You’re keeping less freedom than you want. We’re imposing less safeguards than we want. That IS a compromise, it just isn’t the one you’d prefer.
5 Likes
Very one-sided compromise - as there are more safe guards, there is less freedom. Gun control has slowly gone in that direction. Rarely is there more freedom given back; rarely are safeguards lifted. (Though I guess one could point to CCW laws as an exception - a very recent exception.) ETA - though CCW comes with the safe guard of licensing and training.
Any compromise feels one-sided when looked at from only one side.
4 Likes
o_0 How is it not one sided when one side keeps asking for restrictions and gets them? Because they don’t get it every time they ask for it isn’t compromising. Compromising is getting half of what you asked for and not asking for more later.
Here - let me put this in terms we can all relate to - delicious cake:
1 Like
I have one; I got it for my birthday. My wife ordered it online and it came in the mail.
Totally not kidding. I can shoot blue fire more than ten feet, orange out to near thirty on a still day.
A stream that provides water to the closest town runs right through my yard. I am unwilling to use toxic chemicals on the property to deal with the invasive species that come downstream so I torch 'em. It’s pretty effective on bur cucumber, porcelain berry, russian olive, oriental bittersweet, etc. etc. etc.
I let the kids play with it, too. They love it!
3 Likes
Sooooo, gun arguments have metastasized and no longer need a headline, ergo arguments can spontaneously generate. It is finally an actual BBS…
4 Likes
Perhaps so, but that distinction does not exist in the Constitution. As I’ve noted earlier the Second Amendment says “arms,” and that term is open to some pretty wide interpretation. Where we draw the line (Swords? Handguns? Automatic weapons? Rocket launchers? Tactical nukes?) is up to each generation to decide.
It’s still a difference of degree rather than principle. We’re all on board the “limiting civilian access to certain weapons in the name of public safety” train, it’s just a matter of which car you’re riding in.[quote=“Mister44, post:22, topic:14177”]
Very one-sided compromise - as there are more safe guards, there is less freedom. Gun control has slowly gone in that direction.
[/quote]
That’s one way to look at it. Another is “Americans can legally own pretty much any weapon that existed during colonial times, as well as a huge array of weapons that are far more deadly than anything the Founders could have dreamed of.” For example, it’s now a trivial matter to buy a weapon that can gun down dozens of people in one go—no small feat for someone armed with 18th century weaponry.
I’m also not really in agreement with the “gun control is getting steadily more restrictive” claim. Over the last decade we’ve seen:
- The expiration of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban
- Expansion of CCW laws
- Two Presidents who signed into law a number of gun bills that were supported by the NRA and zero gun bills which weren’t
Sure, we see legislators give lip service to gun law reform every time there’s a mass shooting (which is tragically often) but in terms of tangible results there’s been next to nothing lately.
2 Likes
Due to the font choice, I can’t even read that with a magnifying glass. Just thought you’d want to know.
That’s not really true, historically speaking. The big difference now is that you don’t have to be rich; the wealthy have had ready access to weapons like that for centuries.
I think I have mentioned before that it wasn’t difficult for farmers to obtain dynamite when I was a kid. But back then people had different priorities. Nowadays people want their neighbors punished before they can screw up, instead of afterwards, if they screw up. Except the privileged classes, of course, and their uniformed lackeys - who are not to be punished at all, no matter what they do.
Right click - view image will bring it up full sized. You may have to click it again once for it to expand full size.
So you agree: ordinary people have more access to dangerous weapons than they did centuries ago, when only a very well-equipped rich person could (for example) carry out a one-man shooting spree that left dozens dead.
It’s not about punishment, it’s about prevention. Regulating the sale and use of high explosives is meant to reduce the number of people who die in horrible bombings, not to punish the people who would carry them out. Do you really think the Boston Marathon bombings would have only left three dead if those guys had access to C-4 instead of fireworks?
You never quite said if you personally would do away with all laws regulating the sale and use of dynamite. Care to share?
1 Like
3200 pixels high. That must be one awesome monitor you have.
Can I have half your monitor?
Well, I’ll certainly agree that ordinary people (particularly the middle class) have more access to more powerful and sophisticated area effect weapons now than they did at the time of American’s founding.
But my great-grandfather owned a cannon in the 1930s (which he inherited from his father, along with the recipe for black powder) and wasn’t rich; he fired it off every 4th of July to celebrate being a free man. No license required. If he’d stuffed the bore with gravel and pointed it into the parade it would have killed more than any single man with an AK could possibly kill in the same amount of time, no wealth required. So I’ve never bought in to the “modern guns are so incredibly more dangerous” argument, myself. It certainly is partially true, but not enough so to be a valid basis for disarmament by itself.
I understand that. But a confiscation of goods in order to prevent possible harm is a punishment of those who have their goods confiscated. The motivation doesn’t change that, at least not in my opinion.
I would like to be able to buy and use dynamite, but doing away with all laws regulating sale and use would be a terrible idea. Why can’t we return to some middle ground between total unavailability and total lack of regulation? Is that really so impossible? For starters, if you want to sell dynamite, you would have to accept the fact that you’re going to be harshly punished if it turns out you sold it to somebody who you shouldn’t have. We have this thing called “trial by jury” that is designed to work with such fine distinctions of human judgment, you know… one of the things the founding fathers were incensed about (besides soldiers taking their property) was European mandatory sentencing laws.
I don’t expect anything I say here to make any difference to anybody, but I’ve appreciated you sharing your viewpoint, so I figured I’d reciprocate. And now I must go; good night, all.
1 Like
But that’s exactly what we have NOW. How do you think the Mythbusters stay in business?
1 Like
I’d like to respond to this too: since most individual business owners don’t have the resources to personally conduct background checks, leaving such decisions to retailers seems like a bad way to screen who should and shouldn’t be buying dynamite and a good way to encourage profiling.
Who is more likely to “seem like” a person who shouldn’t be buying explosives to a midwestern retailer: a Pakistani-American contractor or a clean-cut white guy (who happens to be a high-functioning sociopath)?
Uh - it just pops up in my screen and you scroll down to read it. Is this the first long image/comic you guys have read?
I think he was being sarcasm.
I do like the pic though.
Is this a meta comment? 
2 Likes
This is BoingBoing. We never metacomment. At least we never met a comment we didn’t feel compelled to respond to.
5 Likes
The problem I have with many gun control advocates is they poorly argue their side. I find most of their arguments emotionally based, ignorant of the issue at hand, and irrational:
“We need to ban assault rifles!”
“Why?”
“They kill people!”
“Well first off, they are not true assault rifles. Second off they are account for a small fraction of murders, with more people being killed by blunt objects and fists.”
“Yeah - but these guns were MADE to KILL people!”
“But looking at the numbers, only a tiny, tiny fraction are being used that way. How can you condemn something based on a tiny population of abusers?”
“But you could just walk in to a crowded bus and kill everyone!”
“So we should play ‘what if’ with everything in our lives? An irrational fear of an event that is very unlikely to happen is going to overrule the reality that an extremely small number of people are actually harmed?”
Many are ignorant of the current laws, how guns operate and how they are different, and naïve or ignorant about how criminals obtain and use guns. I am trying to remember a recently proposed gun control law that made sense to me and I thought would reduce gun violence, but I can’t think of one. Maybe someone can help me out. In fact I have a lot of questions:
How can one justify imposing more restrictions on gun owners when only a very small fraction of people misuse them, and an even smaller fraction intentionally use them to harm others? (ETA - of the 32163 gun deaths mentioned above, a whopping 19766 were suicides, with only 11101 listed as homicides.)
Gun crime has been on he decline since 1993. Since one must realize that one can’t create a gun free, violence free Utopia, what amount of gun crime would one find acceptable? Why that number and not another?
Does one currently live in fear of getting shot? Is that a rational fear? What data can you use to back up that fear?
If one’s proposed gun law were to go into effect, what reduction would have to occur for one to consider it a success? How many lives will that save? How much money will it cost to implement one’s law? Is the money spent worth the benefits, or could that money be better spent somewhere else?
Why do you assume that your proposed gun law will have the desired effect? Can you explain to me how something like registration is going to matter to a gang member in Chicago?
If the goal is to reduce gun violence, wouldn’t a more prudent and wide reaching goal be to attack the cause of violence?
We have the TSA and the War on Drugs both looking out for our public safety. They are doing a fine job at making some people feel better, while stripping our liberties and costing us billions. Neither group has been successful at reducing drugs or terrorism. How would more government involvement be different this time?
3 Likes
[quote=“Brainspore, post:27, topic:14177”]
Perhaps so, but that distinction does not exist in the Constitution. As I’ve noted earlier the Second Amendment says “arms,” and that term is open to some pretty wide interpretation. Where we draw the line (Swords? Handguns? Automatic weapons? Rocket launchers? Tactical nukes?) is up to each generation to decide.[/quote]
I get your point - what arms does the 2nd Amendment protect? I just find it disingenuous. No one is arguing for rocket launchers and nukes. I believe most people would accept it as pertaining to small arms. I don’t think there is anyone pushing to increase making the .50BMG the largest round available to citizens. I feel you are making an argument where there is none - or at least no one here is making that one.
The AWB was a joke from the start - it did NOTHING substantial. I don’t see it as win because other than some cool features, we didn’t really gain much back. It wasn’t fought for and repealed, it was just apathetically not renewed. I can’t see how one can now rationally support the 94 AWB (or the new ones), as when it was in place it did nothing to curb gun violence.
I already conceded that new CCW laws are examples of widening gun rights. But those rights come with the compromise many gun control advocates claim they would be happy with - training and licensing. You can point to several states, such as New York, Colorado, California, and New Jersey, who have enacted stricter laws in the past year, and I can’t recall any federal laws loosening lately.
