BREAKING: Californians Buying Thousands of AR’s, Vowing Non-Compliance with New Gun Control Laws

“I learned a thing or two from Al Qaeda, don’t you know…”

I can visualize JW Taylor strumming that on his mandolin…

Easy! Easy! Your comenting to a special needs person!

Lmao! A revolution is more like it. people need to educate themselves. Smh. And if it should come to that I WILL fight!

Since when will California and Jerry Brown HONOR THE CONSTITUTION. thEY’VE SHOWN A REMARKABLE AMOUNT OF IGNORANCE AND DISDAIN FOR THEIR CITIZENRY.

If you will recall, it took only two men with rifles shut down half of the east coast, including Washington DC a few years ago.

So proud to not be a Texan.

Last free state? Lol.

Free is a relative term.

Last? Freest? Hardly. But Texas is a place where individual liberty still holds sway. My home.

That is, “yep 300blk is correct.” Keyboard commandos unite!

Guncotton. Look it up. All you need is a cooling aparatus, nitric acid, concentrate sulfuric acid and cotton. Denim works great as a source of large quantities of cotton. It’s also called nitrocellulose and is a key component of many modern smokeless powders. There’s also white powder, nitro glycerine and other propellants that can be made in a garage. The reason people don’t do it today other than the legalities of the matter is that these are very high energy materials and small mistakes or environmental issues can be catastrophic. If there’s already a catastrophe in play, well then, it would seem like there’s not such a high barrier to entry since desirability will be extremely high and availability will be extremely low. I personally look to Mexico to solve our problem. They can smuggle anything.

OR……
You could just wait some gubmint idiot to leave his firearm laying around in the bathroom, or just swipe it out of their patrol car when they leave their windows down when they go in to get something in the store.

Trust me!
RIIGGHHHTT!!

Oh, good. A welcome wagon. I’m not impressed by titles or position. If Harry and I cross paths I will tell him why he’s a failure as a representative of the people.

And I will vote for his replacement.

Sensible Progressive is an oxymoron

Were u been 2Asux?

Your friend Harry who willfully lies about having machine guns delivered to your door from the internet. Cool.

@ 2Asux — Neither Harry Reid nor any of his DemoKKKrat cronies are “progressive,” according to any definition of the word anywhere.

As Victor Borge would say, “It’s your language. I’m only borrowing it.”

Then you will be on the front line first?

Usually people like you only expect the govt to act out your violent fantasies.

Do you think I would not be satisfied with gun owners peacefully complying with reasonable restrictions on ownership (Heller, BTW)?

I have no wish or wants that gun owners should be forcefully relieved of their firearms, unless there becomes absolutely no other way to gain cooperation, unless gun owners engage in violence against those of us who wish to live without fearing everyone we meet is carrying a gun that might be dropped, misused, or wielded criminally.

Because any attempt at absolute confiscation is likely to result in worse damage than can be justified, I think only the imminent release of civil war for other reasons would justify forceful confiscation. Then, yes, I would rely on agents of government to act in my behalf.

BTW: I do not need to want an action in order to justify issuing a warning of what certain actions by gun owners might spawn.

Califórnia has been a lost cause for a long time, but it’s also been the absolute refutation of “nobody’s coming for your guns” and “there is no slippery slope.” There is absolutely no room for compromise, because they absolutely want to take everything and leave you with nothing.

If significant numbers of gun owners leave and move to places such as Nevada, then scum like Harry Reid are gone. We certainly could use them up in the Northwest. Washington’s initiative system is, at the moment, dominated by Seattle. That means it’s essentially a unicameral legislature it can use to foist policy on the rest of the state. It will continue to remake the state in its image until it’s just one big Seattle. Unless and until the initiative system is scrapped, the only hope is that enough people move into the rest of the state to counterbalance Seattle.

You do realize we have progressives who are gun owners for hunting and even self-defense? They are much more liberal on all other social matters. However, those people, if they felt safe because guns were under control in their locality, would surrender self-defense guns. Maybe even hunting guns if the state offered no real opportunities to hunt. Turning a Red State Blue for all but guns would be an enormous and satisfying victory. Eventually, the guns would go also. Because if the majority voted to end gun ownership, or even just add more restrictions, the gun-owning progressives would go along.

If one day your beloved “government agents” actually did try to come after the guns, you do realize they would have zero chance at success, despite the “capabilities” of the US armed forces…right? Just ask any Iraq, Vietnam, or Afghan vet.

We’ve been down this road many times.

None of the actions you listed involved a modern, well trained, well-equipped army willing and allowed to do everything and anything necessary to bring about a desired result. The only example germane and useful is the US Civil War.

Both sides had mostly equivalent firepower types, both sides had relatively modern armies. Both sides were willing to inflict enormous casualties to prove a point. Both sides were made up of people inside a single grand boundary. The winning side was more willing and capable of inflicting and absorbing carnage than the other. Do you wonder if a national army would destroy its own population? When was the last piece of legislation passed by the Confederate States of America?

The War Between The States was your second revolution. Your last chance at using force of arms to discipline a national government. Grant won because he did not care how many Confederates he needed to kill, not thought about preserving the physical infrastructure of the entire Southern half of the country. His mission was to defeat and destroy the Confederacy, by any means necessary.

In the Civil War, you have an example of how a formal, trained, armed rebellion would proceed. In the last year of that war, you have an example of how a rebellion sustained by a rag tag bunch of disorganized volunteers fared against a determined and powerful national army.

Do not eat your own cows. Armed resistance is for video games.

You r analysis of the reasons for the defeat of the south in the Civil War is overgeneralized and indefensible by the “facts on the ground.” The north had a population much larger than the south, and had the majority of the manufacturing capacity. Lincoln’s Anaconda Plan was intended to, and ultimately did deprive the south of an ability to market its mostly agricultural products to foreign markets, thus causing a severe cash shortage. Without enough men, without the ability to replace munitions and cannon lost in battle, with a northern attack on the basic infrastructure of the southern railways ad water transportation systems, the south had no realistic chance of prevailing. Lincoln was right: the north could not win by winning individual battles, it has to crush the Confederate Army. But to suggest that the south lost the war because of a loss of will is unsupported by any histories of which I am aware.

Moreover, the result of the Civil War is no indicator of what might happen in a subsequent revolution. The maps of the two sides (pro and anti gun) are not generally subscribed by the Mason-Dixon line, the means of production are widely scattered, and the numbers are different. The American Revolution was won by a relatively small minority–maybe 17% of the overall population–that was overmatched by a superior British force. However, there was not center to the revolution, no place that could be taken that would result in a British victory. It was an insurgency, and historically, insurgents can defeat a greater force.
So what about today? There are easily 50 million gun owners in America, and if only 17% participated in a revolution (8.5 million) against a federal government, they would easily outnumber the 750,000 man armed forces, the vast majority of whom are not fighting troops but support troops. Let’s add to that the fact that the U.S. Armed Forces have never won an insurgency war.

You made my point about the Civil War. A modern, committed, driven army willing to do whatever it took defeated another organized army in a number of ways. In the original list, you presented situations where the US was not willing to annihilate the enemy, but only allowed to make suggestions.

You presume facts about the character of gun owners not in evidence. When it is all said and done, you likely have less than 5% of gun owners who would “into the breach” to retain their guns. And then only if victory was assured. You vastly underestimate the natural desire of populations to not risk their lives and their families in a shooting war. The people you hope are willing to rebel against government are dead a hundred and fifty years ago. The US, like the West at large is too self-satisfied, too complacent to really pose any sort of threat to the combined forces of government. Nothing to be feared.

Politics is the game, not revolution. But if you can encourage more of your gun friends to focus on rebellion, and ignore politics, we thank you.

Go ahead, ignore the real point. In the Civil War, it was army against army. An insurgency is another ball of wax, all the more difficult when the the government forces are vastly outnumbered and have no one to fight. Insurgencies are almost impossible to fight, and the powerful army almost always loses. Look in the news–how many insurgencies are active around the world right now, and how many have been going on for more than a decade? I am not promoting revolution, I am just pointing out the practical realities of the situation should it occur. There is no army in the world today that could successfully invade and occupy the United States, and, I submit, that includes the U.S. Army.

If you think insurgencies (the Confederacy was a very large insurgency) can’t be put down by organized armies, have a look at the Phillipines of late 1890s, and the Malaysian insurgency ended by the British in the late ’50s. Or even the Muslim rebellion against the British in India around 1750. Or maybe my favorite, Carthage. When was the last time you got a post card or email from the nation of Carthage?

@ 2Asux — We know that you gun-grabbers won’t be satisfied until all guns are gone except for those in the hands of your beloved jackboots. And need I remind you that here is literally no such thing as a “reasonable restriction” on guns, which actually means that the Heller decision doesn’t allow for squat?

If you support gun control, you wish or want guns to be forcibly confiscated. That’s where it always leads, in all actual practice. Good ideas don’t require force unless and until violence is visited on the innocent, period. There is no right to live without fear, either. You only have a right to pursue it, and restricting the rights of peaceable people is not and shall never, ever be a legitimate avenue.

Gun control eventually leads to confiscation of private property that was acquired legally and in good faith from people who are neither determined nor inclined to commit violence against you unprovoked. And no, the imminent outbreak of civil war is NOT a valid reason, either, regardless of whatever you or anyone else thinks.

My point about California is not that I think they made good law, but that California generally leads the nation in protecting the people from harm. Once a principle is incorporated in California law, sheer economics drive similar outcomes in other states. You have unleaded gasoline because of California. You have just about every automobile safety feature because of California. You have numerous food safety rules because of California. California gave the nation gay marriage as a universal right. California was the leader in promulgating hate crime legislation. And so on.

As California goes, so goes the nation. Wait for it.

@ 2Asux — You realize that gun owners even within your own regressive camp are vilified just the same as any other gun owner, and for the exact same pretended reasons? They’re actually not all that much more liberal on any other social matters, either. That is why those people would happily render themselves defenseless against the criminal element that also runs the most rampant in their localities: they put their virtue signaling so far above and beyond all common sense, they would rather risk their own personal safety, and that or their families — and everyone else they can force to abide by their nonsenical code of ethics — than admit being wrong. Which they are. Turning a blue state red for guns and taxes would be an enormous and satisfying victory, and the right thing to do. For starters. Oh, and no, the guns actually wouldn’t go, either. The criminals WILL still have them, and they WILL have just as many and of whatever kind they wanted as before, regardless of whatever laws are on the books and how strictly they’re enforced. It wouldn’t matter if the majority voted to end gun ownership: rights are not something that can thrown away and discarded. If the gun-owning regressives went along with it, then, that’s on them alone.

Gun owners go on and on about how criminals and gangers would have guns, but not regular people. Setting aside the fact that our side has done entirely too little to control guns in the criminal societies, if you are afraid of criminals with guns, don’t go where criminals are (stupid people, in stupid places, winning stupid prizes, right?) I believe there have been statistical breakdowns on shooting incidents posted to this blog. Seems that the vast majority of criminal shootings or attacks take place within the confines of known criminal activity; rarely in what may be called polite society. If you don’t go places where you need a gun, you don’t need a gun.

@ 2Asux — We have been down this road many times, but, you are still quite clearly stuck spinning your wheels at the starting line.

All of the past examples Mark listed involved a modern, and numerically, technologically, and logistically superior force fighting a smaller, less-equipped, less-trained guerilla force in an unconventional war. You have a handful of rare exceptions to an age-old rule that do not an argument make.

The winning side in any of those contests were actually willing to break from the TTPs of their adversary and simply wear them down through attrition. I don’t have to wonder if a standing army would destroy their domestic population because they couldn’t.

The Civil War was not Revolution 2.0, either. Nor could you articulate such a (non)argument without it being pure sophistry. Grant actually won because he was the superior tactician, and could very well have won without wrecking what little infrastructure the South had. He just didn’t personally care. In that war, we actually have an example of how a rebellion wouldn’t proceed.

Big Brother winning against armed resistance is only for your fevered dreams.

Not only did he not make your point about the Civil War, you have yet to substantiate it along with literally everyone else you’ve said — and will say. No modern army, no matter how committed or driven, could win against an insurgency. In Mark’s list, the U.S. was absolutely willing to annihilate the enemy. It just simply did not have the ability to do so, period.

You presume facts about the character of gun owners no in evidence, as I’ve rightly dictated to you elsewhere. Even 5% of the estimated number of gun owners, which even you have to admit (whether you want to or not) is a completely arbirary number, is anywhere between 4.35 and 6.2 million, which is far and away more than all active duty and reserve components of all the armed forces and local, state, and federal law enforcement combined. That’s not even taking into account the inevitable radicalization of still millions more people, either, whether victory was assured or not. You vastly underestimate the natural desire of populations to affect change, even if that means violent revolution. The people we know we are willing to rebel against today are almost exactly the same as 150 years ago. You also vastly underestimate the dissatisfaction the West has with its various governments, and it’s those governments that are, ultimately, nothing be feared. Those governments fear their people, elsewise they would not be trying so damned hard to control their citizens.

Politics is revolution, whether violent or formal and peaceful. But, if you can encourage more of your so-called “friends” to ignore this fact, we thank you.

” In Mark’s list, the U.S. was absolutely willing to annihilate the enemy. It just simply did not have the ability to do so, period.”

Not supported by the realities of history. The US leadership was unwilling to utterly destroy North Vietnam. Indeed, in 1972, North Vietnam has a single army division remaining in the country. All the rest were in the South. President Thieu asked Johnson to mount and invasion of the North, taking advantage of the inability of the North to re-deploy into their country. Johnson said no. The goal of US involvement did not include “winning” the war, nor invading a foreign country (afraid of the Russians and Chinese). The point of US involvement was to make it too costly for the North to continue to wage war against the South, not to provide a unification victory for the South. Limited goals, limited results.

The US has not been committed to total military victory since WW2. If gun owners believe they can defeat a committed national army that is willing to utterly destroy what would at the time be an enemy of the vast majority of the country, you won’t do it with a disorganized, internally warring, rag tag bunch of wannabe Rambos. Your side constantly underestimates the power and determination many of us on the gun sense side keep in check. The elements in the government who want to settle your hash permanently are growing, and are more and more restive.

Pick whatever number of gun owners you want who you think will risk death and destruction. You will not hide in a sea of clandestine support for your revolution. As you sally forth from the bushes, others will observe and report to the authorities. Normal people have things about their lives that manifest significantly more concern and interest than whether a few (that is how you are perceived) special people should be allowed to play with guns.

The US has not suffered hardship in 70 years. The people you depend upon to support your revolution (or even your thirst for unfettered gun possession) are in their 90s, or have been dead for over 100 years.

It is all politics and votes. While you are busy thumping your chest and mumbling your mantras about “shall not be infringed”, the populace is moving away from you. Did you ever think that in America, you would see the day when so many traditional values (values of your parent’s time) would be completely swept away so quickly?

Now, I engage in these conversations not to convince your to give up your guns, but to let you know that while we have you distracted in the tangle of gun rights, the progressive agenda moves ever forward. And to ask you to continue ignoring the remainder of the political landscape, as that eases our way considerably. The more I pound on you (and likewise my fellow progressives doing the same), the more you hunker down, the more your field of view is limited, the more freedom of movement we enjoy.

On a personal note, these conversations are a great benefit. Steel sharpens steel. You challenge me and provide new avenues for exploitation,

@ 2Asux — Gun owners actually go on about how they’ll be keeping their guns specifically because the criminals will be. Setting aside the fact that gun-grabbers have actually done entirely too much to control the criminal possession of guns. The problem with your theory here, is that I don’t even have to go to where criminals are or associate with them in any way to become a target. Sure, the statistical likehood goes down the further away I am from those social circles, but as long as it’s anywhere above zero, it is only prudent that I be prepared as I can be. So, yes, I still need a gun, regardless of whatever (non)arguments you or any other gun-grabber proffers.

Oh, and The People’s Republik of Commiefornia does sweet fuck all to protect anyone from harm. Need I also mention that economics has failed to bring their gun control laws to other states that didn’t already go deep blue long before any sweeping gun control laws were passed? We actually have unleaded gasoline because of Iowa, numerous automobile safety features because of New York, food safety rules because of the Midwest, and gay marriage because of Hawai’i.

The only real strength it has is in its electoral votes, and that’s pretty much it.

None of the safety and life-improving actions you listed were spread across the nation until California embraced them. No other state has the economic force to move the nation. Now days, it seems that no other state can move the social agenda so quickly and forcefully as California. Which is why the 9th Circuit decision quashing the notion that individuals have a constitutional right to concealed carry is so important. Did you note that shortly thereafter, the Supreme Court ruled (by not ruling) that states have the right to regulate firearm possession? Why had the court so assiduously avoided further illumination of Heller/McDonald, and so suddenly accepted gun rights cases? The tide goes out, dragging the sand from beneath your feet, and you believe the landscape remains as it was.

2A, can I buy from you whatever drugs you’re on? They sound great.

“Do you think I would not be satisfied with gun owners peacefully complying with reasonable restrictions on ownership (Heller, BTW)?”

If what satisfied you wasn’t completely amorphous and your definition of “reasonable” didn’t change according to whatever idea the media happened to be dangling in your face that month, then yes, we might buy the assertion that you would be “satisfied” with “reasonable restrictions.”

Grant won because he didn’t care how many Yankee troops he had to kill to beat the Confederates. As long as he had Irish immigrants and other Yankee trash to feed into the meat grinder he didn’t care. He would fight to the last drop of someone else’s blood.

“those of us who wish to live without fearing everyone we meet is carrying a gun that might be dropped, misused, or wielded criminally.”

There’s your problem right there. Irrational fear of everyone you meet.

When “normal-looking” people suddenly break down and start shooting, danger is very real. It is irrational to not fear danger, and want to minimize the opportunity for it.

“You have unleaded gasoline because of California. You have just about every automobile safety feature because of California. You have numerous food safety rules because of California.”

Yep and everything is known to cause cancer thanks to California 😉
I think in reality, California lawmakers just believe their own people are too stupid to stay alive on their own.

Any possibility California lawmakers are correct?

@2Asux

The only thing California leads the nation in “protecting the people” from, is freedom.

You really have to be a well indoctrinated progressive, to believe that noone would think of asking for their cars to come equipped with brake pedals and non exploding gas tanks, unless some useless hack of an ambulance chaser, and his captive army of tax feeding leeches, forced them to do so.

I did not imply (intentionally) that automobile safety standards were/are bad, only that when California adopts a public policy, the rest of the nation soon follows. So it is likely to be with regulations on firearms. Given California’s success influencing the rest of the nation, it is imprudent to bet against the state (of California).

@ 2Asux — Mark’s examples were and are completely supported by the realities of history. It was in fact the relentless carpet bombing of North Vietnam that brought them (for a short time) to the negotiating table. There was little if any need to invade them, then. The goal of U.S. involvment did in fact become winning the war. But, what little to no support at home — and justisfiably so — there was simply no will to coninue fighting a completely hopeless conflict. Which was later revealed to be based on a complete fabrication, anyway. The Gulf of Tonkin incident never actually happened.

The U.S. has been committed to total victory in every conflict since WW2. If gun grabbers believe that the government can’t be defeated by insurgents, as it literally always has been, then they have absolutely no grasp whatsoever of warfighting or history. Your side constantly overestimates the power and determination that many of us on the actual gun sense side keep in check. The elements in the government who want to settle your hash permanently are shrinking, and are less and less restive.

Pick whatever number of troops you want who you think will risk deth and destruction. You will not hide in a sea of clandestine support for your suppression of any revolution. There is no safe rear area thousands of miles from the fighting either for the jackboots prosecuting the war, nor for the politicians pulling the strings. Normal people are growing fed up with bureaucratic interference in their lives and will not suffer a few (that is how you are percieved) boot-lickers defending it.

The U.S. is increasingly facing hardship under the kinds of uneducated idiots that you vote for. The people that you depend on to suppress any revolution simply don’t have the stomach for that kind of work and are too few in number, anyway.

It’s all philosophy and votes. While you were busy kissing the ring and ranting your mantras about “you can’t do anything,” the populace is moving towards me. Many traditional values are slowly returning, as they should, as people are waking up to the realization that the so-called political left’s policies — your policies — are only tant amount to political, economic, and cultural suicide.

You engage in these summary deconstructions of your repeatedly-falsified and long-since defunct world-views to convince people that already know far better than you and everyone like you that we’re wrong. Too bad for you that your regressive agenda is coming to a stand-still, whether by economic forces catching up to the mathematical reality that they do not create or sustain healthy economies, or still more and more people every day waking up to the folly of sophistry-induced madness. The more you pound on us, the more you double down after we rightly shatter your revisionist fever dreams, the more people realize that you don’t know what you’re talking about, and the less freedom of movement you enjoy.

On a personal note, these deconstructions of regressive narratives are a great benefit. You challenge us and we rightly fisk every sentence.

I have read, and understand your review. My point remains….the US political leadership since 1945 has had no stomach for total war. Total war as undertaken during WW2, or better, Rome dealing with Carthage. Victory in war is not a peace treaty, or an armistice, or transferring responsibility from one nation to another. Total war is the obliteration of the ability of the enemy to function and wage war. A bombing campaign designed to “bring the enemy to the conference table” is not total war, is not a military move to win a decisive victory. Victory in WW2 was hallmarked by the inability of Japan and Germany to do anything the victors did not want those nations to do. Those countries were utterly devastated, utterly subjugated. Their ability to wage war was zero, including an insurgent war. Every war the US dabbled in since has ended with agreements, and the enemy still standing (Iraq and Afghanistan included).

To repeat, to end an insurgency, you take a biblical approach (a Roman approach, if you prefer), wipe out the populations, burn everything, salt the ground, pave over it. The West, led by the US, prefers applying enough power against enemies to get them to temporary cessation of shooting, hoping the enemy “gets the message” and will correct the error of their ways. I submit that if the US government decided to wage total war on an insurgent public, the insurgency would die, as it did with the British in Malaysia and what later became Pakistan.

Once the insurgency in America starts, you will see unleashed “all hell”. The resentments you engender in the liberal, progressive will be given free reign. Waco was a bit of a look into the future. The government decided to discipline a disliked group and rolled-in to utterly destroy the compound and the movement. I have seen or heard nothing from the Davidians since, and since the pro-gun revolutionaries did not rise up, I think the lesson of Waco was learned.

But, we are far afield here. The original point was, and is, that gun owners who refuse to comply with a law established democratically are no longer “good guys with a gun”. They are law breakers, deserving the full punishment the state of California can deliver. They forfeit the high ground of being the most law-abiding people in the country. No excuse can change a intentional law-breaker into a law-abiding citizen.

@ 2Asux — All of the safety and life-improving actions that you listed, not me, were already spreading well across the nation by the time California embraced them. Many other economic forces moved this nation. Nowadays, it actually seems that every other state but California can move any social issue forward every bit as fast and forcefully and you falsely claim California does. Which is why the 9th Circuit is the most over-turned decision maker in the country. You never noted that anywhere (which can only be expected) that the Supreme Court is reluctant to visit any decisions that have split the courts. The tides does go out, but it happily drags the sand from beneath your feet, and you actually think that the landscape is filling back in the way you want it to. It’s not, and you’ll either eventually acknowledge this, or be rightly swept away with the tide.

Being the most overturned court does not prove that the next case will automatically be overturned because of previous rulings. Given the temperament of the SC, it is folly to believe an eventual review of Peruta will be decided in favor of gun rights. At 4-4, the SC will let Peruta stand. At 5-4 pro-gun, we have the evidence of the court refusing to strengthen Heller/McDonald when opportunity arose, letting lower court rulings stand. At 5-4 anti-gun, the game is essentially over. When a quarterback throws a pass, there are four possible outcomes; three of them are bad. Gun owners are betting on the one good outcome.

The above presumes no other federal appeals courts side with the right of states to regulate firearm ownership. Three 2016 SC rulings regarding gun rights preserved the regulations/restrictions of several states. With the federal courts peopled by justices who favor moving beyond the reactionary and out-dated policies of the 20th century, the SC will likely never overturn lower courts seeking to improve the safety and security of their populations.

@ 2Asux — Normal people don’t suddenly break down and start shooting in the first place. No, they don’t, and you have absolutely no evidence whatsoever — empirical or otherwise — of any such thing. Even if you did, which you don’t, it is anecdotal at best. The actual danger lies in the knowingly and demonstrably false belief that your irrational fears are what should drive public policy, especially to the detriment of literally everyone — including yourself — which is the only thing that gun control laws ever achieve.

Between 1982 and 2015, 80% of mass shooters obtained their guns legally. None of those in the 80% were criminals (“bad guys”) prior to opening fire. They were “normal people”, as you and I would perceive them walking down the street. If we were well acquainted with each one, we may not have viewed them as completely “normal”, but they were not prohibited from buying guns. 80%.

Here are two references, one from Breitbart, one from NYT (a detailed review of several of the killers and how they got guns legally):
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/07/democrats-push-gun-control-80-mass-shooters-got-guns-legally/

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/03/us/how-mass-shooters-got-their-guns.html?_r=0

I believe one would have a hard time declaring those links as providing no evidence of “good guys with guns” who suddenly became “bad guys” with guns (“suddenly”, as in no one expected or believed those people would “snap” and go on a rampage).

@ 2Asux — No. There is only overwhelming evidence that, generally speaking, California lawmakers (and really lawmakers in general) are categorically wrong. That should be a very familiar state of affairs to you, anyway.

By what standard do you consider California lawmakers to be “wrong”? If you rely on political hopes and beliefs, those lawmakers were right as far as the majority of those voting were concerned (in referendums, elections, and legislative chambers).

If you rely on your interpretation of the constitution, there is no definitive, argument-ending interpretation that 2A is absolute, not a one in modern times.

It is politics, my friend. One side desires a policy become law. The law is implemented. The other side wants a policy to not become law and initiates a political contest to stop the undesired law. Neither is right or wrong as measured on some imaginary cosmic yardstick. Whichever side loses the contest, appeals can be made through the courts. Eventually one side prevails. And it starts anew the next day. It is political reality. Don’t tell me about “right” and “wrong”, tell me about whether or not you have the votes to impose your view of “right” and “wrong” on the rest of us.

Stalin was once faced with the possible censure of the Pope (or The Vatican), for one reprehensible act or another. Stalin’s answer cut to the heart when he asked, “How many divisions does the Pope have?”. Stalin had more “votes” on his side; the Pope didn’t matter.

@ 2Asux — You deliberately misattributed the widespread adaptation all of those innovations to California in the first place. So, no, it’s likely not to be with gun control laws, either. Given California’s apparent lack of influence on the rest of the nation, it is prudent to not only bet against it, but against you.

I did not attribute all the innovations to California (but that is apparently the message received). I noted that California is the most influential state politically and economically. That is, whenever California adopts a particular policy, regardless of the origin, that policy quickly proliferates across the nation because of the economic power and political influence. An idea may start here, or there, but when California speaks, eventually the rest of the country is brought into compliance.

Harry Reid is a total traitor and should be at the end of a rope.

Lake Mead is very low, but it is hardly empty. If we stop sending quite as much water to California we should be good for quite a while.

Lake Mead is very low, but it is hardly empty. If we stop sending quite as much water to California we should be good for quite a while.

That would also solve the problem of too many statist voters in California.
Oh wait…the deceased still vote Democrat.

Gerrymandering and election fraud are two of the things that are killing our society. I do believe in the democratic process, but when these things are applied this turns elections into things that are just flatly unfair and disenfranchise the voter – that is they take power away from the people.

Obama would never have been elected in a truly fair election – that is only citizens and a completely fair election. Computerized voting for instance gives the people controlling the computers enormous opportunities for committing fraud, and I have no doubt that results were tailored just enough in the right places to slip through undetected and to push just enough electoral vote in just the right direction.

Gerrymandering is similar – these districts are created to give political power to just the ‘right’ people; how is it that the people find this to be acceptable? Designing the shape of a district to determine the party of the winning candidate is outright fraud! The vote should represent all of the people in an area, not just the people they want. I just don’t understand why the people are not standing out in the streets with pitchforks and demanding that this stop. Districts need to be drawn up with only four right angle corners and sized such to allow equal and distributed allocation of population with zero adjustments for political power, this is easy to do.

The vote is and has been unfair for decades, thus the results are also unfair – my vote is not counted equally, neither is yours.

This is how we get infringement of our rights, people like Obama and Obamacare.

Right on sir,
I want nothing to do with anyone from california.
EVER! ANYWHERE!
California you made you bed. Sleep in it or clean it up.
When we build the wall it should go from the Gulf to the Pacific, a Branch should go up
the East side of CA, Organ, and Washington to the Canadian border then West to the Pacific. Arm it with automatic weapons and detection.
Do not discriminate, just shoot anything moving on or near the top.
Or maybe on the ground within fifty yards of the fence/wall.
And must have land mines in that area as well.

“We aim to please. So you aim too, please.”

(written on the subway walls)

“… And the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, and tenement halls.
And echo with the sounds of silence.”

10 points for the first one to tell us where that came from.

Simon and Garfunkel; The Graduate.

“For the words of the profits are written on the studio wall… Concert hall!

And echoes with the sounds, …of salesmen.”

(Canadian power-trio ‘Rush’) 🙂

Good-o, that one !

See! I knew he was a Nazi!

(Just kidding)

Vie haff vays of making you talk !

See! I knew he was a Nazi!
Yes. Yes, his policies move in the same direction.

“Nazi”

You got there, but no prize for speed.

Liberals and Progressives are ridiculed for calling someone a racist as a means of shutting down conversation. Rightists, conservatives, gun owners are quick to scream “Nazi” to shut down conversation in which they are incompetent to engage.

@ 2Asux — Leftists, faux liberals, regressives, and gun grabbers are quick to scream “Nazi” to shut down conversation in which they have been summarily out-argued. Faux liberals and regressives are rightly ridiculed for calling someone a racist without supporting evidence, which is in fact nigh universally the case mind you (revealing them as the racists by default instead), to shut down conversation on controversial topics that they deliberately, fundamentally misunderstand.

So, you are convinced those who likened me to Nazis were leftists, liberals and regressives? Perhaps. Seemed pretty clear to me they were gun lovers who ran out of coherent verbiage.

@ 2Asux — I’m convinced that it’s leftists, faux liberals, and regressives that default to likening people they don’t agree with to Nazis. That’s just what they do, because they never have any coherent verbiage from the get-go.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…

Another damp squib.

To repeat myself (which so entertains me), “The witness’s answer is non-responsive. Again.”

You sound like a ruddy politician, avoiding answering a direct question.

We claim the moral high ground when the DNC redraws democratic districts, protecting representatives from recall, then assigning them anti gun bills to introduce, then ramed through legislative process, it means by design, elected representatives are actively circumventing the Constitution and deliberately infringing 2A for the SOLE purpose of making law abiding citizens…law breakers.

Soon CA will send out a letter to all gun owners to declare their legally purchased rifles and sign a document stating ownership. If they decline and later caught with a long gun, All their weapons will be confiscated and the citizen will be placed on a no buy list for ten years.

The California legislators have declared war on lawful gun owners. They are the lawbreakers.

“The California legislators have declared war on lawful gun owners. They are the lawbreakers.”

And just which “laws” would the legislators be guilty, the breaking of? Courts determine the law, and for all of 2016, courts side with reasonable gun restrictions (as, if you hadn’t noted, is what Heller allows). If you think the legislators are wrong: sue in court; build an unbeatable voting majority of your liking.

Quote: “Or are you more likely to sneak around with a firearm, refuse privately to comply with gun laws (which is not how Martin did it) and snark on gun blogs about how brave you are?”

Well well – I see you are condemning snarking in a very snarky manner. You also impune the lack of bravery of other readers here that are in support of the US constitution.

How about you give us your name and address as a symbolic exemplar of your own courage.

FYI, before you ask, my address is 33040 S. Badger Lake Road, Cheney, WA 99004

“How about you give us your name and address as a symbolic exemplar of your own courage.”

It is not I who is advocating or actively disobeying gun laws. Observation requires no particular demonstration of valor. Those who pose as valorous are self-doomed to offer proof.

BTW, your address in not secure online, here.

“We claim the moral high ground when the DNC redraws democratic districts…”

“The moral high ground is a great place to be. It’s an even better place to position mortars and machine guns.”

“The moral high ground is a great place to be. It’s an even better place to position mortars and machine guns.”

Indeed. The military response is always the first choice for your (gun) school tie chums.

Are you saying that you (probably alone) are willing to live up to the same standards that you want to apply to others?

Or are you more likely to sneak around on the internet, refusing to do any of these things yourself, for any cause or for any reason, and hypocritically snark on gun blogs about how morally and intellectually inferior that you feel we are?

You can’t even drape yourself with the mantle of civil rights protest in the first place, you are still “Good Guys with Guns who intend to murder peaceable people and still ourselves Good Guys with Guns.” Or east least call on the state to do it for you. Meaning that you are no more law-abiding than you feel we are. Which then requires you to forfeit the claim that we civil rights advocates are morally and intellectually inferior. That means you cannot claim the moral high ground, because you are the law-breakers and not us. Or, is it “gun control advocates are moral and intellectually superior even if they want to kill people”?

“Or, is it “gun control advocates are moral and intellectually superior even if they want to kill people”?”

I still don’t have an answer to the question.

I have read commentary here about anti-gun people allegedly calling for death and severe harm to gun owners. I do not know anyone like that, have heard none of my mates talking about such. But I will concede the point that there are dolts and idiots on the gun safety side.

However, after reading so many engage in virtual chest-thumping about being non-compliant, and promising a moot protest by anonymously refusing to be law-abiding regarding new gun safety laws, my question to you remains: will you protest in secret, or show courage in your convictions through public demonstration? I submit if you remain silent, you are morally inferior to those civil rights activists who knew Martin; they were public and proud. They were also effective.

So… if we pass a law that states you no longer have the right to free speech and then clarify that to mean “Shut the fuck up permanently upon penalty of death” does speaking against such a law make you less moral?

Judging someone’s morality in the context of the law is a fool’s errand. The law is not necessarily moral, in fact it often is amoral. If you understood what a law was you’d know this.

“Judging someone’s morality in the context of the law is a fool’s errand.”

Then, is secret non-compliance with a gun law inherently moral?

The law is what it is, mate. Change it, comply, or be serious enough to publicly demonstrate your distaste for it.

“Judging someone’s morality in the context of the law is a fool’s errand.”

Then, is secret non-compliance with a gun law inherently moral?

The law is what it is, mate. Change it, comply, or be serious enough to publicly demonstrate your distaste for it.

Skulking around, anonymously non-complying, is no more moral than running through a stop signal when there is no threat of being caught.

@ 2Asux — Which laws haven’t they broken, is the better question. Courts don’t side with “reasonable restrictions.” They don’t exist, either in theory or in fact. Gun control advocates have yet to propose any, and have yet to present any proof — empirical or otherwise — to defend their laughably inaccurate definition of what a “reasonable restriction” is. So, in all actual practice, Heller actually doesn’t allow squat outside long-standing Common Law prohibitions against the various flavors of assault on people or property. The legislators are wrong. We don’t have to think, we already know they are. But, these activist kangaroo courts don’t care. There is effectively no way to build an unbeatable majority in the courts or the legislatures that is totally faithful to the letter nor the spirit of the law.

P.S.: The only damp squibs here are yours, regardless. To repeat myself, “TRANSLATION: I don’t like his answers! Make him say something that I can twist in something I can use against him!”

You’re accusing others of things which you yourself are already guilty, and your questions are irrelevant non-sequiturs, anyway. Oh, and ruddy politicians are elected by people like you.

A personal (yours) dissatisfaction with how law is applied is just as valid as the army you have to enforce your vision. The Supreme Court is supreme. If you do not like a law, change it, repeal it, or admit you are left with few options that will be effective. The law may be “a ass”, but it is the law. Your side does not have (and hasn’t had for 50 years) the political muscle to bring about a nation to your liking. That is not the fault of those who do/did have the power. Your long posting merely underscores that you don’t like the situation, and are frustrated; reduced to complaining, but taking no action.

“Are you saying you (probably alone) are willing to publicly disobey the new gun laws? ”
Did. For years. Now my actions are no longer illegal. If they were, I would publicly non comply again.

“Did. For years. Now my actions are no longer illegal.”

If your actions resulted in changed law, or change of location, I respect your efforts. You took action, and should be applauded.

The founding fathers of our country weren’t law abiding citizens either. They put their money where their mouths were. I believe a lot of Canadians got tired of the endless gun control bills they were living under and let the government know in a quiet way that they had had enough. There is a difference between being a law abiding citizen and a person who makes a personal stand to defend their rights, however quietly or loudly they do so.

“The founding fathers of our country weren’t law abiding citizens either. They put their money where their mouths were.”

The founders were law-breakers, criminals under existing laws; they knew and understood this. They also understood that if they lost, they would hang. They complained and opposed the laws, but they never complained that the consequences of defiance were unfair or unjust. Ultimately, they manifested their non-compliance bodily. They did not sit in their rooms and determine to not comply with the tax act by writing no documents needing stamps. Thus anonymously defying the government through non-action.

@2asux

If you think the legislators are wrong: sue in court; build an unbeatable voting majority of your liking.

Nah. I think we should just use bullets. It’s what Jefferson would have done.

Didn’t the rebel gang originally attempt to properly petition the King for redress?

2asux

“How about you give us your name and address as a symbolic exemplar of your own courage.”

It is not I who is advocating or actively disobeying gun laws. Observation requires no particular demonstration of valor. Those who pose as valorous are self-doomed to offer proof.

In other words, I’m a p~ssy, and I’m not going to put my address here. Lol.

BTW, your address in not secure online, here.

Obviously.

Would you accept 221B Baker Street, London ?
No phone at the moment,

@ 2Asux — There is no validity in any law that diminishes civil rights, period. The Supreme Court is fallable is what it is. Your side does not, and has not had for the last 4 generations, the political muscle to bring about the dystopia of your liking. That is the fault of the deliberate, fundamental misunderstanding of Human nature and reality, by your side. Your irrelevant and fallacy-ridden jaunts merely underscore your own unjustified frustration at current events, and hypocritically demanding action of others — who have and do take action — when you’re doing nothing but impotently complaining yourself.

Human nature is crass, self-interested, selfish, immoral, base and without redeeming qualities….until taught well at the mother’s knee. Laws are for those who do not learn well.

Fortunately, most gun owners are like you, thinking you boil crabs by throwing them into 212 degree water. Sun Tsu said to attack where the enemy is weak. Fight when the enemy is weak. You people have an attention span of a gnat. You want the result now, done forever. It is your Achilles, and we celebrate it. Rolling Stones were right.

IF there is even the tiniest slice of actual justice in this world, someday one of your precious little “undocumented immigrants” will gut you like a trout.

Again, the sputtering resort to violence when challenged by other thoughts and opinions.

@ Heartland Patriot — You’re really going to stoop to the level of the gun-grabbers and wish death and harm on people who disagree with you?

Didn’t the rebel gang originally attempt to properly petition the King for redress?

Yeah. But he already knew he would have to resort to bullets. The petition was just for show.

“Quiet, anonymous, and often complicitous, lawbreaking and disobedience may well be the historically preferred mode of political action for peasant and subaltern classes, for whom open defiance is too dangerous….One need not have an actual conspiracy to achieve the practical effects of a conspiracy. More regimes have been brought, piecemeal, to their knees by what was once called “Irish Democracy”—the silent, dogged resistance, withdrawal, and truculence of millions of ordinary people—than by revolutionary vanguards or rioting mobs.”

“Two Cheers for Anarchism” – James Scott

@ 2Asux — Human nature is shaped by genetics and by individual interactions across many, many generations that eventually become the culture in which individuals are brought up. (Fun Fact: spanking is nothing but harmful.) Laws are actually for those who seek security in an entity that delivers none. Namely, the state.

You don’t have an attention span to speak of. You don’t even pay attention. You want your dystonia now, and the ends justify the means. That is your Achilles, and we capitalize on it. The Rolling Stones were wrong, and so are you.

“Then, is secret non-compliance with a gun law inherently moral?”

Since “legal” (of, based on, or concerned with the law/permitted by law) and “moral” (concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character) are two different definitions this question is a non sequitur.

Clearly a law can be immoral. Many throughout time have been. Currently Islamic law prescribes “burning” or “throwing from a height” as a form of execution and the “legal” punishment for homosexuality. Care to defend that on moral grounds?

Yes. Societies, nations, tribes determine what is “moral” for their culture. The punishments you describe are only immoral to non-Muslims. The ephemeral moral codes of the West are not better, worse or more moral than elsewhere; only different. You and I may judge other cultures based on what we think is moral, but what gives us moral superiority. I submit it is nothing more than our own sense of self-importance, and an economic condition more comfortable than for those whose moral code is different. What if a culture should decide there are no moral imperatives, no laws. Is that culture better, worse, unimportant compared to our sense of righteousness? Isn’t if funny how we love situational ethics for ourselves, but not for others?

@ 2Asux — The punishments he described are immoral, period. The ephemeral codes of the West are categorically better than elsewhere. The evidence is in the advancements in every conceivable area and aspect of daily life that we’ve made in the West, and Islamic countries simply haven’t. You are engaging in nothing more than cultural relativism, which is not an argument. Ours is an economic condition that has literally advanced Humanity in a way that no other has been able to. If a culture decides that there are no moral imperatives, then, it ceases to be a culture altogether. It is by definition worse compared to what we’ve built. We actually love to make it so situational ethics applies equally to everyone, and equally. Not that you regressives ever bothered to notice.

Leftists and statists have a entirely different definition of criminal. For most robbery, murder, assault, theft, fraud, rape are criminal acts. To the left, criminal acts are defined as non compliance to their edicts. In authoritarian societies just being a member of the wrong culture ethnicity or simply dissenting is considered criminal behavior.

“Are you saying you (probably alone) are willing to publicly disobey the new gun laws? ”
Been there and done that.

If you have, indeed, then “Good on ya, mate”. Public disobedience is honorable. However, publicly breaking the law takes you out of the “most law-abiding” club.

“But it is illegal!” Saying something is illegal is NOT an argument against that thing. It is an appeal to authority. Laws are an arbitrary judgment made by whoever had political power at that time.

Laws are a means for government to regulate people in a way that they see fit but that does NOT make them a universal standard of morality.

ILLEGALITY IS NOT AN ARGUMENT!

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms… disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” –Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishment –Thomas Jefferson in Commonplace Book

“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”–Tacitus

“Quemadmoeum gladuis neminem occidit, occidentis telum est.” –(A sword is never a killer, it is a tool in the killers hands.) –Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Extraordinary. Thank you.

Finally, I have it in the words of a gun owner. Law is determined solely at the pleasure, convenience and advantage of the individual and at the expense of all others and all else.

@2ASux

You don’t want me to “protest” publicly. It would involve a every single person who voted for this treason getting dragged out into the street and staked.

Oh, and your critical analysis of the Civil War neglects one really important thing. During the Civil War, asymmetric warfare was not a thing. Why do you think the Taliban is still in Afghanistan almost 15 years after we kicked them out of power?

The Taliban continue to exist because the US and the allied nations refused a Biblical solution – burn everything to the ground, tear apart the bricks, kill the crops and all the men, women and children. War is too important to be left to civilians.

@ 2Asux — No, thank you.

We (yet again) have it in the words of a gun grabber: law is determined solely at the pleasure, convenience, and advantage of the government and at the expense of all others and all else — including the people (you) that voted for it.

@ 2Asux — The Taliban actually continues to exist because the U.S. and the allied nations are funding and arming them (not to mention they’re a Pakistani ISI creation anyway), as well as continuing illegal drone strikes and destabilization of sovereign nation-states, without a formal declaration of war nor the necessary justification for one which is driving disaffected people to them in the first place. War is too important to be left to governments.

“War is too important to be left to governments.”

Agree. That is what I meant by “civilians”. Your statement is better.

Who are you to determine that? Nobody.

MLK, perhaps, but MLK jr. was politically conservative and applied for (and was denied) a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

The fact that his protests were non-violent does not mean that he was opposed to his people being armed for self defense.

MLK actually had a handgun, for a bit. He decided at some point that the gun interfered with his moral argument for non-violence.

@ 2Asux — MLK not only hand a handgun, he had many guns. A reporter even once called his home “an arsenal,” after being waved off of one chair to avoid sitting on a revolver. The Deacons For Defense accompanied him most everywhere he went in public after they were formed, and they were heavily armed. There were never any moral quandaries there.

Legislatures make the law; executives do not.

Courts determine how a law shall be applied, or if it shall stand atall. Ergo, courts determine the law. Just as taught in your universities.

@ 2Asux — Legislatures are wrong far more often than they’re right. Courts, even more so. Just as is taught by reality, assuming you’ve been paying attention.

Oh yes, courts and legislatures, kings and presidents are often wrong. But the law remains the law until it is modified or repealed. Consequences for violations are legitimate until the law changes. You are free to not comply with any law you like, but you forfeit the right to complain about the consequences when you are caught.

P.S.: Executives do make law, by the way. Just ask our imperialist “President.”

Ah yes, that one.

Well, every nation has its one-off, right?

@ 2Asux — No, the law is not the law if it runs contrary to any of our natural rights. Consequences for breaking such laws are not even remotely legitimate, either. Nobody forfeits any right to complain about such laws, and the so-called “violators” have even more room to complain about the consequences of such laws than anybody else.

P.S.: Yes, that one.

And Abraham Lincoln. And The Roosevelts. And Nixon. And… I need not even go on.

Do explain to your barrister that you demand he submit “the law is not the law” as your defense against charges of violating some ordinance you dislike. And be sure to tell the judge he/she is not empowered to enforce unjust laws. They do still allow writing privileges in American jails.

@ 2Asux– I will indeed, and I will also duly inform the judge that they are in fact empowered not to enforce unjust laws. Regardless of whether or not I go to prison doesn’t change the fact that unjust laws are not laws, at all.

Theories, wishes and imaginations have much different impact on life than does reality.

@ 2Asux — You should really that to heart yourself before trying to lecture anybody else.

An *excellent* point.

2Asux, is your nose a bit out of joint from the ‘Brexit’ vote not going your way? 🙂

Brexit is meaningless. There is money to be made either way. Political points to score. Just another episode of the eternal European soap opera. Besides, the EU was fashioned merely to end the endless primitive wars of conquest, and substitute cash for weapons. The beat goes on.

@ 2Asux — BREXIT is anything but meaningless. Otherwise, there simply would not have been a referendum on it to start with. The EEC has actually morphed into, and was meant to become, the ineffectual, corrupt, and greedy bureaucratic monster that we all see today in the E.U. The economic stagnation that it has brought about is simply going to continue anew the primitive cycle of endless wars and conquest, and substituting cash for weapons. The beat goes on, indeed.

Brexit may have meaning to others, but the question was put to me (or, rather, the statement that I must have my panties in a twist over Brexit). My reply remains. Money knows no borders, it goes where it can prosper best (even the maligned Nazis understood the value of leaving Switzerland alone). In the EU/out of the EU; there is money to be made.

Depending on where you live, you can be thrown in jail or even executed by the state.

Where I live permits the writing, and where you live permits the reading. It’s all good, eh?

@ 2Asux — Where you live permits the writing for now. I’ll just simply keep reading regardless of it ever becoming illegal.

TRANSLATION: “I don’t like his answers! Make him say something that I can twist into something I can use against him!”

They’re answering your queries, directly and concisely. Whether you accept them or not is irrelevant and of no consequence.

No, they are not. Re-read the original comment, then review the responses. Not one answer on point.

Yes, they are. Try taking your own advice, for once, and actually re-read the responses yourself. Plenty of on-point answers to your irrelevant, fallacy-ridden queries.

Whether you accept them or not is irrelevant and of no consequence.

Your original comment suggested that good guys can no longer call themselves good guys if they break bad laws. It didnt even deserve a response.

Freedom of expression is a very good thing.

Agreed. Freedom of defense of life and liberty is equally important.

@ 2Asux — And that’s part of why the Second Amendment was written.

Since Reconstruction, the need for personal firearms has grandly diminished regards defense against a supposed “tyrannical government”. Guns for sustaining the family no longer has the impetus it once did. With danger receding in each subsequent generation, with professional police forces (which do need proper cleansing from time to time), with modernization of Western societies, the world has changed for the better. Time to let go relics from the past.

Yes, the second amendment made great sense in the first 100 years.

@ 2Asux — “Need” is and always has been an irrelevant (non)argument. Rights do not change with the march of time or technology, and are not subject to the democratic process nor to (non)arguments grounded in social utility, either. “Professional” police forces do not have to protect you, they don’t even have to enforce court orders of protection or to even retain arrested persons in their custody.

The only relics that need letting go of is statism.

Yes, the Second Amendment still makes sense today — and it will for the foreseeable future.

I live in a state ran by liberals who decided it was okay to ignore federal marijuana laws and even go as far as to lisense people to sell schedule 1 drugs recreationally. Can you believe it, they’re breaking the law! An entire state! Federal laws! Yeah, I didn’t think you’d be outraged at that.

“Can you believe it, they’re breaking the law! An entire state! Federal laws! Yeah, I didn’t think you’d be outraged at that.”

No one should be outraged. Nothing in the constitution permits the federal government to set drug possession and usage laws. States retain the right to determine legal activity within their borders. But to your likely point, states are openly defying federal law, not secretly engaging in anonymous non-compliance.

However, since courts have not flattened attempts by government to regulate such private behavior as drug usage, then however courageous non-compliant states are, they are breaking the law and should be dealt with severely by the federal government. I believe in protesting and petitioning to get federal laws changed, as well as states asserting their individual rights to self-governance.

@ 2Asux — I rightly doubt that, being that your side either quietly refuses to chastise them or even goes so far to loudly defend such talk because you lot somehow feel it’s justified. No, they well and truly belong with you on your side, and nowhere else.

@ 2Asux — Nothing in the Constitution permits the federal government to set gun control laws, either. Again, outside Common Law prohibitions against the various flavors of assault on people and property. In fact, the Constitution, as well as decades of case law, expressly forbid a whole lot of actions taken by the federal government.

And no, non-compliant people people that are doing nothing to harm anyone should not be dealt with at all. Whatever your beliefs, they don’t matter in the face of objective logic: there is absolutely no measurable utility whatsoever, regardless of any metric used, in prosecuting people for victim-less crimes.

Oh, I agree the wording of 2A makes it clear that the federal government is prohibited from controlling guns in the hands of the people. I also contend the states have the right to make such restrictions (read the original arguments and you will see that the states had restrictions that were constitutionally acceptable for generations. However, federal or state, sensible gun controls are a valid effort to provide for the pursuit of happiness of those who fear and/or do not have guns, along with everyone else.

I also agree that the courts make the final determinations about what the constitution prohibits and what it permits. Those decisions may change (as they have), but while in effect they are the law; violators to be punished.

BTW, there are no controlling documents in law that identify anything called “a victimless crime”. If a law exists, and one violates it, then justice is served by punishing those who would seek to become law unto themselves. Upholding a law is important for the upholding of all law.

“Wankers”, oh, now I get it, you’re a Brit. Already disarmed, and you want everyone else to be disarmed, too. Go fornicate yourself.

Oh, yes. Do validate the opinion of Americans held by Parliament and most of England in, oh, about 1775; bumpkins.

Actually, old man, I am a Bernie supporter. He is still fund-raising, but some of us are taking the weekend off to re-energize. Please watch for us at the Democratic Convention (Americans have trouble with the language…it is the Democrat Party, not the Democratic Party, so the convention is actually the Democrat Convention. Oh, dash is all, why do I bother?). I think you will be talking about it for quite some time,

BTW, Bernie is using Fabian tactics.

Actually, old man, I am a Bernie supporter.

We got a socialist in here! It just keeps getting worse. The Brits themselves coined the term “nanny state” which I so adamantly adore and use often. And now we have a Bernie “where is my free stuff from the government” guy here.

He is still fund-raising, but some of us are taking the weekend off to re-energize. Please watch for us at the Democratic Convention (Americans have trouble with the language…it is the Democrat Party, not the Democratic Party…

Are you sure it’s not democratic socialism?

Do come along, old boy, Democratic Socialists are near-reactionaries; too right wing.

@ 2Asux — There is literally no such thing, whatsoever, as a “sensible” gun control law. Not outside Common Law, anyway. So, no, gun control is not in any way, shape, or form a valid effort to pursue anything at all, ever. That’s not a mere opinion, but an objective fact. Oh, and those who fear or do not have guns do not have any right to pursue happiness through restricting the rights of their fellows who are not harming them. Their fears have absolutely no bearing on the peaceable exercise of rights by anyone, anywhere, at any time, under any circumstance.

Regardless of whatever you happen to agree on, when the courts are wrong, their decisions are not law. This does not change whether or not the government decides to act in accordance with the courts wishes.

BTW, there need not even be any controlling documents identifying a victim-less crime in the first place. If all parties involved in an action consent and no one is injured, no crime has been committed, period. Upholding unjust laws damages any and all efforts to uphold all law.

“Oh, and those who fear or do not have guns do not have any right to pursue happiness through restricting the rights of their fellows who are not harming them.”

OK, let’s test that: It is late at night. You are traveling on a deserted rural roadway, approaching an intersection. There is no other traffic. You observe a stop sign. You decide that not stopping will save time, save wear and tear on the car brakes. You do not hesitate at the sign, and roll through. An unobserved policeman now pulls you over and writes a ticket for failure to stop. You counter that no one was hurt by your activity, therefore receiving a traffic violation is un-whatever your claim might be. How do you expect the rest of the story to play out?

You see, if you object to laws regulating behavior when and where no other person is harmed, you countenance rampant disrespect for law and the law. Getting away often for violating a law is not an affirmative defense the one time you are caught.

@ 2Asux — You’ve already validated the opinion of Britons held by Americans and most of the world in, oh, about 1775 through to today: greedy tools.

@ 2Asux — What does that have to do with gun control laws? Absolutely nothing, is the answer that you’re looking for. It’s not even analogous. No, it’s not. You still need to explain to me how merely owning a gun, much less peaceably carrying one, poses any danger at all to anyone. I’ll even go ahead and save you a lot of time and more wear-and-tear on your keyboard by answering that query for you: you won’t because you can’t, and you can’t because it doesn’t.

You see, if you impose laws regulating behavior when and where no other person is or can be harmed, you instill rampant disrespect for the law in those that see right through your (non)arguments. Getting scared of an inanimate object is not an affirmative defense for arbitrarily restricting the rights of peaceable people.

I am not afraid of guns. I am afraid of guns in the hands of who knows who. Guns don’t commit mass shootings. Lately, “good guys with guns” do. Almost every mass shooting in the US since 2000 (pick a year) was committed by someone who legally possessed the firearms, or used guns legally purchased by someone else. How many of the mass shooters were “bad guys” before they started shooting?

@ 2Asux — If you support gun control, you are afraid of guns. Not people, guns. Lately, “good guys with guns” don’t commit mass shootings, either. Almost every mass shooting since 1980 was committed by someone who had a disqualifying history of mental illness or some kind of felony and should not have been able to purchase guns in the first place, or used guns illegally straw purchased for them by someone else or that they had stolen themselves. Hardly any of them were “good guys,” and nearly all of them committed their massacres in places where their victims were arbitrarily disarmed.

I am not afraid of guns. I am afraid of unreliable, unknown, untrained, undisciplined, mentally and physically impaired people with guns. Removing the people would be a bit much, don’t you think? Common sense gun regulation seems more compassionate.

The notion that the majority of mass shooters since 2000 were identified/identifiable “bad guys with guns” before they started shooting flies in the face of numerous statistics published here, wherein the conclusion was that background checks are useless because this or that mass shooter passed the checks and snapped anyway.

@ 2Asux — You are afraid of guns. There is no rational explanation for supporting gun control, other than simple (and often willful) ignorance. There is no such thing as “common sense” when it comes to gun control, either. At all. Nor could you even begin to defend any claims that there is.

The notion that the majority of the mass shootings since 200 weren’t identified/identifiable “bad guys” before they started shooting is what actually flies in the face of numerous statistics published here, wherein the conclusion was that the government repeatedly failed — on multiple levels — to update its precious background check systems that the shooters ultimately passed. It was either this, or those that knew and interacted with the shooters failed to act.

In case you missed it, from a reliable conservative source who trusts a liberal primary source: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/07/democrats-push-gun-control-80-mass-shooters-got-guns-legally/.

80% of mass shooters between 1982 and 2015 purchased their guns legally (i.e. “good guys with guns”)

And just for detail, this from NYT showing details about several mass shooters, including which got their guns legally: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/07/democrats-push-gun-control-80-mass-shooters-got-guns-legally/ (more “good guys with guns”).

And once again, I am not afraid of metal, but the stranger of unknown reliability possessing the thing.

@2Asux,

How is it breaking the law if a State ignores an unconstitutional (i.e., illegal) law?

Yes, those you speak of are a tiresome crowd. Wish we could separate them out. Fortunately, they are a miserable minority who do not deflect national attention away from the more sensible among us.

@ 2Asux — Unfortunately for you, and fortunately for us, they are the face of the gun control movement because literally no one on that side even so much as bothers to condemn them, much less police their own social media channels for their rhetoric. If gun control advocates were sensible, they wouldn’t be gun control advocates.

Alas, you may be correct; both sides of the issue are seemingly publicly identified as being unhinged troglodytes.

2Asux – “Yes, those you speak of are a tiresome crowd. Wish we could separate them out. Fortunately, they are a miserable minority who do not deflect national attention away from the more sensible among us.”

And now you know exactly how WE feel when YOU point to the tiny fraction of a percentage of nut jobs who do bad things with guns, and then call for new laws that treat all gun owners as if they were adequately represented by said tiny, tiny, tiny… wair for it… tiny minority. It’s not fair to judge the overwhelming majority by the actions of the infinitesimal minority, is it?

I do not judge all gun owners by the idiotic bombast of the few. Not all gun owners are bombastic idiots. I do judge the deadly threat of untrained, undisciplined, untested gun owners at large, from which the minor population who commit ND derive. On a risk cube, the event is a one, but the impact is a five. The five is loss of innocent life; intolerable. Dress it up, set and meet gun handling standards for all gun owners, or be prepared for others to fashion the solution for you. If gun owners would do those things listed, I would abandon the “anti-gun” movement. Not the Bernie movement, but the anti-gun movement. And I would spend the effort to influence however many on this side of the need to follow suit.

@ 2Asux — Then you are a rare sub-set of gun grabbers. Assuming that this is even true, of course, which I rightly doubt. However, you still knowingly and erroneously misjudge a “threat” that you just as knowingly and equally erroneously blow completely out of proportion. On the risk cube, the impact is one, and the effect is also one, if not less. The one or less is the actual loss of life. There are orders of magnitude more lives saved than taken, which you’d know had you actually ever read this blog. Stop lying, or be prepared for others to continue stamping out your lies for you. Guns owners do all of those things, and whether you think so or not is irrelevant and of no consequence. You are wrong, as is usual. Meaning that, by default, you simply won’t give up the gun-grabbing movement regardless of what happens, anyway. (Fun Fact: Bernie Sanders is an economic illiterate.) It’s no wonder that support for gun control is rightly disappearing, with the sole exceptions of those cesspools where your lot already has super-majority control.

Are you honestly saying the impact to the victim of an ND (or “good guy” gone bad mass shooting) is less than one?

The overall risk assessment may result in a factor less than 5, but the impact is not lessened by the likelihood. One may have a near zero probability/likelihood of being struck by a house-sized asteroid, but the impact of such would certainly be devastating. My choice of managing risk is to mitigate disaster before it can happen, manage the lesser risks.

Since asset I am trying to protect through risk management is me, the opinion of others regarding the impact of disaster is unimpressive. YMMV

What? I’m not getting any attention?

“We all need a purpose” includes I / me / self / this person.

Yes, good advice. Musn’t disturb the echo chamber.

@ 2Asux — Oh, you mean the default status of any and all gun-grabber forums, who summarily — without exception — immediately block and delete the comments of any and all dissenters (even their own) no matter how polite, contrite, and factually-accurate their reservations may be. (Something you might have noticed that TTAG clearly doesn’t do.)

Yes, your echo chambers mustn’t be disturbed.

The defense, “We’re no worse than some others” is rather hollow. When your side tauts their superiority, their resort to reason and logic, (which most gun sense blogs do not), then you set the standard, and are responsible to act according to your own standards. I thought this blog was populated with people mature enough to defend their politics and beliefs over the long term. Members who name-call and insist opposing views be ignored or stopped are of the type they claim to detest. But perhaps the internecine fighting amongst yourselves, where you argue who is the most pure gun lover, where you fracture over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, is all the differing that can be tolerated.

As for echo chambers, why do you think I spend time here? I do not want to live in the echo chambers of the popular anti-gun organizations. I rather expected better of TTAG.

You skipped me! Cmon!

Indeed. It was intentional. Just pulling your nose a bit.

@ 2Asux — Only according to you and your own wholly subjective views of morality. There is no claim to morality in following unjust laws..

We in the West actually like to look to our morality to make law, as dangerous as that can be. It doesn’t matter what other cultures like or do. They’re wholly inapplicable here, in any context whatsoever. We are (thankfully) not them, and they are not us.

We know a lot of laws are immoral. Changing them, however, is simply not going to happen. You’re doing nothing but complaining here yourself. And no, people who defy unjust laws and harm no one in the process don’t deserve any punishment at all. The so-called “authorities” are wrong, in that there is absolutely no utility whatsoever in punishing people for victim-less crimes.

A law is a law. A law-abiding citizen recognizes that adherence (obedience?) to law is proper until that law is changed or overturned. It is how civilized nations work. If changing laws is not going to happen, you admit defeat and the responsibility to abide by even those laws you think objectionable. Or at least you concede that penalties for ignoring the laws are just consequence.

Given you’ve agreed laws are not going to change in your favor, why would you venture out publicly to advertise your fatalism?

@ 2Asux — A law is scribble on parchment by a gaggle of war criminals and sociopaths who are wholly disconnected from their constituents. A law-abiding citizen recognizes that adherence to sensible laws is what’s proper. That is how civilized nations work. If changing nonsensical laws is not going to happen, we actually peaceably disobey said laws until they are repealed because we have the moral and civil duty to do so.

Given that I’ve rightly stated that the laws aren’t changing through the normal channels, I am venturing to publicly advertise my resistance. Civil disobedience can render and has rendered many a law de-facto moot.

Civil disobedience and refusal to engage are not the same. Ghandi did not gain his moral authority by refusing to take on the British Army, and staying home. He could have simply refused to use anything British, including public communications outlets. Instead he gained his authority by openly (and peacefully) defying the government.

But as I noted elsewhere: please continue to not engage; it suits us.

@ 2Asux — Civil disobedience and refusing to engage are exactly the same. Gandhi did gain his moral authority by refusing to use violence, to include not engaging the British Army, and nobody said anything about staying at home except you — which can only tell us that that’s what you would do, anyway.

But, as I and many others have others have rightly observed elsewhere: please continue to be ignorant. It suits us.

@ 2Asux — No, says the Constitution and We, The People. No, the government is not and absolutely does not represent We, The People, either. The national and state Constitutions envision no situation where either the national or state governments can so flagrantly disregard any part of the Bill of Rights.

Yet, they do.

Selectively declaring which rights apply where does not for the sake of political convenience does not give governments legitimacy in their actions.

Like it or not, the so-called “elections” (READ: meaningless dog and pony shows that are rigged anyway) and these activist kangaroo courts don’t matter at this point.

Meaning what, exactly? Have you and your army crossed the Rubicon? Have you positioned yourself to launch an armed attack on agents of the government? What “intolerant” act has the government taken that makes it “now the revolution” for you?

@ 2Asux — Meaning exactly what I said. I don’t need an army, nor do I need to cross any supposed lines of defense. I don’t even need to attack agents of the state, for that matter. There are a great many acts that the government has seen fit to partake in that are disagreeable to the vast majority of people. Mass surveillance, drug prohibition, military adventurism. One could write an encyclopedia on it.

Holding your breath until you turn blue will not be an effective (thankfully) measure of protest. Those who believe they can outsmart the government live a folly. When thousands and thousands of gun owners do not comply, do not be surprised to find more laws that put gun owners at risk of arrest when they are caught by virtue of an unrelated violation. You see, if laws prohibiting gun activities are passed (no transport, no outside the home use, purchase of more ammunition than a defined amount, etc) the result is that which is desired; fewer guns in public. You see, Heller said “in the home”. Laws can be constructed so as to make it more likely non-compliant gun owners will actually trip-up, and be found in violation.

@ 2Asux — Again, as I’ve rightly pointed out to you elsewhere, literally nobody said anything about holding their breath or keeping everything secret except for you. That can only tell us that that’s what you would do, anyway, since you so casually throw such accusations around knowing you have no evidence to even make them in the first place. Those who believe we can’t outsmart the government live a lie. When millions and millions of gun owners do not comply, as is already the case even now, do not be surprised to find more gun control laws being repealed or simply going unenforced thanks to enormity of the logistics of it all, if nothing else. You see, if onerous gun control laws are passed, the result is NOT that which is desired. You see, Heller combined with McDonald said, “For any legal purpose,” which includes self-defense outside the home. Had you actually ever read any of the relevant case law, you’d know that. Legislators can construct all the laws they want: they won’t get what they want, not in a thousand years.

@2Asux

But we are far afield of the topic: Deliberately refusing to comply with a properly established law makes one a law-breaker, and can no longer be considered “one of the most law-abiding” people in the country (gun owners).

Hey! You nailed it! So we’re all in agreement, then, that there’s no need for any of us to obey unconstitutional Federal “laws.”

And it amuses me that you keep thinking that we will get our panties in a twist when you keep saying that when we disobey “laws,” we will no longer be “the most law-abiding people.” Keep at it!

“If you still don’t like it, go the hell back where you came from.”

“Because I don’t want to share, change or tolerate anyone who doesn’t look and think like me”.

Or words to that effect ?

@ 2Asux — More like, “We have no obligation to change anything about ourselves to accommodate you, you came to us. Adapt or GTFO.”

I get it: no Jews, no Irish, no Italian, no Chinese….because such people might want to add something to our culture that would require change. We musn’t dilute the blood line with mud people.

@ 2Asux — No, you actually don’t get it. At all. Nobody said anything like that, or even remotely implied it, except for you. That can only tell us far and away more about you, than us. Like it or not, assimilation is the key to success for any immigrant population into their host society under any circumstance you can think of. (Fun Fact: Jews and Far East Asians typically do better in majority white societies than even whites do — because they adapt better.)

I was not the one to say “America, love it or leave it.” When one says to an immigrant, “If you don’t like it here (meaning being like us), then go back where you came from”, the conclusion can only be that the person making that declaration does not want anyone here who is different.

@ 2Asux — The fact remains that if an immigrant is not willing to assimilate into and abide by the customs of their host culture, then they are simply not going to succeed. That’s literally all there is to it. As the old adage goes, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

Vast difference between refusing to assimilate and complaining about something. The original charge was that if I emigrate to a country (your country?), and I do not like something, then I should leave, and go back. Xenophobia defined. Or egocentricity?

I really haven’t been getting involved much – as others are doing such a good job, but I must take exception to this:

I get it: no Jews, no Irish, no Italian, no Chinese….because such people might want to add something to our culture that would require change. We musn’t dilute the blood line with mud people.

They may not necessarily add to our culture but take something away from our culture. Kind of like guns. They are welcome to join us so long as they embrace the constitution. It has nothing to do with blood or any of that nonsense. My kids are half Asian and they will be of my culture. My spouse came here to escape her country – not to bring it here to the United States.

And don’t be a hypocrite. Do you want all of your granddaughters to wear burkas and speak Arabic? Incompatible cultures should remain segregated. In this way they both may pursue their happiness and not be forced a culture they do not wish to accept.

The original charge was one of casting off anyone who registered a complaint about life in America. Merely the claim that no one who was different, or held differing ideas from the current occupants of the US should be resident. Nothing about difficulties of assimilation, or clash of cultures.

@2asux

…the conclusion can only be that the person making that declaration does not want anyone here who is different.

Congratulations. You got it. I do not want communist government brought here. I do not want my granddaughter to be concealed in a burka. I don’t want my grandchildren regressing to socialism, communism, and disregard all the rights that my family fought and died for – so no.

Xenophobia or ethnocentrism?

@ 2Asux — Nobody said there wasn’t a difference. Xenophobia is actually defined by an absolute shutting out of all others unlike the tribe. You’re more than welcome to come here, as long as you play by our rules. You don’t like our rules? Either make a persuasive argument as to why they need to change (which you’re clearly incapable of doing anyway) or GTFO. The only xenophobia, egocentricity, or ethnocentrism here to be seen is, in fact, yours.

You see, as I rightly dictated to you elsewhere, those who causally throw out accusations willy-nilly, knowing full-well they have no evidence to even justify them to start with, are the very things they want to label others.

What you have said is, “If you do not hold the thoughts, opinions, persuasions, myths, legends, of our tribe, you are unwelcome; get out.” Isn’t that the example of Xenophobia as you defined it? If I say, I don’t like XYZ, I think it needs inclusion of ABC, and someone should do something about it, often the response here and parts of America is, “America; like it or leave it. We don’t need no stinkin’ changing.” Seems to be a statement of a requirement to conform to the tribe in all matters, at all times. It is also proof that a person has completely emptied their intellectual magazine.

But we are far afield of the topic: Deliberately refusing to comply with a properly established law makes one a law-breaker, and can no longer be considered “one of the most law-abiding” people in the country (gun owners).

@ 2Asux — There was no casting off anyone who registered a complaint about life in America in the first place. Nobody ever said that anyone who holds differing ideas should not be residents, except for you.

@ 2Asux — What I have actually said is, “If you don’t like our rules, and cannot make a convincing argument as to why they need to change (which you haven’t because you literally can’t), then either abide or get out.” That’s not xenophobia even as you misinterpret it. So, not, there actually isn’t a requirement to conform to the tribe in all matters, at all times. One was never imposed or even implied at any time, and you know that. You just can’t make any good arguments as to why things need to change, which is why you now knowingly and falsely accuse us of being xenophobes. That is also actually proof that you never even had anything to load your intellectual magazine in the first place, and that you are guilty of being everything that you’ve knowingly projected onto us.

Deliberately refusing to comply with an improper law does not necessarily bar one from being considered one of the most law-abiding people in the country.

The essence of that quote has nothing to do with gun rights. it has to do with governmental interference in MY life period. I don’t know where you are from or what your background is, but if you allow governmental restrictions on something as mundane as firearms, what else are you willing to allow your government to restrict.

To me gun laws have nothing to do with guns. They have everything to do with the state enacting policy that limits the rights of citizens in order to control said citizens. If you are on board with the government controlling citizens, then I have an extensive list of reading material.that I would encourage you to read. start with,
an American in the gulag, the gulag archipelago, a day in the life of Ivan denisovich, the rape of nanking, and more. read history, and then think about what you say and the long term consequences that your beliefs eventually lead to.

All laws have to do with controlling individual behavior. This is news?

So what? That’s why our country has been so vigilant against laws that create instances of prior restraint for any of our rights. Any law abiding person could violate any law at any time. Why single out gun owners?

Because you could become a murderer in an instant, and we have a natural and civil right not to be randomly killed just to make your hobby more pleasant for you.

And we are not singling-out guns as is normally thought, we are talking gun rights because this blog is about guns. Duh.

You could become a murderer by stepping on the gas in your car, stabbing your spouse or others with a knife, swinging a baseball bat or a tire iron. But most people don’t. In essence you are saying that gun rights should be removed because a criminal act might happen (pre-crime), not because of someone’s criminal misconduct. You illogically equate gun owners, of whom there are millions, with murderers just waiting to act, despite the lack of any objective evidence to support this radical idea. The fallacy is demonstrated because the same illogic applies to any object that can be used to commit a homicide. Shall we all live in padded cells so that we can be “safe”?
You do not have a “right” guaranteed by the constitution to be safe, to not be attacked. But you do have a natural right to defend yourself, a right guaranteed from interference by governmental authority. The Bill of Rights is not a code of conduct between individuals, it is a limitation on the power of the government vis-a-vis the citizens and the states that created it. The major defining difference between the federal government as established by the Constitution and European governments of the era (and to this day) is that it establishes that the citizens and the States are the sovereigns, to whose power the federal government is supposed to be subservient. The Bill of Rights was put down to limit federal governmental power, not to protect individuals from harms inflicted by other individuals..

Yes, yes. All wonderful thoughts about a time long ago. Once the controls on national government were devolved upon the states, in you own country you have that European type government you so hate: states are mere political sub-divisions of national government. The original compact between states/citizens and the national government was rendered moot (unless, of course states act positively where the national government cannot muster the political majority to pass appropriate laws).

Long ago, the US became a normal national government. Old legends die slowly, but facts are also stubborn. States and citizens are subject to national authority.

I don’t disagree; this was the result of the Civil War. One could easily argue that the federal government usurped the power that was reserved to the States and to the People, and has been acting illegitimately ever since. On the other hand, national unity has had demonstrable positive outcomes. This is why we have the we have the Second Amendment; it is a final defense to creeping tyranny, reserving to the People the legal right to overthrow the government when it has exceeded its authority. It is the natural progression of bureaucracies and of governments to devolve to tyrannical institutions, of which we have so many historical examples. Republics become democracies of the mob, which are overthrown by benevolent dictators, which are succeeded by inherited monarchies. We see this in America today, as the wage gap grows, the middle class shrinks, and the Democrat Party thinks it is wise to throw out not just the Second Amendment, but the rights to innocent until proven guilty and due process of law. That, my friend, is tyranny, and it is indeed frightening.

You responded to the second part of my comment, but not the first. Is it your position that the mere possession of a firearm makes one a murderer who has simply not yet acted? How is that a sensible position, when you yourself agree that the vast majority of violent crime in this country is committed in the inner cities, between criminals who more often than not, either due to age or criminal conviction, have no right to possess firearms? There are hundreds of millions of firearms in this country, yet the annual number of accidental homicides are fewer than 1000, and the murders not committed by gang bangers are only two or three thousand per year, out of a population of 335,000,000 people (or so). Or the fact that even the liberal anti-gun researchers agree that guns are used successfully for defensive purposes 50-80,000 times per year (while others claim that the number is vastly higher). Guns are used lawfully in self defense, in target shooting and shooting sports, and in hunting tens of millions of times a year, which hardly makes us killers waiting on a whim to start a rampage.

I think I did respond to the second part, but there has been a lot going on. In short, If you don’t go where you need a gun to defend yourself, you don’t need a gun. I don’t fear the criminal, I fear the normal-appearing person who has a gun and can just snap in a crowded location. I fear the “good guy with a gun” who becomes the next mass shooter (how many mass shooters of late have been criminals, or “bad guys” before they shot up a public gathering?).

Man. This is the most absurd crap ever.

In short, If you don’t go where you need a gun to defend yourself, you don’t need a gun.

Complete nonsense. Criminals stay in their criminal zones? Tell that to those whom had a home intrusion, or the guy that was murdered getting gas at the station. Or all those people in those gun free zones that keep getting gunned down. Absolute total nonsense man.

I don’t fear the criminal, I fear the normal-appearing person who has a gun and can just snap in a crowded location.

Definitive proof you are a total hoplophobe with delusional mental problems. You fear the guy that might have a gun, but not the guy ready to smash your brains all over the pavement with a tire iron, or the lunatic with an IED looking for a drop off.

I fear the “good guy with a gun” who becomes the next mass shooter (how many mass shooters of late have been criminals, or “bad guys” before they shot up a public gathering?).

There is definitely a criminal element and a crazy element, and mass shooters tend to be the latter. And … For now… Their favorite tool of choice is the firearm. That said, should one “snap” near you, be it a tire iron or a firearm, and being that the vast majority of people have morals, wouldn’t you want to have a guy with a gun nearby?

I venture that the victims you identified were in dodgy neighborhoods. Perhaps not war-zone criminal neighborhoods, but places where it is best to give a wide berth.

And yes, there will always be the random innocent victim in an upscale neighborhood, but if gun owners insist I ignore the statistically insignificant likelihood of being victim of an ND, then I insist you ignore the statistically insignificant likelihood of being a crime victim in “a nice neighborhood”.

@ 2Asux — No, not only did he not affirm your demonstrably false, asinine, and ass-backwards observations, but you still have yet to even substantiate them in any conceivable way. There are only those who believe in civil rights, and those who don’t. You don’t, and that includes everyone who ever says, “I support [inset amendment here], but…”

In a society composed of more than one person, no “right” is absolute. Wasn’t even a dream in the founders. They had very different ideas about how a federal government would function, and how individual states would function.

@ 2Asux — Except that’s demonstrably untrue and you damn well know that. You’re simply projecting your own instability onto the rest us, and that’s always where accusations of us being proto-murderers comes from, without exception. There’s no other possible explanation for it, given that you have zero proof of anybody else’s intent to even make that (non)argument in the first place. We have a right to self-preservation that automatically and completely supersedes any irrational fear of inanimate objects that is, whether you want to admit it or not, at the core of your drive for gun control.

And yes, you are singling out guns and gun owners as is normally demonstrated by you and your ilk. You’re also actually talking about the destruction of rights.

In a society, the smallest minority is the individual. The individual is with whom rights reside, and is thus in need of the most protection. You also clearly have no idea what was intended by the Founding Fathers, either. You have very different ideas about how a federal government and individual states would function than they did.

Once more: how many mass shooters of late were “bad guys”/criminals before they began shooting-up a public gathering? Most were “normal” people (non-crininals) who just went on a shooting spree.

@ 2Asux — Once more: a lot of them were. Some were even adjudicated as mentally deficient in a court of law or had pending felony charges against them, and the government dropped the ball. As is usual. Most weren’t “normal” people (READ: mentally unstable or religious radicals) and had meticulously planned their attacks for some time.

It remains that most of the shooters were not law breakers prior to beginning to shoot. It is those types I fear are all too common, just not active yet.

Because you could become a murderer in an instant, and we have a natural and civil right not to be randomly killed just to make your hobby more pleasant for you.

Come on man. Losing my respect here.

You, 2asux, could become a murderer in an instant and premediatively construct a large bomb and detonate it in a very public and crowded place. That said, I shouldn’t have the authority to strip you of your rights because of the capacity of what you might be capable of.

We have evidence of tens of millions of gun owners, and millions who conceal their guns when out and about. We have no evidence of someone wandering around with a bomb in their pocket. You are statistically going to shoot me accidentally, more than I am going to ignite a bomb on you.

@ 2Asux — It actually remains that most of the shooters were deeply disturbed individuals that our gun control laws could not catch beforehand. Anyway, you do still fear guns and, thus, gun owners simply for the fact that you support gun control — laws that only hinder peaceable people, not criminals or crazies. There is no way to overcome the mountains of evidence that gun control accomplishes literally nothing else.

Would not a “hoplophobe”, as you would put it, fear guns in the hands of police and military? Having been trained in military firearms of various calibres, I do not fear a dead metal object. I fear the stranger who may have that object hidden away, only to use it to prove a point in a fit. If every gun owner completed a recognized, standard training regimen in gun handling, my fear of the stranger with a gun would be quite reduced.

@ 2Asux — You clearly do fear dead metal objects. There is no rational explanation for want of gun control laws but simple (and often willful) ignorance, which is and has been on full display here from you. If every gun owner were required to complete a mandatory training course, you lot would make sure that nobody — not even yourselves — could pass it, because exactly none of you even care to be able to do so in the first place. No, you don’t, either. That is why, and rightly so, that such licensing schemes and fees to exercise any of our civil rights were declared Unconstitutional long ago.

Nothing will ever assuage your completely irrational and demonstrably unfounded fears, period.

There have been a number of subject postings wherein I declared that standardized training and certification of proper gun handling need not be the result of a government construct. If the gun industry could establish one set of standards across the country, could manage a method whereby all their customers (past and present) were assured to be trained to that standard, I would agitate for dropping any action intended to confiscate or severely restrict private gun ownership. The only reason for a government mandated system is that gun owners will not regulate themselves. Knowing that training was popular, widespread, honored, sought after would pretty much remove fears that any gun carrying person one might encounter is irresponsible.

To start, the list looks like Donald Trump’s talking points and political platform. You disagree with any of those principles? All of them?

Next, “at whose expense”? If the agenda is fulfilled, each person would have the means to fund his or her own life, taking nothing from anyone. That list declares that people are deserving of respect and opportunity, that no individual or corporation has leave to exploit another human. Are these radical ideas?

There is nothing in the list that supposes, endorses or recommends fulfilling individual rights by unjustly taking away the rights of another (unless one perceives that losing a job or an industry due to classic economics is unjustly subverting rights.

While it is advantageous that so-called conservatives not understand that the list you provide should be their rallying cry for restoration of proper interaction between individuals, it is simultaneously puzzling that conservatives would see the list as a mandate for government to be the arbiter of all interaction.

Fortunately, conservatives sometimes stumble across the truth, but pick themselves up and carry on as if nothing happened.

@ 2Asux — To start, that actually list looks like Bernie Sander’s talking points and political platform.

Next, at everyone else’s unending and all-consuming expense. The agenda cannot be fulfilled by state coercion, which is the platform and policy of the DemoKKKrats and other regressive leftists — and the only means they have ever suggested or even accept. That list actually declares that people are somehow deserving of the fruit of someone else’s labor (even though they’re not). That is a pretty radical idea.

Everything on that list supposes, endorses, and recommends depriving another of their rights, by the state. At gunpoint.

While it is advantageous that so-called “liberals” clearly do not have the capacity to understand that the list above is and can be only a rallying cry for authoritarians and autocrats, it is simultaneously puzzling that so-called “liberals” wouldn’t see it as a mandate for government to be the arbiter of all interaction.

Fortunately, liberals sometimes stumble across the truth, but pick themselves up and carry on as if nothing happened.

“That list actually declares that people are somehow deserving of the fruit of someone else’s labor (even though they’re not). ”

I did not see government coercion or wealth redistribution listed. I did not view it from that perspective (I guess that is what results from me trying to see the world from the “conservative” point of view). If I shift position a bit, I can see how the overly fearful could impute a system of government control fulfilling the list.

At the risk of alienating a strong supporting organization, one item could be used to just about put an end to all “union shop” employment laws.

Could you agree that if we remove government intervention, the list is quite good?

@2A Sux:

Without an intrusive government the list is neither good nor bad, it is meaningless since it is not possible.

Take one element: “5. The right of every family to a decent home.”

If he does not have a decent home, how is he to collect on his right to one? It must be provided to him…at someone else’s expense. It must be provided. Someone will have to be compelled to provide it. (More than likely, that will be spread out amongst thousands or even millions of people…but then, there will be thousands or millions of people without a decent home, too, so it works out the same either way.) If someone is compelled to pay for it, he’s having his wealth spent for him without his consent. For so-called “Right #5” to be secured, someone else must be robbed, by the government.

You’ll note that that’s true of all the others, unless you very loosely read the first couple as giving someone the right to try to make a contract for employment, rather than being allowed to demand it even if his/her work is so slipshod no one wants to pay for it.

@SteveInCO, I couldn’t help but notice the lack of a response to your clear and concise explanation of what I thought was the obvious.

@ 2Asux — The verifiable statistical fact that gun owners are the most law-abiding citizens in the country, you mean. And those same people rightly find no conundrums in disobeying improperly passed, and improperly applied, and just plain improper gun control legislation — which, in all actuality, is all of it. If we break said gun control laws, you can rest assured that we have valid reasons for doing so. Your assertions are irrelevant.

A so-called valid reason for breaking the law does not change the fact: law was broken. A person intent upon being a law-breaker cannot legitimately claim to be “most law-abiding”, unless you mean “law-abiding most of the time, for which I will determine when it is convenient to obey any given law depending on what I want at the moment.”

@ 2Asux — A so-called law still isn’t a law at all if said law runs contrary to our civil rights. A person intent on being law-abiding can still legitimately claim to be the “most law-abiding,” (which is still a statistical fact no matter how much mental gymnastics you choose to do) unless you mean “law-abiding most of the time, for which I will determine when it is convenient to obey so long as everyone else agrees with me else I seek to destroy them or have the state do it for me.”

Why do you keep saying that unconstitutional laws are “properly passed legislation”? By definition, they are illegal.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Something tells me his Mum’s cats can’t even stand him.

Or, he did.

You’ve been getting got all over this page, and all over this blog. That’s all you’re good for.

@ 2Asu — Theory is all that you have. In turn, reality must be no fun for you. The law doesn’t separate us from mob rule. If anything, the law is mob rule, only with a little pomp and circumstance to make people “feel” good about it. It’s actually our own personal moral and ethical codes that we learned growing up, and practice all throughout adulthood, the separate us from mob rule. So, let me clear this up for you: if a person is prohibited by law from possessing a gun, and that person uses one to protect their own life and/or the lives of others, the violator should not be punished. The law should actually be ignored and later repealed. If you want to see people convicted who could have only defended themselves and/or others by defying the law, that’s on you. That’s behavior more akin to tin pot dictatorships and banana “republics.” I rightly have zero respect or sympathy for you, period.

If you subscribe to the theory that the law should be ignored for the greater good, then you support a system of situational ethics (which has been a core belief of our side since the 60s), and situational application of the law. That puts you in the same line of reasoning of President Obama, who once declared, “We can’t let the law stand in the way of doing the right thing.”

Welcome aboard.

@ 2Asux — You clearly subscribe to the theory that the law should be ignored or applied against the good of the individual, whenever possible, especially if it’s against the yet-undefined “greater good” which you lot have absolutely no grasp of to begin with. That puts me in the exact opposite line of reasoning as our imperial president.

None of us are on board with you, nor should we be.

The law should actually be ignored

It’s actually a standard part of our law-making system. It’s called jury nullification.

You do know the laws on slavery when Jefferson inherited them, right?

Nobody here is denying the fact that Jefferson and company were traitors to the crown. But, they were superior to British law and rule, and they were ultimately vindicated. This is all after trying literally every other legitimate avenue of redress available to them at the time. In the end, it was actually King George III and his minions that were the “bad guys with guns” after they had mistreated, sometimes brutally, their own kith and kin with their burdensome taxes and the Townsend Acts, and other intolerable and coercive things they foisted onto their subjects without the representative vote that they were due.

Some student of history you are (not).

Parliament and the King were acting within the law of England; founders defied the law. Law breakers are “bad guys” in relation to the law broken. Being law-breakers, they became legal “bad guys with guns”. No matter how many alternatives the founders tried in an effort to reach accommodation, they broke the laws. Outcome does not eliminate the fact that the founders were operating illegally. If they had lost, their rebellion would have been written into history as brigands who deserved their fate as law-breakers and traitors. There would have been little sympathy for the notion that they were actually “good guys” standing for “the right thing”.

Not sure what discussing violations of the law has to do with ” being a student of history. Question: regardless of reason and excuse, did the founders violate the existing laws of the Crown? Yes/No? When or why is irrelevant.

Parliament and the King were acting within the law of England; founders defied the law.

No, not really. The British government attempted to abolish the Americans’ common law right of self-defense by taking all their gunpowder and guns. They tried to disarm Americans. The British conducted warrantless searches for arms and ammunition. Great Britain attempted to force unjust laws upon us by the strength of arms.

Remember, it was the crown itself that had established the colonial governments. Even the British crown recognized the legitimacy of these local governments, and expected British subjects to do the same. It was these local governments that declared the war of independence because of the king’s and the London Parliament’s illegal actions.

The London Parliament began imposing taxes and levies, began quartering soldiers in colonists’ homes, and committed other unlawful acts upon the 13 English provinces, each with its own parliament. Even in England, the king was not sovereign, Parliament was. And the colonists were in covenant with a king who ceased keeping that covenant, and who allowed them to be rendered slaves rather than free men.

The London Parliament ordered the naval blockade of the Port of Boston and stopped all lawful commerce. This was an act of war (it still is today), and the colonists rightly understood it to be an act of war by the London Parliament against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. They sought redress from the king but he took the position of the London Parliament and enforced it. And over time the offenses mounted, from the Boston Massacre to the passage of bills of attainder to the military occupation of American cities and the dismissal of American parliaments.

King George dispatched 25,000 British troops to invade the Colonies, enter the homes of his own citizens to take their private possessions and goods, and imprison them without trials – all in violation of British Common Law, the English Bill of Rights, and the Magna Carta. Only when those governmental covenants had been broken by the crown and America had been directly attacked did the Americans respond in self-defense. This went on for years before we declared war.

I’d be perfectly content to be known as a bad guy with a gun if grouped together with the likes Thomas Jefferson, et al. What makes you think that would bother us people of the gun? Knock yourself out, 2Asux.

@ 2Asux — Oh, you mean the default state of affairs in any and all gun-grabber forums, wherein any and all dissenters are blocked and their comments deleted no matter how polite, contrite, and factually-accurate their reservations are without exception? (Something that you might have noticed TTAG doesn’t do.)

Yes, your echo chambers must remain unsullied.

If you finisy it and can’t publish it and make the money you should then please post it on Freenet and on hidden servers that requires TOR to access.

Horseshit, pure and simple.

Liberties are. Courts are intended to remove liberties. An unjust law remains unjust no matter how many government officials are willing to enforce it.

For your enlightenment, all of the government agents in these photos were acting entirely within the law:

http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/10/world-war-ii-the-holocaust/100170/

Yes, they were. What made their actions “crimes against humanity” ? The victors. The victors determined an entirely new and made-up class of crime simply to obliterate a culture. The Germans decided what was legal and what was not inside their borders and conquered territory (conquering was a natural and civil right of nations prior to 1945). It wasn’t until the Munich trials that the US even admitted there was a holocaust because the government did not want the anti-Jewish racism rampant in the US to put an end to a war to save the Jews. How moral was that?

All I am saying is the law is the law. One must comply or face the consequences until an “offensive” law is changed or overturned. To put morality into this discussion, the civil rights activists put themselves out there for all to see and revere or hate. They did not protest race laws by silence and secrecy. They did not express their outrage and protest by refusing to ride buses.

Refusing to comply with a law but not actively protesting a perceived injustice is not the definition of a moral position on a matter critical to society.

However, please continue in your silence. It is most helpful.

@ 2Asux — Again, class, liberties are actually what We, The People determine they are. Then, we do not have a nation of laws, but of mobs.

If you would like to see a nation of people who determine for themselves what the law is or should be, I direct your attention to any city run by leftist autocrat aristocracy.

@ 2Asux — Their actions alone made them cries against Humanity. Their actions, not those of the victors, were made to obliterate a culture. (Fun Fact: conquering territory was never a natural or civil right.) The U.S. government also admitted that there was a holocaust very soon after the first camps were liberated. Nobody else but Nazis and their sympathizers could have ever possibly denied or explained away the insurmountable evidence that quickly spread across the world.

All we’re saying is that unjust laws are not laws at all. They’re not. One mustn’t comply or else be doomed to be buried under more unjust laws through silent obedience, which is essentially giving consent. Oh, and they did boycott buses in Montgomery, by the way. That’s how they got policies changed. We, too, put ourselves out there for all to see and revere or hate. In the media, and out in public. Not that you would know this, naturally, as neither paying attention nor doing even a moment’s honest research are things that you lot do.

So, yes, refusing to comply with said law is to actively protest a perceived injustice – and is by definition a moral position on any matter critical to society.

However, please continue in your vociferous ignorance. It is most helpful to us.

Conquering other territory was a natural and civil right of nations that had the power to impose its will on another; power made right. By what objective (non-cultural) test can one assert that the morals of one group of people are unacceptable? By what objective authority is annihilating another culture immoral or criminal? By what objective authority was it moral or immoral for British Bomber Command in WW2 to attack civilian population centers merely to drive up casualties in an effort to destroy the willingness of the German people to allow the Nazis to continue? By what objective authority was it moral for US 20th Bomber Command to firebomb Japanese cities (causing more deaths than both atomic bombs combined) with the intent to drive civilian casualties to levels unacceptable to the Japanese government?

We pick and chose what we find moral, based on our own self-interests, and our own cultural histories. We establish moralities and laws to keep in check our perverse natures. If a culture decides there are to be no limits on personal actions, the only limit would be the eventual and predictable self-extinguishment. But that would objectively be neither moral, nor immoral. It would be moral or immoral to that culture, and dealt with accordingly.

Law places external limits on my nature. Morals place internal limits on my nature. My culture, my choice.

@ 2Asux — Conquering other territory wasn’t a natural or civil right of nations, regardless of how much power they had. Might didn’t and still doesn’t make right. One can gather which moral codes are unacceptable by their effects, which must include an analysis of culture and development. It was seen then and is seen now as immoral to indiscriminately bomb non-military targets. (Fun Fact: The then-Japanese Emperor Hirohito had to pressure his generals to consider and accept a surrender.)

We pick and chose what objectively works best. Ultimately, it’s not laws enforced by a feckless and incompetent state that keep us in check, but our own personal ethical and moral codes. If a culture decides there are to be no limits on personal actions, it ceases to be a culture at all. That could be found, and is, objectively immoral. How a society chooses to deal with that is simply their business.

Laws don’t place any limits on your nature, the morals and ethics you learned growing up do that. Laws do not prevent or modify behavior, only punish after a crime has been committed.

Sorry folks. “Morality” is culture-dependent. The winners always place their concepts, conditions and condition over that of other cultures, and make judgments. No one can escape their cultural bias.

In human history and interaction, there are no moral absolutes. Even the founders depended on a theological precept that there was/is a God, of some sort, and that God granted humans with rights (among other things). At that time, around the world, there were (and still are) cultures who would reject the God of the founders, and the related moral codes. Who is morally right? Prove that objectively (that is, without any reference to the supernatural, personal belief system or material outcomes).

One cannot posit that because their condition brings health, wealth, contentment or achievement, therefore their moral code must be correct and superior to all or any others. Take for instance, culling the herd.

One culture sees damaged/crippled/handicapped/special needs members to be worthy of protection, nurture, empathy and tolerance. Another sees such persons as a dangerous drain on the healthy members, preventing the culture from surviving, or from growing more resilient or prosperous. The second culture sees no value in intellectual games about how a culture is more respected because it allows the lessers to hamper the greaters. It is all truly relevant among the philosophies of man (If you want an amazing survey of the major philosophies, read CS Lewis “The Abolution of Man”).

Wow. 2asux/Sam I Am you really are one twisted piece of wreckage.

You have it backwards. A nation of laws requires that its government be restricted by laws as well. Therefore in a nation of laws the courts cannot be the sole arbiters of what liberties the people have.

No, to have a nation of laws requires that the liberties of the people be absolute, enshrined in a supreme law that absolutely restricts its’ government from violating those liberties. Sounds vaguely familiar, no?

To allow the courts to decide what liberties the people have, firstly ignores the property role of the courts and legislatures. Giving that power to courts allows them to make laws instead of adjudication how any given law, as written, applies to a person’s action or a situation. There are things called branches of government.

What you’ve advocated is not a nation of laws at all but a nightmarish free for all of power abuse.

“…a nation of laws requires that th of the people be absolute.”

Yes ! Absolute liberties. My liberties are absolute, not subject to constraint, not even the constraint of not interfering with your liberties. If there are any constraints on my liberties, they are not absolute.

I think I like this “absolute” business.

Don’t know how I missed it until now – must have been the obvious Britishisms and distractions about laws and such, but it is now, following 2Asux response to my comment directing him to the Holocaust photos, that I understand that he is purely and simply an anti-Semite and determined Fascist! In his mind whatever the government decides to do is the right thing to do, even if it is a blatant crime against humanity! Just as a basic rule of common sense and common law the fact that you individually, or as a society, or as a nation have the power to go to your neighbors, kill them and take their stuff, does not make those actions morally correct, EVER. And before it is said, yes, this applies to the way the government treated the American Indians. It was immoral and criminal behavior by our government.

You cannot make an act moral or legal just because you have the power to pass a law saying so and to enforce that law by coercion and force up to and including death. Such a stance on any level is ludicrous.

FASCISM: “We have decided what is best for you. If you know what is good for you then you will NOT oppose us.”

And what are the almost universal first actions of fascism: make private ownership of weapons illegal, imprison or kill citizens who violate this rule, and build massive standing armies of police and soldiers to enforce your unpopular laws and steal land and resources from your neighbors.

Fact: “Crimes against humanity” did not exist until 1945. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Does identifying the fact make one moral or immoral? Does “saying” an unpleasant truth make the reporter good or evil? “Crimes against humanity” was the birthing ground for “hate crimes”. The idea that killing in large numbers was some how more horrible than killing in lesser, but large numbers. Does anyone find “crimes against humanity” in the futile, senseless, useless Battle of the Somme? Why not?

BTW: Records kept by the Germans prove they exterminated millions of Communists, Czechs, Greeks, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, mentally and physically handicapped, Poles, resistance fighters, Russians, Serbs, Socialists, Spanish Republicans, trade unionists, Ukrainians, Yugoslavians, prisoners of war of many nations. Roughly 16 to 20 million non-Jewish victims. Is noting that fact also considered anti-Semitic?

Again, class….Liberties are what the courts determine they are.

I’m going to get theoretical here. What if, say, the people on the court suddenly died (one way or another). What would those liberties be then? And if those on the court who died were then replaced, who is really determining what those liberties are?

“The courts” exist as an institution, populated by justices who come and go. Thus, whoever sits on the courts makes determinations of what the law/liberty is at any given point in time. The decisions, and the results, change, but the court remains the final arbiter….barring a revolution. If there is no final determination of rights in dispute, then disputes are interminable, leading to chaos. Everyone wants to be their own Supreme Court (and supreme being?), but society cannot function under that concept. The law of the jungle would prevail.

@ 2Asux — Sorry, folks, but morality is as universal as the laws of nature. The winners are actually the ones with the best ethics, and they develop the best concepts, conditions, and judgements. Reality has a bias against inferior people and inferior cultures.

There are moral absolutes, especially in everyday Human interaction. Many of the Founders were ministers and Deists, and still they had the wherewithal to prevent the government from favoring one religion over another. The moral codes of the Founders, enshrined in the Constitution, are universally applicable. In order to prove them objectively right, one must analyze the material outcomes of various cultures holding different morals and ethics. Otherwise, it simply cannot be done. What you want to engage in is nothing more than illegitimate cultural relativism and sophistry, pure and simple. They’re not arguments and, therefore, you have no arguments whatsoever.

One can posit that because their condition brings them wealth, health, contentment, and comfort that their moral code is superior to those of others. That’s how these things are measured. Whether you accept that premise or not is irrelevant and of no consequence.

You can’t have moral absolutes among people if the “objective” test is which God you believe in. If your God is rejected, those standards are irrelevant to those rejecting that God. “Objective” morality must be measured without dependence on an unprovable supreme being.

BTW, many people who believe in the God of the founders are broke, damaged, marginalized, downtrodden, impoverished, subjugated, persecuted. So you have two “objective” standards of morality. Which is which? Wealth and success proves a superior morality? Or worldly defeat and powerlessness?

What you believe “moral” has no superior station in the lives of others.

As I noted earlier, “moral” society and “moral” people has been the subject of conflicting philosophies since time began, and remains unsettled among the great thinkers.

@ 2Asux — Except that, again, nobody here was even implying that that’s the objective test. Except you. Moral scruples are not necessarily exclusive to religion, mind you, and nobody here even remotely implied otherwise. Again, except you.

By the way, many of the people who believe in the God of the Founders are broke, damaged, marginalized, downtrodden, impoverished, subjugated, and persecuted either through their own choices or someone else lacking any of the same morals that you and I might share did that to them. So, no, you actually still have only one objective standard of morality. Period.

My moral codes are superior to those held by some others.

As I have already dictated to you earlier, and several times already, there is a clear and definitive dividing line between superior and inferior moral and ethical codes, as well as cultures.

And my moral code is superior to yours, because I said so.

All I am saying is the law is the law

Good, then. So we’re all in agreement that after America’s Founders kicked not-so-Great Britain’s ass and wrote the Constitution that all was good! And we’re also all in agreement that if gun-owning freedom-lovers in modern day America were to duplicate that performance by disposing of all the tyrants and abolishing all federal law except the main body of the Constitution, for example, that all would be good! After all, the law is the law!

And there you have it, folks! Straight from the pen of 2Asux!!!

A nation of mob control is exactly what the Democrats and Liberal brain dead assholes want.
They want us to be a Democracy which is majority rule AKA Mob Rule! Then they can turn us into the next Venezuela fast

When we are no longer a Constitutional Republic we are done for.!

Good point, I hadn’t thought of that. But if you hadn’t reported them stolen (before the law goes into effect), who’s the wiser?

Or you could just ask him to be a good fellow and leave them on the back porch where you can “find” them the next morning. Anybody asks you simply say it was all a mistake and you had obviously just misplaced them temporarily.

The pro-gun elements in the nation do not win through a majority of individual voters. They win through a a powerful minority; gun lobbyists who can prevent gun control measures from being taken up by state and national legislatures. When that doesn’t work, the lobbies watter-down the legislation (which gives our side the opportunity to incrementally “move the ball”, as you say). BTW, do you have any idea how your Grand Canyon was produced?

The gun lobbies are not particularly powerful, despite how much your favorite politicians and talking heads say they are:
https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2015&indexType=s

@ 2Asux — The pro-civil rights elements in this country (which doesn’t include you gun-grabbers) do win through a majority of individual voters. They win through a majority of more politically active voters than the gun-grabbing minority, which can only win through a powerful gun control lobby packed with multi-billionaire plutocrats. Who then regularly out-spend, often times by orders of magnitude, the pro-civil rights majority and still lose more often than they win.

Even on the off-chance they do somehow by some miracle win, their diktats are rightly ignored and go largely unenforced throughout much of their respective states.

It’s politics, man. Grow-up. Doesn’t matter how superior the honor of the loser. Doesn’t matter how superior the the moral code. Politics is about winning. Do that and then you can insert whatever honor or moral code you prefer. Your Confederacy died on a high moral principle (for them) because they thought their belief could defeat a determined and well-equipped army. No matter whether you agree or disagree with the moral code of the Confederacy, or their belief that their version of “right” was superior, they lost; they lacked the power to perpetuate their principle. Ask them if winning isn’t everything?

It’s politics. It’s how the game is played. I don’t condone or support illegal actions to win, but otherwise….by any means necessary.

Another entry for the “Nazi” prize.

No cigar.

@ 2Asux — Another winner who actually passed history class, you mean, unlike you.

A whole, big box of Cubans is in order.

Very interested to see what the outcome of the FBI/HIllary investigation (interview) will yield.

It will yield nothing. After she is elected, the FBI will be underneath her position and she’ll just tell them to STFU.

Why would we want more idiots to vote?

Back in the eighties? No thank you. We then were saying back in the XXX.
We need a new bio weapon that seeks out liberal’s and Muslim,s.

“You would be suprised at how Serriously many of them take their oath to defend the constitution.”

Defend a constitution as it is explained to them. What does defending the constitution actually mean? Not much. If it were otherwise, how many would have remained in the military as the constitution was regulated over the ages? Defend what constitution?

There are no Miranda rights identified in the constitution. Miranda, like so much of your law, is “derived” from the constitution. Does the military resign any time there is a law passed or upheld that modifies, changes, or regulates any sentence or word in the constitution? Why have we never seen the military down tools when they thought a law was unconstitutional? Why have we never seen a revolt of the forces when they thought a law was unconstitutional?

You are depending on a fair weather patriots if you think the military will refuse the order to control the civilian population whenever told. Your revered military tolerates so many of what you would call unconstitutional acts, that looking to them to turn on the civilian leadership is to wander fully into the field of delusion. The “infringing” on the second amendment is no more important to the military than “infringing” on any of the other amendments or clauses.

Surely you jest when you posit that the military, on the whole, are constitutional scholars capable of making a rational decision about whether the constitution is being subverted by the national government. No, you are locked into the idea that because you do not like regulations on your right to have a gun, that is the only “constitutional violation” that matters to the military. Meaning all the other provisions of the constitution are insignificant, not worth defending.

You will be shocked into inaction when you learn just how many of your military will carry out orders from their superiors. Like soldiers everywhere. (The idea that soldiers can be held responsible for carrying out orders later deemed illegal did not exist before Nürnberg.)

Defend the Constitution as they know it is rightly defined, which is certainly quite far away from how you want it interpreted. Defending the Constitution means far and away much, much more than you will ever realize it does, to those people.

You are depending on fair weather jackboots if you think the military will long follow orders to brutalize the population in any manner that you’ve alluded to. Looking to them to cooperate with civilian leadership is to wonder fully into the field of delusion.

We’ve already pointed out that you jest when you posit anything at all, especially being that our military is actually better-educated than the general populous – having a higher concentration of Bachelor’s, Master’s, Doctorates, and post-Doctorates. No, you are locked into the idea that because you like gun control laws, despite having no rational or empirical basis to do so, that the military will go along with your Orwellian pipe dreams.

You should have already been shocked into complete silence when you continually learn just how willfully pig ignorant you really are. Like gun-grabbers everywhere. (Fun Fact: The idea that soldiers can be hold responsible for wrong-doing existed long before Nürnberg.)

I don’t need no rational, nor empirical basis for “gun control”; I just need to win at the ballot box, and in court. We are not in a contest of “right” and “wrong”; it is a contest about acquiring power and using it. I am amazed how that simple idea escapes so many “conservatives” and gun owners. But it is good for our side,

@ 2Asux — You do need a rational and empirical bases for supporting gun control; that’s how you win at the ballot box in the first place. We are in a contest of “right” and “wrong” whether you’ll admit it or not, that is ultimately what will decide it, and that is why you are losing and shall continue to lose. I am not at all surprised at how that simple fact escapes so many “liberals” and gun-grabbers. But, it’s good for our side.

One might take you for an absolutist on 2A (likely not so much on the other amendments). Here’s the test: No government has the right or authority to infringe on the people’s RTKBA, correct? Then how, as an absolutist, does one agree to prohibit prisoners from having weapons of whatever kind they can manage? If a right is absolute, it is absolute. If it is absolute, except for (pick your favorite carve-out), a right is not absolute. Exceptions are merely majority opinion on what constitutes a reasonable restriction.

@ 2Asux — One might take you for an absolutist on statism (and thus likely not for any of the Bill of Rights). Here’s the real test: prisoners lose some rights as consequence of causing articulable harm to other people. Violating a malum in se statute is not a qualifier. This is only after an individual has been proven to be a danger to society, and is punished accordingly. Your little Reductio Ad-Absurdum fallacy doesn’t hold water. Again, there are no “reasonable restrictions” when it comes to gun control as the faux liberal regressives have defined them.

“Here’s the real test: prisoners lose some rights as consequence of causing articulable harm to other people.”

Do you have a citation for constitutional authority for that? Seems to be an exception to the second amendment that would have been called-out in the second amendment. I just do not remember such provision. It might make sense, might be reasonable, it might be common sense. Just like many other restrictions make sense and are reasonable.

@ 2Asux — Do you have any citation for Constitutional authority that says rights are not absolute? Why, no, of course you don’t. You really don’t have any citations to back up anything you’ve said anywhere else thus far, either. Not that anyone could rightly expect that of you, anyway. Beyond Common Law, there are no reasonable restrictions, which is something that apparently needs to be constantly repeated to you.

If rights are absolute, there can be no, none, not any limits on exercising them. My rights then cannot be restricted, no matter who is hurt. Once you place any limit at all on the exercise of individual rights, there can be no absolutes. If my right to a gun is absolute, there can be no exception just because I am incarcerated. If my right to a gun is absolute, I cannot be limited or punished for using that gun to accumulate any item I wish, and remove any obstacle I wish. Once you begin to place limits on absolutes, then those rights become absolute so long as you approve of their use. It is a circle, my friend. “Absolute” is a clearly defined concept. If the founders had conceived of rights granted by the Creator to be absolute, they would have written so, either in the constitution, or the letters and publications of the times.

2Asux,

A “society” or a “state” is a group of people who cooperate at a minimum level for mutual benefit/enjoyment and members are necessarily “signatories” of the “social contract”. The terms of the social contract are simple:
(1) We are free to do whatever we want as long as we don’t directly harm other participants.
(2) We are free to cooperate and persuade each other.
(3) We are all equals.
(4) We are NOT free to coerce or attack participants.
(5) Anyone who coerces or attacks participants has violated the social contract.
(6) Participants are NOT obligated to respect the rights of violators.
(7) Justice demands that participants punish and/or banish violators.

Thus, a criminal who attacks a participant in the social contract has violated the the social contract. After that, society no longer has any obligation to recognize the violator’s rights. That is why it is totally okay to imprison a violator and prevent the violator from bearing arms while imprisoned. The corollary: if you have not attacked nor harmed anyone, then your right to bear arms should be absolute.

The real problem that we get into is where governments define all sorts of fiat laws that do not reflect direct harm to anyone. Governments that prosecute people for violating such decrees are operating outside of the social contract. Their operation is no longer based on mutual respect, benefit, and cooperation with society but rather force. That is a topic for a different discussion.

Governments that prosecute people for violating such decrees are operating outside of the social contract.

This is exactly correct. Governments that write and enforce unconstitutional laws and laws that violate unalienable rights are operating outside permissible limits. That is why we broke away from England, the king was violating law at will. I quoted the beginning of the Declaration of Independence here, but 2Asux wasn’t smart enough to see the correlation and kept saying that no one was answering his question.

Because my question had nothing to do with the Declaration. Had to do with a name change for “Guy guys with a gun”.

Hello !

Good to “see” you again; it’s been awhile.

Yes, a good conversation for elsewhere.

@ 2Asux — Engaging in reletavist sophistry again, I see. Rights are absolute, even if they have limits — limits which are, in fact, found naturally at the boundaries of another’s person and property. So, yes, there can be absolutes with these parameters in place. The right to keep and bear arms still is absolute, even if you’re not allowed to exercise that right while incarcerated, and even if you’re punished for using that gun to commit a crime. Yes, it is a circle, but only you are desperately trying to follow it with your fundamentally broken “logic” and practically begging others to follow you down the rabbit hole. “Absolute” is a clearly defined concept — a definition that you stretch into blatantly obvious insanity to make it fit your fallacy-ridden (non)arguments. The Founders did conceive of absolute natural rights, and they did write the Constitution, in their correspondence about it, and in the publications of the time to make that abundantly clear.

Nope. Absolute has a distinct definition. It brooks no limit, of any kind. Any limit means a thing is not absolute. You might like the idea of “absolute, except….”, but any “except” is a limit on a self-evident limitless concept.

ABSOLUTE: not qualified or diminished in any way; total.
synonyms: complete, total, utter, out-and-out, outright, entire, perfect, pure, decided; thorough, thoroughgoing, undivided, unqualified, unadulterated, unalloyed, unmodified, unreserved, downright, undiluted, consummate, unmitigated,

Yep. You are in fact deliberately misapplying the word and warping its definition in order to make it fit your demonstrably illogical (non)arguments.

As a citizen, I would obey the law until the law was overturned by repeal or modification. To presume to have authority to act as I please, whenever I please, without consequence, is to grant such to everyone else, wherein lies utter chaos.

I have an individual vote on whatever matters appear before the populace, electing representatives to local and national governments. If my preferences are not enacted into law, I try again. I am not so deluded as to think, “One day they’ll go to far. Then we kill them all”.

@ 2Asux — TRANSLATION: “I would obey the nonsensical law that can’t even be widely enforced waiting for a repeal that will likely never come, and simply roll over and take it.” No one is even assuming that they can act as, when, and where they please without consequence. That you’re knowingly, erroneously projecting that nonsense onto us simply tells us that that’s what you think.

The democratic process is and was little more than a running joke. Again, nobody but you is making any assumptions about wanting to kill people if your preferences aren’t carried through, either. Your penchant for psychological projection is only par for the course for gun control advocates, and is boringly predictable.

I will ask you again: how many of the recent mass shooters were criminals, gang members, or “bad guys with a gun” immediately before they began shooting? How many were “good guys with a gun” until the moment they opened fire. The answers are not projection.

Yes, the name of the game of democratic process is the willingness of the people to honor and respect the results. Yes, if I see that the political situation has become intolerable, and there is no hope of change then I will move to a locale more suitable. I am not morally bound to overthrow even the most brutal tyranny.

“To presume to have authority to act as I please, whenever I please, without consequence, is to grant such to everyone else, wherein lies utter chaos.”

This is the single sentence that proves you know nothing of the fundamental, objectively moral foundation of the US Constitution, its Bill of Rights and the core of US culture in general.

As Excedrine has tried to explain to you, the premise of all US formal ‘liberty’ lies in the concepts of common law and victimization. That you refuse to see his point explains a lot. That you render malum prohibitum laws with the same moral authority as malum in se laws speaks volumes regarding fundamental lack of understanding about the essence of liberty.

“To presume to have authority to act” is very telling. What you don’t understand is that you do have the authority to act … in any way, at any time. This is the basis of natural right vice rights granted by governing “authority.”

Robert Heinlein summarized this concept as “Rational Anarchy,” which is very different from actual anarchy so don’t go getting all twisted up over Heinlein’s use of ‘anarchy’ here; it was just a term he coined to illustrate the point that personal authority does not arise from government.

This concept is actually codified in the US form of government. “We the People” and “Government BY the People” means we do have the authority…

In other words, here in the US, we are not “ruled” by our betters. We are the rulers. We, all of us (regardless of income, social status, and now race and sex) ARE the betters. Many of our countrymen have forgotten this and slipped into seeking comfort with Statist Authoritarianism, but “We the People” is the core of what makes the US system (as codified) objectively ‘better’ and more moral than any other government yet devised.

It is the essence of individual sovereignty as “ruler” and yes, we DO have the authority to act in any way we please…up to infringing on actual rights of others. That is, you have no “right to feel safe” from something that has not happened yet (such as an irrational fear that I might someday turn criminal and hurt you), but as soon as I cross the line and commit a crime with an actual victim, my ‘authority’ shifts to the State in the form of Probable Cause for Arrest and Due Process for elimination of my sovereignty as punishment.

Heinlein’s not the only person to write about this. The Founding Fathers of the US gave this a lot of attention, and other fictional writers have explored it since then. It’s a huge concept so not really surprising it is beyond the understanding of some.

Every single word you have typed in this comment section belies that you simply do not understand this simple concept of individuality as the fundamental unit of government in the United States. Every word has belied a fundamental Statist worldview…and the above quote from your comment proves it in one succinct statement.

How dare we presume to have authority to act as we please? Because we are sovereign human beings with unalienable, natural rights to act as such. We are free men capable and willing to make our own choices in this one life we have to live. Moral laws we choose to follow; immoral edicts, as has been told to you many times on this page, are not even laws in our system. Who decides that? We do.

I’m guessing you will never understand this.

“This is the single sentence that proves you know nothing of the fundamental, objectively moral foundation of the US Constitution…”

Objective moral foundation? Really? Based on what objective standard? Objective meaning elimination of any bias resulting from pleasant outcomes. Objective morality cannot be dependent upon results. Your morality is objective because it fits your world view, thus proving your morality objective. Because you like the outcomes of one manner of morality doesn’t mean any and all others are wrong or irrelevant.

“Morality” has been done and done again throughout human history, by greater minds than I pretend to have in my most irrational hallucinations. The matter is yet unsettled.

@ 2Asux — I will answer you yet again: most of them, in fact, were bad people immediately before they began shooting. Had you actually read any of the analyses after the fact, you’d know this. Most of them weren’t good people until the moment they opened fire. Had you actually read any of the analyses after the fact, you’d know this, too. The answer, then, must be projection — of your inner-most thoughts, feelings, and desires onto everyone that disagrees with you.

Natural rights are not subject to the democratic process nor to “arguments” grounded in social utility. You very likely won’t even have the option of simply pulling up stakes and leaving if the political situation becomes that unfavorable to you, and there’s not even the slightest guarantee that any place you move to will wind up being any better, either. If you cannot leave, then you are bound to overthrow even the most brutal tyranny simply by living there. Otherwise, you simply continue being part of the problem, making you culpable.

If I am trapped in an oppressive, tyrannical sphere, I am not obligated to resist, fight or overthrow. I can choose to trade one more moment of slavery for one more moment of life, until the trade is no longer sustainable. My choice as a sovereign individual; my natural and civil right, as it were.

@ 2Asux — If you choose not to resist, fight, or overthrow while having the capacity to do so in some form or fashion, you choose to be part of the problem. It’s really that simple. If you choose slavery, you are but a slave.

“If you choose slavery, you are but a slave.”

Yes, and it is entirely my choice. Isn’t it?

Ah, I see you took my bait. I threw in the word “objective” to see if “objective morality” would distract you from the overall point I was making, and it did. In spades.

You completely ignored the actual point I made.

As a Statist, you simply do not understand the concept that here in the US, we are the government. Indeed, in the whole world that is true as “consent of the governed” is a fundamental truth; else there would never be, could never be any uprising, rebellion or coup d’etat.

But you don’t understand this.

And further, just to clarify (for those playing at home), what I meant by “objectively moral” is in this very sense…that any government built on Natural Rights is objectively more “moral” than any government built on the “elitism of the governing class.”

The latter demands “oppression” to remain in power. If someone can look at a fundamentally oppressive form of government and one based on individual liberty and NOT see a moral distinction, there simply is no common perception of right and wrong with which to have a discussion.

2ASux, dear readers, is of a postmodernist worldview that worships moral relativism. “Right” and “wrong” are what he says it is…today. The problem with this philosophy is that it is applied in concert with collectivism…HE thinks HE gets to decide what is right and wrong for others. For example, see the very language he uses in regard to private ownership, and carrying, of guns.

Any anti-gunner that thinks it is “wrong” for individuals to “own” guns has no objective basis to impose that belief on others as “better.” This would be no different than an imposition on which church one HAS to attend. The only way this worldview can function in a society is via force and oppression.

Systemic moral relativism is, therefore, the very opposite of individual liberty. What is deemed “moral” has to be imposed, just as the anti’s seek to have force used to remove private property from free men.

To further the argument that individual liberty is “objectively” more moral, that is, more “good,” than oppressive collectivist systems lies in the belief of “equality.” Are all persons of equal value? Do all persons have equal potential value?

It is fundamentally hypocritical to make any claims of equality while at the same time demanding oppressive and forceful adherence to an externally defined, relative morality. The only way any claim of equally can even be entertained as intellectually honest is to acknowledge the only “true” ruler in any person’s life is him or herself.

And again, the thing that the 2ASux’s of the world fail to understand is that this is always true no matter what form of government, what social contracts or what relative rules are in place. This is what makes “individual liberty” objectively more moral…that it is true regardless of what rules ‘man’ places above it.

No matter what rules, laws or ‘relative morality’ you try to impose on other human beings, ultimately, the decision to follow them is individual. Again, I reference Heinlein’s Rational Anarchy as a convenient, succinct description of the concept.

In other words, it is objectively true that individual sovereignty is the true natural state of man; any government has to be either agreed upon or imposed.

Each man chooses to follow the laws and rules imposed on him. Every single living person chooses their life’s path. No government or social contract changes that. None.

2ASux will never understand this, because in his ‘culture,’ he has not been “allowed” to see it. The oppressors have “programmed” him to believe the natural state of some people is to be “Ruled” by other, better people.

In the US, this concept is part of our cultural identity.

2Asux? Hello? Anyone there?

Bullsqueeze.

The only way to know if a threat is ’empty’ or not is to challenge it.

Many street thugs, for example, threaten “give me your wallet or I’ll kill you.”

In the cases of such encounters NOT ending up with a dead victim, we have no way to know if threat was ’empty’ or a bluff or not as the threatener was not challenged. The other side “folded” so to speak, so we never see the bad guy’s “cards.”

@ 2Asux — Speaking of and for yourself yet again, I see. You gun-grabbers only ever get out-flanked, because you’re all so boringly predictable.

You have never, not once, outflanked me. Whatever delusions to the contrary you carry, don’t mistake being bored with your illogical rhetoric as conceding any kind of ‘defeat.’

No matter what username / sockpuppet account you post under, your lines are tired and easily refuted. You hide behind so much tautology that your “arguments” are laughable.

But hey, I bet those delusions keep you warm at night, so keep on.

And “they” claim Obama and Trump are thin-skinned.

Do you still wonder why I fear the undisciplined, irresponsible, stranger with a gun?

@ 2Asux — And “they” are right, and it’s an apt description of everyone who did vote and would have voted for either of them (you) had they the chance.

No, we don’t even have to wonder about that, since that’s not what you fear in the first place.

Friendly reminder: people that leave because of this are POTG

Your IFF sensor needs recaliberation

@John Smith — No, you actually won’t, period. The loudest blowhards, like you, are always the ones who never follow through, without exception.

You also have no way of knowing definitively if any of them are even traitors or cowards, either, setting aside the legislators and other agents of the state. It’s exactly this kind of rhetoric that makes you into exactly what you pretend to hate in the first place, and makes you the very reason why gun control advocates still hold so much sway today.

You deserve neither mercy nor respect.

I really appreciate your sentiment, but in this hour, we cannot win the war by just teaching the individual one by one.

You have to take control of the government (can be done through voting) and through the government, limits or ends illegal immigration and start making the mainstream media pro-gun again.

We would lose this war if we just stay passive, Hawaii and California are done, which state is next?

“Danger, danger Will Robinson !” Do not listen to this man.

@ 2Asux — Good advice. We not going to listen to you, nor should we for that matter. We’re just going to keep dictating to you just how wrong you are and why until you either get bored or get a clue.

Yeah. But in the end, there’s a lot more of us than there are of them. If enough of we the people really wanted to be free and not under the thumb, and guns of the elite, they wouldn’t stand a snow ball’s chance in hell in resisting us.

You are correct in your conclusion, but you are also correct in your base statement. It is the first proposition that controls the future.

You are correct in your conclusion, but you are also correct in your base statement. It is the second sentence that controls the future.

If history teaches us nothing, then what possible reason could you have to support gun control?

Because history does not teach us that common sense gun regulation totally ineffective.

Thank you for the softball.

@ 2Asux — Except that history does in fact teach us that gun control is totally ineffective, that none of it is “common sense” outside Common Law, and that you couldn’t possibly even begin to argue otherwise.

Thank you for yet another home run.

History can and does teach us a lot of things, and it’s unfortunate that you lot choose to ignore it.

If a primary tool of enslavement/suppression is removed, how is my fellow man going to suppress/enslave me?

Ah so we remove firearms from police and military too. Is this before or after we remove them from civilians? Before or after crime and injustice cease to exist? Before or after we achieve world peace?

@ 2Asux — Good question, for once. Being that the primary tool of enslavement and oppression is in fact the government (262 MILLION+ lives lost to democide in the last 100 years and counting), how will you impose your draconian gun control nonsense on your fellow man?

You have not begun to learn how devious and single-minded we can be. It will probably all happen under a single concept the makes it virtually impossible to move, maintain, upgrade, transfer your weapons. The details will be subtle at first, then breath-taking in later stages.

My personal favorite is that with 100 million gun owners (your stats), it is highly probably every driver and passenger in an automobile is in possession of a gun. That creates such a public safety issue that police have de facto and permanent probable cause to search vehicles and persons to determine if guns or gun paraphernalia are present in a location outside the home, and off owned property. If found to be in possession, a multi-thousand dollar fine will be imposed, and the guns confiscated (you have an inalienable right to have a gun in the home, and on the property for self-defense, but not elsewhere). Eventually there will be so many restrictions that having a gun will be useless. And we are not overlooking the idea that we can get laws passed the prevent even the inheritance of any and all guns and supplies.

Once it starts, it will be swift, wide-spread and overwhelming.

Of course it is all unnecessary, but if gun owners will not regulate themselves, society must act.

@ 2Asux — We already know, and have known for quite some, exactly how devious and single-minded you can be. We are constantly left unsurprised and frankly unimpressed. Your incrementalism has been all but halted on the national, state, and local levels. We have only been witness to your subtle, and later breath-taking, impotence and stupidity.

My personal favorite is with gun owners outnumbering your precious jackboots more than 100 to 1, and with the public now rightly moving away from seeing guns as a public safety issue, that you honestly think there are enough cops to search every vehicle and home in the first place. Not to mention there isn’t now and there won’t ever be a “general, permanent probably cause” to search for guns, specifically. As we begin to move away from such policies as a result of the waning war on drugs, so too shall we move away from your pathetic war on guns. Such sweeping measures like hefty fines for simple will never find purchase outside the deep blue cesspools your lot already has super-majority control of — even within deep blue states (we have the inalienable right to self-defense wherever we have a right to be). Eventually, there will be so many people breaking the law that pursuing violators will be useless, and police will instead rightly refocus their efforts on catching real criminals. Like, murders, rapists, and thieves. We are not overlooking the idea that we can get laws passed that make it a felony for any duly elected official to even introduce a gun control bill.

If it ever starts, it will be repealed as noncompliance will be swift, wide-spread, and overwhelming.

We know it’s unnecessary, and the continually shrinking minority of society that your lot inhabits can act all it wants to: us gun owners will always win, one way or the other, regardless of what you do.

Nailed it! Exactly why we have a constitutional republic, so the fickle mob doesn’t rule at the whims of the majority.
Very wise conclusion, 2Asux. 🙂

Even then, you still need courts to sort the conflicting legal claims of the public. However, many here consider themselves above the courts, justified in deciding the law for themselves. One wonders at how those individuals intend to enforce their version of the law.

Actually, it is no mystery at all how they intend to enforce their laws, is it? Fortunately, none truly possess the courage to implement jungle law, so they will comply with court orders/decisions, bitch about it, and remain law-abiding.

@ 2Asux — Individuals are the final authority on law, and yet, we in the West don’t have mob rule (riots notwithstanding). It is up the individual to decide whether or not to abide by the law.

Anyway, we don’t necessarily need state courts to sort out contractual or territorial disputes, though it is rather convenient to have a (ideally) neutral third-party arbiter to mediate. However, you hypocritically consider yourself such an arbiter, deferring to an inept, corrupt, and ass-backwards “judicial” system in all matters moral and legal despite knowing they’re flat-out dead wrong more than they’re even half-right.

It’s actually no mystery as to how you would like to see the law applied. Fortunately, you don’t have the courage to actively campaign for it, even though we won’t comply with certain laws or court orders and decisions, and you can only piss and moan about that.

“Fortunately, you don’t have the courage to actively campaign for it,…”

It’s what I do, man; campaign and support campaigns. Why do you think I am a subscriber to this blog. Someone’s gotta tell you what is happening to you, and why. Hope to change minds? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on who is wise enough and has insight to grasp the obvious here.

No, I am not for making everyone a victim. Outside of risky areas and places of a town or city, the risk of criminal attack is “statistically insignificant”. You require that I silently endure the “statistical insignificance” of being killed or injured by an ND, but you are unwilling to endure the “statistical insignificance” of being victim of criminal attack locations outside high crime areas. And you see this as the just order of nature.

Pretty sure there is more crime outside of high crime areas than there are negligent discharge injuries to innocent bystanders.

You may have better information than I, but statistically insignificant remains statistically insignificant.

Stupid people doing stupid things in stupid places doesn’t mean it only happens in high crime areas. Recently read an article about a Walmart (not in a designated “high crime” area) where the police are called several hundred times a year regarding shoplifting. Going to that Walmart would not be particularly smart, going there after dark would not be considered even smarter. Avoiding that Walmart reduces to near-zero the probability one would encounter a shoplifting incident gone bad. Not being at that Walmart reduces the need to have a gun for self-protection in a sketchy location.

“So, because YOU personally can’t distinguish law abiding from criminal, EVERYONE should be disarmed.

Self-important much”

How shallow.

If everybody (non-criminals, of course) were disarmed, everybody would share the same level of safety as would I. Making everybody special.

I will believe your DGU statistics, AND your proposition that guns are the major factor in the overall decline of crime in America, IF you accept my statistics about human-caused, rampant climate change/damage.

@ 2Asux — If everybody was disarmed, you actually return to a state of nature in which if you weren’t born and grew up bigger and stronger than everyone else, you’re simply meat for those that already were. You don’t have any real measure of safety unless you’re young, fit, and strong, or are rich enough to hire a full-time body guard in that scenario.

We don’t have to concede any-damn-thing whatsoever to be correct about DGU statistics or the fact that crime has continued to steadily decline despite the growth in both the total number of guns in circulation and the total number of people that own guns. We have the data sets to prove that we’re right. Whether you choose to accept those conclusions is irrelevant and inconsequential to us.

I fear you are consumed with yourself: DGU “statistics” are guesses; who would report a DGU that resulted in no shooting, no injury, no need for police involvement? There are known DGUs, but the number you rely on is not verifiable. It is a projection, based on assumptions, like so much of climate change “data”.

There is no causal relationship between gun proliferation and crime reduction. Read materials from your own side. The stock market has risen over and over again in correlation with increased gun purchases.

I find Cooper informative and entertaining. I am not required to subscribe to his views. He keeps me aware of how ridiculous we can be at times. Sharpens the mind. Of course, studying adversarial material is not for everyone.

If my life is on the line for living in a particular spot, if I know the government is disappearing my neighbors, if I know remaining in my quarters will result in certain death, I will find a way to flee. Maybe not successfully, but I will flee. Circumstance is no excuse for refusing to leave your condition. Don’t tell me your sad story about all the poor wretches who cannot remove themselves from certain death. When the only choices are death at home, or maybe death on the run, I take a chance on the “maybe”.

“…brought to you buy people with guns that fought for your freedom.”

Are you proposing the we who employ soldiers for defence can only be honorable if we run ragged around with guns of our own? “Rough men stand ready in the night….” Yes, yes. That is what we pay them for. That we are still here is due to those Rough Men. That they remain ready in the night is because we are still here to pay them. Symmetry.

But we do not pay them to be internal police, now do we?

@ 2Asux — No, that isn’t what he is proposing and you damn-well know it. However, they are under no obligation to provide individual security — the level at which it is most needed and immediately — nor to enforce court orders of protection or to even retain arrested persons in their custody.

The military is there to defend against national threats. The police are there to defend against communal threats. Individually, it is still up to us to defend ourselves when we ourselves are attacked.

Interesting…perhaps…may I offer this for consideration.

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Britain-lose-the-American-War-of-Independence-Revolutionary-War

More likely killing the goose who laid the golden egg.

Yes, Americans defeated the army fielded against them. Do you truly believe England lacked to wherewithal to reinforce or expand the armies in America? Do you think, given different circumstances, England lacked for power to subjugate the colonies?

No.

Parliament was already weary of dealing with America. Support for further treasure to be spent to spank the colonists was seriously wanning, and then, an entirely new war erupted, a war England considered existential (keeping colonies was not). France did not just send some scruffy group of volunteers to aid the Americans, France formally declared war on England. That long-running rivalry placed the American colonies in the backwater of British interests, where they belonged. Defeating France was so much more important than maintaining a group of colonies who, on the best of days, rated only a back-page news article.

Another example of a nation unwilling to do everything necessary wipe-out the irritant, entirely. Laying waste to every structure and landholding would have given a very different result. And the loyal Americans (loyal to the Crown) would have accepted the result as that justly due a rebellious possession of empire.

Actually, much of Parliament was against the king, recognizing he overstepped his power and was violating the law. He ignored them.

Yes, that is correct. Parliament found the enterprise not worth the entertainment value.

And there were more pressing matters afoot.

@ 2A Sux — England actually gave up on its American colonies because they physically couldn’t retain them.

We know that England lacked the power and resources necessary to keep subjugating the American colonies, too.

Yes.

Even were they not in it with the French and the Spanish, it would have only been a matter of time, anyway.

Another example of a nation fully willing to do everything necessary to wipe out an irritant, entirely, but lacking the capacity to do so. Laying waste to every structure and landholding would have only given an equally undesirable result. The loyalists would have been absolutely appalled and the unjust treatment of their brethren.

@ 2Asux — Why is it that gun grabbers would make knowingly inapplicable and totally irrelevant comparisons and analogies to things that not only aren’t natural, fundamental, individual, and civil, aand Constitutionally-affirmed and protected rights — subject neither to the democratic process nor to (non)arguments grounded in social utility — but are necessarily regulated in a totally different manner simply because they’re not guns? Especially when most every profession is littered with people that are every bit as poorly or untrained, undisciplined, and unreliable as you falsely think that most gun owners are? To allow people like you to decide how peaceable exercise their rights is what’s actually illogical, dangerous, and indefensible.

Set aside the completely unarguable and all-consuming fact that you yourself haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re even talking about to begin with, regardless of whatever it is you’ve thus far cared to discuss anywhere on this page — or even on the whole of this blog, for that matter.

Gun control doesn’t work. It has never worked. Not anywhere, any time, under any circumstance, for anyone. It is never going to work. There is absolutely zero evidence — empirical or otherwise — that even begins to suggest the barest correlation. Much less any definitive causal link.

Keep the echo chamber undisturbed.

I perceive you reply to be another example of, “Hey! Guns! Got mine. That’s all I care about. STFU”.

How’s that for not being long-winded?

Nice posting; read it all. Thank you for taking the time to construct the lists.

Perhaps some information would be useful:
– Humankind is degenerate, evil and incapable of self-regeneration. Which is why pursuing wisdom, education and illumination is so important. We all need to help each other move beyond our base instincts. Remaining stuck in the defeatism of the past wastes precious resources….people.
– Spock said it best
– Being respectful of people and resources is not a character flaw
– The Moon is a harsh mistress, and so is life in general. We can struggle against it, or we can down tools and perish in our perverseness
– Follow the Four Rules of Gun Safety, get trained, stay trained. Always be aware you are an agent of death; a great responsibility,
– Success is not found in what you succeed at, it is found in what you fail at and overcome into success
– Winners desire pleasing/positive outcomes; losers desire pleasant methods
– When you point a finger at another, you have three pointing back at you
– Wanting success and happiness for all does not imply it must first be taken from others; use a little creativity
– The poor do not help the poor; only the richer can help the poor
– The more one is granted, the more is required of you
– There can be no pride in a nation where 25% of the population is destitute
– Without hope, the people perish
– If society cannot see the vision, or reverts to selfishness, leaders must urge, cajole, shame and harass the people forward (likely a plateau upon which to rest, relax, become fossilized and complacent; needing yet another vanguard of leaders)
– When the people have nothing to lose, they just might take if from YOU
– It is a foolish man who takes himself to bed thinking, “What a fine fellow I am, look at all I have done, all I possess”, believing he is sufficient unto himself
– When you reap the harvest of your efforts, do not pick clean the corners of your field; else you leave the land and the people barren
– Money is to be used to prosper as many as possible; greed corrupts the soul
– Learn; be strong enough to recognize error reinforced by pride
– Be useful at something, teach others the same

Signed: Your resident Libtard

I am on the payroll to support Bernie; TTAG I do as a public service, Even though you overlook that which is squarely before your face.

@ 2Asux — You clearly don’t even know what doing a public service entails. The only thing you’ve accomplished here is to drive more traffic to this blog and spread our message — not yours — even further.

For that, and that alone, we would thank you.

You’re getting close.

@ 2Asux — I’m right on target. You either don’t yet realize it or don’t want to admit it.

Much like you Bernie failed. Keep trying though. Makes for great spectator sport.

Bernie may not end up president, but he won the battle. Look how much more encompassing and progressive the Democrat Party has become. All these years, and it took an old man to really move the needle. Bernie has a significant campaign war chest that can be used to support the progressive movement at the state and local level. More than any predecessor accumulated or shared with field at large.

@ 2Asux — Bernie didn’t actually win anything. At all. Look at how much less encompassing and more reregressive the DemoKKKratik Party has become. SJWs have completely taken it over, and they are the most bigoted and intolerant people of this or any other generation to date. All these years, and all that old man has accomplished was to draw more economic illiterates, like himself, out of the woodwork to vote against their best interests. Sure, many of his complaints are valid, but his approach to addressing any of those complaints is not. In the end, only to betray all of them by saying that he’d vote for Shillary. Bernie doesn’t have nearly the shear liquid cash that Shillary has to throw around, either.

There you go. Now I can hear you children chortling in the background, at your deft use of the language. What a prize you are.

I can hardly wait to read “Poo, poo pants” as your crowning submission.

Entertain me court jester!

@ 2Asux — Well, there you go, yet again. Now we can hear you children chortling in the background, at your inability to debate or converse. What a prize you aren’t.

We can hardly wait to read “xenophobe” or “ethnocentrist” as your crowning submission. Oh, and way to dodge answering his queries, too, by the way. We all know by now that you have nothing for it, anyway, so we rightly couldn’t expect a cogent answer from you.

I consider your retort rather bland. Marginal at best. Did you use up all your strength with witty prose last night old bean?

@ 2Asux — Once again speaking of and for yourself, I see. What’s rather generous is that you’re even still allowed to comment here at all, which is far more than you can ever say about your side.