Debate about Gun Control

[Odin]

(06-16-2016, 01:22 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: The gun advocates claim that gun control is prohibition.

I have no issue with sensible regulation of guns, like most of Obama's proposals. The problem is that every time there is a mass shooting there is a call from people like you for a confiscation of guns like in Australia and so there is a fear that sensible proposals like Obama's are a mere Trojan horse for eventual confiscation.

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-16-2016, 06:14 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(06-15-2016, 04:21 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Problem is we have a right to self defense here.  We have a Constitution that makes it very difficult to strip folk of their rights and a very divided electorate.  

That is not the issue.  Rights are not absolute.  Your free speech rights does not give you the right to commit libel.  Your right to bear arms does not give you the right the bear ANY kind of arms, for example WMDs  In fact machine guns were banned 80 years ago and based on a quick search it appears nobody has brought this matter to the Supreme Court.  As far as I can tell the argument is that one does not need a WMD or even a machine gun to provide self protection.  Similar arguments could be made for tanks, flamethrowers, rpgs and most military arms of the present day or recent past.  Even today self-defense efforts typically employ weapons of much smaller firepower (see Table 11) than the large-magazine semiautomatic weapons often used in mass-casualty shootings.  When I see a police officer on duty he/she is typically armed with a pistol, not something like this.

I think it is pretty clear than if both parties decided they wanted to ban "assault weapons" the courts would have no problem upholding the constitutionality of this ban.  The Second Amendment is no barrier to gun control.  Politics is.  The US is being increasingly drenched in guns because the Republican party sees fit to focus on the rights of owners and makers of guns.  Similarly the US is being drenched with sexual politics (e.g. the silly campus antics discussed elsewhere on this site) because the Democratic party sees fit to focus on the rights of sexual deviants.

In both cases this serves to distract Americans from other issues, which elites would prefer they not focus on.

To many, the right to self defense is the issue.  Because you may not think it important does not imply others do not.

To many, the notion that rights are not absolute seems to imply that rights should have no legal power if exercise of said rights opposes their personal values.  This is not the case.  There are well known principles that specify when rights can be and must be curtailed.  The primary example came from Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes Jr.  No right allows one to harm others.  Your example of libel laws is classic.  If one uses speech to harm another, or uses a gun to harm another, the Bill of Rights provides no legal protection.  The 2nd Amendment does not strike down murder laws.  Never has, even before Holmes.  On the other hand, in the eyes of many, exercising one's right to own and carry arms, a right of self defense, does not cause harm.  What causes harm is gun prohibitions, removing the right to self defense, as was done in Orlando.

You seem also ignorant of US v. Miller.  Existing Supreme Court precedent states the weapons most explicitly protected by the 2nd Amendment are modern military weapons...  which would be assault rifles in modern times.  If one reads the writings of the Founding Fathers one discovers the Miller decision is correct in that respect.  This does not imply a modern court will put Rule of Law and the intent of the authors ahead of modern political fashion, but you should not blithely assume the justices will ignore their oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.

Because you do not give a (expletive deleted) about the rights of those whose values conflict with yours does not imply that no one cares.  Equality and the suppression of harassment and prejudice is important to some.  For them it is not a question of a distraction, though some politicians do indeed treat it as such. 

You are making statements reflecting your personal values as if they are absolute truths.  You should know better.

[Odin]

Here's a good post on Democratic Underground about the absurdity of the gun debate and the term "assault weapon".




These are functionally the exact same gun and yet only the top one is an evil "assault weapon".

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-16-2016, 01:22 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: The National Guard is never sent abroad. It is used to quell domestic disturbances and meet emergencies here at home. Where does Bob get this stuff?

Most recently, the National Guard was used and over used in Iraq during Bush 43's war.  For a while in Massachusetts, whenever a National Guard unit returned from deployment, local press coverage would be there to show hugs between those long parted.  It made for a nice feel good news clip.  

There was a controversy that the National Guard was over used.  Bush 43 did not deploy sufficient troops to quell the insurrection.  There is a well known guesstimate on how many boots on the ground are required.  Bush 43 invaded knowing that Iraq was too well populated for him to quell an insurrection.  He couldn't reach the required troop levels without increasing taxes and the size of the Army, Marines and reserves.  To come as close as possible to the necessary troop level he turned around the National Guard units as fast as he could.  Too fast in the opinion of many.

In short, I get this stuff by being aware of current events, as well as by being familiar with how gun policy has evolved over the years.

You ought to try it.

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-16-2016, 07:53 AM)Odin Wrote: Here's a good post on Democratic Underground about the absurdity of the gun debate and the term "assault weapon".




These are functionally the exact same gun and yet only the top one is an evil "assault weapon".

In general I'm with you, but there are some features on the assault weapon that aren't really called for when the enemy isn't shooting back.  The lower gun is bolt action, resulting in a slower rate of fire.  It has no removable magazine, making it slower to reload, and making it impossible to shop for a larger magazine.  It has no bipod.  Is that a shock absorber on the back of the top weapon?  When hunting deer, does one worry about repeated impacts to the shoulder?

Some would argue, though, that potentially sometimes, when a civilian is using his weapon, the enemy is shooting back.

I recently watched a PBS town meeting where police use of military weapons and paramilitary tactics was discussed.  There is a policy where the US Military is encouraged to give or sell military gear to police forces.  This allegedly results in increasing the use of military tactics.  If one has probable cause that someone is growing pot in their home, does one enter the home in the middle of the night using battering rams, flash bang grenades and automatic weapons?  What happens when the flash bang lands in a cradle?  Does one expect someone woken up from a sound sleep to understand the situation and respond perfectly?  A strong case was made that too many jurisdictions are using excess force resulting in unnecessary loss of life.

But one point was made.  One reason the police are taking military weapons is cost.  Higher end civilian weapons are higher quality and better made than military stuff, but the military is giving away surplus.  Most cops would prefer an inconspicuous SUV to a military monster truck, but the budget says take the military stuff.

In the above pictures, note the metal stamped parts on the black gun, and the fancy woodwork on the civilian gun.

While the two guns above aren't really compatible models, if one is willing to put down the extra money there are civilian models that are quality wise better weapons without copying the mass produced el-cheapo but perhaps fashionable military style.

[playwrite]

(06-13-2016, 07:17 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-13-2016, 12:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

This is an interesting cartoon, though it can be revealing in more than one way.  We have two cultures who view two issues very differently.  Should an interventionist government do everything in its power to preserve lives?  Or is it a question of basic rights where the individual should make their own choices without government interference?

I don't think I need to reprise how intensely people will cleave to values issues like these.  Minds aren't apt to be changed.  Personally, I'm with the right to choose on these two.  This doesn't mean I don't favor restricting the criminal or insane on the gun issue.  It also doesn't mean I can't entirely understand how people with opposite viewpoints can disagree quite sincerely and intensely.

I am not one to take part in the latest fashion to call any interventionist government that takes action to curtail the rights of the people authoritarian or fascist.  A lot of people are deeply concerned for good reason with both sides of both issues.  It is easy to see how governments can and must both protect the people and protect people's freedom.

But it is very human, once one embraces one side of an issue, to be unable to comprehend the other.

Comparing a woman's choice of what to do with her own body to a guy being allowed to buy a WMD to massacre dozens of people???

Weird framing.

[playwrite]

(06-13-2016, 09:29 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-13-2016, 07:49 PM)Mikebert Wrote: Not mentioned is the question of prudence. 

The position of a strong 2nd Amendment supporter is that the shooter had the right to purchase powerful weapons.  He has the right to caress his weapons and fantasize about shooting a roomful of faggots.  He has the right to carry them into gay nightclub. 

They support this even though they know that someone in this situation is prone to use his weapons, resulting in the deaths of innocent people.

On the other hand, the same people deny the right of a people (e.g. Iran) to acquire or have powerful weapons because they fear they may use them, resulting in the deaths of innocent people.

How does one justify these two contradictory positions?  I think the answer lies in proportionality or scale.  Does the right of a potentially irrational sovereign nation/individual to be able bear powerful arms outweigh the threat of deaths of innocent people from the inappropriate use of such powerful arms?

Good questions.  I hope you aren't expecting easy answers?

One factor not to be forgotten is biases related to world view.  It is obvious that people that share one's own world view and values deserve freedom, deserve to have their rights protected, are justified in supporting and extending their values.  However, someone with opposing world views and values ought to be contained and rendered harmless by powerful government.  We can talk in abstract about where the line should be drawn between freedom protecting rights and life protecting enforcement.  Moving from the abstract to the specific gets harder.  

In the United States there are all sorts of precedents set on what one has to do before stripping people of Bill of Rights protections.  They involve things like proof beyond reasonable doubt and juries of one's peers.  It is easy to suggest that traditional law should not apply if someone puts an anti-gay or anti-anything rant on a Facebook page.  With benefit of 20 20 hindsight, one can work one's self into a full out rage that the government didn't step in.  Do we throw away the Constitution and centuries of precedent in order to mess up the life of anyone who posts something politically incorrect on his Facebook page?  

I'm all for denying weapons to the criminal and the insane, but 20 20 hindsight is useless as a preventative tool.  People are upset that the FBI had identified this guy as a potential threat, but hadn't achieved a degree of evidence that could be considered actionable.  Do you have a good solid idea what degree of evidence ought to be actionable?  Can this idea be made compatible with the traditional US legal system?  Asking impossible questions isn't a bad thing.  Proposing a specific solution might make for a more interesting conversation.

As for Iran and other states that might be interested in large scale killing...  Different question on a different scale.  We tend to believe western nations can be trusted with impressive armaments as we haven't abused them.  We are fighting for things like rights, freedom, and the privilege of major corporations to rape foreign culture for profits, which is OK.  (Well...   Sorta...  Maybe...)  I can quite understand how other cultures who were victims of colonial imperialism have quite different perspective on western values and the difference between what the West says and what they end up doing to those they oppress.  I can quite understand how a people or a government can be dubious about Western promises and goals while wishing for armaments compatible to the Wests so their own religious values (obviously superior from their perspective) have a chance.

But do I feel warm and comfortable about a nation that has sworn to destroy Israel having nukes?  No way.  The fallout will come down everywhere.

If one is interested in understanding another culture's world view, it is possible to do so.  Understanding is not the same as finding common ground.  For the west to cease and desist abhorrent behaviors practiced regularly in the past might be a start.  However, these were practice long enough and persistently enough that deeply set prejudices about western behavior and lack of morality aren't going away any time soon.  I am not by any means a big fan of radical Islam.  Their actions bring much suffering, more to their own people than to foreigners.  They are fighting the tide of history and losing badly.  Still, I don't find it hard to understand where they are coming from or expect them to discover better alternatives any time soon.

I suppose we could step back and have a fine abstract idealistic discussion about how differences might be resolved if everyone weren't locked into values created by years and years of history.  Alas, the results of such a conversation won't much apply to solving problems in the real world.

Specific suggestions might be appreciated.  The devil lies in reality.

When you pull back the word-salad of "values lock,"  the translation here is -

'me like guns, me keep guns'

Much more efficient.

[playwrite]

(06-14-2016, 01:53 AM)taramarie Wrote:

(06-13-2016, 11:41 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I have predicted that these horrible, ridiculous massacres would continue and get worse as long as people continue with these silly arguments about bans not working and so on. My prediction has come true, over and over again. So, I make it again. When will people in America drop their illusions and the gun fetish? "How many deaths does it take till he knows, that too many people have died?" This is one mixed up, crazy country. Look who's running for president. Look who controls congress. Look at who congress listens to: the NRA. Case closed; this country is too mentally ill to be trusted with gun ownership. The USA fails its background check. Big time.

While I am not a gun owner nor have any desire to own one I have to say historically bans do not work.

Then explain Austrilia.

Quote:Obama I believe is not for banning them. Just for tighter regulation. I have seen a video of him saying so so that is where I get that notion from. I believe though you sound like you are for banning them. It will never happen. That is the failure here. The failure to see that reality. If you take them away, say hello to the next civil war matey. THEN real bloodshed will really begin.

The slippery slope to absolute gun banning is a ploy used by gun advocates to get foaming at the mouth - see the term "circle jerk."

[playwrite]

(06-14-2016, 08:00 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-13-2016, 11:20 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Well let's see; Obama and Hillary both commented on the shooting that there's a great need for gun control and an assault weapons ban. Now, that's "news." It certainly was on the news. Here in CA, our legislature is moving. Now, when will some posters here start to move in response to the reality?

California does have it's toes in the legal side now.  They have court rulings that it is not unreasonable to regulate concealed carry to the point that there is effectively a ban on concealed carry.  They have another ruling that it is not unreasonable to regulate open carry to the point that there is effectively a ban on open carry.  I can sort of see how either of these arguments are plausible.  However, if neither form is allowed, there is a problem.  The dissent on the open carry case pointed this out.  While neither set of regulations alone are unconstitutional, CA gun regulation as a whole is another matter.

The court system works slowly.  We'll see how things flow.

Yep, glad to see you catch on.  And with a newly minted SCOTUS, it will stick.  Too bad for your certitude of what the Constitution means for all things ammosexual.

[playwrite]

(06-15-2016, 04:21 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-15-2016, 03:10 PM)taramarie Wrote: Agree with Eric here. Until America decides to change it will get the same results. It makes me glad i live in a country with tight regulations on guns and guns designed for mass kills are banned here as well as the fact it is illegal to carry a gun or any weapon on you. Take a lesson from other countries America. It won't hurt you to learn from others every so often. England is another prime example so I hear.

 
Problem is we have a right to self defense here.  We have a Constitution that makes it very difficult to strip folk of their rights and a very divided electorate.  When Eric is on his meds he is aware that he isn't going to get his daydreams manifest any time soon.

It would be much easier legal wise to allow the right to self defense work.  Right now we're stuck between two world views.  Prohibition is illegal and impossible to enforce, but the blue folk are stubborn enough to keep pushing it anyway.  In Orlando, they created enough of a no-self-defense zone for a bunch of people to die.

Insane, but apt to continue.

The only reason people, including the police, need high velocity, high capacity assault weapons is because other people have high velocity, high capacity assault weapons.  To believe otherwise is insane.

[playwrite]

(06-15-2016, 04:34 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-14-2016, 09:33 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The Second Amendment provides for states to have their own militias (National Guard, state police). Possession of firearms in a way contrary to the "well-regulated militia" does not mean the right to bear arms if one would be rejected from being a member of the militia due to some gross turpitude (such as a criminal conviction or membership in a criminal organization like ISIS or MS-13) or incompetence (lunacy, idiocy, addiction, habitual drunkenness). Military service can be a civic duty, but it usually implies some hardships. Enlistment in the Armed Services or even in reserve units may be attractive, but it does not give one more freedom. One obviously has certain responsibilities attached to any 'militia' weapon. Likewise, join a police force (even if the job has such attractions as good pay and a spiffy uniform) and recognize that the job entails some significant control of one's life.

Your ability to blather away while remaining ever so ignorant of the basics is amazing.  The National Guard is paid and was organized by Teddy Roosevelt as a standing army so it can be sent abroad.  It is not the militia.  The militia can be used by the Feds to enforce laws, suppress insurrections and repel invasions, but not to go abroad.  The state police is also paid.  By the standards of the revolutionary era, the would be paid for by the government and thus assumed to be under the influence and control of the government.  Thus they are organized under very different statutes than the militia.

The militia is all adult males.  It was assumed that the security of a free state required that they be armed and trained.  Security included defending one's self and one's community from everything from hostile natives to criminals.  The laws were written accordingly.

You are also still sticking with the Jim Crow interpretation of the 2nd, invented by bigots and rejected along with the rest of the Jim Crow precedents by modern courts.

It is dull and tedious to keep correcting your deliberate ignorance, but I'll keep doing it.

I'd be fine with your bringing up the dull and tedious argument about Jim Crow interpretations of the 2nd, if we go back to the gun technology used back in the 19th Century for what could be legal to own today.  Yeesh.

[playwrite]

(06-15-2016, 04:40 PM)taramarie Wrote:

(06-15-2016, 04:21 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-15-2016, 03:10 PM)taramarie Wrote: Agree with Eric here. Until America decides to change it will get the same results. It makes me glad i live in a country with tight regulations on guns and guns designed for mass kills are banned here as well as the fact it is illegal to carry a gun or any weapon on you. Take a lesson from other countries America. It won't hurt you to learn from others every so often. England is another prime example so I hear.

 
Problem is we have a right to self defense here.  We have a Constitution that makes it very difficult to strip folk of their rights and a very divided electorate.  When Eric is on his meds he is aware that he isn't going to get his daydreams manifest any time soon.

It would be much easier legal wise to allow the right to self defense work.  Right now we're stuck between two world views.  Prohibition is illegal and impossible to enforce, but the blue folk are stubborn enough to keep pushing it anyway.  In Orlando, they created enough of a no-self-defense zone for a bunch of people to die.

Insane, but apt to continue.

Not against  self defense. Just against autos and semi autos for obvious reasons. Of course Eric will not get his wish. I wonder if he is against all kinds of guns. That will never happen and shouldn't either. I also agree to other methods too which you have mentioned. But there is no need for a gun designed for over kill if it is for self defense.

You mentioned something about stating opinions that perhaps are not fact-based.  Good for you, very few are willing to admit that.

Just want to point out some things to you;  similar to my earlier pointing out that the slippery slope of absolute gun bans is really just ammosexual masturbation for group self-identification - it's the foaming at the mouth that does it for them.

The stated difference used by the ammosexuals to distinguish a 'military assault rifle' from the 'sport rifle' obtained and used to kill dozens by Mateen in Orlando and by Lanza at Sandy Hook is that the former is "automatic" and the latter is only "semi-automatic."  The hope of the ammosexuals is that non-ammosexuals will assume that there is some actual difference in lethality between the two weapons.  The problem is that there are non-ammosexuals, like myself, that are pretty familiar with weapon platforms of both civilian and military source.  There is no difference.

The two key, and most important, similarities are the muzzle speeds (how fast the bullet travels down range) and capacity (how many bullets you can shoot before you have to take time to reload the weapon). 

ARs have tremendously high muzzle speeds and that gives them deadly accuracy down range.  A US Marine has to qualify at 300 meters but is expected to be deadly at 500 meters with his M16 - there's no difference with the AR15 readily available to the public.   Ask a Marine to try that with a pistol or revolver, and you might witness something rare.... a tear.  Oh, and that kind of firepower makes hiding behind a wall, a car, or even level 2 body armour pretty much ridiculous. 

Then there's capacity.  It takes just seconds to reload, but in those seconds, targets can move - either getting away or trying to tackle the shooter before he can reload.  And it's not just the manual time to reload, but guns get hot, and it begins to impact performance including just shutting down its ability to fire.  ARs, both civilian and military, are designed to address that limitation, but only up to a point.  Even Marines are trained to keep their weapons, in combat, off auto - for a few reasons, semi-auto is more accurate, keeps the gun cool enough, and better kill-to-ammo ratios.

Oh, and for less than $150, one can make their AR15 essentially, full auto -






So next time you hear someone going off that ARs are just sport rifle because they are not automatic, you'll know you are either talking to someone who is as all-things-guns ignorant as yourself or just another ammosexual making masturbation noises.

[Eric the Green]

I am against all kinds of guns, but that's like me saying I am against all war. It's an ideal, but not something likely to happen in my lifetime, nor something to enforce until most of the people (including most gun owners) want it.

Now, where are those meds?

(I am holistic; I normally don't do meds)

Gun control is directly on the ballot this year. The Republican House refuses even to prohibit terrorists, even those on airplanes, from having assault weapons. If you want this lunacy to continue, vote Republican. And the Supreme Court is directly on the ballot in the presidential and senate races.

[pbrower2a]

(06-16-2016, 11:32 AM)playwrite Wrote:

(06-15-2016, 04:21 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-15-2016, 03:10 PM)taramarie Wrote: Agree with Eric here. Until America decides to change it will get the same results. It makes me glad i live in a country with tight regulations on guns and guns designed for mass kills are banned here as well as the fact it is illegal to carry a gun or any weapon on you. Take a lesson from other countries America. It won't hurt you to learn from others every so often. England is another prime example so I hear.

 
Problem is we have a right to self defense here.  We have a Constitution that makes it very difficult to strip folk of their rights and a very divided electorate.  When Eric is on his meds he is aware that he isn't going to get his daydreams manifest any time soon.

It would be much easier legal wise to allow the right to self defense work.  Right now we're stuck between two world views.  Prohibition is illegal and impossible to enforce, but the blue folk are stubborn enough to keep pushing it anyway.  In Orlando, they created enough of a no-self-defense zone for a bunch of people to die.

Insane, but apt to continue.

The only reason people, including the police, need high velocity, high capacity assault weapons is because other people have high velocity, high capacity assault weapons.  To believe otherwise is insane.

It's the Second Amendment that itself has become obsolete because it contains no non-discrimination clause and gives the states no right to regulate whether firearms can be brought into the state, as from states with lax gun laws to states with stringent laws on the books.

Does one really have a God-given right to buy a firearm in Virginia for use i New York when the laws of New York prohibit one from buying a firearm in New York?

[playwrite]

(06-16-2016, 03:22 AM)Galen Wrote:

(06-14-2016, 09:33 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(06-14-2016, 02:26 AM)Galen Wrote:

(06-14-2016, 02:18 AM)taramarie Wrote:

(06-14-2016, 02:13 AM)Galen Wrote: For a kiwi you have a better feel for the state of the US then many people who live here.  I am pretty sure that Obozo does want a ban but he knows he isn't getting one, being a lame duck president.  Obama is a liar just like almost all politicians but that is a function of people not wanting to face the truth.  Eric the Obtuse is an extreme case of this sort of willful ignorance and would almost certainly be one of the early casualties.

You might want to take a closer look into the shooter's background.  There are a number of things about this that don't smell right.  In any event there are no laws that are going to catch a guy with a squeaky clean record who suddenly goes off the rails.

Yes while i was typing out my response i was actually thinking Obama says one thing but may be wanting to do something else. I distrust politicians and as i have said elsewhere politicians 99% of the time are telling sweet lies for power. I felt like mentioning that but just going by what i have seen. My thoughts are primarily what i am thinking which may not be based on fact.

Someone who just wants to tweak the laws a bit wouldn't keep harping on the subject so much.  I always like to pay more attention to what they do than what they say.  It is one of my many tricks for spotting lies.

The Second Amendment provides for states to have their own militias (National Guard, state police).

You might want to look at what an English professor has to say on the language of the Second Amendment.  If you had bothered to understand the history of the American Revolution then you would know that it was about making sure that the new government would not have a monopoly on the use of force.  Thomas Jefferson was very clear about the purpose of the Second Amendment.  It was about the individual being able to defend themselves from the random criminal and an oppressive government.  This implies that the citizens must have arms equivalent to the infantry.

And what is really bizarre about that notion is you and your militia buddies would last about 3 minutes against a platoon of Army troops, much less against a couple of Marines.  This isn't the late 1700s.

[playwrite]

(06-16-2016, 07:50 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-16-2016, 06:14 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(06-15-2016, 04:21 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Problem is we have a right to self defense here.  We have a Constitution that makes it very difficult to strip folk of their rights and a very divided electorate.  

That is not the issue.  Rights are not absolute.  Your free speech rights does not give you the right to commit libel.  Your right to bear arms does not give you the right the bear ANY kind of arms, for example WMDs  In fact machine guns were banned 80 years ago and based on a quick search it appears nobody has brought this matter to the Supreme Court.  As far as I can tell the argument is that one does not need a WMD or even a machine gun to provide self protection.  Similar arguments could be made for tanks, flamethrowers, rpgs and most military arms of the present day or recent past.  Even today self-defense efforts typically employ weapons of much smaller firepower (see Table 11) than the large-magazine semiautomatic weapons often used in mass-casualty shootings.  When I see a police officer on duty he/she is typically armed with a pistol, not something like this.

I think it is pretty clear than if both parties decided they wanted to ban "assault weapons" the courts would have no problem upholding the constitutionality of this ban.  The Second Amendment is no barrier to gun control.  Politics is.  The US is being increasingly drenched in guns because the Republican party sees fit to focus on the rights of owners and makers of guns.  Similarly the US is being drenched with sexual politics (e.g. the silly campus antics discussed elsewhere on this site) because the Democratic party sees fit to focus on the rights of sexual deviants.

In both cases this serves to distract Americans from other issues, which elites would prefer they not focus on.

To many, the right to self defense is the issue.  Because you may not think it important does not imply others do not.

To many, the notion that rights are not absolute seems to imply that rights should have no legal power if exercise of said rights opposes their personal values.  This is not the case.  There are well known principles that specify when rights can be and must be curtailed.  The primary example came from Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes Jr.  No right allows one to harm others.  Your example of libel laws is classic.  If one uses speech to harm another, or uses a gun to harm another, the Bill of Rights provides no legal protection.  The 2nd Amendment does not strike down murder laws.  Never has, even before Holmes.  On the other hand, in the eyes of many, exercising one's right to own and carry arms, a right of self defense, does not cause harm.  What causes harm is gun prohibitions, removing the right to self defense, as was done in Orlando.

You seem also ignorant of US v. Miller.  Existing Supreme Court precedent states the weapons most explicitly protected by the 2nd Amendment are modern military weapons...  which would be assault rifles in modern times.  If one reads the writings of the Founding Fathers one discovers the Miller decision is correct in that respect.  This does not imply a modern court will put Rule of Law and the intent of the authors ahead of modern political fashion, but you should not blithely assume the justices will ignore their oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.

Because you do not give a (expletive deleted) about the rights of those whose values conflict with yours does not imply that no one cares.  Equality and the suppression of harassment and prejudice is important to some.  For them it is not a question of a distraction, though some politicians do indeed treat it as such. 

You are making statements reflecting your personal values as if they are absolute truths.  You should know better.

Keep you value locks, your view of rights, your own interpretation of the Constitution, whatever.

And we're not here to change your mind.

We're here to defeat you and put your ammosexual viewpoints in history's trash can where it belongs.  It's coming.

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-16-2016, 12:16 PM)playwrite Wrote: So next time you hear someone going off on ARs are just sport rifle because they are not automatic, you'll know you are either talking to someone who is as all-things-guns ignorant as yourself or just another ammosexual making masturbation noises.

Hey, I'm not the one who keeps confusing his sexual hang ups with his weapons.

On toast 26 above, Odin showed two weapons, declaring...  "These are functionally the exact same gun and yet only the top one is an evil "assault weapon"."  On post 28 I corrected him.  There are big differences between the weapons in his two pictures.  While I don't use the term 'sporting rifle', the bottom illustration seems to fit the description?  I think I can tell the difference?

It's not just your obsession with involving sex in gun policy discussion, not just your deliberate ignorance of the law, but you don't bother to read or comprehend what people who disagree with you are saying.  It's impossible to hold a conversation with someone with a closed mind.

[Eric the Green]

(06-16-2016, 07:17 AM)Odin Wrote:

(06-16-2016, 01:22 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: The gun advocates claim that gun control is prohibition.

I have no issue with sensible regulation of guns, like most of Obama's proposals. The problem is that every time there is a mass shooting there is a call from people like you for a confiscation of guns like in Australia and so there is a fear that sensible proposals like Obama's are a mere Trojan horse for eventual confiscation.

Some may not read my remarks carefully enough to hear what I am saying. Nothing new there. As Obama says, I am in favor of banning assault weapons (and let's make sure it's permanent this time, so it doesn't go away just because the people get easily impatient with a Democratic president). I am not for confiscation in most cases, as that would likely be violence against gun owners; rather unproductive and contradictory. Liberals don't want to invade Danilynn's house and shoot her in order to take her weapons away, on the assumption that she might someday shoot people.

I don't know of any "people like me" calling for confiscation of guns (except perhaps in extreme cases). Do you? Perhaps you can quote or cite.

I'm not real sure just what the law is in Austrailia, but it's working I know that.

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-16-2016, 12:31 PM)playwrite Wrote: We're here to defeat you and put your ammosexual viewpoints in history's trash can where it belongs.  It's coming.

While it is not explicitly enumerated in the Bill of Rights, in practice you have a right to daydream. I shan't try to deny you that.

[Eric the Green]

(06-16-2016, 12:44 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-16-2016, 12:31 PM)playwrite Wrote: We're here to defeat you and put your ammosexual viewpoints in history's trash can where it belongs.  It's coming.

While it is not explicitly enumerated in the Bill of Rights, in practice you have a right to daydream. I shan't try to deny you that.

Even if you did try, fortunately it would not deter Justin Bieber