If the US government can keep making amendments to the constitution, how come they never touch the gun rights?

Question

They made a big effort to take away individual rights and liberties with the Patriot Act (do many Americans actually know what that thing is about? Apparently most of the politicians who voted for it didn't), so with so much gun crime how come they never do anything sensible, like take away people's right to bear firearms? I may be missing something here, help me out people.

It's true, I don't know a lot about American laws, the constitution, and the political nuances. What I would say, however, is how easy it seems for people to get guns legally, and how sad it is when a kid shoots their parents' gun accidentally as has happened very recently. What price do you put on a law? Ten children's lives? One child's life? Criminals will always break the law, it is irrelevant to them, but if they think that someone they want to rob will have a gun then they will surely want to take a bigger gun and thus do more harm. Simple logic.

Personally I think it may be too late for America, the NRA is too big and criminals already have their guns. All one can do is restrict the sale of ammunition and make it extremely expensive to deter casual criminals.

Answer 1

I agree - the firearms part of the constitution is incredibly outdated, yet never gets touched. Why? Because the NRA lobbyists contribute to political campaigns.

Answer 2

First, I have read the Patriot Act. You lose nothing in the Patriot Act, a law voted for by both parties with representatives elected by the People.

Think about this, crimes are committed by criminals who ignore the law. Passing a law to take away guns only removes the guns from law abiding citizens. Seems counter productive to me.

Second, it is a fact that where citizens don't have guns, criminals do. Gun crime rises when the people are unarmed. It has been proven time and again that Police can't respond in a timely manner to many crimes, and I want the ability to defend myself. Personally, I've been shot at by gang members in Long Beach tagging my place of business. The 3 minutes it took for the police to respond was fast, but might not be fast enough.

How many crimes are deterred by an armed homeowner?

Why didn't Hitler attack Switzerland in WWII, even though he needed the gold they had? Too many people (almost all of them) with guns.....

The NRA is a lobby with power because many people belong to the NRA. If there were no members, they would have no power or money. The represent a large number of votes. The NRA also provides excellent services and training....like How Not To Be A Victim, Eddie Eagle, Hunter Saftey Courses, Firearms Instructor Training for Law Enforcement, etc.

Finally, to ammend the Constitution takes 2/3 of both Houses of Congress and 3/4 of all the States.....Not an easy task.

I don't mean to sound rude, but what it seems you are missing is a basic knowledge of our laws, history, the NRA, and Civics. Keep an open mind (they don't work when closed), read a book by John Lott, go to a shooting competition, etc.

Answer 3

Because of all the amendments the first 10,The Bill of Rights, are considered by even the most power hungry politicians as untouchable. The Bill of Rights were considered as enumeration of the essential liberties necessary to a free society. There have been many limitations on those rights by statute. A better way to limit gun crime is to enforce the 20,000+ gun laws on the books and put the criminals in jail.

While I don't like the Patriot Act it doesn't end rights it limits them and the Supreme Court is slowly weeding out the ones which are un-constitutional.

Answer 4

Politically, the right to own a firearm in the US is a sacred cow. As an example, in my state, roughly 40% of all households have at least one firearm, and the average number of firearms per household statewide is nearly 4 per. (In case you're wondering, many gun owners are also collectors.) Of the two major political parties, one is nominally pro-gun control, and the other is staunchly opposed to it on this issue. So, to be elected as a member of the pro-gun rights party, it is necessary to both claim to be pro-gun rights and to back that up with floor votes in order to be re-elected.

And the Patriot Act wasn't about taking away individual rights, although you are correct in observing that this was the eventual effect of that legislation. Apparently, people from both parties were willing to trade essential liberty for a little security. I fear they may rue their choice someday.

Finally, many studies have shown that gun control is far from as effective a brake on crime as is commonly believed. Paradoxically, the areas with the most draconic gun laws often lead the lists in crime rates. It just isn't all as simple as many people would like to believe.

Answer 5

I consider this. Why could desire to an upstanding citizen be barred from handling weapons while criminals gets their arms on one inspite of the regulation? I plan on doing a splash entertainment taking pictures as quickly as I grow previous (if human beings can stress at severe speeds in a controlled environment for relaxing, i'm going to be on the selection, thank you), and that i'm no longer attempting to earnings that i will cope with quite a few a lot of risky equipment on a street with countless individuals in all kinds of climate yet no longer hearth projectiles at a paper purpose from a handheld piece of kit.

Answer 6

In cases like this, the power is taken away from the People. That is wrong in any country, the constitution of the USA was written by the newly formed America`s.
The people of America should have a say in what happens to their country, good or bad!
But unfortunately, like in the UK, the people`s word means F**K ALL to the basterds in power.

Answer 7

gun rights are how the people still keep the government in check. the minute the government disarms the people, there's going to be great injustices soon to follow. look at San Francisco, guns are banned there. but criminals that use guns are on a rise and don't care what the laws are anyway.

Answer 8

There are essentially two ways spelled out in the Constitution for how to propose an amendment. One has never been used.
The first method is for a bill to pass both houses of the legislature, by a two-thirds majority in each. Once the bill has passed both houses, it goes on to the states. This is the route taken by all current amendments.
The second method prescribed is for a Constitutional Convention to be called by two-thirds of the legislatures of the States, and for that Convention to propose one or more amendments. These amendments are then sent to the states to be approved by three-fourths of the legislatures or conventions. This route has never been taken, and there is discussion in political science circles about just how such a convention would be convened, and what kind of changes it would bring about.

So as it stands right now, you need both houses of the legislature to pass a bill by a 2/3 majority, then it goes to the states and ¾ of the states must agree, notice that neither the president or the Supreme Court has any say in the amendment.

How many of the states would agree to take a right away? It would only take 13 states saying no to kill the amendment. Now it would be must easier for a state to ban guns. The constitution applies to the Federal government; the state can ban guns if it chooses, although most states already have a similar clause in their constitution as far as the right to bear arms goes. And a lot of people would fight hard to keep this right.

But let’s say that you managed to pass this amendment, what make you think the criminals would turn in their guns? We have laws against murder, and we still have murder, we have laws against certain drugs, but I’d be willing to bet I could buy them in most towns in the US. Just because you make something illegal doesn’t mean suddenly everyone is going to follow the law, if that was true we wouldn’t need the police.

Now assuming all the law abiding citizens give up their guns, who will have them? The criminals, who don’t follow the law, and the police and the police don’t have to come to your aide.

As the law stands right now the police are NOT required to come to your aide, the Supreme Court has said so. You only have to look to the LA riots to see that, how many times did we see looting as the police drove by? And you’re assuming the police never violate the law, you just have to look to LA and New York and see that they never violate someone’s rights, sure.

Of course, you could pass a law that would require the police to answer your call for help, and if some criminal breaks into your home and you manage to call the police, and you get to wait for them to help you. Now if you live in a city, 911 shoots for a responses time of about 8 minuets or less. So you and the nice criminal can have fun for say 7 minuets. He’s got a gun, you don’t so if he decides to take your daughter, you can’t stop him, if he decides to shoot you, you can’t stop him, not because you don’t want too, but because the law prevents you from arming yourself. Now if you live in the country it might take an hour or more for the police to come to your aide.

Now I’m going give you the power to pass this amendment, I’ll even go one step further, I’ll give you the power, and with one snap of your fingers you will destroy every gun in the world, every bullet too, just for good measure. I’ll also give you the power to destroy every gun factory in the world. How long would it be before the first gun hit the streets? I could build a single shot gun in about 30 minuets; I’ll take me about an hour or so to make black powder. So I could have a gun on the street in less then three hours, using the stuff around my house. Ban the chemicals I need to make black powder? Fine I’ll just make gun cotton, ban cotton, I’ll use gasoline, ban gasoline I’ll use compressed air. You can’t stop people from making guns. They are just too easy to make, and if I have a good week I could make a machine gun, most of the week would be making bullets, the machine gun would only take a day or two with a decent machine shop, give me a month I can do with the power tools you find in most homes.

If you were to pass this amendment, you would have three classes of people, police with guns who rule your life, criminals you prey on you, and you the victim.

And once you lose the right to bear arm, who is going to stop the government from taking the rest?

EDIT

“Now to what price do you put on a law?....” You really don’t want to get into the “if it save one child’s life it’s worth it” argument. There are many things you do that have cost the lives of more children then guns in the US and in most other countries. Should we restrict those things too?

“… a kid shoots their parents' gun accidentally as has happened very recently.”

Yes accidents happen, but you can say the same for many products that aren’t properly stored, or misused.

“Criminals will always break the law,…” My point exactly, why should a law abiding citizen have to give up anything because of a criminal? Would you ban cars, because criminals use them as getaway cars?

“…but if they think that someone they want to rob will have a gun then they will surely want to take a bigger gun and thus do more harm. Simple logic.”

First the size of a gun really doesn’t matter that much, I can defend myself with a small caliber gun; I personally prefer a shotgun.

You don’t really understand criminals; they want easy prey, someone who can’t defend themselves. If a criminal knows someone is armed, odds are they go for an easier target. Here imagine this you are a criminal, you have two choices, one, a town where everyone has been trained and given a firearm or two a town where it’s forbidden to have a firearm which town do you go to rob, rape, steal? I don’t know what country you’re from, but where I live right now, if I call the police it can take an hour or more for him to show up. He could be on one side of the county dealing with a problem while I’m on the other side of the county. The US isn’t a small country, England has an area of 130,395 km² California has 410,000 km² so what might work in England might not work in the US.

“All one can do is restrict the sale of ammunition and make it extremely expensive to deter casual criminals”

We can’t stop the flood of drugs into the US and you think we could stop the flood ammunition? Criminals don’t care about expense; they would just steal the ammunition they need. Beside I can make ammunition, it not that hard.

Gun control doesn’t work when you take the gun from law abiding people, even Japan, with it low crime rate and some of the tightest gun control laws in the world still has gun violence as seen in the paper recently.

Maybe you want to be prey, I don’t, and I will defend myself, my wife, and children, I hope you can too.

Answer 9

why should they, everyone should have the right to bear arms. good on them just because the British government are *****'s and have taken away our rights to own guns, you probably think that by removing guns from people that gun crime will go away, well guess what its made no difference in the UK since our gun laws were tightened there is more gun crime now then there ever was when people were allowed to own them so figure that one. the yanks have got it right on this one

Answer 10

Despite the fact that they throw around words like "leadership" and "integrity" there isn't a single politician willing to stand up to the NRA. The constitution actually say you have the right to bear arms IN THE SERVICE OF YOUR COUNTRY... something cheerfully overlooked by just about everyone.