I don’t accept your hypothetical as a statement of fact. Maybe the would and maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they would be “up in arms” about it for financial, not constitutional reasons.
Back up. Since when did the federal government require licenses to drive? Let us not forget the 10the amendment, which delegates powers to the states.
Besides, you don’t need a license to own a car or to drive it on your own property. The license and registration is to operate it on public roads. So, the analogy fails even further as we analyze it.
Something tells me that the Philadelphia Chief of Police doesn’t actually agree to sign a whole lot of forms letting someone, of necessity(!), have a near antique weapon that nonetheless can out-gun his officers. In practice, fully automatic weapons are not legal in the US. Our gun laws are dreadfully weak, but not that bad.
Lest this thread simply turns into ye another gun control debate, I’d like to ask Bricker if he still thinks his OP is valid. After all the discussion we’ve had related to the OP, is there anything you would like to change or take back?
Latest news says Reid will proceed with an AWB vote after all. Whether this means he thinks it may pass or no, punditti are divided. Could simply be he smells an advantage in the next set of elections and wants to get everybody on the record.
I am fine with it as long as my state is fine with it.
I never understood the second amendment to convey a personal right until Heller and I think Heller only conveys a right to effective self defense. If one day light sabers are necessary for effective self defense, then that is what I think Heller stands for. Right now I think my personal right to effective self defense would not be violated as long as I can have semi-automatic shotguns and semi-automatic pistols and some kind of rifle effective for smaller frame people who can’t comfortably manage a 12 or 20 gauge shotgun.
I had previously understood the second amendment, read together with other parts of the constitution to give both the state and the federal government the right to give access to their citizens to “arms”
So if the federal government wanted to permit AR-15s but not M-16s and New York forbade both while Virginia wanted both then in New York you could have AR-15s while in Virginia you could have both.
I don’t know of any states that really want to make machine guns widely available in their states. I don’t think any state is going to challenge the documenting and background check requirements, they might want to challenge the ban on new sales.
(A) SCOTUS would like a word with you;
(B) militia meant every able bodied white male at the time. With the passage of time and the evolution of the constitution it would probably mean every able bodied citizen.
Nope. Hell SCOTUS even said that licensing and registration are OK.
There is a bit of a wait, but there is a wait for my CCW too. The state is allowed to check my background to protects its legitimate state interest.
I know people who collect them in places like Long Island and Arlington, VA.
My understanding is that he is going to proceed with a universal background check
as passed by the judiciary committee unless there is a compromise. The compromise is likely to limit universal background checks to gun shows and internet sales.
He will allow people to propose amendments, including one by Feinstein that will go down in flames.
No, unfortunately. My understanding is that I could decide today to give one of my guns to someone as a gift and that would be legal. But if I decided to buy a gun today as a gift to someone I would be guilty of straw purchasing and would be good for 5 years in federal prison.
True. However, I’d argue that the BATF has plenty of funding and it’s the priorities and lack of leadership that are the problem. The agents are all making six figure salaries, and the emails exposed as part of fast and furious show that the agents and their management are all incompetent clowns. You could fire them all and hire people at half the salary and get twice as much done if you focused them on actually enforcing the laws that exist.
You should just expect that any law which imposes additional burdens on an enumerated right is going to get more criticism and opposition than a law which burdens or restricts a “9th Amendment right.”
For example, if we were discussing some restrictions on free speech, I’d expect the opponents of such restrictions would say “but the First Amendment …”. Yes, it’s true we’ve already got some restrictions in place, but that hasn’t nullified the First Amendment, and it’s probably unrealistic to expect free-speech advocates to not bring up the 1st Amendment when someone tries to impose additional restrictions on free speech. And saying “that’s that” isn’t going to convince them otherwise.
If I had it to do over, I’d change the title to reflect more clearly the lack of SUFFICIENT support, not total support.
The incredible bad faith shown by those who insist that a meme as obvious as this requires intense documentation is something i expect, and regard as the cost of doing business here.
I’d be interested in a few links coming from actual legislators expressing that meme. I will fully grant you that individuals that identify with the left have over the last few years have expressed that you would be ‘safe’ voting for democrats as there is not enough general support for more restrictive gun legislation but I think that is very different from the thesis you proposed in your OP.
That’s my take as well; the “safety” from gun laws being pursued by Democrats was a result of the lack of support for them, NOT because Democrats had changed their views on guns. Anyone who told you Democrats would never again try to restrict gun ownership further was wildly mistaken.
Not really sure what you’re getting at here. You claim, on the one hand, that there is some “meme” that is “obvious”, and so it should be trivial to substantiate it in some way, whether “intense” or not. Because when provided with evidence that the meme doesn’t even reflect reality, you hand-waved that evidence away.
Am I acting in “bad faith” when I tell you that I’m not aware of this meme you claim is obvious and that I need to see some evidence of its existence?
Well, having read the thread, I can honesty say that if this revision had been present in the OP, my reaction would be “Yeah, so?”
As it stands my reaction is only* mostly* “Yeah, so?”
Even if he doesn’t sign, it can still go through if you form an NFA Trust, though that means the weapon does not belong to you, it belongs to the trust. Interestingly, that also means that every member of the trust can have possession of the weapon instead of just the registered owner.
In other words, the Chief of Police would be better off not being a tool and just signing the Form 4. Alas, politics gets in the way again, and the Law of Unintended Consequences once more rears its head.
That in the past fifteen years, you saw absolutely no sign, here or elsewhere, that Democrats and their pundits/proxies were signalling concern about guns was not a valid reason to vote against Democrats, since they were’t going to push gun control.
I don’t know how it works exactly but I have bought guns and said “its for my wife” to explain the purse holster I was buying for the gun. My friend recently bought his son a cricket and you couldn’t possibly think it was for him.
cite for BATF agents being incompetent clowns and all making 6 figure salaries. I don’t think they have anywhere near enough funding. IIRC BATF standards are as tough as if not tougher than FBI.
I only saw this with respect to voting for Obama. Particularly in response to the Wayne La Pierre claims that Obama was planning on restricting gun rights and when he didn’t do it in his first term, Wayne started saying that Obama was going to do it during his second term. Turns out Wayne was right but in a “every clock is right twice a day” sort of way.
I think Democrats are happiest when gun control is not talked about at all. But that’s entirely different from making affirmative statements that they would not seek additional gun control measures, however minor or however downplayed those measures might be. What I think they did try to impress on people is that they weren’t looking to overturn the 2nd amendment or “take everyone’s guns away”, which does seem to be a mistaken meme among a large segment of the right-wing electorate.
Here’s John Kerry in 2004, during his presidential run, saying he wanted to extend the assault weapon ban, which is the key item in your OP:
Even though Bush said he’d sign a bill if it came to him, Kerry is making a concerted effort to position himself to the left of Bush on the issue. He would actively work to extend the ban that got you started on this thread.
So, if you want to claim that Democrats make an effort to counter the ridiculous claims made about them by the right, then sure. They often talk about supporting the 2nd amendment. They like photo ops of them shooting guns. But they wouldn’t have to do that if they weren’t the target of the powerful gun lobby. The same lobby that rated Kerry “F” on gun issues. Not “B-” or “C”, but “F”.
So, if you want to wage a war on misleading memes, you’ll find better hunting on the right on this issue. It’s a target rich environment over there.