Is there room for compromise in gun rights vs gun control?

So, no limits at all? You don't have a single criteria? Guns available to any and all comers, regardless of their history?

PS - there's not many people that believe prison rehabilitates people. Also, some people get really light sentences for a lot of stupid reasons. That boy who raped the girl by the dumpster? He got, what, six months because the judge was worried about his swimming career? He did not pay a debt to society in any sort of way.

 

The 2A equivalent to that is someone putting a gun in your face but not pulling the trigger.

Anyone could yell fire at any time. Every second you're in that theater you or anyone else could yell "fire".

 

I don't think you'll find a 2A supporter arguing that people who do bad things shouldn't get longer jail sentences.

I'd like to see Project Exile implemented at a national level myself.

The point I think he's trying to make is that they shouldn't be released from jail until they can be trusted in society. I agree.

 

I see. So you want to base gun control laws on the way it should be, rather than the way it is. Gotcha.

 

If a felon is too dangerous to have a gun, why should be be released from jail?

 

He shouldn't. We don't live in a world where the dangerous stay behind bars. See my example of the rapist who served six months because the judge thought a longer sentence would ruin his swimming career.

 

So why do we release them?

 

I have no idea why a judge is worried about a criminal's swimming career when sentencing him for rape. I'm neither a cop, nor lawyer, nor judge. If I were in charge, violent criminals would be locked up forever. I'm not in charge, that's not how it works. Until we have realistic sentencing laws, I'd rather we base gun control laws on how it works in reality, rather than fantasy.

 

In that case, we already have what we need -- it is illegal for a felon to buy/posses a firearm.

 

It is already against the law to murder others, and the penalties are severe.

Please explain how someone who ignores the penalties for murder will observe the penalties for illegally possessing a firearm.

 

We just disagree. I get that you think anyone should be able to get a gun, regardless of their history. That's an opinion I simply don't share. I completely understand it won't prevent criminals from getting guns illegally. That's not the point. Murder being illegal doesn't prevent murder, either. Should we make murder legal?

 

Murder laws do not exist to prevent murder, but to punish people after the fact.
Gun laws do not exist to prevent felons from getting guns, but punish them after the fact.
Knowing that laws cannot prevent people from breaking other laws, why do believe it is necessary to have laws (that will fail) to prevent felons from getting guns? Why not just have laws that will prevent them from committing crime in general?

 

We'll just have to disagree. I support the 2nd amendment. I'm hopeful that one day, we'll also collectively worry about our 4th amendment rights. Those rights are mostly gone, now, yet very few are complaining. Gun ownership is alive and well, and half the country complains.

Our priorities are a little out of whack.

 

I realize how you want that to look; however, once a person has done their time and been rehabilitated, they should be left with their Rights intact. To you, I realize that this sounds abnormal, but just a few short years ago (in the grand scheme of things), we didn't have all these silly a** laws of pee test, blood test, hair sample, credit check, MVR check, medical records check, criminal background check, Socialist Surveillance Number ...ooops, "Social Security Number," driver's license, National ID Card / E-Verify mindset that paranoid people seem to think are necessary.

AND, it wasn't that far back in history that without that, the crime rate per 100,000 people was less than it is today. We have more people in prison than any country on this planet. Most of the feel good measures you are going to attempt to shame me with for not supporting have been as effective as a eunuch in a brothel.

I have no delusions about this subject. Prisons do not rehabilitate anybody. That's the problem. Instead of focusing on ways to reduce crime, we try to lock people out due to their prior criminal record. Do you really know what happens to those people you background check and they have something in their past you don't like? Let me tell you:

Today, people make a lapse in judgement; commit a youthful indiscretion; some many just p!ss off the wrong local political power broker. Now they have a record - ah, yes, that perfect pretext to call them a "prohibited person." And so, these people cannot get a job, credit, or qualify for housing. That good old "background check" makes them a second class subhuman who is citizen only for the purposes of paying taxes. The balance of what I'm going to say to you is something you won't read, but I'll say it anyway.

All those people wanting to shame me for not subscribing to the Surveillance Society of 24 / 7 / 365 womb to the tomb surveillance and prove this, prove that, back - ground check, etc. really do not care about the numbers of people that die (and that includes those who die from firearms.) They are about control and proving that government should have an unlimited power to control our every action. It's not about reducing deaths or preventing crimes. Trying to shame me or make me look like a kook is a disingenuous ploy to avoid the more serious conversation.

Our real focus ought to be to fix America. Instead you create this class of "prohibited persons" and they wind up having to become career criminals just to survive. You increase the crime rate by ignoring the real problem. I have no delusions about the rehabilitation process in America... it don't exist. Here is how it really works:

John is a underachiever who gets busted and gets sentenced. He has no money, no family support system, no education, and maybe not even a driver's license. So, a few months after being incarcerated, they toss him out and expect he will do community service, visit a probation office at a moment's notice, pay fines and fees, etc. He can't get a freaking job - he has a record. He can't pay the fines and if he does get a job, the probation officer calls him to come in immediately... so it's walk off the job and loses it and sees the probation officer or ignores the probation officer and works. If he keeps working, a warrant is sworn out on John and he loses his job.

In order to survive John is going to become an urban camper OR get involved in illegal activities. Either way, the local constabularies are going to continue to pick this guy up, add time to his sentence and more money. IF he goes to prison, it is just a haven for tattooed gang members to recruit the guy or rape / beat/ assault him. I got a better idea...

The moment someone goes to prison, the tattoos come off along with their hair. There is nothing that can be used to signify gang affiliations. Then, instead of throwing people back on the street before their time is up, you allow the prisoner to determine their own sentence. Get a GED, some job skills, and take seminars in balancing a checkbook, looking for a job, doing job interviews, planning a budget, etc. and, with each successful accomplishment the prisoner gets time taken off their sentence. The GED should be worth a quarter of the sentence.

If I ran a prison and determined who got out early, the bulk of prisoners would be rehabilitated when they leave. They would work 40 hour work weeks AND either be in school and / or using their experience to teach other prisoners how to pass a GED and / or teach a transferable job skill. Between work, school, and study there would be no time for gang activity. While there, they would not have any cigarettes, coffee, sodas or candy bars except on visitors day - and only in the visitor area.

Once out, a prisoner would go to a half way house and the government would help them find a job by bonding them and offering participating employers tax incentives to hire them. Once a person has a job and couple of paychecks to get an apartment with, they transition back to society and we get beyond their past.

Background checks don't work and they are patently unconstitutional. There are much better ways to invest your money and make America a safer place without jeopardizing constitutional Liberties... but, you didn't understand a thing I just said. It's all about convincing us that government has an unlimited power of control that you love.

 

No one in here has said criminals and the mentally ill should be able to acquire firearms.

Go ahead and link to a post where that has happened. Of course I know you can't, because no such post exists.

Perhaps I missed your point.

Go ahead and tell me again what the point is please.

 

Why waste your time with someone who is focused on an exception to the rule. Let me tell you and the rest of the posters on this thread what the left will not tell you:

Putting people into jails and prisons is about control. It's not about rehabilitation or anything else. The system makes criminals out of people and hopes that if they toss them back out into society, they will pay fines and fees - perhaps justify government jobs like probation officers and so forth.

Most people don't know the process once a person goes to prison nor do they give a rat's a**. And if it costs us, we can blame those evil black guns.

 

The problem is establishing what a "limit" is on our guaranteed rights. Background checks are not a limit. They are an obstruction.

 

Wow. You read WAY too much in my very specific point. I agree with you on pretty much everything you said. The day we get there, then, sure, rehabilitated prisoners should have all their rights restored. We don't live in that world. Violent offenders repeat at a ridiculous rate.

We're not reading the same thread.

Just walk into Walmart and grab a gun. That's how easy it should be? Should we be required to prove we are 18 or is that also an obstruction?

 

I love how some of you extremists like to paint moderates who disagree on a single point as wanting to ban all guns, no matter what. I support the 2nd amendment. I wish the 4th amendment has as many champions. Perhaps, then, the government wouldn't be hovering over me and my phone calls, emails & texts.

I just have no real issue with registering guns purchased legally. I have no issue with verifying the person was not a violent criminal. I don't want a boatload of restrictions. Some of the restrictions currently in place are just plain stupid.

 

Age is less of an obstruction, but in a literal sense, yes it is.

Here's the problem. The government has no business looking into your personal background. Sure you may have nothing to hide, but you aren't applying for a job, you're purchasing something that is guaranteed to you under the constitution.

 

Someone who wants to keep their guaranteed rights under the constitution, granted to us by our forefathers, is extreme? You're in no way a moderate then.

 

Funny. I don't recall doing that.
I simply asked you questions about your position; you ultimately declined to respond.

This is an unnecessary restriction on the right to keep and bear arms that serves no purpose. Thus, it violates the constitution.
How can you support the 2nd -and- gun registration?

 

I simply disagree.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...7eefac2f939_story.html?utm_term=.1b4a4e9455bd

 

Registering firearms is the most DANGEROUS step toward confiscation. I know, I know "No one's going to confiscate, relax". Imagine if we had a left wing version of Trump. Our guns would be gone. Registering them is taking away your right to your property and the government knows exactly where to find it.

 

Obama was the best thing to happen to the gun industry. The right's prediction that he'd be confiscating guns left & right? FAIL.