Gun possession

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If I'm reading JB correctly, he's concerned about giving the government yet another way to screw with our gun rights. You'd think that 22,000+ gun laws on the books would be suficient, but give these people an inch... I for one would probably report the theft of a firearm, but I'm opposed to making inviting the government into my life compulsory.

What about those who don't report it? Where's their responsibility lay? Blithely ignorant while others are robbed, injured, and possibly killed because they were too lazy, irresponsible, or whatever to do the right thing and report the stolen weapon?

It's not my fault that gun nuts make it so hard to make decent legislation that 22,000+ laws are necessary to walk on eggshells around the collective paranoid delusions of the "guns rights" advocates.

^

You know Ska, if you didn't so obviously hold those who disagree with you in such contempt, you might find it easier to find common ground. However, you seem ok with bemoaning the state of things from the sidelines while not actually doing anything about any of it, so carry on...

Am I wrong? The legislation is done in such hackjob manner because the gun control people are unreasonable? The legislation has to be done and re-done over and over again because it has to be done in such a delicate manner because the pro-gun side is such a paranoid bunch. I know the pro-gun side is, I'm friends with them. I know about their secret stashes of guns and ammo. How the cops make sure to keep unregistered guns because they're afraid the government will ban them and take all their guns away. It's the same story from every single one with varying degrees of following the law, but the same final paranoia. Vague references to history and the confiscation of guns while fascism runs rampant on society without understanding the true, full history of any such government and all the other social implications and all the other ways society rolled over to allow such atrocities to happen. Our own government is already committing such atrocities but you, the supposed protectors of society, ever vigilant with your weapons, do nothing because they make the story appealing to you.

Why would they take your guns away when you pose no threat?

Edit: Also forgot that it'd be stupid to take your guns away because then you're less well trained to be muscle for the country and whoever's agenda du jour.

Double edit: I worry more about the lesson rather than just saying what I mean: I hold contempt because the pro-gun side holds themselves as if they're the protectors of liberty and freedom but in the end, they end up supporting torture, illegal wars, and are normally under-educated in the areas where such protectors of freedom should have filled. Instead they fill their heads with worthless glory stories from world war 2 and scary stories about how losing your guns means losing your freedom. All the while defending the PATRIOT act, doing no action to protect liberty...but come out in force with guns when their masters tell them to with regard to socialized healthcare using half-understood historic wisdom such as "Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have" while still supporting the policies of those who support corporatist interests and the private/public atrocity know as the Federal Reserve. I get tired of playing nice and pussyfooting around the rhetoric and looking at the micro. The big picture is what matters.

You sound like a mugger complaining that the people he tries to rob are a bunch of jerks because they insist on fighting back... We are the ones trying to prevent others from encroaching on our business here, and we've seen where incremental gun control goes, so damn right we're going to make them fight every inch of the way and roll back everything we can. The gun control movement has never managed to present a valid and logical reason behind the restrictions they seek, instead relying on tortured language and fear tactics to advance their agenda, why would we aquiesce to them?



You know a few guys with guns, so you know everything there is to know about gun rights and their advocates? *sigh* Also, history is on our side in regard to incremental restriction, the rest is fairly irelevent to the discusion.



Kindly refrain from projecting opinions onto me, I'm not happy about the way things are either, but if I were to suggest armed resistance, you (and most other people) would call me crazy. I don't see you fighting in the street either, so let me know when things get that bad, I'll probably be out fighting too.



You tell me, I think it has to do with bullying types not liking that people like me won't do what we're told just cause, but my ears are listening.



Wow, you *really* don't know me, those sorts of jackbooted thugs are just the type I'd actually use my guns on.

If people dont see dangers in the world then they need to travel outside the US, I state as a personal witness that people become savages when their most basic needs are not met. If people want to dig a hole and put their heads in the sand than they can do it, but don’t involve us.

No compromise is available. The 2nd amendment clearly states "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." No other interpretation exists, nothing about assault-weapons or registrations. I'd bet money the founding fathers would be against registering firearms. The reason this amendment even exists is because the British were taking firearms from Americans.

Those who do not learn from history are due to repeat it.

Again with the projection and generalizing, you meet one gun person, you've met one gun person, we don't all think alike and we certainly don't all hold the same political ideology. Why do you care so much about other people's reasons for being in favor of gun rights, are you not able to analyze the situation for yourself? It sounds like your problem here isn't so much with the guns as with the people you see as the pro-gun movement, you have this cookie-cutter stereotype of a "gun nut" that you're projecting onto anyone on the other side of this issue from you. Part of what makes me so vociferous online about guns is the very stereotypes and cliches that you've been spouting, an articulate and intelligent argument in favor gun rights turns those faulty assumptions right on their head. You want to criticize others for focusing on what you see as the small stuff, yet here you are arguing about the same thing, if you meant what you said you shouldn't care either way. Like I've already pointed out, progressives such as yourself have a very easy way to get us out of your way, drop gun control from your platform. I guarantee that I and other like minded folk are far more determined to hold onto our guns than you or anyone else is to take them away, thus the ball is in your court as far as removing this impediment to your "more important" issues.

The basis is that government DOES NOT have an automatic right to know everything about its citizens. The government must be an open book to the people, the people have a right to privacy absent a compelling state interest.

Lately, that has been totally reversed with a government that thinks it can resist telling anything to the people but the people must be totally open to the state.

Government DOES NOT have a right to know if you have a gun or not. Allowing that would invariably lead to a national database of gun owners, and WHEN (not IF) gun confiscation ever got through, they would immediately know whose doors to knock on. It's happened before in history, so there is good cause to not tolerate such a practice.

If your gun is stolen, telling the cops does NOTHING. They can't magically enter the number in a computer and nullify the weapon. All reporting it will do is help flag it as stolen if it is ever recovered down the road. There is no public safety issue served by reporting stolen weapons.

The only people the government can claim to have a compelling interest to know if they have guns are convicted felons who are denied (as a result of their criminal conviction) the right to possess a firearm. Not that it really matters. Only an idiot would admit to having a gun illegally.

Another interpretation does indeed exist. Many beilieve that the term "people" in the 2nd amendment refers to people within the well regulated Militia, as in soldiers. It is very possible that the founding fathers had no desire whatsoever to see millions of Joe Shmo's running around with guns.

I'm suggesting what the healthcare protests have already done: show up to a peaceful protest with guns in hand. Except protest something useful instead of being a tool for the corporatist structure.

One? Try dozens.

Like I said: the rhetoric is all the same with slight variations in the compliance with the government or where they bend/ignore the laws and varying degrees of paranoia that almost all invariably end up going back to "da gubmint iz fashist if dey take mah gunz".

As far as getting gun control out of the way: I'd be glad to give up a lot of control laws that go too far in exchange for a law that required the reporting of missing or stolen weapons. Legal weapons are fine but illegal weapons aren't. I think we both agree on that point but you seem to want to resist any method of being able to track and prevent the illegal ones from going too far or being able to be as easily traced. If you have a better suggestion, I'd love to hear it but all I've heard is a very weak "people have to be more responsible" line and no methodology of either making the people more responsible or preventing the irresponsible ones from getting weapons. I'd rather make them responsible on the tail-end of after the gun is gone because the front end is too much trouble and too many questionable lines to be drawn. The gun rights community seem to be able to offer no productive solutions to this problem of illegal weapons...only offer up a very adolescent resistance to any such measures to try to control the weapons that get into the hands of criminals.

While that argument has been brought up...even by the Supreme Court, it is clearly fallacious in light of historical records.

The Founding Fathers NEVER intended for there to be a PERMANENT standing army or military. The average citizen was to be the army...summoned when needed for defense. Hence, all citizens were to be free to keep and bear arms. The Founding Fathers saw a standing army as a tool of tyranny because it is under the authority of the president to be used at his discretion. Their model was to ensure the army came together as needed but composed of people not on the state's "payroll."

While the creation of a standing army was later adopted, if you could convince the Founding Fathers of its necessity, they would not have voted that only the state's soldiers could keep and bear arms. That was the very type of environment they had a revolution against.

Nope. They meant the people.

Every other time the phrase "The People" is used in the constitution, it refers to exactly that, THE PEOPLE. Are you suggesting that the founding fathers somehow forgot how to clearly write what they meant for just this one Amendment? Face it, the 2nd is an individual right, even the Supremes agree on that now, the rest is just determining how far that right extends.

There's so many aspects to guns because there's such a large market that has so many sub-genres. I have to wonder what the founding fathers would think of the modern gun market and if such a generalization would still fit today considering that weapons of the time weren't nearly as diverse and weren't as easily attainable as they are today. By that I mean price to income-wise...there weren't really gun collectors back then as there are today outside of the very affluent.

Edit: Let's not forget the basic fact that the shell casing for shotguns/rifles didn't come about until roughly 100 years after the penning of the constitution. The first revolver didn't come about until roughly 60 years (and those weren't nearly as reliable or accurate).

Edit again: changed "6 shooter" to "revolver" since I'm not sure how many bullets it held.

Last edited by skafather84 on 07 Oct 2009, 2:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I'm not really into any kind of protesting, I don't think it's an effective tool at getting a message out, and since you can't really control who shows up, you'll often be judged by the worst elements that cause problems. A personal case in point would be the 1999 WTO protests here in Seattle, most people didn't care what the majority of the protesters were here for, all they saw was those morons in the black bandannas "fighting globalism" by smashing up Starbucks and looting Niketown. Though I may agree with some of the issues that the Tea Party protests are raising, I wouldn't go to one simply because I don't want to be seen as supporting the bigoted and buffoonish fringe element that seems to be drawn to such events, and I think my voice can be more effective elsewhere, such as raising awareness that not all of us gun people belong to said fringe element. In other words, just because you don't see people with guns protesting things you think of as meaningful, that doesn't mean that we aren't involved somewhere, perhaps just not so visibly.