let the gun ban games begin

[larvatus]

I deny any predictability in politics, but there are many hurdles on the way to enacting any new Federal gun control laws:

1. Economics: we have enough guns to arm each American citizen, resident alien, and illegal immigrant. Confiscation without compensation is politically impossible, whereas confiscation with compensation would be economically ruinous. Besides, the state of global economy leaves little room for compounding the Congressional constipation that hold captive any possible means of its resuscitation, by yet another polemical bottleneck.
2. History: though I am far from the absurdity of their right wing anarchism, I admire the panache with which the Tea Party has commandeered the House of Representatives in the wake of the enactment of Obamacare. Moreover, our elected officials are by law old enough to remember the Republican Revolution ushered in by the 1994 AWB, and preponderantly most mindful of remaining in office. Any other motives they might have would be trumped by concerns for reëlection.
3. Law: the SCOTUS rulings of the last four years imply that keeping and bearing effective small arms in common use is Constitutionally protected, and their regulation cannot be upheld but by passing at least the intermediate scrutiny test, through showing that it furthers an important government interest in a way that is substantially related to that interest. Black rifles and handguns, the most likely targets of gun banners, are especially unlikely to pass this test in virtue of their utility and ubiquity. (Ironically, the former ascended to their status of the most popular long guns in the U.S. as a result of the 1994 AWB.) Update: Moreover, Justice Roberts’ reading of the Commerce Clause in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. ___ (2012), appears to leave as little room for the Congress to debar Americans from owning certain goods, as it does for it to require their purchase of broccoli.
4. Stupidity: no idea is so sensible that our political debate cannot dumb it down fatally, and will not do so inevitably. Ideas most likely to elicit a consensus, such as criminal liability for unsafe storage of firearms, can and will be reduced to prospective measures repugnant to most gun owners, even as they remain inadequate to most nanny staters.

That said, the Gun Ban Games will be loads of fun to live through.

Comments

My perspective on RKBA #3

[hyok-kim.livejournal.com]

"That said, the Gun Ban Games will be loads of fun to live

through."


It already is. Pro-RKBA people have been talking tough for a long time. Now is the time to walk the walk.

They're the ones claiming gun ban/registration is the first step toward dictatorship and the founding fathers of this country saw it fit enough to arm the population so that they could resist the wannabee tyrants. That 2nd amendement is not about Duck hunting.

That is the real reason for RKBA according to them. Well, federal gun ban/registration may be about to happen and if anti-Rkba gets enough political mandate without repurcussion like 90's, then what?

Are Pro-RKBA going to use the guns they have for the reasons they claim for 2nd amendment?

If not, then that would be their 'Waterloo'. Mea Culpa time that they've been feeding bs to RKBA supporters all these years so that they could get cushy job with fancy titles by fear mongering, manipulating the paranoid parts of the gun owning public so that guns and ammo companies could maximize their profit.

Btw. Here comes ultimate irony, Mr.Zeleny.

About the only country where privately owned firearms played a significant role in defeating a dictatorship that I am aware of as of this moment is Yemen, where Osama's ancestoral family came from.

That dictatorship was supported by U.S. and elements of U.s. military.

...and Pro-RKBA people actively supported that endeavor.

The very people supporting RKBA to prevent tyranny in their own country were supporting indirectly, but knowingly a dictatorship trying to ban RKBA from their own people.

Give some of those anti-American 'Muslims' some credit.

They FOUGHT to keep RKBA.

In the so-called the land of brave and free, pro-RKBA people are willing to do the same?

Irony is Yemen is the #1 country as far as RKBA is concerned! Yep, that anti-American Yemen!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_Rights_Index

Even Israelis think Yemen has too many guns.

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=173369

Besides, Pro-RKBA have been engaging too many hyperboles over the years, they kinda talked themselves into a corner.

That privately armed people are the only guarantee for free people, not so.

It is the enough number of people willing to sacrifise their lives (with or without privately owned guns or RKBA) to keep their freedom is the only true guarantee for free people.

If enough people are willing to sacrifise their lives to keep or regain their freedom, then they can keep or regain their freedom with or without privately owned guns or RKBA.

Btw. Just having RKBA or private ownership of guns doesn't equal democracy and freedom either. Just look again at Yemen, with #1 RKBA and private gun ownership at #2 per capita, and #1 per indiviual income in the world, you wouldn't call that free country.

You would live far longer and happier in Chicago, or Cook County or Maryland, than in Yemen.

Twice in Pakistan, when military dictatorship was in power, RKBA was not disturbed, so much for Pro-RKBA's reason destruction of RKBA is the first step toward dictatorship.

People without very few privately owned guns and no RKBA still managed to overthrow totalitarian dictatorship in Romania.

Military dictatorships in Pakistan were not overthrown by people using private firearms.

Neither in South Korea, or socialist dictatorships in Soviet Union, or the Eastern block countries.

Or the recent uprising in Egypt, Tunisia, it was enough people willing to sacrifise their lives to regain their freedom that was the factor, not privately owned firearms, or RKBA.

or Iranian revolution against Shah.


Btw. I like guns. I would like to have real assault rifles, and grenade launcher and stinger missile too.

That would be a greater detterant to would be tyrants than just measly semi-auto version of assault rifles.

How come NRA wouldn't advance such proposal?

The best I can say about RKBA is it is a force multiplier for freedom, but not an absolutely necessary ingredient.

Sorry for the multiple long posts, hope you don't put it in spam folder, but I believe I have something to contribute in real, hyperbole free sense on RKBA.

Re: My perspective on RKBA #3

[larvatus.livejournal.com]

As one right-winger observed, every nation has the government it deserves. Our just deserts are about to be discovered.

Re: My perspective on RKBA #3

[hyok-kim.livejournal.com]

"As one right-winger observed, every nation has the government it deserves."

Indeed.

"Our just deserts are about to be discovered."

Wouldn't it have been nice if we had a better alternative than Romney, who ensured Obama victory by pandering to all the crazys out there?