You seem to have missed the GP's point - go scan through the admittedly silly but illustrative cartoon linked. Gun rights have been repeatedly nibbled, sliced, and cut away over the past century, all in the name of "reasonable compromises". Said "reasonable" "compromises" have progressively eliminated a large swath of gun ownership rights and put the average owner in constant risk of felony.
Example: an individual may own an AR-15 lower receiver, or even machine one themselves. If, however, they drill one 5/32" hole too many in that receiver, they are guilty of a felony. If they own a pistol based on the AR-15 platform and disassemble it at the same time and in the same space that they're disassembling and cleaning an AR-15 rifle, they are committing a felony. These examples are thanks to complex rules based on "compromises".
Gun owners have given up rights time and again, to zero gain of their own. That's not a compromise. A compromise is your asking me to give you half of my cake in return for half of your pie.
Gun owners have given up rights time and again, to zero gain of their own.
My question is simply: what is the thing they would like to gain? The NRA's modern reinterpretation of the Second Amendment (and make no mistake: they are pushing a modern invention, not a historical understanding) does not appear to allow the possibility that any compromise would be reasonable. Hence anything which is not a complete and utter victory is immediately spun as a complete and utter defeat.
Our answer is equally simple: some of what we have lost. We perceive it is you who has reinterpreted the Second Amendment.
It appears you choose to categorically reject returns in the same space as losses; what do you wish, that we exchange something trite like steaks and sexual favors in return for all firearms? Do you believe firearm rights are somehow perfectly fungible? If so, it would appear you yourself are insisting on complete, utter victory.
I cannot begin to speak for others, but ask not for complete victory. Rather, I wish we would make steps back in what gun owners regard as a positive direction. The seven options hga gave above are not a linked list, they are several options. Even one would be regarded as a victory.
I believe that the Second Amendment provides no guarantee whatsoever of an individual right to own firearms. And given what we have in terms of historical documents and commentaries about it, it's pretty clear that the intent was to create a collective right for purposes of protecting the well-established militia system of the time.
So, given the lack of support for a guaranteed individual right, what exactly do you feel is being infringed? If there really is a possibility of compromise, then why is even the tiniest hint of the possibility of a suggestion of perhaps trying to implement a sensible background-check and registration system guaranteed to stir up such disgusting rhetoric from the allegedly "reasonable" people who oppose it? It's gone far beyond just basic hyperbole like claiming that any regulation actually consists of outlawing and confiscating all guns from all people (though that's still a popular one), and well off the deep end into suggesting that the murders of children have been faked by paid actor "parents" in order to give support to the gun-confiscating plan.
Again: it's very very clear what the proposal from those folks is, and it's all-or-nothing with no compromise possible.
The Supreme Court of the United States disagrees with you.
In District of Columbia v. Heller, 478 F. 3d 370 (U.S. 2008) https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZO.html, the court held that the Second Amendment does guarantee an individual right to keep and bear arms unconnected with militia service. In particular, the District of Columbia's law banning possession of usable handguns in the home for self-defense violated the Constitution.
In McDonald v. City of Chicago, 567 F. 3d 856 (U.S. 2010) https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-1521.ZO.html, the court held that the right of self-defense in the Second Amendment is a fundamental right and its guarantees are applicable to the States by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Legislation similar to that in Heller was struck down as unconstitutional.
I encourage you to read both opinions (and the dissents), even if they are laden with constitutional legalese and references to language from hundred-year-old opinions. You can argue all you want about your own opinions, but the opinions of the Supreme Court are the law of the land and are binding on every other court in the United States.
I'm aware the Supreme Court disagrees. The Heller opinion was written by Justice Scalia, who could have opened a Waffle House with the number of flip-flops of historical revisionism he went through in order to justify decisions which just coincidentally agreed with his personal political views. And while it is enforceable, it is neither right nor historically correct to find an individual right in the Second Amendment, and I hope that within my lifetime a better-composed Court will agree.
I'm sure that those opposed to gay marriage and abortion are hoping the court will change and support more limited historical views as well, but the court's recent substantive due process decisions have taken a flexible view of history and generally moved towards ensuring more freedom, not less. "Deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" doesn't meen what it used to.
You presume I must agree with your selective interpretation of historical writings as viewed by you through your own personal filter, because for you, your interpretation is the only logical conclusion. Since that is so firmly settled in your mind I see no use in further arguing that point.
The problem is that you keep talking about compromise and an all-or-nothing attitude, but ignore the fact that gun owners have bent over backwards over the past century and you offer nothing but more limitations. How, exactly, is that compromise? Imagine this conversation:
Lion: I want to eat you
Gnu: No
Lion: Fine, let me bite you
Gnu: No
Lion: Be reasonable, compromise with me here - let me nibble one of your legs, you have four.
Gnu: You've already eaten my cousin and sister, and I like all four of my legs just the way they are, thank you.
Lion: Being alive provides no guarantee whatsoever of a right to four legs. Your four legs make me feel unsafe, you could kick me. I insist you let me have one.
Gnu: No, I'm just fine the way I am.
Lion: You just have an all-or-nothing attitude, all I'm trying to do is be sensible here. I need to eat so I can hunt you next week.
...
As noted in other threads nearby and easily verifiable by yourself, every 20th century and later civilian disarmament (save one) has been preceded by no-negotiation registration. Since most people I speak with that advocate gun control also advocate eventual complete disarmament as the end goal, why would I believe something different would happen?
As far as "sensible background checks" go, they already exist. You already cannot own a firearm if you fit a fairly broad list of disqualifiers, and attempting to buy a weapon at a licensed dealership and undergoing the already compulsory (if inaccurate and problematic) check will result in your wasting $20 and going home empty-handed. The "sensible" most people seem to be attempting to espouse today is reaching into private activities. If my father wishes to give me a gun that has been inherited over 3 generations, why must we go to the gun shop and pay them $20 to tell him he can? Why would I agree to risk a felony charge by loaning my brother a rifle for his two-week hunting trip without a $20 visit to the gun store?
"But the gun show loophole" you might say - if a licensed dealer sells an individual a firearm without undertaking the proper background check, they should lose their license. That's my opinion. If a private citizen sells another private citizen a firearm without undergoing a background check, nothing has changed or will change that. All you're doing is putting already extraordinarily lawful citizens in yet greater jeopardy of committing a felony.
Other than our fundamental disagreement about the Second Amendment, I perceive a core issue here: gun control advocates fail to take criminals into account. Criminals don't buy guns at gun shops that run background checks, they don't register them (ask California and Chicago), and they illegally modify guns (removing serials and shortening weapons). No proposed measures (even complete disarmament) would put even a dent in that, and criminally-owned guns are disproportionately represented in firearm crime.
So what, exactly, do you propose registration and further background checks would solve, and what assurance can you offer that civilian disarmament is not the end goal of all involved?
your interpretation is the only logical conclusion
My interpretation of the Second Amendment is the only logical conclusion one can reach following a review of commentaries on it, and on the general view toward and position of firearms in the United States at the time of the drafting of the Constitution. Since that doesn't match the interpretation preferred by the NRA and its fans in the present day, the onus is on them to demonstrate how or why a genuinely new absolute individual right should be introduced and protected, and what we could gain from it.
Since most people I speak with that advocate gun control also advocate eventual complete disarmament as the end goal, why would I believe something different would happen?
Plenty of countries have strong regulation and much lower murder rates than we do, and haven't felt the need to move to complete disarmament. Nor have I advocated for it. You have, however, precisely as I predicted someone would, jumped immediately to that particular hyperbole in an attempt to cover up the fact that you can't refute the reality of successful gun control existing in the world. Same for the insipid "only outlaws will have guns" objection. Gun control works, has worked and continues to work in many free countries, and you're still trying to deny it by parroting tired old memes. All that's missing from what you presumably thought was a smashing knock-down reply is the Navy SEAL leading the class in the Pledge of Allegiance and the bald eagle swooping in to shed a tear as the liberal atheist professor runs from the classroom.
I wish you'd be reasonable and discuss the matter rather than make sweeping, dismissive statements and veiled ad-hominem attacks. Consider me a poor, uneducated young soul and show me the error of my ways rather than presume I'm following some set of talking points. I'm being completely earnest here, and wish I had the same impression of you. Seriously - how would registration and universal background checks actually address criminal behavior, or is just adding more felonies to the law-abiding enough deterrence? I'm sorry if it's insipid to observe that criminals are, by definition, criminals, but give me something to work with here - compromise with me and tell me why that's irrelevant.
If you wish to discuss success of gun control elsewhere in the world, so be it. Please point us to appropriate research literature that identifies a causative link between gun control and proportionately reduced crime rates. I particularly enjoyed slatestarcodex' writing on the matter, but even he with good numbers and well-considered statistics is not as confident as you. Sweden and Norway, for example - rather strict gun control, reasonably low crime, but if you've spent time in-country you know there's a significant cultural factor there. Rather than gun control causing their relatively low crime rate, I'd assert that their culture has actually dictated both the crime rate and the gun control, but that's anecdata. Let's have some real discussion with real numbers and not hand-wavy statements about free countries.
Thus far, the Supreme Court disagrees with your interpretation of the 2A, and likely my own as well. I expect they come to a far more reasoned and logical analysis of it than either of us can, but for most of US history they have been on the individual-freedom side of its interpretation.
And how am I to do so? You have literally been acting out a predictable, tired pattern of sound-bite arguments which neither prove nor refute anything, and you've yet to actually answer the question I originally posed: what would be, in your eyes, a "reasonable compromise" on guns? If you adopt the logical consequence of your own statements on the Second Amendment, the only possibility you can offer is that no compromise whatsoever is possible; after all, who could countenance "compromise" with the sort of vicious disarming tyrant I must obviously be (or be paving the way for), in your eyes? Who could accept any "compromise" with a government over something alleged to be the sole protection from that government?
And since you've literally acted out a stereotype, why shouldn't I just say that's what you've done and leave it at that?
You're right, I'm a silly backwards hick from Lawrence that warrants only mockery and spite. That said, whatever you insist I'm not an absolutist. I don't think that all weapons-limiting laws should be repealed (e.g. explosive devices), but you continue to insist on your own absolutist approach, that we have zero gun ownership rights and insist we work from your side of the equation. Do you see the duality here?
I don't know why you keep insisting I propose some nebulous "reasonable compromise" so you can batter down that strawman, I'm hardly the average "NRA type". If, however, that's what it takes for you to engage in civil discourse I'll again point out hga's list above.
Take, for example, nationwide reciprocity - this could actually further your apparent goal of universal registration and background checks, but appears to acknowledge some right to gun ownership which you also appear to vehemently oppose. "Shall issue" also falls into this category.
Allowing new machine guns is also inherently palatable to universal registration and background checks. Those weapons already require stringent registration and checks, and allowing manufacture of new ones would not change that, it would just stop artificially limiting the pool and accordingly the price. Long guns are already a minuscule part of crime rates and increasing the market without changing the registration requirements would not likely change the crime rate.
Repealing silly state-level ankle-biting laws regarding mostly cosmetic features that make it more dangerous for the law-abiding to keep and bear arms would have a positive effect on national standardization, which could also lead to an improved case for universal registration.
Reforming the BATFE would go a long way toward not continuing to alienate the gun-owning public with arcane, cryptic rules that place one at the risk of felony for simple acts, and would again be easy to align to a case for registration and checks. Streamline, simplify, control.
What do _you_ view as a "reasonable compromise"? This entire conversation has been one-sided, I've formed and expressed opinions, attempted to discuss what you wish to discuss, and you keep moving the goalposts. Seriously, let's get on with discussion of successful gun control in other countries. I've actually been seriously considering moving to a Scandinavian country and have, of course, been carefully reviewing the relevant statistics and requirements. I'd actually be able to take most of my guns.
Finally, ignore my assertions of what I think registration and checks are about. Tell me what they're about - how will they benefit us, what is the expected result, and so on? What's great about them? Why should we take another step toward the "you have zero rights" end of the spectrum?
Well, I think that's true. But you jumped straight from that to universal disarming, which doesn't follow. Not having a right to a thing does not automatically ban the thing; it simply means the thing becomes a privilege to be granted or withheld/revoked. A driver's license works the same way: you don't have an automatic inherent right to a driver's license, but that doesn't in any way imply an agenda to revoke all licenses and ban driving.
Take, for example, nationwide reciprocity
Does nationwide reciprocity actually make sense? Plenty of things require re-licensing or re-certification when switching states, and yet we still manage to maintain quite good records on those things. So this:
could actually further your apparent goal of universal registration and background checks
does not follow from reciprocity. All reciprocity does is let the least-restrictive state set the rules for all states, and that's not going to help with making registration or background checks work.
Allowing new machine guns is also inherently palatable to universal registration and background checks.
Why do people need machine guns? With driver licensing there's a good argument to be made that in most areas of the country a car is basically a necessity of holding a job, being able to obtain basic goods like food, etc., and there are still a bunch of requirements a vehicle has to meet to be driven on the public roadways and a bunch of modifications that can make a car no longer legal. So what positive good is served by people owning machine guns, or the modded guns you keep bringing up? You've argued no logical connection between making these things legal and increasing the effectiveness of registration systems; that's on you to demonstrate.
Repealing silly state-level ankle-biting laws regarding mostly cosmetic features that make it more dangerous for the law-abiding to keep and bear arms would have a positive effect on national standardization, which could also lead to an improved case for universal registration.
Reforming the BATFE would go a long way toward not continuing to alienate the gun-owning public with arcane, cryptic rules that place one at the risk of felony for simple acts, and would again be easy to align to a case for registration and checks. Streamline, simplify, control.
Let's stick to cars for a moment because this hits an actual important point. We already live in a society in which strictly-enforced but largely arbitrary laws regarding cars, their registration, upkeep requirements and traffic rules are routinely used to put people into permanent life-ruining revolving doors of debt and incarceration.
And there's the rub: guns are not unique in this respect. Cars aren't unique in this respect. There are lots of these bits of awfulness which are used to selectively make peoples' lives hell, in all sorts of areas. So if you want to simplify complex codes that primarily get used for selective prosecution, or attack selective prosecution from another angle, then by all means do so. Just don't treat it as something unique to guns, and don't push it only in the context of guns. Because frankly, I'd much rather work to get a poor person out of endless fines, fees and jailings over a traffic stop than work to get you a machine gun. It might turn out getting that person out of fines/fees/etc. ends up getting you the machine gun you want, but I want to see evidence of you on board with the plan for a reason other than your own desire for the machine gun before I'll trust you on the matter.
What do _you_ view as a "reasonable compromise"?
First: giving up on the idea of militias rising against the federal government. If it ever became necessary, and if the military stayed on the government side, well, we're getting really good at taking out resistance from the safety and comfort of a control room hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the action. Some dudes with camo and rifles aren't gonna cut it. And if the military doesn't stay on the government side, well, the arms are gonna be available. So that one's right out, and I'd argue for repealing the Second Amendment entirely to make it crystal-clear.
Then: registered and tracked ownership of firearms, sale and possession heavily taxed along with tax on ammunition, no sales permitted without full strict documented background check, immediate confiscation after any incident indicating unfitness to own, mandatory requirements for secure unloaded storage at all times the gun is not in use, ownership limited to well-defined types of firearms, ownership solely for the purpose of collectibility/historical value or for sport, use restricted to areas explicitly designated for such purposes. No open carry, no concealed carry, and anyone who wants a gun for the purpose of shooting other people (and self-defense is "for the purpose of shooting other people") automatically forbidden to ever have one.
Worried that criminals will still illegally get guns? Well, we're already busy starting to decriminalize drugs, so let's find another use for that enforcement money and prison space and devote the same bloated budgets, paramilitary tactics and crushing mandatory sentences to going after illegal guns. Make illegal use or possession truly carry the kind of penalties drugs carry right now. Forget multi-strike or "career armed criminal" laws. Make any crime committed with, or while carrying/brandishing, a gun into a "hard 50" or even just life sentence, first offense. Harsh prohibition hasn't worked with drugs because they're addictive and lucrative and large numbers of people will work to get them no matter what. Imposing these kinds of rules on guns would still allow the "fun" people want them for (owning a cool collection, shooting down at the range, going on a hunting/camping trip, etc.), which is the typical problem with prohibition attempts. Raise a few generations with these norms and the ingrained culture of using guns as tools to solve problems (where "solve the problem" means "kill someone" to the person wielding the gun) -- which we certainly have in this country -- will fade into the history books.
> First: giving up on the idea of militias rising against the federal government. If it ever became necessary, and if the military stayed on the government side, well, we're getting really good at taking out resistance from the safety and comfort of a control room hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the action. Some dudes with camo and rifles aren't gonna cut it. And if the military doesn't stay on the government side, well, the arms are gonna be available. So that one's right out, and I'd argue for repealing the Second Amendment entirely to make it crystal-clear.
> Then: registered and tracked ownership of firearms, sale and possession heavily taxed along with tax on ammunition, no sales permitted without full strict documented background check, immediate confiscation after any incident indicating unfitness to own, mandatory requirements for secure unloaded storage at all times the gun is not in use, ownership limited to well-defined types of firearms, ownership solely for the purpose of collectibility/historical value or for sport, use restricted to areas explicitly designated for such purposes. No open carry, no concealed carry, and anyone who wants a gun for the purpose of shooting other people (and self-defense is "for the purpose of shooting other people") automatically forbidden to ever have one.
... and you have the unmitigated gall to claim that those of us on the other side of this issue are "all or nothing".
> well, we're getting really good at taking out resistance from the safety and comfort of a control room hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the action.
He seems to be unaware that those people have to go home to sleep when they're off their shift.
The US has never fought a war without a secure rear (well, eventually the Confederates found themselves in that situation, and they of course lost). It won't go well if this comes to past, and [censored by dang], but I really don't see the military any time soon, even in the middle of their Fundamental Transformation, lining up on the side of those who hate them with a burning passion. Especially the front line trigger pullers, which, of course, does not exactly include the drone operators.
If that transformation continues and succeeds, they'll be so much less a threat they'll probably only play a minor role, whatever side they take.
... and you have the unmitigated gall to claim that those of us on the other side of this issue are "all or nothing".
What I propose still allows people to own and use guns for the things they enjoy owning/using guns for, while going after the problem usages. It's not a complete ban, and in spirit it's similar to how gun control actually works in some countries. What's "all or nothing" about that?
When coming from the assumption that zero gun usage is acceptable (as you do), the magnanimity of your offer must appear blinding. Imagine, gun users would not only be allowed to use guns freely within Your Sovereign Will, they would even be able to use them without active supervision! Granted, "active supervision" doesn't mean there won't be range officers enforcing the law stipulating an automatic 3 years in solitary for shooting more than one round every 18.3 seconds, but we're compromising here. I mean, hell - prisoners get free air and are still alive right? What more could they want, we have to compromise!
Your proposal is a wild fantasy with as much grounding in reality as "Dear Hustler" stories. I'll even be so bold as to assert you likely haven't even read the relevant regulations from the countries you allege you're borrowing your "spirit" from; I have. I must admit you have certainly turned quite an epic troll here.
Still looking forward to reading your exploration of the causative link between gun control and reduced crime rates in free countries.
How is allowing hunting/sports/collecting while imposing incredibly harsh penalties on other uses of guns "zero gun usage"? What important use -- other than killing your fellow human beings -- for your guns is not provided for under what I proposed?
(it really does seem like your objection is "I'd no longer be allowed to own a gun for the purpose of killing other people", and my objection, of course, is that this isn't already illegal)
Do try to keep up. I said "When coming from the assumption that zero gun usage is acceptable (as you do)...", not that you espouse zero gun usage. Whether you've explicitly stated so or not, it is quite apparent that your internal center on the matter of firearms is "zero", as in you feel you are being generous by allowing that _any_ use is acceptable. Hence, imposing incredibly harsh terms on legal use apparently feels rational to you.
Here's a thought exercise for you - return to your car analogy and apply all the same rules you insist on for firearms to freedom of movement. The Constitution doesn't even guarantee freedom of movement explicitly, so you can wipe away that mess without even repealing an amendment, just overturn some old cases. Stipulate the same taxation and registration (even for private land use), revocation of use upon even considering moving to another state, and so on. Our founding fathers could have never imagined the network of interstates we have today. Unless you're saying your car analogy doesn't work.
Still looking forward to reading your exploration of the causative link between gun control and reduced crime rates in free countries.
At this point (indeed, long ago) your behavior has simply become illustrative of how to poorly carry out an argument, much less a constructive conversation. In an amusing irony, your behavior is an extreme parody of the exact inflexibility you claim to be so incensed about. You are lost in a childish authoritarian fantasy, and I regret that for you.
I expect this is casting pearls before swine, but your proposal is not simply harsh on violent crime as you so boldly attempt to claim. What you allege is a compromise does not allow non-criminal uses of firearms without imposing harsh penalties on those uses. Your proposal is as radical as someone on the other end of the firearm use spectrum insisting that individuals found guilty of not having shot a criminal in the past 30 days are guilty of "being soft on crime", which carries a penalty of lifetime (or at least 50 years') imprisonment.
Your proposal remains a wild, masturbatory fantasy with cherry-picked examples from pop culture knowledge of other countries' gun control laws without even understanding them and their actual implementations. Further to that point, you also still have yet to even explain why your proposal is anything but an amusingly dismal attempt at parroting a tired, predictable talking point about how gun control in "other countries" works. Disappointingly, that was abandoned the moment I showed actual working knowledge in that space.
Go ahead, let's see what random single phrase you decide to object to out of this large set. We've already abandoned a large part of the conversation behind us, you're just amusing at this point.
Your comments in this argument became increasingly uncivil. I know that's the nature of flamewars, but please don't let it happen here. HN is aiming for a civil, substantive discourse.
No, you own and use guns for the purpose of killing people. If that's what floats your boat, then I can't change your mind (and it'd probably be wise for me not to -- after all, you're the sort of person who shoots people!).
I see. So beyond the noisome insistence that you understand the Constitution and US history better than all the Supreme Courts in history, you simply wanted some strawmen to knock down. For someone that's studied philosophy as much as you state you have, I expected better. A machine gun, for example - I actually couldn't care about them in the least, I'm not their target market. They are, to your analogy, like race cars - expensive, often highly regulated devices that are not allowed for use in public spaces.
There are many vastly greater ills that plague our society; it is regrettable that intelligent people like you choose to waste so much hate and energy fighting something that has such a relatively miniscule effect on society. Prison reform, for example. Smoking cessation, for another. Drug law reform or repeal. There are myriad more solvable and more effective ills to correct that have actual strong causative effects.
I'm not interested in continuing this conversation further, whatever followup you may make.
>My interpretation of the Second Amendment is the only logical conclusion one can reach following a review of commentaries on it, and on the general view toward and position of firearms in the United States at the time of the drafting of the Constitution.
Are you basing this on your own research, or are you relying on other people who wish to see guns banned in the US?
That, of course, is the ultimate outcome when the other side never offers true compromises, never stops their legal abuses let alone verbal abuses, and makes it crystal clear their objective is to strip us of our best instruments to resist and contain a tyranny.
One who many have made clear has no room for us at all, e.g. the couple in who's home now President Obama launched his political career planned on liquidating 25 million Americans who they judged couldn't be reeducated, adjust for population growth and that's now around 37 million, well over 10% of the population.
And it's only murder if my side loses, the winners after all write the history books. You should be happy for the fair warning of the folly of your actions, should you initially succeed in them.
Example: an individual may own an AR-15 lower receiver, or even machine one themselves. If, however, they drill one 5/32" hole too many in that receiver, they are guilty of a felony. If they own a pistol based on the AR-15 platform and disassemble it at the same time and in the same space that they're disassembling and cleaning an AR-15 rifle, they are committing a felony. These examples are thanks to complex rules based on "compromises".
Gun owners have given up rights time and again, to zero gain of their own. That's not a compromise. A compromise is your asking me to give you half of my cake in return for half of your pie.