Balkinization  

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Does the Second Amendment Prevent Gun Control? Some Notes on the First Amendment, the Second Amendment and the War on Terror

JB

We are all shocked and saddened by the disturbing story of the massacre at Virginia Tech. One question we will face in the coming weeks is whether this massacre, and previous ones in our history-- including the Columbine massacre in April 1999-- should spur reforms concerning the ownership, use and possession of guns.

I believe that the Second Amendment protects both an individual and a collective right, and I also believe-- contrary to existing doctrine-- that it applies to the state governments as well as the federal government. But that is the beginning of the inquiry, not the end of it. Constitutional rights are subject to reasonable regulations. That is true of the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech and press, and it is no less true of the Second Amendment's guarantee that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Although many think the First Amendment's textual guarantee seems absolute, in fact the key phrase is not "no law" but rather "abridging the freedom of speech." The Constitution does not define what abridgment is, nor, does it define the contours of "the freedom of speech." These have to be worked out over time, as well as the scope of permissible regulation consistent with that freedom.

The freedom to speak is limited by scores of content-neutral regulations that structure the time, place and manner of expression, and by content-based regulations that penalize defamation, fraud, incitement, conspiracy, obscenity, threat, harassment, and perjury. Many acts that occur through communication-- including contractual formation and contractual breach-- are treated as completely outside the guarantees of freedom of speech.

Nevertheless, the freedom of speech does protect some activities that cause significant harm to other people. Protecting freedom of speech imposes genuine costs on society; our hope is that its benefits-- in terms of freedom, dignity, and an open society-- outweigh those costs. As Justice Holmes said, the constitutional guarantee of free speech is an experiment, as all life is an experiment.

What we can say about the First Amendment we can also say about the Second. The Second Amendment does not prohibit reasonable regulations on the possession and use of arms; moreover, some possession and use of weapons falls completely outside of the constitutional guarantee. The most obvious example of the latter would be nuclear or biological weapons. At the same time, the Second Amendment does protect some activities that predictably cause significant harm to others. It also imposes significant costs on society, and we must hope that, properly construed, its benefits outweigh those costs.

This brings me to the issue of gun control. It is likely that a wide range of steps we could take today to limit the use and possession of dangerous weaponry are consistent with the Second Amendment, although there are probably some existing regulations that run afoul of that Amendment. Within that domain of permissible regulation, the Constitution is largely silent, and everything turns on questions of public policy. Moreover, even with respect to defining the enforceable boundaries of the Second Amendment right, practical consequences will inevitably play some role.

The Second Amendment has two central purposes: to act as a check on tyrannical governments (the classical republican theory) and to protect the right of self-defense where the state is unwilling or unable to defend the citizenry (the Reconstruction theory). These theories are consistent with a wide range of weapons regulations, although they do not permit wholesale confiscation of guns. We do not know whether any particular legislative solution would have prevented the slaughter at Virginia Tech, or whether such a solution is worth the additional costs it would impose. But we should not presume in advance that the Second Amendment rules out a solution that would work.

My final point concerns the War on Terror. Events like the Virginia Tech shootings put issues on the public agenda; they make things newly salient and create the appearance of emergency or at the very least a sense of an urgent need for governmental response. But we should not confuse salience either with importance or with good policy. The War on Terror is an excellent example: Following the 9-11 attacks, Congress rushed through a series of provisions-- some good and some bad-- without paying much attention to them, or in some cases, even reading them. (It also passed an authorization for the use of military force that was entirely too broad, but that's another story.) The Bush Administration used the crisis to institute a series of policy decisions that bordered on the authoritarian. What happened after 9/11 is exactly what one would expect. Our leaders panicked in a crisis, and cast about for proof that they were doing something. The sense of crisis opened the door for various forms of demagoguery and overreaching whose effects are still with us today. Ever since 9/11 our leaders have used the threat of terrorism and the need to wage a potentially endless War on Terror to justify shutting down important civil liberties protections. They have used fear and a sense of crisis to increase their power, abridge individual rights, and undermine important public values.

What happened at Virginia Tech could easily produce analogous political pressures to find solutions to what is also an ongoing danger to our country-- the widespread availability of firearms in the hands of criminals and terrorists, as well as emotionally disturbed persons who should not be trusted with weapons of any kind, much less guns. However, in this case, the familiar political valences would be reversed. Defenders of the Second Amendment-- many of whom are conservatives, will decry the rush to pass new gun controls, arguing that the fear of gun violence is overstated and insisting that granting more freedom to carry weapons will actually improve security. Meanwhile liberals-- many of whom have never thought the rights of gun owners very important-- will use the crisis generated by the Virginia Tech shootings as a justification for responding quickly and forcefully to what they see as an ongoing and urgent threat to American lives and national security. They might argue, to take a line from George W. Bush's arguments about the War on Terror, that if we don't work to win the battle against gun violence now, it will strike again when we least expect it.

Although there are abundant rhetorical similarities, I don't think that the issues arising from the Virginia Tech shootings and 9/11 are at all the same. What I do think they have in common is a tendency for overreaction: a tendency for salience-- and a sense of emergency-- to displace good public policy. If there is anything we should have learned from 9/11, it is that a sense of emergency can justify all sorts of bad decisions that we will come to regret later on.

Comments:

I don't think that the issues arising from the Virginia Tech shootings and 9/11 are at all the same. What I do think they have in common is a tendency for overreaction: a tendency for salience-- and a sense of emergency-- to displace good public policy. If there is anything we should have learned from 9/11, it is that a sense of emergency can justify all sorts of bad decisions that we will come to regret later on.

Putting aside my disagreement with some other aspects of your post, I find this claim especially doubtful. The attacks of 9/11 were new and dramatic; they raised the stakes regarding how we should understand and respond to terrorism. In contrast, the shootings at VT are simply the latest in a long line of such incidents; nothing we now know suggests that it will have any impact other than to reinforce previous understandings.

For this reason, I see no risk of any rush to judgment here, even if the politics of the situation allowed such, which they don't. The issues under debate are the same issues which we've debated since at least the late 1960s. If ever an issue were fully considered and deliberated, it's the issue of gun control. Whatever policies may be adopted -- and I seriously doubt any will -- they will not involve the kinds of mistakes which characterized the response to 9/11.
 

I've changed my mind. Yes, "Bart" is right, and we need to let everyone be armed so they can defend themselves when a shooter goes on a rampage. Twenty nine dead and some hundred and fifty wounded ... almost all avoidable if some of the victims had just been properly armed.

Forget I said anything different.
 

[Prof. Balkin, from the post]: Although many think the First Amendment's textual guarantee seems absolute, in fact the key phrase is not "no law" but rather "abridging the freedom of speech." The Constitution does not define what abridgment is, nor, does it define the contours of "the freedom of speech."

Similar circumstances pertain to "searches" and the derivative "reasonable expectation of privacy". Rather than admit to exceptions in extremis in the Constitution, the operative phrases are simply redefined so as to write out the troubling border conditions (you have no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in a prison cell, even though the Fourth Amendment applies to you; in a less explicable case, you have no expectation of privacy in what you keep in the boot of your car, even though the gummint is more forthright in weighing the "exigencies" there against your "reasonable expectations").

So will it always be. Jurists are more fond of abstruse and arcane definitions than they are of the alternative "well, this law applies 'sort of', unless we don't think it should..."

Cheers,
 

To say that the key phrase in the First Amendment is not "no law" but rather "abridging the freedom of speech" is a novel and interesting approach, but I don't agree with it. Laws against perjury, defamation, false advertising, death threats, and so forth do, under any commonsense understanding, abridge the freedom of speech, and it doesn't change that fact to say that "[t]he Constitution does not define what abridgment is." The reason that we accept such abridgments is that we do not take "no law" literally.
 

Since the text of the Second Amendment ("shall not") reads more like the First ("no law") than, say, the Fourth (the only Amendment that includes the adjective "unreasonable"), I would submit that the Second Amendment should be applied more like the First than the Fourth (i.e., strict scrutiny or more).

Stated differently, "reasonable regulations" is your text, not the Second Amendment's.
 

kipesquire:

Since the text of the Second Amendment ("shall not") reads more like the First ("no law") than, say, the Fourth (the only Amendment that includes the adjective "unreasonable"), I would submit that the Second Amendment should be applied more like the First than the Fourth (i.e., strict scrutiny or more).

Stated differently, "reasonable regulations" is your text, not the Second Amendment's.


"shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue,..."

I think your textual exegesis is somewhat misguided.

Not to mention, as Prof. Balkin pointed out, the First Amendment is subject to caveats and cavils, just as is the Fourth.

Cheers,
 

once you agree with the proposition posed by professor balkin in the post that nobody has the right to maintain nuclear weapons, which i don't think anyone disagrees with, you have conceded the question of whether or not the right of citizens to bear arms may be regulated. the question, therefore, simply becomes what is a reasonable regulation that does not run afoul of the second amendment's right to bear arms.
 

Meanwhile liberals-- many of whom have never thought the rights of gun owners very important-- will use the crisis generated by the Virginia Tech shootings as a justification for responding quickly and forcefully to what they see as an ongoing and urgent threat to American lives and national security. They might argue, to take a line from George W. Bush's arguments about the War on Terror, that if we don't work to win the battle against gun violence now, it will strike again when we least expect it.





Professor Balkin,


It is true that most people see this debate as being a liberal/conservative one, and I blame the media for that, but Judge Bork is not a liberal in any sense of the word and he does not see an "individual right" guarantee in the 2nd.

Jim Brady is not a liberal. He was Reagan's press secretary and many people forget that Reagan's admin was not very friendly to the 2nd, for obvious reasons.

More liberals and left leaning people than many people realize, (left libertarians like myself), are against prohibition and an overuse of the criminal sanction as a remedy for any number of society's ills. The media does not recognize us. They ignore us. I'm as left as they come and I'm not a pacifist or anti-war. I'm just "anti" the Iraq war, but it's true, we have more pacifists over here on the left, but by no means all of us. Other than that minor quibble, if I was a smart as you, that's exactly what I would have said.
 

Mark Field...The attacks of 9/11 were new and dramatic; they raised the stakes regarding how we should understand and respond to terrorism.

I see your point, Mark. I am troubled by the fact that it implies an attack (the '93 attempt) has to be successful (bring down the building or buildings and kill thousands) to be taken as a serious threat. Airplane hijacking are not really new or dramatic. Escalation is not new or dramatic. I'm not suggesting the Clinton admin did not take the threat seriously. That's just not true, regardless of what Fox News and Disney say. What I find "new and dramatic" is what happens when political hacks who hate government take over the government. Would 9/11 have succeeded under Clinton or some other non-hack president? I'm tending to doubt it.
 

and we need to let everyone be armed so they can defend themselves when a shooter goes on a rampage. Twenty nine dead and some hundred and fifty wounded ... almost all avoidable if some of the victims had just been properly armed.

Forget I said anything different.





Arne,

There is a reason why the element of surprise is such a potent "force multiplier" and a "surprise attack" works so well against trained and armed troops during wartime. Elderly tourists with guns? That'll work. Give us a break, Bart.
 

Professor Balkin is absolutely right when he notes that "we do not know whether any particular legislative solution would have prevented the slaughter at Virginia Tech, or whether such a solution is worth the additional costs it would impose."

We should be weary of jumping to let thousands of people have guns so that we can have armed people everywhere. The sense of security that I feel walking around the streets of Austin would be seriously abridged if I knew that my government sponsored people carrying guns around the streets to 'protect us.' I would feel significantly less secure. I dont see any serious legislative initiative that could stop something like this from ever happening again. All we can do is minimize the risk, and putting more guns out on the streets is not the way to get there.
 

Professor Balkin:

I am pleased to see that we agree on the general approach of treating the Second Amendment as we do the First Amendment. I agree that no right is absolute, but much of the current case law does not recognize any right to keep an bear arms outside of a National Guard.

While I disagree with the wisdom of the law which barred the possession of firearms on the VT campus, I am unsure whether the Second Amendment would bar such a law.

Private property owners can usually set conditions for the entry of others onto their property and barring possession of firearms could be such a condition. However, a court may want to make a public / non-public forum distinction similar to that used for the First Amendment where restrictions on the carry of arms on public streets, sidewalks and parks would received higher scrutiny than places restricted to government employees such military bases and the like. Under such an analysis, there may be a Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in some places but not on other places of a university campus.

In any case, I do not see the comparison between 9/11 and the VT killings. The only way to stop similar events in the future is to preemptively stop the perpetrators.

The US can and has taken several steps to preemptively stop al Qaeda and its allies. So far, these steps have been successful in preventing new attacks inside the United States. However, it is far easier to identify and stop an organized group than it is a single disturbed man like the VT murderer.
 

anonymous bosch:

[Arne]: ... and we need to let everyone be armed so they can defend themselves when a shooter goes on a rampage. Twenty nine dead and some hundred and fifty wounded ... almost all avoidable if some of the victims had just been properly armed.

There is a reason why the element of surprise is such a potent "force multiplier" and a "surprise attack" works so well against trained and armed troops during wartime. Elderly tourists with guns? That'll work. Give us a break, Bart.


Don't know where you got "[e]lderly tourists" out of that (although there might have been some). Here's more. BTW, "Bart" has not seriously suggested that these particular folks should have been armed; I just brought it up to see where "Bart"'s 'argument' would lead to, and what it would collide with, in a real world example....

Perhaps the snark was just a little bit too subtle, but if anyone thinks that Israel's going to let Palestinians run around with AK-47s (or even pistols) for self-defence, they're being ... ummm, "optimistic". But, I mean, who else is going to protect them from the occasional psychotic gunman?, certainly not the police... It's their right.... ummmm.... well..... Let me think about that a bit. Maybe this idea isn't quiet so straight-forward or obvious.

Cheers,
 

"Bart":

Private property owners can usually set conditions for the entry of others onto their property and barring possession of firearms could be such a condition. However, a court may want to make a public / non-public forum distinction similar to that used for the First Amendment where restrictions on the carry of arms on public streets, sidewalks and parks would received higher scrutiny than places restricted to government employees such military bases and the like.

Oh, yeah! The analogy is wonderful! We can "public shooting galleries" where anything goes, up to and including 50mm sniper rifles and maybe even grenades and bazookas, "limited public shooting galleries" limited as to content and manner of fire but not viewpoint (i.e., "target"), where you're free to fire on whomever you choose, but may not use hollow-point or buckshot, or semi-automatics, and "private shooting galleries" where you're free to fire on gays only, if that is what your "expressive association" dictates.

Yep, a tiered approach makes so much sense. The concepts adapt readily.

Cheers,
 

Anonymous Bosch said...

You are correct that the element of surprise will allow an attacker to draw first blood when he otherwise could not have if the attacked parties were prepared. However. disarming the attacked parties in the face of an armed attack hardly improves the odds of surviving a surprise attack.

The VT case involved a single man attempting to murder hundreds. Even with surprise on his side, if just a small fraction of those hundreds were armed, the attacker could have been stopped far short of murdering 30+ and wounding dozens more like defenseless sheep at a slaughter house.
 

"Bart" DePalma, master of siple solutions to simplified questions:

The only way to stop similar events in the future is to preemptively stop the perpetrators.

Ummm, they aren't "perpetrators" until they "perp" (this is not an insignificant obstacle; it defines not only what is legal but also to a large extent what is possible).

But "Bart"'s neglect of the distinction leads him to a wrong conclusion: That the only "solution" is to "stop" them. This is wrong on a number of levels. Preventing or dissuading someone from becoming an (incipient or actual) "perp" is also an option, as is preventing them from the means to do their thing. Any rational solution needs to look at all avenues.

Cheers,
 

"Bart" DePalma:

The US can and has taken several steps to preemptively stop al Qaeda and its allies. So far, these steps have been successful in preventing new attacks inside the United States.

Well, if you leave out the anthrax attacks. And why not, while we're puffing the Preznit's 'accomplishments'? But why limit it to the U.S., "Bart"? The rest of the world be damned, eh? I suspect the AFP folks I know wouldn't really appreciate your dissociation of the "control" zone (worldwide) and the "protected" zone (the U.S.). Nor would the Jordanians, the Spanish, the Brits, the Indonesians (twice), the Moroccans, etc. Particularly not the Iraqis. I suspect they'd tell you in no words what they thought of Dubya's "flypaper" theory ... particularly if they had personal defence firearms.

Cheers,
 

Arne Langsetmo said...

"Bart" DePalma, master of siple solutions to simplified questions: "The only way to stop similar events in the future is to preemptively stop the perpetrators."

This is wrong on a number of levels. Preventing or dissuading someone from becoming an (incipient or actual) "perp" is also an option, as is preventing them from the means to do their thing. Any rational solution needs to look at all avenues.


What do you know, arne and I agree on something. Someone break out the champagne!

Convincing people that there are better alternatives to blowing themselves up is the ultimate solution to the Islamic fascist movement and the reason I am a big proponent of democratization.

However, I am unsure how you convince people not to become deranged murderous loners like the VT perpetrator.

Given his knee jerk opposition to anything I post, I am wondering how arne is going to react to agreement...
 

I'll just say that if this attack had occured at any fraternity row -- this kid would have been stopped very quickly. At my undergrad institution, even though guns were banned on campus, about 1/4 of the rooms had guns in them (this coming from the manager of the property). Thankfully, there was never any gun violence -- rather surprisingly IMO (drunk and stupid fraternity guys, etc.)

So, fraternities do serve a good purpose. If we don't haze or drink you to death, who knows we might protect you! hehe
 

Clearly, the 2nd amendment does not prohibit everything that might be called "gun control", even as you could refer to punishing fraud as "censorship". The problem, though, of speaking of 'reasonable' gun control, is that we've had decades to progress from obvious measures, to reasonable measures, to dubious measures, and are well into measures which can be justified only by sheer opposition to the values the 2nd amendment embodies. "Reasonable" has nothing to do with them.

Just as we've long since outlawed fraud and fighting words, and libels which are genuinely untruthful, and gotten to outlawing the very core of the 1st amendment, political speech during campaigns.

Yes, there are reasonable restrictions on both speech and gun ownership. They were so reasonable they were all exausted long, long ago.
 

"Bart" DePalma:

["Bart"]: "The only way to stop similar events in the future is to preemptively stop the perpetrators."

[Arne]: This is wrong on a number of levels. Preventing or dissuading someone from becoming an (incipient or actual) "perp" is also an option, as is preventing them from the means to do their thing. Any rational solution needs to look at all avenues.

What do you know, arne and I agree on something. Someone break out the champagne!

Convincing people that there are better alternatives to blowing themselves up is the ultimate solution to the Islamic fascist movement and the reason I am a big proponent of democratization.


"Democratization at the point of a gun", to be specific. Back to the "simple answers for simplified questions", though, IC (though "Bart" left out the laissez fair... -- oops, that's that Cheese-eating-surrender-monkey language ... "free market" capitalism that's soooo important to the Iraqi feelings of self-worth, which explains the Bremer SNAFU there with all his young College Republicans teaching the Iraqis "free market capitalism" with pallets of shrink-wrapped hundred dollar bills [this is all detailed in this book]). Hey, waiddaminnit. Oh yeah. Iraq didn't attack us. Ooops.

However, I am unsure how you convince people not to become deranged murderous loners like the VT perpetrator.

Well, you might think about not insulting them, neglecting their societal structure and customs, religion, etc (as detailed in the book linked above). You might think about not installing dictators and turning the people into peasants if not prisoners (as detailed here), and so on.

On the domestic front, you might think about providing better (and more available) mental health care and counseling, crisis intervention, no-bullying policies, and reducing many of the elements of our dog-eat-dog stratified society that alienate and turn away too many people from active and full participation and enjoyment in society.

And when things start to get serious, I'd note that I've consistently advocated for the people that are constantly seeing things that no one else can see to get the help they need and get their doctors to titrate the Haldol up as necessary before they go completely nutzo.

Given his knee jerk opposition to anything I post, I am wondering how arne is going to react to agreement...

Seeing as I don't have a "knee jerk opposition" to everything you say, "Bart", but only take exception to falsities and logical nonsense, there is room for the occasional agreement on the rare instances when your emanations are not larded over with enough such to clog a horse's a...rteries. See above.

Yes, there's room for agreement, "Bart". But there still is no room for manufactured "facts". Can we agree on that?

Cheers,
 

I see your point, Mark. I am troubled by the fact that it implies an attack (the '93 attempt) has to be successful (bring down the building or buildings and kill thousands) to be taken as a serious threat. Airplane hijacking are not really new or dramatic. Escalation is not new or dramatic. I'm not suggesting the Clinton admin did not take the threat seriously. That's just not true, regardless of what Fox News and Disney say. What I find "new and dramatic" is what happens when political hacks who hate government take over the government. Would 9/11 have succeeded under Clinton or some other non-hack president? I'm tending to doubt it.

I agree that a competent administration might have prevented the 9/11 attacks. We'll never know for certain.

I also agree that airplane hijacks were not new or dramatic. What was new and dramatic was the use of the airplane as a weapon. That's mostly what I had in mind, and it changed both the danger of hijacks and the steps we need to take to prevent them. Other changes in our understanding of the world -- e.g., our willingness to tolerate rogue regimes like the Taliban -- may also have changed. In my view, however, nothing similar is likely to change because of the VT shootings (with the caveat that I don't know all the facts yet).

Yes, there are reasonable restrictions on both speech and gun ownership. They were so reasonable they were all exausted long, long ago.

In my view, there are good many more reasonable regulations which could be applied to gun ownership. I'm not sure, however, that any of them would have prevented this particular incident.

By the way, is anyone else having a problem signing in to post? Google is making me go to the sign-in page each time rather than accepting my password.
 

What was new and dramatic was the use of the airplane as a weapon.

Only because we fail to learn much of what we should from history and forget what we do learn too quickly. In the last 50 years, no nationalist-based insurgency against a foreign occupation has lost and if you lived through the war in the Pacific, or even have a passing knowledge of it, you may agree the idea of piloted aircraft being used as a weapon by a desperate foe is dramatic, it is definitely not new, and the fact that it is so dramatic is all the more reason to remember it is not new. It's the hubris. No one can touch us. No one would dare. The steps necessary to have prevented 9/11 are just business as usual and SOP for El Al (Israeli national airlines, as in socialism). Of course, here, it interferes with business and hurts the bottom line.
 

["Bart"]: "The only way to stop similar events in the future is to preemptively stop the perpetrators."

That sounds positively "socialist" and "nanny statist". Is Bart not feeling well?

I agree, however. More funding for mental health services and a requirement that attempted arson, (he tried to set his dorm room on fire) get Law enforcement and mental health service to intervene. It may not have prevented it. Like Mark said, we'll never know.

BTW, Mark... about sign in, it's probably due to the ongoing switchover and update. It's still going on and will be for some time.
 

Arne... Don't know where you got "[e]lderly tourists" out of that...

Similar attacks have occured in Egypt against western and Israeli toursists. Tourist groups tend to be an older demographic. Bart knows it's a crock he's peddling. He's been in the military. He wouldn't want to be caught in the crossfire of a free-fire zone like that.
 

if you lived through the war in the Pacific, or even have a passing knowledge of it, you may agree the idea of piloted aircraft being used as a weapon by a desperate foe is dramatic, it is definitely not new, and the fact that it is so dramatic is all the more reason to remember it is not new.

Of course, but it was "new" in the sense of unexpected as a consequence of hijacking.
 

Arne... "public shooting galleries" where anything goes, up to and including 50mm sniper rifles and maybe even grenades and bazookas,

Don't make the gun nuts salivate and drool.

A 50mm sniper rifle would have a helluva recoil and not be too accurate. The M203 or Mk19 auto grenade launchers are 40mm. You mean the Barrett, it's a .50 cal. Now that you mention it, I'd like one, for New Years and the 4th, maybe St. Paddy's. Halloween?

;-)
 

Mark... Of course, but it was "new" in the sense of unexpected as a consequence of hijacking.


Not to the Clinton Admin. "New" to the incompetent political hacks asleep at the wheel on 9/11? You bet.


2000-2001: ‘Planes as Weapons’ and ‘Simulated Attacks’ Part of Security Planning for Major Events in the USA

A 1998 presidential directive gave the National Security Council authority to designate important upcoming events as National Special Security Events (NSSEs) (see May 22, 1998). The US Secret Service is in charge of planning and implementing security for NSSEs, and the FBI and FEMA also have major security roles. [CSO Magazine, 9/2004; Scripps Howard News Service, 1/11/2005] Louis Freeh, director of the FBI for much of the 1990s until June 2001, will later tell the 9/11 Commission that in the years 2000 and 2001, the subject of “planes as weapons” was always one of the considerations in the planning of security for “a series of these, as we call them, special events,” and “resources were actually designated to deal with that particular threat.” He confirms that “the use of airplanes, either packed with explosives or otherwise, in suicide missions” was “part of the planning” for NSSEs. [9/11 Commission, 4/13/2004] According to the Secret Service, “there is a tremendous amount of advance planning and coordination” for NSSEs, sometimes taking months or even years. Various training initiatives are conducted, including “simulated attacks and medical emergencies, inter-agency tabletop exercises, and field exercises.” [United States Secret Service, n.d.; US Congress, 7/9/2002] Presumably the use of airplanes in suicide missions is incorporated into some of these simulated attacks.
Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Secret Service

 

Anonymous Bosch:

Arne... Don't know where you got "[e]lderly tourists" out of that...

Similar attacks have occured in Egypt against western and Israeli toursists.


I know. I've been to Luxor, Sharm el-Sheikh, and Abu Simbel; security has been tighter than Rove's anus driving by a prison, ever since Luxor. The Egyptians don't want their tourism business messed with; it's a large part of the entire GNP.

"Similar" in some sense, but not exactly. Dr. Goldstein wasn't killing tourists; he was killing the Palestinian Muslm worshippers at service there.

The main point I was making is that I suspect the Israelis aren't in any mood to let the Palestinians start packing heat to defend themselves just because half the IDF soldiers who were supposed to be providing security were lamentably late that day. I was curious if "Bart" was of the considered opinion that the Israelis should do so, seeing as self-defence is an inalienable right....

Cheers,
 

Anonymous Bosch:

A 50mm sniper rifle would have a helluva recoil and not be too accurate. The M203 or Mk19 auto grenade launchers are 40mm. You mean the Barrett, it's a .50 cal.

Quite right. My bad. 50mm is whomping big (i.e., a freakin' cannon or AA gun). I meant 50 cal. Brain spasm.

Cheers,


Cheers,
 

arne said...

On the domestic front, you might think about providing better (and more available) mental health care and counseling, crisis intervention, no-bullying policies, and reducing many of the elements of our dog-eat-dog stratified society that alienate and turn away too many people from active and full participation and enjoyment in society.

Can you possibly come up with another excuse why "society" is to blame for this evil little murderer lining people up against walls and gunning them down while laughing hysterically?

Cho was one of your "top dogs" in our "stratified society" who had every benefit including mental health counseling provided by the school. And yet he turned on everyone around him in an orgy of mass murder.

Here is a suggestion. No excuses. No one else to blame. Maybe Cho was simply an evil piece of work.

Egalitarianism does not eliminate evil. Quite to the contrary, when humanity tried your extreme egalitarianism over the past century, over 100,000,000 were murdered by evil pieces of work not too different from Cho who also railed about "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans."
 

Can you possibly come up with another excuse why "society" is to blame for this evil little murderer lining people up against walls and gunning them down while laughing hysterically?

What's your excuse? People are a product of their environment. We (society) even bear some responsibility for miscreants like Bush, Cheney, Rove, Norquist, all the idiotic neocon pundits (Krauthammer and Kristol, and you. And we are "effectuating an intervention". Sit down, shut up and listen. The binge and killing spree is over.
 

Wait: does this mean we have no right to open fire in a crowded theater
 

>>Can you possibly come up with another excuse why "society" is to blame for this evil little murderer

How does this square with liberals causing 9/11? Or PC multiculturalism causing us to lose in Iraq?

Just asking...
 

"Bart" DePalma:

Can you possibly come up with another excuse why "society" is to blame for this evil little murderer lining people up against walls and gunning them down while laughing hysterically?

It's not an excuse. It's a suggestion. I'm not laying blame; I'm trying to think of ways we can maybe deal with some of the alienation. Not saying it's possible for all, or even for some, or that it's effective ... but sure beats the pants off things like saying the shooter, who had been identified at that point only as a man of Asian descent, might be a "Paki" Muslim and part of "a coordinated terrorist attack.", eh?

Cho was one of your "top dogs" in our "stratified society" who had every benefit including mental health counseling provided by the school. And yet he turned on everyone around him in an orgy of mass murder.

Not saying it would have worked for Cho (but there is perhaps some indication that they might have done a bit more; hey, look, "Bart", you're the one that thinks we ought to do what we can to prevent such stuff, so do you think that maybe a bit more "intervention" here might not have been warranted?)

"top dogs" is your construction, "Bart"; I never said that. I did say that we have a stratified society, and increasingly so, it seems. Some people end up feeling left out, and this has been identified as one of the contributing factors in such rage. Just go watch "Heathers" if you need a clue (yeah, I know, it's Hollywood, but it didn't spring out of a vacuum).

Here is a suggestion. No excuses. No one else to blame....

Ummmm, covered above, you third-grade-level-reading moron.

... Maybe Cho was simply an evil piece of work.

Maybe. But that's hardly the question at issue here. And it certainly isn't the answer. Care to get serious about how you think the problem should be addressed?

Egalitarianism does not eliminate evil. Quite to the contrary, when humanity tried your extreme egalitarianism over the past century, over 100,000,000 were murdered by evil pieces of work not too different from Cho who also railed about "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans."

I think you're doing your usual "straw man"/"red herring" schtick here. Not to mention I said nothing about "egaltarianism", much less advocated some "communism in name only" as some kind of cure.

Let me know when you want to start reading what I said rather than what you think (or want) me to say. Then perhaps we could have a dialogue. Rather than being two people on different planets shouting at one another to no effect but to raise the hackles and ire of the other. That would be a refreshing change.

Cheers,
 

arne said...

Care to get serious about how you think the problem should be addressed?

OK, fair enough.

My experience as a prosecutor is that about 90% or so of criminals are screw ups, largely from broken homes, who simply were not taught by their parents how to live like a mature adults. Without the proper guidance, they fall into bad company and start using booze and drugs. Most were drunk or stoned when they committed their crimes.

I was able to help some of them with drug or alcohol counseling, but mostly they need to make their own decision to grow up and get away from the people they hung out with. In this, the government really cannot help.

I know this suggestion is likely to send your politically correct world view over the deep end, but the only thing the government probably can preemtively do for these folks is to encourage marriage and discourage divorce. Our current crime wave started when families started falling apart in the 60s and 70s. This is no accident. Rather, it is the real crime.

For the 5-10% of the other criminals I came across, the word evil is a good term. There are a tiny percentage of people out there who are simply bad and delight in tormenting others. As a Christian, I know this is heresy, but these people are largely unredeemable and the only solution is to incarcerate them and throw away the key or the death penalty if they commit the requisite crime.
 

Bart,

xperience as a prosecutor is that about 90% or so of criminals are screw ups, largely from broken homes, who simply were not taught by their parents how to live like a mature adults.

That should read "in my limited experience as an intern in the local DA's office... in FLORIDA..."

Now that's a "normal" place.

Can you possibly come up with another excuse why "society" is to blame for this evil little murderer lining people up against walls and gunning them down while laughing hysterically?

Brain tumor? Serious biochemical imbalance? Ronald Reagan and Thomas Szasz? His mommy and daddy
didn't love him enough? His mommy and daddy loved him too much?

Because shit happens? Because Cain slew Abel? Because now we may never know.

As a Christian, I know this is heresy, but these people are largely unredeemable and the only solution is to incarcerate them and throw away the key or the death penalty if they commit the requisite crime.

Why don't you do like John Derbyshire and become a Mysterian. All the devoutly intolerable wingnuts are doing it.
 

Can you possibly come up with another excuse why "society" is to blame for this evil little murderer lining people up against walls and gunning them down while laughing hysterically?

I'm laughing hysterically because every eyewitness account from a survivor I have heard so far says he never said a word and was without any observable emotional affect.

I forgot one: a steady diet of Twinkies...

I say require the "Chos" to be evaluated by mental health professionals, and to receive mental health services or even medication from them. He wanted none of it. In CA, his kind of behavior (stalking) may have been criminal and would have set alarms off all over the place. That's Virginia. While we are at it, (immigrant bashing), John Yoo should be evaluated as well.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

Bart dePalma said:

--My experience as a prosecutor is that about 90% or so of criminals are screw ups, largely from broken homes, who simply were not taught by their parents how to live like a mature adults. Without the proper guidance, they fall into bad company and start using booze and drugs. Most were drunk or stoned when they committed their crimes--

My experience as a foster parent and fraud investigator shows that the 10/80/10 "rule" still holds. 10% of the people will always follow the law/rule, 10% will never do so, and for the rest, it depends. The inculcation of values from parents/family helps, but I have seen criminals from broken and unbroken homes. As a foster parent, sometimes a broken home would have been better for these children than the dysfunctional dynamic that was present in their nuclear (meltdown) family.

--I was able to help some of them with drug or alcohol counseling, but mostly they need to make their own decision to grow up and get away from the people they hung out with. In this, the government really cannot help.--

Agreed for some, but many do not have the means to escape their social relationships.

--I know this suggestion is likely to send your politically correct world view over the deep end, but the only thing the government probably can preemtively do for these folks is to encourage marriage and discourage divorce. Our current crime wave started when families started falling apart in the 60s and 70s. This is no accident. Rather, it is the real crime.--

We have had crime like this going back centuries, so it wasn't the breakdown of the nuclear family that caused it. In fact, in the book "The Cheating Culture" by David Callahan, it is disparity in income and pressure to succeed that is most likely to cause someone to commit fraud, either to achieve greater means or to maintain them.

--For the 5-10% of the other criminals I came across, the word evil is a good term. There are a tiny percentage of people out there who are simply bad and delight in tormenting others. As a Christian, I know this is heresy, but these people are largely unredeemable and the only solution is to incarcerate them and throw away the key or the death penalty if they commit the requisite crime.--

It isn't total heresy, as the person must choose to redeem themselves, and there are some people who won't. And it is not just violent criminals who won't make this choice; I may be biased on this, but in fraud, it is people who already have middle and upper class incomes who constantly seek means of "improving" their situation. It is just harder and less "sexy" to prosecute them.
 

"Bart" DePalma makes a feeble effort at real discussion, but lets himself get tied up in ideology as usual:

[Arne]: Care to get serious about how you think the problem should be addressed?

OK, fair enough.


Of course, no apology for misstating what I'd said, but "Bart" not one of those apologiser-type people, he's more of a deciderator-type, so I'll ignore his shortcomings and just let it go....

My experience as a prosecutor is that about 90% or so of criminals are screw ups, largely from broken homes, who simply were not taught by their parents how to live like a mature adults....

Ahh, proof by personal anecdote. My favourite. But, not to let things get too off-track, yes, criminals generally come from bad and/or poor backgrounds (if'n you ignore people like Cunningham, Safavian, Abramoff, hell, even Ted Bundy....)

... Without the proper guidance, they fall into bad company and start using booze and drugs....

Like the good white Cris'shun folks never use drugs or booze <*sotto voce* "Ted Haggard">....

... Most were drunk or stoned when they committed their crimes.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. But what this has to do with the price or tea in Sri Lanka escapes me. FWIW, there's compelling evidence that a large part of the crime we have is related to the fact that drugs are illegal. People do crimes to get the money they need for drugs, drugs that are lucrative (and thus a target for criminal elements) because they are illegal. You'd think that some people might read up on Prohibition, pay attention, and get a clue.

But, to be honest, "Bart"'s leading us astray here. We're taking about how to prevent massaacres like Va. Tech, not your everyday burglaries and car-jackings.

I was able to help some of them with drug or alcohol counseling, but mostly they need to make their own decision to grow up and get away from the people they hung out with. In this, the government really cannot help.

Nonsense, of course. Britney Spears can afford a "cure", Mel Gibson can, hell, even Ted Haggard can call on his faithful parishioners to fork over to "treat" his homsexuality (that's a feat that is deserving of the Nobel Prize in Medicine).

But many people, particularly at the lower end of the spectrum, are sadly without adequate treatment, and that's a real tragedy. Worse yet, we in this country have still not recognised that mental health is just as important as physical health, and refuse to provide the level of support necessary, even under some of the most generous health insurance plans....

I know this suggestion is likely to send your politically correct world view over the deep end,...

No. Why should your bald assertion bother me?

.. but the only thing the government probably can preemtively do for these folks is to encourage marriage and discourage divorce....

You forgot "... and get a job". That's the message of Jared Taylor as detailed n his book "Paved With Good Intentions" (see also here and here for more on Taylor's scintillating ideas for a new 'Murkah....

Giuliani. Gingrich. Limbaugh. Wolfowitz. Reagan.

OK, starting to make sense. ;-)

... Our current crime wave started when families started falling apart in the 60s and 70s. This is no accident. Rather, it is the real crime.

Ummm, no. What happened in the '60s and '70s? Why, we got a surge of youngsters ... you know, the Baby Boom!!! ... coming of age.

For the 5-10% of the other criminals I came across, the word evil is a good term. There are a tiny percentage of people out there who are simply bad and delight in tormenting others....

Yeah. We've noticed. Abu Ghriab....

... As a Christian, I know this is heresy, but these people are largely unredeemable and the only solution is to incarcerate them and throw away the key or the death penalty if they commit the requisite crime.

Ted Bundy was a Republican.

Yes, he was a psychopath, and he should have been locked up and the key thrown away.

But why don't you look a little into the backgrounds of some of our most famous mass murderers on that link?

But you haven't answered the question, "Bart". How do we get to these people before they go bonkers and take out a couple dozen innocent people? And, is there anything we can do to make it more difficult for them to take out that many if and when they do go bonkers?

You know, like maybe closing the gun-show loophole and more stringent background checks, measures to cut down on the availability of handguns, maybe more intelligent firearms that can't be used if stolen, you know, that kind of thing.....

There's no one answer to it all (and the overall problem is not just the occasional bonkers sniper, but also the continuing carnage on a daily basis of gun deaths in the event of ordinary crime, gangs, rage, etc.).

If we're serious about wanting to improve things, we need to look at the whole problem, and take nothing off the table.

A while back, the nun guts went freakazoid on me when I suggested that we start manufacturing all firearms with encoding in the lands to more readily identify and trace the weapons used in crimes (along with more rigid trails of ownership, at least up to the point of theft). Horrors! We don't want the police to be able to do that.....

Cheers,
 

Bart writes: I know this suggestion is likely to send your politically correct world view over the deep end, but the only thing the government probably can preemtively do for these folks is to encourage marriage and discourage divorce. Our current crime wave started when families started falling apart in the 60s and 70s. This is no accident. Rather, it is the real crime.

Did it? It would be very interesting to see such data. Since it was no accident, what caused it? Perhaps we could repeal no-fault divorce
 

A while back, the nun guts went freakazoid on me when I suggested that we start manufacturing all firearms with encoding in the lands to more readily identify and trace the weapons used in crimes (along with more rigid trails of ownership, at least up to the point of theft). Horrors! We don't want the police to be able to do that.....

Right, as a thought exercise, consider the possibility of a strict registration process that remains relatively open. Sure, any citizen or alien resident can buy a firearm, but the encoded weapons must be registered, and follow-ups are done (as in car registration) every year to make sure the guns are still in the possession of the same people.

Failure to register or update your information means you do time, and use of an unregistered weapon in a crime makes it a capital offense (where available).

The state government then knows, more or less, where the legal guns are and who has them. Furthermore, those people who use illegal guns disappear as often as they're caught using them.

Sure, that's a lot of surveillance, but if it results in a safer America, it can't really be considered an invasion of privacy, can it? I mean, it's not like they're wire-tapping your phones or anything. ;)
 

PMS_Chicago:

Right, as a thought exercise, consider the possibility of a strict registration process that remains relatively open. Sure, any citizen or alien resident can buy a firearm, but the encoded weapons must be registered, and follow-ups are done (as in car registration) every year to make sure the guns are still in the possession of the same people.

Failure to register or update your information means you do time, and use of an unregistered weapon in a crime makes it a capital offense (where available).

The state government then knows, more or less, where the legal guns are and who has them. Furthermore, those people who use illegal guns disappear as often as they're caught using them.


I acknowledge the difficulties that crop once the gun has reached the "black market". I do have issues with the grey areas where it seems a good number of guns reach the "black market" (NYC, for instance, says that maybe half their illegal guns come from Virginia and other states that have very lax controls on private sales or even sales at gun shows). While the transactions in Virginia are "legal", they're unrecorded, and make the subsequent illegal sales in New York less dangerous for those "dealers" in the "grey market". I think all sales should be recorded (and limits put on how many guns can be sold and under what circumstances and restrictions). On top of that, making sure that the last legal owner of a gun can be traced not only helps in trying to find out how a gun got to where it was illegally used through "grey market" channels, it also allows the police to collect some useful information as to the possible suspects in the cases of outright "theft". Then there's the folks that sell a gun illegally, and then claim it was "stolen"....

All in all, I don't see the harm in a comprehensive registry, and in putting in enough identifying marks to allow for the guns to be traced more efficiently, even based on the forensics.

If your worry is that the state knows where the gun-owners live ... that's true of automobiles too ... and if it's the confiscation you're worried about, by the time it gets to that pass, we have bigger problems to address....

BTW, having the information available to LEAs if and when it's needed, for the simple information of who last owned a gun, doesn't seem quite like having the gummint snoop w/o a warrant on my phone conversations (note I do not dispute the right of the gummint to snoop my phone with a warrant ... I'd be somewhat hypocritical if I did, as I've been putting in legal tapping equipment for a decade or so now....)

Cheers,
 

Bart... Our current crime wave started when families started falling apart in the 60s and 70s. This is no accident. Rather, it is the real crime.

I hate to be the one to break this to you, darling, but "our current crime wave" is just a figment of your imagination. If crime is up slightly over a few years ago, it's because poverty is up, thanks to your bushshit. The crime wave you refer to was a stastical blip resulting from the baby boomers coming of age in the 60s. Most crimes are crimes of opportunity. The prime crime committing demo is 14-25 years of age, dropping of slightly in the 25-54 years of age demo, and if you aren't a career criminal by then, your crime committing days are usually. So, the facts are, as Fraud Guy said: crime statistics or rate of crime in a population are relatively constant. Baby boomers come of age, crime stats go up. Baby boomers age, crime stats go down. I majored in Criminal Justice but A Soc professor and I were discussing this once in class and he told us about newspaper accounts he researched from major urban areas in the U.S. of "crimes of madness and mayhem, hacking and killing" involving teens, and younger, from the turn of the century. Only an idiot would believe what you do, Bart. That life was "idyllic and pastoral," until the "evil dirty, fucking hippie liberals" took over the country and ruined it. You are a total moron.

About this gun barrel encoding... That's a new one on me. How easy is would it be, Arne, obliterating that without ruining the rifling? Still, it's an idea I hadn't heard before. Intersting.
 

*and if you aren't a "career criminal" by then, your crime committing days are usually over

One damn word.
 

Anonymous Bosch:

About this gun barrel encoding... That's a new one on me. How easy is would it be, Arne, obliterating that without ruining the rifling? Still, it's an idea I hadn't heard before. Intersting.

The nun guts were telling me it would be easy. But being "easy" doesn't mean that your normal crook is going to do so (and I'm not sure that it would be all that easy anyway). The nun guts just said they'd make a new barrel, but not eveyone has access to a machine shop (not to mention, you could make such alterations illegal, and if the nun guts and other legal owners could be talked into signing on to the idea [oh, yeah, they're nun guts; I forgot, and they want their freedom to be able to shoot things ... whatever ... anonymously; what was I thinking?], the only ones altering the patterns would be those with something to hide.

I was thinking redundant digitally encoded microgrooving and/or tiny variations on the width of the lands for encoding.

As it is, forensics can somewhat reliably determine if a gun was the one used to fire a bullet, but to do so, you have the have the weapon to fire a test bullet for a match. With encoding and a registry, you might be able to identify the weapon used even if you couldn't recover the actual weapon (which might come in handy in certain policework). An alternative might be to ask for a test bullet to be put in a repository for reference (along with a computer read of the scoring for use in matching), using the existing striation patterns left by guns even nowadays.

I was suggesting it on Usenet a decade or so back, and also sent a letter to Schumer suggesting they get someone to look into it.

I don't trust the opinion of the nun guts in such a matter as to practicality (they seemed to dismiss the possibility with more passion than evidence); I think it may well be something worth pursuing.

Cheers,
 

Further on the scoring idea:

Another advantage may well be that it could be used to rule out certain suspects (or weapons associated with them), much the same way as DNA does nowadays. A perfect match isn't necessary. Who can argue against the police being able to do their job more reliably? Oh, yeah, the nun guts with the twitchy knees and the twitchier fingers....

Cheers,
 

"If your worry is that the state knows where the gun-owners live ... that's true of automobiles too ... and if it's the confiscation you're worried about, by the time it gets to that pass, we have bigger problems to address...."

Is there a major movement in this country to confiscate all automobiles? Have we seen repeated instances of government registering cars while swearing on a stack of bibles they won't confiscate them, and then... confiscating them? Please, you're not Lucy, and we gun owners aren't Charlie Brown. You only get to snatch the football away once.

A lot of these proposals might be taken seriously as good faith suggestions, if the gun control movement didn't have a history. It does, though, and we're not going to pretend it's a history of good faith.
 

Brett:

Is there a major movement in this country to confiscate all automobiles? Have we seen repeated instances of government registering cars while swearing on a stack of bibles they won't confiscate them, and then... confiscating them? Please, you're not Lucy, and we gun owners aren't Charlie Brown. You only get to snatch the football away once.

Methinks you should have paid the 5¢ there, Brett, sounds like you need the help. There's been not one case of "confiscat[ion]".

A lot of these proposals might be taken seriously as good faith suggestions, if the [G]un [C]ontrol [M]ovement didn't have a history....

Actually, I think that in the fine traditions of capitalism, it's "Gun Control, Incorporated".

... It does, though, and we're not going to pretend it's a history of good faith.

Ummm, Brett: There is a precedent for the confiscation of weapons from paranoid schizophrenics. Just a word to the wise..... Guess that will keep the philosophers busy with the question of whether you're paranoid because they're going to confiscate, or whether they confiscated because you're paranoid. I'm not going to worry about that imponderable, though.... ;-)

Cheers,
 

Brett, Arne,

Reading and rereading your arguments gave me a moment of deja vu, and then I realized where I had just heard them; over on the thread re: Gonzales v. Carhart, except reversed. Yes, at a high level, but strong 2nd amendment arguments sound syntactically similar to pro-choice arguments, while the weak 2nd amendment arguments are similar to pro-life arguments. "If you take away a little, we will lose them all." vs. "It's a reasonable limitation for society's benefit."

Just an observation.
 

Fraud Guy:

Reading and rereading your arguments gave me a moment of deja vu, and then I realized where I had just heard them; over on the thread re: Gonzales v. Carhart, except reversed. Yes, at a high level, but strong 2nd amendment arguments sound syntactically similar to pro-choice arguments, while the weak 2nd amendment arguments are similar to pro-life arguments. "If you take away a little, we will lose them all." vs. "It's a reasonable limitation for society's benefit."

You mistake me for someone else. I don't have a problem with restricting third trimester abortions to medical necessity (although then I think it incumbent on the other side to try and make sure that no one is in a position where they think they have to choose an illegal third trimester abortion or nothing). I personally think that third trimester abortions should be still up to the woman and her doctor, and that this is sufficient to curb any abuses. Any woman who seeks a third trimester abortion is an exceptional case almost by definition, and we have to be careful in setting up strict rules that perhaps don't allow for the specifics of individual cases. I do think an exception for health is necessary, and I don't think this law in question provides that. If D&X is the safest procedure (and it is, according to ACOG), it's insane to ban it because it's "yucky"; the results are the same as with a D&E or D&C. If it has a complication rate of some 5%, as opposed to 20-30% for D&E, that is significant (keep in mind that all complications are, in fact, potentially "life-threatening"; if you were going in for open-heart surgery, would you accept a doubling of the risk of complications?)

I do have a problem with whack-jobs spinning false propaganda about what really happens, and then trying to tell doctors and their patients what the best medical options are. And I do hae a problem with the misrepresentation of D&X as being done on nearly full term foetuses, when most of such are done at between in the second trimester.

I think that first trimester abortions are up to the woman, her doctor, and her conscience (and I think that anyone who is in a position to make a choice ought to be given the choices and options then, rather than being forced to wait until it gets a bit messier and murkier.

I think we need to realise that some folks, through ignorance, denial, shame, or lack of perceived options, let a pregnancy go on too long before deciding what to do ... it's understandable and even predictable, particularly given the situation some people, particularly very young women (read: "girls"), are in. Education and tolerance may help here in cutting down on such situations, but I do think that they ought to be able to make a choice through 20 weeks or so.

I also think is is true that such a compromise is not "acceptable" to the anti-abortion people, who not only want all abortions banned, but also generally want the "morning after" pill banned. I don't think it unfair to suggest that the anti-abortion people are in fact just using this one misguided (both medically and logically) law as a stepping stone to their ultimate goal of banning abortions entirely (see, e.g., the South Dakota law).

In contrast, in the realm of gun control, there is quite a range of opinion as to the extent of regulation and prohibition that is permissible and/or warranted. Some want only handguns and/or particularly lethal "assault"-type weapons regulated. Very few people, even on the gun-cntrol side, would agree with a ban on long rifles or shotguns for hunting.

In sum, while there may be superficial "similarieis" betwene the arguments, I think a look at the actual situation -- and the differences -- is more illuminating.

Cheers,
 

Arne,

I agree with your positions on abortion, although for some different reasons. I got in a heated editorial argument in the 80's with a pro-life/anti-sex education backer, who didn't seem to understand that the best way to prevent abortions was to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Having dealt with some teens who went uneducated (and who were telling me that urine caused pregnancies) I knew that "just say no" (and the standard back then, that it belonged at home) never will cut it.

The quick decision ability may also be reduced for some from very repressive homes, who may hide and deny their situation for as long as humanly possible, but that is, as you state on other issues, best left up to the woman and her doctor.
 

This is definitely a more enlightened debate about the validity of the Second Amendment; and for being a person who is vehemently anti-gun, I actually find consensus with a lot of people in here.

Frankly, I don't see how a ban on handguns wouldn't have kept Cho from killing 31 people. And though that hardly addresses the overriding problem of attending to a person with obvious social problems, the fact was a gun was still sold to a person who shot up a school. And nowhere in the Constitution does it give explicit right for an individual the right to bear arms (unless you rip them off a grizzly...sorry, bad joke). I mean, look at Alexander Hamilton's original draft of the Second Amendment - that actually did the explicit individual right. So why the change made to the simpler and more vaguely written Second Amendment that is present in the Constitution?

I'm not really making judgment either way for gun control here, but arguments on both sides of the isle are superfluous given the rather vague definition for gun rights as supposedly detailed in the 2nd amendment.
 

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