Invoking Orlando, Senate Republicans Set Up Vote To Expand FBI Spying (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set up a vote late on Monday to expand the FBI's authority to use a secretive surveillance order without a warrant to include email metadata and some browsing history information. The move, made via an amendment to a criminal justice appropriations bill, is an effort by Senate Republicans to respond to last week's mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub after a series of measures to restrict guns offered by both parties failed on Monday. Privacy advocates denounced the effort, saying it seeks to exploit a mass shooting in order to expand the government's digital spying powers. The amendment would broaden the FBI's authority to use so-called National Security Letters to include electronic communications transaction records such as time stamps of emails and the emails' senders and recipients. NSLs do not require a warrant and are almost always accompanied by a gag order preventing the service provider from sharing the request with a targeted user. The amendment filed Monday would also make permanent a provision of the USA Patriot Act that allows the intelligence community to conduct surveillance on "lone wolf" suspects who do not have confirmed ties to a foreign terrorist group. A vote is expected no later than Wednesday, McConnell's office said. Last week, FBI Director James Comey said he is "highly confident that [the Orlando shooter] was radicalized at least in part through the internet."

Comments

Fuck ALL those assholes!

[mrchaotica]

The Democrats want to take our guns (totalitarianism); the Republicans want to spy on us (also totalitarianism). Can't one goddamn politician react appropriately (by recognizing that embracing totalitarianism means the terrorists WIN), for once?!

Re:Fuck ALL those assholes!

[AntronArgaiv]

Hard to argue with that statement.

I am sick and tired of our elected representatives passing laws like this and the USA PATRIOT ACT, claiming they "make us safer".

It's easy to pass these, hard to repeal them. We as a country are going to be living with this erosion of our rights for years to come.

Re:Fuck ALL those assholes!

[AntronArgaiv]

Oh, and didn't the FBI investigate the Orlando shooter TWICE, and found nothing to justify further interest? So, how would passing this amendment have prevented Orlando?

Re:Fuck ALL those assholes!

[Opportunist]

Why do you think that the two flavors of The Party would be different from each other except for, well, artificial flavoring?

Re:Fuck ALL those assholes!

[Desler]

But...but...but... Terrists!!!!

Re:Fuck ALL those assholes!

[Fire_Wraith]

I's not necessarily fair to say that all Republicans are for more FBI/etc domestic spying - the Libertarian wing of the party certainly isn't. The leadership is though, and in fairness too, so are some Democrats. That said, the right wing does tend to be more sympathetic to law enforcement/authoritarian stuff that doesn't involve taking rich peoples' money - they're inclined to support the cops. The left wing has its nanny-state types too, but also tends to not fall immediately on the side of law enforcement.

As for the other side of things, I think it's a bit exaggerated. Not all Democrats are for a complete ban on guns (which would involve repealing the second amendment) - I'd hazard to say they're a minority, and certainly a minority among elected Democrats. Most of the push is for greater controls and restrictions, which shouldn't be unreasonable - and yet it is, apparently, even for minor ones. I'm a gun owner, and I like going to the range, but it seems ridiculous to me that there's more regulation on operating a vehicle than there is on operating a deadly weapon, or that if I want to go hunting, there's more paperwork involved in getting the approval to kill the animal(s), not buying the firearm to do it with.

What was really fascinating in this latest round of votes in the Senate, was that the Democrats tried to cross the streams, by suggesting that people on the Terrorism watch list be restricted from buying guns. The ACLU lobbied against this, because of the obscurity/undemocratic nature/etc of the watch lists (you don't know if you're on, they won't confirm, and it's near impossible to get removed from it). At the same time, everyone in the Senate pretty much wound up voting on party lines - which I suppose shows that gun control is a stronger issue than the rest of it, at least at the moment.

Re:Fuck ALL those assholes!

[Trailer Trash]

The Democrats want to take our guns (totalitarianism); the Republicans want to spy on us (also totalitarianism). Can't one goddamn politician react appropriately (by recognizing that embracing totalitarianism means the terrorists WIN), for once?!

Plenty do, such as Gary Johnson. They're derided as kooks, of course.

Re:Fuck ALL those assholes!

[Bob the Super Hamste]

That is what gets me in all of these cases. In almost every one the government really screwed the pooch. We were told by the Russians to be on the look out for the Boston bombers but we fucked that one up. The mastermind of the Paris attacks was featured as pig fucker of the month in Daesh's monthly magazine. The Orlando shooter was investigated by the FBI a few times and supposedly was reported by a gun shop owner for suspicious behavior attempting to buy ammo in bulk and body armor. So instead of the government doing their fucking job and actively investigating these people that really seem to need a closer look they instead seek to take away rights from everyone else.

Re:Fuck ALL those assholes!

[rock_climbing_guy]

"Never let a crisis go to waste".

-Rahm Emanuel

Re:Fuck ALL those assholes!

[AntronArgaiv]

I am sick and tired of our elected representatives passing laws like this and the USA PATRIOT ACT, claiming they "make us safer".

It's easy to pass these, hard to repeal them. We as a country are going to be living with this erosion of our rights for years to come.

The USA Patriot Act had provisions that had "sunset provisions." That is, they were to expire after a certain number of years, variously. In subsequent years, Congress has renewed most of them when they were about to go out-of-force.

You are right about "easy to pass; hard to repeal," but that isn't even the case for the USA Patriot Act. It's worse.

Oh, yeah. The people who passed it initially were smart enough to put the sunset provision in. Regardless of whether I think they should have passed it initially, the sunset provision was a very intelligent move. REMOVING it...not so much. I sometimes wonder if there shouldn't be an intelligence test for our elected representatives. Or, at least, a basic Civics class, with emphasis on governments and how they can, with the best of intentions, become Bad.

CSB: A friend of my daughter's works in the Sgt-at-Arms office on Capitol Hill. She has to explain, repeatedly, to Senators and Representatives, why her office can't arrest the President (for alleged crimes against America, but really, because he's black and they don't like him). Seriously.

Re:Fuck ALL those assholes!

[mrchaotica]

Democrats are happy with long guns, guns that meet definitions of personal defense

The Second Amendment does not affirm our right to own guns for "personal defense;" it affirms our right to own guns for defense against tyranny. The "assault rifles" the Democrats tried to ban yesterday are exactly the most important kind to keep privately owned!

Re:Fuck ALL those assholes!

[T.E.D.]

The Democrats want to take our guns (totalitarianism); the Republicans want to spy on us (also totalitarianism).

The difference is that the Republicans actually pass things like that, while the Democrats only "take away guns" in the imaginations of Republicans.

The last significant gun control legislation was passed more than 2 decades ago, didn't take away a single gun from anyone who legally owned one prior to the law passing, was supported by Ronald Regan, and expired 10 years ago.

So given the two choices, I'd suggest you'd be far better served by opposing the party that actually has a proven track record of proposing and passing the kind of legislation you are worried about, and don't bother worrying about the other until they actually manage to accomplish the bad thing you are worried about at least once.

Re:Fuck ALL those assholes!

[schnell]

The Second Amendment does not affirm our right to own guns for "personal defense;" it affirms our right to own guns for defense against tyranny.

Read the Second Amendment again and spot the word "tyranny" for me. Don't find it? Because the SA says that "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." It's easy to ignore the first half of the sentence and just pay attention to the second, but that's disingenuous.

Furthermore, you have to take it in the context of the times in which it was written. The United States at this point had no standing army. (Historical aside: the US was very averse to keeping a standing army until after World War II. On the eve of the Civil War, the whole strength of the US Army was 15,000 men; just before World War II, in 1940, the US Army's size was smaller than that of Belgium.) Much of this aversion was due to the fact that it was Britain's desire to keep a standing professional army in the colonies that necessitated the Intolerable Acts which taxed the colonists to pay for said army.

At any rate, the presumption of the framers in 1791 would likely have been that the US needed to call on a citizen militia if it was invaded (or if it had to put down internal rebellions, such as the Whiskey Rebellion or Shays' Rebellion). Therefore, the citizens of the US should be prepared to take up arms as needed under the direction of the government (i.e. a well regulated militia), not against it. I know it's easy to have a romantic view of the Founding Fathers that they somehow encoded into the Constitution the seeds of the government's demise if it became too "tyrannical," but it's just not there in the text of the Second Amendment.

Personally, I like guns. I don't think there's anything wrong with responsible gun ownership. But please don't try to use the Second Amendment as a source for saying Americans should be armed and prepared to fight their own government with military-grade firearms.

Re:Fuck ALL those assholes!

[mrchaotica]

It's easy to ignore the first half of the sentence and just pay attention to the second, but that's disingenuous.

What's disingenuous is failing to acknowledge that in the 16th Century, "well-regulated" was synonymous with "well-trained." If you want to "regulate" guns by, for example, instituting marksmanship training as part of the public school curriculum, that'd be fine with me!

Furthermore, you have to take it in the context of the times in which it was written.

The context of the times was that the Second Amendment was written by a bunch of terrorists* who had just finished violently overthrowing their government.

(* If the revolution were happening today, that's certainly the term King George would be throwing around -- whether it accurately described the revolutionaries' tactics or not.)

I know it's easy to have a romantic view of the Founding Fathers that they somehow encoded into the Constitution the seeds of the government's demise if it became too "tyrannical," but it's just not there in the text of the Second Amendment.

The Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, is a remarkably terse document (as opposed to some of the later Amendments, which became more verbose). Therefore, I certainly agree with you that it must be understood in context with the Federalist Papers and other writings of the Framers! But from that context, it is abundantly clear that they envisioned the militia as a check against the power of the State (and against the threat to freedom posed by a professional standing army in particular).

Jefferson has been quoted to death, so I'll cite others instead. Here's Washington's thought on the subject:

"At a time, when our lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American freedom, it seems highly necessary that something should be done to avert the stroke, and maintain the liberty, which we have derived from our ancestors. But the manner of doing it, to answer the purpose effectually, is the point in question. That no man should scruple, or hesitate a moment, to use arms in defence of so valuable a blessing, on which all the good and evil of life depends, is clearly my opinion."

If that's not advocating for the use of arms as a defense against (your own) tyrannical government, what is it?

Patrick Henry is even more explicit:

"O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone; and you have no longer an aristocratical, no longer a democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all?"

And here's Alexander Hamilton, writing in Federalist #28:

"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government..."

Elbridge Gerry is a relatively obscure figure, but he didn't mince words:

"What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."

Finally, here's George Mason, who helped write the Second Amendment itself:

"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."

I could keep going, but that should be more than enough evidence to prove my point to all but the densest (or most disingenuous) debater.

Re:Fuck ALL those assholes!

[hairyfeet]

Why are you for a Soviet system that was designed to ignore reality if that reality didn't match political goals? You DO know that is the origin of political correctness, yes? It was a phrase that was come up with by the Marxists to give a name to Stalinists warping reality to fit with the whims of their dear leader that day.

Just remember political correctness equals lie because if it wasn't a lie? It wouldn't be politically correct, it would just be correct.

So...

[robcfg]

If you are the silent type of guy and just go grab your gun and shoot people, how would all this surveillance help?

Orlando Shooter was a rent-a-cop

[SkyLeach]

CNN article: http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/1...

For what it's worth, this has been down-played in media (haven't seen it blasting twitter and stuff much)

So basically NONE OF THE PROPOSALS would have prevented him from getting a gun.

As a voter, I'm sick of intelligent and informed voters being sidelined by media and legal cowboy politicians.

Re:Orlando Shooter was a rent-a-cop

[Anonymous Coward]

CNN article: http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/1...

For what it's worth, this has been down-played in media (haven't seen it blasting twitter and stuff much)

So basically NONE OF THE PROPOSALS would have prevented him from getting a gun.

As a voter, I'm sick of intelligent and informed voters being sidelined by media and legal cowboy politicians.

He was denied a sale at a gun shop who also reported him to the FBI as they had a really bad feeling about the guy, they felt really uncomfortable with some of the questions he was asking and his general behavior. It wasn't the first time he had been report either but look what good that ended up doing.

And yet...

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

despite ALL the evidence gathered prior to the shooting, no one (gov't agency-wise) did anything.
It's almost like they knew, but waited, so they could use it as an excuse to get more power... ...things that make you go "hmmmmm"

Re:And yet...

[Desler]

Huh? How did they do nothing? The FBI checked him out multiple times but had no actionable cause.

Unless you want the FBI more flagrantly violating civil liverties there was nothing they can do. And these expanded powers will do fuck all either.

Re: And yet...

[Opportunist]

No, we shouldn't. But then again, what should that increase in domestic spying and privacy elimination achieve? What information about this guy could have been gained by ANY additional privacy invasion that would have led to a different outcome?

FBI interviewed suspect twice

[rmdingler]

It's the noise, dummy...You cannot see the intelligence for all the noise.

Counting the 50+ deaths in Orlando as the act of an Islamic terrorist, which is at least debatable, there have been fewer than 100 deaths in the US since 2001.

This is not exactly the sort of threat that sane men forfeit their liberty for.

Re:FBI interviewed suspect twice

[Sir Holo]

It's the noise, dummy...You cannot see the intelligence for all the noise.

Counting the 50+ deaths in Orlando as the act of an Islamic terrorist, which is at least debatable, there have been fewer than 100 deaths in the US since 2001.

This is not exactly the sort of threat that sane men forfeit their liberty for.

Wasn't Timothy McVeigh at least a self-proclaimed Christian? Why is he not referred to as a "Christian Terrorist"?

Pick up the phone

[Lawrence_Bird]

And call his office and call your own congress critters instead of just spouting off here.

Re:email..

[cbiltcliffe]

dear lawmakers. count to 10 before doing something really stupid after a major event.

It won't do any good, because that's exactly what they'll do: count to 10, then do something stupid.

Re:expanded

[Shortguy881]

Did I miss the article on Democrats expanding gun control laws? We have both parties successfully chipping away at each side. Soon there will be nothing left.

I suppose if you can't ban assault rifles

[rsilvergun]

Like Australia did then this is the next best thing. I don't think mental health services would have helped the shooter. It's been suggested he was a repressed homosexual taking it out on the night club attendees. That was likely due to his religious upbringing so It'd be hard to insert mental health services into that without at least the appearance of attacking his religion. America is big on hard-line religion. Basically take gun control and the prospect of mellowing out religion away and I can't think of any other tools. And when you're only tool's a hammer...

Re:expanded

[Opportunist]

If I only have the choice to hand over my gun or my privacy, the choice is pretty easy.

And please, don't gimme that "but the gun can defend your privacy" bullshit. My assault rifle against the US army. Yeah. Sure. The only reason you still have your guns is that they know pretty well that it's not even offering the pretense of you being able to defend against your government's whims.

Re:No guns to fags

[Opportunist]

The guy was also a religious nutjobs. Can we disarm all religious nutjobs as well?

Legislation Can't Fix Incompetence

[Xyrus]

This should be obvious, but I guess politicians need to be seen doing something, and apparently reasonable gun control in a country that makes up a 1/3 of violent gun crimes just isn't going to fly.

The guy was nuts. He had a documented history of being nuts. His friends thought he was nuts. His family thought he was nuts. And yet, he could still get plenty of ammo and guns. The problem wasn't that there wasn't enough surveillance. The problem is that no one was paying attention to the information that was ALREADY AVAILABLE.

"Oh, I see you have a history of being bat shit insane. Here, let me get you a special discount on our Sandy Hook signature line of guns."

Re:Legislation Can't Fix Incompetence

[Ken D]

...so, all this is useless since the FBI can't do anything until the shooter does something. Which this guy didn't do until last week. At which point it was too late.

If having your friends and family report you to the FBI isn't suspicious enough then the FBI should just stop already. These guys don't break the law until they're ready to go.

Re:Legislation Can't Fix Incompetence

[CrimsonAvenger]

So, you favour arresting people if their ex- calls the FBI? Interesting theory of Due Process you have.

Do note that what we're complaining about in this thread is a Bill proposing to allow the FBI to get around Due Process. Which means that suggesting alternate ways for them to get around Due Process probably won't be received all that well.

And who proposed this abomination ?

[Salgak1]

" Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican and sponsor of the amendment"

Why am I not surprised. McCain never saw a tyrannical action he couldn't embrace. . .

Re:What happened to small government?

[Holi]

Yet when they get in power, the idea of small government seems to disappear, that probably has something to do with why they can never stay in power.

Because of course...

[damn_registrars]

We can't possibly do anything to prevent (or even slow down) people from getting guns, because reasons. So instead we'll expand domestic spying, which we all know works so well and never has any negative consequences. That's the ticket, right there.

Re:Because of course...

[Jason Levine]

And they already flagged him twice, interviewed him, got additional reports on him.... But if only there was MORE domestic spying, they would have actually stopped him. They swear it. Don't pay any attention to whether or not their fingers are crossed behind their back - that information is classified.

This is called the Shock Doctrine

[turp182]

There's a good book of the same title by Naomi Klein.

It's a simple concept,. and the summary summarizes it for this situation: exploit a mass shooting in order to expand the government's digital spying powers.

Here's what we know:
1. Born in the US, thus a US citizen (child of immigrants, but most all of us are)
2. Had two wives (and one divorce) and a small child
3. Worked in security (where they carry guns)
4. Was investigated twice by the FBI (someone he attended religious things with had reported him)
5. Was legally able to purchase firearms

I'm sorry government of the United States, you weren't going to stop this guy. Except, he had been investigated and vetted as not a threat. THAT IS WHERE THE SYSTEM FAILED!

Could the system have been successful? We will probably never know. But:
* Him researching guns wouldn't have raised any eyes (it shouldn't have anyway).
* is father was rather wordy and seemed supportive of some "bad" groups (him searching for such things could have easily been painted as "know thy enemy" or simple curiosity).

He's basically Timothy McVeigh but against the gay community rather than the Federal government (and also no where near as deadly as Timothy).

Re:This is called the Shock Doctrine

[dskoll]

So, laws don't generally deter criminals?

Then why have drug laws? They don't work.

Why have laws against theft? Criminals aren't gonna obey them.

Why have laws against murder? It won't generally deter criminals.

Do you see how utterly fucking ridiculous those statements are? And yet the gun lobby parrots them in regards to gun control in all seriousness and with a straight face.

Re:This is called the Shock Doctrine

[dave420]

But gun laws do work. It's not as if this is an untried experiment - there are many countries with strict gun laws, and they reap the benefits of not having stuff like this happen every other week. There are next to no mass shootings, people don't need guns for self defence (as those they need to defend themselves against are incredibly likely to not be armed with a gun), the police aren't on edge because every traffic stop or pat down might end up in a shoot-out, and so on and so on.

"He couldn't be stopped because he wasn't doing anything criminal, right up until the moment he did." is the folly of not having gun laws. If strict gun laws were in place he would have broken the law the very second he attempted to gain his weapon, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Re:This is called the Shock Doctrine

[LetterRip]

Are you seriously suggesting that if we repealed drug laws, use of dangerous drugs like crack and heroin would not increase?

I'm not the person you were asking, but yes, based on the experience of other nations - that is exactly what happens. The dangerous drug usage goes down because people get help for their addiction without risking jail. Also people switch to less serious drugs.

Re:expanded

[Shortguy881]

It's not a choice. We are losing on both fronts.

Re:expanded

[damn_registrars]

Did I miss the article on Democrats expanding gun control laws?

There is enough stupid going around that there is no need to make up new stupid to supplement what is already there.

The Democrats proposed 4 bills in the senate fully knowing that they would not go anywhere due to GOP opposition in both the house and senate. However, if you look at what the bills proposed, there really wasn't much "control" in them. One was universal background checks, which is a measure that over 80% of Americans - and a majority of gun owners - support. Another was to prevent purchases by people on the FBI no fly list, which also has broad support.

Nowhere was there a bill proposing to take away an existing gun from an owner who is legally entitled to have a gun. Nowhere was there a bill that would restrict sale of guns between legal owners. Nowhere was there a bill that would make guns or ammo more expensive or difficult to obtain for legal purchasers.

If you don't like what was proposed, that's fine. At least be honest about it, rather than making up shit and pretending that the proposals contained things they did not.

Re:expanded

[Shortguy881]

I don't know what you know about concealed carry, so I'll note this: it is illegal in Florida to carry in an establishment whose liquor sales qualify it as a bar. That is an admirable law and I don't disagree with the idea. My point is, no one at the night club could have help. None of them could have been armed.

More importantly, carrying a gun on my person is so that I am not reliant on the police to solve my problems. I find myself in a bad situation where deadly force is required, I'd rather have my gun than wait on the police to come and save me.

Re:expanded

[Dan East]

My assault rifle against the US army.

Federal law forbids the use of the military for domestic purpose. If the US army is fighting citizens on US soil then we have far, far greater problems than privacy.

Why don't they just

[jenningsthecat]

piss on the Constitution and wipe their dirty jackboots with the Stars and Stripes? I'm a Canadian so to a certain extent I don't have a horse in the race; but even so, this really bothers me, if for no other reason than the US government's history of getting its own laws and practices and Peeping Tom-ness implemented extraterritorially. If I actually lived in the States, I'd be ready to chew battleships and spit out nails over this latest attempt to circumvent due process.

Re:expanded

[Anonymous Coward]

Did I miss the article on Democrats expanding gun control laws?

There is enough stupid going around that there is no need to make up new stupid to supplement what is already there.

The Democrats proposed 4 bills in the senate fully knowing that they would not go anywhere due to GOP opposition in both the house and senate. However, if you look at what the bills proposed, there really wasn't much "control" in them. One was universal background checks, which is a measure that over 80% of Americans - and a majority of gun owners - support. Another was to prevent purchases by people on the FBI no fly list, which also has broad support.

...

Glad to see you love using secret lists with no due process for controlling the population.

Re:expanded

[tripleevenfall]

Keeping and bearing arms is a right. They aren't "for" any one purpose. You don't need a reason. That's what a right is.

Re:Good

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Well since G. W. Bush said they hate us because of our freedoms our government has been working tirelessly to make us safer by removing those freedoms that cause terrorists to hate us and thus lessening the chance of another attack. If we don't have any freedoms they won't hate us any more right.

Re:expanded

[danbert8]

Depends on who the rebels are. It doesn't matter how much the budget is if the soliders refuse to fight their own citizens.

Re:expanded

[Kierthos]

I have to say, I'm not a gun nut by any possible stretch of the imagination, and I'm glad the bill that would restrict firearms purchases for people on the no-fly list got blocked.

It would have been declared unconstitutional so fast, it wouldn't even be funny. Mind you, the fact that a bill is clearly unconstitutional on it's face has never really stopped a fair number of Congresscritters (or state legislators) from trying to pass bills.

Gun control absolutely, positively does work

[dskoll]

Second reply: Yes, a determined killer will kill. But easy access to guns makes it much more likely that an unhinged person will take down a whole bunch of others. It's exceedingly unlikely that a guy with a glass bottle or a knife would kill 49 people before being stopped.

Look at Australia's experience with gun control. In the 18 years prior to 1996, they had 13 mass shootings (defined as 4 or more victims.) Since 1996 when they brought in draconian gun laws, they have had zero mass shootings. Zero.

Not only have mass shootings been drastically reduced, but the firearm homicide rate fell by 59 percent and the firearm suicide rate by 65 percent without a parallel increase in non-firearm homicides and suicides. That's because a lot of homicides and suicides are not planned, but occur in the heat of the moment, and are much likely to take place if there's easy access to deadly weapons. Here's the reference (PDF).

Where I do agree, though, is that gun control probably will not work in the US. You have way too many guns in circulation, and you're poisoned by 200+ years of the Second Amendment. Fixing that is well-nigh impossible, but just ignoring the problem is not going to help.

Re:Gun control absolutely, positively does work

[dskoll]

You went from "glass bottle or knife" to "firebomb". Interesting.

How many people were killed in the United States by guns last year? And how many by firebombs?

The answer is about 13,000 people by firearms in 2015. I couldn't even find statistics for bombing attacks, but I bet it was fewer than 100.

Also, easy access to deadly weapons greatly increases the chances of spur-of-the-moment attacks or suicides, exactly as reported in that Australian study.

Re:expanded

[Mass Overkiller]

The military oath specifically states to defend the Constitution against enemies foreign or domestic. Also, the Constitution specifically allows the people to dissolve the government and setup a new one if the government doesn't meet the needs of the people.

Federal Law my ass

[Lead Butthead]

Hint: the men guarding the Japanese internment camps containing both naturalized and natural born citizens during WW2 are not civilians.
The government obeys law when it's convenient.

Re: Federal Law my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true but in the case of Washington declaring war on the general population you may find it interesting to know that in officers training you are taught about"illegal orders" and how to counter them. The conflict you all have been discussing won't be like the Civil War where a few folks decide to leave and take half the country with them. More likely it will be the majority of the country standing up to stop the corporations and our officers corps will not fire on American citizens for the sake of Microsoft or Shell.

Re:expanded

[cayenne8]

Keeping and bearing arms is a right. They aren't "for" any one purpose. You don't need a reason. That's what a right is.

So is (or should be) privacy....

Remember, the US Constitution does not "grant" rights....its purpose is to enumerate the supposedly LIMITED powers and responsibilities of the Federal Govt.

The bill of rights is an odd duck...in that it does actually list some rights...there was a lot of argument on that at the time, as that the founding fathers didn't want there to be the misconception that it granted rights.

But I would argue that privacy, is a right, not for any one purpose and that for privacy, you also "don't need a reason"....

Re:expanded

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

What? You mean politicians are trying to pass/block laws that wouldn't really affect anything? Merely for soundbites? DURING AN ELECTION YEAR?

Lol, shocking, isn't it? But don't worry, the NEXT set of laws we come up with, they'll really work, fer sure, we promise!

Re:expanded

[bobbied]

How much of your guns helped out in Orlando?

Now that's a question we cannot answer because the bar was a "gun free zone" legally. Meaning that law abiding folks who enter the establishment where not able to bring their weapons along. Concealed Carry Permits in FL do not allow you to carry in establishments where adult drinks are sold. The only one with a gun inside was the shooter until the police entered the building a couple of hours later.

Now I'm not saying that having a bunch of drinking folks carrying guns is a good idea, but I am saying that a couple of armed individuals inside the club would have a good chance of disrupting the carnage and lowering the death toll. However, we will never know the answer to all these "what if" questions.

But we DO know that putting guns into law abiding hands LOWERS violent crime rates (such as shootings) not the other way around. The statistics don't lie, and they tell a totally different story than what you think, especially if you tend to be on the left side politically. We also know that mass shooters seek out gun free zones to ply their trade. According to his diary, Adam Landza passed up shooting up the Denver airport and instead decided on a movie theatre which explicitly prohibited guns because he understood it was unlikely he'd encounter armed resistance and could kill more people.

So, let's be honest, you need to disarm the bad guys, not the good guys. Suggest laws that do that for a change and I'll bet you find there is a lot of support for your suggestions... However, this "assault weapon" ban garbage or the attack on the AR-15 in particular is a non-starter as is most of the "gun control" legislation coming from the lefties. But I'm beginning to think that this is really about political posturing and not really about doing anything, it's about blaming the other side for saying "no" to them on a topic that garners them emotional support from the sob stories, and not anything else...

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[dave420]

Those wars were not won or lost by fat accountant weekend warriors who've watched too much Red Dawn, lacking logistical support, training, and anything approaching a chain of command. The conflicts you named did use guns, true, but the real danger faced by those fighting were explosives - either IEDs, mortars, artillery, dropped/shot from aircraft, etc. Guns were used, but they were not even close to being the decisive weapon.

Ask someone who came back from Iraq or Afghanistan what their biggest fear was - rifles or IEDs?

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[dave420]

The security had guns, but clearly one can't start shooting into a crowd and hope to only hit the perpetrator. Throw some more guns into the mix and you'd end up with people trying to be the "good guy with a gun" they hear so much about, and shooting the shit out of each other every time a car backfired or a champagne cork popped.

If you live in a place where you feel you need to carry a gun, it's too late for you. That's not civilization, it's pathetic.

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[dave420]

There was an armed individual in the club - Officer Adam Gruler, member of OPD since 2001. He was armed, in uniform, and completely incapable of reacting, as you can't really shoot into a crowd of people and expect to only hit the assailant.

You might want to change your argument, as the facts seem to disagree with your little dangerous fantasy.

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[Sibko]

Background checks are already done. Disallowing people on the FBI no-fly list allows the government to arbitrarily ban people from purchasing guns without due process in court and is massively open to abuse.

And while none of it would have directly outlawed firearms - that's because the democrats know they cannot get away with total and complete bans. Instead they try to chip away, bit by bit, until there are so many regulations and laws that you have to be rich or politically connected to own a firearm; an effective ban on 99% of us plebians.

The ultimate goal isn't making America more safe, either. It's about banning guns entirely. That has always been the end-goal of all the legislation the left continues to try and pass. Gun owners wised up years ago - when they see a liberal saying there needs to be a compromise what they see and hear is a liar who will make absolutely no compromise on his end, while demanding compromise on the other.

And very importantly, the statistical data does not actually back up the leftist viewpoint that firearms cause crime, violent crime, suicide, or homicide. In fact, the only "statistics" they're ever able to drum up are vague claims of "you're more likely to die from a firearm if you own a firearm!" and "more firearms means more firearm deaths!". They even just outright lie about mass shooting statistics.

Even better, the boogeyman of the anti-gun lobby: The deadly "assault weapons", are used in such a vanishingly small number of homicides that more people are murdered each year in the US from blunt weapons or fists.

Conservatives, Libertarians, and anyone else who values the second amendment and the right to self defense are quite frankly sick of the duplicity and hypocrisy surrounding this shit.

It was never about safety; it has always been about control.

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[Richard_at_work]

Federal law, specifically the Posse Comitatus Act, restricts the use of the United States Army and the United States Air Force in enforcing US Federal Government domestic policy in the US - it does not cover the US Navy, nor the US Marine Corp, and it does not apply to the National Guard (Army or Air) when invited to act in a law enforcement capacity by a state governor.

The Insurrection Act can be used to deploy US military capability within US borders against US citizens without violating the Posse Comitatus Act.

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[JackieBrown]

He did react. Unfortunately, since he was the only one there armed, all the gunman had to do was go on the other side of the crowd.

On June 12, 2016, just after 2 a.m., an Orlando Police Officer working extra duty at the Pulse Nightclub, located at 1912 S. Orange Ave., responded to shots fired. Our officer engaged in a gun battle with that suspect and the suspect went deeper into the club where more shots were fired. The incident then turned into a hostage situation.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Look up how often a police officer in the US will ever be shot at and how often they'll ever have to draw their weapon on duty over the course of their careers. The vast majority will never experience either. Now of course there are some exceptions to this, for example, certain parts of Chicago, but for the vast majority of the US, gun violence is actually incredibly rare. I know that doesn't jive well with your view of things, but sometimes reality doesn't match your opinion. Where I live there was a memorial for officers fallen in duty. The number one cause, car accident. Number two, heart attack. In fact an officer was killed on duty by a shooter about 3 years ago, it was the first one in 25 years for the region. That's how frequent police shootings are in most of the US. Now of course you have the gang hot spots where it's much more frequent, but those are not representative of the whole.

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[TimMD909]

Bear arms? Pfft. In Russia, you have right to whole bear.

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[Shadow IT Ninja]

That's basically how the Soviet Union fell. Communist hard liners sent the military to go after Boris Yeltsin but he gave a speech which turned the tanks around to go arrest the Communists.

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[Dread_ed]

With proper planning and execution, a popularly supported armed rebellion against an overreaching government in the US would only last a few moments.

Before hostilities commenced all that would need to be related to those in power is that the American people have ensured their protection by and of their government by protecting those most vulnerable to counterattack by violent factions of disaffected Americans. Namely, the relatives, friends, and close associates of every elected official. They would be taken into protective custody. In addition, all of the families, friends, and close associates of military officials, colonel and above, would also been placed in protective custody.

Hacking USAA and disclosing the names and addresses of all of those military personnel and their extended families would be a powerful deterrent to any rank and file military personnel taking up weapons against the population. I'm sure Eichmann didn't have his family and property at stake when he was "just following orders." It would streamline the decision tree for our armed forces personnel I am sure.

The lesson, if you are in our military and will attack the US people, the US people will make sure you have nothing and no one to come home to. If you are in political power and are ordering attacks on the US people, the US people will make sure your family are the first up against the wall. Not a hard decision at that point as to whether or not violence will ensue.

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[Ogive17]

To too many people in the US, it seems like all they care about (or know about) is the 2nd amendment. Just a quick look at the Bill of Rights (original 10 amendments)

Amendment 1 is pretty much toast.
3 is not really applicable any more.
4 is a joke now.
5, gone.
6, nope.
7 is very dated, not really applicable.
8 is up for interpretation
9 is a joke
10 is a blanket statement.

http://uspolitics.about.com/od/usgovernment/a/bill_of_rights.htm

But dammit, let us keep our 2nd amendment!

I'm going to start telling the gun lovers they should have used their firearms to protect the rest of our rights.

2nd

[fyngyrz]

No, there is one, and only one, reason for that right. It's right there in that part of the sentence that gun advocates often leave out.

There's only one reason enumerated in the 2nd amendment, true enough.

However, if you are seriously going to argue that in 1790, the authors of the constitution were not considering hunting and self-defense as valid uses of arms... I'm afraid you've simply talked yourself out of any chance of being taken seriously.

Now about rights: Rights pre-exist the constitution. The constitution doesn't "give you" that right. What the constitution does is forbids the government from infringing on that right. Here, let's read it:

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.

See how that's written? It's an instruction to government. It's not an "award of a right." It was thoroughly understood that you had that right already. All the 2nd amendment does is tell the government they couldn't interfere with it.

If they do want to interfere with it, the only legitimate path offered by the constitution is found in article five, where the authorized mechanism to change the constitution itself is described.

Instead, the government is arbitrarily making laws that infringe. They have made many laws about specific arms you are forbidden to keep and carry. This is exactly the wrong (and unauthorized) way to go about solving problems. Why? Because if they can look at the 2nd amendment and say "nah, we're just going to do it the way we want to and to heck with that part", then this sets the stage for them to do it with the other amendments, and for that matter, parts of the constitution outside of the amendments.

And so it has played out. This precise kind of "nah, we'll just do what we want" behavior on the part of both the legislature and the judiciary has led to the de facto inversion of the commerce clause; search and seizure without warrant, probable cause, or specifics as to what is being searched for and what is to be seized; blatantly ex post facto laws that increase punishment after sentencing; government favoritism of specific religions; government taking of property for commercial purposes; government taking of property without warrant or due process; restriction of peaceful assembly; infringement on the right to keep and carry arms; compulsion to witness against one's self; the arrogation of rights that clearly belong to the states; and more.

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[aybiss]

"So, let's be honest, you need to disarm the bad guys, not the good guys."

But you don't. You don't disarm the bad guys. You continue to make it trivially easy for them to get weapons that go way beyond personal protection.

"Suggest laws that do that for a change and I'll bet you find there is a lot of support for your suggestions."

Like the one where you prevent someone who's a certified nut-job buying a military grade weapon and walking down the street with it unhindered?