Uh let’s get this straight, pops – Australia enacted their law in 19 and 90 fucking 6. That was before Jonesboro, Arkansas. That was before Columbine. That was before Mark Barton murdered 12 co-workers at a day-trading firm in Atlanta. That was before Virginia Tech. That was before Newtown, CT. That was before Arizona. That was before Aurora, Colorado. Before Charleston, SC. Before Roseburg, OR. Before San Bernardino. Before Orlando. Before the many countless mass murders of 5, 6, or 7 victims here and there that haven’t made the news. Australia took action and made it more difficult to commit mass murder. Not impossible, but more difficult.
Since 2001, there have been 400,000 deaths from handguns. That’s 400,000 – in just 15 years. We lost 2900 people on September 11th, 2001 and we considered that enough to use extra constitutional means to invade a foreign country. Yet more than 100 times that number kill themselves and others with guns, and we do nothing about it. At some point, a society has to have enough sobriety to know that its priorities are screwed.
Yes, in Heller, they held that it was an individual right. Again, in case you’re forgetting something (conveniently), that was the first ruling that attempted to interpret the 2nd Amendment since 1939. And you’re conveniently forgetting the activism of the right-wing Court.
The Miller case, in no incontrovertible terms, banned sawed-off shotguns, not merely because Congress retained powers under Article I, section 8, to regulate commerce among the states, but also because Miller had failed to demonstrate a legal right under the 2nd Amendment to posses said instrument. If this “right” to possess arms were as absolute and consistent as you claim, then taking a legally purchased shotgun and sawing off the barrels hardly seems like a worthwhile expenditure of the Court’s time and resources. And surely the Court couldn’t ban such weaponry merely because it doesn’t fit the definition of ordinary military arms.
It was written as part of the majority opinion, a factor in their rendering a verdict in the Miller case. Had there been an unfettered individual right to modify a shotgun, there wouldn’t be an issue. However, you and I both know the truth, don’t we?
I agree the Court has the ability to adjust its holdings over time. I don’t see why you think Scalia’s living status has anything to do with the consistency of the court. Unless you are saying the death of a Justice makes the court inconsistent? Yes SCOTUS judges are not immortal. If that’s your argument about inconsistency that would be nonsense but not surprising.
Um, nope. You’re wrong. As I mentioned, firearms control laws were in place in the states long before the Reconstruction era – you know, when blacks were still slaves and had no rights any way. Now, in typical NRA fashion, you’re at the point where, realizing that I actually do know what the fuck I’m talking about and have countered all of your silliness, you’re just simply repeating the same bullshit again and again and trying to argue the same talking points.
That is opinion and not fact. Some people enjoy target shooting which can be easier for some people to master without resetting after cycling an action.
Not only that but banning semi-autos doesn’t really slow people down much. 100s of people send 20+ rounds down range well within the time you could do so with aimed shots with firearms that are all pre-1900.
And depending on what you call a mortar yes you can depending on the state, some are transferable and taxed under the NFA and some are not even considered firearms and are legal to own
But if you think banning semi-auto firearms will significantly reduce the availability you are very mistaken. They are trivial to manufacture and machine guns are even easier and machine guns are dirt cheap on the worlds black market. If not people will just use bombs or firebombs just like they do everyplace in the world. The black market will rise to the occasion like it does for every other banned item from drugs to kinder eggs.
Even our neighbor to the North found out registration is expensive with little to no real benefit.
Of course if you have cites to prove otherwise please show that I am wrong otherwise it is purely bike shedding, pure co-optation of tragedies which should be drivers for polices which actually have a chance of working.
It seems that heavy restriction and outright banning in some states has led to a significant drop in the amount of automatic weapons in the hands of ordinary citizens. Further, it doesn’t seem like only criminals have automatic weapons in the states that have banned it. That seems to fly in the face of “restricting and/or banning guns has no effect”
They have been heavily restricted since the 30’s, are VERY expensive, and even when they were open for anyone to buy without restriction made up a very small percentage of the guns in the hands of ordinary citizens. Those factors, as well as the limited utility verse the cost are why there are nearly no crimes committed using the things in the US.
Doesn’t seem to fly in the face of ‘restricting and/or banning guns has no effect’ to me. If you are talking about something that was a very low percentage of the market even when it was unrestricted, and has since made it a very high premium wrt cost, it’s not a mystery why it has little effect on crime. It would be like restricting a super premium scotch, further driving up the price, then pointing at this vertical product and saying that, due to the restrictions this scotch doesn’t have an impact on alcoholism or deaths or injuries due to its use, then implying that, well, it worked here, so if we ban, say, all beer it would work just as well and have the same effect.
Restrictions on fully automatic weapons seem to be an American gun control success story – criminals (mass shooters and others) very rarely use them, and they aren’t easy to obtain illegally.
So your goal is to restrict ownership and to not prevent deaths? But your second claim is false, most people whom have full-automatic weapon in states that ban them are criminals.
Also you are committing a “Post hoc ergo propter hoc” error. First, full auto is expensive to run and difficult to use even when trying to hit paper targets. In hand held weapons it is of minimal use even for the military and thus it was not popular for civilians. Second people are arrested all the the time for manufacturing, owning and buying illegal machine guns and they are also often stolen from police; whom really have even less reason to own them than a collector does.
But I can see how you could argue your position if you “seem” to only seek information that fits your argument.
Note that rifles, let alone “assault weapons” are rarely used in homicides, and if you look at the rifles in these reports they tend to be used by officers.
Illegal machine guns seem to be just as common or more common as “assault weapons” in every body of data that I can find, and you are begging the question here.
But if you have a real cite that shows that gun control does help please share it, I have been begging for it for a while but all anyone can provide is claims like this one. Which is a claim that feel good laws can make you feel good if you ignore the numbers as they don’t “seem” to fit.
Funny, I mentioned no goal. Also, are the states that have bans on automatic weapons suffering from tremendous amounts of crime committed with automatic weapons? If not, then the banning of automatic weapons has not allowed criminals free reign to commit crimes with automatic weapons.
Sorry, but not sure how any of this is relevant to my post.
My argument is fully automatic weapons seem to be mostly legal, but heavily regulated and costly. The combination of these factors has seemed to lower the amount of fully automatic weapons being in circulation.
I kind of agree with your two pronged approach to second amendment rights. I would modify category 2 to reflect the right to self defense. I would treat the regulation of items in category 1 differently than the items in category 2. So items in category 1 but NOT in category 2 such as grenades, machine guns, etc. could be regulated with respect to carry rights, storage requirements, eligibility for ownership, etc. I would only subject items in category 2 to licensing and registration requirements for ownership and a simple competency, safety test for carrying.
Oddly, I don’t think I have heard this very common sense bifurcation of the second amendment right in any of the briefs. There seems to be a general agreement that there is a single second amendment right with mysterious contours.
I’m pretty sure this is false. In terms of crime (and especially mass shootings, in which these would be the most dangerous), I’m almost certain it’s false. But I don’t have a cite handy (and nor, it seems, do you).
I’m not saying “gun control does help” – I’m saying “machine gun restrictions have successfully made machine guns very rare in crime”. Most gun control in the US seems to have been a total failure, but this is one gun restriction that has mostly worked.
A couple of things. Its only a compromise from an outright ban if you have some ability to implement an outright ban but considering that you claim that you don’t even WANT an outright ban what exactly are you compromising?
It would be like me saying that I will agree to the total repeal of all gun laws that I don’t like as a compromise short of repealing all guns laws, even the ones that I DO like.
No, its a rational reaction to the past behaviour of the gun control crowd. I no more trust the motives or the sincerity of the gun control crowd than I do the pro-life crowd. They will both take whatever they can get but they will in no event just stop there.
As a noun compromise is not synonymous with concession in normal usage. We have been using compromise as a noun not a verb (I can link you a google search of noun and verb if you would like). And frankly, even the most common usage of compromise as a verb requires concessions from both sides. This is not Phd. level stuff, its barely high school level SAT preparation.
You should know by now that declarations of expertise in an area don’t really get you very much on this board unless you demonstrate expertise in that area.
