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Post by Socal Fan on May 20, 2018 12:37:45 GMT -5
controls on firearms (rather than shooters) are silly in the sense of not being likely to make that much difference, esp. given that confiscation is grossly unfeasible, and there are probably more firearms than people in the US. I believe in controlling firearms AND shooters. They are not mutually exclusive. Firearm control will not make much of an immediate difference but existing firearms will rust and malfunction over the next few decades. (Guns last a long time if properly maintained but I doubt that most violent people will properly maintain their guns.) My children and grandchildren will see the benefit. It is a pity that our fathers and grandfathers didn't have the foresight. |
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Post by Socal Fan on May 20, 2018 12:39:56 GMT -5
Those of you who do not believe in personal self-defense, can take your chances by not being armed against the violent among us That's why I believe in regulating gun possession, especially for the violent among us. |
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Post by agog on May 20, 2018 13:36:12 GMT -5
Your curse word replacer needs to be smarter. In fact, since that's also a word for a rooster, for pulling back the hammer on a firearm, for a hat or eyebrow at an angle, and appears as part of 162 (at least) other words or names, that's probably not the best choice for a word to replace at all. Ha ha BOGC. When I saw that on your post I wondered if it was you playing around or the 'naughty word' bot kicking in. Mystery solved. We don't need a 'naughty word' bot on this site imo. If someone goes too far the members would bring it to the mods attention for action. That should suffice. Perhaps a game: We might try to compose a entry that has the most legitimate 'naughty words' deleted. |
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Post by Deleted on May 20, 2018 14:06:13 GMT -5
Those of you who do not believe in personal self-defense, can take your chances by not being armed against the violent among us That's why I believe in regulating gun possession, especially for the violent among us. Your position is respected but not realistic. Every single living person has the potential for violent behavior given the right conditions and state of mind. In all of history the only type of regulation that is efficacious has been self-regulation or self-control. |
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Post by BOGC on May 20, 2018 14:40:30 GMT -5
Those of you who do not believe in personal self-defense, can take your chances by not being armed against the violent among us That's why I believe in regulating gun possession, especially for the violent among us. The violent among us, once due process is accomplished, should have everything but either a padded cell or a grave denied to them. But depriving all people of specific methods won't accomplish much, and you can't realistically deprive everyone of every alternative, since most of them (including firearms of various sorts, even AR-15's or semi-auto AK-47's) have legitimate uses. There has long been a civilian marksmanship program, so that more among potential draftees would have some basic skills. Competitions in support thereof on military facilities, which use either military owned M-16's (for active duty military members) or privately owned AR-15's (for civilians) exist. Moreover, for any veteran, an AR-15 has some advantage in terms of familiarity; and it's versatile enough for varmint hunting (prairie dogs, coyotes, with the right ammo anything up to small deer; most states would require use of low-capacity mags or at least not loading more than some small number of rounds for hunting, but that's a separate issue). Nor does registration accomplish much. Maryland for a time had a requirement that a sample round shot through each firearm and recovered in a manner that would preserve unique marks left by it, be submitted as a condition of purchase. It was expensive, and totally ineffective. Even is a state that seldom saw a regulation they didn't like, that eventually was stopped. All police and emergency personnel should always assume that everyone is armed and/or carrying hazmats. Yes, that's difficult; too bad. You want to exclude underage unstables from schools, use metal detectors and guards. Evacuation is NOT an issue; many buildings with entry controls exist that have solved that. Cost is an issue, but probably competitive with the sort of comprehensive (and intrusive!) regulation that would be effective. Training, I don't hate, as long as it's not an obstacle in terms of time or cost, or difficulty for a reasonably sane and responsible person. Much of that is even available via volunteers; and in supervised settings, could be (is, if the PC police don't ban it!) available for younger folks so that by the time they could legally own a firearm themselves, they'd be both trained and reasonably well indoctrinated. It's just a matter of time that regulation will become effectively impossible. 3D printers can produce most of the parts of firearms now. Few 3D printers with the capability to produce metal objects exist in individual hands, but it only takes a few to have a substantial black market supply of those parts that can't be plastic. And anyone can own machine tools, reloading equipment (meaning regulating ammo won't help much either), etc. Heck, I can buy a _laser_ powerful enough to be a weapon (blind someone, start a fire, at least, even burn through metal, if slowly); once batteries get enough better, you'll have outright sci-fi weapons on the street, with a range of a few miles and no windage or elevation correction needed; just sight on the target and push the button, and they'll lock on the image, show you a preview (press again to fire) and correct even if you move a bit off target. And I knew someone that had a computer controlled laser cutter at home, to fabricate their own parts (not for firearms because that wasn't their interest, but for pretty much anything). Yes, they had a good income (maybe $200K or so) and could afford it; but so do plenty of crooks. |
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2018 13:14:02 GMT -5
in.reuters.com/article/usa-guns-poll/gun-control-support-fades-three-months-after-florida-massacre-reuters-ipsos-poll-idINKCN1IO19WWORLD NEWS MAY 23, 2018 / 4:15 AM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO
Gun control support fades three months after Florida massacre Daniel Trotta NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Parkland, Florida, school massacre has had little lasting impact on U.S. views on gun control, three months after the shooting deaths of 17 people propelled a national movement by some student survivors, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Wednesday. While U.S. public support for more gun control measures has grown slowly but steadily over the years, it typically spikes immediately after the mass shootings that have become part of the U.S. landscape, then falls back to pre-massacre levels within a few months. The poll found that 69 percent of American adults supported strong or moderate regulations or restrictions for firearms, down from 75 percent in late March, when the first poll was conducted following the Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. The new poll numbers are virtually unchanged from pre-Parkland levels. The latest poll was conducted before the May 18 shooting in Texas, at Santa Fe High School near Houston, that killed 10 people. Whether Parkland would defy the trend has been closely watched ahead of the November mid-term congressional elections, especially since student survivors have attempted to turn public sentiment into a political movement on gun issues. David Hogg, one of the student leaders from Parkland, said he would measure the movement’s success not by an opinion poll but by how many members of the U.S. Congress supported by the National Rifle Association are voted out of office in November. “We can have all the public support that we want but if people do not get out and vote, we’re not going to have an impact,” Hogg said. President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans who control both houses of Congress all favor gun ownership rights. Strong supporters of gun rights expect they will continue to prevail in November. “The Democrats are way overplaying their hand,” said Larry Ward, president of Political Media Inc, a conservative public relations and consulting company. “If you think you’re going to run on gun control and win in this country, you’re out of your mind.” One poll respondent said he believes in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to keep and bear arms, but favored moderate restrictions such as waiting periods and background checks for gun purchases. Daniel Fisher, 46, an artist from Indianapolis, said the gun lobby does not care about individual rights but instead about the profits of gun manufacturers. “Lives don’t matter. People don’t matter. Money matters to them,” Fisher said, saying it was “unfortunate” that the public quickly moves on to the next crisis. Even the Dec. 14, 2012, massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, which killed 20 first-graders and six adult staff, failed to lastingly move public opinion. The Reuters/Ipsos poll found that support for strong or moderate firearms restrictions jumped by about 11 percentage points in the two weeks after the Sandy Hook shooting, rising to 70 percent at the end of 2012. But it fell back to the pre-shooting level three months later. However, while dramatic gains for gun control have faded quickly, the baseline for gun control has gradually crept up since the Sandy Hook massacre, rising from the high 50s to the high 60s since 2012. Meanwhile, those favoring “no or very few” restrictions have fallen from 10 percent in the middle of 2012 to 5 percent today. The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English throughout the United States. The May 5-17 poll has a credibility interval, a measure of the poll’s precision, of about 2 percentage points. Former Marjory Stoneman Douglas student Nikolas Cruz is accused of killing 17 people with an AR-15 style rifle on Feb. 14, leading to a series of demonstrations that included students walking out of classrooms across the country and a large demonstration in Washington. Florida prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Cruz, 19.
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2018 19:32:53 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2018 12:41:49 GMT -5
Hire a vet!  dailycaller.com/2018/05/23/armed-veterans-in-every-school-in-america/Like many Americans, I am praying for the Texas families who woke up on Saturday morning without their child, their grandchild or their niece or nephew. These families have unwillingly joined the hundreds of other families around the nation who will now live with the fact that their child was gunned down inside a school and their child is never coming back home from school for family dinner. This is a hole in their hearts that can never be replaced. I join with the many people in my community here in Philadelphia in saying that school safety needs to be a top priority for every elected official at the municipal, state and federal level. When it comes to school safety, I don’t agree with proposal of arming our teachers. Teachers are hired and trained to enrich the lives of our youth — not to defend them with a firearm. Every teacher that I’ve talked to in Philadelphia is strongly opposed to keeping a firearm in their classrooms. However, they agree with my idea of placing armed veterans inside of their schools to keep everyone safe. So here’s my proposal: We have roughly 370,000 unemployed veterans in this country and 59 percent are between the ages of 25–54. Effective immediately, I propose that a minimum of two armed veterans should be placed inside every school in America. Veterans fought for, defended and love our country. Many of them are now back home after serving our country without gainful employment. Let’s fix that! Don’t you think veterans would welcome the opportunity to continue serving our country by protecting our children? I think the answer is a resounding YES! By placing battle tested, military trained Veterans inside of schools, a few things would/should happen: 1) Any would-be attacker will probably think twice about committing a murderous act if they know there are armed personnel inside of the school that are trained on who to look for and how to handle the threat/attacker. 2) I think our young people would benefit from being able to build a relationship/friendship with Veterans inside of their school. Many young people don’t understand what service means or how important it is to our society. Whether its community service to a nonprofit or service to our military. Service to others is an important character trait to learn growing up. 3) In the event that an attacker does get past the Veterans checkpoint, the Veterans are already on the scene and their military training will kick in to neutralize the threat immediately. In the minutes it takes for police to arrive on the scene, these are minutes that our Veterans can save lives and neutralize the threat(s). In addition to placing veterans inside schools, I am calling on the Department of Homeland Security to partner with local, state and federal agencies to conduct security assessments of every school. Let’s analyze the best way to limit every school to one or two entry/exit locations during the school day. At these locations is where we will place the armed Veterans. I’m not suggesting this is the end-all-be-all solution, but it does seem like a very practical and common sense solution to keeping our children safe. I implore all members of Congress to create legislation called the School Safety Act to provide federal funding to every school in America to immediately hire veterans to work in collaboration with local police to keep our children safe from further mass shootings. Typically, I am not one for suggesting any type of increase in federal spending because federal spending is out of control. However, in this case, I would support new federal funding to safeguard our children and get our vets back to work. This is a no-brainer. The time to act is now — not tomorrow or next week — because if we keep talking about this without any actions then we are going to hear about another school shooting. And that’s something that no American should have to life with. No child or teacher or administrator should have to wake up and ask themselves if today is the day a shooter comes into their school and guns them down. I think our children, their families, teachers and administrators would feel very safe if we had our veterans inside of the school to protect them. My name is Bryan Leib. I’m the Republican nominee for Congress in PA-03 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Bryan Leib is running for a seat in Pennsylvania’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller. |
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2018 20:00:05 GMT -5
Yes, better to ask a vet to stand in front of a the bad guy, than to ask everyone else to do the same. Just imagine if we can get them for the same wage the earned in the sand-box? "Crime is rampant because the law-abiding, each of us, condone it, excuse it, permit it, submit to it. We permit and encourage it because we do not fight back immediately, then and there, where it happens...The defect is there, in our character. We are a nation of cowards and shirkers." - Jeffrey Snyder jim.com/cowards.htm |
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2018 19:10:19 GMT -5
And YES, Gun Violence and School Shooters are mentioned: "The birth rate is declining because the U.S. is a hostile place to raise a kid" www.dailykos.com/stories/1767742Note: Just a thought! What a neat way to get rid of the 2nd Amendment! Have all the women capable of child bearing refuse to get pregnant until the 2nd Amendment is repealed! Oh man, what a sweet thought! <tmui></tmui> From the article: "The rate actually went up for women who are 40 and up." I guess that means that mature women like the Second Amendment.  |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2018 11:03:50 GMT -5
For readers interested in the Second Amendment, here is an opinion expressed by Declan McCullagh from the National Review: www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/second-amendment-gun-rights-congress-must-act-to-enforce/Enforce the Second Amendment
It's time for Congress to act. States controlled by the Democratic party have chosen to ignore an individual right protected by an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Rights of millions of law-abiding Americans in those states have been routinely violated by Byzantine rules and prohibitions, and courts have turned a blind eye to those abuses. The U.S. Supreme Court could intervene, but instead it has chosen to leave unconstitutional laws on the books. Some prominent Democrats have called for repealing the amendment, and magazine articles have offered elaborate justifications. If this sounds familiar, it happened after the Fifteenth Amendment was adopted in 1870 after the Civil War. That amendment said voting rights “shall not be denied or abridged” on the basis of race or color. Many southern states nevertheless found creative ways to disenfranchise racial minorities — abuses that were addressed by the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In today’s deeply divided America, many states dominated by Democrats have discovered equally creative ways to bypass, circumvent, or simply ignore the individual rights protected by the Second Amendment. Law-abiding residents of New York State must wait for up to a year for a license to possess a handgun in their homes. Connecticut restricts standard-capacity magazines. California’s laws are probably the most onerous: Residents are limited to handgun models that appear on a government-created approved list, advertisements for firearms are restricted, concealed carry is limited to those who can demonstrate “good cause” to the satisfaction of local law enforcement, and starting next year background checks will be required even for ammunition. Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland round out the list of coastal blue states that fail to protect the right of citizens to carry handguns for self-defense. In theory, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Heller and its 2010 decision in McDonald, the Second Amendment was supposed to mean something. Certain policy choices for legislators were supposed to be taken off the table. The majority opinion in Heller, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, concluded by saying: “It is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.” Yet many lower courts have been aiming for just that. Two cases decided this month underscore how the Second Amendment has effectively been repealed in California. In one case, a federal district judge ruled against the National Rifle Association’s state affiliate, which had challenged onerous state rules targeting popular semiautomatic rifles. “Even an outright ban on certain types of semiautomatic weapons does not substantially burden the Second Amendment right,” wrote Judge Josephine Staton, an Obama appointee. In a second case, the NRA affiliate had argued that California could not completely prohibit a resident from carrying a firearm for self-defense. That lawsuit was dismissed by Judge John Kronstadt, another Obama appointee. (If plaintiffs had somehow prevailed before the trial judges, the Ninth Circuit’s innovative legal minds could have been counted on to overturn any pro-gun outcome.) Since McDonald eight years ago, the Supreme Court has not been helpful. In a recent California case, the Calguns Foundation and the Second Amendment Foundation challenged zoning laws in Alameda County aimed at regulating gun stores into non-existence. The Ninth Circuit sided with Alameda in 2017, saying that “no historical authority suggests that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to sell a firearm.” On May 15, the Supreme Court declined to hear the groups’ appeal, a move that leaves the Ninth Circuit’s decision intact — and will surely encourage other anti-gun politicians. “If a lower court treated another right so cavalierly, I have little doubt that this Court would intervene,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a dissent from his colleagues’ decision not to intervene in February after the Ninth Circuit upheld another California anti-gun measure. “But as evidenced by our continued inaction in this area, the Second Amendment is a disfavored right in this Court. . . . The right to keep and bear arms is apparently this Court’s constitutional orphan.” Justice Neil Gorsuch joined Thomas in a separate dissent last year that made a similar point. In the post–Civil War south, resistance to the Fifteenth Amendment was widespread — and, at times, unapologetic. Sen. Benjamin Tillman (D., S.C.) said in a Senate floor debate that “we made up our minds that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution were themselves null and void.” In 1870, Rep. William Prosser (R., Tenn.) introduced a bill to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment; he said in a House floor debate that “the Democratic party is still unmistakably and unalterably opposed to all [the Reconstruction amendments], and more especially to the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.” The North American Review, a literary magazine, published an article as late as 1908 calling for repeal. It argued that “the Fifteenth Amendment is the prolific source of race conflict and race prejudice” and that “the time has arrived when this repeal movement should be inaugurated.” The solution to the southern Democrats’ abuses of power was the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It was enacted after litigation on a case-by-case basis proved insufficient to curtail Fifteenth Amendment violations: State legislatures became adept at replacing unconstitutional laws with new ones that had a similar effect. In response, the 1965 act prohibited states from adopting practices or procedures that deny or abridge Americans’ right to vote. Crucially, the authors of the act recognized that obstructionist states could be singled out for extra scrutiny. Politicians in those states were prohibited from making arbitrary changes to voting rules. The same approach can remedy abuses by anti-gun states. The Second Amendment applies to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment, which allows Congress to police the actions of wayward states “by appropriate legislation.” It’s true that Congress is limited to remedying or preventing unconstitutional actions, as the Supreme Court stressed in a 1997 religious-freedom case. But even in that case, a majority of the justices said Congress “must have wide latitude” in enacting laws to protect constitutional rights “despite the burdens those measures placed on the States.” A federal law could prohibit states from adopting practices or procedures that deny or abridge Americans’ Second Amendment rights, with obstructionist states singled out for extra scrutiny. The law should preempt unconstitutional state and local anti-gun laws, require concealed-carry reciprocity, and split up the Ninth Circuit (why should Idaho and Montana share a circuit with California and Hawaii?). Some of those proposals already have been advanced by advocacy groups including the Firearms Policy Coalition and the National Rifle Association. Here’s another: Remember the reference to “militia” in the Second Amendment? Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress authority over “organizing” and “disciplining” the militia, which federal law defines as “all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and . . . under 45 years of age.” Congress can expand the definition of militia to include women, boost the upper age to 70 or higher, and perhaps raise the lower limit to 21 years of age. At the same time, it can create a federal license, granted after suitable training, for carrying concealed weapons nationwide. Congress can also establish negative incentives. Don Kilmer, an attorney in San Jose, Calif., who litigated the Alameda gun-rights case, suggests that Congress change the default rules for Second Amendment litigation. Making it easier for gun-owning plaintiffs to secure attorneys fees and costs would align incentives in the right direction, he says: “If we can get plaintiffs’ lawyers on our side suing municipalities for onerous gun laws, that’s half the battle.” A companion approach would be to establish a federal cause of action against local and state governments for failure to protect their citizens if the injury is proximately caused by an inability to exercise self-defense. “Imagine the discussions the local politicians will have with their risk managers about gun bans in parks and forest land from mountain lion attacks and two-legged predators,” Kilmer says. “Or the sheriff who gets sued when a carjacking goes wrong against someone who was denied a CCW.” It’s easier to list what should be in a Gun Rights Act of 2018 than it is to enact it. But if the courts continue to interpret Americans’ Second Amendment rights into a constitutional near-nullity, few reasonable alternatives remain. Let’s just hope that, unlike the Fifteenth Amendment, it won't take nearly a century to begin enforcing Heller. |
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Post by Socal Fan on Jun 3, 2018 12:07:10 GMT -5
For readers interested in the Second Amendment, here is an opinion expressed by Declan McCullagh from the National Review I disagree with the basic premise of that opinion. I believe that the 2nd Amendment gives everyone the right to bear arms but nowhere does it prevent state, local and federal government from regulating it. I agree with him that it is time we started enforcing the 2nd Amendment. In particular, the "well regulated militia" part. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2018 13:31:45 GMT -5
First you'll have to get the anti folks to drop the notion that "...being necessary to the security of a free state..." refers to some geo-political subdivision. I believe you'll find "state" is not capitalized in the original document. Although these days folks quote it with and without a capital letter, but that capital letter can change the meaning of the word, so let's get it right. Without that capital letter, "state" has nothing to do with a State in the Union, instead it has everything to do with a state of being. A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Now that that's settled we can argue about what constitutes infringement... unless we need to first argue about "...shall not..." When and if we (the people) form a Militia, then there needs to be some regulation (and co-ordination), but what has regulation of a Militia to do with "...the right of the people..."? We all know the answer, of course, but saying it aloud might conflict with an agenda. |
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Post by Socal Fan on Jun 3, 2018 14:33:25 GMT -5
I am very pro 2nd amendment. I strongly believe in the regulation of arms. When and if we (the people) form a Militia, then there needs to be some regulation How many people does it take to form a "militia"? If it is 100, then can 99 people get together and plot whatever they want to plot without regulation? And if it takes 99 people to form a militia, then would 98 people be unregulated? And so on. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2018 14:35:34 GMT -5
For readers interested in the Second Amendment, here is an opinion expressed by Declan McCullagh from the National Review I disagree with the basic premise of that opinion. I believe that the 2nd Amendment gives everyone the right to bear arms but nowhere does it prevent state, local and federal government from regulating it. I agree with him that it is time we started enforcing the 2nd Amendment. In particular, the "well regulated militia" part. Regarding your first concern, apparently the jury is still out. The degree to which a State can regulate arms is still in question: The outcome of D.C. v. Heller left some issues unanswered, including whether the Second Amendment restricts state regulation of firearms, and the standard for evaluating the constitutionality of other laws and regulations that impact the Second Amendment right. These issues will be the subject of future litigation. [Update: As noted above, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller applies not only to the Federal Government, but also to states and municipalities.]www.loc.gov/law/help/second-amendment.phpIn my own opinion, the 9th and 10th Amendment of the Bill of Rights makes it clear that the people, as individuals, will eventually have the last say.  |
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