If my opposition were as retarded as the gun control lobby, I’d be pretty powerful too.
We are grateful for the Brady Campaign’s bumbling incompetence.
I dunno. Perhaps there is hope for a grand bargain on gun control.
We repeal every gun law in the country (incluing the prohibition against suppressors and SBRs) and replace it with a licensing and registration scheme with national CCW and prohibit states from passing gun control and the gun control folks just STFU from now on and stop torpedoing the progressive agenda by insisting that we commit to their lost cause.
Or, the Republicans pass national reciprocity and stack the federal bench so all the other dominos fall over time. No registration or licensing necessary. It would be a strategic mistake for the Republican party to compromise on anything related to guns at this point in time.
We’re on our way. There’s already an effort organizing to push the national CCW reciprocity bill, and the “hearing protection act”. It’s not a very big step from there to remove SBRs from the NFA as well. And it’s not unimaginable that we get the Hughes Amendment repealed.
I’m excited to see what cool new imports are allowed under a Trump administration.
As for state-level AWBs and mag capacity limits, we’ll have to see what happens with SCOTUS, but I’m optimistic.
It doesn’t seem like the progressives have much interest in “just STFU from now on”.
Personally, I think I’ll take a pass on pushing for a national licensing and registration scheme this next year.
So we can’t compromise when Democrats are in power and we can’t compromise when Republican are in power. Do we need to elect Gary Johnson or Julia Stein before we can compromise on stuff that you seem to (in theory at least) have little objection to aside from its slippery slope effect.
I’m really looking forward to super cheap AK-47s. US gun manufacturers are going to take a bath while they have to grin and bear the competition from the rest of the world. May be a good time to short US gun manufacturers.
No one believes that the anti-gun lobby is going to just STFU. For instance, in 1933 there was a compromise that guns .50 caliber and less would be treated as rifles, and those over .50 caliber would be treated as ‘destructive devices’ (like anti-tank guns). Then in the 90s the anti-gun crowd decided to work hard on banning .50 caliber rifles as ‘too dangerous’, even though no one had ever actually used a single one in a crime. If gun control proponents weren’t clearly working from a position of ‘ban everything we can get away with banning whenever we can, and try again in a few years if this one doesn’t work or gets overturned’, there could be some kind of compromise, but it’s been made clear that they don’t believe in compromise.
IMO, a prerequisite to compromise would be strong protections as bulwarks against the anti-gun agenda. It could take many forms, but we are not yet there. If Clinton had won as many (including me) expected, then the makeup of SCOTUS could have shifted sufficient to render Heller and the 2nd amendment a nullity. Trump as president is hardly comforting in that regard simply because I think he is unpredictable.
The goal is that gun control is a dead issue in every election local, state, and federal. Give the 2nd amendment broad interpretation, national reciprocity, strict scrutiny, gun owners as a protected class, then we can talk compromise.
I don’t support any sort of gun policy that relies on the good faith of the gun control lobby. But good ideas are good ideas regardless of whether retards support them.
Would a few more SCOTUS cases do it for you or would you need them to send their children to the NRA to be raised as wards/hostages?
It’s really a question of whether the protections offered by the 2nd Amendment are realizable. Given the court’s reluctance to take additional cases to clarify the right, I don’t have a lot of faith that the current level of protection is so strong. Consider that CA just passed a law to ban several of the rifles I own, and separately passed a law to confiscate the magazines I own.
A few more court cases would help. Like I said, I want the idea of gun control as a campaign issue to be a real third rail - not something to be used as a wedge to delineate candidates. Hostages and wards are not necessary 
The court is rejecting these cases by one vote.
Trump is likely to nominate folks who are friendly to the notion that the second amendment is part of the constitution rather than some annoying vestigial right that has to be worked around.
There is a vacant seat that the Republicans can do whatever they want with.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg is 83 years old. (She is probably kicking herself right now).
Kennedy is over 80.
Breyer is 78.
There is a not insignificant chance that Trump will be nominating 4 justices to the supreme court.
Add Thomas, Roberts, Alito, and you could have a 7 justice conservative majority in 4 years. A court that is likely to last for at least a generation. If he nominates guys like Cruz, we will see the second amendment enshrined as a full fledged constitutional right rather than the red headed stepchild of the bill or rights.
Perhaps. Or perhaps the folks that are nominated are more like Kennedy and it’s a crapshoot. In any event, right now I am faced with a not very fun choice of either disassembling my property to an unusable condition on penalty of a felony, surrendering it to law enforcement, or removing it from the state. Right now. Forgive me if I am less than sanguine about compromises when my state just passed proposition to confiscate my property.
Yes, and without even compensating you. The ban on possession would seem to be unconstitutional.
I can’t argue with someone that lived through the SKS confiscation. I can only say that California politics is different than national politics. The nation doesn’t elect people like Feinstein and Boxer.
So what did they ban?
How many grade school kids die every day from disease or car crashes? Probably more than 20. There are bigger issues than a one-time event which may never happen again. Even firearms accidents kill more people every year than deliberate school shootings.
All pre-1999 ban magazines that were already illegal to purchase, sell, transfer, import, or manufacture but were legal to possess have been made illegal to possess beginning Jan 1. So folks who stocked up in 1999 on mags have now had their magazines effectively confiscated. No compensation. There are many of them out there - some in the place where I live.
In addition, the definition of an assault weapon has been expanded such that previously there was a threshold of two listed features and a detachable mag was required to meet the definition. Now a single feature is enough. Previously if a tool was needed to remove a magazine then it was not considered detachable. Now, more than a tool needs to be used - the entire upper receiver would be required to be removed to reload in order to not be considered detachable. So AR Platform rifles essentially have to be field stripped to reload. There’s more nuance there but conveying the complexity of CA firearm laws is tedious.
In addition, beginning in 2016 an additional approximately 10% more of the existing registry of “not unsafe” handguns that are available to purchase from FFLs were removed from the roster. The available list is now <700 and dwindling I believe. One semi recent example was a Ruger SR22 pistol. My buddy wanted to purchase - now it’s illegal. A .22 caliber pistol.
About 500 people are struck by lightning in this country every year. About 50 people are killed.
Can we call being struck by lightning (a one in a million event, or close enough to) an incredibly rare event that should not be driving policy?
Well, like I said, the nation is not California. I support gun reform that would repeal all gun laws and pre-empt all state and local gun laws. ISTM, you would welcome a national gun law that would only include licensing and registration and prohibit state and local gun laws.