Assault rifles at political rallies. (Page 6)

I respect your opinion in reference to how you handle yourself.  I will handle my own defense my way and not be told by someone else how I should do it.  My family deserves that.  They have a right to life and I won't yield that to chance.

I hope to never use my fire extinguishers either.  In the meantime, whether bad people have knives, bats, plastic bags, or 50 gallon drums of jell-o, there is a chance we may run into a bad person.  There is also a chance you could hit your head on the ground while going 5mph on your bicycle.  I wear a helmet too. 

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Edited by AcesFull 2009-09-09 5:05 PM

I'm not a Constitutional scholar, but I understand there are ways to change the Constitution (even repealing amendments) if enough states vote for the change.

So I have a hypothetical question for all you gun owners out there.  If (and I realize it is a very big if) the 2nd Amendment were legally repealed, would you accept the ruling and turn in your guns?

Might as well ask if people have thought about what to do in case of a dragon attack. 


Edited by ScudRunner 2009-09-09 6:26 PM

If they repealed the first amendment would you accept that? What if the right to unreasonable search and seizure was repealed?

Sounds a lot like Russia, or Germany or Cambodia.. or... shall I go on?  That's NOT what the 2nd amendment says IMO.

LOL, good one (now zombies, that's a different story). 

And to answer the first question. No I would not.  Because by doing so, they would be proving the point as to why I have the right to own a gun in the first place.

I notice neither you nor ScudRunner is willing to answer the question.

As to your hypothetical, yes I would accept it if the first amendment was repealed, or the check against unreasonable search and seizure.  But I would work within the system to try hard to change it back of course, and if I failed, I would either live with it or move to a different country.

Would you do the same if the 2nd amendment were repealed?

I didn't answer since as i stated earlier in the thread, I do not own a gun.

That said, I think if the second amendment was appealed, there could very well be a chunk of states who secede from the union.

False statement Aces.  According to The Times, August 24, 2007 they show that despite the handgun ban in 1997, not only did violent crime rise, firearm crime was also on the rise.

Also, as reported by the BBC on July 12, 2002, Street robberies soared 28% in 2001.  Violent crime went up 11%, murders were up 4%, and rapes up 14%.  So much for that gun ban theory.  FYI, those trends continued in 2004.

According to The Times, January 10, 2001, reporting on statistics supplied by the British Home Office, handgun homicides in England and wales reached an all-time high in 2000, years after a ban on private handgun ownership.  More than 3000 crimes involving handguns were recorded in 99-20000, including 42 homicides, 310 cases of attempted murder, 2,561 robberies and 204 burglaries.

Outside of firearms, the murder rate of Japan is 1 per 100,000 while in the U.S. our murder rate using thing OTHER than firearms is 3.2 per 100,000 so even if we didn't have firearms, we would still be 3 times more dangerous than Japan.  This is where pro-2A folks say, "See.. I'm defending myself with a firearm."  see "Austrian firearms: data require cautious approach, S. McPhedran, S. McPhedran, and J. Baker, The British Journal of Psychiatry, 2007, 191:562

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Edited by AcesFull 2009-09-09 7:30 PM

FYI, the Supreme Court case I referenced earlier was Warren v. District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department,
444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App. 1981).

The Police: No Duty To Protect Individuals

(Warren v. D.C.)

The Court's Decision: Appellants Carolyn Warren, Miriam Douglas, and Joan Taliaferro in No. 79-6, and appellant Wilfred Nichol in No. 79-394 sued the District of Columbia and individual members of the Metropolitan Police Department for negligent failure to provide adequate police services. The respective trial judges held that the police were under no specific legal duty to provide protection to the individual appellants and dismissed the complaints for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Super.Ct.Civ.R. 12(b)(6). However, in a split decision a three-judge division of this court determined that appellants Warren, Taliaferro and Nichol were owed a special duty of care by the police department and reversed the trial court rulings.

The division unanimously concluded that appellant Douglas failed to fit within the class of persons to whom a special duty was owed, and affirmed the lower court's dismissal of her complaint. The court en banc, on petitions for rehearing, vacated the panel's decision. After rearguments, notwithstanding our sympathy for appellants who were the tragic victims of despicable criminal acts, we affirm the judgments of dismissal.

Appeal No. 79-6

The Gruesome Facts of the Case: In the early morning hours of March 16, 1975, appellants Carolyn Warren, Joan Taliaferro, and Miriam Douglas were asleep in their rooming house at 1112 Lamont Street, N.W. Warren and Taliaferro shared a room on the third floor of the house; Douglas shared a room on the second floor with her four-year-old daughter. The women were awakened by the sound of the back door being broken down by two men later identified as Marvin Kent and James Morse. The men entered Douglas' second floor room, where Kent forced Douglas to sodomize him and Morse raped her.

Warren and Taliaferro heard Douglas' screams from the floor below. Warren telephoned the police, told the officer on duty that the house was being burglarized, and requested immediate assistance. The department employee told her to remain quiet and assured her that police assistance would be dispatched promptly.

Warren's call was received at Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters at 6:23 a. m., and was recorded as a burglary in progress. At 6:26 a.m., a call was dispatched to officers on the street as a "Code 2" assignment, although calls of a crime in progress should be given priority and designated as "Code 1." Four police cruisers responded to the broadcast; three to the Lamont Street address and one to another address to investigate a possible suspect.

Meanwhile, Warren and Taliaferro crawled from their window onto an adjoining roof and waited for the police to arrive. While there, they saw one policeman drive through the alley behind their house and proceed to the front of the residence without stopping, leaning out the window, or getting out of the car to check the back entrance of the house. A second officer apparently knocked on the door in front of the residence, but left when he received no answer. The three officers departed the scene at 6:33 a.m., five minutes after they arrived.

Warren and Taliaferro crawled back inside their room. They again heard Douglas' continuing screams; again called the police; told the officer that the intruders had entered the home, and requested immediate assistance. Once again, a police officer assured them that help was on the way. This second call was received at 6:42 a. m. and recorded merely as "investigate the trouble" -- it was never dispatched to any police officers.

Believing the police might be in the house, Warren and Taliaferro called down to Douglas, thereby alerting Kent to their presence. Kent and Morse then forced all three women, at knifepoint, to accompany them to Kent's apartment. For the next fourteen hours the women were held captive, raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon each other, and made to submit to the sexual demands of Kent and Morse.

Appellants' claims of negligence included: the dispatcher's failure to forward the 6:23 a.m. call with the proper degree of urgency; the responding officers' failure to follow standard police investigative procedures, specifically their failure to check the rear entrance and position themselves properly near the doors and windows to ascertain whether there was any activity inside; and the dispatcher's failure to dispatch the 6:42 a. m. call.

Appeal No. 79-394

No Duty to Protect: On April 30, 1978, at approximately 11:30 p.m., appellant Nichol stopped his car for a red light at the intersection of Missouri Avenue and Sixteenth Street, N.W. Unknown occupants in a vehicle directly behind appellant struck his car in the rear several times, and then proceeded to beat appellant about the face and head breaking his jaw.

A Metropolitan Police Department officer arrived at the scene. In response to the officer's direction, appellant's companion ceased any further efforts to obtain identification information of the assailants. When the officer then failed to get the information, leaving Nichol unable to institute legal action against his assailants, Nichol brought a negligence action against the officer, the Metropolitan Police Department and the District of Columbia.

The trial judges correctly dismissed both complaints. In a carefully reasoned Memorandum Opinion, Judge Hannon based his decision in No. 79-6 on "the fundamental principle that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen." See p. 4, infra. The duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large, and, absent a special relationship between the police and an individual, no specific legal duty exists. Holding that no special relationship existed between the police and appellants in No. 79-6, Judge Hannon concluded that no specific legal duty existed. We hold that Judge Hannon was correct and adopt the relevant portions of his opinion. Those portions appear in the following Appendix.[fn1]

Judge Pryor, then of the trial court, ruled likewise in No. 79-394 on the basis of Judge Hannon's opinion. In No. 79-394, a police officer directed Nichol's companion to cease efforts to identify the assailants and thus to break off the violent confrontation. The officer's duty to get that identification was one directly related to his official and general duty to investigate the offenses. His actions and failings were solely related to his duty to the public generally and possessed no additional element necessary to create an overriding special relationship and duty.[fn2]

Here the effort to separate the hostile assailants from the victims -- a necessary part of the on-scene responsibility of the police -- adds nothing to the general duty owed the public and fails to create a relationship which imposes a special legal duty such as that created when there is a course of conduct, special knowledge of possible harm, or the actual use of individuals in the investigation. See Falco v. City of New York, 34 A.D.2d 673, 310 N.Y.S.2d 524 (App. Div. 1970), aff'd, 29 N.Y.2d 918, 329 N.Y.S.2d 97, 279 N.E.2d 854 (1972) (police officer's Page 4 statement to injured motorcyclist that he would obtain name of motorist who struck the motorcycle was a gratuitous promise and did not create a special legal duty); Jackson v. Heyman, 126 N.J. Super. 281, 314 A.2d 82 (Super.Ct.Law Div. 1973) (police officers' investigation of vehicle accident where pedestrian was a minor child did not create a special legal duty to child's parents who were unsuccessful in their attempt to recover damages because police failed to identify drivers of vehicle). We hold that Judge Pryor did not err in dismissing No. 79-394 for failure to state a claim.

In either case, it is easy to condemn the failings of the police. However, the desire for condemnation cannot satisfy the need for a special relationship out of which a duty to specific persons arises. In neither of these cases has a relationship been alleged beyond that found in general police responses to crimes. Civil liability fails as a matter of law.

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Edited by AcesFull 2009-09-09 8:10 PM

Aces, come on... be an adult here.  Respond to the thread.  Stuff like that does nothing to further the conversation.  The ruling Pector posted was in direct reply to a previous post.

How about looking at the crime rates in each of those countries.  How many firearm deaths were committed by criminals vs people with no criminal records.  There are a lot more variables than # of guns and # of deaths.

One big one is the non-homogeneous make up of the USA.  Want to know why (in part) the violence rate is low in say Sweden?  Because they are all white, with blond hair and blue eyes.

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I laughed at Aces pic.  I wish I could have posted a link but despite my searching I can't find a good website with Supreme Court rulings to link.  Someone once pointed that case out to me and I was in stunned.  Like most people, I never thought about the fact that there are very few police to people and the police are simply not liable for providing protection.  There is also another case I could pull up (Gonzales vs. ????) where a woman had a restraining order and called the police but they simply didn't do their jobs and her 3 children were killed.  Despite that, they were not held as liable. 

Aces, in your graph above, there are a few flaws.  First off, I challenge the firearm ownership rate of those in Finland.  From what I have read it is even higher than the U.S.  Also, one frequently debated point is that in the U.S. suicides are commonly incorrectly documented as accidents or some other category which skews the rates.  Again, I would understand if you stated that it is still a firearm death but I don't perceive that as relevant due to the fact that someone who wishes to commit suicide will simply find whatever means.  It's quite high in Japan. (probably because they are not allowed to own firearms) ha!

In addition, firearm ownership in the U.S. has been on the rise steadily over the past few decades and the overall crime rate has been decreasing.  As pointed out earlier, despite the high death rate in the U.S., we lead in "other" death rate causes as well so what is the cause? 

Firstly that's not at all what I said.  But nice of you to twist my words.

Secondly, I said "in part".  Do you actually read the posts before you respond?  There are MANY factors, all of which we can never debate here.

Some facts: The UK is 92% white.  The US is 74% white (and shrinking).  That's quite a difference.



Edited by TriRSquared 2009-09-09 8:23 PM

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Meh

If we're going to be accurate, the Supreme Court never ruled on this at all. The D.C. Court of Appeals made this ruling, the US Supreme Court has made no such ruling.

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I agree it is an oversimplification. But I also wonder whether looking homicide rates declining relative to gun ownership is also an oversimplification.  Specifically, (and I have no data either way, so it is just a question) are SURVIVAL rates relative to GSW improving due to improved medical care.  We know that deaths in combat are significantly decreased due to improved care (but with an increase in disability incurred in combat injuries - due to surviving the injuries).  Does anyone have data showing the rate of injuries, not deaths, due to guns?

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