The Supreme Court on Monday turned away an appeal by a group of gun rights advocates seeking to overturn Maryland’s ban on assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines under the Second Amendment.
The decision, a major win for gun safety advocates, leaves in place a ruling by the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals which ruled that the state may constitutionally prohibit sale and possession of the weapons.
The state legislation, enacted in 2013 after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, specifically targets the AR-15 – the most popular rifle in America with 20-30 million in circulation. They are legal in 41 of the 50 states.
There are literally dozens of countries that allow private ownership of semi-auto long guns with a permit (Canada is one of them - I see your home instance is .ca), many of them don’t even require a stated reason. The legal difference in the US is that one of our founding documents specifies access as a right. Access to guns is not why we’re a violent county. We’re a violent country because we’re a genocidal settler-colonialist racial slaver society with no health care and piss-poor education. If all of our guns were to poof vanish tonight we’d just have more euro-style mass knifings in our schools and department stores. This shit is like water pressure, you can put your thumb on the hose with piecemeal measures but it’s going to burst out somewhere else so long as it’s still flowing.
Europe doesn’t even have a lot of stabbings either, you see that more in other continents outside Europe/NA. In Europe people just use a car to drive into society …
Ok, let’s try it and see if you’re right.
The second amendment has four clauses, each separated with commas. The way I interpret it (the way it was originally interpreted for over 200 years) is that it guarantees states the right to maintain well regulated militias of its citizens, and that the federal government can’t take away the firearms of those militias.
It’s only relatively recently (2008) that we’ve reinterpreted the amendment to basically forget about the first two clauses and the third command. That’s why the NRA only has the second half adorning their office buildings.
The text:
How I interpret it:
How republicans interpret it:
The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.
Quick question: where else is “the people” interpreted to mean “ostensibly the states, but ultimately the federal government for all practical purposes. Either way, definitely not individual persons.”?
I’ll tell you that as soon as you tell me where else we ignore 50% of a law. ;)
I think you misunderstand. I’m not trying to stan the 2A. I’m trying to point out that the US is not at all unique when it comes to private access to the sort of gun that Maryland has banned.
Ok, I’m gonna need a citation for that one. I mean, sure, we’re not “unique” in that regard, but it’s fairly uncommon.
Overview of gun laws by nation
Even I am surprised by how many nations have a legal pathway to semiauto ownership. Also for the record, I think that firearm licensing programs are generally a good idea, and driver licensing programs provide a good model for them to follow. But few US states have them.
So the majority of countries either don’t allow guns at all or don’t allow guns without a permit and a good reason. A few allow guns with a permit and no reason necessary. Three (that I could see) don’t require a permit. I mean, yeah. Strict gun laws work, and a lack of gun laws leads to gun violence. Is there any more proof you need?
And all the countries that allow guns suffer from frequent mass shootings, right? Because access to guns is the cause of social violence.
The easier it is to access guns, the more mass shootings there appear to be in the country, yes. Access to guns is the cause of gun violence. No one has claimed that access to guns is the cause of all violence.
If someone’s goal is to kill 20 kids, having access to a gun makes that goal substantially easier to accomplish.
Well go on, show me the violent crime stats by country so that we can compare to semiauto long gun regs. It would also be nice if we could see before and after stats but I know that’s a tall ask and I’m not trying to be a sealion. Let’s just see violent crime stats, maybe just homicides per 1 million or similar. It sounds like you have access to this data.
Don’t show me only the mass shooting stats. We’re not trying to reduce mass shootings, we’re trying to reduce violence. We’re not trying to avoid having to see guns, we’re trying to avoid having to see bloodshed. I know, I know. You want to point out that mass shootings are a vector of violence that can be remedied by removing guns. This is true, taking away rights does mute a lot of issues related to irresponsible management of those rights. But you’ve been brushing off my suggestions that there are more just and fair ways to address that vector for this entire conversation. So let’s table that specific response of yours for now, and let’s just see the violence stats before moving on.