U.S. justices could decide constitutionality of gun ownership

[brien]

Uh huh.... you made a baby step forward towards the solution.

I have always placed the responsibility where it belongs, ie on the person. So I don't really understand your point here.

[Praxius]

Quote by: brien Not a personal attack. It is merely reminding those of us who are here, how sometimes we contradict ourselves from thread to thread.

Really?

Perhaps he doesn't remember so well because smoking too much weed has been linked to short term memory disfunction in some indidviduals......

You know, considdering I got crapped on by modderators for a lot less which had nothing to do with the thread/topic in question and was direct slander by quickly throwing out some ignorant comment about me being some dope head... it's not that your comments pissed me off... it's the fact that I get shit on for far less in these forums by the moderators, while everybody else think's it's all fun and games when they get to make an entire post that has nothing to do with the topic at all, and is directed to personal assumptuous comments about another member's personal life... where you have no damn clue except your own ignorant views.

But ok, whatever.

The pot jab I couldn't resist because you always write that it doesn't affect you in any negative ways. Perhaps you should reconsider your opinnion there Prax. I really don't care b/c I used to consume the weed myself, and yes, it did affect my short term memory.

If you had memory problems good for you.... I don't. Chances are, since I am posting this as well on the end of a break, I won't remember all of what I said here later on either..... who gives a rats ass. If I was to try and remember every word I posted in these forums, plus the several other forums I attended for the last decade or so, then I'd have to be some kind of super human with some super great memory, as I'm pretty sure you can't cite off a post you made a few months ago word for word, without searching back on it.

Like I said... be glad I'm not as much of a hardass on people in here when it comes to posts from the past. I point out if someone contradicted or messed something up and I move on.... I suppose I can't expect others in here to have the same level of maturity.

Oh yeah.... and even if I said something was subjective in the past and I say something opposite to that later on..... last I checked, people are allowed to change their minds... beats staying the course.

I apologize if I was a bit rough on you.

It's not about being rough on me, it's about not being ignorant. I don't know what your personal life with weed was like, but if you were having memory problems, then perhaps you were smoking more then I.

Oh, and I also apologize that I don't stay on top of every word I post in these forums.... I can't help it if I have a life.

[Praxius]

Quote by: brien I have always placed the responsibility where it belongs, ie on the person. So I don't really understand your point here.

Since we're back to topic.... could you list me off the average age, gender, mental conditionings, positions in their social lives in school/college all have in common?

All were mostly loners, not very popular in school/college, all were in their late teens or early 20's for the most part, all seemed to have some "Mental Illness" (Who the hell doesn't these days it seems?) All went out in a blaze of glory to take out anybody they saw, because they didn't care, and all decided to take their own lives in the end.

... oh, and more people who are in similar situations in their lives will see these same patterns in these dead guy's lives and feel it's a method of power and expression of frustration and hatred which they feel has been with them their entire lives..... make them feel all the pain and suffering you have felt all your life all in a few seconds before you take your own life is a common trend in mentality.

Most will feel that everybody else besides them have much better lives all because they put their problems and issues onto them, by teasing, insulting, casting them out of society to make their own lives feel better.... so they return the favor to these people who look like they are having happy lives.

They have gone through years of parents and doctors telling them there's something wrong with them and nobody else, so they load them up with pills and anti-depressants thinking that will solve their problems and they can push them through school until they're on their own and then the parents don't have to deal with them as much.

And besides... it's cheaper to load them up with pills then it is to actually get them "Real Help" be that counselling or a therapist..... but before it even gets to this point.... the simplest solution is to actually listen to your kids.... actually put some effort into know what they are going trough... stop trivializing their problems and telling them to suck it up and that everybody else goes through these problems...... stop contributing to the constant teasing and out-casting of these kids and show them that there are other humans in the world who care.

And some of these kids did aknowlege those who did pay attention to them and made them feel human.

These kids these days are a level up from where I was in school in the 90's.... there's wars going on, kids have their parents or other family members going off to wars across the world to die or risk death. You have major poverty issues in families.... the public schools are in shams... everything is solved with Px pills these days... nobody bothers to listen to these kids early on before things start to develop into much worse hatred and isolation from the rest of society.

And before you know it.... they're failing in school, their so-called girlfriend cheats on them and dumps them, they get fired from their crap-ass part time job, their parents don't bother with them, nobody tried to help them look for a potiential future or career or even something to actually look forward to.

Quite generally and simply.... they're left alone and forgotten about.... therefore they will make people remember them. They get it all piled up on top of their shoulders all at once and there isn't one person around they feel would understand let alone care..... so they go and grab daddy's guns and ammo, steal the car and drive somewhere they know will make a lasting impression on the surrounding society and make other's suffer as they have.... and then they kill themselves to end their suffering.... as it's sure not gonna get any better after shooting a bunch of people.

The main solution to all these kinds of shootings is to prevent the mentality these people have from ever starting in the first place.... and the simplest solution to that is to actually listen and possibly relate and/or help them.

Heck it's not hard to point out the potiential shooters in any school.... but instead of further isolation ot pointing fingers at them, I imagine it'd be a lot easier to actually show them there's more to life then just being treated like crap all the time.

The Solution isn't about firearms or lack there of, it's not even about loading them up with pills and hoping for the best.... it's about being human to other humans long before a problem can even begin to exist.

I'm not saying this is the absolute solution, nor am I saying this is 100% the mentality they all go through, but based on the commonalities between these characters, plus my own personal experiences and thought patterns during those times in my life, not to mention relating to old friends who were also close to that stage, most of the above are very common trends which help fuel these types of end outcomes. I figure most of these people who can actually explain what's been going through their minds are all dead.... and usually the last thing that went through their minds, was a bullet. When I hear quotes from letters and explinations from their suicide notes, I can find it quite easy to relate to the frustrations they were going through, and during adolesence with spiked hormones and all that garbage where everything is made in your head to be one extreme or another, it doesn't make things easy to figure out..... esspecially when you have nobody to talk to except yourself

threatening these type of people with jail time and further outcasting isn't going to stop them from doing these types of mass shooting, as they're already bombarded by outcasting and being shunned everyday as it is. If anything, as illogical as it sounds, those types of solutions of increased jail time and more penalties to avoid from doing these things, will only in turn produce more defiance and desire to cause even more distruction before they even take their own life.... all for the simple fact that nobody got why they did it for to begin with.... and others will continue to do it until someone figures it out.

[Sonart]

.

Quote by: Mark The prisons are overcrowded because of non-violent drug offenders, and they are continually releasing violent criminals to make room for more non-violent "criminals". Nice try though.

Quote by: brien Better slap your forehead again there Sonart. The prisons are overcrowded with drug convicted criminals, not firearms related criminals.

Boy, you guys can come up with more "old saws" than a carpenter. Care to back that up, Mark? Brien?

Here, from the Bureau of Justice Statistics...

Peercentage of sentenced State Inmates
OFFENSE.......1995........2004
Violent .............47%........52%
Property............23%........21%
Drug..................22%........20%
Public-order.........9% .........7%



And state and federal prisons are releasing NON-violent offenders these days, to make room.

H.R. 261, The Federal Prison Bureau Nonviolent Offender Relief Act of 2007

Quote by: brien You can't. Even if guns didn't exist, they would use bombs, as they do in the M.E. You are delusional if you think that by removing all firearms that these type of situations would never happen.

Says who? They go on shooting sprees specificall BECAUSE they've been raised in a culture that glorifies guns and gun violence. Otherwise, why aren't countries with tough gun laws plagued with rampaging nutjob suicide bombers?

Yet they aren't, are they, brien.

Quote by: Zeebedee Gun advocates better enjoy their "constitutional right" while they can. I think it's inevitable that the ruling will eventually go against individual gun ownership.

U.S. v. Miller is already the law of the land, Zeeb, backed up by 8 of the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal. The bigger danger is that Miller will be overturned by the Bush Court this coming March.

.

[Charlatan]

I think high school shootings ceom from - at the root - people who don't get accepted. I heard Praxius point out that you can always - well nearly always - tell who the potential shooters are in any school, and they are always people who haven't been accepted, right? So if everyone was to pretend they were a part of Barney and friends then they would be accepted and be happy without causing a scene, but who wants to play Barney the whole time? Well there is a solution that will work but won't be implemented because at school some people want to be 'bad'. Think if you ask a shooter on his way to shoot are they good or bad and they will definatley not say they are a hero shooting bad people, they would realise they are a villian shooting people they don't like, because they have a problem with them or society in general, which didn't accept them, right? So being bad is always a way to get accepted in their minds, being a rebel is thought of as being accepted, so they rebel. This extreme rebellion is a way of shouting they are bad and thier views on society are more important than others and now they have force behind them too, to enforce their views, briefly, and feel they are the ones who are now not accepting others livelihoods, so they are the judges of who is in or out and not the majority anymore, so in a way it makes them feel popular, I guess.

[mark3748]

Quote by: Praxius Read it... bunch of statistics, it's already being implemented... not working on the issue presented on these new suicide mass murderers, nor is the solution for preventing these people from ever picking up a gun (clue #1)

The answer is do nothing. These types of things are fairly isolated incidents, and the chances of someone like this getting past a handful of victims when someone is able to defend themselves is very low.

It's been noted that mass shootings like VT and the NE mall incident only happen when the government is getting ready to decide on gun control issues. It sounds a little too much like a conspiracy theory for my tastes, but it's hard to believe that it's all just coincidence.


Contemplating Mass Murder in Omaha

Incidents like the one in Omaha and those that preceded it are simply too damned convenient -- to the victim disarmament crowd -- for them to be accepted any more as merely the random work of individual psychotics. There it is. I said it, and I'm glad. More and more it appears to even the most neutral observer that, just when Congress, the state legislature, or even a city council is debating a new law that infringes the right of the people to keep and bear arms -- in this case it's the U.S. Supreme Court taking up the question -- some lunatic comes along, using whatever gun the liberals currently want most to put political pressure on, and kills a bunch of people. It almost never fails. I wrote about this phenomenon twenty years ago, myself, although I only half-believed it then. But after the all-too-convenient killings in Dunblane, Scotland that gave Parliament what it needed to outlaw all privately-owned guns in Britain, and after a similar atrocity in Tasmania produced similar legislative results in Australia, I stopped doubting. Go to: The Manchurian Lobbyist--Revisited, by L. Neil Smith How many more Robert Hawkins will be sacrificed -- along with their innocent victims -- until the enemies of freedom finally have their way? If that's too conspiratorial, if it sounds too weird or hysterical, remember what's at stake. It's equally hard believing there are people who see a positive value in the extermination of as many of their fellow human beings as possible. And yet each generation seems to produce enough of them to mess the world up for everybody else. The Ottomans. Hitler. Stalin. Mao. Pol Pot. Every great slaughter in history has been preceded by the mass disarmament of those who are to be slaughtered. Australia is ready for genocide now. So is Great Britain. Is America being softened up the same way? Would those evil, crazy, or corrupt enough to kill millions even hesitate to arrange something like what happened in Omaha this week?

[mark3748]

Quote by: Sonart . U.S. v. Miller is already the law of the land, Zeeb, backed up by 8 of the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal. The bigger danger is that Miller will be overturned by the Bush Court this coming March. .

All Miller really stated was that a short barrel shotgun was not a military weapon, which it really was (The us military had been using short-barrel shotguns for a long time, called "trench guns"), but that's not the point. It truely has nothing to do with the legal ownership of any "military" weapons. It is, in fact, still completely legal under federal law to own any fully automatic weapon, all that is required is to pay a $200 tax.

The Miller decision says nothing about an all-out ban on all firearms, which is what the current case is about.

[brien]

U.S. v. Miller is already the law of the land, Zeeb, backed up by 8 of the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal. The bigger danger is that Miller will be overturned by the Bush Court this coming March

Talk about old saws there Sonart. I recall in another thread I showed you more recent court cases that upheld the right of the individual to own firearms. The most recent being in Parker vs DC. This citing Miller gets older than the saws.

But yes we will see the decision by June which will once and for all, put this issue to bed. pssst, I think you are going to lose.

Says who? They go on shooting sprees specificall BECAUSE they've been raised in a culture that glorifies guns and gun violence. Otherwise, why aren't countries with tough gun laws plagued with rampaging nutjob suicide bombers?

Some are in the M.E. As far as Gun Control being the answer to lower crime, that's fallacy as well.

NRA-ILA :: Fact Sheets

Gun Laws, Culture, Justice & Crime In Foreign Countries Do other countries all have more restrictive gun laws and lower violent crime rates than the U.S.? How do U.S. and other countries` crime trends compare? What societal factors affect crime rates? A recent report for Congress notes, "All countries have some form of firearms regulation, ranging from the very strictly regulated countries like Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Sweden to the less stringently controlled uses in the jurisdictions of Mexico and Switzerland, where the right to bear arms continues as a part of the national heritage up to the present time." However, "From available statistics, among (the 27) countries surveyed, it is difficult to find a correlation between the existence of strict firearms regulations and a lower incidence of gun-related crimes. . . . (I)n Canada a dramatic increase in the percentage of handguns used in all homicides was reported during a period in which handguns were most strictly regulated. And in strictly regulated Germany, gun-related crime is much higher than in countries such as Switzerland and Israel, that have simpler and/or less restrictive legislation." (Library of Congress, "Firearms Regulations in Various Foreign Countries, May 1998.") Many foreign countries have less restrictive firearms laws, and lower crime rates, than parts of the U.S. that have more restrictions. And many have low crime rates, despite having very different firearms laws. Switzerland and Japan "stand out as intriguing models. . . . (T)hey have crime rates that are among the lowest in the industrialized world, and yet they have diametrically opposite gun policies." (Nicholas D. Kristof, "One Nation Bars, The Other Requires," New York Times, 3/10/96.) Swiss citizens are issued fully-automatic rifles to keep at home for national defense purposes, yet "abuse of military weapons is rare." The Swiss own two million firearms, including handguns and semi-automatic rifles, they shoot about 60 million rounds of ammunition per year, and "the rate of violent gun abuse is low." (Stephen P. Halbrook, Target Switzerland; Library of Congress, pp. 183-184.) In Japan, rifles and handguns are prohibited; shotguns are very strictly regulated. Japan`s Olympic shooters have had to practice out of the country because of their country`s gun laws. Yet, crime has been rising for about the last 15 years and the number of shooting crimes more than doubled between 1997-1998. Organized crime is on the rise and 12 people were killed and 5,500 injured in a nerve gas attack in a Japanese subway system in 1995. (Kristof, "Family and Peer Pressure Help Keep Crime Levels down in Japan," New York Times, 5/14/95.) Mostly without firearms, Japan`s suicide rate is at a record high, about 90 per day. (Stephanie Strom, "In Japan, Mired in Recession, Suicides Soar," New York Times, p. 1, 7/15/99.) U.S. crime trends have been better than those in countries with restrictive firearms laws. Since 1991, with what HCI calls "weak gun laws" (Sarah Brady, "Our Country`s Claim to Shame," 5/5/97), the number of privately owned firearms has risen by perhaps 50 million. Americans bought 37 million new firearms in the 1993-1999 time frame alone. (BATF, Crime Gun Trace Reports, 1999, National Report, 11/00.) Meanwhile, America`s violent crime rate has decreased every year and is now at a 23- year low (FBI). In addition to Japan, other restrictive countries have experienced increases in crime

:


Sonart wrote:

a culture that glorifies guns and gun violence.

And I lay this repsonsibility right at the doorstep of Follywood. Most Hollywood actors and producers share your views on gun control yet they do exactly what you claim above. They are hypocritical whackos who are greedy selfish bastards who promote crime and violence with guns by glorifying them in their productions simply for the money it earns them. If they portrayed gunshot wounds as they really appear, most people would probably vomit. The closest I ever saw to the consequences of being on the receiving end of a bullet was in Saving Private Ryan. If more Hollywood producers depicted gun violence responsibly, I would postulate that less people would probably fool with guns because they would realize the dangerous consequences of a gunshot.

[Zeebadee]

Quote by: brien But yes we will see the decision by June which will once and for all, put this issue to bed. pssst, I think you are going to lose.

Once and for all?? I don't think so. Eventually Americans are going to get tired of these types of massacres and public opinion will force SCOTUS to react. This June, the next, or the one after that.

[brien]

Boy, you guys can come up with more "old saws" than a carpenter. Care to back that up, Mark? Brien?

I did back it up Sonart with statistics. It showed you that more people were in prison for non violent crimes and drug related crimes than for violent crimes. Could it be that violent crime is falling and has nothing to do with gun control? In fact violent crime from 1999 through 2006 is less than it was during all of the Clinton years cited as the table below shows:

United States Crime Rates 1960 - 2006

In 1990 there were over 1,800,000 violent crimes and hovered thereabout for 8 years to 1,500,000 in 1998. (Clinton Administration) Then from 1999 through 2006 the rate stays the same at about 1,400,000 per year.

Bureau of Justice Statistics Violent Crime Rate Trends

And here is some more supporting evidence on drug crimes and prison populations.

Feature: Drug War Prisoner Count Over Half a Million, US Prison Population at All-Time High

More than half a million people were behind bars for drug offenses in the United States at the end of last year, according to numbers from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In a report released Sunday, Prisoners in 2004, the Justice Department number-crunchers found that people sentenced for drug crimes accounted for 21% of state prisoners and 55% of all federal prisoners

55% in federal prisons in 2004 Sonart. Another old saw eh? It is as old as yours my friend. Gimme a brake.

Furthermore since most drug laws are Federal laws, when they are violated, the inmate is sentenced to a Federal prison, not a state prison from which you cite your statistics. If there were no Federal prisons, and drug offenders were incarcerated at the state level, it would blow your statistics away. I stand by my statement that there are more drug offenders incarcerated in prisons than violent offenders. Punish the criminals who uses a firearms during the commission of a crime with severe, swift and certain punishments and leave you mits off my guns.

[brien]

Quote by: Zeebadee Once and for all?? I don't think so. Eventually Americans are going to get tired of these types of massacres and public opinion will force SCOTUS to react. This June, the next, or the one after that.

So say you.

[Sonart]

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Quote by: mark The Miller decision says nothing about an all-out ban on all firearms, which is what the current case is about.

Miller declares that we do not have an Constitutional, INDIVIDUAL right to keep and bear arms, only the right to do so as necessary for the maintenance of a well regulated militia, as defined by the Constitution. Let's settle that. Besides, it's not like guns haven't been banned before.

Quote by: brien I did back it up Sonart with statistics.

You first link says nothing whatsoever about drug related crime, your second link reflects the overall crime reduction during the mid-nineties -- people don't commit crimes when the economy is booming -- and your 3rd link says exactly what mine did... 21% drug offenders in state prisons.

.

[brien]

Quote by: Sonart . Miller declares that we do not have an Constitutional, INDIVIDUAL right to keep and bear arms, only the right to do so as necessary for the maintenance of a well regulated militia, as defined by the Constitution. Let's settle that. Besides, it's not like guns haven't been banned before. You first link says nothing whatsoever about drug related crime, your second link reflects the overall crime reduction during the mid-nineties -- people don't commit crimes when the economy is booming -- and your 3rd link says exactly what mine did... 21% drug offenders in state prisons. .

My link showed in 2004 that 55% of Federal prisoners are drug offenders. Take those offenders and add them to state inmates incarcerated for drug crimes and it probably adds up to the majority of the inmates in prison are there for drug related crimes


Here is a critical essay on the Miller decision.


http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndmie.html

Where the Miller Court Erred Introduction The following commentary is excepted from: James J. Featherstone, Richard E. Gardiner, Robert Dowlut, "The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution Guarantees an Individual Right To Keep and Bear Arms", 97th Cong., 2d Sess. 83-109 (Comm. print 1982). The heart of the Court's ruling is found at the beginning of the opinion; it states: In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense. (Emphasis added.) 307 U.S. at 178. Two independent thoughts are expressed here: one, that for the keeping and bearing of a firearm to be constitutionally protected, that firearm's possession or use must have some reasonable relationship to the preservation of a well regulated militia; and two, that in this case, the Court would not take judicial notice that a short-barrelled shotgun met such a test. It remanded the case to the trial court for the taking of evidence on that question. The Court's first point, that the right to keep and bear an arm is dependent on the firearm's military value, is faulty, however, because the Court failed to consider fully the common law, and misinterpreted cited authorities. Rather, the Court only briefly discussed the common law and, moreover, did not consider the history of the adoption of the Second Amendment, both of which support the proposition that the Second Amendment guarantees and protects a fundamental individual right. As to the misinterpretation of cited authorities, a result undoubtedly of the one-sided argument, one important example should suffice. In support of its position that the Second Amendment's protection and guarantee was limited to "ordinary military equipment" or weapons whose use "could contribute to the common defense," the Court cited one case, Aymette v. State, 21 Tenn. 154 2 Humph. 154 (1840). In Aymette, however, the Tennessee Supreme Court was construing not the Second Amendment but the provision of Tennessee's constitution guaranteeing the right to keep and bear arms, a provision which, unlike the Second Amendment, spoke of each citizen's right to keep and bear arms only as it related to the common defense. The Tennessee court thus reasoned that not all objects which could conceivably be used as weapons were protected by the Tennessee Constitution, but only those weapons "such as usually employed in civilized warfare." Id. at 158. This limitation is not, however, applicable to the Second Amendment since the First Congress, while debating what ultimately became the Second Amendment, emphatically rejected the " common defense" language upon which the Aymette decision turned. It is plain, therefore, that the interpretation of the Second Amendment in Miller is more limited than it should be and that the Second Amendment protects the keeping and bearing of all types of arms which could be carried by individuals. Moreover, the rejection of the "common defense" limitation signified the Framers' intention that the constitutional guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms was not inextricably tied to a militia nexus, but existed independently of it. Even accepting, however, that a militia or common defense nexus was necessary, Aymette went on to say that, " The citizens have an unqualified right to keep the weapon." Id. at 160. One other comment should be made about Aymette. What Judge Green was discussing when he said that the legislature could pass laws concerning arms was that laws could be enacted which would punish the misuse of such arms. As an example, Judge Green noted that the legislature could punish a set of ruffians for entering a theatre or a church with drawn swords, guns, and fixed bayonets to the terror of the audience; he went on to observe, moreover, that "the citizens have an unqualified right to keep the weapon" and to bear it except to "terrify the people, or for purposes of private assassination." Id. at 160.

This is the link for the full essay:

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution Guarantees an Individual Right To Keep and Bear Arms

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution Guarantees an Individual Right To Keep and Bear Arms (By James J. Featherstone, Esquire, General Counsel, National Rifle Association of America and Richard E. Gardiner, Esquire, Robert Dowlut, Esquire, Office of the General Counsel)

[mark3748]

Quote by: brien Furthermore since most drug laws are Federal laws, when they are violated, the inmate is sentenced to a Federal prison, not a state prison from which you cite your statistics. If there were no Federal prisons, and drug offenders were incarcerated at the state level, it would blow your statistics away. I stand by my statement that there are more drug offenders incarcerated in prisons than violent offenders. Punish the criminals who uses a firearms during the commission of a crime with severe, swift and certain punishments and leave you mits off my guns.

I Know this is true, that drug criminals are sent to federal prison. My brother was sent to federal prison for methamphetimines. STATE prisons don't tell the whole story.

[another day]

Quote by: mark3748 The answer is do nothing. These types of things are fairly isolated incidents, and the chances of someone like this getting past a handful of victims when someone is able to defend themselves is very low. It's been noted that mass shootings like VT and the NE mall incident only happen when the government is getting ready to decide on gun control issues. It sounds a little too much like a conspiracy theory for my tastes, but it's hard to believe that it's all just coincidence. Contemplating Mass Murder in Omaha

Oh please... how exactly would some kind of liberal legion of doom plot out these massacres? Do they go to high schools and find some weirdo loner kid and give him a gun and tell him to shoot up his school? Never mind the fact that the guns used were always registered to the shooters, or their family members. Never mind that the shooters were real people with a real past of mental health issues that is documented, on the internet, through video, writings etc. Your right it's way too hard to believe this.

Since gun control is and has always been an ongoing issue in politics, I don't find it hard to swallow one could draw parallels between shootings and court decisions.

And it's not all coincidence. These people learn from each other, copy each others crimes. The vt shooter obsessed with the columbine kids, etc.

As people have said, the problem here is a psychological phenomenon, and it's very multifaceted.

[mark3748]

Quote by: another day Oh please... how exactly would some kind of liberal legion of doom plot out these massacres? Do they go to high schools and find some weirdo loner kid and give him a gun and tell him to shoot up his school? Never mind the fact that the guns used were always registered to the shooters, or their family members. Never mind that the shooters were real people with a real past of mental health issues that is documented, on the internet, through video, writings etc. Your right it's way too hard to believe this. Since gun control is and has always been an ongoing issue in politics, I don't find it hard to swallow one could draw parallels between shootings and court decisions. And it's not all coincidence. These people learn from each other, copy each others crimes. The vt shooter obsessed with the columbine kids, etc. As people have said, the problem here is a psychological phenomenon, and it's very multifaceted.

I didn't say I believed it, I said it was interesting, and probably coincidental that such things do precede gun restrictions that were already in the process of becoming law. I don't like conspiracy theories, but it does make me wonder a little.

[Sonart]

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Quote by: brien My link showed in 2004 that 55% of Federal prisoners are drug offenders. Take those offenders and add them to state inmates incarcerated for drug crimes and it probably adds up to the majority of the inmates in prison are there for drug related crimes

And as of two years earlier, federal prisons held 155,500 prisoners, half of them for federal drug offenses. States, on the other hand, held almost ten times that number... 1, 200, 500 prisoners ... while local jails held another 665,500 prisoners.

Quote by: brien Here is a critical essay on the Miller decision.

That's nice... someone's opinion. Since it has no affect whatsoever on the current standing precedents, what makes it "critical", brien?

Here's another 'Critical' essay.... this one being delivered by the 9th Circuit Court in Silveira v. Lockyer. Unlike yours, this essay actually carries the force of law.

a. The Meaning of the Amendment's First Clause: "A Well-Regulated Militia Being Necessary to the Security of A Free State."

The first or prefatory clause of the Second Amendment sets forth the amendment's purpose and intent. An important aspect of ascertaining that purpose and intent is determining the import of the term "militia." Many advocates of the traditional individual rights model, including the Fifth Circuit, [*36] have taken the position that the term "militia" was meant to refer to all citizens, and, therefore, that the first clause simply restates the second in more specific terms. . . . We agree with the Fifth Circuit in a very limited respect. We agree that the interpretation of the first clause and the extent to which that clause shapes the content of the second depends in large part on the meaning of the term "militia." If militia refers, as the Fifth Circuit suggests, to all persons in a state, rather than to the state military entity, the first clause would have one meaning -- a meaning that would support the concept of traditional individual rights. If the term refers instead, as we believe, to the entity [*37] ordinarily identified by that designation, the state-created and -organized military force, it would likely be necessary to attribute a considerably different meaning to the first clause of the Second Amendment and ultimately to the amendment as a whole.

We believe the answer to the definitional question is the one that most persons would expect: "militia" refers to a state military force. We reach our conclusion not only because that is the ordinary meaning of the word, but because contemporaneously enacted provisions of the Constitution that contain the word "militia" consistently use the term to refer to a state military entity, not to the people of the state as a whole. We look to such contemporaneously enacted provisions for an understanding of words used in the Second Amendment in part because this is an interpretive principle recently explicated by the Supreme Court in a case involving another word that appears in that amendment -- the word "people." That same interpretive principle is unquestionably applicable when we construe the word "militia."

"Militia" appears repeatedly in the first and second Articles of the Constitution. From its use in those sections, it is apparent that the drafters were referring in the Constitution to the second of two government-established and -controlled military forces. Those forces were, first, the national army and navy, which were subject to civilian control shared by the president and Congress, and, second, the state militias, which were to be "essentially organized and under control of the states, but subject to regulation by Congress and to 'federalization' at the command of the president." Paul Finkelman, "A Well Regulated Militia": The Second Amendment in Historical Perspective, 76 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 195, 204 (2000).

[. . .]

After examining each of the significant words or phrases in the Second Amendment's first clause, we conclude that the clause declares the importance of state militias to the security of the various free states within the confines of their newly structured constitutional relationship. With that understanding, the reason for and purpose of the Second Amendment becomes clearer.

b. The Meaning of the Amendment's Second Clause: "The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, Shall Not Be Infringed."

Having determined that the [*46] first clause of the Second Amendment declares the importance of state militias to the proper functioning of the new constitutional system, we now turn to the meaning of the second clause, the effect the first clause has on the second, and the meaning of the amendment as a whole. The second clause -- "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" -- is not free from ambiguity. We consider it highly significant, however, that the second clause does not purport to protect the right to "possess" or "own" arms, but rather to "keep and bear" arms. This choice of words is important because the phrase "bear arms" is a phrase that customarily relates to a military function.

Historical research shows that the use of the term "bear arms" generally referred to the carrying of arms in military service -- not the private use of arms for personal purposes. For instance, Professor Dorf, after canvassing documents from the founding era, concluded that "overwhelmingly, the term had a military connotation." Dorf, supra, at 314. Our own review of historical documents confirms the professor's report. . . .

c. The Relationship Between the Two Clauses.

Our next step is to consider the relationship between the two clauses, and the meaning of the amendment as a whole. As we have noted, and as is evident from the structure of the Second Amendment, the first clause explains the purpose of the more substantive clause that follows, or, to put it differently, it explains the reason necessitating or warranting the enactment of the substantive provision. Moreover, in this case, the first clause does more than simply state the amendment's purpose or justification: it also helps shape and define the meaning of the substantive provision contained in the second clause, and thus of the amendment itself. . . .

When the second clause is read