The US Supreme Court is going to make a ruling on the last 12 words of the Second Amendment and the judgment was a fore gone conclusion even before the court decided the hear the case.
Apparently the crux of the issue is the individual's right to own firearms and that is in relationship to the Washington D.C. gun ban which is the toughest in the country. Since the ban was put into place, gun related crime in the district has been ebbing. A derogative commenter to one of my articles unwittingly provided the numbers which mirror the Brady Center's numbers. Bravo~!
There are those in America, and their parent organization the NRA, who insist we would be better off with more guns free floating in America. The 98% drop in unspecified, and undefined, crime as promised by John Lott has not happened even though there are more guns in circulation and one wonders what the implications are.
Rather than continuing flaming debates, why don’t we let the numbers speak for themselves? We pull out all the stops and we have a no holds barred evidence based scientific experiment.
First, we pick a number from a hat - let's say 36 months for the length of the experiment.
We give the NRA everything they are asking for (see: www.nraleaders.com), and more importantly we indemnifying the shooters, just like the NRA wants. It is very important too that we also give the NRA their much desired shoot first provision - the right to engage lethal force if one perceives their life to be in some none specified, nor defined, form of hazard. If people know there is no penalty clause for their behavior they will more readily do what people do or desire to do.
To have a valid study we have to insure that no one's last 12 words Second Amendment rights are being sequestered (i.e. no back ground checks, no gun free zones, no prohibitive postings, permissible straw purchases, no purchase limits/quotas, open ended CCWs', etc.). Entitle college students and high school students to carry a weapon if they so choose.
The data selection criteria is was a gun used Yes or No and that covers gun crimes, gun murders, gun fights, gun related deaths, deadly gun encounters, bullet wounds, drive by shootings, serial gun murders, accidental shootings, suicides, and other gun related trauma. We would not confine the data by location, crime involvement, nor ethic group as we are trying to determine if the United States as a whole, as a collective (which is at the crux of the last 12 words version of the Second Amendment), is safer or less safe with more guns. We are not measuring knife, baseball bats, or any other item that might be used as a weapon - WE ARE TESTING FOR GUN INCIDENTS ONLY.
We control and restrict input from only hospitals, morgues, and police and at the end of the three years, we retain the services of several overseas data consultants to correlate the data. Let the cold hard reality of numbers settle the score once and for all, and in language we understand pure and simple. The NRA's John Lott can do any calculations he wants, but not in this study because our study would be based in actual reality and facts.
After three years, we will truly know if we are safer with guns and the law of the old west (if there ever was one that is). If we are safer, then the issue is settled. If we are not safer then we are well on our way to becoming victims of our own success. After three years, there will be no more delusions.
We should also unravel the 'guns prevent tyranny' mystery in our examination - we have to include the violations to our civil rights and the abandonment of the Bill of Rights. We must include domestic spying, intercept of our mail, wire taps, etc. which are now becoming the rule rather than the exception. Taken on a line item by line item, have guns in America stopped the erosion of our rights or not. If guns have not stopped the steam roll over our rights, then we should drop the statement that guns prevent tyranny because the statement is not valid.
However, we do have several models to look at when we want to clarify the assumption that guns prevent tyranny: The Communist revolution in Russia, China, North Korea, Viet Nam and Cuba. Pol Pot is one example and there is always Somalia and Rwanda. Last, but not least, is the Armenian genocide.
Do guns help democracy? Hitler’s rise was through the democratic vote and an armed SA. Read again: Hitler’s rise to power was through the democratic process by the vote of the German people…… even though his speeches and writings indicated that he was insane. On a side note….I wonder what would have happened if he could have gotten his hands on the same medications the person in our Oval Office is taking.
I am not questioning a person's right to defend themselves as that is a given - whether actively or passively (fight or flight). And there are so many self defense alternatives including not going out and looking for trouble.
We have created this gun violence mess. The fear mongering by the patriarch of the gun culture, the NRA, who speaks for the gun culture, and their claims the government is trying to take people’s guns away from them led to an increase in sales (possibly called hoarding or collecting), and then the call goes out “be afraid, very afraid” and more guns get sold.
The criminal sees his/her life in potential peril and they go out and buy like crazy for they too have a last 12 words second amendment right to arm themselves – how do criminals get guns, private sales, straw purchases, and the gun show loophole (which the NRA does not want to see closed).
Some people might take issue with me, but in the last 12 words second amendment it is clearly stated ‘shall not be infringed’ – with no exclusions (i.e. criminal intent or convictions or mental health).
Congress has never threatened to take people’s gun away; in fact, the NRA is the special child of US congress, the Oval Office, and the Supreme Court. Any savvy politician knows that an endorsement from the NRA means they get to keep their job. Not to mention the ‘donations’ the NRA makes to favored politicians, which really looks like vote buying to me.
The Brady Center has put up an honorable fight, and after our experiment, if the numbers give a clear indication of an escalation in gun related incidents, then the Brady Center should be given carte blanch – and the NRA admits defeat. Very simple solution to a complex problem.
One a side note, another derogative commenter to one of my articles sarcastically suggested that I hit the history books because he wants to believe if the Jews had guns in Nazi Germany, the holocaust would not have happened.
I'm still waiting for a logical explanation for that because the model shown by the Battle of Little Big Horn reminds us that a minority, even if armed with more sophisticated weapons, cannot defeat a superior military force. Another example is the battle of Waterloo, a superior military force overcoming a minority military force. The third example I would like to point out is Wounded Knee of the late 19th century where an armed minority, deprived of their last 12 words second amendment rights, were exterminated at the hands of a larger armed force (in this case, it was the civilian militia, with no legal authority, that caused the massacre of native Americans). Ah, sweet genocidal tyranny.
Having said that, just how would the Jews have prevented the holocaust if they were armed? Sorry to burst you imagination gone wild comment – you’d get along better in life if you learned the meaning of the word reality.
