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[PTTG??]

If this bill doesn't actually enforce itself, what does it do?  Why did we have this huge war between Republicrats and Demoblicans for a bill that apparently doesn't do anything?

Is this what my government is spending its time on?

You are familiar with the United States government, yes?

[Heron TSG]

I do believe that there is a plan meant to begin raising the fine in a few years.

[Bandages]

left centerist

[sonerohi]

Economic Left/Right: -4.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.26

Surprising that their set of historical figures goes nowhere near the bottom left.

[Lord Dakoth]

On the topic of health care, employers will not be legally required to pay for their employees' health care, but if they don't provide "employer-sponsored" plans, they will be imposed with an "assessable fine." (section 4980H) This sounds familiar.

I do believe that there is a plan meant to begin raising the fine in a few years.

I believe this is true, but I am unable to confirm it.

[Forumsdwarf]

Isn't the Free Mumia movement more because people think he's innocent than because people think that murder is not a serious crime?

A few think he was innocent and a few believe he was a victim of racial profiling or political persecution, but most seem to think he should go free because of their opposition to the death penalty, which is what I believe qualifies the Free Mumia Movement as "radical libertarian".  Wikipedia's got details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumia_abu-jamal

But most Libertarians aren't part of the Free Mumia Movement, so its example of "even more libertarian than Libertarians would go" seems like a pretty good one.

Contrast that with the case of Cory Maye, a libertarian cause celebre that really is a Libertarian cause celebre.  He killed in what he thought was self-defense in a no-knock police drug raid and was convicted of murder.  Since he really did have drugs in the house and the police had a warrant, they were acting lawfully on good information, but since Maye didn't know they were police when they broke into his home he might have been acting lawfully on reasonable information as well.

A staunch law-and-order authoritarian might argue that people with illegal drugs on them should expect drug raids and not be shooting unidentified intruders, or alternatively that the right to self-defense ends with the ongoing commission of a crime.

A staunch libertarian would argue that no-knock raids for victimless drug cases are overkill and the right to self-defense isn't conditional on obeisance to vice laws, and finally that if drugs were legalized none of this would've happened.

A liberal would probably argue that guns are the real problem and if only guns were outlawed these tragedies could be averted.  (When it comes to self-defense liberals are quite often radically authoritarian.)

I personally don't feel I have enough information to judge, but I do think Mr. Maye deserves a new trial.

FWIW my "compass score" was like ~5.5 for economic liberty and ~(-2.5) for social liberty.  (Weirdly the y-axis is inverted, so both my scores are consistent with "more liberty" though the graph is not.)

[RedKing]

Isn't the Free Mumia movement more because people think he's innocent than because people think that murder is not a serious crime?

A liberal would probably argue that guns are the real problem and if only guns were outlawed these tragedies could be averted.  (When it comes to self-defense liberals are quite often radically authoritarian.)

I think a liberal would argue that the police f**ked-up by not identifying themselves immediately upon entry. "Teh liberals are all pansies scared of guns" is a strawman position. Also depends on your definition of a "liberal". Are we talking social liberal? Economic liberal? Vague "dirty hippie peacenik" liberal?

Talk to pagans in the rural Bible Belt, and you'll find folks who are often quite socially and economically to the left, and yet maintain a small arsenal in their house.

[Calhoun]

I'd just like to say, as someone with a bit of a left/liberal bent. I am ALL for guns.

I think any responsible homeowner should own a gun. Hell, it's even a law in a small Utah town.

That said, i'm not for selling civilians assault rifles or sub-machine guns. That's overkill. It's completely unnecessary.

However, rifles, shotguns, and handguns are all fine by me.

[Andir]

That said, i'm not for selling civilians assault rifles or sub-machine guns. That's overkill. It's completely unnecessary.

It may be overkill, but they are fun as hell.  Like fireworks, sports cars, and speed boats... it's the overkill that makes them unique and fun.  If we lived in "that" world you describe we may as well get rid of mansions, Lamborghini, Corvettes, private jets and all the other things that make living worth overdoing.

[Calhoun]

That said, i'm not for selling civilians assault rifles or sub-machine guns. That's overkill. It's completely unnecessary.

It may be overkill, but they are fun as hell.  Like fireworks, sports cars, and speed boats... it's the overkill that makes them unique and fun.  If we lived in "that" world you describe we may as well get rid of mansions, Lamborghini, Corvettes, private jets and all the other things that make living worth overdoing.

I'm not opposed to facillities where you could fire those types of weapons, i'm just against ownership of them.

I also think that you're making a HUGE jump. Mansions aren't made for the express purpose of being a great killing machine. You don't need an assault rifle for hunting,and you don't need one for home-defense. You shouldn't be trying to kill someone who breaks into your home, just subdue them. I'm not saying that if you kill them, you should be tried for murder, but it shouldn't be your goal.

[Andir]

That said, i'm not for selling civilians assault rifles or sub-machine guns. That's overkill. It's completely unnecessary.

It may be overkill, but they are fun as hell.  Like fireworks, sports cars, and speed boats... it's the overkill that makes them unique and fun.  If we lived in "that" world you describe we may as well get rid of mansions, Lamborghini, Corvettes, private jets and all the other things that make living worth overdoing.

I'm not opposed to facillities where you could fire those types of weapons, i'm just against ownership of them.

I also think that you're making a HUGE jump. Mansions aren't made for the express purpose of being a great killing machine. You don't need an assault rifle for hunting,and you don't need one for home-defense. You shouldn't be trying to kill someone who breaks into your home, just subdue them. I'm not saying that if you kill them, you should be tried for murder, but it shouldn't be your goal.

But you can most definitely kill someone with a huge truck, fast car, collector sword, sling shot, etc... Hell, a sniper rifle is probably the most lethal long range weapon in the world, and they are used for hunting.  While you don't need an assault rifle for hunting, you also don't need dynamite to take down a concrete wall.  So you are exclusively selecting guns as the target (/rimshot) for some glorification of authoritarianism.  My point is, where does it stop?  We are given explicit rights to own arms for purpose of forming a militia.

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.

It doesn't say such arms are to be used only for self/home defense.  The Founders knew that the people should be able (at any time) to overthrow the sitting elected officials.

Here's a question for you.  Let's say the people of this country can't get the government to cease a total takeover of everything.  One day they collude together to remove the right to vote and they succeed at turning our country into an oligarchy, controlled by a "few" elite families.  Now that they have control over the military who are trained to execute anyone without question using assault rifles, on order, how do you defend yourself against this?

I'm not saying it will, but as soon as you eliminate the ability to defend yourself against ANY threat, that threat becomes more and more possible.

I personally believe people should be able to own a tank if they have the means.  Using such a machine against someone aggressively is fully illegal of course, but there should be no law prohibiting ownership.

edit:  Also, how do you now describe an assault rifle?  Is it something that fires so many rounds per second?  Does the barrel have to be of a certain length?  As soon as those laws are set, someone comes along and makes a gun that just barely doesn't fit into that description just to make it legal.  In order to classify weaponry, you'd have to "nascar"ify the entire weapon market by placing strict controls over size, shape, color, shell, etc.  It's literally not possible.

Second edit (sorry):  Me and my brother were out shooting his AR-15 (ZOMG, assault rifle!  Look it's in the name!... even though it's gimped by not making it automatic switchable) and we saw a ground hog out in the field.  My brother didn't go run and grab another rifle from the safe.  He crouched down, sighted in and shot it at 150 yards.  So in essence, he was hunting with his assault rifle.

[Calhoun]

That said, i'm not for selling civilians assault rifles or sub-machine guns. That's overkill. It's completely unnecessary.

It may be overkill, but they are fun as hell.  Like fireworks, sports cars, and speed boats... it's the overkill that makes them unique and fun.  If we lived in "that" world you describe we may as well get rid of mansions, Lamborghini, Corvettes, private jets and all the other things that make living worth overdoing.

I'm not opposed to facillities where you could fire those types of weapons, i'm just against ownership of them.

I also think that you're making a HUGE jump. Mansions aren't made for the express purpose of being a great killing machine. You don't need an assault rifle for hunting,and you don't need one for home-defense. You shouldn't be trying to kill someone who breaks into your home, just subdue them. I'm not saying that if you kill them, you should be tried for murder, but it shouldn't be your goal.

But you can most definitely kill someone with a huge truck, fast car, collector sword, sling shot, etc... Hell, a sniper rifle is probably the most lethal long range weapon in the world, and they are used for hunting.  While you don't need an assault rifle for hunting, you also don't need dynamite to take down a concrete wall.  So you are exclusively selecting guns as the target (/rimshot) for some glorification of authoritarianism.  My point is, where does it stop?  We are given explicit rights to own arms for purpose of forming a militia.

But they aren't designed for it, You can kill someone with ANYTHING. There is however, a difference. It's not some arbitrary show of authority, it's to curb pointless deaths. Every 2 month's it's the same story where I live. A kid is killed by a stray bullet in a drive by shooting. 9/10 they are using a sub-machine gun.
Sniper rifle's are extremely lethal, most people who are proficient with them are so, because they've received military training. Occasionally, someone does go on a kiling spree with one. I'm not saying you can curb all gun violence. However, the kinds of shootings you see with SMG's and assault rifles are much more common.

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.

It doesn't say such arms are to be used only for self/home defense.  The Founders knew that the people should be able (at any time) to overthrow the sitting elected officials.

Here's a question for you.  Let's say the people of this country can't get the government to cease a total takeover of everything.  One day they collude together to remove the right to vote and they succeed at turning our country into an oligarchy, controlled by a "few" elite families.  Now that they have control over the military who are trained to execute anyone without question using assault rifles, on order, how do you defend yourself against this?

I'm not saying it will, but as soon as you eliminate the ability to defend yourself against ANY threat, that threat becomes more and more possible.

I personally believe people should be able to own a tank if they have the means.  Using such a machine against someone aggressively is fully illegal of course, but there should be no law prohibiting ownership.

Even if you had access to assault rifles and SMG's or whatever. If such a thing were to occur, a Civillian militia would have no chance. The founding fathers, oh the founding fathers. You can make ANYTHING sound good if you use the opinion of the founding fathers.

The Founding fathers lived in a time where it took MINUTES to reload. Gun technology was primitive. The founding fathers couldn't have imagined how things would change. The founding fathers also lived in a time where it took DAYS to send a message to a far-off location. It's damn near instantaneous now. They also lived in a time where transportation of resources took weeks. They lived in a time without aircraft.

The image that you paint is a terrible one, but probably about as likely as winning the lottery 10 times in a row. And while it's noble to die fighting for freedom. That's what you'd end up doing, dying. Without foreign aid. A civilian militia in modern times wouldn't have a chance.

What would you even DO with a Tank. You couldn't even DRIVE it on the road.

EDIT: I'm not quite sure what the Legal qualification critera would be, that's something that would require an investigation/report.


Also, Why'd you even need to kill the damn groudhog? He also didn't NEED to use an assault rifle to kill it. Hell, you don't even need a GUN to kill a groundhog.

[Andir]

A civilian militia in modern times wouldn't have a chance.

You do realize that a great many civilians are military trained, right?  My younger brother is a civilian, but he was in the military at one time.  There's this thing called the National Guard where they train you to use weapons and other "tools of war" like artillery, tanks, missiles...  Maybe you've heard of it?

Also, since you mention it... why wouldn't we want to train ourselves on the finer workings of militant weapons if our chance of success is so grim (and even more grim without training?)  Doesn't it benefit society to have people who know what they are doing in case China (completely arbitrary) decides to invade?

Stray bullets... because we both know that you can't have stray bullets unless it's an automatic weapon.  They are obviously the least accurate of all.   

Also, Why'd you even need to kill the damn groudhog? He also didn't NEED to use an assault rifle to kill it. Hell, you don't even need a GUN to kill a groundhog.

Ground hogs are rodents.  I'd like to see you try to kill one without a gun... have you ever seen one, yet alone been near one?

Doug Schwartz, a zookeeper and groundhog trainer at the Staten Island Zoo, has been quoted as saying "They’re known for their aggression, so you’re starting from a hard place. [Their] natural impulse is to kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out. You have to work to produce the sweet and cuddly.

<- Pretty much describes it.

[RedKing]

I have to agree with Calhoun. The notion of personal ownership of firearms as a bulwark against state tyranny is a load of bollocks this day and age. You might have assault rifles. The government has precision-guided ordnance dropped from a B-52. You lose. Period.

And no, the solution to that is not to allow private citizenry to own military-grade hardware. I don't want my neighbor to own a 155mm howitzer. Or a SAM battery. Or a flamethrower. Hell, *I* don't want to own those.

We are a fairly unique country in the world when it comes to the lethality of firearms that we allow into private ownership. Switzerland and Finland are often touted as countries with high levels of private gun ownership and low rates of violent crime, but it ignores the type of weapons commonly owned (mostly bolt-action and semiautomatic rifles, plus some handguns).

That fact is being exploited quite successfully by the Mexican drug cartels, who can come across the border, find a straw purchaser or unscrupulous gun shop in Arizona, New Mexico, etc. and purchase heavier firepower than is issued to most of the Mexican army. That, in my book, speaks to the level of insanity that we've developed with regards to the 2nd Amendment.

[Dwarf]

And this is the 'acme' of the 2nd amendment. I don't thing that would be possible without it.