MyMasterStephen
Posts: 219
Joined: 8/16/2005
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An observation from England...
Over here, we have very tight gun laws. Effectively starting around 1900, they have steadily become more and more restrictive and now it's all but impossible to (legally) own a firearm unless it's held under lock and key at a shooting range. Shotguns are treated differently, but still require a licence to own and have to be kept in an approved locked cabinet at home when not in use. Even some categories of airgun fall under the Firearms Act.
Despite this, yes, there is gun crime. But it's a rare and remarkable event, and pretty much every case of death by gunshot is reported in the national media. Such reports typically hit the news once, maybe twice a week.
You got that right. About SIXTY deaths due to gun crime each year in the WHOLE of the UK. I live in a reasonably large city, and in my 47 years I have never even heard a gunshot. In what kind of a society do people fear for their safety when they walk in the street or - god help them - go into a Government building? I used to be in the Armed Forces and have shot smallbore and fullbore in competition, but - armed or not - I don't want to feel like I'm living in a frontier town and that everyone around me, whether open or concealed, is carrying firearms.
Are the English more polite, more tolerant, more peaceable than the Americans? I doubt it. The only difference is that Americans have a right to keep and bear arms written into their law.
That law was drawn up in historic times, in response to historic circumstances. Do those circumstances still exist? Is a militia still required to maintain the security of the state? North Korea and Cuba have such requirements enshrined in law, but does the United States want to number itself amongst such neighbours? If the purpose of maintaining a militia is still valid, then surely everyone buying a weapon should undergo compulsory training (to satisfy the "well regulated" phrase), and anyone over 45 should relinquish their weapons, that being the age limit applied to the original definition of the "militia". And if there is still a need for a militia, why can their weapons not be held securely in local armouries or other such places?
The requirement for self-defence seems obvious, and for self-defence within the home, fine: buy guns, knives, bombs, tasers whatever you want to defend your home. Whoever unlawfully intrudes onto your turf deserves everything they get. But the right to keep and bear (and use) such weapons should stop at the property boundary. In the street, the best way to defend yourself against being shot, I'd suggest, would not be to carry a weapon yourself but to remove the weapon from any would-be assailant.
No, you can't stuff the genie back into the bottle, but your assailant himself has the right to bear arms, so by trying to argue that YOU have the right to bear arms to defend yourself against HIM, what you're effectively arguing is that you're trying to defend yourself against your own law.
Times change. Circumstances change. Some practices which, in history, were enshrined in law we now look back upon as barbaric. Some laws are drawn up to cater for circumstances which no longer prevail, and the laws fall redundant. Those laws are changed, amended, repealed. The right to keep and bear arms is itself an amendment. Neither it, nor the Bill of Rights, nor the Constitution to which it is appended, is immutable.
Until now, the "answer" has been to allow more and more guns into the system, which has done nothing to decrease the death and misery and fear they cause. You don't fight a fire with petrol, and you don't eliminate the gun threat with more guns. Times change. Circumstances change. And laws have to change with them. It's time to drag this part of US law out of the 1790s, repeal the Second Amendment and put in its place something which reflects the realities of the 21st century. Unless and until this happens, you're just perpetuating a civil Arms Race which can only lead to more death and misery.
*Dons flak jacket and dives for cover*
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RE: Stupid Fucking Cunt Is Going To Kill Someone Someda... - 
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