Given the two recent incidents in the USA of multiple murders by rampaging gunmen, and my own impression about the seemingly huge volumes of gun deaths in the USA, I thought I would raise this thread as a point for reasoned and amicable discussion.

As a start point I am posting two links that seem to contradict one another:

Summary of data on gun killings worldwide

25 years murder free in Gun Town USA

PS its distressing to see Switzerland in second place to the USA in the stats table.........(but all down to suicides)

:cry: ^_^

Ever the optimist. :lol:

It seems like a dead-end debate to me. The pro-gun lobby is too influential in the US for there to ever be any kind of substantial change in the law.

It's not up to date (1999/2000), but there's an interesting link here detailing the laws in each US State, some of which seem very strange to me.

Its my thread, so there

:P

:lol:

I've edited my previous drivel; detailing the laws in each US State instead. :)

Well, posting a link to someone else who's done it anyway...

Guns for people who want guns. Dope for people who want dope. Click/puff.

Violate the privaledge and you lose it.

I am pretty neutral on the guns debate thing. I don't think they can be gotten rid of suddenly (that would tend to leave them in the hands of bad guys, but take them from non-bad-guys). I think the best way to get rid of them gradually in the US would be to make manufacturers and owners strictly liable for gun damage for not keeping their guns out of criminal and/or careless hands.

If I were making a new nation from scratch, then neither police nor non-police would be allowed guns, with only very narrow exceptions.

Anyway, my gun opinions are pretty wishy washy, but I find the legal side interesting:

1. first, there is a big Supreme Court case coming up this year:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/0...ush_on_2nd.html

That's right, the guy who accidentally shot his friend in the face thinks guns are cool.

2. An issue not raised by the Supeme Court case is whether the 2d Amendment applies against state and local governments. If, say, New York State tried to ban all guns, then would the Second Amendment stop them from doing that. That question is part of a larger Constitutional law debate about a subject called "incorporation." One thing that anti-gun people generally "bleeding heart" liberals like favour incorporation, but incorporation of the 2d amendment would prevent states from banning guns (if any wanted to). OTOH, conservatives generally disfavour incorporation, but failing to apply incorporation to the 2d amendment would allow states to ban guns. In my opinion, failing to apply incorporation would be the quickest way to clear apparent Constitutional strictures against banning guns.

That's very interesting CT, I was unaware the issue was causing discord at such high levels.
From the article it would appear that the administration (Bush) is urging that the courts should decide the issue re DC's gun ban, while Cheney's trying to pre-empt the possibility of it even happening?
What are the legal pathways on deciding on the incorporation question? And if incorporation applies to the 2nd Amendment, can it then be taken to apply to the entire Constitution?

That first link shows NZ with the 4th highest gun-ownership rate in the OECD. That kinda blew me away. But regulations here are strictly enforced - the cops even prosecuted a gunshop owner for shooting a guy that was holding his place up. :o

And our homocide rate is still lower than the aussies - and thats all that matters to us. :P

Does that suggest that there is some form of best practice going on in NZ?

I guess it could be that NZ benefits from being an relatively small island nation with borders that are simpler to control any influx of guns.

Other examples of a relatively high gun population and a low death rate are Sweden, and Portugal.

As a neighbour of US, Canada seems to have a significant gun holding population (half as many homes as the US), but the instances of firearm homicides are only 10% of the US.

What are Canada doing differently to the USA?

Not being American? :whistle:

Its a unique mind-set or a mentality that american's possess. America's great achievements out-shines its violent and murderous past. From the 'clearing' of the eastern seaboard in the 17th and 18th centuries, to the opening-up of the west in the 19th, America has always had the gun by its side. Nowadays, the need for it isnt there, but the mind-set still prevails.

I cant see it changing within my lifetime. <_<

That explains the high levels of ownership in the USA, but not so much that there are 5 times more people murdered by a gun.

Its possible that there are even more guns in the USA than are recorded. Only they are not registered as owned and don't show up in the report.

I don't think that holds the complete answer though. There must be something else that is contributing.

I wonder if the US government has sent anyone across the border to Canada to try to understand why Canada has so many fewer gun related homicides...............

Here are the Constitutional, legal specifics of the gun debate as I see them:

1. Whether or not the federal government can ban (or strictly regulate, I will use "ban" here to mean ban-or-strictly-regulate) guns is a somewhat different question, and a somewhat similar question, to whether the states can ban guns.

2. If the states could ban guns, but the federal government cannot, then one nice consequence is that 50 different approaches could be tried in order to most quickly converge on what our own SnoweyUK might call a "best practices approach" for the USA. One that sufficiently accounts for that stubborn Yankee thirst for freedom and liberty as well as concerns about security.

3. In the upcoming DC gun ban case, I believe that it is only the federal government's right to ban guns that is at issue, technically. I believe that DC law is made under federal power. This is also probably why the (federal) Justice Department is for the gun ban and arguing in its favour at the Supreme Court. Even though George Bush might personally, in his heart, oppose the DC gun ban, the Justice Department is not going to let a lame duck president to do anything to impair federal power with respect to any federal power.

4. Supposedly, the main Constitutional legal issue in the DC gun ban case is whether the 2d Amendment (the part of the Constitution that bestows gun rights) is "individual" or "collective." Supposedly, this will have a lot of consequences. I say "supposedly" about these things, because I think that the Supreme Court will take the legal debate in a different direction.

5. My own prediction is that the Supreme Court will say that the 2d Amendment means that governmental entities bound by the 2d Amendment will be able to regulate guns so long as they do not put an "undue burden" on gun ownership. The Supreme Court will probably say that it is up to the court system (and ultimately the Supreme Court) to decide what an "undue burden" is. The case might clarify what "undue burden" means with respect specifically to bans of handguns in large metropolitan areas, or it might not (for example, the Supreme Court may remand after setting the Constitutional 2d Amendment standards). Generally speaking, however, if the Supreme Court does what I think it will do, the extent to which governmental entities bound by the Second Amendment can ban guns will not be much clearer than it is today. It will probably remain unclear for decades.

6. In point #5, I kept saying "governmental entities bound by the second amendment." That is because it is not clear that the 2d Amendment applies against state and local (other than Wash DC) governments at all. If it does not, then state and local governments can ban (see point #2 above). This is the incorporation dispute. As I understand the incorporation dispute: (i) immediately after the Constitution was written the 2d Amendment (and the other Amendments of the Bill of Rights) did NOT APPLY against state/local governments. After the American Civil War they wrote some new, additional Amendments. One of these new amendments had some mysterious language. The Supreme Court has held that this mysterious language in the new amendment means that at least some of the Bill of Rights apply against the states/local governments. So far as I know, every time there has been a dispute about whether a provision of the Bill of Rights is "incorporated" against state/local governments, the Supreme Court has found that it is. However, I don't think the Court has ever held that ALL of them necessarily are. I think the Court has reserved unto itself the prerogative to decide whether each of the Amendments are "incorporated" and that it has never decided this issue with respect to the Second Amendment.

7. There are some reasons, that the Supreme Court may eventually find the Second Amendment to NOT be "incorporated," thereby allowing states to ban guns:

(i) these bans arguably have more to do with public safety and law enforcement than individual rights and judicial process (as opposed to, say, freedom of religion or right to a criminal jury trial);

(ii) the Second Amendment mentions the States specifically, unlike the other relevant ones in the Bill of Rights;

(iii) "incorporation" is politically popular, and this may be a way for the Court to turn the tide on all-inclusive incorporation in a politically acceptable way (this is especially true because gun-haters tend to love "incorporation" and vice versa).

Am I right in thinking that when america was first settled, treaty,s were signed with natives, and the europeans were supposed to stay in their sector.
Certain pioneers, encroached on indian land, and some were attacked.
It was the english army,s job to sort out trouble, but they said to the farmers, 'its your own fault, and you cant retaliate with weapons, or form a group(militia) and go and get revenge.'
The constitution owes its wording, to this situation, (am I right here? or is there more to its history?).
----------------------
On the town that banned guns, of course crime went up for a while. Its going to take a few years for the situation to even out, but that could be helped by a flat 10 years prison for posession of a gun.
( In fact that should be the law on unregistered guns, 10 years, one fingerprint on an unregistered gun) 2 strikes--Life. Guns kill.
[nice thread snowey]

Well dope is only going to effect the user. Guns will threaten innocent people.

I think they should all be banned, it's utter madness in this day and age to have private ownership of guns.

That is the Native American side of the story. The Euro-settler side of the story is that the Indians couldn't abide and stay in their own contractual sectors and made terrorist attacks on sweet little white girls in pink bonnets and meaty cattle and such. In the 1800s, it was popular to believe the Euro-Settler side of the story. Starting in the late 1900s, it became popular to believe the Native American side.

I think that people like to believe one side of the story or another, because if one side is substantially true, then it becomes easy to make value judgements about what happened, and ppl like it when value judgements are easy to make. They don't have to use their thinkers too much!

My best guess is that each side of the story is approximately 50% true. Even assuming that there were frequent and endemic Native American terrorist attacks, I don't necessarily think these justified the genocide that followed.

A few years ago I was teaching one of the top dogs of Swiss Re in London, and he told me that he had driven down to the South of France from Switzerland for a holiday. Anyway he ran into some bother with a couple of lads on scooters and so he said: I ran back to my car and grabbed my gun..." "You grabbed...?" I interjected. "Yes, my gun" he said. "I always carry it with me when I'm travelling in Europe." He didn't shoot the lads. I think :huh: .

The new Swiss eh?

The point I was trying to emphasise was the resentment towards the english army and their reluctance to engage with the natives---worse yet, they tried to ban the settlers from doing anything, (no poss,es,(militias)) and so the 2nd amendment was 'reactionary' to a single situation. Not thought out as a First principle, rights of man, kind of thing.
( and why should you have a right to chase happiness? If you were silly enough to lose it, thats your tough luck, surely?)

It isn't? Are there any other constitutional provisions that are not applicable to the states?

States can't pass laws that violate the federal Constitution. All the states are bound by all provisions of the Constitution. That's what ratification means.

Saying "that doesn't apply to us" is the same as saying "states have the right to ignore any federal law or constitutional provision it doesn't agree with." The "state's rights" argument. Seems to me we had a war to settle that issue...

:grrr:

Do you think there's any link between this and Americans' self-perception?

Whoa. Hard to know where to begin on this one...

To place the blame for what you describe as a genocide even in part on Native Americans is breathtakingly stupid.

You seem to ascribe to the Homer Simpson school of political discourse: when it comes to facts, they are meaningless, because facts can be used to prove anything that is even remotely true.

Conservatives, it seems to me, are adept at undermining the factual underpinnings of any political issue, to make their argument seem more legitimate. Oppose efforts to impose restrictions on industry (because you're a free-market capitalist) to reduce carbon emissions responsible for global warming? First argue that global warming doesn't exist. Ignore the facts, or claim the facts aren't facts, and go from there...

Anyway...Native Americans. Not their fault.

although it would appear to be fairly straightforward to make an overarching value judgement on the colonisation of north america without reference to either side of the story.

that's assuming we can be reasonably consensual in our assessment of the merits of genocide, of course.

1. Here is the full scoop:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_(Bill_of_Rights)

2. I don't think that terrorist attacks should be used to justify attacks on civilians these days. Not in Afghanistan, not in Iraq, not in Lebanon, not in Iran, not in Africa, not anywhere. I felt so strongly about this, and so alienated about it living in the US circa 2003, that I even left the country for a few years. That said, I hesitate to to fully apply my modern ethics (which a lot of modern USians don't agree with anyway) on people who lived in the US long before my family got there. I also think it is acceptable to use a pure comparative fault approach to brutal wars fought in the distant past. All that said: America did bad by the Native Americans and they richly deserve the casinos and tax breaks we now give them and they now enjoy.

I dont think the blame is being put on the Natives here.
But rather what is being said, is that the people of that time, used the native attacks (real or imagined) as an 'Exscuse' for 'Attacks' of their own, and further encroachments upon the native Land.
My own take on this is that after the rebels gained independence, they were like the bad son who goes wild when inheriting the family fortune. (and their still wild today)

I know I was using "genocide" a bit loosely here. North Americans never intended to and did not kill all the Native Americans, even though they probably could have. In that sense there was no genocide.

If we go to a broader definition, that might encompass things like the bombing of Tokyo (by the US) or Dresden (by the Allies generally) or the My Lai massacre (US), then no, I don't think there is wide societal agreement about the morality of this kind of "genocide."

well we're all pretty much obliged to use the term without being too anal about it (you will be more knowledgeable than i will when it comes to legal parameters for the term).

if the criteria for using the word included the complete and successful eradication of a race or group then we wouldn't even be able to apply it to what happened during WWII. Etnic cleansing would be a better term for north american experience, wouldn't it?

and we could i think reach a consensus on its merits?

No. Native Americans who wanted to join America were allowed to, I believe. their ethnicity wasn't the thing. The two things were:

(1) to some extent, their land was coveted; and

(2) to some extent, the Euro-settlers wanted to stop their terrorist attacks.

I think most people think it is either all (1) or all (2). My own best guess is that it was half (1) and half (2). I think people who want it to be all (1) or all (2) simplify mostly because the moral issues are easier if it is all (1) or all (2) and people like things to be simple.

Yes, well...just because certain conservatives continued the fight against racial equality (post Civil War) by making these sorts of arguments, I notice that no provision has ever been held to be inapplicable to the states. So I guess its another case of conservatives saying that unless there is a case directly on point, nothing says what it means or means what it says.

native americans who didn't want to join america ended up on reservations. the choice between joining america or not was foisted upon them. the option of joining america and retaining, in its entirety and with its integrity intact, their own culture and way of life was not on the table. i think the term ethnic cleansing is very appropriate. i'm not u.s. bashing, any more than i would be brit bashing if i discussed the empire.

i'm not going to respond to your use of the word terrorist because i think its mischievous, and you and i have knocked up several pages on a thread in the past due to my failure to recognise your mischief ;)

Both (1) and (2) are inaccurate.

There is no question their land was coveted. The relationship between "euro-settlers" and the aboriginal peoples was all about land.

I don't know what "terrorist" attacks you are referring to. Please stop using that term to refer to some alleged violence you believe was perpetrated by Native Americans against "settlers."

Also, Indians were not offered American citizenship until 1924.

You have it sort of correct on the political dynamics "incorporation" issues that came up back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, but you have it backwards when it comes to the political dynamics behind the issue of incorporation of the 2d Amendment. Here is the interesting conundrum:

conservatives historically favour gun rights and disfavour incorporation. Therefore, if a conservative Supreme Court justice wants to "incorporate" the 2d Amendment, then that conservative will need to say things hurtful to her position on incorporation issues generally.

On the other side:

liberals historically disfavour gun rights and favour incorporation. Therefore, if a liberal Supreme Court justice wants to not "incorporate" the 2d Amendment, then that liberal will need to say things hurtful to her position on incorporation issues generally.

For this reason, neither side wants the issue of incorporation of the 2d Amendment to come up. However, someday it will, and, on that day, there will be some mightily conflicted judges (and laypeople to the extent they think about such things).

(1) ethnic leansing means killing people based on ethnicity, and not merely failing to offer them full political rights. also, I think the 1924 law referred to an offer of citizenship en masse without applying for same. I am not sure when Native Americans could first apply on an individual basis, but I think it was earlier. Importantly, tho, even if it was 1924, failing to give citizenship is not tantamount to "ethnic cleansing."

(2) http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Frontier-Atroci...n/dp/0375503749

http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0700/frames.../0701_0143.html

Ethnic Cleansing: The elimination of an unwanted group from a society, as by genocide or forced migration.

I think the difference is that Native Americans, for the most part, did not want to become part of US society. Or to put it another way, you can't eliminate a group from society if they are not in the society to begin with. I guess the question is, if some Native American wanted to buy a house on Euro-Settler land (if he had money) or go work in a shoe factory on Euro-settler land, would they have let him?

Would they have let him in 1800?

1850?

1875?

I suspect the answers to all these questions is yes, but I can't say as I know for sure.

http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0700/frames.../0701_0143.html

i think there's a technical correctness to what you say, but an aspect is being missed whether for rhetorical reasons or inadvertently. the very issue of becoming part of american society or not was forced upon them. the settlers were trespassing. they were forced to relocate as a result of an agression by the society that became the dominant one. they were also often slaughtered as a result of this aggression.

if the U.S. forces, in an effort to create from scratch a model Iraq, in the image of the US , were to apply pressure that resulted in the death or forcible relocation of sunni muslims, the world would have no problem recognising that a process of ethnic cleansing was taking place, even though the sunnis would never have previously been a part of the new iraq, you can see that they would have been removed from the new iraq.

thats the parallel.

I only half agree with this. I also think they were relocated and/or killed, in large part because of their own terrorist attacks. I can't tell whether you are denying that terrorist attacks took place, or whether you are saying that the terrorist attacks were justified as "blowback" for the settlers' acts of oppression.

My guess is that your main objective here is to avoid admitting that Indian terrorism had anything to do with the brutality with which they were treated. That makes things easier on your thinker, but is not true to the historical record.

I took a quick look at that link. It is interesting and generally relevant, but did not answer these particular questions.

neither. i'm trying to draw your attention to the trespass.

no matter how unacceptable you consider the behaviour of some native americans, if there were no settlers, there would have been no one to attack.