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]What's the problem with the increased penalties for possession in a school zone?
What's the problem with having a gun in a school zone, or many of the other places they're restricted? Gun Free Zones don't deter criminals, they just end up punishing good people who make an unpopular choice. Now even moreso.
They would never leave, plus I do like living in a place where things are open past 1 AM.
Besides, I shouldn't have to move to exercise a right enshrined in the Constitution.
I understand, but there's more to living in a blue state than gun rights. As for things being open after 1 am, there are many businesses here that stay open late, some all night long.
I know things are a LOT cheaper in the south than here in New England! I've also been looking at states with no state income tax. We have a pretty high state income tax here in MA, and the cost of living is through the roof!!! I was looking at rental properties on Craig's List, and I was STUNNED at how much cheaper rents are down south than they are here in MA.
]What's the problem with the increased penalties for possession in a school zone?
What's the problem with having a gun in a school zone, or many of the other places they're restricted? Gun Free Zones don't deter criminals, they just end up punishing good people who make an unpopular choice. Now even moreso.
What's the problem with the increased penalties for possession in a school zone?
its how they define a school zone i would think. If you have a CCW permit and the school zone is a block or two outside the school, and not inside the trace, you can be liable even though you had no intention of entering the school.
Well, you can do damage to a school and students without ever entering the school, right?
But we're just spitballing here - I'd like to hear the local's take. He's a gun owner advocate and a resident, and he's provided some pretty even-handed information so far.
I'll admit, I was VERY skeptical about this law when I first heard about it. But the more I hear about it, the more I think it removes the arbitrary discretion of the chief, or at least makes him go on record with his reason and so it can be appealed.
That's better for gun owners than what they had.
So folks talking about how this law screws the gun owners seem to have no clue what they are talking about. And I was leaning in their direction to start.
I understand, but there's more to living in a blue state than gun rights. As for things being open after 1 am, there are many businesses here that stay open late, some all night long.
I know things are a LOT cheaper in the south than here in New England! I've also been looking at states with no state income tax. We have a pretty high state income tax here in MA, and the cost of living is through the roof!!! I was looking at rental properties on Craig's List, and I was STUNNED at how much cheaper rents are down south than they are here in MA.
If you're a liberal, please stay put in the nest that you fouled. See it's virtually guaranteed that every liberal who flees a blue state to settle in a red state is going to keep voting liberal and transform that red state into a purple state and then as more liberals flee the mess that they've created the red state eventually turns blue. Don't foul another state. Stay put.
I understand, but there's more to living in a blue state than gun rights. As for things being open after 1 am, there are many businesses here that stay open late, some all night long.
I know things are a LOT cheaper in the south than here in New England! I've also been looking at states with no state income tax. We have a pretty high state income tax here in MA, and the cost of living is through the roof!!! I was looking at rental properties on Craig's List, and I was STUNNED at how much cheaper rents are down south than they are here in MA.
While Alabama does have an income tax, property taxes are very low. I have a 1600 square foot ranch style house 2 br's 2 baths and a 750 sq ft deck on 3.5 acres. My yearly property taxes are $297
I know things are a LOT cheaper in the south than here in New England! I've also been looking at states with no state income tax. We have a pretty high state income tax here in MA, and the cost of living is through the roof!!! I was looking at rental properties on Craig's List, and I was STUNNED at how much cheaper rents are down south than they are here in MA.
While Alabama does have an income tax, property taxes are very low. I have a 1600 square foot ranch style house 2 br's 2 baths and a 750 sq ft deck on 3.5 acres. My yearly property taxes are $297
That is unheard of around here. Lol!
While Alabama does have an income tax, property taxes are very low. I have a 1600 square foot ranch style house 2 br's 2 baths and a 750 sq ft deck on 3.5 acres. My yearly property taxes are $297
That is unheard of around here. Lol!
So move to Alabama, keep voting liberal, and do to Alabama what ex-California residents did to Colorado.
I don't see the problems here. The Police Chiefs ALREADY have the ability to withhold a FID for handguns, so what makes the extension to long guns so problematic from a legal perspective?
Here's my POV - the 2nd Amendment is not a national suicide pact. If the goal is to remove all oversight over who can own and carry a weapon and this results in Jared Laughner type slaughters every day of every week, then clampdowns will come, legal reasoning is slippery and a way will be found to justify restrictions and seizures in order to end mass slaughter.
So a quest for absolutism just doesn't seem feasible to me. If we can't have absolutist freedom then we need restrictions. Can a category of "threat to public safety" be abused by police to start restricting guns to people who don't objectively meet the standard of being threats to public safety? Sure it can. Will there be abuse? Not necessarily. In order to avoid potential for abuse is the best strategy here simply to have no standards?
The issue is that the people the state gives the authority to keep arms should not be people that can prevent others from acquiring arms for no other reason then "they feel like it".
If the state is so hung up on denying a person a right, the arraign then in the allotted time. There is also no repercussion to the person denying the right. Again, if they end up being wrong more than three times, they are obviously a poor judge of character and should be fired.
I admit that I don't follow Massachusetts firearms issues at all, so is the CURRENT law being abused by Police Chiefs? Are they arbitrarily denying FIDs to people just because someone didn't smile on a Monday morning? If there is such abuse of discretionary power then I understand the criticism, but if they're denying people who've been in a mental hospital the ability to purchase a handgun, but can't stop them from buying a long-gun, I'm not seeing the harm.
Frankly, I don't have a problem with some classes of people being denied the right to own/carry a firearm. If you're a documented schizophrenic your mental illness combined with your right to carry a firearm does pose a risk to society. Risk isn't certainty, I get it, you can be a schizophrenic and never commit mass slaughter but society has to weight competing interests and I'm fine with some people not having the ability to be armed.
OK, I understand your position. I disagree with you, but I respect you, your position, and the way you lifted this thread out of name-calling and into a fact-based discussion about this law. I hate to sidetrack this thread with discussing guns in school zones but I will offer my position if you'd like me to.
OK, I understand your position. I disagree with you, but I respect you, your position, and the way you lifted this thread out of name-calling and into a fact-based discussion about this law. I hate to sidetrack this thread with discussing guns in school zones but I will offer my position if you'd like me to.
I think I've got a pretty good idea what your position probably is. As I've said to many people before, I respect that view but I guarantee you that your kids are actually SAFER with law abiding gun owners near a school and there's no law or invisible boundary that will ever stop a determined criminal.
For eleven years I violated the Commonwealth's Gun Free School Zone on a daily basis simply because of where I lived. My apartment was with. 500 feet of a school and both access ways to my building required driving through a school zone as well. At no time during that period did any of my firearms even attempt to harm a child in any way. Even when I wasn't there to oversee them. ;-)
The jokes write themselves.OK, I understand your position. I disagree with you, but I respect you, your position, and the way you lifted this thread out of name-calling and into a fact-based discussion about this law. I hate to sidetrack this thread with discussing guns in school zones but I will offer my position if you'd like me to.
I think I've got a pretty good idea what your position probably is. As I've said to many people before, I respect that view but I guarantee you that your kids are actually SAFER with law abiding gun owners near a school and there's no law or invisible boundary that will ever stop a determined criminal.
For eleven years I violated the Commonwealth's Gun Free School Zone on a daily basis simply because of where I lived. My apartment was with. 500 feet of a school and both access ways to my building required driving through a school zone as well. At no time during that period did any of my firearms even attempt to harm a child in any way. Even when I wasn't there to oversee them. ;-)
OK, I understand your position. I disagree with you, but I respect you, your position, and the way you lifted this thread out of name-calling and into a fact-based discussion about this law. I hate to sidetrack this thread with discussing guns in school zones but I will offer my position if you'd like me to.
I think I've got a pretty good idea what your position probably is. As I've said to many people before, I respect that view but I guarantee you that your kids are actually SAFER with law abiding gun owners near a school and there's no law or invisible boundary that will ever stop a determined criminal.
For eleven years I violated the Commonwealth's Gun Free School Zone on a daily basis simply because of where I lived. My apartment was with. 500 feet of a school and both access ways to my building required driving through a school zone as well. At no time during that period did any of my firearms even attempt to harm a child in any way. Even when I wasn't there to oversee them. ;-)
Laws like that are probably unconstitutional because it creates zones where people are denied their rights simply because of where they live. It is a violation of equal protection.
I think I've got a pretty good idea what your position probably is. As I've said to many people before, I respect that view but I guarantee you that your kids are actually SAFER with law abiding gun owners near a school and there's no law or invisible boundary that will ever stop a determined criminal.
For eleven years I violated the Commonwealth's Gun Free School Zone on a daily basis simply because of where I lived. My apartment was with. 500 feet of a school and both access ways to my building required driving through a school zone as well. At no time during that period did any of my firearms even attempt to harm a child in any way. Even when I wasn't there to oversee them. ;-)
Laws like that are probably unconstitutional because it creates zones where people are denied their rights simply because of where they live. It is a violation of equal protection.
Time, place, and manner restrictions have always been allowed. I agree that these restrictions can be stretched into arbitrary rules that are unreasonable. But some of them are very reasonable. You can't just label all of them as unreasonable. (IMHO)
Time, place, and manner restrictions have always been allowed. I agree that these restrictions can be stretched into arbitrary rules that are unreasonable. But some of them are very reasonable. You can't just label all of them as unreasonable. (IMHO)
I think that a reasonable law is not going to penalize someone for just driving through a school zone with their gun in the car. Now, if they get out of their car with their gun - in a school zone - that should be penalized. And I understand that there are many gun owners who could be a tremendous asset in a potential school shooting incident. And then there are plenty of gun owners who would only succeed in making things worse. So how do we prevent some gun owners from screwing the pooch while allowing the others to intercede and save lives?
Time, place, and manner restrictions have always been allowed. I agree that these restrictions can be stretched into arbitrary rules that are unreasonable. But some of them are very reasonable. You can't just label all of them as unreasonable. (IMHO)
I've carried a firearm on a nearly daily basis for more than a decade. I've carried through school zones, into public buildings, restaurants, bars, etc... and never had an issue. Hell, in 2000 I spent an hour talking with an anti-gun State Rep in his own office while armed and he never even realized it. The guns are not the issue. The PEOPLE are the issue.
I am 100% in favor of throwing the book at EVERY irresponsible gun owner. However, that does not give you the right to squash MY rights as a responsible gun owner.
