Tag Archives: guns

Culture, Politics & Government, Social Science and Society, Sundries

Arms and the man: what does the Second Amendment really mean?

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FILE PHOTO: An exhibit booth for firearms manufacturer Smith & Wesson is seen on display at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Chicago, Illinois, October 26, 2015. REUTERS/Jim Young/File Photo – RC11E7FED7A0

Many see the individual right to bear arms as a basic American human right secured by The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. However, from 1791 to 2008 the matter has been debated:

    by attorneys and senators, slave owners and freedmen, judges, Black Panthers, governors and lobbyists. For some, the militia was key; for others the right that shall not be infringed; for yet others, the question of states versus the federal government.

The case of District of Columbia v. Heller in the Supreme Court in 2008 appeared to settle the matter, although the decision was quite narrow and constrained. Now new information has come to light which demands a reconsideration. Continue reading Arms and the man: what does the Second Amendment really mean? →

Culture, Life, Politics & Government, Social Science and Society, Sundries

The rise and rise of American gun culture

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On the 4th of July in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence the thirteen American colonies then at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain—New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia— announced that they would now regard themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states no longer under British rule.

It was a very brave thing to do, because there were very few guns in the colonies and they had no significant gun industry. Yet the American War of Independence (1775-1783) was won and with it the American gun industry was born. ABC RN’s Rear Vision program recently took a look at the origins of the American gun industry (transcript available) with some erudite published authors and scholars. Continue reading The rise and rise of American gun culture →

Politics & Government

Abbott and Turnbull in public shootout

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turnbull_malcolm-turnbull-headshot_250A shootout that leaves both damaged, Abbott perhaps more than Turnbull. That’s largely because none of the scribes and commentators have taken account fully of Peta Credlin’s account of the events (paywalled, but Google ‘Peta Credlin IT IS ironic that after a whole week talking about the Adler shotgun’).

I think most people now think that Tony Abbott was lying when he said there was no secret deal between him and David Leyonhjelm in mid-August last year to put a sunset clause on the temporary ban on importing the Adler A110 lever-action shotgun. The sunset clause was said to have been inserted in exchange for votes on migration legislation in a deal Justice Minister Michael Keenan and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton. Not so, says Credlin, because the extension, with sunset clause, had been done weeks earlier, and the fact communicated in the national press. Continue reading Abbott and Turnbull in public shootout →