Friday, June 27, 2008

Mayor Daley outraged at court's ruling in handgun ban

Video link: Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Gun Rights

Link: Gun ban ruling has Chicago thinking it's next


Chicago Mayor Richard Daley reacts to the U.S. Supreme Court decision to lift a ban on handguns in Washington D.C. With youth killing other youths, children shooting themselves, people shooting each other in a violent rage, guns to use in muggings, robberies...this decision is appalling.


This Supreme Court ruling is just going to make it that much more difficult, if not nearly impossible to control violence in our big cities. Further debate is coming over the meaning and interpretation of our second amendment rights.

It's easy to vote for a ruling like this when you are sitting in your upper-class home full of security devices and alarms, protected by police who will come to your aid in an instant.

Handguns are meant for one thing...killing people.


15 comments:

Tommykey said...

On this issue, I still lean towards the right, that is the right of people to be able to defend themselves. Until someone develops phasers that can be set for stun, a handgun will be the preferred mode of self defense.

Stardust said...

However...as my husband and I always reasoned, by the time you get the gun out of the lock box, unlock it, locate the bullets, put the bullets in the gun...a baseball bat would have been much handier.

And we were always paranoid we would shoot a family member. Too often, it is a "surprise" by a family member that causes an unnecessary tragedy. And if you don't have the gun locked up, what can happen is like what happened yesterday in Joliet near where we live...a little three year old found a loaded handgun and blew her little head off while her mom was in the kitchen.

Handguns are too often the cause of loss of innocent lives.

Stardust said...

A segment from an article in the Minnesota Daily:

Certainly, thousands of handgun owners use their weapons responsibly. But what about those who don’t? Is personal liberty more important than the number of lives lost each year? We hear reports of handgun buybacks that take place in the poorest sections of our nation’s cities, where murder rates tower above the national average. How can we ignore what’s happening and hide behind abstractions?

Among industrialized nations, the United States is one of the only countries to place personal liberty above public safety. Our murder rate skyrockets because of it. Eventually we must decide: What is more important?

jhbowden said...

The Supreme Court decided the Constitution means what it says it means. That's a shocker.

If the socialist Democrats want to take away everyone's guns (like Hitler, Mao, Stalin, and other socialists), they should at least amend the Constitution. This pragmatist "living document" philosophy is nothing other than a blank check for arbitrary power, something socialists are very skilled at wielding.

Progressives think the feelings of progressives judges should determine law. This level of irrationalism is frightening -- they have no reasons why they advocate twhat they do. It reminds me of an Auschwitz victim who asked one of the SS guards "why" they had to do absurd tasks. Hier ist kein warum was the answer. Chilling.

BTW, handguns have illegal for years here in the People's Republic of Chicago, which is one of the most violent cities in the industrialized world. Perhaps the gun *ban* is the problem; criminals by definition are the only armed people!

Tommykey said...

Yes, unfortunately, there are a lot of accidental deaths with handguns. On the other hand, a lot of people die every year from car accidents, and no one would take seriously a ban on automobiles. In a perfect world, nobody would commit robberies or assaults, so nobody would need to own a handgun.

jhbowden said...

What astonishes me is that we've had firearms going back to colonial times, and the dramatic rise in crime in the USA didn't start until the 1960s. It never occurs to progressives that the welfare state, and the incentives its creates for family breakdown, is what is causing the crime.

Stardust said...

The Supreme Court decided the Constitution means what it says it means.

Except when it comes to the 4th amendment.

If the socialist Democrats want to take away everyone's guns

Actually, I am in the minority. Surprisingly the left and the right are pretty much the same on this one. I am in a tiny majority of left-leaners who do not like the court's ruling. Check out GifS and see for yourself. I can't believe it. When it comes to Americans, no matter what side, the majority of people feel warm and fuzzy about their guns.

Stardust said...

The only one's so far who I have seen speak out against gun ownership are mothers. Women. There just seems to be something in the testosterone about guns and violence.

Back in colonial times things were much different and I don't think at the time they were even considering handguns.

If you found yourself looking through the barrel of a .45 you might think differently?

Tommykey said...

Jason, those firearms back in colonial times were muskets that had to be reloaded after every shot. Hardly the type of weapon to commit armed robbery or to go postal with.

jhbowden said...

stardust--

Feelings of mothers do not determine what is Constitutional.

Such feelings don't determine fact either. Banning guns does not lead to less crime. Consider this article:

Since Australia's gun ban, armed robberies increase 45%

Gee, what did they think would happen, when only the only gun owners by definition are criminals?

BTW, the Fourth Amendment is alive and well. The progressives killed the Ninth and the Tenth-- programs like social(ist) security and medicare have no right exist with the way the Constitution is right now. But progressives, influenced by the pragmatist philosophy of Dewey and James, think the document can be interpreted by fiat to meet the "needs" of the time.

Stardust said...

So, you think that the writers of the Constitution meant modern day weapons meant just for killing, mugging, "defending one's self"? There is disagreement amongst conservatives and dems alike concerning gun control.

So, what do you think would be a good solution since we are beating a dead horse here since what the court has decided is the way it is? What do you think can prevent gun violence and make our cities safer places?

Stardust said...

those firearms back in colonial times were muskets that had to be reloaded after every shot. Hardly the type of weapon to commit armed robbery or to go postal with.

Good point. If it were these weapons we have today, they might have thought about the Second Amendment quite differently.

jhbowden said...

stardust--

The founding fathers,thinkers of the Enlightenment par excellence, believed an armed citizenry was necessary to have a free state. There is a reason why America has never had a Mussolini, a Napoleon, and many other disasters of sophisticated Europe.

"What do you think can prevent gun violence and make our cities safer places?"

We need to reestablish the prestige and dignity of the traditional family. There is no mechanism that can accomplish this-- that's why conservatives oppose social experimentation in the first place. It is a lot easier to break Humpty Dumpty than it is to reassemble him.

Judges ruling that the Constitution is unConstitutional is absurd. It is frightening that we were one judge away from losing the 2nd Amendment. I cringe thinking about the liberal judges McCain or Obama would appoint.

Tommykey said...

It reminds me of an Auschwitz victim who asked one of the SS guards "why" they had to do absurd tasks. Hier ist kein warum was the answer.

There was an answer of course, it was just that the guard did not feel the need to share it with the victim. Basically, it was a matter of people with power doing what they felt like to powerless people who were deemed less than human. It was fun, the same way little kids take glee in killing ants on a sidewalk.

the dramatic rise in crime in the USA didn't start until the 1960s. It never occurs to progressives that the welfare state, and the incentives its creates for family breakdown, is what is causing the crime.

That's quite a leap there Jason. A lot of things happened in the Sixties. Maybe the Civil Rights Act is responsible for the violence! Maybe it was taking prayer out of the schools! Correlation does not equal causation.

The Great Society programs really did not start to kick in until the late Sixties, several years after the crime rate started to rise. Or do you honestly believe that merely passing the legislation and signing it into law was sufficient impetus?

There was clearly a host of factors at play in the late Sixties into the Seventies that contributed to an increase in crime. There was no single cause to it all.

Tommykey said...

Stardust, there's an interesting piece on the Opinion page of the NY Times Online titled "Shoot to Stun" that you might want to check out.