You actually just moved up a notch in my estimation. At least you are an authoritarian who is willing to do his own dirty work.
Not sure if trolling but if not, if not you are just another murderer with a different set of standards.
“Authoritarian.” “Just another murderer.” Yeah, or maybe you don’t get me.
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Law is not just about arbitrary authority. Authority is about how gets to make decisions, but ultimately those decisions are about getting particular results. I favor strong central authority as a means in this matter–in order to reduce the terror and chaos of rogue stand-your-ground gun-toters.
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And defining anyone who kills, no matter what the cause, as just a murderer, is reductionist. You may as well call anyone who eats a glutton.
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The promise of the death penalty for non-compliance is intended as a deterrent, much like the promise of shooting eight holes in a trespasser with your semi-auto. I would choose to impose deadly sanctions on those who own and sell deadly weapons, instead of on burglars, pickpockets, and random young black kids in hoodies. Wacky, I know.
You’re willing to classify millions of people who never harmed anybody as criminals because of objects they own and then personally kill all who refuse to surrender that property.
What word would you use to describe somebody like that?
Murderer would be defined as intentionally killing someone who is not threatening you.
Shooting a trespasser that has invaded your home is completely different than saying you would kill (probably with a gun no doubt, ironic eh?) someone who wouldn’t turn in a rifle that’s sitting in a locked safe in their home.
I used to think you were a rational poster, but now I question my judgment.
You don’t think even more people would object to banning all firearms? :dubious:
When I’m trying to cross the street, I see a whole lot of 4 wheeled threats. Doesn’t mean the answer is to ban every vehicle.
And no amount of regulation will eliminate deaths that are intention, accidental, and the whole gradient in between. Zero may be an acceptable standard for you, but society can not and will not accept zero as a standard. Because the rational man knows that the irrational exists in some men.
Then protect society. Voluntarily lock yourself away so that your rage and your friends recklessness don’t result in homicide.
Just as the law is not capable of knowing what rage is in your heart. The law is an point of exception, not a guide to how one conducts themselves in polite society.
The death penalty has not been a particularly effective deterrent for our current capital crimes – what makes you think this would be different? All you’d do is give the sorts of criminals who already use guns to harm and intimidate others an excellent reason to murder witnesses and shoot police on sight. After all, murder itself seldom carries a capital sentence. If your pocket piece already puts you on death row, what are the lives of your victims by comparison?
And anyway, you’re talking about sanctioning the death penalty against all who keep their guns, not just those who would have used them for criminal purposes. You wish to kill men and women who have no desire or intention to harm others, and who simply wish to be left alone. One may respect Law in principle and still find certain laws unjust and abominable, such as the one you propose.
Really.
Really?
Present law authorizes a homeowner to execute a summary death sentence, on no authority but his own, on a trespasser.
Present Florida law authorizes anyone to use lethal force to prevent “a crime.”
http://www.tampabay.com/stand-your-ground-law/
Do these rules, the Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground laws, seem savage to you? Draconian? Well they are. This is almost like mythic-era Greece, where two strangers meet on the road and fight to the death because they met on the road.
I propose a death penalty for hoarding deadly weapons with the apparent intent to kill people or to resell them to killers, and I’m the nut.
Ri-ight.
Now, wait, maybe you don’t agree with the Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground laws. But you support a general right to bear arms.
Well, it’s not just for you, is it? That right is enjoyed by the likes of George Zimmerman, Scott Roeder, and the guy who just shot the guy in front of him at the pizza joint–what, yesterday?
Yeah. You think you’re good. You think you have rights because you’re good. But the law can’t tell you from them until they freak out and shoot somebody.
And arming everyone who hasn’t committed a felony yet means arming the straw purchasers, the future spree killers, and poor Adam Lanza’s mom.
As well as the would-be race warriors willing to go to prison to stop another black kid from being able to breed. Whites outnumber blacks enough that white men–especially those who already have kids–have the ability to decrease the proportion of blacks by attrition–sacrifice your freedom to prevent a darkie from spawning, and cut the ratio of blacks by more than the ratio of whites.
Yeah, it really is about race. When you’re using arguments that evoke the Redemption, of course it is, in this country.
But you think you’re good, and the law should recognize your shiny white goodness, and just let you own as many guns as you can buy.
After all, you haven’t been indicted for anything yet.
And all you have to do to avoid the death penalty is–give up your guns when everyone else does.
Why is that so hard?
Meeting on the road and having your door kicked in are substantially different. I’m all cool meeting someone on the street, but break into my home and I’m sorry, but I’m gonna do my best to put an end to my perceived threat.
If you’re going to bring race into it, you really should consider switching your rage toward banning swimming pools rather than guns. More children die in swimming pools than are killed by guns, and black kids are more likely than white kids to drown in them.
Why not go for something that happens every day instead of something that happens once every couple of years? And nobody “needs” swimming pools.
Look, I understand that the death penalty is disproportionate, and cruel and unusual punishment, and all that. More pragmatically, there would be some kind of confinement or something.
I don’t like advocating for prison, because I consider it inhumane. Further, I was raised a conservative Republican, and I still believe in brute manipulation of the Overton Window.
It’s easier to un-elect every elected representative who votes for the “Foolsguinea Kill All Firearms Owners Act of 2012”.
Who, besides you, would vote for a bill that creates 150 million felons? And threatens to murder them if they don’t comply?
Do you trust your government with absolute power over your life and liberty? Because that’s exactly what they’d have with a disarmed populace. Say one extremely ambitious, smart, and well connected presidents decides they will stay in office permanently after their term expires with dictator power. What are you going to do about it, complain in forums?
Second hand smoke kills 50000 people a year, mostly kids and seniors. Which is almost 10X the number murdered by handguns. There are only 50MM smokers, and 200MM guns.
We’d save more lives (and not have to worry about that pesky Bill of Rights thing) if we just made smoking a felony. Hell, if FG had his way- shoot on sight!
Castle doctrine simply means that you do not have a duty to retreat from your own home when threatened with death or serious harm, and that you can use deadly force to defend yourself from same. “Stand your ground” means that you similarly do not have a duty to retreat from other places where you have a right to be. How is that savage? None of these principles apply except when you reasonably apprehend that another person is trying to kill or seriously harm you or another innocent person. They do not (or, at least, should not) protect persons using force unreasonably.
And given your previous remarks, I don’t think you can credibly claim the pacifist point of view of denouncing self-defense as savage.
Now, I don’t know the details of Florida’s justifiable force laws. Perhaps they’re overly broad and too easy to claim defense under. I don’t see that as relevant; one fucked-up state having a fucked-up law doesn’t impugn the principle of armed self-defense, it just impugns Floridians. Oh, and there’s Texas, which as far as I know is the only place in the nation where it’s legal to shoot trespassers, and I happen to agree that that’s disgusting.
Well, as long as you’re saying it and not me. Both for your proposed remedy, and for your apparent presumption that owning a firearm implies intent to kill or intent to traffic the firearm to a killer.
Anyone who hasn’t committed a felony yet is not a felon, and is entitled to the full rights of a citizen. Innocent until proven guilty is one of those pesky principles that we stick to no matter how many lives it costs.
Freeeeoooww. Since this is IMHO and not the pit, I don’t feel there’s any reasonable response except this: :dubious:
Castle Doctrine, as Stealth Potato means something rather different than you think it means. And it’s a good idea. My home is MINE. No one has a right to enter it without my permission, and I can reasonably infer ill-will on the part of someone who does. If you don’t want to be shot by me, it’s easily avoided by not breaking into my house. Getting shot is a risk a burgeler willingly assumes when he makes that particular career choice.
Wouldn’t that would be easier if he’d bribed the people with something, like expanded gun rights? If all he has to prop him up is the professional security services, he can be brought down by others’ ambition. But make him the hero of the people, and they’ll keep voting him back in like Hugo Chavez.
I guess, considering half of American households don’t keep guns, banning firearms might make someone a hero of the people in the present climate. And then the 45% that used to have guns will scream that the “socialist” majority is “oppressing” them. I hadn’t even thought of that.
Funny, I just wanted to disarm the George Zimmerman types.
Eh.
I’m aware I’m not consistently rational when it comes to firearm killings. It’s become my berserk button.
Fine, you want rational?
After thinking about this for a while, I think the way you stop the next school shooting is quotidian: **better school security. **That does not mean cheaping out and arming teachers (which would increase gunfire incidents). It means dedicated security guards, for many schools more than one, patrolling inside and out. This doesn’t just go to schools: It goes to churches, shopping malls, and movie theaters–anywhere people congregate. It would also be well-advised for businesses–not just to have a security guard work overnight to stop burglars, but to have some protection against spree shooters. It would cost money, which in my experience Republicans hate, but it would “create jobs,” which has some utility.
One way you mitigate the damage over time is, yep, pulling extended magazines out of circulation.
But none of this stops the recent nonsense in Florida. What does? Repeal concealed carry and Stand Your Ground. I don’t just mean the “hinky” (Bricker’s word) Florida version. We don’t need every Dom, Rick, and Barry thinking they have police authority. Concealed carry and SYG are part of a general cowboy theory of “bearing arms” that leads us to problems.
I voted for concealed carry back in the day. I was wrong.
You want a gun in your home or place of business? OK. I want you not to have to use it on a customer who comes in high and brandishing his own.
Rational enough?
I got tired of being the moderate. I got tired of gun-rights types complaining (I think this was on another board) that they keep having to make all the concessions–which would be irrelevant even if it were true. So I decided to be the extremist for a while, so you can see what extremism in the other direction looks like.
Not fun, is it?