Walk Up, Not Out

[Josh]

Political tribalism insists that science says what the scientific journals and scientific associations do not say.

“Science” currently says that humans came from monkeys, religion is associated with being of low intelligence, and that a man can become a woman.

Science needs to be critically questioned. You seem to think you can quote any peer reviewed source and that somehow that makes your position unassailable and beyond question. As you may have noticed nobody else likes that. A few of us are engaged with you. Everyone else has just gone silent.

[Bootstrap]

Political tribalism insists that science says what the scientific journals and scientific associations do not say.

“Science” currently says that humans came from monkeys, religion is associated with being of low intelligence, and that a man can become a woman.

Science needs to be critically questioned. You seem to think you can quote any peer reviewed source and that somehow that makes your position unassailable and beyond question. As you may have noticed nobody else likes that. A few of us are engaged with you. Everyone else has just gone silent.

It's perfectly consistent to say that you don't agree with science or scientists. It's perfectly reasonable to reject a single peer-reviewed source or article.

But it's completely deceptive to claim the authority of science for positions that pretty much every scientific association and journal rejects. And it's deceptive to wave the 2nd Amendment as a political slogan that means something different than any Supreme Court has ever thought it meant and claim that constitutional law is the thing you really care about. If we can't agree even at that basic level, it's hard to have a fact-based discussion of anything.

I think political tribalism is behind this. I don't really have another useful explanation. I don't think it's that hard to see what the journals and associations are saying. I don't think the Heller decision is that hard to read. And the talking points are precisely the same ones I see promoted by political factions.

[Bootstrap]

I really don’t get why you see the Supreme Court as an authority on anything. These are the people who brought us Dredd v Scott (legal slavery) and Roe v Wade (murdering babies). You keep citing them like their opinion actually matters in the eyes of God. It very well might - but only to incur a harsher judgment.

But you cite the Second Amendment as though it were God's holy law and can only be interpreted as the NRA would like you to. Do you think America will be harshly judged if we disagree with the NRA?

Dredd Scott was overturned. I agree with you on Roe v. Wade. But on balance, I do think that we are more free because our country is ruled by a constitution that is interpreted by the Supreme Court, that's an important protection from the shifting waves of political passion. The balance of powers is needed precisely because any one branch of government can go off the rails, but it's harder for all three to go off the rails at the same time.

And I'm not willing to accept the NRA or political tribes as a substitute for the Supreme Court.

[Robert]

I actually don't know exactly what I think the policy should be for AR-15s, but when I ask what the justification is for saying that everyday citizens need AR-15s with high-capacity magazines, that's a conversation some people seem to want to avoid.

Not sure if it is you or me, but I have been less irritated with the discussions here. I can not speak for others. Only myself.

Do you think the lever action rifle I showed fast shooting should be regulated too? It carries as many cartridges as the AR-15.

Do you think the pistol I showed should be regulated since it can fire as fast and as many shots as the AR-15?

Do you think the guy with the bow and arrow would be just as lethal as a gun?

Illinois and Mass cities just passed some strong restrictions and the Illinois town has given people 60 days to turn in their "assault" weapons and high capacity cartridges. Do you think these restrict legal citizen rights and will criminals obey these laws?

The videos I showed of the quick draw are a group of people who train and compete. Should this practice be outlawed or restricted? If so why?

Interesting Video from right after the shooting of JFK. I can not link the video directly here. Here is the link to the site.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/gun-debate-spu ... d=20677433

Oswald had purchased his rifle, a Mannlicher-Carcano, for $12.78 through an ad placed in the NRA's American Rifleman magazine by a Chicago mail order house. A ban was introduced by Thomas Dodd, D-Conn., following Kennedy's assassination on mail order sales of rifles and shotguns. It wasn't until just after Robert Kennedy was killed in 1968 that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Gun Control Act into law, banning mail order sales of rifles and shotguns and prohibiting most felons, drug users and people found mentally incompetent from buying guns.

In April 1960, JFK said our founding fathers used phrases like “a well regulated militia” and “the ‘security' of the nation,” as well as “the right of each citizen ‘to keep and bear arms,'” to show “the essentially civilian nature of our economy.”

He posited “fears of governmental tyranny” as the impetus “which gave rise to the Second Amendment” to begin with. And although he believed it “unlikely” that such tyranny “[would] ever be a major danger to our nation,” he said “the Second Amendment will always be important.”

Seems there has been increase of gun control laws. Not saying they are all bad.

My biggest issue with some of the suggested banning of the AR-15 is because it "looks" mean and like a military gun. If we ban things because of looking evil, I will find myself banned since I look evil often.

[Robert]

Some interesting quotes through the years about gun rights. There were more, but these express the point. I also am concerned that Millenialls are trying to dictate civil rights when they are still learning not to eat Tide Pods and that the world is not flat.

http://www.catb.org/~esr/guns/quotes.html

"The power to tax involves the power to destroy;...the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create...."

-- Chief Justice John Marshall, 1819.
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action, according to our will, within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others."

-- Thomas Jefferson
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334
"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good"

-- George Washington
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."

-- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."

-- Mahatma Gandhi
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

-- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficient... The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding."

-- Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue."

-- Barry Goldwater
"I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."

-- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787
The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, short swords, bows, spears, firearms, or other types of arms. The possession of unnecessary implements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues and tends to foment uprisings.

-- Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Shogun, August 1588
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it."

-- Abraham Lincoln, 4 April 1861
"One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offense to keep arms."

-- Constitutional scholar Joseph Story, 1840

[MaxPC]

Looks like this thread is vying to beat the climate change thread.

[Josh]

Boot, do you think the 1st amendment guarantees a right to abortion?

[Robert]

Looks like this thread is vying to beat the climate change thread.

NEVER!!

[Hats Off]

Over my dead body, right?

[Bootstrap]

I actually don't know exactly what I think the policy should be for AR-15s, but when I ask what the justification is for saying that everyday citizens need AR-15s with high-capacity magazines, that's a conversation some people seem to want to avoid.

!!! SNIP !!!

My biggest issue with some of the suggested banning of the AR-15 is because it "looks" mean and like a military gun. If we ban things because of looking evil, I will find myself banned since I look evil often.

My biggest issue is not really specific policy as much as the political tribesmanship. I will say something about the AR-15 in the next post, but my main point is that the AR-15 is the weapon being used in these shootings, and it is definitely up for discussion if we want to talk about this issue at all.

As Kingdom Christians, we could simply say we leave that up to Caesar. For those who do not vote, that's clean. Some of us do vote and participate in democracy, and to me, the real issue is that people should be allowed to have their own views and concerns and hash it out together without being demonized by the political tribes.

In this thread, I'm thinking particularly of the Parkland students and teachers, who have every right to be concerned about what happened in their school and to be part of discussions of how to avoid future incidents. Agree with their solutions or not, but I do think they deserve compassion, respect, and at least being listened to. And I don't think we should instantly adopt the talking points of either political tribe without carefully thinking through the different points of view, looking at the data, understanding the relevant law, etc.

And I think we need to be aware that in the world of big data, people are quite literally profiling us as individuals, tallying up what kinds of fears and grudges motivate us, and finding ways to tailor their political and marketing messages to us. If we don't question our Facebook feed, we're just broadcasting that for them.

The rest is really commentary. I don't know exactly what I think the right gun policies are, so if you give me a list of very specific questions about particular weapons, I will mostly tell you that's exactly the kind of thing that voters need to figure out. Democracy is messy. People have different feelings and understandings. There must be room for people with many views to be part of the discussion. The rights in the Second Amendment must be protected unless it is repealed.

I'll answer some of the more specific questions in the next post, but I want to be clear that I do not have a specific political platform that I am promoting. I mostly think that we need to question the narratives being fed to us by the political tribes.