Hypothetical gun laws question

Cats and dogs living together?

I'm not crazy about the idea, but it's a slippery slope. The Constitution makes no mention of violent felons or the mentally ill. If you start circumventing the constitution to prevent certain groups of people from having firearms, what's to stop more and more U.S. Citizens from being being banned as well?

I think you'll find that even fervent gun rights advocates disagree with you.

You missed the point, Sparky. But as usual I'm not surprised.

Yup. What would prevent the Grand Poobah of the United States to declare "All liberals are mentally ill, seize their firearms."

Your impression of your neighbor to the south seems to have been conflated with somewhere like Saudi Arabia.

Not surprisingly, since many of its citizens - at least on WF - seem to feel the same way.

The louder they shrill, the greater the indication that they might not pass a DSM IV screening...

"Times of emergency."

To be determined by...whom? The same folks who came up with the Patriot Act, the TSA, and such?


No thanks.


Remove that bit and we can talk because "times of emergency" are exactly the times I think I just might need my guns the most.

How many threads has Mikey started on this subject? He's just playing the part of someone who really wants to 'understand' both sides of the issues, but haven't we already seen enough to realize that's bullshit?

Troll. Incredibly repetitive troll.

If so, why do you always take the bait?

Indeed.

I was getting irritated with the gun threads in general, but after what I've seen the past month, shit is about to get real and a fundamental fucking of the 2nd amendment is approaching fast. And the driver of that train is someone that dares call himself a constitutional lawyer.

Never let a good tragedy or disaster go to waste. It's what it's all about. As long as it furthers His agenda.

It all goes back to that 'guns and bibles' quote back in 2008. This shouldn't surprise anyone.

I wonder what He'll decide we don't need next?

If either aren't trusted enough to turn violent or adapt to a free society after they paid their dues they shouldn't have been released in the first place.

In playing along with Mike's hypothetical, the alternative I'm imagining is THE STATE having all your guns registered. That's already true here in California (handguns have LONG been registered here; long guns will be registered starting in 2014).

The only possible reason that the government wants a paper trail is so they can confiscate weapons in the future. Such a thing should not exist. The government does not know who has what right now, and that is just exactly, precisely as it should be. As soon as the government makes you fill out the first form, they are infringing on your rights under the 2nd amendment.

Never mind, 'flow took my answer.

Regarding registering guns (for future confiscation) versus cars:

we all register (and have a license to operate) our cars, and expect to have to do so everywhere we reside. But nobody thinks that cars will be confiscated. And cars are pretty hard to hide.

Trust me, if the government took all our cars they would have us by our "short and curly" hairs to say the least.

And if you get pulled over, the first thing the cops want to see is your license and registration. If I shoot an intruder (at least in my county in Georgia) guarantee the cops won't give a shit about that. They only check the intruder's criminal record, and then (maybe) my record.

So I for one hope guns are never regulated to the point of automobiles!

So it's your position that some people can't be trusted with guns? Who decides?

the same people who already decide: The courts.

I'm not crazy about the idea either. If we define something as a right, how can we justify selectively granting it? That's why I think the only real solution to guns in the wrong hands requires that we rethink the actual purpose of the second amendment.

What do you think the actual purpose of the Second Amendment is?

We don't have to rethink it.

The actual purpose of the 2nd Amendment is that the people have the right to own and bear arms which is necessary to having a free state.

Now if you want to change it then that is different but it is wrong to propose that it might mean something else.

At least the hypothetical is a step in the right direction. A compromise involves both parties giving up something. Thus far, the pro-gun control folks are giving up...nothing.

Until then, any discussion is pointless and a waste of all of our time.

Maybe, though I question whether the gun is really what guarantees a free state. And if it isn't, then is gun ownership really what is meant by arms in the modern context. I don't expect agreement on this, but I do think that's where the debate needs to be. It's important to ask what guarantees our freedom, and how does that guarantee work for all. Because if we focus the debate on guns, we are only arguing about where to slide the ownership rules. When even most gun advocates agree that there are people who shouldn't have guns, then the question becomes who and why and how is this still a right?

And that's fine except that isn't my point.

My only point is that the 2nd Amendment means what it means. There is nothing to rethink the meaning about nor does it mean it was for hunting or any of the other stuff people like to say it means. People like to say the 2nd Amendment means all sorts of stuff in order to justify banning guns.

Now if you think it might be outdated, obsolete, or just plain don't like it then get enough people to pass a new constitutional amendment.

That last sentence is where I'm heading with this line of discussion. I think the 2nd amendment is obsolete, which doesn't mean that I think private gun ownership is obsolete.

The second amendment is about militias and protecting the states against a standing Federal Army. That's what the debate was about when it went to ratification, and what was written about in the Federalist papers. They could have said everyone has the right to have a weapon, they didn't, they wrote about well regulated militias. That's why gun bans in cities were legal for most of history - ineffective when surrounded by states where they weren't, but legal none the less.

However, because we've mythologized the US military, most people now believe they are more likely to be hurt by the pro guns group than they are by the US government. And of course those are the same guys that say the government shouldn't be helping people in the first place - no welfare for you.

I'd say that the 2nd amendment is indeed obsolete. You need something that relates to 21st century realities while ensuring private ownership for home defense.

I definitely expect a change in the Heller ruling - the GOP is going to continue to lose presidential elections, and certainly in my lifetime there will be a liberal Supreme Court. Heller was 5-4 - one vote changes and the issue can swing the other way.

Their idea of compromise has always been "Do what we say and we won't throw you in jail."

*sigh*

The Second Amendment was written because the founders didn't trust standing armies and wanted to rely on "the militia" for national defense and supression of insurrection. In the context of the times, the militia meant every able-bodied man who could fire a weapon, since in times of emergency they'd be called up to serve. The Second Amendment also guarantees the right of self-defense, individually and collectively. This is one of the major differences between America and most of the European countries. In Europe the people are "subjects" and in America they're "citizens." European commoners were severely restricted in their right to bear arms (any kind of arms) because the tiny group of elites who ruled them quite rightly feared revolution. In America we had the opposite situation . . . the people were used to ruling themselves and did not trust centralized governments (a result of many people having come to America precisely to escape authoritarian governments in their home countries) and so the Second Amendment was written to recognize both the right of an individual to defend himself and the people collectively to depose a government that had grown tyrannical and/or corrupt. Thomas Jefferson, among others, states this explicitly.

The current federal government has the "corrupt" part down pretty good and is working hard on the "tyrannical" bit.

I know it's popular among the reality-impaired to rewrite history to support whatever idiotic thing they're trying to accomplish, but you, Demi, are usually better than this.

Whichever version we accept, both Demi's and Lanz' history lessen demonstrate that today the 2nd amendment is obsolete.

Which is why we need a new amendment that specifically says the right of Americans to own weapons (not just guns) shall not be infringed but yes the government has the right to reasonable regulations. Reasonable means not bans or things that make it hard if not impossible for a law abiding citizen to own a weapon.

Oh really? Which others might be obsolete? The First? The Fifth? Which other of our natural rights are you in a hurry to be rid of so that you can live safely in the womb of cradle-to-grave government supervision?