Summations Only

Hi Fin, The second amendment does not create anything.The second amendment forbids the government from infringing upon the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.God Bless,

Hi vimesey, The right was reserved by the people or the constitution would never have been ratified.

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the key States of Virginia and New York were locked in bitter debates. Their failure to ratify would reduce the new union by two large, populated, wealthy states, and would geographically splinter it. The Federalists prevailed, however, and Virginia and New York narrowly approved the Constitution. When a bill of rights was proposed in Congress in 1789

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Had the bill of rights not been added there would have been no United states.There would have been a divided country with 2 big states in the middle.God Bless,

Hi saab, Delaware was the first to ratify the Constitution and they have the following in their State Constitution.

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A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and state, and for hunting and recreational use.

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shotguns, rifles           handguns
Permit to Purchase               No                  No
Registration of Firearms         No                  No
Licensing of Owners              No                  No
Permit to Carry                  No                  Yes

There are no restrictions on rifles, and shotguns.
The only restrictions is you have to have a permit to carry a handgun.It seems that the man had been in a 3 year custody battle with his estranged wife who was one of the women killed. I can't find out anything about the other woman as of yet.I am sure that when he went into the courthouse and pulled out a gun and began fireing he did not expect to walk out alive. But in his deranged mind he was not going to let his ex win.God Bless,

Hi vimesey, They had just fought and won a war with England to gain independence from the oppressive rule of the British government and they were not about to let a new government have an opportunity to take away their firearms and be able to oppress them again. So they reserved the right to keep and bear Arms. I use upper case because it is used in the second amendment, so the Arms would be unlimited.God Bless,

Hi Taq, It wasn't an argument. It was a statement of fact. Glad to see that you agree that laws do not hinder criminals from doing whatever they want to do.Thanks for your insight into the situation, that laws will not stop a criminal, only honest people.God Bless,

Hi Percy, Yes, and I have asked you several times to take the data and explain to me which ones you think were a victim because they had a firearm in their house.I made an attempt to do so but you have not even tried.Why not give it a try?And yes I agree that thousands of people are killed by people who know the victim, some kinfolks, some friends and some just acquaintances.Out of the 12,996 murders in 2010 the total murders by firearm was 8,775.Of that 12,996 there was 1,615 by strangers and 5,724 by unknown for a total of 7,339 which leaves 5,657 family, or acquaintances.
If I was clairvoyant I might be able to come up with how many were a victim because they had a gun in the house or was a victim because they did not have a gun to defend themself with. Yes I know you presented this study and drew your conclusion, "In other words, having a gun in the home makes you less safe, not more safe."Did you read the entire article or just what suited your bias.Two paragraphs down I find:

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Although an estimated 40 percent of adults in the United States report keeping a gun in the home for recreational or protective purposes (3), the risks and benefits of this practice are widely disputed in the literature (4, 5). Ecologic analyses have suggested a link between the prevalence of gun ownership and rates of homicide and suicide (6—8) and between regulations restricting access to firearms and rates of homicide and suicide (9—12). Although these studies are useful in demonstrating an association between access to firearms and rates of homicide and suicide at the aggregate level, it is not possible with this methodology to adequately assess whether access to a gun increases the risk of a violent death at the individual level.

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The authors Linda L. Dahlberg, Robin M. Ikeda and Marcie-jo Kresnow conclusions were:

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it is not possible with this methodology to adequately assess whether access to a gun increases the risk of a violent death at the individual level.

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Yet you find enough information to claim otherwise.Earlier I presented information from the following site

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There are approximately two million defensive gun uses (DGU's) per year by law abiding citizens. That was one of the findings in a national survey conducted by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist in 1993. Prior to Dr. Kleck's survey, thirteen other surveys indicated a range of between 800,000 to 2.5 million DGU's annually. However these surveys each had their flaws which prompted Dr. Kleck to conduct his own study specifically tailored to estimate the number of DGU's annually.

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Subsequent to Kleck's study, the Department of Justice sponsored a survey in 1994 titled, Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms (text, PDF). Using a smaller sample size than Kleck's, this survey estimated 1.5 million DGU's annually.

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There is one study, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which in 1993, estimated 108,000 DGU's annually. Why the huge discrepancy between this survey and fourteen others?

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I suggested using the 108,000 number by the NCVS study.That comes to a little over 5 DGU"s per minute because a person was carrying on person a firearm or had a firearm in the home.According to Table 8 there was 8,775 murders with a firearm in 2010.
That comes to just a shade over 1 every hour.In that hour there was 300 uses of a gun to prevent a violent crime. How many of those 300 would have been a murder, robbery or rape victim had they not had a firearm available?So you keep making your assertion that "having a gun in the home makes you less safe, not more safe".You can make it until you turn blue in the face and you will not convince me that I am more at danger because I have a gun in the house that I have been trained to use, than I would be if I did not have a gun in my house.I am not going to commit suicide and I don't believe my wife is going to shoot me. If she was going to shoot me she would not have waited 55 years to do so.God Bless,

Hi Taq, What I am saying is that you can't get the criminals to obey the laws we already have concerning firearms and it don't make any difference how many new laws are made they are not going to obey any of them.The only people that will obey laws are law abiding citizens.Therefore if you make any new laws you are not hindering the people who are committing murders and mass murders you are only infringing on the rights of the law abiding citizens to protect themselves from the people who are not going to obey any laws.So leave the firearms of the law abiding citizens alone and if we never need to use them that will be great. But if the time comes that we need them we will have them.God Bless,

Hi vimesey,I suppose that in your history books there are a lot of things left out just as many things have been rewritten in our history books.So that you may understand our passion for our firearms a little more I present the following"

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This Article reviews the British gun control program that precipitated the American Revolution: the 1774 import ban on firearms and gunpowder; the 1774-75 confiscations of firearms and gunpowder; and the use of violence to effectuate the confiscations. It was these events that changed a situation of political tension into a shooting war. Each of these British abuses provides insights into the scope of the modern Second Amendment.

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Furious at the December 1773 Boston Tea Party, Parliament in 1774 passed the Coercive Acts. The particular provisions of the Coercive Acts were offensive to Americans, but it was the possibility that the British might deploy the army to enforce them that primed many colonists for armed resistance. The Patriots of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, resolved: That in the event of Great Britain attempting to force unjust laws upon us by the strength of arms, our cause we leave to heaven and our rifles. A South Carolina newspaper essay, reprinted in Virginia, urged that any law that had to be enforced by the military was necessarily illegitimate.

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The Royal Governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, had forbidden town meetings from taking place more than once a year. When he dispatched the Redcoats to break up an illegal town meeting in Salem, 3000 armed Americans appeared in response, and the British retreated. Gage’s aide John Andrews explained that everyone in the area aged 16 years or older owned a gun and plenty of gunpowder.

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Military rule would be difficult to impose on an armed populace. Gage had only 2,000 troops in Boston. There were thousands of armed men in Boston alone, and more in the surrounding area. One response to the problem was to deprive the Americans of gunpowder.

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Modern smokeless gunpowder is stable under most conditions. The black powder of the 18th Century was far more volatile. Accordingly, large quantities of black powder were often stored in a town’s powder house, typically a reinforced brick building. The powder house would hold merchants’ reserves, large quantities stored by individuals, as well as powder for use by the local militia. Although colonial laws generally required militiamen (and sometimes all householders, too) to have their own firearm and a minimum quantity of powder, not everyone could afford it. Consequently, the government sometimes supplied public arms and powder to individual militiamen. Policies varied on whether militiamen who had been given public arms would keep them at home. Public arms would often be stored in a special armory, which might also be the powder house.

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Before dawn on September 1, 1774, 260 of Gage’s Redcoats sailed up the Mystic River and seized hundreds of barrels of powder from the Charlestown powder house.

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The Powder Alarm, as it became known, was a serious provocation. By the end of the day, 20,000 militiamen had mobilized and started marching towards Boston. In Connecticut and Western Massachusetts, rumors quickly spread that the Powder Alarm had actually involved fighting in the streets of Boston. More accurate reports reached the militia companies before that militia reached Boston, and so the war did not begin in September. The message, though, was unmistakable: If the British used violence to seize arms or powder, the Americans would treat that violent seizure as an act of war, and would fight. And that is exactly what happened several months later, on April 19, 1775.

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SourceThe colonist had firearms and thus had the right to keep and bear Arms.The British government sought to infringe upon that right and it caused a war to be fought.Guess who won.So the colonist paid for their right to keep and bear Arms by fighting and dying for their independence from an oppressive government.So the right to keep and bear Arms was paid for by the blood of many colonists and many wounded men.When the United States was formed the people decided they would reserve their right to own, keep and bear Arms in order to defend their lives and property against those who would try to relieve them of either. Since they had just had the experience with the British trying to confiscate their weapons they also wanted to insure that the newly formed government would not in the future try to do the same as the British government had done. They wanted to be prepared if such a case ever occured.So through the second amendment they reserved that right and forbid the Federal government from infringing upon the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.As I have said many times the second amendment does not create a right. It simply forbids the Federal government from infringing upon that right which the people already possessed, which was purchased with blood.God Bless,

Hi Taq, But you are arguing for laws that the second amendment forbids the government from making, as they infringe upon the rights of the people to keep and bear Arms.I do not argue we should get rid of drug laws, laws against robbing banks, or people, but none of those are forbidden by the Constitution.You seem to be making the mistake of placing gun laws in with all other laws.Firearm laws are forbidden by the Constitution. Some laws have been put in place but everyone of them is unConstitutional, according to the way the second amendment was written.For any of the present laws to be Constitutional the second amendment would need to be replaced, by a Constitutional amendment.God Bless,

Hi Taq, The colonist had every weapon that the British had including cannons, so what was limited as to what they owned?The second amendment says Arms, which is plural not singular and there is no limit placed on Arms by the writers of the second amendment, or the States that ratified it. And you think because the courts have so rulled means that their rulling is Constitutional. The courts are part of the establishment, and not an independent body.You say no, they are an independent body. Simple question, who appoints them to their job and who pays their salary?God Bless,

Hi No, Didn't the founding Fathers leave the issue of voting to the States when they wrote the Constitution?Wasn't the Twenty-sixth Amendment proposed on March 23, 1971, and ratified on July 1, 1971?If I remember correctly in early times the States required a voter to be a property owner. I also remember that women were allowed to vote in different States long before the nineteenth amendment was passed in 1920. The fifteenth amendment had been ratified on February 3, 1870, allowing African American men to vote. The first woman ran for president in 1872. The first African Americans to serve in the United States Congress was Sen. Hiram Revels (apointed), a Republican during the Reconstruction Era following the American Civil War. Joseph Rainey, was the first African American to be elected to the House of Representatives and was from South Carolina, and served from December 12, 1870 to March 3, 1879.But White Democrats regained political power in state legislatures across the South and worked to restore white supremacy.Makes you wonder don't it?But wouldn't all the rights concerning voting that is not covered in the amendments be left to the States?God Bless,

Hi Theodoric, So I don't have a right to exist unless the government grants me that right.Is that what you are saying?

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Furthermore, actions on both sides to control weaponry, gunpowder, and other military supplies became more contentious, as the British sought to bring military stores more directly under their control, and the Patriot colonists sought to acquire them for their own use.

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From your source.Preceived, real, or false the law Parliment had passed and the actions of the British government troops caused the colonist to go to war against Britian and win independence and the right to keep and bear their Arms.God Bless,

Hi Theodoric, I don't see anywhere in the second amendment where the Arms that the people are to keep and bear says anything about personal firearms. In fact they are to have Arms that is sufficient for a Milita.Where do you get personal firearms from?God Bless,

Hi Theodoric, I don't remember defining 'right' anywhere.

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A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

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So let me see if I can define 'right' as used in the second amendment.In this case the 'right' is the sovereignty to keep and bear Arms without the permission of anyone. I have been discussing Arms in the scope of the second amendment.If you have a pet definition why don't you share it.God Bless,

Hi Percy, That should read, 'If the FBI'.The report does not tell where the gun came from.In the column 'husband' where the husband is the victim it does not state whether the husband is killed by his wife or by his ex-wife. If he was killed by his wife the gun was in the house. If he was killed by his ex-wife the gun probably would not have come from his house regardless of where the murder took place.Found at the bottom of the chart.
NOTE: The relationship categories of husband and wife include both common-law and ex-spouses. The categories of mother, father, sister, brother, son, and daughter include stepparents, stepchildren, and stepsiblings. The category of acquaintance includes homosexual relationships and the composite category of other known to victim.From this information it is evident that many of the murders was caused by someone from outside of the home of the victim, which would probably exclude the weapon from the home of the victim being used in the murder. My position is that for your position to be supported the gun must be purchased by the victim and either have it on his/her person or in the house.Your last paragraph in the post I am answering says: For someone to purchase a firearm to use for defensive purposes, the firearm will be kept in the house at the ready or on person at the ready.For that firearm to to pose a problem for the owner the firearm must be either removed from the person or acquired in the home, then used to murder the firearm owner with said firearm.So what is wrong with my logic? What study did they do?From your source.

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To evaluate the relation between firearms in the home and violent deaths in the home, we analyzed data from a US mortality follow-back survey. The purpose of our study was twofold: 1) to determine whether having a firearm in the home increases the risk of a homicide or suicide in the home relative to other causes of death in the home, and 2) to determine whether having a firearm in the home increases the risk that a homicide or suicide in the home will be committed with a firearm or by using other means. To our knowledge, this is the first national study to specifically examine the relation between firearms and violent deaths in the home.

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As I understand it they studied data supplied to them and then came to the conclusions I quoted.From your source:

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...First, our study was based on data from death certificates and proxy interviews...

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...Second, the gun in the home may not have been the gun used in the death. This possibility seems less likely with suicide, but, with homicide, it is certainly plausible that someone brought a gun into the home...

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...Third, it is possible that the association between a gun in the home and risk of a violent death may be related to other factors that we were unable to control for in our analysis...

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...Fourth, our analysis was restricted to violent deaths in the home...

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...We were unable to ascertain the risk of a nonfatal outcome and were also unable to weigh the risk of a violent death against any protective benefits of gun ownership....

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...Studies of defensive gun use suggest that millions of defensive gun use incidents occur each year by people to protect themselves or their property against assaults, theft, or break-ins...

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...The findings for homicide, while showing an elevated risk, have consistently been more modest. They suggest a need for more research to better distinguish the risk and protective factors associated with guns in the home, including an examination of the risk posed by forces both internal and external to the home....

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But you are free to believe and spout whatever your bias demands that you put forth. But I did not use the 2 million number.I chose to use a number from a very biased report by the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which in 1993, estimated 108,000 DGU's annually.Using the 108,000 number that comes to a little over 1 defensive use every five minutes around the clock for one year.That means that at least 1 crime which could have resulted in a murder victim every five minutes was avoided.If I use the studies prior to Dr. Kleck's survey, thirteen other surveys indicated a range of between 800,000 to 2.5 million DGU's annually.I get 1.5 crimes avoided per minute using 800,000 DGU's annually.
I get 4.75 crimes avoided per minute using 2.5 million DGU's annually.If I use Dr. Kleck's 2 million I get 3.8 crimes avoided per minute.If I use the Department of Justice sponsored survey of 1994 titled, Guns in America of 1.5 million I get 2.85 crimes avoided per minute.Your source you used to support your claims states, "Studies of defensive gun use suggest that millions of defensive gun use incidents occur each year by people to protect themselves".Yet nowhere do I find where they took this information into consideration when doing their study.In Message 1699 you state: The data does not support your assertion.God Bless,