News Yet another mass shooting - Umpqua Community College, Oregon

[gfd43tg]

I suspect they were thinking of attacks from native Americans, the British, etc.

Note that George Washington himself led an army to put down an armed rebellion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion

I agree that it was for attacks, both foreign and domestic. Consider this excerpt from the Declaration of Independence

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

You can't overthrow an armed government without having arms yourself. I just had to respond even though its getting off topic from the OP. I'm happy the name of the shooter is not being released in order to avoid copycats who might want to get their name known.

Also just wanted to say that they will only get my guns if they pry them from my cold, dead hands. In the words of King Leonidas to Xerxes, Molon Labe!

 

[BobG]

It's possible but extremely unlikely with the original bill of rights and I would hope we learned an important lesson with two of those 10.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before.[2]

Just cause he said it doesn't mean it's true. Alcohol consumption is estimated to have dropped to 30% to 60% of pre-prohibition consumption levels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohi...tates#Rates_of_consumption_during_Prohibition).

However, I'm not sure any of the studies conducted (nor the studies cited by Wiki) would really provide accurate results. Average alcohol consumption in the US is about 13 drinks a week. But, if you consume 13 drinks a week, that puts you well into the top 20% of alcohol consumption. There's a huge segment of the population (close to 40%) that consume no alcohol and another 20% that rarely consumes alcohol. Heavy drinkers skew the average much higher than rate of consumption of the typical person. It's heavy drinkers that would most likely exhibit the symptoms the studies were using for their analysis. In other words, prohibition was cutting significantly into the drinking levels of even heavy drinkers.

On the other hand, he is correct that reduced alcohol consumption came at the cost of higher alcohol smuggling/bootlegging related crime. And unstated was the loss of potential tax revenue caused by prohibition.

Ignoring the right/wrong of the issue, gun control would be an interesting effect. I think accidental gun deaths and the gun violence we see today would almost certainly decrease due to reduced availability (due to increased expense of guns), but gun violence related to gun smuggling would increase. I wonder which would be affected most.

 

[nsaspook]

Ignoring the right/wrong of the issue, gun control would be an interesting effect.

On a national scale similar to Prohibition the effect would IMO make the lost of civil liberty and expansion of the police state from the drug war look tiny in comparison.