Need some help guys and gals.

I am currently in a class “Social Problems.”  Topic:  Gun control.  I seem to be surrounded by liberals.  My college is the largest online university in the world, and talking with the professor I was able to get a thread going where we can post statistics about whether or not gun control works.

I need some help getting some sites together to dispel these ridiculous accusations flying around.  Preferably, I want to contrast crime rates (DC versus Georgia, for instance).  Anything at all to show proof crime rates are not dropping thanks to gun control.

Thanks in advance, ya’ll!

Google "gun facts" and "guy smith" and you'll get a plethora of info. For instance, the year after FL passed CCW their murder rate went from double the national average to several points below. That and many other interesting facts can be found. I think keepandbeararms.com would be the best place.

Wes

I'd love an opportunity to debate a bunch of f'ing liberals about gun control. Beware of typical liberal tactics like fabricating statistics (read: flat out lying) and just generally shouting you down when you start to make too much sense. Good luck.

I doubt you'll convince any liberals of the truth, but you might affect your grade depending on the teacher.  

Give'm hell.

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www.guncite.com/

Don't play the game of offering statistics.  It goes right along with the "if it saves just one life...isn't it worth it?"

Since stats can be manipulated, you'll lose. Always.  

Play the moral/emotional card, just like they do.

Use the "Bill of Rights" argument...if they counter with "our founding fathers couldn't have imagined X type of gun"

-- they couldn't have imagined photocopiers, typewriters and the Internet, either.  Should we require all journalists to submit to background checks (like they were doing in Chicago to access gov't buildings)?  Lenin and a lot of others used propoganda to further their murderous causes...the pen is mightier than the sword, etc.

-- Police are not obligated to protect you.  Thus, who is responsible for your safety if the cops are required to do anything? (South v. Maryland)

-- If they bring up the Militia argument, USC 10 describes who the militia is....us (unorganized militia).  Besides, the founding fathers, if they'd wanted the ability to restrict it, could have easily written that ability into the language...look at Amendment 3, which talks about quartering troops:  

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

If they'd wanted to add that language, they could have.

--"so, you're saying that it's better for a woman to be raped and left for dead in an alley than for her to be standing over the remains of her rapist?"

-- If they argue that the majority of Americans are for gun control, say "Well, 50 years ago, the majority of the country thought Black Americans should sit at the back of the bus, go to separate schools, and have segregated lunch counters."

-- Gun control is racist, since it never affects those with power and money, which means predominantly white folks like me.  Gun laws were instituted to keep blacks, Italians, Irish and other immigrants from having guns.  www.jpfo.org

-- Get Alan Korwin's "Supreme Court Gun Cases"...I have a few copies for sale.  Talks about the long history of the SCOTUS affirming an individual's RKBA.  Dred Scott, for example...in this case, the SCOTUS said that Scott, as a slave, was not a citizen and thus didn't not have the same rights as whites, which included the RKBA/2nd Amendment.

-- For some of the opinions from the US Supreme Court which mention the right to keep and bear arms as an individual right of citizens, see cases: Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), U.S. v. Cruikshank, Casey v. Planned Parenthood (1992), Johnson v. Eisentrager, Poe v. Ullman, Konigsberg v. State Bar, Duncan v. Louisiana, Laird v. Tatum, Spencer v. Kemna (1998), Albright v. Oliver and U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez.

Remember, there are lies, damn lies and statistics.  You will ALWAYS lose the stats game against them.

TimW
Phoenix
Practical Tactical, LLC

Allowing them to get away with arguing that crime has increased or decreased allows them to say that if they can convince 50%+1 of a legislature to ban guns because of some perceived imbalance caused by gun ownership, then so be it.

That is what is known as the "Utilitarian Theory of Rights." It is socialist and offers no standard save the changing winds of short-term public opinion.

Repealing the 4th and 5th amendments would reduce crime too, since it would make it easier to convict criminals charged with crimes, but I'd doubt they'd support that.

More to the point... let's see what the Framers had in mind concerning the right to keep and bear arms.

First, the basics:

“On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debate, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invested against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.” [Letter to Justice William Johnson, June 12, 1821]

Tench Cox was a friend of Madison’s and wrote the following glowing report of the  Second Amendment just after it was drafted:

“As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.” Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789.

Madison later read these words and wrote back to Cox, “...the printed remarks I already find in the gazettes here...be greatly favored by explanatory strictures of a healing tendency, and is therefore already indebted to the cooperation of your pen.”.


Here is Cox, writting prior to the Constitutional Convention:

“The militia, who are in fact the effective part of the people at large, will render many troops quite unnecessary.  They will form a powerful check upon regular troops, and will generally be sufficient to over-awe them. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves?  Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every other terrible implement of the soldier are the birthright of an American...The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”

Richard Henry Lee is the guy who called for drafting the Declaration of Independence, which he later signed:

“A militia, when properly formed are in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms...To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms...The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle.” Federal Farmer, 1788.

What did Noah Webster mean by the phrase, "whole body of the people?"

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe.  The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense raised in the United States...” “Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, Philadelphia,” 1787.

Even Alexander Hamilton got into the act:

Federalist #28: "If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state."

And in Federalist #29:

“If circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights and those of their fellow citizens.”

Wow. What Radical Revolutionaries these dude were!!!

William  W. Rawle, A View of the Constitution 125 (2d ed. 1829).  His work was adopted as a constitutional law textbook at West  Point.  He is quoted by Stephen P. Halbrook in "That Every Man Be  Armed:  The Evolution of a Consitutional Right" as follows.

"In the Second Article, it is declared that a well regulated  militia is necessary to the security of a free state: a  proposition from which few will dissent. Although in actual war,  the services of regular troops are confessedly more valuable, yet ... the militia form the palladium of the country .... The corollary from the first position is, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. THE PROHIBITION IS GENERAL. NO clause in the Constitution could by  any rule of construction be conceived to give Congress a right to DISARM THE PEOPLE."  Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature.  But, if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both."

Powerful stuff.

Thomas Cooley, who was born in 1820 wrote the leading law school  text for  the latter 19th century. It is called the “General Principles of Constitutional Law.” Here is an excerpt:

“The right of self defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible.” "...The right is general.  It may be supposed from the phraseology of this provision that the right to keep and bear arms was only guaranteed to the militia; but this would be an interpretation not warranted by the intent.  The militia, as has been explained elsewhere, consists of those persons who, under the law, are liable to the performance of military duty, and are officered and enrolled for service when called upon...If the right were limited to those enrolled, the purpose of the guarantee might be defeated altogether by the action or the neglect to act of the government it was meant to hold in check.  The meaning of the provision undoubtedly is, that the people, from whom the militia must be taken, shall have the right to keep and bear arms, and they need no permission or regulation of law for the purpose.  But this enables the government to have a well regulated militia; for to bear arms implies something more than mere keeping; it implies the learning to handle and use them in a way that makes those who keep them ready for their efficient use; in other words, it implies the right to meet in voluntary discipline in arms, observing in so doing the laws of public order.”

Back when this great country was founded, and through it's early years, there seemed to be no shortage of great leaders with great minds. Is it me, or does there seem to be a complete void of these type of men in modern history?