Are background checks necessary?

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Try to consider that I was speaking about Constitutional law abiding citizens, not those who wish to deprive their fellow citizens of their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I think perhaps you would do better without the chip on your shoulder.....
 
larryh1108 said:
We can agree to disagree.

I do not feel that somebody who chooses to rape, kill, rob, molest or any number of crimes against humanity has any rights if he is convicted. We all have a right to bear arms from our 2nd amendment. We also have the right to not be raped, beaten, murdered, robbed or molested by an even higher amendment.

You choose to give up your rights when you choose to do the crime. It is a conscious choice. No one took your rights, you gave them up voluntarily.
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When I asked if you believed only violent felons should give up their rights, I don't think you answered.

So...do you believe ALL felons should give up their Rights for the rest of their life, or only violent felons?
 
Perhaps you are right. The chip is there because there are people who wish to take our rights without knowing a thing about what they are taking except what they hear on the tv and electronic media (propoganda).

However, to defend myself, you used the buffet line statement. To me, that meant, we either have it all or no one has it. Actually, those are your words. Felons don't have it so we don't have it all.... hence my stand. My confusion.
 
So...do you believe ALL felons should give up their Rights for the rest of their life, or only violent felons?
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Yes, losing your rights is part of the punishment for committing some crimes (felonies).
Right now there may be felonies on the books that should/could be reviewed to see if they are classified incorrectly. Should the law stand that anyone convicted of committing a felony lose his rights? Yes. Should some crimes considered felonies be reconsidered to be considered misdemeanors? Yes, on a case-by-case basis. Like your example above, some felonies are a joke and should be considered too severe for the crime. Perhaps we can create a lower class felony where you do not lose your rights where these stupid felonies can be reclassified. As it stands now, there are too many other felonies where they deserve to lose their rights and there are too many non-violent felonies to give a blanket statement that once you serve your time you get your rights back.

I said it before and I'll say it again: give felons, who serve their time, a process where they can petition to get their rights back. This allows the authority to consider it on a specific crime and a specific person.
 
Right now there are MANY felonies on the books that shouldn't even be crimes.


Disarming people for life is wrong.


The "felons can't have guns" laws are every bit as effective as "gun free school zone" laws.
 
Disarming people for life is wrong.
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No, harming people for life is wrong.

You choose to bring crime into your life (not you personally, of course) when you decide to commit the crime.

People who are victims of the crime you commit did not ask to be victimized.

People who do the crime deserve to lose their rights for life. It's a choice they made.

You and I will never agree on this. No point in repeatedly stating our opinions.
 
An avenue does currently exist in which nonviolent felony offenders can restore their rights, including the right to own firearms. It is actually not a particularly stringent or hard process to navigate. It does take time and cannot be done for a length of time after your debt to society has been paid in full.
This is as it should be.
I personally have no issues with felons being denied access to firearms. If you want them back and are a nonviolent offender, you can get them back, along with your voting rights...its not as easy as say, deciding to commit a felony is to some people, but then again, I don't think it should be.
There are a great many felons that have gone that route.
I don't feel very sorry for felons that can't own firearms. Most felons chose to serve an "F' you" to society. Your bad decisions do not mean I have to pour sympathies to your plight that is after all, your bad decision. I have managed to avoid becoming a felon so far, it really wasn't that hard, although I'm sure I missed out on some interesting life experiences.
 
larryh1108 said:
No, harming people for life is wrong.

You choose to bring crime into your life (not you personally, of course) when you decide to commit the crime.

People who are victims of the crime you commit did not ask to be victimized.

People who do the crime deserve to lose their rights for life. It's a choice they made.

You and I will never agree on this. No point in repeatedly stating our opinions.
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So you only support felonies and a lifetime of disarmament for crimes that have victims, then, right?
 
So you only support felonies and a lifetime of disarmament for crimes that have victims, then, right?
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No, you commit a felony, you lose your rights. There are recourses as mentioned above.

However, on your thought, there is always a victim, even if it is yourself. If you choose to make a controlled substance in your own home and inject it into yourself you are still the victim. If you screw up and end up a vegetable for life, who pays for your care? If you kill yourself then there is no reason to bear arms. What crime, that is a felony, is victimless?
 
larryh1108 said:
No, you commit a felony, you lose your rights. There are recourses as mentioned above.
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In that case your big thing about victims is pointless and irrelevant.


larryh1108 said:
However, on your thought, there is always a victim, even if it is yourself.
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lol

Really now.

So if I had had a gun in my car while I parked on campus a couple of years ago, I would have been the victim of a felony, and I would have to be punished by disarmament and a loss of my right to vote for the rest of my life because I will continue to be the victim of this heinous crime for the rest of my life?

That's a good one. I'll have to remember it.



larryh1108 said:
If you choose to make a controlled substance in your own home and inject it into yourself you are still the victim. If you screw up and end up a vegetable for life, who pays for your care? If you kill yourself then there is no reason to bear arms. What crime, that is a felony, is victimless?
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I don't know where you are from, but here in the United States we are kinda sorta supposed to have these things called personal freedoms, along with personal responsibilities.

My country was not founded on and does need not a nanny state controlling every aspect of our lives 'for our own good'

Your country and your experiences may differ
 
If you know it's a felony to carry a gun anyplace and you choose to carry it because you don't believe the law is just, you are choosing to commit the felony. You are choosing to risk your rights. You are choosing to thumb your nose at the law. If you get caught and you lose your rights then you got what they said they'd give you. Yes, you'd be the victim because your decision to commit the felony cost you your right to have any firearms for the rest of your life. If it was your first crime of any kind I'd bet it would be reduced to a misdemeanor or possibly dropped if you had a compelling reason to have it with you (like your life was threatened, you had an OOP against someone, etc). The law is specific. If my proposal of adding 10 years to the sentence for having a gun related crime then I'd bet you would not even think about being flippant towards the law. That is why I suggested it... to act as a deterrent to an existing law that is routinely blown off by felons who don't fear the legal system. Make it a mandatory 10 and you will see some felons think twice about having, bringing or using a gun in their "victimless" crimes.

You knew it and you didn't care. And you want sympathy? Do what the vast majority of gun owners do, don't commit any crime that could cost you your rights. It's really a pretty simple concept.
 
larryh1108 said:
If you know it's a felony to carry a gun anyplace and you choose to carry it because you don't believe the law is just, you are choosing to commit the felony.
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Many, MANY people commit felonies without knowing it.

Did you know that if you have a pocket knife (or any knife) with a blade longer than 2" in your car in the parking lot of a college football game in Georgia you are committing a felony?




larryh1108 said:
Yes, you'd be the victim because your decision to commit the felony cost you your right to have any firearms for the rest of your life.
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So if you commit a crime you yourself are the victim, but you are only the victim because of the punishment received?

lol


larryh1108 said:
You knew it and you didn't care. And you want sympathy? Do what the vast majority of gun owners do, don't commit any crime that could cost you your rights. It's really a pretty simple concept.
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Are you familiar with the term "straw man"?

I only ask because you are VERY good at it.
 
MW definition of Felony: a grave crime formerly differing from a misdemeanor under English common law by involving forfeiture in addition to any other punishment.
The problem with this debate is the “all or nothing” camps. First, the 2A shall not be infringed. Second, your 2A are taken away (potentially permanently) when you commit a felony.

We are a nation of laws. I do not believe that felony laws were written with the intent to deny your 2A rights. However, it is a consequence of the crime. Let the courts decide where the middle ground is. If you don’t like the outcome, there is a process for appeal.

The fact is the 2A has been infringed, like it or not. We should be concentrating on how to prevent further infringement. Debating whether a felon should get his gun rights restored once he has “paid his debt to society” gets us nowhere in preventing new legislation.
 
bushmaster1313 said:
Background checks are a good idea.
Some people should not be allowed guns.
I would support requiring all transfers to go through an FFL and a NICS check.

My $0.02
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I'm down with this. The last gun I sold face to face made me very uncomfortable.
 
RobNDenver said:
I'm down with this. The last gun I sold face to face made me very uncomfortable.
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So because you once sold a gun to another person and were, for some undisclosed reason, uncomfortable...you are down with using force of law to tell every other person in the country they can not legally sell/transfer a gun to another person? How does that make any kind of sense??

The last time I rode in a gondola I was very uncomfortable. Can I support using the force of law to ban them?
 
RobNDenver said:
I'm down with this. The last gun I sold face to face made me very uncomfortable.
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Then don't sell it. Just like you don't get an abortion if you don't want one. Or you don't get a divorce for that matter.

The whole idea of a free country is that *YOU* choose if you engage or disengage.

I'm not arguing that currently prohibited people should be allowed to own guns. I'm saying if I'm not comfortable then I'm not going through with the deal. But then again, I never transfer a gin unless I know the person pretty well. For me it's never a sale. It's usually a horse trade for electronics or boat gear or other gun stuff.
 
RobNDenver said:
The last gun I sold face to face made me very uncomfortable.
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So why'd you sell it? I would have walked away if I had any reason the believe the buyer was prohibited from owning the thing.

It doesn't make me uncomfortable if they have long hair tattoos, or the like. Those are personal choices and none of my business.
 
There are two types of people in the world, those that define what is good for themselves and those that define what is good for others. The only universally applicable definition of evil I can verbalize is: the enforcement of your "good" on someone else.
 
Although I do not think background checks should be mandatory, I understand how they are necessary. Even though there are other dangerous things that can be used to hurt people, guns are weapons used specifically to kill things.

If some crazy person wants to go out and hurt you, he could use a car or a knife, but it would a lot easier for him to do it with easy access to a firearm.
 
The only universally applicable definition of evil I can verbalize is: the enforcement of your "good" on someone else.
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I'll disagree.
The definition of evil is forcing your evil on someone else.

Your definition does not include those who feel what's yours is yours and what's mine is yours. Your definition says enforcing a 65mph speed limit on you is evil.

I say you forcing me to give you my cash at gunpoint is a lot more infringement of rights.
 
First we should all agree rights are not GIVEN or TAKEN AWAY they are inherit. Neither the Government or the Constitution gives us the right to keep and bear arms. The Second Amendment guarantees it by limiting the governments ability to infringe upon or OPPRESS it. A person should never have to do anything to have them reinstated or restored, it is the governments responsibility to prove it has the legal right to oppress it. Also, the law prohibiting a persons 2nd Amendment right if they are convicted of a felony is not "due process". The conviction of the crime is due process. Congress has merely passed a law saying they can oppress a person's rights by forgoing due process if they are convicted of a crime. That is NOT due process. Passing a law to oppress the civil rights of an entire class of people without each person's day in court to fight it and the Government's day in court to justify the oppression is not "due process". We are already losing the battle when we have changed our way of thinking to ignore real due process and allow the oppression of people's civil rights as a matter of the law of the land.

No one would disagree with me if the topic were free speech, freedom of religion, etc.......he have failed when we allowed a different standard to be applied to our right to keep and bear arms.
 
I will disagree. If it is known that you will lose your rights if you are CONVICTED of a felony then you have your due process in a court of law when you go to trial. The loss of rights is part of the punishment for you choosing to commit the felony. You have due process in the appeal process. To say you have no say so is wrong when in fact you do... don't commit the felony and you won't lose your rights. You are giving up your rights when you choose the wrong road. No one took them from you. You voluntarily gave them up. You made the wrong choice if you wish to keep your rights.
 
I still don't get how you (anybody) feels they have the "right" to bear arms when they get convicted of sticking a gun in my face to take my car. Sorry! My life to not be held up, robbed, beaten, raped, murdered or any number of felonies TRUMPS your right to bear arms. You talk about inherit rights? Well MY RIGHTS of not being a victim far outweighs your right to commit the crime and still be able to have your inherit rights. Don't commit the felony and you have nothing to worry about. It's really simple.
 
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