You sound so much like Wayne LaPierrer, it's like flashing back to the nineties.
A Gun control solution - perhaps
- Thread starter Quantum Quack
- Start date
You sound so much like Wayne LaPierrer, it's like flashing back to the nineties.
glad someone else sees he is essentially repeating the NRA's talking points.
Bells
Staff member
Didn't the NRA and the right poo poo the very idea of reducing magazine capacity? And I could never understand why they would even refuse that. Just makes no sense.
He used it (Ruby Ridge) as the point of government overreach, sans context.
As per your definition/understanding, even if the argument was that one would want to hold gun owners to a higher standard than law enforcement and other military and enforcement professionals, Ruby Ridge would still be a bad example. He tried to portray it as they shot a kid, while ignoring the fact that kid was involved in a shoot out with police and that an officer was also shot in said shootout. The Kent shooting by the National Guard would definitely apply. His use of Ruby Ridge makes as much sense as declaring that Jonestown is the result of lack of Government oversight and welfare checks.
There is actually a weird memory that goes with it, from the Clinton assault rifle ban, and in all the noise there was just this one occasion that I happened to see someone from the NRA do this rhetorical trick, complaining about hunters and something about big-bore, at which point the other responded, and when she said, "big-bore", the NRA person called her out because they were talking about assault rifles. It's a weird bait fallacy one can only get away with if they have audience prejudice on their side. Completely random memory; I don't see people try it like that. The sequence we saw, of someone attempting to correct a third party through an intermediary, is ... very possibly normal, these days.
sculptor
Valued Senior Member
Bells
You seem to be quite ignorant of the events that led up to the confrontation at ruby ridge, and the events that happened there/
Perhaps a little reading would be in order?
Bells
Staff member
Oh I am well aware of it, from the changed dates to appear in court, to the looong armed siege at their property as a result and I also know the investigations that took place after the shootings occurred.
You are carrying on as though they were unarmed.. You know, government rising against the populace and cited the Weaver's as an example. They don't qualify. At all.
What exact difference should that have made to the police shooting the unarmed - as they did?
It's the behavior of the government forces that "qualifies", that is at issue. Are you defending it?
Shooting the unarmed, for example. Apparently because they were in the vicinity of someone with a gun, hanging out with the wrong crowd, etc.
Sound familiar?
It makes no sense to most people, including a clear majority of NRA members and almost all the judiciary of the US. There isn't much in political life as easily isolated and beaten as something like that - how do you suppose the gun control folks are fucking that up?
You're missing the point.
The point was that the gun control advocates's continual pointing to the exceptional status of police and so forth, as a justification for disarming the entire population except for the police, has little basis in reality, and instead stokes the paranoid fear of the kind of government they will in fact impose (whether they know it or not).
That the central majority of the gun rights folk have a better grasp of the reality here, and are making more sense, than the gun control advocates with the loudest platforms. That the central majority of reasonable folk face a choice between two feckless and dangerous irrationalities backing fantasy driven agendas - one of which involves simply abiding with the status quo - and are split accordingly.
No, I don't.
You're not even close. But you need to do that - you need to fit people like me into the NRA crazy-box, because that's the other side.
- - - -
And that brings up the strangeness of your - and you're not alone - responses in these two or three politically related matters. The closet wingnut emerges, and starts attributing what they see in the mirror to the world outside the window. This is a serious political issue, in the US.
An entire "side" of self-described liberals is unable to read with comprehension, respond in meaning, suddenly. Their responses are garbage - like that one, entirely bereft of simple and ordinary reason, reduced to personal attacks based on Hannity level twists of rhetoric and absurd omissions of context (if based at all). They start misspelling words and names, piling insults on insults, loudly and repeatedly demanding acceptance of crazy-ass premises in response, - - - you're about one step from posting in caps, in some of this crap (you've been dressing up in convoluted and dissembling verbiage, which is maybe your version of the caps lock?)
And then you wonder how it has become difficult to obtain the gun control that essentially everyone wants, in the US. You search for explanations, some reason for how and why the US has gone spla and refuses to do what you want.
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Xelor
Registered Senior Member
Oh, hell no! While the NRA's activities and political influence likely contribute to the incidence of gun deaths and injury, the NRA is a private organization that does deserve to, in effect, be nationalized. Moreover, the last thing we need is a regulation making and enforcing organization that promotes the interests of the gun industry.
The NRA, regardless of how it describes itself or is perceived, is little other than an industry advocacy organization. One need only look at it's list of directors and identify their professional affiliations to recognize that.
The theme of your suggestion makes sense; however, the mode you've identified is untenable in my mind. What I think acceptable is legislation such as the following:
- The person identified as the current registered lawful owner of a firearm shall be held strictly liable for crimes committed using their firearm. Their liability will be criminal.
- The incarceration penalties to which currently registered owners will be held culpable will be one half of the maximum sentence allowed were they the actual perpetrator of the crime committed, provided the currently registered owner is not the current owner of the firearm.
- Minors' exception: In instances where minors obtain a firearm and with it inflict harm on themselves or others, the incarceration sentence will the full maximum allowed by law were the owner also the perpetrator of the crime.
- The fines current owners will have levided be:
- Private citizens: No fines will be levied.
- Businesses and other organizations: If the firearm in question was, at the time of the crime's commission, registered to a business or other organizations, the fine will be $1M per injury and $10M per death that the business' firearm was used to make happen.
- Fines are due immediately upon conviction.
- If the owner is a corporation, the parent and subsidiary organization(s) CEO(s), COO(s), and president (or substantively comparable executive principal if no formal title exists within the organization(s)) in will be held jointly liable.
- The state's burden of proof will be that concomitant with strict liability, that is, to show (1) who the current owner is and (2) that the current owner's firearm was indeed used to commit certain classes of crime -- rape, murder, attempted murder, battery, robbery, assault, breaking and entering, and vandalism, along with conspiracy to commit any of those.
- The incarceration penalty cannot be reduced or otherwise truncated, suspended, etc.
- The fines stipulated above cannot be reduced.
- The incarceration penalties to which currently registered owners will be held culpable will be one half of the maximum sentence allowed were they the actual perpetrator of the crime committed, provided the currently registered owner is not the current owner of the firearm.
- Loss/Theft Exclusion: Individuals who and organizations that report their firearms as lost or stolen will not be held culpable, provided they (1) file the report, or can show documentation of having notified law enforcement officers of the weapon's loss/theft, prior to the crime's commission. and (2) allow. without a search warrant, law enforcement officers to examine the property to which they hold title/lease and from which their gun was stolen or lost.
- In order to qualify for this exclusion, if a gun owner lacks title to the property from which they allege the gun was lost/stolen, the owner must obtain that property owner's authorization for a warrantless search. Barring that, the owner can report the item lost from any property to which s/he holds title or lease.
- Individuals and organizations who, in any given three year period, report as lost more than one firearm shall have their right to fabricate, transport, own, possess and/or purchase firearms suspended for three years.
- Assault Exclusion: Individuals who are incapacitated by another individual who, in turn, absconds with the victim's firearm(s) and uses it to commit a noted crime will not be held accountable per the above, provided the assaulted individual files an affidavit attesting to who incapacitated them and that there was no other person who could reasonably reported the theft on their behalf.
- Estate Transfers of Title: Upon a registered gun owner's death, title to their firearms passes immediately in accordance with either the decedent's will (filed with the court) or the provisions of state law, whichever prevails at the time of death.
The aims of a statue such as the above are:
- To inspire gun owners to adopt a highly risk averse stance with regard to the possibility that their lawfully purchased firearms might be removed from their control and later used unlawfully.
- To refrain from impinging on anyone's right to own firearms and own as many as they see fit to own.
- To accord to gun owners the presumption that they are responsible owners and maintain their firearms accordingly
- To hold gun owners accountable when they do not do so.
How's about this one for a regulation? It should be considered a severe felony offense for an individual to pursue any form of potentially violent confrontation while armed or having access to a gun nearby, unless they can prove that walking away or fleeing the scene wasn't a reasonable option from the outset. Nip cases like Zimmerman right in the bud, even if they're found to have killed in legitimate self-defense and been absolved of that specific charge.
No way in hell.
Forget it. There are 300 million firearms wandering around in this country, already.
Xelor
Registered Senior Member
What does the quantity of "firearms wandering around in this country, already" have to do with the proposed legislation?
They aren't registered. Attempting to register them to their owners for the purpose of making their owners liable to criminal prosecution for being robbed will fail, and take down the politicians you need for effective gun control legislation.
And advocating for laws that make people criminally liable for the consequences of being victims of crime is the kind of thing that ruins efforts by others to get sane and reasonable gun control legislation.
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If a legal firearm owner loses their gun and it was found to have been due in any part to irresponsible storage and/or usage, the penalties should be severe enough to make owners utterly paranoid about ever letting it happen in the first place, something akin to what you'd get for dropping a bowling ball off the roof of the Empire State Building.
And then they wonder why it's so difficult to get sane and reasonable gun control in this country.
Agrees!
Since starting this thread a learning curve has been undertaken. I initially thought that by clarifying the issue of responsibility for mass shootings some progress may be made. I was wrong!
It becomes more and more apparent when sitting here contemplating the differences between the USA and Australian situations that the key factor is one of collective and individual fear.
If I were to make a fear scale of 1-10 ( 10 being most extreme fear - personal security ) I would suggest as a quick example:
- Australia : 2
- UK: 2
- USA: 7
- Russia: 8
- Syria: 9
- Afghanistan: 8.5
- Switzerland: 1
It is a challenge for an Aussie to understand just how bad it is in the USA.
Democratic fail-safe
Limitations to change:
I have come to the conclusion that until the issue of fear is addressed, uniform gun ownership management legislation etc will always be a seriously contentious issue in the USA with out any real fix available.
A new amendment:
The starting place would be the constitution especially the fear of "Tyranny" - ( police state - Federal fascism etc) that underpins the right to bear arms in the first instance.
This I believe can be addressed by fixing one of the biggest weaknesses of any democratic system.
That fix being to install the ability for the people to constitutionally force an elected government back to the polls via a referendum initiated under definitive and specific circumstances. To force, by democratic means, an early and fresh election.
- There is no need to change the existing 2nd amendment.
- The idea is to make it redundant.
Reason:
By granting the population the empowerment (via constitutional amendment) to remove a failed government by democratic means (at any time as per specific criteria) instead of by bloody revolution would reduce the fear factor mentioned earlier, by many orders and even render the issue of gun control mostly a "domestic" issue rather than a "state" one.
Promote better government representation:
It would also promote more honesty from politicians in their election promises and subsequent behavior.
Needed:
In many places in the world today the need for the above is becoming more and more urgent.
Venezuela, Brazil, Zimbabwe and South Korea are good current examples.
People need to democratically elect a government but also in case of significant "misrepresentation, corruption" need the capacity to democratically remove a government and force an early election.
One of the reasons why Australia enjoys such a low fear rating is due to the fact that in extreme circumstances the government of the day can be forced to stand down and a caretaker government installed until fresh elections can be called. Although extremely controversial and politically painful it avoids bloody revolution. As a consequence gun regulation is considerably easier and more rational because the perceived need for a civilian militia is drastically reduced.
if interested see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis
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sculptor
Valued Senior Member
Power drunk
In this fair land, we have over 21,000,000 government employees.
Every once in awhile one or more of them experience an episode of power drunkenness.
When people are forced to experience a government employee who is power drunk bad impressions of the whole of the government employees, and the government it'self, can result(guilt by association, etc...)
In this fair land, we have over 21,000,000 government employees.
Every once in awhile one or more of them experience an episode of power drunkenness.
When people are forced to experience a government employee who is power drunk bad impressions of the whole of the government employees, and the government it'self, can result(guilt by association, etc...)
That's what courts and elections are for.
So you think people should be able to dipsy-doodle into the gun store, fill in some papers, pick up their gun within a month, stupidly misplace it for some crook to ultimately get it, and the penalty should be... Write out that they'll never do it again, 100 times on the blackboard?
Xelor
Registered Senior Member
So register them. Doing so would be the owners' responsibility. It's not at all hard to register a firearm.
- To register a (previously owned) firearm you already own, you must file an application immediately after the firearm is brought into the District. You can comply with this requirement by personally communicating your intent to register the firearm to the FRS before bringing the gun into the District. You must then file an application for a registration certificate within 48 hours after communicating your intent to do so.
- You must respond in person to the FRU and complete a PD-219 firearms registration application. Bring all the firearms information (make, model, caliber, measurements, number of shots it holds). You do not need to bring the firearm or any ammunition with you.
- Bring photo identification.
- Once the application is approved (generally within five days), the FRS will notify you. You can pick up your registration certificate or request that it be mailed to you. Your registration process is then complete.
Xelor
Registered Senior Member
Well, of course. Progress, change, is the last thing gun rights advocates, and the NRA in particular, care to see come to fruition. Quite simply, anything that curtails consumers' means or ability to buy guns and ammo is a curtailment of firearms industry income.
As indicated above there is more than one key factor. Fear is one, income/profit is another, and I strongly suspect there are more.