UPDATED: Scalia to City: Drop Dead
News blogs, sports blogs, entertainment blogs, and more from Philly.com, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News.
UPDATED: Scalia to City: Drop Dead
In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."
He said such evidence "is nowhere to be found."
When did a silly thing like evidence ever matter?
UPDATE: From Slate's Dahlia Lithwick:
But I must first pass along this rather brilliant observation from professor Stephen Wermiel from American University, who wonders why none of the dissenters cautioned the majority that today's decision "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed." (Boumediene, Scalia, J. dissenting.)
Comments (124)
Comment removed.- Comment removed.
methinks at this very moment, with dictionary in hand, Xi Jah is furiously searching Newsmax for some lame article affirming his misconception that the DC gun laws "produced an increase in gun violence." BTW, Xi Jah, did you ever find proof that history judge FDR "kindly" for interning innocent Japanese?— Talking point sleuth- Go ahead, Xi Jah. Explain how the DC gun laws have "produced an increase in gun violence." Or at least explain how saying I'm either stupid or deliberately obtuse suffices for your explanation about the gun law?— Talking point sleuth
- Comment removed.
- MSL: I am not sure that is a valid counterpoint. A ban on handguns may lower handgun violence while still having a net effect of raising violence as a whole. For instance violent home invaders may increase their activities if there is no risk of the homeowner having a gun. (I do not know the answer to your question, I just don't think the question reveals any flaws in the professor's logic.)— bon
"That does not mean they can go into law abiding citizens homes and take their guns because the country is at war." . . . . . . Bon, are you saying that the right to keep and bear arms is restricted to the citizen's home, and then only to those citizens who are "law-abiding" (what's that mean anyway, and who decides)? What about the defense of the community against an oppressive state government that has outlawed the peaceful right to assemble (e.g., conduct a labor strike)? If the Army can intervene and disarm the striking workers, isn't the 2nd Amendment defeated?- Comment removed.
- Xi Jah, that passage you quoted ignored too many variables to be valid - population size, population composition and population density, economic indicators, size and efficiency of law enforcement agencies, etc. I mean if you want to look at numbers, why not look at the UK? Last time I checked no one wsa allowed guns, even the police, and there were an absurdly small number of gun deaths each year. Take a look at this: Gun Deaths - International Comparisons Gun deaths per 100,000 population (for the year indicated): Homicide Suicide Other (inc Accident) USA (2001) 3.98 5.92 0.36 Italy (1997) 0.81 1.1 0.07 Switzerland (1998) 0.50 5.8 0.10 Canada (2002) 0.4 2.0 0.04 Finland (2003) 0.35 4.45 0.10 Australia (2001) 0.24 1.34 0.10 France (2001) 0.21 3.4 0.49 England/Wales (2002) 0.15 0.2 0.03 Scotland (2002) 0.06 0.2 0.02 Japan (2002) 0.02 0.04 0 Data taken from Cukier and Sidel (2006) The Global Gun Epidemic. Praeger Security International. Westport. In case the formatting is bad, its here: http://www.gun-control-network.org/GF01.htm They also have a couple interesting quotes: Thomas Gabor, Professor of Criminology at Ottawa University "Homicide rates tend to be related to firearm ownership levels. Everything else being equal, a reduction in the percentage of households owning firearms should occasion a drop in the homicide rate" and Professor Martin Killias - "The level of gun ownership world-wide is directly related to murder and suicide rates and specifically to the level of death by gunfire."— srmzeus11
- I didn't use quotes, Xi Jah. What you said was that FDR suspended Habeas, and was judged kindly by history. Why don't you explain how what I said is a mischaracterization of your comment? As for your excerpt about the DC gun ban, it isn't proof that the ban "produced an increase in gun violence." After it was first initiated, the gun violence rate went down. It then rose again during the crack epidemic, and remained high sometimes consistently with national trends and sometimes inconsistently with national trends. The point is that you haven't accounted for significantly relevant variables - national trends and factors such as the increase of drug use. You might have an argument if you said that the ban didn't bring about the intended results, as the gun violence rates remained high - but even that statement leaves out the fact that you haven't proven one way or the other whether gun violence rates might have been higher absent the ban. Because there is no way to prove that. The bottom line is that it is very difficult to assess the impact of the gun laws, making an evaluation of the context for the laws at least as arguable as the interpretation of the phrases in the constitution. I have no problems with anyone saying that these are complex issues. What I have a problem with is arguments which fail to account for the complexity of the issues. So, a question for you: do you think that insulting me somehow rectifies your failure to argue the issues on their own merits?— Talking point sleuth
- "...."The level of gun ownership world-wide is directly related to murder and suicide rates and specifically to the level of death by gunfire."..." ---) In all fairness, srmzeus11, that argument doesn't really suffice either - because it is difficult to prove that gun laws decrease (illegal) gun ownership.— Talking point sleuth
- well, I only used quote around "kindly," anyway.— Talking point sleuth
- "'....This will mean many more black faces behind bars and six feet under. That's the price of freedom, and many would gladly pay it......' ----) And here we have the most interesting comment of the thread. Makes one wonder just how many folks proclaiming concern about the constitution are really just using the constitution as a cover for racist attitudes, doesn't it? I'm sure that legatus will chime in momentarily to take this "conservative" to task for the blatant racism in his comment. Momentarily."
Actually Tps, I was travelling most of the day, so I haven't had a chance to chime in. I knew that there would be a lot of discussion here about the SC decision today, and was interested to see what everyone's thoughts were. When I came across the comment that you reference, I didn't find it "interesting", I found it appalling and disgusting....whether he is conservative, liberal or somewhere in between. What I DO find interesting is that you immediately branded this disgraceful person a conservative. I wonder how you determined that. His comments are unlike any conservative that I know. Is it becasue he said "arm the citizens", which might display the idea that he agreed with the SC and he ~must~ therefore be conservative? Nah, that can't be it...there are comments from liberals here who also seem to agree with today's decision. Interesting comment Tps.
— legatus - TPS, one other point that is overlooked about the DC ban's correlation to murder rates is that DC is wide open to the bordering states of Virginia and Maryland, and it can't seal its borders and check each person coming into the city for possession of the banned weapons. For that reason, any attempt to ban a certain weapon in one state or territory is useless unless it's uniform among the 50 states.
- TPS, correct. I wasn't making a statement as to the effectivenss of gun control laws, just pointing out that in the contries with fewer guns, the gun violence rate per population unit (in the examples cited, 100000) is significantly lower. We don't know if that's due to the legislation controlling the number of guns, or the overal cultural attitudes, education and economics, etc. It just seems to follow (in a case of causation, not correlation ;-) ) that the less guns we have available, the less gun violence there will be. That point seems to refute Xi Jah's claim that the increase in gun violence was due to the ban, unless the ban engendered an INCREASE in the number of guns, illegal or otherwise.— srmzeus11
Popular Posts
Search this blog:
Blog Roll
- Andrew Sullivan
- Blinq
- Blogorrhea
- Blonde Sagacity
- Free Republic
- Instapundit
- James Taranto
- ScrappleFace
- The Corner
- Buzzmachine
- Eat the Press
- Editor and Publisher
- Media (Huffington Post)
- Media Bloodhound
- Mickey Kaus
- Pressthink
- Romenesko
- The Inksniffer
- A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago
- Above Average Jane
- BlankBaby
- Citizen Mom
- Keystone Blog
- Metroblogging Philadelphia
- Phawker
- Philadelphia - America's Hometown
- Philadelphia Will Do
- Philebrity
- Philly Future
- Phillyblog
- Phillyist
- The Clog
- The Next Mayor
- Welcome to Phillyville
- Young Philly Politics
- Afro-Netizen
- All-Spin Zone
- Atrios
- Bad Attitudes
- Billmon
- Booman Tribune
- CorrenteWire
- Fables of the Reconstruction
- iFlipFlop
- Kiko's House
- MyDD
- Philly (Dragonballyee)
- Rowhouse Logic
- Slacktivist
- Suburban Guerilla
- Tattered Coat
- upyernoz
- AmericaBlog
- Andy Borowitz
- BuzzFlash
- Crooks and Liars
- Cursor
- Daily Kos
- David Sirota
- Drudge Report
- Echidne of the Snakes
- Fire Dog Lake
- Glenn Greenwald
- Hullabaloo
- Jesus' General
- Jon Swift
- Josh Marshall
- Juan Cole
- Kevin Drum
- Mad Kane
- Majikthise
- Matthew Yglesias
- Oliver Willis
- Raw Story
- Swing State Project
- Talk Left
- Taylor Marsh
- TBogg
- The Carpetbagger Report
- Think Progress
- War and Piece
- Wonkette
- A Citizen's Blog
- Balls, Sticks and Stuff
- Beer Leaguer
- Dick Polman
- Phillies Nation
- Philling Station
- Shallow Center
- The 700 Level
- The Good Phight
Classifieds:
Site Services:
Partners: