Comments on: Gun Nut Kills Three Cops in Pittsburgh

By: Manifest Destiny

Manifest Destiny — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:26:39 +0000

These guys assume you are out to get them, so if you go out to get them theyll bite back. If you take a swat team to the door of gun owners in America to take their guns away youll likely find many more “maniacs” that you are creating.

By: Azkyroth

Azkyroth — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 23:39:21 +0000

its failure to do so is not actionable

In other words, despite the efforts of Gun Fetishists and/or Bigells to imply that the government’s official policy and accepted views are that the cops only have to protect you if they feel like it, my interpretation was correct.

(Though this is kind of silly given that among the express purposes of the constitution’s existence were to “establish justice” and “ensure domestic tranquility.”

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:30:08 +0000

Regarding the issue of hanging on to our guns so we are ready to overthrow the government when the government gets too annoying: I think there are a lot of problems with that argument, and many of the key arguments are addressed here: Tin Revolutionaries.

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 07:20:21 +0000

But there is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen. It is monstrous if the state fails to protect its residents against such predators but it does not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or, we suppose, any other provision of the Constitution. The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties; it tells the state to let people alone; it does not require the federal government or the state to provide services, even so elementary a service as maintaining law and order. Discrimination in providing protection against private violence could of course violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But that is not alleged here. All that is alleged is a failure to protect Miss Bowers and others like her from a dangerous madman, and as the State of Illinois has no federal constitutional duty to provide such protection its failure to do so is not actionable under section 1983.
— Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616 (7th Cir. 1982)

By: Azkyroth

Azkyroth — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 05:27:31 +0000

with cops who have no legal obligation in the courts, in US history, to protect our lives,

I see this idea thrown around a lot, mainly by right-wing gun-fetishist types. Does anyone have a reliable reference for this claim, and, assuming it’s not a complete fabrication, does it actually mean anything other than “you can’t sue the police if they don’t come through to your satisfaction”?

By: Sevesteen

Sevesteen — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:18:58 +0000

A large fraction of guns in the US (I think it is most, but I’m not 100% sure) are imported. How are you going to shut them down? (Especially if you close ours first…) We can stop legal imports, but we haven’t managed to control illegal drugs (not that we should try) what makes you think we’d do better with guns?

By: george.w

george.w — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:50:42 +0000

Would ‘gun nuts’ – the law-abiding kind, not the tinfoil hat kind, have any objection to every gun being registered, tracked, routinely inspected to make sure it’s in the possession of the right person? Why?

As for gun laws having no real effect, the person who breaks into your house today is far less likely to be packing than in the old days before simply carrying a gun in the commission of a crime added something like 10 automatic years onto the sentence.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:57:24 +0000

Do you honestly believe that the gun factories produce firearms that they place into the hands of criminals? Fine. Close the factories down then.

I’m pretty sure that is wrong, though. I’m pretty sure that the criminals do not manufacture the guns themselves, and that most guns spend part of their lives in legal hands.

By: Sevesteen

Sevesteen — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:37:19 +0000

Why did the gun nuts oppose tagons? Is there a rational explanation for that?

What’s a tagon?

The “its to late to ban guns becaues they can get them anyway” is not a valid argument and never was. Guns can be taken out of circulation and they do get old, lost, broken. The process may take a long time but it is worth it and it can be done. I’ve never accepted that argument, which is really nothing other than a self fulfilling prophecy.

Banning guns will quickly reduce the guns that aren’t a problem–law abiding gun owners will by definition turn ours in, but we aren’t the ones who shoot people.

Criminals won’t turn theirs in. Those lost to the police will get replaced, likely by the same people who smuggle drugs in. Halfway decent guns last tens of thousands of rounds, so wearing out isn’t going to be a problem.

I go back and forth on that. All the ammendments have been and need to be reinterpreted at one time or another.

By legal means, not by whim–That’s the whole point of the constitution.

By: Steve Ulven

Steve Ulven — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:40:22 +0000

Hmmm… Looks like someone just got done watching Alex Jones’ “The Obama Deception.”