okinawanwarrior:

destructioninmotion:

fitzoey:

The shooting in Aurora, CO is super sad and scary but I have a few thoughts/opinions on it..

1. What was a 3-month old baby doing at a midnight showing of a Batman movie?? That is just ridiculous.

2. I don’t understand why people want Warner Brothers to cancel some of the movie…

I understand the constitutional argument behind the right to bear arms. BUT people saying that making gun ownership illegal wouldn’t do anything because criminals don’t operate within the confines of law are not thinking of the different elements that legality of firearms introduces. 

Firstly, MOST firearm crime (86%) involve hand guns. Many hand guns used in these crimes are stolen from registered owners. (This is from a 1995 DOJ report, so it’s a little old, but I bet it’s still pretty close). Thus, a lot of firearms would be taken out of the hands of criminals by taking away their source of guns.

What about the other 14% of firearm crimes, that, like the CO Theater shooting, involved guns other than hand guns, such as assault rifles? My answer to this is, WHY ARE PEOPLE EVEN ALLOWED TO CARRY THESE? Strict compliance restrictions for assault rifles and any other mass killing contraptions. Lower the level of probable cause necessary for warrants to search companies that manufacture weapons in America (this type of accounting should be locked tight anyway). 

In the end, the strongest argument that anti-gun control people have, behind the threat of tyranny, or course, is that somebody already pissed in the pool. Correct. We do already have guns in the street. But, I don’t know, I feel like that’s a cyclic argument that doesn’t afford any room for improvement or change. It’s a little too cold war-like of an argument for me to get behind. 

Those are all fairly valid points. And they shouldn’t just let have everyone have free rain with any type of guns. They should for sure put more restrictions and regulations if they were to make carrying them legal. But to me there isn’t much of a point in taking them away from regular citizens unless the US can find a way to lower the violent gun crimes down to levels similar to Canada, or the U.K, or japan. I was talking to a guy from the U.K and he was saying besides some eastern Europeans coming in and sneaking them in illegally, there aren’t very may guns there. Very low amount of gun crime.

I overall think they should offer everyone the chance to get access to legally owning a gun and being able to carry it. But just make it hard to get. Different tests, lots of safety classes etc.

Plus from what I understand a lot of places where guns are allowed, the crime is usually lower than where they aren’t allowed. I’ll have to look that up myself.

I think destructioninmotion/nomethodjustmadness’ arguments in this particular thread are some of the best.  Okinawanwarrior has a point but muddies the water when he talks about Canada, the U.K. and Japan.  These countries have fairly liberal (depending on province), quite restrictive (though less so in N. Ireland), and extremely restrictive controls on firearms, respectively, and can’t really be lumped into the same category other than “countries that have far lower firearm homicide rates than the US.”

The 2nd amendment was written before the existence of modern weaponry, it also refers to a “well regulated militia,” referring to 1) the role of the people in the protection of the state (and this a key point…not resistance TO the state, but defense OF it), 2) the right to defense of self and property, 3) the importance of the peoples’ ability to resist their government by force of arms if necessary (the tyranny argument, which is seen as an extension of argument 2 [moreso since District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008] and is derived from the English Bill Rights, passed at a time when James II was trying to disarm the country’s growing Protestant population).  

The thing with the tyranny argument is, with modern weaponry, the government will ALWAYS have an overwhelming superiority of arms to any citizen or group of citizens (or most nation-states, in the case of the U.S.).  If you get into a firefight with the U.S. you have already lost.  

Do you have the right to be free from and protect yourself from tyranny from the government?  Absolutely you do.  But you lost the ability to do that through force of arms a looooooooong time ago.