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[SmokyDave]

If you feel you need to bring a gun to school, for protection...you should probably stop going to that school. PEACE.

This is my take. I'd remove myself (or my kid) from that kind of environment and move somewhere civilised.

 

[Gattsu25]

Because it protects you and your abiliry to excerise those rights.

Stepping back for a moment, am I the only person who would feel more protected if there were less guns in this country?

 

[Reuenthal]

I find a personal distinction in the rights of an individual over their own body, and the rights of a individual to infringe on the rights of others in the pursuit of their own liberty.

Owning and consuming something and owning a device is not really that much different as far as rights over one's own body goes. You still prohibit that when you prohibit one to use their own body with an external object that is a gun. I am sure we can keep the consumption not interfered if you wish, that is once you put in your body, they don't have to remove it, but still punish you for owning the substance. However I agree there is a difference between infringing on someone else's rights and owning something dangerous. But despite the differences both could be illegal.

But I think the premise of your statement is wrong anyway because in essence my view of gun ownership and drug use is almost precisely the same.

I believe people should be allowed to use and own guns. I believe we simply need far more severe restrictions, with the heaviest restrictions being to automatic rifles and heavier powered weaponry of that sort. Similarly, I believe people should be allowed to use and own drugs. I believe simply we need harsh penalties for those who infringe on the rights of others in the pursuit of their vices, such as when one drives whilst intoxicated or when one robs to raise funds. Like my views on the drug war, my view on gun control are informed by the statistical and fact-based analysis by noted experts who have studied the subject for years.

Well I am sure even Manos agrees for harsh penalties for murders and improper use of guns while disagreeing on restrictions to own guns.

Harsh restrictions on how one can use something while not infringing directly on the rights of another when it comes to guns is a different position than harsh penalties to one who directly harms another committing a crime.

However the point being is that the inherent danger coming from misuse especially on a bigger scales should be illegal even if one thinks that personally he would be a responsible bazooka user. Drugs being addictive substances that can destroy their lifes, the lifes of people who depend on them, and can make them into criminals also present that inherent danger. Some of them a lot more than others. What makes this somewhat delicate issue is that too much response from the state can also be damaging but again the point is that we accept the danger as necessitating restrictions in one case so it is more complicated than just one's right to consume substances.

I don't want to misunderstand you so can you explain in short what kind of restrictions you want in either. I am going through memory on some positions I have seen you express on drug use but I think it is better to tell your position once again.

My position is that in a society it is better to ban handguns except certain exceptions and have less severe restrictions on hunting riffles. I dunno whether this should be done in the US or not right now due to how many guns are already out.

As far as drugs go, the punishments in the US should become less severe especially for soft drugs, perhaps only a fine and some rehabilitation for those. And generally there needs less militirization by how the goverment handles this. Consuming hard drugs should also stay illegal with heavy focus on rehabilitation of the user than punishing them with heavy prison sentences. Because as you said there is a difference with consuming a substance and directly harming someone, so there is less point to punishing people, but there is still a point to restricting and changing behaviors.

It's all about common sense.

SIMILARLY, I take offense at the "uber-extremist and crazy" commentary. I realize that's your opinion, but my take on what needs to happen in the drug war is widely supported by experts in the field AND widely supported by statistical analysis of countries which have done precisely what I have said. That goes for gun control as well. Since the stats and proofs on these subjects have uniformly supported my theories on them, and they have never supported the alternative view, I think this is dangerously irrational starting grounds for your commentary.

I think both the drug war the way the US goverment is doing it and your views are both what I called your views. I guess my wording was rude, but I do believe your view was that, maybe I should have just said extremist. I can't really sugarcoat that part, but you are free to disagree or even think my views as too much.

Too much punishment, militarization of police force, is having less than stellar results. Also, there would have been some severely negative consequences due to the drugs, drug war or not, legislation or not. It even combines with availability of guns, social issues such as racism and poverty to make things even worse.

Also even if what I say is followed, there will still be an extensive black market, the problems will persist, and not much will be fixed.

 

[Amir0x]

Owning and consuming something and owning a device is not really that much different as far as rights over one's own body goes. You still prohibit that when you prohibit one to use their own body with an external object that is a gun. I am sure we can keep the consumption legal if you wish, that is once you put in your body, they don't have to remove it, but still punish you for doing so.

Right, but it's like you're reading through my post. I am not for prohibiting people to use guns; I am for extremely harsh gun controls law which makes the process of getting said guns extremely tough, so that, wherever possible, only the 'right' people own it.

It's the same of my view of drugs. I believe it should be legal, that the country should tax it, end the drug war and focus on rehabilitation and harsher penalties for those who break laws while intoxicated. And I believe that if you want to use especially tough drugs, similar control standards should be in place for those applying to use them.

In both cases, it is an inappropriate classification of my position to call it "prohibiting ones use of their own body." It is called common sense reform of the scenarios for which one can use their own body, keeping in mind that this is done in service to the liberty of others who have made the choice not to own a gun or not to use drugs.

And in both cases, my point of view has been supported and continually reaffirmed by analysis of the subject given statistics and expert examination, so by definition it is not extremist. It is, instead, informed deeply on the complexities of the subject. I did my graduation project on the drug war, in part.

Well I am sure even Manos agrees for harsh penalties for murders and improper use of guns.

But not, of course, for sensible gun control laws. This is the problem we're discussing. He is demonstrably for a continuation of gun policy that has failed time and time again, over and over.

However the point being is that the inherent danger should be illegal even if one thinks that personally he would be a responsible bazooka user. Drugs being addictive substances that can destroy their lifes, the lifes of people who depend on them, and can make them into criminals also present that inherent danger.

Anything has potential to be dangerous, from driving a car to using a gun to going on a roller coaster. The point is not to legislate potential; it's to legislate reality. We KNOW the drug war is a failure, we KNOW the current gun control policy is abject nonsense. We know both have contributed to the growth of violence, not the reduction of violence. We know this because any rational individual can look up the statistics in any government survey of said subjects, read books or studies by noted scholars or experts in the field, and come to said conclusion based on the reality we are in.

I don't want to misunderstand you so can you explain in short what kind of restrictions you want in neither. I am going through memory on some positions I have seen you express on drug use but I think it is better to tell your position once again.

I am unsure what you mean here. You don't want me to go in depth?

My position is that in a society it is better to ban handguns except certain exceptions and have less severe restrictions on hunting riffles. I dunno whether this should be done in the US or not right now due to how many guns are already out.

As far as drugs go, the punishments in the US should become less severe especially for soft drugs, perhaps only a fine for those. And generally there needs less militirization by how the goverment handle this.

A perfectly reasonable position, even if I don't necessarily agree with it in whole or in part. But you're reasonable because it sounds like you're not a closed book, that you are considering the subject carefully and are maybe even willing to openly debate the context of our views without taking it personally. I do not feel Manos has demonstrated this to be the case on the subject of gun control, so there is a distinction here too.

I think both the drug war the way the US goverment is doing it and your views are both what I called your views. I guess my wording was rude, but I do believe your view was that, maybe I should have just said extremist.

I still don't understand how something which is supported by hard facts on the ground can be said to be 'extremist', how something which has been poured over by a bipartisan and wildly diverse group of individuals who have actively participated in the fight over something like the drug war and agreed upon in the same terms I have used, can be called 'extremist.'


I suppose the only way we can view it that way is if you're using the word extremist to simply mean something which is currently radical as defined by an extremely tiny majority of people who think otherwise, even if their thought is based on nothing but intuition?

 

[Panipal2009]

I always love these topics for the way they illuminate the sheer ugly selfishness of gun control advocates. Like the way they always throw around accusations of gun owners being 'paranoid', despite the fact that gun control's chief facet is a fear of what total strangers might do if they were in possession of a gun. It's like they think they're the only ones who have a right to act on their concerns, purely because they feel a certain way, people who aren't in agreement with them have no such right.

Then there's a question someone raised in the gun control thread about could gun control advocates give a 100% guarantee that stripping his right of self defence wouldn't put his safety at risk, and between the ignoring of his question and one more tired flinging of the 'paranoia' jibe, the answer was clear. We gun control advocates do not have to trouble ourselves with your concerns. You are the one who has to assauge our fears. We do not have to do a damn thing for you. Selfishness.

And you're truly demonstrating with your bashing of Manos what ugly-minded people you are. I think I've said it before but, abusive people expressing their unhapiness over people not being vulnerable enough to abusive behaviour? You're really displaying some pretty twisted psychology.

 

[Reuenthal]

Anything has potential to be dangerous, from driving a car to using a gun to going on a roller coaster. The point is not to legislate potential; it's to legislate reality. We KNOW the drug war is a failure, we KNOW the current gun control policy is abject nonsense. We know both have contributed to the growth of violence, not the reduction of violence. We know this because any rational individual can look up the statistics in any government survey of said subjects, read books or studies by noted scholars or experts in the field, and come to said conclusion based on the reality we are in.

Just want to touch on this:

You are not legislating potential when you put restrictions on gun use and drug use or even car use such as safety standards, seat belts. Maybe one wants to drive around the road with a shitty machine that barely passes for a vehicle and fails every reasonable safe standard. It is not really an imaginary potential you are legislating but a reality of what will happen if you allow dangerous things to happen without prohibition.

You can irresponsibly legislate imaginary potential though but I don't think this applies in this case, unless you go way too far.

I do not feel Manos has demonstrated this to be the case on the subject of gun control, so there is a distinction here too.

I agree, I am not equating you with Manos.

Right, but it's like you're reading through my post. I am not for prohibiting people to use guns; I am for extremely harsh gun controls law which makes the process of getting said guns extremely tough, so that, wherever possible, only the 'right' people own it.

It's the same of my view of drugs. I believe it should be legal, that the country should tax it, end the drug war and focus on rehabilitation and harsher penalties for those who break laws while intoxicated. And I believe that if you want to use especially tough drugs, similar control standards should be in place for those applying to use them.

In both cases, it is an inappropriate classification of my position to call it "prohibiting ones use of their own body." It is called common sense reform of the scenarios for which one can use their own body, keeping in mind that this is done in service to the liberty of others who have made the choice not to own a gun or not to use drugs.

And in both cases, my point of view has been supported and continually reaffirmed by analysis of the subject given statistics and expert examination, so by definition it is not extremist. It is, instead, informed deeply on the complexities of the subject. I did my graduation project on the drug war, in part.

Apparently we might disagree on gun control too with me being stricter, I guess, although your position might have potential based on how tough the guidelines of who gets access to guns is. So let's say I don't know how good it will work out.

However yeah, I now admit after explaining your views they are far less inconsistent than I originally thought, if you want similarly tough standards of who can own hard substances inevitably many will not own them and those who do would have to pass a standard similar to your harsh gun control standard. So I guess this discussion had a positive result since the point was me to understand where you are coming from and now I don't think your views are as bad as I thought before.

 

[Jim E. Rossler]

This is my take. I'd remove myself (or my kid) from that kind of environment and move somewhere civilised.

He's uncivilized?

 

[SmokyDave]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/67/Alton_brown_2011.jpg/220px-Alton_brown_2011.jpg[IMG]
He's uncivilized?[/QUOTE]
I have no idea who that guy is (TV chef from a quick google?) or how he relates to the notion of needing a firearm to protect yourself whilst on a university campus.

It's simply unthinkable. For a UK equivalent, I wouldn't send my kid to a school where other kids felt the need to wear stab-proof vests.

 

[PeteZaTheHutt]

Gun control doesn't prevent murdering sprees.

Nobody is realistically implying this. Gun control would REDUCE murdering sprees. You told somebody earlier that shooting sprees occur everywhere around the world. In reality, it's almost exclusively an American phenomenon:

Here are some selected excerpts from this article:

Mass, random shooting sprees are as American as baseball and apple pie

Presidential politics might fuel this familiar charade, played out after each of the 28 mass shootings that have occurred over the past decade, but the song, rest assured, will remain the same.

Random mass shootings by enraged young men, armed to the teeth and usually white, are a particularly American phenomenon. In the eyes of the world, these rampages define America no less than baseball, computers or apple pie. Just as Israeli generations are classified by the country’s wars, Americans can be categorized by the crazy shooting sprees that they recall, from the day Charles Whitman shot 16 people to death from the observation tower at the University of Texas on August 1, 1966, through the 1984 murder of 21 people in a California McDonald’s, the 1991 massacre of 23 at Luby’s Cafeteria in Texas, the infamous 1999 Columbine High School killing of 13, the 2007 Virginia Tech slaughter of 32 and now the murder of 12 moviegoers in Aurora, just 19 miles away from the site of the Columbine shootings, immortalized in Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine” in which a Canadian observer of American violence famously remarks: “If more guns make people safer, than America would be one of the safest countries in the world. It isn't. It's the opposite.”

The statistics are clear cut: Americans own over 300 million guns, and despite a significant drop in violent crime rates in the past decade, the U.S. holds a place of dishonor among Western democracies in homicides, in general, and in firearm homicides, in particular. According to the latest UN statistics, there are 5.2 homicides for each 100,000 Americans, a figure that is surpassed only by Russia and a host of relatively lawless African and Central American countries. In Israel the rate is 2 per 100,000; in the UK and Australia, it is closer to one. No less than 60% of American murders are carried out with guns, compared to 12% in Israel and Australia, and 7% in the U.K.

But you can rest assured that within a year, the perpetrator of the Aurora massacre, now identified as 24-year-old James Holmes, will come to be known as “the Batman Murderer," and will probably secure a multi-million dollar book and movie combo deal for the story of his life, complete with photographs of him proudly holding the 12 gauge shotgun that he bought at a gun mall across the street and with which he mowed down his helpless victims.

 

[HyperionX]

I always love these topics for the way they illuminate the sheer ugly selfishness of gun control advocates. Like the way they always throw around accusations of gun owners being 'paranoid', despite the fact that gun control's chief facet is a fear of what total strangers might do if they were in possession of a gun. It's like they think they're the only ones who have a right to act on their concerns, purely because they feel a certain way, people who aren't in agreement with them have no such right.

Then there's a question someone raised in the gun control thread about could gun control advocates give a 100% guarantee that stripping his right of self defence wouldn't put his safety at risk, and between the ignoring of his question and one more tired flinging of the 'paranoia' jibe, the answer was clear. We gun control advocates do not have to trouble ourselves with your concerns. You are the one who has to assauge our fears. We do not have to do a damn thing for you. Selfishness.

And you're truly demonstrating with your bashing of Manos what ugly-minded people you are. I think I've said it before but, abusive people expressing their unhapiness over people not being vulnerable enough to abusive behaviour? You're really displaying some pretty twisted psychology.

There is not much evidence that owning a gun will reduce the chance of being killed in a crime or provide meaningful self-defense. Even if it did, the chances of you dying goes way up when everyone owns a gun as opposed to no one owning one. After all, most murders are by people who previously knew each other from what I recall.

The post above has it right. The murder rate in the US is really high and the only plausible explanation is our love affair with guns. So gun control is not really a position of fear but rather one of rationality. Every first world nation other than the US can attest to their lack of gun violence due to better gun control. Pro gun people on the other hand, do a lot of things that attract the "paranoid" label. I mean, seriously, who are defending against when you're carrying around a gun with you? The chances you'll actually need that gun is pretty low on the things you need to protect your against.

 

[ghst]

Nothing is being made up "gun control" advocates are no better than the Pro Life movement in harm to women.

i feel this needs to be posted on every page of every thread manos posts in until the end of time.

 

[Fudgepuppy]

The constitution is right because it is the constitution.

I'd love to see the constitution say that all men is required to own a house-slave and a field-slave.

I've been in some situations in life when I've been damn glad that it's basically impossible to get your hands on a weapon in Sweden. Situations that I've talked my way out of that would've probably resulted in bullets flying if these people in question were carrying any.

Fuck, this issue is just warping my mind into a cluster of headaches regarding its stupidity.

The day we say that all people need to be able to carry guns, is the day we say that death-penalty is the only solution to carrying on with life.

You're just giving up and setting a precedent everyone needs to follow which thus ends very badly.

 

[ghst]

The constitution is right because it is the constitution.

I'd love to see the constitution say that all men is required to own a house-slave and a field-slave.

I've been in some situations in life when I've been damn glad that it's basically impossible to get your hands on a weapon in Sweden. Situations that I've talked my way out of that would've probably resulted in bullets flying if these people in question were carrying any.

Fuck, this issue is just warping my mind into a cluster of headaches regarding its stupidity.

The day we say that all people need to be able to carry guns, is the day we say that death-penalty is the only solution to carrying on with life.

You're just giving up and setting a precedent everyone needs to follow which thus ends very badly.

the best part is when people defend the divine infallibility of an amendment.

it's like some incisive old grecian parable.

 

[Fudgepuppy]

the best part is when people defend the divine infallibility of an amendment.

it's like some incisive old grecian parable.

It's a sure thing for the Blind-Defenders of the amendments that it didn't go into the specifics of homosexuality being wrong and other stuff that was maybe a bit more topical back then.

It's illegal to be gay in Uganda, that could be considered an amendment in the future for Uganda.

I know it's a bad example, but it's more about perspective, that just because it's written, it's not objectively right for all future generations and civilizations.

 

[DonasaurusRex]

You know it's sad when I can't even get upset over this. I'm not even surprised.

buh..buh what did he mean ...???? someone has to know

 

[Raonak]

Theres something wrong with society when you need a gun to feel safe.
truly fucked up.

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

i feel this needs to be posted on every page of every thread manos posts in until the end of time

Then make sure you do it and dont just talk bullshit. "Gun control" advocates cause the same harm to society that pro life advocates cause to women.

 

[Amir0x]

Gun control" advocates cause the same harm to society that pro life advocates cause to women.

lol somehow ghst actually managed to make you elicit a post that is altogether somehow more insane than that last one



I said it before and I'll say it again, when it comes to gun control discussion, for some reason you abandon all logic. Logic never enters into the equation.

Apparently we might disagree on gun control too with me being stricter, I guess, although your position might have potential based on how tough the guidelines of who gets access to guns is. So let's say I don't know how good it will work out.

However yeah, I now admit after explaining your views they are far less inconsistent than I originally thought, if you want similarly tough standards of who can own hard substances inevitably many will not own them and those who do would have to pass a standard similar to your harsh gun control standard. So I guess this discussion had a positive result since the point was me to understand where you are coming from and now I don't think your views are as bad as I thought before.

I think the important thing is we continue to have an open mind and allow discussions such as this one to take place. I think it's clear that we could find even more middle ground over time, because we both understand that no matter which side you're on, these are real problems and they need real solutions. It may sound like empty rhetoric, but it's important to start with a sense of goodwill due to how serious and complicated these subjects are. Anyway, I appreciate the open mind and the attempt to understand my position instead of immediately dismissing it. So many times people reject a post of mine without even really considering its content, and since I often spend a good deal of time putting effort into my posts, so I really do have to respect the gesture here. Respect +25.

 

[PeteZaTheHutt]

Soldier charged with manslaughter after trying to cure another of hiccups

(CNN) -- A soldier trying to scare another soldier out of hiccups shot his comrade in the face, killing him, authorities said Tuesday.

Both soldiers, joined by a third man, were drinking alcohol and watching football at the time of the Sunday night incident, authorities said.

"The victim had the hiccups. The suspect pulled out a gun to scare him in order to stop the hiccups," said spokesman Carroll Smith of the Killeen, Texas, Police Department.

Myers allegedly "produced a handgun and while handling it in an unsafe manner, discharged the handgun striking the victim in the face," police said.

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

Soldier charged with manslaughter after trying to cure another of hiccups

Only authorites should have guns?

lol somehow ghst actually managed to make you elicit a post that is altogether somehow more insane than that last one



I said it before and I'll say it again, when it comes to gun control discussion, for some reason you abandon all logic. Logic never enters into the equation.

Are you sure your comments are not due to you being a prohibted person?

 

[PeteZaTheHutt]

Only authorites should have guns?

He was off-duty watching football in his residence. At that point, he's a citizen. Oh, and the correct answer would be... no guns in the house. No guns... in... the house. If there had been no guns in the house, nobody would have been killed in such a ridiculous and degrading manner. But by all means, continue being disingenuous with your "arguments" while plugging your ears and singing "la la la la la la la la laaaaaaa". The dead man's family is no doubt reassured and grateful to have you championing lax gun control on their behalf. << does Obi-Wan Kenobi hand wave >> America's inexplicable obsession with guns is not embarrassing. Nooooot embarrassiiiiiiiiiiing...

 

[RyougaSaotome]

Having moved out of the States some time ago, it's kind of crazy looking at it now.

What type of environment do you have to live in to be so scared of the world around you that you have to carry a gun at all times? It's really unfortunate.

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

He was off-duty watching football in his residence. At that point, he's a citizen. Oh, and the correct answer would be... no guns in the house. No guns... in... the house. If there had been no guns in the house, nobody would have been killed in such a ridiculous and degrading manner. But by all means, continue being disingenuous with your "arguments" while plugging your ears and singing "la la la la la la la la laaaaaaa". The dead man's family is no doubt reassured and grateful to have you championing lax gun control on their behalf. << does Obi-Wan Kenobi hand wave >> America's inexplicable obsession with guns is not embarrassing. Nooooot embarrassiiiiiiiiiiing...

You know that off duty cops regularly and normally carry off duty right?

Also Darwin awards winners are Darwin award winners regardless of the tool. So nice try. lol

 

[ghst]

"Gun control" advocates cause the same harm to society that pro life advocates cause to women.

this one couldn't wait for a new page.

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

this one couldn't wait for a new page.

Keep posting it, I don't know why you think I give a shit.

 

[Arment]

Theres something wrong with society when you need a gun to feel safe.
truly fucked up.

I think that says more about the individual than society really.

 

[Hitokage]

Keep posting it, I don't know why you think I give a shit.

Is that why you just tried to wipe your post?

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

Is that why you just tried to wipe your post?

I moved it down a a post, hardly trying to wipe it. Lol

You just didn't like getting the Nature Boy. Lol

Like I said I don't give a shit, doesn't mean I can't and won't have some fun.

 

[endresults]

As a gun owner and a college student I question the sanity of anyone who thinks they need to carry a gun into the classroom.

Virginia Tech.

 

[Hitokage]

I moved it down a a post, hardly trying to wipe it. Lol

smh

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

smh

You have fun with tag links, I have fun with tag links. If I had tried to wipe it I would have removed it entirely not preserved, no?

 

[Hitokage]

You have fun with tag links, I have fun with tag links. If I had tried to wipe it I would have removed it entirely not preserved, no?

Yeah, well past many of the posts that responded to it. Sure.

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

Yeah, well past many of the posts that responded to it. Sure.

I think it was four or five posts down and the only response directly to it was yours.. I moved it where it would still naturally fit in the with flow of the conversation. I had tried a post earlier, by Hyperion hadn't made a response so it seemed out of place.

 

[ghst]

Keep posting it, I don't know why you think I give a shit.

even manos gets riled when he has to read manos's posts.

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

even manos gets riled when he has to read his own posts.

Nope not in the least. I just don't want you half assing it. I expect to see my quote all the damn time.

 

[squidyj]

Keep posting it, I don't know why you think I give a shit.

it's hilarious whether you give a shit or not.

 

[les papillons sexuels]

the gun laws aren't the problem, it's the guns themselves that are.

If everyone in the US owned a musket, and it took 3 minutes to reload, then there would be next to no casualties, but instead you got people walking around with semi auto weapons who can fire off enough rounds, and reload, before anyone has the chance to stop them.

the second problem is that the media plays up all these shootings so much, they play up the violence of it, and it just encourages people to act more and more violent and make more and more mistakes.

the third problem is that many people think guns are toys.

 

[GaimeGuy]

I like how when a police officer has a gun stolen or lost, they get fired, but when a civilian has a gun stolen or lost, well, nothing happens.

they should lose the right to own a firearm.

 

[way more]

I like how when a police officer has a gun stolen or lost, they get fired, but when a civilian has a gun stolen or lost, well, nothing happens.

they should lose the right to own a firearm.

lol, for that to be equal civilians would be required to have firearm training and register their guns.

Dumbass.

 

[GaimeGuy]

I always love these topics for the way they illuminate the sheer ugly selfishness of gun control advocates. Like the way they always throw around accusations of gun owners being 'paranoid', despite the fact that gun control's chief facet is a fear of what total strangers might do if they were in possession of a gun. It's like they think they're the only ones who have a right to act on their concerns, purely because they feel a certain way, people who aren't in agreement with them have no such right.

Then there's a question someone raised in the gun control thread about could gun control advocates give a 100% guarantee that stripping his right of self defence wouldn't put his safety at risk, and between the ignoring of his question and one more tired flinging of the 'paranoia' jibe, the answer was clear. We gun control advocates do not have to trouble ourselves with your concerns. You are the one who has to assauge our fears. We do not have to do a damn thing for you. Selfishness.

And you're truly demonstrating with your bashing of Manos what ugly-minded people you are. I think I've said it before but, abusive people expressing their unhapiness over people not being vulnerable enough to abusive behaviour? You're really displaying some pretty twisted psychology.

In EVIL GUN CONTROL places like the UK, you can obtain a firearm for protection, if you have received a credible threat against you.

you can't just get a firearm because you're paranoid about getting mugged. It's a need-to-have basis, not a "Just-in-case" basis.

 

[wonzo]

Keep posting it, I don't know why you think I give a shit.

hey guys i totally dont care at all!

*posts about how much he doesnt care*

 

[Fudgepuppy]

I think that says more about the individual than society really.

Aren't we all products of society?

 

[Jackpot]

You know it's sad when I can't even get upset over this. I'm not even surprised.

Well before he tried to claim gun control was a secret form of racism targeting non-whites. Not surprising he's moved onto abortion.

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

Well before he tried to claim gun control was a secret form of racism targeting non-whites. Not surprising he's moved onto abortion.

Except gun control does have racist implications.
Its a very valid point.

I like how when a police officer has a gun stolen or lost, they get fired, but when a civilian has a gun stolen or lost, well, nothing happens.

they should lose the right to own a firearm.

No they dont. That cop in Philly isnt going to have shit happen to them.

 

[PeteZaTheHutt]

Except gun control does have racist implications.
Its a very valid point.

Ooooooooooooo... please elaborate!

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

Ooooooooooooo... please elaborate!

GUN CONTROL AND RACISM
George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal
Vol. 2 (1991): 67.

An Excerpt. The full article is available at the link and talks about (at the time it was written) current measures. This excerpt is merely for the historical context.

I. GUN CONTROL MEASURES HAVE BEEN AND ARE USED TO DISARM AND OPPRESS BLACKS AND OTHER MINORITIES

The historical purpose of gun control laws in America has been one of discrimination and disenfranchisement of blacks, immigrants, and other minorities. American gun control laws have been enacted to disarm and facilitate repressive actions against union organizers, [Page 69] workers, the foreign-born and racial minorities.[2] Bans on particular types of firearms and firearms registration schemes have been enacted in many American jurisdictions for the alleged purpose of controlling crime. Often, however, the purpose or actual effect of such laws or regulations was to disarm and exert better control over the above-noted groups.[3] As Justice Buford of the Florida Supreme Court noted in his concurring opinion narrowly construing a Florida gun control statute:

I know something of the history of this legislation. The original Act of 1893 was passed when there was a great influx of negro laborers in this State drawn here for the purpose of working in turpentine and lumber camps. The same condition existed when the Act was amended in 1901 and the Act was passed for the purpose of disarming the negro laborers . . . . The statute was never intended to be applied to the white population and in practice has never been so applied. . . .[T]here has never been, within my knowledge, any effort to enforce the provisions of this statute as to white people, because it has been generally conceded to be in contravention of the Constitution and non-enforceable if contested.[4]

Implicit in the message of such a law was the perceived threat that armed Negroes would pose to the white community. As applied, therefore, the statute sent a clear message: only whites could be trusted with guns, while Negroes could not.

A. Gun Control in the South

The development of racially based slavery in the seventeenth century American colonies was accompanied by the creation of laws meting out separate treatment and granting separate rights on the basis of race. An early sign of such emerging restrictions and one of the most important legal distinctions was the passing of laws denying free blacks the right to keep arms. "In 1640, the first recorded restrictive legislation passed concerning blacks in Virginia excluded them from owning a gun."[5]

Virginia law set Negroes apart from all other groups . . . by denying them the important right and obligation to bear arms. Few restraints could indicate [Page 70] more clearly the denial to Negroes of membership in the White community. This first foreshadowing of the slave codes came in 1640, at just the time when other indications first appeared that Negroes were subject to special treatment.[6]

In the later part of the 17th Century fear of slave uprisings in the South accelerated the passage of laws dealing with firearms possessions by blacks. In 1712, for instance, South Carolina passed "An act for the better ordering and governing of Negroes and Slaves" which included two articles particularly relating to firearms ownership and blacks.[7] Virginia passed a similar act entitled "An Act for Preventing Negroes Insurrections."[8]

Thus, in many of the ante-bellum states, free and/or slave blacks were legally forbidden to possess arms. State legislation which prohibited the bearing of arms by blacks was held to be constitutional due to the lack of citizen status of the Afro-American slaves. Legislators simply ignored the fact that the United States Constitution and most state constitutions referred to the right to keep and bear arms as a right of the "people" rather than of the "citizen".[9]

The Supreme Court of North Carolina upheld a law prohibiting free blacks from carrying firearms on the grounds that they were not citizens.[10] In the Georgia case of Cooper v. Mayor of Savannah, a similar provision passed constitutional muster on the grounds that "free persons of color have never been recognized here as citizens; they are not entitled to bear arms, vote for members of the legislature, or to hold any civil office."[11] Chief Justice Taney argued, in the infamous Dred Scott case, that the Constitution could not have intended that free blacks be citizens:

For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operations of the special laws and from the police regulations which they [the states] considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the Negro race, who [Page 71] were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, . . . [A]nd it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.[12]

After the conclusion of the American Civil War, several southern legislatures adopted comprehensive regulations, Black Codes, by which the new freed men were denied many of the rights that white citizens enjoyed. The Special Report of the Antislavery Conference of 1867 noted with particular emphasis that under these Black Codes blacks were "forbidden to own or bear firearms, and thus were rendered defenseless against assaults."[13] Mississippi's Black Code included the following provision:

Be it enacted . . . [t]hat no freedman, free Negro or mulatto, not in the military . . . and not licensed so to do by the board of police of his or her county, shall keep or carry firearms of any kind, or any ammunition, . . . and all such arms or ammunition shall be forfeited to the informer . . . ."[14]

The firearms confiscated would often be turned over to the Klan, the local (white) militia or law enforcement authorities which would then, safe in their monopoly of arms and under color of the Black Codes, further oppress and violate the civil rights of the disarmed freedmen.

The United States Congress overrode these Black Codes with the Civil Rights Act and the fourteenth amendment. The legislative histories of both the Civil Rights Act and the fourteenth amendment are replete with denunciations of those statutes denying blacks equal access to firearms for personal self-defense.[15]

In support of Senate Bill No. 9, which declared as void all laws in the former rebel states which recognized inequality of rights based on race, Senator Henry Wilson (R., Mass.) explained that: "In Mississippi rebel State forces, men who were in the rebel armies, are traversing the State, visiting the freedmen, disarming them, perpetrating murders and outrages upon them . . . ."[16] [Page 72]

The framers of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 argued that the issue of the right to keep and bear arms by the newly freed slaves was of vital importance, since, as Senator Trimball noted from a report from Vicksburg, Mississippi, "[n]early all the dissatisfaction that now exists among the freedmen is caused by the abusive conduct of this militia," meaning the white state militia. He continued, stating that rather than to restore order, the state militia would typically "hang some freedmen or search Negro houses for arms."[17] Representative Henry J. Raymond (R., N.Y.) explained that the rights of citizenship entitled the freedmen to all the rights of United States citizens: "He has a defined status: he has a country and a home; a right to defend himself and his wife and children; a right to bear arms ...."[18] Senator William Salisbury (D., Del.) added that " n most of the southern States, there has existed a law of the State based upon and founded in its police power, which declares that free Negroes shall not have the possession of firearms or ammunition. This bill proposes to take away from the States this police power."[19]

Within three years of the adoption of the fourteenth amendment in 1868, Congress was considering legislation to suppress the Ku Klux Klan. In a report on violence in the South, Representative Benjamin F. Butler (R., Mass.) stated that the right to keep arms was necessary for protection not only against the state militia but also against local law enforcement agencies. He noted instances of "armed confederates" terrorizing the Negro, and "in many counties they have preceded their outrages upon him by disarming him, in violation of his right as a citizen to 'keep and bear arms' which the Constitution expressly says shall never be infringed."[20]

The anti-KKK bill, introduced as "an act to protect loyal and peaceful citizens in the South," was originally introduced to the House Judiciary Committee with the following provision:

That whoever shall, without due process of law, by violence, intimidation, or threats, take away or deprive any citizen of the United States of any arms or weapons he may have in his house or possession for the defense of his person, family, or property, shall be deemed guilty of a larceny thereof, and be punished as provided in this act for a felony.[21] [Page 73]

Representative Butler explained the purpose of this provision:

Section 8 is intended to enforce the well-known constitutional provision guaranteeing the right in the citizen to 'keep and bear arms,' . . . .This provision seemed to your committee to be necessary, because they had observed that, before these midnight marauders made attacks upon peaceful citizens, there were very many instances in the South where the sheriff of the county had preceded them and taken away the arms of their victims. This was especially noticeable in Union County, where all the Negro population were disarmed by the sheriff only a few months ago under the order of the judge . . . ; and then, the sheriff having disarmed the citizens, the five hundred masked men rode at night and murdered and otherwise maltreated the ten persons who were there in jail in that county.[22]

When the Judiciary Committee later reported this bill as H.R. No. 320, the above section was deleted, apparently because the proscription extended to simple individual larceny over which Congress was perceived at that time to have no constitutional authority and because the conspiratorial action involved in the disarming of blacks would be covered by more general provisions of the bill.[23]

However, concern remained over the disarming of blacks in the South. Senator John Sherman (R., Ohio) stated that "[w]herever the Negro population preponderates, there they [the KKK] hold their sway, for a few determined men ... can carry terror among ignorant Negroes . . . without arms, equipment, or discipline."[24] Senator Adelbert Ames (R., Miss.) noted that the right to keep and bear arms was a necessary condition for the right of free speech, stating that " n some counties it was impossible to advocate Republican principles, those attempting it being hunted like wild beasts; in others, the speakers had to be armed and supported by not a few friends."[25]

Even after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the fourteenth amendment, Southern states continued in their effort to disarm blacks. Some Southern states reacted to the federal acts by conceiving a means to the same end: banning a particular class of firearms, in this case cheap handguns, which were the only firearms the poverty-stricken freedmen could afford. [Page 74]

Small pistols selling for as little as 50 or 60 cents became available in the 1870's and '80's, and since they could be afforded by recently emancipated blacks and poor whites (whom agrarian agitators of the time were encouraging to ally for economic and political purposes), these guns constituted a significant threat to a southern establishment interested in maintaining the traditional class structure.[26]

In the very first legislative session after white supremacists regained control of the Tennessee legislature in 1870, that state set the earliest Southern postwar pattern of legal restrictions by enacting a ban on the carrying, "publicly or privately," of, among other things, the "belt or pocket pistol or revolver."[27] In 1879, the General Assembly of Tennessee banned the sale of any pistols other than "army or navy" model revolvers.[28] This law effectively limited handgun ownership to whites, many of whom already possessed these Civil War service revolvers, or to those who could afford to purchase these more expensive firearms. These military firearms were among the best made and most expensive on the market, and were beyond the means of most blacks and laboring white people. The Ku Klux Klan was not inconvenienced since its organization in Tennessee had long since acquired its guns, many of which were such surplus army/navy model revolvers. Neither were company strongmen and professional strike breakers disarmed, whose weapons were supplied by their corporate employers.[29]

In 1881, Arkansas followed Tennessee's law by enacting a virtually identical "Saturday Night Special Law,"[30] which again was used to disarm blacks. Instead of formal legislation, Mississippi, Florida and other deep South states simply continued to enforce the pre-emancipation statutes forbidding blacks to possess arms, in violation of the fourteenth amendment.[31]

A different route was taken in Alabama, Texas, and Virginia: there, exorbitant business or transaction taxes were imposed in order [Page 75] to price handguns out of the reach of blacks and poor whites. An article in Virginia's official university law review called for a "prohibitive tax . . . on the privilege" of selling handguns as a way of disarming "the son of Ham", whose

cowardly practice of 'toting' guns has been one of the most fruitful sources of crime . . . . Let a Negro board a railroad train with a quart of mean whiskey and a pistol in his grip and the chances are that there will be a murder, or at least a row, before he alights.[32]

Often systems were emplaced where retailers would report to local authorities whenever blacks purchased firearms or ammunition. The sheriff would then arrest the purchaser and confiscate the firearm, which would either be destroyed or turned over to the local Klan or a white militia.[33] Mississippi legislated this system by enacting the first registration law for retailers in 1906, requiring retailers to maintain records of all pistol and pistol ammunition sales, and to make such available for inspection on demand.[34]

In United States v. Cruikshank,[35] a case often cited as controlling law by Handgun Control, Incorporated and other anti-gun organizations,[36] the United States Supreme Court upheld the Klan's repressive actions against blacks in the South. The case involved two men "of African descent and persons of color" who had their weapons confiscated by more than 100 Klansmen in Louisiana. The indictment in Cruikshank charged, inter alia, a conspiracy by Klansmen to prevent blacks from exercising their civil rights, including the right of assembly and the right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes. The Court held that because such rights, including free speech and the right to keep and bear arms, existed independently of the Constitution, and the first and second amendments guaranteed only that such rights shall not be infringed by the federal government, the federal government had no power to punish a violation of such rights by private individuals or the states. The fourteenth amendment offered no relief, the Court held, because the case involved a private conspiracy and not state action. The Court stated that the aggrieved citizens could seek [Page 76] protection and redress only from the state government of Louisiana and not from the federal government.[37]

The Cruikshank decision signaled the end of reconstruction. "Firearms in the Reconstruction South provided a means of political power for many. They were the symbols of the new freedom for blacks . . . In the end, white southerners triumphed and the blacks were effectually disarmed."[38]

It was not just the newly freed blacks in the South who were disarmed through discriminatory legislation which denied them the ability to defend their life and property, and kept them in a servile position, but also other "undesirable" white elements which were targeted by gun control laws.

At the end of the 19th century, Southern states began formalizing firearms restrictions in response to an increased concern about firearms ownership by certain whites, such as agrarian agitators and labor organizers. In 1893, Alabama, and in 1907, Texas, began imposing extremely heavy business and/or transaction taxes on handgun sales in order to resurrect economic barriers to ownership. South Carolina, in 1902, banned all pistol sales except to sheriffs and their special deputies, which included company strongmen and the KKK.[39]

The Supreme Court of North Carolina, in striking down a local statute which prohibited the open carrying of firearms without a permit in Forsyth County, stated:

To exclude all pistols, however, is not a regulation, but a prohibition, of arms which come under the designation of arms which the people are entitled to bear. This is not an idle or an obsolete guaranty, for there are still localities, not necessary to mention, where great corporations, under the guise of detective agents or private police, terrorize their employees by armed force. If the people are forbidden to carry the only arms within their means, among them pistols, they will be completely at the mercy of these great plutocratic organizations.[40]

B. Gun Control in the North

In the Northeast, the period from the 1870's to the mid-1930's was characterized by strong xenophobic reactions to Eastern and [Page 77] Southern European immigrants. Armed robbery in particular was associated with the racial stereotype in the public mind of the East and South European immigrant as lazy and inclined to violence. Furthermore, these immigrants were associated with the concept of the foreign-born anarchist. The fear and suspicion of these "undesirable" immigrants, together with a desire to disarm labor organizers, led to a concerted campaign by local and national business associations and organizations such as the Immigration Restriction League and the American Protective Association, for the enactment of a flat ban on the ownership of firearms, or at least handguns, by aliens.[41] In 1911, New York enacted the Sullivan law.[42] "Of proven success in dealing with political dissidents in Central European countries, this system made handgun ownership illegal for anyone without a police permit."[43] The New York City Police Department thereby acquired the official and wholly arbitrary authority to deny or permit the possession of handguns; which the department used in its effort to disarm the city's Italian population. The Sullivan law was designed to

strike hardest at the foreign-born element . . . . As early as 1903 the authorities had begun to cancel pistol permits in the Italian sections of the city. This was followed by a state law of 1905 which made it illegal for aliens to possess firearms 'in any public place'. This provision was retained in the Sullivan law.[44]

Conservative business associations, through a nationwide handgun prohibition campaign endorsing the Sullivan-type law concept, were responsible for enacting police permit requirements in Arkansas, Hawaii, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina and Oregon, between 1911 and 1934. The then conservative institutions of the New York Times and the American Bar Association supported this campaign. By fueling a spreading fear of armed robbery, these business interests were able to push for restrictive gun laws that were really aimed at the disarmament of labor organizations and agrarian agitators. (Of course, in the Northeast, it was commonly supposed that such groups were, in any event, largely composed of, or led by foreigners of alien political persuasions.)[45] [Page 78]

Canada also adopted a handgun permit law in 1919, partly in response to a recently crushed general strike which was erroneously believed to have been engineered and led by foreigners. Legislators remarked about the absurdity of allowing firearms ownership to those who "bring their bad habits, notions, and vicious practices into this country."[46]

Most of the American handgun ownership restrictions adopted between 1901 and 1934 followed on the heels of highly publicized incidents involving the incipient black civil rights movement, foreign-born radicals or labor agitators. In 1934, Hawaii, and in 1930 Oregon, passed gun control statutes in response to labor organizing efforts in the Port of Honolulu and the Oregon lumber mills. Michigan's version of the Sullivan law was enacted in the aftermath of the trial of Dr. Ossian Sweet, a black civil rights leader. Dr. Sweet, had moved into an all white neighborhood and had been indicted for murder for shooting one of a white mob that had attacked his house while Detroit police looked on. A Missouri permit law was enacted in the aftermath of a highly publicized St. Louis race riot.[47]

After World War I, a generation of young blacks, often led by veterans familiar with firearms and willing to fight for the equal treatment that they had received in other lands, began to assert their civil rights. In reaction, the Klan again became a major force in the South in the 1910's and 1920's. Often public authorities stood by while murders, beatings and lynchings were openly perpetrated upon helpless black citizens. And once again, firearms legislation in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas made sure that the victims of the Klan's violence were unarmed and did not possess the ability to defend themselves, while at the same time cloaking the specially deputized Klansmen in the safety of their monopoly of arms.

The resurgence of the Klan was neither limited to the South geographically, nor to blacks racially. The Klan was present in force in southern New Jersey, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Oregon. All of these states enacted either handgun permit laws or laws barring alien handgun possession between 1913 and 1934. The Klan targeted not only blacks, but also Catholics, Jews, labor radicals, and the foreign-born; and these people also ran the risk of falling victim to lynch mobs [Page 79] or other more clandestine attacks, often after the victims had been disarmed by state or local authorities.[48]

Furthermore, such violence against political, racial, religious or alien minorities was not perpetrated by the Klan alone. As noted, national and local business associations campaigned for the Sullivan law while also taking part in a concerted effort to destroy emerging labor unions. These associations engaged in a systematic campaign of drastic wage decreases, lockouts, imported strike breakers, surveillance, harassment, blacklisting, and physical attacks upon trade unionists, often carried out with the acquiescence or active support of political authorities. For instance, in Bixby, Arizona, 221 alleged labor radicals were rounded up by a posse and forcefully deported from the state. A 1901 Arizona law barred the carrying of handguns within city limits. That carrying ban was enforced to disarm the deportees but was not applied to the posse.[49]

Continued in Next Post

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

C. Gun Control and Native Americans

The history of firearms prohibitions in regard to native Americans presents a parallel example of the use of gun control to oppress and, in this case, to exterminate a non-white ethnic group. Though many legal restrictions against blacks in respect to firearms were abolished, at least racially, during Reconstruction, the sale of firearms to Indians often remained prohibited. Federal law prohibited the sale of arms and munitions to "hostile" Indians.[50] Idaho prohibited the sale or provision of firearms and ammunition to "any Indian."[51]

Usually the disarmament of Indians was quickly followed by the imposition of oppressive measures or even murder and wholesale massacres. "Since the Army had taken from the Sioux their weapons and horses, the alternative to capitulation to the government's demands was starvation."[52]

On December 28, 1890, the 7th Cavalry was escorting this group [350 Indians] to the government headquarters on the Pine Ridge reservation. After [Page 80] camping overnight along Wounded Knee creek about 15 miles from the headquarters, the Indians were called together on the morning of December 29th, surrounded by troops and told to surrender their rifles. Gun and cannon fire broke out, and many fleeing Indians died huddling in a ravine.[53]

Federal government restrictions on the sale of firearms to Indians were only abolished in 1979.[54]

Is Gun Control Racist?

The fear of blacks with guns was one of the reasons behind the Supreme Court&#8217;s notorious decision in the Dred Scott case. Chief Justice Roger Taney&#8217;s opinion insisted that blacks could not be citizens because, if they were, they&#8217;d have all the protections of the Bill of Rights, including the right to &#8220;full liberty of speech... to hold public meetings on political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.&#8221;

America&#8217;s most horrific racist organization, the Ku Klux Klan, began with gun control at the very top of its agenda. Before the Civil War, blacks in the South had never been allowed to possess guns. During the war, however, blacks obtained guns for the first time. Some served as soldiers in black units in the Union Army, which allowed its men, black and white, to take their guns home with them as partial payment of past due wages. Other Southern blacks bought guns in the underground marketplace, which was flooded with firearms produced for the war.

After the war, Southern states adopted discriminatory laws like the Black Codes, which among other things barred the freedmen from having guns. Racist whites began to form posses that would go out at night to terrorize blacks&#8212;and take away those newly obtained firearms. The groups took different names: the &#8220;Men of Justice&#8221; in Alabama; the &#8220;Knights of the White Camellia&#8221; in Louisiana; the &#8220;Knights of the Rising Sun&#8221; in Texas. The group formed in Pulaski, Tenn., became the most well-known: the Ku Klux Klan. Whites believed that they had to confiscate black people&#8217;s guns in order to reestablish white supremacy and prevent blacks from fighting back. Blacks who refused to turn over their only means of self-defense were lynched.

Overly aggressive gun control often sparks a backlash, and that&#8217;s exactly what happened after the Civil War. Determined to protect the freedmen&#8217;s rights, Congress passed legislation like the Freedmen&#8217;s Bureau Act and the nation&#8217;s first Civil Rights Act. As the former law stated, blacks were entitled to &#8220;the full and equal benefit of all laws... concerning personal security... including the constitutional right to bear arms.&#8221; When these laws proved ineffective, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was added, guaranteeing all Americans the &#8220;privileges or immunities of citizenship&#8221;&#8212;by which the drafters meant the protections afforded in the Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment.

Today, we think of the National Rifle Association as a no-compromises opponent of gun control. In the 1920s, however, the NRA helped draft and promote restrictive gun laws in state after state&#8212;laws that were, in part, motivated by racism. Immigrants from Italy and Eastern Europe, who were known to carry around concealed pistols, were increasingly blamed for a spike in urban crime. Karl Frederick, the NRA&#8217;s president, helped draft the Uniform Firearms Act, model legislation that required a license to carry around a handgun. According to the law, only &#8220;suitable people&#8221; with a &#8220;proper reason&#8221; for being armed in public were eligible.

Police used this law as an excuse to keep disfavored minorities from having guns. His reputation for peaceful non-violence notwithstanding, Martin Luther King Jr. applied for a license to carry a gun in the late 1950s after his home was firebombed. The recipient of daily death threats, the civil rights leader clearly had good reason to carry around a gun to defend himself. Yet Alabama police exercised the discretion the law afforded them to deny King&#8217;s permit request.

Armed guards sought to protect King after that, and for a time guns were commonplace in his parsonage. William Worthy, a journalist who covered the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, reported that during one visit he went to sit down on an armchair and, to his surprise, almost sat on a loaded gun. One of King&#8217;s advisers, Glenn Smiley, called King&#8217;s home &#8220;an arsenal.&#8221;

In the late 1960s, Congress and numerous states passed a wave of new gun-control laws and, once again, race and racism were not far from the surface. In California, conservatives like Governor Ronald Reagan responded to the Black Panthers, who conducted armed &#8220;police patrols&#8221; to oversee how officers treated blacks in Oakland, by endorsing new gun laws to restrict people from having loaded guns in public.

In 1967, after Newark and Detroit suffered the worst race riots in American history, a federal report put part of the blame for the incidents on the easy availability of guns in urban neighborhoods. The next year, Congress passed the first federal gun-control law in decades. Among other things, the Gun Control Act of 1968 tried to restrict &#8220;Saturday Night Specials&#8221;&#8212;the cheap, easily available guns often used by urban (read, black) youth. The law, which was also supported by the NRA&#8217;s leadership, occasioned one critic to complain that the Gun Control Act was &#8220;passed not to control guns but to control blacks.&#8221;

Like the Black Codes and the KKK&#8217;s disarmament efforts, the gun-control laws of the 1960s also led to a backlash. In the 1970s, a hardline group of NRA members staged a takeover of the organization&#8217;s leadership and committed the NRA to aggressive political lobbying to defeat gun control. Ironically, it was laws intended to limit access to guns by black and urban radicals and supported by conservatives like Reagan that fueled the rise of the modern gun-rights movement, which is famous for being white, rural, and right-leaning. Some whites thought the government was coming to get their guns next.

 

[CornBurrito]

Then make sure you do it and dont just talk bullshit. "Gun control" advocates cause the same harm to society that pro life advocates cause to women.

Please specify which society you are talking about. It sounds like you are making a blanket statement, but gun control does work elsewhere. Unless you think that even places like Japan would be better off if everyone had a gun.

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

Please specify which society you are talking about. It sounds like you are making a blanket statement, but gun control does work elsewhere.

American society? Then why once again is the UK murder numbers the same as France and Spain which allow handgun ownership?

Unless you think that even places like Japan would be better off if everyone had a gun.

Japan is not a good example given the lack of privacy from the state, civil liberties and police power granted to the government. I don't think anyone here wishes that the Japanese legal system existed in the US.

 

[CornBurrito]

American society? Then why once again is the UK murder numbers the same as France and Spain which allow handgun ownership.

France and Spain have gun control, even if they do allow for ownership.