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Is It Time For the US To Change Its Gun Laws?
brokeplex:
OK, those who wish to change US laws to more closely reflect Canadian laws or Australian laws, tell me how you would do this? I challenge you.
It easy to say: "this needs to be done" or "that must be changed". But it is much harder to visualize a realistic plan to accomplish those goals.
If making gun control laws in the US as tight as they are in the UK would make all US citizens safer, I'd be in favor of it today. Just offering statistics comparing a city in the US with a city in another country with an entirely different set of laws, doesn't make sense to me. If a Canadian city has less violent crime, you can not logically say that is just because of that one factor, it is all of the factors which make Canadian cities, laws, and customs different than US cities.
So, those who wish to change US gun laws, knock yourself out. I'll even make it easier for you. Lets assume the 2nd amendment is a dead letter, now that is a big assumption as Moremojo is right, under the present interpretation of the 2nd amendment, it will be very difficult to change US laws into facsimiles of Canadian laws on the subject of the "right to bear arms".
But for the sake of this argument, assume that the 2nd amendment is dead. Now tell me how you are going to get all of those millions of guns out of the hands of private citizens without armed rebellion. And, once you do that, how can you be certain that criminals won't be able to get guns anyway.
I think that we all know about the illegal arms trade around the world?
So, go for it, convince me.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: brokeplex on February 15, 2008, 12:57:00 am ---But, in a similar incident last year at a school in WV, several students went out to their trucks and grabbed their guns, turned them on the perp, and held him until the police FINALLY arrived. This saved many lives, because the students themselves could protect themselves.
--- End quote ---
The frontier was declared closed in 1890. I am appalled to live in a country where (I presume) high school students take weapons to school in their vehicles.
Personally, I believe the present interpretation of the Second Amendment is unhistorical, and--is it Scalia who believes in interpreting the Constitution as the writers supposedly intended?--more attention in interpretation needs to be paid to conditions in the fledgling United States when the Amendment was written. I do not believe the amendment even as it is written prohibits any government, federal, state, or local, from strictly regulating gun ownership and sales.
I don't suppose we can do much about the guns that are already out there, but we need to start somewhere.
As an aside, the murder rate in Philadelphia has reached epidemic proportions. The city is fighting with the rest of Pennsylvania over being given the ability to do something about guns within the city borders. On the one hand, I have to admit that I am perfectly willing for drug dealers and other criminals to shoot each other, but we are having too many innocent bystanders, including small children, shot and killed by gang-bangers who can't hit the side of a barn. And then there is the issue of little kids who find daddy's handgun in his coat pocket and accidentally kill themselves.
Although my mother would not allow my dad to turn me into a hunter, I grew up around gun people, and I grew up playing with toy rifles. Rifles don't scare me. I am perfectly comfortable around long guns. Handguns worry me. And I don't believe that ordinary citizens need to own automatic weapons.
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