The Court, the Constitution and the Reality of Guns

[mgc1961]

About 10,000 Americans died by handgun violence, according to federal statistics, in the four months that the Supreme Court debated which clause of the Constitution it would use to subvert Chicago’s entirely sensible ban on handgun ownership. The arguments that led to Monday’s decision undermining Chicago’s law were infuriatingly abstract, but the results will be all too real and bloody.

This began two years ago, when the Supreme Court disregarded the plain words of the Second Amendment and overturned the District of Columbia’s handgun ban, deciding that the amendment gave individuals in the district, not just militias, the right to bear arms. Proceeding from that flawed logic, the court has now said the amendment applies to all states and cities, rendering Chicago’s ban on handgun ownership unenforceable.

Once again, the court’s conservative majority imposed its selective reading of American history, citing the country’s violent separation from Britain and the battles over slavery as proof that the authors of the Constitution and its later amendments considered gun ownership a fundamental right. The court’s members ignored the present-day reality of Chicago, where 258 public school students were shot last school year — 32 fatally.


There's more at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/opinion/29tue1.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1277813334-HwlxhkFZ6QTyKaPEXnge1A

[armueller2001]

1. And out of those 258 public school students

who were shot, I wonder how many were shot by people who went through all the hoops and channels to purchase and own their guns legally? Let's see how many laws require breaking to shoot someone on the street with it...

Handguns are illegal in Chicago
Carrying firearms outside the home is illegal in Illinois
Sale of firearms to felons is illegal
Possession of firearms by felons (which a VAST majority of murderers and violent criminals are) is illegal
Discharging a firearm in city limits is illegal

and... oh yeah, murder is illegal too.

What additional laws would have prevented these tragedies?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. good questions

:popcorn:

[baldguy]

6. Simple facts that guns' rights advocates refuse to acknowledge:

1) Guns can be carried from one place to another, and we can't close the borders between places where guns are easy to get and those where the citizens choose to have more restriction on them.

2) Criminals get guns from seemingly law-abiding citizens: through straw purchases, from people too lazy and/or lax to do a background check, and (rarely) through theft.


Existing gun laws (extended to be more regular & consistent across the country) would work fine - without the billion dollar industry the RW has built to undermine them. Even the finest prescription mechanisms don't work well when their gears are constantly jammed and struck with hammers.

[armueller2001]

9. What additional

laws would you suggest?

I agree, existing gun laws applied more regularly and consistently across the country, such as concealed carry, would work fine.

[Callisto32]

13. You really think there are more straw purchases than theft?

An interesting premise, got any data to back it up?

[Taitertots]

18. Why isn't gun violence as big a problem in the places without draconian restrictions

[slackmaster]

21. There are two basic ways to keep guns and criminals separated, and only one is realistic

Controlling criminals is the only practical solution.

[oneshooter]

32. Such as Project Exile?

http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/pubs/gun_violence/profile38.html

Program Goal:
To reduce Richmond's homicide rate by detaining dangerous armed felons prior to trial and prosecuting them in Federal court.
Specific Groups Targeted by the Strategy:
Previously convicted felons who possess guns and/or armed persons involved in drug or violent crimes.
Project Exile is a coordinated approach to gun violence in the Richmond metropolitan area led by the Richmond U.S. Attorney's Office in coordination with the Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney; Richmond Police Department; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF); Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Virginia State Police.


Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[SteveM]

26. Fact that gun-controllers refuse to acknowledge: prohibition doesn't work. nt

[Abq_Sarah]

36. A simple fact anti-rights advocates refuse to acknowledge

Our rights aren't dependent on consensus. If someone doesn't believe we should have free speech, freedom of religion or the right to own property, most of us view them as fringe kooks. But.. let someone stand up and say we shouldn't have a right to keep and bear arms and they are treated as oracles dispensing wisdom from the gods.

[friendly_iconoclast]

38. Then why is Jamaica so violent? It's an island nation w/ restrictive gun laws

No one is driving guns over the border.

This was also discussed a few months ago concerning the Northeast US:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=290313#290348


You don't have to buy the analysis, but AFAIK the rates are accurate as depicted:




Me:
Well then, let's compare three cities of similar size located near each other:

Manchester, New Hampshire, Fall River and New Bedford, Massachusetts.

All have populations of +/- 100,000. All are within a two-hour drive (with no border controls) so any illegal trafficking of weapons or anything else would be quite easy, and all three are remnants of the early Industrial Age.

One has quite lax gun laws (Manchester). The other two have fairly restrictive ones (FR and NB).

Which one has the lowest crime and murder rate?

Addendum: there are some poor parts of Manchester, but they don't have near the rates of crime and murder that FR and NB do.

[d_r]

3. I understand the logic of "only criminals will have guns"

I mean, clearly there was still a lot of handgun violence in Chicago even with the handgun ban. I understand the notion that if handguns are banned, only criminals will have them. I can see that the handgun ban didn't eliminate gun violence. What I don't necessarily understand is the logic of the idea that if "law abiding" citizens are packing, then handgun violence will go down - the idea that criminals will be afraid of using guns if their potential victims may have a gun of their own. I'm just not sure I'm convinced of that part. It will be interesting to see the statistics over the next few years. Tragic for anyone with a soul, but interesting from a cognitive point of view. A pretty horrible natural experiment. I think, like most things, the horrific problem here of gun violence isn't one that will be easily fixed and we should be focusing on the complex issues that contribute to the problem of violence in the first place rather than focusing on hot-button surface-level issues. But we never really do a very good job of that.

[one-eyed fat man]

7. Frequent Felon program

Fifty-six percent of the violent felons convicted in the 75 most populous counties from 1990 through 2002 had a prior conviction, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Of the offenders with prior felony records, the study found that at the time of the new crime 18 percent were on probation, 12 percent on release pending disposition of a prior case and 7 percent on parole.

The bureau also reported 38 percent had a prior felony conviction and 15 percent had been previously convicted for a violent felony.

In another finding, the bureau said youths under age 21 commit 30 percent of all homicides.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4441/is_200609/ai_n17194955

Then there is a culture which glorifies crime and criminal activity. In fact, some have gone so far as to fake past criminality to establish their creds as a "hip-hop artist."

http://www.inoutstar.com/news/Akon-s-Thug-Persona-and-Criminal-Record-a-Fake-6618.html

So long as it's more admirable to be a thug than a doctor, a dropout than a college student, you can expect to get what you got in Chicago.

[NoNothing]

8. Lots of people seem confused about this

The Court was NOT trying to solve the problem of gun violence. It's not their job, and that's not what they were tasked with doing.

I predict that the effect on gun violence rates will be basically nil, as the problem of gun violence is actually caused by other issues unrelated to gun ownership. I still support the outcome of the case because, all other things being equal, I want more freedom, not less.

[d_r]

10. I don't think the court was trying to solve gun violence

I think we as a society should, and we aren't really doing a very good job.

[rusty_rebar]

29. That is a reasonable stance....

This ruling is just saying that you cannot ban guns. It did not say anything about solving gun violence. I am sure there are lots and lots of ways we could reduce gun violence without banning guns.

The fact of the matter is, there is not really any proof that gun bans (or 100% mandated gun ownership for that matter) affect gun violence. I know, it would seem like common sense that banning something would reduce its use. But lets look at how well that has done with the drug war. Some things make perfect common sense, but turn out not be based in reality.

If you really want to reduce violent crime then you need to do a few things.

1. Legalize all drugs / prostitution / gambling. None of these crimes have unwilling victims, yet tend to create a criminal underground element to enable their sale. This causes the prices to go WAY up, making it likely that the purchaser of these services will use violence to get the large sums of cash needed to buy this stuff.

2. Make people accountable for their actions. If your actions cause harm to another, then the victim should have the opportunity to hold you to account for those actions.

I think these two steps would drastically reduce violent crime in this country.

[Statistical]

11. It likely won't reduce gun violence but it is unlikely to materially increase it either.

Hell founding fathers understood that couple hundred years ago.

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” - Thomas Jefferson

Gun violence (and violence in general is merely a symptom). Trying to ban guns to solve crime is like thinking you can put another bandage on a rotting corpse and it will be healed.

Poverty, lack of home, lack of valid economic opportunity, lack of good primary eduction, lack of living wages, lack of decent quality low income housing all, lack of college oppertunities all create a culture where there is no hope, no future, no life. Life is cheapened and violence is accepted.

"fuck everyone, I am going to get mine today because I might be dead tomorrow". That is what leads to violence.

Sadly the two most effective methods at reducing violent crime rate in last 30 years have been legalized abortion and longer prison sentences. Once again not addressing the root issue simply reducing the pool of potential criminals.

[X_Digger]

16. Cue TPaine7's quote about Orlando's rape rate after the local PD started training women on guns.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=284293

In 1966 there were a series of brutal rapes in Orlando Florida. 78 Residents, mostly women, were buying
guns at the rate of two or three hundred a week. The Orlando Sentinel Star strongly disapproved.
Martin Anderson, the publisher, and Emily Bavar, supplement editor, went to the police chief, Carlisle
Johnstone, and insisted that he stop the gun sales.

The chief informed them that handguns were legal in Orlando. Since they couldn‟t achieve their ideal—
disarmament—they decided to teach the ladies to shoot and safely handle guns. The police and newspaper
cosponsored a training program, and the paper ran a front page story announcing the time and date.

...newspaper personnel and police made preparations for as many as four to five hundred
women. To everyone‟s utter amazement, more than twenty-five hundred women showed
up, carrying every type of firearm under the sun, some loaded and some unloaded. Knox
talked to one officer who was there who said he had never been so scared in his life.
Apparently the cars were parked blocks away from the park, and the women were
walking all over the place armed to their teeth. Some had their guns holstered, others had
them in their purses or pockets, and the rest had them in their hands....{79}

Not being prepared for such numbers, the officers sent the women home and regrouped. They set up three
classes per week. In five months, they taught more than six thousand women.

The results should interest anyone responsible for gun policy. Chief Johnstone expected a “tremendous
deterrent effect.” He was right:

the rape rate in Orlando, Florida fell from a 1966 level of thirty-six to only four in
1967. Before the training, rape had been increasing in Orlando, as it was nationwide.

Five years later, rape was still significantly below the preprogram level, even though,
during the five years after the training, rape climbed 308 percent in the surrounding
Orlando metropolitan area, the Florida rate escalated by 64 percent.

Another result of the Orlando training is that, while most other crimes escalated or
remained steady in Orlando in 1967, violent assault and burglary decreased by 25 percent
each, making Orlando the only American city of more than an hundred thousand in
population in which crime declined in 1967.

Source (and to read the footnotes): my open letter to Obama at www.obamaonsecond.com

[slackmaster]

22. The McDonald decision doesn't have anything to do with "packing"

It's about the right to keep guns for self-defense in one's home.

[rusty_rebar]

31. I do not agree...

The Heller decision said that the 2nd Amendment (the whole second amendment), is an individual right. This is the case where the Supreme court said that the militia clause does not really pertain to much of anything.

The McDonald decision said that the 2nd Amendment (the whole second amendment), applies to all Americans. Meaning that it is not just a restriction on the Federal government, it also applies to all government. It is a fundamental right of "the People". Now, the case that was used to get this ruling involved keeping a gun in a home, but this ruling is in no way limited to in the home.

This is in line with several other amendments which are incorporated against the states. A state cannot make a law that abridges your right to free speech? Why is this? I mean the first Amendment only says "Congress shall make no law", it does not say anything about the states making such laws. In fact there were several states which had a state religion back in the day. The 1st Amendment did not apply to the states, just to the Federal government.

So as of now, the first, second, fourth, Most of the fifth, sixth and eighth amendments are incorporated. I don't think the third is incorporated, and although it does speak to property rights, the third amendment is not much of an issue in these times. Like a buggy whip regulatory agency.... there is not much of a point to something like that.

[slackmaster]

33. I'd like to see a "may-issue" concealed weapons permit law like that of my state challenged

:hi:

[SteveM]

27. I agree with you to some extent...

"What I don't necessarily understand is the logic of the idea that if "law abiding" citizens are packing, then handgun violence will go down."

There are some who advocate this "logic," but most 2A defenders here do NOT advocate this cause & effect; it is no more valid than the DNC slogan "more guns = more crime," since the number of guns in U.S. civilian hands has gone from 190,000,000 in the mid-1990s to perhaps 330,000,000 now. Yet, the "gun crime" rate during this time has gone down significantly.

There is some data which suggests that increased concealed-carry or home-defense weapons or both has brought down the crime rate. But there are too many variables to somehow isolate before one could can make that conclusion. Perhaps a statistical model will be forthcoming where such a cause/effect relationship can be proved. Until then, the decision to choose firearms for home defense or to carry concealed is (however massive in practice) anecdotal and eminently personal. I have guns for home defense, but I cannot -- as yet -- say that I and millions of others have caused a drop in crime. Perhaps such a relationship will depend on reliable measures of what thugs' perceptions of the "rest of us" are.

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. We're all safer now.

Thanks to the USSC, death by guns will be a thing of the past.















:sarcasm:

[benEzra]

14. Thanks to the Chicago gun ban, death by guns in Chicago are already a thing of the past.

Oh, wait...

[PavePusher]

19. Your straw man...

it looks flammable.

[proteus_lives]

24. Didn't the ban keep them from happening?

Oh wait......

[Bold Lib]

5. Regarding the safety angle in the decision

The right to keep and bear arms, however, is not the
only constitutional right that has controversial public
safety implications. All of the constitutional provisions
that impose restrictions on law enforcement and on the
prosecution of crimes fall into the same category. See, e.g.,
Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U. S. 586, 591 (2006) (“The
exclusionary rule generates ‘substantial social costs,’
United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 907 (1984), which
sometimes include setting the guilty free and the dangerous
at large”); Barker v. Wingo, 407 U. S. 514, 522 (1972)
(reflecting on the serious consequences of dismissal for a
speedy trial violation, which means “a defendant who may
be guilty of a serious crime will go free”); Miranda v.
Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 517 (1966) (Harlan, J., dissenting);
id., at 542 (White, J., dissenting) (objecting that the
Court’s rule “n some unknown number of cases . . . will
return a killer, a rapist or other criminal to the streets . . .
to repeat his crime”); Mapp, 367 U. S., at 659. Municipal
respondents cite no case in which we have refrained from
holding that a provision of the Bill of Rights is binding on
the States on the ground that the right at issue has disputed
public safety implications.


There is a reason why lady justice is blindfolded.

[slackmaster]

12. Hyperbole, argumentum ad hominem, appeal to fear, all in the first paragraph.

And it goes downhill from there.

N&U

:nuke:

[benEzra]

15. Chicago's "entirely sensible ban on handgun ownership", huh?

Sensible to whom?

Nationwide, public support for handgun bans is roughly comparable to the public support for bringing back the "entirely sensible ban on alcohol consumption" that was such a miserable failure in the 1920's and 1930's.

[slackmaster]

17. Appeal to "sensibility" is really ad hominem argument

Anyone who disagrees with your position automatically becomes something other than a "sensible" person.

[DonP]

20. Sensible to the mayor, his armed bodyguards and his meat puppet ...

... aldermen that were made "peace officers" to allow them concealed carry.

A ban on handgun ownership is fine for those peasants, but not for the ruling class.

Daley could make Cheney look like "a man of the people" by comparison.

[PavePusher]

23. "when the Supreme Court disregarded the plain words of the Second Amendment"

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


Teh stooped, it bernz.

[AtheistCrusader]

25. You know it's going to be good when the first sentence is a blatant lie.

Suicides are handgun violence?

Is throwing yourself off a bridge, violence?
How about killing yourself with CO poisoning?

Suicide isn't handgun violence, so per the brady campaign's own stated numbers, that should read less than 5,000.

Hey, what's an overstatement by more than double between friends, right?

[SteveM]

28. Ah, that shining moment when the NYT negates their good work in toto. nt

[gorfle]

30. Here is the real "Reality of Guns"

"About 10,000 Americans died by handgun violence, according to federal statistics, in the four months that the Supreme Court debated which clause of the Constitution it would use to subvert Chicago’s entirely sensible ban on handgun ownership."

Of course, what they don't tell you here is that included in those 10,000 deaths are suicides, as well as people shot by the police. This data is in the link that they cite.

What they also don't tell you is that well over 90% of all firearm homicides are committed by people with extensive criminal histories, including, on average, 4 felonies. No firearm law is going to prevent these kinds of homicides, because these people are already forbidden by law from possessing them.

http://site297.mysite4now.com/clrwebsite/Joomla1.5/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=138:kates201086&catid=20:firearmsinc&Itemid=20

They also don't tell you that while 10,000 Americans died by handgun violence in four months, over those same four months 40-80 million firearm owners didn't commit any murders at all.

[logjon]

34. Hurf

"This began two years ago, when the Supreme Court disregarded the plain words of the Second Amendment and overturned the District of Columbia’s handgun ban, deciding that the amendment gave individuals in the district, not just militias, the right to bear arms."

Yeah, because out of those ten amendments in the Bill of Rights, the second was intended to protect the State's rights, whereas the rest were constructed to protect personal liberty.

[Abq_Sarah]

35. Not surprisingly

There are people of all political persuasions who honestly believe the bill of rights:

1. Grants rights to citizens

2. Grants power to government

Both, of course, are completely inaccurate and it's impossible to argue with someone who has such a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of our government.

[logjon]

37. In that case

So what's the third option

[Statistical]

40. The Bill of Rights is actually a Bill of Restrictions.

It is restrictions on things the govt CAN'T do.

1st. The govt can't restrict press, religion, free speech, assembly, or petitioning the govt.
2nd. The govt can't restrict right to keep and bear arms.
4th. The govt can't collect evidence or seize property without a warrant
...
10th. The federal govt can't assume any powers not given to it in the Constitution because everything else is reserved by the States & the people.

Thus the 2nd amendment doesn't grant the RKBA to the people. The people always have and always will have the right. It is a fundamental right.

The 2nd amendment simply PROHIBITS the govt (federal directly, and state via incorporation) from infringing upon that right.

[Jackson1999]

39. Taking a page from Bush Cheney

Gimme a break. Let's go back and look at the editorials against Bush's abuses of the constitution and their arguement that the courts need to consider "present day reality" of terrorist threats.

It is their hypocrisy on this issue that drives me nuts.