You told someone to read the Federalist Papers in regards to understanding the 2nd Amendment. Im just pointing out that would be impossible, since the Federalist Papers were written before the 2nd Amendment.
I am disproving your statement below the irrelevance of the Federalist Papers when one tries to understand the Bill of Rights as you wrote below: The Federalist Papers are essential to understanding the bill of rights as more than a text without context because it is a part of the discussion of the issues that started with compromises in the text of the Constitution, and resulted with the in the Bill of Rights. The Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers are, contrary to your statement, very relevant. They are the most important secondary source once you leave the primary sources, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights themselves.
Don't you see, any statistics that agree with your point of view will be accepted. Those that don't are ignored.
You absolutely do not understand what this paper is about. It is in fact the absolute opposite of what you claim. He that a bill of rights would imply that the US Government was dolling out rights, when in fact rights are inalienable. He argues that the bill of rights would imply that people only had rights which were granted them by the grace of the Government and a bill of rights would promote a large federal body to enforce the limiting of rights not specificly enumerated in the Bill of Rights. He says a bill of rights would effectively curtail the power of the people. This objection is the basis for the 9th Ammendment: [rquoter] The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. [/rquoter] Thus effectively demonstrating that the Federalist Papers are relevant to understanding the Bill of Rights.
You haven't shown any. Please, provide a study. Above everything else I believe in reality and human falibility. I understand that everthing I believe to be true could be false. If you provide a study or data that doesn't use questionable methodology or slight-of-hand with the data then I will not ignore it, even if it says things I don't like. At one point I was pro-gun control, until I did quite a bit of looking and could find no rational basis.
I am pretty sure that the empirical studies that you present would as "objective" would not stand scrutiny of those with other ideas. From my own experience, there are so many conflicting reports, each with its limitations, that what I believe is largely dependent on my preference than any logical implications. Whilst I do accuse of intellectual dishonesty, it seems to me that there is a good possibility that your selection of good models from that of bads are based on accordance with your prior beliefs than methodological rigor. In anycase, given that the large degree of cost of gun-crimes are borne by those who do not carry gun themselves, I think it is only right that those who carry gun are the ones to "prove" their case. This needs to go beyond providing no "significant" empirical relationship given that any statistical inference without solid underlining mechanism tends to be mere red-herring.
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted I see that part as particularly significant, because it pretty much says the opposite of what you claim. However, this whole argument is a random tangent, because it is based around the concept of a Bill of Rights, instead of the actual amendments. My entire contention is that there are so many differant interests represented in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that it is very hard to ascertain the founding father's inent in every amendment, specifically the 2nd amendment, which is the only one relevant to this thread. After reading Federalist #84, can you tell me what Madison's goal was with the 2nd amendment, other then to appease Anti-Federalists who saw the Constitution as granting the central government too much power? There is a reason that these few men, deemed wise enough that 200 years later this country is still run by their laws, decided against a Bill of Rights when it was a common addition to political documents around the world, and I think that quote gives you a good indication why.
If it is true, you are welcome to look back in the thread, examine them, and tell me what is wrong with the statistics. I will listen to any tangible objections. Short of that this is really only an opinion. Normally, when people want to change the statis quo it is up to them to make their case. Whether this is fair or not, thats usually how it works. I'm sorry. I've tried to be clear that the underlying mechanism is that violent gun crime gets turned into violent other crime. I think the pre/post ban UK statistics show this fairly well. I have an open mind. Give me something to put in it and I will examine it without prejudice.
I have a correction to add to my own post. Federalist 84 was written by Alexander Hamilton, not James Maddison. Hamilton wanted the US to institute a monarchy and was as elitest as any man present at the Convention. Needless to say, his views of individual freedoms and liberties is far more constrained then most every other founding father. I highly doubt his motivation in not having a Bill of Rights has anything to do with restricting individual rights, and has everything to do with my highlited quote. Ironically enough (in regards to the 2nd amendment), Hamilton was killed in a pistol duel, robbing America of its most brilliant economic mind...looks like it was a sign of things to come.
I made no argument it that regard, I only retorted to your dismissal of the Federalist Papers as irrelevant to understanding the Bill of Rights. Perhaps you should ask the eminent Sishir Chang, who brought the subject up. I am however, 100% positive that you are wrong in regard to your reading of Federalist Paper #84. Any number of general books on the subject, faults in Mr. Hamilton's character notwithstanding, will provide you with an analysis similar to mine. That objection to a Bill of Rights is one of the key arguments of The Federalist Papers, in my understanding. Furthermore, an understanding of an argument similar to mine (regarding the source of inalienable rights) is referenced in Parker v. District of Columbia, which is a gun law case. Were I Mr. Chang, I would provide you with a copy of that decision as proof of the relevance of 'The Federalist Papers’, at least in the eyes of one Justice of The DC Circut Court of Appeals. As I am not Mr. Chang, I will let him answer for himself, should you choose to ask.
Trust me, the .50 can take down a small plane if hit right...and for the record, the .50 BMG round can penetrate 1/4 inch hardened steel at 1000 yards... AND THAT IS JUST BALL AMMO! O by the way, here is where you can buy incendiary rounds for your .50 BMG ...enjoy. http://www.armslocker.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33496
Well, while I maintain that my point of view has as good a chance as yours of being correct (I doubt we will ever know with any definity), I can appreciate a well made argument and peacefully agree to disagree. I think that this article shows what other Consitutional controls over the masses (such as the electoral college) also show: that the founding father's did not entirely trust the American public with the task of guiding the nation.
I understand your objections, and to certain extent the validity of our argument largely false on not so much with the empirical "facts" but the emphasis one places on the meaning the right to arms has on the American constitution. For an outsider such as myself, the distribution of cost of free arm sales is so disproportionate and coupled with the basic premise that gun makes killing much easier, it is always better off to start with prohibition and providing demonstrating any recreational value of holding gun is far greater than potential cost it genders. In any case I shall briefly touch on the empirical issues. It seems to strike me that large portion of empirical argument rests on the lack of correlation between strict gun prohibition and gun-related crime. But as I have said previously, it is quite possible that the lack of correlation may result from strict regulations being enacted as a result of severance of past gun crimes. It is difficult to distinguish from simple correlation, or for that matter regression models, between the cause of outcome and outcome itself. So at face value, the statistical evidence you propounded to demonstrate lack of relationship, is itself liable to some methodological problems. So I digged myself some journals (which was a bit of hassell given that I am out of campus and does not have access to J-Stor) and just quickly breezed through the gyst of the debate (Since it is 2 a.m in the morning here). Anyway, the basic impression I get from this gun controversy is that there are many conflicting reports regarding the efficacy of gun control with the matter still being largely debated and undetermined. But to sum up the arguments in Pro-Gun articles: (1) Gun acts deterent to future crimes, hence it through ex ante effect it reduces violent crimes (2) Even in cases the availability of guns do have genuine implication for the violent crimes the effect is largely driven by stolen guns and not by introduction of new guns. In essence, U.S.A has already become such a "Gun-Free" society that the production of new guns is largely irrelevant to crime since there are already enough of them to do so if motivated. Now counter the above points: (1) Guns hardly acts as deterrent given that the more aggressive propensity of those who are likely to committ crime than those who try to defend themselves (There are some regressional analysis confirm this hypothesis) (2) In the event of 2nd Case, then it is quite clear that the gun control itself is insufficient for the purpose, but it does vividly show the cost of control in the past. In Japan and UK, especially Japan, the only way you can reasonably obtain gun is through gang contacts. This means that the cost of initiating gun-related crimes is far higher than say U.S. Naturally, for petty burglers it is far more effective to just sneak and steal than to threaten inhabitants to submission (As a side note, I just read the report the mother of Cho Seung-Hui was shot dead during robbery). Judging by the News reports and from personal experience in UK, the rise murder in recent years, is (1) largely confined to the youths and (2) involves drinks in some form or the other. I have yet so seem microlevel analysis on this matter, but as far as I am concerned, gun is hardly an issue here. On the contrary, I would shudder at the prospects of English people possessing gun and quarreling as to who should get on the taxi first. Lastly, in any debate one can hardly use a single empirical study as the "definitive" evidence of one argument. That is because one can rarely find a work of no methodological error; but also it is extremely difficult to make complete sense out of long regression analysis, which has been adjusted several times ad hoc by the modeller. So the best way to proceed is to accumulate a large volume of work, and see whether similar result can be accumulated or not. In a meantime, we have little choice but to apply our intution in discriminating models. If you were in Mid-Late 1980s studying on Business Cycle, then you would have two main alternative theories which were equally capable of explaining stochastic movement of output, unemployment, and inflation. In retrospect, one theory, Real Business Cycle, could not provide intuitive account of unemployment, and this should have been used as a decisive test for choosing the alternative models given that later studies indicated that, whilst both were responsible in principle, the Real Business Cycle could not be too significant. In the case of gun control, I find the premise guns makes easier to kill people a lot more easier to take than it acts deterent to violent crimes.
pretty sad when you have to resort to name-calling to try to make yourself seem right. Anyway, that's more about your issues. At the end of the day - you have to admit that gun-control in the UK successfully droped the number of gun deaths. That's the goal. Imagine what would have happen if they just handed guns out to people like we do here - their murder rate would have sky-rocketed. Apparently, you just want to deny the correlation between availability of guns and deaths by guns.
but if you have a drop in gun deaths, and an increase in homocides - it implies other factors are driving up the homocides, and that without gun control, that homocide would be even higher. You can always find a way to spin the results to make you still believe guns are good and great - all hail and worship the gun. But the evidence all over the places shows what's so obvious to everyone - more guns = more bloodshed.
