(...)

If we had the "reasonable gun control" I keep hearing about, what guns would be limited? I'm arguably not a complete idiot, but I can't figure it out. I hear "nobody wants to take away all your guns" a lot — which seems demonstrably false — but what guns do gun-control advocates want to take away, or restrict? Most of the time I don't know and I suspect that the advocates don't know either.

That's because there's a terminology gap. Many people advocating for gun control mangle and misuse descriptive words about guns. No doubt some of them are being deliberately ambiguous, but I think most people just haven't educated themselves on the meaning of a relatively small array of terms. That's how you get a debate framed around gibberish like "multi-automatic round weapons" and the like. You get people using "semi-automatic" and "automatic" without knowing what they mean, and you get the term "assault weapon" thrown about as if it means more than whatever we choose to make it mean, which it does not.

(...)

Me: I don't want to take away dog owners' rights. But we need to do something about Rottweilers.
You: So what do you propose?
Me: I just think that there should be some sort of training or restrictions on owning an attack dog.
You: Wait. What's an "attack dog?"
Me: You know what I mean. Like military dogs.
You: Huh? Rottweilers aren't military dogs. In fact "military dogs" isn't a thing. You mean like German Shepherds?
Me: Don't be ridiculous. Nobody's trying to take away your German Shepherds. But civilians shouldn't own fighting dogs.
You: I have no idea what dogs you're talking about now.
Me: You're being both picky and obtuse. You know I mean hounds.
You: What the fuck.
Me: OK, maybe not actually ::air quotes:: hounds ::air quotes::. Maybe I have the terminology wrong. I'm not obsessed with vicious dogs like you. But we can identify kinds of dogs that civilians just don't need to own.
You: Can we?
(...)

I hear "my right not to be shot outweighs your right to own a gun." This strikes me as perfectly idiotic. But it's no more idiotic than an imagined right not to be criticized or offended, which is far more popular in modern America.

We've lost the plot. We don't know where rights come from, we don't know or care from whom they protect us, we don't know how to analyze proposed restrictions to them, and brick by brick we've built a culture that scorns rights in the face of real or imagined risks. It is therefore inevitable that talk about Second Amendment rights will be met with scorn or shrugs, and that discussions of what restrictions on rights are permissible will be mushy and unprincipled.

Last night the President of the United States — the President of the United States — suggested that people should be deprived of Second Amendment rights if the government, using secret criteria, in a secret process using secret facts, puts them onto a list that is almost entirely free of due process or judicial review. Because we're afraid, because they could be dangerous was his only justification; he didn't engage the due process issue at all. But he was merely sauntering down a smooth, comfortable, well-lit road paved by most Republicans and Democrats before him since the rise of "tough on crime" rhetoric and especially since 9/11. The President — and other Democrats — may hope that Americans will trust progressives not to overreach in restricting rights. That hope is patently misplaced; Democrats and mainstream progressives haven't been worth a squirt of hot piss on due process or criminal justice rights for more than a generation. In the Great War on Terror and the Great War on Drugs, they're like Bill Murray in Stripes: mildly counter-cultural and occasionally a little mouthy but enthusiastically using the same weapons in the same fight against the same perceived enemy.

Quote from: REMOVE on June 15, 2016, 12:02:44 AM

The problem is, there is no line for those interested in gun control. If we allow one inch to be taken without fighting tooth and nail, we'll lose everything. And I cannot abide that.

As someone interested in gun control, that just isn't true and can be said for just about every argument in any debate. It's just a slippery slope.

Quote from: 卐RIGHT WING DAS SQUAD卐 on June 15, 2016, 05:16:40 AM

Quote from: Flee on June 15, 2016, 05:05:21 AM

Quote from: REMOVE on June 15, 2016, 12:02:44 AM

The problem is, there is no line for those interested in gun control. If we allow one inch to be taken without fighting tooth and nail, we'll lose everything. And I cannot abide that.

As someone interested in gun control, that just isn't true and can be said for just about every argument in any debate. It's just a slippery slope.

The 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act has been the only real moment of legislative compromise from the left in over 80 years of gun control measures from the 1934 National Firearms Act.

That would only really be an argument if "the left" had made it abundantly clear that "pass laws banning literally all guns" was the end goal, which is something that isn't even the case in the Western countries with the strictest gun control. A few radicals (thanks Diane) aside, I doubt many actually support the complete confiscation and prohibition of firearms. Just because what they want goes beyond the current situation doesn't mean that there will never be an (in their eyes) satisfactory outcome that doesn't go as far as a complete ban on all firearms.

Besides, it's not as if "the right" has been that keen on compromising either. They may present the gun control laws passed as them compromising with the greedy left to save face and appear to be the better man, but in reality they just lost the legislative battle. Had they been in the position of power and obtained enough votes and public support to oppose the gun control laws so many republicans criticize, they never would've chose to "compromise" with the left but would've instead stopped these bills from passing.