Gun Rights, Essay Due

[klowenstein]

hi,

i am having to due a 3 page essay for my college English class on why most gun laws should be abolished, and need help with information on gun rights( besides the 2nd amendment) and real cases where guns saved lives.

my teacher is also a liberal, so i need to nail him on this one.

thanks

[Sturnovik]

[InGrAM]

Remember you are going to need to cite real sources, not just peoples regurgitated facts and opinions from a pro-gun forum, lol.

Good luck, people will be along to help you shortly.

[Sturnovik]

Remember you are going to need to cite real sources, not just peoples regurgitated facts and opinions from a pro-gun forum, lol.

Good luck, people will be along to help you shortly.

Agreed. NRA's stuff is cited but there is also that very reputable site that shows the meter on when firearms are used in self defense, I cant remember the name, its very reputable.

[Dr Rockso]

NRA.com

That should have most of what you need honestly, its a treasure chest.



Oh and if hes a college know it all professor....give him a quote from someone he'd respect like this....
“A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity”

and remind him its what Sigmund Freud said .

Like about 2/3 of commonly used sig quotes, the person to whom that is attributed never said it.

[Sturnovik]

Like about 2/3 of commonly used sig quotes, the person to whom that is attributed never said it.

Lol I stand corrected, in any case, NRA is cited material and very reputable, but I wouldn't say get everything from there. I had some books on this way back but have no clue where they are now.

[zfields]

Which gun laws, and how are you forming your argument.


I hate to be the odd one on this, but most the laws on the books (federally) do not hurt our ability to defend ourselves. CA and some state laws are a different story.

[choprzrul]

Just PM Gene for some links to Gura's briefs.

I would stay away from usage statistics and stay very narrowly defined within the natural right aspect. Use the Supreme Court's own words:

Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.”

Gun control laws should be abolished simply because they are strictly unconstitutional and they violate fundamental individual civil rights. Pretty simple.

Heller

McDonald

Ezell Analysis

The constitution contains a mechanism for changing the amendments within itself. If enough people in this country feel that the law needs changed, the constitution should be amended. Passing laws to circumvent the law contained within the constitution is in fact unconstitutional, thus making gun control laws unconstitutional violations of the citizen's civil rights. As such, said laws must be abolished to protect the civil rights of the nation's citizens.

or something like that....

.

[gatdammit]

Why don't you post this thread in one of the subforums? 2nd Amendment/Politics/Law. Plus, reading a lot of other threads there is a good way to get informed. And for some examples of unintended/intended consequences of gun control... some notable references are England, Nazi German, and China, but there are a great many others I'm sure.

[JeremyS]

http://www.nraila.org/armedcitizen/

The Armed Citizen column has thousands of examples of people defending themselves and their families. Click the above link, and then go down to the search area. You don't have to put any keywords in, but you can choose CA to see all of the incidents they have for our great state here.

Also tons and tons and tons of other info on the NRA-ILA site there, including direct responses to statistics that come from the gun ban side of things like the Brady Campaign.


My personal opinion is that most "gun control" laws only affect law-abiding citizens. No criminal who is willing to use a firearm in the comission of a crime -- commit a felony -- is going to give a crap about any of the laws like magazine capacity, concealed carry, banned features that somehow make a gun an "assault weapon," gun free zones, illegal ammunition, etc etc etc. Anybody who thinks that misdemeanor laws or restrictions will keep a person intent on commiting felonies from doing so is absolutely crazy. All you end up with is law-abiding citizens who are less able to defend themselves from criminals and who have to pay additional money and jump through hoops to try and stay compliant with layers of complicated laws. It also costs the State money and time/resources that it could be using to actually enforce the perfectly sufficient laws that are already on the books and to combat real criminal activity.

For instance, I am a law-abiding citizen and I intend to stay that way. I have 10-round or less magazines, I keep my guns locked, I do not carry a gun concealed upon my person even though I live in a bad neighborhood and would like to, I have a magazine lock device on my AR-15 (when it's in CA, which it isn't at the moment), and the list goes on and on. If I woke up one day and decided, you know, F' it all, I'm going to become a bank robber or I've gone totally crazy and I decide that I just want to shoot people like some lunatics obviously do, how long do you think those things are going to last? Am I going to care about minor violations? Heck no. I'm [very easily] buying hi cap mags, I'm removing the magazine lock, I'm concealing all these weapons on me, and doing anything else I can to give me an advantage in comitting felonies. I read the police reports in my neighborhood every week and they recover a ton of guns off of thugs on the street. They're all concealed, they're never registered to the owner (stolen), they're often not compliant with law (people sawing barrels down, hi cap mags, etc). It's INSANE to think felons care about these things or would be affected by them in ANY way.


"The Founders' Second Amendment" is a good book to read. There are a lot of people on the forum here with quotes in their signatures from some of our founding fathers talking about how personal firearms ownership is the cornerstone of democracy.

The very first paragraph of the CA State Constitution reads, "All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy." ......criminals will always find a way to be armed. Look at England, Australia, Japan -- countries with outright bans (major felony!) on civilian ownership of handguns. They still have plenty of handgun violence and crime. If we have the inalienable right to defend our lives, we have the right to also be armed. Sure, the government tries its best to offer protection to the citizenry from the criminals, but, as they say, "when seconds count, the cops are only minutes away."

I believe that crime, such as robberies and muggings, does drop in areas where concealed carry is allowed and in areas where people tend to take advantage of this. Society is safer when the criminals do not know who is armed. Polls of inmates arrested for commiting robberies, muggings, car jackings, home break-ins, etc, have overwhelmingly shown that their #1 fear was that their intended victims were armed. That's before the fear of police, going to jail, and everything else BY FAR. That's why "Gun Free Zones" are often referred to as "defenseless victim zones." Wisconsin will be a great case study, since the state just went from decades of tight gun control where people had no means of legally carrying a weapon outside of their own homes, to a system where people can concealed carry. We'll see what happens to crime stats. I'd bet dollars to donuts that violent crime rates drop a little. Keep in mind that gun sales and gun ownership is at an all time high, but violent crime is near an all time low, despite "the economy." There is no connection between private firearms ownership and crime rates, nor has anyone proven any difference between crime rates in areas where you can CCW and in areas where you can't. The sudden and specific change in WI will be important for this statistic.

Keep criminals from getting guns. Heavily prosecute people who commit offenses. Stop trying to regulate the minutia.








Of course... if I'm going to be cynical, I would realize that all of these "gun control" and "safety" laws have absolutely NOTHING to do with reducing or preventing crime. Their ONLY motive is to make firearms ownership and use expensive, difficult, and in any other way prohibitive precisely for the law-abiding citizen. It weakens us and strengthens the government. The only people with guns would be the very wealthy, politicians, and those with political connections. "Guns should be illegal for everybody. Except for me." Rosie O'Donnel is a perfect example (and by far not the only one!!!!!) of somebody who is extremely anti-gun to the point where she has screamed about it on camera and is emotionally, physically angry to her core that private gun ownership is legal in this country, yet travels around with at least one armed body guard. What applies to us, does not apply to them.

[choprzrul]

Gun control isn't about guns, it's about control.

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[Shadowtengu]

I dunno, I just picked up a pistol grip. Man it's great, it allows me to fire from the hip without reloading. it contains an infinite amount of ammo that defies space and time. Apparently "Magpul" created a wormhole inside the pistol grip that transfers ammo from some mystical location and into the upper receiver. Quite fascinating.

Also I aquired a flash hider or flash suppressor and its remarkable. Its that thing on the shoulder that goes up. Incredibly useful.

I believe california laws make sense, a pistol grip houses way too much ammunition and the flash hider really stresses my shoulder and upper back.

Also high capacity magazines are sooooo retro. All the new kids use ten rounders because they are in and totally hip. I'd rather carry 9 ten round mags than three 30 rd mags. i mean it makes total sense, save space and weight.

Hopefully you hear my sarcasm. Liberal Californians are increasing ignorant and stupid. Be careful flaunting your critical thinking and intelligence kid, it'll get ya in trouble.

My earlier statements are a parody of various anti gun activists and previous DOJ boss lady....who might have been autistic...Im pretty sure she was.

[caldude]

A lot of good information can be found at Gun Facts (http://gunfacts.info/). They debunk a lot of the statistics and myths that the anti's use in their arguments.

[billybob_jcv]

IMHO, the issue is the folly of attempting to control people's *actions* by controlling people's *things* - and that will simply never work and never has. It is against the law to unjustly harm another person or their property. The tools used to commit that action are irrelevant - and the evil-doer's desire to commit that action doesn't change based on the availability of firearms. The anti-guns will claim that the easy availability of firearms increases violence - I disagree. Unfortunately, the stories the anti-guns are selling are much easier for the politicians to swallow and resell to the unwashed masses than is the truth - that bad people commit crimes and society needs to deal with the bad people, not with their things...

[NeenachGuy]

hi,

i am having to do a 3 page essay for my college English class on why most gun laws should be abolished, and need help with information on gun rights( besides the 2nd amendment) and real cases where guns saved lives.

my teacher is also a liberal, so i need to nail him on this one.

thanks

FIFY.

Lots of good advice ITT. You may also want to focus on the purpose of Law, and then contemplate whether gun control laws fulfill that purpose or not, or whether that purpose is more efficiently achieved by an armed citizenry. If the purpose of Law is to protect life, property, and liberty, then gun control laws are at odds with the purpose of Law, because they limit a person's ability to protect himself (or herself).

Additionally, most gun control laws focus on placing limitations on the quantity or types of firearms a person may possess or purchase. How does one person's having a firearm interfere with another person's right to life, liberty, or property/pursuit of happiness? The fact is, it doesn't. It is only when a gun is used to commit crimes that these rights are put into jeopardy. But, we already have laws against murder, assault, robbery, etc. Gun control laws seek to prevent crimes by limiting access to the tools that are sometimes used to perform such crimes. But, in doing so, these laws assume that the primary purpose for having a firearm (or certain types of firearms) is to commit a crime or to violate the rights of another person. While this may be a valid assumption to make for something like narcotic drugs, for only criminal activity can result from the possession, it is not a valid assumption with respect to firearms, which can be used as easily to prevent crime as to commit one.

Meh... not sure how strong this logic is, but it made sense to me when i was writing it; LOL.