A random thought about Second Amendment absolution

[jmowreader]

As the Right will remind us at every opportunity, the Second Amendment states "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

And as the Left will remind us at every opportunity, in 2012 about 87 people were illegally killed with a gun in America every single day. If you calculate that exactly, 31,755 people are murdered with guns every year.

In the late 1700s, there were somewhere around 55,000 residents of the city of Philadelphia. Divide it out and you will see that at America's current rate of gun death, the entire Constitution-era city of Philadelphia could have been completely depopulated in approximately 21 months.

If someone were to invent a time machine, go back to the Constitutional Convention, and inform the Framers that in 225 years or so, gun-toting criminals will shoot dead a number of people equivalent to the entire population of 18th-century Philadelphia in 21 months, they might have written the Second Amendment differently?

[samsingh]

1. i think they would have - in fact the wording would imply a different

meaning than is attributed by people wanting to sell guns those brainwashed into believing that they need them (as many of them)

(think cigerette's and the cigerette companies.
thank the nestle executive who is so petty that he feels people should not even be entitled to water).

[Kingofalldems]

2. Look out, here they come...

[pipoman]

3. Not murdered..

Last edited Mon Jan 14, 2013, 12:34 AM - Edit history (1)

31,755 homicides and suicides. Around 2/3 are suicides, some are defensive by the public or police. some are accidents, most of the remainder are murders, somewhere south of 10k annually...just sayn'

In the late 1700s, there were somewhere around 55,000 residents of the city of Philadelphia. Divide it out and you will see that at America's current rate of gun death, the entire Constitution-era city of Philadelphia could have been completely depopulated in approximately 21 months.

The current rate of "gun death" in the US is 10.2 per 100k for all causes.. Just to simplify that rate on a population of 50k would be 5.1 deaths by firearms annually..it may have actually been higher at that time...it would be interesting to know..

No, a rate of 10.2 per 100k annually probably wouldn't have changed their minds..

[Major Nikon]

8. Your own list shows that we compare much better to the 3rd world than the 1st

Just sayin'

[pipoman]

9. Not even considering that,

simply pointing out the flaws in the opinion I was responding to..

[Major Nikon]

16. and I was pointing out the merit in it

Had the founding fathers known their words would have doomed the US to gun violence on par with despotic shitholes rather than advanced nations, they may have thought differently.

[pipoman]

18. I believe they knew just that..

There are no stats on gun deaths from all causes from that time...I would bet it was higher than 10.2/100k..

[Major Nikon]

20. That wasn't the point of the time machine scenario

Whatever the stats were at the time, they were probably on-par with Europe at the time. That condition doesn't exist today.

[pipoman]

21. Actually, IIRC, the US has always been more violent than most of Europe

since colonial days...I might check that out later..

[dsc]

23. I would be astounded, aside from the war years, if that were so

infection, child birth, infant mortality were all major league killers back then. Guns were fairly expensive, not very efficient, and not used much back then. I would be simply amazed if the death rate from guns were anything like 1 per 10000 back then.

[pipoman]

25. A lot higher portion of the population

owned guns and used them regularly. I would bet accidental shootings were hugely more than today. It would be interesting to know...but alas..

[Stinky The Clown]

10. They are still fucking dead and a fucking bullet from a fucking gun KILLED them.

Your NRA stats don't sway me one fucking iota. People are fucking dead. People clutching their fucking guns - designed for no good purpose other than KILLING - are selfish fetishists.

Fuck Guns

Fuck the NRA

Fuck Wayne LaPierre

Fuck Dave Evans

Fuck gun cultists

Fuck gun fetishists.

If you see yourself in those descriptions, I rest my case. If you don't, then this rant wasn't aimed at you.

[pipoman]

14. NRA Stats?

No, actual stats. Here's a link..to the CDC, you know that puppet of the NRA?

http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html

Actual statistics my not sway you, they do most lawmakers and judges I've noticed.

[ohiosmith]

15. This post was alerted on. The jury voted 6/0 to let it stand!

At Sun Jan 13, 2013, 08:41 PM an alert was sent on the following post:

They are still fucking dead and a fucking bullet from a fucking gun KILLED them.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2187883

REASON FOR ALERT:

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate. (See <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=aboutus#communitystandards" target="_blank">Community Standards</a>.)

ALERTER'S COMMENTS:

Excessive use of the f-bomb! Seriously though, this almost rises to a TOS violation in my opinion. We can disagree here on DU without throwing "fuck you!"s at each other. At least I would hope so.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Sun Jan 13, 2013, 08:46 PM, and the Jury voted 0-6 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: The F-bomb is a perfectly appropriate response to the mass murder of children.
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: Really. Fuck. Look around. Stinky never said Fuck you
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: Post is fucking fine. Don't like adult fucking language? Talk to some fucking children, I hear Nickelodeon has a fucking website.
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No "fuck you's" that I see. leave the post!

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

[pipoman]

19. Wasn't me..

[Stinky The Clown]

28. This is, so far as I know, the first alert on one of my posts. I have a perfect transparency

record on DU3.

I find myself incapable of seeing the "other" side of the gun debate.

A post that suggests we are suffering gun related deaths at an acceptable rate make me see red. No guns beget no gun deaths. I am not saying all deaths will stop, They will not. A well used broadsword can lay waste to a crowd in pretty short order. A crossbow is as deadly as any firearm.

None are as efficient as is the gun.

I am still very deeply affected by those twenty six innocents slaughtered in Sandy Hook School, in Newtown, CT, by . . . . GUNS.

Babies killed by guns.

Innocents killed by guns

Go interact with a kindergartner . . . . . and then imagine.

GUNS are not okay.

[Llewlladdwr]

30. "I find myself incapable of seeing the "other" side of the gun debate."

I'm having this problem too, but from the "other" side. I'm still not understanding how punishing me for the actions of a madman in another state makes the world a better place. I really truly don't. And no one has been able to explain to me how it does.

[Lizzie Poppet]

24. And if you fucking say 'fuck' a lot it fucking makes it MORE TRUER!!

[NYC_SKP]

4. Were there 350,000,000 people in the US in the late 1700s?

This is where your math doesn't work. Modern rates relate to modern populations.

A good effort, but just not a valid one.

[GP6971]

5. Yes there were

About 2.5 mil in 1776. Just saying.........not weighing in on this discussion

[jmowreader]

29. Consider...

Thanks to the advances of technology, we have produced guns that can do things the Founders couldn't even imagine.

I have fired a Brown Bess Musket - the standard weapon used on both sides in the American Revolution. It was a reproduction, but still a Brown Bess. With enough practice, I could fire about two shots per minute. Some of the really serious reenactors could fire four. Let's say your average Colonial grunt could fire three. If someone decided to shoot up a school with a Brown Bess and he could fire four rounds per minute, the people he was attacking would have fifteen seconds between shots to beat him up, wring his neck and impale him on his own bayonet. It would have been very difficult to conduct a massacre with one Brown Bess.

The guns we have now are a different story: even a bolt-action hunting rifle with a three-round fixed magazine could do far more mayhem than a Brown Bess-armed assassin could dream of.

The other thing is, in addition to not having the tools to conduct a massacre we didn't have the desire. NO ONE walked into a school and started killing kids back then. They didn't do it 75 years ago. We had more of a sense of community then.

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. There were around 31,000 or so firearms deaths in the US in 2011.

That's from all causes: murder, suicide, and accidents. That represents one ten-thousandth of the entire US population of about 311 million. To put that into some perspective: it's the equivalent of four hundred firearms deaths in the United States of 1790 (four firearms deaths per 100K population, which is a little lower, probably, than the actual overall homicide rate at the time).

[pipoman]

12. Actually the rate in the US of firearm death by all causes is

around 10.2/100k.

http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html

[Spider Jerusalem]

13. yes, but 1/10000th of the total population = 4 per 100k based on the 1790 population.

[pipoman]

17. Not following the thought here

this is the reason for rate comparisons...rates are mobile and can be assigned to any population. The problem with the OP was the use of the word "rate" then comparing actual numbers based on a vastly different population instead of using actual "rate".

[Spider Jerusalem]

22. Clarification:

the total number of firearms deaths relative to the total population, 2011: one in ten thousand.

A rate of one in ten thousand relative to the 1790 population? 400. (Lower than the overall 1790 murder rate, and yes that is about 10 per 100k. Sorry.)

The point is that yes, it's fairly meaningless in relation to population size.

[Llewlladdwr]

7. Seeing as how murder rates were higher in Colonial times,,,

I doubt they would change anything.

[jmg257]

11. "for the common defence" would have been added after "arms",

Just like the Senate wanted.

[davidn3600]

26. Nope.... not a chance.

We were founded by revolutionaries. These guys feared the government more than criminals.

"God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independent 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusetts: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in god this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted."
-Thomas Jefferson
November 13, 1787

[green for victory]

27. a fantastic quote from a REAL democrat

Thomas Jefferson would have never bailed out the 1% on the backs of the 99%

[NYC_SKP]

31. Thomas Jefferson quotes??? RW Talking Point!!111!!!!11!

I agree with Jefferson.