So we should tilt our legal system to discourage violent behavior? Also, I was going to ask who hte arbiter of "what you feel" vs. "hit or steal " is - but we know the answer - it's you. Do what The Commodore feels, just don't hit or steal, depending on the Commodore's definition of those things. Is that an "ethos" or just, the world's least desirable decision tree?
not if it inhibits the means to defend one's self and others to quote Milo, a gun free zone is a safe space for terrorists
It just means people should be free to live as they like, short of violence and theft. Violence could mean physical harm (including abortion), but also destruction of property. Theft could mean straight up stealing, but also fraud or breach of contract. It's not always straightforward how to apply it to every situation, but it's a good starting point.
Weaponry, particularly weaponry designed for mass killing, definitely inhibits the means to defend myself and others. Why are you prioritizing weaponry's role in your anti-violence ethos? Or is some degree of violence acceptable?
LOL, I guess people will never stop trying to twist the 2nd amendment into saying that it is not an individual right but it's a complete and total non-starter. In fact when you take that stance it shows what your end goal is and makes sane people less likely to want to give anything in compromise. It's like MADD saying they want breathalyzers in every car standard from the factory, you don't really want to give those people an inch because you just know they'll try to take a mile. The anti-civil liberties people are just like that too.
I would also add that theft could mean the theft of the right to to live as you like within the two other constraints.
banning it on paper doesn't remove it from your presence (see Paris), which is why an available means of defense is necessary
The gap between avid firearms owners, and people who who never owned them and don't like them is pretty wide. $5 bullets and UK/French style gun laws are designed for societies where hunting and gun ownership are for very rich people. It's not gonna fly. I don't have a problem in principle with private firearms ownership, but I think the Second Amendment is problematic in the way it is written, being more open to interpretation than the poetry of William Blake. I do respect that the framers intended private arms ownership as a right rather than a privilege, but I also think the right to assembly, free speech, a free press, and freedom of (and from) religion are at least as important and even more under attack. The 2nd Amendment Ultras don't seem nearly as concerned about defending those rights, and it troubles me, and weakens their arguments, IMHO. I also think it's more naturally an urban vs rural issue than it is Republican vs. Democrat one. This was the sentiment expressed by Senator Sanders when cornered on the subject, which somehow gets him dismissed by both the gun lobby and urban Clintonistas. It used to be the default position of US politicians when I was a kid, but the climate on the issue has become so polarized and extreme that the position is treated as eccentric and "out of touch" in 2016. Still, we are a long way away from the days when Ernest Hemingway bought a Colt Woodsman at the Ambercombie and Fitch in Manhattan and carried it with him to bars. When I lived in Huntsville I did a lot of hunting and target shooting. In downtown Los Angeles, the only thing I shot was tequila in a bar. I eventually sold all my firearms years ago or gave them to family who lived on ranches in Texas where they had a practical use. Now that I live in Texas again, I plan to hunt and fish again, so a 12 gauge will likely be in my near future before dove season starts. I'm holding out for a reasonably priced used over and under that I can also use to practice on clays. I DO think limiting firearms purchases to people who aren't under terrorist watch lists or the no-fly list (as is being proposed in Congress) is a reasonable compromise between all these things. If people are deemed too dangerous to get on a Southwest commuter flight, I sure as hell don't want them going to Academy and buying so much as a machete. If you have a problem with that (and the civil libertarian in me is not unsympathetic), it should be with the notion of a government list in the first place. I somehow made it onto The List in Israel, likely due to performing in Ramallah and associating with foreign journalists, which got me a very un-fun strip search on my last flight out of Tel Aviv which was unfortunately NOT performed by pretty girls. As long as the terrorist watch list in the US doesn't creep to include journalists/artists/NGOs critical of the government like it has in Israel, I can live with it as a stopgap approach to preventing terror.
This is fine as long as a person can have a reasonable way to get themselves removed from one of those lists if need be. Real example - I know a guy with a normal American name who happens to share that name with an IRA terrorist, so his name was on the no-fly list. Every time he flew he got pulled aside and interrogated prior to being allowed on the plane. It took a few years, but finally something was done where he was no longer interrogated at airports. There needs to be some sort of timely recourse to resolve situations like that. There has to be more detail than just a name on a list.
I agree -- government lists are always imperfect and ripe for abuse, and I've always been against them, but they work. If the public is demanding action , I think it's the most reasonable compromise that would actually prevent future massacres. Incidentally I've been pulled aside and questioned when boarding nearly every flight I've been on in the US but I figured it was just because I'm funny looking.
See everyone, as I warned, within minutes - the PotemkinFreedomship under the calming hand of Commodore Hazelwood has crashed on the shoals of practicality and a couple of belts of Old Crow, something something Paris, terrorists are running around shooting everybody, fetus rights, and everything else. There's no freedom ethos- it's all a bunch of bullsh-t. Do what you feel, so long as I deem it acceptable according to an arbitrary set of biases, and as long as I get to keep doing what I feel, which is more important than what you do. On the bright side, it does look like he's forging a real ideological bridge with Donald Trump.
The government list is one thing when it comes to denying someone the ability to fly on a plane or some other non constitutionally guaranteed thing, but if you are going to strip someone of their constitutionally guaranteed rights, there has to be due process. You can't just put someone on a list and take them away. I know it might make for the country to be safer, but that's irrelevant. If you can't do something without trampling on civil rights, you can't do it period. You don't give up your rights for the illusion of security.
That doesn't stop bad guys from shooting anyone. It just makes it more expensive for people who have legitimate recreational and vocational uses for guns to use them. As a gun own who is in favor of some gun control, I think this would be the worse idea ever.
More guns and bullets = more peopel gettign shot by guns and bullets It doesn't matter if it's a bad guy or a good guy or a toddler. Less guns = less people getting shot by guns, because the correlation between guns and gun violence, once again, is holding steady at 100%
I never said less guns didn't equate to less violence. I said more expensive bullets does not equal to less gun violence. Do you think people who shoot people care if their bullets cost 1 dollar vs 5 dollars?
You cannot take away someone's constitutional rights by simply putting them on a list. The 5th Amendment guarantees due process. Joe Manchin wishes otherwise <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zkaXSAjsnDw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Yes. Most shootings aren't carried out by inelastic psychopaths impervious to supply and demand, but regardless an overall reduction in the amount of guns and ammo will decrease shootings, according to all available data...and just plain common sense. Taxation is one way to accomplish this.
I understand your argument and I appreciate your libertarian principles, but... The US puts people on lists without due process and destroys their homes and entire families with drone strikes. We've been cool with that since the first term of W (and expanded the practice considerably), but using a similar list to keep Wahabi radicals who frequent IheartISIL dot boom from buying a Kalashnikov is an overreach? That's basically how profiling (and security in Israel) works. It would seem a bit tone-deaf to allow for the former and be absolute about not permitting the former. This is my whole point -- having a watchlist (or a kill with drones ASAP list) in the first place is getting into very grey legal territory, and drawing the line only at the Second Amendment seems a bit absurd. You are right, but I think if you want to want to make a principled fight against it, you would need to question the whole practice of maintaining extralegal lists in the first place.
