Dinner With Dad 6
Nov26
More backstory! I know you’re all just hanging on every bit of this. Complaints about boredom can be directed to your cat.
I have seen some really, really stupid arguments for gun control laws, but this one takes the cake: We should have gun control because of JFK.
Yeah. Your rage is rightfully earned.
Let’s get historical of some badass shit:
[EDIT]
Mother of God, the trolling goes interactive epic kickass.
I’m not saying I want to own Schwerer Gustav (my hometown lost the railroad in the 60′) but 2S4 Tyulpan would be nice.
I’m wondering if any of you would have a support for a Universal Background Check system that I can assure by design is free, totally private, can’t ever be used to create a gun registry, and most importantly to us, can be used as leverage to allow US citizens to buy guns online and have them shipped directly to your door. I’ve posted how this could work on a liberal form with some support.
http://www.tytnetwork.com/forum/forum-tyt/the-reasonable-universal-background-check/
This idea came from computer hackers and security specialist, the above all value privacy and integrity in a system
It’s a neat idea, but I am staunchly against the current gun control we already have, and I support not one iota of advancing more laws of that nature.
Put simply: Gun control laws in the USA are based on silly assumptions, and they do not work. They provably don’t work.
That’s the overall problem with so many laws. We have to endlessly test medicines before they’re put into our systems, but laws are passed without any test of the veracity of their assumptions. Case in point is every “abstinence only” sex education law or regulation put forward in any state.
Yup. If I wanted to get an illegal firearm, I could get one. Not through a “gun show loophole,” not through any of the legal channels. I could call a few people I know of fairly low moral character, and pay them probably too much money for the firearms in question, but I could get them.
If a criminal wants to illegally purchase a firearm, they will do so. No amount of gun control laws will stop that. The only thing these laws do is annoy and infringe on the rights of law abiding citizens such as yours truly.
They can also break into the homes of completely law abiding gun owners and steal the guns. It’s a dangerous world and words on paper won’t change that.
McCool, I’m keeping your statement regarding excessive laws. Tacitus put it thus:
Corruptissima republica plurimae leges.
Translation: The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government.
Variant: The more corrupt the state, the more laws.
If you don’t mind I got this response from a lot of other pro-gun people that I personally find this “not one step further” idea pretty irrational. We designed it so that it SPECIFICALLY can never be used to advance any gun registration system or future laws. It is purely designed as a background check system and anyone in government using the system can’t even tell who bought a gun or not. This also has the benefit of you know… actually working to some degree of preventing guns in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them? I’m not saying this will be a magic bullet to fix illegal guns on the street but it reduces one avenue on the secondary market that even people who would want to do a background check, can’t even do it right now on the current NICS system. Beneficially like I mentioned, it’s not like we’re giving away free candy. In exchange we expect that you are able to purchase firearms online across the country and have it shipped to your door. I personally see this as a move that expands the rights of law-abiding gun owners and restricts access to people who shouldn’t have them according to the law.
Except that all it takes is a law or executive order to force the people running the system to turn over all their records, or else the system is shut down.
And what could they do with the records?
Create a gun registry, which is what you claim your system is designed to prevent against.
How. Like explain technically how that is actually possible.
It’s called “data entry” wherein some government clerk uses the transactional records from the database you’re proposing to create a government log of who bought guns.
There is no transactional records. If you read my post the purpose of a background check does not include whether or not a gun was actually sold, or how many, or what gun was involved. It doesn’t matter it’s not the purpose of the system, so there is no information on it.
A good hacker will create a system that even he can’t subvert.
So, what you’re saying is you don’t want the government to stop dangerous people owning guns because you don’t want them to know you have a gun?
AFTER sandy hook? after Columbine? How many have to die for your “freedom”?
Okay now I’ll say that is stupid. There are too many ways for the government to know that you own a gun can be abused. You can be selectively targeted for investigation, You are immediate suspects for no cause and concern because you are a gun owner in proximity to a crime, and the government knowing where every gun is located is on the road to confiscation. And how would the government know that ME law abiding gun owner having a gun prevent Sandy Hook and Columbine? The shootings would have happened regardless if they knew or not.
Do you own a motor vehicle and/or consume alcohol? How many have to die for your “freedom”?
P.S. – Pro-tip: Don’t be a douche on a comic comment-section where people actually think and debate. It won’t end well for you.
> This also has the benefit of you know… actually working to some degree of preventing guns in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them?
This is a hypothetical claim with zero evidence to back it up.
Criminals don’t go to gun shows to buy guns. They don’t have to. They can just call someone who “knows a guy.” That guy isn’t offering them legal guns, either. Those firearms are likely stolen, or imported from Mexico.
Again: The ONLY thing background checks do is annoy and infringe on the rights of people who wish to follow the law. Criminals, by definition, do not. This proposed background check would not have stopped a single crime.
> In exchange we expect that you are able to purchase firearms online across the country and have it shipped to your door.
A nice idea on paper, but would require a complete overhaul of every law in the shipping industry, and the first time some fucko buys a gun online and then uses it commit a crime? POOF, there goes that. As it stands, I don’t feel like I’m terribly missing out by not having guns shipped to my door.
Selling guns to be delivered to your door is a bad idea for several reasons. 1) There are very few delivery services that have the proper level of accountability to handle something as potentially dangerous as a firearm. I’m sure everyone could share a few tales of woe where a UPS, Fedex or USPS worker delivered a package to the wrong address or simply left the package sitting on your doorstep. 2) I imagine there’d be a high incidence of fraud and while there are measures to prevent against this, they’d probably be enough of a hindrance for the average user that it’d be far simpler to drive somewhere and buy the gun in person.
I’d point out that if you get your C&R, you can already get live firearms delivered to your house.
Pay for any extra shipping/insurance you can when you do this though. I had an absolutely beautiful 1938 Kar.98 delivered to my house one time. Thing survived the Eastern and Western fronts with barely a scratch on it. However it met it’s undoing by UPS, they somehow managed to break the bolt handle off. Was almost enough to make me cry.
Canada has been doing this for a long time using the same delivery services you have, both Fed Ex and UPS with no problem.
>A nice idea on paper, but would require a complete overhaul of every law in the shipping industry, and the first time some fucko buys a gun online and then uses it commit a crime? POOF, there goes that. As it stands, I don’t feel like I’m terribly missing out by not having guns shipped to my door.
Uh, did you just counter my statement, using an example that you said didn’t exist just one paragraph before that criminals don’t do this? Anyways how would it be a problem, because if he legally could buy a gun online using the system, that means the fucko could have just walked into any local gun store and passed the same test there is no difference between it online and in person. A fucko who has done nothing wrong up to the point until he commits a crime is impossible to prove that he’s a fucko. It would have made no difference if he could buy it online instead of buying it at a store.
This is where the discussion usually goes to hell because now we are dealing with “what ifs” and also “what ifs” that their entire purpose is to disprove the argument without consideration of how the system actually works.
“Nearly 50 percent of the ATF investigations involved
firearms being trafficked by straw purchasers
either directly or indirectly. The investigations
also involve trafficking by unlicensed sellers
(more than 20 percent); by federally licensed
dealers (just under 9 percent); and diversion
from gun shows and flea markets by FFLs or
unlicensed sellers (about 14 percent).”
“Gun shows.
Investigations involving gun shows
involved the second highest number of traf-
ficked guns per investigation, over 130, and
were associated with over 26,000 illegally
diverted firearms.”
https://www.atf.gov/sites/default/files/assets/Firearms/chap3.pdf
Let me be clear that I am not blind that there are other avenues to acquire firearms illegally, and building Zip-guns ect. But they DO require you to “know a guy” meet a “shady dealer” ect. People go for the path of least resistance in life, and if you don’t “know a guy” then the idea of going to a private seller that is semi-reliable, has a large selection, with no paper trail is not a bad proposition. This system is designed to stop that avenue while CONVENIENCING law abiding gun owners. Have you not noticed that the current NICS system might take 4 hours to a day since the gun scare to buy a gun? It’s so overloaded because it’s based on a phone platform that if we switched to a web based it would actually save time for people since the check would only take up to a minute.
> This system is designed to stop that avenue while CONVENIENCING law abiding gun owners.
Know what would convenience me?
No more background checks. No more restrictions, aside from age. Stop treating me like a criminal when I want to buy a firearm.
There are over 20,000 gun laws on the books. Not a single one of them has ever prevented a crime. Prior to 1968 you could mail order firearms and have them sent to your home. The Kennedy assassinations were the justifications for stopping this. Oddly enough the change in the law did nothing to stop murder or assassination attempts. As for creating a perfect background check system, there is no such thing. No matter how smart someone thinks they are there is always someone smarter who will try and crack the system. There are over 80 million lawful gun owners and over 300 million firearms in this country. Any attempt to further regulate or restrict them is just whistling in the dark. While it may be cliché it is no less true, the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is for a good guy to have a gun.
Who said we were talking about criminals? What about psychopaths with a history of violent outbursts? Not necessarily been arrested, but are likely to take said gun and use it to slaughter innocent people?
Really don’t give a fuck. That situation already exists. I am not afraid of a “psychopath with a gun.” Frankly, the major fear I have is of some drunk fuck on the freeway taking me out. You don’t see me screaming that Cars and Booze should be banned.
Cabela’s, and others like Texas Jack, will deliver to your door a variety of black powder guns, caps, balls and propellant. UPS asks that someone sign for it but that’s all. A Colt Walker replica is as deadly as a .357 S&W and a lot more intimidating, just slower to reload – carry several, no problem.
“…even people who would want to do a background check, can’t even do it right now on the current NICS system.”
Total BS. A carry permit signifies far more of a BG check than a NICS check. If I’m selling a gun to someone I don’t know really well (read close friend or relative), I’m taking a look at their carry permit. If they don’t have one of those, we can get a NICS check with a quick trip to a local FFL holder. The law strongly motivates us to not sell guns to those who can’t legally own one. It is way easier to make sure you know who you are selling to than try risk a court defense by claiming ignorance for sure; but it’s not difficult, much less impossible to do it with the current legal structure. I’m with everyone else here. No new regulations. I want my damned cake back.
But apparently these people who you say value privacy and all that, are still willing to make themselves “guilty until proven innocent” by devising and/or promoting a background check system.
Like any principle taken to the extreme doesn’t work. Would you be okay if it was legal to sell a firearm or beer to a 7 year old because he is presumed to be 18/21 until proven guilty? Anyways that comparison isn’t even accurate in this situation as it’s not a crime to attempt to buy a gun without an ID in this situation. It’s illegal in the situation to SELL a gun without a verification. After sale, we assume all sales to be done legally until situations of crime involving the weapon come into question. Then the seller is a suspect to an accessory to a crime as evidence show that this firearm was originally owned by the seller. Seller must then prove his innocence or the surrounding evidence shows that he is guilty.
> Like any principle taken to the extreme doesn’t work. Would you be okay if it was legal to sell a firearm or beer to a 7 year old because he is presumed to be 18/21 until proven guilty
Now you’re being silly.
I’m sorry, you lost me. Again. You’re claiming information won’t be used to create a “registry”, which is basically an ownership tracking system. Then you tell me
How do you know who sold the gun if you don’t know who the prior owner was?
How does law enforcement current use murder firearms to track an owner? Not all the time will there be concrete evidence that a particular person is the effective owner of a firearm, but surrounding evidence, testimony, paper trails, and standard investigative detective work can simply lead to evidence that a particular person has sold a gun to an individual. Currently it’s a nightmare if you get into the situation that you privately sold a firearm to someone that committed a crime with it. It’s very hard to absolve your personal liability that you did things right. Under this system all you have to do is produce the result that you did a check at the time and you go off Scott free if everything was in order.
It’s only untrackable if you believe that inquiries aren’t logged. Inquiries being logged demonstrate intent to purchase at that time, unless you believe people will go around having checks done at random to throw noise into the system. (This demonstrates that they do not trust the system, which is another bit of data someone would love to keep track of.)
Inquiry plus bank records will many times indicate a purchase; alternately, shipping a firearm (as if I’d trust UPS with home delivery of a gun) will require tracking, and at LEAST verification of ID for the buyer / receiver (no agents, or your system falls apart) never minding seller.
You are making assumptions of a system you actually don’t understand.
If you cared that much you could just throw a database of random people into the system using TOR randomly checking people who probably don’t care anything about guns through multiple ip addresses at random points in time. Now all you have is a list of people who may or may not have purchased a gun, may have more than 1, and may have purchased it in a maximum of 365 times a year. That seems useful…
If it was actually written in law, there would be a provision that the government isn’t even supposed to log it in the first place, but even if they did, the log is so easy to poison to the point of uselessness that it would never be used. It doesn’t stop you from paying in cash, or through paypal in private transactions. UPS already delivers guns to people in Canada, not only that why would you need verification of ID of the buyer? If you aren’t familiar of how shipping law actually works we do it by FOB transport (Did you actually read what I posted?) meaning you are the title owner of the gun once it is shipped on a plane or truck.
>You are making assumptions of a system you actually don’t understand.
You’re making assumptions of your own here. I have worked for an FFL and have called in many a repeat customer, usually old guys with damn good pensions and no bills, who like to collect old but not necessarily C&R guns. More than once did the NICS guy comment along the lines of “Oh yeah, that guy’s back again.” They couldn’t possibly know that if they weren’t keeping the transaction data.
So tell me, on what are you basing your information?
Bubblewhip, I personally do not fundamentally hate your idea, but there are several details that need to change, including one huge one.
In your example, the website you gave was at atf.gov. The ATF absolutely cannot be trusted with these data. They already violate Federal law (USC 18 § 926(a)) by keeping copies of Form 4473s. All your system does is save them money by putting this data into eTrace for them, rather than them having to keep somebody on payroll to enter the data as they do now. (You’ll never keep sufficient system transparency to guarantee that they aren’t keeping the data.) The ATF keeping these records is what changed between 1999 (when the NRA approved of universal background checks) and now (when they do not).
We’ve gone over universal background checks here before, and yours is the first that appears to have had any logic used when considering it. I agree with you that you’ll never get buy-in from gun owners unless you give them some sort of benefit as part of this push. (A benefit other than “you can do private sales,” since they already have that.) I also agree with some of the posts above that the “mail to your door” “carrot” will never fly. Here’s a benefit you can use: no more de-facto ATF gun registration, because you privatize NICS.
I had made a similar suggestion in the past, when we were discussing gun safety licensing. Not all the same ideas apply here, but the general ideas do. What you want is an organization with a vested interest in plentiful legal gun sales and no illegal ones. Let’s say it’s administered by a coalition of FFLs, and call this new idea Private Instant Check System, PICS.
In (my rough draft of) PICS, personally identifiable information is only ever transmitted in hashes, never plaintext. PICS keeps all of its “allowed to buy” data as hashes as well. A history of checks is kept for as short a time as possible; I’d instinctively suggest 24 hours, but I suspect law enforcement will want to keep it longer; as long as it’s not kept practically indefinitely, the system would probably be acceptable. When replying, the reply could perhaps be the original hash and a picture associated with that hash in the database, and signed with a key to verify that the reply came from PICS. I’m not totally comfortable with the picture (since it is personally identifiable), but it could perhaps be acceptable by being comparatively difficult to search (particularly if transferred over an encrypted channel) and it would give the seller higher confidence. This hash/picture/key response could also serve as the proof of legal sale if it was ever questioned.
The above suggestion certainly has problems with it; I’m coming up with it off the top of my head while eating lunch. I’m obviously also glossing over both legal and technical details. However, I think it has the germ of an idea that would accomplish your goals. In my experience, security professionals are typically concerned about keeping data safe between two trusted endpoints while going over an untrusted medium; in this case, the idea (paranoid as it sounds) should be to trust no one. The data kept should be the bare minimum required to show that a sale was legal when made.
I love how Mick peers into the bottom of every empty beer bottle. As though there might be some magical dickhead beer fairies that prevent the rest of the beer from flowing.
I do that sometimes too. Usually only with the last beer in my fridge, though, or at least the last of that kind.
Bonus points for “magical dickhead beer fairies”. I presume they hang out with magical dickhead bullet fairies? Maybe they have a non-compete agreement; that way when there’s a magical bullet in a gun, the owner will have gotten the full amount of beer.
Nah, he does it because the last few drops of beer magically acquire the consistency of ketchup. THey just stick to the can or bottle, and you need to shake it to get them out.
Actually, sometimes the backstory parts make me wish this were more than a 4-panel comic.
And really, we need to ban guns because guns killed Kennedy? If the book “Mortal Error”/documentary “JFK: the Smoking GUn” provides a good explaination, maybe the Secret Service shouldn’t have guns, seeing as Agent Hickey was the one who fired the fatal -if accidental shot. Or if that theory doesn’t work for you, really, you think the CIA/Cuban spies/Russian spies/Mafia/Illuminati isn’t going to get guns if they’re banned from civilian possession? Let’s ban snakes; they killed Cleopatra. And maybe, let’s ban polio, smoking, and old age, as they killed FDR. Or maybe, just maybe, we should send Congress a mail written in the tears of hundreds of orphans, asking them to do The Right Thing, and ban Death. Or at least put Death on a restaining order. Yeah, that’ll end all those deaths…another law.
We should have gun control because time-traveling Hitler killed JFK with a rail gun.
Right?
Skimming makes every post better.
On gun control:
What is so bad about knowing who has guns? What, precisely, is so precious to Americans about their guns? Your “freedom” does not exist in any way shape or form, but you wave your lack of gun control in the air like an Iraqi’s AK at a wedding.
Personally, I think that a gun registry and background checks(both mental AND criminal) are good ideas. Yes, criminals might still be able to get a gun; but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to make it harder and harder for them. Even though your country will go to vast lengths to stop drug use and abuse, not once have you said “oh, well they’ll get it anyway.”. Your politicians pour billions into stopping drugs but nothing into stopping criminals arming themselves and shooting up the cities; driving a crime and murder rate that is simply terrifying.
And, as ever:
What do you have to hide, that you don’t want the government to know you have a gun?
You first. Give us a list of EVERYTHING you own. What do you have to hide that you don’t want people who read this comic to know?
Im not asking for a list of normal items. I would be asking for deadly, long range weapons
I don’t own any deadly long range weapons. They didn’t take my offer on the ICBM.
“And, as ever:
What do you have to hide, that you don’t want the government to know you have a gun?”
the problem here is who is in charge. the answer is WE ARE. and the only reason we are still the boss is because we outnumber every trigger puller the government can muster by 96 to 1.
so, do you let every cop who pulls you over ransack your car too, on the premise of “I have nothing to hide”? do you understand how easy it is to have a single marijuana seed under the floor mats of your car and not know it..even if you never put it there and you don’t touch the stuff? you know there are plenty of crooked cops that will be happy to place it there if they don’t find it, right? they figure you MUST be guilty of something..in a nation with too many laws, you can’t go through a day without breaking one or two and not even know it. so, in the cops mind you’re already guilty of SOMETHING, so let’s just help this process along a bit…ohhh lookie a tiny baggie with some crystals in it!
and yes, many of us HAVE said “they’ll get the drugs anyways” and we DO spend millions of the ATF and it’s jackbooted thugs. they’ll will be happy to kill you over the thought that MAYBE length of the barrel of your shotgun is 1/4 of an inch too short, or if the AR-15 you have malfunctioned and doubled once before you had it fixed..
NEVER let them search ANYTHING without a warrant! “Upon advice of counsel, no you may NOT search my vehicle” is what my lawyer told me after I had the above situation happen (somebody else brought an illegal substance into my vehicle without my knowledge).
The US still has considerable freedom compared to other countries; compare Britain, for example, not only in firearms but freedom overall (including freedom of speech). That aside, gun registration has historically ALWAYS led to gun confiscation, and (to my knowledge) it has NEVER led to a sustained drop in crime rates.
Ultimately, you’re operating on the premise of “fewer guns = good”. Since gun ownership is demonstrated to be a deterrent against crime, it’s a net loss if law-abiding gun ownership drops faster than criminal gun ownership, which it would. (Ignoring laws is part of the definition of “criminal,” after all.) As you noted, we are unable to stop the flow of drugs; the US imports approximately 200,000 kilos of cocaine per year, for example. One pistol weighs one kilo. In addition, a pistol is easier to manufacture than cocaine; you need some blocks of steel and commonplace machining equipment, no growing or chemical processing required. Importing an illegal pistol each for the 15,000 murders per year in the US is trivial compared to the cocaine market alone.
All your argument really does is point out that the “War on Drugs” is stupid; a point with which I wholeheartedly agree.
Registration leads to confiscation, as seen in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and probably other examples I am not aware of. It is the only case of slippery slope that has been statistically and utterly confirmed. A body of authority that wants to know what you own is given power when they are granted the ability to make a database and make it compulsory for their serving population to tell them; they have this knowledge – the “knowledge is power” saying is true, this is the entire point of databases. If it fits the authorities’ agenda, they WILL use this power. What’s stopping them?
When the government can be trusted and READILY kept in check in case shit like that happens, I’ll start considering telling them what I own or not. Right now, the US government is anything but trustable and far, far from being kept in check. It became huge, bloated, and capable of lightning strikes. I personally believe a government is essential, but when it is small, contents itself with regalian and judiciary duties, and doesn’t try to dictate what the people can and can’t do beyond the human fundamentals, though it bears mentioning my concept of fundamentals is affected by me following NAP/ZAP.
You missed Canada. Where people’s perfectly legally bought .22LR rifles were confiscated based on them somehow appearing more scary…
Tell you what, you want compromise, How’s this for compromise? Repeal the NFA 1939, and GCA 1968, and yank the Hughes Amendment out of FOPA 86, THEN we can start talking about what WE can do to compromise with Gun Control nuts. Why is it considered infringement on rights to require ID to vote(politicians are responsible for more deaths than guns), but the same people generally also want us to go through a rectal exam to get a firearm?
FYI, as someone in a polyamorous relationship, it’s still OK to be jealous. Being poly doesn’t magically get rid of jealousy. The difference is made in how you choose to analyze and respond to jealousy.
I just use Cold Logic to shut down the morons that are blindly going on about “Gun Ban, 2nd Amendment needs a change, Sandy Hook” and other obtuse crap…
The City of Chicago has Required that all Firearms be registered with the City Police before being brought into the City for them to be considered Legally Possessed. And a Firearm Owners ID Card is required by the State to Purchase and Own any and all Firearms and Ammunition.
But, In 1982 the City passed an Ordinance that removed the ability of Citizens to Register any type of Firearm purchased after the Ordinance was passed…A DE FACTO Ban on all Firearms UNLESS you had them Registered Before 82, were a Cop, an Armed Security Guard (with State Licenses and Insurance), a State Approved Private Investigator (with State Licenses and Insurance) OR A CRIMINAL.
The 1982 Ordinance was declared unconstitutional by SCOTUS in 2010 and overturned. I now have all my firearms in Chicago legally.
From 1983 to 1994 one would assume gun related deaths would decline due to the Firearm BAN in Chicago. (Assuming All Persons in Chicago Followed the LAW oFc).
From 1983 to 1994 Per the Chicago Police Departments Own Annual Report Figures…
There were 6,079 Fire Arm Caused Murders.
If anyone wants to look up the numbers from 94-2010 : the Link is :
https://portal.chicagopolice.org/portal/page/portal/ClearPath/News/Statistical%20Reports/Annual%20Reports
And logic actually works on them?! 😮
Unrelated, but I saw Lawdog had linked to this and thought you might like it. Cake and gun rights.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_1JteMZuclA/UnVQh9t5LsI/AAAAAAAAAX4/0bOiwPk35sg/s1600/compromise_v21.png
(Originally from http://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/)
Let me bottom line a few things here.
1. No. No more infringement. Ever. Period. Why? Because it’s nobody’s fucking business what I choose to own, ever, for any reason.
2. We do pour billions into gun regulation. Look up the budget for the BATFE sometime.
3. Our pouring billions into the drug war and enforcement has done nothing except to exacerbate the problem. Legalize all of it and treat it as a public health issue. Criminalizing it has completely and utterly failed, unless you are the owner of one of our thousands of overcrowded, privately owned prisons, and you are making money off of the incarceration of drug offenders. Prohibition didn’t work for alcohol, and it does not work for any other type of vice.
4. Why won’t I compromise? Look up gun laws prior to the National Firearms Act of 1934. Throw in the major gun control bills in 1968 and 1986. For the icing on the cake, add in the Clinton Assault Weapons Ban from 1994. These were sold as “compromises.” They weren’t, and neither is anything else that is attempting to be sold by the current group of gun control advocates today. How would you like it if I decided that you need a background check before you are allowed to talk on the internet? You know, it’s so that my kids don’t have to read/hear potentially violent or criminal thoughts and ideas or be subjected to cyber-bullying. That interferes with your first amendment rights? What part of “shall not be infringed” are you people having trouble with?
5. Whether or not you personally like the idea, firearm ownership in this country was specifically enshrined to guarantee that the people of this country had, not only the right, but the means to remove any government from power in this country at any time. This country was founded on the concept that the people are the ultimate ruling body. There was nothing in the constitution limiting military grade weapons, and that was by design. Read the Federalist Papers sometime. The founding fathers knew that eventually, we would have a system of government that was overbearing and tyrannical, and they gave us the ability to remedy this fact. Firearms ownership in this country is not about hunting, sporting purposes, or anything else. Those things were a given. Firearms ownership is protected so that we, the people, have the means to put a stop to the bullshit when words stop working. You don’t have to like that idea. You don’t have to be comfortable with it. You don’t even have to participate when and if it becomes necessary to implement. Approximately three percent of the citizens of the colonies were all that stood up and won us our independence. What you do have to do (notice I did not say need, I think you should, etc.) is stop attempting to remove or obstruct my right to own the tools necessary to do my job as I see fit. You don’t have to get behind me, but for the love of this country, stay the hell out of my way.
The basic problem is, again, Magical Thinking. Those who wish to ban weaopns are under the sadly mistaken belief that the world can be made into a safe place.
The world was NEVER a safe place. It never will be a safe place, and any belief contrary to those unassailable facts is wishful thinking of the worst sort.
Here’s the negotiation we’re having now:
“Can the world be made *less* deangerous?”
The answer is a qualified ” Yes.” But one of the questions not being asked is at what level do we cease making the world a less dangerous place, and start turning it ino a prison? A what point are we taking away fundamental human dignity and turning humans back into infants, dependant on external forces for all they need to survive? At what point do we have the right to take away another person’s ability to say “No” and make it stick?
Paternalism is bad, m’kay? But those who wish to make us safe from ourselves are full-on headed down the path of paternalism, no matter how ‘pure’ they think their motives might be. The road to hell, and all that rot, yanno..?
Oh gun control. First of all, it is illegal. Read the Militia Act of 1903. It states that all members of the unorganized militia (being males between 18 and 45) have the absolute personal right and 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms OF ANY TYPE, and as many as they can afford to buy. Also, this act pretty much can’t be repealed, as that would violate bills of attainder and ex post facto laws which would be yet another major violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Someone do me a favour and correct me if I am wrong.
The issue has been legally debated for quite a while. Ethically, I see no reason to show cause to exercise an inalienable right. I don’t have to show need or have my life checked and approved to own property, or to pursue happiness. Life itself requires no taxes. I do not need a committee to OK being alive and happy.
The enumerated rights don’t come with ethical restraints. That’s something you get elsewhere. IF yelling ‘FIRE’ in a crowded theater caused death and destruction, there would be no fire alarms. Why would there be panic when there was no fire, but no panic when there was? People are capable of making their own decisions, and when someone yells ‘fire’ people don’t panic, they look around. There isn’t an ethical limit on freedom of speech, even lying. Lying is itself its own problem, speech is not. Owning the means to end someone else’s life is not an issue, actually ending their life is, and there are legal and ethical times that it can be ok.
I have never found the need to have another human give approval before any other right is enjoyed. One person using a right will have no effect on another person, unless that person wants there to be.
“potential” is not wrong. People have the potential to do evil things every day. Most don’t act on the potential. Forcing the potential to zero is wrong. It smacks of original sin, and mistrust. I don’t like going through life thinking that everyone is evil, and only a lack of means is keeping them in line, (thereby keeping them from doing evil), anymore than I will go through life thinking that no one is evil. Both are incorrect.
Firearms are the best current way to keep violence at bay. Violence ‘should’ beget violence. Humans have yet to find a better solution, and that solution should not be limited. Repression has the same solution.
“We should have gun control because of JFK.”
Why the hell are you watching Al Sharpton?! And will someone please make him stop yelling? It’s TV, you moron, we can friggen’ hear you!