](Full Transcript: President Donald Trump's Speech Fires Up the NRA - Newsweek)I lived thru the past eight years and I didn’t notice an assault on my 2nd Amendment freedoms. I don’t recall federal agencies going after law-abiding gun owners. Nor do I remember the government trying to undermine my rights and freedoms as an American, except with respect to the Patriot Act but that’s been going on for a lot longer than 8 years.
So did I just not notice these things happening? Can y’all provide some links about all the things that Mr. Trump is talking about, or at least provide some context?
Is it possible you have a different view of what constitutes “Second Amendment freedoms?”
For example, perhaps you believe that the Second Amendment protects only the rights of militias, or that it’s not incorporated against the states, or that it doesn’t address carrying firearms outside the home?
Surely what you think the Second Amendment actually protects will color your evaluation of the Trump claim, won’t it?
Perhaps Bo is simply asking what new Federal regulations on gun ownership, if any, came into force during the Obama administration.
I admit not knowing of any offhand, myself. Perhaps Obama simply thinking about such restrictions constitutes “assault.” I think he said a few things along those lines, and I gather “assault” can be legally defined as threatening to harm someone, hence actually passing a regulation would constitute battery of Second Amendment freedoms.
There are a not-insignificant number of people who believed that Obama and/or his minions were going to break their doors down any day now, and confiscate all their guns.
Let’s just say that the people who believed this really shouldn’t have been bragging on social media that they had those guns. :dubious:
Okay, it looks like after Sandy Hook, Obama argued for a renewal of the AWB (that is to say, he spoke in favour, I assume, while Democrats in the Senate actually did the paperwork). It failed, though. Is that assault or only attempted assault?
Which ones of these had anything to do with Obama, or the feds generally, and which ones is Trump in any position to do anything about?
See, that’s the point of the quote: the Obama Administration led this eight-year assault, and the Trump Administration brought the assault to a crashing halt. Obama wasn’t the governor of New York, and Trump isn’t either, so neither had anything to do with New York’s SAFE Act.
It’s possible, but experience suggests that if I take the time to compile a list I may well get told that in his view, none of the things I have listed are in fact protected by the Second Amendment, so I thought I’d start with basics.
I’m talking more local, like NY, Connecticut, CA. To a resident of a state, a prohibition at the state level or federal level has the same impact - prohibition.
For example - I built a rifle a several years ago - ordered the parts, completed the background check, DROS fees, etc. Perfectly legal. CA passed a law saying that what I previously purchased and assembled and was legal, is now illegal. If I want to continue to possess it, I need to register it as an assault weapon - and that would mean I would be prohibited from transferring it to anyone including my estate or my heirs.
The same weapon would no longer be able to be purchased, because it has been banned.
You didn’t hear about the gun grabbers grabbing all the guns? It totally happened. Because Obama! And I hear that some people that could never get a concealed carry permit could not get one during the last 8 years, either. And good luck buying an assault weapon! Why, it’s a regular assault on your rights!
Gorsuch is in a position to do something about them.
Obama created an environment that emboldened gun restrictions, but I agree, in general Obama was not very effective in increasing gun control. There are a couple things though.
How about turing people who are on rep payee status into prohibited persons?
Trying to ban the .223 green tip ammo?
Lead ammo bans?
Foreign weapon import ban?
Okay… were there any “basic” assaults on the second amendment during the Obama administration, by any definition of assault (or “basic”, for that matter) you’d care to offer?
Granted, anytime someone does offer up a definition, they run the risk of having that definition challenged, but I’m generously prepared to let you take that risk.
Sure, though I don’t doubt that when Trump said and when NRA members heard “eight years”, it was to aim blame at Obama personally rather than the more diffuse targets of various state legislatures. I guess as a rhetorical flourish, it works, though not as an accurate assessment of history.
And besides, what’s Trump going to do, if anything, if various state legislatures continue to pass or try to pass regulations?
Gorsuch might eventually be in a position to do something, but that’s not anything happening now. (Any case would be years getting to the Supreme Court, and Trump can’t order Gorsuch to make any particular ruling even when those cases do percolate up through the appeals process.)
As far as your other listings, which ones of these, particularly, do you want to argue constitute an assault on YOUR 2nd Amendment rights? The representative-payee policy, for example, says that being declared incompetent to manage their own financial affairs by reason of mental illness, dementia, markedly subnormal intelligence, or the like is prima facie evidence of unfitness for purchasing firearms --do you want to argue that somebody who can’t be trusted by buy their own groceries should be trusted to buy their own gun?
Meanwhile, the “foreign weapon import ban” is another misnomer; in 2015, for example, 3,930,211 firearms were imported into the U.S. from abroad. If 3.9 million constitutes a “ban,” what does unrestricted importation look like? (Certain categories of weapons have been banned–there’s an ongoing dispute over who actually owns some M1 Garands in Korea, and the Kalashnikov Concern got caught up in sanctions against Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, for example.)
My understanding of the rep-payee issue is that it encompasses more than people with “mental illness, dementia, markedly subnormal intelligence”. For example, if someone didn’t want Grandma to get scammed by “that nice young man” that comes to the door, they might get her signed up for the rep-payee system. But even that is besides the point. The standard for prohibiting firearm ownership is / ought to be “a danger to themselves or others”, not “markedly subnormal intelligence”. Dumb Americans have as much of a right to keep and bear arms as you and I do.
ETA: and there are a bunch of Americans who are on the rep-payee system that are not a danger to themselves or others.
You don’t just decide that Grandma gets signed up for rep-payee; the Social Security Administration has a fairly elaborate process for determining whether or not Grandma has the capacity to manage her own money. If she is determined to possess the capacity, you’ll have to use power-of-attorney or so other method to prevent her from being scammed, because the representative payee program is not intended for that purpose.
“The beneficiary is probably capable if he or she can tell you the amount of money received monthly, the source of the money, the amount of rent/mortgage, or the amount spent on groceries. The beneficiary is also capable if he or she can direct someone else to manage his or her benefits.” – SocSec Program Operations Manual
Similarly, you don’t get a representative payee just because you’re “dumb”–you get one if substantial legal and/or medical evidence document that you can’t manage your own affairs. Usually, that means either a court has appointed a guardian for you because you are legally incompetent under your state’s laws, or a physician is willing to sign off that you are not able “to understand and act on the ordinary affairs of life, such as providing for adequate food, housing, clothing, etc.,” AND are not able to direct others how to manage your monies on your behalf.
That’s a pretty high standard to meet. If somebody lacks the mental capacity even to see to their own food and shelter, then I think they are a danger to themselves. Why do you disagree?
Clearly, but it can be amusing to watch his defenders (or people who hate what Trump purports to hate, thus his uneasy allies) try to spin what Trump said, claiming that he was indeed literally accurate.
Everything Trump says is all about how it plays with his audience. Facts don’t matter. Asking what facts he is talking about in response to anything he says is utterly pointless.
He is responding to the belief of the audience that their 2nd amendment rights HAVE been under assault. If you had been reading the same BS conservative news sites 24/7 since Obama was elected, you might believe it to. So Trump’s rhetoric makes perfect sense from his audience’s perspective, facts be damned.
Assault, by its very definition in law is only an attempt. In the context in which Trump was likely using it, a military one, a person could say that the company “assaulted” the hill, yet failed to take the hill.
So, isn’t it fair to say that Trump’s comments should not be judged in light of what Second Amendment freedoms Obama was actually successful at taking, but only those he attempted to take?
