What about Gun “Rights”

Posted by Steven-Wells 6 years, 5 months ago to Legislation
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The Democrats have launched their latest panicked “Gun Safety” legislation, while “Gun Rights” remains beyond their conceptual abilities. In a comment below, I’ve placed my now open letter to US Senator Diane Feinstein, sent via her website. I wrote it in response to her recent legislative efforts. After the recent murderous mayhem by a lone maniac in Las Vegas, I hereby whack the hornets nest.
SOURCE URL: https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=CA2F48A6-DFAE-4999-93D1-ED2C7347DC37


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  • Posted by 6 years, 5 months ago
    Madam Senator,

    I am disheartened, but hardly surprised, that your senatorial E-Mail Me page at https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/publ... lists thirty (30) items for the Issue/Topic selection, but contains no explicit topic to address discussions about our freedom as Americans nor our American rights as recognized within the Constitution.

    I have chosen the available category “Gun Safety,” because the concept of “Gun Rights” is implicitly held in disdain on the webpage. You have recently introduced legislation as the “Automatic Gun Fire Prevention Act.” It is co-sponsored by thirty-three (33) more traditionally Second Amendment decrying Democratic Senators and one (1) Marxist Socialist Senator self-identifying as an Independent, yet not a single Republican. Nothing new in that!

    Your justification for the legislation explicitly states a fallacy common to Democratic conceptualization (or lack of it), “The only reason to fire so many rounds so fast is to kill large numbers of people.” If one doesn’t understand the concept of freedom, it becomes difficult to imagine the simple legitimate and moral reason to fire immense numbers of rounds in scant seconds; namely, “Because I want to.” Free persons have every right to mow down lifeless stationery (printed as targets) at a shooting range, cutting them in twain with a rapid hail of bullets. They need no moral explanation to enjoy blasting with high frequency abandon at galvanized soup cans (preferably empty, so as not to waste food) or upright pieces of wood. It has nothing to do with “hunting”, though rapid-fire hunting, too, can be moral and legitimate.

    As alien in thought as it might be to some, consider the Second Amendment with the same reverence typically afforded to the First Amendment, especially in that the Second stands as the ultimate protection of the First. Most Americans speak what they wish and have no special need involved beyond their free desire to speak. They need no special reason to speak with great wisdom, hold casual conversations, [or] utter vile nonsense. It is their right. That we may hear such speech—delightful, unpleasant, or downright evil—is a cost of freedom.

    We have observed the recent atrocity committed by a law breaker in Las Vegas, and we are at a loss to imagine what from our weighty existing body of law could have prevented that newly realized monster from perpetrating his carnage, without curtailing the rights of the peaceable citizenry who mourn the dreadful event. Ultimately, it comes to 58 lives lost in a day, where all reasonably expected a safe and happy musical event. Their ghastly loss came partly as a cost of freedom.

    Before anyone jumps up in understandable horror at that statement, recall that millions of Americans will drive their vehicles today reasonably expecting a safe and happy arrival at their destination. Alas, half again more than the Las Vegas deaths happen on average every day in our country. More than ninety (90) traffic fatalities EVERY DAY, day after day, year after year (as recorded for the first half of this decade, with no sign of a slowdown). Did you cosponsor a “Traffic Fatalities Prevention Act” to ensure that no car’s cylinders could fire so fast that the car exceeds a walking pace? Attempting to outlaw bump stock devices would not have saved more in Las Vegas. The shooter, if he somehow decided not to build an outlawed device to embellish his murders, would have emitted fewer bullets but with better aim, producing nigh as many deaths. Outlawing cars that exceed any particular speed would not change the daily carnage on our highways. Again, freedom must prevail, though its price be indeed steep.

    For another discussion comparing the First and Second Amendments comparably, I refer you to this webpage commentary: http://www.stalincare.com/home/commen...
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    • Posted by LibertyBelle 6 years, 5 months ago
      A good letter; unfortunately, she probably won't read all of it. In fact, maybe none of it; maybe some sec-
      retary will read part of it, and give a garbled, very abbreviated report of it to her.
      What I think is, what's the alternative? If only the government is allowed to have such weapons, who will protect the citizens from the government? (Remember "Project X", shown to Dr. Stadler, and others, near the end of Atlas Shrugged).
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      • Posted by CircuitGuy 6 years, 5 months ago
        "maybe some secretary will read part of it,"
        I think they have people read these and tabulate them into categories like "against Automatic Gun Fire Prevention Act." If mail from within their district is overwhelmingly running one way, they are unlikely to vote the other way.

        Unfortunately their mail may be running overwhelming for gun control. When I write them, I put easy text right at the beginning that says "I am writing to urge you to oppose the Automatic Gun Fire Prevention Act." I also try to add mention something about the last fundraiser that the staffer might remember.

        When I suggested this regarding the M855 ban, people scoffed: https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
        But the Obama administration did not go forward with the ban!
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    • Posted by Temlakos 6 years, 5 months ago
      The same Dianne Feinstein who would prefer to confiscate all weapons.
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      • Posted by NealS 6 years, 5 months ago
        Perhaps a background "test" on people to measure how fast they can pull a trigger might solve the problem before they can be issued a "permit" to put in an "application" for a "license" to own a gun, especially a "black one", or one that has a "hand grip", or has a muzzle flash suppressor that might look like a sound suppressor, or one with a big magazine, or some particular type of bullet, serial numbered rounds, or type of powder. Maybe a ban on smokeless powder might prevent some of these attacks allowing the authorities to find the perp quicker. And if we banned all weapons perhaps we could all live in peace. (sic) It a good thing this freak didn't pack his airplane with the stuff he had in his car and crash it into the crowd. We'd have to go through a psychiatric analysis before being allowed to board an airplane.
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        • Posted by Temlakos 6 years, 5 months ago
          The only registry I would recommend, is a national database of persons whom a court has enjoined from having a gun, by reason of conviction of a violent felony (one of the Big Four, say) or on other grounds.
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          • Posted by NealS 6 years, 5 months ago
            That would make a whole lot more sense, cost a lot less too, and require fewer government employees and paperwork by keeping track of those that break the law rather than those that obey it. If I'm not on the list leave me alone.

            The left today seems to believe putting the people that obey the law in jail might somehow reduce crime. They've got most of everything backwards to say the least. It's like calling people "deplorables" just to get their vote, it just doesn't work. Or make more laws that do nothing, while the criminals (and a lot of politicians) just don't obey the ones we already have because no one seems to enforce them anymore unless they have some personal vendetta against them. Hopefully we'll all wake up from this nightmare before we realize we're totally stuck with our stupidity.
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            • Posted by Temlakos 6 years, 5 months ago
              Why, didn't you read Floyd Ferris' boast to Hank Rearden? "When a society hasn't enough criminals, we invent them."
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              • Posted by NealS 6 years, 5 months ago
                I've read it alright, the first time it was fiction a long long time ago. The last time I read it I couldn't put it down, it was like reading a current news story, only the characters were different. The "Why" in your statement has me befuddled, perhaps it just went over my head.
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                • Posted by ScaryBlackRifle 6 years, 5 months ago
                  I forget the exact name for that figure of speech but it begins a conversation at some mid-point.

                  In this case, the "why" isn't an interrogatory, but a word whisker.

                  Imagine Buford T. Pusser "Why, we've got the sweetest peanuts in the whole state!"
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  • Posted by stargeezer 6 years, 5 months ago
    THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE (not if you're a liberal though )

    There are 30,000 gun related deaths per year by firearms, and this number is not disputed. The U.S. population is 324,059,091 as of June 22, 2016. Do the math: 0.000000925% of the population dies from gun related actions each year. Statistically speaking, this is insignificant! What is never told, however, is a breakdown of those 30,000 deaths, to put them in perspective as compared to other causes of death:
    • 65% of those deaths are by suicide, which would never be prevented by gun laws.
    • 15% are by law enforcement in the line of duty and justified.
    • 17% are through criminal activity, gang and drug related or mentally ill persons – better known as gun violence.
    • 3% are accidental discharge deaths.
    So technically, "gun violence" is not 30,000 annually, but drops to 5,100. Still too many? Now lets look at how those deaths spanned across the nation.
    • 480 homicides (9.4%) were in Chicago
    • 344 homicides (6.7%) were in Baltimore
    • 333 homicides (6.5%) were in Detroit
    • 119 homicides (2.3%) were in Washington D.C. (a 54% increase over prior years)
    So basically, 25% of all gun crime happens in just 4 cities. All 4 of those cities have strict gun laws, so it is not the lack of law that is the root cause.
    This basically leaves 3,825 for the entire rest of the nation, or about 75 deaths per state. That is an average because some States have much higher rates than others. For example, California had 1,169 and Alabama had 1.
    Now, who has the strictest gun laws by far? California, of course, but understand, it is not guns causing this. It is a crime rate spawned by the number of criminal persons residing in those cities and states. So if all cities and states are not created equal, then there must be something other than the tool causing the gun deaths.
    Are 5,100 deaths per year horrific? How about in comparison to other deaths? All death is sad and especially so when it is in the commission of a crime but that is the nature of crime. Robbery, death, rape, assault are all done by criminals. It is ludicrous to think that criminals will obey laws. That is why they are called criminals.
    But what about other deaths each year?
    • 40,000+ die from a drug overdose–THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THAT!
    • 36,000 people die per year from the flu, far exceeding the criminal gun deaths.
    • 34,000 people die per year in traffic fatalities(exceeding gun deaths even if you include suicide).
    Now it gets good:
    • 200,000+ people die each year (and growing) from preventable medical errors. You are safer walking in the worst areas of Chicago than you are when you are in a hospital!
    • 710,000 people die per year from heart disease. It’s time to stop the double cheeseburgers! So what is the point? If the liberal loons and the anti-gun movement focused their attention on heart disease, even a 10% decrease in cardiac deaths would save twice the number of lives annually of all gun-related deaths (including suicide, law enforcement, etc.). A 10% reduction in medical errors would be 66% of the total number of gun deaths or 4 times the number of criminal homicides ................ Simple, easily preventable 10% reductions! So you have to ask yourself, in the grand scheme of things, why the focus on guns? It's pretty simple:
    Taking away guns gives control to governments. The founders of this nation knew that regardless of the form of government, those in power may become corrupt and seek to rule as the British did by trying to disarm the populace of the colonies. It is not difficult to understand that a disarmed populace is a controlled populace.
    Thus, the second amendment was proudly and boldly included in the U.S. Constitution. It must be preserved at all costs. So the next time someone tries to tell you that gun control is about saving lives, look at these facts and remember these words from Noah Webster: "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed."
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    • Posted by CircuitGuy 6 years, 5 months ago
      "but drops to 5,100. Still too many?"
      In addition to everything you said, how many of those 5,100, regardless of location, are shootings with more than 2 victims? I think the vast majority are 1- or 2-victim crimes. The focus I hear about is stopping mass shootings, which are ghastly but a very rare peril, rarer than freak accidents. Even if criminals obeyed gun laws, stopping mass shootings would hardly move the needle on the 5,100.

      Also, when it comes to mass-shootings with random targets, I wonder if the deranged perpetrators, if they couldn't get guns, would just do something other ghastly attack, like spending all morning going from one office building to the next dropping poison into every coffee pot they walked by.
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      • Posted by stargeezer 6 years, 5 months ago
        Some of the current rhetoric from the Brady bunch and others is calling EVERY shooting that scares a libtard a mass shooting. I think the number used this year was over 5,000 mass shootings! If it were true, that would be a horrific outbreak - BUT it's just not true. In my mind, if you can't remember it a year later, it wasn't a mass shooting. As such I think I recall around 5 events this year and I'm not too sure about 2 of those events.

        When you think about Chicago and the carnage on the south side each night, and add up the deaths, you discover that on any month of the year about the same number of people are killed there as were in Los Vegas a little over week ago. Yet the anti-gun Brady Bunch won't even enter a discussion about the loss of life there. Further, they won't even say why they ignore these shootings. Is the issue that it's black on black crime? Is it because it almost entirely gang related? Or could it be that these shooters are not the stereotypical gun owners that the left loves to hate? They are in almost every case people using guns that are unregistered (yes Chitown does register handguns), they are being used by people who do not hold a FOID card (Firearm Owners ID card) the card required to legally own, buy, or have a firearm or ammo in your possession. Because a FOID card is required to legally buy guns or ammo, every one of the firearms were acquired by stealing them or buying them on the street. Since even private sales of all guns require a FOID check to be completed by the State Police, the purchase was illegal.

        The next time you hear one of these gun control libs spouting how great things would be if they could just pass "enhanced background checks" and other sensible gun control steps remember that all these things have been tried. They have been tried and failed. Point to Chicago and as them what would help.

        IL requires enhanced background checks.
        IL requires all firearms owners to be registered.
        IL requires a FOID card to be carried at all times.
        IL requires a FOID card to buy or sale guns.
        IL requires a waiting period in excess of federal periods. 3 days handguns and 24 hours for long guns.
        IL outlaws all NFA devices
        IL outlaws any centerfire gun over .50 cal
        IL outlaws open carry anyplace except on your own property. Yes, I strap on when mowing or doing chores. Local police and neighbors know why I do, not a issue.

        I could go on to list Chicago's stupid local gun laws but they are in a state of flux with most having been tossed out by SCOTUS but with Chicago still refusing to vacate the laws. Pretty much if it's fun and has anything to do with guns, some libtard regulator has been trying to make it illegal, has made it illegal or is about to make it illegal.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 6 years, 5 months ago
    To paraphrase the moronic senator
    "We’ve now witnessed the deadliest mass killing in U.S. history"

    Obviously the senator has conveniently forgotten that the leader of her precious Democratic Party intentionally ordered the killing of twice as many innocent people in Waco in 1994. No one was punished for those murders and not a peep was heard from Senator Feinstein.

    Worthless looting whore.
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  • Posted by mhucks2000 6 years, 5 months ago
    Senator Feinstein and her fellow travelers are not interested in saving lives, they are interested in power. They want your weapons and mine (but get to keep theirs), thereby gaining power over the citizenry. They are dangerous traitors and should be treated as such. I applaud your letter...but don't expect her to listen!
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  • Posted by term2 6 years, 5 months ago
    So they outlaw automatic weapons. Someone makes a "bump stock". Outlaw bump stocks like they are talking about, and someone makes a battery powered device to rapidly pull the trigger on the gun rapidly. Outlaw that and someone invents something else to do what people want.
    Outlaw guns, and someone invents a way to kill an attacker silently from a distance that isnt a "gun". We can go on and on. Gun control is not only immorant, its impractical and downright stupid.
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 6 years, 5 months ago
    It's all about the numbers. Deaths by gunfire, 13,000 in 2016; deaths by auto accident, 33,000 the same year; bigger than both combined, deaths by drug overdose, 65,000. Seemingly it's less important to treat mental illness and addiction than to try to undo the 2nd amendment.
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  • Posted by ProfChuck 6 years, 5 months ago
    The Democrats want to push new laws to "control" guns and gun ownership. These are the same people that champion ignoring laws with which they disagree such as deporting illegal alien criminals and fostering "sanctuary" cities and even states. If I disagree with their gun laws am I, consistent with their "logic", free to ignore those laws?
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  • Posted by Herb7734 6 years, 5 months ago
    If someone had asked me, a few weeks ago, what a Bump Stock was, I'd guess that it was the amount of bumper cars the carnival had on hand. I'm gonna put up a bet, now that we know whatinell they are, that the demand for them skyrockets. Dealers will sell out of them faster than they can dispose of them. That's what advertising does.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 6 years, 5 months ago
    As usual the senate believes its fine for federal law enforcement to kill using these weapons, but it should be illegal for the people to have them for defense against domestic enemies like these:
    Senators Feinstein (D-CA.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Bill Nelson (D-Florida), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)
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    • Posted by freedomforall 6 years, 5 months ago
      Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), and Bill Nelson (D-Florida)
      all come from states that Trump won, and must run for re-election in 2018. I wish them all the bad luck they deserve.
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  • Posted by mia767ca 6 years, 4 months ago
    "gun" rights only make sense in relation to the primary...individual...rights.

    Individual rights are natural rights independent of "govt" rights.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 6 years, 5 months ago
    I have a good friend who is extremely responsible and law-abiding and who has had a rifle with an external modification for automatic fire. He is not involved in law enforcement or military. I wonder if he would be expected to turn over this particular rifle if this passes. Or might he be grandfathered in?
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 6 years, 5 months ago
    Literally 48 hours after the attack, she has legislation to ban something.
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    • Posted by rbroberg 6 years, 5 months ago
      It is clearly opportunistic to propose gun control legislation so soon after the Las Vegas mass shooting. The incident did not change the conviction of the Senator, who held these views prior to it; the speed at which the proposed legislation was revealed indicates few modifications to an original text were made. Thus, it is clearly opportunism.

      I do not believe it is bloodthirsty, as I have seen written, but I do believe the speedy opportunism shows some degree of callousness. And it is also clear the callousness is preferred to allowing another Senator or Representative to take the limelight.

      I work in the safety field and, in particular, chemical safety. When people bypass safety features of equipment or disregard steps in a procedure dealing with high hazards, it obviously increases the risk of an incident. The reason I draw attention to this fact is not to establish the need for more safety features to be bypassed or for more stringent procedures to be written and ignored. If a person is unwilling to follow basic law in the first place, then what kind of special law would that person choose to follow? The answer is: the law which is enforced.

      I am sure Mandalay Bay has some rule against storing that many guns in a hotel room, just as I am sure Nevada has a law against storing ammonium nitrate for the purpose of manufacturing explosives, etc., etc. (List your own examples.)

      To expect that additional laws will protect against such an event from occurring is to fool oneself. If law enforcement cannot enforce existing laws, then what purpose do additional laws serve!? The purpose of expanding policy objectives which conform to a unified strategy derived from a specific worldview. We exist in the space between Rand and Marx. Political philosophies like Liberalism and Conservatism just seem to thrive on the chaos and ambiguity in between.
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      • Posted by stargeezer 6 years, 5 months ago
        What's burning the liberal butts is that until this madman pulled the trigger on the crowd, everything we've seen was legal, including the fertilizer in his car. The tannerite is legal target marker (and a lot of fun), I buy and use several cases of it each year teaching gun safety. All legal, all safe when used as designed, all fun.
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        • Posted by CircuitGuy 6 years, 5 months ago
          "until this madman pulled the trigger on the crowd, everything we've seen was legal,"
          I understand what they mean, but that's just the nature of life in a free society: The things criminals do are legal until they cross the line into illegality. It will be true until everything's illegal and everyone's living in prison.
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      • Posted by CircuitGuy 6 years, 5 months ago
        The analogy to workplace safety or quality issues stands out. When there's an accident due to breaking the rules, the answer is not to make more rules.

        In gov't, the answer is more rules, and there's not a reciprocal removal of some other rule, as when my kids bring toy into the their packed room they have throw something out to avoid toys from just piling up.
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