I do wonder. If the second ammendment is what Richard Bork says it is, then what part of the constution would allow government to regulate gun ownership at all?

In the US, all rights that have not explicitly been transferred by a constitution to the state, remain with the individual. (Similarly all rights not explicitly transferred by the federal constitution to the federal government remain with the states.)

The way I read the second amendment is that it allows government to regulate ownership of weapons so that it is guaranteed that free citizens can still form a "well regulated" (means "well equipped" in 1800 English) militia.

But if as you say the second amendment merely talks about states' rights, it wouldn't affect individuals at all and ownership of all types of weapons would be legal because there would be nothing in the constitution granting the government any power to interfere with individual weapon ownership.

For example, nuclear weapons are not necessary to form a militia and hence government can prohibit ownership of those. But hand guns are certainly militia weapons.

Compare this to Europe where many more die per year in wars. Perhaps European countries shouldn't be allowed to have armies.

OTOH American gun ownership seems to be pretty safe. The number you quote is less of a tenth of the average number of deaths per year caused by European wars over the last 100 years.

People like Bahu think just taking guns away from legal citizens will just make theses numbers go away.  Do you think that banning guns from lawful citizens will stop the criminals (ya know people who break the law) from obtaining guns?

How many lives are saved by doctors? How many lives are saved by guns?

Is the number of lives saved by doctors - (deaths from malpractice - deaths from malpractice in cases where the patient would have died without medical care anyway) greater or smaller than the number of lives saved by guns - (the number of lives taken by guns - the number of lives taken by guns in self defence saving a life at the same time)?

I would guess maybe the doctors are more useful than the guns.

Cars also save lives (doctors could save very few lives without ambulances) and make our lives a lot easier (guns are less of a factor in a good life).

But the point remains. It would be useful to find a way to reduce the number of deaths caused by car accidents than to support gun control, if this is about lives.

However, there are more people driving than people shooting, I hope, and the number of cars used to kill someone is therefor much smaller than the number of guns used to kill someone, considering how many people run around and use the equipment in question. While more people die in car accidents than get shot in Ireland, I still think that while walking home when there are hundreds of people driving cars outside my company's building alone is perfectly safe, I would think twice about walking home when there are hundreds of people shooting guns outside the building. The fact that very few people die due to gun fire would not take away my caution in that situation.

As I said, people use cars for the convenience. Everybody wants to buy a car because they "need it" to get to work and otherwise.

If I lived in a country where guns have the same status as a tool of convenience, I would move.

In which you have not seriously engaged, of course.

Whenever I want to enjoy a little totally-biased, strawman-laden, association-substituted-for-causation, agenda-substituted-for-rational-thought, non-sequitor-substituted-for-logic article, I just scan for a post by Bahu and I'm always rewarded.

I don't mean to pick on you (much), Bahu.  But I'm not the first to point out that there's lies, damned lies and statistics.

I would recommend you read Unintended Consequences by John Ross.  You'd learn a lot (maybe).

Matter of perspective.  If you have a gash in your leg and are suffering from Gangrene, I would agree.  If you are camping in Yellowstone and a grizzly attacks - a doctor is useless.  But a gun sure comes in handy.

As in all things, the tool (doctor or gun) is not the issue - it is the brains behind it.  A gun is more valuable than an incompetent doctor, and an incompetent doctor is more useful than a gun - it all depends upon the circumstances.  Those who wish to ban guns are merely ignorant of what the problem is, and are too stupid to learn.

Well regulated militia has to be interpretted in the context of the original intent of the framers of the document. That statute cannot be made to carry the burden of lax, unregulated, promiscuous, ill defined approach to gguns. In fact there are restrictions on guns. In most public places carrying concealed weapons is unlawful. What is required is a set of rules that firmly establish the parameters of gun ownership. Further, there is no 'positive law" that permits guns to be owned and transported. It is only custom that that given such "rights".

BAHU writes:

 In saying this, it's clear that Bork holds the revisionist view that emerged back in the 60s.

As I read it, the Second Amendment itself refutes what Bork said.

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

So there it is. The law of the land, the Second Amendment itself, protects a private citizen's right to keep and bear arms (guns).

Stephen P. Halbrook has researched and written a book on just this...The Founders' Second Amendment...in it he argues that based on the Founder's statements found in newspapers, debates and letters, the Second Amendment was designed to protect the individual's right to bear arms.

I nvever said it was, so what is the point.

Interesting article and interesting comments but I noticed very little has been said about one particular thing this article failed to comment on. How many of these deaths were done by people who legally purchased a gun? By the same notion how will more regulations bring down these numbers? It's not that I am against making laws stiffer to avoid idiots like the AZ killer getting their hands on guns legally but it should be obvious to anyone with any amount of sense that a criminal will get his/her hands on a weapon regardless of the laws because after all they don't exactly do it the legal way anyways.

I do agree that we need to improve and update our gun regulations, perhaps something more standard as oppose to having 50 plus different twist to the same concept based on individual states. But when you are gonna throw numbers like these around you need to be more specific about who's the one doing the shooting as it is unfair for people who legally purchase guns and only use them either for personal entertainment (such as sports and just because they like guns) or for defense to somehow be included as part of those responsible for the deaths of innocent people due to ignorance, stupidity or mistake of the shooters.

Ditto DrGuys # 18. I'm glad we left you somethning CharlesCS  becasue you raise some very good points to the mix.

Just laws that regulate gun owernship are a good thing and not contrary to the Second Amendment. No problem there.

The second part of your statement goes directly to the crux  of the matter and any amount of common sense is what Liberals who would if they could take away private gun ownership severely lack.

And if we banned guns more people would die of homicide by use of weapons other than a gun.

A figure acquired by adding up too many completely unrelated statistics. I will be addressing them individually.

By "child" do you mean "under 18"? because without a gun those 17 year olds would suicide in another method.

A select few of those are actual children who die in an accident due to parents leaving a gun unsupervised. This is as criminally negligent than parents leaving their child in the car alone (where s/he dies), leaving the child with unsupervised access to cleaning detergents or medicine (which s/he consumes and dies), and so on and so forth. Much more children are saved by their parents using a gun to defend them from an attack by a wild animal or worse, a human monster. 

And more would die without the self defense capability of guns. When armed men break into a house looking for victims, guns for all equalize the chances. Without it, the attackers have the advantage.

Also, note how it is "killed" and not "killed with a gun"... Did you make a typo or are you including all cases where a child or teen is killed regardless of the weapon or if one even existed? (unarmed slaying, car accidents, and animal attacks are all things that result in a child being killed without a weapon or a gun being involved.)

Knives are a weapon too. This is a falsely inflated statistic as it includes all weapon suicides, not just gun suicides. And banning guns will not in any way shape or form decrease suicide quantity, only change their method.

Saving countless others, the police is here to protect you. When an armed criminal is spraying bullets and is shot by the police, it saves lives.

Serious thought is always called for, too bad you haven't done it.

And if someone believes that I have a bridge to sell them.

Finally. You make a (well, more than one) critically wrong assumption. You assume that making guns illegal will prevent criminals from getting guns. They are criminals, they break the law, they will have guns regardless. In countries where guns have been illegal for a long time, only the mafia have guns. Law abiding citizens are left facing guns unarmed and unprotected.

You also seem to utterly fail to understand that guns do not in any way cause violence. Guns have no "mind control beams" or "mind alteration drugs" in them that cause you to become violent. Criminals use guns, and honest citizens use guns, the old use guns, and the young use guns, the healthy and the infirm. Guns act as a great equalizer... If a 20 year old man who is very healthy and athletic attacks a woman half his weight who lacks any form of martial arts training, a gun will let her defend herself. If said man would attack a 90 year old woman living alone with the intent to murder her and loot her home, a gun will let her defend herself.

Guns are actually the true source of all freedom and equality in our society. Modern weapons are absolutely necessary to overcome large numbers of soldiers and training since youth. Longbowmen were taken from their families at age 5 and trained their entire life to shoot an arrow. Knights were trained since they could walk in the art of the sword. Martial arts take a lifetime to master... And all of the above are hugely affected by your gender and athletic conditions... In a conflict with lower tech weapons, only those who have dedicated their entire lives to mastering the slaughter of other humans stood a (reasonable) chance of victory in an altercation. With a gun, minimal training is required and any person regardless of health, age, gender and build can use it for self defense. Both self defense against a criminal,  and self defense against totalitarian government.

Those have been used to successfully defend against lynch mobs. Would you leave a defenseless minority, whether it is jewish, black, or gay to defend themselves against a mob out to lynch them?

And how many of the violent mass murders we see occur with a full auto assault rifle using an extended clip? Practically none.

And what of famous killers like jack the ripper? You don't need a gun to be a serial killer and rack up a large body count.

And what about when trying to act as a militia against an invading force or a despotic government?

Also, the right to own guns HAS been contested and suppressed numerous times and across wide areas of the united states.

In england, an 80 year old man defended himself from two 20 year old robbers by threatening them with a fake replica gun and calling the police. He was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to 2 years in prison for "threatening a person with a gun-like object".

And what of dealing with an eventual attempted coup by a would be dictator?

I am not saying that those who advocate gun control do so because they wish to personally seize power. However, they would leave us defenseless for when someone does attempt to do so. Or an invasion from a foreign power.

You would think that someone of your political disposition will laud such armaments. Have you not heard of the lynchings of african americans by the KKK back in the day? the rounding up of japanese americans for the japanese internment camps? the trail of tears, where native americans were rounded up and forced to march for days into reservations, many of which died in the process? What of the "communist witch hunts" back in the day that democrats warn us against? You Freedom and America haters are always very quick to point out the spotty parts of the USA's past (and invent new ones or embellish older ones with false accounts)... yet suddenly all those things do not exist and could never happen again when the idea of defending yourself from the government comes up.

If one day the government decides I or others need a number tattooed on my arm and a trip to an internment camp because of my race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. I will have the legal right, neigh, an obligation set forth in the Constitution to protect myself and others.

Those things are unlikely today, but there HAVE been coup attempts in many democratic nations, even the united states had its shared of attempted coups. And the united states military might (relative to others) is dwindling. We had wars before, and eventually we might face combat on native soil.

Will the government have the foresight to rearm the populace when it sees that enemies are close to breaching our borders?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

Hitler never did invade switzerland, he invaded every other neutral country in his path but he knew better than to invade a nation where every male was required to own and main a government issued fully automatic handgun and ammunition.

The right to self defense is exactly what is at stake here.

England and Wales have less than 1/6 the population of the US, yet they had 130,000 Knife Attacks per year. Yea, guns are the only thing that kills.  Why not an article on the number of KNIFE ATTACKS (not accidental or suicidal shootings as you clumped all the numbers for the US as) in the "safest" nation on earth?