Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 ... 37 38 [39] 40 41 ... 66

Author Topic: American Politics Omnibus Megathread of DOOM  (Read 70885 times)

Loud Whispers

  • Bay Watcher
  • They said we have to aim higher, so we dug deeper.
    • View Profile
    • I APPLAUD YOU SIRRAH
Re: American Politics Omnibus Megathread of DOOM
« Reply #570 on: January 24, 2013, 05:07:52 pm »

If anything, women fighting might scare the Taliban, given how they are.
The Taliban'd just start laughing, and probably go on about more how they're winning the war and now the world's power are sending women to fight them. Basically, what they've believed for just about forever, only now with added women.

I'd be more interested in how the women they oppress would react.

GlyphGryph

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: American Politics Omnibus Megathread of DOOM
« Reply #571 on: January 24, 2013, 05:34:28 pm »

Handguns are certainly much more often used for crimes, they are also much more often used for self defense. I am not averse to some kinds of gun control, but bans are unconstitutional. The supreme court agrees, having already lifted the D.C. handgun ban.
The logic is faulty, though. Imo, Columbia v. Heller was a terrible decision, without much in the way of precedence or much application. The decision stated that the ONLY reason it was unconstitutional was that they were in common use - if a law of this sort was more widely applied and it took long enough to get the Supreme Court to overturn it, it would be magically constitutional since the weapons would no longer be in common use, and only those weapons which are in common use are protected.

I still don't understand how they pulled that reading out of the second amendment. I don't like the implication that if a new class of particularly deadly weapon were to become common, and we failed to legislate against it before it did so, we would be unable to act on it. I disagree with their interpretation that the common use of handguns is for self-defense - most cases of non-firing-range (which obviously isn't self-defense, but also really shouldn't count against it) handgun use are criminal in nature, or the result of accidental discharge.(see Hemenway, 1990 for example, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1730664/ . Note that I've seen other studies that bear this out, as well, if it's a point of contention I can find them)

Rifles and the like have much better numbers - they are overwhelmingly used for legitimate and legal purposes, such as self defense and hunting. Pistols, on the other hand, seem to be the essence of politicized political theatre made personal - they certainly make their owners feel safer, but rarely do they provide an actual increase in safety.

Now, this isn't to say I think the DC gun ban was consitutional. It went a lot further than simply banning a given type of firearm that happens to be overwhelmingly used in crimes and far more often than for their "legal intended purpose" of self-defense, and more of the law than just that bit was overturned (and the rest with much stronger justification, I'd argue).

The Supreme Court has made poor decisions before that ended up overturned. I feel the exact context of this one, ESPECIALLY in light of the lack of precedent when it was handed down for some of their arguments, will eventually be overturned as well. It's not unprecedented, and I've made it pretty clear that I consider the original judgement weak.

While the supreme court seems to disagree, I'm not a fan of "Its popular" as a legal justification to oppose legislation banning weapons that are more likely to be used in a non-lawful or accidentally dangerous manner, any more than I think it would be absurd reason to have opposed legislation against leaded gasoline. And this is ALL the decision ends up coming down to, since they have ruled it is perfectly acceptable to ban unpopular classes of firearm, and the second amendment clearly has no clause stating that all popular (and only popular) firearms must be legal.

Quote
Expanded background checks? yes please
Mandatory tests for firearm safety/self defense law? yes please
More accountability for firearms dealers? yes please
More liability for unsecured firearms being used in crimes? yes please
At the very least we can agree on these things, though it seems like they would be far more injurious of the second amendment right to bear arms, what with them preventing ALL firearm ownership for certain individuals rather than the far more limited act of banning an additional class of weapon (when we already so many other classes without any constitutional problems at all)
Logged

Helgoland

  • Bay Watcher
  • No man is an island.
    • View Profile
Re: American Politics Omnibus Megathread of DOOM
« Reply #572 on: January 24, 2013, 05:45:02 pm »

[bad rhetoric]
Ban slavery? But it's popular!
[/bad rhetoric]
« Last Edit: January 24, 2013, 07:35:02 pm by Helgoland »
Logged
The Bay12 postcard club
Arguably he's already a progressive, just one in the style of an enlightened Kaiser.
I'm going to do the smart thing here and disengage. This isn't a hill I paticularly care to die on.

GlyphGryph

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: American Politics Omnibus Megathread of DOOM
« Reply #573 on: January 24, 2013, 05:50:07 pm »

AND has more constitutional justification than handgun ownership what with it being mentioned specifically, yet there was never any question over whether or not states were allowed to ban it within their borders.
Logged

mainiac

  • Bay Watcher
  • Na vazeal kwah-kai
    • View Profile
Re: American Politics Omnibus Megathread of DOOM
« Reply #574 on: January 24, 2013, 06:47:54 pm »

If you need 10 shots to shoot skeet then you are a really crappy shot.  Heck, if you don't hit on the first shot the vast majority of the time you need to learn how to shoot a damn gun.  Either find a different hobby or stop sucking.  Me and my family seldom load more then two shots and the second is for fuckups.  We could load more shots but guess what, it's safer to keep fewer shots in the chamber.  And if you want a bigger challenge you don't need more shots at once.  Just give the skeet a little time to fly.  Or launch a bunch of birds and then have your friend shoot first so you don't know which to aim for.  Or a million other things.
Logged
Ancient Babylonian god of RAEG
--------------
[CAN_INTERNET]
[PREFSTRING:google]
"Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget and I will tell you what you value"
« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
mainiac is always a little sarcastic, at least.

Owlbread

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: American Politics Omnibus Megathread of DOOM
« Reply #575 on: January 24, 2013, 07:17:55 pm »

I'd be interested to find out if a magazine ban like that will actually reduce gun crime somehow.
Logged

Bauglir

  • Bay Watcher
  • Let us make Good
    • View Profile
Re: American Politics Omnibus Megathread of DOOM
« Reply #576 on: January 24, 2013, 07:18:37 pm »

So gun advocates, tell me how you would stop crime.
I'm not exactly an advocate, but on the other hand I don't think flat-out bans are a good idea, and I think that arguments along the lines of, "If you're not planning to do anything illegal, you can't possibly need one of these guns, so you've got nothing to lose through this kind of law," are disturbingly similar to, "If you're not planning to do anything illegal, you haven't got anything to hide, so you've got nothing to lose from surveillance of your Internet activities."

So, here's what I'd do.

1) Simplify the system. Cosmetic and other arbitrary qualifications play too large a role, and can make it extraordinarily difficult to do something like getting a collection. Hire experts on weaponry, preferably foreign nationals* who don't stand to gain or lose significantly as a result of this legislation, to rewrite the rules to be simplified and be based on actual weapon capabilities. Provide as much scientific data as possible in order to allow relatively objective conclusions to be reached.

2) Simplify the system. On the other side of the fence, simplify work for the ATF and whatever other regulatory bodies you want to be involved. Give them the power to simply and efficiently carry out their duties - if nothing else, let them have an electronic, centralized database and require yearly audits. Don't institute arcane hoops and loopholes specifically to make it harder for them to do their jobs. Increase funding significantly - there need to be more agents, if nothing else.

3) Emphasize psychological profiling in gun purchases. Provided you have the basics (an address, no violent crime convictions), the only barriers should be based on an assessed likelihood that you'll abuse the weapon, and your knowledge of relevant safety. Scrutiny should increase as weapon effectiveness increases, from a written questionnaire for a hunting rifle to full-on interviews for the heavy stuff. In general, if you're the sort of person who wants an opportunity to use the weapon, you should be denied for anything but a hunting or other sporting weapon.

4) Electronic tracking systems, ideally sealed inside a weld in the weapon if manufacturing techniques will allow that. Obviously, criminals will learn how to disable these, but if you allow for an electronic "Report a lost or stolen weapon" page and make them difficult to remove, you can learn something from the data before it goes offline and frequently something about what was happening to it before it went offline. If it goes offline and such a report isn't filed within 24 hours, or whatever time limit seems reasonable, there should be criminal penalties for the purchaser (with allowances for extenuating circumstances like a kidnapping or whatever, obviously, but I'm pretty damn sure that'll be very, very rare). The time limit should be sufficiently short as to force owners to actively check on their weapons.

5) No guns may be grandfathered in, except for the electronic tracking system (which is going to be impossible to place in many guns without ruining them). Give existing owners a couple of years to do the necessary research and undergo the appropriate psychological testing, beyond what you give the market before the laws kick in.

6) Any time guns are seized from somebody who purchased them legally, compensation equal to the weapon's current market value needs to be given, and the government needs to pay for all the education and tests (whether for prior owners or new ones). This isn't supposed to be a plausible set of suggestions, obviously - there's no way you'd convince any government to shell out this kind of cash. But, given the necessary resources, this is how I'd do it.

7 (optional)) Uncap the system. Don't have a hard limit on the kind of weapon you're allowed to obtain. This one's iffy, and more about my own understanding of the future. Sooner or later, we as a society have to get used to the notion that technology will allow one person to cause untold destruction, and we won't be able to keep that technology under-wraps. Eventually, somebody's going to work out a way to print nuclear bombs, for starters, and if nanotech ever becomes a thing then we really can't count on something like a ban. We need to work on creating societies where people won't want to do these things, and that brings us to some very troubling problems with human nature that are really off-topic. The important thing is, bans give us a false sense of security on this topic and prevent it from being addressed.

*Do not, under any circumstances, tell the public you're doing it this way. Unfortunately, much of the vocal pro-gun crowd is the kind of group that will throw a shitfit if they think non-Americans are writing our laws. Bury them under a series of advisory committees and recommendations or something, and present the rules as originating from Americans whenever possible.
Logged
In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
“What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.
“So that the room will be empty.”
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

Leafsnail

  • Bay Watcher
  • A single snail can make a world go extinct.
    • View Profile
Re: American Politics Omnibus Megathread of DOOM
« Reply #577 on: January 24, 2013, 07:20:38 pm »

I'm not exactly an advocate, but on the other hand I don't think flat-out bans are a good idea, and I think that arguments along the lines of, "If you're not planning to do anything illegal, you can't possibly need one of these guns, so you've got nothing to lose through this kind of law," are disturbingly similar to, "If you're not planning to do anything illegal, you haven't got anything to hide, so you've got nothing to lose from surveillance of your Internet activities."
Not analogous at all.
Logged

GreatJustice

  • Bay Watcher
  • ☭The adventure continues (refresh)☭
    • View Profile
Re: American Politics Omnibus Megathread of DOOM
« Reply #578 on: January 24, 2013, 07:23:24 pm »

I'm not exactly an advocate, but on the other hand I don't think flat-out bans are a good idea, and I think that arguments along the lines of, "If you're not planning to do anything illegal, you can't possibly need one of these guns, so you've got nothing to lose through this kind of law," are disturbingly similar to, "If you're not planning to do anything illegal, you haven't got anything to hide, so you've got nothing to lose from surveillance of your Internet activities."
Not analogous at all.

Truly an eloquent, convincing argument.
Logged
The person supporting regenerating health, when asked why you can see when shot in the eye justified it as 'you put on an eyepatch'. When asked what happens when you are then shot in the other eye, he said that you put an eyepatch on that eye. When asked how you'd be able to see, he said that your first eye would have healed by then.

Professional Bridge Toll Collector?

Owlbread

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: American Politics Omnibus Megathread of DOOM
« Reply #579 on: January 24, 2013, 07:26:29 pm »

I'm not exactly an advocate, but on the other hand I don't think flat-out bans are a good idea, and I think that arguments along the lines of, "If you're not planning to do anything illegal, you can't possibly need one of these guns, so you've got nothing to lose through this kind of law," are disturbingly similar to, "If you're not planning to do anything illegal, you haven't got anything to hide, so you've got nothing to lose from surveillance of your Internet activities."
Not analogous at all.

It would be helpful if you could deconstruct his argument there for us and show us how it is not analogous.
Logged

MetalSlimeHunt

  • Bay Watcher
  • Gerrymander Commander
    • View Profile
Re: American Politics Omnibus Megathread of DOOM
« Reply #580 on: January 24, 2013, 07:26:54 pm »

I think it is perfectly analogous. The threat from the internet just happens to be political, not physical, so they'll be even more eager to make the connection.
Logged
Quote from: Thomas Paine
To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.
Quote
No Gods, No Masters.

Bauglir

  • Bay Watcher
  • Let us make Good
    • View Profile
Re: American Politics Omnibus Megathread of DOOM
« Reply #581 on: January 24, 2013, 07:38:12 pm »

Could you explain how?

To be fair, I'm the one making the claim, so to make it more explicit for you, I'm saying that it does not seem reasonable for the government to take action purely because "no reasonable person could possibly want to act in a way that this would interfere with." It's certainly reasonable to impose limitations in the interest of public safety (as the rest of my post should've made clear), but that's an entirely different basis for regulating gun ownership, and not the one that analogy attacks. But thinking of one reason somebody could "need" something, declaring that reason unacceptable, and therefore declaring that something illegal, and that therefore any method to prevent people from having it is acceptable, is pretty close to insane troll logic. Declaring the danger self-evident isn't good enough, whether it's privacy or weaponry that you think is an acceptable casualty.
« Last Edit: January 24, 2013, 07:55:16 pm by Bauglir »
Logged
In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
“What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.
“So that the room will be empty.”
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

Sheb

  • Bay Watcher
  • You Are An Avatar
    • View Profile
Re: American Politics Omnibus Megathread of DOOM
« Reply #582 on: January 24, 2013, 07:41:36 pm »

Man, gunkill people so it's not cool ok? And I am drunk. Which make me liberal. Love you bay12.
Logged

Quote from: Paul-Henry Spaak
Europe consists only of small countries, some of which know it and some of which don’t yet.

Leafsnail

  • Bay Watcher
  • A single snail can make a world go extinct.
    • View Profile
Re: American Politics Omnibus Megathread of DOOM
« Reply #583 on: January 24, 2013, 07:42:33 pm »

What, so two things are analogous until proven otherwise now?  Even when one of those things is a suggestion to restrict access of items that enable murder and the other is a suggestion to monitor communications (which do not commonly enable murder)?  That one of the things will help prevent people from being shot while the other won't?  That one involves a gross breach of privacy and the other doesn't?  That the second one is patently false while the first isn't?  That the first statement is actually a misrepresentation of the case for gun bans?

This analogy doesn't work on any level except that he phrased an argument for both proposals in a slightly similar way.

e: Sheb said it better.
Before passing a universal ban, you need a clear and explicit rationale for why you could never want something for a legitimate purpose, not a demand for a reason why you could need it.
Not reaally.  Like I know you could develop your own strains on anthrax for the legitimate reason of fun but that doesn't mean you should be allowed to do it.  The process is more about weighing up the loss to the legitimate users affected (in this case having to switch from higher capacity magazines to slightly lower capacity magazines) against the benefit to the people who would be hurt without the law (people getting shot)
« Last Edit: January 24, 2013, 07:50:27 pm by Leafsnail »
Logged

Bauglir

  • Bay Watcher
  • Let us make Good
    • View Profile
Re: American Politics Omnibus Megathread of DOOM
« Reply #584 on: January 24, 2013, 07:49:19 pm »

Did you read my last post? Based on the length of yours, it's entirely likely that I ninja'd you, so you might want to go back and read it to note that you've totally failed to disagree with anything I actually said, with one exception.

I got sidetracked at the end of that second post, and I need to go edit it so that the penultimate sentence doesn't talk about universal bans, because that does only deal with gun control, excepting a long and convoluted argument about the "universal ban of privacy" which is unnecessary. Fortunately, it's also not really necessary to the analogy. Sorry about that, though. The edited portion of the previous post:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Prior to editing, it was a bit of a non-sequitur with a claim about universal bans (quoted above by LeafSnail).
« Last Edit: January 24, 2013, 07:56:13 pm by Bauglir »
Logged
In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
“What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.
“So that the room will be empty.”
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
Pages: 1 ... 37 38 [39] 40 41 ... 66