The Thread Where We Discuss Guns and Gun Control

[Farm Boy]

Right. If you aren't winning its useless. The accord is of no value to the lowest common denominator.

 

[Samson]

It'd destroy the independence of the court. But of what import is an independent judiciary? If you aren't winning, democracy doesn't work anyways.

If the founders wanted it independant they would not have made it a political appointment. And the founders are never wrong.

 

[Gorbles]

The accord has been nuked, sealed in a lead coffin and thrown into the Mariana Trench. There's little point to making comments about the lowest common demoninator when we're discussing something that's already dead and done.

 

[Farm Boy]

Right right. I'll make a note, democracy died with the king.

 

[Gorbles]

Only if they were Democrat, apparently. The Republican king is alive and well, because we must stop to consider the mythological accord before making any changes that may inconvenience them.

Fits the topic, too. Guns guns guns. Sacrosanct guns.

 

[Edmund Ironside]

I guess this whole discussion is on the wrong thread now, but I am against court packing, it is further escalation of the political divide in this country. Also the GOP could just respond in kind leading to a series of tit for tat moves. I would support 10 year term limits for supreme court appointments as is often seen in many states. Otherwise we will end up with the GOP appointing a 20 year old ultra right winger the way we are going.
I vaguely remember Andrew Yang having some interesting ideas for supreme court reform.

 

[Gorbles]

I guess this whole discussion is on the wrong thread now, but I am against court packing, it is further escalation of the political divide in this country. Also the GOP could just respond in kind leading to a series of tit for tat moves. I would support 10 year term limits for supreme court appointments as is often seen in many states. Otherwise we will end up with the GOP appointing a 20 year old ultra right winger the way we are going.
I vaguely remember Andrew Yang having some interesting ideas for supreme court reform.

The good faith counterargument is: it's already happening. Kavanaugh may not be 20, but in SCOTUS terms, he is.

Heck, it's more than that, because the Republican Party has been operating on a pre-emptive tit-for-tat mass panic style of vote fervour for the past several years (if not more than).

I'm generally an idealistic; an optimist. But the idea that the GOP can be prevented from further careening down the pit of their own radicalisation is too much for even me, now.

 

[Farm Boy]

Party men are bad enough, but it's almost like international party men don't have to worry about tracking it in on the rug.

 

[Gorbles]

Party men are bad enough, but it's almost like international party men don't have to worry about tracking it in on the rug.

Ah yes, the party man stance of calling out a party, and thus the implication he's the other party's guy.

Party men are bad enough, and you can't even see what you're leaving on the carpet

 

[Farm Boy]

Hah! Don't have carpet. Do have a mud room. Trying to figure out an equitable term... Parliament?

 

[Gorbles]

Parliament works. Funnily enough, our lot is copying your lot the way things are going at the moment. Third party imploded some years ago. One party chases the "acceptable" votes of the other party, and a ton of people are effectively not represented in any way that matters.

I'm not a party guy here anymore either. Closest I got was a few years back.

In my heart of hearts, I still like the idea that there can be an accord. It's not that I don't value it. But I can't also can't keep pretending it still exists.

 

[Edmund Ironside]

The good faith counterargument is: it's already happening. Kavanaugh may not be 20, but in SCOTUS terms, he is.

Heck, it's more than that, because the Republican Party has been operating on a pre-emptive tit-for-tat mass panic style of vote fervour for the past several years (if not more than).

I'm generally an idealistic; an optimist. But the idea that the GOP can be prevented from further careening down the pit of their own radicalisation is too much for even me, now.

Yeah. The first major shots fired were when the GOP blocked Merrick Garland's appointment. That still leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

 

[Lexicus]

It'd destroy the independence of the court. But of what import is an independent judiciary? If you aren't winning, democracy doesn't work anyways.

What destroys the independence of the judiciary is the justices making rulings for the partisan benefit of the Republican Party and/or based on pure ideology.

 

[Farm Boy]

The Supreme Court is always political questions. They're ruling on political documents, upon the political principles by which those rules were ment to govern. The easy questions are settled at lower courts. The Questions of the Day go to the Supreme Court of the land. They don't always rule the way if like them to, maybe not always in a way I respect, but they do tend, once they're there, to have firmer sets of principles than do the people that appoint them there. They're still a body that rules and society changes. More often with minority rights than most, it doesn't endear the institution in the political hearts of fire. Never has.

 

[Lexicus]

The Supreme Court is always political questions. They're ruling on political documents, upon the political principles by which those rules were ment to govern. The easy questions are settled at lower courts. The Questions of the Day go to the Supreme Court of the land. They don't always rule the way if like them to, maybe not always in a way I respect, but they do tend, once they're there, to have firmer sets of principles than do the people that appoint them there. They're still a body that rules and society changes. More often with minority rights than most, it doesn't endear the institution in the political hearts of fire. Never has.

If their rulings are inescapably political then you've admitted your previous point about court-packing destroying judicial independence is wrong. There either is such a thing as judicial independence or there isn't; you don't get to cry about judicial independence when it comes to court-packing and then say "well of course it's political" when people complain about their rulings not actually being independent.

 

[Farm Boy]

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.

 

[choxorn]

What destroys the independence of the judiciary is the justices making rulings for the partisan benefit of the Republican Party and/or based on pure ideology.

From this we can conclude that judiciary dependence has been in the process of continual destruction since December 2000, at the latest

 

[Samson]

There are definitely two things, but they are pretty closely linked and I am not really sure how my proposal would hurt either relative to what you have now. Is this what you meant by the "independent and apolitical" dichotomy?

• Is the appointment by an elected official or an independent panel?
• Are the decisions made influenced by the leaning of the judge?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

How does this happen? He was a school resource officer. Why did he have a gun if it was not for this exact situation? If the person and their tools was not appropriate for the primary task they were there for then someone did something terribly wrong.

question of resources. no matter how good your gun is, when multiple hostiles also have them, even if they are individually inferior firearms, it is a disadvantage. you can scale up security guard count or put that guy in armor etc, but at some point the cost outweighs the risk reduction. it's bad process to decide after-the-fact that choice made was bad. more than one mass shooter acting together is far more rare than mass shootings, which are themselves rare compared to homicide. from 1949 to now, columbine is only one of two mass shooter events with multiple shooters.

Surely what changed was guns became cheap enough that most people could buy they easily.

nope. it is not easier or noticeably cheaper to procure a rifle sufficient to task for gunning down random people now than it was in say 1960. nor is security more lax. best i can tell, people were just as able then as now. there seem to be more people willing to do it now.

Could it be because you're more densely populated now ? Your population tripled since 1920.

there is likely to be more than one factor. i think this one tracks to crime more generally, but given mass shooter rates in other densely populated areas are low, in both countries with and without lots of firearm restrictions, i'd hesitate to conclude this is the most important factor to explain it.

 

[Samson]

nope. it is not easier or noticeably cheaper to procure a rifle sufficient to task for gunning down random people now than it was in say 1960. nor is security more lax. best i can tell, people were just as able then as now. there seem to be more people willing to do it now.

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.