I like this, and it’s probably what I would do: when some guy strolls into a restaurant flaunting his great big weapon, get up and leave. It grants them a lot of power to ruin your evening, but I think the risk of getting shot would ruin it even more.
It puts more of the onus on business owners to keep the heavily armed pests out, but they already do police their place of business — keeping dangerous buffoons away is just one more reasonable requirement.
The philosopher in this video spends way too much time arguing against a silly objection: the gun fondlers are claiming that this is oppressive, and that we’d object if people walked out if a black family or gay person showed up. It’s an argument that doesn’t hold up: the presence of black or gay people doesn’t put me at physical risk, and further, I’m not objecting to the presence of the gun fondler, but to the presence of their gun — leave it at home, and there’s no problem sharing a space with them.
He doesn’t consider the serious flaw in the strategy: it only works if a significant number of people follow it. If a majority favor strutting about with guns, then those who leave become the minority that the businesses will not cater to — a minority that costs them money because they leave without paying for services.
This might be a serious problem in Texas.
leaving without paying the bill with your back to a mob of vigilantes may not be the best choice
http://carteblanchfield.com/2014/07/05/how-not-to-respond-to-open-carry-activists/
Unfortunately, the suggested strategy means that the only person violating the law is you. Unless one feels strongly enough about the issue to be charged with theft, this isn’t a great approach, and as Chris notes, in some contexts it can even put you at far greater risk.
Explicitly boycott establishments that allow open carry, and make sure they know that’s why you’re not giving them your custom. But don’t steal from them.
I agree that getting up and leaving, after paying the bill(!), is a good strategy. One should make it known to management why they are leaving on the way out, along with the fact that they will not be returning.
He obviously doesn’t realize that the waiter/waitress is the one who is responsible for the bill if a patron “walks-out”.
It’s called stealing.
#1, Chris Capoccia: So the argument against this strategy is that the gun nuts might kill you?
That simply hardens my opinion that we must use civil disobedience to oppose these assholes. Seriously. That’s a fucking insane defense.
re @3:
compromise/accomodationism proposal follows:
1) gun walks in
2) call for your check
3) pay the exact amount (dropping cash on table)
a) leave zero tip
4) walk out (saying “I’m scared of guns”, sobbing into hankerchif, not glaring at it’s bearer)
5)done, no laws broken, no theft, no confrontation —>no problem.
@5
I’d just bring some cash, throw it on the table then leave. Screw waiting for the check.
In an emergency situation there is no need to settle your bills before fleeing. Would you calmly ask for a check if the restaurant is on fire? Of course not. I regard a situation in which a nut with a killing machine walks in the same way.
Of course, I have the privilege of commenting from a saner part of the world in which every situation in which someone who walks in carrying a weapon can be considered an emergency situation.
I haven’t done this yet, but i’m sure I’ll be confronted with it down here in gun-luvin Louisiana. Gun walks in, I walk out, getting my server’s attention as I leave, and wait outside by the door. When the waitperson comes out, or the manager, pay the bill, tip(don’t punish the server), and explain why I feel unsafe and won’t return until the policy changes. It isn’t the revenue lost that will change minds, I think, but the commotion you cause by making your feelings known. You will be remembered.
slithey tove@5,
Why would you not leave a tip in that scenario? You’d just be hurting the workers, who aren’t responsible for the policy.
slithey
“a) leave zero tip”
That only hurts the waiter, who has little control over the situation and is almost certainly under-paid, reliant on tips, and (I believe) taxed with the expectation that tips are part of their income.
The answer is simple. When someone walks into a restaurant demonstrating their right to open carry, call the local African American gun club, and see if any of their members are willing to demonstrate their right to open carry in that building. Then we’ll see how committed these people are to allowing EVERYONE the right to open carry.
I’m also not comfortable with the idea of not paying the bill at a restaurant if they have already started cooking your food. Perhaps tell the restaurant, “I won’t stay in any business where someone is open carrying; guns are too dangerous” and that you will call them for the total, then send them the money. While I wouldn’t want to make too much of a scene, I think it would be beneficial for some other customers to hear the reason. The situation is simpler when you’re at a store because there is no direct cost that you are responsible for.
Re the “discrimination” angle, you’re right (PZ) that Weinstein misses the obvious answer. A further complication to the answer he provides (institutionalized discrimination) is that, if this approach catches on and businesses start refusing entry to open carry idiots, then they could argue institutionalized discrimination.
zenlike @ 7 On further reflection I see PZ’s and your point. There is, of course, very little way of knowing if a person walking into a public space with a cross-slung assault rifle is just an “open-carry” idiot or a homicidal maniac ready to spray the place down with bullets. I guess “get up and leave and call back with your credit card number from a safe distance” might be a reasonable compromise.
Hmm… Flee, without paying the check… Gosh, yeah, that won’t “trigger” either:
a) The gun advocates paranoid fear that they reason you are leaving is because someone is about the come around the corner and shoot the place up.
b) Vigilante thinking, where by they “stop the crime” of you robbing the store owner.
or c) just rob the pocket of the people who already have a shitty job as wait staff, and may not have quite so easy an option to keep their families fed as you have of avoiding a possible threat.
Yeah, not seeing this as a solution, for some reason…
Though, I also do agree with Marcus, you can’t know how insane the person is – they might shoot you, “just because”, instead of as a result of a misplaced need to “protect the owner” from the guy skipping the bill. Depending on how nuts they are, its a lose, lose, lose situation, no matter what.
I made the mistake of watching some of YouTube’s follow-up videos where idiots are walking around neighbourhoods with assault rifles of their backs. They laugh at how the cops track them as they walk through town. The cops would not be doing their job if they let a heavily armed posse wander the streets without keeping an eye on them.
It seems to me that a big reason as to why your police are trained like military and are so trigger happy is because your population is so heavily armed. Of course, an abundance of trigger happy cops also feeds back into more citizens wanting to be armed. Although the people the cops are primarily shooting (i.e. black people) would just get shot more often if they were walking around with assault rifles.
Holy fuck your country is messed up.
Carrying a loaded gun in public is an intrinsically unsafe act. The only way to make it safe, is to separate the bullets and the gun. Which is what sane gun rules say. The fines for a negligent misfire in public should be tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus treble damages.
I’m sorry if you misunderstood my proposal [referring to the Hunt thread]
I apologize for being so terse in my previous proposal.
re “why wait for the check? just throw some cash on the table and leave.”:
I considered that but then the key feature of my proposal is the ‘zero tip’ feature and ‘zero possible underpayment’, so get the check and leave the EXACT amount.
re “zero tip punishes the waitperson, not the management”:
It is a method of recruiting the server to advocate barring the guns. I.E. the server confronts the manager, “Yet another person left zero tip cuz some gun walked in. Maybe I’ll have to find work at a restaurant that bars guns entering so patrons won’t walk out leaving zero tips.” As a way to get the manager to consider posting a sign, barring guns from entering.
<lightbulb>Maybe a guncheck room, like a coat check room.
Where any one bearing a gun, MUST check their “toy”; with the boilerplate of “to protect the gun from damage (that a gun version of ‘umbrella stand’ would risk it of)”.
oh, rats. there I go, forcing manager to create a new job (guncheck room attendant) ruining his oh so sacred profits. can’t he just claim to be a “job creator”, to serve all the gun-patriotic patrons, etc, etc???
Whoever thought that carrying arms is a right must have lost his marbles. Carrying arms is not a right. Safety is a right. If carrying arms would improve safety then carrying arms may be justified, but it doesn’t and it isn’t.
But now it’s too late. Any attempt to revoke the 2nd amendment would probably lead to civil war.
If (when) I start seeing these nutters in my haunts I’m thinking I’m gonna start carrying my gas powered hedge trimmer ( sans gas, but they won’t know that.)
Gonna have to break out the leather working tools and make a badass bandolier for it, too.
Because the person working below minimum wage has all the power in their employment arrangements?
If I see someone prancing around with an obvious weapon, I will ASSUME that person is a homicidal lunatic and act accordingly. Better to be safe than sorry.
This is a moral dilemma that we in this country are never likely to face. If some person walked into a restaurant, or any business, openly carrying a gun there’d be no question of whether to pay the bill before leaving – in any case most likely the manager and staff would already have disappeared out of the back door!
Can a business owner/manager over there legally refuse entry to these wackos? Even if they can I imagine it would take a particularly plucky individual to stand there and tell Rambo he’s not welcome.
Legally? Probably. I don’t know. I do know, at least here in Texas, few (if any) owners/managers would choose to do so for fear of pissing off too many of their customers. It is Texas after all.
Golgafrinchan Captain @16:
Remember, the only protection from a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. But by no means should they be regarded as potentially anything other than the best of guys with guns.
This, and the separate but related issue of “stand your ground” laws and the like – so the ideal is to have everyone* going around visibly armed, and ready, willing and authorized to attempt to preemptively murder anyone who seems like a threat to them? And in this scenario, you’re somehow meant not to feel threatened by any of those twitchy-fingered trigger-fondlers?
*Ha ha not really, obviously. Every real person who counts, I mean. You know. White people.
re @23:
Oh course, just claim “religious reasons”. case closed. pretty sure “open carry” are all “religious freedom” states. so blowback seems fair.
re “zero tip”:
the problem with “compromise” is everyone gets hurt. not always a win-win. At best, usually its a: (no lose) – (no lose), result.
I dislike depriving the server from a fair tip and surreptitiously recruiting them as ‘behind the scenes’ advocate for the cause. It was the only ploy I could think of to avoid “theft”, or “confrontation”, or etc. badthings. The ‘zero tip’ seemed like the minimal ‘badthing’. open to other suggestion. willing to “compromise” on my initial proposal. (it was all hypothetical anyway ;-)
Can a business owner/manager over there legally refuse entry to these wackos?
I remember hearing about a recent court case where it was ruled that a business owner could refuse entry to gun-toting people ONLY if they had a sign clearly saying guns are not allowed on premises. Guns may be sacred in the USA, but so is private property. (And people who invade your property with guns, against your will, are the kind of people the gun-nuts are pretending to protect us AGAINST.)
Even if they can I imagine it would take a particularly plucky individual to stand there and tell Rambo he’s not welcome.
Yeah, the “open-carry” movement is really more of an “open-bully” movement: a bunch of self-important assholes wearing guns wherever they go, daring anyone to question them, then saying they’re in the right because no one is trying to confront them.
of course not. but they can ‘nudge’ the ‘one that is power’. I’m hoping, that with enough nudges the power will reconsider its position. —– I’m dreaming, I know…
The amount of tapdancing around whether it is moral to leave without pay when somebody eters the premise with a fucking murder machine shows how much you folks have already absorbed the gun fondler narrative.
I suppose, the best solution is to ask the maitre’de when entering a restaurant, before giving the number of seats requested, ask “are guns allowed to be brought in??” if the answer is “yes”, then reply, “do you know a nearby restaurant that disallows guns to enter (I feel safer there)???”, then turn and walk out.
re @30:
[another reference to the Hunt thread(s)] The tapdancing is just the American attempt at British politeness over a contentious issue. ~~~~~ And so on…
While it’s not a good idea to walk around with a weapon strapped to your ass, cherry picking amendments is worse.
re @31
addendum. I ommitted this little followup:
I suppose it would be easy for restaurants, who get the message, but don’t want to raise the hackles of the gunnuts; the posted sign could just model itself after the beachfront diner signs of “No Shirt | No Shoes | No Service” as in “No Gun | Welcome” or “with Gun | No Service”. or some such impersonal statement.
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- @ 30 You make a good point,
However, I would not like to be responsible for some poor server’s family going hungry or missing their rent just because of some idiot trying to make a political point by running around flaunting his “gun”.
As noted above (@13) it is also a very dangerous situation.
Obviously the gun-fondlers have intentionally sought to create this sort of untenable situation.
@Gilliell #30
I think the concern is the fucked up way the US allows business to operate (assuming marcus was being literal in #3 when they said “He obviously doesn’t realize that the waiter/waitress is the one responsible for the bill should a patron “Walk-out”.”).
You have a point, though. You would not think that you have the responsibility to pay the check when leaving an unsafe environment. A restaurant with a gun in is an unsafe environment.
Leaving no tip is a terrible idea, especially if you want your server to stick up for you (and your no-open-carry view). If I were your server, and you told me that you weren’t tipping due to guns in the restaurant, I’d be glad that you wouldn’t come back. Your moral stand won’t help me pay my rent. I may not be comfortable around the gun toters ( a mild understatement), but at least they tip.
I’d rather leave an over-the-top tip; the kind for above and beyond the call of duty service – like putting up with me paying the bill from the parking lot. AND, while doing so, let the manager know you won’t come back until the policy has changed.
Put yourself in the server’s shoes. Who would you want to come back to your restaurant? The weird person who tipped well, or the asshole who stiffed you?
So let’s get this straight – to assuage your completely irrational fear of an openly visible gun in a restaurant, you advocate stealing?
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the irrational fear. After two decades in the military, having been trained to handle and use weapons in peacetime and combat, my hackles have gone up on those (relatively rare) occasions I’ve seen openly carried weapons. But then I took a second to think about the situation.
Is a person who openly carries a weapon going to rob the place? No. Someone intending to rob the place hides his/her weapon until the right time or announces his/her intentions right away.
Is someone openly carrying going to start shooting for no reason? No. And it wouldn’t matter if the weapon was openly carried or concealed if they did make that decision.
Is someone who openly carries going to start cleaning it at the restaurant, creating the chance that it will go off accidentally? Hardly. I’ve never seen someone who is openly carrying handle the weapon in any fashion.
People who openly carry are genuinely concerned about their safety (and their rights) and – by extension if you’re in that restaurant – your safety. It is extremely likely, therefore, that not only are you not in any danger but are actually in less danger when another patron is openly carrying a weapon. Your fear may be real – and remember I’ve experienced it myself – but it is irrational.
@28 Raging Bee – the bully in this situation is not the person who is open carrying, it is you. The person carrying a weapon asks nothing of you. You are free to take your leave of the area or you are free to stay (or if you’re a philosopher, apparently you’re free to steal). You, on the other hand, wish to impose your will on the gun owner despite his/her right to keep and bear arms. You’re the bully.
#30 / Giliell: I think you absolutely have to examine the ethics of your (one’s) response to a perceived danger. Not doing so leads to Gitmo and Abu Ghraib.
And I think it’s a bit less boolean than the professor makes the case – it’s not necessarily that you’re just frightened or you just don’t want to pay the bill. I think some people who would consider the strategy are genuinely frightened (through PTSD or whatever) and for them I think it’s appropriate to just bug the f out. I think most people would have my reaction to this scenario: a feeling that something more like uncomfortable or anxious than frightened, but mostly just pissed off that people think it’s appropriate to bring guns to dinner.
I’d like to think that I’d have the nerve to pay the bill and tip, make sure the manager knows why I’m leaivng, and then go over to the gun guy and calmly say something like “Excuse me, sir, I wanted you to know that I’m leaving the restaurant because your carrying a gun makes me feel less safe. I’d personally appreciate it if you didn’t bring it along next time” and then leave. Granted, I’m an almost six foot tall middle aged white guy, so I could probably do the confrontation like that without starting too much of a ruckus.
But generally, I think it’s unethical to stiff the restaurant unless you’re more than just frightened. Also, compared to paying the bill and making sure they understand the reason you’re leaving, it’s less effective.
#37 / Tom: My perception of the open carry advocates is that they’re absolutely bullies by strolling around places specifically to stroll with an AR-15. There really is something Freudian going on there.
From their perspective, of course the open carriers are responsible owners, carrying either to protect their own safety, everyone else’s safety, or just to visibility exercize their rights. But how does the third party tell the difference between someone like that and, say, James Holmes? And, even if they are generally concerned for our safety, how should we be able to judge their judgement and capability? I’m pretty sure I remember a case from a few months ago – maybe in a WalMart – where an open carry advocate almost killed the wrong person?
Thumper @ 35 You are correct on all counts.
What Giliell said.
Tom Weiss, fuck the hell off, you dishonest fuckwit.
dersk:
Did you seriously just fucking do that? Fucking really?
No, protesting a restaurant allowing a man with a fucking dangerous weapon in is not equivalent to letting torture happen. What the fuck kind of comparison is that? Perhaps you should examine your fucking ethics if you think that comparison is at all accurate or helpful.
And I think it is even more unethical to let someone openly carry dangerous weapons in an enclosed public establishment where you have an expectation of safety. I think the option you give, where you don’t stiff the restaurant, is ideal. But some form of protest MUST happen, because this kind of shit should not be normalized and tolerated without some sort of pushback. IF that pushback, and if people who are frightened and concerned for their own safety, takes the form of leaving before giving the chance for paying for the meal, or not leaving a tip, then that is far less significant ethical lapse than allowing people to prance around in public with a gun.
Citation needed.
PZ, if the condition for leaving is that your life is in danger, but the method for leaving puts your life in even greater danger, that method for leaving doesn’t seem too wise. there are ways to quickly settle the bill, explain why you’re leaving and never come back that involve far less risk. reality is that those scared for their life by open carry are just as irrational as those who feel like they need open carry to protect themselves from an imagined imminent risk of crime.
@Giliell #30,
I disagree that this means people have necessarily bought into the gun fondler narrative. I’m Canadian so guns aren’t a part of my culture at all. The only times I’ve encountered guns is when police, military, or hunters have them. The few hunters I’ve known have been super-uptight about keeping everything locked up (separately). Even concealed carry for civilians seems insane to me. The idiots who think they may eventually have to overthrow the US government wouldn’t stand a chance against the police, SWAT, National Guard, and military (+drones).
I think the sensible thing is to get the hell out of the business as fast as possible, but I wouldn’t want to screw over the servers in a restaurant, since it isn’t under their control. I also think there’s a real risk with having it appear that you are trying to dine-and-dash; not the risk of getting charged with theft, but the risk of getting shot by Yosemite Sam.
Thankfully, I have the luxury of never having to cross the border into the Old West.
Okay, I get it now.
Economic cost on server and restaurant for not getting paid for meal > Risk to lives of self or others due to accidental or intentional use of the deadly weapon openly carried by random asshole.
Got it. America.
Irrational.
That word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
dersk
I am of the European persuasion. I don’T need PTSD to make me deeply uncomfortable to afraid. I just need to look at homicide rates here and in the USA, look at the news and understand that my likelyhood of dying an early, violent death has just increased multifold.
marcus
Neither would I, but when weighing my life and those of my children against the income of the waiter, it’s the former. You could, of course, leave your address and tell them to send you the bill.
#37 – shorter version: it’s not an irrational fear.
@37
What makes you think that? Cops do it all the time, and they’re ostensibly better trained than some yahoo on the street.
Chris Capoccia:
Back up this point, and do it carefully, or go fuck yourself.
Golgafrinchan Captain:
lolwut?
You do not have the same toxic gun culture as America. You still have a gun culture.
http://www.ibtimes.com/connecticut-shooting-how-canada-views-americas-school-massacre-gun-culture-949300
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/10/23/why-canadas-gun-culture-is-different-and-why-its-shootings-shock-america/
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/canada-gun-culture-too-225625205.html
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- @ 45 Understand and agree.
My # 13
” There is, of course, very little way of knowing if a person walking into a public space with a cross-slung assault rifle is just an “open-carry” idiot or a homicidal maniac ready to spray the place down with bullets. I guess “get up and leave and call back with your credit card number from a safe distance” might be a reasonable compromise.”
As I also intimated, it is ridiculous that civilized society must even have a discussion of this the type of bullshit.
Is someone openly carrying going to start shooting for no reason? No.
How can you be so sure of that, when people have indeed been known to shoot at other people in public places for no good reason? Ignoring the reality of such incidents makes YOU the irrational one, not us.
People who openly carry are genuinely concerned about their safety (and their rights) and – by extension if you’re in that restaurant – your safety. It is extremely likely, therefore, that not only are you not in any danger but are actually in less danger when another patron is openly carrying a weapon.
How do you, or anyone else, know that with any certainty? Do you judge a person’s motives by his weaponry? How do you know that this person won’t cause MORE danger, either by pulling his gun in the heat of an argument, or by provoking another armed person, or by starting a firefight in response to a (real or perceived) criminal act? All of those things are well known to happen, and you’re a patronizing jackass for ridiculing our concerns and pretending you’re the mature, manly, “rational” one.
@28 Raging Bee – the bully in this situation is not the person who is open carrying, it is you.
The guy who goes around armed to the teeth, with no specific threat requiring it, is not a bully, but the person questioning such behavior is the bully? Tom Weiss, you are, at best, a bully’s apologist, using the logic of a bully to silence the bully’s critics. As Molly Ivins once said, “Sheesh, what an asshole!” Or as I would say, “Go fuck yourself.” YOu have no fucking idea what you’re talking about, and you clearly don’t care enough to do even the most elementary thinking about real-world tactics and consequences.
me @ 49 I should have said “civilized society”.
Tom Weiss @ 37 You need help.
There’s also another thing about this “you cannot make the establishment suffer because workers” argument: By that narrative, you must never take part in an economical boycott or even try to make an ethical decision when buying a product. Because you will always hit workers and when you decide NOT to buy the product manufactured by the most unethical competitor, you’re hitting those workers who are obviously the most disempowered, or they wouldn’t have to work for that bastard. Did you stop eating at Chick-a-Fil? What about the waiters?
Yes, it’S slightly different when you have already ordered your meal (that’s why I agree with “call back later” or something like that), but overall it’s the same argument.
Also, it’S either safe to be around those people, so no need to hurry out there, or it isn’t, in which case you should get out. Waiting 10 minutes to pay your bill and then claiming that you were feeling unsafe seems a bit off to me.
#45 – Well, statistically I’d guess having a bunch of open carry jerks in a restaurant raises your risk by a few percentage points, not multifold. But yeah, if your personal reaction is that far on the fear side of the spectrum (which is fine if it is), then I do think it’s okay to do a chew and screw. I’m really just saying it’s more of a spectrum than a true / false sort of scenario, and I think where an individual falls on that spectrum plays a part in determining the ethics of the situation. As an aside, I was shocked when I read last year that the violent crime rate is about 25% higher here in Holland than back home – totally counter to my perceptions!
#44 anteprepro – yes, i fucking just fucking did make that fucking comparison. Because it’s the same damn thing, and no matter how often you use the word fucking they’re both instances of not bothering to justify the ethic’s of somebody’s behavior because they’re afraid. I think I’ve achieved profanity parity with you, but just in case: fuck.
I do agree with you that open carry laws are horrible and should be protested. Obviously can’t give you a citation on how effective either protest is, but it seems to me that it’s a lot easier to dismiss someone who leaves without paying than it is someone who pays and engages with the management. And to turn it around, since you put in the risk comparison, do you have any cites or data for the actual incremental risk? I can think of plenty examples of ‘stand your ground’ going horribly wrong, but not so much in the way of ‘armed guy in a restaurant shoots the wrong person.’ Given how much the nuts love their anecdotes about brave gun totin’ heroes stopping crimes, it’d be handy to have a few counter examples…
Via Tom Weiss, we see again the gun fetishist tendency to think of True Gun Wielders as moral exemplars, mystical paladins, champions who can do no wrong, will make no mistakes with their deadly weapons, and who will divine the ill wills of other, lesser men and will competently subdue evil-doers and cause no additional harm in the process, ever. I am just waiting on hearing about why the Open Carry Heroes are vitally needed in restaurants, else there would be hordes of Kriminals, with their Evil Guns (distinguished by having a red hue instead of blue hue, when using Detect Magic Intent) trying to invade the Applebees and slaughter all inside, man, woman, child, and Cowboy. The only thing that can stop a Bad Guy with a gun is a Good Guy with a gun. You can tell the difference because the Good Guys only shoot Bad Guys. Using that impeccable and flawless logic, you can easily discern the two.
#44 anteprepro again – I just remembered an example. Quite a long time ago, but around 1900 one of my ancestors fell off his horse in Utah and accidentally shot and killed his buddy. Not exactly modern, but there you go.
What part of carrying a loaded gun in public is intrinsically UNSAFE don’t you understand? Nobody should be exposed to their UNSAFE attempts at bullying. Until you show, since these are deadly weapons, absolute safety, it shouldn’t happen, nor does anybody have to put up with their idiocy.
dersk:
So you are going to stick with the comparison of walking out in protest before paying bill, to those using and/or justifying torture? Grand.
Twice I have observed concealed carriers drinking alcohol. The don’t always conceal well enough. Once at a vineyard and once in a private home. The guy at the vineyard left when I went on an anti gun tirade at him.
Assume there are guns everywhere you go because there are. Even in places where it is illegal to carry. Those law abiding citizens don’t give a damn about your stinking laws.
This may vary from one part of the country to another, but I live in Florida, and down here anyone who made a big show of leaving a restaurant (with or without paying) would accomplish little beyond having themselves held up to ridicule. Chances are good the restaurant manager, servers, and most of the patrons are pro-gun, so the response you’re going to get is good riddance. Whatever may be the merits of open carry laws, in most of the South that tactic is pretty much guaranteed to backfire.
dersk
1. What’s the baseline? Say my risk without a gun fondler is 0.1% (just using numbers, not claiming accuracy). Raising that by 3% would mean a 30 fold increase.
2. The percentage might be still small, but once you “win the lottery”, the consequences are huge. Ever been in a traffic accident? I haven’t. I’m still wearing a seatbelt each and every time I start the car. Because while my risk to get into an accident during any given trip is very small, the consequences would be huge.
Gilliel @ 52 There is a difference in losing income or job due to the political or social actions of your employer and being told that you owe $250 to the establishment before you leave that night because your 4-top walked out on the bill.
Still, agree.
There is a confusion here about the nature of discrimination. Discrimination isn’t necessarily bad: you discriminate when you decide which restaurant you want to patronize next, or decide which friend to hang out with tonight.
I’m going to generalize, and there are obviously many nuances that I won’t cover, but let’s sum up:
1. Discrimination based upon what someone is → not okay
2. Discrimination based upon how someone acts or what they temporarily wear/posess→ okay
So, if you don’t allow women into your club, brown people into your shop, or people-who-love-people-of-the-same-sex into your school, then you are a bigot and should be punished by society or law. You are doing #1.
If you don’t allow people into your concert hall who are drunk, boisterous or who aren’t wearing ‘black tie’ attire, you’re doing #2 and that’s fine because the people can sober up, calm down and dress properly, respectively, and then get in.
If folks want to wear their weapons, or conceal them on their person, a shop owner can discriminate against that behavior by refusing service. The weapon people can easily remedy the situation by leaving their weapons at home or somewhere else.
gaarrr. yes! guilty as charged. I admit, my “no tip” proposal is misdirected; hits the powerless, underpaid server, in a lame attempt at hitting the owner of the diner.
I apologize for not being able to think of a more direct jab at the owner and falling back to dependence on servers “nudging” the owner into compliance of our oh so tyrannical boycott of gun allowers.
@ anteprepro #48,
Ok, I overstated that. More specifically, we don’t have a large contingent of people who think it’s cool to walk around town with guns, concealed or otherwise. The vast majority of our gun ownership is people who hunt or live out in the boonies, and they tend to own hunting rifles. As mentioned in the International Business Times article you linked, most of our handguns are smuggled in from the States (thanks US), since it’s hard to buy one legally here.
From the WaPo article you linked:
I wouldn’t support a ban on all guns, but these safeguards seem necessary to me.
marcus
One of the reasons I’ll never visit the USA. That shit is simply not legal here (though you might be fired if you behaved irresponsibly)
In reality, of course, the waitrons* should be leaving the premises as quickly as possible also.
Still, there are people who risk penury and homelessness by such action, they have to think of those that they are responsible for.
Obviously, the fault lies with the idiots who must be able to fondle their weapon at any moment and bully everyone else for shits and grins.
*A job I’ve had often.
dersk, the best source of info regarding this subject isn’t anecdotes or news stories, in my opinion. It is stats.
http://nyagv.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Accidental-Shootings-NYAGV.pdf
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/shooting-accidents-soar-state-gun-laws-remain-unchanged/
http://www.the-broad-side.com/guns-for-self-defense-myth-versus-reality
The stats are hard to come by though. It is very hard to find the exact number of instances where someone shot the wrong person specifically in self defense.
However, in terms of shooting the wrong person, there are plenty of examples involving police that have been coming to light lately. That is essentially exactly what happened in Ferguson. Some related info here: http://www.salon.com/2014/10/01/gun_nuts_tragic_confusion_why_open_carry_groups_misunderstand_police_brutality/
If you prefer stories because they are more illustrative and visceral, though, here’s a tumblr about accidental shootings (last updated a year ago): http://accidentalgunshots.tumblr.com/
So….that’s a lot of information that addresses the fringes of your questions! Hopefully some of it is useful, I just go overboard when I do this kind of research and find interesting sources of tangential info.
Gilliell @ 65 It is a terribly unfair practice and should be illegal everywhere.
Golgafrinchan Captain:
Indeed. You all have a lot of guns, but you are far, far, FAR better when it comes to gun control and your politics on the issue are far, far less poisonous (as far as I know). The quote describing gun laws that you gave would send most of the NRA thralls of the right in our country into a week long screeching tantrum.
before-before-before @54: Yeah, I’m always amazed at how obvious the gun-nuts’ magical thinking can get — and how few times they get called out on it. Sometimes I think we Americans have been so bamboozled by our own mythology (particularly the myths underlying all our cowboy and cop-action movies) that we’ve lost the ability to look at the reality with any rationality.
The use of weapons is a TACTICAL issue, but too many of the gundamentalists refuse to think tactically — it’s all about symbolism, identity, emotional comfort, and dishonest ConLaw thinking. Take the restaurant scenario: if you really believe you’d need a gun to be safe in a particular restaurant, then the rational response is either to avoid the restaurant (as I would avoid, say, Central Park at night), or call the cops and tell them your concerns.
@Usernames! #62,
That was the point I was trying to make, agreeing with PZ’s:
Weinstein never mentioned this in his video, he just talked about gun rights advocates not having a history of oppression. It’s much more obvious to just say the discrimination isn’t against the person, it’s against the possession of weapons.
Sadly, I would guess that there’s a pretty easy way to make businesses decide to ban open carry weapons in their establishments, that Republicans would not only not get mad at, but would lead the charge for – just have black men be the ones going into the businesses with guns.
Tom Weiss
Unbefuckinglievable.
These total strangers – about whose emotional maturity, competence and sobriety I know absolutely nothing (except for the fact that they’re gun-lovers who apparently can’t bear to leave their gun at home when they go to a restaurant) – are “genuinely concerned” for my safety. Riiight.
I know that not all USAnians think like this by a very very long chalk – but I can’t help being grateful that in most cases, unless you have the horrible misfortune to live in a war zone/an area where social stability has been completely destroyed, this is not normal.
@Tom Weiss #37
Unless of course they live in an area that allows open carry, in which case they can saunter up to the door with a loaded firearm, safe in the knowledge that no one will suspect a thing.
How the fuck do you know they won’t start shooting, for no reason or otherwise? Besides which, it really doesn’t matter why they’re shooting, what matters is there’s bullets flying about while I’m trying to eat my lunch.
Again, how the fuck do you know they won’t? It would be an incredibly stupid thing to do, sure; but people do stupid shit with guns all the time. You can’t just blithely declare “Oh, they wouldn’t do this” and then act like you’ve made a salient point. You haven’t.
Fixed that for you. We know they are concerned about their right to carry a deadly weapon around in public. We have no evidence at all that anything else you said there is true, and indeed since they insist on carrying a loaded firearm in public, thus creating the potential for deadly injuries, evidence would suggest that they do not, in fact, give a flying fuck about anyone else’s safety.
There speaks a man who has not bothered to read up on statistics of attempted crime prevention involving firearms. All available data indicates that your average Joe with a gun makes matters worse by adding more poorly-aimed bullets to an already dangerous situation.
Being wary of a potentially dangerous object is called “self-preservation”, and when that wariness is backed up by statistics which show that accidents involving the object in question are common, and we know those accidents are potentially very serious and/or life threatening, that wariness is anything but irrational.
Here’s the thing: I do not want to be around a loaded gun if the owner of said gun does not have their full attention on it at all times. A person munching on a burger is not paying attention to where their gun is pointed, whether they’ve got the safety on, or whether their keychain has gotten caught up in the trigger guard. I sure as fuck wouldn’t want my kids anywhere near the damn thing if I had any.
I do not mind guns being used by trained people in a controlled environment. Hunting, clays, etc.; I can totally understand. I’ve been clay pigeon shooting myself, and it’s kind of fun. But carrying them around in public is just fucking stupid, and fucking irresponsible. It shows a lackadaisical attitude towards other people’s safety. The NRA and other pro-gunners love to bang on about “responsible gun owners”; no responsible gun owner would carry a loaded firearm around in a public place.
Can someone point out the phrasing in the second amendment where it gives special status to guns? I keep looking for it, but all I sees is “arms” which suggests anything that could be used as a weapon.
Why do I have this feeling that if I insisted on the right to “open carry” a canister of sarin gas, an unlit molotov cocktail and matches, or even a very big knife, we would not be having this discussion? I’d be in jail or the loony bin.
From the article, but it resonates with many commenters here:
Let me put this in simple words: If you believe that the person now entering the building could be a terrorist/murderer, then YOU SHOULD NEVER STAND UP. Don’t stand up to leave the store, don’t stand up to explain your views to the store owner, don’t stand up to confront the gun-nut, don’t stand up to make a target of yourself. DON’T STAND UP period.
The protocol in terrorist attacks is to drop down/hide/lock yourself in a safe location and call the cops.
The reason we have this discussion to begin with is because some of you are taking a dishonest position. You do, in fact, suspect that the gun-nut is unlikely to start shooting, which is why you think it might be a good idea to standout in one way or the other, while claiming that you’re risking yourself out of fear for your safety.
So please, drop the charade. You’re arguing about a type of protest (which I support), not immediate self-preservation.
Just to clarify: I understand and support the arguments regarding the banning of guns. I understand that gun-nuts pose a great danger to themselves and everyone around them. However, they don’t pose an immediate danger (if they were, many types of physical self-defense would be justified) and pretending that they are the same is neither right nor wise.
P.S.
My personal solution to the situation would be the same as my reaction to a terrorist attack: call the police without drawing too much attention to myself. If the gun-nuts are hostile then the police are the ones to deal with them anyway, and if they aren’t, let them waste their time showing the cops that they have all the right documents and licenses. Either way, deadly weaponry is something for the cops to deal with, not me.
@Tom Weiss, #37,
From the top of the article linked in the OP:
Now you’ve seen it.
Notice that the guy on the right has his finger next to the trigger. Oh wait, never mind; I forgot that accidents never happen with guns, because all gun owners are completely responsible.
Keep in mind that most stats that circulate are for actual deaths, not people merely getting injured or permanently maimed.
As a non USA-sian, every aspect of this story mystifies me. How can you pay anybody below minimum wage? How can a waiter be responsible for the loss when someone walks out, while the company takes the profit when they pay? How the hell isn’t the minimum wage tripled, or at least made to keep up with inflation.
On the plus side, I guess its nice for these assholes that the low wages means they can use the workers as a shield that stops decent people protesting them.
Dersk@ 53
I’m from Holland, and I’d be surprised if our violent crime rate is 25% above ANY country. Do you have a source for that figure, or at least which country you are comparing to?
anteprepro, of all the open carry fringe individuals (even the normally nutty NRA has come out against them) carrying daily into all sorts of places, how many accidental/negligent discharges have there been? of all of these, how many have resulted in any personal injury? how many in death?
a clear head can easily see there is plenty of time to pay the bill and leave without measurably increasing personal risk.
Addendum: The article linked in by Chris Capoccia #1 is spot on.
Dear protester, don’t be stupid – be a smarty.
All gun owners are responsible gun owners. All the time. Until one kills somebody. Then s/he is not a responsible gun owner. And has never been.
We should change the name of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
What makes your question stupid, very stupid, is that the states and US congress has decided that NOBODY needs to collect such data. Whereas, if it was collected, incidents like one from a prior thread where a pistol fell out of somebody’s pocket and discharged at a buffet dinner would be listed. Personally, that should be $10,000 fine for negligent discharge in public.
Carlie
I can not imagine that ending well for the black men.
What if black people are already customers in the restaurant when the open-carriers walk in? How safe are *they* if they stand up to leave, make eye contact, or have a fork or dinner knife in their hands? Heck, how safe are they if they stay put?
The mind of a gun pervert:
Fear of guns=irrational fear.
Fear of being out in public without carrying guns = rational fear.
Alexander Z
There’S a false dichotomy at your #76
There are more options than “terrorist who wants to kill you” and “totally harmless guy”.
There is “guy who believes himself to be the really good guy and who therefore kills 5 people in an attempt to prevent a non-existing crime” or “guy who believes himself to be the good guy in a decaying world and therefore shoots the kid with the mobile at the theatre.”
@ Chris Capoccia #79,
Actually, the NRA has apologized for that statement.
@ Alexander Z #76,
I can’t speak for anyone else, but my biggest concern if I encountered this in a restaurant wouldn’t be that the person is likely to stand up and start shooting (at least not after they had been seated). I’d be more worried about an accidental discharge, stray bullets in a vigilante situation, or stray bullets from police if the person happens to be black or brown. This would also mostly apply to concealed carry, but open carry would make it easier for a kid or criminal to grab the weapon and would motivate police to shoot at black/brown people.
In the more general sense, having it normalized to see people walking around with weapons of war would indeed reduce the overall safety of society. How do you know if that group of guys is just going for a heavily-armed stroll (many YouTube videos of this) or if they have a darker purpose? Police would be negligent if they just ignored it.
Sorry, I’m repeating myself, but once again can someone explain why guns have privileged status over any other dangerous item I might be prevented from carrying around in public? Or in other words, why are sane people so quick to concede the first round to gun nuts?
I do have PTSD, so I guess my best option would be to call ahead and ask, then to tell any owners that I will not patronize an establishment that allows open carry.
Displaying your long plastic dick while eating a burger and fries? It’s Ammosexy!
paulbc: there is NO “privileged status” for guns in the Constitution. The Constitution mentions “arms,” as you said, but a simple common sense interpretation of the Second Amendment (the WHOLE sentence, not just the second half) pretty much rules out personal ownership of anything more deadly than a rifle.
Knives are too common, and too harmless relative to firearms, to regulate; and battlefield stuff like gas or grenade launchers are too dangerous for civilian ownership; guns are kind of in an in-between zone where there’s room for debate and controversy. THAT’s probably why there seems to be “special status” for guns.
Leave the restaurant telling the waiter you dont feel safe and say you will pay them outside or somewhere safe away from the gun nuts.
As someone who doesnt live in a land that is so free and stupid with guns what is the idea behind open carry? If I was on a shooting spree they would be the first fuckers I’d take out.
Anna Elizabeth @ 89 Yes, because apparently it is up to us to make sure that a public accommodation neither encourages nor allows assault-rifle toting cretins to bring there prosthetic phalli in with them.
The question is basically: How many dead people are acceptable for my totally unnecessary desire to carry a murder machine in public?
marcus @92 – It seems so, sadly.
What gets me, I used to hang with a group that took me to a few gun shows. They make you lock any firearms you bring with you at a gun show.
This means that even Gun Dealers don’t want yahoos with loaded weapons on their persons close at hand. But of course, Ms. Anna is one of those gawdless lib Feminazis that hates their Freedumb.
Giliell @ 93 For the ammo-cretins that number is an open set.
.anteprepro, of all the open carry fringe individuals (even the normally nutty NRA has come out against them) carrying daily into all sorts of places, how many accidental/negligent discharges have there been? of all of these, how many have resulted in any personal injury? how many in death?
How many crimes have been prevented by such people? How many violent incidents brought to an end? How many criminals subdued? How many lives saved? In short, where’s the benefit that justifies the risk, or even the mere “irrational fear” caused by open-bully activists?
#82, relevance? i’m pretty sure accidental/negligent discharges in public places make the news. i know i’ve read about them before. every discharge in someone’s backyard may not make the news, but we’re not talking about that. i just have never heard of a public accidental/negligent discharge from one of these open carry nutjobs.
Raging Bee #90
Nonsense. There are laws against Bowie knives and switchblades. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knife_legislation These are not common items, and few people attempt to defend their right of “open carry.” Their relative harmlessness depends on factors like distance, though I concede that they are not comparable to a weapon like an assault rifle.
I think the actual reason is that guns have an effective constitutional advocate in the NRA. That’s it. There is no intrinsic explanation for equating “arms” with “guns.” It is purely a function of existing institutions. Accepting the NRA definition of “arms” in the second amendment is conceding the first round of any discussion to them. Maybe there is some good tactical reason for this (I am a lousy debater) but it always struck me as curious.
I think the actual reason is that guns have an effective constitutional advocate in the NRA.
That, yes, plus a lot of mythology built up around cowboys, gunfighters, lone vigilantes, superheroes and the like, which tends to distort our understanding of what guns are really good for. But certainly nothing in the Constitution itself.
If you can’t go out to a restaurant without a weapon (at least in this country) then you are a either a coward, a bully, or both.
Plain and simple.
Giliell #86
I’ve never said that. What I said was, and I quote “I understand that gun-nuts pose a great danger to themselves and everyone around them.” My argument was about the kind of danger (immediate vs potential) and the response to it.
Do you think that in either of the two examples you have given the smart choice would be to stand up and leave (or engage in any of the forms of similar protest that have been discussed here)? Or would it be less dangerous to instead duck under a chair and call the cops?
_____________________
Golgafrinchan Captain #87
My response was to arguments like those of Giliell above. But even in your case, leaving without paying or drawing too much attention to yourself otherwise is still best avoided.
Which isn’t to say that you should or should not leave or engage in argument or otherwise state your disapproval. What you do is your choice. I was drawing attention to people who claim immediate danger, but call to act as if the danger is merely potential.
_____________________
Anna Elizabeth #94
Nobody wants yahoos with loaded weapons. Speaking as a former soldier, if they acted like that in an army they would have gotten their asses court-martialed in a heart bit.
Alexander Z
Quitely stand up and leave.
I wouldn’t make a fuss, I’m past my suicidal tendencies.
Just leaving means he won’t necessarily make a connection. Ducking uner the chair and calling the cops? Now he thinks there’s a bad guy around and needs to fire a few rounds.
Funny you should mention gays and blacks. Try that maneuver in Texas while black and see how long it takes before you meet the other gun fondlers when someone calls the police. I think I read recently about someone wearing a bikini while black at a swimming pool in Texas.
“Now everyone considered him the coward of the county.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4ZSds0GT64
“Don’t take your guns to town, son. Leave your guns at home.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlBzre4-Krc
Just sayin…
And this one’s for Becky.
#78 Captain Decker – ik zal proberen de bron te vinden! I looked it up a couple years ago and compared Nederland to the VS. The category included robbery and I think property destruction (which I sure see a lot of in Amsterdam!). Assuming the data’s correct, I suspect it’s a side-effect of how much more urbanized the Dutch are than Americans…
ff zoeken…
@ Monsanto #103,
Don’t forget hoodies.
#89 Anna: Unfortunately, that’s probably not a bad idea in a lot of US States.
@77 – His finger is NOT on the trigger, it is on the trigger guard. In fact, that’s precisely the position his finger is supposed to be in. And he’s ‘handling’ the weapon seemingly to pose for a picture.
@ 74 – (but applies to almost all the comments here) – “How the fuck do you know they won’t start shooting, for no reason or otherwise? The point of the OP was to advocate stealing in response to seeing a weapon openly carried in a restaurant, for example. The choice – now that concealed carry is legal almost everywhere – is not between eating at a restaurant where there are no guns and one where guns are openly carried. The choice is between an openly carried firearm and a concealed one. Doing away with open carry likely means that same person is going to have a concealed weapon – gun “nuts” being what they are. The only difference is your knowledge of the weapon. Is a weapon you don’t know about safer than one you do know about?
“I do not want to be around a loaded gun if the owner of said gun does not have their full attention on it at all times.” Spoken like a person with no gun knowledge or training. The unknown is indeed scary, but in the light of knowledge guns become orders of magnitude less scary. First of all, what is your definition of “loaded”? Rounds in the magazine? Magazine in the weapon? Round in the chamber, weapon on safe? Each requires different deliberate movements to fire the weapon, it doesn’t just magically happen. Are there stupid gun owners? Of course, just like there are stupid drivers that kill people every day. Your life is more likely to be threatened driving to the restaurant where the weapon is being displayed than it is inside that restaurant.
@54 – “The only thing that can stop a Bad Guy with a gun is a Good Guy with a gun.” That’s the only thing in your screed that makes sense. And for future reference, you can tell the difference between a “bad guy” with a gun and a “good guy” with a gun – the bad guy is the one threatening innocent people’s lives. The good guy is the one who goes about his business and lets other people go about theirs. Until he sees a bad guy, that is.
#60 Gil: I was thinking more of a 10% increase in the risk, not raising it by ten percent (1.1% vs. 11%), but whatever – doesn’t really matter. What’s relevant is the perceived incremental risk, and it’s okay if that’s higher for you than for me. Good point, though, about the worst case scenario being relevant in the risk assessment.
Incidentally, I have been hit by a car before (on a bike, my fault, luckily no injuries). I never coasted through that stop sign on my bike again…
@98 Paulbc – “arms” and “guns” are synonymous for the purposes of constitutional law. See here starting on page 7: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Yeah, good guys with guns. I am partial to Tom Tomorrow’s take on this one:
http://thismodernworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/TMW2014-05-21colorLARGE-copy1.jpg
But there I go conceding the first point, so let me backpedal (I said I was a bad debater). Where in the second amendment does it say anything about guns? OK, it says “arms”. What does that category include? Other than guns I mean.
The impression I get is that “2nd amendment rights” people will argue in favor of constitutional protection for any weapon at all, as long as it is a gun. They will mostly stay out of discussions of anything as long as it is not a gun, and leave it to state and local law to regulate them (once I did a search and found a little fringy Bowie knife advocacy). If my impression is wrong, please present me with one specific counterexample. If I’m right, then where in the Bill of Rights does it say anything about guns?
Someone who is open carrying a rifle or AR-15 replica into a restaurant is being intentionally provocative, if not threatening. No one carries around an AR-15 on a daily basis for personal protection, unless they live in Baghdad.
Tom Weiss #111
Can you quote the relevant sentence? I started to read this, but I didn’t find the conclusion obvious. Certainly blades were still common weapons of war at the time the constitution was written. If I recall reading All Quiet on the Western Front (over 30 years ago in HS), there was plenty of fighting with bayonets (mounted on a gun I granted) and sharpened spades. I don’t see how you make a reasonable distinction between these and “arms” though I grant that the Supreme Court might come up with all kinds of things I don’t understand. Any thing earlier than 2008?
@#37: Yeah, ok, let’s get this straight. To “assuage a completely irrational fear of an openly visible gun in a restaurant”, one requires a little experience: “two decades in the military, having been trained to handle and use weapons in peacetime and combat”.
Only then can one be permitted some measure of comfort around them…and only – even by your own admission – after taking “a second to think about the situation.”
Otherwise it’s “completely irrational” for anyone who hasn’t been so desensitized to the constant presence of firearms in ordinary life in order to stifle such a response, because they are ill equipped for lack of such laudable experience and training as you have.
“Is a person who openly carries a weapon going to rob the place? Probably not. But open-carry allows those who wish to rob places make it so much easier for them to do it. They won’t need to hide their weapons. They can expect open carry laws to assist their plans.
“Is someone openly carrying going to start shooting for no reason? Probably not. But open-carry allows those who wish to shoot up the place make it so much easier for them to do it. They won’t need to hide their weapons. They can expect open carry laws to assist their plans.
“Is someone who openly carries going to start cleaning it at the restaurant, creating the chance that it will go off accidentally?” What makes you – a person with two decades of training with firearms – think that firearms accidently discharge only if they are being cleaned?
“People who openly carry are genuinely concerned about their safety (and their rights) and – by extension if you’re in that restaurant – your safety.” It is obvious beyond dispute that gun advocates are genuinely concerned with their safety. Another word for it is ‘paranoia’. The very same brand as that festering criminals.
Be honest: compare the situation between open-carry and concealed weapon laws (or total gun bans in public…in which case a ‘good guy’ who wishes to carry a gun must run the same risk of being discovered as a ‘bad guy’ intent on mischief) – do you really imagine you actually have an upper hand over any nefarious element because you are allowed to display your firearm as a part of your costume in public?
But mark this in your crosshairs: you do nobody any favors by assuming the role of their protector. That is playing right into the nefarious hero-fantasy of nuts who roam around specifically looking for trouble, and are all too often ready to engage to their minds desire.
Your mindset compounds the problem, not reduces it.
People have a supervening right to enact laws and regulations to protect themselves.: they pay taxes to establish a well trained civilian police force. Those are the people they hire to ensure domestic tranquility. Not unvetted bozos roaming about super-attentive to any trouble. Police now have them to worry about as well, and it dilutes their effectiveness. As we have seen with ever increasing frequency over the last few decades, in the dreadful increase of police paranoia coupled with dastardly racist sentiment, the only outcome for an openly-armed citizenry is a chaos diametrically opposed to the kind of peaceful society fellows just like you are so hell bent on preserving.
Your right to keep and bear arms ends precisely where EQUALLY constitutional laws REGULATE, CONTROL or even RESTRICT it under state and local laws. Or have you never heard of Wyatt Earp and others in the ‘Wild West’ who enacted various forms of gun control ordinances? Do you really suppose a curious disposition toward an otherwise ambiguous right to ‘keep and bear arms’ supervenes the constitutional right of citizens to specifically establish laws to regulate how people should keep and bear them? If not, perhaps you merely lust after the ‘frontier justice’ of the ‘wild west’…and allow this country to commit societal suicide because guns and an infantile fantasy that one may come to the rescue is important.
You know what? Spare us your well-larded experience and wisdom that tarnishes us all with your conclusion that we are operating out of any “completely irrational fear”. I see “completely irrational fear” all over your comment.
Thought so. You can tell the difference betwen the bad guy and the good guy after you survived the encounter. Still means you might have been killed or injured by some stray bullets from the good guy, that is.
Just like responsible gunowners. They’re all dead. They’R all dead and did not die of their own firearms nor did they kill somebody with their firearms nor did anybody else kill somebody with their firearms. In case any of this happens, they were never a responsible gunowner to start with. Unfortunately, the earliest possible moment to tell is when somebody dies…
To clarify: All Quiet on the Western Front is set in WWI, over 100 years after the constitution, and blade weapons were still in common use, from which I conclude that swords would be considers weapons of war and not antique curiosities at the time the 2nd amendment was written.
“Is someone openly carrying going to start shooting for no reason?”
The first answer that occurs to me is “I’m not going to stay and find out.”
My concern, which I haven’t yet seen addressed explicitly, is connected with the expansion of this scenario beyond the “novelty” phase. As of now we have a few random individuals here and there walking around openly carrying semi-automatic weapons, or maybe an organized gun club or the like. They’re trying to make a point and draw attention to themselves and everybody stares and points, or gets up and leaves a restaurant, or posts a picture on their Facebook wall.
But what happens when we get to the point where a non-negligible fraction of patrons in the local Starbucks start to stroll in with weaponry like that prominently displayed? People who don’t know each other or feel like kindred spirits. So now we’re talking about various folks openly carrying: white, black, latino, or otherwise “ethic-looking”. Or who have spiky orange hair or are wearing a turban. In that scenario I find it easy to envision lots of potential “good guys with guns” deciding that they see a “bad guy with a gun”. And that strikes me as a situation that’s suddenly much more likely to result in guns being brandished in anger/fear with commensurately more chance of things escalating and becoming lethally dangerous to everybody in the vicinity.
My point is that stats about how rare it is for somebody openly carrying a weapon to cause a problem or precipitate an accident cannot be extrapolated sensibly.
I’m not familiar with all jurisdictions but in many, the proprietor of a business has a right to put a “no firearms allowed” sign up, which carriers are required to obey. It might not be a bad idea to ask to speak to the manager and explain that you’re leaving because you don’t believe the place is safe, and maybe they should put up a “no guns allowed” sign.
Odd how these idiots care a lot about their liberty but not so much about the liberty of the other patrons of the establishment, or the liberty of the proprietor.
re Tom Weissass@109:
So guns are okay then?
Must you bring in the false analogy? It reads like you are saying it is silly to be scared of guns cuz the risk of driving is so much higher. || Yeah, we know know that. What makes you think no one is scared of driving, or scared of guns MORE than driving? It is somewhat easier to vacate a restaurant with guns present than to avoid cars completely. (even walking, one is still at risk from cars). So why is it so important to carry one’s gun everywhere? When properly stored (as you do, right) they are hardly at risk of being stolen. Cars, OTOH are necessary, and unavoidable. So what, again, is so oppressive by avoiding an avoidable risk?
Yeah, openly carrying loaded assault rifle whose only purpose is to kill lots of people effectively on long distance = totes legal and safe, after all you are only concerned with safety!
Having a 8 cm switch blade in your pocket that so you can cut a piece of salami you took with you for lunch = absolutely dangerous and therefore illegal, you could intend to stab someone!
This european guy is still failing to see the logic in these laws.
US is a weird place and Tom Weiss is an idiot for anyone without gun fetish and paranoia.
anchor @ 115 Well said!
paulbc @ 118 I’m with you.
This “philosopher’s” argument is so disingenuous that I can’t take it seriously. Yes, if you are truly afraid for your life, I can see getting up and hauling ass. If you’re in a panic, it won’t even occur to you to pay your check. No one pays their check when a fire breaks out in the restaurant. But that doesn’t absolve you of the need to pay what you owe. Go back later and pay, after the smoke has cleared, the grizzly bear is gone, or the temblors have died down.
Unless you’re really making a protest and you’re only *wink wink* too afraid to stick around long enough to pay the check.
Just be honest about what’s going on.
(Is the philosopher guy trying to call out open-carry critics? “Afraid, huh? Then I guess you’ll be tearing out of there without paying! You’re not doing that? Then I guess you don’t really object to open-carry!”)
Given the number of accidental firearm deaths and discharges, why would anyone want to tolerate that in a public establishment? People make mistakes with guns all the time. And when that happens, sometimes saying “oops” doesn’t cut it.
to add to #121 slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem))
Also the use of vehicles on public roads is quite heavily regulated, even in the US. It’s funny that pro-gun advocates always bring up the risks of participating in traffic.
It’s almost like at some point people realized that cars were potentially very dangerous and decided to take action.
This discussion is just absolutely crazy. Or that’s what it looks like to me.
If i were in a restaurant and someone would walk in openly having a gun with them, i would topple over the table, hide behind it, frantically look for an exit and probably crawl behind the counter towards the kitchen.
No, i’m not living in the USA.
If i would visit the usa and someone walks into the establishment openly with a gun.. my reaction would be…. exactly the same.
It seems absolutely bonkers to me that anybody would want to stay there. Guns kill people. people with guns kill people and the reputation that americans have with guns.. hell.. i would be terrified.
BTW, Bowie knife advocacy, yes it exists. http://www.akti.org/news/texas-2015-knife-bill-make-bowie-knives-legal/ But no sanctimonious appeals to the constitution.
Still, I learned something new today. There is such a thing as the American Knife and Tool Institute. “Keeping Knives in American Lives Since 1998” Not sure where I stand on that, but at least it’s a cheery motto.
@128:
That motto is so easily transformed into satire, I’ll do it right now:
[attempted derail]
Giliell #102
Which is fine, except that in the situations you’ve described previously (and alluded to before that) quietly standing up is still a very dangerous thing to do. Again, my point is that you can’t stand up if you think the other person might start firing at any moment – a standing target, quiet or not, is easier to hit.
If you won’t pay you won’t have to make a fuss – the workers will do it themselves, and then how you think the gun-nut will react?
Fine, don’t duck if you don’t want to. Call the cops as inconspicuously as you can. People manage to do that in actual real-life hostage situations without getting shot. That’s usually how the police knows there is a hostage situation in the first place.
__________________________
Tom Weiss #109
Pure grade asinine bullshit. Weapons do go off and no magic is need. In fact, that phrase I just used? “To go off”? It exists precisely because firearms go off so very often.
A weapon with an inserted magazine is a weapon ready to fire. That’s the first rule that every soldier learns in every army in the world. It doesn’t matter if your finger is on the trigger or in your ass. See, this is why we call you gun-nuts – because you’re dumber than an average rookie and nowhere near as professional, which, if you ever met a rookie, is saying something.
(and that’s without getting into an argument about what effect guns, even properly handled ones, have on people, crime and the use of deadly force by the police)
paulbc @ 128 I used to carry a knife for self-defense when I was a teenager, then I grew up.
(I still carry one for utilitarian purposes, because… Tarzan.)
@30 Giliell – Agreed. If you stop to pay the check and to worry about whether the server got tipped then you are giving the nut with a gun the benefit of the doubt.
@109:
See, that’s a problem you have. You insist everybody in a ‘peaceful’ society ought to be required (uh, say, by some or another inconvenient legislation) to have ‘gun knowledge and training’.
I REFUSE it.
Do you know why?
Because it is not central to my idea of domestic tranquility.
I do NOT equate peace with a constant exhibition of weaponry.
Quite the opposite.
You do not get it.
I do not carry a ‘completely irrational fear’ by not carrying a firearm. I can step out into this world seething with too many human beings, as nuts as we all are, and not get pricked by the slightest inkling of any imminent danger. But whenever I see anybody carrying one, rest assured, I see someone who has resolved not to see the world that way, and by carrying a firearm, that personality is carrying a ‘completely irrational fear’ right in his or her holster, concealed or not.
The fact that it is there is a screaming indication of a distrust – if not contempt – of humanity and the society it attempts to build that precludes the necessity – actual or perceived – for the carrying of firearms.
Open-carry is tantamount to surrender. It is an expression of a popularly promoted distrust and contempt for something we used to identify as ‘The American Way’. To carry is to exhibit one’s disdain for the rule of law and justice under the control of the people.
Its a spit in their face.
Loaded means bullets somewhere in the weapon. How they fire is irrelevant bullshit, compare to true gun safety, which is use by RESPONSIBLE GUN OWNERS, where the guns and bullets do not meet until you are ready to fire your weapon in the very near future. Which doesn’t happen during the normal day. Personally, if you aren’t on the hunting range, not firing you weapon for even five minutes meant you loaded too soon and need to separate your bullets from the gun. Responsible gun owners do that. Nobody carrying in public is a responsible gun owner.
It seems to me that there are some people that live as if they are in the first reel of a movie, and that movie is some insane combination of ‘Die Hard’. ‘Red Dawn’, ‘Mad Max’ and ‘Night of the Living Dead’.
Is life really so dangerous, that people need to carry an AR-15 derivative at all times? The last time I had to call 911 was when my Mom was having a health crisis, we weren’t being attacked or anything. Why is it so important to openly carry a weapon?
Combination of racism and cartoonishly insecure toxic masculinity.
it’s all too clear that america’s true cowards are the folks who can’t leave the house without military grade weaponry.
I agree with ^ both of you. I’ve had a lot of nasty things said to me on the internet, a lot of “Good Xtians” take exception to the opinions of openly Bisexual, openly Atheist women, it seems, but I see no need to carry a black rifle as of yet.
#67 – anteprepro: Thanks for those. They’ll definitely be useful next time my high school best friend calls me a coward for not wanting a hand gun to defend my home (which would be pretty difficult to get here anyway)! I think he even unfriended me on FaceBook…
What I noticed about almost all the examples, though, was that they’re mostly private – in the home, in someone’s car, etc. What would be useful for the open carry argument is stats on a mixed, more public, environment (cafes, Walmarts, etc.). Or at least out of the home and the car.
I would also, after I had left, call the police about a menacing armed man at the restaurant or store. At the very least, this should mean that they may have *their* dinner or shopping trip disturbed by a policeman asking them quite valid questions (ideally while having a policeman’s gun pulled and aimed at the gun-totter’s torso or with him tossed to the floor and tased). At best, the store will use the presence of the policeman to ask the guy (it’s always a guy) to leave and not come back. At worst, there may be a shoot-out (worst because innocent by-standers could be hurt).
Except, you need to keep in mind the GunNuts have banned the CDC from collecting such data (they are logical choice to do so), and no federal research monies can be spent in looking to collect the data from the various academic funding agencies like NIH, NSF, etc. They GunNuts know there is a problem, but they don’t give a shit. Typical of their lack of empathy and bigotry.
References for no gun related statistics:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/no-funds-studies-gun-violence-article-1.1809263
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/12/gun_violence_research_nra_and_congress_blocked_gun_control_studies_at_cdc.html
http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun-violence.aspx
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/cdc-ban-gun-research-caused-lasting-damage/story?id=18909347
http://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-nra-kills-gun-violence-research-2013-1
Anna Elizabeth @ 135
The sad (scary) part is that they really, really, really wish that they were living in that movie.
AlexanderZ in various posts:
You keep saying ‘call the police’. And tell them what? The police, when you described what was going on would respond, ‘And your problem is?’ The whole point is that this is all perfectly legal. And perfectly stupid.
I live in the USA, and I’m completely with the folks commenting from elsewhere: it is frightening and incomprehensible. My best friend was killed when I was sixteen by two kids playing with their Dad’s rifle. It was deemed an ‘accident’ even though my friend told them to stop shooting across the river at him and his friend. I’ve never broken a law more serious than minor traffic violations and I’ve had the police pull a gun on me, twice. And I’m white. This place is fucked up.
I guess by analogy, we should all be required to carry an oxygen tank around with us, because you never know, the air might get really polluted. And probably we should have a polygraph with us (imagining for the sake of argument that such a thing actually works) because you never know who’s gonna lie to you. Of course, the gun will help with that, but it’s better to make sure the butcher isn’t selling you tainted meat up front so you don’t have to come back and shoot him later.
Yeah, this sounds like a really great way of life. I believe it is the one Hobbes referred to as “nasty, brutish, and short.” But hey, that’s the we likes it. God forbid we should all be such sissy boys to rely on a functioning social structure to keep us safe. Next you will be offering such collectivist bromides as “to promote the general Welfare.” What commie came up with that one?
@marcus #143 – I know, there seem to be so many that wish for destruction, that desire to be the ‘hero’ of a post-Apocalypse.
I guess it’s easier to imagine yourself Max Rockatansky than to try to make the world a better place in the real.
Question: Why not call the cops on your way out yourself and ask them to pay the bill for you? They are trained to handle and be around armed people? Let the cops be the arbitrators;)
if I’m enjoying a meal in a casual diner and a gun walks in, I would call the police (on my mobile), “A man with a gun just walked into this diner. I don’t know his plans, but he looks pretty scary. Could you send someone to check him out? Thanks.” {finis}
If it is the first time, probably they’ll disregard it, but after several such calls over several days and different callers, they may come “discuss it” with the manager.
“Calling the cops” is not to get a cop to show up and throw out the “open carrier”. It’s just to register a complaint with authorities who are bound [bonded] to take eventual action. Not expecting immediate action.
If I see an open carry person come in I see no reason to leave by the entrance they are standing by. Put enough money to cover the meal on the table and leave by the nearest alarmed emergency exit door.
If this is civil disobedience let the trained pro’s do the work for you call the cops in. Tell them the truth you feel threatened if you/we owe money here’s my card. Wait for the magic to happen after enough calls come in.
Try to put them on the record (phone cam). Ask if they feel its ok to have armed unknowns around your love ones, this coming from our Police (serve and protect). Make them say it openly. Front page/headline news, think TV as it is today folks….
Maybe the open carry laws could be called the Chris Kyle, Chad Littlefield memorial Acts. Because if there had been someone with a gun in the open, who was trained and able to use it, at the gun range where they were killed that day in Texas, they would both surely be alive today. Oh wait, nevermind.
Tom Weiss, Troll of all Trades at 109:
My “screed” was almost entirely mockery. The fact that you found ANYTHING that you agreed with is rather entertaining. That it was the standard “good guy with a gun” canard that you wanted so badly to agree with is just absolutely precious.
As if openly carrying a weapon isn’t a threat.
As if every “bad guy” threatens first before actually harming people.
As if “good guys” don’t ever threaten or harm innocent people.
As if “good guys” never mistakenly, violently respond to a fellow armed “good guy”.
As if “good guys” never mistakenly, violently respond to an unarmed innocent person.
As if “good guys” never violently respond to a “bad guy” that is unarmed and nonviolent. Or possibly not even a bad guy, just in a heated argument with the “good guy”.
As if “good guys” are fucking cowboys with infallible judgment and lightning quick draws such that the only time they are using their weapon is to save the fucking day in the instant between the “bad guy” drawing his weapon and the “bad guy” using it.
This is exactly what I was mocking. You are a fucking clown.
111:
What it actually says, for those of us with working brains, is that “arms” are weapons or other items used for defense. Which is the plain definition of the word. And that “arms” includes “firearms”, i.e. guns. But “arms” aren’t JUST firearms. And yet you would never get that impression when listening to NRA thralls and other assorted gun fetishists, such as yourself, Tom. The only arms that you and your fellow travelers advocate an absolute and unmitigated right to have and use are the arms that use bullets. Anything else, you are fine with silently letting the government restrict and regulate. And the government does so, with minimal protest and minimal issues. In many states, it is significantly harder because of this to get or carry around blowdarts, shuriken, swords, and so forth, than it is to get an Uzi. It is all rather telling.
@ Tom Weiss #109,
You said you had “never seen someone who is openly carrying handle the weapon in any fashion.” That kid is “handling” his gun in a restaurant; I don’t care that he’s posing for a picture.
Also, I earlier found a letter written to the open carry community by someone who loves his guns. The author clearly values gun freedoms a great deal, but even he said, about that exact picture:
I absolutely realize that there are a lot of responsible gun owners, I have friends and family who hunt and/or have served in the military. As far as I can tell, most states don’t seem to require any kind of license or training before people can buy a gun. The majority of people do not have your decades of training. I would think that the “well-regulated militia” part of the 2nd amendment would imply at least minimal training, and registration.
(So I didn’t read all 147+ comments, which means I’m going to be repeating stuff, which means you can safely ignore my comment unless there’s something in it you want to respond to, which there probably won’t be.)
So one thing I consider worse than open-carry is not leaving a tip, and then stealing. Y’all do realize that at many restaurants, servers can make as little as $3 an hour? My baseline tip is 20% for that alone (the server would have to be extremely terrible… like they would have to be talented at being terrible… to get less than that… and 20% is only my baseline because I can’t afford to make it higher… if I made more money, my baseline would be 30%).
Will I eat at an establishment that allows guns?
Hell no.
But if I didn’t know that, and I came in and ordered and they’re basically done cooking my food and a gun walks in? I’ll call over our server, ask for the bill, pay it, give a tip directly to our server, explain why I’m choosing not to eat there, and leave.
You have a better chance of getting the servers on your side if you’re not a thief or an asshole. Because if the gun-owners tip, why would the servers care about you? They may not like guns, but at least their owners are tipping and paying the servers’ bills.
So I’m down with walking out. I’m not down with refusing to tip, or even pay.
Two things* boggle the mind about the USA:
1. Your minimum wage laws, or rather, that the level set for a minimum wage allows for “below subsistence” (even “below existence”) incomes for 40+ hours of work per week.
2. That your “wild west” era towns and cities seem to have had rather more draconian gun control laws, specifically the “open carry” sort. Progress, I suppose.
*for the purpose of this comment. There are many. Too many to count. :)
Just a quote from the 1965 film ‘Mirage’, an exchange between the two characters played by Walter Matthau and Gregory Peck. Matthau’s character (a private investigator) glibly comes to realize the potential seriousness of the case that Peck’s character has hired him for. In the scene he mildly expresses his alarm:
Matthau: “‘Tell ya one thing, I’m beginning to wish I had a gun.”
Peck (flabbergasted upon learning his hired PI doesn’t carry a firearm): “You’re kidding!”
Matthau: “The filthy things, I can’t stand them. You have one and sure as shootin’ you end up using it.”
As it may apply.
btw, has anyone else noticed how increasingly difficult it is to post on this thread without glitches and not being able to copy&paste?
howardhershey #130
No. This is just…
I mean, I agree that calling the police and telling them that there is a man open carrying a weapon on his hip, and this makes you uncomfortable, is a perfectly reasonable – and I would say effective – way of bringing attention to the issue… saying that there is a “menacing armed man” is to frame the matter in a way that the cops would be far more likely to come with an aggressive, violence prone posture, such that you are making the situation for the fucking innocent people you are leaving at the potential war-zone far more dangerous.
You even acknowledge at the end there that the “worst case scenario” is a shoot out, but fuck it, at least you made a show of it, right? And I mean, you aren’t even there when it happens, so, lulz.
I understand that the phrase “menacing armed man” can be defended as accurate, in a vacuum. He’s armed. He’s a man. Many people would rightfully find this “menacing” by default. But those words have a very specific connotation to LE, and it isn’t “flag-waving ‘murican legally carrying a weapon on his hip, who is eating a cheeseburger and watching the game, and who, by virtue of having a visible weapon at all, makes me uncomfortable and/or afraid”, but rather anything from “guy brandishing a weapon about aggressively at people” to “guy furtively fondling a weapon and eyeing the cash register while sweating, twitching, and mumbling to himself.”
But hey, hopefully the guy is black, then you can really get those cop’s blood pumping before they get there! “Officer, please come help! There is a menacing armed black man wantonly displaying a gun and threatening the lives of children! Come quick!”
Technically true!
@153: I’ll add one:
As if bad guys can be readily identified by their black hats and attire.
There seems to be a lust in the land among some for making themselves look like good guys.
I predict an example of open-carry ‘good guys’ shooting it out with other ‘good guys’ by mistake before too long.
The world to them is a perpetual battle zone, and they insist that the rest of us must wise up and learn to understand the inevitable tragedy of ‘friendly fire’, because, you know, wearing firearms in public is a goddamned right provided by that goddamned constitution under which that goddamned government governs the goddamned people who have too many goddamned blacks, Mexicans and liberals in it.
Be sure to be ready to duck and cover at the first pops, and always be sure to note to your kids safe routes to run…
Because we’re afraid of monsters and give them whatever they want, including allowing them to shape the world we are condemned to live in.
One more thing…
Sanders.
Anything else is false.
howardhershey #130
I mean, you are explicitly saying your “ideal” scenario is that the police literally come in with guns drawn, and that violence actually occurs, and combatants are thrown about, and people are electrocuted while drawn guns are bandied about and violence is occurring.
In the middle of a crowded restaurant. Ostensibly your problem with the open carry guy is the potential danger and violence, and you are literally saying your ideal scenario is actual, realized danger and violence.
Just, fuck off.
@136Azkyroth
“Combination of racism and cartoonishly insecure toxic masculinity”
QFT
Alexander Z
Wow, I really can’t win, can I?
Whatever I would do, you have the perfectly reasonable answer why I am wrong, right? Why I am totally irresponsible and the one probably triggering the shootout.
But hey, if I call the cops, there might be a shootout. If I do nothing I might get killed in a shootout. If I leave I might trigger the shootout. If I do X…. It’S always the fault and responsibility of the unarmed person who feels justifiably threatened by the presence of a murder amchine and a person who thinks that it’s a good idea to carry that thing into a restaurant.
+++
QFT
I guess many people in the USA would be happy if guns were at least as well regulated as cars and driving.
Also, to this day gun fondlers have failed to make the obvious argument: We allow cars despite being quite dangerous because cars are damn useful things. Many things in out society hinge upon the fact that people are mobile. There is nothing useful about having tons of guns.
@Tom Weiss #109
Firstly, you avoided the question. How do you know they won’t start shooting? In reality, you don’t. So some wariness is perfectly justifiable.
No, the choice is not between an openly carried firearm or a concealed firearm. False dichotomy. I am against people carrying loaded firearms in public; I couldn’t give a fuck if they’re concealed or not. It’s dangerous and irresponsible.
I define a loaded gun as a gun with a round in the chamber, you patronizing fuckwit. There have been numerous examples of accidental discharges causing serious injuries and deaths. You simply can not deny this, it’s a fact. A responsible gun owner takes every possible measure to avoid this. That means when stored or being transported, the gun is unloaded; no magazine in, nothing in the chamber. When you’re about to use it, it’s loaded, but you keep the safety on and you make damn sure you’re not pointing it in anyone’s general direction. And before you use it, you make absolutely fucking certain that there is no chance of hitting anything other than your intended target.
At the very least, a person carrying a loaded firearm in public is ignoring the first two steps. It is completely irresponsible.
“You can tell the difference between a bad guy with a gun and a good guy with a gun- the bad guy is the one threatening innocent people’s lives”
Oh my Dog; anyone carrying a loaded firearm in public is threatening innocent people’s lives, you absolute fucking fuckwit! Jesus Christ, how stupid can someone get? You claim to have two decades of experience in the military and yet Alexander Z correctly points out that you seem to know less than the average rookie. Either you’re so fucking stupid you’ve forgotten everything you learned about firearm safety, or you’re lying. I’m going to go right out and say it: I don’t believe for a second that you have any military experience at all. I think you’re a walt. I am not in the military, but I know several people who are, and not a single one of them would ever be so stupid as to suggest that a loaded gun was perfectly safe, or imply that accidental discharges only happen during cleaning!
I’d like to point out the raging white privilege in saying “Just call the police!” In many, many cases, calling the police to help someone results in people being shot, particularly if the caller is Black. For many USans, calling the police is a last, worst option.
You can detect the Bad Guys easily – they’re the ones with the red outline when you hover your crosshairs over them. C’mon, every FPS player knows that!
@Giliell #163 I’d like to point out, that if anything you, or *I*, might do is likely to start these “Freedumb Advocates” shooting, that perhaps they are way, way too unstable to be carrying loaded firearms *anywhere*.
My suggestion to the Open Carry My Long Black Plastic Penis crowd is to move to Somalia.
Anna Elizabeth
Please, Somalia is very much plagued by all kinds of ills already. They don’t need your problematic population as well.
^#169 Oh, I don’t truly wish our gun-fondlers to be inflicted on *anyone*. I’m guessing though, that much like the Libertarians I meet, they would decline any opportunity to put their dipstick theories to the test in an environment they *say* they want.
I live in Ireland. I used to live in Texas. If I saw someone in a restaurant with a gun on his or her hip in Texas, I would indeed leave as soon as possible, because if someone felt the need to bring a gun to eat dinner, they would be, at the very least, signaling that the restaurant itself was an unsafe place. If someone brought a gun to a restaurant in Ireland, the next thing I would be looking for would be a bomb.
It seems to me that if anything happens in a restaurant that makes it difficult or impossible to finish your meal, you have the right and should walk out.
If for example, as the waiter is walking with your steak, he drops it on the floor, and picks it up and puts it in front of you, you would walk out. If the owner allows someone to upset you by walking in with a gun, I don’t see the difference.
“I do not want to be around a loaded gun if the owner of said gun does not have their full attention on it at all times.” Spoken like a person with no gun knowledge or training. The unknown is indeed scary, but in the light of knowledge guns become orders of magnitude less scary.
And once again, a gun-rights asshole responds to legitimate concerns — arising from real-world events that have been known to cause needless injury and death — by turning up his nose and smugly pretending everyone else is just silly and uninformed, and then showing off his knowledge of irrelevant technical minutiae. This is how children and tweeners make themselves look grown-up, long before they actually grow up.
And for future reference, you can tell the difference between a “bad guy” with a gun and a “good guy” with a gun – the bad guy is the one threatening innocent people’s lives. The good guy is the one who goes about his business and lets other people go about theirs. Until he sees a bad guy, that is.
…or BECOMES the bad guy, by getting himself into a situation he didn’t prepare for and making a dumbass mistake when his emotions get the better of him. Do you really expect us to believe “good guys” never make mistakes or have emotions?
And you still haven’t explained why a guy who goes about armed to the teeth, with no visible threat, and refusing to respond to anyone else’s concerns about his behavior, is in any way “good” or trustworthy. If he arms himself just to eat out, that strongly implies he doesn’t trust anyone else not to be evil. And if he doesn’t trust anyone else, why the FUCK should we trust him?
This whole open-bully movement just shows how tribalistic, childish and hypocritical the gundamentalists are: they think they’re automatically entitled to everyone else’s trust, while publicly advertizing their refusal to trust anyone else.
Let’S face it: If you think you need to take a big fat murder machine to the restaurant because you might have to stop a “bad guy”, your judgement is so much at odds with reality you cannot be trusted with a big fat murder machine.
Leaving the restaurant might be hazardous for a family of black people, too, as pretty much any action by a black person is often considered suspicious, esp. by these self-styled open-carry ‘good guy’ vigilantes. In which case I have no good solution, because I would probably be among those leaving the restaurant and either trying to pay by leaving money or paying later. But this type of action is inherently more dangerous to a black person or persons than it would be to anyone who is white. As would any other reaction, really.
Calling a black open-carry advocate is just too dangerous an idea to contemplate, esp. if the point is to engage in a confrontation with a white open-carry advocate. I see only violence (probably police-involved in the end, too) at the end of that scenario.
Calling the police is also a rather privileged viewpoint, because they may target not the person open-carrying, but a slightly more suspicious-looking (read: black) individual trying to finish his lunch in peace and perhaps a bit of a nervous rush. Only violence at the end of that scenario, too.
Raging Bee
Yep, the “best case scenario” is that he’s playing “I’m not touching you”. The favourite game of bullies everywhere: Doing something that is at the extreme end of legal and that they know makes other people uncomfortable/afraid/etc. with the explicit goal of making them uncomfortable/afraid/etc.
Tom Weiss, #37
Maybe if the restaurant is Los Pollos Hermanos.
Bringing a big, loaded automatic weapon into your neighborhood family restaurant is not a concern about safety. It’s an fucked up celebration of the unfortunate fact that you have the right to bring your killing machines around other people and their children. It’s gun culture obsession through and through.
EXTREMELY likely! Based on what?
I would really prefer to not leave without paying, but it’s going to have to be a judgement call. It will depend how the gun fondler is behaving, whether xe’s showing off xir implement designed solely for inflicting high numbers of human casualties and fatalities, if xe’s doing unsafe things with it, etc. If so, I’m getting the fuck out of there. I’ll pay later if it becomes an issue.
Everybody who has shot up a school, mall, theater, or workplace open carries right before the massacre. Or do they sound off a warning that they are going to shoot and then give people five minutes to clear out? I’m not going to waste potentially life-saving seconds on deciding whether a gun nut asshat is “responsible” or not. Fuck open carry proponents.
Anri, #167
Good point. Also, turn friendly fire off. Problem solved. Fire away; you’ll only hit the baddies!
@75, paulbc
You don’t even have to go that far. Most states have an explicit ban on carrying swords, axes, flails, and even knives with blades over a few inches long, despite the fact that these are far, far safer than guns and the fact that they should be equally allowed under the 2nd amendment as written. Mostly because there isn’t a giant multi-million dollar sword lobby in Washington.
This is why i’m partial to open carry. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/guns-at-hand-a-prison-town-traces-a-manhunt-for-escaped-killers/ar-BBl0vLr
Fun bit a trivial: The current open carry movement is spurred by the state of Texas, no surprise there, contradictory open carry’s laws. You can open carry a Long Arm with no fuss, but you CAN NOT open carry a handgun unless you have a CHL. OCing a handgun is less noticeable and likewise won’t start a fuss, oppose to slinging around a rifle that sticks out like a third arm and spends people running.
Ranzoid, #180
I don’t see what having guns ready at home when two murderers are on the loose in your town has to do with bringing an AR-15 into a restaurant or just walking around with it on a typical day.
Ranzoid: in the example you cite, many, or most, of the people involved are already connected to the prison security apparat, so they have prior training or experience that justifies their carrying guns in their daily business. Also, the main concern for those people is escaped prisoners, who can be easily identified, as opposed to just plain generic “bad guys.”
Furthermore, in cases like this, civilians can be deputized as needed by LEOs, and thus function as a competent and organized unit, not just a bunch of yahoos looking for some unspecified bad guys to show their badness by doing some unanticipated bad thing.
@112 paulbc – Heller is the seminal 2nd amendment Supreme Court case. The last paragraph on page 7 of the link I provided has this: Before addressing the verbs “keep” and “bear,” we inter pret their object: “Arms.” The 18th-century meaning is no different from the meaning today. The 1773 edition of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary defined “arms” as “weapons of offence, or armour of defence.” 1 Dictionary of the English Language 107 (4th ed.) (hereinafter Johnson). Timothy Cunningham’s important 1771 legal dictionary defined “arms” as “any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another.” 1 A New and Complete Law Dic tionary (1771); see also N. Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) (reprinted 1989) (hereinaf ter Webster) (similar).” The term was applied, then as now, to weapons that were not specifically designed for military use and were not employed in a military capacity.
The word “arms” does not mean only guns – as you can see from the last sentence is applies to all “weapons that were not specifically designed for military use.”
Also – “The first answer that occurs to me is “I’m not going to stay and find out.”
Fine, that is obviously your right to leave the situation if the presence of a weapon makes you uncomfortable. Just don’t steal from that place of business as you do so.
@112 paulbc – Heller is the seminal 2nd amendment Supreme Court case. The last paragraph on page 7 of the link I provided has this: Before addressing the verbs “keep” and “bear,” we inter pret their object: “Arms.” The 18th-century meaning is no different from the meaning today. The 1773 edition of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary defined “arms” as “weapons of offence, or armour of defence.” 1 Dictionary of the English Language 107 (4th ed.) (hereinafter Johnson). Timothy Cunningham’s important 1771 legal dictionary defined “arms” as “any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another.” 1 A New and Complete Law Dic tionary (1771); see also N. Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) (reprinted 1989) (hereinaf ter Webster) (similar).” The term was applied, then as now, to weapons that were not specifically designed for military use and were not employed in a military capacity.
And once again, Tom Weiss has nothing to offer but a virtually meaningless recitation of facts that don’t really say anything coherent or relevant to anyone else’s legitimate concerns.
Oh, and I notice he’s mentioning the Heller ruling, without saying anything about what that ruling actually says, or doesn’t say. That’s probably because he’s bluffing, by citing a ruling that doesn’t really say what he and his fellow gundamentalists need it to say.
@153 atepro –
Mocking only works if there is a logical thread running through your argument. In your case, there is not.
“As if openly carrying a weapon isn’t a threat.”
Of course it is not a threat. A weapon, in and of itself, is completely harmless. Openly carrying a weapon can quickly turn into a threat, but the very act itself is not threatening to anyone.
As if every “bad guy” threatens first before actually harming people.
Of course they don’t always threaten first – but once they start harming people I want someone around with enough force to stop them from harming more people. Throwing a bagel at them generally doesn’t work.
As if “good guys” don’t ever threaten or harm innocent people.
If you threaten or harm innocent people, in my opinion you are not a good guy by definition.
As if “good guys” never mistakenly, violently respond to a fellow armed “good guy”.
If this happens, it is likely to be exceedingly rare. What is much more common is a “good guy” deterring a “bad guy” from causing harm at that particular establishment. (see here as one example: http://www.examiner.com/article/open-carry-deters-armed-robbery-kennesaw)
As if “good guys” never mistakenly, violently respond to an unarmed innocent person.
See above.
As if “good guys” never violently respond to a “bad guy” that is unarmed and nonviolent. Or possibly not even a bad guy, just in a heated argument with the “good guy”.
See above, you’re repeating yourself.
“As if “good guys” are fucking cowboys with infallible judgment and lightning quick draws..”
Etc., etc…people are people and they are imperfect. I never suggested otherwise.
I find it incredible that perhaps the one immutable law of human development for the last several millennia – the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun – is what you choose to mock. What, pray tell, will stop a bad guy with a gun?
What stopped Hitler? Stalin? Saddam Hussein? Let’s bring it closer to home – what would have stopped Columbine? Aurora? Sandy Hook? In England last year a terrorist beheaded a British soldier in broad daylight in the middle of the street with a machete and the UK police couldn’t respond to the situation for (if memory serves) close to 30 minutes because they were unarmed.
Violence has solved more arguments than anything else in human history. That’s a horrible, terrible fact, and something the human condition can hopefully overcome one day. But today isn’t that day. What safety you currently enjoy is outsourced to men with guns who stand ready to put themselves and their safety between the bad guy and you if it comes to that. Mocking that sacrifice doesn’t sound to me like an intelligent strategy. But you’re free to do what you like.
marcus #131
I used to carry on my feet for self-defense (self surrender, or blitz flee fu) when I was a teenager, then I also grew up.
I still carry on my feet for utilitarian purposes… :)
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dersk #39
Maybe that’s really what is operating at symbolic inner transposite cognissence level, but then it would still be dread wrong per se (que). Indeed, who’s possibly even symbolically believing that the speediest seconds-lag shooting is the most enjoyable way of using their appendage?
.
I’m not sure I completely understand the issue at stake: being stolen is really that worse than losing one’s life? That seems way crazy. Personnally I have only one life and any material good I might enjoy have their use limited to this one life, and while I might be annoyed with being stolen the most useful goods (say, a car) this is certainly never going to take priority over staying alive.
The only kind of things that gets as precious as my own life are my kids and beloved own ones, and these would be dramatically endangered by open carry gun practicians, even if they pretend otherwise. And frankly, if someone’s stealing me food, I’d gladly give them some more anyway; if they are stealing me from a few bucks they probably needed it more than I do; and so on. I don’t give a shit, I don’t own anything worth costing a life and nobody’s going to steal my home (which I don’t own but I was gaming the thought).
And before the pedants come out – I know guns haven’t been around for millennia. Substitute “stick” “rock” “arrow” etc.
Armed forces as regulated parts of governments, not random self-trained individuals.
Right, but the terrorist only had a machete — how much worse could that have been if he had an AR-15 with several large magazines? Your argument supports the notion that the British police should be armed, and not the British populace as a whole.
@173 Raging Bee – “And once again, a gun-rights asshole responds to legitimate concerns — arising from real-world events that have been known to cause needless injury and death — by turning up his nose and smugly pretending everyone else is just silly and uninformed, and then showing off his knowledge of irrelevant technical minutiae.”
That particular commenter was uninformed as, I suspect, are you. If someone has a weapon on safe with no round in the chamber it is literally impossible for it to go off accidentally. The questions I asked were not irrelevant, they are highly relevant to the situation. Someone trained in gun use would understand that.
As for your other arguments – I never suggested, nor would I, that people who open carry are perfect. No one is.
“And you still haven’t explained why a guy who goes about armed to the teeth, with no visible threat, and refusing to respond to anyone else’s concerns about his behavior, is in any way “good” or trustworthy.”
I’m going to assume “armed to the teeth” means one weapon, but I’m not quite sure what you’re on about with the rest of that. The point of open carry is not to respond to a visible threat, it is to deter threats. If his only behaviour is carrying a weapon then there shouldn’t be too many concerns (except from the people in here, and philosophers). Finally – like anyone else – someone who open carries is just as trustworthy as everyone else. Studies have shown concealed carry permit holders commit crimes at a lower level than the general population, but I’m not aware of any studies of open carry.
@188 “Your argument supports the notion that the British police should be armed, and not the British populace as a whole.”
Wrong. A British citizen armed with a gun could perhaps have saved that young man’s life.
Also interesting to ponder the differences between the two cultures in the US and UK about guns. There is a reason we were able to win the Revolutionary War.
Of course it is not a threat. A weapon, in and of itself, is completely harmless. Openly carrying a weapon can quickly turn into a threat, but the very act itself is not threatening to anyone.
Bullshit. If I am confronted, in any situation, by a stranger carrying a gun, then that is a threat in itself, because I have no way of knowing in advance whether that person is likely to pull it on me. Once again, Weiss, you are using the “logic” of the bully and the gangster, who overtly threaten others while denying any intent to threaten anyone, and at the same time count on everyone to understand that, yes, they are making real threats, so shut up and don’t question them. (If a guy with a gun is not threatening anyone, then why would “bad guys” feel threatened? You’re talking out of both ends of your ass.)
Of course they don’t always threaten first – but once they start harming people I want someone around with enough force to stop them from harming more people.
Don’t kid yourself — if they draw their guns first, all those law-abiding gun-toters will be just as helpless as the unarmed shmoes they look down on. And just because you have a gun, doesn’t mean using it against a bad guy won’t do more harm than good. Ever heard of something called “crossfire?” Innocent people tend to get caught in it, which is why TRAINED COPS are a bit less eager to fire their guns than stupid uncaring yahoos like yourself.
I find it incredible that perhaps the one immutable law of human development for the last several millennia – the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun – is what you choose to mock. What, pray tell, will stop a bad guy with a gun?
A TRAINED OFFICER, GAUARDSMAN OR SOLDIER with a gun. Not some pretentious wanker who just walks into any public place and expects everyone to know he’s the good guy.
What stopped Hitler? Stalin? Saddam Hussein? Let’s bring it closer to home – what would have stopped Columbine? Aurora? Sandy Hook?
Armed civilian vigilantes didn’t stop a single one of those incidents; nor could they have in any realistic non-Hollywood scenario.
In England last year a terrorist beheaded a British soldier in broad daylight in the middle of the street with a machete and the UK police couldn’t respond to the situation for (if memory serves) close to 30 minutes because they were unarmed.
That’s irrelevant, since no one here is advocating disarming the cops.
see here as one example…
Just one? There’s COUNTLESS examples of armed civilians causing more harm than good, both accidentally and deliberately, all over the planet and throughout history. Your one example doesn’t mean shit.
Wrong. A British citizen armed with a gun could perhaps have saved that young man’s life.And the terrorist armed with a gun could have killed far more people. While one murder is tragic, you are placing a lot of weight on just one murder. My point is that the lack of guns in British culture cuts both ways, and I think the evidence of rates of gun violence shows that the British approach produces overall fewer civilian deaths.
This is perhaps the stupidest, most a-historical argument for guns that I have ever heard.
Tom Weiss #111
And Tom Weiss #183
Uh, wait. Didn’t you originally link the opinion to assert that “arms” and “guns” are synonymous? I don’t think they are. I don’t think you have established that the Supreme Court considers them to be. I fact, this looks like you are contradicting yourself (unless the Supreme Court established a new meaning for “synonymous.”
Another thing, if someone appeared threatening to me while I was at a restaurant, I would naturally feel free to leave immediately if possible without paying the bill, leaving an IOU, or doing anything to delay my exit. I would call the owner later to settle the bill and expect them to understand my situation. This is common sense.
Also interesting to ponder the differences between the two cultures in the US and UK about guns. There is a reason we were able to win the Revolutionary War.
What, the Brits lost because their soldiers didn’t carry guns? Where the fuck do you gundamentalists learn your history?
The questions I asked were not irrelevant, they are highly relevant to the situation. Someone trained in gun use would understand that.
No, they are not; they are purely technical questions, and this issue is about human behavior.
I’m going to assume “armed to the teeth” means one weapon, but I’m not quite sure what you’re on about with the rest of that.
My comment was in plain English, with few if any typos. Either you’re hiding from a point you can’t refute, or you’re a clueless idiot with no understanding of other people.
If his only behaviour is carrying a weapon then there shouldn’t be too many concerns…
We’ve explained our concerns, repeatedly and in some detail, in plain English, and all you’ve done is flatly ignore them. Your willful dishonesty disproves nearly everything you’ve said about how trustworthy you and you fellow gun-toters are. A person who carries a gun and lies and looks down on everyone else like you do, is not a good or trustworthy person.
What safety you currently enjoy is outsourced to men with guns who stand ready to put themselves and their safety between the bad guy and you if it comes to that. Mocking that sacrifice doesn’t sound to me like an intelligent strategy.
Our safety is “outsourced” to organized groups of trained cops, guardsmen and soldiers. And we’re not mocking them, we’re mocking ignorant self-important pretenders like you.
I see our irresponsible gun nut is back with more lies, bullshit, and deflections.
The only intrinsically safe gun is one unloaded and open. Which is why it is the only way weapons should be carried in public by responsible individuals. Anybody not an irrational gun nut knows that.
How do you know they won’t find a reason? There’s no guarantee you or I would accept the reason as valid or anything, you know.
Not much (concealed weapons must be a bit harder to reach). But I don’t think anyone here is much happier with concealed than with openly carried guns. This post is about the people who openly carry just to make a point.
Well, if you had, you’d perhaps not be here and able to tell us about it.
Exactly: they’re paranoid.
I do not want to be around anyone who’s so afraid they think it’s worth carrying a gun, not even when they’re first of all afraid that some third party might attack me.
Scared + armed = dangerous.
By simply assuming that the waiter will make up the difference in tips. It’s explicitly legal to engage in such wishful thinking in the US.
Not me; perhaps it’s your browser. Every quote in this comment is copied & pasted!
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Do you listen to yourself? :-D
If someone has a weapon on safe with no round in the chamber it is literally impossible for it to go off accidentally.
Technically true, but an irrelevant dodge. First, if I see a guy with a gun, I’ll probably have no way of knowing whether it’s “on safe with no round in the chamber,” so as far as I’m concerned, the chance of accidental discharge is not zero.
And second, if you’re open-carrying a gun that’s “on safe with no round in the chamber,” then you’re just carrying dead weight, and you’ll be of no use at all if a bad guy pops into view.
“Connecticut handgun law has led to 40% drop in gun-related homicides”
Homicides* by other means apparently stayed the same.
* Who invented this barbarous word, BTW?
btw, has anyone else noticed how increasingly difficult it is to post on this thread without glitches and not being able to copy&paste?
Nope, that’s just you. And it’s probably because you’re starting to lose your temper as you find your bullshit consistently debunked.
Tom Weiss #189
To me non-armed people are near enough from perfection. You can say hello to them without risking for your life, even if they misbelieve you to be dangerous.
I’m saying that because I’ve been called an islamist three times already this year, which demonstrates you cannot trust people to spot actual terrorists, rather, you can trust them to pick on random innocent folks.
This is perhaps the stupidest, most a-historical argument for guns that I have ever heard.
Yeah, it’s at least as silly as their made-up stories about how Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. began their reigns of terror by taking away everyone’s guns.
Raging Bee #201
And now I feel safer to have had this discussion on the internet rather than at a restaurant in front of the losy tempered open loaded automatic killing thing carrying uncaring thug.
Paul K #144
The same thing slithey tove #148 would say, but I get your point (and that of CaitieCat #166 and rq #175). You’re in a no-win scenario and any action is pointless.
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Giliell #163
Not when you’re making bad arguments! This is not me trying to get you or me being contrarian. Hell, my original point wasn’t even addressed to you in particular, but to a group of commenters who share your position. A position I disagree with.
It’s not about you!!
Nobody (well maybe except for Tom Weiss, who is an idiot) is saying that. My reaction to threats is partially based on training received when my city had weekly terrorist attacks. It is also, as Paul K #144, CaitieCat #166 and rq #175 point out, rooted in privilege and a different culture. Though personally I don’t see why a privileged person can’t use their privilege to fight other evils, I concede that any person, when faced with an armed nut, can get shot. It won’t be that person’s fault, but it may happen. And the likelihood for that depends on many factors, including the actions of the reasonable person.
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Tom Weiss #185
Depression?
A heart attack?
Gravity and a piece of rope?
Good access to mental health care?
Here is the thing: Most countries don’t have “random” shootouts like US, and most countries can solve their violence problems just without arming the entire population. In fact, they can do so much better than the US. This is readily available information and can be easily found online.
Which is why everyone should carry a nuke. After all, if a pistol stops a knife and an assault rifle stops a pistol, why not have everyone carry a thermonuclear device in their fanny-packs? Imagine the safety it will bring!
Actually, Okidemia, I’d be more inclined to trust an actual uncaring thug — the thug would be in his element, and more likely to feel secure as a result, and I have a pretty good idea how to avoid getting shot by a thug. It’s these open-carry wannabees, who try to pretend to be the good guys and find themselves out of their depth on battlegrounds not of their choosing, who are more threatening.
“No round in the chamber” does not mean “unloaded”.
Note to the Ammosexy: paraphrasing, and/or quoting the raving Colonel from “A Few Good Men” and lines from “Starship Troopers” are kind of accomplishing the opposite of what you think they are doing.
Unless you intended to sound like a 12-year-old boy with the new issue of Tactical Weapons magazine. If so, carry on.
Anna: Did he really quote from “A Few Good Men” and “Starship Troopers?” Please specify, at least for our amusement. That would mean this guy is even more stuck in a fantasy world than I thought.
@Raging Bee #209 – paraphrases, at least. You quoted in #196:
“What safety you currently enjoy is outsourced to men with guns who stand ready to put themselves and their safety between the bad guy and you” sounds much like Jack Nicholson’s tour-de-force performance, I just watched it last night.
and Weiss from #185:
“Violence has solved more arguments than anything else in human history.” Is a slight paraphrase from Rasczak’s homily in the movie version of “Starship Troopers”.
Holy crap, he’s not just wallowing in violent fantasy, he’s wallowing in BAD violent fantasy. “Starship Troopers?” That’s been a juvenile, militaristic, war-romanticizing joke in SF circles ever since it was first published. Heinlein never had a clue about how humans really function, and most of his characters were lame even by stereotype standards. And the “Starship Troopers” movies? Laughably bad dialogue with occasional totally gratuitous female nudity making things even more unrealistic.
I’m of the school of thought that the film is actually satirizing the juvenile attitudes of the original material, which is why I think it’s pretty brilliant.
I’d agree that the film was deliberate satire, but agreed and endorsed, Raging Bee. :)
Have you read John Steakley’s “Armor”? It’s Starship Troopers, writ with a closer hold on the realities of life. It’s a shattering read.
Pardon the OT diversion, but satire isn’t “brilliant” if you can’t really tell it’s satire. Either Heinlein was a lousy satirist (as he was a mediocre writer and a lousy character-developer), or his story is so stupid and badly written that it can’t be taken seriously. (The latter is not the same as actual satire.)
I don’t think the film is brilliant satire, but the performances are so broad, yet simultaneously flat, that if it’s not a deliberate satire, the filmmakers are making Ed Wood look like Kubrick.
But yes, those phrases leapt out to me from Weiss’ arguments.
The claim in comment 212 is that the film is a satire of what Heinlein wrote, not that Heinlein himself already wrote a satire.
My memory from watching the film (long before I had any idea there was a book) was that it seemed to present the militaristic society as just a matter of neutral fact. I thought it was a dystopia. *shrug*
Any film that casts Doogie Howser in the role of a Mengele (right down to a long black leather trench coat) is definitely doing satire.
Raging Bee – Might I kindly suggest to you and David (in another comment) that you’re the paranoid one.
Your concerns are well noted. You’re scared of guns. Got it. So am I, and I’ve had the business end of them pointed at me. But fear of the gun itself is irrational, as some human must manipulate the gun in very specific ways for it to become dangerous.
As a result, unless a person carrying a gun in public is specifically manipulating the weapon he/she is carrying, and manipulating it in a way which threatens you, there is no threat. None. You’re the paranoid one and you’re the bully for suggesting that the mere presence of that gun is a threat to you.
I understand the psychology behind it, as I’ve said previously I’ve experienced it myself. And perhaps it is a bit much for me to ask someone so philosophically rigid to open your mind a little. It just feels counter-intuitive to think that you’re safer around someone with a gun, no matter how true that might be.
I also find it interesting that you think I’m a “gun-toter.” I do own guns, but I do not carry them in public either openly or concealed. Part of the reason is that the US Army forbids its soldiers from carrying weapons on an Army installation, regardless of the legal requirements of the state. Army posts are, as a result, “gun-free zones,” a fact which directly contributed to and increased the death toll at Fort Hood and Washington, DC.
Our safety is mostly outsourced to trained police and military. But they cannot be everywhere at once, which is why groups like neighbourhood watches are formed. And the police cannot be at a specific place immediately – like someone’s home when it’s broken into by rapists, murders or thieves. That is a threat my weapons are designed to handle, something that, fortunately, I’ve never had to exercise.
“First, if I see a guy with a gun, I’ll probably have no way of knowing whether it’s “on safe with no round in the chamber,” so as far as I’m concerned, the chance of accidental discharge is not zero.”
Take a second read of this sentence and try to understand why you are the bully in your scenario. “So as far as I’m concerned…” Your concern is, apparently, the only thing that matters. The person who is carrying the weapon matters not one whit.
Once again – what about the concealed weapons you’re not seeing? Are those less dangerous than those you do see?
“What, the Brits lost because their soldiers didn’t carry guns? Where the fuck do you fundamentalists learn your history?”
I posted a link to the Supreme Court decision in Heller a ways up this thread. In it is a good review of the historical underpinnings of the right to keep and bear arms. Many governments – specifically the Brits – used soldiers to disarm their political opponents and thereby gain power and leverage over them. This did not happen to a large degree in the American colonies, hence we were much better armed when the time came to revolt against tyranny. The Brits lost that war for many reasons, one of them being the general populace of the colonies was well armed. The founders, as a result, enshrined as the 2nd amendment to the Constitution the right to keep and bear arms. Note also the placement of that amendment, right behind freedom of speech and religion.
This isn’t a “made up story” it’s part of the actual story about how the US was founded. I understand most progressives don’t get this – or think it is silly nonsense – because most of you are comfortable with tyranny (as long as its the right kind). It follows then that when gun “nuts” exercise their right to bear arms, I doubt you’re able to understand or sympathise with the theoretical underpinnings. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, and all it takes is to open your mind a little to the argument. You’re free to reject it of course, but at least you’ll do so from a position of knowledge, not one of ignorance.
Final note – consider our two ideologies for a moment. Mine has room for you. You’re free to order your life however your see fit as long as it doesn’t impinge upon my rights. Your philosophy has no room for mine. You would force me to act in ways that you see fit. Your concern is the only concern. This is the mind of a bully.
@ Raging Bee #201,
The copy&paste question (#158) was from anchor. Going back through their comments, I can’t see anything I’d call “bullshit”. Perhaps you’re thinking that #157 was in support of having guns but that’s not how I read it, especially in the context of their other comments (e.g. 115, 133, 160). Granted, I haven’t seen the movie they quoted in 157.
@ anchor #158,
No, I haven’t had any copy/paste issues. Probably your browser. Check if it happens in other applications to rule out a PC problem.
Tom Weiss @ 185:
…not having easy access to firearms?
Just sayin’.
@189:
No, you just suggested that the deaths from that imperfection are far less important to you than your desire to publicly fondle guns.
. . .
tulse @ 217:
Now, whether or not it’s doing good satire, well, that’s a separate question…
Tom Weiss, #218
No… it doesn’t. That’s the whole fucking point.
If I’m trying to enjoy ice cream with my child and an open carrying stranger I’m not free to order my life as I see fit. There’s a stranger with a fucking rifle near my child.
You’re doing the gun version of the upskirt photography defense. Yeah, my gadget is close to you but it’s not touching you!
Also, thank you for the claim that the British Empire lost the American Revolutionary War because they didn’t like weapons as much as the states. So lawl.
That’s supposed to be “and an open carrying stranger walks in“.
Tom Weiss @ 218:
If concern about other people carrying guns is irrational, why do you need you gun?
Isn’t it to stop other gunmen?
If people with guns are essentially harmless, why would you feel the need to carry a gun to defend yourself from them?
The same could equally be said of someone carrying a hand grenade. Or a bomb. Or a vial of smallpox. But in all those cases I’d feel threatened.
Tom Weiss, #185
I can’t believe I missed this one. The asinine idea that armed forces have helped defeat win wars therefore guns should be okay for citizens to carry openly in public aside, I’m afraid your grasp of basic history is embarrassing. Hint: One of those was not like the other.
Tom Weiss,
You’re lying though. If you were enjoying a mean with your family and a complete stranger walked in with a gun hanging from his shoulder, you’d feel threatened. You’re bullshitting.
The colonists won the American Revolution for the same reason the North Vietnamese won the Vietnam War. They had the support of their enemy’s international rivals. Such support eventually made the cost of fighting the rebellion too expensive for the potential benefits of holding on to the colonies, and the British Crown decided to let the colonies go, just as keeping an allied government in South Vietnam eventually became too expensive for the US versus the benefits.
Conversely, “good guys with guns” did nothing in the end to help the Native peoples of North America. Despite their armed resistance they were eventually overwhelmed by superior forces, and had their lands and freedoms taken away.
I’m sure the Nazis would have loved armed resistance by Jews and others before WW2 began. They would then have been able to justify their bigoted plans, and probably would have gotten a pass from non-Germans who shared their anti-Semitism, of which there were all too many.
Did Tom Weiss really mention Neighbourhood Watches? Paging George Zimmerman…
I’m just wondering how, as a member of the neighbourhood watch, Tom Weiss knows that my home is being burgled or that I’m about to be raped. And hey, maybe I don’t want a dead body on my carpet, eh? What if they’re armed, too, and it becomes a hostage situation and armed standoff?
Funny how I don’t feel safer knowing that.
The mere presence of a gun is a threat because I don’t know how the carrier will respond to ordinary situations, which may not seem ordinary to them. For whatever reason. And that gun is an EasyKilling machine, esp. to someone with training and knowledge of it – and, considering some gun accidents in the USAmerica of which the media has spoken, most people don’t have training and/or actual knowledge of the weapons they carry. Or else they choose not to adhere to that knowledge, which is somehow more frightening. Either way, openly carrying guns does not make me feel safe.
Kinda funny, though… when Tom Weiss speaks of a mysterious Good Guy saving us lowly peons from the threat of some mysterious Bad Guy, I’m always picturing a white man holding the gun… I wonder, did Tom Weiss advocate for Marissa Alexander, who had a gun and knew why to use it and how (non-fatally, as it were…)?
Sorry my comment as a whole doesn’t seem to make sense. :( It made sense in the stream-of-consciousness as I wrote it.
Chris Capoccia:
That is not an argument against the strategy. That is an argument it might be amazingly successful.
The “responsible gun owners” fighting for easy access to guns seem to approach it as though the only people getting guns are other “responsible gun owners”. If the US had some reasonable controls on who was allowed to buy a gun, this wouldn’t be such an issue. As I mentioned earlier, it seems like the majority of states don’t even require basic safety training before allowing someone to purchase a gun (can any Americans give me a solid answer on this?).
Given these loose laws, it is not logical to assume that every person walking around with a gun, open carry or concealed, is a “responsible gun owner”. Plus, even the best trained and honourable gun owner still has the capacity to make mistakes. When guns are involved, those mistakes are often deadly. At least when the guns are kept at home, those deadly mistakes don’t endanger the general populace.
Another thing, if someone wants to rob me with a gun, my preferred course of action is to give them my money and work with authorities to catch the person. I don’t want some random vigilante starting a shootout. That random vigilante would be violating my desires. They would also be risking my life and the lives anyone else in the vicinity far more than the lone criminal who just wants my valuables. Why should the vigilante’s desires trump mine?
Again, if I could trust that all such vigilantes were well-trained and level-headed, it wouldn’t be so much of an issue. But this is very far from the reality.
The French?
Also, haha, for those who believe law enforcement is any better at reacting to people with guns in open carry states, I give you John Crawford III and Tamir Rice. Ohio is an open-carry state. Obviously, only for some people.
@ rq #234,
But they really, really looked like “bad guys”. /sarcasm
Weapons, especially firearms, are tightly controlled on military bases because the military understands the primary kinds of gun deaths:
(0) Accidents.
(1) Suicides.
(2) Escalations of disputes between 2 or 3 people.
Incidents like the “fort hood shooting” are a wonderful way for journalists to sell adverts, but they are a tiny portion of the total numbers – and the military does not care about individual lives, they care about numbers.
Military bases are not “gun free”; they always have MPs, most of which I suspect are armed with M16A2 or equivalent with three round burst (usually not full auto) . But their primary duty is responding to crimes 20 or 60 minutes after crimes happen, not preventing shootouts.
Yep, carrying it have it bump into things makes is DANGEROUS TO ALL INVOLVED.
The only intrinsically safe way to carry a gun in public is with no ammo and the breach open. There is no safer way. Just one that hasn’t had a negligent misfire yet. You haven’t shown otherwise with evidence, and your opinion never will be evidence. Just the ravings of a paranoid gun-nut, also known as a delusional presuppositional fool, like any godbot.
The French won the Revolutionary War, not the gun-owning local Americans.
The Second Amendment is about the necessity of a well-trained militia, and the right of citizens to serve in it, and to train regularly. It has nothing at all to do with private citizens owning guns. The body of the Constitution – the part written first – makes it clear that the governments supplied arms to the militias.
The current gundamentalists (thanks for that term), are just as lost as every other fundamentalist group building a worldview on a fantasy. And, like the religious, they have an organization dedicated to taking their money to reinforce their beliefs and get more money – the NRA, if you need that pointed out. (Hey, NRA! Obama is almost out – when is he going to confiscate all your guns? (I know, I know – you stopped him, and need more money.))
Some decades back, a troubled young man climbed up a clock tower in Texas, and started shooting. The Texans – the real, gun-toting Texans – started shooting up at the tower. Their shooting did no good at all – it did do some bad. If they had been un-armed, the day would have been no worse. If the young man had been un-armed, a lot of people would still be alive.
The fear is not of the gun. It is of the person who is carrying the gun.
I have no reason to trust this stranger to be in any way sufficiently responsible with that weapon, while the simple fact that he or she is the type of person who would open carry a firearm into a public space gives much many reasons NOT to.
Tom Weiss #218:
No, it isn’t. It is healthy. It is from an element of fear that any worthwhile gun safety training features rules like ‘always assume the gun is loaded – even if you’ve just unloaded it.’ This fear comes from the simple fact that guns are specifically and deliberately designed to kill and maim.
So I guess a gun going off by accident has never, ever happened then?
Why would a person have a device designed specifically and deliberately designed to main and kill unless they mean to use it? The people around them are not psychic. As such, they do not know under what circumstances that person will use that device. A person who will only pull out this device and use it in a completely responsible manner, with perfect aim, against a clear and undeniable danger, may look exactly the same as a person who will pull it out and start firing it wildly because someone looked at them the wrong way, or they spot someone with a disagreeable skin colour.
It’s not ‘counter-intuitive’, it’s simply plain wrong. Two people are walking towards me down the street, both of whom are total strangers. One has taken the time and trouble to arm themselves with a device designed to kill and maim, the other hasn’t. Now, the chances of either of them deciding to try to injure or kill me is small, (for whatever reason – that they perceive me as a threat, that they want to rob me, that they get their kicks that way, that they have a sudden psychotic break from reality, etc, etc, etc), but, of the two, which one is better equipped to do so, should they have that desire?
I’ll take your word for it that Army posts are ‘gun-free zones’ is a fact, but maybe you should be thinking about why the Army takes so much care to lock up their weapons. However, I will dismiss the claim about how that contributed to the death toll as the evidence-free assertion it is.
So you can be at my house immediately should someone break in? That seems somewhat unlikely. However, even if true, the idea that some random gun-toting guy will be following the other guy who’s just broken in actually makes me feel less safe, not more – after all, I could hear someone creeping about one night, get up to go investigate, only to be shot by some numbnut who’s watched too many action movies and thinks he’s being the hero gunning down a rapist, thief or murderer.
Yeah, when it comes to my safety, my concern is what matters. See, I’m funny that way – whether or not I’m at risk getting shot matters more to me than what was written down on a bit of paper 219 years ago, or, more accurately, how that is being interpreted by someone who fancies having a penis replacement strapped to their belt.
A random person might have a concealed weapon. Someone with a gun openly strapped to them definitely does have one. I will take a definite over a maybe when assessing the bigger possible threat any day of the week.
I can’t remember where I heard this, but it’s only a slight exaggeration – to the Americans, the War of Independence was this epic, massive struggle against a tyrannical regime, gloriously ending in the founding of freedom for all. To the British at the time, it was Tuesday. The colonies basically became too much trouble and hassle to actually try to subdue, so the king at the time, George III, who was actually going against the advice of his ministers by prolonging the war, finally agreed to give it up in 1781 – and even that was only possible because some old enemies of England, such as France and Spain, supported the colonists.
So you think walking down the street openly carrying a device designed to kill and maim does not, in any way, directly or indirectly, impinge on other people? That’s not the mind of a bully – that’s the mind of a narcissistic asshole.
And yet another child has shot themselves dead.
Fucking guns. Fucking gun owners who carry pistols in their purses.
I could weep.
One thing I’ve never understood: most of the open-carry folks are pretty conservative, so they’re usually really pro-private business in a very libertarian kind of way – so how come they don’t respect the rights of private business owners to ban weapons from their premises?
So, I know anecdote does not equal data, but I’ve a got a lot of very “pro-2nd amendment” friends with concealed carry permits (though most do agree with some restrictions on gun ownership) and every single one of them gets creeped out by these open-carry fetishists. They’re also infuriated that they get painted with the same brush when these idiots make fools of themselves. It’s one thing to support the right to own (and to even carry) weapons. Hell, I do (and I happen to own a shotgun for skeet shooting.) But it’s one thing to carry weapons in a responsible fashion; it’s quite another to do what these guys do, which is not to use them for their intended purpose, but to make some kind of political point in the most bullying and confrontational manner. They proudly post videos where they intentionally try to provoke confrontations with cops or other people so they can cry persecution and make some kind of point about their rights. They’re nothing but bullies, and look them like I look at guys with expensive sports cars: what insecurities, exactly, are they overcompensating for?
All that said, I don’t think I’d really feel any inclination to flee if one (or more) of these guys showed up to a restaurant or store I was at. Maybe there’s data to back this up, but these guys don’t really act the same way that your usual robber or maniac with a gun does. Their behavior is obnoxious, but I’d think it’s pretty easily distinguishable from actual danger. Plus, I’d figure the last thing these guys want is to give more “ammunition” to their political opposition, and if they were to shoot someone, it would make their movement look terrible (well, worse than it already does.) I still think the guys doing this are complete assholes and I would actually leave (after paying if it was a restaurant) just to get away from the idiocy (and inform the manager of exactly why I was leaving, and that I wouldn’t be returning.) I just don’t personally think there is a need to flee for one’s own safety, though if someone really doesn’t feel comfortable about having those guns around, I would never fault them for wanting to leave as soon as possible. No one should have to apologize for putting their own safety first if they are concerned.
Unless these asshole can show absolute gun safety by showing their ammo is not in the weapon the breach open (which negates the concept of carrying loaded weapons), they are a safety hazard. Maybe not a a large one, but one large enough to get away from. After all, responsible gun owners do not carry loaded weapons in public, as their real concern is for the safety of others.
You do make a good point there. They are hardly behaving like models of “responsible gun ownership.”
Well, the very fact that they think the constitution gives them the right to carry a gun, when it doesn’t, shows that they think they are smarter in that regard than everyone else. It also shows that they have drunk the NRA gun oil.
The fact that they think the average suburb needs armed guards, even though most of suburbia doesn’t think that, is paranoid and arrogant.
They think they they are the best person to be that armed guard. They don’t carry their gun over to the oldest man or the woman with the most children to protect, and let them hold it – no, these cowfolk keep it.
They think that they are going to be making the right decisions, and shooting true.
They think that everyone else is wrong – so wrong that they need to invade private spaces to correct other folks. Or to just shoot the really wrong people.
In short, pretty much the last people you would want to have a gun.
@Menyambal
Which part is that?
Also, it seems that the people who wrote that constitution seemed to have a completely different idea of what it meant than you, based on the Militia Acts of 1792.
The Militia Act of 8 May 1792
http://constitution.org/mil/mil_act_1792.htm?PageSpeed=noscript
Up until the point when they feel that they, or perhaps other people, are threatened.
See comment 239. I’m not notably scared by the mere presence of a gun; I haven’t found it a remarkable experience to be on, say, a big French train station where fully armed soldiers patrol in order to
deter terroristsreassure everyone else – this has, BTW, been a thing since long before 9/11. I’ve also encountered armed police from time to time.But a civilian in the US? An open-carry advocate with an ideological ax to grind? A dues-paying NRA member? I think I’d rather stay away.
Some of them are looking for a Bad Guy With A Gun they can stop so they can become heroes.
Then why does it work elsewhere?
Only failed states and the US have neighbourhood watches. Only failed states and apparently the US need them.
Stop trolling.
Go back to learning the history of the American Revolution and of WWII.
Open carry is an explicit threat to everyone to whom the weapon is shown (ie everyone)
It says “I can kill you any time I want to. I’m not going to, yet. You’ll just have to trust me on that.”
Open carry “for self defence” says “I will kill you if you threaten me, any time I what. What action on your part would constitute a threat? Anything I want.”
I thought Hitler was defeated mostly by the Red Army. You know, Commies with guns.
Interesting article here about British police and guns.
I’m all in favor of repealing the Second Amendment. But short of that, we should take it seriously. You want to buy a gun? Fine, but in doing so, you’ve automatically enrolled in the well-regulated militia, aka the National Guard. You will go to monthly trainings, and if there is a national emergency you will be called upon to keep the peace. You may even be called upon to fight abroad. Because it is incumbent on the Guard to keep track of the weapons and ammunition under its control, you will be responsible for accounting for your weapons, along with any ammunition you buy. That of course means that there will be in each state a central tracking of all weapons and ammunition bought. You will be subject to annual inspection of your weapons and ammunition, along with spot checks, and will have to account for any weapons or ammunition that goes missing. If your weapon or ammunition falls out of your control and is used in a crime, or in a suicide, or in an accidental shooting, you will be held liable.
I’m sure all the Second Amendment fundies can get behind that plan.
Tom Weiss (#185)
I mean, you’re already a fucking moron for idealizing military and law enforcement workers who, whatever their personal motivations, don’t generally stand between anyone and “bad guys,” but work to uphold and extend the very power imbalances that create instability in the first place while allowing an extreme minority to profit from it. But then you had to go and pretend that it’s only men who do what is, in your deficient mind, a great and generous service. Any other bigotries you’d like to work into your stupid fantasy of how the world works?
@What a Maroon, oblivious
I’m not sure what you propose would pass constitutional muster, but I think a slightly watered down plan could easily pass constitutional muster. If you look at some of the other militia acts, they properly identify the militia as synonymous with the people. Specifically, there’s the army, and there’s the organized militia, which today we would call the national guard, and there’s the unorganized militia, which is simply the people.
Still, I am very much in love with the idea that if you want to own a gun, you need to attend basic combat training, boot camp, plus safety classes aimed at civilian life with guns, with refresher courses once a year, but no further military obligations.
Don’t want to go to militia training? Then you don’t get a gun.
For ease of paperwork, change it to a simple opt-in system.
All of this is fully subsidized by the government of course, in order to avoid legal problems like those inherent in a poll tax, and because of the delicious irony of requiring gun nuts who are often anti government subsidy nuts to be required to take part in government subsidy to get their guns.
I think that could make a pretty big difference. I’m actually pretty strongly in favor of this I think.
Another point: I think it not obvious from my position that the proper understanding of the second amendment actually protects open carry in public areas, esp. within city limits, nor even concealed carry.
Again, I like to mention what I know of the Swiss system, or what it was a few years ago. All men have required combat training, and they are required to keep their guns (so-called “assault rifles) and ammo at home – I think. Recently, several laws were passed that forbid the keeping of ammo at home, and the option of keeping the gun at a local armory. I just like to use this as an example.
PS:
Oh, we probably need specialized classes for certain people with certain physical and certain mental disabilities that allow them to properly use a gun, but prevent attendance in a normal boot camp. Ex: missing leg, bad feet, bad back, etc. No biggie. Just think it’s worth mentioning.
A. Noyd #251
Wow, yeah, he completely erased women police and soldiers. Not surprising, since women police and soldiers don’t really have anything to do with the Jack Baur and John McClane hero fantasies he has in his head.
Worse, however, especially since I have worked with women LE and soldiers, I didn’t even notice he had done it.
@EnlightenmentLiberal:
First, I love that you now claim that “it’s never ‘a’ militia, it’s always ‘the’ militia” was merely an unclear statement. Perhaps it wasn’t intended to be factual?
But for a change of pace, I actually have a substantive question for you instead of more mockery.
What a Maroon said in #250:
In #252, you replied:
Is that supposed to be a statement camouflaging the fact that you have no idea whether WaM’s scheme would be constitutional, or is that a statement that simply doesn’t reveal the specific constitutional hurdles you see in the way of the passage and enforcement of such a scheme?
Because if you have specific constitutional hurdles in mind, I would be very interested in hearing what those would be.
Uh, depends… Honestly though, I don’t think its a bet that is worth much, and, frankly, its precisely this sort of “pre-planning” of when to pull, and who to threaten, which made my brother, and father, both ex-law enforcement, call “open carry” people, “Basically wearing a target on their back.” The first person some bad guy is going to shoot is the one with the gun, because **they** are the biggest threat. They are probably, unless they are just looking to kill people, or remove witnesses, or the like, not going to want to shoot anyone else, or anyone at all. They just want what ever the frak they are after, and to get away. Bring some idiots with an obvious gun into the mix, and you have, moment one, made damn sure that either that person won’t *have* any chance to use the gun, instead of being told to just drop it, or die, or.. they will die right from the start. Either way, open carry doesn’t do shit all good, it just tells the bad guy who the threat(s) are, which have to be dealt with first. And, another gun, open or otherwise, just escalates the level of violence, and the odds things will go worse than they are already. Why? Because the bad guy may have had no interesting in shooting anyone, until suddenly they are scared shitless, and forced to make a very fast, very poorly thought out, choice between whether to drop their weapon, or open fire.
Who the F@#$@ wants to be the person, unless they are delusional, to force someone into deciding which way the switch is going to flip for someone like that? Because, every one of these clowns, in their own head, seems to think, “Threat = the bad guy will do the sane, rational, not scared out of their wits, thing, and drop the gun.” You can’t even predict, until it happens, whether or not a bloody cop will shoot, or freeze, the first time. You can push someone to do the former, if you train them using military methods, but such people are “not cops”, they are not trained to make decisions about what is best to do, but to take one, and only one, action, in such cases, which is, “neutralize the threat”. And, we see exactly the sort of crap that you get when cops get that training – dead kids, with toys (or sometimes things even less threatening).
Possibly true, but the problem here is what the F-ing reason is. Some of these morons have gun skills, but no clue what range is effective at them. They are as likely to pull on someone a foot from them, who could then throw their aim off, knock their ass on the ground, and take the gun for their own use, as fire it the length of a store, where their aim may put everyone and anyone behind, or between, in the line of fire. Hell, my own brother has had the experience of dealing with trained cops, firing down a blind hallway, on the assumption ***the assumption mind*** that no one hearing impaired, using ear phones, or just plain stupid, wasn’t going to walk out from some other room, of up the stairs at the end, or around a corner, and end up dead – something like 60+ rounds, and ***not one*** hit the guy they where aiming at. And that is cops. You think half these open carry morons can manage to do better?
So, yeah, you are quite right. The bad guy will do the bad thing, regardless if its open carry or not. But… here is the problem – define bad guy. Is it the guy that went nuts, never owned a gun, but bought one, because they decided that day to shoot of the place they worked? Its so much easier if you already carry the gun every place. Maybe its some guy that is 100% perfectly sane, 99.9% of the time, then sees his wife with someone, decides, “She must be cheating on me.”, and instead of confronting with fists, and possibly finding out its his wife’s old friend, someone from school, someone from work, or something innocent, but, instead, goes for something more permanent. Again – carrying around the permanent solution with you makes things so much easier.
Is it better, if they go “real wild west”, and stalk the person a few blocks, until its safe, and they can shoot them from behind, instead of going all “Hollywood wild west”, and walking into the room of armed idiots, and starting a shoot out? What happens to any witnesses, in either case?
And, more to the point… why the frak do we assume that, just because someone has had no warrants, arrests, “signs of instability”, etc., that they won’t be the nut that goes postal? How many never show signs, do show them, but everyone chocks it up as, “Well, that’s normal, or not important, or justified.”? How many just don’t get caught, so we have no idea? And, how many will still get the gun, and possibly even the permit, possibly under false ID, who shouldn’t be let near a butter knife, never mind a gun, but the F-ing gun lobby waffles between agreeing that, in principle, such people should never be allowed guns, and apposing **any** attempt to legislate a method to stop them getting them?
Sorry, but this is precisely the assumption I **do not buy**. Hell, there are times when I am not sure if my brother and father are both joking about some of the stupid shit they say, and I know damn well both of them, both in military, and police work **have** not just shot at people, but done things they deemed “reasonable”, which would be called “abuses of power”, though, most would be idiotically mild, compared to the stuff we have been seeing recently from cops. I have no problem seeing someone push one of them over the edge far enough to actually break, and do something bloody nuts. They haven’t, but.. its in them to do so, I believe, and that’s scary to think about, when talking about one of your own family. So, no, I have no illusions, at all, unlike gun advocates, and you, that some percentage of these “open carry” people **will be** the ones that freak out and shoot up a restaurant at some point. I would, instead, put it at a near 100% certainty that it will happen, and at a probable 50% chance, that at least 50% of any of them, are “capable” of going that far over the edge, and that is being as nice, and nonjudgmental of what I think of the mental state of people who think they need such a law, in the first place, to give them the right to do so.
That the people supporting them, the laws, and they people getting the permits themselves, all think they are, somehow, immune to either a) doing such a thing, or b) becoming unhinged enough by something, and c) cannot imagine already having people in their ranks, due, in part, to lax laws, but also the fallibility of any legal system to detect such people, until they actually commit a crime that justifies taking the right away (which may be committing the very act that denying such a right is intended to prevent)…
Its like listening to a freaking priest tell you that they are,”terribly saddened by all the bad priest in all the other places, but it would, never happen here, just look at how good brother John is with all the young boys!” They may be completely and totally right, and there “is” no problem, in their church, but.. no sane person reads that sentence and doesn’t have a moment of, “Oh hell, is this going to be the next one?” Yet, somehow… open carry people are immune to this effect? How so? Given how few flipping people even have such permits, for now, how do you know? What non-wishful thinking, deluded, somehow these people are not like any and ever other group of humans with a cult or fetish, bolderdash reasoning leads to the assumption that they are immune to either being one the bad guys already, turning into one, or just having the single worst day/week/month/year of their life, and deciding to take out other people with them? How the heck do you “know” that these people would, in you own words, never actually handle the weapons (never mind use them on someone)?
Oh, I know.. they must all be carrying around unloaded, toy versions, which they never ever fired….
Well, for some reason “gun” = “arms”, while.. knives, swords, hammers, staffs, spears, throwing stars, and just about anything else intended to hurt/kill people are “not”. Who the frak knows why, other than some sick tradition, which made it possible to carry around shit that can kill a room full of people in 30 seconds, but not one that would require a martial arts expert, and possibly 3-30 minutes, depending on the room (with a good chance of someone hitting them with a chair, table, or just running away), to do the same damn thing. Its like if they banned fire crackers, but decided that a nuclear bomb didn’t, “qualify as an explosive”.
Yep, that’s why Britain has such extraordinarily high rates of homicide and gun related injuries and death. That’s why British police officers are regularly in the news for killing unarmed citizens. Oh, wait, that wasn’t Britain…
Buahhh-haa-haaa.
Ouch. I hurt my butt falling out of the armchair.
There’s zero indication that armed vigilantes prevent crime*, but a lot that they turn into killers. I’ll stay in nice and cozy Europe where people are required to leave their fucking murder machines locked.
BTW, why is “mocking that non-existing sacrifice” not “intelligent”? This can easily read as a threat: Don’t piss off the guy with the gun if you want to survive. And then you wonder why people see armed assholes as a threat…
*Yes, I know, there’s always that case once a year you can find when you dig deep. You just have to ignore all the accidents or shootings of unarmed teens or people teaching folks a lesson like in that cinema. But you can have your cake and eat it, right? The guy who started shooting in Aurora was one of you, not one of us. He’s evidence that carrying a murder machine increases the likelyhood of murder.
That’s a truism, isn’t it? Nothing happens for “no reason”.
But we have a list of reasons why people thought it justified to shoot:
-Black teen armed with Skittles
-Black teens listening to music
-Black teen having been in a car crash
-Black teen trespassing in a garden
-Teenagers sneaking back home at night
-Teenager using a phone in a cinema
-Husband running towards wife after a car crash
…
All those shooters thought they were the heroes of the scenario….
…Kagehi, you make good points, but you need an editor.
I just realized something: open-carry idiots (let’s face it…) are actually demanding that the public trust them, when they don’t extend that trust towards the public themselves (else, why carry the gun? there’s other ways to demonstrate that you have certain rights). That’s a major trust imbalance they’re trying to set up, and it doesn’t sit well with me. Has a very ‘I ehm The Authoriteh, I haz the Big Gun, you trust me, but I can’t trust you because You Are Too Stupid To See Threats (and carry a Big Gun)’. Patronizing, or what. Doesn’t make me want to trust them at all, not one bit.
Also, just for funsies, here’s some bullying by open-carry gun nuts: Ohio man plans to enter St. Louis Zoo with gun Saturday. See, it’s not the gun that scares me, it’s the attitude. Basically, Fuck You, all you families and children hoping to enjoy yourselves at the zoo, ostensibly a gun-free space!
Thankfully, this happened: Court Blocks Open-Carry Gun Demonstration Planned at St. Louis Zoo.
So… in the end, families might just have to suck up their irrational fear of guns and… not go to the zoo, mayhaps. And the attitude? Ohio man claims victory after St. Louis Zoo blocks plan to hold open-carry march inside.
Look, now he’s being oppressed, since he’s being blocked by the courts, but it’s like the couple saying they’ll divorce if marriage equality becomes fact – he saw the sign, he didn’t need to go to the zoo, but now the government is forcing him to because it’s infringing on his rights, and then the government (the courts) is blocking him. Never mind all those children trying to have some fun in a gun-free environment.
What. An. Asshole. No, he does NOT make me feel safe.
(Also, it’s neat to see Dotson saying sensible things re: stronger gun laws.)
The constitutional language is clear: “A well organized militia”. I’m 60+ years old, and have never attended one militia meeting, so your unorganized militia doesn’t pass constitutional muster. Organized implies meetings, hierarchy, etc. Since the there isn’t in actual existence a well organized militia of all citizens, the second amendment reads that guns aren’t a right since that militia ceased to exist.
re @256 (2^8):
Interesting inspiration there. To greet a guntoter walking into restaurant. As you walk past them (on your way out) say, “Thank you for being the target for the thug who wants to shoot somebody”. /snark
I guess that’s how they can be correct when they say, “me carrying a gun will protect everyone”; by being the target that gets shot at rather than unarmed bystanders. /doublesnark
.
I know that won’t work out very well to actually say it out loud. Maybe just say it inside your head, silently.
~~~
sheesh, there I go again, just droppin in random snarks for no real addition to the conversation. sorry
re Nerd wrote@262:
I disagree about the “clarity” of the phrasing of that ‘mendment. I’ve always struggled with the Sentence structure of it. I’m probably quite mistaken; but maybe you could share yours. To me it basically reads, “[the desired result of the next clause],[emphatic assertion, the cause of the result desired]”
analogy: (when people were required to paint the fire engines themselves with their own paint…)
that actually clears it up (a smidge), but I struggle with the metaphor that replacing red fire engines with yellow invalidates the right to own red paint.
I too advocate eliminating “red paint” (metaphorically), but fear this malreading of mine may be the “loophole” the guns [dropping the metaphor speak] will wiggle through.
what am I overlooking in my malreading of that ‘mendment. Was phrasing used very differently when it was written?
When I see the utter crap routinely spouted by gun-fondlers I am left speechless. Have these people never even glanced at national and international statistics?
But oh no, they are the exceptional ones! They laugh in the face of mere statistics! For lo, they are the people who actually really and truly do live in a fantasy world, where they wear white hats and never miss, where they can tell the Bad Guys at a glance, where the open-carry moron is never the Bad Guy and where firearms accidents never happen.
By some strange coincidence, the overwhelming majority of these White Hats are … white.
Do they advocate for people who are not white to exercise those same open carry “rights” – and if not, why not.
opposablethumbs #265
There is a common comic image that’s gone around that shows two identical, well-dressed, blonde haired, good looking white men (the same image) walking with an assault rifle. The theme is, basically, which one of the two is the upstanding american exercising his rights, and which is the maniac about to shoot down a crowd?
I saw an edited image where the guy on the right was now wearing “arab” looking clothes.
Can you imagine multiple instances of “muslim looking” men walking down rural texas streets, or crowded city streets, with an assault rifle?
What odds would you give that law abiding citizen of surviving the day?
And to spell it out, I don’t think his odds would be that good, and much of that is due to these open carry good guy ‘murica protecting gun nuts.
The best that could be expected would be the gun nut not taking selfies with the corpse of his trophy.
In effect, this is the Schroedinger problem again: we don’t know whether this open-carry bully is a dangerous criminal or a Good Guy With a Gun. The only person who knows that is the one carrying the firearm. Logically, then, it’s quite simple: you assume the worst, and act accordingly. This, too, has a millennia-long history in human civilization: if I can’t be sure I can trust you, then I won’t trust you.
Call it the Schroedinger’s Asshole problem.
The problem in this scenario – open-carry asshole comes into a restaurant – is that Tom Weiss assumes he can just tell from the outside of the black box what’s going on inside it. As mentioned above, he’s working in an FPS world, where the bad guys come with red dots on your mini-map. For the rest of us, working in the real world, we have no way to determine whether the Asshole is a Good Asshole or a Bad Asshole until the Asshole starts shooting (i.e., the box is opened).
CaitieCat, I wonder if the thing is this: Tom Weiss actually can tell at a glance who is a Good Guy Like Him and who is a Bad Guy. All he has to do is look at their skin colour (and maybe cast a quick eye over they way they are dressed/ hear their accent for a second). So he just doesn’t grasp the notion that anyone might look at a Good Guy Like Him and not immediately and clearly see that they are obviously a Good Guy Like Him.
There can be no Schoedinger in his world.
Schroedinger. That will teach me to type without typing properly, that will.
Well clearly, he’s worried about being attacked with a piece of fruit.
Caitie
No, I don’t think so. All open carry people are showing a divorce from reality that makes them not trustworthy with dangerous weapons. The question is only how quickly they’ll be provoked into opening fire.
The United States Constitution, in Article 1, Section 8, says that a duty of Congress is to:
Congress arms the Militia. The Second Amendment simply states that as a well-trained militia is necessary, the militia shall keep their issued arms for practice, and the people shall be allowed to be in the militia – to bear arms in the people’s army – to be sure that their nation is well protected.
There is a lot more to support that view, but I am not tapping it into this tablet today. One of my arguments is that guns were frakking expensive back then.
The Militia Act that Enlightenment Liberal linked to, in order to refute me, supports my case quite nicely. The newly-joined militiaman has to supply his own musket – which EL took to mean that he already had one. But reading the document shows that he had six months to get one, and that he was reimbursed for the cost (through tax remittance).
Now, my argument from cost is neatly supported there. It either took the average Joe about six months to raise the cash for a gun, or it took six months to have one made. (I was ballparking the price off the fact that it took a skilled craftsman a month to make a musket.) If you were called up today, and told to bring in an AR-15, it wouldn’t take you six months to get one – things were very different then.
The idea of having the militiamen buy their own military-specification, government-reimbursed guns for service was new to me, I freely admit, but I love it … not just because it supports my case. It makes so much sense.
What it does not do is imply that the people already owned such guns. It does not support the NRA’s myth, not one damn bit.
@Menyambal in 273
It seems that the government required everyone to buy guns, on their own terms, and keep them for life (or until 45). How does that support your position? It seems rather clearly to support my position that the government required the people to keep their own guns at home.
I agree that there’s a lot of interesting history here, but purely tangentially. There were a lot of state laws IIRC that provided exemptions to militia service, often precisely because buying your own gun was that expensive. But that doesn’t detract from the main point that at least for many people, the government required them to keep, own, and maintain their own guns at home.
So, what are you talking about? I do not understand at all.
…
@Crip Dyke
In that other thread, I was spoke hastily, and sloppily, and I was in error. I still believe that something could be salvaged of what I said. I don’t know if you read my reply yet.
I said I don’t know if it would pass constitutional muster. I mean that.
As I said, the original understanding of how all of this works is that there’s is the standing army, which is distinct from the militia which is simple the people. The second amendment protects a right of the people, not of the militia, the states, the congress, nor the government.
Please be sure to consult the Militia Acts Of 1792, which further makes this clear.
The idea that the militia is the people is still the law today.
10 US Code S 311
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/311
A problem in discussions like this is that the original meaning of the word “militia” has drifted over time. We can see clearly the original common meaning of the term is not today’s meaning of the term.
Similarly, the original common meaning of “well-regulated” simply meant “functional”, “working”, “in proper working order”, e.g. “properly trained, equipped, etc.”.
The net result is that the second amendment translated to today’s language is: “The people need to be armed with guns and other military weapons in order to allow for calling up the people in the form of the militia, because that is necessary to defend a free government from inside tyranny and outside invasion.”
IIRC, the modern division of unorganized militia, e.g. the people, and organized militia, e.g. the national guard, was formalized in the Militia Act Of 1903.
So, I believe that the following good argument can be made. In the time of the passage of the second amendment and the Militia Acts Of 1792, we could categorize military land forces into militia and army. The effect is that gun ownership is not restricted to career military people, and that is very arguably the core tenant or principle of the second amendment. The core principle is that your average regular non – career military person should be armed. If today we tried to restrict gun ownership to the national guard only, that would restrict gun ownership to career military people only, contrary to the core tenant of the second amendment.
EnlightenmentLiberal, you don’t understand because of your base assumption that everyone is in the militia. You think that all the people are the militia – well, at least all white men – just by being born. You were going on about the people being the militia, then there was the organized militia as a different thing, then the army.
Well, there was no army – the Constitution makes it real clear that an army was something that required money, and that money was only to be raised on special occasions, and never for more than two years. (Not that any of the Constitution worshippers care about that.) So forget the army (those mercenaries), and trust the Second Amendment when it says a well-regulated militia was necessary.
Now, nowhere does any document say that everybody, regardless of color or gender, was in the militia. They say that white men of an age are to be called to the militia. Nothing, nowhere, says they are already in. That is just you building off your assumption that “the people” means every individual – when women, blacks and important men are clearly out of the militia.
So, the militia is the people’s army. The army of the people, not some mercenaries that the government hires, that might be used to oppress the people. It is the men of the nation marching forth to defend their homeland. It is part and parcel of the new democracy, it is the citizenry in arms.
So no, the government didn’t require everyone to buy guns, just the militiamen. When they are called up, mind you.
Nor did it require them to keep the guns at home. The “keeping” part is just to say that the guns were not kept in central government armories while the troops practiced with broom handles. The militia could easily have left their muskets at their own drill fields.
Oh, fuck it. You manage to filter everything through your own mythology. I need to buy cat food …
If the law isn’t being followed, it is defunct. As it is.
Menyambal @275
In the early 19th Century Important men, particularly in the western and southern states, joined the militia. It was one of the ways they showed their importance. For instance Andrew Jackson was a Tennessee militia general from 1802 until becoming president in 1829.
@Menyambal
Well, that’s what every available source says. I wouldn’t call it an “assumption”. I would say it’s a well-established fact with a mountain of evidence behind it.
That’s because people at the time were racist and sexist fucks. Many of those oppressed groups at the same time also lacked the right to vote, own property, run for office, etc. It would be a very silly argument that we should interpret the constitution to protect only the rights of white male adults in many of those areas, yet you would do so here. I think that’s inconsistent, hypocritical, and intellectually dishonest.
Sure, sounds good.
Where “militiamen” meant “all white adult males less than 45 years of age” or whatever.
Can we agree that one Militia Act of 1792 required that individuals, acting individually, would have to procure their own weapon and ammunition?
Jesu, EnlightenmentLiberal, can you not read?!
Yes, I fully agree that the Militia Act required milita men to procure their own weapons. I was saying that I was pleased by learning that, just up there. Jeeze.
I even made points off saying that they were allowed 6 months to procure said weapon. Six damn months, which clearly implies that they didn’t have one already.
I also said that the purchasing system was pleasing to me. I guess that I need to explain …
See, back then, manufacturing was decentralized, and shipping was poor. Taxes were paid in work, or hard-to-find cash, and were a pain to administer.
So, the completely-stupid way to arm a militiaman who paid taxes, was to have him pay his tax in cash or (road-maintenance), get the money to the state capital (or be screwed because everybody worked the roads),, use that money to buy arms from various manufacturers, ship those arms to a central depot, then ship the arms to the various militia camps, and have them issued to the very guys who paid the tax money, and who will have no personal attachment to the issued arm.
Now, the smart way. Tell the guy to go to the nearest gunsmith, have him get a gun built to his preferences (as long as it shoots the right caliber and meets other specs), and tell him to keep the receipt for tax day. Bingo, boingo, he has a gun he likes, the government paid for it, and nobody had to ship anything anywhere, and there is no purchasing department.
Nothing says that he gets to keep the gun, mind you, at the end of his service. It is the taxpayers’s gun, in the plural. It is no different than the sergeant of your National Guard unit telling you to run to the gunshop in town for cleaning supplies, and reimbursing you. The militiaman may keep it at home or down at the drill field, but it is his tax payment in gun form. It is not his, he has no receipt for it – the taxman has it.
(And OMFG, bringing a 1900s act into this discussion?)
@Menyambal
I brought into the discussion relevant legislation, including legislation passed shortly after the passing of the second amendment in order to give insight into the original intent, understanding, meaning, etc. I brought into discussion the Militia Act of 1903 because AFAIK that’s part of the early history of the formal difference between the (unorganized) militia and the organized militia e.g. the national guard. I also brought into account current law as it stands now, and US federal law is that all adult males under 45 or whatever are still formally members of the (unorganized) militia.
I don’t see how it’s relevant as to who owns the gun. What I see as relevant is that every adult white male (under 45~) was required to have possession of it for ~6 months, and arguably for their entire lifetime in the militia e.g. until 45~. What does it matter who technically owns the gun? Surely what is germane to this discussion is where the gun is kept and who is in physical control of the gun, and that is the individual, not the government.
Again, second amendment says right of the people, not of the militia, not of the states, not of the congress.
Just to make it clearer, the militiaman could have paid his taxes in any useful form. He could have cleared and leveled the road in front of his house. He could have cleared and leveled the road to the drill field. He could have cleared and leveled the drill field. He could have brought a pig to feed the troop. He could have brought a big bag of flints, or a slab of lead. He could have brought two muskets, and become the company clerk, and never seen those muskets again.
The fact that the men were expected to share in the purchasing process doesn’t make the stuff theirs, no more than capturing an enemy armory would have meant the men got to keep all the stuff in it. It was simply a way to do some duty and pay taxes efficiently.
To repeat, the tax aspect means the man does not own the gun. Sure, it makes sense to let him carry the weapon that he had customized, but that doesn’t make it his.
Also, as an aside, if a man couldn’t raise the cash to pay a gun-maker, or if he didn’t owe enough tax to amortize the cost of a gun, things get interesting. Hmmm.
Also, the term “arms” pretty much meant weapons of war, back then. Using that in the Second Amendment fits in with my case.
Again, nothing says that the gun was kept at the militiaman’s home. Even if he did keep it there, it was a miltary arm.
But fine, he kept it at home. A trained militiaman, subject to regulations. If he potted a burglar, there would be an investigation.
In the Second Amendment, the term “the people” meant not-the-government, and not-the-mercenary-army. It meant the citizenry in mass or in general. The intent was to always have a people’s army, a citizen soldiery, a taxpayers’s team. A militia made of citizens who were well-trained. The Second Amendment does not say “each individual”, nor does it say “to own guns”. The militia could keep the arms to train with, and by God they could
bear them in defense of their nation.
The Second Amendment states that we the people are the defenders of our nation. It is our right to carry arms against our country’s attackers. And anybody who twists that glorious privilege into their own personal right to kill their fellow citizens, is attacking this country.
Although no one has asked for it, and as we’re 280+ comments in it’s likely to get ignored, here’s my view on open carry:
(1) I will grant that the Second Amendment grants people the near-unfettered right to own whatever implements of destruction they want, and to tote them around publicly.
(2) I will, however, maintain that inveighing yourself of this right is rude. Yes, rude. It’s a violation of the social compact (that says that citizens should bear a presumption of trust and safety around each other), it’s rude, and it’s uncouth. I will shun you and call you a poopy-face if you carry a gun around in public.
To further expand:
(1) Guns are tools. They are not inherently good or bad, and there are in fact situations where a firearm is the appropriate tool.
(2) Guns are dangerous. Guns can be used in bad ways, and guns can be mishandled in ways that cause harm to innocent parties.
(3) Therefore, while owning and carrying a gun is inherently morally neutral, it is incumbent on the carrier to remember that they’re carrying something dangerous, and that the average person has reasonable grounds to be scared of guns and the consequences of gun use/carrying gone wrong.
(4) Therefore, the correct way to carry a gun in public, if this cannot be avoided, is in a manner that demonstrates the gun’s non-utility: locked in a case, visibly disassembled, visibly unloaded (e.g. a handgun with no magazine, a shotgun in the “folded” position, etc) and so on. To do otherwise is rude because it demonstrates a callous indifference to the feelings of safety of others. A reasonable exception can be made for people who have received training in safe use and are empowered to be armed in public, e.g. law enforcement (though of course we can and should have a national conversation on if cops should be armed).
@Menyambal
You need to read the Federalist papers, and various other sources. That’s not the way the founders envisioned it at all. I don’t have the Federalist citations offhand, but they can be provided.
Esteleth, that was well-thought-out and well-written. Thank you.
EnlightenmentLiberal, when people start bring up the Federalist Papers, I figure they are away from the source material. I will look at them sometime to see what tbey say about the militia and guns, but after the juicy nuggets I found in your last link, I don’t think they are going to help you.
I base my arguments on historical facts, such as how muskets were made and used, and how armies and militias drilled and maneuvered. And, of course, on the Constitution itself – including the body of it. If the writers needed us to check the Federalist papers, they should have said so, or have written them in to the Constitution.
You offered a new document, and it neatly supported my case, so the Papers may do so as well. Which is exactly what we get from Creationists – bogus readings of the material. They also like to cherry-pick and to ignore the main part of their allegedly-sacred book (the Bill of Rights is like the Ten Commandments, is what I am saying). And, of course, they have the money-grubbing leaders and the fanatical followers with death in their eyes.
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I was just thinking that in the Second Amendment, “well-regulated” matches up with “keep”, and “militia” matches up with “bear”. More on that another time.
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Fun fact for after midnight: The brand name of a popular clock of the 1790s supports my case.
Okay, just had to drop this off:
That’s as far as I got in Wikipedia. It struck me as funny.
This thread has kind of circled around and people are making and re-making the same points to no avail. I feel like most of what I would respond to is something I’ve already covered. Except for this:
“The Second Amendment is about the necessity of a well-trained militia, and the right of citizens to serve in it, and to train regularly. It has nothing at all to do with private citizens owning guns.”
This is the progressive critique of the Supreme Court’s decision in Heller. Scalia’s decision in that case – in my opinion – conclusively refutes this argument. Beginning with his discussion of the political motivations for disarming specific groups of people through his discussion of what makes up a militia and ending with his discussion of the location of that clause within the text of the constitution.
You may not agree with it – and four other Supreme Court justices had enough issues with Scalia’s decision that they voted the other way – but it is simply incorrect for you to state as a fact that the 2nd amendment speaks only to militias when constitutional jurisprudence says precisely the opposite.
Big picture, we’re not going to solve anything on the comments section of a blog on the internet, but my hope was that a few people would be persuaded by my comments enough to take a second look at the issue.
There will always be those who are not open to my flavour of political argument, but this is the nature of arguing politics. No one can ever be objectively right.
So you can take my argument or leave it, it’s up to you. Would that more of your arguments ended with that phrase instead of a coercive imperative for me to conform.
The law required people to go buy their own gun, personally, on their own, with no government supervision. The law strongly indicates that it was common, normal, and legal for individuals to purchase gun through individual unsupervised means, and to keep possession of the gun for extended periods of time. It’s surreal that you think this supports your position.
Sigh… On the “deterrent” angle, which has never been proven to be true at all, but then, how many of these clowns, despite the “increase” of people going to jail, and the total lack of drop in any actual crimes, also thing death penalties, drug laws, and increased sentences are “deterrents”, so… Which of these things “deters” violent crime more (hint, my view is that things get f-ing worse, the farther down this list you go):
1. No one having the means to shoot someone, combined with effective, fair, visible, and well trained police.
2. A few rare people having the right to carry guns, but not visibly, with less well trained police, but still visible, and obvious to the public.
3. Even more people with guns, no way of knowing who they are, reduced police presence, because “it costs money”, and a bad economy.
4. A bunch of targets, err, I mean “open carry” people, who the criminals know to shoot first, almost no useful police presence, at all, and very poor training of them (what we get today).
5. Just toss out of the police, and give everyone an open carry permit, except for the ones that actually already did something bad, which, of course, will, due to the hyper-punishment rules we have, would rapidly escalate to anyone that so much spit on the side walk being denied, but some ass that already shot someone, in “defense”, and was acquitted for any wrong doing, being armed.
The only “deterrent” angle I can see, frankly, is if everyone “looked armed”, but 99.9% of them where not, so the bad guy wouldn’t have a clue which ones to worry about. But then, that only works if the bad guy isn’t armed, and doesn’t just hose down the room, due to all the crazy people who look like they have guns.
SCOTUS got the decision wrong in our opinion. That negates your opinion that they got it right. I have never attended a meeting of the “well organized militia”. It doesn’t exist. And you haven’t shown otherwise with evidence.
EnlightenmentLiberal, you once again fail at reading.
My case is not that it was unusual for people to buy guns – I even wrote about decentralized manufacturing of guns, and about gunsmiths in most towns. The only unusual aspect to buying a gun back then, was that it was very expensive – buying a gun then was sort of like buying a car now. I even gave some paragraphs to spreading out the purchasing duties – everybody knew how to buy a gun.
And then you act like I never did any of that, so you can once again pretend that I am making no sense. I am tired of your failure to comprehend being projected on to me.
Once again, my case is not the unusual nature of gun purchases or even any aspect of gun ownership in the 1790s. My stand is that the Second Amendment had nothing to do with gun ownership by individuals – the Second Amendment was written only about the necessity for what you call the organized militia. There was to be no standing army, so what is now the National Guard was required.
It is so pointless to write this.
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Tom Weiss, I am also tired of your attitude. You plead for a smidgen of understanding from us closed-minded folks, as if you are the wise one. Look ye, I grew up in rural Missouri, I have NRA material in my recycle bin, and there is a pistol in my hall closet – I know all your arguments and all your sources. It is you who don’t know and who won’t listen, and I know that.
Say, when you guys blatter on about guns making this country, well, some of the regulars at this blog are the folks that those guns were shooting. When you get all cowboy, remember that some of us are Indians. Some are black, many are victims of violence, and many have had men ignore their rights, invade their space, and tell them that they are wrong, far too many times.
If you could stop acting all lofty, and start acting a bit understanding, that would be sweet.
Let me drop a bomb:
Abolish the second amendment. A “right” to own guns is bullshit.
Period.
But remember, the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a chip of marble dislodged by the accidental firing of the gun in the good guy’s pocket. And by ‘bad guy with a gun,’ I of course mean 5 bystanders:
http://gawker.com/5-injured-in-accidental-shooting-at-waldorf-astoria-1711219896
This is the progressive critique of the Supreme Court’s decision in Heller. Scalia’s decision in that case – in my opinion – conclusively refutes this argument. Beginning with his discussion of the political motivations for disarming specific groups of people through his discussion of what makes up a militia and ending with his discussion of the location of that clause within the text of the constitution.
I notice Tom Weiss doesn’t discuss what the Heller ruling actually said. Those of us who actually read it know you’re bluffing — the majority opinion in that case said that the Second Amendment grants an individual right to bear arms for “lawful purposes,” of which it went on to cite only ONE example, in-home self-defense. The majority further stated that their ruling was to have no impact whatsoever on laws regulating concealed-carry, open-carry, caliber of weapon allowable on the market, interstate transport, etc. Short answer: Heller does not support open-carry, or any of the other nonsensical and dangerous things the gun-nuts want us to think it supports.
…it is simply incorrect for you to state as a fact that the 2nd amendment speaks only to militias…
Are you a pathological liar, or is your reading comprehension really that bad? The Second Amendment mentions militias — WELL-REGULATED militias, which are “necessary to the security of a free state” — before it mentions any “rights;” and the one right it mentions is clearly subordinate to the purpose of the WELL-REGULATED militia. So yes, anyone who reads the entire sentence can see that the Second Amendment speaks only of militias. If you want us to think that “constitutional jurisprudence says precisely the opposite,” you’ll have to quote some specifics; otherwise it’s perfectly obvious you’re just bluffing and fantasizing.
#294: Wasn’t there a quote from the judge in the Heller case that the ‘well-regulated militia’ phrase was something like ‘legislative throat-clearing’, or was that another one? I suppose people could have a similar argument about the Establishment clause of the first amendment – although it only mentions Congress, it’s interpreted to cover state governments as well.
It makes sense to think about three meanings of the amendments – the correct one (i.e., your or my personal interpretation), the original one (i.e., whatever the founding fathers actually meant), and the practical one (i.e., how it’s currently applied in American jurisprudence). It’s awfully easy to move from one to another in a conversation without being aware of it…
Only since the Fourteenth Amendment.
Why should you treat an article of the constitution or indeed a ruling by the SCOTUS as a divine verdict? People can get it wrong. The folks who wrote the constitution got a hell lot of things wrong. SCOTUS got a hell lot of things wrong. To argue “the constitution says so” or “the court said so” can be about legality but not morality.
#294: Wasn’t there a quote from the judge in the Heller case that the ‘well-regulated militia’ phrase was something like ‘legislative throat-clearing’, or was that another one?
It’s one thing to argue about what a passage in a law meant; but to say, or imply, that a passage in law has no meaning or effect, is just plain wrong and invalid legal reasoning. Words in a law, BY DEFINITION, have meaning. To say otherwise, explicitly or not, is to deny the meaning of the law.
Giliell: the reason human societies have laws in the first place, is that we can’t always be expected to agree on what is right, therefore we have to have laws whose content we CAN agree on, whether we like it or not. We treat the rule of law as a “divine verdict” because that’s often the only way we can uphold our rights and keep people from shirking their obligations whenever they feel like it.
The “well-regulated militia” is the key to the Second Amendment, the very purpose of it. To dismiss it, as the NRA has done by leaving it off the front of their headquarters, and as a Heller judge did, is wrong. To do so deliberately is an attack on the Constitution.
A militia, then, was the army as we now understand it. Then, an army was a paid group of professional soldiers, not necessarily of that nation. Being in an army was an optional profession to make money, while militia was a citizen’s duty, like paying taxes. Things have changed – during the Vietnam War, when people were told it was their duty to serve in the army, that was the militia spirit.
The Second Amendment starts by saying that the militia was necessary to the defense. Not a extra, but necessary. (An army, in the body of the Constitution, is an option, with a two-year time limit on funding to pay for it. (A navy, by contrast, was to be maintained with permanent funding.))
The militia is THE defense, the NECESSITY. It is not trivial. It is the duty of the people to defend their own nation, as they are the free citizens of it. Indeed, they are it – the people are the nation. Defending the nation is self-defense.
Now, the militia must be a good one. It must be well-trained. The term of the time was “well-regulated”. That doesn’t mean that it was subject to a lot of regulations, it means that it worked well together, like the ticking of a clock.
See, at the time, the militia was armed with muskets. Loading and firing a muzzle-loading musket was complicated and slow. To be able to load one during combat, and fire at the same time as everyone else, took practice and timing. They had to be well-regulated.
A musket militia didn’t just run around in a frolic. It stood in tight ranks, shoulder to shoulder, and maneuvered in a phalanx. That took drill, and practice, and practice. They had to be well-regulated.
So imagine a very good marching band, but with lousy guns, being shot at. They had to be good at what they did. They had to be excellent at moving, and practiced at loading touchy black powder into a hot, heavy gun, that kicked like a mule. (The good news was they didn’t have to be very good at aiming.)
Now, to be able to practice with the muskets, the militia needed to keep the muskets handy. The muskets couldn’t be stored in a state armory, and only issued during invasions. The people needed to practice with the muskets. The people had to keep the muskets, the people had a right to keep the muskets – it was their duty to defend, it was their duty and their right to be good at it. They had to be well-regulated.
The people of the USA needed a well-regulated militia, and they were it. They had a duty and a right to be the militia. There were enemies to their nation, and the people to take up arms in defense of the nation, were the people of the nation.
My point is that the militia is the point of the Second Amendment, and the proficeny thereof. To be well-regulated, the militia needed to keep the muskets. To defend their nation, the people had a right to bear arms in the militia.
To me, “well-regulated” explains “to keep”, and “militia” explains “bear arms”.
And Tom Weiss goes on and on and on with the same dishonest dodgy script…
You’re scared of guns. Got it. So am I, and I’ve had the business end of them pointed at me. But fear of the gun itself is irrational, as some human must manipulate the gun in very specific ways for it to become dangerous.
Yes, and it’s the humans who bring firearms into public places, uninvited, with no regard for the legitimate interests of others, whom we fear. Not the gun itself, as you so dishonestly allege. You know this, and you’re misrepresenting our stated arguments because that’s the only way you can pretend to refute them. This has been a standard childish blither-point of the NRA for decades: “You’re afraid of the gun, you’re trying to fight crime by punishing the gun!”
As a result, unless a person carrying a gun in public is specifically manipulating the weapon he/she is carrying, and manipulating it in a way which threatens you, there is no threat. None.
If someone is armed and physically able and prepared to use his firearm at a few seconds’ notice, and we don’t know his mental state, then yes, he IS a threat — especially if he’s acting with as little regard for everyone else’s interests as you show in your stupid arguments here. Countless incidents prove this again and again, and your refusal to understand (or rather, to admit you understand) this obvious point, further proves your dishonesty.
You’re the paranoid one and you’re the bully for suggesting that the mere presence of that gun is a threat to you.
Do you even know what the word “bully” means? Hint: it’s not the same as “critic.”
Take a second read of this sentence and try to understand why you are the bully in your scenario.
I see someone with a gun, and I wonder how safe I am in his presence. How does that make ME the bully? Again, do you even know what that word means? Or do you just automatically call everyone who questions you a “bully?” Let’s see…a guy with a gun, who thinks he’s being “bullied” when someone questions why he’s carrying a gun…why do I not think that can end well?
Many governments – specifically the Brits – used soldiers to disarm their political opponents and thereby gain power and leverage over them.
Citation required. Which “political opponents” are you talking about, and were they armed to begin with? (Yes, the British government did indeed disarm certain opposing factions — the ones who were waging civil war! That’s kind of what governments exist to do: establish order and keep the peace.)
The Brits lost that war for many reasons, one of them being the general populace of the colonies was well armed.
Better armed than the British soldiers? That’s doubtful, especially given the number of battles the British actually WON.
This isn’t a “made up story” it’s part of the actual story about how the US was founded.
Oooh, it’s not a made-up story, it’s an ACTUAL story. Like I said before, citation required.
Final note – consider our two ideologies for a moment. Mine has room for you. You’re free to order your life however your see fit as long as it doesn’t impinge upon my rights. Your philosophy has no room for mine. You would force me to act in ways that you see fit. Your concern is the only concern. This is the mind of a bully.
We question your right, and need, to do one particular thing — carry a firearm in public just because — and that means our “philosophy” has no room for you and our concerns are “the only concerns?” Lemme guess…you called your parents “slave-drivers” whenever they tried to make you take a bath, right? That’s the level of maturity you’re showing here.
Raging Bee
But when you do that a law just becomes another club to hit folks over the head with. An open society thrives not by treating old laws as divine but by constantly reasessing whether a law is still good and just or not.
60 years ago or so it was completly legal to drive while drunk (here). People didn’t sit around and contemplate that it was legal and therefore what have you, but took steps to change the law because of the damage. Because the law itself was immoral.
Laws are made by people.
Laws can be good or bad.
But when you do that a law just becomes another club to hit folks over the head with.
Yes the law is a blunt and clumsy instrument — but for too many social problems, it’s the only instrument we have. How did US courts manage to enforce basic constitutional rights, often in the face of majority opposition, or at least indifference? In large part, by treating the Constitution as virtual Holy Writ that must never be disobeyed. That’s how we ended apartheid in America, legalized abortion (temporarily at least), removed obstacles to interracial, and now gay, marriage, made voting and public participation possible for minorities, etc.
An open society thrives not by treating old laws as divine but by constantly reassessing whether a law is still good and just or not.
True — but once a bad or obsolete law has been replaced with a better one, it has to be enforced, equally among all people.
@Menyambal
Let’s talk about the legislative history a little more please.
The Federalists had won elections, but the anti-Federalists were upset at the lack of a bill of rights. Some of the Federalists were upset too. So, everyone came to an agreement to pass a bill of rights to limit the power of the new federal government. That’s the context of the second amendment, right?
The currently lawfully upheld reading via SCOTUS makes sense in this legislative history.
I’m still not quite sure what you think the secondment amendment is supposed to do. Why did they pass it? Does it guarantee rights to the people? Does it limit the powers of the federal government? Does it guarantee rights to the states like the 10th amendment? Is it just window dressing? What does the second amendment actually do in your reading? Why did they write it, and what impact did they intent for it to have, and what impact did everyone understand it to have, and what impact does a simple reading of the text have, etc.?
Let me quote Raging Bee who makes the same point (but in a different context):
It seems that your understanding of the second amendment renders the amendment without impact and without legal force. Again, I may be confused about your position, and I’m asking for clarification.
Again, EnlightenmentLiberal, you can’t understand something. And you want me to explain it to you again. What you are doing is a common trolling technique – getting me to spend time, to waste time, and maybe leave an opening for you to attack, or at least to misunderstand again. You keep distorting what I say, and being puzzled by what you think I said.
The purpose of the Second Amendment is to be sure that the United States had a well-regulated militia, which was a necessity for the national defense. Read the damn first part! To ensure that the militia was well-trained, the people had to be allowed access to the arms they would be bearing in time of war. To ensure that there was a militia, the people had to be allowed to be in a militia, to bear arms in their nations defense.
See? Trained militia = necessary. Armed people of the nation = militia. Trained armed people of the nation = necessary. Second Amendment = trained armed people of the nation necessary.
What it meant was, the citizen militia couldn’t be replaced with professional soldiers in an army paid by the government. Which, if you notice, has been done. If you want to hassle somebody, go bother Congress about the standing army – it is unconstitutional as fuck, and the soldiers in it are being used for internal policing, and their weapons are being given to the police.
(And, just because you are so fucking dense, the arms mentioned and intended were military arms in the general sense, like “taking up arms”, and were government owned. It had nothing to do with individuals owning guns, and was not meant to imply that people who already knew how to use guns would be any aid to the militia.)
@Menyambal
I’m not trolling. You’re being evasive. Again: Is it a restraint on the power of the federal government? Does it grant a power to the federal government in addition to any other powers granted to the federal government by the constitution? Is it a restraint on states power? Is it a guarantee that a certain power is reserved to the states? Is it a guarantee of a right to the people? Specific answers please. It shouldn’t be that hard to type out 6 words.
Also, you have a rather curious understanding of English. It doesn’t say that standing armies are illegal in the constitution itself. Here’s the relevant bit:
Permanent standing armies are legal. It is merely that appropriations of money for any army need to be re-authorized every 2 years.
Further, if the point of the second amendment was to outlaw a permanent standing army, you think that they could have mentioned the word “army” or similar in the text of the second amendment, yet there is no mention of anything like that at all in the second amendment. No mention of an army. No mention that standing armies are bad. No limits how long the congress (or the states) can maintain a standing army. Nothing. If that was their intent, surely they would have said something like “the congress shall not maintain a standing army longer than 2 years”.
IIRC, we see discussions of the standing army issue in the notes from the ratification debates for the constitution itself. Again the Federalists won these debates. It was decided that preventing the federal government from keeping a standing army in perpetuity would too restrict the new federal government, and the Federalists didn’t want a repeat of the defunct Articles Of Confederation. They did put in a restriction that the congress needs to re-authorize the funding of any standing army, but they explicitly did not place a limit on the length of time that a standing army can be maintained.
The first ten amendments were codifying existing practice, not radically limiting the powers of the congress as then understood. The idea that the second amendment in particular was meant as a radical departure by disallowing congress from keeping a standing army in perpetuity is unreasonable and contrary to all of the available evidence.
Also, like it or not, the Federalist Papers were widely considered to be the user’s guide for the new constitution. The constitution was ratified with large input on its meaning according to the Federalist Papers. The Federalist Papers have been an important source for clarifying the meaning of the constitution in many SCOTUS decisions as well. SCOTUS has often cited the Federalist Papers as being a good authority and having strong bearing.
The Founding Fathers’ distrust of armies was inherited from Britain, where both King Charles I’s army and Cromwell’s army were instrumental in projecting two separate dictatorships’ power. Cromwell in particular used the army as a police force to enforce draconian laws. Plus many Britons regarded Cromwell and his Rump Parliament as an illegal government made up of regicides and upstarts. High taxes, mainly to pay the Army, were resented by the nobility and gentry. The Rump Parliament and Barebone’s Parliament were dissolved by Cromwell, both times with soldiers entering the House and demanding the MPs disperse.
After the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, bills authorizing the army and providing for its upkeep had two year limitations. This tradition has continued in Britain to the present day. When the writers of the Constitution were considering the army they decided to continue the British tradition for the same reasons the British maintained it. Incidentally while Britain has a Royal Navy and a Royal Air Force, the army is merely the British Army.
@Al Dente
Thank you. Did not know that.
EnlightenmentLiberal, you are trolling, or something that feels exactly like it.
I have several times explained my view of the Second Amendment, and my reasons for my view. I have discussed guns and armies. But you, ignoring all that, are now demanding that I tell you how the amendment will be enforced, and who will administer it. And you accuse me of being evasive for not answering your demand.
I have no idea who would enforce the Second Amendment, other than a vague understanding that Congresspersons would try to not pass laws that contravened it, and anyone who felt the militia was being abridged could take their case to the Supreme Court. Kinda like every other Constitutional issue.
I now say that I don’t understand why you are asking that, other than that you are trolling from some NRA guidebook.
—
Al Dente, thank you. I also did not know that. I was basing my understanding of the dislike of armies on the fact that the Constitution has no provision for an army, except that of paying one, as opposed to the details about the militia and the navy. Also on the facts that one of the complaints in the Declaration of Independence was about the quartering of troops, and that the worst of the British invading army was the Hessians, who were German contract soldiers – an army for money.
I’m just going to drop this off. It’s from a decade or so later, but it seems relevant :
@Menyambal
No, you’re still being evasive. I still don’t understand what you think the second amendment is supposed to do or does. Again, does it give a power to the federal congress? Does it reserve a power to the states? Does it guarantee a right of the people? Again, explicit clear answers to these questions please.
What kind of law passed by the federal congress or the states would be in violation of the second amendment? I already dealt with the IMHO wrong position that the second amendment prohibits the federal congress from keeping a standing army in perpetuity. (I’m not sure if you advocate this exact position, but the position is wrong.)
You’re still very light on substance. It would take you less words to explain your position than it would to accuse me of trolling and working off a NRA script.
EnlightenmentLiberal, it guarantees a right of the people, the right to be in a well-regulated militia. I have said that, several times. It also says it right there in the Second Amendment.
BTW, you saying that you aren’t trolling doesn’t mean that you aren’t trolling. That’s another case of you doing the religious thing – thinking words are magic.
EnlightenmentLiberal, nobody said that the Second Amendment prohibited a standing army, but yay for you for beating the stuffing out of that particular straw man. I said that I thought the Constitution as a whole seemed to dislike armies, and that I thought the two-year bit was trying to prevent a permanent army, and that the militia being deemed necessary supported my view. Again, you fail at reading.
Hey, you also failed to deny being a shill for the NRA. Whether you are being paid directly, or are just doing this for fun, you are parroting the NRA stand, and perpetuating their myths and mistakes. The NRA get millions of dollars for doing what they do, and that seems motivation enough – I know a lot of NRA supporters who accuse others of being motivated by money, so it seems a thing with folks like that.
@Menyambal
Some words have certain definitions that involve mental states, such as intent. The definition of the word “trolling” with which I’m familiar involves intent to deceive, generally to cause annoyance in order for personal amusement. Under that definition, I am not trolling. Similarly, physically killing someone without intent may be illegal, but it is not murder under the common definition of “murder” because the common definition of “murder” requires intent.
Thus, under the definitions with which I’m familiar, I may be annoying, but I’m not trolling. If you want to present alternative reasonable definitions of certain terms, I’ll be more than happy to use them.
Ok, so it’s a right of the people to be members of the government regulated and government organized militia. Do I have you right? Thanks. What a bizarre construction. Also contradicted by the actual evidence.
Still, what does that mean, more exactly? That the government must run regular militia training courses – perhaps boot camps in today’s terminology? And that individual persons must not be arbitrarily denied entry into these militia training courses? Is that the right that’s being protected, the right to be a member in the militia training et al and all of the associated perks and responsibilities? So, as an example of a law which is disallowed by the second amendment, an example would be a law passed by the federal congress forbidding Catholics from being members in the militia training et al – right? Do I have you right?
Anywho, I did some of your homework for you, and I went back and started rereading some of the relevant Federalist papers. No 46 is especially relevant.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers/No._46
Bolding added
A couple of things to note.
This particular paper was very probably written by James Madison, the so-called father of the constitution.
AFAIK, the US census in 1790 put the US population at around 4 million. So, around 2 million men. So, you have to take about 1/4 of that to get the 1/2 million number quoted above for the size of the militia. Given the numerical impreciseness of the phrase used “half a million”. Considering this, Madison very probably thought that the militia was composed of every able bodied male adult in the country.
The second half of the quote is quite illustrative. I know that many anti-gun people say it’s completely ridiculous to argue that a bunch of redneck yocals with guns have a chance against the US military. However Madison expounds at length the exact opposite viewpoint (for his time and his technology, with local governments an indispensable component). Keep in mind the context here. Madison is arguing for the constitution before there was even the creation of the US bill of rights. Madison is arguing against anti-federalists who were afraid that the federal congress may become tyrannical. Madison argues against that position in several ways (I only quoted a small portion), but one way that Madison argues against this proposition was noting that the many tyrannies in Europe would not survive if the people had guns.
Fast forward just a little bit. The anti-federalist sentiment didn’t exactly just die away after the ratification of the constitution. That’s why we have the bill of rights. Many concerns about the power of the federal congress were addressed with the bill of rights, including religious freedom, guarantees against being forced to house and quarter soldiers, protections against general writs aka protections against unreasonable search and seizures, etc. The second amendment as a general protection of the right of the people, of individual persons, to keep their own guns, makes perfect sense in this historical context.
Again, I’m quoting the official user’s guide to the constitution, and the so-called father of the constitution.
Here’s what Alexander Hamilton had to say in the Federalist 29 on this topic. (It’s probably Hamilton who wrote No 29.)
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers/No._29
(bolding added)
Again, I’m quoting another founding father, and again I’m quoting the official user’s guide to the constitution.
Here, we see the obvious. It would be foolish to guarantee every person equal access to all militia training courses. The creation of select corps of the militia is the obvious thing to do. It doesn’t get more clear when Hamilton says that the best we can do for everyone else is keep them armed and equipped, and assemble them a couple times a year. Again, note the user of the word “People” instead of “militia” in that context.
Menyambal, your interpretation is rather interesting. It’s at least partially based in reality, compared to some other people I’ve seen. Props for that. I’m wondering if you can square it with what I’ve just provided. If not, I’m curious if you will honestly admit that your interpretation is incompatible with the official user’s guide to the constitution and the father of the constitution himself Madison. I’m deathly curious.
@Menyambal
Ok. I’ll play the game for now. I’m not a shill. I’m not getting paid by anyone for this. I’m doing this out of my own spare time because it’s a pet topic of mine for which I’m very interested. I’m also concerned about this because I believe that the rule of law is important, and because it bugs the shit out of me when I see my side, the liberal side, so completely wrong and in denial about some basic facts of US constitutional law. I like the constitution, and I like the rule of law, because that’s one of the main things standing in between me and theocracy in the United States today. It also is the main thing protecting my free speech, which is definitely on the short list of things most dear to me.
Also, fuck the NRA.
Okay, thanks. I appreciate the added information. I am glad to get your stand described a bit more clearly.
However, as before, I read your two quotes and I see them supporting my view.
But I also see the time. Tomorrow, maybe.
So, the Constitution is the Bible, and the Federalist Papers are the Talmud?
America, you’re doing it wrong. You’re doing it seriously fundamentally wrong.
Then translate it already, You The People of the United States of America! An incomprehensible law that requires Biblical-level exegesis to be implemented is counterproductive!
As far as I know, the whole Bill of Rights just spelled out the status quo in order to prevent people from changing it later (at the federal level at least). Hamilton thought it was unnecessary to spell out the obvious because the Constitution already protected freedom in general, but enough people disagreed that certain rights were spelled out.
And to forbid a standing army was by no means some kind of radical departure from earlier thought. It was textbook wisdom in the 18th century that standing armies are dangerous instruments of oppression and that therefore a democratic country must have a militia of conscripts instead. Just a few years earlier, as mentioned above, the Founding Fathers had personally fought against professional mercenaries from central Germany.
The definition I’m familiar with is intent to annoy by saying things that are calculated to annoy – not necessarily with any regard for whether they’re true. Very often such trolls sooner or later openly admit they’re trolling, because that, too, is trolling: “LOL, I’m trolling you, and you know it, and you can’t do shit about it – I’m still annoying you” is a pretty annoying thing to say, after all.
I’m not sure if intent is really crucial to that definition; is it possible to troll unconsciously?
I read it this way:
1) “the People at large” are “all the militia of the United States”, should “be properly armed and equipped” and should be assembled for the most basic training (see above on how much training is necessary just so you can shoot) “once or twice in the course of a year”.
2) To get all these people to the point where they can fight as well as a standing army, however, is completely unrealistic; it’s “as futile as it would be injurious”.
3) That’s bad, because the US needs some kind of army. So, “a select corps of moderate extent”, “an excellent body of well-trained militia”, should be chosen from the militia and trained till they’re “ready to take the field whenever the defence of the State shall require it”.
4) But isn’t that a standing army which would allow the Feds to install a centralized dictatorship? NOOOOO NO NO NO *frantic waving of hands* – first, these wouldn’t be foreign mercenaries, they’d be locals with the same interests as the rest of the populace; second, their numbers would be so small that they couldn’t win a fight against the zerg rush of the rest of the militia, and even their training wouldn’t be that much better. (“Formidable” meant “monstrously dangerous” or something like that.)
5) “This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.” Because standing armies are terrible.
All this assumes that everyone who’s been called into the militia at all has somehow organized a gun (within the mentioned six months).
And all this is of considerable historical interest, but it would be ludicrous to devise legislation for the present on the basis of so many outdated premises. Captain Obvious, can you manage to list all the things that have changed since then?
Cpt. Obvious: Well, let’s see.
1) There is no more militia; there are things that are called that, but the Federalists would say “that’s a standing army, idiots”. There’s not even a draft anymore! The soldiers are all citizens or want to become citizens, but they’re professionals just like a mercenary.
2) There is a standing army. Its budget has to be, and is, reauthorized at regular intervals.
3) In this day and age, an army can massacre an entire zerg rush – practically no matter how big the disparity in numbers is.
4) And yet – and yet – the US is neither a dictatorship nor even a centralized democracy like France! The Founding Fathers would be amazed.
I think that’s all…
Me: Thank you, Captain!
@Menyambal
I’m continually amazed that you say all of this supports your position.
I’m still not even sure what your position is.
Again, I please ask for you to explain yourself. Please tell me what the specific legal enforceable impact of the second amendment is. Please give me specific hypothetical laws of congress, and/or of the states, which are illegal under your interpretation of the second amendment. Then please describe how it fits with the above evidence, and how it makes sense in the legislative history and how it makes sense as part of the bill of rights, something that is not a departure from the status quo of the Federalists and the constitution, and a list of rights given to the individual at the individual level.
…
@David Marjanović
I never said that. I said it would be a radical departure from the constitution itself if the second amendment outlawed standing armies.
I rather much like the rule of law. I don’t like your seeming argument that we should ignore the constitution just because it’s out of date or because we don’t like it, etc. Rather, that’s a reason to change it, not to pretend it means something different. It’s not a reason to abandon proper jurisprudence and rule of law.
As I mentioned above, this seeming complete disdain for the rule of law really, really irks me. Knock it off. Don’t sink to Scalia’s general level of horrible jurisprudence.
IMHO unlikely. You just read the above quotes which IMHO make another outcome likely.. All of the reasons that the Federalist gives to not fear the militia IMHO applies to our modern military. The US military by and large is composed of regular Americans who live regular American lives.
Bull fucking shit.
Also, you assume a conventional regular war. I don’t know why you immediately discount guerilla warfare. Iraq, Afghanistan, just to name a few.
EntitledLiar: Menyambal has indeed stated a position about the meaning and intent of the Second Amendment. You are lying and being deliberately evasive when you keep on insisting otherwise. You’ve done this with me, on more than one occasion, so it’s pretty easy to recognize when you’re doing it with someone else.
FWIW, here’s my answers to some of your questions:
Again: Is it a restraint on the power of the federal government?
Yes, it says that people, at various levels, can take collective action to organize their local law-enforcement and security, according to their own views of the threats they see at the time, without having to get permission from the Feds or conform to any pre-existing Federal standards or procedures. To put it another way, it’s not a restraint on the Feds, so much as an admission that the Feds and a national-level security force cannot and should not be expected to handle all state and local policing/security decisions — that’s not what such forces are equipped or competent to do.
Does it grant a power to the federal government in addition to any other powers granted to the federal government by the constitution?
No — though the Feds can, when necessary, intervene to keep state or local security forces from getting out of hand or stepping on each other’s toes. That’s part of the Feds’ obligation to guarantee to all people equal protection of the laws and a republican form of government.
Is it a restraint on states power?
No — though there are other parts of the Constitution that do restrain states’ power.
Is it a guarantee that a certain power is reserved to the states? Is it a guarantee of a right to the people?
Yes, though it is not a guarantee of any INDIVIDUAL right to own any particular kind of weapon. The security of a free state is protected by well-regulated militias; and that is, first and foremost, a COLLECTIVE undertaking, and any individual right to bear any kind of arms is SUBORDINATE to that collective mandate.
What kind of law passed by the federal congress or the states would be in violation of the second amendment?
If the US Congress passed a law imposing unreasonable restraints on states’ or counties’ ability to organize or arm police or other security forces, that could be a violation of the Second Amendment. As for the states, WRT the Second Amendment alone, they can pretty much do anything they want. “Well-regulated militia” means that elected governments can regulate, or prohibit, any activity they see as a threat to the security of a free state.
@Raging Bee
So, thanks for taking the time to answer the questions clearly, thought not directed at you. That’s more than I would expect from you. Props.
So, your position is that the second amendment is an assertion that the states shall retain/have the power to fund and run a police force and other security forces. Is that right?
There’s one more family of questions that you didn’t answer though. Let me rephrase and add some more detail.
The writers of the constitution and bill of rights seem to be quite capable of saying what they mean w.r.t. state powers. For example, the 10th amendment clearly says that it’s reserving powers to the states. For example, the original constitution itself reserves the power of appointing officers of the militia to the states. Doesn’t it seem rather odd that these writers would choose the word right instead of power, and the phrase the people instead of the states?
Further, the rest of the first 9 amendments of the bill of rights are about protecting certain rights that are enjoyed and exercised by individual persons without government supervision and regardless of government permission and limiting government powers. You claim that the second amendment is a guarantee of a power to the states. Is not the second amendment also an outlier in this regard?
The rest of the US constitution and bill of rights adopts a particular usage of terms which again makes the second amendment an odd outlier in choice of language. The rest of the US constitution and bill of rights uses the following definitions: There are rights that can be enjoyed and exercised by individuals acting alone without government supervision, and there are powers of government, congress and the states. IIRC, in all other cases in the constitution and bill of rights, the writers use these words to that meaning without fail. Except purportedly for the second amendment, there is no other place that uses the word right to talk about some right that is only exercised by a collection of people with government supervision and permission. Doesn’t it seem highly unusual and unexpected for the writers of the second amendment to abruptly change meaning in the second amendment only by using the phrase right of the people when they elsewhere consistently used the phrases power of the congress or power of the states ? Isn’t the second amendment again an outlier on this measure?
In short, if you’re right about what they meant, then they would have written something like this: A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, every state shall have the power to call out the POSSE COMITATUS and to call forth its own militia.
Again, notice the difference in language:
Power instead of right.
Shall have the power instead of right shall not be infringed.
Call forth the militia instead of keep and bear arms.
For what you say to make any sense whatsoever, you have to conclude that the writers of the bill of rights had a consistent meaning of terms used consistently without exception in the entire original US constitution and bill of rights, except for the second amendment where they abruptly used a wildly inconsistent terminology for no apparent reason. That’s a proposition which I find to be highly unlikely, and frankly I believe that anyone who disagrees is almost certainly ignorant of some of the things I’ve shared, or practicing flagrant intellectual dishonesty, and probably just flatly dishonest.
Oh, and of equal importance:
Every state instead of the people.
#297 Gilleal:
Of course you shouldn’t. That’s exactly my point. There’s the wording of the law, there’s the interpretation you have, and there’s the interpretation that’s currently used in the application of the law. It’s the same issue as you get when you’re talking about human rights – distinguishing between what rights people should have vs. what legal rights they actually have. I see a lot of conversations here that go on waaay too long because one person’s talking about what should be, and the other about what is.
Personally, I’d read the second amendment as: the condition is no longer true (a well-regulated militia is no longer necessary to the defense of a free state), therefore the entire amendement is not applicable.
@Raging Bee
Also, while we’re here, I might as well re-ask the question to you Raging Bee that you flatly refused to answer in an earlier discussion in another thread on this topic. It was your failure to answer this question and the context which caused me to characterize you as a fucking lying dishonest sumbag. Let’s see if you have improved any. I have hope.
I understand you think the second amendment doesn’t protect an individual’s right to keep guns without government supervision and permission. Previously, you have hinted that other tenants of the constitution and bill of rights would overrule any such protection anyway. I want to know if you can imagine a hypothetical text of a constitution and ratification process which would be legitimate in your eyes, and which would unambiguously guarantee a right of an individual person to own a simple handgun and open carry in most public spaces. That’s my question. Again, you have hinted many times at the conclusion that you would refuse to recognize the legitimacy of any constitution that guaranteed NRA-style gun rights, but you never came out and said it. Before we continue with this discussion of proper jurisprudence, I want to know if it’s worthwhile arguing about the text we have, because if you’re prepared to dismiss all texts out of hand, then there’s no purpose in discussing the particulars of the second amendment which we do have.
Open carry advocate shoots woman who reportedh im for sexual harassment
Yeah, the good guys…
Clearly, it was a bad guy with a gun wearing a sexually harrassed woman costume. False flag operation!
I realized the other day that this year will be the last that I celebrate Independence Day (as an American, anyway). Not necessarily a bad thing in some respects…
Again, you have hinted many times at the conclusion that you would refuse to recognize the legitimacy of any constitution that guaranteed NRA-style gun rights…
EL, what the ever-loving fuck are you talking about? I never said, or hinted, ANYTHING about “any constitution.” I was, and always have been, talking ONLY about the Constitution we currently have in effect. Once again, you out misrepresent what I’ve said.
In short, if you’re right about what they meant, then they would have written something like this: A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, every state shall have the power to call out the POSSE COMITATUS and to call forth its own militia.
No, they would not have, because they were talking about the people’s ability to organize their own security at ANY level, not just the state level. That includes the posse comitatus and other security forces the Founders envisioned in their time; and it also includes other kinds of security forces — such as city police forces or regional police alliances — that the Founders may NOT have predicted.
Personally, I’d read the second amendment as: the condition is no longer true (a well-regulated militia is no longer necessary to the defense of a free state), therefore the entire amendment is not applicable.
Wrong: the phrase “well-regulated militia” does not mean a particular kind of security force, it means whatever security forces the people choose, through their elected governments, to organize.
@Raging Bee
You need to brush up on US constitutional law. That is how they would have worded it. The power of municipalities is entirely dependent on the several times. The powers of municipalities derives from grants of power from the states which can be revoked at any time without cause. The states are the ones with power, not local municipalities.
For example, the tenth amendment does not say that all powers not enumerated here are reserved to the municipalities, states, and other local governments. It says that the powers are reserved to the states – full stop. No mention of municipalities nor other local governments.
Ridiculously a-historical. That’s not what “militia” meant, and that’s not what “well-regulated” meant. The phrase “well-regulated militia” means “properly functioning fighting force composed of the citizenry”. The idea that it refers to our modern conceptions of police is laughable.
As I said, in another thread, you repeatedly and strongly hinted at that conclusion. Emphasis: Another thread. I would like to know if you have changed your position since that time. I would like you to answer that question. Will you be a good and honest person and answer that question?
Typos. Typos everywhere:
You need to brush up on US constitutional law. That is how they would have worded it. The power of municipalities is entirely dependent on the several [states]. The powers of municipalities derives from grants of power from the states which can be revoked at any time without cause. The states are the ones with power, not local municipalities.
That does not refute my arguments in any way. Yes, states can charter municipal governments (something that’s been happening since the Middle Ages at least, so not an alien concept to the Founders); and municipal governments can then organize security forces to enforce laws (and rights) and keep the peace within their borders (if their charters say they can, of course).
Ridiculously a-historical. That’s not what “militia” meant, and that’s not what “well-regulated” meant. The phrase “well-regulated militia” means “properly functioning fighting force composed of the citizenry”. The idea that it refers to our modern conceptions of police is laughable.
If we interpret a word as meaning only what it meant in the Founders’ time, then all parts of the Constitution that use that word become meaningless in our time. Do you want any part of the Constitution to become meaningless? I sure as Hell don’t, and neither did the Founders. For purposes of the Second Amendment, “well-regulated militia” meant whatever well-regulated security force the people choose to create to ensure “the security of a free state.” That could mean the kind of militia the Founders knew, or it could mean just about anything else short of a full-on professional warmaking standing army — either way, the Second Amendment says the people have a right to organize and arm security forces, as needed, to protect their rights and their republican form of government, and the Feds can’t arbitrarily overrule such decisions.
And besides, if “militia” means “properly functioning fighting force composed of the citizenry,” as you say, then a local police force or other law-enforcement organization would be a subset of that defined group; which means, again, you’re not really refuting any of my arguments — unless you’re talking about a police force composed of some other country’s citizenry, which I am not.
As I said, in another thread, you repeatedly and strongly hinted at that conclusion.
That was false when you said it then, and it’s false when you refer to it now. You know this, which is why you’re falling back on weasel-words like “strongly hinted.”
I would like to know if you have changed your position since that time. I would like you to answer that question. Will you be a good and honest person and answer that question?
I will not answer a question that is based on demonstrably false premises. Fuck off to bed.
#328 Bee:
I say:
to which you reply
thus completely proving my point. You’re talking original intent, I’m talking about how I interpret it. And while I haven’t done all the reading, I expect their choice of the word militia was a conscious one. And the logical statement of the amendment would be nonsensical if they meant miltia to mean any security organization, or at least one not where its members were part time and supplied their own weapons.
But again, that’s irrelevant to my point. Strict interpretation vs. interpreting through original intent vs. loose interpretation are all fine, but what’s most relevant to me is how the law is currently interpreted in the courts.
@Raging Bee
For everyone else, this is the context I’m working from. Links provided. In short, myself and one other was arguing for a specific point, that the second amendment was originally intended and widely understood to guarantee an individual’s right to own guns.
Here’s the original thread.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2014/07/05/targets-new-gun-policy/
Here’s a few examples of what Raging Bee said in that context:
Given this context, I have to ask again: Raging Bee, can you imagine a hypothetical constitution whose legitimacy you would recognize which guarantees the general right of an individual to own a gun and use it for self defense without government supervision? If you cannot answer yes, then I fail to see a point to discussing the particulars of the second amendment text with you.
Also Raging Bee, you need to educate yourself. The modern conception of criminal justice is wildly different than at the time of the founding. It’s a partial cause of your confusion over the word “militia”. The facts of the matter are that at the time of the founding, there is no such thing as police as you would recognize them today. There were no state prosecutors as you would recognize them today either.
Criminal prosecutions were often instigated by private citizens, often the victims, who had to go before a Grand Jury to get an indictment in order to proceed with the criminal case. In those criminal cases, the victim would act as prosecutor. There was no police nor state prosecutor. Rather, the investigation and prosecution of many criminal offenses was left to the victims. Of course, the actual prosecution would still happen in a government court. In today’s characterization, it was a libertarian’s wet dream.
At the time, they did have constables, sheriffs, US marshals, and slave patrols. However, all of these people had no more police power than any other citizen. Any citizen had the power of arrest, the power to enact an arrest warrant lawfully obtained from a government judge, the power to enact a search warrant lawfully obtained from a government judge.
The founders had no conception of a police force, and if they were to see our modern police forces, the founders likely would have compared it to a standing army enforcing the law with superior arrest and search powers than the average citizen, which was one of the primary causes and motivations for the American War Of Independence. One of the reasons that the Americans were so angered was that there was an occupying force with superior police powers than the average citizen. When the founders complain about standing armies, many of their complaints directly address our modern police forces. The very idea that they would authorize anyone to maintain such police forces in the second amendment is laughable. It flagrant historical revisionism. The founders would have violent objections to the notion of a standing force with superior powers of detention, arrest, search, and seizure compared to the average citizen, and they would be especially incensed at the modern legal concept of qualified immunity for the police. There is no doubt that there would be a near universal agreement to these points of almost all Americans at the time. The just fought a violent war of independence to rid themselves of such things.
Note that I am not here defending this libertarian method of criminal justice (although I think there is a thing or two we could learn from it and apply to our modern criminal justice system). I’m just giving a brief description of history, because apparently you know nothing of it.
tl;dr
Again, the idea that the founders wrote the second amendment to authorize police forces is completely laughable and absurd, and betrays a complete and utter ignorance of the legal history of the United States. Seriously Raging Bee, read a book.