My uncles were hunters, and each had done it for not only the sport, but also the food that came from it. Even if the area they hunted in didn’t have a rampant deer-explosion problem, as long as the hunting is done in this way for game animals, I am OK with it.@@Does this seem like a stilted way into the story?@@
Were they to get a new rifle now, would they be able to do so without the 2nd Amendment? I think so.
I think the 2nd Amendment is far outdated and no longer needed. I guess you could say that we still live in uncivilized times, so to speak, if having constitutional protection to own a gun is still valid. I mean, we couldn’t be living in a civilized society in America with this amendment, could we?
Every time a school shooting — or two or more — happens, every time police officers or citizens get shot and/or killed, I keep thinking: Why, as a nation, don’t we do more to prevent this?
When I was thinking about all these shootings and deaths, I would think back to my life in Europe and wonder how often something like this happened there. Or in Canada for that matter.
Not very much, with a big stress on the “very.” Funny (figuratively) how shootings in America make for pretty big news elsewhere, especially when we are supposed to be a civilized Western country like them.
Except, we aren’t. Instead, we are an anomaly.
People still believe they need to have a constitutional “right” to a gun. For what?
I can hear the self-defense arguments thundering down. Of course it’s for self-defense, because in your everyday life you never know when someone else is going to have a gun or a knife or whatever and use it for perhaps malicious purposes.
Everyone is the enemy, right? Can’t let your guard down, correct? Because if you do, it’ll be too late — you’ll be stabbed or shot.
But really, how often in your life do you feel you need to pull a gun out and use it? It’s a bit paranoiac to have access to a gun at all times. I guess America is just that dangerous. Everywhere. At all times. Without relent.
But there is also the constitutional “right” itself as well, regardless of whether self-defense is the reason or not. Some even say owning a gun is a human right. Of course it is.
But a question is this: Would we not be able to have all the other rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and those from ensuing case law (e.g., privacy) without having a constitutional “right” to firearms?
I think so.
Will all the killing from guns stop? I doubt it. But, you would certainly have many more peaceful days — and that is a goal a society should strive for.
Look at it this way: People are already forbidden by law from carrying firearms into public schools and libraries, as well as state and federal buildings. Do shootings happen here? Yes, but how many days of peace do you have in those places? Quite a lot.
Rather sad — and pathetic — that America is so crippled from doing anything about this amendment. Perhaps it can’t. Maybe the corporate-funded gun lobby sees too much profit to be lost from abolishing this amendment.
But, how will the University handle guns?
It really could do the same as the other aforementioned public buildings have done — by banning guns from campus properties. This precedent in practice is proof enough that banning guns at the University is a justifiable government interest.
Cry the 2nd Amendment all you want. The government, with the support of the courts, has already succeeded in “limiting your rights” to carry a gun.
Most recently in 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in District of Columbia v. Heller supported “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.”
When the ASUO Senate passed a resolution in January supporting banning firearms on campus, they cited McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) in which the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding “did not cast doubt on such longstanding regulatory measures” as held in Heller, thus concluding that “We repeat those assurances here.”
I agree. I think the University stands a good chance in banning firearms from its campus, and I think it should work to achieve that end.
Some may say, too, that “Guns don’t kill people! People do!” Yes, well … guns make it a whole lot easier.