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The scary thing is that both this article and the example you cited are used as reasons to limit constitutional freedoms: Limit second amendment more to preven

by umvi 7y ago

The scary thing is that both this article and the example you cited are used as reasons to limit constitutional freedoms: Limit second amendment more to prevent mass shootings. Limit first amendment more to prevent suicides. Really though, we should be focusing on the root cause: lonely/sad/broken people. Focus on helping/loving them and I bet suicide/mass shooting rates drop significantly.

TheArcane 7y ago
> Limit second amendment more to prevent more shootings. I've always wondered the validity of a "constitutional freedom" that allows random everyday people to own and operate tools that are essentially killing machines.
- mieseratte 7y ago
  > I've always wondered the validity of a "constitutional freedom" that allows random everyday people to own and operate tools that are essentially killing machines. Not sure why you put quotes around constitutional freedom. The reason for the amendment is such that when someone or someones come along and attempt to abridge your rights you can kill them with the killing machine. As simple as that.
  - jakelazaroff 7y ago
    It will always be weird to me that threatening to murder other citizens for some vague, ill-defined hypothetical transgression is a mainstream, mostly accepted political viewpoint here in the US.
    - mieseratte 7y ago
      > It will always be weird to me that threatening to murder other citizens for some vague, ill-defined hypothetical transgression is a mainstream, mostly accepted political viewpoint here in the US. It's weird to me that advocating for the cessation of an absolute right to self-defense is a mainstream political position. It's not as if history is one peachy peace-and-love orgy.
      - jakelazaroff 7y ago
        Let me clarify: the reason that viewpoint is weird to me is that it's essentially political terrorism. A small minority of citizens are essentially saying "we want the law to be this way, and if it isn't, we will murder you". But for some reason we've collectively decided that no, it's actually normal for people to dictate the law under threat of violence. The other side here is basically just people supporting and voting for the laws they think will improve society, a.k.a. democracy working normally.
        CompanionCuuube 7y ago
        "A small minority of citizens are essentially saying "we want the law to be this way, and if it isn't, we will murder you". But for some reason we've collectively decided that no, it's actually normal for people to dictate the law under threat of violence." On the other hand, the moral majority can make the law and then murder people who don't follow it. This is called "democracy working normally".
        jakelazaroff 7y ago
        I oppose capital punishment, but yes — that's how democracy works.
        CompanionCuuube 7y ago
        Yes, if you use a strict denotative definition of "works" as being a method of operation. But that says nothing as to the ethical justification relative to the other case that you complained about. Your position just comes off as saying "in its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges".
        jakelazaroff 7y ago
        I'm saying that democracy is the least worst way of a society determining the rules by which it abides. Is your position that dictating those rules under threat of violence is better?
    - seiferteric 7y ago
      It's really not about that. The US was founded by a revolution that required guns. The founders wanted to make sure the same thing could happen again if needed. The second amendment isn't about personal protection, it is about the right to overthrow a government (ours or an invading one) if necessary. You can argue that times have changed or whatever but that was clearly the intention and it hasn't changed much.
      - jakelazaroff 7y ago
        I understand that. My point is that "if needed" is a pretty squishy phrase, and if you asked different groups of US citizens what that entails you'd get wildly divergent results. For example, I would say if we keep going along our path of putting people in camps, that is worthy of rising up — but there are other people who think that's a good thing and we should keep going. There are also certain demographics that are much likelier to own guns, so "is armed revolution necessary" is really more a question of "is this particular group of people unhappy".
        seiferteric 7y ago
        Isn't that what happened during the revolution? A critical mass of people decided it was necessary and eventually succeeded? Then during the civil war some other people tried and failed (luckily). And of course there have been smaller failed uprisings and rebellions in the past as well. Not really sure what your point is, we will never reach a time when everyone agrees, life is messy.
    - TheArcane 7y ago
      > threatening to murder other citizens for some vague, ill-defined hypothetical transgression So much this. Growing up, it was so strange to see people pulling out a gun on someone for walking on their lawn in Hollywood movies.
  - TheArcane 7y ago
    > when someone or someones come along and attempt to abridge your rights Isn't that what highly trained and professional law enforcement is for? At least that's what they're for in my part of the world.
    - mieseratte 7y ago
      > Isn't that what highly trained and professional law enforcement is for? That works fine and well until the police are the ones kicking in your door to drag you away. Fortunately for us all, that's not a thing that ever happens. Since it clearly needs said, the 2A is not about day-to-day life. It's about large-scale societal failure modes.
    - jakeogh 7y ago
      Are you going to ask the attacker to pause and wait 5+ minutes?
    - kazinator 7y ago
      That's what they are for if they are in the right place at the right time. In a situation in which you have to shoot someone to save yourself, it's implicitly understood that the law enforcement won't be there for at least another 15 minutes. Also, who will call them? You may have to shoot your opponent first, just to be able to call the police. At least in the leg or something, if killing makes you squeamish.
    - erik_seaberg 7y ago
      No. They might never show up, and you can't even sue them for negligence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia Every adult should have the means to protect who they care about.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      > Isn't that what highly trained and professional law enforcement is for? > At least that's what they're for in my part of the world. I really wish the Jewish populations of Warsaw had known this. If only they had called on the professional law enforcement to help them! And then the Tutsi made the same mistake in Rwanda 50 years later - shouldn't people have learned by then? Point is, sometimes it's the "professional law enforcement" that's coming to kick your face in, and asking them to defend you doesn't work so well. And even when they aren't the ones doing the kicking, their priorities might not match yours - as Koreatown found in the LA riots.
  - dowst 7y ago
    Bad people kill so kill bad people. So logical...
    - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
      It's much more logical and moral to let the bad people kill you, so that you can maintain your integrity into death.
  - lukewrites 7y ago
    I’m reading the book Loaded, which makes a pretty convincing argument that the reason for the amendment was to quell worries that the colonists would be in any way impeded in grabbing land from the native people by force.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > The reason for the amendment is such that when someone or someones come along and attempt to abridge your rights you can kill them with the killing machine. No, the reason for the amendment was the perception (possibly true) that reliance on citizens militias for internal and external security was an essential guarantee of liberty, as otherwise the government would have no choice but to rely on professional forces (army/police) that would become culturally distinct from the general population and become oppressive either on their own or on behalf of the government which would become more attached to it's security services through whuhbit applied force, and which could withhold that ability or use it in ways the political authority did not approve of unsatisfied, than the general public. Combined with the perception (false, as it turned out) that the only thing needed to protect this model was to assure that the government's understandable desire to regulate weaponry didn't make it impractical to rely on militias of the citizenry for this purpose. The idea was that it would be impossible to oppress the general public if the government had to call up the general public to do the oppressing, whereas if there was a distinct warrior tribe whose whole profession was applying force as ordered by higher authority, the government would be much more able and inclined to be oppressive. Unfortunately, even those who hold themselves out as defenders of the second amendment have forgotten it's purpose.
    - jki275 7y ago
      That is a very tortured misunderstanding of the second amendment. I would strongly suggest reading Scalia’s decision in Heller - he thoroughly debunks this argument, and it’s now settled law, so it would be worthwhile to understand how it really is vice how revisionist historians want it to be.
- tastygreenapple 7y ago
  I've always wondered about the constitutional validity of saying we can't profile the 13% of people who commit 50% of the violent crime, but luckily some folks smarter than us thought this all and bound us to the good thinking they enshrined in the constitution.
- mjfl 7y ago
  It’s an enshrinement of values - America puts more value on the protection of the individual from society than the protection of society from an individual.
  - praptak 7y ago
    Has anyone successfully protected themselves from society using guns? I'd say you'd probably end up dead if you tried that.
  - lutorm 7y ago
    * America puts more value on the protection of the individual from society than the protection of society from an individual.* That's not true, though. U.S. laws and their enforcement are extremely punitive compared to most other western countries. It seems the values are very specifically centered around the right to own guns, not around protecting individuals from society in general.
    - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
      > That's not true, though. U.S. laws and their enforcement are extremely punitive compared to most other western countries. That's not true, though. The US is a lot less punitive regarding cars compared to most other western countries.
- irrational 7y ago
  I thought it had to do with the British saying the colonists shouldn't have weapons that could help the colonists revolt against their government. So the constitution says that the people should have access to the weapons they need to overthrow the government if needed. Of course, the constitution writers didn't envision the government having tanks, airplanes, nuclear missiles, etc. that make it practically impossible for modern citizens to overthrow a corrupt government.
  - umvi 7y ago
    > that make it practically impossible for modern citizens to overthrow a corrupt government. Some of the citizens overthrowing the government would be in the military, though, no? Since the military is made up of normal people that live among civilians. It's more likely the military would split into factions, with the revolutionaries gaining control of a sizable chunk of tanks, airplanes, etc. Or maybe the military would stage a coup. However, a truly tyrannical government would have long purged guns from its civilian population as evidenced by every tyranny ever.
    - mirimir 7y ago
      Right, there are National Guard units, and armories, everywhere. Some of those would probably side with revolutionaries. And then there are police forces of large cities, which wield serious firepower. It'd be a mess.
    - mamon 7y ago
      >> Some of the citizens overthrowing the government would be in the military, though, no? Very unlikely. Biggest part of military training is brainwashing you to always following orders. People that resist brainswashing are quickly discharges as "unfit for duty".
      - umvi 7y ago
        > Biggest part of military training is brainwashing you to always following orders. The US military has both Republicans and Democrats in it (though probably a larger percentage of the former). If there is any sort of internal conflict, it would likely split along those party lines. Also, the US military does not advocate blindly following orders. The person receiving the orders should only obey lawful orders and should resist and disobey unlawful orders ("I order you to go shoot all those unarmed civilians over there!")
- jcoffland 7y ago
  Do you mean cars?
- sbierwagen 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack 87 deaths from a truck ramming attack. The existing licensing system was obviously insufficient to prevent this attack. What do you suggest be done to prevent attacks like this in the future?
  - Frondo 7y ago
    Bringing up one truck-based mass murder from 3 years ago in reply to a comment about US gun violence seems like whataboutism. If that's not your intent, can you clarify what your intent is? I'm probably not the only one who read it that way.
    - sbierwagen 7y ago
      What causes mass shootings? If it's motivated purely by the desire to shoot people with cool badass assault rifles, then banning things that look like assault rifles would solve it. If it's just the desire to shoot people, then you would have to ban all firearms. However, if it's caused by the desire to kill, with no regard for the mechanism, then banning guns would have no or little effect: they would move to the next-easiest node in the attack tree.[1] If you ban all trucks, then attackers would try to burn down high rises, or poison water mains, or release sarin gas in subway stations, etc etc. The observation that these other attacks are exotic and weird is only weak evidence for to the question if mass shootings are for the shooting, or the killing. --- 1: https://www.schneier.com/academic/archives/1999/12/attack_trees.html https://www.schneier.com/academic/archives/1999/12/attack_tr...
  - yifanl 7y ago
    I'm not sure how this is at all a relevant response?
    - Spivak 7y ago
      Because if your goal is to prevent mass killings then you have to take into account that a vehicle is a viable substitute for a gun. I'm in favor of gun control but I don't think it's clear whether it would actually make it meaningfully harder for people who want to kill lots of people indiscriminately-ish. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-ramming_attack#List_of_terrorist_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-ramming_attack#List_of...
- lukifer 7y ago
  It's an interesting thought experiment: set aside the complex details of our real-world weaponry, and imagine instead of guns we had low-power phasers when the Bill of Rights was conceived. Now, imagine those phasers get 1% more powerful every year. At what point should we do decide that a phaser at power level X is too destructive for civilian use? While I'm sympathetic to the argument of weaponry as a balance-of-power between government and governed [1], in the modern era it's hard to see its application to civilian-grade firearms as anything more than a fantasy. (If one wants to examine this seriously, I suspect the weapons of choice for a modern insurrection would be things like IEDs, micro-drones, and hacking/encryption.) Still, I think the argument is sound for a right to self-protection independent of government. There just isn't an obvious "bright line" as to what level of destructive power is reasonable for a private citizen, as one progresses from muskets to AR-15s to RPGs to hydrogen bombs. (It is also an open question as to whether regulations like licensing, mandatory safety training, and civil liability count as "infringement", to say nothing of denying weapons to known criminals or the mentally ill.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_Quigley#Weapons_and_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_Quigley#Weapons_and_de...
  - umvi 7y ago
    I mean, we've kind of drawn the line at "automatic" vs. "semi-automatic" and "explosive" vs. "non-explosive". It's "too powerful" for civilians if it's fully automatic or explosive (RPGs, hand grenades, bombs, etc.)
- andrewla 7y ago
  "Validity" or "advisability"? I think the amendment seems fairly clear to me. I, too, disagree that it should be enshrined in the constitution, or even that it should exist as a right in such an unrestricted form. But there's no doubt that it's in there, and we already have a process for changing the constitution. If I were a Supreme Court justice, I would push to invalidate all laws that limit the ownership and carrying of guns or any armaments by private citizens. This is really the only thing that would force us as a nation to come to some sort of consensus on what the bounds of gun regulation and legislation should be, on a constitutional level.
  - lutorm 7y ago
    I disagree that the amendment is clear. It is so obliquely written that it took the Supreme Court over 200 years to conclude that it, in fact, conveys an individual constitutional right to own a firearm.
    - jki275 7y ago
      The plain language of it clearly enshrines an individual right. No one seriously believed otherwise until the Jim crow era, when it became popular to write laws that were understood to apply to only one group of people and specifically sought into disarm them so they would be unable to defend themselves from the KKK.
    - andrewla 7y ago
      The plain language is clear. The courts have always taken to heart that part of the role of government is to "promote the general Welfare". As a result, they respect that there is a balance between the right enshrined in the second amendment and the general welfare clause, which can have a common sense interpretation to protect the people of the United States from unnecessary harm. This is reasonable as a principle of justice, but it means that we are prevented from achieving consensus on the bounds of Congress's and the several state's power to regulate the keeping and bearing of arms unless we amend the constitution to make those boundaries clear. My approach above is a bit scorched earth, but I think there's a consensus to be found between the anti-gun people and the reasonable-gun-control people that might exclude the gun rights absolutists, but result in some sensible middle ground.
mieseratte 7y ago
> Limit second amendment more to prevent mass shootings. > Limit first amendment more to prevent suicides. The logical conclusion from social-contagion would be not to report or limit reporting, both for suicide and mass-shooting.
seanmcdirmid 7y ago
“Limit the first amendment to prevent more shootings” is also a common refrain from many in the pro-gun crowd, as is “Limit the second amendment to prevent more suicides” is for many promoting suicide prevention. Likewise, focusing on more mental health (spending money) or closing down the mental hospitals (saving money) are options with different results that depend on political ideology.
jakelazaroff 7y ago
No one's talking about limiting freedoms. Just because you're technically allowed to do something, doesn't mean that you should. Yes, we can try to help people who feel alone, and we can vastly improve how we treat mental health. But we can also stop glorifying violence and suicide. Why would it be a bad thing for people to be more thoughtful about the impact their work has on society?
rhcom2 7y ago
We know for a fact access to firearms increases the chance of a successful suicide. That suggests a clear change that could help save lives and limits to the 2nd Amendment have already been settled as constitutional. "Focus on helping/loving them" is not a policy change, to me it's nothing but "thoughts and prayers". Rhetoric that might make us feel better but will help nothing.
- dymk 7y ago
  Access to bridges also increases the chances of successful suicide. The clear change that should be suggested is more proactive identification of mental illness and increased guaranteed access to mental health services. If that reads to you as nothing but "thoughts and prayers", I don't know what to say.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    50% of suicide in the USA are via firearms, 2.4% are by falling (off bridges or other structures). Focusing on lowering the 2.4% number is not going to be as effective as focusing on the 50% one. https://www.sprc.org/means-suicide https://www.sprc.org/means-suicide It turns out more willpower/commitment is needed to jump off a bridge than pull a trigger. The same with stabbing or suffocating yourself. Yes, someone with lots of willpower/commitment will work around it, but for those just teetering on the edge guns are very very effective.
    - umvi 7y ago
      Yeah, but lowering the 50% one will increase usage of the other methods significantly. The US isn't magically going to have insanely low suicide rates if you make guns illegal. Sad/depressed/broken people are still sad/depressed/broken (nothing has changed on that front). There will be a slight drop in overall suicides and a very large increase in non-firearm suicide attempts (re: Japan). Here's an idea that doesn't infringe on any rights: Mandate each handgun sale come with a free suicide prevention pamphlet. That would definitely lower suicide rates measurably at a low cost that everyone can agree on.
ericmcer 7y ago
Definitely a controversial viewpoint currently. Forget assault rifles, an individual could own a machine gun well into the 70s but mass shootings were unheard of back then. I am for gun control but the underlying issues are being ignored if we treat it like the root of the problem.
- bluedino 7y ago
  You can own a machine gun today - they just cost as much as a car.
  - stjohnswarts 7y ago
    You still have to get a license and those are expensive and not easy to get.
    - LyndsySimon 7y ago
      It’s a transfer tax, not a license, and it’s $200. The supply is limited to what was legally owned as of 1986.
prolepunk 7y ago
This is such an asinine argument because it implies the following: * Let's not examine root causes of anything because freedom * Freedom by itself is good no matter of consequences * This is a very US-centric view as no other country has first or second amendment * How preventing mass shootings is a scary thing, and in which way limiting second amendment is scary? * Same argument applies to the question you raise about first amendment. What is the use of free speech if all it does is exploit people who are vulnerable to committing suicide? * Your comment about lonely/sad/broken people is not constructive. There are no actionable items. Instead of academic research you are proposing hearsay and a bet.
azinman2 7y ago
People say that about address mental illness, etc, but what to me is profound about this is that the mere suggestion/glorification increased rates. There will always be impressionable people out there in some kind of state... you can’t fundamentally eliminate sadness in the world. And certainly you can’t eliminate teenage angst, which is likely the real culprit here. We need some level of balance here.. unlimited guns and unlimited media has been a recipe for disaster.
- umvi 7y ago
  > And certainly you can’t eliminate teenage angst, which is likely the real culprit here. So why weren't teenagers in the 60s shooting up crowded places with full-auto machine guns (they were fully legal and accessible back then)?
  - azinman2 7y ago
    A lot were, they were just in Vietnam and not the US. It’s certainly not the case that they had more access to mental health. Hence back to the media part. Society / culture changes... 60s was a wave of anti-violence by youth. That likely had carry over effects. What was on TV and the methods of consuming information was totally different. You also didn’t have so much contradictory (dis)information going around. Given where we’re at, something needs to give or we’ll just continue to spiral. This report is a great micro-example of how environmental stimulus affects drastic action.
jshaqaw 7y ago
I disagree. Calling to organizations like Netflix to be aware of an issue and act responsibly is very different than calling for a ban on free speech. They made an artistic and ratings decision without being aware of the ramifications. Future studios should not make the same mistake.
- Rebelgecko 7y ago
  The fact that suicides come in clusters almost like a contagious disease has been well known for a very long time. If Netflix was oblivious about that when they were working on the show, there was plenty of chance to become aware if they paid attention to the outcry before the show came out.
  - jshaqaw 7y ago
    Reasonable point. Being ignorant of the details I gave Netflix the most generous benefit of doubt. The vast majority of people aren’t monsters and I doubt they would have done this intentionally.
jaaron 7y ago
I agree on addressing root causes; however, I've increasingly come around on the idea that pointing to root causes (poverty, broken families, cultural norms, etc.) is a case of the "perfect being the enemy of the good" and is at best a well intentioned but misguided effort that causes real harm. An analogy: I have some fairly severe sinus issues. I'm working with professionals to figure it out. In the meantime, I'm regularly told to "treat the symptoms." At first, this was really frustrating! I wanted to solve the root problem, not just take pain meds and decongestants for the rest of my life! But the reality is, we may never figure out the root problem, or the root problem may turn out to be intractable. In the meantime, I can significantly improve my quality of life by simply doing what can be done: treating the symptoms. At the risk of being facetious: we don't stop preparing for hurricanes just because we can't stop their root cause. Every day we delay making hard choices because we want to wait for a root cause solution is another day we allow the root illnesses more time to inflict damage on us and our society.
notus 7y ago
Plenty of other modern and progressive countries have what we would consider limits on constitutional freedoms. Americans need to give up on their obsession with the constitution, we're like the only country in the world that cares about their constitution. I predict this century is going to be marked as a transformation from "Free Speech" to "Free Speech, except..." and we're going to be a lot better off for it. Absolute freedoms make about as much sense as viewing morality as black and white.
myth_buster 7y ago
The only way we us a society can make progress is by critically analyzing our beliefs and biases and correcting them. > used as reasons to limit constitutional freedoms The implicit assumption in your statement appears to be that constitutional amendments are invalid/ineffective. But that's far from the truth as its a man made artifact and reflects the beliefs and biases of its times which may or may not hold true in the present.
munk-a 7y ago
> Really though, we should be focusing on the root cause: lonely/sad/broken people. The US is an extreme outlier in terms of gun homicide in the first world, is the assumption that every country except the US has solved lonely/sad/broken people? The second amendment (the full reading of it) doesn't give carte blanch coverage to own firearms and the US populace agrees that, for instance, inmates in prison and domestic abusers shouldn't be given firearms. There are sane ways to limit the second amendment. Defenders of the second amendment often say it's an opposition to tyranny, but I fail to see how a hand-gun will help to protect you against an Abrams wielded by a tyrannous government - or should tanks, jets and battleships be objects that private citizens should be able to purchase and own for self-defense?
- seiferteric 7y ago
  >Defenders of the second amendment often say it's an opposition to tyranny, but I fail to see how a hand-gun will help to protect you against an Abrams wielded by a tyrannous government - or should tanks, jets and battleships be objects that private citizens should be able to purchase and own for self-defense? You could say the same thing for the 1st amendment for individuals vs large media companies. Individuals will always be weaker than well organized, better funded groups. It's impossible to know what would happen in the event of a modern civil war, but it's conceivable that the military would fracture. As far as reading the 2nd amendment, I have been arguing lately that the "well regulated militia" should mean that gun owners should be required to attend militia training at least once a year, and if you don't, your weapons must be stored in an armory instead of at home. Something more akin to the Swiss system. Having to attend some classes would greatly reduce the number of people that would bother keeping guns at home I think, and would allow others to identify people with mental health issues. I would argue that right now we don't have a "well regulated militia" in any sense.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    I agree, gun familiarity training and regular usage would also, I believe, push guns into being more of a tool. It'd also be good for more social interaction to go along with gun ownership so that there is more of an inherent social web around gun users - most folks with guns are absolutely normal folks with no issues... interacting with others would indeed help flagging people who may be a danger and help them before something terrible happens.
cheriot 7y ago
The scary thing is that every time an individual or company does something wrong someone justifies it as a "right". No, having a right to do something does not exempt them from taking responsibility for their actions. Network news should not make school shooters famous. Netflix should not glorify suicide. We don't need laws to prevent these things; just a society that refuses to tolerate them. And, yes, we should _also_ focus on the lonely/sad/broken people.

by umvi 7y ago

TheArcane 7y ago

> Limit second amendment more to prevent more shootings. I've always wondered the validity of a "constitutional freedom" that allows random everyday people to own and operate tools that are essentially killing machines.

mieseratte 7y ago
> I've always wondered the validity of a "constitutional freedom" that allows random everyday people to own and operate tools that are essentially killing machines. Not sure why you put quotes around constitutional freedom. The reason for the amendment is such that when someone or someones come along and attempt to abridge your rights you can kill them with the killing machine. As simple as that.
- jakelazaroff 7y ago
  It will always be weird to me that threatening to murder other citizens for some vague, ill-defined hypothetical transgression is a mainstream, mostly accepted political viewpoint here in the US.
  - mieseratte 7y ago
    > It will always be weird to me that threatening to murder other citizens for some vague, ill-defined hypothetical transgression is a mainstream, mostly accepted political viewpoint here in the US. It's weird to me that advocating for the cessation of an absolute right to self-defense is a mainstream political position. It's not as if history is one peachy peace-and-love orgy.
    - jakelazaroff 7y ago
      Let me clarify: the reason that viewpoint is weird to me is that it's essentially political terrorism. A small minority of citizens are essentially saying "we want the law to be this way, and if it isn't, we will murder you". But for some reason we've collectively decided that no, it's actually normal for people to dictate the law under threat of violence. The other side here is basically just people supporting and voting for the laws they think will improve society, a.k.a. democracy working normally.
      - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
        "A small minority of citizens are essentially saying "we want the law to be this way, and if it isn't, we will murder you". But for some reason we've collectively decided that no, it's actually normal for people to dictate the law under threat of violence." On the other hand, the moral majority can make the law and then murder people who don't follow it. This is called "democracy working normally".
        jakelazaroff 7y ago
        I oppose capital punishment, but yes — that's how democracy works.
        CompanionCuuube 7y ago
        Yes, if you use a strict denotative definition of "works" as being a method of operation. But that says nothing as to the ethical justification relative to the other case that you complained about. Your position just comes off as saying "in its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges".
        jakelazaroff 7y ago
        I'm saying that democracy is the least worst way of a society determining the rules by which it abides. Is your position that dictating those rules under threat of violence is better?
  - seiferteric 7y ago
    It's really not about that. The US was founded by a revolution that required guns. The founders wanted to make sure the same thing could happen again if needed. The second amendment isn't about personal protection, it is about the right to overthrow a government (ours or an invading one) if necessary. You can argue that times have changed or whatever but that was clearly the intention and it hasn't changed much.
    - jakelazaroff 7y ago
      I understand that. My point is that "if needed" is a pretty squishy phrase, and if you asked different groups of US citizens what that entails you'd get wildly divergent results. For example, I would say if we keep going along our path of putting people in camps, that is worthy of rising up — but there are other people who think that's a good thing and we should keep going. There are also certain demographics that are much likelier to own guns, so "is armed revolution necessary" is really more a question of "is this particular group of people unhappy".
      - seiferteric 7y ago
        Isn't that what happened during the revolution? A critical mass of people decided it was necessary and eventually succeeded? Then during the civil war some other people tried and failed (luckily). And of course there have been smaller failed uprisings and rebellions in the past as well. Not really sure what your point is, we will never reach a time when everyone agrees, life is messy.
  - TheArcane 7y ago
    > threatening to murder other citizens for some vague, ill-defined hypothetical transgression So much this. Growing up, it was so strange to see people pulling out a gun on someone for walking on their lawn in Hollywood movies.
- TheArcane 7y ago
  > when someone or someones come along and attempt to abridge your rights Isn't that what highly trained and professional law enforcement is for? At least that's what they're for in my part of the world.
  - mieseratte 7y ago
    > Isn't that what highly trained and professional law enforcement is for? That works fine and well until the police are the ones kicking in your door to drag you away. Fortunately for us all, that's not a thing that ever happens. Since it clearly needs said, the 2A is not about day-to-day life. It's about large-scale societal failure modes.
  - jakeogh 7y ago
    Are you going to ask the attacker to pause and wait 5+ minutes?
  - kazinator 7y ago
    That's what they are for if they are in the right place at the right time. In a situation in which you have to shoot someone to save yourself, it's implicitly understood that the law enforcement won't be there for at least another 15 minutes. Also, who will call them? You may have to shoot your opponent first, just to be able to call the police. At least in the leg or something, if killing makes you squeamish.
  - erik_seaberg 7y ago
    No. They might never show up, and you can't even sue them for negligence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia Every adult should have the means to protect who they care about.
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    > Isn't that what highly trained and professional law enforcement is for? > At least that's what they're for in my part of the world. I really wish the Jewish populations of Warsaw had known this. If only they had called on the professional law enforcement to help them! And then the Tutsi made the same mistake in Rwanda 50 years later - shouldn't people have learned by then? Point is, sometimes it's the "professional law enforcement" that's coming to kick your face in, and asking them to defend you doesn't work so well. And even when they aren't the ones doing the kicking, their priorities might not match yours - as Koreatown found in the LA riots.
- dowst 7y ago
  Bad people kill so kill bad people. So logical...
  - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
    It's much more logical and moral to let the bad people kill you, so that you can maintain your integrity into death.
- lukewrites 7y ago
  I’m reading the book Loaded, which makes a pretty convincing argument that the reason for the amendment was to quell worries that the colonists would be in any way impeded in grabbing land from the native people by force.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > The reason for the amendment is such that when someone or someones come along and attempt to abridge your rights you can kill them with the killing machine. No, the reason for the amendment was the perception (possibly true) that reliance on citizens militias for internal and external security was an essential guarantee of liberty, as otherwise the government would have no choice but to rely on professional forces (army/police) that would become culturally distinct from the general population and become oppressive either on their own or on behalf of the government which would become more attached to it's security services through whuhbit applied force, and which could withhold that ability or use it in ways the political authority did not approve of unsatisfied, than the general public. Combined with the perception (false, as it turned out) that the only thing needed to protect this model was to assure that the government's understandable desire to regulate weaponry didn't make it impractical to rely on militias of the citizenry for this purpose. The idea was that it would be impossible to oppress the general public if the government had to call up the general public to do the oppressing, whereas if there was a distinct warrior tribe whose whole profession was applying force as ordered by higher authority, the government would be much more able and inclined to be oppressive. Unfortunately, even those who hold themselves out as defenders of the second amendment have forgotten it's purpose.
  - jki275 7y ago
    That is a very tortured misunderstanding of the second amendment. I would strongly suggest reading Scalia’s decision in Heller - he thoroughly debunks this argument, and it’s now settled law, so it would be worthwhile to understand how it really is vice how revisionist historians want it to be.
tastygreenapple 7y ago
I've always wondered about the constitutional validity of saying we can't profile the 13% of people who commit 50% of the violent crime, but luckily some folks smarter than us thought this all and bound us to the good thinking they enshrined in the constitution.
mjfl 7y ago
It’s an enshrinement of values - America puts more value on the protection of the individual from society than the protection of society from an individual.
- praptak 7y ago
  Has anyone successfully protected themselves from society using guns? I'd say you'd probably end up dead if you tried that.
- lutorm 7y ago
  * America puts more value on the protection of the individual from society than the protection of society from an individual.* That's not true, though. U.S. laws and their enforcement are extremely punitive compared to most other western countries. It seems the values are very specifically centered around the right to own guns, not around protecting individuals from society in general.
  - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
    > That's not true, though. U.S. laws and their enforcement are extremely punitive compared to most other western countries. That's not true, though. The US is a lot less punitive regarding cars compared to most other western countries.
irrational 7y ago
I thought it had to do with the British saying the colonists shouldn't have weapons that could help the colonists revolt against their government. So the constitution says that the people should have access to the weapons they need to overthrow the government if needed. Of course, the constitution writers didn't envision the government having tanks, airplanes, nuclear missiles, etc. that make it practically impossible for modern citizens to overthrow a corrupt government.
- umvi 7y ago
  > that make it practically impossible for modern citizens to overthrow a corrupt government. Some of the citizens overthrowing the government would be in the military, though, no? Since the military is made up of normal people that live among civilians. It's more likely the military would split into factions, with the revolutionaries gaining control of a sizable chunk of tanks, airplanes, etc. Or maybe the military would stage a coup. However, a truly tyrannical government would have long purged guns from its civilian population as evidenced by every tyranny ever.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Right, there are National Guard units, and armories, everywhere. Some of those would probably side with revolutionaries. And then there are police forces of large cities, which wield serious firepower. It'd be a mess.
  - mamon 7y ago
    >> Some of the citizens overthrowing the government would be in the military, though, no? Very unlikely. Biggest part of military training is brainwashing you to always following orders. People that resist brainswashing are quickly discharges as "unfit for duty".
    - umvi 7y ago
      > Biggest part of military training is brainwashing you to always following orders. The US military has both Republicans and Democrats in it (though probably a larger percentage of the former). If there is any sort of internal conflict, it would likely split along those party lines. Also, the US military does not advocate blindly following orders. The person receiving the orders should only obey lawful orders and should resist and disobey unlawful orders ("I order you to go shoot all those unarmed civilians over there!")
jcoffland 7y ago
Do you mean cars?
sbierwagen 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack 87 deaths from a truck ramming attack. The existing licensing system was obviously insufficient to prevent this attack. What do you suggest be done to prevent attacks like this in the future?
- Frondo 7y ago
  Bringing up one truck-based mass murder from 3 years ago in reply to a comment about US gun violence seems like whataboutism. If that's not your intent, can you clarify what your intent is? I'm probably not the only one who read it that way.
  - sbierwagen 7y ago
    What causes mass shootings? If it's motivated purely by the desire to shoot people with cool badass assault rifles, then banning things that look like assault rifles would solve it. If it's just the desire to shoot people, then you would have to ban all firearms. However, if it's caused by the desire to kill, with no regard for the mechanism, then banning guns would have no or little effect: they would move to the next-easiest node in the attack tree.[1] If you ban all trucks, then attackers would try to burn down high rises, or poison water mains, or release sarin gas in subway stations, etc etc. The observation that these other attacks are exotic and weird is only weak evidence for to the question if mass shootings are for the shooting, or the killing. --- 1: https://www.schneier.com/academic/archives/1999/12/attack_trees.html https://www.schneier.com/academic/archives/1999/12/attack_tr...
- yifanl 7y ago
  I'm not sure how this is at all a relevant response?
  - Spivak 7y ago
    Because if your goal is to prevent mass killings then you have to take into account that a vehicle is a viable substitute for a gun. I'm in favor of gun control but I don't think it's clear whether it would actually make it meaningfully harder for people who want to kill lots of people indiscriminately-ish. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-ramming_attack#List_of_terrorist_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-ramming_attack#List_of...
lukifer 7y ago
It's an interesting thought experiment: set aside the complex details of our real-world weaponry, and imagine instead of guns we had low-power phasers when the Bill of Rights was conceived. Now, imagine those phasers get 1% more powerful every year. At what point should we do decide that a phaser at power level X is too destructive for civilian use? While I'm sympathetic to the argument of weaponry as a balance-of-power between government and governed [1], in the modern era it's hard to see its application to civilian-grade firearms as anything more than a fantasy. (If one wants to examine this seriously, I suspect the weapons of choice for a modern insurrection would be things like IEDs, micro-drones, and hacking/encryption.) Still, I think the argument is sound for a right to self-protection independent of government. There just isn't an obvious "bright line" as to what level of destructive power is reasonable for a private citizen, as one progresses from muskets to AR-15s to RPGs to hydrogen bombs. (It is also an open question as to whether regulations like licensing, mandatory safety training, and civil liability count as "infringement", to say nothing of denying weapons to known criminals or the mentally ill.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_Quigley#Weapons_and_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_Quigley#Weapons_and_de...
- umvi 7y ago
  I mean, we've kind of drawn the line at "automatic" vs. "semi-automatic" and "explosive" vs. "non-explosive". It's "too powerful" for civilians if it's fully automatic or explosive (RPGs, hand grenades, bombs, etc.)
andrewla 7y ago
"Validity" or "advisability"? I think the amendment seems fairly clear to me. I, too, disagree that it should be enshrined in the constitution, or even that it should exist as a right in such an unrestricted form. But there's no doubt that it's in there, and we already have a process for changing the constitution. If I were a Supreme Court justice, I would push to invalidate all laws that limit the ownership and carrying of guns or any armaments by private citizens. This is really the only thing that would force us as a nation to come to some sort of consensus on what the bounds of gun regulation and legislation should be, on a constitutional level.
- lutorm 7y ago
  I disagree that the amendment is clear. It is so obliquely written that it took the Supreme Court over 200 years to conclude that it, in fact, conveys an individual constitutional right to own a firearm.
  - jki275 7y ago
    The plain language of it clearly enshrines an individual right. No one seriously believed otherwise until the Jim crow era, when it became popular to write laws that were understood to apply to only one group of people and specifically sought into disarm them so they would be unable to defend themselves from the KKK.
  - andrewla 7y ago
    The plain language is clear. The courts have always taken to heart that part of the role of government is to "promote the general Welfare". As a result, they respect that there is a balance between the right enshrined in the second amendment and the general welfare clause, which can have a common sense interpretation to protect the people of the United States from unnecessary harm. This is reasonable as a principle of justice, but it means that we are prevented from achieving consensus on the bounds of Congress's and the several state's power to regulate the keeping and bearing of arms unless we amend the constitution to make those boundaries clear. My approach above is a bit scorched earth, but I think there's a consensus to be found between the anti-gun people and the reasonable-gun-control people that might exclude the gun rights absolutists, but result in some sensible middle ground.

mieseratte 7y ago

> Limit second amendment more to prevent mass shootings. > Limit first amendment more to prevent suicides. The logical conclusion from social-contagion would be not to report or limit reporting, both for suicide and mass-shooting.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago

“Limit the first amendment to prevent more shootings” is also a common refrain from many in the pro-gun crowd, as is “Limit the second amendment to prevent more suicides” is for many promoting suicide prevention. Likewise, focusing on more mental health (spending money) or closing down the mental hospitals (saving money) are options with different results that depend on political ideology.

jakelazaroff 7y ago

No one's talking about limiting freedoms. Just because you're technically allowed to do something, doesn't mean that you should. Yes, we can try to help people who feel alone, and we can vastly improve how we treat mental health. But we can also stop glorifying violence and suicide. Why would it be a bad thing for people to be more thoughtful about the impact their work has on society?

rhcom2 7y ago

We know for a fact access to firearms increases the chance of a successful suicide. That suggests a clear change that could help save lives and limits to the 2nd Amendment have already been settled as constitutional. "Focus on helping/loving them" is not a policy change, to me it's nothing but "thoughts and prayers". Rhetoric that might make us feel better but will help nothing.

dymk 7y ago
Access to bridges also increases the chances of successful suicide. The clear change that should be suggested is more proactive identification of mental illness and increased guaranteed access to mental health services. If that reads to you as nothing but "thoughts and prayers", I don't know what to say.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  50% of suicide in the USA are via firearms, 2.4% are by falling (off bridges or other structures). Focusing on lowering the 2.4% number is not going to be as effective as focusing on the 50% one. https://www.sprc.org/means-suicide https://www.sprc.org/means-suicide It turns out more willpower/commitment is needed to jump off a bridge than pull a trigger. The same with stabbing or suffocating yourself. Yes, someone with lots of willpower/commitment will work around it, but for those just teetering on the edge guns are very very effective.
  - umvi 7y ago
    Yeah, but lowering the 50% one will increase usage of the other methods significantly. The US isn't magically going to have insanely low suicide rates if you make guns illegal. Sad/depressed/broken people are still sad/depressed/broken (nothing has changed on that front). There will be a slight drop in overall suicides and a very large increase in non-firearm suicide attempts (re: Japan). Here's an idea that doesn't infringe on any rights: Mandate each handgun sale come with a free suicide prevention pamphlet. That would definitely lower suicide rates measurably at a low cost that everyone can agree on.

ericmcer 7y ago

Definitely a controversial viewpoint currently. Forget assault rifles, an individual could own a machine gun well into the 70s but mass shootings were unheard of back then. I am for gun control but the underlying issues are being ignored if we treat it like the root of the problem.

bluedino 7y ago
You can own a machine gun today - they just cost as much as a car.
- stjohnswarts 7y ago
  You still have to get a license and those are expensive and not easy to get.
  - LyndsySimon 7y ago
    It’s a transfer tax, not a license, and it’s $200. The supply is limited to what was legally owned as of 1986.

prolepunk 7y ago

This is such an asinine argument because it implies the following: * Let's not examine root causes of anything because freedom * Freedom by itself is good no matter of consequences * This is a very US-centric view as no other country has first or second amendment * How preventing mass shootings is a scary thing, and in which way limiting second amendment is scary? * Same argument applies to the question you raise about first amendment. What is the use of free speech if all it does is exploit people who are vulnerable to committing suicide? * Your comment about lonely/sad/broken people is not constructive. There are no actionable items. Instead of academic research you are proposing hearsay and a bet.

azinman2 7y ago

People say that about address mental illness, etc, but what to me is profound about this is that the mere suggestion/glorification increased rates. There will always be impressionable people out there in some kind of state... you can’t fundamentally eliminate sadness in the world. And certainly you can’t eliminate teenage angst, which is likely the real culprit here. We need some level of balance here.. unlimited guns and unlimited media has been a recipe for disaster.

umvi 7y ago
> And certainly you can’t eliminate teenage angst, which is likely the real culprit here. So why weren't teenagers in the 60s shooting up crowded places with full-auto machine guns (they were fully legal and accessible back then)?
- azinman2 7y ago
  A lot were, they were just in Vietnam and not the US. It’s certainly not the case that they had more access to mental health. Hence back to the media part. Society / culture changes... 60s was a wave of anti-violence by youth. That likely had carry over effects. What was on TV and the methods of consuming information was totally different. You also didn’t have so much contradictory (dis)information going around. Given where we’re at, something needs to give or we’ll just continue to spiral. This report is a great micro-example of how environmental stimulus affects drastic action.

jshaqaw 7y ago

I disagree. Calling to organizations like Netflix to be aware of an issue and act responsibly is very different than calling for a ban on free speech. They made an artistic and ratings decision without being aware of the ramifications. Future studios should not make the same mistake.

Rebelgecko 7y ago
The fact that suicides come in clusters almost like a contagious disease has been well known for a very long time. If Netflix was oblivious about that when they were working on the show, there was plenty of chance to become aware if they paid attention to the outcry before the show came out.
- jshaqaw 7y ago
  Reasonable point. Being ignorant of the details I gave Netflix the most generous benefit of doubt. The vast majority of people aren’t monsters and I doubt they would have done this intentionally.

jaaron 7y ago

I agree on addressing root causes; however, I've increasingly come around on the idea that pointing to root causes (poverty, broken families, cultural norms, etc.) is a case of the "perfect being the enemy of the good" and is at best a well intentioned but misguided effort that causes real harm. An analogy: I have some fairly severe sinus issues. I'm working with professionals to figure it out. In the meantime, I'm regularly told to "treat the symptoms." At first, this was really frustrating! I wanted to solve the root problem, not just take pain meds and decongestants for the rest of my life! But the reality is, we may never figure out the root problem, or the root problem may turn out to be intractable. In the meantime, I can significantly improve my quality of life by simply doing what can be done: treating the symptoms. At the risk of being facetious: we don't stop preparing for hurricanes just because we can't stop their root cause. Every day we delay making hard choices because we want to wait for a root cause solution is another day we allow the root illnesses more time to inflict damage on us and our society.

notus 7y ago

Plenty of other modern and progressive countries have what we would consider limits on constitutional freedoms. Americans need to give up on their obsession with the constitution, we're like the only country in the world that cares about their constitution. I predict this century is going to be marked as a transformation from "Free Speech" to "Free Speech, except..." and we're going to be a lot better off for it. Absolute freedoms make about as much sense as viewing morality as black and white.

myth_buster 7y ago

The only way we us a society can make progress is by critically analyzing our beliefs and biases and correcting them. > used as reasons to limit constitutional freedoms The implicit assumption in your statement appears to be that constitutional amendments are invalid/ineffective. But that's far from the truth as its a man made artifact and reflects the beliefs and biases of its times which may or may not hold true in the present.

munk-a 7y ago

> Really though, we should be focusing on the root cause: lonely/sad/broken people. The US is an extreme outlier in terms of gun homicide in the first world, is the assumption that every country except the US has solved lonely/sad/broken people? The second amendment (the full reading of it) doesn't give carte blanch coverage to own firearms and the US populace agrees that, for instance, inmates in prison and domestic abusers shouldn't be given firearms. There are sane ways to limit the second amendment. Defenders of the second amendment often say it's an opposition to tyranny, but I fail to see how a hand-gun will help to protect you against an Abrams wielded by a tyrannous government - or should tanks, jets and battleships be objects that private citizens should be able to purchase and own for self-defense?

seiferteric 7y ago
>Defenders of the second amendment often say it's an opposition to tyranny, but I fail to see how a hand-gun will help to protect you against an Abrams wielded by a tyrannous government - or should tanks, jets and battleships be objects that private citizens should be able to purchase and own for self-defense? You could say the same thing for the 1st amendment for individuals vs large media companies. Individuals will always be weaker than well organized, better funded groups. It's impossible to know what would happen in the event of a modern civil war, but it's conceivable that the military would fracture. As far as reading the 2nd amendment, I have been arguing lately that the "well regulated militia" should mean that gun owners should be required to attend militia training at least once a year, and if you don't, your weapons must be stored in an armory instead of at home. Something more akin to the Swiss system. Having to attend some classes would greatly reduce the number of people that would bother keeping guns at home I think, and would allow others to identify people with mental health issues. I would argue that right now we don't have a "well regulated militia" in any sense.
- munk-a 7y ago
  I agree, gun familiarity training and regular usage would also, I believe, push guns into being more of a tool. It'd also be good for more social interaction to go along with gun ownership so that there is more of an inherent social web around gun users - most folks with guns are absolutely normal folks with no issues... interacting with others would indeed help flagging people who may be a danger and help them before something terrible happens.

cheriot 7y ago

The scary thing is that every time an individual or company does something wrong someone justifies it as a "right". No, having a right to do something does not exempt them from taking responsibility for their actions. Network news should not make school shooters famous. Netflix should not glorify suicide. We don't need laws to prevent these things; just a society that refuses to tolerate them. And, yes, we should _also_ focus on the lonely/sad/broken people.