Veteran gun rights

This nonsense is the same type of argument about a DWI, if a person in Massachusetts gets a single DWI without harming a soul they instantly become a prohibited person?

It's lunacy
so... what exactly do you think should happen when you drive drunk and get caught?
 
Lifetime loss of an unrelated Constitutional right seems a bit off the mark...

I'll agree to the lifetime part. But while I'm biased, as I've buried too many friends in too few of years who were killed because of a drunk or died themselves from being drunk, driving impaired is like russian roulette but the gun is pointed at other people.
 
I'll agree to the lifetime part. But while I'm biased, as I've buried too many friends in too few of years who were killed because of a drunk or died themselves from being drunk, driving impaired like russian roulette but the gun is pointed at other people.
If they are a danger to society then throw them in the clink.

I am not by any means defending drunk drivers, but which other rights can people be stripped of arbitrarily? 4th? 5th? 14th? How about we force them to quarter soldiers in their homes for as long as they're using a breathalyzer to start their car?

Make no mistake: the PP status that comes with the OUI misdefelony here is either a planned feature or at the very least a happy accident in the minds of the antis. Having an OUI is no reason to have your right to defend yourself and your family taken away.
 
Lose your license?

It has no bearing on if you should be able to own a firearm or not, prove me wrong

Is your issue with how the current law makes so a felony = instantly PP, or how MA handles DWI/OUI in making it essentially a felony? Is there a line in the sand you accept that isn't arbitrary? Should you lose no rights when breaking the law? As we so often tout ourselves as 'law abiding citizens'? Every punishment for law breaking involves punishments that goes against the principles of the bill of rights. Are all judiciary punishments wrong? There's a lot to unpack there, but there are a lot of questions that lay with it.

Like I said, permanent loss should not be the answer. And maybe some tweaking to the current MA OUI/DWI/DUI ( I can't remember exactly what its called now ) laws are due where there's some amount of forgiveness for a first time offender. and I accept I'm not sitting even-keeled on this topic, I have a strong emotional ties to the issue at hand.
 
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If they are a danger to society then throw them in the clink.

I am not by any means defending drunk drivers, but which other rights can people be stripped of arbitrarily? 4th? 5th? 14th? How about we force them to quarter soldiers in their homes for as long as they're using a breathalyzer to start their car?

Make no mistake: the PP status that comes with the OUI misdefelony here is either a planned feature or at the very least a happy accident in the minds of the antis. Having an OUI is no reason to have your right to defend yourself and your family taken away.

Everyone starts sober? If you don't have the ability to control your drinking when you have to drive, you don't have any business drinking in the first place. Call an uber, sleep it off in your car, but have the mindset before you start to be able to stop.

It being a part of the judicial system makes it categorically not arbitrary. Should the current system be refined? sure, everything can be made better.
 
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Everyone starts sober? If you don't have the ability to control your drinking when you have to drive, you don't have any business drinking in the first place. Call an uber, sleep it off in your car, but have the mindset before you start to be able to stop.

None of this refutes anything I said.

It being a part of the judicial system makes it categorically not arbitrary.

You have a much more rosy outlook on the judicial system than I do. Lawful and arbitrary or not mutually exclusive terms... in fact more often quite the opposite.
 
Is your issue with how the current law makes so a felony = instantly PP, or how MA handles DWI/OUI in making it essentially a felony? Is there a line in the sand you accept that isn't arbitrary? Should you lose no rights when breaking the law? As we so often tout ourselves as 'law abiding citizens'? Every punishment for law breaking involves punishments that goes against the principles of the bill of rights. Are all judiciary punishments wrong? There's a lot to unpack there, but there are a lot of questions that lay with it.

Like I said, permanent loss should not be the answer. And maybe some tweaking to the current MA OUI/DWI/DUI ( I can't remember exactly what its called now ) laws are due where there's some amount of forgiveness for a first time offender. and I accept I'm not sitting even-keeled on this topic, I have a strong emotional ties to the issue at hand.
First off I openly admit I drove drunk from the age of 16 to about 47, that's over 30 years of being a completely irresponsible piece of shit, thank God I never once hurt anyone.

That being said my ownership of guns has been for less time than I drove drunk but again not once have I ever harmed anyone with my guns so I'm more of a responsible gun owner than I am a driver.

I've lost a very close friend to a drunk driver and in a cruel twist of fate this same guy that killed my friend was an inmate on the exact housing unit I was assigned to at the jail I worked at and I had to corral my emotions and treat him like everyone else with respect and dignity, not friggen easy thing to do, believe that.

To answer your exact question? I'm not a lawmaker or a judge but I can say I have no problems with someone losing their right to drive if caught driving drunk, but to intertwine that with the right to bear arms and defend your loved ones is wrong.

Think about it, as a 20 something year old kid your a different person at 30 and 40 ect, you can grow up and change bad decision making but you can't then be a responsible gun owner? Ever? It's ridiculous

Again you really have to seperate the two, losing your right to drive is on you if you break the law, losing your right to bear arms for even a minute for a driving offense is as wrong and as stupid as if you got caught with a 17 round mag in Massachusetts and losing your drivers license because of it.
 
None of this refutes anything I said.



You have a much more rosy outlook on the judicial system than I do. Lawful and arbitrary or not mutually exclusive terms... in fact more often quite the opposite.
You might be going with the older definition of arbitrary, referencing when power was held by a single person like in a monarchy. I'm not gonna get tied up in definitions, and apologize for going there to begin with. I get what you meant now. On the first bit, I was in the process of editing and expanding that thought and my daughter knocked the power cable to my PC. Probably for the best, as it was a wall and a half.

Every punishment that is meted out as a result of the judicial system deprives rights. It has to, because depriving rights, is the only humane form of punishment we can come up with. I'm not for going back to whipping posts and stockades and the pillory, essentially torture. Is your point that you feel permanent loss of gun ownership rights is too much? Are there crimes where that punishment is acceptable? Are there none? With drunk driving, is a first offense is too much, but a second offense more grounded in justice?

I ask this because if you take the "shall not be infringed" approach to the 2A to the extreme that you believe under no circumstances should you lose your rights to own firearms, then this can't be a productive conversation.
 
First off I openly admit I drove drunk from the age of 16 to about 47, that's over 30 years of being a completely irresponsible piece of shit, thank God I never once hurt anyone.

That being said my ownership of guns has been for less time than I drove drunk but again not once have I ever harmed anyone with my guns so I'm more of a responsible gun owner than I am a driver.

I've lost a very close friend to a drunk driver and in a cruel twist of fate this same guy that killed my friend was an inmate on the exact housing unit I was assigned to at the jail I worked at and I had to corral my emotions and treat him like everyone else with respect and dignity, not friggen easy thing to do, believe that.

To answer your exact question? I'm not a lawmaker or a judge but I can say I have no problems with someone losing their right to drive if caught driving drunk, but to intertwine that with the right to bear arms and defend your loved ones is wrong.

Think about it, as a 20 something year old kid your a different person at 30 and 40 ect, you can grow up and change bad decision making but you can't then be a responsible gun owner? Ever? It's ridiculous

Again you really have to seperate the two, losing your right to drive is on you if you break the law, losing your right to bear arms for even a minute for a driving offense is as wrong and as stupid as if you got caught with a 17 round mag in Massachusetts and losing your drivers license because of it.

I drove drunk once myself, at 16 coming home from a local bar where your ID was $20 in the doorman's hand. If I got caught, I'd accept losing my gun rights for a time. Not permanently, but long enough where I could display that I was well past foolish and bad decision making.

So your issue is with the permanence of the loss of rights? Where it could take upwards of 30 years to get a judge to expunge your record, but you'd still end up having to check a bad box on a 4473., rendering it still useless. I am for making a codified sunset on DUI/DWI's with an asterisk. What in your opinion, if so, needs to change? The question on the 4473, or the punishment for first time offenders of DUI in MA?
 
I do NOT support red flag laws and there in nothing in my statement indicating that. Red flag laws are one of the worst ideas ever adopted by uber liberal states.
My statement addressed declaration of incompetency and that is a very difficult process in MA. The court will appoint you an attorney and you will receive several psychiatric assessments. A declaration is reviewed annually and you or your attorney can have it lifted upon presentation of sufficient evidence of recovery.

Again, I am not aware of any combat vet with PTSD who is a PP based solely upon PTSD. And every vet I know is well aware of the fact that VA mental health workers are mandated reporters. I do not know any vet with TBI nor am I aware of any MA court cases declaring someone with TBI incompetent so I can not address that disability

And to the sovereign citizens who regurgitate "Shall not be infringed" read the majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) by Antonin Scalia.
“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.”
Your very first post in this thread, you said that if you were financially incompetent you should not be handling a firearm. Is this how you really feel? Forget about regurgitating law or opinions or how many vets that you and I know with PTSD. If this is how you personally feel, not what the state does in certain circumstances then I think this is no different than supporting a red flag type law.
 
Every punishment that is meted out as a result of the judicial system deprives rights. It has to, because depriving rights, is the only humane form of punishment we can come up with. I'm not for going back to whipping posts and stockades and the pillory, essentially torture. Is your point that you feel permanent loss of gun ownership rights is too much? Are there crimes where that punishment is acceptable? Are there none? With drunk driving, is a first offense is too much, but a second offense more grounded in justice?
You're way overthinking this. I get that you're expanding this into a philosophical debate, and I can engage in that all day long. For the topic at hand though it's enough to say that the punishment is excessive and not tailored to the crime, something that should always be at the forefront of the consideration, especially for fundamental rights.

Does one, for example, lose their right to vote when they get an OUI in Massachusetts? No? What about their right to free speech? Do you think they should? Why, then is it ok for them to lose their 2A rights, in particular?

I ask this because if you take the "shall not be infringed" approach to the 2A to the extreme that you believe under no circumstances should you lose your rights to own firearms, then this can't be a productive conversation.

I don't happen to believe that "shall not be infringed" can be an "extreme" view; in fact it's pretty clear and basic. But of course I think that, so we can set the semantic arguments aside. We're dealing with basic human rights here, in particular, the right of person to defend themselves. If you think it's acceptable for a government to put someone on the street freely but forbid them the right to defend themselves as a punishment... what then? Full-time government-appointed bodyguards? Does the human right to self-defense disappear?
 
I drove drunk once myself, at 16 coming home from a local bar where your ID was $20 in the doorman's hand. If I got caught, I'd accept losing my gun rights for a time. Not permanently, but long enough where I could display that I was well past foolish and bad decision making.

So your issue is with the permanence of the loss of rights? Where it could take upwards of 30 years to get a judge to expunge your record, but you'd still end up having to check a bad box on a 4473., rendering it still useless. I am for making a codified sunset on DUI/DWI's with an asterisk. What in your opinion, if so, needs to change? The question on the 4473, or the punishment for first time offenders of DUI in MA?
By that logic if you have a firearms storage violation in MA should you lose your drivers license for long enough so you can display that you’re well past foolish decision making?

You should be punished for the law that you break, driving and firearms have as much to do with each-other as childbirth and fishing…
 
If you’re financially irresponsible, maybe losing your voting rights is a better punishment than your gun rights.

Even better, drunks, junkies and deadbeats can’t hold public office.
 
I do NOT support red flag laws and there in nothing in my statement indicating that. Red flag laws are one of the worst ideas ever adopted by uber liberal states.
My statement addressed declaration of incompetency and that is a very difficult process in MA. The court will appoint you an attorney and you will receive several psychiatric assessments. A declaration is reviewed annually and you or your attorney can have it lifted upon presentation of sufficient evidence of recovery.

Again, I am not aware of any combat vet with PTSD who is a PP based solely upon PTSD. And every vet I know is well aware of the fact that VA mental health workers are mandated reporters. I do not know any vet with TBI nor am I aware of any MA court cases declaring someone with TBI incompetent so I can not address that disability

And to the sovereign citizens who regurgitate "Shall not be infringed" read the majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) by Antonin Scalia.
“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.”
You’re forgetting that the VA allows voluntary requests to have a rep payee. And I can guarantee you there is a nonzero number of vets who weren’t informed of the 2A repercussions of such an action.
 
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By that logic if you have a firearms storage violation in MA should you lose your drivers license for long enough so you can display that you’re well past foolish decision making?

You should be punished for the law that you break, driving and firearms have as much to do with each-other as childbirth and fishing…

Given how I drove at 19 with that 2004 Mustang Gt Convertible I bought? Yeah, probably a safe bet.
 
This nonsense is the same type of argument about a DWI, if a person in Massachusetts gets a single DWI without harming a soul they instantly become a prohibited person?

It's lunacy
That's one of the main reasons why I don't support most/all of the prohbited person shit. They already openly abuse it and the path to redemption for most people doesn't exactly exist.

People make mistakes. Life time bans on stuff that's not really that big of a deal is pretty silly. If Biden could snap his fingers and make every person whose ever driven at or above .08 a PP like 20% of the population would be eligible to own guns [rofl]
 
You’re forgetting that the VA allows voluntary requests to have a rep payee. And I can guarantee you there is a nonzero number of vets who weren’t informed of the 2A repercussions of such an action.
"VA reports the names of incompetent beneficiaries to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), which then adds the names to a database called the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)." (Brady Act of 93) Readily available public knowledge. Ignore it at your own risk. Highly doubt MD processing a voluntary request will know anything about 2A and even more unlikely that MD will talk client out of submitting voluntary request.
 
…and I accept I'm not sitting even-keeled on this topic, I have a strong emotional ties to the issue at hand.
This should disqualify you from making any decisions around the subject. Overly emotional people got us into this f***ing mess that we’re in today.

I empathize with you for the loss but there’s absolutely no correlation between the two things.
 
This should disqualify you from making any decisions around the subject. Overly emotional people got us into this f***ing mess that we’re in today.

I empathize with you for the loss but there’s absolutely no correlation between the two things.

Seems we have a lot of arguments for what should be a DQ for things in this thread. Like I said, I agree it shouldn't be permanent. And I can even say it shouldn't be the case for 1st time offenses where you were close to the legal limit but still over and no one got hurt. Most people end up pleading their first time offenses down where it is a non-issue.
However, there are correlations to be had. Just because it doesn't have to do directly with firearms does not make it an unacceptable avenue for punishment. You can lose your right to vote over things that have nothing to do with voting. Using a weapon (car has been ruled lethal force) in a way that puts everyone in danger who has the bad fortune of being out at the same time as you seems pretty corollary to me.
 
Seems we have a lot of arguments for what should be a DQ for things in this thread. Like I said, I agree it shouldn't be permanent. And I can even say it shouldn't be the case for 1st time offenses where you were close to the legal limit but still over and no one got hurt. Most people end up pleading their first time offenses down where it is a non-issue.
However, there are correlations to be had. Just because it doesn't have to do directly with firearms does not make it an unacceptable avenue for punishment. You can lose your right to vote over things that have nothing to do with voting. Using a weapon (car has been ruled lethal force) in a way that puts everyone in danger who has the bad fortune of being out at the same time as you seems pretty corollary to me.
Then jail folks for DUI.

That is a defensible solution, no?

And naturally they can’t have guns in jail. But when they get out of jail, should they still have no RKBA?
 
Seems we have a lot of arguments for what should be a DQ for things in this thread. Like I said, I agree it shouldn't be permanent. And I can even say it shouldn't be the case for 1st time offenses where you were close to the legal limit but still over and no one got hurt. Most people end up pleading their first time offenses down where it is a non-issue.
However, there are correlations to be had. Just because it doesn't have to do directly with firearms does not make it an unacceptable avenue for punishment. You can lose your right to vote over things that have nothing to do with voting. Using a weapon (car has been ruled lethal force) in a way that puts everyone in danger who has the bad fortune of being out at the same time as you seems pretty corollary to me.
Honestly, the consensus here seems to be that removing 2A rights for OUI is wrong... Except in your view.

It's interesting that you bring up voting. In most locales, felons get their voting rights restored once they serve their prison terms, and even in places where the ban is indefinite, it's only in cases of *certain* felonies... not all felonies.

And keep in mind that even these cases are felonies, not the misdemeanors the result in a lifetime prohibition here. Respectfully, I'm having trouble accepting that your analogy is made in good faith.

You haven't answered my question from before: if you're good with rights being removed as punishment for OUI, which other enumerated rights are game, in your view?
 
…. Readily available public knowledge. Ignore it at your own risk. Highly doubt MD processing a voluntary request will know anything about 2A and even more unlikely that MD will talk client out of submitting voluntary request.
Exactly! These vets were likely not advised about the tangential, and extremely severe, repercussions of their request.

And not everyone is abreast of the 2A implications, even if it can be found on the internet easily. It’s only going to be found if someone is looking for it. There are plenty of vets who had no idea such an action, to help them with their finances, would make them a prohibited person with firearms.

It doesn’t mean they deserve to have their rights stripped.

And before you say you’re only talking about MA, this entire thread is about an article dealing with the very instances that I’m taking about here.
 
Honestly, the consensus here seems to be that removing 2A rights for OUI is wrong... Except in your view.

It's interesting that you bring up voting. In most locales, felons get their voting rights restored once they serve their prison terms, and even in places where the ban is indefinite, it's only in cases of *certain* felonies... not all felonies.

And keep in mind that even these cases are felonies, not the misdemeanors the result in a lifetime prohibition here. Respectfully, I'm having trouble accepting that your analogy is made in good faith.

You haven't answered my question from before: if you're good with rights being removed as punishment for OUI, which other enumerated rights are game, in your view?
I may have missed the last question, I went to sleep before going in for third shift yesterday, so apologies if it seemed I was dodging.

TO a certain degree, all of them. You give up every single right in whole or in part while in prison or jail. Unreasonable search and seizure, no right to bear arms, free speech, freedom of religion is still in play but not to the degree one may like. You don't get to pick your meals if you are a practicing Jew or Muslim and don't eat certain 'unclean' animals. Good luck on figuring out which direction is Mecca in your cell. You certainly aren't voting. Cruel and unusual punishment is out the window with 24/7 solitary, or 23/7 if you pick PC. If you don't take PC, you are just food for the other inmates unless you want to walk out more f***ed up than you walked in. And jail is a part of punishment. So every right is on the table.

I'm willing to agree permanent shouldn't be a thing for a first time offense where you were near the legal limit and no one was hurt. But you guys are arguing it should be not at all? So your LTC should be valid in jail? Should be able to CC behind bars? If you don't believe so, then we are between losing them till sentence is served vs at all and losing them for an amount of time TBD, at which point we are arguing about where on the scale we want to dig in our heels.

Cams mentions once you are out of jail and your probation is over with, things should go back to the way they were before. I can go along with that.

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It just shouldn’t be, at all. Were you a mask Nazi too?

No I was not a mask nazi. I wore one when my job required them as part of my uniform, and my company took the best approach I can see. We offered N95 masks to anyone who came in without one, but turned away no one for not wearing a mask. We threw out anyone who made a scene for compliance or non compliance, we didn't care what side of the fence you shouted from. I personally cut a hole in my mask so I would adhere to the mandate of wearing a mask covering my mouth and nose as per company policy which mirrored whatever the town said for that particular location, while making my face covering completely ineffective.

I was also for private businesses setting their own rules regarding mask usage.

EDIT: I read in a few spots the losing gun rights for OUI was a mass only thing, and it was about question 21c on the 4473? Because there are like 30+ states with a first time OUI penalty for a year. Which then makes me ask, are you guys saying OUI should not be a felony? Ever? Is your stance felonies should not deprive rights?

I ask this because the issue is not just that OUI = loss of rights, it's that OUI carries a stiff enough penalty that it falls into the category of crimes that can result in loss of rights, by means of of it's potential penalties making the person in question a PP. So the argument is first time OUI carries too stiff a penalty?
 
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Cams mentions once you are out of jail and your probation is over with, things should go back to the way they were before. I can go along with that.
No I’d didn’t but I agree that once your time is served you’ve paid your debt to society and you should not be punished further for that crime.

We don’t do enough for the recidivism rates after we release these people either. If you have a felony record a lot of landlords won’t rent to you, businesses won’t hire you, the public system of benefits is an absolute disaster that tells them they can’t get benefits if they don’t have an address, but they can’t get an address if they can’t get a job and some benefits first to afford an apt or a room to get settled. A lot of people would not reoffend if they had a decent chance at reintegration.

To the point that a lot of them purposely reoffend in early winter because they have no where to go, so they pull some petty caper and get 3-6 months of warmth and food, rinse and repeat.

Before I get too far off track, my position remains that Constitutionally protected rights > than yours or anyone else’s emotions, desires or fears.
 
No I’d didn’t but I agree that once your time is served you’ve paid your debt to society and you should not be punished further for that crime.

We don’t do enough for the recidivism rates after we release these people either. If you have a felony record a lot of landlords won’t rent to you, businesses won’t hire you, the public system of benefits is an absolute disaster that tells them they can’t get benefits if they don’t have an address, but they can’t get an address if they can’t get a job and some benefits first to afford an apt or a room to get settled. A lot of people would not reoffend if they had a decent chance at reintegration.

To the point that a lot of them purposely reoffend in early winter because they have no where to go, so they pull some petty caper and get 3-6 months of warmth and food, rinse and repeat.


Before I get too far off track, my position remains that Constitutionally protected rights > than yours or anyone else’s emotions, desires or fears.
I am completely with you on the bold stuff. I've been saying this for years.

Your position is that no crime, once you've served your time, should result in a loss of rights protected under the bill of rights? If there are, in your opinion, such crimes, where is the line drawn, and what leads you to that?
 
I am completely with you on the bold stuff. I've been saying this for years.

Your position is that no crime, once you've served your time, should result in a loss of rights protected under the bill of rights? If there are, in your opinion, such crimes, where is the line drawn, and what leads you to that?
My position is as stated. Like a lot of people here I feel that if you’re considered too dangerous to possess a firearm upon your release then you probably shouldn’t be getting released in the first place.

I know plenty of decent people that have gotten a DUI or two along the way and have paid the price for it as directed by the state. Good hard working people with substance abuse issues or some other life battle going on at the time.

Some of those same people have been straight and sober for over 30yrs with zero further interaction with LE, but even though they went on the straight and narrow, they’re still deprived of their rights long after their debt is paid. It’s not right and you can’t use any words to make it right.

DUI/OUI, even if it’s with injuries and rises to a felony, is still not a valid reason to deprive someone of a God given right after they’ve paid their debt. Upon release you are declared rehabilitated by the state and it’s no longer the states business what this person does, especially with Constitutionally protected rights. This isn’t a totalitarian state. Yet. I don’t know why that’s so hard to understand unless your common sense is blurred by personal emotion.
 
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