Jim Stillman
Nevar
A child will miss her prom. Happy?
April 20th 2009 19:23
Paris Whitehead-Hamilton, an eight year old girl from St. Petersburg, Florida, had dreams, looking forward to when she’d be a teen and maybe go to a high school prom. She wasn’t sure of what she’d do when she grew up but new role models like Michelle Obama demonstrated that there were no limits on her dreams and ambitions.
I personally would argue that the Second Amendment guarantee of a right to own a gun should be evaluated in the light of conditions in the 21st century. There are many Americans and legal scholars would interpret that Amendment in a manner that would allow someone to carry a weapon, carry it, day and night, just in case there is a confrontation with a threat to their safety. One of the most powerful and effective lobbying organizations in the country, the National Rifle Association, has made certain that any legislator who introduces (or even supports) legislation to bar or regulate firearms is likely to be out of a job.
More discussion on the general rights of gun advocates would not be that illuminating at this time. However, it may be meaningful to explore the limitations on gun ownership and possession.
I believe that even the most confirmed gun supporter would accept that “right to bear arms” would not extend to the mentally incompetent, criminals, and children. In other words, the “right” is not absolute; there are limitations. We may disagree on the nature and extent of those limitations, but they do, in fact, exist.
There have, for many years, been laws prohibiting certain kinds of weapons, “arms”, if you will. For example fully-automatic sub-machine guns favored by 1930-ish gangsters have been outlawed for the past 70 years or so. No one would seriously argue cruise or ground to air missiles would be permitted in a residence; likewise, driving a Bradley tank, complete with cannon, would not be not allowed in lieu of a Toyota. In 1939, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment only guaranteed the right to possess weapons not uniquely suitable for military use.
So, in principle, most rational people would have no conception problems with barring certain kinds of weapons. But, the devil is in the details.
Two weeks ago, Paris Whitehead-Hamilton was struck by three bullets when her home was sprayed by over 50 rounds from an AR-15 military-style semi-automatic gun. The St. Petersburg Times:
This type of gun is not a weapon with which one uses to protest self or family. It has no function or purpose other than to kill people, lots of people. Randy Inman points out that the AR-15 is a civilian semi-automatic version of the military M-16 and uses a high velocity round which when it “strikes a human target tumbles causing more damage”
.
Advocates for broad availability of guns make several arguments whenever restriction of assault weapons is proposed.
First, they assert, that any restriction on gun ownership is the start of a slippery slope that would end in a ban on gun ownership and possession. However, as I have noted, some restrictions and limitations are accepted by everyone.
Second, those who would object to a ban on assault weapons suggest that a definition of such is difficult to formulate and, in any event, the real objection is that they just look dangerous.
An editorial in the St. Petersburg Times:
In 1994, the Federal Government enacted a ban on the manufacture and sale of assault weapons generally using the criteria of a weapon having a magazine holding more than ten cartridges and capable of rapid and continuous. The law automatically expired in 2004 and Congress did not renew it.
The failure to extend the ban was the responsibility of the Republican-controlled Congress and President Bush. Lawmakers refused to advance an extension of the ban and Bush, who claimed to be willing to sign it, never urged Congress to enact one. Now also blame the Democrats, many of whom have worked to appease the NRA. Lately, gun shops report an increase in sales of all weapons including assault as conservative broadcasters spout baseless claims that President Barack Obama wants to take away all legally owned guns.
As a candidate, Obama said he would seek to renew the ban on assault weapons. Attorney General Eric Holder has repeated that promise. In the meantime, more of these guns flood into the marketplace. Some are heading across the border into Mexico, assisting in the militarization of the drug cartels. Some are sold legally through gun shops or at gun shows where purchasers don't necessarily undergo background checks. And some are finding their way into the hands of U.S. drug dealers and gangs after they are stolen from homes and pawn shops.
Admittedly, the 10-year ban didn't eliminate semi-automatic weapons. Manufacturers got around it by making small design modifications or incorporating pre-ban materials into their weapons. But the newer legislative versions of the ban would address some of these tricks. It should also be acknowledged that prohibiting the manufacture and sale olf these weapons olf mass destruction will not eliminate crime.
That is certainly true but one thing is equally true and evident: without these semi-automatic rifles, far fewer bullets would have been fired into that house in a quiet St. Petersburg neighborhood and a little girl might have had a better chance to live and someday go to her prom.
A child's life taken
I personally would argue that the Second Amendment guarantee of a right to own a gun should be evaluated in the light of conditions in the 21st century. There are many Americans and legal scholars would interpret that Amendment in a manner that would allow someone to carry a weapon, carry it, day and night, just in case there is a confrontation with a threat to their safety. One of the most powerful and effective lobbying organizations in the country, the National Rifle Association, has made certain that any legislator who introduces (or even supports) legislation to bar or regulate firearms is likely to be out of a job.
More discussion on the general rights of gun advocates would not be that illuminating at this time. However, it may be meaningful to explore the limitations on gun ownership and possession.
I believe that even the most confirmed gun supporter would accept that “right to bear arms” would not extend to the mentally incompetent, criminals, and children. In other words, the “right” is not absolute; there are limitations. We may disagree on the nature and extent of those limitations, but they do, in fact, exist.
There have, for many years, been laws prohibiting certain kinds of weapons, “arms”, if you will. For example fully-automatic sub-machine guns favored by 1930-ish gangsters have been outlawed for the past 70 years or so. No one would seriously argue cruise or ground to air missiles would be permitted in a residence; likewise, driving a Bradley tank, complete with cannon, would not be not allowed in lieu of a Toyota. In 1939, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment only guaranteed the right to possess weapons not uniquely suitable for military use.
So, in principle, most rational people would have no conception problems with barring certain kinds of weapons. But, the devil is in the details.
Two weeks ago, Paris Whitehead-Hamilton was struck by three bullets when her home was sprayed by over 50 rounds from an AR-15 military-style semi-automatic gun. The St. Petersburg Times:
These guns have no practical use for hunting, but they are highly efficient tools to dispatch enemies of a rival gang, which is apparently why Whitehead-Hamilton's home was targeted. The semiautomatic AR-15 is considered the hot weapon of choice for intimidation, murder and mayhem by drug gangs.
This type of gun is not a weapon with which one uses to protest self or family. It has no function or purpose other than to kill people, lots of people. Randy Inman points out that the AR-15 is a civilian semi-automatic version of the military M-16 and uses a high velocity round which when it “strikes a human target tumbles causing more damage”
.
Advocates for broad availability of guns make several arguments whenever restriction of assault weapons is proposed.
First, they assert, that any restriction on gun ownership is the start of a slippery slope that would end in a ban on gun ownership and possession. However, as I have noted, some restrictions and limitations are accepted by everyone.
Second, those who would object to a ban on assault weapons suggest that a definition of such is difficult to formulate and, in any event, the real objection is that they just look dangerous.
An editorial in the St. Petersburg Times:
St. Petersburg police Chief Chuck Harmon is right when he says that AR-15 semiautomatic rifles "don't belong on any city street in America." So why are they so easily available? Maybe because they are legal.
Drug gangs use them. Legitimate hunters don't. So why are they legal?
Ask members of Congress — if you can find them while they are cowering from the National Rifle Association.
Drug gangs use them. Legitimate hunters don't. So why are they legal?
Ask members of Congress — if you can find them while they are cowering from the National Rifle Association.
In 1994, the Federal Government enacted a ban on the manufacture and sale of assault weapons generally using the criteria of a weapon having a magazine holding more than ten cartridges and capable of rapid and continuous. The law automatically expired in 2004 and Congress did not renew it.
The failure to extend the ban was the responsibility of the Republican-controlled Congress and President Bush. Lawmakers refused to advance an extension of the ban and Bush, who claimed to be willing to sign it, never urged Congress to enact one. Now also blame the Democrats, many of whom have worked to appease the NRA. Lately, gun shops report an increase in sales of all weapons including assault as conservative broadcasters spout baseless claims that President Barack Obama wants to take away all legally owned guns.
As a candidate, Obama said he would seek to renew the ban on assault weapons. Attorney General Eric Holder has repeated that promise. In the meantime, more of these guns flood into the marketplace. Some are heading across the border into Mexico, assisting in the militarization of the drug cartels. Some are sold legally through gun shops or at gun shows where purchasers don't necessarily undergo background checks. And some are finding their way into the hands of U.S. drug dealers and gangs after they are stolen from homes and pawn shops.
Admittedly, the 10-year ban didn't eliminate semi-automatic weapons. Manufacturers got around it by making small design modifications or incorporating pre-ban materials into their weapons. But the newer legislative versions of the ban would address some of these tricks. It should also be acknowledged that prohibiting the manufacture and sale olf these weapons olf mass destruction will not eliminate crime.
That is certainly true but one thing is equally true and evident: without these semi-automatic rifles, far fewer bullets would have been fired into that house in a quiet St. Petersburg neighborhood and a little girl might have had a better chance to live and someday go to her prom.
| 121 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
Comment by Randy Inman
Waxing Political
Football Dogz
NCstuff
The Right Side
The man who killed the little girl did not deserve to be on the streets to start with. His list of convictions should have had him in prison for several more years. He was not using the weapon in a legal way such as defending life or property.
Legal gun owners usually do not commit gun crimes something that is blatantly ignored by most of the liberal left. The piece of crap that shot the little girl would have done the same thing with any weapon he could find. And the criminals will always be better armed than the average citizen or even some law enforcement. By the very definition criminals break the law. There are too many guns on the street in America for gun control laws to work now. It would just make guns a very lucrative black market item and murders would be more rampant.
On the AR-15 it is hard to defend their existence on the civilian market and I won’t try here. Nor am I very inclined to do so.
Comment by Jim Stillman
Political Certainty
Yes the three people who did the shooting were and are responsible. And I do not excuse their actions. But if they did not have this particular weapon, little Paris might be alive.
Comment by Randy Inman
Waxing Political
Football Dogz
NCstuff
The Right Side
Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
In Australia, just as in America, since 9/11 our both governments were using the attacks to justify all kinds of laws and activities that took away a lot of freedoms. It was all for our own protection they said. Why does this never extend to some level of gun control?
Comment by rickb_georgia
Unfortunately, Congress, when given an inch will steal a mile.
We have lost a lot more of our personal liberties since 9/11 than most of us realize ... primarily because of an ineffective Congress obsessed with self importance, money, power and greed, both Democrats and Republicans.
Perhaps some of the well meaning social activists should spend more time in the neighborhoods helping to clean them up and not giving safe haven to gangs and drug dealers. And maybe some of that stimulus money for greater police presence in crime plaged areas?
Punish crime ... Drug dealing equals 100 years at hard labor, no exceptions. Using a firearm in a crime equals 100 years at hard labor, no exceptions.
Comment by PopulistConservative
Angry Electorate
Comment by Someone
Evil Pleasures
Random Musings on Life, Love and Everything
Let's Get Down To Business
A little harsh, don't you think? How do you define dealing? Does the guy who stocks up with an ounce of marijuana (a deal-able amount in Australia, but not uncommon for pot-smokers to possess) get the same sentence as the crack dealer?
Comment by samaritan
Fringe Faith
Samaritan's Stories
I also think it's not just about the people who are in possession of the guns - but the people who have access to those guns. There have been so many high school shootings in America. And I think part of the reason for that is there are not tight gun controls. You don't have the same problem in Australia.
My kids aren't in high school yet, but when they get there, I'm glad that there's not as much chance they'll be going to school with people who have guns in their houses.
Samaritan
Comment by Andrew Biviano
The Middle Ground
Comment by Morgan Bell
Science News
Deep Pencil
Business News
Movie Train
Artist Quirk
i think the difference is that if you had a knife or a small handgun it would be unlikely you could cause the same scale of indiscriminate destruction as an automatic or semi-automatic machine gun, a grenade, or a rocket etc
im presuming this was a drive by shooting?
if that is the case, the criminal did not even have to leave their car to kill people within the home, they probably werent even aiming for the little girl, and had they only had knives there would have been more factors preventing the killing
i dont believe it is impossible to keep illegal weapons off the street, if you ban their manufacture and ban their importation and confiscate all existing firearms it is plausible to have a society with little or no guns . . . its just a matter of how effectively your government and police can implement those measures
automatic and semi-automatic firearms should be exclusively for the military, if you live on a rural property the rifles/shotguns you own should be locked away when not being used for animal control
if anything should be jail for 100 years it should be carrying a firearm in the street and purchasing unregistered firearms
Comment by Nevar
Is Why
Everyone, although I grieve for the parents of the little girl and hate that these things happen. The problem isn't guns, it's the mindset of the individual with a finger on the trigger.
Boys wielding guns likely come from broken homes of single or unwed mothers. Women can't teach a boy to be a man, what they raise are hateful neurotic wrecks that throw temper tantrums with weapons and who don't have the backbone to resist peer pressure.
Weaponless people are often victims, gun wielding citizens are a crime deterrent.
But, until society at large deals with the core problem people will continue to get killed, with guns, bombs, bows and arrows, spears, knives, poisons, disease, electrical shock, pushed off cliffs or buildings, cars, motor bikes: whatever the weapon, it's a tool.
Many of the gang members are totally desensitized to the pain or suffering of others and that is a social mental health problem.
Until the root problems are solved, restricting the sales of automatic weapons is a stop gap and may help. But that will never be enough to stop a determined killer.