Oh, you’re a tricky one.
Alright, let me restate: Typically, it is the business, nay the duty, of the president to speak at such times of national sorrow. But since Bush has proved an inability to handle such responsibilities with any sense of grace, eloquence or sincerety, he is henceforth excused and can spend the weekend at his Crawford ranch.
Would you want him speaking at the funeral of a loved one?
Bush needs better speech writers. Seriously, why doesn’t he have them? Maybe he was better able to communicate and offer sympathy to the families when he met with them.
Am I not being clear here?
These are my premises:
a) If there is a reasonable belief that someone may pose a threat to themselves or others, there should be mechanisms in place that allow for closer scutiny to determine if this is, in fact, the case.
b) If someone has been judged to pose a threat to themselves or others, they should not be cleared in an instant background check; there should be an additional layer of scrutiny.
Things are different up here in that people don’t often have this quasi-religious attachment to “gun rights,” putting it on the same level as freedom of expression.
Even still, I understand that there are constitutionally-upheld abridgements of those rights, even in the United States. I’m sure there are plenty of perfectly harmless (and functional) drug addicts in California who would love to legally own a gun – but maybe it’s better that they don’t, because it’s good to try to keep guns out of the hands of people more likely to pose a threat.
Now, as it turns out, Mr. Cho was declared a likely danger to himself, less than two years ago. I don’t think that his right to own a gun should be evaluated as more worthy of protection that his classmates’ right to… um… what was the foremost of those Unalienable Rights of yours again?
Who, exactly, would make the determination in any given case? What would the procedure be? I’m not seeing anything that wouldn’t be violation of a person’s civil rights. Even if a person has a mental disorder, we have a thing called the ADA which would probably cover that (again, assuming the person is not confined to a mental institution).
Only if “quasi-religious” means “in the constitution”. Does your constitution give its citizen the right to bear arms? If not, then that would explan it… don’t you think?
By what legal authority was he thus declared? A teacher doesn’t count, even if that teacher is a college professor, btw. Do you not see the abuse that could ensue? If not, consider the same requirement be imposed on someone who operates a media outlet.
True. Don’t ask me where my brain was when I said the legit use of a handgun for self-defense was limited just to attackers with guns.
I think you are making too much of this. With Virginia’s low rate of spending on mental health it’s unlikely that anything was done about Mr. Cho being a danger to himself or others, beyond saving a file to a hard drive somewhere. Obviously the state didn’t want to commit resources to get the guy treated, so why would they commit mental health funds to a fancy interface between mental health, law enforcement and gun dealers?
Sarcasm meter in the shop for repair? Because if it isn’t, I’d like for you to tell me, exactly how one would go about carrying a concealed howitzer?
:dubious:
One suggestion comes to mind, but you’re probably not gonna like it.
There are few, indeed, men of such calibre.
Indeed. But Red just might be one of them.
Nonsense. Rights are revoked every day, when there is cause. Who makes the determination that someone has committed a crime? Well, societies have legal systems. We also have medical systems.
The ADA doesn’t guarantee that no-one will ever have their rights abridged as a result of their mental illness. If actions that are the result of mental illness contribute to a hostile work environment, the person can be fired.
This is exactly what I mean by "quasi-religious. What relationship does the intention of the 2nd Amendment have to the way it is typically invoked today? Not a whole hell of a lot. Y’all focus on the dependent clause, and gloss over “a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state…” and then somehow get to unrestricted access to firearms for practically everybody. Where’s the common sense? You all get heated up about slippery slopes and such. “Of course we can’t try to keep guns out of the hands of people who are obviously completely delusional, because next thing you know people will be denied permits because they twitch a bit. Obviously!”
Guns have killed two out of three of Ted Kennedy’s brothers.
I’m glad that you mentioned L.A. A couple of nights ago someone mentioned on Hardball that there are usually as many murders per day in L.A. as there are in all of Europe.. If “people kill people,” why aren’t those people across the pond killing at a similar rate?
I’m also glad that you mentioned New York. What happened to the crime rate in NYC when the gun laws were changed? I’ve heard a rumor that you can walk in Central Park now.
Judging from this thread, the president was wrong when he said, “Now is not the time to do the debate until we’re actually certain about what happened and after we help people get over their grieving.” Why should such decisions be debated without emotion? Give me a Thomas Paine or a Martin Luther King or a Robert Kennedy – eloquent and passionate about doing the right thing.
Duplicate post
I should probably begin by saying that given that I’ve spent much too much time here recently arguing in the jackal thread, I’m not really wanting to spark or engage in a lengthy gun control debate. I would like to point out however, that a lack of guns would probably not have saved either Kennedy brother. More than likely, IMHO, bombs would have been the weapon of choice - as has long been the case in Europe and the Middle East - and most likely more people would have been killed or seriously injured as a result.
The biggest change in gun laws in New York City wasn’t in the laws themselves, but their far more vigorous enforcement. That, other police tactics, and demographic trends drove the crime rate down.
The crime rate went down in most large American cities, but the changes were more marked in New York, probably because of some or all of these strategies.
Again, most of us do want gun crimes prosecuted, so this is a focus that works well for me, and is in keeping with a philosophy of pursuing lawbreakers rather than hindering law-abiding citizens.
This site lists the strategies, and shows the drop in crime in NYC.
Two points, in reply to DanBlather’s #73.
First, many of those things are things a responsible gun owner should do. However, they are also unconstitutional encumbrances on the right to own a gun.
Second: You do not need a permit or insurance to own or operate a car. You need one to own or operate a car on public streets. If I were allowed to shoot things in public, I’d sure love to take the tests and register and get insurance. Man. Sitting on main street, blasting targets. What a concept. I mean, that’d blow people’s minds. But not their heads.
Yeah. See, that’s not a gun control issue anymore, though. That’s an issue of national databases and who can tell people what. If my evangelical co-worker called the cops on me weekly and said I was acting strange, what are the cops going to do about it?
Cops don’t have to protect people from crimes. They don’t have a duty to stop crimes as they’re happening, either. Sucks, but it’s true. (No, really, court case and everything.) And I don’t really want a national database with every little factoid about me in it. I don’t like the government much, I think if it tries to protect me, it’s going to do more damage than anything I can think of.
Long thread. Sorry.
New Orleans and police confiscations. Sorry about this, but the original articles were long enough ago, they cost to read.
This is them giving some of the guns back and saying ‘oh, we didn’t do anything.’
P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. “Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons,” he said.
There’s some articles about them saying ‘we never took any guns’, but considering they gave them back… and some were found in gun stores… I think we can ignore that.
I see that as more like uninsured motorist insurance. (Not exactly, since for cars your’s pays for you.) All those who have guns contribute to making good someone injured by a gun, even though the owner might not be liable if they had responsible gun owners.
E-Sabbath, since some states do require registration, exactly how is it unconstitutional?
I was thinking more like potential uneven enforcement of the law, either by the police, or by financial issues, creating an undue burden and effectively disarming the poor. (Who, one should note, are the ones that most need to hunt for food.)
For example, let’s say that the insurance on a rifle is six hundred a month, like it is on a car. 7200 a year. Just in case you go batshit crazy and shoot people. Would you consider that easy and affordable? Would this effectively make the average gun owner an uninsured criminal?
To operate, carry, or use a gun, you need a license. Well, you don’t need one to operate a car. Just to operate one on public roads. A license to operate a gun in your own land is something that could be unjustly enforced. I recall it happening in New York State a while back, where a license was required… call it the 70s? It was… was it to go deer hunting? Anyhow, they offered like five a year, and that was deemed an illegal restriction. I know I have details of that wrong, but I can’t recall the whole story at the moment.
Not all guns have serial numbers. Guns last a while. Mine’s 40 years old, and has no serial number. It’s effectively brand new, and looks pretty much exactly like one made last year, only with a nicer stock and pump.
As for revoking people convicted of felonies… well, they lose their carry rights, but what are you going to do, go in and confiscate their personal belongings? Same goes for handling while drunk. If someone hurts someone or starts shooting up town, it’s already illegal. What are you going to do, install breathalyzers at the trigger? As far as ‘locked up’, well, there are home defense issues there, but most importantly… what are you going to do, have home inspections?
Think about what implementing these rules would do for your personal privacy rights.