Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Mitchell’s laws:
•Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
•Any monetarily NON-sovereign government — be it city, county, state or nation — that runs an ongoing trade deficit, eventually will run out of money.
•The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes..
•Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
•The single most important problem in economics is the Gap between rich and the rest.r.
•Austerity is the government’s method for widening the Gap between rich and poor.
•Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..
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There were 12,282 gun deaths this year according to Gun Violence Archive.
And according to Mass Shooting Tracker there have been at least 353 mass shootings in America so far this year, with still almost a month to go. (A mass shooting is defined as “four or more people shot in an event, or related series of events, likely without a cooling off period.”.)
You don’t hear much about mass knifings, mass baseball battings, mass stranglings, mass throwing-off-of-cliffings, etc. for the simple reason that guns are uniquely designed to commit mass violence. They are the tool of choice when one wishes to commit large-scale mayhem.
There are more guns in America than people. And control over gun sales is minimal. Anyone can go to a gun show and buy the most lethal weapons there, and no one will ask questions.
You can tattoo the words, “I’m a mass murderer” on your forehead, and still buy guns from your next-door neighbor or from a stranger in the street, — and no test, no registration required. It’s all legal.
You need a license and skill-testing to drive a car, and an official title to buy one. Not so with guns.
And you need not belong to a “well-regulated” militia or a well-regulated anything.
Why?
Because in its most recent interpretation of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution, the right wing of the Supreme Court decided that of all the phrases in the U.S. Constitution, the following uniquely has no meaning whatsoever: “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state. . . “
They are “throw-away” words, to be ignored — the only meaningless phrase in the Constitution.
Little did the Amendment’s authors know.
Normally courts, and especially the Supreme Court, parse every sentence, every phrase, every word in the law when making a judgment. Guns are unique in the right wing world.
It was not always thus. In its earlier manifestations, the words “well-regulated militia” were taken quite seriously.
Conflict and compromise in Congress produce the Bill of Rights
James Madison’s initial proposal for a bill of rights was brought to the floor of the House of Representatives on June 8, 1789, during the first session of Congress. The initial proposed passage relating to arms was:
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well-regulated militia being the best security of a free country but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.
On July 21, Madison again raised the issue of his bill and proposed a select committee be created to report on it. The House voted in favor of Madison’s motion, and the Bill of Rights entered committee for review. The committee returned to the House a reworded version of the Second Amendment on July 28.
On August 17, that version was read into the Journal:
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms.
In late August 1789, the House debated and modified the Second Amendment. These debates revolved primarily around risk of “mal-administration of the government” using the “religiously scrupulous” clause to destroy the militia as Great Britain had attempted to destroy the militia at the commencement of the American Revolution.
These concerns were addressed by modifying the final clause, and on August 24, the House sent the following version to the Senate:
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.
The next day, August 25, the Senate received the amendment from the House and entered it into the Senate Journal.
However, the Senate scribe added a comma before “shall not be infringed” and changed the semicolon separating that phrase from the religious exemption portion to a comma:
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.
By this time, the proposed right to keep and bear arms was in a separate amendment, instead of being in a single amendment together with other proposed rights such as the due process right. As a Representative explained, this change allowed each amendment to “be passed upon distinctly by the States.”
On September 4, the Senate voted to change the language of the Second Amendment by removing the definition of militia, and striking the conscientious objector clause:
A well regulated militia, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
The Senate returned to this amendment for a final time on September 9. A proposal to insert the words “for the common defence” next to the words “bear arms” was defeated. An extraneous comma added on August 25 was also removed.
The Senate then slightly modified the language and voted to return the Bill of Rights to the House. The final version passed by the Senate was:
A well regulated militia being the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
The House voted on September 21, 1789 to accept the changes made by the Senate, but the amendment as finally entered into the House journal contained the additional words “necessary to”:
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.
On December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution) was adopted, having been ratified by three-fourths of the states.
In United States v. Miller (1939), the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government and the states could limit any weapon types not having a “reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia”.
It is clear that the drafters of the 2nd Amendment wanted the existence of a “well-regulated militia” to be the basis for the public keeping and bearing arms.
After all, what fool would want everyone to carry highly lethal weapons with no supervision, no education and no licensing, whatsoever. The authors of the Constitution were smarter than that.
However:
In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), and McDonald v. Chicago (2010). In Heller, the Supreme Court resolved any remaining circuit splits by ruling that the Second Amendment protects an individual right.
Justice Scalia, writing for the Court in Heller: The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State.
If you believe this was an example of turning and twisting words to come to an illogical conclusion, I agree with you.
Why then, after 200+ years of judicial thought in one direction, did the right wing of the Supreme Court do an about-face, and change the meaning of the 2nd Amendment?
It has to do with the right wing’s traditional appeasement of business.
The dirty little secret behind mass shootings across the country is that the gun industry is cashing in on them.
And the executives admit it.
“The gun business was very much accelerated based on what happened after the (2012) election and then the tragedy that happened at Sandy Hook,” Ed Stack, the chief executive of Dick’s Sporting Goods, said in September 2014.
“You can see after a tragedy, there’s also a lot of buying,” Jeff Buchanan, the chief financial officer of Smith & Wesson, said two years ago.
The seemingly callous comments were made not to the public, but behind closed doors at various industry events, according to The Intercept website.
The key element is money:
James Debney, Smith & Wesson’s chief executive, told investors in 2013 that “the tragedy in Newtown and the legislative landscape” resulted in sales that were “significantly up.”
“Fear and uncertainty that there might be increased gun control drove many new people to buy firearms for the first time.”
Fear and uncertainty. Fear and uncertainty. Those are the keys to gun sales.
The armament manufacturers and their paid stooges at the NRA absolutely love a mass murder. It’s money in their pockets. It’s the next best thing to an all-out war.
And what has been the mantra of the Republican party? Fear and uncertainty. Fear of immigrants: Central, South American and Mexican. Fear of Syrian immigrants. Fear of Muslims. Fear of ISIS. Fear of gays. Fear of blacks. Fear of Jews. Fear of Catholics. Fear of gangs. Fear of the government.
Fear of THEM!
Republican fear mongering, on behalf of weapons manufacturers, has terrorized those who feel threatened by various elements in their lives. So terrorized are Americans, that whenever someone speaks of any type of sensible gun control, the reaction is rage and hatred.
Cleverly, the weapons makers, in cahoots with the Republican party (the notorious “military / industrial complex”), have created a highly profitable arms race, not only internationally, but right here in America.
Guns kill. The more guns, the more killing. So because more people have guns, you need guns to protect yourself. And when you buy guns, other people need to buy guns to protect themselves against you.
And then you need to buy even more guns, to protect yourself against them. It’s a self-replicating, tit-for-tat, endless system.
Fear and uncertainty — and money. That has replaced the “well-regulated militia” in our Constitution.
Wars are profitable, even domestic wars. And by pitting Americans against Americans and immigrants, the right has created a very profitable war, indeed.
Money is why guns are not more controlled.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
===================================================================================
Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually Click here
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
——————————————————————————————————————————————
10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt
No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.
THE RECESSION CLOCK
Vertical gray bars mark recessions. Recessions come after the blue line drops below zero and when deficit growth declines.
As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recessions, each of which has been cured only when the growth lines rose.
Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.
#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
===================================================================================
Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually Click here
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
——————————————————————————————————————————————
10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt
No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.
THE RECESSION CLOCK
Vertical gray bars mark recessions. Recessions come after the blue line drops below zero and when deficit growth declines.
As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recessions, each of which has been cured only when the growth lines rose.
Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.
#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
APOLOGIES TO ALL OF YOU WHO COMMENTED ON THIS POST. SOMETHING CRASHED, AND ALL THE COMMENTS DISAPPEARED — EVEN MINE! TRULY SORRY. TRYING TO GET THEM BACK.
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There is a great cartoon I downloaded from the Daily Kos a few days ago. It’s called “Profiles in Cowardice” a well drawn put down of the current Republican Party. It demonstrates well the notion that what rules in that party [Democrats almost the same] is cowardice.
Widening the Gap is a cowardly fearful attack. Not regulating guns is a cowardly approach. No one has enough spine to take it on. In Australia our conservative leader, John Howard, had the courage to get gun control laws to pass. Bush called him a “man of steel”, with it seems a lot less irony than we originally thought. Certainly not a single member of Congress today shows a matching courage!!
It’s not money, it’s cowardice.
John Doyle
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So if you were in the San Bernardo incident when the attack happened and for a split second, you were given the option to have or not have a gun – which would you chose?
I know having does not necesarily mean you prevent death, but at least you have a fighting chance. A person with a gun could have stopped them on their tracks – is this not the truth?
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If I were able to choose whether you should be able to carry a gun around with you, I would say “No way.”
I don’t know you, and for all I know, you are nuts. So why would I want a bunch of nuts like you carrying guns around?
And, in fact, why would you want me carrying a gun? For all you know, I am nuts.
And that is the point the right-wing never considers. With everyone carrying guns, there are bound to be a lot of nuts carrying guns — nuts and terrorists.
Wouldn’t it be better to reduce the number of nuts carrying guns?
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From MicCheck Daily:
Why not even background checks??
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The education of our children, right-wing style:
So there’s this assembly hall at Liberty University. It’s packed with kids, all carrying guns. Two of the kids get into a fight. One macho Texan pulls out his gun to show he’s a man, so the other one does, too. He’s standing his ground.
There’s a shootout, bullets flying everywhere. Other kids join in, to protect themselves.
I feel safer already. At least we “ended those Muslims.” Now who’s next? Blacks? Mexicans? Jews? Gays?
Hey, a guy’s gotta protect himself.
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From TPM:
Funny how the right wing is so “concerned” about the lives of unborn fetuses, but not at all concerned about gun killings.
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Donald Trump, bigot in chief, still at it
When you’re a bigot, it’s difficult to remember who you hate.
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“Wouldn’t it be better to reduce the number of nuts carrying guns?” ~ RMM
How about we reduce the number of nuts in the first place?
See “How to cut crime rates in America”
(https://mythfighter.com/2015/11/22/how-to-cut-the-crime-rates-in-america/)
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“Funny how the right wing is so ‘concerned’ about the lives of unborn fetuses, but not at all concerned about gun killings.” ~ RMM
Yes. Show me an anti-abortion fanatic, and I’ll show you a child abuser. Anti-abortion fanatics are radically pro-austerity. They want to eliminate or privatize all government programs that help children. They say that a fetus can feel pain, but they revel in causing children to suffer pain.
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As for guns, they are security blankets that the sheep cling to as rich people herd them to the financial slaughterhouse. With so many security blankets, and with so much jamming of the sheep into the slaughterhouse chute, the sheep are bound to shoot each other.
The sheep will give up their money, their livelihoods, and even their lives as long as they can keep their deadly security blankets.
That’s why Republicans oppose gun control. They know that American society is addicted to violence. Republicans themselves preach violence. Therefore guns (i.e. security blankets for the peasants) are necessary for the maintenance of the Gap between the rich and the rest.
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I suspect the rich enjoy watching people, who have more guns than teeth, shooting each other.
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“How about we reduce the number of nuts in the first place?”
While I’ve only been reading a few posts on this site for a few days recently, and this being the first time commenting, I really felt I should say that while that might be a solution, the only problem is that it is difficult for ‘nuts’ (I’m not terribly sure on the meaning), or any sort of person with varying degrees of mental illness to seek treatment because of social stigma attached to mental illness, and if they do end up seeking it, many times they are not able to get necessary treatment.
Considering your link, however, financially helping the poorer communities would greatly help, in being supported and also perhaps being able to afford treatment when they can find it. Maybe they’ll have more centers for help, too.
Now, I tried putting a source (You and Mitchell do a fantastic job of comments (and humor)), but I think I did a terrible job of it. In short, my current sources are school resources (GaleGroup) and friends with mental illnesses, although this has been on my mind for a long time, if not years. (One thing I find in common is saying their not being able to get jobs once you have a record of mental illness. My brother says the same for me and sister. Sucks for us… I intend on keeping others around me safe, however, even if I’m limited opportunities. I’m certainly not getting a gun, in relevance to the post.)
Now, you don’t have to believe me, and I do understand there is controversy and debate surrounding mental illness. If you have more relevant/better information, please inform!
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The term “gun nuts” usually doesn’t refer to clinical mental illness, but simply means people who are “nuts” about guns, and due to this love affair, subscribe to the fantasy that more guns leads to less killing.
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Cowardice exists also in those who can’t say “NO” to the money they receive from NRA to help their reelection even though they know in their heart the answer isn’t at the end of a gun barrel
We need at this time an economic restructuring that will put people first and eliminate the desire to “take people out.”
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Those interested in Constitutional rights might find this article interesting:
Quoting wrong statistics is a popular right-wing device. Ask Donald Trump and Ben Carson.
See, it’s like this: We don’t care about the Constitution, we don’t even understand the Constitution — except for the latter 1/2 of one sentence in the Constitution — and that’s the sentence that enriches the weapons industry.
Heck, we don’t even care about the first half of the sentence (It doesn’t make any money for the wealthy), but that second half is great!
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Sometimes I wonder whether anti-gun-rights bloggers and writers ever have an original thought, or if there is come central source from which they copy and paste. And WHY, each and every time, after it has been explained over and over to them time and again, including by the Supreme Court of the United States, do they always, ALWAYS bring up their debunked, foolish claims about what the 2nd Amendment “really” means? But let’s start at the top…
I will give the Gun Violence Archive credit for not including suicides in its “gun deaths” figure, yet right away we’re given the overly inflated “mass shootings” figure. Seems like every year it goes up. Prior to 2013 or so, so-called “mass murders” were extremely rare, simply because we didn’t quibble with the definition; it was a spree killing where a lot of innocent, unrelated people were killed. But then someone decided that a hard definition should be ten or more, so there’s a firm number to act as the “line in the sand”. Even more recently, in the wake of Sandy Hook, that number was reduced to four KILLED (no injuries were taken into account). This wasn’t contested until this latest definition: four people shot, regardless of whether anyone dies. This is akin to “redistricting” in order to gin up fear, the goal being to make everyone think that huge terror events are happening every day, sometimes more than once a day!
Yet this elevates domestic squabbles that turn deadly, or murder/suicide pacts, or even police drug raids into statistical “mass murders”, all to feed the political fervor to turn public opinion against their own best interests. I’ll explain how in a moment.
“You don’t hear much about mass knifings, mass baseball battings, mass stranglings, mass throwing-off-of-cliffings, etc.” Indeed! Because that sounds blindingly STUPID, for one thing! And it is irrelevant for another. Killers always find ways to kill, regardless of whether or not they have a gun. Of 192 countries ranked by the UNODC, the U.S. clocks-in at #102 in homicide DESPITE being the most heavily armed population on the planet. How can this be, given that “guns cause crime”? Obviously it’s because they don’t. Guns are also used in the majority of suicides in the U.S., but again, suicidal people will find other means if a gun isn’t available. This is confirmed by real world statistics; both gun-rare France and gun-sterile Japan have suicide rates in excess of ours. Again, how can this be if “guns cause death”? Occam’s Razor cuts the claim down to size: there is NO CORRELATION.
Next comes the claim that “control over gun sales is minimal”. No mention of the licensing process to become a Federal Firearms Licensee; no mention of the paperwork involved in each transfer; no mention of the background check that is run for each and every sale via a licensed dealer; no mention of the tens of thousands of laws governing every aspect of gun manufacture, sales and legal use. We’re just to blindly take for granted that control is “minimal”. What has some people’s panties in a bunch is that if a legal owner sells his legal firearm privately, without being forced to go through a dealer – akin to selling your used Ford to a buddy rather than to the dealership, who won’t give you squat for it – that private sellers are barred by law from running their own check. They fear that felons or terrorists might take advantage of this “loophole”. But again, real world statistics show that less than 4% of all “crime guns” came from gun shows or private sales. In fact, very few were purchased legally. Most are stolen, the term encompassing unauthorized “borrowing” guns from friends as well as garden variety theft, or straw purhcased, which means that a person who can pass a background check is asked/forced to buy a gun for someone who cannot.
Gee, that sure sounds like a whole LOT of sales control to me, especially when the bad guys need to go through such antics to avoid it! And this is the point: we have extremely strict regulation of drugs, both legal and not, yet our streets are awash with them; they’ve never been cheaper and more plentiful despite a full-fledged, multi-billion-dollar “war on drugs”. Why does any sane person think that guns wold be any different if they were made illegal? Bad guys will still get guns regardless of any “controls” we place in the sales or distribution chain. Crime WILL happen. We cannot predicate our rights based on what criminals do. Rather, we must force criminals to behave based on society’s standards.
Next comes the predictable “the 2nd Amendment really means” baloney. No, the interpretation has NEVER changed! The confusion came during the Clinton Administration when they offered the bizarre concept of the 2nd Amendment being a “collective” right, rather than an individual right as is the case in the rest of the Bill of Rights. In short, they wanted the courts to confuse “militia” with “army”. But the founders used the word intentionally, as there never was SUPPOSED to be an army at all! The confusion, then, is in the definition of two words: “militia” and “regulated”, as well as what each applies to.
A militia is simply an armed body of people. The idea was, rather than have a standing professional army, Americans would simply call all armed citizens to duty in an emergency. This strategy seemed to work well, given the success of the “Minutemen” and the first Continental Army, composed of militia conscripts. So if we’re talking about armed citizens, what’s all this stuff about “well-regulated”?
If anyone stopped to think about this for a moment, the answer should seem obvious. You simply cannot toss untrained people onto a battlefield with no plans, tactics, command or control and expect them to win. Rather, they must be TRAINED (think “boot camp”), and thus the military definition becomes clear: to “regulate” troops is to TRAIN them, or as the dictionary prefers, “to put in good working order”. So the militia is an armed group of citizens called to service in an emergency and trained before combat. This is the long version of the more concisely written first half of the 2nd Amendment. Let me add what Alexander Hamilton himself stated; that such “regulation” doesn’t mean keeping the entire populace in a constant state of battle readiness, which he warned would be as tyrannical an imposition on one’s life as anything any invading force would bring.
Bottom line: in order to have a “militia” to call up, there MUST BE armed citizens. Other state constitutions have clearer wording. My own state of Michigan’s reads, “Every person has the right to keep and bear arms in defense of himself and the state.” Arms are all about defense, of both the individual and the community. I like how MI puts the individual first.
Since Mr. Mitchell provided a link to support his contention that this interpretation is recent, I’ll offer the counter: every court decision of the 19th Century:
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20080222/a-really-brief-history-of-the-collec-1
Assuming that state security was the BASIS for firearms ownership is just that: an assumption. I submit that there was a different assumption at work on the part of the framers: the ubiquitous ownership and use of firearms in the daily life of colonial Americans. We forget that times have drastically changed! Many communities didn’t have stores, and meat was brought home from the field more often than bought. There were bears and other wildlife, as well as “Indian” attacks and highwaymen (road bandits) to deal with. Life in the colonies, especially at the fringes, was a dangerous proposition! It was assumed that nearly every household had a gun. It was also assumed that they would continue to be an indispensable part of life.
Some argue that the times have changed; we no longer depend on militias for our defense, and that we can buy our food and have police to protect us. Yet the universal constant is the human behavior, and we still have “highwaymen” (we call them “carjackers” or “street thugs” today), and we have gangs, drug cartels and, most recently, terrorists. This, to me, makes a far better case to MAINTAIN an armed citizenry!
Lastly, the most recent lie-du-jour is trotted out: that gun sellers are fueling mass shootings… ’cause money. While it’s no secret — no industry spokesperson has attempted to hide anything — that sales DO boom after these tragedies, the actual fault lies with POLITICIANS. While I don’t doubt Obama’s sincerity, the continued call for more restrictions on guns sends people more fearful of losing their rights to buy guns than losing their lives in a terrorist attack off to the gun stores before the hammer drops. Every. Single. Time. And Obama and other pols never learn. The NRA saw its 5 millionth member sign up and gun and ammunition manufacturers set record in the wake of Sandy Hook, and they didn’t have to lift a finger or buy a single advertisement. Gun banners GAVE it to them.
“Guns kill. The more guns, the more killing.” Demonstrably false, empty rhetoric, as I outlined above. Absent: the 1.5+ million Americans who use guns each and every year to save their own lives. I could easily contend, then, with much greater support from real world statistics that “Guns save lives. The more guns, the more lives saved.”
This is how the debate turns people against their own best self-interests.
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Even if everything you write is true, it’s still only an apology for rampant gun ownership. The Australian experience gives the lie to a lot of your argument.We both had a “Wild West ” environment in the 19th Century, but not in our case a Civil War.
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Well, Stu, you make a lot of good points, and at the risk of disservice to the NRA for writing them, I’ll generalize a bit.
Mass knifings, etc. is, as you say, “blindingly STUPID,” and that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Guns are uniquely qualified.
You referenced “domestic squabbles that turn deadly,” which are more likely when there’s a gun in the house.
You made the analogy, “selling your used Ford to a buddy rather than to the dealership,” which does require the licensing that selling your gun to your buddy does not. No paper trail in the gun sale, which in a shooting investigation, can be quite important.
As for the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment (perhaps the only part of the Constitution many gun owners know), that has changed substantially, and it is only recently that Scalia, Thomas et al decided the first phrase has absolutely no meaning. Before then, many communities were able to enact more restrictive laws.
As you said, “So the militia is an armed group of citizens called to service in an emergency and trained before combat.” I agree. So what exactly is the training-before-combat required — what is the proof that people who have more guns than teeth, pass a “driver’s test,” so they not only know how to pull a trigger, but more importantly when not to?
Your best NRA inspired comment — the one we hear all the time — is “Killers always find ways to kill, regardless of whether or not they have a gun.”
It’s a phony argument for two reasons:
1. Humans being humans, having a gun at hand means one is more likely to use it. Think road rage, someone insults you, someone cuts in line, someone gets drunk.
Think of all the little things that can get someone angry. Cooler heads can prevail, but not if the bullet already has been fired.
2. The comment actually is a statement that all laws are useless. A murderer always can find a way to murder — so there should be no laws against murder? A speeder can always find a way to speed, so no laws against speeding? Someone always can commit fraud or rape, so no laws against fraud or rape?
Someone can always cheat on their taxes, so no laws against cheating on taxes?
The NRA intentionally “misunderstands” the purpose of law. No law can fully prevent lawbreaking.
The function of most laws is to dissuade people from taking negative action. The fact that you and I and other good people don’t speed or cheat on our taxes, is evidence that laws serve to dissuade, though not always to prevent all instances.
I was a bit disappointed that after you rightly were sceptical about statistics, you finished by quoting the most questionable statistic of all: “1.5+ million Americans who use guns each and every year to save their own lives.”
Oh really? How does one define “save their own lives”? A bit of biased interpretation there — especially since the interpreter is the one who lived. The dead guy might disagree with that interpretation.
(A policeman in Chicago just used that excuse. Unfortunately for him, a dash-cam said otherwise.)
Anyway, thank you for the other side of the story. You feel guns improve your safety, because you know you are a “good guy,” and only would use the gun for self-protection.
But next time you attend a football game, with 50,000 spectators all drinking beer, angrily screaming at players and at officials and at each other, visualize they all have AR-47s with large and reloadable magazines, and how comfortable that makes you feel.
Be safe.
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The boogeyman of the NRA frightens many and you talk about it as if it were some evil cabal, but consider that the NRA if several million people who have willingly decided to pool their money to both protect their rights to gun ownership and to improve their firearms skills. And, the NRA has a higher trust rating that most politicians.
As the OP pointed out, gun control does not work. So you then reply, lets not have any laws since people break them. Here is the difference: if you break the law by murdering someone, you deprive them of their life. If you break the law by owning a firearm, you harm no one until you use that firearm to break another law such as murder. But clearly, gun control is not doing what it is said it will do. If gun control worked and guns are the problem, how do you explain Chicago’s high murder rate? Wait, I know, the criminals get their guns elsewhere. So, rather than seeing that as proof that gun control doesn’t work, you will say we need more gun laws. Yet, where ever those guns are coming from, shouldn’t they have the high Chicago like rates of violence if guns are the problem?
Oh, and cars are more heavily regulated right? Except my 16 year old daughter can legally learn to drive under observation of her parents, then take a low cost, reasonable test and be licensed to drive in all 50 states on all public roads. Further, the number of cars and types of cars she buys are only limited by her bank account. If she, or anyone else, loses their car keys without incident, they do not lose their driver license. If they have a minor accident, they may be fined, but they do not lose their license. If they violate the law by exceeding the speed limit, they do not lose their license. Yet, you have to be 18 to buy a rifle or shotgun and 21 to buy a handgun. You have to be 21 to get a concealed carry permit. You can be compelled by law to join the Army and carry a rifle (or any other weapon so ordered) at 18 but you cannot choose to do it until you are 21. If you do purchase a firearm, after a background check, you are only allowed to carry it unloaded and locked up from your house to a place of use-range or hunting grounds. If you get a concealed carry permit, it is only good in your home state or states that choose to recognize it (does that work for gay marriage licenses?) Any minor violation of the law, even without incident or injury results in revocation of your permit. Carry into a store that bans concealed carry? Revocation if caught. Oh, and felons can usually get a driver license. A felon, even a non-violent felon who simply violated one of the many millions of regulations out there, perhaps even accidentally, has a lifetime ban on simple gun ownership. So, don’t peddle the line that cars are more heavily regulated. When your Nevada driver license isn’t accepted in California, your car is seized and driver license suspended indefinitely for speeding or forgetting to use a turn signal with no accident, then cars will be regulated more heavily than guns.
Regarding the 50K football fans with AR-47s, there is no such thing as an AR-47. A minor point? Perhaps, you feel that you don’t need to learn the “arcane technical terms of gun nuts” to contribute to the debate, but words have meaning and laws use words with very specific meaning. It also illustrates my observation that the more strident one is about gun control, the less one knows about firearms. You have decided that “large and reloadable magazines” are dangerous, yet, you appear to know very little about firearms. I am sure you wouldn’t believe me, but a shotgun, a handgun, a semi auto rifle, and a bolt action rifle are all equally dangerous, but each has a unique situation to which it is suited. If banning a type of gun worked, wouldn’t the full auto ban in the 1930s solve the problem? Or do criminals switch to something else?
finally, I would happily sit in a stadium full of 50K responsible gun owners with “large and reloadable magazines” and any firearm of their choosing. I doubt I know 50K gun owners but the gun owners I know would not drink while carrying a loaded firearm.
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Got it. Gun control “doesn’t work,” so if it “doesn’t work,” why have any gun control at all?
In one sentence you claim it “doesn’t work,” and in the next sentence, you give examples of controls you claim do work. Such is the mind of the gunners.
A football stadium holds up to 100,000 people. If they all carried guns, how many of these strangers would you trust to be “responsible.” How many of them would it take to kill a dozen people?
See, you miss the entire point. If you favor gun ownership, that means you have guns for protection, but so does every stranger in the street.
What percentage of those strangers are responsible — people with whom you would trust your life?
Gun control has not worked well in Chicago, simply because there is scant control — owners keep citing the current interpretation of 2nd Amendment (i.e. ignore the 1st dozen words) — and yes, the states next door have no gun control at all, so the guns cross the border.
The neighborhood in Chicago having the most guns per capita, also happens to have the highest murder rate. Coincidence?
The Supreme Court — the Court that wrote Citizens United (money is speech) and wrote Hobby Lobby (corporations are people that can have religious beliefs and impose these beliefs on employees) — that same Supreme Court also has ruled in Heller, that the words, written into the Constitution, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State. . . “ have absolutely no meaning whatsoever.
The unlamented Antonin Scalia claimed those words were just an introduction, like a “clearing of the throat.”
(Really! A clearing of the throat.) You should read the above link.
And this was the guy who claimed to be an originalist, who interpreted the Constitution just as written — except when his rich buddies bribed him with expensive hunting trips.
Anyway, when Trump loses, there will be at least four years in which to return the Supreme Court to sanity, and recognize guns for what they are — killing machines that do not belong in the hands of the madding crowd.
Or otherwise, why not 50 caliber machine guns for everyone? How do you justify ANY restrictions, whatsoever?
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just to be clear, the change in language from “best security of a free country” to, “best security of a free state”, was argued, successfully, by the racist whites in the southern colonies (George Mason, Patrick Henry, etc), or else it would not have been ratified. it was for the conservation of the slave patrols. the racist whites understood that if they had to defend the nation, they would not have been able to control the “blacks” in their respective states… off topic, but not really, SWAT teams were a product of the southern strategy, part of Nixon’s Drug War (also the creation of the DEA). one could say they are also a legacy of the slave patrols of the 1700s.
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The more guns there are in American society, the more Republicans scream for more guns.
Example…
Republicans control both chambers of the Nevada state legislature. Michele Fiore, 45, is a Republican member of the Nevada Assembly (a part of the state legislature that corresponds to the House of Representatives in other states, and in Washington).
Ms. Fiore likes to take “selfie” photos of herself with guns. She is so pro-gun that on 13 Feb 2015 she sponsored a bill to let college students carry concealed guns on campus, and let teachers carry concealed guns in grade schools and in day care. Fiore says, “If these young, hot little girls on campus have a firearm, I wonder how many men will want to assault them. The sexual assaults would go down once these sexual predators get a bullet in their head.”
(Of course, if women can carry guns, then men can too. Statistics show that the presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation makes it five times more likely that the woman will be killed. And in the United States, women are eleven times more likely to be murdered with a gun than are women in similarly developed countries.)
Ms. Fiore’s bill would also let people with concealed weapon permits carry guns in public buildings (such as courtrooms) and in unsecured areas of airports.
(Nine states currently allow guns on campuses: Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Besides Nevada, similar concealed-carry bills have been introduced in nine other states, including Florida and Texas.)
Regarding refugees from the U.S.-led war on Syria, she says, “Syrian Refugees? What, are you kidding me? I’m about to fly to Paris and shoot ‘em in the head myself! I am not okay with Syrian refugees. I’m for putting them down, and blacking them out. Just put a piece of brass in their ocular cavity and end their miserable lives.”
In December 2014 while Ms. Fiore was chairwoman of the Nevada Assembly Taxation Committee, it was revealed that she owed the IRS over $1 million in unpaid taxes.
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