Re: Hammers and guns and Jim and Michael

It was proposed here that hammers kill as many as guns. It does not

> hold up to any reasonable degree of scrutiny. > >
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> > Jim and Michael hate to hear the truth. > > Are you guys one or two entities? > > I am kill-filed. Will never sleep well again.

The article quoted was about how _rifles_ (not all _guns_) kill fewer people than hammers (well, hammers and clubs). All rifles are guns, but not all guns are rifles. Since all of the recent hoopla is about _rifles_, it makes sense to ask if _rifles_ as a sub-class of guns should get so much attention when hammers and clubs kill more people than _rifles_.

If you had actually read the article you would have seen that they did quote the same report as showing that handguns kill many more people than rifles, shotguns (which were in a separate catagory), and hammers and clubs, combined. And, they pointed out that if handguns kill so many more than just rifles, why is the hoopla centered around rifles?

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Tim Wescott
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Schuler doesn't read. He hides behind criticism. labeling it ad hominem... when it's HIS ignorance on display.

Add him to the list. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      | 
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

There are three sensible things to comment on this:

- How many people can you kill with a hammer in a restaurant before getting smacked down?

- Is there any other use for a gun except for killing people and hunting?

- Is putting more guns in the hands of potential lunatics the solution?

Over here they are currently looking into all licensed gun owners. Anyone who has (had) mental problems has to turn in their guns and the license.

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Reply to
Nico Coesel

So you are saying we need restrictions on handguns as well as rifles. Good idea. I agree. And the sooner the better.

What we also need are people to take responsibility for their weapons, much like Australia established at their massacre. The cops come by and want to see if you still have the gun. No big deal. Let them in and show them your weapon(s). That would get rid of the straw purchases.

Reply to
miso

Potentially bad data. The weapon used in the homicide is "supplementary data", which is optionally supplied to the FBI by the various police agencies. If this supplementary data is missing, nothing appears on the tables. From the footnote of URL below: "Total number of murders for which supplemental homicide data were received."

Also note that they define homicide as murder and do not seem to make any provisions for manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, and aggravated assault. There's also no consideration for self defense or the results of later trials where an accused murder suspect is deemed innocent. In other words, the FBI data is seriously lacking.

Here's a different breakdown by state and weapon of choice (including rifle). Hmmm... no totals. Using California, that's: Handguns 953 Rifles 59 Shotguns 44 Firearms type unknown 201 Total Firearms: 1,257 Knives and cutting 250 Other weapons 201 Hands, fists, feet 103 Total Murders: 1,811 Kinda looks like handguns are the weapons of choice in California and rifles are much less popular.

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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

-

ut

Of course, how silly. Guns aren't for killing people--that's illegal, and severely punished. They're for defense, for sport, and for food. Many people are alive today because they used a gun defensively, as is their right.

We've got almost 300 million guns in America. If they were for KILLING people, we'd have bodies everywhere.

James Arthur

Reply to
dagmargoodboat

So you're saying that the person in a mass killing is more "valuable" than the individual.

Certainly! The biggie is self defense, but you already knew that.

No but putting more guns in the hands of the common citizen quite obviously is.

Who the f*ck cares what they do "over here"? Die, for all I care. Until that happens, BUTT OUT.

Ignorant boob.

Reply to
krw

Here are three who are still alive because of her gun:

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Reply to
krw

not

the-

, but

Excellent example. We hear them _all the time_, in the local news.

As for rifles, when you say no one needs to have more than 10 rounds, you're saying a Korean shopkeeper in Los Angeles, defending his life, store, and family against a mob for six days during the LA riots only gets 10 shots, right? You're condemning him to _death._ The same applies in Katrina, and other civil unrests.

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What does it matter how many rounds a law-abiding good guy wants to carry? It doesn't.

James Arthur

Reply to
dagmargoodboat

Oh no! Not the list! Anything but the list.....

This thing with numbers. Maybe we're looking at it the wrong way.

How about a 'homicides per single weapon' index ?

That's where the tens and twenties of victims show up, when semi-automatic mechanisms with large magazines are involved.

Other types of firearms gives us-all Pac-people the opportunity to make ourselves either scarce, or heroes, after the first few rounds.

Oh well, as you'd say - Life ain't fair.

RL

Reply to
legg

t

e-

but

ld

an

By that measure, let's ban airplanes, and register box-cutter buyers and rental-truck renters. Background checks for all--let's start files on 'em! Fees too (this stuff isn't free)!

Then if you live on a remote property and several assailants come after you, you just have to die? Ask them to wait while you change magazines? Or if there's civil unrest, or a natural disaster? Sure, rifles can be misused. But, it's rare.

If the real concern were saving human life, sooo many preventable things kill far more people. Teen drivers. Alcohol. Tobacco. Hospitals.

At bottom it's that guns are scccarrrrry--an irrational hysteria clouds this whole issue. Good guys with guns protecting their own lives are a blessing to liberty and a problem to no one, as proved by the 100 million of them every day. How many rounds they need is none of our business, any more how many romantic partners someone's allowed.

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Reply to
dagmargoodboat

It's too late for Congress to worry about large magazines. I'm already 3D printing them to arbitrary size and am experimenting with ABS plastic springs for tension, too. If I can do it.... anyone can.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Kirwan

With regard to gun ownership and the 2nd amendment:

Unless we the ?people? have a few A1 Abrams, Appache helicopters and F2

2s lying around, it?s not likely well do much to fend off the Government.

Don?t ever forget Ruby Ridge or Waco.

If the concept is to be able to effectively counter a ?perceived? tyran nical government, we?re headed in the wrong direction. We need at least full auto, access to grenades, rocket launchers, etc!

Hell the state I live in won?t allow full auto of any sort. We the ?fol ks? are just plain too damn under ?armed? to make much of an impact. But what the heck, we can smoke pot!

The 2nd amendment needs to revised, or thrown out.

But what is clear, is that this nonsense re s/a weapons, is because most of the people targeting the weapons don?t understand the weaponry.

The real issue is the nut behind the trigger, and everybody knows it. But I suspect, providing an effective solution will be way too costly and much more difficult.

Easier to make busy work and go after high profile emotional topics than fi x problems.

Having said all that I?ve been staring at my AR-10 for several hours and it has yet to jump up and battery a charge. I have no ?frigin? idea wh at?s wrong with this damn thing!

My .02 worth.

Reply to
jdc

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. No it wasn't.

The issue was rifles.

You have to first know what's under 'scrutiny' and you failed.

The truth is you don't even know what's under discussion.

Reply to
flipper

Can't disagree with that. (See long note below, though.) The original purpose of the 2nd Amendment no longer exists in the form it did when it was written. For many reasons.

But you may miss my point, given the rest I see below. I'll resay it again, at the end, after the "..."

The original purpose included foreign invasion as well as internal revolt as well as providing the "last" and "final" check against those who might wish to use a federal force against those in a state of the union.

Other checks were added, including a bar against the idea of a standing military -- also a barrier long since broken for reasons both good and bad.

But at the time, there wasn't a standing, well trained army; and there wasn't nearly as large a distinction in weaponry. And the world was different in other ways. (Though I think after reading the massive book, Les Miserables, I'm starting to take the position that there isn't anything at all new about politics.)

Understood.

Pot is harmless. If legal, there'd also be no violence because the courts would then be available to settle disputes.

My next door neighbor sells full auto. But if I remember correctly in the US these are quite limited -- no additional pieces are authorized and the existing stock is the only legal stock allowed. And licence fees must be paid ever year, if I remember right. (Never owned one, though.)

It's already been revised. A 1939 Supreme Court decision used an entirely "prudential" argument having nothing whatever to do with original intent, in my opinion.

However, at least there remains an individual right that was recently upheld... for whatever that turns out to be worth.

I'll add below a long comment I'd written in 2004 on this topic. Might be interesting to refresh memories.

That's largely true.

It may also require deeper self-examination than most are willing to engage in. As well as the expense.

Looking busy, though.

I don't often see those and know nothing about their design. But I do know my weapons well enough to make and replace some of the parts. (I don't do rifling for example.)

...

My point wasn't to either encourage or defend any particular side in this seemingly perennial debate or to take sides. There are strongly felt and reasoned feelings from many quarters.

My intent was to point out that while it once might have once been practical to ban large magazines from sales at stores, it no longer is. 3D printing has already been able to cheaply build lower receivers that can withstand "some" use before breaking. It certainly can be and is being used to build large capacity magazines that work rather well. Banning larger magazines today, in 2013, will only create a lucrative niche market for 3D printing. It's effect now will be much less than it might have been a few decades ago. (And again, I'm not arguing about that effect. It probably had little to no effect for the intended reasons at the time.)

I also imagine it will be 'very hard' to make semiautos illegal. What would be the alternate? Revolvers? Single fire break-barrel designs like a Barreta 86-F, but without a magazine? I don't think any of that would pass, either.

Time needs to be put elsewhere. The magazine debate is pointless. It would, even if passed, only create a new marketplace as well as accelerated efforts towards cheaper, more advanced 3D printer designs. That genie is out of the bag, now. There's no putting it back.

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...

I'm going to quote a little from the Federalist papers. I want to make it clear that at the time they were published they were not the only opinions around. But they were popular ones and written to push a point of view. There were a number of other factions, including the anti-federalists (like the "Federal Farmer".) Still, the 2nd Amendment was well understood and commonly accepted as wise at the time.

The Supreme Court (itself ever changing) gleans intent not just from the Federalist Papers. Those papers tell how some thought and, to the degree that their arguments won through in writing specific phrases and lines in our Constitution, you can find some measure of "original intent." But there is also the intent of those who actually wrote specific elements and the intent of those who voted in support of the final document and that is gleaned from elsewhere, including reading the debates in the various legislatures that ratified. (As well as in letters, trial versions of the text before editing changes, and so on.)

Modern Constitutional analysis doesn't just conclude even from these original intent arguments. Current thinking seems to include:

(1) textual arguments, which appeal to the unadorned language of the text and without any 'original intent' analysis to speak of (on the theory that the document is the controlling agreement that was signed, and not just what some folks may have read into it at the time);

(2) historical arguments, appealing to an historical background, such as specific appeals to the intentions of framers, as lit by their many writings on the subject (this is more of that original intent thing);

(3) structural arguments, analyzing the particular structures established by the Constitution, such as the tripartite division of the national government or the separate existence of both state and nation as political entities and/or the structured role of citizens within the political order (a bit of an abstraction, but useful in understanding the _thrust_ of intent where specific details may be lacking);

(4) doctrinal arguments, focusing on implications of prior cases decided by the Supreme Court (stare decisis);

(5) prudential arguments, which emphasize the consequences of adopting any proffered decision in any given case;

As an example of number (5) above, the 2nd Amendment was in many ways thoroughly changed from original intent when the U.S. Supreme Court held in United States v. Miller, 307 U.S.

174 (1939), that the Second Amendment was designed to protect only the ability of the states to maintain a well regulated militia. This 1939 case is the only modern case in which the Supreme Court has addressed this issue, and since this Miller decision, every federal court that has considered the issue has rejected the contention that the Second Amendment confers a right to firearm possession unrelated to militia service. (Until District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) appeared on the scene, anyway.)

However, this 1939 position was NOT the original intent nor can it be taken from the language.

Well before District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the constitutional authority, Professor Laurence Tribe, confirmed that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right. See "American Constitutional Law, 2nd ed., 1988." He does so in a somewhat offhand way, but freely admits the difficulty of any other interpretation, writing, "...the debates surrounding congressional approval of the second amendment do contain references to individual self-protection as well as to states' rights." And Tribe was supportive of strong gun control laws.

James Madison writes about the subject in Federalist #46, saying "...the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of."

He also discusses the idea that a Federal Army might be formed in order to subdue the people. He leads his point by first trying to get an estimate of just how big an army the Federal gov't might possibly be able to muster. He then dispels it by saying, "To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops."

Alexander Hamilton writes in Federalist #29, "...but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist."

If you read the Virginia Legislature debates or what exists of the many writings by the various important visionaries around this time, well documented in George Bancroft's "History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States of America" (which is often referred to by members of the US Supreme Court), or if you carefully read through the Federalist Papers, in particular #24 to #29, #46, and others, you will find a continuing and clear understanding that common citizens must be afforded the right to keep and bear arms.

Even the opposition writers to the Federalists, for example the "Federal Farmer," an anti-federalist critic of the Constitution and its absence then of a Bill of Rights, wrote "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..."

Frankly, on this subject, there was little disagreement back then.

But, as you imply when you bring up F22's and the A1 Abrams, the prudential argument wins out at this time. Despite the original writings and intent. The essence of this position is based on (5), mentioned above. And it amounts to asking this question,

"What would happen *if* we decided that the Second Amendment provides an absolute, constitutional protection for the right to bear arms in order to preserve the power of the people to resist government tyranny?"

If one then decides that there *is* such an absolute right, then one is forced to the conclusion that the Second Amendment must allow individuals to possess bazookas, torpedoes, SCUD missiles, biological weapons, and even nuclear warheads, for they are, like rifles and pistols, __arms__. Certainly, it is hard to imagine any serious resistance to an organized and well funded standing military without many of such arms.

Since to most people in the US today that is clearly unacceptable to social stability, the question is therefore reduced to a different one. No longer is it whether or not to restrict arms ownership, as that is already been determined by examining alternatives. The question becomes only by how much to restrict it. The Second Amendment's origianl intent has bene demolished by a prudential refusal to accept the original arguments and intent.

The important issues won't be examined. They are more abstract, largely unattended, and will take time to consider and then turn into concrete goals. It's much easier to pick on pithy adages that play well with an ignorant public.

The debate about magazine size will continue. I just think that it won't achieve its goals, even if some restricting law comes to pass. Today, it will be even less useful because of the ready availability of 3D printers and the ease of making them if you don't already have one, from readily available parts. I'll be using heavy rollers and aluminum I-beams designed for pocket doors by Johnson Hardware on the next one I build, for example. They aren't going to control pocket door hardware, nor the software that is readily available for driving these machines with good accuracy. And they are getting easier to buy or make, by the day. And Pirate Bay has already set up a special section just for these "Physibles." As well as the links I provided above.

Interesting times.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Kirwan

A recent CSI episode had the killer 3D printing 'disposable' guns.

Reply to
flipper

The Second Amendment was put there to ensure our ability to defend ourselves against a tyrannical government... NOT anything to do with hunting or target plinking.

Thus politicians fear an armed populous.

The left seems hell-bent to undo that, so that we become (more) subservient to an elitist government. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      | 
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

The Second Amendment was put there to ensure our ability to defend ourselves against a tyrannical government... NOT anything to do with hunting or target plinking.

Thus politicians fear an armed populous.

The peasants on the left seems hell-bent to undo that, so that we become (more) subservient to an elitist government.

I don't understand why you... those on the other side of the pond... who have already experienced a tyrannical government still pontificate for gun confiscation.

You're clueless on the true statistics... probably get all your "facts" from MSNBC.

One thing we agree on... YOU shouldn't own a gun >:-} ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      | 
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

1946 is prehistory in that context. Sadly, today it would end up in a very different way.

All it takes is the corrupt officer calling for reinforcements because they're under attack by a local terrorist cell, after taking some measures to escalate the revolt in order to make it look like a terrorist attack. In a few hours or less SWAT teams or the military arrive and shoot everyone carrying a firearm. Case closed.

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asdf

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John Fields

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