Gun synonyms: firearm, pistol, revolver, rifle, shotgun, carbine, automatic, handgun, semiautomatic, machine gun, Uzi.
A rifle has a long rifled barrel. Rifling is a spiral groove that causes the bullet to spin. A spinning bullet flies straighter, so point-blank range is longer. Point-blank is not gun-to-the-head (or rifle-to-the-head) distance, it is simply the distance over which a straight sighted shot will hit its mark without compensating for the bullet falling in the Earth’s gravitational field.
In the old days, to fire a second (or third, etc.) bullet from a gun, you had to shove powder and shot and wadding and stuff down the barrel. Over time this got easier to do, so we ended up with things like revolvers and the rough (but different) equivalent in long guns, a way to get the second bullet into the right place (the chamber) by pulling and/or pushing on a bolt, lever, or other doohickey. Then they invented a way for the bullet to load itself up so that it was ready to go, generally using some of the energy from the previously fired bullet. These were initially called by terms such as “self-loading,” “repeating,” or “auto-loading.” I think the term “semi-automatic” emerged at a later time to clarify the distinction between what eventually became known as “fully automatic” and “semi-automatic.”
An fully automatic weapon fires a series of bullets with only one pull of the trigger.
A rifle is a gun, a gun is a weapon, a rifle is a weapon, and many weapons are rifles or guns.
An assault weapon is often thought of as a rifle or rifle-like gun designed to attack and kill people, maximizing casualties and ease of use during hut-hut-hut situations.* It may have a way to suppress muzzle flash, it usually has a pistol type grip allowing it to be maneuvered and aimed more quickly, it may be light weight, it usually can carry a lot of bullets or can be modified to carry a whole-bunch-of bullets, etc. There is not a formal definition of assault weapon, though in the process of legislating guns, some statues define the term, but that is not official-Webster-linguo-defined. An assault weapon need not be fully automatic
Most gun aficionados will tell you that an “assault rifle” is always a fully automatic. Period. And, to them, this is true. Not an assault weapon, an assault rifle. Totally different thing, they say. You’re using the wrong word, they’ll tell you.
Yet, a gun is a weapon, so a semi-automatic rifle with a pistol grip, flash suppressor, large magazine, etc. is an assault rifle.
Why is this important?
It is not. Not at all. Means nothing. There is nothing whatsoever to the problem that people who talk about guns and rifles and stuff use terms that do not match what a subset of the terms currently active gun aficionados prefer.
But if you use these terms in a way not anointed by the gun slingers, you will be corrected, and that correction will be used as a tool to derail the discussion. You will be trolled. Slinger-trolled.
When it comes down to banning guns, when a bill is passed that bans specific guns in a specific state or country, definitions must be created for use in statute, as referred to above. Even though many gun slinger trolls will tell you that all the terms are defined, understood, and fully deployed across the gun-o-sphere, they are not. There are all kinds of edge cases and vagueness. For example, an automatic rifle fires several shots, but to most gun slingers, an automatic pistol does not. But a machine pistol is a fully automatic pistol, which is a pistol not because of its pistolosity so much as its lack of long rifled barrel and relative smallness. And so on. It will not do to ban firearms without attending to the definitions very clearly. Meanwhile, it will not do to have the conversation constantly derailed by yammering gun slinger trolls insisting that they own the English Language. They do not.
When the famous Clinton assault weapon ban went into effect decades ago, the fist thing the gun slingers did was to eviscerate it by insisting that definitions had to be very very clear, in a certain way, such as naming specific known weapons or lines of weapons. The production of this clarity was demanded in order to allow the creation of loopholes big enough to pass a naval gun through. The purpose, on the part of the pro-gun lobby, of screwing around with definitions, was to avoid actually banning entire categories of guns. Ultimately, the legislation did not work very well.
For much of the time they’ve been manufactured, a typical semi-automatic rifle that is also an assault weapon, depending and varying across time and space, can be turned into a fully automatic weapon with a kit that goes with that rifle. Newer regulatory standards have made it more and more difficult to make this conversion. There was a time when it was trivial, now it is harder. As the old method of making a weapon fully auto (removing the bit that causes the firing pin to only hit the bullet once, then adding a part that controls the hammer’s cycle so it does not try to fire a bullet before it has entered the chamber, etc) has become more difficult, the bump-stock was invented, a device that totally circumvents the measures take to make this conversion very difficult. And so on.
My message is this: When talking about regulating guns, beware the pedant: the person who tells you that you don’t know what you are talking about because you are not using specific terms, and tries to make that the main point of the conversation.
Yes, ultimately, we will need to have proper and correct definiteness, but it is simply not true that adherence to this absurd level of specificity is required to have a productive conversation. It isn’t true because one of the most important differences between weapons is semi- vs. fully-automatic, and that distinction is artificial. Eventually, we will likely see the difference between an “assault weapon” and a “hunting weapon” similarly mucked up, as we decide as a society to ban assault weapons but protect hunting weapons. There will be a weight limit put on weapons, so light weight (a feature of assault weapons) is not allowed. So heavier weapons will be created that can be lightened by changing the stock. Flash suppressors will not be allowed, but there will be instruction to make and add your own. All of it.
Face it: Gun slinging trolls are simply not honest contributors to this conversation. And that does not matter. It does not matter because we are tired of listing to them.
*the hut-hut-hut situation:
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or Paperback
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“Arms” is actually even broader than guns.
A sword is an arm.
A knife is an arm.
A mace is an arm.
A spear is an arm.
A long gun is an arm.
A pistol is an arm.
The different types of guns are not really relevant.
The relevant question is which are “Arms” and which are not.
According to the logic of the Miller decision, whatever your typical soldier is issued and carries on their person is an “Arm”.
Under that logic, a fully automatic machine gun is an “Arm”.
Something to think about.
RickA
Oh, the ammosexuals and the NRA gang will dash down the “fully automatic weapons are protected by the 2nd amendment” if they ever imagine they have a supreme court that would bless that view.
Also, arms are arms!
Greg:
I know you are just kidding.
But still, here is a definition:
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/arms
The dishonesty is on the gun banners who claim they only wish to ban certain type of guns.
As long as there is this regime of the other side not willing to respect the right to have guns,
reasonable policies will not be enacted. Many gun owners are OK with lots of things including criminal registries, bans on certain weapons, and more. However, this is seen as a war with any rule is an attack on the 2nd amendment, and the NRA will attack politicians that give ground(others find the NRA too weak and compromising).
Instead, gun owners will adamantly be against whatever liberals propose.
Such paranoia. There is no politically significant movement to ban hunting and weapons designed primarily for hunting, and handguns are constitutionally protected thanks to Heller 2009.
dhogaza:
Heller is not limited to handguns.
From the wiki “District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), is a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held, in a 5–4 decision, that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home, and that Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban and requirement that lawfully-owned rifles and shotguns be kept “unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock” violated this guarantee. ”
Heller also applies to rifles and shotguns.
No politically significant movement because liberals keep losing so they decide not to push it for now.
Heller was decided 5-4, so if Merrick Garland had been nominated, Heller would have been reversed.
Thanks for acknowledging that rightwing ‘interpretation’ of the 2nd A is a rightwing thing. So to recap:
Gun industry > NRA > Republicans > Supreme Court > ‘interpretations’ of the 2nd A which bear no relationship to its original, clearly stated purpose but hugely benefit the gun industry.
I think the exact opposite. The pro gun people will use any argument they can find to reduce restrictions or control on guns as much as they possibly can. They do not have a reasonable or sensible position of any kind.
Among those in favor of regulation there are three philosophies:
1) Bend over and let the gun assholes screw them over while they intone “reasonable, I just want to be reasonable”
2) Ban all guns for all time (very few people in this group).
3) Repeal the second amendment and require all guns to be quarantined (in their own homes, under a sort of house arrest) or confiscated, depending on the type of gun. Melt down everything that can hold more than five rounds (shotguns) or three rounds (rifle) or 14 rounds (hand gun).
Then, once we have that under control, we can talk about gun ownership, but only after gun ownership is largely ended. Only from this position will we be able to extract reason from the gun slingers (I’m pretty sure there is only one person in that camp, me)
Here are the sort of changes that we need to make.
All firearms need to be registered.
All gun owners need to obtain a license for their use.
Shooters, ammo and gun manufacturers, and gun and ammo sellers need to:
1. be held liable for letting guns or ammo fall into criminal or otherwise inappropriate hands.
2. pay a tax or insurance premium to cover the cost of medical procedures, and therapy, to rebuild bodies and lives shattered by their love objects.
The illegal possession and use of a firearm shall be punished by serious time in prison. Say, enough to ensure that casual ownership and misuse of guns is reduced to a rarity instead being such a common occurrence.
Weapons and ammunition will be defined and regulated such that projectiles that are so powerful as to rip bodies apart and shatter internal organs beyond repair will be only allowed for strictly limited applications.
SteveP:
A going forward registry could possible. Going backward isn’t going to fly. Even if such a law did pass, nobody would comply.
You cannot license fundamental rights. Can you require a license to speak. Can you require a license to practice your religion. No. Same thing applies to the right to keep and bear arms. A license requirement would infringe on the peoples right to keep and bear arms.
You cannot make companies responsible for other’s actions. How can they control if a criminal steals a gun from a homeowner? You couldn’t do that for a vehicle and you cannot pass a law like that for gun manufacturers.
Ditto for the tax and insurance idea. Not workable.
The use and illegal possession of a firearm is already a serious crime – so ok that could be done.
Your last point isn’t going to fly either. The purpose of guns is to kill. To render them so they cannot function for their intended purpose is an infringement on the right to keep and bear arms.
Still – two items are not unconstitutional.
Very good!
RickA, owning a gun is not a fundamental right.
I beg to differ:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fundamental_right
“They want to ban guns” is simply the right’s way of saying that people want reasonable laws. There is no movement to ban or take away guns, but it makes a good, quick, throwaway line to the vocal extreme.
Umm… have you seen FaceBook recently? There very definitely IS a movement to ban guns.
Wow. People getting together on FB to try to start a “ban gun movement”. Referencing that is as stupid as referencing WUWT on climate change.
As I said, there is no widespread movement to ban guns. The fact that you think FB is indicative of anything is astounding.
Just ban every firearm that has any kind of autoloading function – if you are a target shooter or a hunter you don’t need that at all. Bolt action rifles, ban “handguns” entirely – the “good guy with a gun” myth is just that, a myth. If you need more than that (need as opposed to want) you are up to no good or a really crappy hunter that has no business hunting animals.
You can’t say that. See Dean, above.
You know the famous gun buyback scheme in Australia in the 90s, soon after the last (so far) mass-shooting-by-weird-loser-white-dude? Yeah, it worked pretty well, but not just in one hit. There was another amnesty last year (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-01/gun-amnesty-sees-57,000-firearms-handed-in-across-country/9495440) and no reason to think we can put the whole thing behind us yet.
So you Americans shouldn’t hold out for a one-off solution, like rejecting registration because it would take forever to get caught up. Don’t be shy about saying ‘take away guns’, because that’s exactly what you (i.e. your professional police on your behalf) are going to have to do, in self-defense, wherever the people or guns are too dangerous to turn your back on while you and your children go about your business.
You are pointing your finger at the wrong person.
The only way you get from the clearly stated meaning of the 2nd A to the ‘interpretation’ currently in use is by historical revisionism:
No militia, no right to keep and bear. For a nation that makes such a fuss about the Constitution, you are remarkably careless about how it is misrepresented by partisan judges.
BBD, that was not the case with US v Miller, which was argued without a lawyer for the pro-gun side. They considered the general public(presumable men of a certain age) to be militia.
The radical interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is by liberal judges.
Which it obviously is not. This concept, as I keep saying, is anachronistic. The 2nd A accords the right to keep and bear specifically to ensure that the state can levy a self-armed militia at need. Since this is not going to happen (and when was the last time that it did?) then the 2nd A is anachronistic.
To argue that the 2nd A confers a general right to gun ownership requires an act of historical revisionism.
A well regulated Militia
being necessary to the security of a free State
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,
shall not be infringed.
Let’s take it apart. Was the Parkland murderer a gun lover? Yes. Was he part of a well regulated Militia? Not in any known sense.
Did the Parkland murderer and gun lover contribute to the security of a free State? No. No, he did not. He contributed to the insecurity of a school, a town, a State, and a nation. He contributed to the insecurity of the lives of thousands of students and their family members in the most horrific way. He stopped a whole nation dead in its tracks.
Did the Parkland murderer and gun lover have the right to keep and bear Arms so that he could contribute to the security of a free State? He might have arguably had the right to bear arms if he were contributing to the security of a free State. But he was not. He was contributing to the insecurity of a free state.
It is clear to me that the second amendment says that the right of the people to keep and bear Arms will not be infringed by being regulated.
It is also clear to me that the right of the people to keep and bear Arms is voided if keeping and bearing those Arms does not contribute to the security of a free State.
If the desire of gun lovers to hurt, kill, bully, maim, cripple, murder and threaten their neighbors does not contribute to the security of a free State, then gun lovers should expect that that they are going to lose their special privileges to keep their ballistic sex toys.
Specifically as part of a well regulated militia.
Yet somehow (and one must ask why?), rightwing judges interpreted this very clear provision of right in a way completely at odds with its originally purpose.
WTF?
“Yet somehow (and one must ask why?), rightwing judges interpreted this very clear provision of right in a way completely at odds with its originally purpose.”
Oh, please stop it. Judges left, right, and center have interpreted the 2nd Amendment as protecting individual citizen ownership since the Amendment was written.
And, judges left, right, and center have interpreted it the other way round for just as long, too. But only in regard to the way the 2nd Amendment relates to other state laws.
NO JUSTICE has ever contemplated the idea that American citizens do not have the right to own a gun.
Stop your historical revisionism, please. Better yet – read the case law.
[misthreaded above:]
You are pointing your finger at the wrong person.
The only way you get from the clearly stated meaning of the 2nd A to the ‘interpretation’ currently in use is by historical revisionism:
No militia, no right to keep and bear. For a nation that makes such a fuss about the Constitution, you are remarkably careless about how it is misrepresented by partisan judges.
BBD says “No militia, no right to keep and bear.”
But there is still a militia, so your argument is fatally flawed.
When was there last an involuntary levy of a state militia?
We can work together on the definition of anachronism.
BBD asks “When was there last an involuntary levy of a state militia?”
Why is that relevant?
There is a militia and it can be called up.
If Russia invades (or Canada), it could be called up tomorrow.
The point is that your narrow focus on the National Guard is misplaced.
There is a militia and so the reason “the people” need to have arms is still valid.
Ah, so RickA won’t answer the question ‘When was there last an involuntary levy of a state militia?’ Surprise, surprise.
No, by any reasonable definition, there isn’t a militia. The concept is an anachronism. See above.
In which RickA is unintentionally hilarious and helps to make my point for me.
I’m not focused on the NG. I am talking about the ‘unorganised militia’ (specifically named on my response in the other thread).
There isn’t a militia (when was it last called up? You didn’t say). The concept has fallen into disuse. It is an anachronism. It follows that the 2nd A is an anachronism.
No militia, no justification via the 2nd A for a right to keep and bear. Your legal people must be biased. Wonder why?
Citizens, thou shalt worship at the sovereign alter of flaming liberty pants with 2nd Amendment Bibles (complete with ofishal annotated apocrypha) in hand!
http://digg.com/2018/sanctuary-church-gun-commitment-photos
————-
Action figures sold separately.
“The only way you get from the clearly stated meaning of the 2nd A to the ‘interpretation’ currently in use is by historical revisionism:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
No militia, no right to keep and bear.”
Wow. Just…. wow. I will say this one last time. Maybe you will read my words and understand them. It’s not hard. I am being pretty clear. Stop ignoring what you don’t like.
You are wrong about the militia clause. You are wrong about “recent” Supreme Court rulings being different from older Supreme Court rulings. You are wrong about the history of 2nd Amendment law.
If you actually, like I suggested, go back and review the SC cases on gun rights, you will find that the SC, as well as Federal appellate courts, are schizophrenic about the militia phrase. Some decisions lean one way, and others lean the other way. All the way back as far as it goes.
All of these cases, however, are always in the context of the particular situation of the cases appealed, and how precedent interacts with the rights of people and state entities. It is complicated, not simple.
But. One thing you can not say with honesty is what YOU say: that the court has always said gun rights are dependent on the militia. Absolutely not true.
Here is another thing one can not say in honesty: That the United States Supreme Court, or any Federal court, has at any time in the history of the United States, ever given contemplation to the idea that American citizens do not have the right to own and use guns. Regardless of whether a militia exists or not.
And the idea that the 2nd Amendment was written to give sanction to gun rights specifically and only within the context of a militia is completely effing absurd. Nobody even contemplated such a ridiculous idea. Everybody had guns. Everybody always had guns. There was never once a movement to change that. There was never discussion about doing that during discussions of the Bill of Rights.
The militia phrasing was discussed as a way to illustrate the permanent need for the protection of the people to own guns. This country just took up arms against the British and won. There was no longer a standing army. The Founders wanted us to never have a standing army, they wanted the people always armed against tyranny.
What you keep repeating here about the militia is not and has not ever been the position of any court in the land. Indeed, the last three SC cases have made that EXPLICITLY clear in any case. Stop talking **** about it.
If we are going to repeal the 2nd Amendment, it will not be on the basis of your interpretation of the militia phrase because it is fractally wrong.
That must be why I never said this. I’ve argued only that the current interpretation of the 2nd A is very different to its clearly stated original meaning. It is difficult to understand how this extraordinary plasticity of interpretation reconciles with the insistence in some quarters that the Constitution be honoured as is.
Today, now, in the present, the 2nd A is the legal (Constitutional, no less) justification for US gun ownership. So arguing that it was not intended for that purpose confirms the position that it is anachronistic. It also disqualifies the 2nd A as the basis for an argument that gun ownership is a legal right.
So if not on the 2nd A then on what documented legal basis does that right exist?
>2nd A is the legal (Constitutional, no less) justification for US gun ownership. So arguing that it was not intended for that purpose
You’re the one doing that. You are completely misunderstanding the statement,
“And the idea that the 2nd Amendment was written to give sanction to gun rights specifically and only within the context of a militia is completely effing absurd. Nobody even contemplated such a ridiculous idea. ”
It does not mean ‘written to give sanction to gun rights specifically…’. It means ‘the idea that…was written…specifically and only within the context of a militia…’
So on what legal basis does the right to keep and bear actually rest?
There seems to be an assumption that there is a fundamental right to keep and bear which predates and yet supersedes the 2nd A. So, what is it? Where is it codified in law?
The legal basis is in the 2nd amendment.
I don’t know of any prior fundamental right, particularly with respect to the 2nd amendment.
One should note that the Bill of Rights is not actually a list of rights granted, but a list of restrictions on the government. In other words, your rights are not being granted by the Constitution, they are preexisting fundamental rights that come from God. For this reason, Hamilton argued against a bill of rights, saying it would lead people against that view and think that rights come from government and not God.
However, I don’t think this argument flies with all of the Bill of Rights, like the 2nd or 3rd amendments.
Then there is a problem since the 2nd A as written is anachronistic and doesn’t accord the right of generalised gun ownership. That ‘right’ is the result of systematic misinterpretation of the 2nd A by a succession of conservative judges.
And that should be a *big* problem for a nation that reveres its Constitution.
“A well-crafted pepperoni pizza, being necessary to the preservation of a diverse menu, the right of the people to keep and cook tomatoes, shall not be infringed.” I would ask you to try to argue that this statement says that only pepperoni pizzas can keep and cook tomatoes, and only well-crafted ones at that. This is basically what the anti gun people argue with respect to the well-regulated militia, vs. the right to keep and bear arms. – Bruce Tiemann
If the 2nd Amendment is an anachronism, the solution is to repeal it. You can’t just declare it an anachronism and reinterpret its meaning to support the political preference of the judges.
For example, the provision of the Constitution on recess appointments is an anachronism, needed when travel times were weeks or months. That doesn’t mean a court can therefore rule they are unacceptable and all appointments must be confirmed by the Senate. There is a separate argument that the provision is misinterpreted and only vacancies that start during a recess of Congress can be filled.
What conservative judges have done is reinterpret its meaning to support their political preferences without declaring it an anachronism. Even though it very clearly is.
No. I suspect that the political preferences of some of those judges are not in favor of legal guns. What they did was to rule on the amendment as it is.
Regardless of political preference declaring a portion of a law an anachronism and refusing to enforce a restriction on government is not a valid action for a judge.
What if a judge just declared, ‘Based on the movement of states towards more permitting of guns for concealed carry, it is clear that the refusal to issue permits is an anachronism, and therefore this regime of permitting is not allowed’?
“So on what legal basis does the right to keep and bear actually rest?
There seems to be an assumption that there is a fundamental right to keep and bear which predates and yet supersedes the 2nd A. So, what is it? Where is it codified in law?”
Wow. The mind is a many splendored thing.
Answer the question.
“A well regulated Militia having once been necessary for the tyrannical slave holding states to control the slaves who out numbered the slave owners, for the defense of the frontier against foreign aggressors and for the theft of land from indigenous peoples, the right of the white people to own guns and shoot people of other races and nations shall not be infringed.”
There I fixed it for you.
Nope.
The 2nd Amendment is a continuation of a long-standing English tradition of bearing arms for self-defense and as a method to resist government oppression.
Not that long-standing, old chap. There’s no right to keep and bear here in the UK and restrictions are very, very tight.
In this thread, we’ve seen that the 2nd A as written is anachronistic and doesn’t accord universal rights of gun ownership at all. We’ve also seen that there is nothing else in US law that defines and accords that right. We’ve seen that the supposed ‘right’ in the 21st century is nothing more than a rewrite of the 2nd A by conservative judges who disguised this attack on the Constitution as an interpretation. And all you American conservatives just let that hack on your Constitution go by without a peep. Disgraceful.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/04/second-amendment-protects-individual-right-keep-bear-arms/
“Progressives like to insist that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects a collective, rather than an individual, right to “keep and bear arms.” Or, put another way, they say that the only right Americans have to the ownership of lethal weaponry exists within the context of state-sanctioned military service. As a result, progressives conclude that there is nothing in place to stop the federal government from prohibiting the private ownership of firearms and allowing access to weapons only to those who belong to the National Guard — the modern descendant of early-American state and local militia forces.
In 2008, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, ruling — by a bare 5–4 majority — that this relatively recent view is incorrect. The Second Amendment, the majority concluded, protects the rights of the individual.
To accept Scalia’s argument, it is necessary to show that the operative clause (“the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”) refers to a right defined and codified in US law.
So, where is this piece of legislation to which the 2nd A is supposed to refer, according at least to Scalia?
If it does not exist, then Scalia is simply arguing from assertion and also grossly misinterpreting the scope and intent of the 2nd A.
Since it does not exist, Scalia’s radical reinvention of the 2nd A is based on nothing more than assertion. It has no legal underpinning at all other than that accorded to it by conservative judges.
Repeatedly quoting the same partisan source at me isn’t advancing your argument at all. It suggests in fact that you don’t *have* an argument. Rather in the sense that parrots do not have an argument.
BBD:
Maybe your confusion is with the term “operative clause”?
Prefatory just means before, as in preface.
Operative just means that is the part of the second amendment which bars the US government (and states since incorporation via the 14th amendment) from infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It is the part of the amendment which operates on the government.
The 2nd amendment doesn’t give the people a right, it precludes the government from infringing on the preexisting right.
Like the right of self-defense.
That right doesn’t come from the constitution or statute (law) – it just is. Although many states have codified the right of self-defense, your right doesn’t come from the law, the law merely recognizes the right.
If someone is trying to kill you, you can defend yourself with a rock, a knife, a gun or even a car – basically with whatever you have handy.
Anyway – I think you might be a bit confused.
“Further, the language clearly indicates that the amendment wasn’t creating a new right but recognizing a pre-existing individual liberty — one that is referenced in the 1689 English Bill of Rights. The language “shall not be infringed” indicates recognition, not creation.”
https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/04/second-amendment-protects-individual-right-keep-bear-arms/
The American colonists **already** enjoyed the right to bear arms. See Blackstone’s commentaries.
“5. The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute 1 W. & M. st. 2. c. 2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.”
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendIXs1.html
All the talk about the first clause of the 2nd Amendment limiting firearms to a “militia” is complete NONSENSE.
“As Justice Scalia noted in his Heller decision, the amendment contains both a prefatory clause and an operative clause. The prefatory clause, a common feature at the time of drafting, does not limit the operative clause; rather, it explains its purpose.”
https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/04/second-amendment-protects-individual-right-keep-bear-arms/
“The Second Amendment is widely seen as quite unusual, because it has a justification clause as well as an operative clause. Professor Volokh points out that this structure was actually quite commonplace in American constitutions of the Framing era: State Bills of Rights contained justification clauses for many of the rights they secured. ”
http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/common.htm
So where in US law is the right to keep and bear arms explicitly defined?
Nowhere. The operative clause isn’t based on anything in law at all. You are literally arguing from assertion, after Scalia, who should not have got away with this.
BBD:
I don’t understand your point about the support for the second amendment in US law.
The constitution comes first, then the laws are written under it and have to be found constitutional in light of it.
The inspiration for the second amendment did come from UK law (as it existed in 1779 ish) and did most of our legal system – but you don’t need a US law to have support for the 2nd amendment.
So I think you might be a bit confused.
I’m trying to understand where the idea that universal US gun ownership is a legal right actually comes from.
Okay, let’s imagine that this by itself really does confer a legal right upon US citizens to keep and bear arms. It simultaneously stipulates that the right must not be infringed because of the requirement to levy self-armed state militias. But this practice has fallen entirely into disuse, so the force of protection of the right accorded by the 2nd A is removed.
Alternatively we could argue that the 2nd A does not, by itself, define a legal right to universal gun ownership at all. Rather, it specifies that the right be accorded for a single purpose only: the levy of a self-armed state militia. But this practice has fallen entirely into disuse, so the anachronistic 2nd A no longer confers the legal right to gun ownership upon US citizens.
Either way you slice the cake, the 2nd A doesn’t provide the cast-iron ‘right’ to keep and bear that its proponents claim. Which might go some way to explain why conservative judges have very considerably altered the scope and meaning of the original in their various interpretations over the years.
Another gun lover just killed two people on a Michigan campus. The problem is not guns. The problem is gun lovers.
Your joking – but you are not wrong.
It is not the weapon, it is the person using the weapon that is the problem.
They are criminals, committing the crime of murder.
They should be caught and tried.
To illustrate just how mendacious this rhetoric is, here is an unpleasant but necessary thought experiment:
1. A young man armed with a pickaxe handle enters a classroom and attacks the children inside.
2. A young man armed with an assault rifle enters a classroom and attacks the children inside.
Before being overpowered, the young man in (1) has killed only a couple of children. In (2), the dead children number in the high double figures.
You keep making the ‘weapon not the person’ claim. It is a pernicious, dishonest rhetoric and I would be very grateful if you stopped doing it.
Well, I suppose if corporations are people, what the hell, why not guns?
Also land mines don’t kill people… because blah, blah, blah?
It’s fun and easy to repeat bumper stickers! They’re thought stopping deflections, and it takes too long to digress into unpacking all the rhetorical piffle they contain. Bottom line, nobody is arguing that guns are sentient psychopaths that go around attacking people. Nobody.
Using your logic there’s no reason that machine guns, bazookas, and cannons should not be sold at the local gun store.
Semi automatic guns should be regulated exactly the same as fully automatic guns. The difference between the two is so small that even an expert is going to have a hard time distinguishing between them without firing them. The is no conceivable way for the 2nd amendment to apply differently to one than it does the other. (Just try imagining an original intent argument to support that.)
elspi:
Fully automatic weapons are illegal to make and sell in the USA and have been since the Tommy gun was widely used during prohibition.
Here is the thing though.
The Supreme Court has never been asked to review the constitutionality of that law.
That is right – no one ever brought a law suit saying their 2nd amendment rights were violated by the inability to purchase a machine gun for civilian use.
If semi-automatic weapons are banned, I am sure lawsuits will be filed and maybe the court will look at both semi-automatic weapons and fully automatic weapons.
The reasoning behind the ban on machine guns doesn’t really hold water with the caselaw – as militias do use fully automatic weapons, so naturally “the people” have the right to keep and bear fully automatic weapons, because they might need them if the militia is called up.
So the gun banners might want to be careful, or they might move backwards by overreaching.
That is my advice anyway.
Stick to banning things that do not violate the 2nd amendment.
Bump stocks, background checks, large capacity magazines – these things don’t infringe the right to keep and bear arms (in my opinion).
Banning semi-automatic weapons does.
Don’t go there or the end result could be that civilians could end up with the right to purchase fully automatic weapons – and that would be counter-productive.
Nah, legal full autos will serve as a hostage, and the Supreme Court will allow a ban on semi-autos to keep from having to go there.
I think this would highlight the issue of anachronism. A reasonable question it raises would be when was the last time a state raised a self-armed citizens militia via an involuntary levy?
Once it has been shown that this simple does not happen any more and has not happened for a very long time and will not therefore happen in future, the whole ‘yes but militias need autos’ argument goes away. Interestingly, so does the argument that the 2nd A *still* provides a legal basis for the right to keep and bear arms.
THE VIOLENCE MUST STOP
ENOUGH!
CONSTRUCTIVE IDEAS FOR STUDENT SAFETY IN SCHOOLS
WE NEED A PUBLIC ONLINE THINK TANK
Fear of violence has no place in schools. Just as nuclear bombs have not brought peace to planet Earth, arming school staff will not bring peace to schools. Anxious teachers and students cannot engage in learning processes. We must solve this problem NOW.
It is the duty of adults and schools to provide safe places for students to learn. It is difficult to count the number of times schools have failed in this duty because of gun violence. The number of school shootings involving mass murder in the United States has risen very high. Schools do not have enough accurate information for good decisions and policy. Schools lack money to implement any good solutions. Arming teachers and expecting them to keep students safe and at the same time teach and prepare for class is a bad idea. It is a superficial solution paying lip service to critical issues: it is like requiring teachers to police cafeterias at lunch time.
One of the problems with potentially helpful solutions that increase security at schools is that even good ideas have a flip side involving personal liability, or increased dangers in other aspects of such a situation.
Another obvious problem is funding. Many schools cannot even afford a 4 camera security system, or to pay someone to monitor the views in an office of those camera if they are installed. Primarily, the money to pay for the solution needs to come from federal funding and foundations: as a teacher, I see no leftover county or state funds to pay for our solution.
Everyone wants to eliminate this kind of violence. However, the fact is that school boards, supervisors, teachers, parents and students cannot always agree on a solution for less important problems and years can pass before any resolution occurs, if it does. This problem must be solved now, the solution is past due.
Ideas
But what should be done?
Someone, [or some group], with power to gather information and suggestions, make policy, and allocate monies needs to hear ideas. We need a THINK TANK to study the problem to make recommendations for solutions.
We, the people, cannot leave this problem in the hands of politicians.
This page is dedicated to posting facts and making suggestions for potential solutions to the problem. Any serious person should feel free to post an idea. Sometimes a handful of “bad” ideas must be reviewed before a potentially viable idea is arrived at. In that spirit, I propose an idea and offer this space as a forum for others to post ideas.
WHAT IS THE SALARY OF A TRAINED ARMED SECURITY GUARD CAPABLE OF KEEPING STUDENTS SAFE, INTERACTING SAFELY WITH THEM, AND ALSO OF HAVING A PERSONA THAT WILL INTIMIDATE AN ARMED AND VIOLENT PERETRATOR?
I don’t know, but it is not a minimum wage job. Not even close. And how many guards would the average size public school need to keep a campus of 1000 students safe? It would be a lot of money. I think my idea will cost a lot less. I leave the money side of my suggestions to others for evaluation.
HI-TECH ID CARDS FOR STUDENTS & SCHOOL STAFF
We can do a test run almost right away at a public school that has the right campus configuration to try this idea.
Create a system that at every public school each student has a photo ID with a magnetic strip on the back, like a key card for a motel room. Install key card technology to swipe on school doors designated as entrances. Designate other doors as emergency and non-emergency exits. Obtain the same ID card technology used on cruise ships where passengers use that technology to regain entry when they have been sightseeing. This technology requires the person with the ID card to hold their photo next to their face up to a camera. The camera decides if there is a match. If there is a match, the person is allowed entry. Lastly, all designated entrances must have “styles” installed, much like subway entrances that monitor whether a person has paid. Only one body is allowed to enter at a time. The student would swipe their card to get through the barrier. The students must cooperate with the system.
All students would be awarded a hi-tech ID card after attending a video training and passing a multiple choice test that verifies that the student understands how the schools system is set up, and what is required. If 50 students can go through an entrance using one ID card, this system would be a failure. The system must be set up so that each student ID card is worthless to anyone but the student it is issued to: a bully cannot pirate and use it. Students must understand that it is their responsibility to not allow anyone else through the “style” with them. Students who do not pass the training will not have an ID card. Students who do not have an ID card, or fail the test can be flagged for evaluation by a student council and/or staff to determine what the problem is and if the student should have a card. The “style” probably needs to be installed under a weatherproof awning outdoors attached to the school building at the designated entrances.
This idea can easily be tried at a school that already has a sufficient outdoor cover to install the “styles.” Surely a couple of the companies who sell these technologies could donate enough of it to one school to see if this is a viable idea in exchange for some fabulous public relations. Are any of them reading this?
Maybe this idea is not viable for some reason: perhaps it is not going to work in every situation. Maybe someone needs to monitor the students going through the entrances to make sure no one leaps over. Perhaps it is only half an idea. But it may be that someone will piggy back on this idea and come up with something better that addresses all aspects of the problem.
Er, with respect, styles do nothing.
Think about it. Lets say someone wants to shoot up a crowded railway platform but dosnt wanna pay for a ticket.
Jump over and massacre away.
And i tell ya, security that depends on electricity is asking for trouble in a fire.
Something else to consider is this. In my local highschool, the library is also the community library and open to all.
As it should be. Schools are community institutions and should not be segregated and isolated.
The solution is cultural change in USA, not security. Its not just schools that are getting shot up . Its everywhere.
Every park. Every street. Every office and factory. Every dwelling Every bus and train. Every hospital and clinic.
Every restaurant and movie theater.
The true solution is cultural. Not unrealistic fortification of selected community institutions.
> let’s imagine that this by itself really does confer a legal right upon US citizens to keep and bear arms. It simultaneously stipulates that the right must not be infringed because of the requirement to levy self-armed state militias. But this practice has fallen entirely into disuse, so the force of protection of the right accorded by the 2nd A is removed.
The last does not follow. The 2nd amendment provides the force of protection by itself, regardless of militia practice.
The clause about militia is a justification clause, but it is not a condition placed on the right to bear arms.
Exactly how?
Then why is it specified at all?
If the purpose of the 2nd A was to confer the right to keep and bear arms on US citizens, no mention of any reason is necessary. Given that the 2nd A is only 27 words long, it is likely that each one was included for good reason.
An amendment should be proposed to close whatever items people think should be done.
1) Expressly state legal right to bear arms.
2) Describe what limits the government may place on these rights.
>The 2nd amendment provides the force of protection by itself, regardless of militia practice.
>
>Exactly how?
By stating that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
No, it is not necessary, but such language was common in state constitutions at the time.
Because:
Okay, let’s imagine that by itself this really does confer a legal right upon US citizens to keep and bear arms. But the 2nd A simultaneously stipulates that the right must not be infringed because of the requirement to levy self-armed state militias. But this practice has fallen entirely into disuse, so the force of protection of the right accorded by the 2nd A is removed. Anachronism.
“The liberty of the press being essential to the security of freedom in a state, any person may publish his sentiments on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty”
Rhode Island constitution. Now internet didn’t exist back then and neither did TV or movies, so these are clearly not protected. And it is an anachronism to think that dying newspapers can protect against an army with guns, so clearly free press is not a right, and even if it were it would only apply to people who work for a newspaper, right?
BBD,
“So where in US law is the right to keep and bear arms explicitly defined?”
In the second of the first ten amendments to the US Constitution, a collection commonly referred to as the “Bill of Rights”.
Surprised you haven’t heard of it.
The 2nd A does not explicitly define the right to keep and bear. Try reading it again. All 27 words of it. The 2nd A *refers* to the right but does not define it in any way except by stating that it not be infringed because militias etc.
I know this is hard so I will type this slowly:
No state now levies self-armed militias for any purpose. So that single specified protection to the undefined ‘right’ to keep and bear no longer applies in modern America. Therefore the 2nd A neither defines nor protects a right to keep and bear arms.
Keep re-reading this until you understand it.
BBD:
I don’t think you are going to convince me, nor am I going to convince you.
So we will just have to agree to disagree.
You have a very British view of government, which is that the government has all the power and only gives you permission to do that which is actually spelled out.
In America, we say that the individual has all the power and the government only that which is granted by the people.
So the constitution does not speak to being a cobbler, or a blacksmith or a swordmaker or a gunmaker.
Anybody could set up shop and start making shoes, nails, swords or guns.
Weird, right.
The problem isn’t one of different views of the role of government. The problem concerns (1) the absence of any actually documented ‘right’ to keep and bear arms in US law compounded by (2) the radical alteration of meaning from the original by the interpretations of conservative judges.
BBD,
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,”
The prefatory clause doesn’t have an expiration date attached. The clause says that it is **necessary** for a free state.
If you say that’s anachronistic then repeal the 2nd. The Constitution has been amended before. Alcohol was at first nearly banned, and then made legal again in just twelve years.
But stop trying to claim that the 2nd means something it doesn’t just because repeal looks like too much work.
But it isn’t. Google ‘anachronism’ instead of trolling me. Next, go and find out when any state in the Union last raised a self-armed militia by involuntary levy.
And try *reading* my comments (all of them) before yet more wittering.
BBD,
“It simultaneously stipulates that the right must not be infringed because of the requirement to levy self-armed state militias.”
Nope.
There is no requirement for people to bear arms. Just as there is no requirement for people to speak freely. People can decide to self-censor themselves all they want. But that’s a REALLY BAD idea and the government can’t force people to shut their pie-holes, because of the First Amendment.
Yup. Try again.
If you cannot parse the 27 words of the 2nd A correctly, you shouldn’t even be trolling here.
BBD,
“But this practice has fallen entirely into disuse, so the force of protection of the right accorded by the 2nd A is removed.”
Nope.
The Constitution doesn’t have a “use by” date like a jar of mayonnaise. Amendments stay in force until they are repealed.
If the military shows up on my doorstep with a pillow looking for shelter I have the right to hire an attorney and scream “Third Amendment”. Even today.
“The Constitution doesn’t have a “use by” date …”
Seems like it sorta does actually, due to interpretations . One day an interpretation is valid and is considered law, the next day, a differing interpretation is somehow more valid, and the previous one defunct, without a word changed.
The interpretations by the beaks are somehow more law than than the original writing.
Therefore, the primacy of law seems to reside with the current beaks, not the constitution thingie, which is of a lower tier.
Li D
Australia.
Glad that somebody is paying attention 😉
Ironic, isn’t it, that all these Constitution-revering American patriots can’t seem to see the sacred paper being rewritten right in front of their eyes. Or maybe they can, and it’s okay because it’s their team wielding the pen.
BBD sez ” sacred ”
Sure does seem to be something like that.
Bit sorta stereotypically witchdoctorish.
( No offence intended to animists and the like. Im taking a cartoonish view here )
The witchdoctor ( read SCOTUS ) tells the villagers the volcano gods or idol or whatever ( read constution )
is pleased or displeased sacrifices need to be made.
Theres definitly a bit of a strong, almost reverence belief in many yanks about the constitution and amendments and the beaks.
Interesting to anthropologists i spose.
As a sort of illistrative counterpoint, pretty much all Australians didnt mind when the idea of ” terra nullius ” got
dumped.
One would have to be a loon to ever consider terra nullius remotely rational.
If something is irrationional, its ok to change it.
To stick with irrationality for the sake of
reverence or tradition, is quite crap.
I mean, one could hang on to harmless shit like some shipboard fluff, or courtroom theatrics, but if bulk slaughter is happening, only the most psychriatricly loon wouldnt want to reassess.
Seeing as how gun fondlers are fucked in the head anyway, i dont expect them to understand the point being made.
Trolling.
“The Second Amendment is widely seen as quite unusual, because it has a justification clause as well as an operative clause. Professor Volokh points out that this structure was actually quite commonplace in American constitutions of the Framing era: State Bills of Rights contained justification clauses for many of the rights they secured. ”
And a specific example,
“Retrospective laws are highly injurious, oppressive and unjust. No such laws, therefore, should be made, either for the decision of civil causes, or the punishment of offences. ” — New Hampshire Constitution
As Prof Volokh points out,
“One can probably imagine situations where retrospective laws, especially civil ones, are not in fact injurious, oppressive, and unjust (or at least not highly so). 38 Even those who believe that all ex post facto laws are highly unjust would probably concede that some reasonable judges could take a different view. And yet the provision bans all ex post facto laws, not only the highly unjust ones.”
http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/common.htm
That is the prefatory clause provides a *justification* for the operative clause. It does not qualify or limit the operative clause.
The same with the 2nd Amendment.
The only justification – so presumably the fundamental one – given in the 2nd A is now an irrelevance. An anachronism. Even if you deny that this weakens the force of the 2nd A as justification for a universal right to keep and bear, it still doesn’t provide any basis for arguing that the right to keep and bear *cannot* be qualified (as of course it already is in US law).
The banning of assault rifles does not by itself infringe a right to keep and bear arms because all guns are not assault rifles. Given the now signature use of assault rifles in mass shootings, we can invoke the Declaration of Independence as the reason why the right to keep and bear must be further qualified. Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness have been denied to rather a lot of Americans by assault weapons.
Li D said,
“Theres definitly a bit of a strong, almost reverence belief in many yanks about the constitution and amendments and the beaks.”
Actually it’s the left-wing in the States that holds this view. The US is supposed to have three equal branches of government, but the libs have been trying to use SCOTUS as some kind of super-legislature for social engineering that can’t get passed through Congress or the state legislatures.
See Obergefell v. Hodges.
“Ironic, isn’t it, that all these Constitution-revering American patriots can’t seem to see the sacred paper being rewritten right in front of their eyes. Or maybe they can, and it’s okay because it’s their team wielding the pen.”
Nope.
The prefatory clause of the 2nd is a justification, not a qualifier. Liberals are trying to re-write the Constitution because they fear they won’t be able to repeal the 2nd.
“Yup. Try again.
If you cannot parse the 27 words of the 2nd A correctly, you shouldn’t even be trolling here.”
So where’s your rebuttal to MikeN’s questions? Why do you believe that freedom of speech only applies to journalists in Rhode Island?
Whataboutism instead of an admission that you can’t even understand the text of the 2nd A.
Trolling.
BBD,
“Next, go and find out when any state in the Union last raised a self-armed militia by involuntary levy.”
Wut?
YOU’RE the one claiming that the 2nd ONLY applies to militias.
FFS learn to read. That is NOT what I said. I stated – correctly, as usual – that the 2nd A stipulates a single reason why the right to keep and bear may not be infringed, and that reason no longer exists in modern America.
Therefore the only stated reason why the right to keep and bear may not be infringed no longer exists. So qualifying the right – eg. by banning paramilitary rifles that absolutely nobody actually needs – would not be unconstitutional at all.
If you can’t understand the discussion, STFU.
“The problem concerns (1) the absence of any actually documented ‘right’ to keep and bear arms in US law …”
See the Second Amendment.
“…compounded by (2) the radical alteration of meaning from the original by the interpretations of conservative judges.”
And your evidence is…
“The 2nd A does not explicitly define the right to keep and bear. Try reading it again. All 27 words of it. The 2nd A *refers* to the right but does not define it in any way except by stating that it not be infringed because militias etc.”
Nope.
“The Second Amendment is widely seen as quite unusual, because it has a justification clause as well as an operative clause. Professor Volokh points out that this structure was actually quite commonplace in American constitutions of the Framing era: State Bills of Rights contained justification clauses for many of the rights they secured. ”
http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/common.htm
I believe the real causes of murder are the evil intentions of the human heart and the hatred it contains, combined with subtle cultural ques that in the mind of the hater, justifies lethally acting upon these evil desires.
Trends of human history bear this out, by the correlation of cultural beliefs and gun control attempts with murder rates.
^
| E A GC M
| / / / /
| / / / /
| / / / /
| / / / /
|_____________________> time
The increasing murder rate, M, appears to follow 3 other increasing trends in the modern culture as plotted (not to scale) in the accompanying figure.
E = teaching Evolution, as naturally originating life through a single common ancestor
A = acceptance and encouragement of Abortion for birth control and tissue harvesting
GC = Gun Control laws disarming good law abiding citizens, removing their protection
Other trends, not plotted, include the breakdown of the family unit for raising children with love and attention while teaching them right from wrong.
Reasons why these cultural trends contribute to murder rates, include the following:
Evolution theory concludes that humans are only evolved animals governed by killer instincts in a brutal survival of the fittest, eat or be eaten life and death struggle with no conscience or morality. William Atchison murdered two students in New Mexico after he posted the message; “I go somewhere and gear up, then hold a class hostage and go apeshit, then blow my brains out”. He thought he was only an “evolved ape”, and not a responsible rational human.
Abortion of innocent preborn human babies kills their life, just as murder kills humans.
It desensitizes people to the value of human life, trivializing it as an inconvenience, while numbing their conscience which informs them that murder is wrong. Unlike a video game, abortion is the real life act of irreversibly taking an actual human life.
Gun control laws don’t change the hearts of humans or keep them from illegally getting guns. Those who willingly break an anti-gun law to get one, tend to be the ones who would also break the law against murder. Gun control laws prevent good people from protecting themselves and their neighbors from murderously bad people who still have guns by illegal means and who know they can’t be stopped by a good guy whose gun has been taken away by the law. So it is no surprise that with increasing gun control laws comes increasing gun murders. Look at Chicago.
Gun control laws invite power hungry politicians to turn government into a tyrannical dictatorship, like those of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot. Those dictators disarmed the people to stop them from defending themselves against the dictators’ murderous actions.
Bruce Hedrich:
“Evolution theory concludes that humans are only evolved animals governed by killer instincts in a brutal survival of the fittest, eat or be eaten life and death struggle”
You don’t understand evolutionary theory in the least. I didn’t bother with the rest.
If you get your science from evangelical sources, you are bound to be misled.
As dhogaza has already noted, Bruce Hedrich does not understand “evolution [sic] theory” or what it concludes. Further, he has an extremely distorted and ideologically-skewed grasp of what drives trends in cultural mores.
It’s fascinating being on the outside looking in at the US gun culture, and the attitudes of its adherents. It’s particularly interesting and informative to see the correlation between fundamentalist right-wing conservatism and the belief in the inviolable right to owning offensive weaponry. They seem blind to the fact that the rest of the world has moved on from the anachronism (yes, anachronism of frontierstyle colonialism, just as we’ve moved on from the ideas that slavery and female subjugation are legitimate social conditions.
…(yes, anachronism)…
Punctuation matters.
Bruce Herdrich:
You are battling with chimeras placed in your mind by the devils of falsehood. We would love to help you in your fight but, unfortunately, you are so owned by the devils of evangelical preaching, right wing media, secular religion, and fear of progress that you are probably pretty much beyond the reach of fact or reason . But we wish you no ill. Nature and Nature’s God have produced you. And we honor that. We will observe you.
Have a nice day.
^
| .. .E .. .. .. A .. .. ..GC .. ..M
| .. / .. .. .. / .. .. .. / .. .. .. /
| ../ .. .. .. / .. .. .. / .. .. .. /
| ./ .. .. .. / .. .. .. / .. .. .. /
| / .. .. .. / .. .. .. / .. .. .. /
|_____________________> time
The increasing murder rate, M, appears to follow 3 other increasing trends in the modern culture as plotted (not to scale) in the accompanying figure.
E = teaching Evolution, as naturally originating life through a single common ancestor
A = acceptance and encouragement of Abortion for birth control and tissue harvesting
GC = Gun Control laws disarming good law abiding citizens, removing their protection
Other trends, not plotted, include the breakdown of the family unit for raising children with love and attention while teaching them right from wrong.
Oh boy, a live one…
The increasing murder rate also “appears” to follow the trend in the amount of donations to Republican politicians, in the number of Republican presidents, in the number of prayers offered to sky fairies by Christians, and indeed in the number of new faithful recruited by Christian churches.
Perhaps when you make spurious correlations you might also consider offering plausible causal mechanisms, and indeed provide experimental evidence to support any hypothetical associations.
Random ideologically-driven assertion free of testable postulation on mechanisms is worth less than bull shit, because bovine fæces has at least value in its ability to promote vegetation growth.
Hm, Control-C fail…
I meant of course to quote from Bruce Herdrich’s post to which I’d replied. I hope that the intelligent folk at least amongst the readers can otherwise tease out the thrust of my comment…
>The banning of assault rifles does not by itself infringe a right to keep and bear arms because all guns are not assault rifles.
Not reasonable logic. Stop trying to start with the result you want and invent the logic that produces that result.
Should we interpret the 1st amendment the same way? We can limit some speech as long as some speech is allowed?
It appears you are saying there was a point of time where the government was not allowed to ban gun ownership, but that is no longer the case. Is that your position?
“Should we interpret the 1st amendment the same way? We can limit some speech as long as some speech is allowed?”
We do, of course. Laws limiting speech are constitutional just as are laws limiting arms.
Not only do we have the classic examples of yelling fire in a packed theater, or defamation, or libel, but threatening words can be considered assault (typically misdemeanor) in many states.
Don’t we limit some speech Mike? Such as the proverbial illegality of shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater just for the fun of it. And isn’t advocating violent overthrow of the government a crime not a right? Even making threats is actionable isn’t it?
Are there any other “rights” without limits besides, apparently, the 2nd Amendment to the U. S. Constitution?
Were the Kansas towns at the end of cattle drives in the 1870s passing unconstitutional laws when they prohibited guns within the city limits to make the streets safer? Were they taken to court about it?
Argues MikeN, from assertion. There is no logical flaw in what I wrote, which would be why you failed to point one out. All guns are not assault rifles, therefore banning assault rifles does not fundamentally infringe the right to keep and bear arms.
I wish you’d learn to read (or just stop being disingenuous).
My point is not that limiting free speech is unconstitutional, but the logic that since assault weapons is just a subset of all guns, we can ban assault weapons. By that logic, we can ban any speech so long as it is a subset of all speech.
The primacy given to free speech by the Constitution is problematic. There are things that should not be said in the public discourse and specifically prohibiting them is not a slippery slope to tyranny. After all, democracy has not fallen elsewhere after placing legal limits on how far you can go with hate speech. Nor will banning assault weapons usher in despotic government in the US.
Somehow, US legislators need to reconcile the unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness with the right to own paramilitary weapons despite their constant use in mass murders and to say anything, however vile, in public discourse. Irrespective of how what is said impacts the Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness of others.
Tricky.
BBD:
Tricky indeed!
Interpreting constitutional amendments is not easy.
If there were no guns, than we would be having the same conversation about knives or some other arm.
Some murders would commit mass murder with a knife and some would be demanding that we protect the children by banning knives (or some other arm).
Unfortunately, guns have been invented and improved over the years, and are so useful that they are widely available, and are very good at killing people.
Someday we will be having the same discussion about laser weapons or ray guns or phasors.
That is the nature of progress.
No, progress would be to acknowledge that the unalienable right of the people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness outweighs the right of civilians to own what are basically military killing machines. Especially since said civilians would still be able to own a huge range of guns with legitimate civilian applications.
Progress on the issue of assault weapons is something you’ve just shrugged off with a bit of diversionary waffle, yet again.
BBD says “No, progress would be to acknowledge that the unalienable right of the people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness outweighs the right of civilians to own what are basically military killing machines. ”
Sorry, I disagree.
Murder is a crime – but the fact that murder happens doesn’t negate the right to speak, or practice your faith or peacefully assemble or your 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms, or any other fundamental right.
Just because murder happens doesn’t mean we go around taking away fundamental rights.
We won’t know for sure until an assault weapon ban is passed and challenged in court, and the Supreme Court decides.
But my opinion is that the Court throws a ban out as unconstitutional.
Reasonable minds can disagree, of course, but we will have to wait to see what happens, if an when such a law is passed and challenged, and finally appealed.
So murder doesn’t take away the right to life?
Who knew?
Could be the daftest thing you ever said, RickA…
BBD:
Person A kills person B. Yes, that takes away person B’s right to life.
You don’t put person C in jail for that crime.
You are trying to take away the gun rights of everybody, not just the gun rights from person A.
In America, we don’t punish people who are not guilty of the crime.
You want to punish everybody who wants to purchase an assault rifle in the future because of the criminal action of a third party.
I hope you can see why this is problematic.
Restricting the sale of assault weapons to civilians isn’t a punishment FFS. It’s sane public policy.
Failing to do so does punish the victims, the wounded their families.
This is exactly the point I am making: some rights are more fundamental than others. The right to life is more fundamental than the right to own assault weapons.
The rightwing blindness to the absolutely obvious is what is problematic.
BBD,
“Repeatedly quoting the same partisan source at me isn’t advancing your argument at all. It suggests in fact that you don’t *have* an argument. Rather in the sense that parrots do not have an argument.”
So, let’s count up the number of sources you’ve referenced. Let me see, that would be,
ZERO
You complain that I’m quoting a single source and you haven’t quoted any.
Nice own goal, genius.
Just so I understand your point fully Locus, are you essentially saying that until and unless the 2nd Amendment is repealed a lot of dead men, women, and children are just the price we must all pay for the God-given freedom to arm ourselves heavily with no responsibility to serve in a militia or do anything else. Is that in the right ballpark?
Nonsense. I’ve posted the full text of the 2nd A at least half a dozen times. All 27 words of it.
Bruce Herdrich:
There is no rational way to justify killing people because you are distantly related to a gorilla. Gorillas are not nearly as violent as humans are. That idea is just plain nuts, not evidence that bioevolution isn’t true or shouldn’t be taught.
There are many cases of people killing people because god’s voice in their heads or a Bible verse told them those people are witches or demon-possessed. Should we use that as evidence that there is no god or that religion shouldn’t be taught to children in private schools?
Bernard J
Indeed, and that could be the starting point of a useful book by that title. Punctuation helps prevent ambiguity for one thing.
Yes, although I’m still going with “Eats, Shoots & Leaves.” It’s zippy, has a comma, and there’s even an ampersand!
(Plus it’s got a panda on the cover.)
Around my berg the meme was ‘eats roots and leaves’ (with no apparent comma) and predated Truss by about 20 years. And it was a wombat, not a panda, and it was a comparison with a certain calibre of person…
I’m curious now about the history of that joke.
A bit of poking around seems to indicate that the Australian joke appears to predate the panda joke, Truss, and Waters’ response to Truss.
I’m not surprised. I knew a few blokes in my uni days who had the nickname ‘Wombat’ – it was a fairly standard Aussie tradition to label men and women of a certain predisposition with that epithet…
:truth be told: I tend to treat punctuation marks as mysterious decorations:
Tyvor Winn,
Just so I understand your point fully Tyvor, are you essentially saying that until and unless the 4th Amendment is repealed a lot of dead men, women and children are just the price we must all pay for the God-given right to privacy? After all the police could stop a lot more criminals if they didn’t need probable cause to search someone and their possessions.
Is that in the right ballpark?
Just want to point out here that I’m employing satire. I’ve replaced the 2nd Amendment with the 4th Amendment to ask what other rights people are willing to relinquish for more security. My assumption is that Tyvor Winn would *not* want the 4th Amendment repealed.
However, given that this reply does not immediately follow Tyvor Winn’s on the page, that might not be readily apparent.
My mistake.
BBD,
“Nonsense. I’ve posted the full text of the 2nd A at least half a dozen times. All 27 words of it.”
So, the evidence to support your argument is … your own argument.
Nice circular reasoning there.
No, my argument is based on the text of the 2nd A.
Are you really this stupid or is it some kind of rhetorical tactic for dealing with being, ahem, outgunned in an argument?
No you cannot use that one in this instance, quoting the 2nd Amendment verbatim and then criticising clauses in it are not circular reasoning. And your use of Volokh is special pleading given the antiquity of the Framing era which is one of the key criticisms of the Second Amendment.
Nice try though you having been caught using circular reasoning yourself.
BBD,
So you’ve proven that your interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is correct … because the 2nd Amendment.
Would you accept the same argument from me? Can I just say that the 2nd Amendment itself proves my argument about the 2nd Amendment.
You are the ouroboros, but then that is a metaphor for the USA if it does not change course over gun control. You don’t get much more circular than that.
Aside the fact that you were parroting, no, I wouldn’t.
The core of it was:
Or so Scalia asserted, but let’s not forget that Scalia’s rather strained interpretation of the 2nd A passed by just one vote.
This gives weight to the alternative, a less tortuous parsing to the 2nd A in which the right to keep and bear is accorded specifically to ensure that a state can levy self-armed militias:
In this straightforward interpretation of the text, the justification for the right is the fundamental reason for the existence of the right. At the very least, since the justification is now anachronistic, the prohibition against infringement is void.
As I’ve already pointed out, US law *already* qualifies the right to keep and bear in respect of some weapon types, criminality etc. Banning paramilitary rifles would require no Constitutional amendment as there is no longer any likelihood of states levying self-armed militias who might require such weapons. Nor are all guns assault rifles, so the general right to keep and bear ‘arms’ is *not* challenged.
Ugh. Typo. Should be ” a less tortuous parsing of the 2nd A”
Lionel A,
“No you cannot use that one in this instance, quoting the 2nd Amendment verbatim and then criticising clauses in it are not circular reasoning.”
Wut? Who is criticizing clauses in the 2nd?
“And your use of Volokh is special pleading given the antiquity of the Framing era which is one of the key criticisms of the Second Amendment.”
How in the world is Volokh “special pleading”. He’s comparing the 2nd to constitutional language *from the same time period*.
Stereotyping the messenger does not address the message. I am not an NRA member, have never owned a gun, and don’t support the Republican Party. The stereotype is wrong.
Using your own logic while responding from your heart, which belief more positively influences the believer that murder is wrong?
The belief that humans are uniquely and specially created and are of intrinsic value.
The belief that humans are evolved from an animal and can be aborted when they are a baby.
Bruce Herdrich, you are either incompetently naïve or mendaciously duplicitous in framing your questions with logically fallacious questions.
Each of your questions contains two components, and forcing people to choose one of the question components as an answer simultaneously forces upon them the associated value judgement – the pair which have been structured by you (whether consciously or not) to force the aswerer into participating in a false dichotomy.
Witness:
1) humans are NOT “uniquely and specially created”,
2) humans, as do all species, have their own intrinsic value.
And:
3) humans are animals, and evolved from animal ancestors,
4) humans being (as they are) animals has nothing to do with whether or not they “can be aborted when they are a baby” [sic].
Hn, the anonymous above is me.
“can be aborted when they are a baby.”
They cannot be aborted when they are babies. You shouldn’t make assertions when you don’t even understand the definitions of the words you use.
If you haven’t figured that out by now then there is little point in further discussion oh jelly pinned to the wall.
Note on amending, or repealing the 2nd Amendment:
Source
As for Volokh, it is you special pleading by invoking him (you do interpret things strangely). I have noted that Volokh is favourably impressed by some aligned to the Heartland Institute which is par for the course with libertarians.
Lol Heartland.
Biggest mob of utter fuckwits.
Well Bill Maher in this clip Bill Maher with Stoneman Douglas High School students David Hogg and Cameron Kasky does just that.
In which, before the Maher quote repeated below, watch the youngster’s face as he mentions the names Wayne LaPierre and Dana Loesch.
Maher, “But honestly I think that’s part of the problem in this country, nobody goes at the Second Amendment. Nothing is really going to change unless somebody talks about that. The reason why this country is different because we treat guns as a right other countries treat it as a privilege.”
Yeah, and Dana Loesch..
Functional MRI Shows Permanent Brain Damage From Lead Poisoning in Early Childhood
Fran Lowry
December 07, 2009 Medscape
“Increased mean blood lead levels were associated with decreased circuit activity in posterior portions of the parietal cortex, including the bilateral precuneus and posterior cingulate.”
“Decreased activation was also observed in the right insula, left superior temporal gyrus, and in the hippocampal complex”
OK. So there is that. Areas of the brain associated with important functions like response inhibition, and approach-avoidance conflict processing, are significantly damaged by having too much lead in your blood.
Then there is this. The ignition of the propellant in small arms ammunition is initiated by presenting a small mechanical compression to lead styphnate. The resulting reaction puts most of the lead styphnate into the air as tiny particles of leaded breakdown compounds. These particles are very easily breathed in by the shooter.
Additional amounts of lead are aerosolized by the forcing the lead bullet down the barrel of the gun at high speed and pressure, but it is my belief that most of the lead in shooters blood comes from the lead styphnate, since shooters who shot copper jacketed bullets had only slightly less lead in their blood than shooters who shot unjacketed bullets.
At any rate, the blood lead levels of shooters are significantly higher than those of non shooters. And blood lead levels, besides being directly related to a lowering of IQ, are found to be related to the dulling of areas of the brain that are highly important to important functions in the brain.
So now, take all the above info and watch this expose about “NRATV”, and tell me if you don’t think that the NRA should be renamed the National Blood Poisoning and Brain Damage Association.
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/john-oliver-goes-in-depth-in-hilarious-explainer-of-nra-tv-what-the-f-is-that/
On lead poisoning from weapon firing Nice one SteveP, especially when one considers the longer and higher exposure when firing automatic or semi-automatic weapons.
I would not be at all surprised if there were other adverse effect on the mental stability of gun enthusiasts, for example does the excitement produce a dopamine rush thus cause an addiction to shooting?
I looked to see what I could find to support this idea. Now I present the following with the caveats that it is just one article and from Forbes who have a reputation for publishing less than straight articles.
Addicted To Bang: The Neuroscience of the Gun
Very interesting about lead and also the dopamine release idea.
It would seem much more research is needed. Luckily yanks have the $$$ to do so if they think it nessessary. It would certainly seem nessessary to me.
The 100 – 200 milliseconds thing got me thinking about an early popular game which certainly made millions of bucks for the companies involved. Maybe billions.
I was curious about the rate at which pacman ate the dots. The speed of reward. Seems to be in that sweetspot just on looking at it.
Heres a short video of that old game, if anyone wants to accuratly time it.
https://youtu.be/uswzriFIf_k
According to Love at First Shot (NRA TV), firing an AR-15 is “a nice, light puff of happiness”.
So there you go.
A lawsuit about the age 21 issue for buying a gun:
http://reason.com/volokh/2018/03/06/age-discrimination-suit-against-dicks-sp
It will be interesting to see if Dick’s and Walmart roll back their rule in states which bar age discrimination.
That is my prediction.
These would be states where you can buy alcohol at any age?
And Walmart is getting sued also:
https://hotair.com/archives/2018/03/06/20-year-old-suing-walmart-dicks-age-limit-purchasing-rifles/
Firearms, like tobacco, are a public health risk, on multiple levels. Besides the risk of guns falling into incompetent hands, there is the damage to the ability of shooters to function at maximum intellectual capacity, and specifically the damage to areas of the brain that control normal social behavior. One need only look at the behavior of people like Ted Nugent ( raging uncivilized loon, threatening the president on multiple occasions), Dana Loesch (irrationally raging at just about anybody and anything that is not part of the NRA agenda ) , Grant Stinchfield ( who smashes a TV on the NRATV channel because damaging useful things on camera makes such a powerful statement about his out of control rage against parts of society that thwart his addiction) , or Lon Chaney look alike Wayne LaPierre, who doesn’t seem to know which century he is in. These are all people who shoot a lot of bullets each year, and their behavior is in no way normal, healthy, civilized, or coherent. In fact, I would characterize their behavior as being square in the sights of those who study abnormal behavior.
LionelA, you make a great reference that talks about the addictive nature of firearms.
Addictive drugs upset the normal chemical equilibria in the body. They disable or knockout or otherwise damage some part of the person’s supporting chemistry , and then become a required but inferior replacement part, often damaging the individuals normal ability to interact with the world. The same with guns. The network of interactions is undoubtedly very complex, but picture this. Guns give a small surge of pleasure on a number of sensory levels- the pleasant sweet smell of the leaded gun smoke being one of those sensations. The lead from the smoke is fairly rapidly absorbed by the body , the olfactory system having a secure connection to the bloodstream and the brain. The congruence of hero fantasies and successful hunter rewards are wrapped up in each pull of the trigger. Or maybe lead fumes are just addictive.
However, to those for whom life is more than just a desire for death, blood, destruction,dominance and rage, the shooter’s behavior is typically not lauded and, in fact, excessive obsession with guns , even in a rural setting, will usually win a person a fair amount of ostracism from productive civilized society. Except, of course from the NRA and other gun obsessives.
So the gun lovers out there ought to tell us this. How much of your brain are you willing to sacrifice for the sport that you so love? How much of your range of behavior and emotions are you willing to sacrifice so you can smell lead fumes? Do you know what your blood lead level is? Since lead is known to decrease children’s ( and adult’s) IQ, and since there are negative impacts all the way down to near zero ug/dl, how much lead do you want your children to absorb through childhood shooting? What is an acceptable level? Do you know how much lead your child is absorbing through shooting? Do you care?
And more importantly, if you decided that you wanted to limit your exposure to lead fumes, and you are not addicted, tell us how easy or difficult it would be for you to give up most or all of your firearms if you had to. How easy or difficult would it be to stop going to the shooting range or out into the country to plink or hunt on weekends or in free time, if you forced to make a choice about it?
Have a nice day.
Looking around for stuff on bump stocks I came across this demonstration. The gun user first fires rapid rounds in semi-automatic mode he then proceeds to enable the bump stock and fire off many rounds with that (from c 4:07). Note how the weapon rapidly pulls to the left spraying the environment with metal.
What is a Bump Stock? Should it be illegal?!
This is not surprising, rapid auto-fire can take the unwary shooter by surprise when it wanders rapidly off target as happened to me first time I fired a L1 Self-Loading Rifle (SLR) aka FN FAL when they were replacing the trusty SMLE .303. The SLRs provided for our introduction on the butts had been modified to semi-auto i.e. single shot.
So having got used to the strange grip and balance of this weapon I took careful aim at the target about 600 yards away (we normal fired at targets at a range of 1000 yards with the SMLE .303) and squeezed the trigger, whereupon about four rounds left the barrel with the weapon pulling upwards before I released the trigger, some rounds probably went over the target. The supervising GI (gunnery instructor) yelled obscenities at me whilst kicking me in the ribs despite my being a NCO myself. Having a GI yelling at you is not good for your equilibrium, fortunately for him I had already secured the weapon.
As I stood up I handed the GI the weapon and watched as he lay down on the firing point, aimed and squeezed the trigger, whereupon about ten rounds or more let fly, spraying the environment. The GI got up and called for a replacement weapon and red faced handed it to me saying , ‘carry on’. He did not apologise but his red face and my grin were enough.
Seriously there is no way that a competition shoot with a weapon such as an AR15 with a bump stock is anything other than a exercise in producing dopamine and allot of junk in the environment and in the wrong environment, as we have seen, lots of bodies.
And Dana Loesch blaming the media whilst displaying no emotions whatsoever from behind her mask.
There’s so much bullshit about rate of fire, Lionel.
Here’s the thing: current M16A4 and many M4 carbines don’t even have a full auto mode. The fire selector switch goes from safe > semiauto > burst, where burst is 3 shot auto per trigger-pull. What’s more, infantry are trained to use aimed semiauto fire by default as this yields far more accuracy than burst or (where available) full auto.
So all the mendacious shite about how AR-15-type assault weapons aren’t really assault weapons because they lack full auto fire is as dishonest as it gets. Not even the military use it. They rely on rapid semiauto fire and the inherent ballistic lethality of the .223 round to get the killing done.
The minute someone starts up with the ‘but it’s not an assault rifle’ just tell them to fuck off with their lies and nonsense.
Which was one of the intended ‘take home’ of my message mentioning my experience. Sane, uncompromising people would understand that. Once had a go at producing that famed 15 aimed shots per minute with the SMLE but that is tough seeing as you have to put more rounds in the magazine part way through.
As I understood it during my military service, a full auto option was included in the M-16 which came into use during the Viet Nam war because accurate aimed fire wasn’t of much use when fighting in small groups like platoons in thick jungle. The main idea there was saturation fire.
TW
Yes, but full auto got dropped by the time of the M16A2 and never really came back again into widespread use. Semiauto and burst just did the job better than rapidly emptying magazines and uncontrollable muzzle-climb.
“Semiauto and burst just did the job better than rapidly emptying magazines and uncontrollable muzzle-climb.”
Also barrel wear and overheating is an issue when you pour a large number of bullets through them very rapidly.
Re Locus: “Just so I understand your point fully Tyvor, are you essentially saying that until and unless the 4th Amendment is repealed a lot of dead men, women and children are just the price we must all pay for the God-given right to privacy? After all the police could stop a lot more criminals if they didn’t need probable cause to search someone and their possessions.
Is that in the right ballpark?”
I was asking for clarification of your stance on the 2nd Amendment. Your answer is not an answer to my question. It’s an avoidance.
The two Amendments are not equivalent. For one thing, the 4th Amendment does not state a right without restriction, it describes the limits of restriction by providing the boundaries of the allowable limitation to the right to personal security. On the other hand, if the “well-regulated militia” clause is taken only as a non-limiting example, the 2nd Amendment states a right only as if it were unlimited.
Another difference is that there is no politically powerful national organization backed by manufacturing corporations seemingly dedicated to establishing the 2nd Amendment as absolutely restriction proof. All others amendments have restrictions. For that matter, so have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. Is there any such organization constantly lobbying and working for a complete absence of any governments’ legal possibility to search under any circumstances “persons, houses, papers, and effects”? I think not.
“I was asking for clarification of your stance on the 2nd Amendment”.
No you weren’t. Phrases like “a lot of dead men, women and children are just the price…” are clearly meant to be inflammatory. My reply was intended to be just as snarky.
“… the 4th Amendment does not state a right without restriction …”
Nitpicking. I can just as easily ask if you are willing to give up the 1st Amendment.
“… backed by manufacturing corporations”.
Nope. Even CNN acknowledges that the NRA is strongly supported by small, individual donors.
http://money.cnn.com/news/cnnmoney-investigates/nra-funding-donors/index.html
“… the 2nd Amendment as absolutely restriction proof. ”
Nope. The NRA does not advocate for absolutely no restrictions on firearms. In fact there are other organizations that claim the NRA has been too soft on gun rights.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_Owners_of_America
And before everyone starts building their strawmen, I’m not endorsing GOA. I just heard about it myself. I’m simply pointing out that it exists.
R e BBD: “Yes, but full auto got dropped by the time of the M16A2 and never really came back again into widespread use. Semiauto and burst just did the job better than rapidly emptying magazines and uncontrollable muzzle-climb.”
Roger that BBD. I didn’t say (or think) full auto was a good idea. The reasons you gave should have given the military some pause during the testing period but that may be asking too much foresight. Burst seems a reasonable compromise. WW2 pilots used a similar technique with the firing button since their ammo. capacity was limited but the number of possible opponents not so much.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/05/congratulations-to-the-winners-of-this-years-crisis-actor-awards
The good guy with a gun mantra takes a hit here:
I’m an Army veteran and gun owner. The ‘good guy with a gun’ theory is a myth.
The data has, for decades, shown that the story spread by the NRA and Lott (their favorite shill) about “good guys with guns” stopping crime with amazing regularity is nothing but a huge lie. It happens occasionally, but the rate of occurrence is so astronomically low that it is only a marginal blip on the data. The fact that it makes news is not due to its regularity but its rarity.
(Cue the liars and others who will say: “The FBI hides the data,”, “People are afraid to report how often it actually happens,” and other, similar, bullshit designed for the gullible.)
dean:
You are from Michigan, right?
Here is a link to a lawsuit filed for age discrimination against Dick’s in Michigan:
https://reason.com/volokh/2018/03/07/michigan-lawsuit-against-dicks-sporting
I thought you might find this interesting.
Shouldn’t be to much longer before Dick’s and Walmart reverse themselves in every state which doesn’t have a law setting the age to purchase a gun to 21 or older.
I’m aware the ignorant liars and racists at reason are all over this. I have no idea how the lawsuit will come out.
I’m also not aware of how that relates to my most recent comment.
Vile triumphalism. Rick likes to crow from on top of the heap of corpses. As we know.
dean:
Being from Michigan, I thought you would be interested in this lawsuit from Michigan.
dean’s forecast has proven correct:
<blockquoteCue the liars and others who will say … and other, similar, bullshit designed for the gullible.
On top of RickA’s attempt at discombobulation I expect there will be much BS spouted during that lawsuit.
Until that is known watch this through until you watch Wayne LaPierre making his sick address at CPAC, although the opening scenes with Oliver on the NRA’s Hunting video will ensure you realise what a sick bunch the NRA are.
Doh! darned my gout fingers produced a >< at the end of the first blockquote tag.
dean's forecast has proven correct:
On top of RickA’s attempt at discombobulation I expect there will be much BS spouted during that lawsuit.
Until that is known watch this through until you watch Wayne LaPierre making his sick address at CPAC, although the opening scenes with Oliver on the NRA’s Hunting video will ensure you realise what a sick bunch the NRA are.
It’s also worth noting that the assumption was that I wouldn’t be aware of this lawsuit despite
– this one was filed in Michigan (others have been filed elsewhere)
– it’s a lawsuit over one of the hottest topics around at the time
The “kid” behind the Michigan lawsuit is from Battle Creek, about 30 miles from where I live. Its origin was (like many of the others, I assume) a setup: his attempt to purchase a gun was funded by somebody, and they are paying for the suit.
Like I said, I don’t know how it will turn out, but the idea that these suits are all due to people simply upset with the company’s decision is likely bogus: I suspect a good number of the people who tried to buy a gun knowing they wouldn’t get it were kids used as pawns by others.
It’s funny.
There are so many anti-Trump posts discussing how he’s a dictator and evil (and worse namecalling). Yet, we are to turn in personally owned weapons to that government! The same government that is protested by not standing for the national anthem, as they indiscriminately disfavor some groups. The same government that abuses the rights of citizens in Asset Forfeiture cases. The same government that uses eminent domain to take lands. The same government that was alerted to the Parkland shooter’s desires and means, but did not impede his desires or means. The same government who doesn’t keep the NICS database up to date.
You want me on the gun control side, let’s start with State officials! (Just for BBD’s pulse, the militia is supposed to be the police force, also. https://tinyurl.com/ybpzke8n)
Have you seen the student who is suing the Sheriff and the school officials over his injuries? Why keep relying on this entity that refuses to take responsibility for its actions and that is found to be evil?
Why do we eschew self-government in favor of centralized government?
First, who helped you use the word “eschew”? We know you aren’t that capable on your own.
We do have local government. We have centralized government because smaller government cannot provide the required services alone. I’d make that simpler for you but those words are about as short as I can find.
Your continuing screed has at its core “since some things are broken everything is broken” does, I assume, make sense to the tea-baggers and other low-lifes you hang around with, but it fails any sensible person’s reality test.
Nothing amusing about lack of gun control.
As for the remainder of that tirade, is there a coherent thought in there somewhere?
Maybe in a few words the message is that you hate big government.
There wasn’t that easy.
Nope. See ‘anachronism’ above.
From a thoughtful article:
Which last sentence encapsulates the kind of crass false equivalence that we have already seen from, amongst others, RickA.
Is a gun designed such as to be able to slice a loaf of bread or make up futtock-shrouds? Of course not, it is designed to disable or kill.
Ah yes, that familiar pattern tobacco — AGW — and now guns, all manner of illogical arguments being put forward by vested interests to prevent legislation aimed at controlling an errant industry and protecting people.
Ah yes, and like cockroaches, shed a little light on them and the scuttle way to hide in this case behind laws brought about by legal agents trained and paid for by the industry itself. Corrupt on so many levels.
Source: Why is the gun industry so afraid of the long arm of the law?
Guns can be used to kill – for self defense, which is legal and their intended killing purpose.
Of course, guns can be used to target shoot, skeet shoot and so forth, and so do have a non-killing purpose – but yes guns are designed to kill.
Guns are not designed to be used illegally however.
Guns are not designed to be used for bank robberies or murders.
Suing a gun company because a bank robber kills a guard during a felony is silly.
It would be like suing a car company for a drunk driving fatality.
It would be like suing the beer company for a drunk driving fatality.
It would be like suing a bat company for an assault and battery committed with a bat.
Given how litigious people are, and the crazy lawsuits people file these days, I can see the need to clarify whether their is legal liability for selling a product which can be misused by a criminal during a crime.
People misuse products all the time.
I blame the people, not the product.
No, in the case of assault rifles, we can blame the product, which is specifically designed to kill people and does so very well indeed. As you would expect of what is in essence an infantry weapon.
That’s why they need banning.
The same tool, in the hands of a State actor is perfectly acceptable to the gun control advocates, yes? So, how is the tool, itself, the threat?
Citizen disarmament is being disingenuously framed as a public health issue. State worship is the issue at hand, but the screeching for gun bans is the distracting cover.
Self-defense is the ultimate expression of self-government and self-responsibility. Self-defense is loathed by State-ists.
Warren vs District of Columbia, DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, McKee v. City of Rockwall and Riss v. City of New York all demonstrate that the police have NO LEGAL DUTY to protect individuals.
Ron sez ” State worship is the issue at hand, … ”
No it is not.
Heaps of dead yanks is the issue at hand.
Random comment here, essentially asking “How can anyone who walks upright be so astoundingly stupid as this?”
One of our high schools, and the middle school immediately next to it, were put into lockdown for a brief time yesterday. Police and local residents saw a middle-aged man walking through each school’s parking lot carrying two guns: a shotgun and (what was later found by police to be) a 30-30 rifle. He was “moving them from his house to the house of a friend” and decided to cut through the school lots because “it was a shortcut”.
I don’t know how someone could be so clueless as to choose that route in spite of knowing how heightened sensitivities currently are.
Yes – that is dumb.
We had a similar incident at my children’s school.
A child had a spent shotgun shell in his backpack, leftover from a hunting trip.
The shell fell out of the backpack during gym and the school had a short lockdown because of the spent shotgun shell.
They ended up writing a letter to all the parents also.
The real question is whether it was known immediately that the shell had fallen from the backpack or whether the source was not known.
*cursing the lack of preview
There is also the clear point that finding a spent shell is not the equivalent to seeing a stranger carrying two long guns marching through school parking lots.
RickA, Nikolas Cruz was suspended from school because he had bullets in his backpack. It is suspected that because of the PROMISE program this was a watered down report of what they found, since they later sent a warning not to let him on school grounds with a backpack.
“Buy a shotgun.” — Joe Biden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jafkVM-jnbE
To think I once carried a blunderbuss by bus (omnibus) into grammar school in the 1950s for use as a prop in a school play, had to carry it a fair distance on foot too. It could never have been fired as the flintlock mechanism was broken.
Belonged to an uncle who had a small collection of guns amongst them a Navy Colt which he handed to me, I was about eleven at the time, to try out, without ammunition. He also had a pair of duelling pistols, an SMLE, a Martini-Henry, a Lee-Metford and a Pepper-box. Don’t know where they ended up.
“RickA, Nikolas Cruz was suspended from school because he had bullets in his backpack.”
He was suspended for starting fights.
dean:
Yes – for fighting.
But also I read that he was no longer allowed to enter the school with his backpack. I understood that to be because of either bullets or a gun. Have you read that.
Guns not designed to be illegal? Well there’s always a weird grey area in gun cult America. Nor is established law necessarily an adequate substitute for reality.
And speaking of panda eats shoots leaves wombat roots, ponder the ways you could punctuate this title:
https://www.gq.com/story/dragonman-mel-bernstein-sells-people-hunting-guns?mbid=synd_digg
Sheesh ObsA!
This sub-head from the linked article, if true and I have little reason to doubt that, sends a shiver down my spine. You have a bigger problem in the US that I thought.
Well, the weirdness certainly abounds here.
In case you missed this tidbit:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/03/01/with-crowns-on-their-heads-and-ar-15s-in-their-arms-couples-exchange-vows-in-pro-gun-church/
Bullet crowns (some almost like 20mm canon shells — I have had 30mm canon fired overhead and 2 inch RPs by the gross also) and church blessing, that would be astonishing but very little about things in the USA surprise me any-more.
Christ, you are mind-numbingly stupid. All data available, interpretable by anyone with a measurable IQ, shows weapons are more dangerous to people in the homes that have them than anywhere else.
Again, mind-numbingly stupid. Having a basic understanding that there are some things the government needs to be involved with does not equal “state worship” (unless you are a libertarian or modern tea-bagger. Those shit-stains have given up all semblance of integrity and rational thought.)
No, another stupid statement. You will not find anyone here who argues self-defense isn’t allowed.
What you do see, which you continually ignore because it doesn’t fit your ignorant little world-view, is the fact that the “good guy with a good coming to the rescue” story is incredibly rare. They make the news (not just the racist sources you cite, but all news) precisely because they are so rare.
I will never understand why folks like you dislike reality.
Because they’re *scared* of it. Hence ‘conservative’.
“…libertarian or modern tea-bagger…”
I suspect that some of the crazy we smell wafting through this thread consists of sovereign citizen fumes. This noxious gas can cause varying degrees of damage to minds already predisposed to bilge rot. It is more pervasive and insidious than most people realize.
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/sovereign-citizens-movement
Lead damages every organ in the body one way or another, and shooting is a great conduit for getting lead into the body. But lead’s effects are not readily ascertainable to the average person, because we have come to expect things like memory loss, high blood pressure, irritability, tremors, weakness and kidney disease as common ailments associated with getting older, and rarely think to link these things to our previous exposure to lead.
But the more you look at the literature, the more clear it becomes that a huge part of the diseases that doctors treat may have some relationship to blood lead levels. Also, studies have found an association between blood lead levels and criminal behavior.
Indoor shooting ranges are notorious for having high levels of lead contamination. Worse, high lead levels at the shooting range can hitch a ride home on the shooters shoes and clothes and poison crawling infants and children who are highly susceptible to neurological damage from trace amounts of lead. Women shooters risk damage to their unborn children from a number of mechanisms. Since lead accumulates in bones tissue, and since there is a high turn over of body calcium in pregnancy, the unborn child of a shooters gets high lead exposure, which appears to ensure lower IQ’s and smaller birth weight
And our cops are wigging out more and more, as they get more and more shooting range time. And a horrific percentage of army veterans commit suicide. Can lead poisoning be involved? And shooters Ted Nugent, Wayne LaPierre, and Dana Loesch all look and act as crazy as mad hatters. Just sayin….
Neurological development in humans continues into the early twenties. And trace lead contamination damages developing neurons. Therefore, activities which expose young people to lead contamination should be avoided and discouraged. Shooting guns is now one of the last major conduits to lead ingestion for young people. This is in part because leaded gasoline, lead plumbing solder, lead water pipes, and lead paint are less common vehicles for getting lead into young people today.
The current outcry from the gun love cult… sorry, from gun advocates over the age at which gun lovers should be able to start amassing their own arsenal of lead contamination machines should really look at the subtle and unsubtle damage to young brains that results from using the God damned things.
And while most of us have enough spare neurons to weather the loss of a few IQ points without major changes to our life style, many of us don’t. And while most of us have enough stability to counter the loss of some neurons in the impulse inhibition section of our brain, some of us don’t. It seems nearly certain to me that the Afghanistan veteran and gun owner who committed mass murder and then suicide in California yesterday had an elevated BLL.
Of course, stating the truth that lead is a neurotoxin has been overlooked/ covered up by the NRA and the guns and ammo industry.
So when you hear the NRA and their supporters advocate for younger and younger gun training and ownership, remember that Russian money is being fed into the NRA, and that Russia wouldn’t want to cause even a tiny amount of brain damage to Americans…. would they?
And so the bodies continue to pile up adding to the many others over recent years.
To add to this one Wife of northern California gunman found dead inside their home
and these
Three adults found dead in California home after child calls 911
Now what is going to be the unfolding effect on those children’s lives having been witnesses to such horror. The sad thing is that so many children are touched by the results of an anachronistic and ambiguously interpreted legal framework.
Watch this guy just about having an orgasm whilst repeating emptied clip after emptied clip, ‘Woah ho ho! This thing’s gettin’ hot!’, ULTIMATE AR-15 MELTDOWN!
I think Eric has er, issues.
If we had a strong health and safety infrastructure, shooting ranges would have to protect their workers and customers from lead exposure. But we don’t, and they don’t. So you end up with people like 20 year old Adam Lanza, who experienced sanctioned exposure to lead fumes and dust at his local shooting range. Shooting at the range was apparently a central activity of his life. I doubt that anybody tested his blood lead level or autopsied his brain for lead accumulation after the Newtown tragedy. If he took a head shot at the end, that might have been nearly impossible.
As I’ve mentioned before, a key central component of all these tragedies is gun lovers. These shooters are people who love their guns, and as a result, they have been exposed to the lead fumes that come from lead styphnate and lead peroxide in the ammunition primers , and from the hot violent act of forcing a piece of lead down a steel tube at a few thousand feet per second. Remember, everybody, that the sweet smell of gun smoke consists of burnt propellant and aerosolized lead.
So when gun lovers and their exploiters claim that the problem is “crazy” people, remind them that these crazy people all seem to have one thing in common, namely, an obsessive love of guns and ammo, and that in itself is a little crazy. And remind them that their gun love has caused them them to receive excessive lead exposure and, as a result, to have elevated blood lead levels as a group and individually. And remind them that the only really healthy blood lead level is zero. And remind them that we know that lead causes brain damage. And remind them that we don’t really don’t know how to tell which people might be tipped over the edge from sanity to insanity, from calm resignation to murderous impulse by a given amount of heavy metal contamination in their brain. Remind them that guns seem to make people crazier, and that some people just get crazy over time, so keeping guns out of the hands of crazy people is essentially an impossible task.
I’m not sure how exactly lead poisoning fits in. But there is no doubt something historical, cultural and economic going on here. Just think for a moment about how much is spent on militarization (not to mention how that has been trickling into policing). You also have to wonder about the telling reaction to players in the NFL taking a knee. You’d think that the flag is a holy icon belonging solely to the military– everyone else shut up about the constitution and stop being so uppity… Just snap into line.
Halt! Step away from the keyboard. Do not resist the militarisation of policing.
Well, the rightwing liars lied about what taking the knee was all about. IMO in a carefully calculated way. Duly megaphoned and prodded by its ringmasters, the, ah, conservative demographic became predictably agitated and frothy. All of which served to obscure what the protest was really about and also to delegitimise it in the eyes of many.
Most assuredly. Compare their comments about Kapernick and his “lack of concern for the community: he never gives back anywhere” bullcrap to the list of things he’s actually done. Mention those to the folks who despise him and you’ll be told “that isn’t true — it’s a fake story.”
Again, most assuredly. They know that racism works with their base, so complaining about football players and showing pictures of the minority players for emphasis goes right into their playbook.
All true, and all deplorable, but I was thinking of the fundamental lie: that a protest against racism and police brutality was deliberately misrepresented as an unpatriotic act disrespectful of military service personnel and the flag. Even from several thousand miles east across the Atlantic, that is obviously a lie. It’s also obvious that any administration prepared to repeat that lie to divert attention from racism and police brutality is rotten at the core.
Aaah, I missed your point — my apologies. Again, all true — there were even some comments in the local “paper” with people saying they didn’t understand why people who didn’t stand for the anthem weren’t arrested since they were breaking the law (apparently some law that exists only in their minds).
Similar with the rendition of the anthem, with people complaining about versions that “aren’t right” all the way back to 1968 when Jose Feliciano did a fantastic rendition during the World Series.
>protest against racism and police brutality was deliberately misrepresented as an unpatriotic act disrespectful of military service personnel and the flag.
It was. They deliberately were protesting the flag as representing racism and police brutality.
Why do you do this shit? You can’t look any worse so you might as well stop. Or can’t you control it? Is that the problem?
You should see a doctor. Or maybe a priest.
Ugh.
No, gaslighter. Try again.
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told NFL Media in an exclusive interview after the game. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
So his protest was about racism and oppression, got it. You are being misleading (no surprise, that’s the current operating procedure for the right) when you claim it was about the flag itself.
WTF is with flag worship anyway? What does MikeN do with it, wrap himself in it and achieve orgasmic bliss as a result?
The flag is a proxy for the country ” that oppresses black people and people of color”. The protest is against racism and police brutality, not a fucking flag per se:
.
Police people, that would be.
Not flags.
>The flag is a proxy for the country ” that oppresses black people and people of color”.
Yes of course. People are upset he is disrespecting the flag because it is disrespecting the country.
Learn to read.
The flag is a proxy for the country “that oppresses black people and people of color”. The protest is against racism and police brutality, not a fucking flag per se.
Taking Kaepernick’s argument and agreeing with it– government is oppressive to those who will not fight back– why should oppressed peoples be disarmed?
Here’s an article that lays out some history of black people using their self-defense rights to overcome areas of oppression in America: https://tinyurl.com/y8xgkv66
“It is remarkable how easily and quickly state and local police control and disperse lawless mobs when the Negro is ready to defend himself with arms,” Williams explains. “The lawful authorities of Monroe and North Carolina acted to enforce order only after, and as a direct result of, our being armed. Previously they had connived with the Ku Klux Klan in the racist violence against our people. Self-defense prevented bloodshed and forced the law to establish order.”
Why give ALL the power to these oppressive governments? This is where the anti RKBA crowd loses the virtue signaling high road they claim.
Kaep is saying that the State will not justly protect people. Who’s arguing with that? Nobody in Parkland. Two students are suing the government, and each agency will dodge all responsibility.
We’re on our own.
Jeebus.
One of the frequently cited reasons why police are trigger-happy around black ‘suspects’ is that they fear that they are armed.
And your genius solution? More guns, folks; more guns.
To call this fuckwittery would be doing it a favour.
BBD:
There are only three options to fix the problem of cops being trigger happy around black suspects.
1. Disarm cops.
2. Disarm black people.
3. Better training of cops.
I don’t see #1 happening.
#2 violates the second amendment.
So #3 wins by default.
The solution to trigger happy cops is better training of cops.
No argument with better training of police. What I notice is that with trademark bad faith, you’ve tried to divert away from the point at issue.
So, we accept the oppressive, racist cops, in good faith, when they say that they’re scared of armed black people?
Which is it: Are they lying racist oppressors or sincerely fearful because of skin color? How is their monopoly of force justified in either case?
The solution is disarm oppressed people and let the armed people run roughshod over them? Fuckwittery, much?
^ ^ ^ ^
To call this fuckwittery would be doing it a favour.
“Primarily due to its ability to substitute for calcium ions (Ca2+), Pb2+ crosses the BBB rapidly and concentrates in the brain (BrPb).”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2858639/
“Yes of course. People are upset he is disrespecting the flag because it is disrespecting the country.”
I believe people are stupid enough to equate “disrespecting the flag” (whatever that means) with “disrespecting the country” (again, whatever that means: are we back to the foolishness of ‘America, love it or leave it’?).
That isn’t what the protests are about though, they are about the continued acceptance of racism and related issues by people in power.
The painting of these protests as an act of near treason by the right’s political spinsters is successful not because it’s true, but because the people they are aiming the message at are not the brightest folks, and they don’t like seeing “uppity” people on the athletic field any more than they liked having them in the White House. The racist backlash toward the protests mikeN demonstrates is another data point in support of the need for such protests.
Ron certainly illustrates that his brand of stupidity knows no limits.
Everyone knows the protests are about racism and police brutality. However, this protest is happening in the form of not standing for the anthem, which makes it about disrespecting the flag.
LeBron James could have chosen to break his leagues rules and not stand for the anthem, as Kaepernick did.
Instead he did this
http://www.bet.com/celebrities/photos/2012/03/celebrities-wear-hoodies-in-support-of-trayvon-martin/_jcr_content/mainCol/imagegallerycontainer/galleryimage_7.custom1200x600.dimg/032312-sports-trayvon-martin-miami-heat-lebron-james.jpg
No, it makes it about the filthy hypocrisy of claiming one set of national virtues while being racist and brutal.
You are either near-moronically stupid or you are trolling. Either way, enough is enough.
“Thirty-six articles were reviewed that included BLLs ( Blood Lead Levels ) from shooters at firing ranges. In 31 studies BLLs?>?10 ?g/dL were reported in some shooters, 18 studies reported BLLs?>?20 ?g/dL, 17 studies?>?30 ?g/d, and 15 studies BLLs?>?40 ?g/dL. The literature indicates that BLLs in shooters are associated with Pb aerosol discharge from guns and air Pb at firing ranges, number of bullets discharged, and the caliber of weapon fired.
“The direct neurotoxic actions of lead include apoptosis (programmed cell death), excitotoxicity affecting neurotransmitter storage and release and altering neurotransmitter receptors, mitochondria, second messengers, cerebrovascular endothelial cells, and both astroglia and oligodendroglia. Symptoms can appear immediately after exposure or may be delayed and include loss of memory, vision, cognitive and behavioral problems, and brain damage/mental retardation. Most early studies concentrated on the neurocognitive effects of lead, but recently higher exposures have been associated with such morbidities as antisocial behavior, delinquency, and violence .”
FROM Neurotoxic Effects and Biomarkers of Lead Exposure: A Review
IN Rev Environ Health
Now, think about wild eyed skeet shooting champion Ted Nugent threatening Democrats with murder. Ditto Dana Loesch or Wayne LaPierre. These people sure act like they have lead poisoning to me, based on what this old man would classify as shockingly anti-social behavior.
So, all you shooters out there, realizing that shooting results in inevitable absorption of lead into your brain with resulting cognitive impairment, just how much of your brain are you willing to sacrifice for your hobby? Is your shooting hobby worth 0.1% of your brain? 1%? 10%? Or to put it another way, If you could somehow know how much and which brain functions were going to be impaired by shooting expensive bullets into targets, how much of your brain would you sacrifice just for the joy of making a gun go “Bang!”?
“Thirty-six articles were reviewed that included BLLs from shooters at firing ranges. In 31 studies BLLs?>?10 ug/dL were reported in some shooters, 18 studies reported BLLs?>?20 ug/dL, 17 studies?>?30 ug/d, and 15 studies BLLs?>?40 ug/dL. The literature indicates that BLLs in shooters are associated with Pb aerosol discharge from guns and air Pb at firing ranges, number of bullets discharged, and the caliber of weapon fired. ”
Lead exposure at firing ranges—a review
From Environmental Health 2017 16:34
First of all the quote is not about the military.
Second there is patriotism, and there is patriotism. It’s not unpatriotic to speak truth to power. Police brutality however can be said to be unpatriotic.
As for Trump:
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
~ Samuel Johnson
Or perhaps in words that you might identify with:
“I’m swelling with patriotic mucus!”
~ Dr. Zoidberg, Futurama
Let’s add some nuance to that to what Kaepernick said and try to apply some comprehension. There’s a good presentation at Snopes:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/veteran-kaepernick-take-a-knee-anthem/
It might help you put some of the comments above into perspective, if you’re actually interested.
FWIW, my last comment in regards to the flag being co-opted by nationalists of a certain stripe etc., was directed to MikeN.
… who is peddling the standard rightwing lie about taking the knee.
For fucking shame.
OT but worth a look as we are talking about environmental issues.
HT Jim at robertscribbler on East Coast Still Experiencing Heavy Seas as Another Storm Looms
Environmental Working Group’s grade of Scott Pruitt’s first year in office.
Might as well. I guess we’re already off topic. All comes down to warped priorities anyway…
I’ll fold with this:
http://www.americasquarterly.org/content/nras-hemispheric-reach
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/03/11/17-crosses-17-victims-florida-massacre-dangled-gun-show-billboard-kentucky
MikeN reveals more about himself.
So oh sage one explain what the country stands for.
“However, this protest is happening in the form of not standing for the anthem, which makes it about disrespecting the flag.”
Holy Christ. Are you incapable of anything other than knuckle dragging binary thought?
Or
Step 1: Create a one dimensional description of events.
Step 2 : Normalize with reference to an emotionaly charged set of simpleminded strictures inculcated from childhood.
Step 3: If necessary, apply big, tangled knots of motivated ‘reasoning’ to justify. Else skip and GOTO step 2. REPEAT 50 times.
Step 4: GOTO step 1 and –> infinite DO loop!
——-
This page took forever to load, and what’s with the holster add at the bottom of the page?
O Applesauce begins sentence with ” Else “.
Brilliant.
You aint a FORTH programmer by any chance?
I have an antique FORTRAN IV corrupted memory file stuck in my head (from my school daze). As you may have surmised, I’m not dealing with a full deck of punch cards…
More on lead, the moron metal.
“In What Ways Does Lead Damage the Brain?”
https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/what-ways-does-lead-damage-brain
So it turns out that lead impedes the transport of BDNF, a biochemical critical to the creation of new synapses in the hippocampus. So you shooters can expect a decrease in your learning ability as time goes by . Because every time you shoot and breath in that exhilarating smell of leaded gun smoke, you send another tiny load of lead into your brain, where it clogs the microtubles necessary to nourish new synapses.
So again, the question to shooters is, how much of your brain are you willing to lose? Are you monitoring your blood lead level? Taking periodic neurological or psychological tests? No? So I guess ignorance really is bliss for you?
BBD sez above “One of the frequently cited reasons why police are trigger-happy around black ‘suspects’ is that they fear that they are armed.”
Being armed is bloody legal. So wheres the fear come from? Why do cops fear what is legal?
Ask yourselves that gun nutters.
Some bloke in a car with his missus told some cop he was armed, completly legally, and the cop shot him. The lady videod it.
“The solution is disarm oppressed people and let the armed people run roughshod over them? Fuckwittery, much?”
Ron you stupid stupid goose.
The solution, dickhead, is to have a society that is based on respect and tolerance.
Not prepping for communalism and insurrection.
Cant yanks manage that? Is it beyond them.
Other places do it. Places without yanklands enormous financial and intellectual resources too.
Got everything on a plate in front of yas to have a modern harmonious society, free of fear and violence. Just gotta reach out and take it. Theres many templates in the world to give guidance.