Supreme Court arguments

[GBS]

Caught a glimps of a news cast dealing with the 'protesters' outside the big court house.

The argument (I am sure by a lawyer) against 2A went something like:
There were only 150 cases where a gun stopped a bad guy from robbing someone in the US last year, while over 1,500 shooting homicides took place.
The response was to get angry and tell the fellow he was full of it.
Which - while true, was no real response.

I wish the protesters would keep their cool (easy for me to say), and respond - You mean with an armed populace, we could have stopped an additional 1,500 bad guys?
:patriot:

[Anvil]

The problem with quoting stats on firearms is you don't know how many crimes firearms prevented. Prevented crimes don't get reported. Only when you ban guns (like in Austrialia) do you see the real effect of a disarmed populous. SCOTUS knows this and isn't falling for sleezy lawyer tactics. The John Roberts supreme court is the right panel of judges for this issue.

[degoodman]

In strictly technical terms, firearms prevent -0- crimes. Or at the least a very small number of them. The only time it happens is when a criminal knows or specifically believes that a firearm will be present and will be used against him. Studies have shown this to occur, but they show that it's just as likely that a particular place will be targeted specifically for the firearms therein.

While they may go unreported, when you pull a roscoe to interrupt a crime, a crime has still occurred. The fact that it was not successfully completed does not eliminate the occurrance of a crime. You basically have only two choices. A firearm was used to interrupt a criminal act in progress, or the use of a firearm itself represented a criminal attack.

And I don't know about you, but on the few occasions I have felt it necessary to confront a criminal with a firearm, I reported each and every one. Remember, the first person to call in is the victim. Wouldn't it suck for you if the BG calls the po-po from a pay phone and says you stuck him up. They'll have YOU on camera (face it, everything is on camera these days) with a gun and no audio to go with it, and you getting into YOUR car a minute or two later with a registration that points to YOUR house. Wanna try and explain what you did if the man comes a knocking? 'Cause the first thing out of the cop's mouth as he's handcuffing you will be "well if you were getting robbed, why didn't you call us?"

There is also the ethical issue of not reporting a criminal in the area. So you stopped the perp from robbing you...how are you going to feel if you catch on the news the next morning that the perp you stopped from robbing you, but didn't call the cops, was being perp-walked at the courthouse for a rape that left a 17 year old high school student in critical condition, or your elderly neighbor down the street getting pistol whipped when their house got hit 2 days later?

I'll admit to being a little suspicious of the studies and reports showing a super high rate of defensive gun use. They cite as a flaw in the FBI and DOJ crime statistics that they rely on reported crimes etc, and that the person with a badge collecting the reports may have a deterrant effect on truthful reporting. My question is, what are the Kleck's of the world doing to segregate the DGU's where the "claiming" party did not have legal justification for the use of the weapon, say in defending a drug corner or fending off a gang attack that was part of a mutually combative situation, or the middle aged white suburbanite who sees a person of color wearing urban dress in the walmart parking lot glance their way and they think to themselves, "thank God I have this gun or he would have got me" out of discriminatory ignorance.

I hate the use of stats with gun crimes and drug crimes too for that matter. All the stats look at the wrong thing. Anyone who thinks you can control a crime by controlling the tools used to comit a crime without addressing the underlying behavior that is really the root of the matter id flat out retarded. I don't think the possession or use of drugs should be punished, period, nor alcohol, nor the possession or use of firearms under any circumstances. In each case. I don't care if anyone and everyone carries a gun, concealed, from a bar, into a school to pick up their kid to stop at the post office on the way to the airport to catch a flight to the mayors office in Chicago. but if they step out of line with the gun and use it unjustifiably against another, throw the book at them, and throw it just as hard or harder than if they used a knife or bare fists to do the same crime. Don't punish someone for possessing drugs, even the heavy hitters, pills, speed, coke, heroin, meth, nor for using the same. But throw the book at them for driving under the influence, neglecting their kids, or stealing to support their habits. The criminal act is not the possession of an inanimate substance or object, it the use of the same to harm another. If we rewrote our laws and enforced them with those ideals in mind, we'd be alot better off.

[gokyo]

I don't think the possession or use of drugs should be punished, period, nor alcohol, nor the possession or use of firearms under any circumstances... ...The criminal act is not the possession of an inanimate substance or object, it the use of the same to harm another. If we rewrote our laws and enforced them with those ideals in mind, we'd be alot better off.
This is a very interesting point.

I think I would tend to agree. Could the mere possession of an object speak to a persons motivation to do illegal things later. However lets take this arguement to an exptreme example and see how it holds up.

If I am standing at a municipal water supply with a tanker truck full of cyanide I may not have done anything yet....

However the circumstances speak to my future illegal behavior. Is it not better to be preemptive?

Or I own a sniper rifle and i set it up on a roof top in DC. I have not shot anybody. Is what I am doing illegal. maybe not but guess what happens when the day before the motorcade drives by.

[degoodman]

This is a very interesting point.

I think I would tend to agree. Could the mere possession of an object speak to a persons motivation to do illegal things later. However lets take this arguement to an exptreme example and see how it holds up.

If I am standing at a municipal water supply with a tanker truck full of cyanide I may not have done anything yet....

However the circumstances speak to my future illegal behavior. Is it not better to be preemptive?

Or I own a sniper rifle and i set it up on a roof top in DC. I have not shot anybody. Is what I am doing illegal. maybe not but guess what happens when the day before the motorcade drives by.

You have already violated other pertinent statutes in both cases.

With regard to the cyanide, you have violated state and federal laws regarding the handling and transportation of hazardous substances. You're probably also tresspassing, violating the terms of use of the public park or waterway if it's a mixed use water source, etc. There's plenty of hats that you can pull that rabbit out of if it comes to that. Of course, cyanide is a common industrial use chemical, and the guy hauling it might have stopped at the public park for lunch too.

And on the sniper rifle thing, again, unless its your roof, you're tresspassing. With the correct police report, you can take that act up through disorderly conduct, inciting panic, brandishing a weapon, communicating a threat, and even assault with a deadly weapon (ADW is technically placing someone in fear of attack with a deadly weapon, whether or not the attack is carried to completion). Its not the possession of the rifle that counts, its when you unsling it and ready it for action without justification that the act becomes a crime.

Again, my assertion is that there are usually PLENTY of ways of hanging someone out to dry for illegal acts comitted with otherwise legal substances or objects. I am personally of the opinion that whether its cyanide, heroin, grass, booze, or deep fried breaded pure trans fat, a person should have the complete freedom to pollute his body with whatever goodies he wishes. With that freedom comes the responsibility to not infringe on the rights of others in the process, and you punish those infringements severely. Same with guns. You want to tote one around anywhere you go, more power to you. But the minute you draw your piece without justification, prone out with your M60 or your long rifle, etc, on go the handcuffs if convenient, and you get filled full of lead if necessary.

There has never been a law on the books that prevented ANYTHING. Look at the highly successful war on drugs if you need proof. We cannot and should not punish people for what they might do, otherwise you'd have to lock up every gun owner because they possess the means to commit murder, and every male because he could commit a rape, and every parent and grandparent because they might molest their kids. Punish the criminal act, and punish it severely, but there is no law ever written that can prevent a crime.