[exanimis]

After being pulled on a routine traffic stop a man in L.A started shooting. He killed one of the motorcycle officers and wounded the other. People on the sidewalks stood by and cheered him on. He was later surrounded in an apartment building. Swat moved in and he opened fire with a high powered rifle, killing two of the swat teams members before being killed himself. The second motorcycle officer died later bringing his killing spree to four.

A man in North Carolina opened fire inside of a nursing home killing six and wounding many others. He was upset with his ex girlfriend. She hid in a closet and was not wounder.

A Vietnamese man in New York opened fire in a learning center. The center was helping him to learn English but he thought that the instructors were making fun of him and laughing at him behind his back.

A man in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania opened fire on officers during a domestic disturbance call Saturday morning, killing three of them, a police official said. Friends said he recently had been upset about losing his job and that he feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.

These reports are just a few of the recent rash in shootings. There are several possibilities for this increase in shootings, one being that the economy is so bad that people are loosing it. Desperate people will do desperate things. Another is that America's gun laws are too lax and guns are too easy to come by. Whatever your view, America is going through a horrible time. In the great depression people who lost everything jumped out of windows. Those same people today would grab a gun and let the police take them out.

My personal view of the recent events is not that shootings are on the rise but that the medias reporting of them is. We will hear more and more about these and more gun crimes. When our current administration changes the constitution and takes away our right to bear arms, we will praise them for having the courage to do so. When the constitution changes, we will no longer be America. The constitution is the foundation that this country was built on, it is the mortar that makes this country strong. This is just my opinion and it is in no way to be seen as fact.

Do you believe that President Obama will change the constitution? I am not asking this to start another debate about President Obama. He was elected to the presidency and regardless of whether you like him or not, he deserves our respect. I am posting this because I would like to know what others think about the constitution. Do you feel that it needs to be changed? What do you think the outcome of a constitutional change will be? If it is changed, at what point will it stop?

Try to keep this thread civil please.

[ed8020]

"These are the times that try men's souls"

At this time I see recent events as a statistical anomaly.
In a sense, we have rolled snake eyes more than a few times.
The day after the Philly shooting a man in Washington shot and killed his 5 children and then went looking for his wife (who was with another man) and when he couldn’t find her he killed himself.
Now by reporting that, I have altered the statistics within the confines of this discussion.
It’s all a very sticky mess.

It’s funny but when my initial quote came to mind I didn’t know who said it.
I did a quick search to make sure I had both the quote and the context correct.
And found it was Thomas Paine.
I had it right .
We are in the middle of a revolution of sorts and everyone is a little on edge.
We are on the verge of a depression which puts still more people on edge.
We are close to world economic collapse, another edge.
We are surrounded by edges with very little flat ground to stand on.
And people are freaking out. Which brings me to my next quote.
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
A great line that still applies. Not that we actually only have one thing to fear but by reacting to our situation out of fear we only compound the situation.
Courage is not the lack of fear but the ability to face the fear head on with a cool head.
And that is exactly what we need to do.
In some places the gun laws may be too lax. I don’t know the laws of every state.
I believe firmly in the second amendment as we are the militia but how "well regulated" are we?
I don"t support the idea of changing the constitution. The founding fathers put a whole lot of RATIONAL thought into it. And though they left the option to change it, I think they got it right the first time. Our efforts to change it have missed the mark. Prohibition being the most obvious but even term limits is a mistake, but that"s another debate.

[Monarch_Anor]

I believe(and I could be wrong), that he CAN'T amend the constitution without the consent of all 50 states (or at least a majority).

what he CAN do is change laws that prohibit certain caliber, rate of fire, ect.

[ed8020]

Monarch_Anor, on Apr 9 2009, 10:49 PM, said:

I believe(and I could be wrong), that he CAN'T amend the constitution without the consent of all 50 states (or at least a majority).

what he CAN do is change laws that prohibit certain caliber, rate of fire, ect.

Correct on the first point. i don't know the specifics but it is more difficult than a normal law.
But "he" cannot do anything without congress except through executive order which has it's own limitations.

[dezdimona]

Well, I don't have enough space to go into all the 2nd Amendment arguments.– any law-abiding citizen – has a constitutional right to have a firearm.

Of course, whenever gun ownership rights are debated, anti-gun activists like to point out that about 30,000 people are killed by guns in America every year -- although they seldom note that about 60 percent of those deaths are suicides, or that the firearm murder rate has dropped by 40 percent in the past 15 years, or that far more people are killed by motor vehicles or medical malpractice every year than are killed by guns.

And they never mention how many crimes have been prevented by citizens bearing arms.

Once again, that's a hard thing to quantify. One U.S. government survey in the 1990s estimated that more than 80,000 Americans a year used guns in an effort to protect themselves or their property against crime. Other estimates put the number far higher, at more than 2 million crimes prevented each year by the presence of privately-owned firearms.

[XanAlderon]

Now, I live in Australia, where a gun is a lot harder to come by than in "gun-loving" America. Imagine a burglar robbing a house in America, burglar comes in, the house-owner spots the burglar, whips out a fire-arm and blows the burglars head off. Now in Australia things are different, a burglar robs a house, the owner spots the burglar, yells out, the burglar runs and everyones (mostly) happy. No one had to die, the burglar survives and will probably be caught by the police and no one has to witness the sheer brutality of a man dieing via a gun.

If a man robs a house and you shoot him, thats like bringing back the death penalty for petty crimes!!

These are just my thoughts on the matter, I don't know about gun-laws in America but In Australia to get a gun, you have to get a license from the police and pass a test, wait two or three weeks, then buy one from a specialized gun-shop. (you can't buy guns anywhere in Australia) These gun-laws mean you can't have a fight, go to K-mart, buy a gun and kill the man. There's a cooling off period to stop this.

This is just what I think.

[Javalin]

Americas right for civilians to have/handle firearms SHOULD be taken away, plain and simple.

How many more relentless, remorseless psychopaths have to go on a rampage and gun down people who are just trying to make a living - before anybody decides to take action against it?

If Obama is looking to do something great for his country, then banning the use of firearms will be the thing to do.

--

Dezi, I know where you're coming from with your statement, and no - firearms are not often used for protection either.

But whats difference between burglary, and putting a bullet into someones chest?

I want to visit America, but I won't until a ceasure of all firearms in the country has been put in place. Because I don't want to be walking down a highstreet and then some moron decides to put a bullet into my skull because he didn't like someone, had an arguement with his wife or whatever.

The licence of firearms is the cause of unneccesary deaths.

[Vagrant0]

First off, guns will never be made illegal in the US. Guns may become harder to purchase in some places, but will always be something that law abiding individuals can get a hold of. All of this talk about banning guns is really just an over dramatized and Fox News encouraged reaction to having the ban on the sale of assault weapons reinstated (was banned in the Clinton years, removed in the Bush years). Short of some additional measures, such as enforcing gun sale laws at gun shows in some states (which currently have NO background checks, NO identity checks, and where anyone with money can buy guns and ammunition as long as they have money) there won't be any significant changes to gun laws. The reason for this is very clear. Gun production and sales are still a part of the American economy, and in these days, any industry which is still healthy should not be shut down. Gun lobbyists have been paying off both democrats and republicans for years, and although gun control has been a hot issue for the better part of the last 30 years, has been more about restricting criminals and mentally disturbed people from obtaining them. Furthermore, there are already so many guns which are owned by individuals, so any attempt to ban possession would likely end VERY badly.

The real issue here is more about this growing idea that some people have about the current administration. Some people are simply so misinformed about the government, and listen to a "news" agency to tell them what they should and should not think. The news media is filling people with the ideas of protesting, lashing out against the now "liberal" run society, and preparing for some great disaster as the "liberal" run society spends itself into destruction. To make matters worse, the Republican party is so broken up and confused that they are listening to a daytime radio host for marching orders. The RNC chairman, Steele, has isolated himself from his party, removed almost everyone who would have been working under him, and instead taken to the media. Meanwhile you have a population which is being pushed to its breaking point, stuck between an economic depression and all the lies and half truths being thrown around, just looking for some sanity to grab a hold of to keep them from going apes**t and committing some random act of violence. Some clearly are less successful than others.

In short, all these things are happening because people are scared out of their wits, being fed bad information, and pressured between all the problems around them to the point where they snap and decide to take a few other people with them. Gun laws won't prevent this. The only way to prevent this is for everyone to calm the f*k down for a few months. Honestly, watch Fox News for a while, you'd soon be convinced that the world was going to end (or the liberals were going to force us into socialism, steal your house, and make you live in a labor camp with a number tattooed on your forehead) too.

[Javalin]

Vagrant0, on Apr 10 2009, 06:26 AM, said:

First off, guns will never be made illegal in the US. Guns may become harder to purchase in some places, but will always be something that law abiding individuals can get a hold of. All of this talk about banning guns is really just an over dramatized and Fox News encouraged reaction to having the ban on the sale of assault weapons reinstated (was banned in the Clinton years, removed in the Bush years). Short of some additional measures, such as enforcing gun sale laws at gun shows in some states (which currently have NO background checks, NO identity checks, and where anyone with money can buy guns and ammunition as long as they have money) there won't be any significant changes to gun laws. The reason for this is very clear. Gun production and sales are still a part of the American economy, and in these days, any industry which is still healthy should not be shut down. Gun lobbyists have been paying off both democrats and republicans for years, and although gun control has been a hot issue for the better part of the last 30 years, has been more about restricting criminals and mentally disturbed people from obtaining them. Furthermore, there are already so many guns which are owned by individuals, so any attempt to ban possession would likely end VERY badly.

The real issue here is more about this growing idea that some people have about the current administration. Some people are simply so misinformed about the government, and listen to a "news" agency to tell them what they should and should not think. The news media is filling people with the ideas of protesting, lashing out against the now "liberal" run society, and preparing for some great disaster as the "liberal" run society spends itself into destruction. To make matters worse, the Republican party is so broken up and confused that they are listening to a daytime radio host for marching orders. The RNC chairman, Steele, has isolated himself from his party, removed almost everyone who would have been working under him, and instead taken to the media. Meanwhile you have a population which is being pushed to its breaking point, stuck between an economic depression and all the lies and half truths being thrown around, just looking for some sanity to grab a hold of to keep them from going apes**t and committing some random act of violence. Some clearly are less successful than others.

In short, all these things are happening because people are scared out of their wits, being fed bad information, and pressured between all the problems around them to the point where they snap and decide to take a few other people with them. Gun laws won't prevent this. The only way to prevent this is for everyone to calm the f*k down for a few months. Honestly, watch Fox News for a while, you'd soon be convinced that the world was going to end (or the liberals were going to force us into socialism, steal your house, and make you live in a labor camp with a number tattooed on your forehead) too.

And guns being apart of the economy, are there when people go 'apes**t' as you would put it, and go capping anyone he or she can see.

Capping a few people, before being capped yourself is not going to solve that recession. Its just that alot of people didn't manage to acquire the higher brain function to know or understand that.

[Javalin]

Sorry, Double Post