1st cent: The Second Amendment does not say that individuals have the right to own weapons; it says the state can maintain a military. Verbatim, the Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a
2nd cent: Ok, ok, so you don’t buy my “military v. individual” meaning of the Second Amendment? Let me try again. Within the last year, I was physically attacked twice—count twice—by strangers. After feeling completely helpless in during these attacks, I learned some hand-to-hand combat techniques and learned how to shoot a hand-gun (I also learned a few years back how to properly use mace and pepper spray.) In the face of another attack, I would not want to carry mace because the chances of me mishandling it and hurting myself are too great; the same goes for the gun. If the subject of another attack, I could either run, or engage in some hand-to-hand combat. I am not a fast runner, nor a powerful fighter. If it came to me fighting back, I would really want to wrap my fingers around some brass knuckles—to give a less-powerful person an edge during a fight.
Guess what?
Brass knuckles are illegal in
I can live without the brass knuckles (hopefully) and support their continued prohibition. I would also like guns to be illegalized following the same weapons-ban logic. This would not infringe on people’s “rights” to own weapons wholly; individuals could carry things like tazers and tranquilizer guns for protection instead.
-Segen
P.S. Hello. I'm new to Urbanagora and will be contributing sporadically. I look forward to your comments. Feel free to contact me anytime: segenswunsch@gmail.com
Labels: brass knuckles, guns, second amendment, segen
Hi Segen, and welcome to Urbanagora.
Well, I don't have a whole lot to say about your post in particular, but since the topic of gun control has come up, does anyone know of a good cost-benefit sort of analysis of gun control laws?
I've never come across one, so I don't have much of an opinion about gun laws. Most of the gun control discussion I've been around has taken one of two forms:
1) Gun control position is assumed, and from there, attempts are made to show that the 2nd amendment and other existing laws support the already-assumed position. Part of this post took this form. That's fine, but it's not helpful for someone who doesn't already have a position.
2) Simplistic, idealistic arguments like "if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns" that ignore unintended consequences, don't make any attempt at all to estimate the degree to which various crime rates and peoples' psychological states will be affected by the laws, and also ignore law enforcement costs.
I'd also be interested if anyone can point me toward some reading material analyzing uniform, national gun laws (or lack thereof) vs. laws differing from place to place. On one hand, some places are much different than others (urban vs. rural, for instance), which justifies different laws. On the other hand, non-uniform laws add complexity, which almost always means extra costs.
Interesting 1st point, I had never considered the period definition of " bear arms." Of course, on the other hand, the 2nd amendment doesn't say that people have the right to bear arms; it says they have the right to keep and bear arms.
From the source you linked to: "Assize of Arms in 1181, which required knights and freemen to keep arms and to bear them in service of the king.[23] A Common Law right to have arms for self defense was codified in the English Bill of Rights of 1689"
As for your second point, I'm not entirely sure how convincing your argument is that, because you feel your chances of mishandling mace/firearm are too high, you would be better off without them and, by extension, so would everyone else.
As for brass knuckles, I don't think that most people realize just how dangerous they are, and would use them in situations where it would be completely uncalled for. If you pull a gun and shoot someone, you better have a damn good reason; if you put on your brass knuckles, not realizing that you can kill someone in one punch with them...at least, thats the explanation I've always heard for them being illegal.
Good post, and welcome to the Agora!
I'm so sorry to hear you were attacked.
Another Constitutional argument I've heard, that hasn't gained any traction, is that the "well regulated" clause of the 2nd amendment could be viewed as an independent bases for giving the government the power to regulate. I think it was Prof. Tribe who dropped that in a footnote in his Con Law treatise. This doesn't make much sense contextually, because the rest of the bill of rights provide protections for the individual from the government, rather than creating new mandates to regulate, but it is should be noted that the founders chose to say the practice of bearing arms should be "well regulated."
This is a tough policy debate, and I'm not certain where I fall on it, other than that I want to have a gun and I don't want anyone else to have one. Sadly, the reverse is true. In personal liberty terms, it's hard to deny that had any of us been in that classroom at NIU, if we had a gun we would have at least had a chance to protect ourselves. That said, this virtue is likely outweighed by both the deaths in friendly fire, and by the other consequences of a bunch of 18-21 year old college students carrying guns during a time in their lives when most are learning how to control alcohol and many others are experimenting with other drugs.
When thinking about gun policy, many liberals foolishly begin by assuming a blank slate. If we wanted to ban all guns right now there would be a heavy saturation of guns in the general population - and people have these guns for reasons important enough to them that probably less than 20% of gun owners would willingly turn over their firearms.
There are ultimately two directions we can take. Increasing regulation, or increasing access. Ragnar, who occasionally contributes here, told me that in a concealed carry regime school shooters would be much less likely to try something like this, out of cowardice. I'm not sure I buy that, I doubt when a shooter goes on a rampage they hold out much hope for surviving. If nothing else, Ragnar might argue, people would be a little more polite and hesitant. Segen, if your attackers thought you might have been able to pull a gun, Ragnar might argue that they may have been deterred, but in Illinois you most likely aren't breaking the law and carrying a concealed firearm.
The other approach is intensifying scrutiny and trying to minimize the likelihood of someone snapping and taking innocent life, and minimize the damage that can be done if someone does lose their mind and decide to attack the general public. Banning assault rifles, by definition rather than by model number, is a good first step. Then limit the size of clips and number of clips that can be purchased. Also, increase psychological screening evaluations (though this may be a "regressive tax" let the buyer pay for the screening (and have partial waivers for ex cops, veterans, me, etc)). Increase wait times. Toughen up on regulating gun shows. Consider mandating more sophisticated approaches to a gun "safety." Consider requiring licensing classes, to make sure buyers know how to handle a gun, and that during the training no psychological red flags are raised.
Maybe the great sage Chris Rock is right, and what we really need is "bullet control."
Thanks for posting this, Segen.
Not so fast on your first point.
Your explanation of the definition of a milia as the driving interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is simplistic at best. As it is well known, American law was grounded in English common law and English legal tradition. Specifically, the founding fathers probably ripped off the amendment from the English Bill of Rights from 1689, which permitted Protestants to arm themselves for their own defense. This was a direct response to the Glorious Revolution when Catholic King James II attempted to disarm the Protestants by kicking them out wholesale from militias. It was James II that originated, at least to my knowledge, the argument that anti-arms people are using today; namely that if you are not in a militia, you don't need a weapon. The point was to shift power from the protestant subjects and James's rivals to the army which was under James' control. But after his disposal, the protestants included this right in their bill for their own protection. William Blackstone would later write that the right to have arms was a "natural right of resistance and self-preservation", espousing the individual right to protect oneself. Based on this context, one could claim that the right to bear arms in the English tradition, to which the US is an heir, is meant for self-protection reasons as opposed to mere militia considerations.
Combine that with the then liberal use of posse comitatus, which was legal back then, and the fact that every able bodied man was able to be called up for any reason and was responsible for his own armament, it does not appear to me that the militia clause is in any way a limitation on who can own and hold a gun.
Also, Illinois does not permit tasers or stun gun or other deadly weapon in any place which is licensed to sell intoxicating beverages, or at any public gathering held pursuant to a license issued by any governmental body or any public gathering at which an admission is charged, excluding a place where a showing, demonstration or lecture involving the exhibition of unloaded firearms is conducted. (720 ILCS 5/24-1).
Just wanted to clarify what limitations exist on tasers and tranquilizer guns.
If you think that scene was chaotic, just think of what would have happened had 10-20 students pulled out semi-automatics and started blasting away.
As for deterrence, Augur's right, these people go in w/ the intention of dying, whether it be self-inflicted or otherwise.
Augur's right to say that liberals in arguing about this too often assume a blank slate in which guns can just be eliminated. At the same time, gun control opponents too often argue from the perspective that a legally owned gun will end up only being used to successfully protect innocent people and their property. Statistics showing that a gun in a home is more likely to unintentionally shoot some innocent person than it is to shoot an intruder count against that argument, as do statistics showing a dramatic increase in the likelihood that somebody shoots themselves in a suicide if there is a gun in their home than if there isn't. Certainly there are multiple purposes for guns, and certainly some of them are good ones, but you have to look at what they're used for most often in reality, and it seems more often than not they end up making people less safe rather than more.
As far as I understand constitutional interpretation, your argument has one major flaw, alluded to in other posts: No one finds structuralist interpretations of the constitution credible. That is, simple OED definitions and etymologies do not add anything substantial to an argument in this small subset of hermeneutics.
Interpretations of constitutional law (and I imagine most other kinds of law) are based on original intent and previous interpretations (precedent), neither of which are illuminated by referring to some historical ambiguity in the phrase "to bear arms." Now, if you can get a document that has a constitutional author explaining how the "right to bear arms" means "the right to sustain a militia," then your argument would have some legs.
Welcome to Urbanagora!
One interesting thing in terms of the constitutional analysis. At the beginning of my first semester of law school, there was a panel discussing upcoming Supreme Court cases, one of which is a case in which the court will for the first time in pretty much forever have to analyze the meaning of the second amendment, and the professors' starting point of analysis was what has been discussed here: was the amendment intended to allow for an organized militia or was it intended to allow for individual gun ownership rights?
Now, this was a while ago, so I may be misremembering things, but hopefully I get the following analysis right, but what I am certain of is that the professor who was an expert on this was arguing that while gun control advocates might intuitively favor an interpretation that says the framers intended for a militia, while opponents would favor an interpretation saying the framers intended for individual gun rights, but that this might not be the case.
Here's where I get a little fuzzy in my recollection, but I think the argument went sort of like this: the purpose of an amendment allowing for an organized militia would fundamentally be to create a check on the power of the government, the idea being that individuals should be able to band together and physically defend themselves if the government becomes too oppressive. Whereas the fundamental purpose of individual gun ownership rights would be to allow for individuals to own guns in order to protect their property from intruders, to hunt, etc. If you are trying to achieve the former purpose, it is pretty clear that almost any kind of government restriction on gun ownership would be out of line, because the whole idea is for the people to be protected FROM the government. If you are trying to achieve the latter purpose, though, it becomes much more reasonable for the government to place reasonable restrictions on individual gun rights with the goal of protecting public safety so long as people can still do basically what they need to if they want to own a gun to be able to defend their homes and families and to hunt, etc.
Keep in mind I might have that argument totally wrong, but it was something sort of basically like that.
Brian, I think you've got the arguments pretty well summed up.
The only thing that I would add is that one must remember that at the time of the framing of the Constitution, there was a long and sparsely settled frontier and that those settlers were in a constant stuggle with both the Natives and the outlaws that populate such frontiers. The non-governmental threat that that presented no longer exists, for the most part.
There seems to be a line drawn between the urban and the rural. I think it comes down to the question, "Who do you mistrust more, your neighbors or the government?" One answer puts you on the gun-control side, the other on the "right to bear arms" side.
You know how I feel personally--the police should not be allowed to carry any weapons or armor greater than that owned by the average citizen of the area that they patrol. Only way to keep us safe from them....
Welcome to the blog, btw.
Tom Trumpinski
Augur, you identified one issue with the interpretation but there is a greater one. The phrase 'well regulated' wasn't used as it might be today. 'Well regulated' referred to the adequacy of the militia. It referred to the training, funding, and discipline. Really the phrase 'well regulated' should imply that current restrictions that most people agree with (banning of machine guns, explosive devices, etc) are in fact unconstitutional because they would quite effectively prevent a militia of the people from performing its envisioned duty - over throwing by force the government and its military.
As for Brian's fuzzy recollection of an argument, I fail to see the distinction being made (and this may be due to the 'fuzz').
the purpose of an amendment allowing for an organized militia would fundamentally be to create a check on the power of the government, the idea being that individuals should be able to band together and physically defend themselves if the government becomes too oppressive. Whereas the fundamental purpose of individual gun ownership rights would be to allow for individuals to own guns in order to protect their property from intruders, to hunt, etc.
If there were no individual gun rights how exactly would "individuals ... be able to band together and physically defend themselves"? Do you envision some sort of armory of weapons that is available to the public if they ever needed to defend themselves against the government? Who exactly would maintain and secure such a facility? ....the government? Would there be a requisition form the public could fill out? "We the people of Champaign request access to the local armory for a duration of ten days for the purposes of overthrowing you. Thank you." The fundamental purpose for the individual right to arms is to preserve the freedom of the people to band together - with their individual arms - to beat back a governemnt run amok. The ability to hunt and defend oneself is a happy by-product.
Tom apparently believes the 'non-governmental' threats of the frontier are cured. I don't have any frontier era crime statistics. Is crime, per capita, really down in rural areas? Many rural towns do not have dedicated police forces. Savoy, to use a local example, rents a state police officer for 40 hours a week. For the other 128 hours each week, the residents of Savoy are left to defend themselves - or wait an extended period of time for help to arrive from Champaign or the University.
Kofi, with the economy being fairly rough right now in rural counties in Illinois, the crime rates are up quite a bit. The plethora of "bathtub speed" also has a tendency to make such areas somewhat more dangerous.
However, I really do not believe that there's any kind of comparison between the frontiers of the 18th and 19th Century and the rural areas of America today. For one thing, there are not scattered nations of Stone/Early Agricultural Age peoples attempting to drive us from their land.
Tom
Kofi,
I think the distinction lies with what intention the framers had depending on which interpretation is adopted and how that relates to modern regulation. If the intention was to ensure a militia so that there would be some entity to combat an oppressive government, then fewer gun regulations might make sense (in the alternative view, one might say that given modern technology, a well-armed citizenry is never going to be any match against a government armed with military jets, tanks, and nuclear weapons, so the amendment has no real practical application at all any more and can basically be altogether ignored). If instead the goal was just to let individuals own guns for hunting, self-protection, etc., reasonable gun regulations might be allowable.
As to the little bit of snark you included in your title, it's not that I don't see the point that of course a gun in one's home is going to make it more likely that somebody shoots themselves. My point is that the easier it is for people to kill themselves, the more of them there are that will do it (there's a happy thought). If as a society we don't want more people to kill themselves, one factor in our discussion of gun control might be that we don't want access to guns to be very high because we don't want to make it that much easier for somebody to kill themselves. And, yes, you could make that argument about a lot of things: tall buildings, razor blades, pills, etc. But obviously the cost of banning tall buildings would be a lot greater than the cost of banning guns. That doesn't necessarily mean the benefits of banning guns outweigh the costs of banning guns, but the increased incidence of suicide is certainly one factor to consider in that assessment.
I seriously doubt would find the suicide argument to be a persuasive reason to oppose gun control. Many would say "if they want to punch their own ticket, let 'em" but that's b/c most people don't know someone who has committed suicide.
I find it somewhat persuasive b/c of the often temporary nature of depression, and because of the impulsiveness often associated with suicide.
Incidentally, one of my favorite lines draws on the compulsivity of suicide-and also my own fatalistic views of matrimony:
"If I ever get married, it will be on a sudden impulse, like when a man shoots himself."
- H.L. Mencken
OK, lets talk empirical proof.
There are more than 200 million firearms in private hands in the US and that approximately 11,000 of the 16,000 annual murders are by firearm, meaning that it is conceivable that firearm controls would lower crime. However Jens Ludwig and Phillip Cook reported that those laws had no statistically discernible effect on homicide trends (284 J. Am. Med. Assoc. 585 (2000).
Conversely, there is some empirical evidence that shows allowing registrants to carry concealed weapons have had dramatic downward effects on crime rates (26 Legal Stud. 1) although to be fair there is some disagreement about these findings.
Casual and detailed evidence suggest that increase in handgun ownership have no simple casual connection to violent crim. During the 1980s and 90s, the stock of privately owned handguns increased by more than a million units each year, while crime fell. In Canada, Switzerland (where everyone owns machine guns), New Zealand, and Israel have the same or higher number of firearms per civilian and little crime. Meanwhile Mexico and South America have strict handgun-control laws, and these countries have murder rates twice as high in the US.
As for accidental deaths and children, this statistic was made famous by Freakonomics: 1 child under ten dies for every 1 million guns, or 200 children a year. 1 child drowns for every 11,000 residential pools, or 550 children a year. Why are we not trying to outlaw pools?
My point is this: guns are obvious so we waste our time on a problem that we are not even sure has a relation to crimes. Yes, guns are used to commit crime, but there is no guarantee, or evidence provided which would lead us to believe that there might be a chance, that the restriction of guns would lead to a decrease of crime. On efficiency alone, wouldn't it be better if we spent our time on doing something that would actually deter crime and would achieve the goals we desire, as opposed to going for the easy target that in the end will get us nothing?
"As for accidental deaths and children, this statistic was made famous by Freakonomics: 1 child under ten dies for every 1 million guns, or 200 children a year. 1 child drowns for every 11,000 residential pools, or 550 children a year. Why are we not trying to outlaw pools?"
Don't you mean accidental deaths of children?
What are the stats of accidental deaths due to guns/year?
I just assumed that the children who drowned in residential pools were accidental. Also, I didn't have total accidental deaths.
As for causes of accidental deaths, per the National Safety Council, in 2000, here were the causes of accidental death.
Automobile - 43,000
Falls - 16,200
Poisoning - 11,700
Drowning - 3900
Fires - 3600
Suffocation ingested obj. - 3400
Guns - 600
Poisoning by gas - 400
All Other Causes - 14,500.
Prescott,
(1) Unlike swimming pools, guns are small and easy to transport across state lines, from rural areas to urban areas, making gun deaths a more national problem and more justifiably the subject of federal regulations. If a local government wanted to impose restrictions on swimming pools, whether for safety reasons or environmental ones, I'd say go for it.
(2) In 2005 there were about 800 accidental gun deaths and 17,000 suicide gun deaths. Those numbers would almost certainly go down if guns were illegal. (A nifty tool for this sort of thing is here:
http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html
(3) I actually think you're probably right in terms of gun control not doing much to reduce crime.
(4) I also think you're right that we shouldn't invest too much energy in pushing gun control since there are better things for us to worry about. Nevertheless, I think there would be a net benefit to effective gun control laws due to #2 above.
This post has been removed by the author.
1. If we can say that guns don't "cause" crime (I agree...but they assist it), how can Illinois BAN other weapons? Do brass knuckles cause crime? If no, why the ban? I'd like to know how many people die (or would die) from brass knuckles or tazers (banned weapons) each year in comparison to guns. I have no data for that. You?
2. I do not carry mace/pepper-spray/guns because I know the likelihood of me mishandling them is very high. Even trained professionals have trouble properly using these devices in the heat of the moment. Try shooting a hand-gun at a firing range. Even with time to calculate your shot--I bet you miss. Now throw in the added complexity of an emergency and quick decision-making...and I bet that you're dead-on with your target... Gag...
3. Let's assume murder is unavoidable--even with the most elaborate ethical training on why murder is bad. Morally, however, people have greater difficultly physically killing another person with his/her hands. It is easier to use an "indirect" weapon to help you do the deed. Can you imagine the difference between shooting someone from 30 feet away and choking them to death with your own two hands? Therefore--allow brass knuckes--ban guns---NOT THE REVERSE! For more on this, please read http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psyc
Well I got bogged down about the gun aspect, that I forgot about the other stuff.
Personally, I don't think those other weapons should be banned at all, especially if guns are not. I think that how these weapons would alter the decision calculus for prospective criminals alone would justify its legalization.
Segen,
Your URL was incomplete, but I think you meant this article. Pages 2 and 3 discuss the psychology of killing at a distance.
Tet,
I was thinking about your line "the police should not be allowed to carry any weapons or armor greater than that owned by the average citizen of the area that they patrol". Perhaps a refinement would be to allow police to have a small arms advantage over the citizens, but not a large one. Since there are far fewer police than citizens, the police would still be unable to win an armed conflict with a much larger number of citizens.
If police have enough power to handle, say, two citizens per officer, then they can make routine arrests without having to fear for their lives or call for backup. This would also reduce some costs, since fewer police would need to be hired. Also, the fact that police work is safer might attract more quality people to the job.
What do you think?
All,
Great work. I've learned a lot from this thread and the Google and Wikipedia excursions inspired by it.
Actually, police are barely armed better than the citizenry now. While I'm against conceal and carry laws as Tom and I have discussed in pretty great length (reminds me too much of my childhood), the fact is that most cops carry 9 mms or .45s. Most of us could go to our local gun store and get a more powerful weapon than either of those sidearms within a couple of days (depending on state and waiting period). I remember back in the late 90s there was a few bank robberies where the robbers were in full flak body suits weighing like 100 lbs and toting modified semi-automatics that were pulverizing the cops. The best the cops could muster was a 12 gauge. It was really interesting because these guys took out several officers and basically had bullets bounce off of them in long standoffs. I mean I realize that these guys were breaking all sorts of laws, but if you're going to face off against the cops, it's pretty safe to assume you're not exactly afraid of breaking the law any more.
It wasn't "a few robberies" it was a robbery. And it wasn't "the police" who were limited to handguns and shotguns, it was patrol officers. SWAT was armed with M16s and used them when they arrived. In the years since that robbery, LAPD and other departments have armed their officers wit AR15s.
You also say police are 'barely armed better than the citizenry now' which is completely inaccurate. You seem to think Tom and others are concerned about arming relative to the average cop on the beat. He's talking about the capability of the entire police versus a similarly sized group of citizens. The police have professionally made body armor, have professionaly made automatic weapons, they have explosive devices, they have gas rounds, they have SWAT vehicles that could be more accurately described as tanks. There is nothing remotely comparable legally available to the citizenry, especially in a state like Illinois.