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District of Columbia v. Heller (hand guns)
CommunistCow
Abstract MetalThingyRegistered User regular
Abstract MetalThingyRegistered User regular
So the Supreme Court has decided to hear a 2nd amendment case, which it hasn't done in a long time.
I don't particularly want to argue directly about the 2nd amendment. I was just wondering if anyone with more legal insight than I had any predictions on how this case will be decided and on what grounds.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jZOi0QxIZk7wY8br0MHhsEz-wL-wD8T1LRLO0
Personally I see could see it going this way:
They are still allowed to own some types of firearms and could be considered a type of regulation. The government seems to be allowed to regulate/ban fully automatic rifles so why not hand guns? Or is it that no one has ever tried to argue high court cases about the right to own fully automatic assault rifles?
I don't particularly want to argue directly about the 2nd amendment. I was just wondering if anyone with more legal insight than I had any predictions on how this case will be decided and on what grounds.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jZOi0QxIZk7wY8br0MHhsEz-wL-wD8T1LRLO0
Personally I see could see it going this way:
They are still allowed to own some types of firearms and could be considered a type of regulation. The government seems to be allowed to regulate/ban fully automatic rifles so why not hand guns? Or is it that no one has ever tried to argue high court cases about the right to own fully automatic assault rifles?
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
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Anyway, hope this doesn't really affect the 2nd amendment since I'd really have to give up my small arsenal of rifles and hand guns
I wonder if something like that would be used here.
EDIT:
I remember it is called the compelling interest test.
government interest: people not getting shot. I would say thats a pretty high interest. Then again this is a 2nd amendment case and not a 1st amendment case so who knows.
Requiring every handgun be sold with a gun lock for the trigger would be a good first step. And, as an aside, how difficult is it to illegally modify a semi-automatic to automatic? I can't help remembering reading about how guards armed with semi-automatic weapons guarded the iPhone in shipping sites a few days before its release.
Wii Code: 1040-1320-0724-3613 :!!:
Cite is
Parker v. District of Columbia 478 F.3d 370 (C.A.D.C., 2007)
Alrighty, well let's get the specifics of DC out of the way. In the District, handguns are not allowed on the streets unless carried by law enforcement personnel and some private security officers. Shotguns and rifles are allowed in homes only if the owners have permits, and the only reason a person may legally transport a rifle or a shotgun is if they are going to a recreational activity.
There's multiple reasons people keep firearms. One of the most important reasons is protection, especially in one's own home. In that case, a handgun is infinitely superior to a shotgun. You can easily stow it away, it has more ammunition before needing to reload, women can easily handle them, etc.
Ugh, and I hate to do this, but I agree with John Stossel that gun control leads to higher crime rates. The district is definitely seeing this the past few years (See here ).
The constitution says all it needs to say in the second amendment. To create and dictate these subarticles should be federal branches under federal law, not municipal law.
Wii Code: 1040-1320-0724-3613 :!!:
Again, why is that not a correlation/causation conflation?
EDIT: And the Stossel thing has been repeatedly discredited. Also, I'm not even seeing a correlation, there. In fact, it looks like crime rates went down after they banned handguns.
Part of it is that there is a compelling interest to restrict fully automatic weapons; there really aren't any legitimate civilian uses for an automatic weapon. Part of it is also that you have your reasoning backwards. They can't use the automatic weapons ban to justify banning smaller arms because the ability to possess those smaller arms is what justifies the automatic weapons ban. People still have the ability to bear arms, just not the really nasty ones.
- John Stuart Mill
You know, for... protection.
I want to make sure I can take down Striders when the time comes.
Levels of gun crime in Britain are still at the 1997 level.
I conclude there is no great sweeping utility in banning guns.
The crime rate has dropped, but with DC being so small and rampant hand guns in MD and VA it doesn't do nearly enough since it's way to easy to get one, particularily VA. Most of the guys I know with illegal guns get them in the deep woods of the VA from good old boys due to the lax laws and take them into DC. I'm ashamed of the state I now live in... well except for Jim Webb.
Would you favor requiring a license to purchase and own a gun? Because I think that's a pretty decent compromise here.
We don't spend a lot of time thinking about gun crime here in New Hampshire. Forth lowest gun violence rate in the country.
Really? I had thought it went down a fairly small amount (but not neglibigle) meanwhile the stabbings and the beatings took off like nobody's business. Fueled in part because, seriously, fuck Manchester United.
When I was in London this spring during the Virginia Tech thing there was an article in The Guardian saying it was at the same level. So I don't know.
Glory, glory, Man United,
Glory, glory, Man United,
And the reds go marching on, on, on.
We love United, we do,
We love United, we do,
We love United, we do,
Oh, United we love you.
Did you see that the Sox resigned Sorrowful?
That was my understanding, too, and I'm too lazy/tired to look it up right now.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
We canucks, for one, would disagree with you. And yes I do realize the disparate population difference argument, but I still think stricter gun control in The US of A is a good, good idea.
EDIT: By Canucks, I meant Canadians - yeah, I'm a retard.
It's complicated by the fact that the nature of the gun crime changed. It used to be that "gun crime" was armed robbery by career criminals and the average age of a gunshot victim was around 30. The most recent legislation we had introduced has been after people have used legal weapons to go on a kill frenzy. The rules initially did things like restrict the number of rounds that a shotgun can hold and outlawing pistols above a .22 calibre. They still alowed for target shooting and pest control, but no-one needs a semi-automatic rifle to shoot grouse.
The 1997 legislation just extended that law to all handguns. Since 2006, you can get up to 12 months for carrying an imitation firearm. You're also not allowed to manufacture, import or sell a realistic imitations.
The "rise" in gun crime has been due to a new trend for inner-city teenagers to carry guns and is shown by the fact that the average age of the gunshot victims from earlier this year was down to 20. I don't think you can say one way or another that the rise in gun-crime is due to the ban because the rise has been in an area that the law was not attempting to tackle (because it didn't exist at the time) and has been in locations that have a whole host of other socio-economic problems.
In that case you also need a conveniently positioned box nearby holding infinite rockets.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
It's too early in the morning for me to find the relevant statistics, but this is not a compelling argument.
The measure of how effective a measure has been is not (only) against an absolute number, but against what that number would have been without the measure in place. So the real question isn't "why hasn't gun control stopped all gun crime" (because it was never going it, instead it will steadily decline as less and less guns are available to the population from hold overs in illegal channels) but "has gun control stopped enough gun crime to be worth it."
Considering the population has grown at a relatively brisk rate (the only number I can find is some 3 million since 1997, up to 60 million) and violent crime is risen appreciably in the last decade (can't find a number here, but memory says it's a pretty significant rise) then ONLY staying at 1997 levels for gun crime is not a result that can be brushed off at all.
You can certainly say the rise in beatings/knife crimes is a direct result of the gun laws, but that simply means that a large percentage (allowing for greater opportunity to hit someone than shoot them in the spur of the moment) of those would have been gun crimes were it not for the law. Given a wildly larger percentage of gun crimes end in homicide than fights, either fist or knife, I'd call the gun laws at a bare minimum successful.
It takes a much more rigorous look to say anything solid, well beyond this rough and tumble analysis, but at the least we can say the fact gun crime is steady or declining in absolute terms across the last decade is certainly not indicative of failure of gun laws and is very likely a sign of success.
edit: Take everything gorak said, and change my "holding steady or declining" in gun crimes to "significantly decreased in terms of violent crimes". Just makes the overall argument better.
I, like most of the people I know, didn't even really know about the change in law or notice it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_Kingdom
The stats here are hard to interpret - gun ownership hasn't changed significantly, but gun crime has.
My own (unprovable) belief is that gun ownership (legal or illegal) and attitudes to gun violence both affect gun crime rates. The law is only relevant where it affects these two variables. In the UK, changing the law didn't affect ownership, and I don't think it changed attitudes.
In the US, I'm not sure what effect changing the law would have.
I side with good ol' Col Cooper on the right to own guns. People should be allowed pistols to defend themselves against those who would carry pistols to do wrong, and people should be allowed rifles to defend themselves against governments that would do wrong. While a group of civilians with AR-15s isnt a threat to overthrowing the US military, it certainly is a deterrence should someone ever want to get all tyrannical up in heres. And to anyone who says that riflemen cant go up against an entire military of riflemen, air support, and tanks; well, just look at Iraq, and keep in mind that America is way bigger than Iraq.
It's not a good argument, it's never been a good argument. Laws, activists and the democratic system of checks and balances is what protects Americans or anyone else from a tyrannical regime - the rigorous assertion that it is private rifle ownership does nothing but blind people to the real threats to their freedoms.
As for home and self-defense - I think it is a question which needs to be carefully considered. I favor legalizing incapacitation devices such as tasers and the like over direct firearms but such devices have limitations which obviously a public used to firearm ownership may not accept. One thing I do support is restrictions on caliber, purely from consideration of an article I once read talking about how you can't really determine a "1 shot kill" round - because people keep shooting until a threat is neutralized. Improving the potential survivability of anyone who gets shot while still enabling the deterrence of a gun.
5 second shock/incapciation, then it stops
Granted, with the police issue tasers, you can keep that 5 seconds going over and over till the battery dies. I, personally, really wouldnt want to do that while I waited for the police to arrive.
The only guaranteed way to stop a threat is to kill someone. Thankfully, many people get shot, go down, and dont die. My point is less lethal devices arent guaranteed to stop a threat, even if they work to their full design. Bean bags, pepperspray, and stun guns are just pain. Tasers are pain + muscle spasms.
And while America does have its problems, I'd hardly call it tyrannical. Weve seen what can happen to a population that has no means to defend itself against its own military. Id rather not see that happen to The US as well. No, I dont think that the 2nd amendment is the only thing we should use to keep the government in check, thats just stupid, but it does its job. It comes down to the whole thing of protecting your freedom with the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and if needbe, the ammo box.
sigh
You really don't have any means to protect yourself from the military. I'm sorry, but you don't.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shay%27s_Rebellion First of all, even when arms were relatively similiar (muskets, etc), you won't be able to pull off an armed rebellion. Now? HA! You have fun with those laser guided missles hombre.
But they won't oppress the population. More specifically they won't oppress you. You believe in freedom, have an American flag in your home. Who they will get are people you don't like anyway - Muslims, Mexicans, Chinese taking your jobs etc. And of course it need not be overt - let's racially profile suspects for a terrorist bombing, let's search every Muslims home without warrant.
Unless of course, you do get suspected of being involved in it somehow. But then, 48% of Americans might think you should be locked up pending investigation and charges because you're a dangerous terrorist anyway. Habeas corpus? God fuck that.
You are not protected by guns. You're protected by, dare I say it, lawyers. Activists. And of course, the fact that ordering the armed forces to fire on the American populace won't exactly go over well as a sudden action.