The Right Way to Keep Bare Gubs

[Fusion_power]

1. How many of the shootings were gang related?
2. How many were drug related?
3. How many were random, somebody wanted to shoot and picked a target?

Keep in mind that Chicago had the toughest gun laws in the U.S. for the last 50 years, yet they were consistently the worst for violent crime in the U.S. Criminals don't obey laws, particularly gun laws.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

1. How many of the shootings were gang related?
2. How many were drug related?
3. How many were random, somebody wanted to shoot and picked a target?

Keep in mind that Chicago had the toughest gun laws in the U.S. for the last 50 years, yet they were consistently the worst for violent crime in the U.S. Criminals don't obey laws, particularly gun laws.

Yeah. But we're close to Indiana, etc. Not to make light of the horrible situation, but local gun laws are irrelevant if the jurisdiction is near another with looser laws.

The law can't even keep major fireworks out of the metro Chicago area, though such are totally banned, except for permitted professional public displays. On July 4, a friend of ours, with a 4th floor deck, has a fireworks watching party, and the sky gets lit up in the entire field of view: >180 degrees. LOTS of people are setting off big mortar shells.

Illinois police watch just over the border in Indiana at fireworks stores, and bust fools who load up and head right back. But bring a van from Arkansas, and you'd slide right past with a full load.

Point is, again, Chicago's gun laws don't apply outside City Limits.

EDIT: On review, I see that this is the same as your point about criminals and gun laws. My point is that stricter laws should prevail nation-wide, so that smuggling isn't so easily local in nature.

[xilman]

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38365729

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38535699

No additional comment from me just yet.

[Batalov]

Originally Posted by xilman

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38365729

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38535699

No additional comment from me just yet.

Yesterday morning the car in front of me was covered with bumper stickers that I glanced over 'cause there's not much else to do while stopped at the light.
In addition to a couple of ballerina type stickers (a ballerina mom, apparently), there were stickers to the tune of
"Gun control - buying one gun when I wanted to buy three",
"From my cold dead hands!",
"I'm willing to die for my 2nd amendment right"

Some people ...!
The car drove where I was driving... to the hospital!

[pinhodecarlos]

http://neurosciencenews.com/gun-viol...ychology-5875/

[only_human]

Texas law to allow open carry of swords, knives

AUSTIN, Texas (KHOU) -- A new open carry law in Texas will allow citizens to carry swords in public.

House Bill 1935 was signed into law which will allow people to legally carry long knives, daggers and spears in public.

The purpose of the law, according to its author Representative John Frullo, is to simplify laws pertaining to knives and to limit their restrictions.

Currently, blades, such as Bowie knives, swords, machetes and spears, that are over 5.5 inches are illegal. When the law changes in September, citizens will be able to carry them in public.

via Google search:

Are knives arms?

Knives are clearly among the “arms” which are protected by the Second Amendment. Under the Supreme Court's standard in District of Columbia v. Heller, knives are Second Amendment “arms” because they are “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” including self-defense.

Knives and the Second Amendment - Wall Street Journal
Wall Street Journal › online › documents

[xilman]

More on the right to bare arms.

[only_human]

Originally Posted by xilman

More on the right to bare arms.

And what are on the end of arms? hands, of course

10 Hair-Raising Facts About Edward Scissorhands

STAN WINSTON BUILT EDWARD’S HANDS.
Edward’s iconic hands were designed by makeup and special effects icon Stan Winston, who was best known for his work on the Terminator movies, Jurassic Park, and Aliens, among many other projects. It was Winston who decided to use real scissors for Edward’s fingers. When Winston first showed his sketches to Burton, the director responded that, “I didn’t think he’d actually have scissors for fingers. I thought they’d just be long sharp pieces of metal that weren’t finished—but this is much better!” Winston would go on to work with Burton again on Batman Returns and Big Fish.

[kladner]

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/10/0...tortions-kill/
The explanations of the historical intentions of those who created the Second Amendment should be required reading for any who think that anyone should be able to own a bazooka or 50 caliber machine gun. (Yes, this is hyperbole.) Heck! Why shouldn't I have a howitzer to defend my home and family? That guy two blocks over is a right bastard!

Many politicians, especially those on the Right, pretend they are strictly adhering to the U.S. Constitution when they often are just making the founding document mean whatever they want – but perhaps nowhere is that as dangerous as with their make-believe Second Amendment.

In the wake of Sunday’s mass shooting in Las Vegas – where one individual firing from a high-rise hotel murdered 59 people and wounded more than 500 at a country music festival – we are told that the reason the United States can’t do anything to stop this sort of carnage is the Second Amendment’s “right to bear arms.”
“Gun rights” advocates insist that pretty much any gun control violates the design of the Constitution’s Framers and thus can’t be enacted no matter how many innocent people die.

Some on the Right, as well as some on the Left, even claim that the Founders, as revolutionaries themselves, wanted an armed population so the people could rebel against the Republic, which the U.S. Constitution created. But the Constitution’s Framers in 1787 and the authors of the Bill of Rights in the First Congress in 1789 had no such intent.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kladner

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/10/0...tortions-kill/
The explanations of the historical intentions of those who created the Second Amendment should be required reading for any who think that anyone should be able to own a bazooka or 50 caliber machine gun. (Yes, this is hyperbole.) Heck! Why shouldn't I have a howitzer to defend my home and family? That guy two blocks over is a right bastard!

I think the right to keep and bear arms should apply to nuclear weapons! I've had it with those namby-pambies who say you can't fight City Hall! City Hall will do as I say, or else!

In Colonial times, men eligible for militia duty were in many cases required to own guns, because they were required to supply their own arms and ammunition for militia service.

Of course, women and slaves were not eligible for militia duty. Besides a minimum age requirement, there was usually a requirement that someone in the militia be of "good character."

In the days when the Republic was founded, the most powerful weapons in existence were cannons. And private ownership of cannons was allowed. In particular, merchant ships were allowed to be armed with cannons, to protect themselves from pirates. Also, the Constitution gives Congress the authority to grant "letters of marque and reprisal" -- that is, licensing privateers. Private contractors, if you will, with their government's permission to commit piracy on the high seas against enemy ships. Of course, they would have had cannons on their ships.

The Constitutional authority to grant "letters of marque and reprisal" has never been repealed by amendment. I suspect it has been nullified by treaties made, but am unable to cite any sources.

Back to the militia. The Founders distrusted standing armies. That is one reason for the clause in Article I, Section 8 giving Congress the authority (my emphasis)

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

The founders had envisioned the militia as a means to meet military emergencies, as well as a check on a standing army running roughshod over the civilian populace, which is something they had had some experience with. In conjunction with the then-current practice of requiring militia members to provide their own armaments, the text of the Second Amendment,

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

clearly assumes a connection between the right to keep and bear arms, and serving in a militia.

However, certainly by the time of the War with Mexico, the need for a national professional army was generally recognized. State militias had pretty much become a joke.

So the context that gave rise to the Second Amendment is no longer present. The NRA seems to take the position that it never existed.

The right of local authorities to regulate the storage and use of weapons seems not to have been questioned until relatively recent times. Perhaps the most famous local gun control ordinance ever was Ordinance 9, enacted in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, on April 19, 1881:

"To Provide against Carrying of Deadly Weapons"

Section 1. It is hereby declared unlawful to carry in the hand or upon the person or otherwise any deadly weapon within the limits of said city of Tombstone, without first obtaining a permit in writing.

Section 2: This prohibition does not extend to persons immediately leaving or entering the city, who, with good faith, and within reasonable time are proceeding to deposit, or take from the place of deposit such deadly weapon.

Section 3: All fire-arms of every description, and bowie knives and dirks, are included within the prohibition of this ordinance."

It was the alleged violation of this ordinance by the Clantons that led to the gun fight at the OK Corral.

[only_human]

As the saying goes, "I'm not afraid of the dark, I'm afraid of what's in it."

Bearing in mind that sanity is a continuum and not an asurable certainty, how much lethality should a typical citizen have access to before statistics become statistics? There are less then 200 nations but there is still conflict somewhere, somehow. I don't see why individual people are necessarily more restrained than nations. How safe of a thing is it to arm millions of people with extreme lethality?