4 ms·

If a civil-rights activist can threaten a racist sheriff, what's stopping a criminal from threatening a good one?

throwaway373438 7y ago
America has a lot of gun availability and yet getting shot isn't the most common cause of on-the-job death for a police officer. In fact, law enforcement isn't a particularly dangerous line of work. I think a better question would be asking how arming either police or civilians changes the policing dynamic. These types of questions also need to be set against the larger cultural context of how a society keeps control of its policing activity.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
But even without the Second Amendment, the criminal could still get a gun. The difference is, with the Second Amendment, the civil-rights activist can also get a gun.
- krapp 7y ago
  Some other countries allow private ownership of firearms without a Constitutional amendment, so latter case is theoretically possible with or without the 2A.
- wwweston 7y ago
  Not much of the current personal arms policy debate in the US is about whether we should strive to make it impossible for criminals or civil rights activists to get a gun. It's about the margins of ease, how that can or should vary by person, how capacity or type of weapon matters, legal exposure of different kind of carrying, and other matters that could reasonably fall under "well-regulated." For example, some people think a recent domestic abuse record should trigger a very high level of scrutiny for firearm purchases (or even continued possession). This isn't the sort of rule that would prevent anyone from committing a crime with a gun, perhaps not even an impenetrable wall for those with such records. But it increases the practical difficulty and compounds the crime (and risk) for certain cases. Margins matter -- seatbelts can't save all lives but they absolutely produce a safety margin.
  - StillBored 7y ago
    Ugh, historically the civil rights activist is the one who would have been denied that right...
    - wwweston 7y ago
      If the state outlaws civil rights activism, then civil rights activists will be outlaws, irrespective of firearm liberties. And indefensible law does not make having defensible policy unreasonable.

America has a lot of gun availability and yet getting shot isn't the most common cause of on-the-job death for a police officer. In fact, law enforcement isn't a particularly dangerous line of work. I think a better question would be asking how arming either police or civilians changes the policing dynamic. These types of questions also need to be set against the larger cultural context of how a society keeps control of its policing activity.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

But even without the Second Amendment, the criminal could still get a gun. The difference is, with the Second Amendment, the civil-rights activist can also get a gun.

krapp 7y ago
Some other countries allow private ownership of firearms without a Constitutional amendment, so latter case is theoretically possible with or without the 2A.
wwweston 7y ago
Not much of the current personal arms policy debate in the US is about whether we should strive to make it impossible for criminals or civil rights activists to get a gun. It's about the margins of ease, how that can or should vary by person, how capacity or type of weapon matters, legal exposure of different kind of carrying, and other matters that could reasonably fall under "well-regulated." For example, some people think a recent domestic abuse record should trigger a very high level of scrutiny for firearm purchases (or even continued possession). This isn't the sort of rule that would prevent anyone from committing a crime with a gun, perhaps not even an impenetrable wall for those with such records. But it increases the practical difficulty and compounds the crime (and risk) for certain cases. Margins matter -- seatbelts can't save all lives but they absolutely produce a safety margin.
- StillBored 7y ago
  Ugh, historically the civil rights activist is the one who would have been denied that right...
  - wwweston 7y ago
    If the state outlaws civil rights activism, then civil rights activists will be outlaws, irrespective of firearm liberties. And indefensible law does not make having defensible policy unreasonable.