MIL-DOT
member
i don't understand. why would they try to repeal something that does nothing more than guarantee the right of the national guard to bear arms ? 
Repeal the second amendment
- Thread starter rocinante
- Start date
- Status
Limeyfellow
Member
So I guess the submitter knows plenty of students at Harvard, since the several I know are actually progun. The views of a misguided few can not be used to justify disdain of the masses.
frankie_the_yankee
Member
It's true that they are tacitly admitting that the 2A guarantees an individual right.
But no where do they say that they think that it is absolute.
And for good reason. None of the rights in the BOR are absolute. So let's not cloud this issue with reading things into it that are not there.
If the Court rules in our favor, as I believe they will, it will NOT meaen that all existing gun control laws will be overturned. Far from it. The specific statutes at issue in DC will most likely be found to be unconstitutional. And the opinion will likely put in jeopardy similar gun bans and restrictive measures in a few jurisdictions like Chicago and possibly NYC. But these things will have to be hashed out in a subsequent lawsuit.
ConstitutionCowboy
member
frankie the yankee said:
Talk about clouding the issue! There is nothing in the Second Amendment limiting the scope of the caveat that the Right To Keep and Bear Arms shall not be infringed. "Shall not be infringed" is about as short, concise, absolute, definitive, and succinct as any statement laking an "and", or a "but", "except", "however,", "until", "if", "when", "where", "whether", "while", or any other subordinating conjunction.
Just because these people admit that the Second Amendment is a right of individual people and not "collective" is also not an admittance that the right is not absolute. Logic says that if these authors of the article believe the amendment must be repealed, they must believe that there is no room in the amendment for the creation of the restrictions they would like to place upon the right. Ergo, the right is absolute.
Woody
rocinante
Member
Limeyfellow fair enough but if you will notice this article was signed by the crimson staff so it at least has the collective endorsement of those who are suppose to speak for the students in a sense. I do apologize for such a sweeping sarcasm but a fair share of the most asinine leftist and elitist thinking comes from the Ivy League schools that have the reputation of being the best America has to offer in higher education. I am sure there are some pro gun and closet conservatives there but they are not the ones whose face is shown to the rest of the country. This article was just so HARVARD IMHO.
MIL-DOT
member
" Suspended via due process? Fine "
Nope, not for me, even if they "legally" remove the RKBA. Remember, Adolph Hitler was legally voted into office as chancellor of Germany. Somebody here has a sig-line that says something like "it's dangerous to be right when your government's wrong."
Nope, not for me, even if they "legally" remove the RKBA. Remember, Adolph Hitler was legally voted into office as chancellor of Germany. Somebody here has a sig-line that says something like "it's dangerous to be right when your government's wrong."
the pistolero
Member
Yes, indeed, and they might well get it good and hard, too...
I don't mind saying that little snippet was the first thing I thought of as I read the Harvard editorial. I am not necessarily proud of that fact, but my tolerance meter for media mendacity such as this is just plumb...pegged...out.
The authors of this missive commit the typical and tired error of believing rights are a gift of the government. They are not. The second amendment did not grant the right to keep and bear arms, and its repeal would not rescind it. Repealing the second amendment would no more permit the government to disarm the people, than repealing the due process clause of the fifth amendment would permit the police to summarily execute speeders by the side of the road.
when the second amendment was written, they must have had just white males in mind, women had no rights and blacks were banned from the military
maybe it's time it was tossed out or rewritten for everyone..
http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/1302/Blacks_barred_from_continental_army
maybe it's time it was tossed out or rewritten for everyone..
http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/1302/Blacks_barred_from_continental_army
Grizzly Adams
Member
Rhetorical.
Good point!
ConstitutionCowboy
member
I don't understand why they would want to repeal the protection of the only protected right that is completely benign and innocuous. Well, completely benign and innocuous to all but a government with despotic and tyrannical designs on the people, that is. Then it becomes an insurmountable obstacle.
Woody
"One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown...." George Washington, from his farewell address. I wonder if he had the armed populace in mind when he put that in his address...
Woody
"One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown...." George Washington, from his farewell address. I wonder if he had the armed populace in mind when he put that in his address...
Docgmt
Member
Gift of the government
Telperion I guess these guys at the big schools do not have time to read history or the federalist papers. The bill of rights did not "grant these rights they are inherent. Any right that can be legislated is not a right. I have met many a legislators over the years that love to say something is a privilege ( granted by Gov.
) that can be regulated ( like driving ) and that is how they would love to treat guns.
Telperion I guess these guys at the big schools do not have time to read history or the federalist papers. The bill of rights did not "grant these rights they are inherent. Any right that can be legislated is not a right. I have met many a legislators over the years that love to say something is a privilege ( granted by Gov.
) that can be regulated ( like driving ) and that is how they would love to treat guns.Harvard ain't all bad and to prove it there's this:
Harvard Journal Study of Worldwide Data Obliterates Notion that Gun Ownership Correlates with Violence
Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy Confirms that Reducing Gun Ownership by Law-Abiding Citizens Does Nothing to Reduce Violence Worldwide
By now, any informed American is familiar with Dr. John R. Lott, Jr.'s famous axiom of "More Guns, Less Crime." In other words, American jurisdictions that allow law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms are far safer and more crime-free than jurisdictions that enact stringent "gun control" laws.
Very simply, the ability of law-abiding citizens to possess firearms has helped reduce violent crime in America.
Now, a Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy study shows that this is not just an American phenomenon. According to the study, worldwide gun ownership rates do not correlate with higher murder or suicide rates. In fact, many nations with high gun ownership have significantly lower murder and suicide rates.
In their piece entitled Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and some Domestic Evidence, Don B. Kates and Gary Mauser eviscerate "the mantra that more guns mean more deaths and that fewer guns, therefore, mean fewer deaths." In so doing, the authors provide fascinating historical insight into astronomical murder rates in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and they dispel the myths that widespread gun ownership is somehow unique to the United States or that America suffers from the developed world's highest murder rate.
To the contrary, they establish that Soviet murder rates far exceeded American murder rates, and continue to do so today, despite Russia's extremely stringent gun prohibitions. By 2004, they show, the Russian murder rate was nearly four times higher than the American rate.
More fundamentally, Dr. Kates and Dr. Mauser demonstrate that other developed nations such as Norway, Finland, Germany, France and Denmark maintain high rates of gun ownership, yet possess murder rates lower than other developed nations in which gun ownership is much more restricted.
For example, handguns are outlawed in Luxembourg, and gun ownership extremely rare, yet its murder rate is nine times greater than in Germany, which has one of the highest gun ownership rates in Europe. As another example, Hungary's murder rate is nearly three times higher than nearby Austria's, but Austria's gun ownership rate is over eight times higher than Hungary's. "Norway," they note, "has far and away Western Europe's highest household gun ownership rate (32%), but also its lowest murder rate. The Netherlands," in contrast, "has the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe (1.9%) ... yet the Dutch gun murder rate is higher than the Norwegian."
Dr. Kates and Dr. Mauser proceed to dispel the mainstream misconception that lower rates of violence in Europe are somehow attributable to gun control laws. Instead, they reveal, "murder in Europe was at an all-time low before the gun controls were introduced." As the authors note, "strict controls did not stem the general trend of ever-growing violent crime throughout the post-WWII industrialized world."
Citing England, for instance, they reveal that "when it had no firearms restrictions [in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries], England had little violent crime." By the late 1990s, however, "England moved from stringent controls to a complete ban on all handguns and many types of long guns." As a result, "by the year 2000, violent crime had so increased that England and Wales had Europe's highest violent crime rate, far surpassing even the United States." In America, on the other hand, "despite constant and substantially increasing gun ownership, the United States saw progressive and dramatic reductions in criminal violence in the 1990s."
Critically, Dr. Kates and Dr. Mauser note that "the fall in the American crime rate is even more impressive when compared with the rest of the world," where 18 of the 25 countries surveyed by the British Home Office suffered violent crime increases during that same period.
Furthermore, the authors highlight the important point that while the American gun murder rate often exceeds that in other nations, the overall per capita murder rate in other nations (including other means such as strangling, stabbing, beating, etc.) is oftentimes much higher than in America.
The reason that gun ownership doesn't correlate with murder rates, the authors show, is that violent crime rates are determined instead by underlying cultural factors. "Ordinary people," they note, "simply do not murder." Rather, "the murderers are a small minority of extreme antisocial aberrants who manage to obtain guns whatever the level of gun ownership" in their society.
Therefore, "banning guns cannot alleviate the socio-cultural and economic factors that are the real determinants of violence and crime rates." According to Dr. Kates and Dr. Mauser, "there is no reason for laws prohibiting gun possession by ordinary, law-abiding, responsible adults because such people virtually never commit murder. If one accepts that such adults are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than to commit it, disarming them becomes not just unproductive but counter-productive."
John Lott couldn't have stated it better himself.
Harvard Journal Study of Worldwide Data Obliterates Notion that Gun Ownership Correlates with Violence
Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy Confirms that Reducing Gun Ownership by Law-Abiding Citizens Does Nothing to Reduce Violence Worldwide
By now, any informed American is familiar with Dr. John R. Lott, Jr.'s famous axiom of "More Guns, Less Crime." In other words, American jurisdictions that allow law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms are far safer and more crime-free than jurisdictions that enact stringent "gun control" laws.
Very simply, the ability of law-abiding citizens to possess firearms has helped reduce violent crime in America.
Now, a Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy study shows that this is not just an American phenomenon. According to the study, worldwide gun ownership rates do not correlate with higher murder or suicide rates. In fact, many nations with high gun ownership have significantly lower murder and suicide rates.
In their piece entitled Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and some Domestic Evidence, Don B. Kates and Gary Mauser eviscerate "the mantra that more guns mean more deaths and that fewer guns, therefore, mean fewer deaths." In so doing, the authors provide fascinating historical insight into astronomical murder rates in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and they dispel the myths that widespread gun ownership is somehow unique to the United States or that America suffers from the developed world's highest murder rate.
To the contrary, they establish that Soviet murder rates far exceeded American murder rates, and continue to do so today, despite Russia's extremely stringent gun prohibitions. By 2004, they show, the Russian murder rate was nearly four times higher than the American rate.
More fundamentally, Dr. Kates and Dr. Mauser demonstrate that other developed nations such as Norway, Finland, Germany, France and Denmark maintain high rates of gun ownership, yet possess murder rates lower than other developed nations in which gun ownership is much more restricted.
For example, handguns are outlawed in Luxembourg, and gun ownership extremely rare, yet its murder rate is nine times greater than in Germany, which has one of the highest gun ownership rates in Europe. As another example, Hungary's murder rate is nearly three times higher than nearby Austria's, but Austria's gun ownership rate is over eight times higher than Hungary's. "Norway," they note, "has far and away Western Europe's highest household gun ownership rate (32%), but also its lowest murder rate. The Netherlands," in contrast, "has the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe (1.9%) ... yet the Dutch gun murder rate is higher than the Norwegian."
Dr. Kates and Dr. Mauser proceed to dispel the mainstream misconception that lower rates of violence in Europe are somehow attributable to gun control laws. Instead, they reveal, "murder in Europe was at an all-time low before the gun controls were introduced." As the authors note, "strict controls did not stem the general trend of ever-growing violent crime throughout the post-WWII industrialized world."
Citing England, for instance, they reveal that "when it had no firearms restrictions [in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries], England had little violent crime." By the late 1990s, however, "England moved from stringent controls to a complete ban on all handguns and many types of long guns." As a result, "by the year 2000, violent crime had so increased that England and Wales had Europe's highest violent crime rate, far surpassing even the United States." In America, on the other hand, "despite constant and substantially increasing gun ownership, the United States saw progressive and dramatic reductions in criminal violence in the 1990s."
Critically, Dr. Kates and Dr. Mauser note that "the fall in the American crime rate is even more impressive when compared with the rest of the world," where 18 of the 25 countries surveyed by the British Home Office suffered violent crime increases during that same period.
Furthermore, the authors highlight the important point that while the American gun murder rate often exceeds that in other nations, the overall per capita murder rate in other nations (including other means such as strangling, stabbing, beating, etc.) is oftentimes much higher than in America.
The reason that gun ownership doesn't correlate with murder rates, the authors show, is that violent crime rates are determined instead by underlying cultural factors. "Ordinary people," they note, "simply do not murder." Rather, "the murderers are a small minority of extreme antisocial aberrants who manage to obtain guns whatever the level of gun ownership" in their society.
Therefore, "banning guns cannot alleviate the socio-cultural and economic factors that are the real determinants of violence and crime rates." According to Dr. Kates and Dr. Mauser, "there is no reason for laws prohibiting gun possession by ordinary, law-abiding, responsible adults because such people virtually never commit murder. If one accepts that such adults are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than to commit it, disarming them becomes not just unproductive but counter-productive."
John Lott couldn't have stated it better himself.
Last edited:
i wonder what these same people would say if we were to suggest that due to the large amount of falshoods and outright lies portrayed by the media and the large amount of filth on tv, we should repeal the 1st amendment?
my guess is, they would say that we cant do that, it wouldnt be right
my guess is, they would say that we cant do that, it wouldnt be right
pbonebright
Member
One of the things I like to do when reading arguments from antis is to replace the word 'gun' and related words with the word 'freedom' or 'liberty' and see how it sounds. Try it sometime. I think I read someones sig line that said 'Freedom is not guaranteed safe - brilliant!
PB
PB
The whole framework of the Constitution is to protect people from themselves. Be it tyrannical rule in whatever its form; or immediate violation of ones personal safety or freedoms. Checks and balances.
The framers put the second amendment second after the first for a reason. And I am sure they did not do it lightly.
I find it discouraging at the least to think that the kind of reasoning in that article is so prevalent at a school like Harvard. That kind of 'socialist liberalism' is such a poor substitute for the 'classical liberalism' that forged this country.
I would expect much much better, or a broader more encompassing reasoned argument. Tsk.
The framers put the second amendment second after the first for a reason. And I am sure they did not do it lightly.
I find it discouraging at the least to think that the kind of reasoning in that article is so prevalent at a school like Harvard. That kind of 'socialist liberalism' is such a poor substitute for the 'classical liberalism' that forged this country.
I would expect much much better, or a broader more encompassing reasoned argument. Tsk.
frankie_the_yankee
Member
Correct (emphasis added).
Correct (emphasis added).
Sorry, does not follow. (It might have been clearer if you had not used a double negative in the first passage.)
It is true that there is no room in the amendment for the restrictions that the Harvard people who authored this article would put in place. That's because they would implement strict UK-style "gun control" (actually gun bans) if they could.
These policies would be clear infringements of the 2A in my opinion under any conceivable reading of it.
But this does not automatically mean that no restrictions are compatible with a proper reading of the 2A. That is just wishful thinking on the part of those holding the "absolutist" position.
The SCOTUS will soon render an opinion on this and there is absolutely no chance that they will read the 2A as not allowing for some amount of regulation of guns.
You see, they realize that if they ruled that the right was absolute, people would start showing up in courtrooms where bitterly contested custody battles are being fought out toting MP-5's. Like most of us, they see some unpleasant and absurd scenarios unfolding that could be easily avoided with some reasonable regulations.
Their opinions will be the law of the land.
I'm hoping that they rule it to be a "fundamental right", where any restrictions will need to meet a test of "strict scrutiny". This would be a huge victory for us and put many state and local restrictions in jeopardy. But they might not go that far - this time.
wacki
Member
Heh, I was watching man vs. wild where a hiker was attacked by a bear and he shot the bear several times with a handgun. Bear Grylls was advising to run from grizzlies but stand and fight the black bears. I think it was the Alaskan episode.
wacki
Member
Linky? Searching for Madison gave me 1226 hits.
frankie_the_yankee
Member
How is it clouding the issue? Someone posted that the Havard people admitted in their article that the 2A was absolute. That statement was simply false. No where in the article did they state or "admit" such a thing.
If they did, please quote the passage where they state explicitly that the 2A is absolute.
Remember, I'm not interested in what someone imagines they said, or imagines they admitted, or what they imagine they think the Harvard people meant. Just quote the passage where they say that the 2A is absolute - if you can find it.
Last edited:
the pistolero
Member
So what would these idiots say we should use to fend off criminals and would-be tyrants? Magic fairy dust?
Elza
Member
'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers'. Quote from Henry VI by Shakespeare.
- Status
