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Strongly disagree. Access to powerful firearms vastly increases how damaging shootings are. Compare the single death in a decade for Japan to the hundreds, if

Strongly disagree. Access to powerful firearms vastly increases how damaging shootings are. Compare the single death in a decade for Japan to the hundreds, if not thousands of deaths per year from gun violence in the US[0] [1]. Keeping guns out of circulation reduces gun deaths. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2022 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...

madeofpalk 4y ago
"It's the exception that proves the rule".
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  In this case, it proved both rules. One of the ostensible purposes of the Second Amendment is for Americans to be able to hold their own government in check via the private capacity to cause violence. Well, lacking anything even approximating a Second Amendment, an individual Japanese citizen just forced leadership change.
  - madeofpalk 4y ago
    You think in America citizens should shoot Bush or Obama to "hold their own government in check"? You think that's a valid exercise of the second amendment?
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      Are you asking me or the Founding Fathers? I think it's a terrible and apocryphal idea and America would be well served by repealing the Second Amendment. The perpetual loss of civilian life to violent urges consummated by easy access to deadly firearms is in no way worth the possibility that Americans may need to rise up and shoot a bunch of their own politicians someday. But among the reasons that it was put into place is definitely the idea that you must arm the citizenry because a government that disarms its citizenry is a tyranny. The US had, in living memory of the people who wrote the Constitution, just fought a war against their legitimate government and won it because, among other things, colonial life had made the average American familiar with a gun. They saw that as a useful facet of their culture to preserve.
      - madeofpalk 4y ago
        I don't think "you can just shoot anyone for whatever deluded reason you want" is a valid rationalisation of the second amendment, or a reason to have a gun.
        shadowgovt 4y ago
        Not for any reason, but make no mistake: the militia was argued to be a check on tyrannical abuse. "If there should be an army to be made use of as the engine of despotism, what need of the militia? If there should be no army, whither would the militia, irritated by being called upon to undertake a distant and hopeless expedition, for the purpose of riveting the chains of slavery upon a part of their countrymen, direct their course, but to the seat of the tyrants, who had meditated so foolish as well as so wicked a project, to crush them in their imagined intrenchments of power, and to make them an example of the just vengeance of an abused and incensed people?" ~Alexander Hamilton (as Publius) I should perhaps clarify: the main purpose of the militia at the time of the Constitution's creation was to serve as a check on Federal power by providing the States with control of their own instrument of violence. But after, well, the states used that power to rebel against what they saw as a tyranny (the imminent end of slavery and therefore loss of what they perceived as their legitimate property in the form of other human beings) and the government crushed that rebellion, the Fourteenth Amendment pretty much extinguished that purpose for the Second Amendment. So the only aspect of this justification for its existence that remains is the individual conscience of the American citizen on whether their government is tyranny that should be opposed with violence. Every other check-on-tyranny purpose was nullified by the Fourteenth Amendment after the 1860s. ... And if that means 2A sounds stupid to keep around in 2022, we are in agreement and I would support repealing it.
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
Japan's death rate seems higher than the US by quite a bit (14 vs 10 per 1000). I believe this is because they have far greater violent death than the US, but don't call most killings 'murder'. E.g. a person that owes money is found hanged in a Japanese park, it's suicide even when it's obvious they cannot have hanged themselves. Culture plays a large role in statistics. It's hard to interpret from outside. But surely the choice of weapon is less meaningful than the outcomes. The term 'gun violence' is designed to cherry-pick numbers out of a whole landscape of social problems and argue toward a point.
- njwi332 4y ago
  Japans death rate is ~11, not 14. But regardless, no, there is nowhere near as much violent death here in Japan. It is one of the safest countries in the world. The high death rate is due to the aging population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan
  - JoeAltmaier 4y ago
    https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/death-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/death-rate

madeofpalk 4y ago

"It's the exception that proves the rule".

shadowgovt 4y ago
In this case, it proved both rules. One of the ostensible purposes of the Second Amendment is for Americans to be able to hold their own government in check via the private capacity to cause violence. Well, lacking anything even approximating a Second Amendment, an individual Japanese citizen just forced leadership change.
- madeofpalk 4y ago
  You think in America citizens should shoot Bush or Obama to "hold their own government in check"? You think that's a valid exercise of the second amendment?
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    Are you asking me or the Founding Fathers? I think it's a terrible and apocryphal idea and America would be well served by repealing the Second Amendment. The perpetual loss of civilian life to violent urges consummated by easy access to deadly firearms is in no way worth the possibility that Americans may need to rise up and shoot a bunch of their own politicians someday. But among the reasons that it was put into place is definitely the idea that you must arm the citizenry because a government that disarms its citizenry is a tyranny. The US had, in living memory of the people who wrote the Constitution, just fought a war against their legitimate government and won it because, among other things, colonial life had made the average American familiar with a gun. They saw that as a useful facet of their culture to preserve.
    - madeofpalk 4y ago
      I don't think "you can just shoot anyone for whatever deluded reason you want" is a valid rationalisation of the second amendment, or a reason to have a gun.
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        Not for any reason, but make no mistake: the militia was argued to be a check on tyrannical abuse. "If there should be an army to be made use of as the engine of despotism, what need of the militia? If there should be no army, whither would the militia, irritated by being called upon to undertake a distant and hopeless expedition, for the purpose of riveting the chains of slavery upon a part of their countrymen, direct their course, but to the seat of the tyrants, who had meditated so foolish as well as so wicked a project, to crush them in their imagined intrenchments of power, and to make them an example of the just vengeance of an abused and incensed people?" ~Alexander Hamilton (as Publius) I should perhaps clarify: the main purpose of the militia at the time of the Constitution's creation was to serve as a check on Federal power by providing the States with control of their own instrument of violence. But after, well, the states used that power to rebel against what they saw as a tyranny (the imminent end of slavery and therefore loss of what they perceived as their legitimate property in the form of other human beings) and the government crushed that rebellion, the Fourteenth Amendment pretty much extinguished that purpose for the Second Amendment. So the only aspect of this justification for its existence that remains is the individual conscience of the American citizen on whether their government is tyranny that should be opposed with violence. Every other check-on-tyranny purpose was nullified by the Fourteenth Amendment after the 1860s. ... And if that means 2A sounds stupid to keep around in 2022, we are in agreement and I would support repealing it.

JoeAltmaier 4y ago

Japan's death rate seems higher than the US by quite a bit (14 vs 10 per 1000). I believe this is because they have far greater violent death than the US, but don't call most killings 'murder'. E.g. a person that owes money is found hanged in a Japanese park, it's suicide even when it's obvious they cannot have hanged themselves. Culture plays a large role in statistics. It's hard to interpret from outside. But surely the choice of weapon is less meaningful than the outcomes. The term 'gun violence' is designed to cherry-pick numbers out of a whole landscape of social problems and argue toward a point.

njwi332 4y ago
Japans death rate is ~11, not 14. But regardless, no, there is nowhere near as much violent death here in Japan. It is one of the safest countries in the world. The high death rate is due to the aging population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan
- JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/death-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/death-rate