Oh, clearly not! Why, someone can justify it, therefore it’s not. And when someone justifies doing whatever with your gun rights, it will likely “be considered quite reasonable, with some justification.”
You honestly can’t see how those words won’t always mean exactly what you want them to mean? Every single right you have or will ever have will hinge on what people think is reasonable and what they think is justified.
For awhile there, we also couldn’t have lighters on planes, except shoe bomber used matches. Or when I went to see the Dark Knight Rises, they made me check a backpack, despite the fact that the Aurora guy came in through the exit and had no need of taking one through security (and before that shooting, I had no idea you could put things in bags!). Sometimes it’s a valid move. Sometimes it mainly exists to make people feel better, and so the TSA/theaters/etc. can say they did something.
Wait… you can put THINGS in BAGS?
I don’t even understand this world any longer.
I know I wish there was better mental health evaluation and treatment in this country, so we don’t have lunatics shooting up schools, gluing kids’ hands to walls, cutting arms off babies, blowingup schools, murdering people and keeping heads in freezers, or doing any number of Ed Gein-like things.
All those things might have been avoided if this country had better mental health resources and monitoring.
Like others have said, the vast, vast majority of gun owners are very law-abiding types, and it’s the crazies and criminals who use them for nefarious purposes.
Yes, but the standards enunciated by Oakminster are well-grounded in case law. The standards you suggest have absolutely no basis in case law, and in fact are contradicted by case law.
Most handgun target shooting (even organised competitions, not just “plinking”) is done with “normal” handguns, or modified variants of them - not multi-thousand dollar Olympic Games-level guns.
Hopefully, none whatsoever.
I’m not sure that’s a relevant point. It’s all well and good that Oak has the case law on his side, but the case law regarding searches is mostly arbitrary*. There is no constitutional reason why a search in an airport may be more intrusive than one in, say, a public library.
*Obviously, some are grounded in the text of the constitution or common sense, like the hot pursuit exception, but some are just make-law.
There is a constitutional reason that a search triggered by entering a secure area of an airport is less intrusive than a search triggered by “maybe leaving your house.”
Fair enoufgh.
It doesn’t even matter if something is grounded in the text of the constitution if people get upset enough. The right in this country are constantly wailing about how the Supreme Court ignores the constitution when it feels like it, and then when the conversation turns to guns, argues that having the 2nd amendment is all they need. You need more than an amendment. You need the population behind you. Because those judges are members of the populace and anyone who thinks we’ve really moved beyond a wholesale Korematsu-type disregard of major chunks of the constitution is a fool. All it will take is for people to get scared and/or angry enough at the terrorists* in our midst.
Nothing makes Heller permanent. If there is a massive public mood shift against legal gun ownership, Heller won’t prevent anything, because it will be put aside and the court will say “Oh, Heller was wrong when it was decided. That first half of the 2nd amendment? SUPER important. That’s why it comes FIRST.”
*These sorts of shootings generally don’t seem to attract the label of “terrorism,” but that can change if people get fussed enough about them.
Well, much as I think Heller was a stupid decision (parts of it, anyway), you can’t set policy based on the way the Court might rule in the future.
It’s not about setting policy (at least so far as my argument is concerned). My commentary is simply that if you count on courts always ruling in your favor, you’re stupid (obviously not directed at you), and history provides ample examples of constitutional rights being abridged because legislatures and courts found it popular and expedient to do so. So it’s damned unwise to handwave history and claim that it doesn’t matter what happens to the public mood because the constitution is there protecting any particular right.
The original post I was responding to said (paraphrased) and in reply to another post that it wasn’t kneejerk to react when lives were at stake. It certainly can be and our history shows that it’s certainly possible for the courts and legislatures to be caught up in human events and not too worried about constitutional rights. Ignoring this is folly.
Pro-gun people are well aware of the irony of appealing to the federal government for defense of rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment (which was originally a limitation on the power of the federal government). But the 2nd is pretty much all we’ve got against state and local authorities, who have demonstrated for over a century that they’re willing to curtail the right to self-defense to the extreme of banning firearms.
Lumpy, what right to *self-defense *has been curtailed “for over a century”, by which ban? :dubious: Are you referring to the assault-weapons ban (as if those are for self-defense), or the licensing requirements for machine gunes (as if *those *are for self-defense) or what?
The recent history of legislation has been all about relaxing restrictions, dontcha know. Including the end of the assault weapons ban itself.
State and local bans, just like it said in his post. Presumably he’s referring to municipal ordinances like the ones challenged in Heller and McDonald.
But not to all the concealed-carry laws that have sprung up in that same timeframe, presumably.
I think it’s taken as read that not all legislatures are hostile to firearms. I am just as opposed to Alabama banning abortion as I am to any other state doing it.
The AR15 is very usable for self-defense, they are :
Easier to shoot than a shotgun due to less recoil.
Are more accurate due to better sights and innate accuaccy.
More likely to stop a threat quickly due to the balistics of a high speed projectile.
Lighter and easier for smaller framed indivduals to use.
The small lightweight projectiles break up and are stopped quicker by walls etc.. than heavy slow moving buckshot or even pistol rounds.
There is a very good reasons even the Police have mostly dumped shotguns for AR’s for entry teams.
The fact you so dismissive and claim they are not usable for self-defense really just shows how your argument is based on pure ignorance.
How often do you think a sight is necessary in home defense situations?