High court strikes down Chicago handgun ban

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We have had gun control laws for years; they are nothing new here. So we already have lots of home grown experience with gun control laws. Also, we have the "big picture" from which to draw experience. Unfortunately, the big picture has been drawn for us with the blood of our young people in places like VA Tech and Columbine. In other words, we tend to pass gun control laws after the "tragic facts." I would suggest you look at the topic of this thread for evidence that there is plenty of balance within the current situation regarding gun laws.

You are.

See, who is "naive?"

 

So you admit that implementation of gun control laws led to the introduction of even more gun control laws?

Choosing to surrender your rights for imagined security is definitely not looking at the big picture. If anything, it is a knee-jerk reaction to tragedy that has be politicised.

Not I. I am simply looking at the big picture. You are the one who believes that your current system of government represents the people, and that the people as a whole decide not only what is codified in law, but also which laws are enforced. For goodness sakes, juries in your country aren't even informed of their right to nullify.

 

I admit that there are "some" gun control laws here in the US.

You are either ignorant of the facts, or you are hysterical. Which "knee-jerk" laws do you think were passed after VA Tech?

I didn't say that. I said it was "the process." Sorry, I should clarify - The political tools are there, they just have to be put to better use.

 

Everyone who doesn't own a gun is more likely to end up as a victim? I presume you mean a victim of violent crime... I mean a gun won't protect you from identity theft or something like that.

Because the Constitution is the basis of federal law in our country.

Well, if you are familiar with your country's history, there must be some document that sets up federal statutes, even if it isn't called a "Constitution". I don't know much about the government in New Zealand, but I seem to recall that it is Parliamentary in nature, which means you have a Prime Minister. Surely, there must be some federal document which sets up how the Parliament is formed, and what powers it has. Like I said, whether it's called a "Constitution" or something else really isn't the point. The point is there should be some document that says what rights the government has and what rights are retained by the people.

I don't either, which is really odd, since they consider themselves a Constitutional Monarchy.

I know this is an ancillary topic, but the person you refer to was read his Miranda rights, and most of the people who argued against doing so backed down pretty quickly when they realized the slippery slope they were on.

 

Ah, so all of those gun control laws magically appeared one day? There hasn't been a gradual increase in legislation regarding gun control, which some citizens have challenged under the second amendment? I would find this very surprising, but as I confessed earlier, I am sorely ignorant of occurences in the United States.

I'm simply pointing out that you are not looking at the big picture when you focus only on isolated tragedies.

 

Some of those laws have been there for years.

Did you not read the part where I suggested that you read the actual topic of this thread?

 

Not initially. They arrested him, did not read him his Miranda Rights, and questioned him. They later read him his Miranda Rights and questioned him again.

Not Senator Lieberman.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36741.html

"Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) thinks he’s found a work-around on the whole Miranda rights debate for U.S. citizens accused of terrorism: Strip their citizenship and ship them to Guantanamo.

“I’m now putting together legislation to amend that to [specify that] any individual American citizen who is found to be involved in a foreign terrorist organization, as defined by the Department of State, would be deprived of their citizenship rights,” Lieberman said Tuesday. "

 

That's not true -- Not selling guns to the mentally ill IS the big picture. It was something that most everyone could agree on. For instance, two groups -- The Bradey Group To Prevent Gun Violence and the NRA both agreed on the laws that were passed after VA Tech.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre

 

But the people who were against it weren't complaining that he wasn't read his Miranda rights quickly enough. They were arguing he shouldn't have been read his Miranda rights at all. Furthermore, it is common for the police to question a suspect prior to reading him his rights. When you are questioned you are not formally arrested, at least not yet. They read you your rights when they place you under arrest, and in this regard the police followed standard operating procedures.

I said most - not all. And ever Lieberman let it go shortly after that.

That was policial posturing. He'll never get around to actually putting that legislation on the floor of the Seante. It won't ever be submitted, much less debated or voted upon. Note that the story you linked to was from May 5th - nearly two months ago, and he never did what he said he was going to.

 

This thread tok off -- not to mention morphed. I'll try to lay out my thoughts numerically, not in an effort to patronize anyone, but to organize my somewhat chaotic mind.

1: Violent crime does happen, and it can happen in any place without warning.

2: The fact that violent crime is thankfully rare in many neighbourhoods is not a sufficient reason to fail to prepare for it.

2.5: As an ancillary to that last thought, belittling people who prepare to defend themselves against violent crime is inappropriate and insulting.

3: If a criminal wants a gun badly enough, (s)he can get one regardless of the laws.

4: Even if the criminal doesn't have a gun, (s)he is often armed with something deadly, and is willing to use it with deadly force.

5: Therefore, in preparing for the remote yet real possibility of being violently assaulted by a criminal, it is not unreasonable for a citizen to want a way to even the odds. Guns are a valid method for doing that.

I am not an NRA shill, and I am not a loonie paranoiac. The law should be much more firmly slanted toward the law abiding, and acknowledge their right to defend themselves.

 

Well, you MUST not be speaking of the US, since there is no evidence in our current laws to support such a statement - not even remotely. But I realize you are in Canada, so gun laws are different there. In fact, Michael Moore's "Bowling For Columbine" was in part, a take on the contrast between American and Canadian gun ownership. And if I'm not mistaken, he viewed the Canadian side as a success. But I could be wrong, since it's been years since I saw his film on gun violence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_for_Columbine

Perhaps you can shed more light on this contrast, LKD.

 

I'm not sure who put that in wiki Snook. But as a lifetime Simpsons' Fan, the NRA4EVER is a known Simpson's trivia question, it's even in there trivia game, which I own. I once used that as an answer to a radio trivia question to win "Godsmack" tickets.

 

Wow. This thread has gone nuts. At the risk of going around in circles, I would like to respond to a few things:

1. If restricting access to guns makes my country like Nazi Germany, then I guess I live in Nazi Germany. Funny how we have queues and queues of people who want to come and live here from other countries, Funny how so many of them are from violent countries like South Africa and they want to come to New Zealand because it is so much safer for their families.

2. I am not allowed to own a gun. But I don't wake up each morning feeling oppressed, or wondering whether, if ONLY I had a gun, then the nasty government wouldn't be able to push me around so much.

3. Aldeth, the closest thing I can think of to a constitutional type document is the Treaty of Waitangi, which the English and Maori signed in 1840 and have been arguing over ever since. But it's nothing like your constitution and we don't worship it every day like some Americans seem to. And I think even if we did have one, we'd have 300 things on there before it would occur to anyone to mention anything about guns.

4. I'm still baffled about the American obsession with gun rights and why this obsession does not exist in England, Australia, or New Zealand, or even Canada.

 

Actually Hilter armed his citizens, hoping they would kill allied troops. Ragusa would probably know more on Hitler's "citizen army," which was just a bunch of boys and old men by the end of WWII -- but they did have guns.

It's not really the government, but the crime that is so bad here. America is a violent place, so if you were here you would probably be glad you could own a gun if you chose to. In Texas I could walk around with a gun if I felt the need to -- and at times I feel the need given the amount of violence that goes on here, even in some of the nicer neighborhoods: Here's a few examples:

This one is in Spring, where I live:

And another:

HB -- This one was in my neighborhood:

http://www.khou.com/news/local/Repo...Montgomery-County-home-invasion-79822612.html

These are all fairly recent events. It's a crazy situation.

 

So what is Mordea going on about with the "Sieg Hiel" comments?

 

This.

 

the Nazis took away the guns first, and then sent the Jews to the ovens is a standard theme of gun nut lore in the US as this graphic example illustrates:

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Don't take it too serious. It's

The underlying idea is apparently, that Hitler took all the guns away from law abiding Germans in 1936. The inference is that this led to the disarming of the populace and its fall into a dictatorship. That claim is historically spurious to say the very least. There was no Nazi gun control law that I know of that disarmed all of Germany (which only proves how creeping the Nazi takeover was! Not even the Germans noticed it!).

Hitler didn't need to impose gun control because gun laws were already in effect. Ironically, those original laws were in part designed to disarm Nazis and Communists who by the late 1920s were occasionally having fire fights in the streets of Berlin and other major cities.

A nice summary from the straightdope:

But why should historical facts get in the way of a nice two line quip on a bumper sticker?

 

Nor was this supreme court decision one against gun laws in general. I haven't claimed gun laws in general are made with an intent to disarm citizens. On the contrary, I flat out said that some are downright rational.

Despite your objections, the results of gun laws in other nations are a valid issue for consideration. I won't claim for one second (and I don't think many people do) that they're 100% accurate, or any kind of a direct comparison, but if tougher gun control laws typically result in more crime, while looser laws typically result in less*, it is a telling trend.

Are reasons to go more in-depth into the issue of gun control, but not to disagree with the SCOTUS conclusion. Since you were specifically talking about the finding of the SCOTUS, so was I.

Unfortunately, that's not always the case. The people elected Hitler, but once he was in power, many of them found it hard to enact change. Many of them tried, too.

This is true, but it is what we engineers call an 'unstable equilibrium' (if you can call it an equilibrium at all). This means that, while it may be steady and middle-ground right now, the slightest shift could upset that balance and begin moving it inexorably in one direction or another. Consider that this ruling was only 5-4. So was the DC ruling. One judge difference could make the difference between a US with individual gun rights and gun laws and one without individual gun rights, but lots more gun laws (almost certainly).

You know, the more you say it, the more it's looking like you.

This depends entirely on how far they go. Having some form of weapon in the house with which you are reasonably proficient is no reason to be insulted or belittled. Having 50 high-caliber weapons with armor-piercing rounds, home-made explosives, and a mortar, well, may be. Just make sure you're doing it where they can't hear you.

I don't think any of those countries ever had an open rebellion (though I am interested in why it happened here but not in Canada or Australia), and it's been a long time since England had a civil war.

Wow, Chandos, you live in a crazy area. Dude, move, for your own safety.

All in all, America is a big nation, and you see all extremes here, even close together. In my neighborhood of Virginia Beach, we could safely leave our doors unlocked. There was one scare a few years ago where there were a string of breakins a few miles away, durring the day, when no one was home. On the other hand, just a few tens of miles away, there are neighborhoods where, when my mother needs to go there for work (she does site inspections), she slings a 30-06 rifle over her shoulder. And she knows how to use it.


*I'm not claiming for one second that this is true, I haven't seen the statistics. It's just a hypothetical. Quite hyperventalating already! ... BREATHE!