Can we discuss 2nd ammendment? Trying to educate myself about US gun laws.

[malificent7]

I was on wikipedia and I was surprised to read that one reason that the US has the 2nd ammendmentbis to arm itself against an armed government. Am I correct?
If so, then surely it would not be so relevant today whereby the government has tanks and bombs eyc. Even the most powerful gun would be useless. In the wild west ot might have been more relevant.

I do get the self defence thing to a certain extent but ifvthere are less guns thete are less armed burglaries surely?

Just under 30 amendments in 250 years so yeah, pretty difficult 👍

Gun ownership rates are only correlated with suicide by gun.

Homicide using guns is not really highly correlated with gun ownership.

It was formed and passed in a very specific historical context and partly for political expediency: the ruling party needed to satisfy some demands of their political opponents. It's been given more power by a particular legal-political belief that's become stronger since Reagan, that it's possible to know the intention of the Founders and that this should be preserved at all times in the interpretation of and making of new laws (Originalism).

This is important because it means that fighting over the second amendment is not just a fight over gun control. It's a fight over conservative interpretations of US law and the kind of nation that the US is, and over a method of reading and making laws that uphold views that might be called traditional, retrogressive, or even bigoted depending on your particular political persuasion.

It’s really awful to hear of school shootings and child deaths from guns. Even if the difficult process of changing the constitution happened it would be hard to ensure everyone gave them up.

The right to bear arms makes as much sense as the right to arm bears. 🐻
And less sense than the right to bare arms 🙂

Where did you get the stats on this? What countries are we comparing and how are other factors allowed for.
That would very surprising if true.

Bundy standoff 2014.

Enough of those and the US Army actually does have a fight on its hands. Add defection into that and it makes the 2nd Amendment perfectly functional.

Not sure I disagree with their rationale. And there are people willing to live and die by their defence of the 2nd Amendment. Charlton Heston would organise pro-gun rallies directly after school shootings.

CK died whilst verbally defending the amendment. This is why DT called him a martyr. He literally died on that hill.

https://edition.cnn.com/us/school-shootings-fast-facts-dg

Even if the 2nd amendment didn't exist there would be many states that would allow gun ownership because that's what the public want.

Guns are just a huge part of American culture, especially in rural areas.

I honestly am one of the few Brits that doesn’t care about the US gun culture.

Most, or at least a powerful and large minority seem to share Kirk’s view that gun death’s are an acceptable cost of the right to bear arms so 🤷‍♀️

(And the argument about guns being necessary to protect the people from the government….if people knew the extent and type of weaponry the US military has at it’s disposal….)

You can get a sense of this by looking at the top ten states or so with highest percentage of gun ownership rates.

Then look at top ten states with highest per capita rates of gun-related homicide deaths.

They aren’t the same.

@notimagainI think you make a valid point. We can’t influence how people feel, it may be wanted but realistically it’s up to the US to decide how they deal with it.

Isn’t the argument that legal gun ownership simply increases the overall number of guns in a society.

I wish we lived in a world without guns - but I can see why Americans don't want to give them up - if the baddies have already got them then you want to even the score in order to protect yourself. It's a terribly system but I don't think it's repairable tbh

the overall point is that legal gun ownership (as practiced in modern America) is not correlated with higher homicide rates. (It is with suicide rates, but that’s a different issue).

So if your goal is to decrease gun homicides,
limiting legal ownership of guns is not going to move that needle.

the overall point is that legal gun ownership (as practiced in modern America) is not correlated with higher homicide rates.

That is a widely contested viewpoint, the is no over-all proof that there is, or is not, a correlation.