crispybits wrote:Aren't you basing your "right to own a gun" on that same "fantastical notion" that people want to hurt you? (note - not the constitutional statement, that's not an argument at all but merely a legal statement, I'm talking about the reasoning behind that legal statement)
I'm basing my right to own a gun on the fact that it is a Constitutional right. I do not have to provide any further justification than that. Same way no person has to justify what they're going to say in order to have the freedom or speech. Or how no person must justify they are innocent to avoid unlawful searches and seizures or self-incrimination. Constitutional rights are natural rights that do not need justification to exercise, that's why the government is instructed to protect that right instead of infringe on it.
crispybits wrote:Aren't you basing your "right to own a gun" on that same "fantastical notion" that people want to hurt you? (note - not the constitutional statement, that's not an argument at all but merely a legal statement, I'm talking about the reasoning behind that legal statement)
I'm basing my right to own a gun on the fact that it is a Constitutional right.
As long as some types of firearms are permitted, then your Constitutional rights are being fulfilled. The government could ban everything except handguns that carry no more than six rounds and you would still be able to "bear arms" as permitted by the Constitution. So if your only defense for your right is the Constitution, then there's a large swath of potential gun control laws that you have no effective response to.
crispybits wrote:Aren't you basing your "right to own a gun" on that same "fantastical notion" that people want to hurt you? (note - not the constitutional statement, that's not an argument at all but merely a legal statement, I'm talking about the reasoning behind that legal statement)
I'm basing my right to own a gun on the fact that it is a Constitutional right.
As long as some types of firearms are permitted, then your Constitutional rights are being fulfilled. The government could ban everything except handguns that carry no more than six rounds and you would still be able to "bear arms" as permitted by the Constitution. So if your only defense for your right is the Constitution, then there's a large swath of potential gun control laws that you have no effective response to.
If the government were able to search every part of your property except what's on your person, then you would still have your Constitutional right to protection from searches and seizures, so everything else the government finds could not be a Constitutional violation.
Juan_Bottom wrote: So a few months ago teachers were all union terrorists of some kind, and now those same people who blamed teachers and unions for all of our problems want to arm them. ok....
Rather ironic, isn't it?
Not sure they are union terrorists to the point of not wanting to protect their students from a mass murderer, but by all means continue the circle jerk
yeah, because according to you anyone who disagrees with you is a jerk.
And yet.. you wonder why your position is not widely accepted?
lmao! check out the definition of circle-jerk, and get back to me....
bedub1 wrote:I haven't read all of this, but it should be noted that it IS legal to own a fully automatic weapon in the US.
A civilian can still legally own any machinegun that was created PRIOR to May, 1986 as long as they get approval on the ATF form 4 discussed above. Remember that no civilian can possess a machinegun manufactured AFTER May 1986 except for law enforcement and military so there is a finite quantity available.
If they're law enforcement or military, they're technically not civilian
Simply stated, this appears to be the divisive argument:
a) Pro-gun-ownership: don't tread on me, I'm not one of the people who caused the problem and any gun is innocent in the right hands, in a closet, in a drawer, in a safe, or in the back of a pickup truck.
b) Anti-gun-ownership: eliminating guns eliminates the problem.
I understand the emotion behind thought b) but the people, not the guns, that are the problem; I could have a cannon or a bazooka instead of my .38 or .45 derringer, and I'd still not be tempted to go massacre an elementary school. Nutsoids, on the other hand, could have a bowling ball and be tempted to bash people with it. Because it's the people, not the guns, that are the problem. And the sad fact is, it's mighty difficult to weed out the "emotionally disturbed" or "mentally challenged" or whatever p.c. term you want to give... people who WILL snap to that level, from those who won't, until they do snap. That's why having an emotional disorder has a "stigma" attached. If people KNOW you have something a little different, they cannot know if that difference is dangerous to them or not.
So do we lock up everyone who acts a little abnormal, knowing that there are millions of people who act a little different but still have no urge to massacre an elementary school? At one time, we did, in places called Asylums, where anyone a little abnormal could be locked away just in case they were "that" type.
The ACLU came along and said, "no, you can't do that," and they had a point. So, you can't lock the people away
Locking away all the guns might "feel" good to some but it doesn't address the base problem of sudden violent acts and so, doesn't fix the problem.
But who want's to see our government "do nothing" about things like this?
Me.
I want them to "do nothing" if they can't fix the base problem - and we're not scientifically advanced enough yet to see from a brain scan who will and who won't snap to lock only those away.
stahrgazer wrote:Simply stated, this appears to be the divisive argument:
a) Pro-gun-ownership: don't tread on me, I'm not one of the people who caused the problem and any gun is innocent in the right hands, in a closet, in a drawer, in a safe, or in the back of a pickup truck.
b) Anti-gun-ownership: eliminating guns eliminates the problem.
I understand the emotion behind thought b) but the people, not the guns, that are the problem; I could have a cannon or a bazooka instead of my .38 or .45 derringer, and I'd still not be tempted to go massacre an elementary school. Nutsoids, on the other hand, could have a bowling ball and be tempted to bash people with it. Because it's the people, not the guns, that are the problem. And the sad fact is, it's mighty difficult to weed out the "emotionally disturbed" or "mentally challenged" or whatever p.c. term you want to give... people who WILL snap to that level, from those who won't, until they do snap. That's why having an emotional disorder has a "stigma" attached. If people KNOW you have something a little different, they cannot know if that difference is dangerous to them or not.
So do we lock up everyone who acts a little abnormal, knowing that there are millions of people who act a little different but still have no urge to massacre an elementary school? At one time, we did, in places called Asylums, where anyone a little abnormal could be locked away just in case they were "that" type.
The ACLU came along and said, "no, you can't do that," and they had a point. So, you can't lock the people away
Locking away all the guns might "feel" good to some but it doesn't address the base problem of sudden violent acts and so, doesn't fix the problem.
But who want's to see our government "do nothing" about things like this?
Me.
I want them to "do nothing" if they can't fix the base problem - and we're not scientifically advanced enough yet to see from a brain scan who will and who won't snap to lock only those away.
Bravo
Just wanted to add, not only does locking away the guns not fix the problem, it is also unConstitutional.
crispybits wrote:Aren't you basing your "right to own a gun" on that same "fantastical notion" that people want to hurt you? (note - not the constitutional statement, that's not an argument at all but merely a legal statement, I'm talking about the reasoning behind that legal statement)
I'm basing my right to own a gun on the fact that it is a Constitutional right.
As long as some types of firearms are permitted, then your Constitutional rights are being fulfilled. The government could ban everything except handguns that carry no more than six rounds and you would still be able to "bear arms" as permitted by the Constitution. So if your only defense for your right is the Constitution, then there's a large swath of potential gun control laws that you have no effective response to.
If the government were able to search every part of your property except what's on your person, then you would still have your Constitutional right to protection from searches and seizures, so everything else the government finds could not be a Constitutional violation.
False. If the government searched any of my property without a warrant, that would violate my constitutional right against unreasonable searches. The text of the Fourth Amendment clearly says so. I don't know how you could argue what you just said.
crispybits wrote:Aren't you basing your "right to own a gun" on that same "fantastical notion" that people want to hurt you? (note - not the constitutional statement, that's not an argument at all but merely a legal statement, I'm talking about the reasoning behind that legal statement)
I'm basing my right to own a gun on the fact that it is a Constitutional right.
As long as some types of firearms are permitted, then your Constitutional rights are being fulfilled. The government could ban everything except handguns that carry no more than six rounds and you would still be able to "bear arms" as permitted by the Constitution. So if your only defense for your right is the Constitution, then there's a large swath of potential gun control laws that you have no effective response to.
If the government were able to search every part of your property except what's on your person, then you would still have your Constitutional right to protection from searches and seizures, so everything else the government finds could not be a Constitutional violation.
False. If the government searched any of my property without a warrant, that would violate my constitutional right against unreasonable searches. The text of the Fourth Amendment clearly says so. I don't know how you could argue what you just said.
...and....what if the Homeland Security officials searching your property don't give a derp about the 4th amendment?
stahrgazer wrote:Simply stated, this appears to be the divisive argument:
a) Pro-gun-ownership: don't tread on me, I'm not one of the people who caused the problem and any gun is innocent in the right hands, in a closet, in a drawer, in a safe, or in the back of a pickup truck.
b) Anti-gun-ownership: eliminating guns eliminates the problem.
I understand the emotion behind thought b) but the people, not the guns, that are the problem; I could have a cannon or a bazooka instead of my .38 or .45 derringer, and I'd still not be tempted to go massacre an elementary school. Nutsoids, on the other hand, could have a bowling ball and be tempted to bash people with it. Because it's the people, not the guns, that are the problem. And the sad fact is, it's mighty difficult to weed out the "emotionally disturbed" or "mentally challenged" or whatever p.c. term you want to give... people who WILL snap to that level, from those who won't, until they do snap. That's why having an emotional disorder has a "stigma" attached. If people KNOW you have something a little different, they cannot know if that difference is dangerous to them or not.
So do we lock up everyone who acts a little abnormal, knowing that there are millions of people who act a little different but still have no urge to massacre an elementary school? At one time, we did, in places called Asylums, where anyone a little abnormal could be locked away just in case they were "that" type.
The ACLU came along and said, "no, you can't do that," and they had a point. So, you can't lock the people away
Locking away all the guns might "feel" good to some but it doesn't address the base problem of sudden violent acts and so, doesn't fix the problem.
But who want's to see our government "do nothing" about things like this?
Me.
I want them to "do nothing" if they can't fix the base problem - and we're not scientifically advanced enough yet to see from a brain scan who will and who won't snap to lock only those away.
Bravo
Just wanted to add, not only does locking away the guns not fix the problem, it is also unConstitutional.
Yes, and no. People who make the point that as long as you get to keep and bear "some type" of firearm, your Constitutional rights are met, are accurate.
Those people would say, "let's remove assault weapons," and, "ban automatic weapons" and might even get to the point of making "semi-automatic weapons" illegal; and even, "all shotguns," or "all rifles" and yet, still, since you'd keep your dual actions, your rights would be met. As several have mockingly pointed out, you cannot legally keep a bazooka (bear-able, though heavy) or a cannon (technically not even part of those Constitutional rights because it's hard to lift a cannon to "bear" it, although I guess you could say you can "keep" it - just, illegally if you did.)
I understand the sentiment. The argument the NRA and other pro-gun folks have to banning "some" types of weapons is that it may start us down a slippery slope of banning more and more and more. Cannons currently banned and folks want more, bazookas currently banned and folks want more, fully autos currently banned and folks want more...
So the only reason "not to" ban another set of arms that seems to be just a touch more lethal than some of the others, and that were once legal, then banned, then legal again; is that "slippery slope."
And you see it here, there are those who want to push and push and push until either all guns are banned, or, if ammo is banned, then all guns are useless. Again, I understand the sentiment.
Technically, the government could come along and ban all sales of ammunition and not touch your right to "keep and bear" your (then-pretty-useless) arms. Sort of like buying a car without an engine; you still get the car, not their fault it's useless.
So we'd be back to: but does it fix the problem? No. Violent minds find other ways to perpetrate their violence. You can't ban everything they use to kill, and "guns" aren't the only things that have ever been used to kill masses of folks.
Unfortunately, my guess is, no Senator or Congressman will have the balls to look the people of Connecticut in the face and say, "Yes, I know, it's tragic, but there's not a thing we can do." And that's about the only reason why "stiffer gun control/bannings are in order." Not that they'll fix anything, but that our politicians won't admit that they cannot fix the problem.
stahrgazer wrote:Those people would say, "let's remove assault weapons," and, "ban automatic weapons" and might even get to the point of making "semi-automatic weapons" illegal; and even, "all shotguns," or "all rifles" and yet, still, since you'd keep your dual actions, your rights would be met. As several have mockingly pointed out, you cannot legally keep a bazooka (bear-able, though heavy) or a cannon (technically not even part of those Constitutional rights because it's hard to lift a cannon to "bear" it, although I guess you could say you can "keep" it - just, illegally if you did.)
I understand the sentiment. The argument the NRA and other pro-gun folks have to banning "some" types of weapons is that it may start us down a slippery slope of banning more and more and more. Cannons currently banned and folks want more, bazookas currently banned and folks want more, fully autos currently banned and folks want more...
You also can't own fighter jets and nuclear weapons. Does the Second Amendment permit those too?
stahrgazer wrote:Those people would say, "let's remove assault weapons," and, "ban automatic weapons" and might even get to the point of making "semi-automatic weapons" illegal; and even, "all shotguns," or "all rifles" and yet, still, since you'd keep your dual actions, your rights would be met. As several have mockingly pointed out, you cannot legally keep a bazooka (bear-able, though heavy) or a cannon (technically not even part of those Constitutional rights because it's hard to lift a cannon to "bear" it, although I guess you could say you can "keep" it - just, illegally if you did.)
I understand the sentiment. The argument the NRA and other pro-gun folks have to banning "some" types of weapons is that it may start us down a slippery slope of banning more and more and more. Cannons currently banned and folks want more, bazookas currently banned and folks want more, fully autos currently banned and folks want more...
You also can't own fighter jets and nuclear weapons. Does the Second Amendment permit those too?
You might "keep" a fighter jet but you cannot "bear it" so I'd say no. Nukes? You can both "keep" and "bear" a handheld nuclear projectile device, assuming you had a rocket launcher with a nuclear tip so you could kind of say "yes" it could be protected as a keepable-bearable arm. Yet our laws prohibit them. The point being, there are weapons that most folks agree shouldn't fall under the 2nd amendment even if they technically could.
But the reason the assault ban got lifted is because anti-gun folks were trying to push really hard for "more more more" bans, so the pro-gun folks pushed back harder to ensure the 2nd Amendment stays intact.
crispybits wrote:Aren't you basing your "right to own a gun" on that same "fantastical notion" that people want to hurt you? (note - not the constitutional statement, that's not an argument at all but merely a legal statement, I'm talking about the reasoning behind that legal statement)
I'm basing my right to own a gun on the fact that it is a Constitutional right.
As long as some types of firearms are permitted, then your Constitutional rights are being fulfilled. The government could ban everything except handguns that carry no more than six rounds and you would still be able to "bear arms" as permitted by the Constitution. So if your only defense for your right is the Constitution, then there's a large swath of potential gun control laws that you have no effective response to.
If the government were able to search every part of your property except what's on your person, then you would still have your Constitutional right to protection from searches and seizures, so everything else the government finds could not be a Constitutional violation.
False. If the government searched any of my property without a warrant, that would violate my constitutional right against unreasonable searches. The text of the Fourth Amendment clearly says so. I don't know how you could argue what you just said.
So you have a problem with violating that part of the Constitution but not another part?
crispybits wrote:Aren't you basing your "right to own a gun" on that same "fantastical notion" that people want to hurt you? (note - not the constitutional statement, that's not an argument at all but merely a legal statement, I'm talking about the reasoning behind that legal statement)
I'm basing my right to own a gun on the fact that it is a Constitutional right.
As long as some types of firearms are permitted, then your Constitutional rights are being fulfilled. The government could ban everything except handguns that carry no more than six rounds and you would still be able to "bear arms" as permitted by the Constitution. So if your only defense for your right is the Constitution, then there's a large swath of potential gun control laws that you have no effective response to.
If the government were able to search every part of your property except what's on your person, then you would still have your Constitutional right to protection from searches and seizures, so everything else the government finds could not be a Constitutional violation.
False. If the government searched any of my property without a warrant, that would violate my constitutional right against unreasonable searches. The text of the Fourth Amendment clearly says so. I don't know how you could argue what you just said.
So you have a problem with violating that part of the Constitution but not another part?
I asserted that it wasn't a violation of the Constitution, not that I'm ok with it being violated. As long as you agree that private citizens shouldn't be able to own MIRVs, then we agree that the government has a right to limit the arms you can own. Then we're just quarreling over where the line is.
stahrgazer wrote:b) Anti-gun-ownership: eliminating guns eliminates the problem.
I don't think any of the anti-gun side has said this. More like
"Eliminating guns vastly reduces the lethality of the problem"
Yes you could say "well they'll just go out and build bombs" - but that takes time and a certain level of expertise not to blow yourself up during construction. Picking up a gun that has already been made for you and filling your pockets with spare ammo before you walk out the door takes all of a minute or two.
Any other legal weapon (Knives, bats, etc) is less likely to kill 1 vs 1, especially if the victim has a reasonable awareness that the attck is coming (they can run or pick up an object themselves to fight back with), and certainly less likely to be able to kill so effectively 1 vs many. Standing at the door to a room and spraying bullets around is much more lethal to everyone in the room than going into a room with a hand to hand weapon and running round trying to hit people with it.
stahrgazer wrote:b) Anti-gun-ownership: eliminating guns eliminates the problem.
I don't think any of the anti-gun side has said this. More like
"Eliminating guns vastly reduces the lethality of the problem"
Yes you could say "well they'll just go out and build bombs" - but that takes time and a certain level of expertise not to blow yourself up during construction. Picking up a gun that has already been made for you and filling your pockets with spare ammo before you walk out the door takes all of a minute or two.
Any other legal weapon (Knives, bats, etc) is less likely to kill 1 vs 1, especially if the victim has a reasonable awareness that the attck is coming (they can run or pick up an object themselves to fight back with), and certainly less likely to be able to kill so effectively 1 vs many. Standing at the door to a room and spraying bullets around is much more lethal to everyone in the room than going into a room with a hand to hand weapon and running round trying to hit people with it.
While all this is true, the crux of the problem still isn't "the guns" - it's who is using them.
For those who say there is ample evidence Mrs. Lanza didn't have her guns locked up, I read all the reports, and all they say is Adam used weapons registered to his mother. None of them say whether there was a gun case or safe in the house, it's possible there was. It's possible that the only time Mrs. Lanza "allowed" Adam to use them is when she was supervising him.
Also, from what I read, her concern wasn't that he was violent to others. He seemed very passive and nonresponsive, actually. According to the barber who cut his hair, Adam would stare at the floor, unresponsive and not moving unless it was his mother, not the barber, asking. That does not sound like a "violent" person to me, but it does sound like someone withdrawn and possibly depressed. Or maybe - duh - autistic.
Nope, doesn't sound like clues of violence toward others. Instead, it appears her concern was for his safety to himself. From what I read he spoke on websites of suicide, not massacres. In other words, there may not have been any clues for her to pick up on that he'd commit what he committed other than possibly turning a weapon onto himself. And if she feared that, it's very possible she had those guns locked away. But he was also supposedly very bright, so it's possible he figured out how to get to them anyway. Maybe she caught him trying, and maybe that's why he killed her first.
stahrgazer wrote:b) Anti-gun-ownership: eliminating guns eliminates the problem.
I don't think any of the anti-gun side has said this. More like
"Eliminating guns vastly reduces the lethality of the problem"
Yes you could say "well they'll just go out and build bombs" - but that takes time and a certain level of expertise not to blow yourself up during construction. Picking up a gun that has already been made for you and filling your pockets with spare ammo before you walk out the door takes all of a minute or two.
Any other legal weapon (Knives, bats, etc) is less likely to kill 1 vs 1, especially if the victim has a reasonable awareness that the attck is coming (they can run or pick up an object themselves to fight back with), and certainly less likely to be able to kill so effectively 1 vs many. Standing at the door to a room and spraying bullets around is much more lethal to everyone in the room than going into a room with a hand to hand weapon and running round trying to hit people with it.
While all this is true, the crux of the problem still isn't "the guns" - it's who is using them.
For those who say there is ample evidence Mrs. Lanza didn't have her guns locked up, I read all the reports, and all they say is Adam used weapons registered to his mother. None of them say whether there was a gun case or safe in the house, it's possible there was. It's possible that the only time Mrs. Lanza "allowed" Adam to use them is when she was supervising him.
Also, from what I read, her concern wasn't that he was violent to others. He seemed very passive and nonresponsive, actually. According to the barber who cut his hair, Adam would stare at the floor, unresponsive and not moving unless it was his mother, not the barber, asking. That does not sound like a "violent" person to me, but it does sound like someone withdrawn and possibly depressed. Or maybe - duh - autistic.
Nope, doesn't sound like clues of violence toward others. Instead, it appears her concern was for his safety to himself. From what I read he spoke on websites of suicide, not massacres. In other words, there may not have been any clues for her to pick up on that he'd commit what he committed other than possibly turning a weapon onto himself. And if she feared that, it's very possible she had those guns locked away. But he was also supposedly very bright, so it's possible he figured out how to get to them anyway. Maybe she caught him trying, and maybe that's why he killed her first.
I agree in part with that too, I just don't see the logic of allowing lethal weapons to the general population. I went through the self defence vs government argument with TGD (who is pro-gun) and he was forced to admit (pending looking into some details) that it's not a sound argument. I've showed staistics from the American government that show that an average gun is far more likely to be used in an offensive, criminal manner than in justified self defence vs criminal.
Make guns very difficult to obtain, and he may well still have killed, but would he have got a body count of 26? Obviously this part is conjecture and "what if" but I haven't seen an argument that holds water that a knife weilding maniac can kill as many people as a gun weilding aniac in a similar amount of time. The gun also gives them a very quick way out at the end, it's psychologically very difficult to cause yourself lethal injuries with a baseball bat or a knife or something by comparison to putting something to your head and pulling a lever.
I'm not ingoring the root causes, I'm not saying "it's the gun's fault". I'm saying that the gun made an existing problem much, much more serious than it needed to have been.
crispybits wrote:Aren't you basing your "right to own a gun" on that same "fantastical notion" that people want to hurt you? (note - not the constitutional statement, that's not an argument at all but merely a legal statement, I'm talking about the reasoning behind that legal statement)
I'm basing my right to own a gun on the fact that it is a Constitutional right. I do not have to provide any further justification than that. Same way no person has to justify what they're going to say in order to have the freedom or speech. Or how no person must justify they are innocent to avoid unlawful searches and seizures or self-incrimination. Constitutional rights are natural rights that do not need justification to exercise, that's why the government is instructed to protect that right instead of infringe on it.
You are correct in that you need no further justification to own a gun in the USA right now than the consttution.
But the constitution isn't in and of itself an absolute moral authority in an argument about whether you *should* own a gun. If it was a moral authority then why has it needed so many amendments? Why have parts of it been changed, and parts added and removed? And if parts have been changed or added or removed, then why should this particular part of it be removed entirely from that possibility?
That's what I mean by the fact it's a statement rather than an argument, and that statement only holds true while the argument fails to evoke the action to make a further change. After that, the constitution may in the future say that you are not allowed to own a gun, yet more than one of the people that wrap themselves in the constitutional right here are saying that if it's made illegal they will still keep their guns. This only further undermines it's authority, because these people (and I forget if you've posted that sentiment or not NS so I'm not going to claim anything about you perosnally) are only happy to follow it as long as it agrees with them and have clearly stated that sentiment in this thread or the other one.
