davef

Great Read, Beedy!

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luvtolean

That depends on how you view the Bill of Rights. And Constitutional scholars fall on both sides. The BOR does not use the word "citizen", it uses "the people". The Constitution of course, uses terms like "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." (we'll ignore the racist hypocrisy of them for the purposes of this discussison...)

What exactly do the terms "all men" and "the people" mean? In regards to the First Amendment, most agree "the people" is all people lawfully in the US, and really, those illegally here too. We don't normally arrest illegals for holding up banners at protests.

The text to the Second also uses "the people".

I personally believe anyone legally in the US is guaranteed the right to own guns with military application, due to the second amendment.

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SuperDave

Hey, thanks. It sucks, but these things happen. I miss him, but none of us get out alive. He's with me always...


Now on to business...

Different murders just change the ideology of bans, etc...

Scottland and they have a knife problem.

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SuperDave

And something on the Brits from an America college. Got to love it.

From the article...

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luvtolean

Thanks for the link.

But just to be consistent, they don't have a knife problem.

They have a morality problem, just like us.

Interestingly, a Brit on a gun board I frequent claimed in the UK they're not allowed to buy American published gun rags as they are full of knife advertising which is illegal. I haven't researched it, but I have no reason not to believe him.

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SuperDave

Oh, yeah, exactly.

And even then "we" don't have a problem. Individuals do.

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JohnnyDiablo

The answer is to ban college students

luvtolean

I think a really interesting question to ask on the topic is, are events like this more common because there are more crazy people, or do more events like this happen with the decline of community-type policing?

I don't refer to cops here, I refer to the average Joe, who used to take care of things in his neighborhood himself rather than call the cops, because often there were less cops, and response time slower, compared to now.

When I was a kid, in rural NorCal when you trespassed on someone's property, you had a shotgun pointed at you. This was accepted practice, and the cops weren't going to arrest the property owner for "brandishing" a firearm. (I speak from experience, I've been on both sides of the weapon in this scenario)

If we crossed a farmer's property on our dirtbikes, we had a real fear, maybe a bit unfounded, but real nonetheless, that we'd get a load of rock salt in the ass if caught.

Now, the person pointing the shotgun will goto jail, the trespasser written a ticket at most.

Now, in Cali at least, you have people arrested for pointing guns at people stealing their property, like their car or stereo, and even in extreme cases, stealing stuff in your house while you're in it!, not just trespassing.

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SuperDave

The question has to be asked also, it is just sensationalism in journalism too?

Yes, the VT thing is terrible. But twenty years ago, we wouldn't have been talking about it on the internet nor would we be as bombarded by it on the larger number of media opportunities.

Community policing. Yeah, I'll agree there. I did a study in my graduate work that compared crime statistics in a small town that had a pretty uniform set of laws over about a 150 year period. Many of the conclusions were that a good number of the increases in crime came from increased reporting to the police where stuff was done under "a gentleman's agreement" before. Maybe with a bar of soap in a pillow case too, but, in ways, maybe the "community policing" is a better deterrent to future crime.

When I was in college, as a criminal justice student, a research degree, there was tons of talk about how bad it was to place labels on people. Talk about the stigma. Well, they got what they wanted because it doesn't seem like anyone can label anyone anything, even if they are a lying, theiving thug with a felony record longer than the bible. I don't think my kids will understand it when they hear, "This will go down on your permanant record," on the radio. It doesn't matter. Felons vote with no reprecussions. People are jailed for protecting themselves. Individuals are drug through the briar patch based on completely ridiculous evidence...for political gain for the prosecutor.

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luvtolean

SD, great post. I cannot comment specifically as I have to head to the airport to go home, but check out this thread and vid when you get a chance.

Only Phobe and myself commented but we touched the "mindless" lack of discrimination in the country.

"How Modern Liberals Think"

I don't think it's just the ending of communiting policing, but I do think it makes people get into a mindset where they expect others to take care of confrontations for them. It's one part of a complicated problem.

Hell, maybe it's inevitable as the country becomes more urbanized and thinking like you and I have is just "old school"...

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SuperDave

I'll have to sit down and watch all that...it's a little long, but it looked good. Thanks for the link.

Here's an interesting thing about Switzerland where there are guns everywhere.

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tigerblade

Re: Community Policing

I'm sure many have heard this story: In Broad Daylight

Many of you know my parents own an oil jobbership (deliver fuel and oil to farms, factories, etc.) My father was still working for my grandfather back then and dad says he got a call from one of his friends the day before, telling him not to come to Skidmore the next day...

SuperDave

I don't think I've read about that. Too much of my schooling was about cases, so that would have been outside the regular scope of things.

Here's more. This was in Omaha, my hometown, from 1919. Henry Fonda was from Omaha, and he witnessed it...
NebraskaStudies.Org

Here's an interesting case...
John Joubert (criminal) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And it takes me back to Omaha, and a serial child killer.

In Omaha, it started with the abduction of a paper boy. He delivered three papers that morning, and one of them was to a friends house that I was staying at for the night.

Later, a guy I knew was friends with this enlisted guy, John. It was stuff we all learned after the fact how close this animal was to our regular lives.

There was a lot of tension in the community about all of it. I knew some people that were working on the search teams that found the first body, and it was a greusome sight that would have probably been something out of "Seven" or "Silence of the Lambs."

There was some drama when they finally got him on the Air Force base, and there was talk about "getting him" from the court house.


I don't think guns would have been used in the child killer's community policing. So, it isn't a gun control issue there. But I think it would have certainly given a new meaning to specific deterence to Mr Joubert.

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luvtolean

Well, it's getting thick.

McCarthy offered up another AWB bill this week and was questioned by Tucker on what one of the "evil features" described in "her" bill was...she had a little bit of trouble.



And we had Eisner, yes, of Disney fame, on TV saying it's time to use emotion for the abolition of guns in the country.

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Video: Eisner says it’s time to get the public “emotional” about gun control

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SuperDave

I love it when folks like that let it all out.

I'm gonna buy my M4 before the end of May now. Almost signed up with the NRA today, but I'm bike building...

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Purpdust

Why is Tom Brady talking about more gun laws

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SheepOfBlue

I believe the definition for that is demogogue..

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SheepOfBlue

Carol cut him off

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SuperDave

That's Mike Brady...and a whole other topic...

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SheepOfBlue

y'all look alike in them boxes.

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Heavy-Dee

cleveland.com: Everything Cleveland

luvtolean

Extremely well written article on the topic, and of all people and places, it's by an academic, and published in the LA Times?!

Gun control isn't the answer
Why one reaction to Virginia Tech shouldn't be tightening firearm laws.
By James Q. Wilson, JAMES Q. WILSON teaches public policy at Pepperdine University and previously taught at UCLA and Harvard University. He is the author of several books, including "Thinking About Crime."
April 20, 2007

THE TRAGEDY at Virginia Tech may tell us something about how a young man could be driven to commit terrible actions, but it does not teach us very much about gun control.

So far, not many prominent Americans have tried to use the college rampage as an argument for gun control. One reason is that we are in the midst of a presidential race in which leading Democratic candidates are aware that endorsing gun control can cost them votes.

This concern has not prevented the New York Times from editorializing in favor of "stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage." Nor has it stopped the European press from beating up on us unmercifully.

Leading British, French, German, Italian and Spanish newspapers have blamed the United States for listening to Charlton Heston and the National Rifle Assn. Many of their claims are a little strange. At least two papers said we should ban semiautomatic assault weapons (even though the killer did not use one); another said that buying a machine gun is easier than getting a driver's license (even though no one can legally buy a machine gun); a third wrote that gun violence is becoming more common (when in fact the U.S. homicide rate has fallen dramatically over the last dozen years).

Let's take a deep breath and think about what we know about gun violence and gun control.

First: There is no doubt that the existence of some 260 million guns (of which perhaps 60 million are handguns) increases the death rate in this country. We do not have drive-by poisonings or drive-by knifings, but we do have drive-by shootings. Easy access to guns makes deadly violence more common in drug deals, gang fights and street corner brawls.

However, there is no way to extinguish this supply of guns. It would be constitutionally suspect and politically impossible to confiscate hundreds of millions of weapons. You can declare a place gun-free, as Virginia Tech had done, and guns will still be brought there.

If we want to guess by how much the U.S. murder rate would fall if civilians had no guns, we should begin by realizing — as criminologists Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins have shown — that the non-gun homicide rate in this country is three times higher than the non-gun homicide rate in England. For historical and cultural reasons, Americans are a more violent people than the English, even when they can't use a gun. This fact sets a floor below which the murder rate won't be reduced even if, by some constitutional or political miracle, we became gun-free.

There are federally required background checks on purchasing weapons; many states (including Virginia) limit gun purchases to one a month, and juveniles may not buy them at all. But even if there were even tougher limits, access to guns would remain relatively easy. Not the least because, as is true today, many would be stolen and others would be obtained through straw purchases made by a willing confederate. It is virtually impossible to use new background check or waiting-period laws to prevent dangerous people from getting guns. Those that they cannot buy, they will steal or borrow.

It's also important to note that guns play an important role in selfdefense. Estimates differ as to how common this is, but the numbers are not trivial. Somewhere between 100,000 and more than 2 million cases of self-defense occur every year.

There are many compelling cases. In one Mississippi high school, an armed administrator apprehended a school shooter. In a Pennsylvania high school, an armed merchant prevented further deaths. Would an armed teacher have prevented some of the deaths at Virginia Tech? We cannot know, but it is not unlikely.

AS FOR THE European disdain for our criminal culture, many of those countries should not spend too much time congratulating themselves. In 2000, the rate at which people were robbed or assaulted was higher in England, Scotland, Finland, Poland, Denmark and Sweden than it was in the United States. The assault rate in England was twice that in the United States. In the decade since England banned all private possession of handguns, the BBC reported that the number of gun crimes has gone up sharply.

Some of the worst examples of mass gun violence have also occurred in Europe. In recent years, 17 students and teachers were killed by a shooter in one incident at a German public school; 14 legislators were shot to death in Switzerland, and eight city council members were shot to death near Paris.

The main lesson that should emerge from the Virginia Tech killings is that we need to work harder to identify and cope with dangerously unstable personalities.

It is a problem for Europeans as well as Americans, one for which there are no easy solutions — such as passing more gun control laws.

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SuperDave

+1

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luvtolean

I just reread it and noticed a factual error, it is legal for some civilians to buy machine guns in the US.

The guns are very expensive, it is extremely regulated, and the rules around owning them are very numerous, but it is possible in some states.

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luvtolean

From Nuge on CNN.

There are better articles, but I didn't know about the above situation...that's exactly what I thought should've happened at VT.

Nugent: Gun-free zones are recipe for disaster - CNN.com

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Leelover

"gun free zone"="criminal easy picking zone"

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bda116

Nugent is teh bom. If I were elected President, I would appoint him as the last U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.

Just before I was assassinated.

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Leelover

Anyone else read the opposing view from Tom Plate?

His stragety in a mugging is surrender. Maybe a good idea sometimes, but that is the reason he was not killed by the gun weilding robber?

Seems like I have heard his ideas before. If we cold just remove the means of applying force to other humans, it would all be OK , right.

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Leelover

I'm sure that remark will buy you some votes here, bda!

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seamus

I'm going to stand outside his house every morning and mug him. That's easy money.

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