Scalia: Guns May be Regulated

[namedpipes]

Not really straight from the Brady play book, but nice try. Crazy people will find a way, such as Mcveigh, the unibomber, that guy who blew up that elementary school. I get that. You open the market for explosives, you are talking a big leap even from Machine guns to military grade explosives. I never had an appreciation for that until I was around them.

Mike

I know. Just like the massive surge in the murder rate whenever gun control laws are struck down. Just look at the increase in Post Heller Washington.

Human nature is what it is. It sucks.

The Brady Bunch suggests that scary things will happen unless we do more to control guns.

You are suggesting that scary things will happen if we do more to control explosives.

I'm sorry. Sounds the same to me.

You do realize that both explosives and machine guns are currently legal for civilians to own and use?

OK. Can we still have handguns and semi auto rifles if we give up machine gins and explosives? I'm sure you'll get a lot of gun owners to sign onto that, just as many have signed onto the "reasonable" restrictions we have in MA, NY, NJ and CA.

 

[cekim]

Agreed, but not selling C4 at your local CVS isn't exactly tyranny. I do think there should be avenues for people to get things like that, but not no questions asked.

Mike

It's a tough problem who, like most urban style crime problems is a lack of community. It may sound squishy, but the simple connection with the people around you is the foundation of how we live amongst each other without killing one another over dumb !@#$.

Laws won't/can't do it - people have to decide to behave and look out for each other.

 

[crazymjb]

I'm not calling for tighter controls on explosives. I'm saying that I would say it is reasonable and not against the spirit of 2A to have some limits on weapons and explosives. In fact, I am in favor of reduced explosives control. People use guns when they go crazy. I get that. Sometimes when they have the time, know how, and patience, they use explosives. If you make explosives which are currently very restricted as readily available as guns, you will see many more of these nut jobs using them. I don't think you have a true appreciation for how much more damage can be caused by explosives vs a firearm, even by a well trained user. I backpack of C4 is a few hundred people and you don't even have to be there.

Mike

 

[TomH]

The Communist Manifesto is more dangerous than all of these weapons, and readily available. In the right hands, ideas like that end up killing millions. Should we ban it, for the children?

 

[xtry51]

The Communist Manifesto is more dangerous than all of these weapons, and readily available. In the right hands, ideas like that end up killing millions. Should we ban it, for the children?

The best part is there was a time before all this regulation existed and nobody was running out and blowing shit up. People need to get it thru their thick skulls that 1) freedom is more important than safety and 2) when given freedom people have already proven mass killings don't happen.

Before the 1930s people were not blowing each other up daily, nor were 12 year olds who could order tommy guns shooting up schools. It's called responsibility. When you teach it and practice it people play nice. When you take it away and put .gov in charge shit starts going awry.

 

[cekim]

I'm not calling for tighter controls on explosives. I'm saying that I would say it is reasonable and not against the spirit of 2A to have some limits on weapons and explosives. In fact, I am in favor of reduced explosives control. People use guns when they go crazy. I get that. Sometimes when they have the time, know how, and patience, they use explosives. If you make explosives which are currently very restricted as readily available as guns, you will see many more of these nut jobs using them. I don't think you have a true appreciation for how much more damage can be caused by explosives vs a firearm, even by a well trained user. I backpack of C4 is a few hundred people and you don't even have to be there.

Mike

Mike, I am not going to discuss the sundry ways bad guys could hurt large populations with ease already. I will leave that as an exercise for the reader, but the reality is that I do understand their power and I also understand that the reality is someone determined to do that sort of damage can do it anyway and "doesn't have to even be there."

As I and other I and others have said, the reality is that most people won't do this and the few that do have to be dealt with harshly enough that anyone on the fence will lose sleep over what society is going to do to them if they even try. Those that do are beyond rehabilitation and need to be removed.

Unfortunately at this point, we have a large antisocial population conditioned from decades of war on drugs and socialist policies designed to create, and grow the population of people dependent on the state.

So, starting today by putting such things on the shelf at the local hardware store, you would suffer the consequences of those failed social experiments in the near term to be sure. It does not change the reality of the long term that you cannot replace civlization with enforcement or restriction.

 

[jujutsuka]

I love how half of this thread is people spouting off about how people shouldn't have this or that. Well, what SHOULD they have? It's this question where those who are so convinced offer exactly s--t. Where does 2A end and prohibition start? I'll be the first to admit, I can't make a case for having rocket launchers, but I also wonder where it ends. The door to gradual, constant and guaranteed erosion of 2A has been open for far too long. As an instructor of mine once said (in a completely different context) "that shit's over"

 

[crazymjb]

Even in the perfect society you can't stop the mentally defective from existing and causing harm.

Mike

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Bill Katt]

The best part is there was a time before all this regulation existed and nobody was running out and blowing shit up. People need to get it thru their thick skulls that 1) freedom is more important than safety and 2) when given freedom people have already proven mass killings don't happen.

Before the 1930s people were not blowing each other up daily, nor were 12 year olds who could order tommy guns shooting up schools. It's called responsibility. When you teach it and practice it people play nice. When you take it away and put .gov in charge shit starts going awry.

Mike, I am not going to discuss the sundry ways bad guys could hurt large populations with ease already. I will leave that as an exercise for the reader, but the reality is that I do understand their power and I also understand that the reality is someone determined to do that sort of damage can do it anyway and "doesn't have to even be there."

As I and other I and others have said, the reality is that most people won't do this and the few that do have to be dealt with harshly enough that anyone on the fence will lose sleep over what society is going to do to them if they even try. Those that do are beyond rehabilitation and need to be removed.

Unfortunately at this point, we have a large antisocial population conditioned from decades of war on drugs and socialist policies designed to create, and grow the population of people dependent on the state.

So, starting today by putting such things on the shelf at the local hardware store, you would suffer the consequences of those failed social experiments in the near term to be sure. It does not change the reality of the long term that you cannot replace civlization with enforcement or restriction.

It's sad that not so many years ago, my and some of your parents (hell maybe even some of you yourselves) could purchase TNT (dynamite) as a kid (with a note from your father) at a local hardware store. There wasn't many things blowing up back then (except for the occasional bank vault or postal car on a railroad train 'use enough dynamite there Butch')

 

[whatluck]

Agreed, but not selling C4 at your local CVS isn't exactly tyranny. I do think there should be avenues for people to get things like that, but not no questions asked.

Mike

Banning explosives is silly. You can not only make explosives that can cut metal and concrete from common household materials that you can 100% buy without raising so much as an eyebrow, but you can also turn fairly common places and things into bombs with a minimum of equipment and effort. To completely stop people from finding violently reactive compounds you would basically have to regulate the entire periodic table.

What about the nitrate explosives people make from manure? Are you going to regulate that too? You can make hydrogen from electricity and water. Are you going to regulate water, too?

 

[Bill Katt]

What about the nitrate explosives people make from manure? Are you going to regulate that too? You can make hydrogen from electricity and water. Are you going to regulate water, too?

Unfortunately....that's not all that far fetched.

possibly NSFW...

 

[crazymjb]

The fact that there have been so many failed bombings (columbine, times square, etc) is testament that its not "easy" to make explosives. I do understand what you are getting at though, it can be done/learned. With the decent control we have on current explosives I'll maintain that a no questions asked policy for selling grenades and other explosives is not a good idea and will reap more carnage.

Mike

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Bill Katt]

The fact that there have been so many failed bombings (columbine, times square, etc) is testament that its not "easy" to make explosives. I do understand what you are getting at though, it can be done/learned. With the decent control we have on current explosives I'll maintain that a no questions asked policy for selling grenades and other explosives is not a good idea and will reap more carnage.

Mike

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

I hear what you're saying......but....at the same time, it sounds so much like......'who needs a 'clip' that can hold 30 boolitz? nobody needs that many bulletz for hunting deer'.

 

[crazymjb]

Thats cool. But you are talking cars vs rocketships now, not cars vs race cars. You are talking complete indescriminate destruction of extreme potency. Im not saying outlaw it, but I am in favor of its regulation.

Mike

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

 

[jujutsuka]

Thats cool. But you are talking cars vs rocketships now, not cars vs race cars. You are talking complete indescriminate destruction of extreme potency. Im not saying outlaw it, but I am in favor of its regulation.

Mike

That's my point. When does regulation take over and who are you or I to say that it, whatever it may be, is the threshold. After all, "shall not be infringed." It's not an easy answer, I just question those who believe they've arrived at one when theirs is completely arbitrary.

 

[cekim]

That's my point. When does regulation take over and who are you or I to say that it, whatever it may be, is the threshold. After all, "shall not be infringed." It's not an easy answer, I just question those who believe they've arrived at one when theirs is completely arbitrary.

I agree with your last sentence, those who draw arbitrary lines at "this" or "that" being "too horrible to have in my neighbor's hands" are missing the point which is that if they can draw some arbitrary line, then so can the government. More importantly, if the government can draw an arbitrary line today that seems "reasonable" to most people, they can move that line an inch a day until it includes anything and everything that allows 2A to function as an effective deterrent to tyranny (or even self defense).

Thats cool. But you are talking cars vs rocketships now, not cars vs race cars. You are talking complete indescriminate destruction of extreme potency. Im not saying outlaw it, but I am in favor of its regulation.

Case in point - over time such regulations went from nothing to requiring you to show photo-ID to now extremely heavy regulation of all sorts of things including the fuel used for dragsters...

We keep taking the false promise of safety via regulation over the harder path of dealing with criminals and crime at their source which is the people that commit them (and sometimes the government policies that provided the profit motive for them).

There is no easy fix, even if we didn't have a cultural problem of assumption that the government will make everything safe on the one hand and the insurgency of the drug war on the other. We have become a society lacking self regulation with those people who await the government to regulate them and the people who have decided they will join the narco-economy instead and ignore the rules of our society.

Guns and scary hunks of metal generally, don't determine how violent a society is - the culture itself makes that decision.

 

[Jsfitzgerald85]

So should anyone with a clean record be able to have rockets and other explosives unchecked?

Just to make where I stand on this clear. I am fully in favor of allowing private ownership of many more things than we as Americans currently can, but I fully support a means to check up, THOROUGHLY on who is actually going to be getting that stuff. I know some of you guys will strongly disagree with that statement.

Mike

People do own explosives, isnt Tannerite considered an explosive? And yet they aren't blowing things up with them (well illegally anyway) . If a person is gonna commit a crime with explosives all he has to do is open his web browser up and make a trip to home depot and he can make pipe bombs, frag grenades, etc. I have no issue with background checks, but that is pretty much as far as i go. As far as regulation of certain weapons, who determines what weapons are regulated? Are these the same people who say 30 rd "clips" are evil and an AR-15 is an assault weapon simply because it has a pistol grip and adjustable stock?

 

[bullseye]

I hear what you're saying......but....at the same time, it sounds so much like......'who needs a 'clip' that can hold 30 boolitz? nobody needs that many bulletz for hunting deer'.

With the number of deer running around, a 30 round mag goes quick. Back up the flatbed and load em on!

 

[namedpipes]

. . . When does regulation take over and who are you or I to say that it, whatever it may be, is the threshold.

. . . I just question those who believe they've arrived at one when theirs is completely arbitrary.

An excellent question and an excellent observation.

 

[xtry51]

Thats cool. But you are talking cars vs rocketships now, not cars vs race cars. You are talking complete indescriminate destruction of extreme potency. Im not saying outlaw it, but I am in favor of its regulation.

Mike

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

So a one hand grenade a month law? One a year? The problem with regulation is it NEVER stays at the same line. Once any line is drawn it gets inched forward until you're at where we are now. As stated earlier Dynamite was readily available to everyone, yet no daily string of violent bombings ever occurred. You can't regulate something and then expect it to not mission creep into full banning. Government doesn't work that way.

 

[crazymjb]

I understand it's a slippery slope, but I feel a line for regulation can be drawn at indiscriminate destruction. If I can drop something that will kill 100s of people, vs having to stand there and shoot them, big difference in my mind. To better understand explosive power I'd recommend taking a look at REF charts. There is a pretty big potency and blast speed difference between the "easily" homemade stuff (in which the perfect mixture is often difficult to obtain) and military grade explosives. Tannerite is NOTHING like RDX

Mike

 

[cekim]

I understand it's a slippery slope, but I feel a line for regulation can be drawn at indiscriminate destruction.

Again, I don't want to even start a detailed conversation about what you can do with what, I will let bad guys do their own leg work, but let me stop you there and say that the tools are already there - you don't need anything more than you have today to bring "indiscriminate destruction" to a large number of people.

You can't draw that "line." It isn't a line, it is a choice by someone to bring harm to their fellow man on purpose.

 

[wahsben]

Those intent on murder and mayhem care not what the laws are nor what the consequences for their actions will be.

 

[cekim]

Those intent on murder and mayhem care not what the laws are nor what the consequences for their actions will be.

Unfortunately, though crazy, the ones that succeed aren't dumb either.

 

[jujutsuka]

You can't draw that "line." It isn't a line, it is a choice by someone to bring harm to their fellow man on purpose.

And even if you did draw a line, BGs have proven time and time again that they don't give a flying f--- about the lines/laws. It's the old retort: "Why not just ban murder? oh, wait..."

 

[Supermoto]

You can't draw that "line." It isn't a line, it is a choice by someone to bring harm to their fellow man on purpose.

Exactly, the line is when you do harm to others and that line is clear. An inanimate object can not have a line, as it has no will. It can not act. Saying an object will make you do something crazy... it well crazy

 

[crazymjb]

And I'm not saying that. I am saying that the reason military grade explosives, grenades, rockets, etc aren't popping up being used by bad guys is largely due to the immense amount of restrictions being placed on their distribution. I do believe the current restrictions should be relaxed, but not fully opened.

I think it's pretty easy to say something that by the nature of it's design is to kill everything within a certain radius is an indiscriminate weapon.

I guess we'll just agree to disagree.

Mike

 

[wahsben]

Unfortunately, though crazy, the ones that succeed aren't dumb either.

True, in fact in many instances the most dangerous ones tend to be well educated.

 

[dixidawg]

True, in fact in many instances the most dangerous ones tend to be well educated.

Ted Kaczynski comes to mind.

 

[drgrant]

And I'm not saying that. I am saying that the reason military grade explosives, grenades, rockets, etc aren't popping up being used by bad guys is largely due to the immense amount of restrictions being placed on their distribution. I do believe the current restrictions should be relaxed, but not fully opened.

I think it's pretty easy to say something that by the nature of it's design is to kill everything within a certain radius is an indiscriminate weapon.

I guess we'll just agree to disagree.

Mike

To be honest I doubt most of that would really change in a minimally regulated environment. The people that make the stuff commercially would likely go to great lengths to control the proliferation of their product due to liability reasons alone. It's easy to indemnify liability on a firearm, because typically when someone gets hurt there is a guy right there aiming the gun and pulling the trigger. Yeah, some would leak out, but I doubt you would be seeing mortar rockets showing up at a gun show anytime soon. The market conditions on some of that stuff would still be very similar to what exists now, except the market would be more grey than black.

I can kind of see justifying -local- regulations for storage, based on the whole "community danger" bit, but even then how are you going to have enforcement without some sort of infringement? You'd have to have passive regulation for it to not be infringing. EG, something along the lines of "Sure, you can buy all the C4 if you want, but if your house blows up and kills people there will be serious criminal liability problems!"

Also, be aware that there are a bunch of catch all laws on the books which would already fit people who would do such things. Not to mention the civil liability aspect. You could still pass a law which prosecutes negligent storage and have it not be infringing. For example, you could have a law that basically states "If you have more than X lbs of explosive in your house, and your house blows up and kills people, you can be held criminally liable for the unsafe storage". This is the same vein of thought as the child access protection law in NH with guns. You can have all the loaded guns you want in your house. You can have all the toddlers you want in your house with the guns. If a child ACTUALLY gets hurt, or hurts someone with one of your guns, you as the parent are responsible. " I don't completely agree with it, but it is WAAAAAY more sane than a pure outright malum prohibitum type law, which essentially prosecutes someone in all sorts of events where nobody is hurt. Most "gun crimes" are in this vein- the vast majority of prosecutions are cases where nobody was injured as the result of someone possessing a gun or other device. They got prosecuted just because they had it, which in my mind, is not a good enough reason to send someone to prison.

Food for thought- if these laws are so good, then why is it that every other month someone, somewhere, finds UXO in their house? The laws really stopped all those unsafe conditions!!!

-Mike