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1. M. Grégoire (mpjgregoire@mamot.fr)'s status on Thursday, 26-May-2022 02:54:02 UTC M. Grégoire

   • Charles U. Farley

   @freakazoid Well, I'm not an expert on the US Constitution, but my understanding of the 2A is:
   1. There was a tradition of national defense through armed citizens. In mediæval England peasants were required to practise archery. Standing armies, OTOH, were viewed as potential agents of tyranny.

   • M. Grégoire (mpjgregoire@mamot.fr)'s status on Thursday, 26-May-2022 02:53:59 UTC M. Grégoire

     in reply to

     • Charles U. Farley

     @freakazoid I'm very sorry to hear about your great uncle and your friend. Tragic.

     I'm sure that people would still attempt suicide with fewer guns around, but they would be less likely to succeed.

     Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 likes this.
   • M. Grégoire (mpjgregoire@mamot.fr)'s status on Thursday, 26-May-2022 02:54:00 UTC M. Grégoire

     in reply to

     • Charles U. Farley

     @freakazoid An effort to repeal or revise the 2A would have merit, since it was written for a different world. But Americans like their Constitution and they like their guns, so such an effort would almost certainly go nowhere.

     There are gun control measures that the courts have decided are compatible with the 2A. Whether they would have much effect, particularly for mass shootings, is unclear to me. Maybe suicide rates could be reduced.

     #uspol

   • Charles U. Farley (freakazoid@retro.social)'s status on Thursday, 26-May-2022 02:54:00 UTC Charles U. Farley

     in reply to

     @mpjgregoire I had a close friend and a great uncle shoot themselves, but personally I find the suicide argument for gun control uncompelling. Better mental health care is a far better way to reduce the suicide rate. But of course the American relationship with mental health is similar to our relationship with guns, with a lot of overlap through our weird flavor of individualism.

   • M. Grégoire (mpjgregoire@mamot.fr)'s status on Thursday, 26-May-2022 02:54:01 UTC M. Grégoire

     in reply to

     • Charles U. Farley

     @freakazoid So the 2A really was written to encourage an armed citizenry, and to prevent government obstruction of such.

     Of course, the founders didn't foresee how weaponry and geopolitics would develop, making it necessary to have an army, basically impossible to outgun such an army, and OTOH much easier for an armed citizen to kill many innocents.

   • M. Grégoire (mpjgregoire@mamot.fr)'s status on Thursday, 26-May-2022 02:54:02 UTC M. Grégoire

     in reply to

     • Charles U. Farley

     @freakazoid
     2. The founders really believed that stuff about the tree of liberty needing to be refeshed from time to time... It was possible that another revolution would be required eventually, or at least healthy that government should fear that possibility.

   • Charles U. Farley (freakazoid@retro.social)'s status on Thursday, 26-May-2022 06:19:08 UTC Charles U. Farley

     in reply to

     @mpjgregoire There's a good chance my friend would still be alive if he hadn't had a loaded gun lying around. It was a very spur-of-the-moment decision.

     OTOH I suspect his brother also committed suicide, with a motorcycle.

     Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 likes this.
   • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Thursday, 26-May-2022 06:50:28 UTC Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅

     in reply to

     • Charles U. Farley
     @freakazoid @mpjgregoire It's the same reason why putting up fences on bridges works. A lot of suicide prevention is getting past that sudden impulse.