Here's one I found particularly insane, er, I mean thought provoking:
You write: "The courts members ignored the present-day reality of Chicago, where 258 public school students were shot last school year 32 fatally." That's precisely the point, banning guns in Chicago has been in effect for years and look at the results! Maybe the theory that a law banning guns actually eliminates all guns is faulty, maybe the Prohibition should have taught us something?
Robert V
New York
Jun 29, 2010 2:57 PM
So basically Robert here believes keeping people from buying guns actually kills people.
Right.
Because when I don't shoot the gun I don't have, I actually end up shooting someone.
"Well that doesn't make sense," you say and that's true, it doesn't, but that is Robert's argument.
The simple counter-argument to this idiot is that while many guns that end up in the hands of Chicagoans aren't legally purchased, legally purchased guns outside of Chicago can easily make their way inside Chicago.
The bit of control that the City of Chicago held onto before this Supreme Court ruling has vanished and those 200 something students that were shot in Chicago last school year while there was a gun ban, well, now more students or any other people who want to get guns can find them much more easily and do a lot more damage.
It's a pretty simple equation: 258 people shot+more guns= more people shot. I think I read that in a Harvard study or something.
Here are a couple hypothetical situations to clear things up for Robert:
I thought most people would want to prevent deaths, not provoke them, but, considering this decision and its decision on the DC handgun ban, that is the direction that the court seems to be taking.
You write: "The courts members ignored the present-day reality of Chicago, where 258 public school students were shot last school year 32 fatally." That's precisely the point, banning guns in Chicago has been in effect for years and look at the results! Maybe the theory that a law banning guns actually eliminates all guns is faulty, maybe the Prohibition should have taught us something?
Robert V
New York
Jun 29, 2010 2:57 PM
So basically Robert here believes keeping people from buying guns actually kills people.
Right.
Because when I don't shoot the gun I don't have, I actually end up shooting someone.
"Well that doesn't make sense," you say and that's true, it doesn't, but that is Robert's argument.
He is comparing Chicago's gun ban to the Prohibition of Alcohol from 1920-1933 in which the crime rate went up because people were illegally acquiring alcohol. However, that just doesn't make sense because the consumption of alcohol during Prohibition wasn't used to commit other crimes - guns are.
The simple counter-argument to this idiot is that while many guns that end up in the hands of Chicagoans aren't legally purchased, legally purchased guns outside of Chicago can easily make their way inside Chicago.
The bit of control that the City of Chicago held onto before this Supreme Court ruling has vanished and those 200 something students that were shot in Chicago last school year while there was a gun ban, well, now more students or any other people who want to get guns can find them much more easily and do a lot more damage.
It's a pretty simple equation: 258 people shot+more guns= more people shot. I think I read that in a Harvard study or something.
Here are a couple hypothetical situations to clear things up for Robert:
Example #1: Some guy, for the sake of the story I'll call him Henry, wants to rob a bank but never had the time to go through the trouble to illegally acquire a gun. All that has changed. Now Henry can run to the local gun shop, buy a gun, wait for clearance from the state (Henry, of course, has a clean record), and then walk across the street to the bank, rob the bank of $10,000 and kill two innocent bank customers standing his way while fleeing the scene.
Example #2: Theodore is a mentally unstable 18 year old who really hates this one kid at his school, we'll call him Pat. Theodore never would have taken it upon himself to try to acquire a gun illegally, but given that owning a handgun in Chicago is now legal, Theo goes to the gun store, picks up a nice little piece, goes to school the next day, and plows down Pat.
I feel like a crazy conservative crying about domestic security, but unlike their usual banter, mine actually makes sense and is legitimate.
This new ruling can reak havoc and the Times is 100% correct when it states that when "the court's conservative majority imposed its selective reading of American history, citing the country's violent separation from Britain and the battles over slavery as proof that the authors of the Constitution and its later amendments considered gun ownership a fundamental right," that the court's "members ignored the present-day reality of Chicago."
This isn't 1776 and it's not 1860, we haven't actually fought (with, like, tanks or canons or what have you) a war on our soil in around 150 years. Sure we've been attacked, but who's to say we could prevent those attacks with guns?
I know what some of you are thinking, "if someone had a gun on an airplane during the 9/11 attacks it possibly could have been prevented," well, maybe, but who's to say that if guns were allowed on planes that terrorists wouldn't use them? (They would). And who's to say there wouldn't been a lot more attacks? (There would).
This new ruling can reak havoc and the Times is 100% correct when it states that when "the court's conservative majority imposed its selective reading of American history, citing the country's violent separation from Britain and the battles over slavery as proof that the authors of the Constitution and its later amendments considered gun ownership a fundamental right," that the court's "members ignored the present-day reality of Chicago."
This isn't 1776 and it's not 1860, we haven't actually fought (with, like, tanks or canons or what have you) a war on our soil in around 150 years. Sure we've been attacked, but who's to say we could prevent those attacks with guns?
I know what some of you are thinking, "if someone had a gun on an airplane during the 9/11 attacks it possibly could have been prevented," well, maybe, but who's to say that if guns were allowed on planes that terrorists wouldn't use them? (They would). And who's to say there wouldn't been a lot more attacks? (There would).
The thing is that airlines don't allow people to bring guns on planes because guns are dangerous. Sure guns can defend but they can also kill. And by kill I mean death, and I read in another study from Harvard that death is not good for you.
Samuel Alito, Jr., the justice who wrote the majority opinion for the court (the majority and dissenting opinions actually take up 214 pages, be my guest if you want to read them) actually stated that restrictions should be made, like "forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings." The court is being hypocritical in saying that a city cannot disallow handgun ownership inside city limits because a law like Chicago's is a restriction akin to taking a gun into a bank, a school, a government building, or onto a plane.
I thought most people would want to prevent deaths, not provoke them, but, considering this decision and its decision on the DC handgun ban, that is the direction that the court seems to be taking.
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