Everyone gets too black and white on this issue. Guns are extremely dangerous, like lots of other things (cars, poison, high school football). If people are smart and careful (most are), the chance of a gun hurting an innocent person is rare. Unfortunately, we don't do very much as a country to insure that people are smart and careful before they're allowed to have a gun.
The distinction is "allowed" denotes permission. It is called the Bill of Rights not the Bill of Permissions. AND, there are restrictions to owning and bearing at the Federal and state levels.
And that's the fundamental problem with gun ownership in this country. Almost every idiot can have one. We don't allow any idiot to own a cobra, or fly an airliner. We realize that community safety is more important than a narcissistic need for "protection" without a demonstration of health, knowledge and ability.
If the whole point of the 2nd amendment wasn't for it to be a check and balance against an oppressive government, it would make a little bit of sense for them to regulate gun ownership that tightly. The problem is, it would be far to easy for the gov't to limit service hours, monkey with the criteria, etc in such a way that they effectively make it impossible to practically own a gun. and given the tactics used already to end-run the 2nd amendment, you better bet they would.
Also, it's a douchebag move to be throwing around armchair physiologist terms like 'narcissistic' in regards to gun owners.
The government has nuclear weapons and F-22s, the prevention of oppression thing is sort of a moot argument.
An oppressive government isn't going to nuke or airstrike itself. And I believe our middle east quagmire proves that in armed insurgency can put up a pretty good fight against a well armed and trained army, and that neglects that a lot of our military would be unwilling to turn on it's own nation.
Also, at the time that the bill or rights was written, the militias it referred to generally meant people hunting down escaped slaves. So, have fun with that legacy.
The truthout article which started this myth has been debunked so thoroughly, that to continue to buy into this untruth is borderline willful ignorance.
I've yet to have major problems with the FAA monkeying with my certificates. Unlike gun ownership, I actually needed those to make a living. I think a bi-partisian council with civilian and non-civilian oversight would insure that people who were able to fill out some forms and submit to training would have the privileged of using whatever hardware they desired. As it stands now, if gun owners don't come up with a better system they're going to face more and more draconian strategies designed to prevent any gun ownership. If I was for guns, I'd try to get in front of this thing.
There is no inherent conflict of interest between the ruling class and you flying commercial airliners. The 'monkeying' I refer to is the same kind of things that have been done to limit women's access to abortion... putting them in remote areas, that kind of thing. it probably won't start that way, but I can guarantee you it would end up worse than that. And Some reasonable regulation certainly would be a good idea.
I'm married to an actual psychologists, so I'm at least a "davenport psychologist." "Narcissism - extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one's own talents and a craving for admiration, as characterizing a personality type." The United States has one of the highest per capita gun violence rates in the world. If you don't wish to promote regulations that would help us have gun violence statistics that mirrored the rest of the developed world, how else would you describe yourself if not "narcissistic?"
Are you like, new to this thread or something? The statistical methods used by the US and other countries differ in a way that over represents the use of guns in murders in the US. It's also already been discussed that, despite Australia's gun control laws, guns are still used in ~85% of murders, which is about the same rate as in the US.
I swear it's like you duct out of the thread when something that pretty thoroughly calls your view into question, then reappear after the topic has changed so you can re-introduce the same, debunked talking points.
I was a history major that graduated long before 2013, the idea that the militias referred to in the 2nd amendment encompassed both minute men and southern slave enforcement is not a new one. This isn't an idea that was propagated by one left wing source.
Plenty of developed nations don't allow any gun ownership, again, not an idea I support. Yet, they don't constantly fear an overbearing government that will enslave them all. I'm not sure why we need to.
The quagmire in the middle east goes far beyond technological differences and gun ownership. The world could fix the middle east (they broke it with the way the region was structured post British colonialism), but we don't really have the will or interest in doing what it takes to make that happen. We're getting into the weeds with this one though. Suffice to say, if it comes to the point that a bunch of civilians with Ar-15s are fighting against the US Governement, we've surpassed a state where any law matters.
We're at 16,000 gun incidents so far just this year. I don't really care how you try to justify that with statistical methods, it's astronomical for a developed nation.
I think if you look at gun laws, the monkeying that occurs with abortion is already happening. The assault weapon ban was a pretty ridiculous piece of legislation. Bans in Chicago, but wide open markets in Indiana etc. Again, I don't know why this needs to be a binary issue. Totally unregulated gun ownership or Australia. I think safe, sane and effective shooters should be able to keep and carry any hardware they can qualify on. I'd be willing to accept the lower accident and incident rate that would occur in such a system.
I use the aviation example because that's effectively what happens with aviation. You have to have a ton of practice and pass a test just to get a Private Pilots License. It's a system that works, and it gives you a sense of pride, accomplishment and responsibility to carry that certificate. I can tell you some hair raising stories from my airline days, yet flying on a US based airline is one of the safest ways you can traverse the country. There's a reason for that, testing and oversight. When a crash happens, we all study that crash and try our hardest to make sure that whatever caused that crash is fixed. We don't do that with guns. We punish people when crimes occur, but we don't look at the root problem of idiots with guns. We offer what's essentially a very very loose licensing requirement in order to receive a CCW, and no training requirement to buy most handguns or rifles. What do most states require, a weekend class where you fire off a few dozen rounds at a stationary target at the end, where only a percentage of rounds have to hit center mass? I'm sorry but that's ridiculous. If you can't demonstrate a tight grouping, in a dynamic environment, you shouldn't be carrying a weapon in a crowded location.
In the Marine Corps we didn't even fire our weapons until after officer candidate school. First we had to get used to carrying weapons around, muzzle awareness etc. Then the people that continued after OCS were required to qualify with their weapons in a test that was way beyond center mass. That's a good system to emulate for civilian gun ownership. It seems to be similar to what the Swiss do (where you can see people carrying sub-machine guns in the grocery store).
Again, I wouldn't suggest that this was a system that was simply overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, or the ATF. You could have a joint civilan and non-civilian board that made sure everyone had access and and equal chance to prove themselves. As long as the civilan counterpart was someone other than the NRA. That's just a shell organization for the gun manufacturers that gins up fear to sell more guns.
Respond as you wish, I have kids to play with and dinner to make.