After Dropbox finds a child porn collector, a chess club stops his knife attack

"I failed my mission to kill everyone."

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[h4rm0ny]

I'm sure someone worked on producing the header image for this story so no offense is intended, but it's a bit much isn't it? A knife, a bloodstain, a chessboard... It just seems a bit tabloid for Ars. Personal opinion.

 

[h4rm0ny]

AliceWonder[/url]":1d8cjjc3]Changing the constitution isn't about a minority opinion. Reality has shown that you just need the opinion of the supreme court.

The kind of firearms that exist now simply weren't conceived of when the 2nd amendment was written, it is rather silly to believe modern tech should held to literal interpretation of laws written before the modern tech was dreamed of.

Hence why lots of different types of firearms are illegal to own despite the literal "shall not be infringed"

It's the gun nuts that need a grasp on reality.

We have enough problems with the law not keeping up with technology in general, why so bothered when it does? In any other scenario where a clear principle of a law was violated because of some refinement of technology, I presume you would object. Example, government agencies have used the emergence of email as an excuse to do things that they would never be legally allowed to do with posted letters through the US mail system. I could list numerous cases where the legal principle is clear but people or companies have tried to wriggle out of it because the lawmakers didn't anticipate some new technological version of what they were legislating.

The right to bear arms was put in place so that people could defend themselves against the state. The USA had just escaped from colonial rule. There's no violation of the intent of that constitutional right because gun technology is different now from then. Nor is there any real violation of the written terms of it which is that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Arms are weapons - that's what it means. You may not like it, but there's no real argument that arms has some more limited meaning that you prefer.

 

[h4rm0ny]

AliceWonder[/url]":10ul51ty]`The right to bear arms was put in place so that people could defend themselves against the state'

Exactly, but at the time, the benefit did not outweigh the risks.

That has clearly changed, the kind of firearms that now exist can do far far far more damage to innocents than they could back then, and the kind of firearms available to the military now are well beyond the budget of 99% of the population even if they were legal.

The benefit they received from the second amendment simply is no longer obtainable, and the risk with the firearms that can now be obtained is far greater.

This is not so. You are arguing that because the US military has better armaments than most of the populace that there is no parity any longer and that therefore the purpose of the second amendment has been lost.

This is mistaken in three ways. Firstly, there never was parity between any given individual and the state - that much is obvious. It was that collectively an armed populace could oppose the state. Secondly, you say that weapons such as the army has are "well beyond" the budget of 99% of the population. This is also false. If you have the idea that the army is buying some sort of super-guns for its standard troops that are game-changingly above what private citizens could afford, you are mistaken. The DoD will spend billions on the latest plane but infantry are issued regular weaponry. I'm not an expert on guns and don't own one, so someone with more expertise will have to support this if you want to challenge it, but I'm fairly sure that there's no radical shift in deadliness or capability between regular infantry weapons and what is affordable to average adult US citizens (let alone only 1% of them). You toss off a lot of numbers and assertions, but I believe you are mistaken.

Thirdly, and perhaps most significantly, there are the things that the US army has that private citizens almost never have - the helicopters, the tanks, the bazookas and large machine guns. Yet, none of these are an "I Win" button for our hypothetical State vs. The People scenario. Look at Fallujah or Baghdad or any other recent urban conflict between a populace and the US army. An armed populace can and will challenge an occupying force even if they primarily have only regular firearms. The USA has a huge population. Additionally, the USA is a society that fetishizes its armed forces and has a very high proportion of people with military training. Large Population + Active Training. The US army also depends, as do all occupying armies, on a substantial network of support from the home nation; which would be quite precarious in this scenario. So now we have Large Population + Active Training + Enemy Lacking Secure Support Infrastructure. Also, a very high desertion rate / low morale when turned against a home nation.

So our final equation = Large Population + Active Training + Enemy Lacking Secure Support Infrastructure + Enemy With Severe Morale Problems.

You argue that the benefit of the Second Amendment, i.e. an armed populace can oppose the state / revolt / dissuade military occupation, no longer applies because the US army has weapons that "99%" of the population cannot afford. This falls down under examination. The high proportion of gun ownership in the USA would provide the populace with substantial ability to resist state aggression should the state ever be inclined to go down that path. And therefore is a dissuader to the State to do so.

So again, you can dislike it being the case, but you cannot state that "the purpose of the 2nd amendment is no longer obtainable".

You initially argued that the second amendment doesn't cover modern firearms because of their greater power than those at the time the amendment was made. This was false. You're now arguing that the second amendment's purpose is no longer possible. This also is false. Oddly enough, I even disagree with the one thing you said that supposedly justifies guns (that they can be used to shoot a deer), because I'm both a vegetarian and against hunting for purposes other than necessity. So it seems there is no common ground between us even there. Mainly I am refuting your arguments because I see them as logically flawed and because I have never seen a government check its own powers without some pressure or threat brought to bear on it from outside (e.g. the populace). Or at least so seldom that I choose not to rely on it.

 

[h4rm0ny]

AliceWonder[/url]":3ifhqyys]No one should be a gun owner if they are not responsible.

Part of responsibility is understanding the concept of fucking moderation.

Owning a gun capable of killing dozens of people in a few minutes is not moderation.

Aren't you constructing a tautology there? Irresponsible people should not be allowed to own guns, owning a gun that has a high rate of fire shows that you are not responsible. Therefore you should not be allowed to own guns. Catch-22, isn't it? You're actually just stating that nobody should have a high rate of fire weapon - which we already know is your position - but attempting to wrap it up in some circle of self-justifying logic. You assert that someone who owns such a weapon cannot be responsible. But that is not shown.

AliceWonder[/url]":3ifhqyys]
I'm not opposed to gun ownership, but you should not have them, because you do not understand moderation and are therefore not responsible, you having them is a danger to society.

This reads as if you're directing this directly at Natt, telling them that they personally should not be allowed to own a gun and do not understand moderation. Not sure if that's intended, but that's how it comes across.