"He (Bush) speaks to the audience as if they're idiots. I think the reason he does that is because that's the way these issues were explained to him." - Graydon Carter
Except it ain't Bush that's been the leader in the war on guns. That responsibility rest squarely on the shoulders of the liberals. If the 2nd amendment hadn't being watered down to some bullshit 'collective' right by racist and classicist Democrats, there'd be no need to stress to the Federal and state governments who exactly was in charge.
Of all the rights the Conservative's have attacked in their war on drugs (one which the democrats seem to buy into as well) none have been watered down, hedged, limited and restricted nearly as much as the 2nd Amendment. Anyone ever hear of background checks and waiting periods for things like ibuprofin? What about a Federal tax with fingerprints and photos as well as Local Police chief sign off for an abortion? A Federal Agency dedicated to making sure people pray in where they're supposed to?
Hell, most conservatives carry a pocket knife, if liberals were given any credence, those knives in the poster would be illegal to possess or carry. Just like in the UK.
Do you really view background checks and waiting periods as a war on guns?
Is some sort of prior restraint relating to abortions war on women's rights or not? Seems I've heard even minor limits to abortion decried as a war on women's rights.
I mean, some places have graduated licencing for cars, and everybody does driver testing, but I never hear anybody complaining about the war on cars.
You do not need a license to buy or own a car. You don't need a license to possess a car. There are no background checks, limits on purchase, and other factors. If someone takes a car and misuses it while drunk, no-one thinks that you could sue GM to say that the car manufacturer was at fault for the misuse of the car. If you misuse a car and have an accident, you're not going to permanently loose your right to own or operate a car. You don't need to get the permission of a local law enforcement officer to buy a car nor to drive it. If you complain that your application is taking too long, you're not denied the transfer of the registration of your car. If you move from one county or another, your car license doesn't' become invalid. If you drive to another state, you don't have to worry if that state recognizes your state's driver's license.
I have two books that are about a inch and a half thick, fine paper printing that are state and federal laws on firearms alone. They're mostly criminal in nature. Most auto infractions are basic fines and penalties. Hell, you can kill someone with an a failure to yield/left turn and be liable for a single <$1000 fine in most states and keep your license.
Proposals for laws at the state and federal level have varied from this gun is too small and should be banned (Pocket rockets aka compact handguns), to this gun is too fast firing and powerful and should be banned(assault weapons aka semi-automatic rifles), to this gun is too powerful and accurate (Sniper rifles aka deer rifles). I've seen attempts to limit ammo based on a 2000% Tax. Assault weapons were banned on the basis of their powerful cartridges and fast follow on shots when the range of cartridges was from .22 rimfire to .308. One weapon was illegal and made you subject to a 10 year federal jail term while the same weapon with a different hand grip was perfectly legal. Magazines over 10 rounds were banned, but any already in circulation were legal. This was like having an Audi A4 totally legal, but an Audi TT considered law enforcement only. But if you put different tires on your A4, you were liable for jail time. Does a spoiler added to a car make it a Formula One racing car? It does in the gunworld.
Currently, there's a limit on the number of imported parts in a semi-automatic firearm. Use too many non US made parts and you're liable for jail, this isn't protectionism, it's based on ATF regs to try to limit imports of demilled rifles that people then legally reassemble from locally made receivers. ATF can write new regs and apply thim without congressional approval. Most recent was the ban on imported barrel parts, this raised a big uproar and I think they've backed down.
Then there's the ATF and their method of prosecuting crimes. They claim to NEVER make mistakes and will testify to that fact under oath, yet a director was video taped saying they will always testify to that fact, even though they know they've made raids to arrest someone for violation of Federal laws when the subject of the raid was perfectly in compliance and had the ATF filed paperwork to prove it and was waving it in their faces. The ATF has a serious number of errors in the NFA registry of 728,000 legally held machine guns, yet, refuses to acknowledge that fact.
Is some sort of prior restraint relating to abortions war on women's rights or not? Seems I've heard even minor limits to abortion decried as a war on women's rights.
You're comparing apples and oranges. Access to a medical procedure is in a completely different realm of discussion.
I used cars as a comparison because they are also a tool designed for a specific purpose, which can cause death or harm if misused. (And I happen to think that penalties for deliberately misusing a motor vehicle, such as driving drunk, should get your driving priveleges yanked for a life, but that's a seperate argument.)
Most of what you write seems to point to a need for consistancy in regulation. I'll have a closer look at your links when I get some time.
You're comparing apples and oranges. Access to a medical procedure is in a completely different realm of discussion.
I'm comparing rights that have serious repercussions. Abortion is in fact one of those. It is the termination of a life at some point. Certainly in the last trimester up to the last day of pregnancy it is the death of something that is either alive or nearly just. Given that there's no hard day of its not alive/its alive, there's some fuzzy point between the transition from a part of the mother's body to an as yet unborn life.
Firearms are just as grave but aren't the pet right of the left (unless it's the right of the government to exert deadly force on the population which is how it's couched half the time by democrats). The right of self defense is a basic right. No-one in their right mind can argue against that point. Yet, there are an inch and a half of laws in two binders above me, what are the regulations on speech, abortion or other rights again? Most laws aimed at restricting speech for example are struck down on the basis of prior restraint (CDA for example) regardless of the harmful effects of such speech.
I used cars as a comparison because they are also a tool designed for a specific purpose, which can cause death or harm if misused. (And I happen to think that penalties for deliberately misusing a motor vehicle, such as driving drunk, should get your driving priveleges yanked for a life, but that's a separate argument.)
If we're comparing accidental and criminal use, then cars are a hell of a lot more dangerous based on their US national 'accidental' death rates of 40,000 people per year. Firearms have something like 600 deaths per year relating to accidental uses. Seems to me, automobiles are far more dangerous to the users or others around and yet there's no cries for stricter licensing or regulation of cars is there?
Checkout www.guncite.com as well. Lots of material there.
Further, the ATF tech branch has wildly varied ideas of what makes a Machine Gun and how you test for that fact. Is it a part, or is it the receiver, is it a combination? If they can rig a gun with Rube Goldberg arrangements of zip ties, string, wire and fix it to a bench and make it fire more than once they can consider it to be a functional machine gun and you can be arrested and charged with a serious felony. Yet they've also gone as far as to say that if a firearm can be modified by a gunsmith in 8 hours it's a machine gun, a competent gunsmith could build a machine gun from scratch in that time in some cases.
There IS a war on guns. You're on the front lines. Look at the Canadian registration program. If it continues, I guarantee it will result in confiscations in 10 years. The Canadian program for licensing was upped from $5 for the license years ago to $25 per arm. The British and Australian registration programs did. It's happened in some US states too. New Jersey had an Assault weapons registration some time back, it resulted later on in a confiscation in the 80s iirc.
"He (Bush) speaks to the audience as if they're idiots. I think the reason he does that is because that's the way these issues were explained to him." - Graydon Carter
I think there's alot of other freedoms that nim-rod is intrested in having us loose. Now there's talk of foreign companies buying our highways, there's the talk of our ports being bought by Arabian nations (doesn't every arab govt have some tie in to a terroist group) I sincerly think that the use of fear (9-11) should be illegal in campaigning. The whole stick a boot up their ass routine has gotten us into this mess. War on drugs? The war on drugs has been used since the mid 1980's reagan era by your Weapons manufactureres, police equipment manufacturerers, big buisness, to make more money. The war on teh potheads has turned alot of people in law enforcement and all the related buisness's that are supplying law enforcemant with their armamant. Now mind you, I'm not some anti gun, anti war anti all american pothead, that thinks the bush/cheney/haliburton Administration and the religous republican right is out to turn this country into a money making machine for christians with political convitions. I love guns....got four of im myself... but I also realise that this country, that has been worried about whats been going on in the mid east sooo much, has let so much at home go to shit it's not even funny. And loosing the seconded amendmant has ntohing to do with it.
It's depressing, history will show how badly this admin has fuct this country up, it will take years to get it back into shape, and the war on terror, and the war on drugs are two things that running it into the ground. I just hope that this is all over by the time my boy gets ready to go into the world to make his way. And doesn't have to struggle.
Goddamn, I didnt' feel political this morning when I woke up!
Get the facts straight, the Dubai flap wasn't about the ports being "purchased", the ports were NEVER for sale, rather the contract to operate the port. It's a significant difference. Further, I suspect the highways issue is probably one of who maintains the roads and contracts out the operation of tollways. This is no different than a lot of other privatization measures that have gone on. More over, now that the Democrats have a nice "we're for security too" feather in their cap, they'll pleasantly ignore the basic fact that there STILL isn't any real funding for radiation detectors at the major container ports nor is there any real strengthening of our port infrastructure. The only benefit is that the issue was brought out in the open, as it should be, transparent and public.
If you're really going to sort out the port's deal, then you need to draw up new rules on what corporations can operate what contracts in the US and how much of those corporations can be held or operated by foreign governments.
I sincerely think that the use of fear (9-11) should be illegal in campaigning.
You claim to be worried about freedoms, but you propose that to insure it you restrict it? Pot, Kettle, Black. Don't defend something by proposing to restrict it. Please!
Even in this we have bi-partisan problem. Russ Fiengold and John McCain both think that Campaign finance needs to be reformed. The process of doing this will make the campaign finance system more abstract and insure that those in power stay in power. Money will still flow to the parties, but will take even more convoluted paths. Somehow, speech on the internet has been decided as being money and that can be regulated, so speech on the internet (or anywhere else in support of a campaign) is regulated. Sounds like a basic violation of 1st amendment rights to me. Many very intelligent people agree, yet the Federal Court that saw the case thought differently. Why is that?
The war on drugs is a sticky tar baby that's based on a desire for morality. However it's just like prohibition, it feeds the monster making it grow by trying to fight it. If the Democrats got off their "Not the Republicans" platform and really started standing up for our rights they'd get a lot more votes than they currently get. But they're too interested in pushing their new form of socialism if anything and can't get out of the corner they painted themselves into. If Democrats actually proposed a real system of legal drugs that wouldn't cost the government a single red cent and was harsh with people that used drugs in public or when operating equipment, then they'd actually be standing for something good. So far, they haven't. They're part of the problem too.
The Second Amendment rest on the basic perspective that you are your own first and last guardian. You are the defender of your safety and that of your family. Not the state. Welfare, taxes, nanny state ideals all touch on this, but ultimately it comes down to who takes care of you and who do you call for help. Federal case law dictates that the police are NOT responsible for your safety, yet there are places across the country where you have to show some significant cause or be famous or special to possess a firearm for self defense. The argument that is usually made in defense of this is that you're not the cops so you shouldn't have one. Yet, it's not the cops that typically get robbed or worse is it? If we tossed out this idea that the state is the one that comes to help you when you're hurt first last and always, the above poster would be less of a threat. People that choose to trade security for freedom be it in the form of more cops in lieu of their own actions or people that partake of a welfare state their whole lives when they have the means not to are directly involved in making the state our parents and removing our own choice from the equation.
Just look at the flap over Katrina and Federal response. That sorely proves my point. And illustrates the dichotomy in ideals of people that were down there. Some chose to stay and wait out the storm and it's after affects, they prepared ahead of time, had arms, fuel, water, supplies etc and were good. Others were used to living off the largesse of the state and when the state was not there, they demanded it come from the federal government. And then the chose to milk that cow for all it was worth. More interestingly some thought it wise to go around and forcibly remove people from their homes and/or disarm them when they were perfectly safe in their environs. What's wrong with this picture? Patricia Konie is a poster child for this. I hope she sues the shit out of the State, city and agencies involved in her kidnapping, assault and robbery. Question is, will the lesson sink in?
no subject
Of all the rights the Conservative's have attacked in their war on drugs (one which the democrats seem to buy into as well) none have been watered down, hedged, limited and restricted nearly as much as the 2nd Amendment. Anyone ever hear of background checks and waiting periods for things like ibuprofin? What about a Federal tax with fingerprints and photos as well as Local Police chief sign off for an abortion? A Federal Agency dedicated to making sure people pray in where they're supposed to?
Hell, most conservatives carry a pocket knife, if liberals were given any credence, those knives in the poster would be illegal to possess or carry. Just like in the UK.
no subject
I mean, some places have graduated licencing for cars, and everybody does driver testing, but I never hear anybody complaining about the war on cars.
no subject
Is some sort of prior restraint relating to abortions war on women's rights or not? Seems I've heard even minor limits to abortion decried as a war on women's rights.
I mean, some places have graduated licencing for cars, and everybody does driver testing, but I never hear anybody complaining about the war on cars.
You do not need a license to buy or own a car. You don't need a license to possess a car. There are no background checks, limits on purchase, and other factors. If someone takes a car and misuses it while drunk, no-one thinks that you could sue GM to say that the car manufacturer was at fault for the misuse of the car. If you misuse a car and have an accident, you're not going to permanently loose your right to own or operate a car. You don't need to get the permission of a local law enforcement officer to buy a car nor to drive it. If you complain that your application is taking too long, you're not denied the transfer of the registration of your car. If you move from one county or another, your car license doesn't' become invalid. If you drive to another state, you don't have to worry if that state recognizes your state's driver's license.
I have two books that are about a inch and a half thick, fine paper printing that are state and federal laws on firearms alone. They're mostly criminal in nature. Most auto infractions are basic fines and penalties. Hell, you can kill someone with an a failure to yield/left turn and be liable for a single <$1000 fine in most states and keep your license.
Proposals for laws at the state and federal level have varied from this gun is too small and should be banned (Pocket rockets aka compact handguns), to this gun is too fast firing and powerful and should be banned(assault weapons aka semi-automatic rifles), to this gun is too powerful and accurate (Sniper rifles aka deer rifles). I've seen attempts to limit ammo based on a 2000% Tax. Assault weapons were banned on the basis of their powerful cartridges and fast follow on shots when the range of cartridges was from .22 rimfire to .308. One weapon was illegal and made you subject to a 10 year federal jail term while the same weapon with a different hand grip was perfectly legal. Magazines over 10 rounds were banned, but any already in circulation were legal. This was like having an Audi A4 totally legal, but an Audi TT considered law enforcement only. But if you put different tires on your A4, you were liable for jail time. Does a spoiler added to a car make it a Formula One racing car? It does in the gunworld.
Currently, there's a limit on the number of imported parts in a semi-automatic firearm. Use too many non US made parts and you're liable for jail, this isn't protectionism, it's based on ATF regs to try to limit imports of demilled rifles that people then legally reassemble from locally made receivers. ATF can write new regs and apply thim without congressional approval. Most recent was the ban on imported barrel parts, this raised a big uproar and I think they've backed down.
Then there's the ATF and their method of prosecuting crimes. They claim to NEVER make mistakes and will testify to that fact under oath, yet a director was video taped saying they will always testify to that fact, even though they know they've made raids to arrest someone for violation of Federal laws when the subject of the raid was perfectly in compliance and had the ATF filed paperwork to prove it and was waving it in their faces. The ATF has a serious number of errors in the NFA registry of 728,000 legally held machine guns, yet, refuses to acknowledge that fact.
no subject
You're comparing apples and oranges. Access to a medical procedure is in a completely different realm of discussion.
I used cars as a comparison because they are also a tool designed for a specific purpose, which can cause death or harm if misused. (And I happen to think that penalties for deliberately misusing a motor vehicle, such as driving drunk, should get your driving priveleges yanked for a life, but that's a seperate argument.)
Most of what you write seems to point to a need for consistancy in regulation. I'll have a closer look at your links when I get some time.
no subject
I'm comparing rights that have serious repercussions. Abortion is in fact one of those. It is the termination of a life at some point. Certainly in the last trimester up to the last day of pregnancy it is the death of something that is either alive or nearly just. Given that there's no hard day of its not alive/its alive, there's some fuzzy point between the transition from a part of the mother's body to an as yet unborn life.
Firearms are just as grave but aren't the pet right of the left (unless it's the right of the government to exert deadly force on the population which is how it's couched half the time by democrats). The right of self defense is a basic right. No-one in their right mind can argue against that point. Yet, there are an inch and a half of laws in two binders above me, what are the regulations on speech, abortion or other rights again? Most laws aimed at restricting speech for example are struck down on the basis of prior restraint (CDA for example) regardless of the harmful effects of such speech.
I used cars as a comparison because they are also a tool designed for a specific purpose, which can cause death or harm if misused. (And I happen to think that penalties for deliberately misusing a motor vehicle, such as driving drunk, should get your driving priveleges yanked for a life, but that's a separate argument.)
If we're comparing accidental and criminal use, then cars are a hell of a lot more dangerous based on their US national 'accidental' death rates of 40,000 people per year. Firearms have something like 600 deaths per year relating to accidental uses. Seems to me, automobiles are far more dangerous to the users or others around and yet there's no cries for stricter licensing or regulation of cars is there?
Checkout www.guncite.com as well. Lots of material there.
no subject
Then there's the ATF going around and harassing people in Virginia at Gunshows. Fishing for crimes and harassing law abiding citizens.
There IS a war on guns. You're on the front lines. Look at the Canadian registration program. If it continues, I guarantee it will result in confiscations in 10 years. The Canadian program for licensing was upped from $5 for the license years ago to $25 per arm. The British and Australian registration programs did. It's happened in some US states too. New Jersey had an Assault weapons registration some time back, it resulted later on in a confiscation in the 80s iirc.
Let me repeat, there is a WAR on Guns.
no subject
- Graydon Carter
Priceless.
I don't know if guns are what we should be worried about...
I sincerly think that the use of fear (9-11) should be illegal in campaigning. The whole stick a boot up their ass routine has gotten us into this mess.
War on drugs? The war on drugs has been used since the mid 1980's reagan era by your Weapons manufactureres, police equipment manufacturerers, big buisness,
to make more money. The war on teh potheads has turned alot of people in law enforcement and all the related buisness's that are supplying law enforcemant with their armamant.
Now mind you, I'm not some anti gun, anti war anti all american pothead, that thinks the bush/cheney/haliburton Administration and the religous republican right is out to turn this country into a money making machine for christians with political convitions. I love guns....got four of im myself... but I also realise that this country, that has been worried about whats been going on in the mid east sooo much, has let so much at home go to shit it's not even funny. And loosing the seconded amendmant has ntohing to do with it.
It's depressing, history will show how badly this admin has fuct this country up, it will take years to get it back into shape, and the war on terror, and the war on drugs are two things that running it into the ground. I just hope that this is all over by the time my boy gets ready to go into the world to make his way. And doesn't have to struggle.
Goddamn, I didnt' feel political this morning when I woke up!
Re: I don't know if guns are what we should be worried about...
If you're really going to sort out the port's deal, then you need to draw up new rules on what corporations can operate what contracts in the US and how much of those corporations can be held or operated by foreign governments.
I sincerely think that the use of fear (9-11) should be illegal in campaigning.
You claim to be worried about freedoms, but you propose that to insure it you restrict it? Pot, Kettle, Black. Don't defend something by proposing to restrict it. Please!
Even in this we have bi-partisan problem. Russ Fiengold and John McCain both think that Campaign finance needs to be reformed. The process of doing this will make the campaign finance system more abstract and insure that those in power stay in power. Money will still flow to the parties, but will take even more convoluted paths. Somehow, speech on the internet has been decided as being money and that can be regulated, so speech on the internet (or anywhere else in support of a campaign) is regulated. Sounds like a basic violation of 1st amendment rights to me. Many very intelligent people agree, yet the Federal Court that saw the case thought differently. Why is that?
The war on drugs is a sticky tar baby that's based on a desire for morality. However it's just like prohibition, it feeds the monster making it grow by trying to fight it. If the Democrats got off their "Not the Republicans" platform and really started standing up for our rights they'd get a lot more votes than they currently get. But they're too interested in pushing their new form of socialism if anything and can't get out of the corner they painted themselves into. If Democrats actually proposed a real system of legal drugs that wouldn't cost the government a single red cent and was harsh with people that used drugs in public or when operating equipment, then they'd actually be standing for something good. So far, they haven't. They're part of the problem too.
The Second Amendment rest on the basic perspective that you are your own first and last guardian. You are the defender of your safety and that of your family. Not the state. Welfare, taxes, nanny state ideals all touch on this, but ultimately it comes down to who takes care of you and who do you call for help. Federal case law dictates that the police are NOT responsible for your safety, yet there are places across the country where you have to show some significant cause or be famous or special to possess a firearm for self defense. The argument that is usually made in defense of this is that you're not the cops so you shouldn't have one. Yet, it's not the cops that typically get robbed or worse is it? If we tossed out this idea that the state is the one that comes to help you when you're hurt first last and always, the above poster would be less of a threat. People that choose to trade security for freedom be it in the form of more cops in lieu of their own actions or people that partake of a welfare state their whole lives when they have the means not to are directly involved in making the state our parents and removing our own choice from the equation.
Re: I don't know if guns are what we should be worried about...
Just look at the flap over Katrina and Federal response. That sorely proves my point. And illustrates the dichotomy in ideals of people that were down there. Some chose to stay and wait out the storm and it's after affects, they prepared ahead of time, had arms, fuel, water, supplies etc and were good. Others were used to living off the largesse of the state and when the state was not there, they demanded it come from the federal government. And then the chose to milk that cow for all it was worth. More interestingly some thought it wise to go around and forcibly remove people from their homes and/or disarm them when they were perfectly safe in their environs. What's wrong with this picture? Patricia Konie is a poster child for this. I hope she sues the shit out of the State, city and agencies involved in her kidnapping, assault and robbery. Question is, will the lesson sink in?
maybe some more coffee woulda helped...