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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 26, 2018 - 11:35am PT
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Suggesting that I (or others) that advocate for some type of gun/ammo/extensive background licensing/training or whatever makes sense “relish further incidents” is just plain sickening.
I am not suggesting that you think that way. But on this very thread two people were advocating for the slaughter of Republican congressmen and talking about throwing a party "when it happens."
You said nothing to rebuke those "gentlemen," but perhaps you missed it.
As evidenced by the comments just prior to yours, there are people here that are not even trying to be reasonable or honest. Nobody says anything about that. I've learned in my long life that people that have abandoned even the trappings of reasonable society/discussion are capable of believing and wishing for literally anything that suits their purposes.
And anybody that can advocate and plan a party for the slaughter of congressmen has already gone WAY beyond sickening. Sorry, but not everybody on "your side" thinks in reasonable, honest fashion.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Feb 26, 2018 - 11:38am PT
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I think there are some simple changes that have the potential to make a big difference:
1. People who are diagnosed with mental illness cannot buy/own guns (the current law in CA)
2. Background checks on all gun sales, and all guns registered.
3. People arrested for violence cannot buy/own guns.
4. People convicted of mass shootings will have citizenship revoked (believe it or not, that would be a motivator for some people.)
5. People on the "no-fly" terrorism list cannot buy/own guns.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Feb 26, 2018 - 11:41am PT
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I'm surprised by the argument that if only we have a bunch of armed guards and teachers, no one would attack a school.
While SURROUNDED by 20 or so of the most highly trained gunmen in the history of the world, Ronald Reagan got shot. Gerald Ford was nearly shot.
It didn't stop them from trying, and it wouldn't, when it is Barney Fife you are trying to overcome with overwhelming firepower.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 26, 2018 - 11:44am PT
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MB1...I know that's a trick question but yeah....Majority rule...
It's not a trick question. I'm honestly just trying to figure out if there are ANY lines you believe government cannot cross. For example....
Let's say that as the Boomers age more and more, they and their immediate families form a significant majority. Like the redistribution of wealth idea, they decide that some young, healthy people are going to have to be killed so that their organs can be harvested (redistributed) for transplant purposes.
In our thought experiment, the Boomers have a majority, so Congress dutifully passes a law requiring doctors to kill and harvest the organs from 10% of the young, healthy people that come in for physicals and minor procedures. Those organs are then transplanted into the Boomers, enabling them to live longer.
Don't get bogged down with, "That would never happen!" (Some pretty wild things have happened in history!) The question is simply whether it would be right or wrong for a majority to so act.
If the majority wants concentration camps for some minority group, why not?
If the majority wants to slaughter all gays, why not?
If the majority wants everybody that has more than some threshold amount of money to have it ALL taken away and redistributed, why not?
Is there ANY line you believe that even the majority cannot legitimately cross in its exercise of power?
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Feb 26, 2018 - 11:44am PT
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An argument that keeps getting made, is a correction of a nuance of terminology: that there are no automatic weapons sold in the US, they are illegal.
This is not true.
The "Bump Stock" turns a semi-automatic into a functioning automatic weapon. The law just requires that you buy it in two parts. But you've got it, and it is legal.
The NRA opposes the banning of Bump Stocks, or in other words, supports the sale of automatic weapons.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Feb 26, 2018 - 11:50am PT
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MB, your fake questions are funny.
You are asking questions of ethics, not of law.
The majority can pass any law they want.
Whether it stands depends upon whether it is constitutional, because the Constitution provides a framework for legality and balancing of rights.
So yes, the majority can pass a law to harvest organs of jews, but the Courts will not uphold it.
Of course, the problem is made worse, when the courts get packed with zealots and political boot lickers, As has been happening. Then, if judges with no ethics rule, who knows what happens.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 26, 2018 - 11:52am PT
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While SURROUNDED by 20 or so of the most highly trained gunmen in the history of the world, Ronald Reagan got shot. Gerald Ford was nearly shot.
It didn't stop them from trying, and it wouldn't, when it is Barney Fife you are trying to overcome with overwhelming firepower.
Three responses:
1) The incidence of such events is incredibly rare, and such attempts are put down incredibly quickly. FAR better to have the RARE perp put down immediately than to let him rampage for an hour or more while the cops try to decide how to get into the building after the fact.
2) If you think that even cops protecting kids at schools won't almost eliminate the level of tragedy, then you cannot sincerely believe that such ideas as mag-cap reductions, etc. are going to have ANY effect. After all, if direct protections are, by your lights, ineffective, then you cannot believe that oblique "protections" are going to be effective.
3) Barney Fife? Overwhelming firepower? You seem to have an amazingly low opinion of cops! If that's true, then it BEHOOVES the average citizen to GET ARMED and be their own first responder, because they sure can't count on Barney Fife to do anything effective to help them!
Look, you can't have it both ways. If you want to essentially disarm/nerf Americans, then you must offer something in return, namely the PROMISE that the cops truly can keep everybody safe. Given that you apparently don't believe that the cops can be effective in this regard, then you have NO business nerfing the capacity of people to defend themselves against putative threats.
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Caveman
climber
Cumberland Plateau
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Feb 26, 2018 - 11:56am PT
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Yankee's
Tearing the world a new azzhole and wondering why things are the way they are at home.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Feb 26, 2018 - 12:00pm PT
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MB, your fake questions are funny.
Not meant to be. Crazier things than my thought experiment have happened in some societies.
You are asking questions of ethics, not of law.
Correct, but I didn't believe that the discussion we were having so totally divorced ethics from law as you now seem to suggest.
Some laws are legitimate, and some are not. In a free and just society, are we not committed to passing and enforcing only legitimate (ethical) laws?
The majority can pass any law they want.
This was not a question of "can" but a question of "should".
Whether it stands depends upon whether it is constitutional, because the Constitution provides a framework for legality and balancing of rights.
Well, that's all fine and good, as long as "the constitution" doesn't get changed to something that's been advocated by a large number of people on this thread!
For example, let's just throw away the founding principles, because those are all based on some 18th century notion of rights and God and all that other hooey. Majority rule, that's what we want! Whatever the majority wants, that is what's right, just, and should become law!
See, you appeal to a constitution that wasn't written in a vacuum, and it's impossible to cherry pick the parts you like and toss the rest. There is a vast and nuanced political philosophy underlying the DofI and the constitution, and when you cut such documents loose from their context, you don't have anything resembling the system we presently have in place!
Then, seriously, all bets are off.
So, you can't appeal to the constitution divorced from its principles, and one of those principles is clearly outlines in Federalist 10, which worries about the problem of majority faction. This nation was NOT designed to be "whatever the majority wants," and the SCOTUS is not "the backstop" to ensure that the majority can do just anything it wants.
So yes, the majority can pass a law to harvest organs of jews, but the Courts will not uphold it.
At this moment, in our present context. But things change VERY quickly when majority faction comes into play.
The pressing question is: Is it RIGHT for the majority to get its way, when the system has reached a point that it CAN?
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Feb 26, 2018 - 12:02pm PT
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I think when people are seriously arguing that teachers need to be armed it's time to reconsider where we are as a society. Clearly the status quo is not working. If it is the second amendment that has led to this it should be repealed.
Making teachers into armed guards is ridiculous in so many ways. One, how would you like to be a teacher standing there in the school hallway, wearing civilian clothes with a gun in your hand when swat comes running into the active shooter situation? Or maybe you're shooting at the shooter but he's around a corner where the officers can't see him? What could possibly go wrong?
Yes, the status quo, unprotected schools, is not working. The solution is professional security: guards, metal detectors, etc. Try getting a weapon of any kind, or a tube of toothpaste for that matter, on an airplane after 9-11. Try getting a gun into a courthouse. We protect airports, Federal buildings, and so forth, but we put our children all together in a school were any lunatic can walk through the front door with a gun and the knowledge that no one can stop him.
Any amendment can be repealed with sufficient public and political support. Fortunately it's a very high bar to reach.
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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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Feb 26, 2018 - 12:26pm PT
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3. People arrested for violence cannot buy/own guns.
That would SERIOUSLY cut into the bottom line of the gun manufacturers......can't have than happening....
Meanwhile - some commit violent crimes do have that restriction. Of course...the loopholes. Plus the old boy groups that don't report when one of their bro's is exhibiting violent criminal tendencies...
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Norton
climber
The Wastelands
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Feb 26, 2018 - 12:41pm PT
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*Some of the incidents since the February 14 shootings:
A Whittier, California, school resource deputy heard a 17-year-old student say that “the school will be shot up in three weeks.” When sheriffs raided the teen’s home, they found 90 high-capacity magazines, two handguns, and two semiautomatic AR-15s.
An 18-year-old Clarksburg, Maryland, high school student brought a knife and a loaded 9mm handgun to school. When police raided his home, they found an AR-15, several other weapons, along with a list he’d made of his issues with school.
During an investigation into a 17-year-old student’s threats to shoot up a Manistee County, Michigan, high school, sheriffs found an AR-15 in the young man’s home.
After an 18-year-old former student made threats against a Fair Haven, Vermont, high school, police discovered that he had purchased a shotgun and ammunition, and had been recently released from a Maine mental health facility.
Riverdale County, Nevada, sheriffs arrested a 27-year-old man who had threatened to kill students at Norco College. They located one loaded AR-15; two handguns, also loaded; and 510 rounds of ammunition.
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Cragar
climber
MSLA - MT
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Feb 26, 2018 - 12:56pm PT
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The gun topic transcends cognitive dissonance and enters a far away(even though it exists in ones skull) galaxy where intellectual dishonesty is stronger than gravity and in some cases, more nourishing than air and water. I can't think of a topic that has more partisan hardening qualities except religion. What is the overall death toll paid by the human race when it comes to religion and guns?
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 26, 2018 - 01:02pm PT
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It's NOT religion or guns.
It's st00pid people.
Most of ya are just plain st000pid ......
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 26, 2018 - 01:12pm PT
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I didn't say any of that horsh!t you just spewed out, as usual, Brennan.
You're soo full of sh!t ......
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Feb 26, 2018 - 01:14pm PT
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What is Werner full of?
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Feb 26, 2018 - 01:26pm PT
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It isn't?
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Gunks Ray
Trad climber
Gunks
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Feb 26, 2018 - 01:28pm PT
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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.
That placing cops in EVERY school is such an OBVIOUS solution to you just shows how extremely detached from reality you are. Right now many schools can't even afford pencils and paper for their students, many teachers buy the school supplies for their students out of their own pockets, and yet you think the hiring of highly trained armed police to guard schools at a cost of over $100,000 for a small school as the OBVIOUS solution? Who is going to pay for this? Multiply that cost for a single school the number of schools in the whole country and you have a total cost of hundreds of millions or BILLIONS of dollars!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/02/22/the-economics-of-arming-americas-schools/?utm_term=.5ae31ed74944
http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-much-it-would-cost-to-put-cops-in-every-school-in-america-2012-12
Really deluded thinking that somebody from the right side of the political spectrum would suggest such an insane idea, knowing full well that the right would NEVER approve the funding for a program like that, when their entire political mantra is to only cut taxes!
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Feb 26, 2018 - 01:33pm PT
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There is so much unreasonable anti gun sentiment that even Florida is having trouble putting through a measure that would enable teachers with a CCW and a 132 hour training course to pack in school.
A "gun free zone" is a victim rich zone.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Feb 26, 2018 - 01:52pm PT
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Our death rate by firearms is only 50 times greater than Great Britain’s, surely we can do better than that. Ammo has gotten rather expensive, perhaps a federal subsidy can fix that.
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