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Tonight, the Senate votes on four gun control bills [update: everything failed]
- Thread starter Spoiled Milk
- Start date
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Sure. Loosening gun laws of course.
Christopher
Member
I am sick to my stomach why do we accept that politicians are "bought" why is this acceptable!?
Ugh I don't want ONE MORE life killed in a mass shooting not ONE
Ugh I don't want ONE MORE life killed in a mass shooting not ONE
Transistor
Banned
No chance of reform before that.
Even this isn't realistic.
Random Painted HIghway
Member
Requiring a probable cause hearing within 72 hours of the purchase request is an absurd burden to place on the government and judiciary. Thinking through the logistics to satisfy that makes my eyes bleed.
Mammoth Jones
Member
Then perhaps debate lengthening the amount of time past 72 hours but the point is it should be done with a layer of due process. Can't just take away a Constitutional right w/ a government list and no process.
Would within 14 days be acceptable?
Random Painted HIghway
Member
The three day period is a poison pill offering, the republicans didn't actually want that one to pass and knew the dems wouldn't allow it. It was cornyns bill, he could have put out a more reasonable time period like 10 business days if he actually wanted it to pass.
Won't happen until the next mass shooting is at the Senate.
This is such bullshit. I'm a gun-toting Texan (literally, I carry almost everywhere) and I don't think that suspected terrorists should be able to walk into a gun store and buy stuff. I'm not worried in the slightest about my own gun rights, and why? Because I'm not a suspected terrorist.
Fuck the NRA.
Fuck the NRA.
Its scary how disdainful my fellow democrats are of requiring due process before the deprivation of a right. I feel like a portion of the left is moving further and further towards authoritarianism.
I mean just look at that Elizabeth Warren tweet. Twisting the desire for adding due process into support for selling guns to terrorists is so clearly in bad faith, that it shouldn't surprise anyone that gun owners don't trust the intentions behind gun control reforms.
I mean just look at that Elizabeth Warren tweet. Twisting the desire for adding due process into support for selling guns to terrorists is so clearly in bad faith, that it shouldn't surprise anyone that gun owners don't trust the intentions behind gun control reforms.
Too soon, using tragedy to their advantage, etc.
Having a killing tool is not a fucking right, no matter what a magical document says.
Having access to food, water, shelter etc are rights. Having a toy that kills things is not a fucking right. it's a luxury, one that you clearly cannot be trusted with as a country.
AstroNut325
Member
Are you letting your thoughts and feelings be known to the NRA?
I don't know WTH your original "half the country wants" referred to begin with. I've certainly seen nothing cited that says that half the country actually wants to outright repeal the 2nd amendment.
Well over half the country does want *something* done, based on polls, which doesn't necessarily require repeal, so it just comes across as a little glib to throw it back in the publics' face as if they're the ones that suffer from lack of will just because they couldn't enact one of the most extreme solutions here.
Marty Chinn
Member
What if a suspected terrorist had the same name as you and when you went to buy one, they denied you because you were flagged for having the same name? You didn't even realize you were on the list and now your rights were stripped from you simply because there was little oversight to how this list is maintained. You're okay with losing your rights because someone decided to put your name on a list?
I won't speak for your fellow dems but, as an independent and from what I understand, the terrorist watch/no fly lists are already fraught with plenty of due process issues that undermine individual rights. Getting picky about which rights get undermined is just playing favorites without addressing the core problem.
Royal_Phalanx
Member
Innocent before proven guilty. It's scary how left wingers switch to authoritarianism when they don't get their way.
There is no prosecution involved when you are put on a watch list. Do you want somebody to have a gun before they are cleared as non-threats? Totally different than giving somebody a sentence before a trial.
Royal_Phalanx
Member
At least inform the person and have them be able to challenge it. Given the state of mass surveillance these days and how easily abused that power is I'm wary of allowing government to judge that a right should be forfeited without a fair trial. Also, as other people have said, no due process.
Also, anti-gun GAF, Europe isn't exactly so free of guns as you think they are. Liberal Sweden has the 9th most guns per capita in the world for example. America of course is number 1. 'Murica.
Royal_Phalanx
Member
dat UCP camo pattern
I agree about Due Process, but this article goes into detail about the numbers, and it seems to me like the errors that occur pail in comparison to saving lives.
For us, we have a gun problem, a mass shooting epidemic, and a problematic culture surrounding guns. I don't really give a fuck about how hard the line is drawn on the 2nd Amendment when our innocent civilians are being gunned down for being gay or being black or being human. Sweden can do what they please. It is clearly working better than our society is, and we need to defang these corporations from controlling the direction of our country for their bottom line.
Team Alucard
Banned
tfur
Member
The issue is pretty basic.
Who is on the list?
How to you get on the list?
Who controls the list?
What criteria does it take to get on the list?
How do you get off the list?
How long does it take to get off the list?
What are my rights to get off the list?
What is the time line to get on and off the list?
I believe I should not be on the list, what can I do?
Oh guess what, there are actually three lists. How do they interact together?
Also, this is nonsense. So we have terrible procedures that take rights away, so now we should use those terrible procedures as a mandate to take even more rights away. Rights that are part of the Constitution.
I linked a fivethirtyeight article a couple posts up that goes into more detail about the system. It is not perfect. And it is not being worked on because it is not properly being used, though it has come in handy as the article points out.
In a perfect world, using the list to run background checks that prevents gun purchases in the moment at registered arms dealers AND Gun Shows whilst also refining the process of getting on the list and how to appeal it, etc would happen all at once.
Unfortunately, the votes have already been bought through concrete ideology and corporations, and I am struggling to not resign to apathy.
tfur
Member
Those questions I proposed, including a lot more would need to be defined before anyone should move an inch. That list needs to be made ethical and not some secret device with no processes or controls. Also, timelines must be defined, and must be law before moving forward.
"Whilst refining the process" is not acceptable, and should not be acceptable for liberal people and those that believe in rights. I do not believe the Government wants to let the public have access to its list or methods. Without that, and all the other things I mentioned, it is rightly not passed.
SecretMoblin
Member
Yes.
Denying a constitutional right to a "suspected" gang member or drug dealer, one put on a list somewhere by a law enforcement agency without any sort of public oversight or acceptable legal framework, would rightly be pilloried. It's an easy issue to demagogue, though, as Sen. Warren made clear.
Man, I can't wait for Clinton to make her Supreme Court appointments. I need DC v. Heller to get neutered.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
I cant believe the democrats didnt vote for the republican bills. i thought we were pragmatic? Just take what you can get guys. Come on.
Sure we do. We're the American people. We decided once we didn't like the 18th Amendment and decided to make a new Amendment to make it invalid. We ADDED the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution because it wasn't originally in there! We "amended" it.
If anything, the fact the 2nd Amendment is so poorly worded and written in an era before modern firearms (heck, before the invention of smokeless gunpowder...) makes it a prime candidate to be... well, AMENDED.
Besides, most gun control advocates don't want all guns to vanish... but you already aren't legally allowed to own a rocket launcher, or a mortar, or a tank... Just because you have the "right" to a weapon doesn't mean you have the right to ALL weapons.
Who was the one comedian who said we should give everyone a musket? You can fire one shot per minute and it requires a long time to reload. Everyone should have the right to a musket.
Sadly, I'm pretty sure even a shooting that debunks a lot of NRA arguments won't help.
If there was a school shooting where every teacher and kid was armed, and there were armed security guards, and everyone shot each other because the cops couldn't tell the terrorists from the "good guys", nothing would happen because assholes would probably fall back on the "Obama staged the whole shooting with actors so it never actually happened!11!1" defense.
Wait, were the rights already taken away by these lists *not* part of the Constitution or something? It's not like we derive our rights from anything other than the Constitution.
Anyway, I wasn't advocating for making these list worse than they are already, I just don't think trying to ding one side or another for flaunting due process over a particular right is anything but political oneupmanship when neither side clearly has any intention of fixing the already rampant dismissal of individual rights represented by these lists as is.
Fox Mulder
Member
Itll take a sustained effort like the NRA does. You cant expect massive gun changes after each shooting. They just give some words and drag it out until people stop paying attention.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
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."
Second Amendment was about using a militia to defend the state, AKA, the National Guard. The Second Amendment was not made to enable and facilitate constant mass shootings.
I don't know. Right now the 4th amendment is pretty battered and bruised.
The "inalienable" right to "life" seems to be pretty low on their priorities as well.
Just because you're John Smith doesn't mean you can access all the bank accounts of all John Smiths out there. You are John Smith, born on January 1st 1980 in Someplace, Somewhere with SSN 123456789. We have more ways to identify people than just by name or else the whole society would have broken apart. Your argument holds no merits in my opinion.
But you're picking and choosing what parts of the second amendment to display, so that it looks less ambiguous than it is. Between 1875 and 2008, federal law explicitly took the position that the second amendment did not protect individual gun-bearing rights. When that position was overturned in 2008, it was a 5-4 result with the dissent hotly contesting the reinterpretation of the second amendment.
The big problem is that the second amendment is incredibly poorly written.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
If this was really about the watchlist, and not just another distraction by Republicans, they would have proposed legislation to overhaul the watchlist.
Yes, I am.
GoldenEye 007
Member
Well of course, like the 1st wasn't mean to enable harassing tabloids.
But I think the 2nd is clear. Due to the militia or possibility of one, the people who would make up the militias shall not have their gun ownership rights infringed.
In US Law, the militia is not necessarily defined as the National Guard. It's defined as regular male citizens at least 18-45 years old. But of course like many things that were written only with male pronouns, it's kind of understood women apply too. Couldn't tell you on the upper age limit.
Either way, of course regulations are allowed and should be strengthened. The second really only comes into play when talking about blanket bans or extreme restrictions - like not allowing people to have their property easily accessible by them.
Marty Chinn
Member
And yet these incidents happened:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/07/politics/no-fly-mistakes-cat-stevens-ted-kennedy-john-lewis/
Why are you okay that any or all your rights can be stripped away on a whim?
AngmarsKing701
Member
I'm not entirely sure who Deborah Ross is, but she'll have my vote over Burr in November here in NC.
JasonUresti
Member
The second amendment really has no relevance to modern times. The security of individual states is not connected to small, poorly trained individuals loosely grouped into militias, nor could the authors have imagined the ease of access to and destructive potential of the killing tools available to citizens today.
It's a poorly written and very specifically authored for/of its time. In a document full of forward thinking and universal ideas, its stand out as antiquated.
I also find it sad that owning a killing tool is less expensive and regulated than owning and operating a car.
It's a poorly written and very specifically authored for/of its time. In a document full of forward thinking and universal ideas, its stand out as antiquated.
I also find it sad that owning a killing tool is less expensive and regulated than owning and operating a car.
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