Things we'd be talking about if the forum wasn't deadFollow

I don't care. My point is-- all these people are crying and moaning, loudly, that their guns are being taken away-- when in fact, there is not indication whatsoever that this is happening.

Who's crying and moaning that "their guns are being taken away"? What I'm seeing is one side actively trying to take guns away from people, another side opposing them on the grounds that if we did what they are demanding, it would result in taking guns away from people. Cause, you know, that's [b]exactly what the other side is trying to do[b]. Saying there's nothing to worry about because no one has yet had any guns taken away is kind of silly. That's like saying there's no reason to turn the wheel of your car in a different direction when heading for a cliff because you haven't actually driven over a cliff yet. That's nonsensical.

Warning of the consequences of a proposed action is perfectly normal, right? What I care about is that we have a bunch of Democrats staging a sit-in in Washington because they want "something to be done". What do you suppose they want to be done? And are you seriously arguing no one should question them?

When the incorrect term is used deliberately to make people think that the firearms in question have full auto capability, then yes, it's a relevant thing to point out. If no one ever spouted off about how we should pass some new regulation because "no one should be allowed to own a weapon that can fire 800 zillion rounds a minute!!!", I would not care if the incorrect term was used. But many people do make that argument, and it's clearly because they are confused about existing firearms regulations, and the firing rates of the weapon or weapons in question at the moment.

How do you suppose they come to be confused about such things?

Edited, Jun 23rd 2016 1:39pm by gbaji

I considered adding something similar but there was a whole gun owners list brouhaha recently.

Word games? You are intentionally asking what law would *prevent* this action from happening. Again, there is no law to prevent any crime from ever happening. Are you asking for what regulation would reduce overall gun violence? Because, that's the goal of the individuals proposing the gun legislation. If you're not asking that, then you're not understanding the goal of the conversation.

You ramble off so much, that you confuse yourself on the topic at hand.

1. I asked the following: "Are you suggesting that we have to wait for a suspected terrorist to kill everyone before acting?"

2. You said: "Yes. In our legal system, you do have to actually wait until someone commits a crime before you can punish them in some manner (especially punishments which specifically require "due process" to impose)."

3. I countered to say that we define what is legal and are able to punish a person who we fear will do something worse, hence the prostitute and philia stings. We don't wait till the intercourse happens, we classify the leading actions as illegal.

4. Once those people are arrested, they lose their 2nd amendment rights with the ability to regain them. The same would happen if a person falsely placed on the terror list attempted to buy a firearm.

If the US government turned on its citizens in an all out war, I'm sure other countries would intervene. In any case, this fantasy that you will somehow defeat the US military is asinine.

And yet, they're doing it any way. Want to know why? It's not so they can actually pass gun control legislation. I hope you get that. If they really felt so strongly about this issue, they would have passed legislation back in 2009/2010 when they had the power to do so. Heck. They could have at least written a bill proposing such a thing. They did not.

Want to know why? Again, because it's not at all about actually passing any legislation, but about appearing to want to. They do this so that they can attempt to create a contrast between themselves and Republicans, with them on the side of the victims and the GOP on the side of the shooters. It is 100% about manipulating the emotions of the people in order to increase their odds to win in the next election cycle. Nothing more.



Um... If your regulation makes it harder to own, keep, or bear a firearm, then yes, you are taking away people's gun rights. You get that this is the only point of a gun control regulation, right? If even one person who would previously have been able to own and/or use a firearm is unable to after the passage of said regulation, then it took that persons gun rights away. Given the starting premise contained statements like "how did a man on the no-fly list get his hands on a gun?" is that he should not have had access to a gun, then it's fair to respond to that stated objective.

You do get that this is *exactly* what the whole "no fly; no guns" argument is about, right? Please tell me you do.



Again though, I think you're setting an unfair comparison. So those calling for gun regulation, specifically to prevent some people from owning them are ok, but those responding to those calls are out of bounds? That seems unfair to me. Those opposed to increased regulation kinda have to respond to calls for increased regulations or they might just get passed (if no one opposes it). So bashing them for taking calls for new regulation seriously is more than unfair. They have to oppose the proposals, no matter how silly they are. Blaming them for how silly they are is even more silly. They're not being silly. They are reacting to other people's silliness.



I see people screaming for gun control.



Like this thread? I see people screaming for gun control.



Yes. Screaming for gun control. That's what they've been doing.



Yup. Every time there's a mass shooting, the screaming for gun control happens. It's constant. It's annoying. And it's pathetic.

That was what you were talking about right?



You kinda skipped over the folks screaming for gun control though. The folks saying "let's calm down and not do something stupid like chuck our second amendment rights out the window" are the voices of reason here. And they are responding to the knee jerk emotion laden voices who inevitably call for more gun control every time something like this happens. You can't attack the people responding to that without at least acknowledging that the calls for restrictions on gun ownership do, in fact, exist. Even if we know that the politicians are just faking it for PR purposes, the flock largely doesn't know this, and largely goes right along with it.


Read this thread. Which came first, opposition to changing our gun laws, or calls for changes to our gun laws? I'm pretty sure it was the latter. Cause it's not like the gun right proponents start out demanding we not change our laws. Not changing the law is the default condition. We don't need to clamor for it. We only speak up about stuff like this when others start clamoring for changes. Such as what happened within pretty much minutes of the first news reports of this shooting.

Heck. Here's an bit from Obama's televised speech the day of the attack:



Notice the ubiquitous mislabeling of the weapon as an "assault rifle". Note the leading statement about "how easy it is for someone to get their hands on <weapons>". Followed with a statement about how we have to decide if that's the country we want to be. He doesn't come right out and say "we need to implement stricter gun laws", but he says every freaking thing short of that. It's clear he's calling for that decision, right? And he's framing it in a way that if you side against tighter gun restrictions, you're "for" shootings like this one (and once in schools, churches, and movie theaters, in case we're not able to pick up the obvious references.

You honestly can't understand why gun right proponents might call this out? As you said, the same script plays out every time there's a shooting. And that script always starts with language like this, followed by folks on social media screaming for gun control, and then followed by the gun rights folks arguing against such rash changes. One "side" is using fear to push an agenda, and it's not the gun rights side.

mmhhmmm....

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

Sigh. Except you can only arrest and detain without charging for as short period of time. What crime are you going to charge him with? You literally completely cannot do this. You're basically proposing that we have some kind of secret police running around taking people out of their homes and holding them indefinitely without charging them.

Yes. You can temporarily detain someone. But that's it. You can't take away their 2nd amendment rights away permanently just because you temporarily detained them once. How do you not get this?

This is a comparison!!!! I'm not saying that anyone should be arrested. I'm saying that the act of arresting someone for suspicion is WORSE than denying someone their 2nd amendment right for suspicion. Therefore, you can't argue that the US can't temporarily strip rights on suspicion.

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

Ok. But if the proposed gun regulation would not reasonably be likely to prevent *any* shooting events similar to the one that sparked the regulation's passage, then can't we legitimately claim that they are using the emotional response to an event to pass unrelated legislation? I think we can. And I think it's perfectly proper to argue that we should not do this.

Also, the fact that a law might reduce the rate of some unwanted outcome isn't by itself sufficient justification to pass the law. We could significantly reduce total crime rates by mandating an 8PM curfew nationwide, for instance. But we have this pesky thing called rights. And we have to weigh that against the benefits of any proposed legislation. Similarly, we could certainly argue that total gun violence would be reduced if we made private gun ownership illegal and seized all firearms in the country. But again, we have this pesky 2nd amendment.

Hence why I've asked for suggestions for laws that would both prevent (Ok, reduce the rate of, if you prefer) mass shootings while not running afoul of the second amendment. And I'll note you still have not bothered to do this. Can you?

There is no point in providing a solution if we're referencing two different problems. We need to "get on the same page" first. How is a bill to reduce gun violence "unrelated" to an event of gun violence?

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

You're leaving out the part where I clarified that we could "act" on suspicions about a person, but that said actions could not include broadly stripping that person of his 2nd amendment rights. You can't just say "I think this guy might do something bad someday", and then take away that persons 2nd amendment rights for the rest of his live on the off chance that he does. I'll point out this is why I keep talking about how detaining someone is temporary. If he's planning on committing a mass shooting, you could detain him for some trumped up reason, but you'd have to release him or charge him with a crime. Which doesn't actually prevent him from committing his crime once released.

Which is why your one proposal doesn't make any sense.

It's temporary in both scenarios. The only difference is that in one scenario you only lose one right (which you wouldn't even know unless you attempted to purchase a weapon) while in the other scenario, you lose all rights. Both are assuming that the individual is innocent.

Spoiler

Gbaji wrote:

I said that stings and surveillance are great. And guess what? The FBI did investigate this guy. Twice. And they chose to end those investigations and not charge him with anything. Again, I'm not sure what you're proposing here. You can't charge someone with "we think you might do something".

So you're saying that the FBI should have a voice in whether or not a suspected terrorist should be allowed to purchase a weapon? The people on the no-fly list aren't charged with anything either, yet they still can't fly.

Well, no. The actual bills presented in Congress for votes are the proposed legislation. You didn't know that there were actual bills (or amendments to bills)? Really? That's... weird but not all that surprising for you. Or maybe you knew but you're just pretending not to know so you can make an irrational, emotional argument. I hear that some people do that.

More to the point, you were demanding that Kuoobie tell you exact proposals or else to shut up:
I'll ask again: What proposals do you think we should adopt? Jumping up and down (or staging a sit-in) and shouting "we need to do something about guns!!!" over and over isn't productive. Unless you have a specific "something" you think we should do, and can rationally and calmly express why that something is the right something to do, you're just using a tragedy to try to get people to accept a knee jerk and almost certainly foolish reaction.


What? You realize some of the stuff we're trying to prevent here, right? "In a short time" is part and parcel to it. I can "kill lots of people" with a fork given enough time but only a moron would say that a fork is anything like an AR-15.


It's also accurate to say that you were wrong about needing the ability to "kill lots of people" for defense.


Good point. After all, we never adjust our laws or regulations to conform to new technologies.

Edited, Jun 24th 2016 7:52am by Jophiel

Are forks at the bottom of the "Slippery Slope"?

Well, the tanks, drones, and heavier armaments make an armed rebellion pointless. The nukes give everyone else second thoughts about helping the rebellion.

After what our tanks did in Iraq it does make you wonder why people think they could stop them here. I mean, you'd have to hope the military was on-board with a rebellion, or else it's just not going anywhere.

No matter how many handguns you steal from Walmart...

That's right, totally worth saying twice.

Edited, Jun 24th 2016 9:11am by someproteinguy