Bartholomew Roberts
Member
mccrain said:MCrain, not McCrain. Anyway, I don't see how reasonable limits on ones freedom are in anyway a "noose" around your "rights." If anything, reasonable restrictions protect your rights because then you don't have people pointing to the lack of such restrictions as a basis for more extreme measures. In addition, we all accept reasonable restrictions on what we do every day.
If reasonable restrictions protect my rights, then why are we sitting in a gun forum discussing more regulations on guns when we already have 20,000 something state and federal gun laws in this country? In 1934, there was one federal law covering gun ownership. Then we added the 1968 Gun Control Act - which was a whole host of federal laws. Then we added the 1994 Brady Act, then the Lautenberg Act.
It seems to me that there is a big flaw in your "reasonable restrictions" argument. It seems that no matter how many restrictions have been agreed to in the past, there are always new ones ready and waiting.
I have a right to free speech, but I can't stand naked in the middle of the street with a sign that says Republicans hate poor people. They might, but I can't exercise my right to say so naked in the street.
Actually, I feel fairly confident that you could exercise such a right if you were able to show that the nudity was an important component of the political message you were trying to send. Let me make a better analogy that both displays how reasonable restrictions work and why gun control laws rarely qualify:
Despite your First Amendment righs, you don't have a right to deceitfully yell "Fire" in a crowded theater for the purpose of causing alarm. However, the government is not allowed to cut your tongue out on the basis that you possess the ability to yell "Fire" deceitfully. This is the problem with most gun control laws - they presume you will act criminally and legislate accordingly.
Reasonable time, place and manner restrictions are an everyday thing, so it would be nice if the NRA stopped acting like everyone was out to take their guns and participated in the discussion. In fact, I would appreciate it if they took the lead. If anyone knows what the best, most reasonable and enforceable restrictions would be, it should be the NRA. Instead, all they do is work to scare people so that people buy more guns and they get more political power. It's a shame.
You strike me as being ignorant about the NRA and guns in general. For the record, the NRA is involved in pretty much every debate on gun control. This may shock you; but the reason the NRA doesn't support many so-called "reasonable" restrictions is because THEY AREN'T REASONABLE. However, people who are not familiar with the technical details of firearms often don't understand why.
Look at the law that banned armor-piercing ammunition, as originally proposed, the law would have banned practically all rifle ammunition. The bill's author didn't even understand what he was proposing. The NRA opposed the bill on that basis and was soundly castigated in the news as supporting "cop-killer" bullets. Nobody even attempted to cover the NRA's side of the story. The NRA continued to work with the bill's author though and succeeded in getting him to change his legislation so that it covered rounds that were actually designed for the specific purpose of defeating body armor (See: http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvcopk.html for more details). Does that sound like the NRA you imagine you know?