No, not explicitly. If it were explicit, you would be able to pull out a quote stating that concept.
Gun Control
- Thread starter larryselbows
- Start date
No, not explicitly. If it were explicit, you would be able to pull out a quote stating that concept.
I spent about 6 months while I was in the Navy assigned to temporary duty in the Shipboard Security department. Being in security I had to perform armed patrols of the ship while it was underway. In order to qualify to carry a weapon for these patrols I had to get my 9mm qual. Here's how the Navy trained and armed sailors aboard ship:
First I went to a class. This was a 30min class packed with over 60 people. A single instructor stood at the front of the class. First he holds up the pistol and says, "this is a pistol" then he goes through and tells where the sights are, where the trigger is and how it works, where the safety is, how to load and unload a magazine, a couple ways you can hold the pistol, a few ways you shouldn't hold the pistol, the way you're supposed to line the sights up, a couple ways that you should stand while firing. Then he shows us how to remove the slide (aka field strip) and put it back together.
Yay, we're ready for actual shooting quals the next morning, we have officially been trained.
The next morning there are hundreds of people who need to shoot. Re-quals didn't need to take the class. We're at sea and we have targets set up at the edge of one of the air-craft elevators. I think 10 people at a time go up and are issued their magazines (I think they give you 7 magazines, each with 7 rounds) and a psitol. Then everyone goes up to the firing line where there are three gunners mates helping people out. Another gunners mate is off to the side running the show.
.jpg/640px-thumbnail.jpg)
The shooting qual involves shooting at 3, 7 and 15 yards, from standing position, kneeling position, weak hand and strong hand, with magazine changes and without. 49 shots later and you're either qualified to carry a gun in the Navy or you're not.
_participate_in_9_mm_pistol_qualifications.jpg/640px-US_Navy_110214-N-0569K-040_Sailors_aboard_the_aircraft_carrier_USS_Enterprise_(CVN_65)_participate_in_9_mm_pistol_qualifications.jpg)
There was a slightly older woman (by Navy standards) next to me on the firing line. She was a warrant officer. She had to qual with the pistol because as a warrant officer she was required to stand Officer of the Watch (OOW) on the quarterdeck for her duty section, which is an armed watch. She was visibly trembling. Shaking. She was fumbling with the controls of the pistol and she was flinching badly every time she fired. She was absolutely terrified. I'm guessing this was possibly the first time she had ever fired a gun. Unfortunately for me her shooting was so bad that she hit the edge of my target (the target supports were several feet apart and we were shooting at full sized abdomen silhouette targets) and they counted her errant shot as mine and ruined my perfect score.
I don't think she passed on that first try but they put her back in line and she had another try or two.
That's the standard I saw in the Navy as to who was qualified to carry a gun. Forgive me if I'm not impressed.
But the bigger point I want to make is that with that lack of actual training many people were very competent in their ability to handle the pistol. You want to know who those people were? They were people who learned how to shoot outside the military, using civilian weapons, taught by family members. Everyone I ever knew in the Navy who was competent with a firearm learned how to use firearms before they joined.
I wonder how much more effective our military forces are because the people in the military have civilian access to firearms. Even more that there is a strong gun culture in the U.S. and people who are interested in the military are often also part of the American gun culture in some way. I've seen the videos of rag-tag morons firing weapons at the U.S. forces in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm often struck by the lack of aiming or even proper holding of their "assault weapons." I wonder, if grandpa and uncle Joe had taken them out into the country and shot up an old VCR and phone book now and then would they have been a lot more trouble for our guys? I kind of think so.
First I went to a class. This was a 30min class packed with over 60 people. A single instructor stood at the front of the class. First he holds up the pistol and says, "this is a pistol" then he goes through and tells where the sights are, where the trigger is and how it works, where the safety is, how to load and unload a magazine, a couple ways you can hold the pistol, a few ways you shouldn't hold the pistol, the way you're supposed to line the sights up, a couple ways that you should stand while firing. Then he shows us how to remove the slide (aka field strip) and put it back together.
Yay, we're ready for actual shooting quals the next morning, we have officially been trained.
The next morning there are hundreds of people who need to shoot. Re-quals didn't need to take the class. We're at sea and we have targets set up at the edge of one of the air-craft elevators. I think 10 people at a time go up and are issued their magazines (I think they give you 7 magazines, each with 7 rounds) and a psitol. Then everyone goes up to the firing line where there are three gunners mates helping people out. Another gunners mate is off to the side running the show.
The shooting qual involves shooting at 3, 7 and 15 yards, from standing position, kneeling position, weak hand and strong hand, with magazine changes and without. 49 shots later and you're either qualified to carry a gun in the Navy or you're not.
There was a slightly older woman (by Navy standards) next to me on the firing line. She was a warrant officer. She had to qual with the pistol because as a warrant officer she was required to stand Officer of the Watch (OOW) on the quarterdeck for her duty section, which is an armed watch. She was visibly trembling. Shaking. She was fumbling with the controls of the pistol and she was flinching badly every time she fired. She was absolutely terrified. I'm guessing this was possibly the first time she had ever fired a gun. Unfortunately for me her shooting was so bad that she hit the edge of my target (the target supports were several feet apart and we were shooting at full sized abdomen silhouette targets) and they counted her errant shot as mine and ruined my perfect score.
I don't think she passed on that first try but they put her back in line and she had another try or two.
That's the standard I saw in the Navy as to who was qualified to carry a gun. Forgive me if I'm not impressed.
But the bigger point I want to make is that with that lack of actual training many people were very competent in their ability to handle the pistol. You want to know who those people were? They were people who learned how to shoot outside the military, using civilian weapons, taught by family members. Everyone I ever knew in the Navy who was competent with a firearm learned how to use firearms before they joined.
I wonder how much more effective our military forces are because the people in the military have civilian access to firearms. Even more that there is a strong gun culture in the U.S. and people who are interested in the military are often also part of the American gun culture in some way. I've seen the videos of rag-tag morons firing weapons at the U.S. forces in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm often struck by the lack of aiming or even proper holding of their "assault weapons." I wonder, if grandpa and uncle Joe had taken them out into the country and shot up an old VCR and phone book now and then would they have been a lot more trouble for our guys? I kind of think so.
I think that is a mistake, as well. Simply giving more bullets to police does not increase safety.
Good post with interesting points. I would hope training for field units (I would expect more typically in the Army and Marines) is more extensive, but any training has better results from a higher starting point.
I agree GF. Those I have seen raised around firearms and taught its use seem to be generally more proficient than those that learn to use them as an adult. They are more comfortable and relaxed while using their weapon.
Speaking of which, I think it is time I took my daughters to the range again.
Speaking of which, I think it is time I took my daughters to the range again.
So does anyone know how likely it is for the proposed AWB 2.0 to pass? My guess is that it will not pass, not as it is.
I read this: https://www.cnn.com/2013/01/24/politics/feinstein-bill-details/index.html and personally I think this is a big stupid joke. There is nothing of substance about this "ban." Those who oppose it are being labeled as extremists and gun-fetish nut-jobs. Well, I oppose it. It accomplishes nothing good. It bans aesthetic features of certain scary looking rifles. This is not what I believe we should base our gun policy on.
This legislation is a happy pill for gun-ignorant hoplophobes and nothing more.
I read this: https://www.cnn.com/2013/01/24/politics/feinstein-bill-details/index.html and personally I think this is a big stupid joke. There is nothing of substance about this "ban." Those who oppose it are being labeled as extremists and gun-fetish nut-jobs. Well, I oppose it. It accomplishes nothing good. It bans aesthetic features of certain scary looking rifles. This is not what I believe we should base our gun policy on.
This legislation is a happy pill for gun-ignorant hoplophobes and nothing more.
I agree that it will not pass. It might make it past the Senate (50/50 chance) but there is no way it will make it thru the reublican controlled House, no way. Especially when there are Dems like Matheson who I doubt will vote for it out of self preservation.
Excellent points throughout this post. . . .
My father took me and my group of brothers out to shoot when I was about nine. The older bunch were better trained because he did it more for them. One older brother, and an uncle became professional competitive marksmen. My brother did a stint in the navy during the Korean War, and his job was, so I gathered when I was very young, to shoot and detonate stuff in the water like mines. . . . I was just proud of him. But he was trained by my dad and our uncles.
I say I don't know anything about guns because I know some people who really do, and have a notion of how much more there is to know.
This type of training is and has always been an important asset to our nation.
HeavenHarris
Banned
https://www.cnn.com/2013/01/29/us/handguns-and-federal-legislation/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
Seems CNN is admiting that the proposed gun control laws in the house/senate won't do much if anything. It instead focuses on something more effective such as the mental health and the mentally ills access to weapons.
Seems CNN is admiting that the proposed gun control laws in the house/senate won't do much if anything. It instead focuses on something more effective such as the mental health and the mentally ills access to weapons.
Which also won't do much, if anything.
I think it will be much more effective towards stopping these mass shootings but the number of overall handgun deaths are here to stay.
The people in the various mental health databases will just acquire their guns illegally, right?
In same cases, such as Sandy Hook, that is right. In some cases no. However going after the guns of law abiding citizens is not an acceptable answer. No matter how much some wish it to be so.
Prevent those incappable of responsible ownership, thru mental health and criminal records, from easy access.
Despite how you would attempt to cloud that issue it is fairly straight forward.
I believe in reasoning from evidence, not first principles.
The reason it is, in the ultimate sense, useless to reply to you is the same reason I say the SCOTUS is "disingenuous" in being unwilling to interpret the Second Amendment in its true context in 1789, where the whole issue that brought about the first ten amendments to the constitution was the concern of some states to prevent our federal government from being able to encroach on personal liberties in the way the British had done.
British Citizens had for hundreds of years something called the "Magna Carta", and a body of law that had developed from a struggle to protect common people from the things the royals had a propensity to do. The reason some American colonists were unhappy came from the loss of those rights, and the realization that they as Americans were receiving second hand treatment because of corporate interests in controlling American trade. When Americans objected to the punitive measures which were intended to enforce Bristish commercial monopoly in the colonies, the British responded with increasingly punitive measures, stationing Crown troops in America to enforce these laws. Among the many things that were done to control Americans was the limitation of weapons to the Americans.
Some Americans responded with what the Crown considered Treason. . . . . shooting back at the occupying troops.
The Second Amendment is the Constitutional provision that guarantees citizens the justification for protecting their rights by force, against a government gone wrong in denying significant human rights.
You and the SCOTUS are just liars to try to deny that clear intent behind the Second Amendment. The right to defend your own life, or your property, or your rights is ultimately the right to replace a government that attempts to denigrate those rights.
Good if the right to vote isn't infringed, and people believe their government is properly defending their rights, they will never turn their arms against their government, and they will voluntarily turn out to defend their government.
The Second Amendment was intended to secure the right of the people to replace their government by force if that ever became the only way left to do that.
And the wording, in that context, is amazing explicit.
For you or anyone, including the arrogant and presumptious SCOTUS that is itself attempting to denigrate humans by the claim that nine stupid honchos have the power to define rights for Americans, instead of leaving the government in the status of being the people's government rather than some special people's governance tool, to say the words are not explicit, is proof of an unwillingness to accept the words for what they mean.
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"
what is not explicit about that?
Under the original intent of the constitution, the federal government has no authority to issue weapon regulations whatsoever.
well, at least you are recognizing that your basic approach is the result of a "belief", which is itself one of those human "first principles" which we really can't ditch in any ultimate sense.
"evidence" as we will ever define it, is also something that does not escape being the derivative our our beliefs about what is or is not a true fact or observation, as opposed to those we question or don't want to believe.
while suffering the same ultimate character, "first principles" are our sometimes reasoned, sometimes sentimental or prejudiced projections of useful concepts for ways to organize the universe in our minds. I favor some concepts of "first principles", and reject others myself, so welcome the club, human.
I don't think our founders really liked mobs, either. That is why they had gatherings like the congress that declared independence, with representatives present who had been selected by people in the various colonies, and by colonial governments themselves. . . .which meant that the colonial "rebels" were not just a mob. They were authorized by a form of government which was attempting in a collective way to protect the rights of the people in the "rebel" colonies.
These same founders sent troops to shut down some other "rebels" whom they considered unauthorized by the colonies' government.
Clearly, in the fight for human rights, if our Federal Government is the transgressor, I will be among those who are employing state governments to respond to the issue, not mob action.
That is why I say even our founders did not choose weapons as the measures of first response, and why I ultimately believe it is ideas, not force of arms, that is the answer in securing human liberty.
These same founders sent troops to shut down some other "rebels" whom they considered unauthorized by the colonies' government.
Clearly, in the fight for human rights, if our Federal Government is the transgressor, I will be among those who are employing state governments to respond to the issue, not mob action.
That is why I say even our founders did not choose weapons as the measures of first response, and why I ultimately believe it is ideas, not force of arms, that is the answer in securing human liberty.
I think so much of this is based on the false premise that horrible acts such as what happened at Sandy Hook must be stopped no matter what it takes to stop them. Part of the problem is that no one is willing or even proposing actions that could have prevented the tragedy. The other problem is that solutions are being proposed that achieve a completely different goal but do not at all address the issue being used to justify them. In my opinion the Sandy Hook tragedy is being used in a rather disgusting way to undermine the American gun culture in general. Not to address gun crime in the U.S., not to address the factors that lead to a person making the decision to kill dozens of children, not to address real ways to improve gun safety, awareness and understanding, but to paint as evil in and of itself the notion that "normal people" have the right to have access to powerful weapons.
I agree. If my posts reflected otherwise than they are poorly worded, it happens, or they were misread.
Sandy Hook would have happened even if every single point of the Presidents gun control plan were in effectt.