The Supreme Court May Finally Do Something Right!
 

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...8.story?page=1

I'm happy that they will be ruling in favor of individual rights over government powers for a change (as they are supposed to do), though I take umbrage at the claim that the government has the authority to place "reasonable restrictions" on those rights. No governmental restriction of our rights is reasonable. The only valid limitation on our rights is the equal rights of others.

The people have an unlimited right to have any weapon they can honestly acquire, in any number, with any type of ammunition.

Merely owning a gun or a million guns does nothing to endanger others. Owning a fully automatic machine gun does nothing to endanger others. Owning a nuke might, but if one can prove that they can store it safely and securely without any nuclear energy leaks, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to build one or have one.

Individual people have a right to own any weapon the government has, if not more.

The rights of others, yes. Vide Ringer's Paradox: A right restricted is a right preserved. It does not greatly matter who does the restricting, as long as the restriction is kept to the minimum necessary to preserve.

Yay for pocket nukes!!

That sounds like a reasonable restriction to me.

Damm, where does it say that? I want one.

The darn things will tear your pocket right off, though -- setting a new, and lower, sartorial standard. Heavy futhermuckers, particularly the uranium-cased ones.

It is both easy and well understood how to use a gun as designed and intended to be used in a moral fashion. But using a nuke for its designed and intended purpose in a moral fashion is ever so much harder.

Aerial bombs, high explosive shells, and armed guided missiles, ground- or air-launched, fall at various places in the middle of this spectrum.

Cogitate and discuss.

I'm struggling with the concept that the main danger of a nuclear weapon is that it might be contained under unsafe conditions. More troublesome, to me, would be the consequences if the device were used for it's only intended purpose.* I think it is a reasonable function of the government to regulate the possession of anything that could wipe out millions of people with the push of a button.

* Although I suppose one could use the argument that a possessing a nuclear weapon is a deterrent against the use of nuclear weapons. Thus the intended use could be construed as "to prevent my neighbor from using his against me" ...but somehow that doesn't sound like a safe situuation to me.

Well MAD has seemed to work to this point. I suspect we are going to see a renewed sense of uneasiness as Iran gets the bomb given that their govenment has gone on record as threatening Israel with destruction.

Maybe that's why those gangbangers have their pants hanging off their butts?

I always thought it might make them easier to take down in a foot pursuit and arrest. So far though that's not as well documented as the guy with the flashing sneakers that tried to run away from the cops across a darkened field. His feet would have had to flash a lot faster than they did.

I hold the same misgivings Flint does, and agree with Merc too. It has worked, with nations anyway. You have to rejigger MAD to work on terrorist groups that don't have a nation to lose and are banking on massive revanchism if a terror-enabling nation gets nuked in retaliation. It would require destroying the terrorists before they can implement a nuke plot. Call it Unilateral Assured Destruction.

I have always said that until you treat them with the same ruthlessness that they have shown you be unable to change their behavior. Anywhere, anytime.

Blatant Devil's Advocate here, but, can you teach your kids not to hit people by spanking them?

Yes, of course: they get a chance to see how they like it.

That is a very poor comparison. First we love our children. Second I can reason with them. Third they are not trying to kill me, yet. :D

Comparing how you modify the behavior of your children with how to respond to violent acts of a terrorist is just a bit crazy.:headshake

Guerrilla, what if they expect to be spanked, or killed, and so resort to doing the spanking or killing themselves first, before they get themselves spanked or killed? Getting their licks first, so to speak. I said hooray for pocket nukes, because the pro-gunners can't even imagine the consequences of a no gun law society.

We lived in a no gun law society and it worked out pretty well. Only after the unconstitutional gun laws were created did criminals find it easier to victimize people they knew couldn't have one.

Also, it's not "pro-gunner", it's pro-freedom. Nobody is saying everyone must own a gun, just that you can't infringe on our right to own one of them or a million of them. Your desires are less important than our rights.

Db, actually, we can and we do, all the time. Ringer's Paradox, "A freedom restricted is a freedom preserved," gives us to expect there will be some circumscribing somewhere.

The varied iterations of liberalized private concealed carry, ranging from Vermont's no-permit-required to concealed carry license documents along with full faith and credit provisions, have all produced precipitous, permanent decline in violent crime. There seem to be many ways to make this work.

In the end the "pro-gunners" you speak of are the effectual, the genuine anti-crime and anti-genocide social force. In the former, the frankly stupid criminal is suppressed; in the latter, criminal action by the state becomes impractical -- they run out of Einsatzkommandos right quick. I like being against these evils and I like being in a position to do something about them!

A freedom restricted is a freedom violated. Restricting freedoms doesn't preserve them. It infringes upon them. The only legitimate restriction on our freedoms or rights are the equal rights of others.

No restriction on gun ownership is a reasonable one, and no restriction on gun ownership preserves it.

Radar, that, in just about so many words, was Ringer's entire point. Read Restoring the American Dream.

I've read it many times over the years and given copies out to friends. I may even have a signed copy. I reject the notion that a right restricted by government is a right preserved.

Funny that you've never grasped Ringer's point there in all those rereadings. I certainly did, in one.

Equal rights include the right to live, not merely surviving gun battle after gun battle as people of my city now have to do every day, thanks to the unchecked-by-feds transportation of guns from other states.

I'm afraid the Supreme Court decision will bring the US back to the early 90's, in terms of crime, gangs, and, you know, domestic terrorism.

You say unchecked by feds, I'll add unchecked by states. Why is that, when there are hundreds of laws on the books to stop illegal transportation and sales of guns?

Is it because they are afraid if they enforce those laws, the masses will realize the push to eliminate guns entirely, is nothing but a power grab by the government?

I say totally unchecked and unregulated gun ownership without any oversight or information shared with any level of government is the way to go.

Heck, if I could I'd make sure there were no serial numbers on any guns.

I want you to tell that to the mothers of the 15 children who died this year so far by gun violence in Brooklyn. In their neighborhoods, in front of their faces. I'm sure you are secure up in the mountain, or the so-called ivory tower where you live. The folks here in the cities frankly had had it with the pro-gun arguments and are about to all but dump all of the out-of-state gun collectors into the river, if they could.

You can't blame all actions by criminals with guns on all gun owners. Pro-gun establishment is tired of a liberal left wing argument that they are responsible for the actions of the 15 dead children. Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

I'd have no problem telling that right to the faces of their mothers during the funeral. In fact, not one person in the history of the planet earth has ever been killed by a gun. They were killed by the motherfucker holding it.

no - people with guns kill people

Some people need killin' [shrug] especially if they're shooting at kids.

That is what I said.

People with cars, motorcycles, bombs and drugs kill people.

People kill. The weapon they happen to be using is irrelevant.

Not really. Takes way more effort and skill to kill with a blade than with a gun. Much easier to kill accidentally with a gun as well.

yes but all of those things (except Bombs????) were are created for a beneficial purpose - Guns are designed to kill. That is their purpose.
I am not trying to get into this again - I own several guns - all used for trap/skeet shooting & on rare occasions hunting . They are safely kept where there will be no accidents. My children do not have access to them.

I've heard all the arguments, but still have a difficult time with the "need" to make assault weapons, and to some extent hand guns, available to the general public.

For me it just comes down to free choice. I have a number of "ugly guns", few people actually own true assault weapons. I collect military style arms from all eras because they are fun to shoot and collect. My main hunting rifle is a .303 Enfield. The only thing that is different is what they look like, not the round fired. To have a class 3 license, full auto rifle which technically is an assualt weapon, it is few and far between. We need to face the reality that guns are not going to go away and we need to find ways to enforce existing laws. I don't really want to restart this whole pissing contest again either. So I will just leave it at that.

Guns were not designed to kill. They were designed to defend and hopefully eliminate the need to kill. But even if they were designed to kill, they were designed to kill for food first and why they were designed is irrelevant. Knives were designed to cut food, but how many people have been killed by them. Should we outlaw knives? More kids are killed playing high school football than die from accidental gun shootings (There really is no such thing as an accidental gun shooting. There is only the irresponsibility of not acting safely), so should we outlaw high school football? or swimming pools? or automobiles? All of these things kill more than guns.

The fact remains that gun ownership is an individual right and no level of government has any authority whatsoever to regulate their ownership anymore than government has the authority to tell you how you must cut your hair.

So we let guys like Seung-Hui Cho have weapons, right Radar? All the guns from others in school wouldn't help, as he killed his 32 commando style.

And you must have been friends with guys like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. You'd think they did a great job cleaning their guns before they did what they did.

Radar - Guns are designed for one purpose only - to kill. There is no discussion nor debate on that, so please don't even try.
Also, I never said that I didn't respect the right to own guns. I even said that
I own SEVERAL myself.

I say let people own as many guns as they want. They can even carry them around out in the open as far as I'm concerned.

However, I think the bullits should be outlawed.

Guns don't kill people; bullits do.

Sheldon that's genius!

Gun grabbers have already tried that. It didn't work.

And too, if you harbor antigun opinions, you harbor pro-genocide opinions.

As you know, I don't. I think you shouldn't either.

*blinks* in what way do anti-gun opinions equate to pro-genocide opinions?

Yea, I'm thinking that is a bit of a reach. But I know where you are going with it.

If you're unwilling to defend yourself, that means you're willing to let other people wipe out entire populations?
Shenannigans!

I don't need a gun to defend myself....I pay taxes to ensure a police force and an army for that. Not wanting everybody to have the right to walk about armed to the teeth with lethal weaponry is not the same as not being willing to mount a defence when needed. I am pro gun control, but I am not a pacifist.

You can address that to UG, not to me.

You're right, I should have been more specifc. :redcard: on me.

Uh, no...bullets should cost 5000 dollars. Don't make me post the Chris Rock thing again. :D

Easy: the three reliably seen preconditions for a genocide are 1) hatred, however based; 2) the power of the State, either to give muscle to the haters or shield and sanction their activities; 3) gun-control laws, as these are the most efficient mechanism for disarming a population.

If you haven't disarmed a population, you can't practicably wipe them out, particularly in an internal pogrom. They'll shoot back, and you run out of Einsatzkommandos in short order. Maybe they run you out of the national capitol next.

Antigun opinions favor and encourage gun control laws. No gun control, no tyranny. No tyranny, genocide at worst drops to "mighty darn seldom." Nobody's going to call minimizing genocide a bad thing, least of all me.

Gun control laws are all about the disarming -- "you can't have this." Forbid or delegitimize armed self-defense and you eliminate any ability to rescue yourself from crimes by the State, genocides being perhaps the chiefest of criminal acts on a national scale. The record shows such laws are highly efficient at disarming people, and such laws are found in the legal corpuses of Nazi Germany, Ottoman Turkey, Communist China, Guatemala, Cambodia, and others. Damning, really.

Of the deadly three preconditions, hatred is... mighty hard to rid ourselves of. For better or for worse, the State isn't likely to wither away either -- and even worse from an antigenocide point of view, you can't look to another State to rescue you from the lethal intentions of your own. Not, at any rate, in time. It's happened, but how long did it take, and was there any coherent campaign to rescue or was it just incidental to conquering territory? You know the answer to that one. The state isn't a bulwark against genocides, particularly not when it is a necessary part of what makes one go.

What's needed instead is a vaccine against genocide. Gun bans are highly efficient at rendering people helpless before weaponry -- but laws banning guns are also the most vulnerable of the preconditions: they are subject to being wiped out at the stroke of the repealing legislative pen.

Consider too that genocides happen in secret, and that their victims do not see them coming -- they are ambushed. If they saw them coming, they'd take off, wouldn't they?

So it's really not that tough a logical leap to see "antigun opinion --> antigun legislation --> helplessness before violence --> crime by persons, without trouble, and crime by states, also without trouble: genocide."

Genocide being a nasty thing, you want to give it as much trouble as you possibly can, and only one way has been found that always works. The people must have fangs, claws, and the will to use them. Anything less -- well, it might work. Maybe. For a time.

But remember hatred doesn't go away -- it isn't momentary irritation. Remember how much hatred is completely irrational: are its possessors really anything other than like rabid dogs? Irrational haters are singularly unresponsive to the force of a good example, and notably rendered untroublesome after responding to the force of a well directed bullet. Given a choice between submitting to murder and using a good bullet, well, being of sound mind, I'll use the bullet and Godspeed to it.

Gun control laws can lie in wait for decades before a genocide occurs, as was the case for Cambodia. Theoretically, they could do their dirty work generations after being passed.

Thus saith the JPFO. The case they make for their argument is strong enough I don't think anyone's mileage varies.

The genocide in Rwanda was mainly through machetes rather than guns.

England has strict gun controls. Does that mean England is pro-genocide?

It means England is more vulnerable now to a genocide than ever before in her history. It's already meant violent crime has taken off into a growth spurt. To stop this, you're going to have to push Queen and Parliament into liberalizing concealed carriage of weapons and into active encouragement of private arms -- quite in accord with the long English tradition of limited government. It is, I think, essentially how limited government was kept a limited government.

Now if the victims had had guns, how long would the machete-wielders have survived? The victim populations were not armed, and that is why they died. If you want private arms to inoculate against genocide, the arms must be efficient. In point of fact, for several reasons including ergonomics of shooting and availability of ammunition, the arms should be assault rifles. The defense against genocide is more central to the matter than the means of the genocide.

The mass murder/suicides that make headlines over here, and are not unknown over there, have a feature in common that the public handwringers never mention: the shooter could be confident no one could shoot back at him. Because no one else could shoot back, the perp could rack up a sizable total before finishing himself off. Suicide is so often paired with this kind of multiple murder as to indicate a furious anger at the self as well as others.

Who is going to protect you from the police or the government when they choose to attack you rather than defend?

Everyone has the right to walk down the street armed as much as they want to be and neither you, nor the combined remaining population of the planet earth combined has any legitimate authority or right to prevent them from doing so.

A person with a gun is a citizen. A person without a gun is a subject.

We raise this kind of point from time to time, for we are citizens of a republic -- not a monarchy, however constitutional. Republics properly constituted are all about the broad distribution of political power.

The smartest thing Mao ever said was his remark about what political power grows out of. A Commie rat, yes, and a pathological narcissistic personality also, but that didn't make him a dullard.

Violent crime primarily does not involve guns. There has been a spate of gun crime, which is due to a growth in American style gang-culture (by which I mean they take as their model the media depicted American gangs). Guns are not a part of English culture as a means of personal defence. Guns have always been for sport or for the armed forces and specialised police units.

Most of our violent crime involves knives. In the ward I represent, the crime levels are high and there is a gang culture amongst the youth. Despite this there are very few guns around. A lot of kids carry blades. Very few criminals carry guns. If guns were more easily available to the general public, every hard case on the estates would have one. Every time the police bust a drug dealer in the Close it would turn into a siege.

The answer to rising violent crime is not to increase the number of available weapons. All that would result in would be a tacit arms race between the police and the criminals. The more ordinary, law-abiding citizens that take up arms, the more accidental gunshot victims there would be.


However broad the distribution of political power in theory is in your country, in fact it not that broad. Large swathes of your population have abdicated themselves from political power (as have large swathes of ours) believing that they are already tacitly denied a part in it, or that any part they play is pointless. The laws on gun ownership are not because you are a repulic and we are a monarchy. Political power does not reside in guns. It resides in the ballot.

Netherlands and Poland have similarly tough restrictions on firearms. France has high gun ownership but in order to get a licence citizens must prove their mental state and concealed weapons are illegal. The American system of easily acquired guns and legal concealment is not a feature of republicanism it is a feature of American republicanism.

I agree with you, especially on a national level. Too many people feel they are part of the system just because they vote once every four years... and pay taxes.
It's a shame, but I suppose it does limit personal disappointments... and gunfights. ;)

Okay you pro-gunners, can you explain what the hell is happening in Iraq? There every citizen got a gun, but even then they are helpless vs the insurgents. They can't even defend themselves, which is vexing even the Bush Administration.

Apples and oranges. There is no comparison. The majority of gun owners and supporters in this country have a sense of the rule of law.

So much for the theory that people without guns can't kill a lot of people.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapc....ap/index.html