Delightful Reddit thread with Beto

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ATLDave

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Mr. O'Rourke decided to host an "Ask Me Anything" thread on Reddit. As Reddit generally leans left overall, I'm sure he anticipated a completely warm reception.

Well, the pro-gun-rights, statistically-literate folks found it. Beto's plans to "take your AR" is the subject of a great many excellent, well-researched cross-examination questions. Or, to put it in more internet-typical term, d00d gets roasted.

Please, enjoy: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/d6etv5/hi_im_beto_orourke_a_candidate_for_president/
 
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That is most excellent, lots of good posts there with very real challenges to Beto.

Vastly better than the bumper-sticker platitudes or bravado one might sorta hope for, or the fawning adoration he expected. Cool, analytical, respectful, math-literate, data-driven, logic-based beat downs. The kind of things that an open-minded reader might actually find persuasive. Just excellent.
 
however, some of the arguments are at odds

in response to beto's statement that weapons of war don't belong on the streets...

some are saying the AR15 is not a weapon of war because it is a civilian version and not the m16/m4 military version

while others are saying SCROTUS, in MILLER said the sawed off shotgun was not protected because it wasn't used by the military and that the constitution specifically only protects military weapons.

can't have it both ways


(obviously, the correct answer is the 2A protects all arms and MILLER was wrong and should be overturned, and it's not the practical law anyway, since the gov has in the meantime also required "sporting purposes")
 
however, some of the arguments are at odds

Sometimes a proposition is so wrong, and in so many different ways, that the vast array of internally-logical counter-arguments against it begin to seem in conflict! ;)

I think the reconciliation of the point that you make is that:
  • The 2nd amendment is already the most circumscribed, narrowed, and limited of the enumerated individual rights in the Constitution; and
  • Even within the very cramped and limited reading it has been given, semi-automatic rifles are still within its protection.
To analogize to the 1st amendment, imagine that the case law today still allowed obscenity to be banned. While some free speech advocates would focus on the wrongness of that limit on the right, a new proposal to ban the use of the word "dang" would generate arguments that: 1) it's not obscene at all; and 2) we need some kind of generic intensifier word available for legal use. Viewed narrowly, 1 and 2 would seem to be in some tension... but they aren't really incompatible.
 
and it's not the practical law anyway, since the gov has in the meantime also required "sporting purposes")

That's for importation. The government is pretty well free to set whatever international trade policy it wants. I don't think even an expansive reading of the 2nd amendment would require us to allow Chinese firearm imports, for instance.
 
My favorite response so far and PROPS to the guy who wrote it out:
Credit to u/steveinaccounting/

You are just another politician who has no idea how firearms work, and how to actually look up the facts on gun violence. Instead of going at people's heartstrings and trying to strip rights, how about putting some thought into it, and bring up some actual proposals. Proposals that are rooted in reality.

Via /u/PinheadLarry2323

The ACTUAL facts about gun violence in America

There are about 30,000 gun related deaths per year by firearms, this number is not disputed. (1)

U.S. population 328 million as of January 2018. (2)

Do the math: 0.00915% of the population dies from gun related actions each year.

Statistically speaking, this is insignificant. It's not even a rounding error.

What is not insignificant, however, is a breakdown of those 30,000 deaths:

• 22,938 (76%) are by suicide which can't be prevented by gun laws (3)

• 987 (3%) are by law enforcement, thus not relevant to Gun Control discussion. (4)

• 489 (2%) are accidental (5)

So no, "gun violence" isn't 30,000 annually, but rather 5,577... 0.0017% of the population.

Still too many? Let's look at location:

298 (5%) - St Louis, MO (6)

327 (6%) - Detroit, MI (6)

328 (6%) - Baltimore, MD (6)

764 (14%) - Chicago, IL (6)

That's over 30% of all gun crime. In just 4 cities.

This leaves 3,856 for for everywhere else in America... about 77 deaths per state. Obviously some States have higher rates than others

Yes, 5,577 is absolutely horrific, but let's think for a minute...

But what about other deaths each year?

70,000+ die from a drug overdose (7)

49,000 people die per year from the flu (8)

37,000 people die per year in traffic fatalities (9)

Now it gets interesting:

250,000+ people die each year from preventable medical errors. (10)

You are safer in Chicago than when you are in a hospital!

610,000 people die per year from heart disease (11)

Even a 10% decrease in cardiac deaths would save about twice the number of lives annually of all gun-related deaths (including suicide, law enforcement, etc.).

A 10% reduction in medical errors would be 66% of the total gun deaths or 4 times the number of criminal homicides.

Simple, easily preventable, 10% reductions!

We don't have a gun problem... We have a political agenda and media sensationalism problem.

Here are some statistics about defensive gun use in the U.S. as well.

https://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/3#14

Page 15:

Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010).

That's a minimum 500,000 incidents/assaults deterred, if you were to play devil's advocate and say that only 10% of that low end number is accurate, then that is still more than the number of deaths, even including the suicides.

Older study, 1995:

https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6853&context=jclc

Page 164

The most technically sound estimates presented in Table 2 are those based on the shorter one-year recall period that rely on Rs' first-hand accounts of their own experiences (person-based estimates). These estimates appear in the first two columns. They indicate that each year in the U.S. there are about 2.2 to 2.5 million DGUs of all types by civilians against humans, with about 1.5 to 1.9 million of the incidents involving use of handguns.

r/dgu is a great sub to pay attention to, when you want to know whether or not someone is defensively using a gun

——sources——

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf

https://everytownresearch.org/firearm-suicide/

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhamcs/web_tables/2015_ed_web_tables.pdf

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2017/?tid=a_inl_manual

https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-accidental-gun-deaths-20180101-story.html

https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/11/13/cities-with-the-most-gun-violence/ (stats halved as reported statistics cover 2 years, single year statistics not found)

https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/faq.htm

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812603

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cn...-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-america.html

https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm

Continue this thread
 
blueback22

383 points·4 hours ago



I've donated to your campaign. I voted for you against Cruz.

You've lost my support with this comment as you aren't fit to be POTUS if you don't know the Constitution. The 2A is NOT about hunting and IS about weapons of war. It's all about the people having a chance at fighting back against a tyrannical government.

Come on Beto... I believed in you.
 
Sorry, All, these are too good:

fredemu

147 points·4 hours ago



Robert, I want to thank you for this.

You've managed to turn even more people away from your party by laying bare the gun confiscation agenda that others only strategically hint at. You've given conservatives a nice easy example to point to when people make the claim "no one is coming for your guns".

I firmly believe we should have more honesty in politics. We need more people that are willing to say what their ideas actually are, rather than careful poll-driven weasel words and media-manipulated propaganda -- then simply let the country decide on those ideas.

Doing so will drive more people towards the Conservatives, and the left will once again become the pro-America left that I was proudly a member of back in the 1990s-2000s, rather than the "light socialism globalist" left that it's become.

So a sincere thanks for this, and your contribution to the Trump campaign.
 
(obviously, the correct answer is the 2A protects all arms and MILLER was wrong and should be overturned, and it's not the practical law anyway, since the gov has in the meantime also required "sporting purposes")
The 2nd Amendment protects all arms but it has a special place for the protection of military arms. The Militia Clause is not a nullity, as Justice Scalia tried to contend in the Heller case. We are all members of the militia and as such we are entitled to weapons on a par with those of the regular army. That means machine guns, etc., and under this rationale the NFA is unconstitutional.

If the AR-15 is a "weapon of war," that actually strengthens its protection under the 2nd Amendment. "Weapons of war" were exactly what the Founders were concerned about. The 2nd Amendment is not about hunting or sporting uses. (And for most military purposes the semiautomatic AR-15 is just as effective as the full-auto M16 -- maybe even more so because it doesn't waste as much ammunition.) Denying that the AR-15 is a "weapon of war" is stupid, unconvincing, and pointless.
 
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Beto isn't dumb at all. He's a highly intelligent individual. The problem is, he's deranged.
 
Ole betoorourke has been downvoted to -6215 at this point.

and for reference, this was the question and response:
[User]: How will you confiscate the millions of AR 15s?

[Beto]: Americans will comply with the law. It will be a mandatory buyback of AR-15 and AK-47s, weapons designed for war. Because we understand that theres no reason for a any of us to own a weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield. Especially when that kind of weapon is so often used to kill and terrorize people throughout this country — in their schools, in their grocery stores, in their churches, in their synagogues, at concerts... everywhere. I have met countless AR and AK owners who say they don’t need it to hunt, they don’t need it for self defense, it’s fun to shoot but would give it up. Because they also have kids and grandkids and want them to be safe.
 
If the AR-15 is a "weapon of war," that actually strengthens its protection under the3 2nd Amendment. "Weapons of war" were exactly what the Founders were concerned about.
yeah, that was my point. so if people are successful arguing the AR15 is not a weapon of war, but just a neutered civilian model, then SCROTUS under MILLER would conclude it's less or even not protected.
 
Speaking of weapons of war, I have 3 Rifle of 1917 caliber 30s. Sporterized, of course. One of the grandparents of all bolt action rifles today. A battle rifle turned into a hunting rifle.

Most firearms are designs first made for battlefield use. In the hands of the overwhelming number of responsible gun owners they remain under peaceful and lawful restraint.

Crimes are committed by people with criminal ideation and intent. A minuscule segment of the population.
 
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