The Glade 4.0

Exactly. Because of that, compromise is impossible.

Until you (meaning you and other liberals) start telling the anti-gun nuts to knock that **** off, compromise is impossible, because one side's extremism is being fueled by the extremism of the other side. It's not reasonable to ask people to be the first ones to compromise when the aggression and dishonesty of the other side is why they're refusing to compromise in the first place.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I can appreciate a sensible discussion but here's the problems I see, Aizle:

A certain contingent of the population has decided that outright ban or restrictions so onerous they function as a ban are needed. They won't listen to logic, they won't even argue against valid points brought up. I think this mostly is derived from the mindset that insulated from the realities of the world and somehow thinks we can create an absolutely safe society. Check out Occupy NRA or DailyKOS for prime examples. These people, as DE has pointed out, simply see gun control as an ends and not a means to any specific ends. They aren't willing to have a rational discussion.

Also, there is the problem that a database or registration system is not Constitutional nor is it a good idea. It simply is another step toward eventual confiscation. By its very nature, gun control will not make us safer against random crime or mass shooting violence and thus, there will always exist the incentive to push for more gun control, eventually encompassing a ban which isn't possible without the registration. Compounding this problem is the sheer number of firearms that exist and the inability to effectively erect a database to begin with. In most states, there is no registration of weapons and thus, the paper trail ends with the 4473. I saw one extremetard on DailyKOS suggesting that we find the people who meet certain criteria such as having filed multiple 4473s over the course of a lifetime and if these persons claimed to have sold guns via intrastate private transactions and didn't establish a paper trail (bill of sale) and met other criteria (NRA membership was suggested) that should be evidence enough for a judge to issue a warrant or even for a warrantless search of his property. So now we're talking about trampling Fourth Amendment rights to trample Second Amendment rights. Idiots like this do exist and some of them are even in Congress like Diane Feinstein.

This is to say nothing of the massive financial undertaking required for most of the measures if implemented nationally. Now is definitely not the time to be finding yet more ridiculous things for Congress to blow their was on, financially speaking. The aforementioned database would be a significant drain and likely increase the BATFE's budget, assuming they were to administer it, by an order of magnitude or more.

Finally, this is to say nothing of the fact that ownership of firearms by the public in large numbers is a deterrent to dictatorship. This view has become marginalized as extremist or fringe lunatic but it remains true in both a historical context and contemporary setting. Confiscation of firearms might in effect do nothing more than quell ineffective and unorganized isolated uprisings but the very idea of it is simply a control move, a grab for power. It conditions the population to accept being told what they may and may not do. Most modern tyrants and despots have disarmed the population either as they ascended to power or not shortly after.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Actually Raf, registration was in place IMMEDIATELY after our country was founded. Gun owners were required to report how many they owned and what types.

The fact of the matter is that while the Brady group might be the liberal fanatics, the NRA is the conservative fanatics. Both sides have their radicals and those of us in the middle with more rational minds CAN NOT let them be the ones to decide what is right, rational and prudent.

Tell you what, I'll agree to write a letter to the Brady group telling them to knock that **** off, if you'll do the same to the NRA.

If you are talking about the Militia Acts, that was for the purpose of ENSURING citizens were armed. Pretty stark contrast to what you are implying.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

I can only explain this so many times: The NRA is the way it is because of the Brady Campaign and HGI. That's why it spikes in membership after incidents like Sandy Hook. People know full well that the anti-gun crowd will exploit it to the maximum possible, so they join the NRA as a defense regardless of whether they agree with it or not. The NRA would not need to take such an extreme position of it were not for the fundamental dishonesty and untrustworthiness of Brady and the like.

Furthermore, I'm not talking about you, specifically, and talking about you or me writing letters is intentionally missing the point. What I mean is that the portion of the left that is moderate on guns lets this go on. There are all too many people that are not in favor of total bans, or even bans of semi-automatic weapons, but when they hear "assault weapon" or "high-capacity magazine" they think Brady and the anti gun types are being reasonable and the NRA is not, when the reverse is true.

You are right that there are extremists on both sides, but the simple fact is that the right (and it really isn't even a right-left issue; there are plenty of pro-gun folks on the left and a number of people on the right that are still scared of and anti-gun) is utterly in a state of reaction to the extremism of the left. There is an endless list of comments, from the "clinging to their guns and religion" thing, to politicians who've said "there's no reason for a person in a civilized society to own a gun" and plenty more. No matter what restrictions the anti-gun types get, the next time there is a massacre they will be asking for more.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

In a country that might need to fend off invasion at any time and could not afford a meaningful standing army, nor a terribly large navy, what do you think the reason was?

For the answer, see Raf's post.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Its not fair to claim Registration is the automatic gateway to confiscation. You have to register your car too....

Except that there's no 'anti-car' movement. People actually focus on common-sense things with cars, such as excessive speed or drunk driving rather than claiming cars are evil things no one should have. Except for the rare few that do. The difference is that the majority of people that want cars is so overwhelming that no one pays attention to the occasional loon.

The history of gun registration is that it is used for confiscation. New York City created a long-arms registry in 1967, and part of the way it was passed was that gun owners were told it would never be used for confiscation, getting them to support it as a 'compromise'. In the 1990s, it was used to effect confiscation. The excuse has been made "well, you can't very well claim that a promise was broken because it was two different administrations". No, you can't, but if that is true, it also means promises to get gun owners to agree to compromise are worthless.

California revoked a 'grace period' for 'assault weapons' and declared weapons registered during that period illegal.

So no, it isn't 'unfair'. If it hadn't happened already in several states and many nations it'd be Slippery Slope, but it's already proven to happen. Registration is a matter of overcoming barriers to confiscation. The reason gun control groups are so in favor of it is to make confiscation easier, and undermine the argument that confiscation is 'too difficult' down the road. It is another example of how fundamentally dishonest the anti-gun crowd is.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

They confiscate vehicles without warrants all the **** time. Way to pick the wrong damned example ...

In fact, the current state of due process says that cars enjoy a lower standard of protection from search, seizure, and and denial than most other property types.

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I'd like to see a source on this that isn't some blogosphere balderdash, especially since the Militia Act of 1792 required every able-bodied male citizen between 18 and 45 to arm and outfit themselves according to their conscription in the National Militia. It seems to me, you've read some bad interpretive history and run with it, Aizle. That said, Federal Registration of firearm ownership got hamstrung by Keller vs. DC -- it's unconstitutional. The vast majority of prior Federal Registration efforts were demolishes in Printz vs. the United States, which is largely responsible for the decline of the Brady Ban.

And, in case you didn't notice ...

Our Supreme Court's decision to incorporate the Second Amendment last year pretty much ends the debate you want to have. There will no be Federal gun control legislation because it's NOT the province of government.

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You're not deciding anything right, rational, and prudent; you're starting from a position of fallacy and continuing forward with emotion-driven, knee-jerk responses because you want to feel better.The State of Georgia has issued me a Concealed Weapon Permit (Judicial Act presided over by a Magistrate Judge). Illinois, Maine, Massachussetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Virginia, West Virginia, South Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, Nebraska, Kansas, Oregon, Washington, and California, all collectively deny almost all out of state ownership and concealed carry permits.

Actually ...

The more I read your posts, the more I know you're not being reasonable. You're not educated enough on the subject to have a reasonable opinion, especially not when you lead with such a bad bit of misinformation. Firearm stamps and the resultant taxes were no small part of our impetus toward rebellion.

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MD. Argh.

Registration lead to the confiscation of the SKS right here in America in California. Why would any sane person register something when history shows that registration has not only lead to confiscation but almost all confiscations have been preceded by registrations? It's not a slippery slope to construct a model based on past observations of activity.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

You realize that the reverse of this is true as well, right? Groups like the Brady group wouldn't have the support they do if the NRA was more reasonable. Frankly it was their unilateral positions that started this whole mess IMHO.

Precisely what is unreasonable in not wishing a fundamental right to be violated?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

You keep using the word "reasonable" in this thread, but you have yet to make a "reasonable" statement yourself, Aizle. After all, you're convinced we need gun control legislation to limit criminal access to firearms. Without confiscation measures, there are already enough serviceable firearms in the United States to make legal access a moot point in any discussion of criminal access to firearms. More to the point, we have several years of failed political policies from the current Administration and its cohorts, all of which have done nothing but increase interest and demand for private firearm ownership.

But none of that matters ...

You still think we should inconvenience law-abiding citizens on the unsubstantiated and unproven claim that criminals will be negatively impacted to a greater degree than the people who don't break the law.

How is that reasonable? Ever?

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How is it reasonable to propose a solution to a problem when the proposed solution has no evidence of having worked - (CDC examination of 51 independent studies)?

That seems to me the exact opposite of reason.

I know we concluded that throwing mashed potatoes at this wall doesn't stop the mumps but I propose only "reasonable" mashed potato throwing - why won't the other side agree with me - they must be crazy and pro-mumps!

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Cars and driving is a poor comparison, as driving an automobile is not a Constitutionally protected right. What we should really have is licensing and registration before speaking in a public forum. Speaking one's opinions is dangerous, as it can potentially spark a riot. Therefore, we need to restrict speech to licensed and approved persons such as elected legislators. They have the benefit of proper training, as well as access to all facts regarding any topic that might be controversial.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Lets have reasonable speech regulation:

1. One speech a month on a topic anyone might consider offensive, disruptive, or upsetting.

2. We ban the use of speeches with two many words as complex ideas are most likely to upset people. No one NEEDS to speak in more than 7 word sentences.

3. We ban certain kinds of words, only the most upsetting, such as "race", "violence", "responsibility", "blame", "fault", "science", "reason", "wrong", a more extensive list to follow. Certainly no one NEEDS to use these words.

4. Permits are required for speeches and any speech to be given must go through a 7 day waiting period while the government makes sure a person is qualified to operate a speech.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I would also like to propose reasonable limits on voting rights. As we can plainly see, there are too many unsafe voters in the US. We need to put in place much more stringent requirements before someone is issued a license to vote.

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Wait, I actually agree with this, essentially.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Of course you do, it's only reasonable.

For myself, I view this as a stepping stone to achieving One Man, One Vote. I am the One Man, and I get the One Vote.

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Biden proposes Executive Orders to do what they know Congress wouldn't (essentially).

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/b ... ml?hp=t1_3

THAT is why there can't be middle ground.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine