Gun Control

[belch]

Originally Posted by Figment

Democracy is not strong in gun owners, tyranny is. Freedom to oppress the majority and hold them hostage with threat of violence is not freedom. That is called threatening.

War is Peace

Freedom is Slavery

Ignorance is Strength

[Figment]

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/16...tly/?hpt=us_c1
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/15/po...html?hpt=us_c1

It's not much, basically just background checks on mental state of mind and campaign on safety and education what to do at gunthreats, but it's a start. Of course NRA pretends the world just ended.

Now. How does Democracy work again? Ah yes, majority rule of the people (people vote for this sort of party thing and the one with most votes gets to rule, remember?).

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/15/po...html?hpt=us_c1

1. "Issue a presidential memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system."

2. "Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system."

3. "Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system."

4. "Direct the attorney general to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks."

5. "Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun."

6. "Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers."

7. "Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign."

8. "Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission)."

9. "Issue a presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations."

10. "Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement."

11. "Nominate an ATF director."

12. "Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations."

13. "Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime."

14. "Issue a presidential memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence."

15. "Direct the attorney general to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies."

16. "Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes."

17. "Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities."

18. "Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers."

19. "Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education."

20. "Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover."

21. "Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges."

22. "Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations."

23. "Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health."

[Figment]

Oh btw, something some of you lot who think Hitler banned civilians from owning guns might want to read up on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_pol...an_Weapons_Act

The 1938 German Weapons Act
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." Under the new law:

• Gun restriction laws applied only to handguns, not to long guns or ammunition. Writes Prof. Bernard Harcourt of the University of Chicago, "The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as well as ammunition."[4]
• 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.[5]
• The age at which persons could own guns was lowered from 20 to 18.[5]
• The firearms carry permit was valid for three years instead of one year.[5]
• **** were forbidden from the manufacturing or dealing of firearms and ammunition.[6]
• 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, passed Regulations Against ****' Possession of Weapons. This regulation effectively deprived all **** of the right to possess firearms or other weapons.[7]

As taken from:
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/fi...rt_fordham.pdf

pages 21 and 22.


The nazi's significantly expanded gun ownership. Particularly for their own group.

[belch]

I don't think he realizes that our representative democracy is also a constitutional one. Or how the US executive, legislative and judicial branches work. That said, there wasn't a whole lot that surprised me in the announcement today. The real struggle is about to begin with the legislators.

On the nazi thing...yes. They modified existing laws to better suit their needs...giving guns to those they deemed fit, and making it illegal for those they saw as undesirable. What exactly were we supposed to glean from your links? That governments will arm those that agree with them, and disarm those they want to get rid of? Yeah...

[Baneblade]

Originally Posted by Figment

Oh btw, something some of you lot who think Hitler banned civilians from owning guns might want to read up on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_pol...an_Weapons_Act



As taken from:
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/fi...rt_fordham.pdf

pages 21 and 22.


The nazi's significantly expanded gun ownership. Particularly for their own group.

You do know what the point of all of that was.... right?

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Baneblade

You do know what the point of all of that was.... right?

Yes and you do admit that the nazis did not start with a weapon grab as has been suggested by some on your side of the debate before? What they did was empower their people and others of German origin and remove power from very specific groups of people. (Just as I said before).


Pretty much btw, what the racism in the 2nd Amendment's Militia Act did originally: only white males were priviliged to have arms. However, I don't believe slavery was exiled because they were granted the privilige to have arms themselves. It was done on the basis of democratic voting power.


You also realise that in the current system, you're only empowering those who WANT to wield weapons? Not everybody, only those who feel there's a need for weapons. Which means if certain groups arm themselves, others become suspicious of them, grow paranoid and feel forced to go along in the M.A.D. scheme to ensure none of these groups get the most weapons and thus power.

That leads to paranoia, tensions and frictions and the idea that one must arm oneself to prevent attacks from the other (much like USA vs Russia). Lack of weapons on all sides and thus lack of threat by power imbalance leads to mutual trust, despite of disagreement and therefore to concensus.

Look at the EU. Every time there was an arms race or peen battle, we ended up going to war. Since we've demilitarised and started cooperating, wars within the EU have not only not happened, they've been banned to the land of fairy tales.



The best way of assuring peace is by dividing political power such that nobody feels capable of a single group's power grab. By creating power bases based on force rather than political support, you create the chance that a group will try to conquer its way to power.

[belch]

Now that is just ridiculous. Who has suggested the nazi's instituted a weapons ban? That a democratically elected government changed existing law to oppress those it deemed undesirable just doesn't occur to him as being a bad thing at all...

I know you think he is no fool, Baneblade, but this is obvious and glaring evidence to the contrary. The icing? The EU has evidently banished war to the land of fairy tales. Which explains a lot about his ideas here...he is obviously living in that land of fairy tales.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by DjEclipse

Mayor Bloomberg says it's bad PR for NRA Ad to say that Obama's daughters are protected by armed guards. But apparently it is good PR for the Mayor to go after school bus drivers pay so the cheapest bus drivers can drive our children to school. Elitist much?

Unrelated and incomparable. Personal attack on a person using their own children in an ad is just unethical. Cheap bus drivers is economics and being cheap.

And some people offering themselves at those rates too.

Figment thinks this is majority rule, it is age old the powerful rule. The reason why the rich can always stick that giant dildo up your arse is because people like Figment exist.

...Riiiiiiiight.

I would take a paranoid gun nut any day of the fucking week over a person who's intellect finds himself cheering gun grabbing laws and explains how Austerity is the fault of THOSE people because of [insert bullshit here.]

ô___ó

Are you just putting tons of random words on completely unrelated topics in my mouth in a row?

That's... interesting debating strategy, to say the least.

Noam Chomsky said it best that it is the intellectuals who are the biggest barriers to change that benefits the majority. Because it is the intellectuals who typically benefit from the status quo.

It's the intellectuals that have common sense. The main problem with intellectuals is they assume other people have common sense. While they don't.

I'm sorry DJ, but I don't trust a busdriver with the national budget.

And no, I don't trust a banker with it either. I'd rather take a mathematician and engineer even over an economic... Analytical thinking is for Math B specialists, not for Math A.

So the European masses will continue to get buttfucked. And in order to stick that plastic dick deeper into Americans they will try to disarm us too; till then they will continue to pick us off, school bus drivers today, yesterday it was Twinkie bakers, tomorrow it may be you.

Alright, please start making some sense. You're blaming Europeans for US school bus drivers? Dude. We don't even HAVE school busses. We tend to use bicycles. You know, two wheels, peddles? Keeps you in good condition and shape and stops you from becoming a tubby person who's so lazy they even use the car every day for driving to all destinations within a 6 kilometers radius?

I guess there's one positive thing for you to get out this post: at least you don't have to be worried that this post qualifies you for your so hated intellectuals group.

[belch]

Hate to say it Dj, but he does not get it. I can see you didn't mean what you said to be taken as an insult, but more like a sad understanding of how blind he might be to the truth. The guy knows his shit when it comes to Planetside, but he does not have anything more than the typical media driven viewpoints on this topic. That is to say...shallow. And honestly, he is unwilling to admit that he does not know.

I suspect that if you keep responding, he will continue to insult you, take offense when you return in kind, and ultimately put you on ignore so he feels safe to argue with himself or someone that does not put up much of a fight.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by DjEclipse

Figment thinks this is majority rule,

For the record btw, what I'm criticizing here is people who elect a government, but then claim that it's not a government they need to listen to if it doesn't agree with them on each point, because a majority other than their own got to decide otherwise.

Constitution aside - as constitutions can change under force majeur - if a majority is for regulation of some sort, you can't just go and say "screw the system, I'll shoot anyone who tries to enforce the democratically established law on me". You can't say "everyone has to obey the law when I make it" and then when someone else makes it ignore it completely. THAT is not how a democracy - even a Republic - functions.


I've criticised your system heavily on the basis of being the largest minority rule in a seesaw system on a lot of occassions. Who dominates that minority is irrelevant for the principle of the discussion. In the case of the Republicans, it's the elite 1% and the radical elements who have more power than they should have as they influence an approximate ~50% party, despite having the actual voting power of 1 to 20% of the populace.

It's a very corrupting situation, since parties will start to ignore the people that would vote to not lose votes in the fringe parties to gain just that margin they need to in. Since the middle group isn't that big, the most important groups to keep on board and motivated to vote are very specific target groups with very specific agendas.



If your system had been based on a majority coalition, you'd be more likely to actually fulfill the wishes of the majority and minorities, while being able to pretty much ignore the radicals. The only time you have to start fearing the radicals is when you're upsetting too many people with bad management.




If you want to claim that 99% of your populace needs guns to deal with 1% of your own richest populace, then you're just being ridiculous. You can simply vote for another party that is NOT dominated by that 1% and change the laws to restrict that 1% group's power to exploit the system and in fact change the system to be fair again.

What happens here is that your first-past-the-post / electoral college system created a voting system that's only viable for two parties. If those parties are then prone to corruption, then you're giving that 1% the chance to become dominant and rule.



However, I don't see any 1% elitist group send forces after anyone. The system can easily be changed in a single electoral vote, all you need to do is convince enough people the alternative third party is better, make it big enough and central enough to force others to pick them to gain a majority coalition. Then demand vote system reforms that benefit small splinter groups.

And you're done. You could be a normal democracy instead of an elitarian Republic.

[belch]

Missing the point of constitutional democracy. Missing the point of separate branches of government, systems of checks and balances, and the relation of political parties and their ability to influence government. If that was an attempt to prove what he does know about US politics, it is misguided to say the least.

Why does Figment think he has the answer to America's political issues? Is it merely ignorance, or a manifestation of narcissism in the extreme? Wouldn't he better serve his own country by tackling on their issues with immigrants? Or figuring out their own budget?

[Crator]

Another Legislator Hops On Board The 'Violent Video Game' Bandwagon; Introduces Redundant Labeling Bill

Recent events have returned video games (especially "violent" ones) back to their normal position as convenient grandstand/whipping boy (or girl, you sexist)/political football. Vice President Joe Biden recently met with representatives of the video game industry to inform them that they were just as responsible as the NRA for recent tragic events, and even if not, they'd be mentioned frequently in the same headlines. (The NRA also placed the blame on video games -- quite possibly the only issue on which it saw eye-to-eye with Biden.) New Jersey governor Chris Christie recently declared the M-rated "Call of Duty" games were not welcome in his home, quite possibly because he has four children and it's an M-rated game. And President Obama has called for a thorough study of any possible connection between gun violence and video games to be performed by the CDC.

So, it is with feigned shock that I pass on the news that a politician has introduced a bill aimed at violent video games -- one that looks to "implement" stuff we already have, only with Uncle Sam in charge.

In the wake of President Barack Obama's announcement that the CDC would study the effects of violent video games and other media, Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) has introduced bill H.R. 287, which would "require ratings label on video games" and "prohibit the sales and rentals of adult-rated video games to minors."

Ratings labels, eh? You mean like these handy things that have been slapped all over video games for the past 19 years?

This is so odd. Why would they target video games? And they don't even address Internet sales. How the heck do they control video games with adult ratings sold via the Internet?

[Figment]

Rating labels! How come we didn't think of that before?!

No, teaching a 6 year old to use real weaponry instead "for sports/to be ready for the real dangerous world" and showing daddy/mommy fires guns all the time is much more impacting in normalising the presence and use of weapons. How about the psychological effect of people telling their children they will be oppressed and tortured and invaded and stripped from rights whenever they lose guns? Especially the effect of people being so obsessed with doomsday scenarios they bring up their kids in their paranoid fantasy world? What about the psychological torment of bullying that can push people over the edge while they have parents with guns at home and know how to get to them in case of 'self-defense'? What about the chances self-defense turns into pro-active aggression? No. Those are not the real issues...

Parental and environmental influence is much more important, but hey. "Everyone is responsible and good upbringer just because a few people are, let's not even test their psychological state of mind (nor those around them that may get access to the weapons in question), before handing them and with it everyone in their direct vicinity weapons because a bunch of non-knowledge of today wielding people designed an already 200 years obsolete militia regulation document once".

[Neurotoxin]

Safe and responsible gun ownership and usage failed to be exercised on "Gun Appreciation Day" yesterday.

As for the attack on video games, it is a diversion to the discussion of material conditions in America compared to countries with lower crime rates, as well as the discussion of availability and access to firearms compared to availability and access to mental health care.

[belch]

I read this as I cleaned my Glock 21 (Austrian manufactured), thru which I shot 2x50 round boxes of PPU .45 ACP (Serbian manufactured)...

I mean, don't be afraid of this guy:

Stabbed by cat torturer at Bed, Bath and Beyond

Be afraid of me and my "WMD-in-a-pistol-Glock".

There was also a fatal car crash somewhere. That shit should be stopped too. Privately owned cars that is.