It’s not uncommon for FAA examiners to ask pilots during an oral examination, “What makes an airplane fly?” After the (nervous) pilot explains the Newtonian physics, wing camber and the forces along the plane’s axes, the examiner often says, “Nope. What makes an airplane fly is money.”

I believe the same thing is true wrt guns in the US. So long as the money flows to the NRA and its many lobbyists, guns will fly!

Has anyone taken Heston’s gun yet???

Doug,

I’m relatively new to this site and it’s no surprise that this issue has been hashed and re-hashed-probably ad nauseum so I give you the last word in the interpretation debate.  I looked for a breakdown but could not find it--which worried me after getting slammed on the VHA issue in another post.  My internet researching skills are mediocre at best though.  It seemed ripe given the impending Supreme Court ruling, so I will respond to your comment on that subject. 

The Supreme Court is notorious for limiting its rulings and creating more questions than it answers.  I’ll bet you a water pistol and a roll of caps (the gifts I just got my godson for his b-day to bring out his violent tendencies) that the Court finds in favor of gun rights, but does not make the sweeping ruling that the NRAophiles wanted leaving enough open to gun control advocates to allow them to argue for a very limited application of the new interpretation.  Additionally, there will be multiple opinions with judges joining in part and concurring in part such that there will be arguments over which opinion is the actual majority opinion-- all adding to the above confusion.  DC is unusual in that it is in part controlled by Congress in a way states are not.  No doubt the gun control people will argue that the finding is limited to DC and not the states. 

Consider this “split the baby” outcome: the Court upholds the DC ban stating that the 2nd Amendment does not apply to local governments, but finds that the 2nd Amendment creates an individual right to possess firearms that limits federal power.  This ruling would come pretty close to reflecting the current status quo.  Outside of some Congressional bans on classes of weapons, the Brady Law, and a few other federal laws, most gun control regulation is state based.  This ruling would actually uphold states rights in keeping with conservative judicial values under the 10th Amendment--something the Court has been warming up to over the last 20 years beginning with Rehnquist’s tenure as Chief Justice. 

Have a pleasant evening.

To be fair, JRM5001, there are other people in the debate who reject the interpretation that I have given of the Second Amendment. As with all parts of the Constitution, interpretation is necessary, and interpreters will have differences of opinion.

With any legal controversy there are usually at least two sides and five opinions about what should be done.  If the argument has been had, there’s no point in re-hashing it. 

Besides, there will be something new to discuss when the opinion is handed down.

It’s a horrible idea to have an open carry campus.  Imagine you’re a police officer coming on scene and a number of people are shooting at one another?  How do you tell who is committing a crime and who is defending themselves.  Now, imagine you are an armed student or other lay individual?  Who do shoot?  “Friendly fire” is a common cause of death in the military due to the fog of battle.  This is why.

The Supreme Court is pretty free to make whatever decision they want.  In the end, it will reflect public opinion and ideology as much as any legal reasoning.  It is clear to any person who speaks English that the Second Amendment was not conceived as a protection of the right to carry around concealed handguns with high-capacity magazines, or to protect the rights of hunters to use .50 calibre sniper rifles to kill rabbits.  It was conceived as a means of allowing the states to raise militias in the context of the 18th century, when a militia had a chance of fending off an invading army.  But the Supreme Court does not need to take any of that into account, because the Supreme Court has its own ideological interests and the power to reify them.

It is interesting that a mass murder in Australia and Canada led to demands for and resulted in more gun control, while mass murders in the US typically result in yahoos suggesting “more guns!”

rsonin, I speak English and I believe the 2nd Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms.  Perhaps you could try supporting your arguments with reason rather than calling others names.  Ad hominem attacks are a sign of weakness.  First of all, are you arguing in favor of a collective right or should we just ignore the 2nd Amendment as obsolete?

I doubt you have ever been hunting though.  Shooting a rabbit with a .50 cal bullet wouldn’t leave much of the rabbit.  or should I assume you were using hyperbole?

I guess you aren’t aware that Canada has an almost equivalent percentage of people who own guns as people here in the US.  There is no question that the US has a high gun ownership ratio, but using this statistic seems a pretty weak argument to ban firearms considering the percentage of gun owners when you consider that other nations have high ratios without the corresponding mayhem.  It has been pointed out on this forum that these statistics do not breakdown the percentage of handgun ownership which accounts for the supermajority of deaths in the US.  That’s true, but once again that doesn’t explain why the killing occurred or whether it would have been accomplished by other means such as a knife. 

% Households
Country Year Population With Guns
--------------------- ------- ----------------- ------------------
United States 1993 257,783,004 39 %
Norway 1993 4,324,815 32
Canada 1992 28,120,065 29.1

UN Office on Drugs and Crime Survey
http://www.allcountries.org/gun_ownership_rates.html

OldSquid - 06 May 2008 07:51 PM

“Friendly fire” is a common cause of death in the military due to the fog of battle.

Yes Squid.  In fact…

guns kept in the home for self-protection are more often used to kill somebody you know than to kill in self-defense; 22 times more likely, according to a 1998 study by the Journal of Trauma.  More kids, teenagers and adult family members are dying from firearms in their own home than criminal intruders. When someone is home, a gun is used for protection in fewer than two percent of home invasion crimes.

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