Pretty much everyone agrees that some level of infringement is appropriate; even the NRA's not out there campaigning for the right to bear nuclear arms.
Same with free speech. Libel is speech; it's never been protected speech, despite the general wording of the First Amendment.
> Pretty much everyone agrees that some level of infringement is appropriate; even the NRA's not out there campaigning for the right to bear nuclear arms.
> Same with free speech. Libel is speech; it's never been protected speech, despite the general wording of the First Amendment.
Though it's worth noting the allowed infringements on free speech by the government are incredibly narrow.
It was the NRA in the 1920s that proposed that states require a permit to carry a concealed weapon, longer prison sentences if a gun is used in a crime, a waiting period on gun purchases, and the gun sale records be made available to the police. The NRA proposal was adopted by several states.
The NRA helped draft the 1934 National Firearms Act and the 1938 Gun Control Act, which were the first federal gun control laws.
This sort of thing continue through the 1960s with the NRA supporting California's Mulford Act of 1967 which banned carrying loaded weapons in public.
They also supported the Gun Control Act of 1968, which added minimum age requirements, serial number requirements, banned guns for the mentally ill and for drug addicts, restricted shipping across state lines except to collectors and federally licensed dealers, and required showing ID to purchase some types of ammo. (It originally was going to also mandate a national registry of all guns and licensing for all guns, which the NRA objected to and were removed from the bill).
It wasn't until the early 1970s that the flipped from supporting quite a bit of gun control to opposing nearly all gun control.
No, pretty much everyone doesn’t agree that some level of infringement is okay.
The nuclear arms strawman is a long way from the myriad of restrictions, registrations and required permission for personal weapons. Remember that during the revolution, citizens owned personal cannons and warships with cannons, not to mention bombs. If they didn’t see fit to restrict the most destructive weapons of their day, why should we do so now?
And why would you trust the citizens in your government with nuclear arms, but not the citizens your government serves?
The conservative rhetoric around "This is what the founders said, and is therefore correct" is pure faith. Personally speaking, I couldn't give less of a crap what they thought. My opinion is the general concept is sound, but the founders were men from the 1700s who didn't have modern values or the benefit of hindsight. So much of the constitution was just a compromise between the people who happened to be there. I don't think we need to scrap the whole thing, but the argument from authority that the founders believed X, Y, and Z is pure nonsense. Who cares? They're dead. We've had nearly 250 years to learn more about what works and what doesn't.
If someone wants to make a faith based argument that democracy itself is a better idea than a monarchy or a dictatorship, that's fine since that's really a pure philosophical position, but the constitution is real document that affects real things and was written by men. It can and should be revised.
> the argument from authority that the founders believed X, Y, and Z is pure nonsense. Who cares? They're dead. We've had nearly 250 years to learn more about what works and what doesn't.
Sure but this is a straw man. The constitution provides mechanisms for it to be changed. It has been in effect for 231 years and amended 27 times.
In general with laws, I think intent matters a lot. If the law is bad, we should change it to reflect that rather than create a twisted interpretation to suit whoever is in power.
This is a bill by Sheila Jackson Lee, one of the dumbest members of Congress. The internet is full of examples of her cognitive difficulties, such as comments about Neil Armstrong landing on Mars, two Vietnams, and perhaps more to the point, our 400 year old Constitution.
I will never understand how everyone forgets the first part of the second amendment. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State". That pesky regulated Militia part that everyone skips over. Since the only "regulated militia" in the United States, currently, is the National Guard, that seems to state that you can't infringe on their ability to posses and carry fire arms.
Not the weekend cosplayers and gun collectors. If both the Army and the NG are against you, you lose. Your AR-15 is no match to APCs with rudimentary night vision let alone tanks/artillery/air support.
-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
People try to twist it up to mean that only well regulated Militias have the right to keep and bear arms, but it's pretty clear that the Founding Fathers did not mean that in any way. Private citizens owned cannons and freaking war ships back then.
> Symbolic gesture that won't pass, and will be used against the dems (rightfully) in 2022.
Since the Dems have the power to pass it, if it won't pass, it probably won't be used against “the Dems” generally.
It probably won't be used to much effect against even those that support it, since those that support it will probably be those whose constituents do, too.
How does Congress expect to pass legislation like this when there is a 6-3 conservative judge majority who will almost certainly defend maximalist interpretations of the 2nd amendment?
Because there was essentially nothing in between 1789 and the rise of the modern "gun rights" movement starting in the 80s to support it. The current interpretation would have been completely preposterous in the 60s and 70s. Just see how gun laws were used against the Black Panthers in the 60s.
Good point, we aren't generally allowed to own RPGs and attack helicopters, so it's not maximalist. However, RPGs and helicopters were not around at the time of the passing of the amendment, so I'm not sure we can that it is historically and textually accurate. For that matter, the guns this legislation would target weren't around then either, so I'm not sure how useful that criteria really is.
If I had to guess, I'd say they could wait for the next highly publicized shooting event. A compliant media will create hysteria as always. Aside from partisan concerns, fear drives media engagement. It isn't hard to imagine how such a scenario could be leveraged to get a bill like this passed.
If the courts strike it down later, they'll cross that bridge when they come to it.
No meaningful gun control came about after Sandy Hook (where someone took out an entire classroom of first graders) nor Las Vegas (where one man shot 411 people).
I think most of the Democrats at this point have come around to the "nothing's gonna happen, stop spending political capital on it" approach by now. This legislation is by one of the... quirkier members of Congress, with no cosponsors.
> How does Congress expect to pass legislation like this when there is a 6-3 conservative judge majority who will almost certainly defend maximalist interpretations of the 2nd amendment?
(1) The Supreme Court has no role in whether legislation passes.
(2) “A member of Congress, as sole sponsor with no cosponsors, introduces a bill” isn't evidence that Congress, as a whole, thinks anything positive about the subject matter, political prospects, or, were it to pass, post-adoption legal prospects of the bill.
I understand that, I was a step ahead of myself in my mind. My question is better phrased as: why write legislation at all if you think the Supreme Court would very likely strike it down were it passed? What is the point of this effort?
Posturing, advertising, showing that you are doing something and it's everyone else standing in your way. Of course, that's only weakly grounded in reality, but maybe still worth doing from an electoral standpoint.
On a more credulous note, it may also be valuable from a deliberative perspective to have these discussions in the body even if they don't result in change in the short term. That's undermined by the fact that the chamber is often pretty empty during debate, and that members of congress (and their staffs) can talk outside of the chamber, but it may still have an element of truth to it.
Every time the Democratic Party get some power they immediately pivot to gun control which is the ONE major issue outside abortion that motivates the other side to vote. It’s like they can’t help shooting themselves in the foot.
Last I checked, long firearms (non-handgun, which includes AR-15 scary black guns and shotguns and anything not holdable by one hand) only accounted for less than 500 fatalities in the United States per year. Whatever your political leaning, this is not a particularly high number considering the other public health issues the US faces. Anyone have more up to date data on that? Last source I checked was 2009 FBI data.
> Every time the Democratic Party get some power they immediately pivot to gun control which is the ONE major issue outside abortion that motivates the other side to vote. It’s like they can’t help shooting themselves in the foot.
Yeah, it's baffling. Honestly, if they dropped the maximalist gun control agenda (and letting people know with stunts like AOC and Pelosi going trap shooting or something) and make it easy for reps from anti-abortion districts to be anti-abortion, I think they could literally break the back of the Republican party and get a lot of good things done in the process.
I might just have missed it, but I didn't see much of that recently? I don't think a bill by a single rep that didn't even find co-sponsors for it counts as a party pivot.
One big problem I noticed about gun death charts in the US compared to other countries lies in the data.
Look at the chart names. Fbi Gun deaths in the US and gun death crimes in whatever country they're comparing too. A third of US gun deaths are suicides, according to the FBI. With suicides, it's like 10-11 deaths per capita. Without, it's like 6-7 per capita. Countries with heavy gun restrictions, like England have around 5 to 6 deaths per same capita. Gun bans dont solve anywhere near as much as people think.
Indeed. And now look at Czechia and Switzerland, the European countries with unusually large private gun ownership. These countries are actually safer than the other! Responsibly regulated gun ownership helps.
I'd advise against using Swiss statistics to draw too many conclusions. It may serve as evidence that a society can be safe despite the presence of guns but it doesn't serve as evidence that taking away guns from Americans will do anything in particular.
How do the suicide rates in other countries compare? Is there an argument to be made that reducing access to guns increases the barrier to suicide and therefore decreases the numbers?
In 2018, there were 48,344 recorded suicides, up from 42,773 in 2014, according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). On average, adjusted for age, the annual U.S. suicide rate increased 24% between 1999 and 2014, from 10.5 to 13.0 suicides per 100,000 people, the highest rate recorded in 28 years.
England suicide rate
The suicide rate of 11.2 deaths per 100,000 population recorded by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in 2018 is an increase on the 10.1 per 100,000 population recorded in 2017, which was the lowest since the organisation began recording data on suicide in the United Kingdom in 1981.
Singapore suicide rate (considered the strictest on guns)
There were 397 reported suicides in 2018, compared with 361 the year before. This raised the suicide rate to 8.36 deaths per 100,000 Singapore residents, up from 7.74 in 2017. All age groups, except those aged 60 years and above, recorded an increase in the number of suicides, said the suicide prevention agency.
These are overall suicides, not by method. I highly doubt there's any statistical significance in proving that no access to guns results in people not wanting to kill themselves. The argument literally then turns to, "Because guns exist, people want to kill themselves. It has nothing to do with relationship, ptsd, financial or existential issues. Strictly their access to guns."
You have a general increase of suicides throughout the Vietnam war and then for about 3 years after it ended (1975). In the little bit of googling, I can't find solid numbers, but during that 2000s increase timeframe, there was also a report that more vets died by suicide than by actual conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.
>Every time the Democratic Party get some power they immediately pivot to gun control which is the ONE major issue outside abortion that motivates the other side to vote. It’s like they can’t help shooting themselves in the foot.
Not unlike many politicians in other countries with only 2 parties. You fight to gain control but did you really win? You earnt the vote of many people who would have voted for you regardless because your opponent was hated that much.
Then you start implementing changes but even your own support do not agree with the actions you are taking. So you have not won the election if your own support abandons you.
>Last I checked, long firearms (non-handgun, which includes AR-15 scary black guns and shotguns and anything not holdable by one hand) only accounted for less than 500 fatalities in the United States per year.
This is accurate. There's a very clear explanation. The firearm deaths per capita is high-ish for the USA. Which is what the democrats want to fix. The unspoken other reality is that it's not homicide but rather suicide. People dont commit suicide with long guns.
Flipside, in situations like homicide. Do outright gun bans end firearm homicides? Absolutely. Does it have any appreciable effect on homicides though? Actually the opposite. For some reason the years after gun bans usually increases homicides quite significantly. Banning guns dont stop people from wanting to kill other people. They will go get knives or whatever other weapon.
The ultimate goal of gun bans isn't reduction in harm. It's about political and social control. Cant be having any peasant revolts.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
“A bill with a single sponsor and no cosponsors was introduced on a perennial hot button issue” is (1) about politics and (2) not evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
It amazes me that a sitting congressperson thinks that this law would pass the strict scrutiny (or even intermediate scrutiny) test before the Supreme Court.
The licensing requirements are far from the "least restrictive means" to serve the state interest of preventing firearm fatalities. And the prison terms and fines are grossly excessive -- a prison term of 10-15 years and a fine of $50,000+ for handing a gun to an unlicensed person, plus 15-25 years in prison and a $75,000+ fine for the person receiving it? Come on. That's insane.
Proposing legislation like this serves no purpose but to gin up controversy.
As an original software developer of the FBI NICS system this will involve massive technology changes. One point that stands out is the "public access database" of this proposed system which all reading this likely can formulate an opinion around the government and cybersecurity. Is this a timing play? -The NRA in shambles and looking to physically restructure while the Congress proposes new bills to thwart the gun violence. Creative none the less, sure you have the right to bear arms per the U.S. constitution but those arms are of no use if you cannot obtain ammunition.
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[ 5.9 ms ] story [ 141 ms ] threadSame with free speech. Libel is speech; it's never been protected speech, despite the general wording of the First Amendment.
On the other hand manpads and anti-tank missiles seem like a good fit considering the intention.
> Same with free speech. Libel is speech; it's never been protected speech, despite the general wording of the First Amendment.
Though it's worth noting the allowed infringements on free speech by the government are incredibly narrow.
It was the NRA in the 1920s that proposed that states require a permit to carry a concealed weapon, longer prison sentences if a gun is used in a crime, a waiting period on gun purchases, and the gun sale records be made available to the police. The NRA proposal was adopted by several states.
The NRA helped draft the 1934 National Firearms Act and the 1938 Gun Control Act, which were the first federal gun control laws.
This sort of thing continue through the 1960s with the NRA supporting California's Mulford Act of 1967 which banned carrying loaded weapons in public.
They also supported the Gun Control Act of 1968, which added minimum age requirements, serial number requirements, banned guns for the mentally ill and for drug addicts, restricted shipping across state lines except to collectors and federally licensed dealers, and required showing ID to purchase some types of ammo. (It originally was going to also mandate a national registry of all guns and licensing for all guns, which the NRA objected to and were removed from the bill).
It wasn't until the early 1970s that the flipped from supporting quite a bit of gun control to opposing nearly all gun control.
The nuclear arms strawman is a long way from the myriad of restrictions, registrations and required permission for personal weapons. Remember that during the revolution, citizens owned personal cannons and warships with cannons, not to mention bombs. If they didn’t see fit to restrict the most destructive weapons of their day, why should we do so now?
And why would you trust the citizens in your government with nuclear arms, but not the citizens your government serves?
“Private citizens have a First Amendment right to nuclear arms” is a fringe position.
"do you believe in our constitution?"
"yes of course"
"obviously you are a right wing extremist so we're gonna confiscate your guns and send you to re-education camp"
The conservative rhetoric around "This is what the founders said, and is therefore correct" is pure faith. Personally speaking, I couldn't give less of a crap what they thought. My opinion is the general concept is sound, but the founders were men from the 1700s who didn't have modern values or the benefit of hindsight. So much of the constitution was just a compromise between the people who happened to be there. I don't think we need to scrap the whole thing, but the argument from authority that the founders believed X, Y, and Z is pure nonsense. Who cares? They're dead. We've had nearly 250 years to learn more about what works and what doesn't.
If someone wants to make a faith based argument that democracy itself is a better idea than a monarchy or a dictatorship, that's fine since that's really a pure philosophical position, but the constitution is real document that affects real things and was written by men. It can and should be revised.
Sure but this is a straw man. The constitution provides mechanisms for it to be changed. It has been in effect for 231 years and amended 27 times.
In general with laws, I think intent matters a lot. If the law is bad, we should change it to reflect that rather than create a twisted interpretation to suit whoever is in power.
It's not that people skip over it, it's that it's interpreted differently depending upon who you're talking to and/or whose ax is being ground.
The article below goes over a large amount of the differing interpretations and historical contexts of that phrase:
https://reason.com/2019/11/03/what-is-a-well-regulated-milit...
-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
People try to twist it up to mean that only well regulated Militias have the right to keep and bear arms, but it's pretty clear that the Founding Fathers did not mean that in any way. Private citizens owned cannons and freaking war ships back then.
At the time it was written ‘militia’ meant every able bodied adult male, and ‘well regulated’ meant something like ‘suitably prepared’.
There are debates about this, but a simple modern reading of some kind of rule based army is not likely to be what was meant.
Since the Dems have the power to pass it, if it won't pass, it probably won't be used against “the Dems” generally.
It probably won't be used to much effect against even those that support it, since those that support it will probably be those whose constituents do, too.
If the courts strike it down later, they'll cross that bridge when they come to it.
I think most of the Democrats at this point have come around to the "nothing's gonna happen, stop spending political capital on it" approach by now. This legislation is by one of the... quirkier members of Congress, with no cosponsors.
Although that is the only way I can see something like this passing.
(1) The Supreme Court has no role in whether legislation passes.
(2) “A member of Congress, as sole sponsor with no cosponsors, introduces a bill” isn't evidence that Congress, as a whole, thinks anything positive about the subject matter, political prospects, or, were it to pass, post-adoption legal prospects of the bill.
It's discussed a bit here: https://theconstitutionalist.org/2021/01/27/from-insincere-v...
On a more credulous note, it may also be valuable from a deliberative perspective to have these discussions in the body even if they don't result in change in the short term. That's undermined by the fact that the chamber is often pretty empty during debate, and that members of congress (and their staffs) can talk outside of the chamber, but it may still have an element of truth to it.
Last I checked, long firearms (non-handgun, which includes AR-15 scary black guns and shotguns and anything not holdable by one hand) only accounted for less than 500 fatalities in the United States per year. Whatever your political leaning, this is not a particularly high number considering the other public health issues the US faces. Anyone have more up to date data on that? Last source I checked was 2009 FBI data.
Yeah, it's baffling. Honestly, if they dropped the maximalist gun control agenda (and letting people know with stunts like AOC and Pelosi going trap shooting or something) and make it easy for reps from anti-abortion districts to be anti-abortion, I think they could literally break the back of the Republican party and get a lot of good things done in the process.
I might just have missed it, but I didn't see much of that recently? I don't think a bill by a single rep that didn't even find co-sponsors for it counts as a party pivot.
Look at the chart names. Fbi Gun deaths in the US and gun death crimes in whatever country they're comparing too. A third of US gun deaths are suicides, according to the FBI. With suicides, it's like 10-11 deaths per capita. Without, it's like 6-7 per capita. Countries with heavy gun restrictions, like England have around 5 to 6 deaths per same capita. Gun bans dont solve anywhere near as much as people think.
US suicide rate
In 2018, there were 48,344 recorded suicides, up from 42,773 in 2014, according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). On average, adjusted for age, the annual U.S. suicide rate increased 24% between 1999 and 2014, from 10.5 to 13.0 suicides per 100,000 people, the highest rate recorded in 28 years.
England suicide rate
The suicide rate of 11.2 deaths per 100,000 population recorded by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in 2018 is an increase on the 10.1 per 100,000 population recorded in 2017, which was the lowest since the organisation began recording data on suicide in the United Kingdom in 1981.
Singapore suicide rate (considered the strictest on guns)
There were 397 reported suicides in 2018, compared with 361 the year before. This raised the suicide rate to 8.36 deaths per 100,000 Singapore residents, up from 7.74 in 2017. All age groups, except those aged 60 years and above, recorded an increase in the number of suicides, said the suicide prevention agency.
These are overall suicides, not by method. I highly doubt there's any statistical significance in proving that no access to guns results in people not wanting to kill themselves. The argument literally then turns to, "Because guns exist, people want to kill themselves. It has nothing to do with relationship, ptsd, financial or existential issues. Strictly their access to guns."
That uptick the US had for suicides, how much you want to bet that's due to neglected veterans after Iraq and Afghanistan? Looking at the bottom chart for US suicides: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States#:....
You have a general increase of suicides throughout the Vietnam war and then for about 3 years after it ended (1975). In the little bit of googling, I can't find solid numbers, but during that 2000s increase timeframe, there was also a report that more vets died by suicide than by actual conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Not unlike many politicians in other countries with only 2 parties. You fight to gain control but did you really win? You earnt the vote of many people who would have voted for you regardless because your opponent was hated that much.
Then you start implementing changes but even your own support do not agree with the actions you are taking. So you have not won the election if your own support abandons you.
>Last I checked, long firearms (non-handgun, which includes AR-15 scary black guns and shotguns and anything not holdable by one hand) only accounted for less than 500 fatalities in the United States per year.
This is accurate. There's a very clear explanation. The firearm deaths per capita is high-ish for the USA. Which is what the democrats want to fix. The unspoken other reality is that it's not homicide but rather suicide. People dont commit suicide with long guns.
Flipside, in situations like homicide. Do outright gun bans end firearm homicides? Absolutely. Does it have any appreciable effect on homicides though? Actually the opposite. For some reason the years after gun bans usually increases homicides quite significantly. Banning guns dont stop people from wanting to kill other people. They will go get knives or whatever other weapon.
The ultimate goal of gun bans isn't reduction in harm. It's about political and social control. Cant be having any peasant revolts.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
“A bill with a single sponsor and no cosponsors was introduced on a perennial hot button issue” is (1) about politics and (2) not evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
The licensing requirements are far from the "least restrictive means" to serve the state interest of preventing firearm fatalities. And the prison terms and fines are grossly excessive -- a prison term of 10-15 years and a fine of $50,000+ for handing a gun to an unlicensed person, plus 15-25 years in prison and a $75,000+ fine for the person receiving it? Come on. That's insane.
Proposing legislation like this serves no purpose but to gin up controversy.