"Experts" are full of crap.

[Moonbeam]

I like the part of rahvin's quote of the proof offered by Russ that says, "However, homicide rates did not vary systematically with the business cycle while therate of increase in burglary and robbery has been higher during the economic downturns than during the upturns. This is consistent with the idea that low employment leads to an increased propensity to commit property crime while violent crime is driven by other factors." Wow, what a whoopin refutaion.

It's like I said, you see what you are predisposed to see and select accordingly.

Reading to the end of this thread, I doubt anybody would now buy all the cock and bull about being rational rather than emotional that was put forth in the beginning.

For some, guns are religious icons. Only very serious people look at the sources of their psychological attachments. This discussion, and the energies generated, I am sure, are uniquely American and must appear bizaare to others.

All the talk of God given rights and confiscation make me think of China and Russia and their slow, inexorable, climb toward Democracy. Do I hear Black helicopters?

In the middle ages this discussion could have been about swords or bows. In a galaxy far away it is about personal warheads. Its about fear, personal insecurity, the fantasy of self porktection, and my blue blanket that I have to suck on or die.

The fact may be that people who want to limit the disguesting phenomenon of children killing children with guns may simply be more emotionally mature and grounded in reality. It may be that people choose to restrict some of our man-toys. If so, that will be the law. In time the fanaticism we see here will shift to other fronts. There is never a dearth of non issues.

 

[Tominator]

Moonbeam
Although your though processes are clear, you need to get your facts straight and include them in your reasoning. I will say again...The NRA has spent more on gun safety, education, and providing free gun locks than any organisation includeing the US Government.

We have over 22,000 gun laws on the books. All have claimed to solve something...none did!

GL
If Russ will pardon me butting in...In Illinois we have a Firearm Owner Identification Card. You must fill out an application and include a picture and only after the State Police check you out and send the card to you are you allowed to buy a gun. Common sense should dictate that is enough. ...but no..there is the Federal waiting period.

TripleshotProof?


<< Al Gore's Justice Department Says Second Amendment Is Meaningless Al Gore's Justice Department Says Second Amendment Is Meaningless
An NRA member recently shared with us the following letter from Seth Waxman, Solicitor General of the United States, confirming that Al Gore's U.S. Department of Justice believes you have no individual right to own any firearm. Mr. Waxman was appointed to his posistion by the Clinton-Gore Administration in 1997, and has played an important role in the Department of Justice ever since.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

U. S. Department of Justice

Office of the Solicitor General


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Solicitor General

Washington, D.C. 20530

August 22, 2000

Dear Mr. XXXX:

Thank you for your letter dated August 11, 2000, in which you question certain statements you understand to have been made by an attorney for the United States during oral argument before the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Emerson. Your letter states that the attorney indicated that the United States believes ?that it could ?take guns away from the public,? and ?restrict ownership of rifles, pistols and shotguns from all people.?? You ask whether the response of the attorney for the United States accurately reflects the position of the Department of Justice and whether it is indeed the government?s position ?that the Second Amendment of the Constitution does not extend to the people as an individual right.?

I was not present at the oral argument you reference, and I have been informed that the court of appeals will not make the transcript or tape of the argument available to the public (or to the Department of Justice). I am informed, however, that counsel for the United States in United States v. Emerson, Assistant United States Attorney William Mateja, did indeed take the position that the Second Amendment does not extend an individual right to keep and bear arms.

That position is consistent with the view of the Amendment taken both by the federal appellate courts and successive Administrations. More specifically, the Supreme Court and eight United States Courts of Appeals have considered the scope of the Second Amendment and have uniformly rejected arguments that it extends firearms rights to individuals independent of the collective need to ensure a well-regulated militia. See United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) (the ?obvious purpose? of the Second Amendment was to effectuate Congress?s power to ?call forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union,? not to provide an individual right to bear arms contrary to federal law?); Cases v. United States, 131 F.2d 916, 921 (1st Cir. 1942) (?The right to keep and bear arms is not a right conferred upon the people by the federal constitution.?); Eckert v. City of Philadelphia, 477 F.2d 610 (3rd Cir. 1973) (?It must be remembered that the right to keep and bear arms is not a right given by the United States Constitution.?); United States v. Johnson, 497 F.2d 548, 550 (4th Cir. 1974); United States v. Warin, 530 F.2d 103, 106-07 (6th Cir. 1976) (?We conclude that the defendant has no private right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment.?); Stevens v. United States, 440 F.2d 144, 149 (6th Cir. 1971) (?There can be no serious claim to any express constitutional right of an individual to possess a firearm.?); Ouilici v. Village of Morton Grove, 695 F.2d 261, 270 (7th Cir. 1982) (?The right to keep and bear handguns is not guaranteed by the second amendment.?); United States v. Hale, 978 F.2d 1016, 1019 (8th Cir. 1992) (?The rule emerging from Miller is that, absent a showing that the possession of a certain weapon has some relationship to the preservation or efficiency of regulated militia, the Second Amendment does not guarantee the right to possess the weapon.?); United States v. Tomlin, 454 F.2d 176 (9th Cir. 1972); United States v. Swinton, 521 F.2d 1255, 1259 (10th Cir. 1975) (?There is no absolute constitutional right of an individual to possess a firearm.?).

Thus, rather than holding that the Second Amendment protects individual firearms rights, these courts have uniformly held that it precludes only federal attempts to disarm, abolish, or disable the ability to call up the organized state militia. Similarly, almost three decades ago, the Department of Justice?s Office of Legal Counsel explained:


The language of the Second Amendment, when it was first presented to the Congress, makes it quite clear that it was the right of the States to maintain a militia that was being preserved, not the rights of an individual to own a gun?[and] [there is no indication that Congress altered its purpose to protect state militias, not individual gun ownership [upon consideration of the Amendment] . . . . Courts?have viewed the Second Amendment as limited to the militia and have held that it does not create a personal right to own or use a gun . . . . In light of the constitutional history, it must be considered as settled that there is no personal constitutional right, under the Second Amendment, to own or to use a gun.
Letter from Mary C. Lawton, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, to George Bush, Chairman, Republican National Committee (July 19, 1973) (citing, inter alia, Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886), and United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939)). See also, e.g., Federal Firearms Act, Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate 41 (1965) (Statement of Attorney General Katzenbach) (?With respect to the second amendment, the Supreme Court of the United States long ago made it clear that the amendment did not guarantee to any individuals the right to bear arms.?).

I hope this answers your question. Thank you again for writing.

Yours sincerely,

Seth P. Waxman

>>



More proof

The objective is confiscation!

 

[DABANSHEE]

Oh, the failed politician gives us his words of wisdom.....

Yeh, maybe if the UN gave every country the right to have nuclear weapons without any threats about embargos &amp; what not, there might be less wars - Yes, Castro should get his missles back.

But why not just let the people all have RPGs, o.50 Browning M2s, Degtyarevs, &amp; Goryunovs &amp; whatnot &amp; we could then mount them on the back of out pickups like those 'Technicals' in Somalia. The arms race did wonders for Africa.

Thats the go aye.

 

[rahvin]

<<Now, if the &quot;experts&quot; were to say that there may be a correlation based on some very weak and erratic associations that would be one thing. But this has been stated so many times that it has become the defacto correct conclusion. It is not.>>


&quot;Community Level Chiricos does find, however, that at lower levels of aggregation (states, counties and cities) roughly half of all reported studies show a positive and statistically significant relationship between employment and crime, using post-1970 data.3 The fraction of positive results increases to almost 75 percent of all studies when property crimes are analyzed separately from violent crimes.&quot;

On a state level there is a 75% confidence factor in a bonefide statistical relationship. If you have had a course in statistics you will understand the signficance of that.

 

[Moonbeam]

Torm, your latest raises some interesting issues. In the first place, I have no doubt that NRA people, like most people, perhaps even more than most people because of the consequences, don't like to see children killed by other children etc. I hope you don't mean to imply, though, that the NRA has mounted an effort that the government couldn't, given our resources and sufficient will, vastly surpass. Here, I'm sure, ones reaction to this is coloured by ones attitude toward government. (An interesting topic---What is your attitude toward government?)

Also, when you said that there are 22,000 gun laws on the books that claim to do something and don't, I'm sure there has got to be something wrong there somewhere. I can't believe they've bone nothing. Usually after hitting my thumb with a hammer three times, I change how I do it. 22,000 total failures seems like too many even for liberals. My point is that it would be interesting to examine our attitudes to law. When you outlaw anything, only criminals will do it. I think the more important point would be, for example, how stop signs make life function more smoothly. Anyway, maybe in another thread some other time.

There is a possibility that if guns were illegal, over time the vast majority of people would not own them and the kinds of horror stories that sicken us would occur less frequently. It could be, also, that our Republic would survive. There are more than the threat of revolution holding politicians in check. There is the fear of loosing office, and the vast wealth their potential stupidity threatens. I can already hear you grousing about taxes.

 

[cxim]

<quote> 75% confidence factor in a bonefide statistical relationship <quote>

This has about as much practical meaning as the concentration of flatus in Rome.

 

[403Forbidden]

<< We may be of different political persuasions and different socio/economic backgrounds,but I would never have insulted you for the sake of the discusion. You do it to everyone who doesn't meet your intellectual level or advances your theory.If the response isn't to your liking, you level an insult along with your answer. I have grown to dislike immensly that kind of arrogance. >>





I expect nothing less from a charlatan such as Russ.

 

[Russ]

Ah, I see porno-boy popped in. 403, you should go back to your fantasy and leave the adults alone.

Tripleshot,

Let?s examine your last post. You complain that the following is an insult to your intelligence:



<< You are either possessed of far less intelligence than I assumed, or you're just screwing around. The analogy is a very simple one. >>



When in fact, I offered that my assumption was that you were intelligent, and I was surprised that you indicated you did not understand an analogy that every other participant in the thread grasped immediately. If you believe that was a personal attack, you are far too sensitive.

Then you say this:



<< but I would never have insulted you for the sake of the discusion. >>



You haven?t? Well, let?s quote a few of your own words (there are plenty more, too).:



<< If you can't dazzle them with brilliancy,baffle them with bullsh!t ,RIGHT RUSS? >>





<< this as a nothing but a self engratiating repeat to pump yourselves up at the expense of others >>





<< this group of John Wayne wannabes. >>





<< It's a pity grown people have to witness this spectacle of you trying to intellectualize your insecurity >>





<< Thats all you to Bast@rds have done >>





<< the right wing conspiritors >>





<< Further,when you get a hard on for someone posting their feelings >>



This is an interesting debating approach. You sling insults and slurs at will, and then complain that someone has insulted you when, in fact, they have not. Then, in two separate threads, you post the following, and yet continue in the debate afterwards:



<< This is the last I have to say about this subject. I have had a gutful of Russ and Tominator and this whole crowd. >>





<< I will find somewhere else to spend my computer time. I'm so sorry to have offended so many. >>



And finally, you come off with this:



<< I said I'm pissed. I speak that way when I'm pissed. It's really good this is a computer. Someone would have been hurt badly had this been face to face and these insults had been leveled. >>



These are all your own words. It is clear to everyone that you are simply not emotionally suited to heated debate. You take it far too personally, and then start making threats about ?hurting badly? those who have offended your sensibilities.

I?d suggest that it might be a good idea in the future to simply avoid debates, at least until you are able to deal with differing opinions without becoming so distraught.

Until then, because I'm concerned that you may actually carry out your threats to &quot;hurt&quot; someone at this forum, I will be ignoring you. Trust me when I tell you that this is for your own safety. I do not take kindly to threats, and would take appropriate action should you choose to try.

BTW, it I really wanted insult you, I?d note the fact that your spelling and grammar are atrocious.

Russ, NCNE

 

[Tripleshot]

Russ,

. I do not take kindly to threats, and would take appropriate action should you choose to try.

Oh? What might that be? Are you threatening me, MR. don't be so sensitive?


Every response you just posted is the result of an action you (Or someone else) took against me. You just posted my response and angst. You think I should just take your insults and not react,when in fact,you purposely solicite those responses to either goad me or another or ,your on an &quot;I'm smarter than you,look at me&quot; kick. Gloss over the reality of the situation. Anyone can start any of these threads from the beginning and see the truth. But as usual,you only post what will advance your position at the moment,expecting the reader to accept at face value any thing you say.

I got news for you Russ. I don't take at face value ANYTHING you say.

I got news for you Bubba. I don't always buy your B.S. and I'll tell you every time. And when I agree with you, I'll also tell you. Thats life.

BTW, since when did the threads become debates? I didn't see &quot;Debate- please join&quot; in the title. NO it says &quot;Experts&quot; are full of crap. You sparked my curiosity and that of others who joined. Are we supposed to put on a &quot;debating cap&quot; when you post in a forum? Is this the rule of the forums now,or just one envoked by your &quot;ELITE' status? You cant get through the first 10 replys without seeing this was not a &quot;debate&quot;.

I stand firmly on all my comments to you with no apology. I can see you are not interested in ending this.


Don't forget to IGNORE this.

(spelling and grammer dissed to purposely show that i am not &quot;I'm Typing&quot; )


BUwahahahahahahaha

 

[AndrewR]

Moonbeam:

<< The fact may be that people who want to limit the disguesting phenomenon of children killing children with guns may simply be more emotionally mature and grounded in reality. It may be that people choose to restrict some of our man-toys. If so, that will be the law. In time the fanaticism we see here will shift to other fronts. There is never a dearth of non issues. >>


Ah, the call of the self-righteous. It sounds to me that the ends justifies the means to you. In that case, I can easily craft numerous reasons for ridding ourselves of that dastardly thing known as freedom of speech.

The &quot;phenomenon&quot; is hardly that -- when we eliminate the concept of personal responsibility and look to the government to control our lives and those of our children, we necessarily open ourselves to the specter of bad parenting (yes, by God, there is such a thing). When I cannot be held responsible for slipping on a rug or falling down stairs, then how can anyone possibly hold me responsible for not properly teaching and raising my children?

When parents fail to teach their children the proper respect for weaponry, children will hurt themselves and others. Similarly, when children fail to learn the dangers of wild driving, they die on the roads. Removing the tools for those dangers still leaves the basic problem untouched. However, there is also a problem in some people of irresponsible gun ownership, without a doubt. That being said, though, we cannot legislate against stupidity unless we start some form of genetic selection.

As I have said before, there is a price for freedom. Anarchy is ultimate freedom with some dire costs. A police state lies on the opposite end of the spectrum, also with dire costs. Where we balance in the middle is always up for debate. I, for one, do not feel comfortable entrusting my safety to an entity over which I have only limited control and which cannot protect me from every single person or occurrence. I would be thankful that I go through life never having to use a gun to protect myself or my family from harm. I would be eternally regretful, however, if such an occasion arose, and I were unprepared because I relinquished my right to self-defense.

 

[Moonbeam]

AndrewR, You seem to assume that I want to take away your gun and that that somehow makes me self righteous. I don't think I mentioned my opinion, nor do I see where the first leads to the latter. There is nothing more self righteous, in my opinion, than those claiming God given rights. The Right carping all the time about personal responsibility gets to sound, also like so much prigish gas. The point I was actually trying to make is that there are people who feel like you and people who want to restrict or eliminate guns from society. There are people who look to government to help them and those who look to private initiative. I suggested that an exploration of these polarities would make interesting study and that if our society via the democratic process outlaws guns, that will be the law. I implied that this may prove a more mature approach to society taking in to account the fact that we Americans seem so bizarre to most of the rest of world on this issue. The implication here would be that a gunless society may be a better balancing place between extremes than the one you suggest. People see things differently.

Russ mentioned that we accept so many notions and repeat them to the point of truism. I mentioned that as far as guns and government take over are concerned, societies all over the world seem to be moving to democracy without citizen gun ownership, in contradistinction to the afore mentioned myth. We might be ok too. What need will there be for personal protection when you personal responsibility people finally teach everybody to be responsible.

 

[Tripleshot]

Red Dawn

Good advice and duly noted.

I just don't think those (who like my self haven't been around long enough)need to take Russ serious by the virtue of his &quot;Elite&quot; status or his unique way of posting. He has a way of insulting people and making them like it.He may get away with it with some,but I will not let him slide.

 

[Russ]

Red,

You know I really don't understand why he's always attacking me. But, after he threatened to &quot;hurt&quot; me, I am in fear for my life, so I just think it's best that I don't respond to him anymore. He scares me.

Russ, NCNE

 

[Tripleshot]

Russ,

Boo!

You were never threatened. Your letting your imagination run wild there fella. Get a grip.

 

[Outfits]

There are lies, damn lies and statistics.
Mark Twain