Crazy F*ckers and Mr. Glock

[Seahawks]

All I can say is if you want to fight the man you and a bunch of your buddies better be well armed and organized.

 

General Seahawks?

 

They can have my gun from my cold dead hands.

[mattp]

I don't think that you can simultaneously wish for a massive gun-law enforcement bureaucracy with broad new powers to search private homes, issue ex-post-facto declarations that what was once legally held private property is now subject to seizure by the state, etc - and make broad complaints about the provisions in the Patriot Act at the same time.

 

I'm not sure those favoring greater restrictions on personal weaponry are calling for "broad new powers to search private homes," and the imposition of ANY new law restricting possession of guns, dangerous drugs, chemicals that harm the environment, an explosive hazard that endangers the neighbors, or maybe ban hog farms in a residential neighborhood is an "ex-post-facto declarations that what was once legally held private property is now subject to seizure by the state, etc."

 

I think you can do better than that, Jay. Your argument could be applied against ANY public safety or public welfare law on private property: is that really what you mean?

[dt_3pin]

you're fucking stupid.

 

Not as fucking stupid as somebody who would bring that to the table. Screw you.

 

If it makes you feel any better, I used the term "retarded" rather than "stupid." I guess I was edited or something.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JayB]

Even if you accept that the link between private gun ownership and the maintenance of personal freedoms is a mighty loose one, there's still the matter of what impact granting the government broad new search/seizure/enforcement powers necessary to stuff this particular genie back into the bottle might have.

 

When people were debating the merits of prohibition, criminalizing drugs way back in the day(you could still buy heroin through the Sears and Robucks catalog around the turn of the century), etc - there were a few folks that argued that the benefits that would arise from making these substances illegal would be dwarfed by the negative consequences they'd have - foremost amongst them being their effects on personal freedoms.

 

Not exactly an apples to apples comparison, but worth thinking about IMO.

how would it be so invasive? the law would say you'd have to turn over any semi-automatic weapon - it could be connected to an incentive (a buyback program w/ a decreasing price over time to get them back sooner rather than later) - perhaps an exemption for folks w/ a family heirlom (the weapon must be rendered permanently inoperable, verified as such, and then be kept at home) - after the grace period's over, if you're arrested w/ an illegal gun, then the penalty would be assesed. existing records of gun ownership let you knock on doors or call or write for due diligence in informing the public.

 

how would the enforcement of this law be different from any other? seems like a problem w/ previous gun laws though is they have often been shoddily enforced

 

The key difference is that the objects are already in private hands, and enforcing limits on things that folks already own is quite a bit different from restricting the sale or distribution of the same.

 

What would you do with the substantial minority of gun owners who failed to comply with one or any of the provisions? Hard to see how this could be enforced without granting the government fairly wide powers to search for and seize the now-illegal weapons still in the hands of folks who haven't complied with the law - or result in a state where a the new legislation is both widely ignored and ineffectual for lack of vigorous enforcement.

 

It may be possible construct and enforce these laws in such a way that renders these concerns groundless, but I don't think that you can dismiss them out of hand either.

 

 

 

 

[cj001f]

The key difference is that the objects are already in private hands, and enforcing limits on things that folks already own is quite a bit different from restricting the sale or distribution of the same.

 

What would you do with the substantial minority of gun owners who failed to comply with one or any of the provisions? Hard to see how this could be enforced without granting the government fairly wide powers to search for and seize the now-illegal weapons still in the hands of folks who haven't complied with the law - or result in a state where a the new legislation is both widely ignored and ineffectual for lack of vigorous enforcement.

 

It may be possible construct and enforce these laws in such a way that renders these concerns groundless, but I don't think that you can dismiss them out of hand either.

 

Have you been following the powers given to the government for seizure of private property in the war on drugs? Or the difficulty retrieving that property? These same powers are now being deployed in the war on terror. I see no reason they couldn't be used in a war on guns.

[Dechristo]

In the U.S., what would a mandatory surrender of any type of weapon look like?

like this

 

POTD

 

A deliberate, open, ambiguous set-up for anyone to nab.

 

The straight man never gets any cred

[billcoe]

you're fucking stupid.

 

Not as fucking stupid as somebody who would bring that to the table. Screw you.

 

If it makes you feel any better, I used the term "retarded" rather than "stupid." I guess I was edited or something.

 

Well it does...thats too funny! You must have the PC thought police on yer ass Dt.

[ivan]

What would you do with the substantial minority of gun owners who failed to comply with one or any of the provisions? Hard to see how this could be enforced without granting the government fairly wide powers to search for and seize the now-illegal weapons still in the hands of folks who haven't complied with the law - or result in a state where a the new legislation is both widely ignored and ineffectual for lack of vigorous enforcement.

 

 

pry them from their cold, dead hands?

 

folks already have to register guns, yes? so go through the list and demand either the weapon or evidence of it's destruction/inoperability. if they shot at the census-man who comes to serve the paper, send in the SWAT team - they love that kinda shit, no?

 

the scale of the bureaucracy involved to do this is troubling - perhaps pay for it by charging folks to see the giant statue of charlton heston you smelt out of the contraband weapons?

 

carl's right, they already plow through everybody's shit lookign for the chronic. i wouldn't think it'd be necessary though in the case of folks who wouldn't surrender their weapons though - they can turn over the weapon or go to jail, right?

 

i don't begin to humor myself that restricitng weapons to just an 18th century standard would be rapidly succesful - seems like it might well take a generation or two as there are so many weapons out there already - ceasing to manufacture a billion more a day would be a hell of a start though

[JayB]

I don't think that you can simultaneously wish for a massive gun-law enforcement bureaucracy with broad new powers to search private homes, issue ex-post-facto declarations that what was once legally held private property is now subject to seizure by the state, etc - and make broad complaints about the provisions in the Patriot Act at the same time.

 

I'm not sure those favoring greater restrictions on personal weaponry are calling for "broad new powers to search private homes," and the imposition of ANY new law restricting possession of guns, dangerous drugs, chemicals that harm the environment, an explosive hazard that endangers the neighbors, or maybe ban hog farms in a residential neighborhood is an "ex-post-facto declarations that what was once legally held private property is now subject to seizure by the state, etc."

 

I think you can do better than that, Jay. Your argument could be applied against ANY public safety or public welfare law on private property: is that really what you mean?

 

Some are calling for such things, some aren't.

 

The point was that in all such cases you have to balance the competing perogatives of preserving personal freedom and maintaining public safety - and that's an especially difficult task when it comes to personal firearms in general, and the scores of millions of guns that are already in private hands in particular.

 

I don't personally own any guns and in many ways I envy those societies that haven't inherited this particular conundrum from their pasts, and if given the power to push a magic button and make everything but single-action rifles and shotguns disappear from the country - I might be tempted to push it, but that's not the way the world is.

[JayB]

The key difference is that the objects are already in private hands, and enforcing limits on things that folks already own is quite a bit different from restricting the sale or distribution of the same.

 

What would you do with the substantial minority of gun owners who failed to comply with one or any of the provisions? Hard to see how this could be enforced without granting the government fairly wide powers to search for and seize the now-illegal weapons still in the hands of folks who haven't complied with the law - or result in a state where a the new legislation is both widely ignored and ineffectual for lack of vigorous enforcement.

 

It may be possible construct and enforce these laws in such a way that renders these concerns groundless, but I don't think that you can dismiss them out of hand either.

 

Have you been following the powers given to the government for seizure of private property in the war on drugs? Or the difficulty retrieving that property? These same powers are now being deployed in the war on terror. I see no reason they couldn't be used in a war on guns.

 

Are we talking about the Patriot Act or things that had their genesis during Prohibition? If we are talking about the threats posed to personal liberty by a government that can determine what mentally competent adults can or cannot imbibe, and the enforcement machinery necessary to uphold the laws intended to prevent the same, then I'd have to agree with you.

 

Here's what one of your beloved Austrian economists had to say at the time (1920s):

 

"As the [classical] liberal sees it, the task of the state consists solely and exclusively in guaranteeing the protection of life, health, liberty, and private property against violent attacks. Everything that goes beyond this is an evil. A government that, instead of fulfilling its task, sought to go so far as actually to infringe on personal security of life and health, freedom, and property would, of course, be altogether bad.

 

Still, as Jacob Burckhardt says, power is evil in itself, no matter who exercises it. It tends to corrupt those who wield it and leads to abuse. Not only absolute sovereigns and aristocrats, but the masses also, in whose hands democracy entrusts the supreme power of government, are only too easily inclined to excesses.

 

In the United States, the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages are prohibited. Other countries do not go so far, but nearly everywhere some restrictions are imposed on the sale of opium, cocaine, and similar narcotics. It is universally deemed one of the tasks of legislation and government to protect the individual from himself. Even those who otherwise generally have misgivings about extending the area of governmental activity consider it quite proper that the freedom of the individual should be curtailed in this respect, and they think that only a benighted doctrinairism could oppose such prohibitions. Indeed, so general is the acceptance of this kind of interference by the authorities in the life of the individual that those who, are opposed to liberalism on principle are prone to base their argument on the ostensibly undisputed acknowledgment of the necessity of such prohibitions and to draw from it the conclusion that complete freedom is an evil and that some measure of restriction must be imposed upon the freedom of the individual by the governmental authorities in their capacity as guardians of his welfare. The question cannot be whether the authorities ought to impose restrictions upon the freedom of the individual, but only how far they ought to go in this respect.

 

No words need be wasted over the fact that all these narcotics are harmful. The question whether even a small quantity of alcohol is harmful or whether the harm results only from the abuse of alcoholic beverages is not at issue here. It is an established fact that alcoholism, cocainism, and morphinism are deadly enemies of life, of health, and of the capacity for work and enjoyment; and a utilitarian must therefore consider them as vices. But this is far from demonstrating that the authorities must interpose to suppress these vices by commercial prohibitions, nor is it by any means evident that such intervention on the part of the government is really capable of suppressing them or that, even if this end could be attained, it might not therewith open up a Pandora's box of other dangers, no less mischievous than alcoholism and morphinism.

 

Whoever is convinced that indulgence or excessive indulgence in these poisons is pernicious is not hindered from living abstemiously or temperately. This question cannot be treated exclusively in reference to alcoholism, morphinism, cocainism, etc., which all reasonable men acknowledge to be evils. For if the majority of citizens is, in principle, conceded the right to impose its way of life upon a minority, it is impossible to stop at prohibitions against indulgence in alcohol, morphine, cocaine, and similar poisons. Why should not what is valid for these poisons be valid also for nicotine, caffeine, and the like? Why should not the state generally prescribe which foods may be indulged in and which must be avoided because they are injurious? In sports too, many people are prone to carry their indulgence further than their strength will allow. Why should not the state interfere here as well? Few men know how to be temperate in their sexual life, and it seems especially difficult for aging persons to understand that they should cease entirely to indulge in such pleasures or, at least, do so in moderation. Should not the state intervene here too? More harmful still than all these pleasures, many will say, is the reading of evil literature. Should a press pandering to the lowest instincts of man be allowed to corrupt the soul? Should not the exhibition of pornographic pictures, of obscene plays, in short, of all allurements to immorality, be prohibited? And is not the dissemination of false sociological doctrines just as injurious to men and nations? Should men be permitted to incite others to civil war and to wars against foreign countries? And should scurrilous lampoons and blasphemous diatribes be allowed to undermine respect for God and the Church?

 

We see that as soon as we surrender the principle that the state should not interfere in any questions touching on the individual's mode of life, we end by regulating and restricting the latter down to the smallest detail. The personal freedom of the individual is abrogated. He becomes a slave of the community, bound to obey the dictates of the majority. It is hardly necessary to expatiate on the ways in which such powers could be abused by malevolent persons in authority. The wielding, of powers of this kind even by men imbued with the best of intentions must needs reduce the world to a graveyard of the spirit. All mankind's progress has been achieved as a result of the initiative of a small minority that began to deviate from the ideas and customs of the majority until their example finally moved the others to accept the innovation themselves. To give the majority the right to dictate to the minority what it is to think, to read, and to do is to put a stop to progress once and for all.

 

Let no one object that the struggle against morphinism and the struggle against "evil" literature are two quite different things. The only difference between them is that some of the same people who favor the prohibition of the former will not agree to the prohibition of the latter. In the United States, the Methodists and Fundamentalists, right after the passage of the law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, took up the struggle for the suppression of the theory of evolution, and they have already succeeded in ousting Darwinism from the schools in a number of states. In Soviet Russia, every free expression of opinion is suppressed. Whether or not permission is granted for a book to be published depends on the discretion of a number of uneducated and uncultivated fanatics who have been placed in charge of the arm of the government empowered to concern itself with such matters.

 

The propensity of our contemporaries to demand authoritarian prohibition as soon as something does not please them, and their readiness to submit to such prohibitions even when what is prohibited is quite agreeable to them shows how deeply ingrained the spirit of servility still remains within them. It will require many long years of self-education until the subject can turn himself into the citizen. A free man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and live otherwise than he considers proper. He must free himself from the habit, just as soon as something does not please him, of calling for the police."

[Dechristo]

They can have my gun from my cold dead hands.

 

Are you saying you wouldn't comply with the Law of the Land were it made so?

[mattp]

I'll buy you're "its a matter of balance" fall-back. The ideas that imposing new restrictions on firearm ownership necessarily implied "massive new police powers to search private property" or that "ex post facto" restrictions on private property are inherently bad were bunk.

[dt_3pin]

 

Well it does...thats too funny! You must have the PC thought police on yer ass Dt.

 

No doubt. Apparently, they're not just after the gun owners.

 

[JayB]

I'll buy you're "its a matter of balance" fall-back. The ideas that imposing new restrictions on firearm ownership necessarily implied "massive new police powers to search private property" or that "ex post facto" restrictions on private property are inherently bad were bunk.

 

I never said that they were inherently bad, but there are certain hazards inherent granting the government the power to make such ex-post facto seizures. You may not mind if the government comes and seizes your neighbors glock. He may not mind if the government comes and seizes your books. You'd probably prefer it if it was illegal for them to come search your home for marijuana, much less seize it. Guns are

different, but not necessarily different enough that you can dismiss all such concerns out of hand.

 

The nature and scope of gun ownership in this country is such that seizing all handguns, semi-auto rifles, etc - will require legislative and law enforcement intitiatives at least as extensive as those undertaken in Prohibition/T.W.O.D.

 

I also don't think that you can entirely dismiss the arguments concerning the rights of the small, weak, and/or vulnerable to safeguard their own rights against violation by other individuals by using handguns in situations where any protection offered by the government will be far too little too late. I think that these situations are far less frequent than the NRA and others suggest, but I don't think that they can be dismissed by anyone who sincerely believes in the principle that people should have the freedom to defend their lives/liberties/persons against violation by others.

[Peter_Puget]

Jayb -

 

Might it have been better just to say that "every law passed is simply the implied threat of the use of the state's police powers (aka violence) to get people to do what they otherwise wouldn't."

[Seahawks]

They can have my gun from my cold dead hands.

 

Are you saying you wouldn't comply with the Law of the Land were it made so?

 

Couple of the guns are so old they wouldn't ever know I had them. So I would keep them. Then I would vote the fool out who did it.

[ivan]

I just don't see how a lot more guns woulda made the situation better - to use the nazi example, since it's the most familiar, if hitler had gone to move them to ghettoes and they'd had guns, they coulda fought back, but so what? they still woulda died under stuka and panzer attacks - no private militia can hope to stand up to a determined goverment. and if the jews had shot back, that would most likely only have solidified in german minds the value of oppressing the "subhumans."

 

First, agree only that nut jobs should be restricted. Fer sure. When I was up working at the VA Hospital, I worked with some Section 8s (ie "Nutjobz" in Ivan parlance) on and off here and there for almost 4 years. No arguement.

 

Concerning the rest of your arguement. Nope. The oppression of subhumans was in full swing........note these 2 words: 2 words for the graduate. Warsaw Getto.

 

Never forgive, never forget. Life free or die.

how would gun ownership have helped in warsaw? as you no doubt recall from your childhood geography classes (back when pangaea was still intact ), warsaw's in poland - the nazi's didn't make a ghetto there until after they'd already subjagated the country through blitzkrieg - the poles had already fought as best they could and surrendered - so having failed w/ the biggest guns they had, how would little ones done much more than speed up the process of the "jewish liquidation?"

 

for you nazi example, seems like it'd be better to look at germany proper in the 1930s - and how again would private gun ownership have helped? the jews became victims b/c not too many germans gave a shit about what happened to them - even if the jews had been armed to the teeth and violently resisted the nurmberg laws that began the process of stripping them of their civil rights or shot some of the brown shirts who trashed their shops on krystalnacht, how would that have changed a thing? it would have likely only intensified nazi oppression as a result of increased public support for the regime. the wehrmacht was a democracy, albiet one riddled w/ voter intimidation and corruption, but i don't see how the more judicious use of force would ever have saved that nation from the horrors it would inflict and endure itself over the next decade - the best solution would have been the use of the democratic process itself - germans standing up to the thuggery of the brown-shirts and rejecting the aggresion of hitler and his party at the polls

[billcoe]

You make salient points Ivan. However, the unknown is would the Nazis had gone down that road at all if they had faced more than a unarmed, peaceful, non-resistance?

 

? Hmmm ?

 

It is but one example of what I am discussing. The one with guns gets to make the rules. The rule in China is no dissent. Which would include arresting you for this very discussion (OK, maybe me, not you) or unfurling a banner with a few words on it requesting freedom.

___________________________________________________________

 

To anyone interested in the warsaw uprising and the handful of Jews who scrounged some weapons and held off the German army for a brief moment in time:

 

"In the summer of 1942, about 300,000 Jews were deported from Warsaw to Treblinka. When reports of mass murder in the killing center leaked back to the Warsaw ghetto, a surviving group of mostly young people formed an organization called the Z.O.B. (for the Polish name, Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa, which means Jewish Fighting Organization). The Z.O.B., led by 23-year-old Mordecai Anielewicz, issued a proclamation calling for the Jewish people to resist going to the railroad cars. In January 1943, Warsaw ghetto fighters fired upon German troops as they tried to round up another group of ghetto inhabitants for deportation. Fighters used a small supply of weapons that had been smuggled into the ghetto. After a few days, the troops retreated. This small victory inspired the ghetto fighters to prepare for future resistance.

 

On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German troops and police entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants. Seven hundred and fifty fighters fought the heavily armed and well-trained Germans. The ghetto fighters were able to hold out for nearly a month, but on May 16, 1943, the revolt ended. The Germans had slowly crushed the resistance. Of the more than 56,000 Jews captured, about 7,000 were shot, and the remainder were deported to killing centers or concentration camps."

 

It may seem to you to be ancient history, but it is not. You are paying, with your taxes. to hunt down Nazis still, to this very day.

 

In my opinion, many of you are much too trusting of people who have violated too many trusts to be trusted. I'll go with what the framers wanted to try and balance and check that power at least a bit, which may in fact make all the difference.

[tvashtarkatena]

Since my home particle beam weapon has been operational no genocide has occurred in my neighborhood.

[cj001f]

Since my home particle beam weapon has been operational no genocide has occurred in my neighborhood.

 

huh. I slaughtered all my neighbors when I got mine

[tvashtarkatena]

There has been some snafflecide, however.

[archenemy]

I was listening to Alice Cooper this morning singing Desperado

 

 

I'm a gambler

And I'm a runner

But you knew that

When you lay down

 

I'm a picture

Of ugly stories

I'm a killer

And I'm a clown

 

Step into the street by sundown

Step into your last goodbye

You're a target just by living

Twenty dollars will make you die

 

I wear lace

And I wear black leather

My hands are lightning upon my gun

 

My shots are clean

And my, my shots are final

My shots are deadly

And when it's done

 

You're as stiff as my smoking barrel

You're as dead as a desert night

You're a notch

And I'm a legend

You're at peace

And I must hide

 

Tell me where the hell I'm going

Let my bones fall in the dust

Can't you hear that ghost that's calling

As my Colt begins to rust

In the dust

 

I'm a killer

I'm a clown

I'm a priest

That's gone to town

 

Admit it that that is the perfect soundtrack for this thread. Gotta love Alice.