Gun Control
Gun Control
By Harris R. SherlineMarch 17, 2008
"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be always possible." (Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr., 1911-1978, two-term Democratic Senator from Minnesota and 38th Vice President of the United States)
The Right of the People To Keep and Bear Arms
The dispute between those who favor gun controls and those who don't is predicated on their respective interpretations of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and specifically on the term, "a well regulated militia.
"The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argues, "We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to assure their own freedom and security against the central government." (Source: ACLU website), while the other side believes that the use of the word "militia" refers to the citizens of the U.S. in general.
They both attempt to bolster their respective positions with statistics about the effects of gun control laws on crime. Advocates of "gun control" believe that removing all guns from individual citizens will prevent crime. But, the evidence doesn't support this.
Gun Control In Great Britain
A nationwide survey of British police officers in 2003 revealed that 20% wanted to be armed. Even the police, or at least most of them, are not permitted to carry firearms, and only about 6,000 of an estimated 142,000 in the country were armed.
In Britain's Gun-Control Folly, Scott McPherson commented, "Those opposed to arming more officers present a strange counterargument. As the Post put it, 'Opponents suggest it would just lead to more gun crime.'" How's that? "Petty criminals might arm themselves in response." This view is particularly ridiculous when we consider that the UK's leftist government banned virtually all private firearms ownership and all handgun ownership in 1997 amidst great fanfare about "making Britain safer." Since then, crime has skyrocketed. So guns were outlawed to fight crime, and now not even police should have guns lest the increasingly emboldened criminal element get upset about it. That's some twisted logic.
"According to historian Joyce Lee Malcolm (Gun Control in England: The Tarnished Gold Standard, Journal on Firearms & Public Policy, 2004): "[Between 1997 and 2003] crimes with [banned firearms] have more than doubled." Clearly since the ban criminals have not found it difficult to get guns and the balance has not shifted in the interest of public safety...In the four years from 1997 to 2001 the rate of violent crime more than doubled. The UK murder rate for 2002 was the highest for a century."......
For the rest, look up:
THE AMERICAN JINGOIST: The Gun Control Debate.#links
By Harris R. SherlineMarch 17, 2008
"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be always possible." (Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr., 1911-1978, two-term Democratic Senator from Minnesota and 38th Vice President of the United States)
The Right of the People To Keep and Bear Arms
The dispute between those who favor gun controls and those who don't is predicated on their respective interpretations of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and specifically on the term, "a well regulated militia.
"The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argues, "We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to assure their own freedom and security against the central government." (Source: ACLU website), while the other side believes that the use of the word "militia" refers to the citizens of the U.S. in general.
They both attempt to bolster their respective positions with statistics about the effects of gun control laws on crime. Advocates of "gun control" believe that removing all guns from individual citizens will prevent crime. But, the evidence doesn't support this.
Gun Control In Great Britain
A nationwide survey of British police officers in 2003 revealed that 20% wanted to be armed. Even the police, or at least most of them, are not permitted to carry firearms, and only about 6,000 of an estimated 142,000 in the country were armed.
In Britain's Gun-Control Folly, Scott McPherson commented, "Those opposed to arming more officers present a strange counterargument. As the Post put it, 'Opponents suggest it would just lead to more gun crime.'" How's that? "Petty criminals might arm themselves in response." This view is particularly ridiculous when we consider that the UK's leftist government banned virtually all private firearms ownership and all handgun ownership in 1997 amidst great fanfare about "making Britain safer." Since then, crime has skyrocketed. So guns were outlawed to fight crime, and now not even police should have guns lest the increasingly emboldened criminal element get upset about it. That's some twisted logic.
"According to historian Joyce Lee Malcolm (Gun Control in England: The Tarnished Gold Standard, Journal on Firearms & Public Policy, 2004): "[Between 1997 and 2003] crimes with [banned firearms] have more than doubled." Clearly since the ban criminals have not found it difficult to get guns and the balance has not shifted in the interest of public safety...In the four years from 1997 to 2001 the rate of violent crime more than doubled. The UK murder rate for 2002 was the highest for a century."......
For the rest, look up:
THE AMERICAN JINGOIST: The Gun Control Debate.#links
posted by Steven R Berryman @ 6:00 AM
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