The 2A refers to "the people." You refer to "people." what do you mean? What do you imagine the founders meant? — tim wood

American citizens.

In a Massachusetts' court - or in any other court I know of - your opinion wouldn't matter. And, that is exactly the circumstance in which you're obliged to retreat if you can. — tim wood

If someone is breaking into your home at night, where are you supposed to retreat to? The back yard? Under the bed? Regardless, I live in California.

"Good heavens! Read your own citation! I quote from it:
"The latest data show that people use guns for self-defense only rarely. According to a Harvard University analysis of figures from the National Crime Victimization Survey, people defended themselves with a gun in nearly 0.9 percent of crimes from 2007 to 2011."

My citation showed there are 100,000 cases of defensive gun use every year. Do you dispute that? Not every case of defensive gun use is going to be reported as a crime.

"David Hemenway, who led the Harvard research, argues that the risks of owning a gun outweigh the benefits of having one in the rare case where you might need to defend yourself.
"The average person ... has basically no chance in their lifetime ever to use a gun in self-defense," he tells Here & Now's Robin Young. "But ... every day, they have a chance to use the gun inappropriately. They have a chance, they get angry. They get scared.""

If there are 100,000 cases of defensive gun use a year then the claim "has basically no chance in their lifetime ever to use a gun in self-defense" is false or pretty misleading.

"So apparently you assess yourself personally as not so much at risk; yours is a drawer gun. Do you ever practice with it? How do you assess your chances of successfully confronting a house breaker with your gun? That is, your gun by itself could get you or someone else killed who should not be killed if you're not proficient, trained, knowledgeable, and practiced in its use - and never mind what your bullet hits if it misses your target."

I've practiced and am proficient with it. I no longer target shoot. My nearest neighbor's house is hundreds of feet away. The danger to them of a .38 round going through two (or more) walls and hitting them is nil.

There are 400 million+ guns in America. It's easy for criminals to get their hands on one. Law-abiding citizens should have access to guns to counter the threat and that requires gun manufacturers. — RogueAI

Was this copy-and-pasted from the NRA?

I invite you to be the very first to build the bridge that connects the 2A with any modern interpretation of it. — tim wood

This is interesting…

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Scalia's reading of the 2A as guaranteeing a right to guns for self-defense is simply a brutal misreading of the plain English of its 27 words - as well as the intentions of the founders. And one wonders why he did it. — tim wood

And why did the other four go along?

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My invitation to you was for you to make the bridge, not to refer me to a video. — tim wood

Your question was poorly worded. What “bridge”? There is no bridge. What the fuck are you talking about?

And original intent is in itself absurd. — tim wood

No kidding. The Heller decision was awful. As was Bruen. What’s the point?

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I asked because I read you as saying that the 2008 interpretation was finally the correct and original interpretation, which I disagree with. — tim wood

Okay— my wording was ambiguous. It should have read: many people think the 2nd amendment gives everyone the right to a gun, and that this is what it has always meant— but really it was only (re)-interpreted this way in 2008.

Civilians should be limited to revolvers, shotguns or bolt-action rifles, with lengthy prison time for any violators. That is definitely not an NRA position.

Civilians should be limited to revolvers, shotguns or bolt-action rifles, with lengthy prison time for any violators. — RogueAI

Where are you going to find that many prisons and who will run the country when so many workers are in them?

With Trump nearly assassinated last year and now Charlie Kirk killed, anyone care to wager whether Republicans do anything about this problem and then implement the obvious solutions?

I would wager my house that it does nothing whatsoever. So goes the power of the money, lobbying, and propaganda.

My worry is that they will do something about it. Not to fix anything of course but out of some retribution sort of thing maybe blaming the universities themselves instead of the guns. We're gonna be one Reichstag fire away for the next 3 and a half years at least.

Shooting at another school as well: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/10/us/at-least-2-students-shot-denver-area-high-school

The tragedy marks the 47th shooting that took place at a school in the United States so far this year — 24 of which were on college campuses and 23 on K-12 school grounds.

As an outsider to American gun culture, I think it's a shame that so many agree with Charlie Kirk, who once said "I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe."

Well, he died for the second amendment I guess. He also railed against empathy— but after seeing the video, I just can’t help but feel sickened. I can’t cheer it on or laugh at it. It actually upset me. I hope Charlie was wrong and that empathy is alive and well. Including for all the kids killed every week in school shootings. No half staff flags for them though.

Though, his argument for the gun deaths in defense of the second amendment was primarily for "the other side" to die so he and others can continue spreading their hate. The defense of the second amendment by people like Kirk has always been a strategy to legitimize hate speech.

This is what happens when such hate is spread vast and wide. If they argue for polarization and violence, they will get polarization and violence in the end. It's like people don't understand that hateful rhetoric leads to hate.

Did he truly think that what he argued for would lead to a better world? That reducing certain groups of people in society to sub-human levels would lead to a better society?

One doesn't have to cheer or laugh at something like this. It just shows exactly where the hateful rhetoric of the grifting fascist right leads, and it's not towards an open, empathic and safe society.

One doesn't have to cheer or laugh at something like this. It just shows exactly where the hateful rhetoric of the grifting fascist right leads, and it's not towards an open, empathic and safe society. — Christoffer

Agreed.

As an outsider to American gun culture, I think it's a shame that so many agree with Charlie Kirk, who once said "I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe."

Everyone keeps mentioning this statement here and elsewhere, without citation. It’s an odd phenomenon because clearly it is not something that you all remember hearing or reading before his murder, assuming that you never followed his debates and conjured it from memory. I never heard it before but I’ve read it a bunch of times today. Was it passed around on Reddit or Bluesky or something in the wake of his assassination?

I suppose it’s supposed to be a comforting piece of irony or karma for his haters, or an argument for gun-grabbing. The problem is its repetition only serves to undermine the irony. He believed people should have the right to own guns in order protect the rights of themselves and their loved ones, and his murder only proves to justify that statement. There are crazies out there and people who hate you and wish death upon you because they don’t like what you say. These people do not believe in any rights at all. Perhaps you do not believe in such rights nor possess any desire to protect them, or maybe you skilled enough to take out those who would hurt you and your loved ones with homemade nunchucks and kitchen knives, but the statement is not the irony everyone is making it out to be.

I hope the forum takes this as an opportunity for self-reflection.

By unironically labeling people as 'fascists' you're exactly contributing to the political climate in which murder becomes justified.

It's a tried and true tactic of those who want to see radicalized individuals take matters into their own hands.

Unfortunately, it has become commonplace on this "philosophy" forum.

As miniscule as this forum's influence is, many of you have done what little you can to feed this dysfunctional climate further (and the various threads may act as a testament to this). Some of Kirk's blood is, unironically, on your hands as well.

What a laughable pretense that such people take themselves seriously intellectually.

Everyone keeps mentioning this statement here and elsewhere, without citation. It’s an odd phenomenon because clearly it is not something that you all remember hearing or reading before his murder, assuming that you never followed his debates and conjured it from memory. I never heard it before but I’ve read it a bunch of times today. Was it passed around on Reddit or Bluesky or something in the wake of his assassination? — NOS4A2

https://x.com/Ronxyz00/status/1965872119604289791

There are crazies out there and people who hate you and wish death upon you because they don’t like what you say. — NOS4A2

And I’d much prefer it if they don’t have access to guns, even if that means I don’t have access to guns either.

I’m happy with the UK law on gun ownership. It’s not because I don’t believe in rights; it’s because I think that private gun ownership is too dangerous.

it’s because I think that private gun ownership is too dangerous. — Michael

Do you feel you are responsible enough to have a gun? Meaning, you won't just flip out one day into an imaginary "last stand" against "society" and try to kill as many people as possible? Do you, if you have kids, believe you've raised them properly enough not to do the same?

Why don't you trust other people to make the right decisions? It's because you acknowledge you are, at least in one or more ways, superior to the average person. Be it by intellect, by morals, or simply self control. Am I wrong? If so, why? Do you just randomly think people in general are untrustworthy enough to wield any sort of power? Why are men allowed to raise kids then if they're unable to make the right decisions, in your eyes? Why not just give your kid to a monkey and hope for the best? What of governance then? In many ways, that's similar to a man owning a gun.

What about crossbows? Is it the "danger" aspect where one shouldn't be allowed unequal force over another person due to safety concerns? If so, shouldn't we regulate bodybuilders or "taller/stronger than usual" people since they can physically cause large amounts of harm to the "average person" more so than in reverse? You gotta pick a side here mate. One side entails many other things you may not immediately observe or be aware of. Things that might open your eyes to possible hypocrisy. Or perhaps not. But it is possible.

Just curious as to what your mindset is. Thanks.

Why don't you trust other people to make the right decisions? — Outlander

I’ve seen what happens in the USA. It happened in Scotland in 1996, and it was that that brought in gun control here. We haven’t had a school shooting since.

I’ve seen what happens in the USA. It happened in Scotland in 1996, and it was that that brought in gun control here. We haven’t had a school shooting since. — Michael

Okay. A school shooting (a few dozen dead kids) is bad. A war, my friend (a few million dead kids) is worse. There are no excuses or way to sideline or "talk around" that fact. Without a right or means to defend oneself from an oppressive government, the darkest desires which often control people imbued with the mindset to seek power over others, such becomes inevitable. And don't give me that "a rifle cannot defeat a military jet or drone" nonsense. Soldiers and police are people too who want to go home to their families who literally wake up each day knowing they prevent indiscriminate killing of their own countrymen. They're not going to do that and the average low-level enforcement (cops) will be less likely to.risk their lives over a clearly immoral order that would likely end in one or more of their own deaths.

Not to mention, societal collapse. Historically, basically all nations are "roving gangs" temporarily turned civil due to access to resources that belonged to other people. There are no good people left, for the most part. We're literally the worst of humanity, artificially propped up by violence and theft. That's all there is to it. Ticking time bombs waiting to go off. Of no purpose or value but what we delude ourselves into thinking. Meaning, an individual who chooses to live a private life without engaging in (basically forced and compulsory) social membership with strangers because "I don't want to die" (AKA fear) should have a right to reasonably defend himself from a group of marauders, something only possible with a semiautomatic (or higher) firearm. All current institutions and groups were ultimately based and established on the principle of fear. Fear is not solid ground.

I don't know you, but I feel I know enough from your posts to establish you're not a minority or someone who has reason to have means to defend themself over someone who is not. I'm right about that, aren't I? Yes, I often am.

And I’d much prefer it if they don’t have access to guns, even if that means I don’t have access to guns either. — Michael

Sorry to disillusion you about this, but the bad guys will always get weapons while weapons continue to exist.

I’m happy with the UK law on gun ownership. It’s not because I don’t believe in rights; it’s because I think that private gun ownership is too dangerous. — Michael

The UK does seem to be having a lot of machete and knife fights on city streets now though don't they. When I left England almost 50 years ago, this was almost unheard of. But , as I said before, the bad guys will always find weapons to use against the average man in the street.

Can’t call fascists fascists anymore? No, sorry. You talk and act like fascists and extremists, you’ll be identified as such — accurately.

Besides, I don’t see calls for the degenerate in the White House to lessen the rhetoric. When I hear that from the same people, I’ll give it a moment’s thought. Otherwise, it’s dismissed as the typical behavior of hypocrites and partisans.

You talk and act like fascists and extremists, you’ll be identified as such — accurately. — Mikie

If you genuinely believe anything that's happening in the US is remotely "fascist", it is you who is the extremist here.

Despite all of the legitimate criticism one could have of Trump, almost all of what this forum produces on the topic reads like a toddler's temper tantrum.

Get over yourselves already, and stop this childish posturing as 'crusaders against fascism' - it's embarassing, and, as we see with the Kirk assassination, potentially dangerous.

Okay. A school shooting (a few dozen dead kids) is bad. A war, my friend (a few million dead kids) is worse. There are no excuses or way to sideline or "talk around" that fact. Without a right or means to defend oneself from an oppressive government, the darkest desires which often control people imbued with the mindset to seek power over others, such becomes inevitable. And don't give me that "a rifle cannot defeat a military jet or drone" nonsense. Soldiers and police are people too who want to go home to their families who literally wake up each day knowing they prevent indiscriminate killing of their own countrymen. They're not going to do that and the average low-level enforcement (cops) will be less likely to.risk their lives over a clearly immoral order that would likely end in one or more of their own deaths.

Not to mention, societal collapse. Historically, basically all nations are "roving gangs" temporarily turned civil due to access to resources that belonged to other people. There are no good people left, for the most part. We're literally the worst of humanity, artificially propped up by violence and theft. That's all there is to it. Ticking time bombs waiting to go off. Of no purpose or value but what we delude ourselves into thinking. Meaning, an individual who chooses to live a private life without engaging in (basically forced and compulsory) social membership with strangers because "I don't want to die" (AKA fear) should have a right to reasonably defend himself from a group of marauders, something only possible with a semiautomatic (or higher) firearm. All current institutions and groups were ultimately based and established on the principle of fear. Fear is not solid ground. — Outlander

So you think frequent mass shootings at schools is a price worth paying because it's theoretically possible that society will collapse or that the government will become a tyranny and start executing innocent citizens?

I'm more of a realist. The UK has had strong gun control for almost 30 years, and nothing like that has happened. Compared to the USA I'd say we're much safer, have more rights, and actually hold our politicians to account.

But hey, if the zombie apocalypse happens then I'll eat my words (if I'm not already eating someone's flesh).

The UK does seem to be having a lot of machete and knife fights on city streets now though don't they. — Sir2u

Better that than guns.

Sorry to disillusion you about this, but the bad guys will always get weapons while weapons continue to exist. — Sir2u

And yet we haven't had a school shooting since strong gun control has been in place.

Get over yourselves already, and stop this childish posturing as 'crusaders against fascism' - it's embarassing, and, as we see with the Kirk assassination, potentially dangerous. — Tzeentch

Extremely dangerous. Kirk was influential; he could have run for office one day — if he's a "nazi/fascist," it becomes a moral responsibility to remove him like removing a young Hitler. Murder becomes laudable; a sign of moral virtue. To let him be is to be a passive bystander to a potentially new Hitler rising to power.

If you genuinely believe anything that's happening in the US is remotely "fascist", it is you who is the extremist here. — Tzeentch

:scream:

And yet we haven't had a school shooting since strong gun control has been in place. — Michael

Keep your fingers crossed.