Defending Semiautomatic Long Guns With Detachable Box Magaznes

1. A complete lapse of personal responsibility.

2. A unrealistic notion that by banning something will get rid of it and/or change the behavior of someone for the better.

3. Those that crusade against a particular object, don't realize (or care) that the same thing can be done to other objects as well, including ones they care about.

4. Creepy politicians looking for a way to make themselves look good while, at the same time, limiting your freedoms.

5. Greedy lawyers looking to make a quick buck.

That is a pretty good list. You're right, it is a little depressing...:(
 
Let me suggest that it's not only a question of how judges decide things. It's also a question about how people in general decide things. The former is relevant to the judicial context, while the latter is relevant in the political context. We're concerned about both.
 
Uh-oh, I've started rambling....

Kmac:
1. A complete lapse of personal responsibility.
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D47, or a feeling of being unable to control one's place in a modern, fluid society.

Kmac:
2. A unrealistic notion that by banning something will get rid of it and/or change the behavior of someone for the better.
Click to expand...
D47: It's "something." While I disagree with throwing legal spaghetti to "hope for change," recognize that a lot of non-gun owners (and gun owners) are tired of hearing about "gun violence." Goaded often enough by incessant screeching from the back seat, even Mother Theresa herself would stop the car and turn around to confront the noise that is aggravating her. The problem I see with the pro-gun defense in the MSM is that it's playing defense and it's negative (in the sense of looking for a solution). It tends to point out glaring problems (in a due process sense) with most of the blanket solutions given by the anti-gun crowd. But it basically doesn't care about the lives that are lost by "gun violence."

Rambling section starts here:
Responses need to be more pro-active "Here is your geographic and demographic hotspots of gun violence; here is the most effective solution to stop it; look! the NRA and a gun industry consortium is donating $10M to a 5 year project to reduce gun violence in Chicago and Washington D.C. Our data will be transparent and on line.
Or, "The NRA and X crime think tank recognizes that Y% of homicides are driven by gang on gang violence, often fueled by social media in the above-mentioned hotspots" We will be working with Google to create freeware -"gang sign recognition software" that will allow social media services to auto-filter uploads that contain gang-related content." Yeah, Google and other money-grubbers will gripe about "oh, free speech" but people are dying. Shouldn't your "don't be evil" mantra be applied to those who are dying? A lot of groups in Silicon Vally are doing heavy lifting in facial recognition software; if they can't do something easier like gang signs, they need to step down.
Or, "Here are 3 recommendations created by the NRA and the AMA for changing the system of reporting psychological emergencies and stopping potentially dangerous people from immediately obtaining a weapon: write your senator!" Too often you hear the NRA spokes people griping about how "this law won't stop anything" (probably true) while not offering anything to actually stop the drumbeat of bad news. Training classes are nice but our image problem doesn't originate with the demographic that knows they need training. Pro-gun citizens and pro-gun groups are going to have two stick an oar in the water and try to solve some problems not created by responsible gun owners to make their own headaches go away. "not my problem that these people are irresponsible" is not going to fly.
I've just come to this conclusion over the past week, so don't ask me for expert strategic vision. I'm not sure where to begin, but I'm starting to crunch numbers and thinking about what my contribution could be. The beauty of the internet is that it disseminates ideas and info quickly to a large group of people. There are lots of people here smarter than I am. Write the NRA and your senator.

Rambling gets worse here:
Points of attack on gun owners:
1. accidents (esp. with kids).
2. crime. (Demand higher sentences for repeated or aggravated crimes using a firearm. Demand X amount of dollars be spent doing organized research on how criminals in "hot zones" get their weapons. Demand X dollars be spent locating straw purchasers, etc)
3. crazy people out and about. (tough nut for reasons of medical privacy. See number 5 below for external solutions.)
4. suicide (this would be almost impossible to change w/out huge invasion of privacy, potential loss of freedom, etc). However, we could see if there is a correlation between actual ownership and suicide. Did the suicide use their own gun or a family member's, etc. Figure out a non-intrusive way to make recommendations to gun owners guns whose children have certain behavior issues, etc.)
5. Terrorism (We've already gone down the path of un-limited surveillance; that's not worked 100%. The only three options is to find some pre-cogs to read the future or be willing to have more armed citizens wandering around in society or have more police everywhere to protect gun-free zones. That last choice seems to be a budgetary non-starter for both gov't and business owners.)
Rambling mostly stops here. I now return you to a normal reply thread.

Kmac:
3. Those that crusade against a particular object, don't realize (or care) that the same thing can be done to other objects as well, including ones they care about.
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D47: Yep. UBCs are NOT about making you safer. Neither Bakersfield nor Orlando would have been stopped by UBCs. UBC is about control; it's destined to fail because it's an answer without a delimited question and then the next step will have to be registration. When your goal is to shape outcomes, you need to restrict choices. Gun control is the canary in the coal mine because it's a right that is so easy to attack; every other right has the option for increasing "common sense regulation" as well, if you stop to think about it. Omar was being investigated for checking out jihadi websites. Hmm, what else would be an inflammatory website in the not-to-distant future? Been to an anti-abortion or pro-abortion website? Been researching successful socialism programs in Germany? Maybe you would be next.


Kmac:
4. Creepy politicians looking for a way to make themselves look good while, at the same time, limiting your freedoms.
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D47: Yes, when politicians are promising outcomes, they will have to shape the input choices to deliver on those promises.

Kmac:
5. Greedy lawyers looking to make a quick buck.
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D47: This problem has existed since the code of Hammurabi. This one is best left alone.
 
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I may not have the academic credentials to dive into the deep end of the, "what is the nature of man" pool. :p It's a subject that I have spent some time trying to come to terms with though. I completely enjoy a spirited exchange of important ideas. For me, it is the way I clarify and define what I believe. I also recognize that my core beliefs are, as Glenn put it, focused by social beliefs, emotions and religion. I believe that to deny that is intellectually indefensible.:p
 
There is a qualitative difference between an assertion about how one comes to his own conclusions, or even how many people can come to their conclusions, on the one hand, and on the other hand dismissing a specific author's thoughts and argument as mere pretext.

Few would dispute emotion as one element to be accounted for in persuasion generally.
 
Zukiphile I am not dismissing your cogent argument. I believe the line between intellect and one's core beliefs is blurry at best. There may be some who can clearly separate the two but for most of us I believe, whether common man or Supreme Court judge, it is impossible, and maybe undesirable, to do so.
 
I didn't take your response as a dismissal. I only note a difference between:

1. "I detest people from Indiana so throroughly that it would be difficult for me to decide anything about a person from Indiana without injecting my bias.", and

2. "He held that the man owed federal income tax on the income distributed to him under the trust, but that was just an excuse to act on his bias against people from Indiana".


It's the difference between revealing an affection or antipathy of one's own, a matter about which one can assume he has knowledge, and an accusation that someone else's reasoning is mere pretext.
 
The Bill of Rights. The founders knew that governments throughout history desire to limit individual freedom. They knew that officials will eventually try to deny rights; the act of denial may not even be the intention of some of the politicians. Denial of rights can also be intentional.
No matter what the antigun politicians say, they would like to eliminate civilian firearm ownership. The sound bites fool some, but to us who pay attention, we see right through it. The perfect example of this is: anytime new gun control legislation is enacted, the victory speech includes "this is an important first step"
 
^^^Rickyrick you hit it. The founders envisioned a government that would eventually attempt to deny rights. This is why I despise the casual flinging of the word "democracy" in any form of debate. A true democracy in and of itself is not evil, but it is subject to the whims of "mob rule" during times of panic and crisis. A true democracy is where 51% of the populace can vote to execute the other 49%, for whatever reason they deem appropriate. Obviously the United States is not a democracy, but a republic.

I understand that most people may say democracy when they in earnest mean a republic, or at least a constitutional democracy, but it still irritates me. Mob rule is real. There are some in the media actually calling for a repeal of the 2nd amendment because of recent events. In normal times they would be deemed an extreme fringe and all but the most extreme sympathizers would shut down 10 seconds into the article, saying "we can't do that." Now? They can expose their fringe views to many more people who no longer say "we can't do that," but instead ask " why can't we do that if it would make us safer. After all science says it would." Were we a democracy, that didn't afford basic human rights protection, then guys in raid vests would be going from door to door to confiscate guns right now. Actually it probably would've happened years ago already.

Its not just politicians, though don't get me wrong I can't think of one that I would trust with virtually anything, but its also the media who is also complicit and responsible. And average citizens who consume media blindly.
 
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