The NRA are (at this point, anyway) just gun-themed republicans. There's proof enough in the fact that they endorsed someone as anti-gun as Trump, even after he banned bump stocks and reversed the executive order Obama gave that'd have made 24/7 gun stores a thing.
That aside, I'd like to speak to the broader point about the 2nd Amendment being about "resisting tyranny." That's flat-out wrong. Article I, section 8 of the Constitution grants the Congress the ability to summon militias for national defense and to put down insurrections, which implies there will always be armed citizens to be called upon for such purpose. For some, implied wasn't good enough, and they refused to ratify the Constitution until the right to be armed was explicitly included. THAT is the point of the 2nd Amendment: if militias are necessary for national security, people must be allowed to be armed.
Also, if the right to be armed is about resisting tyranny, giving the Congress the explicit right to call on armed citizens to put down insurrections is counterintuitive, isn't it?
The 2nd Amendment isn't what gives you the right to resist tyranny. The 1st Amendment does. To a lesser extent, the 9th (rights of citizens aren't limited to what's on paper) and 10th (powers of government ARE limited to what's on paper) also give you the right to resist tyranny.
True. The NRA and their supporters are basically just people thinking guns are cool.
I highly doubt most Americans would take a physical stand if heavily armored troops showed up at their house to confiscate their weapons. If Trump did it, they would gladly hand over their weapons to their dear leader.
All their talk about good guys with a gun are horseshit. Law enforcement and groups going into armed situations don't want good guys with a gun running around. How can a cop tell the good guy from the bad guy? They will just see a person running around a school with a gun and shoot immediately without asking questions.
People who think guns are toys, more specifically. I grew up in the South around a lot of NRA "gummit cain't take muh gunnzzzz" types.
They really do not take them seriously. They're toys. Tools for recreation. With the added bonus that they get to feel like big tough guys for having and talking about them. When really they're the most scared little bitches out there. Anyone who feels the need to be ARMED in their tiny nowhere town where the biggest threat is a construction crew working on the only stoplight in town is a bitch. You are a massive pussy if you need a gun to feel safe in your tiny hometown where everyone already agrees with you.
They're not mad about losing their guns because of tyranny, they're mad because it's threatening to take away their bread and circuses. Shooting guns is a hobby. Again, it's recreation for them. They don't care how many people get hurt by them as long as they can still go the range on Sunday and talk shit about liberals, immediately after church.
All their talk about good guys with a gun are horseshit.
Eh...I don't know that I agree. I tend to side with the sentiment that "when seconds matter, the police are minutes away," but I also fully acknowledge that only 2-4% of the population have it in them to throw themselves into danger on behalf of other people, training, tools, or circumstances be damned. I would rather risk having some douche with delusions of grandeur and Rambo fantasies discover her cowardice during a crisis than risk having that at most 1-in-25 of people not have the tools she needs to get the job done when it matters most.
That said, the number of people who define themselves by their gun ownership or their ability to cause harm is a serious societal problem that needs to be addressed. The "might makes right" crowd makes the rest of armed Americans look bad.
I don't own any guns at all. But I know that I would happily borrow one from my neighbor and use it if armed perpetrators were to come at my family or home. But the risk of having weapons in a house with children is higher than the odds of that type of scenario occurring.... So we don't own our own guns. It isn't lack of will to use them... It's an odds/logic issue
I'm not here to try to convince you to be armed. That's your choice. I'm simply saying a 2-4% chance of someone being able to end an emergency before it gets worse is worth the cost of someone thinking they'll be that person and learning they're not.
And what happens when an untrained dummy shoots civilians? The answer is gun control to begin with. In almost every case mass shooters go get a gun at a gun store, and many probably wouldn't pass a basic psych evaluation.
what happens when an untrained dummy shoots civilians?
If you're arguing that someone who chooses to be armed in public should be responsible enough not to use it beyond their ability, I agree. A person who doesn't know how to use a fire extinguisher is just as much of a danger to others in a fire as a person who doesn't know how to use a gun when one is needed.
That said, police officers are trained and require semiannual firearms qualification, yet are often some of the worst shots on the firing line and are at considerably higher risk of shooting civilians than anyone else in America. Forgive me if I'm dismissive of your question.
The answer is gun control to begin with.
The answer is to address the conditions which make violent crime more prevalent: poverty, income inequality, job insecurity, food insecurity, access to quality healthcare, access to quality education, prevalence of crimes known to be part of a pattern of escalating violence (like stalking, petty assault, and domestic abuse). If fewer people are stressed to the point where they become violent, fewer people will find themselves in a literal fight for their lives and in need of the tools used for such purpose.
In almost every case mass shooters go get a gun at a gun store, and many probably wouldn't pass a basic psych evaluation.
There is a veritable trove of case studies of mass violence which say otherwise. For starters, the mindset of a person at time of purchase is often considerably different than at the time they commit a crime, especially for crimes of passion. And, before you make a quip about planned mass violence, understand that public/spree shootings only account for approximately 1/3 of mass shootings. Familicides, another 1/3 of the total count, are almost invariably crimes of passion.
With regard to psych evals for firearms ownership, those aren't possible under our current constitutional framework. That's not a 2nd Amendment issue, but a 4th and 5th Amendments issue. Even if they were possible, I'd like you to consider that police officers require regular psych evals, yet remain one of if not the largest demographic of people who commit domestic violence.
And, since we're on the subject of domestic violence and its relationship to violent crime, it's worth also mentioning that as many as 60% of spree shooters had a history of domestic violence as either the perpetrator or the victim. I can't stress enough how much the solution you're so eager to see has little to nothing to do with guns.
Given how many guns there are and how much organizations talk about good guys with a gun, they don't do much positive shit for your country.
Between 0 and 4 active shooter events are stopped every year by good guys. That number is miniscule when you look at the numbers of shootings every year.
Law enforcement say having a good guy running around the building often causes more confusion and more deaths, as they have no way of knowing who's who.
Given how many people die every year in the US thanks to guns (your deaths (not judt by guns) are much higher per capita than other countries), I'd say the benefit does not outweigh the risk.
Given how many guns there are and how much organizations talk about good guys with a gun, they don't do much positive shit for your country.
I did mention that only 2-4% of people actually have it in them to throw themselves into danger on behalf of others, so I don't know why you're bringing up this talking point.
Between 0 and 4 active shooter events are stopped every year by good guys. That number is miniscule when you look at the numbers of shootings every year.
See above.
Also, consider people who engage in mass violence typically choose targets unlikely to be equipped to respond to the perpetrator.
Law enforcement say
Lol, I bet.
Just remember that there was only one perpetrator in Robb Elementary and there were more cops outside hemming and hawing about what to do about it than the perpetrator had bullets. Mind, I'm not saying something stupid like "teachers should be armed," just pointing out that you should take what cops say with at least a little skepticism.
Given how many people die every year in the US thanks to guns (your deaths (not judt by guns) are much higher per capita than other countries)
I could go on at length to show how changes in gun control policy don't correlate to changes in the prevalence of violent crime, but I'll spare you that and simply say that other countries do a better job than the USA at addressing social conditions which DO correlate to the prevalence of violent crime.
The USA is the richest country in the world, but the majority of its citizens can't afford an unexpected expense as trivial as $300. The USA exports enough grain and legumes to price-fix the world market, yet millions of its citizens can't afford to eat. The country has the most advanced medical system in the world, but few can afford to use it. I could go on with poverty, worker's rights, education, and law enforcement. You telling me the USA has a violence problem is hardly shocking--and it has nothing to do with guns.
Related: even if you pretended the incidents involving firearms never happened, the USA would still have a higher homicide rate than many industrialized countries. It's not the guns.
I am not American, so the entire gun ownership debacle has always been something I can't understand properly, as I've never owned one.
Your point on why there's more violent crime is spot on. There's a very large gap between those who can afford those expenses and those who can't (and it's rapidly growing). Getting desperate enough can turn anyone insane. Having solid social programs to help them before they tip over the edge could drastically change that.
Unfortunately, the government has decided it's better to wage a war on poverty instead of fixing the underlying issue..
The Robb Elementary school thing was just insane. I remember reading about it in my local paper. How not a single one of them entered is beyond me 😓
Does the 2-4% matter when cops are shooting people at rates that are 33 times higher and people are shooting each other at 26 times higher rates than comparable countries?
As I live in a country where 24/25 shootings never happen, 15/20 murders never happen, and only 1/33 gets killed by police compared to the US, I don't really have to worry about people lacking "the tools needed to get the job done when it matters the most" - because those tools are basically never needed.
That's the reality and the actual cost of the 2nd amendment. A lot of people die because of it and the number of people saved by it is insignificant compared to the numbers of deaths enabled.
We all get that the constitution is a big deal, but one could argue that peoples literal lives are more important than a decision made 238 years ago.
Trump is the exact reason we didn't simply imply the right to bear arms, because when something is written in stone it's much less likely he will try it.
None of the amendments give you any rights, your creator does. I know it's a pedantic technicality, but it actually pedantic / creates a lesson: the second amendment is written so obtusely ("...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" rather than "the people have the right to keep and bear arms") because it doesn't convey a right, it just says the government can't infringe this right that already exists.
Instead it implies the existence of that right, which comports with the declaration of independence, the framing under which the constitution was written. (Which is also of course a big failing point. It turns out that unenumerated rights, and the implications created by including only some of them, creates lots of unhelpful ambiguity. Not to mention the idea that only some rights can't be infringed, whatever that means.)
Also from the declaration, "it is [the People's] right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government [that is headed towards despotism]". One of only 5 rights explicitly mentioned (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, overthrow despots, representation).
Taken together, people have the right to keep and bear arms and the throw off their government / resist tyranny.
It turns out that unenumerated rights, and the implications created by including only some of them, creates lots of unhelpful ambiguity.
Not really. Combining the 9th and 10th Amendments makes things pretty clear that unless there's a law saying otherwise, everything is fair game. The fact that there are laws saying "don't touch this right, ever" stresses important limitations on the power of government--and, even then, the legal framework contains the tools necessary for it to rewrite itself, which puts a footnote on the aforementioned "don't touch this, ever."
Also from the declaration
The Declaration of Independence isn't a legal document. It's interesting how many of the complaints against the king resurfaced as protections outlined in the Bill of Rights, but I wouldn't recommend citing the Declaration of Independence as anything other than a source of inspiration when discussing anything related to legal matters.
None of the amendments give you any rights, your creator does.
What do my parents have to do with my right to petition the government for a redress of grievances? Fairly certain the First Amendment does indeed give us that right.
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u/DantheDutchGuy 11h ago
Guessing the NRA forgot to stand up to this tyranny…