Survey: What "Reasonable Gun Law Reform" would/could you accept?

[aikidoka]

21

I would support training being provided for free and not being required.

 

[GunnerDan]

None, not a single reform law.

Gunner

 

[fniman]

Number 1.

 

[Bunnykid68]

Number 1.

Absolutely not. I think you are nuts, guess that means you should fail a background check then.

 

[indykid]

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Nothing more to say if you are a citizen of The United States of America, commonly called an American.

 

[japartridge]

I stand duly corrected for allowing myself to develop tunnel vision!

LOL, no problem... I keep having to remind myself there are other rights we have to stand vigilant for as well!

 

[japartridge]

By the way any of you that are answering no, none and 21 you better be doing something to stop the soon to be proposed legislation and not just giving face time here on INGO. Just spouting I will stand for no infringement on this forum and not doing anything to actually stop the proposed legislation is BS.

BINGO!!!

Contact them... call'em, fax 'em, write, email, post, tweet, stop them on the street... Let them know we will no longer stand for any encroachments on our rights!

 

[japartridge]

Absolutely not. I've been around psychiatrist's for years. I don't want them making that decision. They can start the process at the request of a family member or prosecutor's office. You don't want an angry ex-spouse, sibling, parent, other relative, friend, employer, or anyone else using false allegations to take away your rights. This is a slippery slope we don't want in government hands. I want any decision to take away or restrict anyone's rights to be placed in a court, with a trial, and not rubber stamped. This should not be an easy process at all.

For reference, it is not that hard to structure an interview in a manner to where quite a few on here can can be diagnosed with some sort of psychiatric disorder.

Great point... Thinking about it that way I probably wouldn't want that eitther

Exactly... 90% of the population is on something... that could be construed as mentally unfit for carrying a weapon, or purchasing a weapon!

 

[BTSTEVE]

+1 for 21

 

[greyhound47]

Let me see if I got this right. You all who are saying NO controls or safeguards; are you really saying a mentally ill person should be able to buy a gun? How about felons? The Constitution said nothing about them, did it? Are you really saying that no matter what the ramifications that ANYONE who is a US citizen should be able to have unfettered access to a firearm?

Not picking a fight; just trying to understand.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Let me see if I got this right. You all who are saying NO controls or safeguards; are you really saying a mentally ill person should be able to buy a gun? How about felons? The Constitution said nothing about them, did it? Are you really saying that no matter what the ramifications that ANYONE who is a US citizen should be able to have unfettered access to a firearm?

Not picking a fight; just trying to understand.

First, a right is not subject to official permission, as opposed to a conditional/revocable privilege.

Second, if a mentally disturbed person is sufficiently disturbed to be a threat to society, he will be such regardless of the tools available to him, unless you intend to put legal restrictions on axes, chainsaws, machetes (which incidentally are the murder weapon of choice in some countries), mechanic's tools, most carpenter's tools, ice picks, kitchen knives, bricks, rocks, and sharp sticks. That said, a person too dangerous to possess a full set of rights should be institutionalized. Not only does that protect the rest of us from members of the 2% +/- of the population who are criminally insane, but also protects us from the government having a reason to arbitrarily deny the rest of us a critical right.

Third, if a felon is too dangerous to be turned loose with all the rights due any citizen, he should either be in prison or else have already been executed. Again, establishing a second-class citizenship with significantly abridged rights invites criminalization of common behavior to the point at which reliably following the law is not a viable solution and/or spurious prosecutions with the primary purpose of demoting people to second-class status with a truncated set of rights. If we explore this further, why stop with the Second Amendment? Should felons have Fourth Amendment protections as strong as the rest of us? After all, they have proven to have a propensity toward crime. What about the First Amendment? Are we going to let them 'corrupt the youth' with the things they may write or say? Socrates may have a little to say about this. The Sixth Amendment? These miscreants are a burden to society, so why should we bend over backwards for them? We'll try them when we get around to it.

We must also consider the circumstances under which you can become a felon. Is a person dangerous to me because he enjoys consuming a proscribed substance in the privacy of his own home? Is a person too dangerous to have his rights after he defends himself (by hand) from a belligerent drunk, then the police show up, are about to arrest the perp--who surprise--turns out to be a cop himself, so the sober cops drag the man who defended himself outside, beat the f**k out of him, and haul him in for assaulting an officer. Ask NYFelon about this some time.

The answer to your final answer is yes. All citizens who are not sufficiently dangerous to be under incarceration should have full access to all their rights, unless, of course, you prefer to have a society in which anyone can be demoted to second class status without all or even any of their rights. This is the foundation for creating a modern reincarnation of a feudal aristocracy--and you can rest assured that you will not be one of the chosen few.

 

[greyhound47]

First, a right is not subject to official permission, as opposed to a conditional/revocable privilege.

Second, if a mentally disturbed person is sufficiently disturbed to be a threat to society, he will be such regardless of the tools available to him, unless you intend to put legal restrictions on axes, chainsaws, machetes (which incidentally are the murder weapon of choice in some countries), mechanic's tools, most carpenter's tools, ice picks, kitchen knives, bricks, rocks, and sharp sticks. That said, a person too dangerous to possess a full set of rights should be institutionalized. Not only does that protect the rest of us from members of the 2% +/- of the population who are criminally insane, but also protects us from the government having a reason to arbitrarily deny the rest of us a critical right.

Third, if a felon is too dangerous to be turned loose with all the rights due any citizen, he should either be in prison or else have already been executed. Again, establishing a second-class citizenship with significantly abridged rights invites criminalization of common behavior to the point at which reliably following the law is not a viable solution and/or spurious prosecutions with the primary purpose of demoting people to second-class status with a truncated set of rights. If we explore this further, why stop with the Second Amendment? Should felons have Fourth Amendment protections as strong as the rest of us? After all, they have proven to have a propensity toward crime. What about the First Amendment? Are we going to let them 'corrupt the youth' with the things they may write or say? Socrates may have a little to say about this. The Sixth Amendment? These miscreants are a burden to society, so why should we bend over backwards for them? We'll try them when we get around to it.

We must also consider the circumstances under which you can become a felon. Is a person dangerous to me because he enjoys consuming a proscribed substance in the privacy of his own home? Is a person too dangerous to have his rights after he defends himself (by hand) from a belligerent drunk, then the police show up, are about to arrest the perp--who surprise--turns out to be a cop himself, so the sober cops drag the man who defended himself outside, beat the f**k out of him, and haul him in for assaulting an officer. Ask NYFelon about this some time.

The answer to your final answer is yes. All citizens who are not sufficiently dangerous to be under incarceration should have full access to all their rights, unless, of course, you prefer to have a society in which anyone can be demoted to second class status without all or even any of their rights. This is the foundation for creating a modern reincarnation of a feudal aristocracy--and you can rest assured that you will not be one of the chosen few.

Great post. Very understandable and not radical sounding when described this way. Thanks

 

[IndyDave1776]

Great post. Very understandable and not radical sounding when described this way. Thanks

Happy I could help. Thanks for being willing to step out and ask a question rather than assume the worst about the motives some of us have in forming our conclusions.

 

[Titanium_Frost]

I would accept a total repeal of all gun laws in this country. No more, no less. I don't think that sounds extreme as all actual crimes are already illegal.

 

[IndyDave1776]

I would accept a total repeal of all gun laws in this country. No more, no less. I don't think that sounds extreme as all actual crimes are already illegal.

You have such a gift for the plain truth!

 

[Titanium_Frost]

You have such a gift for the plain truth!

You too my friend, but in a more eloquent and extravagant way.

 

[miguel]

XXI

 

[tenring]

21

 

[Pitmaster]

You are dead on regarding rights. Technically you are a felon if you have driven drunk 3 times. The only difference is you weren't CAUGHT each time. I'm okay with a court hearing to remove or adjust a person's right for mental illness as long as the burden of proof is done under criminal standards and the law states that in those cases with a "gray" area lean towards NOT removing a person's rights.

 

[Pitmaster]

This is what Feinstein, Schummer, and their ilk consider "reasonable".

You are sound asleep when you hear a thump outside your bedroom door. Half-awake, and nearly paralyzed with fear, you hear muffled whispers. At least two people have broken into your house and are moving your way. With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up your shotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door and open it...In the darkness, you make out two shadows. One holds something that looks like a crowbar. When the intruder brandishes it as if to strike, you raise the shotgun and fire.

The blast knocks both thugs to the floor. One writhes and screams while the second man crawls to the front door and lurches outside.
As you pick up the telephone to call police, you know you are in trouble. In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few that are privately owned are so stringently regulated as to make them useless. Yours was never registered. Police arrive and inform you that the second burglar has died. They arrest you for First Degree Murder and Illegal Possession of a Firearm.

When you talk to your attorney, he tells you not to worry: authorities will probably plea the case down to manslaughter. "What kind of sentence will I get?" you ask. "Only ten-to-twelve years," he replies, as if that is nothing. "Behave yourself, and you'll be out in seven."

The next day, the shooting is the lead story in the local newspaper. Somehow, you are portrayed as an eccentric vigilante while the two men you shot are represented as choirboys. Their friends and relatives cannot find an unkind word to say about them. Buried deep down in the article, authorities acknowledge that both "victims" have been arrested numerous times. Nevertheless, the next day's headline says it all:
"Lovable Rogue Son Didn't Deserve to Die."

The thieves have been transformed from career criminals into Robin Hood-type pranksters. As the days wear on, the story takes wings. The national media picks it up, then the international media. The surviving burglar has become a folk hero. Your attorney says the thief is preparing to sue you, and he will probably win.

The media publishes reports that your home has been burglarized several times in the past and that you have been critical of local police for their lack of effort in apprehending the suspects. After the last break-in, you told your neighbor that you would be prepared next time. The District Attorney uses this to allege that you were lying in wait for the burglars. A few months later, you go to trial. The charges have not been reduced, as your lawyer had so confidently predicted. When you take the stand, your anger at the injustice of it all works against you. Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man. It does not take long for the jury to convict you of all charges. The judge sentences you to life in prison.
This case really happened. On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk, England, killed one burglar and wounded a second. In April 2000, he was convicted and now is serving a life prison term.
How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in the once great British Empire?

It started with the Pistols Act of 1903. This seemingly reasonable law forbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun sales were to be made only to those who had a license.

The Firearms Act of 1920 expanded licensing to include not only handguns but all firearms except shotguns. Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated the registration of all shotguns. Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the Hungerford mass shooting in 1987. Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed man with a Kalashnikov rifle, walked down the street shooting everyone he saw. When the smoke cleared, 17 people were dead. The British public, already de-sensitized by eighty years of "gun control,” demanded even tougher firearm restrictions. (The seizure of all privately owned handguns was the objective even though Ryan used a rifle). Nine years later, at Dunblane, Scotland Thomas Hamilton used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a teacher at a public school.

For many years, the media had portrayed all gun owners as mentally unstable or worse, criminals. Now the press had a real kook with which to beat up law-abiding gun owners. Day after day, week after week, the media gave up all pretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on all handguns. The Dunblane Inquiry, a few months later, sealed the fate of the few handguns still owned by private citizens.

During the years in which the British government incrementally took away most gun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism. Authorities refused to grant gun licenses to people who were threatened, claiming that self-defense was no longer considered a reason to own a gun. Citizens who shot burglars or robbers or rapists were charged while the real criminals were released. Indeed, after the Martin shooting, a police spokesman was quoted as saying,

"We cannot have people take the law into their own hands."

All of Tony Martin's neighbors had been robbed numerous times, and several elderly people were severely injured in beatings by young thugs who had no fear of the consequences. Martin himself, a collector of antiques, had seen most of his collection trashed or stolen by burglars.
When the Dunblane Inquiry ended, citizens who owned handguns were given three months to turn them over to local authorities. Being good British subjects, most people obeyed the law. The few who did not were visited by police and threatened with ten-year prison sentences if they did not comply. Police later bragged that they had taken nearly 200,000 handguns from private citizens.

How did the authorities know who had handguns? The guns had been registered and licensed. Kind of like cars. Sound familiar?
WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!!!!

THIS IS WHY OUR FOUNDING FATHERS PUT THE SECOND AMENDMENT IN OUR CONSTITUTION.

"...It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds...”
--Samuel Adams

You had better wake up, because Barack Obama, Diane Feinstein, Chuck Schummer, Carolyn Waters, the mainstream media, and others are doing this very same thing, over here, if they can get it done.

There are stupid people in congress and on the street that will go right along with him.