# The "reasonable conversation about guns" that anti-gun Internet people want **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 21, 2013, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334 "2013-04-21T21:36:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/61 "2013-04-22T18:03:37Z")
Perhaps, but keep posting. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/62 "2013-04-22T18:50:53Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > It seems like a waste of time to follow this hypothetical until there’s some evidence that it exists. I disagree. If **Enkel** confirms that literal, as opposed to constructive, confiscation, is all he was talking about, then I’d be inclined to agree that there haven’t been any real attempts. But if he agrees that constructive confiscation through onerous taxation is possible, then we can explore specific examples. But why explore specific examples if he, in advance, clarifies that when he said “confiscation” he was looking for actual, literal confiscation bills? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/63 "2013-04-22T19:58:42Z")
ISTM to you should be asking what **Condescending Robot** meant, not **Enkel**. ---
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/64 "2013-04-22T20:44:44Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I disagree. If **Enkel** confirms that literal, as opposed to constructive, confiscation, is all he was talking about, then I’d be inclined to agree that there haven’t been any real attempts. > > But if he agrees that constructive confiscation through onerous taxation is possible, then we can explore specific examples. But why explore specific examples if he, in advance, clarifies that when he said “confiscation” he was looking for actual, literal confiscation bills? I disagree about constructive confiscation (and please provide a link to a bill that has been proposed that would tax any weapon at $3000 each, then we can talk about excessive taxation). In the argument against registration, pro-gun people claim that it will create a database to be used to “confiscate weapons” from law abiding owners. So, I am talking about actual, literal confiscation. NOW, if those against registration start using the term ‘constructive taking’ (? was that the term ? ) then ‘constructive taking’ applies. And as a side note: Ref the Katrina weapons confiscation, the government can search anyone’s house and take anything they want in the case of an emergency, so they already have to ability to seize weapons in response to an emergency situation. I am specifically talking about just your general, “we felt like it”, gun confiscation actions that would be enshrined in law. There should be some cite or reference to some bill, even if it died in committee, where gun confiscation from law abiding owners has been proposed as the law of the land. Personally, I wish there was all this anger over eminent domain laws. ---
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/65 "2013-04-22T20:49:15Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > So, when has it worked? We had the Assault Weapons Ban for 10 years. I didn’t work. We have had states implementing their versions of the Assault Weapons Ban for nearly 25 years (specifically, [California](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberti-Roos_Assault_Weapons_Control_Act_of_1989)). How has that worked out for them? From your link: > [@](#): > > Firearms and magazines that were legally owned at the time the law was passed were grandfathered in if they were registered with the California Department of Justice. So, this did NOT authorize confiscation of weapons from owners. Not being able to buy a weapon is not the same as confiscating something that a person already owns. ---
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/66 "2013-04-22T20:58:35Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > So here we have random accusations of racism and **advocacy of total confiscation**. Does anyone want to complete the checklist of Shit Gun Confiscators Say that I originally posted so as to prove my point? Your interpretation is different than mine. If I thought the same way, then I would be afraid that the vegans of the world were going to seize all of my farm animals. People have a right to opinions. When he runs for an elected position, then I’ll worry that his ideas are a risk. Guess I should herd my sheep through the front lawn of the local courthouse to protest my right to farm because of all the disease monitoring processes that I comply with (never mind that they’re critical to keeping the national herd free of expensive diseases that could wipe out my flock) ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/67 "2013-04-22T21:01:25Z")
> [@Enkel](#): > > From your link: > > So, this did NOT authorize confiscation of weapons from owners. Not being able to buy a weapon is not the same as confiscating something that a person already owns. Where, exactly, did I say anything about confiscation? Anyway, [the Obama administration is moving on something I “proposed” a while back:](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15844561&postcount=94). [ > [@](#): > > Today, as part of President Obama’s common sense plan to reduce gun violence, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius initiated a rulemaking process to remove unnecessary legal barriers under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule that may prevent states from reporting to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which is the database that houses information on individuals prohibited by law from possessing firearms. ]([http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2013pres/04/20130419a.html](http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2013pres/04/20130419a.html)) Good. ---
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/68 "2013-04-22T21:06:10Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > Where, exactly, did I say anything about confiscation? Sorry, I wasn’t clear enough. You did not say it was for confiscation. I had been trying to find cites to proposed gun confiscation bills. I bow and apologize profusely for my miscommunication. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/69 "2013-04-22T21:10:14Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > So here we have random accusations of racism and advocacy of total confiscation. Does anyone want to complete the checklist of Shit Gun Confiscators Say that I originally posted so as to prove my point? As I said earlier, I’m not interested in having a conversation with you, I’m interested in having a conversation about you. The fact that it upsets you so is evidence it is working. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/70 "2013-04-22T21:27:37Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > WHY WON’T YOU PEOPLE JUST HAVE A REASONABLE CONVERSATION?? [Because this is how it works](http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2939#comic). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/71 "2013-04-22T21:51:11Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > When I have too many tribbles I use an AR 15. Really? I use a sausage grinder. It’s cheaper. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/72 "2013-04-22T21:52:46Z")
> [@Enkel](#): > > I think Hitler wouldn’t have been nearly so grumpy if he’d had some good tribble luvin. With or without duct tape? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/73 "2013-04-22T21:53:55Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > That was my point. There are crazy anti-gun people like the OP described. And there are crazy pro-gun people . . . . . . like the OP. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/74 "2013-04-22T21:55:57Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > Ehh. Give **Airman** some credit here. I can think of no countries that have attempted to create/first-time implement strict gun control/ownership laws with widespread pre-existing gun ownership and a modern economy to deal with. So, in that sense, the US is somewhat exceptional. Actually, I believe [Australia did.](http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-april-18-2013/gun-control-whoop-de-doo) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/75 "2013-04-22T21:59:27Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > I think there is something to this. I was watching Maddow’s show the other day, and she was playing clips from a protest of mother’s in favor of gun control in Indiana. Their protest spawned a counter-protest of people standing around prominently displaying their weapons. > > Maddow’s point was that intimidation a la Second Amendment remedies is not only wrong, but tends to be rejected by the majority of the American people. > > What I actually found interesting was that these guys were all white and almost exclusively paunchy, doughy middle aged guys. > > I’ve noticed this in other photos of gun shows. Lots of soft, doughy, middle aged white guys - so much so, it sometimes looks like a bunch of clones. > > I also note that public polling shows that majorities of gun owners now own guns primarily for self-defense rather than hunting. > > So, we all have to cope with the problems caused by this group of soft, doughy middle aged white guys as they try to deal with their existential anxieties and the challenges of a changing modern world. > > Once again I suggest that, like water fluoridation to improve public dental health, we implement water Xanaxification to improve public mental health. > [@](#): > > All these beefy Caucasians with guns! Get enough of them together, looking for the America they always believed they’d grow up in, and they glom together like overcooked rice, forming integral, starchy little units. With their power tools, portable generators, weapons, four-wheel-drive vehicles, and personal computers, they are like beavers hyped up on crystal meth, manic engineers without a blueprint, chewing through the wilderness, building things and abandoning them, altering the flow of mighty rivers and then moving on because the place ain’t what it used to be. > > The byproduct of the lifestyle is polluted rivers, greenhouse effect, spouse abuse, televangelists, and serial killers. But as long as you have that four-wheel-drive vehicle and can keep driving north, you can sustain it, keep moving quickly enough to stay one step ahead of your own waste stream. In twenty years, ten million white people will converge on the north pole and park their bagos there. The low-grade waste heat of their thermodynamically intense lifestyle will turn the crystalline icescape pliable and treacherous. It will melt a hole through the polar icecap, and all that metal will sink to the bottom, sucking the biomass down with it. – _Snow Crash,_ Neal Stephenson ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/76 "2013-04-22T22:03:35Z")
> [@Enkel](#): > > Not being able to buy a weapon is not the same as confiscating something that a person already owns. This. E.g., if the government were to shut down the firearms **manufacturers,** that, whatever other constitutional or other objections you might raise to it, would not constitute gun-confiscation. ---
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/77 "2013-04-22T22:08:27Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > – _Snow Crash,_ Neal Stephenson Wow. That is some nice prose. It is depressing that it is from 1992 (twenty years ago!)… so this argument will never end, evah. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/78 "2013-04-22T22:29:22Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > . . . like the OP. You apparently read my first draft. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/79 "2013-04-22T22:35:46Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Well, there is, in the law, a concept called “constructive taking.” When government regulation removes substantially all economically viable use of private property – as a $3,000 tax on a single firearm might be said to do – that is considered confiscation as well. In other words, your comparison to your property tax isn’t quite on point. If your property tax went from zero to $3000 per square foot, for example, you might see things differently. You couldn’t simply sell the property – the new owner would then be on the hook for the $3,000 per square foot tax. The imposition of that tax would mean, from a practical standpoint, that your property couldn’t be owned by anyone – the tax would be many times the value of the property itself. > > Does that argument change your mind? > > Is there any level of taxation that would amount to confiscation? How about $100,000 per firearm? A cool million? My interpretation of the Second Amendment would prohibit any special tax specifically on firearms. The text says the right “shall not be infringed” not merely “shall not be prohibited”. So even a small Pigovian tax might prevent somebody from being able to own a gun and would therefore be invalid. I’d be willing to agree to a general sales tax being applicable to firearm sales but only to the degree that the percentage is equal to any other purchase. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334/80 "2013-04-22T23:12:00Z")
> [@Enkel](#): > > Wow. That is some nice prose. It is depressing that it is from 1992 (twenty years ago!)… so this argument will never end, evah. Oh, the passage was not about gun control at all; it was just too good not to use here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-reasonable-conversation-about-guns-that-anti-gun-internet-people-want/656334.md?page=5)