The OK case

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(04-05-2017, 03:12 AM)hollodero Wrote: First, I'd argue the founders didn't have these arms in mind, so for me it gets tricky with the constitution in its first stages here. I reach that point often.
I try to grasp your point... are you against permits for owning a grenade launcher or a tank? In principle or because of the money?

They didn't imagine fighter jets and ballistic missiles, no, but I will point out that the military weaponry of the day was muskets and cannons, and civilians were most certainly allowed to own muskets and cannons back then. (I imagine cannons were less commonly privately owned, but I guarantee that civilian ships had them.) The 2nd Amendment is based part around staying capable of overthrowing a tyrannical government, part because the British did indeed start doing gun confiscations of all known owners before the Revolution, part because there was no realistic way for people to be protected by police in the rural areas, and part to put food on the table.

All four of those are still viable reasons today.

That is right, that's what I'm doing, stripping them of rights. It's done all the time, to every principle there's a limit. You don't allow convicted felons a gun for the greater good, you don't allow people with impaired eyelight to drive a schoolbus. Who determines? Experts and lawmakers.
Now this is more about lines and where there should and should not be lines, and I can not be too convincing. I think that individual rights come to an end when they endanger other people's rights, for example by putting their health and life in danger. Mentally unstable persons with guns are a threat to family and strangers, and I think it's not misguided to think about restrictions in that light. Potential victims have rights too. But how these things should balance out, I dare not say. But I guess one needs to at least see the other side of the coin when making this fundamental argument the way you did.

The problem when you start talking about potential victims is then we're punishing people on what-ifs. The US isn't The Minority Report yet. Still have to commit the crime and be proven guilty before you can be punished. Blind with a gun is obviously no longer a what-if, obviously, that's just simply a certainly, but it's rarely going to be that clear cut.

Part of my problem with the psychologists getting involved is... there's no guarantee they will keep their political views out of their decisions. In fact the odds are much more likely that it will influence their decisions quite a bit. Say you have an adult who had their parent die and took it pretty rough and was on anti-depressants for 3 months. That was say.. 2 years ago and they haven't been on them for 21 months now. Thinking it'd be a good vacation, they want to buy a gun to go on an Elk hunting trip. The psychiatrist sees that they were once on anti-depressants but is more or less fine. Would a psychiatrist who is staunchly anti-gun be more likely to deny that guy?

If it's a government payroll psychiatrist, who's going to be the one who appoints/hires them? There's been plenty of mandates from a political party in power to other governmental groups that influence things quite a bit. Take for instance a few years back when the IRS was specifically targeting Tea Party political groups that were applying for tax free status, while letting Democrat groups through normally. That was leading up to the 2012 election.


Yeah it seems silly, and those are also details. I am all for setting the bar way higher then instances like those, sure.

Generally it's a felony if the bar is way higher, so it's more or less already handled. Just didn't like the low vague "history of violence".

I didn't make that connection directly, I used that extreme example to refute a principle (I wanted to show there are always exceptions). My stance is that I want people with arms to have a proper licence, and it's not because of blind people. Then again, I come from a country where licences are also required for certain types of dogs that could potentially kill other people - and I'm all for that too. 
I respect Americans to be less strict and less protective, that freedom comes with responsibility and both shoud stay individual.
I just don't know if it's the best way to go given the data that's created. If people are responsible enough for that amount of freedom, that is. Plain and simple.

See, and I find a license for a dog absolutely silly. Lol... as we've seen in Europe, if people want to murder people, they will find a way. A knife/axe/vehicle/bomb is just as bad. Also if they're really insistent, it's not impossible to get guns there.

Yeah, so it costs money. I'm all against taking advantage of people that want this licence, I'm aware it would still happen to some extent. I'm OK with that. If my proposal would mean some people who can't afford the gun licence can't purchase guns, so be it. :)

See, here in the US, anytime someone tries to do anything that'll potentially inconvenience poorer people, it is called racist. States that try to make having a State ID a requirement are pretty much roasted by the Left as racist. In the case of guns, I simply don't want to pay someone money to own the property I already own. Lol

Why do you mind the vagina hats? They seem harmless in executing their rights... apart from that, I sure agree, I wouldn't want protesters in front of gun owner's houses. I think it's a bit far fetched to say gun licences would lead to that. That being said, what that newspaper did, see SSF post, was of course really awful. So I can't dismiss the point.

Hah, I just thought vagina hats was a funny thing to include. Who knows what they'd be wearing, but the point is, they would be targeted in some way. Some really shitty things have been done to gun owners, police, judges, anything, as far as people getting ahold of their personal information and addresses and such, and distributing them.


OK, I know nothing more about these cases than what you said, and that seems not ok. Don't you have a Supreme Court to prevent these kind of things?

It takes 12 to 24 months from the time the Supreme Court is petitioned to when they make a ruling. Of course that assumes they even agree to take the case and don't send it down to a lower level court. Of course often getting TO the Supreme Court is first prefaced with multiple lower courts to begin with, each taking months or more, each with an appeal to a higher court, etc.

Our justice system is pretty well F'd up.

Fair enough.



You probably were a smart kid with good parents teaching you all the right things about guns and knifes... same can not be said about all parents. 
(And sure America is big, there are all kinds of upbringings, but the protective type is certainly one of them. But they are probably liberals and for gun control anyway, so there's no contradiction. I just generalized where I shouldn't have.)

This being said... nice childhood stories. I like those. There sure would be many individual cases where I would individually say, in that surrounding it's completely fine, these folks know what they're doing. Law can't be individual, though, and you need to put into the equation that not all families are like yours. Just for understanding where I'm coming from in this debate.
People handling guns like dangerous jackasses are out there buying guns too. And I don't think the right solution is teaching guns in school.

Thing is, I have plenty of other friends who grew up that way and they're the same.

I will bring up the point of Switzerland. They have one of the highest rate of gun ownership in the world and going to ranges to shoot is a hobby for them. If you grow up around it, it's normal, and you're taught properly, it's not a problem. The government even issues their militia (basically all men 20-30) weapons and until fairly recently issued ammunition for them, as well.  They also subsidize ammunition for it if you want to get some shooting in with it.

Meanwhile Switzerland had 18 attempted or completed homicides involving guns in 2014. In a country of over 8m.

Sure. Australia is not proof that restrictions would make a difference. It is a clue that it might make a difference, though. If it doesn't change gangs, maybe it would change other things, reducing the death toll.
An expression I don't want to use in a populistic way. The death toll of speeding is there too, still I'm against restricting vehiicles to a speed of 60 mph or so. The question for me sems to be, do the merits of more or less lawless gun ownership outweigh the damage.

And bacon I am sure is slowly killing us all, but I sure as hell am not going to stop eating it.   The merit of gun ownership is a lot more personal when you know the police will never get to your house quicker than 20 minutes, unless one just so magically happened to be nearby. Also if you enjoy some deer jerky and sausage. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Guess these are just facts. I don't think it's racist at all to point out facts. I see that as an societal and economical problem; blacks are just considerably worse-dispositioned in these areas and have lesser chance to escape it (that's how I see things from the distance, at least). The poorer folks are and the more desperate and hopeless the situation gets, the more likely is the occurrence of crime.

It's true that it's partly due to economic problems as I do believe that violent crime goes up with poor whites as well, but I don't think it comes anywhere close to being equal.

I go back to acknowledging that... my argument was more a common sense one. But that leads me to the point that I think the second amendment is stupid from a common sense standpoint, but I know I don't even need to argue that.
My common sense just dictates me, if driving needs a licence, so does shooting guns. The constitutional argument is a technical one, though of course a very strong one in reality.

I think it's really just a difference in culture and population density. In the US, most of the cries of strict gun laws come from people in cities. Of course what makes that ridiculous is that while they want tighter gun laws, the criminals there give 0 shits regardless of the law, so it would almost only effect the people who were already law abiding.

I see a bit where you're coming from on some of it, I just think it's really a culture gap that we'd probably never be able to bridge unless you grew up where I grew up, and I grew up where you grew up. Lol