The 2nd amendment allows gun control. Scalia didn't | Hacker News Reader

The 2nd amendment allows gun control. Scalia didn't

newyorker.com

5 pointsdangjc8 comments

  Gun control ends gun violence as surely an (sic)
  antibiotics end bacterial infections

That's utterly false. There's not even a strong correlation between gun bans and reductions in violent crime. (Mexico and other countries to its south are great examples.)

In the U.S., the violent gun crime rate went down after the 1994 "Assault Weapons" ban lapsed.

Saddest of all, this isn't even labeled as an opinion piece -- they call this "news", not an Op-Ed.

Australia had a massive assault weapons buyback + gun control program after the Port Arthur shooting which reduced gun related homicides by 59% and suicides by 74%. They haven't had a mass shooting since. (http://theweek.com/articles/629877/here-are-3-countries-wher...)

In Connecticut, after a law was passed requiring purchasers to obtain a license first, homicides dropped 40%. When Missouri repealed a similar law, homicides increased 16%. (http://www.vox.com/2015/10/5/9454161/gun-violence-solution)

Please don't speak in absolutes.

Well, except for the 2002 Monash University shooting, the 2011 Hectorville Siege, Hunt Family murders in 2014, Logan Shooting in 2014, etc. That's just 'massacred committed with firearms'. There's a fair number of stabbings, arson attacks, bombings, etc since the 1996 gun ban too.

The suicide rate in Australia has not gone down at all, much less by 74%. Do you mean only the suicides that use guns as a method? Those have declined, but not because people aren't killing themselves, just because people they're choosing other methods instead. Which seems like not much of a real win.

Suicide rates for Australia were 11.0 in 1980, 12.0 in 1995, 12.5 in 2000, and currently 12.0 (as of 2014, the most recent year for which data is available). Which doesn't suggest any obvious improvement circa the gun buyback/control event of 1996.

Pretty much everyone who works in suicide prevention (in individuals and across populations) says that reduction in access to means and methods is an important part of suicide prevention.

But it is just a part. You need the other stuff alongside the reduction of access to means and methods.

> Australia were 11.0 in 1980, [...] currently 12.0

Just checking, but are you counting the same thing over all those years? Definitions of suicide change; methods for gathering the data changes.

That makes it hard to compare rates across years.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/...

> More broadly, this change in administrative systems highlights how various factors (including administrative and system changes, certification practices, classification updates or coding rule changes) can impact on the mortality dataset. Data users should note this particular change and be cautious when making comparisons between reference periods. The change does not explain away differences between years, but is a factor to consider.

What part of "Shall not be infringed", in any interpretation, allows gun control?

The 2nd amendment reads "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The New Yorker article was pointing out that judicial scholarship prior to Scalia's decision recognized that the first clause "well-REGULATED militia" constrained the application of the second clause. Please read the article.

The article brought up one dissenting judge's opinion, and a whole lot of sour grapes at 'losing' the Heller case.

From the Oxford English Dictionary, and bracketed in the time of the writing of the 2nd amendment:

    1709: "If a liberal Education has formed in us well-regulated Appetites and worthy Inclinations."

    1714: "The practice of all well-regulated courts of justice in the world."

    1812: "The equation of time ... is the adjustment of the difference of time as shown by a well-regulated clock and a true sun dial."

    1848: "A remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated person will blame the Mayor."

    1862: "It appeared to her well-regulated mind, like a clandestine proceeding."

    1894: "The newspaper, a never wanting adjunct to every well-regulated American embryo city."

The phrase "well-regulated" was in common use long before 1789, and remained so for a century thereafter. It referred to the property of something being in proper working order. Something that was well-regulated was calibrated correctly, functioning as expected. Establishing government oversight of the people's arms was not only not the intent in using the phrase in the 2nd amendment, it was precisely to render the government powerless to do so that the founders wrote it.

Read the Federalist Papers (specifically #46), in which Hamilton, Madison, etc, give significant insight into the intent behind the Amendments. It is plain that they intended the 2nd Amendment to not restrict the people's ability to own firearms in any way, shape, or form.

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