Now, if by firearm license you mean a license to carry a concealed gun on your person in public places then yes, I believe that almost all jurisdictions in the US that allow concealed carry require the passing of a course of some sort.
When I got my CCW license in Pennsylvania, I was only required to be of age and provide some names of individuals who could vouch for my character and I had to swear that I was not insane or a habitual drunkard. I think that they also pulled my criminal history to check through that. No testing of firearms skills or safety knowledge. The local sheriff does all of this.
Incidentally, of the 67 counties in PA, I think that the lowest crime ones are the ones with the highest rates of gun ownership and the highest proportion of CCW to population. They also have very low gun violence rates. Of course, this is complicated by the fact that the high CCW rate counties are also rural, low-crime areas anyway. There may be some correlation, but other factors (demographics, mostly) probably mask it too much to make much of it. I'll leave that to professionals like Lott.
The Phantom Menace was about 200 times better than Attack of the Clones, which was absolutely terrible. The scenes with Anakin and Natalie Portman's tits were so painfully bad that I honestly felt as though I was trapped in an MST3K episode. This is not to say that Phantom Menace was good, I'm just trying to convey how terrible Clones was. What a god-awful piece of shit.
Well, either original intent OR the text is what's important, and neither imply an absolutist reading of the amendement.
Don't put words in my mouth. I never posted that an absolutist reading of the amendment was in order.
If we ignore intent, the amendement could easily be read as saying that the state can authorize some memebers of the national guard to carry some weapons, as the feds think is appropriate.
It can also be easily read as stating that an individual right ("the people" and not the several states) to keep and bear arms exists.
You may feel
I don't "feel" on this issue, I think it.
there is a personal right to own big full auto firearms without any restrictions, but there is no constitutional right to that in the text, nor in case law.
The text is actually quite clear. To wit: "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." The several states are not mentioned at all. The "people" are quite clearly the repository of the protected and guaranteed right.
And seriously, even in SE DC, how many cases a year are there of non-criminal civilians successfully defending themselves by firing a weapon? I'm sure it happens every now and then, but not often.
See Lott's quite comprehensive work in this area. He was originally an anti-gun researcher, by the way.
If you want an example of an ACTUAL tyrant, there really aren't any in any modern democratic societies - Nixon was about the closest we can as to a president trying to subvert democratic mechanisms, and he certainly wasn't a tyrant per se.
My point exactly. A little "free speech hyperbole" on your part about Nixon, I guess.
The correlation between free speech and democracy is massive.
I never disputed this.
The correlation between gun laws and democracy verges on non-existant.
My prior post posited that the protection of an individual gun right as a counter-balance to the power of the state was something of a best available solution to a difficult problem covered this to some degree. I think that the right to keep and bear arms is helpful in checking the power of a state seeking tyrranical power. It is not perfect, but it doesn't hurt.
There are lots of democracies with lax gun laws, and lots of democracies with very stringent ones.
How many of the latter would exist but for the most-important example of the former?
Doesn't seem to change politics very much, but it certainly does the gun homicide rate.
But the overall homicide rate and the overall violent crime rate are much more complicated things than simply "guns present" or "guns not present". This is true for demographics within and without the United States.
It sounds like you're making the circular argument of "we need guns to keep the government from taking our guns away" which is more common than it is coherant.
No. I am making the "we need guns as a last, best hope against a tyrannical government which seeks to take away all our freedoms" argument. Again, don't put words into my mouth.
You also seem to think I'm saying you can't have guns.
You never said that. Again, you are putting words into my mouth. Knock it off. My understanding of your position is that you think that the government can take away guns from people through the implementation of a licensing regime. I think that will keep unpopular groups of people from having guns. In the past, these groups have included blacks and aboriginal americans. I expect that politically unpopular and unpowerful groups will continue to be vicitimized under a licensing scheme if human nature holds true.
You can have guns
Gee, thanks Poppy.
(well, if you're honestly that willing to shoot police offiers, than no, YOU can't have guns,
I am absolutely willing to kill agents of a tyrannical government. The founding fathers weren't a bunch of namby-pamby Ghandis. They were willing to kill and be killed to defend those unalienable (natural) rights that every man is born with and which can never be rightfully taken away from him by government. I am deadly serious about what I wrote.
but others who aren't willing to murder for politics can.
I guess you would have been in favor of disarming the patriots at Lexington. They were obviously just gun wackos.
But I assume that was a little free speech hyperbole on your part).
No hyperbole, pal. If the government tries to round up guns and I have nowhere left to go and if the US government has turned into a police state, I will seek "to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness..." Make no mistake about it. If the time comes, I will die before I live as a slave, and I will take out as many would-be slavemasters as possible before I go.
I am saying there is a valid state interest in making sure those who carry guns outside of shooting ranges know what they're doing in some basic capacity.
That works under the rational basis test, but it doesn't under the compelling interest test. When fundamental individual rights are at issue, look to the latter rather than the former. There is probably a compelling state interest in keeping violent felons from owning firearms and people under PFAs from owning firearms, but I don't see a compelling state interest in instituting prior restraints on completly innocent people which would prevent them from firearms.
As far as your earlier comments go about case law, take a close look at the Miller case sometime. It is the great grand-daddy of gun cases. Read the facts and also read some history about the representation of Mr. Miller prior to coming to a conclusion about the merits of the case. While it is good law, it is just about as good as Plessy v. Ferguson was prior to 1954. The clock is ticking on Miller.
Don't ask me, ask Laurence Tribe, whose credentials are much better than mine. Admittedly, he does not go as far as I do, but the garbage about the Second Amendment being only a state right is being swept away before an avalanche of serious legal analysis. It is simply a matter of time, and I predict that in the next five to ten years, the Supremes will eviscerate Miller.
I do not think that all gun/weapons control laws are going to be unconstitutional, just as not all limits on speech are First Amendment violations, but the gun control advocates' "militia" chestnut is a walking corpse. Just as an FYI, there is an excellent Second Amendment website (containing almost all the major law review articles on the Second Amendment, from every perspective) located here. It makes excellent reading if you have any serious interest in the issue. The only problem is that it goes on hiatus from time to time. I can't find a google cache for it, so right now, the best way to check it out is on the Wayback Machine.
And while defeating tyrants was something some of them were thinking about, they were probably just as aware of the danger on the frontier.
Who knows what they were thinking, and who cares? They are dead and gone, and what matters to society today is what we think of the Bill of Rights. My thought process tells me that the logical explanation for the 2nd Amendment is from the natural desire to protect and defend oneself, be it from criminals or tyrants (but I'm being redundant).
The odds of a civilian needing to fire a weapon in self defense were probably a couple orders of magnitude higher back then.
You don't live in southeast Washington, D.C., do you?
Also, the US didn't have a substantial standing army, so getting a "well-regulated militia" was definitely a substantial goal of theirs, and the second amendement.
More ancient history. Who gives a fuck?
I won't invoke Godwin's Law.
Whatever. Hitler, Hitler, Hitler! Oh no! My arguments are suddenly without any sense or logic! Holy shit! Mike Godwin is right!
But the important difference between speech and guns is the directness of the violence. Speech that directs others to kill is conspiracy, not speech, and illegal.
Not unreasonable so far.
Firing a gun at another human being is attempted murder.
Wrong. The guys at Lexington were not murderers. Someone shooting an armed robber in the chest is not attempted murder.
Saying society would be better off without someone is speech.
Depends how you say it. "Let's lynch that nigger for raping my wife!" is probably not protected speech.
Firing at a target is a hobby.
Depends on the target.
The intent and the foreseeable consequences make a BIG difference.
Sure do. Let's give gun owners the same opportunity to make those decisions without prior restraints.
A substantial number (hundreds?) of Americans so around every day parroting what Hilter said, to little consequence.
I won't invoke the snarky little Godwin's law either. Aren't I gracious and self-righteous?
If the same number of people deicded to copycat the DC area snipers, that' be one of the greatest tragedies in the history of this nation. Hilter was enormously worse than Malvo, but him having free speech wasn't the problem.
And as for tyrants, free speech has proven remarkably more effective in taking them down (i.e. Nixon).
If you think Nixon was a tyrant, you're a fucking idiot. Sorry, but you are.
While guns have killed a fair number of politicians, their track record of killing the ones that we would have been better off without is essentially nil.
The truth is that there is really no good way for the populace to be protected from the oppression of a tyrant. Ownership of firearms may be the best that people can think of (in addition to the rule of law and healthy free speech).
Nor can I think of any cases where the threat of vilgilante murder against politicians has been a productive political force, but the threat of press criticism or exposure certainly has.
Well, just listen to Tom Daschle recently (in particular to the wild claims he was making about Limbaugh listeners threatening him).
So, from a public utility perspective, in the political arena, speech is a lot more beneficial, with a lot fewer downsides, than firearms.
I don't recall making that argument, but you sure did a nice job of knocking it down.
This justifies a much different governmental stance for prior restraint.
Yeah, except for the fact that you are making an argument in favor of limiting an important individual right straight out of existence. Fuck it. I'd rather run the risk of being killed by firearms than allow people like you and the government to take them away.
Other people have posted that they would kill rather than submit to the elimination of private firearms by government. Add me to that list. It isn't a fucking joke -- the day that a cop or a soldier comes to my house to confiscate my guns without my having committed some sort of crime is that day that I start killing agents of the government. I will die before I submit to a tyrant.
I certainly would rather live in a nation with free speech and no handguns than a nation without free speech but with many available handguns. Lots of the former societies do just fine, but none of the latter do.
What a bullshit way of putting it. It is not as if those are the only two choices. I advocate neither of those positions. How about a society where speech and the right to self-defense (which is really what we are talking about here) are both mutually reinforcing?
guac-foo.
More apocalyptic blather?
on
New Mad Max Film
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I read about the movie this morning on CNN, but I wasn't really that excited by it. The interesting part of the story arc has been exhausted, IMHO. I'm not exactly sure where this one will go, unless it is a rehash of the last two plots.
1. Mad Max = world going to hell 2. Road Warrior = world gone to hell 3. Thunderdome = World gone to hell, but redeeming itself 4. New movie = (?) Make money!
There is some overlap (Road Warrior had an inkling of redemption at the end, but it was more explicit in Thunderdome.
This may end up being a good action flick, but I am not seeing significant potential to do anything very new or exciting. I expect that, like Mel, we'll find out that the series is old and tired.
The "right to bear arms" can be interpreted broadly or narrowly, but not universally. Is there a right to bear hand grenades? Sniper rifles into a presidential speech? Twelve sticks of dynamite strapped to your chest into a bank? Obviously some weapons and situations aren't acceptable, others are (I have no problem with hunting, target shooting, etcetera). The right to be armed isn't an absolute. The policy question is what's the right balance to maximize both second amendement rights and the right to safety of others.
1. I never posted anything indicating a absolute total right (to biological weapons, for instance).
2. Restrictions and exception exist on all the individual rights. The Fourth Amendment has so many exceptions that it barely exists anymore. Clearly, an individual right to keep and bear arms would have restrictions, just like any other right does.
You are correct in stating that it is the nature of those restrictions that will be at issue when the Supreme Court finishes the integration process by bringing the Second Amendment home to the states just like it did to the First, Fourth, and Fifth amendments in (mostly) the 1930's.
As far as restrictions go, I think we should be very careful about prior restraints, especially vis-a-vis firearms. The Second Amendment is, after all, not about target shooting or hunting ducks. It is about killing tyrants.
In the same way, someone who isn't willing to engage is basic gun safety is a threat to the public, which overrides their right to be armed.
Is someone who is unwilling to spend three years in law school studying libel, slander, and defamation a threat to the public? Should those people be saddled with a prior restraint on a fundamental freedom? Why are you so hasty to regulate firearms? Hitler never shot a single soul in anger (after WWI when he was in the Wermacht), but he killed millions with his words. Really, what is the greater threat?
Heck one could argue (I'm not) that the right to bear arms should be limited to the types of arms available when the constitution was ratified, since that was the original intent.
Good thing you're not making that argument. I guess it would limit free speech to the types of speech available at the time of the ratification of the Bill of Rights. Forget the internet or movies -- go get your quill and ink.
How about this: A gun license should be as hard to get as a driver's license
Do you think that a license to speak freely should be as hard to get as a driver's license?
FWIW, there was a very interesting article recently (month or so ago) in the Wall Street Journal describing how difficult it is to get a driver's license in the UK. Are you sure that you want a fundamental, individual right (just ask ultra-liberal constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe, who has writtenthe book on Con law in the US -- he has recently concluded that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, just like the First Amendment, and the Third (quartering troops), and the Fourth (searches), and the Fifth (self-incrimination), etc.
The most vital part of the plan, after backups, is good insurance. If the building burns to the ground Monday morning, you want to be able to call the insurer Monday Noon, and have the check in hand Tuesday morning at the latest.
Despite all the horseshit about "State Farm is there" and "Nationwide is on your side", you will not have a check in hand the next day. When you make a claim, you are a cost center to the insurer, not a policy premium paying buddy.
Expect to have your ass turned inside out a la goatse.cx before seeing so much as a nickel from an insurer. An "expensive" policy doesn't mean that they will be any nicer about it -- it just means you overpaid for the privilege of being dejected, suspected, inspected, and rejected by a greedy little monkey-fucking insurance company.
" This represents the exchange of information, some meaningful, some not, some we just don't know about."
the parts we don't know about, that would be "human intuition". really, there is know better way to sum up the brains ability to be thinking about everything going on around it, AND remembering things.
No, we just don't know about them yet. I have no desire to ascribe some sort of mystical notion of "intuition" to what amounts to a biological system. Is there some sort of magical process to explain consciousness, free will, or our humanity other than as the product of discrete neurological processes? No. We are our brains. We are neurons, electricity and chemicals. There is no "intuition".
the brains is not computational, it is chemical.
Actually, it is computational. It is simply not digital. Big difference.
If you want to do some serious studing of the brain, save the computer comparison for simple explanations. trying to compare the Brain to a computer(as they function now) is folly, and will cause you to make poor assumptions.
I agree with your statement. My original post mentioned a number of times that using an analogy of brain as (especially a digital) computer is fraught with peril.
The brains does more remembering then calculatings.
What is remembering but the manipulation of data? Also, acting on memories involves processing, particularly in the "higher" functions of logic, free will and reasoning.
You don't calculate that sensation is called hot, and therefore you should keep your fingers away, it remembers.
Just because it takes place subconsciously does not mean that it does not involve calculation. Our brains are still waters that run deep. Do not be fooled by the inability to perceive the calculation and (relatively) automatic response sent by the brain to the body in reply to a stimulus.
Of course we can use are will to override the brain,
Not always. Try to stop yourself from breathing for more than a couple of minutes. Try to do a "funny walk" (a la Monty Python) all year. Who we are and what we are is a meld of conscious and subconcious processes, of which only a small part are conscious and subject to being acted upon by our notion of "free will". Ascribing more importance to "free will" than that is delusional. You're not seeing reality, you're seeing the shadows on the wall of the cave.
which is one of the 3 cool things about the brain.
I'm curious...what are the other two cool things you have in mind?
I'm sorry, but this is hogwash. Our brains are not amazing because of their computational power, but because of human intuition.
What, praytell, can "human intuition" possibly be other than the result of the brain taking information and acting on it? The analogy between a computer and a human brain has all sorts of problems.
Nevertheless, there is no such thing as "human intuition". Brains are made of neurons. Chemical and electrical signaling between the neurons is the only thing that causes anything to happen in our brains. There is no humonculus controlling anything. There is no random number generator. Human intuition may be described, IMHO, as logical extrapolations based on imperfect knowledge. It is not some mystical, non-computational characteristic of neurology.
The entire concept that we can match up a machine's computation to the brain's is trivializing how the brain functions.
The brain is relatively simply at a basic level. Chemicals and electric signals are exchanged by various neurons. This represents the exchange of information, some meaningful, some not, some we just don't know about. Certain regions of the brain are responsible for processing visual data (much of the "conscious" brain could be viewed as a massive extension of the eye).
We break down each function related to the problem and track it to the subsystem, breaking everything down into smaller and smaller and more discrete processes, and it all begins to look very much like simple computational problems. We're used to dealing with digital computers and our analysis of how to solve problems with digital computers is certainly not applicable to the brain on a one-to-one basis -- that is just nuts.
The short reply to your assertion is, however, that the only way we will ever understand the functioning of the "brain" and the rest of the related nervous system is to break it down into little parts, i.e. trivialize it.
I was able to catch a football before I even studied mathematics, let alone arithmetic. There is no calculus problem being solved.
But I'll bet that you didn't learn how to catch a ball without getting stoved fingers, missing a bunch of them, dropping balls on occasion from mis-judging speed, height, the position of your body, etc.
Memory, experience, and the brain's wonderful ability to track moving things (likely a residual survival skill) easily do this without requiring conscious thought on your part.
The fact that you are unaware of the process and the calculations being made does not mean that they are not being made. Are you aware of the temperature calculations for when you bump the stove? ("I wonder how hot this is...hmmm...it feels as though it might cause third degree burns in 1.2 seconds...oh...it has already been 3.2 seconds...I'd better remove my hand.") Much is going on "behind the curtain". Consciousness appears to be related to only a very little of what we do on a regular basis.
While most of the commentary here is related to the significance of a machine with the "processing power" of a human brain, it is notable that the engineers are not trying to emulate the human brain, nor are they doing any AI work at all. This is a brute force calculating job all the way around.
Also notable is the fact that this special purpose maching is a nuclear bomb compared to the human brain's match in terms of doing the job it is being built for. With performance differences like this between general purpose and special purpose computers, why would anyone seek to build a general purpose machine that would just want to drink, fuck, and live in a trailer?
First, the real issue is not hardware or CPU cycles -- it is software. Tired of Seti@home? Let's build a distributed processing network that has as many CPU cycle equivalents as the human brain! Oh yeah, that's already been done. Ok, so why doesn't it "think" yet? Oh yeah...software.
The issue is how to integrate storage, processing, "RAM", etc. into a software package that can emulate a human brain's method of thinking (which may be a very bad, krufty method of developing consciousness -- why would anyone use meat for processors? What a kludgy hack!).
(OT: what if "thinking" software is _not_ GPL'ed? That could be really frightening. So could security issues for "thinking" machines.)
Second, the next issue is why should we compare digital thinking machines to biological ones? Maybe it is the only benchmark we can think of, but given the truly awkward way in which light-sensitive cells were adapted for inclusion a biological thinking machine (see Francis Crick's "Astonishing Hypothesis"), why can't a much more efficient independent decision making machine be developed from digital equipment (not DEC, btw) actually designed for the purpose?
The human brain/computer comparison is really a red herring. The only reason to create a human-like digital thinking machine/emulator (and you thought WINE was hard to use...) might be to pursue immortality. I think the more likely reason is that it would be the ultimate species-wide circle jerk. Humanity getting off on creating humanity. Bleh. Let's set our sights a little higher.
Slashing back to yesterday, the FTC can maybe set their sights on the Spam Queen featured on the fricking front page of the Wall Street Journal yesterday.
I have enough problems teaching my one year old not to eat dog food. I don't think I really want to have to educate my email client about spam, and then continue to monitor it to make sure it doesn't fuck up.
The problem with spam (for me) is that I have to waste time dealing with it or my existing filters sometimes accidentally chew up a legit message (rarely). The basic plan Mozilla seems to be after doesn't really fix that for me.
I do like the idea of allowing anti-spam plug-ins. Having a variety of methods to choose from will let me decide what, if any, third-party solution works best for me.
That song was actually one of the really, really good parts about the Rankin/Bass Return of the King. I've actually emailed Yarbrough's management outfit about where I could get a CD with it, but to no avail. It might *ahem* be available on a P2P network, but, I, ah, suspect, that the quality isn't the best.
No, I think folks know it's stealing in the same way they also know that going 65 in a 55 zone is breaking the law. "It's okay, everyone does it." "I'm not hurting anyone (at least that I know and care about)." "It's cheap and painless." "Nobody will ever know." "Nobody will bother me for doing this, so I can do it with impunity."
This doesn't make it right, it just makes it common.
No bickering on your point, just the language.
Your last statement intrigued me. This whole debate has little to do with what is "right" and "wrong". It is rather a debate over what is "legal" and "illegal". The distinction being that right and wrong have some sort of (probably) subjective moral sense underlying the determinations. The latter debate is simply a decision resulting from the existing political power structure that has happened to come to govern each of us.
That being said, I think that unauthorized copying is morally objectionable to me, and I disapprove of it. Is it "right" or "wrong" to do so, or will some hypothetical god send me to hell for doing it? I dunno. Clearly, the Ten Commandments are a little vague on P2P file sharing. My knowledge of the Torah and Koran is limited, so I can't really render anything but a guess, so I won't. Perhaps some other ecumenical peanut galleries can speak on this one -- anyone got the Buddha's cellphone number? What about Vishnu?
Is it legal? Clearly, no, it isn't. Right or wrong? You see the obvious problems.
I can't believe this is happening to other people also. I had to inform three ladies (who were unhappy with the "abrupt" ending) that they may actually have to read or at least wait a year or two to learn what happens next.
Or did you happen to see the movie in Lancaster PA? Buckle of the bible belt and home of lunacy.
A bunch of people I know in York (near Lancaster) voiced the same general complaint: "It just ended -- I don't know what happens." I seriously had to resist the urge to slap them for being idiots.
I am honestly shocked at how stupid people can be sometimes. I shouldn't be, but I still am from time to time.
"That ends with them throwing the ring in the volcano, right?" Well, it doesn't end there. They go home and some thugs have taken over the Shire and...I mean, yeah, that's how it ends.
Actually, that's exactly how it ends. There is no retaking of the Shire in the movie. Saruman dies in The Two Towers
Uh...what about Frodo and Bilbo and Gandalf departing from the Grey Havens? And Merry and Pippen, etc., riding back to Hobbiton without them? That was one of the best parts of the book -- incredibly sad, poignant, and CUT OUT OF THE FRICKING MOVIE?!?!?!?!?!! Come on!!
You mean that Glenn Yarbrough won't sing the Road goes ever on and on? Are you telling me the animated fricking Kasey Casem version has a better ending that the Peter Jackson one?!?!??? I feel so betrayed! Galadriel had better show her f-ing tits, or I'm definitely not going to see Return of the King.
Why go with the Terapin VCD recorder when you can get a DVD recorder from Panasonic for about twice the price?
The time-slip and the ability to record using variable bit rate on a much bigger media, seems to be pretty cool. VCD is ok, but it's not where things are going. I'd rather plunk down an extra couple hundred to get a DVD recorder.
Why must we have a new law every time a new technology comes along?
The old common law used to work great. It seems to be working now. The legislature passes the ADA, and the courts apply it to unanticipated facts. The ruling seems reasonable, and an extension of our understanding of the original law has occurred.
Wouldn't common sense be to use existing laws to govern new things, in the spirit of the old law?
Already do that, see above.
We have so many laws, governing the minutia of everyday life, that no person could possibly be expected to know or follow every one.
What? You aren't familiar with the laws governing the removal of underground storage tanks? You don't know the regulations either? What about the tax code? Lead paint? Are you ignorant, or what? Sheesh!
What we need is a reduction and simplification of laws, not an expansion to explicitly govern every imaginable situation.
Are you trying to take my job away from me, non-lawyer boy? Do you know what you are suggesting? A world where average people might actually know what is and is not "against" the law? That would be insane! I'd have to work for a living!
Slashdot Mirror
Now, if by firearm license you mean a license to carry a concealed gun on your person in public places then yes, I believe that almost all jurisdictions in the US that allow concealed carry require the passing of a course of some sort.
When I got my CCW license in Pennsylvania, I was only required to be of age and provide some names of individuals who could vouch for my character and I had to swear that I was not insane or a habitual drunkard. I think that they also pulled my criminal history to check through that. No testing of firearms skills or safety knowledge. The local sheriff does all of this.
Incidentally, of the 67 counties in PA, I think that the lowest crime ones are the ones with the highest rates of gun ownership and the highest proportion of CCW to population. They also have very low gun violence rates. Of course, this is complicated by the fact that the high CCW rate counties are also rural, low-crime areas anyway. There may be some correlation, but other factors (demographics, mostly) probably mask it too much to make much of it. I'll leave that to professionals like Lott.
GF.
The Phantom Menace was about 200 times better than Attack of the Clones, which was absolutely terrible. The scenes with Anakin and Natalie Portman's tits were so painfully bad that I honestly felt as though I was trapped in an MST3K episode. This is not to say that Phantom Menace was good, I'm just trying to convey how terrible Clones was. What a god-awful piece of shit.
GF
Well, either original intent OR the text is what's important, and neither imply an absolutist reading of the amendement.
Don't put words in my mouth. I never posted that an absolutist reading of the amendment was in order.
If we ignore intent, the amendement could easily be read as saying that the state can authorize some memebers of the national guard to carry some weapons, as the feds think is appropriate.
It can also be easily read as stating that an individual right ("the people" and not the several states) to keep and bear arms exists.
You may feel
I don't "feel" on this issue, I think it.
there is a personal right to own big full auto firearms without any restrictions, but there is no constitutional right to that in the text, nor in case law.
The text is actually quite clear. To wit: "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." The several states are not mentioned at all. The "people" are quite clearly the repository of the protected and guaranteed right.
And seriously, even in SE DC, how many cases a year are there of non-criminal civilians successfully defending themselves by firing a weapon? I'm sure it happens every now and then, but not often.
See Lott's quite comprehensive work in this area. He was originally an anti-gun researcher, by the way.
If you want an example of an ACTUAL tyrant, there really aren't any in any modern democratic societies - Nixon was about the closest we can as to a president trying to subvert democratic mechanisms, and he certainly wasn't a tyrant per se.
My point exactly. A little "free speech hyperbole" on your part about Nixon, I guess.
The correlation between free speech and democracy is massive.
I never disputed this.
The correlation between gun laws and democracy verges on non-existant.
My prior post posited that the protection of an individual gun right as a counter-balance to the power of the state was something of a best available solution to a difficult problem covered this to some degree. I think that the right to keep and bear arms is helpful in checking the power of a state seeking tyrranical power. It is not perfect, but it doesn't hurt.
There are lots of democracies with lax gun laws, and lots of democracies with very stringent ones.
How many of the latter would exist but for the most-important example of the former?
Doesn't seem to change politics very much, but it certainly does the gun homicide rate.
But the overall homicide rate and the overall violent crime rate are much more complicated things than simply "guns present" or "guns not present". This is true for demographics within and without the United States.
It sounds like you're making the circular argument of "we need guns to keep the government from taking our guns away" which is more common than it is coherant.
No. I am making the "we need guns as a last, best hope against a tyrannical government which seeks to take away all our freedoms" argument. Again, don't put words into my mouth.
You also seem to think I'm saying you can't have guns.
You never said that. Again, you are putting words into my mouth. Knock it off. My understanding of your position is that you think that the government can take away guns from people through the implementation of a licensing regime. I think that will keep unpopular groups of people from having guns. In the past, these groups have included blacks and aboriginal americans. I expect that politically unpopular and unpowerful groups will continue to be vicitimized under a licensing scheme if human nature holds true.
You can have guns
Gee, thanks Poppy.
(well, if you're honestly that willing to shoot police offiers, than no, YOU can't have guns,
I am absolutely willing to kill agents of a tyrannical government. The founding fathers weren't a bunch of namby-pamby Ghandis. They were willing to kill and be killed to defend those unalienable (natural) rights that every man is born with and which can never be rightfully taken away from him by government. I am deadly serious about what I wrote.
but others who aren't willing to murder for politics can.
I guess you would have been in favor of disarming the patriots at Lexington. They were obviously just gun wackos.
But I assume that was a little free speech hyperbole on your part).
No hyperbole, pal. If the government tries to round up guns and I have nowhere left to go and if the US government has turned into a police state, I will seek "to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness..." Make no mistake about it. If the time comes, I will die before I live as a slave, and I will take out as many would-be slavemasters as possible before I go.
I am saying there is a valid state interest in making sure those who carry guns outside of shooting ranges know what they're doing in some basic capacity.
That works under the rational basis test, but it doesn't under the compelling interest test. When fundamental individual rights are at issue, look to the latter rather than the former. There is probably a compelling state interest in keeping violent felons from owning firearms and people under PFAs from owning firearms, but I don't see a compelling state interest in instituting prior restraints on completly innocent people which would prevent them from firearms.
As far as your earlier comments go about case law, take a close look at the Miller case sometime. It is the great grand-daddy of gun cases. Read the facts and also read some history about the representation of Mr. Miller prior to coming to a conclusion about the merits of the case. While it is good law, it is just about as good as Plessy v. Ferguson was prior to 1954. The clock is ticking on Miller.
Don't ask me, ask Laurence Tribe, whose credentials are much better than mine. Admittedly, he does not go as far as I do, but the garbage about the Second Amendment being only a state right is being swept away before an avalanche of serious legal analysis. It is simply a matter of time, and I predict that in the next five to ten years, the Supremes will eviscerate Miller.
I do not think that all gun/weapons control laws are going to be unconstitutional, just as not all limits on speech are First Amendment violations, but the gun control advocates' "militia" chestnut is a walking corpse. Just as an FYI, there is an excellent Second Amendment website (containing almost all the major law review articles on the Second Amendment, from every perspective) located here. It makes excellent reading if you have any serious interest in the issue. The only problem is that it goes on hiatus from time to time. I can't find a google cache for it, so right now, the best way to check it out is on the Wayback Machine.
gf.
Yep...I blew it on the "profit!" gag.
Got my +5 on the merits anyway...heh.
gf.
Where will the 4th movie go? Simple, redemption of the world, or at least the beginnings of the establishment of civilization.
Mad Max - nation builder! What? Mel Gibson already did that in "The Patriot"? Damn...more rehash!
guac-foo
And while defeating tyrants was something some of them were thinking about, they were probably just as aware of the danger on the frontier.
Who knows what they were thinking, and who cares? They are dead and gone, and what matters to society today is what we think of the Bill of Rights. My thought process tells me that the logical explanation for the 2nd Amendment is from the natural desire to protect and defend oneself, be it from criminals or tyrants (but I'm being redundant).
The odds of a civilian needing to fire a weapon in self defense were probably a couple orders of magnitude higher back then.
You don't live in southeast Washington, D.C., do you?
Also, the US didn't have a substantial standing army, so getting a "well-regulated militia" was definitely a substantial goal of theirs, and the second amendement.
More ancient history. Who gives a fuck?
I won't invoke Godwin's Law.
Whatever. Hitler, Hitler, Hitler! Oh no! My arguments are suddenly without any sense or logic! Holy shit! Mike Godwin is right!
But the important difference between speech and guns is the directness of the violence. Speech that directs others to kill is conspiracy, not speech, and illegal.
Not unreasonable so far.
Firing a gun at another human being is attempted murder.
Wrong. The guys at Lexington were not murderers. Someone shooting an armed robber in the chest is not attempted murder.
Saying society would be better off without someone is speech.
Depends how you say it. "Let's lynch that nigger for raping my wife!" is probably not protected speech.
Firing at a target is a hobby.
Depends on the target.
The intent and the foreseeable consequences make a BIG difference.
Sure do. Let's give gun owners the same opportunity to make those decisions without prior restraints.
A substantial number (hundreds?) of Americans so around every day parroting what Hilter said, to little consequence.
I won't invoke the snarky little Godwin's law either. Aren't I gracious and self-righteous?
If the same number of people deicded to copycat the DC area snipers, that' be one of the greatest tragedies in the history of this nation. Hilter was enormously worse than Malvo, but him having free speech wasn't the problem.
And as for tyrants, free speech has proven remarkably more effective in taking them down (i.e. Nixon).
If you think Nixon was a tyrant, you're a fucking idiot. Sorry, but you are.
While guns have killed a fair number of politicians, their track record of killing the ones that we would have been better off without is essentially nil.
The truth is that there is really no good way for the populace to be protected from the oppression of a tyrant. Ownership of firearms may be the best that people can think of (in addition to the rule of law and healthy free speech).
Nor can I think of any cases where the threat of vilgilante murder against politicians has been a productive political force, but the threat of press criticism or exposure certainly has.
Well, just listen to Tom Daschle recently (in particular to the wild claims he was making about Limbaugh listeners threatening him).
So, from a public utility perspective, in the political arena, speech is a lot more beneficial, with a lot fewer downsides, than firearms.
I don't recall making that argument, but you sure did a nice job of knocking it down.
This justifies a much different governmental stance for prior restraint.
Yeah, except for the fact that you are making an argument in favor of limiting an important individual right straight out of existence. Fuck it. I'd rather run the risk of being killed by firearms than allow people like you and the government to take them away.
Other people have posted that they would kill rather than submit to the elimination of private firearms by government. Add me to that list. It isn't a fucking joke -- the day that a cop or a soldier comes to my house to confiscate my guns without my having committed some sort of crime is that day that I start killing agents of the government. I will die before I submit to a tyrant.
I certainly would rather live in a nation with free speech and no handguns than a nation without free speech but with many available handguns. Lots of the former societies do just fine, but none of the latter do.
What a bullshit way of putting it. It is not as if those are the only two choices. I advocate neither of those positions. How about a society where speech and the right to self-defense (which is really what we are talking about here) are both mutually reinforcing?
guac-foo.
I read about the movie this morning on CNN, but I wasn't really that excited by it. The interesting part of the story arc has been exhausted, IMHO. I'm not exactly sure where this one will go, unless it is a rehash of the last two plots.
1. Mad Max = world going to hell
2. Road Warrior = world gone to hell
3. Thunderdome = World gone to hell, but redeeming itself
4. New movie = (?) Make money!
There is some overlap (Road Warrior had an inkling of redemption at the end, but it was more explicit in Thunderdome.
This may end up being a good action flick, but I am not seeing significant potential to do anything very new or exciting. I expect that, like Mel, we'll find out that the series is old and tired.
guac-foo.
The "right to bear arms" can be interpreted broadly or narrowly, but not universally. Is there a right to bear hand grenades? Sniper rifles into a presidential speech? Twelve sticks of dynamite strapped to your chest into a bank? Obviously some weapons and situations aren't acceptable, others are (I have no problem with hunting, target shooting, etcetera). The right to be armed isn't an absolute. The policy question is what's the right balance to maximize both second amendement rights and the right to safety of others.
1. I never posted anything indicating a absolute total right (to biological weapons, for instance).
2. Restrictions and exception exist on all the individual rights. The Fourth Amendment has so many exceptions that it barely exists anymore. Clearly, an individual right to keep and bear arms would have restrictions, just like any other right does.
You are correct in stating that it is the nature of those restrictions that will be at issue when the Supreme Court finishes the integration process by bringing the Second Amendment home to the states just like it did to the First, Fourth, and Fifth amendments in (mostly) the 1930's.
As far as restrictions go, I think we should be very careful about prior restraints, especially vis-a-vis firearms. The Second Amendment is, after all, not about target shooting or hunting ducks. It is about killing tyrants.
In the same way, someone who isn't willing to engage is basic gun safety is a threat to the public, which overrides their right to be armed.
Is someone who is unwilling to spend three years in law school studying libel, slander, and defamation a threat to the public? Should those people be saddled with a prior restraint on a fundamental freedom? Why are you so hasty to regulate firearms? Hitler never shot a single soul in anger (after WWI when he was in the Wermacht), but he killed millions with his words. Really, what is the greater threat?
Heck one could argue (I'm not) that the right to bear arms should be limited to the types of arms available when the constitution was ratified, since that was the original intent.
Good thing you're not making that argument. I guess it would limit free speech to the types of speech available at the time of the ratification of the Bill of Rights. Forget the internet or movies -- go get your quill and ink.
guac-foo.
How about this: A gun license should be as hard to get as a driver's license
Do you think that a license to speak freely should be as hard to get as a driver's license?
FWIW, there was a very interesting article recently (month or so ago) in the Wall Street Journal describing how difficult it is to get a driver's license in the UK. Are you sure that you want a fundamental, individual right (just ask ultra-liberal constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe, who has written the book on Con law in the US -- he has recently concluded that the Second Amendment protects an individual right, just like the First Amendment, and the Third (quartering troops), and the Fourth (searches), and the Fifth (self-incrimination), etc.
guac-foo
Where's the Amazon.com zshops link for these street vendors? Ebay? C'mon -- don't they know what kind of market they are missing?
He's married to Kate Capshaw. Duh. Don't you people watch E! except for the Anna Nicole show?
Sheesh.
The most vital part of the plan, after backups, is good insurance. If the building burns to the ground Monday morning, you want to be able to call the insurer Monday Noon, and have the check in hand Tuesday morning at the latest.
Despite all the horseshit about "State Farm is there" and "Nationwide is on your side", you will not have a check in hand the next day. When you make a claim, you are a cost center to the insurer, not a policy premium paying buddy.
Expect to have your ass turned inside out a la goatse.cx before seeing so much as a nickel from an insurer. An "expensive" policy doesn't mean that they will be any nicer about it -- it just means you overpaid for the privilege of being dejected, suspected, inspected, and rejected by a greedy little monkey-fucking insurance company.
WOOOooo back up the truck, Capt. Anal.
Flamebait.
" This represents the exchange of information, some meaningful, some not, some we just don't know about."
the parts we don't know about, that would be "human intuition". really, there is know better way to sum up the brains ability to be thinking about everything going on around it, AND remembering things.
No, we just don't know about them yet. I have no desire to ascribe some sort of mystical notion of "intuition" to what amounts to a biological system. Is there some sort of magical process to explain consciousness, free will, or our humanity other than as the product of discrete neurological processes? No. We are our brains. We are neurons, electricity and chemicals. There is no "intuition".
the brains is not computational, it is chemical.
Actually, it is computational. It is simply not digital. Big difference.
If you want to do some serious studing of the brain, save the computer comparison for simple explanations. trying to compare the Brain to a computer(as they function now) is folly, and will cause you to make poor assumptions.
I agree with your statement. My original post mentioned a number of times that using an analogy of brain as (especially a digital) computer is fraught with peril.
The brains does more remembering then calculatings.
What is remembering but the manipulation of data? Also, acting on memories involves processing, particularly in the "higher" functions of logic, free will and reasoning.
You don't calculate that sensation is called hot, and therefore you should keep your fingers away, it remembers.
Just because it takes place subconsciously does not mean that it does not involve calculation. Our brains are still waters that run deep. Do not be fooled by the inability to perceive the calculation and (relatively) automatic response sent by the brain to the body in reply to a stimulus.
Of course we can use are will to override the brain,
Not always. Try to stop yourself from breathing for more than a couple of minutes. Try to do a "funny walk" (a la Monty Python) all year. Who we are and what we are is a meld of conscious and subconcious processes, of which only a small part are conscious and subject to being acted upon by our notion of "free will". Ascribing more importance to "free will" than that is delusional. You're not seeing reality, you're seeing the shadows on the wall of the cave.
which is one of the 3 cool things about the brain.
I'm curious...what are the other two cool things you have in mind?
guac-foo
I'm sorry, but this is hogwash. Our brains are not amazing because of their computational power, but because of human intuition.
What, praytell, can "human intuition" possibly be other than the result of the brain taking information and acting on it? The analogy between a computer and a human brain has all sorts of problems.
Nevertheless, there is no such thing as "human intuition". Brains are made of neurons. Chemical and electrical signaling between the neurons is the only thing that causes anything to happen in our brains. There is no humonculus controlling anything. There is no random number generator. Human intuition may be described, IMHO, as logical extrapolations based on imperfect knowledge. It is not some mystical, non-computational characteristic of neurology.
The entire concept that we can match up a machine's computation to the brain's is trivializing how the brain functions.
The brain is relatively simply at a basic level. Chemicals and electric signals are exchanged by various neurons. This represents the exchange of information, some meaningful, some not, some we just don't know about. Certain regions of the brain are responsible for processing visual data (much of the "conscious" brain could be viewed as a massive extension of the eye).
We break down each function related to the problem and track it to the subsystem, breaking everything down into smaller and smaller and more discrete processes, and it all begins to look very much like simple computational problems. We're used to dealing with digital computers and our analysis of how to solve problems with digital computers is certainly not applicable to the brain on a one-to-one basis -- that is just nuts.
The short reply to your assertion is, however, that the only way we will ever understand the functioning of the "brain" and the rest of the related nervous system is to break it down into little parts, i.e. trivialize it.
I was able to catch a football before I even studied mathematics, let alone arithmetic. There is no calculus problem being solved.
But I'll bet that you didn't learn how to catch a ball without getting stoved fingers, missing a bunch of them, dropping balls on occasion from mis-judging speed, height, the position of your body, etc.
Memory, experience, and the brain's wonderful ability to track moving things (likely a residual survival skill) easily do this without requiring conscious thought on your part.
The fact that you are unaware of the process and the calculations being made does not mean that they are not being made. Are you aware of the temperature calculations for when you bump the stove? ("I wonder how hot this is...hmmm...it feels as though it might cause third degree burns in 1.2 seconds...oh...it has already been 3.2 seconds...I'd better remove my hand.") Much is going on "behind the curtain". Consciousness appears to be related to only a very little of what we do on a regular basis.
guac-foo
While most of the commentary here is related to the significance of a machine with the "processing power" of a human brain, it is notable that the engineers are not trying to emulate the human brain, nor are they doing any AI work at all. This is a brute force calculating job all the way around.
Also notable is the fact that this special purpose maching is a nuclear bomb compared to the human brain's match in terms of doing the job it is being built for. With performance differences like this between general purpose and special purpose computers, why would anyone seek to build a general purpose machine that would just want to drink, fuck, and live in a trailer?
guac-foo.
Lots of interesting things about this:
First, the real issue is not hardware or CPU cycles -- it is software. Tired of Seti@home? Let's build a distributed processing network that has as many CPU cycle equivalents as the human brain! Oh yeah, that's already been done. Ok, so why doesn't it "think" yet? Oh yeah...software.
The issue is how to integrate storage, processing, "RAM", etc. into a software package that can emulate a human brain's method of thinking (which may be a very bad, krufty method of developing consciousness -- why would anyone use meat for processors? What a kludgy hack!).
(OT: what if "thinking" software is _not_ GPL'ed? That could be really frightening. So could security issues for "thinking" machines.)
Second, the next issue is why should we compare digital thinking machines to biological ones? Maybe it is the only benchmark we can think of, but given the truly awkward way in which light-sensitive cells were adapted for inclusion a biological thinking machine (see Francis Crick's "Astonishing Hypothesis"), why can't a much more efficient independent decision making machine be developed from digital equipment (not DEC, btw) actually designed for the purpose?
The human brain/computer comparison is really a red herring. The only reason to create a human-like digital thinking machine/emulator (and you thought WINE was hard to use...) might be to pursue immortality. I think the more likely reason is that it would be the ultimate species-wide circle jerk. Humanity getting off on creating humanity. Bleh. Let's set our sights a little higher.
guac-foo
Slashing back to yesterday, the FTC can maybe set their sights on the Spam Queen featured on the fricking front page of the Wall Street Journal yesterday.
You say you are "the submitter", but don't you really mean that you are the receiver?
I have enough problems teaching my one year old not to eat dog food. I don't think I really want to have to educate my email client about spam, and then continue to monitor it to make sure it doesn't fuck up.
The problem with spam (for me) is that I have to waste time dealing with it or my existing filters sometimes accidentally chew up a legit message (rarely). The basic plan Mozilla seems to be after doesn't really fix that for me.
I do like the idea of allowing anti-spam plug-ins. Having a variety of methods to choose from will let me decide what, if any, third-party solution works best for me.
guac-foo
That song was actually one of the really, really good parts about the Rankin/Bass Return of the King. I've actually emailed Yarbrough's management outfit about where I could get a CD with it, but to no avail. It might *ahem* be available on a P2P network, but, I, ah, suspect, that the quality isn't the best.
No, I think folks know it's stealing in the same way they also know that going 65 in a 55 zone is breaking the law. "It's okay, everyone does it." "I'm not hurting anyone (at least that I know and care about)." "It's cheap and painless." "Nobody will ever know." "Nobody will bother me for doing this, so I can do it with impunity."
This doesn't make it right, it just makes it common.
No bickering on your point, just the language.
Your last statement intrigued me. This whole debate has little to do with what is "right" and "wrong". It is rather a debate over what is "legal" and "illegal". The distinction being that right and wrong have some sort of (probably) subjective moral sense underlying the determinations. The latter debate is simply a decision resulting from the existing political power structure that has happened to come to govern each of us.
That being said, I think that unauthorized copying is morally objectionable to me, and I disapprove of it. Is it "right" or "wrong" to do so, or will some hypothetical god send me to hell for doing it? I dunno. Clearly, the Ten Commandments are a little vague on P2P file sharing. My knowledge of the Torah and Koran is limited, so I can't really render anything but a guess, so I won't. Perhaps some other ecumenical peanut galleries can speak on this one -- anyone got the Buddha's cellphone number? What about Vishnu?
Is it legal? Clearly, no, it isn't. Right or wrong? You see the obvious problems.
I can't believe this is happening to other people also. I had to inform three ladies (who were unhappy with the "abrupt" ending) that they may actually have to read or at least wait a year or two to learn what happens next.
Or did you happen to see the movie in Lancaster PA? Buckle of the bible belt and home of lunacy.
A bunch of people I know in York (near Lancaster) voiced the same general complaint: "It just ended -- I don't know what happens." I seriously had to resist the urge to slap them for being idiots.
I am honestly shocked at how stupid people can be sometimes. I shouldn't be, but I still am from time to time.
"That ends with them throwing the ring in the volcano, right?" Well, it doesn't end there. They go home and some thugs have taken over the Shire and...I mean, yeah, that's how it ends.
Actually, that's exactly how it ends. There is no retaking of the Shire in the movie. Saruman dies in The Two Towers
Uh...what about Frodo and Bilbo and Gandalf departing from the Grey Havens? And Merry and Pippen, etc., riding back to Hobbiton without them? That was one of the best parts of the book -- incredibly sad, poignant, and CUT OUT OF THE FRICKING MOVIE?!?!?!?!?!! Come on!!
You mean that Glenn Yarbrough won't sing the Road goes ever on and on? Are you telling me the animated fricking Kasey Casem version has a better ending that the Peter Jackson one?!?!??? I feel so betrayed! Galadriel had better show her f-ing tits, or I'm definitely not going to see Return of the King.
Why go with the Terapin VCD recorder when you can get a DVD recorder from Panasonic for about twice the price?
The time-slip and the ability to record using variable bit rate on a much bigger media, seems to be pretty cool. VCD is ok, but it's not where things are going. I'd rather plunk down an extra couple hundred to get a DVD recorder.
guac-foo
Why must we have a new law every time a new technology comes along?
The old common law used to work great. It seems to be working now. The legislature passes the ADA, and the courts apply it to unanticipated facts. The ruling seems reasonable, and an extension of our understanding of the original law has occurred.
Wouldn't common sense be to use existing laws to govern new things, in the spirit of the old law?
Already do that, see above.
We have so many laws, governing the minutia of everyday life, that no person could possibly be expected to know or follow every one.
What? You aren't familiar with the laws governing the removal of underground storage tanks? You don't know the regulations either? What about the tax code? Lead paint? Are you ignorant, or what? Sheesh!
What we need is a reduction and simplification of laws, not an expansion to explicitly govern every imaginable situation.
Are you trying to take my job away from me, non-lawyer boy? Do you know what you are suggesting? A world where average people might actually know what is and is not "against" the law? That would be insane! I'd have to work for a living!
guac-foo