The only thing that will stop a bad guy with a constitutional amendment is a good guy with a constitutional amendment.
@patrickrhone There are other ways, but I'm pretty sure the best outcome is that you spend your life in jail.
@hjertnes My larger point:
The right to own guns (and unspecified other “arms”) is protected by an amendment (2nd) to our constitution.
If we want it to change, it'll take another amendment to clarify or nullify that one.
@patrickrhone Sure. But America is for some reason it able to change in this area. How is the amendment process? Here in Norway it has two pass with a 2/3 majority twice (with a election in the middle)
@hjertnes Here's what it takes: usconstitution.net/constam.h...
I didn't say it was easy. I said it was the only real solution. As long as we have the right to purchace and own guns in this country things like this will continue.
@hjertnes To say another way: Just as one shouldn't bring only a knife to a gunfight, we should not be bringing only laws to a rights fight.
@patrickrhone if "arms" was considered cutting edge army tech in the 1800s does the 2nd amendment cover nuclear weapons?
@patrickrhone isn't there a distinction to be drawn between "the right to purchase guns" and the right to purchase semi-automatic Assault Weapons who's only purpose is to efficiently kill people?
@patrickrhone plus, banning the sale, ownership and manufacture of Assault Weapons was done before, without a Constitutional Amendment, so why is one needed now?
@dgold The purpose of any gun is to efficiently kill people. More efficient than any other publicly available method. There is no distiction to be drawn in my mind.
@dgold Because any gun can kill people efficiently. The way it works, looks, size, or caliber makes little difference.
@hjertnes Theoretcally, it could. The framers purpose was to prevent a Central Government with more fire power than the individual states. (see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fede...).
@patrickrhone I read them when I took a course in American History. Are there any other arguments for the second amendment than militias and hunting?
@dgold Every single on of the injuries/deaths in this last school shooting could have been executed with a handgun, shot gun, or any other gun. In fact, there are AR-15 type guns that look like hunting rifles (because they are sold as such).
@hjertnes Not by our founders. But, the "problem" is the puctuation...
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
@hjertnes The commas, expecially the one before" the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." makes it an independednt clause. An emphatic one at that. Lots of room for interpretation, the main basis thus far has been Federalist #46 (Madison) and Federalist #29 (where Hamilton discusses militias).
@hjertnes That's a tricky question for me for a couple of reasons... Depends on when, how, and to whom such questions are asked: www.cnn.com/2016/06/2...
And, numbers in general: www.patrickrhone.net/the-numbe...
@hjertnes Like, slavery, as an example. Which I will also note was not illegal in this country until an ammendment was passed (13th).
@hjertnes I want to make it very clear, by the way, I support a constitutional amendment to resend, adjust, and or nullify, the Second Amendment. I believe anything short of that is not a true lasting solution.
@patrickrhone in all fairness, that’s simply untrue. An ar15 has a muzzle velocity 3x what a handgun has. This dramatically increases the damage, shattering bone and spraying fragments through the body. Cavitation means that a wound to a leg or arm can rupture arteries.
@patrickrhone head injuries are the most extreme example, an ar15 can rupture an entire skull explosively, a handgun just doesn’t. A handgun injury to a shoulder or upper torso is survivable, an ar15 injury is almost inevitably fatal: they are designed that way: centre of mass
@dgold Fair point. One to which I'll yield. But, let's not ignore the fact that all guns are designed to kill. There is not a single gun manufactured, that is designed to simply injure or maim. Get rid if one type and one with purpose will use another to deadly effect.
@patrickrhone I sadly and willingly agree that all guns are so. I’d point out, however, that it is harder to wreak the levels of slaughter we see routinely in the us with ‘lesser’ firearms, and that there is simply no justification for the sale of military guns to civilians.
@dgold My even broader point being that I believe the time to talk about resending, nullifying, or replacing the 2nd amendment is long past. Doing anything short of that is not a lasting solution.
@patrickrhone while I heartily agree with your main argument, the simple fact is that restriction of military weaponry is a useful, vital and most importantly achievable first step. It requires no amendments, it was done, ergo it can and should be done.
@patrickrhone That would indeed be a good start. But there should also be some laws in regards to what kind of weapons private citizens are allowed to own, when they are allowed to carry them and for what use.
Here in Norway, we only permit weapons for hunting and competitive shooting. You need permission from the police to buy and own it. And you are required to take complete training and re-take shooting test in a given interval. And it also very limited where you are allowed to carry it, and where you keep it in your home.
@patrickrhone I read it over and over, trying to figure out who you might be sending it to again. Then realized maybe you mean rescinding!
@dgold True. I guess the problem I have is that is the only step that people seem to be discussing. We can prune the tree, or we can treat the core infection at the root.
@dgold One way to look at this is equality of races in this country. A Presidential Proclamation was not enough. It took two separate amendments years apart to clarify equality for all.
@Ron Constitutional amendments are hard, years long work. Especially those whose purpose is to clarify or build upon others. I'm saying it's time to do that work.
@hjertnes The difference is Norway does not have gun ownership as a guaranteed right built into its constitution. We do.
@patrickrhone I was just trying to tell you that I was having trouble understanding you, because you were writing resending, but meaning rescinding!
@hjertnes The problem is it's not specific enough. It just says arms. That could cover just about anything. And the clarification provided by the Federalist papers, simply suggest that should be somewhat organized.
@dgold I should also point out, I'm ex Navy myself. I have plenty of gun owning friends, including several very well armed ones. Real Second Amendment rights guys. I know, and can understand, the other side of the argument.
@patrickrhone That damn autocorrect. And not proofreading. I proofread everything I write. Maybe that makes me slow, but I do it anyway.
@patrickrhone @hjertnes Keep in mind that when Madison wrote this amendment he was attempting to meet the needs of a group of people who were against the idea that America should ever have a standing army and security should be invested in local militias. Yep, time for a rewrite.
@patrickrhone My mother cracked me up one time when she said to me, "Listen to what I mean, not to what I say."
@hjertnes I actually find that text to be way more specific and, therefore, leaving far less room for interpretation: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firs...
@hjertnes Ah, in the case, yes. I would suggest that that might be because one is about an idea/action (abstract) and the other is about ownership/objects (concrete).
@patrickrhone I'm ex-IDF, so I have plenty of experience of the damage these weapons cause. There is no justification for their ownership by private citizens, end of. The Second Amendment was written at a time when the state of the art was the breech-loading smooth-bore flintlock musket. If people want guns, that's what the Founders meant.
@patrickrhone as american society moves away from ownership to 'the sharing economy’ .. cars, bikes, streaming music, movies etc etc … and couple that with “*** as a service” business models ... how long before america transitions gun ownership to ‘gun sharing’, ‘guns as a service' business models. Do I hear ‘Uber for guns' .... ?
@patrickrhone Isn't it amazing how constructive and enjoyable genuine arguments from a position of respect can be? There's so much that binds us all together, we need to stop amplifying differences while still acknowledging that differences are real.
@patrickrhone the us situation vis a vis race is the one thing that depresses me even more than the us position vis a vis guns. 😔
@JohnPhilpin Yes, a close cousin. Of course one common practice in blogging is to not worry about typos, the unedited voice and all that. Though I doubt that Dave meant it in that way. When I went to grade school we had spelling tests all the time, so I can spell as well as a spellchecker and misspellings & wrong words stick out for me.
@dgold From a constitutional perspective, we are much further along on race than guns. From a cultural one, not only not so much but the two are heavily intertwined.
@patrickrhone its just... sigh. Racial politics in the US is so entwined in class struggle and economic disadvantage &c that I barely know where to start. Fwiw, I don't think that race is "further along" than guns. 60% want stricter gun controls. That's not the case with race
@patrickrhone the US was designed to be too slow to change, and has only gotten slower. I see very little hope. Maybe a dramatic re-interpretation by a very progressive SCOTUS. 😔
@dgold race ... 60% of what ... if everyone was counted we would want it fixed … but we don’t count properly
@dgold I would also add that we fought a war over race relations in which 600,000 people died. Of course that didn't really end it, but it did bring about the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. So we've come along way (not that we don't have (quite) a ways to go of course . .
@seansharp well over 400,000 from the USA and tens of millions from the world at large gave their lives in the process of fighting against Nazis .. and we thought that ended it ... history rhymes.
@gerwitz Noted. Good share... In Federalist 29, Alexander Hamilton spelled out quite well how the 2nd was supposed to work: theweek.com/articles/...
@patrickrhone While people point out the difference in gun technology between now and when Madison wrote the second amendment, another big difference is the existence of a formidable standing Army. We fail to acknowledge how different we are today with how we accept the military and the wars we send them to than what the framers intended. IMHO that difference is a big argument against constitutional originalists.
@patrickrhone A very good article with a lot of great ideas, but it glosses over one key point: due to the very definition, criminals won't obey the law, in whatever form, so it doesn't actually address the problem of (already) illegal criminal gun use.
@ExercisingIdleWords Well, I'm not sure we have the space here to address that point. What I can say is that many of these mass shootings are by people who purchased guns legally or from legal sellers. That we can address. That we must try to stop.
@patrickrhone Agreed. It is a complex subject. I was just commenting on the one point missing in an otherwise outstanding article.
@ExercisingIdleWords but... what does criminal gun ownership have to do with mass school/cinema/shopping mall/concert shootings?
@dgold Not arguing against the ideas of the article, just that having a law saying the only way to own guns is to join a well-regulated militia ignores the fact that criminals don't care what the law says: laws are for those who obey them. By definition, criminals don't.