The answer is *not* 'arm the students'

[Revmitchell]

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

The "context" is that both a well regulated militia and the right to bear arms are what keep a people free and secure.

The context is not that the right to bear arms is only by militia.

 

[Matt Black]

You're still missing the 'well-regulated' part, aren't you.

 

[Revmitchell]

You're still missing the 'well-regulated' part, aren't you.

And which part is to be well regulated? The militia or the right to bear arms? Let's use some common sense here.

 

[Matt Black]

The right to bear arms is in the context of there being a well-regulated militia. The words say what they say; you use some common sense!

 

[TCassidy]

I take it you've read the whole of the Second Amendment, not just the bit about the right to bear arms?

"A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state...". Last time I looked, a 'well-regulated militia' was not giving any old Tom, Dick and Harry the 'right' to carry semi-automatic weapons....

How many more innocent deaths before the penny drops and this luncay ends?:tear:

And, Charlton, sorry, mate, but that moment is NOW!

Anybody with the intelligence to read at the 3rd grade level knows that in the past 6 years gun deaths are down by around 15% but gun sales are up by around 30%.

The FBI recently released its Crime in The United States statistics for 2010. Overall, murders in the U.S. have decreased steadily since 2006, dropping from 15,087 to 12,996. Firearms murders — which made up 67 percent of all murders in the U.S. in 2010 — have followed this trend, decreasing by 14 percent.

At the same time that firearms murders were dropping, gun sales were surging. In 2009, FBI background checks for guns increased by 30 percent over the previous year, while firearms sales in large retail outlets increased by almost 40 percent. The number of applications for concealed carry permits jumped across the country as well.

Next you need to go back to the 3rd grade and learn to parse a sentence. The meaning of the 2nd amendment couldn't be more clear. Because of the treatment of the colonies by George III, and his policy of gun confiscation, it became necessary to throw off the yoke of tyranny. Guns in the hands of the citizenry are required to accomplish that goal. And if anything has changed in the past 220 years it is that the situation has gotten worse. We have more reason today to arm ourselves against a tyrannical government than they did in 1787.

If you would bother to read some history, specifically the writings of the framers of our Constitution you would know the purpose of the second amendment.

As Noah Webster put it in a pamphlet urging ratification of the Constitution, "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe." George Mason remarked to his Virginia delegates regarding the colonies' recent experience with Britain, in which the Monarch's goal had been "to disarm the people; that [that] . . . was the best and most effectual way to enslave them." A widely reprinted article by Tench Coxe, an ally and correspondent of James Madison, described the Second Amendment's overriding goal as a check upon the national government's standing army: As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.

Complete article at http://www.lectlaw.com/files/gun01.htm

 

[Matt Black]

We are not 'less free' and our government is no more 'tyrannical' since the handgun ban in 1997; we were not 'more free' and the government less 'tyrannical' before then. We are a people as free as you are here and do not share the same urge to carry instruments of death around. Why do you? Particularly as a Christian?

 

[TCassidy]

We are not 'less free' and our government is no more 'tyrannical' since the handgun ban in 1997; we were not 'more free' and the government less 'tyrannical' before then.

Yes, we are less free to own/carry certain guns. That is self evident.

We are a people as free as you are here and do not share the same urge to carry instruments of death around. Why do you? Particularly as a Christian?

Because Christ commands it. Luke 22:36, "But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one."

 

[webdog]

We have a far far lower rate of gun deaths in the UK per capita. The below picture is out-of-date but still very pertinent - you do the math.

I never saw a handgun bounce around and shoot anyone...you? That meme is silly...inanimate objects cannot kill anyone. A person kills another person.

 

[Matt Black]

See the Eddie Izzard quote on the previous page for the reply to that old chestnut, Mike; your quote is a nice soundbite, but that's all it is.

Yes, we are less free to own/carry certain guns. That is self evident.

I was talking about 'we' in the UK; 'we' are no less free than 'you' and our degree of freedom was no different before the handgun ban than after it although I certainly feel more safe since the latter.

 

[poncho]

Nothing to do with 'left-wing' views (which, BTW, I don't particularly have: I have always voted Conservative:tongue3 but to do with the compassion of the Gospel.

I take it you use your car normally for purposes other than killing or maiming people as a rule? Would you use your gun for any other purpose? No. The only reason to use a gun is to deal death or injury to another individual, unlike a car. It's a straw man you've put up there.

We've all seen how the British Empire preferred unarmed colonials. And we've all seen how they were mowed down like grass in Amritsar.

We aren't subjects over here we're citizens.

 

[HankD]

Nothing to do with 'left-wing' views (which, BTW, I don't particularly have: I have always voted Conservative:tongue3 but to do with the compassion of the Gospel.

I take it you use your car normally for purposes other than killing or maiming people as a rule? Would you use your gun for any other purpose? No. The only reason to use a gun is to deal death or injury to another individual, unlike a car. It's a straw man you've put up there.

It's not a straw man.

Guns, bow and arrow, slings and various other types of armory were and are used to provide food for the table.

Even today in parts of the US the citizenry depends on hunting to feed themselves.

Not only that they use their guns to snipe the critters like woodchucks (which can also be eaten) who raid their gardens.

Also, is there arson in Great Britain? Are matches and lighters outlawed?

While an armed citizenry may not be "the" answer it is "an" answer against the tyranny of both foreign and domestic terrorists and tyrants.

It is the one our founding fathers chose as part of our defense.

True, as a consequence, we are a violent society.

However, folks will still risk life and limb to get into these United States.

HankD

 

[Revmitchell]

The right to bear arms is in the context of there being a well-regulated militia. The words say what they say; you use some common sense!

I posted what they say. You saw it, your presuppositions will lead you where ever you want to go.

 

[Crucified in Christ]

You're still missing the 'well-regulated' part, aren't you.

You are the one who is missing the clear intentions of this language. In military terms, one often speaks of regulations in terms of that which is needed to bring it up to an acceptable standard. Because it is self-evident that a free people should be able to defend their freedom and because arms are needed for that end, Government cannot infringe on the people's right to own and bear arms.

In other words, your liberal nature shows when you start thinking of regulations only in terms of laws that can be pressed upon people.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

We aren't subjects over here we're citizens.

The Irish are 'citizens not subjects' as well. Handguns are illegal. Rifles and shotguns are severely restricted. The general 'cop on the beat' is unarmed.

And yet gun crime, outside of drug gang wars, is virtually unheard of. Most of those times it is a case of mistaken identity.

I haven't lost a minute's sleep in the 18 years I have been here because I don't have a gun under my pillow.

I believe in the 2nd Amendment. I do think there needs to be some reform so that there is not unrestricted access to any weapon.

My point is that people can live safely and happily in a 'gun free' society.

 

[Matt Black]

You are the one who is missing the clear intentions of this language. In military terms, one often speaks of regulations in terms of that which is needed to bring it up to an acceptable standard. Because it is self-evident that a free people should be able to defend their freedom and because arms are needed for that end, Government cannot infringe on the people's right to own and bear arms.

'Self-evident', huh? So we Brits and our Irish cousins live in some kind of fascist dictatorship because we don't have guns to 'defend ourselves from a Big Bad Government'? Reality check for Crucified in Christ, please!

 

[Oldtimer]

Well, it's not statistics for a start: it's a mish-mash of conflated figures for apples and bananas in effect eg: it cites murder rates in the same breath as muggings.

So, not in the slightest bit impressed

Didn't think you would be "impressed". :laugh:

1. Fact: The murder rates in many nations (such as England) were ALREADY LOW BEFORE enacting gun control. Thus, their restrictive laws cannot be credited with lowering their crime rates.1

2. Fact: Gun control has done nothing to keep crime rates from rising in many of the nations that have imposed severe firearms restrictions.

----

3. Fact: British citizens are now more likely to become a victim of crime than are people in the United States:
* In 1998, a study conducted jointly by statisticians from the U.S. Department of Justice and the University of Cambridge in England found that most crime is now worse in England than in the United States.

-----
4. Fact: British authorities routinely underreport crime statistics. Comparing statistics between different nations can be quite difficult since foreign officials frequently use different standards in compiling crime statistics.
* The British media has remained quite critical of authorities there for "fiddling" with crime data.

----- (skip to footnote)

4"Handgun crime 'up' despite ban," BBC News Online (July 16, 2001) at http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/uk/newsid_1440000/1440764.stm. England is a prime example of how crime has increased after implementing gun control. For example, the original Pistols Act of 1903 did not stop murders from increasing on the island. The number of murders in England was 68 percent higher the year after the ban's enactment (1904) as opposed to the year before (1902). (Greenwood, supra note 1.) This was not an aberration, as almost seven decades later, firearms crimes in the U.K. were still on the rise: the number of cases where firearms were used or carried in a crime skyrocketed almost 1,000 percent from 1946 through 1969. (Greenwood, supra note 1 at 158.) And by 1996, the murder rate in England was 132 percent higher than it had been before the original gun ban of 1903 was enacted. (Compare Greenwood, supra note 1, with Bureau of Justice Statistics, Crime and Justice in the United States and in England and Wales, 1981-96, Bureau of Justice Statistics, October 1998).

------
5. Fact: Many nations with stricter gun control laws have violence rates that are equal to, or greater than, that of the United States. Consider the following rates:

http://gunowners.org/sk0703.htm

Wish I could quote the entire article, since instead of discussing the points it covered, you declared it is a "mish-mash" and you're not impressed.

Thank you for not being impressed. That's led me to do more digging about England's stance & statistics. :flower:

Gun Control's Twisted Outcome
Restricting firearms has helped make England more crime-ridden than the U.S.
http://reason.com/archives/2002/11/01/gun-controls-twisted-outcome/2

-----------
In reality, the English approach has not re-duced violent crime. Instead it has left law-abiding citizens at the mercy of criminals who are confident that their victims have neither the means nor the legal right to resist them. Imitating this model would be a public safety disaster for the United States.

-------------
This is a reversal of centuries of common law that not only permitted but expected individuals to defend themselves, their families, and their neighbors when other help was not available.

----------
It was a legal tradition passed on to Americans. Personal security was ranked first among an individual's rights by William Blackstone, the great 18th-century exponent of the common law. It was a right, he argued, that no government could take away, since no government could protect the individual in his moment of need. A century later Blackstone's illustrious successor, A.V. Dicey, cautioned, "discourage self-help and loyal subjects become the slaves of ruffians."

But modern English governments have put public order ahead of the individual's right to personal safety. First the government clamped down on private possession of guns; then it forbade people to carry any article that might be used for self-defense; finally, the vigor of that self-defense was to be judged by what, in hindsight, seemed "reasonable in the circumstances."
-------

The murder rates of the U.S. and U.K. are also affected by differences in the way each counts homicides. The FBI asks police to list every homicide as murder, even if the case isn't subsequently prosecuted or proceeds on a lesser charge, making the U.S. numbers as high as possible. By contrast, the English police "massage down" the homicide statistics, tracking each case through the courts and removing it if it is reduced to a lesser charge or determined to be an accident or self-defense, making the English numbers as low as possible.

-------------
The English government has effectively abolished the right of Englishmen, confirmed in their 1689 Bill of Rights, to "have arms for their defence," insisting upon a monopoly of force it can succeed in imposing only on law-abiding citizens. It has come perilously close to depriving its people of the ability to protect themselves at all, and the result is a more, not less, dangerous society. Despite the English tendency to decry America's "vigilante values," English policy makers would do well to consider a return to these crucial common law values, which stood them so well in the past.