[clue-talk] Heller

[Angelo Bertolli]

Collins Richey wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 1:43 PM, Nate Duehr <nate at natetech.com> wrote:
>   
>> Jed S. Baer wrote:
>>     
>>> I'm a little surprised that nobody is talking about the Heller ruling.
>>>       
>> Probably 'cause I have no clue what it is.  :-)
>>
>>     
>
> I didn't know the case by name either. Here's my $.02
>
> 1. I don't own a gun and I probably won't ever.
> 2. I support the constitutional right of citizens to bear arms.
> 3. I'm quite happy they overturned the DC law. Hopefully more
> ridiculous laws will go down as well..
> 4. There are extremely few cases where allowing sane citizens to own
> firearms does any harm, and conversely an armed citizenry is a great
> deterrent to crime..
> 5. The ridiculous laws banning firearms have done nothing to diminish
> the number of scumbags who use firearms in violent crimes, and they
> never will.
> 6. I'm not especially fond of the nanny state.
>   

The problem with this logic is that no one is born a "criminal" until 
they commit a crime.  Therefore, to say that there are few cases where 
"sane" citizens do harm with guns is always going to be true:  because 
as soon as they do something, they automatically get put into the other 
category.  So they don't count, right?  Wrong.  My point is best 
described in this case:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

In this case, they found these guys with a bunch of weapons and armor in 
their trunk some days before the incident took place, but because of the 
politicized nature of the whole "right to bear arms" issue and how 
aggressive the NRA is in trying to give people the ability to use any 
kind of armament they want, they couldn't stop these guys.  They 
actually caught them and had to let them go with a slap on the wrist.  
Not even any jail time.

Whereas if you have some weed in your trunk instead, they say "intent to 
distribute" and you're in the slammer.

I'm not advocating a ban on guns, and this has nothing to do with the 
specific case in DC.  I'm just saying that there is a balance.  We don't 
need wild west style laws.  For example, does having armor-piercing 
bullets really make the "average citizen" safer?  Because if you think 
that citizens should be having shootouts with that level of criminal, 
then we already have a societal problem that goes way beyond the issue 
of gun control.

Angelo