You have made your point clear. The evidence I see is that as firearms have become more and more available, the incidence of shootings has become more and more frequent. That may be causation or it may be mere correlation, but it does not support your premise. If anything, increasing the number of people with firearms, ostensibly for self-defense, would increase the death toll - from innocent bystanders being hit and from accidental shootings.
A good thing, I think. Regardless of your (or my) opinion of the Second Amendment, the highly emotional period after such a tragedy is no time to be making relevant law. I would also like to see substantiation of your 90% claim. I'll also point out that that sort of gut reaction gave us the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security.
Interesting statistic. I've never seen it put this way before. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/nearly-two-mass-shootings-month-2009-study-finds-f8C11283046
mere hours later, this morning's breaking news was of a court security guard being shot down in the street in front of the courthouse, in a small georgia town... only hours before the seattle event, a shooter went on a rampage in one of the most peaceful towns in canada, mowing down 3 cops... all nice, comparatively violence-free areas, with white shooters and mostly [if not all] white victims, as in all of the 'breaking news' and continuing/non-stop covered incidents we've been made privy to, by national/international news venues... am i the only 'white' person who wonders how many multiple shooting incidents occurred during the same time period, in not so attractive locations [chicago/detroit/NYC/et al. ghettoes], that involved 'people of color' as the victims?... does the general/majority [white] public expect non-whites to be violent, killing each other as a 'normal' way of life, so don't find such equally tragic events as newsworthy as when whites run amok with weapons? does the loss of those minority victims [who vastly outnumber the 'newsworthy' ones] mean any less to their mothers and children and siblings and neighbors, than that of the comparatively few who make the headlines and 'breaking news'? has anyone here ever posted a thread decrying the latest drive-by that killed a little black kid playing in her yard, or an abuela on her way to the bodega for groceries to feed her family?... should they not be afforded equal space? from newspaper items [none making banner headlines, or cnn's breaking news]: chicago: 7 dead, 23 wounded this weekend detroit: 12 homicides, 100 shootings in last 10 days NYC: at least 13 hurt, 2 killed in 9 weekend shootings
I actually think that the Second Amendment was just fine as originally conceived. It does not and was not intended to provide an unqualified right of everyone to bear arms. It is conditioned upon the reliance on well-regulated militia for national security, a model embraced by the Founders at the time as an alternative to standing armies. Their experience with standing armies was that, when the nation was not at war, they were used mostly to oppress the citizenry. Alas, we have not relied upon militia in lieu of a standing army for...well, more than just a few years. In fact, the only "well-regulated militia" extant these days is the National Guard. I have no argument with their right to bear arms. I agree that times of tragedy are not ideal for writing new law. However, something as basic as checking to see if a prospective gun purchaser has 1) a criminal record 2) a history of violence or 3) a history of mental illness is hardly a knee-jerk reaction. It is a normal response to a perception that such should have been the law already. I've yet to hear a coherent argument opposing it.
The problem is a particular party says that the best defense is more unregulated guns and mental health help, yet the mental health budget has been taking a beating for the last five or more years. It's political double talk with the common person being treated as a disposable resource and pawn.
We can, I guess, disagree as to the intent of the Founders when the Second Amendment was written. The militia still exists in the form of able-bodied men (and now women as well) over the age of eighteen who are willing to accept the responsibility of arming themselves for the possible defense of the country. The national Guard is not a 'militia' in the sense the Founders envisioned, but rather a 'standing army' of the sort they feared, as is, in my opinion, the ubiquitous local, county, state, federal and private police presence which saturates our society. Current federal law requires that licensed gun dealers check prospective buyers for a criminal record. Exactly what database would you expect them to search for a non-criminal 'history of violence'? The requirement for a check on a 'history of mental illness' is a slippery slope indeed. Remember that anti-depressant your doctor prescribed for three months back in the '80s? No gun for you.
What other possible interpretation could there be to the first clause of the Amendment: "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state..."? Moreover, Madison wrote of his desire to see the country not rely on a standing army. Regulated by whom? Never took an antidepressant. Never needed a gun, either. And I sure as hell don't want someone who hears voices and who may or may not be staying on his meds to have one.
Wait, so because I have a mental illness I should have less rights than someone else? Maybe they should take away my right to vote as well.
The thing is, if a person gets treatment, they become more stable, yet they get labeled and then lose their rights. That's why so many people go without treatment and are still walking ticking time bombs on the street that can still legally buy guns. Maybe if we weren't so quick to take away fundamental rights away from people, more people would be getting treated and less of these sad instances would be taking place.
More satire, I see. ETA: on the chance that you were being serious (as suggested in your subsequent post), are you saying that if I have a history of schizophrenia, of violent outbursts and a documented tendency to go off the meds that keep me from hearing the voices that say, "Kill Lewdog! Kill Lewdog!" you don't have a problem with me having that shiny new AR-15 and 2,000 rounds of ammo?
No, I'm bi-polar. I have never threatened to kill someone else. It is a fundamental right appointed to me by the Founding Fathers of the U.S. Constitution that a citizen of the U.S. should be afforded the right to bear arms. So because I'm diagnosed bi-polar and in treatment for it, I'm less of a citizen of the U.S. than someone else?
I do agree that there's a social stigma against mental illness, but we still shouldn't be giving guns to people with mental illnesses unless they've been properly treated. Some would argue that even that's not enough because certain treatments rely on the individual to take, for example, medication once a day, and what if he happens to forget one day? I did a quick search just now and found that the majority of states have laws against selling guns to those with mental illnesses (there is, of course, a national law as well). The one problem I have with these laws is that they use the phrase "mental illness" ambiguously, though some state laws are clearer than others.
Remember Wayne LaPierre of the NRA saying, "The only defense against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun"? The Seattle shooting proves him wrong. The gunman was stopped by a student with pepper spray and a willingness to use it, and to tackle the gunman while he was trying to reload. Who knows how many more victims there would have been had that brave young man not stopped the guy?
Actually, it's a conditional right. In fact, it's the only conditional right in the entire Constitution. I have discussed this above. The notion of addressing the issue through improvement of the mental health delivery system is often posited as the better solution than regulation, but because of the way that mental health services are delivered, that involves its own slippery slope. The vast majority of patients will mental illnesses are treated on an outpatient basis, because there are moral and ethical issues that surround inpatient treatment in all but the most extreme cases. It is a deeply flawed system because many patients need to stay on a regime of medication with unpleasant side effects (note: deliberate understatement) and they don't. Some go on and off their meds, which can actually in come cases be more dangerous than just staying off them. And in any case, there is no way to predict when a person will suddenly commit a violent act and thereby prevent it. The best we can do is identify some people who are at risk to do so. @Lewdog, I do not mean to say that anyone with any history of mental illness of any kind should be denied a gun, but any reasonable person would say that it suggests a class of risk that deserves further examination. The current paradigm (to use @Wreybies' favorite word) does not allow for that. In the meantime, our polity's first obligation is the safety of its citizenry. The parents of those kids in Connecticut, of the students at Virginia Tech, at Columbine, etc all had a right to expect that their children would be safe from danger. Our current policies do not provide the basic protections to which they are entitled. The recent trend of more gun sales and more killings shows that we need to re-examine this. Sadly, gun lobby money isn't going to let that happen.
@EdFromNY my argument to you would be that I feel it is more dangerous to be giving guns to people that haven't been treated for some type of mental illness, than to be giving one to someone who is being treated for one. Until it is made a requirement that everyone that applies to buy a gun has to go for a psyche review, which will never happen, then I don't think it is fair to single out those people that actually get treatment for their problem.
If you said "more dangerous to people with mental illness who had not been treated", I would agree with you. But I suspect the incidence of such people in the general population will be much lower, as a percentage, than the incidence of people who go off their meds within the population of all mental illness patients. Moreover, as you correctly point out, it would not be practical to fully screen everyone applying to buy a gun. Keep in mind that I do not see background checks as anything more than a very tentative first step to a sane gun policy. And my point for raising it was to show that the general public isn't being given a choice, here. The weapons makers' profits are deemed to be more important.
I've always intended to sit down and make up my mind once and for all on this, with the proper research on linguistics and the writers of the amendment, and so on, so that I don't need to depend on either of the two sides to tell me what those words mean. Because I don't interpret it the way you do. If the Second Amendment had said something like: "The rights of the States to maintain a well regulated Militia sufficient to maintain the security of a free State shall not be infringed." then I'd say, sure, it's about smaller governments (states) being allowed to have weapons even if larger governments (the federal government) don't like it. But the "well regulated militia" part is given as a reason, not as a limitation. It's not "you can have enough Y to accomplish X", it's "X is important, so you can have Y." I don't see that phrasing as meaning that the right is only protected to the extent that it clearly supports the reason. For example, if the First Amendment had said: "The free exchange of ideas being necessary for the government of a free State, Congress shall make no law respecting..." would we be saying that the First Amendment only addresses speech, religion, etc. as it relates to government and politics, and that it doesn't offer any protection for those activities when they don't relate to government? (For example, "That music is ugly, and music is not necessary for you to express your opinion about government. That music is banned.") I wouldn't accept that interpretation. And there's that "people" part. It's not "the right of the states to authorize people to keep and bear arms..." The right is given directly to "the people." Now, at that time "the people" probably referred to white male landowners, but I don't believe that it exclusively referred to members of the state governments and those authorized by them. And we've thoroughly established that "the people" now includes all adults, and sometimes children. So I believe that the Second Amendment definitely authorizes adult citizens to own and haul around weapons that would be relevant in a warlike conflict. I don't actually think that I like this, but I think that it's what the Constitution means. I think that substantially stronger gun control can only be justified if we modify or eliminate the Second Amendment. Because if we can just shove that one aside because we're no longer in the mood to protect those rights, what does that mean for the rest of our rights? So I (1) disapprove of guns and (2) disapprove of gun control. It's a thicket. Ambling around the Web, I see that the original phrasing was: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person. The fact that the first version started with a bald "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" and the militia bit seems to be about "you can't be forced to against your religion" makes me feel more confident of my opinion here. Yes, one could quite reasonably argue that the changes mean that the framers changed their mind about that. I wouldn't agree. We could spend a lifetime analyzing who is right.
For the record, intervening ahead of time is not limited to arrest, though it could involve at least a 72 hold for a psych eval. And I guess whatshisface from the NRA will have to add pepper spray to his list of ways to stop a bad guy with a gun.
@ChickenFreak - you may want to research the writings of James Madison. The assumption of the founders was that a volunteer militia rather than a standing army, would be relied upon for national defense. So, even if you are correct that the first clause is a reason and not a condition, the reason for the right no longer pertains. We haven't relied on militia for national security since settlers took arms against the western tribes. An interesting speculative take on the First Amendment! I think it is safe to say that the huge body of First Amendment-related Constitutional Law would look very different from what it does now (and in fact, if I taught Con Law, that would make for an interesting final exam question). But the point is, it doesn't say that. The language is direct and unequivocal - "Congress shall make no law abridging..." Very different from the Second. And yet, despite the cries of Justice White - "no law means no law!" - we know that in some cases, some of those freedoms have been abridged, most famously in the face of a "clear and present danger". So, why shouldn't such reasoning pertain to the Second, about which the Founders clearly had some hesitations?
And yet, how often do you hear of shootings in Australia? Albeit it wouldn't mind if someone was to take out Tony Abbott...
I would really like to see some statistical data analyzing mass shooting and potential relevant factors. The number of mass shootings and casualties by state compared to factors such as severity of gun control laws and population density seem like a good place to start. I'm looking now, but surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be much of this sort of data available. I did find this though, which I thought was interesting: Over the past several decades, gun ownership has declined significantly, and continues to do so.