Continuing with our theme of Politics, our next topic will be Guns. Bill Ramsey has volunteered to lead the discussion. Is there some way to balance Second Amendment rights with public safety? Is the NRA too powerful? Was the new Maryland gun law proper? Our group should be able to answer these questions, and more, in just 90 minutes.
To get the conversation started here is a video of gun debate, which is actually civilized:
Sam Harris and Cory Booker Debate Gun Control on Real Time
------- Update 4/16/14 -------
In anticipation for the upcoming challenges to the new Maryland gun law, here are some relevant court cases:
------- Update 4/16/14 -------
In anticipation for the upcoming challenges to the new Maryland gun law, here are some relevant court cases:
This is a list of all bills introduced in Annapolis this year that relate to guns in any way. The vast majority of these bills were either left to die with a vote in committee or given an unfavorable report (killing the bill) by a committee. It's usually what happens with gun bills in the Maryland legislature. The House and Senate committees that deal with gun legislation each try to a public hearing on as many of them as possible in a single day. Many angry gun lovers show up to testify in favor of bills that would gut the effect of the existing regulations or to oppose any bill that they see as a threat to their gun arsenal. Fortunately, there are metal detector at the doors in the state legislative complex. Never am I so happy about that as when there is a hearing concerning guns. Whenever I testify in favor of gun control I never provide my full address. This year, a handful of minor bills (one of which extended the statute of limitations on prosecution for a serious crime committed with a gun to the same time period that already exists for the particular crime itself) were enacted into law.
ReplyDeletehttp://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?id=guns&stab=01&pid=narrowsubjpage&tab=subject3&ys=2014RS
Correction: "left to die without a vote"
DeleteThe Maryland legislator passed many of the common sense gun control laws that failed to pass at the Federal level. Here is a summary of the Maryland laws:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Maryland
Of the MD laws, the requirement to fingerprint gun purchasers would help limit illegal straw purchases in the secondary market, as referred to by Cory Booker in the video above.
DeleteTwo bills, HB 998 and SB647,which threatened to attack freedom of speech in MD, provided for punishment of any educational institution which supported the American Studies Association decision to boycott any government policies which interfered with students being able to take advantage of educational opportunities outside their immediate environment. Since the ASA (and others) boycott appeared to target primarily Israel, there was much objection to the ASA boycott in the MD legislature, spearheaded by Del. Kramer. Similar bills were defeated in NY and other states, as was eventually the MD bill, (primarily with the leadership of the Jewish Voice for Peace), but not until being accused of its being anti-Semitic, and then watered down to racist. Dory
ReplyDeleteSam Harris is mistaken when he says that Newtown would have been the same if a shotgun and a Glock were used instead of an AR15. It does matter if the number of victims are limited. How much worse the Columbia Mall shooting would have been if an AR15 was used?
ReplyDeleteI'm inclined to side with Sam Harris. The Mall shooting stopped when the killer put the gun in his mouth, whether it was a shotgun or AR15. Had he continued shooting with whatever weapon the death toll would likely have been much greater. States with tougher gun laws have higher homicide rates than States with fewer restrictions on gun ownership.
ReplyDeleteThe Columbia shooter was on a suicide mission. He only had a fixed amount of time to do damage. He would have done more damage with an AR15. If the AR15 is not a more effective weapon than a shotgun then why pay more for it.
DeleteThere was also incident in PA of a mass stabbing. No one died. It does matter that the lethality of weapons are limited.
Here is a study that says states with tougher gun laws have lower rates of gun violence: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/07/gun-violence-study-chicago/1969227/
DeleteHere is a study that says that states with tougher gun laws has higher amount of gun violence: http://www.examiner.com/article/exclusive-states-with-toughest-gun-laws-have-triple-the-amount-of-gun-deaths
Is this a contradiction? No. States with tougher guns laws tend to have larger populations, so they can have a higher amount of violence but at a lower rate.
I suggest googling or searching for "states with most gun deaths per capita"
ReplyDelete"Rate" means per capita.
DeleteI have difficulty with the term 'suicide mission'. Is it possible the mission had some unknown rationale and the perpetrator committed suicide rather than face the consequences? My thinking was that any weapon can inflict fatal results in proportion to the time available to use it.
ReplyDeleteHere is testimony by Mark Kelly about the Tucson shooting, using automatic weapons and high capacity magazines now illegal in Maryland.
Deletehttp://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/mark-kelly-makes-case-high-capacity-gun-magazines-18356232
It seems that the only one who can challenge the NRA is Bloomberg:
ReplyDeleteBloomberg Plans a $50 Million Challenge to the N.R.A.