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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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Feb 25, 2018 - 07:29pm PT
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I do believe the tide has shifted, with this last horror. I certainly hope so.
Without the NRA buying off pols, there would be zero - z.e.r.o. - chance of keeping the AR-15 and it's like in production and available for sale to the general public.
Does anyone disagree with that statement? Honest question....
From the Parkland massacre, the public is finally seeing the connection: NRA lobbying power = no significant changes in laws reducing availability of this type of arms. And they have spoken.
It took LESS than 24 hours of it being announced what corporations offered discounts for NRA members to have the major car leasing companies pull the...trigger.... and stop rewarding people for belonging to that organization. Took a little longer for the airlines, but it is happening, as well as with other corps.
The NRA had best hope it is a long, LONG, time before another FU(w)M(F*#ked.Up.(white)Male.) goes on a killing rampage, because this time The People have laid down the line. NRA should count their lucky stars the only thing lost - so far - is the ability to sell their memberships with the enticement of discounts as added perk.
"Thoughts and Prayers." This has been the LAST time a politician is going to get away with offering that empty sentiment. People don't give a GOD DAMN about "thoughts and prayers," when their child, grandchild, niece/nephew, neighborhood kid is wiped off the face of this earth by a FUwM with one of those guns. A lot of believers actually get ANGRY with "God" when "He" does thee kinds of things, and for those who are agnostic, or even just realistic, offering "thoughts and prayers" have become about as meaningful as saying "I'll get the bill next time" at the end of a restaurant meal with people you've said that to every other time a group of people got killed...I mean, every other time a group of people died in a restaurant with them....DINED! I meant to write "dined, not "died."....wooops.
NRA members are rethinking if they want to be associated with such an organization. While it's not akin to being the Ku Klux Klan, the brand has been tainted. They DO have blood on their hands.
The MAJORITY of people in this country want stricter laws for the ownership of guns, and reduced if not eliminated access to the types of weapons that can maim and kill in volume.
By 2018 elections, you can BET that any pol still spouting the NRA's (current) dogma is going to find themself under political assault. And if the unthinkable happens again, and yet MORE children (or even grown people) are mowed down, it will be even worse for them than it is now.
The NRA is no doubt, quietly looking at how to do damage control, reframe their message, even as they outwardly espouse they stand strong - watch it and weep. But don't fall for it.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 25, 2018 - 07:30pm PT
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I’m not used to you straying so far from reality, as to join in the slight insanity of thinking that U.S. troops will not fire on U.S. citizens in rebellion. We enjoy a rich history of U.S. troops dealing firmly with rebellion, starting with the Whiskey Rebellion in PA in 1891.
Of course, you also ignore the Civil War.
And then you quote the left-wing saying that it's the right-wing that enjoys such fantasies. Hehe
The motive phrase, though, is "in rebellion." As I said, if just under half this nation gets tired of the other just-over half foisting off its factious "majority" on it, it will have to make a solid political philosophy case before it takes up arms against "the others."
I don't imagine a scenario in which a few disaffected "rebels" decides to "go rogue." A more likely scenario (and one that, clearly, a LARGE number of libs on this very forum see as a real threat today "under the Trump regime") is that "the rebels" are in fact in political power at the point that they decide to radically change the nature of this union. Then "the military" will (by your lights) be on THEIR side, and "the rebels" will be the side that is at that moment out of power.
WHO will the military fire on then?
See, depending upon "who strikes first" and how they cast it, it's flat-out unclear what role "the military" would play.
Our present balance of power is more tenuous than I've ever seen it, and people are more on-the-brink than I've ever seen them before. Moreover, defining to the satisfaction of military leaders who "the rebels" are in such a scenario would be more nuanced today than ever before. Continually looking back to the civil war as an exemplar of what a future civil war would look like is the real anchor into fantasy land.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 25, 2018 - 07:41pm PT
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The MAJORITY of people in this country want stricter laws for the ownership of guns, and reduced if not eliminated access to the types of weapons that can maim and kill in volume.
I'm not an NRA member. Never have been, and never will be.
That said, I have two responses to your statements.
1) I'm dubious that you have your finger on the pulse of "the majority" with any level of granularity. It's more likely that you are projecting your own emotional responses to such events upon the majority, a majority that shares your angst but does not share your belief that "the solution" has anything to do with making this or that arbitrary type of weapon illegal.
2) Arbitrarily making this or that small arm illegal is not in the purview of the majority. The majority is no legitimate right to declare by fiat that "certain sorts of self-defense weapons are off limits, and the US people no longer have any right to the minimal weapons it would take to mount an armed resistance against a tyrannical federal government."
You can wish it, you can cry out for it, and you can decry everybody who believes as I do. But none of that changes the fact that any majority that accomplishes what you wish for will have crossed yet another line in the slow but steady march toward tyranny in this nation.
We have very good ways to radically reduce both the incidence and severity of such mass-shooting events, particular in our schools. Those ways do not include more gun-control laws nor the banning of arbitrary weapons.
So, you can argue for such laws and even use tragic events to trigger the hew and cry for such laws. But such laws at best only very obliquely address such events, while other means immediately at our disposal would have a direct and dramatic effect to essentially eliminate school shootings.
And when such means are immediately at our disposal, it is indeed the height of arbitrariness to single out a particular weapon for special condemnation, when the entire elimination of it will have ZERO effect on the incidence and severity of future (and there WILL be more, if you don't get serious about what WILL actually work) such events.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 25, 2018 - 07:43pm PT
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Continually looking back to the civil war as an exemplar of what a future civil war would look like is the real anchor into fantasy land.
looking into the future is, necessarily, a fantasy. And one that the "framers" engaged in, and I suspect had they known that for two centuries that the government they constituted would maintain by peaceful means I doubt that the argument: "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," would have carried any weight.
In fact, a well regulated Militia has never been necessary to the security of a free State.
And where the country goes, as dictated by the polity, was not predetermined by the Constitution, part of its genius. It goes where the people want it to.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Feb 25, 2018 - 07:56pm PT
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* right to declare by fiat that "certain sorts of self-defense weapons are off limits, and the US people no longer have any right to the minimal weapons it would take to mount an armed resistance
**
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Feb 25, 2018 - 07:57pm PT
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It goes where the people want it to
Unfortunately, that's a bit of a puzzle at present. So divided . . .
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 25, 2018 - 08:09pm PT
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In fact, a well regulated Militia has never been necessary to the security of a free State.
It's trite for you to make such a claim now, after hundreds of years of a very armed militia in fact ensuring that neither "side" could go "too far, too fast."
People LOVE power, which is to say the power to CONTROL other people. It's a rush that nothing else in the world can provide. Better than money, sex, and drugs. It's the deepest and sickest part of human nature that we all (even in our small-scope, for most of us) crave the power to MAKE people bend to our will. This should go without saying, it's so obvious. But in this context it bears emphasis.
Only the threat (and capacity) of reactive FORCE keeps that basic human nature in check, which realization was the true genius of the founding fathers. The founders believed that the American people would exercise violent force before letting the federal government gain too much power. What they did not see was how to keep the federal government from gaining too much power over the LONG HAUL spanning many generations.
Their genius kept it from happening too much, too fast; but it did not keep it from happening at all.
And where the country goes, as dictated by the polity, was not predetermined by the Constitution, part of its genius. It goes where the people want it to.
See, statements like this flat out scare me. I mean that. If this nation was designed to be anything, it was designed to NOT be what you are saying.
You are talking about majority faction, which is the thing to most be feared in a constitutional republic. And the founders did everything in their power to ensure that this specter would not emerge in this nation, yet you appear to be flat-out embracing it!
This nation was NOT designed to be "majority rule," as you say. It was designed to be "majority rule within the principles of legitimate government," and that last phrase WAS enshrined in the DofI in the form of negative, inalienable rights. That means that NO government is legitimate (even when the majority wants it) that stomps on inalienable rights. And the scenario of majority faction is precisely when it IS legitimate for the (perhaps barely) minority rise up in rebellion.
Whether or not that rebellion is ultimately put down has NOTHING to say about the legitimacy of that rebellion. And the BEST way to avoid the perceived need of rebellion is for each momentary majority to carefully limit its exercise of power to NOT infringe upon inalienable rights!
So, THIS nation does NOT just go wherever some particular majority wants it to go, nor should it ever!
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
Terence Wilson greeneck alleghenys,ny,
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Feb 25, 2018 - 08:33pm PT
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Thank You Mighty Hiker.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 25, 2018 - 08:36pm PT
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This nation was NOT designed to be "majority rule," as you say.
I didn't say this, the function of the nation, as constituted, involves the checks and balances of the three branches.
The people have to have accepted this particular constitution, it is what defines the nation.
But just where this would all go was not set out in the Constitution, how it would go was.
As for being "trite" I don't think I am at all. I believe that the "framers" perceived the possibility that a tyrannical federal government would take over and force its will without the counter balance of state militias. History informed them, but as you pointed out, their fears turned out to be a fantasy.
Whether or not you believe that federal tyranny exists, it did not come about by force, nor would you advocate force to shed that perceived tyranny, and in any case not all of the states would share your perception.
The protections provided by the 2nd Amendment turn out to be irrelevant, as demonstrated by history.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 25, 2018 - 09:08pm PT
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Or, just maybe it is you that hasn't got your finger on the pulse of the majority of the people in this country.
And then you cite studies in which people support limited gun-control, not the sweeping measures you call for, in particular: "The MAJORITY of people in this country want... reduced if not eliminated access to the types of weapons that can maim and kill in volume."
You see, "the majority" in these studies want a "reduction" in the ownership of "assault weapons," but they have no clue what an "assault weapon" even is! What do YOU think that phrase means? Is it coextensional with "the types of weapons that can maim and kill in volume," or does the phrase include every semi-auto weapon, as some on this thread have asserted?
I'm well aware that "the majority" want "reasonable gun control." The devil is in the details of defining what that is. And what most Americans believe it is does not include everything you apparently wish for. In particular, that "assault weapon" phrase is a real gotcha!
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 25, 2018 - 09:09pm PT
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It's only a very vocal minority, as well-exemplified by MB1, well-organized and financed by things like the NRA, that oppose this.
Don't put me in bed with the NRA. The NRA has never gotten a shred of support nor one penny from me, and it never will.
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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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Feb 25, 2018 - 09:11pm PT
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OMFG, Bolter!
The cites DO say the majority don't want "assault type weapons."
You are scary, with your insistence you are right when the facts show otherwise.
Done, at least for the evening. Good night.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 25, 2018 - 09:13pm PT
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The protections provided by the 2nd Amendment turn out to be irrelevant, as demonstrated by history.
However you argued yourself to this point, on this point we agree, and I have made this very point repeatedly in this very thread.
The second amendment has always been irrelevant (it was argued by some of the founders that the entire Bill of Rights was irrelevant, unnecessary, and if anything dangerous!).
Eliminate it, and nothing about inalienable rights changes in the slightest. And had it been eliminated prior to its inclusion in the Bill of Rights, nothing about inalienable rights would have changed.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Feb 25, 2018 - 09:15pm PT
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Define "assault type weapons."
A weapon isn't even a weapon if it can't be used to assault someone.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 25, 2018 - 09:21pm PT
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The cites DO say the majority don't want "assault type weapons."
Exactly what I said. You entirely missed my point. Here it is again.
"The majority" has NO idea what an "assault weapon" even is. Thus, it is NOT clear that the phrase "assault weapon" as polled maps onto your phrase "the types of weapons that can maim and kill in volume."
I ask AGAIN: Does your phrase include ALL semi-auto weapons? You see, if you can't answer that question with granular accuracy and explain how your answer maps onto the phrase "assault weapon," then you literally cannot assert that "studies show that the majority of Americans want to eliminate the types of weapons that can maim and kill in volume."
ALL semi-auto weapons can maim and kill in volume, which is precisely why some on this very thread have advocated banning all semi-auto weapons. But the majority of Americans have not been polled to agree with THAT ban!
Look, on this subject, the devil really IS in the DETAILS, and it's a hard enough discussion without fudge in the terms and definitions!
You are scary, with your insistence you are right when the facts show otherwise.
Apparently, right back atcha.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 25, 2018 - 09:39pm PT
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Hey M.B. don't ya know, if you've ever so much as sniffed a gun you're automatically classified by this crowd as not only being in bed with the NRA, but technically classified as it's dirty 4th street whore!
Yeah, this topic gets pretty frothy.
I'm actually closer to the libs than they realize on this subject. But I do have a few principled lines to draw. For them, it seems, an emotion-charged incident, however statistically insignificant it is, makes ANY national policy up for grabs. I won't go THERE with them.
Let's get some cops (that won't just hide behind their cars) in EVERY school, so that EVERY school is no longer a "gun free zone," and we'll immediately find that the nut-jobs move on to other "gun free zones" in their search for soft-targets. At least then the kids will be safer at school.
I'm starting to believe that the gun-control advocates don't want to accept this OBVIOUS solution because they relish further incidents to help froth up their (what is really completely unrelated) agenda. So, I'd say this: FIRST, let's secure the kids at school, THEN let's talk about what really are REASONABLE gun-control measures.
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 25, 2018 - 09:44pm PT
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A weapon isn't even a weapon if it can't be used to assault someone.
LOL, that is a pretty good statement.
The anti-gun morons are idiots.
They only know poor temporary band aid solutions overall which are actually pretty st00pid.
The only real way to fix the issue is to raise the consciousness.
Give someone something higher and better and the caveman consciousness falls away easily.
But st00pid modern nutcases with their violent consciousness is sooooo low these fools will suffer for 428,000 more years to come .....
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nah000
climber
now/here
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Feb 25, 2018 - 09:46pm PT
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you know, given the amount of emotion that must inevitably result from the intersection between the pointless deaths of children and one of the ultimate present day physical manifestations of individual human’s desire for physical security [the gun], i have to commend the civility of those engaging in this debate... while it ain’t perfect at least people are talking.
for me the heart of the matter is simply this: ignoring the slippery slope argument and assuming that nobody is going to come after your rifle and/or handgun, what possible argument is there to legally allow any gun to have a magazine and/or intrinsic capability for larger than 6-10 bullets outside of a “well-regulated militia” [ie. outside of a swiss style regulated oversight of a well-armed civilian “military”]?
honest question directed toward mb1, jrig, or other...
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