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"Due process and requirements for warrants are important because it keeps the government honest, and suspending them would cause more government abuse than it w

"Due process and requirements for warrants are important because it keeps the government honest, and suspending them would cause more government abuse than it would stop crime." That's fairly vague. I'm not sure what clear distinction you are trying to draw between the 2nd and 4th Amendments. "But what makes a right to gun ownership important? What does it protect against, and what makes it better than not having that right?" It can be seen as a right to self defense. First, consider that your life, or at least your quality of life, depends on the police doing their jobs. To destroy you, the police merely need to make it known that you won't be protected. There are many examples of this for many different reasons. It could be some political reason why the police chief doesn't want to enforce order in a minority neighborhood. Or, it could be more personal. Even if the police do make a reasonable effort to protect you, it might not be enough to deter a stalker or someone that you're afraid of. Police generally react after the fact to punish a perpetrator rather than actually protect you, anyway. You seem to be turning the burden of proof around, to ask why I think we should be allowed a freedom. The social contract says otherwise: we must agree together that a freedom is so dangerous that it should be outlawed. Honestly, I think you should carefully evaluate whether you think that we are really better off with severe restrictions on guns[1], or whether you are just reacting emotionally to the thought that someone on your block owns a killing machine (which is what guns are, really). But there are 200M+ guns in the US (numbers aren't precise, but it's about 2 guns per 3 people -- men, women, and children), and we aren't dropping like flies, so you have to look past the emotion. Most gun deaths in the US are suicide, by the way[2] -- and some people argue that is a human right. [1] The research is mixed on the subject, and I imagine it depends on a lot of factors. To really have an opinion that the right should be removed, you would need to put in a lot of serious effort to research the numbers and convince yourself that people actually would be saved. I have the advantage that I win by default -- I don't need to prove that gun ownership increases safety to hold my opinion, I just need to convince myself that it doesn't increase danger enough to justify restricting it (which is pretty easy considering the low number of gun homicides overall). [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Stat...

mikeash 14y ago
> That's fairly vague. I'm not sure what clear distinction you are trying to draw between the 2nd and 4th Amendments. The distinction is that the 4th amendment limits government power to intrude on our lives by forcing them to clear a certain burden of proof before seizing our property and information. Without that freedom, they could basically take what they pleased when they pleased. There is no equivalent situation for the 2nd amendment. Without gun rights, we lose nothing that isn't related to guns. Government's power remains the same with our without the 2nd amendment, other than the ability to regulate guns. I believe I have carefully evaluated whether my reaction is emotional. Frankly, I'm a bit offended that you just assume I'm probably taking an emotional position here, and don't think that will make for a productive discussion. I think I'm turning the burden of proof around simply because the reasons against gun rights seem fairly obvious to me. Guns are tools built to kill, with no other use. They have very little in the way of useful legitimate uses. (Sport etc. are not useful, although neither are they bad.) Self defense is the one exception, but it's not clear that guns are particularly useful for self defense, let alone that their utility for self defense outweighs the potential benefits of stricter controls on them. If you disagree, that's fine. I welcome the discussion. But please refrain from any insinuation that you're the only one thinking rationally here.
- jeffdavis 14y ago
  "The distinction is that the 4th amendment limits government power to intrude on our lives by forcing them to clear a certain burden of proof before seizing our property and information." I think you're interpreting the 4th Amendment kind of like the 5th Amendment prohibition of depriving someone of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The part of the 4th Amendment that's interesting to this discussion is the prohibition on unreasonable searches. You haven't really offered any reason that should exist (information can't be seized, by the way, because the original owner still has it). "I believe I have carefully evaluated whether my reaction is emotional. Frankly, I'm a bit offended..." I got you confused with the person to whom I originally replied, who said: "I certainly would be glad to know that none are in my (crime-free) neighborhood." That's clearly an emotional reaction, but I apologize for attributing it to you. The only rationale I can imagine for restricting gun rights is to preserve some proportion of lives (or maybe an absolute quantity). I would still like to see your argument framed that way. It's unreasonable for me to ask for a specific number, but it seems like you should have some order-of-magnitude percentage in mind -- e.g. A% of the population were violently killed last year; restricting gun rights will reduce that to B% in Y years, thereby saving (A-B)% of the population per year. The problem that this line of argument faces, of course, is that the percentage of people killed by guns is already quite low. And more than half of those are suicides, which probably wouldn't be prevented by gun restrictions. Some other fraction would still be killed by other means. And, unless Y is a very large number, then you still may have many gun deaths simply because there are still so many guns around. When you actually work out the numbers will all of these things accounted for in a realistic way, I suspect that (A-B)% will be a small number (or negative), and Y will be a large number. In other words, a small (or negative) benefit after a lot of waiting (and possibly bad consequences during that transition). But it would still be perfectly rational for you to say that you believe it will save a single life, and that's enough of a benefit for you. You'd probably want to take some risk into account though, in case you're wrong and the life isn't actually saved. "I think I'm turning the burden of proof around simply because the reasons against gun rights seem fairly obvious to me. Guns are tools built to kill, with no other use. They have very little in the way of useful legitimate uses." You assume that the guns must be used to be useful, which is false. In fact, the presence of guns may reduce the frequency with which they are used[1]. Even police in a lot of areas have probably never fired their weapons at another human. [1] I have no numbers to back this up, but again, my argument does not depend on numbers.

mikeash 14y ago

> That's fairly vague. I'm not sure what clear distinction you are trying to draw between the 2nd and 4th Amendments. The distinction is that the 4th amendment limits government power to intrude on our lives by forcing them to clear a certain burden of proof before seizing our property and information. Without that freedom, they could basically take what they pleased when they pleased. There is no equivalent situation for the 2nd amendment. Without gun rights, we lose nothing that isn't related to guns. Government's power remains the same with our without the 2nd amendment, other than the ability to regulate guns. I believe I have carefully evaluated whether my reaction is emotional. Frankly, I'm a bit offended that you just assume I'm probably taking an emotional position here, and don't think that will make for a productive discussion. I think I'm turning the burden of proof around simply because the reasons against gun rights seem fairly obvious to me. Guns are tools built to kill, with no other use. They have very little in the way of useful legitimate uses. (Sport etc. are not useful, although neither are they bad.) Self defense is the one exception, but it's not clear that guns are particularly useful for self defense, let alone that their utility for self defense outweighs the potential benefits of stricter controls on them. If you disagree, that's fine. I welcome the discussion. But please refrain from any insinuation that you're the only one thinking rationally here.

jeffdavis 14y ago
"The distinction is that the 4th amendment limits government power to intrude on our lives by forcing them to clear a certain burden of proof before seizing our property and information." I think you're interpreting the 4th Amendment kind of like the 5th Amendment prohibition of depriving someone of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The part of the 4th Amendment that's interesting to this discussion is the prohibition on unreasonable searches. You haven't really offered any reason that should exist (information can't be seized, by the way, because the original owner still has it). "I believe I have carefully evaluated whether my reaction is emotional. Frankly, I'm a bit offended..." I got you confused with the person to whom I originally replied, who said: "I certainly would be glad to know that none are in my (crime-free) neighborhood." That's clearly an emotional reaction, but I apologize for attributing it to you. The only rationale I can imagine for restricting gun rights is to preserve some proportion of lives (or maybe an absolute quantity). I would still like to see your argument framed that way. It's unreasonable for me to ask for a specific number, but it seems like you should have some order-of-magnitude percentage in mind -- e.g. A% of the population were violently killed last year; restricting gun rights will reduce that to B% in Y years, thereby saving (A-B)% of the population per year. The problem that this line of argument faces, of course, is that the percentage of people killed by guns is already quite low. And more than half of those are suicides, which probably wouldn't be prevented by gun restrictions. Some other fraction would still be killed by other means. And, unless Y is a very large number, then you still may have many gun deaths simply because there are still so many guns around. When you actually work out the numbers will all of these things accounted for in a realistic way, I suspect that (A-B)% will be a small number (or negative), and Y will be a large number. In other words, a small (or negative) benefit after a lot of waiting (and possibly bad consequences during that transition). But it would still be perfectly rational for you to say that you believe it will save a single life, and that's enough of a benefit for you. You'd probably want to take some risk into account though, in case you're wrong and the life isn't actually saved. "I think I'm turning the burden of proof around simply because the reasons against gun rights seem fairly obvious to me. Guns are tools built to kill, with no other use. They have very little in the way of useful legitimate uses." You assume that the guns must be used to be useful, which is false. In fact, the presence of guns may reduce the frequency with which they are used[1]. Even police in a lot of areas have probably never fired their weapons at another human. [1] I have no numbers to back this up, but again, my argument does not depend on numbers.