People are killing People !

[Jester]

There is something different about the society of today, and that of 1933 beyond the propensity of the media to plaster the headlines with blood and carnage.

This is almost certainly true. The question is, what? And, having given any particular explanation, how does one separate that factor out from the other enormous changes that have taken place in the last 70 years?

-Jester

[Jester]

No.

US has 3.84x more murders than the Netherlands though.

The facts.

Why does Canada have 2.5x the rate of rapes per capita of the US? And almost 20x the rate of Colombia, a country whose overall rate of violent crime is unsurpassed?

I think there are probably some serious reporting issues, although probably moreso with rapes than murders. Still, Saudi Arabia is suspiciously low. And I definitely doubt that Azerbaijan has 1/100th of the per-capita murders of the US.

Also, for a lark, the total crimes by country is a fun number. The US has almost as many total crimes commited as all those countries combined? I think not. There's some definite apples-to-oranges going on.

-Jester

[Occhidiangela]

Hi,
Yep. I remember from Sunday school how Cain shot Able.;)

--Pete

In similar news, different vintage, regarding violence between Semitic tribesmen, I note that it took zero guns in Baghdad, Thursday, to kill over fifty three people.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/03/06/...main/index.html

An IED went of in Baghdad, as the weekend began. When people gathered to help the initial victims, a suicide bomber detonated his weapon in the middle of the crowd. The bulk of the maimed, killed, and otherwise wounded came from the second blast.

At this rate, and with a few more innovations, the global warming trend can be reversed -- at least any human contribution. The steady decline of people contributing to the carbon footprint should see to that. Likewise, Kenya seems to be gearing up for some intramural homicide, keep any eye on the news.

Personal interest in the linked story:

This terrorist attack was a senseless act of violence directed against the Iraqi people," Col. Allen Batschelet, chief of staff of the Multi-National Division, said in a written statement.

Thirteen years ago, then Major Batschelet and I were sharing our frustrations with academicians, over a beer or two, and their penchant for kicking our monographs back at us with yet more pedantry. He's a good man, glad the MNCI commander has him as his Chief of Staff.

Man, that's a long time ago. :( Am I getting that old? Nah. Couldn't be.

Pete, it is good to see you still slipping a zinger in here and there, expect an email soon.

Occhi

[kandrathe]

Why does Canada have 2.5x the rate of rapes per capita of the US? And almost 20x the rate of Colombia, a country whose overall rate of violent crime is unsurpassed?

I think there are probably some serious reporting issues, although probably moreso with rapes than murders. Still, Saudi Arabia is suspiciously low. And I definitely doubt that Azerbaijan has 1/100th of the per-capita murders of the US.

Also, for a lark, the total crimes by country is a fun number. The US has almost as many total crimes commited as all those countries combined? I think not. There's some definite apples-to-oranges going on.

-Jester

Well, Yeah. Consider the source. Your tax dollars at work... Not.

[Hammerskjold]

Everyone knows the Smithsonian has a refrigerator wing where they keep pieces of cheese brought back by Nikita Khrushchev, The Beatles, and Captain Nemo during the "Starbuck 11" moon landing.

Get your facts straight, you nut.

-Jester

Crazy talk sir, you are giving me absolute crazy talk. It's so crazy in fact, that I think you're actually trying to hide some truth in plain sight! Rest assure, the next time I visit Washington and the Smithsonian, I will investigate the refrigerator wing (no doubt located in the Air&Space museum aka Hall of Hoaxes) if nothing else, to call on your crazy bluff.

And to also eat some delicious freeze dried iced cream that the supposed 'Astro-nauts' ate. I also want to take another look at that fabulous Bob Hope Diamond.

[Taem]

Guns don't kill people, ...oh wait, they do.

The Supreme Court is having to decide this very issue in the District of Columbia. It could have ramifications for all civilian gun owners.

MSNBC News Services
updated 9:34 a.m. PT, Tues., March. 18, 2008
WASHINGTON - In a landmark hearing on gun ownership, the Supreme Court appeared ready Tuesday to endorse the view that the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to own guns, but was less clear about whether to retain the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns.

The justices were aware of the historic nature of their undertaking, engaging in an extended 98-minute session of questions and answers that could yield the first definition of the meaning of the Second Amendment in its 216 years.

A key justice, Anthony Kennedy, left little doubt about his view when he said early in the proceedings that the Second Amendment gives “a general right to bear arms.”

Several justices were skeptical that the Constitution, if it gives individuals’ gun rights, could allow a complete ban on handguns when, as Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out, those weapons are most suited for protection at home.

“What is reasonable about a ban on possession” of handguns? Roberts asked at one point.

Justice Samuel Alito, who like Roberts was appointed by President Bush, cited another provision requiring rifles or shotguns be kept unloaded and dissembled or bound by a trigger lock, and said it did not seem as if they could be used as such for the self-defense of one’s home.

The court’s four liberals seemed most sympathetic to the law during the arguments. Justice Stephen Breyer suggested that the District’s public safety concerns could be relevant in evaluating its 32-year-old ban on handguns, perhaps the strictest gun control law in the nation.

“Does that make it unreasonable for a city with a very high crime rate ... to say ‘No handguns here?’” Breyer said.

Bush administration sides with partial bans
Solicitor General Paul Clement, the Bush administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, supported the individual right, but urged the justices not to decide the other question. Instead, Clement said the court should allow for reasonable restrictions that allow banning certain types of weapons, including existing federal laws.

He did not take a position on the District law.

The court has not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The basic issue for the justices is whether the amendment protects an individual’s right to own guns or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

The 27 words and three enigmatic commas of the Second Amendment have been analyzed again and again by legal scholars, but hardly at all by the Supreme Court.

The amendment reads: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

The court's ruling, expected by the end of June, could have a far-reaching impact on gun-control laws in the United States and could become an issue in the November election.

Protests outside
While the arguments raged inside, advocates of gun rights and opponents of gun violence demonstrated outside court Tuesday.

Dozens of protesters mingled with tourists and waved signs saying “Ban the Washington elitists, not our guns” or “The NRA helps criminals and terrorists buy guns.”

Members of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence chanted “guns kill” as followers of the Second Amendment Sisters and Maryland Shall Issue.Org shouted “more guns, less crime.”

A line to get into the court for the historic arguments began forming two days earlier and extended more than a block by early Tuesday.

The high court’s first extensive examination of the Second Amendment since 1939 grew out of challenge to the District’s ban.

Anise Jenkins, president of a coalition called Stand Up for Democracy in D.C., defended the district’s prohibition on handguns.

“We feel our local council knows what we need for a good standard of life and to keep us safe,” Jenkins said.

Genie Jennings, a resident of South Perwick, Maine, and national spokeswoman for Second Amendment Sisters, said the law banning handguns in Washington “is denying individuals the right to defend themselves.”

Even if the court determines there is an individual right, the justices still will have to decide whether the District’s ban can stand and how to evaluate other gun control laws. This issue has caused division within the Bush administration, with Vice President Dick Cheney taking a harder line than the administration’s official position at the court.

The local Washington government argues that its law should be allowed to remain in force whether or not the amendment applies to individuals, although it reads the amendment as intended to allow states to have armed forces.

The City Council that adopted the ban said it was justified because “handguns have no legitimate use in the purely urban environment of the District of Columbia.”

Dick Anthony Heller, 65, an armed security guard, sued the District after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his home for protection. His lawyers say the amendment plainly protects an individual’s right.

The last Supreme Court ruling on the topic came in 1939 in U.S. v. Miller, which involved a sawed-off shotgun. Constitutional scholars disagree over what that case means but agree it did not squarely answer the question of individual versus collective rights.

Roberts said at his confirmation hearing that the correct reading of the Second Amendment was “still very much an open issue.”

The arguments follow a series of mass shootings in the past year — multiple killings on at least three college campuses, two shopping centers and one Missouri town meeting. Gun deaths average 80 a day in the United States, 34 of them homicides, according to Centers for Disease Control data.

The case has split the Bush administration.

Solicitor General Paul Clement, the administration's chief advocate before the Supreme Court, has adopted the position that individuals have a right to own a gun, but it is subject to reasonable government regulation.

[--Pete]

Hi,

The Supreme Court is having to decide this very issue in the District of Columbia. It could have ramifications for all civilian gun owners.

Yeah. I've had CNN on all day following this story and the Obama speech. I hope that the Nine say that *any* restriction on the ownership of any weapon is unconstitutional -- because any literate, impartial, person can read that and only that in the Second Amendment. If the population doesn't like it, then they should fix it the right way (Article V) rather than doing end runs around the Bill of Rights.

--Pete

PS Happy, Bolty? I've contributed my 2 copper to this flame war -- not my fault that horse glue won't burn;)

[Jim]

Hi Magi, :wub:

Why won't horse glue burn ? :blink:

Hi,
-- not my fault that horse glue won't burn;)

ps: Just wanted to say hello to your Wife Pete :wub:

[-Magi]

Hi King Jim!

/hugs

-Magi-

Oops - Sorry everyone, this went to the wrong spot. I will have to start posting more so I can figure out how to do it right.

[Jim]

Hi my Lady :wub:

Nice to hear from you, what games are you & Pete playing ?

Hi King Jim!

/hugs

-Magi-

Oops - Sorry everyone, this went to the wrong spot. I will have to start posting more so I can figure out how to do it right.

[Jim]

Hi Mr Bolty,

Thought this might be of Interest to this thread :)

Defining the Right of Self-Defense by Gun

By Thomas A. Bowden

First, the robber hit Willie Lee Hill more than fifty times with a can of soda, knocking him unconscious. Later, the 93-year-old victim awakened, covered with blood, to find his 24-year-old assailant ransacking the bedroom. When Hill pulled out a .38-caliber handgun from near his bed, the robber lunged at him. Hill stopped his attacker with a single bullet to the throat. “I got what I deserved,” the robber told police afterward.

That episode happened in Arkansas last July, but similar acts of self-defense occur by the thousands all across America every year. Overwhelming historical evidence and common sense demonstrate that guns--often called the “great equalizer,” for obvious reasons--are a powerful method of self-defense in the precious minutes before police can arrive.

In the District of Columbia, however, citizens may not lawfully possess a handgun for self-defense, even in the home. The Supreme Court will soon hear oral argument in D.C. v. Heller, which is expected to determine whether such a blanket ban violates the Second Amendment. But regardless of how the Court may interpret the Constitution, citizens deserve a legal right to own a handgun for self-defense.

As the Declaration of Independence recognizes, governments are created to protect our individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The right of self-defense is included and implied in the right to life. In forming a government, citizens delegate the task of defending themselves to the police. But to delegate is not to surrender. Each citizen retains the ultimate right to defend himself in emergencies when his appointed agents, the police, are not available to help.

But what constitutes an emergency? What acts of self-defense are permissible in such a situation? And what tools may private citizens own for emergency self-defense? The law’s task is to furnish objective answers to such questions, so that citizens may defend their lives without taking the law into their own hands.

An emergency, properly defined, arises from an objective threat of imminent bodily harm. The victim must summon police, if possible. An emergency ends when the threat ends, or as soon as police arrive and take charge. During that narrow emergency interval, a victim may defend himself, but only with the least degree of force necessary under the circumstances to repel his attacker. A victim who explodes in vengeance, using excessive force, exposes himself to criminal liability along with his assailant.

Many objects commonly owned for peaceful purposes can be pressed into service for emergency self-defense. But unlike kitchen knives or baseball bats, handguns have no peaceful purpose--they are designed to kill people. The same lethal power that makes handguns the most practical means of self-defense against robbers, rapists, and murderers, also makes handguns an essential tool of government force. Handguns are deadly force and nothing but--a fact that gives rise to legitimate concerns over their private ownership in a civilized society.

These concerns can be resolved only by laws carefully drawn to confine private use of handguns to emergency self-defense, as defined by objective law. Such laws must also prohibit all conduct by which handguns might present an objective threat to others, whether by intent or negligence.

Contrary to an often expressed worry, therefore, a right to keep and bear arms in no way implies that citizens may stockpile weaponry according to their arbitrary preferences. Cannons, tanks, and nuclear weapons have no legitimate use in a private emergency, and their very presence is a threat to peaceful neighbors.

If handguns are confined to emergency self-defense, no legitimate purpose is served by an outright ban such as the District of Columbia enacted. Even if such laws actually deprived criminals of guns (which they don’t), they would infringe upon a law-abiding citizen’s right in emergencies to repel attackers who are wielding knives, clubs, fists--or cans of soda.

With the aid of his handgun, Willie Lee Hill survived that violent home invasion last July. Self-defense was his right, as it is ours. A proper legal system recognizes and protects that right, by permitting private ownership of handguns under appropriate limits.

Thomas A. Bowden is an analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute, focusing on legal issues. Mr. Bowden is a former attorney and law school instructor who practiced for twenty years in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ayn Rand Institute (www.AynRand.org) promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." Contact the writer at media@aynrand.org.

Guns don't kill people, ...oh wait, they do.

I'll be back after the first 100 posts of the argument I just started.

-Bolty