The Constitutionlity of Gun Control

[geekWithA.45]

Does that make me a "leftie"?

Ahem: {on behalf of the southpaws}

You're a leftie only if you shoot, write, or do other everyday functions with your left hand.

I'm pretty sure you really mean leftist.

 

[Bruce H]

I guess we should all have PhD's in philosophy so we can discuss the meaning of is. Some of us can actually comprehend the written word without looking between the lines.

 

[Jeeper]

Can someone who picked number 2 tell me how to do that without a background check described in number 3? IMHO 2 and 3 are the same.

 

[Augustwest]

...but after seeing the damage done to responsible adults after decades of that slippery slope I'm no longer willing to have any part of it.

There's no better way than that that I could use to describe why I voted for #1.

I no longer find acceptable many things I once did about government because I've become aware of its inherent tendency to overreach, and ultimately ruin that which it's supposed to protect.

You're a leftie only if you shoot, write, or do other everyday functions with your left hand.

I write lefty/shoot righty. Does that make me a centrist?

 

[Bill Hook]

The former USSR made lots of folks "criminals" and "mentally ill." It's so much easier that way.

 

[Ed]

If a convicted Felon is allowed to be free and walk the streets then he or she is deemed "cured" therefore they have done the time and been forgiven by the government. They should have the right to own firearms. If they are still to dangerous to be trusted with guns they should still be in jail.

 

[zahc]

I'm with Jeeper. The only wa to enforce #2 is with #3 and of course even that is silly becuase of private sales/anyone who wants to commit violence with a gun won't care about obtaining one illegally.


The only answer is roughly #1.

 

[geekWithA.45]

I suppose a bit of clarification on this one is reasonable

quote: To a certain extent, when you argue for the disarmament of those with mental issues, you're effectively arguing that those who should be involuntarilly commited should not be, and by extension that the psych ward extends into the street.

Huh

WildtellmethatoneagainAlaska

If a person is a danger to themselves or others, they need to be institutionalized.

If they aren't a danger to self/others, then restricting them from arms has no merit.

In order for restricting arms for the mentally ill to make sense, you have to argue that there is a classification of person who

A) IS a danger to self/others
and
B) Should be allowed freedom of the public streets.

If you do THAT, what you're really saying is that we need to make our streets safe not for responsible adults, but for dangerous mental patients, and thus, the streets become an extension of the psych ward.

 

[Joe Demko]

Let us assume, though we know what risk that carries, that the Constitution actually does forbid the enaction of any gun laws and that the Founding Fathers meant it that way. That forces me to ask "Why must we assume that the Founding Fathers were right to include such an ammendment when they were wrong about other things?"

 

[Gordon Fink]

We are all unapprehended felons and undiagnosed mentally ill. Regardless, we simply cannot prevent insane and/or violent criminals from arming themselves, so why punish the law-abiding citizen in an attempt to do just that?

It’s all about power …

~G. Fink

 

[meathammer]

geekWithA.45 said:

If a person is a danger to themselves or others, they need to be institutionalized.

If they aren't a danger to self/others, then restricting them from arms has no merit.

This is exactly how I feel, I voted number 1.

 

[Justin]

You're a leftie only if you shoot, write, or do other everyday functions with your left hand.

I'm pretty sure you really mean leftist.

Well, Ian is a lefty at the range, so maybe that makes him a lefty leftist.

<---Snickering at the idea that Ian's stance somehow makes him a leftist. Too funny!

BTW, I notice that my original query has remained unanswered.

 

[Wildalaska]

Hi Justin sorry and should have clarified, would have stopped some debate, I meant mentally ill as defined in the statute, ie, having been involuntarily committed or having been declared incompetant.

WildobscureAlaska

 

[Obiwan]

Keeping in mind that I am not a constitutional scholar

Anything other than #1 starts you down that slippery slope towards "reasonable restraints"

So....to be true to the contitution....you are pretty much left with.....

#1....Anyone can own anything..they suffer the consequences if they misuse them.

( If I stabbed someone....did my time....was released.....I could buy a new kniofe the same day)

Unless they have their rights taken away...which seems to me to be a case by case kind of thing...not broad brush decisions about groups.

 

[Wildalaska]

Unless they have their rights taken away...which seems to me to be a case by case kind of thing...not broad brush decisions about groups.

Just out of curiosity then Obiwan...would you limit RKBA to citizens or citizens/PRAs or everyone, including visitors

WildcuriousAlaska

 

[ctdonath]

EVERYONE has a natural right to self-defense, right? That (and other rights) is recognized in the Bill of Rights. Why then, other than specific individual cases where someone clearly is a threat to others, would you deny anyone the right to tools for self-defense?

 

[Sam Adams]

All laws affecting firearms are unconstituional, except for criminal misuse

That's the winner for me. I don't like the idea of mental incompetents and convicted violent felons having guns - BUT ... the violent felons that shouldn't have been released from prison in the first place (or, better yet, shouldn't be breathing) will find a way to get guns, no matter what the law says. The part of the 2nd line's restriction that I don't like is "felons" - as in "all convicted felons" as in "even non-violent people convicted of minor crimes that some anti-gun SOB's in Congress decide to call a felony." In other words, don't give the antis any means of slipping through a ban on gun ownership on the basis of "crime control."

The right to defense of self, family and liberty is about as absolute a right as one can have - because if you don't have the right to effectively defend yourself, you don't have the right to live - and I recoil at that notion for anyone other than murderers, war criminals and others guilty of really heinous crimes. If someone is currently serving time in prison or a mental institution, then it is fine by me to restrict their rights - after all, confinement itself is a restriction on rights, and it is being done for the protection of the rights of the rest of us. But if society says, by the act of releasing someone onto the streets, that their debt is paid or that they are no longer a threat, then what is the possible justification for keeping them disarmed? And if they are so dangerous, *** are they being let out in the first place?

 

[Tamara]

WildAlaska,

why dont we just scrap the Sup Court and let us all act on what we think it says.

There's no "think it says" to it. The 2nd is one of the most grammatically simple sections of the BoR; I submit that anyone who needs nine black-robed Gladys Kravitzes in some East Coast urban pesthole to decode it for them should probably be kept away from sharp objects and power tools.

Tamdependsonwhatthedefinitionof"is"isara

 

[AZRickD]

I don't know about you, Tamara. But *I* do not need nine Robed Ones to tell me that the 2A means what Madison and his contemporaries said it meant.

But, dang, it would be nice if 5 out of frickin' 4 of them knew their rears from a hole in the ground.

Rick

 

[jimpeel]

Time I guess to see where people stand

Since I'm on your ignore list you can't see where I stand, where I sit, or what I post.

The word for the day is: punctuation

 

[Billmanweh]

for people who voted for no regulations whatsoever, are you referring only to small arms?

 

[jimpeel]

Small arms, big arms, all arms.

We already have the right to have tanks, bazookas, hand grenades, rifles, cannon, Apache helicopters, etc. They are declared to be "destructive devices" by the BATFE and we now have to license them. Why would it be any different under a no license scheme where we can have everything we can have today?

Prior to the advent of the BATFE and NFA'34, there were no restrictions on arms.

The only ones abusing them were criminals.

Today, we have licensing, registration, permits, NICS checks, 4473s, ad nauseum to possess and own a firearm.

The only ones abusing them are criminals.

Nothing has changed but the paperwork.

 

[Billmanweh]

you can mount a legally transferred machine gun on a helicoptor or airplane?

you sure about that??

 

[Wildalaska]

There's no "think it says" to it.

Tam...Thats what you say..others say different...how are we gonna decide...a gunfight?


WildandyournameisnotasconducivetoeditorializingasmineisbecauseofvowelplacementAlaska

 

[jimpeel]

Billmanweh

you can mount a legally transferred machine gun on a helicoptor or airplane?

Movie armorers do it all of the time.

Did you realize that there are six -- COUNT 'EM, SIX -- fully operational Apache helicopters in civilian hands in this country?

Dateline NBC did a hand wringing, bed wetting report on "How could this happen" several years ago. It turns out that the government simply throws stuff on the scrap pile for salvage including the weapons systems for the Apache; and entire Apaches sans weapons systems.

Some enterprising cherry-pickers figured this out and started collecting parts and have assembled six, fully functional Apaches which they rent to the studios for stunts, etc.

So the next time you see an Apache -- or several Apaches -- in a movie, they did not make an arrangement with the military for them. They simply called some enterprising armorers.