Setting aside my opinions on the topic, this is perhaps the weakest set of arguments I have seen in Great Debates in a long time. Really pathetic.
*Microstamping
On May 17, 2013, the state attorney general began enforcing a new law requiring that semi-automatic pistols incorporate microstamping.[47] With this technology, very small markings are engraved, using a laser, on the tip of the firing pin and on the breechface of the firearm. When the gun is fired, these etchings may be transferred to the primer by the firing pin, and to the cartridge case head by the breechface, using the pressure created when a round is fired. If successful, this imprints two identifying numbers, unique to that gun, on each spent cartridge casing.[48] This requirement applies to new guns being added to the California Department of Justice’s roster of handguns certified for sale; semi-automatic handgun models already listed on the roster are not required to incorporate microstamping. Note of interest - this law was passed in 2007 and the wording in the law stated that it shall become effective when there are at least two companies, unencumbered by a patent, employing this technology. To date, no manufacturer offers this technology in firearms available to the public.[49]
In June 2018, in the case of National Shooting Sports Foundation v. California, the California Supreme Court upheld the state’s microstamping law. The court wrote, “Impossibility can occasionally excuse noncompliance with a statute. But impossibility does not authorize a court to go beyond interpreting a statute and simply invalidate it.” A spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation said that no new models of semiautomatic handguns will be marketed in California.[50][51]
In August 2018, in the case of Pena v. Lindley, the Ninth Circuit found the requirement to be constitutional.[52]*
Note of interest - this law was passed in 2007 and the wording in the law stated that it shall become effective when there are at least two companies, unencumbered by a patent, employing this technology. To date, no manufacturer offers this technology in firearms available to the public.[49]
A California statute requires that all new models of semi-automatic handguns stamp the handgun’s serial number in two locations on each round of ammunition. It is possible for a handgun’s firing pin to stamp the serial number onto the cartridge’s primer, which is a disk in the center of the back side of the ammunition. It not possible to stamp a serial number in two locations, as an erudite amicus brief from the Cato Institute explains. Nevertheless, California Attorney General Kamala Harris in May 2013 declared that all conditions for implementation by the statute had been met. Accordingly, all pistol models created since May 2013 are prohibited from commercial sale in California.
Talk is cheap, actions speak loudly.
Nope: Note of interest - this law was passed in 2007 and the wording in the law stated that it shall become effective when there are at least two companies, unencumbered by a patent, employing this technology. To date, no manufacturer offers this technology in firearms available to the public.[49]
And in fact, microstamping as required by Harris is impossible and useless. The Court even agreed it was impossible * “Impossibility can occasionally excuse noncompliance with a statute. But impossibility does not authorize a court to go beyond interpreting a statute and simply invalidate it.”*.
It is convenient, however, that in the non-binary debate about who should own guns, Harris believes that she is one of the people who should own them, much like how New York’s concealed carry list is filled with celebrities.
As far as the other point, do I really need cites? Every other, I mean every other gun control thread talks about how people who own guns for self defense are deluding themselves, that owning guns puts one and one’s family in more danger than the smallish chance that one might need to use it in self defense. But if Harris owns one, it is a smart and rational choice? Why?
For those supporting Harris’ choice to own a gun, do you believe she should be allowed to carry it for protection, or simply leave it in her home locked in a safe?
If you think this is a valid point, you might want to actually pay attention to the discussion on gun control debates. The side you seem to be talking about actually talks about closing loopholes to background checks and things like that, while your side talks about thoughts and prayers to the parents of first graders murdered by insane people with easy access to a wealth of weapons.
Why start now with cites? All of your posts in this thread have been about beating down strawmen; god forbid we want to change the conversation to reality.
You’re getting into inside-baseball gun issues that I’m not really following, but are you blaming this on Harris because she decided to start enforcing the law? I can’t tell from your cite whether this was something she chose to do or was required to do. Were the conditions not met? Are there not “two companies, unencumbered by a patent, employing this technology”?
It doesn’t look like those companies had to make the technology available to the public, just that they were employing the tech – maybe it’s used by the military? The police? I have zero idea.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with whether it may be safer for specific people to keep a gun at home relative to the average, and whether Harris does or doesn’t understand statistics, but I guess the thread is permanently hijacked.
We actually had some back and forth a few pages back about why it may make certain people safer to own a gun than the average person (they may be at significant personal risk, they may be very careful with handling and have lots of training). There were some good analogies about how some medications may increase your risk of death so the average person wouldn’t take them, but for people with a disease treated by that medication, it would decrease their risk of death.
Maybe review some of that before we rehash it all here, OK?
The tech is not used by anyone at all, anywhere. It actually is **technologically impossible **to do what CA law wants, as the courts admitted.
Yes, the Law was passed but it was entirely up to the AG to determine when the Law would be put into effect. Harris decided to do so.
I dont think this is a hijack at all. The point was that Harris carries a gun- legally of course. We all agree it is legal for her to carry one. The issue is- with Harris’s stance on gun control is it hypocritical or elitist for her to carry a gun for personal protection when she feels the general citizenry should not be able to do so? That was the whole point.
The Hijack was for people to insist that one of my more extreme examples of Harris being anti-gun (which is a well known fact) be verified.
you did indeed miss the memo.
Republican bullshit and propaganda.
Plenty of us Democrats own guns. Very few Democrats want to seize all of them.
Just like the lie that the Military overwhelmingly supports Trump. Truth is, per Military Times surveys, Trump has never had even 50% support from the military.
But hey, I’m a Democrat, simultaneously a complete pussy who can’t defend himself, and a scary monster who wants to force Republicans to become gay muslims and have abortions.
From what I read from your cites, it’s technically impossible to stamp the bullet/shell in two places, but I didn’t see that microstamping was technically impossible. Again from your cites, the law couldn’t become effective until at least two companies were “employing this technology” (microstamping, I imagine), not doing the impossible task of stamping in two places. Are you saying that two companies aren’t employing that technology? Then, I guess Harris violated the law by declaring it in force? Seems like an extraordinary claim.
This is a hijack because the original post asked about whether she understood the statistics around personal gun ownership.
No companies at all are employing microstamping. And with CA being such a huge market, trust me, if they could, they would. In fact there are a couple small gun manufacturers based in CA.
It’s expensive, difficult and has almost zero law enforcement value. The FBI isnt pushing for it, for example. (Criminals dont use guns registered to them, the stamping wears off quickly, and a minute with a emery board will remove the stamp on the firing pin)
The way CA law requires microstaming is also technologically impossible.
Indeed that was one of the questions posed by the Op. Also posed was "What do you make of Kamala owning a gun “for personal safety”?
My answer was that it was perfectly legal, but hypocritical, due to her anti gun stance.
It doesn’t seem legal to me, since the law can’t become effective until at least two manufacturers, unencumbered by the technology, are employing the tech. But, honestly, you definitely know more about this than I do. I’m not up at all on California, or any other state’s gun laws, other than being annoyed that NJ treats BB guns exactly the same as regular guns.
I’ll end my part in this hijack – if you read the OP, it had nothing to do with her hypocrisy, but was all about her seeming lack of knowledge about statistics.
Speaking of the need to verify what you claim, where is it established that she carries a gun? All I’ve seen is that she owns a gun.
That’s a very good point that was mentioned early in the thread, but never established one way or the other.
I just did a search of “carries a gun” and “Kamala Harris.” Looking through the first few dozen hits I’m seeing nothing but opinions on reddit, Twitter, gun-rights, sites, etc.
So I’d say it’s possible that this information hasn’t been made public.
It is not a hijack to insist that you back back up your nonsensical and clearly false claims.
The list of recent shootings involving AR-15s is pretty lengthy.
You can own a handgun, not have any issues with other people owning handguns and long guns, and still think that people don’t need to have easy access to AR-15s and that something needs to be done about the mentally ill purchasing guns.
What I don’t get is why Kamela Harris + “owns gun” all of a sudden, one day in 2019 = GOPers expect and demand of politicians logical consistency and mathematical awareness extending to applied statistics cross-referenced with hypocrisy avoidance. If we set out to document all the ways GOP politicians fail to live up to this standard, this thread would never end and would end up taking over the internet, possibly sucking the whole thing into a cyber black hole.
Maybe a gun-packing, female black president would seem a little strange, even threatening. Refuse to have a hearing on her Supreme Court nominee? Maybe she’ll put a cap in McConnell’s ass! Bring an AR 15 to her baseball practice and start shooting? Maybe she’ll gun you the fuck down! GOPers may never understand how their hackneyed stereotype about “liberals” and their crushing uniformity in their millions could possibly tolerate such a combination of factors in a politician, but it may have to do with a felicity for other numerical data, things like the number of gun deaths per year, the CO2 level, the deficit, the % of the tax cuts going to the 1%, and so on.
I realize I am interjecting. I have read every post. I still don’t understand Harris’ role in Prop H- her face on TV carries no legal weight, and I can’t see in what way she is responsible for it. As for microstamping- she was DA, which is the executive, and the legislative writes the laws. If it really is a terrible law, there are remedies. How about the “we are repealing this stupid law Act”? I realize the Dems dominate CA and this is more of a conservative hobby horse, but if it really is bad law, GOPers their could make themselves useful by making a rational public case for once instead of grandstanding and bloviating all the time.
Didn’t your teacher tell you not to use Wikipedia as a definitive cite?
Let’s actually use the wording from the bill:
Commencing January 1, 2010, for all semiautomatic pistols that are not already listed on the roster pursuant to Section 12131, it is not designed and equipped with a microscopic array of characters that identify the make, model, and serial number of the pistol, etched or otherwise imprinted in two or more places on the interior surface or internal working parts of the pistol, and that are transferred by imprinting on each cartridge case when the firearm is fired, provided that the Department of Justice certifies that the technology used to create the imprint is available to more than one manufacturer unencumbered by any patent restrictions.
Simply, that’s not what you have claimed. It has nothing to do with manufacturers using it and everything to do with them being able to. Given that the microstamping technology is available without patent, she was bound by law. Swing and a miss, yet again.
In the thread title
*Kamala owns a gun “for personal safety” *
why is “for personal safety” in scare quotes? Don’t scare quotes suggest that alternate facts lurk behind a lying veneer?
People often impute their own psychological pathologies to others. Do gunslingers think Harris uses the gun for masturbation? Do gun nuts think Harris stalks white boys in hoodies, hoping they’ll try to rape her so she can “stand her ground”? Should Mitch McConnell be wearing a bulletproof vest? If not, what is the reason for the scare quotes?