The Virginia legislature passed a flurry of bills stripping away limitations on gun possession in the state. After intense lobbying from the National Rifle Association and over $1 million in NRA campaign contributions, the lawmakers passed 20 gun bills expanding possession and ownership rights in the state.
The bills include lifting the ban on buying more than one gun a month, allowing guns to be taken into bars and emergency shelters and allowing more people to get concealed handgun permits.
The timing of the passage of the laws is interesting with the arguments in the McDonald case only a couple weeks away. That case, to be argued during the first week of March, will determine whether the right of gun ownership, recognized in 2008, will be applied to the states as a fundamental right. That would mean that some restrictive laws could be found unconstitutional, including outright bans on handguns or concealed weapons.
For the story, click here.
MacK:
Since this topic is about U.S. gun laws, I was limiting my statement to the U.S. Sorry if that simple fact escaped you.
“Lastly when are you big brother loving people going to stop using this tired old argument.”
LOL – well, if you have nothing to hide, why is it so difficult to abide by common sense laws, and wait a day or two? Do you really need to have that gun RIGHT NOW, or is Bambi and Thumper that much of a threat to you? Seems to me that it’s the same people who think illegal wiretapping by big brother is okay if one has ‘nothing to hide’, but stamp their feet and hold their breath when it comes to their guns.
“As a responsible government why do you want to know my secrets, in violation of my god given, constitutionally guaranteed rights to privacy.”
First – god doesn’t give you your freedom, the Constitution does. Second – As a responsible citizen, allowing the government to take a little precaution in ensuring they’re not arming the local looney toon should really be a no-brainer.
I’m guessing you’d feel the same way if a potential employer performed background checks (which many do) prior to employment, right sport? You’d tell your potential boss where to stick it, right?
Gyges-
If I implied a one to one relationship between defensive uses and lives saved, it was not intentional. Obviously we can’t know how many lives were/are saved. But when even the most conservative estimates of defensive uses number are in six figures, even if the percentage of lives saved is low, we are still talking about potentially thousands. It wouldn’t take a very high rate to at least match the number of total deaths.
I agree with you, the studies are far from perfect, and I shy away from the more extreme claims of some researchers. And my response was also aimed at the common attitude that, “Your gun is worthless in a self defense situation, you’ll never get to it in time, normal people can’t shoot well, will crap their pants, faint, or die from fear,” etc. We have a poster in this very thread who seems to think that Virginia Tech would have been worse than it was if a student or two had had a gun. Yes, thank goodness that all of those students and teachers could only hide, run, or hope for bad aim.
For any who are interested in a very good article on Nazi gun laws here it is. This is actually more in line with what I learned than what most here have speculated in regards to gun control by the Nazis.
http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/law_review_articles/nazism.nra.pdf
bERLINER:
“And that is the real lesson with regards to “gun control and the nazis”: private gun ownership does not empower individual citizens, but movements which can afford to field para-military organizations.”
Actually the real lesson is Hegelian and Marxist philosophies led to a totalitarian dictatorship which expected fealty to the state. Individuals were no longer free agents but subserviant to Hitler and the Fatherland. I think Nazi Germany is a pretty good example of what happens when individuals are in service to the state.
You dont even understand the lessons of your own history.
“Organized armed resistance was the most forceful form of Jewish opposition to Nazi policies in German-occupied Europe. Jewish civilians offered armed resistance in over 100 ghettos in occupied Poland and the Soviet Union. In April-May 1943, Jews in the Warsaw ghetto rose in armed revolt after rumors that the Germans would deport the remaining ghetto inhabitants to the Treblinka killing center. As German SS and police units entered the ghetto, members of the Jewish Fighting Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa; ZOB) and other Jewish groups attacked German tanks with Molotov cocktails, hand grenades, and a handful of small arms. Although the Germans, shocked by the ferocity of resistance, were able to end the major fighting within a few days, it took the vastly superior German forces nearly a month before they were able to completely pacify the ghetto and deport virtually all of the remaining inhabitants. For months after the end of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, individual Jewish resisters continued to hide in the ruins of the ghetto, which SS and police units patrolled to prevent attacks on German personnel. ”
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005213
Mission Accomplished.
Headline:
Gun Restrictions Tightened: Women and Minorities Hardest Hit
Berliner,
It should be pointed out that the 1938 law made it illegal for Jews to own guns.
Jason,
In all honesty, I missed your first comment. It’s just the Lott study tends to show up in most on-line gun control discussions, I was attempting to demonstrate just how predictable and thoughtless the rhetoric tends to be in these discussions.
Your original point however is a little off. In order to compare lives saved and lives taken you’d need to figure out how many of those defensive uses would have resulted in death without the presence of the gun as opposed to just injury or property damage. Otherwise you’re comparing all crimes prevented to a subset of all misuses of guns, which is going to skew your numbers.
Alternately you could compare all crimes involving legally obtained guns (arguably you may need to include stolen guns which would not have been able to be stolen if the people they were stolen from couldn’t have obtained them legally, but you could also make the case that many of these guns would have found their way to the black market through other means, like smuggling) versus all crimes prevented by legally obtained guns.
The problem is getting a reliable set of data for those figures. Personally I’d think looking at the crime statistics in a several cities with differences in gun ownership but otherwise similar demographics would be the way to go.
A well regulated Population, being necessary to the security of a free State; the right of the Women to keep and bear children shall not be infringed.
That is the usual disconnect between statements of the nazis and actions of the nazis.
The nazis did not change the weapons law form April 12, 1928 until April 12, 1938, when they enacted a new weapons law which promoted private gun ownership to “help German arms manufacturers to overcome the blow of the Versailles dictate” and to “strengthen the defense spirit of the German people” (quotes from the preamble).
That the “nazis disarmed Germans” is an American myth which is not supported by facts.
In fact the early nazis were big advocates of private gun ownership: it would have been impossible for the nazis to seize power without their well armed and organized private army — the SA.
And that is the real lesson with regards to “gun control and the nazis”: private gun ownership does not empower individual citizens, but movements which can afford to field para-military organizations.
Gyges-
“the report about defensive gun use you’re getting your numbers from is seriously flawed,”
If I was relying on one report, you’d have a point. If I was only citing Lott’s work, you’d have a point. I’m not. I’m talking about the lowest figures cited.
TomD-Arch-
“To that, I say – imagine being a police officer responding to the situation: Somewhere in this big classroom building is one or more college aged male(s) who is/are trying to kill students and faculty. Also loose in the building are armed students and faculty, engaging in a gun battle with the shooter(s) – or possibly engaging in a gun battle with each other because they don’t know who’s a shooter, and who’s a vigilante. OK! Run into the building and have fun!”
And yet I can cite hundreds of cases where real people used guns defensively and the nightmare you describe didn’t happen. And are you honestly saying that the *possibility* of your scenario occurring is worse than what actually happened? Are you freaking kidding?
And someone shooting at someone else shooting at them is not a vigilante.
Rich-
“Guns in bars. Makes a lot of sense. The first shooting in a bar will be a call from NRA for everyone in bars to be armed.”
Again, this is nothing new. Again, it hasn’t been the ridiculous horror story that the panicky among us have proposed.
Guns in bars. Makes a lot of sense. The first shooting in a bar will be a call from NRA for everyone in bars to be armed.
TomD Arch:
I believe they were incendiary bombs not flares in those balloons. Also here is an interesting piece that probably is the real reason:
“In 1960, Robert Menard was a commander aboard the USS Constellation when he was part of a meeting between United States Navy personnel and their counterparts in the Japanese Defense Forces.
Fifteen years had passed since VJ Day, most of those at the meeting were WWII veterans, and men who had fought each other to the death at sea were now comrades in battle who could confide in each other.
Someone at the table asked a Japanese admiral why, with the Pacific Fleet devastated at Pearl Harbor and the mainland U.S. forces in what Japan had to know was a pathetic state of unreadiness, Japan had not simply invaded the West Coast.
Commander Menard would never forget the crafty look on the Japanese commander’s face as he frankly answered the question.
‘You are right,’ he told the Americans. ‘We did indeed know much about your preparedness. We knew that probably every second home in your country contained firearms. We knew that your country actually had state championships for private citizens shooting military rifles. We were not fools to set foot in such quicksand.'”
A supply chain would not have been hard to set up from Alaska with ships ferrying men and material to Seattle. Dutch Harbor to Tokyo is 3520 miles California to Hawaii is 2400 miles. Not much difference after the first 2000 miles. How do you think we got men and material to the various islands in our Pacific campaign? The Japanese were able to invade Alaska.
An armed citizenry is a deterrent to crime and external threats. History has proven that on numerous occasions.
There have been only 3 times—twice during my LEO status and once since retirement—that I thought I was in potential danger from others with firearms.
I have known and worked with LEOs that are so corrupt that they should not be carrying firearms; however, as we often read herein—sometimes daily—it is almost impossible to prosecute unethical, corrupt LEOs and I have experienced those impossibilities first hand. I am a strong proponent of 2nd Amendment rights to bear firearms, while I am just as adamant for the death penalty for those who would Illegally use and abuse firearms to harm other humans.
I could add more to this topic, although I would simply remind rcambell and others to imagine what life would be like if only law-breaking thugs with LEO authority—like Sheriff Joe Arpaio—had firearms while the citizenry was disallowed any real means of protecting themselves in times of crisis.
During two of the above instances I referenced, I was unarmed and only through the grace of my LEO training and experience was I able to gain control of each situation.
A million dollars can still buy a lot…politically speaking.
NRA members were so happy with the passage of these bills that they just wrote new lyrics for the Beatles song “Can’t Buy Me Love.”
Here are the new words to that old tune:
Can buy us votes, votes!
Can buy us votes!
***
We’ll buy some votes in the legislature. It’ll make us feel alright.
We’ll get bills passed by passing cash. It’ll make us feel alright.
We care a lot…a lot about money—‘cause money can buy us votes.
***
We’ll give lots of campaign contributions…the way we always do.
We’ll hand them out at the Capitol…to you and you and you.
We care a lot…a lot about money—‘cause money can buy your votes.
***
Can buy your votes, everybody knows it’s so.
Can buy your votes—all it takes is dough.
***
Say you’ll vote the way we want—that you are on our side.
Tell us that you’ll do our bidding and we’ll be satisfied.
We care a lot…a lot about money —‘cause money can buy us votes.
Gyges,
But more importantly you KNOW the difference; as opposed to the gun ownership extremists (who intentionally blind themselves to the distinction) and the hysterical anti-gun faction that has insufficient knowledge or any interest in differentiating between any types of guns–i.e. ‘they’re all EVIL.’
TomD.Arch: “Hey – at least we’re breaking down stereotypes. There goes my assumption that folks who promote wide spread gun possession in the US typically know a bit about the military! Poof!”
Was Byron promoting widespread gun possession?
TomD.Arch: “We can argue history all we want. The simple fact is that these changes to Virginia law will result in more deaths and maimings in DC and NYC (not to mention VA itself).”
While I don’t agree with all the law changes, e.g. allowing guns to be taken into bars and emergency shelters, I fail to see how said changes would necessitate more deaths and maimings in DC & NYC.
Do I hear it said that the Virginia Legislature is empowered to promulgate laws in DC and NYC?
Bob,
That’s a bad habit I’m afraid I fall into sometimes as well.
Which is especially bad considering my tendency to want to use words in an exact fashion.
Byron: “I actually have seen this quote in a couple of locations and it sounds like something a Japanese soldier would have said. The “behind every blade of grass” is what got me, if it had been “behind every tree” I would not have believed it. Maybe too many Toshiro Mifune movies.”
If you’re that fixated on the topic, I did run across this:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Isoroku_Yamamoto
Gyges: “Exactly my point. Which is why the knee jerk reactions by most in this thread is especially ridiculous (as you’ve been having great fun pointing out).”
Gyges,
Would you believe I posted a ‘correction’ for this entry regarding the use of the word ‘guns’ instead of ‘handguns?’ Apparently, in the ‘all or nothing’ hysteria of making a point for or against, both sides lack the mental discipline to distinguish between (concealable) handguns v. rifles & shotguns.