Ban Police from having guns

[woodchip]

So another terrorist attack by a Muslim terrorist wannabe occurs in Philly, where the disciple of the peaceful religion attempts to assassinate a cop in the name of Allah. Now here's the kicker... the piston he used was stolen from the police a couple of years ago. Now if we disarmed the police, using the same logic the left uses to take all our guns away, if there are no guns they can't be stolen. So Obama's most recent deranged logic, that by requiring more background checks, the less crime there will be. Of course his new law wouldn't have prevented the last dozen or more mass shooting but what the heck. It feels good to do something no matter how ineffectual what you are doing really is.

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2016/0 ... st-philly/

[callmeslick]

first off, as the mayor said(all over local news stations here), and the Commissioner of Police concurred, this guy has ZERO actual affiliation with anything other than mental health providers. Yes, the gun was stolen two years back from a cop. So, one would imagine that the new tighter regs would have had no effect. Of course, as the President so eloquently put it(as have others, here, numerous times), the fact that EVERY crime isn't prevented is no excuse to dismiss regulations that will stop some. Hell, if the new regulations prevent one death, I call that a step in the right direction.

[woodchip]

What makes you think the new law won't cause more deaths? I understand Hitler banned guns from the populace of the countries he took over. How many lives did that save?

[callmeslick]

What makes you think the new law won't cause more deaths? I understand Hitler banned guns from the populace of the countries he took over. How many lives did that save?

equation to Hitler or taking guns is simply dishonest rhetoric on your part. Discussion over. Troll.

[Ferno]

★■◆●, the speed this thread went from zero to full godwin just earned a record.

[callmeslick]

****, the speed this thread went from zero to full godwin just earned a record.

as they say, records are meant to be broken. Wait until November.

[Ferno]

The only thing that could beat this record is if it went full godwin in the OP.

[callmeslick]

The only thing that could beat this record is if it went full godwin in the OP.

precisely my prediction. No later than November 10.

[Lothar]

equation to Hitler or taking guns is simply dishonest rhetoric

On the other hand, those supporting large-scale gun bans and restrictions have consistently failed to explain (1) that they understand the concern about disarming the populace, of which Hitler is a notable but not the only example, and (2) how their policies are designed in order to not be easily hijacked by totalitarians looking to disarm the populace.

Calling out "troll" or "godwin" might be true, but it's a useless response. How do you create laws that are a "step in the right direction" while not simultaneously being a "step in the wrong direction" from the perspective of those who rightly recognize the threat of tyranny?

[woodchip]

What makes you think the new law won't cause more deaths? I understand Hitler banned guns from the populace of the countries he took over. How many lives did that save?

equation to Hitler or taking guns is simply dishonest rhetoric on your part. Discussion over. Troll.

When people can't make a cogent reply this is the argument they make.

[callmeslick]

equation to Hitler or taking guns is simply dishonest rhetoric

On the other hand, those supporting large-scale gun bans and restrictions have consistently failed to explain (1) that they understand the concern about disarming the populace, of which Hitler is a notable but not the only example, and (2) how their policies are designed in order to not be easily hijacked by totalitarians looking to disarm the populace.

Calling out "troll" or "godwin" might be true, but it's a useless response. How do you create laws that are a "step in the right direction" while not simultaneously being a "step in the wrong direction" from the perspective of those who rightly recognize the threat of tyranny?

do you see anything the least sinister within Obama's orders of the other day? Because, by my way of thinking those are PERFECT examples of steps in the right direction. I defy anyone with functional grey matter to find a shred of threatened tyranny.


moreover, the concept of weapon ownership to prevent tyranny, in a modern society, is a joke, but we can leave that for later to revisit for the umpteenth time.

[Lothar]

do you see anything the least sinister within Obama's orders of the other day?

This is a PERFECT example of why I'm concerned. Because you just... don't... get it. And this is the pattern I see from almost everyone who calls for "sensible" gun regulations.

It doesn't matter if Obama intends his laws in a sinister way. What matters is how the next president, or the court twenty years from now, or some ATF bureaucrat, might twist things.

It's like... have you ever run a D&D game, or tried to manage a community of competitive gamers? It doesn't matter how you intend your rules. What matters is how the most clever and devious people operating within the confines of those rules are going to turn them to their advantage. So if you're the one making the rules, you have to understand the sinister mindset others will bring, and you have to be able to craft your rules accordingly. You have to think in terms of "what happens if Dick Cheney gets his hands on this" or "what happens if J. Edgar Hoover gets his hands on this" or "what happens if Joe McCarthy gets to 'interpret' this". And I see no indication from Obama, or anyone voicing support of Obama, that they have any clue how to deal with that problem.

I don't even mean the solutions are inadequate. I mean, I get the impression that you're unable to even perceive the problem. So when it gets brought up, you resort to ridicule because it seems like an imaginary problem to you.

If you want to help generate popular support for what you think are obviously "step in the right direction" measures, you can't brush off genuine concerns (even if they're coming from people who have no intent of listening, there are plenty more who watch silently for whom the concerns are genuine) with mockery and ridicule. Instead of making enemies by calling people "trolls" and invoking godwin, learn to make allies by addressing peoples' concerns from a perspective they can respect.

[woodchip]

do you see anything the least sinister within Obama's orders of the other day?

Yes. the govt can label you a criminal if you sell as few as one gun if you sell it for a profit or it is in it's original package:

"Although Obama did not set a threshold number of sales to define who should be a licensed dealer, the White House noted that the “quantity and frequency of sales are relevant indicators.” The administration noted that “even a few transactions, when combined with other evidence, can be sufficient to establish that a person is ‘engaged in the business.’ For example, courts have upheld convictions for dealing without a license when as few as two firearms were sold or when only one or two transactions took place, when other factors also were present.” An Associated Press story said those other factors include business indicators such as “selling weapons in their original packaging and for a profit.”

Also we have a mental health component. Before you say that psychiatrists are honest and above board, I could name any number of countries that would label people mentally incompetent just to be able to lock them away. I for one do not want to see labeling people as mental as a ploy to grab their guns. Maybe you do?:

"The mental health community will also be required to report many more patients to the FBI for addition to a database of people forbidden from purchasing a firearm, Politico reported"

So yeah, I see sinister

[callmeslick]

do you see anything the least sinister within Obama's orders of the other day?

This is a PERFECT example of why I'm concerned. Because you just... don't... get it. And this is the pattern I see from almost everyone who calls for "sensible" gun regulations.

It doesn't matter if Obama intends his laws in a sinister way. What matters is how the next president, or the court twenty years from now, or some ATF bureaucrat, might twist things.

ok, let's not rehash this. We've gone over this, and you claim 'I don't get it', when I get your argument, I simply find it ludicrous upon sober inspection. The entire premise is a chain of a half-dozen really unlikely 'what ifs'.

I don't even mean the solutions are inadequate. I mean, I get the impression that you're unable to even perceive the problem. So when it gets brought up, you resort to ridicule because it seems like an imaginary problem to you.

because you've never demonstrated one piece of meaningful proof that any sequence akin to your proposed string of what ifs could even happen in this society, short of a forced rule by a despot, which would have to occur before your strawmen could be conceivable. You even resort to the what if rationale around rules about background checks for prevention of felons, mentally ill people can't buy guns? Get real. That defense is not only unacceptable to me(or, I just don't get it), I daresay it is unacceptable to the majority of the voters when taken to such extremes.

Feel free to respond further, but try some other tack from, "you just don't get it, we could see just the right alignment of the stars, and no one would notice and WHAM, sinister unnamed consequences", because this is the third time you've brought the matter back to that, and NO, I don't 'get' that premise, if by 'get' you mean accept or buy into its remotest likelihood.


Oh, and to Woody. No one, at any level of the government has published the final expanded definition,but your example is universally seen as destined to be exempted. Nice try. Why lie?

[woodchip]

Exempted after having it taken to court. Glad to see you didn't find anything wrong with my premise.

[Lothar]

you claim 'I don't get it', when I get your argument, I simply find it ludicrous

If you're having an argument with an intelligent, honest, and well-intentioned person and you have to resort to calling their position "ludicrous", that's a sign you don't get it. Getting defensive about it doesn't make the "you don't get it" charge go away; it reinforces it.

You even resort to the what if rationale around rules about background checks for prevention of felons, mentally ill people can't buy guns?

Straw man.

you've never demonstrated one piece of meaningful proof that any sequence akin to your proposed string of what ifs could even happen in this society

So what? I say again: you don't get it.

We know historically that tyrants like to disarm a populace. We know historically that power-hungry or bigoted people in all sorts of positions can do great harm. If you want to be persuasive, you don't get the luxury of placing the burden of proof on those who see this as an issue. The burden of proof is on you to explain how laws you favor should/will be written in order to explicitly solve the problem of sinister people with sinister motives inheriting whatever precedent you set with pure motives.

I don't care whether you buy the premise or not. That's irrelevant. What matters is that a lot of people (not necessarily even me) *do* buy the premise. If you want to persuade them, you need to figure out how to address them without ridicule. You need to be able to address them from their perspective, even if you don't accept the premises their perspective is based on. (This is more general than gun control, but since you're actively doing it wrong in this thread, this is as good a time as any to point it out.) As long as you don't get that concept -- of being able to understand and address concerns you don't agree with -- you won't be capable of being persuasive on this issue and a lot of other issues.

[vision]

[removed]. The US Government is owned by corporations who run roughshod over any attempts at regulation. Yeah, REAL tyrannical government...

[Ferno]

but it's a useless response.

not useless. it's a marker used to show that the thread can no longer be productive.

How do you create laws that are a "step in the right direction" while not simultaneously being a "step in the wrong direction" from the perspective of those who rightly recognize the threat of tyranny?

That's the problem. Someone will always claim it's the wrong direction. Some groups will always claim it would be a gateway to tyranny, even if it's shown to not be the case in some countries.

Canada has had gun control for some time now. Has there been even a hint at tyranny? How about the UK? they have heavy gun control there. Has tyranny begun to show itself there? How about Australia? Any tyranny there? Sweden? New Zealand?

I'm seriously starting to question the whole 'gun control will lead to tyranny' meme. If it's true, how come it hasn't happened already, in this modern age? in modern countries? And before anyone mentions that it's happened in the past... i know it has. I can read.

[woodchip]

but it's a useless response.

not useless. it's a marker used to show that the thread can no longer be productive.

And yet in spite of your rhetoric, the thread has continued and been productive.

[Krom]

Japan makes a fairly good counter example, the well armed Japanese mafia has incredibly deep ties into the Japanese government. Even if the government itself is democratically elected and isn't particularly oppressive, a significant amount of real power there is in the hands of organized crime and they are oppressive and dangerous. And it is especially important to consider that many of the laws that allowed the Japanese mafia to gain so much power were crafted by Americans following world war 2 with the intent of preventing the Japanese government from becoming dangerous and aggressive again. As the saying goes: "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".

[callmeslick]

Exempted after having it taken to court. Glad to see you didn't find anything wrong with my premise.

where do you get that they would have to go to court?

[Spidey]

Japan makes a fairly good counter example...

Not to mention that the entire notion that something won’t happen because it hasn’t happened yet or the idea that something can’t happen here, is a fools paradise.

Yes, I’ve said it before…history is rife with that exact concept…just before…

[callmeslick]

Not to mention that the entire notion that something won’t happen because it hasn’t happened yet or the idea that something can’t happen here, is a fools paradise.

Yes, I’ve said it before…history is rife with that exact concept…just before…

actually, what has been presented here is the fact that history overwhelmingly shows that modern societies have learned from history, and managed to vastly restrain guns, yet remain free and not fall into tyranny. You are suggesting that we assume remote circumstances in the past outweigh the fact that societies have evolved. No one is saying the scenario ABSOLUTELY cannot happen, merely that there is ample proof that it doesn't HAVE to happen, if done right.

[Spidey]

Actually it was the founding fathers that learned from the past, modern times haven’t been in effect long enough to set a pattern.

Do you want a list of historic examples where the upper class ran roughshod over the lower classes, because weapons were banned?

I’ll give you one…feudal Japan, there are countless more.

Again you prove my point of the mistaken idea that it won’t happen because it hasn’t happened yet…in your very response.

[callmeslick]

Actually it was the founding fathers that learned from the past, modern times haven’t been in effect long enough to set a pattern.

you're joking, right? I mean, you just suggested that some folks learned a lesson from the events of the post -Rennaisance, and that not enough has happened since 1780 to make a case that times may have changed? Seriously?

[Spidey]

Sure, times change, but there are always constants as well.

[Ferno]

Actually it was the founding fathers that learned from the past, modern times haven’t been in effect long enough to set a pattern.

Do you want a list of historic examples where the upper class ran roughshod over the lower classes, because weapons were banned?

I’ll give you one…feudal Japan, there are countless more.

Again you prove my point of the mistaken idea that it won’t happen because it hasn’t happened yet…in your very response.

are you suggesting that if the lower class in japan were to be banned from having weapons, it would suddenly revert back to twelfth century? Did you not read what Krom wrote? Do you not realize that their modern culture would not allow that to happen?

[Lothar]

but it's a useless response.

not useless. it's a marker used to show that the thread can no longer be productive.

As the rest of the thread demonstrates, when a few people decide to make it productive, they can make it productive, in spite of useless responses.

But it's easier if you don't post useless responses in the first place. If you don't think a thread can be productive, a better marker to show you've given up on it is not posting at all. If there's no room for discussion, just leave. Don't get into an "arguing on the internet is like the special olympics" contest.

How do you create laws that are a "step in the right direction" while not simultaneously being a "step in the wrong direction" from the perspective of those who rightly recognize the threat of tyranny?

Someone will always claim it's the wrong direction.

Canada has had gun control for some time now. Has there been even a hint at tyranny?

There will always be a few people who think something is a step in the wrong direction, no matter what, because they're stupid or dishonest or evil. I don't think that's the case here.

Yes, there are a lot of countries that have various forms of gun control that haven't led to tyranny. There are also plenty where gun control has had negative consequences of various sorts (tyranny is a big one, but not the only one.) Someone pointed out above the Japanese Yakuza, who basically have a monopoly on the use of force. In the past I looked up Australia's violent crime statistics and found clear evidence that sexual assaults increased drastically following the gun ban. Quoting from another thread,

Thre real scary part here is they served their sentence but then some judge they didn't serve enough time. Of course if their skin color was black, that would of never happened.

yeah, they'd have been shot or put away for 20 years.

... you don't have to go that far in the past, particularly in the southern US, to find examples of authorities trying to disarm blacks disproportionate to whites, and of violence directed against blacks who weren't armed. You can probably find a news item today about blacks being treated differently than whites by the police.

So to rephrase my question: How do you create laws that are a "step in the right direction" while accounting for these types of threats? How do you write gun control laws for the US that, like the countries you listed, don't lead to tyranny particularly given the issues we still have with racism? How do you write gun control laws for the US that, unlike Australia, don't leave women and the elderly more vulnerable to sexual assault and robbery? How do you write gun control laws that actually address these concerns, instead of mocking them? If "it doesn't HAVE to happen, if done right" -- how specifically do you do it "right"?

Some people have pointed out Reagan's comments on AK-47's and tried to use that as reason why we should now support Obama. But to my mind, this points us back to what I voiced above: Reagan addressed peoples' concerns without ridicule and without coming across as dishonest. Reagan "got it" in a way that Obama, and people in this thread, don't seem to. Compare "I do not believe in taking away the right of the citizen for sporting, for hunting and so forth, or for home defense" (Reagan, just before his AK-47 comment) to "There are always questions as to whether or not having a firearm in the home protects you from that kind of violence. And I’m not sure we can resolve that" (Obama to rape survivor Kimberly Corban, a couple days ago). Obama isn't exactly wrong -- but he comes across as not really answering the concern so much as trying to downplay it and not really taking it seriously (his comments in the second Romney debate were very similar to Reagan's; had he taken that approach he would have come across as more understanding.) More broadly, any specific recommendations he makes will be interpreted based on his past remarks and his administration's behavior, from the "bitter clingers" remarks to the Fast and Furious scandal to his support for bans on semi-automatic weapons. It's hard to trust this administration to "do it right" -- addressing the sorts of concerns brought up above -- given the history.

[callmeslick]

responding narrowly to your comparison of Reagan's remarks and Obamas, they were addressing two separate issues. Reagan was reassuring people that he was no going to take guns away from folks for a host of legit purposes, but that he did feel assault longguns to be unneeded for any real situation. Obama was addressing the KNOWN statistics that show that owning a gun may or may not make the home safety. I simply read that he, and everyone else, simply assumed that the right to have the gun stays intact for the homeowner/parent/hunter. In fact, before the words you selected, his first words to that woman were to assure her that nothing he'd proposed interfered with her ability to legally obtain a weapon.


I still don't think YOU get the fact that you are dancing around semantics and tossing in a few scary scenarios, which several folks above sort of gave evidence to disprove the likelihood of. If that works for you, fine, but just don't act so shocked when many of your fellow citizens don't buy your logic or accept your argument.

[Lothar]

before the words you selected, his first words to that woman were to assure her that nothing he'd proposed interfered with her ability to legally obtain a weapon

Right -- I read the entire exchange. But Obama's method does not come across as actually reassuring. It comes across as lip service. The fact that he feels it necessary to bring up questionable statistics about defensive use of firearms (statistics that I and many others think are either purely bogus or badly spun) suggests a mentality opposite of his initial assurance. Or, at least, it suggests that he doesn't view "will not interfere with your ability to obtain a weapon for self-defense" as of high importance -- like it's a secondary or even tertiary concern, when to the woman he's talking to it's a primary concern. Instead of unconditionally saying "yes, you absolutely should be able to have a firearm for self-defense and I will not discourage that", he says he's not interfering, but then actively discourages it. The subtext is that he's not interfering, but he wants to, or he'd be willing to.

you are dancing around semantics and tossing in a few scary scenarios, which several folks above sort of gave evidence to disprove the likelihood of

No, I'm not "dancing around semantics". I'm laying out the series of concerns that are consistent and present whenever people talk about gun control: individual self-defense and group protection against organized foes (such as racists in or out of government). While the likelihood of outright, blatant, Nazi-style genocidal tyranny is low, the likelihood of some racist county clerk in Alabama using whatever edge he can to give white people the advantage in the "race war" he secretly wants is high. Advocates for gun-control measures need to proactively deal with those concerns, not continue to make dismissive statements like "troll" and "semantics".

I've said in the past many times that I'm all for gun control measures that keep weapons out of the hands of known criminals and the insane, including closing all loopholes, and for enforcing laws already on the books (like Obama said was important in the second debate with Romney.) I want people who support those kind of measures to be able to communicate them in ways that address the legitimate concerns people have about defensive firearms. When people voice support for those measures, but their method of reassuring rape victims is to reference questionable statistics to discourage them from EDC, and to make statements even less concrete than "if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor", that doesn't engender a lot of confidence in their ability to actually come up with the right gun control laws.

[Ferno]

In the past I looked up Australia's violent crime statistics and found clear evidence that sexual assaults increased drastically following the gun ban.

And? Things have changed in Australia. You remove one thing, another takes its place. Such is the nature of consequence. But did you notice that there's been a marked drop in mass shootings? The way you're talking here seems that you'd rather have shootings than assaults because you don't like gun control. you've seen it for yourself. everything has fallout.

So to rephrase my question: How do you create laws that are a "step in the right direction" while accounting for these types of threats? How do you write gun control laws for the US that, like the countries you listed, don't lead to tyranny particularly given the issues we still have with racism? How do you write gun control laws for the US that, unlike Australia, don't leave women and the elderly more vulnerable to sexual assault and robbery? How do you write gun control laws that actually address these concerns, instead of mocking them? If "it doesn't HAVE to happen, if done right" -- how specifically do you do it "right"?[/quote]

Don't leave women and the elderly more vulnerable to sexual assaults? Impossible. But don't take that to mean that everyone with a gun will be able to prevent all sexual assaults. That is pure ignorance. What you do need is a culture change first. And then you can worry about enacting laws that might work.

the likelihood of some racist county clerk in Alabama using whatever edge he can to give white people the advantage in the "race war" he secretly wants is high

This is also a sign of a need for a culture change. You need to fix that FIRST.

Don't get into an "arguing on the internet is like the special olympics" contest.

DILLIGAF?

[Lothar]

You remove one thing, another takes its place

Is it necessary? Do we have to trade one crime for another? Do we have to have ten or a hundred rapes for every murder prevented? Or could we prevent murder without increasing rape?

Don't leave women and the elderly more vulnerable to sexual assaults? Impossible

At least you're honest about being willing to leave women and the elderly more vulnerable in order to reduce the homicide rate.

This is also a sign of a need for a culture change. You need to fix that FIRST

One way to change culture is with laws.

Laws affecting self-defense that are written with little regard for protecting the vulnerable, and communicated to the public that way, are laws that should be opposed.

[vision]

Slippery-slope fallacy all over this thread.

[woodchip]

[removed]

[woodchip]

Exempted after having it taken to court. Glad to see you didn't find anything wrong with my premise.

where do you get that they would have to go to court?

Executive orders are not meant to make law. So Obama was in his rights to add more agents to enforce the laws. He was not in his rights to change the law by closing loopholes and how guns are bought and sold. The only way to get the latter exempted is by taking those issues to the courts and have the courts decide if it is Congress or the presidents job to make law.

[callmeslick]

Exempted after having it taken to court. Glad to see you didn't find anything wrong with my premise.

where do you get that they would have to go to court?

Executive orders are not meant to make law. So Obama was in his rights to add more agents to enforce the laws. He was not in his rights to change the law by closing loopholes and how guns are bought and sold. The only way to get the latter exempted is by taking those issues to the courts and have the courts decide if it is Congress or the presidents job to make law.

still didn't answer my question. No one would have to 'go to court' unless the matter were redefined to exclude them. The exec can order the redefinition and all indications are that private, one time sellers are to be declared exempt.

[woodchip]

You'll have to provide some links as I already showed that one off sales might not be exempt.

[callmeslick]

we simply have to wait until the definitions are public record. I heard that will be the case by the end of the month.

[woodchip]

we simply have to wait until the definitions are public record. I heard that will be the case by the end of the month.

So we went from "All indications" to "Wait and See". You wonder why everything you post is suspect?

[callmeslick]

no, Woody, I'm merely being polite. As with the Webb thing, I'll just patiently sit here and wait until EVERY fact proves you to be foolish. Again.