[Inquisitor]

Probably not, but I don't see this as the same, since by (an albeit grudging admission) you concede there may be reasons to own firearms. Slavery on the other hand, I think we agree there are no reasons for that. One might argue the right to arms would be a good way to prevent that from happening again, actually.

Is the right to keep personal arms and bear arms and form a regulated militia the only one on the bill of rights that you disagree with?

The notion of precedence is powerfully central to laws and rights though, its hard to simply dismiss it because you don't agree with it.

[Scotty]

Remember that the constitution was written during a time when slavery was legal. Had the UK been thirty years more advanced with the abolitionism movement there's a reasonable chance that America might have revolted over that and included "The right to own slaves" in the constitution.

Only issue with that is that the colonists revolted over taxation without representation.  They didn't break with the U.K. simply becuase it was the U.K.

Let's pretend that had happened. Would you still be arguing about precedence?

Yes .  I don't change my mind easily.

Another judge should always be able to rule another way if circumstances change enough that it bears re-examination.

And what has changed so much that we need to re-examine the 2nd Amendment?

[Inquisitor]

He's been making that argument for several posts now, gun violence, the efficacy of personal firearms when it comes to resisting an unjust modern government, etc. I may not agree with his conclusions, but he has been making and effort to make the case.

[BengalTiger]

Oh yeah, you ask where do you draw the line when it comes to giving up rights? I could ask you where do you draw the line when it comes to adding rights and freedoms and taking away restrictions and morals?

When your rights and freedoms interfere with other people's rights and freedoms. That's where the line is.

In other words, I cannot force you to do something, neither could you do that to me. I cannot take anything that's yours or do anything you'd consider hostile, and vice versa.

Now, where's the line in taking rights away?

And lastly, I think that if you feel you must carry a firearm, it is better not to conceal it.

In the State of Michigan you'd get a citation for disorderly conduct if you open carry.

But I do agree that open carry would work even better as a deterrent than concealed carry, just like marked police cars get more people to stick to the speed limit (unless everyone knows there's an unmarked somewhere- it could be miles away but people still fear it and obey the rules- that would be similar to concealed carry).

[karajorma]

Is the right to keep personal arms and bear arms and form a regulated militia the only one on the bill of rights that you disagree with?

Actually no. While the majority of the Bill of Rights is something I can agree with off the top of my head I can think of at least one other part I do have an issue with.

Until 2003, England and Wales had much the same double jeopardy rules as America. However they were changed to allow retrials "if there is "new" and "compelling" evidence for crimes, including murder, but also manslaughter, kidnapping, rape, armed robbery, and serious drug crimes"

AFAIK the change has only been used once. So long as it is only used very sparingly, I 100% agree with the change. It allows the retrial of cases like the Stephen Lawrence murder where bungling and corruption of the police resulted in an aquittal when the evidence clearly should have lead to a conviction. In addition it would allow the retrying of cases where DNA evidence and new forensic techniques would have resulted a conviction had they existed when the original trial was carried out.

Of course you'll never get a similar law passed in the US because it is unconstitutional. Yes, revoking double jeopardy can be abused. Which is why the law included several checks and balances. To be honest, any law can be perverted if you try hard enough and I'd rather live in a country where a single technicality won't result in a criminal being on the streets.

The notion of precedence is powerfully central to laws and rights though, its hard to simply dismiss it because you don't agree with it.

You've already dismissed it though. You've agreed that precedent can be dispensed with if it is unjust (slavery, prohibition too most likely), so the question is simply where you draw the line. I personally do not hold that a decision made 200 years previously is inviolate. It must still be a just decision today for it to be binding on me.

[Inquisitor]

Only after careful deliberation and much debate.

Every time that happens here with 2nd amendment, it manages to survive. To Scotty's point, your argument is not compelling enough to ban firearms. Too many reasons to actually own them that make sense.

at some point, I suspect we will have to respectfully agree to disagree, but this at least helps me zero in on your prime objections.

[karajorma]

Only after careful deliberation and much debate.

Thing is that in my view I see very little deliberation. While you seem to at least be taking a fairly balanced view of things far too many people on both sides have already made up their minds and will simply spout ridiculous truisms in favour of their side.

Every time that happens here with 2nd amendment, it manages to survive.

I doubt that has much to do with the argument and everything to do with the fact that Americans love their guns and get all Charlton Heston about the idea of having them taken away from them.

To Scotty's point, your argument is not compelling enough to ban firearms. Too many reasons to actually own them that make sense.

Yeah, but look what I'm dealing with. He said in his last post that if slavery was in the constitution he wouldn't change his mind about that either. (And if he wasn't saying that, I don't have the faintest clue what he was on about).

[Scotty]

He said in his last post that if slavery was in the constitution he wouldn't change his mind about that either.

Exactly, I wouldn't change my mind.  I usually have it made up one way or the other.  In that case, against, in all cases racial, religious, or discriminatory.

[Janos]

Ah, the old "I'm going to say my piece and then run away before anyone can challenge my opinion" gambit.

Which should really be met with the "Since you don't want to debate, we'll ignore you" response.

It's the best when the comment are provocative and/or full of weird statements such as "I think that X is a fact" without anything to back it up and then you run away

"thread****ting" is the proper term for this

[Flipside]

I think Wolverine was a 5'6" Canadian not a 6ft Australian

Seriously though, Americans do still have this thing in common with the English, Limpet Syndrome, the harder you try to convince us that something we are doing is bad, the more stubborn we will become about doing it

That, I think in part, plays a role here, try to tell people that their guns shouldn't be allowed and it's a recipe for an outcry, even scaling back the guns, banning automatic weapons, has caused an outcry, you cannot change a culture from the outside imposing inwards.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

I think Wolverine was a 5'6" Canadian not a 6ft Australian

Seriously though, Americans do still have this thing in common with the English, Limpet Syndrome, the harder you try to convince us that something we are doing is bad, the more stubborn we will become about doing it

That, I think in part, plays a role here, try to tell people that their guns shouldn't be allowed and it's a recipe for an outcry, even scaling back the guns, banning automatic weapons, has caused an outcry, you cannot change a culture from the outside imposing inwards.

I don't know.... I tend to think that having a gun is a necessity in America, since it's so big. On the one hand, the gun is a terrible weapon. On the other hand, there can never be enough policemen to keep the whole of America in check.

There is also the problem of "moving forwards". Having a gun is the right of an American. If the gun policy was changed such that no one except the police and the military can hold guns, you may have the following:

1. Civilians who will adhere to the new policy and dispose of their guns;
2. Civilians who won't and will still keep a gun "just in case";
3. Crooks, who won't because it won't help them very much; and
4. Gunsmiths, because the gun is their livelihood.

[Flipside]

Exactly, it's a culture now, kind of like a food cycle, you cannot affect one part of it without massively upsetting the balance of the other parts. It's gone beyond a law now and is an integral part of the society and the economy of the US.

I think imposing laws from outside, be it Washington, or any kind of world government would be pointless, won't work, no-one's going to look away or blink first, the only way to rid the US of guns would be for one of two things to happen:

1) 'Age of Aquarius-esque' - A Wave of peace and love sweeps across the world brining all nations together in love and harmony. I'll leave you to work out the odds on that one.

2) Guns are made obsolete, their is no point carrying a firearm because it is now impossible to harm someone with one because of new body armour/personal protection field etc. This is more likely than item one, which is about all I can say about it, and, without doubt, such protection would have a limited lifespan before weapons tech catches up.

So really, the fact is that guns in the US are here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.

I do agree hiwever that more could be done to identify and track guns and ammunition, that would do a great deal towards dis-inclining people towards using them for criminal purposes.

[General Battuta]

I think Wolverine was a 5'6" Canadian not a 6ft Australian

Seriously though, Americans do still have this thing in common with the English, Limpet Syndrome, the harder you try to convince us that something we are doing is bad, the more stubborn we will become about doing it

That, I think in part, plays a role here, try to tell people that their guns shouldn't be allowed and it's a recipe for an outcry, even scaling back the guns, banning automatic weapons, has caused an outcry, you cannot change a culture from the outside imposing inwards.

I don't know.... I tend to think that having a gun is a necessity in America, since it's so big. On the one hand, the gun is a terrible weapon. On the other hand, there can never be enough policemen to keep the whole of America in check.

There is also the problem of "moving forwards". Having a gun is the right of an American. If the gun policy was changed such that no one except the police and the military can hold guns, you may have the following:

1. Civilians who will adhere to the new policy and dispose of their guns;
2. Civilians who won't and will still keep a gun "just in case";
3. Crooks, who won't because it won't help them very much; and
4. Gunsmiths, because the gun is their livelihood.

What? What?

Having a gun is by no means a necessity in America. At all.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

It's embedded into American culture, so now it is.

[NGTM-1R]

It's embedded into American culture, so now it is.

Not in this state. The concept of "American culture" is a poor one. There's a world of difference between East and West Coast, North and South, etc. This is a big country.

[General Battuta]

It's embedded into American culture, so now it is.

No it's not.

There is no American culture. Nothing unified.

And if there was, having guns would not be a majority part of it. Most Americans don't own guns and don't want one.

Where do you get these ideas anyway?

[Flipside]

The Culture is that the Right to have a gun is one that should never be taken away, the fact that there will always be the argument that criminals will not let go of their guns, so if we let go of ours, we make ourselves vulnerable. You cannot argue with that because, at heart, it is now true.

I'd just as easily say there is no English culture, there is certainly no single British Culture, but there are certain things that are a universal to all aspects of the UK, in the US it is the majority belief that, even if you do not own a gun, you should posses the right to arm yourself if need be.

I'm in no real position to judge whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, I'm not in the US, I don't know the myriad of reasons that someone might have to own a gun over there.

I don't think it would reduce crimes, criminals are criminals and humans are imaginative, so the only real solution is to tackle the reasons that push people into committing crimes in the first place, and even then, you'll always get the good old fashioned nutters who walk through a school firing indiscriminately because they believe humanity doesn't deserve to exist. Nuke, for example

The Bill of Rights, that thing that does a lot towards putting the 'U' in 'US', that is your culture, your belief in Freedom of Choice, that is your culture, everyone from Glenn Beck to Jeff Beck, that is your culture, and guns, and the right to own one, are instrinsically linked to it, you gained your country by rising up against an establishment, and you've always remembered that, something in you will never let that go.

[General Battuta]

The Culture is that the Right to have a gun is one that should never be taken away, the fact that there will always be the argument that criminals will not let go of their guns, so if we let go of ours, we make ourselves vulnerable. You cannot argue with that because, at heart, it is now true.

I'd just as easily say there is no English culture, there is certainly no single British Culture, but there are certain things that are a universal to all aspects of the UK, in the US it is the majority belief that, even if you do not own a gun, you should posses the right to arm yourself if need be.

That's not true at all.

There are large portions of the population that would disagree.

[Flipside]

I find that somewhat hard to believe to be honest, certainly not from the reactions I've seen to gun bans. You had a bunch of people shot only a few weeks ago because someone thought 'Obama was going to take away his guns', now, I'll admit that is News and therefore heard from further away, but I find it very hard to accept that the NRA is as large an influence in the US as it is, if it is not making a great deal of money, and it makes a great deal of money by selling a great deal of merchandise.

Edit: Even if you include military spending, the hold the NRA has over public opinion still makes this seem unlikely to me.

[General Battuta]

You need national poll data on a number of factors -- not just 'do you believe people should have the right to bear arms' -- to assess public attitude towards guns.