Ownership of guns.

biko wrote:

OP, when you look at it the amendment in the US is not even valid for private citizens to own guns. It's for arming militia, and also outdated. 1791 in America is a whole different world than 2007.

That is not the majority legal opinion these days. (Besides, the Militia is defined by US law as every able-bodied male between ages of 17 and 45, plus others). Neither is it the opinion of the US Dept of Justice.
http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.pdf

Keep an eye on Parker vs DC, which should be cropping up in the US Supreme Court in the next few months. This is the Court of Appeals ruling, and it's come down firmly on the individual rights side.
http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200703/04-7041a.pdf

Investigation after investigation shows that guns in the hands of citizens increases innocent deaths, not the other way around.

It also increases deaths of those who could do with killing and increases numbers of lives saved which would not otherwise have survived. I note the interesting statistic involving the huge reduction of murders in Florida since they legalised concealed carry, vs the huge increase in murders in DC since they banned handguns.

There are other benefits, however. I live in California: California law allows me to shoot burglars. Burglary rates are very low around these parts for some reason. Can't imagine why. At a more normal level, however, there are plenty of examples of law-abiding folk using firearms for good as well as non-law-abiding folk using them for bad. Firearms sales in Connecticut shot up last week a result of this one http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/nyregion/07slay.html?_r=1&em&ex=1186891200&en=ee43803c7997cf45&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin. Similarly, one should note the spike in firearms ownership and pro-gun legislation (Such as 'The government cannot order the confiscation of weapons in an emergency) after Katrina. It's all very well to say 'nobody needs a gun' today..until you need one.

Then someone will say "But what about the shooting in the church in today's news? Three people were killed by easy firearms availability!" (Disregarding the fact that it seems none of the church's members were armed and able to defend themselves).

On the other hand, also in today's news, I see http://www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/story/201303.html ("Bruce Flanders, 54, a clerk at the Super Stop Food Store in Pembroke Pines, stared down the barrel of a shotgun Sunday afternoon, then pulled the trigger of his own handgun and shot one of two would-be robbers."), http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/topstories/news-article.aspx?storyid=88918 ("Police say a man shot the owner of Avitar Graphics during a robbery. The owner shot back and hit the suspect. He died at Shands."). The day before, a chap with a firearm came to the aid of a policeman who was involved in a shootout.


Now, the distinction here is that Ireland is not the US. With a population of 4million, there are but a mere quarter-million legally held firearms in private circulation. There is generally much less chance of someone in Ireland being in a position wherin it would really be quite handy to be armed. Thus the current Irish system which is geared towards recreational and competition shooting is quite satisfactory for the conditions prevalent.

As ' democracy', we are entitled to own guns for our protection, but no, not in good ol' Eire

That's not an issue of democracy at all, unless you're talking larger scale, are worried that the government isn't really listening to you and you need to make a point. I seem to vaguely recall something of that nature happening in Ireland around 1920 or so. And 1916, while I think of it. Those in Ireland who would quickly disparage the concept of the private citizenry holding firearms to preserve their freedoms would be blithely forgetting that their grandparents or great-grandparents were doing precisely that in order to establish the country in the first place. It wasn't people holding signs and demonstrating outside of Dublin Castle that brought about Irish independence, after all. It was Paddy O'Shea, the farmer or banker, with a Mauser. You could doubtless argue that that was 80 years ago, we don't need to worry about this sort of thing any more. Which may be true today. But if it becomes not true tomorrow, what are you going to do about it if you've been disarmed?

The issue of personal defense is nothing to do with democracy, it's an issue of personal responsibilty vs communal responsibility. Police can't go everywhere at once and stop every crime. Their most common role is to show up after the crime is completed, draw a line around the body if required, then find out who did it. And usually, they're good at it. Which is fine for society at large, but not much consolation to the victim. It's a case of 'where do you balance the idea of letting the community agencies deal with the problem of crimes against the person compared to the chances of your being the statistic with reference to those crimes?' Indeed, US Caselaw up to the Supreme Court has solidly confirmed the concept that the police are not responsible for your (the individual person's) safety. After all, that would mean you could sue the police every time something bad happened to you. This leaves solely yourself to rely on.

I happen to be pretty capable with a firearm. I shot 'Expert' on my annual qualification with the Army on Saturday on the combat pistol range. Given that I am capable of defending myself and my family from those with fewer scruples than I, I see absolutely no reason why I, a law abiding citizen, should not be permitted to do so. If I'm going to be a statistic, I'd rather be a member of the group of people who used a firearm for a defensive purpose (estimates vary from 760,000 a year at the lowest end to over 3.5million a year at the top end) than the group of people categorised as 'minding their own business, but were killed anyway'

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp seems to be a fairly neutral crowd.

NTM