The Big Soft Underbelly of Gun Rights

[FieroCDSP]

I personally don’t give a flip for shotguns or AW’s. But I will fight just as hard for these as I will my beloved EBR’s and handguns

I love all guns. After all, Is it not love that we need to show them to help keep them from turning astray, away from gangs, and off the streets. ::sniffs and tears up::

 

[45Badger]

OK, OK, I'll back of the extra penalty for gun use. As mentioned above, how about use of "force" or "weapon", in committing a crime? Robbery gets you the 5 (or whatever) years. Armed robbery get you the extras, actually hurting someone piles it on deeper. I would love unreasonable, non negotiable sentences on folks who commit these crimes.

To clarify another point- If you kill someone while committing a crime, it does not matter how you did it- you fry (or swing, or whatever your state finds palatable).

And another- No you shouldn't extra penalties for having a gun on you while you're smoking a joint. And no, brandishing because you're too fat to keep your shirt tucked in should not get you nailed. How about limiting it to using a weapon in commision of a crime against another person?

Anyway, happy Saturday.

 

[yokel]

Though it's impossible to predict for certain what will happen in the next cycle, I am worried about the antis on the Hill taking a new, quieter approach. Since the traditional overt grabs are non starters, they may try to hit our rights from another direction. If you can't beat the Indians in open combat, you kill what they eat. I can imagine some subtle amendments to the BATFE's jurisdiction in the next cycle of anti-terror laws, giving them the ability to limit sales of more than X number of cartridges to license holders. And then it's just a matter of taxing the bejesus out of ammo makers. Bullets themselves are nearly impossible to regulate. But smokeless powder and primers are only made at a tiny handful of plants, and would be very easy to tax. They wouldn't even have to tax sales at the register. They could just raise license fees for the factories up and up, while shutting down imports and sales of surplus. It's an easy way of curtailing the RKBA without ever directly banning anything.

It wasn't all that long ago that a simple tea tax stirred our forefathers to revolt.

These men fought to break free of tyranny and restrictions, and to create the great nation we call our home.

But today, we have helmet laws, seatbelt laws, "gun control" laws, red-light cameras, surveillance cameras on street corners and now entire nonsmoking cities and counties.

Somehow, I don't think that this is what our Founding Fathers had in mind.

And it makes me wonder what will spur the next great popular revolt in this country.

 

[Elza]

yokel: And it makes me wonder what will spur the next great popular revolt in this country.

Canceling the next season of “American Idol” might do it.

 

[ZeSpectre]

I don't see anything short of a food or water shortage sparking the next big revolution. Americans are pretty comfortable.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

It wasn't all that long ago that a simple tea tax stirred our forefathers to revolt.

It stirred them to revolt because that was the only way they had left to change things. They didn't have an opportunity to vote on those who represented them in Parliament and passed the tax. Remember the slogan was "No taxation without representation."

Unlike today where Americans have every opportunity to vote for those who represent them; but mostly just sit in front of the TV and complain. Personally, I am always kind of circumspect about those who can't be bothered to register to vote or join the NRA; but if you will just pick up your rifle and join them, they are ready to put everything on the line for the next great revolution.

Of course the standard answer they will give you is that the system is too corrupt and nothing can be achieved using the vote; but they seem to ignore that this is exactly how their opponents have succeeded or that even determined bipartisan-supported legislation can be derailed when people speak up (witness the recent immigration bill).

 

[leadcounsel]

fjolnirsson,

I think the answer is to replace "gun" with "weapon".

Woody

We already do, it's the difference between a assault and an aggravated assault.

We already outlaw bankrobbery, what difference does it make whether it's with a gun or a knife? I strongly oppose any law that outlaws the tool used in committing a crime that already exists. For instance, fraud is a crime. Why is it an additional crime if you use a computer? Nonsense.
It does nothing but demonize a tool. Generally, I'm fine with it like the difference between robbery and armed robbery. But to specifically tack on sentences because there was a gun involved...??

I agree that the direct approach doesn't seem to work. The indirect approach is the way we will be stripped of our 2A rights.

1. Domestic violence, stalker charges and harassment charges. These require almost no proof and are an immediate federal firearms ban with a mandatory 5 year prison sentence.

2. Ever been under stress and see a psychiatrist or mental doctor? Currently the law is generally only if you are adjudicated mentally defective, but the shift is changing to voluntary mental health visits...

3. Felony convictions. I completely disagree that felons shouldn't be allowed to own guns AFTER they pay their dues to society. I think they should get a clean slate, but society holds that over their head forever. I strongly feel that white collar crime has NO relationship to firearms. An argument can be made to keep guns out of hands of violent, or repeat violent offenders... But lets be honest, no laws really keep them disarmed anyway.

These are just a few examples of how your and my 2A rights are slipping away rather silently "for the good of the children" and "to protect battered women..." :banghead:


As long as people are too busy with keeping up with the Jones' there won't be a revolution. Americans are too complacent and frankly too divided to unite. Heck, if things aren't bad enough for people to get off their A$$ to vote or make changes through the current structure, they certainly won't be willing to die. And for those that VOTE, we are almost evenly split on picking a President.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

2. Ever been under stress and see a psychiatrist or mental doctor? Currently the law is generally only if you are adjudicated mentally defective, but the shift is changing to voluntary mental health visits...

Can you give some examples of this? I'm aware of the VA thing; which will hopefully be reversed soon; but I wasn't aware of a general trend in this direction.

3. Felony convictions. I completely disagree that felons shouldn't be allowed to own guns AFTER they pay their dues to society. I think they should get a clean slate, but society holds that over their head forever. I strongly feel that white collar crime has NO relationship to firearms. An argument can be made to keep guns out of hands of violent, or repeat violent offenders... But lets be honest, no laws really keep them disarmed anyway.

I guess it depends on what you consider a felony. Historically, a felony is the type of serious crime where you might have been hung or executed, so I see symbolically executing your citizenship (voting rights, right to bear arms) as an act of mercy. Not only are you not executed, you aren't even imprisoned for the rest of your life and you get to mix with society again despite your heinous crime.

Of course, the big flaw with that is that all kinds of silly crimes are classified as felonies today. Got a rifle barrel that is 15.9" instead of 16" Congratulations, you're a felon! If that is how we are going to define felonies, then I agree with you.

 

[busy_squirrel]

This is mildly off topic, but leadcounsels #3 point is a pet peeve of mine that only rational logical people can even begin to address.

If someone has paid their debt, THEN it's paid! There should be no "tracking" of sexual offenders who did their time.

Either:

1. They have paid the price and should be free to live their life. They are cured, and should be free to go.
2. Or, they are not cured, and should be kept off the streets. (this answer has problems)
3. Or they didn't pay their full debt, in which case, prison sentences should be longer for the crime, and they should be kept off the streets a little longer. Then, once they've paid their time, they're free to go.

If they are not cured, is it because their crime is so heinous that they can never be changed? If so, why didn't we kill them, if they can't ever be changed? Or maybe they can't be changed because sex crimes are so much worse than other crimes, in a class of their own. Worse than murderers and torturors. Because they're predators and murderers aren't right? :banghead:

Come on, be serious. A criminal is a criminal. Either we believe, as a nation, that people can change, or we believe that noone can ever become better than they were. Which ever way, we hafta treat everyone the same. Either make forgers register everytime they move addresses, or leave the sex offenders (who've served their time) alone, let them live their lives in privacy.

 

[yokel]

It stirred them to revolt because that was the only way they had left to change things. They didn't have an opportunity to vote on those who represented them in Parliament and passed the tax. Remember the slogan was "No taxation without representation."

Unlike today where Americans have every opportunity to vote for those who represent them; but mostly just sit in front of the TV and complain. Personally, I am always kind of circumspect about those who can't be bothered to register to vote or join the NRA; but if you will just pick up your rifle and join them, they are ready to put everything on the line for the next great revolution.

Of course the standard answer they will give you is that the system is too corrupt and nothing can be achieved using the vote; but they seem to ignore that this is exactly how their opponents have succeeded or that even determined bipartisan-supported legislation can be derailed when people speak up (witness the recent immigration bill).

Indeed, the founders gave us a great system. Let's hope we can deserve and preserve it.

The salient point was that for the most part the fiery spirit of 1776 seems to be MIA these days.

Suppose that, despite all of our best peaceful efforts, the Second Amendment becomes assigned to a place of insignificance or of oblivion?


FYI, I am a voting, card-carrying member of the NRA and donate a not insignificant portion of my monthly paycheck to NRA-ILA.

 

[Green Lantern]

Not sure what the real or imagined part has to do with it, but I don't have a problem with tacking on mandatory, not eligible for plea bargain or parole sentencing to crimes committed with a gun.

Rob a bank- get 5 years
Brandish a gun- it's + 10 years
Fire the gun-it's + 20 years
Wound someone- it's + 30 years
Kill someone- you meet your maker in quick time.

Or something like that.

What happens when the "powers that be" decide that your shooting someone in self-defense wasn't justified? IE, it was a crime?

Or you get lucky and don't have to shoot the bad guy, but the DA feels "politically motivated" to run you in for BRANDISHING your weapon...?

"Zero tolerance" makes ZERO SENSE.

 

[KLDimond]

To Cosmoline

This is a good thread. Lots of brainstorming here, and therefore a good strategy session.

Since I'm already slightly off topic, I'll comment on another point. Slightly off topic...

For those who believe in bigger, badder sentences as deterrents, I have to inform you that not too many of those who study the subject really think that they help in deterrence.

There are three aspects of punishment that deter behavior: 1. Likelihood of being caught; 2. Immediacy of punishment; 3. Severity of punishment. In that order.

If you are a bad guy, and you commit a violent crime, you are usually "caught" by your victim. Unfortunately for the victim, you'll probably see that they don't live through it, which means that you're uncaught. At least for "now."

However, if your victim can and does defend himself, you are not only caught, but punished. Immediately.

And if your victim is able to defend with deadly force, then your punishment is severe.

This is why criminals are afraid of armed victims. All three deterrent factors are in place.

Anti-gun and anti-weapons folks are undermining deterrence. And it's pointless to make more intense punishments when those punishments are of only fractional probability and low immediacy.

What we need to do, to increase the deterrence factor is to get Americans back to their self-responsible and self-reliant roles. This would increase the number of those who will defend themselves, and thus the deterrence factor. Anything else is just wheel-spinning.

There is no end to the tricks and traps in our system that make it possible for the grabbers to damage our rights. And I think schools are one of the scarier parts of it. Public schools of the U.S. were designed from the start to assure an automaton class of good employees.

And tactics like the new OSHA nonsense seem to keep cropping up. If Bush is such a good guy for gun rights, how are HIS agencies doing this stuff? If he doesn't reign them in, why?

 

[illspirit]

As per my previous post regarding them attacking us through the First Amendment, did anybody see the new Rasmussen poll about the so-called fairness doctrine?

A large segment of the public would like to extend the concept of the Fairness Doctrine to the Internet as well. Thirty-four percent (34%) believe the government should “require web sites that offer political commentary to present opposing viewpoints.” Fifty percent (50%) are opposed.

Imagine if all pro-gun websites, blogs, and forums had to give equal time to the Brady bunch on every topic. They could just decline to comment and stop us from saying anything if they want to hide the truth about something. But on their side, they could just get an "opposing" viewpoint from a false flag group like AHSA.

Granted, this would limit them too in some regards, and all but kill off smaller anti-gun sites. But unless we come up with some fake gun control group to get "opposing" views from, the giant Brady/Joyce/ASHA/etc.. hydra (along with the MSM) would own the debate.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

The salient point was that for the most part the fiery spirit of 1776 seems to be MIA these days.

No question that if every gun owner out there had that spirit, we wouldn't be discussing gun control.

FYI, I am a voting, card-carrying member of the NRA and donate a not insignificant portion of my monthly paycheck to NRA-ILA.

Thank you very much for helping to carry the load. If every gun owner just voted and joined the NRA (or the gun-rights group of their choice), gun control would cease to exist as a political platform.

 

[ConstitutionCowboy]

Though it's impossible to predict for certain what will happen in the next cycle, I am worried about the antis on the Hill taking a new, quieter approach. Since the traditional overt grabs are non starters, they may try to hit our rights from another direction. If you can't beat the Indians in open combat, you kill what they eat. I can imagine some subtle amendments to the BATFE's jurisdiction in the next cycle of anti-terror laws, giving them the ability to limit sales of more than X number of cartridges to license holders. And then it's just a matter of taxing the bejesus out of ammo makers. Bullets themselves are nearly impossible to regulate. But smokeless powder and primers are only made at a tiny handful of plants, and would be very easy to tax. They wouldn't even have to tax sales at the register. They could just raise license fees for the factories up and up, while shutting down imports and sales of surplus. It's an easy way of curtailing the RKBA without ever directly banning anything.

All that said, Cos, regardless of how directly or indirectly those tactics hit the RKBA, they still infringe. Therefore, the defense of the right must be directly along the lines of protecting the right from any and all infringements. The right needs to be protected as the inalienable and absolute right that it is. Whether it's some unconstitutional rule making by some agency that Congress passed the buck to, or Congress itself, or an executive order, or a legislation from the Court, neither must be allowed to stand, pass, be recognized or honored.

Whether there never seems to be any sort of national or regional emergency, whether there has never been an invasion, or whether there are hardly any criminals free to hazard society, the need to be armed will never go away. Drop your guard and before you can pick it back up, someone is in your face demanding your freedom, or your land, or your wallet.

Aside from the right being protected as it is in the Second Amendment, there is no justifiable reason or cause for disarming the people or forbidding them to bear their arms. Neither act by the people causes any harm. It is totally innocuous to keep arms, and it is totally innocuous to bear them. Owning one weapon or a thousand weapons is no more dangerous than owning none. Bearing a myriad of arms is no more dangerous than bearing none. The only danger is being caught without one when you need one.

Our defense of the right must be ever vigilant. We cannot rely on Congress, the Court, or the Executive to protect our RKBA, or any other of our rights for that matter. WE must do it. Those who have and would build barriers between us and our rights need to be ousted, taken down, run out of town, tarred and feathered, and exposed for the tyrants they wish to be.

Woody

Look at your rights and freedoms as what would be required to survive and be free as if there were no government. Governments come and go, but your rights live on. If you wish to survive government, you must protect with jealous resolve all the powers that come with your rights - especially with the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Without the power of those arms, you will perish with that government - or at its hand. B.E. Wood

 

[AZRickD]

Not sure what the real or imagined part has to do with it, but I don't have a problem with tacking on mandatory, not eligible for plea bargain or parole sentencing to crimes committed with a gun.

Rob a bank- get 5 years
Brandish a gun- it's + 10 years

As you must surely know, gun-tack-on sentences aren't limited to those mainstay crimes. How about possession of weed with a gun? How about defending your life with a gun, in, say, D.C.?

Do a search here if you need some more examples.

Rick

 

[Malone LaVeigh]

I think the number of people on either side of the debate who really care a whole lot about guns are very few. The Bradys made good poster kids for the 2000 convention, or so they thought, but other than a few die-hard activists no one on the anti side really cared that much about the issue. It cost the Dems a lot more than it gained them, and the rest is unfortunate history.

 

[44AMP]

FYI

For those who believe we should have additional mandatory penalties for using a gun in a crime, We ALREADY have those. And they have mandatory sentences. Trouble is, they often don't get invoked. Plea bargins (not a bargin on the gun charge but a bargin to plead to something else if the gun charge is never brought) keep them from being effective the way they were intended.

And, in case you didn't know, your ammo (and I believe components also) are ALREADY taxed. 11%. Pittman Roberts act. Guns, ammo, archery equipment, maybe even fishing (not sure about that one), goes to national wildlife. It is figured into the wholesale price, so we never "see" it, but it is there.

Now, the gun banners could add taxes, one NY senator proposed a 1000% tax on 9mm ammo a few years ago (yeah, that's right 1000%!!) It got shot down, but chances are they'll be back.

Another tactic to be wary of is the "smart gun" scam. It is a sci-fi gun, that can tell who is holding it, and only fires for the registered owner. They have already floated trial balloons about it. Currently, the technology doesn't exist (prototypes are being developed using computer technology),but reliable smart guns won't be around for many years. The problem with this is that as soon as someone markets a model that works (even though it may not work all the time) the gun banners will jump on it, and push to get all other guns banned as they are "unsafe".

California already uses the "safety" angle in their gun control language. Only handguns tested by the state are considered "safe" and allowed to be sold in the state. And since the rules governing the tests are elaborate and the guns are tested to destruction, many makers simply don't submit models for testing. Also, a blued, nickel plated, and stainless model of the same gun are treated as 3 different guns by the state, ansd a model of each would have to be tested in order for the state to grant approval.

There are lots of different ways our opponents have to infringe on our rights. All we can do is to be vigilant and resolute.

 

[Cork]

The anti's know that it is like boiling a frog, if they do it slow and hit the city, state and federal level the average person will not feel it as much. My wife is RN and a Doctor was mentioning he wanted a handgun but wasn't sure what type and what laws he had to follow. She had him call me, an average guy, not a dealer and I had him find a store, owning a handgun the next day, on his way to get a Conceal Weapons Permit and most important meeting with me to take him to the range for some burn time.
My point is people in our mobile society are already confused! We now are have a second generation who never lived when you bought a firearm in store based on having the funds to pay.
If someone is willing to break the supreme law of God and Man and commit murder then any other laws are of no value.
What is helping gun rights is the image of Post Katrina and car jacking's, honest citzen's know we have a society where they must be able to defend themselves. Even if they are not now armed they have not stepped over the line to give up the option.
Cork

 

[Henry Bowman]

I (and others) have noticed what apperas to be a concerted effort on the part of the BATFE to reduce the number of FFLs using any available means. A "crack down" on trivialities.

 

[FlaXD]

I've never heard anyone protest Florida's law before.

For those who believe in bigger, badder sentences as deterrents, I have to inform you that not too many of those who study the subject really think that they help in deterrence.

http://www.dc.state.fl.us/oth/10-20-life/index.html

The results under 10-20-LIFE are impressive. In only six years, from 1998-2004, 10-20-LIFE has helped drive down violent gun crime rates 30 percent statewide (see Firearm Involved Violent Crimes). During the 10-20-LIFE era, armed criminals robbed a total of 10,567 fewer people and killed a total 380 fewer than they would have if these crime numbers had remained at 1998 levels. These crime decreases occurred even as Florida's population increased over 2.5 million (16.8 percent) between 1998 and 2004. Punishing criminals who use guns is making our state safer.

Get your's today:

Order free posters or bumper stickers by using the online order form or by sending e-mail to: [email protected].

 

[budney]

If someone has paid their debt, THEN it's paid! There should be no "tracking" of sexual offenders who did their time.

I think Bartholomew nailed it: "felony" today includes real crimes and silly mala prohibita. We should be executing the murderers, rapists, child-molesters and other violent criminals. If we did that, there'd be no concern with "murderers" arming themselves after getting out of prison, and this entire discussion would be moot. It would be obviously silly to terminate someone's 2A rights for the rest of his life because he had a joint in college and was caught.

--Len.