Firearms proposal from da Basement

[Papadaddy]

Around these parts, Beav, if you're going to "peddle" bicycles, you'd need a "peddler's" liceense.

[Stosh]

Who's going to pay for this? Too expensive to keep criminals off the street?

 

Okay, I'll go along with that.

 

But then arm every citizen to be able to do what the government can't do to protect them. It's cheaper to give a gun to every non-criminal than it is to lock up criminals.

 

I'm thinking that the body-count will rise in this country dramatically, but with the law abiding people outnumbering the criminal element, the gene-pool will dry up rather quickly.

 

Stosh

[Basementdweller]

So why is point 1 and 2 unconstitutional.

 

I would like to see where in the Constitution that it says that you have the right to own a semi automatic rifle with a 100 round magazine.....Please point it out.

 

 

The way it reads to me is you can own a firearm....could be single shot could be fully automatic. Don't want to ban them.....No problem, make the folks who want a semiauto register them like a full automatic.

 

 

Something has gotta give folks...

 

You are putting a price on each of those kids heads at sandy hook.

 

Your entertainment while shooting. So you have to reload after the 10th shot???? or manually work the action for the next round??? I was gonna say I am amazed, but honestly I am not anymore.

 

Gone is the selfless scouter.

[Stosh]

According to 2nd Amend. all citizens have the right to bear arms. No it doesn't state what those arms can or cannot be. Everyone in our country has a right to defend themselves.

 

Basically I don't care what weapon they possess as long as they don't use them to commit a crime.

 

The problem I have is the infringement "laws" that restrict that right to law-abiding citizens and with a stroke of a pen turn them into criminals with no activity on their part. If I own a certain rifle legally today and I wake up tomorrow a criminal and I have done nothing but sleep in the mean time, it offends me my Constitutional rights are infringed upon by the whim of some warm-fuzzy seeking politician that doesn't understand and/or refuses to uphold the Constitution which they swore to uphold in the first place.

 

Will crime go up because there are too many guns in the hands of real criminals? No one really knows. If all criminals knew that every law-abiding citizen has a-better-than-their's, self-defense weapon, maybe it would actually go down. Again, no one really knows.

 

Again, my stance will always be, go after the criminal and leave the law-abiding citizen alone!

 

So far all the "proposals" I have seen have been going after the law-abiding citizen and restricting their Constitutional rights and self preservation, while totally ignoring the criminal element and their destructive intents.

 

Once a person commits a crime, I have no problem with taking away their right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and gun possession. That's the consequences of crime.

 

But if the citizen has not committed any crime, leave them alone and protect their Constitutional rights in totality.

 

Now, Basement, if you have proposals that go after criminals, I would love to hear them.

 

Stosh

[pchadbo]

Basement, do you not understand the concept of "rights"? These are those things that are bestowed upon us by our Creator and not by the government (to paraphrase the Declaration of Independence).

These are not things that can be given by the Government as they belong to the People independent of the Government.

 

1. Complete and on going Background check, paid for by the speaker, voter, writer, protester, advocate, thinking every other year.

 

2. Mental health evaluations on going, paid for by the speaker, voter, writer, protester, advocate, every other year.

 

Would you tolerate these? If you would not tolerate these,why would you tolerate it of any of your other rights?

[Basementdweller]

So did our creator envious us mowing each other down the way we currently do.

 

While he/she/it/they are all knowing.....what exactly is the lesson we are being taught by owning these rifles.....

 

It would be an interesting discussion folks who drafted the constitution. So fellows. About the 2nd amendment, do you realize in about 200 years a single firearm will have as much fire power as a single brigade of men currently. Do you think a private citizen should have that much firepower in the possession?

 

I don't know the answer.... But I bet the would not be all that happy with the way things are now, with the entire status of the country.

 

 

[pchadbo]

So did our creator envious us mowing each other down the way we currently do.

 

I assume you are asking either did He "envy us" or "envision us" mowing each other down, either answer is the same: God gave man free will and with it man can do good or evil it is up to the individual to decide which path to take.

 

While he/she/it/they are all knowing.....what exactly is the lesson we are being taught by owning these rifles.....

 

Personal responsibility sounds like a good lesson to me.

 

It would be an interesting discussion folks who drafted the constitution. So fellows. About the 2nd amendment, do you realize in about 200 years a single firearm will have as much fire power as a single brigade of men currently. Do you think a private citizen should have that much firepower in the possession?

 

The answer I would see would be yes, as the purpose of the Second Amendment as envisioned by our Founding Fathers was so that the People had the means to defend themselves from Tyranny.

 

I don't know the answer.... But I bet the would not be all that happy with the way things are now, with the entire status of the country.

 

I agree with that statement 100%

 

---Someday I plan to learn to type well---(This message has been edited by pchadbo)

[Stosh]

I wonder what Abel would have done to Cain if he had a rock too?

 

Things have kinda gone downhill from the beginning and I don't think God had a hand in it or intended it to be that way.

 

People need to live with the consequences of their actions. And no one can accurately predict the actions of others, so one must be prepared for anything that comes our way. I'm quite sure Abel didn't anticipate Cain's actions or he would have at least tried to run away. Fight or flight are the only two options and outrunning a bullet doesn't seem like one of the better options even if that bullet comes from a single shot pistol that was common at the time of our Founding Fathers.

 

Stosh

[Beavah]

If I own a certain rifle legally today and I wake up tomorrow a criminal and I have done nothing but sleep in the mean time, it offends me my Constitutional rights are infringed upon by the whim of some warm-fuzzy seeking politician that doesn't understand and/or refuses to uphold the Constitution which they swore to uphold in the first place.

 

Yah, I understand da sentiment here.

 

But that's true whenever any new law is passed. Somethin' that was legal yesterday is not legal today. When we first decided to register vehicles and require driving licenses, when we raised da drinking age, when we first put in place speed limits - something that was legal one day was not the next. Yeh went to sleep bein' able to flush your toilet into da stream, yeh woke up and you were a criminal if yeh hadn't installed a septic system. We should not pass laws without good reason to, because we should err in favor of freedom. But sometimes it becomes necessary to pass laws.

 

Same thing with arms. Private and commercial merchant vessels in U.S. waters used to be armed. Now they're not. Da rights of boat owners on da Great Lakes were infringed upon by the whim of some warm-fuzzy seeking politician that failed to uphold da Constitution by ratifyin' the treaty to end da War of 1812. Used to be you could purchase dynamite and large quantities of ammonium nitrate fertilizer over da counter. Now there are significant restrictions and tracking on dynamite and fertilizer, because, you know, folks can blow up elementary schools or federal buildings with it.

 

Not all new restrictions are warranted, for sure. Not all new regulation is well thought out or well designed, definitely. Regulation can creep, particularly if there are folks whose livelihood depends on creeping it. All legitimate concerns to be watched out for.

 

But da notion that any new regulation is wrong because it makes a previously law-abiding person into a "criminal" is probably a bit beyond what yeh want to really be suggesting. You're only a criminal if yeh decide to disobey the new law.

 

Beavah

 

[JMHawkins]

What pchadbo said is correct. Replace "gun ownership" with "voting rights" or "right to speak" and you should be able to see the Constitutional problems.

 

Anyone is of course free (well, as long as the Constitution is in effect anyway) to argue that the 2nd Ammendment is a bad idea and should be repealed, but until then, trying to regulate it away is no more legitimate than regulating away the right to vote or speak.

 

 

[Beavah]

Da right to vote and da right to speak are also regulated. All rights are subject to two kinds of limits, eh? Da personal responsibility of each individual in da proper exercise of those rights, and the compelling interest of the state.

 

Now the right to vote or speak generally doesn't cause tens of thousands of fatalities per year, so da state has a much less compelling interest in regulating them. Nonetheless, states may limit da right to vote to those who have not committed felonies, they require registration of people in order to vote, etc.

 

Seems sort of silly that we require registration for voting but we can't require registration for guns, eh? Da Republicans this past election cycle pushed really hard for stricter requirements for ID and background verifications and the like in order to vote. Wouldn't it seem odd that a fellow could buy ammunition with less hassle than exercising his right to vote?

 

Beavah

 

 

[Eagle732]

Hey Basement, 5 years ago my sister in law was murdered by a criminal with a long record who stole a gun, broke into her home and shot her probably because he didn't want to leave a witness.

 

When he was caught the first thing the prosecutor did was throw out the 5 year mandatory gun charge, then they dropped the charges to 2nd degree murder so they could get a plea. I expect that the wife and I will have to go to the parole hearings in a few years to try and keep this dirt bag behind bars more that 10 years. I'm sure he'll be happy about that and since he already threatened my FIL I'm sure he'll be gunning for me too. And until I have 3 reported, credible threats I can't even apply for a permit to carry in this state.

 

How's that fit in to your proposals?

(This message has been edited by Eagle732)

[Callooh! Callay!1428010939]

The 2nd amendment does not grant or create the right to bear arms. It restricts government from infringing on the right.

[JMHawkins]

Da right to vote and da right to speak are also regulated. All rights are subject to two kinds of limits...

 

Perhaps, perhaps, but using the "what if it was voting rights" test helps avoid suggesting problematic things like saying nobody with any mental illness in their family should be allowed to vote, or that you need to convince the local authorities you have a valid reason for exercising your right to vote. In fact, you can flip the test around and it's still useful. If you're worried that a voter ID law might result in voter suppression, ask the folks supporting it if they'd be okay if the same requirement they're proposing were also applied to buying a gun.

 

It boils down to asking yourself if you'd be okay with someone else putting the same limits on rights you value that you're interested in putting on rights that they value. If you're not, then you either need to go back to the drawing board, or else start building a case whey their rights shouldn't exist in the first place.

 

 

[Beavah]

Yah, sure, to some extent, JMHawkins.

 

At da same time, the right to vote doesn't kill or injure 100,000 Americans a year.

 

More to the point, da Founding Fathers never treated those two as equivalent, eh? Claimin' that they did is just bein' disingenuous. Da right to bear arms was always structured in da context of communal defense, eh? Hence da "well-regulated militia" bit.

 

Also da text of things like da right to free speech is different, eh? Da First Amendment far more strictly limits da power of Congress to make law. "Congress shall make no law..."

 

The Second Amendment does not go so far, eh? It simply says that for da purpose of security of the state through a regulated militia, the individual and collective right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Infringed at da time meant "broken", from da Latin. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be broken, or severely weakened to the point of breaking.

 

So I reckon Heller was correct, eh? Yeh can't effectively prohibit people from keeping arms. That says nuthin' at all about more reasonable regulation, however. Da Second Amendment does not say "Congress shall make no law..."

 

If yeh think there should be stronger protection, then yeh need to pass and ratify an additional amendment to say that. Until then, yeh have to accept that this right is more weakly protected by da Constitution than the others which yeh name.

 

Beavah