Trump supports efforts to improve gun background checks

[Dan Z]

i believe the quote below is from an ordinary citizen, commenting on a news item:

Michael Middleton wrote:
“Read the founding fathers' commentaries on the 2nd Amendment;
their purpose had NOTHING to do with hunting or sport shooting.
It had everything to do with a citizens right and responsibility to protect the security of their families, their communities, and their nation from enemies both foreign and domestic.
They specifically notated an armed citizenry as being an essential safeguard against an abusive and corrupt federal government, such as they had just fought a war against to abolish.”

i believe he’s correct.

I believe so too temporal one.

At the core, these military-style, high-velocity, large-magazine assault rifles are not mostly for sport, or collection, or hunting (and anyone who tells you otherwise is blowing smoke) - but for a large number of people they are an insurance policy for armed resistance - intended to be used as a killing machine against people if the need arises. An armed rebellion in the waiting - meant to keep power in check. Unfortunately for all of us, there are immature and unstable men out there who decide on their own when that rebellion needs to take place - and why - and they take matters into their own hands and kill to carry out their mission.

You do not claim to be Anabaptist Temporal1...so your support of this idea is not a surprise to me. It is actually a pretty popular perspective on the right. For me, as a conscientious objector, supporting this kind of ideology, and the weapons to carry it out, runs counter to my core convictions.

[Dan Z]

Josh, where would you draw the line? Are there weapons you do not think civilians should have? If so, which ones, and why?

I think the 1986 National Firearms Act, which banned private citizens from buying automatic weapons or assault rifles, is about the right mix. It also makes it much more difficult for private citizens to acquire or sell items like sawn-off shotguns and silencers, requiring extensive background checks, a signed approval letter from local law enforcement, and allows no "gun show loophole" type sales without a background check. It's been the law of the land for over 3 decades.

That's why I'm puzzled by the calls here from you and Dan Z to outlaw assault rifles or automatic weapons. The 1986 law did not perform an absolute confiscation, but did require registration and fees to be paid. At this point, a registered assault rifle that can be legally owned costs in excess of $50,000 and, generally, needs the help of a lawyer to do the transfer & sale. It is extremely rare for any of them to show up at a crime scene.

Let me solve your puzzle Josh. The laws that you believe are "about right" simply aren't working. The NRA estimates that between 8.5 million and 15 million assault rifles are in circulation based on manufacturer data. "Semi-Automatic" functionality doesn't change the people-killing battlefield design of a high-velocity large-capacity military-style weapon like the AR-15 and the like.

[Josh]

An armed rebellion in the waiting - meant to keep power in check. Unfortunately for all of us, there are immature and unstable men out there who decide on their own when that rebellion needs to take place - and why - and they take matters into their own hands and kill to carry out their mission.

You do not claim to be Anabaptist Temporal1...so your support of this idea is not a surprise to me. It is actually a pretty popular perspective on the right. For me, as a conscientious objector, supporting this kind of ideology, and the weapons to carry it out, runs counter to my core convictions.

As a conscientious objector, do you believe the state should weild powerful weapons and use them to disarm private citizens? That seems like an odd position for a CO to take. How about we don’t pick sides in this battle at all?

The only way to disarm America is to have a lot of powerful men with powerful guns invade people’s homes and confiscate their weapon at gunpoint. Desiring this an odd thing for an alleged CO to do.

If we want to build Jesus’ kingdom, we should instead lead people to Jesus so they don’t need to be part of either the unorganised militia or the state controlled police and military apparatus anymore.

[Josh]

Let me solve your puzzle Josh. The laws that you believe are "about right" simply aren't working.

“Aren’t working” now? Assault rifles are tightly controlled. (If you want to call things that aren’t assault rifles assault rifles, that’s different; I’m using the same terminology the ATF uses. An AR-15 is not an “assault rifle”. An M-16 is the military, assault rifle version of an AR-15.)

If by “aren’t working” you mean hasn’t resulted in mass confiscation... that’s a different topic.

Cosmetically, AR-15s do have a military appearance. So do some Airsoft guns. I don’t think a Christian should own such things. But I also don’t think the government should outlaw wearing 5.11 pants because they have a “military” appearance, even if I think a Christian shouldn’t wear 5.11 pants.

[temporal1]

i believe the quote below is from an ordinary citizen, commenting on a news item:

Michael Middleton wrote:
“Read the founding fathers' commentaries on the 2nd Amendment;
their purpose had NOTHING to do with hunting or sport shooting.
It had everything to do with a citizens right and responsibility to protect the security of their families, their communities, and their nation from enemies both foreign and domestic.
They specifically notated an armed citizenry as being an essential safeguard against an abusive and corrupt federal government, such as they had just fought a war against to abolish.”

i believe he’s correct.

I believe so too temporal one.

At the core, these military-style, high-velocity, large-magazine assault rifles are not mostly for sport, or collection, or hunting (and anyone who tells you otherwise is blowing smoke) - but for a large number of people they are an insurance policy for armed resistance - intended to be used as a killing machine against people if the need arises. An armed rebellion in the waiting - meant to keep power in check. Unfortunately for all of us, there are immature and unstable men out there who decide on their own when that rebellion needs to take place - and why - and they take matters into their own hands and kill to carry out their mission.

You do not claim to be Anabaptist Temporal1...so your support of this idea is not a surprise to me. It is actually a pretty popular perspective on the right. For me, as a conscientious objector, supporting this kind of ideology, and the weapons to carry it out, runs counter to my core convictions.

i’m not sure i support Mr Middleton’s pov. is that what i said?
without study, his statement seems accurate. if accurate, the question arises, how did “the people” allow the government such military superiority, to begin? .. now, to the point that most public arguments are about the necessity of gov dominance, the only questions remaining, how much freedom should be allowed individuals. which, seems a 180* turn from the start.

it’s interesting that he points out, to begin, hunting/sports were not on the table.
a lot of present discussion is based on hunting/sports, real or imagined.

part of what makes it interesting is, how general discussions of attempting to understand history is complicated by simply not understanding what was presumed to be common knowledge - so, not noted, at all.

in this case, “everyone knew” guns were needed for hunting, or killing rats in barns .. that’s nothing, why mention it?!

it does not require study of deep history to run amok. just trying to read recipes from older cookbooks points this out! what were they talking about?!

[Bootstrap]

As a conscientious objector, do you believe the state should wield powerful weapons and use them to disarm private citizens? That seems like an odd position for a CO to take. How about we don’t pick sides in this battle at all?

To me, it sometimes feels like you are taking sides in this battle, telling us that some laws are unacceptable, suggesting that gun laws in Australia are a nightmare scenario.

The only way to disarm America is to have a lot of powerful men with powerful guns invade people’s homes and confiscate their weapon at gunpoint. Desiring this an odd thing for an alleged CO to do.

Disarming America completely just isn't going to happen, the Heller decision makes it quite clear that you have the right to have some kinds of guns in your home to protect yourself, and the political mood wouldn't allow it to happen either. Changes in gun laws are going consistently in the other direction, making more and more weapons available to more and more people. I think this scenario keeps coming up because it fuels this logic: privately held guns are the source of our freedom, our freedom is measured by the freedom to own guns, any restriction at all on guns means they are limiting our freedom and they are coming to get our guns. I actually think every step in that logic is wrong.

We are talking about outlawing some guns or outlawing guns for some people. Some guns are already illegal. Some people are already prohibited from owning a gun, we are mostly talking about ways to actually make sure they don't get them.

The more likely scenario is that outlawing some kinds of guns means that some people turn them in, others keep them, but the biggest effect is that they are harder for people to get if they don't have them already. And if most of the violence is being done by men under the age of 25, that may mean that men under the age of 25 are less likely to have the most dangerous weapons.

The ATF already has about 4,000 requests a year to retrieve guns from people who should not have been allowed to have them in the first place because they cannot pass a background check. I don't know how often they actually manage to retrieve those guns. I think they try to avoid situations where they or the people with the guns might get killed if they try to retrieve a weapon, but I don't have good statistics on this, I haven't actually looked. But as soon as you ban any weapon at all, or ban any person at all from having a weapon, you have to face this issue.

[Bootstrap]

Let me solve your puzzle Josh. The laws that you believe are "about right" simply aren't working.

“Aren’t working” now? Assault rifles are tightly controlled. (If you want to call things that aren’t assault rifles assault rifles, that’s different; I’m using the same terminology the ATF uses. An AR-15 is not an “assault rifle”. An M-16 is the military, assault rifle version of an AR-15.)

If by “aren’t working” you mean hasn’t resulted in mass confiscation... that’s a different topic.

Cosmetically, AR-15s do have a military appearance. So do some Airsoft guns. I don’t think a Christian should own such things. But I also don’t think the government should outlaw wearing 5.11 pants because they have a “military” appearance, even if I think a Christian shouldn’t wear 5.11 pants.

The AR-15 was classified as an “assault-style” weapon and outlawed under the assault weapons ban that was allowed to expire in 2004. One of the things Jeff said this weekend is that we need more precise terminology for talking about different kinds of guns, and there's not really a great term to describe "guns like the AR-15". Perhaps "high-capacity semi-automatic weapons" would be a better term? Some of our concerns really involve some configurations of the AR-15, such as high capacity magazines, since it is a very configurable rifle. Thinking more concretely about this and getting specific is probably important for policymakers if there is any stomach to ban weapons that are not currently banned.

The AR-15 was the weapon used in Parkland at the most recent shooting, the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, the movie theater in Aurora Colorado, and the shootings in Santa Monica and San Bernadino.

It's the weapon of choice for mass shootings, at schools or anywhere. And that's why some people are asking if private citizens need to own them. I think it's a conversation we should have. It's reasonable to be scared of people who have easy access to these weapons, which cost less than $1000 and are available in many places with no waiting period, sometimes in ways that evade background checks.

In Florida - and also North Carolina, where I live - it's easier to buy an AR-15 than a handgun. Even making AR-15 follow the same restrictions as handguns would be a step in the right direction.

[Bootstrap]

Josh, where would you draw the line? Are there weapons you do not think civilians should have? If so, which ones, and why?

I think the 1986 National Firearms Act, which banned private citizens from buying automatic weapons or assault rifles, is about the right mix. It also makes it much more difficult for private citizens to acquire or sell items like sawn-off shotguns and silencers, requiring extensive background checks, a signed approval letter from local law enforcement, and allows no "gun show loophole" type sales without a background check. It's been the law of the land for over 3 decades.

I think any reasonable answer is going to look like this, detailing the kinds of weapons that should be allowed and the kinds that should not be, talking about people who should not have access to guns and how to keep them out of their hands.

A lot of the rest is details. I think the details matter - a lot - but it's precisely those details that need to be discussed, slowly, carefully, among people with different views. We need room for people to say they want to be sure nobody is going to seize their guns without writing them off as nut cases. We need room for people to say they feel less safe if people are walking around with guns without being told they have no right to feel that way. Until we have a national conversation that lets people express their own views and feelings, across the board, we get stuck in talking points and identity politics.

I don't think gun law has been stable for the last 3 decades. The assault weapons ban came and went during that period, for the most part gun laws have become freer than ever in most states but more restricted in a few states like California and New York.

[Bootstrap]

i believe the quote below is from an ordinary citizen, commenting on a news item:

Michael Middleton wrote:
“Read the founding fathers' commentaries on the 2nd Amendment;
their purpose had NOTHING to do with hunting or sport shooting.
It had everything to do with a citizens right and responsibility to protect the security of their families, their communities, and their nation from enemies both foreign and domestic.
They specifically notated an armed citizenry as being an essential safeguard against an abusive and corrupt federal government, such as they had just fought a war against to abolish.”

Only under the authority of state government. In fact, the Constitution says the President has the right to call out the militias to put down that kind of insurrection. This was not designed to allow popular insurrections, but to put them down. The American Long Rifle was used for both hunting and warfare, weapons have evolved a lot since then, you would no longer use the same gun to shoot a deer and to fight a war.

In the original constitution, each state had its own well-regulated militia, the federal government did not, and if the federal government were taken over by a demagogue who created his own standing army, the individual states could resist. Madison and other founders thought the authority of the state governments was essential here.

In the Civil War, we saw what it looks like if some states take up arms against the United States, and we didn't like it. So the 14th Amendment changed the relationship between the state governments and the federal government. That's why the President can call out the National Guard in a state, as Eisenhower did in 1957, against the wishes of the governor.

I've discussed that in some depth here.

[Josh]

You keep citing the 1994 AWB.

What impact did the AWB have on crime?

When it expired in 2004, what was the impact on crime?

I’m wary of taking citizens’ right to self defence away (which is where I believe gun control leads - although you disagree with me and think a 5-4 Supreme Court decision somehow guarantees such freedoms). In Chicago, there are now more self defence shootings by concealed carriers than there are shootings by cops. And Chicago has always had very strict gun laws.

I think the focus on mass shootings appeals to emotions, but if you get rid of guns, they’ll be replaced by something else like bombs. Or sawn off shotguns. Or stolen guns.

The shooter in question broke many laws and the FBI and local police declined to investigate him when they were asked. The guard at the school declined to protect the children and hid in a stairwell instead.

What we are seeing is a full scale breakdown of society, and gun laws aren’t going to change that.