Texas Church Shooting

[ballcaphair]

There's a lot of food for thought in here and it's all pretty constructive. I'm mulling over the concept of the Word of law vs. Spirit of the law. I doubt the Framers ever imagined assault weapons, just for starters.

 

[Kulindahr]

There's a lot of food for thought in here and it's all pretty constructive. I'm mulling over the concept of the Word of law vs. Spirit of the law. I doubt the Framers ever imagined assault weapons, just for starters.

The Founders were aware of rapid-fire weapons; such things had been around since about 1720 and were being developed further (e.g. a hand-cranked gun that could fire sixty rounds in half a minute -- the very first machine gun).

But what the Framers had in mind were "the ordinary (or standard) weapons of the individual soldier" -- that was part and parcel of the militia concept, and they were well aware that said weaponry had already advanced from sword and bow to crossbow to hand cannon to musket. They also knew of breech-loading firearms -- which had been around since the fourteenth century -- and fully expected them to become standard, just as rifles were replacing smoothbores. So they knew quite well when they chose their words that the technology would go on improving, and where it was headed (including the idea of a gun that would use the energy from its own explosive charge to reload itself).

Really, today's small-arms weapons tech is just the result of the pursuit and refinement of ideas known to the Founders and Framers. Even guided munitions are but extensions of the aimed rocket guided by fins (which, oddly enough, Europeans were aware of but evidently hadn't pursued despite the fact that the Chinese had such things; for some reason, Europeans confined the use of rockets to signals).

 

[Kulindahr]

Considering that we already have speech control, and you can't tear the beating hearts out of human sacrifices in the name of Quetzalcoatl, you seem to have no actual point.

Your interpretation of the Constitution has no authority, you drone on and on about what you think some guys wanted centuries ago and pretend your opinion is definitive.

Fact is that the Constitution and the Laws inspired by it all evolve and as much as you NEVER want to admit it, regulation of firearms is already Constitutional, no matter how much the whiners want to ignore that little inconvenience.

Tag, you're it.

No, we don't have "speech control" in the sense you want gun control, i.e. prior restraint.

No one would put up where other rights are concerned with anything that passes for "reasonable" prior restraint in gun control. To emplace even laws parallel to what exist for guns would bring rebellion -- licensing of preachers and priests, limits to the length of sermons, restrictions on what topics could be preached about... and the very same things for the press, as well as background checks (with payment of a fee) before anyone would be allowed to speak publicly.

So if the current regulations on firearms is constitutional, so is all that.


BTW, I don't say anything about what I think they wanted, I just pass on what they themselves said they thought -- that every person should be armed, that the militia is the whole people, that the arms of the militia should be the standard arms of the ordinary soldier, etc. It's all written down for anyone who wants to read it.

 

[ballcaphair]

Lets presume that the law allows and encourages gun ownership. Lets know that the law of Japan forbids them. We have many shootings and Japan has the least. Honestly, how do we lower our total? I'm not advocating taking anyone's guns, I'm looking for a solution. We argue and do nothing else. Stop, children, what's that sound?

 

[Kulindahr]

Lets presume that the law allows and encourages gun ownership. Lets know that the law of Japan forbids them. We have many shootings and Japan has the least. Honestly, how do we lower our total? I'm not advocating taking anyone's guns, I'm looking for a solution. We argue and do nothing else. Stop, children, what's that sound?

Japan also has a homogeneous culture with a tradition of respect for others whereas the U.S. has a mix of cultures and a tradition of adversarial relationships in just about everything.

I've already presented things that could be done following Article I Section 8 of the Constitution, including secure storage laws and community-based mental health programs. I'll add one here that I got reminded of on another site: defining weapons that could serve as military weapons as specifically militia weapons and establishing substantial penalties for their misuse, since misusing weapons is most certainly not a mark of a well-regulated militia.

Related to that last is the issue of how many violent criminals get released only to do it again: the best predictor statistically for someone harming someone else with a gun is prior violent crime. I'd change the laws so any felons whose crime was not violent automatically gets gun (and voting) rights back after seven years with no new convictions, and anyone convicted of a violent crime, felony or misdemeanor, faces an automatic 50% sentence increase for any new violent crime, and double that if a gun is even in the criminal's possession at the time of the crime. The trouble is, these aspects tend to be matters of state law.

Further, "gun free" zones should be either eliminated or the owners/managers of such property be held liable for any criminal use of a gun on that property -- almost every single mass shooter acts out in "gun free" zones, and one big reason is that all that "gun free" means is "no one can oppose me".

Oh -- and in the spirit of old times' sake, allow the use of rock salt pellet rounds for self-defense. That's how farmers around here did it in my granddad's day, and it was amazingly effective.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Ah -- reading the article, I see that it IS on the prohibited list. So he lied on his form when he bought the rifle, and they didn't catch that? Or was the military slow in getting the info into the instant check system?

I presume by now your question has been answered, turns out he wasn't supposed to be able to purchase a firearm due to his domestic violence charge BUT somebody in the air force or navy or whatever didn't submit his info to the federal database hence his background check came back clean.

A clear case of negligence but I doubt any heads will roll even though they should. Before we even begin to strengthen or gun laws we first need to make sure the ones in place are being enforced, and penalties are issued when such is not the case. Especially, ya know, when said negligence leads to 26 people dying. Of all the recent tragedies in the national spotlight this one is a textbook case of "Could've been prevented."

 

[Kulindahr]

I presume by now your question has been answered, turns out he wasn't supposed to be able to purchase a firearm due to his domestic violence charge BUT somebody in the air force or navy or whatever didn't submit his info to the federal database hence his background check came back clean.

A clear case of negligence but I doubt any heads will roll even though they should. Before we even begin to strengthen or gun laws we first need to make sure the ones in place are being enforced, and penalties are issued when such is not the case. Especially, ya know, when said negligence leads to 26 people dying. Of all the recent tragedies in the national spotlight this one is a textbook case of "Could've been prevented."

There's hope: a bill has been introduced in Congress mandating effective reporting by all federal agencies (the military isn't the only one that has seriously dropped the ball) so that kind of information is up to date. I haven't seen the text yet, but I hope it includes criminal penalties for failure to report.

I still wish for a new Militia Act that would require secure storage of weapons (not just guns!) not in use, provide for a system of community health care that could head off some or many of the idiots before they snap, and even establish local militia offices where those wishing to own (whether they do or not) weapons of military use would register (information to be held locally, NOT federally), but given that Congress doesn't seem to have the balls to fix the moronic reasoning (and resulting corruption) of the Citizens United decision, I'm not optimistic; we'll probably continue on the downhill course to a more imperial federal government and all the corruption and incompetence that will bring.

 

[Benvolio]

There's hope: a bill has been introduced in Congress mandating effective reporting by all federal agencies (the military isn't the only one that has seriously dropped the ball) so that kind of information is up to date. I haven't seen the text yet, but I hope it includes criminal penalties for failure to report.

I still wish for a new Militia Act that would require secure storage of weapons (not just guns!) not in use, provide for a system of community health care that could head off some or many of the idiots before they snap, and even establish local militia offices where those wishing to own (whether they do or not) weapons of military use would register (information to be held locally, NOT federally), but given that Congress doesn't seem to have the balls to fix the moronic reasoning (and resulting corruption) of the Citizens United decision, I'm not optimistic; we'll probably continue on the downhill course to a more imperial federal government and all the corruption and incompetence that will bring.

O great! A law requiring secure storage of all weapons: guns, knives, baseballs, poisons, rocks, pepper sprays, golf clubs, ropes etc. This is the libertarian position.

 

[Kulindahr]

O great! A law requiring secure storage of all weapons: guns, knives, baseballs, poisons, rocks, pepper sprays, golf clubs, ropes etc. This is the libertarian position.

A serious question: have you ever heard of a thing called "context"?

 

[gsdx]

O great! A law requiring secure storage of all weapons: guns, knives, baseballs, poisons, rocks, pepper sprays, golf clubs, ropes etc. This is the libertarian position.

Oh, man! You are so funny when you're being serious!

 

[tobymerwin]

Go ahead and make guns illegal, then we'll have a society of armed criminals.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

There's hope: a bill has been introduced in Congress mandating effective reporting by all federal agencies (the military isn't the only one that has seriously dropped the ball) so that kind of information is up to date. I haven't seen the text yet, but I hope it includes criminal penalties for failure to report.

I'm still skeptical, if the previous laws weren't enforced I don't have much faith new ones will be.