The Thread Where We Discuss Guns and Gun Control

[Lexicus]

Are independent and apolitical are the same thing? They don't seem to be, to me. Destroying the independent part through court packing does seem to change the quality of the structure of the institutions.

Yet you make no case as to what the actual distinct meanings of independent and apolitical are in this context.

Aside from that, my response would be that there is plenty of space between "apolitical" and "turning the Supreme Court into an ideological and partisan arm of the Republican Party."

I would consider the Supreme Court not to have been "independent" in any sense for almost my entire life. Certainly one could argue that installing a President in 2000 where the deciding vote was the guy appointed by that same candidate's father was a crossing of the Rubicon; if you don't like that one, then McConnell denying Garland a hearing is no different from court-packing.

In any case what your argumentation amounts to is that Republicans should be allowed to do whatever they want while Democrats cannot do anything to fight back, which is - coincidentally I'm sure - the outcome that apparently accords with your ideology and politics.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Is this true? I tried looking it up and failed, but I thought automatic cost more like a years salary than a weeks like today.

you mean semi-auto? auto hasn't been legal for a long time.

here's an example from a blog https://www.wideners.com/blog/1950-vs-2020-the-price-of-guns-and-ammo/

at least from this, seems like gun prices are comparable, while ammo is cheaper today. different sites give cost estimate for making m14 and m1as at around $105. presumably somewhat higher for civilians to buy, but certainly not a year's salary.

i would also be surprised if people who are literally willing to die in order to commit mass shootings (many commit suicide before they're stopped by anyone else) are the ones likely to be priced out of the market. you can afford a lot of things if you know you have no future.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

Is this true? I tried looking it up and failed, but I thought automatic cost more like a years salary than a weeks like today.

I guess you could check out Gun Digest over the years and simply adjust for inflation. I've always seen prices on a handgun hovering around $500 at least, based on casual observation. Needless to say a brand-new gun is not necessarily "cheap" unless 1) it's stolen, 2) it's made of cheaper materials like Hi Point arms supposedly is (but I have no experience with that manufacturer)

 

[Hygro]

Yet you make no case as to what the actual distinct meanings of independent and apolitical are in this context.

Aside from that, my response would be that there is plenty of space between "apolitical" and "turning the Supreme Court into an ideological and partisan arm of the Republican Party."

I would consider the Supreme Court not to have been "independent" in any sense for almost my entire life. Certainly one could argue that installing a President in 2000 where the deciding vote was the guy appointed by that same candidate's father was a crossing of the Rubicon; if you don't like that one, then McConnell denying Garland a hearing is no different from court-packing.

In any case what your argumentation amounts to is that Republicans should be allowed to do whatever they want while Democrats cannot do anything to fight back, which is - coincidentally I'm sure - the outcome that apparently accords with your ideology and politics.

And the next guy Roberts was one of the guys in the Florida election office yelling and stressing the election officers pretending he was a grass roots citizen concerned with democracy.

 

[Farm Boy]

Yet the accord has value. If the whole game is pretenses back to naked force, simply packing the court is a vast pretense to breach. Even when they're waxing big, Republicans cannot keep a seat open forever. They're neither monolithic nor unlimited by scruple. And that's with the Trump wing doing its thing, too. Simply stuffing the court would alter the quality of the institution. Might as well make it the House. Since we love what it is, so well, right now.

 

[Hygro]

Yet the accord has value. If the whole game is pretenses back to naked force, simply packing the court is a vast pretense to breach. Even when they're waxing big, Republicans cannot keep a seat open forever. They're neither monolithic nor unlimited by scruple. And that's with the Trump wing doing its thing, too. Simply stuffing the court would alter the quality of the institution. Might as well make it the House. Since we love what it is, so well, right now.

The democrats are the ones the bear that political burden while the republicans take advantage of it so get over on this side to hold up the burden while the Republicans take advantage to the detriment

Democrats have not cut the filibuster, they have not packed the courts, and they let Garland’s appointment go.

They have not ousted all the appointments by a seditious president seeking extra powers.

All in the name of this. So if you believe in this what’s a girl to do.

 

[Lexicus]

Yet the accord has value. If the whole game is pretenses back to naked force, simply packing the court is a vast pretense to breach. Even when they're waxing big, Republicans cannot keep a seat open forever. They're neither monolithic nor unlimited by scruple. And that's with the Trump wing doing its thing, too. Simply stuffing the court would alter the quality of the institution. Might as well make it the House. Since we love what it is, so well, right now.

What do you understand to be "the accord" in this context?

 

[Spidernova]

you mean semi-auto? auto hasn't been legal for a long time.

here's an example from a blog https://www.wideners.com/blog/1950-vs-2020-the-price-of-guns-and-ammo/

at least from this, seems like gun prices are comparable, while ammo is cheaper today. different sites give cost estimate for making m14 and m1as at around $105. presumably somewhat higher for civilians to buy, but certainly not a year's salary.

i would also be surprised if people who are literally willing to die in order to commit mass shootings (many commit suicide before they're stopped by anyone else) are the ones likely to be priced out of the market. you can afford a lot of things if you know you have no future.

Well, technically, full-auto weapons are legal, you just need to get one made before 1986, and pay a fortune.
My lazy googling suggests that an M14 and M1 would be around 800 dollars in today's dollars.
I think the real difference is that the low end of firearms have gotten both cheaper and better as a result of material engineering. IIRC, you can get ar-15s for 400ish.
But then again, mass shooters don't seem to be using low end or budget guns.

I guess you could check out Gun Digest over the years and simply adjust for inflation. I've always seen prices on a handgun hovering around $500 at least, based on casual observation. Needless to say a brand-new gun is not necessarily "cheap" unless 1) it's stolen, 2) it's made of cheaper materials like Hi Point arms supposedly is (but I have no experience with that manufacturer)

You can get all sorts of new production little pocket pistols for surprisingly cheap. Sure, handguns from respected brands are going to run more, but there are always value brands like taurus or bersa.

 

[Farm Boy]

The democrats are the ones the bear that political burden while the republicans take advantage of it so get over on this side to hold up the burden while the Republicans take advantage to the detriment

Democrats have not cut the filibuster, they have not packed the courts, and they let Garland’s appointment go.

They have not ousted all the appointments by a seditious president seeking extra powers.

All in the name of this. So if you believe in this what’s a girl to do.

And they currently have the power, when there was an impression they would not.

 

[Gorbles]

An impression!

Man, that rug.

 

[Farm Boy]

Contrary to historical performance and trend, then. A sitting Democrat president that picked up in the Senate during his midterm. It's proving to be a relatively popular presidency, in totality, thus far. But the election machines are starting to wind thier keening pitches, aren't they? Primaries before the generals, crazy pants first!

 

[Gorbles]

It's always all sorts of pants in election season.

But you said that Republicans can't keep seats open forever. Kavanaugh says they can. If you want to split the hair on "still on their 50s" and "a lifetime on the bench", feel free, but you're still splitting that hair.

 

[Farm Boy]

County fair crazy pants before runway crazypants, then?

 

[Hygro]

And they currently have the power, when there was an impression they would not.

Republican house, republican filibuster abuse of the senate, republican supreme court ... We have the presidency and only because of covid. If electoral decency mattered where it mattered, Hillary Clinton would be on her second term.

 

[choxorn]

And the next guy Roberts was one of the guys in the Florida election office yelling and stressing the election officers pretending he was a grass roots citizen concerned with democracy.

Kavanaugh and Barrett were also involved with Bush's legal team, so 50% of current Republican Supreme Court appointees have come from people who helped Bush become president before they were judges, and 17% (Clarence Thomas) directly voted to put him in office.

Even when they're waxing big, Republicans cannot keep a seat open forever. They're neither monolithic nor unlimited by scruple.

What makes you so sure? Some of them were openly talking about continuing to not hold a hearing for Garland if Hillary won in 2016 and they kept control of the Senate. What would have stopped them, exactly?

 

[Samson]

Yet the accord has value. If the whole game is pretenses back to naked force, simply packing the court is a vast pretense to breach. Even when they're waxing big, Republicans cannot keep a seat open forever. They're neither monolithic nor unlimited by scruple. And that's with the Trump wing doing its thing, too. Simply stuffing the court would alter the quality of the institution. Might as well make it the House. Since we love what it is, so well, right now.

In a democracy what is a better way to determine if the 2nd amendment applies to just militias or to everyone? Directly stated aims and methods approved at the ballot box or what you have now, a random death lottery on who gets to make the decision?

 

[Kyriakos]

In a democracy what is a better way to determine if the 2nd amendment applies to just militias or to everyone? Directly stated aims and methods approved at the ballot box or what you have now, a random death lottery on who gets to make the decision?

Iirc it is already explicitly not about militias, it is about citizens having the right to form a "well-regulated militia", which ultimately presupposes they, as citizens, prior to forming anything, will have firearms (otherwise, what's to form a militia with?)

 

[EgonSpengler]

Iirc it is already explicitly not about militias, it is about citizens having the right to form a "well-regulated militia", which ultimately presupposes they, as citizens, prior to forming anything, will have firearms (otherwise, what's to form a militia with?)

It's not even that. iirc, DC v Heller declares that the militia clause is kind of like a "serving suggestion", just a "for instance..." of the type of thing people might want to have firearms for. It's been forever since I've read the decision or any of Scalia's reasoning on it, but I believe he said that individual possession of a gun - a handgun, specifically - for self-defense is part of the 2A. And he was a "textualist", or "originalist", so his opinion must have been that the Founding Fathers envisioned that anyone who wanted one could have a handgun for personal defense, whether or not they're part of a militia, and whether or not the gun would have any value in the context of militia service. (I think, for example, the reason the Swiss own so few handguns is because they use guns for hunting and for defense of the country in the event of invasion, in both of which cases a handgun is not ideal.)

 

[choxorn]

so his opinion must have been that the Founding Fathers envisioned that anyone who wanted one could have a handgun for personal defense,

Of course this would mean the type of armaments available in the late 1700's, right? Clearly the 2nd amendment grants us a right to flintlock pistols and muskets.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Yet the accord has value. If the whole game is pretenses back to naked force, simply packing the court is a vast pretense to breach. Even when they're waxing big, Republicans cannot keep a seat open forever.

But they don't need to keep it open forever... just until they win the Presidency again... and she's always comin' round that mountain...

In any case what your argumentation amounts to is that Republicans should be allowed to do whatever they want while Democrats cannot do anything to fight back, which is - coincidentally I'm sure - the outcome that apparently accords with your ideology and politics.

The emphasis goes on "they want", as there are admittedly some even worse things that the Republicans could have done but didn't, mostly because they just didn't want to. As for the Democrats, how to define, "fight back" is the operative issue, because its been my observation that they actually do engage in tactics to act against the goals of the Republicans, and in furtherance of their own Democratic party goals... they just don't seem like they want to act at any and all costs to accomplish the things that their most outspoken constituents are the most outspoken/passionate about... gun control being just one prominent example.