Exactly.
Heller was decided by one vote. Obama or another Democratic POTUS only needs to get one more anti-gun judge on the SCOTUS and our second amendment rights could easily be taken away.
People who paint the NRA as so powerful that they can’t be stopped are overstating their strength.
Are you under the impression that I’m in charge of what laws get passed? I’m not.
I don’t object to the laws we have in New York in general - I’ll acknowledge there are some components we could do without - and I think those laws basically reflect what New Yorkers want. I have no expectation federal law will ever look like that because I don’t think that’s what the country wants at large, and I wouldn’t bother advocating for those changes.
Those are some good ideas. I don’t think they get the job done, but they’re sensible.
Thank goodness our system doesn’t work that way. If you like, though, I’ll pretend to be surprised that this would basically stop any locality from passing laws restricting gun ownership, including the ones you support.
Nor am I. I vote though. I advocate, and I donate.
Which laws in NY do you think you could do without? NY recently passed the SAFE act which I believe is embroiled in court battles right now. Currently the it’s being argued in the 2nd circuit, and if upheld, the ruling could be instructive for all states in the circuit. This is another reason why even laws confined to liberal states like CA or NY need to be contested.
The NRA arguably has supported the NICS system and certain enhancements to it. Those proposals may have passed before, but the effort was squandered on trying to ban assault weapons.
In general I’m against any element of a ban that’s cosmetic rather than being functional and backed by good reasoning, and it seems like pretty much every AWB-type law includes a lot of that.
Instead of torturing the language and saying they “arguably” supported something, you might as well just admit they didn’t actually support it.
This excuse still has zero credibility.
Not so much.
Good to know. I agree.
I can’t respond to your link because it’s behind Pacer of which I don’t have a login. The reason I said arguably is because at its inception, the NICS was conceived as an alternative to the waiting period. It was proposed by the NRA at the time, but it didn’t yet exist so the claim can be made that they really didn’t support it. However, in 2007 the The NICS Improvement Amendments Actwas passed with NRA support:
Unfortunately most of the funding for this act that was authorized was never appropriated and state by state reporting to NICS is still very poor.
In what way? It’s important to look at the totality of circumstances at the time. Right out of the gate after Newtown, assault weapon bans were being proposed. This is what colored the entire conversation among gun rights advocates. If you think that it shouldn’t since it was ultimately removed that’s fine but the perception was there and it had a detrimental impact on passing anything. Whether that should have had an impact or not is irrelevant - it did.
You have to use “not so much” properly or it doesn’t work. 
The problem here is this: this is not how negotiations work, so it appears to be an excuse to get out of talking. Negotiating involves working toward an agreement, which means if you’re actually interested in negotiating, you don’t reject an improved offer because you didn’t like the first offer. Further, this is really just an attempt to bias a negotiation. Republicans in Congress have been using the same tactic the last couple of years. I call it ‘give me everything I want and then we’ll negotiate.’ That’s not how that works.
That’s my fault; I copied and pasted the wrong link. I’ve fixed it.
Right, they proposed it as a non-viable alternative to something they liked even less. Then once the NICS went into existence, they immediately went to court to challenge it. The correct word for this is “oppose,” not “arguably support.” What a meaningless phrase.
Guess why, and guess which states don’t report data.
Conversation? Sorry, but this is bull. You don’t get to dictate all the terms of the debate this way. The way a discussion works is that both sides stake their positions and work toward something mutually agreeable. So far your idea of negotiating is to tell gun control advocates what they can and cannot say and who can’t speak for them. It’s kind of like agreeing to race someone, but only if they slash their hamstrings first. If you believe you can maintain this kind of advantage indefinitely by refusing to negotiate while gun deaths and massacres pile up, by all means, do it. But don’t tell me you’re trying to negotiate when you’re dictating terms.
I don’t see how you’re getting there. They have stronger feelings, certainly, but greater insight or understanding? Typically they move from apathy to vendetta, from what I’ve seen.
Yeah, “vendetta” is another word I’d shy away from if I were talking about the families of murder victims and their efforts to stop people from being killed.
They challenged the record keeping aspect, not the check at all. The value of the NICS check is not in record retention and that is what was challenged. Through the amendment in 2007, they supported improvements to it. It’s not accurate to say that the NRA opposed the NICS. This is one of the things that could still be passed with an ever more powerful political organization (the basis of this line of thinking from this thread).
I actually don’t know why. I’ve said I support mandating state reporting. This is an easy win. Do you think the NRA is behind the lack of funding and lack of reporting?
I think each side tries to dictate the terms of the discussion. You are doing the same. In any event, if you know for a fact that if you put Feinstein in front of the bill that you will elicit strong negative reaction, it would make sense to not do so, right? That’s just reality.
Person A: I want to kill you!
Person B: Umm, no thanks
Person A: Ok - how about I put a GPS ankle bracelet on you and I super promise that I will never ever use it to try and kill you, you know, what I wanted to do just a moment ago.
Person B: I don’t believe you, no thanks to the ankle bracelet.
If you really think in this scenario it’s fair to say that the political back and forth with what transpired immediately beforehand should be ignored, I can’t agree with that. Feinstein started talking about an assault weapon ban 2 days after Newtown. Do you really think that doesn’t have an impact on the future negotiations, or are you saying that it shouldn’t? Because in reality, it did.
Were you bitten by a Feinstein when you were a child?
So perhaps you could say they started supporting the NICS about 15 years after it was created.
I won’t say the NRA specifically. I’ll say gun control advocates are more likely to support the NICS. Here’s a map showing which states participate fully in NICS and which don’t. There isn’t a one-to-one correspondence and there are some exceptions, but you’ll note the states that participate the least tend to be heavily Republican.
No, I’m not. I’ve objected to some of the debate tactics you’ve used - and it seems like you’ve agreed with some of my objections. I have not told you that negotiations will only begin if you accept an AWB and denounced Wayne LaPierre.
It didn’t. A different proposal made later by someone else would have been met with other excuses because that’s how this game works. For example Rejecting Manchin-Toomey because Feinstein had proposed something else earlier (something most Democrats and the sponsors of Manchin-Toomey did not support) only makes sense through the looking glass.
Is this just more “You guys do it too!” handwaving, or can you point out specific examples?
No, it’s not a excuse. And it has nothing to do with guns specifically. In any conversation or debate or negotiation, each party will attempt to frame it in ways favorable to them. This is the expectation. **Marley is saying this: "The way a discussion works is that both sides stake their positions and work toward something mutually agreeable. " But that’s not how things have to be done - that’s how he’s saying things should be done. I think that’s a reasonable position to take, but the overall message I’m saying is that this too is attempting to frame the discussion. It’s normal.
More later…real work now.
It sounds like you’re saying it’s unfair to ask you to play fair.
I, personally, rejoined the NRA after many years out specifically because of the assault weapons ban talk.
My logic went like this.
The assault weapons ban is dead. At this point, everyone, including the rabid anti-gunners, knows it’s stupid and won’t work.
Sweet Zombie Jeebus, how dumb are these people? They’re trying it again. (Sends payment to NRA.)
I’m not spending a minutes’ thought even considering any watered down proposal following the failure of the new AWB. As far as I’m concerned, ANY gun legislation these morons support is automatically bad. I will fight any and all gun control efforts until the last trace of these people and their line of reasoning is completely extinguished.
Which kind of goes back to the point of the thread - not letting the families of victims have free rein because being honest or factual is seen as insensitive.
I don’t see how you come to that conclusion. You have asked, I have agreed. If you think myself or another is engaging in an unfair tactic, you can call it out or ask to cease and the other person will either agree or disagree. I think that’s also fairly normal.
I think background checks in and of themselves are not objectionable. It seems like the best way to curb prohibited persons from purchasing firearms.
Here is what I think are the biggest problems with background checks:
[ul]
[li]Inserting the government between the purchase of firearms increases the opportunity for unjust interference.[/li][li]It is difficult to be removed from the prohibited list if placed on the list erroneously[/li][li]The number of things that become disqualifying can increase over time and include things that would be objectionable. By having the infrastructure in place it allows that barrier to be used to prohibit an increasing number of activities.[/li][li]Without a registry it’s difficult to enforce - how do you know that a background check was conducted on a particular sale? Maybe this can be resolved with a “I voted” type thing.[/li][li]State by state regulations of who must report what info on what criteria is currently a patchwork. It would be a challenge to align all of these. I think this is surmountable.[/li][li]There’s probably more.[/li][/ul]
Of all of these, the risk of a registry is what I would have the largest problem with. To me that’s a deal breaker. If there is any hint of a registry then that’s not workable. Even granting the above - I think background checks are possible. It’s important to understand the reluctance of gun rights advocates and speak in those terms - that works better than bans.
In addition - that would still be a change. Would you trade national reciprocity for that?
They surely are more knowledgeable than I am when it comes to, say, what to do when the trigger is pulled and the gun doesn’t fire.
But if you compare how many people die from not knowing that, and how many people die from not knowing that having a gun at least doubles your chances of getting shot, I question your claim. People who just plain don’t like guns are liable to be a lot more knowledgeable about what matters most in terms of gun safety, this being to not have a gun.