Guns

Quote from: A-Train on May 06, 2013, 05:01:39 PM

Wow!  You must HATE squirrels. I was assuming, at most, a single-shot .22.  Maybe even an air gun.  Do the squirrels in your neighborhood shoot back? Receive military training from Hezbollah?  Sell heroine on street corners?  Now, I want to take a few shots at them.

Nah, they're just smarter than EL   

There's just so damned many of them.  No matter how many thousands of them I killed, no matter how many of their corpses I'd hang up on display, they kept coming back.

For some reason, my applications for licenses to use fragmentation grenades and flamethrowers to control the little varmints were all turned down.  Stupid bureaucrats who live in cities just don't understand how bad the squirrel situation can be.

I finally had to move to a country where all the squirrels had already been killed and eaten.

Maybe this belongs in the "What's In The Water in the U.S" thread, but...

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/02/pro-gun_demonstrators_bring_th.html

http://thinkprogress.org/

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/17/704301/concealed-guns-library/

I would think that all guns to be used inside of libraries should be required to be equipped with silencers.  Otherwise, they could be far to distracting to those who want to read books.

Everything here ends up as piss weak attempts at humour.

It's difficult to say anything about this issue, because I don't think that allowing the public to own guns is wrong. I think it's insane, ridiculous and irresponsible.

I understand that people want to own guns, in the same way that people want to be able to drive without speed limits, have monkeys as pets and numerous other stupid things.

Of course a government shouldn't control every aspect of our lives. People should be allowed to smoke cigarettes, drink large servings of sugary drinks etc.

However at the start of the thread someone posted a link from a so called liberal suggesting that owning guns was a human right. It's a valid opinion that people should be allowed to live their lives without interference of any kind from government, but it's hardly liberal. If you give people the right to own all and any guns, you should give them the right to create and own weapons of all kinds including biological agents, explosives and nuclear weapons. If a Libertarian proposes this, then fair enough, but a liberal???

Surely most people would accept limitations on universal personal freedoms. There has to be a line somewhere, and to believe that line should be drawn where it currently is in the USA is, as I say insane, ridiculous and irresponsible.

So, then there's the argument that you can't change things. There isn't a law in history that hasn't had people saying things like, 'You have a good point, but the South will never give up their slaves'. Lets just keep things as they are and value the hypothetical possibility of failure above the actual historical incidences of success, such as Australia.

American politicians are prostitutes, selling themselves to the highest bidder, invariably the NRA. This doesn't just affect guns. The NRA make their poodles toe the line on absolutely any policy that could possibly have consequences for gun ownership.

Most countries, as some people have pointed out, allow some form of gun ownership. There isn't a country in the world where knives are banned, and even if they were, you can't even keep weapons out of prisons as log as you have a sock and something hard to tie inside.

It's not about guns. it's about sensible restrictions on freedom for the greater good.

Everything here ends up as piss weak attempts at humour.

You really should read back a few pages before making such over-reaching generalizations.

Fortunately for some, unfortunately for others, in America you can't just say "fuck the constitution." The process of amending it is incredibly difficult -- you don't just need a simple majority you need a supermajority. Here:

Quote

The United States Constitution is unusually difficult to amend.  As spelled out in Article V, the Constitution can be amended in one of two ways.  First, amendment can take place by a vote of two-thirds of both the House of Representatives and the Senate followed by a ratification of three-fourths of the various state legislatures (ratification by thirty-eight states would be required to ratify an amendment today).  This first method of amendment is the only one used to date.  Second, the Constitution might be amended by a Convention called for this purpose by two-thirds of the state legislatures, if the Convention's proposed amendments are later ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures.

Because any amendment can be blocked by a mere thirteen states withholding approval (in either of their two houses), amendments don't come easy.  In fact, only 27 amendments have been ratified since the Constitution became effective, and ten of those ratifications occurred almost immediately--as the Bill of Rights.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/articlev.htm

I know this is off the subject, but I am a stickler for accuracy.  The Twenty-first Amendment to The Constitution which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition) was done in state conventions because it was assumed that many state lawmakers were either beholden or afraid of the temperance movement.

Now that being said, the Eighteenth Amendment was the only amendment which restricted what somebody considered a right as per the Ninth Amendment of the Constitution.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people

Although the Eighteenth Amendment had the best of intentions, it opened the door for the era of gangsters and organized crime running rampant all over the country.  An amendment repealing or even modifying the second amendment could set the nation on a route where the bloodbath would make the Prohibition era pale in comparison.

So, then there's the argument that you can't change things. There isn't a law in history that hasn't had people saying things like, 'You have a good point, but the South will never give up their slaves'. Lets just keep things as they are and value the hypothetical possibility of failure above the actual historical incidences of success, such as Australia.

The slavery argument is always a bit disingenuous because the South didn't just "give up" their slaves, they lost an incredibly bloody civil war and therefore did not have a choice in the matter.

We could fight a civil war over the 2nd amendment too, but luckily there doesn't seem to be anyone in the USA who wants to push the issue that far.

That's not to say people who support sensible restrictions on gun ownership shouldn't lobby for it -- they, we, should. But have others have also pointed out, when you approach the issue from the point of constitutional amendments, you doom your argument from the start.

And Casey, thanks for pointing that out. I was looking for a short and simple explanation of the amendment process and missed that part where they said constitutional convention hadn't been used. You're right, the 21st Amendment was passed through state conventions. Maybe I'll email that guy and let him know he's made a mistake.

it would be interesting to see how a civil war over gun ownership rights would play out.

Gt rid of gun side:

How do we stop them??
I dont know, maybe we should go to the gun store and buy a gun.


please note: this is not an argument for/against, just wish to point out the irony of the idea, and not directed at any individuals opinions.

I'm taking this 

In the OP, gonzo quoted ...

.A two-year-old girl has become the second child in the US to be shot dead by a sibling this week, after her five-year-old brother shot her with a rifle designed for children, officials revealed on Wednesday.

And he wondered why the USA doesn't amend its gun Laws.

However, whilst this story made the news, other children were being bullied, raped, beaten, burnt, stabbed and abused in various and sundry other ways by myriad assailants - including their parents, grandparents and other caregivers.  And, for the most part, the stories don't make the nightly News. They don't rate so much as a passing mention in the local media.
 
I would ask the Question -- Why are there still children around the world being hurt, damaged and even killed?  Why are WE all (not just the USA - Australia, Canada and the UK also have some abysmal records in this area) not ending the violence against innocents? 

I am more concerned about this, than about who owns what guns in the US.










.... and I am now going to 

Quote from: gonzo on May 03, 2013, 04:38:38 PM

.A two-year-old girl has become the second child in the US to be shot dead by a sibling this week, after her five-year-old brother shot her with a rifle designed for children, officials revealed on Wednesday.

And he wondered why the USA doesn't amend its gun Laws.
 
I would ask the Question -- Why are there still children around the world being hurt, damaged and even killed?  Why are WE all (not just the USA - Australia, Canada and the UK also have some abysmal records in this area) not ending the violence against innocents? 

I am more concerned about this, than about who owns what guns in the US

Because we can't legislate away psychosis. But, we can through legislation, mollify some of its effects.

Everything here ends up as piss weak attempts at humour.

Naturally, this is the Cabana, not exactly a room for serious discussion. What should it turn into instead? A indignant soap-box thread in which we can all belly-ache about gun laws in a foreign country. Is this not a bit old hat, really? America has loose gun laws, there are some people in America who are really on guns and sometimes they do really stupid things with said guns. You think righteous ire on an internet forum, the remit of which deals with education in China, is going to have any effect on this?
Have a cup of tea, read a book and smile at the fact that you are, hopefully, not in America and thus the guns cannot harm you.

Quote from: gonzo on May 07, 2013, 04:23:29 PM

Everything here ends up as piss weak attempts at humour.

Naturally, this is the Cabana, not exactly a room for serious discussion. What should it turn into instead? A indignant soap-box thread in which we can all belly-ache about gun laws in a foreign country. Is this not a bit old hat, really? America has loose gun laws, there are some people in America who are really on guns and sometimes they do really stupid things with said guns. You think righteous ire on an internet forum, the remit of which deals with education in China, is going to have any effect on this?
Have a cup of tea, read a book and smile at the fact that you are, hopefully, not in America and thus the guns cannot harm you.

In other words, "get a hobby and take a nap".

BTW: I have no idea what "gonzo" meant. I thought the joke was pretty good. Better than the average bear's.

And just to throw a cat among the pigeons.........a plastic gun!
http://www.readability.com/read?url=http%3A//www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22421185

I saw this on the News last night. I find it hard to accept that anyone can, or will be able to, access information on how to make this weapon.    Another "can of worms" has been opened.