While the North Carolina House of Representatives has finally killed the bill to allow the state to establish a state religion, a new study found that 34 percent of adults would favor establishing Christianity as the official state religion. While 47 percent opposed the establishment of state religion, it was less than a majority.
Another 11 percent thought that the Constitution allowed for the establishment of an official religion. Thus, they are entirely unaware of the workings of the first amendment or the prior rulings of the Supreme Court.
Republicans were the most likely to favor the establishment of a state religion with 55 percent favoring it in their own state and 46 percent favoring a national constitutional amendment.
While the poll reportedly included 1000 people (a sizable group), I still want to believe that it is skewed and that most people recognize the danger of religious-based government in a world torn apart of sectarian violence. Even if these people lack knowledge of the Constitution, they are given a daily lesson on the dangers of state-sponsored religion in their newspapers and news broadcasts. For those advocating such a change, they leave us with the chilling view that, for some, the problem with abusive theocratic regimes like Iran is simply the disagreement with the choice of the religion.
Source: HuffPost
Tony.,
“Anyway, if we disagree that is fine, I just don’t see the mechanism.”
I think that is best as we have little common ground here including the basic definition of a gun, car, or carving knife. If we can’t agree on the basics, there’s little hope we could reach a compromise that would be of benefit to anyone.
Perhaps the gridlock in Washington is a truer reflection of our society as a whole than we are willing to admit. 😉
Bron: Many things are designed to kill “living beings,” such as antibiotics, chemotherapy drugs, insecticides, and poisons for rodents and plants. Slaughterhouses are only made for the purpose of killing living beings.
What does “being designed to kill” have to do with anything, if the killing is legal? What does that matter to a discussion about gun control?
The context is important, because we have wandered from it. The question is about whether you are more liable for having a gun stolen than having something else stolen; e.g. do you bear more responsibility or liability if your gun is stolen and used to kill somebody, than you would if your car was stolen and used to kill somebody.
When I said, “Why should a gun invite any more scrutiny than [stolen cars or stolen kitchen knives that can be used to kill somebody],” gbk responded: Cars aren’t designed to kill, though they admittedly do. Kitchen knives serve purpose in everyday use. Guns are designed and manufactured for an express purpose. Your argument should reflect this fact to have any validity.
So from the beginning the context of this discussion was about the hypothetical killing of people, and specifically the criminal killing of people (accidentally or intentionally).
GBK is wrong; the argument does not need to be informed by the intent or design of the gun. The argument is about whether an individual should be liable because their stolen property caused the criminal death of another person.
The fact that the gun is “designed to kill” is immaterial, and singling guns out for liability is incoherent policy, because many, many things I own are dangerous enough to accidentally or intentionally kill somebody. Including my kitchen knives, and my car.
Which brings me to the broader point: The intended purpose is immaterial as long as the purpose is legal; what I think triggers the need for licensing and product regulation is whether a product presents an unusually destructive danger to the lives and property of users and others. As cars do, guns do, flying machines do, and kitchen knives, combat knives, or many insecticides and herbicides do not.
tony c:
I think gbk is right, guns are only made for the purpose of killing living beings. There are other uses but their primary use is to kill.
Tony C.,
“To claim they are manufactured for any other reason is YOU making an axiomatic claim that is unsupported.”
Guns are designed to kill, something.
If the use is legal and appropiate, so be it.
You seem to take issue with my use of the word “kill” which you seem to think I reserve strictly for innocent humans. I don’t play the euphamism game, Tony. Call it self-defence, sport, etc., doesen’t matter to me. It does not change the fact that a gun’s primary design goal is to kill – again something – which is why they are used for self- defence, or hunting, etc.
The fact that many are not used (according to you) is not what I’m arguing against.
Tony C.,
“guns are not designed to commit crimes; they are not marketed as good for committing crimes,”
Again you change your argument, now it is, “not designed to commit crimes.”
It’s not my memory that’s failing, Tony.
gbk: Your major premise has no axiomatic quality to it,
On the contrary, it is inherently axiomatic; guns are not designed to commit crimes; they are not marketed as good for committing crimes, the vast majority of firearms are never used in committing a crime. I provided all that evidence earlier; I will not repeat it every time I use it. I expect you to have a memory.
The killing of a human is not necessarily a crime, because killing in self defense is legal. It is legal to respond to a lethal threat with lethal force. Guns are marketed to civilians as being for the purpose of protection (or the purpose of legal hunting of game).
To claim they are manufactured for any other reason is YOU making an axiomatic claim that is unsupported. It is not supported by the marketing campaigns of the gun manufacturers, and it is not supported by the evidence of how over 99.99% of guns in the USA are actually used.
It doesn’t make a difference if guns are manufactured to kill, so are other products: To add another, consider the injectable drugs veterinarians use to put down animals.
The product is NOT expressly manufactured to break the law and commit murder. I suspect that would make them illegal, wouldn’t it?
The purpose of guns is to provide legal self-defense or legal sport, that is how 99.996% of them are used, that is how they are marketed, that is how the vast majority of gun owners perceive them, if not for sport then as a defense against criminals or assailants. The microscopic percentage of them used to commit crimes each year are the exception, not the rule.
Tony C.,
“I added combat knives to this mix to answer your claims that only the gun is manufactured expressly to kill; it is not.”
My statement was in response to the two examples you provided earlier, cars and kitchen knives . If you want to add other items to the list to buttress your original analogy go ahead, as it helps in exposing its weakness.
“Handguns are designed for defense, if they are designed to kill they are designed to kill potentially violent criminals. So using them to murder an innocent is also subverting the purpose of manufacture, just like using a car to murder an innocent, or a carving knife to murder an innocent.”
This might be the most ineffective syllogism for a deductive argument I’ve ever read. Your major premise has no axiomatic quality to it, actually it reads more like the conclusion you want to arrive at. Your minor premise is conditional and contains a sub-conclusion you want to arrive at, and these two premises are meant to logically “prove” that if an innocent is killed the gun’s express manufacturing purpose has been subverted.
Doesn’t work for me.
“The point is that you are focused on an ineffective approach with a misguided goal.”
You assume I have a goal on this issue — I don’t. I haven’t said a thing about registration or any other aspect of this subject. You are making the mistake of putting words in my mouth and ascribing a motivation to my participation in this thread to solely suit your argument.
I just think your argument, not about registration or constitutional issues, but about a firearm’s purpose is weak, as your expanding analogy list and above quoted syllogism shows.
Correction: Obviously I should have said “buy kitchen knives for cutting food.”
Ha!
gbk: I don’t have to stick to the same analogy; I can add to it if I want. Combat knives are a different analogy, perhaps more pertinent, that you cannot answer. I stick by my analogy to kitchen knives; if 99.99% of people buy handguns for self defense, and 99.99% of people buy kitchen knives for self defense, than intentionally buying and using either product to murder somebody is using the product to commit a crime, for which it was not intended to be used.
I added combat knives to this mix to answer your claims that only the gun is manufactured expressly to kill; it is not. So is a combat knife. Shall those also be banned or registered or highly controlled?
It wouldn’t make any difference, would it, since a kitchen knife would suffice for murder if somebody wanted to use it.
The point is that you are focused on an ineffective approach with a misguided goal. I would like to reduce gun murders and accidental killings with legislation also, but registration isn’t going to stop accidents or hyper-emotionally charged impulse killings. Those deaths and injuries are not going to be prevented, in the moment, by the memory that the police (or somebody) knows the gun being used belongs to you, or can trace the gun.
Registration would end up being a waste of time and money for virtually no gain on the problem. It won’t prevent rationally planned murders, nobody that rationally plans a murder is going to be using a weapon the police can trace back to them. (At least nobody with an IQ over 80.)
Likewise, whatever regulations we put on the manufacturing of guns (or combat knives) can be intentionally defeated; people can make their own guns and knives with no safeties built-in.
If we are talking about, as Blouise put it, “law abiding citizens,” then the laws we can pass to prevent nearly all accidental and a significant share of impulse shootings would be the prohibition of selling guns without certain safety interlocks. Some of which I have proposed here. We can pass laws to make defeating these safety interlocks a crime, and heighten minimum sentencing standards for anybody that commits a murder with a weapon that has these safety interlocks bypassed. We can demand that even “accidental” killings, if the safety interlocks were defeated, shall be charged as murders, not manslaughter or some lesser charge.
We can do that without passing a Constitutional Amendment (which is far too unlikely) and I think (although I am not a lawyer) that we can do that without running afoul of the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms; under the banner of product safety and ensuring the firearm, when fired, is highly likely to have been fired intentionally.
There you go, I am arguing from both the gun’s design purpose, and the practicality of what can be addressed: The express purpose of the product is to intentionally kill. The modifications we should make are to the design of the product, to ensure intentionality is both present and persistent.
Tony C.
“Handguns are designed for defense, if they are designed to kill they are designed to kill potentially violent criminals. So using them to murder an innocent is also subverting the purpose of manufacture, just like using a car to murder an innocent, or a carving knife to murder an innocent.”
Whether the victim is a crminal, innocent, or an animal, the gun is being used for its express purpose.
Tony C,.
“gbk: You say, when I talk about cars, Cars aren’t designed to kill. Then you say, Guns are designed and manufactured for an express purpose. Then you say, I didn’t say that [a gun is manufactured as a killing machine],”
That’s right Tony. I didn’t say guns are killing machines. Their express purpose is to kill, but killing machine is something I didn’t say.
Your comparisons to cars, kitchen knives, and whatever else you might throw on the table ring hollow because cars, kitchen knives, etc., have other purposes as their primary design goal. And stick to your original analogies — you said “carving knife,” now your saying “combat knives.”
You can use the euphemistic phrase, “guns are for defense,” yet this most likely does not change the outcome if said gun is used.
There are many valid reasons to own a firearm, but the fact of the matter is that a guns primary purpose is to kill something.
As you say, we’re not children — take a gun’s design purpose and argue from that, because the analogies have little use.
Elaine: Perhaps we should all put together a lawsuit suing the lawmakers for passing the law in the first place; then all the lawmakers would be threatened with arrest and removal over their vote!
I think it is ludicrous to attempt to criminalize a vote to repeal a law; although politicians are generally sworn to uphold the Constitution, the Constitution does not specify any laws that have to be present, otherwise they would be IN the Constitution.
gbk: You say, when I talk about cars, Cars aren’t designed to kill. Then you say, Guns are designed and manufactured for an express purpose. Then you say, I didn’t say that [a gun is manufactured as a killing machine], Tony.
We are adults here, gbk, not children. Adults understand sentences, they do not just parrot them. You are clearly conveying the same idea, saying cars are not the same as guns because guns are designed to kill and cars are not. I reject your protest, I used Blouise’s phrasing instead of yours but you were both clearly pursuing the same line of argument.
As for knives, combat knives are designed for the express purpose of killing people in hand to hand combat; soldiers and seals are trained for it.
As for hand guns, they are not sold as killing machines, they are marketed exclusively (to my knowledge) as self defense machines; nobody is marketing the pitch that if you are interested in murdering people, product X does the best job of it. Even the term “stopping power” refers to an attack or assault, the survivalists are not hunting people but defending against imaginary marauders and thieves, the vast majority of handgun owners want to defend themselves, their family, or their property.
Handguns are designed for defense, if they are designed to kill they are designed to kill potentially violent criminals. So using them to murder an innocent is also subverting the purpose of manufacture, just like using a car to murder an innocent, or a carving knife to murder an innocent.
If you compare the number of guns owned (270 million USA) to the number of murders in a year (9000 or so) only about one in 30,000 guns was used in a murder, and only 1 in 8000 or so was even involved in a reported gun shot wound.
I think that is evidence that the vast majority of guns sold are not bought to kill anybody, but to protect somebody or something (or for legal sport). Just as the vast majority of cars are sold for transportation but have been used for intentional murder, and also produce many accidental deaths.
I think that like cars, guns should be manufactured with mechanisms that prevent as many accidental deaths as possible.
From the Live Free or Die state:
New Hampshire Stand Your Ground Law Opponents Threatened With Arrest, Removal From Office
The Huffington Post
By John Celock
Posted: 04/12/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/12/new-hampshire-stand-your-ground_n_3071774.html
Excerpt;
Tea party Republicans in New Hampshire want to press criminal charges against state legislators who voted to repeal the state’s Stand Your Ground law and kick them out of office.
Two Republican members of the state House of Representatives and a former state GOP chairman have filed a petition to remove 189 members of the state House and file criminal charges against them for their March 27 vote to repeal the controversial gun law. The group claims that the vote violates the lawmakers’ oath of office, unconstitutionally challenges the Second Amendment and fails to adhere to state constitutional protections on life.
The Stand Your Ground law, which allows deadly force when someone believes their life is in danger, was enacted in 2011, during a period of tea party control of the New Hampshire state Legislature. The repeal bill passed the Democratic-controlled House and is pending in the Republican-controlled Senate. Gov. Maggie Hassan (D) has said she will sign it.
“I want you all to know that Thursday afternoon State Rep. John Hikel and I filed formal criminal complaints against the sponsor of HB135 and all 189 Reps who voted in favor of this bill,” former state Republican Party chairman Jack Kimball posted on Facebook Friday. He said complaints also were filed with county sheriffs by state Rep. J.R. Hoell (R-Dunbarton) and resident Gus Breton, and would be filed on Saturday with the U.S. Marshal’s office. “All of the State Reps (Democrat & Republican) that voted to repeal the ‘Stand Your Ground’ law have violated their oath of office and should be removed,” Kimball added.
Rep. Jeff Duncan Compares Gun Background Checks To Rwandan Genocide
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/11/jeff-duncan_n_3064623.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
(Rafflaw ((*_*)) )
Blouise: The truth is I don’t care much about registration either way; because by my nature I focus only on things I think might work, and after consideration I do not believe registration will do anything at all to solve the problem. I guess I am narrow-minded in that sense; I need a plausible story for how it helps.
It would not have prevented the recent bout of toddlers killing adults; an automatic safety timer could have, a trigger too stiff for a four-year old to pull might have done that, a requirement of two independent mechanical actions to fire the gun (like cocking the gun before pulling the trigger, or requiring a momentary safety-release before pulling the trigger) might have been beyond the ken of a four-year old. I think some of the problem is that a loaded gun is a “critical system,” it is too fast and easy to go from nothing to full lethality, and that leads to both accidents and impulse killings that would not occur with a less critical system (one that took more time and / or more physical or more complex effort).
Registration doesn’t keep somebody from shooting in anger, or shooting accidentally, or just losing their gun at a campsite or forgetting to put the safety on. Registration doesn’t create responsibility or accountability; we would require new laws to make people guilty of some crime if their gun were used in a homicide: And I think it is unfair to punish somebody because a crime (like burglary, or undetected theft) was committed against them.
Knowing which law-abiding citizens bought guns doesn’t tell us anything useful. A criminal isn’t going to register his black-market stolen gun, and knowing who it was stolen from doesn’t solve the crime the gun was used to commit. I don’t understand how this “accountability” would work; are we going to make it a crime to have one’s gun stolen?
Anyway, if we disagree that is fine, I just don’t see the mechanism.
Tony C.
“It is overblown rhetoric to say a gun is manufactured as a killing machine”
I didn’t say that, Tony. I was just pointing out that equating guns to cars and kitchen knives because cars and knives can also kill is disingenuous.
leejcaroll,
you are right about the NRA providing Duncan’s smoking material!
Tony C.,
I’m leaving for the weekend but will check back next week to see if there is anything else you wish to discuss on this matter.
Thanks for the interaction.
Tony C.,
“Since when is this about me? This is about people, not me ”
You are right … it was an unnecessary remark that served solely to put you on the defensive. I apologize, sincerely. You do realize though that I was responding to your questions as to how I, personally, not people in general, would feel if my car were used to kill somebody or my personal carving knives. ( … would it be your fault if your car was stolen and used to kill somebody? How about your carving knife?) Would you consider it too smarta$$ish on my part to suggest that it is okay for you to make it personal about me but out of line for me to make it personal about you?
However, guns as killing machines is not hyperbolic. Fire a bullet into a body and you have assumed the risk that the bullet will strike an artery, vital organ or organs and kill. I suppose one could buy a gun to beat a steak with the grip for tenderizing or as an investment to be displayed as part of a collection of period pieces but on the whole, guns are designed, manufactured, and sold as killing machines. But then, again, only if one accessorizes with bullets as the Chris Rock video points out.
“In general, people do not volunteer to be responsible or accountable unless there is something in it for them. So far, the “benefits” you describe are not in the least attractive to the people you want to register: More investigation, more accountability, more scrutiny by law enforcement with a greater presumption of guilt instead of innocence. To them, that is not a benefit, that is discrimination and persecution because they want to defend themselves and their property.”
Exactly. People don’t have to register to vote and millions don’t. Many people would not register their cars if they didn’t have to. Many would not register their children for school if they didn’t have to. The list of what people wouldn’t register if they didn’t have to goes on and on. I want to add guns to that list.