2nd Amendment: The right to bear arms.

The right to bear arms shall not be infringed.

That's all I have to say.

 

I personally think it boils down to a basic question;

Do you want to wait for the police to get to your house if there is a break-in, and the burglar doesn't care about keeping you alive. Or would you rather have a firearm and protect yourself for the burglar then having to wait for the police?

 

Of course, in these days, most of people use it to protect themselves.
But the 2nd amendement was there basically to win the war against amerindians already living here.

I just think:
Why should we remove it if it doesn't make more problems than in other countries ? (BTW it doesn't make less problems, it isn't really better, just an alternate solution)

 

Exactly. The Constitution is non-negotiable.

The 2nd amendment was enacted after the American Revolution in an effort to have a check against the government. Thanks to the weapons possessed by the colonists (and from foreign aid) they were able to defeat the British. The writers of the Bill of Rights wanted that opportunity to be guaranteed to the citizens of the US in the event the government turned tyrannical.

I'm not sure what exactly you are saying in regards to repealing the amendment being a good decision or not, but I think its a bad idea that will only cause bad things.

The world is inherently bad and a law won't stop it.

 

Actually, the constitution is negotiable. That is why we call them amendments. Amend. As in "to fix" "to change or improve". It is ridiculously hard to get any amendment through congress, let alone one as polarizing as gun control. The only time an amendment has been repealed was at the end of prohibition. The constitution is also open to interpretation by the supreme court, who often bring their biases and values into what is supposed to be objective. They explore every loophole, every questionable word, and interpret those discrepancies.

So lets look at the wording. "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." That 'being' could be interpreted several ways. It could mean "If a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, then the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." It could also mean "Because a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." The constitution is always open to interpretation.

So, ignoring pathos (law, moral authority) lets focus on logos (logic) and ethos (ethics). First- Is it ever ethical to kill or harm another human. If so, when? Second- What is the actual effect of unrestricted gun ownership or varying measures of gun control? It doesn't matter what the law is, it matters what the law should be.

 

Yes, you're correct. I meant more specifically that amendments couldn't be changed/bended without the process outlined within the Constitution.

 

My point was that we should debate on what we think should be, not on what the current law is. Unfortunately no one has said anything understandable which I disagree with. Please, someone disagree with me!

 

I'm assuming we largely hold the same view?

Come on, don't be shy people!

 

For places with incredibly restrictive gun laws, see Chicago. One of the more gun violent cities in the US.

 

Statistics are bullshit regarding this matter because the black market is fucking huge. My opinion is: get rid of all guns - people don't need them. If a robber wants to kill you, he kills you. You're not carrying your gun always around and in a moment of surprise ... you get the idea (or probably not). But since my opinion doesn't really matter, i'd say just ban the big guns (like obama wants to) and don't sell guns of any kind to people who are registered as violent persons.

 

Guns are silly

 

You should have the option to own a gun to defend yourself if you so choose. Like you said, the black market is huge so making it harder for law-abiding citizens to have the option to defense is counter-productive and only encourages the black market further.

 

Then that's their choice to have the gun. If you think that is a situation that may happen to you (they probably already have a gun, anyways), then by all means save your money. You should also keep your guns secure in a safe...

 

You are right, statistics are mostly useless, it doesn't really matter how many guns we think are in the country (the US) when the amount of illegal ordinance outweighs whatever legal material is present. Most studies are conducted by either far-left activists or the NRA, neither of whom care about the truth. Here's a statistic that is useful however. In the US there are 16,259 cases of homicide per year, and 11,078 of those are from a firearm (Center for Disease Control, 2010). There are 38,364 suicides per year. You are more likely to kill yourself than to be killed by someone else. To put this in perspective, heart disease and cancer kill over 1,000,000 people a year. There is no epidemic of violence. Keep in mind that the homicide rate includes drunk drivers (vehicular homicide) and gang war. So, are guns even a problem? Not really.

As for "banning the big guns" I have to ask why. Why should we ban a tool based on its effectiveness, especially when that tool is not often used to do harm? Only 1-7 percent of all homicides are committed with assault weapons, depending on varying definitions of the shaky term 'assault weapon' and only 4% of mass murders are committed with assault weapons. Military grade equipment is generally much too expensive for the average criminal, and is not much more effective, often less effective, than its civilian counterpart for committing a crime.

For example, the AR-15, one of the boogeymen of gun control activists, is a semiautomatic rifle. It was later developed into the M16/M4 family currently in use by the military. It is intended for military use. That means controlled, accurate fire (heh, gun control is knowing where your muzzle is) at another soldier who is both armed with a similar rifle and is partially or completely behind cover. Murder involves an untrained idiot filling an unsuspecting victim full of holes at a very close range. You can't use an AR-15 for that. Most murderers take a simple revolver and blow the head of their intended victim. Personally, I would not mind seeing machine pistols like Uzi's and Mac-10's much more heavily restricted, as they are useless for self defense, hunting or resisting tyrannical government, but leave me my hunting rifles, handguns, assault rifles and anti-material rifles.

Breathe out.

 

If they're useless for defending yourself, why not just give them up? No one needs them, ok, give them away. Problem solved.

1-7% too much, bro.

 

There are three legitimate reasons to ever own a firearm- sport/hunting, self defense, and resisting tyrannical government. The first is easy. There are people whose entire livelihood depends on hunting. Thus the protections for hunting rifles. The second gets a little sticky.

Self-defense weapons often coincide with the weapons that are most practical to commit murder. It seems only a logical step to ban all weapons that are useful for murder. After all, if no one has guns to kill with then no one has a need to defend themselves with guns. The fallacy here is the assumption that banning something, making it illegal to possess, makes it disappear. It doesn't. The black market is massive and powerful, and a properly maintained gun can last thousands of years. Illiterate villages in Afghanistan can make fully functional AK-47s using only hand tools. Yes people can make AKs with files and hacksaws. Guns are like computer code, it takes a genius to make the major innovations, but a six year old kid can copy/paste a virus that will brick your computer and send him all of your bank codes. It is impossible to close the US border, so illegal material will always be readily available.

Getting anything illegally in the US is easy, especially guns. Criminals are already breaking the law when they decide to go out and murder someone. They don't care what guns are illegal, what magazine sizes are permitted. A mass murderer usually kills himself after his spree, he doesn't care if he gets a few years tacked onto his imaginary sentence. So when a gun that is useful for self-defense, and coincidentally murder, is banned it does not take it out of the hands of the murderer. Thus the protection argument for handguns and home-defense shotguns goes.

Saying "resisting tyrannical government" makes me sound like a paranoid nutjob, as it is one of the favorite phrases of the NRA, but oppression is a valid worry for any citizen. Every person has an atrocity in their cultural past, whether it be the holocaust, the reign of Stalin, the inquisition, slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK, the Great Leap Forward, Vietnam and Pol Pot, or even the reign of the samurai. In every one of these cases, the oppressors first step was to disarm their intended victims. Americas first gun law was to restrict black people from owning one. Hitlers first step was to take guns away from Germany's Jews. Political and social power boils down to physical power. If a countries government decided to declare martial law, who could stop them if the government had a majority of the physical power. This is what I believe our founding fathers meant when they wrote the second amendment. A last ditch safeguard if everything else fails. Fortunately military weaponry actually isn't very good for crime. It is hard to rob a store with an anti-material rifle, and an assault rifle is no more effective for mass murder than a handgun, as an untrained person would run the clip dry in under 30 seconds.

There are weapons which do not fall under any of these three uses, mostly machine pistols, which prove at the same time to be useful for crime. Why should a person own an assault rifle? To resist tyrannical government. Why should a person own a machine pistol? To commit crime.

Also, while even a single innocent death is too much, we live in the real world and must balance harm with good. So while every homicide, every massacre, is tragic, we have to remain objective. It sucks, but its true.