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

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Illegal Guns

I see that El T and Art beat me to it.

A common rephrasing is "to keep guns out of the wrong hands."

And those hands are, of course, our hands.
 
Hi Coyote,

Just for the record, one of the main tenets of both strategy and tactics has always been to know your opponent. While you and I may not agree with the authors' points I, for one, would rather form my arguments in advance rather than at the spur of the moment.
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Officer's wife,

Yes, normally I would agree with you. I too like to keep tabs on our enemies, which is why I frequently visit the Brady website.

However, as far as Mr. McDowell's book is concerned, I've read it all before on said website. Why pay for what I can get for free?
 
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I've emailed Dr. Mcdowell (sorry willbrink I had done it a few minutes before you posted - perhaps you will have verification as well) and verified that he is whom he says he is. I don't believe he's a troll and would appreciate everyone continuing the scholarly debate that has occurred so far.
 
It's not a troll. His email to me confirmed he is posting here. If it's a marketing ploy, it's a damn poor one....carry on
 
It is I again, Earl McDowell. It was nice to read your comments. I learned a great deal. As a professor I'm constantly learning from my students. It would be nice to meet you and discuss the issue, and it would be nice if I had time to respond to each of your statements. Unfortunately, I'm very busy, but I will try to respond more over the weekend.

I'm sure since you are citizens of good will you will join with me to hope that the following event will be successful:

Brady Campaign with its Million Mom March Chapters Join in National Day of Protest against Illegal guns on August 28

I received an email today that indicated two more people have purchased my book. You know what that means: I can buy another cup of coffee.
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I refuse to have anything to do with the MMM as their conduct is very suspicious.

http://www.stentorian.com/2ndamend/mmm/mmm.doc
 
This forum certainly can be The High Road. Keep it up ladies and gentlemen. Aside from some posters who insist on character attacks, this thread, which I thought would be a disaster, is going very well.

For those of you who think this is a trick of some kind: Earl exists. The ever-vigilant internet detectives among us have found his email address, department website, previous work, and other information validating Earl's existence.

They actually have a Department of Rhetoric?
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Yes UMN did, and I have a degree from that department. Starting this fall, the department was moved to the College of Liberal Arts and was renamed the Department of Writing Studies, a name that more accurately reflects what the department does, in my opinion.
 
I cite two Supreme Court Justices, the former president of ABA, and the former dean of Harvard Law School. All of these constitutional scholars state that there is a need to revisit the Second Amendment and to interpret it for the 21st century.
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As I'm quite sure you're aware, there's a universe of difference between what a retired Justice thinks and what the Court thinks. And as I'm sure you're quite aware, the ABA is a notoriously liberal organization. Many of us will never join it. I'm a DRI member, and as far as I'm concerned the ABA lost any credibility decades ago. They're dominated by the plaintiff's bar and have little interest in presented a balanced view. Also, getting a former HLS dean to support gun control is about as difficult as getting a halibut to swim around on the bottom of the ocean.

But I'm sure you know that already. You're just trying to wrap your personal views in a faux-official cloak. And I'm sure you know most reader's don't know the difference between a justice and the Court, between a law school dean and the law, and between the ABA and a mandatory bar. You're presenting us with more of the same double talk that's been used to cram gun control down our gullets for generations.

Obviously a national system of licensing gun owners and registration of all guns would help to solve this problem.
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How is that?
 
Mr. McDowell has stated :

For the record, the Second Amendment of the Constitution - "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed" - does not give citizens the right to bear arms
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He is correct . The constitution/bill of rights does NOT give /grant rights . It instead , protects the rights we already have from government abuses .

Now , I say , for the record , if the 2nd amendment is not about individual rights , then how can the following be .

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
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I see a common thread in those amendments , the right of the people.

we all have been down this road of people trying to re-interpret the rights we have and this "professor" has already made up his mind that HIS opinion is the true and correct one . The constitution is a plainly stated document . When people say they need to interpret it , they essentially are using the 'what is "is" " argument .
 
Some thoughts from a new THR member

I have to say that this thread has been a good one. I normally "lurk" around various forums but felt the need to post here (so you are all responsible for me signing up on THR!). Let me preface my comments with this: I am 20 years old, own no guns, but intend to purchase a handgun when I turn 21. So I guess you can say I have no real expertise to offer, other than my limited knowledge at the range of how to safely operate a firearm. I have been studying the gun control debate the past few years and have formed similar opinions to what you might call the "pro-gunners". I grew up in a gun-free home and an "anti-gun" family in CA so you might be able to call me an anomaly.

I really appreciate the exchange of ideas that is going on here. I also applaud most of the posters here and their ability to keep things civil. It is also neat that Dr. McDowell has come here to defend his views and work (hopefully we will hear more from him soon; especially in answer to the arguments made here).

I believe in individual responsibility. Gun laws, historically, do nothing to reduce crime. New York City, Washington DC, the UK, etc. etc., should have wonderful records on violent crime for banning so many guns. Yet they don't. After the handgun bans took place in NYC and Washington, violent crime (even with the so called banned weapons) rose. The problem with blanket laws (this gun is now illegal) is they target people who are attempting to obey the law. In an effort to keep guns out of the "wrong hands", the politicians have only stripped liberty from the law-abiding, while most criminals are still able to get whatever they need. Much like the Prohibition, a black market is created. There already is a black market for guns as most guns used in crimes are purchased illegally. So gun control isn't really a gun issue; it is a liberty issue that harms the average law abiding American citizen.

In a free society, government is limited. The government does not seek to control its citizens when its citizens are free. A free person can choose for themself what is right; for their home; for their family. When people claim that the second amendment is closely linked to the ideals the Founding Fathers fought for, they are correct. In a free society the government fears its people, not the other way around, as our third President, Thomas Jefferson, put it.

Many excellent comments have been made by the people here. I have nothing really to add to them other than this short little testimonial of my beliefs as a citizen and future gun owner.

I am afraid I have heard the same gun control arguments before from many people. After VA tech happened, it was all over the news. To reiterate what someone else here wrote, it seems like Dr. McDowell wrote this book by starting from his premise and looking for whatever quotes or numbers supported that. Hopefully Dr. McDowell will be as open minded as he hopes for all of us to be. I wrote an article response to the student newspaper of my University if anyone here is interested although it was edited for space considerations: original article- http://www.dailytitan.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=eb1a40a8-6202-4b8b-92ff-3afa67311135 and my response- http://media.www.dailytitan.com/media/storage/paper861/news/2007/04/23/Opinion/Titans.Talk.Back-2873707.shtml

As for me, I would prefer to be free; to be free to choose what is right to protect my family with. Our country was founded on freedom; certainly not "control" of any kind.
 
Brady Campaign with its Million Mom March Chapters Join in National Day of Protest against Illegal guns on August 28

What they should protest against is light sentences for violent felons who get out too early, easily acquire a gun, which is illegal, and then use it to commit more violent crimes.

Here's a case in point right in the good Dr's back yard. In Minneapolis, not too long ago, a 19 year old thug was arrested and convicted of armed robbery for knocking over a convenience store with a handgun. What was his sentence? He got a year in the county slammer, but a judge reduced that to 4 months in the county workhouse because the judge didn't "feel" that a year in county lockup would help this punk to reform himself. How did that turn out? Less than 2 months after said thug was released from the workhouse, he managed to acquire a firearm (surprise! surprise! surprise!) and he robbed two men who were walking home from a local neighborhood pizza joint. After the two men complied and gave this punk their wallets, he shot and killed both of them from point blank range, execution style. Those two men would still be alive if that POS was still in the slammer where he should have been.

By the way, his armed robbery of the convenience store was not his first brush with the law for violent crime. Are you surprised by that? Most people here probably aren't. We don't need gun control, we need judge control. I doubt that this is an isolated incident. I'm guessing most of our members here could post stories of thugs who were released after very light sentences and who then easily acquired a gun or other weapon and killed or seriously wounded another innocent victim. Look at what happened to the police officer named Harris in Tampa. His killer had a rap sheet a mile long, full of violent crimes. Yet, he was out and about. Nice, judge. Too bad a police officer had to die just so the judge could show how "understanding" and "progressive" he was in treating violent criminals. Some judges have blood on their hands through their failure to get tough with known, repeat, violent thugs. Let's see the Brady's campaign against "soft judges". Then I might join you in wishing them some success, Dr. McDowell.
 
Nickotym's post, on page 4, displaying Professor McDowell's letter to the editor in the MN Daily clearly demonstrates that professor McDowell is either a biased partisan in this debate or unqualified to intelligently comment on whether the Second Amendment secures an individual right to keep arms.

From Nickotym's post:
For the record, the Second Amendment of the Constitution... does not give citizens the right to bear arms. In fact, the intent of the Second Amendment was to protect citizens from a tyrannical government by permitting states to form militias. Supreme Court decisions in 1876 and 1939 ruled that the right to bear arms was not a right granted by the Constitution.
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Regardless of whether one believes the Second Amendment protects an individual right, it is farcical to claim that the Second Amendment permitted the states to form militias.

Far worse is the professor stating that an 1876 Supreme Court case ruled "that the right to bear arms was not a right granted by the Constitution." The professor is quoting U S v. CRUIKSHANK out of context (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=92&invol=542). That's a fact, not a mere difference of opinion.

Further claiming that the Miller case (1939) also held that the right to bear arms was not a right granted by the Constitution (in the context that the professor uses the term 'granted') is incorrect.

The professor's understanding of the Second Amendment and its jurisprudence is abysmally deficient as well as is his lack of understanding of the politics of gun control.

It's so tiring to see professors claiming to be arbiters or the "voice of reason" in the gun control debate when in fact they are either ignorant of the subject matter or partisan hacks merely trying to hide behind a false veil of impartiality (eg., see Spitzer, Robert, "The Politics of Gun Control" [as well as his other ruminations on the subject])
 
Welcome to THR DCoats. And kudos for a great first post.
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Speaking of Trolls, DCoats MUST be a troll. There is no way that a 20 year old non-gun owner from California, no less, could be so eloquent. ;)

Seriously, welcome to The High Road, you'll fit in quite nicely.

Dr. McDowell, I applaud you for being willing to engage in some honest debate here on The High Road. Please contact some of your like minded friends and encourage them to join in. You are one against many here and I hate to see such an unfair fight.
 
For example, McDowell supports licensing and registration of all firearms, but does not want to take them all away from us. This is a tremendous difference, and one that reminds us that firearm ownership is not a simple, black and white issue.
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Right off the bat you can tell this guy is anti-gun. He just wants hide behind the fact by saying he does not want to take away guns. There is no way I would buy this book to support this guys views. And yes, he is right that gun ownership is not a simple black and white issue.
 
I just viewed the book on the link given to Amazon in the first post. While the old saying about telling a book by its cover may be often true, does anyone besides me think the cover photo was not intended to be neutral on the issue, but to show guns in the most threatening way possible?
 
I get stuck at:

In fact, the intent of the Second Amendment was to protect citizens from a tyrannical government by permitting states to form militias.
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With all the available material written by the actual men who wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights, how can anyone seriously make this statement? I know that is the position taken by the anti-freedom crowd, but I always thought it was a cynical ploy to fool people who won't do their own research.
 
I know that is the position taken by the anti-freedom crowd
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No it isn't.

That's in part is why the professor is clearly out of his field of expertise (see my post on the previous page).
 
I'm late on this topic, but here it goes:

1. The author should read the U.S. Constitution and make an attempt to understandwhat was written, not what those with an agenda want you to believe, including established case law. It's very plain that RKBA is an individual right not to be infringed. Gun Registration = Infringemant.

2. JPFO makes a very clear case against gun control by looking at World history and how gun registration lead to confiscation then later to genocide.

Thus endeth the Lesson.
 
I have a bit more to say about registration.

I believe it would be criminal and unpatriotic for me to register my firearms. I would be supporting a tyrannical government and giving up the tools to protect and nourish a government by the people.

I think if registration does occur it will be an extension of 4473s. Every new gun must be REGISTERED. Older guns will be grandfathered.

I don't understand people who have no concept of freedom, no desire to be free, and a will to eliminate freedom of others. Some people think because they have fancy degrees they have earned the right to dictate to and plan the lives of less-educated people. Kind of hard to do if you're a libertarian, which is why most college professors are clear cut communists.
 
I do not support the conceal-and-carry laws.
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I am flabbergasted, I tell you. Earl writes that after 33 years of research he supports firearm "Registration" and yet he does not support Registration of, FBI background check, classroom training, fingerprinting/mug shot, firearm proficiency testing for those who legally carry concealed weapons and comply with all of the above (not to mention paying a small fee for the above), all actions that most criminals will not... can not, due to their very criminal nature, accomplish without peril.

I look forward to reading a well thought out response to that paradigm. Register them but leave them at home? Allow yourself to become a victim of any criminal at large that decides what's yours is his? Not that the two are tied together... too much.
In fact, the intent of the Second Amendment was to protect citizens from a tyrannical government by permitting states to form militias.
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In fact, the intent of the Second Amendment was to keep this nation free by keeping Congress from infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms, as they were necessary for the body/militia.
Madison's first proposal was worded as follows:
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person. (23)
The House of Representatives revised Madison's proposal, and adopted the following version:
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed; but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person. (24)
The Senate made additional revisions, and adopted the wording that became part of the Constitution:
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. (25)
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http://www.rocklin.com/Politics/2nd_Amendment/2nd_amendment.html
I know 33 years of research has turned up the above, and more. I look forward to seeing the bibliography referenced in "The Great Gun Game."
 
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