Why keep bringing up the 2nd Amendment?

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It doesn't matter what I think it's for. That's the point that many of you keep missing. The only thing that matters is whether or not I believe in what's written. I do. I do not desire to infringe on your right to bear arms.

As I have stated, I am in favor of two specific gun control measures: banning high capacity gun magazines, and forcing all sales or transfers of firearms to go through background checks for the proposed buyer so as to enforce existing laws that make it illegal for convicted felons to purchase them. I do not believe that either of these measures infringe upon your right to bear arms.
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You contradict yourself. Banning standard capacity magazines IS an infringement. You may think it is a reasonable restriction, but it is still an infringement nonetheless. Or are your beliefs the same as the Illinois politician that proposed banning everything other than single shot firearms- as long as you don't take ALL of them, then that satisfies Constitutional requirements?
 
2. Your example of Virginia Tech is the one most often brought up (along with Columbine.) But I can also bring up plenty of examples, starting with Jared Loughner and Aurora, where I believe lives would have been saved with the gun magazine limitation.
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Here's the thing: you have a right to any belief you want, but a belief, unless it is based in hard fact, is only an opinion, and ultimately worth as much as anyone else's.

You have a hypothesis on how magazine restrictions would make mass shootings less deadly. What is the best evidence for this position? Is there evidence to contradict it?

What about people who use guns with high-capacity magazines to defend themselves? What is the data on these sorts of situations, which, although statistically rare, are still much more common than mass shootings?
 
mljdeckard said:
Your apparent willingness to be open-minded is belied by your flagrant unwillingness to believe anything that challenges lines you will not cross. OF COURSE they want to ban all guns. What they are doing right now is hammering at people's sensibilities to prepare them to accept smaller restrictions FOR NOW. They can't take them all at once.

"If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them ... "Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in," I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren't here."

Dianne Feinstein
60 Minutes
U.S. Senator (D-CA)
1995-02-05

"Banning guns is an idea whose time has come."

Joseph Biden
quoted by AP
U.S. Senator
1993-11-18

"We must get rid of all the guns."

Sarah Brady
Phil Donahue Show
1994

"The NRA is bound and determined not to allow the Brady Bill to be enacted. And they're a fearsome opponent. They see this as `threshold' legislation. Because they realize if we get the Brady Bill to President Clinton and he signs it into law, then the door will be wide open for further gun control legislation. Of course, we hope that's true because, as you know, our campaign to enact a National Gun Policy to combat gun violence doesn't end with the Brady Bill - it just begins."

Sarah Brady
HCI newsletter
1993-03

"The national guard fulfills the the militia mentioned in the Second Amendment. Citizens no longer need to protect the states or themselves."

Dianne Feinstein
U.S. Senator (D-CA)

"Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of Americans to feel safe."

Dianne Feinstein
quoted by the Associated Press
U.S. Senator (D-CA)
1993-11-18

"I just want you to know that we are working on it," [Sarah] Brady recalled the president telling them. "We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar."

Barrack Obama
meeting between Jay Carney, Jim Brady, Sarah Brady, and President Obama, quoted in the Washington Post, 2011-04-12
U.S. President
2011-03-30

"Waiting periods are only a step. Registration is only a step. The prohibition of private firearms is the goal."

Janet Reno
U.S. Attorney General
1993-12-10

"My staff and I right now are working on a comprehensive gun-control bill. We don't have all the detauls, but for instance, regulating the sale and purchase of bullets. Ultimately, I would like to see the manufacture and possession of handguns banned except for military and police. But that's the endgame. And in the meantime, there are some specific things that we can do with legislation."

Bobby Rush
Evan Osnos, Bobby Rush; Democrat, U.S. House of Representatives, Chicago Tribune, p. C3
Representative, D-IL
1999-12-05

"...the only people who use them [so-called assault weapons] are mass murderers..."

Charles Schumer
PBS debate with Bill McCollum
U.S. Senator (D-NY)
1996

"Whatever right the Second Amendment protects is not as important as it was 200 years ago ... [The government should] deconstitutionalize the subject by repealing the embarrasing Amendment."

George Will
1991

I have restricted this to quotes from people who are currently influencing this argument. Of course there are countless others. To state that those trying to pass 'common sense' legislation NOW don't ultimately want to ban and confiscate all guns is either willfully naive or flagrantly dishonest. Period.
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Are you sure all those quotes are accurate? I don't want to spend the time looking them all up, but they don't sound like the people you are supposed to be quoting.

I DO know that your first quote by Senator Feinstein is out of context- it refers to specifically to the fact that the original AWB failed to ban a number of "assault weapons" that she wanted included. Feinstein is NOT in favor of "banning all guns".
 
You stated: "Your own post proves you wrong. You note that the Soviet Union made gun control effective in 1929. But the mass collectivization efforts you discuss, which caused the death of millions (mostly in the Ukraine) started around 1924, long before these areas were disarmed. And the bulk of the Soviet population was never disarmed, especially in central Russia and around Moscow- yet this didn't prevent the purges from 1936-1939."

"The rest of your post is just as incorrect, sorry."

In the Ukraine there were 193 voluntary collective farms in 1921 and 9,734 in 1928, embracing 2.5 percent of all farms and 2.9 percent of the land. According to the first version of the First Five-Year Plan for the Ukrainian SSR, 12 percent of all arable land was to be collectivized by 1932. The final version of the plan, which was approved in April 1929, projected 25 percent of the land to be collectivized. In November 1929, however, all these plans were set aside, and forced collectivization was begun.

Please elaborate how the rest of his post is incorrect.
 
"I DO know that your first quote by Senator Feinstein is out of context- it refers to specifically to the fact that the original AWB failed to ban a number of "assault weapons" that she wanted included. Feinstein is NOT in favor of "banning all guns"."

Oh Timmy...you couldn't be more wrong! That quote of Feinstein is dead-on balls accurate! I heard her say it with my own ears.

What part of "outright ban" do you not understand?
 
timmy4 said:
The only limit that I personally propose is on gun magazines. As I explained in the other thread, I am in favor of this because I believe it MIGHT save lives in some mass shooting incidents. The other measure I am in favor of, removing the private sales loophole, places no limitation on you so long as you are not a convicted felon.

I do not believe felons, like the guy who carjacked me, are going to obey the law. But having laws in place can make it more difficult for him, and that's what I want to do.
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We already have a lot of laws in place that the criminals ignore... because they are criminals. They will just ignore them and obtain what they want by whatever means necessary.

Drugs are illegal, but pretty easy to get from what I understand. I assume it wouldn't take much effort to obtain weapons and magazines illegally, but I don't do that, because I am a law abiding citizen!

While you think this MIGHT help reduce casualties in mass shootings, what about the law abiding citizens that die during self defense because of your arbitrary number? Self defense happens way more frequently than mass shootings.
 
I don't think timmy is going to be persuaded. He's still on about the magazine capacity limitation, even though many pages ago, a link was provided that demonstrates the flawed reasoning in such limitations, which serve only do hobble the legal owner and give the advantage the criminal. The Sandy Hook shooter had FAR more than enough time to kill every one of those children regardless of his magazine capacity.

His magazine capacity did not make him an effective killer. It was the lack of an armed response that gave him the time he needed to slaughter those children.

This is VERY MUCH a Second Amendment issue. I've seen a couple of posts indicating that self defense is not what the Second Amendment is for. This is wrong. The primary reason may have been the defense of the people against tyranny, but many of the supporting documents DO talk about the right to defend oneself. Go read the decision for Heller and the amicus briefs from same.

So, yes, magazine capacity limits are very much a violation of the Second Amendment.
 
timmy4 said:
The only limit that I personally propose is on gun magazines. As I explained in the other thread, I am in favor of this because I believe it MIGHT save lives in some mass shooting incidents. The other measure I am in favor of, removing the private sales loophole, places no limitation on you so long as you are not a convicted felon.

I do not believe felons, like the guy who carjacked me, are going to obey the law. But having laws in place can make it more difficult for him, and that's what I want to do.
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If we could wave a magic wand and make every 10+ capacity magazine and every illegally possessed firearm disappear tonight, next week thousands of current felons will again have firearms. Later this year (God forbid), someone will again commit a high-profile rampage shooting using smaller-capacity magazines. The public will demand a solution, and the usual gun-grabbers will say there are just too many guns. Limits on magazine capacity won't be enough. While I believe you when you say you are not a gun-grabber, you fundamentally misunderstand the intent of those pushing for an "assault weapons" ban. They won't be satisfied until they have severely restricted private gun ownership. Magazine capacity restrictions and universal background checks are going to be their center of focus now because that's all they think they can pass now. But they'll be back.
 
I am in favor of two specific gun control measures: banning high capacity gun magazines, and forcing all sales or transfers of firearms to go through background checks for the proposed buyer so as to enforce existing laws that make it illegal for convicted felons to purchase them. I do not believe that either of these measures infringe upon your right to bear arms.
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Most of us will disagree. Notice that police officers are exempted from all of the attacks on "high capacity" magazines. Note that the 30 round magazine for the AR pattern of rifles has been standard since production started right at a half century ago.

And the exemptions for police seem to indicate that the Powers That Be believe there is quite a bit of utility in standard capacity magazines for police. The same police that we call to help us out when we're confronted by violence believe they need tools to deal with that violence that folks like you keep insisting we don't need.

Why is high round count desirable? Because home invasions don't necessarily happen with one invader. Anyone can spend $400 for armor for himself and 2 friends, kick in your door at 3am, and if you're successful at placing a few rounds in their chests with blurry eyes while still waking up from deep sleep, you'll quickly realize that your efforts were ineffective and you're now about to die. That 6-shot revolver or the double-barrel shotgun Biden thinks of as ideal as pretty useless against armor, and doesn't help much when you're facing more than one predator.

Add in the likelihood of misses in a lethal confrontation and you'll start to understand why cops, with more training than your average gun owner, want as many rounds as possible for lethal force engagements. If I'm the only thing standing between multiple intruders and my family while I wait for the well-armed po-po to get here, than you can be pretty sure I don't want to worry about magazine capacity in addition to anything else. An AR works well for me, thanks.

With regard to requiring all sales to get governmental approval first: you know the easiest way to stop firearm sales? Stop approving them. Or stop funding the agency tasked with requiring the approvals. We'd still be permitted to own firearms so no infringement, we just couldn't get our hands on them.

We've seen this already when NICS gets swamped. And again, this won't do anything to stop criminals from getting firearms illegally.
 
I don't hold with magazine limits either. Never mind the legal arguments. When it comes right down to it a magazine is a box with a spring in it. Do we really want the gvmt to tell us we can't own a box with a spring in it? Or, that we can own a box this big, but not that big?

If I'm a bg bent on mayhem and I decide I just have to have more than (x) rounds in the gun - how hard is it going to be to just make one. Cut up a couple of these - make a couple of those. No big deal - so bg has one, honest law abiding citizen doesn't. Thats just wrong, anyway you want to look at it.

They have made AR15 lowers with 3-d printers that are functional - for a limited number of rounds. Again, how hard would it be to make a magazine. You can head down to the local chop shop and scrounge some sheet metal. We're going to spend perhaps millions of dollars - and do nothing more than take things away from law abiding citizens and possibly inconveniencing a bg.

The bg's are building submarines - magazines would be childs play.

I just don't get it.
 
Timmy, I don't really care what you believe because not only have you failed to provide any data to support your beliefs, you reject all factually based challenges to that belief.

Like arguing with a brick wall, this thread is a complete waste of time.:banghead::banghead::banghead:
 
3. I was in the middle of the Los Angeles riots. I know all about the Korean store owners. Despite this, I reject the necessity of high cap magazines for this defense. I also want to note that there is a major contradiction in your argument. You can't at the same time argue that these magazines are NOT necessary for bad guys to do damage and that they are necessary for good guys to defend themselves. That is a logical fallacy.
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Not contradictory at all.

1. You are being rushed by a mob of people trying to kill you. You need to fire multiple rounds rapidly to incapacitate them.

2. You want to kill a room full of unarmed, passive people. You have no time constraints. You can slowly, methodically, kill each person one by one.

Those scenarios are vastly different.

As a rifle magazine can be changed in two seconds or less, explain your logic as to how banning standard capacity magazines will reduce mass killings.
 
Sigh. Look, whether you want to call them "voluntary" or not, collectivization and mass murder occurred in during the 1920s well before the gun laws.

The rest of the post is wrong because it's based on a false premise which most of you, unfortunately, seem to want to adopt: that there is some sort of strong connection between gun laws and the political system of a nation-state. There isn't. Democracies can occur in countries where there is no private gun ownership to speak of, and dictatorships can occur in countries where there is mass private gun ownership. Genocide can occur in free countries with lots of gun ownership, and it may not occur in a country with no gun ownership. There is no connection, no relationship between the two.
 
Closed until Timmy4 can get back here.

Timmy4 is here. Thread opened.
 
Tim, I'm new here as well. Actually joined because of the reasoned and well thought out arguments in this thread. And I want to address the only two things you seem to still be pushing as reasonable restrictions. And I'm going to try to do so by arguing for their ineffectiveness.

1. Banning standard capacity magazines. There are, by some estimates, 50 million+ 30 round AR-15 magazines currently in circulation. Then you have 20 or 15 round magazines. Now throw in every 30 round AK-47 magazine, 12-33 round Glock magazine, plus all the other 10+ round magazines currently in circulation. Easily 250 million+. Probably closer to 500 million, or more. None are serial numbered. None are trackable. Ban sale of magazines over 10 rounds tomorrow, and you know what? It won't matter. Because 100+ years from now, there will still be millions of functioning AR-15 magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. Same for AKs, Glocks, etc.

A magazine is a simple metal or plastic tube with a spring. They aren't hard to maintain or repair. You would have to confiscate them. Besides the violation of the 4th Amendment inherent in that action, they aren't serial numbered or trackable. So even if I have purchased 100 magazines a year for the last 4 years, no one knows. I just have to hide them where confiscators won't find them. So, in short, any magazine ban is a. unlikely to limit the supply by much, and b. virtually unenforceable, since the magazines aren't serialized or registered.

2. Registration comes into play for the requirement of back ground checks for firearms sales between private citizens. What is to stop me from buying a gun for cash, without the background check, after they are mandated? Only if the government knows who is supposed to have what specific guns. By serial number. That means registration. A big central database that can be checked to see if I went through the right channels for the gun, and had it registered to me.

There are 300 million, or more guns in the U.S., in private hands, right now. Who is going to ensure they all get registered? And how, without violating the 4th Amendment? What about the antique guns that were manufactured before serial numbers were required? How will they be registered? And where is the money for this process coming from? None of these questions have answers. The banning of private sales of firearms is impossible without registration, and short of violating several other rights protected by the Constitution, registration is impossible.

I have purposely avoided the "slippery slope" arguments here, or any others, besides practicability of your suggested infringements on the rights of law-abiding citizens. Personally, I don't want any fewer rounds in my magazine than the cops coming to get the bad guy I'm trying to defend against. If with backup and more training, they need 30 rounds, so do I. And I sure as heck don't want the government knowing what guns I have. That's an invitation to abuse, whether by this administration, or one 100 years from now.
 
To those of you who are complaining that I'm either not listening or refused to be convinced: that's because I don't find your arguments compelling- for the most part. Some of the ones about effectiveness do cause me to call into question some of my assumptions. And I do promise to read some of the articles that have been recommended. I really do try to keep an open-minded. I know some of you don't believe that, but I never would have ventured in here otherwise.
 
JN01 said:
You contradict yourself. Banning standard capacity magazines IS an infringement. You may think it is a reasonable restriction, but it is still an infringement nonetheless. Or are your beliefs the same as the Illinois politician that proposed banning everything other than single shot firearms- as long as you don't take ALL of them, then that satisfies Constitutional requirements?
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Define "standard capacity".

Do you realize that 20 and 30 round magazines ARE STANDARD?

10 round magazines are NOT standard. They are "restricted" capacity
 
BThorne said:
Tim, I'm new here as well. Actually joined because of the reasoned and well thought out arguments in this thread. And I want to address the only two things you seem to still be pushing as reasonable restrictions. And I'm going to try to do so by arguing for their ineffectiveness.

1. Banning standard capacity magazines. There are, by some estimates, 50 million+ 30 round AR-15 magazines currently in circulation. Then you have 20 or 15 round magazines. Now throw in every 30 round AK-47 magazine, 12-33 round Glock magazine, plus all the other 10+ round magazines currently in circulation. Easily 250 million+. Probably closer to 500 million, or more. None are serial numbered. None are trackable. Ban sale of magazines over 10 rounds tomorrow, and you know what? It won't matter. Because 100+ years from now, there will still be millions of functioning AR-15 magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. Same for AKs, Glocks, etc.

A magazine is a simple metal or plastic tube with a spring. They aren't hard to maintain or repair. You would have to confiscate them. Besides the violation of the 4th Amendment inherent in that action, they aren't serial numbered or trackable. So even if I have purchased 100 magazines a year for the last 4 years, no one knows. I just have to hide them where confiscators won't find them. So, in short, any magazine ban is a. unlikely to limit the supply by much, and b. virtually unenforceable, since the magazines aren't serialized or registered.

2. Registration comes into play for the requirement of back ground checks for firearms sales between private citizens. What is to stop me from buying a gun for cash, without the background check, after they are mandated? Only if the government knows who is supposed to have what specific guns. By serial number. That means registration. A big central database that can be checked to see if I went through the right channels for the gun, and had it registered to me.

There are 300 million, or more guns in the U.S., in private hands, right now. Who is going to ensure they all get registered? And how, without violating the 4th Amendment? What about the antique guns that were manufactured before serial numbers were required? How will they be registered? And where is the money for this process coming from? None of these questions have answers. The banning of private sales of firearms is impossible without registration, and short of violating several other rights protected by the Constitution, registration is impossible.

I have purposely avoided the "slippery slope" arguments here, or any others, besides practicability of your suggested infringements on the rights of law-abiding citizens. Personally, I don't want any fewer rounds in my magazine than the cops coming to get the bad guy I'm trying to defend against. If with backup and more training, they need 30 rounds, so do I. And I sure as heck don't want the government knowing what guns I have. That's an invitation to abuse, whether by this administration, or one 100 years from now.
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I really appreciate this post. Your first point, on the magazines, gives me quite a bit of pause. I fully recognize the idea that if a law is unenforceable, it's worse than useless. And there is the possibility that the ban I envision may be unenforceable due to technology such as "printing", if I understand it correctly. That is something I will really have to think about.

As regards the background checks: my reasoning is that right now only one person needs to break the law in order to have an illegal private sale: the buyer. The seller can be behaving legally- he doesn't know he's selling the gun to a felon or someone else whose background makes it illegal to purchase. If background checks are required, then in order to break the law, both buyer AND seller will have to be willing to break the law. Since the vast majority of gun sellers are law-abiding people, I think this will cut the number of illegal sales down significantly. That's the basis of my argument.
 
To those of you who are complaining that I'm either not listening or refused to be convinced: that's because I don't find your arguments compelling- for the most part.
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In the end, why should I care what you BELIEVE? The reality is that the DoJ statistics do not support gun restrictions and I really don't think that I deserve to have my freedoms restricted based upon your phobias.

Seems simple enough to me.
 
Timmy, so far, the only reason I have seen you offer for finding an argument non-compelling is that you believe otherwise. Which is irrelevant.
 
timmy4 said:
As regards the background checks: my reasoning is that right now only one person needs to break the law in order to have an illegal private sale: the buyer. The seller can be behaving legally- he doesn't know he's selling the gun to a felon or someone else whose background makes it illegal to purchase. If background checks are required, then in order to break the law, both buyer AND seller will have to be willing to break the law. Since the vast majority of gun sellers are law-abiding people, I think this will cut the number of illegal sales down significantly. That's the basis of my argument.
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Do keep in mind that, currently, only a dealer with a Federal Firearms Licence may use the NICS system to perform a background check on a firearms purchase. No one else may do so under federal law. If universal background checks were a thing, this would force all buyers and sellers to conduct their business through a middleman who may not be located in the area, and may charge high fees for the service only he can provide. In order for universal background checks to actually work, you would have to also make the NICS check be publicly available.
 
OK- I need some information, because I may be changing my mind on the gun magazines- MAYBE. But some things that have been posted here bother me, if true. So I need to confirm them:

1. Are AR-15s sold with 30 round magazines as the STANDARD? If we made the 30 round mags illegal, would that be the same as making AR-15s illegal? (That is not my goal.) Could new AR-15s be sold with a lesser magazine, and what would be the practicality of this move? And how long have 30 round magazines been for AR-15s?

2. How many AR-15s are there currently in private ownership? How many high caliber magazines are currently out there?

3. Would any of you agree to a compromise where magazines in excess of 30 were made illegal? (Say 50 or 100).

Really appreciate the feedback here, thanks.
 
Just curious. What is your livelihood? What kind of neighborhood did you come from. What kind of area do you live in now? Tell us more about yourself.
 
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