On handguns, tradition and radicalism
Gun show in Houston, Texas. Image from Wikipedia
I write a lot about the clash between traditional American culture — which tends to be conservative — and the rapid societal changes that have triggered deep anxiety and bitterness, particularly in rural white communities.
In broad terms, this axis defines the country’s culture war, far more than any red vs. blue or North vs. South paradigm.
The truth, which I think is irrefutable, is that our nation is changing with stunning speed in ways that have sparked a sometimes understandable backlash.
In a mere handful of decades, our concept “family” has been reinvented. Homosexuality has evolved from a recognized mental illness into a widely accepted version of “normal.”
The role of women in society has changed in radical ways, one of the largest shifts in the human paradigm in recorded history. Soon, the white community will be only one of many minorities in a truly diverse ethnic landscape.
Active Christians make up a smaller and smaller portion of citizens and the fastest growing “faith” group is made up of people with no religious convictions at all.
That’s a lot to take on board, especially since it’s hitting the “real” America all at once.
When my urban, progressive friends wring their hands about the conservative uproard against these changes, I remind them that America’s traditional culture is merely holding on to and defending values that were entirely mainstream just a few years ago.
But when it comes to guns, I don’t think this argument holds true.
When it comes to firearms, it is traditional America that’s changing, profoundly and perhaps even radically, in ways that are finally sparking real debate.
I grew up in rural America, and have always been a proud, unambiguous part of the gun-owning culture. I’ve owned firearms my entire life. My father and I were members of a shooting club at a range in my home town. We hunted whitetail deer.
While courting my wife — herself a holder of NRA merit badges for marksmanship — I hunted turkey and deer with my future father-in law.
One of my wife’s proudest gifts to our son (he was 13 years old at the time) was his first .22 rifle.
My brother Allen and I have hunted together since childhood, and he writes one of the best hunting and fishing blogs in the Midwest.
What we didn’t do? We didn’t own military-style weaponry.
In all my childhood and young adulthood, I don’t remember anyone owning assault rifles or high-capacity banana clips, or talking about the need for such weapons.
Guys owned shotguns for hunting fowl. We owned hunting rifles. Some men — not, by a long-shot, all — owned a pistol for home security, to protect their businesses, or for protection against grizzly bears, or for sport.
Through the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, when I was a kid and a young man, the loggers and fishermen and outdoorsmen I grew up around would have been baffled by anyone packing a military-style heat.
I remember in particular one of my friends bragging that his dad still had an old German Luger military pistol locked away in a drawer, a legacy of his grandfather’s service in World War II.
The idea was kind of shocking and exciting.
But if you asked me whether any of our dads would have advocated legalizing teflon coated “copkiller” bullets or fought for the right to use high capacity magazines, I’d say no way.
I’m not sure when the gun culture changed.
What I can tell you is that in the part of America where I grew up — Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and later Alaska — it didn’t look much like the gun culture that exists today.
Guys didn’t talk about the need to arm themselves so that they could someday resist their own despotic government. There wasn’t survivalist talk or talk of “2nd amendment” solutions to democratic debates.
I suspect the change came from the narrowing agenda of the NRA, which shifted from a mom-and-pop style hunter and gun-safety organization to a sleek, powerful culture war advocacy group that sees no room for compromise or nuance.
In their worldview, there are gun lovers and believers in the Constitution, and there are those who would confiscate every single firearm.
It’s a gun culture that leaves no room for people like me, who value sporting guns and believe in protecting gun ownership, but have serious moral and practical questions about the need for high-efficiency military-style pistols and assault rifles.
I suspect that at least some of the change also came from a growing population of American gun enthusiasts who don’t have strong ties to rural life.
There are a lot of suburbanites and urban folks who embraced the gun-show bang-bang culture that gets a rush out of hard-core hardware, without having been introduced to firearms through the common sense values of their fathers and mothers.
Finally, I suspect that a lot of the change in America’s gun culture came through the commercialization of firearms, as manufacturers — who now clear $12 billion a year — worked to sell more and more high-end “cool” weapons.
The kind of guns that ravaged Aurora and Newtown and Columbine have much higher profit margins — and fanboy appeal — than you see for a serious hunting rifle or a practical shotgun.
So while on many issues, it is urban, progressive Americans who have moved into new, experimental, and sometimes nervous territory, when it comes to guns I think it’s fair to argue that conservatives are the ones who have changed.
While talking about the long-standing tradition of gun ownership and flying the banner of the 2nd amendment, they’re drawing lines in the sand that I’m guessing would have made little sense to the guys in the coffee shop in my hometown.
So here’s my question to those of you who see yourselves as gun rights advocates. When was the first time you saw people in your community owning (or desiring) these kinds of weapons?
When did you or your friends begin to see military-style pistols and assault rifles and banana clip-type accessories as part of America’s gun culture?
“Using this recent violence as a vehicle to forward a gun-control agenda will not help.
Focusing just on mental health alone will not help.
Demagoguing the issue will not help…”
Thank you for the mental health comment. As to “using this recent violence as a vehicle…”, I’m sure there’s some element of that– politicians do use events in the news to further their careers and aims. But you’ve got to recognize that these shootings genuinely sicken people, and a lot of the reaction that gun advocates fear is not grandstanding, even if some is. It would really help if gun advocates would meet those who are horrified by these events half way. Taking the “I’d rather die than let my weapons be registered” approach just makes them appear crazed.
“Uh, by institutionalizing and treating the nut jobs!”
Rancid, you’re forgetting how easy it would be to decide that people with large arms caches are nuts. I really think you should take a deep breath and think about the whole problem calmly.
“And you can’t allege that all acts committed by gov’t are legal- Ruby Ridge, Waco, numerous other less famous debacles where the gov’t overstepped it’s bounds.”
No, of course not. But your examples are all of people who were, in fact, heavily armed. I think any fair reading of these events make it clear that these people would be alive today if they had not offered armed resistance. So what good did it do them? Did their weapons make them free? Were their deaths glorious? Who made a greater change in the world, David Koresh or Gandhi?
“Can someone please explain how registration of firearms will reduce violent crime? I don’t understand the real purpose behind this suggestion.”
What’s not to understand?
1) I have a lot of weapons on the registry.
2) I threaten to harm myself or others, or I commit a crime.
3) The authorities come looking for my weapons.
4) I don’t mow down my fellow citizens.
OK, Walker, please explain how registration of guns or their owners will help reduce violent crime.
If one threatens to harm themselves or others, or commits a crime, the authorities should (and usually do) lock them up, period. That’s got nothing to do with gun ownership unless you want to make ownership of guns (or a certain number of guns) a crime.
“By a critical and very thorough review of what prescription drugs are doing to people. We have the most highly medicated population on earth and it isn’t working well.”
Agreed.
“I have ZERO problem barring people with mental real health issues from owing guns- period.”
OK, how are you going to do that if they acquire the guns first, and develop the mental real health issues later? You won’t know they have the weapons, will you?
But that brings another problem to the table since not every person with depression or sleep issues is a killer nutjob.
Agreed. But that’s a potential problem whether you’re talking about confiscating weapons of nutjobs or locking them up. The problem of deciding who’s nuts is exactly the same.
“If we put as much effort into mental health issues as we do disarming law abiding, sane, citizens the problem would get solved much faster.”
Rancid, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we aren’t putting any effort into disarming law abiding, sane, citizens. We’re talking about registering the weapons of law abiding, sane, citizens. So that if they go nuts, we can disarm them before they kill themselves or others.
“…please explain how registration of guns or their owners will help reduce violent crime.”
It won’t stop the first crime. But it could easily prevent future crimes.
And before you bring up the automobile analogy, let me say that the Constitution doesn’t mandate that the right to own or operate an automobile shall not be infringed. You don’t need to register to exercise your First Amendment rights and many (usually liberals) have even argued that voter registration laws are onerous and unnecessary. Additionally, all the driver licensing and auto registration does NOTHING to reduce violent crimes involving automobiles. They are revenue producing mechanisms for state governments. I’ll be damned if I have to pay for exercising my constitutional rights. I don’t have to pay to vote, do I?
“If one threatens to harm themselves or others, or commits a crime, the authorities should (and usually do) lock them up, period.”
Yeah, but not for the rest of their lives. It’s really difficult to get people locked up involuntarily for more than a week or two. This is in part because we used to go too far, locking people up long term for not very good reason. We’re in a period of reaction to that.
And so right now, if we lock someone up for a week or two, and then we let them out, we do so without having any idea whether they have a basement arsenal or not.
Look, nothing will ever stop all gun violence. But we’ve got to stop acting like there’s nothing we can do to reduce the problem.
“And before you bring up the automobile analogy, let me say that the Constitution doesn’t mandate that the right to own or operate an automobile shall not be infringed.”
Right. But the constitution doesn’t say which weapons. And it doesn’t say that you can’t be required to register your weapons.
“I’ll be damned if I have to pay for exercising my constitutional rights.”
Pretty likely.
“…all the driver licensing and auto registration does NOTHING to reduce violent crimes involving automobiles.”
You’ve never heard of criminals being arrested because someone saw them leaving the scene of a crime and jotted down their license plate number?
“It won’t stop the first crime. But it could easily prevent future crimes.”
So, all drivers, theorectically, are licensed. Registration doesn’t stop the first DWI, but should prevent future DWIs, if I follow your reasoning. Doesn’t seem to be working out as you think it might. Every element in this example (drivers, automobiles, liquor manufacturers and distributors, etc.) are subject to registration, legislation and regulation but that doesn’t stop anyone. What reduces DWIs is increased awareness, education, law enforcement vigilance and punishment for offenders.
“I’ll be damned if I have to pay for exercising my constitutional rights.”
Likely that I’ll be damned or likely that I’ll have to pay? Both?
“You’ve never heard of criminals being arrested because someone saw them leaving the scene of a crime and jotted down their license plate number?”
I think that virtually all mass shooters have either killed themselves, been killed by others or been arrested. I also think that they are all still in jail or are still dead. Knowing in advance who has guns, as has been the case in some shootings where the weapons were legally acquired, won’t help any more than automobile registration helps predict which vehicle will be a getaway car or operated by a drunk driver. Let’s get real about this registration thing, shall we?
Larry there are people in jail today who can’t commit a crime because they’re locked up who got caught because someone wrote down their license plate, and they were tracked down because of the car’s registration. That is a case of registration preventing a crime.
You want to work to improve the mental health system. But we’re not going to start locking people up for life because they flipped out once. But some of those people have weapons that should be seized. How are we going to know those weapons exist?
Yes, by all means, let’s get real about this registration thing.
Regarding the second amendment, I toss this out: I don’t believe the country had much of a standing army at the time, so militias were seen as necessary for defense against an outside enemy. The extremists in the gun-rights movement seem to be concerned with an internal threat from our democratically elected government. Was this fear shared by the founders?
“Where have you seen anyone suggesting children carry guns to school? Current TV? MSNBC? The Daily Koz? Complete and utter BS.”
Ok, maybe it is utter BS, but maybe not. I’ve never heard of “inothernews” but they claim to have interviewed Wayne LaPierre. Here is the part of the interview concerning arming children:
WP: Yes, absolutely. Armed guards would be a strong deterrent against some other person taking matters into their own hands the way Adam Lanza did. In short of that, maybe we should teach our children how to use firearms in a responsible manner. If the adults can’t protect the kids then the kids should be able to protect themselves.
ION: Wait a minute, Mr. LaPierre. Are you proposing our children, our five and six year old kindergarteners and first graders, learn to shoot guns in order to protect themselves against any potential threats at school? Is that what you’re saying?
WP: What I’m saying is that perhaps an incident like the one that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary could have been averted had one or more of the children been armed. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the adults in the school had no arms training. No one had a weapon ready to deter this young man during the shooting spree. Had the police not shown up when they did, who knows how many more innocent lives would have been lost. Had some of the kids been trained properly on the usage of a firearm, maybe the carnage could have been curtailed. We’ll never know, unfortunately.
For all I know, intheothernews is like the Onion. It is hard to believe that LaPierre would make a statement like that and I can’t find any other references to that interview. If he actually make that statement, maybe he has some mental illness problems that should be addressed.
http://inothernewz.com/national-rifle-association-ceo-says-children-should-be-armed-at-school-to-better-protect-themselves/
Let’s say the US government did decide to confiscate every firearm in the USA. As an intellectual exercise, and given that there are about 300 million firearms in our country, exactly how would the government go about doing that?
PNE, I think its a safe bet its a hoax. If you google “National Rifle Association CEO Says Children Should Be Armed At School To Better Protect Themselves”, inothernewz.com is the only site that has that story. And Reuters.com doesn’t have it. It’s well done though.
Walker –
Which is why I questioned inthenewz validity. However, after checking with several skeptic sites, I can find nothing claiming inthenewz if a fake site either. As I pointed out also, LaPierre would have to be “certifiable” to make a statement like that, although gun fanatics have no problem posting YouTube videos threatening to kill anyone who attempts gun control (eg. James Yeager).
Not to mention implying that they’re ready to commit treason, one of whom managed to get his concealed carry permit revoked. Smart folks!
“As an intellectual exercise, and given that there are about 300 million firearms in our country, exactly how would the government go about doing that?”
With or without armed standoffs?
has the NRA ever come across with a specific list of what is considered solely military and not for citizens use? or a list of restricted or illegal firearms?
has the government? or anyone for that matter?
where does it say that the corner gunshop can’t stock or sell a rocket launcher or bazooka.
i’m sure somewhere it does. no? why does everything require a constitutional amendment? it’s so “burning bridge”.
can an open debate and discussion between government and citizenry develope a list of what is accepted firearms for sale to general public? if sentiment changes either direction in the future, the original constitution still stands. the law can change, morph.
would former law enforcement, or military be another list?
could a “special” permit allow a common citizen to purchase anything, provided certain criteria is followed?
if the NRA really was a reasonable entity it seems it would be a responsible step to initiate.
it’s the 21st century for cris’ sake, where are the non leathal phaser stun guns we could all be issued at birth anyway?
the gun reg can be our s.s.#
let’s talk more about how china makes more solar panels than us, but spits out filthy coal powered plants to do so, and that for a country that provides 70 odd% of the photo voltaic units, less than 10% of their own population use solar.
that and the wonderful smog they make concerns me more than this riden beat to death horse.
when we all have cheaper power, i would hope no one will want to kill any one any more.
then, we’ll have time to work on official definitions for “earned”, “crazy”, “poverty”, “terrorism”, “security”……
If we’re going to look at European models for national health care, maybe we should look at Australia since gun control:
https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=fGaDAThOHhA
@2:12 min.
“if the politicians want a pay raise…it’s done in 20 min…..”
no matter where you go, there you are.
Kathy, for starters, Australia is not generally considered to be part of Europe.
You should take the time to read the Wikipedia article on Gun politics in Australia. It refers to your video as follows: “The American National Rifle Association claimed in 2000 that violent crimes had increased in Australia since the introduction of new laws, based on highly unrepresentative statistics from newspaper articles. The federal Attorney General Daryl Williams accused the NRA of falsifying government statistics…”
The article does state that Australia’s mandatory buy-back program has had little effect on gun violence, possibly because “…93% of people replaced their seized firearms with at least one, if not more, to replace their loss…”
But more to the point, one more time, I am not advocating seizing anyone’s guns. I do think we should register them, so that when someone goes bonkers or commits a crime, we know if they have weapons that should be seized. But law abiding citizens get to keep them. I do think we should try to do a buy-back of high capacity clips, and ban their manufacture and import.
But that’s just me.
“But more to the point, one more time, I am not advocating seizing anyone’s guns. I do think we should register them, so that when someone goes bonkers or commits a crime, we know if they have weapons that should be seized”
i’ll be right back, i just saw my horse run past , i need to go close the barn door
From that same Wikipedia article, contrary to the NRA claims, the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia stated that “there is no evidence that gun control restrictions in 1987, 1996 and 2002 had any impact on the already established trends.”
And contrary to wild-eyed imaginings of some that the only reason to register and/or seize guns is to prepare the way for the government to crush the citizenry, it is worth noting that Australia is still a democracy, with control of government changing as the electorate sees fit.
You lost me there, 2c.
i’m not in total dissagreement with alot of what you post, but i feel that knowing there are more guns in a household, that could be seized, AFTER someone goes off the edge, AFTER someone massacares a mall full of whom evers, is of no great value. i figure AFTER the incident, the police generally get those anyway.
i agree in strict registration, but find your example of little comfort, that AFTER a shooting, we’ll know there are more or no more guns in the household. it’s a moot point, like locking the barn after the horse is out.
registration lets us know who has guns, but it does nothing in foreseeing what will be done with them.
i spent a little time in code enforcement. i was a plan examiner. everyone who tried to do the right thing, re; code compliance, permits etc…were stopped at every gate posible for compliance. the process did nothing to prevent non-compliance from the people who decided from the git-go they were not applying for a permit.
in general the people who i made show compliance were pissed they tried to “do it the right way” and felt they were often slowed, and “obstructed” during their project.
having a law does not mean it will be followed. focus on those who break, massage, ignore the law.
The government did not write the constitution to give rights to the people. The people wrote the constitution to limit the government’s power
“…AFTER someone goes off the edge, AFTER someone massacares a mall full of whom evers, is of no great value.”
OK, fair enough, but if at the same time we work on improving our mental health system, including maybe a mandatory reporting reporting scheme, then maybe we could grab some guns before the guy goes off. And how many guys get out of prison and go home to a stash of weapons that the cops don’t know they have?
Now I know that such a system would be full of holes at first, but maybe in time if we worked at shutting down the loop holes, we could get somewhere.
(Sounds like your code enforcement setup had a major flaw! No sanctions for the guys who skipped getting a permit? What good is that?)
Kathy, for starters, Australia is not generally considered to be part of Europe
Getting desperate for rebuttals, are we?
: )
And then there’s this:
why leave any of this to congress, biden or any other pollitician who has our intrests in mind.
when issues as important as this arise why is there not a special election held, citizens go to the polls, simply vote yes or no themselves. no debate, just public choice.
leaving it up to our representatives does not seem to work.
this is a democracy, so lets vote.
why do we rely on a “representative” to speak for individuals. let the american citizens decide, not the nra or biden or fox or lobbyists….
please inconvenience us with the burden of making our own choices.
Walker, re- your 11:06- No, we aren’t talking about registering guns, we are talking about banning and confiscating many of them. YOU are talking about registering. The problem with registration is twofold- first, it’s an infringement on our rights. Second, it does nothing to deal with illegally possessed guns.
As far as the nut jobs, I believe it’s been apparent in every case of a mass shooter that all the warning signs were there. We can develop a protocol for taking some proactive action. It works in a lot of other areas, it can work here too. But you may need to revamp some laws. People will object to that, just as gun owners object to having their rights violated.
Randy Weavers wife was not heavily armed. All she had in her hands was a baby. What possible excuse can you manufacture to justify shooting her? Randy Weaver was entrapped by BATF too in the first place, was that right?
Larry has covered your auto analogy. It doesn’t fly. The BoR does say which weapons- “Arms” and “Arms” as used in the BoR have been identified, repeatedly, as small arms similar to those used by the nations military or those in common use for sporting and self defense purposes. “Shall not be infringed” covers registration IMO, unless you are okay with requiring registration to exercise all our rights.
BTW- car theft is not a violent crime in itself. Be serious please.
As far a “locking some one up for a week or two doing nothing about finding out if they have guns”, well, if we have enough evidence to retain them for a mental eval, we have enough for a search warrant. Then you find the guns, registered or not, legal or illegal. And I agree entirely that the mechanism for a return of the guns and all the persons former rights and privileges needs to be in place when they are cleared. Currently many of our veterans are suffering a violation of their rights because such a mechanism does not exist as of now.
Larry also got it right on the DWI thing. Registration of the car does nothing to prevent DWI. Drunks often don’t care if the car is registered and insured or even if it’s their car! And having no license is no bar to re-committing DWI. The cars are out there as are motorcycles, ATVS, tractors, snowmobiles, bicycles, horses, scooters, etc. You can get a DWI on any on them!\
Phil- yes, they were concerned for a repeat of history. Read their writings, it was all fresh in their collective experience.
PNElba- I can’t find any records indicating Lapierre said to arm children. As I said, IMO he’s a giant sized douche bag, but I can’t believe even he would be so stupid as to advocate that. The Sandy Hook kids were 1st graders. I can sort of see the idea that a 14-18 yo might have the judgement needed since 14-18 yo’s have shown the judgement needed int he recent past, but as a policy I can’t endorse that idea or believe Lapierre would either. Alex Jones? Maybe, but he ain’t wrapped any too tight if ya get my drift.
As far how would the gov’t confiscate 300 million firearms, well it would start with a shredding of the 4th Amendment and 2 nd Amendment and then move to kicking in doors and killing people. And I’m sure many people would fight back, the numbers would grow exponentially as people saw their countrymen being slaughtered by the gov’t. I’m sure the gov’t would eventually win, but at what cost? Think Civil War. Think Nazi Germany. Think Mexico with the drug cartels as the gov’t. Think Pol Pot. I don’t want it to come to that. I have plans, I have kids and grandkids, I don’t want to go out in a hail of taxpayer funded bullets. I also don’t want to be a slave or a peasant under the kings thumb. I don’t want to be a martyr.
And yes, some hotheads have posted stupid videos saying they’ll start killing people. Some have been arrested and jailed. Funny that the anti-gunners calling for the killing f all NRA members and their families haven’t been jailed, eh? And it’s odd David Gregory got a complete pass on possessing a 30 round mag in DC. I certain if I went to DC or even NYC with one I’d be in prison. But the medias free pass on everything they do is legendary. It’s also criminal.
Twocents, yes there are lists of what is and isn’t allowed at the national and state levels. BTW- stun guns are illegal in NY. Makes sense, eh?
This brings up another issue which is that the Feds only have authority over guns because of the ICC clause. In theory, a gun made in NYS, sold in NYS toa NYS resident would not fall under Federal authority of any kind. That case is currently in review in a western state IIRC.
Australia’s gun laws have been a dismal failure. Canada’s gun registry was a dismal failure. Cuomo likes to talk about Microstamping, but Cuomo shut down the NYSP COBIS ballistic fingerprinting system which ran for about 10 years because it was a dismal failure. It was about the same as microstamping using existing technology and not some not existent tech that the gun laers were supposed to develop, use and pay for. Look, I’m 100% in favor of reducing gun crime. I’m just not in favor of committing a crime against non-criminal gun owners, of violating their civil rights by using terms like “need” or demanding registration, insurance, permits, licenses. You want to do that, then we need to do the same with all other rights. You want to be free of unlawful search and seizure you need to apply and pay for a permit, obtain a license, insurance and comply with all regulations or you lose that right. Does that make any sense?
“The problem with registration is twofold- first, it’s an infringement on our rights.”
Let’s start here. How is it an infringement on our rights? Where is it written that you have the right to bear arms, and there shall be no registration of those arms?
“Randy Weavers wife was not heavily armed. All she had in her hands was a baby. What possible excuse can you manufacture to justify shooting her? Randy Weaver was entrapped by BATF too in the first place, was that right?”
The accounts of the events at Ruby Ridge are all over the map, but it seems clear that the Feds screwed up in numerous ways. Nevertheless, it’s hard to see how there would have been any deaths if the Weavers hadn’t been heavily armed. So tell me how their weapons saved them from a tyrannical government. Not saying the government wasn’t being tyrannical (or at least stupid) but how did the Weaver’s resistance help them?
“”Shall not be infringed” covers registration IMO…”
Key words: IMO.
There are licensing requirements for radio and TV stations: is that an infringement on free speech rights?
“… car theft is not a violent crime in itself. Be serious please.”
Who’s talking about car theft. I’m talking about license plate numbers being used to identify perpetrators in all kinds of crimes, including murder. And as gun advocates are fond of pointing out, cars can be used as murder weapons.
“As far a “locking some one up for a week or two doing nothing about finding out if they have guns”, well, if we have enough evidence to retain them for a mental eval, we have enough for a search warrant. Then you find the guns, registered or not, legal or illegal.”
Wrong on two counts: First, you won’t necessarily find all the guns– remember the gun stashes of our recently identified mass murderer? More importantly, search warrants are issued on the basis of evidence of criminal activity, not mental derangement.
“Registration of the car does nothing to prevent DWI.”
You’re doing it again. A law does not have to prevent every last occurrence of a crime to be worth having. If it did, we would have to give up on all laws. Auto registration is effective in dealing with all kinds of crimes, from motor vehicle infractions to murder.
“I’m just not in favor of committing a crime against non-criminal gun owners, of violating their civil rights by using terms like “need” or demanding registration, insurance, permits, licenses. You want to do that, then we need to do the same with all other rights.”
How does all of the above not apply to the existing ban on full-automatics etc.? How does using terms like “need” constitute a crime against non-criminal gun owners?
And finally, if you’re right, you’ll prevail in court. We’ll see…
Phil, that is an excellent question. I did a a little looking and it looks like James Madison and the Federalists did actually support this idea that the “oppressive potential of a standing army could be offset by vast state militias” (THE FEDERALIST No. 46, at 321 (James Madison) (Jacob E. Cooke ed., 1961).
The idea I guess was that the state militia system could be seen as an alternative to a standing federal army. That could be where these ideas are coming from.
I think this is also the root of some of the supreme court decisions regarding the second amendment and why now we don’t really argue much about the militia only idea. Do do this for either reason does require you to have the right to own some kind of “arms”. This argument would strengthen the idea that having access to only arms designed for hunting or whatever might not be sufficient.
Now I completely agree with the idea that some new restrictions are in order. But some of these ideas you describe do seem to have some legal basis.
“You want to be free of unlawful search and seizure you need to apply and pay for a permit, obtain a license, insurance and comply with all regulations or you lose that right. Does that make any sense?”
I’m not quite sure what you’re saying here, but it sounds like you think that if a registration requirement were instituted, it would be followed by searches of everyone’s home? That’s absurd. If a registration requirement were instituted, it would make weapons that were unregistered into illegal weapons. If no one knew they existed, nothing would happen.
Its seems like a huge mess administratively, and like I said you would then suddenly criminalize hundreds of thousands of homes. Politically I just don’t understand why we don’t do what we can do and realize what we are really worried about. The old master Clinton new what he was doing, yes the assault weapons ban had loopholes, but a point in fact was he got it done and from what I have seen it did make a slight difference in crimes associated with assault weapons. In this case I would like to criminalize them.
I don’t know why they don’t just go back and re-institute what worked politically the first time? Bizarre now to think that Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich in hindsight were actually rational political negotiators who got some things done, at least compared to the situation we have today.
Brian Mann, please research the definitions of “assault weapon” and “assault rifle” because it is clear that you are not knowledgeable about such things and are using the terms liberally. If you knew what an assault rifle was by definition you could answer your own confusion about why you don’t usually see people with them. The gun arguments are laughable when the people spewing their own opinions clearly haven’t a clue what they’re going on about in the first place. I didn’t know much about guns myself until I started looking into why Americans are suddenly screaming about “assault weapons” and “assault rifles” and I took the time to read into what these terms mean and I am shocked that people who have grown up around guns don’t even know.
Clinton may have been an old master, but he let them saddle his bill with a sunset clause and grandfathering of millions of extant weapons, not to mention importation of big clips.
“Its seems like a huge mess administratively, and like I said you would then suddenly criminalize hundreds of thousands of homes.”
Not if you give enough lead time, and you do a major promotional campaign.
If I had to guess, though, we won’t pass anything like a registration requirement on all firearms. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
But he passed a real bill flaws and all. Come on, we all know nothing is going to happen now except noise its all about scoring points against the other side; not about real change. This is now cultural, and when it becomes that versus actually making real change based on what can be done, its all over.