Before I am crucified, let me say that I am all for the 2nd Amendment and do not really believe that any type of gun control offers a complete solution to the issues we are facing today.

However, I am writing a research paper for college and wanted to get some input from you guys about this.

What, if any, parts of the second amendment would you be willing to give up in the quest for safety sake?

What are your thoughts on universal background checks for ALL gun sales, both private party and from gun stores? Why do honest citizens worry about background checks causing their guns to be registered? If you have completely honest intentions, why should that matter?

I know there is the argument of "if you outlaw guns, only criminals will have them..." That is what leads me to believe that there is no solution that would completely end gun violence, without infringing on the rights of law-abiding citizens.

Playing the other side of the argument, how can we begin to bridge the gap between gun-owners and gun haters?

Thanks ahead of time guys, ya'll are a fountain of knowledge for me.

And if this needs to be moved, please do so.

Spend a week rounding up all the firearms from the criminals, gang bangers and drug lords and you will definitely reduce crime.

Absolutely no part.

2996 souls parished on 9/11 due to religious extremism. Yet you don't hear people calling for the freedom of religion to be given up for safety.


”He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.” - Ben Franklin

Zach, first question for you- how much of your First Amendment rights are you willing to give up? Freedom of religion to make atheists and muslims happy? Speech so that everyone is politically correct? Why would anyone willingly give up any freedoms? 4 of 9 justices on the SCOTUS are ready to change the 2nd Amendment as we know it, one more tips the balance. When you have a speaker of the house who is on the record as saying if she had the votes she would take every gun she could, when Hillary supports what Australia did in gun confiscation then people get nervous. How do you get criminals to follow the law? How do you get muslims to quit killing christians? You might try inviting the gun haters to come shoot with you, but you really can't change unreasonable, emotional thinking. Good luck with the paper.

Well said my friend ^^

I won't give an inch! As far as background checks.... Why should I have to ask my government if I can give a gun to my son or daughter? And charge me for it too!?!?

How many violent criminals are you willing to hang to keep the citizens of this country safe?
Do you really believe that someone should wait 20 years on death row after being lawfully convicted of a capital offense?
Did you know that 2/3 of the people killed in America by "gun violence" are suicides and not murders?
Did you know that statistics from Japan and countries behind the Iron Curtain prove conclusively that access to firearms has **NO** bearing on suicide rates, only on the method of suicide?
Did you know that a map of violent crime in America overlaid with a map of gun control restrictions is almost a perfect match? That is, low gun control areas have little or no violent crime and high gun control areas have massive amounts of violent crime.
The is **no** correlation between geographic firearms availability and firearms crime in America.

How much of your first amendment rights are you willing to give up for public safety?

Giving up any part of the second amendment will provide no law abiding citizen with any more safety. It will, however make a safer atmosphere for armed robbery, rapists, home invaders, car jackers, and murderers.

Background checks are targeting criminals in hopes of preventing their ability to purchase. The trouble is criminals do not purchase anywhere that is going to perform a background check. Therefore all it has accomplished is making life more difficult for John Q. Citizen.

Bridging the gap between gun owners and gun haters means we have to get the gun haters to stop watching and listening to the lies being told to them by the liberals from the POTUS down. And that is their strategy, tell lies that play on emotion and mascarade those lies as facts. Getting the gun hater to pause for ten minutes to view a statistical chart, with data from the U.S. and other countries is more difficult than any sane person would expect. State by state comparison is available annually, provided by the FBI. And every year the states that have the highest gun crimes are the ones with the most stringent laws. Some states produce more firearm deaths annually than does battle fields in Afghanistan. But the gun hater/ liberal choose to ignore hard numbers which appears to be insanity. Doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome is, an example of insanity.

Changing the tempo, and content, of the media is the first hurdle to education. Unfortunately it is not against the law to boldly lie on the mass available media outlets.





I did not go to college, best wishes on your paper.

You have to agree though, that without some form of check, violent criminals could purchase firearms very easily... As it is now, they already can but they do have to look a little harder. If there was NO background check, such as through a private treaty sale, then the seller could be held responsible to some degree...

I wouldn't say I straddle the fence on this, I disagree with most forms of gun control simply because they are ineffective. However, it does make me wonder just who is purchasing firearms at the local gun show.. I have seen some folks I wouldn't trust with a slingshot carrying 1911's that were locked and loaded.

I guess my thought is that I have no ill-intention when I purchase a firearm, so a 10 minute background check, that I have never paid for to my knowledge, doesn't bother me

I agree with you almost 100%. I agree that gun control, by and large, in ineffective and giving up our rights would definitely create a more profitable environment for offenders.

Criminals do not buy guns from people who are doing background checks, such as most gun shows and private sales. That is where I would agree with background checks... If we can take more routes away from criminals to get their hands on firearms, without infringing on law-abiding citizens, I am all for it. As it stands, I don't see background checks as infringing. Limiting what types of firearms we can have or what type of magazine/ what capacity we can have is infringing.

At the end of the day, a criminal is going to do whatever they can to commit their crimes. And they don't need a gun to kill.

I played football with a thug black kid that could get you any firearm you wanted for cheap and had one hell of an inventory at the house where he "stays" at.

People like this is where criminals get their weapons. Not from gun shows or Hunting forum internet sights.

Before the Gun Control Act of 1968 people could buy firearms via mail without restriction.

1967 was the last complete year before the GCA 1968.
US Population in 1967: 197,457,000
US Murder in 1967: 12,240

In 1981 after 13 years of the Gun Control Act of 1968.
US Population in 1981: 229,146,000
US Murder in 1981: 22,520

According to these numbers, the murder rate **without any gun control** was 1 murder for every 16132 people.
The murder rate with gun control was 1 murder for every 10175 people.

That's an increase of about 63%.

In short, no, I don't have to agree with you. You're wrong.

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

The way the whole thing should be approached is a registration of people who are disqualified. If you're going to purchase, then the seller checks your identity against the database of of disqualified persons, and that is as far as I would allow it to go.



What do you base this statement on? How easy or difficult is it for violent criminals to acquire guns? How do you know?

But the big question is: how could making it more difficult for the law abiding to acquire them possibly make it harder for criminals to get them? There is NO logic in that notion.

Just for the sake of discussion, the statistics you listed do not separate gun crimes from other crimes.

The number of violent crimes rose from 1968 until 1994, when there was a decrease of some 100k crimes... Could the introduction of Clinton's Assault Weapon Ban have anything to do with that?

THERE IS NO PART TO GIVE UP!!!!!!!!!!!What needs to the done is quit wet nursing these punk [censored], whinny [censored] spoiled piss ignorant dumb asses and start holding everyone that's EVERYONE responsible for all their actions. The problem stems from no responsibility for any damm thing. You can not legislate intelligence at all, it will take this lazy [censored] country to wake up to where we are headed and that is to dumb every thing up so no one's feelings are hurt. We are not far from the toilet handle being push and down the drain we go. I'll stop now.

A coupla thoughts.

Despots have been trying to control weapons in the hands of the citizens for a long time. Remember the story of Robin Hood? Yep, it's fiction. However, the central theme is that Robin killed one of the kings deer. And, all game had been usurped as belonging to the crown. Thus, nobody needed a weapon to hunt. Sound familiar?

Now, the head of the liberals, Obama, suggests that the citizenry doesn't need the same protection for their family as his needs. Sound familiar?

For a better understanding, read The Second Amendment Primer by Les Adams. It's cheap, less than $10, and goes into the history of weapon control and usage since the Grecian Age until now.

You misunderstand my meaning. I know that correlation does not equal causation. I actually could have used the numbers from 1974 instead of 1981 to skew the results even more greatly. My point is this: after the passing of the GCA 1968 the murder rate should have gone down, at least to **some** degree, if the legislation had any real utility. If you look at the numbers from 1968-1974, you will find a huge increase in the murder rate. That's hardly a ringing endorsement of the effectiveness of gun control.

The other point is that you indicated a specific need for a background check. I demonstrated that the pre-background check era had a lower murder rate, which is very counter to your proposition that the background check process was important.

Regarding the lack of separate gun statistics, do you seriously doubt that the overall murder rate increase isn't reflected by equivalent firearms murder rate changes? Honestly? I'm sure we can dig up the numbers, but I'll bet you anything you want that the trend is virtually identical.

Asserting the Clinton Assault Weapon Ban was the cause of the decline in murder rates is equally spurious, as I'm sure you know. Simply look at the murder rates for the years after 2004 when the ban expired. The numbers continue to decline, demonstrating clearly enough that the ban had no meaningful effect on the overall murder rate. If the ban was the cause of the initial decline, then surely the ending of the ban would have resulted in a corresponding upward trend.

My real point is this: if you are in a university, then you are submerged in smug, lukewarm group think. The faculty are overwhelmingly nice, well-adjusted, well-educated mediocrities committed to intellectually fashionable conformity. As a group, they emanate a complacent self-delighted joy in their own personal enlightenment. They're also wrong about as often as they're right, a fact to which they're delightfully oblivious.

Think for yourself. 16 to 20 years of adult day care do not necessarily lead one down the path to knowledge or self-discovery.



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I'm surprised no one mentioned it so I will. Often times progressives point to the 2nd Amendment, the Bill of Rights, and the US Constitution as outdated documents written by old men hundreds of years ago who knew nothing about what life would be like in modern times. BULLCRAP. Our founding fathers knew more about living under tyranny and securing freedom than any progressive ever has or ever will. To your question, I refer you to the words of one of those founders (Ben Franklin). The meaning is as prescient today as it was in the late 17th century:

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. He who gives up freedom for safety deserves neither."

While I do agree some what with op, Brass Cat speaks more truth than most any one I have heard in a long time.

You simply can not legislate common sence, motility or love. You can not force love what you get instead is hate. If you actually want crime to go down then we must get back to GOD's ways. Bring back the paddle, teach respect to the kids, take the violent video games and movies away and so on...

No I don't agree. There are laws on the books that dissuade anyone in their right mind from committing an illegal act with a firearm. A background check will prevent criminals from getting guns as well as the TSA stops bombs:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/exclusive-under...ory?id=31434881

You would not like the background check if some government official accidentally put you on the no fly list.

It is amazing to me that the anti-gun thinking is that the elimination of guns will stop all crime. When we went thousands of years without guns and some of the most horrible crimes in history during that time.
Simply, criminals will find a way, and it is my God given right to defend myself against them, preferably with as good of method as they have, or better.
To me criminals are everyone from mugger and thieves, to tyrannical governments.

It is even further amazing that someone about to do something as illegal and horrible as murdering someone, that some would think they would obey a gun law.

At what point in time when a leftist gun hater and progressive ideologue spews his garbage about gun crimes and gun control should reasonable people just ignore his postings? How many times can someone lie and still be given any kind of consideration and courtesy? If you lie to me once and i believe you it's your fault, if you lie to me 2,3,4,5 or more times and i believe in you, it's MY fault.
I choose not to believe anything any Democrat has to say about firearms. Case closed.

None. I believe it was Reagan that said that in order to have absolute security, you must give up all freedoms. For an example of this, look at prison. No freedom, and supposed security. No one in their right mind will say that prison is a safe place.

Giving up liberty for security does nothing for security, it only takes away liberty.

Zach, you can see by all the responses, this is a sensitive issue to many forum members. When I first read your original post, I expected lots of “not from my cold dead hands” and over-the-top liberal bashing. What you got was lots of thoughtful and well-worded feedback from fellow THFers. I’ll share a few of my thoughts, some of which may overlap ideas already presented here.

The Second Amendment is not about hunting, or even self-defense. It is about the people’s right to keep government in check or even remove it by force, if necessary. We must remember what our country had just gone through before this was written. “The people” had just overthrown an oppressive, tyrannical government. They did it initially by regular folks showing up at the town square with their private weapons, not much different from what the British army had. These local folks were called a “militia” (now an evil word in the liberal dictionary) not any part of a standing army. Given what they had experienced, our founding fathers, were suspicious of big government and hoped not to have to go through another war for freedom. They knew that if a government could be allowed to restrict private ownership of weapons, we would become a nation of subjects, not citizens.

What, if any, parts of the second amendment would you be willing to give up in the quest for safety sake? I wouldn’t give up anything because of why it was written in the first place. Gun safety can be addressed a number of different ways without changing the Second Amendment. I would however consider deleting the reference to “militia” only because too many people think that the militia has morphed into our modern-day Department of Defense and only they “need” guns.

As has been said before, it is the Second Amendment that assures we continue to enjoy all the other amendments contained in the Bill of Rights.

What are your thoughts on universal background checks for ALL gun sales… I firmly believe there are some people who should not be allowed to have guns. The current background check system is an attempt to define who those people are, but doesn’t go far enough. It simply doesn’t work for all the reasons already listed in other posts above. Expanding that model will do nothing but generate more paper, hire more folks to shuffle that paper, and buy more votes for phony politicians who can say they did something to curb gun violence. My real concern with any background check system is that it can lead to a national registry of guns and eventual confiscation. We are told that background check records are destroyed after some period of time and no permanent record is maintained. If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Even if specific firearm data is not kept, the guys in unmarked black SUV’s, wearing SWAT gear, will know your address and can find you when some future government decides your guns pose a threat to public safety, national defense, or their own power.

I cringe every time I hear the media, a politician, or some “expert” say “gun violence.” Violence is committed by people, who sometimes use a gun. Removing guns will not stop violence. There are all sorts of reasons for violence: poverty, race, religion, national pride, greed, mental illness, absent fathers, unwed mothers, moral decay, violent movies, music, TV , dysfunctional families, drugs, alcohol…the list goes on. It’s not politically correct to attack some of these and some are just too hard, so we focus on that evil inanimate object, the gun.

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