It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing,as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.

It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.

Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for civilian ownership. It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.

EdC wrote:So much wrong with that editorial, but at least it's honest and up front about the goal. Ban and confiscation of most of the type of firearms people "keep and bear" and the ammunition used in them.

I find this editorial ridiculous. "End the gun epidemic in America". Great line NYT, what comes next?

In the corporatist society we live in, and for which the NYT has been complicit in it's creation, legislatures work for the corporations and monied interests. These interests have in a feat of social engineering created a block of voters who will vote for maintaining the status quo, in which these entities can maintain power. They have caused gerrymandering of nearly all states, and with their voting block control populations in which they are not the majority. In this reality civic mindedness is a hoax, the "will of the people" is a hackneyed phrase, and the rule of law is the rule of the monied.

An important component of the voting block that protects the status quo is gun owners. Not only the NRA's 4 million, but 10x that number who are more casual about gun ownership but for whom this ownership is important enough to become the single issue they vote on. The controlling interests will make sure this constituency is serviced with expanded freedoms for firearms and more access to them because they realize guns are a subject that works very well in their favor.

There are some things which allow the powerless to feel powerful. Guns are power. The state projects power not by the authority of a policeman's badge but by the power of the lethal force on his belt. Ultimately the projection of military force despite wonders of technological lethality is by a man on the ground with a gun.

This editorial board thinks there is good reason to ban guns, and surely this society can reason it's way to a more secure condition of gun control. I think the NYT editorial board is deluded. Legislation is going to be litigated and finally shaped by the courts, which are the source of the Heller decision. Changing the Constitution isn't possible.

The solution isn't more gun laws, every call for gun control strengthens the hands of the people who are stopping change. The threat of taking guns away from people who own them would be a real and tangible loss to those individuals and does deep damage to the forces for change in this country and erodes their support.

If you want to get rid of guns, you must make a society in which it is possible for the population to decide to do so voluntarily. Take a close look at the societies that have mostly eliminated guns.. Put guns on the back burner for the next 20 to 50 years, and work on a just and fair society, then let's have a conversation about guns.

Antiquus wrote:My response.

hardest cut I've made in a long time for size

KnightsFan wrote:They start off right away with the implication that anyone who disagrees isn't a good person. They're tying the outrage and sympathy over a terrorist attack into a call for gun control. If you don't agree with gun control, then clearly you're a bad person who doesn't feel sympathy for the victims/families or anger at the terrorists.

Disgusting bit of writing that.

Further they continue to show a basic misunderstanding of gun culture and gun owners.

And a failure to understand what a reasonable restriction of a right is. They might as well claim that the 4th Amendment doesn't cover your computer, because clearly only the government and corporations have secrets they need to keep hidden. Private individuals shouldn't have anything to hide from the government.


ETA: Dispo's link doesn't go to the actual article. Here is a link to it in all its 'glory'. I would post a donotlink or archive.org, but both sites are down.

Antiquus wrote:Coming from you, that's pretty good praise. I'd be honored if you put it up as a blog, shape the submission in any way you see fit - as myself, as an example of LGC thinking, or what happens when Antiquus is of his meds.

Merkwuerdigliebe wrote:It's a conversation we Americans need to have. What is it, 75% of Americans support gun ownership. So banning things isn't in the cards but the issue of what constitutes reasonable restrictions are where the battle is going to be

I mentioned how encouraging gun club membership might be part of a solution. Some of the safest people on Earth to own guns are typically Concealed Carry permit holders. You know they are not felons, mentally ill, wife beaters and whatnot. How about a program where to own a pistol above a certain class need to get License To Carry?

DispositionMatrix wrote:

Merkwuerdigliebe wrote:It's a conversation we Americans need to have. What is it, 75% of Americans support gun ownership. So banning things isn't in the cards but the issue of what constitutes reasonable restrictions are where the battle is going to be

I mentioned how encouraging gun club membership might be part of a solution. Some of the safest people on Earth to own guns are typically Concealed Carry permit holders. You know they are not felons, mentally ill, wife beaters and whatnot. How about a program where to own a pistol above a certain class need to get License To Carry?

MA does this, with many towns issuing LTCs with restrictions barring licensees from carrying. So the License to carry is actually a license not to carry.

Merkwuerdigliebe wrote:

DispositionMatrix wrote:

Merkwuerdigliebe wrote:It's a conversation we Americans need to have. What is it, 75% of Americans support gun ownership. So banning things isn't in the cards but the issue of what constitutes reasonable restrictions are where the battle is going to be

I mentioned how encouraging gun club membership might be part of a solution. Some of the safest people on Earth to own guns are typically Concealed Carry permit holders. You know they are not felons, mentally ill, wife beaters and whatnot. How about a program where to own a pistol above a certain class need to get License To Carry?

MA does this, with many towns issuing LTCs with restrictions barring licensees from carrying. So the License to carry is actually a license not to carry.

That sounds twisted!

DispositionMatrix wrote: If you subscribe to the view the 2A, post Heller and McDonald, is the law of the land, then 2A is nullified in MA. Owning long guns in the state requires an FID, and the applicant can be subject to an arbitrary denial--even if not a prohibited person.

63% of coalition force death by 2007 were from IEDs

killed 87 people

Thirty-two people died

that killed 38 elementary schoolchildren and six adults and injured at least 58 other

Assault rifles, moreover, are hardly the deadliest firearms in the United States.

Far from it, in fact. Between 2001-2005, according to the FBI, approximately 47,500 people in the United States were murdered by guns. Nearly 8 in 10 of these murders were committed with a handgun. The simple fact is that, if lawmakers want to address the deadliest firearms in the United States, they will not target assault rifles. They will target handguns.

One explanation for the deadly role handguns plan for our epidemic of gun violence is that fatal shootings often occur far more spontaneously than the tragedies in California and Colorado. The most common motive for a gun homicide is an argument, often a drunken argument. As one researcher explains, “nearly half of all homicides, committed by men or women, were preceded by some sort of argument or fight, such as a conflict over money or property, anger over one partner cheating on another, severe punishment of a child or abuse of a partner, retaliation for an earlier dispute, or a drunken fight over an insult or other affront.” Handguns are common and easy to conceal. And they allow a fight that otherwise may have only escalated into screaming or punching to become deadly.

Yet, despite the danger handguns present to American lives, lawmakers are, at least for the moment, severely hobbled in their ability to regulate them. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court’s five most conservative members held that handguns enjoy special constitutional status as “the most preferred firearm in the nation to `keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family.” Until the membership of the Supreme Court changes, much handgun regulation is off-limits.

Two New York Times editorials: ‘Terror watch lists run amok’ — now let’s ban gun purchases by people who are on them