"The right to operate a car on public roads is not a basic right guaranteed by the United States Constitution."
True, BUT... it does not matter. And here is why:
The Supreme Court, long ago, ruled that the RIGHT to interstate travel using common modes of transportation was a right based on English Common Law from before the Constitution. Further, they ruled that it wasn't explicitly spelled out in the Constitution for the simple reason that the Founders considered it to be so glaringly obvious that it didn't even need to be stated. (I know it sounds a bit far-fetched today to some, who were born and raised being fed the State version of things.)
So, technically: no, the Constitution does not state that right, but the Supreme Court has said that you have it anyway.
Implicit in that ruling then, is this: technically speaking, the States are not legally authorized to prevent you from using an automobile for intra- or inter-state travel even on the public roads. There *IS* no more "common mode of transportation" today than automobile.
"Right, there is no mention of a well regulated militia of automobiles."
Another mis-reading of the Second Amendment. This is one of the most widely misunderstood parts of the Constitution, even though we know its actual meaning beyond any reasonable doubt.
The "well-regulated militia" is the Government's standing military force. As opposed to The People, who made up the "regular" militia, or just "militia", which was ad-hoc and not "well regulated". This seems to be the part that many people have misunderstood. The "well-regulated militia" and "the people" are two very different things.
According to court records, the regular militia consists of every able-bodied person in the country above 16 years of age.
The People were guaranteed the right to bear arms BECAUSE the government needed to have a standing military force. The Founders considered this "well-regulated militia" to be the single biggest threat to freedom. Thus The People could possess arms to fight off the "well-regulated militia" if necessary. This is exactly why the Supreme Court has ruled in the past that The People have a right to own military-grade arms... because there may come a day when they are fighting against a military.
Aside from the fact that there were no automobiles at the time, there is no mention of a "well-regulated militia of automobiles" because it would make no sense. What would a Government fleet of automobiles have to do with the public?
"Assault rifles have only one purpose, killing people real bad dead."
Straight from the "irrational Liberal handbook" I see.
Please tell me: what is an "assault weapon"? Something that LOOKS deadly? That's how New Jersey seemed to define them back in 1993. (Or was it '92?) Do you mean "fully automatic"? Those are restricted today anyway. So what do you mean by this term?
A semi-automatic AR15 (basically the civilian, non-full-auto version of the M16) is both a legal and very effective hunting rifle in Idaho and some other states. I have very little doubt it qualifies as something YOU would call an "assault weapon". And they are perfectly legal for hunting smaller game in many states. Someone who used one for hunting would probably be extremely offended if you told him (or her) their gun was "only for killing people". If it were me (I don't claim to own one; this is purely hypothetical) I would probably punch you in the nose for that.
"We have the right and a responsibility as a society to make sure we know who owns those weapons..."
Wow. How misguided can you get? Hint, dude: when "society" knows just who has guns and who does not, you know what you have accomplished? ONLY this: a handy roadmap for every burglar in existence, telling them just exactly who to rob and terrorize and which houses to avoid.
Gawd, you're naive.
"... ensure that owners are of sound mind and body, adequately trained to handle the weapon, and that the weapon is being cared for in such a way that it will not fall into the wrong or young and untrained hands."
And how do you propose to accomplish these goals? By whose standards should "we" decide who is mentally competent to possess a firearm? Should the State or Federal governments set those standards? But wait!!! According to the Supreme Court (and historians),we are guaranteed the right to keep and bear arms for use AGAINST our own government, if need be.
So we have an inherent conflict of interest there. I am filled with visions of all those Soviet-era political dissidents who were sent to "mental institutions" that were really just prisons.
And further, even if you do not believe that (historically and legally accurate) justification for bearing arms, surely you believe in an individual's right to self-defense? But there's another problem: a gun that "will not fall into the wrong (and who is 'wrong'?) or young or untrained hands" -- i.e., a gun kept unloaded in a safe, for example -- is almost completely useless for self-defense.
"For those that need an AR-15, I want a great deal more background, training, and understanding of that individual."
You aren't going to get it. At least the understanding and background part. And you are going to have to guess about the training, because there is no way for the government to practically or legally regulate it, unless they train EVERYBODY, like the Swiss do.
By the way, I'll repeat what I wrote to someone else: the AR15 is a perfectly legal hunting rifle for small game in much of the United States. Not that hunting has much of anything to do with right of ownership. See Miller v. U.S. and other such court decisions.
And learn to live with it. I understand that you mean well, but your ideas are not just unworkable, but actively dangerous.
"The only registration on a federal level is the NFA act, which taxes full auto, short barreled rifles/shotguns, AOW (any other weapon), suppresors, and destructive devices. Often called "class 3", each item requires a tax stamp before taking possession, which requires a looong wait (6-9 months), finger print card, passport photos, background check, etc."
Correct. But today, an M4 would very much be "typical military armament", which as you alluded to, the Supreme Court has previously ruled that the citizenry has a right to own.
One correction, however: a later law only allows full-auto weapons manufactured before a certain date to be owned, regardless of taxes or permit from ATF.
In my opinion, that law flies in the face of Miller and other SCOTUS rulings.
"Cite. Being high function autistic is not deranged."
This is the funniest thing I have read in quite a while.
Pardon the hell out of me, but a human being HAS TO BE deranged in order to do what he did.
GP was simply asserting that his derangement already existed. And evidence shows that this is almost always true; psychopaths who go on killing sprees nearly always exhibit signs and symptoms well before the public incident. It is not very likely that would change just because he was autistic.
"It is, however, the business of the thousands of people who live near you to be confident you have some capability and competency of how to handle said weapons."
Do you think so? Who decides competence? On what measure do you base it? Do you think it is something the State is itself competent to decide rationally?
Evidence tends toward no. Hell, most states can't even properly decide a driver's competence. I wouldn't trust them a bit with guns.
"Until you develop a mental health problem, then it most definitely is everyone else's business."
No, it doesn't. Your mental health might become everybody's business, but not the other thing.
Since this whole discussion is in the context of the Connecticut shooting, you have to keep in mind: somebody HAS TO BE crazy to do such a thing. It was already illegal for him to have guns there. So the law is demonstrably irrelevant. What mattered, and matters, is and was his mental health.
As was pointed out many times after Columbine: almost invariably there are prior signs of mental disturbance, starting well before someone does something like this. The trick is to get society to pay attention to these signs, before it is too late.
"If it's registered with the state or feds it's basically 'publicly obtainable information'. Cars, businesses, professional licenses, etc. are all public (in one form or another) and searchable (in one form or another)."
That depends on the state. It is not at all true of all states.
In my state, there is no state registration of firearms. One needs a permit for concealed carry but that is not a "public record" and that information cannot be accessed by the average citizen. For that matter, neither are license plates; here, you cannot look up the owner of a vehicle by license plate, nor can you even make a request to get that information. (I suppose technically you can request it, but you will not get an answer.) The only people who can look up vehicle owner information are law enforcement personnel for legitimate reasons (e.g., traffic stops or crime investigations), and licensed private investigators.
Businesses and the like are a different matter. Presumably, you want knowledge of your business to be spread as widely as possible.
"They can run this service within the law. Like it or not, it's legal."
That is not necessarily true. It depends very much on how they run their business.
Blacklist services have been around for quite a while now, and there have been some historic problems with them. But as long as they are legitimately blacklisting an IP due to complaints from others, or some objective criteria (e.g., detecting spam generated by malware), then they are legal.
However, if they are arbitrarily blacklisting "innocent" IPs, or blacklisting whole blocks if IPs due to one infringing IP, or whole sites due to one errant page, etc., AND demanding a fee to delist, then blackmail laws might very well apply.
In fact, I am not positive, but I am pretty sure that at least in the U.S., such companies have to delist you for free if you provide them with plausible evidence that you are no longer (or never were) violating their criteria.
Agree with the other poster: capabilities vary a lot. In my experience, most of them don't do it very well. The first cellphone (in my experience anyway) that had a decent, workable speakerphone was the old Motorola Razr. Few have come even close to being as good since, but there are those few.
I see how that turned out kind of funny, even though it wasn't meant that way. I quit that first job, and the position I took after that was with a company with no HR department. The other one I mentioned was some years later.
I don't know very many people who have a speakerphone at home. I can put Skype on what is effectively speakerphone, but quality suffers... besides, he wasn't on Skype then.
I also have a Motorola cell phone with a pretty decent "speakerphone" mode. But most cell phones, in my experience, are not very good at that.
- Email problems with the HR drone
- Skype call interview organised for a time not convenient for him
- Network issues during the call
Certainly we can ignore the network issues... but I think he is wrong there anyway. If the interviewer had simply called back 5 minutes later, the call would very probably have taken a somewhat different route.
But as for those other two? Not so fast!
He didn't have "email problems" with the HR drone. He showed a very clear pattern of negligence.
As for the actual scheduling, he also showed a persistent pattern of negligence.
That's not the same as a simple mistake or foulup here or there. The pattern seemed pretty clear to me.
I have had only 2 major experiences with HR departments in my professional life. The first one claimed "they" were eager to help me in a dispute with my managers... then ended up stabbing me in the back.
The HR department (different company) I dealt with after that, however, I have to say was friendly and helpful.
I don't know about the radio spectrum interference, but if they want relative freedom from sound interference, all they have to do is use something like the old WWII-style throat microphones that pilots used. They work. And of course I assume that the technology has gotten better since... they'd probably work even better now.
"Try finding a job these days without having a FB account past the level of flipping burgers."
I have, and I do. In fact, if a prospective client of mine insisted that I participate in FB at all, I'd tell them "No, thanks" and go elsewhere.
"Employers require people to play the social media game."
Then -- and I'm not being snide or sarcastic here -- you are talking to the wrong employers. Seriously.
I don't have a Myspace account. I have have had a Facebook account for years, but I used it maybe twice, then never touched it again. And I have no desire to. Same with Google+.
I do have a Twitter account, and use it to chat with friends and associates. I also do IM, and Skype, and some other things. But Facebook? No.
If Facebook and Google+ ever change their tunes, and start being honest and non-intrusive, I might consider them. But not until.
I should add: I had one client who went out of his way to find me on Twitter and follow me. I blocked him. Then Twitter changed their service to show when you have been blocked. So I unblocked him. But I periodically block him (which forces his account to un-follow me) then immediately remove the block. It serves the same purpose. I just have to remember to do it once in a while.
Twitter is a social space for me. It isn't for bosses or clients to be checking up on me. And if I had no way to prevent them, I simply would not work for them.
And if your employer asks you for passwords, you are DEFINITELY talking to the wrong people. I'd get up and walk out right then. And tell them them why. By the way: it is illegal for them to do that now, in some states.
"Somehow, I doubt that the "terrorists" who have been captured on a video, which was taken by a drone, which has been sent to kill "terrorists", will have even a slight chance of sqealing anything, with glee or in any other manner."
If they keep waiting until the end of the year to analyze the video, a lot of the things the drones see probably won't be there by the time any action is taken.
Except we never lost it. All those "gated communities" and "walled gardens" they talk about require you to opt in!
If you don't like it, don't opt in.
Yes, I know, they give you an either / or choice: "Buy an iOS device? Live with our rules." But they have only been able to because people let them. You still have the choice. If you don't like the way they do things, don't participate. Get something else.
Author of TFA had some bad experiences, worked for some bad software houses, generalizes it to "everybody".
I do not agree that his generalization is necessarily valid. Sure, code in the real world seldom looks like code in textbooks, because code in textbooks is usually designed to solve a discrete problem in a stand-alone way. In the real world, this code will be part of a larger system under circumstances that are less ideal. (Different business requirements, or slightly different mode of operation, etc.)
Slashdot Mirror
"The right to operate a car on public roads is not a basic right guaranteed by the United States Constitution."
True, BUT... it does not matter. And here is why:
The Supreme Court, long ago, ruled that the RIGHT to interstate travel using common modes of transportation was a right based on English Common Law from before the Constitution. Further, they ruled that it wasn't explicitly spelled out in the Constitution for the simple reason that the Founders considered it to be so glaringly obvious that it didn't even need to be stated. (I know it sounds a bit far-fetched today to some, who were born and raised being fed the State version of things.)
So, technically: no, the Constitution does not state that right, but the Supreme Court has said that you have it anyway.
Implicit in that ruling then, is this: technically speaking, the States are not legally authorized to prevent you from using an automobile for intra- or inter-state travel even on the public roads. There *IS* no more "common mode of transportation" today than automobile.
"Right, there is no mention of a well regulated militia of automobiles."
Another mis-reading of the Second Amendment. This is one of the most widely misunderstood parts of the Constitution, even though we know its actual meaning beyond any reasonable doubt.
The "well-regulated militia" is the Government's standing military force. As opposed to The People, who made up the "regular" militia, or just "militia", which was ad-hoc and not "well regulated". This seems to be the part that many people have misunderstood. The "well-regulated militia" and "the people" are two very different things.
According to court records, the regular militia consists of every able-bodied person in the country above 16 years of age.
The People were guaranteed the right to bear arms BECAUSE the government needed to have a standing military force. The Founders considered this "well-regulated militia" to be the single biggest threat to freedom. Thus The People could possess arms to fight off the "well-regulated militia" if necessary. This is exactly why the Supreme Court has ruled in the past that The People have a right to own military-grade arms... because there may come a day when they are fighting against a military.
Aside from the fact that there were no automobiles at the time, there is no mention of a "well-regulated militia of automobiles" because it would make no sense. What would a Government fleet of automobiles have to do with the public?
Pardon the repeat of the AR15 bit. I stepped away for a few moments and was thinking that this was a different reply.
"Assault rifles have only one purpose, killing people real bad dead."
Straight from the "irrational Liberal handbook" I see.
Please tell me: what is an "assault weapon"? Something that LOOKS deadly? That's how New Jersey seemed to define them back in 1993. (Or was it '92?) Do you mean "fully automatic"? Those are restricted today anyway. So what do you mean by this term?
A semi-automatic AR15 (basically the civilian, non-full-auto version of the M16) is both a legal and very effective hunting rifle in Idaho and some other states. I have very little doubt it qualifies as something YOU would call an "assault weapon". And they are perfectly legal for hunting smaller game in many states. Someone who used one for hunting would probably be extremely offended if you told him (or her) their gun was "only for killing people". If it were me (I don't claim to own one; this is purely hypothetical) I would probably punch you in the nose for that.
"We have the right and a responsibility as a society to make sure we know who owns those weapons..."
Wow. How misguided can you get? Hint, dude: when "society" knows just who has guns and who does not, you know what you have accomplished? ONLY this: a handy roadmap for every burglar in existence, telling them just exactly who to rob and terrorize and which houses to avoid.
Gawd, you're naive.
"... ensure that owners are of sound mind and body, adequately trained to handle the weapon, and that the weapon is being cared for in such a way that it will not fall into the wrong or young and untrained hands."
And how do you propose to accomplish these goals? By whose standards should "we" decide who is mentally competent to possess a firearm? Should the State or Federal governments set those standards? But wait!!! According to the Supreme Court (and historians),we are guaranteed the right to keep and bear arms for use AGAINST our own government, if need be.
So we have an inherent conflict of interest there. I am filled with visions of all those Soviet-era political dissidents who were sent to "mental institutions" that were really just prisons.
And further, even if you do not believe that (historically and legally accurate) justification for bearing arms, surely you believe in an individual's right to self-defense? But there's another problem: a gun that "will not fall into the wrong (and who is 'wrong'?) or young or untrained hands" -- i.e., a gun kept unloaded in a safe, for example -- is almost completely useless for self-defense.
"For those that need an AR-15, I want a great deal more background, training, and understanding of that individual."
You aren't going to get it. At least the understanding and background part. And you are going to have to guess about the training, because there is no way for the government to practically or legally regulate it, unless they train EVERYBODY, like the Swiss do.
By the way, I'll repeat what I wrote to someone else: the AR15 is a perfectly legal hunting rifle for small game in much of the United States. Not that hunting has much of anything to do with right of ownership. See Miller v. U.S. and other such court decisions.
And learn to live with it. I understand that you mean well, but your ideas are not just unworkable, but actively dangerous.
"The only registration on a federal level is the NFA act, which taxes full auto, short barreled rifles/shotguns, AOW (any other weapon), suppresors, and destructive devices. Often called "class 3", each item requires a tax stamp before taking possession, which requires a looong wait (6-9 months), finger print card, passport photos, background check, etc."
Correct. But today, an M4 would very much be "typical military armament", which as you alluded to, the Supreme Court has previously ruled that the citizenry has a right to own.
One correction, however: a later law only allows full-auto weapons manufactured before a certain date to be owned, regardless of taxes or permit from ATF.
In my opinion, that law flies in the face of Miller and other SCOTUS rulings.
"Having a mental health problem doesn't automatically mean that a person isn't capable of responsibly owning a firearm."
True. It depends very much on the kind and severity of the mental health problem.
"Cite. Being high function autistic is not deranged."
This is the funniest thing I have read in quite a while.
Pardon the hell out of me, but a human being HAS TO BE deranged in order to do what he did.
GP was simply asserting that his derangement already existed. And evidence shows that this is almost always true; psychopaths who go on killing sprees nearly always exhibit signs and symptoms well before the public incident. It is not very likely that would change just because he was autistic.
"It is, however, the business of the thousands of people who live near you to be confident you have some capability and competency of how to handle said weapons."
Do you think so? Who decides competence? On what measure do you base it? Do you think it is something the State is itself competent to decide rationally?
Evidence tends toward no. Hell, most states can't even properly decide a driver's competence. I wouldn't trust them a bit with guns.
"Until you develop a mental health problem, then it most definitely is everyone else's business."
No, it doesn't. Your mental health might become everybody's business, but not the other thing.
Since this whole discussion is in the context of the Connecticut shooting, you have to keep in mind: somebody HAS TO BE crazy to do such a thing. It was already illegal for him to have guns there. So the law is demonstrably irrelevant. What mattered, and matters, is and was his mental health.
As was pointed out many times after Columbine: almost invariably there are prior signs of mental disturbance, starting well before someone does something like this. The trick is to get society to pay attention to these signs, before it is too late.
"If it's registered with the state or feds it's basically 'publicly obtainable information'. Cars, businesses, professional licenses, etc. are all public (in one form or another) and searchable (in one form or another)."
That depends on the state. It is not at all true of all states.
In my state, there is no state registration of firearms. One needs a permit for concealed carry but that is not a "public record" and that information cannot be accessed by the average citizen. For that matter, neither are license plates; here, you cannot look up the owner of a vehicle by license plate, nor can you even make a request to get that information. (I suppose technically you can request it, but you will not get an answer.) The only people who can look up vehicle owner information are law enforcement personnel for legitimate reasons (e.g., traffic stops or crime investigations), and licensed private investigators.
Businesses and the like are a different matter. Presumably, you want knowledge of your business to be spread as widely as possible.
"They can run this service within the law. Like it or not, it's legal."
That is not necessarily true. It depends very much on how they run their business.
Blacklist services have been around for quite a while now, and there have been some historic problems with them. But as long as they are legitimately blacklisting an IP due to complaints from others, or some objective criteria (e.g., detecting spam generated by malware), then they are legal.
However, if they are arbitrarily blacklisting "innocent" IPs, or blacklisting whole blocks if IPs due to one infringing IP, or whole sites due to one errant page, etc., AND demanding a fee to delist, then blackmail laws might very well apply.
In fact, I am not positive, but I am pretty sure that at least in the U.S., such companies have to delist you for free if you provide them with plausible evidence that you are no longer (or never were) violating their criteria.
Agree with the other poster: capabilities vary a lot. In my experience, most of them don't do it very well. The first cellphone (in my experience anyway) that had a decent, workable speakerphone was the old Motorola Razr. Few have come even close to being as good since, but there are those few.
"Almost all cellphones today come with a hands-free headset."
That's a good point. It's not a speakerphone, but it works for hands-free.
"Yup. I'm an engineering director in SF. I would certainly skip this dude."
I think more to the point is: if your behavior were anything like hers, HE would skip YOU.
Haha.
I see how that turned out kind of funny, even though it wasn't meant that way. I quit that first job, and the position I took after that was with a company with no HR department. The other one I mentioned was some years later.
I don't know very many people who have a speakerphone at home. I can put Skype on what is effectively speakerphone, but quality suffers... besides, he wasn't on Skype then.
I also have a Motorola cell phone with a pretty decent "speakerphone" mode. But most cell phones, in my experience, are not very good at that.
- Email problems with the HR drone
- Skype call interview organised for a time not convenient for him
- Network issues during the call
Certainly we can ignore the network issues... but I think he is wrong there anyway. If the interviewer had simply called back 5 minutes later, the call would very probably have taken a somewhat different route.
But as for those other two? Not so fast!
He didn't have "email problems" with the HR drone. He showed a very clear pattern of negligence.
As for the actual scheduling, he also showed a persistent pattern of negligence.
That's not the same as a simple mistake or foulup here or there. The pattern seemed pretty clear to me.
I have had only 2 major experiences with HR departments in my professional life. The first one claimed "they" were eager to help me in a dispute with my managers... then ended up stabbing me in the back.
The HR department (different company) I dealt with after that, however, I have to say was friendly and helpful.
I don't know about the radio spectrum interference, but if they want relative freedom from sound interference, all they have to do is use something like the old WWII-style throat microphones that pilots used. They work. And of course I assume that the technology has gotten better since... they'd probably work even better now.
Need I say more?
"Try finding a job these days without having a FB account past the level of flipping burgers."
I have, and I do. In fact, if a prospective client of mine insisted that I participate in FB at all, I'd tell them "No, thanks" and go elsewhere.
"Employers require people to play the social media game."
Then -- and I'm not being snide or sarcastic here -- you are talking to the wrong employers. Seriously.
I don't have a Myspace account. I have have had a Facebook account for years, but I used it maybe twice, then never touched it again. And I have no desire to. Same with Google+.
I do have a Twitter account, and use it to chat with friends and associates. I also do IM, and Skype, and some other things. But Facebook? No.
If Facebook and Google+ ever change their tunes, and start being honest and non-intrusive, I might consider them. But not until.
I should add: I had one client who went out of his way to find me on Twitter and follow me. I blocked him. Then Twitter changed their service to show when you have been blocked. So I unblocked him. But I periodically block him (which forces his account to un-follow me) then immediately remove the block. It serves the same purpose. I just have to remember to do it once in a while.
Twitter is a social space for me. It isn't for bosses or clients to be checking up on me. And if I had no way to prevent them, I simply would not work for them.
And if your employer asks you for passwords, you are DEFINITELY talking to the wrong people. I'd get up and walk out right then. And tell them them why. By the way: it is illegal for them to do that now, in some states.
You can get just about any Motorola model, unlocked.
Many other brands, as well.
"Somehow, I doubt that the "terrorists" who have been captured on a video, which was taken by a drone, which has been sent to kill "terrorists", will have even a slight chance of sqealing anything, with glee or in any other manner."
If they keep waiting until the end of the year to analyze the video, a lot of the things the drones see probably won't be there by the time any action is taken.
Your tax dollars at work.
"Speaking of the 'lost web'..."
Except we never lost it. All those "gated communities" and "walled gardens" they talk about require you to opt in!
If you don't like it, don't opt in.
Yes, I know, they give you an either / or choice: "Buy an iOS device? Live with our rules." But they have only been able to because people let them. You still have the choice. If you don't like the way they do things, don't participate. Get something else.
Author of TFA had some bad experiences, worked for some bad software houses, generalizes it to "everybody".
I do not agree that his generalization is necessarily valid. Sure, code in the real world seldom looks like code in textbooks, because code in textbooks is usually designed to solve a discrete problem in a stand-alone way. In the real world, this code will be part of a larger system under circumstances that are less ideal. (Different business requirements, or slightly different mode of operation, etc.)