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A comment on Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015). Parent comment

Re:Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of Ameri... by gruez on Wednesday May 25, 2022 @10:50PM (#31513799)
> Why should it be a right that we are bound to as modern citizens? I didn't sign off on the 2nd amendment, it was signed off on 250 years ago by a small group of pre-modern colonial elites. It originally was considered useful because colonists and local militias needed to be able to defend themselves from the British, and to not lose their means to hunt or protect themselves before police.

Did you sign up for the 1st amendment? Maybe next time we're facing a crisis of "facts" (ie. during covid), we should be able to repeal free speech by simple majority? After all, with electronic communications and deep fakes, fake news is much more dangerous now than to the colonists 250 years ago.

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Re:Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of Ameri... by shepherdjerred on Thursday May 26, 2022 @12:34AM (#31514601)
> Maybe next time we're facing a crisis of "facts" (ie. during covid), we should be able to repeal free speech by simple majority?

> "in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants, in saying all that was said in the circular, would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

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Re:Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of Ameri... by paulryanrogers on Wednesday May 25, 2022 @11:31PM (#31514139)
2A says militias were the reason for guns. Now we have the national guard. Private gun ownership is much less useful than it once was. England is doing reasonably well without them. Worth a try here IMO.
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Re:Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of Ameri... by remarkEon on Thursday May 26, 2022 @12:07AM (#31514390)
If you go back and read what the people who wrote that amendment said, they note repeatedly that it was an individual right unbounded to membership in a militia, which, bizarrely, has been conflated today with being in the National Guard - a state run organization.
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Re:Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of Ameri... by paulryanrogers on Thursday May 26, 2022 @08:48AM (#31517654)
Citation?

Even if accurate for all the amendment signers consider the world they lived in compared to ours. I can see private gun ownership having more utility in 1800 than today. And considering the cost in lives, injuries, and distress guns don't appear to be with the externalities IMO.

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