New Posts
  • Hi there guest! Welcome to PoliticalJack.com. Register for free to join our community?

Why I'm grateful for the discussion on "silencers."

C

Capitalist

Guest
Sure they are. Are you disagreeing with the characterization of them being dumb or the characterization of them being metal?
:rolleyes:
Dumb metal, like iron, won't kill you by just holding it in your bare hand. Plutonium will.

A lone individual couldn't come up with a modern semi-automatic firearm.
Yeah he could. Easily!


In order to machine one, he'd need to be working from designs that other people came up with, and machines that other people manufactured, etc. If you were stranded on a desert island with no tools, you could be there for a lifetime and never make yourself a modern semi-automatic firearm, even if all the raw ingredients were present. As with uranium and plutonium, "God" made such things difficult and expensive to obtain, providing a natural barrier to the individual.
False equivalent. Everybody in the world has access to iron, steel, and aluminum for uses ranging from constructing skyscrapers to semi-automatic rifles. Almost nobody in the world has access to Uranium or Plutonium for any reason.

You trying to make a point about making a gun out of Uranium? That would be stupid.

The legislation in that direction is a solution dealing with a known problem. In the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, there were several cash-strapped nations with a huge number of nukes they could have sold off. There were plenty of rich people who could afford it. But we have regulations controlling that, so even if you'd wanted to make a deal with, say, the Ukraine, to take some of their nukes off their hands in exchange for some much-needed cash, you couldn't have done so.
Excellent! So we're not in any need of more restrictive legislation! The 2nd Amendment restricts the government from infringing on people's right to keep and bear semi-auto and automatic rifles as well as cannons.

And current legislation keeps people like Larry the Cable Guy from owning nukes.

Looks like we're done here.
 
C

Capitalist

Guest
No need to repeat -- the forum's attention has already been drawn to your tacit concession of defeat.
In a contest to repeat inane and irrelevant fallacies you certainly win. If that's what you were going for then congratulations. Seems like a hollow victory to me though.

 
:rolleyes:
Dumb metal, like iron, won't kill you by just holding it in your bare hand. Plutonium will.


Yeah he could. Easily!



False equivalent. Everybody in the world has access to iron, steel, and aluminum for uses ranging from constructing skyscrapers to semi-automatic rifles. Almost nobody in the world has access to Uranium or Plutonium for any reason.

You trying to make a point about making a gun out of Uranium? That would be stupid.



Excellent! So we're not in any need of more restrictive legislation! The 2nd Amendment restricts the government from infringing on people's right to keep and bear semi-auto and automatic rifles as well as cannons.

And current legislation keeps people like Larry the Cable Guy from owning nukes.

Looks like we're done here.
Thanks for that video, very interesting!
 
C

Capitalist

Guest
trapdoor said:
Not all gun control being done at the state level would be constitutional at the federal level.
What makes you think that?
The Constitution. See, Ark, we have something in the US of A called "The Supreme Court." It decides if legislation is or is not unconstitutional. It doesn't do a very good job of it but at the same time it doesn't give a rat's ass what goes on at the state level when making that decision. I'm surprised. As a lawyer you should know this.

Agreed. But you have to pretend that you think the truth is the opposite of what you actually think it is, because you don't want the practical considerations aligned against a position you've taken for reasons that are unrelated to those practical considerations. You'd oppose gun laws even if you were 100% sure they would save lives, and so admitting your suspicions that they'd save lives does you no good.
Ooooo! Fascinating! A logical conundrum! Can God make a boulder too heavy for him to lift? Hmmmm. Lemme think about that.

Yet, as you know, the waiting periods clearly did a lot of good -- resulting in a much quicker drop in murder and violent crime while those were in place than after they were replaced by InstaCheck.
Actually, it didn't. It victimizes people who need a gun quickly. See my LA riots for an example. How are those events captured in statistics? Oh, that's right. They're not. Oh well. <Shrugs>

As you know, that's simply a lie.
No, actually that's not.

Why would anyone want society not to have guns, other than that being a means to an end? It would be like wanting to get rid of screwdrivers, or electric can openers, or any other tool. Nobody just wakes up one morning with a vendetta against a class of tools and a desire to eliminate them. The gun controllers aren't focused on guns as the end, but as a means to the end: a means to making people safer.
See now you're clearly lying. If gun banners like yourself wanted to make people safer, they'd be campaigning against the use of cars since walking to work is so much safer than driving. We've been over this a million times.

Gun control isn't about protecting people. It's about controlling people.

You're welcome to argue that gun control won't make people safer, or to argue that even if it will we should oppose it because you like shooting things and other people's lives matter less than that. But if you're going to be serious in your arguments, you have to recognize the truth about WHY gun controllers want to control guns. It's a means toward the intended end of making society safer.
No. It's about controlling people. Safety has nothing to do with it. If it did, then gun banners would be clamoring to take silencers off the Class III list.

You want a safer society? Make silencers easier to buy.

Thanks for coming full circle on this thread.
 

Arkady

President
:rolleyes:
Dumb metal, like iron, won't kill you by just holding it in your bare hand.
Sure it will. There's a whole list of them -- most of what's in the periodic table ending in "ium."

Yeah he could. Easily!
Definitely not. In the video you posted, he's using all sorts of equipment others made.

False equivalent. Everybody in the world has access to iron, steel, and aluminum for uses ranging from constructing skyscrapers to semi-automatic rifles. Almost nobody in the world has access to Uranium or Plutonium for any reason.
How do you imagine that impacts the conversation?

You trying to make a point about making a gun out of Uranium?
No. What part of what I wrote did you misread that badly?

Excellent! So we're not in any need of more restrictive legislation!
What makes you think that?

The 2nd Amendment restricts the government from infringing on people's right to keep and bear semi-auto and automatic rifles as well as cannons.
Clearly not. There are a number of laws on the books that limit the right to keep and bear various semi-automatic rifles, and those laws haven't been struck down.
 

Arkady

President
The Constitution. See, Ark, we have something in the US of A called "The Supreme Court."
I've heard of it. It's the disgraced court that gave us Bush v. Gore, and has been churning out one insanely far right-wing decision after another, in the decades-long run when we've had nothing but Republican majorities. But, even with that far-right-wing tilt, they haven't struck down any number of gun regulations that remain on the books at the state level. I understand that the Cult of the Gun is praying they will, some day, rule that waiting periods and assault weapons bans and rules against large capacity magazines, and the like, are unconstitutional. But, for now, that's just a dream.

Actually, it didn't. It victimizes people who need a gun quickly.
And it helps those who would be killed if nut-jobs don't have a cooling off period before they can get a gun. Which is the bigger effect? Well, the evidence points very strongly to the latter being the bigger effect, given the EXTREMELY RAPID decline in murder rates and violent crime in the era when the waiting period was in effect.

See now you're clearly lying. If gun banners like yourself wanted to make people safer, they'd be campaigning against the use of cars since walking to work is so much safer than driving.
Obviously not. As with everything, it's a trade-off. What would this country be like with vastly fewer cars? Tough to say, since our entire economy is based around heavy use of the car..... as is the economy of every other major wealthy nation. It's not even clear you can run a major wealthy nation without huge reliance on the car. By comparison, what would this country be like with vastly fewer guns? There we have a clearer issue, since most other major wealthy nations have far fewer of them. In such countries, things are fairly similar to how they are here, just with a lot less murder. As you can see, gun control is about protecting people. It's about safety, not control. If people were made safer by having more guns, I'd favor people having more guns, just as I favor them having more first aid kits. The only reason to oppose guns is the impact on public safety.

You want a safer society? Make silencers easier to buy.
What evidence do you see that would make society safer? Is there some major nation that made silencers easier to buy and experienced an improvement in public safety statistics? Or is it just wishful thinking?
 
C

Capitalist

Guest
Sure it will.
Iron will not kill you by holding it in your hand. Follow the bouncing ball.

Definitely not. In the video you posted, he's using all sorts of equipment others made.
So what? That's not the point. The point is Uranium is incredibly difficult to enrich, Plutonium is incredibly difficult to produce. Iron isn't. That's nature.

A drill press ain't a reactor. You're welcome.

How do you imagine that impacts the conversation?
See above. Hope that helps.

Clearly not. There are a number of laws on the books that limit the right to keep and bear various semi-automatic rifles, and those laws haven't been struck down.
Doesn't mean they're not unconstitutional. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, counselor.
 
C

Capitalist

Guest
I've heard of it. It's the disgraced court that gave us Bush v. Gore, and has been churning out one insanely far right-wing decision after another, in the decades-long run when we've had nothing but Republican majorities. But, even with that far-right-wing tilt, they haven't struck down any number of gun regulations that remain on the books at the state level. I understand that the Cult of the Gun is praying they will, some day, rule that waiting periods and assault weapons bans and rules against large capacity magazines, and the like, are unconstitutional. But, for now, that's just a dream.
Well, it takes just one and then yer fukked. You can thank your adherence to case law for that. And the SCOTUS stands to get more and more gun friendly. So yes. Yes I will continue to hope.

And it helps those who would be killed if nut-jobs don't have a cooling off period before they can get a gun. Which is the bigger effect? Well, the evidence points very strongly to the latter being the bigger effect, given the EXTREMELY RAPID decline in murder rates and violent crime in the era when the waiting period was in effect.
Correlation? Well, I dunno. What were the sunspots doing during that decline? (Let's see if you play dumb with that or not play at all.)

Obviously not. As with everything, it's a trade-off. What would this country be like with vastly fewer cars? Tough to say, since our entire economy is based around heavy use of the car..... as is the economy of every other major wealthy nation. It's not even clear you can run a major wealthy nation without huge reliance on the car. By comparison, what would this country be like with vastly fewer guns?
Yes, y'know, it is a trade off.

What would we be like with NO guns? Probably more like North Korea. I hear their deaths by gun whether it's murder or accidental discharge are like in the basement! So yeah. Trade that!

What evidence do you see that would make society safer?
The FACT that gunfire would reduce hearing damage. Haven't you been paying a bit of attention?
 

Arkady

President
Iron will not kill you by holding it in your hand. Follow the bouncing ball.
Yes. And many other dumb metals will. Which part of this are you struggling to understand?

So what? That's not the point. The point is Uranium is incredibly difficult to enrich, Plutonium is incredibly difficult to produce. Iron isn't. That's nature.
Yes. It's firearms that are difficult to produce -- especially complicated ones. That's nature.

A drill press ain't a reactor.
If this thread is now just about throwing around brainless truisms with no bearing on the policy question, I'm game. I can tell a hawk from a handsaw.

Doesn't mean they're not unconstitutional. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, counselor.
Yes. In theory, any law might be said to be unconstitutional, even if it's been on the books for a long time and has never been successfully challenged in court. Maybe the laws giving the FCC authority to govern the airwaves are unconstitutional. But, at this point, those are the law and have been for a long time. The same is true for various gun regulations that the Cult of the Gun only dreams of being labeled unconstitutional. For now, We the People, through our duly elected representatives, still have the authority to regulate those things. That right may be stolen from us by conservatives on the Supreme Court in the future, but for now they're keeping their sticky fingers to themselves on those matters.
 
C

Capitalist

Guest
Yes. And many other dumb metals will. Which part of this are you struggling to understand?
The part where toxic metals have anything to do with metals that go into making guns.

Yes. It's firearms that are difficult to produce -- especially complicated ones. That's nature.
What was so difficult about the video?

Technology makes constructing firearms orders of magnitude easier. You don't get that with U and Pu.

If this thread is now just about throwing around brainless truisms with no bearing on the policy question, I'm game. I can tell a hawk from a handsaw.
Actually, I don't think you can. Not if you don't see the difference between enriched uranium and iron.

Yes. In theory, any law might be said to be unconstitutional, even if it's been on the books for a long time and has never been successfully challenged in court. Maybe the laws giving the FCC authority to govern the airwaves are unconstitutional.
Maybe that has something to do with some other thread.

But, at this point, those are the law and have been for a long time.
Which makes them no less irrelevant. You're trying to use time in a thread about timeless principles. That ain't the coin of the realm here. That dog won't hunt.
 

trapdoor

Governor
What makes you think that? When the arch-conservatives on the court invented the new notion that the second amendment applies to the states and localities, they didn't leave themselves any intellectually plausible grounds for saying a regulation was OK in one place but against the second amendment in another.
First, sorry for the delay in responding -- life has been happening.

What makes me think that? Primarily the 10th Amendment, and the entire doctrine of state sovereignty. The 2nd Amendment didn't apply to ANY state before 1867. It has now been ruled that it applies to all states (in the MacDonald decision), but obviously many states are less restrictive than California, Illinois or Massachusetts. Whether those restrictions can stand (many are currently facing court challenges) is an open question. Would they stand as national law? Unlikely. It's also politically unfeasible.

Granted, intellectual consistency isn't their strong suit, and they're just shameless enough to pull another new legal concept out of their asses and pretend they found it in invisible ink in the second amendment. But, for now, it makes sense to say that if a form of gun control is in place at the state or local level, it's Constitutional, and could be rolled out more broadly if we choose. The court would be free to review those regulations and strike them down if they ran afoul of their view of the second amendment, but we don't have to try to anticipate the new legal ideas they may choose to invent for the NRA down the road. For now, we have options.
To date they've been consistent, and found no invisible ink. Since 1876, SCOTUS has held that the right to arms is not dependent on the existence of the 2nd Amendment for its own existence. The amendment merely provides additional protection to the right. The Heller and MacDonald decisions clearly left the opening for additional challenges to establish a bright line on how much restriction amounts to infringement, and as I said, some of those challenges are working their way through the court system.


Agreed. But you have to pretend that you think the truth is the opposite of what you actually think it is, because you don't want the practical considerations aligned against a position you've taken for reasons that are unrelated to those practical considerations. You'd oppose gun laws even if you were 100% sure they would save lives, and so admitting your suspicions that they'd save lives does you no good.
Simply wrong. The truth is I don't believe gun control, in the United States, reduces crime in the United States. So I'm confident that each new desired restriction is merely a stepping stone to the next one. Now, I would oppose them even if they were effective on the grounds of individual freedom. Freedom entails risk. That doesn't mean that I think such laws would be effective.
Yet, as you know, the waiting periods clearly did a lot of good -- resulting in a much quicker drop in murder and violent crime while those were in place than after they were replaced by InstaCheck.
I know no such thing. Violent crime in the U.S. has been on a steady decline since the late 1980s. That decline continued after InstaCheck came online.

As you know, that's simply a lie. I get where you're coming from: the end result is what matters to you, so when truth is an enemy, a lie is a welcome ally. But this material is publicly available and can be checked. The Brady Bill became law in 1993. The NICS system that allowed for instant checking went into place in 1998. The waiting period was in place between those dates. In 1993, the murder rate was 9.5. By 1998, it had fallen to 6.3 -- a decrease of 33.7% in just five years. The violent crime rate fell by 24% in that same time
.

And as you know, crime was falling before the Brady Bill was enacted and continued to do so.t


Why would anyone want society not to have guns, other than that being a means to an end? It would be like wanting to get rid of screwdrivers, or electric can openers, or any other tool. Nobody just wakes up one morning with a vendetta against a class of tools and a desire to eliminate them. The gun controllers aren't focused on guns as the end, but as a means to the end: a means to making people safer. You're welcome to argue that gun control won't make people safer, or to argue that even if it will we should oppose it because you like shooting things and other people's lives matter less than that. But if you're going to be serious in your arguments, you have to recognize the truth about WHY gun controllers want to control guns. It's a means toward the intended end of making society safer.
I don't know. I've never understood the paranoia on the left when it comes to individual firearms ownership. I could offer a number of scenarios, ranging from simply a fear of freedom to the paranoiac (the goal is to disarm the population so that it can be enslaved -- which sounds paranoiac when not coming from one of the multiple framers of the Constitution that it paraphrases). But at the end of the day, I simply don't know -- I've never understood how me giving up my guns will enhance the life of anyone else -- but I'm replete both here and elsewhere with people telling me that it would do so. I do not agree that my doing so will make society safer.

There are multiple factors. The existence of a factor doesn't mean other factors stop existing. I assume this would be easier for you to grasp if you thought of it in a context other than guns, where your religious sensibilities won't be triggered. For example, does crack cocaine use increase mortality rates? I'd wager yes. Yet I'd also wager that mortality is quite high in old folks homes, and almost none of them use crack cocaine. How is this possible? Well, there's another factor: age. But if age factors into mortality, does that mean crack cocaine use doesn't? Of course not. Similarly, if population density (or poverty, or demographic mix, etc.) factors into murder rates, that doesn't mean that gun prevalence doesn't.
My engagement with firearms is by no means religious. It is primarily historical, and it is also my personal pathway to the physical sciences. As someone who has called for a repeal of the various drug codes dating to the early 20th century (one could by heroine over the counter before 1913), I find that comparison unpersuasive as well.

As for the "other factors" argument, if guns are such a large factor that they require more and more controls, I would have expected to see some sort of negative outcome in my rural home town, despite its lack of population density, etc., and yet there was none. It seems to me, then, that if you want to actually improve safety in society, you need to focus on those other factors, while I retain my right to arms.
 
Top