US Politics

Raoul said:
He's absolutely correct. It isn't feasible. Anyone who thinks we are going to confiscate 3.5m AR15 from legal private owners is simply living in an alternate reality. A more sensible approach would be to limit the age to 21 and above and make new owners get licensed and entered into the appropriate database.
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I still see no reason for anyone to own an AR15.
 
Il Prete Rosso said:
I still see no reason for anyone to own an AR15.
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I personally wouldn't own one either, but that doesn't address the reality that there are millions of them already in circulation that can't be taken back because they were legally bought by people who have no criminal backgrounds.
 
Raoul said:
I personally wouldn't own one either, but that doesn't address the reality that there are millions of them already in circulation that can't be taken back because they were legally bought by people who have no criminal backgrounds.
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Slaves were legally bought for decades by people who had no criminal backgrounds.
 
berbatrick said:
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If true this is nuts. The above reads as indentured servitude which was outlawed per the 13th amendment over 150 years ago!

Can you link to a full copy of the contract featuring this provision? I've had a google but I can't find anything further on this.
 
Eboue said:
It's relevant to your contention that we can't do anything about X because it was purchased legally by people with no criminal backgrounds.
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How about addressing the actual topic. Do you think it is realistic to repossess 10m legally purchased weapons in a country where gun ownership is codified into the national constitution?
 
Raoul said:
I personally wouldn't own one either, but that doesn't address the reality that there are millions of them already in circulation that can't be taken back because they were legally bought by people who have no criminal backgrounds.
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Buying guns legally in the US is always a grey area.
 
Eboue said:
You said they can't be taken back because they were legally bought. That is the topic and I addressed that.
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You left out the nuance of the debate. The people who already own the guns aren't going to give them back and the nation is not going to send agents into millions of households to repossess them. The most realistic scenario is that legal gun owners would be grandfathered in, which wouldn't resolve anything in terms of gun violence in schools. The honest thing to do would be to promote a repeal of the 2nd amendment and then allow the federal government regulate the strictness of gun laws based on society's needs.
 
Raoul said:
It is under current law and will continue to be the case until Heller is reversed by a non-GOP leaning SCOTUS, which may not happen for a generation or two.
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The second amendment ruling in the Heller vs DC never gave any individual citizen the right to keep or bear arms without any restrictions. This is false information that the GoP and the NRA is sprouting to convince people that it did. They lied and misused the ruling in the Heller vs DC case.

Here is a link that can inform you a little better about it: http://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-l...preme-court-the-second-amendment/dc-v-heller/

This is from the judgement of the supreme court case of Heller vs DC:

The Court provided examples of laws it considered “presumptively lawful,” including those which:
  • Prohibit firearm possession by felons and the mentally ill;
  • Forbid firearm possession in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings; and
  • Impose conditions on the commercial sale of firearms.
This means that the judgement did in no way make gun ownership an absolute right without conditions or restrictions and as such gun regulations is still allowed by the law and the supreme court. Many people have believes the nonsense from the GoP and the NRA as truth when it is blatantly false.
 
Red Viking said:
The second amendment ruling in the Heller vs DC never gave any individual citizen the right to keep or bear arms without any restrictions. This is false information that the GoP and the NRA is sprouting to convince people that it did. They lied and misused the ruling in the Heller vs DC case.

Here is a link that can inform you a little better about it: http://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-l...preme-court-the-second-amendment/dc-v-heller/

This is from the judgement of the supreme court case of Heller vs DC:

The Court provided examples of laws it considered “presumptively lawful,” including those which:
  • Prohibit firearm possession by felons and the mentally ill;
  • Forbid firearm possession in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings; and
  • Impose conditions on the commercial sale of firearms.
This means that the judgement did in no way make gun ownership an absolute right without conditions or restrictions and as such gun regulations is still allowed by the law and the supreme court. Many people have believes the nonsense from the GoP and the NRA as truth when it is blatantly false.
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It wasn't claimed that it made gun ownership an absolute right. However, if you have a SCOTUS that is still conservative, then you will get continued rulings that reinforce Heller and if there are subsequent bans on existing guns then that will be challenged and likely struck down by SCOTUS. But going back to the original point, even Scalia conceded that the 2nd amendment isn't absolute (tanks missiles, tommy guns etc), but you are just not going to have much luck getting assault weapons permanent banned if you have a right leaning SCOTUS.
 
Raoul said:
It wasn't claimed that it made gun ownership an absolute right. However, if you have a SCOTUS that is still conservative, then you will get continued rulings that reinforce Heller and if there are subsequent bans on existing guns then that will be challenged and likely struck down by SCOTUS. But going back to the original point, even Scalia conceded that the 2nd amendment isn't absolute (tanks missiles, tommy guns etc), but you are just not going to have much luck getting assault weapons permanent banned if you have a right leaning SCOTUS.
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You can actually ban assault weapons from civilian ownership without needing the approval of the supreme court as the supreme court has never ruled banning them unlawful. There are no current law forbidding making this ban at all. If such a ban comes to pass then someone likely will try to start a case against it in the court system and it can be incredibly difficult to get such a case all the way up to the supreme court. The supreme court can not just strike down an assault weapon ban like it is easy to do so even if 5 out of 9 are currently conservative. It is an incredible difficult and time consuming case to take on and would likely take a long time until an ruling happens in the supreme court.
 
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Red Viking said:
You can actually ban assault weapons from civilian ownership without needing the approval of the supreme court as the supreme court has never ruled banning them unlawful. There are no current law forbidding making this ban at all. If such a ban comes to pass then someone has and likely will try to start a case against it in the court system and it can be incredibly difficult to get such a case all the way up to the supreme court. The supreme court can not just strike down an assault weapon ban like it is easy to do so even if 5 out of 9 are currently conservative. It is an incredible difficult and time consuming case to take on and would likely take a long time until an ruling happens in the supreme court.
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True, but the cases could get to the Supreme Court especially after 8 years of Dubya and at least 4 years of Trump appointed conservative lower court judges that have been put into place. I personally think a 1994 type assault weapons ban that exempts certain weapons and grandfathers in existing legal owners could work, but that would require a full Democratic takeover of the House, Senate, and Presidency - which is very rare, and even if it happens it is highly unlikely they would push something like that through. Obama had his chance 9 years ago and it wasn't particularly high on the agenda with Obamacare on the table.
 
It might not work or someone might say no down the line so let's not even try. Gun violence is massive problem in this country and there is widespread popular support for more gun control. The way we go about it isn't by compromising with ourselves and letting interest groups chip away at it. There is a moral case to be made that resonates with the public and it's not "let's create another agency to design flowcharts to decide who gets which guns and how they can buy them and which exceptions will be carved out". It's not how you create meaningful change. It's how you create incrementalist policies that solves a fraction of the problem while creating another problem and convince people that it is futile to expect better things in their lives.
 
I honestly do think Americans needs gun. Specially those in rural areas for self protection.

But an assault rifle?

They should at least limit the calibre or something. There's one thing having a small firearm for protection, gearing yourself more than a swat team is another thing
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/affluenza-texan-killed-four-driving-drunk-released-100240236.html

FORT WORTH, Texas (Reuters) - A Texan who killed four people while driving drunk as a teen, then avoided prison by blaming his wealthy upbringing, was released from jail on Monday after serving nearly two years for violating probation in the case, officials said.

Ethan Couch garnered international attention in 2013 as the "affluenza teen" when his lawyers argued his privileged childhood impaired his ability to tell right from wrong.

Now 20, he walked free from a jail in Fort Worth, where he served time after fleeing to Mexico and then being found in violation of the probation he received for the fatal crash.

Couch was silent as he left the corrections facility with an attorney by his side. A black Tesla sedan whisked him away.
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His mother, Tonya Couch, 50, had been free on bond after being charged with helping her son flee to Mexico. But she was sent back to jail last week for violating her probation by failing a drug test, according to local law enforcement.
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If they weren't rich they'd die in jail or because of an overdose.
 
Sky1981 said:
I honestly do think Americans needs gun. Specially those in rural areas for self protection.

But an assault rifle?

They should at least limit the calibre or something. There's one thing having a small firearm for protection, gearing yourself more than a swat team is another thing
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Assault Rifles - as in fully automatic weapons - are more or less already banned. They are extremely difficult to get ahold of in the US.

The AR15, which is the target of all the controversy is semi-automatic, where you fire one shot, the bullet casing is ejected from the chamber, and another round is loaded. That also happens to be how handguns and many conventional rifles work, which tends to muddy perceptions of terms like 'assault rifle', since multiple forms of firearms work the same way.
 
Raoul said:
Assault Rifles - as in fully automatic weapons - are more or less already banned. They are extremely difficult to get ahold of in the US.

The AR15, which is the target of all the controversy is semi-automatic, where you fire one shot, the bullet casing is ejected from the chamber, and another round is loaded. That also happens to be how handguns and many conventional rifles work, which tends to muddy perceptions of terms like 'assault rifle', since multiple forms of firearms work the same way.
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It muddies nothing, semi-automatics like the AR-15 were the target of the Clinton era assault weapons ban. It's an assault rifle.
 
Ubik said:
It muddies nothing, semi-automatics like the AR-15 were the target of the Clinton era assault weapons ban. It's an assault rifle.
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Many conventional rifles and handguns also operate on the same principle of being semi-automatic. You fire a shot, the casing is expelled, another shot is chambered.
 
Raoul said:
Many conventional rifles and handguns also operate on the same principle of being semi-automatic. You fire a shot, the casing is expelled, another shot is chambered.
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And their being semi-auto wasn't the criterion used to ban them, so the comparison to handguns and other rifles is moot - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban - the point is they were classed as assault weapons, despite not being fully automatic.
 
Ubik said:
And their being semi-auto wasn't the criterion used to ban them, so the comparison to handguns and other rifles is moot - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban - the point is they were classed as assault weapons, despite not being fully automatic.
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Then there is no coherent definition of what an Assault Weapon is. In normal un-politiicized terms it refers to fully automatic weapons. Semi-Automatics aren't assault rifles as evidenced by the fact that the AR15 wasn't banned in the oft cited 1994 "Assault Weapons Ban", except for when it was completely tricked out with things like pistol grips and folding stocks. But without any add ons, it remained completely legal.
 
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ICE is moving to deport a veteran after Mattis assured that would not happen


Xilong Zhu, 27, who came from China in 2009 to attend college in the United States, enlisted in the Army and was caught in an immigration dragnet involving a fake university set up by the Department of Homeland Security to catch brokers of fraudulent student visas.

Zhu paid tuition to the University of Northern New Jersey, created by DHS to appear as a real school, long enough to ship to basic training using the legal status gained from a student visa issued to attend that school.
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berbatrick said:
Not deport. He's not a danger to people around him.
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But deportation doesn't happen because of a perceived threat though. Almost all of Cognizant employees are never a threat to anyone around them. Every single one of them will be deported if they overstayed their visa, never mind outright cheating the system by buying a fake degree. Even then, look at the scorn by someone like liberal Pete from Italy about how Indian techies abuse the system
 
fishfingers15 said:
But deportation doesn't happen because of a perceived threat though. Almost all of Cognizant employees are never a threat to anyone around them. Every single one of them will be deported if they overstayed their visa, never mind outright cheating the system by buying a fake degree. Even then, look at the scorn by someone like liberal Pete from Italy about how Indian techies abuse the system
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Yes, I think the system is broken.

Side note - this was a fake degree sold to him by the government - he was looking for a real school.
How Zhu got in his predicament is a strange, bureaucratic odyssey after he graduated from Beloit College in Wisconsin in 2013. He wanted to become a U.S. citizen, so he decided to enlist through the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) program that his father in China had read about. It trades expedited citizenship for language and medical skills in short supply among U.S.-born recruits.

The program was designed by Stock and implemented in 2009, with more than 10,000 troops rotating through since then.

But it was temporarily shelved at the time Zhu tried to enlist in 2013, so he needed a way to keep his status. U.S. Quickly, a company that provides education consultation to immigrants, told him that the University of Northern New Jersey was approved by DHS to authorize curricular practical training, a type of school credit for his work at Apple as a customer support technician.

DHS certified his studies, and he paid the university $8,000. He took his new I-20 form as proof of lawful status to obtain a driver’s license, Stock said, all while the sting operation fooled students. As part of Operation Triple Lindy, undercover agents posed as university administrators, and the school website promised “an exceptional educational experience.”
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I hope the cnut is heartbroken and his soon to be ex wife takes him for everything he has got, but you just know he is heart and soulless and couldn't give a feck.
 
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