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A gunman fired upon thousands of people attending a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip Sunday night, in a brutal attack that is blamed for at least 58 deaths, police say. In the mass shooting and panic that ensued, 515 people were injured. At least one of the dead is an off-duty police officer who was attending the concert.
Editorializing: Interesting how media always emphasize ISLAMIC terrorists, but downplay domestic terrorism as psychologically disturbed individual lone-wolfs.
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Over 50 dead in mass shooting in Las Vegas
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I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamt that I was reading on,
so I woke up from sheer boredom.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday October 03 2017, @03:18PM (4 children)
That is absolutely not the idea upon which the US was founded. Our "founding fathers" believed that "rights" were things inherent in men which the government could never legitimately restrict. Which is why the Bill of Rights wasn't an original part of the Constitution and was instead added as amendments -- many even argued that it should not be included precisely because by defining rights in law you risk creating the belief that the law is what creates those rights -- as you just demonstrated.
See "Natural Rights": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights [wikipedia.org]
See also Federalist No. 84: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/bor/federalist-84/ [teachingamericanhistory.org]
(Score: 1) by evk on Wednesday October 04 2017, @10:18AM (3 children)
I think I understand what you say, but I find it difficult to agree. There's two different issues here.
1. Is the right to bear arms a natural right and what do we do if this right contradict other rights. The issue here isn't really guns, it is safety. It could be argued that guns are an essential part of the right to saftey (i.e. self defence). It could also be argued that a society without restrictions on lethal weapons isn't a safe society. Not even the U.S is completly without restrictions and I find it extremly unlikely that less restrictions would make the country safer.
2. Should the law define rights. This is to me more interesting and also where I found it very difficult to agree with your(?) point of view. If the law doesn't define the rights. Who should? And who will ensure that these rights are actual rights and not just a dream. People will never have a fully shared idea about what the rights should be.
It sounds to me like what you describe would lead to an anarchistic world view. I tend to like anarchy (I'm not using the general meaning of the word but refers to the ideologic idea see e.g. Robert Nozick) but find it extremly difficult to implement. The U.S is very far from anarchistic so I suspect that that's not what your ralking about.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 04 2017, @11:15AM
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:32PM
Well, I don't personally believe in the magical sky fairies (although I otherwise do tend to agree about this), but it was the view of the US founders that rights essentially came from God:
I'd agree mostly in the sense that most "rights" are things that you really can't take away no matter how hard you try. Free speech...you can pass all the laws you want, people will say what they think in the privacy of their own home. Freedom of religion...you can't control someone elses' thoughts or beliefs. But the right to bear arms fits that pattern as well -- if people think they need weapons, they will find a way to arm themselves. We've got people building rail guns and tazers out of disposable cameras. We've got 3D printed pistols. Before that, we had zip guns. Before that, we had people beating plowshares into swords.
Yeah, I'm definitely sympathetic towards an anarchist view...I lean towards Anarcho-syndicalism generally. Difficult to implement because it's a social structure as much as a political one -- unlike most governments, it's not something a core group of politicians could impose by force. Essentially, people should act cooperatively in the interest of society without someone forcing them at gunpoint to do so.
I will say that I'm not *entirely* opposed to gun control under our current system, but it would need to be done in a way that applies equally to everyone. The point of the US government was supposed to be that it is "of, by, and for the people" -- ie, the government is not separate from the citizenry. So you can't say that the government gets weapons but the citizens can't. If you want a licensing exam similar to how we regulate driving, that's fine...but every cop with a gun and every soldier must pass that same exam. If you want a blanket ban on certain weapons, fine, but that ban must apply to government agents as well (a pistol ban would actually be a pretty good policy IMO...not much use in war; far from the only or even best option for home defense; mostly good at being small and easily concealed. But that won't stop these mass shootings...)
The other thing to consider is that mass *homicides* in general don't seem to correlate entirely with gun control. China has pretty strict gun control, but they've had some mass stabbings with a body count that exceeds all but the worst US shooting incidents. My feeling is that one has to be extremely desperate to turn to this kind of crime, and the reason much of Europe sees less of it is simply because they have better social programs to prevent people from reaching that point. The US, on the other hand, has a very large and vocal faction saying that your problems are your own, deal with it or die. So I think gun control is totally irrelevant if the real cause of these incidents is that inability to get help.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @09:06PM
Where does law come from, if not from dictators at gunpoint? Can its authority be sourced from somewhere else? It can - but doing so comes with some drawbacks and limitations [soylentnews.org]