OMG Politics, I'm over it already.

Status
Not open for further replies.
Theodore said:
Yeah, lists of people who haven't committed a crime is the way to solve a society-wide problem.
Click to expand...
That is the crux of the problem with the proposed solution. If we move from "innocent until proven guilty" to "suspected terrorist", it becomes a slippery slope. Once that genie is out of the bottle, it'll be hard to put back, and the lists will likely grow.
 
shoeless said:
That is the crux of the problem with the proposed solution. If we move from "innocent until proven guilty" to "suspected terrorist", it becomes a slippery slope. Once that genie is out of the bottle, it'll be hard to put back, and the lists will likely grow.
Click to expand...

The New York State Senate is trying to do this. I'm not happy about it.
 
*Sigh* I really wish I had not posted that cartoon from my local paper. This topic seems to be one step beyond what the conversation can handle. We are not going to solve this, and probably (but not certainly) will not change minds discussing the issue here. The Second Amendment is a personal individual right. That does not necessarily mean it cannot have some regulation. 1st Amendment speech is also an individual right and as I have said, has time, manner and place restrictions. Pretty much, content restrictions don't survive, among other restrictions that create "chilling" effects on speech and other stuff like that. What any proposed regulations to 2A rights might be, how effective they might be, how they interact with other right such as privacy, 4th A search and seizure (which right just took a big hit), speech, right to travel, etc. is very complicated. Also, there are the practical matters of better mental health care, better support for people in need, addressing the gap between haves and have nots, etc. etc. etc.

Here is a link to an article discussing how SCOTUS looks to the 1st A in thinking about the 2nd A.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...irst-amendment-guide-to-the-second-amendment/

There are some other good links there too.

One thing that is said:

Some non-prohibitory regulations are constitutional. (Reynolds offered his own list of such controls, but whether he was right about any particular item on the list is less important than his general point that the Second Amendment does not forbid all gun control.)

However, the regulations must be pretty darned carefully drafted under SCOTUS's current view of the law, and not be prohibitory. It is a really tough deal to figure out under current law, and we have a great deal of trouble even beginning a conversation. It looks like everyone in the room has their fingers in their ears going lalalalalalalalalalalalala so they cannot hear the other side of the discussion.

Some (@Flamencology for example) believe the aging US Const. including the 2nd A needs a tune up, or complete rebuild. (not calling him out here, that is heis belief, and he has plainly said so, just using him as an example as I know he an take it.) Of course, an awful lot of people disagree with that. I don't pretend to know what will be effective in curbing mass violence. I don't think it will be only one thing, such as some measures of gun control. As I said, many other factors are involved, and I am no firearms, police enforcement, or military expert. But it is incorrect to say that because the 2nd A has been confirmed as an individual right, it means it cannot be regulated at all.

The guilty until proven innocent lists are pretty scary too, and are not directly 2nd A issues necessarily. The red lists of the 50's come to mind. Also, privacy of information in one's computer or phone, and gov't access thereto, or the ability to force a company to produce a hack. All very interesting, and scary stuff IMHO.

With that said, I am pretty interested in how these upcoming conventions come out.
 
Last edited:
Chad said:
England may have had a great military, but how long did it take troops to get to the US? Did they have planes? Tanks? No, the only weapons they had were the same one the US farmers had. If you think armed guys can over throw the US government, you are crazy. All the assault rifles in the world will do nothing against a fighter jet or a tank.
Click to expand...

Then how do you explain the Vietnam war, in which the US's massive advantage in technology and weaponry amounted to nothing? Or Afghanistan, which has, in modern times, fought off the two most powerful militaries in the history of the planet using little more than small arms?
 
shoeless said:
That is the crux of the problem with the proposed solution. If we move from "innocent until proven guilty" to "suspected terrorist", it becomes a slippery slope. Once that genie is out of the bottle, it'll be hard to put back, and the lists will likely grow.
Click to expand...

I think liberals need to be aware that limiting the Second Amendment rights of those individuals on "lists" means that it's entirely possible (if unlikely) at that point for a republican controlled House and Senate to put all registered democrats on a "traitor list" while simultaneously creating a republican party "well regulated militia." You may think it wouldn't happen, but the point is that it could, which is why the founders gave us the Second Amendment to begin with.
 
Here's a pertinent snippet from Scalia in the 2008 DC v Heller case. He comes off as positively liberal and perhaps that's the real "slippery-slope" at play these days...

On pp. 54 and 55, the majority opinion, written by conservative bastion Justice Antonin Scalia, states: “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited…”. It is “…not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

“Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

“We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller (an earlier case) said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time”. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’ ”
 
VoidTerraFirma said:
Here's a pertinent snippet from Scalia in the 2008 DC v Heller case. He comes off as positively liberal and perhaps that's the real "slippery-slope" at play these days...

On pp. 54 and 55, the majority opinion, written by conservative bastion Justice Antonin Scalia, states: “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited…”. It is “…not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

“Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

“We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller (an earlier case) said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time”. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’ ”
Click to expand...
Though I am not always a big Scalia fan, he did sometimes stick true to his stated beliefs.
 
Beyer160 said:
Then how do you explain the Vietnam war, in which the US's massive advantage in technology and weaponry amounted to nothing? Or Afghanistan, which has, in modern times, fought off the two most powerful militaries in the history of the planet using little more than small arms?
Click to expand...

Were Vietnam and Afghanistan US citizens trying to overthrow the government? You do know the Soviet Union backed the North Vietnamese and provided them with military gear right? They weren't just a band of yahoos with a few guns. They had MiGs from the USSR and used Soviet radar to track US targets.

check this out to see how well a well regulated militia has done against the government.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...one-in-oregon-most-of-which-ended-peacefully/
 
Chad said:
So what has the rest of the world done that worked? I don't want to debate the gun issue but I think we can all agree all of these mass shootings are not acceptable. When I keep seeing them happening, I can't believe this is happening in the US. I expect this kind of stuff to happen in the middle east, but not here.

View attachment 27946
Click to expand...
How did the ban on "assault weapons" work in France?

FWIW, I'm not going to disagree with you: mass shootings, heck, shootings of any kind are reprehensible. Where I'll disagree with anyone is proposing that disarming the population is going to make them safer. It will make them defenseless, and that's not safe.

The numbers do show that homicide numbers are declining as well as other deaths by firearms, while firearm ownership in the US is at an all time high (and climbing). Here is the site I pulled this graphic from: http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/12/foghorn/guns-violence-united-states-numbers/ (which is of course a pro-gun site).

HomicideCompare1.jpg

I also understand and appreciate that folks don't want to debate this issue, and that's fine. I like you guys here and these issues tend to divide - not why I'm here.
 
ISIS loves the NRA and the GOP since they continue to fight for the right to easily arm terrorist in the United States.
#goodtimes
 
sunvalleylaw said:
EDIT 2: Gawd that was shitty gum.
Click to expand...


Fuck you man, you can take my bazooka joe from my cold dead mouth... :)

It was pretty shitty. It was so hard and the flavor didn't last very long, lol. I do have fond memories of playing baseball as a kid and chewing bazooka joe. One of my friends dads always had it.

If somebody were to offer me some right now, I wouldn't turn it down.
 
wagdog said:
How did the ban on "assault weapons" work in France?

FWIW, I'm not going to disagree with you: mass shootings, heck, shootings of any kind are reprehensible. Where I'll disagree with anyone is proposing that disarming the population is going to make them safer. It will make them defenseless, and that's not safe.

The numbers do show that homicide numbers are declining as well as other deaths by firearms, while firearm ownership in the US is at an all time high (and climbing). Here is the site I pulled this graphic from: http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/12/foghorn/guns-violence-united-states-numbers/ (which is of course a pro-gun site).

HomicideCompare1.jpg

I also understand and appreciate that folks don't want to debate this issue, and that's fine. I like you guys here and these issues tend to divide - not why I'm here.
Click to expand...

So France has one mass shooting in the history of their country and they are on par with the US?

Your graph ends in 2010. I don't have recent stats, but I do know mass shootings are up big time and they use assault riffles in those.

I'm not for getting rid of guns completely (my avatar is me hold my 22 when I was a kid) it just makes no sense that it is easier to buy a gun than get a driver's license.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tig
sonik said:
Did someone say regulate?

Click to expand...


I actually have a fun story about this song that involves guns.

We were riding around in on old blazer out in the country early one morning after a good night of partying. It’s a very crisp morning so the windows are down. We see some piggies out in a field. There are two ARs in the truck. Right as the two people on the passenger side take aim, this song comes on. We all lose it, and all the piggies survived to oink another day. The end.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top