Apparently I’ve run across another novice trying to run with the big dogs. I posted about him earlier today and he let my comment go through then responded with this:
This is what really gets me about people who believe that the Second Amendment means that we have a constitutional right to own a gun. I provided a whole bunch of statistics in this post about the cost of our love affair with guns in terms both of money and the impact on our lives, but yet, you choose not to address any of that. Instead, you pose a question which is completely unanswerable, as if that’s supposed to render everything else I’ve described as irrelevant, which it doesn’t by any means (and by the way, I have no desire to waste my time trying to find an instance like the one you describe).
As noted here, “in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court departed from over 100 years of judicial precedent and held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms for self-defense purposes unconnected with service in a militia (in the Heller ruling).”
Even the Cruikshank case you cite states that, “The right there specified is that of ‘bearing arms for a lawful purpose.’ This is not a right granted by the Constitution.”
Individual states and municipalities should be allowed to regulate guns as they see fit, but I will never believe that there’s a Second Amendment right to own a gun (and, in Cruikshank, it sounds like Chief Justice Morrison Waite didn’t think there was either).
I responded with the following which apparently went through without moderation:
What really gets me about people trying to infringe up on our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms is they only look at the downside of gun ownership. They refuse to look at the benefits. There are between 800,000 and 2,500,000 defensive gun uses in the U.S. each year. Most of those were without a shot being fired resulting in no injuries to anyone.
Another thing that gets me about people trying to infringe on our rights is they include legally and morally justified deaths and injuries from successful defensive uses of guns in their totals of dead and injured. They even include justified police shootings!
If you had read the actual decision you would have found that the question of an individual right was supported 9-0 in Heller. The 5-4 decision was about whether the D.C. law infringed upon that right.
If you had read the very next line in the Cruikshank decision you would have discovered “Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.” The right to keep and bear arms is a preexisting right. The Second Amendment is a guarantee that it will not be infringed.
If you “will never believe that there’s a Second Amendment right to own a gun” then I guess there really isn’t any more to discuss. Facts and legal decisions are irrelevant to you. But I just have to ask, are you also of the same opinion in regard to the 13th Amendment as well? Should individual states and municipalities be allowed to regulate slaves as they see fit?
If you carefully read his comment above you will notice he has announced phase one of “Reasoned Discourse” (graphic stolen from Robb Allen):
Also note that he says Just One Question “is completely unanswerable”. Nice of him to admit that right up front.
I will not be surprised if phase two, deleting or blocking of comments, occurs shortly.
Have fun with the new toy I found for you guys. Play nice now. Be sure to share your toy with others.
Update June 10, 0800: More comments are coming in. His inability to pay attention to detail is remarkable.
Here’s some statistics on deaths and injuries caused by medical care: http://www.ourcivilisation.com/medicine/usamed/deaths.htm
(with links to supporting documents)783,936 total iatrogenic deaths annually; 98,000 specifically from medical errors. From these numbers would you make a case that we should ban doctors?
When you look only at the “cost of our love affair with guns” and not the benefits you’re making a case for banning doctors due to the harm they cause.
Another question for you: are all deaths by gunfire bad?
When armed robbers, muggers, psychotic ex-boyfriends, etc. are shot and killed by their intended victims – is that a bad thing? Those people are counted in the statistics you cite.
The plural of anecdote is not data, but anecdotes are useful in understanding the data. See http://www.claytoncramer.com/gundefenseblog/blogger.html for defensive gun use anecdotes.
I took a look at the claytoncreamer site you linked to, and you’re right; you’re talking about anecdotes of people who defend themselves with their guns versus the statistics I presented in my post. I don’t know if the number of people in this country using guns to defend themselves matches the number of suicides/accidental shootings, but I have a feeling they don’t (have to leave it up to someone else who has the time to compile those stats, if they can).
I could find stories of accidental victims of gun violence if I had the time or desire, but Bob Herbert already noted them (happens all too often in Philadelphia, for example, followed by the predictable wailing and gnashing of teeth while nothing changes). And concerning the claytoncreamer site, I have no issue at all if the guns the people used to defend themselves were purchased legally.
Oh, and your suggestion that I would be in favor of banning doctors is so silly that it doesn’t deserve a response.
OK, I just saw the comment including the link to the Keszler study citing (allegedly) two million instances of defensive gun use. Good for you – you made your point.
Just make sure you communicate this information to the families and friends of police officers killed in the line of duty because they’re outmanned by thugs, or families and friends of school children killed by stray fire from drug dealers. God forbid that they impugn your right to own any gun you want whenever you want.
Sorry, I meant the Gary Kleck study – and speaking of which, you might want to look at this.
Joe:
That criticism of Kleck’s study was published in 1997. A lot of followup studies have been done to address the concerns expressed there and elsewhere. The results keep coming up very close to the same.
Regardless of the actual number any honest advocacy of restrictions on weapons must take into account the benefits as well as the harm attributed to free access. Hence my Just One Question which you say you have no interest in answering.
I therefore can only conclude public safety is not your real objective. Just what is your objective with advocating restrictions on this specific enumerated right?
Update June 10, 0910: Phase two of Reasoned Discourse has been implemented:
Not Found
Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here.
Update June 10, Final: I found his deleted post in the Google Cache for future reference. It doesn’t include the comments however. The above and the comment here are probably all but one or two.
What is it with these folks? It’s an endless parade of “Reasoned Discourse.” It must be their mental problems.
Here’s what I left him.
Cruikshank said “this is not a right granted by the Constitution” because rights are not “granted” by the Constitution.
The 2nd Amendment is inherent and inalienable just like the rest of the Bill of Rights. Words on ink & parchment don’t “grant” me the right to keep & bear arms, they merely codify a pre-existing right. My rights, all of them, exist independent of the Constitution.
Justice Bradley, writing in the Circuit court of appeals RE Cruikshank
“When any of these rights and privileges are secured in the constitution of the United States only by a declaration that the state or the United States shall not violate or abridge them, it is at once understood that they are not created or conferred by the constitution, but that the constitution only guaranties that they shall not be impaired by the state, or the United States, as the case may be.
It helps to actually know a case and read it rather than picking out half a line to try and make your point, especially when the very next line contradicts what you quoted.
I also pointed out that Heller didn’t create anything, it merely acknowledged a right listed in the BOR. Not that any of this will change his mind.
I’m laughing here, Joe. Nice job. Remember when you present the unacquainted with facts and logic, it’s best to hold it outward on your palm, so the sharp edge faces neither party. You obviously presented it edge-forward, and your partner in discourse proceeded to injure himself grabbing the unfamiliar object.
That’s too bad, there were a lot of valid points raised, I guess he didn’t want to hear them.
An Explanation For The Deletion
June 10, 2009
I deleted the gun post referencing the Parade/Bob Herbert articles because none of the comments pertained to the statistics I mentioned in the original post. There wasn’t even an attempt to acknowledge the casualties of gun violence, include children and innocent bystanders. Every comment pertained to a legalese interpretation of the Second Amendment and some really stupid insinuations against me personally (I should have realized what was coming when somebody said I apparently opposed doctors also because of statistics about botched/unnecessary surgeries…or something).
The line about me not caring about people’s safety as a motivation for the post was the last straw. It was apparent that all commenters merely wanted to use the post as a forum for their views. Go elsewhere to engage in that exercise.
And don’t bother submitting more comments on this subject because I’ll delete them too; I provided a forum for an intelligent dialogue, and it was abused, so we’re done.
That’s impressive “Reasoned Discourse” Joe! Not even 12 hours between the time you made this post and the time he scrubbed his entire post.
It’s almost as if he know’s he can’t discuss this on an intellectual basis.
Mike Remember when this happened to you?
http://anothergunblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/asking-for-facts.html
Same story, Different day!
Love the whiner post at the top of his blog now.
http://liberaldoomsayer.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/an-explanation-for-the-deletion/
“And don’t bother submitting more comments on this subject because I’ll delete them too; I provided a forum for an intelligent dialogue, and it was abused, so we’re done.”
nice try!
It’s funny that the only time the Left gives a damn about cops is when they are trying to justify some kind of new gun control or ban.
The rest of the time they call them fascist pigs and do every thing in their power to keep criminals on the street.
I don’t understand people like Doomsayer who first offer an opinion about a subject he obviously doesn’t know much about and then refuses to listen to rational arguments against his opinion.
Like this…
“somebody said I apparently opposed doctors also because of statistics about botched/unnecessary surgeries…or something.”
Uh, that’s not what was said at all. No one said he opposed doctors, what was asked was why doesn’t want to ban doctors based on his “public safety” reasoning for gun restrictions.
If his intention is to remove guns from society to keep people from dying, then why not also ban things that contribute higher death rates than guns? Medical care results in more deaths each year than gun violence. More children die in swimming pools each year than from gun violence.
I just don’t understand these people; they are a breed apart.
Is it just me, or does Reasoned Discourse happen faster and faster nowadays?
Double-wow. Not only did he delete the “offending” comments, he went and deleted the entire post.
Cutting off your nose to spite your face, neh?
Oh well, Google Cache is forever, and you seem to have an almost-comprehensive record of the comments here… In fact, I might just point that out to him.
“I provided a forum for an intelligent dialogue, and it was abused, so we’re done.”
Apparently, a dialogue is only intelligent when people agree with what he has to say?
Hey Weer’d, there’s that term “abuse” again. “Abuse” being anything that diverges from his viewpoint.
He didn’t want discourse. He wanted an echo chamber.
He’s been taught that hopolophobia was good, and thought it would be cool to display it on a blog like the other cool kids are doing.
He had been taught that all pro-defense folks are stupid inbred hillbillies, and was not expecting to be mentally raped and humiliated by folks who have been sharpening their arguments on each other and on victim-disarmament supporters in email, on USENET, on forums, and in gunblogs for the last few decades.
His humiliation and pain amuses me.
This is a good example of the Left in general. They poke, jab, accuse, use crude stereotypes, prod, restrict, ban, insult, accuse some more, sit back in silence when people are actually killed for their leftist cause (Ruby Ridge and Waco) and when someone fights back in the most harmless way, they immediately start crying and claim to be themselves the victims.
Such people are funny as individuals, and a little sad, but (and this cannot be overstated) they’re extremely dangerous in large groups.
I had a criminal justice text book that pointed out that unnecessary medical procedures can be classified as white collar crime. Add that with other white collar crimes that can cause death in the work place (safety violations) and gun death look puny by comparison.
Darn.
I was all set to monosyllabically explain the doctor reference when *poof* – reasoned discourse occurred.
I strongly suspect it wasn’t an inability to understand but rather that he did understand and was unable to tolerate his world view being so violently being ripped apart. He probably subscribes to a variation of the Ann Landers view of the world.
This sort of thing is more common than you might expect. I was involved in a “back-and-forth” comments on another blog (on the subject of CCW holder being allowed to carry on airliners). When the blog owner painted himself into a logical corner, nasty little me pounced. Not another comment on his post has showed as of the last time I checked. Of course, he is a bit smarter than your guy–he has comment moderation turned on, so he doesn’t have to delete anything–he just stops it from appearing at all.
I’m pretty sure I have a rough idea of how often it happens. My search for [“Reasoned Discourse” gun] yielded nearly 18,000 hits.
“the Ann Landers view of the world.”
Yup– you’re violating his rights by disagreeing with him. That is precisely how some of them take it, you mean old meanie, you. Bullying defenseless children. For shame.
I like what Linoge said. He not only deleted your comments but his original post as well.
Too bad, a potential ally of mine packs up his tent and goes home as soon as you guys rough him up a little.
Ummm Mike, You delete comments on your blog that don’t agree with your twisted veiws of reality. (yeah I know you have a commenting policy, and we all know you don’t follow it)
Pot, Meet Kettle!
“Too bad, a potential ally of mine packs up his tent and goes home as soon as you guys rough him up a little.”
That happens consistently Mike, and I’m happy to see it. Bigots absolutely should be ridiculed, ostracized, and marginalized.
Get used to it MikeB. As you yourself have proven over and over, there is no logical defense for ‘gun control’ and the only possible responses are emotional rants, insults, and deliberate ignorance.
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Joe, lest you get too many warm fuzzies from having prevailed here, let me remind you that our POTUS follows this exact same modus operandi, and is (for the nonce) backed up by an adequate majority of the Congress, and the fix is in at SCOTUS as well, so our entire Federal Government is in the hands of folks who play by those little-spoiled-brat rules.
We win a skirmish, they field another army.
There will have to be an undo as the first and only order of business after the next election.
Think undo.
Rivrdog
That guy is completely hilarious. A perfect example of someone singing “lalalalla I can’t hear your facts” and ignoring reality.
Shame, Joe. You know the only “reasoned discourse” is discourse that he can win. When he found he couldn’t cow you with useless talking points, he abandoned ship. No doubt he’s off somewhere telling his hemp sandal wearing patchoili scented friends how horribly unevolved you are.