So that other junk was just window dressing attempts to dismiss a rational posit that can only really be opposed by reliance on a stance that essentially boils down to: "I have the right and it's absolute. You can't do anything that interrupts any exercise of it." And that's wrong on its face. It's demonstrably wrong, as would be the same claim in relation to any other right, as I've illustrated in a few ways prior
Straw man. And btw, what makes you arbiter of what is and what is not "rational?" Please set out your personal procedure for making your determination of what is and what is not rational.
and will again in a moment.
That's entirely subjective and unsupported by argument, though it is a pretty good illustration of where your defense of the indefensible will take you.
As I said, we're talking straight past each other when we discuss The Right to Bear Arms, since you mean one thing, and I mean another. And how I use those words /that phrase, is anything but "indefensible."
The NRA once proposed ideas for gun safety legislation. Then it became a shill for the gun lobby.
As I've commented numerous times, this is the most negative spin possible on reality. All businesspeople are permitted and encouraged to lawfully earn a living, and gun businesses are not excluded, and businesspeople have the right to lobby the government just like everybody else.
The fact that some people will say darn nearly anything doesn't mean no one or even most people fail to understand what anything means.
I never said otherwise. All I said was that the meaning of The Right to Bear Arms in the Bill of Rights is not something that can be established through appealing to a lawyer as a valid authority on the matter, because all the lawyers are not united in their interpretation of it, and that positively rules out any valid appeal to any of them or all of them as authorities on the matter. And that's all I said.
Still a gun owner. Still a believer in the right. Still opposing assault weapons.
I'm happy you own a gun. But your The Right to Bear Arms is not mine, and you believe in yours, and I don't.
'Your' The Right to Bear Arms.
is not and should not be the right to bear any, just as the right to fire any legal weapon should not be understood to mean you can fire it in my living room.
You are defining 'your' The Right to Bear Arms. So here's 'my' The Right to Bear Arms, point-by-point. We do not have the right to fire a legal weapon in your living room because it is your living room and not ours, plus without a silencer (which are NFA Title II "weapons") it causes real hearing damage, plus it will damage your walls or floors or windows, plus at certain trajectories you could be either harming someone outside, or at least placing them in grave danger---all of which are crimes unrelated to 'my' The Right to Bear Arms, and the exercise thereof. Carrying a service rifle or service carbine, with a flash hider, a silencer, and multiple maximum capacity "clips" /magazines, on public or on my own property, is a valid and licit exercise of 'my' The Right to Bear Arms.
And those are some of the distinctions between what you mean by The Right to Bear Arms, and what I mean by The Right to Bear Arms. We are talking straight past each other.
I support laws that remove the assault weapon from the stream of commerce.
I know. I don't. I support the repeal of the NFA, and all 'gun control' laws everywhere.
I support gun safety courses, registration, or a number of measures that would protect the right while making its exercise and the public safer.
Well, as for "a number of measures," you only mentioned two, both of which I disagree with, as being in objective violation of the Second Amendment. But your view here reflects your understanding and interpretation of The Right to Bear Arms, and my view reflects my understanding and interpretation of The Right to Bear Arms. We're talking straight past each other.
In every one of our Western Industrial Democratic cousins those measures are in play. And in every one of them the public is demonstrably, dramatically safer that we are.
New Hampshire residents can carry assault weapons openly without fear of police penalization, unless they commit a crime. And the intentional homicide rate in N.H. rivals those other countries to which you're referring. New Hampshire is among the safest places on earth.
And we're not terrified by firemen driving fire trucks with sirens either, but that doesn't mean any reasonable person wouldn't be alarmed by random people taking possession of one.
"...other junk was just window dressing attempts to dismiss a rational posit..." comes immediately to mind. There is no The Right to Drive Firetrucks.
The police carry weapons to do their job.
What exactly is the part of their job that requires them carrying small arms? To defend themselves and to defend innocent (of capital crimes) people. Case should be closed now, but we'll go on (and on).
And the police are required to be well trained in the use of the weapons they fire, a thing opposed in relation of the exercise of gun rights among the general public by people like you and the NRA.
Yes, because that's what I and the NRA understand The Right to Bear Arms "shall not be infringed" to necessarily mean.
Those weapons are registered. The police file a report after discharging their weapons. They have serious peer review relating to the use of weapons. If we treated our approach to weapons the way the police do we'd have a far safer citizenry, even with weapons I oppose.
Law enforcement (in their capacity as law enforcement) has power, and civilians have rights (police too possess the same inalienable rights as civilians of course). There is a categorical difference between the two wrt law. Laws that protect and defend rights are aimed directly at law enforcement, and not at civilians. Namely, leos (and the government) are not authorized to penalize civilians for the lawful exercise of our inalienable rights.
Right.
They don't tend to go around with machine guns at the ready either.
Right, they almost never do. And when they do bring out the "machine guns" (common parlance for service rifles and service carbines), the public is not frightened and terrified by them. They might be frightened and terrified by whatever prompt leos to bring out the "machine guns," but not by them bringing out the "machine guns" in and of itself.
If we see that people tend to get alarmed, will reasonably understand there's a motivation that might mean they are in danger. But in the normal scheme of things, they shouldn't be frightened, because they know the things I noted about officers, and they know that officers carry their weapons to preserve the peace and protect the innocent. They have no idea why Bob is walking toward them with that weapon. It would be unreasonable to not be frightened given what has too often been done by those weapons, what distinguishes them, what they can accomplish in moments and their unfamiliarity with Bob's motivation and intent.
That's asinine. It's asinine because the only thing that really matters is what "Bob" is up to, same as with the nameless leo. We don't know the leo from Adam, and we don't know "Bob" from Adam. Why ought a uniform calm us, and "Bob" being in plainclothes, make any difference, compared with what their "motivation and intent" is? There have been plenty of men in uniform throughout history who are up to no good, and there are sadly today some 'bad cops' too.
So, playing along, assuming someone might actually not understand the parallel and what I actually did with it: I don't ask what a reasonable person would do in relation to gun control for the same reason I don't ask a Marxist about property rights, or a libertarian about social programs. They have a foundational assumption that makes the discussion pointless.
You portrayed me as an irrational Marxist, Town. Fact. That 'foundational assumption' is what might make discussion here pointless, not that we disagree about The Right to Bear Arms. We just have to differentiate between what you mean by The Right to Bear Arms, and what I mean by The Right to Bear Arms, since we each mean something different in many ways.
I'd settle for almost reasonable
Here again, you try to portray me as unreasonable. This is just an ad hominem, and my calling you a gun hater is returning like for like. But since you've already written me off and dismissed me as unreasonable, anything I say is just going to confirm that bias in your mind. So I called you a gun hater, because why not?
, and I'm still not a gun hater for the reasons set out above and prior.
On the guns I own:
You don't appear to know a lot of things, like how to distinguish between a responsible gun owner and a "gun hater."
They can be the same person. Also, a hardened violent felon might share your views on gun control. So now what do you say? You can't say anything, or you shouldn't---but you will.
Of course I do. I also believe in the right to bear arms, which was the specific property I mentioned.
And 'your' The Right to Bear Arms is not 'my' The Right to Bear Arms, as I've set out numerous times prior.
The right isn't infringed upon any more than your not being able to sacrifice a human being in the furtherance of your religious beliefs is an infringement of your right to worship as you please.
False analogy /false parallel. You're comparing 'apples' and 'applies.'
No right exists in a vacuum and the moment you exercise it there is a competition among other rights and exercise. The exercise of the right is what we're really talking about.
You're talking about the exercise of 'your' The Right to Bear Arms, and I'm talking about the exercise of 'my' The Right to Bear Arms.
You lawyers can't get your act straight on what this single sentence (the Second Amendment) means . . .
You're repeating yourself. Here's the answer, again: The fact that some people will say darn nearly anything doesn't mean no one or even most people fail to understand what anything means. The fact that some big tobacco scientific shills once tried to convince us there was no link between tobacco and cancer doesn't mean scientists were stumped or confused on the point.
Are you now suggesting that we are capable of making a valid appeal to the authority of scientists, and not lawyers, to provide valid grounds for the meaning of the Second Amendment? I wager that among all doctors of science there is still great division on what that single sentence means. Do you want to try to prove that among PhD scientists that there is wide agreement on the matter? I'm not asking because I think that PhD scientists are in any way bona fide experts in what the Bill of Rights means, but if you think that they are, please provide some sort of proof to sustain your case.
That's more dangerous than an AR because that sort of myopic support can put fairly evil or amoral men in office accomplishing far more real damage to the republic than your more imaginary concern.
I wish that million person mass murders were a bogeyman of only fairy tales, but unfortunately we've seen mass murders approaching that within the past few decades, and going back a century we need more than one hand to count how many there have been, and in every single case of mass murders on this scale, the victims are either completely unarmed, or comparatively 'outgunned' due to gun control laws like the precise ones that you support.
And I know I know, you think it's unreasonable or irrational for me to state facts, but that's not going to get me to not state facts. Facts is facts.
Actually, the haters are the ones who benefit from your support, like the hate fueled monster in Vegas, or a church in Texas, or a schoolyard in Parkland, Florida. Actual haters love the NRA's fight to preserve and promote the instruments that allow them to work their harm.
The haters I was talking about are those who are OK with banning innocent (of capital crimes) people from carrying superlative small arms (i.e., the types of small arms that every legitimate military and police force on earth provides for their troops and leos), with which they could defend themselves against the suicidal mass murderers that you mentioned.
The right to bear arms isn't our point of difference. It never was.
We each mean something different by The Right to Bear Arms, so we're talking straight past each other, as noted prior.
They'd have simply died another way against the overwhelming force of the Roman Empire, but that's an exceptional point any way you look at it. It doesn't really parallel our difference.
I disagree since it does tend to support 'my' The Right to Bear Arms. And the "died another way" bit is flatly outrageous imo to say. I've heard NRA type people say much the same thing, in defense of that which you clearly oppose.
And, again, and to be clear, I am not (and most Americans who oppose ARs are not) for disarming the public, for ending the right. I'd be fine with those early Christians carrying swords. You think they should have had Greek Fire.
What is Greek Fire? Then I can see whether or not this is true. But mainly, I do support the right of anybody in peril of their life or limb, to carry any instrument that constitutes a bearable arm, in self-defense. And since I support this, I must necessarily support the right to carry such instruments Before their life or limb is imperiled.
Only when you insist on saying a thing and holding a belief contrary to reason and repeatedly met by it.
Prove it.
Like that. I don't own "something," some unknowable and potentially unrelated (to the argument) thing. I own guns. I was once a hunter. A qualified marksman. So I've used them recreationally. I've used them for sport. And any of them could be used for protection of my person, family, or property. I can accomplish all of that without an AR. All I could do with an AR that I couldn't do with the bolt action rifle, the double barrel shotgun, etc. that I own would be killing a lot of people in a very short time.
It means a great deal.
From your upstairs window, where you happen to keep your small arms (for argument's sake), you notice an obviously rabid coyote charging straight towards your backyard, where your kin are frolicking unaware (and unarmed), and you think that a shotgun (hope it's not out of range!) or a bolt-gun (you better be a fantastic shot!) is going to "accomplish" the defense of your family equivalently to a service rifle or service carbine? Or even "an AR?"
Here's how it goes with a shotgun:
"Is it in range yet? How about now? Now? OK fire! Oh only wounded it, Fire! Oh missed. (Reload, and family is attacked).
A bolt-gun:
"Range not an issue, this is a longer range small arm, so line it up, Fire! Oo! Missed, cycle the action, Fire again! Did I get it? Oh! Cycle the action again---fire! Was it in time?"
"An AR:"
"Bang! Missed. Bang! Missed. Bang bang bang bang bang! Clipped it. Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang got it."
Maybe it's a 'momma' bear sprinting after her wayward cub, that's careening toward your family playing out in your backyard, instead of a rabid coyote. Maybe it's a man, and you know there's been a violent crime committed recently in your neighborhood. Maybe it's . . . something where "an AR" is actually going to do something other than "killing a lot of people in a very short time."
Does this prove me right? Of course I don't hope to be proven right by you. But does it prove me reasonable and rational? I think it does. I think you're unreasonable and irrational if you deny that it does too.
They will, and certainly by the time they get to this post, since I've made it so clear that we are each using The Right to Bear Arms to mean different things.
I also hope they do the research and see that what I'm speaking about won't take the right and its exercise from them and will make them demonstrably less likely to be a victim of someone who uses the right to an unlawful purpose in the service of an actual malice.
I hope people start taking their right more seriously, as I understand The Right to Bear Arms, and not as you do.
I'm tired of people like you trying to reinvent the language to support a myopic and fundamentally dangerous approach to gun law.
Begging the question.
Man, you devolved to that faster than expected. Anything else?
Passive /micro-aggression is objective, not subjective, and doesn't depend upon deliberate intent on the part of the aggressor. It is what it is, regardless of any deliberate intent or the lack thereof, on the part of the aggressor.
The accusation was irrational. If you hold it and repeat it, in the face of reason to the contrary, you are prima facie irrational, at least on the point.
Your accusation that I am irrational precedes me calling you a gun hater, and that is on the point.
You confuse declaration of subjective valuation with empirical truth.
Nope.
Whoever said that it was, was not me.
The truth is that no one who hates a thing embraces it. To suggest that I have to agree with your notion of unrestrained exercise of right to escape your definition is just a very poorly drawn circle. I am a gun hater because you say I am a gun hater is not a rational proposition.
I'm not irrational because you say I'm irrational, Town. I call you a gun hater in self defense.
lain:
