Is anyone else fed up with the extremism on both sides of the gun/gun control debate?

There are people here who state "both are clearly and obviously unconstitutional" with regard to certain gun laws.
And it never occurs to them to ask "according to who?"
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GCA'68 repeatedly uses the phrase like "(1) to receive, possess, or transport any firearm or ammunition in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce; or (2) to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce."

The government is claiming authority to regulate guns via the Commerce Clause (in Article I, Section 8.) The 2nd Amendment (all the amendments, actually) modifies the body of the Constitution -- if the government ever had any authority under the commerce clause to regulate arms (which is debatable), the 2nd Amendment removes that authority. Only a dishonest "what the meaning of 'is' is" -type reading could interpret it differently.
 
There are extremists on both sides
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How is being true to the origin of something in our constitution extreme? If we had 2000 gun laws a year after the revolutionary war Id be inclined to agree we've see a seen a natural progression... That's not what happened..

Consider if our other rights were to be restricted in similar ways...

License to speak in public. Background check prior to public speaking. You have to get a new background check for each speech. If your speech papers get seen prior to the speech you could become subject to arrest. Or how about if you attend religious ceremonies more than twice a month then you need to fill out special paperwork for high volume attendance... Religious books must be kept with lock and key and when not in use place in a safe meeting California standards..

None of these things would fly for our other rights, not one of them so how is expecting the equal treatment of a right extreme? There never is any compromise by antis, never we loss more and more and they lose nothing, that's not compromise.

No, I honor your sentiments and your right to have them even if I strongly disagree with you... I don't have a lot of grey area, things are either right or wrong, but we are all different.. :)
 
Consider if our other rights were to be restricted in similar ways...
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They are, though each right is restricted in ways unique to the societal issues unique to the exercise of that right.

First Amendment rights, for instance, are subject to all sorts of restrictions...narrowly tailored, for the most part, but restrictions nonetheless.

The constitution is a constitution, not a legal code. The details get worked out over the years, in the political and judicial arenas.
 
I heard someone make a few arguments that I absolutely agree with:

1. If armed security guards are a bad idea in schools, which are targets, they should be a bad idea in airports, local/state/federal government property, outside the rich Beverly Hills home, and basically...armed private security guards should no longer exist.

2. If Joe citizen, who is also a target should not carry concealed, no one else other than law enforcement should either; including judges, private investigators, politicians, etc. Guns are bad, cops will arrive in a minute right?

3. The local business or rich guy should not be able to rent an off duty cop to protect them or their property just to get around who can carry a gun and protect said person or property. Guns are bad, on-duty cops are coming right?

There must be some gun restrictions, such as mental and criminal history, but other than that...leave lawful gun owners alone, and increase the public safety net for the mentally ill are the answers.
 
I haven't read this whole thread, but I'll try to answer the OP:

The insanity is that pro-gunners won't budge, and want guns for everyone, with no restrictions or controls, and anti-gunners want all guns banned. There is middle ground. I believe that neither solution works, and neither solution actually addresses the facts in any sort of reasonable manner.

The fact is, guns can be a way to protect oneself, can be a way to get food, can be dangerous, can be fun, and more. Education about gun safety should be promoted, and access control should be promoted. Keeping guns out of the hands of the demented, the hands of children, and the hands of those who break laws should not have to restrict responsible users from ownership.

I am dedicated to discussing promoting reasonable methods to promote gun control AND gun ownership. Safe usage of guns should be priority #1 of gun ownership. This includes both safe handling practices and control over who can access them, on a personal level. Children should not have access to them without supervision and safety training, and thieves should not be able to access them without AT LEAST some trouble, locks, safes, etc.

I love my guns, but I also recognize the need to keep them out of certain hands, and the way things are going it is looking like it’s only one way or the other. Let’s have both!

Am I insane, or seeing something here? I want middle ground!
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First of all, I'm an honest-to-goodness, card-carrying NRA member. Even at that, I'll be the first to admit that there are some folks that just shouldn't have guns. Violent felons and the mentally ill. I'm all for responsible gun ownership, and those two categories don't make the cut.

With that said, let's talk about what "middle ground" means. To my mind, "middle ground" ought to mean the midpoint between: (a) anybody can own anything they can afford, no restrictions whatsoever; and (b) no civilian ownership of firearms whatsoever. It seems to me that we're already beyond "middle ground" and closer to (b) than (a) as it stands today. On the federal level alone, we already have a background check on the purchaser of every new firearm, and every used firearm sold by FFLs. In many states, you must get state permission before you can carry a pistol, unless you pack it in the trunk of your car. If the seller of a firearm has any reason to believe the buyer is a felon or otherwise prohibited, he has to call off the sale, or face significant penalties. Many of these newly-started "let's just be reasonable" threads seem to operate on the assumption that we (gun owners) should be willing to retreat to a middle ground between the law is it currently stands, and a total ban on civilian ownership of firearms.

The phrase "middle ground" also implies that there is some kind of negotiation, some kind of compromise. Surely someone has already posted a link to the LawDog Files' "Ok, I'll play?" What the big antis like Feinstein are pushing does not, in any way, shape, manner or form, resemble a negotiation or compromise. What they're pushing is nothing more than stripping law-abiding gun owners of our rights, based on the acts of a lunatic. For most of my life, gun owners had their rights taken, little by little, one piece at a time. And it has all been done in the name of "the greater good."

Note that I said, "in the name of" the greater good. I am unconvinced that the measures were actually taken to improve the good of the many, but that's a discussion for another day. More importantly, we're talking about whether or not I will be allowed to legally possess the most effective means of protecting my wife and my daughter. Right wrong or indifferent, bad things happen. Riots, floods, tornadoes, looting, carjackings, home invasions, etc. I have a wife and daughter and I'm utterly undemocratic when it comes to my family. If it's going to impair my ability to protect them, screw the greater good.
 
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joshf128 said:
What part of mandatory background checks erodes 2A?
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Mandatory background checks for all firearms transactions would be ineffective, thus leading to additional laws and requirements to 'fix' the deficiency. You don't really believe that people who currently provide firearms to their disqualified friends or relatives would go to dealers for background checks and then say "Oops, I can't do that." So mandatory background checks would not be effective for private transactions unless there was another law, such as requiring all firearms to be registered. Even registration would not eliminate prohibited private transactions, so there would have to be even another law, maybe prohibiting private transactions entirely.
 
With that said, let's talk about what "middle ground" means. To my mind, "middle ground" ought to mean the midpoint between: (a) anybody can own anything they can afford, no restrictions whatsoever; and (b) no civilian ownership of firearms whatsoever. It seems to me that we're already beyond "middle ground" and closer to (b) than (a) as it stands today.
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I think that's a fair definition of middle ground.

In my estimation, though, we've never come within a country mile of (b). In fact, with 200,000,000+ firearms out there, it's hard to draw any other conclusion.
 
You're certainly welcome to disagree, but I am not sure that using the number of firearms in civilian hands is really the way to measure severity of restrictions.
 
If they'd open up the NICS program so private sellers *could* use it, I would be in favor of that. Right now, it's only available to FFL dealers and I think law enforcement.
 
Well, as we're approaching one firearm for every man, woman and child in the United States (a ratio that may go above one soon enough, at the current rate), I'd be curious how it is anybody can conclude that the laws over the last decade have gotten us closer to "no civilian ownership of firearms whatsoever."
 
Perhaps I phrased it poorly, MedicineBow. Here was my original statement:

With that said, let's talk about what "middle ground" means. To my mind, "middle ground" ought to mean the midpoint between: (a) anybody can own anything they can afford, no restrictions whatsoever; and (b) no civilian ownership of firearms whatsoever. It seems to me that we're already beyond "middle ground" and closer to (b) than (a) as it stands today.
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I was not referring to how many firearms are out there in civilian hands. I was discussing the regulatory structure in place. For example, if Congress were to pass a law tomorrow that said simply, "It shall be unlawful for any person who is not a member of the US Military or a sworn & certified law enforcement officer may own or possess any firearm," we'd be smack at (b), despite the fact that there may be 200M firearms out there in civilian hands.
 
Spats...

I'm not trying to jump on your phrasing. What I thought you were saying is that the current regulatory structure is closer to a ban than not. I don't think that's even close to being true. In fact, the very opposite is true. Guns, under the current regulations, are being easily sold and bought at record rates.

Now, if you're saying that a gun ban could be proposed, well, I suppose it could.
 
MedicineBow, you're always welcome to disagree, but bear a couple of facts in mind:
1) The 200M number includes every firearm purchased before 1968 that is still out there and was transferred, inherited, etc.
2) There are significant restrictions that many of us (myself included) don't think about simply because, in our memory, they've always been in place. Machine guns, suppressors, interstate shipping, etc.
3) As it stands, the first buyer for every firearm in the US requires a NICS check.

Compare this to, say 1920, when a 10-year-old could have ordered a machine gun through the mail and had it delivered to his home.
 
Trust me, I know I'm welcome to disagree.

But the point remains: we have a record number of firearms. We are not and have never been anywhere within a country mile of having no guns in civilian hands. I have never once heard of a non-felon, non-crazy who couldn't buy a gun or two or five in this country when he wanted to. Not a single one.

And, yep, no suppressors...so it's going to be louder when you shoot. And, yep, hard to get automatic weapons...so you have to pull the trigger one time for every shot.

But, let's face it, for decades we've had unparalleled choice in weapons. A really remarkable feast.

And I've sure taken advantage of it.
 
Let's return to the opening post:

myshoulderissore said:
I am dedicated to discussing promoting reasonable methods to promote gun control AND gun ownership. Safe usage of guns should be priority #1 of gun ownership. This includes both safe handling practices and control over who can access them, on a personal level. Children should not have access to them without supervision and safety training, and thieves should not be able to access them without AT LEAST some trouble, locks, safes, etc.
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What, exactly, are you proposing? Are you aware that the Sandy Hook shooting took place in a state that has an AWB in place, has a law mandating locked storage of firearms if there are children under 16 in the house, requires proof of firearms safety training as a prerequisite to issuing a carry permit, and requires reporting a stolen firearm within 72 hours? Did you know all that?

And then you must know that, at age 20, the shooter didn't qualify for a carry permit, but they don't apply to rifles anyway. His mother reportedly kept the guns in a safe or locked cabinet even though she was not required to by law. She was knowledgeable about firearms safety and had trained both her sons.

In other words, none of the things you apparently view as crucial based on your first post would have made any difference, as conclusively proven by the fact that they were ALL in place and they DIDN'T make any difference.

So what do have to bring to the table that WOULD make a difference, and that would NOT be an unconstitutional infringement on the 2nd Amendment RKBA?

myshoulderissore said:
Compromise is already here, has already happened.
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No, "compromise" is not already here. Unconstitutional infringement is here. The gun laws we labor under today, almost entirely out the 20,000 or so that exist across the country, are not compromises. Compromise is when each side yields a little to the other side. All the yielding has been been on our side. The anti-gun side is never satisfied. In a true compromise, both sides can agree to settle something and get on with life. The anti-gunners take what they can get today, then next year they're back for yet another bite of the apple (or, as LawDog expressed it, another slice of OUR cake). If they can't get what they want in one try, they approach it like the death from a thousand cuts.
 
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You are right. There are extremists on both sides, but they will not prevail.
The middle ground will.
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As the "middle ground" has a track record of moving in in the direction of more gun control, if we keep moving to the "middle ground", then we will keep moving to more and more gun control. I will not. Do your darnedest, but applying for a Carry Permit was the LAST compromise I will make in this area.
 
I would like to state that I am sorry for how I approached this issue.

I am all for less restrictions on gun ownership, and I want to work towards that. My talk of middle ground is merely due to the fact that we are in middle ground already. My reasoning behind the initial post was to discuss the reality of the issue, and because I believe that blanket bans on features or properties of some guns is pretty dumb, but I also see no point in discussing *only* a full return to, for lack of a better term, "full gun liberation".

The reality that we are currently already in the middle ground means to me that middle ground is where discussion needs to be focused on. I would ideally like much more freedoms in not just this arena, but others as well. To get there, I wanted to discuss, in a civil manner, how we could propose to roll back restrictions that are in place, and useless. I DO NOT think that gun ownership should be absolutely unwatched, or unregulated. I do think that *some* measures of control should be in place. I do not think restricting carry in most currently restricted places is good in any way, I do not think that restrictions on MGs, SBR/SBSs, or suppressors is helping any issue in any way.

This discussion was NOT started over the Sandy Hook incident, and I am not going to get into it in any way. I am aware of many of the same things the rest of you are. I don't need convincing, I just wanted to discuss the realities, and perhaps what measures could actually be kept and be useful, and how to deal with our current situation without resorting to faceless statistics that would be ignored anyway, or the "all or nothing" approach. Small steps are how things change, and the laws aren't going to be lifted in one fell swoop, nor is the talk of how things "should be" from either side doing anything but make the sides despise each other further.

I hope that clears up my stance...
 
If they can't get what they want in one try, they approach it like the death from a thousand cuts.
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This is what I am suggesting, rather than *just* crying infringement. I'm not saying it's not an infringement, either, just saying that merely discussing utopia does not bring utopia to be.
 
The reality is that the anti-gun forces are going to pull out all the stops to push for as close to a total ban on every type of firearm we currently regard as "mainstream" as they can possibly get. The only way to fend off a full frontal assault is with a full frontal counter-attack -- or carpet bombing and napalm.
 
Whatever gets passed i pray to God it's not this : http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Govern...Chicago-The-Blueprint-For-Gun-Laws-Nationally

Fact of the matter is there are plenty restrictions on firearms to keep them out of the hands of evil people...yet they still get them because if someone wants to do something bad enough your going to do it, no written law is going to change a thing. The incident that happened with the man ambushing the firemen Christmas day.. the man is a felon that just got out of a 17yr sentence for killing a relative. Legally he can't own a single firearm, yet he had four. So then how is any control supposed to stop that man? If there were no guns on earth people would still be killing people then we'd all be hearing about banning knives and going to all plastic silverware. Then comes the truth of why should I and other law abiding citizens be punished because of what some nut did unlawfully in the first place? We have a middle ground and it's the laws currently in place. This whole thing is a bunch of BS and its driving me insane.

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