Isn't it Time to Amend the Amendment?

anarchist100

No. The media loves mass shootings because they're a big story that gets attention, but the fact is that when you consider that population size of your country it's hardly a big deal that these things happen. And you are most certainly not at any risk yourself unless you choose to be.

Guns provide a lot more Freedom, the means of self defense in one's own hands provides an enormous amount of Freedom regarding where you can live and the situations you enter. This is a Freedom that applies to everyone. It is worth it for a few hundred or thousand people to die so that we can all enjoy this Liberty.

John_C_87

@Swolliw

Amend an Amendment or add Section to the state of the Union an Amendment creates? This is an important question as if United States Constitutional protocol is not followed in the first place when writing law, it doesn't matter it is all a diversion to shift blame away from the main cause of legal grievance. 

just_sayin

Argument Topic: The defensive use of guns

@Swolliw
Sure you can amend the constitution. From the White House:

An amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, or, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose. The amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the State legislatures, or three-fourths of conventions called in each State for ratification.

But it is difficult to do.  Since, according to the liberal Brookings Institute there are over 300 Federal and state gun laws already on the books, and over half of gun crimes are illegal ones, how would an amendment stop gun crimes?  If the 300 plus laws already in place haven't, why should we believe words on paper would change that now?  If most gun crimes are committed with illegal guns, how would an amendment stop the use of illegal guns?    

Often omitted in discussions about guns is the fact that defensive uses of guns for the protection of life and property exceed gun crimes each year.  See Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, and even Obama's 2013 report on gun violence said:

“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million

A 2008 paper in the journal Crime & Delinquency examined 782 rapes recorded by the National Crime Victimization Survey during 1992 to 2004. It found that resisting attempted rape with “an object, knife, or gun reduced the odds” of being raped by 91%. A 2008 paper in the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice about rape risk reduction strategies states, “The empirical data clearly have shown that forceful resistance strategies do increase avoidance of rape without increasing the risk of injury by strangers and known perpetrators.”  

Should women not be allowed to defend themselves against rapists?  Should a single mother who lives with her young children in a bad neighborhood, not be allowed to arm herself to protect herself and her children from harm?  

jack

Swolliw said:

Isn't it Time to Amend the Amendment?

Hello S:

Time?  TIME?  TIME??  You ask..  .  It's wayyyy passed time..  There's more guns in this country than there are people. Banning them now may make you feel good, but it'll do NOTHING to curb mass shooting - NOTHING!

excon

John_C_87

@just_sayin

The United States Constitution does not hold a vote restriction on proposed additions of Section to constitutional amendments at hand...The sheer number of written laws on the matter of firearm lethal force is enough to allow drafts to be proposed and placed as a search for the more perfect connection to established justice by the Executive office. Before a Congress…

John_C_87

A selected community possibly by lottery would not need to allow all New Sections to fall for vote before congress but allow a set number of drafts to be read by congress as a whole.

OakTownA

"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."
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-2/

This is the text for the second amendment. It basically states that a country needs a militia in order to protect itself. What was a militia during the 1780's? It was the United State's armed forces. There was no standing army; instead there were local militias that were expected to protect their areas of the country and to join larger forces when needed, like during war. The government did not provide weapons; they were expected to bring their own, thus the Second Amendment was written in a way to make sure there would always be armed men to defend the country. Today the USA has a standing army, so there is no longer a need for a "well regulated Militia," as framed by the Founding Fathers. The Second Amendment or Constitution should be amended to reflect this change. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_(United_States)

John_C_87

@OakTownA
What was a militia during the 1780's? 
The French and Spanish Armada....Why?

jack

Argument Topic: Isn't it Time to Amend the Amendment?

Hello again:

As previously mentioned, amending the amendment is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do, and that's by design. So, that ain't gonna happen.  However moderating the amendment is as easy as winning the House, which the Dems should do in 2024, and 61 votes in the Senate.  Clearly, it's been moderated 100's of times, and we can do it again.  All we gotta do, is DO it..  

The gun market shouldn't be wide open like it is today.  Oh, there are certain restrictions, but if you wanna GET a gun today, it's EASY.   It should be HARD, not easy.  You should be an ADULT, well TRAINED, and LICENSED, and TRAINED again and LICENSED again, maybe every two years..  We don't let people drive a car without a license.

Duh..

excon

Bogan

 

 There are two factors working together that are causing mass shooting type behaviour in the USA.    The first one is that the USA alone among the western democracies, has very lenient firearms laws, and if you combine that with their cultural admiration for revenge type behaviour glorified in their entertainment industry culture, then it is hardly surprising that massacres and a homicide rate 5 times higher than Australia's will occur.   The funny thing is that Americans are surprised.

 "Culture" is the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society.    It can both reflect social behaviour and drive social behaviour.      Children are not born with moral values.    The values they internalise as the correct way to behave in their community, are first inculcated into them by their parents, and parents are the primary and most important socializing tool of every society.        As they grow older, they continue to be socialised by their teachers, peers, the law, the expectations of their culture, and the role models provided by their culture who are supposed to be examples of what correct, and even admirable behaviour is.

 As they turn into adolescents, the role which their parents play in socialising them decreases, and they are much more prone to looking for outside factors to guide their behaviour.

 So, if your culture constantly reinforces the concept that Real Men are violent men, who don't get mad, they get even, with a gun, a knife, or a box of matches, then that culture is sowing the seeds of infamy on fertile ground.     For many decades, Hollywood has wholeheartedly endorsed revenge type behaviour in many movies it makes.     Violent revenge type movies are hardly chick flicks.     They are actually engineered to appeal to immature young males who may harbour deep resentments about a lot of things they are powerless to control, the very same demographic most at risk of emulating this glorified behaviour.

 To have a culture which constantly tells immature young males that revenge is a quality that Real Men know is right, and to have on screen role model heroes who are admired and loved by the public keep ramming that message home, is to end up with a population of males who "know" that the most culturally appropriate way to respond to threats to their self esteem, is to pick up a gun and kill those who are persecuting him.

 Mass murderer role model killers are also widely admired in US culture.     In the movie "Death Wish 3", Charles Bronson plays the role of a man bent on revenge towards street muggers and hooligans.   He guns down 35 people in the movie, exactly the same number killed by Martin Bryant at Port Arthur in Tasmania.    There were reports of audiences bursting into applause every time Bronson gunned down a mugger, the sort of victim universally despised by the public.   Yet Bronson is seen as a hero, while Bryant is seen as a lunatic.

 People who defend Hollywood's right to teach our children to be violent and to regard revenge as a noble virtue that only Real Men can appreciate, claim that movies are just entertainment and the antics of on screen heroes which are applauded are entertaining, because the hero is doing something that is normally not considered correct behaviour.    We may applaud Bronson killing muggers because it is something we would like to do ourselves, but we know we can't do it because it is against the law.

 But what looks like just entertainment to a mature person looks like an instruction as to how to be respected and admired to an immature person.     Especially if that person is socially isolated, lacking friends, especially a female friend who may moderate their behaviour.    Constantly reinforcing the culture that people who shoot down their enemies by the dozen is socially acceptable, and may even win you the heart of a beautiful woman who will love and admire you for being just like Bronson, Eastwood, or Arnie, is not the sort of message any society should put into the heads of their young and stu-pid.

 What to do?

 The yanks can change their constitution and enact strict gun controls.   But if they do, they will discover like other countries who tried it before them, it is not going to help much.     Because the primary reason for massacre type behaviour is culture, not firearm availability.   A culture of admiring mass killers who revenge themselves upon the people they see as their enemies, COMBINED WITH the availability of high magazine capacity, self loading weapons, is the reason for the ongoing problem with massacres.  You can ban guns, but unless you do something about your culture, it is not going to help much.    For much of US history, firearm laws were non existent and this sort of behaviour never happened.     If your society is going off the rails and people are behaving in ways they never did before, then smart people look at what has changed over the decades, not keep blaming a factor which was always present, which had no effect on behaviour previously. 

OakTownA

@John_C_87
"The French and Spanish Armada....Why?"
Why what? I was talking about the American Colonies, and later the United States.

John_C_87

OakTownA said:

@John_C_87
"The French and Spanish Armada....Why?"
Why what? I was talking about the American Colonies, and later the United States.

What was a militia during the 1780's?
Why ask the qeusiton what a militia was in 1780's...

OakTownA

@John_C_87
"Why ask the qeusiton what a militia was in 1780's..."
Because we are discussing the Second Amendment, which refers to militias in its text.

Bogan

The reason for the Second Amendment was not to provide a localised standing army to support a professional army in time of war, it was to arm the people themselves so that they could stand united against whatever armed force a tyrant could use to keep his own people under his control.    Every tyrant in history when seizing absolute power always did two things first.   Grab control of the media and disarm the populace.  The main problem in massacres is a US entertainment media which glorifies revenge behaviour.  Then when somebody uses a firearm to engage in the personal revenge behaviour so glorified by role model heroes in the entertainment media, some people want to blame the tool the offender uses to act out his already socially approved behaviour..     

John_C_87

Because we are discussing the Second Amendment, which refers to militias in its text.
Yes, however there are two differenent connections made as a states of the union in self-evident truth to the United States American Consitution addresssing as right to the issue of fire-arms and thier ownership.

A Short History of the Militia in the United States – The Angry Staff Officer

1. The First Amendment Right as state of the union holding a state militia as a means to ensure the process of filing legal grievance. Was a resulat of a attack in 1792 in the Ohio Vally, While self-evidnet truth pionts out that a legal argumnet of the use and asignment of lethal force upon servens men and now women holds a legal wrieght of competence. 

2. The United States Constitutional Right to hold, keep and bear a common defense towards a gedneral legal welfare of armed servicemen and the use of lethal force.

      The First Amendment Right as state of the union holding a state militia to ensure the process of filing legal grievance. Was a result of an attack in 1792 in the Ohio Valley, self-evident truth points out that a legal argument exists of the assignment of lethal force upon men and now women who hold a legal weight of competence as it is connected to response time and civil litigation. In plain words it is not fair to sue a person who sells a gun simply because a person refuses to buy a gun for themselves. Instead insisting they and others are to be protected by a gun operated by another without legal risk of being sued held equally.

Again, it is malpractice of law to set limits on law and lawsuits to address only one side of a united state of laws grievances. We the people have United States Constitutional right to file civil litigation against people who place an unequal burden of lethal force on one inside of the communities. 

John_C_87

The argument is over a new Section in Amendment to a Consitutional right as it is to be failing the people, I question this grievance as yet Untied States Consitutional right is not even legally allowed to take place not ony in many states of America but in many nations outside the United States of law held by America. Simply said there are no laws which govern, address, an oversee the action of returning of fire directly. Such a Law might read hough does not need to read. Returen Fire, is only granted upon the discovery and understandns to limitations of fire-arm cross fire, while open fire may or may not be directly realted to the actions of an agressee before the public. These are alws even police officers can follow as a common defence twards a gedneral welfare in United States Consitutional right.

The self-evident truth now is there are only mass shootings if no one shoots back or the shooter runs out of bullets and guns.