Dear Sen. Kyl, you could not be more wrong! In response to my suggestion, made on the occasion of Gabby Giffords’ demonstrated improvement over Thanksgiving, that we consider legislation against 30-plus round magazines, you replied:
“Evidence clearly suggests, however, that the mere existence of gun laws does little to prevent such shootings. The key is enforcement of existing laws and imposing of tough sentences on those who used firearms to commit crimes.”
Now we hear that John Hinckley wants to be released on extended visitation with his 83-year-old mother. Did John Hinckley’s incarceration influence Jared Loughner? Not in the least! Both Hinckley and Loughner are mental cases. On one occasion when Hinckley was let out, his mother dropped him off at a movie theater but he skipped out to a book store to read books on political assassination!
I doubt that you could find a single police department in even minor locales that does not oppose the commercial, non-military sales of armor piercing (AP) small arms ammunition, the type which makes bullet proof vests a joke. Where do you stand on the sale of AP small arms ammunition: for or against? And how is your stand on AP small arms ammunition any different than taking a stand against high capacity round magazines for the sort of automatic pistols used by Jared Loughner?
No, Sen. Kyl, your position on sensible, evenly balanced gun legislation is ridiculous. Making such ancillary devices as 30-plus magazines and small arms AP ammunition illegal will severely impact their general availability for casual use in crime. Those who supply such materials are sensitive to law enforcement and will obey these laws.
Good thing you are not running again for re-election. But are you planning to lobby for the NRA? And know this, if it had been you instead of Gabby, my opinions would not have changed. But yours surely would, wouldn’t they!
Dale Whiting
Chandler
Rich posted at 5:08 pm on Wed, Dec 14, 2011.
Dale,
The government, for our safety, should unconditionally respect the Second Amendment. Why? Because within the system set up by our founders, it is an essential check against their power. And big or small clips are so irrelevant it's just a silly subject to bring up. Personally if I have to go I'd prefer a modern high caliber pistol to a rusty sword in my stomach, on a personal level one is as good as the other. A weapon is a weapon, I have a recurve bow that I have killed a bear that was bigger than a man with. What kills is the will behind the act, and you change that by changing hearts and minds, not weaponry and certainly not what clips are available.
Dale Whiting posted at 7:09 pm on Wed, Dec 14, 2011.
Rich, may I begin by quoting you:
"The government, for our safety, should unconditionally respect the Second Amendment. Why? Because within the system set up by our founders, it is an essential check against their power."
You are a kook! Let's disect your statement. First, precisely what does the Second Amendment say? Is it a check against the power of government or an exercise in empowerment of the militia needed to carry out governmental purposes?
I'll use the ratified version. "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Why? Because keeping and bearing arms is necessary to the security of a free state. And a free state is protected by a well regulated militia, that's why!
What is a militia and who runs it? "An army of trained civilians, which may be an official reserve army, called upon in time of need; the national police force of a country (e.g. Russia, Ukraine, etc.); the entire able-bodied population of a state; or a private force, not under government control." [Wikitionary]
Which definition of militia do we have, well trained civilians who are officially a part of a reserve, called upon when needed, or a national police force, or able-bodied citizens, or a private force not under governmental control?
"The right to have arms in English history is believed to have been regarded as a long-established natural right in English law, auxiliary to the natural and legally defensible rights to life [i.e. self-defense]. [However and to the contrary] The English Bill of Rights emerged from a tempestuous period in English politics during which two issues were major sources of conflict: the authority of the King to govern without the consent of Parliament [overly powerful dictatorship] and the role of Catholics in a country that was becoming ever more Protestant [a distatorship by religion i.e. no separation of churdh and state]. Ultimately, the Catholic James II was overthrown in the Glorious Revolution, and his successors, the Protestants William III and Mary II, accepted the conditions that were codified in the Bill [citizens got to bear arms]. One of the issues the Bill resolved was the authority of the King to disarm its subjects, after James II had attempted to disarm many Protestants, and had argued with Parliament over his desire to maintain a standing (or permanent) army [to keep the Protestants under control]. The bill states that it is acting to restore "ancient rights" trampled upon by James II, though some have argued that the English Bill of Rights created a new right to have arms, which developed out of a duty to have arms. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court did not accept this view, remarking that the English right at the time of the passing of the English Bill of Rights was "clearly an individual right, having nothing whatsoever to do with service in the militia" and that it was a right not to be disarmed by the crown and was not the granting of a new right to have arms. [Wikipedia]
Yet, while relying on the contemporaneously expressed need to avoid the acts of James II and the Cardinal to keep arms from Protestants and have a state controlled militia, both good reasons but for different reasons, the Supremes went back in time to the right to bear arms for personal self defense, the old justification, not the reason to be protected from the State. Go figure!
So we have in English common law related to militia and our most recent Supreme Court view of an inalienable right to bear arms not because we need to well regulate and arm a militia of citizens, but as you say, to have arms for the sake of having arms, and to heck with any militia.
I find the total disregard of the introductory justification phrase "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state," to be a travesty. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supremes eviserate that phrase.
Since no well regulated militia of any sort [except for our militia of drug lords, murders and theves] have 30+ round magazines, and the only justifiable use of armor pearcing rounds is to pearce armour and kill people, we need to reserve AP rounds for our well regulated militias and ban 30+ round magazines altogether.
But your point, that this is really peanuts, is not disputable. Just don't you let Slabside catch you using the term "clip" for a magazine![beam]
Rich posted at 10:50 pm on Wed, Dec 14, 2011.
Actually Dale, you do have the Wikipedia habit rather badly. The right of a free man to bear arms is Feudal and precedes English Common Law in a good deal of Europe. The view of the role of the militia in Common Law has been refined and used throughout British history. The largest body of precedent probably does follow Monmouth's Rebellion, but the precedent of the assizes in the time of Jeffreys is mixed, they were called the "Bloody Assizes" and Jeffreys became the original 'Hanging Judge'. This tainted much of the precedent and though Jeffries (Lord Chancellor George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys of Wem) was an acknowledged expert on common law, much of the precedent is clouded by what is considered, his vindictiveness. (Look it up in Wikipedia if you want, but you really won't learn a lot about the evolution of common law).
As to my point, you can look it up in the work of several of our founders. They stated many times that the government was composed of checks and balances, both overt and covert. A militia was the justification of the draft among other things, including the supposed 'right' to shoot an Indian at one time. Though my point was really the nature of homicide. Whether it depends on the human will, or human weaponry. In a decade AP rounds and thirty shot clips will be anachronisms anyway. They are nearly so now. After almost a decade of war, the technology has left them behind. Perhaps we should ban the bow and arrow? At one point, in Texas, a knife was illegal, because poor people couldn't afford guns. We have a penchant for banning the irrelevant, while ignoring the problem.
Dale Whiting posted at 7:10 am on Thu, Dec 15, 2011.
Leon,
I love the second amendment. As a teenager, I hunted both deer and elk with my father. I was an expert marksman while on active duty, largely because of my training. I believe in the right to bear arms for self protection and know of some who were obliged to bear arms to protect themselves when the police were not up to it.
But I view armor pearcing ammunition and 30+ round magazines as tools not of either the patriot nor self-protection advocate, but of criminals, drug lords, kooks. Banning such ancillary hardware does not infringe on the purposes of the Second Amendment in the least. AP rounds are designed to kill those who wear protective vests, most of whom are militia and police. And 30+ round magazines for automatic pistols simply make using those pistols easier to commit crime and not be detected carrying a Thompson Submachine gun on our streets.
Now Leon [and Slabside - we both know your out there] answer my objections to AP ammunition and multiple round magazines on the merits or lack there of for permitting their use under the Second Amendment and drop all of that NRA idiotic about slippery slopes and they'll be coming for your shot guns and rifles next rhetoric!
VofReason posted at 12:32 pm on Thu, Dec 15, 2011.
And ban 30 packs of beer. Lord knows if you drink all those, are crazy and jump into your pickup truck- you will certainly kill someone. Maybe someone can write an editorial as to why people who exhibit irrational behavior and their family or guardians cannot control them should be put away where they can't hurt themselves or anyone else. Or doesn't that fit the liberal line?
Rich posted at 10:59 pm on Thu, Dec 15, 2011.
Normal well adjusted people do not make progress, crazy people do. If every human being to live so far were normal and well-adjusted, we'd still be hunter-gatherers. Some crazy guy, probably drunk at the time on overripe persimmons, built a hut, another threw a rock, and yet another totally maladjusted malcontent, planted something rather than waited for it to grow where it pleased. Which, of course, is "why people who exhibit irrational behavior and their family or guardians cannot control them should.."NOT"...be put away where they can't hurt themselves or anyone else." It has nothing at all to do with politics (which was also a relatively crazy invention, in fact close to rabid insanity) , and is 'just the way it is.'
bobunf posted at 11:29 pm on Thu, Dec 15, 2011.
The founders may have entertained the idea that an armed citizenry would be able to overthrow a tyrannical government.
Three thousand years ago it was possible, without calling the police or resorting to violence, to contemplate a man taking his child to the top of a mountain in order to sacrifice his child to God.
We're past those things. An armed citizenry overthrowing a tyrannical US government isn't in the realm of possibility. Government overthrows frequently do not involve a lot of violence, e.g., the Russian revolution. And we have the subsequent British examples in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Nigeria, Belize, Jamaica and numerous others.
Incidentally, the English don't carry guns and their homicide rate is 26% of the US rate. People can still kill others with rusty swords, but they don't do it often.
onerebel posted at 8:33 pm on Fri, Dec 16, 2011.
So I take it bobunf you would rather lie down then fight for your freedom ? I thank God the Founding Fathers had enough backbone to not do the same, and the man down the street from me at 1:00 in the morning he used his gun to stop a man with a tire iron that was attacking his daughter. I wonder what would have happened if he waited for police to protect his girl ?
"No law ever written has stopped any robber, rapist or killer, like cold blue steel in the hands of their last intended victim."
-- W. Emerson Wright