Girl's Behavior 
Guy's Behavior 
Flirting 
Dating 
Relationships 
Fashion & Beauty 
Health & Fitness 
Marriage & Weddings 
Shopping & Gifts 
Technology & Internet 
Break Up & Divorce 
Education & Career 
Entertainment & Arts 
Family & Friends 
Food & Beverage 
Hobbies & Leisure 
Other 
Religion & Spirituality 
Society & Politics 
Sports 
Travel 
Trending & News 
The US has gun right enshrined in the Constitution.
The US has third-world gun crime rates.
Europe, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada don't have a Second Amendment type right but have less gun crime.
We accept, with any right, the potentiality that it may conduce to evil as much as it may conduce to good. The method by which a right is exercised is less consequential then the social context and intellectual suppositions in which it is exercised.
The real issue with the Second Amendment is that rights are viewed by Americans in absolutist terms. As Burke pointed out, such "natural rights" do exist, but "their abstract perfection is their practical defect." Such rights are applied with too little regard to the cultural context in which they exist.
There is much to suggest that the culture is incapable of prudently and sensibly managing the rights it abstractly attributes to itself. Alexander Hamilton made the point that if you have a Bill of Rights you extend to the government the authority to regulate those rights.
Indeed, the regulation of those rights is actually routine. Free speech is limited by slander, perjury, defamation and copyright laws, among others. Freedom of religion is allowed consistent with public order - if a religion calls for human sacrifice, it is prohibited. There are other examples and the list is long.
However, in the matter of the right to bear arms, in part, guns are woven into the culture in various ways. An emphasis on self-defense - particularly in urban areas where crime tends to be high - rural areas where hunting is an important sport, gun collectors and gun clubs, and, as you noted, an ethic rooted in America's libertarian traditions of resistance to tyranny. (Though the notion that the government is a threat to liberty at this interregnum in the nation's life is patently absurd. So supine is the government that it cannot even balance its budget lest it ask the public to pay for what they buy.)
The segment of the population that tends toward absolutism on the Second Amendment is actually quite small, but is extremely intense. Whereas those who take a more nuanced view of gun rights tend to be less intense and more ambivalent. It is not generally their top priority and so the country tends, on the whole, to give both culturally and legally a wide scope to gun rights.
However, it is not at all clear that the culture, as it devolves into a populist tone and an abstract libertarianism with an emphasis on individualism at the expense of community standards, that the society can handle responsibly the rights it has accrued to itself. Including gun rights.
Burke said "men have no right to that which is not reasonable," and rights must be defined through the prism of the context in which they are exercised. What the nation has in the Second Amendment is a right that presupposes an ethic of community standards that are at this moment in the nation's life, at best, fraying. In short, that presupposition needs to be re-examined and, pace Hamilton, the right needs to be regulated in the light of such a re-examination.
In short, what matters is not the method, but the ethical and social context in which rights are defined and exercised. Americans are, in this time in history, inclined to view freedom as an end in itself and not a means to an end and thus rights are defined in absolutist terms. Here is where the problem begins.
The vast majority of gun violence is done by the people who want to ban guns. Once you move beyond a state level and start looking at cities and towns. Highest gun violence is Democrat lead areas. Red state or blue doesn't matter. So the people who want to ban the guns are the same people doing most of the mass shootings. Now when it comes to stopping that gun violence it is always 1 of 2 groups. People who support the second amendment... and police. And lastly banning guns will not stop people who want to kill someone. They are already breaking the law by killing someone they don't care if they break a second law by getting a gun.
Opinion
19Opinion
There is less crime in Houston then there is in Philadelphia even though there are more guns in Houston. When I lived in Philadelphia every single night a bad guy with a gun killed an unarmed innocent. When I moved to Houston 9 times out of 10 the bad guy was shot by his would be victim or an armed bystander.
The price of Liberty is a lifetime of learning what liberty is and how to defend it.
Mass shootings and crime is a result of culture and a cowardly population unwilling to defend itself from evil.
Freedom is never free.
"Europe, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada don't have a Second Amendment type right but have less gun crime."
Arguments along those lines don't hold up to scrutiny. There are sooo many holes in that argument. But the anti-gun crowd refuses to look at it, and refuses to use logic and rational thought.
Switzerland has a buttload of guns, too; they don't have gun crime at anywhere near the rate. Afghanistan has even more; they have plenty of it, too. The UK has very few guns, and plenty of violent crime. Japan has basically no guns and very little violent crime.
These aren't "the price of liberty"; they're the price of competitive pluralistic societies ignoring mental health issues for decades.
If we simply change the wording "right" to "right of duty," we get a rare opportunity to have our cake and eat it too. That word alone, "duty," carries so much weight, responsibility, and ownership of action that the average gun owner already holds true but is now expected of everyone.
Most gun crime comes from idiot judges and imbecile legislatures enacting piss-poor sentences for violent crimes committed with a firearm. Make the first one 30 to life, make the second one death penalty eligible and start busting up the gangs like... I don't know... gangbuster style, you'll see a lot of gun crime dry up.
It is the result when you have a fallen society and rotted culture. People raised on screens and tv and fatherless homes where the families have broken.
Guns are not new. Been around for hundreds of years. The types of people our culture raises now has changed.
Even with the guns, the mass shooting trend didn't start until around the turn of the 21st century and we have always had the second amendment. There used to be gun clubs and kids brought guns to school to be stored in their lockers for those clubs.
Ammosexuals are a threat to sane USA Americans. In fact, we do not have an individual right to own guns, the militia does. The way the NRA has pushed that trope is the greatest story ever sold. These people are irrational, fearful toddlers in need of their wubbie to feel like a real man. It's grotesque what American endure.
They're the price of radical American individualism (as opposed to individualty, of which dull, same-ish America has so little) and freeDUMB as opposed to FREEDOM.
The Second Amendment gives us the ability to defend ourselves not just from foreign invaders but domestic oppression as well. Why do you think democrats ate always trying to take everyone;s guns away?
no, but mass shootings and gun crime is the price of democrat run cities who are too soft on criminals. look at chicago etc.
Guns make you free? Not really. It's not a great kind of freedom if you're scared to go outside because you might get shot.
We have a cultural problem. If you eliminated gun violence by black people, the US drops significantly down on the gun violence list.
If more good people had guns, there'd be a lot fewer bad people with them!
You know you had fewer shooting in the past with less strict gun laws.
No, it's the price of letting liberals exist in our society
it people who use guns the gun is safe till people get hand on.
The price of cooperations and the government gaslighting the public into mental illness
No, they are the price of tolerating racists.
Be the first girl to share an opinion
and earn 3 more Xper points!
You can also add your opinion below!
Most Helpful Opinions