Some rights can be defended from philosophical, ethical or moral principles. Gun ownership does not rise to any of those. “We hold these rights to be self evident”, in the Declaration of Independence, I do not think anyone would say encompassed gun ownership (and I know the Declaration is not a legal document).
As I noted above slavery was once considered a right in the US. Just because something is a right today does not, in and of itself, argue that it should remain a right.
Dems seem to know that well enough these days. Regardless of their personal opinions they are politicians and they are getting nowhere near this one for a long time. That does not make it rational except as a political calculation.
I do not think “it” will happen and if “it” does then the world has gone to hell. Many other countries have little to no guns and so far the government has not turned on its populace. Not really worried about it in the US and saying we should have guns and all the ills that come with them to defend against some entirely hypothetical and unsupported occurrence is what is dubious.
Fine. Nice dodge but lets go with I am a radical. Where is the moderate view you speak of? Tell me where the middle ground is?
Now, wait, guys, I don’t mean you, I’m talking about people with unreasonable attachment to handguns, not guys with perfectly sound reasons why a handgun is a necessity. Like self defense from home invasion, why, where I live, hardly a decade goes by without one. And bears. Don’t forget about bears!
As for weaponry against an oppressive regime, I first heard such an argument from Weather Underground weirdos, and it makes just as much sense now as did then, time has not dimmed its lustre. And by golly, if you’re gonna take on an armored division with a .32 Beretta, brother, you got nothin’ but balls! Huey Newton got nothin’ on you, nosir!
But for target shooting, well, I dunno, that one’s a bit hard to take, a handgun for accuracy is a lot like playing hockey with a Q-tip, or playing volley ball with a shot put, the design sort of defeats the intention. A clear case of malform following malfunction.
On the other hand, if I was ever to protect my lady from a grizzly bear with a .25 Pimpmaster, it’ll be a long time before I hear any more of this “share my feelings” crap…
Fuck that goblet. I just called up the stonemason and I’m commissioning a castle to be built for you, because you are the KING of well-reasoned, sensible debating. Just let me know whether you want alabaster or black marble for the floor of the grand ballroom.
Man, a lot of the pro-gun side sound like they’d be happier living in the world of L. Neil Smith’s The Probability Broach(check out the graphic novel link at the bottom, it’s actually a lot of fun to read - very insightful look at the (big-L) Libertarian mindset too). A World where everyone packs heat.
Me, I live in the world gun murder capital, so I’m not coming at this from a UK or gun-free perspective. Here, there are enough AKs floating around that ordinary criminals do use them (Last I checked, I could “rent” one for around $20/day + ammo used). I’m a pacifist and I’m possibly the most left regular poster here, but I’m not against private gun ownership. More power to you, I say. I like shooting guns too.
But that’s a little off the OP, which asks a simple question. And as far as I can tell, the answer to the title is “No”, because it’s not an issue the rest of Congress seem likely to take up (given some of them are up for re-election in the middle of the next Presidential term, it’d be political suicide, no?). I think either AT fears there’s been an organised stealth attack by the Dems that’s going to turn around and go “gotcha, we were faking the disinterest, now we want your guns!”, which is just absurd, OR he just wants a reason to not vote for Obama even when he’s the candidate that makes the most sense to him in all other respects (I mean, given his list of freedoms he’d like - who is more likely to veto a Bill that decriminalises marijuana, for instance? ) Why that is, is his business, I guess. I’d speculate that it’s because he won’t admit the real reason to himself, whatever that may be.
I just called up a local horse-breeder and had him ship five white stallions to your residence. (I hope you have enough hay to feed them.) They each wear $15,000 bridles which are embossed with the royal seal of the Dibble house, and have rubies and emeralds embedded in them. I figure all of that should be a gift worthy of someone who is telepathic and can read my mind. If it’s not enough, let me know so I can give you more gifts. I’ve also contacted the New York Times and all of the major news networks and told them that I’ve found a man who knows, somehow, exactly what I’m thinking.
So you read “guess” and “speculate” and get “mind reader” from it? That makes it easier to see how you can get from “No, he won’t be able to restrict your gun ownership” to “Well, guess I won’t vote for him, then”.
If you really cared about any of the other freedoms you listed, like drugs or whatever, you wouldn’t be about to hold your nose and vote Republican because of one issue where the overwhelming answer to your original question has been “no, we won’t (since even if he wants to, he CAN’T)”. The Republicans are not currently the party of personal freedom in any other regard. Certainly not your First Amendment rights.
I stated in the OP why I don’t want to vote for Obama. There’s no “real reason” that I’m hiding or denying. I plainly stated in the very first post of this thread what my problem with Obama is:
Most importantly:
**
This ridiculous fear of CC is a sure sign, to me, that someone has his head far up his ass, and I can’t vote for a president who shows signs of having his head up his ass.**
I think I’ve made it as plain as day why I won’t vote for Obama. It doesn’t matter, because he is going to get elected anyway.
So you don’t think it’s because, at that time, that was either what his constituents wanted, or his general party line? It must be that his head is up his ass? OK, then.
But McCain has his head up his ass on other issues that are kind of contrary to your stance on personal freedoms (like, oh, torture…), so why not focus on those? Why pick guns as your freedom of note? Like you said, you don’t even own any. But you do own a body that can be rounded up and waterboarded, and a phone that can be tapped…hell, you’re of a draftable age should things need to go the whole “hundred years”.
So why single out Obama, is kind of the question, if it’s general freedoms that you crave? Why pick this one freedom? Why not drugs, for ex? It seems to me that you’ve singled out the only freedom where Obama takes a singularly contrary stance to yours. Almost like picking cherries, really.
The vast majority of people never get into potentially fatal car accidents and yet we try to advocate wearing seatbelts and putting airbags in cars.
No, it’s not appropriate to kill someone who is stealing your property. The proper use of deadly force is to neutralize someone who in your best judgement is a threat to your life or someone else’s life. My CHL training emphasized this quite a bit, ran through scenarios, discussed the laws - and never was there anything like “shoot the dude that’s stealing your stuff”.
Why? Locks are passive devices that always deliver a small degree of protection and utility. Fire extinguishers are devices that are used in response to specific threatning circumstances. The analogy is much closer.
This is a nonsense argument by people who imply that the only threat people want to protect themselves against is the very threat that having guns available creates. As if all guns magically dissapeared, there’d be no crime or violence and we’d all live in magical unicorn land.
A 250 pound man does not need a gun to present a credible threat to a 120 pound woman, or a crackhead to an old lady, or a guy with a knife to anyone, etc. You’re trying to create the impression of circular logic when it’s not there.
I’m not knowledgable about this stuff, but I got the impression that misdemeanors have less of a burden of proof and no jury, less severity, etc. Misdemeanors can be stuff like public intoxication and disorderly conduct. Often (usually?) misdemeanors are punished with a small fine, or probation, or community service hours. Giving the government power to oppress rights over such minor things with little burden of proof is a bad, bad idea. Should you lose your right to vote over a misdemeanor too?
The effectiveness of assault rifles for criminal activity is greatly exaggerated. Rarely are they the most practical tool - the concealability of handguns pretty much trumps everything. And if for some reason you deem it necesary to carry a long arm, for the purposes of most people a shotgun is more effective.
This isn’t as clear cut as you make it and probably isn’t true at all. You hear about every Colombine, every murder on the local news - but you don’t hear about the hundreds of thousands of times each year a gun was used by a law abiding citizen to deter or stop a crime against them.
If it seems like giving him your wallet will de-escalate the situation, that’s what you should do. If you feel your life is threatened, then you have to use your best judgement as to what the best course of action is. Because you are carrying a gun does not mean you have to use it - but it gives you more options to deal with the situation as appropriate.
Escape if it’s practical. You say that your guns are dissasembled as if it were the nature of it. Most places do not require this, and this is one of the sort of gun control measures we oppose. It’s silly to say “gun control laws prevent me from effectively defending myself, therefore guns are useless in terms of self defense”.
No. He’s not a threat to anyone’s life.
Most (all?) states forbid concealed carry on alcohol serving establishments. But even if you have one there, why would you suddenly whip out your gun? Get out of the situation.
You seem to have the impression that people who carry guns are taught to look for opportunities to play John Wayne whenever they can. It’s completely wrong. CHL training teaches you to exit situations peacefully, avoid bad situations, de-escalate what you can, and only as a very last resort use deadly force. Can you even find one example where a CHL holder did anything like you suggest? I’m sure it would be all over the media.
Yes, it’s unlikely you’ll ever be faced with a situation where you’ll need to use deadly force to protect yourself. Most police officers never fire their guns in anger. Is this evidence that they shouldn’t carry them? Or is it better that they have and not need, than need and not have?
You’re making judgements about the abilities of other people that you’re not qualified to make.
Drinking and driving is an inherently dangerous activity, concealed carry is not. In these debates, people often try to make analogies between using another right in a criminal way to simply owning or carrying guns, and these analogies are ridiculous. You want to make it sound as if merely owning or carrying a gun victimizes someone else.
“Liberty”, babe. Rights are nothing without the potential to back them up. Now, will it ever be used? I hope not. But half my family comes from the countries the USSR gobbled, and like Argent, of those who stayed, none are left. Not them, not their families, not their towns, not their graveyards.
The other half are Irish, and over the last few hundred years, they were as oppressed, and treated as subhumans.
I’m not opposed to the idea of reasonable gun regulations. I also think I should be allowed to own a M-16 or M-249. The thing is, I can’t discuss either of these things with someone on the other side of the issue, because we wind up in this kind of debate. “What’s the point? What’s the use? You don’t need them.” Sure, I could go all ‘those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it,’ but honestly, while I’m pretty sure in the case of actual tyranny, it will be opposed, I don’t think it’s happening any time soon.
Let’s just say that I think owning a gun is an expression of patriotism. And also lots of fun. It’s my right, thanks to the Constitution, and I intend to express the hell out of it. I also intend to express it responsibly.
The other major issue of gun laws, I suppose, is that the point made that '“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Jefferson didn’t say that carelessly. He didn’t say the patriots would win, either. It has, now and again, and more peacefully than he thought… and more bloodily.
Guns are here to both support and counter the government. A soldier who grew up shooting is just plain a better shot than one who hasn’t. Once he retires, he can still be called up. It’s better if he stays in practice. But…
It does exist to counter the government, in part. Which means that it is incumbent upon the gun owner to train and regiment himself, to keep himself in good order. Any law takes some of that away. I’d love a mandated class on shooting to be ordered for everyone who buys a gun… but then, of course, all the gun owners wind up in a little database, and there you go.
All things considered, I’m still not concerned about Obama’s gun policy. I think it’s more educated than the ‘semi-automatic’ scare, thanks to later words coming from his own mouth, which the ‘semi-automatic’ bit did not. (Can you imagine outlawing every Colt .45 in the country? I’m pretty sure it would not be legal: military sidearm.) And, honestly… he’s got bigger fish to fry.
Some congresscritter tries to bring it up, focus on them and toast 'em.
Fun book, load of horse hockey. Love to say I believed it, but… ah, no. What I’m decrying is that I have to essentially act as if I believe it, because I can’t reach a middle ground of any reasonable sort, thanks to people who want to take 'em all away. I think we need laws that increase personal responsibility. Or regulations. Like, say, if your guns are registered with an insurance company, you get a discount if you take five hours of training with an authorized trainer a year. That kind of thing.
… thing is, I havn’t seen any reasonable gun laws. I mean, pretty much ever. Except the waiting period. Again, not a bad idea, that one. But other than that? I honestly can’t think of a second good gun law out there. I mean, the Assault Weapon Ban? That was just stupid.
E-Sabbath, my experience in these debates is that there are few, very few, who advocate for the “take 'em all away” approach, but that any gun control position is portrayed by many of the other side as the first step of a stealth program to do just that.
IMHO, the risks of legal gun ownership are often grossly exaggerated by the gun control side as are the protective effects of guns by the gun rights side. The potential benefits of just better enforcement of the laws we have are not fully appreciated by the gun control side and the gaping holes in our patchwork local approach are dismissed by the gun rights side.
I think we can all agree to “reasonable gun laws” … the question of course is who defines what “reasonable” means?
Aye, there’s the rub. But to the op - it aint a President.
Some of the biggest gun control advocates like Sarah Brady have stated that they know they can’t just get the outright ban they want, so they’re going to try to nickel and dime us to death, divide and conquer, and get as much as they can.
Gun control almost entirely moves towards the way of more control. If you have two sides - one who wants complete gun freedom and one who wants a total ban (exaggerated for demonstration) - let’s say that complete freedom represents 0 on a scale from 0 to 100 and a complete ban represents 100. If gun legislation only moves one way (more control), then when you take the middle ground, you go halfway between 0 and 100 and end up at 50. And then when you compromise again from the starting point of 50 and the goal of 100, you get 75. And you compromise again, you get 87.5. Suddenly after a few rounds of the “middle ground”, you’re 87.5% in favor of the gun control advocates.
I’m not a collector or enthusiast. I just own some guns. I also own some power tools.
I don’t shoot at a range. I own 40 acres. I shoot there. There is a designated range 30 miles away. Though there is no place to lock up guns. There isn’t even a building.
But revolvers or pistols are a no no?
I guess that is directed at me. I’ve used a handgun twice to scare bears. Sure, I could have used a rifle. Pots and pan banging no longer works. I have no desire to hurt or hunt the bear. When I scare them off, I make damn sure the bear can’t get to me, before I can get back in the house. They are fast.
Perhaps we should only be alowed to target shoot with hunting rifles? What caliber would you recommend?
You don’t think that you can target shoot with a hand gun? Um……
Agreed - since it’s basically a “Scary-looking Weapon Ban”, isn’t it?
The sensible gun laws I can think of are - waiting periods, age restrictions on ownership and carry like with cars, maybe training laws similar to driving licences, maybe a theft report law. Otherwise just the usual bylaws about where you can and can’t CC, where in the city you can shoot your weapon (I mean in terms of range licencing, not self defence), that sort of thing. I think most gun control should happen at the policing end, not the regulatory end.
Wearing seatbelts has zero potential harm to someone else. Seatbelts are passive protection and thus not in the same realm as guns…
My impression was if someone breaks in to your home you are within your rights to shoot them. And to me that makes sense as I cannot imagine the law expecting you to hang around and see if the intruder wants your TV or your daughter. As such I expect the default reaction of the gun owner will be to shoot first. What I wonder is if a gun owner really would take an option to escape the house rather than go for their gun assuming either was a viable option. My sense of human nature is they would opt for the gun. I doubt the gun owner would get in trouble for using it in this instance.
Fire extinguishers are also not used to start fires. A gun you are, proverbially, fighting fire with fire. Hardly an appropriate analogy. Replace fires extinguisher with flame thrower and you are more in the ballpark.
I do not believe I ever posited that crime would magically disappear. The flip side of this from the pro-gun lobby is if you restrict guns only law abiding people are affected and the bad guys will run rampant and rape and pillage at will.
Exactly. If someone can be a threat to you without a gun you can be a threat back to them without a gun. Which is to say your only option for defense does not have to be a gun.
There are different levels of misdemeanors. Presumably j-walking would not rise to that level but a violent misdemeanor might. I doubt burdens of proof for a crime are less for misdemeanors…presumably people just do not fuss about them so much because it is a “lesser” crime. I imagine if you wanted to fight one tooth-and-nail then usual court procedures would apply. IANAL though so I could be wrong.
Great. Most of my issue is with handguns anyway and not Evil Black Rifles.
I cannot imagine why a citizen preventing a crime with a gun would not be newsworthy. I think the media would eat that stuff up. Not because of a political agenda but because it makes for better ratings.
I mis-used “disassembled”. All I meant was the ammo and the gun were separate and locked away to some degree as opposed to a loaded and ready to go gun.
Well, looking at Ohio’s Concealed Handgun Law 2008 Report (PDF) it notes that some licenses were suspended or revoked. What I find amazing is they do not have to report the reasons for suspensions or revocation. The reasons may be completely benign and they may be something worse. Why would such data be excluded (note the data is statistical and does not identify individuals so no privacy issues)? So, short of a lot more research no, I cannot give you examples because such examples are intentionally omitted (at least in the case I did find when looking).
Police are a different matter. And again, to allow you the once in a blue moon chance to protect yourself guns need to be available meaning they are available to the bad guys as well. At what cost do we purchase your rights?
See the SCOTUS Dred Scott decision. “Legal” implies it can be undone or made illegal. A right can not be legislated away. The decision declared the Missouri Compromise of 1820, legislation which restricted slavery in certain territories, unconstitutional. In essence Congress had no power to prohibit slavery (a lot like pro-gun groups saying Congress has no power to prohibit guns).
To get by that it took a Constitutional Amendment to undo. Seems a fair bit past a mere law to me and more like a right.
Whether or not you can take positive defense of your house, or are expected under the law to flee, is a State-by-State thing. Until recently Kansas had a “must flee” law which, although rarely (if ever) enforced, was nonetheless on the books as a “hammer” that any DA could use against a property owner defending themselves.
I expect the default reaction of most is going to be to call 9-11, then stay put unless and until the situation escalates - like the folks smashing your stuff downstairs decide to go upstairs to see if anything in the house needs urgent raping.