guns = penises
Must be in the retard manual.
Not to mention all those laws about shooting people.
What on Earth would those be?
Yeah, the fact that some of us despise the NRA but still don’t think banning guns helps anything (or is, in fact, possible except in theory) kind of disproves this.
An honest, open question to everyone here who thinks “something should be done” vis-a-vis gun control:
You’re thoughtful comments and ideas (from those capable of giving them) would’ve been appreciated.
I didn’t because I don’t think gun ownership can be properly regulated under the Second Amendment. I think we should have gun control, but I don’t think we can under the 2A as currently written.
Not me either, I was off the boards in June.
It’s a position; one I obviously don’t agree with, but it’s a position.
Past differences aside, I know it’s one you could’ve articulated and debated with sufficient intelligence to make it worth including.
Actually, it’s a position I came to thanks to your influence, among others. I’m not saying that the Second Amendment sucks; I’m saying it effectively bars gun control. It’s more important to me, most of the time, to ensure the Constitution is followed than to see my public policy goals succeed.
Naw, it isn’t. He also had a record of involvement with drugs, too. And we’ve seen just how effective the ‘drug war’ is. Past a certain point, no number of laws on the books will matter. People will still get high. People who wants guns will still find a way to get them.
Law is punitive, not preventative.
Child prostitution? Illegal, and it happens. Drug running? Illegal, and it happens. Criminals owning guns? Illegal, and it happens. Murder? Rape? Incest? Armed robbery? All of those, of course, go on in spite of the government/the FBI/police officers’ best efforts and intentions. Indeed, the old saw about outlaws and guns has a kernel of truth to it. There is no possible law that criminals won’t find some way around. That’s why they’re criminals after all. Overly draconian laws will, however, have an effect on law abiding citizens because those are the only folks who follow the laws.
Okay, but it’s already illegal. What else can we do? Track all individual guns by the serial number? Okay, someone files off the serial number or buys a foreign gun and smuggles it into the country, or steals one, or what have you. Registration?
I would contend that there simply is no 100% method to prohibit criminals from committing criminal acts. There hasn’t been one invented for the last several millennia of human history, at least, and there’s no reason to think we’ll come up with one now.
Criminals who wants guns enough will find ways to get guns. You can’t stop it.
Hell, there are even ways around a background check with a decent fake ID.
Other countries stop their criminals from getting guns. You simply have to be willing to stop almost everybody from getting guns.
Now, I’m not totally sure of this fact, but I’d be willing to make a gentleman’s bet that there is no nation on the planet that has a 100% total absence of any criminal ownership of guns. I’m willing to be proven wrong, but it screams in the face of common sense.
Now, can countries stop many of their criminals from getting guns? Sure.
Can they stop most of their criminals from getting guns? Almost undeniably.
Can they stop almost all of their criminals from getting guns? Possibly, maybe even probably.
Can they stop absolutely all of their criminals from getting guns, no matter how determined, intelligent or resourceful their criminals are? I honestly can’t fathom how that would be possible.
How big are these other countries? How porous are their borders? We can’t even stop huge numbers of human beings from pouring over our borders (either of them), and you think there’s a viable way to lock out the smuggling of guns?
And to the other side of this, do you really think the Democrats still have a hard-on for banning guns? I haven’t heard one official word from either campaign about gun control this entire campaign season. I may have missed a question in one of the debates, but it just hasn’t been a major issue. As a Democrat, I think my party needs to stay away from that…it’s a third rail almost as fatal as Social Security reform. Until the people who want a ban manage to convince an awful lot of people to repeal the 2nd Amendment (which I think is going to be impossible for at least the next forty years), it’s not going to happen.
I am on the gun-rights side, just in case someone reading this doesn’t realize it. I am also a registered Democrat.
Suggesting that any ban on anything will reduce incidence to zero screams in the face of common sense itself.
Stopping nearly all criminals from getting guns is preferable to stopping no or few criminals from getting them, get it?
Countries like the UK and Japan have virtually no shootings because they prohibit handguns. What I’m saying is that we can’t do that here because of the Second Amendment. In other words, you can have your freedom, or you can have your guns, but you can’t have both. Since we have a Constitutional Amendment protecting guns, we’re stuck with freedom.
That wasn’t the issue. The issue was that Something Must Be Done and that criminals getting guns indicated a breakdown in the system of law and order.
Sure, fewer criminals with guns is a good thing. But criminals getting guns does not indicate a breakdown of law and order and does not present a problem that can actually be solved. We can make sure that fewer criminals get guns, but we cannot make sure that no criminals get guns.
So you’re saying we shouldn’t bother stopping any of them?
Just because it hasn’t been said doesn’t mean that the intent isn’t there.
While I agree with you that gun control is the Democratic third rail, if they do well enough tomorrow they may think that they can survive it this time unlike the last time they did it in 1993 and got crushed in 1994.
I assure you that people like Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, and particularly Carolyn McCarthy are positively drooling in anticipation. For them the only question is whether they can ban them outright or just a few of them. If you’ve read any of their public statements you know this to be true.
The thing is that this time they’ll have the numbers and a President who will sign the damn thing. The only thing that might stop it is a filibuster.
Of course, others have said that the Democrats are going to have more important things to do (me included), but as it gets closer I’m starting to be a bit more uneasy about that. We’ll see how it pans out.
I would hope it would be like the Republicans’ abortion…some red meat for the left-wing-nuts that never actually gets addressed because then they’d have to find something else to dogwhistle about.
I assure you, if it does seem like they’re going to take up a bill of this nature, I’ll be right in the forefront with you in bombarding Congress and the White House with emails and snail mails and phone calls expressing my antipathy toward it. As to how it impacts tomorrow, the fact is that it’s one issue. Really one of the only issues I share with the Republicans. And I cannot justify continuing the disaster of the last 8 years for one issue. The best I can promise you, as a compatriot on this one issue, is that I’ll be watching with an eagle eye for a bill like this, and will stand beside you to work against it if it does happen.
We already do bother stopping quite a few.
I think you and I are basically in agreement, then - that we can’t do anything more given existing constraints, so we’ll just have to deal with the occasional school shooting or Hallowe’en capping.