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C-SPAN Uses Periscope and Facebook Live To Broadcast The House Sit-In (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Washington Post: C-SPAN has made history for resorting to Periscope to live stream a sit-in on the House floor. C-SPAN spokesman Howard Mortman said: "This is the first time we've ever shown video from the House floor picked up by a Periscope account." C-SPAN had to rely on Periscope for a direct feed to House proceedings because these proceedings aren't exactly official. The Washington Post reports: "Earlier today, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) led a sit-in on the House floor to push for action on gun control, following the failure of four gun measures earlier this week in the Senate. According to an official at the House Recording Studio, the cameras that C-SPAN commonly uses to broadcast House business are 'in recess subject to the call of the chair.' No approved video feed, no problem: C-SPAN has been piping in the Periscope feed from Rep. Scott Peters, a California Democrat." The feed hasn't been as reliable as C-SPAN's official House-proceedings feed. "Well, the Periscope video froze up again," said a C-SPAN anchor. And a bit later: "We're still having some issues with that video feed." At around 3:30 p.m., C-SPAN switched to a Facebook feed where viewers could hear and watch Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) rip the "cowards who run this chamber" for failing to turn on the microphones.
I wonder how many Slashdotters are prepared to fight to the death to keep their browsing History concealed from the FBI, but are more than willing have their 2nd Amendment Rights abrogated by using a list which has no Due Process to be either listed or removed?
"Tell me again how your country is a free and democratic nation."
How about how so-called "civil rights leaders" are staging a sit-in with the goal of taking away civil rights?
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Nothing is proceeding. A minority faction of the minority party (Democrats) decided they didn't like the compromise bill, so they shut down the House entirely.
The bipartisan bill that the speaker planned to take to vote would prevent the ~10,00 citizens** and 90,000 foreigners on the terrorism "no-fly"* list from buying firearms without approval, and allow them to appeal the denial in court.
Rather than accomplish SOMETHING that's maybe somewhat reasonable, these 60 or so Democrats decided to shut down Congress until they get their way and ban scary looking guns.
* The "no-fly" list doesn't stop people from flying. It means they can't fly into or out of the country.
** The US has about 300 million citizens, meaning that on in 30,000 is on the list.
Not watered down. At least not if you're in favor of due process. If you're in favor of the government making a no-fly list; able to put anybody on it at their discretion, keep this list hidden, not allow citizens to review their case; and remove liberties from individuals based on being on said list then you're in favor of tyranny.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Take away the civil rights of terrorists and criminals?
...and everyone else, given that the list they're planning to use (the "no fly" list) has no due process, no accountability, no means of exoneration if innocent, and the people on said list likely don't even know they're on it unless/until they try to board an airplane.
But, you know, they must all be criminals and terrorists.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
So someone gets annoyed with you.
They call the police saying you're keeping a bunch of little girls locked up and he's heard them screaming.
SWAT gets called.
You get instantly labelled a terrorist.
SWAT barges in, shoots you dead, and face no accountability because you were a terrorist with no civil rights. Says so right here.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
"Take away the civil rights of terrorists and criminals?"
What are you babbling about? People who have been proven to be either are already prohibited. The Dems want to be able to prohibit people by fiat, people on some secret lists with no defined way to get on or off, and with no due process protections.
There was a vote a couple of days ago which would delay purchases, giving the government a chance to prevent them if they could prove anything of substance using due process. The Dems voted against it.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The constitution does not grant any rights to the people, the people already had them.
While I agree that the NRA and company are taking it too far, there is in fact no such determination that the well-regulated militia is the National Guard.
And more importantly, there is no determination that the right to keep and bear arms is directly associated with the well-regulated militia clause.
"U.S. Supreme Court (1997): In Miller, we determined that the Second Amendment did not guarantee a citizen’s right to possess a sawed off shotgun because that weapon had not been shown to be "ordinary military equipment" that could "contribute to the common defense." Id., at 178. The Court did not, however, attempt to define, or otherwise construe, the substantive right protected by the Second Amendment."
"U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (2007): The Amendment does not protect “the right of militiamen to keep and bear arms,” but rather “the right of the people.” The operative clause, properly read, protects the ownership and use of weaponry beyond that needed to preserve the state militias."
So bearing arms is actually nothing at all about the militia.
Don't get me wrong, I don't oppose common sense gun regulation, like background checks and safety training.
On the other hand, I am forced to agree that the current call for cancelling the rights of people on something like a watch list, is almost certainly unconstitutional. The watch lists are for surveillance and removing the right to keep and bear arms cannot be done by regular legislation, particularly if based on a list has just almost zero due process involved.
While again, I agree that the NRA is going too far, that still does not make it permissible to undermine those constitutional rights of those who are not given a proper trial.
"There is nothing unconstitutional about reasonable gun regulation."
Just as there is nothing unconstitutional about reasonable press restrictions. Congress could outlaw all electronic media (radio, TV, Internet), photocopiers, high speed presses, etc., because none of that existed at the time the Constitution was written. They could not have foreseen these new powerful forms of speech. Only the government should have access to such technology.
Likewise, they could reasonably require that all news be written by licensed journalists, and subject to government review and a waiting period prior to publication. They could also set other reasonable terms, like limiting newspapers and magazines to a capacity of 10 pages. I'd also like to see them outlaw metallic inks and perfumed inserts.
Of course, none of this would violate anyone's free speech rights, since they would still be able to whisper to those around them.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Not an NRA apologist or anything, but perhaps the NRA is pushing it as far as they do because they're going against groups like Brady and Everytown and others like that which do not want "common sense" laws but an effective end of the 2A?
Actually, the National Guard is part of the militia. It is, however, not the entire militia; the rest of the militia is made up of the rest of us.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
The founders of this nation explicitly wrote in their other writings that the militia was every able-bodied adult male who was not a conscientious objector (at that time, this exception generally applied to a very small number of Christian ministers). They also explicitly intended that those American militia men (remember the basic definition - most adult men) would have world-class combat weapons. The American long rifles of the day were superior to the arms of the average soldier of the then-best-in-the-world British army.
Out founders allowed private citizens to own field artillery pieces and naval cannons in addition to as many hand guns, long guns, knives, swords, etc (and unlimited ammunition and explosives) as they wanted. Their presumption was that every citizen had the rights to ANY weapons of ANY type and in ANY quanity.
Gun control advocates have long argued against handguns, claiming they are not for hunting and only good for killing people, as though they are something our founders never intended us to have, but most of our founders had handguns and George Washington explicitly wrote that all American men should own both a rifle and a pistol.
The whole hunting argument is totally dishonest; out founders never intended the 2nd Amendment for hunting and you never find them arguing that it is for that purpose - it's like arguing that they intended the free speech rights only for communication between parents and children (a right everybody assumed every person has and which did not need to be listed because no government opposed it). They very explicitly in MANY places outside the Constitution itself explained what they intended. They never wanted a tyrant to arise in America who would do as so many royals in Europe had done for centuries - used soldiers against their own populations. Therefore, they did not want the US to have a permanent "standing army" which a leader could either use against his own population or on foreign adventures. They intended the nation's men to be so well armed that no foreign force would ever be able to invade and conquer. (incidentally, they DID create a permanent navy and marine corps, and would probably have created a permanent air force had there been militarily-useful aircraft at the time). They also expected that someday, no matter how much the Constitution tried to prevent it, the US government could become tyrannical and they explicitly said the people had the right to violently overthrow it, just as they themselves had thrown-off their former monarch.
The 2nd Amendment gun right is the ONLY reason the government observes any of the rest of the document; fear of an uprising. THAT is why advocates of massive government are always calling for gun control and use every argument for it. The simple fact is that the left-wing argument that the citizens should not be able to have weapons like the ones the military uses is absolutely inverted - THE POSSESSION OF FRONTLINE WEAPONS IS PRECISELY WHAT THE FOUNDERS INTENDED, AND EXPLICITLY SO TO POPULATION COULD OVERTHOW THE GOVERNMENT!!!!!
Serious Americans who have read what our founders wrote KNOW this. Idiots who just want a massive government that will take care of them at the expense of others, and which they can call upon to force their neighbors to do things, know that there is a limit to government power and scope as long as bureaucrats are too scared to push people too much for fear of an armed public - so they want "gun control"
Gun control is absolutely and fundamentally un-American.
Either the government will fear the people, or the people will fear the government. If you want to live in a land where the government has all the guns, you are free to move to any of a multitude of countries. I want to live free in the one country whose government was founded by culturally protestant Christians who explicitly said the population has God-given rights, among which are the rights of free speech, and religion, and property rights and the right to not be abused by malicious governm
I want to write a lot of interesting and thought-provoking things here, but I'm just stuck on that one thing in the title.
Secret. Government. Proceedings.
Really, guys? Tell me again how your country is a free and democratic nation.
Well, because it's not a proceeding. Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn't understand Congressional proceedings.
The House is in recess. It's not even in the Committee of the Whole... So as far as proceedings go, they could just as easily be having a slumber party in their offices.
The Chairman didn't really have a choice... the Members were out of order. He could have:
a) had the Sergeant-at-Arms "enforce order", meaning kicking them out of the room for not being in their chairs properly,
b) call a recess
On the whole, B seems like a simpler option.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Odds of me shooting someone while I don't own a gun: 0.
You lie. You don't need to own the gun you use to shoot someone, it just has to be in your hands at the time it happens. You cannot guarantee that you will never have a gun in your hands, and thus you cannot guarantee that you will never shoot someone.
The difference between us is that I will never kill you, but you cannot guarantee that you will not kill me.
Another lie. You cannot guarantee that you will never kill anyone. You may run someone down while you drive a car, you may drop something heavy on them from a height, you may accidentally replace the contents of their salt shaker with arsenic, etc. There are many more ways of killing someone than with a gun you own, and your mouth makes guarantees that your butt cannot cash.
If you meant to say that you don't intend on killing me, then there is no difference between us at all, even though you claim not to own a gun and I admit that I do. (I don't take your claim at face value, however, because you've already lied.) I also don't intend on killing you, and I can make exactly as binding a guarantee on that intent as you can.
Your argument devolves into a statement of fear of things you don't understand, and that's a marvelously bad reason to create laws and abridge rights.
Using the no-fly list to keep bad guys from guns is a terrible idea, here is why:
None of the shooters in any of the mass shootings were on the no-fly list.
It's just a bad idea that can and will be abused to keep law abiding citizens from possessing guns, which the federal government has no legal power to do.
If you actually want to solve the mass shooting problem, and not just use fear to remove freedoms from individuals with thunderous applause, this is what I propose:
Let guns be in schools. As part of P.E. or even on its own, students will be in a firearm safety course. They will be target practicing. They will be tearing their guns down. They will be cleaning their firearms. They will be using hand guns, and rifles, and shotguns, etc. They will be taught that they are tools just like the circular saw or the welder in shop class, or knives and scissors in art class and home economics. They will take this class every year they are old enough to hold a weapon safely.
Just like at 16, when they are given a license to operate a tool that "kills" on average 3,287 people per day, at 18 they will take a test and if passed they will get a concealed carry license issued by their state of residence. The CCL will be valid in every state and territory of this nation. All of our children will be taught to not fear guns, and if they so chose they will be armed. That way the next time someone decides to bring a semi auto rifle to a night club to kill innocent people, that person would potentially be staring down a hundred barrels of trained good guys.
There will be no fear for the government to use to tighten gun control. People will not fear guns and will know how to use them. There will not be a gun control problem. Who knows, if everyone is armed, perhaps people may be more respectful to each other.
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