Need more guns. Is it local?

[Twocubdad]

Rick -- you friend ought to call John Stossel with his story!

 

Years ago, before the last round of updates to concealed carry laws, North Carolina was a mandatory open carry state. You always heard stories about folks being arrested for having a gun in their car which slid under the seat when they went around a curve. Interestingly, South Carolina was a mandatory concealed carry state. Depending on your direction, you had to put your gun into or take them out of the glove box. But that's all changed now.

 

States' Rights at work, eh?(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

[Beavah]

Since I'm not running for office, I have no need for grand, sweeping changes which get my picture in the paper with Joe Biden.

 

LOL. Yah, I'd pay money for that photo of you.

 

Rick_in_CA, yeh highlight da principal reason I strongly favor "shall issue" laws with respect to CCW permits. Too often yeh get county sheriffs who are just politically random about how they deal with citizens and carry rights. Much as I'm in favor of local control in most things, sometimes uniform fairness is preferable to local whimsy.

 

Beavah

 

[RememberSchiff]

Rick. Yes we are losing the principle that we are a nation of laws. The law is ignored or fabricated arbitrarily by powerful men (big guns), equal justice under the law is disappearing. ATF, the Justice Dept, and Operation Fast and Furious are but one example.

 

I imagine if the Lone Ranger rode through your town, he would be similarly harassed by the local law. "Ke-mo sah-bee, Sheriff have sickness in head, cannot fix with medicine." But he or more likely Tonto would fix it, in short order.

 

Standing up for our rights is fading too...

 

My $0.02

[boomerscout]

"Da notion that some armed teacher with $30 worth of training a few years ago is goin' to safely and responsibly take out their Glock and shoot the student perp in da midst of an unexpected crowded melee is just nuts. It's Hollywood fantasyland"

We were told -- several times -- that if you didn't practice regularly (min twice a month), you were just wasting your time with the instruction. What was interesting was when we were on the range, the female shooting club from one of the larger factories in the area showed up for their weekly shoot.

 

If a female student is coming at you with a knife, you couldn't just shoot her in the leg?

 

Dynamite is actually very good for defending your family if your IEDs are emplaced ahead of time

 

Let's consider if a teacher does shoot an innocent student before nailing the perp -- is two possible deaths worse than 26 or 12 or whatever? A good case for home schooling, I guess, and never go to the movies or to camp

 

Since a clear danger does exist, I am surprised school grounds don't have a fence around them -- would probably ruin the effect of the beautiful campus. Of course there would have to be tremblor (?) alarms on the fence and the nearby ground

 

 

[Beavah]

The law is ignored or fabricated arbitrarily by powerful men (big guns), equal justice under the law is disappearing. ATF, the Justice Dept, and Operation Fast and Furious are but one example.

 

Well, those sound like three examples, actually.

 

Easy there, RememberSchiff. Honesty first, always honesty first. Presume da best of your fellow citizens as a starting point, not the worst.

 

Da reasons laws in California and many other states gave discretion on how to administer CCW permits to the county sheriff was the time-honored conservative principle of local control, eh? Never let a bigger branch of government co-opt what a smaller unit of government can handle. Presumably the local sheriff knows the conditions in his jurisdiction, and is a better judge of what makes sense in his area than some politician off in da state capitol, eh? That is sound reasoning.

 

Just because some county sheriffs abuse that discretion also doesn't mean that we should necessarily preempt local control. Often it's far better to let the local electorate decide da issue by replacing the county sheriff, rather than creating statewide or federal law. Don't yeh think?

 

Beavah

 

[RememberSchiff]

Often, but not always, that is why we have an appeal process to a higher authority in this country. We cannot wait for an election, retirement, or death in hopes that our rights will eventually be restored. That said, the appeal process needs to be quicker. Only Microsoft tops the government in dragging out the legal process.

 

As I understand, one of more interesting outcomes of Guillory vs Orange County (Gates) decided by US District Appeals Court was that CCW applicants have the right to question the sheriff regarding permits issued to other people. So in California, you are allowed to find out why the elected official (e.g. Senator Feinstein) got a permit, so you can claim that your "Good Cause" is as good as his/hers. BTW, this appeal took over 10 years, Guillory won but, as I understand, did not get a CCW and left California.

 

Another $0.02

[CalicoPenn]

"What is the purpose of registration or licensure? Wave a magic wand and suddenly have a list of every gun and it's owner in the country. How does that make us safer unless there is ultimately a means of using that data to tax, control or deny ownership?"

 

Fair question, TwoCub. I can think of a couple of things. One of the solutions that seems to be agreed to by all sides is keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, but the weakness of that approach is that it only works on people who have actually been diagnosed and treated. What about the guy down the block who was able to legally buy firearms for 20 years, then some event in his life led to a diagnosis and treatment for post-traumatic stress syndrome, schizophrenia, or a manic-depressive state? We wouldn't want him to have guns anymore but we have no idea if he has guns because he didn't have to register them and when asked if he had guns, he just lied, would we? A database reporting on new cases of mental illness treatment could be compared with a database of who owns guns to ensure that he doesn't have access to the guns.

 

In the Sandy Hook case, the shooter killed his mother before taking her guns - what if he had broken into a house a couple of towns away and stole those guns - wouldn't it be nice to match the guns used with who they belonged to so we could determine if the people whose guns were stolen from them were safe?

[Beavah]

Often, but not always, that is why we have an appeal process to a higher authority in this country. We cannot wait for an election, retirement, or death in hopes that our rights will eventually be restored.

 

Yah, hmmmm.... well, that would be da liberal position, I reckon. Gotta solve it with big government and "higher authority." Da conservative position would be da principles of subsidiarity and federalism, eh? That our liberty is best served by not allowin' larger government intervention, but by keepin' decision-making local where it can be most readily be held accountable by the electorate.