thegreekdog wrote:Multiple new organizations including, but not limited to, CNN and Politico, reported on Amy Schumer's tweet. Her tweet and Kim Kardashian's tweet and the attention they received are indicative of the problem I have. There is no educated debate in the United States on this topic. There is a combination of political pandering, moneyed influence, and public idiocy about this entire issue. The WSJ had an article this morning about how gun control helps solve massacres, look at Australia. The problem is that someone reads that and gets upset about Congress's inaction, when no one in Congress is proposing the same sweeping law changes that Australia enacted. This is what I'm talking about.
If someone in Congress actually proposed that legislation it would never make it out of committee, there would never be a vote, because at present Republicans would not let it. Your point is completely irrelevant to anything that is going on. The WSJ is doing that to push Republicans (presumably) to be open to such legislation so that it can be proposed and a serious discussion had. Rest assured that someone
would put that bill to the floor if someone
could.
Metsfanmax wrote:Everyone is outraged. What the f*ck are you even talking about? Who isn't mad that we have to have this interminable debate?
People should be outraged that we're talking about a bill the passage of which would be largely, if not entirely, ineffective.
Yes, people are outraged about that. Everyone involved in Congress knows that the vast majority of gun deaths don't come from assault weapons and the gun control supporters would love to be able to talk about legislation that reduces handguns. They're fighting for the thing that they can maybe have instead of the thing that they can definitely not have. I am not sure you understand that politics is the art of the possible.
Metsfanmax wrote:DC v. Heller put a minor dent in the plan to go after handguns. Would you like us to complain more about the Constitution so that you are satisfied that we care sufficiently enough about the issue?
I don't think you know what the Heller case said. The Heller case is not applicable only to handguns; it is applicable to all firearms including, presumably, the AR-15.
No, it is not obviously applicable to all firearms, so I am not sure that
you know
what the Heller case said. The decision specifically indicates that reasonable prohibitions can be made on weapons that are not used for "traditionally lawful purposes" like self-defense. The AR-15 is an example of a weapon that is not normally used for such a purpose as self-defense and thus the
Heller case does not clearly protect the right to own such a weapon. See, e.g., from the finding:
Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.
If
Heller said what you're implying it said, then it should have immediately struck down the machine gun ban in the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act. But it didn't, because that's not what the court ruled, as machine guns are dangerous and unusual weapons that are not the type of weapons the Second Amendment was envisioned to protect ownership of.
Here are the four gun proposals that were rejected by the Senate:
(1) Update background check system to add more information on mental health (Republican proposed).
(2) Gun shows and online purchases background checks (Democrat proposed).
(3) Delay gun sales for people on terrorist watch lists (Republican proposed).
(4) Bar all gun sales for people on terrorist watch lists (Democrat proposed).
#4 was the only one that would have stopped Mateen from purchasing a gun.
#3 is an incorrect characterization of the Cornyn amendment; Cornyn was proposing that a judge would have to find probable cause to justify the blocking of a gun sale. If it was being characterized as merely a measure to "delay" gun sales, that's only because it gave the FBI a mere 72 hours to win the case for probable cause, which is a pretty high burden for them, and thus it may have been the case for Omar Mateen that it wouldn't have mattered, but that's not guaranteed.
What I was referring to were not proposals #1 and #2 but rather #3, #4, and also, on the Senate floor Monday there was discussion of an alternative proposed by Susan Collins, which was similar to the Feinstein approach (#4) but would allow someone denied a gun sale due to being on the watch list to appeal the reason for it in court. She was trying to work a compromise solution after seeing how narrowly the Cornyn approach would lose by. (Not sure why I said four amendments, I was thinking of these three.)
) opposing checks?
