"If only one student or faculty member had been carrying a gun that day, it is possible that many lives could have been saved."Or that more lives could have been lost; studies point out that where there are more parties involved with gun access, there are more gun deaths. U.S. homicide rates are 6.9 times higher than rates in 22 other populous high-income countries combined, despite similar non-lethal crime and violence rates. An estimated 41% of gun-related homicides and 94% of gun-related suicides would not occur under the same circumstances had guns not been present. No, guns don't literally kill people - but they undoubtedly help.
Brooks inflates his argument by saying that the Odighizuwa shooting in Virginia 5 years earlier than Virginia Tech was a prime example of why guns should be on campuses. Two students brought their firearms to counter the campus shooter who then surrendered after killing three people. What Brooks does not address is that the case of the Odighizuwa take-down was a rare tale of success. A gun is 22 times more likely to be used in a completed or attempted suicide, criminal assault or homicide, or unintentional shooting death or injury than to be used in a self-defense shooting. (Kellermann, 1998, p. 263)
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| Books Not Berettas |
"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." Whether or not you can agree or convince yourself otherwise, educational studies deem poorly limited firearm access to be a major contributing factor to crime, suicide and deaths.
If officials who are trained aren't trustworthy then how can we trust people who have little to no training in law enforcement? Joe Zamudio carried a concelaed weapon while he was out to buy cigarettes the afternoon when Loughner shot Gabrielle Giffords. He had his hand on the trigger, changed his mind and put it away to tackle who he thought was the shooter. Zamudio could have shot the wrong person, commenting that the man who he thought to be Loughner was, "Very lucky." Imagine on a college campus that a student is firing back at another and for a third student, not knowing which one is the campus shooter, to then make a fatal assumption?
Should we limit the mentally ill from purchasing firearms? Jared Lee Loughner was not allowed to join the military and was suspended from school for mental health issues prior to the Arizona shooting. Hui Cho from the Virginia Tech incident was was detained temporarily at Carilion St. Albans Behavioral Health Center in Radford, Virginia where Special Justice Paul Barnett certified in an order that Cho "presented an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness."
Just a reminder for when someone says gun violence needs to be lessened with... more gun violence.
Sources:
Guncite.com
The Slate
The Brady Campaign
Response to: Rebellious Pagan Knight
"A well armed society is a polite society."
Apparently not; we have more gun availability and more gun-related deaths per capita than any other high-income populous countries -source
"If public colleges can limit my constitutional Rights to bear arms, which other rights may they limit?"
Private institutions may be able to limit rights but not public schools. What you are saying is called a slippery slope logical fallacy. Currently gun-free zones are limited to enforcement because they conflict with the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Also, I addressed this in the article, which you clearly have not read in its entirety.
You also forget why Benjamin Franklin intentionally used specific words like "temporary" and "little" in his language. Do you know what inspired Benjamin Franklin's quote?
Response to Anonymous:
"Uh... wouldn't 100% of gun-related homicides/suicides not occur if no guns were present?"
No, because some still have the endeavor to act (which you actually make a point about in the same comment later). However, that doesn't equate to having more guns available to students when evidence proves that more access to firearms amount to more deaths and that doesn't mean we should make it easier for them to accomplish these acts of violence.
If the students who were carrying weapons to counter the Odighizuwa shooter had opened fire there would have been more injuries or deaths. The statistics are related: A gun is 22 times more likely to be used in a completed or attempted suicide, criminal assault or homicide, or unintentional shooting death or injury than to be used in a self-defense shooting. (Kellermann, 1998, p. 263)
"Cho could just have easily just locked the doors and set the place on fire with a can of gas."
It's clear that Cho's intention was to use firearms - a student noticed how compelled he was by the columbine shooting. In no case should those who are diagnosed as mentally unstable have any access to firearms yet Cho was able to purchase a gun. If i had to choose though between a fire in a large college building with multiple exits or an angry gunman I would go with fire.
"'Gun free' zones do nothing but give these whack-jobs a place where they know law-abiding citizens will be unable to protect themselves."
It's clear you did not read the article, either -
"Gun Free Zones don't guarantee anything; The purpose of Gun Free Zones are to escalate punishments in the instances where a weapon is found or used in that specific perimeter. Gun Free Zones couldn't be enforced because that wouldn't be constitutional under the Commerce Clause."
Best Reader Response:
"Here in reality, a phrase that says "well-regulated" that appears in a government document (i.e., the Constitution) obviously implies government regulation. Second, regulating the militia, by definition, would include regulating its weapons. Third, even the conservatives on the Supreme Court now ruled that the Second Amendment allows for gun control. Fourth, if the Second Amendment only allows for the government to regulate the militia, then that interpretation, by definition, excludes an individual right to bear arms.
There is nothing, even in a conservative interpretation of the Second Amendment, that prohibits gun control. The word "infringe" doesn't mean "any regulation." The Supreme Court has ruled that you have the right to bear arms, but nothing in that ruling or the Second Amendment says that you can't regulate that right to bear arms. It is completely legitimate, and in line with what the founders argued, to limit who can get a gun (murderers for example), what type of arms they can bear (no personal ownership of nuclear weapons) and where they can bear them (can't take them to the White House). No sane person could dispute this. The logic of what you are saying is that the government has no right to deny terrorists the right to own weapons. That's ludicrous by any measure.
The Declaration is not law and it has no legal authority. The Constitution, passed in 1788, has sole legal authority in the U.S. It allows for laws to be created under its authority, passed by Congress and the state and local governments, and it allows for judicial interpretation of its language and intent, as exercised solely by federal courts. There is no legal right under the Constitution to use violence to overthrow the U.S. government. This was completely settled as an issue during the Civil War. Advocating the use of weapons against democratically-elected government officials because you don't like them is terrorism, treason and sedition. It's also 100% un-American by every definition of America. The quote you cite from the Declaration does not suggest that violence is an acceptable way to deal with a government you don't like, it suggests that you use the ballot and elections to make those changes. The only time violence against government is ever legitimate is when that government uses illegitimate violence against its citizens. There are no examples of that happening in the present and to suggest otherwise is insanity."
6 comments:
A well armed society is a polite society.
If public colleges can limit my constitutional Rights to bear arms, which other rights may they limit? Shall they next ignore my Right to free speech? My Right to freedom from unlawful search and seizure?
To quote Benjamin Franklin : "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
"An estimated 41% of gun-related homicides and 94% of gun-related suicides would not occur under the same circumstances had guns not been present. "
Uh... wouldn't 100% of gun-related homicides/suicides not occur if no guns were present?
And no, more people would not have died if there were students who were lawfully carrying that day. You go from that quote to gun death stats that have nothing to do with one another. If each one of those rooms where students were trapped had one person with a weapon to defend themselves, you don't think they would stand a better chance against an armed assailant than with nothing at all?
A gun is not a magical thing that makes people want to do harm when they pick one up. Cho could just have easily just locked the doors and set the place on fire with a can of gas.
'Gun free' zones do nothing but give these whack-jobs a place where they know law-abiding citizens will be unable to protect themselves.
Response to: Rebellious Pagan Knight
"A well armed society is a polite society."
Apparently not; we have more gun availability and more gun-related deaths per capita than any other high-income populous countries <source
"If public colleges can limit my constitutional Rights to bear arms, which other rights may they limit?"
Private institutions may be able to limit rights but not public schools. What you are saying is called a slippery slope logical fallacy. Currently gun-free zones are limited to enforcement because they conflict with the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Also, I addressed this in the article, which you clearly have not read in its entirety.
You also forget why Benjamin Franklin intentionally used specific words like "temporary" and "little" in his language. Do you know what inspired Benjamin Franklin's quote?
Response to Anonymous:
"Uh... wouldn't 100% of gun-related homicides/suicides not occur if no guns were present?"
No, because some still have the endeavor to act (which you actually make a point about in the same comment later). However, that doesn't equate to having more guns available to students when evidence proves that more access to firearms amount to more deaths and that doesn't mean we should make it easier for them to accomplish these acts of violence.
If the students who were carrying weapons to counter the Odighizuwa shooter had opened fire there would have been more injuries or deaths. The statistics are related: A gun is 22 times more likely to be used in a completed or attempted suicide, criminal assault or homicide, or unintentional shooting death or injury than to be used in a self-defense shooting. (Kellermann, 1998, p. 263)
"Cho could just have easily just locked the doors and set the place on fire with a can of gas."
It's clear that Cho's intention was to use firearms - a student noticed how compelled he was by the columbine shooting. In no case should those who are diagnosed as mentally unstable have any access to firearms yet Cho was able to purchase a gun. If i had to choose though between a fire in a large college building with multiple exits or an angry gunman I would go with fire.
"'Gun free' zones do nothing but give these whack-jobs a place where they know law-abiding citizens will be unable to protect themselves."
It's clear you did not read the article, either -
"Gun Free Zones don't guarantee anything; The purpose of Gun Free Zones are to escalate punishments in the instances where a weapon is found or used in that specific perimeter. Gun Free Zones couldn't be enforced because that wouldn't be constitutional under the Commerce Clause."
"Gun control though, unlike gun-free zones, is constitutional within the Second Amendment:
"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 term "well regulated" does not imply government regulation. I see nothing in the Second Amendment which calls for gun control. If anything, it just calls for regulation of the organization as a whole. In other words, the founding fathers did not want a large number of independent vigilantes running around dishing out their "Texas Justice." The Second Amendment simply calls for a command structure within said militia.
"the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
I am not exactly sure what bastardization of reason would lead you to believe that "Gun control though, unlike gun-free zones, is constitutional within the Second Amendment." Any control or regulation of the People's right to bear arms is simply unconstitutional. Any law, regulation, or ordinance that would attempt to hinder in any way our right to access, own, or carry a firearm is an unjust law, and should be ignored or changed immediately.
In the Declaration of Independence, it states that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it."
Here in reality, a phrase that says "well-regulated" that appears in a government document (i.e., the Constitution) obviously implies government regulation. Second, regulating the militia, by definition, would include regulating its weapons. Third, even the conservatives on the Supreme Court now ruled that the Second Amendment allows for gun control. Fourth, if the Second Amendment only allows for the government to regulate the militia, then that interpretation, by definition, excludes an individual right to bear arms.
There is nothing, even in a conservative interpretation of the Second Amendment, that prohibits gun control. The word "infringe" doesn't mean "any regulation." The Supreme Court has ruled that you have the right to bear arms, but nothing in that ruling or the Second Amendment says that you can't regulate that right to bear arms. It is completely legitimate, and in line with what the founders argued, to limit who can get a gun (murderers for example), what type of arms they can bear (no personal ownership of nuclear weapons) and where they can bear them (can't take them to the White House). No sane person could dispute this. The logic of what you are saying is that the government has no right to deny terrorists the right to own weapons. That's ludicrous by any measure.
The Declaration is not law and it has no legal authority. The Constitution, passed in 1788, has sole legal authority in the U.S. It allows for laws to be created under its authority, passed by Congress and the state and local governments, and it allows for judicial interpretation of its language and intent, as exercised solely by federal courts. There is no legal right under the Constitution to use violence to overthrow the U.S. government. This was completely settled as an issue during the Civil War. Advocating the use of weapons against democratically-elected government officials because you don't like them is terrorism, treason and sedition. It's also 100% un-American by every definition of America. The quote you cite from the Declaration does not suggest that violence is an acceptable way to deal with a government you don't like, it suggests that you use the ballot and elections to make those changes. The only time violence against government is ever legitimate is when that government uses illegitimate violence against its citizens. There are no examples of that happening in the present and to suggest otherwise is insanity.
Actually, "well-regulated" does not follow the current definition of the verb "regulate." In fact, regulation of a militia meant that members had to conform to a standard of equipment. For example, some of the Massachusetts Minutemen had to have a backpack (of sorts), 30 lead balls, a musket, a measured amount of powder, a method for carrying a small amount of water, and a few other items.
This is the extent of the term "regulated" as it was used at the time of writing. This is why certain troops were known as "regulars," being that their equipment and uniforms conformed to a standard among their group. Soldiers or militia known as "irregulars" did not have a set standard of dress or equipment.
"A well-regulated militia" is one of the more misinterpreted elements of the Second Amendment. It has nothing to do with gun control or restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms.
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