Should gun rights be subject to cost benefit analysis?

[dutch508]

Now, take your time and read what Mr. Paine says. Stopping the frisking young black guys stops some crime, and he is for it EXCEPT that it violates someone's rights, thus---he is against it. BUT. I get lost after that. Something about being a black man.

TPaine7 (3,303 posts)http://www.democraticunderground.com/117235864

Should gun rights be subject to cost benefit analysis?
I recall watching CNN years ago and being saddened by the Iraqi response to American style justice (theory). They were interviewing people on the street who were concerned about the proposed constitutional provisions regarding police beatings and torture to elicit confessions. One guy asked outright (paraphrase based on memory):

How can the police do their jobs if they can't beat suspects? How can they get confessions?

According to his cost benefit analysis, stopping police from beating suspects into submission would mean fewer crimes solved and more criminals on the street. It just wasn't worth it, in his mind.

I disagree with him and other Iraqis. Rights transcend such simple cost benefit analysis.

It doesn't matter if you can prove that the average person will benefit from the torture of a few innocents, and thus the average safety in Iraq will be enhanced by police torture. Similarly, it doesn't matter if New York's systematic illegal frisking of young black males lowers crime in New York or if racial profiling of black drivers with expensive cars in certain parts of America lowers drug trafficking.

As a black male, I stand by that principle even when it can be used to hurt me. Racist propaganda leads to the death of black people. Unquestionably. Yet I support freedom of speech. Even freedom to teach that I am a subhuman dangerous problem by virtue of being black.

I believe that the right to keep and bear arms--guns and other tools designed to defend from attack--is above simple cost-benefit analysis. Self-defense is a basic and fundamental right, and allowing it in theory while denying the necessary tools is a perverse joke.

I think I am simply being consistent.

The anti-gunners and pro-gunners on DU are the most difficult to understand. The Pro-gunners, being DUmpmonkiez, are frothing at the mouth leftists, except for guns. The Anti-Gunners are your typical frothing at the mouth leftists, who want everyone to be unarmed, except for them, of course, in a peaceful socialist paradice.

[AllosaursRus]

TPaine7 (3,303 posts)http://www.democraticunderground.com/117235864

Should gun rights be subject to cost benefit analysis?
I recall watching CNN years ago and being saddened by the Iraqi response to American style justice (theory). They were interviewing people on the street who were concerned about the proposed constitutional provisions regarding police beatings and torture to elicit confessions. One guy asked outright (paraphrase based on memory):

How can the police do their jobs if they can't beat suspects? How can they get confessions?

According to his cost benefit analysis, stopping police from beating suspects into submission would mean fewer crimes solved and more criminals on the street. It just wasn't worth it, in his mind.

I disagree with him and other Iraqis. Rights transcend such simple cost benefit analysis.

It doesn't matter if you can prove that the average person will benefit from the torture of a few innocents, and thus the average safety in Iraq will be enhanced by police torture. Similarly, it doesn't matter if New York's systematic illegal frisking of young black males lowers crime in New York or if racial profiling of black drivers with expensive cars in certain parts of America lowers drug trafficking.

As a black male, I stand by that principle even when it can be used to hurt me. Racist propaganda leads to the death of black people. Unquestionably. Yet I support freedom of speech. Even freedom to teach that I am a subhuman dangerous problem by virtue of being black.

I believe that the right to keep and bear arms--guns and other tools designed to defend from attack--is above simple cost-benefit analysis. Self-defense is a basic and fundamental right, and allowing it in theory while denying the necessary tools is a perverse joke.

I think I am simply being consistent.

HUH?.

Anyone else loose their place in this diatribe? I can't make heads or tales of this shit!

[jukin]

Only if there is a cost benefit analysis on AIDS medical costs and putting illegals through our medical system. Oh I could keep doing this for hours and only the DUchebag's cost benefit analysis would be specifically stated in The Constitution. Oh, welfare, let's do that.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

The reason it is so inscrutable is because--as with all things liberal--they have ascribed motives and arguments to the RW that none of us have every made so we do not recognize when thrown back at us.

No one on the Right claims Stop-and-Frisk laws are meant to target blacks...not even when we meet in our smoke-filled rooms. In fact, I would hazard a guess most RWers oppose S&F.

Now, one must ask, however, if a neighborhood is designated for S&F is the motivating factor race or violent crime statistics. If the latter then one must ask why the former would also seem to be in effect. Is there, perhaps, a "culture of violence"?

[Mr Mannn]

Leave it to a totalitarian wanna-be to subject constitutional rights to a cost-benefit analysis.

The right to bear arms is a RIGHT. It is not something the govt can take away.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

The right to bear arms is a RIGHT. It is not something the govt can take away.

The only reason it's a right is because a bunch of monied slave owners wrote it on a piece of paper to protect their personal interests. </du>