Moderators: carlson1, Charles L. Cotton
4 million? About 1/4 that, at 1,321,045. You can't just make stuff up that would seem to help your argument. Ever heard of the internet?Darwood wrote:Phoenix, AZ has unlicensed open carry and is a city of 4 million people. They seem to be doing fine so I don't buy it that large metropolitan areas can't handle unlicensed open carry.
Dude you said, in one statement, that criminals won't bother with the law and will carry even though the law requires background checks, but background checks are the best way to make sure criminals don't carry.wjmphoto wrote:Slippery slope and straw man arguments are certainly not a good starting point for your own debating career. You may want to read up on those logical fallacies yourself before you start poking a finger at others.KBCraig wrote:Don't take up debate for a hobby, okay?
The problem is that they are not doing it legally in the first place. Taking Cho as an example, he committed a felony by lying on his form 4473. Didn't stop him, and he wasn't legal. The law didn't accomplish anything.wjmphoto wrote:That is true, but you can make it more difficult and stop them from doing it legally.
The UN has no bearing on the US.seamusTX wrote:In every case, in the United States, we have seen a progression from an unrestricted RKBA to the present situation, where you cannot legally possess a handgun in our nation's capital and other cities. It is always one more "reasonable" step to prevent criminals from obtaining weapons.wjmphoto wrote:The simple fact remains that keeping a felon or mentally ill person from buying a firearm legally is vastly different from stopping all citizens from buying a firearm altogether. One does not rationally lead to or equate to the other.
The theory of gun control in the United Nations Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons conference is that all illegal weapons start out as legal weapons, and therefore legal weapons must be restricted as much as possible and preferably banned.
- Jim
If a future U.S. government that is anti-RKBA accedes to a such a treaty, it will have a great deal of bearing. According to Article 6 of the Constitution, treaties have an effect equal to the Constitution itself.wjmphoto wrote:The UN has no bearing on the US.
The jury is still out, as they say. At this moment, an ordinary citizen cannot legally possess a handgun in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Supreme Court is not notably pro-RKBA. On the rare occasion when they overturn a law, they do it on the most narrow terms.wjmphoto wrote:As for the situation in the capital, it is not as final as people think after the federal district court overturned their laws regarding firearm ownership. Granted it is now on appeal, but I do have full faith in our system of government to determine these types of laws to be unconstitutional.
Remove them to where? Are you going to build more prisons to take them out of society and make sure they don't get guns? That's a great plan - not. If you mean remove them from being able to carry, how do you do that without a qualification process? Licensing serves a two-fold purpose - it allows the state to establish a safe level of proficiency in order to carry and disqualifies people from getting a permit. Having a problem with this is less than rational.jimlongley wrote:You're using the same null arguments that are the anti-gun nuts' favorites. Convicted felons already don't have the right, but that doesn't stop them, Spousal Abusers hardly give the fact that they are violating many laws a thought and, as evidenced by Cho's rampage, the laws don't seem to have much effect on drunks, druggies, or nut cases. Yes, it is a right which should be available to a subset of "everyone" but the definition and regulation of the subset is where the problem lie. My feeling, and I know others feel the same, is that the subset should be defined by elimination, not qualification, that is; remove the criminals, etc, and the rest of us will take care of ourselves. Don't license the law abiding.wjmphoto wrote: While it is a right, it is not one that is open, nor should it be open, to everyone. Convicted felons should not have the right to carry open or concealed or even own a firearm. Spousal abusers should not be allowed to carry or own a weapon either. People with serious mental illness and those with drug and alcohol addictions should not be allowed to carry.
jimlongley wrote:I don't see how your first sentence and second sentence even fit in the same paragraph. How does a background check ensure that only law abiding citizens are carrying? Your second sentence denies this. And then, if criminals will, by definition, disobey that law, how does it help?wjmphoto wrote:The only way to insure that law abising citizens are the only ones that carry a gun legally is to require background checks, like Texas. Granted it will not stop criminals from carrying because they don't worry about following the law in the first place, but it helps.
There is no logical reason to not have a process of licensing guns for the purpose of carrying them in public, just as there is no logical reason to not have a system of licensing people in order to drive a vehicle. Unsafe drivers should be kept off the road and not allowed to drive, just as unsafe citizens should not be allowed the ability to carry a firearm. Public safety does come into play and licensing that demonstrates ability to use a firearm safely and the fact that you have not done something to lose that right is part of the equation.jimlongley wrote:As long as the process exists, I don't have a problem with it either, but it sure reminds me of "May I see your papers please?" In Vermont and Alaska you are presumed to be a law abiding citizen unless you prove otherwise (innocent until proven guilty?) and only then are you prohibited from carrying a gun, and if you are caught the penalties are commensurately high. I would rather the process did not exist. (more on that later.)wjmphoto wrote:I have no problem with presenting a permit to an officer if requested to show that I am a law abiding citizens and have gone through the process. The question is why would anyone have a problem with this except those who would be denied a permit in the first place because of background or disqualifying factors?
The founders set up a system of government to establish the laws of the land, establish states and let them form their own governments, and a court system to interpret the laws and their integrity. Speech, freedom of the press and other items granted in the bill of rights are not absolutes. You can't yell fire in a theater, post troop movements in the papers and many other things are restricted from these so-called absolute freedoms. No freedom and no law is absolute.jimlongley wrote:I would argue with that too. The Constitution, as written, sees those rights it protects, in combination with the Bill of Rights and other Amendments as absolute, inviolate, applying to everyone, all people. Of course the Constitution had to be amended to make everyone a little more global than the everyone that was first written into the document to begin with, but that amendment only made the set broader, including women, people of color, non-property owners , and others who had found themselves disenfranchised by legal wrangling and interpretive spin.wjmphoto wrote:Yes, owning a gun is a constitutionally guaranteed right, but so is voting and the state government has a right to disqualify people from voting based on felony convictions as well. All rights are not absolute and do not apply to all people.
That there are those not competent to exercise their rights was recognized right from the start, and has been held to include felons and various others by interpretation and judicial fiat over the years. It's really kind of too bad that the founders did not do more to codify some of this stuff, I think they probably thought that not allowing people who displayed no ability or desire to properly exercise their rights was just common sense.
But there are some very big differences in demographics that do make Vermont a great deal different that other places. They are overwhlemingly a white state with few minorities. There are a lot of people who hunt and teach their kids to use a weapon early on. That is not the case in a lot of these big cities in places that are much more dangerous. I try to avoid bringing cultural diversity into it, but the facts are that Vermont is not a cultrually diverse place and does no have a lot of the racial and cultural issues that places like Arizona and Texas do have.jimlongley wrote:I don't see how that's any different than what we have now, except that those of us who are preternaturally inclined to be law abiding will get the necessary license, that "allows" us to exercise a right, while the criminals will go ahead and carry regardless of the law. All the CHL "permission" does is give the government control over a right, turning it into a privilege, which they can modify as they see fit (as exemplified by regular changes to the CHL laws and rules)wjmphoto wrote:The idea of let everyone carry and sort out the bad guys caarrying guns after the fact just does not work in larger and more densely populated cities and parts of the country that inherently have higher crime rates than Vermont ever had in the first place.
BTW, having spent a great deal of time in Vermont, I can assure you that their big cities, although not quite as large as others, still have big city woes, and their rural areas are not any different than other rural areas except that they tend to be more vertical.
We will have to agree to disagree on this one. I am simply of the mindset that licensing does serve a purpose, be it licensing of vehicles, drivers or people allowed to carry a weapon. Taking the time to take a class, show proficiency with a weapon and get a license is little enough for me to be able to legally carry a firearm. I simply think that we need to come down harder on people who carry without a license just as we need to be much harsher on people who drive on a suspended or revoked license. There is nothing wrong with having these laws and requirements, but there is something very wrong with not punishing those who fail to abide by the rules.jimlongley wrote:Pretty much my way of thinking, not quite the whole thing, see above, but close.wjmphoto wrote:Once you have had your fair trial and have been convicted, your other rights as a citizen, like the right to own a firearm can and should be restricted as you have been proven to be incapable of living by the rules of society.
The dichotomy comes with how we prevent those criminals from doing more illegal things while not restricting the rights of the law abiding. Of course we could go back to branding, wearing scarlet letters, placing people on display when convicted so that everyone would know who they were and know that they were not supposed to be availing themselves of rights that they had, by their own actions, made themselves ineligible for.
We have tried permits for guns, and have pretty much demonstrated that that doesn't work, and permits for carry go right with that. We had a ten year experiment outlawing various guns and cosmetic features that failed miserably, and prior to that other prohibitions have similarly failed, including the initial capital Prohibition.
What we need to do is recognize that criminals will be criminals without regard for what society dictates, and punish them appropriately, and the rest of us should live without the government (actually other people) interfering by "allowing" us to exercise our rights.
[/philosophical] ;-)
When I say Phoenix, I mean the Phoenix Metropolitan Area, which has an estimate population of 4,039,182. If you've even been to Phoenix you would know that it's not just one city but a whole Metropolitan area in which many towns are intermingled. I used to live and have many ties to that city so I do know what I'm talking about.txinvestigator wrote:4 million? About 1/4 that, at 1,321,045. You can't just make stuff up that would seem to help your argument. Ever heard of the internet?Darwood wrote:Phoenix, AZ has unlicensed open carry and is a city of 4 million people. They seem to be doing fine so I don't buy it that large metropolitan areas can't handle unlicensed open carry.
There is a logical reason: neither of these systems works.wjmphoto wrote:There is no logical reason to not have a process of licensing guns for the purpose of carrying them in public, just as there is no logical reason to not have a system of licensing people in order to drive a vehicle.
Thank you for sharing that observation.wjmphoto wrote:But there are some very big differences in demographics that do make Vermont a great deal different that other places. They are overwhlemingly a white state with few minorities.
No, I did not say that. Please go back and reread what I actually wrote, not what people are selectively quoting and omitting! I have addressed the selective quoting and ommission already and won't do so again.txinvestigator wrote:Dude you said, in one statement, that criminals won't bother with the law and will carry even though the law requires background checks, but background checks are the best way to make sure criminals don't carry.wjmphoto wrote:Slippery slope and straw man arguments are certainly not a good starting point for your own debating career. You may want to read up on those logical fallacies yourself before you start poking a finger at others.KBCraig wrote:Don't take up debate for a hobby, okay?
That makes no sense, and a slippery hill has nothing to do with it.
Background checks do nothing, except keep the state from spending money on a piece of plastic for those who cannot qualify. They have no real effect on who carries.
Cho is not an example of failure of the Federal system or failure of those regulations. The Feds can only deny a mentally ill person the ability to buy a gun if the state in which that person was adjudicated mentally a danger to themselves or others actually reports it to the database in the first place. The whole Cho scenario is an exellent example of the failure of the state of Virginia to report Cho to the database. Had they done so, he would not have been able to acquire a gun LEGALLY. That being the fact, there is no error in "my thesis" as you call it, but there is an error of your understanding of the facts behind this scenario and many like it in which states do not report what is supposed to be in the database in the first place. The debate is not about illegal means of buying a gun, it is about the means through which people can buy and carry guns legally. :arrow:jimlongley wrote:The problem is that they are not doing it legally in the first place. Taking Cho as an example, he committed a felony by lying on his form 4473. Didn't stop him, and he wasn't legal. The law didn't accomplish anything.wjmphoto wrote:That is true, but you can make it more difficult and stop them from doing it legally.
And not one law in place today can be show to make it any more difficult for any criminal, mental defective, druggie, or drunk, to obtain a gun, so unless you are arguing for complete and absolute control of access to firearms and abolition of private possession, by the government (something which is also a demonstrable failure), your thesis is defective from the start.
I wasn't necessarily using Phoenix as a shining example, since as was pointed out it isn't one. I just recall that living there and subsequently visiting there, I've never had a sense that it was a worse off place than any other city I've lived in (and is far better than getting lost in Stockton, CA).wjmphoto wrote:Using Arizona as an example is not the best choice. Arizona is currently the 3rd most dangerous state in the union behind Nevada and New Mexico (in that order). Vermont is the second safest behind North Dakota. Population density has a great deal to do with how safe a state or city is and statistics have historically proven this to be correct. The other consideration has nothing to do with population and everything to do with the cultural makeup of the state, city, county, etc.Darwood wrote:Phoenix, AZ has unlicensed open carry and is a city of 4 million people. They seem to be doing fine so I don't buy it that large metropolitan areas can't handle unlicensed open carry.
Not observation, it is a fact.seamusTX wrote:There is a logical reason: neither of these systems works.wjmphoto wrote:There is no logical reason to not have a process of licensing guns for the purpose of carrying them in public, just as there is no logical reason to not have a system of licensing people in order to drive a vehicle.Thank you for sharing that observation.wjmphoto wrote:But there are some very big differences in demographics that do make Vermont a great deal different that other places. They are overwhlemingly a white state with few minorities.
- Jim
Exactly!Darwood wrote:I wasn't necessarily using Phoenix as a shining example, since as was pointed out it isn't one. I just recall that living there and subsequently visiting there, I've never had a sense that it was a worse off place than any other city I've lived in (and is far better than getting lost in Stockton, CA).wjmphoto wrote:Using Arizona as an example is not the best choice. Arizona is currently the 3rd most dangerous state in the union behind Nevada and New Mexico (in that order). Vermont is the second safest behind North Dakota. Population density has a great deal to do with how safe a state or city is and statistics have historically proven this to be correct. The other consideration has nothing to do with population and everything to do with the cultural makeup of the state, city, county, etc.Darwood wrote:Phoenix, AZ has unlicensed open carry and is a city of 4 million people. They seem to be doing fine so I don't buy it that large metropolitan areas can't handle unlicensed open carry.
Yes statistically it appears that allowing citizens to protect themselves with guns does nothing against or for crime. It's interesting to note that out of the list of 25 dangerous cities in the following link there are none present that are in Arizona.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/30/real_es ... /index.htm
On the alternative list of 25 safest cities, you have Gilbert, AZ as 12th in the nation with 132.5 violent incidents per 100,000. Gilbert is on the outskirts of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area but is still what I would consider Phoenix.
What does this all mean? Not much really, generally large cities have more crime than small cities.
OK, lets see exactly what you wrotewjmphoto wrote: No, I did not say that. Please go back and reread what I actually wrote, .
The only way to insure that law abising citizens are the only ones that carry a gun legally is to require background checks, like Texas. Granted it will not stop criminals from carrying because they don't worry about following the law in the first place, but it helps
Dude you said, in one statement, that criminals won't bother with the law and will carry even though the law requires background checks, but background checks are the best way to make sure criminals don't carry.
Good, it is ineffective and irrelevant. I already quashed your attempt to allege that CA has "open carry", and now you are making statements and then trying to backtrack.wjmphoto wrote:not what people are selectively quoting and omitting! I have addressed the selective quoting and ommission already and won't do so again
Your "colors" are truly showing. Your assertions are racist. Or could it be if we could get rid of those pesky minorities crime would go away, eh Fuhrer?wjmphoto wrote:Not observation, it is a fact.seamusTX wrote:There is a logical reason: neither of these systems works.wjmphoto wrote:There is no logical reason to not have a process of licensing guns for the purpose of carrying them in public, just as there is no logical reason to not have a system of licensing people in order to drive a vehicle.Thank you for sharing that observation.wjmphoto wrote:But there are some very big differences in demographics that do make Vermont a great deal different that other places. They are overwhlemingly a white state with few minorities.
- Jim
You are talking about a state that is 97% white, very few blacks, asians hispanics or any other minorities, and unlike many states there is not a large problem of illegal immigrants. They have a higher percentage of high school and college graduates than the national average and lower unemployment rate as well. Demographically that are not a state that is going to have the socio-economic factors required to have high rates of crime. The safety of Vermont is not a result of their gun laws, but a direct result of the makeup of their popluation and economic base.