Braineack

iTrader: (62)

bahurd

iTrader: (8)

I suspect the bigger news over time will be today's refusal to hear a challenge to the states ban on specific guns (CT & NY). This pretty much is in keeping with one of the often overlooked aspects of the ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller in that it's perfectly fine for a state to restrict access to certain types of guns. I previously linked but here it is again; The Supreme Court Ruling on the 2nd Amendment Did NOT Grant an Unlimited Right to Own Guns | Big Think

Today's article; http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKCN0Z61JE

Personally, I think the battlegrounds will become the individual states where there's now clear precedent.

Savington

iTrader: (31)

Serious, unloaded (heh) questions:

What do pro-gun folks think about the NFA? Should it be repealed?

How is a ban on assault weapon sales or handgun sales different from a sales ban on automatic weapons or destructive devices?

samnavy

iTrader: (7)

Understand that all forms of gun control as they have come over the centuries is in direct response to the perceived need to "deal" with a cultural phenomenon. In brief, the NFA of 1934, which (among other things) mandated registration of all machine guns was in direct response to the rise in organized crime made possible by Prohibition. The 1968 was an attempt to curb ownership of firearms by minorities, particularly blacks, as the Civil Rights movement go into full swing.

Here is a quote from a Congressional record I pulled from an ATF white paper:
The GCA was enacted in large part "to assist law enforcement authorities in the States and their subdivisions in combating the increasing prevalence of crime in the United States." However, the Senate Report to the act also made clear that Congress did not intend the GCA to place any undue or unnecessary restrictions or burdens on responsible, law-abiding citizens with respect to acquiring, possessing, transporting, or using firearms for lawful activities.

FOPA (Firearms Owners Protection Act), which was in 1986, actually did a lot of good things for gun owners, but we had to swallow NICS, and the Hughes Amendment. The Hughes is surrounded in controversy over the manner in which it passed. There is a lot of evidence to support the fact that it was never correctly procedurally voted on and isn't actually valid law. What the Huges Amendment did was to end any more machine guns from entering circulation, and was in direct response to political pressure to "do something about guns" because street gangs fighting the 80's drug wars were modifying different types of cheap open-bolt semi-autos to full-auto. So while the Hughes Amendment did absolutely nothing to stop gang-crime, it did have many secondary effects.

The AWB of 1994, called the "Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994" was passed because there wasn't a whole lot else going on in Congress and the gun-grabbers had been seeing some successes from
86 AND they had Bill Ruger in their pocket. Again, from the white paper:
Congress passed these provisions of the 1994 law in response to the use of semiautomatic assault weapons and large capacity ammunition feeding devices in crime. Congress had been presented with much evidence demonstrating that these weapons were "the weapons of choice among drug dealers, criminal gangs, hate groups, and mentally deranged persons bent on mass murder."

The difference how a ban is different is about public perception. There's very little justification for any type of sporting purpose for a full-auto weapon. If you're creative enough, you can argue straight 2A reasoning... I'll need military equipment and capability if I'm ever going to defeat the gov't when the revolution happens, but even I balk at that. We know that the revolution won't be civilians fighting the Army or Guard, so who will it be... black-hat types coming in the middle of the night? Select-fire has it's place on a battlefield, but not for sport, not for self-defense, and not really for defense of tyranny in the form that it's likely to come.

As for the NFA, suppressors and SBR's should come off the list immediately and SBS should be incorporated into the AOW list just to keep them a bit more regulated than the masses because they're useless we don't need a bunch of redneck asshats chopping down their Mossberg 500 barrels to 5" to go duck hunting... and you know they would (hell, I might). I kinda like the fact that machine guns are really expensive and rare so I'll never be tempted to buy one.

Savington

iTrader: (31)

That was my guess, but it's still interesting to hear it said. I dislike that so much of this debate devolves into people complaining about how their rights are being taken away. If you truly have an uninfringed right to bear arms, as per some people's interpretation of 2A, then you should have the right to purchase and possess a full-auto machine gun, or an RPG, or any number of other destructive devices. The public has decided, however, that those weapons shouldn't be easily allowed into the hands of the general public at large, and while you can still get them, they aren't easy to obtain. So many people assume that 2A gives them an absolute right to own whatever kind of gun they want without realizing that this "right" hasn't been a thing in better than 80 years.

One of my favorite tidbits of trivia about the original NFA from 1934 is that handguns were almost included in it for the same reason that SBRs were included (ability to be concealed).

AlwaysBroken

I don't think the courts actually matter that much right now, to be honest.

Before Heller, the NRA avoided the federal courts for decades because of blatant hostility to the 2nd amendment. So instead the NRA was winning a lot in state legislatures for decades before Heller happened in 2008. Even now after Heller and McDonald, the circuits courts of appeal are openly hostile to gun rights, which is not terribly surprising as most of them range in political views from leftist democrat to acela republican. This is what happens when the whole judiciary is from like 3 law schools. The only way to fix this is to get cases up to the supreme court and have the supreme court keep overturning the **** decisions. This would take a lot of time but it's impossible anyway because the composition of the court is completely wrong....

The problem is that even when Scalia was alive, Kennedy and Roberts were voting against granting cert in any new cases. It takes 4 votes to grant cert. That's why Thomas/Scalia/Alito have been putting written concurrences in otherwise per curiam gun cases or writing angry dissents to denials of cert. I'm not absolutely certain, but I feel there are basically three pro gun votes on the court (2 now with Scalia gone) and 3 anti gun votes. And two squishes that don't want to take cases.

If Trump wins, best case for gun rights is still the status quote ante- 3 pro gun votes, 3 anti, 2 votes against new cert grants. So the federal trial and lower appeals courts will continue to be **** for decades to come.
If Clinton wins, they might overturn Heller... which puts us back in 2008 in terms of precedent.... Which means the NRA is still the apex predator and gun control is still going nowhere fast.

Culturally I think guns are winning. Compared to where attitudes were in the 80s and early 90s, things are a billion times better. I think a huge part of it is the mainstream media losing influence but in general attitudes have been changing because of stuff like concealed carry.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

The Founding Fathers could never have fathomed the internet, I don't know how you could possibly interpret it to extend here. Therefore your freedom of speech does not count here and you have been censored.

My favorite part of the newest failed legislative from our fascist Senators was the amount of YAYs voting to abolish the 6th amendment. But I'm probably interrupting it incorrectly. We can again thank Republicans for blocking passage of a Bill that would infringe on our Constitutional rights.

But now Democratic Senators could check off "Voted again Guns" and "Voted against the Constitution" in their "I Hate America" scavenger hunt.


but here's a crazy idea: Let's prevent ISIS Terrorists from coming here in the first place.

EDIT: DOJ Redaction.

Savington

iTrader: (31)

It has nothing to do with what the founding fathers could or could not have fathomed, and everything to do with public perception, as Sam said.

I imagine that you act exactly like a Bobby Moynihan SNL character at family holiday gatherings.

samnavy

iTrader: (7)

Actually, the lack of perception has everything to do with education. Since there's no such thing anymore as "civics class", people, our high-school aged youth get their political education from Facebook or their parents. I find that my right-wing friends do a damned good job at filling in the gaps on how the gov't works, how laws are created, how the left/right spectrum works, etc... while my Liberal friends only talk to their kids about social/cultural issues and how cool it is to be friends with gays and not "judge" anybody, but don't teach them anything.

If you ask your average 30yr old Liberal, "What does it mean to you to be "liberal"?, they'll tell you about how they feel regarding current social issues in the media right now. They'll say they want the illegals granted amnesty, free education, abortions in my insurance plan, gay rights, and guns are evil. In other words, they'll talk about themselves.

If you ask a 30yr old Conservative "What does it mean to you to be a "Conservative"? They'll talk about the Constitution, and how communism is bad and free market is good. They'll point out that social welfare programs are a form of slavery, we should consider a flat-tax, voter reform, term-limits, and squaring off against Putin. In other words, they'll talk about the country.

Your average anti-gun person doesn't know **** about guns. They don't know gun laws, or gun control history, or the difference between different types of guns, or really anything about guns. Their parents didn't own guns, they grew up in the city, and almost certainly have never been hunting. They don't have any gun-owning friends and would flip the **** out if they ever discovered somebody that they were hanging out with was carrying. Almost every concept they have about guns is wrong because of years of anti-gun propaganda that is mostly lies, and that's exactly the way the anti-gun groups want it... scared and uneducated, and a clear picture of the enemy, the NRA.

You guys know that like 95% of all gun-control dollars comes from 4-5 individuals. Bloomberg is the most notable, but there are a few other richies who as a group, single-handedly fund all gun-control in the US. Individual donations to Brady and MDA don't exist. Without the political dollars being spent by those select rich individuals, there would be zero gun-control groups.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I love how easily reductio ad absurdum comes to you.

The 6th Amendment secures the right of due process in criminal trials, it has nothing to do with seizure of property or any other perceived deprivation of liberty. It literally opens with the words "In all criminal prosecutions..."

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

blocking someone from expressing their 2nd amendment right without evidence/probable cause/review/etc. makes the 6th unhappy and the 14th,


i mean this is the internet. why have serious discussions? im not going to change anyone's mind, and them mine.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

+1

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

The 6th Amendment, in full:
Nothing in there about blocking anyone from expressing anything outside of the context of a criminal prosecution, which is different from a watch-list.


You may be thinking of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, however that applies only to the States, not to the Federal government.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

ohhhhh I forgot: the govt can just deny people of their inalienable rights on a whim. my bad.

even those those special others has to first become felons, and go through courts, to lose the 2A rights. Little did they know they only had to just be suspected in the first place, and didn't have to actually commit a crime first.

The presumption of innocence is only assumed as well, based on the 5th, 6th and 14th. *** out of me!

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

^ Drag him.

samnavy

iTrader: (7)

I think he was trying to lead-turn the idea that people put on the Terrorism Watch List aren't criminals. They haven't been charged with a crime, no arrests, no trial, no sentence... yet they find themselves being deprived of a Constitutional right. It's very "guilty until proven innocent". Of course this only applies to people on the list who are actual US citizens, which if I've read correctly is about 15% of the total people on the list... the rest are illegals or some other protected class.

The point is, if we're going to call them guilty (bypassing the 6th) without a trial and take away their 2A, why not just ****-can the entire Bill of Rights... hell, we should just quarter troops in their homes to keep an eye on them. If Godwins Law is correct, the next thing we need to talk about is making suspected terrorists wear special clothing to identify them (like making them wear a "T" sewn onto their clothes) and give them barcode tattoos. Just sayin'.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

oh joe, im sorry. I looked up 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) and I completely missed: (10) Any person *****-nilly added to a no-fly list.

so ignore me.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

The concept you are describing is a fairly old one. A highly simplified summary is that it has a very similar legal status as being under arrest. In the case where a person is under arrest, but has not yet been arraigned, they can be deprived of liberty without causing any constitutional problems. During that time period, you are basically in legal limbo. The fifth amendment still applies, but you have no liberty, and yet the whole Due Process thing hasn't yet kicked in because at that stage you are not a criminal defendant.

Now, in the case of an arrest, there tend to be statues of limitation which require that the suspect be released if criminal charges are not filed within a certain period of time (max 72 hours in Federal court), but this should convey the point that a similar principle applies here.

stratosteve

iTrader: (1)

Did anyone watch the video i posted earlier about the DHS whistle blower? It isnt directly about gun rights but our current administration is spinning it to be about extremists getting guns.

The DHS guy could have stopped some of these attacks but his work was stopped. There is something evil going on...

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

The proposed measure would amend 18 U.S.C. § 922, to add the "*****-nilly clause." And I still don't see a 6th Amendment issue here.


HOWEVER: I fundamentally agree with you about what's right and what's wrong. From a moral / ethical standpoint, I'm on your side. But you have a bad habit of confusing what's right and wrong with what's legal and illegal. And the courts don't work that way.


The fundamental problem, if we're honest, is that We the People tend to demand that Congress solve social issues. And they can't really do that. The only tool that Congress has available to it is legislation, and so if you ask a bunch of lawmakers to solve any sort of problem, the only thing you're going to get out of it is more and more laws.



Seriously, go back and re-read that last paragraph, because I'm totally, 100% sincere about it. You can't paint a building with a hammer; it's entirely the wrong tool for the job. And you can't solve social issues with legislation; again, wrong tool.