Gun policy analysis thread.

[Chuck Naill]

She cited The Brennan Center for Justice which includes,


“A fraud on the American public.” That’s how former Chief Justice Warren Burger described the idea that the Second Amendment gives an unfettered individual right to a gun. When he spoke these words to PBS in 1990, the rock-ribbed conservative appointed by Richard Nixon was expressing the longtime consensus of historians and judges across the political spectrum.”

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-wo...cond-amendment

Richardson always cites her sources.

[Chuck Naill]

From same source,
“From 1888, when law review articles first were indexed, through 1959, every single one on the Second Amendment concluded it did not guarantee an individual right to a gun. The first to argue otherwise, written by a William and Mary law student named Stuart R. Hays, appeared in 1960. He began by citing an article in the NRA’s American Rifleman magazine and argued that the amendment enforced a “right of revolution,” of which the Southern states availed themselves during what the author called “The War Between the States.”

[Chuck Naill]

As Paul Harvey and Candy say, “and now you know the rest of the story”.

That said, even a young child who can read would understand the intent of the Second Amendment.

[dneal]

@kazoolaw - I suppose that's a plausible hypothesis, but I'm more inclined to assume she relies on the ignorance of her readers. Otherwise they would quickly catch on to the ignorance she demonstrates.

Now I'm not entirely sure what she means by "legal article". Perhaps she means some professional circular for lawyers and jurists; but I would offer that State Constitutions are "legal article(s)".

Scalia, after noting the history of the right to bear arms for self defense in English common law - the precursor and tradition the founders (like Adams, a lawyer) would have been familiar with - notes this example in Heller.

A Compleat Collection of State-Tryals 185 (1719) (“Hath not every Subject power to keep Arms, as well as Servants in his House for defence of his Person?”); T. Wood, A New Institute of the Imperial or Civil Law 282 (1730)

He then goes on to cite a litany of State constitutional texts also asserting the right to bear arms for "defence of themselves".

Pa. Declaration of Rights §XIII, in 5 Thorpe 3083 (“That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state. . . ”);
Vt. Declaration of Rights §XV, in 6 id., at 3741 (“That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State. . .”);
Ky. Const., Art. XII, cl. 23 (1792), in 3 id., at 1264, 1275 (“That the right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State shall not be questioned”);
Ohio Const., Art. VIII, §20 (1802), in 5 id., at 2901, 2911 (“That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State . . . ”);
Ind. Const., Art. I, §20 (1816), in 2 id., at 1057, 1059 (“That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the State. . . ”);
Miss. Const., Art. I, §23 (1817), in 4 id., at 2032, 2034 (“Every citizen has a right to bear arms, in defence of himself and the State”);
Conn. Const., Art. I, §17 (1818), in 1 id., at 536, 538 (“Every citizen has a right to bear arms in defence of himself and the state”);
Ala. Const., Art. I, §23 (1819), in 1 id., at 96, 98 (“Every citizen has a right to bear arms in defence of himself and the State”);
Mo. Const., Art. XIII, §3 (1820), in 4 id., at 2150, 2163 (“[T]hat their right to bear arms in defence of them- selves and of the State cannot be questioned”).

I would think that a historian would know that the last two States admitted to the union were Alaska and Hawaii - and the year they were each admitted was coincidentally 1959. Maybe she meant "since" instead of "before", and mispoke with "predate".

At any rate, I've seen so many glaring historical inaccuracies from HCR that she's long been disregarded from any credible authorship; making her essentially a waste of time. I suppose, to return to my assumption, that she does rely on her readers' ignorance of history.

[Chuck Naill]

“The amendment grew out of the political tumult surrounding the drafting of the Constitution, which was done in secret by a group of mostly young men, many of whom had served together in the Continental Army. Having seen the chaos and mob violence that followed the Revolution, these “Federalists” feared the consequences of a weak central authority. They produced a charter that shifted power—at the time in the hands of the states—to a new national government.

“Anti-Federalists” opposed this new Constitution. The foes worried, among other things, that the new government would establish a “standing army” of professional soldiers and would disarm the 13 state militias, made up of part-time citizen-soldiers and revered as bulwarks against tyranny. These militias were the product of a world of civic duty and governmental compulsion utterly alien to us today. Every white man age 16 to 60 was enrolled. He was actually required to own—and bring—a musket or other military weapon.”

[Chuck Naill]

“As the Tennessee Supreme Court put it in 1840, “A man in the pursuit of deer, elk, and buffaloes might carry his rifle every day for forty years, and yet it would never be said of him that he had borne arms; much less could it be said that a private citizen bears arms because he has a dirk or pistol concealed under his clothes, or a spear in a cane.”

[Chuck Naill]

“Today at the NRA’s headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia, oversized letters on the facade no longer refer to “marksmanship” and “safety.” Instead, the Second Amendment is emblazoned on a wall of the building’s lobby. Visitors might not notice that the text is incomplete. It reads:

“.. the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

The first half—the part about the well regulated militia—has been edited out.”

[Chuck Naill]

“In the end, it was neither the NRA nor the Bush administration that pressed the Supreme Court to reverse its centuries-old approach, but a small group of libertarian lawyers who believed other gun advocates were too timid. They targeted a gun law passed by the local government in Washington, D.C., in 1976—perhaps the nation’s strictest—that barred individuals from keeping a loaded handgun at home without a trigger lock. They recruited an appealing plaintiff: Dick Heller, a security guard at the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building, who wanted to bring his work revolver home to his high-crime neighborhood. The NRA worried it lacked the five votes necessary to win. The organization tried to sideswipe the effort, filing what Heller’s lawyers called “sham litigation” to give courts an excuse to avoid a constitutional ruling. But the momentum that the NRA itself had set in motion proved unstoppable, and the big case made its way to the Supreme Court.”

[TSherbs]

Update on guns and child mortality in America:

Kaiser Family Foundation: Child and Teen Firearm Mortality in the U.S. and Peer Countries.

Children die of firearms more often than auto accidents and cancer:

https://www.kff.org/global-health-po...eer-countries/

[dneal]

Update on guns and child mortality in America:

Kaiser Family Foundation: Child and Teen Firearm Mortality in the U.S. and Peer Countries.

Children die of firearms more often than auto accidents and cancer:

https://www.kff.org/global-health-po...eer-countries/

When "children" aged 15-19 are included, yes. Now about that gang violence...

[dneal]

We are sick for guns, indeed.

I hope your fever and illness passes, allowing you to return soon to reasoned discussion.

Hey, don't blame the doctor for the disease.

More symptoms of Forumscheißen manifesting, coincidentally in post #4:

Screenshot 2022-12-18 at 2.35.13 PM.png

[Chuck Naill]

Update on guns and child mortality in America:

Kaiser Family Foundation: Child and Teen Firearm Mortality in the U.S. and Peer Countries.

Children die of firearms more often than auto accidents and cancer:

https://www.kff.org/global-health-po...eer-countries/

When "children" aged 15-19 are included, yes. Now about that gang violence...

Gang violence is certainly an issue, but it doesn't keep the US government from passing common sense gun restrictions, requiring training, and providing a reasonable waiting period. Just because some speed, don't carry liability insurance, and drive cars underage doesn't negate the need to have common sense restrictions.

[dneal]

Why aren’t Democrats concerned with children dying from gun violence when the majority of it is in Democrat run cities?

More children in Chicago have been shot than died from covid

[Chuck Naill]

Why aren’t Democrats concerned with children dying from gun violence when the majority of it is in Democrat run cities?

More children in Chicago have been shot than died from covid

I'd say the majority Americans are concerned about children dying from guns, preventable disease, sexual abuse, poverty, illiteracy, and other injustices. Why are you only concerned about children in Chicago?

Most Americans are also tired of the NRA and its political involvement. The NRA should go back to it's roots and be vocal about the proper use and maintenance of firearms.

[TSherbs]

Interesting ideas piece in The Atlantic on poverty and violence, mostly centered in New Haven, CT. I don't know if this is behind a paywall:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...olence/672504/

[Chuck Naill]

Interesting ideas piece in The Atlantic on poverty and violence, mostly centered in New Haven, CT. I don't know if this is behind a paywall:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...olence/672504/

I think we have been discussing about the effects of institutional/systematic racism also...
"Thinking back across his career, Kurzyk said that the failure to fully acknowledge the relationship between murder and generational Black poverty, and the history of discrimination that has contributed to it, was like “analyzing black lung disease in America without really noticing miners.”

"A study he conducted for internal state use in 2018 of people arrested for serious crimes as juveniles found that 30 percent suffered from fetal drug or alcohol syndrome, and another 30 percent had been removed from their families because of abuse or neglect. Kuzyk was surprised only by the high percentages of his unhappy discoveries. He well knew that such traumatic childhood experiences, along with exposure to violence, indicated an increased likelihood of being a victim or a perpetrator of gun violence. “What I came to appreciate,” he told me, “dealing with a lot of people who committed murder, was that they weren’t sociopaths. They had empathy. But for them, it was kill or be killed.”

[Chuck Naill]

Below is a photo of what someone carried inside a Publix in Atlanta.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/02/u...smid=share-url