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SCOTUS Rules on DC Gun Law

edited June 2008 in Flamewars
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.
Supreme Court says Americans have right to guns
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Comments

  • Could you explain, for people outside the US, why this is significant?
  • Could you explain, for people outside the US, why this is significant?
    Many large cities have similar bans on all handguns, which are now likely to get overturned.
  • Supreme Court says Americans have right to guns
    -ish. The ruling says that Americans have a right to keep a loaded handgun assembled in their own homes for the purposes of self-defense, striking down laws to the contrary in many urban and sub-urban areas. This ruling isn't going to allow you to meander down the street firing your 9 into the air, but it will let you keep it in your bedside table. Personally, I think it's the right call, but I suppose only time will tell with this one.
  • This is alright. Gun control laws really only have an effect on lawful gun owners. This might result in a slight increase in accidental shootings, like when parents are stupid and leave guns lying around and their kids shoot each other by accident. However, I also think that house burglars are not happy about this news.
  • edited June 2008
    Personally, I think it's the right call
    Doesn't this make it easier to get a gun? Gun registration becomes a simpler matter? I for one, think this is a matter of the conservative supreme court justices pandering to NRA type people. I say, look at Britian. Handguns are illegal, and there are fewer shootings. Look at Japan, Handguns are illegal...well, you get the idea.
    Post edited by gomidog on
  • Personally, I think it's the right call
    Doesn't this make it easier to get a gun? Gun registration becomes a simpler matter? I for one, think this is a matter of the conservative supreme court justices pandering to NRA type people. I say, look at Britian. Handguns are illegal, and there are fewer shootings. Look at Japan, Handguns are illegal...well, you get the idea.
    Cultural difference, don't bring that up again.
  • I say, look at Britian. Handguns are illegal, and there are fewer shootings. Look at Japan, Handguns are illegal...well, you get the idea.
    Umm...wrong?
  • The real problem is that most people who own guns vastly overestimate their usefulness in self-defense, coupled with the fact that they tend to conflate gun ownership regulation with gun banning.
  • edited June 2008
    Okay Andrew. In any case, if it is a cultural difference, then what does that say about American culture? This culture has a violent mindset filled with needless machismo and anti-intellectualism? Maybe we should be working to change the violent tendencies in American culture then, before we legislate to support them.
    Post edited by gomidog on
  • Okay, Andrew, I see.
  • The real ruling is that people can't lie about their guns. Notice that Scalia quotes a law that says that guns in your home must be dissembled. I think that's what concerned Scalia the most. He just doesn't want people to dissemble about their guns.

    . . . unless he was dissembling about the disassembling.
  • Personally, I think it's the right call
    Doesn't this make it easier to get a gun? Gun registration becomes a simpler matter? I for one, think this is a matter of the conservative supreme court justices pandering to NRA type people. I say, look at Britian. Handguns are illegal, and there are fewer shootings. Look at Japan, Handguns are illegal...well, you get the idea.
    Yet in Switzerland, with mandatory conscription, just about every house has assault rifles and semi-automatic handguns in their homes. Yet, it has perhaps the lowest gun crime rate. Norway has a similar situation.

    I think it's pretty obvious that moreso than the quantity or variety of guns available, it is the gun culture of the society that really determines what gun-related crime will be like. In the US there is a certain fascination and glorification of guns. This is why children often play with them, and hurt themselves. Yet, kitchen knives, which are also incredibly dangerous, and are much more easily available, are vilified much less. You have a kitchen knife in a drawer, how often will a kid go in and try to play with it? You have a gun in a drawer, and the results will be quite different.

    In these countries like Norway and Switzerland, guns are so common, that they are treated as everyday objects. Just about everybody understands them, gives them the proper level of respect, and does not have some romantic fascination with them. Having a proper firearms education goes a long way towards preventing gun-related crimes and accidents. When is the last time you heard about a properly trained and educated marskman shooting another person on purpose? Even in the US, at summer camps that offer riflery, where they put real guns in the hands of young children, you would expect that there would be tons of accidents and tons of stupid kids shooting each other. Yet, in all my years, I haven't heard of a single bad summer camp riflery incident. That is because the riflery hut is a place where people actually learn about, and respect, the weapons, and lose any immature fascination they may have learned from movies and television. When romanticism is replaced by realization, the weight of responsibility nearly eliminates the ability to screw up.

    As long as we still have a fucked up gun culture, we do still need a system of gun control. Part of marksmanship is realizing that if the other marksmen don't trust you with a gun, you weren't going to be allowed to have one. As long as we citizens can not trust each other with guns, we can't allow each other to have them so easily. Yet, we have to trust some people to have them, otherwise we get a piece of wood with a nail in it situation. Even so, I don't think this latest change is large enough to result in any significant increased to the frequency of gun-related incidents. The biggest change I think will be that there will be increased purchasing of handguns by lawful and safe gun owners, and gun makers will have increased profits.
  • edited June 2008
    I own a gun.
    If someone broke into my house, I would grab said gun.

    I would wait for positive ID on the perp, and then, assuming they were armed, I would shoot their ass dead.

    End of story.

    You can't break into someone's house with a weapon and expect everything to be cool. Retarded criminals.
    Post edited by Rym on
  • I own a gun.
    If someone broke into my house I would grab said gun.
    I would wait for positive ID on perp, and then assuming they werearmedI would shoot their ass dead.
    End of story.
    Oh, you're soooooooooooo macho.
  • The real problem is that most people who own guns vastly overestimate their usefulness in self-defense, coupled with the fact that they tend to conflate gun ownership regulation with gun banning.
    I own a gun.
    If someone broke into my house,I would grab said gun.

    I would wait for positive ID ontheperp, and then,assuming they werearmed,I would shoot their ass dead.

    End of story.

    You can't break intosomeone'shouse with a weapon and expect everything to be cool. Retarded criminals.
    You are a dimwit.
  • Gotta side with Scott on this one.
    No one in my family owns a firearm, and I've only shot one on rare occasions (summer camp mostly), but I know people won't be safer if guns were banned/better controlled. Besides the obvious argument that most criminals don't buy their weapons from dealers (although someone has to fix the Gun Fair issue), Americans have to realize that geographically and culturally our country is different from Japan or Albion. While those countries are mainly urban, much of the US is rural and less densely populated areas, where you won't always be able to rely on a massive police force.
  • edited June 2008
    Anecdotaly, I live in a state with no gun laws. My state has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation. I believe we're the 3rd safest state in the country when it comes to violent crime.

    So there is clearly more to this than gun laws alone. I suspect that a lot of it is cultural. If guns are respected as tools for hunting and self defense, your crime rate is going to be low. If guns are viewed as an offensive weapon, then your rates are going to be high.
    Post edited by Kilarney on
  • edited June 2008
    Okay Andrew. In any case, if it is a cultural difference, then what does that say about American culture? This culture has a violent mindset filled with needless machismo and anti-intellectualism? Maybe we should be working to change the violent tendencies in American culture then, before we legislate to support them.
    I would move that American culture sees gun ownership as primarily for defense and then the bad guys get guns as a result whereas here, guns are usually associated almost solely with people committing crimes.

    Guns are also used as a way of gaining power over someone, if someone breaks into your house (assuming you are a sane, intelligent person) you would probably use the gun to force them to stay very still until the police came. If you are not then shooting their ass dead would be the assumed course of action.
    Post edited by Omnutia on
  • I own a gun. If someone broke into my house,I would grab said gun. I would wait for positive ID ontheperp, and then,assuming they werearmed,I would shoot their ass dead. End of story. You can't break intosomeone'shouse with a weapon and expect everything to be cool. Retarded criminals.
    What if you couldn't get an ID? What if the person breaking in is between you and your gun? What if you miss him/her when you shoot and they are armed? What if they are just some drunken fool who stumbled into the wrong house? What if the person finds your gun before you notice them in the home? What if they break in when you are not home?
    There are too many variables to say that owning a gun will in any way protect you from an intruder.
  • edited June 2008
    There are too many variables to say that owning a gun will in any way protect you from an intruder.
    The same goes for a baseball bat, a kitchen knife, or any other weapon. Any self defense scenario, gun or not, has a large number of variables in it. The one thing most just about every self defense scenario has in common is that you will not have time to think. You need to have all of your thinking done well in advance. A gun is just one more variable added to the equation. It can be part of your plan, or not. With proper training, care, and preparation, it will most likely be a variable in your favor. With stupidity, it will work against you.
    Post edited by Apreche on
  • Anecdotaly, I live in a state with no gun laws. My state has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation. I believe we're the 3rd safest state in the country when it comes to violent crime.

    So there is clearly more to this than gun laws alone. I suspect that a lot of it is cultural. If guns are respected as tools for hunting and self defense, your crime rate is going to be low. If guns are viewed as an offensive weapon, thenyourrates are going to be high.
    What is your state's unemployment rate? Rate of graduation? Population? Population density? Average income? Demographics of population? Certainly guns are not the only contributing factor to crime, as you say.
  • I grew up in a home where guns were a central part of our life. My dad was a cop and ran a gun shop out of our house for many years.

    I think I was in first grade when I fired my first gun. It was some sort of air pistol.

    Handgun safety was very important in my dad's house. I still have the .22 rifle my dad gave me when I was ten. My brothers got the kind where you had to load all the bullets into the tube while mine had a magazine. Yeah, they were jealous!

    My dad was also a competitive shooter in his younger days and won many competitions. He passed his love and respect for firearms down to his sons.

    I have no problem with having firearm safety courses as a prerequisite for getting a firearms license.
  • There are too many variables to say that owning a gun will in any way protect you from an intruder.
    The same goes for a baseball bat, a kitchen knife, or any other weapon. Any scenario, gun or not, has a large number of variables in it. A gun is just one more variable added to the equation. With proper training, care, and preparation, it will most likely be a variable in your favor.
    Please provide statistics to back up your claim that owning a gun increases safety.
  • There are too many variables to say that owning a gun will in any way protect you from an intruder.
    The same goes for a baseball bat, a kitchen knife, or any other weapon. Any scenario, gun or not, has a large number of variables in it. A gun is just one more variable added to the equation. With proper training, care, and preparation, it will most likely be a variable in your favor.
    Please provide statistics to back up your claim that owning a gun increases safety.
    I don't have a statistic, but I have a common sense argument. I would get the hell out of any house that fired a warning shot. It doesn't matter if I was a criminal, a stupid drunk, a punk kid; if I hear a gunshot, I would jet.

    That's one thing a gun can do that no other weapon can.
  • edited June 2008
    Hmmm. Scott made some good points. Like I said in an earlier post, the ultimate problem isn't the availability of the guns, but that American "Gun-culture" mindset.
    I own a gun. If someone broke into my house,I would grab said gun.I would wait for positive ID ontheperp, and then,assuming they werearmed,I would shoot their ass dead.
    I rest my case.
    Did you ever hear the story about the Japanese exchange student who was shot while trick or treating on Halloween?
    Post edited by gomidog on
  • edited June 2008
    If no-one did anything wrong, would it be worth having a law? What I mean by this is that changing how people think takes a lot of effort compared to giving the police a law they can enforce.
    Post edited by Omnutia on
  • Like I said in an earlier post, the ultimate problem isn't the availability of the guns, but that American "Gun-culture" mindset.
    So, what is your solution to said problem?
  • Please provide statistics to back up your claim that owning a gun increases safety.
    Don't mistake me. All I said is that with proper training, care, and preparation, gun ownership can be to your advantage in a home invasion scenario. I didn't claim that having a gun in the home increases safety overall.

    In fact, statistically speaking, in the USA there is a strong correlation between having a gun in your house and a murder being more likely. Most of those murders are results of domestic or romantic disputes. The logic is that when there is a dispute, but no gun present, the disputes do not end in murder. When a gun is present, the odds of the dispute resulting in a murder increase. One explanation for these findings is that when guns are not present, disputes that end in violence end with physical or knife violence, which has a much higher chance of not being murder compared to gun violence. If you live in a situation where domestic disputes are likely, a gun is probably a bad thing to purchase. If you are a senior citizen who lives in the bad part of town, it's probably a much better idea to buy one.

    http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-kellermann.htm

    I think it would be fascinating to see the results of a similar study taken in different countries around the world. I have a feeling that the correlations between domestic disputes, domestic violence, gun presence, and murder vary greatly around the world.
  • edited June 2008
    So, what is your solution to said problem?
    If I had an answer to that, I'd be as famous as Ghandi. The fact is, people need combat this with a social movement as well. FIrst you say "ooooh, cultural differences" then I say "Well, I guess that part of our culture sucks and we should work on fixing it." We try to fix other problems this way, with a combination of regulatory laws and social activism. The point is, people will be more receptive to the regulation if it is seen as the "good/socially acceptable" thing to support. Right now, Americans are fixated on power and toughness. Guns are an image thing.
    Post edited by gomidog on
  • I think yet another problem is that statistics are calculated for entire countries. Most other countries in the world are much smaller, and often more homogeneous, than the USA. Thus, significant statistical studies in those countries more accurately represent the country as a whole. In the USA, you really need to break things down by state, and even county or neighborhood, to get a more accurate picture of the situation. Yet another point in the urban/rural dichotomy discussion.
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