This is not normal

[Belle Rose]

I have recently become aware of how often I have to think/worry/ponder/safety plan around gun violence. Not just for myself but especially for my teenager. It’s not normal to have to think and worry about these things, but it occupies my mind every day.

Growing up there were a lot of things I had to worry about. Gangs. Drugs. Being assaulted….but being shot by a gun wasn’t really one of them.

The US is no longer a safe place. Let’s all stop pretending. It’s like open season. And black and brown men are the main targets.

Our region is mourning the loss of a pregnant woman who was shot in the middle of the day just blocks away from my job.

It’s causing a lot of talk because she wasn’t black or brown. She was Asian. Petite. Small and helpless. Minding her own business. Sitting in her own car.

I have actually started to think about buying bullet-proof clothes and what not. I’ve actually started looking on Amazon to see what’s out there. It’s crazy. Then I realized…wait, this isn’t normal to live this way!

[Unseen]

Ironically, there’s little we can do about the gun problem short of another revolution. BUT, to do that, we’d all have to get us a gun.

Here is a famous bit by the genius comic Sam Kinison.

Bear with me here. This digression does have a point.

In other words, MOVE to where the guns aren’t.

[RichRaelian]

Hi! I don’t like normal and normal scares me how about making a mental hospital so that normal people can go there especially the ones that cling to the idea that were alone in the universe.

[Noel]

Normal?

I normally ponder why the forefathers included a preamble in the second amendment and no one, not even the supreme court, recognizes that it’s there. But it’s plain as day: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, “.  But maybe it’s my clinically diagnosed deep depression that understands that sentence differently than a lot of Americans, including the Supreme Court. In other words reading is fundemental but not for me?

I’ve never owned a firearm. I’ve fired them in the service, disassembled, and reassembled but have never found a need to own one. I don’t hunt and I don’t have this fear of being assassinated in the middle of the night despite growing up in such places as The South Bronx (Police use to call it Fort Apache). I’ve walked the city of New York at night where it sometimes seem I was the only one there. Never saw the need for one. But I had a friend, Spanky, who bought one illegally and carried it with him to work. Spanky rode the subway, to and from work, into the wee hours of the morning and one day, at the East New York station in Brooklyn, a group of kids approached him and demanded his money. He took out the gun and with a shaking hand yelled at them to leave the subway car. They exited, the doors closed, and Spanky put the gun away and sat shaking. Old man sitting across from him made eye contact, smiled, and started yelling “Atta’ Boy!”. One day, sitting in front of  a mound of pot and another mound of cocaine he picked up his gun put it to his head and made like he was going to shoot himself. One of the guys there told him to stop fucking around. He said it’s not loaded, pulled the trigger, and blew his brains out. Didn’t know there was a round still in the chamber.

What’s happening in the country now, with all the mass shootings, is worse than the violence that occurred in my neighborhood of The South Bronx (Fort Apache). And yet despite the answer in the 60’s and early ’70’s being more policing and confiscation of guns and arrest there is no answer for the ineptitude of our government to keep us safe from ourselves.

If an atrocity, like one of these mass shootings, was ever to fall on my relatives I would want every bullet hole of my dead relation printed in the paper. I would post it to every social site and let the America that thinks regulation of firearms is not necessary see what they did. How fucking insane are we really?

[TheEncogitationer]

Unseen,

In order to go to where the guns aren’t, you would need men with guns to keep the guns out. Therein lies one of the many contradictions and absurdities of gun control.

And the Ethiopia of which Sam Kenison spoke was one of those places that didn’t trust private citizens with guns and didn’t permit freedom of movement or private property rights to to grow, raise and trade in food. These tend to go together.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: Spelling

[TheEncogitationer]

Noel,

George Mason, one of the authors of The Constitution and The Bill of Rights put it thusly:

I ask, Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.”

And as this article below points out, even if the Militia were more narrowly defined, this still does not preclude or forbid an individual from keeping and bearing arms for self-defense, nor does it empower the Federal Government to violate this right.

No Federal Power over Guns, Even If the Second Amendment Never Existed
By: Mike Maharrey|Published on: Jul 9, 2016

No Federal Power over Guns, Even if the 2nd Amendment Never Existed

Going further, The Bill of Rights doesn’t grant any right, but rather recognizes rights which pre-existed this or any other government, rights inherent in Man’s nature as a rational being. The right to keep and bear arms for self-defense exists even if The Bill of Rights and The ConstitutIon never existed.

As for your former friend, my kudos for him standing up to thuggery in a City that is riddled through with it…and my disgust that he didn’t have enough self-regard to follow the most basic principles of gun ownwership:

That every gun is loaded, that you never point a gun at any target you do not intend to destroy, and that you always know what is around and behind your target.

Disregard for those principles is something no law can solve.

[TheEncogitationer]

Belle Rose,

Kindest thoughts to you and your teenager and the lady in your community who was senselessly slaughtered.

Sadly, the world has always been a dangerous place and the U.S.A. is no exception. The difference between now and past times is that we are now aware of it continuously 24/7/365 through multiple media outlets.

A world like this makes it all the more urgent that the innocent have the means of defending themselves and each other and never be deprived of it.

Your desire for safety for yourself and your teenager is not abnormal at all. Exercise situational awareness in all you do and do what is within your reach as a rational being to survive and thrive.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: Spelling

[Unseen]

@Noel

Google tells me:

According to the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.012 The majority held that the Second Amendment’s preamble, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,” is consistent with this interpretation when understood in light of the framers’ belief that the most effective way to destroy a citizens’ militia was to disarm the citizens. The court also found that United States v. Miller supported an individual-right view, contrary to the dominant 20th-century interpretation of that decision.1 The amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause.

[Unseen]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Unseen, In order to go to where the guns aren’t, you would need men with guns to keep the guns out. Therein lies one of the many contradictions and absurdities of gun control. And the Ethiopia of which Sam Kenison spoke was one of those places that didn’t trust private citizens with guns and didn’t permit freedom of movement or private property rights to to grow, raise and trade in food. These tend to go together.

Let’s interpret me as meaning “going where guns aren’t being regularly used by the citizenry to murder each other.” America, under the supervision of the Supreme Court’s overly liberal interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, we’ve gone from a country where gun murders were on a par with other countries to becoming the murder capital of the First World.

So, I was meaning countries with far lower homicide rates like the UK. Iceland, Germany, Slovenia and Montenegro (both countries which re not only peaceful in terms of gun violence, but are very beautiful and unspoiled places to live as well with decent standards of living).

The U.S. has become the country for people who like to play with guns.

I never thought I’d live where the sound of gunshots at night wasn’t uncommon, but I am.

[Noel]

Google tells me:

According to the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.012 The majority held that the Second Amendment’s preamble, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,” is consistent with this interpretation when understood in light of the framers’ belief that the most effective way to destroy a citizens’ militia was to disarm the citizens. The court also found that United States v. Miller supported an individual-right view, contrary to the dominant 20th-century interpretation of that decision.1 The amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause.

What do you think Unseen? What are your personal thoughts? Your google search only regurgitates my stated opposition to the courts decisions.

Im talking from an understanding that in the 18th century weapons were stored in magazines and were kept under lock and key to disseminate to the local militias in times of strife (see Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societie by Jared Diamond). My interpretation of “AWell regulated militia being necessary for the security of the state” takes into account that the word state was used instead of people,which appears after the preamble. Back then militias were regulated by the state.

I would do a google search and cut and paste but then my personal feelings on this topic would not be conveyed. Those feelings are that arms should be regulated.

[Noel]

“And as this article below points out, even if the Militia were more narrowly defined, this still does not preclude or forbid an individual from keeping and bearing arms for self-defense, nor does it empower the Federal Government to violate this right.”

The right shouldn’t be violated. But it should be regulated.
Muskets then pistols and rifles then semiautomatic pistols then semiautomatic rifles then what?  What does a person need to defend themselves? Perhaps one day I can park an m-1 Abrams tank on my front lawn? But then what use a state run militia, like the national guard, or a Federal Armed Services. So the right would no longer be self defense.

[jakelafort]

Quoting or citing the Supreme Court in 2nd amendment amounts to an argument from authority.

In law school when i researched the issue my conclusion was that the framers had something in mind with that preamble. It was not there to look flowery or cause puzzling interpretations. It was all about the fear of central authority and the necessity to have citizens capable of rapidly arming themselves in the event the federal government was overstepping its rights to the detriment of individual states and its citizens.

Noel’s statement is sensible. I doubt the framers ever concerned themselves with the potential for escalation of lethality. Carrying and owning firearms was like having slaves. It was second nature. So no doubt in my mind firearms ought to be regulated. Othewise interpretation of the constitution is like exegesis-a scholastic discipline for morons. Times change. Lets use our brains and not rely on bibles to guide us.

[Unseen]

jakelafort wrote:

Quoting or citing the Supreme Court in 2nd amendment amounts to an argument from authority.

It should be obvious to anyone, I should think, that it was offered as an explanation, not an argument.

[PopeBeanie]

(I’m not posting this to Moderate, but to express a personal opinion.)

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Sadly, the world has always been a dangerous place and the U.S.A. is no exception. The difference between now and past times is that we are now aware of it continuously 24/7/365 through multiple media outlets.

A world like this makes it all the more urgent that the innocent have the means of defending themselves and each other and never be deprived of it.

Oh, the rabbit holes we seek and advertise. Such responses to Belle’s immediate concern are of course related to her concern, but off track especially when issuing black and white statements that seriously ignore the fact that there are both safer places and more dangerous places where one can move to. @Enco, in Belle’s case, are you actually recommending that she find a way to dig in where she is, and that arming herself in place is her best solution? I don’t think you are, but you’re instead making a pro-gun statement in response to other anti-gun statements.

Y’all, I did like learning about POVs WRT US Constitutional interpretation, but I see POVs WRT one’s personal anxiety over finding safety as the main theme here. How USA, in general, is so unique in the world regarding the prevalence of gun violence deserves a separate topic, on its own. Any other real suggestions for Belle?

[_Robert_]

If no one had a gun there would be no gun problem. If everyone had a gun there would be a larger gun problem. Anywhere in between, the problem is proportional to the number of guns.

Now the argument you hear all the time from the insurrection party is that we need our guns to protect ourselves from our own democratic government. They don’t believe in our country or in fair elections, so that figures. They call themselves patriots and disrespect our flag with Trump’s ugly bloated face and AR15 rifles. Morons that can’t construct a proper sentence.

[Author]

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