Fed Appeals Court upholds Maryland AR ban

I appreciate this response, and it's very well reasoned (rather than the tired and often emtional response of "2nd Amendment!"). That's a fair and reasonable position to take.

Sure they're used in a small number of violent crimes, but the goal is to get the number of people killed closer to zero. I'm not going to pretend banning this type of gun (or even all guns) is going to magically stop all homicides. There's no magic bullet, if you'll pardon the pun, but any little bit helps.

If Constitutional rights must give way until not one person dies, that doesn't leave roo. for those rights.

Would you be willing to apply tbe same standard to other activities that are--without question--NOT Constititionally protected, such as consuming alcohol, using recreational drugs, driving, owning swimming pools, etc.?

When lunatics start shooting up malls and movie theaters with a swimming pool, your analogy might accurate. But it's not.


And again, the goal is not to reduce all homicides to zero. That's practically impossible. Yes, it's a low hanging fruit, but all the more reason to pluck it.

Are THOUSANDS of innocents who die from car crashes, drunk driving, taking drugs, or swimming pool accidents somehow less significant than the TENS who die from assault weapon shootings every year?

"Even though this won't do much, and will deprive a lot of people of a freedom they enjoy, let's do it anyway."

For drunk driving and other car accidents I would say that yes we should absolutely have a stricter standard. Too many idiots are driving cars, and too many idiots own guns. Certainly there's more in the former categor, but that doesn't preclude us from addressing both categories.

I really don't get your point about swimming pools. Guns are specifically designed to injure or kill, swimming pools are not. And just as you refused to discus bazookas, I'm not even gonna go into that. Yes, there is a clear difference between homicide (intentional or not) and accidental death. Don't play stupid.

It's not doing the latter. You can still buy and use a gun. Just not all guns. I'm in in no way trying to advocate for abolishing that right. Again, I'm drawing the line a little closer and you're drawing the line a lot farther. You nonetheless have drawn a line yourself by not advocating for the right to own bazookas, a very clearly military style weapon that would be supported by all of the appeals to the 2nd Amendment and framers' intent that had so far been discussed. I'd just rather draw the line a little closer to the side of preventing homicide.

And yet little is done about the former--which causes far more deaths--while outlawing guns that are involved in a minuscule number of shootings is a moral imperative.

My point is that you don't see the kind of fervor about other things cause far more deaths. Because the gun control side isn't really about guns. It's about control.

And history has shown--again and again and again--that the "we only want to curtail the freedom slightly" promise is a lie. The outcome always--always--is a steady erosion of the right.

How can you square banning guns that would be useful for militia with the Constitution's prohibition on banning guns because the people might need to form militias?

What is the extent of the right in your view? Can I own a gun that would be effective in resisting tyrannical government? If not, how do you reconcile that with the Constitution? If so, how can you be for banning those very types of weapons?

A Second Amendment that only guarantees the right to own hunting rifles or duck guns is practically worthless.

If I banned 10 words, would you be comfortable that there were still thousands of other words in the dictionary you could use?

Bazookas, again, are ordinance. They're not small arms.

And the limits I recognize are based on what the 2nd says. The limits you support are based on ignoring what the 2nd says.

If 1% of homicides are committed with one type of gun that you want to ban, but 99% of homicides are committed with another type of gun, why wouldn't your same logic ultimately entail banning all of them? Since you're not bound by any articulated principle--only endorsing what you think you can get at the moment--why should anyone who cares about gun rights believe you?

Recoil's comparable to a .12 ga, hell of a lot louder, though. And speaking of weapons of war, better start busting down the doors of every deer hunter in the country, because the Marines issue a (modified) Remington 700, a .308 bolt action.

Where, May I ask, do you draw your line? Are we talking a California style ban with an ever dwindling approved guns list, or are people just not trust able with those pesky evil metallic cartridges.

It's an entirely compatible moral philosophy to believe that both issues need to be fixed. I'm not sure why you are arguing this point, other than to distract from your overall weak argument.

Again, unless someone uses a swimming pool to kill a theater of people, the comparison is silly and only meant to once again distract from your weak argument. Accidental deaths are a tragedy and should absolutely be prevented whenever possible. That is not the issue here. You are more than welcome to start a thread about swimming pools if you feel so strongly about them.

Another distraction, all wrapped into hyperbole and a slippery slope argument at that.

Ask yourself the same question, because you would deny bazookas to militias without any textual support other than your own opinion.

Ok you've clearly gone off the deep end if you think that any personal firearms are going to effectively resist a tyrannical goverment.

There are words restricted in certain reasonable contexts so I don't see the problem.

Again, you're merely drawing a line without textual support. Same as me.

It would depend on the specific context, weighing the benefits of permitting the gun against the risks of permitting the gun.

Because I'm from the internet. We don't lie on the internet.

Yet that didn't stop a bunch of farmers from going up against the British empire and somehow they still won.

Let's not pretend the US. government is unbeatable, even recent history (Vietnam) shows otherwise.

As is fairly well known, Custer had Gatling guns available to him, but he left them behind because they were too hard to transport stealthily. He also had his men leave their sabres behind, IIRC, to avoid them making noise while he was trying to sneak up on all those women and children. So odds are he would have left the bazookanuke behind too.

Going up against a superior force with inferior weapons, never heard of that before.

[nitpick] There's no decimal point in "12 gauge", it's a whole number. [/nitpick]

The US government isn't unbeatable if it fights fair--i.e. if it was guns vs. guns, some states might give the Federal government a run for its money. But the US military is the largest in the world, by far. It has all sorts of tanks, fighter jets, attack helicopters, drones, etc. Do you really think that if the US goes so far as to become a tyrannical dictatorship, that it would fight fairly? I don't think it would go so far as to nuke its own citizens, but if the Civil War is any indication, the Federal government certainly won't pull any punches.

The 2nd Amendment was certainly intended to enable citizens to fight back against a tyrannical government, but that hasn't been a reasonable justification since at least the end of WWII.

I'm all in favor of your right to own certain guns, but let's not pretend for even a split second that gun ownership has been connected to the ability to fight back against the Feds at least in our lifetimes.

Well, you are talking about a man who managed to shoot his own horse out from under him after he ran off by himself in the middle of hostile territory.

Hey now. Don't be dissin' my .30-30. I love that rifle.

Even if you think the 2nd Amendment's logic is passe, that doesn't negate it. The right still exists.

It isn't until it is.

No diss intended.

Though if we're going old school calibers, I'll stick with my .45-70.

Nice! And it's even a lever action.

Which BTW, gun control nuts, can pump out rounds pretty damn quick once you've practiced with one a little bit.

They'll get to them, too, eventually.

Likewise.

Have to stick to my old war guns. Never much cared for cowboy guns for some reason.

Might as well ditch that pesky third amendment too, then. Hasn't been needed since... well, since it was written, really.

Actually I saw a rather interesting argument that government spyware on computers would constitute a violation of the 3rd Amendment, even if a judge signed off on a warrant for it to square it with the 4th.

I always figured my .44 Winchester '92 (Remington repro made in Japan) would be just as good in most firefights as any modern battle rifle. The lack of a spray and pray feature encourages carefully aimed shots, and it loads 10. Keep a pocketfull of rounds and keep stuffing them in.

Yeah, but mine can be fed by stripper clips.

Yeah, same with my .30-30. It's accurate out to a respectable range, the round is energetic enough to do the job, and you can go bang bang bang pretty quick. Only seven at a time, but reloading it is pretty quick too.

Interesting. I could see libertarians making that argument.

Advanced technology! Depends on the situation, of course. Shooting from cover, aimed rounds, one at a time, reload time doesn't much matter. Running for your life with people chasing you, yeah, fuck the lever gun, gimme that AR!