want to shoot big black guns join the Army.
32
@Bill I'm sure that argument would have gone over well with cambodians or Jews or the Chinese or the Russians or Native Americans who were killed by the government's after they were systemically disarmed
1
As a waterfowl Hunter, federal law restricts field shotguns to 3 shells. Violations cost hundreds of dollars. As a former owner of AKs, murder machine, mass shooters rely and count on the gun nuts to keep weapons of mass destruction available. No reason to allow high capacity mags...unless you have twisted ideas.
21
@Richard Richard those so-called murder machines literally kill tens of thousands of people less than DUIs do every year. Your right to have a drink literally costs at least 15,000 people their life every year. And most firearm deaths are from handguns so calling your AK-47 and AR-15 murder machines is a little inaccurate since you don't actually kill that many people.
Scared white Republican males. Until they are ousted from places of "decision" making this will never change. Women and minorities need to get out and vote !
15
@Celia oh yes cuz that's worked out so well where do you think prohibition came from?
Dear perverters of the Second Amendment, consider this:
“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited…”. It is “…not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
That little tidbit comes from the majority decision in Heller. It was written by hyper-conservative lion and so-called originalist Justice Antonin Scalia.
25
There’s no second amendment right to anything other than being able to possess a gun in the home. Nothing else. And we get to say what type of guns they may be. The public has been sold a whole lot of bull by the NRA and its enablers in government. Our first course of order should be removing weapons of war from our streets entirely and magazine limits. Then, universal background checks. Then, safe storage laws, red flag laws, and other research based safety measures. We have a right to guns, but they must be used responsibly. That’s on us to regulate.
11
@Orange Nightmare must first join a "well regulated militia", one that is held responsible for the deployment of those firearms in time of crisis:
Militia: "a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency."
We have a gun problem because of politicians. The left are cowards and the right is bought.
7
A well regulated militia...
16
@semaj II Indeed, that is the 2nd Amendment.
Militia: a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency.
Being well regulated means the militia has a civil and financial responsibility that their guns are not used in terrorists attacks on American civilians.
9
The Federalist's papers that brought about the 2nd Amendment need to be reexamined, because what was true in the late 1700's has changed so much.
We need common sense gun laws and if the NRA had half a brain they would be the group pushing for them.
4
@BTOThe 2nd amendment is not the problem, it is the failure to read it as a holistic sentence, rather than two totally different amendments.
A "well regulated militia" is provided for.
militia: a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency.
6
@Michael Davias, did you read the Federalist papers and the arguments that created the 2nd amendment?
Amen!
Time to put a bandaid on your shoulder, Mitch, and allow it onto the Senate floor.
3
It is clear that Republicans believe in the right to life before birth, but no right to life after.
Oh, and the NRA does too.
19
If we are supposed to be a Country Governed by the People...for the people...and most all of us want assault weapons and ammo banned and better background checks etc...When is the GOP going to get behind the majority and start working to pass some legislation that would do what the majority of us want ?? It's another case where the majority is being ruled by the minority...except we're not talking about the Electoral College here...we are talking about the GOP holding back legislation !!! What happened to the Majority rules ?? Gov't is supposed to be doing the will...of the Majority of it's People ...that's what Democracy is all about !!! The GOP again is directly responsible for this !! Give the People What They Want !!
3
@Dave
We're a democracy except when legislators such as Magazine Mitch ignore the wishes of the majority and refuse to even bring up for a vote the gun safety legislation passed by
the House.
3
Regulate and require a license to obtain ammo .. Period...
2
@thinkingdem It's very easy to reload used ammo.
Oh my god, those bullets...they look just packed-full of damage and destruction. What they must do to human flesh and bone. So terrifying.
1
@Kitt Richards There are several groups started by ER physicians that are lobbying for reasonable firearms control measures. They know first-hand what bullets do, especially the bullets pictured here that are fired by military-style weapons like the AR-15 and AK-47 (5.56mm and 7.62mm). While relatively small, these bullets are designed to tumble inside the body and as such they cause outsized damage. The damage these bullets cause is horrific by design (i.e., the intended use is combat), but gun rights advocates like Ted Nugent dishonestly argue that these weapons are relatively benign because they make a small hole in a paper target compared to, say, a shotgun you’d use for duck hunting that makes a big hole in a paper target but is less lethal because it holds far fewer rounds. Gun rights advocates are quick to jump on gun control advocates whenever they display a lack of technical knowledge about firearms, yet, as is the case with Mr. Nugent, they simultaneously exploit the public’s lack of technical knowledge to promote falsehoods about firearms and the dangers they pose.
2
Our problem is Congress and the federal judiciary consistently protect the right to bear arms at the expense of the right to life / safety.
Only idiots fail to learn from mistakes, only fools deny the sensible solutions staring us in the face:
Ban assault weapons- private citizens do not have a right to military weapons
Why should Scotland and New Zealand implement strict gun control reforms - after one mass shooting incident- whereas we allow ourselves to be at risk of being gunned down anywhere and anytime ?
3
@Andrew Australia did it a few years ago, also after a mass carnage.
1
Weapons of war should never be allowed on the street.
13
The first four words of the 2nd: A well regulated militia.
Note the word "regulated"!
21
@Stephen comma, which means at the time about writing that being said the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It's funny how amongst all the individual liberties spelled out in the first 10 amendments somehow you think that the Second Amendment is talking about something other than individual rights
1
@Armando Individual rights within a context; that context is the well regulated militia part of the language that you attempt to twist into something else. Context is important; so is thoughtful interpretation, which flies out the window here. Notice how the rest of the free world manages quite well without unimpeded access to guns. And the vast majority of them are not headed for mass slaughter, as you imply.
2
I don’t see any constitutional argument here except invoking historical precedent. And the current Extreme Court is demonstrably out to trash precedent whenever it suits their fascist purposes.
11
Thank you Mr Spitzer for this.
3
The gun-crazy right does not realize it but their insane 2nd Amendment stances will make same people to move further left. Soon assault weapons bans, weapons confiscation, and eventual repeal of the 2nd Amendment will not seem so far-fetched. Such tactics will be necessary to rein in the very radical extremism of the NRA/GOP alliance and it's tommyguns-for-all idiocy..
13
@wcdevins Sorry, when they rebel, we will fill our prisons with folks who are a danger to our civilization, and clear out those who took a tokes instead of lives.
@wcdevins
There are 12-22 million illegal immigrants in this country who will never be deported. Any of us can purchase illegal drugs at any time. And you think you can confiscate 300 million weapons from American citizens , some of whom will shoot anyone who tries?
Good luck!
Bravo....will Congress ever get off their fundaments and do something????
3
Go right ahead and try to pass it then Mr. Spitzer. See how far you get. For now, our #2A rights seem to be safe. Be interesting to see how many western Democrats (not effete coastal varietals of course) will commit political suicide for your agenda.
@RJ From everything that I've read, it looks like a sizable majority of Americans favor stricter gun control. I hear what you're saying about Western Dems, but it's not just coastal elites who want tighter regulations.
6
It is The gun-burden are committing suicide. Their radical stance will demand a reactionary response - repeal and confiscate.
The Mind of a Second Amendment Lover
I’m allowed to keep and bear arms … any arms. So states the U.S. Constitution. I can’t deprive of arms just because some deranged person misuses them.
If I want to own an anti-aircraft missile, the government has no right to stop me. Just because someone else might use it to down a commercial airplane is no excuse. I might need it for self-protection.
Novichok is just a chemical … one that I have a Constitutional right to keep and bear. It’s just a simple nerve agent included in the “arms” of the Second Amendment that I can use to protect my interests. The government has no right to infringe on my right to keep and bear this arm. I might need it to dissuade intruders from invading my home.
I have a right to build a missile silo in my back yard and arm it with a nuclear missile. I get to use ICBM’s if I, and I alone, determine that I need an ICBM to protect myself, my family and my possessions. The government can’t stop me! It’s my Constitutional right!
Oh, and that part about “a well regulated Militia” and “security of a free State” … The Founding Fathers didn’t really mean that part.
17
Following the thought of the founding fathers on the Second Amendment, we should permit everyone the right to a musket, nothing more lethal.
6
The fact that the Dayton shooter was able to kill 9 people and injure a score more in what police now know was thirty seconds is all we need to know. These rapid killing machines have no place in civilian hands outside of the military.
23
The Supreme Court asserts that citizens have the individual militia right to bear arms against government tyranny. So I plan to buy anti aircraft stingers, howitzers, a tank, and a gun-equipped drone. Just for plinking you understand.
7
The judge said 10 rounds is a random number
Mass shootings only happen in gun free zones
@Thomas
Since the last few have happened with police on hand they were hardly gun free zones. I guess that judge wants everyone armed all of the time.
That judge is an embarrassment.
1
Repeat after me:
A well-regulated militia...
A well-regulated militia...
Seems the Constitution is pretty explicit in its expectation that the federal government is to manage and regulate the possession of firearms by its citizens. And to do so explicitly and "well", as in "a lot". It is not enumerated as to how, but nearly all of the possibilities that have been proposed in the past 20 years since Columbine seem perfectly constitutional.
It is not the Second Amendment that is blocking the regulation of firearms, it is the millions of dollars funneled by weapons manufacturers to the Republican Party.
8
@CB Indeed:
militia: a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency.
3
@CB
It is also the paranoids among us, of whom there appear to be many. Those who seem to welcome the thought of offing a "home intruder" with an assault weapon. I once worked for a liberal senator from a "red" state. Despite his principled (and often brave) positions on many issues, he knew that advocating for gun control was a sure path to defeat. The problem is not just with the gun lobby and politicians. However, the increasing sense of powerlessness of a population in a so-called democracy, with politicians in both major parties catering to the donor class instead of the majority, is bound to guarantee more and more of these incidents.
2
@Michael Davias
"well-regulated": controlled or supervised to conform to rules
Since the Second Amendment seems to be so flexible (...a well regulated militia...), lets go the other way. You have the right to bear arms, but outlaw all auto and semi-automatic weapons. You could still have the right to bear arms, hunt and shoot with your bolt action rifle or single action revolver, but mowing down scores of innocents would be very difficult.
8
@JHay
Truly automatic weapons are already strictly controlled under the National Firearms Act of 1934. We may have to come up with something similar for semi auto firearms. No outright ban, though.
Ban and confiscate. Those guns have no place in civilized society. Ban and confiscate.
Follow the money, to see what is in Republican leadership's hearts and minds.
NRA spent $54.4 million in the 2016 election cycle. All of that $54.4 million, except $265.00 dollars, went to Republicans, who gladly, open-handedly, took that money.
Follow the money....
15
How true; it seems as though we remain too immature, and insecure, to regain common sense, and outlaw military style weapons from civil society. To our loss. But judges contributing to the mayhem, allowing the existence, widespread, of the most sophisticated guns designed to mow down as many people in as fast a way as possible? This is ridiculously clownish...if it weren't so dangerous, and leaving behind a disgraceful trail of death and suffering, behind. Who are we, trying to show hate of 'the other' as our mission on Earth? How miserable could we be, however misguided in these Trumpian times?
1
Oh, boy, more "hunting" and "no one needs" comments. For the slower kids in the class, the 2nd Amendment is not and never was about hunting, and whether I or you "need" something when it comes to constitutionally protected rights is neither here nor there. Rights are not subject to a test of social utility.
6
@whatsthedeal
Rights may not be "subject to a test of social utility" but they are subject to yielding when the conflict with other rights such as the right to life, the first right mentioned, as well as many of the specified rights of the First Amendment.
3
@whatsthedeal
Since we are talking about what the 2nd Amendment says and what rights it bestows, which well-regulated militia did the two shooters this weekend belong to?
3
@whatsthedeal, as far as I can tell the words "well regulated" were in there for a reason. You may as well advocate for civilians to have access to all military weapons. Grenades are "arms", right?
In a sane nation the second amendment would be repealed. There is no excuse for this. The massive, ahistorical expansion of gun rights by right wing activist judges has effectively diminished all other rights for all people who are not gun-worshiping cowards.
11
I recently spoke to a gun rights advocate that agreed that common sense law changes are in order. But said he couldn't agree on the government entering a citizens home to search for illegal weapons. He believed that all recent laws permitted this. H wouldn't believe that no recen t attempt at sensible controls had this. Misinformation is the tool of the NRA.
3
The Patron Saint Anton Scalia of all conservatives and strictly originalist interpretation of the Constitution and Second Amendment should not object to the right to bear arms, but the arms MUST be MUZZLELOADING SMOOTHBORE MUSKETS which were the weapons at the time the US Constitution was written. No person should own a rifle more sophisticated than a musket!
8
@Lisa Yes! And the First Amendment is restricted to spoken word and printing press!
@Lisa...And I guess you think the Constitution was written on a computer. Technology changes !
We must stop using the Second Amendment as an excuse to allow our children, our parents, our siblings, our friends to die while they are simply trying to live their precious, irreplaceable lives.
8
Banning large capacity magazines would not save a single one of those lives that are murdered daily in our cities --- mostly by cheap handguns.
The number of victims on any given weekend in Chicago, Baltimore et al just about matches the numbers killed in Dayton or ElPaso.
Sadly, not much is being editorialized about those dead. Why?
3
@boroka
A high capacity handgun can accomplish the same thing. The answer to this will involve much more than simply banning guns. Like you, I wonder about why the weekend tally of dead and wounded in Chicago aren't more publicized..
2
A high capacity hand gun is deadly but can’t compare with the carnage caused by military style assault weapons. And we do pay attention to gang wars in Chicago.
One step at a time. Repeal and confiscate.
1-Large capacity magazines
2-Assault weapons like AK-47 available to every citizen
3-450 million guns for 300 million people
4-Hate rhetoric by Trump
5-Wrong interpretation of the 2nd amendment
6-Inane statements: "out thoughts and prayers are with the victims"
7-Million dollar a year salary for the 'murderer' called La Pierre-
No wonder the US has become the most violent country in the world.
We do not have to send our military to Iran. Terrorism is in our backyard (an in the White House)!
6
@Kenell Touryan Actually, the U.S. is nowhere near the top as the most violent country in the world. The U.S. ranks 89, with 5.30 deaths per 100K; which is near the middle of the 230 countries analyzed.
The top 3 are: El Salvidor, Jamaica and Venezulea with about 60 deaths per 100K; about 1100% more than the U.S. Ironically, all these countries ban private ownership of firearms. Dispelling the notion that guns in the hand of law abiding citizens is somehow leads to more homicides.
@Kenell Touryan
The 2nd amendment is individual just like the other 9 enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights.
Gun deaths in the USA are 22 times higher than in any other first world nation.
There's no 2nd Amendment "right" to anything.
6
Ok, let's go over it again, imo what history has taught us. It's not rocket science.
The best policy for a vice/dangerous object is legality, regulation, responsibility and non promotion.
It has worked wonders with cig. smoking and drunk driving and has been a miserable failure since we have not used it yet with guns.
In some way shape or form, most Americans break the rules above with guns.
The left says regulating everything to the point of bans is the miracle cure but says nothing about liberal Hollywood, the de facto media entertainment wing of the NRA cranking out tons and tons of grat. violent gun entertainment to our youth especially those of color.
The right says if only we can arm everybody and eliminate the inner cities all will be well, insanity to say the least.
The cure is above. Is America ready for it?
1
@Paul
Oh, don't go into the media violence, the First Amendment zealots will jump all over you. It CAN'T be the media's fault...
1
It's so emblematic of our collective U.S. insanity that judges weigh in with insane rulings on the constitutionality of magazines.
Opposing background checks for the purchase of assault rifles? Are you kidding me?
6
@Oskar are you kidding me? There are already background check for buying guns the reason there are not Universal background checks for Private Sales is because it's an unenforceable law. Let's say I buy a gun from my friend and let's say there are background checks required for all Private Sales. How is that enforceable if I get found with a gun how is the government going to prove I didn't buy it a year ago before the private background sales law took effect?
More to the point it is very easy to make an AR-15 all you have to do is drop some holes in the stamps shape of the aluminum and start installing parts. It's not a problem for anyone who's seriously motivated to get their hands on one
Walmart could stop selling guns. Period. It would be a good first step.
4
They have but a lot of good that does.
“Trend analyses also indicate that high-capacity semiautomatics have grown from 33 to 112 percent as a share of crime guns since the expiration of the federal ban [...]” 112 percent as a share? What can that mean?
1
A prerequisite for a federal judge to be nominated by Republicans is the belief that “well regulated” means “unregulated.”
Once you understand that the words in the Constitution have no meaning, it’s easy to be a strict constructionist.
7
Americans worry that ill-intendned “foreigners” will exploit the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution to harm us. Yet conservatives, acting on the NRA’s behest, have perverted the Second Amendment far beyond its clear intent of supporting the 18th century need for militias in the absence of a standing army. We don’t need “foreigners” to undermine our freedom. Conservatives are doing a fine job of it themselves with immoral, willfull blindness to the harm they have enabled.
6
@John-Manuel Andriote and yet these evil assault rifles kill less than a thousand people a year in the United States yet for some reason it's okay to go have a drink because that right ends up killing 15,000 people a year. You only care about speaking in platitudes and ideology to actually don't care about what kills how many people you don't care about life. You care about an agenda
Contrary to what so many of you think or believe, the problem is not the weapon. The problem is the person using the weapon in these cases.
There are many theories as to why these people are commiting these atrocities. Choose your favorite. However, until the root cause is discerned, addressed, and remedied, this will continue to happen.
To the author of this hit piece, both of this weekends perpetrators were aligned with left leaning ideologies. I know this does not fit your rhetoric narrative, but, it is true.
3
@Warren
Wrong. Many studies have been done, and the easy availability of guns in the US is the obvious reason why our murder rate trumps that of every other advanced industrial nation state.
7
@Warren, the weapon is part of the problem. Of course it takes the person to weild it, but obviously the more deadly the weapon the more destruction can be wrought with it.
You have a strange understanding of what constitutes left leaning ideology.
2
@Warren
Nonsense.
Gun violence in the US is directly linked to the number of guns in the US.
Countries that have restrictions on gun ownership just don't have the same amount of gun violence. It's not the people, it's the guns.
2
The courts got this RIGHT on this for many years before Heller. There had been 8 SCOTUS decisions that held that the 2nd amendment did NOT apply to an "unfettered" individual, i.e. a person not a member of a "well-regulated militia," The very conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger once said that anyone who held that the 2nd amendment gave such a person the right to own a gun was "perpatrating a fraud upon the American public."
20
@Len Charlap
Burger was flat wrong. Simple.
I laugh - and cry - at the use of the term “gun rights”, as if guns had rights. No, people have rights, and responsibilities. So let’s rename those who demand the right to own deadly weapons and the accessories to make them deadlier what they really are, the “right to kill” lobby.
This lobby makes no pretense about being anything else. When they claim they have the right to defend themselves, they mean the right to kill. Some of them believe that includes the right to kill to defend themselves from discourteous kids playing loud music or from black boys wearing hoodies or from people who knock on their doors to ask for help.
My father was a Green Beret and the commander of a real militia, the 19th Special Forces in the Utah National Guard. He used to pass out copies of the Constitution of the United States. His copy was well worn on the page with the Second Amendment, the whole Second Amendment, including the words “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state”. He also flagged Article 1, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16 which describe the role of Congress in organizing, arming and disciplining the Militia to “execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions”. He understood the power of weapons, like his M-16, to kill. He believed in the Constitution, the whole Constitution, and he swore an oath to defend it. His fear was that he would have to defend it against Americans. His fear was Americans who claimed the right to kill.
9
@Mike Iker "I laugh - and cry - at the use of the term “gun rights”, as if guns had rights. No, people have rights, and responsibilities"
That's funny. I laugh - and cry - at the use of the term "gun violence," as if a gun could commit such a thing. No, people commit crimes of violence and should be held responsible when they do.
1
@Independent Observer, or we can try to prevent violence of any kind from being committed in the first place. There are many different tacks that can be taken, including investment in poor communities, access to education and job training, better mental health access, and restrictions on guns.
3
@Independent Observer - Yes, let's call it what it is - violence by people using guns. And since we both acknowledge that some people claim the right to kill. let's make it less convenient, less efficient, less remote for them. Let's make them wade into the crowd and knife or bludgeon people. Fewer victims would die after these attacks and considering the cowardice of people using guns to kill at a distance, fewer of the "right to kill" perpetrators would commit attacks to begin with.
3
All these automatic weapons and all this capacity. We can sit here all we want and say something needs to be done....But the damage is already done. The guns are already out there. Do you think if we wait a few years these weapons will wear out like a washing machine or a car and then the owners won't be able to find a replacement? Or that, if banned, the people who have stockpiled them because of their fear the government will come and get them will just hand them over? Let's be real, America. America is now one of the most dangerous places in the world to live. We are no better than Afghanistan or Iraq. Their 'marketplaces' are our Wal Marts. Don't be so arrogant to think we aren't like them. And apparently our leaders are no more willing or able to address the problem than theirs are. Oh but compare Mitch to an Iraqi politician. Outrageous. Nope...no corruption here. No caving to the bidding of the 'special interests' like they do in those uncivilized places. Not Mitch. No way, no how. "Mitch, Wayne LaPierre on line 2".
4
@Walking Man none of these shooters had actual automatic weapons those were banned in 1986 and prior to that no one actually used them for evil Which is a clear indication that the problem isn't with inanimate objects but with something in society
@Armando High capacity magazines on semiautomatics work just fine for mass killing. If you need to up your ante, you just pick up a bump stock (though at least for now, you will have to find one of the preexisting ones that gun fanatics didn't turn over to law enforcement). There is no need for a tommy submachine gun anymore; that was what gangsters used last century.
1
These high powered military rifles need to be banned completely. Not only banned but outlawed to own, just like child pronography is. I'm done with our unsafe gun laws.
3
@Charleston Yank these high-powered military rifles basically kill less people year than almost anything else you can name including hammers fists pools and especially DUIs
Even mass shootings were talking less than a thousand people. Meanwhile you probably have no problem with the right to go buy alcohol and enjoy a drink even though that right comes with a price tag of about 15000 people a year are killed because some Americans are not responsible with alcohol.
1
If a sentence has both an absolute phrase and an independent clause, the absolute phrase absolutely limits the independent clause. Therefore, the Second Amendment grants the right to bear arms only to members of a well-regulated militia. You want to carry that weapon? Then get out on the village green and drill in August heat and December sleet. Our failure to understand grammar is absolutely killing us.
9
@Drusilla Hawke
Which of the clauses specifies that a citizen must be a member of a militia in order to exercise the right? Explain exactly why the possibility of the fulfillment of the militia does not rest upon the widespread availability of citizens who keep and bear arms.
1
Stop calling them "military style weapons." Call them what they are Weapons of Mass Destruction, WMD. We fought a war on the premise that another country had them. Time to enforce the law, and create laws against them here at home.
7
There's no second amendment right to guns, at all, unless they are associated with an organized militia. It's 2019. None of us has to kill irate, aggrieved Indians (as we take everything that's dear to them,) or go out and kill our own food. There is no reason for anyone, who is not law enforcement, to have weapons. If we're going to allow it, the gun owner, current and prospective, must pass a rigorous skills test (with renewal testing,) a deep background check, and carry a government approved license. Let's buy up as many guns as we can, to try to stem this horrible trend in our country. Bring back peace. It's no wonder we're involved in so many wars. Americans must just love fighting, dying, and watching others suffer. Sick.
5
Every time, every time. All sorts of exotic arguments. These murders and yes they are murders can be stopped. Australia did it, New Zealand has done it, There are none in other countries.
6
I argue against calling the guns used in the shootings 'assault' weapons, or 'military-style' weapons. Reporters should call them what they are... weapons of mass murder. They literally have no other purpose.
As far as magazine capacity, please remember that when the Second Amendment was written, both short and long guns could fire three rounds per minute.
The west was won with a six-shooter.
The U.S. has been in thrall to a terrorist organization for decades now. Let's vote the the lackeys of the NRA out of office and pass a law limiting magazines to six rounds, with significant mandatory jail time for violators.
Dan Kravitz
6
Where does this folly end? Did our forefathers give us the right to bear any type of arms? Even those they never could have imagined? Do we also have the right to bear nuclear arms? Should every American have the right to keep a hydrogen bomb in their garage? Following the logic of conservative judges, the answer is yes.
5
Sales will go through the roof, nothing will be done.
1
I could ask a question: do Americans have any idea how the rest of the world looks on in disbelief when they read articles like this one where a professor seriously thinks reducing magazines to only 10 rounds will help your problem?
No civilian needs an assault weapon of any kind. We’re not coming back to reclaim our province.
Back to the question; it’s meaningless because I suspect that most pro gun Americans don’t give a toss about what the world thinks.
4
Of the government can have them, why can't the people? Who served who?
Mr. Spitzer is wrong about "Assault Weapons", large capacity magazines and the 2nd Amendment in general.
First, I would love to hear Mr. Spitzer definition of an "assault weapon". This is something the anti-gun crowd has been struggling with for years. In their ham-fisted attempt to regulate modern sporting firearms, they have resorted to the absurd. They have banned adjustable stocks, meaning the but stock's can't be adjusted to fit different shooters; as if that reduced the lethality of the weapon. California has banned pistol style grips, making it harder to hold a weapon, making it dangerous to the shooter and others; as if that reduces lethality. In New Jersey, even bb guns are classified as "assault weapons".
Why are real statistics missing here? That is by dishonest design, as the numbers don't match the rhetoric. All rifles, including "Assault weapons", kill less people in American than Hands. Yes, hands kill more people than AR-15's; less than hammers, less than knives. The word "Assault" is a smear, against modern sporting firearms. FBI:
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-4.xls
More importantly, the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms is for revolt/revolution against a tyrannical government; not hunting or self defense. Fortunately, we have a stable, democratic and civil society today. However, if dictatorship were to arise, large capacity magazines would be critical for defense.
3
@Ayaz
AR-15 is a "modern sporting firearm"? Sport as in hunting?
That's like saying dynamiting a pond is fishing. Or maybe sport as in target shooting, ie. practicing killing other people? Fun times!
1
When we have guns that will fire radioactive nuclear bullets, will they also be protected by the Constitution?
5
Thank you for pointing this out.
I hope the Republicans read this.
Assault rifles need to be removed. They need to be legally banned. Lengthy Prison time for those who break the law.
2
Be rational: regulate guns like cars, for safety
...central registries for title certificates and transfers
....mandate liability insurance and secure storage
.....'rules of the road' for safer use and storage.
5
Gun rights zealots don’t fancy themselves as mere equals to the rest of us, most also have a severe “Superman” complex. They think their guns gives them the stature of a civic leader, protector and supreme exemplar of what it means to be a patriot. They aren’t mere equals, but lords of political enforcement that tower above us. Does the constitution really say that a single individual has the unchallengeable right to wield the virtually instantaneous power of life and death simultaneously over hundreds of fellow citizens? Of course it doesn’t. The immorality of mass produced, high capacity, rapid fire weaponry is now far beyond clear. It is now time to put an end to the world’s most costly and ridiculous hobby. It is time to bring these ego inflated super-citizens back down to earth with the rest of us.
5
Mental Illness isn't guaranteed by the Second Amendment either. When are we going to do something about that?
1
The mental illness killing us is our worship of guns. Let's tackle that. You can start by turning your weapons in. Repeal and confiscate.
1
The only way there will be meaningful gun reform is under the following conditions:
1. Dems win White House
2. Dems win both Houses
3. Dems increase number of available SCOTUS appointments
4. Dems get rid of Electoral College
5. Dems revoke NRA tax exempt status
6. Dems proceed with litigation against NRA
(Similar to the class action lawsuit against the tobacco companies for its knowing contributions to the mass shootings in the USA. As with cancer and smoking evidence, the academic and professional studies are out there proving that the NRA is a cancer too.)
Done. This is how change happens. Boldly and positively.
1
The gunman in Dayton was able to shoot 36 people in 30 seconds because he had an AR-15 style weapon and large-capacity magazine.
This is pure insanity. We know what the result of this technology will be. What's the NRA's rationale for 100-round magazines?
4
Shame upon US legislators.
Automatic weapons should all be banned.
There is no logiocal reasoin to own an assault rifle or a machione gun. The right to bear arms was intended by the founding fathers to protect the state through a well armed militia which is legislated and contriolled. The intention has been hijacked and bastardised by vestyed interests.
Justice Clarence Thomas claims to be an “originalist,” that is, to quote William Baude, he believes “that the words in the Constitution have the same meaning over time, even if modern circumstances change, and even if we wish the words meant something else.”
Amendment 2 says that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” When the founders wrote, the word “Arms” meant flintlocks and muzzle loaders, not semi-automatic weapons. In an originalist interpretation, the right to keep and bear arms applies only to arms that we would today consider antiques.
And certainly, as Mr. Spitzer points out, there is no second amendment right to large-capacity magazines
2
Thought the Supreme Court was per Trump to be "originalist" in devotion to the Founding Fathers. At the time of the Constitution that would mean a maximum of one round in a musket. right?
2
Finally, a clear voice of reason. Let's debate and redefine what "arms" means to interpret the 2nd amendment in the 21st century. We're not talking about muskets and single-shot rifles anymore.
1
There is no legitimate civilian need for a magazine that holds more than ten rounds, yet AR type rifles are usually sold with a 30 round magazine and they're widely available online or at any gun store. Glocks and other semi-auto pistols can also be fitted with magazines holding 30 rounds or more and are easier to conceal than a rifle. I've long thought that the focus on banning AR type rifles as the cure-all is misguided.
2
In DC v Heller, Justice Scalia said that there is a "traditional" right to own guns, but noted that that does not extend to unusual and dangerous guns and applied only to "militia" style weapons. What is the "traditional" USE of an AK47?
3
Should we Americans dare believe that enough members of Congress have the guts today to pass strong gun control legislation? I doubt it. Most of them from either party think of only one thing before they state their position on any subject: if I vote my conscious, will the voters support me to remain in office? I sincerely doubt that 10% of our Congressmen/women have the spine to vote their conviction. No way; they are afraid.
3
I am so sick of hearing about how the second amendment guarantees every American’s right to own any sort of gun they choose.
First, READ the second amendment. It is vague at best.
Second, what is the maximum number of rounds of ammo a weapon could hold at the time the second amendment was written? How many shots could you fire before you had to reload?
One? Two?
5
One. And loading a musket has a couple of steps.
1
That’d be one round with about a 30 second reload time if you were good at it. Relying on an 18th century document in 21st century reality is bizzare at best. Civilization destroying at worst.
2
The suicide rate has increased 30%. Whatever you want to call these shootings, Hate crimes or acts of terrorism they are becoming more frequent and often by the mentally ill. What are we doing to ourselves?
My solution which will be ignored will actually work. Ownership of automatic weapons and short barrel rifles require a federal tax stamp to purchase where legal. There is little interest in them and they rarely are used for crimes. I'm not saying it's the reason they are not used in crimes. Only that they are rarely purchased. Put a Federal Tax Stamp on the purchase of weapons with large capacity magazines.
Even the NY Post wants to bann
1
The U.S. needs a new "Life Value Index" (LVI) that would be updated every time there is a mass shooting. It would be calculated like this:
(Annual IRA Donations to Congressional Congressmen) divided by (the numbers in mass murders) equals (the value of a life).
The LVI could be further refined by breaking out the amount of Russian money that flows through the IRA for a separate RLVI.
Of course, Congressional Republicans will complain that such calculations are callous and cannot possibly substitute for thoughts and prayers.
3
The large magazine bunch isn't concerned about the right to bear arms, but the right to rebellion--that mythical, non-existent right to overthrow the government by violent means. It exists nowhere in law, only in the fevered imaginations of the fringe.
It draws on the famous quote from Thomas Jefferson, on the occasion of Shay's Rebellion: “What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure,”
Which is ironic, given the fact that when TJ had the chance to do a little refreshing of his own--when the British invaded Virginia in 1781--he rode away in the opposite direction.
It also ignores what George Washington wrote about the same time: " . . . for if three years ago, any person had told me that at this day, I should see such a formidable rebellion against the laws & constitutions of our own making as now appears I should have thought him a bedlamite—a fit subject for a mad house. "
It's " . . . the laws & constitutions of our own making . . . " that these extremists ignore. Any government in which they are a minority is one they deem tyranny.
3
Most of that fringe are waiting for the Confederacy to rise again. Traitors.
1
Thank you, Editors, for addressing this problem, but you left out one thing:
The Second Amendment:
"A well regulated Milita being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
You see, they needed military assault rifles to keep the airports free from Space-Invaders back in the Colonial Days.
Yes, that Amendment is just as important as Scalia said it was, a necessary lock-piece to "Originalism", aka, Scaliaism, which Scalia made up back in the 1980's and which the Supreme Court embraces with joy.
What fools ideologues are.
4
The well regulated militias with the right to bear arms were from slave states with the job of hunting down escaped slaves. That is the origin of the second amendment not some fear of the federal army suppressing it’s citizens. In any case, these are no longer well regulated militias, they are terrorists and should have no protection under the amendment.
1
The militias were intended as an alternative to a standing army, as well as slave catchers. No nascent government creates a mechanism for its own violent overthrow.
The Second Amendment grants organized militia the right to keep and bear arms. Examples of organized militia are a city police force, a county sheriff and his sworn deputies, a deputized Old-West posse, a local SWAT team, and a state national guard (formerly known as the state militia).
Other groups like gun clubs and Shriners, and individuals like sportsmen and hunters, are neither granted nor denied the right to bear arms, but are subject to local, state, and federal gun laws.
Why contort and misconstrue a single-sentence Amendment? The sentence consists of two dependent phrases, the first stating the purpose, "a well-organized militia", and the second stating the means, "to keep and bear arms". English-speaking people in the 18th Century wrote clear, concise sentences!
The Second Amendment is intended to deny the federal government the power to deprive states and communities of the means of self-protection.
The historical precedent is an incident in medieval England wherein a local community, probably in Devon, was unable to repel an incursion of dragons, maybe it was dragoons, from neighboring Cornwall, because an insecure king, probably John, had deprived the general population of the right to bear arms.
So, the Second Amendment does not and was not intended to grant every snot-nose teenager, toothless old geezer, and mass shooter in America a Constitutional right to keep and bear military-style assault rifles!
4
Why aren't people allowed to by Howitzers under the Second Amendment? Technically, it's just another type of gun ins't it? And the logic of the GOP, in regards to guns, is that anyone should be allowed to buy any gun is it not? Since you can buy an AK-47, a military-grade weapon, designed to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible, then why shouldn't someone by able to go into a store and buy a Howitzer? After all, isn't that my right, as guaranteed under the Constitution?
Who is the government to tell me I can't buy a dozen Howitzers and park them on my front lawn?
1
Assault weapons are not protected under the Heller decision. Ban them with no grandfather clause. All assault weapons must be turned in or face stiff sentences. Let us hope that Clarence Thomas does not set the standards for our nation. How sad that would be. Companies that sell assault weapons and large-capacity magazines to the general public should be boycotted, shamed and protested. These companies are killing thousands of law-biding people each year.
1
Does right to bear 'arms' include offensive weapons like rocket grenades, artillery, ICBM's, nukes, F-16, cruise missles? Of course not, it is a right to defend yourself. Assault rifles and high capacity magazines are offensive and not protected by 2nd Amendment.
1
I own semi-automatic firearms because....well....I can. I've never fantasized of doing anything illegal with them. However, were I limited to owning a revolver, a bolt-action rifle, and a shotgun, there's almost nothing that I might need a firearm to do that I still couldn't effectively do. Self defense: check. Sport shooting: check. Hunting: check.
4
It’s ridiculous to argue that any hand held people killing device could defeat the US military in the event of a government attack.
What to do with your people killing rifle when the tanks, helicopters , drones and jets surge? Whose supplies and money will last longer?
Also, the population is unfit, both physically and mentally, to win such a battle. They are unable to organize their political parties let alone a massive military action. It’s much easier to repeat the same old fallacious arguments.
1
We buy tools to use them for the purpose designed. The purpose of these weapons is only to be able to kill the maximum amount of people in the shortest amount of time before one can be stopped. That is how they are marketed to the public.
The only people who would have such a need are people in a war zone being attacked by coordinated force. Or someone set out to commit mass murder.
Ignore the propaganda.
Tools are meant to be used. Look at how they are being used.
When evaluating policy, look at the results.
When evaluating rights, or moral principles, look at the conditions necessary for their ability to be asserted successfully.
Don't listen to what people say; look at what they do.
Enough with this epistemological rationalism already where people think you only have to run programs, deduce from premises. And ignore consequences.
Garbage in; garbage out.
1
My modest proposal: whereas “A well-regulated militia”is necessary to the security of a free state” and no militia is well-regulated if we don’t know who its members are, so they can be called forth in time of need, a law declaring that all gun owners comprise said militia and are required to register themselves and their arms would clearly be constitutional. Those who do not register can be punished as draft evaders. The militia should be required to train so they can be ready if needed to defend our country.
7
@Mark H. Zellers Exactly. Gun advocates can't have it both ways.
Not only should high-capacity magazines be banned, since they have no legitimate sporting use and are nothing but battlefield implements. So too should all semi-automatic weapons be banned. Yes, that’s right: all semiautomatic pistols and shotguns too. Because ‘semiauto’ is a battlefield feature as much as is ‘full auto’ and high-capacity mags.
If you cannot take your deer with a bolt-action rifle and two rounds, or your duck or clay target with a pump shotgun and three shells, or defend ‘in extremis’ your home and family with a revolver and five bullets, I can make a case that you don’t know what you’re doing and ought not have a firearm at all.
And, yes, I was in the military and have owned guns for 50 years.
11
The founding fathers clearly envisioned a country where citizens could modify their government. After all, most of them had participated in an armed revolution. Many ideas that the founding fathers had about society have clearly changed due to technology. For example, the idea that a presidential candidate could talk to every possible voter in the country in real-time was beyond their wildest imagination. This is also true about fire arms. In their day, rifles where muzzle loaded. Even though some one with experience could get off several shots in a minute, for most of that minute the shooter would be loading the rifle rather than ready to fire, so they would be vulnerable. The idea of someone walking in to a business and killing several people in a crowd was ludicrous. Everyone in the crowd would simply overpower the shooter while he was reloading.
So yes, of course we need to limit access to large magazines. But we need to do more. We need to limit the number of rounds a firearm can shoot. This will probably require us to change our government. When we do our founding fathers will be proud of us.
3
@Glenn. Or we could abide by the meaning Second Ammendment and only allow members of a well-regulated, state, militia to keep and bear arms only to protect the country.
2
Why can we not tax ammunition like cigarettes? How about 10.00 a bullet for an AK 47 to make those magazines very expensive to purchase. I somewhat understand why some folks love their guns, but the mass murders since Sandyhook have ruined things for you guys, and things must change. So instead of trying to confiscate those guns, let's go after the ammunition.
1
I will not accept that mass shootings are the new normal. Guns under the Constitution was for a Militia---not for a crazy to do mass killings. Under the Constitution as it is written and interpreted now I have the right to own a bazooka or any machine gun. I don't believe this was the originial intent. I don'tt own a gun, but do believe in the right to own one.
3
Almost every comment so far on this editorial so far revolves around changes in gun ownership but citizens of countries outside of the USA like myself in Canada to put it very bluntly cannot comprehend why your country's citizenry believes that any kind of gun ownership is their right. I was going to use the word "think" but obviously when it comes to guns how ludicrous is that. I could go on but there is no point in doing so. We, the citizens of the world just do not get it.
8
The text of the Second Amendment:
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
The "originalist" interpretation of the Second Amendment:
"[Some inconsequential words taking up half the text our beloved Founders wrote but they didn't actually mean] the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
3
It's clear that right-wing Republicans have lost their minds and humanity attempting to rationalize the constitutional right to mass murder weapons.
AR-15s and their murderous cousins are all weapons of war that facilitate mass murder against innocent civilians.
Today's 2nd Amendment as interpreted by the radical Republican party essentially facilitates the equivalent of Vietnam era My Lai massacres across the United States by angry males with no coping skills.
Their murderous 2nd Amendment 'right to self defense' interpretation leaves the overwhelming majority of peaceful Americans with no right to self defense when they are walking, shopping, socializing, working, and living their peaceful lives.
Since the Republican Party - in clear collusion with the NRA - has disregarded the collective public safety of 330 million Americans and millions of international visitors, Americans' only recourse - if they want public safety - is to eject all Republicans from elected office.
Republicans refused to do anything when a madman shot and killed 26 people, including 20 children between six and seven years old, in 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut.
That should serve as a reminder to all that Republican Party humanity is nonexistent.
Time for some serious public safety rules instead of an unregulated national shooting gallery for angry males and their mass murder weapons.
2020.
4
Assault weapons must not be made; for sale; or possessed. That will eliminate the large clip issue.
2
Does right to bear 'arms' include offensive weapons like rocket grenades, artillery, ICBM's, nukes, F-16, cruise missles? Of course not, it is arms for self defense and hunting. Assault rifles and high capacity magazines are offensive and not protected by 2nd Amendment.
A clause written centuries ago to help protect our freedom is now badly abused as a thin paper cover by a cowardly cohort of conservatives and the gun lobby to perpetuate a bloodletting on our streets worse than in all our wars. If any foreign agent, or a disease, caused this kind of havoc, boy would Moscow Mitch act differently. An immediate ban on high-capacity magazines is a great start. If nothing is done about this, it may be the end of America.
2
How many gun owners belong to a “well regulated militia”? If they’re not a part of the National Guard, where firearms are supplied to you, they’re not.
Actually, the Second Amendment couldn’t be clearer. Most folks, and certainly the NRA, choose to ignore that one clause.
3
@Wayne The Supreme Court's Heller decision pretty much pushed the "militia" clause into the background. It now seems more a question of what's appropriate for self defense.
@Wayne A militia by definition is a civilian body.. not a government run institution. Remember, the 2nd Amendment was created as a means of rebellion against the government in case it became tyrannical. Since the National Guard is a government body and can be federalized, it is not a 'militia'. In case of tyranny, the national guard would be just another body taking orders from the tyrants. It is hard to imagine for Americans.. since the 2nd Amendment has done a great job of preventing 3rd world style dictatorships. But as an immigrant from a military run dictatorship, please do not give up the 2nd Amendment right to bear personal arms.. you may regret it some day.
1
I spit out my coffee at the thought that the these large magazines are a "core" part of the Second Amendment. Were there magazines that the Revolutionary War army attached to their single shot muskets? Is this why we beat the British?
2
Thank you for having the photograph display the side of the "military style rifle with 100 round capacity" bearing the manufacturers name as Anderson Manufacturing of Hebron, Kentucky, home state of Mitch McConnell. How many other gun manufacturers are in the Speaker's state, and, gee, I wonder, how many are contributors to his election coffers? Why are the names of the manufacturers of these weapons not published and their owners not identified? Who are the merchants of death among us?
2
Strange how a convoluted (nonsensical?) legal precept of mysterious origin - the Second Amendment - should hold hostage the citizens of the U.S. Also strange how the modern gun rights movement was launched by the Black Panthers in the 1960s in California in an effort to protect Black US citizens. All of which keeps today's body politic from passing reasonable gun control legislation, and its people from living in a less dangerous society.
1
Congress needs to criminalize the mass murder supply chain.When an automatic weapon is used in murder, those who sell or otherwise convey the weapon to the killer must be prosecuted by statute as accomplices. This criminal liability should extend through interstate commerce to include the transport and manufacture of the killer’s murderous weapon. When civil liability accompanies the criminal responsibility,, it will become much more difficult for crazies to go on killing spree‘s.
The second amendment protects possession, so if an American wants to possess an automatic weapon at home to protect himself from a fantasy imaginary home invasion scenario so be it. But once that weapon goes out on the street and kills innocets , the entire supply chain must stand trial for murder. Liability should extend to officers and directors. AK murder is an industry, and it must be held accountable for the crimes that result
Let the gun manufacturers decide for themselves whether this is a business risk that they want to continue to bear. It’s russian roulette in reverse
1
@GCM Can we expand that to Trucks? On July 14, 2016.. a terrorist used a truck to kill more people than any mass shooting in America: 86 victims in Nice, France. More than 430 people were injured. No gun has ever killed or wounded that many people. A truck was more lethal than large capacity magazines; and can be still.
https://www.gq.com/story/nice-france-bastille-day-attack-untold-story
So following your logic, we would ban all trucks. The we would prosecute the truck rental company. Then we would go after the truck maker. Then we would simply stop issues CDL driver licenses. Naturally we would all starve to death without this critical item of the supply chain, but be it... We stopped mass killings.
Trucks have a purpose other than killing. The only purpose of an AK15 is to kill many people in seconds. How many people in France have died in gun massacres lately?
There is no Second Amendment right for individuals to bear arms, period. The argument that the amendment is there so that citizens can arm themselves for protection from the government and its tyrannies -- in effect, that the Constitution guarantees a right of insurrection against the very government supposedly guaranteeing that right -- is the height of lunacy and anarchy.
The error is rooted in Heller, a 5-4 Supreme Court decision from 2008 that adopted the NRA's extreme view that the amendment affords an individual the right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia. But constitutional jurisprudence had not recognized such a right for 220 years prior to that. There was no standing army in 1790, so at that time "(a) well regulated Militia (was) necessary to the security of a free State. . ." No mention there of firearms being necessary for an individual's security. The Second Amendment is thus tied to an institution -- the state militia -- which no longer exists.
The Heller decision was an aberration, and will eventually join Plessy v. Ferguson ("separate but equal"), Korematsu (allowing interment camps for U.S. citizens of Japanese descent during WWII), and the Dred Scott cases (blacks could not be American citizens even if freed and therefore could not sue in federal courts) as Supreme Court misfires that were ultimately overturned.
3
@Boris Jones I am not sure if/when we will ever see the Heller Decision overturned. That being said, Justice Scalia's opinion in Heller states that like other rights, those in the Second Amendment are not absolute. The original "Originalist" on the Supreme Court acknowledged that society has a valid interest in limiting ownership of certain types of firearms /ammunition, or in preventing certain individuals from owning guns. In the short run, I think it is incumbent on those of us who are appalled by these mass shootings to continue to press for reforms within the framework of Heller.
1
@Boris Jones Even without the 2nd Amendment; it makes rational, logical, democratic and moral sense to arm the public. Even though it could result in shooting and crime and accidents, the number of lives lost never even comes close to the number of people killed by governments.
Government over the last century have killed over 120,000,000 people. Civilian owned arms have killed less than 1% of that. It is clear statistically who the wolves are and who the sheep are. Why are so you bent on disarming the victims of government violence, the sheep? If you were serious about preventing gun violence, you would start by disarming government paid gun men; the wolves. Barring that, all your talk preventing 'gun violence' is not serious or honest.
2
Our gun laws are an incomprehensible mosaic of laws which utterly fail in their mission to deter gun violence.
What we need is FEDERAL GUN CONTROL which requires that all guns be issued Certificates of Title like with cars, that they be Federally registered, and that gun owners be required to maintain liability insurance with high deductibles to indemnify people harmed by their guns. Limit the number of guns that people may own to some reasonable number.
Like with cars, require prospective gun owners to demonstrate proficiency and mental competence plus impose strict, vicarious liability upon gun owners for their direct or otherwise negligent conduct in connection with their guns. Leave a gun lying around unsecured and someone gets access to it, you're in trouble.
As far as bullets go, the eggs I buy are imprinted with a traceable code. Do that with bullets so we know who is buying them and in what quantity.
This will not eliminate all gun violence but it will cut it back and provide at least some compensation for victims. As far as I can see, none of this in any way conflicts with that pesky 2d Amendment which would, of course, stay in full force and effect.
What we have now, a patchwork of gun legislation in 50 states, is ineffectual. You can still get a gun in a state with lax firearms laws and take it anywhere you want. If states, to meet their own needs, want to impose laws that are more stringent than the Feds, like with booze and drugs, fine.
3
I agree with regulation and think, even under Heller, the existing state bans are not unreasonable. The better question, though, may be what does this really solve? Or, related to this: What problem are you trying to fix? If the problem is gun violence you have to frame the solution in the context of historically low homicide rates, the fact, as the author concedes, that mass shootings are a small fraction of homicides, and that a large percentage of gun violence is suicidal. Will a national ban (exceedingly unlikely in any case) actually decrease gun deaths? It's difficult to see how it could.
2
A decrease in the number of guns would, but it's a bit late for that.
1
We're dealing with the culture wars here. The Second Amendment is like the First: malleable to any extreme. For decades, conservatives chafed at "blasphemy art" in the public square, and now use their personal arsemals to menace and intimidate the Left. The Second is now a kingmaker. Worse, the shooters are the equivalent of suicide bombers: willing to die in the act. One the other hand, they are really only acting out the consumer's insatiable craving for what makes movies Blockbusters: violent slaughter on the screen. Mass shootings are forgotten within days because the public can no longer distinguish them from Tarantino Quentin movies. The human reserve against killing other humans has been removed completely in these people. This is the lethal component, more so than the weapons themselves. We all know that there will be many more of these. As in war, it's always the next guy that will get it. Fatalism will set in. People adapt to what they know will be with them for the foreseeable future.
2
There are always less restrictive Alternatives to outright gun bans and standard capacity Magazine bans (over 10 rounds) such as serializing the Magazines to have a unique identity number, just like a firearms, making them hard to legally transfer, and they must be transferred through a licensed gun dealer just like a firearm.
That is reasonable compromise. As the Judge described in Duncan v Becerrera, there are legitimate reasons for a homeowner or business owner for owning and using a magazine that has a plus ten capacity, for self defense.
In Los Angeles County, Businesses Robberies and Home Invasions are often committed by "crews" of multiple gun armed criminals. If the Democrats want to say that there is no possible or legal reason to own a pistol or rifle magazine that holds more than ten bullets, they are just lying to you.
The Judge pointed out, in his decision in Duncan, that a homeowner, unlike a police officer, goes to meet a threat at night, unlike a police officer, with no body armor protecting them, or three plus ten gun capacity magazines on a gun belt.
They go to meet the threat with whatever bullets their home defense weapon holds.
When LA City passed a law that required its resident to turn in their ten plus gun magazines to the Police or take them out of the city, guess what, not one "high capacity gun magazine" was turned in on the last day to do so.
Why is that? Maybe the self defense gun owners knew their high Capacity Mags were legitimate.
2
Repeal and confiscate.
Why is the Second Amendment being used as an excuse for unregulated mayhem? "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state..." No regulation, no security, ultimately no free state.
4
@Bonnie Allen
Where is the right to life? Restrict magazines to 6 bullets
1
No one complains about second amendment rights in the regulation of machine guns and other weapons covered by Title II restrictions. It is legal for an American citizen to own Title II weapons, but very difficult. Wikipedia has a good article on the restrictions.
Classifying assault-style weapons and any semi-auto weapon, including semi-automatic pistols, as Title II, would not end their sale, but it would end their easy sale. It would also remove such weapons from the ownership of anyone viewed as a threat by the FBI.
Citizens would still be allowed to keep their unregistered deer rifles and shot guns. They can conceal or open carry their favorite revolvers. There would still be murders, but fewer mass murders by firearms.
This would still leave large trucks as weapons of mass murder, but it is actually harder to rent a truck than buy an assault-style rifle. You have to have a legal driver’s license and in many places you have to be 25.
2
@GiG
When was the last time one of these atrocities was committed with a licensed machine gun or other regulated weapons? Never to my recollection (bump stocks were not regulated). This has always been the best argument against those who say that gun control can't work and violates the second amendment.
1
@GiGi. I like this reasoning a lot. Expanding Title II coverage and better licensing of certain types of guns makes the most sense. Doing so faces the same challenges as always with the gun lobby, but I think there may be some support there if it is made a priority by NRA members rather than it's leaders. I am neither and have myself never owned a gun or wanted to, but I understand their arguments. They certainly realize that sooner or later they too may lose a friend or relative, and their guns in their gun safes won't make any difference on that day. Better licensing will not eliminate the determined radical, but it might just deter the younger man who is simply delusional. And as one commentator here also pointed out, a .45 automatic with multiple clips can do the same thing when directed into a crowd of people who are not going to fire back. Most of these men (interestingly, not women) who do these mass shootings are suicidal too. Or they think a life in jail is better than the life they have. We have other problems to solve besides arms proliferation. Start with some regulation that makes sense. We do it for almost everything, and the only thing that ever really suffers is somebody's profits. But regulations can and do make us safer and someone else always makes some money off it. It is not like it is going to crash the economy. Choices is all it is.
The fact that large capacity magazines holding 30 rounds were used in more than half of mass shootings is horrendous. But even more horrendous is gun maker plans to market more effective magazines holding up to 100 rounds. Are they out of their minds??? This must not happen, but who will stop it from happening? Apparently not "conservative" federal judges, including the Supreme Court. How about Congress? Too corrupted by money received from the NRA, gun makers, and gun sellers, including, ironically, Walmart? Sadly, I think nothing will change.
4
@Dave It won't happen because the majority of American.. outside the coastal bubbles.. don't want it to happen. We are organized. We vote. We donate to the NRA and other pro-civil rights organizations. And we hold anti-gunners accountable. Now, a 100 rounds is a little extreme. Very few gun owners actually own these, I would guess less than 2%; though I did see one in action when I lived in Alaska. Modern rifles come with 15 round mags, and handguns with 15 rounds mags. But according to this author, even these are considered "high capacity", which is just not reality.
1
@Ayaz Dear Ayaz, your guess that less than 2% of gun owners own the 100 round magazines is probably correct. My guess is that mass killers will own many of them.
If you are not planning a massacre, why do you need a military style assault weapon?
1
These mags can be 3D printed in minutes and the spring assembly takes only moments as well. I understand wanting to do something but these fringe groups have files of plans readily available. I say universal background checks and an age limit for semi autos. Most mental illness appears in a person's 20s, so I'd say only bolt action and hand guns can be purchased until a person is 30.
3
To those who owns that kind of arms, it is a question of pursuing happiness, a fundamental right of the constitution.
2
@Roland Berger
It states "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Life is even more fundamental and is recognized as first. Freedom of speech is fundamental but you can bar some language, some types, some times and in some places.
2
The right to pursue happiness is not in the constitution.
1
@Sam Dobermann
Thank you for adding.
It was stated around the time the constitution was being written that "the business of the U S government is business". So, the gun manufacturers and the NRA will win everytime in this back and forth about guns and the 2nd amendment. Until we can get a congress and president with some political courage to re-write or abolish the 2nd amendment, we're stuck with these mass shootings of our citizens.
3
@Richard Daniels The Second Amendment does not impart the right of armed self-defense. That right is inherent. The Second Amendment codifies that right specifically to deny government's attempting to nullify it.
2
@Richard Daniels
"the business of the U S government is business" was the Hamiltonian argument. Madison & others disagreed. There is a tension between the values that persists.
1
The attitude towards guns in this country makes no sense. High capacity magazines have no relationship to any perceived right. Anyone who hunts waterfowl is restricted to no more than three rounds in a shotgun. Anyone who hunts deer is not using high capacity magazines and depending on where they hunt may be restricted as to the type of gun they use. If we can have these reasonable restrictions surely there can be restrictions on magazine capacity and for that matter there should be no reason we cannot license firearms as we do motor vehicles. We should be able to follow all firearms from manufacture and sale to subsequent transfers and ultimate disposal. Along with serious background checks it is hard to see how any of this takes away a “right”. These programs should be paid for by appropriate license fees.
6
@DCN There are plenty of Hog Hunters who are killing feral pigs in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Arkansas, and Alabama, with high capacity magazines, silencer equipped Ar-15s, at night, using night vision goggles.
You clearly don't know what you are talking about.
A one size fits all National Gun Control type laws, AR-15 Bans, standard capacity magazine bans (Ar-15 are currently the most popular rifle based on sales, and there are currently some 8 million in circulation, they are endlessly customizable, and you dont need to be a gunsmith to make modifications or build one up from the lower receiver, which is the serialized part of an Ar-15 , that has a unique number that must be sold through a Federal Firearms Licensed Dealer, after going through a background check) is the kind of Democratic Supported gun control that will never be supported by Rural States and people that live outside of large urban areas.
Go ahead Democrats, run on Gun Control and hand trump a Second Term in office.
Instead of focusing on closing down social media sites that promote or allow hate speech that encourages violence against non-white populations and mental health, you want to have National Gun Control, instead of leaving it to the states to decide how much gun control they will allow.
You want National Standards for Abortion, based upon an unenumerated right not in the US Constitution, all the while disparaging the Second Amendment's individual and fundamental right to own guns in the US.
1
@Lance. OK so let them have a special license to purchase and use this type of equipment to deal with the feral hog problem. There is an easy fix to all of these situations but it is insane that good old boy can buy these weapons with zero controls is nonsense. The right to own guns has been firmly established and will not be taken away. Accordingly, there should be no problem if legitimate ownership and use of these weapons is subject to licensing and regulations. So tired of the NRA line that any regulation of guns amounts to confiscation. Simply not true and the fact a certain subset of gun owners buys in to the various confiscation conspiracy theory ideas simply proves they are not fit to own any sort of firarm. As to abortion if you do not believe in it then do not get one but stay the hellout of other peoples bodies.
Since it is clear that neither the state or federal governments will pass the necessary laws it looks like it is time to get ballot initiatives banning these types of guns. If 80% of the people really agree that background checks are reasonable and high capacity magazines should be banned than passing such ballots should be easy.
3
@Scott Unfortunately, not all states allow ballot initiatives and I have no hope of one ever passing in my state even if allowed. Very sad state of affairs.
1
@Scott Laws in a state don't protect its people when weapons travel so easily. California laws were over ridden when the man the shot up the Garlic festival shopped in neighboring Nevada. Chicago's anti gun laws don't keep the city from being awash in guns when next door Indiana gun stores are so happy to make sales that won't affect Indiana's citizens.
2
The key to understanding the Supreme Court’s view of permissible firearms is the limitation that they be “in common use at the time.” Any firearm that is “dangerous and unusual” may be banned (Dist. Of Columbia v Heller p. 55). Firearms advocates argue that assault weapons and high capacity magazines are, indeed, “in common use” and are not “unusual.” Taken to its illogical extreme, the more development and proliferation of deadly weapons, the more it can be argued they are “in common use” and are not “unusual.” I fear the current Supreme Court will embrace this argument to permit all kinds of instruments of destruction including high capacity magazines.
4
You're right Mr. Spitzer. Look no further than page 54 of Justice Scalia's opinion, "Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose." This means that high capacity magazines that have been designed for US Army combat operations have no place being freely bought and sold in interstate commerce. It might be argued that the AR-15 has a limited area fire capability. (The M-60 and M-240 are area fire weapons in that the soldier aims for an “area.” These are fully automatic). The area fire capability in the AR-15 is maximized by high capacity magazines. Therefore, although not fully automatic, an AR-15’s firing characteristics have been substantially changed to that of a fully automatic weapon. Much like a ban on bumpstocks, a ban on high capacity magazines is necessary to achieve a compelling government and societal interest.
6
Wrong: High capacity magazines do not "substantially change(d) {AR-15} to that of a fully automatic weapon".
One trigger pull=One round discharged/next round chambered is ALWAYS SEMI-auto, no matter how many rounds are contained in the mag.
@Gregory Diedrich
1
Potato, potato. No weapons of war anywhere, ever. Repeal and confiscate.
Contrary to the NRA's stance, constitutional rights are not absolute. Free Speech is enshrined as one of our most valuable protections. However, commercial speech is regulated. Freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures is protected, but the exceptions sometimes swallow the constitutional right.
Why, then, the heartburn over imposing reasonable restrictions under the Second Amendment. The Amendment, itself, states, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Regulation is presumed in the Amendment. Machine guns and automatic weapons are regulated. Why, then, the outrage when regulations or laws restricting access to military-style weapons or large-capacity magazines are proposed? The outrage is voiced by the NRA, but it is on behalf of gun manufacturers. Shouldn't the rights of the victims be balanced against commercial interests?
9
It's not the second amendment. Never has been. It's money. Money drives the ethics of the gun manufactures, no differently than the opioid manufactures, the tobacco industry, and sadly our politicians to name just a few. They will say and do whatever it takes to get it. Maybe the first step is getting money out of politics.
17
For those who argue a constitutional right to any sort of weapon, consider the intentions of the founding fathers.
Normal people who owned weapons back then had a single-shot muzzle loading rifle. If you wanted the latest in military technology, you would have had to step up to a cannon. I seriously doubt that the founding fathers believed that ordinary citizens should be allowed to own a cannon. Perhaps someone could scour old court records to find a case where Joe the Farmer was prevented from buying a cannon. There's nothing like an old precedent to change current laws.
Extrapolate that to today, and you might argue that an ordinary citizen should be able to own an M60 machine gun, or a 30mm repeating cannon such as might be mounted on an uparmored Humvee. That sounds outrageous because it is.
Once you establish that there is an upper limit to how much weapon a citizen can own, the right to own automatic and semi-automatic assault rifles is up for discussion. That .22 plinking pistol isn't going away, and neither is the bolt-action hunting rifle. The discussion is then about where to place the upper limit, and how to prevent unstable people from buying any sort of firearm.
This allows you to ban automatic and semi-automatic weapons, while leaving the second amendment intact.
9
@mlbex I agree that there are limits to what guns people can own, but your analogy to a cannon is misplaced. If the Second Amendment means in 1791 that you can own a smooth-bore single-shot muzzle-loading musket, then it stands for the proposition that you can own the same weapon carried by the militia and the army. Thus, there sh9ould be a right to carry fully-automatic rifles and carbines used by the USA. Not sure that was where you were intending to head with the cannon comparison. I do not believe there were any restrictions on ownership of a cannon in the early days of the Republic. It is not a terribly useful weapon for any purpose but repelling an advancing army or destroying structures, so the fact that most people did not own one was more a matter of utility and practicality. R.P.G.'s and L.A.W.S. rockets on the other hand...
@mlbexToday you can legally buy a .50 caliber sniper rifle at any respected gun shop. A weapon that can shoot and kill a target up to three miles away. Do we really want these type of weapons on our streets? I don't !
2
@mlbex I doubt the founding fathers had assault style weapons in their political arsenal on drafting the 2nd. Arms were used to protect their families, put meat on the table and provide for a responsive militia who could assemble if there was a present or foreign invader to citizens. Now, we need to protect ourselves from other so-called citizens with "a clip on their shoulder." What a perversion of the Constitution!!
Large magazines change what is possible. They make gun owners feel more powerful and capable and allow them to imagine different outcomes.
There are countless movies where the "hero" arms themselves with a plethora of powerful weapons before facing the ultimate challenge.
If we constrain that feeling of power by diminishing the excess lethality of the weapons, we will likely reduce the number of people who can conceive of a mass shooting as a plan-able event.
4
Law prohibits more than three shells in a shotgun for duck hunting. It is strictly enforced. What is the limit for the number of shells when shooting people? There is no limit. Clearly limits for hunting are responsible and necessary. Why not bullet limits for murder?
15
@Fred Following your logic the answer is obvious - People who have those kinds of laws value the life of ducks over the life of people.
2
Mr. Spitzer is absolutely correct. Every Constitutional amendment has its limits. Freedom of Speech doesn't include shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Freedom of Religion doesn't allow human sacrifices, and so on. The federal government certainly can limit the size of magazines and type of guns that are legal for citizens to own. Whether it will or not entirely depends upon the American voter.
12
If people were not permitted to own assault weapons, the issue with high-capacity magazines would be moot.
3
@Larry I believe you can get fairly large clips for pistols that can be switched out for a full clip rather quickly. Not as deadly as an AR 15 but nasty enough.
@Larry
Not true. “Assault weapon” is a style. “Semi-automatic rifle with a removable magazine” is a capability. A weapon with this capability doesn’t have to be black and scary looking.
1
We should remember that the arms cited in the Second Amendment could be fired at best only 3 to 4 times a minute. Restricting Assault Rifles and Large Capacity magazines in no way violates either the letter or the spirit of the Amendment.
7
Certainly not. And one wonders where on the continuum of weaponry avowed gun lovers believe the line should be drawn. RPGs? Tanks? If the second amendment exists to arm militias, as its proponents insist, why stop there? Should a private citizen be allowed a fighter jet? A nuclear bomb? If what a well-armed militia needs is defined by the military standards of the day, these things are clear necessities. If not, then those claiming ownership of automatic weapons is a right enshrined in the Constitution should admit that their favorite argument is as outmoded as the flint-lock rifle.
12
@APH
You’re exactly right. Look up “Title II” on Wikipedia.
The only "game" one can hunt in this country with unlimited ammunition in your weapon is your fellow humans. The majority of states have regulations limiting the type and number of bullets or shells a game hunter can use. Isn't it time for controls on magazines, etc that enable the murders last weekend?
7
@James T ONeill
Many states are dropping such requirements. Changes in bullets have made hunting with an assault-style weapon similar to hunting with other weapons. The key is always patience and careful placement.
I don’t know if it’s legal to spray a deer or antelope with a dozen rounds, but no hunter would brag about that later.
We seem to forget that the Second Amendment was written before the invention of the repeating weapon. Guns at that time were all single shot devices, requiring a completer re-load between firings. It would take about a minute between shots. The weapons of today weren't even mentioned in the science fiction of the day.
In another vein, shouldn't gun owners be required to prove membership in a "well-regulated militia" before being issued a permit?
5
@Marty
We should bring back the militia. The federalization of the National Guard (and subsequent militarization of police forces) could be pared back by allowing states to form militias. This will allow for better safety training as well as regulation. The standing Army that we maintained after WWII was never intended or desired and was actual viewed as a threat to liberty.
1
The authors of the Second Ammendment could have never imagined a country with our level of population density, technology, affluence and economic dysfunction.
If they could see us now my guess is that most of them would want the US government to enact intelligent reforms designed to balance our right to defend ourselves with our right to live without worry of being shot by gun designed to be the technical equivalent of a hand grenade.
4
After the umteenth mass shooting, there are the usual cries for action and related questions about high capacity magazines and assault weapons and mental illness and video games and political divisiveness and ... Frankly if Sandy Hook did not move people to initiate massive change, then the latest '20 dead - 30 wounded' event probably has little hope beyond the current news cycle.
One thing I have learned in my 70+ years on this very troubled planet - If one always does what one has always done and somehow expects things to be somehow different 'this time', you are in for a very disappointing outcome. And that is where we are - again.
Although not a hunter, I believe properly trained and licensed and registered (and dare I suggest insured) hunters can have all the hunting rifles/shotguns they want; target/skeet/pistol shooters can too, but no one outside the military and selected law enforcement personnel should be allowed to own assault weapons or high capacity magazines or high velocity armor piercing ammo or ... Turn them in.
And this is where legions will set their hair on fire!
And we await the next tragedy.
14
The problem is that over the last 45 years the NRA and gun manufacturers have turned the 2nd Amendment into a marketing and life-style branding tool.
Like Harley owners or Apple users the attachment of gun owners to these weapons is cultic. To cement that loyalty they wed their brand to a particularly virulent and paranoid right-wing ideology that the Republican Party was more than eager to take advantage of electorally. The combination of the life-style and the politics has created a politically toxic and dangerous demographic and made it virtually impossible to implement laws regulating gun ownership and use.
Take a moment and go through any number of gun-owners forums or leaf through the current crop of gun magazines and it's an advertisement equating toughness with gun ownership and political liberty(where bullets are called "freedom pills") and glamorizing lethality. As long as we have a major political party willing to tap into that world-view there will be no movement on gun legislation.
14
Thank God I don’t live in the United States. I could not imagine a democratically elected government choosing corporate interests over the life of its citizens, especially its children, anywhere else.
42
@JWJE Your impressions of the United States are incorrect. This is a true democracy where people elect their representatives and leaders. And the majority of Americans support the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Even in leftist/socialist states like New York, where this liberal paper is based. This has nothing to do with corporate interests, the gun industry doesn't even make the top 20 in terms of revenue.
Its us, the people of the U.S., who refuse to be like Europe. We refuse to allow the the government to have a monopoly of firearms. We refuse to allow murderous dictatorship that Europeans can't seem to rid themselves of, like: Napoleon, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Lenin, Tito, and more recently, Slobodan Milosevic. It was Dutch "Peacekeepers" who allowed the innocent people of Sebrenica to be massacred by the Serbs. Imagine how many lives could have been saved if the people of Bosnia had the right to keep and bear arms.
Why has there never been a holocaust or Bosnia style massacre in America? Thank the 2nd Amendment. An armed people can never be enslaved or massacred. Just ask the Swiss or the Finns.
1
Given the Second Amendment refers only to firearms for the purpose of a "well-regulated militia", not wildly unregulated extremists who want to murder people, or perhaps think they can overthrow the government someday if necessary, I think we have made a big mistake letting gun companies run wild pandering to those who worship guns as their salvation. I don't think it's what the "Founding Fathers" had in mind. In 1787, the deadliest military grade weapons were all single shot and took quite some time to load. If you really want to go strict Constitution on this issue, then it allows single shot flintlock rifles, and only if someone is a member of the National Guard, our country's well-regulated militia.
20
@Bill Kowalski
How would going "strict constitutional" look like for freedom of speech and freedom of press look like?
Or abortion, since it didn't exist back in the 18th century.
Be careful when you start thinking this way as it may have unforeseen consequences in the future that you may not like.
2
@Bill Kowalski
Please research the difference between the prefatory and operative clauses in the Constitution. The reference to the well-regulated militia is a classic example of a prefatory clause, one that does not diminish the operative clause that follows. Heller made this clear. This happens in other places in the Constitution as well.
I'd eagerly support a total repeal of the Second Amendment, but that is what is required, not some hopeful interpretation of its prefatory clause.
2
@Bill Kowalski: At the very least, courts pretending to considering the "original intent of the Founders" should pay more attention to the Second Amendment's "well regulated" language. Anyone seeking to purchase these weapons should first be required to demonstrate adequate knowledge of their appropriate use.
Consider the recent case of the police officer who tried to shoot a dog that charged him, missed, and instead killed a woman in the line of fire (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/02/us/homeless-woman-killed-cop-arlington-texas.html). Here's a trained firearm user who, in a stressful moment, forgot that bullets keep going until they hit something that stops them. Do we really want anyone with a credit card to be able to buy military-grade rifles and high-capacity magazines capable of spraying bullets throughout the neighborhood? Shouldn't the Second Amendment's "well-regulated militia" language have some meaning?
5
The author virtually concedes that military style weapons in the hands of the public is constitutionally protected. I refuse to except that. I know of absolutely no one that owns one of these deadly military weapons that is a member of a well regulated militia. This portion of the amendment, which makes perfectly clear it’s intent, is completely ignored by the NRA and conservative judges such as Scalia and Thomas. They espouse their judicial philosophy as being “originalist,” yet they ignore the original writing and torture the English language in order to reach their baseless, political conclusions. If they really want to live in the 18th century, they need to make the determination that the Constitution provides everyone the right to own a flintlock.
10
@Hub Harrington
In Heller. the Supreme Court disregarded the "well regulated militia" restriction and opened wide the Second Amendment. Now it looks like they are going to open the door even wider.
1
@Hub Harrington Fortunately for America, the 2nd Amendment is only a single sentence long. The founders knew that statists would try to monopolize guns (real power) in the hands of the political elites. That is why the 2nd amendment is so clear, so it could not be distorted to disarm the public. That is why it clearly reads: "... the right of the People, to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Period. The word "People" means just that.. not some government run body.
Many states have a limit on the number of rounds you may have in a firearm for hunting animals. Isn't it ashame the same doesn't hold true for hunting people?
10
There is no Second Amendment right to any military-style weapon for anyone who is not an active member of the National Guard, and even they must keep their weapons locked up in the Armory unless they are called out. When the Second Amendment was written, all able-bodied adult males in New England were required to keep a firearm in their homes, but they couldn't carry them in public unless there was an attack on their town, or the governor and council called out the militia.
27
@William Burgess Leavenworth Most supporters of the 2nd Amendment have no problem with keeping guns locked up at home for an emergency. Carrying firearms should be strictly controlled and limited to legitimate use. The problem with the left is, they are trying to take those guns away from people's homes. This is about bans, not restrictions.
Swiss reservists used to be required to keep their assault rifles in their homes. Years ago, I frankly found this hard to believe until a Swiss friend opened his closet to reveal a quite lethal-looking weapon and a sealed can of ammunition.
@William Burgess Leavenworth - At the time of the Constitution, what the Slave States feared was that a Federal Government would take the position that you are advocating. What they needed was a way to maintain state control over there own Slave Patrols and therefore the 2nd Amendment as a workaround, so that the Slave States could support a new Federal Constitution.
1
Original intent. The Founding Fathers had no idea a person could carry the fire power of a platoon in each hand, and could re-load for that same fire power in less than a minute. The Founding Fathers were familiar with about 1 shot a minute.
Additionally, we can thank the Supreme Court for determining the first four words of the Second Amendment, "A well regulated militia..." were just a caprice by our Founding Fathers with absolutely no meaning at all. Just like the SCOTUS believes money is really speech and corporations are really immortal human beings.
13
People in shootings often say a version of “you never think it can happen near us”. I suppose it is human nature to see things differently when the macro becomes the micro. For that reason I think that the recalcitrant members of the House and Senate will never voluntarily vote for gun control until it becomes micro for them as well. If the killings of a roomful of kindergarteners doesn’t do it - to our everlasting national shame - I am afraid our congressmen just do not have the ability to govern for the macro-good on this. It will have to become micro for them also.
3
There is no second amendment right to provide a weapon to a mass murder, if congress simply amends federal crime laws to prosecute and convict as accomplices those who supply the weapon to a convicted mass murders. that includes the merchants, those who transport an identified weapon across state lines, and those who manufacture the automatic weapon used in mass murder.
8
There never has been an unmitigated right to bear arms. Unless the law has changed and I've missed it, for example, one cannot have a working machine gun. I see no reason why these weapons that are set up to kill humans with as many bullets as possible, should not be regulated and restricted. Seems to me there are several things we could do that are sensible. The NRA's thought that they are just a first step in total restriction does not do justice to the many of us who believe in common sense laws regarding gun ownership.
9
@WhiskeyJack Right on. If I were a gun-owning dues-paying NRA member with any conscience, I would welcome bans on assault style technology and 'open season' on obtaining those weapons. What possible use do assault weapons have in our society? Skeet shooting? Target contests?
@WhiskeyJack My ancestors were here about 350 years ago, and they were required by law to keep a firearm in their homes, They would have been fined, jailed, put in stocks, or whipped for promiscuous carrying, however, and they didn't need semi-automatic or automatic weapons to win the wars they were in. The militia was controlled by the governor and his council, not by whim.
Part of the problem is that laws often focus on the attributes of so called assault weapons, they look at things like the grips, the size of it, etc, rather than the capabilities. The problem with these kinds of guns can be categorized into 3 areas 1)Even though semi automatic, they can fire up to 100 rounds or more a minute 2)The magazine can be replaced quickly 3)the magazine can hold a lot of bullets. Add that up, and it is carnage that happens before any can really respond, in a couple of minutes you can have a lot of casualties.
I think some of the laws out there are reasonable. Obviously, if you cannot quick change a magazine or change it at all, that limits destruction and also would allow people in the area to potentially disarm the shooter. Another reasonable restriction would be on the refire rate, there is no reason for a civilian weapon to be able to shoot (in theory) a hundred rounds a minute, that is not self defense. And if a gun has a removable magazine, limit the sizes that are legal (though people can always buy things illegally, it takes effort to do so, and will deter all but the most determined).
The sad truth behind these guns is those arguing for unlimited rights are basically Trump nation, afraid of a 'non white" America, and thinking they are going to keep America white by force of arms.
3
Society is quick to blame the guns, gun magazines, manufactures and politics of gun and gun owners. There is no mention of the need for the mental health services and teaching of tolerance of others, which is the real cause of the problem in mass shootings.
Some are quick to take away guns, ammunition and gun magazines. Are you just as willing to forcibly institutionalize the mentally ill, and pay for it? Do you talk of tolerance of others or speak of us and them?
Speaking of willing, are you willing to look at the data?
The United States doesn’t have more mentally ill people than other countries. What it has is more guns. And more gun violence.
Missouri doesn’t have more mentally ill people than Massachusetts. What it has is more guns. And more gun violence.
Wherever you look, more guns are correlated with more gun violence. Wherever guns are restricted, gun violence drops. See recent history in Australia. Watch for coming similar results in New Zealand.
It’s not people. It’s not terrorism. It’s not mental illness. It’s guns.
7
@Dave Peterson
Other societies have mentally ill, too. Other societies have American video games. Other societies watch American movies. Only the US has the huge numbers of mass shootings.
@Dave Peterson
Obamacare and the expansion of Medicaid both increased coverage of mental health treatment.
Of course, Republicans virulently opposed it.
1
It is true that civilians have no need for high-capacity magazines, but restricting them would have a very small impact on either total or mass-shooting gun deaths. A 10-round magazine can kill just about as many as larger ones, and in fact many mass attacks have been done with weapons other than "assault rifles". Most murders are actually done with hand guns and the total number of these is much larger than that of mass attacks. If years of effort are devoted to getting magazines restricted, the NRA and gun manufacturers would shift effort to other weapons and the death total would scarcely be changed. They would say "we gave you what you wanted - why aren't you satisfied?". To cut down on total gun deaths will require restricting all types of guns, but especially hand guns. This will probably require repeal of the Second Amendment, which authorizes guns expressly for military (militia) use.
5
@skeptonomist: The key would be to treat firearms like we do motor vehicles - and offer different types of licenses based on the risks for the device type. We don't allow someone licensed to drive a car to legally operate an 18-wheel truck, or drive a Greyhound-sized bus. So, too, we should require special licenses for anyone seeking to buy firearms (or ammunition) above .22 caliber.
Would passing such laws instantly prevent all shootings? Of course not - any more than laws against drunk driving prevent people from driving when intoxicated. What they would do is reduce the risks.
Example: If it is illegal to purchase an AR-15 clone rifle or .223 rounds without a special permit, these items would show up on the black markets. However, due to basic market principles, the price of these items in the black market would skyrocket. This would make them unavailable to the average mass shooter - or to the average criminal gang member. It would also stop straw purchases by folks making big bucks supplying weapons and ammunition to the drug gangs by making such purchases easy to detect. (If one purchases multiple rifles per year, and the authorities can spot this as easily as they can know how much money I earn each year, there'll be fewer folks risking routine firearm sales to the drug gangs.)
@skeptonomist
Your argument is not that of a skeptic, it is nonsensical. A flintlock rifle could kill 30 people, if you give him/her 30 minutes and victims who are tied up or otherwise can't run away, what you are doing is ignoring the reality. A 10 round magazine can kill as many people as a larger one, but in what time frame? The shooter in Dayton, for example, killed and wounded close to 20 people, yet cops arrived at the scene a minute or so after it was reported. At Newtown, Lanza was able to kill 26 people in a couple of minutes, at the Walmart the shooter killed 26 and wounded a lot more in the space of mere minutes.
Of course handguns kill more people, they are more common, but if for example the shooter in Dayton had a handgun, likely few if any people would have died (he shot from the outside, handgun bullets might not even get inside), assault weapons have muzzle velocities that are triple that of handguns, can kill from hundreds of yards away, the magnitude of death from a handgun is a tiny percent that of an Assault Rifle.In Dayton, if the shooter had a handgun, he would have likely hurt or killed few people and the cops would have killed him before doing any damage. The other thing about assault weapons is you kill people from afar, you don't have to look at them and pull the trigger, killing with an assault weapon is like a video game, a handgun is personal.
@music observer
Tell me again what rifle the Virginia Tech shooter used?
That's right he didn't. He murdered 32 people with two pistols.
It is true that civilians have no need for high-capacity magazines, but restricting them would have a very small impact on either total or mass-shooting gun deaths. A 10-round magazine can kill just about as many as larger ones, and in fact many mass attacks have been done with weapons other than "assault rifles". Most murders are actually done with hand guns and the total number of these is much larger than that of mass attacks. If years of effort are devoted to getting magazines restricted, the NRA and gun manufacturers would shift effort to other weapons and the death total would scarcely be changed. They would say "we gave you what you wanted - why aren't you satisfied?". To cut down on total gun deaths will require restricting all types of guns, but especially hand guns. This will probably require repeal of the Second Amendment, which authorizes guns expressly for military (militia) use.
A solution to guns, whatever that means, will not happen at the national level: the GOP, either in the majority or in the minority in the Senate will block any substantial changes. The answer lies at the local and state level, and many states have begun the process.
Democrats should take a page out of the pro life movement’s strategy against Roe. Pass local and state laws limiting access to guns. Many of these will be stuck down by the courts, but some will not, and those will, over time, limit significantly access to firearms. One need only look at some southern states, where abortion is legal on paper, but practically not. With waiting periods and various local laws, abortion is almost inaccessible. Guns can be minimized similarly.
Opponents of segregation worked for decades to challenge local laws in the courts, all the time laying precedent for what eventually became the Brown decision. It takes a long time.
The liberal states, ones like California, Oregon, Washington, New York etc., should enact laws that impact the guns itself. For example, they could require that trigger locks being part of the gun. Or then could require thumb print recognition for use. If these states, namely California with its massive population, required a change in the actual gun, the manufacturers would have to modify the weapons to maintain the market.
Ignore Congress. Work locally and through the courts. It may take decades.
8
@Paul . The solution has to take place at the national level, by replacing the second amendment.
1
Time to reconsider the idea voiced by the late Sen. Moynihan - place a $1000 tax on every box of ammunition that is used in any assault type weapon as well as extended magazines.
6
@Lou Candell
And who will enact this plan? As much as I like it it seems destined to be challenged and not succeed.
@CitizenTM
Yes, wishful thinking I’m afraid.
Trump has floated an idea - immigration reform for comprehensive background checks (close gun show loophole). This is the single most important federal gun legislation that can be passed.
Democrats need to take this up and call his bluff immediately. The wall is nothing more than money and a trade for a wall for gun control+some form of merit based immigration is a great trade for the country. He may back off but time to strike
4
@Chris
Democrats should put together a gun safety plan that doesn't include immigration reform, and here is why. Not only is it blackmail, by including immigration in the same bill it achieves Trump's aims: 1)By attaching immigration reform to a gun reform bill, it implies that immigrants are responsible for the carnage the gun control portion is meant to address, that it is immigrants who are causing all this crime (when, of course, it is generally the same suspects every time, white, blue collar, angry men). 2)It also implies that the answe to the kind of murder we saw in El Paso is to make America white again, that if we just restricted immigration all those angry white men wouldn't be out there shooting up Mexicans. Both of these appeal to the MAGA crowd, they believe to a person all crime is done by immigrants and they also believe that the answer to Americas problems is making it white again.
1
The Originalist judges will say magazines are not mentioned , therefore its a assumed right. the right to have weapons of war in every americans hands good policy My 35 year old new mother daughter is giving up on a sane America. I have little hope to offer her.
5
@Franpipeman from the "Militia Act of 1792":
That every citizen, so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball; or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch, and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack.
1
I'm constantly amazed that so many of the defenders of the Second Amendment ignore its FIRST clause, "a Well-regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free State..." By definition, this is a mandate for the separate states to regulate the use of militia-compatible weapons like semi-automatic weapons. One way to do this might be to pass laws conscripting into state-regulated militia all owners of such weapons, and "red-flag" confiscation of weapons owned by mentally disabled individuals.
18
@DMH: Quakers, who eschew arms, were very influential in the American Revolution, and they wanted militias regulated for their own safety.
6
And slave states wanted protection against an uprising. Let us not forget the origins of that amendment.
1
When I was in the Army in the 70s, my job required that I carry a 1911 style .45 pistol. The magazine had 7 rounds and I carried 2 spare magazines.
I bet I could fire all 21 rounds in 30 seconds. If someone brought an old gun like that to a mall or a school, it could have devastating results.
I really feel that enhanced backround checks, no private sale loopholes, should be the primary focus of our efforts.
8
@Tom
In addition to the banning of ANY type assault weapons AND extended magazines.
There are children who survived Sandy Hook because they escaped when the murderer fumbled while changing magazines.
There is no reason for large-capacity magazines except one: people have so much fun shooting with them that they are willing to tolerate the occasional massacre of innocents.
Oh, they hug the rationalizations we’ve all heard but I’m certain that inside they know that is the truth.
11
Some states limit shotgun shell capacity to 3 to limit the number of birds shot by hunters to help bird populations. It seems like limiting capacity to help humans would be just as acceptable.
7
Same old same old. Vote all Repubs OUT. At this point it's the only way. I am way beyond thinking that their party is able to move on this issue at all, except farther to the right.
29
Born ,brought up and resident in Scotland ,I remain amazed at the attitude to firearms in the USA. Apart from Northern Ireland,the majority of our police officers are unarmed and firearm regulations are fairly strict. Other weapons are available with an epidemic of knife crime in London. The use of firearms is unusual but not rare. Most Brits are uncomfortable seeing armed police when abroad including the US. How to avoid these tragedies requires a C change in attitudes to firearms. Not easy.
On a parallel issue ,DT trolls the mayor of London regularly over crime in the capital. The man has no dignity in his dealings with others. Get your own house in order before ridiculing others.
23
In Colorado the 15-round capacity magazine laws are unenforceable, since it’s still legal to purchase 30-round “parts kit” magazines, and once the parts are assembled they’re all looking the same. If we are going to make new laws, make them enforceable, with no silly loopholes, or it’s all a waste of time. Walk into any gun shop in Colorado and there are 30-round magazines as far as the eye can see.
5
Who is manufacturing these magazines? Who is distributing them? Who is selling them? It's time for the public to exercise its power, since Congress will not respect our wishes. Boycott every company/individual who is profiting from these murders.
7
@SDG
That isn't a bad idea, if gun manufacturers selling these weapons to civilians were treated like lepers, it might actually change things. I was just reading about some society event that happened overseas, where all these celebrities who talk a big talk about gun control, flew in for the party celebrating the birthday of a member of the Glock family (yes, that Glock).
Mr. Spitzer is making sense. Sadly, the NRA would spend every dollar it has to fight any proposal to limit magazine capacity. The public health crisis that is gun violence will continue to take its toll until our government takes a stand.
6
The 2nd Amendment is clear. Gun ownership is dependent on the need for a well regulated militia. The courts have been wrong on this for years. With GOP court packing this will not change for generations. The USA will continue to be the mass murder locus of the world.
23
@James A - Actually the courts were RIGHT on this for many more years before Heller. There had been 8 SCOTUS decisions that held that the 2nd amendment did NOT apply to an "unfettered" individual, i.e. a person not a member of a "well-regulated militia," The very conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger once said that anyone who held that the 2nd amendment gave such a person the right to own a gun was "perpatrating a fraud upon the American public."
That is what Scalia and his gang did.
Republicans own the courts .
The judges don't care for justice only moving the right wing agenda forward.
15
It’s getting tiresome but it must be stated every time this debate begins: the long-term goal of the anti-gun people is to ban all private ownership of all firearms, period. They are not to be trusted, no matter how much they talk about the need for “common-sense” gun restrictions. We’ve been fed “common sense” gun restrictions for years, accomplishing exactly nothing. When does it end?
5
@Larry
You are overstating the 'anti gun people' and who they/we are. There are hard core anti gun people who want to ban all of them, but for the most part that is a chimera created by the gun lobby to justify not allowing any bans. The NRA has argued that for years, that banning anything is tantamount to a total ban, which is basically propaganda. Most people want reasonable gun restrictions, maintaining the right of people to own guns for hunting or self defense or sports shooting, while protecting public safety. More importantly, judges across the spectrum have ruled that total bans on guns are unconstitutional, that while states have the right to restrict things like public carry, or the kinds of weapons you can own, that the 2nd amendment does in fact guarantee the right to own guns by private citizens.
The irony of all this is the gun nuts who insist that we be able to buy any weapons or ammunition we want, not have to register them or be accountable for them, are going to create their own worst nightmare, that when the 67% of the US who don't own guns get fed up enough, guns are going to be severely restricted. In the 1930's, thanks to the organized crime wars that caused so much havoc, fully automatic weapons were severely restricted. This carnage keeps up and the GOP is going to find that it becomes an issue, one where people are tired of all the killing, and put it right on the gop.
2
@Larry You are absolutely wrong. The anti-gun people, as you call them, do have a goal - but it isn’t to ban all gun ownership. It is gun safety. To reduce the number of unnecessary gun deaths and injury that occur on a more than daily basis in your country.
No country on the planet has an absolute ban on guns. You are insane if you think it could happen in the US.
The goal, and it should be yours as well, is gun safety.
2
@Larry Nonsense. That's like saying that the long term goal of those who decry cruelty to animals is veganism for all. No doubt it's true of some: but not most or even a significant minority.
2
What was the intent of expanding gun rights to individuals as Heller did? To create more lawlessness? This is the source of the mayhem being perpetrated against innocent civilians today.
Not one of these men is using his gun in a lawful way. These guns, like formula one race cars on city streets, lead to unlawful, deadly results.
At the very least, the magazines should be banned. All military style weapons should be banned altogether. Otherwise, calls to repeal the 2nd Amendment will become louder and more insistent.
7
@KHL
The idiots in DC thought that they could ban, not regulate, but BAN handguns in a person's home. It was a stupid law and deserved to be struck down.
The president should immediately ban any magazines that can hold in excess of 20-30 rounds. Furthermore the manufacture and sale of magazines in excess of that should be banned and prohibited. Ownership should also be prohibited retroactively for all such magazines. And the owners should be compelled under penalty of law (15 years imprisonment) to turn in every such magazine with greater capacity.
3
Defenders of the second amendment are willing to accept limitations on their rights to buy missiles and other military hardware, but not assault weapons. Why is that? Why stop at defending your right to own assault weapons? Does anyone know?
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@LarryThe right to bear arms means any weapon capable of being carried and used by a single person. That does not generally cover the kinds of weapons your post contemplates. It does cover the weapon you refer to as an "assault weapon" (once again, a made up term used for political rhetoric and legislation by those who spout such rhetoric).
1
@Larry
Actually (and sadly) they don't all accept this. I've argued with many of them on the internet and some of them believe individual citizens should be free to own tanks and even nuclear warheads. They are, frankly, insane. That's what we're dealing with--an epidemic of insanity across America.
The lunatics have all been liberated by the last presidential election.
1
@CAP
Actually individual citizens CAN own tanks.
https://www.pewpewtactical.com/how-to-buy-tank/
To address this problem as much as possible, we must have a Democratic Congress and White House and a liberal majority on the Supreme Court. Also, we must have a massive increase in spending for affordable mental health care and greatly increased training for our educators in detecting troubled students. Since the odds of this happening anytime soon are about zero, we will just have to adjust to the continuing shooting or shootings of the week.
4
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a close-up photo of gleaming ammo loaded into high capacity magazines like the one illustrating this article. However, I’ve read enough descriptions from trauma surgeons present after shootings like the one at Las Vegas, of the kind of horrendous injuries they inflict on human flesh and bone that I shudder just seeing them.
9
Our country seems to have lost its resolve to fix things that are broken, the discipline to do what's right for the country, the willingness to participate in our democracy (read, be informed, vote) the decency to respect our fellow citizens and the knowledge that diversity is our strength.
Though all value the freedom that American democracy provides, it's not free. It's ours to lose.
9
Of course, the author conveniently ignores the fact that the Second Amendment right was written by its authors to apply to weapons capable of military use.
I suppose there is no constitutional First Amendment right to views transmitted by electronic means either. It only applies to people giving speeches in public places, and one page at a time manual printing presses.
The normal way of dealing with the Constitution and its Amendments no longer seen as desirable or relevant is to pass another amendment repealing the earlier one. As was done with Prohibition. There is no "constitutional right" to repeal an amendment by going through the courts.
2
@RM Yet those "military use" weapons of 250 years ago were much different than the ones that we have now, weren't they? Do you really need to own a gun that can wipe out an entire class of first graders in seconds? Really?
@Maureen
And the printing presses and soap boxes were different 250 years ago as well.
No one, particularly you, knows anything of what the founders meant.
Good longer-term solution, but it is bullets that need to be outlawed or strictly monitored with serial numbers that track buyers that will address the problem now.
1
Banning high capacity magazines is such an easy and obvious no-brainer. You have in the USA far more regulations to protect the public from the perils of ladders than guns. There is no need to fire that many rounds without a pause to reload unless one is involved in actual combat.
14
Large capacity magazines. military style weapons -- Yes, these are the very things to be banned. And therefor taken back from those who have them.
Hunting rifles, handguns for target practice & implicitly for home protection -- these must never be taken away.
Why do our politicians loiter? Why do so many citizens refuse any sort of "gun control?"
3
@Ernest Werner
In your own state people have ignored the state law for registering "assault weapons". If New Yorkers can do that then surely the rest of us can do no less.
Americans do not remove politicians from office based on their support for the NRA and their disdain for more gun control legislation.
Republicans should invest in companies that sell stylish kevlar vests clothing, and helmets. This clothing will be the rage for families hoping to protect their children when they go to malls, theaters and outdoor concerts.
Through such investment, Republicans can add some coin to their coffers through their inaction on this issue.
4
Rip up the Norman Rockwell “Freedom from Fear” canvas. There is no such freedom in America, and you cannot meaningfully have any other freedom without that one. I live in Tennessee, born and raised here. Work in a rural area. It’s not just hunting, and I don’t think it’s really about wanting protection from government overreach (a laughable thought, really—that armed civilians even with AR 15s could take on the modern US military)...
What it is is paranoia. People here are paranoid, and they cling to their guns and the right to bear arms as talismans. Maybe it has to do with a decline in religion (even among those who still maintain their religion, I get the sense they may not fully believe in what they say they believe)? Maybe people are more afraid of death without the comfort of true religion? Hence arming themselves to the teeth? Anyway, we’re a nation of terrified sheep, as far as I can see from Tennessee, and terrified sheep don’t act rationally. So, naturally, the solution will be more guns!
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@LWib Another issue is that perhaps white males need to feel more “masculine”. Maybe carrying and using a war weapon makes them feel like a man.
19
@LWib People armed with not much more than rifles have done pretty well against our military in Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc.
5
@LWib
I suppose you also wouldn't give the Taliban in Afghanistan - armed mostly with just AK-47s - any chance against the modern US military either.
2
Many people fear (with some justification) that the current government exhibits unprincipled tyranny and systematically ignores the rights of many citizens. The Bill of Rights, and especially the Second Amendment, was created to prevent exactly that. If you limit some of those rights you open the door to limiting all of them. Freedom comes at a steep cost.
3
@Larry: The "Bill of rights" is actually a list of instructions to Congress stipulating how it may use or not use the powers delegated to it under Article I of the Constitution.
4
@Larry
Freedom is the ability to live your life without the risk of some mentally ill white very young adult who wants to commit suicide by shooting a military rifle with a high capacity magazine.
No one would call the ability to own an assault rifle freedom.
I would prefer the freedom of the rest of the world.
1
@Larry I wouldn't call living in fear of being mowed down by a deranged gunman while shopping, worshiping, clubbing, or attending a movie, concert or class "freedom."
2
Why should the majority of people in the USA have to live under the tyranny of a constitution that is essentially impossible to amend? Why don't the blue states secede and form a new country? This country would not have a 2nd Amendment and would not be saddled with other undemocratic relics like the filibuster, the Electoral College, or the Senate.
This may sound insane, but it is one of the few solutions I can think of for the current political impasse.
24
@John
The majority of people are "tyrannized" because they're prohibited from imposing their will on the minority?
@John Should Donald Trump lose the popular vote by five million votes but still win the electoral college, your idea may well come to fruition.
2
@John
I'd support your fine idea only if this FDR Progressive [hate 2 call myself a Democrat anymore considering how corrupt the Party has become under pols like Feinstein, Pelosi & others ] can flee Permanently Damaged SC to move back to a Blue State--I'd say CA but those 2 aforementioned pols---well---
It would be great if we could couple restrictions on guns with restrictions on abortion. One would attract liberal support and the other would attract conservative support and perhaps the man who wrote The Art of the Deal would go along?
People do not need weapons with a capacity of more than six.
And women do not need abortion rights for 24 weeks.
Compromise anyone? Or does the country consist entirely of people who say, "heads I win, tails you lose"?
@Ludwig One thing has nothing to do with the other. Holding common-sense gun regulations hostage to some purely religious agenda is reprehensible. Your religion is not my religion. Your religion does not trump democracy.
1
@Ludwig Yeah, why is it always women's rights that are considered disposable, Ludwig?
1
@Ludwig Why six?
Let's see some of those who think themselves constitutional originalists consider this: those who wrote the second amendment had in mind muzzle loaders and nothing else. I'd be happy to see the interpretation go back to that.
16
@Andrew
Understand that your argument will put the most advanced firearms available into the hands of everyday citizens. What you may not know but the colonists had muzzlel leaders that were considered the most advanced firearms of the time. Be careful what you wish for.
1
@JustaVET
And those who wrote the first amendment had in mind moveable type and soapboxes. Shall we insist upon that, as well?
I am not a lawyer or intellectual pundit. But I read the Second Amendment again and again and tried to understand the justification of automatic or semiautomatic gun in people’s hand . I see no justification .
27
@ASHRAF CHOWDHURY
The British marched on Lexington and Concord to do one thing and that was to seize the gun powder there. To disarm the populace.
You also need to read the Declaration of Independence. In our founding document you will find that as a citizen it's not only your Right but Your Responsibility to overthrow your government as they did if and when there is no other choice.
2
@ASHRAF CHOWDHURY Your problem is that you don't own enough stock in the gun manufacturers. Buy more, and then come back and review the Second Amendment again.
2
@ASHRAF CHOWDHURY. I agree!
2
If Congress does not have the will power to restrict sales of assault rifles and rapid-fire or machine pistols, it can at least require registration and licensing of all such weapons without violating constitutional rights.
7
@Ted Goldenberg
Congress is not going to do that either.
The states which have required such steps (CA,NY) have seen massive non-compliance with those requirements.
The originalists on the Supreme Court want to interpret the Constitution and the Bill of Rights not as we in the 21st century would but as the framers did. On that basis, the 2nd amendment allows us to own muskets, and nothing beyond that.
49
@James and only quill pens and parchment paper...better unplug that laptop before the thought police get there...
An "originalist" like Clarence Thomas will certainly rule that the meaning given by the Founding Fathers would limit all weapons to one bullet at a time. In fact, the second amendment was written under the notion that the bullet and the powder to propel said ball are separate. A high capacity magazine was not contemplated and a modern interpretation would be a rewriting of the Constitution. Any other reading would be judicial overreach - right Clarence?
434
@Dan Raemer If that were true, the portion of the 1st Amendment protecting the media would only apply to Gutenberg Press publications.
21
@Dan Raemer
Further limitations on guns and high-capacity magazines are needed and should be consistent across states.
That someone can legally purchase a particular type of rifle and magazine In state A and carry it into state B, where they are illegal, shows the inherent problem in allowing each state to set its own definitions of what kinds of guns and magazines are allowed. (Of course, guns and ammunition can be also be obtained illegally, too.)
That said, I believe the author weakens his argument by using the vague term “military-style” rifles without defining exactly what military-style means. Indeed, I believe he uses the term “military-style” (and others use “assault rifle”) because it sounds somehow more powerful or dangerous or sinister than “rifle” used by itself. Guns of any size and type are potentially dangerous—no need to indulge in hyperbole like “military-style.”
Mass shootings grab our attention—and headlines and air time—even though they are a minute percentage of annual gun deaths in the US. According to the CDC, and as reported last December in the NYT, nearly 2/3 of the 40,000 annual gun-related deaths in the US were suicides. A disproportionate number of the remaining 14,000 or so gun killings were black-on-black homicides in inner cites, which along with suicides receive scant attention in the media.
Seeking a Constitutional amendment currently seems beyond reach; surely there must be a path to a Supreme Court resolution.
11
@Independent Observer
I am glad we agree that there is something unworkable with this whole "originalist" approach.
23
The Tuscon shooter who severely wounded Rep. Gabby Giffords was prevented from shooting even more people when he attempted to reload. A 61 year old woman wrenched the loaded magazine from his hands, which gave another bystander a chance to tackle him. Imagine how much greater the carnage would have been if he had a larger magazine and didn't have to stop to reload.
60
If the British had restricted travel in any form in the colonial era, and the writers of the Constitution had written “…the right of the people to free travel shall not be abridged”, would we have no laws concerning speed limits, one-way streets, driving licenses, school zones, seat belts, etc?
52
The question we should be asking is why do these people want to own weapons of war that can drop 100 people in less than 100 seconds? Why do so many want to own that level of killing power?
I own no guns, can't stand the things, and yet I feel perfectly safe in my home. I have taken measures to make it extremely difficult for someone to break in and do me harm. When I am out on the streets, I stay alert and observant, as crime does exist, but feel safe.
But millions of people want this kind of firepower. They claim it is their right. Well, we have lots of right to do lots of stupid things, but that does not mean we should do them.
Forget what the Constitution says or doesn't say. Why do the gun people feel to need to own weapons of mass destruction and people like me don't? Their desires created this market which has ruined public safety.
These weapons are totally unnecessary. They are not hunting weapons and you don't need them to punch holes in a piece of paper at a shooting range. Citizens don't get into rolling battles with criminals where they fire off 100's of rounds like in the movies. Once the shooting starts in a crime and a gun fight breaks out, its over after a few rounds are exchanged.
Why should the irrational desires of a few be allowed to create such a dangerous world that people are afraid to go anywhere? What if the claim was made that speed limits restrict the right of assembly and we got rid of them? No problem, just drive a tank.
121
@Bruce Rozenblit The political challenge is how to change the 2nd amendment. Until we are willing and able to do that, laws aimed at removing guns from society will fail at the courts.
10
@ Bruce Rozenblitt, These assault gun owners want these weapons because they are domestic terrorists and this is the ideal weapon for their cause. “There is a vast right wing conspiracy in this country”.
8
@Bruce Rozenblit
I really enjoy shooting guns. For me, it's a great stress reliever to go unload some rounds into a target. I don't feel unsafe in my day to day, but I love to go shoot.
I have fired an AR with a magazine full of bullets. It's a different experience from shooting a pistol. You can be accurate at a longer distance and it's just, well, fun to unload a bunch of rounds really accurately and make smoke and see flashes etc. It's just satisfying.
That said, these are really easy weapons to shoot. Really easy to kill with. Stupid easy. Their availability is not a good idea. There are very few "hero citizens" who would be able to stop a shooter with their concealed 9mm.
I think we need to allow for gun ranges to own these types of guns and magazines so that people can go enjoy shooting them, then leave them locked up at the range when they go home. It's a win/win- we get them off the street, but enthusiasts can still enjoy shooting them. They have no practical purpose otherwise (security, hunting).
10
It's time to repeal the 2nd Amendment and start over again. When an amendment is absurd it has no use whatsoever.
47
@Mike Simply repealing the 2nd Amendment will only affect 6 states since the other 44 guarantee their citizens the right to bear arms in their state constitutions.
2
"The right-wing political extremist who gunned down nearly two dozen people at an El Paso Walmart"
All I keep reading and hearing about, both here and on broadcast/cable news, is how this guy's manifesto was all about anti-immigration. While a great deal of it was, quite a bit was also anti-corporations and extreme environmentalist screeds, which are decidedly left-wing positions. This guy wasn't right-wing; he was a mishmash of ridiculous ideas which seemed to be from media sources across the boards.
1
The extreme gun club is always looking to disavow members of the club who up until he pulled the trigger would have been defended to the hilt as a "law abiding good guy with a gun."
@Independent Observer
He was mostly echoing Mr. President's Twitter feeds.
1
@Independent Observer
He was of the right. There are plenty of right wingers who are anti-corporate and pro-environment. You do not however find too many left-wingers who rail against race-mixing, talk about the Great Replacement, and wish to break up the US into racial ethnostates as the "kind" alternative to exterminating or expelling non-whites.
Right wing white nationalist thru and thru.
1
Except for punctuation, it's clear in the 2nd Amendment that civilian gun rights are clearly tied to their possible participation in a national militia (there was no standing US army alternative).
And the idea that one man could fire a gun with 100 rounds in mere minutes was unthinkable.
According to the logic that military guns designed solely for killing humans is necessary to allow civilians to fight (another) rebellion such as the Rev. War would now imply anything up to nuclear weapons would be allowed for the same reason.
Certainly, looking at the militaristic police responding to the Texas shooting, our policing is turning quasi-military as law enforcement responds to an arms war with crime.
14
The first amendment also needs amending, as well as the second. Should gratuitous hate speech, and violent video games and movies, when they form a pattern of leading to homicidal violence, be protected speech?
10
@Observer . Yes, they should. With no disrespect to authors, there is a real difference between words and guns. Restrictions on speech are much more onerous, and much more likely to be misused.
1
@Observer
Another silly argument—killing war machine need to be outlawed period!
Can one of my fellow countrymen please explain to me in a non confrontational/logical way why it is so important to have unlimited access to guns and ammo? A quick look at statistics states over 30,000 gun deaths in the US annually. This is simply not viewed as a problem requiring any type of a political or law enforcement solution. 70,000 opioid deaths? Problem. CEOs and other top officers of the companies that manufacture said opioids are currently embattled in court over the fact that in order to up the sales of opioids they’ve actually encouraged the sale of said drugs not caring where they end up. We have laws that prevent gun manufacturers from facing any such legal challenges. Other countries with stricter gun laws don’t face this issue and are certainly not ruled by tyrants. Tokyo is one of the most heavily populated cities on the planet yet 5-6 year olds take the subways to school by themselves. Australiain citizens allowed the govt. to buy back their assault weapons after one mass shooting.
New Zealand? One crazed madman attacked worshipers in a mosque, and they’re done with guns. What do these other countries have that we don’t? Sanity regarding access to guns. None of the above listed countries are ruled by dictators confiscating guns. No other country has a problem with their schools or malls getting shot up by gun wielding crazed students or madmen. BTW my local school had rifle shooting while my kids were attendant. I know of which I speak.
68
@Timothy H.
Mass shootings grab our attention—and headlines and air time—even though they are a minute percentage of annual gun deaths in the US.
Actually, according to the CDC, and as reported last December in the NYT, nearly 2/3 of the 40,000 annual gun-related deaths in the US were suicides. A disproportionate number of the remaining 14,000 or so gun killings were black-on-black homicides in inner cites, which along with suicides receive scant attention in the media.
1
@Timothy H.
This is about messaging and what guns represent to a swath of the population. This isn't really about the type of gun, but rather the gun is a symbol of a particular culture. Hunting, pick up trucks, target shooting, and the like are often portrayed by the media as backward or rural. Obama made comments, Clinton as well. This assault on a perceived way of life is what drives certain individuals to want to own weapons that may or may not be useful. Many of the people who hunt and target shoot don't own semiautomatic rifles, but they engage in solidarity with others due to a perceived assault on their lifestyle. The comments that Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton made about needing to eventually take away guns was fuel for the fire. Many gun owners support restrictions such as background checks and training, but the slippery slope argument has been validated by politicians by their own rhetoric. Now, a small group of individuals driven by a deranged ideology are now committing terrorist attacks against the American public. This is a separate group entirely from the one I mentioned above. These weapons have been available since the sunset of the Brady ban, but now you have a significant uptick in these shootings all over the world. I hope that helps you understand a bit more.
7
@Mon Ray Suicides are another reason to regulate guns, not a reason not to regulate them.
5
The Supreme Court decided in the Heller case (by a narrow 5-4 vote) that the Second Amendment is an individual right,although the text says nothing about that. The Amendment of does not prohibit regulation any more than the right to vote prohibits the regulation of elections.
25
@Vincent Maloney
I have a question and maybe you can answer it, Vincent: can a sitting judge at any level be impeached and if so, how and under what conditions?
It seems to me that, ironically, judges see themselves as being above the law. Long history of this for sure!
5
Who defines “arms” are the second amendment? High capacity magazines now; why not armor piercing ammunition, ammunition, fully automatic guns. Arms include bazookas, tanks, Gatling guns, field artillery, planes. Why are those arms not protected? What, ultimately, defines second amendment protected arms? What did the founders have in mind? Don’t forget that all functional guns in the 1700s were muzzle-loaded.
12
Someday Heller will be considered as wrong, and as destructive, as Dred Scott. It is a gross misinterpretation of the Second Amendment, and it has led directly to many, many gun deaths. Those justices who wrote the Heller decision have the blood of those who were shot on their hands.
93
No one has mentioned slaves. To the founding fathers, the most important function of a "well-regulated militia" was to defend against slave uprisings. Young southern men needed military training to defend their lives, liberty, and property from their "property".
10
@Dennis Mancl
Given that the Constitution was written by veterans of the Rev. War then going into another war (1812)...you can't really say slave uprisings were the hidden reason.
And, as settlers across the county, guns were a necessary part of frontier life for hunting and safety (bears, wolves, Indians).
1
As we've seen through the history of this country, what is deemed as 'legal' is not the equivalent of what is just and right. We live in a time when different interpretations of the Bible are more acceptable than different interpretations of the US Constitution. In effect, the 2nd Amendment has become an ideology supported at all cost by clerics in black robes.
8
Contrary to received opinion, the NRA has not usually relied upon the Second Amendment for for its defence of the right to
bear arms. Instead it has concentrated on the right of states and not the Federal government to make rules. Over most of its history, the Second Amendment has not been interpreted as a blanket guarantee to own any kind of weapon — witness the outlawing of Tommy guns during Prohibition. I am always surprised at the current paralysis of Americans in the face of this 18th century Amendment.
8
Further limitations on guns and high-capacity magazines are in order, and should be consistent across states.
The fact that someone can legally purchase a particular type of rifle and magazine considered legal in state A and carry it into state B, where they are illegal, shows the inherent problem in allowing each state to set its own definitions of what kinds of guns and magazines are allowed. (Of course, guns and ammunition can be also be obtained illegally, too.)
That said, I believe the author weakens his argument by using the vague term “military-style” rifles without defining exactly what military-style means. Indeed, I believe he uses the term “military-style” (and others use “assault rifle”) because it sounds somehow more powerful or dangerous or sinister than “rifle” used by itself. Guns of any size and type are potentially dangerous—no need to indulge in hyperbole like “military-style.”
Mass shootings grab our attention—and headlines and air time—even though they are a minute percentage of annual gun deaths in the US. According to the CDC, and as reported last December in the NYT, nearly 2/3 of the 40,000 annual gun-related deaths in the US were suicides. A disproportionate number of the remaining 14,000 or so gun killings were black-on-black homicides in inner cites, which along with suicides receive scant attention in the media.
Seeking a Constitutional amendment currently seems beyond reach; surely there must be a path to a Supreme Court resolution.
2
@Mon Ray A report on 60 minutes a few weeks ago showed that the difference in the lethality of military style assault rifles isn't the design of the weapon, per se. It is the characteristics of the ammunition. The bullet is designed to fragment and tumble once it hits its target, which causes a lot more damage than a bullet that stays intact. It is designed to shred tissue and shatter bone in order to inflict maximum damage. However, I am sure that even a limitation on this aspect of gun culture will be struck down. As long as conservative ideology favors the ability to kill more than the ability to live we are stuck with this insanity and forced to live in fear.
5
Nor is there any second amendment right to semi-automatic weapons. Serious hunters - of which I am one - are precision, one-shot advocates. We have no need for assault rifles. Most mass murders have been perpetrated by semi or fully automatic weapons. Gun enthusiasts “want” such weapons, but only think that they “need” them. In my view - as an Army veteran, level one trauma center emergency physician, firearms safety instructor, hunter and target shooter - there is absolutely no place in a civilized society for semi-automatic weaponry. I view the NRA as a national disgrace.
488
@Mike Flannery - Absolutely agree. These are weapons of war.
And if it were not for the improvements in trauma care by you and your colleagues, the firearms death toll in this country would be far higher than we see.
42
@Mike Flannery
Thank you for your service as both a trauma doctor and Army veteran. Your common sense stance is refreshing and I hope others rise to emulate it.
55
@Mike Flannery The second amendment was in every sense intended to ensure more military-age males possessed a weapon of war. At the time that was a smoothbore musket. The modern equivalent would be a select-fire assault rifle, capable of full-auto or burst fire like our troops carry. It's an outdated concept--the average gun owner is absolutely useless in any kind of mobilization scenario--but it has nothing to do with hunting. It should be cleanly repealed.
19
The 5 to 4 vote of a partisan Supreme Court is never going to convince me that the Constitution gives free rein to this madness.
The NRA has done an efficient and lethal job of convincing a considerable amount of people of the need to have a gun. I look forward to the time when the 5 to 4 vote will be reversed and some semblance of reasonableness will take place, By all means, have your hunting rifle and target guns, all else should be banned.
And don't give me the argument that laws don't stop shootings.
We have laws against murder and murder still occurs, does that mean that we shouldn't have laws against it?
42
The 2nd Amendment was designed to protect liberty by creating a well-regulated citizens' militia. If the military power were in the hands of the people rather than the king, the king couldn't use the military against the people. Nor could he venture into unpopular wars. The Founders were skeptical about standing, professional armies, and the second amendment was designed primarily to place the military power, like the civilian power, in the hands of the people rather than leave it with the king.
The 2nd Amendment was not in any way about establishing some unlimited right of the individual to defend person, property, or liberty against criminals, the government, or other individually perceived threats. The Founders never intended to create social chaos. Only in recent years has the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment as protecting an individual's right to use deadly force in defense of person, property, or liberty gained traction. Scalia's opinion in Heller is a radical reinterpretation of the amendment that is one of the most egregious examples of politically-motivated judicial activism yet. It ignores the text of the amendment, dismissing its initial clause, and has nothing to do with the original intent of the Founders.
The problem now, however, is that our Constitution's meaning is held hostage by a conservative Court, and the Constitution itself is too difficult to amend. Our Constitution may not create a right to rebel, but I fear it may create the need to rebel.
74
@617to416. At least as far back as the civil war, the Second Amendment was used to allow private gun ownership for self defense. And it probably was the original intention of the amendment, though it is hard to know for sure. But the fact that Vermont’s constitution, written at the same time, as well as many other states, specifically allows guns for self defense, suggests that was the intent.
2
@Phil
I suggest reading the notes from the First Congress's debate on the amendment. The Founders had examples of several state constitutions that included language that protected guns for self-defence and hunting. They rejected that wording, though, and chose a much more narrow right. Most of the debate, actually, was about whether they needed to add a clause making it possible for conscientious objectors not to be forced to join the militia.
23
@617to416. Yet they still chose fairly ambiguous language; they could have made it clear that the right was intended only for a militia, if that was their intention. It only seems logical that the Founders, coming from the same states that specifically allowed self defense, also considered self defense a part of the right. Will we ever know for sure, probably not.
1
As a gun owner and hunter for over 50 years, the question needs to be turned on its head. What do the implacable 2nd amendment supporters suggest to stop the mass shootings that would be practical and would work? The current laws and regulations are not working. Waiting for their solutions.
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@tom Their tortuously reasoned answer would be to ensure that everyone is armed everywhere.
5
@tom
You need to focus on the problem not the tool. People willing to kill will just acquire a different tool to carry out their goal. Then what?
It's easy to focus on the tool and do something but it does nothing to solve the problem. Solving the problem is diffcult as it means each and everyone of us have to examine ourselves. We have to start getting involved. We have to stop hating each other because of our differences. Instead we gave to start accepting each other and our differences.
Hate is learned and we need to stop teaching it.
2
@tom
You need to focus on the problem not the tool. People willing to kill will just acquire a different tool to carry out their goal. Then what?
It's easy to focus on the tool and do something but it does nothing to solve the problem. Solving the problem is diffcult as it means each and everyone of us have to examine ourselves. We have to start getting involved. We have to stop hating each other because of our differences. Instead we gave to start accepting each other and our differences.
Hate is learned and we need to stop teaching it.
Thanks to Professor Spitzer for this granular look at the tragic horror of expanding magazine capacity. I do take some encouragement from the few states that have acted to restrict them. I'd go much, much farther. As several knowledgeable commenters (as well as a number of legal scholars) have observed, the Second Amendment is so specific to its era and context, so explicitly limited in terms of its actual provisions--explicitly including "regulation"--that it bears no meaningful or constitutionally continuous relation to our insanely rabid gun culture. I'm for repeal, yes, and I will stand up in public and on-line with others and say so. And, I'll bet a dollar that those that do will receive threats, both ephemeral and organized.
12
Let's trade some wounded deer for a reduction in mass shootings. Hunters can hunt with bolt action rifles, though some deer will run off suffering with wounds that are not immediately fatal. The hunter will have to get up off the seat in his blind, and track. But the number of innocent people killed and mutilated in mass shootings will be greatly reduced.
8
Agree. But in reality most assault style weapons are not purchased by men worried about wounded deer, they are purchased by men who think it makes them more manly or some other equally idiotic reason immature reason. These weapons have only one reason for being designed....mass carnage. Outlawing them is not prohibited by the 2nd amendment.
@Randy J Parker
Or do what we do in Canada. Limit magazines to 5 rounds. Anyone who needs more than 5 shots to take down a deer should not be hunting. And anyone who uses an AR-15 to hunt deer needs serious psychological counselling.
2
The Second Amendment is silent on the right to have a gun for hunting.
The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution has nothing to do with it. Neither does the size of gun magazines. All guns should be banned from private ownership, period.
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@John Q
Eliminating private gun ownership is extreme and would require changing the constitution. Not going to happen. The majority of gun owners are responsible. In my experience as a gun owner learning to shoot, safety is paramount and emphasized when shooting and in storage. I was terrified at first but found that gun owners are first and foremost concerned about safety and responsibility.
When all gun owners are vilified and held responsible for this carnage, it is not productive and causes many to take extreme views on gun laws. Reduce the number and type of firearms allowed? absolutely.
Require licenses, classes and regulate them?
Absolutely. Take away all guns? We would have issues with overpopulation of deer and elk here in Colorado.
One solution could be to regulate access to ammo. and show a license to buy it.
I think we should qualify the 2nd amendment just as the first is qualified. Gun ownership should not be an unfettered right. We as a society have a right to control firearms and limit what weapons people are available to own, along with magazine capacity. Guns are fun to shoot at targets. Guns are used for hunting. We need gun control.
The only way to have a productive conversation about guns is to stop vilifying gun owners.
4
Wrong. The only way to have a reasonable conversation is to have gun owners stop deifying guns.
1
The legislative priority should not be in limiting gun lethality, it should emphasize well regulated militias.
The second amendment, as I understand it, clearly allows weapons of war, since the threat it attempts to address is a military threat from despots, foreign or home-grown.
But if you encourage, or even obligate by law. the NRA or similar organisation to organise, and therefore be responsible for proper militias, including the potential tort liabilities in case of misbehaving, then a politically workable solution may emerge.
5
The 2nd Amendment, as you understand it, is not they way everyone understands it. That is the crux of the problem. Repeal and confiscate.
1
Where were all the Open Carry heroes and Concealed Carry patriots? Why didn't any of these Second Amendment absolutists, and I guarantee their were plenty on the scene in El Paso and Dayton, save lives?
32
Because the fact of the matter is most civilian carriers of weapons would not respond in a sensible or trained manner to end the threat. Most likely they would kill other innocent people, especially in a chaotic situation. This myth needs to end. Simply NRA garbage.
3
If you sell "assault" rifles they will be used to assault people. It's that simple. You don't assault paper targets. You don't assault small game or trophy animals. Assault is what you do to fellow human beings, usually in wartime, but we are a nation at war with ourselves, and unless we can take the "assault" out of the rifle, or make peace with ourselves, assault with a deadly weapon will remain a part of American public life.
51
This article says as much about how we conduct constitutional review as it does about gun control. Federal district court and appeals judges should not be able to put valid laws out of force, only justices of the relevant state supreme court or US Supreme Court. All Supreme Court justices should be subject to better selection processes that require super-majority votes. All US Supreme Court justices should be subject to a single lonmg term and to a mandatory retirement age.
9
Too late unless everyone votes out the GOP
A magazine is an essential part of a firearm. It does not function as designed without it, or with a substitute part that does not conform to the original design.
The AR-15 was always designed to operate with a 29 or 30 round magazine. To mandate that an original part not be used is tantamount to prohibiting the firearm itself, an entirely different issue.
Gun control advocates always see firearms as offensive weapons, and never as defensive weapons. Most have never touched or handled a firearm under any circumstances.
As a defensive weapon, the user does not want his ability to defend himself to be limited by being forced to have less ammunition than the designer of the weapon intended. First, it is customary to fire warning shots before one would intend to actually shoot anyone. Second, because of the stress of the moment, limited light, and other factors, the likelihood of any given shot hitting its target is low. So you would want the full capacity magazine to avoid running out of ammunition.
Most commenters probably live where a call to 911 will bring a response in three minutes or less. Where I live, there is no local police, and a call to 911 at night might bring a police response in 60 minutes. Before that, you are on your own.
3
Talking about using a weapon as it was designed, the AR-15 (M-16) was designed as a military weapon to be used by soldiers. So, as designed, it should not be used by civilians. I’m glad we all agree.
56
Dude, I also live in rural Vermont, and there's nothing here that requires an assault-style weapon with a high-capacity magazine.
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@A
To each his own. But the ideal defensive weapon is one you never need to fire to repel an unwanted visitor. Which means it should look as intimidating as possible.
Guns don’t kill people kill therefore people should not have guns. When I was in Vietnam i was stationed is Saigon a rather safe place. There were rumors of Vietcong activity in the area and we were all issued rifles that we had to carry at all times. We were not given any ammunition it was all for show. There is no reason people should be allowed to purchase hundreds of rounds of ammunition period. There should be a national registry for ammunition purchases. Not on the registry,no ammunition. Also limit the amount that can be purchased.
36
@Viincent
Limiting the amount of ammunition that can be purchased is too fraught with loopholes: In what period of time, who records and disseminates the information about the purchaser, etc. As has been advocated elsewhere in these postings, limit the size of the magazines in which the ammunition is stored and, possibly, the number of magazines any one individual can own, though that could also create problems in keeping track of that information.
@Viincent Right on! If the constitutional drafters had meant arms and ammunition they would have said so. (Strict constructionists - take note). Yes, you may bear arms but, incongruous or not, the constitution is clear.
1
"Mass shootings" are not all the same.
The subset who prepare their attacks would likely find a way around such restrictions, such as carrying several high-power pistols and simply discarding them when empty, or modifying the gun or magazine after the gun is purchased. I suspect regulating the guns themselves or the ammunition would be much more effective.
While limiting the sale of large magazines may help, it seems like the net effect will be much smaller than anyone hopes. There is nothing wrong with trying, but this is no substitute for the human side of the problem.
2
I don’t know too much about firearms, including exact terminology, but I do have a question.
Gun enthusiasts argue that an assault style rifle is no different than a standard rifle, except for “scary” cosmetic features. Maybe that’s true, but the U.S. military must have deemed the new style to be superior in some way when it switched from a “standard” style M1 to an assault style M16, in the 1960s I think.
I would like to see a legitimate ergonomic study of guns, specifically:
1. How long it takes an untrained shooter to reload with a new magazine, and what is the failure rate?
2. How much more efficient/effective is an assault style rifle versus a “standard” rifle?
It could provide a fact base to help inform whether or not an assault style weapon specifically confers any benefits to mass shooters.
4
@John
As a defensive weapon, you want your firearm to look as scary as possible to the person you are trying to make go away. Which means it should look as much as possible like a killing machine, with a big magazine.
And hopefully, it will not be necessary to fire a single shot before the threat leaves.
Gun enthusiasts lie. Assault weapons are meant to mow down groups of people rapidly. Assault weapons are notoriously less accurate and more difficult to handle than rifles, and they are lousy game hunting weapons. But they have one big advantage in some combat situations - weight of fire. It is that weight of fire that untrained military wannabe terrorists use when they mow down their victims. No one in the United States NEEDS an assault weapon for any purpose except domestic terrorism. Everything else you hear is just NRA lies.
2
@John
The switch was actually from the M14 to the M16 iirc. In any event the major reasons were that compared to the M1 and M14, the M16 was lighter. The soldier could carry more ammunition. The military had also done studies that showed that the greater effective range of the M1 and M14 was generally not used by most combat infantrymen (except snipers).
When will stop trying to parse the second amendment's impenetrable language and start pushing to just change the amendment? In the end, the problem is that the second amendment does allow nearly unrestricted access to guns. It is a relic of a former age. We need bright politicians to start working on new language that balances more interests, rather than being a blanket permission to carry arms.
30
After watching the gun debate go nowhere for years as cowardly politicians have tried to appease the pro-gun crowd, my position on the issue has now hardened. A lot.
I'm no longer interested in laws that tinker around the margins such as trying to regulate large capacity magazine or lightened stocks or any other other characteristics that define an assault rifle, excuse me, a "modern sporting rifle".
Instead, let's just change the regulatory rubric so that *ALL* semi-automatic weapons are regulated in the same way as we now regulate fully-automatic weapons. And yes, I am most certainly including semi-automatic pistols in that proposed change.
These regulations have been deemed constitutional and it will still be legal for gun enthusiasts to own semi-automatic weapons, they will just need to qualify for that ownership.
Here's how we do this:
1. Change the regulations and set a time certain by which owners of such weapons must either qualify under the new rules or turn in their weapons.
2. Set aside a pool of money to buy back the weapons from owners who choose not to qualify or who fail to qualify for continued ownership. Yes, it will be a large amount of money but gun violence also costs us a large amount of money and does so every year, year after year.
3. At the end of the allotted time period, begin arresting, prosecuting, and imprisoning any scofflaws.
Make it simple: semi-automatic weapon? Tight regulations, no exceptions!
49
@Atlant Schmidt
And before anyone asks, the reason why we set up the pool of money to compensate current gun owners is that this avoids the problem of this change in regulation being an "unconstitutional taking" of someone's property without compensation.
10
@Atlant Schmidt
Make it even simpler - ban all automatic weapons.
1
@Nancy
> Make it even simpler - ban all
> automatic weapons.
An outright ban might be unconstitutional. The beauty of the approach that I've recommended (changing the regulatory framework) is that the Supreme Court long ago ruled that regulating who can possess fully-automatic weapons was constitutional so the implication would be that regulating who can possess semi-automatic weapons in the same way would also be constitutional.
Now there's no guarantee that Trump's pet Supreme Court wouldn't reverse long-standing precedent and decide that even automatic weapons can't be regulated but 1) this would out them as utter hypocrites and, more importantly 2) provoke absolute outrage as very few people want to see the situation made even worse with the spread across our land of fully-automatic weapons.
So in my opinion, don't ban, just regulate.
3
We’re not a colony of England, fighting for our independence. The British are not coming. We do not need to raise militias.
Even the constitutional “originalists” should be able to recognize that the “framers” of our constitution could not foresee that guns would become weapons of mass destruction in peacetime, if we can call this peacetime.
Among NRA and politicians in their pocket, no concern about the ever-rising gun violence death toll.
I’ve said for a long time that when Congress took no action on gun control after Rep. Gabby Giffords (Dem.) in the course of her duties (meeting with constituents) and then Rep. Steve Scalise (Repub.) was shot in a Congress-related event (softball game) - two of their own, why would we think there will ever be Congressional action?
It would take a Democratic House/Senate/Presidency. Even then, common sense gun legislation could be over-turned by a Republican-appointed Supreme Court.
Would we deal with other public health threats this way? Watch the segment on gun violence as a public health on yesterday’s CBS Sunday Morning.
We’ve reached the point that Americans now need to be prepared to be victims/evaders/first responders whenever and wherever we go. That’s not freedom, it’s a poor quality of life, and it’s no way for us to live.
91
@Adrienne "It would take a Democratic House/Senate/Presidency"
We just had one from 2008 to 2010. Do you blame them for doing nothing or will you continue to only chastise Republicans?
1
@Adrienne
On a private tour of the Manse house near the North Bridge, a Scottish historian informed us that Paul Revere did not yell "The British are coming!". Everyone at that time was British.
Hunters who are true sportsmen eschew weapons with rapid fire capabilities for rifles and shotguns that require skill and accuracy with fewer shots. Revolvers used to be the norm for handguns until faster, more lethal ejection and reloading technologies arrived.
If semi automatic rifles and handguns were limited to the military and police, mass carnage would be reduced, and individual citizens would still be able to keep weapons for hunting and protection.
Unfortunately the weapons industry continues to prevent this by creating false narratives and fantasy scenarios for insecure, uncaring men in order to guard their blood-soaked profits.
14
@Adk, No, you're making stuff up. Real hunters are satisfied with the five shot limit for game animals and three shot limit for shotguns-- whether semi-automatic or manual.
2
@Ryan Why 5? Why not manual re-chambering, such as a bolt action? Just so that a missed kill shot on a deer can be followed by a merciful 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th try?
I'd happily trade some wounded deer for reduction in mass shootings.
@Adk
Why do the police need semi-automatic weapons if you intend to ban them for everyone else?
What does hunting have to do with anything? Most gun owners are not hunters. The 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with hunting. Nada.
Assault weapons are distinguished by sustained firepower. Used as designed, they equip a shooter to storm a position by spraying it with bullets that force its defenders to keep their heads down until they can be shot point-blank.
9
@Steve Bolger, That's only one way they are used, another is accurate long distance shooting.
1
Any argument that the founders based their writings on firearms that were extant then is hooey. They continually tried to get the best weapons they could. They would expect citizens to do the same to protect themselves from the tyranny of the state.
3
@JoeGiul
The founders realized that citizens of the young country would have to put food on the table, protect themselves against Indian attacks, and possibly form militias so as to protect the young country from foreign intervention.
Protection from "tyranny of the state" is a modern interpretation that gun lovers invented in order to rationalize their selfish love of semi-automatic weapons.
14
Funny how they didn’t mention that fear of tyranny of the state in the amendment; only a well ordered militia that would presumably be an instrument of the state.
5
@Bob Allen
Why would you think the militia is an instrument of the state? Was that true of the army George Washington commanded?
Yes, go after ammunition - nobody needs high capacity magazines for anything other than murder (or so-called sport that requires no skill at all to spray bullets). But also require gun insurance - because insurers will conduct real due diligence, with far better background checks, on potential owners and their families. And make it retroactive, because these weapons of war and hatred are wiping out generations.
103
@common sense advocate Insurance is the only realistic way to deal with all of the guns that are already in circulation. A lot of people will voluntarily divest themselves of unnecessary and extraneous weapons if they have to pay insurance premiums on them.
5
@common sense advocate
So everyone who has what you consider to be a high capacity magazine is a murderer or planning to become one?
Tax both guns and high capacity magazines with a HUGE tax.
We do not think of the cost of gun violence -- medical, legal, lost productivity. People injured through gun violence will often have to bear the medical costs of their injuries for years, some for the rest of their lives. This does not begin to count the mental health costs of survivors who will live with PTSD.
If the government will not outlaw guns and high capacity magazines, tax them.
13
@Valerie Elverton Dixon
If you can't get enough people to vote your way on outlawing guns then why on earth would you think you could get enough people to agree to higher taxes on guns?