Invention begs questions of Second Amendment.
A new invention by a couple of dads in Boston should have this country up in arms, so to speak, about the Second Amendment. According to a local news report, these fathers have invented a bulletproof backpack.…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - Dave Nalle
The license issuer knows where to go to take the guns away. IMO a militia ought to be regulated by the people directly, not by the state.
Dave
27 - gonzo marx
and never have i said in any way that i have a problem with that at all
i'm of the position that like your car, dog, boat and many other things...you should have a license (personally i think all firearms should have their ballistic fingerprint registered with their bill of sale from the manufacturer to the distributor)
then anybody that can legally do so, should be able to have their firearms...same as their car, dog, boat and so on...
i personally would like firearm safety taught in high school gym class...issue folks one after they have done two years Service (not just military...any kind of service)...but that's just me, and a completely different conversation...
Excelsior?
28 - Dr Dreadful
Clav, I'm running low on beer. Would you mind awfully going back to the store for more?
29 - Leif Rakur
In response to #25:
The quote attributed to Jefferson that says, "The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it" is bogus. Jefferson never said nor wrote it, according to GunCite, a gun-supportive organization.
Jefferson's real view of the Second Amendment was that it is a provision for "the substitution of militia for a standing army." (See Jefferson to Dr. Joseph Priestley, June 19, 1802.)
30 - Clavos
Gotcha, Doc. Be right back. Take notes!
31 - phiogistic
People don't wear their backpacks while they are in class. These would not have saved anyone at Va Tech.
32 - Grant
They may not be wearing them in class, but they do have them in class with them. If a shooter were to try an attack at least the students would have something to shield them from bullets close to hand.
The next logical step would be to have a means to engage the attacker available in the classroom. If a person is old enough and has whatever permit is needed to carry in their state, it should be allowed.
33 - Dr Dreadful
They may not be wearing them in class, but they do have them in class with them. If a shooter were to try an attack at least the students would have something to shield them from bullets close to hand.
Well, let's put that to the test. You lift up your backpack at the same instant the bullet leaves the muzzle of the gun. We'll see which one makes it to your chest first.
34 - crazychester
sigh, this topic is the proverbial dead horse.
Shaun, you are a well meaning fool, but still a fool. Did you just sit down and start typing or did you research anything on this topic?
How about this:
We just go ahead and ban everything that isn't directly involved with us getting to work and paying more taxes for more laws, more police, and more military. They will certainly do everything they can for us AFTER the crime.
35 - Ray Ellis
One major flaw--and this is really is kinda major-- in the pro-gun argument is that it assumes that only right-thinking (no pun intended) citizens are going to be packing heat. And that those citizens will be so level-headed that they'll only use their pistola, assault weapon, RPG launcher, whatever, as a force for good.
36 - Clavos
One major flaw--and this is really is kinda major-- in the anti-gun argument is that it assumes that no badass citizens are going to be packing heat after guns are banned.
Good luck with that; it ought to be about as successful as the ban on drugs or Prohibition.
37 - Clavos
And actually, it's precisely because we know badasses pack heat that we want to retain our right to pack, too.
Keeps the playing field level...
38 - Ray Ellis
I was waiting for that tired, tired argument. I'm only surprised that it took as long as it did.
Firstly. I don't think I advocated a ban on guns. I merely observed that guns make everybody a badass, which you so eloquently illustrated when you said it "evens the playing field."
That being said, the mentality that everyone should pack heat only perpetuates a problem that is not so easily dismissed. While I'm sure you're one of the "good guys" who would never shoot somebody in a fit of rage, I'm certainly not willing to bet my life on it.
Until you've been shot at (as I have) or until you've found yourself caught in a crossfire (as I have, it's easy to say one guy is the good guy who is only arming himself against the bad guy who has no business having a gun.
The smell of thermite whizzing by you makes you reevaluate things.
39 - Ray Ellis
Here's the truth of the matter. The average citizen can't shoot straight. Firing ranges and life or death situations are very different scenarios.
40 - Dr Dreadful
#35-36: Clav, you fell victim to temptation. So did I, alas (#33), but I'm all better now. Another beer?
[ptssshhh...]
41 - Clavos
Not to get too one-up on you, but I've been shot at (and shot back), too. I've also had a loaded gun held against my head while unarmed and being robbed. Of the two, I much prefer having the option of defending myself.
If I'm going to be shot at again, and that becomes more and more likely every day, I would like to be able to shoot back.
Not sure which of the points I made you consider a "tired tired argument," but tired only means it's an argument that's been proposed many times, not that it's not valid.
Sometimes an idea has to be repeated over and over again before people get the point.
42 - Clavos
Doc, where were you when I was tempted??
Yeah, gimme another one, please...
43 - Ray Ellis
Absolutely, Clavos. So you can understand where I'm coming from. I would be interested in knowing, however, what sort of magic you'd have performed when the gun was held to your head.
I'm not advocating a ban on guns. What I am saying is we need a system of accountability that is lacking. You ask any cop--and I mean any cop--what their greatest fear is, and they'll tell you in a heartbeat that it's they're outgunned.
And no matter how you try to frame it, the Founding Fathers never intended for the average citizen to have rocket launchers or assault weapons. Any argument to the contrary is ludicrous. If you believe that, why are we worried about a "well-armed militia" in Iraq?
44 - STM
Why is the Australian Army featuring in the picture at the top of the story (unique, one-of-a-kind and unmistakeable jungle green cammo pattern). We don't have bullet-proof backpacks in Oz. Anyway, surely it should be a picture of two idiots walking around the streets of the US with guns in their hands :)
45 - Ray Ellis
Thank you, STM!
46 - Clavos
"I would be interested in knowing, however, what sort of magic you'd have performed when the gun was held to your head."
I was expecting that question, Ray. The gun wasn't suddenly held against my head; I saw it coming, but was powerless to do anything.
I literally was in a Pizza Hut (the only customer, mid-evening), in of all places, Huntsville, Alabama.
I was waiting for my pizza to be served, seated at a table facing the door, when it opened, and in came a dude with a stocking over his head and a revolver in his hand. He began to herd the employees behind the counter and didn't even see me for several seconds. There was ample time to plug him before he spotted me.
47 - STM
Ray Ellis: "I'm not advocating a ban on guns. What I am saying is we need a system of accountability that is lacking. You ask any cop--and I mean any cop--what their greatest fear is, and they'll tell you in a heartbeat that it's they're outgunned."
In my long experience of dealing with lawmen, even when our gun laws were similar to those of the US, I never met one police officer who wanted to see more guns on the streets rather than less.
While some small-town American Sheriff's dept officers in Doodad County might think more guns or a proliferation of guns are good, I would wager as a certainty most big-city police officers in the US are in favour of gun control.
48 - STM
Having said all that, Americans should resign themselves to the fact that nothing much will change in relation to the personal ownership of firearms. That's because of the different interpretations that can be made of the 2nd amendment. You are stuck with it, and those silly founding fathers just didn't, unfortunately, have themselves a crystal ball. IMO, it was the one thing they totally fu.ked up.
I can see that given the proliferation of guns in the US and the ease with which criminals can get them (well, that's why folks) makes it desireable for people to feel good by being able to own a gun with the intention of protecting themselves, I suspect the reality is something different.
I'd like to know how many shootings in the US as a percentage of the whole are carried out by people protecting themselves against armed criminals.
49 - Shaun Manley
hey crazychester, how's this for foolish?
new york times columnist bob herbert has put this debate in vivid light on aug. 14:
nearly 100,000 murdered since 2001. highlighted by the recent murder of three people in a church in missouri.
according to the FBI, in 2003 16,528 people were murdered. of those, 9,659 were killed by various firearms. a year later, those numbers are: 16,137 total killed, 9,326 by firearms.
yet, here we are, spending billions on anti-terror efforts that have us stuck in iraq, when we could spend a fraction of that on getting guns off the streets, and get back to the mid-90s when violent crimes in america dipped.
i'm a fool, yet nearly 100,000 people in the last six years have been murdered? seems like the fool was rather well-informed.
but, i guess my information doesn't count, because it came from the new york times, and the federal bureau of investigaton.
50 - STM
You should all be ashamed of the fact that the United States has the highest rate of homicide - gun or otherwise - in the western world. In fact, the rate actually puts it on a par with many 3rd world countries (some of which have lower rates).
I suspect the real reason behind this is the growth of America's gun culture over the years and the VERY easy availability of firearms, rather just a big criminal milieu.
After all, we all have our crims - but we don't have homicide figures approaching anywhere near that of the US. It would still be far higher even if it was death by gun alone and you took the non-gun deaths out of gthe equation.
Something to think about.
51 - Dr Dreadful
I'd like to know how many shootings in the US as a percentage of the whole are carried out by people protecting themselves against armed criminals.
As you've probably discovered, Stan, that's kind of hard to quantify, due to the various and disparate methods used to collect the statistics.
The best I've been able to do, so far, is a website called Just Facts.com, which says that Americans use guns to defend themselves from criminals 764,000 times a year. This seems awfully high, especially if you consider another statistic showing that only 691,000 crimes a year are actually committed using firearms. If true, this would seem to show that "law-abiding" Americans are worryingly trigger-happy...
52 - STM
Grant: "Apparently they fail to remember that one of the first things that Hitler did was to confiscate guns from the citizens of Germany and any country he conquered."
Grant, you gibberer - Nazi Germany was a totalitarian state, not a representative democracy. You have rule of law that has been established for more than 200 years in your own country and another 1000 or so before that in England. Your cousins the British have had tough gun laws for decades, and there's no sign of it becoming a totalitarian state yet. The opposite actually, whereby on average they probably have more fundamental rights, especially through the courts, than do US citizens.
Come on mate, back to the drawing board, or shoot (pardon the pun) down to the Doodad County library and see if you can dig up some proper info.
53 - STM
DD: "If true, this would seem to show that "law-abiding" Americans are worryingly trigger-happy..."
That's what worries me. I don't think it's got anything to do with protection, as no-one could be that fearful or that paranoid.
I think it's just that some Americans really like playing with their bang-bangs.
54 - Dave Nalle
(holds up hand)
55 - STM
Lol! I was wondering how long it'd be :)
56 - Christopher Rose
I don't think that because the US police are useless at disarming criminals means that the rest of the citizenry should arm themselves. The police ought to be made to do their work properly.
57 - Clavos
Let me see:
The US police are:
"useless at disarming criminals"
useless at keeping drugs out of the country
useless at keeping drugs in the country out of the hands of consumers
useless at keeping terrorists out of the country
useless at keeping Mexicans out of the country
useless at keeping businessmen's hands out of their tills
useless at keeping politicians' hands out of everyone's pockets
hmm
I'll keep my bang-bangs, thank you.
58 - Christopher Rose
That's an inane objection, Clavos. You don't go around doing the police's job for them or else you could simply disband the police and have vigilantes running around all over the place. Oh wait, they tried that, it was what we now call the wild west!
59 - Clavos
The inanity (if, indeed there is such) is as much yours as it is mine, Christopher. The first point in my litany is a quote.
The police in America fail to do adequately all the things I listed, and, in addition, are corrupt.
As you, Stan, and a number of others have pointed out repeatedly, American cities these days are no longer safe.
I don't see the supposed inanity of my point.
But, granting you your point for the sake of argument, I will say that I keep my guns because the Constitution says I can.
60 - Christopher Rose
Clavos, the police are only as corrupt as you the people let them be. I just hope your aim is better than your reasoning. As to the constitution, so what, the law is an ass, as you have just pointed out.
61 - Clavos
"Clavos, the police are only as corrupt as you the people let them be"
Quite true, Chris.
"I just hope your aim is better than your reasoning."
Nothing wrong with either.
And "the law IS a ass."
But that's America for you...
62 - Dr Dreadful
Clav, by now we should have enough empty beer cans to start shooting them off the fence posts.
You go first. 25 bonus points if you can make it flip end over end.
63 - Clavos
POW!
Pay up, Doc...
64 - Dr Dreadful
No, you pay up. That was my shot. Like the Ringo Kid, I was so fast you didn't even see me draw.
[narrows eyes to slits, blows on fingers]
65 - Dustin
Has the author of this article already forgotten about the prohibition? How about the war on drugs? Why does the author think making it illegal to own a gun would keep guns out of a criminals hands? Criminals break the law by definition. They LAUGH at gun laws. They prefer unarmed victims. We can't even keep illegal drugs or alcohol away from criminals, much less guns that already exist in the hundreds of millions in the US alone, not to mention the world supply. Any decent thug knows how to get his hand on a gun. Taking away my right as a law abiding US citizen to defend myself with my gun without breaking the law is foolish & idiotic. Let each man & woman decide for themselves how they wish to defend their family. As for me & my house - I will always have a gun. If someone wants to take it away they'll have to pry it from my cold dead hands.
Even if somehow we could magically get rid of all the guns as the author proposes - people were murdering people long before guns were invented. They can use knives, baseball bats, crow bars, the list goes on & on. Are we to ban baseball next? The real solution? Lock the criminals up & throw away the keys. 99% of violent criminals have a rap sheet a mile long with arrests & jail time. Then they're just let back out on the street to resume their dastardly deeds. Get rid of Thugs, not guns. End of story.
66 - Dustin
I also just can't pass up mentioning the authors mention of the so called "gun lobby" like it is just some organization to be dismissed. There are about 10 Million Americans who consider themselves NRA members even if their membership is not quite up to date. The NRA is a group of Americans who are fighting to take back their gun rights. I shouldn't need a "license" to be able to exercise my right to bear arms, either concealed or open carry. It should only be a crime to use a gun while committing a crime, not for just having a gun. That is as silly as requiring a license to walk around with a bat just because you could kill someone by hitting them over the head with it. "The right of the PEOPLE to keep & BEAR arms shall NOT be infringed! What part of infringe don't the anti gun nuts understand? My second amendment right protects my right to free speech (1st amendment). They go hand in hand - take away one, and eventually you'll loose the other.
67 - Dustin
By the way, what would be wrong with allowing some teachers who choose to do so, to get training & then be allowed to carry concealed? Imagine if there were an armed teacher at Columbine or VT. It may or may not have been helpful, but why not allow them to have a fighting chance to save themselves & their students? We allow banks to protect our money with armed guards. Why don't we allow teachers to protect themselves & our most valuable asset - our children, if they choose to do so? We know there are valiant teachers out there. Look at the professor who put himself in harms way to protect his students? Would he not have had a better chance if he had a gun? Perhaps he could have brought that rampage to an early end. Perhaps not. But give him a fighting chance for crying out loud.
68 - Dr Dreadful
If someone wants to take it away they'll have to pry it from my cold dead hands.
I can't believe someone actually used that phrase on here. Classic...!
69 - Ray Ellis
You don't know when to stop, do you, Dustin? If you'd actually read the article, you would have noticed that nowhere does the author advocate banning guns. He calls for a discourse about restricting certain weapons in certain places. That's a big difference.
But you have to go on and on with tired cliches about prying your weapon from your cold dead hands.Interesting you never mention that a bulletproof shield might give a kid an added measure of protection.
70 - dave
check out the range of bullet proof baby gear over at www.bulletproofbaby.net ... shocking!
71 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I went to the bulletproof baby site you recommended. When there, all I could think about was how many children would be alive now in Israel had they had such protection. One, a little infant named Shalhevet Pass was murdered in her father's arms in Hevron six years ago. Instead of a six year old daughter, Mr. Pass has had six years of grief, not to mention years of harassment from the IDF and the Shaba"k goons...
Because of South Syrian terrorists in this country, there is definitely a market for these products here...
72 - Silver Surfer
Dustin, the US has by a huge margin the highest rate of homicide of any civilised western nation (and Dave, don't come back here citing Honduras and Colombia - they don't count). It's also the only one with truly open gun laws. Do you reckon there could be a correlation between the two, or do we have to be in denial about this for eternity.
Keep your guns by all means - we all know you love 'em and don't feel safe without them and fair enough, but possibly you could just make it harder for idiots to get hold of them. That's not that hard, is it?
73 - Dustin
Response to #69 - One problem is that the Brady campaign & most other gun control groups have the ultimate goal of banning all guns - they've stated so themselves. They know that they can't achieve their goal in a single ban as it would be rejected. Instead they target individual groups one at a time. First those who like semi-automatic AR-15's. Many hunters are fine with that since most of them have never tried shooting one, and don't realize it's simply a normal semi-automatic rifle with 2 or more "evil" looking cosmetic changes such as being black. They feel "safe" to allow the ban of some guns that they have never tried. They don't realize that the gun banning groups would never take their hunting rifle away without first calling it a sniper rifle. The other problem is the simple fact that no gun bans have ever been proven to work, so what is the point of having more? In the columbine event 17 different gun laws were broken. Also, the gun safe zone (what a JOKE - what criminal obeys a gun safe zone?) & the don't attempt to kill anyone laws were broken.
Look at the UK - since the gun ban was introduced violent crime has increased by more than 40%. Look at Washington DC & other cities that have complete handgun gun bans - after the ban was introduced crime skyrocketed, while before the gun ban crime was actually decreasing along with the rest of the US. Criminals feel safer knowing that all their victims will be defenseless. Surveys show that criminals are more afraid into running into an armed victim than the police. Why do you think so many tragic events have happened in gun free zones where they know that they'll have no opposition?
74 - Dustin
response to #72
Gun control advocates love to state that the US has a higher rate of Homicide than any civilized western nation. The thing they miss out on is that it isn't caused by the so-called "lack" of gun control (by the way, how is more than 20,000 gun laws in the US not enough gun control?). The real cause is different reporting standards. Most other countries simply are not using the same method to count. Take the UK for instance. They don't count any death as a homicide until a case has been proven to be homicide & the case is closed as solved. For non-homicide violent crime victims they don't even count statistics when the same victim is hit more than once in a given year. Trying to compare US crime to other countries directly is like comparing apples and oranges - if the statistics are not created the same way they simply don't match.
Many studies have been conducted in specific locations where gun control has been introduced to get true results of the legislation. Not a single one ever was able to produce any evidence that the legislation helped, although there are many that prove that violent crime actually increased after the ban was introduced. Why don't the gun ban advocates recognize these simple truths?
75 - Dustin
oops - correction to post #73 - I accidentally called the "gun free zone" a "gun safe zone" - I must have replaced free with safe due to the fact so many people "feel safe" in a gun free zone. Take the administrator at VT who stated that the students there would "feel safer" knowing that there would not be any students there with guns (stated after Virginia legislation failed to pass which would have allowed students with a CCW permit to carry on their campus). After the shooting they stated that the VT police couldn't be everywhere protect everyone at all times. Why do you think we want to be free to protect ourselves?