[Politics]The Right to Arm Bears in a Crowded Theater

[virgil]

Every war fought on American soil has been triggered by a government trying to seize weapons. Granted, that's only like four wars, but still. It's been a fundamental issue for a very long time here, much like free speech.

That doesn't make any sense. The only way that's vaguely true is to also declare that every war has been triggered by a man trying to kill another man; it's a fundamental issue in that people don't like being murdered at.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Won't work. They already pulled the "Look at what these Terrorists can do" unironically. I've brought up the KKK, WACO, appealed to their common sense by carefully explaining how pulling out an assault rifle when the SWAT team raids their house for 'liberty' is a sure fire way to get themselves killed. Some people just love guns and there is no way to reason with'em.

That's not how a forced meme, especially one going up against a forced counter-meme, works.

[name_here]

Every war fought on American soil has been triggered by a government trying to seize weapons. Granted, that's only like four wars, but still. It's been a fundamental issue for a very long time here, much like free speech.

Uh, what?

Revolutionary war: literally dozens of reasons that one side kindly wrote down
War of 1812: On one side, trade embargo, forcibly conscripting citizens of the other nation from that nation's ships, and deliberately opening fire on a warship. On the other, trying to seize Canada.
Civil War: Slavery
Mexican-American war: boundry dispute to the tune of hundreds of square miles
WWII: Japan literally wanted to conquer the world, but particularly Asia and the Pacific. I guess it's vaguely true for Germany.

[Ancient History]

Whiskey Rebellion: Taxes.

[Whatever]

He said "triggered" which is perhaps not hugely meaningful, but we can run down the list:

(ignoring wars prior to revolutionary war, because I guess it wasn't "American Soil" yet?)
Revolutionary War: weapons stockpile at Concord, fine.
War of 1812: I'm not seeing anything.
Civil War: Fort Sumter, fine.
Mexican-American War: not seeing it.

[Chamomile]

When you're designing a public narrative, you aren't designing an argument. You're designing...A narrative. They work differently from, and are more effective than, a logical argument with your buddies. The idea here isn't to explain why lax gun control laws lead to terrorists getting automatic weapons. The idea is to tell a story where lax gun control laws lead to terrorists getting weapons, and get people to nod along without thinking about it. Because once they start thinking about it, cognitive biases come in and we're eternally bogged down.

[fectin]

"triggered by"

[Maxus]

Won't work. They already pulled the "Look at what these Terrorists can do" unironically. I've brought up the KKK, WACO, appealed to their common sense by carefully explaining how pulling out an assault rifle when the SWAT team raids their house for 'liberty' is a sure fire way to get themselves killed. Some people just love guns and there is no way to reason with'em.

That's not how a forced meme, especially one going up against a forced counter-meme, works.

I think you missed my quote there, Lago.

Mine was

"Sometimes we go for a long time without catching a black man by himself in our neighborhood.

But for when the moment is right, we have guns."

[Username17]

"triggered by"

But even then you're full of shit. The Civil War wasn't "triggered by" the seizure of Fort Sumter, it was triggered by South Carolina declaring that they were going to go to war for slavery. The attack on Fort Sumter was the first shooting of the war, but it wasn't the trigger of the war, the war was already on. Also no civilian-owned weapons were seized.

I still have no idea how you think weapon seizing has anything at all to do with the War of 1812, the Mexican American War, World War 2, or the Whiskey Rebellion. That's all the wars fought in the territory of the United States of America since the United States existed to have any territory to fight on. And you can make a single myopic argument that one of them was "triggered by"... one government agency seizing weapons from another.

---

Regardless, for all the talk about how some people will never accept weapon restrictions, that is horseshit. People accept licensing for their cars, and they accept restrictions on weapon ownership right now. You don't have unfettered access to live grenades or machine guns. And people think that's common sense. For the most part, gun owners think that's common sense.

And I think it's pretty instructive that in all these mass shootings that have taken place in the last few years, none of them have been performed with live grenades or machine guns. I know correlation isn't causation, but isn't that weird? I mean, here we go letting people buy and own AR-15s without licenses and people use them to shoot up schools full of kids. But legally owning machine guns requires some paperwork and background checks and we haven't had a proper Valentine's Day Massacre in a long time. What's up with that?

In 2009, the latest date I can get weapon statistics for from my state, there was one homicide with a submachine gun, and zero homicides with anything heavier than that. Isn't that fascinating? It's almost like the 1986 machine gun ban is totally common sense and extremely effective.

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

That's not how a forced meme, especially one going up against a forced counter-meme, works.

I know Maxus already said you grabbed the wrong quote, or something, but what do you mean by this?

[zugschef]

Regardless, for all the talk about how some people will never accept weapon restrictions, that is horseshit. People accept licensing for their cars, and they accept restrictions on weapon ownership right now. You don't have unfettered access to live grenades or machine guns. And people think that's common sense. For the most part, gun owners think that's common sense.

And I think it's pretty instructive that in all these mass shootings that have taken place in the last few years, none of them have been performed with live grenades or machine guns. I know correlation isn't causation, but isn't that weird? I mean, here we go letting people buy and own AR-15s without licenses and people use them to shoot up schools full of kids. But legally owning machine guns requires some paperwork and background checks and we haven't had a proper Valentine's Day Massacre in a long time. What's up with that?

In 2009, the latest date I can get weapon statistics for from my state, there was one homicide with a submachine gun, and zero homicides with anything heavier than that. Isn't that fascinating? It's almost like the 1986 machine gun ban is totally common sense and extremely effective.

-Username17

Amen.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So. Here's a plan.

1.) Background checks and gun registry database. Make it so.

2.) Obamacare goes into full. Everyone is mandated to have health insurance.

3.) Insurance premiums for gun-owners go way the hell up. First of all, we have a nominal gun insurance policy that's cheap as hell as long as you are law-abiding and your gun hasn't been used in previous escapades -- including losing it. It's a pittance otherwise, like 25 dollars a year.

Second of all, since guns are a public health hazard, they simultaneously jack up the rates of regular health insurance of gun-owners. Both in private and government health insurance.

4.) With gun insurance and health insurance settled in, heavily fine or even jail people who don't have their insurance paid up.

5.) After a few years, offer a gun buy-back program. People get tax rebates for surrendering guns that they have registered with insurance.

[sabs]

So, I have a question.
Where exactly in the Constitution does it say that a National Gun Registry is bad? All it says is that Gun ownership for the formation of a well regulated militia is a right.

[Grek]

It's not unconstitutional, but it's a given that if any strong gun control law were passed, Scalia would lead up a 5-4 decision to take a giant dump on it, regardless of actual contitutionality.

[zugschef]

adhering to stupid shit in the constitution because it's teh goddamn constitution is on the same level as adhering to stupid shit in the koran because it's teh goddamn koran.

the american constitution has the severe problem that it is outdated compared to most other modern democracies, because it is 225 years old.

[RobbyPants]

So. Here's a plan.

1.) Background checks and gun registry database. Make it so.

2.) Obamacare goes into full. Everyone is mandated to have health insurance.

3.) Insurance premiums for gun-owners go way the hell up. First of all, we have a nominal gun insurance policy that's cheap as hell as long as you are law-abiding and your gun hasn't been used in previous escapades -- including losing it. It's a pittance otherwise, like 25 dollars a year.

Second of all, since guns are a public health hazard, they simultaneously jack up the rates of regular health insurance of gun-owners. Both in private and government health insurance.

4.) With gun insurance and health insurance settled in, heavily fine or even jail people who don't have their insurance paid up.

5.) After a few years, offer a gun buy-back program. People get tax rebates for surrendering guns that they have registered with insurance.

Given that conservatives already hate points 1 and 2, and points points 3 - 5 already play into their worst-case-scenario, slippery-slope fears, you'd lose the argument immediately. As soon as they hear you mention point three, they'd label you as a commie fascist, their brains would shut down, and there would be no rational discourse on the matter.

Is this just a hypothetical "wouldn't it be cool?" scenario, or are you thinking this is the way to go after the NRA becomes toxic (if it does)?

So, I have a question.
Where exactly in the Constitution does it say that a National Gun Registry is bad? All it says is that Gun ownership for the formation of a well regulated militia is a right.

It's not; it's just the NRA managed to get it so that the records are destroyed within 24 hours of the sale (or the check coming back clean. I don't remember). 2nd Amendment proponents see the registry as just a tool of the government so that they can come back and take guns from law abiding citizens at a later date. It's basically a slippery slope argument, but that won't stop them from making it.

[fbmf]

It's not unconstitutional, but it's a given that if any strong gun control law were passed, Scalia would lead up a 5-4 decision to take a giant dump on it, regardless of actual contitutionality.

The NRA crowd tends to think of the "militia" part as the flavor text and the "rights of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" as RAW.

Game On,
fbmf

[Lago PARANOIA]

Given that conservatives already hate points 1 and 2, and points points 3 - 5 already play into their worst-case-scenario, slippery-slope fears, you'd lose the argument immediately. As soon as they hear you mention point three, they'd label you as a commie fascist, their brains would shut down, and there would be no rational discourse on the matter.

Is this just a hypothetical "wouldn't it be cool?" scenario, or are you thinking this is the way to go after the NRA becomes toxic (if it does)?

1-2 are the easy parts. 2 is going to happen anyway. 1 already has overwhelming support.

4 and 5 are also easy. Believe it or not, the plutocracy doesn't like guns. Oh, they'll put up with it when allying with social conservatives, but when they don't have to suck up to them the overclass really doesn't care for them. They can just straight-up announce a new policy in which gun owners have higher insurance premiums.

Also, we already have gun buyback programs. I recommend expanding them a lot more than we already have, but gun buyback programs are amazingly mainstream. Seriously, we have them in Texas.

The only hard part is going to be step 3. That is going to take a few American election cycles. Fortunately for us the demographics for gun control (Latinos, urbanites, secular whites) are on our side. I believe that it can be done. But the first thing that needs to be done is stopping the NRA from bleating its message unopposed.

[Grek]

The NRA crowd tends to think of the "militia" part as the flavor text and the "rights of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" as RAW.

Registering guns does not, by any sane interpretation, infringe on the right to have guns. But that is unlikely to stop the USSC from ruling that it is.

[fectin]

Penumbra of privacy, emanating from the first five amendments. Griswold v. Connecticut.

[Fuchs]

The NRA fears that any gun control laws are just steps to banning guns outright.

It's not entirely without cause - we know that the "mandatory counsel/mandatory look at a picture of a fetus before you can get an abortion" laws are just steps and that their supporters want to completely ban abortions.

[zugschef]

The NRA fears that any gun control laws are just steps to banning guns outright.

which would be unbearable, of course, since people need to protect themselves from other people.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Yeah, well, I'd like to protect myself from other people by making it more difficult for those people to shoot me (on purpose, or by accident).

[Josh_Kablack]

How the hell did Pat Toomey get conned into sponsoring the now-dead amendment anyways?

Toomey is the radical right wing Senator from my "deep purple" state of Pennsylvania, which is the ancestral homeland of the pro-gun Democrat - so seeing him sponsor any bill the NRA doesn't like is pretty shocking.

[Morat]

I guess because not very long ago the NRA was totally fine with background checks?