3 comments:

• Mike the Limey posted at 1:30 pm on Wed, Aug 15, 2012.

  Posts: 1

  Two years ago, in & around the town of Whitehaven, England, a guy called Derrick Bird shot & killed twelve people & injured more.
  Firearms laws in the UK are amongst the strictest in the world, with mandatory licensing, no handguns or semi automatic rifles allowed & restrictions on both the amount & type of ammunition a firearms owner may possess.
  Derrick Bird shot & killed the same number of people as Holmes did, yet he didn't have a handgun or a semi automatic rifle; he had a bolt action .22 rimfire rifle of the kind used to shoot rabbits & squirrels & a shotgun mainly used for pigeon & pheasant.
  Tell me again how more restrictive laws will prevent mass shootings.........

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• BHirsh posted at 10:31 am on Wed, Aug 15, 2012.

  Posts: 3

  My, how "rational". How "sensible". How "logical"

  Here's the reality that you ignore:

  The people's common law right to arms exists independent of any written instrument (U.S. v. Cruikshank, 1875). Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution was added to enumerate rights of the people that could not be intruded upon by the federal government. This includes the Second Amendment, which guarantees the aforementioned people's common law right to arms. The right exists even if the Second Amendment didn't.

  In 1939, the Supreme Court issued an opinion titled U.S. v. Miller. In it, the Court held that keeping and bearing a sawed-off shotgun was not protected activity under the Second Amendment, because no evidence was presented that it was "in common use" or that it "[bore] some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated milita." In doing so, the Miller decision created, de facto, a two-pronged test that defines what types of arms are protected for the people's possession and lawful use. By this precedented definition, semiautomatic so-called "assault weapons" (sic) are protected because they meet both criteria of the test. Done deal. You can't unring that bell.

  In 2008, the Supreme Court finally was presented with a "ripe" case affording the opportunity to address the broad meaning of the Second Amendment, and the Court held that it protected an individual right unconnected with militia service, and that the Miller test defined what arms are "protected". You can't unring that bell, either.

  In 2009, the Court heard the McDonald v. City of Chicago case, and incorporated Heller's interpretation to bind the states. That's the third toll of the bell, Mr. Beane.

  Now, being that you are a "logical" and "sensible" and "rational" individual, it certainly must have dawned on you that your plea to ignore this reality is not logical at all. There is no logic in undermining the First Principles of our republic that have been addressed and established in Supreme Court precedent. It is demagoguery hawked as "common sense".

  No sale, Mr. Beane. Take your snake oil wagon and move on to the next town.

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• BambiB posted at 6:03 am on Wed, Aug 15, 2012.

  Posts: 2

  What a great idea! Have the highest level of scrutiny and most detailed background checks whenever someone wants to buy a relatively "more deadly" weapon!

  So let's start with the largest mass-murder by a single individual in US history. It happened at the Happy Land dance club in New York City in 1990. The perpetrator was able to kill EIGHTY-SEVEN people! That's more than SEVEN TIMES the number of people slain during the Cinemark Massacre in Aurora. Clearly, anyone wanting to purchase so dangerous a weapon as that used in this mass murder should receive the HIGHEST and most INTENSIVE SCRUTINY of ANY weapons purchase.

  So head on down to the police department, get your fingerprints taken and your mugshot, pay the $500 application fee, wait 6 months and if the investigation shows that you're not a shady character AND if the local police chief concurs, then you may purchase the same weapon used at the Happy Land dance club...

  ...a gallon of gas.

  But not TWO gallons. After all, nobody needs an "arsenal".

  /sarcasm

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