Remarks by the President on Common-Sense Gun Safety Reform

[BenDan]

Getting sucked into the "his tears weren't real" play was revealing

When one loses the ideological debate you struggle for something

and this is it

KIDS dying is tragic

EVERYONE knows that

suggesting "it's not terribly believable" to be moved by children dying

is actually not terribly believable

time to move planets

 

[rareboy]

Yes.

You do.

Listening to the bimbo bobbleheads on Faux...they were spouting the same toxic nonsense as you about the President tearing up over the slew of senseless gun deaths over the years he has been President.

I watch the wrap-up of FOX nonsense on other programs.

And you all take your talking points from the same twisted, dark place.

 

[Benvolio]

I watch the wrap-up of FOX nonsense on other programs.

And you all take your talking points from the same twisted, dark place.

Nope..........

 

[Kulindahr]

Have you ever fired a pistol chambered in a self defense cartridge before? Slam your phone on the ground over and over, then see how effectively your fingerprint scanner works. Reliable biometrics in firearms is the holy grail of law enforcement service pistols; the first person who patents this kind of tech will see their great grandkids never working a day in their lives.

"Smartguns" are like an HIV vaccine, the first person/company to discover it would be so fucking rich that conspiracy theories are utterly irrational.

Yep. If there were guns out that that could be keyed to one small set of individuals and be counted on to keep working after ten thousand rounds had been fired, the gun had been dropped a few dozen times, etc. -- in other words, it was actually reliable -- they would sell like crazy.

And selling one that wasn't reliable would be a good way to go bankrupt, because it is perfectly legitimate to sue a company for product failure that leads to serious harm or death.

 

[Cobyforrester]

My boner cries a lot too. Sorry, bad gun puns, I mean penis puns.

The gun debate is freakishly oedipal and childish. Like I feel I am watching my brother take away his four year old's toy gun shortly before saying, guns don't kill people, people kill people. If that's the case, there is no point taking your child's gun away when he pops an air dart on your ass.

 

[opinterph]

… selling [a “smartgun”] that wasn't reliable would be a good way to go bankrupt, because it is perfectly legitimate to sue a company for product failure that leads to serious harm or death.

It is true that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) does not remove gun manufacturers’ liability for producing defective products – regardless of whether that defect is the result of bad design or a manufacturing error.

For anyone who may not be aware, the PLCAA is one element of candidate Hillary Clinton’s current campaign challenge to her rival Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, stemming in large part from his vote in favor of that Act.

Clinton voted against the 2005 Act and has recently called for its repeal.

One of the key issues underlying the debate around the PLCAA (and firearm regulations more generally) is the question of whether gun manufacturers should be compelled to change gun designs to make them safer.

Gun Industry Immunity Policy Summary (Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence; May 2015)​

 

[LittleDove]

Is the Second Amendment right to bear arms absolute?

 

[TX-Beau]

No, which is why you can't have an RPG.

 

[LittleDove]

Many people speak and act as if they think it is absolute, which would mean that the right cannot be infringed in any way whatsoever. But as you note, the ordinary citizen doesn't own RPGs ... or ICBMs, or thermonuclear devices, for that matter. Mustard gas is also an armament. Likewise, there are hosts of things what can be used as arms, which are highly regulated, sometimes even to the point of prohibition. Poisons and biological agents would be examples.

Convicts can't bear arms, nor can those unconvicted persons in gaol awaiting trial. Then there are the disturbed and insane, who may be prohibited from bearing arms.

So it seems there is a problem facing those who argue that the right is absolute, because there already are all these infringements, restrictions, and prohibitions, and that they appear to recognise these. Otherwise, it seems they're arguing that the daft woman down at the other end of my block, who periodically goes off her meds, and ends up hanging out the window in a state of near-nudity shouldn't merely be lobbing obscenities at passers-by, but could be tossing the occasional hand-grenade also.

 

[rareboy]

^ The NRA would like all those people to also have guns.

A sale is a sale.

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

Yes, believing the NRA is anything more than a Corporate Big Head is naive. The second amendment to them is a tag line in a sales ad.

 

[Kulindahr]

It is true that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) does not remove gun manufacturers’ liability for producing defective products – regardless of whether that defect is the result of bad design or a manufacturing error.

For anyone who may not be aware, the PLCAA is one element of candidate Hillary Clinton’s current campaign challenge to her rival Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, stemming in large part from his vote in favor of that Act.

Clinton voted against the 2005 Act and has recently called for its repeal.

One of the key issues underlying the debate around the PLCAA (and firearm regulations more generally) is the question of whether gun manufacturers should be compelled to change gun designs to make them safer.

Gun Industry Immunity Policy Summary (Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence; May 2015)​

Just one more place where Hillary is a liar: she claims firearms companies have special protections other industries don't have, when what the PLCAA did was to ensure that firearms manufacturers got the same protections everyone else does. If Hillary's position is correct, then if some angry individual drives a car through a house wall, the car manufacturer should be liable, or if the local baseball team pops a ball through someone's window, the ball (and/or bat) manufacturer should be liable.

Gun manufacturers make their product as safe as is possible. They're already actually made to higher standards of safety than cars or chain saws or washing machines, none of which come with an extra switch that has to be flipped to be able to use them, or are regularly shipped with a lock so that people who shouldn't handle them can't.

 

[Kulindahr]

Is the Second Amendment right to bear arms absolute?

That depends on how you mean the question.

The term "infringed" makes the Second the strongest protection of an individual right that we have; it not only forbids laws about arms, but laws that would have a secondary effect on arms. It entails the meaning of "Congress shall make no law concerning", but also means no law related.

But if you're asking if it means to allow any weapon at all to anyone at all, then no -- because "keep and bear arms" doesn't mean that. One way to approach it is that it protects the right of individuals to bear arms meant for individuals; thus there is no individual right to have a tank or howitzer. At the same time, it was meant to protect the right of the people as militia to have all the weapons of the military -- not as personal possessions, but as possessions in common, for the common defense. It's worth noting in that connection, however, that such crew-served weapons were essentially public property, effectively owned by the local town or township, except where someone had property such that crew-served weapons were considered sensible for protection (e.g. merchant ships, mines, warehouses).

 

[Kulindahr]

Many people speak and act as if they think it is absolute, which would mean that the right cannot be infringed in any way whatsoever. But as you note, the ordinary citizen doesn't own RPGs ... or ICBMs, or thermonuclear devices, for that matter. Mustard gas is also an armament. Likewise, there are hosts of things what can be used as arms, which are highly regulated, sometimes even to the point of prohibition. Poisons and biological agents would be examples.

Convicts can't bear arms, nor can those unconvicted persons in gaol awaiting trial. Then there are the disturbed and insane, who may be prohibited from bearing arms.

So it seems there is a problem facing those who argue that the right is absolute, because there already are all these infringements, restrictions, and prohibitions, and that they appear to recognise these. Otherwise, it seems they're arguing that the daft woman down at the other end of my block, who periodically goes off her meds, and ends up hanging out the window in a state of near-nudity shouldn't merely be lobbing obscenities at passers-by, but could be tossing the occasional hand-grenade also.

Under the language of the Second Amendment, none of what you mentioned counts as an infringement; they're part of the concept of the militia. As an individual right, it protects, as writers of the day put it, the common weapons of the common soldier -- so no RPGs, no mustard gas, no APCs. The militia concept also entails the recognition of people "incompetent to arms", i.e. incapable of safe use; thus violent felons (which back then was practically a redundant statement) and the "mentally feeble" were excluded -- yet not by any central government or even the state government, but by the local authorities who knew by experience who was "incompetent to arms" (an authority that, if we'd maintained it, would have prevented a large portion of recent mass shooters from having guns).

 

[Kulindahr]

^ The NRA would like all those people to also have guns.

A sale is a sale.

Why do you resort to such lies on this topic? The only people he mentioned for whom the NRA insists their right should not be impaired would be non-violent felons.

The GOA, though, has said that once someone is out of prison, their rights should be fully respected -- they even cite the old practice of giving a released prisoner a gun, a box of ammo, and twenty dollars to get started in a new life.

 

[Kulindahr]

Yes, believing the NRA is anything more than a Corporate Big Head is naive. The second amendment to them is a tag line in a sales ad.

This is out of touch with reality. Arms manufacturers aren't really friends of the NRA at all -- too many of them have been shafted too often by La Pierre and his crew. The relationship is more like that between China and the Soviet Union back in the day: neither trusted the other, both tried to use the other, and they agreed they had a common enemy.

 

[opinterph]

Hillary … claims firearms companies have special protections other industries don't have, when what the PLCAA did was to ensure that firearms manufacturers got the same protections everyone else does.

Having reviewed the matter somewhat, I agree that Hillary’s claim of special protection for gun manufacturers and resellers under provisions of the PLCAA is essentially false. At the same time, I agree with Bernie Sanders that implications arising from the legislation for which he voted are “complicated.” (In that respect, I must also note that voters do not typically expend too much of their own personal effort to understand complicated matters.)

With respect to firearms, strict liability is a legal term that describes a more or less absolute responsibility of a manufacturer or reseller for a product that is used by a purchaser to commit a criminal act – regardless of whether the manufacturer or reseller is guilty of negligence or willful misconduct.

The PLCAA provided statutory immunity for gun manufacturers or resellers against claims of strict liability. Most [all?] other industries also have immunity from claims of strict liability. In this respect, the PLCAA offered a straightforward way for gun manufacturers and resellers to have lawsuits against them dismissed – without expending substantial legal and financial resources to achieve that relief in court. (Apparently some local jurisdictions had passed ordinances that proposed to hold gun manufacturers and resellers to a standard of strict liability.)

 

[opinterph]

Gun manufacturers make their product as safe as is possible.

I disagree.

 

[Benvolio]

No, strict liabilty is a fairly recent (60s) tort rule, invented by the courts, that a manufacturer of a product which is defective so as to be unreasonably dangerous, is liable for personal injuries which result. It does not require proof of negligence, fault, or criminal act.

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

This is out of touch with reality.

Nah, I'm good.