Re: Oregon incident.
 

Er, I've forgotten more about US history than you'll ever know on your best day.

The militias have the US president as their commander-in-chief but are organized at the state level. (Surely you must know this, as it is in the Constitution.) In today's parlance, that's the National Guard. Are you a member?

Re: Oregon incident.
 

Here's the thing. Canada has guns, in some areas just as many guns as they do (relatively speaking) in the US. Canada also has big cities, stressful situations and all the other things we do in the US and everything is more expensive there.

Yet they don't go around blowing each other away up there. What are we doing wrong here that the rest of the Western world doesn't?

Re: Oregon incident.
 

I made a similar point in the previous somebody-shot-a-bunch-of-people-but-that's-OK thread. Sure, keep your guns, in return for one weekend every month and a two-week training camp once a year, and an 8-year commitment to being called up as an IRR after your 3-year National Guard duty. How many gun owners will sign up for that?

Re: Oregon incident.
 

Canada has much stricter gun laws than the US, including mandatory licensing, long waiting periods, and handgun restrictions. Not really comparable.

Re: Oregon incident.
 

Canada is not without its mass shooting incidents, but they do tend to be fewer and further between than the US ones, even allowing for the population differences. Perhaps it's because, as Canadians, we're so unfailingly polite and naturally apologetic that we'd never get around to pulling the trigger for fear we might have to say sorry (again) afterwards?

Re: Oregon incident.
 

Actually, that answers my question, so it was worthwhile bringing up.

The short answer is that Canada is the responsible adult, and America is the ADD child who just got into daddy's 'keep out' box.

There's that too, eh.

Re: Oregon incident.
 

Further to gun control. I think it would take this:
1. New federal laws outlawing ownership of rifles and handguns by all persons except the police and the military.
2. Using the state and FBI records of applications for purchase of weapons and the records of gun dealers (many of which records may be so old that they are not on any computer databases) the police would have to go to the homes of every person in the country and demand - by force if necessary - the surrender of the weapons. Because so many guns have been transferred without any record (inherited, stolen, etc) you can't limit the effort to those who have complied with the gun laws.

This is the faintest outline of what would have to be done to disarm the people of this country. The intrusion into the privacy and the rights of the citizens is so massive that only a totalitarian government could try to accomplish it and we're not there yet. That's why it's not going to happen, it would be politically impossible

Re: Oregon incident.
 

So instead you advocate doing nothing at all? Bravo.

Re: Oregon incident.
 

These guys can't seem to figure out that the basic purpose of the Constitution was to transfer powers from the states to the federal government. One of those powers was control over the militias.

The militias were not an informal body of dudes with pickup trucks and beer, but organized groups that were overseen by Congress (Article 1 Section 8) and with the president as their commander (Article 2).

What the Second Amendment ultimately did was to dictate the purpose of the militias. Madison drafted it so that they would protect the country as a whole, but the 1st Congress changed the language so that the intent was to protect the individual states. The Congressmen who debated it obviously had this in mind -- we know this by reading the minutes in the Congressional Record -- so it's not exactly a secret that they were focusing on the militia powers rather than individual gun rights or the lack thereof.

Re: Oregon incident.
 

Got Baco-foil?

The only thing we have to do is get smart about it. Don't just let any Tom, Dick and Harry get guns willy-nilly. Tighten up licensing; extend wait periods; stricter psych evaluations; ban, or at least heavily regulate and restrict private sales.

Honestly, any reasonable, responsible would-be gun owner wouldn't have a problem with any such measures and any that would are the reason why the USA is fast becoming a joke of a country and not the great one that post-WW2 America was setting itself up to be (before it got obsessed with Communism and adding the word 'god' to everything).

The founding fathers would disown the America of today and form a new country somewhere else.

Re: Oregon incident.
 

Only Trump thinks it's possible. The people who think deporting 11 million people is doable, or disarming this country is possible live in an alternate universe.

By the way, I know Canadians, I grew up there as a kid, I have Canadian relatives and a second home on PEI. As has been pointed out, they are much too polite to engage in mass killings - except around the Parliament.:nod:

Re: Oregon incident.
 

But if you have all the guns locked up in an armoury all an enemy needs to do is seize or destroy the armoury. I do not dispute anything you so eloquently explained, except that without weapons kept at home a militia is largely pointless.

Re: Oregon incident.
 

In 21st century North America, a militia of this kind is entirely pointless. As has been eloquently explained above, the function of a local militia force has been formalized in the National Guard, which acts as a State-maintained force under the ultimate authority of the Federal government. The US has no other militia force in existence, except perhaps for the crazies and preppers (who may, of course, be one and the same) hiding in the mountains who call themselves militias.

For service with which militia organization, formal or informal, would a private citizen in today's America keep a gun at home?

Re: Oregon incident.
 

The 2nd Amendment doesn't deal with the specifics. All that it does is clarify that the militias should defend the states. The slave-holding states had feared that federal militia power could be used to prevent the states from using their militias to put down slave rebellions.

Re: Oregon incident.
 

Perhaps all these bored twenty something white males should be made to do some sort of national service to stop them getting bored. Doesn't have to be military service maybe something in the community, guarding planned parenthood clinics for example...