posted April 20, 2013 05:23 AM            

Would any conservatives here accept any gun restrictions under any circumstances? If not, what about those already in place, such as the bans Ronald Reagan instituted, or laws obviously designed to restrict guns to those without money (that is minorities under the guise of "criminals," such as "Saturday Night Special" laws or Texas requiring a major credit card to get a CCW which ironically means even though I gained a rare California CCW permit I'd be unable to get one in Texas)? And if "shall not be infringed" is taken literally (when even Scalia doesn't interpret it that way) then at what point are arms no longer protected under the 2A (for examples, do you believe Wal-Mart should have the right to sell rocket launchers and grenades)? Should felons be allowed to buy guns legally, and if not how is that not infringing the 2A? How should a gun dealer even know a customer is a felon in the first place?

And if any gun control, even background checks, is a slippery slope to total gun confiscation, then what about trying to determine who is mentally ill? How do you feel that the NRA has repeatedly backed measures to keep the mentally ill from gaining guns and even advocated more needed to be done on this recently when the slippery slope could be that all considered politically incorrect could be labelled mentally ill (as Soviet Russia has been known to do) and thus infringe on their 2A? (I'd think this would be of concern because it seems to me anyone that worried about government, or say for example that we'll be flying "No God But Allah" flags, might be too mentally ill to buy and/or prone to go on a shooting spree, especially those Tea Party members who showed up carrying guns and waving signs about watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants or "Warning: If Brown can't stop it, a Browning can.") Giving what an inexact science psychology and psychological profiling is it would seem rife with abuse and civil rights violations. So is the NRA wrong to support cracking down on the mentally ill getting guns? If you support NRA-approved measures to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill then how are they to be registered, and what background checks would be acceptable to you? And why is the slope not so slippery here?

That aside, would you be willing to accept say a .01% tax increase if it went to pay for armed guards at schools? What about if additional school counselors were part of the deal? (It's ok to add conditions, for example citing the over-prescribing of potentially dangerous psychiatric drugs which have been a factor in many school shootings as well as suicides and thus wanting to make sure the measure was written in a way so that the tax money couldn't be used to promote such psyche meds.) If you think teachers should be armed then does that mean you trust teachers and don't think they're union thugs, incompetent government flunkies, and the like?

posted April 20, 2013 07:27 PM            

So, close to 90% want it. Why didn't congress vote along the will of the people??

Filibuster

Until the filibuster rules are reformed, the will of the people belongs to the well oiled lobbyiests...end of story.

The vote for background checks?

41% of Senators superseded the will of the people.

posted April 20, 2013 08:08 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Node:
Americans overwhelmingly want background checks, [b] including gun shows 86%

So, close to 90% want it. Why didn't congress vote along the will of the people??

Filibuster

Until the filibuster rules are reformed, the will of the people belongs to the well oiled lobbyiests...end of story.

The vote for background checks?

41% of Senators superseded the will of the people.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/20 13/04/17/1202500/-86-percent-of-Americans-want-background-checks-a-minority-in-the-Senate-doesn-t-and-will-win
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/12/185595/poll-americans-want-background.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/07/us-usa-guns-poll-idUSBRE9160LW20130207 [/B]

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That is ridiculous

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posted May 01, 2013 08:33 PM            

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/opinion/a-libertarian-case-f or-resurrecting-the-manchin-toomey-compromise.html

Unfortunately I think he thinks too much of his fellow Americans. The debate is controlled by zealots on both sides who use more emotion than reason (and I've heard those on both sides who who'd make Jerry Springer's jaw drop and yet get a lot of cheers) and everyone else is either pulled in their wake (more accurately they fall in with the zealots of their side after being repulsed by the zealots of the other side) or ignored. There are people on both sides who make reasonable and well-informed points but they're almost never heard, and sometimes they're even attacked by zealots on their own side. Right now the "pro gun" side has the advantage...I just hope when that changes (which is only a matter of time, especially as these mass shootings pile up, and the successful ones inspire copycats for years) it doesn't become unreasonable in the "equal but opposite" way.

posted May 02, 2013 10:45 AM            

Introduced by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK)

posted May 02, 2013 11:48 AM            

quote:

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It's not the responsibility of Congress to vote the will of the people. That would be tantamount to Democracy. It's their job to uphold the Constitution.

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Their job is both, and we all are familiar by now with why the Constitution was drafted with the language it had in the Second Amendment. There are no restrictions in the Constitution on regulating things contained in the Constitution as has previously been done with regard to our gun laws.

quote:

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Those stats are false;

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posted May 02, 2013 01:02 PM            

The defeat of the measure by a 54-46 vote — six votes shy of the number needed to clear the Senate — marks a major setback for gun-control advocates, many of whom had hoped that Congress would act to curb gun violence in the wake of December's Newtown elementary school massacre, where 20 students and six adults were killed.

The National Rifle Association fought the expansion of background checks, saying criminals would simply ignore them, The Associated Press reports.

The expanded background checks were aimed at closing loopholes and keeping criminals and the seriously mentally ill from getting firearms. Currently, the checks only apply to purchases handled by licensed firearms dealers.

In a last-ditch appeal on Wednesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney urged senators to "consider who they're representing," and pointed out that "90 percent of the American people support expanded background checks. If you are opposed to this legislation, you should obviously explain why you are against what 90 percent of the people are for."

But a recent Associated Press-GfK poll shows waning public support for tighter gun laws. According to the AP: Overall "49 percent said gun laws should be made stricter while 38 percent said they should stay the same," according to the survey of 1,004 randomly chosen adults conducted from April 11-15.

posted May 02, 2013 01:57 PM            

as to the vote against, many of those reps are now facing their constituencies disapproval bigtime. the tide she keeps turning.

background checks or registration, not exactly the end of gun ownership. your car, in fact your goodself is registered (at birth now). nothing they don't already have on you is threatened by registration!