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Originally Posted by spence
I can understand how it's easy to confuse shootings, there's been so many in recent memory. It's also probably a stretch to claim the incident was stopped by a concealed carry. He said he didn't shoot because there was another person he could have hit. To say the shooter just happened to see his handgun and decided to kill himself instead is taking a giant leap of faith...
I'm not saying that people are going to stop wanting firearms, I'm stating that the banner of the NRA as the protector of the Second Amendment will continue to be tarnished if they can't engage in a reasonable debate.
Aside from some papers there have been a number of Republicans rethinking their position on how we regulate guns.
-spence
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Regulating guns is different than regulating people. The second amendment is not about regulating guns. It is about the right of the people to own them. If it were possible, and it may be, to regulate the manufacture of guns to only fire when used by those legally issued to own them, that would go a long way to prevent gun violence by those who steal them, borrow them, or buy them illegally.
As far as the NRA not engaging in a reasonable debate, I am sure that it believes it is being reasonable and that the anti-gunners are not. To dismiss, out of hand, statements and positions of the NRA as being unreasonable, seems unreasonable to me. To accuse them of not being able to have an adult discussion, then dismissing their suggestions without debating them, seems very unadult. Their so-called banner of the protector of the second amendment, if there is such a thing, has been well-earned. What other interest group has been influential enough, and engaged enough to fly such a banner? The NRA's position, if I understand it right, is that the goal of those who wish to further restrict gun ownership IS the repeal or re-interpretation of the Second Ammendment . The putative reason for banning what are called "assault" rifles is that they allow the user to kill larger numbers in a shorter time. I have not understood what the acceptable number of victims is before "something must be done." People have been arguing that "something must be done" about handguns for a long time. And handguns have been used to kill far more people in this country than those killed by "assault" weapons. The whole argument has long been about criminals killing people, not how many. And if you can set a precedent that some guns can be used to kill larger numbers and so must be banned, the door to banning "less" lethal guns will be opened a crack more.
I don't know where reason stands between the second ammendment and an adult or reasonable discussion about it. Arguments about what it means or what types of arms it means are like most other arguments about what portions or clauses of the Constitution "mean." That is, discussion of constitutional meaning , except by strict constructionists, are about how the Constitution can be bent or changed to fit the preference of majorities, or interest groups, or judges who feel their position to be above the law and are thus empowered to write it.
There is nothing in the unammended Constitution that gives the Federal Government the power to regulate private gun ownership. The Second Ammendment was not needed in that regard. Madison warned against such ammendments. The Constitution, as written, limited the central government to certain enumerated powers. The restriction of private gun ownership was not mentioned as a power or was not a part of any enumerated power. The Constitutions "silence" on the issue "means" that the Federal Government does not have the power. Madison warned against amendments that "gauranteed" rights which were already inherent in the Constitution because it would open the door to a discussion of those rights as being limited by the strict wording of the ammendment rather than being unlimited or unalienable against the power of the central government. Even worse, he warned that future mischief could be done to the entire body of the Constitution by the addition of a bill of rights because that bill could be construed as the limit of the people's rights rather than the people's rights being the vast majority which are left to them by limiting the government to the few enumerated powers. He reluctantly wrote the first set of ammendments so that the States, whose reprentatives vehemently wanted a bill of rights, would all agree to and accept the Constitution. What he feared has to a great extent happended. SCOTUS judges most often now only give strict scrutiny to Federal infraction of a few rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, the rest of the Constitution having been re-interpreted to mean whatever five or more judges wish it to mean. And even those rights in the Bill of Rights have become weaker, including not only the right to bear arms but also freedom of speech and religion. And the massive changes and effective negation of the Constitution have come about by "reasonable" jurisprudence.