StephenCobb
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@JoyceMelton @GeneRalno All true, but the writer is still more informed and engaged than 90% of the US population (just google "public ignorance"), and you might have cut him more slack if he had shared your viewpoint. Some of the rights in the Bill of Rights get more love than the others; in his tome "Shouting Fire", Alan Dershowitz focused on the freedoms of speech and movement, but completely ignored self-defense. I would suggest that a reasonable level of self-defense would be for the typical citizen to have access to the same armaments as the typical soldier, whether spears, muskets, or AR-15s. BTW, you might appreciate Dershowitz's essay on "shouting fire", as his interpretation is somewhat different:
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/89jan/dershowitz.htm
@JoyceMelton @GeneRalno Assuming that Gene meant "right" instead of "need", are there any rights that you consider near absolute? Those that are spelled out in the Bill of Rights are pretty firm.
@Sam the man @bobfrommosinee German Jews were only a small part of the Holocaust. Most of them got out; it was the Polish and other Central European Jews who died in massive numbers. The KKK et al tried to prevent blacks from owning guns; it is my understanding that blacks indeed needed guns, because they could not depend on the police. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret-history-of-guns/308608/
@Guest Again @bobfrommosinee Your link seems to refute your point: the 1938 law restricted ownership of firearms to "...persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a (gun) permit," and the November followup regulation "effectively deprived all Jews of the right to possess firearms or other weapons."
@GeneRalno Here in New Hampshire, home of the Free State Project, we now have a modest education tax-credit program of $2500/pupil/year. I believe this guy played a role:
http://www.cato.org/people/jason-bedrick
@GeneRalno, good comment, but don't you think that we are making some questionable assumptions? First, these mass shootings are sensational but rare, like shark attacks or plane crashes, and it is not necessarily the case that "something must be done." Second, if something is to be done in the case of schools, it is not our place to decide. Privatize the schools and hold them responsible for safety (as any business is); how the schools do it will between them, their customers, and their insurers. I full agree with you about the dysfunctional state of US schools, and I think you might find this essay insightful: http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html Though I was a valedictorian in my high school, I related to Paul Graham's description 100%. I will add that gun-control advocates are jumping to conclusions when they assume that the only question here is whether or not to ban the Sandy Hook murderer's weapon of choice. Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people without a gun.
The Drug War is not a factor in the US? What an astounding statement. Go look at the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports for homicide *circumstances*, not just weapon of choice. Those "guns and child mortality rates" include 17-year-olds in drug gangs. Though the US murder rate has fallen by more than 50% since 1980, I expect that an old statistic remains true: if you exclude drug-gang-related murders from the statistics, the US has a murder rate near the European average, the same as Switzerland. For the increased media commentary about guns in America, one would expect a bit more depth, but it remains superficial and primitive, even in the better publications.
Hey Michael! Have you noticed that the Constitution mentions trial by jury in 4 separate places? In New Hampshire we have a brand new law enshrining Jury Nullification, and it just got used, just in time for Constitution Day:
http://reason.com/blog/2012/09/14/new-hampshire-jury-acquits-pot-growing-r
Yup, in New Hampshire every day is Constitution Day!