The Second Amendment, by D.V.

41 Comments

1. NOTE: this was sent into the local paper and got published. Not directly related to the topic, but this is perhaps the kind of common sense we need. The US does not produce large multiple page laws about how we can assemble, pray, speak. But they will do that about how we can use the second amendment.

   The school shootings of the last 20 years are a direct and unintended consequence of the Gun Free School Zone Act. That Act has a Wisconsin pedigree. It was introduced in 1990 by Senator Herb Kohl and signed into law by George Bush. The federal government thereby created the target rich environment that are America’s schools. A safe place to kill children.

   Repeal of the Act to allow firearms in schools would allow the states to proactively protect their charges. Basically, the federal government would get out of the way and let children be protected as their community decides. The effect on school safety could be immediate. Jurisdiction’s could allow concealed carry permittees to carry. Administrators, teachers, and maintenance staff alike.

   Until the problems arise. The skill set to obtain a concealed carry license is slight, narrow, and legalistic. It does not lend itself to protection of children. A long term professional solution would be needed.

   Enter the Wisconsin Academy for School Protective Services.

   Created and run by the State of Wisconsin and financed with enrollment fees, it would train and qualify unpaid volunteers. Included, but not limited to:

   Psychological evaluation;
   Conflict resolution/deescalation;
   Situational awareness;
   Functionality with police radio;
   Firearm competence with deployment protocols.

   There are others but you get the idea.

   It would be local, voluntary, keep an incompetent federal government away, and leave the second amendment alone.

   The goal is deterrence.

   Lets address this at the upcoming school board debate.

   The next school shooter has already purchased his gun.

2. The constitution does not establish the rights of the citizen. Those were identified in the Declaration of Independence as an implicit part of being human. the constitution limits the power of the government from encroaching on those rights. As long as the judiciary continues to ignore what the constitution says, and we let them, we will continue to lose the freedom we were endowed with. Congress can pass laws anytime, the president can issue regulations, and agencies can generate all sorts of rules. The judiciary determines if those laws, regulations and rules are compliant with the limits of the constitution.

   Judges are human. They are just as fallible and greedy as everyone else. Judges that decide on constitutional matters are appointed, not elected. How do you get rid of a judge that is not accountable to anyone for their decision (except maybe the people who have paid them the most money)?

   If the court says the president is wrong (and they have recently), then his regulation is unenforeable. If the court says congress is wrong, then the law cannot be enacted.

   Who has the most power in this country? The president, congress, or the courts?

   Once the supreme court BOP swings liberal, you can kiss the Heller and McDonald decisions goodbye. The second amendment will be rendered moot. The constitution is not worth the paper it is printed on. It is the will of the people that determines the free state.

   There will be blood.

   1. I could not agree more. The Constitution doesn’t give us rights. It restricts the federal government from having anything to say about certain things. Specifically things not mentioned in Article I Section 8. The founders were still afraid of an overbearing federal government so they explicitly listed a few things the federal government had nothing to say anything about.

      If we can ever get back to that concept we may be able to save this country. If we don’t I fear it will end in a civil war, again.

   2. [[[you can kiss the Heller and McDonald decisions goodbye.]]]
      Not quite as easily as feared. THAT is what is great about the Court’s role.
      An individual or group of individuals would have to prove ‘Injury’ through the ruling’s existence.
      That will be a high bar to clear.
      The same holds true with businesses accommodating same sex couples.
      Those individuals have to prove ‘injury’ in serving such customers and so far have failed to do so in the courts eyes.
      Heller and McDonald will stand for a long, long, time regardless of Court makeup.

3. There is no legal or Constitutional basis for any gun law at all. The government cannot reason away any infringement on our right to defend ourselves.
   No law abiding citizen of any age can be prevented from owning, carrying (in any manner) and using any type of firearm whatsoever.
   All of the tens of thousands of gun regulations are infractions on your right and duty to protect yourself and family/friends.

   It would be nice if we could get a group of pro 2A lawyers to start suing and dismantling all of these egregious regulations.

4. I grew up anti-gun, or gun neutral. Then this happened: I was staying with my grandmother in her trailer next to a bad part of town and the first Miami riot happened. No one could get in or out of our neighborhood for a couple of days. There was no help from the police. The National Guard was called out. People were dragged from their cars at a red light a few blocks from our trailer park and beat to death. At night light from buildings on fire lit the night and smoke was in the sky during the day. Nervous residents in trailers who had guns stood at their doors waiting for a mob to come. My grandmother had an ancient Spanish 25 caliber pistol with ammo so old it was green. I was actually worried about it blowing up if we shot it. When people tell me I am an idiot or racist or a fool or a gun nut to want a gun I just think back to those days when no one was available to help me and my family if we had been attacked.I just remeber the flames at night and the people dragged from their cars by mobs. Nobody was there to help us for days. Nobody! I am sorry for any school shooting or gun violence, but none of it is enough to deprive me of my need to protect myself and family against a mob in bad times. Riots happened in Miami twice. Also, after Hurricane Andrew, there was no police for a long time, although the citizens did not riot at all then and were very well behaved.One of the best things I ever did was make a decision to buy a simple low-cost $200 Hi-Point carbine and plenty of ammo. it lives in my closet locked away. It is like a parachute, I hope I never need it, but if I ever do need one I will be glad to have it. A final note, unless we stop immigration and the globalists desire to import a new people, eventually the new voters will end our second amendment rights. if you want to keep your guns you need to keep your country and stop it being transformed by endless immigration. Riots woke me up on gun rights. We need people to wake up on immigration before it is too late.

   1. Very well put!

5. One of the problems with any discussion on guns in America, gun deaths and rights is that social and racial facts enter into it and cloud the discussion. If you only looked at white crime/homicides then the U.S. is the safest large country in the world, even safer than our Northern neighbors. We all know this of course. There are cities and parts of cities that we all know to avoid. Just as we all know to avoid the local 7-11 after dark especially on the weekends. We don’t have a gun problem as much as we have a gang problem and a delinquent youth problem and a social problem and an illegal alien problem.

6. It seems to me that a simple solution to school shootings is LOCK THE DOORS. If a would-be shooter cannot enter a school, there would not be a shooting. A locked door and perhaps an armed guard and done. (duh).

7. “Figures lie and liars figure.”

   In “The Second Amendment,” by D.V., the author pointed out that including the number of suicides with homicides and using the total to argue for gun control is a clear attempt at deception.

   Although in their heart of hearts, banning all guns is the goal of many anti-gun advocates, they won’t publicly say this, knowing that this position is “a bridge too far” (or two, or three bridges too far) with the American public, either presently, or in fifty years.

   As a result, they argue against assault rifles, even though the number of deaths nationally from rifles of ALL types—bolt action Remingtons to Anschutz target rifles—averaged around 300 a year from 2010-2011, per FBI statistics.

   Kalifornia Lt. Gov., Gavin Newsome has admitted that he wants to get rid of all semi-automatic rifles (BTW, when he has not been fighting for gun control in the past, this sleazoid was discovered to have had a behind-the-back affair with his campaign manager’s wife. Yet, he remains the front runner for governor in the next election.)

   If the anti-gunners maintain the pretense that they will not oppose the public’s right to bolt action rifles or single and double barrel shotguns, they are conceding that over half of all gun deaths (suicides) will not be affected by their “sensible gun laws.” Yet, so as to make their argument better and more appealing to the portions of the public that emote, rather than think and analyze, they continue to include the number of suicides in order to make their proposals appear to be more “sensible.”

   To state the obvious, it only takes one shot to commit suicide.

8. I only wish the average person would read the facts not the so called Gun Control “Experts”. I also wish that the MSM was absolutely required to fact check before they are allowed to report on ANY story that comes their way. It is so sad that any person can call themselves an “Expert” and NO ONE checks their credentials to verify. My wife puts up with me yelling at the television when this c**p is reported or when the words “assault weapon” or AR 15 is used to describe any semi-automatic rifle. People need to figure out what it takes to repeal these stupid “Gun Free Zone” laws, then act on it.

9. A law that is ignored by the majority of The People is an unenforceable scrap of paper. So the question really isn’t when will the Second Amendment be shredded by The State… the real question is how will Patriotic Americans respond to such a traitorous act?

10. Data on 2016 gun deaths based on the latest information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
    Total 2016 gun deaths 37,505.
    Of that total: 22,386 were suicides and 15,119 were homicides and accidents.

    1. In 2016:

       Murder by gun: 5,276
       Murder by blunt object: 4,678
       For Perspective….
       Prescription drug overdoses: 6,886
       Heart disease: 282,038

       1. Not to start a battle of the stats (I know they are all over the place) and not disputing your point re/ perspective, but I think your numbers may be low. According to the CDC 2016 death data as an example:
          Heart disease deaths: 635,260
          Prescription drug overdose deaths: (Opioid only) 17,600
          Total drog overdose deaths: 63,600
          Homicide Firearms Deaths: 14,415
          Violence Related Non-Firearm Deaths: 27,013
          I could not find specific data re/ blunt object murder deaths.

          1. Agree. Liars, damned liars, and statistics.

11. It’s been proven by Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin, and Mohammar Ghadaffi that gun control works! It got all of their agendas going.

12. I am not in favor of arming teachers, but I am wholeheartedly behind hardening schools. I remember a day when I could walk into an airport, walk up to the ticket counter with a briefcase and a small overnight bag, buy a one way ticket for cash and walk right on the airplane, stopped only to see the boarding pass. I don’t think anyone would propose going back to those days at airports. We need resource officers (trained and armed), and limited access to campuses, with fencing (most schools have this already) and metal detectors and possibly bag X-ray equipment, just like every Court building now has. Many City Halls have this equipment and they probably have less than 1,000 members of the public entering each day. Instead of maniac shooter training, the teachers would probably be much more amenable to learning how to use the detection equipment. I think guns have their place in the hands of those who will train and continue training with firearms. That’s not many classroom teachers. It might be a good place for trained rookie cops, and auxiliary police volunteers or part timers.

    1. This dovetails with my comments. Get the federal government out of the way, let the states take over school protective services and the people will step up. A state wide training and certification program that is totally voluntary. School boards can decide if they will participate as well as the volunteers. Firearm deployment is the last step, deterance the goal. The most powerful tool the volunteer will have is the radio. The 1990 law has caused enough deaths and damaged lives. School board elections will become much more meaningful and cause much more participation, an American Good Thing.

13. One of the common arguments that the gun-grabber trot out is that now that we have a standing Army and National Guard, we don’t need civilians to be armed. The current US law on militias (10 USC 311) defines the Organized Militia of the US to be the National Guard, and the Unorganized Militia of the US to be all able-bodied males 17-45 and those females in the National Guard. The States have similar laws, with most expanding the age range from 17-65. 22 of the 57 States have a State Guard or State Self Defense Force that is intended to form the core of the Unorganized Militia whenever it is called up by the Governor. Most follow Army Regulations as applicable, wear Army uniforms, and drill once a month. See http://www.sgaus.org for more info.

    1. 57 States????

       1. Yup, our illustrious former Commander In Chief said there were 57 states in the US, and he can’t possibly be wrong.

14. I would give credence to the CDC doing studies to determine the “facts to a host of significant items.” Do the study, publish it in a top tier peer reviewed journal and let other experts who want to weigh in on the issue do so like all other serious issues are handled. It’s not going to happen. The NRA has prevented it happening for years. As long as they contribute the kind of money they do to congress critters, you’ll never see additional facts because the studies won’t happen.

    Unfortunately, statistics. even if on your side of the argument, will probably be buried under all the emotions and politics of human nature. It’s okay for the politicians to have protection from THEIR bodyguards carrying guns, but woe to you and me who want our own protection.

    As long as there are areas in large cities where even the police loath to go you’ll have politicians in those cities doing everything to tightly control access to guns. but from the good guys of course. The bad guys will always get theirs. And I don’t believe (perhaps wrongly) that most politicians have problems with rural folks having guns.

    I worry more about this presidents behavior adversely affecting this issue more than the lack of statistics. Please hear me out. In all of my 73 years, I’ve never heard an American president attack his own countries institutions as has this one. The press, the judiciary on top of personal attacks publicly and relentlessly. His behavior is more scary by the day. No one can control his behavior and as a result of it he will destroy the Republican party and risk a tsunami of Democrats who will get in and we risk losing our 2nd amendment rights in the years to come. Only a lot faster.

    I didn’t vote for Trump or Clinton. But since he has been elected I’ve accelerated my prepping. Years ago I use to be a Republican. I don’t know what that means anymore.
    The only thing we can do is to prepare as best we can for the times ahead. And they are going to be rough. Take your own counsel and do the best you can with a warm heart and honest intentions.

15. I live on the fringes of a large metropolitan area. If I need to go into court or council chambers, I must pass through multiple security barriers, metal detectors, ID checks manned by multiple armed law enforcement personnel. I propose this. Lets take all of those security measures to a school and take the cardboard “gun free zone” sign to the courthouse. Lets make our”policy makers” live with the security measures they have religated to our children. I’d bet the next gun free zone mass shooting would have immediate policy changes.

    1. That might work in the larger cities, but rural school systems don’t have the manpower or money to implement a technical solution. Most can’t afford a School Resource Officer. (40% of the schools in my State don’t have SRO). My small High School had 1800 students in the 60s. Can you imagine trying to funnel 1800 students thru enhanced security in fifteen minutes as the busses arrive?

16. Here is the last word on gun control: NO! No, I will not register my firearms! No, I will not turn in my firearms! No, I will not comply!

    How hard do we want to make this?

    If this attitude makes me, or will make me, a criminal then that is a label I will wear proudly.

    Remember, it was “law abiding” Jews that went to the gas chambers.

17. There is unacceptable violence in our country. Whenever a shooting happens it’s Pro gun versus anti gun citizens, these groups go head to head and fight over gun control. This is only a cheap bandaid solution like putting a bandage on a severed arm.

    I believe we should all be working together to figure out what the real causes of this violence is. Working as a team to erase mass shootings and other forms of violence and suicides.

    These occurrences make all Americans look bad, we are all to blame. Gun owners as well as those who are fighting to end the right for citizens to protect themselves, their families, defend the country from
    Foreign military invasion. and the American tradition to exercise their constitutional rights.

    Maybe there should be a nationwide policy, which the names and details of these shooter’s lives are erased and the reward of becoming a household name or a name immortalized in the history of our nation is removed from the equation. Furthermore, they should be condemned by all leaders of our society, political or not, as the most disgusting subhuman cowards to ever have existed.

    Are these mass shooters “Manchurian candidates”? Are these mass shootings being done by people loyal to foreign nations, so Americans will be unarmed when they decide to invade?

    If a mass shooting happens, which in turn generates the strongest possible case for more gun control. Then by simple math the perpetrator of these acts must be committing them in the name of repealing the second amendment.

    I believe, there are many reasons why this is happening in our society and gun control alone is only part of this sad puzzle. Kids can 3D print weapons in their homes. People are fabricating fully automatic weapons in their garages. A person could make a bomb from basic household materials. The technology for firearms is over 600 years old and cannot be kept from evil doers. Removing it from law abiding citizens is unconstitutional. These tools are available in extremely large numbers due to the cold war and many other military and private ventures, this very old technology is impossible to keep away from people. Criminal elements who will take advantage of law abiding citizens.

    The ar15 is short for armalite rifle. It is not, an assault rifle. An assault rifle is a fully automatic weapon. A weapon which can. E switched from semi automatic to three round burst to fully automatic. The weapons that law abiding citizens are allowed to own are not even as close as lethal as military weapons and assault rifles. The second amendment states this right shall not be infringed. But it has been nothing BUT infringed as we as law abiding citizens are only allowed to own a very small percentage of weaponry, none of which is as advanced as the militaries of the world. Criminals, terrorists and invading forces all are able to overpower us because they do not follow the law. Is this what the second amendment is in place for? All of the firearm legislation is a huge amount of infringement upon the second amendment, but there is a segment of our population which is constantly working to completely disarm the American people. The ar15 is the most basic and least advanced rifle being produced today. Compare that to a rail gun in operation by military forces. The American people armed with ar15’s in comparison to an invading force supplied with the latest technology puts us at an extreme disadvantage and is nearly the complete opposite of what the second amendment is all about.

    Why are these shootings happening, bombings, knife attacks, etc? Because our society is very messed up. Our society and culture is gravitating strongly to the extreme. The American role models are all exhibiting extreme behavior to outdo each other. Extreme behavior gets views, makes $$. You tubers are always doing something crazy to get views. Jackasses hurting themselves in ridiculous ways and being millionaires through that franchise. Musicians covered in tattoos with lyricism devoted to money, sex, drugs and violence. The fact that the most extreme of behavior is rewarded in our culture, this kind of next level act, who can go the farthest to get the most attention, this is what’s wrong. The American dream is maybe becoming a nightmare, where the stress of trying to make a fortune to retire on is burning people out and that stress is maybe being absorbed by the impressionable children and teenagers this is what is possibly inherently wrong with our society.

    If our nation becomes so dysfunctional that we are not safe from ourselves, that we have to cork every fork (Dirty rotten scoundrel reference), and dull every knife, nerf coat the world, then we have a much bigger problem than dangerous tools. If my son was banging his head against the wall and my only action was to put cheap “made in China” padding on the wall, I’d be a horrible father. In reality I would most definitely get to the root cause of his issue and solve the issue with care, analytics, long term thinking and love. We need societal analysts, how can we fix America, our culture, our people and our schools. Denmark has the highest rated schools and their country has been voted the happiest for nearly 40 years. We’re 28- behind Mexico! We have to work on our culture, not creating more and more legislation that is not enforceable.

    There is a possibility that the attention and notoriety these animals are getting from the media is fueling the fire as well, and creating more and more crazy American violence.

18. Guns aren’t the issue. The issue is how crazy dysfunctional our society has become. It amazes me people are talking about gun rights when we need to be talking about how to heal our country.

19. Maybe I missed something but if a crook pistol whips someone with a semi automatic pistol and the media reports it, isn’t that just reporting the news?

    Personably I take offense when the media refuses to identify wanted criminals by race. This is to protect Norwegian graduate students who commit half the murders in the US

20. Who is really going to disarm Americans? A new law?

    We knew it’s not just the 2nd Amendment, it’s the 4th and 5th too.
    So even if a far left individual captures the Presidency who is he going to send to disarm the American Public?

    Sadly, the uniformed and the useful idiots the left uses will be the canon fodder if gun confiscation is ever tried.

    I agree with many it would indeed be the start of civil war 2 and the left would not know what hit them.

21. And what about “gun free zones”? Isn’t that an incentive for nut jobs?

22. I have yet to see one person talk about a person’s personal responsibility for their own actions.
    Many people are sheep and very trusting of the government. My parents watched one Nazi soldier march many off to the death trains. The people had no weapons and couldn’t fight back.
    Tyrants love an unarmed populace.

23. First, the right to self defense is a Natural Right, thank you Lord Jesus.
    Secondly, the Second Amendment is the right to self defense as a nation of the people written by our founders as the final protection for their freedom from tyranny.

    History has noted over 200 million killed in the last century by the hands of government, most of them citizens of said governments. Do the math at an even fifteen thousand killed by a gun in the US, no lets round it up to twenty thousand, for simple maths sake, though it should likely be less than half that.

    That’s 1000 years of deaths at 20,000 a year to reach 200 million killed by governments in 100 years..

    In other words, the odds of dying from a gun in the hands of a killer are roughly ten times less likely than your government killing you. Or should I say, your government is ten times more likely to kill you than a murderer. Unless you are in the womb, than the odds get much higher…….

    That’s one play on statistics, for what it’s worth. Check my math, it’s probably off, given the 20,000 premise is way high, so it’s likely twenty times or more.

    Now if you are in the military, and the government decides you need to give your life for an island in some far off part of the Pacific that holds little to no strategic value, the odds start to go up, as is true with any war. Politicians sign off on our deaths, for such things as drug money, oil money, payoffs, and the list goes on………but those deaths aren’t considered in these statistics. Yet they should be considered when one is looking at the big picture.

    Speaking of governments that are more criminal enterprises than representatives for their constitutents…. We are witnessing a full out communist assault on our Republic. They are not bashful these days. Running on platforms that continue the radical change promised by obama, now promised by Chris Kennedy, running for governor of Illinois. They are in our face, communist at the core, and they want us to be disarmed, as history is full of the ghosts of those who did or were thru force or imprisonment.

    If three percent is enough to protect the Republic, we have good numbers. This is the statistic that matters in the future violent takeover of our nation, as those who are attempting to takeover are violent revolutionaries who take Mao, Marx, Stalin, Hitler, Obama, Holder and the likes seriously, and emulate them and their tactics. Something about power comes from the barrel of a gun… don’t give yours up. Never surrender.

24. I am 64 years old, back in junior high school, a small town of Siloam Springs,. AR in the fall on the first day of deer hunting it was common to have a 13 year old young man in Junior high , take a 3030 level action rifle with ammo, ride on the bus to school, put the rifle in his locker and ammo with the teacher/principle, so his Dad pick him up from school and go hunting.
    We had pictures of George Washington, and other great leaders praying, the Ten Commandments and Golden Rules on the wall in the hallways to look at as we past by.
    Guns/ Bows on racks of pickups of students and parents.
    No school shooting, the worst crime was putting bubble gum under the edge of your desk.
    What has changed?

25. When young boys are raised to be good little girls the results are something close to a volatile “passive aggressive” mindset. Their need to exercise aggressive physical behavior in a constructive outlet is removed and they are told they are wrong or “problematic”. As long as this continues we will keep having school shootings.

26. Dear Steven Myers, You asked what happened since your time of shining in the Sun, imGenXho, The State has succeeded in replacing the role of the parents,… and God, also, words have lost meaning. Too many scaredy-cat parents and helicopter Mom’s have given into fear and embraced the technocratic authority of bureaucrats as the absolute truth and accepted that parents are nothing more than care-takers for The State, rather than owners of family. Never mind the role of God. Much like the phrase, ‘shall not infringe’ has lost meaning among some, the meaning of ‘parent’ or private property has been given up to the alter of The State as well.

    I mean, look at bicycle helmets, every so-called, ‘caring Mom’ and her brother demands every child and adult wear such a helmet, all the while they display Giant ignorance about how concussions actually happen. [Ask a trauma center brain surgeon, helmets are a joke, but at the same time, they are a very effective conditioning tool meant to create submission to The State and its army of technocrats.] Combine that with how Jon Rappoport has described the false science of psychiatry, and you get the perfect pool of muck to grow the likes of Pol Pot and Stalin when everyone is clamoring for more bs made-up psycho annalisys of everyone from grade 1 to 12 and beyond. Yeesh, ‘Clockwork Orange’ as an ideal, who would have ever thunk it. I guess that’s what happens when people take God out of the equation.

    Also, I wonder about the official number given of ‘gun owners’ in America. If a spouse buys a self-defense tool, does it not stand to reason that the other-half is more than not in support of it and not counted, same goes for significant others who live together.

    I suspect the number of gun owning Americans isn’t 30 percent, but rather more like, 50 percent, or more… That statistic might change an individuals view of what they are up against and how hopelessness is not a foregone conclusion.

    Anyway, it’s sad to see that the reaction by many is to turn schools into being more like the co-ed high security mind-prisons they are, rather than withdrawing from the failed experiment that public education is and opt for home schooling.

    Democracy, really is the notion that the voters deserve to get what they want, good and hard. I only wish more people would favor peace and liberty over boot-licking submissive obedience.

    It’s too bad that more people won’t listen to the likes of you, or look up. Their willful ignorance is disappointing. I once thought I lived among an exceptional people of a sorts, that they used their minds and reasoned, to some extent I do, but by and by it seems more like I live among a title to a film, ‘The Land of The Blind’.

    Bottom line, perhaps the questions to pose to anti-freedomistas isn’t about numbers or stats, but to ask them, what kind of world are you trying to create. What’s that old saying about, is life so dear that…

    Perhaps that reply won’t even work, as the world they hope to create is one without sharp edges, danger, excitement, risk or adventure. A plain empty envelope devoid of true life.

27. To say that bicycle helmets are not effective in reducing injury is promoting a dangerous fallacy. According to the American Journal of Surgery regarding bicycle crashes:
    Statistics from the American Journal of Surgery, 2016
    Of 6,267 patients included in the study, 25.1% were helmeted. Overall 52.4% had severe TBI, and the mortality rate was 2.8%. Helmeted bicycle riders had 51% reduced odds of severe TBI and 44% reduced odds of mortality. Helmet use also reduced the odds of facial fractures by 31%. Conclusion: Bicycle helmet use provides protection against severe TBI, reduces facial fractures, and saves lives even after sustaining an intracranial hemorrhage. I respect your right to your opinions on societies ills, but please use caution…helmets really do reduce traumatic brain injuries and save lives.

28. Just tried to follow the original poster’s data and found these (they might be helpful to others):
    1) FBI: 2015 Crime in the United States, Expanded Homicide Data Table 8, Murder Victims by Weapon 2011-2015

    https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015/tables/expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2011-2015.xls

    2) Using this link (Note: new for 2016 the Expanded Homicide Data no longer provides totals, and is now named Table 12)

    https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/table-12

    (Follow that link then click on “Download Excel” to access raw data.) I accessed the 2016 Expanded Homicide Data Table 12 and downloaded the Excel spreadsheet where I was able to acquire the total for 2016 firearm murders = 11,004

    3) Utilizing the above link I attempted to access the 2017 Table 12 data and found only preliminary data available.
    Hope this helps

29. Just a small point of contention,
    A proper reading and understanding of the second amendment is not so much that the people are the militia..more at The people are to be allowed to stand against the government:
    “because the government is in control of a necessary military force,
    the people get to have their own guns.”
    Remember, the founding fathers were in full recoil from a tyrant king. They were creating a method by which the people could have control of their own future.
    Merely claiming the people are the militia leaves them under the
    government that would deploy them against their will.
    Also it leaves the people with no legal right to defend against tyranny.
    And that is the crux of the original amendments.

30. To vacalpatriot:
    THAT is exactly the point, I’m not impressed that your explanation was totally ignored to this point in the discussion. And, it’s the explanation I gave last month to a Dutch man in Vienna when he asked about America’s “obsession” with guns. (At first I was dumbfounded that he didn’t see it for himself, but Europe has had a century to get used to the yoke)

31. Perhaps parents should look at the history texts being used in schools. My guess is these books carefully avoid teaching how our government is supposed to operate. If people are ignorant of this subject then our elected reprensenatives can make up the rules as they go along. They can ignore the constitution,WHO will be able to challenge them; will anyone care?

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