Gun violence is a public health epidemic.
For years the gun lobby has avoided admitting it’s an epidemic. They have blocked research into gun violence, stifled open dialog and derailed state and federal gun reform efforts.
Physicians see pain and suffering from gun violence every day. We see it racing into our emergency departments in the back of an ambulance with lights flashing and sirens blaring. And we see it in our primary care clinics and psychiatry practices, as we try to help our patients make sense of why their loved one was lost to suicide-by-firearm. That’s why physicians fight back when we are told to “stay in your lane.” Because, as it turns out, helping end an epidemic is in fact “our lane.”
In 2020, gun violence and firearm-related accidents killed more than 48,000 Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Of those, more than 24,000 died by suicide. According to the CDC, firearms recently became the number one cause of death for children in the United States. Children are dying in places meant to care and nurture them, lockdown drills are an accepted reality, and mass shootings are so common as to risk inducing numbness. Our children deserve better.
[image_caption]Dr. Will Nicholson[/image_caption]
The common-sense measures proposed by the Minnesota Legislature treat guns and responsible gun owners with the respect they are due and are largely based on elements taught in every gun safety class. We also need better research and evidence-based strategies to further reduce morbidity and mortality. More attention is needed on the fatal link between firearms and suicide. These measures will save lives. Amid a gun violence epidemic, every life counts.
Dr. Will Nicholson is a family physician and president of Minnesota Medical Association.
Should gun safety advocates get the pics out there, of what all this 2nd Amendment free expression does to the human body? Just as the early anti-abortion radicals showed us dissected, discarded fetuses? With the headline This Could’ve Been Your Child? Would a message this graphic, aimed at the most unsentimental audience in the country, get through? Could it penetrate all that contrived faux machismo?
On second thought, probably not.
Hate to say it Bob, but suspect you are 100% correct, and we know the old “only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” BS. Well 3 good rural Police dead in 2 states in 1 week. Guess the gun advocate folks got to be OK with it, haven’t heard a word about the bad guys with the guns taking out the good guys with the guns. Word is the Cameron killer was a legal gun owner, no word on Pope county yet. A little by line ” seven officers have been shot in the line of duty in Minnesota in 2023″ At this rate we are going to run out of good guys with guns before bad guys with guns!
Yes do it Bob. You get the permission of the parent and you then ‘play the game’ using the rules of the “Thoughts and prayers” Republicans.
“Common sense gun rules” ? Sure, here are some that will effect change, taken from a recent issue of the Duluth Reader and written by a former Marine officer who commanded a heavy machine gun platoon, Ed Raymond of Detroit Lakes, Mn.
1) Pass all background check, red flag, storage, and ghost gun bills that should have been passed 40 years ago.
2) Ban all magazines and clips that hold more than six rounds, and make it a felony with 5 years prison time to possess larger capacity mags.
3) Allow the government to manufacture six-round magazines that fit all rifles and handguns and provide a period to trade in all banned for new magazines.
4) Register all weapons on a national base.
5) Limit the manufacture and sale of ammo to 1,000 ft/second for rifles and 700 ft/s for handguns – and no ‘cop killer’ bullets or shotgun street sweepers – and limit the amount of ammo sold to one person.
These are cures for a public health crisis of over 170 mass shootings so far in this short year and which have been sanctioned by our do-nothing Republican legislators.
“2) Ban all magazines and clips that hold more than six rounds, and make it a felony with 5 years prison time to possess larger capacity mags.
3) Allow the government to manufacture six-round magazines that fit all rifles and handguns and provide a period to trade in all banned for new magazines.”
No need for the government to do it. Pass the ban and after a little whining from the firearms industry they will rub their hands in glee: Likely at least 200 million guns needing to be modified, at $100.00 per kit equals a 20 billion dollar sales windfall for the industry. Approximate 2022 gun sales: 8 Billion dollars. More than double sales because of government regulation? Second Amendment or cash in their pockets: You have to ask???
Those are all reasonable recommendations, which means they have absolutely no chance of ever being enacted. Every time we have another massacre of innocent people, the NRA comes out with a new mantra, good guy with good gun, mental health is the killer. It’s amazing in this country that an issue that has 70% support of the public, banning assault rifles, has absolutely no chance of passing. All due to a bought and paid for Congress with no spine.
A quick check of ballistic tables shows hunting rifles have a muzzle velocity in excess of 1000fps.
I don’t think hunters will find that a common sense restriction, and it is one that will do little to stem gun violence. We need to get weapons out of bad guys hands, but unworkable ineffective rules foomed to failure is not the way.
Are you sure of that Greg ? A rifle firing a 1,000 ft/s can easily kill a deer at 250 yards without turning it into deerburger. Ask Dr Nicholson about what happens to a child’s organs and bones when as a gun shot victim is hit by a normal AR-15 bullet at 3,000 ft/s. One first grader at Sandy Hook was hit with 11 bullets from a Bushmaster AR-15. Think about what that looked like and about what was left for the parents to bury.
A quick check of any ballistic table confirms fir example a 30-06 is around 3000 fish a 30’30 is about 2400 and 3000 for a Creedmoor 6.5.
11 rounds of any rifle wil be horrific
As would shotgun.
We must keep weapons away from such shooters.
But as they say every problem has a simple solution…
The VA tech anx the Norway shooter used a handgun
Proposing ineffective or unpassable bills may make you fell better. But solves nothing
And a 30 06 has twice the muzzle energy of a .223 Remington
Postscript wasn’t saying that a 100fps is ineffective, but all popular rifles exceed 1000fps.
The number of guns in the US and ease of getting one is ridiculous, but laws won’t prevent people from getting one with a little effort. Heroin, meth and fentanyl are all illegal, but people buy them every day.
Consider the Nashville mentally unbalanced MBA shooter: Never bought a gun till he went down to the local gun shop and bought one a few days before the massacre. Put a few purchase barriers in his way and he is slowed down in his murderous plans and he may have second thoughts. Put in a red flag law and he may have been denied the purchase.
Drugs are an addiction. And we absolutely go after the people who sell those drugs. But no one is going around and forcefully injecting or stuffing drugs down addicts gullets. And I’m pretty sure that folks looking to self-harm will find a way to do it.
But what you’re saying is that laws are ineffective so we just shouldn’t have them, right? That’s chaos. That’s anarchy. And, you have no idea what the effect of simply removing the laws would be. Probably WAY worse than the situation today.
The #1 reason anyone illegally owns a gun is because someone who legally owned a gun either became a criminal, or sold a gun to a criminal. It’s time to close the loopholes. It’s time to be sensible about who owns a gun and whether some varieties of guns are outside of the bounds of what any civilian should have. I’m certain that there are limits on what “arms” means, even if you ignore the requirement that said arms are linked to state militias (what we now call the National Guard), not individual ownership without militia membership. And I’m saying this as someone who is a gun owner and believes that responsible gun ownership should be allowed. The problem is that the fight for gun ownership has crossed too many boundaries, and is done pretty much for the entire purpose of ensuring that gun manufacturers continue to make as much money off the death and violence of the American public.
I’m not saying there shouldn’t be gun laws, just pointing to the folly of expecting only laws will fix the problem. Other approaches need to be done in parallel.
One approach could be turning to the literal reading of the 2nd Amendment. It guarantees the right to bear arms, but it says nothing about ammo. A gun without ammo isn’t as deadly.
Limiting the ability to buy ammo is the way to stop ghost guns from being useful by themselves. If a total ban on ammo isn’t going to happen just take the approach used for tobacco: Tax the snot out of it. Say $2 per round. The right to bear arms doesn’t have to be cheap.
To follow up on this:
https://www.vpc.org/studies/ownership.pdf
Gun ownership level have declined significantly since 1980’s both household gun ownership and personal gun ownership.
Again, I ask what has changed? Murder rates by guns are up in the last 6 years, but are not at historic highs.
Seems these folks disagree with you?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/249740/percentage-of-households-in-the-united-states-owning-a-firearm/
Would you think that folks are not telling the truth in the surveys, don’t want folks to know they are actually packing, you know that is the NRA way, no registration no knowledge of who has what!
Mass shootings actually are at historic highs, whatever the statistical history of “gun ownership” in America might be. And several people did answer your question the last time you posted this (exact) comment, answers which you apparently discount.
So maybe you can try to answer your own question this time.
Sure I can answer it. It is the degradation of society. We live in a world where people cannot accept the fact that it is ok for others to have an opinion different than their own. Original thoughts are ok. We now scream people down, berate them, belittle them if they think differently than the group thinks they should think. In a lot of cases we have tried to install government to replace the nurturing, learning and learned values that belong in the family setting. We have politicized everything. Nobody has manners anymore. The one who shouts the loudest gets the most attention, or air time. In the past, the one who shouted loudest was ignored.
Sure we should have more controls over who has a gun. But it is totally niave to think we are going to rip guns out of the hands of the legal gun owners.
Social media has given us a forum to be anonymous a-holes. Mike Tysons quote; “Social media made y’all way to[o] comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.” If you wouldn’t say it to a persons face, it should be said anywhere.
Even if we had some proof by objective metrics of a “degradation of society” that you lament, that just means it’s even more important not to be creating phony constitutional “gun rights” for a nation of crappier and more infantile citizens. And if what you say is true, it’s the prevalence of more people (and hence more armed people) in America (now over 330 million) which is resulting in more gun violence over who cut in line at the food truck. And I’ll also wager that the number of gun injuries over disagreement about personal opinions is rather low, far lower than the lion’s share you seem to be imagining.
But I do want to thank you for offering a substantive response, even if I disagree with much of it. We do agree that there “should be more controls over who has a gun”, so that’s a start!
“It is the degradation of society.”
Never better exemplified than by a 16 year old black kid knocking once on the wrong door and getting shot twice. And by a 20 year old girl being shot for mistakenly driving up the wrong driveway. And 2 high school cheerleaders getting shot for accidentally getting into the wrong car in a grocery store parking lot.
I agree, It is the degradation of society and clear evidence that words from leaders have an influence:
“Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”
“Please don’t be too nice,”
“Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type!”
“when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
“We could fix Portland in, I would say, 45 minutes,”
“That’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution,”
“you’ll never take back our country with weakness.”
It goes on and on…
Well, Doctor, like the pro abortion people like to say, “If you’re against abortions don’t get one.” Well, if you don’t like guns, don’t get one. And unlike abortions, getting one isn’t a guarantee that someone is going to die.
So can folks also opt out of getting shot and killed by legal gun owners that go over the edge?
Proof that size matters. Brilliant!
Never said that, just that the size of the children being killed matters to some people.
I never understood why the Lefties want to make it harder for legal gun ownership but has nothing to get illegal guns off the street. Criminals with illegal guns cause the vast majority of gun crime in America. Somehow that simple fact escapes the Lefties.
Well Joe, we have had this conversation many, many, many times, and each time it is proven that many mass murders are done by legal gun owners, so no matter how many times you keep pushing the same line about illegal gun owners the facts remain you are pumping BS.
Note that he said “vast majority”.
And that’s merely a supposition, since there are no actual stats kept on Joe’s pet gun position.
If I follow what I think Joe is trying to say, his point is that the majority of gun-related crime is committed by those who have acquired that firearm illegally.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/mar/12/john-faso/do-illegal-gun-owners-commit-most-gun-crime-rep-fa/
Lots of caveats. First, the vast, vast, vast majority of guns were initially purchased legally (there are very few restrictions in some states, in any case). So, how does a gun get ILlegally purchased? It turns out legal gun owners get rid of their guns in ways that enable people who shouldn’t have guns to buy them. Is it REALLY illegal to buy a gun from a drug dealer in a state that does not in any way restrict sales of used guns? That the drug dealer commits a crime in selling drugs has no bearing on whether the gun purchase/sale is illegal.
How do we change this? We make it illegal to sell a gun without recording that sale. We also hold gun owners responsible for securing their guns so that if they’re stolen, they remain responsible for the gun unless they can prove that the gun was properly secured at the time of the “theft.” And if the “theft” turns out to be a sale, we charge them for any crime committed with that gun, in addition to crimes associated with perjury (at the very least). We do a buy back – trust me, that would actually remove a lot of guns on the “black market” because it’s money that people need. And then we require registration of all new and used gun sales, and tracking of later sales, which obviously requires closing the gun show loophole. Let’s help “responsible” gun owners actually be responsible by making them liable for when they aren’t. Does that make responsible gun owners sad? No. It makes irresponsible (even if legal) gun owners sad. But, let’s be honest, it’s about time people took responsibility for their “rights.”
Rachel, I think everything you have stated sounds reasonable.
But to what extent are buy-backs actually effective?
“Gun buyback programs aim to prevent firearm violence by removing dangerous guns from communities, but there is little empirical evidence of these programs’ effectiveness. ”
https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/gun-buyback-programs.html
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/08/30/gun-buybacks-are-popular-but-are-they-effective
Thanks for your respectful response, Brian. One thing I’d like to point out is that each of those articles recognize that the so-called failure of buybacks is likely because they were done in isolation. I’m not proposing that buybacks are effective on their own. A buyback by itself will likely only fuel more gun purchases. Combine it with strict ownership liability and responsibility laws, we will get somewhere. Add programs designed to reduce violence, generally, and it’s not hard to imagine a result that is greater than the sum of its parts.
I’m not sure how anyone can read that article and think that the analysis and conclusion is anything other than speculation. The best that can be done is estimates based on surveys of prison inmates? Hardly conclusive. Since a large percentage of gun crimes go unsolved, and hence we have no idea if the perp is a “legal owner” or not, logic would dictate that Joe’s claim can’t be demonstrated statistically.
Further, since there is no national definition of a “legal” gun owner, and since no agency makes a pretense of trying to obtain this data, Joe’s endlessly repeated assertion is not very well supported, no matter how much gun advocates may wish it were “proven”.
And given that it takes about a millisecond for a “legal” gun owner to decide to use his weapon illegally, the whole discussion is a complete waste of time and a deflection of the issue. It’s dangerous living within a tsunami of firearms, “legal” or no.
Unlikely. But if we need more studies on guns and gun ownership and how criminals acquire them it would be a good time to start.
Did you read the Doc’s article, Joe, or are you just looking to post your “legal/illegal” gun shibboleth again? Do you think all the gun suicides and kids getting shot with one of Daddy or Mommy’s guns while at home have anything to do with “illegal” gun ownership and criminals?
Of course I read the Doctor’s article. It had nothing in it about getting illegal guns off the streets, which is the biggest driver of gun violence in America. Hard to take the other “sensible measures” seriously when you don’t touch on the number 1 reason.
In other words, you ignored what it actually said…
Meanwhile, we have ‘legal’ gun owners shooting people right and left. Now, knocking on the wrong door, or getting in the wrong car, or pulling into the wrong driveway can be a life-threatening mistake.
If you haven’t seen, a kid was shot in kansas city for knocking on the wrong door to pick up his siblings. Some cheerleaders were shot for getting in the wrong car in a Texas parking lot. And in NY state, for pulling into the wrong driveway.
Guns don’t make us safer. Guns kill us for simple mistakes, even in the hands of ‘legal’ owners.
Ian and fellow gun haters, you are wrong on mass shootings, again. A mass shooting is defined as a shooting event that kills or wounds more than 1 person. There are multiple mass shooting events on every weekend in Chicago, Minneapolis and most major metropolitan areas under Democratic leadership. It is not even close the amount of mass shootings done by illegal gun owners versus legal gun owners. Please get educated on the shootings involving illegal gun owners versus legal gun owners.
And what is it guys like me are suppose to do to get illegal guns off the street? You and your gun loving NRA etc. folks stop every effort and piece of legislation designed to reduce the violence or availability of guns in its tracks. So please stop with the what are you doing to put out the fire as you and yours keep pouring more gasoline on it. You all have no problem living with the murders, suicides, accidental killings, and mass murders to worship your guns. Yeah, from this perspective its a sick destructive gun worshiping religion, that sacrifices human life at its alter, what else could it be? Other countries survive W/O that gun worship religion, why can’t we?
Dennis, interesting take on “what you can do” to get illegal guns off the streets. Your solution is take guns from legal gun owners, who statistically commit a small percentage of gun violence, but not address the biggest driver of gun violence, criminals with guns. That makes no sense. Whatever gun laws you try to put on the books, criminals will not follow those laws. There are numerous gun laws right now that are not being enforced, you want more.?
What you can do is easy, vote in folks who enforce laws that put criminals in jail if a gun is used in a crime. There is a gun control bill passed in 1968, you can vote for someone that will enforce it.
The option for “guys like you” is vote in folks who will enforce current gun laws. You seem to think voting in folks who will make “new” gun laws gives you a sense of purpose. All of the “new” gun laws you seem to favor will do no good if not enforced, just like current gun laws not being enforced today does no good.
Joe, I asked you the question, and your response was again zilch, what are you doing, we know what you are doing, blocking every effort to get guns out of the hands of bad people, and then blaming everyone else for it not happening, and then further BS’s about the statistics? Like I said guys like me can’t do a thing because gun worshipers like you more or less claim its a religion! And as always, where is that well regulated militia? And again back with the legal vs illegal: Tennessee mass murder legal gun owner, cops killed in WI legal gun owner, seems like 374 dead and 22 mass shooting is getting a little beyond your “small percentage of gun violence” but just keep pounding out your BS. Perhaps you can advise what current gun laws are not being enforced, please be specific. Just saying stuff doesn’t make it true.
https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-school-shooting-buffalo-supermarket-texas-d1415e5a50eb85a50d5464970a225b2d
Seems the gun laws they put in place in Australia worked pretty dam good, UK, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, France Netherlands. Death rates from guns, (illegal and legal owners) US per 100K 23.29, Australia per 100k .91.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-deaths-by-country
Again, how the hell can these other countries do it but we can’t? Are American’s to stupid, are we too primitive? Personally as before, I think its a gun religion and you folks are more than happy to have 30,000 or so folks a year all ages colors etc. sacrificed on the gun death alter for that religion, and will block every effort to slow down the slaughter.
I think you and Joe are just talking past each other. Your point regarding wanting regulation on the legal purchase of firearms with the intent of keeping them out of the hands of people who are potentially dangerous is reasonable.
At the same time, Joe’s point seems to be that even if we enact all of the laws we on the left want to enact we still have to deal with the millions of illegal guns that are already circulating. There indeed seems to be a reluctance to admit that the illegal firearms (those acquired via burglaries, purchased on the black market, or stolen from friends and family members, etc.) are a serious threat.
Willing to start anywhere, we have a plague of guns and murders, the gun god folks appear fine with it, from their perspective, there is no problem with cheerleaders getting shot for opening the wrong car door, or a kid knocking on the wrong house door, or folks driving into the wrong driveway, or kids going to school and getting murdered, or being in a bank, or going to a birthday party and getting slaughtered. If those are not signs of a plague of gun craziness not sure what is! 30,000 a year and counting. Lets end the BS, many of those shooting are legal gun owners, and what are states doing, making it easier and easier to be a legal gun totting potential killer. If that isn’t ludicrous craziness not sure what is.
Brian, no one here is saying that weapons acquired “illegally” are not a serious threat. They are, and they are largely the result of allowing a vast industry of weapons manufacturers to sell an ocean of firearms of every description and make to US “consumers” of all stripes, all fueled by a “conservative” movement celebrating gun ownership as some sort of positive good, and exacerbated by an illegitimate Repub Supreme Court making up phony “gun rights” by willfully misreading the Constitution.
And spare me the “stolen from family members” as a component of “illegal” weapons. This is just trying to define the problem away.
Spare you? I think your issue is with NPR and the ATF.
Actually that’s not generally what’s considered a “mass shooting”. I haven’t seen a definition with victims as low as you throw out. But you have to try to define “mass shooting” down to fit your pet theory.
We are indeed seeing that a very substantial number of actual mass shootings are committed by your cherished “legal” gun owners (who immediately become “criminals” upon their illegal gun assault…)
So the problem must be something else than being legally eligible to purchase a firearm.
You stated that mass shootings are mostly the result of legally purchased guns. I stated that the problem of mass shootings then needs another explanation other than gun laws. I have no idea how to reply to something about Jesus in your comment as I can’t make any sense of it.
“And over 80% of mass shooters at K-12 schools stole guns from family members, according to research funded by the National Institute of Justice (a program of the U.S. Justice Department) that examined mass shootings that took place from 1966 to 2019.”
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/10/1153977949/major-takeaways-from-the-atf-gun-violence-report
In other words, over 80% of the guns used in school massacres were obtained legally by other family members, then used by the shooter to do the killing. This hardly proves the greater “safety” of guns held by legal owners.
Your spin is interesting, but that is a misinterpretation of what the NPR piece saying.
Hardly. If the piece is trying to argue that it somehow matters from a policy perspective that 80% of school shooters “stole” the (purchased) family assault weapon, that’s cold comfort to the victims. I’m allowed to interpret the data in a reasonable way. And if anything this piece makes clear that legally purchased weapons are not remotely “safe” for society.
Every proposal listed by Mr Litfin makes eminent good sense, and would have a huge effect in substantially reducing the risks from American gun mayhem. So there are plenty of good ideas out there; that’s not the problem.
As for guns and the health of children, however, one must recall the eloquent formulation of a noted rightwing extremist of some years ago, who wisely opined after one of our innumerable massacres of children: “Your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights”. In this he likely captured the considered views of our noble Second Amendment absolutists, despite the ongoing deluge of gun massacres.
Justice does require acknowledging that after the recent Uvalde elementary school massacre, enough Repubs in the senate did agree to forgo their (usual) filibuster and pass some tepid gun reforms, the first in 3o+ years, if I remember correctly. Of course, in 2023 we no longer have a Dem Congress, but are instead saddled with Repub McCarthy’s House of Chaos and Dysfunction, so even the most tepid gun reform is now off the table. Sorry, kids!
Also ban buying ammo at the same time as a gun
“More attention is needed on the fatal link between firearms and suicide. ”
More attention should be paid to see why so many people are suicidal. The choice of method is not the problem.
Yes, the problem is use of the family gun turns out to be the most lethal method, if one actually cares about suicides.
The idea that it should be easier for a society to get rid of depression and mental illness than reduce a tsunami of privately-owned firearms strikes me as one only an American could hold, and a right-leaning American at that!
Who suggested that far fetched idea? And again, solve the problem.
“The choice of method is not the problem.”
Actually the rate of success is far higher with firearms. The issue is twofold; 1, it’s near instantaneous & 2, it’s often fatal. Other methods that take longer allow for changing one’s mind, or being discovered. That’s essentially impossible after a trigger pull.
So, sure, we should focus on addressing the underlying issues that contribute to suicide, but we should also limit access to the deadliest method.
Solve the problem.
The solution is to take all steps necessary to stop being an armed society, including expanding the Supreme Court to dilute the power of the democratically-illegitimate “conservative” justices crammed onto the Court by Trump/McConnell, and who have willfully misread the Second Amendment. Since it took the “conservative” movement decades to create the current armed society, it likely will take decades to reverse the problem. Until we do, tens of thousands of all ages will keep being killed by guns.
No easy answers, including acting like mental illness is the real problem…
So take down the barriers in the Hennepin County Government Center that are meant to stop jumpers?
I didn’t see anything in the doctor’s article about jumpers. As far as guns and suicide, solve the problem.
Wellll conservatism has been ascendant for nigh on 45 years now…
If you want to restrict people’s right to self defense, please follow our system of passing a constitutional amendment to rescind the 2A.
Until then, please stop passing unconstitutional laws that do nothing to stop crime.
How about you join a well regulate militia? Show me where it says “self defense in the text of 2A. Made that 1 up didn’t you? and expect everyone to roll over and believe you! Looks like the self defense statement is made up and unconstitutional, don’t see it written there do you?
“A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
I guess I believe that the 2A is the means by which I can best execute my inalienable right to self defense.
You are correct that self-defense is not spelled out explicitly in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. I don’t think, though, that my rights are granted to me by the Constitution. I can speak freely, not because of the 1A, but because I am a human and every human has the right to express themselves freely.
If you believe that our rights are given to us by the government and not inherently ours, I think that is where we part ways and I’m not sure how that gulf can be bridged.
Unfortunately for your view, that’s not how “law” works in the US. You can’t assert wholly made-up “rights” (such as owning high-power weapons) just because you are a human. But I do applaud your acknowledging that the text of the Second Amendment doesn’t grant such a right to “self defense”.
Weird notion that the only way to defend one’s self is with a gun.
I’d like to think that if gun owners were actually part of & trained by well-regulated militia, we’d have fewer fraidy cats killing people for knocking on the wrong door or pulling into the wrong driveway.
Rights are a legal fiction. You believe you have them and that’s fine.
First of all, you can’t claim that your right to blow away the teenager who knocks on your door by mistake is your Second Amendment right, and then deny that the Constitution created that right. One or the other, not both.
Second, while the Constitution may not “create” rights, it does set the boundaries for government action – lines beyond which the government may not pass. It is protection against arbitrary government. Search warrants signed off by a neutral magistrate are not “inherently ours,” but were written in to the Constitution in reaction to the excesses of British colonial governance.
Third, those rights have never been held to be absolute. While the First Amendment guarantees a right to free speech, it does not prevent a state from criminalizing obscenity, or from enacting reasonable “time, place, and manner” restrictions on speech.
“I don’t think, though, that my rights are granted to me by the Constitution.”
Well Ole, you may believe that you have the right to kill anyone that you think threatens you. In a country governed by laws, you don’t have that right, and you can claim it until the cows come home, you are still going to jail. So in short you don’t believe in America and the way it is structured with a constitution, i. e. why then are you spouting about the 2nd amendment, it should be 100% inconsequential given that you don’t believe in the government anyway, you wouldn’t be trying to have it both ways now would you?
So your belief is that you are the only defense for your “rights”? So basically if I round up twenty of my closest friends, to deprive you of your “rights”, you won’t be relying on government to protect them then? Good to know.
Exactly right, thank you. An unfounded projection onto the actual text by “conservative” activists on the Repub Supreme Court, in one of the most willfully incorrect constitutional decisions since Dred Scott.
Please show a little more respect for conservative Justice Antonin Scalia:
“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment right is not unlimited…. [It is] not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
Heller decision, written by Justice Scalia.
I’d like to know the history of how the Supreme Court got us here. I’d like to know the specific arguments from the specific justices that interpreted the amendment to green light this insanity. I’d like every Justice of our current court to see those graphic photos of the murdered children. I’d like to see them shrug and say out loud, “oh well, this is the way it has to be.” I think every future victim deserves to have those justices say that out loud to all of us (just the children as the justices do have other things to tend to – like those sponsored vacations and filling out those pesky financial filings). I’d like to see the justices witness the fruits of the decisions of those who came before them. Their deaths are on Justice. I’ll take their sad repeated dismissals over anyone’s “thoughts and prayers.”
I love to hunt and shoot clays, but I’d give it all up in a heartbeat to stop training this generation to hide in a locked and shuttered classroom. No one should have the right to infringe on this nation to this extent.
I applaud the Doctor’s bravery to speak up and hope those who lead us are inspired by his words to do something to return us to someplace a little saner.
Dr. Will Nichols, I am interested in working with you to spread information to your patients about https://besmartforkids.org/ .
The Be SMART campaign was launched in 2015 to promote responsible gun ownership in order to reduce child gun deaths. Whether you’re a gun owner, or you know someone who owns a gun, there is a role for everyone in the conversation around secure gun storage. Be SMART is a framework that parents, caretakers, and community leaders can follow to help keep their communities safe. Ultimately, you can help prevent kids from accessing firearms by storing them securely, and encouraging others to do the same. Because children deserve to feel safe, no matter where they are.
Our group is working with a number of school districts, healthcare systems and law enforcement offices to help promote adults securely storing firearms. Please contact me if interested.