Thing is, that’s a very individual decision depending on what is going on in your personal situation. I always swore I would never have a gun in my home, until an ex of my daughter’s started stalking her and then tried to abduct her at her school. When he started showing up at our house, you bet your ass I changed my mind on that. I would not want to be in a position where my political views (being a cis/het/white man, that’s pretty much what it would come down to) determined whether I could or could not own. Lots of BIPoC, LGBTQ and other groups are under enough threat that they may feel the need. A situation where fascists are encouraged to be armed, others are prevented is a set up for a Kristallnacht kind of thing. Keep in mind, part of what makes them so brave is thinking that they are the only ones who are armed.
ETA: Just to be clear, I am not arguing that having a gun is a good thing, but feeling that you need to, and being prevented from doing so because you are BIPoC, LGBTQ, etc. is a very bad thing.
what allows something like kristallnacht is a sense of freedom from consequence held by the oppressors. specifically the support of the state, and/or a significant percentage of the populace
having a gun will not stop even a semi organized attempt at one group murdering another group of people. and we see this time and time again with mass shootings.
good guys with guns are not a reliable solution for stopping bad guys with guns.
( ukraine for instance has an actual army. individuals with guns in their homes never would have stopped the russians. and if the us goes full fascist, the military will not be stopped by whatever firepower average citizens have )
on the personal level, i’m very sorry your family was in that situation. i have the opposite story in that my best friend’s brother committed suicide by shotgun. ( many many years ago now )
i don’t think policy should be down to these sorts of individual situations. if guns were shown to make us safer, id be all for it as a matter of policy. they just don’t. the statistics show this plainly.
i do still agree that differential treatment by local sheriffs is a potential problem. finding ways to address that would be good. i don’t think that issue however should be used to scuttle oregon’s law.
Agree to disagree. This is a set up to make sure minorities are put at a different level of rights compared to a favored group. Not disagreeing at all about the danger of guns in the home, have seen it myself. But allowing the LEO to decide that one group “deserves” the right to self-defense, while another does not, is not an acceptable situation.
the way i see the problem - because the country has deep structural racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny - any time we limit something it will affect minority groups disproportionately
even speeding tickets affect drivers of color ( especially black drivers ) disproportionately
if we allow disparities in the application of gun laws to guide us, we will never have new gun laws. and drawing that as a line will have the perverse side effect of stronger differential application of the laws we do have to try to force the courts to get rid of them
i don’t have an easy answer. i just feel that gun control in particular is important enough to try these laws and use other mechanics to address racial disparities in law enforcement
This is a big mix up of what’s happening here, though.
For the record, like everyone engaged in this debate here, I don’t think more guns are better, and I know having them in a home makes that home less safe.
The thing is, yes, laws will be applied disproportionately, like you say. BUT (and this is a huge but) if the law is at least written well, there might be legal recourse for people who fall prey to that disproportionate application.
The way this law is written, leaving it up to a few officials to decide, based on no written criteria, who can and cannot have guns, there will be no legal recourse if local officials use it to purposely keep people they don’t like, and maybe are even targeting, from arming themselves.
It’s never a good law to say, “eh, let Sherif Joe decide what’s fair.”
Stronger, better gun laws look exactly like what CA did when the Black Panthers showed that if we say everyone gets to have guns, that means (gasp) Black people get to have guns, too.
CA didn’t pass a law saying the Mayor gets to decide who can have a gun, they restricted gun access for everyone.
Racist as fuck in how it came about, but still better than the law being discussed here.
i think that’s a fair point. the specific section of the measure seems to be this:
(C) Does not present reasonable grounds for a permit agent to conclude that the applicant has been or is reasonably likely to be a danger to self or others, or to the community at large, as a result of the applicant’s mental or psychological state or as demonstrated by the applicant’s past pattern of behavior involving unlawful violence or threats of unlawful violence;
most of the measure’s requirements ( criminal background checks, training, fees, etc ) seem pretty well defined. but rather than establishing a whole new agency for this, it does leave the implementation to the local sheriffs ( they are the “permit agent” ), and that section does appear to give them wiggle room
looking at the difference between this and most red flag laws it seems that most (all?) red flag laws require going before a court similar to a restraining order
so… yeah. i’d agree: a court process, a state level agency, or maybe just locking down that “reasonable grounds” clause would be good. the legislature does have the power to do that ( as do the people ) and i’d support that
the measure as a whole doesn’t have to be thrown out to improve it
And if your neighbor’s insecure surveillance device has a good view of your front door, you could be a swatting target too, because the camera view would be better.
According to his arrest affidavit, on a day in June when Lambros made five videos of himself abusing a patient, he whispered to the camera saying “don’t ever get rid of these videos” and “you need to keep them forever … this is your Dexter collection.”
OMFG…
The level of betrayal this represents cannot really be expressed. Damn him to hell.
That resistance is spreading doesn’t even feel apocalyptic, that’s just how things work. Industry sycophants like to wring their hands over the holocaust caused by abandoning DDT, but the truth is that it was already losing effectiveness. Now pyrethroids are too? Of course they are.
The apocalyptic part would be being unprepared for something so incredibly predictable, because our societies are incapable of investing in anything beyond short-term profits for rich people.
