An editorial from the Sydney Morning Herald:

[babylonsister]

From a friend on FB~

An editorial from the Sydney Morning Herald:

"It is incomprehensible to us, as Australians, that a country so proud and great can allow itself to be savaged again and again by its own citizens. We cannot understand how the long years of senseless murder, the Sandy Hooks and Orlandos and Columbines, have not proved to Americans that the gun is not a precious symbol of freedom, but a deadly cancer on their society.

We point over and over to our own success with gun control in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre, that Australia has not seen a mass shooting since and that we are still a free and open society. We have not bought our security at the price of liberty; we have instead consented to a social contract that states lives are precious, and not to be casually ended by lone madmen. But it is a message that means nothing to those whose ideology is impervious to evidence."

[Scarsdale]

1. Unless and until

politicians are shamed into refusing large million dollar donations to their coffers, this will not end. I think EVERY newspaper in the country needs to print a list of the politicians and the bribes (oops, DONATIONS) they have taken from the gun lobby, to make sure no guns are banned. Rubio already took over $4 MILLION for his war chest. This is how they end up as millionaires, while ignoring the wants and needs of constituents. This SWAMP will never be cleaned until they are shamed into seeing themselves as we see them, greedy, self serving bastards.

[Martin Eden]

2. That was perfectly stated.

K&R

[syringis]

3. We share the same feelings here in Europe

We really do not understand the cult of guns.

We have very strict gun control laws but we are still lands of freedom.

[a la izquierda]

6. I felt more free in Germany and the Netherlands than anywhere else I've bee.

It's one of the reasons i want to move there.

[47of74]

7. Yeah me too.

I would leave tomorrow if I could.

[Raven123]

4. Sadly it will be difficult to vote out the perpetrators of this offense

against common sense and decency until the gerrymandered districts are redrawn to actually represent the voters.

[betsuni]

5. K&R

[dlk]

8. Rational Words of Wisdom Mean Nothing to Those With No Conscience

Our government, from federal down to state and local is filled with elected officials with no conscience. They do not care whether or not our children are butchered in schools and churches. It doesn't matter to them when citizens are brutally murdered in places of worship or a music concert. Time and again they have shown their complete callousness and cynicism at every turn by not only rejecting sensible gun control but by even discouraging the conversation, with "this isn't the time...". They win because, without a conscience, they can do anything, including dismissing and ignoring the bloodbath. Appealing to their better nature is an exercise in futility.

Our only hope is to pay attention and vote these monsters out of office. Not just in the presidential elections but also every state and local election. Otherwise, we are only going to see more of the same.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

9. link to editorial

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/sadly-us-will-not-learn-from-latest-carnage-20171003-gytirg.html

[rickford66]

10. I've walked many overseas streets at night safely.

London, Christchurch, Paris, Taiwan, Australia. Not so here in the good old USA. I personally don't walk in fear, but I am careful.

[world wide wally]

11. Gee, do you think it might have something to do with the NRA?

[spanone]

12. K&R...

[NJCher]

13. I appreciate what this writer is trying to do, but

I don't think this writer understands that Americans as a whole do not support these loose gun laws. In fact, in at least one situation posed to NRA members (assault guns, I think), the members were for more restrictions.

Pure and simple, we are held hostage to this situation by sociopaths in office and a criminal business lobby, the NRA.

That affects the world in more ways than the gun issue: we are, in fact, a huge, violent machine that we claim "polices" the world, but it in fact terrorizes the world.

[BSdetect]

15. The problem includes a poorly worded and outdated constitution re guns

and an electoral system that is woeful.

The so called balance and checks are a joke. A maniac appoints stooges to the supreme court who could then ratify every attack on the press, unions, womens' rights or whatever.

All with a ridiculous notion that corporations are people.

Brainwashed buffoons think they are free because they can build their own armory.

[NJCher]

22. yes, all that, too

We have so many problems my head spins, just thinking of trying to solve them.

Cher

[LanternWaste]

23. Americans, as a whole, did not support anti-smoking campaigns and regulations either.

Americans, as a whole, did not support anti-smoking campaigns and regulations either.

Yet a reduction of smoking from almost 50% of the population down to 15% happened in the span of one generation.

Due in part, directly to the campaigns and regulations.

Despite the pro-tobacco-PACs that consistently told us otherwise, despite that they consistently kept much of congress in their pockets, and despite the grumblings and mumblings of freedoms being taken away (of which, we still sometimes hear the faint, dim echoes when some under-educated half-wit complains about another municipality going smoke-free).

I'm convinced that any problem made by humans can be solved by humans... if the collective will is in place.

[moondust]

14. Did Australia have a 2nd Amendment

constitutionally enabling mass murder and mayhem from the country's beginning? I'm guessing not, that guns were more of an informal hobby there than a constitutionally protected "right," and thus without 200+ years of habituation it was considerably easier for them to stop the madness.

[Nay]

16. No, they did not. It's distressing how many comments on DU and even actual

op-eds in newspapers don't talk about that elephant in the room -- the 2nd Amendment -- and how infernally hard it is to get any meaningful gun control until it is severely amended or repealed. Doing that would take an absolute upheaval in the House and Senate, replacing hundreds of Republicans (and some Democrats) with legislators who are sick of the NRA. Then we could possibly do something meaningful.

And yes, the facts of our culture (NRA $$, worship of the military, hate of gubmint, RW radio/Fox News howling their lies 24/7, and the selfishness endemic in a dog-eat-dog capitalistic economic system) make even discussing guns problematic. It's a problem that probably cannot be solved in the present system as it is.

[moondust]

17. +1

You get it. Amending the Constitution is next to impossible and I don't see it happening anytime soon.

[SunSeeker]

26. All it takes is swapping out one SCOTUS justice. Heller was a 5-4 decision.

Before the 2007 Heller decision, the 2nd Amendment was properly interpreted as a provision for a people's militia. Scalia is the one who created the individual right to own guns, reading it into the 2nd Amendment where there was none. A different justice, making a 5-4 progressive majority, could just as easily write the opinion overturning Heller and go back to the prior, proper interpretation.

[moondust]

28. So when?

2022 at the earliest provided the current "sane" judges hang on until then? (change the WH, change the Senate, allow some judicial nomination and confirmation time after election and inauguration, allow some administrative time to get it all together and make it happen)

[SunSeeker]

29. Could happen as early as 2020, with the election of a Dem and untimely death of a GOP justice. nt

[moondust]

30. Next inauguration is in 2021.

Add up to a year of "administrative/organizational time" to that and you could be looking at late 2021 or early 2022.

[MarcA]

33. First order of business in 2021 Dem Congress and President

Pass strict control law with Provision of No Supreme Court Repeal.
Yes, it can be done.

[llmart]

34. Not with that kind of attitude.

It is not next to impossible. If we keep thinking like that then we'll never get anywhere. Amendments have been added to the Constitution in our history and they can also be amended or done away with if the majority of the people want it.

Never say never. And yes, it may not happen next week or next year or in my lifetime, but my two-year old grandbaby may have a safer country to live in if we start with amending that outdated rule.

[Juliusseizure]

18. The amendment's purpose is to arm militias

Last edited Fri Feb 16, 2018, 09:03 PM - Edit history (5)

I agree the amendment could have been written with greater clarity. But its intent has been deliberately misinterpreted.

Review former Chief Justice Warren Burger's comments on the amendment and the "fraud" perpetuated by the NRA.

The amendment plainly says the right to bear arms is permitted for the purpose of a "well regulated militia."

"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."

It wasn't until 2008 that the majority Republican supreme court somehow interpreted it to give individuals the right to own weapons.

Scalia, the ultimate hack politician in robes who wrote rulings starting with a conclusion and worked his way backwards, said "well regulated militia" was just an example of a purpose, not the sole purpose. That conveniently ignored 200 years of judicial precedent. He did the same with Citizens United.

Thankfully, he also concluded the individual's right to bear arms was limited to arms one could wear on their body, so you can't buy tanks and military aircraft. He pulled that limitation out of his butt too. Its says the right is not to be infringed.

Since Scalia's interpretation is logically inconsistent, it required him to make up a random infringement on a right to bear arms that "shall not be infringed."

You don't need an amendment. You need a Supreme Court to rule correctly.

[link://

|

[moondust]

24. Until the 2nd Amendment is

repealed or amended for disambiguation and 21st Century reality, it will continue to be misinterpreted, distorted, and used as a sledge hammer by the NRA and courts packed with hacks like Scalia.

[yonder]

35. "The amendment's purpose is to arm militias"

That always has been my view as well.

When I find myself arguing the 2nd's intent or Scalia's constitutionalist interpretation with a nutter, I'll just ask why wasn't the 2nd written as only: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"? It would've been simpler, cleaner, less ambiguous, etc., etc. Why did the framers think it was necessary to insert the "a well-regulated militia" qualifier? After some hemming and hawing, kicking the ground and muttering, it usually shuts them up.

Yes, the 2nd could've been written more clearly but its what it is. Scalia and the 2007 Heller majority fucked up. For whatever reason.

[brush]

19. Written when one-shot muskets requiring minutes to reload were the guns the founding fathers...

had in mind, the Second Amendment desperately needs to be amended.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here but I had to say it.

[SunSeeker]

27. The Second Amendment does not even mention the word "gun." nt

[brush]

31. Oh. please. "Arms" meant musket, gun, weapon, firearm...whatever you wanna call it.

[SunSeeker]

32. Nukes are the ultimate "Arms."

Why can't individuals own them if Scalia's interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is true, namely his claim that the 2nd Amendment establishes an individual right to right to bear arms?

[librechik]

20. Yeah, if only we had a representative government instead of an NRA-run corporate oligarchy

Decades ago we could just vote the bastards out. I will be surprised if we are able to pull this out of the fire with our current democracy.

[Thyla]

21. As an Aussie I must concur

I mean we completely understand the issue and the many reasons why it is allowed to continue but seriously guys, I know I'm preaching to the choir here but it has to stop. I know that road is not easy or even a possibility at the moment but we are with you and the families who have lost their children. Keep fighting, chip away at those laws and make that change happen.

If the numbers are right then the majority want reform, there is a platform to run on.

[MrModerate]

25. I lived for years in Australia . . .

And frankly, today, wish I could again.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

36. For reference, the Port Arthur massacre (35 people killed, 23 injured) occurred in 1996.

Although there are still murders and suicides by gun, the numbers have been substantially decreased (about 40%) since the new law was passed (and 600,000 rifles were removed from the system). There have been zero mass shootings.

Basically, this proves the NRA/GOP argument that gun control doesn't work to be what it is -- a lie.

[Collimator]

37. When you consider

that the modern nation of Australia was peopled by transported criminals, it's not really a surprise that their culture isn't steeped in gun-ownership as some sort of
sacred birthright.

Mel Gibson (no personal diatribes about his character, please) once joked that Americans in general were smarter than Australians because our colonies were populated by people who escaped or generally got ahead of British law*, while the Australian colonists were dumb enough to get caught.

I'm not buying that theory, anymore.

* Not completely true, but you get the point.

[colsohlibgal]

38. Perfectly Said

The NRA is nothing but a terrorist organization at this point.

The 2nd Amendment interpretation they hide behind is a complete joke. It was written a long, long time ago in a much different USA. Context gun nuts, context.

How many bullet riddled children must die because the NRA buys off Paul Ryan and other wingnuts?

[SergeStorms]

39. If there is one thing.....

Republicans are, it's "impervious to evidence". That carries over into every aspect of their lives. They're impervious to scientific data. They're impervious to empathy. They're impervious to sympathy. They're impervious to every FACT that doesn't agree with their warped point of view.

How anyone can go through life wearing such all encompassing blinders goes far beyond the pale of reason. Oh, and they're impervious to reason as well.

[mnhtnbb]

40. Interesting background on the 2nd indicates it was to placate Southern states

and their right to continue having State militias which enforced slavery.

But what the founders really had in mind, according to some constitutional-law scholars, was the musket in the hands of a slave owner. That is, these scholars believe the founders enshrined the right to bear arms in the Constitution in part to enforce tyranny, not fight it.

Last week at an American Constitution Society briefing on the Heller case, NAACP Legal Defense Fund president John Payton explained the ugly history behind the gun lobby’s favorite amendment. “That the Second Amendment was the last bulwark against the tyranny of the federal government is false,” he said. Instead, the “well-regulated militias” cited in the Constitution almost certainly referred to state militias that were used to suppress slave insurrections. Payton explained that the founders added the Second Amendment in part to reassure southern states, such as Virginia, that the federal government wouldn’t use its new power to disarm state militias as a backdoor way of abolishing slavery.

This is pretty well-documented history, thanks to the work of Roger Williams School of Law professor Carl T. Bogus. In a 1998 law-review article based on a close analysis of James Madison’s original writings, Bogus explained the South’s obsession with militias during the ratification fights over the Constitution. “The militia remained the principal means of protecting the social order and preserving white control over an enormous black population,” Bogus writes. “Anything that might weaken this system presented the gravest of threats.” He goes on to document how anti-Federalists Patrick Henry and George Mason used the fear of slave rebellions as a way of drumming up opposition to the Constitution and how Madison eventually deployed the promise of the Second Amendment to placate Virginians and win their support for ratification.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/03/whitewashing-second-amendment/

[Skittles]

41. sadder still that is from October