Realistic Gun Law Proposals, your thoughts

[Bill of Rights]

Show me the Republicans who are running on repealing 34 and 68.

Show me anyone else who is doing so.

Now if you have anyone, show me how many people are willing to vote for that person. We have 300M+ people in this country. If only half are eligible to vote and only half of those are willing to vote, that still leaves 75M+ people. Of those 75M or so, how many will look at such a person as a "crackpot"?

Obviously, the above numbers are not based in any actual, demonstrable fact, but are merely illustrative of the general point that this is not about Party affiliation, it's about who will support our rights and who will vote for someone who does so.

Keep in mind that someone who truly supports our rights is going to embrace things that will make them very unpopular in some circles: Oppose welfare and you get one large group against you. Oppose Medicare/Medicaid and you get another. Oppose illegal immigration and you get still another. Of course, there will be some crossover between those, but you quickly drain away support for our rights when you get groups that have become dependent upon infringements of those rights by "entitlements" and are unwilling to go through the time period between the status quo and the future time when people will be able to take care of themselves or go to sources other than government for help. A friend of mine once described this period, picturing it on a dry-wipe board as "This in here is gonna suck."

Again, it's not about Party. It doesn't matter how many Republicans support it any more than it matters how many Democrats would jump at a 100% controlled society, right up until those controls impinged upon them.

We do not need Democrats. We do not need Republicans.

We need Americans.

Blessings,
Bill

 

[Rizzo]

I think all federal firearms laws are unconstitutional and should be thrown out by the courts.

 

[smoking357]

I think all federal firearms laws are unconstitutional and should be thrown out by the courts.

I think we'd all be better off ignoring the courts and laughing at every instance in which they consider themselves referees over what is constitutional.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]"The Constitution . . . meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch."

—Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804. ME 11:51

When we talk about "taking the country back," it needs to start with undoing John Marshall's sophist coup in Marbury v. Madison.
[/FONT]

 

[smoking357]

Show me anyone else who is doing so.

Now if you have anyone, show me how many people are willing to vote for that person. We have 300M+ people in this country. If only half are eligible to vote and only half of those are willing to vote, that still leaves 75M+ people. Of those 75M or so, how many will look at such a person as a "crackpot"?

We need Americans.

Blessings,
Bill

Ah, but if the Republicans made it a plank on the platform, it would go from being a "crackpot" idea, immediately, to a reasoned position in about two media cycles.

+1 for the rest of your post. Enlighten me on the "gonna suck" period. It seems like your friend has traced out a governmental progression and has inferred our place on the timeline.

 

[Bill of Rights]

Ah, but if the Republicans made it a plank on the platform, it would go from being a "crackpot" idea, immediately, to a reasoned position in about two media cycles.

+1 for the rest of your post. Enlighten me on the "gonna suck" period. It seems like your friend has traced out a governmental progression and has inferred our place on the timeline.

It's been a few years since he and I worked together, but in essence, we were then at (and are farther now toward) a point where the "entitlees" have become dependent upon gov't to fix all their problems. The point we need to reach, IIRC, is one in which unnecessary taxation goes away, gov't spending is drastically cut (which I took to mean double digits and the first one nothing lower than a 5). Those people who have not saved, who are totally dependent upon gov't to suckle them are going to, in the interim, be in a world of . That is, if we were to say that tomorrow, ALL gov't aid is completely at an end, there would be some very lost people, people feeling that the money they'd come to expect in the mailbox at the beginning of every month was their due. All of a sudden, these people would actually have to go out and get jobs. It would be very Darwinian.

I know one of the figures my friend and I discussed was the point he repeatedly made, that if gov't was to end all of the "entitlement" programs (ALL of them) and on Jan. 2, cut every American man, woman, and child a check for $10,000, we would accomplish two things, the first of which would be the end of poverty (as everyone would now be above the poverty line) and the second would be a reduction in government expenditures. Bear in mind that I never saw data to back up this claim, but the man in question is something of a perfectionist when it comes to such things; I have no doubt but that he did, in fact, research it prior to making such a statement.

Anyway... the point is that the period between "Gov't aid is now a thing of the past." and "Our people are self-sufficient." is the time period of which he was speaking when he said, "this part in here... that's gonna suck."

As for the GOP campaigning on that platform... I don't see it happening, and it's laughable to think that the Dems would campaign on such a platform at this point in time. The closest you'll get in any actual party that anyone has heard of and for whom they would vote would likely be the Libertarians.

I'd love to see it, but it's just not in the cards; as someone recently pointed out here, no one wants it, at least no one with any "pull". The Class III owners don't, as their investments would suddenly take a nosedive. The Class III dealers don't, as they'd lose all of the cash they make on transfer fees, the Lefties don't because they're scared of guns, and the police agencies don't because of a misplaced fear of officer safety. In short, it ain't happenin'.

Does make a nice wish, though.

Blessings,
Bill

 

[SavageEagle]

Very interesting indeed. I'd call them baby steps to the final goal.

Which is...

I would appeal all the restrictions.

I would also make marksmanship a required class in school.

 

[dross]

We should work only towards a literal interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Voting for any politician who only wants to make the law less restrictive is selling out, and is an act of cowardice and stupidity. If a politician supports any restrictions on firearms, it's an act of treason to vote for him.

There, I'm trying live up to the ideological purity standards I've encountered here.

 

[Stainer]

Allow honorably-discharged service members to keep their service rifles. The rifles would be registered to them, and they would not be allowed to transfer them except to an blood heir upon death, to a non-profit shooting education program, or to be destroyed.

While this would be awesome, I think it would be a little impractical. I don't know about others, but I went through several different weapons as I progressed in rank. Which one do I get to keep? Not sure if they would let me have the m203 attached either.

Maybe to help this along would be a buy in program where as service members pay their weapons off. I would have more than loved to do that. It most certainly sucked getting out and having no firearms, good thing was I quickly corrected that problem!

 

[rvb]

no one wants it, ... The Class III owners don't, as their investments would suddenly take a nosedive. The Class III dealers don't, as they'd lose all of the cash they make on transfer fees,

I think the opposite typically true of the stamp collectors and CIII dealers I've known. Many have worked actively to get their representatives to move on the issue of easing NFA restrictions and the '86 ban.

Sure, there are SOME "investors" who feel that way, but most realize NFA investments are a risky endeavor since all it takes is a stroke of a pen in DC to prevent further transfers or skyrocket the registration tax, and those types of proposals have had much more traction over the years than proposals to make transfers easier.

A key NFA issue that many over look is removing the local LEO from the equation, or restricting their input. Too many publicly elected sherrifs or other elligible officials consider it their "right" to dis-approve otherwise legal transfers.

The FIRST thing I would do on the path to easing NFA transfers is to make it mandatory and enforcable that if the NFA item is legal in that jurisdiction and no known reason exists for the buyer to be dis-approved, the leo MUST approve the transfer (similar to "shall-issue" carry permits).

It's an easy pill for most to swallow on the path to making things better.

just another 2c.

-rvb

 

[Tryin']

Quick! we've got to get the NFA ball rolling before my can gets to Corey!