And now, another exciting edition of Schizoid Political Theater!

[thatcrazycajun]

With regard to this thread on today's gun-law lunacy here in Hotlanta, inspired in part by last week's rather alarming Supreme Court decision on such laws, my inner Hannity & Colmes are really going at it:

LIBERAL: I'm sorry, but I'm with the crowd on this one. I can't see any legitimate reason for anyone who's not a member of the military, airport security or law enforcement to need a gun on his person while anywhere on the airport grounds, particularly today seven years past 9/11. I say kudos to Mayor Franklin and Airport Manager DaCosta for trying to ensure our safety in the face of a truly asinine law that appeals only to Second Amendment fetishists and paranoid lunatics who see criminals behind every bush, government goons in back of them and no competence in our law officers.

Someone needs to inform this twit of a state legislator that we live in a large Eastern city in 2008, not Dodge City, Kansas in 1878. I don't want America becoming an armed-camp society where you have to worry that some rage-aholic with a carry permit is going to blast a hole in you if you accidentally step on his toe.

CONSERVATIVE: My, my, my. Where's all that touching faith in human nature you liberals seem to have in abundance when it comes to military funding and foreign policy? Seems to disappear right quick when we're talking about trusting law-abiding fellow citizens here at home with the means to protect themselves and their loved ones from crime.

LIB: Crime? In case you haven't noticed, violent crime is actually down the last few years. And anyhow, we already have a means to protect ourselves; it's called the police. We don't need civilians getting themselves or others blown away trying to enact their deluded heroic fantasies of stopping a criminal's rampage when the police can't get there in time.

CON: And what about the Virginia Tech massacre? Don't you think one of those students could have stopped that psycho kid if they'd been armed? Properly trained and licensed?

LIB: That's a specious argument. It's precisely because the killer was so easily able to get his hands on deadly ordnance that we had the damn massacre in the first place. Had there been sooner action by the college and stricter gun laws in the state, he never would have gotten them. You can't tell me he was some kind of hardened criminal with connections that would have gotten a gun anyhow.

CON: And what about all the hardened criminals with connections? You know as well as I the police, even if they are super-competent, can't be everywhere at once...especially in cities with budget problems that are laying off cops. And what about that government you're always ranting about destroying our civil liberties? Do you really trust them now all of a sudden so much you don't want any of us to have a way to defend ourselves when that knock on the door comes at midnight?

And around and around we go... What do you think?

Comments

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

My only comment is my response to the "guns in Atlanta airport" debate, originally articulated by a friend of mine:

"If they do this, I am totally not taking my shoes off any more."

[anaisdjuna.livejournal.com]

LOL!!!!

"And what about that government you're always ranting about destroying our civil liberties? Do you really trust them now all of a sudden so much you don't want any of us to have a way to defend ourselves when that knock on the door comes at midnight?"

It's this one that does it for me. Just ask the Panthers and MOVE. Not that any of them ended up less dead, but they did at least go down with a fight.

Though with today's tech in the hands of the gubmint.... small armed militiaz are screwed. We'd have to convince a lot of people to stop work, stop buying &/or fight. The 2000 sElection was a big wake-up and smell the apathy moment there; as is just about every moment in US politix since.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

There's the Second Amendment and then there is the Atlanta Airport.

The Surpreme Court made clear in the majority opinion that the Second Amendment right, while an individual right, is subject to regulation in the same manner as any other individual right. Just as the state and local government can require me to prove my qualifications to drive, can limit the manner in which I can handle my car, and refuse to allow me to own one under the right circumstances, etc., etc. So to can they regulate my right to handle other dangerous instrumentalities -- such as fire arms.

But consider well -- had the Republicans proved better at the business of governing, and the dreams of a "permanent majority" been made real, you would perhaps have been grateful for the individual right to bear arms. Don't write off those Leslie Fish lyrics quite so quickly.

And, I may add, before flatly rejecting the individual rights view v. the collective rights view, it would be wise to learn some relevant history rather than start with the conclusion and work backwards. The issue has bubbled about in legal circles for some time, and never been fully resolved. The Amendment is ambiguous, deliberately so by framers who were caught between Federalists and Antifederalists who believed that STATE militias were the final bulwark against what could have proven a disastrous experiment in centralization. While the interpretation of the Constitution is hardly frozen in time based on the understanding of a handful of men in 1789, it does not make the alternative construction ignorant, asinine or otherwise self-evidently wrong. That is the nature of ambiguity.

[wordwitch.livejournal.com]

Criminals will do what criminals will do. Given the proportion of the populace which is criminal, may I say that I'm more concerned about my fellow law-abiding citizens?

55% of all gun deaths are suicides.

"Domestic" (i.e., familial) disputes go lethal far faster when a gun is already present in the home.

Neighbor disputes go lethal far faster when a gun is already present in the home.

Road rage disputes go lethal far faster when a gun is already present in the car.

And, face it: the cops and the military are already far better armed than any single household will ever be. "Defending ourselves from the knock at midnight" is a specious argument.


My caveats to the above: when legally-armed citizens have demonstrated bigotry against a minority (black, latino, gay, Jewish, etc), then said minority has an equal right to be armed.

When a stalked person' stalker is free from jail, given the obsessive and therefore irrational quality of the stalker mindset, then the stalked person has a right to be armed.

But walking around an airport? Come on!

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

I think the Court came to a basically correct decision -- the Second Amendment pertains to an individual right, which like other individual rights may be subject to a certain degree of regulation (with the burden of proof being on the government to show that any given regulation serves an important purpose that cannot be obtained through less intrusive means).

As for the "police" argument -- the police can't be everywhere, and if they could, that would be a hell of a lot scarier than any common criminal.

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

I wonder what the conservative will say the first time someone fires a gun at Atlanta Hartsfield and kills people.

But then again, we're talking Sean Hannity, who has a wimp for a liberal counterpart in Holmes.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

As Al Franken noted, Colmes has contracted to be a wimp It's a phony left vs. right show, typical of the Not-so-Fair and Not-so-Balanced network.

[kayshapero]

Sorry, I'd only heard about the part where people could continue to keep guns for self defense*, not that we were allowed to bring them into the Atlanta airport. (What about LAX?) Suddenly this sounds a bit more interesting. What's going ON out there?

My opinion? Nobody should have a gun who does not learn how to USE it properly. Not just the cops; the crooks should also at least be able hit what they aim at, not some random kid three doors down the block.

*At least for home defense I'll take a pump action shotgun. Not only effective at short range, the mere sound of it being cocked should scare the burglar who was dumb enough to break into an occupied house into running like crazy... :)

DC will be a perfect little laboratory for these POV

[maugorn.livejournal.com]

As you may have noticed, it was also the District Of Columbia that got it's anti-gun laws shot down. (ar ar)

And so, here's the perfect little laboratory to see if citzen protection really is a deterrent to crime.

Let's just see how much crime goes down and how many anectdotal stories and how many verifiable stories of citizens protecting themselves with guns emerge.

My prediction:

The murder rate will go up, not down.

Manslaughter will increase ALOT.

Gun injuries will rise not fall (easily verifiable thru hospital records- tho the uptick can be *partially* accounted for by guns being legal now, so that gunshot wounds are not a *default* crime scene).

Accidents with guns will increase, despite all efforts at protection, education and training.

Domestic Crimes of passion ending in gunfire will go up.
Armed robbery will go up, not down.
The police will become increasingly involved in trying to referee disputes before they go bang, and most certainly afterward as well.

And amid all of those increases, SOME people will claim (possibly truthfully) that their posession of a firearm saved the day.

The experiment:
Let's have a look at the numbers and see if the declines justify the increases.

And if they do, then we'll all know exactly how much of a good thing armed citizenry is.

Too bad about the lab rats...