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Gun Control

I think it will be much more effective towards stopping these mass shootings but the number of overall handgun deaths are here to stay.

The people in the various mental health databases will just acquire their guns illegally, right?
 
The people in the various mental health databases will just acquire their guns illegally, right?

In same cases, such as Sandy Hook, that is right. In some cases no. However going after the guns of law abiding citizens is not an acceptable answer. No matter how much some wish it to be so.

Prevent those incappable of responsible ownership, thru mental health and criminal records, from easy access.

Despite how you would attempt to cloud that issue it is fairly straight forward.
 
No, not explicitly. If it were explicit, you would be able to pull out a quote stating that concept.

The reason it is, in the ultimate sense, useless to reply to you is the same reason I say the SCOTUS is "disingenuous" in being unwilling to interpret the Second Amendment in its true context in 1789, where the whole issue that brought about the first ten amendments to the constitution was the concern of some states to prevent our federal government from being able to encroach on personal liberties in the way the British had done.

British Citizens had for hundreds of years something called the "Magna Carta", and a body of law that had developed from a struggle to protect common people from the things the royals had a propensity to do. The reason some American colonists were unhappy came from the loss of those rights, and the realization that they as Americans were receiving second hand treatment because of corporate interests in controlling American trade. When Americans objected to the punitive measures which were intended to enforce Bristish commercial monopoly in the colonies, the British responded with increasingly punitive measures, stationing Crown troops in America to enforce these laws. Among the many things that were done to control Americans was the limitation of weapons to the Americans.

Some Americans responded with what the Crown considered Treason. . . . . shooting back at the occupying troops.

The Second Amendment is the Constitutional provision that guarantees citizens the justification for protecting their rights by force, against a government gone wrong in denying significant human rights.

You and the SCOTUS are just liars to try to deny that clear intent behind the Second Amendment. The right to defend your own life, or your property, or your rights is ultimately the right to replace a government that attempts to denigrate those rights.

Good if the right to vote isn't infringed, and people believe their government is properly defending their rights, they will never turn their arms against their government, and they will voluntarily turn out to defend their government.

The Second Amendment was intended to secure the right of the people to replace their government by force if that ever became the only way left to do that.

And the wording, in that context, is amazing explicit.

For you or anyone, including the arrogant and presumptious SCOTUS that is itself attempting to denigrate humans by the claim that nine stupid honchos have the power to define rights for Americans, instead of leaving the government in the status of being the people's government rather than some special people's governance tool, to say the words are not explicit, is proof of an unwillingness to accept the words for what they mean.

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"

what is not explicit about that?

Under the original intent of the constitution, the federal government has no authority to issue weapon regulations whatsoever.
 
I believe in reasoning from evidence, not first principles.

well, at least you are recognizing that your basic approach is the result of a "belief", which is itself one of those human "first principles" which we really can't ditch in any ultimate sense.

"evidence" as we will ever define it, is also something that does not escape being the derivative our our beliefs about what is or is not a true fact or observation, as opposed to those we question or don't want to believe.

while suffering the same ultimate character, "first principles" are our sometimes reasoned, sometimes sentimental or prejudiced projections of useful concepts for ways to organize the universe in our minds. I favor some concepts of "first principles", and reject others myself, so welcome the club, human.
 
I don't think our founders really liked mobs, either. That is why they had gatherings like the congress that declared independence, with representatives present who had been selected by people in the various colonies, and by colonial governments themselves. . . .which meant that the colonial "rebels" were not just a mob. They were authorized by a form of government which was attempting in a collective way to protect the rights of the people in the "rebel" colonies.

These same founders sent troops to shut down some other "rebels" whom they considered unauthorized by the colonies' government.

Clearly, in the fight for human rights, if our Federal Government is the transgressor, I will be among those who are employing state governments to respond to the issue, not mob action.

That is why I say even our founders did not choose weapons as the measures of first response, and why I ultimately believe it is ideas, not force of arms, that is the answer in securing human liberty.
 
I think it will be much more effective towards stopping these mass shootings but the number of overall handgun deaths are here to stay.

I think so much of this is based on the false premise that horrible acts such as what happened at Sandy Hook must be stopped no matter what it takes to stop them. Part of the problem is that no one is willing or even proposing actions that could have prevented the tragedy. The other problem is that solutions are being proposed that achieve a completely different goal but do not at all address the issue being used to justify them. In my opinion the Sandy Hook tragedy is being used in a rather disgusting way to undermine the American gun culture in general. Not to address gun crime in the U.S., not to address the factors that lead to a person making the decision to kill dozens of children, not to address real ways to improve gun safety, awareness and understanding, but to paint as evil in and of itself the notion that "normal people" have the right to have access to powerful weapons.
 
I think so much of this is based on the false premise that horrible acts such as what happened at Sandy Hook must be stopped no matter what it takes to stop them. Part of the problem is that no one is willing or even proposing actions that could have prevented the tragedy. The other problem is that solutions are being proposed that achieve a completely different goal but do not at all address the issue being used to justify them. In my opinion the Sandy Hook tragedy is being used in a rather disgusting way to undermine the American gun culture in general. Not to address gun crime in the U.S., not to address the factors that lead to a person making the decision to kill dozens of children, not to address real ways to improve gun safety, awareness and understanding, but to paint as evil in and of itself the notion that "normal people" have the right to have access to powerful weapons.

I agree. If my posts reflected otherwise than they are poorly worded, it happens, or they were misread.

Sandy Hook would have happened even if every single point of the Presidents gun control plan were in effectt.
 
I agree. If my posts reflected otherwise than they are poorly worded, it happens, or they were misread.

Sandy Hook would have happened even if every single point of the Presidents gun control plan were in effectt.

Oh no, I was trying to support what you said not counter it.
 
The reason it is, in the ultimate sense, useless to reply to you is the same reason I say the SCOTUS is "disingenuous" in being unwilling to interpret the Second Amendment in its true context in 1789, where the whole issue that brought about the first ten amendments to the constitution was the concern of some states to prevent our federal government from being able to encroach on personal liberties in the way the British had done.

The very idea of there being some true, unique context held by every founder in 1789 is itself a fiction. There were many contexts held by many different founders. Some saw the Second Amendment as the means of putting down rebellions in part by organized religions. At the time, there was almost no United States Army from which one would need to defend itself. Most troops were in state military outfits. The Second Amendment was seen by some as a way to quickly put recruits into such outfits.

You (probably through sources you are absorbing) are projecting modern fears into a context that didn't really exist in a country that had no real Army, no FBI, no CIA, etc. It's one thing to claim the reason for a right is implicit. It's quite another to claim it's explicit in context, when you can't even get teh context right.

well, at least you are recognizing that your basic approach is the result of a "belief", ... I favor some concepts of "first principles", and reject others myself, so welcome the club, human.

Actually, I said I prefer to the opposite, that I prefer to reason from evidence. I acknowledge I am not as successful at that as I desire, but I try to to keep the goal in mind.
 
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