America's Great Gun Game--a new book on gun control

[White Horseradish]

If the gun laws proposed by Homer Cummings had be implemented, it is unlikely that John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther king would have been assassionated.

That would be, in academic terms, an unfounded conjecture, otherwise known as a wild-ass guess, coupled with a chunk of wishful thinking.

A shot from a registered rifle will kill as dead as a shot from an unregistered one. What exactly would registration have improved here?

Assassination of political figures is not affected by gun control at all. Anarchists of various stripes at the turn of the 20th century embraced bombing wholeheartedly, and a bomb big enough to kill a single man is easily made with household chemicals.

I am also fairly certain that the three assassins would not have aborted their plans if the only way for them to acquire a weapon would have been a black market.

 

[Odd Job]

Mods, please feel free to close this thread, it has turned out to be a waste of our good members' time.

 

[sacp81170a]

Earl, you've PMed me twice now

Funny, he's PM'd me twice as well. I'd think that if he had the time to PM several members of this forum that he had time to come up with some cogent responses... that is, if he can think of any.

 

[El Tejon]

Please advise how gun registration would have prevented the deaths of JFK, MLK and RFK. In case you have forgotten, their murderers were all captured.

How would have gun registration mattered in any way what so ever?

Chicago and Washington D.C. are two cities where I have lived that have gun registration (I, of course, did not participate). How is gun registration stopping crime in those fine cities?

 

[Euclidean]

Hi everyone it is Uncle Earl. I really appreciate your thorough comments. It would be nice if someone said something nice about my book. Perhaps, like, the pages are numbered correctly. If you saw my picture you would probably say how can a 65 year old man look 25. I must be stupid. I don't know how I could be a National Merit winner and be so stupid.

I haven't said anything about your book, I haven't read it. Fair enough?

Also I don't think you are stupid. You can string coherent sentences together. I simply believe you rely on logical disconnects to make your arguments, and are mistaken on some issues. That doesn't make you stupid.

I don't have time to respond to the gentleman from SA, but I really appreciate his sincerity. I have several friends who live in London, and they love it there. They appreciate being able to go out at night and not worry about being shot.

My good sir, I live in Texas and I regularly go out at night and do not worry about being shot. I do keep an eye on my immediate surroundings and practice some observation techniques I've been trained to use, but I do that at all times.

Some of you actually responded to the question I asked, and I appreciate it. I want to go back to the start of that dialogue and read it more clearly.

Fair enough. I simply ask for definition of the term "gun death" as I find it enigmatic.

I'm sorry I did not include all groups in asking for your responses. I appreciate all of the responses.

But we still have the problem, don't we? How are are we going to solve this problem?

I've offered you my solution.

How can we lower the death rate by 5 percent in 2008?

Sir you've already been offered several solutions, you simply have not acknowledged them. What you clearly want is for somebody to agree with your idea of how to solve the problem. You want somebody to say we need to restrict access to firearms somehow.

Are you aware sir that in the 5 years after Texas passed their CHL law, the murder rate fell over 30%?

That's not to say there's causation there, but it does clearly indicate that more guns on the streets does not mean more killings. Your belief that guns need to be restricted will lead to less killings is simply not true, which is why nobody is going to give the answer you want to hear.

I really wish you were right sir, I genuinely do. I wish the solution to this problem was so simple.

The goal of my book is for the debate to end and for reprersentatives of different groups to sit down as brothers and sinsters and develop a comprehensive solution to this problem. Unfortunately, Homer Cummings is dead. He was a great American, a gun owner and strongly supporter of gun registration.
If the gun laws proposed by Homer Cummings had be implemented, it is unlikely that John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther king would have been assassionated. what do you think about that or don't you care?

Why would any gun control measure stop a killer? Look at all the high profile killings involving firearms for the past several years and I think you'll find all sorts of gun control laws were broken in the process.

We have clearly seen that pouring gasoline on a fire will not smother that fire. Pouring even more gasoline on it will not help either.

I highly doubt Mr. Cummings proposal would have stopped anything and I would like it explained to me how it would have physically prevented those killings. Rather, I think we should acknowledge those awful events were the fault of violent, possibly insane, and driven killers. It's not a happy thought, I admit.

It's lovely to think we can pass a new set of laws and make it all go away, but it's just a feel good pipe dream to imagine any gun control laws have ever saved anyone's life.

 

[Henry Bowman]

But we still have the problem, don't we? How are are we going to solve this problem? How can we lower the death rate by 5 percent in 2008?

The goal of my book is for the debate to end and for reprersentatives of different groups to sit down as brothers and sinsters and develop a comprehensive solution to this problem.

We have not yet agreed on "the problem." It seems you have defined a problem by your proposed "solution." With all due respect, it appears you want the "debate" to end before it begins and then for everyone else to agree to your proposed solution to an undefined problem.

You really haven't even made any attempt to defend your position.

 

[M_Olson]

Earl, you've PMed me twice now...

youre not the only one...i wont divulge the information exchanged in the private message without Dr. McDowell's consent, but it was interesting and repetitive to say the least.

 

[txgolfer45]

He has PM'd me twice too. Of course, he never answered my questions. Just called me ignorant. Yeah, I divulged his content due to his remark. Resorting to bashing when faced with facts he can't deny is quite childish. I expected more from a "Phd".

 

[Hands of blue]

I present this here to expose THR readers to a well-researched and thought-out argument for gun control,

For example, McDowell supports licensing and registration of all firearms, but does not want to take them all away from us.

He should do more research. The intent of licensing and registration laws is to keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons (Why they think convicted felons that want to continue to break the law would obey this one is beyond me). But the 5th amendment says you can not be forced to incriminate your self. In Hayes v. U.S. the courts ruled that it would be incriminating to register a gun if you were a felon and prohibited from owning a firearm so self incriminating is a full defense against any registration laws.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

You did not tell me how we are going to lower the firearm death rate in our great country.

"Research consistently shows that populations of homicide offenders and victims generally have higher-than-average rates of arrest and conviction for a variety of offenses. The National Criminal Justice Commission estimates that about 30 million Americans--approximately 15% of the U.S. population over age 15--have an arrest record (citations omitted). Studies of homicide, however, reveal that typically about 70% of U.S. offenders have been arrested in the past (usually more than once; see [Wolfgang, Marvin E. 1958. Patterns in Criminal Homicide. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press. P. 177]) and about 50% have been convicted of an offense (see Kleck and Bordua, 1983:293). ...

"Less is known about the criminal record of victims, but the same pattern is evident. In Wolfgang's (1958:175, 180) study of criminal homicide in Philadelphia during 1948-1952, almost half of the victims had a history of arrest." --- Cooney, Mark. 1997. "The decline of elite homicide." Criminology 35:381-407. Source Link

It seems to me that a strong case can be made that keeping violent offenders locked up would have a strong effect on the total (not just firearms) homicide rate. Not only that; but it would be unique among "anti-violence" solutions in that it holds responsible people who commit violence without directing the bulk of its efforts at people who firearms safely and responsibly.

You obviously know we have significantly more death from firearms than any other industrialized nation.

How do you define "industrialized nation?" Often I find that when someone cites "industrialized nations" they really mean "only those nations that support my argument."

I would welcome the opportunity to have my gun registered. Colin Powell would agree with me.

You are quite welcome to register your firearms and I am happy that Colin Powell agrees your firearms should be registered. Neither you nor Mr. Powell is entitled to make that decision for me in the absence of some action on my part indicating I cannot use firearms safely or responsibly.

Over 260 have been murdered in Philadelphia this year, Would you like to know the histtory of these guns used to commit these murders? I read that 90 percent of guns were legally purchased.

I read that Professors of Rhetoric were notorious for misquoting statistical data and that over 90% of their statements were factually inaccurate. Given the homicde statistics I mentioned earlier in the thread, it seems unlikely that over 90% of the firearms could be purchased legally since the people committing the murders are prohibited from purchasing firearms. Would you care to elaborate on this statistic or offer a cite to it?

 

[Owen]

Dr.,

What is the current murder rate in London?
Londoners may not be as afraid of getting shot, but in reality, they're in more danger in London than in NYC.

Why is a murder committed with a gun worse than other murders?

You have this fixation on guns as the root of the problem. For you, for some reason, a person shot to death is a bigger tragedy than someone beaten to death with a cricket bat. The people on this board see it differently. For us, someone beaten to death with a cricket bat is a tremendous tragedy, because they were likely denied the most effective means (by law, or by themselves) of self-defense.

Why will reducing murders implemented with guns reduce the overall murder rate?

You also seem to believe that by eliminating guns you have eliminated all of the murders implemented with guns, when there are numerous substitutes; Knives, archery gear, bats and clubs of all sorts, cars, poison, explosives, frying pans, and so on. Substitution isn't imaginary: its a fact of economics.

So let's back up. Why do people commit murder? I suspect that your gun blinders have prevented you from asking this question. Please understand that we have dozens of people on this board that study this question for a living. Would you care to be enlightened? This may be a good place to start: Instrumental vs. Expressive Violence

Why would any sort of law have a preventative affect on a criminal?

Why do you insist that the way to decrease predation is to make the prey weaker?

You want to decrease violent crime? Here's my solution: Make murder illegal.

You've basically refused to answer how it is that registration, cosmetic bans, ballistic fingerprinting, and all of your other bullet points do a darn thing to prevent crime. In fact, I believe those things will increase "gun crime" for the simple reason that by creating new crimes, you've created new criminals.

I believe your desire to reduce murder rates is honorable and sincere. The issue that most of us here have with your proposals is that you can't explain why they will actually reduce crime. Your response is basically "We HAVE to do SOMETHING!!!" I fail to see how doing something with no evidence or reason, logical, historical or statistical, of working is worth considering in the slightest.

If you had irrefutable proof that cutting off everyone's left pinky would result in Peace on Earth, I'd cut mine off. Right after everyone else. Until that time I have a responsibility to myself, my family, my friends and my nation to be able to defend myself and them.

At the moment, cutting off everyone's left pinky finger seems like a more reasonable solution to violent crime than your trite proposals.

 

[Ieyasu]

Hands of Blue,

But the 5th amendment says you can not be forced to incriminate your self. In Hayes v. U.S. the courts ruled that it would be incriminating to register a gun if you were a felon and prohibited from owning a firearm so self incriminating is a full defense against any registration laws.

For the third time on this thread:
For a brief period, the Supreme Court held in 1968 (Haynes v. U.S.) that felons were exempt from federal and state laws regarding registration because it violated their Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. In other words, only people who were not criminals could be prosecuted for failing to register a firearm or found to be in possession of an unregistered firearm. However, in 1971, (U.S. v. Freed) the Court held that due to changes in the National Firearms Act of 1968 the law no longer violated the 5th Amendment rights of felons.

 

[Bazooka Joe71]

I read that Professors of Rhetoric were notorious for misquoting statistical data and that over 90% of their statements were factually inaccurate. Given the homicde statistics I mentioned earlier in the thread, it seems unlikely that over 90% of the firearms could be purchased legally since the people committing the murders are prohibited from purchasing firearms. Would you care to elaborate on this statistic or offer a cite to it?

He would, but he just does not have enough time.

 

[IA_farmboy]

I have several friends who live in London, and they love it there. They appreciate being able to go out at night and not worry about being shot.

Perhaps they need to rethink their relative safety.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2656875.stm

According to Prof. Joyce L Malcolm:

You are now six times more likely to be mugged in London than New York. Why? Because as common law appreciated, not only does an armed individual have the ability to protect himself or herself but criminals are less likely to attack them. They help keep the peace. A study found American burglars fear armed home-owners more than the police. As a result burglaries are much rarer and only 13% occur when people are at home, in contrast to 53% in England.

Wow, that should open some eyes. More than half of the house burglaries in London occur when there are people still inside!

Doctor, I found the above statistics with a few minutes with Google. You claim to be an informed individual on gun control but all we seem to have gotten from you so far is appeals to emotion, bandwagons, red herrings, and veiled ad hominem, among other logical fallacies.

I look forward to your explanation as to why we should not consider Selective Service a militia. It is one of many questions you have left unanswered.

 

[Ieyasu]

Earl, you've PMed me twice now

Funny, he's PM'd me twice as well. I'd think that if he had the time to PM several members of this forum that he had time to come up with some cogent responses... that is, if he can think of any

Score me for two also.

 

[bumm]

Earl McDowell was saying
>Please respond only to these questions

That's convenient isn't it? People HAVE been responding to those questions. You just don't like the answers. Many here have posted very eloquently responding to specific statements you have made concerning your book, yet I haven't read any responses to these from you, only generalized emotional anecdotes and more questions. I thought this was going to be more intellectually interesting...
Marty

 

[Ieyasu]

Hey guys/gals let's play along with the anti's...

Sure we support registration since it lowers crime, right?

Also, the anti's don't want to take our guns away, right?

So let's pass a constitutional amendment... Legalizing all full and semi-autos. [Recall that there's been only one crime committed by a civilian with a legal-full auto weapon.] This amendment preempts all state and local laws. Any new firearm must be registered.

Propose that to most anti's... they'll never approve.

 

[M1 Shooter]

He PM'd me once. I sent him a response, and asked him a question of my own. He has not replied, and I don't expect him to answer my question even if he does reply. In other words, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for an answer.

It seems to me he is not being very polite to us. We have given him the courtesy of responding to his questions, and he ignores ours.
Maybe we should just ignore his questions until he starts answering some of ours. Or, maybe the moderators should just close down this thread since we don't seem to be getting anywhere.

I am very frustrated by the attitude he has displayed towards us, and I know I can't be the only one.

 

[I LIKE IT!]

This is going nowhere...

M Owen------

I'm just saying it like it is....this guy is not worth the time of day.
Keep your "caution" bother, apathy is death. This guy has been rude enough and still....I say ban the good Dr.

 

[cbsbyte]

I have a strong suspicion that the person posting as the professor is not who he says he is. He does not seem to have a firm grasp on the topic to be able to write any book on gun control or debate it. Every professor I have had in college had more than enough understanding of an issue to debate from either side of the argument. Maybe I am wrong but I am very suspicious.

 

[Ieyasu]

cbsbyte,

He does not seem to have a firm grasp on the topic to be able to write any book on gun control or debate it. Every professor I have had in college had more than enough understanding of an issue to debate from either side of the argument. Maybe I am wrong but I am very suspicious.

Follow the link that's been posted to the first two chapters of his book. Read the section on the Second Amendment. I guarantee you'll come to the identical conclusion.

Also, previously posted is discussion of his letter-to-the-editor that appeared in the MN Daily News. Again, anyone who knows something about 2A jurisprudence would come to the same conclusion.

 

[Owen]

cbs,

Really, he sounds like every other academic grabber I've ever talked to.

Sad really, that this is the best the grabber's seem to be able to do.

 

[springmom]

He's not listening, you know.

He's declaiming. He's springboarding. But he's not listening. (Oh, and he's trying to get us to buy his book as well...and he's still not listening.)

Ultimately, the question that he really needs to answer is this: do you acknowledge that some people commit evil acts? Because if that is true, even if all the guns in the world, and the knowledge of how to make more of them, were to disappear, the evil would still happen. It would just happen with different tools. If no guns existed, we'd be watching out for sword-carrying home invaders and knife-carrying rapists (actually, the latter is a concern anyway).

The presumption in here is that no violent crime existed before the invention of the firearm, and that ever since, we've been on a slippery slope straight downhill. That's just utter nonsense. Evil, and men (and women!) who will commit evil deeds, has been around as long as mankind. As so many of you have stated, the emphasis on firearms is misplaced, and the "reduction by 5% of gun deaths" is a bugaboo.

None of us have the power to *keep* a rapist from violating and even killing his victim. We can lock him up until the day he dies if he does it, but we cannot prevent it. This is a fallacy, wishful thinking, a utopian dream. But it has nothing whatsoever to do with reality.

IMO, we've said all that can be said to this man. He isn't listening. He PM's us to make private points, but refuses to debate the issues, preferring instead to advertise his book. He talks down to us as if we were in elementary school instead of the professionals, educated men and women, soldiers, police officers, lawyers, MBA's, psychologists, etc., that we are. What further point to continue this?

Springmom

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I have a strong suspicion that the person posting as the professor is not who he says he is.

Based on the evidence available to the mods and admins, it appears that the professor is who he says he is.

 

[legaleagle_45]

Dr. Earl E. McDowell

I appreciate the fact that you were a history major in college. I too was a history major in college, graduating with honors (actually I was a double major, also majoring in mathematics). I went on to law school and graduated as the top man academically in my class (we won't mention the three women who had better grades). I appreciate that fact that you are a university professor. I too have had the honor and privilege of teaching the next generation, with my experience being with law students and providing instruction in the fields of property law, civil procedure and jurisprudence. I appreciate the fact that you are a published author. I too have had the honor of having some of my musings published in scholarly journals, and even having one of said musings picked up and reprinted in the Wall Street Journal.

Now that we have each established our respective academic credentials, may I respectfully point out that you are an amateur when it comes to legal analysis. A prime example is your reliance upon U S v. CRUIKSHANK, 92 U.S. 542 (1875) for the proposition that "the right to keep and bear arms is not a right granted by the Constitution." This is the relevant quote from the case you rely upon:

This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government...

You could use Cruikshank in a similar vein to deny the existence of the right of the people to peaceably assemble, because Cruikshank also says this:

The particular amendment now under consideration assumes the existence of the right of the people to assemble for lawful purposes, and protects it against encroachment by Congress. The right was not created by the amendment; neither was its continuance guaranteed, except as against congressional interference.

Cruikshank is not authority for the proposition that those rights do not exist, it was merely explaining that they were rights that arose prior to the Bill of Rights and that the Bill of Rights was created to protect pre-existing rights, not create new ones...

You also refer to the Miller case for this proposition. Nowhere in Miller is such a statement made and I challenge you to demonstrate otherwise.

You cite a former Chief Justice, who was writing for Parade Magazine, certainly not a scholarly work or an official court opinion. I can easily cite several sitting justices on SCOTUS both from official opinions to scholarly works who think otherwise. I can site leading legal scholars with no agenda for the proposition that we are dealing with an individual right. I can go to the historical record and provide you with clear indications that this is an individual right.

Have you read the debates in the 1st Congress concerning the 2nd Amend? I have. Have you read the debates in the various state legislatures regarding their concerns which gave rise to the 2nd Amend? I have. Are you familiar with the English Bill of Rights and the historical context giving rise to the immediate lineal ancestor of our own Bill of Rights? I am.

The great weight of modern authority is that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right. When leading constitutional scholars such as Tribe (do you even know who Tribe is???) adopt the individual right thesis it is evident where the cards are in this debate.

Famed constitutional lawyer and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who defended O.J. Simpson and Claus von Bulow, is a former ACLU national board member who admits he "hates" guns and wants the Second Amendment repealed. Yet, says Dershowitz: "Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a safety hazard don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."

Another former ACLU national board member, Duke Law School's William Van Alstyne, who is among the premier constitutional scholars of modern times, contemptuously dismisses the states'-right view. "If anyone entertained this notion in the period during which the Constitution and Bill of Rights were debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded secrets of the 18th century for no known writing surviving from the period between 1787 and 1791 states such a thesis."

In short, without the legalese and with all due respect, your legal arguments are hogwash.