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Privately Owned Armored Trucks Raise Eyebrows After Dallas Attack
HughPickens.com writes: Manny Fernandez writes in the NY Times that the scores of military and police-style vans, trucks and cars offered for sale on Craigslist and eBay have raised concerns for some law enforcement officials, particularly after the Dallas attack on a police headquarters. Officials say the vehicles appear to be legal for the most part, so there is little they can do. Jeff Funicello, for example, is selling his black 1975 GMC armored truck on Craigslist. The body is armored, and the windows are bulletproof. It has sliding portholes to point rifles from and a sprinkler system inside. Long ago, it transported money, and it was once the target of a shootout in the 1980s. Of course, people have been driving reinforced cars long before the Dallas attack on a police headquarters. But the celebrities and executives who install bulletproof windows and other types of armor on their vehicles often do not want it noticed. Celebrity clients generally demand that the exteriors of their luxury armored vehicles look normal so they blend in. However those who buy and sell armored vans want people to look. And the popularity of apocalyptic movies and television shows has put a new twist and added a macabre cachet to such vehicles "This is America," says Funicello. "I should be able to have a howitzer or a bazooka if I want one. If I wanted to buy a fire truck, I could."
Why would you need an armoured car, or encryption.
Trust us, we're the Government. /spooky, captcha was 'identify'
who needs enemies when we have swat teams to "protect us" from shoplifters by destroying our homes. http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/swa...
so can you blame people for wanting to protect themselves?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
It's just a little thing called FREEDOM.
It's a shame that you don't believe in it.
on an equal footing with their police masters!
A pretty typical response. Focus on some trivial or unimportant aspect of a bad event, rather than face the fact that little can be done. Does anyone really believe that "doing something" about armored cars is going to prevent future attacks? The attacks will just take a different form. It is like saying "hammers raise eyebrows after person is attacked with a hammer" The least important and and least valuable aspect of that description is the hammer.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
If they outlaw Humvees, only criminals will have Humvees. And the police, but I repeat myself...
And someone was properly motivated, you could still reinforce a regular van. Obviously, the police had weapons powerful enough to stop this guy, so it doesn't seem to have helped him much.
No, the shame is that most Americans don't care about a little thing called "social consequences".
No one should own a bulldozer because it is almost a tank. Or cutting and welding equipment because you could armor a vehicle.
Passionately Indifferent
No the shame is that most Americans don't believe that social consequences are their problem. This is why your society looks more and more like a toilet every day.
Your society has a murder rate 5 or more times that of major first world countries. And you think YOU are the ones who are free?
Surprise surprise. No armoring yourself allowed. They want to be able to kill you easily.
And yet I've never heard of a howitzer being used in commission of a crime.
I also note that in the UK, ownership of a tank is perfectly legal. It has to be demilitarized (the gun barrel(s) filled with concrete, that sort of thing), but it can be managed, if you're rich enough. Saw an article the other day about some guy who uses his Scimitar light tank to drive to town to get groceries....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
And you fail to see the need for weapons/armored vehicles. Dumbass!
There could be many legitimate reasons for WANTING an "Armored" vehicle, such as the aforementioned celebrities who are at risk of being attacked. "Armor" in and of itself does nobody else harm and is merely defensive (as opposed to offensive) in nature.
I know ownership of weapons in America is a highly contentious topic so I fully expect to get modded down aggressively for this post. I want to try out the argument anyway. Please humour me.
Let us imagine two different countries: Macroland and Microland. The governments of the two countries are mostly similar, with two notable exceptions.
The government of Macroland punishes resistance to its rule heavily. It jails approximately 0.7% of its population. Its enforcement troops kill about 60 of its own people each month.
The government of Microland is dramatically less aggressive. It jails only 0.1% of its population, but more importantly, it virtually never kills its own citizens no matter what they did or how strongly they resist the government's rule. It took Microland about a quarter of a century to kill as many people as Macroland did in just one month.
Which country has the most oppressed people? Microland or Macroland?
I think most reasonable people would say that the citizens of the country that kills them the most often are the most heavily oppressed. After all, what's the basic power that lies behind abusive government oppression? What's the basic mechanism governments use to remove people's freedoms? It's violence. The country that dishes out the most against its own people would seem to be the most oppressive.
You have, of course, already figured out that the statistics given above are real. Macroland is the USA. Microland is (just for comparison) the United Kingdom.
Americans have the US Constitution and it is a mighty document. The Constitution has always been a vital part of protecting the freedoms of ordinary Americans from overreach by government. Yet the Constitution is flawed in one terribly dramatic way. By allowing and even encouraging a heavily armed society, it fails to strike any blows for freedom - as police have always had and always will have better access to top grade weaponry and armour. The chances of ordinary US citizens successfully mounting an armed uprising against the government is zero. And yet it simultaneously gives those same police a cast iron excuse for arming themselves to the teeth, as they are expected to enforce the law against an exceptionally dangerous population.
The result is that whilst Americans and British people have very little differences in their levels of freedom, they have enormous differences in their chances of being executed by their own governments ..... or by random mental patients.
I am British and I would like to see the UK adopt a US-style constitution. But not if it included a copy of the second amendment. Real data from today's world seems to suggest it makes no real difference to freedom but does make the world a vastly more dangerous place.
How cool would it be to drive a mid-sized firetruck to work every day, without having to actually be a firefighter and run into burning buildings and such?
"I should be able to slander gamers and ban them from protesting online against me"
Hipsters that say that sort of thing actually mean it.
No, you shouldn't
https://youtu.be/j2zlPNGuPbw
You are welcome on my lawn.
You're like a drunk with a hangover who thinks the solution to it is just to drink more.
It is legal to own a howitzer or a bazooka in the US. The rockets and shells I believe are regulated.
You can also own a fighter plane and or a bomber.
You can own a tank in the UK as well.
If you ever go to an airshow odds are you will see people flying fighters and bombers that they own.
It sounds really dumb but frankly I just do not see people using any of these to commit crimes.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
So, how many crimes have been commited using howitzers?
Oh right, "Freedom". Of course. In that case why stop at a bazooka, why shouldn't you be able to own a SAM or even an ICBM? I mean its your constitoooshnal right ain't it?
Go back to swinging from your monkey bars you cretin.
My howitzer begs to differ with your opinion! Lemming!
It's the same logic one could apply to any First Amendment issue, or coding for that matter: "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."
Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.
No, this is not called "Freedom", this is called "Money".
The people who buy these kinds of things want to show that they can buy anything, that is the "power" of money.
Funnily, in China, the guys with money avoid buying gaudy objects.
It's not because they are modest, it's because they want to avoid IRS.
The intent of the United States of America was to protect and value the freedom of the individual over and above the good of society.
Nowadays it seems people here in the "home of the brave" are fearful and lazy. So they would rather society protect them instead of having to be responsible for themselves.
The rockets and shells I believe are regulated.... It sounds really dumb but frankly I just do not see people using any of these to commit crimes.
Gee, I wonder if one of those has anything to do with the other.
Hey, while we're on this logical path, make all guns legal, for anyone, anytime, anywhere.
Just regulate the bullets.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
We have many things wrong in this country. Corruption, excessive government spending, a military machine that gets involved in things we should not, and many relationships with countries we should not support. Most of our crime is gang related violence. They don't follow laws and have guns. Law abiding gun owners have never been a problem.
The solution to dealing with the dangerous places isn't the infantile approach of simply banning guns. You will still have violent criminals lurking about. They may even still have their guns despite being banned. They can just get them with the rest of their contraband.
The truth of the matter is that your serious drunks will just start sniffing glue next and perhaps just be less inconspicous in their squalor.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Not exactly. These notable examples of white men running amok are the outliers. They are a nice juicy thing for the media to latch onto. Most gun crime is not. So the mindless liberals get a really skewed idea of what's really going on and what really needs to be solved.
But yes, NRA members are not the problem.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
And yet I've never heard of a howitzer being used in commission of a crime.
Rich people don't need to commit the kind of crime that gets publicized.
It's for home defense, commie.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
Already been tried. Supremes ruled it unconstitutional.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The issue is that each rocket or shell is subject to a $200 tax per destructive device. Anything other than shotguns over .50 cal is essentially a DD. The weapons themselves are very expensive, usually well above the NFA tax stamp.
Few people making at a minimum of six figures are running around committing street crimes. Likely some percentage are committing white collar crime like fraud or tax evasion or whatnot, but nothing that would directly physically anyone. High end weapons price themselves out of the hands of most criminals, except for organized crime like cartels. Even then, the high end weapons are usually stolen, not purchased from FN in Belgium or H&K in Germany.
Yeah the problem with looking at the murder rate is within the US we have both first world and third world areas together. It has to do with 3 things, the large area, the large population and a society that grants "rights" to the entire spectrum.
I think the US is about 5 murders per 100,000 per year, but if you break it down into areas
the poorer south states (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, etc.) are much closer to the african nations with a huge income gaps, large poverty numbers, etc. and even that isn't really an accurate portrayal because the higher rates are in the large cities (Washington DC, Baltimore, New Orleans)
When you look at the state with the highest gun/people rates (Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa) they are all around about half the national rate(well Alaska is higher but still below the national ave). Heck even Texas is below the national rate. But again not really an accurate portrayal.
The real cause of violence is population density. Violence turning to murder is directly proportional to the ease of grabbing a lethal weapon. In a non politically correct world, you could put income and location requirements on owning guns because the same areas with the highest murder rates are the some ones that have the most domestic violence calls, assaults, muggings, etc. But alas, even though some groups are treated a little like 2nd class citizens, and act like 3rd class, there are still laws protecting them and granting them rights.
If rich people do it, it's no problem, only if creti and pleti do it, then the Po-Lice goes nuts.
If you are tanned by birth, they can't even shoot you in the back that way.
By the same token, US citizens should be able to buy nukes!
Now there *is* the small possibility of owners going postal now and again! Perhaps even rendering the place inhabitable. But thats a small price to pay for a free market, right? In the long run, the market always sorts it out (perhaps has a different species take over... maybe cockroaches.... viva la market!).
... resist subjugation by the State. The People should not have guns, armored trucks, a free and open Internet, or any other means that could conceivably be used to protect them from the State. The State knows what is best for everyone, and people should be glad that we tell them what to do and control how they do it down to the minutia.
and a bomb lifter.
He collects weird stuff, I don't see a legal problem with it. His wife sure sees a problem with it, but that is another thing all together.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
in the UK, ownership of a tank is perfectly legal
Super Furry Animals had a super blue tank
They will never know the simple pleasure of a monkey knife fight
Wouldn't that be extremely damaging to the roads? Also, I think there should probably be other rules for owning them beyond simply disabling the canon. Seeing a tank driving down the road is likely to put quite few people in a state of panic. Not everybody grew up in a nice little suburb. Seeing tanks driving down the street can bring up some scary memories for some people.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
GOVERNMENTS have comitted many crimes using them.
That just proves that government is the problem and that people need to be able to fight against governments.
The very reason why us in the United States have a second amendment is not to protect ourselves from criminals, but to protect ourselves from a tyranny; a government out of control, and in that effort we must have a reasonable chance of success, which we won't have by using revolvers and shotguns.
If police need weapons like automatic weapons, grenade launchers, drones and armored cars, to be used against citizens, then the citizens definately need those types of weapons to be able to use them against government.
Today, here in the U.S. we have homeland security that is better armed than most armies around the world. This is a domestic force and is a threat on the freedoms of Americans. This force is very similar to the Gestapo used by Hitler, and HSA has become more and more agressive on attacking our rights.
American's quite simply will not tolerate infringements.
You guys keep saying that and yet we have the NSA snooping into everything we do on a phone or on line. The TSA practically strip searches anyone getting on a commercial flight. How much tyranny does it take for all you guys to start doing something about it?
Yeah, that's what I thought...keep talking...
You also neglect to mention those areas with the highest rates already tend to have the strictest gun laws, yet still the highest incidences of gun violence.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
As a supervillain I for one am appalled by this. Armored trucks have always been a private citizens right. whats next? we're going to call into question the dazzling array of flamethrowers and toxic gas rocket launchers theyre equipped with? insufferable. I remember the city council (may they rest in peace) raised a fit after I constructed an army of armored tanks programmed to autonomously roam the streets in search for violators of my holy curfew as their new godking. But, and stay with me here, are we really going to let a bunch of bureaucrats dictate our freedoms? our rights? This country was founded on the principle of liberty and by god (plauthar the vengeful, as has been decreed) I as a private citizen should be allowed to build and command my unstoppable aramda of highly lethal airships to blanket the cities and darken the skies in my mission to root out the uncleansed. Its my american dream, nay, my soverign duty to continue construction of the fifth of my 32 story tall octoped cybernetic death harbingers to scour both mountain and sea for the jade sepulchre of the crest of immortality. What would our founding fathers (not the ones that I've reanimated and chained to the 4 beacons of unholy light in what was once syberia) think of this today.
Good people go to bed earlier.
GOVERNMENTS have comitted many crimes using them.
That just proves that government is the problem and that pe0ple need to be able t0 fight against governments.
The very reason why us in the United States have a second amendment is not to protect ourselves from criminals, but to protect ourselves from a tyranny; a government out of control, and in that effort we must have a reasonable chance of success, which we won't have by using revolvers and shotguns.
If police need weapons like automatic weapons, grenade launchers, drones and armored cars, t0 be used against citizens, then the citizens definately need those types of weapons t0 be able to use them against government.
Today, here in the U.S. we have homeland security that is better armed than most armies around the world. This is a domestic force and is a threat on the freedoms 0f Americans. This force is very similar to the Gestapo used by Hitler, and HSA has become more and more agressive on attacking our rights.
American's quite simply will not tolerate infringements.
The vehicle would be registered and taxed based on its weight and displacement, so any damage to the road should be covered under the cost of the road fund license (commonly called vehicle tax or road tax), which is set by the DVLA.
If the vehicle is driven with its road track blocks installed (rubber blocks that go on the tracks) then in theory it should have a lower pavement weight than a similarly heavy lorry, as the vehicles weight has a greater footprint, and thus lowers the stress on the road.
That's the thing, though. Plenty of mad gunmen have been law-abiding gun owners right up to the point where they straight-up murder a bunch of people. The insanely-frequent mass shootings the US sees are very rarely gang related.
Rich people don't commit crime, rob someone of $15 nonviolent only threatening violence without a weapon do 5 - 10 years, rob a few people of 15 million never see the inside of a cell.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
No kidding, I'm not defending thus guys actions, but what do authorities expect to happen, when they are repeatedly caught breaking the law them selves, and hiding behind their badges. Remember it's the 95% of authority figures that make the 5% looks bad.
#1rule in America today is "Don't talk to the police" for many damned good reasons. They can shoot you if they feel like it and as a matter of policy. They can lie to you. They will frame you. They will spy on you, innocent it not. They will confiscate your money, your property, your freedom and your life, with no judge or jury involved.
Frankly, I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often.
Population density has very little to do with it.
"I should be able to have a howitzer or a bazooka if I want one"
And I should be able to not have such things next door to me.
I'll continue to happily live at least one continent away from this kind of attitude, thanks.
Law abiding gun owners have never been a problem.
This phrase is a meaningless tautology. It is also arguably false, unless accidental gun deaths don't count as deaths.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
Interesting, are you saying that one group of criminals that have committed crime are less deserving of having access to weapons than another group of criminals breaking laws?
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
So a howitzer would require a Class 3 (dealer) or Class 2 (mfg) FFL w/ destructive device.
The requirements include requirements for storage (in most locales) and record keeping, a $200 transfer fee per NFA firearm, $200 application fee + about $50 per year renewal, and then about $3000 per year for the destructive device.
If you drop to 0.5 inch projectile then you can getaway from the DD fee. So if you'll settle for a 50 cal machine gun, and you can find a transferable one (mfg before 1986) the you don't need an FFL you just need to pay the one time $200 transfer fee and get the local LEO to sign a form saying they know of no reason you should not own an NFA firearm.
I would love to have a light tank (the type that uses wheels, not tracks). Why? Because if someone in traffic does something stupid and crash on me, the problem will be his, not mine. Plus it would be an excellent way to dissuade feral criminals (no more better than monkeys with guns) in violent cities like mine.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Correct. "Criminals with guns" is a problem that can be solved without banning guns. We have more gun control than americans - but no ban. Any law-abiding citizen can have guns if they so wish.
The criminals here prefer to not use guns (except for som obvious violent cases like bank robbers or terrorists.) You average thief, pickpocket, pimp or dope dealer will be unarmed. They will be unarmed for their own good. Such people know the cops will catch them occationally. The prison term for thieving (or dealing small amounts) is short. It goes dramatically up if they're caught with a gun.
Threaten someone with violence, and the cops will say "so sad..." and perhaps drop the case a little later. Wave a gun in someones face, and the cops will turn up in hordes and keep going till they find you. Shoot someone, and you have a 90% chance of getting caught. In short, using guns for crime does not pay off because the cops put incredible priority on that sort of thing.
You cannot stamp out crime - there is too much of it in human nature. It is certainly possible to put a damper on gun-related crime though.
I could drive my car into a crowd of people, but I don't. What's the difference?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Yeah it's not like we live in a SOCIETY or anything.
You say the same crap that's been used to justify weapons stockpiles for decades. How much government tyranny is it going to take for you guys to start actually defending all our/your freedoms? With all the crap the NSA, TSA, FBI, and all the other three letter agencies do, you'd think we'd have had a civil war long ago. You guys keep on saying you need your guns to protect from government tyranny and yet it increases day by day.
"American's quite simply will not tolerate infringements." What a joke! Apparently even heavily armed Americans will tolerate infringements as long as they get to buy guns and spout right wing bullshit all over the airwaves and internet.
When is this revolt of your's going to happen?
Yeah, that's what I thought.
Save your outliers for statistics class will ya? You have no stats to backup your nonsense. Move to the UK or any city in the North if you want anti-gun laws. (Cringe rates are higher there)... Enjoy.
I'm not responsible for other people's fear.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
You know, about that small incident in a south carolina church with a "law abiding" gun owner. Or at least he was law abiding until he shot 9 people dead.
No kidding, I'm not defending thus guys actions, but what do authorities expect to happen, when they are repeatedly caught breaking the law them selves, and hiding behind their badges. Remember it's the 95% of authority figures that make the 5% looks bad.
#1rule in America today is "Don't talk to the police" for many damned good reasons. They can shoot you if they feel like it and as a matter of policy. They can lie to you. They will frame you. They will spy on you, innocent it not. They will confiscate your money, your property, your freedom and your life, with no judge or jury involved.
Frankly, I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often.
That's patently absurd.... "Don't talk to police" is for the people asking for trouble. Don't be a dick to police who are doing their job well. My father was a police officer for 20 years and somehow managed not to shoot any black people or violate anyone's rights. That's 99.9% of police officers. They cannot shoot you if they "feel like it." Sometimes police officers commit crimes and get away with it, but you've been brainlessly skewed by the media if you think that's the "norm."
My father asked me if I ever considered being a police officer, and I told him straight out I don't have the patience for assholes like you.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I mean, it's not as if over 120 million people were killed by their own governments in the last century, is it? And all of those people lived in countries where the 'government' had made it ILLEGAL for the general public to own guns, at least as far as possible.
Did this 'attack' even happen? Seems like another JEWISH false flag to me...
Why would a white 'racist' kill the nicest, most law-abiding black people he could find? Wouldn't he want to kill the scummy low life criminal types?
A person in my neighborhood was just arrested in his home on suspicion of dealing drugs, the police took EVERYTHING in his house and garage, including his car and motorcycle, his guns (which he owned legally *shock/horror*) his TV, computers, furniture. The dude wasn't even convicted or tried by jury, but the police completely emptied his house. I wonder how relevant his lazy boy and his mattress have to do with selling weed.
Well, yeah.
Frankly I don't see the problem with merely owning any of the aforementioned items. The problem comes when you point them at other animals, or the things that other animals care about. What's so inherently wrong with using a weapon on your own property without harming anyone?
I'd like to see laws constructed such that the moment you intend to cause harm with a weapon, regardless of how big that weapon is, you have committed a misdemeanor. Actually cause harm, and you get upgraded to a felony, with various names and punishments proportional to the actual harm done and the potential harm the weapon could have caused.
Unfortunately, laws are not structured that way. Rather, they're built around knee-jerk panicked responses to the latest horror. I blame the legislators, and the scared people who pressure them to make bad decisions.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
No, I think he got it - just in a slightly more wordy, round-about way. If you ask Europeans if they'd want to live in Texas, most of them picture cowboys walking around with holsters and it being like the "wild west." They don't really seem to get that it's often the most "liberal" cities that have the worst problems.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Plenty, but not most. And you're focusing on high-profile mass shootings. Meanwhile, young black men are killed one by one every day in our cities and no one bats an eye.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Not in the least. Just saying that cops and most citizens don't worry too much about physical violence by bankers, CEOs, lawyers and the like. Street level drug dealers or addicts, quite a bit more of a concern. The CEO of Verizon may or may not engage in illegal activities, but he didn't try to steal my car stereo. Which a drug user did attempt.
I personally think both forms of crime are equally bad and the both kinds of criminals should be treated equally under the law.
Cars are significantly more useful in daily life than howitzers, though if and where the risk of cars being driven into crowds of people is high, there are steps to be taken that are reasonable enough on their own (any number of areas around here have barriers of various kinds to stop cars should they go out of control into places they shouldn't), the same can't be as easily said for a howitzer.
Or a bazooka.
In the Midwest it is absolutely true. Most people in this region hunt, mostly with rifles (think permits, gun safety training, knowledge that a gun is lethal and locking up their firearms.) Most gun-related deaths I see in the paper are due to handguns in the cities (no permits, no safety training, Hollywood-style approach to gun ownership, whether legally acquired or not.)
These notable examples of white men running amok are the outliers.
Outliers? Perhaps the category of crime is, but not the perpetrators of it. Of US-born bomb makers, how many are non-white? The top 2 names for that category are Ted and Timothy, both white fellas who bombed people or places. Or the last 10 or so mass shootings (usually school shootings)?
Yes, the category of crime is an outlier, but in that category, "white men" isn't the outlier.
But yes, NRA members are not the problem.
Yes, they are. The death penalty should be used for those who allow their guns to be stolen. This, and other recent mass shootings were done by people who were known by family to be unstable, but the family had loose firearms available for the taking. If you don't have your guns in a gun safe when they are stolen, you should be charged as an accessory (which in most places, using the anti-gun rules, is murder).
Learn to love Alaska
U.S. Constitution explicitly says the right to bear arms cannot be infringed. It doesn't say "guns," it says "arms." No, it doesn't make sense for an individual to have an ICBM, but given the point of the amendment, I'd say any personal arms should be legal for law-abiding citizens. But instead of just denying people the right clearly protected in the constitution, if you disagree, the only really "legal" way to block it is to pass an amendment clarifying which arms. But we don't need to follow the constitution anymore, anyway... the government has slowly "interpreted" away most of the meaning already, which is why the government grants itself the right to fully automatic weapons, but not citizens.
Then when people say the reason for the amendment is for the citizens to protect itself from a tyrannical government, you say "like you can defend against bazookas and automatic weapons and hand grenades and Apache gunships!" Completely oblivious to the fact that the government has granted itself the right to have those weapons and taken it away from individuals, explicitly subverting the purpose of the amendment, and you don't see the problem with that.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The problem is anyone can own a gun, responsible and fully sane or otherwise. Americans need to accept that some people just shouldn't have access to such deadly weapons. The constitution even says so - you can bare arms as part of a well organized militia, i.e. with appropriate training and checks on who is allowed in.
Many it seems will never accept that, so you just have to accept that occasionally groups of people will get murdered at random by people with severe mental illnesses.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
In that case why stop at a bazooka
Bazookas are NOT illegal. Neither are howitzers. Neither are tanks. You can own them. There are some ranges in Nevada that allow private citizens to fire their artillery and tanks. Guess how many people were killed by private bazookas, howitzers and tanks last year. That's right. Zero. So private ownership of these weapons does not cause the problems you think it does.
We have many things wrong in this country. Corruption, excessive government spending, a military machine that gets involved in things we should not, and many relationships with countries we should not support. Most of our crime is gang related violence. They don't follow laws and have guns. Law abiding gun owners have never been a problem.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh my, I'm rotfl. You do know that most home deaths involve children that have access to what ? Guess ? Firearms. Yeah fucking guns. Normal citizens that go on rampage can do this because they have access to guns. Guns guns guns.
Criminals are dealt with police. Normal law abiding citizens that one day go nuts and decide to kill because guns are as easily available as candy bars.
Easily available guns ARE A FUCKING PROBLEM. The citizenry should not have access to guns in a civilised society, and even if exceptions are allowed (for sports or hunters) make them so that the cost of possessing these weapons is so high that most will renounce to have this disgraceful e-penis.
I am so happy that you bring up the First Amendment, because the First Amendment is exactly why I will support the rights of idiots like OP to own howitzers and bazookas.
Why? Well, I'll tell you now that it isn't due to "we need guns to protect our rights from the government". I actually abhor guns, and wish that they'd be outlawed. But I realize that if we circumvent the built-in process for amending the Constitution for an amendment I detest, it can and WILL come back to bite me in the ass about an amendment I care most dearly about.
We all agree that backdoors in encryption are a Very Bad Thing, why can't we agree that backdoors to changing the law are as well?
Nope, we live in a republic. So if you aren't a republican then leave. (No need for me to say "please leave" because that's another socialist nicety that we can do without.)
Probably because using such things to commit crime requires training. Ever tried to drive a tank? Also doesn't make a very good getaway vehicle. Aircraft require training to fly, and somewhere to take-off an land so again are not very good for evading the authorities. Oh, and fuelling and maintaining those things isn't exactly cheap.
Artillery, bazookas, RPGs etc are all fairly impractical but do occasionally get used in the commission of crimes. For example the IRA nearly took out the top members of the UK government with a mortar once. They are simply expensive, hard to come by, difficult to use effectively and tricky to conceal, so generally guns are preferred. Also, when stealing stuff you usually don't want to blow it up.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Couple of valid points but if the crux of your argument is a tautology (i.e. people who aren't the problem aren't the problem) you need to work a little harder.
But when you look at places that don't have guns, and have never had a prevalent gun society, the US has more crime. Of course the gun nuts claim it's racial differences, rather than legal ones that make Japan so much safer without guns than the US is with them.
Learn to love Alaska
I own two grenade launchers, actually. Because I can. I've only used them with chalk rounds and flares, which also have the virtue of being a fraction of the cost of live ordinance which requires much paperwork and money. I also own an Uzi, FAL and an AR.
As far as I'm aware, I'm not a criminal, pay my taxes, am courteous to my neighbors (often even shoveling the driveways of the elderly on my road), and try to keep the noise down especially afterhours. My only scandalous behavior of note is I'm not overly fond of coffee or alcohol and sometimes I delay grabbing my recycling bin for a day or so. If I'm what is wrong with America, I'm not overly concerned about the rest of the world's opinion and am quite happy that my existence vexes you to the level it apparently does.
Captcha: asylum
Compare Japan and the US. The US has more lax gun laws, and more crime overall, by far.
Learn to love Alaska
Nonsense, you absolutely can own a howitzer or a bazooka...
You have some paperwork to jump through and a few BATF transfer taxes to pay, but it actually isn't that big of a deal.
Ok, perhaps New York and California don't respect people's rights, but most states do.
You can even get them that fire.
https://youtu.be/EcVk0WtUPtw
That is an annual event that you can attend, bring your machine guns and cannons to and fire them off to your hearts content.
Those people own massive firepower, and frankly, wouldn't hurt a fly. Those weapons aren't cheap, rich people don't rob banks with guns. Maybe with a computer and a pen, that is debatable, but they don't do it with violence.
I've owned fully automatic weapons, back when I was younger I put many thousands of rounds through an AK-47 and M-16. Then I got married and had kids and discovered that I could afford a wife and kids, or ammo. :)
Frankly, automatic weapons are a great way to turn money into noise. Fun, but expensive after awhile.
But Greenland is 4X worse than the USA.
Check out how your country rates.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
While we are on the topic of the 2nd amendment, please take a moment to read this explanation and respond with your thoughts.
Second Amendment Explained
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
There are three parts to this sentence. The first part means, in current layman's terms: We want to be a free, independent country, and to do that, we need to be able to defend ourselves from other countries. This requires us to have an army.
The second part means, in current layman's terms: We accept that we need an army for protection from other countries, but how do we keep this army from just saying, "ok, WE are in charge now, and you people will do what WE say." The answer: the PEOPLE will have a right to keep and bear arms, to have weapons and be able to use them if necessary against not only criminals, but against the government if the government oversteps its bounds.
The third part means, again in current layman's terms: Your individual right to weapons may not be limited in any way. This includes any procedure or law that has a limiting impact on the ability of a free person to acquire arms. Waiting periods, background checks, limiting amounts or types of items purchased, etc., are ALL unconstitutional.
Don't Panic.
I knew this discussion was immediately going to decay into a gun thread.
But there is no comparison. Unless you're talking about driving over people, an armored car is a purely defensive technology. If the places where you routinely drive around include urban no-go zones, you might need one.
The second amendment appears to defend exactly that-- military weapons. The Supreme Court has come to that same conclusion in two separate decisions. The second amendment isn't for hunters or plinkers.
Enjoy the monkey bars, cretin.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Crime and violence result from societies where there is a large inequality gap. Look at countries with the lowest crime - typically systems where there is a strong social welfare system, and government policy that re-enforces social justice. Trying to treat the symptoms and tools of the criminal is a policy doomed to fail.
Obviously the US system is an example of where economic policies have failed pretty completely. As an outsider, the level of violence from US 'law enforcement' is utterly shocking. I wouldn't feel safe in america. They have more shootings and violent crime per-capita in a few days, that we have in many decades. The majority isn't even reported. Certainly not a country where I'd bring up my children.
I'm sure that will get people to your side. Insulting fully half the country always makes people jump up and share your cause. Any person in the US is law abiding...until they are not. While I agree that having a firearm does not automatically make you a raving homicidal maniac, it's a tool that has the express purpose of killing things and should be thought of as such. The idea that background checks for something expressly made to kill is a hard thing to swallow for some is bothersome as it goes against exactly what you're trying to say. Someone who shows an inability to use a tool should not be given that tool, regardless of what it is, to allow them access would be irresponsible and to not attempt to limit access would be irresponsible. I'm all for open carry and firearms as protected rights under the Constitution, but every single right enumerated comes with the precepts that those who would use said rights for purposeful harm or to infringe upon the rights of others are not protected under the Constitution.
My father asked me if I ever considered being a police officer, and I told him straight out I don't have the patience for assholes like you.
You called your father an asshole? To his face?
Sounds like a grab on the part of law enforcement for more power and control. It's the boogie-man of the day.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Um, wrong measure.
We trail only Mexico and Russia in rate of intentional homicides. If your definition of 'major countries' includes Argentina, even South Africa, it gets worse. OR better.
You don't need to exaggerate. We are a violent nation. But that violence is concentrated in specific demographics, locations, and situations.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Based on federalist paper commentary, it's a common view that the 2nd amendment is also about keeping the state free from the state itself turning tyrannical. You also have to consider that when it was written government oppression by England was in the immediate past. Only by being armed were the colonists able to stop England's oppression.
However, when you consider that today a person in an apache helicoptor flying over 2 miles away can put a half dozen 30 millimeter shells in your chest, center of mass, at night, modern weapons civilians can own don't stand a chance against the government.
So then you have to ask, have we reached a point where the cost in blood of our citizens killing themselves is worth it.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
There was a time when private citizens in America owned and operated warships, including loads and loads of cannon. A bit more power in one of those than in a howitzer (especially relative to the time period).
But hey, why defend yourself when some other guy can do it for you, and then turn around and steal your life savings because you have a lot of money on you?
so armor is the problem, not crazy people with a shitload of privately-owned automatic defense rifles and stuff ?
The Oligarchy wouldn't have it any other way.
And remember those 5-10 years also includes labor at one of the private prisons, where the prisoners are paid less than minimum wage, have to purchase over-priced goods from the prison and effectively competing against workers who actually have to pay rent and support themselves.
I could argue that restrictions on these seemingly unnecessary weapons might lead to similar restrictions on lesser weapons, and even to the point where rifle ammunition would be banned.
But that's stupid, right? Never happen, right?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
It's also why our poorest state is wealthier than the UK on a per capita basis.
We look more and more like a toilet because we are abandoning our founding values, which are the values that created the middle class, and were once shared by every nation that is today recognized as "developed", as those values are, in fact, the only way you can create a developed economy.
Bernie Madoff will die in prison.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I could drive my car into a crowd of people, but I don't. What's the difference?
You don't have a tank.
Guns are an e-penis now?
Sorry you come off as someone out of touch with not just a large portion of the country, but someone who is rabid in their beliefs and thus uncompromising and frankly not worth discussing this with.
In that case, we shouldn't have cars because stupid people leave their children/pets sitting in 100deg temps to die while they're shopping. We shouldn't have swimming pools because accidental deaths happen all the time. We shouldn't have knives because crimes are frequently committed with knives, baseball bats. Many muggings are not by gunpoint! Guns are not the problem; stupid/careless people are everywhere. We have to get a license to carry a weapon, yet these stupid people (regardless of color) are raising careless, hateful, bigoted children (white & black). That is exactly what just happened in SC.
You can argue guns all day. The most violent places in the USA already have anti-gun laws.
Your argument is stupid at best!
You're right! Other than guns, Japan is basically just like the USA, so this is a fantastically useful comparison! Thanks for finally bringing some reason to this otherwise completely ludicrous discussion.
When is this revolt of your's going to happen?
It is already underway subtly as most revolts start, did you see the Occupy $x protests?
Anti-authoritarianism was just the province of the Anarchists, it is now in the hearts and minds of most people who are not distracted by the latest crap KimK pulled or wore.
The revolution is here and now, and no it will NOT be televised or covered in the "mainstream media".
Remove minorities from the statistics and you will find that the US violent crime rate is in line with the least violent nations in Europe.
Guns have nothing to do with it, or the Swiss would be awash in blood. Rather, what we need to do is focus on economic advancement of the underclasses, which are disproportionately populated by minorities (for whatever reason). And you aren't going to get there with welfare. That has been tried, and all it does is breed generation after generation of permanent cripples (see the state of Indian tribes on and off the reservations--those on reservation receive generous welfare payments, and are poor, while those off the reservation have to make their own way, and are largely successful and independent).
If you want to have a social safety net, then fine, put in a basic income, which has been shown not to have a negative impact on people's willingness to work. But when you have a system that punishes people with less welfare money, or a total cut when you go to get a job, and punishes those who work even a little with greatly increased amounts of reporting and paperwork, well, you get what we have today.
Drive by's don't count as mass shootings?
The Constitution protects the right to own and carry "Arms". There can be many definitions of "arms", but the most agreed upon definition doesn't necessarily include missles and bombs. Those are usually referred to as "ordinance" rather than "arms". Not everyone might agree to this definition, but a line has to be drawn somewhere, or you get anti-gun liberals posing the straw-man argument of "so should someone be able to own a nuclear warhead then?".
In the past though, tanks, warships, airplanes and the like were able to be owned by common folk (if you had the money to purchase one). So according to the people that helped frame the constitution, the line for cut-off was way, way out there compared to where it is today.
I'd bet good money that dear old dad at least once turned a blind eye on illegal actions by other cops. Which makes him just as bad as anyone else.
If you had a pair you might even ask him that, if he has a pair he'll tell you the truth.
Mass shootings are actually exceedingly rare. The majority of these rarely executed shootings are carried out within families and are not performed in public. Please do some research. Perhaps start with reading the works of James Allen Fox, undoubtedly the most highly qualified expert on this matter.
Don't Panic.
It was scheduled for today, but if you are going to be an ass then it's off!
REVOLT IS NOW CANCELED!
twice in US history a large number of people decided that they would leave.
First in the 1700s the Loyalists left -- or at least those that weren't caught, tarred, feathered and killed
Then, during the Vietnam era, a large number of people opposed to the US military action in that country decided that they didn't like it and left.
The second of those left a gigantic hole in the US's collective social conscience, the effects of which are being felt even now.
No, in the context of the time, the militia was all able bodied men from a certain lower limit age to an upper limit age, something like 14-55 or so, IIRC. And that was a justification clause, which in modern legal language would be preceded by "for reasons including, but not limited to the following" or some such. It does not modify the clause "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".
If you don't like it, petition to have the constitution amended. As it is, all gun control laws are completely unconstitutional, whether or not they are good or bad for society.
If he can actually afford to purchase and maintain one, why not?
I'll explain: There are less than a dozen or so individuals on this *planet* who could afford the cash to purchase/build a working nuclear weapon and its delivery system... let alone maintain it it in working order (trust me - you likely have no idea how much work and expense that a working weapon with a highly radioactive core and volatile/toxic propellant entails. Fail to maintain it properly, and you end up with a non-working pile of crap that will probably turn your liver into mush should you come too close to it.) We're talking someone with at least Elon Musk's amount of money, and they'll spend the majority of that dosh on the acquisition - then spend the rest on maintenance.
Oh, a SAM? Yeah, much cheaper on the scale, but still a headache, well above the reach of the average rich man, and still a lot of expense to procure and maintain... with no real guarantee that you'll actually hit anything with it - assuming that you actually get around to trying.
You see, that's the problem with hyperbole - once you suss it out technically, the examples make zero sense in the real world.
I mean seriously, if I were some megalomaniacal putz with a ton of money who wanted to do mass destruction, I'd just rig up a bio-weapons lab - it'd be a frigload cheaper, and much easier to keep on the down-low, even upon deployment. But then, that's way beyond the scope of the fevered demands for 'gun control', isn't it?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The constitution even says so - you can bare arms as part of a well organized militia
The phrase is "Well-regulated militia" as-in well-trained, a lot of us civilians shoot more rounds and train more than the average police officer.
Does that mean that the average police officer should not have guns?
What level of training do you consider "appropriate training"?
Bernie's mistake was that he wasn't big enough to fail. Also, he screwed over rich people. If he had only laundered money for terrorists and drug lords (as a big bank), that'd be okay. What you need to do is get to be a big bank or hedge fund manager, fuck over countless millions of people, almost collapse the world economy, then get bailed out by the people you fucked over, give yourself a massive bonus, then lobby to get the pathetic controls on your industry fully removed so you can do it all over in another 3-10 years. What's needed is a haircut of the top .1%, with a guillotine.
Ban pools while you are at it. Only slightly behind. But somehow less scary. Sort of like how we are more afraid of sharks than we are of dogs, even though lots more people get killed by dogs each year. Oh yeah, ban dogs too!
But when your "fix" only applies to people who fall into that tautology, you have moved from the realm of self-reference to farce.
I don't get it. Armor should be illegal, but guns are totally fine.
Clearly you cannot hurt anyone with an armored vehicule (unless you drive over them, but that doesn't require the armor), but you can easily with the gun. Why would you want to ban a clearly defensive technology, while allowing offensive things?
Second Amendment Explained
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free
state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be
infringed."
There are three parts to this sentence. The first part means, in current
layman's terms:
We want to be a free, independent country, and to do that, we need to be
able to defend ourselves from other countries. This requires us to
have an army.
The second part means, in current layman's terms:
We accept that we need an army for protection from other countries, but
how do we keep this army from just saying, "ok, WE are in charge
now, and you people will do what WE say." The answer: the PEOPLE
will have a right to keep and bear arms, to have weapons and be able
to use them if necessary against not only criminals, but against the
government if the government oversteps its bounds.
The third part means, again in current layman's terms:
Your individual right to weapons may not be limited in any way. This
includes any procedure or law that has a limiting impact on the
ability of a free person to acquire arms. Waiting periods, background
checks, limiting amounts or types of items purchased, etc., are ALL
unconstitutional.
Don't Panic.
They're "law abiding" until they're not. Then they're criminals with guns.
Then why isn't Switzerland the setting of real life Mad Max battles? They have almost as many guns as the US, and they are more evenly distributed there.
A gun is an expensive toy.
Police will be provided with FUNDS FOR guns (and ammo... and training... and maintenance... and special equipment needed... and better guns...) by the government.
Average citizen will not be provided with a gun or any of the tools or procedures needed to operate one. NOR with the money to purchase any of it.
And that's not going into that average citizen from "when the 2nd amendment was drafted" was fucked if the local economy failed to provide gunpowder or lead.
Nor could the average citizen waltz into a store, leave an IOU payable by the government, and waltz out with all the guns and ammo needed - on account of authority as an elected law enforcement officer.
And even without ANY other funds but the paycheck - police is paid to walk around with guns.
Average citizens have to get and maintain a job - THEN should they be able to afford it, they can buy a gun and walk around with it. Without being paid for that.
Also, police will be provided with additional pairs of hands to handle more guns and even with an army should the need arise.
Average citizen would have to pay for help from his/her own pocket. And would not be allowed to just call up the US army or any other army.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I'm sorry, what is it? According to the CDC influenza and pneumonia are a bigger killer than guns and nearly half of gun deaths are suicide. What mass shootings are you talking about the few that hit national news and are talked about over and over for decades, that one at the high school in Colorado happened 16 years ago?
Problem is that the first few people to act get put in a box, with no guarantee that others will follow.
To agitate a rebellion, you really have to threaten the people's food supply. Not much short of that will cause a violent uprising, at least not without some sort of well funded backer, like old George Soros.
I had a guy steal a bunch of money from me once. I called the police and they came out, but it turned out he was a prison guard and they knew each other. Guess what happened next.
They didn't leave - they currently occupy nursing homes in Portland and Seattle.
If the places where you routinely drive around include urban no-go zones, you might need one.
I've never driven through one of FoxNews' mythical "no-go" zones, but then I'm not prone to reich-wing fear and paranoia of everything around me that isn't exactly like me.
Compare the US and Switzerland.
Wouldn't that be extremely damaging to the roads?
That depends both on the tracks the tank is fitted with and the surface on which the tank is driven. Some tanks have (or can be fitted with) tracks that have rubber pads on them, which greatly reduce any damage to roads by spreading the weight of the tank more widely. The Sherman tank, for example, used both rubber-pad and steel-pad tracks through its service history. The M1 Abrams tank uses tracks with rubber road pads to reduce wear and noise, but can mount ice cleats replacing individual track pads for additional traction in snow and ice conditions. Tanks without rubber pads, though, generally will, on a road surface, concentrate the tank's weight over a smaller area, which can readily damage asphalt roads. Cement road surfaces are more resilient, but will also degrade over time.
That's excellent. Maybe the liberals will join you once the cities and states where they live go bankrupt. I'd even support the government paying for their transportation to GTFO! I'm tired of supporting the liberal bullshit agendas.
And what about those of us who are intelligent, say that sort of thing, and actually mean it?
Look, I get that it frightens you that we have that right here in the US, but we've had that right forever. We still have that right. Want some artillery? NICS check, tax stamp, and some paperwork to file. (same process for the ammunition, actually) And yet you don't hear about people robbing banks with them or going after the ex-wife with them. Gee, I wonder why that is...
The fact is, most people are simply surprised/shocked to learn that Americans can own the big stuff privately. Most get over that pretty quickly when they do even a little research into the communities around buying and keeping that sort of thing, to say nothing of the history of private ownership of those items (and lack of problems created). Some people maintain the same position they do about all guns: "why does anyone really need that?!" The truth is, they don't. Just like nobody really needs a copy of the US Constitution, or a flag, or a right to vote, or a Bible, or privacy, or an abortion, or running water, or the right to trial by jury. Those are all just trappings of a decent, modern society.
If we start defining what rights people have by what they "really need", we're going to have a mighty short list. What a bunch of old guys came up with hundreds of years ago in the American colonies is that it works a lot better if you ask a different question: what do we "really need" a government to do?
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
It actually is. If you don't like it, amend the constitution.
As it so happens, ALL nuclear weapons in the US have been in private hands at at least one point in their lives, as they are made by private corporations. They just need permits for working with the radioactive material. ANYONE can build a nuke absent the radioactive material. In fact, you might even be able to make a fusion bomb if you could figure out how to implode the fusile core without using a fission bomb. But they don't, because that is difficult and expensive.
How hard is it to use the Shift key to capitalize the beginning of a sentence? Jeez.
We do care about social consequences. For example, we care about the social consequences of granting our government so much power that it can rule or end our lives with impunity.
The people hold the power, but only so long as they decide to keep it. Once it's surrendered, it's a long, bloody struggle to get it back.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
They can buy nukes. They just need a permit for the radioactive material. It's just that no-one would sell to them. They could also make them themselves, again with the same permit for the radioactive material. In fact, they do. That is where the military sources its nukes--the private sector.
Frankly, I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often.
Oh so the rest of your comment was a lie (i.e. not frank)? Good to know.
As I recall, the article I was reading mentioned exactly this. And this was a pretty small tank - only 7.5T (considerably less than an 18-wheeler, comparable to a large delivery truck).
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
flubbed the link:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/311
"The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard."
My father was a police officer for 20 years and somehow managed not to shoot any black people or violate anyone's rights. That's 99.9% of police officers.
Well, you're off by at least an order of magnitude, and likely a lot more. If you look at official police misconduct numbers for example here, you'll see that something around 1% of police officers are involved in serious complaints each year. Keep in mind that's an annual rate, so I don't know how that extrapolates to the percentage of police who engage in bad activity over an entire career, but it's undoubtedly somewhat higher (and could be a significant percentage of police). (To be fair -- if you read the stats here in detail, the rate of criminal activity among police is not significantly higher than that of the general population, but one would think that we should hold law enforcement to a somewhat higher standard in obeying the law....)
And keep in mind these are reported official cases of misconduct. Recent analyses have shown that lots of questionable actions taken by police while on duty are not prosecuted or investigated thoroughly -- or even reported: recent media analysis of fatal shootings by police, for example, suggest they are probably twice as common as the official reported number.
You add all these factors together, and I wouldn't be surprised if we're looking at figures closer to 10% or higher of police who engage in significant criminal misconduct.
I have a great deal of respect for "good cops" who put their lives on the line every day. If you dad was one of them, you should be proud. And most police do a good job. But there are also SIGNIFICANT numbers of police who commit crimes in the U.S. every year.
And the bad cops aren't 1 in 1000 (as your off-the-cuff stat suggests), they're definitely greater than 1 in 100, and factoring in recent stats, it's likely as many as 1 in 10 or more.
Also, we need to look at official criminal activity vs. more subtle forms of questionable actions, like intimidation in interrogations, etc. Those may not rise to a criminal level, but many, many police abuse their authority to various degrees. This is where GP has a point:
That's patently absurd.... "Don't talk to police" is for the people asking for trouble.
There are lawyers who advise that. In general, it seems like reasonable advice. Unless you are asking the police for help, you gain nothing from talking to them and can accidentally implicate yourself (even if you've actually done nothing wrong). Be polite. Provide ID if the situation warrants. Then ask to leave... politely. There are too many ways they have power and authority to screw you over, even if it doesn't rise to official "misconduct," so what's the benefit in taking the risk?
Consider the government and police anti-social behavior, we absolutely should have the right to own such vehicles, and the weapons to go with them.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
But yes, NRA members are not the problem.
Correct, NRA leadership is the problem.
I'm not responsible for other people's fear.
Much more importantly, my rights are not subject to revocation due to other peoples' fear.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Howitzers are extremely useful in preventing avalanches. http://www.adn.com/article/20140203/preventing-avalanches-alaskas-capital-city-game-precision
Captcha: Target
This!
Alas, that's why I don't get to shoot nearly so much as I would like....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Is this on Slashdot? 0.o
Seeing tanks driving down the street can bring up some scary memories for some people.
So can seeing a cow by the side of the road. So what? Let me guess: you demand that every business you visit put up a series of Trigger Warnings outside their door, just in case anyone coming in might be offended by the sight of a lobster, or a large steak knife, or an overweight person wearing horizontal stripes (the horror!). What the hell is it with people cultivating this new flavor of paralyzing, exquisitely sensitive fear of everything? Colleges are so in the thrall of this PC nonsense that they're throwing potential guest speakers off campus in order to make sure that not even one special snowflake in the student body might be made uncomfortable by hearing the expression of an idea that's contrary to their delicate world view. This has to stop while there are still at least some vertebrates left on the planet.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I'm not responsible for other people's fear.
Well, if someone shit their pants at the sight of your 30 ton combat vehicle rolling down the street, you would in fact be responsible for their fear.
I don't think it's being pedantic to correct your statement: "I don't care about other people's fear that I caused."
Nothing posted to
The revolt won't happen until people can no longer afford food. Well fed people (usually) don't revolt.
They're "law abiding" until they're not. Then they're criminals with guns.
Yes, but still the fact is that the overwhelming majority of murders by gun are done by people who don't legally own a gun. If we successfully take away all guns from everyone who legally owns a gun, the number of murders by gun will go down by almost nothing. As a side benefit, the number of murders by illegally owned guns will go to 100%.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Then amend the Constitution. If you insist on continuing to circumvent the builtin process for changing the Constitution, it can and WILL come back to bite you regarding am amendment that you do support.
I really want to make some snarky comment about did your father actually never commit a crime vs did he never get caught committing a crime. But honestly, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say your father sounds like a 5%er, you, on the other hand sound like you would have made a great 95%er.
You also give me the impression that being a LEO's son most of your interactions with LEO's go like this: "Let me buy my partners son a beer" or "Merry Christmas" or "Here's a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card and a free ride home".
Most of us that aren't in the "Badge Club", our interactions go like this. "Here's a gun in your face for doing 5mph over the speed limit", "Oh you're apartment was broken into and the value of what was stolen is not valued at over 5k, fuck off, I should shoot you for wasting my time" or "Hey, despite not doing anything wrong your in a similar location to others that are doing something wrong. Please, inhale some of our nifty tear gas that you paid for with tax money" or simply, "I'm a LEO, fuck you"
I'm not saying that I'm Mother Theresa, but I've had LEO's point firearms directly at me for speeding, and once when I was younger, I had a LEO pull me over and force me at gun point to pick up and dispose of properly a cigarette butt I had thrown out the window. I've had loaded weapons pointed at me on three separate occasions in my life by LEO's and really really don't appreciate it. I don't know if you've ever had loaded weapons pointed at you by someone who you've never met before, who you don't trust their intentions, but it is really super NOT COOL. And is a great way to get everyone's adrenalin flowing and escalating the situation.
99.999999% of my LEO interactions have been profoundly negative, whether I was doing something perceived as wrong or a victim of a crime.
A car is a deadly weapon too. Should they ban those?
Rich people don't commit crime, rob someone of $15 nonviolent only threatening violence without a weapon do 5 - 10 years, rob a few people of 15 million never see the inside of a cell.
If the threat of violence is credible, most laws treat it essentially just like an assault that actually employs the violence. Threatening to hurt somebody until they give you their property is a violent crime - because it's predicated on your willingness and threat to do violence in order to steal something. With or without a weapon has nothing to do with it.
And can you point to an example of someone who's actually robbed $15 million and not faced criminal prosecution? Or are you confusing robbery with legal activity that you wish were not legal? There are people in the world who think you make obscenely too much money, and they're convinced that the only reason they're not personally better off is because other people are better off than they are, which makes you one of the people who is robbing them of their prosperity. Should you go to jail? That person's irrational complaint is just as good as your deliberately vague one, right?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Interesting, are you saying that one group of criminals that have committed crime are less deserving of having access to weapons than another group of criminals breaking laws?
He didn't say any such thing. Criminals, by their actions, waive their claims on the same liberties that are enjoyed by the rest of us. You seem deliberately unclear on the concept.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
That's not enough. We should ban cars, bicycles, and motorcycle because so many deaths occur each year. And let's face it, the ocean is a gigantic swimming pool... let's ban that too!
Rather than banning stuff, I think that those who oppose my/our freedoms should just leave. Maybe try any one of the African nations where the people cannot afford guns.
Remember it's the 95% of authority figures that make the 5% looks bad.
They can shoot you if they feel like it and as a matter of policy. They can lie to you. They will frame you. They will spy on you, innocent it not. They will confiscate your money, your property, your freedom and your life, with no judge or jury involved.
So the outcome doesn't match up with your made up statistic, so you question the outcome?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Great society we have if we have to take people's liberties away in order to get them to live with one another.
You also neglect to mention those areas with the highest rates already tend to have the strictest gun laws, yet still the highest incidences of gun violence.
Well, that makes some sense. As a criminal, you know that the people in that area are less likely to be able to defend themselves. So you know you are relatively safe robbing, burglarizing or committing other crimes in that area.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I also note that in the UK, ownership of a tank is perfectly legal. It has to be demilitarized (the gun barrel(s) filled with concrete, that sort of thing), but it can be managed, if you're rich enough. Saw an article the other day about some guy who uses his Scimitar light tank to drive to town to get groceries....
Once you take the main gun and any associated machine guns of a tank, it just becomes a cramped van with appalling fuel and track consumption.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Yes, it absolutely is a shame that you are unable to see the social consequences of allowing our congresscritters to circumvent the built in process for amending the Constitution.
Blaming inanimate objects for dire consequences has long been the staple of 2 to 3 year old children. Beyond that, we are expected to take responsibility.
If the guy can own a bazooka and ensure that it is not misused, I don't see any reason why he can't own the bazooka. If it IS misused, he is liable for all criminal and civil penalties. I would ask myself how badly I wanted a bazooka, and how much I have to spend on appropriate security for it.
Of course you are. It's in the "don't be an asshole" clause of the social contract you agreed to by not living in Mogadishu.
I'm not responsible for other people's fear.
Much more importantly, my rights are not subject to revocation due to other peoples' fear.
Yeah, I'm sure that the right to bear arms really means the right to own a tank, assault helicopter or nuclear weapon.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Where do you live that has 'feral criminals'? Damaskus? Mogadishu? Dol Guldur?
I'm not responsible for other people's fear.
Sociopaths aren't responsible for anything. That's the problem.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
It's a shame that you are such a small little individual to need it.
so the rest of you can go to hell. Just don't stop paying for the infrastructure that I am sponging off. that would be tyranny.
It is already underway subtly as most revolts start, did you see the Occupy $x protests?
Judging by what I read on US sites like slashdot, there is very little political overlap between Occupy protesters and Gun rights people.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
No, you indeed are not. The world's a nicer place to live in when we stop posturing, however, and instead show a little consideration for our fellow man.
Ignore the people who like to complain about everything, but on the other hand please don't drive your tank past the WW2 veterans home.
States taking the most federal money include Mississippi, New Mexico, Alabama and Kentucky.
What liberal measures are they pursuing?
I should also add that I've been beaten/abused one occasion also, basically, because my grandfather died and the LEO was having a "Dad Day"
And I'm lucky, I'm a white guy. I cant imagine the shit black people suffer at the hands of LEO's
The problem is anyone can own a gun, responsible and fully sane or otherwise.
Of course that's not at all true. Every state in the country makes provisions for keeping crazy and criminal people from buying guns. It doesn't help when one of their family members decides to commit the criminal act of facilitating their acquisition of one anyway. Several states are actively knocking on doors and taking guns away from people who have been convicted of certain crimes, or who have fallen under a protective order or deemed not sane enough to own weapons. You're just (knowingly, I'm sure) wrong on the facts.
Americans need to accept that some people just shouldn't have access to such deadly weapons.
You mean, like we already have? Sure, why not. People who don't realize that just need to check their state laws so they can see that's already the case.
The constitution even says so - you can bare arms as part of a well organized militia, i.e. with appropriate training and checks on who is allowed in.
You're deliberately misrepresenting the second amendment. Even if you can't parse the actual words right in front of you, you can go off and ready countless documents by the people who wrote and ratified that amendment, showing that you've got it exactly, precisely backwards. The founders, having spent years living under the militaristic thumb of the British government in the colonies, were very apprehensive about the continued existence of a standing army (especially a federal one). Still, they knew that there had to be an organized military capacity at one or more organizational levels (at least state, county, etc). Their wording in the second amendment, if you were to use slightly more modern, casual parlance, would go like this: "Because we know there will always have to be a permanent military structure in place to defend the country, we don't want that military to have a monopoly on the ownership of arms, as we experienced under British rule. This amendment officially prohibits the government from preventing the people from keeping and bearing their own arms."
The second amendment was written specifically to preserve your personal right, should you choose to exercise it, to keep and bear arms exactly because there was inevitably going to be a well organized militia operating nearby, and the founders - having seen what they'd seen - considered it absolutely vital that the organized military didn't become the only entity in the country that was armed.
Your fantasy, in which it's exactly the opposite, flies in the face of everything the founders had to say on the subject, and is completely contrary to the debate, writings, and ratification votes that surrounded the amendment's place in the constitution. It's just like the first amendment in that capacity. The first amendment doesn't spell out who's allowed to speak, or indicate that you have to be qualified to own a printing press. It's there to prevent government over-reach, just like the second amendment. And the fourth, etc.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
If you still cannot identify the people that they are talking about then maybe a look in the mirror will work better.
Seeing tanks driving down the street can bring up some scary memories for some people.
I used to live by an army base when I was a kid. I remember occasionally seeing tanks and halftracks on the road.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Like most liberals, you can't seem to understand that race (physical differences which manifest themselves in fairly obvious, visible ways, and which are handed down through reproduction) and culture are two different things. What's up with that, anyway? Why is that so hard for people to understand?
The culture in gangland Chicago is violent and murderous. But people who share racial characteristics with those most commonly found in that criminal culture live elsewhere, within different cultures in other places around the country, and don't have the same problem.
But that gets the PC and Moral Relativism crowds all upset, because that implies that personal decisions about behavior actually make a difference. And that's no fun for the craven people who would rather blame inanimate objects for what people choose to do (thus letting themselves off the hook of making a moral pronouncement about somebody's personal or cultural behavior).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
everyone (that is white) is a law abiding gun nut right up to the point where their bullets enter those schoolchildren.
Why not let me own whatever I want, and then punish me if I break a real malum in se law by hurting someone or destroying property?
I already own 15+ guns. Not a single one has ever hurt anyone (which I guess means they're all defective according to the guns-are-designed-only-to-kill crowd). Why shouldn't I be allowed to own a belt fed machine gun, or a grenade launcher? Do you think mere possession of a different class of weapon will suddenly change me from a normal law-abiding gun owner into a rabid murderer?
as we are too busy burying the results of your rare mass killings. Of course, I'm sure you will get some cut and paste rom the NRa as to why the victims are to blame and not the sad little individuals that need their strapons
we are actually trying to solve the problems with diseases, while ammosexuals like you are using the deaths that you cause as an excuss to buy more manhood enhancements.
OK, so I made up that on the spot, don't you know that 76.99341243465% od stats are fabricated or completely made up. I also note that no one has even attempted to dispute my claims in the original Anon post. Do you deny that they will shoot you, frame you, spy on you, confiscate your shit, deny you a judge/jury if they can? Because they do these things on a daily basis and get away with 99.9999999999999% of the time.
Yes the world would be a better place if we could all just play nice.
Like I said guns don't kill people; criminals and stupid people do. Clearly you are one of the latter. Knives don't kill? Baseball bats don't kill? You live in a fantasy world. Quit playing Minecraft and try GTA V. That's what some cities are like.
A car is a deadly weapon too. Should they ban those?
Yes, Horseless Carriages are a menace and should be banned.
Note: This opinion is my own and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer, the United Surrey Whip Manufacturers Local 203, or any other person living or dead.
Security theater in this country is most excellent.
We can't let commoners own armored vehicles !! Why, they might want to shoot up the place !! :|
Let's replace a few words and note the resulting silliness. . . . .
We can't let commoners own private aircraft !! Why, they might fly them into buildings !!
Or, with a bow to MadLibs,:
We can't let ________________ own ________________ !!, Why they might __________________!!
To any who will use the tried and true " What possible need do you have for one ? " argument, I reference
the same reasoning the ten man local Sheriff's Department needs an MRAP. It isn't because you NEED one,
it's because, for some reason, you WANT one. ( and just because you can )
As I read this article, I could instantly see how this looks just silly to people who populate the tech sector. It is easy to make snap judgements and laugh at the crazy, stupid, unwashed rubes living elsewhere. A wiser person would ask, "why do people in Texas feel the need to own, armor and heavy weapons? Is there something going on?
In a nut shell, people in Texas are scared. How would you feel if the Federal government were conducting war games in your state, for the express purpose of invading your ass if you get upidity? Ok, lets put it this way, remember all that awful rhetoric that rules the forums 10 years ago about how Bush was a NAZI and wanted to impose his views on you? How would you feel if he ACTUALLY then sent the U.S. army in to act out a scenario where California, Washington, and Oregon rebelled because they wanted more federal control over money, more liberal tax policies, and open borders? You see news reports about this, some blogs. You think it is crazy. Then, one day, you wake up to the awful sound of attack helicopters conducting a drill over your neighborhood. Yes, OMFG you would be crapping your pants and creating a shit-storm in the blogosphere....and you would be perfectly correct to do so.
The difference is that for all the rhetoric and sensationalizing, Bush never did such a thing. I doubt he even dreamed of it. On the other hand, Obama is conducting operation Jade Helm this summer. He HAS used the IRS to attack police enemies and change the election. He HAS threatened to shut down Texas airspace if the state passed an anti groping bill limiting the TSA from feeling up children. Admit it, under such an environment, no matter how rational you deem yourself, you would be nervous too.
The problem lies in the exaggeration of political views. In what should be a healthy debate over tax policy and building codes has turned into ball-sport where people think anyone who is not wearing your color of shirt deserves death. It is absurd. It is counter productive. It is destroying our civilization. Worse, it is very common here on good ol' slashdot. Ask yourself, have you said something like "I hate fox news?" or I hate Bush and republicans?" Hate is a very strong word. In fact, many enlightened liberals feel it is a crime. Why do you have such strong, murderous feelings over, someone who views the tax code differently than you. Isn't that a little extreme? You say you hate Fox news, and feel it is cool to say so? Why? Because you don't agree with all the viewpoints, and it challenges the narrative that you never do? Do you think the new sources you enjoy are really any less biased? Really?
I point this out because such thought is so common place on slashdot I find it heart breaking. When I first joined this forum, near 2000 it was a free and open forum where you were modded up by the strength of your argument and how well you defended it. Now, I have a troll moniker for simply not agreeing with destructive comments on the forums. If we are to survive as a society, we need to be intellectually honest. We need to face honest criticisms of our cherished beliefs with joy instead of hatred. In the crucible of conversation, we can arrive at better solutions. Living in an echo chamber or rage will lead to....
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
TheIr gunowners are actually a well regulated militia.
The death penalty should be used for those who allow their guns to be stolen.
The army and police departments lose them all the time. Can you name any other thing you would like to deprive people of life for having being the victim of theft? How about a can of gas? On March 25, 1990, Julio Gonzalez killed 89 people with a can of gas and two matches at the Happy Land nightclub. You really haven't thought this through, have you?
Like most liberals,
But I'm not a liberal. When your assumptions all your arguments are based on are wrong, so must your logic and conclusions be wrong.
Learn to love Alaska
No the shame is that most Americans don't believe that social consequences are their problem. This is why your society looks more and more like a toilet every day.
It's not so much that most Americans don't believe that social consequences are their problem, but rather getting them to agree as to what the problems are and what the solutions might be.
Serious question: in the late 18th century did "arms" only mean "firearms"
Or does the second amendment protect my right to walk around wherever I want with a machete or a battle axe?
It's also why our poorest state is wealthier than the UK on a per capita basis.
Based on what? The per capita income in Mississippi is somewhat under 37K USD, while the UK comes in at 39K USD or so.
Of course, that speaks nothing for quality of life, or anything, because all of this statistical nonsense is far outside the lives of the individual, and is about as useful as counting spots on a Dalmatian.
We look more and more like a toilet because we are abandoning our founding values, which are the values that created the middle class, and were once shared by every nation that is today recognized as "developed", as those values are, in fact, the only way you can create a developed economy.
I bet if you asked 100 people, you'd get somewhere above a dozen ideas on what values created the middle class, let alone what is important for being a developed nation.
See subject & answer the question vs. your utter fuckup here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... so keep "puffing that pot" fool!
* :)
Gotta love it - seeing you give me guff, knowing you CRIPPLE your OWN thought processes with pot is priceless, since it makes it (& I've just GOTTA say it, you're making me do it) "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'" to utterly crush you by making you "eat your words", spiced with the bitter taste of SELF-defeat, + your foot in your mouth RAMMING THEM DOWN, rinsing down the puke you spewed on /. that I smacked you down with easily!
APK
P.S.=> Gotta LOVE pot smoking dolts - they're stupid enough to do what "stoned_ritual" did, & smash themselves into the ground everytime vs. myself, lol... apk
See subject & answer the question vs. your utter fuckup here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... so keep "puffing that pot" fool!
* :)
Gotta love it - seeing you give me guff, knowing you CRIPPLE your OWN thought processes with pot is priceless, since it makes it (& I've just GOTTA say it, you're making me do it) "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'" to utterly crush you by making you "eat your words", spiced with the bitter taste of SELF-defeat, + your foot in your mouth RAMMING THEM DOWN, rinsing down the puke you spewed on /. that I smacked you down with easily!
(I wonder, since dolts like yourself typically PROJECT things, if "that person in your neighborhood" is actually YOU - wouldn't surprise me 1 BIT if it really is you, fool - keep smoking that pot, see what your life ends up like!)
APK
P.S.=> Gotta LOVE pot smoking dolts - they're stupid enough to do what "stoned_ritual" did, & smash themselves into the ground everytime vs. myself, lol... apk
But I'm not a liberal. When your assumptions all your arguments are based on are wrong, so must your logic and conclusions be wrong.
What I said isn't wrong just because your tone happens to align with the commonly held positions of a particular group. You just sounded like one of that group. That doesn't make it any less specious when you use the word "racial" incorrectly, or assign that mis-use to other people. I don't know anyone, despite your assertion, that thinks Japan has a lower rate of gun violence because of the race of most of the people who live in that culture. No more than I think their visual characteristics are responsible for that country's unusually high suicide rate, tendency to see a lot of stabbings, or especially peculiar pop-culture strangeness. Those are cultural, not racial differences. Whether you're someone who makes that mistake/misrepresentation all the time, or just occasionally, doesn't change how and why it's nonsense.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
It's also why our poorest state is wealthier than the UK on a per capita basis.
Not that I am calling you a liar, but I would love to see some statistics that show that, it sure doesn't sound correct.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Curitiba, Brazil. If you stop at the wrong place in the city, you will not be able to differentiate the criminals from animals that walk upright
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
If gun control will fix all the gun crime, please explain this to me:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
How many of the 1000 murders so far this year in Baltimore have made nationwide news? But 8 people are killed in Charleston and every news station is all over it. Do you understand why watching news is skewing your view of society?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
See subject & answer it vs. you doing it here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... so keep "puffing that pot" fool!
* :)
Gotta love it - seeing you give me guff, knowing you CRIPPLE your OWN thought processes with pot is priceless, since it makes it (& I've just GOTTA say it, you're making me do it) "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'" to utterly crush you by making you "eat your words", spiced with the bitter taste of SELF-defeat, + your foot in your mouth RAMMING THEM DOWN, rinsing down the puke you spewed on /. that I smacked you down with easily!
APK
P.S.=> Gotta LOVE pot smoking dolts - they're stupid enough to do what "stoned_ritual" did, & smash themselves into the ground everytime vs. myself, lol... apk
Narcissists aren't known for their ability to desire civility. It's all about *them*.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Something funny Sans Serif.
It's Friday, and I can't be asked to fill in the blanks for you.
Why? I'd say that following the Constitution, including the Amendment process is just as subject to biting me regarding doing any number of things, as not doing so.
Why do I say that? Because those who behave in ways I consider lacking in moral rectitude are not limited to disobeying the law, they are also capable of working within the law to achieve their ends, and even using the law to frustrate attempts to deter them. In fact, a number of terrible injustices were and are from the Supreme Court and Congress claiming to follow the Constitution, some of which have been rejected, but not all so.
Sure, it'd be nice to pretend the law is only used for justice and forthright purposes. This is not so. Either way, I can be abused and mistreated. Either way, I can be bitten.
So I would rather not pretend in the illusion of justice arising from adherence to the law anymore than I would say that defying the law is necessarily just.
Besides, I'm not even talking about doing anything, just saying that a car is vastly more useful in one's daily life than howitzers(one can hardly call the limited operation in avalanche control to be a daily issue), but even then, steps are taken to prevent harm being done with vehicles that are not available with regards to howitzers.
Is this something you agree with or not? Do you see a practical daily use for howitzers, or any particular way to deal with them in a cost-effective manner?
I am posting to correct myself, the figure is more like 100 shootings.
http://data.baltimoresun.com/b...
It was also apparently 9 people in SC, I got the number wrong there too.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
In these uncertain times, you can't be too careful. We should all be driving armored vehicles, like the Marauder. Top Gear did a wonderful review of the vehicle, showing how practical the Marauder is for normal city driving.
Review part 1
Review part 2
Law abiding gun owners have never been a problem.
Agreed. So how about we crack down on NON-law abiding gun owners, i.e. those owners and dealers who funnel guns to criminals? Require firearm registration, and we could easily trace back weapons used in crimes to the people who supplied them. I understand why the gun industry (and their mouthpiece, the NRA) objects to this, since from their perspective a sale is a sale, and guns that are funneled to criminals increase sales both directly and indirectly (by creating concerns about violence and driving law-abiding people to purchase guns). It makes no sense that the rest of us have to accept it, though.
The authorities are incapable of keeping illegal substances out of prisons. Good luck keeping 18th century technology secured against a small segment of the population that is *not* locked up.
And can you point to an example of someone who's actually robbed $15 million and not faced criminal prosecution?
I guess you missed the whole banking/mortgage/housing/securities thing a few years back, or maybe didn't understand it. Of course, no violence was threatened. It was more along the lines of a scam. But a lot of people think scams are a form of theft.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
you are obviously referring to freeDUMB.
The wide majority of gun crime in the US is committed with guns that the person using them has no right to posses.
Roof used a gun to shoot 9 black people in SC recently. He was under felony charges for drug crimes and was not legally able to own a gun. How will more gun control laws stop him from getting a gun?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Where do you live that has 'feral criminals'? Damaskus? Mogadishu? Dol Guldur?
That would be pretty much any large metropolitan area in the US that's been under Democratic Party control for decades.
Stop gun violence! Ban Democrats!
I would also point out that even strict gun control doesn't stop gun crimes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Prior restraint laws are uniformly unconstitutional.
Americans need to accept that some people just shouldn't have access to such deadly weapons. The constitution even says so - you can bare arms as part of a well organized militia
People need to accept that that's not what the Constitution means or how it's been interpreted by SCOTUS.
"A well regulated Library, being necessary to the education of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Book, shall not be infringed.", can in no way be parsed to prohibit the possession of books.
I'm not crazy,I'm actively irresponsible.
Did you read past the first sentence of his post? That's exactly the thing he addresses.
People speed and get in wrecks on freeways. It is time to ban their use. Nobody needs a high-speed, high-capacity roadway.
The first time we saw this kind of nonsense involved making it a crime to wear bullet proof clothing. The reasoning is that it was hard to stop armed robbery types who wore bullet proof clothing. Now they want to make bullet resistant vehicles illegal. Does it not dawn on them that many celebrities as well as others may need such equipment to be reasonably safe? Many music and film stars need special protections as do some economic figures. So are we to have a nation in which only certain people can own a bullet proof vehicle? If one person can own such a thing then every person has the same right. Cops sometimes wear bullet proof vests when off duty as they are aware that revenge shootings are a distinct possibility.
LOL!
So funny... The answer is: "Of course not!"
They used the same BS argument up here in Canada to dismantle the gun registry recently that goes something like this:
Criminals don't follow the law, so we might as well get rid of it.
Pretty sure that is the definition of "criminal" is someone that "doesn't follow a law", which you only have should "laws" exist. That's like saying, why have a law about murder, as those pesky criminals are just gonna go murder anyway. Ridiculous. The whole point of said laws is A) to limit access to firearms, and B) to enable police by providing them with additional tools to do their jobs: Enforcing laws, catching and putting criminals away.
I guess you missed the whole banking/mortgage/housing/securities thing a few years back, or maybe didn't understand it. Of course, no violence was threatened. It was more along the lines of a scam. But a lot of people think scams are a form of theft.
So, again, point to a person who stole $15 million. Specifically. Or $5 million - whatever you like. Referring to a "thing" that happened, without actually pointing out which person broke an actual law but was not prosecuted - that's deliberately vague on your part. You seem to have something specific in mind, legally, so why not mention it?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
"...modern weapons civilians can own don't stand a chance against the government."
Tell that to the numerous groups that have been and currently are still successfully engaging first-world military organizations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_guerrilla_movements
"Even against the greatest of odds, there is something in the human spirit - a magic blend of skill, faith, and valor - that can lift men from certain defeat to incredible victory." - Walter Lord
Don't Panic.
Law abiding gun owners have never been a problem.
Of course not. Up until the point that they aren't law-abiding.
So private ownership of these weapons does not cause the problems you think it does.
Your reasoning is a bit lacking, the current degree of private ownership (which I think we can agree is very limited ) may not cause these problems to an unacceptable degree(though I think the accident involving an Uzi at an Arizona firing range or even the incident involving an accident with Mythbusters shows it isn't without some problem), but that doesn't mean ANY degree won't.
We have more guns per capita in Canada and much less violent crime rate in Canada.
Though I would say we share some similar challenges with Native communities. The problem is partially sustainability and part corruption. In many cases it just isn't feasible or reasonable. If you live in a remote community with little access, it isn't surprising that their are not a lot of jobs, and a lot of poverty. I moved away from home 2000km way for school and work. You cannot expect to stay where you are and somehow things magically just work out for you. Couple that with a population that is growing at several times the national average. Self governance also seems to have given rise to some Chiefs being pretty darn crooked, promoting internal inequality.
Not saying I have the answers, but the problems are pretty evident.
It isn't about minorities, it is about poverty, inequality, growing up in a hostile environment, with little opportunity.
> "This is America," says Funicello. "I should be able to have a howitzer or a bazooka if I want one.
No. The 2nd amendment is very clearly worded about a milita, not military. Militia as in everyday people called up serve with personal arms. Crewed weapon systems are not militia, those belongs in the military definition. The National Guard is not a militia.
Furthermore, armour is not included in the 2nd Amendment, only arms are. That is why the feds are able to ban civilians from obtaining Level 4 and 5 rated ballistic vests, like the Point Blank Interceptor (which are proof againt rifle-fired hardmetal bullets, not just handy Thompsons and Berettas). Conceivably the feds could also ban civvies from owning vehicles with stronger armour than a certain x thickness and the SCOTUS couldn't raise any objection.
"III
What "Arms" Are Protected?
As the Oregon Supreme Court recently opined, in the state constitutions adopted between 1776 and 1802 "the term 'arms' as used by the drafters of the constitutions probably was intended to include those weapons used by (p.158)settlers for both personal and military defense. The term 'arms' was not limited to firearms, but included several handcarried weapons commonly used for defense."[53] Under the second amendment, all commonly possessed arms which an individual could "keep and bear" would be constitutionally protected. Both then and now, these arms include firearms, edged weapons, and blunt instruments.[54]
http://www.guncite.com/journals/hal-lin.html
Don't Panic.
Which rights are those? Or are you just in a Libertarian paradise?
Could you point to the law, please, which prohibits me from building a nuclear weapon? Because if I could acquire the materials for that, you'd be fine if I did that, right?
It's also why our poorest state is wealthier than the UK on a per capita basis.
Yet, strangely, our wealthiest states have shorter life expectancy and higher infant mortality than the UK. Canada, Norway and Australia rank higher for quality of life. US culture has decided that money is everything and has, accordingly, sacrificed everything on behalf of the dollar.
Remove minorities from the statistics and you will find that the US violent crime rate is in line with the least violent nations in Europe.
Guns have nothing to do with it, or the Swiss would be awash in blood. Rather, what we need to do is focus on economic advancement of the underclasses, which are disproportionately populated by minorities (for whatever reason).
While you go on to make some good points, you also basically acknowledge that the problem is socioeconomic and about "underclasses." And that's basically true -- there are problems caused in society among poor people no matter what their color. So why keep talking about "minorities"? Why not just talk about solving the socioeconomic problems of the poor?
Because when you keep referencing "minorities" as problems, frankly it makes you sound racist... even if you don't mean it. I'm not accusing you of that -- I'm saying it doesn't seem necessary or helpful in your argument and may unnecessarily turn some people off to legitimate ideas you may have.
> Much more importantly, my rights are not subject to revocation due to other peoples' fear.
Hey moron, try that reasoning in court to argue for your right to have burned a large wooden cross nearby a black family's front door.
Or try to drive a well swastika-ed King Tiger down a jewish neighbourhood of New York and complain the resident Mossad agent violated your free speech rights by knocking you out with a MANPADS...
Not true according to this source.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states_and_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita
(this does not mean that I agree with the gradparent post)
There were some Marines that got good and dumb at 29 Palms years ago (20+) that mounted a M-2 50 cal machine gun in the back of a pickup truck and held up a gas station.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
How will more gun control laws stop him from getting a gun?
A single one might have worked:
"So I notice you have a son with felony charges pending, you're not planning on letting him use the gun, are you? That would be wrong"
But there are thousands of other options, it's not like one single solution needed to be pushed.
What mass shootings are you talking about the few that hit national news and are talked about over and over for decades, that one at the high school in Colorado happened 16 years ago?
You can't possibly think that Columbine is the only 'mass shooting' in the last two decades. Here's a helpful list of last year's multiple-victim shootings. There's 283 entries. Now, most of those are not "quiet white boy flips his lid and goes on shooting spree," but to just pretend that the number of shooting victims is inconseqential, or that there's nothing to be done about ubiquitous shootings is callous and mean.
According to the CDC influenza and pneumonia are a bigger killer than guns and nearly half of gun deaths are suicide.
Maybe you've seen the annual drive to get people to have flu shots in order to reduce the deaths by flu and pneumonia. What are we doing to reduce involuntary gun deaths? Police? They only show up after the fact.
They don't when you exlude military spending though. For example new Mexico has nearly no non military spending. It also has almost no population. But when you have all the spending at white sands and area 51 as well as nuclear grave yards it seems like the population is living high on the hog. In reality this is not the case at all just the fact the state has a low population and huge federal military facilities.
Yep. you're right. He wouldn't have been able to go to a dealer and buy one because he would have been flagged by NICS. He wouldn't have been able to answer the 4473 truthfully as well (ie the: 'are you a unlawful user of drugs' question). Also, the person who gave him the gun (.45cal) broke the law by either acting as a straw purchaser (felony) or by selling a gun to an unauthorized person (the drug charges) and he would have known about those charges most likely. It's sad to see such a fervor over something like this and then everything the anti-gun advocates proposes is either illegal or wouldn't have prevented the situation. They use a tragedy to further their own political goal. The media plays along with it too which I believe 'encourages' (for lack of a better word) others to do a mass shooting like this because their name will be known across the country and they will be remembered. /rant
I say we shoot them.
If you take a look at that list you will find a lot of those appear to be gang, alcohol, or drug related. Why pretend that guns are the problem when people will still find a way especially if there is money involved.
> Remove minorities from the statistics and you will find that the US violent crime rate is in line with the least violent nations in Europe.
Why should we remove minorities to doctor US stats? European countries also have non-integrating minorities, in fact way too much of them! France is full of algerian arab-negro half bloods, Germany is full of ottoman-turkish immigrants, the Netherlands is full of full-blood chocolate negro. Britain has hindi, paki, negro and arabs of uncountable and ever growning numbers. Hungary of 10 million people has 0,88 million gipsy (a.k.a. roma / tzigane) a very primitive brown-skinned nomadic tribe of extremely violent and thiveous tendencies. Neighbouring Romania has even more gipsy. Chinese are immigrating everywhere, bringing in the triads mafia among their ranks.
Yet, Europe has less lethal violence, because firearms among the people are rare in most EU member countries. After two world wars we have enough sense not to shoot each other any more.
Even though we don't have a national gun registry (a few states do IIRC), there is a mechanism to track firearms. Say you recovered a firearm at the scene of a crime. You can see the serial number and the manufacturers markings (mandated by law, also possession of a firearm with a destroyed serial number is a big no-no). You then contact the manufacturer and ask them who they sold it do. Usually it's to a distributor. You then call that distributor, they sold it to XYZ Gun Dealer. You then call XYZ Gun Dealer who then pulls up their record of the transfer (mandated by law that they keep the form 4473 records. FYI, the form 4473 contains the information the dealer sends to the FBI when they run the NICS background check). So you then know the original owner. You then go talk to that owner. From there you then question the original owner to determine what they did with the gun. Was it stolen? Was it sold? If so, who did you sell it to and where's the record of the sale (required to keep those records as well)? So, we have a way to track down firearms that are used in crimes. It involves a few phone calls and scanned documents, but a chain of custody is always left and the original purchaser can be found. If the original purchaser sold the gun but didn't keep a record of who they sold it to their in hot water too.
No, they get to keep the guns long after the end of their national service, and can buy them without having served (ie women can buy them).
Oh my, laws aren't able to absolutely prevent EVERY POSSIBLY CRIME THAT MEANS THEY DON'T WORK AT ALL!
Oh wait, no, why is that argument somehow lacking??
Your NSA, TSA, FBI argument is complete bullshit. I've never had a problem with any of those agencies. I don't like some of the TSA stuff and I've contacted my Representatives and Senators about it. We're certainly not at a point where armed insurrection is justified. You're an immature eurotrash. Due process and political action are the proper tools for dealing with government overreach. Weapons are for when due process and political action are no longer available.
"Yeah, that's what I thought"
I know, the real numbers of gun deaths would easily show you exactly why the grownups are finally starting to realize that tolerating gun nuts is not a healthy thing to do.
Your individual right to weapons may not be limited in any way.
So if I were an American (I'm not, I'm Canadian), I should be able to own an RPG, or an Abrams tank or F22 Raptor, or even perhaps a tactical nuclear weapon? And for the record, I am not anti-gun, even though I have never held or fired one. I am a grown up and understand that there are scenarios where owning a firearm is reasonable and perhaps even necessary. But really, "...may not be limited in any way"? Doesn't it just become one giant arms race at that point?
"Could be worse...could be raining." Igor
Law abiding gun owners have never been a problem.
Sorry, not true. Law-abiding gun owners shoot the wrong people by mistake, shoot themselves, and have kids who shoot themselves and others. Even if your neighborhood is crawling with felons and murderers, having a gun in the house is a huge risk.
Your reasoning is a bit lacking
I think it is your reasoning that is lacking. Do you really believe that there is a vast pent up demand for howitzers? Everyone that wants one, likely already has one. There are no restrictions whatsoever on owning flamethrowers. They have less restrictions on ownership than hunting rifles. Yet the number of people killed by flamethrowers last year was zero. Perhaps your fellow citizens are more rational, civilized, and trustworthy than you imagine them to be.
our founding values, which are the values that created the middle class
To my British mind Jefferson and most of his chums would count as upper class. They may not have had the titles but they had the land (and the slaves). Washington died with a net worth of half a billion dollars (2015 equivalent) and 300 slaves.
It's also why our poorest state is wealthier than the UK on a per capita basis.
Not that I am calling you a liar, but I would love to see some statistics that show that, it sure doesn't sound correct.
Courtesy "gdp of ..." in google.
2.678 trillion USD (2013)
United Kingdom, Gross domestic product
1.414 trillion USD (2013)
Texas, Gross domestic product
1.959 trillion USD (2012)
California, Gross domestic product
57.71 billion USD (2007)
West Virginia, Gross domestic product
46.9 billion USD (2007)
Rhode Island, Gross domestic product
Suborbital [spaceflight] is the special olympics of spaceflight. - Rei
Well, you're off by at least an order of magnitude, and likely a lot more. If you look at official police misconduct numbers for example here, you'll see that something around 1% of police officers are involved in serious complaints each year.
...
And keep in mind these are reported official cases of misconduct. Recent analyses have shown that lots of questionable actions taken by police while on duty are not prosecuted or investigated thoroughly
You're misusing the statistics and twisting them to fit your preconceived notions of how terrible police are. Around 1% get complaints, but that doesn't say how many are valid. The second paragraph quoted doesn't change that... in fact, it adds nothing to it... 10% could get complaints, it doesn't make 10% guilty of wrong doing.
As far as not talking to police, you're again missing context... if you're under arrest, then don't talk to police. Otherwise you're likely just being an asshole and obstructing justice. If you say something incriminating before being read your Miranda rights, it's inadmissible in court... and of course, you can only say something incriminating if you've actually done something wrong. If you haven't done anything wrong, there's no reason not to talk to police.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
As it happens, it is entirely possible to own a howitzer or a bazooka in US, or even a tank (with a working main gun) - just very expensive. People do it, though. And they actually shoot them, too.
And yet, I haven't heard of a single crime or incident related to a privately owned artillery piece.
So... what social consequences did you have in mind?
So how'd that work out? Court-martial, Leavenworth, etc. I hope.
According to Wikipedia, the poorest state is Mississippi with a per capita GDP of $28,900. Depending on whose figures you use, the UK has a per capita GDP of between $37,000 and $39,000, which would rank the UK somewhere around #32 out of 50 states. Or were you not talking about GDP?
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
You're right, it didn't just mean firearms. "Arms" generally meant any kind of weapon, usually the kind that would be appropriate for military use (e.g. a sword or a pike, yes; a dagger or a sling, no).
According to the most recent updates, he did in fact purchase the gun himself, and therefore passed the NICS check (even though he was legally barred).
But then NICS is in a really shitty state in general, and it has been known for a long time by those who cared to research it. Databases are very incomplete and out-of-date, some categories are not entered there outright by some states etc.
Even if that interpretation is what the writers of the amendment intended, I'd suggest that it was somewhat sort sighted. In the modern world the military is far too powerful for citizens to overthrow in that way. Unless the military itself decides to refuse to fight for the state there is zero chance of you being able to defeat the government now.
More over, it failed to anticipate the widespread availability of cheap, deadly guns and the effect that would have on society. They didn't even state clearly what limits there would need to be on the types of arms citizens could own. Nukes are clearly unacceptable, as are things like cluster bombs, chemical weapons, biological weapons etc. In the middle there is a grey area where it comes down to the judgement of the courts, and now we are talking about certain types of firearm being unacceptable (the kind the military favours, incidentally).
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Say you recovered a firearm at the scene of a crime. You can see the serial number and the manufacturers markings (mandated by law, also possession of a firearm with a destroyed serial number is a big no-no).
The law doesn't mandate serial numbers on firearms. It mandates them on firearms which are transferred, but if you e.g. buy an 80% lower and finish it yourself, you're not legally required to put a serial on it.
From there you then question the original owner to determine what they did with the gun. Was it stolen? Was it sold? If so, who did you sell it to and where's the record of the sale (required to keep those records as well)?
If the sale was person-to-person within a state, and that state didn't have universal background checks, then there's no paper trail, and they're not required to make any records or keep them. Good luck remembering who they sold a gun to a year later (and it could as well be 10 years).
Remove minorities from the statistics and you will find that the US violent crime rate is in line with the least violent nations in Europe.
If you want to make an even comparison, then you'd have to do the same thing for those European nations, as well. And guess what? It'll make a similar difference.
The 2nd amendment says that your right to bare arms shall not be limited. That suggests that state laws limiting the availability of arms to people it thinks are not responsible enough to own them is unconstitutional. I suppose you could argue that constitutional rights don't apply to people with a mental illness, but the spectrum of illnesses is pretty wide, so where do you draw the line?
That's my point really. The constitution says one thing. Many states are trying to do something else because they realized it's a terrible idea to allow anyone who wants one to own a gun. The two positions can't be resolved, but constitutional amendments are extremely difficult to get passed into law.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
1. "If the original purchaser sold the gun but didn't keep a record of who they sold it to their in hot water too." No, they're not, since they're not required (in most states) to do a background check or keep any records of a private party sale.
2. While the 4473 records in theory allow for tracing, the way the system is set up makes it both incredibly manual (looking at scanned paper records, in many cases), and is explicitly prohibited from being used to actually track the sources of more than one gun at a time. So, while there's no technical barrier to doing this, ATF is prohibited by law from being able to say "1% of guns sold last year were recovered at crime scenes, but 38% of the guns sold by Joe's Guns were recovered at crime scenes, we need to take a close look at Joe's Guns, since there's something going on there."
The first problem could be easily solved by removing the private sale loophole for background checks, or at least require submission of a scan of the buyer's ID, along with a photo of the buyer. Could be done in an app, would take all of two minutes to do. Zero inconvenience for legit gun owners.
The second problem could also be easily solved, by ending the practice of forcing the ATF to delete the 4473 data, allowing for it to be obtained instantly, and allowing law enforcement to use the data to determine patterns that will allow law enforcement to target the small percentage of dealers who present the biggest problem.
It is legal to own a howitzer or a bazooka in the US. The rockets and shells I believe are regulated.
They're both regulated as "destructive devices". You can own them, but you have to submit the paperwork to ATF, and pay the tax. It's $200 per item, and every shell is considered a separate item, so it all adds up very quickly.
You covered New Mexico, perhaps, but then it's the most blue of the three. And you talk about military spending, which is often non-liberal, so a moot point. Now tell me about the others. What's your explanation there?
California, for all the claims of the state going bankrupt, is tens of billions of surplus to the federal coffers. Same with Massachusetts, New York, and others.
Yeah. I just read that on CNN that he bought it from a dealer. Either NICS denied him and the dealer transferred it anyway or NICS wasn't updated with his status change (the more likely scenario). NICS is a hugely complicated system that pulls in data from all sorts of state and local data sources. Either way, that dealer is going to have some tough discussions with the ATF. Personally, my bet is that someone in SC forgot to update his record so that it didn't get pulled into NICS. A dealer transferring a firearm after a denial would be pretty crazy. I've seen dealers refuse to re-run someone's NICS check even when the buyer had a typo or mis-wrote his address. They just kick them out of the store and deny them because the wrath of the ATF could make things bad for the FFL holder.
Yeah, you're right about manufacturing your own firearm. It can't be transferred and can't leave the state where it was made. Yeah, that varies from State to State. For example, in Minnesota you're required to generate a Bill of Sale during a private transfer. I've sold a couple guns in private sales (I'm a MN resident). I called up my county sheriff and asked him what was needed. He said to have a bill of sale made and take down identifying information (DL numbers, CCW Permit number. Permit to Purchase number, etc). When I sold them I advertised them as the buyer must be willing to sign a bill of sale and have a valid carry permit or purchase permit. There is an argument to be made for 'universal BG checks' but that's a question for each state as it's their jurisdiction.
From my personal experience, if the check is denied, the dealers usually go to great length to help figure out what went wrong, including calling NICS again and going over all the details in the form to catch any mistakes. But yes, they won't let you have the gun if you are denied, for obvious reasons. There is a formal procedure in place that lets you challenge a denial, and they direct you towards that.
(As a non-citizen resident, I have been denied twice in the past, both times because the dolts at FBI have messed things up, as there's more data that they have to verify for us, such as any CBP records - it's also why I always get delayed, and that "instant" check is literally never instant for me, and usually takes a couple of days to clear. In both cases the dealers involved were very helpful, and the issue was ultimately resolved after some back and forth with FBI.)
Note though that the third option is that they simply didn't process his background check in time. Remember that the law sets a hard limit on how long a NICS check can be deferred for - IIRC, it's 5 business days? And if they don't come back with an answer by then, the buyer can take the gun, and most dealers will let them do that (again, from personal experience - it happened something like 3 times for me, out of the thirty-something transfers that I have made in total - but such a high rate probably has more to do with me being non-citizen and hence always deferred, so I don't know how it is for citizens).
Yeah, that varies state by state. Where I live in MN there is such a requirement (at least my county sheriff told me to keep a bill of sale). A bill of sale also is a common sense way to protect yourself. Say I bought a gun and then sold it to a friend but kept no bill of sale. The ATF will track the gun down to me but then the chain of custody would be left at my feet. Anyone with a brain would keep a bill of sale. I actually prefer the ATF to not keep the 4473's. One is for security (ie OPM breach) and the other is for liberty. While under the current circumstances it may seem crazy, in the event of a tyrannical government you don't want that government to have the means to track down those people who would have the tools to resist said government. And for the Joe's Guns scenario, the state and local LE's would recognize that "Hey, this is the third time we've traced a gun back to Joe's, we should call the ATF and have them look into them".
However, when you consider that today a person in an apache helicoptor flying over 2 miles away can put a half dozen 30 millimeter shells in your chest, center of mass, at night, modern weapons civilians can own don't stand a chance against the government.
Really? Are you certain about that? Because we've put a whole lot of money, time, and technology to use against the Taliban, Al Qaeda, ISIS, etc and they all seem to be doing just fine against that Apache helicopter and its 30mm shells. And those Apaches have places they can safely land and be maintained and they aren't at risk for mass defecting soldier, mechanics, etc. (see how much of that happens if you turn the American military on its own people). And they're up against people who are poor, uneducated, and starving. If the War on Terrorism has proven anything, it's that this logic about "oh well you can't stand up to your own military in modern times because ... uh technology and air power and stuff" holds about as much water as a fishing net.
So then you have to ask, have we reached a point where the cost in blood of our citizens killing themselves is worth it.
The Bundy Ranch standoff demonstrated that at least some people are fed up enough to start taking a stand, but are not fed up enough to start taking potshots from water towers en masse. I think if you were to ask a whole bunch of people who would ever consider open rebellion given sufficiently dire circumstances (understanding that some people never would no matter what because of cowardice or because they're benefiting from the power structure while others would happily open fire the moment they thought they could get away with it because they have an irrational hatred of all government - but that the vast majority of people fall somewhere in between there), you would find that they'd much prefer to fight in the courts, at the polls, and at political protests until every other option is exhausted.
And this is where anti-gun folks get confused: they look at the situation in the US today and they can't imagine why anyone would take up arms against the government, let alone be successful in doing so. What they're not understanding is that (almost) nobody is saying otherwise. You have to mentally fast-forward to a future situation where things have become so intolerably awful, so entrenched, so soul-crushingly bad that your average person has reached a point where they'd rather put their life on the line to try and force a major change for the better than continue even at the status quo. If things ever reach that point - where even average everyday people can no longer tolerate the situation - then open rebellion becomes a real possibility. It's at that point (and I sincerely hope I don't ever see anything close to that in my lifetime) that the Second Amendment's value becomes clear to all but the most willfully obtuse.
And it won't be a handful of private citizens with howitzers and tanks that make successful revolution possible (even likely). Rather, it'll be millions upon millions with semi-auto rifles and handguns who present constant, relentless, inescapable, unavoidable pressure from all sides. You cannot end a force like that. You cannot control a force like that. You cannot manage a force like that. All you can do is kill everyone and then you've nothing left to rule.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
The saddest thing is that if your father or any other "honest" policeman is ordered to bust in a property and secure the owner he will do it on the belief that he is doing his duty
protect the innocent and serve the just has little to do with what police is for, don't get me wrong Im sure plenty of honest policemen risk their lives to save inocents but ultimately they are there to preserve the Status Quo, if there wasn't enough money to sustain a middle class, democracy would go out of the window and the police will became a repressive force in the blink of an eye to ensure that those with power will keep living to the highest standards they are used to and that is the reason why a corrupt policeman has special protection
Ill love my dog as long as he doesn't bite ME
I was just following orders
Ditto. I also remember "firepower displays" in a couple of places. They invite the families out to watch them blow up shit with pretty much everything on hand from .50 cal to 8" howitzers. The "time on target" was really impressive.
FYI: a "time on target" is where they fire all the artillery attached to a division staggered in such a way that the shells all arrive on the target at the same time. Basically, one big boom! using everything from 4.2" mortars on up at once....
Come to think of it, first time I lived in a civilian town was when I was 12 or so. I was shocked to find out that some kids had never even seen a tank, much less climbed on one....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I'm a Kiwi who has travel to the USA a few times and has a few US friends. I have learnt that they have a fundamentally different view to guns than people from every other country I have meet. From the outside looking in the USA is hard to believe. Talking with people from the USA it is clear they are passionate about their rights to bear arms and I have accepted they are different from the rest of the world and they think the price they pay for that freedom is acceptable. However the quote from the article ""I should be able to have a howitzer or a bazooka if I want one." has me wondering. From US TV shows it would appear that individuals are not permitted to own nuclear bombs. First correct me if I am wrong, the right to bear arms does not extend to nuclear weapons? If not then where is the limit? Are you permitted a howitzer or bazooka? What limits do people consider ok?
Yeah, I'm sure that the right to bear arms really means the right to own a tank, assault helicopter or nuclear weapon.
I don't think the nuclear weapon is covered for the simple fact that it isn't a weapon used to win a revolutionary war. Rather, it's a weapon designed to ensure everyone loses.
The tank and the helo? Absolutely it means that. How in the world could it not?
To claim otherwise is to claim that the First Amendment's freedom of speech doesn't cover speech on the Internet or that the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure doesn't extent to computers. The Bill of Rights isn't a listing of specific freedoms so much as it is a statement of principles.
The principle of the First Amendment's speech protection is not that you can literally vocalize ideas, but rather that you can communicate anything you want so long as it doesn't harm another person (fraud, liable) or create a major risk of serious bodily harm (inciting a riot, shouting fire in a crowded theater). The principle of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure is not that the government can't arbitrarily decide to come take products made from trees from you or look through those things; it's that the government must have a sound, rational, basis before it can search you or anything of yours whether it's a diary or a laptop. .
Likewise, the principle of the Second Amendment is not that citizens may own muskets, but rather that if a fight breaks out between the people and the government, everyone's on equal footing. Why? Because the guys who wrote the Bill of Rights had just gotten done warring with their own government and so they understood the value of being able to go toe-to-toe with a tyrant's military might.
So yes, if the military has those things and they're considered legitimate weapons for fighting and winning, then the people have the right to own those things as well. Restrictions to the contrary of that principle undermine the spirit of the Second Amendment by monopolizing force in the hands of the government at the expense of the people. Nothing would have frightened the Founding Fathers more considering what they'd just experienced.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Is it the thing that owned, or how it's used that makes it socially irresponsible? Perhaps rather than banning an inanimate object, we should hold those who misuse them to stronger consequences. After all, which kills more random non-combatants annually - howitzers or cars?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
They certainly don't make the news anymore, and they are never used by the White NRA as an example how more guns cuts violence, as the victims of drive by's are often armed. And known armed victims is supposed to stop crime, right?
Learn to love Alaska
Those people with the highest antibiotic use rates tend to have the most infections, so obviously antibiotics cause infections? Perhaps communities with serious gun violence try to reduce it, perhaps somewhat successfully, with strict gun laws.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The Second Amendment makes it clear that the right to bear arms is for the purpose of having a handy military force, so I don't see why any military weapon should be banned.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
For once, you're correct! What a surprise: Look before you leap next time before giving others crap - Otherwise you'll blast yourself up the ass again as you have now (& by your OWN massive screwups).
APK
P.S.=> Keep puffing that pot - its done WONDERS for you! Too bad "eating your words" isn't satisfying your "munchies" pothead!
Suggestion - Change your diet - eating your words != GOOD nutrition (lol)...apk
Because the official forces of 'the government' aren't necessarily the greatest threat to civil society. Modern militaries and police forces drawn from the general populace make poor implements for terrorizing the populations they are drawn from outside of the existing legal/social framework. Death squads and their ilk are generally not formed military units, are not drawn from the populations they terrorize, and they're a hell of a lot less effective against even a moderately armed populace.
Given examples like Cambodia, Chile, and Guatemala, can you really say that the average British citizen will remain safer and more free than an average American because the populace has been all-but-completely disarmed?
That's not a bet I'd take over the next 10 years.
Like I said guns don't kill people; criminals and stupid people do. Clearly you are one of the latter. Knives don't kill? Baseball bats don't kill? You live in a fantasy world. Quit playing Minecraft and try GTA V. That's what some cities are like.
Do you have any proof that I have killed people? Because I never have, so I wonder how you are so sure that I have.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I don't deny that it happens, but I do deny that a majority of the officers are involved in that criminal behavior.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The constitution says one thing. Many states are trying to do something else ... The two positions can't be resolved
Of course they can. That's what the courts are for. Just recently, the Supreme Court ruled on exactly this topic, pointing out that some of the local restrictions on gun ownership (like DC's) were in fact counter-constitutional. There: matter resolved.
constitutional amendments are extremely difficult to get passed into law
First, they aren't a matter of law. Amendments to the constitution are a structural change to the nation's operating charter. The constitution's single most important purpose is to LIMIT the power of the government. Changing the charter in order to allow the government to take away liberties is indeed difficult, and damn well should be. Some people on the left are incensed by what some other people have to say (witness what's happening on college campuses, where speech is being censored like never before). Those groups would LOVE to strike down the First Amendment, so that they could use government power to determine what people can say. You should be very glad that it would be so difficult for them to be able to strip away the constitution's protections.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Tell that to the police who have been receiving MRAP's and other combat zone armored vehicles including some types of tanks. They got them in my city too.
The vehicle would be registered and taxed based on its weight and displacement
Dunno what it's like in other places but here in the UK (which the OP mentioned) vehicles over a certain age (think it's 40 years now, it used to be 25, then for a long time the date was frozen) are counted as "historic vehicles" and don't pay any road tax at all. Afaict most ex-military vehicles run by enthusiasts fall into that category.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
While I generally support your sentiment, a fairer metric would be noncombatant killed per deployment, no? I mean, there's a lot more cars than howitzers out there, right?
Yep, that is why I sold them once I got married and had kids...
You can go through a few thousand dollars of ammo in an afternoon without trying very hard...
If the water that Cali was using was valued correctly they would be very far in the hole.
Criminals are punished after the fact. Limits on who can own guns would need to be in place before the guns are used. So your comparison is flawed.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Well yeah, I think the cops should be the first to get the memo. Private ownership of "scary" combat vehicles is, for all practical purposes, a non-issue (regardless of the headline).
The militarization of our nation's police forces, on the other hand, is one of the great crises of our time.
Nothing posted to
It's also why our poorest state is wealthier than the UK on a per capita basis.
So the conclusion is that money doesn't buy happiness? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The wide majority of gun crime in the US is committed with guns that the person using them has no right to posses.
http://www.newscientist.com/ar...
Roof used a gun to shoot 9 black people in SC recently. He was under felony charges for drug crimes and was not legally able to own a gun. How will more gun control laws stop him from getting a gun?
It won't stop him specifically because that event has already happened. Unless you have a time machine we can only focus on future events.
The logic goes something like this:
1. Restrict Gun ownership
2. Less guns are bought
3. Less guns are made
4. Less guns are available on the street
5. Less guns being used
6. Less gun violence.
Some examples of this are every other country in the western world with reduced gun ownership and reduced gun crime compared to the US.
So yeah, gun restrictions won't stop the violence in one day, or even one year, but give it 20 years and you will see an impact to gun crime numbers, as already proven elsewhere.
Ban pools while you are at it
Pools in my country have restrictions such as proximity, fencing, water quality etc to ensure reasonable safety standards. Why should a weapon design to kill people not be subject to similar controls?
Read PP's supposition.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
This is not a position of advocacy for one side of the debate in particular, merely an observation for your reflection.
This debate concerning a citizen's right to weaponry is as polarizing as those of political and religious topics. People on both sides of the argument (with entrenched belief sets) are often unable to process new evidence of a contradictory sort.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Because they have a lot of guns, but no ammo. The majority of the guns are militia issued weapons. Most men between 20-30 years old are conscripted into the militia, and thus have a firearm in their house. Before 2007, limited ammunition was issued with these guns in sealed cans which were periodically inspected to make sure the seals were not broken. Since 2007, militia issued ammunition is no longer allowed to be stored with the guns.
However, ammunition can be bought privately at shooting ranges, however, such ammunition typically has to be used at the range.
Also, unlike the US, all guns have to be registered, and there are background checks for purchases of all weapons.
Finally, Switzerland's gun homicide rate isn't as low as you'd think. They have 3-10 times as many gun homicides as other nearby European countries (France, Germany, Netherlands, etc). They're just very low compared with the US.
I'm referring to the fact that we find (and refine, through legislation and court review) reasons to infringe on constitutionally protected rights all the time.
Remember though, not counting people who've been found to be crazy (who also can lose their liberty before actually committing a crime), the people who lose their rights to keep firearms because they're felons are being punished after the fact (same thing happens when they lose their right to vote). Likewise when a judge finds cause to issue a legally binding order that says he/she thinks a person's behavior is looking dangerous enough that they're not allowed to go certain places or see certain people. When you lose the right to purchase a firearm because a judge thinks you're acting like a dangerous jerk, that's still the judicial system reacting to your chosen actions.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
No.
Nukes were and are produced by government owned national labs*. Not by gunsmiths-turned-megacorps.
Nukes = nuclear bombs.
Nukes != yellowcake.
No. Private citizens or corporations cannot lawfully buy nukes. Or import them from Russia.
*Now operated by private contractors to whom the govt. pays a management fee: http://thebulletin.org/us-nucl...
The govt. still owns the labs.
Hey! Not all people are born fightened! The emphasis is on defence rather than on attack, or deterrence. The more defences are known to be there, the less chance of attacks occurring. Those things are obtained to commit crimes DESPITE regulations, then find people completely defenseless because of regulated prohibitions! But the article issue is TECHNOLOGY ADVANCEMENTS. I do not want my car to be only only armored, I want it to be scratchproof also, and even submersible if it can be! And in the chance I am really attacked I want to be able to defend myself well. So if my normal market thing can be enhanced, why shouldnt it be enhanced if it can be afforded? Because it cannot be expected all imaginable enhancementts will find enough market support to sustain the increase in the price of the thing for adding it. A lot of gov labour is to regulate these issues, ie, admit them and order them so there are no clashes. I do think what should be forbidden is limousines with dark windows, it is very easy to pick up anyone then do as they will inside, the worse I mean, leave a corpse and transport it and no one could watch what happeed. On the other hand a non armored limousine is kind of invitation to suffer a crime, sometimes. I am going a lot through these issues, I am prepared for such emergencies I truly do not expect them to happen, but I do feel warm when I finally substitute the thing for something new knowing that the emergency did not happen but I was prepared for it...
US society or Africa? Afroasia actually. Afroarabasia, in fact. It is what we produced, old History in a nutshell Aleph point.
Rich people don't commit crime, rob someone of $15 nonviolent only threatening violence without a weapon do 5 - 10 years, rob a few people of 15 million never see the inside of a cell.
Ever hear of a guy named Bernie Madhoff? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... , Jeff Levitt - http://www.washingtonpost.com/... , could go on and on and on. They get caught and do time. Often on the order of your $15 robbery guy 5-15 years.
Bernie will probably never see the outside again. That is as it should be. If he does, he'll almost certainly be dispatched quickly.
If you do steal, skip the country. Go someplace that doesn't have extradition. Beware that this could only be temporary and sometimes the US Government has worked out deals to get people. Bounty hunters have sometimes kidnapped people as well. Depends on who you screw.
There are some guys that have stolen, though they did it in a legitimate business transaction. Somehow those guys seem to get away with it. Company assets, pension funds, etc.
Then you move into high power criminals. We call them politicians. They can suck you dry fast and smile the entire time they're doing it. Especially the guy in power right now. He's sucking us dry good and people don't even realize it. Don't even care how high the debt is.
You've got to be kidding. The nuclear club is for countries. If you're not in it, the ones that are do whatever they can to keep you out. Citizens need not even apply.
Besides, you'd be frickin crazy to have a nuclear device. Terrorists want them and would do whatever it would take to take it from you. They're tough to even maintain if you have one, as well as dangerous. Not to mention a bitch to even make it. If you detonate one, where would you do it? They're just way to dangerous. Now if you had your own planet or something, go for it.
The US is too restrictive in some ways. We can have machine guns, cannons, etc however it's very expensive. You also have to give the government a license to come and inspect your properties whenever they want. No warrant is needed. I understand this goes all the way down to the local Sheriff.
You cannot own stuff that has an explosive ordnance, such as a high explosive round. Of course that's the ultimate - shoot something and it blows up. You have to put explosives in whatever it is your shooting to do that. That's another license.
On the other hand, I've shot a machine gun. A Thompson sub machine gun. It's way cool. I had a 15 shot clip in it, which when I went from 3 shot bursts to full auto, it emptied it very quickly. About 1.5 seconds I believe. I fully understand why they're so tough on them after shooting it. You feel way powerful with it. If you're a bit crazy, it'd be easy to wipe out a bunch of people quickly without even a second thought. It just seemed too easy. So I'm glad they restrict it. However I don't appreciate them not allowing any new machine guns to be made. They stopped that in the 1980s.
If you look at the Second amendment, we should be able to have whatever the military has. That was the point. Not that I ever expect we'd be able to do that.
People don't even know what is a right and what isn't. For example the 2nd amendment is a right. Abortion isn't a right, yet some people claim it is. I ask - ok, show me. They can't because it's not in there.
So, if you want to implement that, call a constitutional convention and get the Second Amendment modified or removed. Until that happens, gun restriction laws are unconstitutional.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I fully agree.
Which part of the constitution forbids restrictions? Some restrictions are already are already in place (ie you can't go pay cash for a mini-gun today and walk out of the store with it). Or is that restriction unconstitutional too?
Oh please great and mighty anonymous coward overlord, you have struck fear into my heart! Your constant and barely legible harassment of my comments has swayed my opinion! Yes! You have done the impossible! Who ever thought that chasing someone down to scream at them would have such a positive effect on their mindset? I have now converted all my hosts files to reflect your greatness! I bow down before your superior intellect! ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY APK. In reality though I am just sitting at my desk at work wondering why you don't have anything better to do than try and bully people into your demands. Have a nice day, dick mouth!
Stricter gun control regulation works in every single country....but not the US, because....?
Government run healthcare works in every single country....but not the US, because....?
Free/subsidized college works in every single country....but not the US, because....?
etc...
*every single country being all modern western nations.
You have a good point...
If we are willing to live in primitive conditions worse than our current prison population and if other governments give us free weapons to resist the u.s. government we could probably do the same in the mountainous and densely wooded areas of the country.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.