False information alleged of Trout Run man who tried to buy guns in Mansfield

[knight0334]

I have decided that in order to post here, one must be in the mood to write a thesis which clearly points out one's position on any topic, to the minute detail.

Seriously, there's a big difference between rape, rape of a child, or assault that led to serious injury (among many other serious offenses) and a DUI, pulling a knife in self-defense without actually using it, or smoking a joint. What about people who accidentally cross the state border and become "dangerous" felons? We have to be honest here and discuss not only the actual charges, the reduced charges, and what the actual event really was in the first place.

Would I let someone who had harmed a child babysit? Of course not. That's one of those NEVER leave it behind. But if we're going to be making them report their whereabouts for the rest of their lives, I suggest we do the same with murderers.

The problem isn't that people can lose their rights. The problem is that the grading of offenses isn't scaled properly, and also that misdemeanors can prohibit a person.

Sans a couple Supreme Court rulings, any felony could be punishable by death if a state has chosen that course of punishment. Acts like murder, rape, kidnapping, arson, robbery, burglary, piracy, treason, certain types assaults, high dollar value theft, drug dealing(Florida), and many other offenses were once punishable by death - with exception of a couple they have the potential of grave physical harm to another.

However over the years we have allowed lessor offenses to be scaled up in gradings, offenses that really didn't pose risk of injury to another, many of which are victimless crimes. At one time those lessor acts were just misdemeanors. Since executing people for those lessor offenses isn't quite fitting, prison and loss of rights became the norm.

The misdemeanor and one year portions of the GCA'68 and of the respective states is quite bullshit if you ask me. Felonious acts is where the line should be drawn, and the grading of offenses should be scaled better. But of course some people draw to attention something like domestic abuse where the offender should be disarmed, but the assault was of a minor nature - well, that to should be scaled properly to the nature of the violence. ...Maybe a temporary injunction on the offenders rights is in order for the lessor acts of abuse.

[ungawa]

Just as a thought-experiment: Carrying a lethal weapon requires mature judgment and an understanding of your rights and obligations. If someone is arrested and convicted of shoplifting 6 times per year, every year, would it be wrong for society to conclude that his judgment and maturity are insufficient to entrust him with the power to summarily kill other citizens, to terminate the life story of somebody's husband or father or son who may cut them off in traffic or take that really good parking space?

The problem with the absolutist "everybody not in jail has the same rights" point of view (not yours, just saying) is that it results in "everybody's" rights being curtailed and infringed down to the level of the least common denominator. It would be like letting everybody drive cars, and then setting the speed limits so that the blind drivers and 5 year old kids were less likely to kill anyone.

There's a strong argument that bad people, and criminally careless people, and deeply impaired people, should forfeit their rights, but with a clear path to earning redemption. And everyone else should be able to buy M249's at Walmart.

Currently, the government can't choose who can and can't own guns. One look at the criminal contingent of our society proves that.

I think just about everybody that makes a personal decision not to own or carry a gun because of their record is exactly the type of person that we wouldn't object to having a gun regardless of their record.

It's the same as most laws prohibiting possession rather than actual us for nefarious purposes. They do almost no good but do substantial harm. Just like the carry ban in Jersey.

[GunLawyer001]

Currently, the government can't choose who can and can't own guns. One look at the criminal contingent of our society proves that.

I think just about everybody that makes a personal decision not to own or carry a gun because of their record is exactly the type of person that we wouldn't object to having a gun regardless of their record.

It's the same as most laws prohibiting possession rather than actual us for nefarious purposes. They do almost no good but do substantial harm. Just like the carry ban in Jersey.

That's a wise truth, within its limitations. You are of course correct, the govt can't completely eliminate guns from the bad guys, or drugs from addicts, or cigarettes and beer from teens. Laws are just words on paper, the way that Obama fights terrorism by re-defining words and making more empty promises.

It takes enforcement. And in this case, laws against purchase and possession of firearms by the criminally-bent and the mentally ill and others, are pretty enthusiastically enforced. NYC virtually eliminated casual carry of guns by the criminal class (finally putting them on par with the law-abiding, who had been going unarmed for decades) by the simple yet questionable expedient of unlawfully searching every thuggish-looking kid and known gang-banger they encountered, and stealing their guns without bothering to prosecute them.

That was an arguable trade-off. The NYC cops disarmed the bad guys, but ignored the Constitution. At least it was better than the 10 shameful years of the Federal AWB, which also ignored the Constitution, yet mainly disarmed the good guys.

Targeted possession laws are not inherently bad. Should it be legal for 5 year old kids to possess vodka? For retarded adults to carry loaded guns? For illegal aliens to stand outside Home Depot with loaded shotguns? If your target is provably more likely to engage in reckless and lethal conduct, is it wrong to try to reduce his ability to kill on a whim?

That being said, our gun laws are at least 50% excessive and useless, probably a lot more. When infringing an enumerated Constitutional right, the govt is required to use the least infringing means possible (and the fact that courts are still arguing that, somehow, Strict Scrutiny doesn't apply to the 2nd Amendment, is an abomination).

In other words, when killing weeds in the garden, you don't use a flamethrower in the hope that some of the herbal carnage will eliminate the weeds. You target the weeds, and leave the tomatoes and peas alone. The AWB targeted every private individual in the nation, hundreds of millions of us, because a dozen loons went all berserker and shot up some gun-free zones. That's so extreme that only a blind gun-hater could reconcile it with the Constitution. It's so bad that it would make an implausible law school exam hypothetical of "what kind of law is unconstitutional?" It's about as bad as fighting political corruption by restraining free speech, or fighting plane bombers by suspending the Bill of Rights in airports.

It's not a sign of the apocalypse, but it's a sign of the end of the Framer's United States. They created a nation of free men with a limited government. We now have rule by an unlimited government (typified by Nancy "Are-You-Serious" Pelosi) over captive servants.

No objective observer can defend all of our current gun laws, or even most of them; but that doesn't mean that zero gun laws would be an unqualified improvement. And the usual rule that we allow all behavior to occur, and then punish the unlawful conduct, doesn't work well when the perps are crazy or just inherently lawless, such that deterrence has no impact on their addled brains. The Newtown shootings occurred despite plenty of gun laws, but there are a lot of loons out there who don't have access to their mom's gun safe, and physically preventing those specific loons from buying guns OTC at Walmart has pretty clearly prevented some of them from doing copycat killings. The problem is all the other non-loons caught up in the same net.