That’s quite the road map you’ve got laid out there. It’ll be interesting to watch and see how much of it actually happens.
Most of that was describing enabling conditions, not the roadmap. The route itself is pretty simple.
Damn right it’ll be interesting. I do feel confident in saying this was not the last gun-control bill that Congress will ever address, right?
If the filibuster is changed, will you accept nationwide shall-issue concealed carry that passed with 57 votes in the Senate? That’s a compromise I can accept: Manchin-Toomey in exchange for national concealed carry.
I’ll give you a “probably” on that one.
That’s mostly a joke.
Even if Manchin-Toomey gets through the Senate, I doubt it’ll make it through the House in its current form. It’ll probably get sent back to the Senate with something like national CCW reciprocity (boy, that’d steam Feinstein) attached.
Manchin-Toomey didn’t include universal background checks, it only extended them to gun show transfers and transfers originating via the internet or print publications.
I think that if fillibuster rules are changed, the change, at least for the first few years, would only apply to appointments, not to substantive legislation.
As for the compromise, giving up ability of states and localities to experiment with what works for them is big give. For example, if concealed carry was generally legal in New York City, police would lose one of the main reasons for stop and frisk (seeing a bulge in clothes). This could take away a controversial, but I think effective, means of crime-fighting.
Plus, as noted by Human Action, Manchin-Toomey does not require universal background checks. It only eliminated the “gun show loophole” if you take that phrase with absurd literalness. Consider this (emphasis mine):
What about the cork board at your local hunting club? Or target shooting club? As far as I can tell, they are just as OK as the corkboard at the Westboro Baptist Church. According to this, you could even do a don’t-ask-don’t-tell transfer at a flea market.
It thus appears to me that Manchin-Toomey does nothing except put some of what was on internet bulletin boards on physical bulletin boards. But since gun transfers are almost always local and face-to-face, the world-wide web isn’t needed. I don’t understand why the President thought this was a step forward.
I like your style!
Unfortunately, I come from a society that has managed to steal our right to have an equalizer against the bigger and stronger criminals, PC tossers.
And yet, gun control seems to one of very few issues where people trust Republicans over Obama.
BTW, what Republican losses?
What? I’m having trouble understanding you and you apparently have trouble understanding me. I am rubbing your nose in a “I told you so” in the hopes that your side stops approaching the gun issue in a self defeating manner.
You do know that the words “evidence” and “conclusive proof” mean different things don’t you? I’ve presented plenty of evidence, you just aren’t convinced and I doubt that there is any evidence that would convince you.
Doesn’t matter, why don’t you understand that?:rolleyes:
You never have? You sure about that? Because you sure spend a lot of time bad mouthing someone you don’t blame for your side’s epic failure.
Well the gun nuts aren’t going to go away so you are going to have to figure out how to achieve your objectives despite them. So far your reaction has been to blame it on the wind.
So when given a choice between admitting that your side may have made a mistake and concluding that the gun nuts are invincible, you are going to assign your loss to the notion that gun nuts are invincible?:rolleyes: Then you are just screaming at the wind.
I don’t see the “problem” the same way you do. The civilized world owes their freedom to our guns so they can suck it.
Sorry I got used to using the terms gun nuts and gun grabbers. Noone seemed to mind their use in other threads. If you would like, you can replace the phrase “gun nuts” with “defenders of the bill of second amendment of the bill of rights” and replace “gun grabber” with “gun control activist”.
It didn’t even do that. It was weak tea.
We will see. I don’t think anyone loses their seat over being pro-gun in 2014.
Yeah, you keep believing that. You will be playing right into Wayne LaPierre’s hand.
I’ve heard Pro-Life folks say almost exactly the same thing. So convinced of their righteousness and morality that they don’t see how they are hurting their chances of furthering their goal with every ridiculous narrow minded position they take to try and restrict the rights of others.
I’d totally take that trade-off but I’m not at all sure that’s what they mean. The other side keeps insisting that all the facts and polls and opinions and everything else is on their side. Some of them may never be convinced that they zigged when they shoulda zagged.
Thats exactly right. But they needed to do something more than just gun shows to give the semblance of doing something. This was incredibly weak tea and it wasn’t defeated because it was unacceptable (The NRA wasn’t going to score this vote until at the last minute it became clear that it was going to fail anyway and they could swing a few more votes by scoring it).
Hmmmmm, I choose to shoot the criminals.
Obviously a street mugging is not really relevant, but a home invasion is.
BTW, I worked in a female dominated environment for 26 years and trust me, they are just as “bad” at being in charge as men are. My workplaces were rife with bullying.
If you read any of my posts, you know that there is no bigger supporter of states’ rights than me. Local is usually best in my opinion, but that doesn’t go to the issue of fundamental rights. If Alabama has a lower crime rate by requiring Baptist Church attendance, then that isn’t valid because it’s a violation of the 1st amendment. Prohibiting a citizen from keeping or bearing arms is, IMHO, a violation of the 2nd amendment (which has been incorporated to the states).
Plus, if we are concerned about localities being allowed to have their own gun policies, why are we debating anything at the federal level? Let New York pass Manchin-Toomey, and let Vermont have gun sales with no background checks.
And if NYPD can no longer jerk people around on a pretext of seeing a bulge in their clothing, well, I won’t lose much sleep over that. That also, in my opinion, is a 4th amendment violation.
If Britain starts requiring Church of England attendance, that would be just as bad. Whether a country has a first amendment, or, alternately, an established church, religious coercion is equally wrong.
Similarly, granting rights for children and felons to keep and bear machine guns is an equally bad idea in countries with and without second amendments.
The second amendment means whatever the Surpreme Court says it means. The current court won’t let a locality prohibit almost everyone from having handguns in their home. But they probably won’t touch most other gun control measures. Of course, a lot depends on who is the next President. But even if you get a GOP president and 60 GOP senators, we can be confident that the right to keep and bear arms will continue to be infringed. And even if you get a Democratic President and 60 Democratic senators, the supremes are unlikely to completely and totally reverse Heller. The question is – what infringements will and will not be allowed?
The answer is – Molon labe.
Don’t you have to put on a bunch of leather and then get all oily?
This is true with respect to any individual gun owner, and I hope I consider it in my anti-gun posts. Even though guns increase risk for the average gun owner, if you could just look at people who have unusal emotional stability, who are unusally good shots, and are unusally good at securing their guns, their risk profile is different.
Also, many people have legitimate need to take on the risks of gun ownership, such as when required by their job, or if they need to hunt to feed their family.
On the other hand, it would be hard to be so self-aware that you know you are the exception to general trends. And the set of people who are actually self-aware and the set who is certain they are self-aware probably doesn’t much overlap. So I agree with pediatricians giving advice to parents based on public health statistics showing that gun risks outweigh benefits.
Also, if you sell your gun, or allow it to be inherited, the average risk profile reasonably applies.
This is why I think the federal government should mostly stick here to stuff having to do with manufacturing, which almost always involves interstate commerce. Smith & Wesson executives aren’t going to get into a shootout with police because they can no make a certain gun magazine.
One thing I’d like is for there to be rotating surgeon general type of warnings on guns, saying, for example:
“For every self-defense homicide involving a firearm kept in the home, there are 1.3 accidental deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides, and 37 firearm suicides.”
Above sentence is a slight rewording of a sentence on page 8 here:
http://www.iansa.org/system/files/Risks%20and%20Benefits%20of%20a%20Gun%20in%20the%20Home%202011.pdf
It wouldn’t be practical for manufacturers to have fifty different packagings, so this should be national. But if people in Wyoming want to preserve their sky high suicide rate by being awash in guns, well, I disagree with them, but I don’t want the federal government engaging in shootouts to force registration or confiscate existing guns.
Children have historically had all rights curbed because of minority. If I would have told my Dad to go fuck himself, I would have gotten my freedom of speech enforced with a boot straight up my ass.
As far as felons, I agree that at common law a felony conviction was a capital crime and if his life is spared, he generally loses civil rights. But as a practical matter, I can’t see a reason why a guy who is convicted of income tax evasion and serves 3 years is barred for life from owning a gun. I’m not worried about G. Gordon Liddy shooting up my neighborhood.
But your larger point stands. I don’t believe that the 2nd amendment is absolute anymore than any other right. I can’t stand on your lawn at 3:30am and yell obscenities, nor may I fire a gun in the air. But a prior restraint against simple possession of a gun? I would fiercely dispute that position.
You understand that that is a really lousy measure of whether a gun is useful for self-defense or not, right?
Give it up. You’re debating a guy who thinks “unusal emotional stability” means you won’t flip out and shoot yourself or another. Waste of time.
You mean you don’t do that? I thought everyone did that. I think I have a stat around here about how 79.7 of the country’s 80 million gun owners flip out and shoot someone at least twice a week. I’ve just got to find that cite …
No, I don’t. As I said earlier, I’m convinced anti-gunners project their own flaws onto others. See post #91.