Lock and Load [NY Times Double Bag Barf Alert]

New York Times ^ | June 27, 2008

[Zakeet]

Thirty-thousand Americans are killed by guns every year — on the job, walking to school, at the shopping mall. The Supreme Court on Thursday all but ensured that even more Americans will die senselessly with its wrongheaded and dangerous ruling striking down key parts of the District of Columbia’s gun-control law.

In a radical break from 70 years of Supreme Court precedent, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, declared that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to bear arms for nonmilitary uses, even though the amendment clearly links the right to service in a “militia.” The ruling will give gun-rights advocates a powerful new legal tool to try to strike down gun-control laws across the nation.

This is a decision that will cost innocent lives, cause immeasurable pain and suffering and turn America into a more dangerous country. It will also diminish our standing in the world, sending yet another message that the United States values gun rights over human life.

There already is a national glut of firearms: estimates run between 193 million and 250 million guns. The harm they do is constantly on heartbreaking display. Thirty-three dead last year in the shootings at Virginia Tech. Six killed this year at Northern Illinois University.

On Wednesday, as the court was getting ready to release its decision, a worker in a Kentucky plastics plant shot his supervisor, four co-workers and himself to death.

Cities and states have tried to stanch the killing with gun-control laws. The District of Columbia, which has one of the nation’s highest crime rates, banned the possession of nearly all handguns and required that other firearms be stored unloaded and disassembled, or bound with a trigger lock.

[VideoPaul]

For a body that portends to be steeped in such tradition and having thorough, almost encyclopaedic knowledge of it, they have conveniently forgotten what a militia was in 1791.

I defy the NYT editorial board to produce one piece of causal proof that more guns in homes exactly equals more deaths. I can provide plenty of evidence of incidents where guns in the home have SAVED lives.

The NYT, as you point out, hides behind the 1st amendment but would rather the 2nd go away entirely.

But even if you disagree with all of this, ask yourself ONE question: What possible reason would the liberals have for wanting to completely disarm the populace??

—PP

[MrB]

Amazing how it never even dawns on the liberal brain (such as it is) that they’re basically advocating that the only people who should have guns is the military and law enforcement.

Leftists are FASCISTS, so, yes, it does occur to them that only the military and LE should have guns. They flat out say so.

PS, you left out "criminals", who will also always have guns.

[tobyhill]

That’s an average of 82 people per day so the MSM better quit bitching about Iraq and Afghanistan.

[mathurine]

I wonder where the figure 30,000 per year killed by guns comes from.

[Slapshot68]

“PS, you left out “criminals”, who will also always have guns.”

Yup...as I told my gun-control advocate sister not too long ago “Yeah, that assault weapons ban really helped to prevent the Columbine shooters from obtaining one”

[rabscuttle385]

First of all, a lot more people die in motor vehicles than from guns. So, how come no ban on owning automobiles and trucks?

Millions have died due to the stupidity of Democrats and Socialists alike. Maybe we should ban their existence!

[caver]

“What possible reason would the liberals have for wanting to completely disarm the populace??”

That’s a great point to keep in mind.

[Slapshot68]

“I wonder where the figure 30,000 per year killed by guns comes from.”

Same place where the “US killed 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians” came from?

[Paladin2]

The NYT, confusing the guns with the perps for decades.

[WayneS]

But they are wrong, even from a grammatical/syntax stand-point.

In the 2nd Amendment, the “militia” statement is part of a DEPENDENT clause. It is, therefore, not capable of standing on its own as a sentence.

The “right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” statement is contained within an INDEPENDENT clause - that is, it has meaning as a complete sentence, even when standing by itself.

Grammatically speaking, dependent clauses do NOT control the meaning of independent clauses when they appear in they same sentence. They may clarify or enhance the independent clause, but the independent clause controls the overall meaning/intent of the sentence as a whole.

Thus, the right to keep and bear arms is NOT in any way dependent on service in a militia and it never has been.

[bert]

.....I wonder where the figure 30,000 per year killed by guns comes from.....

Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Washington, Atlanta, Cleveland, Buffalo, Newark ad infinitum. The number is largely feral urban criminals

[wideawake]

Thirty-thousand Americans are killed by guns every year — on the job, walking to school, at the shopping mall.

This implies that 30,000 Americans are randomly murdered by strangers with firearms each year.

In reality just under 20,000 out of those 30,000 firearm deaths are deliberate suicides.

Out of the remaining 10,000 something like 6,000 are gang and drug related deaths involving individuals who are not innocent bystanders walking to school or shopping at the mall.

Of the remaining 4,000 something like 3,000 are people murdering a relative or a spouse or a significant other - again, not a random killing of a mall shopper or factory worker on the line or a child walking to school.

30,000 people do not die each year in the way the NYT describes - perhaps 500-750 do.

That's why it is a big deal in the newspapers: it is not news in Baltimore or Philadelphia when a drugdealer murders another drugdealer in a territorial or monetary dispute - that describes most murders in those cities. When a stray bullet kills a child walking to school it is front page news because it is a rare occurrence.

[Fellow Traveler]

Suter and Ginsburg are making noises about retiring.

This would be great news. Where did you hear this?

[EdReform]

Let's fix it for them: In a radical break from 70 years of Supreme Court activism...

[laotzu]

declared that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to bear arms for nonmilitary uses, even though the amendment clearly links the right to service in a “militia.”

So....we have an amendment which allows our military to carry weapons?!!

Well, that is good news.

[navyguy]

If this imbecile ever lived in a crime ridden urban area, as I have, he be singing a different tune.

Liberals love to wage tyranny over others from the comfort of their country estates.

[wideawake]

See post 32.

According to the FBI's statistics, of the USA's approximately 15-16,000 homicides per year, 67% are committed with a firearm.

Of America's approximately 32,000 suicides each year, 80% are men of whom 60% use a firearm and 20% are women of whom 30% use a firearm.

There are also some accidental deaths due to firearms each year as well as a a number of killings in self-defense.

The figure is roughly 30,000 - what is misleading is not the number in the editorial but the description of the circumstances.

[coloradan]

Thirty-thousand Americans are killed by guns every year — on the job, walking to school, at the shopping mall.

More than half of these are suicides, a fact which the NYSlimes would never lead an interested but unknowing reader to learn.

[Paladin2]

"But they are wrong, even from a grammatical/syntax stand-point"

Confusing the grammar, they are.

[coloradan]

Bingo. And people wonder why I view the Dinosaur Media Death Watch threads with glee. Your post is why.