On 12/19/2014 6:43 PM, LizR wrote:
On 20 December 2014 at 13:58, Jason Resch <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 3:32 PM, LizR <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
On 19 December 2014 at 23:02, Telmo Menezes <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 9:24 AM, LizR <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
They also failed to foresee that hand-held weapons would become
so powerful.
Are you sure that more powerful hand-held weapons would change
their minds
about the need to keep a balance of power between the government
and the
citizens? I suspect it would just reinforce the idea.
I'm not sure of anything. However I doubt they could foresee a 9 year
old girl
being shown how to fire an Uzi.
Kids drown in pools all the time but that doesn't mean adults should be
forbidden
from swimming.
I'm not sure how that has any relevance whatsoever, but basically you should look after
kids in potentially dangerous situations, e.g. near swimming pools.
That was such a moronic thing to do that I can't really feel it was a
huge loss
that she accidentally shot and killed her instructor (indeed a Darwin
award
could be on its way - but it's indicative of the incredible stupidity
that is
exemplified by the NRA (I think it's called) which seems to think it's
a good
thing that America has way more gun related deaths and accidents than
any other
country in the first world (and most in the third world).
It probably has far more lives saved and defended with guns than any other
country
in the first world (estimates range from 500,000 - 2,000,000 defensive gun
uses per
year). But news agencies are less interested in reporting tragedies that
didn't happen.
Saved from other people with guns.....can you spot the flaw in the argument? The total
number of gun related injuries and deaths in the US is massively greater per person than
anywhere else in the first world.
Most of the problems from having guns around is due to "unintentional misuse" (like the
9 year old girl). To avoid this one could, oooh, I dunno - try not having guns around so
much? Seems to work for the rest of the world.
I don't think that's the case. Almost half of gun related deaths in the U.S. are suicides
and hence quite intentional.
Something else that I doubt the writers of the constitution foresaw,
along with
the entire society that goes with it.
Still, if the US government really believes in the principle behind the
right to
bear arms they should nowadays - going by your argument that there
should be a
"balance of power" - have no problem with a citizen constructing a
nuclear bomb
in their garden shed.
Nuclear bombs have no defensive utility. A good rule of thumb might be that
citizens
should be able to own any weapon police departments have access to.
I'm glad no one told that the the respective rulers in the cold war. They might have
replied that they had defensive ability in that having them stopped anyone else using
them. It was called Mutually Assured Destruction (they really should have found a
suitable acronym for that)
Sadly, however, this isn't the case with guns, where there is an idea that having more
lethal weapons around makes you safer.
It's actually a personal problem I've been pondering. Because of a court ruling
California is now a "must issue" state; meaning that so long as you don't have some
disability (like being a felon) you must be issued a permit to carry a concealed gun after
completing a simple course and written test. I have a lawyer friend who thinks this is
great and is applying immediately. I could do the same. I own several guns, including
two hanguns. But then what would I do? Having a gun for defense means you need to carry
it all the time, since you by definition don't know when you'll need it. Would I be any
safer? I don't think so. Maybe marginally less safe - it's easy to get shot by a trigger
happy cop if he thinks you have a gun.
Brent
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