Execution of a total gun ban

Possibly in a country of 200,000,000 people weapon control can’t be achieved. We’ve aalways had pretty tough weapon control laws in this country anyway - they got a whole lot tougher when Martin Brian did his thing. (no-one under 16 can buy any kind of knife for any reason whatsoever; and the defensive weapons like mace and stun guns have always been illegal here)

Spheleophile, thanks for the useful distinction between socialist and liberal. That said…

"Still, sometimes I feel like pro-choice Republicans must feel - the party’s position has been taken over or pushed to an extreme by a vocal minority of fanatics."

Say what?

Frankly, I don’t see gun control in stark Democrat/Republican terms either. I know many Republicans who favor sensible gun control, and now I know you. :wink:

But where do you get “fanatic” out of the Democratic position on gun control? Here, from this site Al Gore on Gun Control on candidates’ positions is Al Gore on the subject:

“I’m not for registration. I am for licensing by states of new handgun purchases: A photo license I.D. like a driver’s license for new handguns.”

and

“I will not do anything to affect the rights of hunters or sportsmen. I think that homeowners have to be respected in their right to have a gun if they wish to.”

Excuse me, but where precisely in these comments do you see the ravings of a fanatic?

Now let’s take a look at Ralph Nader who, while far more liberal than the socially centrist and fiscally conservative Gore, is–this for Crafter_Man’s benefit–neither a socialist, communist, Stalinist, Trotskyite… Well, you get my point.

“1.Make sure the weapons are designed safely with trigger locks.
2.Strong law enforcement so that they’re not falling into the hands of criminals.
3.Look at a weapon the way you look at a car. You’ve got to know how to handle it. You should be licensed.
4.There are certain weapons that should be banned.”
(Source:
Ralph Nader on Gun Control)

Granted, this may be further than some of you want to go. But, where does this constitute anything remotely akin to a total ban and on all firearms?

Now here, just for argument’s sake, is the Socialist Party candidate on the subject:

“I will work for a system of lincensed gun ownership and an end in the sale of automatic weapons which cannot meet any reasonable standard for hunting.”

(Source:
http://www.issues2000.org/David_McReynolds_Gun_Control.htm )
Now some of you have made the case that the reason we can’t have any gun control laws is that they’d be a first step towards a total ban. This is an absurd argument. On these grounds one could argue that there shouldn’t be a speed limit, because that could lead to a total ban on driving; or there shouldn’t be a legal drinking age, because that could lead to a total ban on drinking; or there shouldn’t be a legal age of consent, because that could lead to a total ban on sex. I could go on… ;).

Others have made an argument like this one from Oblong:

*“Here in Michigan we had the tragic case where a 6 year old shot another 6 year old in school. Right away all the
liberals were crying about trigger locks and gun control. The kid got the gun from his home that served as a crack
house. I guess we can expect a crack dealer to obey trigger lock gun laws. Yep, that would have stopped it.” *

Maybe it wouldn’t have stopped that particular waste of human life, but I don’t see how having the law could have hurt these kids. Do you? So let’s put this question another way: why shouldn’t there be mandatory safety locks? And, for that matter, why shouldn’t there be background checks? Maybe it wouldn’t have stopped the Boston killer, or the Littleton shootings. But even if it stopped just one of these tragedies, wouldn’t that be a good thing? Why should it be easier to own and use a gun than it is to drive a car?

A few minor points…

When jshore said it was paranoid to assume that a ban on automatic weapons would lead to a ban on hunting rifles,
Oblong replied, “That’s something the pro choice crowd has in common with gun control opponents.”

I’ve wracked my brains on this one Oblong and I can’t think of a single analogy here. You’re going to have to help me this one. Automatic weapons is to a safe and legal abortion as hunting rifles is to _____? Please fill in the blank.

Now from aynrandlover

“*Gun control, like many things, is a pretty cut and dry issue. Regulation leads to ban. …No one notices it happening (unless you are affected by the ban, of course)” *

Okay, ARL, since this is so cut and dry, please produce one analogous historical example of how regulation led to a ban. The only instance I can think of is Prohibition which, in case you didn’t realize, people noticed.

Finally, as though groundless predictions were not enough, here’s another whopper from aynrandlover:“As for “who calls themselves liberal/socialist” no one does, of course, because they’d hate to tell the truth.”

I actually had to pinch myself after reading that one.
ARL, several people on this board call themselves liberal. Publications such as The Nation are written by and for self-identified liberals. This is not a secret society.

As to socialist, if you or anyone else would care to define what you mean by socialist, maybe I could help you out there. The term is used so loosely these days that it’s been emptied of meaning.

Here’s what I was getting at. If you don’t agree or want to comment, feel free to drop me an email, I don’t want this to turn into a debate here. I was comparing the abortion rights crowd to the gun rights crowd. They both feel that a little piece of legislation is just a steppingstone to a total ban on either guns or abortion.

Some pro choicers view any ban on ‘partial birth abortions’ as just a steppingstone to an outright ban, not a principled position against the procedure. That is their way in. There are many pro choicers who think this procedure should be banned. I’m not offering a comment on this procedure, just presenting others opinions.

Likewise, many gun rights people favor what they call common sense gun legislation while some more fervent gun rights people are against it simply because they don’t trust the finality of it.

So basically the extremists in each group don’t trust what I’ll call (for lack of a better term) moderate restrictions on abortion/gun rights. They don’t trust the motive behind the restrictions.

About the trigger locks, I have no problem with guns coming with trigger locks. Then the person with the gun can decide whether to use the lock or not. My whole issue is with the grandstanding by politicians and media types. No it won’t hurt to have them, but they won’t help very much either. Keep in mind that trigger locks are only to be used on unloaded guns. If you try to put one on a loaded gun, it could very easily fire. (Now that is Ironic) Yes it may prevent someone from loading the gun and using it but I go back to responsibility. Someone responsible enough to use a trigger lock is probably responsible enough to keep the gun away from those who don’t need it. I don’t see trigger locks as a threat, unless they are somehow mandatory, just cosmetic.

Mandelstam
So practical! Nothing like a real-world compromise.

Compare America of, oh, 100 years ago to America today. Comare America of 50 years ago to America today. Laws, laws, laws. Times change, right? New laws become “necessary,” right? Its common sense…more people on the road, stricter enforcement of laws already on the book, new laws on the book. Safer cars. Regulation. It isn’t all bad, I won’t say that. I’m not keen on it, but I see the practicality of it.

Guns, however, are another matter entirely. There is no reason to disarm a populous. What would be the purpose of that? What is the one reason to disarm a populous? I shudder to think.

Ah, but my “slippery slope” argument itself is challenged. Yes, prohibition went over poorly. I’d say they didn’t handle it correctly. But, it could also be said that it is an impossible thing to do. After all, all the anti-drug propagada and “tough laws” don’t seem to be working very well, at least not from where I stand. And drugs are the quickest thing to get outlawed. From this viewpoint its easy to say that guns could never be banned because there was some innate thing that most people have to be armed, just like there’s a hell of a lot of people who will do drugs–even non-addictive ones–regardless of regulation. People speed regardless of posted limits and speed traps. People will own guns regardless of…
Oh.
However, this is not a call to lift drug laws (which I feel should be done anyway) nor a call to lift speed limits(which would probably be pointless). But guns are free already, relatively speaking. Why walk down the same stupid path?
Requiring gun locks, whatever. The people we don’t want to have the guns aren’t going to use the locks anyway. Up it to a five week waiting period and criminals can still buy guns off the street. No wait. Cash and carry.

In a heavily regulated society everyday life works to the disadvantage of the law abiding citizen. This does not equate to me saying there should be no government. This equates to me saying we have more than enough. Gun locks? What do we do, outlaw accidents? What more can we do besides start banning more firearms?
As far as the OP goes, it can be done. Even in America. We’ll just need some good terrorist action here so enough bleeding-hearts will cry for a police state. Heaven forbid anyone protect themselves when we can just turn over protection to the state. They’ve got their own system of checks and balances built in, right? They can take care of themselves and us. And the criminals, and…

Three words: “Million Mom March”. While not exactly an official “Democratic” demonstration (I don’t think), nor a representative of the Dems, or even liberals in general, it got press coverage. What, you never heard the adage “The squeaky wheel gets the grease”?

::ahem:: “Pollution isn’t harming our environment. The impurities in the air and water are.” (I paraphrased)

In order to become “licensed”, one would probably have to be “registered”. I can play the Semantics game all night…

You’re talking about the same guy who wanted to ban the internal combustion engine, right?

It’s also absurd to think that anybody has advocated not having “any gun control laws”. We’re arguing against laws that hurt the law-abider more than the law-breaker… for example, trigger locks. As has been alluded to (maybe you missed it) earlier in this thread, someone willing to break one law probably wouldn’t have any qualms with violating a lesser, related law. Then there’s the whole issue about it being impossible to enforce without violating other rights, as well…

I just answered that, and other people answered that earlier in the thread. But I’ll summarize, just to be helpful (I think you’re a great person, you see):

  1. Low likelihood of stopping crime (however, I will admit that it poses a pretty damn good chance of stopping home accidents).

  2. Impossible to enforce. We can PUNISH violators, after-the-fact… but as far as preemptive measures, you’d have to randomly pick a gun-owner’s house and investigate the place and see if he’s using the trigger locks, as a means of making gunowners fear that a random check will catch them unawares. I, for one, don’t like the notion of “search and seizure’s” being instigated at random.

  3. They negate one of a gun’s primary uses: defense. I hate bringing up the old “fumbling with keys in the dark” argument, but frankly, I haven’t heard any real counter to that (other than “most people aren’t good shots anyway”, which really doesn’t address the point).

A person’s right to choose. Duh. If I choose to take the risk of gun accident in the home in order to ensure that I would be able to defend myself/my property should the need arise, that is my choice. Not yours.

It’s used as propaganda, just like much of the political rhetoric that’s spouted around these days. The fun part is sifting through the rhetoric and finding the real argument, eh?

(I’ll tell you what… find the rhetoric in my post, and I’ll give you fifty SPOOFE points!)

I am not a gun control proponent, but the main tactic to outlaw guns would be Propaganda. Simply by dramatising selected incidents over and over, could eventually change the minds of the people. So if guns were made to look evil, laws could easily be passed and eventually outlawed. I think many will agree that this is the case today.

To answer some of the gun-control proponents claim that there is no way our current President would try to ban all guns (emphasis mine)…

From the whitehouse.guv web page, a little snippet…

CALLING FOR AN UNPRECEDENTED INCREASE FOR GUN ENFORCEMENT. The President will repeat his call on the Congress to finish its work and send him a final budget that contains his proposal to fund the largest national gun enforcement initiative in history. The President’s historic initiative will fund an increase of 500 ATF agents and inspectors; the hiring of hundreds of federal, state and local gun prosecutors; expanded crime gun tracing including more funds for YCGII; more ballistics testing to solve more gun crimes; and research funding for “smart gun” technology.

From the NRA web page, a little snippet…

Solicitor General
Washington, D.C. 20530
August 22, 2000
Dear Mr. XXXX:
Thank you for your letter dated August 11, 2000, in which you question certain statements you understand to have been made by an attorney for the United States during oral argument before the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Emerson. Your letter states that the attorney indicated that the United States believes that it could take guns away from the public, and restrict ownership of rifles, pistols and shotguns from all people. You ask whether the response of the attorney for the United States accurately reflects the position of the Department of Justice and whether it is indeed the government’s position that the Second Amendment of the Constitution does not extend to the people as an individual right.
I was not present at the oral argument you reference, and I have been informed that the court of appeals will not make the transcript or tape of the argument available to the public (or to the Department of Justice). I am informed, however, that counsel for the United States in United States v. Emerson, **Assistant United States Attorney William Mateja, did indeed take the position that the Second Amendment does not extend an individual right to keep and bear arms. **

Well here’s this fact sheet from the CDC which we might have seen before. Note how many women are likely to be killed by a handgun and then ask again why women organized a “Millon Mom March”. Looks to me like those responsible handgun owners you guys are always talking about do alot more shooting of themselves or give access to a despondant family member than criminals use them to kill others.

CDC factsheet…http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheet/fafacts.htm

Oh yeah and just for added interest…in the Yahoo news this morning…

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ao/20001227/cr/man_dies_in_william_tell_holiday_gunpl

Needs2know

Ooops! http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheet/fafacts.htm

Gee, am I the new SD whipping boy?

After reading the above criticisms of me, I am reminded of the following quote:

“You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go around repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in their struggle for independence.” - Charles A. Beard 1913

(And Mr. Beard was a socialist!)

When it comes to guns, courage, and freedom, my views are almost tame compared to those of Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson. Yet I’m a “nut,” while those guys are heroes. Go figure.

The right to keep and bear arms is just that - a right. (It is not a “privilege”.) It is a natural, inalienable right granted not by the Constitution, not by Bill Clinton, not by Janet Reno, but by our Creator (whoever or whatever that may be). This right pre-dates government, and as such does not depend on government for its existence.

For the record: I am not a gun nut - I am a freedom nut. Guns are a means, not an end.

Which gets me to “gun control”… the government has no legal jurisdiction over my inalienable rights. Period. As is true of our other natural rights, the government is not allowed to tax, regulate, deny, or infringe this cornerstone right. It has no authority. Ask yourself: Can a servant regulate or infringe on the rights of his master? Of course not.

Put another way, the most important right is the right to protect your rights. This means I have the right to protect myself and family using any means necessary. In a practical sense, this means I also have the right to keep and bear field weapons utilized by our standing army (M-16, etc.).

So am I nuts? Am I extreme? Hardly. I am just a patriot who values liberty above all else, and who has the nerve to defend his rights.

Welcome to the club.
After a little time, I think you find it enjoyable:)

Only one thing is overlooked in the “common sense” proposals to register guns or their owners, so here it is. Al Gore’s common sense approach, is registering people who own guns. How exactly would writing down my name, or your name, through licensing us, help arrest criminals or make you safer? I would be happy to license myself and go through mandatory training and qualification. However in the end I expect that after I have proved myself an honest Joe and a good shot, that I would be awarded a concealed carry permit to apply to every state in the union. This is the only way I will gladly register myself, and it will never happen. Although at first blush, gun listing has a sort of tantalizing appeal, upon reflection you have to wonder whether gun lists would be an instrument of crime control at all.

The unfortunate answer is that, no matter how good it feels when the words first pass your ears, registering honest gun owners doesn’t stop criminals, and in fact focuses in exactly the opposite direction. It is an allocation of resources that has no chance of achieving its goal, if that goal is the reduction of crime.

  1. Registering 70 million American households is extremely expensive.

Do you know what it takes to run a database that big? You need 19,000 changes daily, just to keep up with people who move every ten years. Floor after floor of cubicle after cubicle for employees with permanent jobs, payroll, parking and dry cleaning bills. It’s a federal jobs program all by itself, all in the common sense – but deceptive name of stopping crime. How many criminals do you figure will register when all is said and done? That’s right, none, and the planners know that. All that money and time, invested on tracking the innocent.

  1. Americans who fail to register would become felons without committing a crime.

Under registration, activity that is a common practice and has been perfectly legal since inception makes you a felon. Think about that. Possession of private property would subject you to felony arrest, if the property weren’t on the government’s master list. Boy, that doesn’t sound like the American way. No other evil is needed, there is no victim and no inherent criminal act takes place.

  1. Registration, if enacted, will create an underground market for unregistered guns bigger than the drug trade.

How many times must an elite forbid what the public wants, before learning the unintended consequences of outlawing liberties? People get what they want either way; it’s just a question of how much crime the government itself forces to accompany it. With respect to guns, the last thing you want to encourage is the creative import programs and price supports that drug dealers enjoy, for gun runners.

  1. People have said to me, “But Jeff, if all guns were registered and there was a crime, then you could tell.”

Tell what? If your neighbor is shot, that’s not probable cause to search everyone with a matching caliber in a ten-block radius. The evidence needed to conclusively link a person to a crime has no connection at all to a registration plan – police aren’t waiting for official lists so they can start catching murderers. Gun registration schemes lack a crime prevention component.

  1. You don’t really think authorities would use gun registration lists to confiscate weapons from people, do you?

Despite current examples of exactly that in New York and California, and global history for the past century, this couldn’t really happen, do you think? Who would even support such a thing in a country like America, with its Bill of Rights? The guarantees against confiscating property, unwarranted seizures and the right to keep and bear arms would surely forestall any such abuse of power.

And what about the so-called First Amendment test? If it’s OK for arms it must pass muster for words too. Why would an honest writer object to being on the government list of approved writers? Why indeed.

Pile logic on logic, some people just feel the government should register everything, just to keep control. When government has that much control, you no longer possess your liberties. You’re living where government lists define who can do what, and where people control trumps crime control – the gun registration model precisely.

I might favor registration if the system would include criminals. In fact, I’d favor testing the system on them first. But the U.S. Supreme Court, in a widely known case (Haynes v. U.S., 1968), has already determined that a felon who has a gun cannot be compelled to complete such forms, because it violates the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. That’s right, registration – not in your case of course but in the case of a criminal – is a self-indictment of a crime, and is therefore prohibited!

Gun listing is a feel-good deception that passes unquestioned by the media, engorges the federal bureaucracy, and undercuts the linchpins of American freedoms. It has no more place in a free society than a government authorized list of words, and should be rejected outright. Elected officials who promote such a scheme are opposing the very Constitution they take an oath to preserve, protect and defend, and deserve to be removed from office.

If you have a swimming pool your children are many times more likely to drown than if you didn’t have a swimming pool. Should we get rid of water?

One person’s irresponsibility in handling an item shouldn’t prevent another person from handling that same item.

I know responsibility is a foreign word to liberals but some people have it and shouldn’t have their rights purged because others are careless.

Feeling salmon-like, I’d like to return to the OP.

Given the premise that a total gun ban gets passed by Congress (not whether or not it should, or what the effect would be), how do they get the guns out of the hands of the American citizens?

I don’t think they can. They would have to make some major changes to personal rights to have the police do a full search on every private structure or vehicle. WAY too many guns were bought back before any kind of registration or ID was required; I know people with guns wrapped in blankets tucked at the back of closets or up in the attic; they haven’t fired them in years and may never. If a total gun ban came around, I don’t know that they’d turn them in.

The inability to enforce this type of ban seems to me to be the greatest obstacle.

A small note - the reason those guys are regarded as heroes is because - tada, they won. If they’d lost, or simply muttered to each other in pamplets about how much the British were big meanies, they and passing out guns to the citizenry would be much less popular. I’m reminded myself of a quote from Clavell’s Shogun, paraphrased -

Toronaga: There is no excuse for rebellion against one’s liege lord…
Blackthorne: …unless you win.

Also, there is something of a fallacy in Mr. Beard’s quotation to suggest the FFs were not regarded as dangerous in their time as well - they were actively hunted down. I have a feeling the British thought they were a bit loony, too.

Back to gun agruments.

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ethilrist
They would have to make some major changes to personal rights to have the police do a full search on every private structure or vehicle. *

This is exactly the problem. Many do not realize that passing any gun ban in the first place is making those “major” changes to personal rights, long before the police ever enter your home. Just because everyone doesn’t own guns or doesn’t agree that gun ownership is protected does not take that right away. I do not like it that the American Flag is burned in public protests. HOWEVER, I do not believe that the first amendment needs to be removed or nulified simply because I don’t understand or agree with those doing the burning.

The Second Amendment is just as important, and possibly even more so than any of the other articles in the Bill of Rights. Without the ability to defend oneself, what are the chances that after the 2nd nullified, the 4th and the 1st get “amended” as well?

I am no conspiricy nut. My point is that once the Bill of RIGHTS (not priviledges) starts getting messed with, where does it end?

**Oblong **, Thanks for the reasonable reply on the abortion analogy.

For the record, I don’t think you can liken the restriction on (so-called) “partial birth” abortions to the restriction on particular types of assault weapons. Putting entirely aside the highly contentious arguments for or against that particular medical procedure, here is the basic difference: she who is denied access to the procedure is forced to bear a child against her will; he or she who is denied access to a particular kind of weapon is free to purchase another kind of weapon that will still usefully serve a recreational and/or defensive purpose.

Your comments about trigger locks are reasonable although I still believe that the potential good of the mandatory lock would outweigh the harm. Here our disagreement comes down to a matter of utility: which constitutes the greater good, voluntary or mandatory locks? That’s good b/c it means that we can argue rationally, without misunderstanding each other’s motives. :slight_smile:
Unfortunately, that is not true of the differences between me and some of the other posters on this thread who, quite literally, inhabit a different mental universe than I do. I can only make a few gestures towards replying as some of these questions could occupy volumes.

aynrandlover, I asked you for an historical example of where regulation had led to successful banning. What you gave me was an incoherent and self-contradictory rant. On the one hand, you see the practicality of common sense regulation of various kinds in a mass society where the lack of regulation (on, say, speed limits) could result in serious harm. Here you’re agreeing to the desirability of what, in political theory, is called a “social contract” (you agree that a restriction of your “right” to drive 150mph is worth it b/c it decreases yours and everyone else’s chances of getting maimed or killed). So really, you ought to be arguing in the terms that Oblong does: debating what constitutes reasonable regulation and what does not. But instead, on this particular issue, you shift to the “slippery slope” argument (regulation leads to a ban) even though you acknowledge that argument as being inappropriate for other regulatory matters (driving, drinking, etc.). However your reasons for doing so are incoherent: e.g., you say there’s no reason to disarm a populace, but (except insofar as it is the outcome of the “slippery slope” argument) no one is talking about disarming a populace (as some of your allies have been eager to tell me). Here, IMO, is your most logical complaint: “In a heavily regulated society everyday life works to the disadvantage of the law abiding citizen.” That my well be true. But the question remains whether we are living in a heavily regulated society. To what extent will proposed regulations minimize domestic violence or accidents rather than prevent individuals from defending themselves or hunting? Should it be easier to buy and use a gun than a car? If gun control won’t stop criminal access to guns, what will? These are the kinds of questions you really want to be asking. Instead, by reverting to the “slippery slope” argument, without any convincing historical rationale for that argument (more on this below), you confuse yourself and inhibit your ability to argue logically.

BF The whole thrust of your point seems to be that people have made arguments that individual possession of firearms isn’t constitutionally guaranteed. So what? People make all kinds of legal arguments: law is all about interpretation. That’s why, in practical terms, law often comes down to politics: witness the right flank of the US Supreme Court’s recent decision in favor of reversing its own sacrosanct notion of state’s rights to make sure that a Republican president who lost the popular vote would prevail in a highly contested election. With the current composition of the Supreme Court, the likelihood of what you fear is equivalent to the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell. Again, brought to its logical conclusion, your ground of argument–people will abuse laws by applying them in anti-Constitutional ways–would apply to every law on the books.

Obvious Guy: "Simply by dramatising selected incidents over and over, could eventually change the minds of the people. So if guns were made to look evil, laws could easily be passed and eventually outlawed. I think many will agree that this is the case today.

By the same token, Obvious, we could argue that by making democracy look evil, we could eventually outlaw it. By making SUVs look evil, we could eventually outlaw them. Indeed, by making the Wonder Bra look evil, we could eventually outlaw that too. Here your reasoning is based on the assumption that our society favors hardcore authoritarian responses to acknowledged social evils. But the truth is that our society doesn’t work that way at all and never has! For example, it’s widely acknowledged that excessive violence on TV is not good for kids. And yet, b/c it’s a cheap source of profitable entertainment, it’s done nothing but increase. The irony is that none of you people seem to realize that our society worships the market, not the the authoritarian state. The rule of law is tolerated and sanctioned primarily because without it commerce is toast. I could sooner foresee a future in which giant corporations disarmed us than one in which an elected government saw any political interest in undertaking a mass-scale incursion on individual rights, that would enjoy at best limited popular support. It’s because this idea is so preposterously unlikely that people like jshore (and myself) tend to regard such forecasts as paranoia.

SPOOFE, I have no time to go over your arguments point by point. Your argument that you can’t have laws that are hard to enforce would apply to most of the laws on the books. It’s hard to enforce laws against molesting your own children, but does that mean we shouldn’t have them? What I find most interesting about your post, is the way you seem to realize that you are disingenuous and enjoy that aspect of your position. For example, I asked what was meant by “socialist,” and you replied: “It’s used as propaganda, just like much of the political rhetoric that’s spouted around these days. The fun part is sifting through the rhetoric and finding the real argument, eh?” Perhaps. Since some people in this thread really are interested in getting to the bottom of these debates, clouding the discussion with meaningless and disingenuous attributions of “Socialist” is, to my mind, a big waste of time. Here and elsewhere in your post, you seem to enjoy assuming a stance of Willful Ignorance, as though it were a cologne you splash on in order to ward off serious scrutiny of your opinions.

Crafter_Man, On reflection you strike me less as paranoid than as incredibly naive. You have earnestly imbibed a whole lot of libertarian language about natural rights; but you seem to have no sense of where they come from historically, and, therefore, what they mean. I would be really and genuinely interested to know what you think of a book called A People’s History of the United States, 1492-Present by Howard Zinn. I think you would find it illuminating. Until you show some sense of historical awareness, your regurgitation of Liberty 101 is not going to mean very much, however feisty it may sound.

*Oblong again:“I know responsibility is a foreign word to liberals but some people have it and shouldn’t have their rights purged because others are careless.

Oblong, you are capable of better arguments than this. Here, like SPOOFE, you revert to disingenous name-calling. On the same grounds, I could say, “I know that civic responsibility and public spiritedness are foreign words to libertarian individualists, but some people have them and shouldn’t have their rights to democratic governance purged because others are selfish and paranoid.”

SPOOFE, I demand 2,000 SPOOFE points for that analysis.

Sorry, I should have put up a smiley face. That was my intent. I don’t even like the terms liberal/conservative anyway as they are cookie cutters and I don’t think most people think that way.

I understand your point on the abortion analogy. Can’t argue against it now because it’s almost 5 p.m. on Friday, but I appreciate your comments.

How’s the poem go?

Treason doth never prosper. What’s the reason?
For if it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.

I never said anything remotely like that, and I’ll thank you profusely to keep your words out of my mouth. I said that you can’t have laws that violate a person’s rights.

Let me put it this way…

  1. Do you deny that, in order to rigorously enforce trigger locks, one of the few ways to do so would require search and seizure?

  2. Do you deny that, should this search and seizure take place, it will be based simply on the remote possibility that there will be unlocked guns in the household?

  3. Do you deny that randomly-instigated searches and seizures are a violation of our constitutional rights?

I find the tossing-about of terms as the crux of an argument to be disingenius. I used the example of the term “socialist”… if an argument relies on rhetoric and propaganda, then it’s baseless. However, I’ve yet to see any evidence that the “no unconstitutional laws” notion is baseless.

I thought I said the exact same thing. I note that you focused on approximately 10% of my post and used that to “disqualify” the whole thing. Now who’s being disingenius? “No time to go over my arguments”, indeed. If that were truly the case, I would suggest waiting until you DO have time instead of attempting strawman attacks.

Because I agree with you that useless propagandic rhetoric should be avoided? I would like you to actually address the points of my argument before you throw around terms like “Willful Ignorance”. Just because you used the term first, it doesn’t mean that you’re immune to being accused of the same.

Where the hell did I revert to “disingenius name-calling”?!? Are you just incapable of having a debate?!?

Analysis? What analysis? You took a couple lines from a rather large post and expounded on that. If you want to perform an “analysis”, I suggest you actually focus on THE WHOLE FRIGGIN’ POST. Maybe you’d have time to do it if you weren’t wasting so much time focusing on the insignificant points of an argument.