Does The Constitution Grant The Right Of All Americans To Own And Carry firearms?

[beastley]

just throwing in my 2cents...this is a fascinating topic, and i am much less informed than everyone who commented so far...but...

my video was just for fun. goldie looking chain is hilarious and so is that song.

also, i think scampr makes a lot of sense.
i am a liberal and while i was uninformed, i blindly followed the idea of gun control. however, i now see its not that simple.

like most issues, this one is def not black and white. nor will it be settled anytime soon. it seems like there is no easy way to deal with the issue, and debates like this will go on forever. just like abortion, gay rights, etc etc....yay

[Captain Obvious]

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Jefferson also said "The tree of liberty must refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

It has been more than 140 years since the Civil War and almost 195 years since foreign troops have set foot on American soil.

Jefferson wouldn't recognize the country right now. Why should laws intended for society as he saw it apply to modern times?

[Kyle E. Coyote]

That's a dangerous attitude to have. The people of Germany thought that it could never happen to them, that the world was more enlightened than that back in 1938, the year that their guns were confiscated.

'Sure they're taking our guns, but what's the worst that could happen? It's not the 1860s anymore, you know....'

Give me the name of one of 6,000,000 jews to die in the Holocaust, and I'll give you the name of somebody who regretted giving up their guns when they saw one of Hitler's death squads roll up their driveway.

[bexxx]

I say yes with out if some asshole came bang on my door pushing his way in you'd be DAMN sure that As soon as he stepped over my threshold if my dog hadnt allready gotten him i would have the gun out of the sAfe... fuckers... got heated sorry

[Mr Handlebars]

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Tyvm Coyote for those sediments. As a Jew, that means a lot to me.

[step234]

Here's Bill Hicks take on it

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I tried to update the figures, but 2002 was the closest I could find
Firearm deaths in the USA - 30,242

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Firearm deaths in the UK - 81

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So that's 30,000 out of a population of 300 million (1 in 10,000)
versus 80 out of a population of 60 million (1 in 750,000)

I know you could argue all sorts of other reasons for this, but simply put, more guns equates to more deaths and as scampr said above, sometimes you have to put the common good before individual rights

Just to lighten the mood, I saw this on a bumper sticker

"The right to bear arms is only slightly more ridiculous than the right to arm bears"

[Randal Graves]

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The problem with your argument is that it only mention gun deaths, not all homicide/murder deaths. Anyone pro gun will immediately argue that the # of deaths won't go down, the method would just change.

[step234]

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Yeah, I agree, anyone intent on murder will do it anyway, whether there are guns there or not. The same goes for all the suicides included in those figures, if they don't have a gun they'll find another way.
But those figures also include all the accidental shootings and misfirings, all the times a child finds a gun and thinks its a toy, all the times someone is shot in momentary anger or due to drunkeness. Its those examples that would most certainly be lower if there were less guns.

But I also know its impossible to put the genie back in the bottle

[Kyle E. Coyote]

From my term paper, written a couple years back...

Both arguments are combined in the findings of two Criminologists – Professors Don Kates and Gary Mauser – in their exhaustive study of American and European gun laws and violence rates. They found that not only do nations with stringent gun control laws have significantly higher violent crime rates, they have higher murder rates and suicide rates as well. Specifically, the study found that the nine nations with the lowest gun ownership rates on Earth (averaging less than five guns per 100 people) had a combined violent crime rate over three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (averaging over fifteen guns per 100 people). For example, the lowest strictest gun control in all of Western Europe is in Holland, which is also the nation with the highest murder rate. The West European nation with the least gun control, in contrast, is Norway, which is also the nation with the lowest murder rate. These statistics were then proven to be anything but a coincidence by comparing other nations such as Austria and France, Russia and the United States, Finland and Germany and Switzerland and Italy.[5] Professors Kates and Mauser argue that not only is gun control ill-conceived, it fails to live up to its purpose and it therefore useless.
The same concepts are proved in a different manner by another study, published by Professor John Lott of the University of Chicago. This study examines yet more gun control laws and their effect (or lack thereof) on crime and the public well-being. Lott breaks down many proposed or already enacted gun control laws, and statistically analyzes their worth. For example, Professor Lott found that states that issue Carrying a Concealed Weapon permits (CCW permits) have significantly lower crime rates than states that refuse to issue or acknowledge them. He states that these “shall issue” CCW laws steadily reduce the violent crime rates, and explains that the result makes sense due to the fact that criminals are inherently afraid of attacking an armed (and therefore more powerful) victim. The more citizens that arm themselves, the higher the danger to the criminal element becomes.[6] Lott also disproves the worth of other measures, concluding that states with training requirements cannot be distinguished between states without them based on the accident rate, just as states with waiting periods have just as high a crime rate as states without them.[7]

[TheDrunkElf]

Ok, so I'm late on this one...

Kyle has em at bay with fantastic stats and quotes, so I'll sit back and see what happens...

1. the 2nd Amendment lists NO restrictions.. The restrictions that we have, those have been added by court rulings..

2. I own guns.. several guns..32 at last count.

I carry one of my guns daily.. you can't see it, won't know I have it unless I need it.

The US Courts have already ruled several times that the police are not responsible for a citizen's safety, they are there to "keep the peace" .. or as one officer used to say, drive slow to a fight.. take the loser to the hospital or morgue, file on the winner..

That being said, we are probably going to lose some gun rights in the next 4 to 8 years.. Obama is too liberal in his beliefs. There is a surge at gun shows around the US as citizens race to purchase firearms before the Dem's seek a new ban. (one has already been drafted that would pretty much make any gun illegal) ..

Bastards...