Gun Rights Vs. Gun Bans, Round Two

Gun Rights Vs. Gun Bans, Round Two

Excerpted from another recent gun email discussion, where libertarian philosophy meets gun safety considerations:

Mark Glogowski:

James, You have made a good point about kids under the age of adulthood. We should treat their use of guns the way we treat their use of automobiles. We don’t restrict the type of automobile they use, and we don’t restrict the size or cost of that vehicle. The standard for automobiles is to train those who are young, and once approved, the can drive as long as they do no harm to another. But, all the gun training classes were removed from schools. Laws are being created that restrict and prevent everyone from carrying a gun – no matter how responsible they are. What has happened in society is that society has lowered the standards of expectation concerning what responsible people will do. Apparently it is OK for responsible adults to stand around, helpless, as kids and other adults (teachers) are shot.
It is a fact of human nature that people will live up to society’s lowest expectation, because society’s lowest expectation is what the average person will enforce.  Our society’s lowest expectation, when it comes to the use of guns, is that some people will commit mass shootings.  Since that is the lowest of society’s expectations, adults stand by, helpless, and just let it happen over and over. It will not be until society says enough is enough and adults are allowed to intervene on behalf of would be victims that such shootings will stop. Increase the restrictions on people preventing them from intervening and all you are accomplishing is lowering still the expectations of society.
So, let’s bring guns back into schools and start raising the expectations of society concerning their use. Let’s stop going down the road of safety based on the elimination of personal responsibility.

Steve James:

Mark, you say: “It will not be until society says enough is enough and adults are allowed to intervene on behalf of would be victims that such shootings will stop. . . So, let’s bring guns back into schools . . ” Do you have evidence to validate your assertion? Do you know teachers who are willing and able to comply with your suggestion? I think the US could learn a lot from the Australia and New Zealand’s models: “It is illegal to carry a gun or any weapon in public in Australia, concealed or otherwise.” (Google)

Australia confiscated 650,000 guns. Murders and suicides plummeted.– https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9212725/australia-buyback

Gun control: New Zealand shows the way.– https://www.ibanet.org/article/3e4700a8-8a7b-4766-b7cc-f59474f4a894

The Second Amendment is antiquated and does not do what gun fetishists say it does. It is a militia amendment intended to enable states to respond to slave rebellions and Indian uprisings. It needs to be repealed and a serious gun debate needs to take place. I agree “enough is enough.” “Reuters/Ipsos poll of 6,800 Americans in February 2019 found that 69 per cent of respondents supported strong or moderate restrictions on firearms.” (See ibanet article referenced above.) Let’s let democracy handle the issue instead of the Supreme Court, gun lobbyists, and a corrupt Congress.

John Clifton:

Steve’s contention that the Second Amendment (2A) is merely a state militia amendment is belied by the Federalist Papers, 225+ years of US case law, and two recent Supreme Court re-affirmations of it being an INDIVIDUAL right to keep and bear arms (in the Heller and Bruen decisions). Since those two rulings happened in the last 15 years, the understanding that it is a right is not an antiquated, but current view. There would also be no need for 2A to have a “shall not be infringed” clause, since implicit in the theory that 2A meant state-run militias is that it could be freely controlled and infringed upon by those states. According to Bearing Arms, the left is
“wrong about the effectiveness of Australia’s sweeping gun ban. Homicides were already trending down in Australia long before the ban and confiscation efforts took effect, and while it continued to drop for several years afterwards the number of homicides have been increasing again in recent years.

 

Leave a Reply

Post navigation