Antigun

Same Old Arguments

The left is still hammering the “collective rights” theory. This attorney thinks that SCOTUS got it wrong on the Heller decision.

Carrying their logic to its extreme, if there is no limitation on the right to own a gun, all 330 million citizens of the United States must be part of a “well regulated Militia.” Are you? I’m not.

Actually, you ARE a part of the militia, whether or not you know it. The militia is actually composed of two parts: The organized militia (the National Guard) and the unorganized militia, which is comprised of all male US citizens between the ages of 17 and 45. See 10USC246:

§246. Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

(b) The classes of the militia are—

(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and

(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

This so-called lawyer doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about, but that doesn’t stop him. He goes on:

No one would seriously argue you have the right to own a land mine or a nuclear-armed submarine.

Who says? The Second Amendment says “shall not be infringed,” and I believe that it DOES protect the right to own a nuclear armed submarine. Now, I am equally sure that many people would agree that citizens SHOULDN’T own a submarine armed with nuclear weapons. In that case, there is a process for changing that. It should not be difficult to get three quarters of the state legislatures and a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress to agree to add an Amendment to the Constitution that reads something along the lines of “No person shall be permitted to own a nuclear warhead.” I mean, the process is outlined right there in the paperwork.

What I can’t find in that Constitution is a clause that permits the government to ignore any clause which it, in its own judgment, finds inconvenient or irrelevant. That is EXACTLY what he argues, however:

The fundamental constitutional proposition many Republicans overlook is that no right is unlimited. That there is a limitation of our rights is fundamental to being civilized. So, for instance, the Supreme Court long ago held that your right to self-expression stops at the tip of the other guy’s nose. You have the right to own a car, but you don’t have the right to drive it at 100 mph through Downtown San Diego.

Of course no right is unlimited. He is just making a poor argument. No one has a right to own a car. There are all sorts of reasons why a person’s ability to own a car may be restricted, as any decent lawyer would know. I would also agree with him that a person doesn’t have the right to drive downtown at 100 miles per hour. A person does, however, have the right to own arms, to include firearms. What a person doesn’t have is the right to stand in the middle of a crowded street and fire that gun into a crowd, and no one is saying that they should, absent a legitimate exception like self defense.

If we are to allow the government to simply ignore the parts of the Constitution that they disagree with, then we can all agree that the founding documents of this nation are no longer relevant and are null and void. In that case, we might as well admit that might makes right, and we are a dictatorship after all.

If I lived in San Diego, I would not hire this moron as an attorney. He doesn’t seem very competent or knowledgeable.

By Divemedic, ago

This is Why I Don’t Debate Gun Control Any More

This boomer is afraid of guns and claims that she has a right to live in an area without having to be afraid of guns. She is opposed to constitutional carry. How can you reason or discuss things with people who do not use reason, facts, or logic to arrive at decisions, but instead use emotion, fallacies, and imagination?

This moron thinks that the killers in the recent mass shootings were using machine guns, so this means that “Congress needs to pass a law to make it unlawful to manufacture, own, or borrow, or use, any automatic rifle capable of firing multiple rounds of bullets simultaneously.”

But it’s no wonder that people are confused, when the press is deliberately trying to confuse the issue by claiming that you can order “the same gun used by the Uvalde shooter” on the Internet “no questions asked” while misleading readers on the paperwork and background checks that are carried out at your local dealer.

Even the government gets in on it, as Nina Jankowicz says the ‘Ministry Of Truth’ would have prevented the Uvalde shooting.

By Divemedic, ago

Bargaining Chip

Like I said earlier today, your rights are there to be sold out, used as bargaining chips so that Republicans can get and hold onto money and power. The Republicans think that your rights and your freedom are nothing more than silly items to be used at the negotiating table. After all, what are you going to do, vote for someone else?

So what are they going to cave on?

  • Universal Background checks: This is really a code word for national firearm registration. The ATF has been illegally keeping a record of all firearm sales reported to them. Universal checks will ensure that nearly all legal sales will be recorded for easier confiscation in the future. This will, of course, do nothing to curb criminal trade in firearms. This is the same reason why the ATF and the other alphabets are opposed to homemade firearms.
  • Red Flag laws: This will allow the government to take your guns, even if you haven’t committed any crimes.
  • Safe Storage Laws: Depending on the wording, you will be required to keep all of your guns locked up. This was already ruled unconstitutional in Heller*, but since when does the Constitution matter?
  • Of course, handing out money. Since when did the government ever see a problem without throwing money at it? It isn’t like we have an inflation problem, or anything
  • Mental Health Resources: I happen to agree that mental health is the problem, but I think that we all know that whatever the government decides to do will be the wrong thing.

*Heller v DC holding: “Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.”

By Divemedic, ago

Hardening Targets

President Trump and Senator Cruz have suggested making schools hardened targets by making them single point ingress, and placing security there. Experts are saying that this won’t work. They claim that because making a single point entry won’t stop all shootings, it isn’t worth doing.

Let’s just start by saying that there is not one magic solution that will stop all shooters. I don’t think that it is possible to stop all mass murderers, however, even the FBI had admitted (pdf warning) that every active shooter incident since 2000 has happened in a ‘gun free zone’. It makes for interesting reading.

All you can do is make their efforts more difficult in the hope that it will greatly reduce the number of incidents, and reduce the number of victims in each incident. With that in mind, Florida went a long way in doing just that:

  • Every school in the state must be surrounded by a fence that is a minimum of 5 feet tall. Any opening in that fence must have security in place to ensure that unauthorized people aren’t entering campus.
  • Security cameras must monitor hallways so office staff can monitor them for intruders.
  • All schools must have armed security on campus during school hours.
  • All classrooms must be locked except during period changes.
  • Train teachers and students on how to barricade classrooms, which turned into a pissing contest between teachers and cops.

That doesn’t mean that Florida is perfect. They failed in one area when they instituted a “guardian” program to allow teachers who volunteer for over 100 hours of training to carry weapons on campus. The failure was that any teacher wanting to be a guardian is subject to a requirement that they be approved by both the county sheriff and the Superintendent of the school district. This has resulted in no schools arming teachers in the entire state, with the exception of the superintendents and their chosen friends in each school district. This means that maybe a dozen or so teachers at most are approved in each district, and they are likely to be office personnel that are not present on school campuses, but rather in the district central office, where no students are present. The guardian program wound up being a waste of time, like may issue.

In summary, the only way to reduce the number of school shootings is make the school a less attractive target. Single point access control is just one of several things that need to happen.

By Divemedic, ago

Political Sell Out

Mitch McConnell is about to sell out gun owners. Reports on CNN that McConnell has encouraged Texas Sen. John Cornyn to begin discussions with Democrats to see if they can find a middle ground on pass gun control legislation in the wake of the Texas elementary school shooting.

The Republicans are about to sell out gun owners in order to gain political capital to get some other Republican project a green light. This is why I can’t trust Republicans. They always find a way to feather their own nest at the expense of gun owners.

I used to say that I would never vote Democrat, because Democrats are evil. The problem is that voting Republican isn’t much better, because Republicans will sell out in order to get money or remain in power. Perhaps it would be better to vote for the most lefty politicians there are, so we can get the fight started. I’m not getting any younger, and if it’s inevitable, we might as well get it started while I can still contribute.

By Divemedic, ago

Ghost Guns

While the attack on semiautos is ramping up, it’s easy to forget about the ongoing efforts to make homemade firearms illegal.

This is why I no longer argue about gun control. The only answer you get from me is: NO!

Any further debate is useless and is a waste of time.

By Divemedic, ago