Adventists Respond to Connecticut Massacre of 20 First-graders
by AT News Team
Friday as word spread about the tragic gunning down of 20 first-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Adventists began to respond. In the early afternoon Pastor Michael Fortune, senior pastor of the First Seventh-day Adventist Church of Toledo, Ohio, decided to set aside the sermon he had planned for the next day. Instead he decided to pick a few appropriate hymns to sing and invite the congregation to pray and share their personal testimonies. This would do more to help people deal with their feelings than anything he could say in a sermon
“There really are no good answers to something like this,” a Maryland pastor told Adventist Today. “If you say it is a sign of the times, then you make God sound like He doesn’t really care about the pain and loss involved. If you lay out a logical theology of evil, you are ignoring the fact that evil defies logic because it is evil. If you say the world is getting worse and worse, and this is why Adventists are looking to the return of Jesus, then you make us sound arrogant and insensitive; we are using tragedy to toot our horn.”
“This is the season we sing ‘Come, O Come Emanuel’ and Emanuel means God with us,” said a Florida pastor. “The best we can do at a time like this is do what God did; be with people—sit silently and suffer with people. It is not the appropriate moment to confidently proclaim answers. It is the right time to carry a cross.”
The officers and department heads of the denomination’s North American Division were in a retreat on Friday. As soon as they heard of the mass shooting, they went to their knees and spent time in prayer. “Our hearts ache over yet another senseless shooting within the past few weeks,” said Pastor Dan Jackson, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America on Friday mid-day. “We pray that God's Spirit will break through the ghastly shadow of death to bring comfort and support to those who are grieving and broken.”
The suburban Havre de Grace Church, “a small congregation comprised almost entirely of immigrants from Haiti” was visited by a television crew from Fox Channel 5 in Baltimore on Sabbath morning. “Parents in a small rented chapel seemed to be holding onto their children a little more closely than usual,” reported John Henrehan. “And maybe praying a little harder than usual.”
“We need to stand up with those who are experiencing this kind of evil, this terrible situation,” said Pastor Rodney Charitable. “And stand by them to let them know, even in this situation, there is hope because Jesus still loves them.”
“My heart goes out to those families,” said his wife Grace, a Registered Nurse. “And I say, ‘God, please help them.’ That’s all I can say, ‘God please help them.’ I mean, what could you say to somebody like this?”
Rocky Twyman, an Adventist Church member well known in the Washington-Baltimore region as an activist, happened to be the guest speaker for the day and called on the congregation to turn their sorrow and frustration into demands for stricter controls on firearms. The denomination has been on record since July of 1990 seeking greater restrictions on gun sales. (See the statement here: https://adventist.org/beliefs/statements/main-stat4.html.)
Hundreds of Adventist churches on Sabbath and over the last few days have opened their doors for special prayer vigils, at least one starting on Friday night. The Philipsburg, New Jersey, Church hosted a community prayer service from 5 to 10 p.m. Monday, according to Lehigh Valley Live.
The official Adventist News Network (ANN) issued a statement on December 15 with the condolences of Pastor Ted Wilson, president of the General Conference (GC), from Germany, where he was participating in a youth congress. “The tragic killing of young children and others … fills us with … enormous sadness,” he stated. “We share our profound sympathy … with the families who suffer such terrible loss.”
Pastor Ryan Bell, senior pastor of the Hollywood Church, helped organize an Interfaith Prayer Vigil to End Gun Violence which is scheduled for Friday at Los Angeles City Hall. “Every day in America 87 people die from gun violence,” he stated on behalf of the Abrahamic Faiths Peace Initiative. “Help us send a message to President Obama and our local, state and Federal legislators that we urgently need an assault weapons ban and background checks for all gun buyers.”
With sickening irony an Adventist pastor in Minnesota shot his granddaughter the Monday night before the Connecticut tragedy (December 10) thinking she was an intruder. The Star Tribune reports that Pastor Stanley Wilkinson, pastor of the Rochester, Minnesota, Church, told police that he heard someone outside his home. “When he saw a figure at their patio door, he … fired two rounds, hitting the person once. That person turned out to be his [16-year-old] granddaughter [who] he thought … was sleeping upstairs.”
The pastor “had a plan on how he would use his gun if an intruder ever came to his home,” reporter Pam Louwagie writes in a copyrighted story. “He and his wife would hole up in the bedroom and call 911, using the gun only to let an intruder know there was someone in the house.”
“Even if you have a plan for an emergency, you don’t know what you’ll do out of fear,” Wilkinson told the reporter in an interview he agreed to do to help others learn from his story. “You get so frightened and … everything happens so quick … you just don’t know what you’ll do.”
“Rochester police released a 911 transcript of the call from the house, with the pastor’s wife begging for help in saving her granddaughter,” the Star Tribune reported. “According to the transcript, the woman told a dispatcher, ‘there was an intruder, my husband thought there was an intruder, here it’s our granddaughter … she’s been shot, please! … She’s bleeding, bleeding bad!’ … explaining to the dispatcher that the girl was bleeding from the chest.”
The teenager was rushed to the hospital with a wound in the upper torso and is expected to survive. Wilkinson had seen a news report about a burglary in the community just before he went to bed that evening. “I had a plan but I didn’t follow the plan,” he told the newspaper. “I thought somebody was breaking into my house; it just scared us to death.”
What a sad happening. An old man having a loaded gun in his home, willing to kill someone trying to enter his home. What deadly fear could have caused him to panic, and start shooting without asking, WHO'S THERE? He would rather kill someone without giving a warning? And this is a ordained Adventist pastor? What a cowardly act. He should resign & turn in his credentials. Who would sit and hear him preach love. He has no value or credibility as a leader.
Thankfully the pastor’s granddaughter did not pay with her life for his foolish behavior. This goes to the core of the problem. Guns do not make you safer. They did not make Nancy Lanza safer and they did not make the pastor safer. In fact, in both instances, the guns were the source of tragedy. Had the pastor not had his gun, the injury and trauma to his granddaughter would not have happened. Had Nancy Lanza not had her guns, she and 27 others–including her son–would still be alive.
Our safety is in the Lord. Guns only make us less safe. As Adventists, we should support our official church position in favor of strict gun control as well as more support for mental health programs at thelocal, federal and state levels. We should also reach out to the Adam Lanzas in our communities and let them know that Jesus loves them. That is what we are here on this earth to do.
saulpaulus,
Fact check: guns really do make you safer because criminals are afraid they will be shot by armed citizens before they can escape or the police arrive. The only way they make it more dangerous for you is if you don't know how to use one.
If laws restricting the possession of guns were effective Chicago would not be the murder capital of the nation. This is the third year in a row they will set new records for the number of murders committed with guns.
Gun control laws do not work because criminals don't register their guns. They just make criminals out of the upstanding and law-abiding. Gun registration doesn't work, either. Canada has had a strict gun registration law on the books for more than 50 years. It was adopted for the purpose of creating a registry to help trace guns used in crimes. They have yet to find their first match in the database.
States in the US with laws allowing open or concealed carry have the lowest rates of both violent crimes and crimes committed using guns. I invite you to check the US Department of Justice crime statistics and see it for yourself. In contrast, since 1980 with only one exception, all mass shootings in the US, Canada and Europe happened in cities where there were strict gun laws.
Here are a few examples of what happens when citizens are armed and know how to shoot back paint the picture.
*Back in the 1970s Colorado passed a law allowing the use of deadly force to protect yourself or any person on your property who was in danger of losing their life from the action of another person. The violent crime rate dropped by 50% starting the day the law went into effect.
*Just a few months ago in Pearl, MS a gunman went into an elementary school and started shooting. A quick-thinking assistant principal went to his car, came back with his handgun and shot the man before he could kill a third victim. (In Connecticut that assistant principal, though he would have been hailed as a hero, would have been facing up to two years in jail for having a loaded weapon in his vehicle and another ten years for having it on school grounds.)
*This last February in rural Kentucky a few miles from Ft. Campbell, a burglar decided to break into a house. He did not know the man in the house was a SpecOps soldier and home. When told to freeze, he continued into the house making threats against the home owner, who then shot and killed him. There were no home burglaries within 20 miles of the base for almost three weeks after.
Mass shootings are not a uniquely American problem. Some of the toughtest gun control laws in the world are in Europe where in some countries the violent crime rate using guns actually is higher than the US. When Anders Brevic, the mass killer in Norway, went on his shooting rampage, police were able to only stand at a distance and watch him murder young people at a summer camp because national gun control laws prevented even the police from being armed! More than an hour passed before the police got their first guns on the scene, in which time he killed more than half his victims. When the police were finally armed they were prevented by law from firing at him unless he first shot at them. All they could do was confront him and demand his surrender, which he did. News reports have documented how much he is enjoying the fame his act has brought him as the case moved through the courts. What is worse is knowing that in some number of years he will be released from prison and free to do it again.
Mass shootings are a mental health issue. The shooters have one thing in common: very low self esteem driving them to seek the recognition that comes from doing something that will make them famous (or infamous). Adam Lanza was mentally ill. He spent hours in the basement of the house playing first-person combat games. This distorted his sense of reality. Discovering that his mother was looking into having him committed to a mental hospital for treatment was a threat to the familiarity and control he had at home. So he resorted to the behavior he had practiced for so many hours in front of a computer screen.
Mass shootings are also a spiritual issue. The most potent tool we have to prevent such situations is an empowered personal relationship with God and teaching that to both our children and others. Our ultimate source of self esteem springs from the value Jesus declared for each of us when He went to Calvary. A person who knows they are valuable to God and others does not need to seek the fame that comes from committing heinous acts of murder.
Instead of supporting stricter gun control laws we should be promoting relationships with Jesus. The most important questions are whether you have such a relationship with God and if you are sharing it.
Fact check your fact check. Colorado, where Aurora and Columbine took place, is a place which–as you have noted–has little of no restriction on gun ownership. Mass shootings are NOT a spiritual issue.
They happen because people have access to guns and magazines that can ONLY be used to kill people in large numbers. Guns like the Bushmaster have no place in a civilized society.
Guns do NOT make people safer. Again EVERY other Developed Nation has serious NATIONAL gun control laws in place AND has MUCH lower murder rates than the US. Norway, for example, has a murder rate 1/7 of that of the US and has had one mass shooting versus more than I can count in the US.
The value of gun laws in Chicago and Connecticut are minimized when nearby jurisdictions have much looser gun laws and when Connecticut law does define a weapon like the Bushmaster as an assault weapon.
Again, if Adam Lanza did not have access to those weapons, he would not have been able to kill anyone. Rural and less populated areas which have the laws you describe tend to have less crime generally so it is not surprising that they have lower crime rates.
If you're using the mainstream media for your "facts" you need a better source. People do not kill because they have assault weapons available to them. They kill because they suffer from low self esteem, want to commit violence and are searching for a weapon to help them do it. People use whatever is available to them. For example, a man in Sweden last year killed a dozen small children in a child care center using hunting knives because those were the weapons available to him.
I think you will agree with me that it is a good idea to keep weapons away from the emotionally unstable who are at risk of bouts of violence. That is why I have had an absolute rule in my house prohibiting all firearms since my mentally-challenged daughter was eight and we began to realize how unstable and violent she could be. On several occasions we required the help of law enforcement to disarm her when she was waving a carving knife. Sometimes we talked her out of the crisis. Twice they used pepper spray and once a taser. If Adam Lanza's mother had made a similar rule then things might have turned out very differently. The problem is, when you're the parent and intimately involved in the midst of dealing with a mentally unstable child, you often are oblivious to serious realities.
Disbelieve it if you wish, but I declare from my experience and that of other parents we know, including some who have been shot at by their out-of-control children, that the ultimate solution is spiritual. We praise god that our daughter today is a stable young woman. Over the years we've encouraged her into a relationship with Jesus that has become the basis for her mental stability. Ten years ago she was bent on violence. Today some of her greatest joys come from going on Maranatha projects.
There are many other first world countries, especially in Europe, Japan and Australia, which are far more godless, don't allow pray in school and have huge spiritual deficits, but have a fraction of the homocide rate through guns.
There are many other first world countries, especially in Europe, Japan and Australia, which have just as many acts of assault, but those assaults don't result in the same sorts of homocide rates through guns.
There are many other first world countries, especially in Europe, Japan and Australia, which just as high incident of mental illness, if not more, but have a fraction of the homocide rate through guns.
So what makes the US so different? Why does the UK only have 3% the gun-related homocide rate as the US per capita, and Japan has virtually no gun-homocides every year? Are English and Japanese people more godly, less violent and have a higher self-esteem – I doubt it.
It doesn't seem to be the US are less godly, more naturally violent, or more insane. It appears to be that those who are less godly, more violent and insane can get their hands on weapons that allow them to kill a whole bunch of people.
You might be right about why people kill. But the fact remains, only in the US is it so easy for someone intent on harming other to actually kill them, and kill so many in so short a period of time.
You might have missed in the news that there was a similar attack in a school in China this last week. The angry kid brought a knife to school, and luckily no one was seriously hurt. What if that same kid had lived in the US?
I get my facts from many sources. Here is one that debunks the idea that guns make us safer.
http://islandia.law.yale.edu/ayers/Ayres_Donohue_article.pdf
Here is another that indicates that having guns in the home makes you less (not more) safe:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12764330
I am incredulous that in your previous post, you suggested that the US was not unique as to mass shootings. Other nations may have one mass shooting in their history. The US seems to have several a year now. Moreover, when other nations DO have such shootings, they immediately take steps to ensure it does not happen again. The gun activist community in the US immediately takes steps to ensure no steps are taken. There have been about as many gun-related murders in the US SINCE Newtown less than a week ago as there are ALL YEAR in Norway.
We agree that guns should be kept away from those with emotional and mental deficits. The NRA and its allies do not seem to. They have done all they can to make any such restrictions toothless and meaningless–much as they did with the 1994 assault weapons ban. Several gun activists have trumpeted a UPa study finding the 94 ban ineffective while conveniently neglecting that it attributed the failure to all the loopholes the gun lobby had built into it.
Yes, we agree on the above BUT most of those who push mental health issues in regard to gun violence do so to avoid discussing additional gun restrictions. I know this because they have consistently supporting eliminating federal funding for mental health programs going back to the Reagan era.
There is a spiritual dimension to this issue and I have alluded to it above. It is NOT, however, a substitute for sensible public policy on guns.
That claim about guns in Chicago being the result of less restrictive gun laws in surrounding communities is a lame excuse denying the utter ineffectivness of gun control laws. Criminals who want guns will buy them on the black market that makes them readily available in many places inside the Chicago city limits.
Now, I'll agree with you that owning a Bushmaster or other assault weapon makes no sense to me. But there are plenty of other things people do that make no sense to me. If you make their decision illegal, what preference do you have that someone else might try to make a criminal act? Can you afford to have someone disrespect your liberty in the same way as you are disrespecting their liberty?
It isn’t a lame excuse for anything. Where do you think the black market gets its guns from? Also, loopholes in even the toughest US laws plus the 2008 District of Columbia v Heiler USSC decision have made effective gun control very difficult.
Effective gun control? Laws have never been effective deterrents against anything where people are sufficiently motivated to do something.
The only methods documented as effective for reducing gun violence have been when people are confronted with the consequences (disfigurement, disability and death) and choose to take responsibility for their actions. Some years ago a group of emergency room physicians in Baltimore got the idea of photographing the wounds they treated and taking a slide show to schools to show students what gang violence was doing. This was particularly effective with girls because they saw how disfiguring the wounds could be and were revolted by the thought of being disfigured in that way. Gun violence rates dropped significantly. Then gun control advocates began complaining that the programs were too graphic for kids and successfully lobbied school officials to have the programs stopped. Gun violence rates began rising almost immediately.
William,
You make some valid points. But, it appears your arguments are biased by the outcome you desire. Some root causes can be impacted more easily by public policy than others. It seems to me if one analyzes what you said you have shot down some of your own arguments. You found it necessary to apply gun control to your own household to deal with your daughter's potential violence. You are fortunate that applying that rule to your household alone was effective.
If you admit that you needed gun control in your household why in the the world do you assume those same controls might not be needed in society as a whole. You were in position to have a impact on your own safety by putting those controls in place. But, based on what actually occurs in our society, I am not sure it would reasonable for your neighbors to trust you to apply the appropriate controls to your household. If voluntary gun control is not effective then mandatory may be necessary.
Your arguments also ignore the challenge it would be to put in place public policy to deal with the root causes you identify. What should be the public policy to deal with the spiritual issues contributing to gun violence? What should be the public policy to deal with mental illness? This last issue has been an ongoing challenge and in the end society may not be able (or willing) to commit the resources to solve them.
I am not saying that gun control is the most effective approach to the problem. But, I am sick and tired of the flawed ridiculous arguments put forward by gun enthusiasts. It makes a meaningful discussion nearly impossible. Their bias to protect their gun toting privileges is so apparent in their arguments that the evidence to support their arguments has to be viewed with suspicion and skepticism.
Public policy is always about tradeoffs and the challenges of impacting human behavior. Seldom is it practical or effective to take the most direct and focused approach to solve issues because there always unintended consequences and counterintuitive results.
Gun control has been unsuccessful in the US because the gun lobby ensures that any and every gun control measure has enough loopholes to drive a truck full of weapons. LaPierre just about said as much on MTP. The NRA does not exist to protect gun owners but rather gun manufacturers. NRA members were polled and they favor sensible gun control, including the banning of assault weapons like the Bushmaster, effective background checks and a meaningful database for mentally and criminally dangerous people–as you apparently do. The NRA does not.
Significant studies were done by the NIH disproving the main talking points you were reciting about guns making us safer–until the NRA pressured Congress to cut off funding. They have gone from there to laws preventing doctors from questioning patients about having guns in their houses and military commanders from questioning their men and women about weapons they have. They also are working to prevent the US from ratifying a ban on overseas weapon sales. The gun lobby exists to improve the profit margins of gun makers and dealers and they use people like you to help them do it.
Nancy Lanza was a gun enthusiast and took her son to the range to learn how to shoot! What was she thinking! Knowing his very unstable mental condition!
Just this morning in my local paper a violent schizophrenic was released from prison where the psychotropic drugs provided by his family were not given to him by prison guards and he went straight to his grandmother's house (he had threatened her and other family members before) and strangled her and was prevented from killing several other family members.
These two major problems must be addressed: easy availability of guns and lack of mental health funding. How sad that such a tragedy as Sandy Hook may finally make the nation and its legislators take action.
Over twenty NRA congressmen refused to discuss this on the Sunday news programs. We will check their reaction and hope that finally, changes will be made.
Elaine, you might be interesting to know it seems part of her thinking was that she was a conspiracy-theory 'Preper'. I believe she actively taught her sons, including the killer, how to use the weapons.
As I said to William, I agree that mental health, including perhaps violent video games or even lax morals in a secular society is arguably an explanation of why young Americans might want to massacre a whole bunch of kids. But other First World countries have just as much mental health issues, kids who watch just as violent video games, laxer morals, less prayer in school and a whole range of other problems equal to the US. And yet these countries have only a fraction per capita of the gun-related homocides as the US. Thus, the motivations are all well and good, but only in the US can those murderous motivations be so easily translated into murderous actions.
Elaine,
I'm wondering is if she was a gun enthusiast, if she was just catering to her son's interest in guns as a way to try and keep her son emotionally stable, or both. News reports make it very easy to jump to conclusions based on minimial information that we don't even know is accurate.
The reason I wonder is looking back and seeing some things my wife and I did while trying to manage our daughter's behavioral challenges. Parents in such situations can do some things that don't make sense to others. What is worse, living with someone who is not in their right mind makes it very easy to minimize or overlook problems and even deny serious risks that are obvious to others. So, on the one hand, I think it is becoming obvious that she made some mistakes. On the other hand, I am extremely sympathetic to the challenges she faced trying to manage a mentally ill son. It was a difficult situation where it looks like she was either unaware or denying the terrible risks. After all, how could a parent even suspect such an outcome from their child?
She is reported to have been a "prepper" someone who expects a takeover by the government of our citizen's rights and prepartion is necessary to protect oneself. This has been presented on TV documentaries of people just like her who are armed to the teeth in preparation for the theories they believe of the U.S. as against its citizens.
Yet, when disaster strikes, (Hurrican Sandy?) their guns and all other "prepping" are forgotten and useless, and they call on the government for help. The same folks who constantly complain of government taking over our rights, and yet when in need, who do they turn to first?
Remind me of a small child who complains of parents who are protective and limit his activities considered dangerous. Yet when he is hurt, who does he run to for help?
Can someone please explain to me what the US obsession is with guns? Seriously? How is this consistent with a so-called Christian nation?
Stephen,
Let's start with a quick history lesson. The American Revolution was a citizen tax revolt where the soldiers were the farmers and merchants who brought their personal weapons to the battle because the nation had only a fledgling military and only very limited armories, if any. The situation was largely the same when the Constitution was being written and then the first ten amendments were being debated. Add that the memory of the British tyranny was so strong in their memories the Founders knew it was essential for the citizens to be able to arm themselves if they were to prevent the imposition of such tyranny again. That is why it was written into the US Constitution as the Second Amendment.
With the exception of large cannons, over the following decades the armories of the military grew slowly. (Most of the cannons used by the Revolutionary Army were captured from the British.) For example, in the War of 1812 against the British, most American soldiers reported for duty carrying their own guns. Those guns were important tools for life in the developing nation because a large portion of the people had to hunt for food to survive, acquire animal pelts for sale, etc. While modernization has reduced the necessity for guns they have remained an institution for recreation. More people shoot for sport than attend all the games of all professional sports teams in the country. The vast majority are law-abiding citizens who have learned how to use them and do so in a safe manner.
Now, I'll be the first to tell you there are a considerable number of people who do not use their guns in a safe manner or make logical choices about what guns they will own. For example, what could you possibly want with a .50 caliber Bushmaster that can destroy a truck engine at a range of one mile and, if you're not careful when you fire it, severely bruise or fracture your shoulder? It makes no sense to me, but some people think it is fun. Or, maybe they're just showing off how their macho is greater than the macho of others. Does them making different choices than I might make mean their option should be illegal? If you rule on that question, what will be your next action to restrict that person's freedom, or mine?
Another factor is the historic American sense of independence. Australia probably comes closest to the US in having a history of ultimate independence. We once were subjects of the British crown, but rejected it because of abuse. An immense nation was settled by rugged individualists who had no one else on whom to depend for their basic survival. Guns are symbolic of rugged individualism and self-sufficiency.
One factor I see making the issue of guns more complicated is that the last two generations in America have nurtured an attitude, not of independence, but rebellion against ancient principles and law. Laws designed to protect have come by a growing number to be the writ of oppression and something to be ignored or overthrown. This is evidenced by the current trend of organized crime gangs. Where the Mafia and Cosa Nostra that once were prominent in large cities rarely used firearms, current gangs are heavily armed. Laws restricting the carrying and use of guns have been utterly ineffective in addressing this growing use of guns. Restrictions on sales have only driven the gun trade underground. Just carrying a gun in New York City (even one that is not loaded) can get you two years in jail. Yet there are places in that city and others where you can pay cash for a gun and however much ammunition you want in only a few minutes. Go to a legitimate gun dealer and you'll undergo a background check to see if you have a criminal record.
Now, let me change gears just a bit. In another posting you were drawing contrasts between violence rates in different countries. Let me caution you that drawing simple conclusions based on partial information leads to conclusions that are simply incomplete and often highly inaccurate. Many of the measures used to compare countries are not apples-to-apples. Measurements are also influenced by cultural differences. For example, two reasons gun violence rates in the rural parts of Australia are low is because they have a more functional role in those areas and people are trained to use them safely. That same condition exists with the overwhelming majority of American gun owners. The contrast between the two appears when you compare the "safe and sane" users with the profligate gun use found in the criminal class. But what that contrast does is paint the lawful and safe user with the same brush as the criminal to create a false image. Anti-gun advocates and liberal politicians have been taking advantage of those misrepresentations to advance their agendas.
Here’s another history lesson. The 2nd Amendment was written to preserve the illusion that citizen soldier yankees had plucked their muskets from above the family hearth and whupped the British and Hessians. In fact, the Brits were ultimately beaten by a well disciplined and trained Continental Line in concert with the French army and navy. Almost without fail, militia units were pathetically inept and more of a burden than an asset. That proved true in the War of 1812 as well.
The 2nd Amendment was aritten in an era when there was no standing army (something some of the Founders feared) or professional police force. It is as antiquated as the 3/5 clause.
There is NOTHING false or misleading about the statitical comparison. Yes, different cultures are, well, different. The fact is that other countries have successfully addressed gun control and have vastly lower murder rates as a result. The gun activist community has prevented that from happening in the US and has allowed gun manufacturers to flood the US with more weapons per capita than any other on the planet. That is why the black market exists.
You are correct that militia units didn't do very well. They were motivated but not well trained. But the "illusion that citizen soldier yankees had plucked their muskets from above the family hearth" is actually fact. According to the office of the Historian of the US Army, the Continental Army did not own a single firearm that it procured until almost two years into the war. At the start all of their weapons were brought from home. About half were muskets with the other half being "Kentucky Long Rifles" that were valued for their greater range and accuracy. Through the duration of the war the primary Colonial source for muskets and gunpowder was raids on the British like Washington's famous Christmas Eve raid across the Delaware River at Trenton, NJ. Those also were the souce of al cannons used by the Continental Army for the first four years of the war. The ratio of muskets to rifles in the Colonial Army varied depending on what had been seized from the British and what had been procured from foundries.
Those hunting rifles played a key role in turning-back the British invasion from Canada across New York State. The rebels felled trees across the cart path to force the British to slow down and even stop. This made them easy targets for snipers in trees and hiding behind cover. Also, the rebels did not respect the European convention of war that prohibited shooting officers. The British turned back north the day after snipers killed their commanding general and four of his deputies because they no longer had anyone regarded as qualified or authorized to lead them.
The American revolution would have failed without help from the French, who first taught them discipline and tactics and then provided badly-needed supplies. While the Americans had improved greatly by the end of the war, what actually caused the British surrender was the prospect of starvation under bombardment. The Americans had them surrounded on land and were bombarding them with mostly captured long-range cannons. The French had cut off their supply by sea with a blockade of Chesapeake Bay. The British were dug-in and not taking significant casualties from the bombardment. But they were within a few days of running out of food for the troops and their officers had run completely out of some of the food items such as certain meats and teas reserved for them. Had the British commander known his navy's fleet would be arriving two weeks later with orders to fight their way through the blockade he might have chosen to ration supplies and hold out. Had he done that, there would have been more chapters in the story of the American Revolution.
A single weapon that it procured? Of course not. The states and Congress procured weapons…and the states had been doing so while they were still colonies…much to the consternation of the British. It is an illusion that the Revolution was won by the citizen soldier. Well trained and disciplined Continentals and the French army and navy won the war. The Kentucky long rifles played relatively little role. Battles and wars were won by well trained and disciplined men fighting in formation where a weapon like the long rifle was useless as were most of the weapons pulled down from the mythical hearth. The British had things all their own way in the Revolution UNTIL the Continentals acquired adequate weaponry from the French and other European powers and the training and discipline to use them AND the French sent their army as well as their navy to fight alongside the Continentals.
As to your comments about Yorktown, I guess if things weren't the same, they'd be different. The critical point is that without European weapons and European-style training and discipline employed by the Continentals and their French allies (who were equally involved in blockading the Brits by land BTW), Washington would have been unable to take advantage of British mistakes. A band of citizen soldiers with long rifles and blunderbusses would never have succeeded at Yorktown regardless of those mistakes.
William: "With the exception of large cannons, over the following decades the armories of the military grew slowly."
William and saulpaulus, much thanks, this is quite an interesting discussion. Just to perhaps go onto another tact, do you think the Founders were happy with private citizens only all and any type of arm? For example, where citizens (if they could afford it) entitled to personally own heavy weapons, such as cannon?
By analogy, constitutionally, should private citizens be entitled to all and every time of arm? For example, I am assuming even the most hardcore gun-loving Patriot would agee that private citizens shouldn't have a right to bear nuclear, biological and chemical weapons? How about artillery and tanks (perhaps the modern equivalent to cannon in the days of the Founders)? What about the sort of automatic and semi-automatic weapons that are routinely used in these massacres?
Given the personal arms in the 18th Century consisted of slow, muzzle-loading one shot muskets and rifles, I wonder what the Founders would say about the right to bear modern arms that allow for massive firepower in a very short period of time?
Their primary guns a citizen would have in the time of the Founding Fathers was limited to a small variety of single-shot weapons including pistols, muskets and rifles. I will not presume to take their past opinions and discussions and project to the current time. But I would ask those discussing the question of how they would feel about the variety of weapons available today to first read the discussions in the Federalist Papers to understand the issues on their minds at the time. Their #1 issue was the establishment of liberty for the citizen by placing strict limits on the powers of the government, and the defense of the liberties the Constitution granted in greatest part to the citizen. Guns were an integral part of that defense.
"I will not presume to take their past opinions and discussions and project to the current time."
Isn't the Constitution intended to be a living document?
I will presume because I am familiar with the primary source material as well as extensive commentary by experts not paid by the NRA. The Founders (most of them) feared a standing army and suffered from the illusion that the citizen soldier had won the Revolution. Because of their fear of standing armies, they resented the Continentals who had actually won the war. They also didn't want to admit to the debt owed the French–financial and otherwise. They would have been horrified by the modern military-industrial complex.
We should also be careful in speaking of THE Founders. The better known Founders, with the exception of Henry who opposed the Constitution and Jefferson who was in France, all supported the Constitution and generally opposed the Bill of Rights of which the 2nd Amendment was a part. The Federalist Papers were written in support of the Constitution and, in fact, Federalist #84–written by Hamilton–explicitly rejected the idea of a bill of rights.
The Anti-Federalists, led by Henry and NY governor Clinton, opposed the Constitution because it limited the power of the individual states. They wrote the proposed amendments on which the Bill of Rights was based to attempt to limit the power of the national government. They were especially fond of the citizen soldier myth partly because the militias were state institutions whereas the Continentals were a national army not responsible to the state governments. Washington, Hamilton and Franklin knew who had REALLY won the war and supported the Constitution because they had experienced the unwillingness of the states to fund the Continentals or repay the French. The states were chiefly responsible for the horrors of Valley Forge, for example.
I will presume because I am familiar with the primary source material as well as extensive commentary by experts not paid by the NRA. The Founders (most of them) feared a standing army and suffered from the illusion that the citizen soldier had won the Revolution. Because of their fear of standing armies, they resented the Continentals who had actually won the war. They also didn't want to admit to the debt owed the French–financial and otherwise. They would have been horrified by the modern military-industrial complex.
We should also be careful in speaking of THE Founders. The better known Founders, with the exception of Henry who opposed the Constitution and Jefferson who was in France, all supported the Constitution and generally opposed the Bill of Rights of which the 2nd Amendment was a part. The Federalist Papers were written in support of the Constitution and, in fact, Federalist #84–written by Hamilton–explicitly rejected the idea of a bill of rights.
The Anti-Federalists, led by Henry and NY governor Clinton, opposed the Constitution because it limited the power of the individual states. They wrote the proposed amendments on which the Bill of Rights was based to attempt to limit the power of the national government. They were especially fond of the citizen soldier myth partly because the militias were state institutions whereas the Continentals were a national army not responsible to the state governments. Washington, Hamilton and Franklin knew who had REALLY won the war and supported the Constitution because they had experienced the unwillingness of the states to fund the Continentals or repay the French. The states were chiefly responsible for the horrors of Valley Forge, for example.
Arms have become and are promoted as a symbol of security, prosperity, freedom and potency.
If your hope of security, freedom, prosperity is based on your right of bearing arms, then arms have become your idol, your god. Whether such a "god" is called Moloch or has more modern name – he requires some sacrifices once in a while. Sacrifices of children.
I believe in a different God, the creator of heaven and earth, who left behind all security and prosperity of heaven, gave up his freedom and power to become a little, helpless child to live among us, willing to die, rather than self-defend, a God who does not want sacrifice, but sacrificed himself.
The issue is worship.
Who is your God?
I choose to serve God supremely and trust him, whatever may come. At the same time I am a vigorous advocate of preserving the freedom of the individual that is being eroded by increasingly tyrannical government. I cannot see myself taking up arms in defense of that cause, but there are plenty of others who think otherwise and are prepared to do it.
To put a little perspective in our discussion, let’s answer the question “What is your probability of dying from a gunshot wound?” To find the answer I turned to the Centers for Disease Control (www.cdc.gov) website and downloaded their death statistics report for 2010(final) and 2011(preliminary). Here is what I found.
The top five causes of death were heart disease (23.7%), cancers (22.9%) chronic respiratory diseases (5.7%), stroke (5.1%) and unintentional accidents (4.9%). Of the 113 causes of death listed, murder involving a firearm was #109.
Your total probability of being murdered by someone using a firearm was only three-quarters of one percent (.007439). Guns were the cause of only 2.3% of all murders.
Here are some comparisons to show the likelihood of death by another cause as compared to your probability of being murdered using a firearm.
Heart disease: 737X
Cancer: 192X
Stroke: 44X
Chronic respiratory disease: 49X
Alzheimer’s Disease: 33.7X
Diabetes: 23X
Influenza and pneumonia: 17X
Accident: 17X
The shooting at the school in Newtown, CT was dramatic and utterly horrifying. It has captured our attention at least until the next big and dramatic news story comes along and bumps it out of the lead position on the news channels. We are having a hard time making any sense of what happened. For gun control advocates it is cause célèbre to push their agenda. But in terms of the total number of murders by gun in America, it barely “bumped the meter.” What is more, murder is a minor cause of death in the total picture. Our challenge is to behave reasonably instead of just emotionally. As a nation we have a long list of far greater needs waiting to be addressed where public support can deliver far more benefit to far more people than any gun control law.
First of all, thank you for clarifying your own position.
As to your statistics…. I do have a fascination for stats – and am in fact teaching quantitative research methods. But I do assume – and certainly hope – ethical decisions are not to be come to by through statistical comparison!
Having said that, I believe you are right that media hype is not helpful. And the Newtown events indeed just represent the tip of the iceberg… (Sorry, if I misread you). However – to reiterate my point… What is the purpose and intent of a gun? What is the purpose and intent of the gospel? (Hint: John 10:10)
By the way – the Second Amendment is a very American thing (which isn't making it right or wrong, but rather unique). In Europe we generally suggest that separation of power is a worthwhile principle (quite in line with Rom. 13, if you want). And yes, we have a lower rate of people killed by guns (but then … I didn't want to argue with stats).
Well, for those who do want the stats facts:
In the there are US 30,000 deaths by gun shots each year. Subtract 60% for suicide (a questionable deduction) and you get 3.45 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants per year.
In Germany the rate is 0.12 per 100,000 inhabitants. In other words … you are 29 times as likely to be killed by gun in the US. (Source: http://www.morgenpost.de/politik/ausland/article112137278/Selbst-die-Waffenlobby-denkt-nach-Newtown-um.html)
Oh, and as to the "low figure" (in comparison to other causes of death) of 3.45 per 100,000…. tell that a mother or a father in Newtown…. So much for statistics.
And in Japan I believe the homocide rate through guns is basically zero!
Andreas,
It is a pleasure to know that you are aware of statistical analysis methods and willing to give credibility to data from a variety of inputs when examining issues instead of being driven by emotion as we are seeing demonstrated by the advocates of gun control laws. As for the comparative death rates you described, I left the CDC statistical report on my desk at work when I went to the funeral. So I will reserve any response on that point until I have a chance to retrieve it after Christmas and perhaps provide you with further data to refine your comparison.
Andreas,
The following is from a Washington Post column by Fareed Zakaria.
"The number of deaths by firearms in the United States was 32,000 last year. Around 11,000 were gun homicides.
To understand how staggeringly high this number is, compare it to the rate in other rich countries. England and Wales have about 50 gun homicides a year — 3 percent of our rate per 100,000 people. Many people believe that America is simply a more violent, individualistic society. But again, the data clarify. For most crimes — theft, burglary, robbery, assault — the United States is within the range of other advanced countries. The category in which the U.S. rate is magnitudes higher is gun homicides.
The U.S. gun homicide rate is 30 times that of France or Australia, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, and 12 times higher than the average for other developed countries."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-the-solution-to-gun-violence-is-clear/2012/12/19/110a6f82-4a15-11e2-b6f0-e851e741d196_story.html
(Frankly, I am unclear as to how there could be 21,000 deaths by firearms in the U.S. in a given year that were not classified as gun homicides.)
And re Australia — since all the law abiding people have turned their guns in a year or so again, the murder and armed robbery rates have sky rocketed. As England has had more and more rules re gun ownership their rates of firearm murder and robbery have also climbed. The USA is just a tad ahead of the game.
No one likes to compare the rates of firearm crime with Mexico and Brazil which have very strick private gun ownership laws. In Mexico the cartel runs pretty much how they want to with their guns.
The Japanese refused to attack the West Coast of the USA because of the fear of a gun in every household. States that have "shall carry" status, have lower crime rates. The strictest states – NY, CA, Il and DC have some of the highest gun related murders and robberies and probably bring the stats up for the whole country. Now we could talk about many things re Detroit – failed government do gooder policies for a start.
Just trying to put a little perspective for some of you who are not US citizens and also to help William out. 🙂
"And re Australia — since all the law abiding people have turned their guns in a year or so again, the murder and armed robbery rates have sky rocketed."
Sorry but rubbish. As far as I know, Australians didn't hand in their guns last year – it was a decade or more ago under PM John Howard. Secondly, I don't think Australian murder and armed robbery rates have sky rocketted – where is your data? And Australia certainly doesn't have the same type of crazy school shootings. There hasn't been a serious massacre in Australia since the Port Authur massacre, which led to the weapons bans in Aus.
– Yet without academic evidence that existing regulations such as gun free zones, the Brady law, and gun locks produce desirable results, it is surprising that in 2000 we are now debating what new gun-control laws to pass. With that in mind, 294 academics from institutions as diverse as Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern, the University of Pennsylvania, and UCLA released an open letter to Congress during 1999 stating that the proposed new gun laws are "ill advised". They wrote that "with the 20,000 gun laws already on the books, we advise Congress, before enacting yet more new laws, to investigate whether many of the existing laws may have contributed to the problems we currently face".
Invincible Ignorance
by Thomas Sowell
Must every tragic mass shooting bring out the shrill ignorance of "gun control" advocates?
The key fallacy of so-called gun control laws is that such laws do not in fact control guns. They simply disarm law-abiding citizens, while people bent on violence find firearms readily available.
If gun control zealots had any respect for facts, they would have discovered this long ago, because there have been too many factual studies over the years to leave any serious doubt about gun control laws being not merely futile but counterproductive.
Places and times with the strongest gun control laws have often been places and times with high murder rates. Washington, D.C., is a classic example, but just one among many.
When it comes to the rate of gun ownership, that is higher in rural areas than in urban areas, but the murder rate is higher in urban areas. The rate of gun ownership is higher among whites than among blacks, but the murder rate is higher among blacks. For the country as a whole, hand gun ownership doubled in the late 20th century, while the murder rate went down.
The few counter-examples offered by gun control zealots do not stand up under scrutiny. Perhaps their strongest talking point is that Britain has stronger gun control laws than the United States and lower murder rates.
But, if you look back through history, you will find that Britain has had a lower murder rate than the United States for more than two centuries – and, for most of that time, the British had no more stringent gun control laws than the United States. Indeed, neither country had stringent gun control for most of that time.
In the middle of the 20th century, you could buy a shotgun in London with no questions asked. New York, which at that time had had the stringent Sullivan Law restricting gun ownership since 1911, still had several times the gun murder rate of London, as well as several times the London murder rate with other weapons.
Neither guns nor gun control was the reason for the difference in murder rates. People were the difference.
Yet many of the most zealous advocates of gun control laws, on both sides of the Atlantic, have also been advocates of leniency toward criminals.
In Britain, such people have been so successful that legal gun ownership has been reduced almost to the vanishing point, while even most convicted felons in Britain are not put behind bars. The crime rate, including the rate of crimes committed with guns, is far higher in Britain now than it was back in the days when there were few restrictions on Britons buying firearms.
In 1954, there were only a dozen armed robberies in London but, by the 1990s – after decades of ever tightening gun ownership restrictions – there were more than a hundred times as many armed robberies.
Gun control zealots' choice of Britain for comparison with the United States has been wholly tendentious, not only because it ignored the history of the two countries, but also because it ignored other countries with stronger gun control laws than the United States, such as Russia, Brazil and Mexico. All of these countries have higher murder rates than the United States.
You could compare other sets of countries and get similar results. Gun ownership has been three times as high in Switzerland as in Germany, but the Swiss have had lower murder rates. Other countries with high rates of gun ownership and low murder rates include Israel, New Zealand, and Finland.
Guns are not the problem. People are the problem – including people who are determined to push gun control laws, either in ignorance of the facts or in defiance of the facts.
There is innocent ignorance and there is invincible, dogmatic and self-righteous ignorance. Every tragic mass shooting seems to bring out examples of both among gun control advocates.
Some years back, there was a professor whose advocacy of gun control led him to produce a "study" that became so discredited that he resigned from his university. This column predicted at the time that this discredited study would continue to be cited by gun control advocates. But I had no idea that this would happen the very next week in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
December 18, 2012
They don't control guns adequately because the gun lobby makes sure that they are written so that they cannot do so. Other countries are able to write adequate gun control laws and have MUCH lower murder rates.
We pride ourselves on living in a land of freedom. But we seem to be confused: Is it "The Freedom To:", or "The Freedom From:", that we value most. Can we have both? It might do us well to review the 4 freedoms President F.D. Roosevelt proposed as being most valuable, especially the 4th one: Freedom from fear. It is notable that The Freedom to own a weapon of mass destruction was not on his list.
A truly free society includes the freedom to destroy itself, a task at which we seem to be increasingly occupied.
Gun sales are way up. As always, one community's tragedy is another's fortune.
Questions about freedom to/from whatever often ignore or misunderstand the fundamental concepts of liberty. Worse still, such questions are often used to modify our understanding of the essential nature of liberty from the ones used to establish America into a modern concept controlled by liberal philosophers. I want to encourage you to read the works of classic writers on the topic so you can see the contrasts between the original principles and and the modern claims about liberty. The contrasts are great and I think it would be unfortnate is we supported further erosions of liberty because we were unaware of the foundational concepts it includes.
My primary recommended reading on the topic is the Federalist Papers, which you should be able to download to your e-reader or computer for free or a minimal price. The return from your effort could be invaluable.
Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Population 211,000 has had 1 murder in past two years.
And just across the river is Detroit, MI, USA. Population: 706,500 with 354 murders this year as of November 25. What is the difference??
To be fair:
Vancouver, BC, with a population of 603,000 had 34 murders so far this year and Seattle (just south), with a population of 620,000 had 51, which is high. Seattle averaged 26/ homicides/year over past 10 years
Contrasts such as you have described are many. No nation is free from murder and other violent crimes. Instead of making comparisons, would it not be more beneficial to identify the causes and to discover the power of God to reduce them?
How does one explain evil realted to the murder of 20 children and 6 adults in one fell swooop other than the devil has come down with great wrath. And certainly he did that in WWII in Germany and German occupied lands. The devil exploits any opportunity he has to degrade the human race. If you study Germany in WWII you will see human nature documented at its worse. I have no doubt historians may well be able point out similar circumstances in other countires at other times.
Maranatha
How willing are you to let God work through you to demonstrate His great power to cure the root cause, which is sin itself?
Sufficient history of firearms in the USA has been debated above. Just another view. The USA has become the greatest developer of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in the world and is on record of using them(WWII, HIROSHIMA & NAGASAKI). The USA glories in being the most powerful military power in the world. Since WWII, the younger generations have been babied & coddled and told they can't COPE with life, and must be protected. i can't recall during the 1930's – 1980's, that everytime a tragedy happened, the psycharitrists and counselers were rushed to the scene to comfort the survivors. We didn't panic or require handholding during WWII. Every week for the first 3 years there was mostly terrible news, of thousands being killed or torn apart. Yet, it seemed everyone just sucked it up, and refused to let FEAR overcome them. Since 1980 & the advent of technology that provides instant information of the world, and TOYS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (TMD), insanity reigns. Real guns become playthings, parents bring them into their homes, a family nightout may be to the local gun range. Games whose HEROS use massive weapons with great firepower that destroy; frightening satanic movies with violence and tons of blood. Pornography with nothing held back. etc etc. all available to children when MAMA'S not home, and are not forbidden by many dysfunctional parent(S). Then you have the children with mental problems, loners, unsocialable, suicidal, fearful, and plans violence, and one day explodes.
The USA with over 320million people, with the highest income per cap in the world utilizes these latest TMD & WMD, wantonly.
All guns with capacity for more than that required to hunt grizzly bears must be forbidden to private citizens. They must be removed from our homes. There will be much howling and gnashing of teeth by the private militias and militant groups, and GUN LOBBISTS,but lets do it. THOU SHALL NOT KILL. THOU SHALL NOT KILL. THOU SHALL NOT KILL.
Earl,
I find it curious that you would propose limiting gun possession to only those firearms lesser than perhaps what would be needed to kill a bear. Few of the man-carried weapons used in war today have that much firepower or accuracy. Were you perhaps expressing concern about rate of fire instead? If so, there is no need for new laws restricting guns because it is already illegal to own an automatic weapon.
Well said, Truth Seeker. Evil is the problem; and weapons designed for people to kill people are part of that evil.
Military style assault weapons have no place in civilian society. Grenade and rocket launchers also have no place in civilian society. WMD have no place in civilized society; the difference being a matter of degrees.
As Stephen Ferguson has pointed out, they play violent video games in other parts of the world; and most western societies are far more secular than is America. I understand that while the U.S. represents about 5% of the world’s population, it has approximately 50% of the world’s guns. So the reason that America has an inordinate share of these massacres has something to do with both the cultural acceptance of and easy access to certain weapons.
America may own the vast majority of guns, but they also are the safest in using them with more than 99.9% they are also being used safely with less than .1% being used in the commission of crimes. Right now we're all pretty emotional about the Newtown school shooting. Letting emotions rule without facts is a prescription for destroying the basic liberty you rely on for the ability to worship as you wish. If you destroy the liberty to own a gun, how long will it be before the religious liberty you claim to defend is not also destroyed?
As a friend of mine phrases it, there are plenty of angels among us but not all of them are good.
This morning on TV I saw a t-shirt with a question to God on the front asking why we are seeing things in schools like the Newtown school shooting. Below the question is the answer: "I'm not allowed in schools any more– God."
Many who have no real concept of what horrible slaughter of Americans and its Allies would have ensued had the US Military Forces been required to subdue Japan in WWII are critical of Truman for ordering the dropping of the "bomb" but personally I do not fault Truman for dropping the "bomb."
Those usually most critical of Truman had nothing to lose and were not even alive at the time has been my observation.
Reality check for Piers Morgan – FBI stats show 358 of 8,775 murders by firearm in 2010 were by rifle. Compare to 745 beaten to death with hands.
"Nowadays it is quite common to speak loosely of the National Guard as 'the state militia,' but 200 years ago any band of paid, semiprofessional part-time volunteers, like today's Guard, would have been called 'a select corps,' or 'select militia' — and viewed in many quarters as little better than a standing army. In 1789, when used without any qualifying adjective, 'the militia' referred to all citizens capable of bearing arms." — Prof. Akil Reed Amar of the Yale School of Law
Quotes
"And that said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress…to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms…" SAM ADAMS, in the Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, Aug. 20, 1789.
"To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them…" RICHARD HENRY (LIGHT HORSE HARRY) LEE, writing in Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic (1787-1788)
"On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, found in The Complete Jefferson, p. 322
"The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals… It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of." ALBERT GALLATIN of the NY Historical Society, October 7, 1789
"…the people have a right to keep and bear arms." PATRICK HENRY AND GEORGE MASON, Elliot, Debates at 185
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." THOMAS JEFFERSON, Proposal for a Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334 (C.J. Boyd, Ed. 1950)
"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 article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." TENCH COXE in "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution," under the pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789.
A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.
Yvonne,
Thank you for those observations and quotes. You obviously have given serious study to the essential concepts forming the foundation of liberty. We need more people on here such as you to counter those who do not have that conceptual basis.
Professor Amar’s quote implies that the second amendment is, what it is, an anachronism.
That being said, in the U.S. Amendments rightfully stand, unless and until they are repealed; and the second amendment has not been repealed. It has, however been reviewed and apparently has not been judged to be an absolute and unlimited freedom/right—otherwise laws that require carriers of concealed weapons to have permits would be clearly unconstitutional; not to mention laws that forbid the keeping and bearing of bazookas, grenade and rocket launchers, and weapons of mass destruction.
The fact of the matter is that any gun that shoots real bullets can kill a human being (who is not wearing bullet proof armor); plain and simple. Any gun available 100 or even 200 years ago could do the same thing. If the framers’ intent means anything, we know that they knew nothing of WMD.
The lethal capacity, in terms of how many more people can be shot multiple times in a given period of time, of today’s military style weapons should prohibit their ownership and use by all civilians. Individuals can certainly protect their homes and families with shotguns, repeating rifles, and revolvers.
Gun permits, background checks, waiting periods, and requiring safety and psychological testing would only affect law abiding citizens, so the argument goes. So what? The same can be said of legally registered—and necessary—automobiles.
Guns are invented to kill living and breathing creatures. Military style assault firearms are designed to kill human beings very efficiently.
The fact that this is being debated on a site such as this is telling in terms of what a priority—and how conflicting—political ideology/allegiance can be.
Stephen,
If you are willing to support laws prohibiting someone from doing something you do not like, what is to keep others from doing the same thing and supporting laws restricting your right to worship God as you wish?
It appears perhaps you missed this sentence: “Individuals can certainly protect their homes and families with shotguns, repeating rifles, and revolvers.”
Maybe you ought to reread the post, because I acknowledged that the second amendment has not been repealed; and I indicated that “gun permits, background checks, waiting periods, and requiring safety and psychological testing” are reasonable measures that indeed should be taken. I will unhesitatingly add that game hunting firearms should be permitted; for good measure.
In other words, since I am not calling for a prohibition of all guns; how am I “prohibiting someone from doing something [I] do not like”—that is to say, other than making it extremely more difficult for American civilians to get their hands on military style assault firearms?
That said, it is nonetheless gratifying that your question demonstrates something of an appreciation for the libertarian principles we have discussed.
Guns are evil in that the intentions for which they are invented/designed/manufactured/sold are evil. Guns are for the purpose of violently and abruptly ending the life of various living, breathing, feeling, hearing, and seeing creatures. Military style assault guns are invented/designed/manufactured/sold for the sole purpose of violently and abruptly ending the lives of living, breathing, feeling, hearing and seeing human beings; in a quite efficient and purposefully more effective manner.
Civilians aren’t advantaged/benefitted by this capacity. We don’t have the right/liberty to kill each other. (Such firepower is unnecessary overkill for self-defense.) The gun culture is a contributing cultural factor in the comparative numbers of gun homicides with other developed western societies.
The School shooting is very sad. Have any of you in this discussion worked for a school system or had a conversation with any one who does about what happened?
Those that want to kill can find a way to do it with out a gun or guns.
What a tragedy this young man caused. Surely there were warning signs. Why were those around him not able to detect them? May we find answeres to these questions.
Are you sure? In countries where they don't stupidly allow people to get their hands on guns so easily, people still want to kill people sure, but they can't kill them, or can't kill so many of them.
By this same logic, Iran and Al Qaeda should have nuclear weapons, because nuclear weapons don't kill people, people kill people. And the US should stop making such strong efforts to stop Iran, because as the argument goes, there will always be a black market, and they can always get their hands on these weapons if they really want, so we should just give up, or be armed to the teeth ourselves in response.
Replace the notion of gun with nuclear weapon, and the notion of mentally ill teenager with terrorist, and one can see how silly the pro-gun arguments are.
Stephen,
If an attempt to do something is shown to be ineffective, is it not illogical to continue or increase that same effort? Or to expect that more of the same effort will produce a different result?
Albert Einstein is credited as saying: "Insanity is doing the same old thing the same old way and expecting a different result."
Please also keep in mind that the volume of advocacy for gun control laws right now has been promoting the concept that gun violence is far more widespread than is true.
The US Constitution creates a society that allows for individualism (including the right to freedom of speech, such as watching violent video games) and the right to bear arms. These rights are all bound up in notions of freedom. If the problem with the US massively disproportionate gun homocide rates is not a problem with the right to bear arms, then isn't the problem with the other parts of the US Constitution?
Either way, didn't the Founders get the basic recipe for America wrong? Or are perhaps their descendants getting it wrong, in failing to treat the Constitution as a living document, or seeing it as Holy writ that can't be changed? Is this why the US is indeed the lamb-like beast power, where Americans have some of the most wonderful Christ-like qualities but then also some of the most warped, non-Christian ideals, that allow your own children to be massacred in schools?
I really don't understand it at all. It's like there is still this fear of the British Empire, taught from the breast, not realising that you are now actually the Empire who are the tyranny of the rest of the world. I am sure there must be some sort of historical parallel in the history of the Roman Empire, when it went from Republic to Empire.
Stephen,
No, the founders did not get the concept wrong. The results of the Constitution they wrote show the wisdom of their work. That document created a foundation of respect for individual liberty and limitations on the power of government that enabled America to become the most propserous nation in history.
Despite the results of liberty, liberal-socialists have for a century been claiming that it is necessary to abandon the constitution if their fantasy concepts of absolute and total equality and fairness are ever to be achieved. Inherent in the achievement of their concept is the eradication of all faith in God from society because it competes with respect and challenges the exercise of power to the degree they want. They also conveniently ignore the lesson from history showing that no nation with such an all-powerful government ever achieves the promised objectives, but instead falls into an ever-worsening cycle of tyranny that eventually causes the nation to collapse from within.
I would be interested in hearing a defense of military style assault firearms from a Jesus, love, Golden Rule, turn the other cheek, fruits of the Spirit perspective.
Apparently Stephen there are SDAs who have a similar outlook to that of some of our extremist survivalist, civilian militia types; and that is this: that the firepower afforded by such weapons as those used last week, and even of a significantly higher lethal capacity, are needed to help prevent a tyrannical American government, presumably not appreciably unlike the current government, from taking away our liberty to…what, spread the gospel, worship as we choose…or pursue, uhm, happiness?
Of course other SDAs here in America, and hopefully elsewhere, never envisioned the availability of military style weapons to be our guarantor of religious and other liberties in order for us to finish the work. Is that confused/conflicted enough for you? I suppose it’s another manifestation of ‘new light.’ (I recommend sticking with the old light.)
I apologize, but I have limited patience. I have a long way to go.
Stephen,
Defense of liberty does not make a person an extremist survivalist, civilian militia type or any other false characterization you wish to use to tarnish the character of of those who disagree with you. No, guns do not guarantee liberty, but they are inseparable from the defense of it and have played a major role in that defense. That eight year effort that started back in 1776 and allowed the adoption of the U.. Constitution wasn't a protest march, it was the Revolutionary War.
Your disrespect and support for infringing on the liberty enjoyed by others, notably the right to own a gun, enables and invites others to disrespect and infringe on the liberties you enjoy, including the religious liberty you claim to defend. Be fair. Be consistent. If you defend one liberty then you must defend all liberty or you are an advocate for tyranny.
William,
I recognize the need for armed military defense forces and for law enforcement officers.
Once again, I must remind you that I’m not trying to take away all guns from the American civilian population.
Once again, I must remind you that I am talking about military style assault weapons in the hands of American civilians; those with high capacity magazine clips particularly.
There is absolutely no need for civilian Americans to keep and bear WMD, bazookas, cannons, grenades, bombs, grenade and rocket launchers, missiles, or military style assault firearms; period.
Are you now suggesting that American civilians be permitted to have these weapons, with no restrictions, regulations, permits, licenses, or anything?
I’m happy to see you suddenly sensitized to the civil libertarian perspective of things. But the right to keep and bear arms in the U.S. Constitution is within a contextual framework; presupposing a well-regulated militia.
Private gun ownership for self-defense, apart from militia service, is constitutional (per D.C. v. Heller and later McDonald v. Chicago), but it is fruit from the tree of the introductory clause; like an apple is from an apple tree, but need not remain attached to the tree in order for you to eat or enjoy it.
Heller also acknowledged the constitutionality of restrictions.
But let me get this straight; you are now on board with the thinking that whenever American civil liberties are threatened, religious liberty, particularly ours, is threatened too?
If so, then let me welcome you.
So, if you take away one class of guns, what barrier exists to prevent the taking of more? It is a slippery slope that soon becomes very steep. When you limit one liberty, what barrier exists to prevent the limiting and taking of another?
There is a famous quote from someone who died in one of the Nazi death camps where he speaks of watching the Nazis take one group away and he did not speak up in their defense. Then another group was taken and another until when the Nazis came to take him away there was no one left to defend him. That is the nature of liberal-socialism. Their attack plan is simple but effective: use limited attacks driven by emotion to erode liberty incrementally until finally there is no opposition left capable of preventing them from being in complete control and imposing their will. Today the issue is guns. How long until it is your religious freedom? After all, it is their claim that we cannot have complete fairness or equality until all faith in God is eradicated from society.
Now, let's inject some factual evidence from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), FBI and US Department of Justice about the types of guns used in crimes. First, only about 9% of all gun deaths are homicides. Second, military-style assault weapons are used in only about 0.01% of those homicides. The limited use of assault weapons by criminals is explained by two primary factors: they are more expensive than hand guns and their size and weight makes them more difficult to conceal or use.
We have all been utterly horrified by the shooting. Emotions are running raw and unrestrained. As a result the public perception of the risk from such weapons has been vastly expanded by raw emotion to a point far beyond anything that can be supported by reality.
“After all, it is their claim that we cannot have complete fairness or equality until all faith in God is eradicated from society.”
Almost unbelievable; what else can be said about this? Besides the fact that you routinely and grotesquely distort the views of liberals to a paranoid and self-serving, one-size-fits-all caricature (which should embarrass many conservatives); the logical conclusion of your position is that American civilians have the liberty to own any manor of weaponry they can afford to acquire; which is ridiculous.
Any manor of weaponry would of course include WMD: nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. It is amazing to me that only guns, and military style assault firearms at that, have sensitized you to how religious liberty can be threatened by the government.
It is also rather interesting that you have thus far taken a pass on my request to present a defense of these weapons, or guns in general, from a Jesus, love, Golden Rule, turn the other cheek, fruits of the Spirit perspective.
I have pointed out to you that the Courts have found no carte blanche constitutional right or liberty to all weaponry, under any and all circumstances, without restriction. Are you telling us that they—including Scalia—have historically been wrong about this?
Let me ask you this: is there along these lines, any wisdom, knowledge, understanding, or foresight to be gained from a careful and prayerful reading of The Great Controversy with regard to your expressed religious liberty concerns as relates to the U.S.?
Why are we SDAs, as opposed to something else, if our views of these things simply echo that of Glenn Beck?!
Above i suggested no gun in the home with more firepower than that required to protect you from a grizzly bear. i served in the US military during the WWII-Korean war era. i observed at first hand the deaths & mangled bodies of weapons of mass destruction. The USA has been priviledged not to have been invaded by a foreign power since the Revolutionary War. There is no need to have in the home more than a standard firearm other than a shotgun, rifle, or handgun, with out the semi-automatic or automatic feature, and with out the large quantity replaceable magazines. No hand grenades, flamethrowers, or chemical weapons of design for killing masses. The nation's military & police forces of course would not have these restrictions. The government knows who have most of these restricted weapons. Most were registered when purchased. Those of militia, organizations of armed restrictors, supremancy groups, may have to be taken by force, so be it. There should be a $10,000. fine per weapon for having possession. Swat teams may have to go into some communities door to door, so be it. Until this confiscation happens and complete, we will have more & more of these heart rending scenes of innocents slaughtered. If the USA wished to enslave it's people through dictatorial powers, the American people could in no way keep it from happening. The US Military people are volunteers, and
duty bound to carry out the orders of the Commander in Chief. They will do as ordered, along with the NSA,CIA,FBI, HOMELAND SECURITY,FEMA, NATIONAL GUARD, AND MERCENARIES.
The police searching homes to remove weapons? Are you proposing turning America into Germany under the Nazis or the Soviet Union.
i sincerely ask you, who is an avocate for tyranny, those who support weapons of mass destruction, in the home, or those opposed.
Liberty and tyranny are polar opposites so the person who advocates limitations of liberty is by definition a promoter of tyranny.
William. Rapid fire large magazine, semi-automic arms, hand grenades, flame throwers, machine guns, plastic explosives, briefcase size nuclear devices, chemical weapons, germicide weapons, other WMD as developed. Where do you draw the line for private citizens to legally have access to any of the above. i believe in liberty & life for all, but there comes a time when violent people who are in society must be controlled for the protection of the beautiful innocect victims, as those slaughtered in our schools, universities, social gatherings of every community. We have gone beyond where this crime of annihilation of our youth must stop. Drastic measures are a top priority. If you don't see the evidence before your eyes, TOUGH. The answer is containment of said weapons in the possession of private citizen NOW.
William: "Despite the results of liberty, liberal-socialists have for a century been claiming that it is necessary to abandon the constitution if their fantasy concepts of absolute and total equality and fairness are ever to be achieved. Inherent in the achievement of their concept is the eradication of all faith in God from society because it competes with respect and challenges the exercise of power to the degree they want."
So but how can you blame liberals for these gun-related massacres? Sorry, but any suggestion that it is an absence of God, supposedly caused by liberals (which I am sure they would also deny anyway), is the real cause of the US having the Developed World's highest per captia homocide rate is simply absurd. A blind dog can see it is the opposite, and rather the right's obsession with protecting individual rights to military-grade weaponary which is the primary reason for such carnage.
Again, the US is about the most religous and most Christian Developed country in the world. Much more secular countries, such as England and Australia, have only a fraction of the homocide and gun-homocide rates per capita. Thus, one could actually make the case that the more religious and more religious the country, the higher, not the lower, the homocide rate per capita!
The shootings are the decisions of individuals. Liberal-Socialism is taking advantage of them to attack and destroy liberty and replace it with tyranny.
Yes, the shootings are the decisions of individuals – often mentally ill persons. But the fact these insane individuals can get their hands on military-grade weaponary is a decision of society, which creates and allows laws that allows this to happen. Scoeity in turn suffers when these individuals turn violent and case untolled pain, death and suffering.
In life, it is impossible to have both perfect liberty and perfect safety – there is always a degree of trade off between the two. Perhaps the philosophical dispute is that you seem to be willing to protect liberty at all costs, by which you think requires individuals having access to military-grade weaponary. Many others also want to protect liberty, but not willing to pay such a high price with the blood of their own children.
Funny enough, in my unscientific observation of your US history, the same demographic strata of American soceity which has historically most strongly supported the right to bear arms, and see it as an individual right to military-grade weaponary, rather than a communal right to collective security through a well-resourced but regulated militia, are the same people who did most to deprive the liberties of whole other strata of American society. I am sure, for example, than Native Americans, African Americans, and Hispanics would see the notion of white men having guns to protect their supposed liberty in very different terms than angry white men who historically sought to use those same guns to strip the liberty of these minorities.
So the question is – how many children are you willing to sacrifice to keep your military-grade weapons in the hands of unregulated individuals rather than in a communally-regulated militia?
Secondly, who do you so fear that you need these guns to protect you? If it is criminals and wolves, then why are military-grade weapons required? If it is foreign nations, I think you need to recognise the US spends more on defence than nearly every other country on earth combined. If it your own Federal Government, then again, your history demonstrates that the Federal Government has historically used military power internally to uphold liberty, where other citizens were trying to take it (as occured in the Civil War, Reconstruction and Civil Rights eras).
I do not own a gun and will not allow guns in my home. So I do not view attacks on gun ownership as a personal issue. It is an issue of fundamental liberty and the strong emotions we are seeing expressed in many directions are prevents people from considering anything but their feelings. The protection of gun ownership in the Second Amendment to the Constitution and is one of the essential liberties that were being detailed by the Founders. When you attack any specific liberty you are weakening the defenses preserving all other liberties and promoting what prophecy tells us will become the destruction of the liberty to worship God freely.
I can’t help but repeat my fascination that the issue of military style assault weapon availability is the one that has apparently heightened your sensitivity to the need for American civil liberty protection; and particularly the slippery slope that “prophecy tells us will become the destruction of the liberty to worship God freely;” particularly in America.
Now if you can see the government as a danger; can you see the government controlled by those of (a) differing sectarian persuasion, who may even purport to be doing God’s work, as a danger?
(I’m sure you would see such a danger if they were, say Muslim fundamentalists. My question regarding The Great Controversy stands.)
Stephen,
Your estimate of the apparent risk of being killed by someone using a military type assault weapon needs a reality check. Statistics from the Department of Justice and Centers for Disease Control show that the vast majority of homicides do not involve a gun. If you are to be shot with a gun you are around eight times more likely to also be the person pulling the trigger. The number of homicides using a military-style assault weapon over the past 25 years were 0.001% of assaults using guns. This means you or any member of your family are about 12,000 times more likely to be struck by lightning than shot by someone using an assault rifle. So you're getting hysterical over a microscopic risk compared to a long list of other risks.
But, as your postings have been demonstrating, facts don't matter to you and the only liberties you care about are the ones convenient to you.
Tell us then, William, what are some of the “long list of other risks” to which you refer that presumably would be incurred if more restrictive, and even prohibitive, legislation was enacted regarding high capacity magazine clips and military style assault weapons?
Your logic is certainly curious, at best; because the number of homicides in America from grenade and rocket launchers, or from nuclear, chemical and/or biological weapons is apparently nil, non-existent, zero; but no one (I hope) has a problem with those weapons being illegal for American civilians to own.
Stephen Ferguson makes an excellent point that may partially contribute to my personal perspective. Every single time in history that my interests and freedom were ever conceivably defended by guns; it has been by governmental military or law enforcement entities; never civilians.
(You are now on record as being somewhat vigilant as regards civil liberties and the slippery slope toward religious persecution. I would sure like to get you on record as defending guns in general, and military style assault firearms in particular, from a Jesus, love, Golden Rule, turn the other cheek, fruit of the Spirit perspective.)
Stephen,
You have an amazing expertise for taking what someone said and twisting it into meaninng something very different. I have been making several points that I will repeat and summarize here for you to read and understand clearly.
Point One: The public hysteria following the school shooting is just that: hysteria. Hysteria is defined by the lack of emotional control, logic and evaluation of risk or threat. That hysteria fails to provide any factual basis for limiting or eliminating a right guaranteed to citizens by the Constitution.
Point Two: By supporting the possible gun control legislation you are helping to advance the liberal-socialist objective of eliminating the constitution that also gives you the right to worship as you choose.
Point Three: By supporting attacks on the liberty of others who choose to do something of which you do not approve refutes your claim of being a defender of liberty, religious or other. By doing this you show that you neither understand what liberty is or value it to any degree more than what gives you personal advantage.
This is not hysteria, it is basic common sense; the exact same common sense that limits liberties in areas that needlessly endanger the lives of other human beings.
I should add, of course, that the Supreme Court has not found existing restrictions on arms ownership to be unconstitutional. Why haven’t you addressed this? Why haven’t you addressed whether the Supreme Court is indeed mistaken by not having done so? Why haven’t you addressed what I have said about the Second Amendment, Heller, and McDonald?
Instead of defaulting to personal accusations as you are wont to do (do you require examples), why not discuss this dispassionately?
If you visit the Statue of Liberty and are able to take the stairs to the top, in the base of the statue you will find the following quotes from Ben Franklin on one wall:
"He who would surrender a little liberty for a little safety deserves neither liberty nor safety."
"The man who does not regard the liberty of others and defend it above the liberty he prizes most for himself deserves having no liberty to regard or defend."
We have not argued for an outlawing of all guns. So why have you been talking about this as if we have been?
This much is abundantly clear, because you have certainly had opportunity on this thread to demonstrate otherwise; you won’t provide a reason why ruthlessly efficient killing machinery in the form of high capacity magazine clips with military style assault firearms should be owned by any American civilians, at all. You seem to be arguing that they should (or do) have the liberty to do so; because all liberty is precious.
By your reasoning, why shouldn’t it be legal to drive 110 mph in my own personal pursuit of happiness? Why should there be age requirements for acquiring drivers’ licenses? Why should driver’ licenses even be necessary? Why should there be licensing of motor vehicles, or even registration?
Could it be that we do not have the liberty, as individuals or as a society, to needlessly and recklessly endanger the lives of our fellow American citizens?
Please describe what documented and researchable data you considered in reaching the basis for your claim that legislation to limit guns is needed, will be beneficial, or that it will be effective. What is the probability of a person being attacked by someone using an assault weapon? How will limits on the size of an ammunition magazine reduce the ability of a person with a gun to use that weapon or limit potential results from their action? How will controls on the availability of guns or magazines for them prevent a mentally ill person from committing an act violence using a gun? How many homicides are committed using military-style weapons? How does the death rate from those weapons compare to the rate of homicides committed by other means? As a part of total deaths in any given year or decade, what is the probability of being killed by someone using an assault weapon compare to your chances of dying by other means like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, or choking on a piece of food while eating your Christmas dinner? While you're researching those things, please also show us where laws have been effective at reducing risk in any situation?
Yeah right, as soon as you tell me why the weapons to which I have repeatedly referred, including WMD—by which there have been NO homicides—are necessary; or should I say, necessary for civilians.
(While you’re at it, you may as well offer a Christian, Jesus, love, Golden Rule; turn the other cheek, fruit of the Spirit defense for these same weapons.)
It’s this uncomplicated William, the weapons that maniacs use to take out as many people as they can aren’t necessary for civilians to have, or own, or use.
Making them illegal and therefore infinitely more difficult to acquire (eliminating their availability from gun shows, for example) might save lives—even if it is “only” a few!
These shootings may be rare, but why not attempt to make them even rarer? Oh, I know; so a few paranoids can feel less threatened by the government.
Please answer the questions I asked. Where is the evidence to support your claims?
For example, you claim that limiting the availability of guns might save lives. Department of Justice statistics show that greater availability of guns actually reduces crime because a criminal's greatest fear is facing a homeowner who is armed with a gun. The lowest crime rates involving guns are in communities where there are minimal or no limits on carrying concealed weapons.
We need evidence. So far you haven't given the first shred of it.
We just had 20 innocent first-graders and six educators killed by such weapons. It wasn’t the first such tragedy and chances are that it won’t be the last; but you amazingly want evidence that it happens enough to make such weapons illegal.
That anyone would dare demand evidence (or comparative statistics) regarding homicides with military-style weapons with high capacity magazine clips, is an insult to those who have been massacred by maniacs with access to these weapons. You are effectively arguing that not enough people die from these weapons to justify banning them from the American civilian population. Meanwhile you are clearly incapable of offering one utilitarian justification for civilians having them.
If more military-style assault weapons made societies safer; than the American society—which is more pious and less secular, and has more such weapons than in Western Europe or Japan—would have fewer homicides than are experienced in Western Europe or Japan. Needless to say, this isn’t the case.
Of course, during this discussion, I have asked you a series of questions; so we have agreed not to answer each other’s questions. So let the record show.
Before you accuse me of twisting your words again, let me give you an example of what that really looks like. All along we have, without any question, been talking about military-style assault weapons; particularly with high-capacity magazine clips. I said “Making them illegal and therefore infinitely more difficult to acquire (eliminating their availability from gun shows, for example) might save lives—even if it is ‘only’ a few!” You spun that as “you claim that limiting the availability of guns might save lives.”
I am again talking about certain types of guns, with certain magazine capacities, which are not at all needed by civilians. Call it a wild hunch, but if these weapons were not as readily and easily accessible, and/or in fact illegal, fewer people would probably be killed by them.
When 5% of the world’s population have 50% of the world’s firearms, and dozens of times the number of homicides by firearms per 100,000 people than do comparable societies; we should then connect some dots.
Actually I should have quoted your entire paragraph as an example of twisting, spin and straw man argumentation; having nothing to do with what we have been discussing.
“For example, you claim that limiting the availability of guns might save lives. Department of Justice statistics show that greater availability of guns actually reduces crime because a criminal's greatest fear is facing a homeowner who is armed with a gun. The lowest crime rates involving guns are in communities where there are minimal or no limits on carrying concealed weapons.”
We haven’t been discussing homeowner protection or concealed weapons.
Then clarify what we are discussing because you are wandering all over the universe. We talk about one thing and when you are presented with information that disputes your opinion, you jump to something else to avoid admitting your utter lack of facts and absence of logic.
You have been asked to provide documentable information to support the views you present. So far you have not provided the first one. Until you can do that there is no reason to believe anything you say is true.
Well, I understand your anger; or whatever. This is the absolute beauty of all of this being ‘recorded,’ as it were.
What we both have written is here for anyone and everyone to review, William. I have, from the beginning, (repeatedly) said the same thing—about the same thing.
We’ve been talking about the availability of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazine clips, of the type which the killer used in Newton, CT week before last. You know it, I know it, and everyone who has read or will read this conversation knows it or will know it.
I have not wandered all over the universe nor ever attempted to change the subject. The fact that people are killed with these particular weapons in criminal homicides in America requires no additional documented evidence. Not even you are disputing this reality.
I am proposing to legally ban such weapons from civilian ownership, possession, and use, and have cited where the SCOTUS has found restrictions on firearms to be constitutional. I have not been talking about banning all firearms, as everyone reading this knows.
You are understandably wishing to end this by demanding statistics on how often criminal homicides occur with guns, even though you have already brushed off documented and cited statistics, previously furnished on this very same thread (by Andreas Bochmann), showing the U.S. deaths by gun shots each year (other than suicide) is 3.45 per each 100,000 inhabitants annually; while in Germany the rate is 0.12 per 100,000 residents per year. You have likewise already dismissed the previously cited statistic that while the U.S. represents approximately 5% of the world’s population, it contains approximately 50% of the world’s firearms.
Again, we have been discussing the most ruthlessly efficient military-style assault firearms and high-capacity magazine clips; and not all U.S. guns. I have challenged you to provide a utilitarian reason why such weapons should be or must be owned by American civilians. I have also challenged you, who sees everything in good/evil, black/white terms, to provide a Christ-centered, love-based, Golden Rule, turn the other cheek, fruit of the Spirit defense for guns in general, and these military-style assault weapons in particular; and you have failed to even attempt to do either.
You don’t have to take my word for it that these weapons are used by civilians to wreak havoc upon their fellow Americans. And I don’t need to provide you with statistics that they do.
Stephen Ferguson,
How is it that you know so much more about the U.S. than do many/most Americans? My compliments, sir.
More of us own passports
Seriously doubt Good Old Ben Franklin ever had to provide a forensic investigation of a family, school, university, public gathering, where a Gatling gun was used to indiscrimanately wipe out every thing in sight. Tell the families of those killed in these insane attacks that theres no problem, it only happens in less than 1% of homocides. i submit that the ones who do these acts are Satan inspired and have given their brains to demon posession.
I could not be in more agreement.
No, he was witness to the tyranny of the British and the violence of the Revolutionary War that far exceeded all the gun violence being debated today.
WOW William, you have totally missed the concept of this discussion. We aren't debating National declared foreign WAR here. we are debating DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, which the Constitution has sworn to protect. "To protect from all violence both foreign and DOMESTIC".
No, Earl, I'm contesting Stephen Foster's general disregard for concepts of liberty as evidenced by his wanton disregard for the constitutional rights of others and his reliance on political rhetoric and sophistries to dismiss facts discrediting his claims.
What does liberty mean exactly? What about the rights of parents to take their kids to school without fear that they will be murdered in great numbers in a near instant by mentally ill people utilising military-grade weaponary?
William, you are big at espousing slogans but scant on the details. It was relatively easy for the Founders to write all men were created equal; much harder for subsequent generations to make that reality more than an empty slogan.
You ask others where is the data but won't address the serious practical problems beyond mere rhetoric.
I have repeatedly mentioned (at least three times now, including this one), that the majority opinion in the Heller decision acknowledged the constitutionality of existing restrictive gun/weapon laws.
It is not rhetoric or sophistry—but a fact—that certain weapons are now illegal for civilians to own and possess.
So exactly what concepts of liberty and regarding what specific constitutional right am I showing wanton disregard (and please be specific); since we can’t own any grenade launchers?
Stephen Foster: "So exactly what concepts of liberty and regarding what specific constitutional right am I showing wanton disregard (and please be specific); since we can’t own any grenade launchers?"
Exactly, and as you have noted repeatedly, which William has simply not addressed at all, on what basis do we say civillians should not have other military-grade weapons, from armoured fighting vehicles, to IED explosives, to mortars, to rocket propelled grades, to nuclear, biological and chemical weapons – and yet say civilians should have military-grade semi-automatic weapons?
American soldiers are fighting and dying to ensure civilians in other countries are not getting their hands on military-grade weaponary, and support the role of countries such as Israel in preventing such weapons getting into Gaza, Iran, Iraq, Mexico and Afghanistan. And yet they seem to think American civilians should somehow have a right to those weapons.
Liberty generally means doing what one likes without hurting other people. Yet allowing other civilians, including mentally-ill persons, access to miltiary-grade weapons through regulatory failure, who then use those weapons to deprive the liberty of others (with death being the greatest abrogation of liberty), is surely contrary to the whole intent of the society the Founders wanted to build.
Again as you have rightly said, the only 'good guys' in American history who have used guns to protect the liberty of others from the State are the fine men and women in uniform, who have guns in a well-organised militia through the National Guard. It is these Guardsmen who are the protectors of liberty, who ensured ALL Americans could go to school, to vote and to ride on buses in equality – not some angry white men who wore white hoods and used their own personal weapons to much mischief.
Stephen,
"Liberty generally means doing what one likes without hurting other people." I commend you for having that insight because it is something the anti-gun crowd wantonly dismisses and a majority of Americans do not understand, yet is central to the discussion.
Let's clarify something here. The possession of automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades, bomb-making materials and similar are already illegal. The reason is that they are so powerful that they can only have military applications, or be used by terrorists or others trying to overthrow the government. Having them without a government license is considered prima facie evidence of intent to do major harm to others. It is where someone abuse their liberty by using a weapon drawing from military technologies or fashioned to look like a military weapon that is giving rise to the debate.
Why someone would want to own a military-style gun puzzles me. After all, what use would you have for an AK-47 with a 100-round magazine other than spraying bullets downrange. The couple Redneck Rambo wanna-bes I've met with them just wanted to impress their friends by having the biggest noisemaker on the firing range. I was not impressed because my priorities are in other directions. But to be honest with you, I think my liberty is a whole lot safer with Redneck Rambo around then with an anti-gun zealot who is working to incrementally destroy constitutional rights.
Society will never be perfect and the Founding Fathers were under no illusion that perfection would ever be realized. In contrast, liberal-socialism is based on the concept that society can be perfected and getting there requires the ability to rigidly control the state with laws prohibiting everything undesirable. That is the same view Jesus encountered in the Scribes and Pharisees. They had long scrolls filled with laws expanding on the Law of Moses. That body of expanded laws included the Mishna with 612 laws for just keeping the Sabbath. They believed Messiah would come if the people could just observe the Sabbath perfectly. Obviously, they failed. What is more, they were so focused on writing and demanding complaince with a growing number of laws that they were unable to see Messiah was among them.
Clearly, there must be penalties for hurting others. We already have law libraries filled with such rules and penalties. Have they reduced the risk of someone abusing the liberties and safety of others? Where they have removed dangerous criminals from our cities and towns, yes. But writing more laws to restrict the ownership and use of guns has already been shown to be utterly ineffective at deterring gun violence because it only impacts on the law-abiding while wasting law enforcement resources.
Since it has been demonstrated in recent decades that the greatest effectiveness of gun control laws has been infringement on constitutional rights while failing to control gun violence, why not consider alternative approaches that have a history of effectiveness? Here are some suggestions:
1. Expanded care for the mentally ill that includes both more community-based care and easing the laws allowing for the long-term commitment of those who cannot control themselves. Recent well-publicized shootings have all been at the hands of the mentally ill. Law are meaningless to the severely mentally ill so relying on laws to prevent their actions is a fool's errand. Will expanded mental health care be a perfect solution? No. But it has the potential for significant positive results.
2. Public education about the results of gun violence, particularly among the youth. We think of guns as instruments of death, but it is far more common that their effects are disability and disfigurement. One of the most effective anti-gun programs in American history was conducted by a group of hospital emergency room physisicans who went into schools with a slide show presenting young people with the disfiguring results of gunshots. Gang participation and gun violence dropped quickly. But the program was terminated when school officials started getting complaints from anti-gun lobbyists and the American Civil Liberties Union.
3. Requiring that anyone purchasing a gun from a dealer complete a gun safety course that includes shooting scenario training on a gun range with refresher training at intervals such a every five or ten years.
4. Publicity to increase public awareness about the dangers of gun violence and the possible results. The advertising industry in America has been a powerful force in disuading the youth from substance abuse. Turn that same power to the issue of gun safety. But limit it to gun safety and do not use it to promote public opinion that violates the constitutional right to gun ownership.
Let's do what works without infringing on constitutional rights.
And by now everyone has no doubt heard of the ambush and killing of firefighting and police first responders rushing to a fire in New York. It appears that those who are often most put at risk by the wide availability of guns in the US are those who should be allowed to carry weapons, as agents of Caesar (see Rom 13) – the first responders. The problem seems that with civilians holding military grade weaponary, this only increases the risk to these fine men and women in uniform. I can't talk for Americans, but as an ex-offficer in the Army, I certainly support the right and duty of people in uniform.
Some will no doubt point out that the perpetrator in this latest of a long sorry state of US shootings is William Spengler, who is an excon and thus someone who was not elligible to own weapons. But the media has noted that there were some recent gun thefts in the area. This is important, because they sad truth is even if guns laws were introduced tomorrow, there are now so many guns in the US it is probably nigh impossible to now get them off the street. It would seem only failed states like Afghanistan and Somalia have more guns per captia. On that basis, perhaps there really is no hope for the US on the issue of gun homocides and mass shootings?
I doubt there is little hope of the US ever truly being a nation that asks for swords to be turned into ploughs. There is little hope of the US becoming like say England or Japan, where even the police rarely carry guns. Can anyone imagine police in America doing that? Is that really the type of country you want to live in?
Stephen,
The news reports that I have seen about that shooting indicate that the man was at least possessed by great anger and frustration. Was he also severely mentally ill? While we may never know, his actions make that seem a resonable probability.
Law enforcement statistics show that serious mental illness is the most common factor among those committing mass shootings. While there has been much publicity about military-style assault weapons when they are used, the weapons used most often are semi-automatic pistols. But the public discussion is dominated by ideas like restricting the sale of large-capacity magazines and military-style assault weapons?
The idea that shootings can be prevented by passing more laws is as illogical as the behavior of the seriously mentally ill, who have their own distorted view of the world where thoughts about compliance with the law simply never enter their mind.
So, could it be that gun control advocate are also listening to the transmissions from that invisible flying saucer hovering overhead?
"The idea that shootings can be prevented by passing more laws is as illogical as the behavior of the seriously mentally ill, who have their own distorted view of the world where thoughts about compliance with the law simply never enter their mind."
Yet Developed countries with such laws have virtually no gun-related homocides. Thus, there is positive evidence that such laws do work, whilst you only have conjecture that they don't, given your historic constiutional right to arms.
But you might be right. As I said above, there are so many guns in America now, after so many lax years of gun control, that I doubt introducing new laws tomorrow would solve the problem. Gun laws were introduced in Australia some decade or so ago (by our very conservative PM) and they worked. However, I imagine similar laws in the US might as well as similar laws in Afghanistan, Somalia and other failed states.
Could I suggest that in this respect, the US is indeed a failed state.
I will agree about the US becoming a failed state for reasons of economic mismanagement but not because of gun violence. We may have more multiple shootings than other countries, but when you adjust their crime rates based on population the variation between the US and some other countries is statistically insignificant or nonexistent.
Something that would help you to keep in mind is that we have a very powerful and now dominant liberal-socialist political block that is quick to create problems, claim they are a crisis requiring immediate adoption of new laws, and then claim the laws they propose are the only thing that will work. They jump on tragedies like the Connecticut school shooting to as a requirement for even more urgent and extreme action.
Liberal-socialists are so utterly intolerant of any testinging and measuring of the results of laws they have promoted against the promises used to promote them that the questioner risks having their reputation sullied and perhaps their careers destroyed by unrestrained slander. But when the failure of those laws and policies become so obvious it cannot be denied you will hear liberal-socialists blaming it on a list of familiar "causes." The law had "too many loopholes" that were forced by the political opposition. Certain industries are "getting subsidies from the government." "The rich" are "benefitting from tax loopholes that have to be closed." If I had a nickel for for every time I've heard those excuses used over the last dozen years I could take my wife on a luxury vacation that included a stop to visit you in Australia.
In the debate about gun violence you will hear claims that doing things like banning the sale of assault weapons or large-capacity ammunition clips would prevent things like the school shooting in Connecticut. Let's look at those claims.
The basis of the proposal for limiting the size of ammunition magazines is based on the idea that a shooter will have less ammunition available to shoot, so they will have fewer victims. This ignores several factors. Smaller magazines are cheaper, readily available and easier to conceal. Large magazines also are bulky, not easy to use and have a strong tendency to jam, so they are impractical. Or how easy it is to reload with smaller magazines. Or that Department of Justice statistics list not a single multiple-victim shooting incident in the last 20 years where one was used.
Then there is the claim that assault weapons are more dangerous because they are more powerful. Both of those claims fail upon examination. One writer in this discussion has proposed limiting guns to the maximum a person could use for hunting a bear or other large animal. Let's compare that hunting rifle to the Heckler & Koch MP-5 submachine gun, which is the primary weapon used by the Navy SEALS. The hunting rifle fires a round that weighs amost three times as much, has a muzzle velocity 30% faster and with a scope is accurate to a distance of .7 kilometers. The trigger must be pulled once for each shot fired. The round fired by the MP-5 is accurate to a distance of about 200 meters. But it can be set to fire fully automatic, a three-round burst or single shots. But citizens can't buy them because the sale of weapons with multiple-mode settings is already banned.
Add that such weapons are used in only a small minority of multi-victim shootings and what you have is a huge claim of risk that is actually a statistical outlier. But liberal-socialists refuse to consider or permit such evaluation because they don't want people to see the fictions used to support their claims. Still, they pursue new laws if for no other reason than posturing themselves to the public as having done something about a perceived threat and contrasting with others who are not.
Can I ask another heretical question to you Americans – who says who Founders got it right on this issue? They indeed lived in a very different time and place, with a dangerous wilderness frontier, in a largely agrarian society. The arms in question were single-loaded muskets and rifles, not weapons that could kill a room full of people in an instant. The Founders introduced this law to protect a white middle-class gentry from the tyranny of the world's greatest Empire – today they are that world's greatest Empire.
As you Founders got it wrong on slavery, they seemed to have got it wrong on the issue of firearms as well. And your children are now paying the price, with a gun-homocide rate not seen in the rest of the Developed world but something more akin to Kabul or Mogadishu. Case in point, when I travel to the US, which I have done several times, the travel insurance premiums are much higher than the rest of the Development world, and akin to some of the world's hot-spots.
Stephen,
Those are not heretical questions. I'll dangle a possible answer on the insurance question.
I find what you report about travel insurance costs very curious. When my job began requiring that I travel I paid a visit to my auto and home insurance provider to ask some questions. What he told me was surprising. The rates charged by travel insurance companies often are a large multiple of what you may be charged by the same company insuring your home or car. The model they use to set rates takes advantage of the perception of risk much more than actual risk. If you ask most people to list when they will face the greatest danger they probably will say it is when they are on the plane when that actually is the safest part of their trip and the most dangerous time is the trip to and from the airport! So I would be surprised if a travel insuror didn't also take advantage of an exaggerated perception of crime risk to charge more and make a greater profit. What is more, if you're heading for the gate and concerned about something you've seen in the news from where you're going, how many sources to you have for travel insurance?
Ok much thanks. Perhaps to follow up with another, perhaps seemingly obvious question:
How has the United States benefited from the constitutional right to bear arms?
Stephen,
Any affirmative answer here is certain to draw the wrath of the anti-gun folks. Still, here goes.
In the historic view the answer is a definite yes. First, it promoted respect for the rights and property of others. Before the days when you could dial 911, have a police officer dispatched immediately and have them at your location in a few minutes it was law-abiding citizens joining together in the face of a threat that kept the peace. Sometimes it was the fear of lethal force being used that deterred criminal acts. At other times it was the visible threat of it that deterred crime. In other cases the use of it has been a very effective deterrent. In an earlier posting I told of how an Army special forces sargeant living near Ft. Campbell, KY shot and killed a burglar forcing his way into the family home. He warned the man to stop but he kept coming and started making threats. Two shots (a "double-tap" as he was trained to do) stopped him in his tracks. Prior to that night the police reported at least three burglaries a night within a 20 mile radius. Nineteen days passed before there was another burglary in the area.
I used to be a newspaper reporter and have interviewed convicted criminals in prison. Their #1 greatest fear when committing a crime is facing an armed homeowner whose fright is giving them a twitchy trigger finger. They fear that above facing the police with drawn guns because they know the police are under significant constraints regarding the use of deadly force and less likely to shoot than a homeowner.
As you and others have correctly pointed out, America is no longer the sprawling frontier that it once was. We have large urban areas and gun violence has become a problem in some of those places. That is largely the result of gang activity where guns are used to eliminate rivals, control territory and protect items they may be smuggling such as illegal drugs. When you subtract the gang-related gun activity from the crime statistics America is only marginally different from other industrialized nations.
I like to do carpentry and finer woodworking. If I buy a new tool, I take some time to learn how to use it safely. When I am teaching someone how to use tools the first thing I tell them about that table saw, router, or other sharp tool is that it doesn't have a brain or eyes to know where the board ends and your hand begins and it can cut you a whole lot faster and easier than it cuts wood, so you need to respect it and learn how to use it both productively and safely. I think the same approach to firearms makes sense and everyone who owns a gun should learn how to use it in a controlled and safe manner. When I was in the Boy Scouts we took a hunting safety course and learned about things like how to position your weapon if you wre climbing over a fence so you wouldn't bump it and have an accidental discharge in your direction or toward someone hunting with you. When I was a newspaper reporter and a nearby city police department installed an indoor shooting simulator they invited me to try it out and write a story about it. The scenarios were set up to test a police officer's judgement about when to shoot or not shoot. On my first time through I waited too long on a couple occasions and the "bad guy" got off at least one shot at me. Tontroller declared that I was "officer down" but let me keep going. When I fired, I shot more innocent bystanders than bad guys. On my second time through I didn't get shot by any bad guys and shot fewer innocent bystanders. Both times when I came out I was sweating from head-to-toe and my hands were shaking.
A growing gun risk in America that is going unreported in the news and far larger than all the gun violence in schools is people who are not or are no longer physically able to handle a gun safely. The largest portion of that group are senior citizens whose physical abilities have declined. My personal realization of it came five years ago after my mother's death. My father had died two years before. She insisted on continuing to live alone and had become extremely fearful for her safety. Never mind that she had a tremor that made it difficult for her to get a spoonful of food to her mouth without spilling some of it, she bought a pistol and kept it under her pillow for protection. She also was a brittle diabetic who had great trouble controlling her blood sugar levels so she wasn't always in a clear mental state. Had she decided to use the gun, I think the person she was trying to shoot would have been in less danger than the walls or furniture around them.
The right to bear arms has benefitted Americans in more ways than personal protection. I work with several people who are avid hunters and others who just enjoy going target shooting. I have found being on a trap range with a shotgun a very fun challenge. Do some people abuse their right to bear arms. Definitely. Fortunately they are a very small minority of gun owners. But the vocality of the anti-gun crowd and the nature of the news to publicize what is violent have expanded the public perception of the risk to extremes far beyond reality.
The biggest threat to liberty and safety in America is not people owning guns, but those who disrespect the contsitutional rights of others and whose attacks on guns are just one phase of their larger drive to destroy all constitutional rights.
"Any affirmative answer here is certain to draw the wrath of the anti-gun folks. Still, here goes."
William, I am sure many will disagree, but I thank you muchly for providing a serious and interesting response.
"When you subtract the gang-related gun activity from the crime statistics America is only marginally different from other industrialized nations."
So how do we get guns out of the hands of bad guys? For example, as I noted above, the media are reporting that the ex-con (who wouldn't be entitled to own a gun) in the recent fire-fighter shooting probably stole his weapons (including some of those military-grade ones) from neighbours in the area. I guess the same issue by extension goes to the kid in the Newton massacre who effectively stole the guns from his mum.
The obvious question that comes to mind is why were these guns stolen so easily? For example, in the US, do gun owners have to own a special case or gun locker? If not, why not? Moreover, should there perhaps be more stringent rules so responsible gun owners can't simply have their weapons stolen, by either neighbours or wayward teenagers?
Perhaps that is an aspect of gun control both sides of the debate could have a meaningful discussion over? Surely everyone agrees that forgetting the debate about what guns civilians should own, there should perhaps be stricter measures to ensure they only remain in the hands of the good guys and not the bad guys?
"A growing gun risk in America that is going unreported in the news and far larger than all the gun violence in schools is people who are not or are no longer physically able to handle a gun safely."
As an ex-officer in the Army myself, I know what you are talking about. Keeping one's skills fresh re gun safety is indeed paramount. I guess it feeds into my previous point about perhaps breaking this debate down, to distinguish the issues of:
Perhaps many of these sub-issues are wrongly mixed together as a yes-no answer, rather than addressing some of the complexities?
And accepting the premise that responsible citizens should have the right to bear arms, perhaps many of the same issues surrounding car ownership (or rather the right to a vehicle licence) are relevant? For example, kids can't drive before a certain age, yet the mother in the Newton massacre was able to take her son to a shooting range to teach him how to use the weapons? Similarly, to note your point about your elderly mother, don't much older people have to undergo regular re-tests of their drivers licence to ensure they are safe, yet I bet the same didn't apply with her weapons ownership? Finally, when we drive our cars, they now are themselves built to certain safety standards.
My point being, I am sure even gun owners and the NRA would support stronger measures to ensure responsible and safe gun owners are indeed just that – responsible and safe?
i also have had experience in handling military semi-automatic small arms & Thompson submachine guns. The ability to mass murder with either in a few seconds is highly assured.The large quantity magazines guarantee it. As William mentions, we already have laws forbidding private citizens to own most of these WMD. What we are demanding is that these laws be enforced; by force if necessary.
Its difficult for me to understand how William's fascination (is fascism the root here?) of guns is so strong, when the only use of a firearm is to kill, or threat to kill. The intent is the same. Whats legal by national decree is legal. What's illegal should be confiscated.
How is this for an apropos mixing of metaphors? If you give someone enough rope, they will stumble into the truth.
“In the debate about gun violence you will hear claims that doing things like banning the sale of assault weapons or large-capacity ammunition clips would prevent things like the school shooting in Connecticut. Let's look at those claims.”
This is the quintessential attempt of a straw man set up. Who has ever claimed that banning military-style assault weapons or large capacity ammunition clips would prevent things like the school shooting in Connecticut?
At this point, who knows if shootings like those can be prevented? We may be a couple of hundred years too late to prevent senseless gunplay in the U.S. There may well be too many weapons of the type and capacity of that used by the killer of shooter in Connecticut to even imagine preventing these things.
The larger point is that civilians have, can, and do protect themselves, their families, and property with firearms of less chronological capacity for mass mayhem than the equipment with which the Connecticut shooter victimized innocents.
Here is William stumbles in the truth: The very same reason why grenade launchers and bomb-making materials and automatic weapons are illegal—and constitutionally illegal at that—that “they are so powerful that they can only have military applications, or be used by terrorists or others trying to overthrow the government [and] having them without a government license is considered prima facie evidence of intent to do major harm to others;” is the exact, same, identical reason why it makes no sense for military-style assault weapons with high-capacity magazine clips to be legal; and why it would be constitutional, and not an unconstitutional, restriction of liberty to prohibit civilians from owning such weapons.
Even if “only” a relative few Americans (also known as human beings) would actually or theoretically be further endangered if grenade launchers, bomb-materials and automatic weapons were readily available to the public; would it not stand to reason that civilian access to military-style semi-automatic assault weapons with high-capacity clips (including such weapons as were recently used in and Aurora, CO, Newtown, CT, and most recently Webster, NY) also unnecessarily endanger a few Americans (human beings) as well?
Since we already KNOW that civilians have repeatedly been needlessly and wantonly massacred by such weapons—by maniacs who should never have had access to even a pocket knife—it is sheer sophistry, by definition, to demand that peer reviewed research or more statistics be presented in order to prove why similar, constitutionally legal measures as have been taken in the cases of “automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades [and] bomb-making materials,” should also be taken with military-style semi-automatic assault weapons and with high-capacity magazine clips.
“Why someone would want to own a military-style gun puzzles me. After all, what use would you have for an AK-47 with a 100-round magazine other than spraying bullets downrange?”
Well, maybe the following quote of William’s will shed some “light” on William’s puzzlement.
“But to be honest with you, I think my liberty is a whole lot safer with Redneck Rambo around then with an anti-gun zealot who is working to incrementally destroy constitutional rights.”
Some of these Redneck Rambo types actually anticipate using these weapons one day against the government—defending William’s liberty, no less.
This is the heart of our disagreement William. You have finally admitted that you personally believe your liberty is a whole late safer with Redneck Rambo around to defend your rights against the liberals-socialist types you feel are incrementally destroying your constitutional rights.
Meanwhile, as I have previously pointed out, my liberties and interests have never been defended by a civilian with a gun.
“When you subtract the gang-related gun activity from the crime statistics America is only marginally different from other industrialized nations.”
This is of course a red herring and yet another classic example of sophistry. Before the inner-city black gangs that are undoubtedly referenced in this classic, there was ‘organized crime;’ i.e. Mafia-related, criminality, of which you may have heard.
I suppose if you also subtracted the gun activity related to the illegal narcotics (drug) war…well, perhaps you catch my drift. When you keep subtracting from reality, you will arrive at the fantasy you seek.
Stephen,
Please answer some simple questions so we can have confidence your remarks are based on facts instead of political sophistry.
*Exactly what is a "military-style assault weapon?" What restrictions on them are already written into law? How often are they used in the commission of crimes as compared to other firearms?
*Severe mental illness has been a major factor in all of the recent mass shootings and the overwhelming majority of all mass shootings in the US over the past 20 years. How will passing new laws modify the behavior of those individuals and mitigate or control the risk to the public?
*Correlation of gun control laws with Department of Justice crime statistics shows a direct correlation between gun control laws and crime rates, The highest rates of total crime and gun-related crimes are in the areas with the strictest gun control laws while the lowest crime rates are found in the areas permittiong open carry and having the least restriction on concealed carry. So, what basis in fact are you using to claim that more gun control laws will prevent gun-related incidents?
*Why do you claim to be a defender of religious freedom while defending the political philosophy of those who are dedicated to destroying all constitutional rights, including your religious freedom? Is that not being hypocritical?
“So, what basis in fact are you using to claim that more gun control laws will prevent gun-related incidents?”
It is frustrating to unnecessarily rewrite things simply because you won’t read them. I have not claimed “that more gun control laws will prevent gun-related incidents.” You need to address your questions and statements to the points I make instead of to the stereotypical caricature you have of the liberal perspective.
(I just saw that less than 1% of federal gun background checks were denied in 2010. If that is true, then that is not exactly a confidence builder for the safety of innocent American citizens, at least as far as I’m concerned.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-style_semiautomatic_rifle#Military-style_semi-automatic_rifle
I provide this Wikipedia link because it is valid to generally determine, if not agree upon, the weapons under discussion.
Your questions, about existing restrictive laws regarding these (and other) guns, presuppose that existing codified restrictions are constitutional; which goes to my point, that still more restrictive laws regarding these weapons have a legal precedent.
You demonstrate a stranglehold on the obvious in noting that severe mental illness is a factor in most or all mass shootings. Evil people and/or insane people do evil and insane things—that’s for sure.
More should be done about mental illness. More should be spent to treat mental illness. Perhaps it should be easier to institutionalize people with certain severe psychiatric illness.
That does not mitigate the facts that the weapon types and magazine capacities to which I refer, or about which we’ve been discussing, aren’t necessary for civilians to have access to, or to own; nor that restricting civilian access to certain weapon types has been found to be constitutional.
You are again seeking to make a point that has been addressed. These weapons have been used in mass shootings; so why is it necessary to research how often they are used for such purposes?
Your questioning regarding the defense of a political philosophy that you see is dedicated to destroying my constitutional freedoms, including my first amendment freedom is rich, coming from you. You see, William, first and foremost mine is a sectarian view; one with which you may or may not agree. Generally when religious liberty is discussed on these boards, you have frequently challenged others to change the subject to something else.
You appear uncomfortable citing EGW; other than to say that she shouldn’t be cited. But if you are sincere in wondering about my perspective on religious liberty issues, especially insofar as the interpretation of Bible prophecies Revelation 12-14 is concerned, read Chapters 25, 35, and 36 of GC. My perspectives and perceptions are admittedly influenced and informed by this.
You have either not read and/or do not subscribe to this perspective. If you did, you’d acknowledge and understand that our religious liberty is threatened by those who want religious institutions, entities, organizations and personages empowered to exert civil authority and power, to foster religious dogma (at least, according to this/my sectarian perspective).
Stephen,
Why is it so difficult for you to give a simple and direct answer to simple and direct questions that ask you to do things like describe a "military style assault weapon"? Is it because you are more familiar with political correctness than the subject being discussed?
The foundational concept of anti-gun laws is that it will prevent mass shootings. You have repeated this concept in your arguments but have made no attempt to explain how it would change the behavior of a person suffering from a serious mental illness. Why do you now avoid it?
How will restricting the size of magazines attached to weapons reduce the number of shootings? You keep repeating that argument but never explain the logic behind the argument so it can be tested. This question is a test to see if you actually understand how guns are operated.
You keep claiming that your rights were never protected by a person with a gun. If that is true, why are law enforcement officers armed? Why are many public officials protected by armed security details? Why is it that between 2006 and 2011 in Virginia that violent crime went down by 24% as gun ownership rose 73%? Why is it that the highest violent crime rates are in the places where you also find the strictest gun control laws? Why is it that between 1980 and 2010 as the American population grew by 25% and gun ownership doubled to protect themselves against violent criminals that violent crimes dropped by 50%?
Ellen White makes it clear that it is Satan's objective to overthrow the protection of constitutional rights as part of his leading America to renounce the principles upon which it was founded. You have been arguing in favor of infringements on the Second Amendment. On what basis are we to believe that your arguments are not directly supporting the cause of Satan?
I sincerely hope and pray that at least a few people are closely following this conversation which has principally involved William Noel and me; because it reveals much.
Frankly, it reveals less about our differences about certain guns than about other things.
It is sad and discouraging that in a format such as this, which should facilitate in depth communication, wherein misunderstandings if not disagreements should be ironed out because we all have the ability to state and restate and state again and clarify our various points of view; and to read, question, reread, deconstruct, review, understand, and learn from the various point of views of others; that it is nonetheless possible for absolutely none of this to happen.
“The foundational concept of anti-gun laws is that it will prevent mass shootings. You have repeated this concept in your arguments but have made no attempt to explain how it would change the behavior of a person suffering from a serious mental illness.”
Of course, no one has said that these mass shootings can be prevented. This is actually the third time I am saying this, but to what purpose? Let me say it a fourth time; it may not be possible for these shootings to be prevented—and probably isn’t. The point again is that there is no reason for the weapons about which we have been discussing to be available to civilians; just as there is no reason for civilians to own grenade and rocket launchers, bomb-making materials, and automatic weapons. What I am saying is that it is no more an infringement of second amendment rights to ban military-style semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazine clips (such as the Bushmaster AR-15 recently used in Newtown, CT and Webster, NY) than it has been to ban military grade automatic weapons, grenade and rocket launchers, or WMD from civilian possession.
“How will restricting the size of magazines attached to weapons reduce the number of shootings? You keep repeating that argument but never explain the logic behind the argument so it can be tested.”
Again, the number of incidents may or may not be reduced by restricting the size of magazines attached to weapons; but why do civilians need the firepower capacity that these high-capacity magazines afford? I have repeatedly asked this question for a number of reasons; one of which is for an explanation as to why William Noel believes that this firepower should be available to be civilians, whereas that afforded by an AK-47, for example, presumably should not.
Theoretically, the damage currently done with military-style assault rifles with high-capacity magazine clips would be reduced in these mass shooting incidents if such weapons were unavailable and unused. If less efficient and ‘effective’ weapons were used, fewer lives may have been lost. (Do you really not understand this reasoning, William?) In the absence of a compelling utilitarian reason for civilians to have such weapons—one that apparently does not exist—what, may I ask, are we discussing?
“You keep claiming that your rights were never protected by a person with a gun.”
You keep refusing to read what I write. I have never claimed that my rights were never protected by a person with a gun. What I have repeatedly claimed is that my rights, liberties, and interests have never been protected by a CIVILIAN with a gun. This is apparently an inconvenient truth for you to accept.
“Ellen White makes it clear that it is Satan's objective to overthrow the protection of constitutional rights as part of his leading America to renounce the principles upon which it was founded. You have been arguing in favor of infringements on the Second Amendment.”
It is curious that I never see you quoting the Bible or EGW, except to say that she shouldn’t be cited. It is good to see you at least referencing, though classically misappropriating her. This is what she actually said about our country, the U.S. Constitution, and Biblical prophecy.
“The prediction that it will speak “as a dragon” and exercise “all the power of the first beast” plainly foretells a development of the spirit of intolerance and persecution that was manifested by the nations represented by the dragon and the leopardlike beast. And the statement that the beast with two horns “causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast” indicates that the authority of this nation is to be exercised in enforcing some observance which shall be an act of homage to the papacy.
“Such action would be directly contrary to the principles of this government, to the genius of its free institutions, to the direct and solemn avowals of the Declaration of Independence, and to the Constitution. The founders of the nation wisely sought to guard against the employment of secular power on the part of the church, with its inevitable result—intolerance and persecution. The Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” and that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Only in flagrant violation of these safeguards to the nation’s liberty, can any religious observance be enforced by civil authority. But the inconsistency of such action is no greater than is represented in the symbol. It is the beast with lamblike horns—in profession pure, gentle, and harmless—that speaks as a dragon.”
“On what basis are we to believe that your arguments are not directly supporting the cause of Satan?”
My positions each will stand or fall on their own merits. The points we make, have made, and will make are here for everyone to read and evaluate.
Once again, as you are wont to do, you’ve couched your questions in terms of the vilest accusation. I will remind you that I have absolutely nothing to prove about myself to you. It is shameful—and telling—that you are (repeatedly) permitted to challenge others to prove that they are not “supporting the cause of Satan.” As I said earlier in this post, this is revealing of much. I will repeat; it is shameful.
Not only have I repeatedly challenged you to provide a temporal utilitarian reason for civilians to own the weapons we have been discussing; but I have also challenged you to provide a Christ-centered, love, Golden Rule, turn the other cheek, fruit of the Spirit rationale for guns in general, and for these military-style assault weapons in particular. It's telling that you have attempted neither.
“You keep claiming that your rights were never protected by a person with a gun.”
This should have been bolded and capitalized in the post; in order to identify it as a statement of William Noel.
Oops…"bolded and italicized in the post…"
Does anyone think we should have legislation that would define penalties for gun owners that did not take resonable efforts to prevent the use of their gun in a crime. We are accustomed to the idea that privileges often come with responsibilities. Why don't we clearly define some of the responsiblities required of gun owners. For example, we should define some standards for owners controlling accessiblity to thieves, mentally and emotionally unstable people, and friends and family (who might circumvent gun ownership screening by borrowing guns).
This one step might go some distance in redefining the gun culture in this country (which seems to be primarily one of entitlement). Other things might need to change for this to have a real impact on violent use of guns, but it seems that gun owners need to be willing to except some incovenicence to have the privilege of owning lethal weapons.
I think the freedom for people to go to school, shopping, and perform other daily activities in relativity safety from gun attacks supersedes the freedom for unfettered gun ownership. of course, there is no ideal solution. We cannot create absolute security and it is ludicrous for guns to be esstentially accessible to anyone (which is generally the case in our current environment). So, none of us can have everything we want.
Indeed, as the NRA always talks about responsible gun ownership, shouldn't there be measures to ensure just that – responsibility. We do it with driver's licence. I wonder if William would agree with that idea at least, citing the story about his mother who was able to go out and get a gun even though she was not safe to use one. Would be allow the same for those to drive a car?
I assume gun owners in the US don't have to have a special gun safe, like they do in other countries such as Aus?
Stephen,
There are a variety of gun safety measures a person can take and the requirements vary from state to state. My son is a gun enthusiast who owns a number of weapons and intends to teach his daughter to use them when she gets old enough. He keeps them all in a locked gun safe that his wife checks to confirm is secured. Others use different measures such as trigger or breech blocks. While those are all good ideas and improve safety, you quickly run into the issue of how to enforce any requirement to take such measures without infringing on constitutional rights. I haven't explored that question so I have no specific challenges to describe or ideas to propose.
And the point is often made about the importance of the 2nd Amendment to arm the citizenry with military-grade weapons to hold governments to account. But as an ex-officer in the Army myself, I can tell you to lose one's weapons is a very serious crime. So what crime is there for US citizens who lose or have their weapons stolen? It should be quite serious, and if it were, perhaps these mentally ill lunatics wouldn't be getting their hands on guns off responsible gun owners and using them to massacre people?
Stephen,
I appreciate your insightful questions and counter-points.
You remind me of the story my son tells about when he was in Army basic training. They were required to keep their weapons with them at all times and even had to sleep with them so no one could take them. When showering they took turns outside the shower guarding the weapons where they were stacked against the wall. Their drill instructors would sneak into their bunk room at night and inflict punishments on anyone not keeping their weapons under continual control. One night my son was on fire watch and during his check of the other company's bunk room found several who did not have proper control of their weapons. He quietly collected them and stacked them outside the drill instructor's room. Less than an hour later that entire company was outside doing calesthenics while his company was sleeping.
You raised the questions of a possible penalty to a gun owner for losing control of it and preventing such a weapon from getting into the hands of a mentally ill person to commit mayhem. That really is three questions.
First, we need to consider how many people lose control of their weapons. The answer is that very few do because the vast, overwhelming majority of gun owners store and use them in a responsible manner.
Second, the number of guns taken in home burglaries is small. Let's imagine for a moment that you own a gun and it is taken in a burglary. Is it fair to hold you responsible for losing control of the gun through no action of their own? What legal precedent would such a law present? How much of a burden would enforcement create vs. any benefit realized to society?
Third, though we have been shocked and horrified thrice in recent months, the number of mentally ill persons at-risk of committing these massacres is very small. Let's also keep in mind that, even including the recent events, the number of such incidents is less than half the rate it was 20 years ago. The problem is actually getting better.
Liberty survives by balancing the natural tension between those who enjoy it and those who abuse it. While at times it may appear desirable to limit a liberty, the price of limiting or losing that liberty is many fold worse than suffering the results of acts by those who abuse it. If our objective is to cure a problem and we want to be effective then we need to understand the root cause and address it. With only a few exceptions severe mental illness has been the primary cause factor in all mass shootings in the US over the past 30 years. We can do far more to protect society by treating the mental illness of the few than by limiting or destroying the liberty of the majority and subjecting them to the higher rates of violent crimes that result where there are gun control laws.
Community crime rate differences have more to do with socio-economic and educational differences than with the differences in gun control laws.
If you are saying that gun control laws make it more dangerous for Americans. Then other western democracies, wherein the gun control laws are more restrictive, should be more dangerous in terms of violent gun crimes; which is simply not the case.
Correction:
If you are saying that gun control laws make it more dangerous for Americans, then other western democracies, wherein the gun control laws are more restrictive, should…
More to do with socio-ecomomic and educational differences? If you're going to make that claim you need to present evidence to support it. That view may be politically correct but it is utterly without basis in fact. I am shocked that a person such as you who claims to be a defender of truth could allow yourself to be so deceived.
I absolutely did say that gun control laws make society more dangerous. You will find a scholarly review of the subject in economist John Lott Jr.'s book "More Guns, Less Crime." The anti-gun folks absolutely hate him because of how the evidence he collected shines the light of truth on their lies.
The greatest fear of a person bent on violent crime is encountering an armed citizen. An example of this comes from the Portland Oregonian newspaper about the shooting in the Oregon shopping mall. When the gunman's weapon jammed he looked up to see a citizen with a concealed carry permit aiming their Glock semi-automatic pisol at him. The citizen hesitated because the gunman was not aiming at him and he had been trained to not shoot unless he felt personally threatened. That gave the gunman time to clear the jam and fire one more shot, this one into his own head. The gunman had enough ammunition to kill dozens more. He was stopped by an armed citizen who was prepared but didn't have to fire a shot.
Stephen,
Claims that socio-economic conditions are either a cause or contributor to crime and violence is perhaps the greatest example in America of the modus operandi of Nazi propoganda minister Josef Goebbels. He wrote: "Tell a lie once and people will reject it. Keep telling it and eventually they will stop questioning, then finally accept it just because they've heard it many times. Once they stop questioning you can control them because you can tell them anything and they will believe it is true."
That claim you repeated has been told so often and for so long that it has become widely accepted as true. That is how the Nazis could lead the German people to believe they were doing right when they cooperated with sending Jews to the death camps. In America that is how liberal-socialism has leveraged civil rights into mass extortion from the producers of wealth so it could be given to others in the name of correcting past wrongs and achieving social justice. Numerous studies have been produced claiming that socio-economic disadvantage is a cause or contributor to anti-social behavior, but all of them have been discredited and shown to be inaccurate.
Repeating what you obviously believe is true but cannot document when there is mass evidence to dispute it does not add credibility to your arguments.
Guns are actually a global phenomenon William. In other western democracies, such as the U.K. and Germany, where gun laws are far more restrictive than in the U.S., and the standard of living and education levels of the populations are comparable, the numbers of gun deaths per 100,000 are significantly fewer than those in the U.S.
If you doubt that socioeconomic status plays the major role in violent crime, I would refer you to the Handbook of Crime Correlates (April 1, 2009) by Lee Ellis, Kevin M. Beaver, and John Wright (Academic Press), which (according to Wikipedia) revealed that “higher total socioeconomic status—usually measured using the three variables, income (or wealth), occupational level, and years of education—correlate with less crime. Longer education is associated with less crime. Higher income/wealth have a somewhat inconsistent correlation with less crime with the exception of self-report illegal drug use, for which there is no relation. Higher parental socioeconomic status probably has an inverse relationship with crime.”
“High frequency of changing of changing jobs and high frequency of unemployment for a person correlate with criminality.
“Somewhat inconsistent evidence indicated that there is a relationship between low income percentage under the poverty line, few years of education, and high income inequality in an area and more crime in the area.
“The relationship between the state of the economy and crime rates is inconsistent among the studies. The same for differences in unemployment between different regions and crime rates. There is a slight tendency in the majority of the studies for higher unemployment rate to be positively associated with crime rates.”
Of course, since you yourself have referenced, though not cited, Justice Department statistics on this thread, you would undoubtedly be more impressed with data presented this past September 19 by Erica L. Smith and Jennifer L. Truman, Ph.D. in a Bureau of Justice Statistics study entitled Prevalence of Violent Crime Among Households With Children, 1993-2010 (NCJ 238799) found on the Office of Justice Programs site.
This particular study is from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), and focuses “on nonfatal violent crime;” so it isn’t inclusive of gun deaths, but you may get the picture:
"Highlights:
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4472
If it is in fact the lack of gun laws that makes one western democratic society safe; then it is the scarcity, or the leniency of gun laws that logically must make all similarly constructed (western democratic) societies safe. The more scarce or more lenient the gun restrictions, the safer the society; because (logically) the more guns there are in a western democracy, the less crime there then should be. More guns, less crime; isn’t that it?
However when the one western democratic society with the least stringent and least restrictive gun laws, and the greatest number of guns within its borders (and amongst its inhabitants); also happens to be the same western democratic society with by far the most gun crime and gun deaths, by factors of dozens per 100,000 inhabitants; then we have an obvious problem, don’t we?
I suppose, that you will next be demanding statistical evidence that the sun rises in the east; how sad, how pathetically desperate.
Efficient killing machinery is not a faith issue. When you refuse to accept inconvenient facts as factual; it then, of course, becomes impossible to participate in rational conversation.
Give me the Christ-centered, love-based, preferring one another, turn-the-other-cheek, fruit of the Spirit rationale for killing machinery, and for highly efficient military-style killing machinery and apparatus, in particular.
If you can’t provide it, which you obviously cannot, shouldn’t that tell you something?
Rudy,
The issue of responsibility is an important one. How are we to promote responsibility for anything in a society teaching irresponsibility and being held accountable for the results of their decisions?
With regard to gun ownership, I am guessing that you are taking from the Connecticut shooter having used guns that were available in the house. In retrospect I think we would all agree that they should have been secured. I would also add from personal experience managing a mentally challenged child with significant behavior control problems that parental denial regarding how their child might behave in particular situations complicates things. What is more, a parent may be so busy trying to manage the present or most recent behavior challenges that they don't even think about other potentials and risks.
For the sake of discussion, let's assume that Adam Lanza had not killed his mother. I am confident that enterprising lawyers representing the families of his victims would have taken everything she ever owned in the search for compensation. How do you think she might have felt after learning the tragic news of her son's action? What penalty would you propose to apply to her? How would you enforce it prior to the shooting without violating her constitutional rights?
Rudy,
Oops! Typo. I should have written "How are we to promote responsibility for anything in a society teaching irresponsibility and NOT being held accountable for the results of personal decisions?"
William: "The issue of responsibility is an important one. How are we to promote responsibility for anything in a society teaching irresponsibility and being held accountable for the results of their decisions? In retrospect I think we would all agree that they should have been secured."
Can we at least all on agree on that point? Conservatives should particularly agree, because the notion of duty-responsiblity is a strong conservative value.
The fact is, I don't know why all gun owners aren't required to own special gun safes – or are they? It may be true that guns are rarely stolen, but when they are, they can lead to these horrendous attacks. Thus, the balance of convenience surely rests with gun owners to properly secure their weapons, and to perhaps be required to take regularly lessons-tests to ensure they use their firearms safely (to use William's example of his perhaps unsafe gun-owning mother). We do it with cars and driving licences, why not with guns? Surely the NRA would support the creation of a new gun-related industry, with gun licencers and testers?
If people can't be bothered securing their weapons properly, and taking the time for regular lessons-tests to ensure they are safe, then in my book they are not responsible citizens who should be allowed to have weapons. If the US is going to create a military-ethic society, which is what the 2nd Amendment does (compared to say Sikh or Pashtun warrior ethics, which also include obligations to carry arms), then like the military, people should face the same sorts of harsh penalties for losing their firearms as soldiers do. In Israel, where you will find people in cafes casually carrying assault rifles, you get stiff mandatory jail terms for losing a weapon. Again, I can't see why the NRA would be again such suggestions.
Moreover, it is true not many people are killed with guns. But not many people are killed by terrorism either, and yet the US government spends billions of dollars trying to prevent it. It isn't just the statistical numbers killed that matters, but the fear and terror generated. The same goes for school shootings, where innocent kids are gunned down in cold blood.
Finally, could we all agree that mental illness is a huge issue – and totally underfunded. Would gun owners be willing to pay an extra fee to help fund this issue, so mentally ill people don't get their hands on these sorts of weapons? In many cases, families do try to get help, or even committ them, but there isn't the resources.
You don’t get it Stephen Ferguson, laws that would theoretically help control guns, and help prohibit mad people from getting to them, and that would require more responsibility of gun owners, and more regulation, are nonetheless more gun laws; and thus 'dangerous.' Never mind that the weapons these laws would be crafted to regulate are dangerous.
Tell me Mr. Ferguson, is highly efficient military-style killing machinery, and/or apparatus to make them still more efficient, a God thing?
I understand that the government, writ large, is used by God to prevent chaos. But that isn’t my question, of course.
Stephen, I am not sure if I understand the question.
From observing the various comments from both sides of this debate, it would seem there are multiple issues here in play. These include:
I for one think you Americans are a bunch of lunatics, quite frankly, in allowing guns on your streets. You also seem to equate your Founders as religous prophets, and your Constitution as Holy Writ, despite the facts that your history shows quite a distinction between rhetoric and reality. Thus, my own person view for the first two dot points would be that civilians shouldn't be able to own guns period, or at the most only single-shot bolt-action weapons (i.e. no semi-autos or autos), which is all farmers and hunters require, and as is the law in Australia.
I actually think your country, your Revolution and your Founders aren't quite as Christian as you like to tell the world. A godlike country would have no guns, and would be turning its swords into ploughs, not arming its polis to the teeth. The American citizen appears to have more in common with the Pashtun, Siekh, Mong or other warrior peoples than the sort of Christian community we find in the NT. So that is my own personal view about whether allowing gun ownership is a God thing – the answer is clearly no!
However, I was trying to see that even a gun-defender such as William would agree that assuming that the answer to the first two dot points is civilians should be able to own military-grade weaponary, I was interested to see what limits to that right it should entail. The NRA always go on about responsible gun ownership. My question to William relates to the remaining dot points, whether he would be willing to put his money where his own mouth is, ideologically, in supporting measures that would say give a jail-term to someone who didn't properly secure their firearm (say in a gun safe) and it was stolen. These are the sorts of responsibilities people in uniform are subject to, and if William believes the US Amendment allows the citizen to be armed in a miltia-like manner, then they should surely be subject to some of those same oversights.
If you are instead saying that these ideas promoting more responsible gun ownership would be rejected by William or the NRA because they amount to 'government interferrence', then perhaps you are right. However, I would ideally like William to say that. As you have said yourself, these rights, and no rights, are absolute but rather qualified. The right to drive a car brings with it certain responsibilities and duties, to protect the life and liberty of other road users. Surely any right to bear arms equally (which you crazy Americans seem intent on keeping) should entail with it qualified duties to be responsible.
William seemed to say as much himself in his story about his mother who bought a gun but was not safe to do so. Presumably a 90-old could buy a car also, but it doesn't mean it would be safe, responsible or even legal for them to drive it.
I am trying to get past the circular arguments, where no one listens to each other and just tries to yell pass each other, and see if there is anything that everyone agrees with.
"Some clearly believe that their government can save them, with more laws and restrictions.
Another view embraces that an armed honest populace is perhaps strongest deterrent.
And armchair critics pick apart the entire structure and history of this country."
Well said ha, ha 😉 And which are you Timo? From your comments, it would appear that of an armed populace?
"Anyone truly think, with all the weapons out there…that the criminal element will be unable to obtain whatever weapons he wants, when all the innocent and legal/honest populace is disarmed?"
I have made this point myself before. But one could use that argument for a range of vices, from illegal drugs, to sex traficking, to illegal immigration, to terrorism, to IEDs, homemade anthrax etc etc.
"We cannot look back historically-or at other nations, as proof of efficacy of anti-gun laws…Lets not even consider that some might consider the US one of those rogues, ala Holder and Obama's fast and furious lunacy…"
Indeed the US is, and perhaps not the great Christian country it proclaims. It is funny how the US expects other countries to raddically change, countries with a much longer history and culture, from Afganistahn, to Iraq, to Iran, to China, to India, to Russia, to much of Africa, and yet Americans say, "too late, we can't change, this militarized society is what we have, too bad so sad." Funny enough, the same types who make these arguments in favour of guns were the same Neo-con Republican types who thought they could bring democracy and rule of law to Iraq and Afghanistan, or lectures China, Russia and India on human rights.
"Despite cries to the contrary, legislating against idiocy or lunacy will only disarm an honest and populace."
It seems my primary armchair General question still has not been answered. I would prefer America has no guns at all. But if the US is going to keep its guns, to ensure its populace is not disarmed, are people ok with the idea that the right to bear arms includes certain implied duties and responsibilities – good old conservative virtues? For example, what is wrong with ensuring reasonable steps are taken to:
Stephen,
Let's remember in this discussion that there often is a major difference between the perception of risk and actual risk. The shock and horror we have all felt as a natural reaction to the Newtown shooting has exaggerated the perception of risk of becoming a victim of gun violence. Making it far worse is the seizure of the issue by liberal-socialists to fan the flames of misperception and advance their drive to destroy all constitutional liberty.
Life is not without risk so our challenge is to measure the risk accurately before deciding how we will control, mitigate or modify that risk as we continue our lives. Homicide is cause of death #109 on a list of 113 tracked by the Centers for Disease Control. Death by gunshot is a small fraction of total number of homicides and if it were separated for analysis it would be somewhere close to #300 on the list. In statistical terms that is well into the area of numeric insignificance. The actual risk to students in schools is a tiny fraction of what the public alarm might lead a person to believe. Let a major earthquake strike someplace like Southern California and gun violence will disappear from public discussion as quickly as it appeared.
Please let me demote our nation's founders in your description. I do not view them as prophets, just wise men who understood the issues of liberty and tyranny in stark clarity, something that has been largely lost in modern political philosophy. Nor do I view the Constitution as holy writ (or anything close). It is simply the supreme law of the land and the standard by which all subsequent laws are modeled and measured. Perfect? No. But our strongest defense of liberty against the imposition of tyranny by those who seek to tear it down and remove it from authority.
Your mention about 90 year-olds owning cars made me laugh, not because I disagree at all with your concern, but remembering our experience with my mother in her later years as her health was declining. I realized just how dangerous she was on the road one day as I followed her home from somewhere. That was when we children put an end to her driving. Just declaring that her driving days were over would have been met with great opposition so we got creative. We gegan offering to drive her to the grocery store or medical appointments. Then we discovered she was still driving occasionally. That was when her car developed mysterious problems that we never seemed to be able to fix and her car keys disappeared from her purse. We knew exactly what was wrong. It was things like my pulling on the wire from the spark coil to the distributor so it was still attached but had a hidden gap big enough to prevent the ignition system from working. We always found excuses for leaving her car in the garage and her riding with us. She protested almost to the day she died that she was still able to drive. After all, she'd been doing it since she was young, so why should she believe she couldn't keep doing it?
That's the problem in Florida where warm weather has made the state the most popular place in the country to retire and they have the highest number of older drivers whose motor skills are not what they were or need to be to drive safely. From time to time the issue of reducing the danger they face gets pushed back into the news by a wreck involving a disabled elderly driver. I don't know if the legislature ever was able to pass a law on the subject. I do remember one proposal to require all drivers over a certain age to be re-tested periodically with the driving examiner deciding whether or not their license would be renewed or revoked. The public outcry was so loud that it never got serious consideration.
This brings us back to the issue of risk perception vs. reality. Yes, your risk of being in an accident with a disabled elderly driver is greater in Florida than in most other states. But how does that risk compare to others that, for example, have higher rates of drunk drivers? Florida also has a large number of golf courses and is one of the most likely places on the planet to have a thunderstorm. The result is that some number of golfers each year die on the course after being struck by lightning. That number is about the same as the number killed in wrecks caused by the diminished driving skills of a senior citizen and each of them is a greater risk to you than being killed by someone with a gun.
"The shock and horror we have all felt as a natural reaction to the Newtown shooting has exaggerated the perception of risk of becoming a victim of gun violence."
I take it then that you don't believe in wearing a seat belt or having air bags, or in lower speed limits, or funding for anti-terrorism measures, or in health inspectors, or custom inspectors, or airport screening, or that the US tax payer should pay for anti-terrorism funding, or that so much should be spent on defence, or a whole range of measures designed to protect life in situations where the chances of actual death are statistically extremely small.
With terrorism, it isn't just the number of deaths that is the issue, but the fear and outright sovereign violation people fear which is the main problem (and goal of terrorists). From a rational, statistical and objective basis, the amount of money spent on anti-terrorism measures is riddiculous compared with the number of US citizens who have died from terrorist attacks. And yet most Americans would happily pay for those anti-terrorism measures…
These school shootings appear to be much the same, where all your rational and statistical arguments mean squat, because we are talking about people's childrens. These school shootings are a type of terrorism.
"Please let me demote our nation's founders in your description. I do not view them as prophets, just wise men who understood the issues of liberty and tyranny in stark clarity, something that has been largely lost in modern political philosophy."
They understood the issues of liberty and tyranny for white, middle class men. They apparently didn't understand liberty for women, or black people, or really for Catholics and a whole host of other minorities. I would argue that the US is much more free in many respects than the society the Founder's created – perhaps just not as free for the angry, rich white man, who seemed to form the mainstay for the GOP.
"Your mention about 90 year-olds owning cars made me laugh…Just declaring that her driving days were over would have been met with great opposition so we got creative…I do remember one proposal to require all drivers over a certain age to be re-tested periodically with the driving examiner deciding whether or not their license would be renewed or revoked. The public outcry was so loud that it never got serious consideration."
I take it the US (or individual states) don't have mandatory upper age limits on driving? In Australia (or at my state), when you reach a certain age (I believe 80), you have to retake your driver's test every year. My nana just re-took and passed hers at the age of 92. That is because here the polis realises driving is not just a right but entails certain responsibilities, including the duty to be safe and thus not deprive the liberty of others (i.e. from having smashed cars to losing one's life at the hands of a dangerous senior citizen driver).
Again, this is a long held conservative value – of not just rights but responsibilities. That is a major problem with American thinking in my book. Your right wing claims to be conservative, but you are not actually traditional Burkean conservatives (as originally devised in England). Rather, you are actually classical liberals, mixed with theocratic social policies. Traditional Tories (per the English model) recognises the importance of personal responsibility. To my mind, if one drives a car or owns a gun, there are certain implicit responsibilities that go with that right, including the responsibility to be safe, and ensure one's property is not stolen by criminals.
"Yes, your risk of being in an accident with a disabled elderly driver is greater in Florida than in most other states. But how does that risk compare to others that, for example, have higher rates of drunk drivers? Florida also has a large number of golf courses and is one of the most likely places on the planet to have a thunderstorm."
Again all true. And that is why I assume you don't wear a seat belt, or don't believe in anti-terrorism funding, or screening baggage at airports? It isn't just raw statistics that matter – it is the emotional-psychological effects of even a small incident occuring that matters – like winning lotto in reverse.
Again, terrorism causes hardly any actual deaths, yet the US spends billions of dollars on anti-terrorism measures. The US could, from an objective statistical point of view, save just as many people, if not many more, by making people drink less soft drink.
And something preventing children from attending weapons ranges perhaps, per the Newton massacre?
Gun owners taking their children to shooting ranges and teaching them to use weapons is actually one of the most effective ways of promoting respect for guns and a commitment to using them safely. In addition to this, hunting makes a gun user directly aware of the results from their use and the potential harm they can cause. It is when you add serious mental illness and the influence of first-person combat games that you get risk to others as happened in Newtown.
Except where that son turns out to be extremely mentally ill, and then uses those skills to shoot a whole bunch of children – which has now happen a number of times. It also renders your mental health checks squat, because the parents obviously pass any screening checks.
When you join the military or police force, I know from personal experience that you are subject to thorough and quite intrusive mental screening. They simply don't hand over high-powered weapons. Only in America…
And I suppose you all let your kids drive on the freeway as well – teaches them responsibility?
Timo,
Of course, I can’t speak for William, but my objective wasn’t to surprise you. On the other hand, it wasn’t to bemuse you either.
Tell us if you can which one of us believes that the government can "save" us with more laws and restrictions; or better yet, tell us specifically what we said that leads you to this conclusion.
I have stipulated that, in all probability, these incidents cannot be prevented, and that evil is the problem. I happen to believe that guns in general, and particular types of firearms at that, are part of the evil problem.
Although I’m sure it must have happened, I'm not aware of an instance in American history where a civilian has ever been recorded or reported to have defended the liberty or rights or interests of the defenseless or the minority (politically, religiously, or otherwise) with military-style weaponry; or with guns at all, for that matter.
Nevertheless we haven’t been talking about disarming the populace, or at least I haven’t. I have however repeatedly challenged William, and now you, to provide a reason why the “honest” American civilian populace needs the military-style assault weapons which we have been discussing, or the high-capacity magazine clips that accompany or accessorize them; because I clearly am talking about banning such from these same civilians to as great an extent as possible.
Whose interests will be protected and served by civilians having these weapons? If civilians should be able to keep and bear these weapons—for some perceived, but heretofore apparently secret, utilitarian reason (which you may at long last divulge)—why shouldn’t civilians also then have legal access to automatic weapons, or grenade launchers, or any arms they can afford?
Why is it OK to look at other domestic jurisdictions to study and determine what the effects of certain restrictions have or have not been, and to cite any statistics that favor our case; but not OK or valid to look at other similar societies and democracies to study and determine what the effects of certain restrictions have or have not been, and to cite any statistics that favor our case?
This is clearly a very serious topic; and I am more than willing to have my positions explored and logically examined. I am also quite willing to drill down on opposing opinions in similar fashion.
It is sad and revealing, in my view, that no one is willing or able to provide either a temporal, or a spiritual, or a religious/doctrinal justification for civilians owning these weapons. Those opposed to my position are clear that they don’t believe what I am proposing—that military-style semi-automatic assault weapons (including high-capacity magazine clips) be made illegal for civilians to possess, own, or keep—may eventually make things less dangerous than they are now; or would be without the outlawing of such weapons. They are also clear in their belief that my proposal is an infringement of second amendment rights. What they (you) have not made clear (for perhaps obvious reasons) is for what purposes do civilian American residents or citizens need these weapons; and if they need these weapons, why don’t they also need military grade automatic weapons, or grenade and rocket launchers, for the exact same reason—whatever it is? Or have we breached the second amendment in outlawing automatic weapons and grenade launchers?
Isn’t it interesting, and somewhat disturbing, how extreme political ideology/orthodoxy can come into sharp contrast with the Christian principles of peacemaking and loving others as we love ourselves?
What do military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazine clips in the hands of American civilians have to do with peacemaking and loving other humans as we love ourselves?
"It is sad and revealing, in my view, that no one is willing or able to provide either a temporal, or a spiritual, or a religious/doctrinal justification for civilians owning these weapons."
Because there isn't one. The spirit of Christianity, in both the OT and NT, is one of turning swords into ploughshares, of telling people not to live by the sword lest one dies by the sword.
But that doesn't make me a pacifist. The NT does seem to support the right of Caesar's men to have and use weapons, as agents of God to bring wrath to the wrongdoer as Paul suggests in Rom 13. Moreover, even Jesus seemed to advocate self defence, in telling the disciples to go get swords in Luke 22:36 (the ones later used by Peter to cut off ears).
However, note in Luke 22:38 the disciples only got 2 swords for 13 people – hardly an arsenal. Also note that Jesus didn't tell the disciples to get shields, armour, greeves, helmets and shields. Thus, Jesus wasn't advocating the arming of the populace in a military-like manner against the tyranny of the King – a point Jesus makes abundantly clear to Pilate.
Rather, given Jesus' comments to the 12 disciples in Luke 22:36 (get a purse, bag, sword and cloak) is largely the opposite of his command to the 70 in Luke 10:4 (take no purse, bag or shoes). The difference is the 70 only went to the next village within Israel; the disciples were tasked to go to far-off lands.
Thus, I believe Jesus was allowing and even advocating self-protection, as would have been a constant danger from bandets in the ancient Roman world. But Jesus was not suggesting people arm themselves with military-grade weaponary – such would appear clearly contrary to Jesus' teachings.
In conclusion, I would imagine Jesus would wholly condemn the polis having military-style assault weapons with high-capacity magazine clips. I would imagine Paul would condemn the same, as an unjustifiable threat to the uniformed personnel who exercise the right of the sword (and who protected Paul from assault on more than one occassion) on behalf of Caesar, who is appointed by God to punish the wrongdoer.
Stephen,
You still haven't put forward any description of a "military-style assault weapon." The closest you've come is to list a number of obviously military-only weapons that are strictly illegal for civilians to own. Since you can't even define what you are complaining about and wanting to ban, how is anyone to believe you actually know anything factual about the topic?
As for a spiritual basis for owning weapons, look at the history of God's people in the Old Testament. They were armed and used those weapons on God's command to destroy evil tribes and to protect themselves. God used their reputation as fearsome warriors to strike fear into the hearts of nations as they took over the Promised Land.
That same fear of facing possible death at the hands of another without changing your ways is exactly why gun ownership keeps crime rates down. In every American state where crime rates have gone down you also find that gun ownership rates have gone up. In every state or city where crime rates have gone up, you find the crime rate rising immediately after gun control laws are imposed.
Criminals may behave differently than you or I, but their behavior is actually logical and they do not have any more of a death wish than you . Where they see a risk threatening their ability to do what they do, they either change what they do or go somewhere else. This is why the fear of facing and armed citizen and one carrying a concealed weapon, in particular, has been so effective at deterring crime. Let a criminal discover that the homeowner is armed and they will stay away. Let a criminal be shot while committing a crime and other criminals flee the area.
Stephen, if you want to keep arguing, please come armed with facts instead of politically-correct concepts and rhetoric.
Sorry, but watching this thread, you Americans seem completely hopeless. I think I'll just have to buy one of those bullet proof backpacks for school kids for the next time I visit. William will say that isn't necessary, because despite America having something like 1000% more chance of gun-related homocide compared to my home country, overall the chances of being shot are slim. I hope William lives by that philosophy by never wearing a seat belt, or believe funding should be cut from the FBI, CIA and Homeland security, given the chances of individual deaths from terrorism is so infinitely small.
Talking of more before I sign off from this now circular arguments, thanks again for the fiscall cliff. Perhaps it is a good metaphor for the gridlock that is now a feature of US politics, from guns to health to taxes. I wouldn't care so much but for the fact that as the world's greatest power, your likely to bring about another world recession when your own stock martket and economy crashes on 2 Jan 2013.
Stephen,
As I keep trying to communicate, your perception of actual threat appears to be a considerable multiple of reality.
William will tell your that objectively, the per capita chances of gun homocide are small – just like terrrorism. Thus, providing a story about a town with just 5,000-odd people doesn't really say much. Perhaps a better comparison, which you refuse to look at, is a comparison between hundreds of millions – countries with guns and those without.
Moreover, as to claims about deliberately having guns at schools, my understanding is there were armed guards at Columbine, and it didn't work.
"…and mute my own beliefs…"
Your comments seemed pretty partisan, and not that mute, to me. But the perception of reading is quite different from the intent in writing. You did say after all:
"Despite cries to the contrary, legislating against idiocy or lunacy will only disarm an honest and populace."
"…yet suddenly am asked to defend assault rifles-and grenade launchers!"
Perhaps you might to clarify your view then Timo? Do you support civilians owning weapons such as the Bushmaster XM-15, which according to Wikipedia at least is classied as an 'assault rifle', and which was used by Lanza in the Newtown school shooting? The weapon is modelled on the AR-15 platform, which is the main weapon of the US military (i.e. it is a modern-day M16).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushmaster_M4_Type_Carbine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR-15
"The politicized rhetoric to ban "assault style" weapons (definition itself utterly ridiculous, and coined purely for political expediency, to incite public outcry to ban them!)"
Why is the definition ridiculous. The Bushmaster XM-15 is clearly an assault rifle – full stop. What is ridiculous is people saying it isn't an assault-style weapon. Just google an image of it – it looks exactly like the AR-15, and basically is, with the same high number of rounds in a clip, and has a semi-automatic function (which is how soliders are trained to shoot anyway in two-tap bursts). It is even used by various militaries around the world, including NZ, Czech Rep, Georgia, Poland, South Korea and Thailand.
You might not think it is an assault rifle because it doesn't have an automatic fire feature. But if it did, and was intended to be used that way, it wouldn't be an assault rifle either but a machine gun, which is a different type of weapons flattform.
Timo,
No one is asking you to defend citizens having grenade launchers because they are already illegal. The problem with discussions about guns is how quickly they become illegal and emotional because of specific events in the news and misconceptions about types of weapons.
A logical discussion about guns should not consider military assault weapons because ownership of them is strictly illegal. But anti-gun advocates would like people to think every weapons that looks on the outside like a military weapon is a military weapon when it isn't. Don't confuse the outside appearance with actual firepower. There are significant differences between what looks like a military weapon and the ones issued to soldiers. For example, the primary weapons used by the Navy SEALs is the Hechler & Koch MP-5 submachine gun. It can be set to fire single rounds, a three-round burst or full automatic. You cannot buy one. But you can buy the same H&K MP-3 that is used by many police department SWAT teams. At a glance you could mistake the MP-3 for the MP-5 but there are significant differences in their firepower. The MP-3 can only fire single rounds that are smaller than the gunpowder load and bullets carried by the SEALs. I can show you a list of hunting rifles that look different but pack far more firepower, are more accurate and can be fired just as quickly.
Arguments about military-style assault weapons are a distraction masking the objective of anti-gun advocates to infringe on and destroy constitutional rights. Their efforts may be focused on guns today but will be aimed at other constitutional rights in the future.
Ah, we’re making a little progress. At least we’re not trying to mute anymore.
To be clear Timo, we are not talking about what a weapon looks like; if that were the case, we’d be concerned with toy replicas too, wouldn’t we? Our concern is strictly for the firepower; the capacity to kill many people, immediately.
This level of firepower is unnecessary for civilians to defend themselves and their families against a criminal invasion of their domicile.
Let’s deal with the fact that the second amendment, as arcane and anachronistic as I believe it to be, is reality. The SCOTUS has ruled in Heller that Americans have the right to own guns for purposes including that of personal protection. The same rationale that restricts and criminalizes the civilian ownership of certain military weapons, is the same rationale that should restrict the firearms to which I have referred—based not on appearance, but on capacity.
So Timo, we are not talking about the red herring of disarming the populace; because unless and until it is repealed, the second amendment would not permit this. This was reaffirmed in Heller; as was the fact that certain restrictions—and certain restrictions on certain arms—are nonetheless constitutional.
So instead of the shrill talk of baseball bats, box cutters, and disarmament; why not deal with the need, or lack thereof, for civilians to own weapons which approach military firepower capacity; and their availability from a legal, constitutional, and/or Christian perspective?
You are a gifted poet, but this should not be about us as individuals; but about the positions we espouse and the merits of same, or lack thereof.
I am not proposing banning weapons that are already banned. Instead, I am proposing banning other firearms that have fairly similar capacities—of killing dozens of people immediately—to those that have already been banned.
The weapons that have already been prohibited to civilians are prohibited for a reason, or set of reasons. The same reason, or set of reasons, applies to somewhat similar weapons. What is incongruent about this? Frankly, this is the “concept” being ignored.
Is there a Christian perspective, as opposed to a sectarian perspective, but a perspective based on the transcendent Christian principles of loving other humans as we love ourselves, or preferring one another, or turning the other cheek, acting toward others as we would have them act toward us, or unconditional love, or exhibiting the fruits of the Spirit, that informs your attitude toward guns in an evil and dangerous world?
(Certainly, this question tees up some poetry.)
Perhaps I should have added blessed peacemaking.
Perhaps the greatest thing about the US Constitution is not the protection of specific liberties but that it allows a person the freedom to choose how they will exercise their liberties without fear of having those liberties restricted or destroyed because someone else doesn't like the choice they made. All you want is a little limitation on the liberty of others. But when you limit the liberties of others you not only make it easier for others to limit the liberties you enjoy, you give them motivation to seek seek that infringement because of what you have done to them. So, what liberty that you enjoy exercising are you willing to lose?
Listen William, I understand that you and others like you have a personal or cultural stake in guns; be it familial, or ideological, or something. Because you are invested, you have accordingly declined to offer a defense of the gun culture—and particularly as it relates to military-style assault rifles and high-capacity magazine clips— from a Christ-centered or Christian principles perspective. Your silence on that score is deafening and speaks volumes.
My position is admittedly easy for me to take because I am not conflicted; especially from a cultural background standpoint. That in itself doesn’t make it me right; but right or wrong I am not at all conflicted.
None of our constitutional liberties is carte blanche; so the limiting of liberty argument is not dispositive. For example, the free exercise of religion would not permit sacrificing human beings to some 'deity' or god; nor should it. I have tried to engage you (and Timo) in not only facing the reality, but in accepting the implications that our rights as civilians to keep and bear arms are already limited; and that the same Supreme Court (decision) that found that civilians have the right to possess and own guns for personal protection, also acknowledged that limitations and restrictions are indeed constitutional.
Military grade and military-style firearms and high-capacity magazines clips are not necessary for civilians to protect their families and their homes or with which to hunt or shoot. Military grade automatic weapons are already illegal for civilians, and military-style semi-automatic weapons should be also; for precisely the same reason(s).
Stephen,
You keep changing the subject and avoiding answering questions that are critical to understanding your point of view and the basis for your opinions. We need you to explain a few things so we can know clearly if you have actual knowledge on the topic. If you can't give us specific answers then we will have to conclude you just enjoy arguing from a position of ignorance.
You started out talking about banning "Military-style assault weapons." In your last posting you had changed that to "military-style semi-automatic" weapons. Please explain the difference between the two and why you now specify "semi-automatic."
How does a military-style semi-automatic weapon differ from a hunting rifle like those used safely by millions?
What is there about the appearance of a gun that makes it more dangerous or a greater threat to the public?
You claim limiting the size of magazines will reduce the results in mass shootings. Since one if the first things you learn to do when handling a gun is how to reload it quickly, how will smaller magazines reduce the amount of shots a gunman could fire in a period of time?
All mass shootings over the past 30 years have involved serious mental illness on the part of the shooter. How will limits on guns reduce the risks posed by the seriously mentally ill? Out of the number of people in America considered seriously mentally ill, how many have been involved in violent attacks on others or mass shootings? How will that prevent someone who is determined to commit suicide in a dramatic manner from finding a way to do that?
You deny that civilian gun ownership prevents crime and refuse to consider either government crime statistics or scholarly studies showing that increased civilian gun ownership directly correlates to reductions in violent crimes and restrictions on guns produces higher rates of violent crime. Why?
You have described the Second Amendment to the Constitution as "an anacronism." Yet the founders considered it of equal priority with things like a free press, religious freedom, protection against self-incrimination or the seizure of property without compensation, etc. Why do you not also consider them anachronistic?
You claim that mass shootings are evidence that the general public is in great danger from such shooters and thus must be protected by restrictions on guns. Yet you have provided no statistical evidence of such danger. Why?
Past laws restricting guns have failed. Why do you believe new limits would be effective at controlling violent crimes or preventing mass shootings?
You stated above that "none of our constitutional is carte blanche." If you really believe that, how are the restrictions to be decided in ways that do not restrict basic rights? Who has the authority to decide what limits will be imposed? Please contrast your claim with the constitutional principle of all citizens being equal under the law?
"In your last posting you had changed that to "military-style semi-automatic" weapons. Please explain the difference between the two and why you now specify "semi-automatic."
That is why semi-automatic weapons should be banned outright, as they are in Australia after the Port Aurthur massacre. There hasn't been a mass-shooting since. This was what Rupert Murdoch himself suggested recently, which caused quite a controversy from his fellow Fox News Republicans.
"Since one if the first things you learn to do when handling a gun is how to reload it quickly, how will smaller magazines reduce the amount of shots a gunman could fire in a period of time?"
If one has to use a bolt-action weapon, it doesn't matter how big the magazine clip is, you're not go massacre many people. But you are not technically correct in saying magazine sizes don't matter. When you are under pressure, having to constantly change magazine does take time, and increases the chances of fumbles. Even delays of a few second make a big difference in a mass school-like shooting.
If there was no practical difference militaries would not have evolved towards bigger magazine. Militaries have also gone towards smaller round sizes for the same reason, from 7.62 to 5.56 NATO standard rounds.
"How does a military-style semi-automatic weapon differ from a hunting rifle like those used safely by millions?"
Why does one need a semi-automatic weapon for hunting?
"How will limits on guns reduce the risks posed by the seriously mentally ill? Out of the number of people in America considered seriously mentally ill, how many have been involved in violent attacks on others or mass shootings? How will that prevent someone who is determined to commit suicide in a dramatic manner from finding a way to do that?"
Um, if guns are easily available, then mentally ill people can kill a lot more people a lot easier. Yes, a very determined mentally ill person can still harm others, but the risks are much reduced if not given the chance by access to such weapons. You have mentally ill people in other Western countries, but as they can only get their hands on hand guns and knives, they tend to kill a lot less people… obviously!
By you same reasoning, we shouldn't try to keep certain weapons out of the hands of terrorists, because if they are really committed they will find a way to succeed.
"You claim that mass shootings are evidence that the general public is in great danger from such shooters and thus must be protected by restrictions on guns. Yet you have provided no statistical evidence of such danger. Why?"
What statistics do you require? You look at this from a wholly objective, rational manner. Yes, statistically the chances of being killed by a gun is very low – but statistically much, much higher in the US compared with any other Western country.
However, you are failing to recognise the subjective emotional aspect. As I have said before, this issue is very similar to terrorism and these school shootings are a type of internal domestic terrorism. The chances of killed by a terrorist are just as minor, if not more so, and yet the US government spends billions on anti-terrorism meausres.
Most importantly, the same Republicans cry for guns in the name of liberty are happy with denying those same liberties, from the Patriot Act to Guantanimo Bay, in the name of combating terrorism. Again, all for something that objectively and statistically hardly kills anyone.
Both school shootings and terrorism deprive people's liberty – not merely in depriving actual life – but the paralysis of fear.
“But when you limit the liberties of others you not only make it easier for others to limit the liberties you enjoy, you give them motivation to seek that infringement because of what you have done to them. So, what liberty that you enjoy exercising are you willing to lose?”
I have isolated this statement in a separate post because this doesn’t make any sense to me William. Would you please elaborate by giving me an example of what you are describing? For example, who will be motivated to take away, or to threaten, my liberties because I advocate for certain gun restrictions; and how?
Thank you for giving us such a neon declaration of how little you understand about the constitution.
Does anyone here need a semi automatic weapon or machine gun to defend their home? And if you had one would you use it? i offer no harm to anyone, so i need no weapon to defend myself. i have yet to hear a report of a person using a high capacity magazine weapon to defend themselves at home, against outsiders. According to William, the herein gun expert,whose study of such appears to know no limits, has indicated that most of these WMD are already banned. If so, why aren't they removed by the authorities? What good is a ban if there is no teeth in it. Non-semi-hand guns, hunting rifles, and shotguns should be sufficient for those who want them. i would teach children to treasure the precious quality of life, and would not train them to use a gun to take a life. As stated this topic has been like a merry go round, with 153 offerings, Can you believe it?
Earl,
There are several issues in your comments. Let's take them apart one at a time.
First is whether or not you need a semi-automatic weapon or machine gun to defend your home. That is a personal decision where the Constitution allows the home owner to make their own decision based on their perceptions. The machine gun is already illegal so there is no need to consider them. Back in 1991 I was on a special "behind the glass" tour at FBI headquarters and one of the weapons out of public view in the gun room was a World War I-era machine gun, the last such weapon used to commit a crime in America. If I recall correctly, the date of the crime was in the 1950s. So let's take the machine gun out of the discussion.
Second, your use of the term WMD is rather liberal. I work for the US Army in a group that manages the clearance and disposal of old weapons, including what some call WMD. I can assure you that none of the guns that are the object of proposed limitations come anywhere close to being WMD. This does not dismiss or minimize what you have described from your experience about militaries having developed and used some very powerful weapons. Again, possession of them is highly illegal.
Third is the difference between how you choose to exercise your liberties and the choices of others. At what point does your disagreement with the decisions of others create a threat to you of sufficient magnitude that it justifies limiting their constitutional rights to decide differently?
Answering the claim of need for action requires first that we differentiate between our emotion-driven perception of risk and actual risk based on measurements. You have echoed the popular fear. But a closer look at actual risks shows that it is far smaller than many other risks we accept without emotion. The Centers for Disease Control analysis of causes of death lists homicide as #109 on their list of #113 categories. (Items #1 through #108 are all diseases, many of which are entirely preventable.) Your probability of being killed by someone with a gun is extremely small. If you add Department of Justice crime statistics you will find that in the vast majority of homicides using a gun the weapon was a handgun. So if you want to behave logically and ban guns it is apparent that the greater gun risk is not military-style assault weapons or even semi-automatic guns, but handguns in general.
Arguments about "military-style" guns typically ignore the fundamentals of human behavior and how our perception of risk causes us to make decisions. For example, If you are driving and want to make a left turn across two oncoming lanes of traffic, do you wait until you get the turn arrow or cross on the green light when you see a gap allowing you to go without serious risk of collision? That is a risk measurement leading to a decision. Does your decision to wait for the light when I decide to use the gap on green mean I am wrong and that needs to be outlawed? Could I not also argue based on accident statistics that you turning on the arrow increases the probability of accidents at that intersection and that you should not have a green turn arrow there?
Criminals actually behave in a rational manner. They do not have a death wish and instinctively avoid places where they perceive a greater risk of being shot by a homeowner with a gun. They either go elsewhere or commit non-violent crimes. Guns that are styled to look like military weapons or civilian versions of weapons designed for the military are appealing to some gun owners because of their greater power to intimidate and prevent criminal activity.
I think you made an excellent point when you asked what good a ban is if there are no teeth in it. Let's take that a step farther and ask what limitations would be required in a law to prevent such things as the mass shootings that have shocked us recently? The common factor in all of them has been severe mental illness where the person was bent on committing suicide in a dramatic way that would bring them notariety. This constrasts with the overwhelming majority of gun owners who use their weapons both safely and responsibly. How will restrictions on guns effectively prevent or alter the behavior of a seriously mentally ill person who is bent on committing suicide in a dramatic way?
William (to Stephen Foster): "In your last posting you had changed that to "military-style semi-automatic" weapons. Please explain the difference between the two and why you now specify "semi-automatic."
That is why semi-automatic weapons should be banned outright, as they are in Australia after the Port Aurthur massacre. There hasn't been a mass-shooting since. This was what Rupert Murdoch himself suggested recently, which caused quite a controversy from his fellow Fox News Republicans.
"Since one if the first things you learn to do when handling a gun is how to reload it quickly, how will smaller magazines reduce the amount of shots a gunman could fire in a period of time?"
If one has to use a bolt-action weapon, it doesn't matter how big the magazine clip is, you're not go massacre many people. But you are not technically correct in saying magazine sizes don't matter. When you are under pressure, having to constantly change magazine does take time, and increases the chances of fumbles. Even delays of a few second make a big difference in a mass school-like shooting.
If there was no practical difference militaries would not have evolved towards bigger magazine. Militaries have also gone towards smaller round sizes for the same reason, from 7.62 to 5.56 NATO standard rounds.
"How does a military-style semi-automatic weapon differ from a hunting rifle like those used safely by millions?"
Why does one need a semi-automatic weapon for hunting?
"How will limits on guns reduce the risks posed by the seriously mentally ill? Out of the number of people in America considered seriously mentally ill, how many have been involved in violent attacks on others or mass shootings? How will that prevent someone who is determined to commit suicide in a dramatic manner from finding a way to do that?"
Um, if guns are easily available, then mentally ill people can kill a lot more people a lot easier. Yes, a very determined mentally ill person can still harm others, but the risks are much reduced if not given the chance by access to such weapons. You have mentally ill people in other Western countries, but as they can only get their hands on hand guns and knives, they tend to kill a lot less people… obviously!
By you same reasoning, we shouldn't try to keep certain weapons out of the hands of terrorists, because if they are really committed they will find a way to succeed.
"You claim that mass shootings are evidence that the general public is in great danger from such shooters and thus must be protected by restrictions on guns. Yet you have provided no statistical evidence of such danger. Why?"
What statistics do you require? You look at this from a wholly objective, rational manner. Yes, statistically the chances of being killed by a gun is very low – but statistically much, much higher in the US compared with any other Western country.
However, you are failing to recognise the subjective emotional aspect. As I have said before, this issue is very similar to terrorism and these school shootings are a type of internal domestic terrorism. The chances of killed by a terrorist are just as minor, if not more so, and yet the US government spends billions on anti-terrorism meausres.
Most importantly, the same Republicans cry for guns in the name of liberty are happy with denying those same liberties, from the Patriot Act to Guantanimo Bay, in the name of combating terrorism. Again, all for something that objectively and statistically hardly kills anyone.
Both school shootings and terrorism deprive people's liberty – not merely in depriving actual life – but the paralysis of fear.
Stephen,
My questions were pushing Mr. Foster further to illustrate his obvious utter ignorance on the topic of guns and gun control and make him aware of his blind allegiance to political leadership that survives by promoting such ignorance. His adoption of "semi-automatic" in his description of what he wants to see banned was a change. Did he understand the difference? Or, was he just borrowing from my description?
A couple days ago a friend forwarded to me an e-mail that purported to be a warning from someone in Australia warning Americans about what could happen if certain guns were confiscated by the government. It sounded convincing but a check of generally reliable sources quickly showed that it was a fake. But what else I learned was that, as you have mentioned, there are significant differences between Australia and America on the topic of guns. I haven't learned enough yet to comment on those differences with any confidence.
As for hunters needing a semi-automatic weapon, I'm not a hunter so I'll let a hunter answer that question. The popularity of such weapons indicates they perceive some benefit.
Pertaining to the last two questions, there are ample available statistics where a simple analysis reveals common cause factors. Weapons are not the cause, just the most reported tool selected. If you wanted to ban a weapon because it is used to kill the most people you would ban the common box cutter. After all, that was the weapon used by the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackers to kill almost 3,000 people in a single day. It is also used to kill more people each year than the total number killed using firearms. I own a number of them and find them very useful in construction tasks. If I were tempted to commit murder I could grab any one of a number of other items from my tool boxes that would be more effective. Should they be banned because someone used them to commit murder?
My last question went back to Mr. Foster's absolute refusal to consider any of the ample and available statistical evidence because it so completely refutes his claim that reducing the availability of guns will reduce violent crime.
Your mention of the role of emotion in terrorism is a great point. The emotional reaction to terrorism, both by the public and politicians, has had varied results. I completely agree with you that the responses to terrorism have been mixed. At the same time I would caution you to be slow in arguing for or against particular decisions made, actions taken or results achieved because what we read in the news is so often biased and inaccurate. Add that there is a lot happening that is not reported and we are left with a paucity of credibility on which to base our opinions.
"My questions were pushing Mr. Foster further to illustrate his obvious utter ignorance on the topic of guns and gun control and make him aware of his blind allegiance to political leadership that survives by promoting such ignorance."
Perhaps, but as I am not so ignorant of guns, I hope I have answered some of those issues. And to be technical, a rifle is not a gun – go rent Full Metal Jacket.
"A couple days ago a friend forwarded to me an e-mail that purported to be a warning from someone in Australia warning Americans about what could happen if certain guns were confiscated by the government."
Sounds like you got some conspiracy theory crack-pot to me. Australia has probably never been as bad as the US, but we did have some issues akin to yours. After the Port Aurthur massacre in Tasmania, our conservative right-wing Prime Minister brought in new years prohibiting semi-automatic weapons. There have been no major massacres since. I suggest you check it out, because it is where the US could have gone but didn't, a point Rupert Murdoch himself noted.
"As for hunters needing a semi-automatic weapon, I'm not a hunter so I'll let a hunter answer that question. The popularity of such weapons indicates they perceive some benefit."
Any hunter who needs a semi-automatic weapon should take up another hobby. No hunter needs something like the Bushmaster XM-15.
"Weapons are not the cause, just the most reported tool selected."
Indeed, people kill people, not guns; however, people with guns kill a lot more people, quicker, and more of them, than say swords, knives or the muzzle-loaded muskets of the Founder's generation.
"If you wanted to ban a weapon because it is used to kill the most people you would ban the common box cutter. After all, that was the weapon used by the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackers to kill almost 3,000 people in a single day."
But William, they are effectively banned in many places. They are banned on planes because of the damage they can cause, including the destruction of planes. Thus, the right to bare arms is a qualified right, something Stephen Foster has been saying all along. On an plane, it is so limited that civilians have no constitutional rights to even bear box cutters knives, or scissors.
As for certain firearms, there are US citizens who should have semi-automatic weapons such as the Bushmaster in their possession – they are called your police, army and national guard. Your guard in particular should have these weapons as the people's militia.
But the larger point is the right to bear arms is qualified – and sometimes even prohibits the use of box cutters.
"My last question went back to Mr. Foster's absolute refusal to consider any of the ample and available statistical evidence because it so completely refutes his claim that reducing the availability of guns will reduce violent crime."
And no doubt he might say, and has said, that you refuse to look at the hard data that compares the US to comparable Western countries. These other countries have the same per capita of mentally ill, poverty and other underlying problems, but a fraction of the homocides and especially violent gun-related homocides.
Mr Foster may well doubt once again say you have failed to give any response from a biblical Christian perspective for gun-ownership, and especially the ownership and use of semi-automatic guns such as the Bushmaster.
Stephen,
I appreciate your willingness to consider aspects of topics that may not have been in your prior body of information or concept about it. I think our views are much closer than our remarks have sometimes indicated.
As Yanks and Aussies often use different terms to describe the same thing, I think that may account for some of the difference in definitions of a "gun." This is really getting down in the weeds. I work for the US army and "gun" is used to describe anything that fires a projectile of some size through a barrel. The term then is broken-down into things like carbine, rifle, launcher, howitzer, etc. But that is getting into the weeds.
One point where we are in total agreement is that a hunter doesn't need a Bushmaster for hunting deer. But that goes back to the basic Constitutional questions of if and when abuse of a constitutional right by a lone person or a small number justifies restricting the constitutional rights of the vast majority who respect it. One estimate I have seen said more than 192 million Americans own more than 217 million guns. That means last year we saw .000000015625 (seven zeroes) of gun owners commit multiple murders in the US. How much risk does that represent? Does that give evidence that rises to the level where it justifies action restricting the constitutional right of the majority who respect the law and use their guns safely? By itself that risk is miniscule and we face a long list of far greater risks each day. When the offense is horrible and shocking, it is easy to understand people wanting protection from such nuts. But that illustrates the root problem where calls for restrictions on guns is just a symptom of the problem. Liberal-Socialism has created and promotes the concepts that they know best, everyone who disagrees with them is an idiot. only they can provide the protections the people deserve and all they need to make it happen is another law. All that is built on the concept that they must be the absolute authority in the land and all challengers to that authority must be destroyed. Thus their primary targets are the Constitution and religion with guns close behind because that is how citizens could potentially protect themselves from the imposition or the utter tyranny the LS want.
Please remember that Mr. Foster's modus operandi is to argue a topic and toss the canard of a spiritual basis when his views are refuted. I have not answered his question on that point because it is not an issue of spiritual basis but defense of the ultimate law of the land which he is seeking to destroy while claiming to be a defender of the religious liberty it guarantees.
Unfortunately, we are talking past each other. Even more tragically, there is nothing that can be done about it. I have isolated and addressed some of your concerns. We will not agree of course, but at least you have my ‘take’ on specific concerns and perspectives. You have ignored my repeated requests for you to address my questions/concerns; particularly the need for civilians to own military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazine clips, and the Christ-centered gun defense/justification/principle. I await your ‘witness;’ or the ‘truth’ that has been ‘revealed’ to you.
Meanwhile, without you ever addressing my concerns, you want me, someone who is certainly no gun expert, to give you my gun expert bona fides; as an ostensible barrier of entry to discussing this issue. This is analogous to requiring that an opponent of the sport of boxing, or an opponent of tackle football for elementary school-aged children, be experts on the ‘sweet science,’ or on the game of football.
Besides, how many times must I remind you that you are not someone to whom I have anything to prove?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-automatic_firearm#Fully_automatic_compared_to_semi-automatic
I respond to you because someone, more than likely someone who is prone to sympathize with your cultural or ideological perspective, may possibly benefit from seeing your views deconstructed or examined. Frankly I thank God that these conversations are on the record; and on this particular site at that.
“How does a military-style semi-automatic weapon differ from a hunting rifle like those used safely by millions?”
Military-style semi-automatic weapons are, of course, used/designed to mow down human beings. Yesterday, seated next to Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC), I heard Senator Feinstein (D-CA) say that “the Bushmaster has a legal slide you can put on it to make it fully automatic and just pump out slews of bullets at a given time.”
“What is there about the appearance of a gun that makes it more dangerous or a greater threat to the public?”
Actually, it isn’t “the appearance of a gun that makes it [necessarily] more dangerous or a greater threat to the public;” it is the capacity or the convertible capacity that makes a gun (along with the high-capacity magazine clips that can accompany or can accessorize them) dangerous, or makes them a greater threat, to the public.
“You claim limiting the size of magazines will reduce the results in mass shootings. Since one if the first things you learn to do when handling a gun is how to reload it quickly, how will smaller magazines reduce the amount of shots a gunman could fire in a period of time?”
This is obviously one of the sillier questions that could possibly be asked. Surely it is common sense that would suggest that one can kill more people if one doesn’t have to reload—or has to reload more often—in order to fire any given number of bullets. (I’m actually arguing this with someone who constantly claims to be led by the Holy Spirit—what a joke?!)
"All mass shootings over the past 30 years have involved serious mental illness on the part of the shooter. How will limits on guns reduce the risks posed by the seriously mentally ill? Out of the number of people in America considered seriously mentally ill, how many have been involve d in violent attacks on others or mass shootings? How will that prevent someone who is determined to commit suicide in a dramatic manner from finding a way to do that?"
All mass shootings that have ever taken place outside of a war context have involved serious mental illness. I would argue that every mass shooting that has ever taken place; period has involved serious mental illness. You need to answer (although we know you won’t) why limits on guns in other democratic western industrialized societies do not result in more gun deaths per capita (or per 100,000 residents) than there are in the U.S.—if more guns means less crime.
If some demon possessed or otherwise deranged individual is determined to take others out with them prior to committing suicide, the that person surely need not have legal access to the means with which to do it, unless those means are goods of necessity to the public; and military-style assault weapons are not goods of necessity.
"You deny that civilian gun ownership prevents crime and refuse to consider either government crime statistics or scholarly studies showing that increased civilian gun ownership directly correlates to reductions in violent crimes and restrictions on guns produces higher rates of violent crime. Why?"
Of course, I have not denied the possibility that civilian gun ownership can prevent some crime. What I have denied is any notion that my liberties, rights, or interests have ever been defended by a civilian at gunpoint or with a gun. The Justice Department study that I previously cited identifies a correlation of violent crime with socioeconomic status and educational achievement. What you are clearly unwilling to accept is the reality that the higher violent crime areas are also the lower socioeconomic areas and the lower violent crime areas are the higher socioeconomic areas. You also refuse to accept or even comment upon the reality that in similar democratized western industrial societies, where there is little to no legal civilian gun ownership, the rates of gun violence and death are dozens of times less than in the United States.
"You have described the Second Amendment to the Constitution as 'an anachronism.' Yet the founders considered it of equal priority with things like a free press, religious freedom, protection against self-incrimination or the seizure of property without compensation, etc. Why do you not also consider them anachronistic?"
Because, for one thing, the liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment do not reference “a well-regulated militia” as a predicate. The functions of a well-regulated militia are now clearly served by the state National Guards.
"You claim that mass shootings are evidence that the general public is in great danger from such shooters and thus must be protected by restrictions on guns. Yet you have provided no statistical evidence of such danger. Why?"
Why would anyone need to provide statistical evidence that mass shootings actually take place, or that they take place in enough frequency to satisfy your need to determine sufficient levels of danger to the general public? What an insensitive mindset; especially in light of an inability to provide one single solitary utility for civilian ownership of the weapons used in these mass shootings.
"Past laws restricting guns have failed. Why do you believe new limits would be effective at controlling violent crimes or preventing mass shootings?"
The premise is naturally faulty; because the evidence of the effectiveness of the previous assault weapons ban is inconclusive; in part, because it was only in effect for nine years. John Lott’s studies have certainly been called into question because of his methodology, “as he has never been able to provide documentation of the surveys he claims he commissioned, has not been able to show who conducted the surveys, and the only person who he can produce who took the survey is a former NRA board member;” according to a current Molly Redden article in The New Republic.
On the other hand, through an examination of 1.4 million guns involved in crime from 1990-1994, which was the five-year period before the last assault weapon ban, a 2004 Brady Center, On Target: The Impact of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapon Act study reports that “assault weapons named in the Act constituted 4.82% of the crime gun traces ATF conducted nationwide. Since the law’s enactment, however, these assault weapons have made up only 1.61% of the guns ATF has traced to crime." A spokesperson for the ATF could not vouch for these numbers however; this according to Wikipedia.
"You stated above that 'none of our constitutional is carte blanche.' If you really believe that, how are the restrictions to be decided in ways that do not restrict basic rights? Who has the authority to decide what limits will be imposed? Please contrast your claim with the constitutional principle of all citizens being equal under the law?"
It is hilarious that you would ridicule someone’s knowledge of the constitution, and nonetheless ask these questions. In the U.S. the Supreme Court is the final word on the interpretation of the Constitution, and which statutory measures are constitutional and which are not.
(Obviously the above is addressed to William.)
Stephen,
You certainly love to write volumes filled with political rhetoric! Quoting politicians and believing their statements were factual and without political puropose? That gives us new illustration of farce.
I have not answered your question about a spiritual basis for a simple reason. It is your modus operandi to throw that question as a canard to avoid having to admit that the basis for your political arguments has been descimated and your claims disproved by facts. The constitutional right to own guns is not a spiritual question. It is an issue of the authority of the supreme law of the land and what rights it grants to the citizens. My personal decision about whether or not to own a gun is influenced by spiritual factors.
Here's a statistic to chew on. The National Association of Gun Manufacturers estimates that 215 million guns are owned by 192 million Americans. In the last few months we've seen three mass shootings by seiously mentally-ill individuals who were bent on committing suicide in a dramatic way. That means .000000015625% of guns owned by Americans were not used in that way. The Department of Justice estimates that criminals possess somewhere around 145,000 firearms (I have no idea how they came up with that number so I don't know how accurate it is). That means 99.924479% of guns were owned by law-abiding citizens. This means your calls for violating the constutional rights of citizens is based on an extremely small risk.
And if you're going to use Wickipedia, you really should check some other data sources as well because the information there is collected from contributors and few, if any of them, are fact-checked for accuracy. As a result you can find some significant factual errrors on there, like the time I was looking up the number of square feet in an acre and found they had a digit wrong on the left side of the decimal.
William you are certainly not fooling anyone by ducking the question of a Christian principle basis or justification of guns, gun culture, and military-style assault weapons in particular.
It is you who regularly challenges those with whom you disagree to provide evidence that they are not speaking for Satan. It is you who persistently insists that there are but two sides of given issues, and but two kinds of people.
It is your modus operandi being used.
You won’t answer this concern or this question because there is no Christ-centered, love-centered, preferring one another, loving others as yourself, fruit of the Spirit justification for civilian possession and use of military-style assault weapons.
You won’t address the Supreme Court’s acknowledgment that restrictions on civilian firearms are Constitutional; because it addresses your insistence that we are talking about breaching the Second Amendment.
You have just asked a series of questions. I chose not to ignore them; and you criticize me for writing volumes. I quote the sponsor of the assault weapons ban; and instead of challenging the veracity of the statement quoted, you just criticize the fact that I quoted her.
I think we have exhausted this topic; but I consider it vitally important because it reveals much about much, to many.
I absolutely love it when a liberal can't handle facts! To paraphrase Rush Limbaugh, it's so easy and way too much fun! When they can't avoid the facts they can't control the discussion. When they can't control the discussion is when they turn to the only option they have left, which is trying to limit and eliminate free speech. And that's something they've already made clear is essential if they're going to avoid having their lies exposed.
William,
Not all of what gets labeled as fact stands equal. Most of us would agree that is a fact that the "sky is blue". But, of course that assumes you are talking about a clear sky in daylight. Things are different at night or when the sky is covered by clouds.
It appears most of what you claim as facts in this discussion are statisitics. A statisic is a fact only if it generated accurately. But statistics always require interpreting. Some presume that statistics are accurate when they support their conclusions and distrust them when they do not. It is a pretty obviously flawed perspective. Also, some presume their interpretation of a statistic is a fact without feeling any compunction to justify their interpretation. Also, a very flawed perspective.
This latter trick is typical of conservative entertainers such as Rush Limbaugh. He is a black and white thinker who is idolized by other black and white thinkers who over simplify the world around them. They refuse to recognize the inevitable flaws and limitations involved when humans search for truth. Their self-certainity guarantees that their search for the most accurate (truest) interpreation of circumanstance and events will always fall short.
Example:
Someone claims that studies have shown the accessiblity of guns correlates with lower violent crime rates in some jurisdictions. So, gun enthusists treat the interpretation that gun accessibility is responsible for lower violent crime as a fact. That could be part of the reason for lower violent crime, but the causes are probably much more complicated and if the real causes were known it may be that gun accessiblity is a small factor.
It is certainly possible that gun accessibility acts as deterent on some kinds of criminals. But, whether or not it is a desirable shape public policy based on this assumption depends not only the accuracy of the conclusion, but also the overall impact of gun accesibility over a period of time. As has been mentioned here several times in this discussion, the statistics concerning violent crimes rates per capita in countries where many less guns are owned (per capita) than in the US suggests that the impact is not as simple as gun enthusiasts claim.
It is interesting that gun enthusiasts are largely aligned with conservatives. I share some of the ideals and preferences with conservatives, but would be ashamed to be considered a conservative based on the kind of simplistic reasoning that is so often used by conservatives to back up their conclusions.
Example:
You and others accuse everybody who does not agree with your interpretation of 2nd amendment as opposing the constitutional rights it provides. As Stephen has pointed out the Supreme Court has clearly recognized that there are legitimate limitations on the access to weaponry guaranteed by the 2nd amendment. Claiming that one is against the 2nd amendment simply because they hold a different belief about what restrictions are legitimate is nothing, but self serving dishonest rhetoric.
IMO some portion of conservatives hold their opinions because they can't think with sufficient depth to recognize the flaws in their own logic. An even more signficant number of both Conservatives and Liberals hold their opinions because they have a self interest in believing as they do. That self interest may be motivated by many factors such as a desire to remain loyal to a group or the advantages of basing public policy on their point of view. It is spirtually nieve for any group to see themselves as the having attracted the majority of the honorable and moral people.
The 2012 presidential candidate who is a self proclaimed conservative, claimed that 47% of Americans would vote for the liberal candidate because of their self interest. What an absurdly ridiculous notion. It would not surprise me if many more that 47% of Americans voted for a political candidate based on self interest without regard to the effect on Americans as a whole. But, I think this is just as true of conservatives as it is liberals. Some people are rich because they worked hard while others are rich because the will exploit the economic system to get more than their fair share. Some people are poor because they are lazy, but others are poor because they have been exploited or have had misfortune.
I suspect that what permitted a presidential candidate to make such ridiculous sweeping generatlization that exhonerated his consituency while demeaning the other candidates consituency is more of that simplistic black and white thinking.
You have a right to any opinion you choose. But, I think Stephen is right that a lot about who we are as professed Christians is revealed in these discussions.
Rudy,
Please be careful how far you go in minimizing facts that are supported by volumes of data as "claims." If you are consistent and wish to continue reducing the evidence about the effect of citizen gun ownership on crime as "claims," then you must also dismiss the declarations God makes in scripture as "claims" because we have so much documentation about guns and so much of belief in God is based on faith that cannot be documented.
William,
You seemed to have totally missed the point which was that statistics always require interpretation and those who are willing to assume they have the correct interpretation as soon as they find an interpretation that meets their preference are not truth seekers.
The same bias can be true of interpretation of scripture. One can seriously misrepresent God by careless interpretation of scripture. I acknowledged that one possible way to interpret the statistics is that gun accessibility has a desirable impact on violent crime. But, also noted that there are other statistics that raise question regarding that interpretation.
You seem to be prepared to disregard any evidence that conflicts with your conclusion, I have yet to see the slightest explanation from you regarding difference in violent crime in the US and countries that much fewer guns. Strikes me as a pretty biased search for the truth.
Rudy,
One can also dismiss the plain and direct commands of God. How much interpretation do you need to put on God's "black and white" approach to things like sin and righteousness, life and death, Sabbath or worship on another day, etc.? God describes clear cause-and-effect relationships such as "the wages of sin is death" and "if you eat it, you will die." Yet people deny the reality of such statements every day because doing so appears to give them permission to do something else they want to do. They may feel powerful for a time, but the end result is still the same. It is this thought process that allows people to turn the Ten Commandments into the Ten Suggestions, or the Ten Disputable Claims.
In the same way people are very willing to deny the relationship between citizens owning guns and reductions in crime rates because it allows them to escape the evidence exposing the body of lies that are the foundation of liberal-socialism and the power its adherents are hungry to seize using those lies.
Yes, I speak forcefully and plainly about liberal-socialism because I have seen its lies. I have studied the writings of its thought leaders. Yet there are writers in this discussion who defend it without ever having read and studied the philosophical basis they are advocating. It sounds good, so they embrace it. Have you read the writings of Saul Alinsky? Frank Marshall Davis? Karl Marx? Leon Trotsky? Davis was the teacher at Harvard whom President Obama spent the most time with when he was a student there while absorbing every morsel of the anti-American, anti-Christian and anti-Constitutional philosophy he taught. Davis plainly declares that it is essential for all religion must be eradicated from America and the constitution abolished before the nation can realize the equality and fairness that liberal-socialists believe they can deliver to society. Religion must be eliminated because it presents a diety as having authority greater than the state. The ownership of private property must be eliminated because it gives the individual personal authority against the state. Guns must be removed from the hands of citizens to eliminate the possibility of effective rebellion against the forced imposition of laws that eliminate familiar freedoms. What is more, while claiming everyone will be "equal" under the sytem they propose, it will actually require the creation of an ultra-corrupt elite class of rulers who use the force of law to take wealth from the workers to enrich themselves.
When it comes to statistical analysis, please keep in mind that I have a master's degree in management so I have a lot of training in that area. So when I make references to comparative statistics I try to simplify things as far as possible for those who do not have that level of training.
My mention of comparative crime statistics between countries was to make the point that violent gun crime is not unique to America. Claims have been made here disputing the comparative crime rates between the US and other countries. It is easy to misinterpret the data with just a quick glance at total incidence numbers instead of normalizing to a unit of pouplation, such as 100,000 which is standard for US population measures. Just comparing total numbers leads to a wrong conclusion every time unless you know the data has been normalized using the same population units. Where Country A has an incidence rate of X for a particular crime and Country B has a rate that is one-fourth the rate of Country A, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that Country A is a far more dangerous place. But when you consider that Country B has one-fifth the population as Country A, then the actual crime rate in Country B is 20% higher than in Country A. After normalizing for population differences a comparison of violent crime rates and the number of crimes committed using firearms in most of the industrialized nations of Europe and Eastern Asia is less than one standard deviation (approximately +/- 7%) apart from the US.
There are additional variables in data reporting that skew the numbers to some amount but that is not worth taking the space to discuss here.
As for my disregard of disputing evidence, the vast majority of what has been given in rebuttal has been merely a defense of political philosophy that denies any and all evidence showing the error of their claims. To you that may appear to be disregard, but to me it is exposure of falsehoods.
“If you are consistent and wish to continue reducing the evidence about the effect of citizen gun ownership on crime as "claims," then you must also dismiss the declarations God makes in scripture as "claims" because we have so much documentation about guns and so much of belief in God is based on faith that cannot be documented.”
OK, I’ll say it; could a more ridiculous statement possibly have ever been written?
William Noel is now comparing claims of the gun lobby with those of “thus saith the Lord;” as all merely “claims.”
“Volumes of data,” somehow makes them comparable.
If this stuff wasn’t here for literate people to read, who would believe it?
(Please believe me; I would not even think to be so hard on an atheist. In fact, it wouldn’t occur to me to take this approach with one.)
Rudy and Stephen Ferguson have ably deconstructed the “claim” that more guns means less crime; because it does not translate or hold up when comparing gun deaths and gun crime with those occurrences in other similar western industrialized democratic societies; and is not necessarily the only factor, as Justice Department studies also indicate a socioeconomic factor/component.
Meanwhile we know, by experience, what God “claims” He can do, He will do.
So are you saying William, that you personally have more evidence at your disposal that civilian gun ownership effectively and inevitably deters crime than you do that God can do what He “claims” He’ll do?
Andreas Bochmann, an early contributor to this strand, who also teaches quantitative research methods, cited an apples-to-apples comparative statistic of deaths by gun shots between Germany and the U.S. (subtracting for suicide), that revealed 0.12 such deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in Germany and 3.45 such deaths per 100,000 in the U.S.; showing a 29 times greater likelihood of being killed by a gun in the U.S.
The 2012 Centers for Disease control number of U.S. gun homicides per 100,000 residents is 3.7. Other comparative stats per 100,000 residents for gun homicides (from the World Health Organization) are Canada 0.5, Switzerland 0.52, Finland 0.26, France 0.22, Austria 0.18, Greece 0.59, Sweden 0.19, Denmark 0.22, Italy 0.36, Australia 0.09, Ireland 0.36, Spain 0.15, Netherlands 0.20, and United Kingdom 0.04.
Now we see why you absolutely ignore these and other similar statistics—because you see talk of gun restrictions as a liberal-socialist plot to prevent the U.S. citizenry from taking up arms in defense of their constitutional rights, against a (presumably future?) tyrannical United States government.
This, incredibly, from a Seventh-day Adventist who should know that, from an eschatological perspective, our rights, particularly our religious liberty rights, will not be defended by our guns.
(Reagan’s OMB Director, David Stockman, once wrote a book entitled The Triumph of Politics. What more need be said about this?)
I thank God that people around the world can see a mindset that prevails among many American SDAs in this culture. It is a sign of the times.
My apologies to everyone (including William); for tone’s sake, I should have used the word “outrageous” instead of the word “ridiculous.”
"Outrageous" or "Ridiculous" really makes no difference so long as you refuse to make yourself aware of the amount of research has been done about guns, gun laws and crimes. By contrast the Bible is just a single book.
Choosing to continue defending what cannot be supported with anything more than political rhetoric in the face of refuting evidence puts you in the company of people who still believe in Santa Claus, Bigfoot and the Abominable Snowman.
You doing some actual research? Amazing! Incredible! Call CNN! No, don't call CNN because nobody would see the story. Call Fox News instead! That will get the story out.
You are making a major mistake by arguing contrasting gun crime rates in other countries because there are significant cultural differences between them and the US. Claiming that taking away guns will give us similar results is a huge leap into politically-correct fantasy.
Keep researching because you are still avoiding the mental health issue in multiple shootings. You're also avoiding the data showing that total crime rates (and gun-related crimes, in particular) are lower where gun ownership rates are higher and crime rates are highest where you have the most gun control laws. Since you're still arguing for gun control laws it would appear that you are actually in favor of increased murder rates. I really don't want to believe that, but until you can show credible evidence that increased gun control laws result in less crime, the evidence will keep pointing to that as a possible and credible conclusion.
Since you have already arbitrarily discounted socioeconomics as a factor in violent crime statistics; what do you mean by cultural differences?
The cultural difference that is most obvious is that these nations and societies don’t have a gun fetish or gun culture.
Anyway, tell us how, for example, the culture in the UK differs from ours.
While we continue to await your explanation of the “cultural differences” that you mentioned, and the cultural differences that I asked you about between the U.S. and U.K.; you may as well explain the 2009 state by state findings on this site, comparing the “Number of Deaths Due to Injury by Firearms per 100,000 Population.”
http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?ind=113&cat=2
It appears that states with relatively strict gun laws such as New York (4.8), New Jersey (4.7), Massachusetts (3.1), Illinois (8.1), and California (8.3) have lower rates of deaths due to injury by firearms per 100,000 than do states with fewer or more lenient gun restrictions such as Tennessee (15.2), Alabama (17.4), Mississippi (16.8), Louisiana (18.1), and Arkansas (16.2). If this is true, it would certainly indicate that there is not necessarily the direct and universal correlation with the ‘more guns less danger’ theory that you have espoused as a fact. These figures seem to indicate the opposite.
Perhaps there are socioeconomic factors at play. I await your explanations on these fronts.
(I also await your Christ-centered, love-based, preferring one another, turn the other cheek, fruit of the Spirit justification for guns in general; but particularly civilian-owned military-style assault firearms.)
Perhaps you are talking to both me and William here, but somehow I think you’d like me/us to take it individually.
I made the effort to address William’s questions; and have engaged you as well. I have strong opinions about this; but would like to understand what others have to say when they do not agree.
For example, I asked William what he meant when he said “when you limit the liberties of others you not only make it easier for others to limit the liberties you enjoy, you give them motivation to seek that infringement because of what you have done to them. So, what liberty that you enjoy exercising are you willing to lose?”
I certainly asked for a clarification, however, as you may have noticed, this was not answered; and I still do not understand what he possibly had reference to—insofar as “[making] it easier” or “[giving] them motivation to seek” to infringe my liberties is concerned.
I think I know what you mean by “[affording] to be wrong in our opinions;” but what is your perception of “dialog,” if isolating and answering numerous specific questions does not constitute a legitimate attempt?
(I understand that we do not share the same perspective about this topic Timo; so this may be tough to answer.)
North vs South
As to differences in gun culture, I heard a sermon on the topic once by a Texan. He claimed that the incidents of home break-ins were lower in areas of the US with high gun ownership, such as the South. However, those same areas had high homocide rates amongst people familiar with each other, as opposed to strangers, the classic situation being someone murdered in cases of adultery. Not sure if it was true, and the sermon was based on a book (which now escapes me), but it has a ring of truth to me. Interested to know what others think?
UK
As for other countries, the UK (which I have lived in), doesn't have the same gun culture for what I know. For example, police traditionally didn't even carry guns, which has somewhat being displaced as a result of terrorism at major transportation and government buildings. However, volunteer reservist police still don't carry guns as of 2009 (when I last lived there).
Australia
Australia traditionally has had more of a gun culture – probably more so than the UK. We too were a frontier society with a strong glorification of the squatter and the bush. Our gun culture, however, has somewhat changed, especially when the conservative Liberal (don't get confused by the party name) banned semi-automatic weapons. We also don't have a Bill of Rights, thank God, given we still hold to the traditional conservative value of the doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty, which arose out of Oliver Cromwell's Puritan victory of English Civil War (upon which the American Revolution was argubaly just its second phase).
South Africa
Not sure about Canada or Ireland, but if you want to know an anglo-culture with a strong gun culture, I suggest South Africa. There, farmers patrol their land with full military-grade harware and British Army medics do exchanges in South African hospitals – because all the gun wounds is the closest thing to combat medicine outside of a conflict zone. Not to mention whole apartment buildings which are routinely hijacked and the fact that 1 in 3 women are raped. I know a bit because my city Perth, Australia, has a massive South Aftican population, so I have many South African friends and colleagues.
US gun culture – a Christian country?
The US mentality towards its gun culture still seems quite bizzare to me (and most of the rest of the world). I do struggle to see how such a gun culture gels with America's claim to be a Christian nation founded on Christian principles? I would be interested to hear William explain that obvious contradition, given this is after all a religious website, so one would expect some level of discussion about religion.
Stephen,
Just looking at raw homicide rates and gun homicide rates only gives you part of the picture. According to the Centers for Disease Control, guns are used in only 30% of total homicides. A closer look at police statistics shows some common threads about what leads to gun homicides and where they are most likely to occur. Gang activity associated with trafficking in illegal drugs typically is #1, though general gang activity in inner-city areas competes closely at #2 and is sometimes locally #1. Together those account for around 82% of all gun homicides with the great majority of victims being other gang members and law enforcement officers. They also cluster in very limited geographic areas. Coming in at #3 is shootings in the course of the commission of a crime such as burglary or robbery which, curiously, is most likely to happen in a lower-income area where the victim is less likely to have a gun or home security system. Together these three situations account for 93-95% of murders in any given year. But what is most curious is that the overwhelming majority of these murders using guns happens in communities and states with laws restricting the ownership and concealed carry of handguns. The "military-style assault weapons" that anti-gun advocates like to howl about are rarely seen used in these crimes for some simple reasons: handguns are cheaper, more available, easier to hide and ammunition is less expensive.
This illustrates the point I have been repeating about the public perception of risk being skyrocketed to stratospheric levels far above actual risk.
Last night my wife reminded me of a couple stories former President Ronald Reagan told in his memoirs and diary. In the first story, nuclear arms limitation talks with the Soviet Union had broken down and a reporter asked if he feared what they might do. "No," was his simple reply. Another reporter asked, "Mr. President, if you don't fear the Soviets, what do you fear?" His answer: "Liberals, because of how they take a minor problem or something of no consequence and stir up so much fear about it that people start believing when they say the solution is to pass a new law prohibiting it." The second story recounted a meeting with the Liberal Speaker of the House and his top party leaders in the Cabinet Room at the White House. Asked afterward to describe the meeting, Reagan answered, "Instructive." Asked to explain further, he answered: "I used to think (male bovine manure) just came out of the back end of a bull. But they were spreading so much around in there that I had to look around and remind myself of where we were because I was beginning to think we were in a stockyard."
That was 30 years ago and Liberals have only refined their skills since. So, please, be careful how you interpret what is said by American politicians and what you see echoed in the news media because it is so typically widely separated from truth and used to serve a larger political objective.
Another observation about American national politics that I have come to appreciate says that "Washington, D.C. is five square miles of lunacy surrounded by reality." To which some wags have added: "And wouldn't it be great if we could just fence it off and keep all the lunatics inside so they wouldn't be able to mess up the rest of the country!" To which some others have countered that the problem is that we've allowed the lunatics to congregate there for too long so they've lost touch with reality.
The perception of contradiction between America being a Christian nation and the number of guns Americans own is a political misnomer. The two are not antithetical unless you are trying to justify using them in the commission of a crime. The Children of Israel were instructed by God to keep their swords and spears (the available military technology of the day) close at hand to defend against thieves and invaders. Peter was armed the night Jesus was arrested. Jesus didn't tell him to get rid of his sword, just to put it away.
A far more pertinent question to ask is whether America is still a "christian" nation given the new dominance of anti-religious liberal-socialism, the low rates of church attendance, a general moral decline among those in public positions and the compromising of ethics in business and law.
We are not now, nor have we been talking about all homicides. We are talking about guns generally, and the need for civilians to possess military-style assault weapons particularly. Accordingly, the odds of being killed by a gun are germane only insofar as it compared to places where such weapons are illegal for civilians to possess.
The research indicates that states with the more strict gun laws generally have lower rates of injuries and death by gunshot—even though these are those with the largest urban areas, where gang- related and drug-related shootings most often occur—than do states of the deep South, where gang-related types of activity occurs less frequently (than in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, for example); and where the gun laws are nowhere near as stringent or restrictive. So, if your extrapolation and personal conclusion regarding the clustering of the “overwhelming majority” of gun murders held water, then the state by state rates of gun deaths due to firearm injury should show New York, Illinois, and California to have much higher rates of deaths per 100,000 than Alabama, for instance; which isn’t the case.
Furthermore, your referral to gang and illegal drug activity is related to socioeconomic status. (Or do you deny that as well.)
You still have not explained the cultural differences (that you broached) between the U.S. and the other western industrial democracies (nor have you explained the cultural differences between the U.S. and the U.K.) which accounts for the vast differences in gun deaths per 100,000 between these nations and America; or which would mitigate against our numbers being comparable given the same, or similar, gun restrictions, over a period of time.
As for the Christ-centered, love-based, preferring one another, turn the other cheek, fruits of the Spirit justification for guns generally, and civilian-owned military-style assault weapons—designed for the sole purpose of mowing down human beings I might add—I would remind you that the Children of Israel weren’t Christians.
(That Peter stuff is too weak to mention.)
By invoking Reagan anecdotes, you have resorted—or actually retreated—to political rhetoric.
The D.C. area had the highest number of firearms deaths; Louisiana was second.
A wide swath across the southern U.S.–the Bible Belt area, including Arizona, has the largest number of gun owners and gun deaths.
Elaine,
Check the data again. The relationship between gun ownership and violent crime rates is direct and inverse. Yes, there are variations across the country. But the studies of the relationship produce a statistical confidence interval (CI) in the 80-plus percent range. The few studies I have seen or seen reviewed had significant data analysis problems or were designed to skew the results toward a pre-determined outcome so they had no statistical validity. To put this into perspective, a CI in the 80s is considered very reliable, 95% is considered very reliable and 97% is considered highly reliable.
When you are provided with studies and statistics that show that other similar western industrialized democracies, where there are less guns, the rate of gun deaths per 100,000 is consistently dozens of times less than in the U.S.; and when you are provided with studies and statistics that show that in the U.S., the states with the most stringent gun restrictions generally have much lower rates of deaths due to gunshot injury than do the states with less restrictive gun laws; you ignore both sets of statistics and retreat with pathetic sophistry, or political rhetoric, or actually both.
Stephen,
Last night my wife reminded me of the truism that "There is none so blind as he who will not see." Your arguments have demonstrated two things beyond any shadow of doubt, that facts matter to you only if you can select tidbits as fuel for continued argument while rejecting the body of information and the pursuit of truth and knowledge are not as important to you as appearing to have knowledge by arguing the loudest and longest. I have been foolish for not having heeded this lesson from the past, so I see no benefit in continuing. I can only pray that God will open your eyes to see and follow Him with greater allegiance than you now have to liberal-socialism.
Now you want to shut it down. When I had suggested that we had exhausted this topic you immediately followed with “I absolutely love it when a liberal can't handle facts! To paraphrase Rush Limbaugh, it's so easy and way too much fun! When they can't avoid the facts they can't control the discussion. When they can't control the discussion is when they turn to the only option they have left, which is trying to limit and eliminate free speech. And that's something they've already made clear is essential if they're going to avoid having their lies exposed.”
Now you want encourage or challenge me to follow Christ more than a political ideology with which you happen to disagree. When I asked you, repeatedly, to give me the Christ-centered rationale for civilian ownership of military-style weapons which are designed for no other earthly purpose than mowing down other humans; you refused to do so on the basis that, in your considered opinion, this is not a spiritual issue.
Of course, if it not a spiritual issue, why are you impressed to pray that I follow Christ more than liberalism? (Something I certainly encourage you to do.) Are military-style assault weapons for civilians Christ-centered? Naturally, when pressed, you claim it irrelevant.
I could certainly go on (and on), but I am certain that you see no inconsistencies or double standards or hypocrisies in your positions or your arguments, whatsoever.
Thankfully God has permitted all of this (and other) conversations to be on record. I am gratified that anyone can read and evaluate what we both have written here; because it has deep and meaningful and timely implications for the near future.
Simultaneously however I am saddened by you and by what your mindset unfortunately represents. You are convinced that political liberalism and its ideological positions and manifestations represent the spirit of anti-Christ; which would then leave political conservatism and its ideological positions and manifestations to represent the spirit of Christ.
Yet it is me who cannot see.
When Jesus told His disciple to put the sword away, He followed up with "all who take swords will die by swords.
Earl,
I’m glad you brought us back to that text because there is something important in it that gets overlooked by most readers. It is a meaning that is implied in the original Greek but gets lost in translation. A simple reading of the text makes it is easy to jump to the conclusion that Jesus was telling Peter that it was wrong for him to carry a sword, but that would be incorrect. The phrase translated “live by” conveys the meaning of priority or purpose in life. Including that meaning, Jesus’ statement would be more accurately translated “…for all who live (with the purpose of doing violence to others) by the sword shall die by the sword.” Peter was a fisherman and of a character that made him prone to disputes that could easily escalate into violence. Jesus was giving Peter a warning about his character.
Let's contrast the character of Peter with the character of God. God loves us. He wants to be with us and close to us. Like a young man courting a prospective wife, he does things to attract our attention and entice us into loving Him. He gives us His law so we can be awared of His standards, but He does not use the power of law to coerce us into obedience. Contrast that with the primary message presented to non-believers by most Christians: Repent and believe in Jesus because if you don't God is going to burn you forever in hell if you don't. The emphasis is not on falling in love with Jesus so we wil want to obey Him. The focus is all about avoiding something that God is threatening to do to you. There is nothing positive to entice us into believing and obedience.
God does not compel us to obedience. He has given us a list of laws and instructions to help us know Him better and so we can see when we are living in harmony with Him. But at no time does He ever force us to obey. He respects our free will and gives us the freedom to choose how we will live according to what we have learned about Him. We may be wrong but He still gives us the liberty to make our own decisions. He does not force us to be right.
Contrary to the claims made by here by others, gun ownership is neither evidence or proof of a person’s life purpose being to do harm to their neighbors. The overwhelming majority of gun owners are law-abiding citizens and good neighbors. We have a word labeling those who do seek to harm others or who accept it as a normal part of pursuing what they do: criminals. The differences between the law-abiding and criminals are as great as east and west or day and night. To accuse the law-abiding of having the nature of a criminal just because they choose to own a gun when you would not is a gross falsehood and the fruit of a sinful nature not transformed by God.
In this discussion we have at least one person calling for laws to restrict the free exercise of rights by the law-abiding. Such calls are directly contrary to the nature of God, who in His great love for us allows us the freedom to be wrong while He entices us to obedience. We may not agree with the choices others make in how they exercise their rights, but if we are to behave in a Christ-like manner then we must respect the right of others to make choices different from what we might make. Claiming to be a follower of God while compelling others to be subject to our will is an act of blasphemy because we elevate ourselves to a position of authority above others that belongs only to God. It is a sin in the same spirit as the papcy in claiming the authority of God to enforce worship on the first day of the week. Instead of seeking to enforce our will on others we should be elevating the greatness of God in view of others so they can be drawn to Him and transformed into His likeness subject to His authority alone.
So, we agree (Timo and William) that this conversation should continue. Or at the very least, that more needs to be said (although you may prefer it be said by others, instead of me).
Perhaps you can also join me in agreeing that it is a good thing—a blessing—that this is all on the proverbial record; and that others can read and evaluate what we’ve written, and that this is a vitally important topic that reveals much on a variety of levels.
Timo, you should in all fairness go back and read the entire conversation with William, since you seem to have missed our addressing of the ‘effectiveness’ of the previous “Assault Weapons Ban,” and the methodology of the author of More Guns, Less Crime.
Perhaps I have not been sufficiently clear, although I have certainly tried to be. Fortunately your posts will now give me another opportunity to hopefully clarify my perspective.
I understand now that you, like William, see this as a liberal vs. conservative thing; and that if liberals are against it, you must then be for it, and if liberals are for it, then you must be against it.
From a pragmatic perspective Timo; if we should use Israel’s methods, why shouldn’t we use Canada’s, or the UK’s, or Australia’s? I have asked for a clarification of what William perceives as “cultural differences” between the U.S. and other western industrialized democracies which have dozens of times fewer—fewer—deaths by gunshot per 100,000 inhabitants (the U.K. being one of them). If restricting civilian access to weapons has proven to be an effective method of maintaining drastically lower rates of gun deaths than America experiences, then given our Second Amendment, restricting certain types of weapons and certain high-capacity magazine clips—something that even Antonin Scalia has acknowledged is constitutional—is certainly a plausible methodology.
Besides, pragmatically, why are armed guards and weapon restrictions positioned as an either/or proposition?
Along these lines, can ideas or issues stand or fall based on whether they are conceptually worthwhile ideas or issues, and can withstand logical and statistical scrutiny and examination; as opposed to whether they are considered ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ ideas or concepts?
This is practically difficult, if not impossible, once we invest political liberalism or political conservatism with intrinsic moral or spiritual dimensions. It is especially difficult if we do it either subconsciously or simply by default. That is, if liberals and liberalism are morally deficient, if not demonic, then any idea or associated with liberals or liberalism must be so considered, and so does any person who is deemed a liberal; and conservatives and conservatism, by default, have to be morally superior, if not spiritual. The same thing would apply in reverse.
The fact that a Christ-centered, love-based, preferring one another, turn the other cheek, fruits of the Spirit rationale or defense for the civilian ownership and possession of weaponry invented, designed, and engineered for the sole purpose of mowing down multiple human beings is non-existent, should tell us that we need more than political ideology to inform us regarding good and ‘not so good.’
Heretofore no one who acquires such evil weaponry has been characterized on these boards. We haven’t discussed people to this point. But since Timo has interpreted my characterization of these weapons and their undeniable purposes as “[polarizing] the dialog as people wanting to own weapons expressly for ‘mowing down people’” and “characterizing pro-gun people…;” I may as well actually talk about people, or at least insofar as they relate to the weaponry that we actually have discussed.
Anyone who acquires any weapon whose sole purpose is to kill multiple human beings—and if you deny this, please identify any other purpose—either anticipates, or is implicitly willing to use such weaponry for the purposes for which they are designed.
They may even be citizens of good reputation who have not yet broken the law—if that is what you mean by ‘honest and courageous populace”—but that does not deny the truth that the weaponry in question is designed for the purpose of, and thus enables, the killing (via the mowing down) of human beings.
It is indeed gratifying to read that “for the record, [you are] all about reducing the senseless killing of innocents.” It would be more gratifying if, for the record, you considered all killing as inherently senseless and were all about reducing killing, period; though I know this anyway.
(I could say more, and undoubtedly will.)
Stephen,
God does not force us into obeying Him, yet you seek laws to compel obedience. When are you going to start behaving like Jesus?
When will you stop topping yourself, William?!
This is certainly a most incredible post. I will let it stand; as its ‘logic,’ especially given the topic at hand, says everything anyone would need to know.
Stephen,
You have claimed that the only purpose for owning certain guns is to do harm to others when the owners of those guns have no such intent. When are you going to stop disobeying the Ninth Commandment?
Inasmuch as I am your neighbor, why don’t you quote me; if you are going to risk breaking the Ninth Commandment?
In fairness, isolate and identify the statement to which you refer, with quotation marks. Unless, that is, a double standard applies.
When are you going to stop avoiding answering simple questions, or being held accountable for your statements?
If this blog is any indication of the fight Congress will be slogging it out, we're in for a long theatrical 2013!!!!!! As a child of eleven, my mother mistakenly killed a man during deer-hunting season. PAINFUL AND LIFE-CHANGING FOR EVERYONE. I decided not to ever-react, my husband had a gun previously owned by his grandfather which was hidden away. But I am here to say, we need to have balance and deal with assault rifles used in the war zone as well as those magazines that allow one to shoot 10 or more bullets in a few seconds.
Bea,
I can scarcely imagine what trauma your mother suffered as a result of that accident. Wow! That definitely explains why you feel the way you do.
While I have enjoyed target shooting on a number of occasions and was a crack shot with a .22 rifle growing up, my wife and I chose years ago to not have a gun in the house because of having a mentally-challenged daughter who was prone to violent outbursts. We also did our best to prevent having violent video games in the house. If Adam Lanza's mother had done the same things we might not be having this discussion.
It is very easy to conclude that one simple action or another would prevent seeing a repeat of such actions in the future without either considering the lessons from history or testing our hypotheses to see if they will actually work. The level of emotion in the national reaction to the Connecticut school shooting has produced many calls for specific actions but no examination of how they would function or if they would deliver the desired results. We can allow emotion to rush us into writing reckless or extreme laws that will be ineffective and violate constitutional rights. Or, we can take some time to deal with some fundamental questions, test our ideas and act more intelligently using the answers we find. I hope we will be wise enough to slow down and take the time needed to evalute proposed actions carefully before turning them into law.
William,
You seem to be missing some things. Adam Lanza's mother did not do what you did. And, the way those who want the broadest interpretation of the 2nd amendment react to gun control encourages people to think they are entitled to their guns with no accountability.
Of course, people will have emotional reactions to the Newtown event and they may overreact. But, we are not going to legisilate anything new overnight there will be time for studies. I think gun enthusiasts overreact just a much only it is because they are afraid they want be able to take their AR-15 to the range and enjoy destroying a target.
I'd love to see more gun enthusiasts step up and agree that we do very little to create a sense of accountablity. Why not propose changes that will minimize the fear of parents who have to send their children to schools that are a target for some lunatics (no matter how few they are).
Clarification – I was that child of eleven when my mother had that terrible accident.
William,
(This is addressed directly to you; but Timo should certainly be paying close attention as well.)
You have a penchant for accusing me of various things by asking questions that are akin to “when did you stop beating your wife?”
Timo can read, but obviously is so committed to his differing point of view (from mine) that he ignores your shamelessness, and focuses his wrath on me and/or liberals/liberalism. You, William, have refused to address points that have been raised on this topic from both a public policy perspective and from a philosophical perspective; unfortunately you have instead opted for an ad hominem approach.
Since you cannot logically address germane issues such as the constitutionality of existing laws that restrict weapons, you have desperately resorted to asking me “simple” questions like “when will [I] start behaving like Jesus?;” on the basis that I am proposing to ban civilian ownership of weapons designed to kill multiple souls for whom He died. (Jesus does 'recommend' obedience, by the way; although we should obey God rather than man if ever there is a conflict.)
While asking me when I will start behaving like Jesus, you can’t/won’t provide the Christ-centered, love-based, preferring one another, turn the other cheek, fruits of the Spirit rationale for civilian ownership of the weaponry that has been under discussion on this thread. Sorry, but we're not playing double standards.
Now you accuse me of breaking the Ninth Commandment. However when I ask you to prove this accusation by merely providing a quote of mine which would demonstrate the veracity of your witness against me; remarkably you (apparently) refuse to do so. Nevertheless you shamelessly continue your steady drum beat of accusations by claiming that I refuse to be accountable for my statements. (Sorry, but we’re not playing double standards.)
Let me help you with this, gentlemen. I will repeat this statement for you: “Anyone who acquires any weapon whose sole purpose is to kill multiple human beings—and if you deny this, please identify any other purpose—either anticipates, or is implicitly willing to use such weaponry for the purposes for which they are designed.
“They may even be citizens of good reputation who have not yet broken the law—if that is what you mean by 'honest and courageous populace'—but that does not deny the truth that the weaponry in question is designed for the purpose of, and thus enables, the killing (via the mowing down) of human beings.”
Stephen,
You stated "Anyone who acquires any weapon whose sole purpose is to kill human beings…" America's millions of law-abiding Americans who own guns have different reasons. If your accusation isn't a false statement and proof of violating the Ninth Commandment then the sun doesn't rise in the east.
I'm still waiting for you to explain how compelling compliance with laws that violate the rights of others is behaving like Jesus.
Stephen,
Believe it or not, I see a lot of myself in your posting. That is, how I used to be. How I was when my pride drove me to believing that I had to be right about everything and it was not possible for anyone to have a fact-based reason to have a different view than mine. Sometimes I thought everyone else should see things the way I did just because I saw it that way. Then some harsh encounters with reality opened my eyes and made me realize how wrong I was. It wasn't just being factually incorrect, it was being grossly disrespectful of others. Worst of all, I was misrepresenting the character of God. I had to repent and I knew it. But repentance required surrendering my pride. I didn't want to do it. It hurt. But that was all it hurt. Repenting allowed God to work in me and through me in greater ways than I had ever seen before.
You don't have to be right. It is your pride that is driving you to believe and defend deceptions. Worst of all, it is causing you to misrepresent the character of God. So I am calling on you to repent of your pride and allow God to work in you in the ways He wants instead of the ways you are imagining.
Your talent for topping yourself is undeniable.
I provided you the quote to which you had reference; and pathetically, you disingenuously would not repeat it in its entirety; because if you had it would’ve contradicted the veracity of your bearing false witness charge.
In basic fairness, if nothing else, when one accuses someone of bearing false witness, one should state specifically what that person said and show it to be false.
I would remind you, for the third time; that we are not playing double standards. You crack me up, claiming to be waiting for an explanation of “how compelling compliance with laws that violate the rights of others is behaving like Jesus.” I have of course awaited a Jesus-centered rationale for the weaponry under discussion; and an acknowledgment of the reality that weapon restrictions have been found to be constitutional. Yet for some reason William, and I’m pretty sure I know what it is, you think that different standards apply to you than those which apply to me.
Incredibly, by your interesting ‘logic’ there should be no laws in society whatsoever; because laws involve observance or compulsosry obedience, which you say that God does not demand. Of course in reality, God uses governmental authority to prevent (forestall) absolute demonic chaos.
Trust me, there is no question that I am far from the Christian, the follower of Christ, the lover of my fellow man that I should be.
This isn’t about me. When one can’t prove what one is arguing or defend one’s case, one has no (Christian) right to call names and accuse brethren of being followers of Satan and commandment breakers.
I don’t know many things, but I do know for sure that you do not speak for God in any way. You have nothing to which to commend me; despite having a grasp of Christian jargon. That much I certainly know.
This was about certain types of (principally semi-automatic) weaponry and high-capacity magazine clips for which there is no other purpose other than the ‘efficient’ killing of human beings. Such weapons are demonic in their inception.
I will not back down and will readily repeat (over and over) without fear of successful contradiction that civilian ownership of such weaponry is absolutely unnecessary, and a menace. Any civilian (because that is the class of citizenry under discussion) who acquires weaponry that is solely designed to kill (via the mowing down of) multiple human beings either anticipates using or is implicitly willing to use such weaponry for the singular purpose for which it is designed.
Which threat to the public is greater? A seriously mentally-ill person who might decide to commit suicide in a dramatic way and kill others along with himself? Or, a disciple of political correctness and falsehoods who is demanding the limitation of a fundamental liberty by restricting something he cannot even describe in enough detail that any law would be enforceable?
Of course, William, you cannot deny that military assault weapons and high-capacity magazine clips are designed for the sole purpose of killing multiple human beings in short order.
Of course, you also cannot provide one single, solitary reason why an American civilian would need any such weaponry at their disposal.
Of course you further cannot deny that conservative American Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has acknowledged in the Heller decision that codified restrictions on weaponry are indeed constitutional; and that therefore is no unrestricted “fundamental liberty” to any kind of weaponry whatsoever.
So then, with what are you left William; other than another pathetic attempt to denigrate the individual with whom you disagree?
Actually, by your incendiary ‘logic,’ I am worthy of the same prophylactic treatment that a deranged individual “who might decide to commit suicide in a dramatic way and kill others along with himself” might get. After all, there’s a question in your mind as to who is more dangerous.
How utterly sad? How utterly pathetic!?
Liberty is the most precious thing we have because it enables each citizen to live without fear of suffering the tyranny of dictators. Without it we become slaves to the whims of the state and rulers corrupted by power. Any loss of liberty will impact on 315 million citizens at once instead of a handful in one place or another. What is more, it will accelerate the national decline you like to talk about in prophecy. Because those who assault liberty are advancing the rule of Satan, anyone who assaults liberty is the enemy of God.
We are supposed to be reflecting the character of God to the world so people will be drawn to Him. God does not force us to obey Him. You claim to be a follower of God, so why are you wanting people to be forced into compliance with laws you can't even describe in enough detail that they could be enforced? Does your advocacy not expose the hypocrisy of your claim?
Stephen,
Equating origin with alternate applications is an easy mistake to make when discussing technologies. What is invented for one purpose typically finds use in other purposes and what is developed for war often finds far larger and more beneficial uses than the original intent. Such is the case with many military technologies.
You have repeated the claim that items developed for the military are inherently evil and have only evil uses. That overlooks a simple truth: technologies and devices do not have brains, are inanimate and thus are incapable of knowing the difference between good and evil, so it is impossible for them to choose between them. Evil and good each require consciousness and knowledge enabling us to distinguish between them. By themselves they can do nothing. What makes them either good or evil are the motivations of the user and decisions made in particular situations. This is how a firearm in the hands of a criminal can be used for evil purpose but in the hands of a citizen or law enforcement officer can be used to protect society. So, because you have the ability to know and distinguish between good and evil, claiming that any inanimate object is inherently evil is itself an act of evil.
Each day you use and benfit from a long list of technologies developed first for military applications.
Guns designed originally for war and killing now have far more common uses in sporting uses and for self defense. Self-defense is not a demonic act.
Dynamite made war more destructive. But a list of industries use a greater quantity of explosives than all the armies of the world combined. High-rise buildings and roads would not be possible without their use in quarrying and construction. Without explosives, mining would not recover the ores and minerals in the volumes required for modern life.
Bandages that speed the clotting of blood in cuts are a recent benefit to society that were developed specifically for use by American troops in Iraq. Another development that has recently entered use is a substitute blood plasma that requires no refrigeration or other special handling so combat medics can more effectively save lives. The paramedics working for your local ambulance service now carry it in their supply kits.
The Global Positioning System was once a highly-classified tool used to increase the precision of weapons delivery onto targets. Today most commerical aircraft use GPS navigation to get from their point of origin to their destination along a direct path instead of a zig-zag path between navigation beacons on the ground. Millions of drivers us it in their cars. If you have a General Motors car with the OnStar system, you have a GPS-based system that can help the police locate your car if it is ever stolen. Fedex and UPS use it to deliver packages to you more quickly.
If you wear bifocal contact lenses or lineness bifocal glasses, they were made possible by a military technology developed to improve the photo resolution of spy satellites.
Sensing technologies used to do things like help firefighters locate and attack fires in hidden places and wearchers to rescue lost children were developed to help soldiers find hiding enemy soldiers.
The technologies allowing autopilot systems to stabilize commercial aircraft and keep you from spilling your glass of juice were developed to guide torpedoes fired by submarines to sink ships.
I have a list from a graduate school class a dozen years ago describes more than 1,100 technologies developed for military applications that have found far wider and beneficial uses in non-military applications. That total has been growing by more than 150 items per year since then.
Let's go back to your claim that guns exist solely for the purpose of killing people. Yes, they were designed for that purpose. But the millions of gun owners in America use them for different purposes with sporting uses (target shooting and hunting) being the primary uses followed by self defense. So if we are to believe there is a shred of truth in your claim that people own guns solely for the purpose of killing large numbers of other people we need evidence of motive and intent that so far no one has been able to produce.
William,
No one has hinted that the weapons and magazine clips under discussion—engineered and designed for the sole purpose of killing multiple human beings very quickly—cannot and/or have not been used by the military or law enforcement officers in a lesser-of-evils capacity to thwart or prevent even more deaths than might have occurred otherwise.
You are avoiding the issue by your diversion of target practice and sport shooting; uses for which the level of firepower afforded by the weapons and magazine clips under discussion are not remotely necessary.
American civilians may constitutionally own guns for personal protection and may legally use guns for sporting purposes; but there is no need, nor constitutional right for American civilians to own any manner of weaponry that they may want, or can afford to purchase.
Any CIVILIAN who acquires the weaponry we have been discussing; weaponry solely designed to ‘efficiently’ kill multiple human beings, anticipates or is implicitly willing to use such weaponry for the exact and distinct purpose for which this weaponry has been designed.
Such weapons are demonic in their inception. Such weapons are a menace to civilized society.
i thought i was through with this blog. This will be my last word. Obviously there are various ways to kill one, or many people in just a few minutes. It depends on the weapon of choice. And of course all thru history we have evidence of the wholesale slaughter of hundreds, thousands, millions. ie: Sodom, Gommorah, the Flood, Tribal warfare, Alexander the Great, Rome, Mongols, Barbarians, Ottaman Empire,European Nations & Colonialism,US Civil War, Stalin in Russia,Japanese aggression/Asia, Hitler, USA (Hiroshima-Nagasaki), Mao/China etc etc etc. These are a few of mass annihilations. In addition we are currently witnessing Terrorism, sinister continued Colonialism by the US, Europe, Nato, United Nations. It has always been, and will continue, because of the evil in man's heart.
1. Was the carnage because of laws, or absence of laws?
2. Were the victims ever able to defend themselves from government superior forces?
3. Has God ever used government authority to prevent absolute demonic chaos?
4. How has intense years of expertise study of weaponry for killing ever been a blessing to mankind?
5. Has not every latest weapon of mass destruction not been utilized?
6.Pray tell, does Jesus the King of Kings, wish us to be involved in wasting a part of our lives, studying and using killing tools?
Earl,
Those are excellent questions worthy of exploration. My answer to #2 through #5 is negative for each. I absolutely agree with you on #6. It is #1 where crime statistics show that the carnage is greater where gun control laws prevent the law-abiding from defending themselves.
Earl,
In attempting to provide a correct answer to your first question, please allow me to again cite
http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?ind=113&cat=2
The fact of the matter is that as of 2009, in the United States of America, the average number of deaths due to injury by firearms per 100,000 people was 10.1. The ten (10) states with the greatest number of deaths due to injury by firearms per 100,000 were Louisiana (18.1), Wyoming (18.1), Alabama (17.4), Mississippi (16.8), Arkansas (16.2), Montana (16.0), Nevada (15.5), and Tennessee (15.2), Alaska (14.7), and New Mexico (14.6).
The ‘bottom’ ten (10) states, that is, those with the fewest numbers of deaths due to injury by firearms per 100,000 were Massachusetts (3.1), Hawaii (3.6), New Jersey (4.7), New York (4.8), Connecticut (4.9), Rhode Island (5.0), Minnesota (6.2), New Hampshire (6.2), Iowa (6.3), and Nebraska (7.3).
The top 10 states or the states with the most deaths due to injury by firearms per 100,000 are the states with relatively less stringent gun ownership restrictions; certainly as compared with the bottom 10 states, or those with the fewest numbers of deaths due to injury by firearm per 100,000.
The outlier is the District of Columbia which has a history of very restrictive gun laws, but yet had 16.6 deaths due to injury by firearms per 100,000; which would have placed it just behind the state of Mississippi (or fifth overall).
The upshot is that the actual statistics renders William’s assertion “that the carnage is greater where gun control laws prevent the law-abiding from defending themselves” (wherever that may be) much more likely to be totally false than true; especially given the comparable number of firearm deaths per 100,000 in other western industrialized democracies, wherein law-abiding citizens may actually be prevented from defending themselves. In reality, we know that nowhere in the United States do gun control laws actually prevent the law-abiding from defending themselves. In reality, we know that the Supreme Court has ruled (in Heller and McDonald) that Americans do have an individual right to own guns for personal protection and that a ban on civilian ownership of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazine clips would simply be in keeping with the existing constitutional laws that now prohibit civilian ownership of fully automatic military assault weapons.
As there is an undeniable preoccupation with partisan ideological liberalism vs. conservatism among some participants on the this site; it may as well be noted that the ten (10) states with the most deaths due to injury by firearms per 100,000 are all ‘conservative’ or ‘red’ states, that invariably vote Republican in national presidential election cycles.
Of the ten (10) states with the fewest deaths due to injury by firearms per 100,000, nine of them—the top nine in fact—are states that both Clinton and Obama carried two times, each.
As far as question #3 is concerned Earl, I would simply refer you to Romans 13:1-5, and most particularly Romans 13:4. This indicates that God continually uses governmental authority to blunt evil and evil doers. This is not to say that all governments are therefore good; but the authority and might they have been given are authorized/designed to combat evil and chaotic evil.
Timo,
I appreciate your thoughtful comments and the kind firmness with which you express them. You have provided me with a reminder that I often need to be more sensitive when writing my comments.
I haven’t been able to log in for a couple of days (thank goodness?).
Timo, since you have been aligned or allied with William in your comments, especially on this particular thread and this particular topic; I thought that you might “certainly be paying close attention as well” (as William) to my commentary on this topic.
Would you have instead preferred that I said “…addressed directly to you; but Timo should certainly pay close attention as well”? I would think not; then again you may not perceive a bit of difference.
As you well know, we seldom agree on anything or, in my view, even understand each other the vast majority of the time; but allow me to continue to stick with the topic under discussion.
I do not follow your “tyranny” logic. If, as it sounds, you and others like you, believe that military-style assault weapons (it seems that description irritates you for some reason), and high-capacity magazine clips are, or could be, or will be necessary for civilians to combat a tyrannical U.S. “beast” government, then wouldn’t it be logical to your way of thinking that civilians also be permitted to keep and/or bear whatever weaponry the potentially tyrannical U.S. government has at its disposal, just in case?
This is difficult to discuss when both you and William will not engage in the examination or the exploration of the logical extension or conclusions of your claims. For instance William wants to talk about this in spiritual, WWJD terms from the perspective of giving people the liberty to do what they want to do and not burdening them with too many laws. But when asked what the Jesus-like, love-based rationale for civilian ownership of weapons designed to assault and kill multiple human beings (for whom Christ died) in short order, he claims this isn’t a spiritual issue.
Now you claim these weapons, or the liberty/permission for civilians to own these weapons, and presumably others, are necessary because (in your words) “an informed, conscience driven honest populace is first defense against tyranny [and] fact is, when a government is afraid of its own people having full defense against even its own tyranny, liberty, justice, and any vestige of freedom has evaporated.”
Now Timo, what does a “full defense against even its own tyranny” really mean? What do you mean by “full defense?” Should the informed, conscience driven honest populace (whoever they are) have whatever they deem as needful for a full defense in terms of weaponry at their “defense” disposal?
Who is it that determines who the “informed, conscience driven honest” people are? Exactly who is to be considered “informed?” What does “conscience driven” mean to you? What manner of information appropriately informs someone’s conscience?
This is what I mean by exploring the logical extensions of your argument. Wouldn’t a “full defense” include the same weaponry and firepower that the tyrannical government has?
Of course, Justice Scalia, certainly no liberal FYI, has acknowledged (in the Heller decision) that there can be codified restrictions to civilian gun ownership (which is something neither one of you have acknowledged). In other words Timo, laws restricting certain guns or delineating regulations are not necessarily unconstitutional.
This includes current laws that now prohibit civilian ownership of fully automatic military weapons. I would remind you that I am simply proposing the extension of such existing civilian prohibitions to be inclusive of military-style semi-automatic (assault) weapons and high-capacity magazine clips. But of course, such restrictions also make it impossible for civilians to have a “full defense” against a potentially tyrannical government.
Besides, exactly who is it that determines at what point the potentially tyrannical government has become the actual tyrannical government; at which time the “full defense” can commence?
Please remember your stated justification for civilian ownership of military-style assault semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazine clips—what we’re discussing—is that of a potential “full defense” against a tyrannical government. However the Second Amendment places the defense against a tyrannical government in the context of a “well-regulated militia.”
I notice that you and William repeatedly reference liberalism as if liberalism is the issue. That’s clearly how you see this, as an ideological team left vs. right battle. But this is about civilian ownership of certain weaponry with certain firepower, that’s all.
I have been able, or certainly trying, to discuss the issue itself, without a generalized criticism (or for that matter a specific criticism) of conservatism; because that’s a distraction, and not what this is about.
Apparently you associate the tyranny that you envision or anticipate with liberals or liberalism. If this is the case, then this is a zero sum proposition with you; and everything is binary—black or white. Any idea associated with liberalism (not a political party Timo, but a political ideology) is assumed subversive; if not effectively evil.
This forecloses examination of the merits/logic, or lack thereof, of any particular issue or position by itself; without regard to ideology/team.
Stephen,
In simplest terms, tyranny is the imposition of laws at the whim of a small group or individual who are not constrained by any law or constitution and regard no power but whatever then can amass and wield.
That is the form of government Prof. Franklin Marshall Davis at Harvard University has been advocating in all of his books AFTER THE OVERTHROW OF DEMOCRACY AND THE ABANDONMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION. Barack Obama describes himself as a devoted disciple and follower of Davis. Do you need a brighter spotlight to show you what is happening and the true nature of our nation's highest leaders?
Such overthrow of all democratic government and the overthrow of the US Constitution has been the declared objective of liberal-socialism for a century. Apparently you still don't believe this, so, I suggest you start reading the writings of the liberal-socialist philosophers who created the basis for the modern liberal-socialist movement so you can become aware of the true nature of the political movement whose policies you so completely support. It is in those writings that you will also find another clear declaration of purpose: the complete eradication of the worship of any diety from the land because people view dieties as possessing an authority higher than them. By doing this they claim they will free themselves to enforce whatever laws are necessary to remove anything evil from the land.
I don't know if you ever saw the movie "Patton" starring George C. Scott. There is a scene where his inferior armored forces are able to defeat the far superior German forces under the command of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel at el Alamein. Patton was able to do it because he studied the book Rommel had written about the use of armor in combat. So he knew what Rommel was going to do and was able to defend against it. In the same manner, I have read the writings forming the basis of the liberal-socialist movement in America. If you have read any of them, you obviously have embraced them as truth while disregarding the teachings of scripture. If you have not read any of them, I suggest that you do so you will see the truth of what I am saying and how you have been deceived into supporting a movement that is dedicated to the complete and total destruction of all worship of God in America.
Choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
(For the record, I would remind those who may be following that, although it should be obvious for whom I did and did not vote in November, 2012; that I have never defended or advocated on behalf of the current U.S. administration or its political party on these boards.)
In my sales career, it was incumbent on us to uncover the real objection.
The truth is that William views liberalism-socialism as essentially equivalent to the anti-Christ dragon; and that therefore “[serving] the Lord” is equated to fighting against it and its adherents.
Indeed how else can a follower of Christ defend as necessary/”liberty” civilians owning military-style weaponry and firepower designed for no other purpose other than killing multiple human beings—other than the perception that liberals are opposed to guns, and/or these weapons?
This certainly explains everything (and I mean everything); and should serve as a cautionary note to all who wonder or doubt the absolute importance of historical SDA eschatology. As I’ve said, this forecloses the possibility of rational discussion of any issue which may conceivably be associated with either end of the political spectrum on its own. (What would happen, hypothetically, if “legalistic” Saturday observance became associated with “liberals,” like me?)
Many of us are SDAs, but according to William’s line of ‘reasoning,’ it is more important that we be politically conservative; because whereas one (certainly) doesn’t have to be SDA to serve/see God, one surely cannot be a liberal-socialist and serve/see God. Political conservatism is equated to “[serving] God;” and the alternative is surely sinking sand.
Appropriately, Porky Pig of Looney Tunes cartoons fame used to say "Th-th-th-that's all folks!" Indeed, what else really need be said?!
You love to debate about the fulfillment of last day events as described by Ellen White. So, how would you like an opportunity to take your discussions up the quality scale several steps by infusing them with details about how Satan is working where she provides only a broad view? Doing that is not difficult, but it will take some time. Just read the authors whose works formed the basis of the modern liberal-socialist movement that I've been encouraging you to read. You will be amazed by what you discover.
This 'parable for this age' might be relevant here. (Not sure if hyperlinks like this will work, but one can always copy it into one's browser).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/rev-james-martin-sj/more-parables-for-our-times_b_2352090.html
Just remember, those who live by the sword……… get shot by those who don't.
Serge,
I commend that author for his creative illustration but decry the falseness of his message. He is writing from the same viewpoint of the anti-gun zealots who are promoting the falsehood claiming the only reason to have a firearm is to kill others. The #1 reason Americans own guns is for sporting uses such as target shooting, and hunting. Personal defense is in a distant second place. What is more, most of the guns Americans own are long guns (rifles and shotguns) that are not as effective at close range (less than 25 feet) for defense as handguns because of their size. I count among my friends a considerable number of gun owners. They are all law-abiding citizens who have a far healthier respect for the freedoms and dignity of their neighbors than even the least vigorous of the anti-gun advocates I know. If there is a need in the community where volunteers can help, it is the gun owners who typically are first to show up and help their neighbors while the anti-gun folks stand back and call for the creation of a new government agency to do what needs done.
I think a far more profitable discussion for Christians to have is about the ethics of self defense because it has direct connection to spiritual issues. I see two primary issues. First and foremost is loving others enough to respect the freedom God has given them to make their own decisions without us criticizing or condemning them simply their decision was different than we might have made for ourselves. Second is how to encourage spiritual growth so that a person's faith in God will grow them into His perspective where the most important aspect is trusting Him for their eternal salvation regardless of what happens to us here.
Serge,
My hat is off to you. I wish you had found this earlier:)
Stephen,
How long will you persist in abusing the mercies of God? How much longer do you dare tempt the patience of God?
In recent years I have been witness to God allowing several such as you who were advocating for the sworn enemies of God such as you are doing to suffer disabling strokes so they could have a chance to repent and learn His ways, or be laid in an early grave to silence their continued opposition to Him. Please, my brother, repent because you do not know how much longer it will be before God's patience ends. God has suffered long with you and He does not want you to suffer the destruction that awaits Satan and all who have have become the disciples of deception. You point others to prophecies showing that time is short. Take heed of your own words to turn around and live.
My brother William,
I hesitate to do this because this is public, but your comments have been public, so it’s appropriate.
I do recommend you seek professional guidance. You are not a prophet and do not speak for God in any way. If you dispute this, it’s further evidence of delusion.
By giving me this ‘warning,’ you have now, unfortunately, placed yourself in a position of actually hoping that something happens to me for the sake of your own credibility.
Previously, on this thread, you have actually questioned whether my opinions regarding civilian ownership of military-style semi-automatic assault weapons and high-capacity magazine clips are more dangerous than a deranged “person who might decide to commit suicide in a dramatic way and kill others along with himself.”
I have written a lot on this topic and have provided arguments and evidence. I have repeatedly asked you to provide the spiritual justification from a Christian perspective for civilian ownership of weaponry and firepower that are designed for the sole purpose of killing many human beings quickly, and you have refused to entertain the request on the grounds that this is not a spiritual issue. However my disagreeing with you on this issue is a spiritual issue worthy of a warning from you regarding my very life; not to mention the threat implied by your questioning “Which threat to the public is greater? A seriously mentally-ill person who might decide to commit suicide in a dramatic way and kill others along with himself? Or, a disciple of political correctness and falsehoods who is demanding the limitation of a fundamental liberty by restricting something he cannot even describe in enough detail that any law would be enforceable?” (I quoted your entire post, so as not to misinterpret you.)
Again, I am gratified that this is all here for others to see and evaluate because it reveals much, about much.
I pray that God is more merciful to you in the judgement than you have been here to those who have exposed your sophistries and attempted to show you the falsehoods that you defend.
FYI, I'm already under the care of Dr. Jesus Christ, whose office is located at #1 Redemption Road in Heaven. It was His treatment that freed me from my past addiction to liberal-socialism.
Timo,
This issue is not by any stretch of the imagination, the binary false choice you are representing it to be.
We already have—and have had—constitutional “gun control” in this nation. It is already illegal, and constitutionally so (see Heller), for American civilians to own certain military automatic weapons; so what is your point? Logically, at some point you must acknowledge this; and explain what your “full defense” against a potentially tyrannical government might entail.
No ban on all civilian ownership of any and all guns is being proposed. Furthermore your statement on Switzerland’s gun crime rate is inaccurate, shall we say. What we are concerned with is deaths by firearms; and a listing “of countries by firearm-related death rate” Switzerland ranked 46th from the top in having the fewest number of homicides by firearm per 100,000 at 0.52; and Switzerland ranked 58th from the top in having the fewest number of total firearm-related deaths per 100,000 at 3.84. (According to this ranking the corresponding U.S. rates for firearm homicides was 3.7, or 62nd from the top in terms of fewest deaths per 100,000; and for total firearm-related deaths, 10.2, or 67th from the top in terms of fewest deaths per 100,000.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate (this list and its sourcing)
Since you have cited religious persecution and worse; in your view of eschatology, do you envision Americans defending our religious liberties with military-style semi-automatic weaponry?
I agree with you Timo that history has quite a loud voice on this issue…. If Exectutive orders are used rather then acts of Congress to make changes I expect this situation to deteriorate rather quickly.
“I’m done here. You’ve said enough.” Classic!
Timo,
If you want the last word, please refrain from misquoting or misstating anything I have said. Asking me not to comment after doing such is not fair; but then again, how important is fairness?
Of course, I have never claimed Obama to be more Christian than anyone. I have no idea what you are talking about; and am almost afraid to ask. I have seldom broached Obama’s name on these boards, as the record will show.
As for William, he has threatened my health and very life with God’s wrath. He has suggested that my disagreeing with him is possibly more dangerous to the public than a mad man who is a threat to commit suicide and kill others in the process. (As I said, how important is fairness?)
That is something different than being open about one’s conservatism; unless you are suggesting that threatening ‘liberals’ with the wrath of God is what a conservative naturally does. Are you serious?
Nowhere in scripture does it suggest that the ideology of any political party is Christ-like; this is what I’ve been arguing on this site for some time now.
My ideologies, theological and political, aren’t hidden. (Your denial of yours is quite rich.) It’s just that issues should be discussed on their own, without ideological labeling; whereby team mentality and prejudices then stifle discussion/debate.
I’m sorry that I missed this post. Please identify. Timo, what level of weaponry would be required for the "honest" populace’s “full defense” against a tyrannical U.S. government?
As for conservatism, my discussion of this never once mentioned conservatism at all; until liberals, liberal-socialists, liberalism was raised by ‘others.’ I fully agree, mentioning ideological labels distracts and diverts focus/attention from the relevant/salient issues.
For the record, it should be noted that I am not a teacher and that my views represent no organization whatsoever.
It should also be noted, or corrected, that neither Scripture nor EGW make reference to any political party playing eschatological roles.
Timo is predicting (“mark my words”) that a certain political party (“your party”) will have us running to the hills; because/since they will have taken away our guns.
The prophetic danger that historical Adventist eschatology and The Great Controversy envision—by way of interpreting Revelation 13—reference no political ideology or political parties, entities, or personages.
As I have previously stated, the trouble in my view may come from either direction. It is the actions and the words that have to do with the aligning of the church with the state, whereby the state will be empowered to do the church’s bidding, which bears watching.