Proposed Mag Ban: "Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act"

Peetzakilla is ok to analyze the political and policy implications of the slippery slope technique.

However, his example of abortion was just illustrative of the technique in use by pro and anti factions.

Do NOT debate abortion - or you are gone!

Just a warning.

Glenn
 
I have to agree with Peetzakilla on this one. Little by little rights and freedoms we take for granted get restricted a little more and a little more and then poof one day you wake up and you dont have the right to do whatever anymore.

Home processing of foods, growing gardens and canning are all things that most people take as being a normal part of life if you choose to participate in such activities. The slippery slope in the case was the "Food Safety Modernization Act" which effectively makes it a crime to do any of these activites without a license.

Im not trying to debate the act but rather illustrate how what sounds like some possibly good thing step by step erodes the very foundations of freedom. What business is it of anyone to limit these traditional activities and how do they in any real way differ from the other rights and freedoms we all wish to enjoy.

Should you be a felon for canning your own foods? How about should you be a felon for having a 10 round magazine? Once you allow one thing to be regulated it has a way of growing to encompass more and more things.

I hate to say it buy every time a legislated bill gets passed there never seems to be a debate on is it constitutionalty nor any thought as to the loss of freedom it may imply or impose.

When does freedom get considered vs law, it simply doesnt or it has to wait until some court weights the issue years down the road.. The slope is very slippery and a lot of what has been done flys in the face of freedom, it may be legal but that doesnt necessairly make it right.
 
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The "slippery slope" is a common fallacy, but is a concern when the opposition has stated getting to the the bottom of the hill is their goal!

Essentially, our most logical argument is that the capacity limit is both arbitrary (why 10?) and ineffective (based on the 1994 AWB results).
 
raimius said:
The "slippery slope" is a common fallacy, but is a concern when the opposition has stated getting to the the bottom of the hill is their goal!
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I'm a little confused how something that's a "fallacy" is simultaneously "a concern".

How is something that is false, misleading, unsound or erroneous (the definitions of "fallacy") a concern?

The "stated goal" of the opposition has nothing to do with the slippery slope phenomenon.

Has anyone paid any attention to the gay rights movement?

How about violence in movies/TV?

Nudity in movies/TV?

Gun control?

Ever seen a conservative church go liberal? A liberal church go conservative?

How about the drug addiction problem? Ever heard of "gateway drugs"?

Alcoholism?

Ever seen the stats on the number of sex offenders that STARTED with soft-core pornography and ended with rape and/or murder?



How can people deny what is plainly, routinely, in their face?
 
The ineffective argument is the double edged sword that pokes you over the slippery slope.

I heard the DOJ presentations on why the AWB did not influence any crime rate indices. They concluded that existing stocks of magazines and weapons plus new weapons without the AWB silliness (bayonet lugs) more than meet demand.

Thus, one concludes that bans are useless or one concludes that new laws must be tougher on production and no grandfathering, lets be confiscatory of old weapons and mags.

Now whether that could be pulled off is a debatable issue. In some states and countries with turn in policies, the results seem to be far below what existing stocks suggest.

The Canadian experience suggests an enormous expense for little gain with such policies.

Thus, the ineffectiveness of the law and the extreme cost and unlikely effectiveness of the laws are good arguments.

However, the proposals will still come from folks who are emotionally convinced that we need such (maybe from bad personal experiences and thus resistant to rational arguments) or from politicians who use them to excite their base by attacking the totemic issues of their political opponents.

This strategy is quite common for both sides of the political spectrum.
 
My apologies if you misunderstood my post. The .pdf I linked to actually explains the intent of my post more completely.

I was talking about the difference between a logical fallacy and an invalid argument. Slippery slope is NOT an invalid argument, and is often supported by history and anecdotal evidence. It simply needs to be presented with all the points between the "top" and "bottom" of the slope.

I guess my point was that we should try to take the "wind out of the sails" of the most common attack on the defense of 2A and other civil liberties.

Edit:

I have to agree with Bgutzman - it sure seems like most new legislation these days is aimed at the steady removal of our rights.
 
raimius
The "slippery slope" is a common fallacy, but is a concern when the opposition has stated getting to the the bottom of the hill is their goal!

Essentially, our most logical argument is that the capacity limit is both arbitrary (why 10?) and ineffective (based on the 1994 AWB results).
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Common fallacy??? I think history would argue otherwise - in many different areas aside from gun control.

- Sweden - Socialism gone amok.
- US individual rights - proposed ban on distracted walking (aimed at texting)
- Auto Safety manufacturing guidelines
 
Slippery slope arguments make a great deal of sense to those whose primary concern is the erosion of freedoms, and who are seeking to bolster their resolve.

But they make very little sense when used to persuade someone who doesn't already essentially agree with you.

We need to be able to distinguish between the two kinds of usage.

If you say to someone, "I am opposed to X not because of X itself but because I am concerned that X bears a resemblance to Y and that if X happens then Y might too, even though Y isn't the thing that's actually happening at the moment," and if that person already pretty much agrees with you, then you might accomplish something in terms of building solidarity, etc. But to anyone else, to speak in this way is to risk sounding like you can't think straight. It is to risk sounding paranoid. It is, in my opinion, a terrible strategy if your purpose is to convince anyone of anything much at all.

If you actually want to be taken seriously, it makes far more rhetorical sense to base your arguments on the issue at hand. You should argue against bans on bayonet lugs (for instance) by pointing out that such a ban is silly and will accomplish nothing, not by arguing that a ban on lugs today will lead to a ban on all rifles tomorrow. You may well be right, but being right doesn't make it the smart thing to say.
 
Somethings disconnected here...

If you actually want to be taken seriously, it makes far more rhetorical sense to base your arguments on the issue at hand. You should argue against bans on bayonet lugs (for instance) by pointing out that such a ban is silly and will accomplish nothing, not by arguing that a ban on lugs today will lead to a ban on all rifles tomorrow. You may well be right, but being right doesn't make it the smart thing to say.
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I dont think any of us are proposing trying to win a arguement on the grounds of a "slippery slope". Yes we know the slope is slippery but the ground we can reasonably show to anyone is something akin to the "Food Modernization and Safety Act", doesnt sound bad on the surface and all that.

The point is instead of our representatives limiting themselves to creating new laws concerning commercial food or re writing old laws that are less revelant today our representatives on the whole decided no american can produced home canned goods ect (this is only for illustration Im not arguing the point about food safety) in a safe manner and so we are all forbidden by law to do so without a license.

It is this same wrong headed thinking that is erroding all of our natural and civil rights. At what point does someone in our legislative system stand up and say hey what freedoms are left, is there anything left that is free and without our taint?

In this forum its 2A and related items and my question is at what point does someone wake up and smell the coffee and say wow where are the rights we should be enjoying and where are the freedoms.

The true scale of justice must in her balance not only weight the measures of law but she must weight the measures of freedom. We have become a nation of laws and not a nation of freedoms.

We must convice those that represent us that no matter what restrictions should be the very, very last thing ever done because getting back our freedom is a much longer road than voting it all away.

Honestly how is it that simply possessing a metal or plastic magazine even if it holds a million rounds is violating someone elses rights? We were guarnteed the right to bear arms not the right to be safe and protected from cradle to grave from all harm through ineffective, freedom robbing legislation.

This is not a rant and certainly not all laws are bad but we must re instill into our system that freedom must be weighed against any laws that are being passed, and it needs to be a tough test for the law.
 
I dont think any of us are proposing trying to win a arguement on the grounds of a "slippery slope".
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I don't know. I hear the slippery slope argument a lot. Not just in this thread, but wherever 2A is being discussed. A lot of people feel that ALL restrictions must be resisted with equal commitment, and that if you let even the most benign ones through, then before you know it, it's all ruination.

The biggest problem with the slippery slope argument is that, when people start assuming that A must lead to B, they get themselves all confused and start thinking that B is here already. I don't want to get this thread off track, but just as an example: the Food Safety Modernization Act does NOT make it a crime to grow veggies in your garden or to can them at home. It is aimed at commercial producers, NOT at people canning their own food. I think you are tilting at windmills here.

Maybe a mag limit would lead to something else. Whether it might or not, I'd prefer to fight restrictions with reasoned arguments about magazines, than by building a seige fortress and flinging canned goods (or whatever else you might have) over the ramparts.
 
A must lead to B, they get themselves all confused and start thinking that B is here already.
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Actually B through X are already here and if you dont believe so then why was there ever an "Assault Weapons Ban" when there is no functional difference between a semi auto hunting rifle and a semi auto AR. The only difference is plastic or metal molding and public opinion, no functional difference.

The same holds true for trying to ban any magazine that holds a given number of rounds. It doesnt matter if a magazine holds 1 round or 100 rounds or a million rounds it does not in and of itself violate anyones rights simply because it exist and someone owns it. The slope is that some representative feels he or she can somehow save the world from evil if we can just restrict this and just restrict that.

So ok they start with 10 rounds and then why not just 8 or 6 or 1 or none. Do we now need a license to posses a magazine because in someway a tax and some paperwork can magically stop a potential criminal from doing some evil deed.

The end effect is law abiding citizens like you and me get saddled with less and less freedoms and in the end the legal creep has to go through court to even have a chance of going away because it seems a lot easier to pass unnecessary laws than repeal them.

Lawful weapon owners are the only ones suffering from these laws because we actually follow the laws despite how it may grind against our constitutionally guarnteed freedom.

Dont be fooled either because a lot of these laws aren't aimed at criminals a lot of these laws are aimed at making ownership of a gun so difficult or unwieldly that people just quit and give it up..

Am I wrong, whens the last time you got a permit for your freedom of speech or so many other rights we may enjoy despite whatever limits we now have.

The slope is greasy and we have to do better at getting people to think about freedom instead of laws.
 
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BGutzman, I basically agree with everything you are saying there. Where I might differ is that I don't necessarily see it as a case of one stupid piece of legislation snowballing into the end of the world as we know it. It's in the nature of stupid occurences that they don't necessarily follow patterns. The AWB was the product of a particular set of anxieties and ignorances. We are just as likely to find that the next piece of stupid legislation arises from a different set of anxieties and ignorances.

it seems a lot easier to pass unnecessary laws than repeal them
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I think that's generally true, but the AWB faded away without too much fuss, and despite all the prophets of doom, we haven't seen too much interest in reinstating it. Yes, there is a lot of focus on magazines now. And I don't doubt we will see a very hard push to get some serious restrictions on them. But - fingers crossed - that will be the worst of it this time around, and that's a heck of a lot better than where we were 17 years ago when the AWB got signed into law.

I'm not saying we should relax. I'm just saying that we can offer effective resistance if we keep an even keel. It isn't the end of the world yet.
 
my question is at what point does someone wake up and smell the coffee and say wow where are the rights we should be enjoying and where are the freedoms.
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For me, that was about 22 years ago, when I was first able to get involved as an adult in politics. Others on this board "woke up" back before the 1968 GCA passed.

For all the sturm und drang I hear these days, I frankly wonder where all the "slippery slope" folks coming out of the woodwork were in '89 and '93. I'm sure a large number of folks on this board were old enough to be politically active at the time, but I don't seem to remember many folks speaking up against infringements.

It's a fallacy to think that, just because things aren't the way we think they should be, everyone who came before had their heads in the sand all these years.
 
Tom I am sure you didn't have your head in the sand and mines not either. My arguement is we have too many laws and not enough people thinking about freedoms when we pass those laws.

Its not really a criticism of anyone on this forum its a simple fact of daily life. So long as no law seems to intrude on our daily lives we accept all these rules and all this stuff that was passed by people we did or didnt vote for.

The problem comes when one form of law enforcement or another enforces a law that impedes something that you feel at the core is a right.

We have laws, upon laws and then some more, why???

In two hundred years you would think we would have covered most everything thing that needs to be regulated and just add new stuff as it gets invented or becomes revelant. Our reps should be bored out of there minds and arguing ways to preserve our freedoms, not ways to outlaw this and that.

I argue for simple awareness, too many laws, too little freedom and all I ask is that people simply think about it. I advocate we need to make the idea of freedom a daily reality that has a place in our daily conversations and not something that we only think about when some officer attempts to do his duty for the community and we feel offended because we didnt realize we no longer had the right to do whatever.
 
I like slippery slopes. If you have any 10 firearms, items, or related freedoms, some control proponents can arrange those items in descending order from most, to least offensive.
For instance 1:hi-cap mags, 2:gun show loophole, 3: Saiga shotgun, 4:Black Talon ammunition, etc.. You are asked to give up the most offensive item topping the list, they will be satisfied.
Afterwards, the list is now headed by item 2, it's become the most offensive and it demands proper legislation.
Get it?

Paraphrased from Bud Helms....
we hear people say, "Why do you resist all reasonable compromise proposals to your right to own firearms? Why are you unwilling to make reasonable accomodations?
We answer: "Because we do not believe the proponents of that reasonable compromise will be satisfied with that compromise. We do not believe the reasonable accomodations will satisfy the hunger for control."
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I don't believe it has anything to do with guns, some would do this with trans fats, MSG, salt, and Happy Meals. From my perspective, it's giving up authority to those that have shown they don't satisfy easily, and slippery slope is as valid an arguement as any other, just say NO. You can say "stick to the particulars for this debate"....but keep incrementalism in mind, that's how they play.
 
Good points, but for me, it isn't about satisfying the insatiable hunger of those who want control. Bud is right; concessions won't satisfy them. It's more about the vast numbers of people who sit somewhere in the middle of this debate, and whose support we might like to cultivate. Look at it this way: About 30% of liberals oppose any tightening of gun control, and about 30% of conservatives support it. Which is to say, this isn't a simple us-and-them scenario; citizens situate themselves along a long and complex spectrum in regards to gun control. And many of these potential allies are turned off by the image of a gun culture that has dug in and won't come out to talk.

Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe we don't need their numbers. But I'm going out to talk anyway. Trench warfare isn't my cup of tea.
 
I'm not talking about us and them, conservative or whatever.
I'm talking about people who make lists to ration, and who have shown a pattern of the same over time.
I'm referring to the proposed mag ban of the OP.

If that is recognized for what it is, the correct answer is "no, because we know that this stop-gap will not satisfy you for long, you have shown that over time, so there is no reason for me to capitulate now."
 
I guess I'm just not persuaded that resisting them actually leaves us in a stronger position later.

Better, maybe. But not stronger, in the sense of "better positioned to maintain an effective resistance."
 
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