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Gun Control
- Thread starter WizardofOz
- Start date
I absolutely believe in a speedy trial. It's essential to due process. But that's not our difference. Neither is or was the nature of man.
So here you note my quote, again:
That was our difference. Well, one of them. Your misapprehension of an objective truth regarding the efficacy of law in relation to gun violence was the larger dispute.
First of all you need to set out the scripture in particular. I did. I'm not going to read until I get to what you believe makes your point, wherever it is in that.
That's your job.
I didn't say that the Mosaic law did. I noted scripture laying out punishments of a king and those included imprisonment.
No. Running out of argument against the argument this soon? That's what usually precedes the messenger shtick. In the meantime, try to support the charge. I'll wait.
Gun control is about more than criminal activity. My particular focus for a while now has been aimed at lessening gun violence, which is almost always criminal, and mass murders, also criminal. But gun control laws can also help us avoid accidents through requirements of training and certification and by taking out of circulation guns which, when handled improperly, are much more likely to do greater damage.
I've never advocated for inappropriate punishments for criminal activity. Who does? I mean, besides criminals.
People really aren't and a gun is a cheap, easy way to kill a great many people in short order, depending on the type. The types that make most of horrific mass murders we've seen on campuses and in churches and at concerts could be profoundly impacted by the passage of laws found in every other Western Democracy.
And you're wrong every time you say or write it. Empirically, objectively, demonstrably wrong.
Every other Western Industrial Democracy is a testament to it. Many have the same sorts of criminal justice systems and legal structures. They also have any number of intelligent restrictions on the type of weapons a person can have and what they must demonstrate to do so. And they have dramatically fewer deaths by firearm and lower levels of gun violence, which is the actual point of gun control.
You didn't even try to make the first case, so saying AGAIN doesn't really say anything.
And those are pretty serious symptoms in need of addressing. Sometimes that's a great idea, which is why we take NyQuil, essentially a drug that addresses symptoms so that we can rest and let our body do the real work with less stress upon it. Maybe with fewer elementary schools being shot to pieces we can do a better job of deliberate, calm introspection and fill the public square with considered wisdom.
We have the best criminal justice system in the world, but it's largely overburdened. Partly by drug related prosecutions and sentence structures and partly by the violent acts of people with access to some pretty serious firepower.
We have before us two propositions. The first is that we should address the system of justice and make alterations to it. It seems that your notions will be fairly fundamental and profound ones, unless I misread your nods to how things were done in the OT. You'll have to flesh that out. If so it's just not likely to happen. It hasn't in the history of our nation. If that's the case then it won't exactly be a blueprint for impacting the problem of gun violence, though it could make for spirited discussion on forum boards.
The second proposition is that we pass a few laws that, modeled numerous times outside our country, have significantly impacted gun violence and mass shootings. Many of the countries doing a profoundly better job of safeguarding their citizens have inferior or similar systems to begin with. But they have smarter gun laws.
On YouTube videos, as a rule I don't worry with them. If I want to have an argument with someone else I'll have it with them and in a position where they can answer and respond. If you think there's a point in any source make it and if the point seems interesting enough I'll have a look at the material. Otherwise it's just an invitation for me to spend time on something I'll as likely end up breaking into parts in difference.
On repeating unsupported charges, like moving goalposts, it's only a flag without a country until you establish the borders.
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Way ahead of you...
And again, not a point of disagreement here. I don't know anyone advocating a slow trial process, but when I see it I'll let you and Judge be the first to know and join me in a big "Hoo-ha!"
lain:Rightly has apparently taken the reposting the last thing I answered in lieu of responding.
Why is anyone's guess.
Ask Mr. Religion
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I suspect my inquiry was lost in the back and forth flurries herein, save for CM's response, so I will just bump it just this one time:
http://theologyonline.com/showthread.php?126917-Gun-Control&p=5243161#post5243161
AMR
http://theologyonline.com/showthread.php?126917-Gun-Control&p=5243161#post5243161
AMR
And again, not a point of disagreement here. I don't know anyone advocating a slow trial process, but when I see it I'll let you and Judge be the first to know and join me in a big "Hoo-ha!"
Rightly has apparently taken the reposting the last thing I answered in lieu of responding.
Why is anyone's guess.
Perhaps it's that I was showing Danoh that I had already brought up that verse, which was the only thing he had posted.
You reposted everything that had been met with rebuttal, not just the verse.
So what?
Given the nature of governments prior and our own principle reason for revolution I'm sure the consideration must have been infused in the understanding/thinking of the Founders. More, as I wrote to another poster here, a large part of the nation used firearms for everything from procuring a livelihood to feeding family. Weapons were an indispensable fact of life. But among considerations I believe the most pragmatic and self-interested one took precedence in raising a public army for the common defense. Once you had that in place the rest and any other consideration was superfluous.
I'm about to go to lunch with family, but I'd like to unpack some of that later. Solid questions.
In light of our standing army and the consequences of possession and ready access among the citizenry constituting what I believe is a clear and present danger I'd agree. Or, I think they meant for us to possess the weapons of a sort of warfare, the sort we waged for independence. I believe that we have standards relating to posed dangers of particular expressions of right that are meant to check the inherent dangers of unforseen consequences. I believe we are experiencing those unforseen consequences presently.
genuineoriginal
New member
No, not every man was a member of the militia of their particular State when the Second Amendment was written.
However, when the Second Amendment was written, the militia was assumed to include every able-bodied man of at least 17 and under 45 years of age.
According to the Constitution, the Militia was to be used for suppressing Insurrections and repelling Invasions.
Assuming that this will be done by every able-bodied man of at least 17 and under 45 years of age instead of a standing army, what "arms" are necessary in our time for suppressing Insurrections and repelling Invasions?
Anyone with a shred of common sense would have to admit that this would include grenades, fully automatic assault rifles, heavy artillery, and more.
Congress is supposed to regulate the Militia, including determining how the Militia will be armed (Article 1 Section 8 Clause 16) and Congress is also restricted from infringing upon the right to bear the "arms" necessary to form a well regulated Militia (Second Amendment).
Since the writers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights believed that the Militia made up the majority of the Armies of the United States of America, this equates to duty of Congress to ensure that every able-bodied man of at least 17 and under 45 years of age would be able to own and use any and all of the weapons that would be used by the Armies of the United States of America.
Common sense would dictate that Congress would restrict the right to bear weapons of mass destruction, but any weapon that does not fall into that classification should not be restricted.
Of course, this presupposes that each State sets up the officers and training programs for the Militia of their particular State (Article 1 Section 8 Clause 16) to ensure that the weapons are in the hands of able-bodied individuals of sound mind that are trained in the "right attitude necessary to own a firearm, the 3 primary rules of gun safety, proper gun handling, firearm and ammunition storage and cleaning, and the fundamentals of good marksmanship." (cite)
Having untrained individuals running around with whatever weapon they wanted to have was not the intent of the Militia clauses in the Constitution and the Second Amendment.
Ordinary citizens like yourself would be too old to be in the Militia. :chuckle:
For the ordinary citizens that would be eligible for the Militia, most of the ones living today believe in rights and reject duties.
At the time the Constitution was written, everyone eligible for the Militia was presumed to have the duty to be a part of the Militia in order to protect the freedoms of all the citizens of the United States.
Nobody that rejects the duties that come from being a citizen of the United States should have the rights that come with that citizenship.
You have a duty to obey the law. You have the right to live as you please within it.
The militia is done now. We have a standing army, a thing we lacked when the Founders wrote it and the protection of weapons both necessary to preserve the peace and essential to a nation's livelihood into existence. Any number of founding thoughts have required our attention and alteration over the course of time, from slavery to the place of women within the legal framework. The original reasoning and the changing nature of the carnage modern weapons bring with them should have any reasonable person reconsidering the line of what is and isn't within the nation's interest when it comes to gun laws.
Heard an advertisement today for a candidate for office. One of the things said by the spokesman caught my particular attention. He said, "X is pro-life and pro-NRA!"
I no longer believe those two statements are compatible.
genuineoriginal
New member
The writers of the Constitution were well aware of other countries that had standing armies, such as Great Britain. They chose to vest the duty to protect the newly independent States in the common citizen instead of in a standing army controlled by the government. This was the right choice.
The main reason to prevent the common people from owning military grade weapons is to prevent them from rising up against a tyrannical government. It is not in the nation's interest to restrict weapons, it is in the government's interest. The United States of America was founded as a Federation of States with a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. This is not what we now have, so this government that is no longer of the people, by the people, and for the people must act against the people by infringing on the right to bear arms along with all other rights that a free people have that threaten a tyrannical government.
It was the only choice they had at the time, being more a loose confederation than the entity we have today, especially since the Civil War. But that reality is a historical footnote, as we have a stronger union and a standing armed forces.
That's just complete nonsense, gen. The main reason to keep machine guns out of easy reach of anyone with enough scratch is the tendency of enough untethered people to gain that access.
If you think that AR-15 is going to give you a shot at standing against our military, should it come to that in your mind, you're already one of those people, because you're simply not thinking rationally.
Said no one attending the Las Vegas concert, or whose children attended Sandy Hook, and on and on.
Sure. And a lot of great ideas went into that founding, along with a few pragmatic concessions and hypocritical blind eyes being turned. Hopefully, we'll continue to do service to the spirit of the best of that vision and get rid of deadwood that restrains us, as slavery and the sad legal rights of women did once. As abortion does today, in my opinion. Gun laws are overdue for serious and substantive address.
Several things I want to address here. Pardon me if I repeat myself.
First off, I'd like to correct what I said, as I overstated my case here.
God did not expressly forbid prison as a form of punishment. But that does not mean He authorized it, and He made it clear that it was never to be used as such though His providing appropriate punishments for every crime in the Law.
The only three forms of punishment (and it's a sin to do more or to do less than what God says to do) that God authorized are restitution, corporal punishment, and execution.
And this is what the goal should be, to reduce crime to the point where it's for all intents and purposes nonexistent. The proper goal of a justice system is to render itself unnecessary. The system we have today does not have that goal, nor does it render itself unnecessary.
You say in one of your posts (which, iirc, I have quoted here) that we have the best justice system in the world. We don't. If we were to judge the quality of all justice systems by the amount of crime that exists in the nation the system belongs to, we have possibly the absolute worst system possible.
In addition to Ecclesiastes 8:11, see also Deuteronomy 17:12-13:
"12 Now the man who acts presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall put away the evil from Israel. 13 And all the people shall hear and fear, and no longer act presumptuously."
Again, I'd like to point out that this is a letter from the Persian king to Ezra, and not from God to Ezra. It reinforces what I said before that only wicked nations use imprisonment as a form of punishment. Persia was no exception.
When matters came up that the people of Israel didn't know how to handle concerning punishments for certain crimes, EVERY SINGLE TIME that they imprison the criminal, they are ALWAYS going to their current earthly leader to learn what God says about what the punishment should be, and then they carry out that punishment, and that's it, they don't leave the criminal to rot in the prison. Even when Israel was wicked, they still never imprisoned anyone as punishment.
Here are the few times that it is mentioned that Israel held captive the criminals temporarily until punishment for the crime could be meted out:
"11 And the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the name of the Lord and cursed; and so they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.) 12 Then they put him in custody, that [c]the mind of the Lord might be shown to them.
13 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 14 “Take outside the camp him who has cursed; then let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him." (Leviticus 24:11-14)
"32 Now while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. 33 And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron, and to all the congregation. 34 They put him under guard, because it had not been explained what should be done to him.
35 Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.” 36 So, as the Lord commanded Moses, all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones, and he died." (Numbers 15:32-36)
"7 “If a man delivers to his neighbor money or articles to keep, and it is stolen out of the man’s house, if the thief is found, he shall pay double. 8 If the thief is not found, then the master of the house shall be brought to the judges to see whether he has put his hand into his neighbor’s goods." (Exodus 22:7-8)
Just because man is not perfect does NOT mean that we shouldn't strive for righteousness.
Making it harder to sin just means that the criminals will try harder to sin.
And most will succeed.
The answer IS NOT "how do we make it so that people can't commit crime," it's "how do we make it so that people WON'T commit crime."
The former is impossible. The latter is what we call "deterrent."
This is why I said you were moving the goalposts.
I never said that the law will produce perfection, I said "If America (or any nation) were to return to Biblical standards of criminal justice, there will not be a crime epidemic," and, "If America (or any nation) were to return to Biblical standards of criminal justice, there would, overnight, be an almost 100% drop in crime."
You can't eliminate crime completely, but you can make it so that most would-be criminals fear getting caught and punished, making them rethink their desire to commit a crime.
Therefore the goal should not be to make it impossible to be a criminal, but to make it undesirable to be one.
This verse tells us today here in America that the reason we have such high crime rates is that punishment is not executed swiftly. Again, if we were to return to retribution, corporal punishment, and execution for crimes, then we would see a MAJOR drop in crime, including gun crimes.
I really do recommend that you sit down and watch this. He addresses almost exactly your argument.
Yet here in America, we DON'T have a speedy trial. You go to any court in any city, and I guarantee you will be there a few hours, if not told to come back some other time. The dockets are full, especially in bigger cities. There's too much crime, and our system (or lack thereof) can't handle it. It's grossly inefficient.
As I said above, Persia was one of the wicked nations that used imprisonment as a form of punishment.
Using a wicked nation's example of imprisonment to support your position that prisons should be used doesn't exactly provide you with a very strong case, whereas I have at least 4 books that deal with crime (at least 5 if you include Genesis) and appropriate punishments for the crimes, and not a one of them say to imprison the criminal for ANY of the crimes.
Let's just look at the 10 commandments:
Now, of those 10, commandments 1 (no other gods), 2 (no idols), 3 (no taking God's name in vain), 4 (remember the Sabbath), 5 (honor your parents), and 10 (do not covet), are not describing crimes, but sins (all crime is sin, but not all sin is crime).
The remaining 5, commandments 6 (do not murder), 7 (do not commit adultery), 8 (do not steal), and 9 (do not bear false witness), are describing crimes, which are also sins.
Do not murder. Punishment for murder: death.
Do not commit adultery. Punishment for adultery: death.
Do not steal. Punishment: restitution.
- Recovered goods: Pay 2 times.
- Stolen goods sold: Pay 4 times.
- Destroyed goods: Pay 4 times.
- Irreplaceable goods: Pay 5 times.
- Sentimental goods: Pay 5 times.
- Insignificant goods: Pay 7 times.
- Surrendered goods: Pay 120%.
- Accidental destruction: Pay half.
- Common Negligence: Even restitution.
- Destroy property: Even restitution.
- Temporary injury: Medical cost and salary lost.
Do not bear false witness: Whatever punishment is at stake in the trial. (three examples: if someone lied about a murder, they should be executed, lie about a theft, restitution according to the above to the victim, lied about someone getting beat up, flogging)
Here's a list of crimes and their punishments from the Bible:
-------------------------------------------------------------
Death Penalty Crimes:
Murder, kidnapping, deadly negligence, capital perjury, adultery, sodomy, bestiality, incest, rape, human sacrifice, manslaughter during crime, abortion.
Community guilt:
Unsolved Homicide (unknown murder) (See Deuteronomy 21:1-9)
Restitution crimes:
(See above list under "Do not steal")
Corporal punishment crimes:
Litigated dispute: 1-40 blows
Punishment for assault: 1-40 blows
Permanent injury: Mutilation
-------------------------------------------------------------
Attempted crimes are punished as successful.
If a nation has good laws, and appropriate punishments for crime, then there won't be a crime epidemic of ANY kind.
Nowadays, you look on the news, oh look, there's another mass shooting. It's become common for criminals to shoot people, so much so that many times the shootings don't even make headline news anymore.
See above.
I know. I didn't say you did.
Again, the only times we see imprisonment being used as a form of punishment in the Bible is when it's a wicked nation doing it.
God, however, tells us that He wants criminals to be punished swiftly and painfully. Prison is neither, therefore imprisonment for punishment GOES AGAINST HIS WILL.
If that doesn't settle the argument, I don't think anything will.
See my above response to this.
Which you cannot, I repeat, CANNOT do with just law. The punishments for the crime must be appropriate. Our current system does not punish criminals appropriately, and thus we have a crime epidemic.
When you have so many laws, every one of them will be broken eventually, either intentionally or unintentionally. Why have so many laws? How is anyone supposed to follow so many laws without having plenty of lawyers with you at all times?
Why not simplify the laws, so that EVERYONE knows ALL the laws, and even children could understand them? God gave simple laws, and quick and appropriate punishments for those crimes. Any crime committed today falls under those laws.
Someone shoots up a school? He should be tried and upon due conviction, executed for murder, because the law should say, "Do not murder."
Someone steals clothing from a store? He should be tried and upon due conviction, be forced to pay restitution appropriate to what was stolen.
Someone assaults an elderly person and damages his left eye, causing him to lose vision out of his left eye? He should be tried and upon due conviction, He should be blinded in his left eye, because "eye for eye".
Regulations help avoid accidents, but they can do nothing to prevent INTENTIONAL misuse.
Then you should not advocate imprisonment as punishment for ANY crime. It's not appropriate.
So, let's think about this for a second:
Let's set up a hypothetical world in which I'm a normal citizen who turns criminal (I don't intend to, by the way (in case you're reading this, NSA, haha, please don't put me on some sort of list ), and someone who does the following should be tried and upon due conviction executed for attempted murder, but let's play imagination for a bit) and I want to take over a plane with a gun. And because I'm an outstanding citizen with no criminal background and I'm mentally sound, I breeze through the requirements for purchasing a gun at a nearby store, and within a few days, I have a brand new handgun and plenty of ammunition, all perfectly legal. I then take it and the ammunition to an airport and sneak it past security, and then board the plane with it, and then after we've taken off, and have been in the air for a bit, I pull out the gun and start waving it around, making demands that I be taken wherever I want, and anyone that doesn't like it will be shot. Here's my question for you: Which of your many laws prevented me getting on the plane with the gun and ammunition and making demands with it? Answer: Absolutely none of them. I just up and decided that, since I can get around the obstacles which would prevent a law-abiding citizen from committing a crime, I can commit the crime and not be caught, and if I'm not caught, then I can't be punished, and even if I am punished, it'll be a few years in a jail cell, kept alive and happy using the taxpayer's dollars, and then I'm out, and I can try it all over again, this time with illegally obtained weapons.
It doesn't matter how many laws you make, people will go around them to commit crimes.
The ONLY way to stop them from committing the crime, it to make it so that they don't even want to commit the crime.
Let's use the above situation again, except this time, instead of our current legal system, we have one based on the punishments for crimes listed in the Bible, which I gave above.
So, God says (in multiple places in the Bible) for the citizens of a nation to be armed. (The one example that I can think of off the top of my head immediately is when Jesus tells his disciples to, if they don't have a sword, to sell their cloak and buy one, to bring along with them to accompany Jesus to His betrayal.) History has shown that the wicked nations always take away the weapons of their citizens in order to oppress them.
So in this hypothetical world of ours, The law says that attempted murder is punished as if I had actually committed murder. Theft is punished by retribution. Assault and injury are met with corporal punishment.
If I had bought the gun, and then thought about taking it on a plane, threatening to shoot someone if my demands aren't met, I would immediately, because I know the law says that murder and even attempted murder are punished by death, I would seriously consider if making those demands was worth risking my life, forget attempting it, I just wouldn't do it, because my life isn't worth the risk of being caught trying to sneak a gun onto a plane full of innocent people just for my personal benefit.
So is a knife... or a pipe bomb... or a shoe/underwear bomb... or a bomb in a backpack...
See the problem yet?
Question for you:
Let's use the Columbine murder as an example...
What would have happened if every student on that campus had had even a handgun on their person?
How far do you think Harris and Clebold would have made it if they had drawn their weapons and opened fire in a classroom where EVERYONE ELSE was armed? Would not the tragedy have been reduced to maybe a few injured, instead of 13 innocent people dead?
(NOT to say that having kids going to Godless public schools is a good thing anyways...)
Democracy is part of the problem. But if you want to talk about forms of government, let's move to my "An Advocation of Government" thread.
Then demonstrate how I'm wrong. What one thing can be done to prevent someone who is determined to commit a crime from committing the crime?
Then Detroit should be at the top of ANY list of cities for being the safest, because (iirc) they have the most gun laws of any city in the USA, yet they have the MOST gun violence? Or how about Chicago? or Los Angeles? or New York? Why is it that the cities in the USA with the most gun laws have the most gun violence?
AGAIN, See my response to this above.
ALL of which can be SOLVED PERMANENTLY by fixing what is causing them, which is the legal system we have and use, and SOLVED practically OVERNIGHT.
Talking about a problem doesn't fix it. Thinking about a problem doesn't fix it. Implementing a stopgap measure to give yourself time to think about the problem doesn't fix the problem, and it wastes time, meaning more lives are lost. Here you are trying to think of ways to address SYMPTOMS of a larger problem, and I've already handed you a solution that SOLVES THE PROBLEM, saving lives, money, and time.
How often does a law get implemented to address a symptom of a problem, only for it to make the situation even worse? Wouldn't all the time spent trying to implement that law be better spent actually fixing the problem?
Lawyers will say that, but what they mean is that we have the best paid lawyers in the world. Lawyers aren't required for a criminal justice system. God didn't forget to add lawyers in when he gave Moses the laws for Israel. In fact, Jesus blasted the lawyers, saying they add unnecessary burden to the people.
It's overburdened because it's inefficient, broken, and doesn't actually prevent any crime.
Mostly burdened by the lawyers, who drag out court cases for sometimes DECADES, all the while getting paid by the hour.
If judges were the ones doing the questioning and judging, court cases would take MINUTES, not years.
Not just address it or make alterations. Get. Rid. Of. It.
It's completely broken.
You can't put new wine in old wine skins, they'll crack, and you'll lose the wine.
If a system (and this includes businesses, organizations, governments, even churches) becomes wicked, you would be better off dismantling it, than trying to renovate it.
Everything I have said comes from both the OT and the NT.
I believe I have in this comment. Please let me know if there's anything that needs to be fleshed out more.
And it probably won't happen in my lifetime, sadly. But that doesn't mean I can't be an advocate of righteous judgement.
Singapore and Los Angeles have roughly the same size population.
Yet, in one year, Singapore had 58 murders, while LA had 1063. Why? Because they don't imprison people for murder, they execute them (or at least, they did, not sure about now).
In the video, he's responding to an independent consultant who basically accuses him of hypocrisy.
He asked "what has shifted in the last 10-40 years?" to cause this crime epidemic. And then he answers it thoroughly.
See my above comments about this.
Citizens of a nation do not have the right to revolt against their government. Civil disobedience, sure, but revolution, no.
Question for you:
Do the citizens have authority over the government?
UNLESS it goes against God's will.
Citizens have the right (as defined in the Bible) to Life and Liberty; to Worship; to Free Speech; to Purchase and Use Property; to Purchase, Own, and Carry Individual Defensive Weapons including Firearms; to Protect the Innocent; to Corporally Punish his Children; to Due Process of Law; and to Fail.Whether the government allows those things is another matter.
The military should only be comprised of non-conscripted personnel and only with adult males for combat and battlefield support. Healthy men insist on protecting, not being protected by, their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters. Compulsory drafting can destroy morale, and why would you want fearful and fainthearted men fighting for you? In Scripture, the man is the default defender of his family and his nation. Christ gave Himself for her (the church), so too should husbands love their wives, even being willing to give themselves up for them. Scripture sets the standard that "every male individually, from twenty years old and above-all who are able to go to war." (Numbers 1:2)
A nation can use her military only for two just functions, to protect herself, and optionally, her allies. Neighbors have a right to come to the defense of one another, but cannot be compelled to do so. Neighbors that look out for one another increase the mutual security of their environment. In time of war, intense nationalism and a desire to defend one's country are common to human nature. Conscripting soldiers with a military draft is unnecessary for a non-aggressor nation. A nation should defend especially women and children, and not be defended by, women in combat.
Considering that usually when a candidate says they're "pro-life," they mean pro-choice, I don't see the problem...
First off, I'd like to correct what I said, as I overstated my case here.
God did not expressly forbid prison as a form of punishment. But that does not mean He authorized it, and He made it clear that it was never to be used as such though His providing appropriate punishments for every crime in the Law.
The only three forms of punishment (and it's a sin to do more or to do less than what God says to do) that God authorized are restitution, corporal punishment, and execution.
And this is what the goal should be, to reduce crime to the point where it's for all intents and purposes nonexistent. The proper goal of a justice system is to render itself unnecessary. The system we have today does not have that goal, nor does it render itself unnecessary.
You say in one of your posts (which, iirc, I have quoted here) that we have the best justice system in the world. We don't. If we were to judge the quality of all justice systems by the amount of crime that exists in the nation the system belongs to, we have possibly the absolute worst system possible.
In addition to Ecclesiastes 8:11, see also Deuteronomy 17:12-13:
"12 Now the man who acts presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall put away the evil from Israel. 13 And all the people shall hear and fear, and no longer act presumptuously."
Again, I'd like to point out that this is a letter from the Persian king to Ezra, and not from God to Ezra. It reinforces what I said before that only wicked nations use imprisonment as a form of punishment. Persia was no exception.
When matters came up that the people of Israel didn't know how to handle concerning punishments for certain crimes, EVERY SINGLE TIME that they imprison the criminal, they are ALWAYS going to their current earthly leader to learn what God says about what the punishment should be, and then they carry out that punishment, and that's it, they don't leave the criminal to rot in the prison. Even when Israel was wicked, they still never imprisoned anyone as punishment.
Here are the few times that it is mentioned that Israel held captive the criminals temporarily until punishment for the crime could be meted out:
"11 And the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the name of the Lord and cursed; and so they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.) 12 Then they put him in custody, that [c]the mind of the Lord might be shown to them.
13 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 14 “Take outside the camp him who has cursed; then let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him." (Leviticus 24:11-14)
"32 Now while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. 33 And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron, and to all the congregation. 34 They put him under guard, because it had not been explained what should be done to him.
35 Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.” 36 So, as the Lord commanded Moses, all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones, and he died." (Numbers 15:32-36)
"7 “If a man delivers to his neighbor money or articles to keep, and it is stolen out of the man’s house, if the thief is found, he shall pay double. 8 If the thief is not found, then the master of the house shall be brought to the judges to see whether he has put his hand into his neighbor’s goods." (Exodus 22:7-8)
Just because man is not perfect does NOT mean that we shouldn't strive for righteousness.
Making it harder to sin just means that the criminals will try harder to sin.
And most will succeed.
The answer IS NOT "how do we make it so that people can't commit crime," it's "how do we make it so that people WON'T commit crime."
The former is impossible. The latter is what we call "deterrent."
This is why I said you were moving the goalposts.
I never said that the law will produce perfection, I said "If America (or any nation) were to return to Biblical standards of criminal justice, there will not be a crime epidemic," and, "If America (or any nation) were to return to Biblical standards of criminal justice, there would, overnight, be an almost 100% drop in crime."
You can't eliminate crime completely, but you can make it so that most would-be criminals fear getting caught and punished, making them rethink their desire to commit a crime.
Therefore the goal should not be to make it impossible to be a criminal, but to make it undesirable to be one.
This verse tells us today here in America that the reason we have such high crime rates is that punishment is not executed swiftly. Again, if we were to return to retribution, corporal punishment, and execution for crimes, then we would see a MAJOR drop in crime, including gun crimes.
I really do recommend that you sit down and watch this. He addresses almost exactly your argument.
Yet here in America, we DON'T have a speedy trial. You go to any court in any city, and I guarantee you will be there a few hours, if not told to come back some other time. The dockets are full, especially in bigger cities. There's too much crime, and our system (or lack thereof) can't handle it. It's grossly inefficient.
As I said above, Persia was one of the wicked nations that used imprisonment as a form of punishment.
Using a wicked nation's example of imprisonment to support your position that prisons should be used doesn't exactly provide you with a very strong case, whereas I have at least 4 books that deal with crime (at least 5 if you include Genesis) and appropriate punishments for the crimes, and not a one of them say to imprison the criminal for ANY of the crimes.
Let's just look at the 10 commandments:
| And God spoke all these words, saying: 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of [a]bondage. 3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting[c] the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. 7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. 8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. 12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you. 13 “You shall not murder. 14 “You shall not commit adultery. 15 “You shall not steal. 16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” |
Now, of those 10, commandments 1 (no other gods), 2 (no idols), 3 (no taking God's name in vain), 4 (remember the Sabbath), 5 (honor your parents), and 10 (do not covet), are not describing crimes, but sins (all crime is sin, but not all sin is crime).
The remaining 5, commandments 6 (do not murder), 7 (do not commit adultery), 8 (do not steal), and 9 (do not bear false witness), are describing crimes, which are also sins.
Do not murder. Punishment for murder: death.
Do not commit adultery. Punishment for adultery: death.
Do not steal. Punishment: restitution.
- Recovered goods: Pay 2 times.
- Stolen goods sold: Pay 4 times.
- Destroyed goods: Pay 4 times.
- Irreplaceable goods: Pay 5 times.
- Sentimental goods: Pay 5 times.
- Insignificant goods: Pay 7 times.
- Surrendered goods: Pay 120%.
- Accidental destruction: Pay half.
- Common Negligence: Even restitution.
- Destroy property: Even restitution.
- Temporary injury: Medical cost and salary lost.
Do not bear false witness: Whatever punishment is at stake in the trial. (three examples: if someone lied about a murder, they should be executed, lie about a theft, restitution according to the above to the victim, lied about someone getting beat up, flogging)
Here's a list of crimes and their punishments from the Bible:
-------------------------------------------------------------
Death Penalty Crimes:
Murder, kidnapping, deadly negligence, capital perjury, adultery, sodomy, bestiality, incest, rape, human sacrifice, manslaughter during crime, abortion.
Community guilt:
Unsolved Homicide (unknown murder) (See Deuteronomy 21:1-9)
Restitution crimes:
(See above list under "Do not steal")
Corporal punishment crimes:
Litigated dispute: 1-40 blows
Punishment for assault: 1-40 blows
Permanent injury: Mutilation
-------------------------------------------------------------
Attempted crimes are punished as successful.
If a nation has good laws, and appropriate punishments for crime, then there won't be a crime epidemic of ANY kind.
Nowadays, you look on the news, oh look, there's another mass shooting. It's become common for criminals to shoot people, so much so that many times the shootings don't even make headline news anymore.
See above.
I know. I didn't say you did.
Again, the only times we see imprisonment being used as a form of punishment in the Bible is when it's a wicked nation doing it.
God, however, tells us that He wants criminals to be punished swiftly and painfully. Prison is neither, therefore imprisonment for punishment GOES AGAINST HIS WILL.
If that doesn't settle the argument, I don't think anything will.
See my above response to this.
Which you cannot, I repeat, CANNOT do with just law. The punishments for the crime must be appropriate. Our current system does not punish criminals appropriately, and thus we have a crime epidemic.
When you have so many laws, every one of them will be broken eventually, either intentionally or unintentionally. Why have so many laws? How is anyone supposed to follow so many laws without having plenty of lawyers with you at all times?
Why not simplify the laws, so that EVERYONE knows ALL the laws, and even children could understand them? God gave simple laws, and quick and appropriate punishments for those crimes. Any crime committed today falls under those laws.
Someone shoots up a school? He should be tried and upon due conviction, executed for murder, because the law should say, "Do not murder."
Someone steals clothing from a store? He should be tried and upon due conviction, be forced to pay restitution appropriate to what was stolen.
Someone assaults an elderly person and damages his left eye, causing him to lose vision out of his left eye? He should be tried and upon due conviction, He should be blinded in his left eye, because "eye for eye".
Regulations help avoid accidents, but they can do nothing to prevent INTENTIONAL misuse.
Then you should not advocate imprisonment as punishment for ANY crime. It's not appropriate.
So, let's think about this for a second:
Let's set up a hypothetical world in which I'm a normal citizen who turns criminal (I don't intend to, by the way (in case you're reading this, NSA, haha, please don't put me on some sort of list
), and someone who does the following should be tried and upon due conviction executed for attempted murder, but let's play imagination for a bit) and I want to take over a plane with a gun. And because I'm an outstanding citizen with no criminal background and I'm mentally sound, I breeze through the requirements for purchasing a gun at a nearby store, and within a few days, I have a brand new handgun and plenty of ammunition, all perfectly legal. I then take it and the ammunition to an airport and sneak it past security, and then board the plane with it, and then after we've taken off, and have been in the air for a bit, I pull out the gun and start waving it around, making demands that I be taken wherever I want, and anyone that doesn't like it will be shot. Here's my question for you: Which of your many laws prevented me getting on the plane with the gun and ammunition and making demands with it? Answer: Absolutely none of them. I just up and decided that, since I can get around the obstacles which would prevent a law-abiding citizen from committing a crime, I can commit the crime and not be caught, and if I'm not caught, then I can't be punished, and even if I am punished, it'll be a few years in a jail cell, kept alive and happy using the taxpayer's dollars, and then I'm out, and I can try it all over again, this time with illegally obtained weapons.It doesn't matter how many laws you make, people will go around them to commit crimes.
The ONLY way to stop them from committing the crime, it to make it so that they don't even want to commit the crime.
Let's use the above situation again, except this time, instead of our current legal system, we have one based on the punishments for crimes listed in the Bible, which I gave above.
So, God says (in multiple places in the Bible) for the citizens of a nation to be armed. (The one example that I can think of off the top of my head immediately is when Jesus tells his disciples to, if they don't have a sword, to sell their cloak and buy one, to bring along with them to accompany Jesus to His betrayal.) History has shown that the wicked nations always take away the weapons of their citizens in order to oppress them.
So in this hypothetical world of ours, The law says that attempted murder is punished as if I had actually committed murder. Theft is punished by retribution. Assault and injury are met with corporal punishment.
If I had bought the gun, and then thought about taking it on a plane, threatening to shoot someone if my demands aren't met, I would immediately, because I know the law says that murder and even attempted murder are punished by death, I would seriously consider if making those demands was worth risking my life, forget attempting it, I just wouldn't do it, because my life isn't worth the risk of being caught trying to sneak a gun onto a plane full of innocent people just for my personal benefit.
So is a knife... or a pipe bomb... or a shoe/underwear bomb... or a bomb in a backpack...
See the problem yet?
Question for you:
Let's use the Columbine murder as an example...
What would have happened if every student on that campus had had even a handgun on their person?
How far do you think Harris and Clebold would have made it if they had drawn their weapons and opened fire in a classroom where EVERYONE ELSE was armed? Would not the tragedy have been reduced to maybe a few injured, instead of 13 innocent people dead?
(NOT to say that having kids going to Godless public schools is a good thing anyways...)
Democracy is part of the problem. But if you want to talk about forms of government, let's move to my "An Advocation of Government" thread.
Then demonstrate how I'm wrong. What one thing can be done to prevent someone who is determined to commit a crime from committing the crime?
Then Detroit should be at the top of ANY list of cities for being the safest, because (iirc) they have the most gun laws of any city in the USA, yet they have the MOST gun violence? Or how about Chicago? or Los Angeles? or New York? Why is it that the cities in the USA with the most gun laws have the most gun violence?
AGAIN, See my response to this above.
ALL of which can be SOLVED PERMANENTLY by fixing what is causing them, which is the legal system we have and use, and SOLVED practically OVERNIGHT.
Talking about a problem doesn't fix it. Thinking about a problem doesn't fix it. Implementing a stopgap measure to give yourself time to think about the problem doesn't fix the problem, and it wastes time, meaning more lives are lost. Here you are trying to think of ways to address SYMPTOMS of a larger problem, and I've already handed you a solution that SOLVES THE PROBLEM, saving lives, money, and time.
How often does a law get implemented to address a symptom of a problem, only for it to make the situation even worse? Wouldn't all the time spent trying to implement that law be better spent actually fixing the problem?
Lawyers will say that, but what they mean is that we have the best paid lawyers in the world. Lawyers aren't required for a criminal justice system. God didn't forget to add lawyers in when he gave Moses the laws for Israel. In fact, Jesus blasted the lawyers, saying they add unnecessary burden to the people.
It's overburdened because it's inefficient, broken, and doesn't actually prevent any crime.
Mostly burdened by the lawyers, who drag out court cases for sometimes DECADES, all the while getting paid by the hour.
If judges were the ones doing the questioning and judging, court cases would take MINUTES, not years.
Not just address it or make alterations. Get. Rid. Of. It.
It's completely broken.
You can't put new wine in old wine skins, they'll crack, and you'll lose the wine.
If a system (and this includes businesses, organizations, governments, even churches) becomes wicked, you would be better off dismantling it, than trying to renovate it.
Everything I have said comes from both the OT and the NT.
I believe I have in this comment. Please let me know if there's anything that needs to be fleshed out more.
And it probably won't happen in my lifetime, sadly. But that doesn't mean I can't be an advocate of righteous judgement.
Singapore and Los Angeles have roughly the same size population.
Yet, in one year, Singapore had 58 murders, while LA had 1063. Why? Because they don't imprison people for murder, they execute them (or at least, they did, not sure about now).
In the video, he's responding to an independent consultant who basically accuses him of hypocrisy.
He asked "what has shifted in the last 10-40 years?" to cause this crime epidemic. And then he answers it thoroughly.
See my above comments about this.
Citizens of a nation do not have the right to revolt against their government. Civil disobedience, sure, but revolution, no.
Question for you:
Do the citizens have authority over the government?
UNLESS it goes against God's will.
Citizens have the right (as defined in the Bible) to Life and Liberty; to Worship; to Free Speech; to Purchase and Use Property; to Purchase, Own, and Carry Individual Defensive Weapons including Firearms; to Protect the Innocent; to Corporally Punish his Children; to Due Process of Law; and to Fail.Whether the government allows those things is another matter.
The military should only be comprised of non-conscripted personnel and only with adult males for combat and battlefield support. Healthy men insist on protecting, not being protected by, their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters. Compulsory drafting can destroy morale, and why would you want fearful and fainthearted men fighting for you? In Scripture, the man is the default defender of his family and his nation. Christ gave Himself for her (the church), so too should husbands love their wives, even being willing to give themselves up for them. Scripture sets the standard that "every male individually, from twenty years old and above-all who are able to go to war." (Numbers 1:2)
A nation can use her military only for two just functions, to protect herself, and optionally, her allies. Neighbors have a right to come to the defense of one another, but cannot be compelled to do so. Neighbors that look out for one another increase the mutual security of their environment. In time of war, intense nationalism and a desire to defend one's country are common to human nature. Conscripting soldiers with a military draft is unnecessary for a non-aggressor nation. A nation should defend especially women and children, and not be defended by, women in combat.
Considering that usually when a candidate says they're "pro-life," they mean pro-choice, I don't see the problem...
I'm going to address the problematic nature of the religion as politics approach in a moment. Until then...
From Nolo (link):
"The conservative estimate seems to be that over 90% of cases end in guilty pleas. The United States Courts website estimates that more than 90% of federal cases resolve this way. A 2012 New York Times article reported that 97% of federal cases and 94% of state cases end via plea bargain. (See State vs. Federal Prosecution.)"
If your solution is to restore Biblical law then it's fool's gold in this society where at the height of Christian influence that aim was never attempted or, as an expression of government, even desired by its founders. So advancing that in present circumstances, with the diversity of opinion on moral frameworks even before you get to the serious divisions within the Christian population is, as I noted in my last, an interesting discussion, but not much more. I'm suggesting something that both can and should happen. That has happened to some degree in every other Western compact like our own. And it works a significant reduction in accidental damage and death, and criminal gun violence including mass shootings.
The last couple of years we've had an uptick. There are ways to impact that, especially mass shootings and gun violence. It will take a sea change of law and a steady effort over time given how many weapons we have here that will have to be turned in, confiscated, or reduced to disuse by attrition.
In 2017 New York City had fewer than 300 homicides in a city of over 8.5 million people. In 2016 New York state, home to some of the nation's strongest gun laws, lost 4.4 people per 100k to gun violence. In that same year, in my state of Alabama, with some of the weakest gun laws in the nation, we had 21.5 per 100k (link) according the the CDC. That sort of disparity plays out as the rule when looking to compare states with strong laws and those with weaker ones.
And a lot of people get confused about numbers. Rates are the tell. In a city of millions you can have a shooting every day and still have a lower rate per 100k than places with lower populations experiencing a shooting a week.
On the efficacy of our justice system:
And there's nothing wrong with being paid to do a job. Lawyers have to show their work and clients can literally hold up their payment subject to review, fire them outright and bring them before the bar, etc. Lawyers in criminal trials work for their clients or, if paid by the state, have certain limitations in terms of how they're paid. There are restrictions on allowable fees and all sorts of protections and recourse built in. Most people don't bother to learn about any of that before holding forth on the ethical deficiencies and equitable failures of the profession. That's largely uninformed noise fed by anecdote.
A thing the law never remotely approached. Israel couldn't keep its kings from running amok often enough.
No system in the history of man has, can, or will make itself unnecessary.
I don't only say it, I can and have told you why. I'll do it again in a moment.
If we judged the greatness of painting by how much paint was used we'd have very different museums too.
By that reason we should erase the law altogether and men, free of its inducement, will live more saintly lives. Come now.
Rather, the law restrains those who can be restrained by conscience and convention, makes commission more unlikely for those who fail in that but have sufficient self-interest to promote lawful dealings given the nature of consequence, and can through imposition, as with laws forbidding certain guns, make particular criminal acts greatly less likely. And that's demonstrable, not hypothetical.
Full dockets don't mean a lack of speedy trials. They can, in fact, produce and evidence them. And the totality of those cases represent a sliver, not the rule. Meaning that most cases aren't saddled with this problem at all. But you have to be conversant in the system and the related facts to know it. In your position and the position of most laymen you're very much like the blind man grasping an elephant's tail and declaring it a snake. You don't mean to miss the point, mostly, but you can't help it absent a broader perspective.
From Nolo (link):
"The conservative estimate seems to be that over 90% of cases end in guilty pleas. The United States Courts website estimates that more than 90% of federal cases resolve this way. A 2012 New York Times article reported that 97% of federal cases and 94% of state cases end via plea bargain. (See State vs. Federal Prosecution.)"
Just a quick note. Restitution is a part of the state's action in theft cases. We go further than that and it still doesn't stop people from stealing.
If your solution is to restore Biblical law then it's fool's gold in this society where at the height of Christian influence that aim was never attempted or, as an expression of government, even desired by its founders. So advancing that in present circumstances, with the diversity of opinion on moral frameworks even before you get to the serious divisions within the Christian population is, as I noted in my last, an interesting discussion, but not much more. I'm suggesting something that both can and should happen. That has happened to some degree in every other Western compact like our own. And it works a significant reduction in accidental damage and death, and criminal gun violence including mass shootings.
No real reason to believe that or illustration of it, though it's worth noting that crime has been on the wane here. We have a problem with guns because they're so capable of wide destruction and so easily obtained. And we can correct that.
Outside of the nuts, it's mostly gang violence, not attacks on innocent citizens. Here's a link to research by Pew on the substantial drop in violent crime (link) dated January of this year.
"Using the FBI numbers, the violent crime rate fell 48% between 1993 and 2016."
The last couple of years we've had an uptick. There are ways to impact that, especially mass shootings and gun violence. It will take a sea change of law and a steady effort over time given how many weapons we have here that will have to be turned in, confiscated, or reduced to disuse by attrition.
For many reasons. It's really a lot like the misunderstanding of legal language. People who don't understand it mistake it for obfuscation when it is, in fact, extraordinarily precise and constructed for clarity among those who practice and judge, as is true for the language of medicine and its practitioners.
Easily, which is why the overwhelming majority of Americans, many with not much formal education and none in the law manage it every day of the week.
I'd explain it so that you couldn't do more than nod agreement, but it would take about three years of your time and you'd have to pay me a small fortune for the effort. In sum, because life is a great deal more complicated, property issues are more complicated, and rights are more particularly enumerated and protected. Why that's right, just, equitable, and necessary would take the additional time and money.
The one that prohibits you from legally possessing the gun you used, that bars its entry into commerce and ready availability, legally.
Some doubtless will. But again, this isn't about perfection, it's about making certain acts/crimes less likely to happen, reducing the death toll. We can do that. We can do a lot better than we're doing.
I answered this one with the note that some people on the pill get pregnant. Do I need to unpack that for you?
They don't by rate, otherwise the answer is, "For the same reason they have more natural deaths: population density."
In 2017 New York City had fewer than 300 homicides in a city of over 8.5 million people. In 2016 New York state, home to some of the nation's strongest gun laws, lost 4.4 people per 100k to gun violence. In that same year, in my state of Alabama, with some of the weakest gun laws in the nation, we had 21.5 per 100k (link) according the the CDC. That sort of disparity plays out as the rule when looking to compare states with strong laws and those with weaker ones.
And a lot of people get confused about numbers. Rates are the tell. In a city of millions you can have a shooting every day and still have a lower rate per 100k than places with lower populations experiencing a shooting a week.
On the efficacy of our justice system:
Lawyers will say that for the same reason doctors will say that we have the best available medical system in the world, because they are educated enough in the field to understand that what they're saying is true.
Heck, you can just have one guy with a big rock and a few rules. But if you want a better system, you'll have lawyers. You just have to understand what lawyers are and what they aren't. By the way, every judge is a lawyer.
The problem wasn't inherent in the job, any more than every priest became a viper by virtue of their calling. But in every age we have men with a will to power using and corrupting what they touch until we root them out as hypocrites and users. One way we guard against that in our system is the process of appeal and higher courts of review, something your approach wouldn't allow for, sadly.
You make these sweeping sort of declaratives without any meat on them. When I tell you we have a great system I note that overwhelmingly those charged with crimes in this country admit to it. That's a system doing its job. Overwhelmingly, convictions are upheld on appeal. That's a system doing its job. We have a lot of laws on the books that are contributing disproportionately to prison populations and court dates. They're largely about drugs. We have to decide how we want to respond to a lost war on that front.
Well, no. That's a cartoon, not a reality. What tends to happen is someone with a drum to beat finds an exception to fit his bias and bangs away. Given how many cases are tried and disposed of daily you can find nearly anything you want that way, except the rule and a real understanding.
And there's nothing wrong with being paid to do a job. Lawyers have to show their work and clients can literally hold up their payment subject to review, fire them outright and bring them before the bar, etc. Lawyers in criminal trials work for their clients or, if paid by the state, have certain limitations in terms of how they're paid. There are restrictions on allowable fees and all sorts of protections and recourse built in. Most people don't bother to learn about any of that before holding forth on the ethical deficiencies and equitable failures of the profession. That's largely uninformed noise fed by anecdote.
And a great deal of injustice, human error, and bias would pass for justice. The more you concentrate power the more you invite its abuse. True of kings and true of judges. It's a bad idea, which is one reason we have juries and appellate courts and why almost no one is trying to get a monarchy in play anywhere in the world where republics have come into being.
If you narrow a net sufficiently you can produce nearly any result. But you won't produce the rule or a real understanding.
The whole "crime epidemic" is a vague, problematic construct. Until the last couple of years, we were seeing a significant reduction in all sorts of crime, especially violent crime, as I noted in my link.
Still lamenting that the madly successful gun lobby (in either sense) has managed to facilitate schoolyards, churches, and concerts become killing grounds while wrapping a lie in the robes of public virtue.
But don't worry, I have enough pity left over for racist trolls, so you're covered.
Is this just hyperbole for someone you see as a troll? or do you really believe this?