Lifestyle Gun Policy Overhaul Discussion

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Truck Party

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Mar 16, 2017
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He's going the originalist route. A militia back then could be all able-bodied men available for the defense of their town. The states had militias for 18-45 year olds and they were required to purchase certain equipment, to include the common firearm of the time. We no longer have militias in the way the Framers knew of. You can completely ignore the prefatory clause on the “militia”. The actual protected right is the right of the people to bear arms.
the founders wrote quite a bit about what they meant w/ the 2nd amendment, & also the term 'militia.' This is probably the most succinct

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."
— George Mason, in Debates in Virginia Convention on Ratification of the Constitution, Elliot, Vol. 3, June 16, 1788
 

mysticmac

First 1025
Oct 18, 2015
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There is no evidence the framers knew anything about the puckle gun or any other machine gun. There were literally less than a half dozen made in England 50 years before the Revolution. We know that cannons and other high power ordinance existed, but not in any way that could have been useful for mass murder barring slowly wheeling a very expensive cannon into town and firing on a building. It's an apples to oranges comparison.
Correspondence between John Belton and the Continental Congress - Wikisource, the free online library
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
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There is evidence they knew of high rate of fire repeating rifles. I don't have time to look it up right now, but they were considering their use for the military and ultimately decided against it at the time due to the cost of the weapons.

It doesn't matter what laws the articles of the confederation set. The south lost the war, and the articles of the confederation was replaced by the constitution.
I think you're mixing up your documents friend.
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
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Do you think when it was written the founding fathers intended for it to be used by Russian bots?
I think it was intended in the spirit of the Enlightenment, which was about expanding preventing legal restraint of expression for sentient beings. I think non-sentient communication is a new right and the boundaries need to be deliberated over.
 

BeardOfKnowledge

The Most Consistent Motherfucker You Know
Jul 22, 2015
60,547
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I think it was intended in the spirit of the Enlightenment, which was about expanding preventing legal restraint of expression for sentient beings. I think non-sentient communication is a new right and the boundaries need to be deliberated over.
I'll rephrase as you apparently missed my point or are being coy, which seems more likely, but I digress. Do you believe that the first amendment was created in order to facilitate the types of divisive behaviors we see regularly on social media?

p.s. You of all people should know that the "Enlightenment" was about oppression more than anything else.
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
He's going the originalist route. A militia back then could be all able-bodied men available for the defense of their town. The states had militias for 18-45 year olds and they were required to purchase certain equipment, to include the common firearm of the time. We no longer have militias in the way the Framers knew of. You can completely ignore the prefatory clause on the “militia”. The actual protected right is the right of the people to bear arms.
Exactly. Everywhere else in the Constitution we see articulations on the rights of citizens and restrictions on the power of the State. To argue that the 2nd Amendment is a 'communal right' is to argue that for this one phrase, the wording is about protecting the right of the State - not the rights of the citizens.

I think it's an intellectually dishonest argument that people make because they know that there is no way that 2/3 of the legislature and 3/4 of the states would ever agree with their goals on gun control.
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
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I have the Jefferson/Adams letters and would recommend them to anyone. They're very well written and demonstrate well the divergences between two very distinct points of view on the American republic. But I don't recall much on gun or warship ownership in their correspondence. I have the book in front of me now if you want to cite something specific.

Your reading of 2A is not quite so clear as you're making it seem. This is the actual text:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Like most things in the Bill of Rights, it's a negative right, placing limits on what government can do rather than expressly granting a privilege to the people or the state. Your reading is predicated on the state being the most likely bad actor a well regulated militia would have to protect against, but even that is taking sides in a debate 2A didn't exactly settle. The odd mismash of language in the sentence is a reflection of the debate at the time between federalists and Anti-federalists who were mostly quibbling over federal power over the local militia, acknowledging that pretty much everyone was armed anyway.

The first clause suggests that the ability to collectively assemble a disciplined militia is critical to the existence of a free state. The second clause of the amendment goes on to limit the government's ability to prevent restrictions of the people being armed for this purpose, at least in the eyes of the federalists. The anti-Federalists were the ones pushing for an armed polulace as insurance against the state. 2A somehow leaves both interpretations intact, but in either case, opposition to enemies foreign or domestic is predicated on collective, local resistance. The atomized individual standing with his musket against the rampaging federales is nowhere to be found in its language.

Your mention of the puckle gun is ahistorical as it was never used, barely manufactured, and unlikely to have ever been heard of by any of the early Americans. The galloper gun was powerful, but not exactly any wonder of machinery so I'm not sure of its relevance here.

Your mention of the use of private warships during the war of 1812 seems to coincide with my communitarian reading of the calling of the militia rather than contradict it, but I'll agree with you that any lack of restrictions of armament would have necessarily been extended to ships due to the admiralty and maritime clause giving the courts (and the Constitution) jurisdiction over what people did at sea. So...where can i get my nuclear sub?
Sorry, don't have the Jefferson/Adams letters in front of me. I'm in Israel this week. :)

But I do think they'd be appalled at the existence of a National Guard - basically a standing army of each State. Also notice in the 2nd Amendment that they refer to 'the State' - singular. Not "the States and the people" as in the 10th Amendment. We're looking at a reference to the political theory "State". Remember, at the time there was strong debate on whether the FedGov, "the State", could have a standing army. The framers are articulating the common ground of the most adamant Federalists and Anti-Federalists - the necessity of a well-regulated militia. If they had written 'A standing army, being necessary to the security of a free State" they wouldn't have been able to ratify the Amendment due to lack of support from many of the Anti-Federalists.

Your OP asks to explicitly infringe on an individual's right to keep arms. If you acknowledge the right of the people to keep arms of the military, how is dictating where they keep them and how they access them not an infringement?

FWIW - there is a libertarian argument that everyone should be allowed to own any weapon. Like most "little-L" libertarian arguments, I agree with it more in theory than in practice. But it's still a fairly compelling thought exercise.
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
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I'll rephrase as you apparently missed my point or are being coy, which seems more likely, but I digress. Do you believe that the first amendment was created in order to facilitate the types of divisive behaviors we see regularly on social media?

p.s. You of all people should know that the "Enlightenment" was about oppression more than anything else.
I disagree with that interpretation of the Enlightenment. But again you're going to have to be more specific about social media especially. Social media is an unbounded space that's subject to many international conceptions of speech. Your country, my country, Japan, Brazil, etc. Applying one legalistic framework is an exercise in folly and is antithetical to the original intentions of the creators of the web and social platforms. There is an interpretation of free expression that is in part inspired by the first amendment and subsequent jurisprudence baked into the norms of most US based platforms because that's the framework they emerged out of. I'm not sure quite what you're getting at otherwise. Speech and its limits is one of the most contestable terrains across societies, regardless of what any founders of anything value. What the framers attempted to enshrine were limits on how the state could intervene in free expression, but that principle has been interpreted a myriad of ways because 1A is about something people can do, rather than an object people can have.
 

BeardOfKnowledge

The Most Consistent Motherfucker You Know
Jul 22, 2015
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I disagree with that interpretation of the Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment is what kicked off institutionalized oppression, and was used as a tool create the homogenized societies required for the watered down version of capitalism we currently enjoy, to thrive.

I'm not sure quite what you're getting at otherwise.
What I'm getting at, is that we only ever hear the "Well, this isn't what the founding fathers had in mind..." when it pertains to 2A. The founding fathers didn't foresee any of modern society, none of it, and it's flippant to pretend otherwise.

What the framers attempted to enshrine were limits on how the state could intervene in free expression, but that principle has been interpreted a myriad of ways because 1A is about something people can do, rather than an object people can have.
The framers enshrined 2A to ensure that 1A could be protected, full stop. Whether it's an action, or an object didn't enter their field of thought. It never occurred to them that America would have 3 times as many people in it as the Roman Empire did at it's height.
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
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The Enlightenment is what kicked off institutionalized oppression, and was used as a tool create the homogenized societies required for the watered down version of capitalism we currently enjoy, to thrive.



What I'm getting at, is that we only ever hear the "Well, this isn't what the founding fathers had in mind..." when it pertains to 2A. The founding fathers didn't foresee any of modern society, none of it, and it's flippant to pretend otherwise.



The framers enshrined 2A to ensure that 1A could be protected, full stop. Whether it's an action, or an object didn't enter their field of thought. It never occurred to them that America would have 3 times as many people in it as the Roman Empire did at it's height.
Institutionalized oppression existed well before the enlightenment, unless we pretend the entire serf system, monarchism, and the various churches didn't exist. Imperialism had already begun two centuries prior. In Europe at least, the Enlightenment project is much more tied to the retreat from paradigms of dominance. I'm not really sure what you mean when you position the Enlightenment as a beginning of homogenization unless you're talking about the spread of liberalism across the world as the monarchist system fell. I also don't really understand the causal mechanism whereby you suggest the Enlightenment watered down capitalism when capitalism itself is a child of the Enlightenment.

To your second point, when we interpret the Constitution in the US we have two threads, strict literal read or interpretivist. Arguments around 2A oftem take a literalist position but my argument is obviously interpretivist. How accurately the framers anticipated the particulars of the future is not as relevant as how they set the legal groundwork for how we would deliberate over citizens' relationship to the state. I mentioned the framers ignorance of future weaponry earlier as an example of the limitations of taking their words extremely literally, but we can assess their intentions by looking at the text and supporting documents and interpreting what they intended then and how it applies now.

What's weird is the theory undergirding my proposal is solely that the founders wanted communities to be able to defend themselves. To me, that first clause is considerably overlooked in these debates because people overly focus on weapons as private rather than community property. The actual proposal is rooted in reorienting this point of view. That's it. Making the use of guns and their enjoyment a community based activity seems like it shouldn't be so threatening. The obsession with ownership and "freedom to" have total possession with few or no qualifications, even though the second clause of 2A is clearly written in the language of "freedom from" is beguiling to me.

The NRA itself was formed originally to encourage better proficiency with guns, safety and limiting distribution of weapons into dangerous hands. The organization focused on the more community oriented approach to gun usage. But it morphed into its present incarnation with its new, more aggressive interpretation of the second amendment after being hijacked in a political takeover. From the first, that ideological change was linked to societal atomization, fear mongering, anti-government sentiment and partisan politics.

In practical terms, I guess if you like having guns because they're cool, it stands to reason that anything that could make them less cool sucks. Most gun owners I know with diverse arsenals only care about defending from tyranny in the abstract and live in communities where they are incredibly unlikely to encounter crime. But they like their cool gear and I don't blame them. It can be awesome to blow stuff up. Obviously we're all our own kind of demented for loving a sport where people beat each other to a pulp and didn't like when regulators tried to disallow that. But sensible regulation made the sport much more enjoyable and maybe safer to the point where we spent years begging for its coverage in places where we didn't have it. I think similarly that moving most of our weapons to locally regulated spaces is a way to make them better and safer for everyone.
 

b00ts

pews&vrooms
Amateur Fighter
Oct 21, 2015
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To me, that first clause is considerably overlooked in these debates because people overly focus on weapons as private rather than community property. The actual proposal is rooted in reorienting this point of view. That's it. Making the use of guns and their enjoyment a community based activity seems like it shouldn't be so threatening.
But firearm ownership was never the responsibility of the community.
 

BeardOfKnowledge

The Most Consistent Motherfucker You Know
Jul 22, 2015
60,547
56,268
Institutionalized oppression existed well before the enlightenment, unless we pretend the entire serf system, monarchism, and the various churches didn't exist. Imperialism had already begun two centuries prior. In Europe at least, the Enlightenment project is much more tied to the retreat from paradigms of dominance. I'm not really sure what you mean when you position the Enlightenment as a beginning of homogenization unless you're talking about the spread of liberalism across the world as the monarchist system fell. I also don't really understand the causal mechanism whereby you suggest the Enlightenment watered down capitalism when capitalism itself is a child of the Enlightenment.
Capitalism has existed since the beginning of recorded history. The Enlightenment, as you just eluded to, was what lead to centralizing economies and the bastardized version we have today. For that to happen individualism needed to come secondary to "the greater good". Enter our good friend liberalism. You're missing an important point though, monarchism never fell it was just rebranded. It was monarchs who felt the need to "Enlighten" the peasants. I'm surprised you're so coy when I refer to institutionalized oppression. You're a smart guy, I'm sure you understand the difference between. "We've conquered your land we're taking these people as slaves." and "No, no. Science tells us this is only 3/5ths of a man. They can't take care of themselves. They need to be slaves. It's for their own good."

To your second point, when we interpret the Constitution in the US we have two threads, strict literal read or interpretivist. Arguments around 2A oftem take a literalist position but my argument is obviously interpretivist.
and my point is that you can't do that. You need to apply the same reasoning (literal or interpretivist) to all sections of the constitution because they all translate equally poorly to modern times.

What's weird is the theory undergirding my proposal is solely that the founders wanted communities to be able to defend themselves. To me, that first clause is considerably overlooked in these debates because people overly focus on weapons as private rather than community property.
You're proposing that the state be the ones to possess the weapons that will potentially need to be used against them. You see the issue there, right?

Most gun owners I know with diverse arsenals only care about defending from tyranny in the abstract
That's a crazy assertion to make when we're only a generation removed from racial segregation and internment camps. You're also omitting that about 10 times as many Americans are saved with guns than are killed by them.

I think similarly that moving most of our weapons to locally regulated spaces is a way to make them better and safer for everyone.
How about this. There are lots of place with strict gun control, can you show me a place where limiting access has had a causal impact on decreasing the violent crime rate?
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
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Capitalism has existed since the beginning of recorded history. The Enlightenment, as you just eluded to, was what lead to centralizing economies and the bastardized version we have today. For that to happen individualism needed to come secondary to "the greater good". Enter our good friend liberalism. You're missing an important point though, monarchism never fell it was just rebranded. It was monarchs who felt the need to "Enlighten" the peasants. I'm surprised you're so coy when I refer to institutionalized oppression. You're a smart guy, I'm sure you understand the difference between. "We've conquered your land we're taking these people as slaves." and "No, no. Science tells us this is only 3/5ths of a man. They can't take care of themselves. They need to be slaves. It's for their own good."



and my point is that you can't do that. You need to apply the same reasoning (literal or interpretivist) to all sections of the constitution because they all translate equally poorly to modern times.



You're proposing that the state be the ones to possess the weapons that will potentially need to be used against them. You see the issue there, right?



That's a crazy assertion to make when we're only a generation removed from racial segregation and internment camps. You're also omitting that about 10 times as many Americans are saved with guns than are killed by them.



How about this. There are lots of place with strict gun control, can you show me a place where limiting access has had a causal impact on decreasing the violent crime rate?
Capitalism has not always existed. That's ahistorical, counter-economic and not supported by any account, even among those who believe in markets as natural states. There is simply no basis for that statement in reality.

I also have to say your description of even the period and politics of the Enlightenment is not at all accurate. I'm not really sure what you're talking about, to be honest. The greater good was not part of the lexicon of enlightenment thinking and the 3/5 compromise had nothing to do with scientism, just pure politics.

In the opening post of this thread, I propose the centers be nonprofits. I mention regulation in the post prior to tgis one because this entire scheme is a regulatory intervention. The state modifies the law, but doesn't have ownership. Also, guns played no role in either the end of segregation or internment, so that seems like a non-sequitur.

Ten times as many people are saved with guns than killed by them is a completely fabricated talking point based on a misstated inference drawn from data in an almost 40 year old survey. It's trotted out and recycled as some weird exemplar of guns making society safer, but isn't at all true. Similarly off topic is asking whether violent crime decreases when guns decrease. "Crime," is really only one part of the risk factor with guns. Studies have demonstrated that more regulated states have fewer gun related homicides and suicides even despite those statistics breaking down at the municipal level. But what you'll note is my proprosal is calling for a total recalibration of our relationship with arms, from police to everyday citizens.

Here's an alternate scenario: we continue in our current system and have government fund and oversee massive mental health evaluations that every citizen is subject to from birth to death. Those who perform poorly or have a prior history of being "troubled" are prohibited from ever owning a firearm and maybe are monitored more carefully in society.

Or in a 3rd scenario, we just grimly accept that you can't prepare for crazy and that our society will always have to tolerate a few deaths among the urban poor and in mass shootings and we write it off as acceptable externalities so a small subgroup of enthusiasts' can enjoy themselves and a small industrial sector can profit.

I think we can see which of these scenarios is most fraught.
 

b00ts

pews&vrooms
Amateur Fighter
Oct 21, 2015
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8,635
Ten times as many people are saved with guns than killed by them is a completely fabricated talking point based on a misstated inference drawn from data in an almost 40 year old survey.
Though not 10x more, it was found that firearms were used as much, if not more, in self-defense than in the commission of a crime. This can be found in the 120 page CDC report on gun violence that Obama allowed funding for in 2013.
 

mysticmac

First 1025
Oct 18, 2015
14,905
17,647
Though not 10x more, it was found that firearms were used as much, if not more, in self-defense than in the commission of a crime. This can be found in the 120 page CDC report on gun violence that Obama allowed funding for in 2013.
It was found that guns were used legally in self defense more than an order of magnitude than in gun crimes.
 

BeardOfKnowledge

The Most Consistent Motherfucker You Know
Jul 22, 2015
60,547
56,268
Though not 10x more, it was found that firearms were used as much, if not more, in self-defense than in the commission of a crime. This can be found in the 120 page CDC report on gun violence that Obama allowed funding for in 2013.
10 times was the low end. 30k killed vs 300 saved.
 

BeardOfKnowledge

The Most Consistent Motherfucker You Know
Jul 22, 2015
60,547
56,268
Capitalism has not always existed. That's ahistorical, counter-economic and not supported by any account, even among those who believe in markets as natural states. There is simply no basis for that statement in reality.

I also have to say your description of even the period and politics of the Enlightenment is not at all accurate. I'm not really sure what you're talking about, to be honest. The greater good was not part of the lexicon of enlightenment thinking and the 3/5 compromise had nothing to do with scientism, just pure politics.

In the opening post of this thread, I propose the centers be nonprofits. I mention regulation in the post prior to tgis one because this entire scheme is a regulatory intervention. The state modifies the law, but doesn't have ownership. Also, guns played no role in either the end of segregation or internment, so that seems like a non-sequitur.

Ten times as many people are saved with guns than killed by them is a completely fabricated talking point based on a misstated inference drawn from data in an almost 40 year old survey. It's trotted out and recycled as some weird exemplar of guns making society safer, but isn't at all true. Similarly off topic is asking whether violent crime decreases when guns decrease. "Crime," is really only one part of the risk factor with guns. Studies have demonstrated that more regulated states have fewer gun related homicides and suicides even despite those statistics breaking down at the municipal level. But what you'll note is my proprosal is calling for a total recalibration of our relationship with arms, from police to everyday citizens.

Here's an alternate scenario: we continue in our current system and have government fund and oversee massive mental health evaluations that every citizen is subject to from birth to death. Those who perform poorly or have a prior history of being "troubled" are prohibited from ever owning a firearm and maybe are monitored more carefully in society.

Or in a 3rd scenario, we just grimly accept that you can't prepare for crazy and that our society will always have to tolerate a few deaths among the urban poor and in mass shootings and we write it off as acceptable externalities so a small subgroup of enthusiasts' can enjoy themselves and a small industrial sector can profit.

I think we can see which of these scenarios is most fraught.
The historical aspect we can unpack later (I'm at work right now) but the concept that violent crime isn't relevant is wholesale incorrect. You can't say you're doing something for public safety it the outcome of the action isn't a safer public. All you're doing is substituting shootings for stabbings. The stats that revolve around "gun violence" are completely irrelevant as it pertains to causation of crime.
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
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It was found that guns were used legally in self defense more than an order of magnitude than in gun crimes.
Again, this is an NRA talking point not aligned with reality. A longitudinal study found the exact opposite. That criminal gun usage outnumbered self defense 6 to 1.
 

Ted Williams' head

It's freezing in here!
Sep 23, 2015
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Again, this is an NRA talking point not aligned with reality. A longitudinal study found the exact opposite. That criminal gun usage outnumbered self defense 6 to 1.
Are they counting suicides in the "criminal gun usage" section though? And I guess criminal gun usage also includes instances where a gun wasn't even fired (armed robbery, brandishing, illegal possession, etc)? If so, the 6 to 1 stat makes a lot of sense.