Rocketmedic
Member
Yeah....but I'm not going to lie, I feel sick thinking about the chaos someone can wreak with even a fairly benign weapon.
Simple, deflect to the failed mental health system. This guy should have been on the radar long ago.
One could say, go the nuclear option aka the UK route. Ban semi-auto centrefires and all handguns. You take out all of the law-abiding citizens, but will also take out some criminals too by reducing the number of guns in circulation. It would feel good to the antis, but it would get "some" result. After all, we need to DO SOMETHING, right?What detail about the Vegas shooting would you ban, and how would that improve the public's safety? How would you implement your new law so that it would cover 100% of persons in the country? Or would the new restriction(s) simply be another "feel-good" law that simply restricts law-abiding citizens while criminals/terrorists continue unaffected?
Can you name any Pro-Life Democrats?
According to Democrats for Life, one in three Democrats are Pro-Life. Assuming something like that is true, how many elected or appointed Democrats should there be versus how many are there? The very fact that there are groups that have to identify themselves as Pro-Life Democrats, tells you something.
Every hear of Republicans for the death penalty, or Democrats for tax increases, or Priests for immigration control?
This greatly oversimplifies things. Left to their own devices, most people have a mix of ideologies -- they may be individualist on some issues, and collectivist on others. For example, they may be socially conservative and economically liberal (or vice versa). The problem with our current "political tribalism" (polarization) is that it forces people into ideological straitjackets. You have to buy the whole program -- even though you may personally disagree with some of it -- in order to fit into your preselected "tribe" or affinity group. This sort of thinking will end up tearing the country apart. We have to bridge our differences, and allow for diversity of opinion.
The whole point of this discussion is that guns are not really a left vs. right issue. Lots of people who self-identify as liberals still believe in gun rights. All the pro-gun people need to work together for gun rights, regardless of their other opinions.
In addition, if this were true, it would be the Libertarians vs. Democrats. Both sides want to restrict things they don't trust themselves with for everyone.
Note that I said "Creator" not God. We own ourselves and thus have the right to defend ourselves simply by being born. If the government grants us the right to defend ourselves, we do not own ourselves and have no rights. We only have privileges granted to us by governments and are not, nor shall we ever be, free.Well, no. Throughout history, rights -- all rights, including gun rights -- have been wrested by the people from reluctant authorities. Often, these reluctant authorities have cited the Divine Will as the justification for their repression (such as through the theory of the "divine right of kings," etc.). (Remember that slavery was once thought to be God-ordained.) Besides that, saying that rights are God-given (rather than Man-secured) ties those rights directly to a belief in an interventionist Deity -- a belief that is by no means universal. We are not passive recipients of divine largesse, but actors with our own Free Will.
giggitygiggity wrote:
The stereotypical Republican supports guns, is Christian, favors defense spending, dislikes welfare/social programs, against gay marriage, is pro-life, etc whereas the stereotypical Democrat is the opposite.
giggitygiggity wrote:
I suppose my main point is that we may be losing 2A supporters simply because we outcast people because they don't share the stereotypical gun supporter's extended beliefs.
If it comes to light that something aftermarket like a bump fire stock or gat crank were used, then they might be up for being shunted onto the NFA list. Neither have a hunting or personal protection purpose, I'm not aware of any competitions that call for their use, effectively they're just range toys (and wouldn't be allowed at many ranges that don't allow rapid fire). Just being a range toy though shouldn't be grounds for removing 2A protection from an item - but if we just had 500+ people shot (I don't know how many were shot vs hurt in a stampede), then we really should pause and consider.What detail about the Vegas shooting would you ban, and how would that improve the public's safety? How would you implement your new law so that it would cover 100% of persons in the country? Or would the new restriction(s) simply be another "feel-good" law that simply restricts law-abiding citizens while criminals/terrorists continue unaffected?
Not that I think putting items on any list would actually stop anyone that's determined (the system will always be circumvented by private sales), but I can see how those could be added to the NFA list, if those items were used. I'm not saying I'd agree with that action, but what you said makes sense.If it comes to light that something aftermarket like a bump fire stock or gat crank were used, then they might be up for being shunted onto the NFA list. Neither have a hunting or personal protection purpose, I'm not aware of any competitions that call for their use, effectively they're just range toys (and wouldn't be allowed at many ranges that don't allow rapid fire). Just being a range toy though shouldn't be grounds for removing 2A protection from an item - but if we just had 500+ people shot (I don't know how many were shot vs hurt in a stampede), then we really should pause and consider.
"Creator" = "God," no matter what kind of spin you want to put on it. I personally believe in God, but I don't depend on Him to assert my rights for me vis-a-vis the government. (Jesus didn't even get into this -- He said "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's.") When you get right down to it, both "government" and "rights" are human constructs. Just as we humans have set up governments to serve our purposes, so too we have limited these governments when they get too powerful. These limitations on governments are what we call "rights." There is nothing metaphysical about this. When you think of the struggle for rights as a human struggle, then that's something that both atheists and believers can agree upon.Note that I said "Creator" not God. We own ourselves and thus have the right to defend ourselves simply by being born. If the government grants us the right to defend ourselves, we do not own ourselves and have no rights. We only have privileges granted to us by governments and are not, nor shall we ever be, free.
Either we have rights granted to us by our Creator, or we are nothing but possessions and do not have free agency
I disagree strenuously on this. In fact, seeing everything as an all-or-nothing proposition is exactly what got us to the current degree of polarization in this country. Absent this "tribal" mentality, most people would have a mix of positions on various issues, ranging from individualist to collectivist. And successful political parties, in the past, have always been coalitions of people with varying, and sometimes conflicting, interests. (I could go into more detail, but this isn't the place.)There's no such reality of a government with mixed interests like that. You're either an individualist or a collectivist, despite what your personal views might be on the minutia. Either you believe the government should protect the rights of the individual, or they should forfeit the rights of the individual for the good of the collective. It's that simple.
You can't empower the government to enforce collectivism on one issue, then expect them to respect your individual rights on another issue. It's an all or nothing proposition.
1st Marine, I respectfully disagree with how you worded this. Because this was an open-air event, the person who wished to do harm had vantage and access via their weapon(s) of choice, without any security restrictions. I wasn't there, so I don't know if concert-goers were searched, or put through metal-detectors, or any other method of security screening. In this case, the evil-doer was not in that area.We need to demand more security in all forms in terms of personal defense and also organized. I think the organizers of this concert are going to get a lot
of heat. They failed with proper security measures.
Isn't it really enough that over 55 million lawful US gun owners are targeted while the vast, nearly absolute majority of them never even think about committing a violent crime? The whole premise of gun control is completely distorted; targeting people who are not a problem because they abide the laws in the first place while those who don't aren't affected because they intentionally commit far more serious crimes than breaking a few gun laws here and there. What really motivates many of them? Notoriety and immense free publicity that's brought available by the media may be one of the more recent root causes.I don't know how to defend a lot of gun rights after Vegas...
We are at war abroad and here domestically.1st Marine, I respectfully disagree with how you worded this. Because this was an open-air event, the person who wished to do harm had vantage and access via their weapon(s) of choice, without any security restrictions.
The organizers failed to secure the perimeter. The rest is history now. They are going to get a lot of heat.
As details were still emerging about the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history – which killed at least 58 people – the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee took to Twitter to imagine how much deadlier the massacre might have been if silencers had been used.
“The crowd fled at the sound of gunshots. Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer, which the NRA wants to make easier to get,” she tweeted, adding: “Our grief isn't enough. We can and must put politics aside, stand up to the NRA, and work together to try to stop this from happening again.”
How do you secure the perimeter of a hotel across the street with the nut job shooting from the 32nd floor?
You do understand that uppers and lowers are pretty compact when separated, right? You could probably fit 10 ARs into a single suitcase and it would weigh under 80lb, and all of the ammo into another. Wave off the bellboy and lug it yourself.That is what professionals are for. How do you get 10+ rifles and perimeter surveillance equipment in a huge hotel or casino w/o anyone seeing anything?
You do understand that uppers and lowers are pretty compact when separated, right? You could probably fit 10 ARs into a single suitcase and it would weigh under 80lb, and all of the ammo into another. Wave off the bellboy and lug it yourself.
I've been thinking a lot about how to get people to support 2A rights and I think we, as a gun community/culture have been doing some things wrong. Stick to the issue of how we can better sway people to support gun rights.
This statement makes it seem like these viewpoints are random and disconnected viewpoints that someone just threw together into a single basket to try to build a political party from scratch. It's not really like that at all."We" (whatever that means to you) will not always hold the seat of power and all of these social issues may fluctuate. Our kids' kids may not even remember a time when abortion was discussed by politicians. Might only read about a time when gays were looked down on and couldn't marry in text books. Might operate in a technological-economic system that's some new idea that make socialism and capitalism irrelevant. Who knows? But we need to disconnect RKBA from association with "a side" in these debates which will eventually fade away.