Justice Scalia Wants You to Have Every Opportunity to Off Yourself

Firearms just make suicide attempts more successful!

It means that someone who makes a decision, for themselves, that they'd rather be dead than continue the life they're living (think of it as "Choice", where you terminate your Mother's pregnancy..), will be more likely to achieve what they set out to achive, rather than botch the job and end up an even more unhappy vegetable for another 40 intolerable years.

Hey People,

This is such a bunch of crap..!!! If someeone wants to off themselves, they will just go and jump off a bridge.
You lib's will do and say ANYTHING to get the population to be disarmed. You are the true Facists and long for the 60's when utopia was in sight. Maybe you should look overseas and see the violence that is coming twords us, and be happy that when they fanatics come, we will be able to defend our country..:-)

BIll

Another point, maybe this is a good way to cut down on the menally ill passing on defective jeans..?
Kind of like Gods way of washing the gene pool..?

Bill

You are wrong

Oddly, I sort of agree with Bill. I imagine that 90% of suicides will eventually be successful, (hand)gun or not.

However, not having a gun could stall such attempts until said person was found by others, getting them some help.

Hmm, a fine line. But this ultimate liberal is 100% 2nd amendment, anyway.

A fundamental question arises.

Do you, or do you not own your own life?

Is it the property of the government?

That's one issue I think Ronald Reagan spoke to correctly when he opposed a military draft.
The draft says the government owns your life, to dispose of as it sees fit, and that, folks, is NOT Liberty and Justice.

Laws telling you can't give up something that's yours but you don't want any more (life) are based on the same premise.

I love the "Christmas Story" mentality so many of the NRA koolaid drinkers have, where with their Red Rider BB Gun, they'll be prepared to stop the coming invasion of bad guys.

[Bacon] "I love the "Christmas Story" mentality so many of the NRA koolaid drinkers have, where with their Red Rider BB Gun, they'll be prepared to stop the coming invasion of bad guys."

"It has always interested me that when it comes to guns, the same people who campaign for social justice sound just like the ignorant, racist, homophobic, and xenophobic people they claim to be against."
--Posted by: JKW - 05/24/07--

CONSTITUTIONAL HERETICS ARE THE REASON FOR THE SECOND AMENDMENT
Presently, the judicial, legislative and executive branches of America's Constitutional government, "by the People and for the People", are comprised of two distinct classes of people: patriots and patriophobes. The patriots love and cherish their Christian culture and Constitutional law, and the patriophobes fear and hate it.
The ideology of the patriophobes is Neo-Marxism. Historically, it was introduced to America at the end of World War II, when millions of pathetic Marxist refugees from Nazi Germany and Russia were trustingly accepted as immigrants.
The greatest threats to the “Constitutional rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” of the American People are not from murders and other common outlaws, but from criminal elements within the highest levels of government. The Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms was added to the Constitution to make government leaders fear the People; and, in cases where they governed against the democratic majority will of the People, a means to rise in bloody revolt against them. The minority of Constitutional heretics now serving like self-appointed legislators on the Supreme Court, notoriously attempting to somehow abrogate the dreaded Right to Bear Arms, is a good example of why there is such vital need for this Second Amendment to the Constitution.
If the American People cannot peacefully restore their Christian culture and Constitutional Law by Cultural War, then they shall resort to the extraordinary bloody revolutionary powers granted to them by the Second Amendment to their Constitution.

I am a huge, old school Liberal. But I am actually shocked that anyone is shocked at the court's decision. I am from the South, and it has always been taken for granted that an individual has the right to own a gun. I was surprised that the ruling was 5-4 and not 7-2.

As awful as gun violence is in America, people are way out of touch with the mainstream of this country if they ever thought that a man doesn't have the right to own a gun. That is exactly what the Second Amendment says and exactly what its authors meant.

I'm a leftist and own 4 guns. The fascists and their government actually want you to be disarmed. Plenty of leftists have guns, End is Nigh. We're ready for you.

Yes, suicide is the leading cause of death. However, if I was a wife or child, and 'dad' had a few loose screws, or an anger or depression or drug problem, I'd be a little worried about guns in the house.

That does not rule out the right to own guns, however, no more than it rules out the right to own knives. But again, folks, take the gun away from psycho.

We'd better also take away Dad's belt and shoelaces, keep the aspirin under lock & key and take away his car keys.

Maybe we can get the government to outlaw all those things in order to 'protect' Dad from making a decision the government doesn't want him to make (reducing their pool of taxpayers).

Unfortunately, this does not concern the government, it concerns the family. You could consider actually dealing with the issue at hand, and live up to your name.

Luckily, the family members cannot be killed with dad's aspirin or shoelaces, or his road rage (unless they are in the car.)

So, again, commonsense, if "Dad" has serious issues, then I'd worry about his gun collection - not for his survival, but for their own.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/01/lawsuit-filed-to-carry-we_n_110270.html

So who's right is more important? The right of anyone to carry a gun into an airport or the right of everyone else passing through that airport not to have a bunch of random civilian strangers walking around with guns?

I'm for guns, I think they're great, and fun as hell. I think they'd be fine to be treated like bowling balls. It's either home, or you bring it to the alley/range. You don't need a bowling ball in an airport and you sure as hell don't need a gun.

If you say you want to own a gun because it makes you feel good, fine. That's honest and reasonable and I agree with your constitutional right. If you say you want to carry it to fight crime or an impending invasion of non-descript fanatics, you're probably exactly the person who shouldn't get to have guns.

Unfortunately, this does not concern the government..

HUH?!?!

You sure couldn't tell it from the fact that one of the three branches of the Federal government just dealt with it, or by the 20,000 or more laws Federal, State and Local governments have passed to control not so much guns, as who has a right to own them.
The very title of this article states "conclusively" that the Chief Justice (TOP Guy in the Judicial branch of Federal GOVERNMENT) wants us to have guns so that we can effectively "off ourselves".
Does it not?

Doesn't government pass laws making suicide a "crime"?
Answer: Yes, it does. And I disagree that they have been granted any such ownership of our lives.

When it comes to "offing" other family members in the process, that is INDEED a crime under any reasonable evaluation.

family members cannot be killed with dad's ... shoelaces...
Wanna BET? Wanna bet family members somewhere HAVEN'T been killed with Dad's shoelaces?

But GOVERNMENT certainly seems to think it (suicide) concerns Them!
And so does Jonathan Stein.

Scalia is NOT the "Chief" Justice, and is just ONE of the Nine top peeps in the Judicial Branch.

Gun rights advocates such as myself, when arguing with people like you, have been pointing out FOR YEARS that well over half of gun deaths every year are suicides. And now this is some shocking revelation? We've been telling you this all along.

The old refrain of "they will find a way anyway" is a myth. A large percentage of suicides are opportunistic. It's not always that well planned and thought out. Someone is in a deep depression and the opportunity presents itself (a bridge without safeguards, a gun in the house) and they just go for it. People make unsuccessful attempts all the time and yet go on to get help and never try again.

Somehow, I don't think the Supreme Court gave a damn about any statistics when it wrote the opinion.

The meat of the opinion is this (slip op. at 25):

"...the Second Amendment's prefatory clause announces the purpose for which the right was codified: to prevent elimination of the militia. The prefatory clause does not suggest that preserving the militia was the only reason Americans valued the ancient right; most undoubtedly thought it even more important for self-defense and hunting. But the threat that the new Federal Government would destroy the citizens' militia by taking away their arms was the reason that right—unlike some other English rights—was codified in a written Constitution."

I think the coming debate - and the debate that should have been going on all along - is whether or not the Constitution ought to be amended in order to repeal the Second Amendment.

Thus, I think Justice Scalia's concluding remarks to the opinion (p.64) are correct:

"Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."

Missing the point by a mile.

If you live with a person who has a hair trigger temper (and perhaps you are one of those, given the CAPS and 'shoelaces of death' comments...) it is only reasonable to protect the husband from himself or protect the family from him. Then the presence of guns in the home can become an issue. It is still not yet a government issue, as no crime has yet been comitted.

Here in Minnesota, periodically, a husband kills himself and his whole family. It happens all over the country. Neighbors always say, "They seemed like such a normal family."

Let's say dad has a .44 magnum and a semi-shotgun and several deer rifles, and beats his wife, or smokes meth, or just suffers from rageoholic bouts against himself or others. Scares the children. And the closet is full of guns. Get the picture?

And since you didn't seem to notice, I support the 2nd Amendment and own 4 guns myself. My children and wife were never scared, but there might be husband's out there that need to take that into consideration if they have personality issues. Unless they LIKE scaring their family.

"Another point, maybe this is a good way to cut down on the menally ill passing on defective jeans..?"

haha, thanks for the laugh. The last time I had defective jeans I brought them back to Levi's.

The logic of gun control can best be understood by considering the analogy of the automobile. A car is a potentially lethal weapon. To drive a car, one must be trained, licensed, and have that license periodically renewed. And a car is designed solely as a means of transportation. Guns, on the other hand, are deliberately designed to kill people. It is not unreasonable to demand their regulation.

Guns are the second deadliest consumer product (after cars) on the market. By the end of the decade, firearms will likely supplant automobiles as the leading cause of product-related deaths throughout the United States. In 1990, American guns claimed an estimated 37,000 lives. There are no federal safety standards for the domestic manufacture of guns. There are no voluntary, industry-wide safety standards for the manufacture of guns.

Every two minutes, somebody somewhere in the United States is shot. Every 14 minutes, somebody dies from a gunshot wound. Each gun injury involving hospitalization costs $33,159. A license to sell a gun costs 83 cents per month.

A gun rolls off the assembly line in America every 10 seconds. America imports another gun every 11 seconds. There are 246,984 gun dealers in the United States, but only 240 inspectors to keep an eye on them.

There is a popular myth that handgun ownership makes people safer. In reality, the New England Journal of Medicine reports that a handgun in the home is 43 times more likely to kill the owner, a family member, or a friend than it is to kill an intruder. Over 75 percent of firearm deaths in a typical year involve handguns. The FBI Uniform Crime Statistics Report says that nationally, there were 38,317 firearm deaths in 1992, but fewer than 300 justifiable homicides.

Another myth is that gun control laws don t make a difference. In reality, strict handgun regulation saves lives. In Washington, D.C., a tougher gun law actually reduced homicides by 25 percent through the mid-1980s. Again, the New England Journal of Medicine reports that 47 lives were saved in Washington, D.C., in a typical year studied, because of that city's handgun ban.

Most other industrialized nations have virtual bans on handgun sales. In 1990, handguns were used in the homicides of 13 people in Sweden, 91 in Switzerland, 87 in Japan, 22 in Great Britain, and 68 in Canada, compared to 10,567 in the United States.

Is gun control constitutional? The Second Amendment refers to "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." Roger Tatarian, professor emeritus of journalism at California State University, Fresno, notes, however, that "things can change over time" with regards to the original intent of the founders.

The Third Amendment, for example, protects citizens against compulsory quartering of troops in private homes. Technology has also made obsolete the constitutional provision giving Congress the right to declare war. "No president who is warned that a hostile missile is en route...has time nowadays to ask Congress for a declaration of war before responding," states Tartarian. "He can commit the country to an all-out war simply by pressing a button."

Tartarian observes: "The Constitution certainly does not ban private ownership of weapons; that would have been unthinkable for a people still living in an often hostile natural environment and where many depended on hunting for a livelihood. But a tradition of owning arms is one thing and a constitutional guarantee is quite another. They ought not be confused

According to Tatarian: "The Second Amendment as it now exists evolved from a draft offered by James Madison on June 8, 1789. His intent very clearly was to tie the constitutional right to own arms to service in official militias regulated by state governments." Madison's original proposal reads:

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person."

The final version of the amendment which emerged from a House-Senate conference on September 25, 1789, also tied the constitutional right to bear arms to service in a militia, and stated that such militias are to be "well regulated":

"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."

Clearly, the Second Amendment does not apply to individuals outside the context of "a well regulated militia." A handgun control ordinance was upheld by the U.S. Seventh Court of Appeals in 1982, which issued the following statement: "We conclude that the right to keep and bear handguns is not guaranteed by the Second Amendment."

The Supreme Court let the decision stand by refusing to hear the appeal of the handgun lobby. The Supreme Court ruled in United States vs. Cruikshank that the Second Amendment doesn't mean anything except "(the right to keep and bear arms) shall not be infringed by Congress."

This 1876 ruling established that states and localities are not prevented from enacting their own gun control laws--and they remain free to do so to this day. In 1980, the Supreme Court reconfirmed that "these legislative restrictions on the use of firearms do not trench upon any constitutionally protected liberties."

Guns should be regulated like other consumer products. Handguns and assault rifles should be banned, and ammunition should be taxed heavily.

I'm liberal, grew up with guns in the house, and think the 2nd Amendment protects the individual right to own guns. The people arguing that they own their guns "to protect themselves from the government" are disingenuous. There's no way they're foolish enough to believe what they're saying. The gov't has tanks, fighter jets, and nukes. And you want to defend yourself with a 9MM? If you truly believed your own argument, you'd be saying that individuals should have the right to own RPGs, land mines and Patriot missiles. But you know that then people would think you're batshit insane.

Shame they forgot to post info about all other forms of suicide - eg, auto "accidents", "accidental overdoses", alcholism, etc.

It's also a shame that they failed to mention that doctors kill more people than people with guns do.

We ALL know that guns don't kill, PEOPLE do! That is, IF you want to be honest.

I have a comment stuck in moderation .... please release it :(

"We ALL know that guns don't kill, PEOPLE do! That is, IF you want to be honest."

Just as we ALL know that cars don't kill! The operation of vehicles are regulated heavily, to the extent that I have to have my Doctor fill out a form every 6 months, stating that I'm capable of driving safely, because I admitted to the DMV that I take an anti-depressant drug.

Guns don't kill people - bullets do. The Constitution doesn't mention anything about the right to bear bullets. That's because there weren't any bullets in those days. So I say we should follow the original intent of the framers and allow people to have guns, but let's outlaw bullets. Prohibiting bullets does nothing that conflicts with the framers' original intent. Since Scalia is so committed to the idea of respecting the intent of the framers, he won't have a problem with such a law. And imagine the surprise for the guy who decides to blow his brains out, only to hear his gun go "click." That'll make him think again. Yes, I believe I have found the solution to the problem.

Vasu Murti, you car analogy falls flat on a couple of levels.

"To drive a car, one must be trained, licensed, and have that license periodically renewed."

Yes, to take a car out onto public roads, one must be trained, licensed and have that license periodically renewed. However, one does not need to fulfill any of those requirements to simply OWN a car and keep it on their own property. I don't have a driver's license, and I can purchase and own as many cars as I want to, provided I don't drive them around in public.

Likewise, in order to carry a concealed firearm out into public, you must be trained, licensed and have that license renewed (except for that high-crime murder capital, Vermont, which has no restrictions). But having something in your own home is different from carrying it around—or driving it around—publicly.

"And a car is designed solely as a means of transportation. Guns, on the other hand, are deliberately designed to kill people."

Aside from my disagreement with you that guns are only "designed to kill people," there's another important difference between cars and firearms: Owning a firearm, whether you like it or not, is a constitutional right. Driving a car is merely a privilege. So it's bad comparison.

Guns are the second deadliest consumer product (after cars) on the market.

Wrong. First of all, automobiles kill twice as many people as firearms, so even if you were correct, it's not a close second. However, alcohol and tobacco—consumer products—kill more people every year than cars and guns combined.

"In reality, the New England Journal of Medicine reports that a handgun in the home is 43 times more likely to kill the owner, a family member, or a friend than it is to kill an intruder. "

This is funny—you're quoting a "statistic" from 1986 that has been thoroughly and completely debunked for it's shoddy methodology many times over—I bet you're not even familiar with the "study" or how the author arrived at those numbers.

I am not going to include a link because then my comment will get caught in moderation and not posted, but google "Is My Own Gun More Likely to be Used Against Me or My Family?" or "Kellerman debunked!" to see how absurd that "fact" is.

"Handguns and assault rifles should be banned, and ammunition should be taxed heavily."

You don't even know what an "assault weapon" is.

lawyerfan, your logic is terrible:

The Constitution doesn't mention anything about bullets. That's because there weren't any bullets in those days. So I say we should follow the original intent of the framers and allow people to have guns, but let's outlaw bullets. Prohibiting bullets does nothing that conflicts with the framers' original intent.

You are clearly confused as to the difference between the letter of the amendment and the intent of it—banning ammunition most certainly conflicts with the framer's INTENT, but not the letter.

However, according to your ridiculous logic, our first amendment rights extend only to speech spoken, written with quill pens on parchment, or printed with hand-operated printing presses. Newspapers, recorded music, television, telephones, personal computers, email, text messaging and the internet should only be available with government permission: registered, licensed and the content subject to government approval, right?

After all, none of those things existed when the framers ratified the constitution.

Vasu Murti and lawyerfan, right on! Guav, take your gun and eat it.

LAWERFAN:
If there were no 'bullets', they must have all blown smoke. Ever hear of ball ammo and mini balls? I'm sure you've heard 'mini balls' mentioned in your presence. There were no "cartridges" , or pre-loaded ammo!
You sound like the type who buys into everything the 'SEEDY SEE',(CDC), 'sows'!
DUTCHMAN

VASU MURTI:
A cell phone 'conversation' in a moving vehicle pretty much cancels out the driver's ability to maintain full control of the vehicle, therefore negating his/her ability to maintain the standard expected of a responsible, safe driver. Cell phone conversations invariably get the driver emotionally involved -- unlike CB usage, which serves an entirely different purpose. But a car can be turned into a lethal weapon more often than a responsible gun owner would even consider 'going for it'. In the near future the AAA will have statistics available about the carnage caused by sober, licensed drivers who cared more about that 'cell' than your life.
DUTCHMAN

Wow KillGuns, your mature, thoughtful and sophisticated comment, rich with evidence and rational, logical arguments, has completely refuted my infantile hysterics.

Don't I feel stupid.

Re the SUICIDE issue:
That's really pointless. People who are hell-bent on committing suicide will use any method available to them. Some people will drive their car into a vehicle full of innocents with no regard to those others. Anti-gunners might 'feel' better by OD'ing. I think just about anyone would be relieved if the 'suicide' shot himself/herself rather than crash a car (the most readily avaiable 'weapon') into an innocent family in order to achieve the most selfish act of cowardice. Suicide is an entirely different bag -- generally it is not a violent act against others; unless, of course you believe everything the "Seedy See" wants to shove at you in the name of Public Health Issues. The Seedy See should stick to its original mission: physical disease control, not political mind bending. Ciao!
DUTCHMAN

So Vasu Murti thinks handguns and assault rifles should be banned. Too bad the biggest customers for such weapons are police and military forces, whose supply contracts demand the production of millions. I defy Vasu Murti, or anyone else, to keep perfect track of millions of anything when the total black-market value of the items in question exceeds the Gross National Product of most countries. There are certain immutable economic realities, just as there are certain social costs that come with armies and police forces - both John F. Kennedy and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. were killed by obsolete military rifles, and the Thompson Submachine Gun of ganster fame was designed and marketed as a police weapon. If a government doesn't think civilians should have certain kinds of guns, it needs to curb its own appetite and stop issuing them to every soldier and law officer.

I share Jeugenen's surprise at the closely divided ruling, although legal analyses in the following days strongly suggested that much of the constitutional basis for the ban hinged on the fact that DC is not a State - a legalistic fig leaf if I've ever seen one. And Vasu Murti's recitation of statistics supporting the DC ban reminded me of the discussion, on the PBS NewsHour in the days following the decision, with one of the lawyers who argued for the District before the Court. In the course of the NewsHour interview, he claimed that "the empirical data didn't support" claims of the ban's ineffectiveness. Well excuse me, but I was a resident of the DC area from 1987 to 1994 and a frequent visitor in the years both before and after, and the empirical data most certainly did support its description in those years as the "murder capital of the country." I suppose next they'll be trying to tell us that former DC Mayor Marion Barry was never caught on camera smoking crack...

Nah! They have kids, THEN off themselves, leaving society to take care of the poor kids! Or, if the anti-choice (aka pro-life) types get their way, perhaps they off themselves because they will be forced to go thru with an unwanted pregnancy that they got because contraceptives and abortions were withheld by certain neighborhood pharmacies. Who knows why people want to end it all? There is a reason for every one who succeeds, and having a gun handy is only one of many means of doing the job. It is, however, perhaps a bit more efficient. Don't get me wrong: I support the decision, since the 2nd Amendment is one of the burdens we bear for having the ability to protect ourselves from an out-of-control government. If only we had an Amendment to keep government from telling us that we can't make the choice of whether to have a baby or not! If only we had an Amendment that would hold hospitals and pharmaceutical companies responsible for their mistakes, which kill far more people EVERY YEAR than guns ever did!

GUAV:
Stay cool! Reason will always prevail over the emotion foisted upon the inexperienced and undereducated purveyors who still believe that the authors of the Constitution were living in a dark age. In fact, the late 18nth Century was an age of remarkable progress as much as the late 19nth Century issued in the age of our most useful piece of transportation.
The naysayers are grasping at their straws -- it's hard to take it on the nut when all you've got are 'mini balls'!
Write on, Guav!
DUTCHMAN

In response to: CONSTITUTIONAL HERETICS ARE THE REASON FOR THE SECOND AMENDMENT Posted by: Jeugenen on 07/01/08 at 11:27 AM

"The greatest threats to the “Constitutional rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” of the American People are not from murders and other common outlaws, but from criminal elements within the highest levels of government."

Playnbass replies:
And they are in the thrall of corporate and religious special interests in this current era.

"The Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms was added to the Constitution to make government leaders fear the People; and, in cases where they governed against the democratic majority will of the People, a means to rise in bloody revolt against them.

Playnbass replies:
On this point, I totally agree!

"The minority of Constitutional heretics now serving like self-appointed legislators on the Supreme Court, notoriously attempting to somehow abrogate the dreaded Right to Bear Arms, is a good example of why there is such vital need for this Second Amendment to the Constitution."

Playnbass replies:
What are you complaining about? The SC ruling SUPPORTED the 2nd Amendment! President Bush has succeeded in packing the Supreme Court with his guys, --not the first time THIS has happened! However, what one viewpoint deems "packing", another will deem to be "restoring the balance"! It remains to be seen if the SC can maintain its identity as a independent branch of government, as was intended. For better or worse, the SC must be empowered to balance out the whims and capriciousness of the Executive and Legislative branches. All the more reason to install Justices who have the integrity to interpret and apply the CONSTITUTION, not the expediencies of political fantasies.

"The patriots love and cherish their Christian culture and Constitutional law, and the patriophobes fear and hate it."

Playnbass replies:
Hold on Jeugenen! The separation of church and state is SUPPOSED to protect patriots from Christians who are phobic about anyone who doesn't believe the same as they do. Jeugebnen's viewpoint is NOT the Freedom and Liberty that I hold dear! Neo-Marxism has absolutely NOTHING to do with it, since even Neo-Marxism is constitutionally protected free speech. Do not confuse a political-economic system with the totalitarian governments which have adopted it as the convenient fiction they use to control their populations. While I find our Constitution to be the best of it's kind, our POLITICIANS are often (usually) controlled by the economic elite, to the detriment of the rights and needs of many of the immigrant citizens that make up the majority of our population.

"If the American People cannot peacefully restore their Christian culture and Constitutional Law by Cultural War, then they shall resort to the extraordinary bloody revolutionary powers granted to them by the Second Amendment... "

Playnbass replies:
Be prepared, Mr. butt-in-ski Christian, to find your bloody revolution fought by Patriots who believe in the Rights of Liberty, Freedom, and the Pursuit of Happiness for all religions, races, genders, and personal beliefs, not just those who fit your narrow conception of what is an American Patriot!

Mark Kissinger:
I can understand your concern, but this is not the forum for a ROE v. WADE debate. Unfortunately you will not be satisfied with any presidential candidates' answer re this issue. And in my opinion, this should not be a political issue. No candidate for public office should waste his/her time on a matter better tended to on a secular basis. It comes back to that old saying: 'Render unto God what is God's and 'Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's'! If we are truly a nation which does not impose a religious preference on its population, then we must not use our religious preference against our neighbors. We must maintain our laic and secular lives within the above-mentioned Shakespearean quote.
Oddly enough, the Seedy See, which should be your biggest supporter, does not care about your concerns because they are being funded by some truly selfish sources that make Darth Vader look like the Archangel Gabriel...and by the way, Machiavelli was never the 'prince of darkness' as a corrupt Roman church purported him to be. You have to read BOTH books. Why do you think they flinched when Luther winked?
Ciao! There are good people out there. Just avoid the lawyers, insurance mongers, all politicians -- they're the same as the 1st two. Whereever you live, you should insist that the people running for office be a mix of 'everyone' -- not just the perennial lawyers and insurance agents. That's why Ohio is the most backward state in the nation; Cleveland is now the poorest city in the country and our county commissioners are choking us with phony cigarette taxes and a Kenndy Medical Center which will never be built. But Ohioans are probably the dumbest 'red riding hoods' on the planet. We are living through 'selective taxation without representation'(my cigarette is taxed for filthy art work, but i can't light up in public).
Ciao
DUTCHMAN

RIGHT ON BIL U GET OUT THERE WITH UR 22 AND KILL ALL THE TERROST WHEN THEY COME

right on we need 2 ban dads car

VERY profound? Dan.McClellend. What's your point re the ISSUE?

Whoops! sorry Dan, I misspelled your last name. But then i also couldn't figure which 'terrost' you were planning on bagging or banning with your dad's car. Does your mom know your still up?

I disagree with the article and the thrust of this Supreme Court decision. I think that the framers of the Bill of Rights and Constitution, actually had another thought in mind that either protecting the right to suicide, protection or hunting. Jefferson said, "When patience has begotten false estimates of its motives, when wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality." (in a letter to M. deStael, 1807. ME 11:282) and "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." (his personal motto). What Scalia has inadvertently authorized is the ability to raise revolutionary armies to overthrow tyrants in our own government. This it clearly the intention of teh Second Amendment in our Constitution and was inspired by the success of the American Revolution. It is ironic that this post will probably put me on some database of "terrorists" despite my avowed pacificism and my abhorrence of Jefferson's idea of violent revolution as a tool of reform. But what better place to preserve the right for such tools of revolution but in DC!

RCW, bearing arms for hunting and personal protection was an unquestioned right in the minds of the Founding Fatherst, and they most certainly had more than milita service in mind at the time, as evidenced by many of their other statements from the time. And let's not forget that the first state Declaration of Rights to use the term "bear arms" was that of Pennsylvania in 1776: "That the people have a right to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State."

RCW -- whether you like it or not -- you hold the majority opinion of Jeffersons contemporaries. Freedom against the tyranny of government (the state) was of prime concern -- be it George of England or George Washington of D.C., or George the opportunist from your young state -- tyranny from any government (or form of...) , within or without. Sadly, today's gadflies don't recognize the 'within' part!
We are barely sqeeking by with the way our congressmen/women are abusing us. The majority of our elected officials deserve stiff jail sententces for the severe malfeasance wrought upon the American voter. If someone asks you for a donation, help the poor man, not the one who wants to make YOU poor -- which of those filthy rich congressmen/women honored the Roman tradition of 'service without recompence'? I can only think of Arnold -- everybody's punching bag! The average politician isn't happy until he/she has your childrens' inheritance. Term limits never stopped those weasels from 'kiting' public office -- anything to be on a life-long dole (Byrd, Metzenbaum,+ every septagenarian on the Hill. 'Seniority' means that the geezer wants to 'take it with him -- and 'he' will if you keep voting for a ' name you can trust'! Be skeptical -- very skeptical.
DUTCHMAN

Thank-you Vasu for posting one of the few reasonable responses here. Most of the rest makes for some very scary reading, even from so-called leftists.
Isn't it amazing how the interpretation of the 2nd and the constitution in general mirrors some fanatics' ideas about how the Bible should be read or interpreted? These words aren't etched by the hand of god, never to be questioned and similarily the constitution is not carved from granite.
Laws can and need to be challenged from time to time, if for no other reason than to clarify their intent.

Why is it that the loudest anti-gun mouths have the heaviest (AND illegal) armed body guards? Rosie O'Donnell,Ted Kennedy! Maybe they should move to gun-free nations like Great Britain, Australia, or Canada. Or any where else that gives up its sands so ostriches can thrive. Crop circles don't count -- they're Mr. Spock's department.
I wonder how many 'servants' are employed by 'our' George to keep Cheney at bay. I'll bet ther's some finger wagging going on at 1600 Pa. Ave. since that last trip to 'juvie'.
Carry on GUAV -- I'm not a Mason, but I can spot a person who's on the level.
Ciao.
DUTCHMAN

MAYBE PEOPLE WOULDN'T COMMIT SUICIDE WITH A RIFLE OR SIDE-ARM IF THEY HAD A LESS HORRIFIC OPTION?

I find it interesting that SHOULD SOMEONE BE GENUINELY SEEKING DEATH... they're screwed.

seriously.
- In chronic pain? screw you.
- Dying in misery for longer than 6 months? screw you.
- Suffering from unrelenting mental illness or mood disorders & living in miserable conditions? screw you.
- Mired in grotesque social & economic horrors beyond the demonstrated capacity for 'social remediation' from a social worker or physician? screw you.
- Living with personal challenges beyond your capacity?

Nobody really assists in those cases, do they? Nobody can CARRY THAT LOAD for someone, but SCREW YOU if you decide you can no longer carry that burden. Obviously, you don't know what's good for you, right?

Sure as hell, if you want to deal with the situation with definitive action? screw you.

What the hell is wrong with suicide? If someone *desires* death... why their judgement is obviously impaired... no matter what they're enduring, there are Shining Happy People who can tell you to get screwed because suicide is SIMPLY UNACCEPTABLE.

...so people are left with either a slow (real or crafted( death in misery...

or they get to do drastic & horribly painful solutions to their problems that often leave them worse off than they were beforehand.

Why is suicide or self-determined euthanasia stigmatized?

Selfish relatives & government controls ("oh no! how will we decide who gets to do what they desire with their OWN LIFE & BODY?! Oh no! I might have to take responsibility for someone else's decisions!!")

Disgusting.

Have you ever noticed that the 'religious' are only happy & calling someone 'angelic' if they're in a coma, vegetative state or beyond the capacity for self-determined actions or judgements?

Think about it. Why exactly is ONE person's right to determine their own life STIGMATIZED?

"oh but that person might change their mind!" puhleeze. If you've ever worked in nursing or psychiatric care, you'll know that, yes, some people flail & do it half-heartedly...

...but who the hell thinks its their business to decide for someone else? Until you've watched someone who has spent DECADES in personal misery, or known those who have succeeded & failed at suicide... you really aren't appreciating the extent of society's determination to ENSURE YOU LIVE at all costs.... which society never pays, but the Victim sure as hell does.

Ever meet someone who blew portions of their face off in a suicide attempt?
Yeah. It happens... & EMTs ensure the person LIVES to enjoy escalated & prolonged misery.

There's always somebody who thinks 'suicide is cowardice', 'suicide victimizes the family & friends!' or 'suicide is giving up'.

...& those self-absorbed & shallow people would be labouring under the misapprehension that they'd do any better living in the headspace or conditions of someone else's existence.

The HORROR of these statistics is not that guns are available... but that guns were the only horrific resort for folks who have little opportunity or coping skills to experience anything but what Life dealt them... because those with a differing experience/existence, or differing coping skills development SAY "SCREW YOU, it's all about me & what we want for you".

When society can alleviate all that ills our brothers & sisters... then maybe we can strut about telling people they don't genuinely understand their own experiences & miseries.

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BlueBerry Pick'n
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"... tolerance of intolerance is cowardice... " ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
"We, two, form a Multitude" ~ Ovid.
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"Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"
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Suicide is NOT a firearms issue. SUICIDE is the decision of a coward or a deranged mind.The Seedy See would like you to believe otherwise; but look who funds that 'thunk' tank! I witnessed 2 suicides -- people who could well afford a firearm, but insisted on making their 'statement'.
I was 9 when the 'distraught' husband took a 10 story dive out of 45 Grammercy Park, Manhattan. I was on my way to church when i saw the bozo's brains suddenly rolling past my feet, a good 10 yds. from 'ground zero'.
I was 47 when i witnessed 'suicide Chicago style" -- step in front of an 18-wheeler in morning rush hour on the Eisenhower. That poor trucker suffered more abuse from the so-called authorities for the rest of the day just for 'collecting cowardly garbage'!
Suicide is not a gun issue: it's about a frame/state of mind. The Seedy See is not the final word on what no one can SEE. You want to talk about suicide: show the statistics from the enlightened nation -- Great Britain, Australia, Canada, the 'enlightened' nordic wannabes with their'exotic' assinine explainations attempting to avoid the 'lunatic' stigma, and all those little dictatorships which have anti-gun laws because ruthless power over the population is the only reason for that little despot to have a pot...
The suicide issue is as hokey as the 'hunting' diversion. There always was hunting in D.C. -- it is/was being conducted by the non-compliant criminal element which really does not care about any law, but just may be wary now that the S.C. told the D.C. 'political thugs' that they have to stop hogging that neighborhood 'BB court'. D.C. has been in such a severe la-la-land funk, it's about time we, us, voiced our opinion and be heard above the screeching of vote-grubbing congressmen/women(Feinstein & Co, who should really get the hell out of Dodge before anti-political-prostitution laws are enacted thanks to hustlers from Idaho. I have no respect for the politician who needs more than 8 yrs. to fulfill public service. I rest my case with the ill repute Max Mosley, president of the FIA (Formula One Auto Racing) brought upon himself for his septagenarian-roll-in-the-hay with half a dozen bimbos. And he still insists that his private life does not reflect on his public personna -- duh! after 20 yrs. of desparatley clenching to the office, your private life is part of ours. Some people -- life-long politicians -- just don't know when the young people they once represented are now older than the jerk who thinks he/she still can jerk the public public around -- until you hear "a name you can trust". America cannot put up with royalty, but them political folk sure love "Dynasty"!
DUTCHMAN

Sp you think that if the people rebelled against the government, the government might actually nuke their cities, or blanket entire towns with daisy cutters?

Did it escape your notice that the relatively poorly armed Iraqi insurgency has kept the most powerful military the world has ever known bogged down for five years, with nothing for the most part but guns, car bombs, and IED's??

Plus, bear in mind, there is a better than average chance that in any such confrontation in this country, the military would more than likely fold at the idea of fighting against private citizens of their own country. How do you think it would affect morale in the rank and file of the military when they discovered their home towns were destined to be razed, or blasted from the face of the earth?

By the same token, eliminate or unduly restrict the people's rights to bear arms, and it's a non-issue. Then there's no conceivable way to stand up to an oppressive regime.

BOLOS:
Interesting how you have managed to draw the bible into a 'man-made' issue. You're the nut that has to crack itself before you're invited back into the discussion. What were you thinking to invoke a bible discussion??? You been in outer space with L.Ron Hubbard and his short sweetheart, Little Tommy Cruise???
THIS IS NOT BIBLE CLASS!!!

BLUEBERRY PICK'N:
Once more: the 2nd Amendment is not about suicide (certain politicians excepted).
When all you Empire citizen decided to demonize firearms you remind me how every time YOU get into a war (twice last century) you come begging to the members of the NRA for weapons (which are never returned, but butchered at the end of the war). Can I 'borrow' something of value to you that you won't mind missing for the rest of your life? If you offer you mother-in-law, I will expose your royal hypocrisy.

The Pagan Temple:
Did it ever occur to you that the US Gov. just tested our resolve during hurricane Katrina? More to the point, Gov. was testing how far It can go or how ready IT was to knock us citizens off. Believe it or not, there are relatives who would gladly sell your soul if Big Bro pulls the right con. Sad isn't it. If this country declares an INTERNAL war, DUCK!!! Finger pointing and soul selling will be the sport of the day -- and just to acquire your goods and kiss Gov.'s ass! I bet you've never experienced war 'within'-- that's farther in than the front! The US Gov. (depending on the deviousness of the administration) will test our resolve; and if we fail, the Constitution will be for naught! The Bush administration hasn't bothered winning a war it started -- Israel and its neocons are not through reformatting their Mid-East plans. You don't seriously believe that a tongue tripper the likes of GWBush is in charge of the 'pantry', let alone the powder house???

Once again, the typical gun advocates have trotted out all the tired arguments why they must not be separated from their cute little phallic guns. Obviously, the true question to be asked is not whether the original framers of the Constitution meant to guarantee the individual's right to own a gun. What matters is the consequences of this misbegotten ammendment.
Fact 1. We by and large no longer are required to use guns on a daily basis to hunt or defend ourselves from the unrully original owners of this fair land, who somehow seem to have resented us stealing it from them.
Fact 2. No matter which year you pick, homicides in this country dwarf those in any other society that actually intelligently controls their firearms. The fact that a percentage ofgun deaths were suicides does not make them any less dead.
Fact 3. As several posters have noticed, we no longer live in a world where any militia has a ghost of a chance of challenging the govermnent, not for a day, not for a second.
Fact 4. None of this matters in the long run, as fascists like these card-carrying NRA members will make darn sure that any attempt to either alter or delete this ammendment will be fruitless, thus guaranteeing continuing high profits for gun manufacturers, ammunition makers, and happy morticians.
Fact 5. All of you so called liberals who are so proud of your gun ownership remind me of the bigot with the black friend...for Pete's sake, get off the fence and either embrace the NRA with all your little hearts and admit you are not liberals at all, or quit toting the guns.
Fact 5. No intelligent person has ever equated gun ownership with patriotism. I am a patriot and love my country, at least i love what it once was and could be again. I don't need a gun to love America, I need a mind and a heart, and a gun isn't too healthy for either one.

Since you supposedly love the America that once was, kindly explain to us when was the time Americans' did not have the right to own guns. I must have missed that history lesson.

You are projecting your own inner desires, I think, by referring to our defense of gun ownership as our "love for our cute little phallic guns".

Let's see now. Let's trust the police to protect us from armed criminals. Yeah, right. Would that be the same police you people go out of your way to hogtie every day?

It don't matter, I wouldn't trust them hogtied or otherwise.

Even if I did, I look at it like this. I can put a bullet in somebody's brains in less than a quarter of the time it takes to call the police, and in one thousandth of the time it takes the police to get there after I call, assuming I'm able to make it to the phone and call in time to begin with.

As far as how much a chance I would have against a rogue government with a gun as opposed to without one, at least with one I can take a few of the bastards with me. That's good enough for me.

David I. Carter;

If the 2nd Amendment doesn't protect a Right Americans think they should have any more, then use the legal path to remove it.

The Founders built in a mechanism just for such things.

Put your position to the test, and see if a majority of Americans are willing to pressure their elected representatives to pass an Amendment nullifying the 2nd.
Don't trot out the tired old whine that the Evil NRA, with a membership of 4.3 million, has the voting power to defeat the rest of the 140+ MILLION registered voters in the US. If your arguments are as solid as you believe they are, then NRA's piddly membership is a total NON-factor.
That argument is just pathetic!

If you can't get your agenda enacted the Constitutional and Legal way, then face up to the fact that your side has LOST this debate.

And just so you're clear on so-called "fact" #2: Examine Jamaica's Firearms Act and the Gun Court Act of 1974. The Acts provided for gun confiscation, house-to-house searches, incommunicado detention, secret trials, warrantless searches and seizures, and mandatory lifetime prison sentences for the possession of even a single bullet.
Today, 'disarmed' Jamaica boasts a murder rate 7.4 times that of the US. I invite you to read up on today's "peaceful, disarmed Jamaica".

Feel free to research the laws of the REST of the 23 countries that top USofA in homicides. You'll find that quite a few of them have considerably stricter laws than we do.
h_t_t_p_:_/_/www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
Or..., just go on spreading that falsehood, claiming it's 'fact' if you're comfortable with that intellectual approach.

David I. Carter: Once again, the typical anti-gun hysterics have trotted out all the tired arguments why their failed policies should be tried again, but more. Gun control advocates are like abstinence-only education advocates: they think their policies should be continued and expanded upon, even though they have completely failed in their objectives.

"Fact" 1. That is correct, but irrelevant.

"Fact" 2. That is incorrect and irrelevant.

"Fact" 3. Also incorrect, as popular insurgencies around the world have proven time and time again.

"Fact" 4. You clearly have no idea what that word even means. Fascist does not mean "anyone who I disagree with."

"Fact" 5. Wow, sorry not everyone is an ideologically rigid partisan who can be put neatly into one of apparently only two categories that you have decided we should all fit into. You don't get to dictate to me what I should or should not believe. You also don't get to decide that liberal gun owners are not liberal simply because they disagree with you on that one topic. Screw you.

"Fact" 6. I agree, you certainly don't need a gun to love America—gun ownership for me has nothing to do with patriotism. I have a mind and a heart, and I've almost lost both of them to armed criminals before. I am going to do everything in power to make sure that never happens to me or my wife. You can do as you please.

Go For It!!: Exactly.

GO FOR IT & GUAV:
DARN!!! There you go doing it again. Poor David I. Carter is going to suffer a reality relapse if he ever reviews his "facts"! That poor lad just flunked a few rounds, but he won't let the truth impede his sluggish trek toward philosophical oblivion.
Write on!
DUTCHMAN

As a Liberal, I agree with the Supreme Court decision. A person has the right to die, a firearm is the most expediant. This decision is really about the right to die. We should rejoice in it. Only a hypocrit would be against it.

In his own twisted way, Bill Nigh is actually correct.

An added bonus is that most of the gun nuts are Rethuglicon voters. Thus, the more they kill themselves and each other, the more the political gene pool improves.

Mr. Vasu Murti (July 2) does an excellent job of detailing and analyzing the principal issues involved in the recent Supreme Court decision overturning Washington, D.C.'s handgun regulation; from the early history and intent of the amendment by the framers, to the modern evolution of society, which requires methods for the regulation of handguns as much as it does for automobiles, to the Supreme Court's own confused ambivalence about the meaning of the amendment. (40 percent of the justices did not join the majority.)

Those with off-the-cuff, one sentence solutions to this complex issue would do well to read Mr. Murti's comments carefully.

Bill Neigh when are you going to put the gun to your head and eliminate what is obviously a long run of mental defectiveness.

The 4th of July was memorable. Late night news interviewed all the celebrants who liked having a day off and looking forward to Monday: "the legal holiday" duh!!! And these are the same people with whom we work. None of the interviewees knew why we had a holiday other than there were going to be great fireworks. Some were articulate enough to imitate Macy Gray's version of whatever she tried to imitate at some baseball 'opener'. And sadly, most people have no idea what a remakable con artiste` the bimbo from Akron really is!...Down the line: most intrviewees answered that the 10 amendments to the Constitution of the United States Of America were The 10 Commandments!!!
The worst of it is that most of the interviewees professed to have a college education. "Jay Leno -- lend me that jay-walking street!"!!!!!
Tongue-in cheek: 'these are the folk who are also in the position to petition congress to amend the Constitution'. Whichever side we are on, 10-1 you don't want to associate with any of Leno's 'slice of America's great thinkers'! And Leno always reminds you that those morons are the ones who sat next to you while you were actually busting your butt for a better education. All participants in THIS forum have something worthwhile to contribute; and we can all agree to disagree! Ciao! HONORABLY!!!

ROGER CRAWFORD:
Wow! I missed that one. Bill Nigh sounds like an escapee from a Saturday morning 'scary movie'. He and Dr. Mengalahhh(whatever Hitler's infamous surgeons name was) sound like soul-mates.
I was born a 'ferigner', yet I proudly display a unique parchment copy of the Constitution and the Bill of Rightsin my kitchen -- kitchen? yes! for all the right reasons.
DUTCHMAN

An aside:
For the umpteenth time i have just proven to myself why an editor is a writers best friend. Our high school typing teachers (some who are rolling over in their graves) are snickering like hell right now because most of us used to give them the finger for making us learn this god-forsaken key-board exercise. What the hell! that's some lowly secretary's Yob!!! Ciao
DUTCHMAN

GRAYWOLF:
Birds of a feather! "gray" says a lot. Emotion -- emotion -- is the enemy of real 'debate'. Cold,calculated , reason!!
Socrates and his little boys club are just a pitty party against Aristotle. And i don't mind saying it, but its too many faggots pushing their agenda and i'll be happy jump into the sack in San Francisco with a real woman -- if you faggots didn't run them all off!

Dude, I sure hope your successful using your hand gun or rifle against an army bearing machine guns, grenades, and bombs! Good luck with that!

Our founding fathers had no idea of the technology to come and how utterly pittiful firearms would be in comparison when they issued this mandate. If they had, we would all have our own nuke stored in the basement.

Civilian guns hold no sway over our government and definately do not invoke fear in them. That's why they let you continue with your little patriot act dummy! I hope Blackwater comes a callin on you first - problem solved.

Pagan Temple did you ever stop to consider that it most likely won't be our own armies we are made to stand up against?

Think about this - our President has his own corporate armies with the largest being Blackwater. Blackwater is comprised of soldiers from many nations, many from the LAC who were used to overthrow those countries. They certainly will feel no hesitancy about blowing your arse to bits.

Sorry to pop your little fantasy there.

["Think about this - our President has his own corporate armies with the largest being Blackwater. Blackwater is comprised of soldiers from many nations, many from the LAC who were used to overthrow those countries. They certainly will feel no hesitancy about blowing your arse to bits."]

So apparently you believe our best option is to allow ourselves to be totally disarmed in the face of what you outline here? Is that your position?

Some of us definitely think otherwise. We've got a lot of ex-marines, ex-army etc. people who would NOT lie down for an armed oppressor in this country.
We'd find a way, against whatever they wanted to deploy, just as a handful of under-equipped, under-trained "rabble" found a way to defeat the world's most powerful military machine in the 1770's. Perhaps the greatest military power in history at that point, with an unprecedented capability of projecting it's military might anywhere on the globe.

And make no mistake, there were a multitude of people just like Ethical1 in 1776, telling the rebellious Patriots that they had "no chance" against such odds, and that they were living in fantasy land if they thought otherwise.

Yeah, gov't's got nukes. They've got tanks and high tech aircraft. But could they get our brothers, sons, daughters, cousins & nephews to fire such weapons against their own families and neighbors? Because that's what they'd have to do.

Blackwater and whatever mercenaries the government could scrape together isn't enough to accomplish what Yamamoto knew would be too much for Japan, when they had a military machine big enough to hold and rule virtually the whole of the orient.
"You'd face a rifle behind every blade of grass" invading the US mainland, he wisely observed.

Ethical1, let me introduce you to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Do you all not understand how crazy you seem to the rest of the world?

Alix, what other people in other countries with other cultures think is absolutely, completely, 100% irrelevant to the discussion about whether or not our domestic policies make sense—it simply doesn't matter one whit.

Then again, I was a punk in high school back when being punk made you an outcast, so I guess I've never really been all that concerned with whether or not other people thought I was crazy.

The rest of the world thought Americans were crazy when we decided to let common people run our country, and not have a king and an aristocracy guiding our hands for us.

Most of the rest of the world eventually came around, and saw which form of government had been a ludicrous idea, and which the more reasonable. Maybe one day they'll come around and realize what it actually signifies when a government is afraid to allow an armed populace.

"Kellerman" and his study, Jonathan!?!?

Kellerman's 20+ year old study has been pretty thoroughly discredited for it's methodology, even though The Brady Campaign (and Kellerman himself) still touts it as "proving" one thing or another.
h_t_t_p_:_/_/seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/62148_shapcol11.shtml

Here is Kellerman's first caveat to his own study, which SHOULD have raised some flags:
"Mortality studies such as ours do not include cases in which burglars or intruders are wounded or frightened away by the use or display of a firearm. Cases in which would-be intruders may have purposely avoided a house known to be armed are also not identified... A complete determination of firearm risks versus benefits would require that these figures be known."
He admits that his study proved nothing!

Kellerman's study does NOT count cases where a firearm is used to fend off an intruder unless the intruder is KILLED? And yet it purports to prove that firearms are NOT as frequently used in self defense as they are to kill someone in the household? Ignoring the cases where the presence of a firearm prevented violence against people in homes that criminals know contain armed citizens? And you guys just take it and run with it..?
Is this SMART Journalism?

And here are some other things that should raise questions about what his study really "proved":
... look at the type of households that made their way into Kellermann's report. Fifty-three percent had a history of a family member being arrested. Thirty-one percent had a household history of illicit drug use; 25 percent reported alcohol-related problems; 32 percent contained a household member hit or hurt in a family fight
IOW: He intentionally selected the types of disfunctional households where violence is most likely to occur, and pretends these are "normal" households.

The Fabulous Brady Campsign is quick to grab at any "study" that supports their "disarm America" philosophy, even ones that have turned out to be based on fraudulent research, such as the one by historian Michael Bellesiles. Bellesiles' study was debunked NOT by the NRA or 2nd Amendment advocates, but by fellow historians.

And lastly, Jonathan, if you're going to link to The Brady Campaign's talking points as proof of something, you're not engaging in Smart, Fearless Journalism, which would require examining BOTH sides of an issue, and showing what a group like Gunowners of America has to say about Brady's data, including a link to THEIR site so that readers can make up their own minds about who is believable and who is not, (that would be FEARLESS Journalism), you're engaging in Journalism With A Bias. Leading readers to one side of a controversial issue, while misrepresenting what the positions taken by the other side (Justice Scalia Wants You to Have Every Opportunity to Off Yourself) is as unworthy of a self-respecting Journalist as anything you'll see on Faux Nooze.

I'm just curious as to why people that purport to represent the "common man/woman" and the "working class" suddenly decided it was incumbent on them to support "gun control".

Like so many other things they support, what does disarming, or at least severely limiting, the rights of the common people to bear arms, have to do with the rights of the common/working person in general.

I would really appreciate an answer to that, because I've never heard one yet that makes a lick of sense.

The only thing I can think of is, evidently, all the people that purport to represent the average American think we're too damn stupid or ignorant, or savage, or whatever, to trust with firearms, at least as a general rule, and they think they can foist this off on us (along with a lot of other nonsense) in return for an increase in the minimum wage every ten years or so.

Sorry, I ain't buying it.

do i understand this correctly?

'progressives' believe that a woman has an unfettered right to end someone else's life by means of an abortion, but she has no right to end the one life that she actually and undisputedly owns, through suicide by the most foolproof method around? or basically, no right to choose to end her own life at all, by any method?

can someone of the liberal/progressive persuasion please explain the logic of these positions to me, and how the one position regarding a person's right to choose is consistent with the same person's lack of a right to choose..?

No, you don't really understand it correctly, on two levels.

First of all, I don't think any of the anti-gun progressives here think that someone doesn't have the RIGHT to kill themselves—in fact I wager that most of them support the "right to die"—but they probably see suicide done for depression and other such "temporary" reasons to be regrettable, and probably think that the person doesn't really want to die. I'm sure they believe in the right to kill oneself, but think that they shouldn't, if at all possible. They believe, incorrectly, that if there is no gun around, they simply will not bother to kill themselves.

Secondly, the first part of your question is based on the assumption that everyone sees abortion as you do: "end[ing] someone else's life." But they don't, so no, they don't think it's OK to kill someone else. They most likely believe, as I do, that life as an individual, sentient and conscious entity begins sometime in between conception and birth. So whereas I would certainly view an abortion at 8 months as killing someone else, I don't view it that way at 3 weeks.

However, anti-gun, pro-choice people ARE inconsistent in a different regard. They oppose almost any restriction on abortion rights on principle, because they correctly recognize that any legislation restricting abortion in even the smallest manner is, in fact, part of a larger strategy by pro-life advocates to chip away, little by little, until the entire thing can be dismantled. They know that pro-lifers are not going to stop at this one restriction, they will add another, and another, until they can ban abortion outright, or at least make it so hard to get that it is effectively banned.

What they fail to realize is that pro-2nd Amendment advocates correctly see the gun control lobby in the same light: We oppose most "reasonable restrictions" on gun rights on principle, because we correctly recognize that any legislation restricting legal gun ownership in even the smallest manner is, in fact, part of a larger strategy by the gun control lobby to chip away, little by little, until the entire thing can be dismantled. We know that the Brady Campaign is not going to stop at this one restriction, they will add another, and another, until they can ban gun ownership outright, or at least make it so hard to own firearms that they are effectively banned. They have admitted as much.

When they oppose creeping "little by little" legislation, they are "fighting for rights." Yet when we oppose creeping "little by little" legislation, we are being "unreasonable," "paranoid," and it's all some nefarious NRA conspiracy.

Guav, if progressives believe that people have a right to choose to end their own lives, then why are they always so eager to intervene? Or more likely, have the government intervene in the exercise of this right? Government's job is supposed to be to protect our ability to exercise our rights. Not to interfere in it.

Secondly, I'm not so dense as to assume that everyone views pregnancy the way I do. But I can't undertake to state it in a way the covers each and every view that might be held, so I reference my own. And though it's more or less off-topic here, you might be surprised at some of the people who think abortion is ending someone else's life.

Dr. William Harrison, notable for being Hillary Clinton’s former OB-GYN as well as for performing over 20,000 abortions, has stated in a recent e-mail exchange with a prominent psychologist that abortion “cancels” a human soul.

“Anyone who has delivered as many babies as I have, and has seen hundreds of living and dead embryos and fetuses being spontaneously aborted as have I, knows exactly what we are doing when we provide an elective abortion for our patient. We are ending the life of an embryo or a fetus,” Harrison wrote in an e-mail to Dr. Warren Throckmorton, associate professor of Psychology at Grove City College in Pennsylvania.

“Physicians who save wanted babies from being spontaneously aborted (and we can save a few now that God once seemed determined to abort), and we who cancel ‘luckless human souls’ are doing God’s work,” he concluded.

Thirdly, do you count yourself among the Liberal/Progressive fold?
If so, 'nuff said.
If not, no problem, but it's really those folks I wanted to hear from, as to how they square the two opinions with each other.

Well yes, I am mostly a liberal/progressive, which is why I am reading this blog in the first place, and why I subscribe to the magazine. I say "mostly" because I do hold some views that are generally considered "conservative" these days, such as defending the 2nd Amendment as much as the 1st Amendment, but I don't personally see gun rights/control as a liberal/conservative issue—or rather, don't understand why it should be.

On a personal level, I think people have a RIGHT to kill themselves, but if someone I knew was talking about killing themselves or trying to, I would do my best to talk them out of it (assuming they were not terminally ill, etc).

As far as on a larger level, I don't think most gun control advocates support gun control as a way of FORCING people not to kill themselves, but rather hoping that people won't do so if they don't have access to a gun. Of course, this premise is false, as Japan shows us.

That being said, most gun control advocates support gun control not to cut down on suicides, but to cut down on homicides (not that it would work there either). As you can see, it's apparently still news to some people that suicides make up more than half of all gun deaths every year, despite the fact that we gun rights supporters have been telling them this for years. They mostly think "If guns are illegal, people won't be able to shoot each other." They are wrong, of course, but that is generally the mindset I encounter when I'm arguing with people, mostly liberal, about gun rights/gun control, which I actually do very frequently. I've never had anyone argue for gun control as a way to STOP people from killing themselves, they generally are focused more on homicide.

You may recognize that not everyone views pregnancy the way you do, but if you do recognize that, then the contradiction you thought you were highlighting isn't there—it's only a contradiction in the terms that you framed it.

I'm not all that surprised by some doctor's view that abortion is ending someone's life, nor does it change my views on the subject. I am aware that plenty of people feel that way, and the fact that he used to be Hillary's OB-GYN makes his opinion no more compelling to me. I am pro-choice, but more from a rational POV: I am not a fan of abortion, but like firearms, alcohol and drugs, it will not go away simply because we ban it. Banning things is what people do when they are too lazy to deal with the underlying causes of something they find distasteful.

Anyone who opposes abortion should fully support and advocate sex education and contraceptive distribution—the best way to prevent abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and REALISTICALLY, that means education and contraception.