Gun Control Debate: Issues and topics

[bang_bang]

For my political science class, I am required to write a 5 page report on a political event/debate to finish the class. I picked the Gun Control debate, I was wondering some general issues I might bring up, emphasize on, or argue on.
Thanks

 

[mljdeckard]

I recently had to do the same thing in a foreign language.

First and foremost, human rights. The right to self defense is a fundamental human right. (Even though many governments, including Great Britain, no longer recognize it.) This rights exist whether the Constitution or the government recognizes them or not. Bearing arms is the means to implement this right. To say otherwise is to say that you have the right to say whatever you want, as long as you don't try to use mechanical implements to do so.

The right to bear arms evolves with technology. If The Constitution only protects the firearms technology that existed when it was written, then the internet, television, and electrical printers aren't protected either.

Disarming honest people has never once, in the history of mankind, made them safer. (DIShonest people don't disarm.)

The statistics that say a gun in the home is more likely to kill a family member than a criminal were falsified by a man named Kellerman. They aren't true.

Depending on which numbers you would rather hang your hat on, guns are used 100,000 times a year for defensively. (Based on actual police report data.) OR you can go based on survey data that says it's more like 1.5-2 million times a year. Either way you cut it, against 11-13,000 gun homicides a year, that's still 10-1 in FAVOR of defensive gun uses.

Guns neither cause nor prevent crime. Crime is a social-economic problem, not a gun problem. Australia and Great Britain have seen CATASTROPHIC rises in ALL categories of violent crime since implementing tighter gun controls in recent years. Switzerland, which has an honest to Browning assualt rifle in the closet of every able-bodied male, has very low crime rates.

The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta (which by the way is VERY anti-gun,) said that they could not conclude any cases where gun laws reduced crime.

NUMEROUS court rulings have decided that the police have no duty to protect YOU as an INDIVIDUAL. They only protect society as a whole. Which means, they will do the best they can, but YOU are the first and primary entity expected to provide for your safety, NOT the police.

The only 'assualt rifle' was issued to a limited number of German soldiers at the end of WWII. It is a ficticious term invented by the anti-gun movement. "Assualt' rifles are NOT high powered. They are used in less than 2% of violent crimes. They are neither fully automatic nor easily converted to become fully automatic. There is no vast underground supply of automatic weapons criminals have cheap unlimited access to. In New Jersey, despite heavy laws against 'assualt weapons', police officers are statistically more likely to be injured by an escaped zoo animal than confronted by a criminal with an 'assualt rifle'.

Children are more likely to drown in 5 gallon buckets than they are to be accidentally shot with a gun. Statistics that say children are killed more often than this use tricks such as including career adult criminals carried over as juveniles by the justice system as 'children' to convince you that innocent children are walking down the street being hit by random bullets every few minutes, when they are really talking about the most violent segments of society killing each other off in gang and drug wars.

The passing and sunsetting of the Clinton era gun ban showed no discernible difference in crime rates.

High-capacity magazines, pistol grips, flash hiders, bayonet lugs, etc have absolutely no bearing on a firearm's inherent lethality. How many 'drive-by bayonettings' have you heard of lately?

I'll think of more later.

 

[bang_bang]

Wow...thanks. This should help point me in the right direction at least.

 

[JohnnyOrygun]

mljdeckard, very good you have some excellent points.

 

[bang_bang]

I think he's pointed out the main ideas, enough for me to utilize the government's idea of "Utopia" (an idea from my local gun shop owner Bob). Even though the requirements is 5 pages, I plan on making it a little longer. I really want my professor to read my paper, sit it down, and think long and hard about my arguments. I was kinda clueless on where to start my research, THR members always have the answers.

BTW- loved the point about DIShonest people don't disarm.

 

[Caliban]

i'm going to disagree and say that there is no such thing as a fundamental human right. a right is something conferred upon you by a government. in england, as you say, they no longer have the right to bear arms- it's not that they have it and the government doesn't recognize it, they really don't have it anymore. in england you do not have the right to own a gun. i think it's important to look at the gun rights debate this way because it makes it all the more dire- the t-shirts at my local range say "ignore your rights and they'll disappear", and i couldn't agree more. you don't just "have" rights because you're a human. a right is something you have to work to preserve, because if the laws change, you don't have that right anymore. you might say "well i can do it whether my government says i can or not" but it's not a right if you can get arrested for it. rights are fleeting and if you take them for granted, you will lose them. furthermore, telling your government that you "have" a right to own a gun and they need to respect it is not a winning argument- the only way to win this argument is with reasons why they should allow you to have that right, and THAT'S what i think we have to focus on, because that's where logic and statistics prevail. wailing about how "we have a fundamental right to protect ourselves" is always going to lose to even the most hacked statistics purporting to show detrimental effects on society of gun ownership, but when we can properly debunk all the garbage coming from partisan morons like the brady campaign using numbers, that's how we'll preserve our rights. we don't have a right to bear arms because we're born that way, we have a right to bear arms because it's in the constitution- and there are people who have the power to change that and take our right away. telling the government to pry our guns from our cold dead hands is a powerful sentiment but ultimately, the debate needs to come down to proving, with facts, that our nation is a better place with the right to bear arms protected.

 

[Caliban]

also, i meant to add that aside from my semantic argument about what constitutes a "right" i completely agree with everything else written by mljdeckard. didn't mean to disagree really, just to build.

 

[Zangetsu]

This is a great resource for papers like that; it should keep you busy for quite some time. Just download the PDF and go to town. Best of luck!

 

[Emfuser]

Caliban, you need to read about negative vs. positive rights. The US Bill of Rights enumerates a series of negative rights. Rights that you inherently have as a human that are spelled out that the government must not violate.

You seem to follow the concept of positive rights, which means that rights are something conferred by a human authority. In my opinion, perpetuating positive rights instead of negative ones leads down a dangerous path whereupon the lives of people are wholly dependent on those in authority and their whims.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_rights

 

[Ianp240]

Just to correct an incorrect post above.

Great Britain still has a right to possess firearms, NOT HANDGUNS. The law changed to prevent any possession of handguns, rifle and shotguns are not effected by the ban.

However to posses a rifle or a shotgun you have to show good cause and have to be vetted by the local police force before ownership can be granted, it can not be refused on a whim by the police as a right to posses is still contained within the law, but you have to show good cause and be free of criminal history and jump through storage requirements, hunting, target shooting, clay pigeon shooting are still considered good cause.

Possession is highly regulated but still a right, all be a restricted right.

 

[Caliban]

In my opinion, perpetuating positive rights instead of negative ones leads down a dangerous path whereupon the lives of people are wholly dependent on those in authority and their whims.

you say "dangerous path", i say "hard reality". in my experience, our rights ARE dependent on those in authority and their whims, which is why it's so important to work to preserve those rights. for example, the idiotic whims of politicians mean that i no longer have a right to a magazine with more than ten rounds in it, because i live in new york. it's not that i have it and they're not respecting it, i really don't have it anymore.

we have set up our society to function this way. it has its ups and its downs. our lives are subject to the whims of those in power, but those in power are subject to our whims when we vote them out of office. in that sense, stupid gun control laws are not only the fault of misguided politicians, they are also the fault of everyone who voted those politicians into office. the awb couldn't have happened unless a significant portion of the populace had voted its creators into office, and it wouldn't have expired if we'd re-elected the same sort of politician to the executive branch.

 

[General Geoff]

our rights ARE dependent on those in authority and their whims,

No, they are not. Our ability to peaceably exercise our rights without the government incarcerating us is what is dependent on those in authority. It's still our right, whether they like it or not. Just because the government says so, doesn't make them correct.

 

[Caliban]

the idea that the right to own a gun is something all humans are born with is illogical to me, considering how many humans were born before guns existed. you are born with an ability to do whatever the heck you want, but the whole concept of a "right" is based on the idea that there's a government that isn't supposed to prevent you from doing something. government is created by humans exercising free will. there aren't any rights without a government. did you have the right to remain silent before the miranda laws existed? do you have a right to drive your car 65mph if the government lowers the speed limit to 45? who makes the list of rights people are born with?

 

[jfh]

This discussion would be enhanced by a careful reading of the US Constitution and a look at its logical structure. I can't do that reading for you, Caliban, but you might also want to consider the a priori assumptions that exist in any hypothesis.

From your last post, you appear to believe that no right can exist without it being postulated--and that doing so creates that right. It seems to me that this is similar to the jet-crashing-with-nobody-to-hear-the-sound-discussion....

I'm not current on the current epistolmological models in philsophy, so I will refrain from offering those definitions. However, models do exist which identify rights as inherent in the real world.

Jim H.

 

[mljdeckard]

A fundamental human right is a right you have regardless of race, nationality, religion, or other social group. If you were isolated on an island, you would be able to do these things with no interference from any government. You could say whatever you want. Worship whatever you want. believe whatever you want. And absolutely, without question, you would be able to use whatever you had available to protect yourself and whatever you have from harm. You don't need a government to tell you you have this right. You already know. These rights exist regardless of whatever you, the U.N., the U.K. or U.S. or any other government thinks. It is only a question of whether or not your government ALLOWS the exercise of these rights. The existence of government doesn't create any rights, they already exist. They who wrote the U.S. Constitution understood this, as made evident in the wording. If the right to self defense is a fundamental human right, then having the means to do so, by extension is ALSO a fundamental human right, just as the internet and printers are an extension of free speech. Yes, you absolutely did have the right to remain silent before Miranda, before the American Revolution, before Rome, before Babylon. Miranda said that law enforcement must NOTIFY you of your right to remain silent. It said nothing about CREATING the right. It is nether comprehensive nor claims to be comprehensive about all rights that you have when dealing with the police. Just because you might not KNOW all of your rights doesn't mean you don't HAVE THEM. Miranda dealt with the fact that the government, when given the opportunity, inevitably WILL abuse your lack of knowledge about your rights.

Caliban knew that he was allowed to roam, think, speak, and act, without being told by Prospero.

It's easy to say "My rights exist at the whim of the government" when you have already allowed your government to repress them, and you are now left with no means to restore them. Not me. I'm a free man, and shall remain so.

 

[Caliban]

i've debated this topic many times before with many people and always to a standoff or "we'll have to agree to disagree" situation, so i'd like to offer a draw at this point, and say that i certainly acknowledge that other models and ways of thinking exist, all of which are respectable. it's not a new debate in philosophy and i do not assert that i am unequivocally correct.

i'd like to frame the debate in a slightly different light, one that i mentioned before, which is this: whether you believe that a) you were born with the right to bear arms, or b) your right to bear arms is completely dependent on your government, the best course of action to prevent people from trampling your rights is to work to preserve them. the danger i see in believing that your rights are innate is that it engenders an attitude of "i have a right to own a gun, the government can go to heck if it thinks otherwise", whereas believing that your rights are hanging by a thread means you better get your behind out there and vote. even if you believe that your right to own a gun is innate, it is still VERY VERY BAD if the government tells you not to. just ask the residents of chicago and dc. what i'm trying to say is that regardless of our individually held beliefs about how to define a right, we should all be on the same page when it comes to understanding that if we don't work to keep our rights reflected in the laws, we can wind up in the very undesirable situation of a government that thinks it can revoke them.

 

[Rem700SD]

The right to self defense is more than a human right. It's also based on "natural law" Ever heard the phrase "fight like a cornered rat"? Every animal has a basic natural right and duty to fight to prevent being eaten. Why do people think that humans should be any different?

 

[Caliban]

we're talking about the right to own guns here, not the right to defend yourself. many consider them one and the same, but many do not. no politician will tell you that you don't have the right to defend yourself when your life is threatened, but many will tell you that you don't have the right to carry a gun, or to keep one in your home at all. again, regardless of whether you believe your right to own a gun is innate or government-granted, it is still in your best interest to make sure that the laws acknowledge your right to own guns, or you may be severely inconvenienced.

 

[Art Eatman]

Just a couple of points:

Governments do not have rights; they have powers. In our system, the power allegedly derives from the people as a group, a society.

Homo sap is a tool-using animal. Guns are merely a higher class of tool than a club. A gun is more efficient, and the history of our species has always been toward increases in efficiency of our tools.

 

[mljdeckard]

I have a right to own a gun, the government can go to heck if it thinks otherwise. If you ADMIT that the government grants rights, you have SURRENDERED CONTROL OF YOUR RIGHTS TO THE GOVERNMENT. They cannot take them away if they aren't theirs to begin with.

What makes you think we would stop at just voting?

Are these the same residents of D.C. whose ban was just overturned?

 

[Dr. Fresh]

Lots of good stuff on www.guncite.com.

 

[USAFNoDAk]

This really comes down to a belief system of individuals and people. First of all, a right is different from a power. A right is something defined as that which exists outside of any structure, society, or government, as in, "I have every right to defend myself, with deadly force if necessary to protect my own life".

A power is something which is given or provided by society or a structured environment, as in; "We have been given the power of attorney to manage our parents affairs".

Our founding fathers believed that individual rights indeed existed and were paramount to human freedom. Governments were to be formed and given power to protect those rights. The power was to be given to the government with the consent of the governed, who would keep their rights.

Now, there is one pure distinction here. The founders ideology revolved around freedom of the human spirit and the right to freedom which every human has. They set up a free society in a manner which acknowledged, respected, and protected the rights enjoyed by a free people, where the government was given power to protect those rights. In a society such as Cuba, even though the Cuban "people" may have the same human spirit and the same yearning for freedom that we have, their government, which is totalitarian, has taken the power, without consent from the people, and with this power has prevented the Cuban people from exercising their rights and freedoms. Dictatorships and totalitarian governments do not recognize any natural or God given rights of the people they control. These governments believe that "the people" only have the rights that the government allows them to have. But this is a mistaken view of rights vs. powers. In the case of a totalitarian government or dictatorship, the power of the government prevents the exercise of the peoples rights, even if those rights still exist in theory. They do not exist in practice, because government power is being abused and is being used without the consent of the governed, which is in and of itself, an abuse of human rights, if you believe in human freedom.

If one doesn't believe in human freedom, then rights and powers are really no different to such a person.

In my opinion, and hopefully in most of the free world's opinion, we should strive towards the model of rights vs. powers, where the people enjoy the exercise of their natural rights, protected by the power of government, which power was given to the government by the people.