Here Comes the Gun and Speech Legislation

[JamesInFlorida]

I think they should just put in place tighter security at the public political functions. You can't carry guns in every public place such as courthouses, schools, airports, etc. I'm all for people being able to own guns, and to have concealed carrying permits. Just make it so you can't bring a gun to the political functions and I'm happy. You wont trample on our gun rights in any other aspect, and it's much much much efficient than blindly making stricter gun laws (when nutjobs who want to kill a specific target, then go on a killing spree are going to get their hands on the gun in the first place).

 

[Missourian]

Have you ever heard the quotation by Mary Shelley...

What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?​

All the laws, restrictions, codifications, resolutions, amendments, and proclamations is not going to deter someone who is intent on committing murder.

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

We are just encouraged not to use our brains, we are told how to act.

We is good little programmed minions.

good grief, is your WHOLE life a cartoon?

No offense to retards, but Sheman is the crown prince of retards. Worst case of "NOTICE ME" I've ever seen.

 

[M14 Shooter]

What do you suggest needs to be done (if anything) to keep guns out of the hands of those intent in using guns to harm innocents? Keep the image of the nine year old daughter, sister and grandchild killed in this latest horrific slaughter when (if) you reply.

You live in a free country.
Freedom has risks, not the least of which is that someone might decide to abuse the rights that each of us have.
To stop these people, you must give up living in that free country.

The father of that 9-year old daughter understand this and isn't willing to make that sacrifice. What's that tell you?

 

[M14 Shooter]

Not asking me but I will chime in, we need one more gun law ona a national level prohibiting any one who is placed in a mental hospital or care under the Baker Act to not be allowed to posess firearms until his Doctor says he is fit ie mentally stable enough to do so again.

This is already covered under Federal law.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Have you ever heard the quotation by Mary Shelley...

What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?​

All the laws, restrictions, codifications, resolutions, amendments, and proclamations is not going to deter someone who is intent on committing murder.

Then why have laws against anything?

 

[boedicca]

Have you ever heard the quotation by Mary Shelley...

What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?​

All the laws, restrictions, codifications, resolutions, amendments, and proclamations is not going to deter someone who is intent on committing murder.

Then why have laws against anything?

To hold people accountable for things they actually do.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Correct. The current policy of the NRA is, if I'm not mistaken, to oppose any and all efforts on gun control.

This is sheer ignorance on your part.
The NRA supports any and every gun control legislation that is effective in keeping guns from criminals and does not infringe on the rights of the law abiding.

 

[M14 Shooter]

The sheriff said the suspect had previous contact with law enforcement in which he made violent threats, but he declined to provide further details. Court records indicate Loughner had been arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia in 2007, but the charges were dismissed.

Local background checks might have kept this guy from being able to buy a gun.

Except that no law exists that would allow for these events to deny him a gun; if one did, it would violate the Constitution, as none of these proceedings are sufficient to remove his right under the due process clause.

 

[M14 Shooter]

The USA has the highest rate of firearm induced civilian homicides in the world.
True or false?

Comparing the number of guns to the number of gun-related homicides:
False.

 

[M14 Shooter]

actually the SC has ruled that there are more than one exception to that clause. You can't own nuclear arms for example or assault rifles at least in some states.

The SCotUS has never ruled any such thing.

Furthermore the entire right to bear arms is predicated on your position in a state militia.

Absolutely false.
See:
DC v Heller

 

[M14 Shooter]

Yeah yeah, those activist judges.

-You're- the one that invoked the rulings of the court.
Apparently you pick and choose which decisions you want to follow?

If the Holy document doesn't say it, it isn't so. And the holy document predicates the right to bear arms on the need for state militias. In black and white.

Nothing in the text of the amendment leads to this conclusion.

And even that SC decision didn't rule that the DC gun ban ruling applied beyond federal enclaves i.e. into the states.

That's what McDonald did - incororated the 2nd against the states.

And the right bear assault weapons and guns without a carry permit is withheld in most states.

THis is sheer ignorance. Most states do not require a permit to own a gun and most states allow for open carry of any kind of guns.

And you can't bear nuclear arms anywhere in the US unless you are an agent of the feds

Irrelevant to the subject of guns.

And in most states you have to lock your guns in your own house. You can't even buy a gun here without a locking device.

More ignorance on your part.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Is the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, an ala carte menu?
Racial Profiling? YES!
Ban Mosques? YES!
Gun Control? NO! HELL NO!

Pot, meet kettle
Gay rights! Yes!
Abortion rights! Yes!
Gun rights! Hell no!!!

 

[Sallow]

This was, of course, predictable. Never waste a tragedy.



I'll reserve judgment until I see what she introduces, but I think any type of gun legislation passing the Republican controlled House is unlikely, even after this.

Personally, I'm more alarmed by Bob Brady's intended legislation.



Such a law is just flat out unconstitutional and opens the door to an unimaginable amount of abuse by the government concerning the political speech of the American people. Again, I sincerely doubt such a law will be able to pass the House.

What do you suggest needs to be done (if anything) to keep guns out of the hands of those intent in using guns to harm innocents? Keep the image of the nine year old daughter, sister and grandchild killed in this latest horrific slaughter when (if) you reply.

Not asking me but I will chime in, we need one more gun law ona a national level prohibiting any one who is placed in a mental hospital or care under the Baker Act to not be allowed to posess firearms until his Doctor says he is fit ie mentally stable enough to do so again.
The definition of being forcibly treated under the Baker act is you have to be a threat to yourself and or others for it to happen. So why should you be allowed to posess firearms?

I know for a fact that there is no national nor state law in many states prohibing the mentally unstable form posessing guns.

outside of that I think we have gun laws pretty well covered.

Well, I for one don't agree that the right to bear arms is an indivdual right. Be that as it may, there should be areas for compromise.

Personally, I don't have a problem with a person owning a licensed gun for home protection. Taking that same gun to a bar..I do have a problem with..

 

[Foxfyre]

Back to the original premise of outlawing speech etc:

You know tens of millions of people listen to Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, Savage et al every weekday and also read Malkin, Coulter, and others equally as provocative. And though their audiences are tiny by comparison, none are any more explicit in their rhetoric or any more negative toward those they criticize than are Olbermann, Matthews, Maher, some of the wingnuts on the View, etc. etc. etc. And words like 'target' or 'crosshairs' are commonplace and often used.

And that doesn't even include the other talking heads spewing hate speech toward this person or that group or whatever.

Wouldn't you think if such rhetoric had any power to inspire violence that we would see wholesale violence with so much exposure and so many hours devoted to political criticism?

Bob Brady (D -PA) on Fox this morning said he wanted to ban all graphics showing crosshairs or targets on congressional seats, states, anything related to politics. He didn't know if these had influenced anybody to violence but he wanted to be 'safe instead of sorry'.

So this morning Jack Shafer at Slate, not exactly the last bastion of conservatism, opposed this kind of extremist government control and defended heated political rhetoric:

For as long as I’ve been alive, crosshairs and bull’s-eyes have been an accepted part of the graphical lexicon when it comes to political debates. Such “inflammatory” words as targeting, attacking, destroying, blasting, crushing, burying, knee-capping, and others have similarly guided political thought and action. Not once have the use of these images or words tempted me or anybody else I know to kill. I’ve listened to, read—and even written!—vicious attacks on government without reaching for my gun. I’ve even gotten angry, for goodness’ sake, without coming close to assassinating a politician or a judge.

From what I can tell, I’m not an outlier. Only the tiniest handful of people—most of whom are already behind bars, in psychiatric institutions, or on psycho-meds—can be driven to kill by political whispers or shouts. Asking us to forever hold our tongues lest we awake their deeper demons infantilizes and neuters us and makes politicians no safer. . . .

. . . .Any call to cool “inflammatory” speech is a call to police all speech, and I can’t think of anybody in government, politics, business, or the press that I would trust with that power. As Jonathan Rauch wrote brilliantly in Harper’s in 1995, “The vocabulary of hate is potentially as rich as your dictionary, and all you do by banning language used by cretins is to let them decide what the rest of us may say.” Rauch added, “Trap the racists and anti-Semites, and you lay a trap for me too. Hunt for them with eradication in your mind, and you have brought dissent itself within your sights.”

Our spirited political discourse, complete with name-calling, vilification—and, yes, violent imagery—is a good thing. Better that angry people unload their fury in public than let it fester and turn septic in private. The wicked direction the American debate often takes is not a sign of danger but of freedom. And I’ll punch out the lights of anybody who tries to take it away from me. . . .
The awesome stupidity of the calls to tamp down political speech in the wake of the Giffords shooting. - By Jack Shafer - Slate Magazine

 

[BlackAsCoal]

We are a nation of morons.

A nation of paranoid people.

A nation tooooo ignorant to know that guns at public events, particularly at political events, is a bad idea.

But don't talk about my gun.

School children get slaughtered at school .. the solution, let's arm the teachers, janitors, and everybody else.

But don't talk about my gun.

Incredible.

Don't get it twisted, not advocating taking away anyone's gun .. I used to .. but I recognized the relationship between gun-lovers and civil rights haters. I figure it best to leave that decision to the individual if the governemnt has no say in it.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Well, I for one don't agree that the right to bear arms is an indivdual right.

That just makes you wrong, in political, legal and constitutional terms.

Be that as it may, there should be areas for compromise.

Compromise?
This necessitates you giving me something I want and me giving you something you want.
In this regard, what do you have that I want?

Personally, I don't have a problem with a person owning a licensed gun...

I do. Gun licensing violates the constitution, as a precondtition to the exercise of a right not inherent to same constitutes an infringement of that right.

 

[Sallow]

actually the SC has ruled that there are more than one exception to that clause. You can't own nuclear arms for example or assault rifles at least in some states.

The SCotUS has never ruled any such thing.

Furthermore the entire right to bear arms is predicated on your position in a state militia.

Absolutely false.
See:
DC v Heller

The Constitution clearly states it's a collective right. Heller was an absolute abomination, a fine example of legislating from the bench and Judicial activism. And it puts the bed the notion conservative judicial restraint.

 

[M14 Shooter]

The Constitution clearly states it's a collective right.

"The people" refers to the individual citizen, just as it does every other time the word, or a form thereof, is used in the Constitution.
Thus, individual right.

Heller was an absolute abomination...

Feel free to show how the decision is unsound, in terms of the factual particulars, the reasoning, or the conclusion dervied from both.
Try -very- hard not to ape someone else - use your own words.

 

[Avatar4321]

Cant let a good crisis go to waste. this type of politics disgusts me.