hilker:

mikehudack:

This is fundamentally an issue of personal freedom. I find it amazing that people who want to legalize drugs (a strawman in this conversation, I realize) want to ban handguns. In one instance you’re willing to accept that people will act either responsibility or irresponsibly, and it’s their problem. In the other you feel the need to snatch objects out of their hands because they may act improperly.

Drugs and guns both have potentially lethal consequences, but both are OK for society if used by responsible, law-abiding adults. Intellectual honesty requires that you consider these two issues within roughly the same frame.

And before you say it… Yes, guns are designed to kill people. Drugs are not. But drugs do kill people — both the user and people around the user. Drugs don’t kill people, people kill people. Similarly, guns don’t kill people — people do.

boutofcontext:

noraleah:… and it is vital that we get a Democrat in the White House before the Supreme Court is insurmountably conservative. Keep in mind, DC is one of the most violent cities in the country. The last thing it needs is a population packing heat.

Another thing to think about: every year, more than 30,000 people die by gun violence. That is 10 times the number killed on 9/11. An economist would say our national fears and policy priorities are irrational, and they are.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices’ first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.

The court’s 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact. NYT.

Chris Rock really nailed our gun control/prohibition insecurities, joking:

• “Gun control? We need bullet control! I think every bullet should cost 5,000 dollars. Because if a bullet cost five thousand dollar, we wouldn’t have any innocent bystander.”



• “Never go to clubs with metal detectors. Sure it feels safe inside. But what about all those *****s waiting outside with guns? They know you ain’t got one.”

Curiously, many other developed countries have dramatically lower ratio of gun deaths to gun ownership. The US is among the leaders, I believe (with such esteemed company as Northern Ireland). [Source] Anyone know of research on that causality?

As far as policy rationality - several varyingly preventable causes of death are 10 - 20x as common as gun deaths. Heart disease just among women will take roughly as many lives this month as guns will this year.

Does anyone else find it interesting that the Supreme Court, an institution whose sole purpose for being is to determine the constitutionality of laws, would vote 5-4 to overturn a law which explicitly reversed a very clear Constitutional right? That means that 4 justices don’t understand their job.

All a Supreme Court justice has to do is say, “is it in the Constitution that people can bear arms?  Yes?  Ok then people can bear arms.”  That’s a pretty simple thought process.  They’re not paid to determine the will of the people or whether its still a good idea for people to have guns.  They just have to determine if the Constitution says anything on the matter.  In other words, we don’t really care about their personal opinions.

“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.”

If you don’t like it, amend it.  That’s easy enough to do.  It’s been done 27 times.

And this should appeal to everyone.  None of us should want Supreme Court justices that are willing to look the other way on laws that violate the Constitition just because the circumstances are different than when the Constitution was written*.  If a state passed a law saying you didn’t have the right to blog in a time of war because our enemies could read it, you’d have a problem with that law, no?

*Are they really different?  There were gun murders in 1791 too.  Murder is not a new phenomenon.