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

[Username17]

An Assault Weapon is one where you can move 6" and then fire it the full number of attacks out to its maximum range.

A Presidential Memorandum is basically just a letter from the office of the President to one or more agencies that tells them what the President's opinion on something is. These can either affect policy or not. The President could issue a Memorandum stating that the head of an agency is doing a heck of a job (or not). The President could also issue a Memorandum that had lasting impacts.

Existing law gives the office of the President a lot of power with certain types of Memoranda. For example: the list of state sponsors of terrorism is drawn up by Presidential Determinations. Obama could get up tomorrow morning and issue a Presidential Memorandum that Belgium was a state sponsor of terrorism, and then the profits from the Smurfs, Asterix, and Tintin movies would be frozen automatically. Many agencies are given broad if vague mission statements, and Presidential Memoranda can be used to define them within whatever existing law allows. For example: Congress threatened to suspend the CDC's funding in the 90s unless they discontinued research into gun violence (causing the agency to discontinue those studies), but the CDC is not actually forbidden by law from researching gun deaths. Obama just declared that they should go back to doing so, and being the President - he can do that.

Executive Orders, on the other hand, are Presidential decrees that are based somewhat fuzzily on the non-explicit powers of the President as (un)defined in the Constitution.

To bring this into perspective: if Obama decided to mint the trillion dollar platinum coin, he'd be issuing a Presidential Memorandum. Because existing law unambiguously gives the treasury department the authority to do that, so he'd simply write a letter to the Treasury Secretary saying that in the opinion of the Office of the President, actually minting the coin would be a good idea. Going for the Constitutional Option, where Obama unilaterally declares the Debt Ceiling unconstitutional in light of the 14th Amendment, would require an Executive Order.

-Username17

[Koumei]

An Assault Weapon is one where you can move 6" and then fire it the full number of attacks out to its maximum range.

Cute. I'm ashamed I didn't leap to that conclusion.

[Blasted]

This may be a stupid question, but does nobody bring up the issue that encouraging armed resistance to the government gives carte blanche to crazies who believe that the gov't is the antichrist/communist/hitler?
It's not like there aren't any attempted political assassinations.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why do they need to be armed crazies? The SA and KKK show us that 'sane' armed government resisters are a widespread social problem and a direct threat to democracy.

[Kaelik]

This may be a stupid question, but does nobody bring up the issue that encouraging armed resistance to the government gives carte blanche to crazies who believe that the gov't is the antichrist/communist/hitler?
It's not like there aren't any attempted political assassinations.

Since the only people who even think their armed resistance has a non-zero chance of success are crazies who think the gov't is the antichrist/communist/hitler, no, they rarely bring up that issue.

[K]

Am I a terrible person for enjoying the fact that five people were accidentally shot at Gun Appreciation Day events?

It's almost like being around a number of armed people is dangerous or something.

[Koumei]

I didn't enjoy it, but I felt that it was sort of bound to happen, and really hurting their stupid argument.

[Maxus]

I've been seeing a lot of junk claiming Hitler outlawed guns.

Facts? Links? Frank said something once about armed gangs supporting him.

[Koumei]

Before Hitler was in charge, they were actually quite strict with gun control (during one period even having a gun was punishable by death). Hitler actually relaxed the laws a lot for German citizens.

He certainly made sure such rights were not extended to foreigners residing in the country (much as I couldn't buy a gun on holiday in America), and Jews were considered to automatically not be German citizens under Nazi rule, so they were very much disarmed. But yes, as with almost anything anyone tells you about Hitler when trying to make a political point, the opposite is true: he was basically addicted to eating meat*, he hated communists and actual socialists, and yes, he relaxed the gun laws.

Also, regarding "armed gangs supported him", that's how he "won" the election. He was vastly unpopular for the longest time, was put in prison for hate-filled rants and opposing the government, had his own army of thugs protecting him (hiding behind them in a shootout with police), and in the end, when he finally got into power, it wasn't because "Democracy is what led to Hitler running a country", it was "his personal army literally occupied the area and informed people that you can vote Hitler or get shot".

*He actually went to see a doctor about his chronic flatulence at one point, and the doctor suggested he consume less meat (particularly German sausage), which he flat-out ignored.

[name_here]

Wikipedia on the armed gangs supporting him

You've probably heard of one of their branches.

[Username17]

Wikipedia on the 1938 gun laws Hitler passed:

The 1938 German Weapons Act, the precursor of the current weapons law, superseded the 1928 law. As under the 1928 law, citizens were required to have a permit to carry a firearm and a separate permit to acquire a firearm. Furthermore, the law restricted ownership of firearms to "...persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a (gun) permit." But under the new law:

• Gun restriction laws applied only to handguns, not to long guns or ammunition. The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as was the possession of ammunition."[4]
  The legal age at which guns could be purchased was lowered from 20 to 18.[5]
  Permits were valid for three years, rather than one year.[5]
  The groups of people who were exempt from the acquisition permit requirement expanded. Holders of annual hunting permits, government workers, and NSDAP members were no longer subject to gun ownership restrictions. Prior to the 1938 law, only officials of the central government, the states, and employees of the German Reichsbahn Railways were exempted.[4]
  Jews were forbidden from the manufacturing or dealing of firearms and ammunition.[4]

Under both the 1928 and 1938 acts, gun manufacturers and dealers were required to maintain records with information about who purchased guns and the guns' serial numbers. These records were to be delivered to a police authority for inspection at the end of each year.
On November 11, 1938, the Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, promulgated Regulations Against Jews' Possession of Weapons. This regulation, which only applied to newly conquered Austria and Sudetenland, effectively deprived all Jews living in those locations of the right to possess firearms or other weapons.

And yeah, the SA and SS were originally armed citizen's militias. The thing where Right Wingers claim that hitler banned all the guns is just weird. I'm really not sure how extending the lengths of handgun permits and deregulating rifles entirely counts as banning all the guns.

-Username17

[ishy]

Am I a terrible person for enjoying the fact that five people were accidentally shot at Gun Appreciation Day events?

It's almost like being around a number of armed people is dangerous or something.

You probably are. What confuses me though is this:

the same day that thousands of gun advocates gathered peacefully at state capitals around the U.S. to rally against stricter firearm limits.
[ . . . ]
Loaded personal weapons aren't allowed inside the show.

If they don't think people having loaded weapons is safe, why aren't they adviocating for stricter gun control then?

[Cynic]

The actual quote isn't anything about disarming a population to rule them. It's about disarming the populace after you conquer them. Hitler was talking about parts of german-controlled Russia during WW2.

Emory L. Cozee was loading his .45-caliber semi-automatic when he shot himself in the hand as he was leaving the Indy 1500 Gun and Knife show at the state fairgrounds, state police said. Loaded personal weapons aren't allowed inside the show.

I do find it hilarious that it's okay to have loaded guns in school but having a loaded gun at a gun show...

[fbmf]

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/rea ... ke-it-seem

Game On,
fbmf

[nockermensch]

Executive Orders, on the other hand, are Presidential decrees that are based somewhat fuzzily on the non-explicit powers of the President as (un)defined in the Constitution.

Goddamn MTP.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So what's a good projectory for getting a total gun ban in the United States?

I can't even begin to imagine how to make it politically feasible. The only things I can really think of is to throw open the doors to immigration and give tax breaks to people living in cities. That would build a political base to make a gun ban feasible in about 30 years, I think.

Smaller victories can be achieved in the meantime, though. 1994 had the Brady Bill and American liberalism was in a much weaker position now than then. The difference is that we've been letting the NRA spew their propaganda for two decades unopposed. That shit ain't going to be reversed overnight. And as far as I know, only Bloomberg is really serious about a propaganda counterattack.

[Username17]

Very little is going to happen on firearms right now.



The issue right now is that the Senate rules have become completely insane, such that you need 60 votes in the Senate to do anything. 85% of the people want universal background checks and it probably isn't going to happen.

What's going to flip this thing around is the NRA becoming toxic. Right now you have enough Senators in there who got NRA money that we can't have any real gun reform at all. But the NRA is actually incredibly unpopular. NRA money was a giant bust in the 2012 election campaign. Robin Kelly just won a special election in Illinois after running in the primary as being the only person with an "F" from the NRA. If this continues, if a couple election cycles down the line the NRA continues to be toxic waste, we'll have senators competing to get negative reviews from the NRA. The moment that happens, we'll actually see a lot of gun control coming down the road. The instant we see 60 senators who are trying to piss off the NRA in order to score points for reelection, we'll get an assault weapons ban, a magazine limit, and all kinds of other stuff.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Oh, some same gun control laws would definitely be an improvement, but I'm talking about a total weapon ban.

At the very least we're going to have to get a better federal judiciary that is willing to throw out the conservatard rulings on the Second Amendment like DC v Heller. That's going to take a few election cycles.

The instant we see 60 senators who are trying to piss off the NRA in order to score points for reelection, we'll get an assault weapons ban, a magazine limit, and all kinds of other stuff.

-Username17

I don't see that happening anytime soon or even ever sort of some kind of rural/urban overhaul. The small states love them some exploding dildoes.

[name_here]

Yeah, but an awful lot of the pro-gun people are coming around to universal background checks and magazine limits being good sense. A majority of NRA members support at least some of the gun control laws proposed.

[MGuy]

I don't know how well people are coming around to that idea. I have a friend who will NOT let go of the idea that having guns allows we the people to protect ourselves from tyranny, going as far as to site insurgents as inspiration.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I don't know how well people are coming around to that idea. I have a friend who will NOT let go of the idea that having guns allows we the people to protect ourselves from tyranny, going as far as to site insurgents as inspiration.

Well, first things first is that we need to propagate a counter-meme which paints these kinds of people as dangerous tyrants-in-waiting rather than patriots. That is, private citizen militias and mass gun ownership are the tool of authoritarian, discriminatory murderers rather than the plucky defenders of democracy. Otherwise, we'll continue to get bullshit like 'hundreds of thousands people dead a decade is a small price to pay for LIBERTY'.

Fortunately, history makes this pretty easy. All we have to do is relentlessly paint 2nd Amendment-tards as foot soldiers of future incarnations of the KKK/American Indian genociders/SA. Because they are.

[Maxus]

"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."

[MGuy]

I don't know how well people are coming around to that idea. I have a friend who will NOT let go of the idea that having guns allows we the people to protect ourselves from tyranny, going as far as to site insurgents as inspiration.

Well, first things first is that we need to propagate a counter-meme which paints these kinds of people as dangerous tyrants-in-waiting rather than patriots. That is, private citizen militias and mass gun ownership are the tool of authoritarian, discriminatory murderers rather than the plucky defenders of democracy. Otherwise, we'll continue to get bullshit like 'hundreds of thousands people dead a decade is a small price to pay for LIBERTY'.

Fortunately, history makes this pretty easy. All we have to do is relentlessly paint 2nd Amendment-tards as foot soldiers of future incarnations of the KKK/American Indian genociders/SA. Because they are.

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.

[fectin]

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.

[MGuy]

I thought all the wars were fought over money.