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22+ killed in mass shooting in Maine

My daughter is in law school and her guest lecturers today are Joaquin Oliver's dad (he was killed in the Parkland shooting) and his attorneys. They are suing the US government for violating his child's right to live. I find the concept quite interesting and can see the arguments on both sides. One of the lawyers is also the rep for Maura, a victim in the hot yoga shooting in Tallahassee.

The video is quite powerful as well. But might cross the political line so you can find on their website.

Here is the link if interested
https://actiononguns.org/survival/
 
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Correct. His opinion was incoherent and ahistorical. That's not me speaking for the founders.

One might approach this position from a few vantage points. Let's say there aren't enough data to know what the founders would think of the 2nd amendment application today. A few problems. Would all of the founders agree? But also, if we don't have enough data, confidently asserting they would opine that the use of 2nd amendment as argued by NRA types today is wrong would be similar to making the assertion that there's a teapot floating around in space. It's not falsifiable. Thus, you'd be wrong for making the assertion that there's a teapot floating around in space (unless you launched one, but that wasn't possible when Bertrand made the argument). This is the same error all religions asserting a supernatural force make. Using metaphysically subjective arguments to assert claims on objective reality. Worse though, Brian tries to defend his assertion by stating that the founders weren't conversative, they were rebels. Aside from the fact he didn't operationally define his terms, this argument seems to suffer from incoherence. At best, it is a non sequitur. He made a subjective assertion and then defended it with irrelevant, poorly defined material. I.e., Brian was wrong.

Relative to the supreme court when they're faced with ambiguity in the law, the argument construction may be debatable but it's typically coherent. I.e., the disagreement should make sense. Brian's argument does not make sense. Conclusion, Brian is not good at arguing. Confirmation bias. It figures, because Brian's political opinions tend to be terrible.

My opinions on the 2nd amendment are shared by many scholars. Here's one.

I've only discussed a few of my political opinions here, so you're making assumptions without full knowledge.


 
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My opinions on the 2nd amendment are shared by many scholars...people that are a LOT smarter and better educated than you, Bandit.

I've only discussed a few of my political opinions here, so you're making assumptions without full knowledge.


In that clip, the former justice makes a logical argument relative to the scope of what he allowed to be in the argument. It is coherent. You did not make a coherent argument.

There is gray here. I'm not an NRA member. I just generally oppose additional restrictions on freedom without it being well defended/argued and without it being necessary. I.e., it has to be established that whatever gun restriction is proposed is going to impact in a meaningful way mass shootings or murders and that this restriction in freedom is worth the impact.



Anyway, toward what Burger argued, Heller is the obvious counter.
 
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Lol at anybody thinking or suggesting that it’s viable or even recommendable to operate a well-functioning society TODAY based on a 100% literal reading of ANY antiquated text, religious or governmental/foundational or otherwise.

Some things in antiquated texts MUST be interpreted to fit the current context (and in many cases meanings of the words themselves change and are open for different interpretations) if they’re not going to be completely ignored.

English is a living language, so some degree of fallible-human and open-to-all-flavors-of-bias interpretation is absolutely required, especially when several centuries have passed.

The whole fundamentalism thing, secular or otherwise, is sadly comical anathema to me.

The 2nd Amendment was about militias...it's literally in the text.

The purpose of militias was to defend against foreign invasion.


 
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For what it is worth, I do not believe that the 2nd Amendment debate is practically relevant to the issue of mass shootings, and I am not certain that it is practically relevant to the issue of gun violence, generally. I do not think that we can legislate, litigate, or legally adjudicate our way to substantially fewer gun deaths without a wholesale repeal of the 2nd amendment, which, almost certainly, will never happen.

What would be your preference regarding the 2nd Amendment if you were in charge?
 
For what it is worth, I do not believe that the 2nd Amendment debate is practically relevant to the issue of mass shootings, and I am not certain that it is practically relevant to the issue of gun violence, generally. I do not think that we can legislate, litigate, or legally adjudicate our way to substantially fewer gun deaths without a wholesale repeal of the 2nd amendment, which, almost certainly, will never happen.
agree. I'm also not sure, given the number of guns out there, that repealing the 2nd amendement would have a big impact.
 
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You can think whatever you want...you've been wrong before.
Brace Yourself Here We Go GIF by MOODMAN
 
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To be fair it's also not meaningful to compare gun violence in the US to countries that has very low or no gun ownership. If there is a country in the world with comparable ratios of guns to people, we should compare their violent crime numbers to the US.

Full disclosure: I do agree we have a problem in this country. Is it worse than the rest of the world? Yes, because we have more guns but how does that compare with other gun owning countries if there are any.
The problem is very simple to recognize. Gun manufacturers created good profits by flooding our country with guns. Just like drugs, banning them from society is never going to be effective. Illegal gun sales would immediately take over as soon as a certain type of gun is banned. In other words, its too late, the barn door has already been left open and the horses are out. We live in a world were anything can be obtained. Now you can print guns using a 3d printer.

Ask yourself, has all those drug laws stopped people from buying and selling drugs? Do we not have an opiate/fentanyl crisis right now? Can you go to any city or town and find drugs to buy? Even Ketamine, a highly controlled drug used in anesthesia is now popular among the drug taking crowd. Did prohibition stop people from buying and selling alcohol?

Bad actors are going to obtain guns............no matter what.
 
I am not sure if it would have a big impact, but I do believe that the majority of gun owners are law-abiding citizens. I think that many of those citizens actually would give up their guns, however begrudgingly, if keeping them became illegal. Nevertheless, it will not happen, and is essentially a flight of fancy to speculate.
Agree. I think the focus needs to be on the culture and increasing mental health resources. We aren't going to legislate away murder. It's already illegal.
 
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The 2nd Amendment was about militias...it's literally in the text.

The purpose of militias was to defend against foreign invasion.


On the surface, this is true, but not in this context. The Founders viewed militias as a method to defend against a tyrannical centralized government. Against a foreign invader, a central army would be formed in conjunction with state militias.

Early on, each citizen was part of the militia, they had to have their own gun.
If you want to take the position that the 2nd amendment only applies to militias and not individuals, that's ok. But the 9th and 10th amendment would certainly protect gun ownership. What kind of gun you own is what is left to interpretation.
 
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No such position exists or could exist within the framework of this country. Generally, though, I just do not think much about what I would do with absolute authoritarian power; I have a large queue of wonderful video games to engage that fantasy. :)

I know a lady that was high ranking in the Department of Education years ago and says she would overturn the 2nd Amendment today, if she could.
 
The 2nd Amendment was about militias...it's literally in the text.

The purpose of militias was to defend against foreign invasion.


I was under the impression the militias were formed to protect against Native Americans and the French on the frontiers while the regular army was tasked with defending the borders. Unless Indians is what you meant by foreign invasion.
 
Come on folks. Yes, its hate week but were supposed to hate Miami this week not each other.

Good discussion though as long as we stay on point and not go down the childish rat hole.
 
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No such position exists or could exist within the framework of this country. Generally, though, I just do not think much about what I would do with absolute authoritarian power; I have a large queue of wonderful video games to engage that fantasy. :)
Speaking of which. Have any of you tried the quest 3?
 
For what it is worth, I do not believe that the 2nd Amendment debate is practically relevant to the issue of mass shootings, and I am not certain that it is practically relevant to the issue of gun violence, generally. I do not think that we can legislate, litigate, or legally adjudicate our way to substantially fewer gun deaths without a wholesale repeal of the 2nd amendment, which, almost certainly, will never happen.

 
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