Law Lets Floridians `Meet Force With Force'

[Adron]

So let's outlaw guns, and the bad guys (who are breaking the law anyway) will still have them, only people can't defend themselves from the bad guys!

Well, we come from the part of the world where guns are outlawed. And that means criminals don't have guns here, which was the source of the initial confusion

[MyndFyre edit: changed the quote to reflect what Adron was referring to, because I'm splitting off irrelevant crap]

[Hazard]

That is exactly what Adron and Arta continually propose.

Well, we come from the part of the world where guns are outlawed. And that means criminals don't have guns here, which was the source of the initial confusion

?

What I'm curious about is your opinion on how ridiculously easy it currently is to obtain a gun without having to provide evidence of said licensing and training.

Indeed, it is too easy to obtain a gun. The problem however is obtaining guns the LEGAL way. You do in fact have to provide evidence of licensing and training to buy certain firearms or for a specific purpose, and I agree with that. It is easier to obtain rifles and shotguns, I'll grant you. I do think that there should be stringent background checks on owning firearms, sure. The problem is, the VAST majority of crimes committed with a firearm was with a firearm that has been illegally obtained in the first place, as in bought on the street or stolen for example. Now how are more background checks going to solve THAT problem? They won't.

What gets me is that the legitimate gun owners are always pushing for greater rights to use their guns (and there is nothing inherently wrong with this), but at the same time, steadfastly resist regulating the gun-acquisition process in a sane manner.

I think that gun owners deserve the rights to use their weapons. They resist making acquiring guns more difficult because, as I said, how many crimes are committed with legally obtained weapons? I had a debate on this in Social Problems last semester, and I'm trying to dig up my hard copy of the source, but my writings here document that some 86% of crimes committed with a firearm were with illegally obtained weapons. Making a waiting period longer won't stop some thug on the street from buying a ripped gun off some crack dealer on the street, you know.

[Adron]

That is exactly what Adron and Arta continually propose.

Well, we come from the part of the world where guns are outlawed. And that means criminals don't have guns here, which was the source of the initial confusion

?

Hmmyes? A european country such as France has one eighth the homocide rate of the USA thanks to the strict gun control laws? European countries are enforcing gun control laws better in response to a few violent shootings, because we like to push our homocide rate even further down than 87.5% lower than the USA? Sounds good to me...

What the article does point out is that the big evil USA is exporting its murderous ways and criminality into Europe which is a problem. I agree. The USA needs to introduce similar strict gun control laws as European countries already have.

The intial confusion I referred to was:

I thought they only did that when they believe that the suspect has a gun? Or some other deadly weapon?

[CrAz3D]

One of big rights is that we can have weapons to protect ourselves.  Our constitutional framers OBVIOUSLY thought Americans should be able to defend themselves so they decided to include that in our lovely Bill of Rights.  I agree with Justice Scalia?, I think that's which one it is, that the Constitution is a constant & does not change in meaning.  It was written 1 way & shouldn't change with the times as it is not supposed to be reinterpretted every new Court.

[Adron]

Our constitutional framers OBVIOUSLY thought Americans should be able to defend themselves so they decided to include that in our lovely Bill of Rights.

Your constitutional framers OBVIOUSLY thought individual American states needed to be guaranteed the right to have armed forces, to protect them from the president of the USA...

[CrAz3D]

Third time might be a charm...I don't usually put forth this much effort into anything

*King of England
Our 'fore fathers' saw the need for expressed freedoms.  They knew if everything was left to be interpretted one group could control the entire force of America.  Luckily, since we can elect our own leader & not everything is government controled, we can have our own freedoms & exercise our right to live freely unlike many other countries

[Adron]

*King of England
Our 'fore fathers' saw the need for expressed freedoms.  They knew if everything was left to be interpretted one group could control the entire force of America.  Luckily, since we can elect our own leader & not everything is government controled, we can have our own freedoms & exercise our right to live freely unlike many other countries

Your 'fore fathers' thought that giving American states the right to have an armed militia would be good in case the central government tried to step on their toes? In practise, the central government controls the armed forces enough that state militias serve no useful purpose.

[CrAz3D]

The British government controled their forces...Americans fought & one, grant it that the Brits didn't have figher jets & the such.  You don't have to be in a militia to need a gun.  You can defend yourself without an entire army, so long as you're not up against an entire army.

[Adron]

The British government controled their forces...Americans fought & one, grant it that the Brits didn't have figher jets & the such.  You don't have to be in a militia to need a gun.  You can defend yourself without an entire army, so long as you're not up against an entire army.

Yeah, that's true. It was necessary for the states to have a militia to protect themselves from the Brits at the time the now badly aged constitution was written.

[CrAz3D]

It is old but all of it is still relevant.

[Adron]

It is old but all of it is still relevant.

I suddenly see the connection. The USA is full of people who think the bible is the word of God, and by just interpreting enough they can find answers to everything. Relevant answers. Of course such people would have a tendency to give the constitution similar weight, being unwilling to adapt.

[CrAz3D]

The Bible isn't the Constitution.  Also, there are people in places besides the US of A that read/believe in the Bible.

& if we should change, then why isn't it ok for us to force change upon Iraq?  I mean they've only been living without our democracy since what, the begining of the human race?

Name a few somethings in the Constitution that should be changed & provided good reasoning for your opinions.

[Adron]

Name a few somethings in the Constitution that should be changed & provided good reasoning for your opinions.

One example is that the constitution mentions monetary amounts, given in dollars. Over time, the meaning will necessarily diverge from the value at the time it was written. This is a strong indication that the writer didn't intend the text to be valid for hundreds of years.


Actually, the second amendment, if interpreted the way I would, indicates that states have the right to have a militia. I suppose that's fine.


And in regards to guns, I thought about an idea I read somewhere. Hazard claims that gun owners are responsible and that the guns used in crime aren't a result of flooding the market with guns. A pretty simple (though resource intensive) solution would be to mark all guns and ammunition with a persistent label, that can be read out digitally and checked against a register. Then all you need is punishment for anyone found carrying an unmarked gun or a gun marked as belonging to someone else, as well as registered owner of gun/bullets getting responsibility for any shootings with the weapon in question. That would make things there almost as good as here in Europe.

[Hazard]

Are you sure that would fix the problem Adron? You know for a fact that would make things "Almost as good as Europe?" What a crock.

Europeans accuse us of being arrogant. I assert the Europeans are just as guilty. You Europeans treat Americans like second class citizens. Whether you confirm it or not, your demeanor seems to tell me that you view Americans as uncivilized and unintelligent. Thats pretty arrogant if you ask me.

[CrAz3D]

Our guns are already registered to the owner, not digitally though.  A barcode can be easily removed, easier than a Serial Number that is engraved into the gun itself (which I believe is how our registration works now).