Gun laws and control

[Typhon]

A rational mind takes in all the data, the bad and the good, and will change one's mind when the data clearly show that a previously-held belief was just that, a belief. Not a fact. Not a truth. A whimsical belief.

It is a shame you don't apply this logical thinking when evaluating your "belief" in some kind of god.

How can you be so sure he doesn't? It was logical thinking that finally convinced me about the existence of god, and in that process i also understood that all my life i've been misinformed and miseducated about what the concept of "god" actually is.

It is not possible for 2 people to apply the same logical thinking, given the same data, then wind up with opposite conclusions. 

[Billy Underdog]

A rational mind takes in all the data, the bad and the good, and will change one's mind when the data clearly show that a previously-held belief was just that, a belief. Not a fact. Not a truth. A whimsical belief.

It is a shame you don't apply this logical thinking when evaluating your "belief" in some kind of god.

How can you be so sure he doesn't? It was logical thinking that finally convinced me about the existence of god, and in that process i also understood that all my life i've been misinformed and miseducated about what the concept of "god" actually is.

It is not possible for 2 people to apply the same logical thinking, given the same data, then wind up with opposite conclusions. 

But what if we don't have the same data? Maybe you've been miseducated about the concept of god too, like i was. Then there's no wonder it's hard to grasp how someone can believe in something devine.

[Typhon]

^^^^^^
It seems you can't talk about this without using the "f" word. 

[Billy Underdog]

Yes, i can...

[Zzzptm]

Whether or not I'm perceived to be consistent in my rationality is not pertinent to the discussion at hand. Suffice to say I've had my spiritual experiences and am satisfied that my beliefs regarding a higher power are accurate and currently not in need of any modification or adjustment.

As for gun culture in the USA, I do think it's either at or past the high water mark.

[Typhon]

Which brings me to that second amendment... the original draft of it was this:

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the People, being the best security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.

I was going to explain your misinterpretation of the 2nd Amendment, but, I will let Penn & Teller do it for me:

[Vyn]

I appreciate and am thankful that I live in a country that allows me the option to possess lethal weapons.

I also think that conflating the so-called "gun culture" with the right to bear arms is either disingenuous or poorly thought out. Not everyone who owns a firearm is a gun nut.

For those that feel that private ownership of firearms isn't a consideration for those in our government who might be a little on the "power hungry" side of things, think again. It isn't the only thing keeping the wolves at bay, but consider what the very first thing a ruling group does before they go ape-shit tyrannical on its populace. And if you think that "first thing" is providing everyone with a nice steak meal, you're not thinking right.

[Zzzptm]

Well, the *real* first thing that the tyrants do is put a massive emphasis on patriotism and questioning if their opponents truly love their country.

As for the conflation, that's pretty much how it's seen. If a gun owner that's not a gun nut says the same things about gun control that a gun nut says, it's hard to separate the two positions. And if neither non-nuts and nuts both refuse to make concessions, there's another difficulty in separating the two and a higher chance that gun control advocates won't listen to either group when they make legislation.

If non-nuts want to be taken seriously, and I truly believe that they should, they need to be able to say things like "I want to preserve my right to own weaponry, but at the same time I accept that we can't keep insisting that all gun ownership be considered sacrosanct."

I think a shotgun is a very good choice for home defense. Fire it and there's little chance you have to explain things to your neighbors downrange.

An AR-15, though? Six of the ten largest mass shootings in the USA by casualties were done thanks to the AR-15. Adam Lanza used one in Sandy Hook *and* was an NRA member. Two points to be made here: 1. Being a member of a group that claims to be made up of responsible gun owners does not in fact make one a responsible gun owner. 2. There's no need to have an AR-15 or anything like it. Make these illegal, and the casualty rates will decline, simple as that.

After the AR-15, there are other weapons to consider, and if gun owners that aren't gun nuts can speak up about which ones make sense to own and which ones ought to be banned because, yeah, there's no real need to have one unless you want to kill a lot of people, then that really helps the debate steer towards more moderate waters.

Gun control is coming. It's a generational thing and they're going to disagree with Penn & Teller.

[Zzzptm]

Which brings me to that second amendment... the original draft of it was this:

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the People, being the best security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.

I was going to explain your misinterpretation of the 2nd Amendment, but, I will let Penn & Teller do it for me:

With all due respect to Mr. Penn and Mr. Teller, bullshit.

That interpretation is interesting, but didn't come from a Supreme Court justice. These did:

“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited…”.

It is “…not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

“Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

Second Amendment did not protect weapon types not having a "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia"

DC vs Heller *did* rule that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of an individual to own a weapon for home defense.

***

One more note on whether or not a loss of guns is the first thing that the tyrants do, consider that in the British colonies that later rebelled, the British only limited arms imports and sales after anti-loyalist groups began forming militias with the intent of opposing the loyalist militias. IE, there was a threat of open rebellion, so the government in charge took measures to preserve order. But the anti-loyalist colonists were already claiming that the British were oppressive and tyrannical prior to their formation of militias, so the gathering of guns most certainly was NOT the first thing done to make a tyrant out of the British.

[Typhon]

Mr. Penn did not contradict any of those supreme court statements.

Adam Lanza was an NRA member.

This is false. 

[Zzzptm]

Penn's holding that it's a militia that's barred from taking arms away is way off. The Bill of Rights at first only applied to the federal government. It did not apply to the several states and their governments until after the 14th Amendment was ratified. Then, in later decisions, justices held that the 14th Amendment "incorporated" the states into the federal system and that the rights in the Bill of Rights could be individually tested in court to see if they applied on the state level. Over the years, various rights have been incorporated so that they form a minimum standard for states to follow.

The 2nd Amendment, as written and ratified, applied to the federal government, not the state governments. The well-regulated militia would be a state-run military force, not a federal one. Constitutionally, states were not allowed to have navies, but were allowed to keep troops. Again, over time, the state militias were incorporated into the federal army and now constitute the National Guard units that can be called up for active duty service to supplement regular army forces.

Again, I'll take Supreme Court opinions over those of Mr. Penn. There's stuff we can say in court that justices will consider and stuff that they'll laugh off. SC opinions, they listen to. What Penn said, nope. Maybe an interesting idea, but nope.

Fact is, state and local laws that regulate firearm ownership *have* been upheld by the SC. So long as the laws do not go against the Heller ruling, they stand a good chance of being upheld in court.

[Vyn]

Within the last 100 years, these governments either disarmed their entire populace, or select portions therein, and then they killed the ever-lovin' shit out of them:

Turkey, Russia, China, Germany, Cambodia, Guatemala, Uganda.

Going back further back in time, history shows the same pattern.

Jan Zizka is roundly considered one of the greatest military leaders of all time. Depending on the time of day, most folks who care about such things consider him the best.

Because he showed thousands of peasants - who were not allowed to own weapons of any kind - how to improvise and fight tens of thousands of well armed, well trained, and well provisioned soldiers who were going to kill them all and take their stuff.

He never lost a battle.

Which is beside the point, but highlights the fact that an unarmed populace is much easier to herd than an armed populace.

[Zzzptm]

The writing was on the wall, however, for the Armenians of Turkey, the Jews and Roma of Germany, and the indigenous peoples of Guatemala.

In the case of Cambodia, the disarmament accompanied a violent rise to power of the Khmer Rouges, so the disarmament was more a matter of the *failure* of the people of Cambodia to resist tyranny with their arms.

The Tsars of Russia and the Warlords of China were not known for their benevolence towards peasants, nor their general arming thereof, save to have them participate in their armies. Whatever arms the populace had were insufficient to stave off the rise of Communism in either land.

Meanwhile, in the UK, a practically disarmed populace... pretty much does just fine without threat to their democracy. In the assault weapon-deprived antipodes of Australia... looks like they're still having a lively little democracy running over there with nary a tyrant lurking in the wings. In the lands of the Germans, the Swiss, and the Canadians, restrictions on weapon ownership have not yet resulted in a collapse of the freedoms of those people.

In the relatively gun-rich USA, we seem to be constantly turning our weapons on ourselves. This is unacceptable to the rising generation. THey're not buying arguments that guns protect freedom or secure rights. They see piles of corpses of innocents and they correlate that with the general availability of weapons. If the only response to that rising tide is to repeat the arguments that have zero effect on them, then that 2nd Amendment is going to see some serious action from states exercising their 10th Amendment rights to pass laws as they see fit and the Supreme Court upholding them so long as they do not deny the right to own a weapon in one's home for the purposes of self-defense.

It's not a question of being right or wrong in one's mind, it's a question of finding a way to mitigate what happens when someone one knows to be wrong gets power and starts taking the "well-regulated" part of the 2nd Amendment to heart.

[Vyn]

The writing was on the wall,

Sure, nothing springs from a vacuum, especially when you're talking about social manipulation.

In other news, there are so many freaking guns in the USA they just blow around the landscape like refuse:

http://www.kctv5.com/story/38276340/driver-finds-handgun-lodged-in-front-bumper

[Typhon]

The writing was on the wall,

Sure, nothing springs from a vacuum, especially when you're talking about social manipulation.

In other news, there are so many freaking guns in the USA they just blow around the landscape like refuse:

http://www.kctv5.com/story/38276340/driver-finds-handgun-lodged-in-front-bumper

  Thanks for starting my day with a great laugh, Vyn. An "awesome" you shall have.