I typically refrain from using my finance blog as a bully pulpit, but in this case I simply must suggest reading a 10K word essay on gun control because it is so damned good.
An Opinion on Gun Control by Larry Correia
Some choice quotes:
The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by law enforcement: 14. The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by civilians: 2.5. The reason is simple. The armed civilians are there when it started.
The author is an advocate of having teachers permitted to carry a concealed weapon:
Then they’ll say that this is impossible, and give me all sorts of terrible worst case scenarios about all of the horrors that will happen with a gun in the classroom… No problem, because this has happened before. In fact, my state laws allow for somebody with a concealed weapons permit to carry a gun in a school right now. Yes. Utah has armed teachers. We have for several years now.
On Gun Free Zones:
I testified before the Utah State Legislature about the University of Utah’s gun ban the day after the Trolley Square shooting in Salt Lake City. Another disaffected loser scumbag started shooting up this mall. He killed several innocent people before he was engaged by an off duty police officer who just happened to be there shopping. The off duty Ogden cop pinned down the shooter until two officers from the SLCPD came up from behind and killed the shooter. (turned out one of them was a customer of mine) I sent one of my employees down to Trolley Square to take a picture of the shopping center’s front doors. I then showed the picture to the legislators. One of the rules was NO GUNS ALLOWED.
The man that attacked the midnight showing of Batman didn’t attack just any theater. There were like ten to choose from. He didn’t attack the closest. It wasn’t about biggest or smallest. He attacked the one that was posted NO GUNS ALLOWED.
There were four mass killing attempts this week. Only one made the news because it helped the agreed upon media narrative.
- Oregon. NOT a gun free zone. Shooter confronted by permit holder. Shooter commits suicide. Only a few casualties.
- Texas. NOT a gun free zone. Shooter killed immediately by off duty cop. Only a few casualties.
- Connecticut. GUN FREE ZONE. Shooters kills until the police arrive. Suicide. 26 dead.
- China. GUN FREE COUNTRY. A guy with a KNIFE stabs 22 children.
And here is the nail in the coffin for Gun Free Zones. Over the last fifty years, with only one single exception (Gabby Giffords), every single mass shooting event with more than four casualties has taken place in a place where guns were supposedly not allowed.
On Gun Control Laws:
The left side of the political spectrum loves it some gun control. Gun control is historically extremely unpopular in red state and purple state America, and thus very hard to pass bit stuff, but there’s a century’s accumulation of lots and lots of small ones. There have been a handful of major federal laws passed in the United States relating to guns, but the majority of really strict gun control has primarily been enacted in liberal dominated urban areas. There are over 20,000 gun laws on the books, and I have no idea how many pages of regulations from the BATF related to the production and selling of them. I’ve found that the average American is extremely uneducated about what gun laws already exist, what they actually do, and even fundamental terminology, so I’m going to go through many of the things I’ve seen argued about over the last few days and elaborate on them one by one.
On banning high capacity magazines:
Finally, let’s look at the logistical ramifications of another magazine ban. The AWB banned the production of all magazines over ten rounds except those marked for military or law enforcement use, and it was a felony to possess those.
Over the ten years of the ban, we never ran out. Not even close. Magazines are cheap and basic. Most of them are pieces of sheet metal with some wire. That’s it. Magazines are considered disposable so most gun people accumulate a ton of them. All it did was make magazines more expensive, ticked off law abiding citizens, and didn’t so much as inconvenience a single criminal.
Meanwhile, bad guys didn’t run out either. And if they did, like I said, they are cheap and basic, so you just get or make more. If you can cook meth, you can make a functioning magazine. My old company designed a rifle magazine once, and I’m no engineer. I paid a CAD guy, spent $20,000 and churned out several thousand 20 round Saiga .308 mags. This could’ve been done out of my garage.
Ten years. No difference. Meanwhile, we had bad guys turning up all the time committing crimes, and guess what was marked on the mags found in their guns? MILITARY AND LAW ENFORCEMENT USE ONLY. Because once again, if you’re already breaking a bunch of laws, they can only hang you once. Criminals simply don’t care.
There is much more to this article… You must read the rest of it.
An Opinion on Gun Control by Larry Correia
There IS NO RIGHT TO OWN A MACHINE GUN. There is only a right to own a single-action muzzle-loaded musket (clubs, bayonets, single-action pistols; firearms that could only be shot 4 times per minute if you were well-trained, talented, courageous under fire, and diciplined), since that is what the original intent of the founders was.
Unless you want to give up on the “original intent” type of Constitutional interpretation that Scalia uses.
Since 26% of the US pubic suffers from a mental illness in the course of any given year, and 6% a debilitating one, and since alcohol use and alcoholism are rife, together with an “honor” motivated culture in large areas of the country (this has been found to be the case to explain the higher rate of shootings in anger in the South), and plenty of hate-filled and angry people, in addition to people who think they are well-trained and diciplined under fire but whom are not (even police often kill and maim bystanders as the recent shooting in NY City demonstrated), having more weapons used in war held by people wherever they go is a recipe for the disaster we have now, where tens of thousands of Americans a year die from guns (especially suicide).
Remember Tombstone in the 1880s? That is what a society of gun-toting people becomes.
If people want a gun, they can own a handgun with a limit to the ammo clip, or a hunting rifle and forget subjecting the rest of us to their bizarre need for tanks, flamethrowers, bodyarmor, machine guns, etc.
Tom, you don’t compromise on rights.
I don’t think you took the time to read the article as the author debunks every single argument you’ve presented.
I’m an attorney, and yes I read the comments. You are simply wrong as a matter of law. The Constitutional right to bear arms does not include machine guns, not now, not ever, so if Congress wants to ban them, it will.
Tom, again, one doesn’t compromise on rights. And I didn’t ask if you read the comments. Only the article. Nowhere in the article does it advocate for a change in law so that civilians may own a MACHINE GUN as you describe it.
The right is to bear arms, as detailed by our Constitution.
You cannot speculate beyond that because you have no idea of their intent, beyond what is expressly written, which is that an armed militia is the primary defense against a tyrannical government.
MACHINE GUNS have been outlawed since 1934. Perhaps I should note that the outlawing of MACHINE GUNS for almost 80 years did not stop any of the mass murders of the past 80 years.
That’s funny; I don’t believe “excluding machine guns” was written anywhere in the second amendment.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/index.html
Yes, I posted a link to that research in this post here:
http://ibankcoin.com/woodshedderblog/2012/12/14/who-do-we-blame-for-the-connecticut-tragedy/
hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/index.html
hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/index
Any repeat firing firearm is one not intended by the founders at the time the 2nd Amendment was adopted and ratified. It would be nice if such a “right” existed, but it does not. The only way to guarantee such a “right” is to keep Congress from regulating, not citing the 2nd Amendment.
The Amendments to the Constitution do not mean what we wish they mean. I wish that there was a Constitutional right of privacy, but there is none (except in California, which has an express privacy clause in its state constitution). Most people think they have a right not to be fired from a job for unjust reasons or no reason, but there in fact is not such right. People talk about “rights” loosely, as if what philosophers mean or what the man in the street means is what they mean at law; they don’t. Right now you have the right to buy, sell, trade, own automatic and semi-automatic firearms only because Congress allows it. You need to stop reading NRA propaganda and consult with neutral constitutional law experts. Then you will really worry, because you will realize that you in fact do not have the right you think you have, and that to own what you want to own you will have to become politically active. But it won’t be to keep any Constitutional right.
Right-wing judges have successfully fought to use original intent as the principal means of Constitutional interpretation, leaving gun advocated hoisted on their own petard. That was a huge mistake. Now you are at the mercy of the same right-wing judges who, absent a Constitutional amendment, are going to definitively determine no one has a Constitutional right to assault rifles, automatic weapons, etc., because the founders did not believe that citizens had the right to own cannons. I don’t make the laws, nor get to claim what they mean: we are all stuck with what the Supreme Court does.
Backhanded props to Piers Morgan for his recent on-air behavior to help illuminate the issue of statists who believe that we should not, and perhaps already do not, have a constitutional right to armed self defense. Their problem is mostly with the individual component of the issue, especially with regard to personal armed deterrence to state tyranny over our individual liberty.
Besides the fact that under the best of circumstances the police are only minutes away when seconds count, would there ever be a chance that you would find yourself in a situation through the coincidence of your race, birthplace, geographical location, age, sex, sexual preference, political or religious affiliation etc., which might cause you to receive a systemically reduced application of the state’s protection, compared to what others receive? And could there be a chance that the uneven distribution might evolve to the extreme where there exists a fully protected class, perhaps a carriage class that gets what’s left over, and a bottom class that either gets nothing, or is gathered up in special zones or camps for their own good and “protection”?
Look at the pattern developing. For instance in a manner similar to our alleged failure at individual armed self defense, the state has recently determined that individuals don’t make good health care decisions either, such as in the care level given to a very elderly or terminally ill person. So now they’re going to decide that care level for us. Again we are to assume that the overall available care quality will not become worse (hey Piers, how’s that working out for your homies?), or that no separate classes or exemptions will evolve under socialized health care.
So for any good liberal who believes that the supremacy of the state is the answer, it makes sense to me why they believe that the correct interpretation of the founders’ intent is that we should only have access to flintlocks. Because by the time more advanced firearms were developed, then surely governments, if not human nature, would have likewise evolved in parallel to provide the individual with greatly improved protection through the state’s exclusive deployment of those new firearms and other security technologies. And of course in that context it would follow that they would also be able to insure that tyrannical-state catastrophes never develop. And as long as recent statistics and world history are ignored, the expectations of that interpretation stand uncontested by facts.
Amen Woodshedder! I just want to say how much I appreciate your willingness to stand up for what you believe in.
@Tom: “Machine guns” are not really at issue here. They are already heavily controlled and almost impossible to get. The real issue is whether banning or further controlling firearms will actually reduce these types of incidents. Most of the credible research I can find says otherwise.
What about limiting individuals to a single firearm of choice? I doubt most people who carry a concealed weapon carry more than one at a time. Furthermore, it would be much, much easier for an individual to keep an eye on a single weapon, making it more difficult for unqualified and potentially mentally unstable individuals from acquiring a large amount of weapons to go on killing.
This would allow preventative measures against outlaws, still allow individuals to protect themselves and reduce the ease with which one can steal enough weapons at once to go on a rampage.
I’m sure there are other restrictions that could be put into place to reduce the ease with which someone can get their hands on many guns at once, especially outside legal means.
I mean, if I wanted to, I could go over to my pops and I’d be able to grab 5-10 weapons right now. Now, I know my dad loves guns, but it would make a little more sense to have more than a single individual between me and my ability to gain significant firepower.
I understand we can’t eliminate guns in this country. But, I would have to agree with the side that wants to make it more difficult for crazies to get their hands on enough firepower to cause significant damage.
Perhaps limiting the number of guns an individual can own at a single time will lead to more violence, but I haven’t heard the idea presented and after reading through much of the article you posted, I feel like it he left out such a possibility.
I can think of many reasons why individuals might be opposed to such a law, but I would still be interested in someone researching its potential pros and cons.