This is Earl McDowell, again. Thanks everyone for your comments<snip> This has been an enlightening experience for me.
Well that's a good result.
This will be my last attempt to convey my viewpoint on the gun isssue--at least for a while. I also am assuming that most of the people who belong to this organization are honest, honorable men and women. I also am assuming that you are concerned about the welfare of America.
Fair enough.
To explain my position better, I quote R. William Ide, former dean of ABA: "It is time we get on with the business of treating guns with the respect they require and one small step toward that end is making it clear that regulating gun ownership does not violate the Constitution." Presidents Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, Johnson, Carter, Bush and Clinton all agreed that regulations are necessary.
And presidents Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, Johnson, Carter, Bush and Clinton were all wrong. I personally am critical of each of them for reasons which expand well beyond the RKBA debate. While I don't envy any US President's job, these men are human and can and do err.
Some of you questioned my background to write a book on gun control. Well, one of my majors was American History--especially from 1812 to 1950. So I know the issue and until you have the historical knowledge of it, please do not babble about my lack of understanding on the issue. I also told you that I debated the issue.
Then you know that the original purpose of gun control is to discriminate against people of color, which has transitioned into a social initiative to create a privileged class of people who are armed while others aren't.
My partner and I won every debate, both affirmative and negative, on this topic. Some said I should take the gun rights side and write a book. This would not be difficult for me, but I do not have the time. I read everything I can on all sides of the issue. I try to view everything I read with an open mind.
The Second Amendment needs to be interpreted for the 21st century. Several of you have written about the Second Amendment and think that it is an individual right,
Sir I do not think I know. I referenced in a previous post historical evidence to support my assertion.
yet Webster 1828 dictionary defines militia as "...able bodied men organized into companies, regiments, brigades... and required by law to attend military exercise ... " Certainly you know that our Constitution is a flexible document. We have to interpret it in the present. Justice Brennan indicated that we need not read the amendment through "the eyes of a small group of white property-owning males who lived in a world utterly different than our own..."
The 2A does not spell out any provision for a militia. It acknowledges that military forces must exist to preserve a free nation and defend it against foreign threats, therefore the people must be armed so there's not a monopoly of force.
While the political climate of the time may have been far from idea, the meaning of the 2A hasn't changed. Even in the time it was passed, there were those who could not vote but who could still arm themselves.
The following statement from the 1923 New York Times is as relevant today as it was then. It states: "A sale of weapons should be carefully regulated. The problem is one of how to keep them out of the hands of man killers. No one has yet found a solution for it."
I agree it's just as relevant, because it addresses the core fact no one can contend with. People have free will. They will hurt and kill and do horrible things at their own whim regardless of laws, restrictions, or access to inanimate objects.
This caused legislatures to introduce regulations, but the NRA was successful in stopping the movement so the murders continued.
Gun control does not stop murders. How come people in the UK are still being fatally shot?
It's not the guns it's the people who misuse them.
Like the United States, post-World War I Great Britain also experienced a surge in crime. Unlike the United States, Britain modified it gun laws by revisiting the 1903 Pistol Act. After a lively debate in Parliament between the pro-gun group and the gun-control group, the House of Commons passed the Firearms Act of 1920 by a vote of 254 to 6. The act was designed "to prevent criminals and persons of that description from being able to have revolvers and to use them." The key point is that gun owners needed to be licensed and guns registered. In my judgment Britain made the right decision. Here are some verifiable statistics: 10 times more people per 100,000 are killed by firearms in the United States than in Britain, 8 times more are killed in the United States than in Japan and 5 times more are killed in the United States than in Germany and France. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that the more guns people have, the more deaths occur by guns.
Let's just step back for a minute and give you the benefit of the doubt.
Now let's look at how things are going in Britain. What's the rage in Britain right now? Knife control.
My point? Even if you do successfully restrict access to firearms, you have no proof that the overall level of murders have gone down. The people who were being shot, are instead being stabbed, poisoned, or beaten to death.
Additional statistics from the Center for Disease Control concerning children: "American children are more at risk from firearms than children in any other industrialized nation. In one year, firearms killed no children in Japan, nineteen in Great Britain, fifty-seven in Germany, 109 in France, 153 in Canada and 5,285 in the United States." Wake up folks, people with guns kill people.
I have guns. I've killed no one. Over sixty million gunowners, most of whom don't have registered guns by the way, didn't kill anybody today either. If just 1% of them had, you'd have heard about it.
Furthermore, people with Cadillac cars kill people. People with male genitalia kill people. People with dancing shoes kill people. People with toasters kill people. What is your point?
I respect people with various positions on the gun issue. Colin Powell stated, "I am a gun owner. I firmly believe in the Second Amendment right to bear arms. I have rifles, pistols and shotguns, but at the same time I am willing to put up with some level of inconvenience in acquiring guns or having guns in my possession to make sure that I am a responsible citizen who should be allowed to have guns."
Well I don't accept it. It's not inconvenience, it's infringement.
So what do you think? What are you wiling to do to lower the number of murders with firearms? What is your solution to the problem. Please don't state enforcing the laws on the books. Everyone knows this should be done. What is your responsibility as a citizen of the United States?
1. Don't murder anybody. Done.
2. Take care of the people around me.
3. As part of #2, help the people around me protect themselves.
Perhaps we could set some small goals. There are approximately 12,000 murders in the U.S. each year. That is 230 murders a week. There are approximately 15,000 suicides. That is 288 a week. There are over 1,000 accidential deaths. That is about 20 deaths a week. Approximatly 3,000 children die each year from firearms. That is 58 a week. Approximatly 4,000 women die from firearms each year. That is 77 a week. What if we were to lower these numbers by five percent each year for five years? How would you do this?
Well my three points above would probably go a long way.
I care deeply about this country. I read everything I can on the issue and each day I realize how much more there is to know.
I would like to end by commenting on the MMM group. How many of you have actually had contact with a MMM member?
I haven't had contact with a member of the Ku Klux Klan either, but I still refuse to be associated with them.
I'm saddened by the gun violence against women and children. If you have had little or no contact with this group, please have the decency to say so and find out first hand what a fine job they do. I believe these people are the "salt of the earth."
They do a "fine" job of trying to restrict rights I hold dear. If by "salt of the earth" you mean "authoritarians who want to tell me how to live my life when it's none of their business" then I would agree.
I will close with an example I experienced on Thursday. I was visiiting an abuse center in Minneapolis. As I walked into the office I saw a women who appeared to have taken quite a beating. As I waited in the lobby for the director, I kept thinking how I might help this women. The director came and we went into a private room to discuss gun violence.
This is an obvious appeal to emotion. First of all I'm saddened by violence against any innocent party not just women and children.
Second, you are referring to a beating. What does a beating have to do with a gun? This man is not beating her because he may have access to a gun, he's beating her because he wants to.
She disclosed that this women has been to the center several times and feared that her hisband might kill her with a gun. This, of course, is a tragedy, and I wondered did he obtain his gun legally? What should be done with this man?
He might kill her with a knife. He might strangle her. He might steal the knife he kills her with, or he might purchase it. It honestly makes no difference, he is just as vile and wrong either way.
He should be punished for assault or perhaps assault and battery or even attempted murder. It's just that simple. He needs to go to jail so he can't hurt this woman any more at all.
So folks I've come to the end of my journey. Please help end gun violence against women and children. Profits from my book will go to organizations that are working to stop gun violence against women and children.
Well I haven't shot anybody today... or ever... so there's my part. 26 years of freedom from gun violence right there.
These organizations don't really care about women or children, they care about controlling other people, and that's wrong. It's vile to pursue this goal under a deceptive guise which seems noble on the surface.
