Why is gun control so difficult in the US?

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We should discuss the weight given to the prefatory and/or operative clause of the amendment in question?

In Heller, the supreme court ruled against overly restrictive regulations that infringed on the right to keep and bear arms.

In the majority opinion authored by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court first conducted a textual analysis of the operative clause, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The Court found that this language guarantees an individual right to possess and carry weapons. The Court examined historical evidence that it found consistent with its textual analysis. The Court then considered the Second Amendment’s prefatory clause, "[a] well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," and determined that while this clause announces a purpose for recognizing an individual right to keep and bear arms, it does not limit the operative clause.

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meanwhile
22,000,000 of us veterans here now.
It would have been nice if along with my discharge the army would've given me an m14 and 1000 rounds to take home with me---------that was one sweet rifle. It never missed at 400 meters.

It was a sad day when I was ordered to take a deuce and a half and make the rounds of the various company armorers and collect the m14s and take them down to ft.Meade-------------It was a rainy day, and I did my best to cover the weapons with a tarp and keep them dry. When I got to the delivery location, I asked the sergeant in charge where he wanted them. He told me to dump them in the pile in the parking lot with the rest of them------------IT WAS RAINING.........thousands of weapons rusting in the rain........ain't no proper way to treat a weapon........................how sad
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In retrospect, I should'a realized that something was hinky, kinky and weird when I didn't have to sign for those hundreds of rifles.......sigh..
 
Everybody got their favs. When I retired the guys gave me a .50, with serial numbers to show we were in-country at the same time. Might have been one I swung. I still have it.
 
Gawdzilla Sama said:
Everybody got their favs. When I retired the guys gave me a .50, with serial numbers to show we were in-country at the same time. Might have been one I swung. I still have it.
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OK
What do you use the .50 for?
Have you fired it recently?
What does the ammo cost?
Do you have the treasury dept licence for it?
 
sculptor said:
OK
What do you use the .50 for?
Have you fired it recently?
What does the ammo cost?
Do you have the treasury dept licence for it?
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I used to fire it just for fun. When an untrained person entered my household (and married me) I gave it to a certain state agency on long-term loan. They get it permanently when I die.
The agency has famfire once a quarter. It's held next to a local prison, just so the good old boys know there's a small cannon in the back of one of those AFV that will respond to riots. I get my turn at the paddles.
Haven't priced it in ten years, the rounds were just over $3/ea. back then. Now I get one of the boxes the good guys bring with them.
My license was issued by an agency of the United States Government and is good in all fifty states and US possessions overseas.

The .50 can kill at four miles. (Obviously not an aimed shot, but still a danger to anyone in front of it.) This makes choices of shooting ranges scant.
 
Kittamaru said:
Except, as it says: "A well regulated militia, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." That would imply at least a rudimentary training.
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Of course.
That would be another necessary aspect of membership in well regulated militia - along with the one specifically guaranteed and protected against government infringement, which is possessing a weapon suitable for bringing when called up, and bringing it: keeping and bearing arms.

And there we see the purpose of the Constitution: it limits and mandates government. It does not impose requirements or demands on individual citizens. No citizen is required to undertake training, whether they are in a militia or not - any more than they are required to keep and bear arms. We all have the right to drill and train, of course, many aspects of which (assembly, communication, etc) are likewise guaranteed elsewhere and needed no specific protection.

(All the adults of some States are members of that State's militia, as are by some interpretations the citizens of the US as a whole. It used to be all adult male citizens, but times have changed).

Kittamaru said:
Also, as you said - it applied to the weapons of the time;
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You don't want to lean too hard on that. Some American militia of the time had better and more lethal rifles for the purpose of militia combat than any army on the planet. If you aren't careful, you will end up approving assault rifles and trying to ban modern shotguns.
Kittamaru said:
I would argue that very few people who own firearms in the US have trained with, or are a part of, any sort of militia... thus, by the definition (and spirit) of the amendment, they have no 'right to bear arms'.
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You would be completely wrong in your reasoning, on top of misreading an ablative absolute clause in English.
Probably most, and arguably all, adults in the US are members of a militia, and militia by definition do not necessarily train in advance of being called up. They can, of course - and they will need to bring their weapons to do that - but they don't have to.
Meanwhile: shooting a gun with other citizens, hunting and so forth, playing organized team sports, and physical exercise with other citizens, would of course count as training - would be in fact an important aspect of militia training. Lots of Americans available to be called up as militia have done that. (You seem to be suggesting something more or less equivalent to the claim that the right to own a gun is restricted to people who have played football in high school, or perhaps have served in the military).

btw: Here's a link to the grammatical construction that appears to confuse people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_construction

So to illustrate the role by similar construction:
A clean house being necessary to the health of its inhabitants, the right of housemembers to keep and bear cleaning utensils shall not be infringed.
A shoveled sidewalk being necessary to the mobility of city residents, the right of those living near sidewalks to keep and bear snow shovels shall not be infringed.
Access to air being necessary for the continued life of a mammal, the right of the people near water to keep and bear flotation devices shall not be infringed.
 
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billvon said:
Agreed. And since it agrees with other polls on that topic, it's confirmed.

Quinnipac, Oct 2017: Ninety-five percent of voters support universal background checks for gun purchases, including 94 percent of those who live in gun-owning households, according to the latest Quinnipiac University survey.
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Do they define "universal background checks"? Because aside from person to person, we already have that.
NPR/Ipsos, Oct 2017: The poll found that a majority (68%) of Americans, regardless of political party, support stricter gun laws.

Pew, Jun 2017: In favor of laws that:
- prevent the mentally ill from purchasing guns 89%
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Federal law already does that.
- background checks for all gun purchases 84%
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Already have all but person to person transfers.
- federal database to track gun sales 71%
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Depending on what they mean, we already have that too. All FFL sales are recorded for AFT reports.
 
Muzzle loading rifles are not going to be compared with assault weapons unless the person doing the comparison is an utter idiot.
 
Vociferous said:
Do they define "universal background checks"? Because aside from person to person, we already have that.
Federal law already does that.
Already have all but person to person transfers.
Depending on what they mean, we already have that too. All FFL sales are recorded for AFT reports.
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As noted before, a lot of the people supposedly against gun control think we already have the provisions being fought for.

The American opposition to gun control is not based in a public, common, or expressed preference for a society without control of guns.
Gawdzilla Sama said:
Muzzle loading rifles are not going to be compared with assault weapons unless the person doing the comparison is an utter idiot.
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Unfortunately, the design details of the "arms" protected in the Constitution are not specified - merely their role: militia service in the security of a free State, and their nature: kept and borne by individuals in readiness to form said militia at need.

One can argue, say, that assault rifles are not necessary or even appropriate militia weapons, and that having them around in civilian hands threatens the security of a free State (that argument becomes stronger if the police etc are also excluded from possession). One can also argue that if they are militia weapons, among the necessary equipment of a well-regulated militia, their particular and unprecedented nature requires special handling and storage to prevent them from becoming a threat to the security of the free State - including its militia - instead. That ammunition and firing be sequestered, say.

But prudence would not rely on unsupervised politicians to avoid being idiots.
 
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iceaura said:
The American opposition to gun control is not based in a public, common, or expressed preference for a society without control of guns.
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Sounds like a straw man. Do people who oppose further gun control also oppose all gun control?
 
Vociferous said:
Sounds like a straw man.
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It is, of course. A common one. That's why I posted it. Is that confusing to you?

Why yes, it is:
Vociferous said:
Do people who oppose further gun control also oppose all gun control?
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People who think they are opposing further gun control often do. That's worth keeping in mind when assessing their sanity, is my point. They aren't as crazy as they sound to the better informed.
 
Gawdzilla Sama said:
They were supposed to drill together regularly. Lots of them didn't. It was a point of fun to mock their drills in the editorial cartoons of the day.
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Then what basis is there, today, for saying that untrained, untested, and unknown rando's have the right to weapons capable of ending dozens of lives from a hundred paces in seconds...?

iceaura said:
You would be completely wrong in your reasoning, on top of misreading an ablative absolute clause in English.
Probably most, and arguably all, adults in the US are members of a militia, and militia by definition do not necessarily train in advance of being called up. They can, of course - and they will need to bring their weapons to do that - but they don't have to.
Meanwhile: shooting a gun with other citizens, hunting and so forth, playing organized team sports, and physical exercise with other citizens, would of course count as training - would be in fact an important aspect of militia training. Lots of Americans available to be called up as militia have done that. (You seem to be suggesting something more or less equivalent to the claim that the right to own a gun is restricted to people who have played football in high school, or perhaps have served in the military).
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Interesting - it would seem the definition and/or intent of "training" is able to be interpreted in quite a vague way...

Don't misunderstand me, I've no qualms with firearms themselves - I rather enjoyed the time my grandfather and I spent at the range. They are a tool, after all, and nothing more. My issue is that people who have no business handling one seem to quite easily acquire (and then use) them. Case in point - the poor girl a few years back who accidentally blew the braincase off her instructor at the firing range when he let her fire an Uzi in full-auto, then stood behind her right in its recoil path. Obviously she was not at fault here... but she is, no doubt, traumatized all the same, and he is quite dead.

A little common sense, it would seem, would go a long, long way.
 
iceaura said:
People who think they are opposing further gun control often do. That's worth keeping in mind when assessing their sanity, is my point. They aren't as crazy as they sound to the better informed.
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Who wants to get rid of all gun control? Anarchists?
 
I used to sell ammunition.
Where I live there are a lot of "black powder" gun enthusiast.

The odd thing is that anyone wanting to buy a few ounces of black powder had to show identification and sign for the receipt.

Now a black powder rifle is a single shot rifle which needs to be reloaded and primed before yu can use it again. This process takes about 30 seconds, before you can shoot again and uses a single lead ball with a short range.

But black powder is an explosive and needed to be kept in a special safe. But 8 ounces of black powder would not make a very big bomb. I used to sell a few cannisters of black powder a week.
Obviously for sport shooting

Ironically, on the shelves we also had thousands of rounds designed for all calibers and other types of guns, including self-loading semi-automatic weapons of war. I used to sell hundreds of rounds which could kill at a thousand feet, without needing to register or ask for identification.

Can anyone advise me on the logic of this system of self-protection?
 
Why doesn't anyone pay attention to the second part of the amendment, which specifically states "a well regulated militia" being necessary.
It seems to me that even if you are not in the military, buying a military weapon would automatically qualifies for the title militia.

So where is the "well regulation" of owning a military weapon (being a part of the militia)?
 
Bowser said:
There is gun control in the US. The question is how much gun control do we want?

I don't know. It might differ from state to state.
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Enough regulation to prevent or minimize the use of weapons of mass destruction for killing dozens of innocent people at random?
 
Write4U said:
Enough regulation to prevent or minimize the use of weapons of mass destruction for killing dozens of innocent people at random?
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So if you had a revolver, you could kill half a dozen. Would that somehow be more acceptable?
 
billvon said:
Gallup poll from Oct 5 2017:

"In general, do you feel that the laws covering the sale of firearms should be made more strict, less strict or kept as they are now?"
60% more strict
5% less strict
33% kept the same
1% no opinion

So less than a third don't want to change gun laws. Most people do.
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where did the missing 1% go and what is the margin for era ... and which country town or large central city street was this poll taken from(only people rich enough to own their own house and landline telephone...)
etc etc....
50% of the countrys adults wont vote in national elections...
i think polling the general public in the usa is a bit of a fools game on anything other than opinions of fast food.
 
Vociferous said:
Do they define "universal background checks"? Because aside from person to person, we already have that.
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Right. Close that loophole; everyone who buys a gun gets a background check. Period. No exceptions. Stop giving violent felons a way to get guns without background checks.
Federal law already does that.
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Trump just repealed that. You can now be so mentally damaged that you are not allowed to manage your own finances or speak for yourself in court - but you are allowed to buy a gun.
Depending on what they mean, we already have that too. All FFL sales are recorded for AFT reports.
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No, we don't. No information is retained. All records are required to be destroyed within 24 hours of doing the background check.
 
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