Would You Support A Nationwide Handgun Ban?

[RSillsbee]

http://www.topix.net/issue/gun-control

Rather interesting poll at the above link. I'm not sure how scientific it is but they claim that you are only able to vote once.

Currently those supporting a ban are getting trounced at a 10 to 1 margin.

If you can actually demonstrate that a nation wide handgun ban would be any more effective than a nation wide Marijuana ban I'll join you in supporting it.

[X_Digger]

1. Not surprising..

Gallup asked a similar question..

http://www.gallup.com/poll/117361/recent-shootings-gun-control-support-fading.aspx

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

2. No... and neither would the Constitution or SCOTUS support such a ban.

[doc03]

3. Why what would be the point? The only thing preventing

someone from breaking down my door and robbing me now is the fear they may be caught or I may be armed. The chances of them being caught is less likely since our Sheriff is known as Rosco P. Coltrane and it would probably take him at least a half hour to respond anyway.

[RSillsbee]

4. Would any one care to comment on this?

Currently those supporting a ban are getting trounced at a 10 to 1 margin.

According to Brady most Americans support gun control, this poll doesn't seem to bear that out

[old mark]

5. Brady is a fucking liar.Their organization is for-profit and is KNOWN for telling

lies and partial truths and using scare tactics to get money.

Most people here know this - most people in this forum are gun owners, and many, like myself, carry handguns regularly.

mark

[RSillsbee]

28. Please allow me to rephrase my question.

Would anyone care to comment civilly on this?

There are certain gun laws that make sense to me,registration is not one of them. but I do support the Brady background check on new purchases only and I believe that a legal gun owner should be able to carry his gun wherever he/she wishes , subject to the property owner's right to restrict firearms on his property.

[X_Digger]

7. Abstract v Concrete..

Gun law can be a complex subject, considering federal, state, and even local regulation. For that question to have meaning, you have to have a feel for what the average Joe thinks the current regulation looks like, and whether or not that's realistic. Heck, we've got one poster who thinks (or thought) that you could go to a federally licensed gun store in Florida and buy a handgun with no paperwork and no background check.

A general 'Americans support gun control' statement is fine in the abstract- I only know a few loonytarians who are against all gun control. According to gallup and cnn polling, a plurality of Americans support leaving gun control right where it is. So yes, they support gun control.

That does not mean that they support additional imposition of regulation, on balance. Even that doesn't address a very specific case, such as the one you mentioned. I know that the brady bunch likes to use a statement like that to push their authoritarian agenda, but it just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Same with Frank Luntz's push poll he did a while back for MAIG.

[safeinOhio]

9. You are mixing two things up.

I'm not for any ban on handguns, but, I am for reasonable restrictions that allow law abiding citizens to own and carry handguns and also make it more difficult for criminals and the insane to do the same.
I think a poll of NRA members even supported language like that.

[oneshooter]

33. Including registration? n/t

[onehandle]

14. Gun Grab = Gun Control. Nice try. nt

[spin]

22. Handguns are the most popular weapons to carry

and many states allow people to carry concealed or openly. If a large number of Americans favored banning handguns, laws such as "shall issue" concealed carry would have never passed in all these states.

[ensho]

6. I would support a ban

nt

[cleanhippie]

10. And just how would you support it?

How would it be enacted? On what basis? How would you collect the 300+million guns already in the hands of private owners? What is your justification for banning guns?

[ensho]

17. justification - domestic murder by gun

nt

[proteus_lives]

19. You should support a ban on criminals.

:eyes:

[pipoman]

25. Then when the domestic murder numbers don't change by a single

percentage point, what will you ban next?

[cleanhippie]

35. Are you unable to give a coherent answer or deos it need to be a "gun event" first?

[RSillsbee]

29. What would you hope to accomplish by such a ban?

[here_is_to_hope]

8. No....not now, not ever. eom

[sharesunited]

11. Pretend it is 1940

and ask whether black people and white people should be allowed to marry each other.

Guess the result of such a poll.

[spin]

12. Good point ...

Intermarriage between blacks and whites is an example of racism. Gun Control has its roots firmly planted in racism also.

The Racist Roots of Gun Control? The Supreme Court Takes One More Step Towards Striking Down Draconian Gun Control Laws

Posted by Chauncey DeVega at 4:49 pm
June 29, 2010

The Supreme Court has taken one more step in reinforcing the 2nd Amendment and the right of American citizens to keep and bear arms. I may lose my “progressive” bonafides among some of you for this one, but I am happy with the ruling, and hopefully the lower courts will make it possible for the good folks of Chicago to register and own a handgun legally.

***snip***

To my respectable negro bonafides, there is a long history of disarming black folk in this country beginning with the slave codes, through to Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and into the Right-wing law and order reactionary politics which followed the 1960s. I have always felt that just as The Deacons for Defense, the brave brothers who defended their communities against white lynch mobs in the bloody summer of 1919, and even our sister Harriet Tubman understood, there is something special about the power of a respectable negro with a gun.

What say you all? Are the racist roots of gun control coincidental to this conversation? Should gun control laws be strictly enforced as a prophylactic against black on black violence? Or will the street pirates and criminals always find a way to hurt the good guys? Thus, it is only the honest citizen who is most damaged by overly restrictive handgun laws?

Editor and founder of the blog We Are Respectable Negroes which has been featured by the NY Times, the Utne Reader, and The Atlantic Monthly. Writing under a pseudonym, Chauncey DeVega's essays on race, popular culture, and politics have appeared in various books, as well as on such sites as the Washington Post's The Root and Popmatters.
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/06/29/the-racist-roots-of-gun-control-the-supreme-court-takes-one-more-step-towards-striking-down-draconian-gun-control-laws/

[sharesunited]

13. Odd thing to assert when shootings in the black community are epidemic.

[Glassunion]

15. Why is there an uneven balance?

How many of the firearms in the Black community are purchased via legal means vs illegal means? What is the cause of the shootings?

I cannot believe that the availability of firearms is the root cause of the violence.
What causes those in the Black community to shoot each other? Could it be drugs? Could it be gangs(which in turn are fueled by drugs)?

Yes firearms can be used by gang members to further their illicit trade. However, those same firearms are quite effective for people in these same communities to defend their own lives from those gang members who wish them ill.

The problem with banning or prohibiting the sale of firearms, all you are doing is disarming those who never intend harm on anyone. Those who wish to use their firearms for illicit purposes(criminals) will always be armed if they so wish. By nature a criminal does not pay any heed to the law. You cannot un-invent the firearm, and like it or not they will always be available to those who are motivated enough to obtain one.

[spin]

16. Obviously there is a lot of crime in the black community much of it caused by our ...

failed War on Drugs and our inability to educate high school students as well as our failure to create meaningful jobs that can support a family.

But attempts to control crime, especially turf wars between drugs gangs, by banning or greatly restricting firearm ownership puts the honest citizens in these communities at great risk. The criminals will break the law and obtain firearms. Honest citizens will obey the laws and face great difficulty, time and expense obtaining legal weapons (if they can).

For example just who is Otis McDonald the plaintiff in the McDonald v Chicago case where the Supreme Court recently made a landmark decision?

Meet Otis McDonald: The Man Behind the SCOTUS Chicago Gun Case
"I just got the feeling that I'm on my own."
BY Mary Katharine Ham
March 2, 2010 10:50 AM



He's perhaps an unlikely plaintiff in a challenge to Chicago's hand gun ban before the Supreme Court this week, but the 76-year-old South Side Democrat says his right to defend himself isn't about party.

***snip***

McDonald is determined to protect himself against the criminals outside his door:

He came to Chicago from Louisiana when he was 17, as part of the Great Migration of blacks. He worked his way up from a janitor to a maintenance engineer, a good job that allowed him and his wife to buy a house on the city's far South Side in 1972, where they raised their family.

In recent years, McDonald, now a grandfather, has watched the neighborhood deteriorate, the quiet nights he once enjoyed replaced by the sound of gunfire, drunken fights and shattering liquor bottles.

Three times, he says, his house has been broken into — once the front door was wide open and the burglars still out front when his wife and daughter came home from church. A few years ago, he called police to report gunfire, only to be confronted by a man who told him he'd heard about that call and threatened to kill him.

"I just got the feeling that I'm on my own," said McDonald. "The fact is that so many people my age have worked hard all their life, getting a nice place for themselves to live in ... and having one (handgun) would make us feel a lot more comfortable."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/meet-otis-mcdonald-man-behind-scotus-chicago-gun-case

[benEzra]

34. And since the lawful gun ownership rate in the black community is much lower...

than it is for Americans of Asian or European descent, it is obviously not lawful gun ownership that is driving murder rates in the black community, is it?

What *is* driving those murder rates, IMO, is Prohibition---just like it did in other communities in the 1920's. And the social breakdown and institutional corruption that Prohibition fosters makes it a vicious cycle.

[proteus_lives]

20. Funny, coming from you.

Given how you support racist gun control.

[slackmaster]

27. You're attempting to equate removing an infringement on rights with creating one

:crazy:

[RSillsbee]

30. I don't see the similarity

Between an inanimate object and two consenting adults (any two consenting adults BTW) who wish to get married

[benEzra]

18. No. (n/t)

[proteus_lives]

21. Hell no.

[SteveM]

23. No.

[Glassunion]

24. Yes

But only a ban for certain felons, domestic abusers, those with certain mental illnesses and those addicted to narcotics and those under 18.

[RSillsbee]

31. IOW you wouldn't change what we have now?

[Glassunion]

32. There are those

who think that those of us who are "against" gun control, must think that we want "everyone" to have a firearm. It is a straw-man that I have seen built here many many times. I am for reasonable gun "control(for lack of a better word)" that does not infringe on ANY of our civil, natural or inherent rights. I am most strongly against those that eliminate any due process.

[slackmaster]

26. Depends on what nation

Not MY nation.