Bump stock ban signed into law in New Jersey

[nebraska]

Bump stock ban signed into law in New Jersey

https://www.chron.com/news/crime/article...499252.php

[Bob Butler 1954]

Well, bump stocks are not used by the military.  The fully automatic weapons used by the military don't need bump stocks.  Thus, a sovereign state can ban such by a Supreme Court precident which many wish doesn't exist.  (If they admitted the precedent exists, the fully automatic weapons the military use are protected under the 2nd Amendment.)

Some extreme libertarians promote freedom to the extent that a citizen's ability to do something cannot be restricted by the government.  The government assumes the majority under representative government can impose their will on any minority.  Thus, regulation.  At best, regulation promotes the general welfare at the cost of limiting freedom to take any action, to own any object.  At best, regulation prevents common abuses, practices commonly practiced by criminals and the elite.

In general, I approve of regulation as it exists, but regulation can and has been over done or abused.  Representative legislatures were the best the founding fathers could do given technology at the time.  Direct vote democracy using the Internet is now possible, and perhaps necessary, if only as a veto at first.  Yes, arguably, the People are not ready fully.   Still, it seems better to try advocating direct democracy than bind with extreme libertarians.

[David Horn]

(01-18-2018, 02:43 PM)Bob Butler 1954 Wrote: Well, bump stocks are not used by the military.  The fully automatic weapons used by the military don't need bump stocks.  Thus, a sovereign state can ban such by a Supreme Court precident which many wish doesn't exist.  (If they admitted the precedent exists, the fully automatic weapons the military use are protected under the 2nd Amendment.)

Some extreme libertarians promote freedom to the extent that a citizen's ability to do something cannot be restricted by the government.  The government assumes the majority under representative government can impose their will on any minority.  Thus, regulation.  At best, regulation promotes the general welfare at the cost of limiting freedom to take any action, to own any object.  At best, regulation prevents common abuses, practices commonly practiced by criminals and the elite.

In general, I approve of regulation as it exists, but regulation can and has been over done or abused.  Representative legislatures were the best the founding fathers could do given technology at the time.  Direct vote democracy using the Internet is now possible, and perhaps necessary, if only as a veto at first.  Yes, arguably, the People are not ready fully.   Still, it seems better to try advocating direct democracy than bind with extreme libertarians.

If you factor in the effects of wide-open corruption due to wide-open political funding, we might be better served by professional civil servants than any cluster of politicians.  Here in Virginia, the biggest campaign contributors to state government pols are the two large public utilities.  Surprise!  In 2015 they managed to get the General Assembly to wrench control of rate setting from the State Corporation Commission, and vest in in the legislature.  Immediately, the pols voted to freeze electric rates and keep them frozen, even though the basis for those rates has gone down ever since.  The estimated loss to rate payers: ~$500 Million.

Direct vote should be better than that, but don't give up on the larcenous to find a way to profit on that as well.

[Bob Butler 54]

That just illustrates how companies and representative democracy can exploit public funds. I agree direct vote is not an instant cure all, but it ought to make for an improvement.

[nebraska]

Anarchy—it’s not the law, it’s just a good idea.

[David Horn]

(01-18-2018, 04:10 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: That just illustrates how companies and representative democracy can exploit public funds.  I agree direct vote is not an instant cure all, but it ought to make for an improvement.

To make direct democracy work, you need a knowledgeable electorate, and that's not a given by any means.  We live in an era where propaganda gets equal treatment with fact-based reporting, so anyone susceptible to being influenced by nonsense is easily swayed and rarely corrected.  I fear it will get worse before it gets better, so representative democracy, as flawed as it is, may be our best option for now.

[nebraska]

Democracy has proved only that the best way to gain power over people is to assure the people that they are ruling themselves. Once they believe that, they make wonderfully submissive slaves.

[pbrower2a]

(01-19-2018, 12:17 PM)nebraska Wrote: Democracy has proved only that the best way to gain power over people is to assure the people that they are ruling themselves. Once they believe that, they make wonderfully submissive slaves.

Let me try to make sense of this. First, democracy means more than majority votes (after all, lynch mobs make their judgment on the basis of majority votes, and that the Kim dynasty in the DPRK can win elections in which the dominant party gets 100% of eligible people to vote and 100% voting as they are expected to vote ) and the claim of freedom (which explains why so many 'liberation fronts' have proved themselves engines of subjection, and how even Hitler could say that he was for freedom).

Liberal democracy implies civil liberties, free and competitive elections, and the rule of law. The absence of any one of those implies something other than democracy. A slave system is not a democracy even if the leaders (as in the Confederate States of America) speak glowingly of the freedom... of the masters. A system in which one's vote is directed in a certain way or in which one has no meaningful alternatives is a sham of a democracy. Absence of the rule of law implies either anarchy, despotism, or gangster rule. If your conscience can get you killed you are not in a democracy.

Can people believe that they are free if they live under a tyrant? Certainly! A combination of isolation and propaganda can make such possible. But most likely people know the difference between liberty and tyranny. In tyranny there are no alternatives, or the nominal opposition is under control of the dominant Party.  By the 1980s about everyone in the Communist bloc knew that they were living under some form of dictatorship. Can one have the illusion that one lives under a dictatorial regime when one is in fact living in a well-defined democracy? Only if there is ambiguity about the situation.

[nebraska]

The usual road to slavery is that first they take away your guns, then they take away your property, then last of all they tell you to shut up and say you are enjoying it.

[pbrower2a]

A bump stock is a device to turn an 'ordinary' firearm into a tool for a massacre. There is no element of self defense in it.

[nebraska]

Does anyone get the feeling that anyone supporting the police state now is a paid NSA shill?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2...l-networks

[David Horn]

(01-20-2018, 09:14 AM)nebraska Wrote: Does anyone get the feeling that anyone supporting the police state now is a paid NSA shill?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2...l-networks

No, but apparently the NRA is a paid Russian shill.

[pbrower2a]

(01-20-2018, 10:55 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-20-2018, 09:14 AM)nebraska Wrote: Does anyone get the feeling that anyone supporting the police state now is a paid NSA shill?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2...l-networks

No, but apparently the NRA is a paid Russian shill.

Oh, the Narodnii Rifle Association?

[nebraska]

Why would Russia try to increase freedom in the USA?

[pbrower2a]

Oh, mass possession of firearms is the definitive measure of freedom?

There was more freedom to own a firearm in the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union than there was in Britain under Thatcher. Germany today has practically no right to bear arms -- but Nazi Germany was awash in privately-owned guns.

Some Nazi was once cited as saying "When I hear the word culture I reach for my revolver".

Revolutionaries who eventually become the essence of subsequent authoritarian regimes typically stockpile firearms for themselves.

[nebraska]

After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.

http://f2bbs.com/bbs