What should the end goal of our gun policy be?

[alang1216]

gun - no fully automatic weapons nor any with a caliber over .45

This is quite ignorant. I have a .338 caliber rifle that will drop a polar bear in one shot, or a Cape buffalo. So why the arbitrary .45 caliber limit, please explain.

Any line would be arbitrary but the next step up from a .45 is a ma duce and that is over the top.

Why? Is this just your personal opinion or do you have some logical reasoning behind this? Black powder musket balls can be .50 to .70 caliber.

So far as I know .45 is the largest commercially available caliber ammunition available. Muskets are like antique cars they would fall in an entirely different status and the rules would be unique to them.

 

[Little-Acorn]

I have refuted what you pseudo-cons have said. Easily and handily.

TRANSLATION: Oops, the conservative didn't run away. I'll double down on my namecalling and lies, maybe that will do it.

The US has a higher homicide rate than other developed countries which have strict gun control.

TRANSLATION: I'll cough up an old straw-man argument that has nothing to do with what the law of the land says, and see if anybody believes it changes the language and meaning of the 2nd amendment.

kaz tried to blame illegal immigrants, who we all know are mostly non-whites, but that catastrophically failed and he ran away.

TRANSLATION: I'll even try to pretend that, if others try to defeat my straw-man arguments, somehow THAT changes what the 2nd amendment says.

Now, you tards can keep trying to clamp your hands over your eyes and ears to this reality, and you can keep tossing out red herrings, but it won't go away.
Until you accept this truth, and deal with it, then you will continue to look like dishonest idiots. And the liberals will win.

TRANSLATION: And I'll toss in some more namecalling and insults, since I don't have any actual arguments.

----------------------------

Speaking of actual arguments:

The 2nd Amendment does NOT say "except by due process of law" or "except for felons". Why not?

Why was the 2nd is written without qualifications? It says "Since X is so, the people's RKBA cannot be taken away or restricted." It does NOT say "except by due process of law". And it does NOT say "unless the person is a felon or other type of extreme criminal", and etc.

To make up an extreme example: Some guy goes into a restaurant, pulls out a gun and blows away half a dozen people. The cops show up and surround him, and one cop says, "Give me your gun right now." The guy says, "Sorry, the 2nd amendment says my right to KBA cannot be taken away or restricted, PERIOD, so you have no authority to make me give you my gun." And this with gunsmoke in the air and bodies bleeding on the floor next to him.

So what does the cop do? Cracks him over the head with a billy club and takes his gun away anyway.

Many of the people who wrote the 2nd were lawyers, and knew well the effect that certain words have when included, or omitted, from legislation. And yet they chose to omit ANY exceptions to the ban on government taking people's guns away. Strictly speaking, that would even include the extreme example I just gave: Cops can't legally take away the gun of a murderer at the scene of his crime.

Many people use this as the reason why the 2nd amendment MUST have been intended to implicitly allow for exceptions: It's impossible that the Framers could have intended for murderers to retain their weapons immediately after committing their murders. Yet a truly strict reading of the 2nd, forbids any govt official (including police) from taking the mass-murderer's gun.

So what could the Framers' intention have been, in omitting any exceptions?

Remember that it is GOVERNMENT that is being forbidden from taking away people's weapons. And the foremost reason it's forbidden, is so that the people can use them against government itself, if/when the government becomes tyrannical. And the Framers knew that if government were given even the tiniest exception, there would be a tendency to turn that tiny loophole into more and more twisted, warped excuses to take guns away anyway, far beyond the "reasonable" exception of being able to take away a mass-murderer's gun at the scene of his crime.

The only way the Framers could find of avoiding the far-greater evil of a tyrannical government disarming its people, was to make NO EXCEPTIONS WHATSOEVER to an explicit ban on government disarming even one of us.

So where does that leave us on the question of the cops taking the mass murderer's gun at the restaurant?

It's inconceivable that the Framers would want the murderer to retain his gun even as they haul him off to jail.

But it's VERY conceivable that the Framers would want government to have NOT THE SLIGHTEST EXCUSE, NO MATTER HOW "REASONABLE", to take away the weapons of their populace in general. Because the slightest excuse, the tiniest exception, could be stretched into a huge loophole. And the Framers regarded a government that could somehow finagle its way into disarming its own people, as a far greater threat than the occasional murderous nutcase in a restaurant.

And history has proven the Framers right, time and again.

Should we amend the Constitution, changing the 2nd amendment to officially empower government to take away the right of, say, murderers, to own and carry guns?

Some would think it's obvious that we should, to make the law "really" right. But consider the potential cost.

My own guess is, the Framers intended for the principle of Jury Nullification to apply here. The restaurant mass-murderer tells the cops they have no power to take his gun. The cop responds by cracking the guy's skull with his billy club, hard, and taking away his gun anyway. Did the cop violate the strict words of the 2nd amendment by doing so? Maybe yes. But is there a judge or jury in the world that will convict the cop for it? Probably not.

And yet when government makes the slightest move toward disarming even a little of its populace by legislation, they can be met with the absolute, no-exceptions ban codified by the 2nd amendment. No loopholes, no nothing. ANY legislation that infringes on the absolute right to KBA, is unconstitutional. Period.

I suspect that's how the Framers expected this particular law to work.

Can I prove it? No. When I meet one of the Framers, I'll ask him. Until that time, I can only guess, based on the records they have left behind. If anyone can come up with a better guess, I'd be happy to hear it.

I never said the cops shouldn't take the murderer's gun away. The murderer said that, with bodies still bleeding around him. Whereupon the cop whacked him over the head with a billy club and took it from him anyway.

And later when the murderer brought charges against the cop for violating his 2nd amendment rights, the jury let the cop walk. The cop had no more worries since double jepoardy isn't allowed. And the murderer went to the chair as he deserved. And that's exactly how the system should work.

And when some govt official tried to take the gun of a law-abiding citizen, the jury did NOT let the govt official walk, but threw him into jail with all those nice criminals, where they could discuss obeying the Constitution, and the advantages of jury nullification, all they wanted. And, again, that's exactly how the system should work. And was designed to work, in fact, by those founders the leftist fanatics keep desperately denigrating and insulting.

Yes, the right guaranteed by the 2nd amendment, IS absolute... because of the many horrifying examples that happen when it isn't. And imperfect as we are, the closer we come to making it that way, the safer and more prosperous (and, BTW, the freer) our society will be.

 

[g5000]

Speaking of actual arguments:

The 2nd Amendment does NOT say "except by due process of law" or "except for felons".

But the 7th Amendment does.

ANY of your liberties, including your right to bear arms, can be removed under the 7th Amendment.

This is why I advised you to read the WHOLE Constitution, retard.

 

[Little-Acorn]

So far as I know .45 is the largest commercially available caliber ammunition available. Muskets are like antique cars they would fall in an entirely different status and the rules would be unique to them.

I regularly shoot solid slugs from a 12ga Mossy shotgun with a rifled barrel and iron sights. Their diameter is .729 inches. Perfectly legal (which is more than I can say about the laws restricting bore diameters). And they resolve disputes even better than a .45.

BTW.... -50-cal-325-grain-jhp,MRI .50AE 300 Grain JHP (DEP50JHP300B), MRI .50AE 350 Grain JSP (DEP50JSP350B), MRI .50AE 300 Grain HP/XTP (DEP50HP/XTP300), Desert Eagle, .50 AE, Burnt Bronze, Desert Eagle Pistol Charm (ACCLPDE50)

 

[Little-Acorn]

Speaking of actual arguments:

The 2nd Amendment does NOT say "except by due process of law" or "except for felons".

But the 7th Amendment does. This is why I advised you to read the WHOLE Constitution, retard.

(yawn) The 7th merely says that a jury can ignore ("nullify") any law (including a Constitutional provision)... in the case they are examining only. Which is what I just pointed out in my post (and you carefully cut out of your quote).

Thanks to the jury's power of nullification, the Framers made the right protected by the 2nd amendment, absolute. Government can have NO say in what guns a citizen can own or carry. Only a jury can have such a say... on a case-by-case basis.

They can't repeal any law, or change the Constitution. Pretending they can, is just more desperate left-fanatic wishful thinking. Nice try.

 

[g5000]

Speaking of actual arguments:

The 2nd Amendment does NOT say "except by due process of law" or "except for felons".

But the 7th Amendment does. This is why I advised you to read the WHOLE Constitution, retard.

(yawn) The 7th merely says that a jury can override ("nullify") any law (including a Constitutional provision)... in one case only. Which is what I just pointed out in my post (and you carefully cut out of your quote).

Thanks to the jury's power of nullification, the Framers made the right protected by the 2nd amendment, absolute. Government can have NO say in what guns a citizen can own or carry. Only a jury can have such a say... on a case-by-case basis.

They can't repeal any law, or change the Constitution. Pretending they can, is just more desperate left-fanatic wishful thinking. Nice try.

Hey dumbshit. Try reading the actual amendment.

 

[g5000]

From United States v. Tot:

One could hardly argue seriously that a limitation upon the privilege of possessing weapons was unconstitutional when applied to a mental patient of the maniac type. The same would be true if the possessor were a child of immature years. In the situation at bar Congress has prohibited the receipt of weapons from interstate transactions by persons who have previously, by due process of law, been shown to be aggressors against society. Such a classification is entirely reasonable and does not infringe upon the preservation of the well regulated militia protected by the Second Amendment.


"One could hardly argue seriously..."

Exactly.

 

[Little-Acorn]

Hey dumbshit. Try reading the actual amendment.

TRANSLATION: Damn, he's got me. Time to stall.

Back to the subject:
The end goal of "our" gun policy should be what the law of the land already says. Government can have no say in whether a citizen can carry a gun, or what kind or quantity. Only juries (which are deliberately NOT part of government) can.

 

[g5000]

Hey dumbshit. Try reading the actual amendment.

TRANSLATION: Damn, he's got me. Time to stall.

I'm clearly dealing with a person who has not read the Constitution and who is completely clueless about substantive due process.

"One could hardly argue seriously..." The Supremes were talking about tards like you.

 

[Little-Acorn]

From United States v. Tot:

One could hardly argue seriously that a limitation upon the privilege of possessing weapons was unconstitutional when applied to a mental patient of the maniac type. The same would be true if the possessor were a child of immature years. In the situation at bar Congress has prohibited the receipt of weapons from interstate transactions by persons who have previously, by due process of law, been shown to be aggressors against society. Such a classification is entirely reasonable and does not infringe upon the preservation of the well regulated militia protected by the Second Amendment.


"One could hardly argue seriously..."

Exactly.

As usual, when the liberal fanatic loses the debate, he does a fast 180 and stops talking about what the Constitution says, since the Constitution solidly refutes his argument. Instead he starts talking about what judges and legislators say, no matter how much their statements differ from (and even violate) the Constitution.

 

[Staidhup]

One question, when was the last time a criminal, thug, terrorist, criminally insane individual abide by the law and subjected themselves to a government background check, or for that mater purchased the gun legally?
The problem is simple, reality seldom falls in line with theory coupled with hypothesis built upon a delicate and weak foundation.

No one wants to believe or face the fact penal reform policies are a disaster so they now focus their attention elsewhere.

 

[OldLady]

The "mentally ill" thing is a smokescreen. Sure, some mass shootings are carried out by people with a history of mental illness. Mass shootings make a big splash in the media and in the fearful mind.

But we are not losing 16,000 Americans a year to mass shootings or the mentally ill. We are losing them to one-on-one gun homicides.

No one on the Right is offering a viable solution to this problem. They toss out "mental health" red herrings after a mass shooting, and call it a day.

It's a good point that the mass shootings like the Colorado theater and Newtown were a huge splash, but as awful as they were, they account for not many of the gun deaths in this country. Most killings one-on-one or one-on-two are by people who aren't mentally ill. Since it is impossible (I think) to know who would take another citizen's life when you sell them the gun (except for the restrictions we already have in place) that is why it seems like the only way to put a big dent in these killings is to severely restrict the number and type of guns available for general consumption.
I know lots of people with guns and none of them worry me. I don't like the thought of disarming them. But what else can be done, except to shrug and give up and let the killings keep going on and on?

 

[Little-Acorn]

The 2nd Amendment does NOT say "except by due process of law" or "except for felons". Why not?

Why was the 2nd is written without qualifications? It says "Since X is so, the people's RKBA cannot be taken away or restricted." It does NOT say "except by due process of law". And it does NOT say "unless the person is a felon or other type of extreme criminal", and etc.

To make up an extreme example: Some guy goes into a restaurant, pulls out a gun and blows away half a dozen people. The cops show up and surround him, and one cop says, "Give me your gun right now." The guy says, "Sorry, the 2nd amendment says my right to KBA cannot be taken away or restricted, PERIOD, so you have no authority to make me give you my gun." And this with gunsmoke in the air and bodies bleeding on the floor next to him.

So what does the cop do? Cracks him over the head with a billy club and takes his gun away anyway.

Many of the people who wrote the 2nd were lawyers, and knew well the effect that certain words have when included, or omitted, from legislation. And yet they chose to omit ANY exceptions to the ban on government taking people's guns away. Strictly speaking, that would even include the extreme example I just gave: Cops can't legally take away the gun of a murderer at the scene of his crime.

Many people use this as the reason why the 2nd amendment MUST have been intended to implicitly allow for exceptions: It's impossible that the Framers could have intended for murderers to retain their weapons immediately after committing their murders. Yet a truly strict reading of the 2nd, forbids any govt official (including police) from taking the mass-murderer's gun.

So what could the Framers' intention have been, in omitting any exceptions?

Remember that it is GOVERNMENT that is being forbidden from taking away people's weapons. And the foremost reason it's forbidden, is so that the people can use them against government itself, if/when the government becomes tyrannical. And the Framers knew that if government were given even the tiniest exception, there would be a tendency to turn that tiny loophole into more and more twisted, warped excuses to take guns away anyway, far beyond the "reasonable" exception of being able to take away a mass-murderer's gun at the scene of his crime.

The only way the Framers could find of avoiding the far-greater evil of a tyrannical government disarming its people, was to make NO EXCEPTIONS WHATSOEVER to an explicit ban on government disarming even one of us.

So where does that leave us on the question of the cops taking the mass murderer's gun at the restaurant?

It's inconceivable that the Framers would want the murderer to retain his gun even as they haul him off to jail.

But it's VERY conceivable that the Framers would want government to have NOT THE SLIGHTEST EXCUSE, NO MATTER HOW "REASONABLE", to take away the weapons of their populace in general. Because the slightest excuse, the tiniest exception, could be stretched into a huge loophole. And the Framers regarded a government that could somehow finagle its way into disarming its own people, as a far greater threat than the occasional murderous nutcase in a restaurant.

And history has proven the Framers right, time and again.

Should we amend the Constitution, changing the 2nd amendment to officially empower government to take away the right of, say, murderers, to own and carry guns?

Some would think it's obvious that we should, to make the law "really" right. But consider the potential cost.

My own guess is, the Framers intended for the principle of Jury Nullification to apply here. The restaurant mass-murderer tells the cops they have no power to take his gun. The cop responds by cracking the guy's skull with his billy club, hard, and taking away his gun anyway. Did the cop violate the strict words of the 2nd amendment by doing so? Maybe yes. But is there a judge or jury in the world that will convict the cop for it? Probably not.

And yet when government makes the slightest move toward disarming even a little of its populace by legislation, they can be met with the absolute, no-exceptions ban codified by the 2nd amendment. No loopholes, no nothing. ANY legislation that infringes on the absolute right to KBA, is unconstitutional. Period.

I suspect that's how the Framers expected this particular law to work.

Can I prove it? No. When I meet one of the Framers, I'll ask him. Until that time, I can only guess, based on the records they have left behind. If anyone can come up with a better guess, I'd be happy to hear it.

I never said the cops shouldn't take the murderer's gun away. The murderer said that, with bodies still bleeding around him. Whereupon the cop whacked him over the head with a billy club and took it from him anyway.

And later when the murderer brought charges against the cop for violating his 2nd amendment rights, the jury let the cop walk. The cop had no more worries since double jepoardy isn't allowed. And the murderer went to the chair as he deserved. And that's exactly how the system should work.

And when some govt official tried to take the gun of a law-abiding citizen, the jury did NOT let the govt official walk, but threw him into jail with all those nice criminals, where they could discuss obeying the Constitution, and the advantages of jury nullification, all they wanted. And, again, that's exactly how the system should work. And was designed to work, in fact, by those founders the leftist fanatics keep desperately denigrating and insulting.

Yes, the right guaranteed by the 2nd amendment, IS absolute... because of the many horrifying examples that happen when it isn't. And imperfect as we are, the closer we come to making it that way, the safer and more prosperous (and, BTW, the freer) our society will be.

 

[OldLady]

I went with regulated but I would prefer no open carry of handguns. I think there are two issues here, one is the gun and the other is the gun owner.

gun - no fully automatic weapons nor any with a caliber over .45. Just seems like common sense limits that 99.9% of buyers should be fine with.

gun owner - adult, citizen, with no severe mental or violent criminal history (some exceptions...?), trained and tested in gun use. If I know you have a weapon I want to react the same as I do when I see a cop, I know that cop is trained when and how to use that gun safely and, just as importantly, when not to use a weapon. I have no problem is the gov't offers this training for free and then tests those that graduate to ensure they really know what they are doing. The training would be much less for those that don't intend to routinely carry a gun but comparable to what police go through if they want a carry permit.

That's a reasonable start.

 

[g5000]

The "mentally ill" thing is a smokescreen. Sure, some mass shootings are carried out by people with a history of mental illness. Mass shootings make a big splash in the media and in the fearful mind.

But we are not losing 16,000 Americans a year to mass shootings or the mentally ill. We are losing them to one-on-one gun homicides.

No one on the Right is offering a viable solution to this problem. They toss out "mental health" red herrings after a mass shooting, and call it a day.

It's a good point that the mass shootings like the Colorado theater and Newtown were a huge splash, but as awful as they were, they account for not many of the gun deaths in this country. Most killings one-on-one or one-on-two are by people who aren't mentally ill. Since it is impossible (I think) to know who would take another citizen's life when you sell them the gun (except for the restrictions we already have in place) that is why it seems like the only way to put a big dent in these killings is to severely restrict the number and type of guns available for general consumption.
I know lots of people with guns and none of them worry me. I don't like the thought of disarming them. But what else can be done, except to shrug and give up and let the killings keep going on and on?

Disarming America would require us to repeal the Second Amendment. And when you are willing to start denying rights in the name of the common good, then you cannot make an argument against the banning of dissent.

No, you are going to have to come up with a better plan.

 

[Little-Acorn]

... the only way to put a big dent in these killings is to severely restrict the number and type of guns available for general consumption.

The liberals have made countless laws restricting guns. Some places are even called "gun free zones" by them. Yet that is where nearly all of the mass shootings take place.

It is becoming increasingly clear that their laws don't work.

Some of them have even admitted frankly that the only countries that have managed to reduce these mass shootings, are the ones that enact a virtual 100% ban on guns in civilian hands: England, China, Japan, Australia, etc. The fact that crime continues to increase in most of those countries, is carefully not examined by the liberals.

And yet, with the evidence before them, they continue to push for more gun laws. It's obvious what their real goal is: Knowing the laws they call for won't work, they want the 100% ban in this country, too.

And even that 100% ban will only work if we also enact a massive police state, where squads of armed police regularly invade and search every house, looking for guns.

Keep this in mind the next time some politician calls for "reasonable gun restrictions" or some other tired talking point. He knows it won't work. But it's the next step he wants on the way to his real goal.

What other reason could he have for continuing to push for more gun laws?

 

[g5000]

One question, when was the last time a criminal, thug, terrorist, criminally insane individual abide by the law and subjected themselves to a government background check, or for that mater purchased the gun legally?
The problem is simple, reality seldom falls in line with theory coupled with hypothesis built upon a delicate and weak foundation.

No one wants to believe or face the fact penal reform policies are a disaster so they now focus their attention elsewhere.

The homicide rate in America plunged radically after the passage of the Brady Bill, which was the beginning of background checks. So it is clearly effective. This is not theory. It is reality.

 

[Little-Acorn]

That's a reasonable start.

It sounds like you believe that we are better off letting the government decide who can have a gun and who can't. Correct?

 

[g5000]

... the only way to put a big dent in these killings is to severely restrict the number and type of guns available for general consumption.

The liberals have made countless laws restricting guns. Some places are even called "gun free zones" by them. Yet that is where nearly all of the mass shootings take place.

The vast, vast, vast majority of shootings do not take place in "gun free zones".

And mass shootings take place in locations with which the shooter is familiar. At school or at work. It has little to do with it being a gun free zone.

 

[g5000]

The 2nd Amendment does NOT say "except by due process of law" or "except for felons". Why not?

So you decided to repeat your total ignorance of substantive due process, eh? The 7th and 14th amendments allow for your liberties to be denied through due process. I also cited case law for you, to help you out of your ignorance.


But no. You decided to double down. You are now being willfully stupid.

Typical of a retard. "I'll just keep repeating myself to make it truer!"