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For Those NOT Lifetime NRA Members - O'Rourke's Comment

O'Rourke's words were

  • Total voters
    85
lurchadams said:
You're just wrong. The Dems kowtow to the NRA just as the GOP does.
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If that was true then New York, Illinois, California and Connecticut wouldn't have been able to pass all the anti-2nd amendment laws they did.

If I'm wrong, why didn't the Dems grab all guns during the Obama administration?
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Because democrats didn't want a repeat of 1994 where they got their asses handed to them after passing the Brady Assault weapons ban. Sure Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, and Chuck Schumer can vote yes for such bans because they live in safe districts. This was despite a so called poll that said the majority of Americans wanted gun control like that.
 
TurtleDude said:
why are you two fighting? At close range, a shotgun with the proper loads is the single most devastating weapon most civilians can obtain.
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I wouldn't argue the point. It wasn't the jist of my response either, because I believe we should be able to keep all our options. He thinks shotguns are good enough for us.
 
Parrish said:
Sorry. We the people are fed up. As I said before the times they are a-changin'. You're on the wrong side.
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Your fedupness is irrelevant. You want to change the Constitution, propose a change the right way. Frankly I don't think you even know what that means.
 
Waddy said:
I'd rather face an AR15 than a shotgun at close range. I've seen first hand what both can do. Maybe you need to educate yourself some.
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He okay with banning one weapon so he can use another, I'm not. He reasoning for being okay with it is flawed.
 
bearpoker said:
I favor reasonable gun laws I want something done to curb mass shootings. I don't favor confiscating firearms from responsible, law abiding citizens. That part just isn't right.
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And what if you can't stop school shootings unless you confiscate guns from "responsible (how do you know they're responsible?), law abiding (most people actually aren't, it's almost impossible to be law abidign) citizens"?
 
vegas giants said:
That is a giant loophole
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No it isn't, there is no twisting of the law necessary to arrive at that conclusion. It just isnt' required. Go look it up.
 
American said:
No it isn't, there is no twisting of the law necessary to arrive at that conclusion. It just isnt' required. Go look it up.
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It's a loophole in the law just like a tax loophole is a legal way to avoid tax
 
Dragonfly said:
What are your thoughts on his comment?
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My observations:

Both sides are happy Rep. O'Rourke came out and said it, whether wildly supportive or vehemently opposed.

The comment itself isn't insane (and I didn't vote for "insane"), but actually trying to implement the policy would be. If the courts didn't revolt, the states would. If the states didn't, the law enforcement agencies would. If the law enforcement agencies didn't, the citizens would. The citizens would resist confiscation to the point of death. Confiscation is their Maginot Line. It always has been. You'd wind up with thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of dead law enforcement officers and otherwise law-abiding citizens before the ban was inevitably repealed.

The comment itself isn't insane because it's not sincere. It's the statement of a man looking for a spark to ignite his flagging campaign, and possibly position himself for future campaigns.
 
TurtleDude said:
So you think society is better off if 40 million Americans-people who have clean records-are all told they are felons if they don't give up guns they have never used to harm anyone?
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I think you and others competitively shooting enormous guns with the potential to kill hundreds of people in a matter of minutes is not worth really terrible people having guns with the potential to kill hundreds of people in a matter of minutes. I wouldn't make it a felony to own a gun that has been banned, I would make it a misdemeanor to refuse to participate in a buyback (which I would implement very slowly over the course of decades). The way I see it, you could regulate this in a way such that you'd probably have the gun in your cold, dead hands before the government ever got it.
 
Glitch said:
A firearm is nothing more than a tool. How a tool looks is immaterial to its function. The AR is a platform upon which a variety of different tools have been fashioned. The original M16 sprang into being from that AR platform. Today you can get just about any caliber you want using the AR platform, including shotguns. It is certainly not government's place to determine which tools I have the right to purchase, manufacture, use, or possess. Those are choices I get to make, not you, not government, just me.

Any restrictions or regulations concerning firearms is an infringement against my individual right, and therefore unconstitutional. There is also a limit on what Congress can require from the States. The Supreme Court has already admonished Congress for attempting universal background checks, since they cannot require the States to enforce federal law. Congress was trying to violate the Tenth Amendment in their attempts to violate the Second Amendment, and got slapped down hard by the Supreme Court.
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You've been properly brainwashed I see. All the talking points. Children can't own guns, that's unconstitutional then isn't it?
 
cpwill said:
:) You are confusing "terrorism" with "insurgency". Our own Revolutionary war started because of a government gun-grab (the British were going after cannon and powder).
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No, Will, that's not what started our revolution. The British taxed us without representation and refused to address the colonials' concerns.

1. Doing something that is UnConstitutional is not justified by others claiming that they also want to do something that is UnConstitutional. I recognize, however, that the argument you are actually making here is that this charge is made in bad faith, as some Trump supporters (and not all) are willing to prioritize policy goals over Constitutional restrictions on government in general and the Executive in particular.

2. However, thank you for differentiating between myself and them. Doing so left you in a bind, however, since the Constitutionality critique here is coming from me and, should anyone ever try to push this through, very likely from the Courts. So, your claim that, because Trump fans may be making this argument in bad faith, you don't have to answer it, fails by your own standard.
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1. I think we are in agreement here.

2. Answering Trump supporters' version of challenging O'Rourke's alleged constitutionality of his "I want to take your guns" comment vs. answering yours are two separate matters, I will grant you that. But they have a real problem with trying to find the specks in our eyes with planks such as theirs, so I was right to stonewall them.

As we know, unpacking the Second Amendment and its right to maintain a militia is a can of worms. Why is it constitutional to ban fully automatics but unconstitutional to ban semiautos? What did the founders have to say about magazine limits? The only way I think we can properly answer these kinds of questions is to recognize that the Constitution is neither a "dead document" nor a "living document" but a framework. It is a framework with tight but subjective restrictions. Even Scalia himself said as such in Heller.
 
I asked this earlier, never got an honest answer.

Are the Ar-15 and AK-47 weapons platforms the only way one can protect their homes, families, and/or themselves?

Or, are there plenty of other weapons just as capable of self-defense and protection?
 
Dragonfly said:
I realize this won't matter to some, but I'd prefer that those of you who are die-hard, when you pry my cold dead hands off it, gun loving lifetime NRA members, that you'd refrain from responding to this thread and/or poll. We all already know how you'll respond. I'm looking for the thoughts of those who are not so predictable.

I want to know how the "regular" folks in America have reacted to Beto O'Rouke's comment in Debate #3.

You know, this one:


Do you find it frightening?
Intriguing?
Refreshing?
Alarming?
Anti-American?
Unconstitutional?
Brave?
Ignorant?

Something else?

If you're not one of the 6-12 folks we have here who go ballistic at the mere mention of gun control I'd like to know:
What are your thoughts on his comment?

Are you scared it might be the catalyst for 4 more years of Trump and Republican dominance?
Or do you believe most of the American public is ready for an approach that radical?
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I definitely fit into your criteria. I've never owned a gun, never shot a gun, don't ever intend to do either, and used to be gung-ho anti-guns and donated to anti-gun groups regularly. But, my thinking has changed considerably since 09/11. The left seem to be for letting criminals out of jail to victimize law abiding citizens over and over and over again, often using guns that they supposedly shouldn't have. The left seem to naively believe that we can keep guns out of the hands of not only the criminals that are running around loose but also the criminals that the left want to let out. It's just plain stupid insanity. And, if you really analyze the common sense gun control legislation that the left wants, it would not have prevented 99% of the mass shootings we have had.

As far as Beto goes, we have tons of assault weapons out there in circulation already. Criminals don't obey laws, that's why they are criminals. If you ban assault weapons and have forced buybacks, you will be taking away law abiding citizens' (who have second amendment rights) assault weapons, leaving only the bad guys with assault weapons because they aren't going to obey the law and turn them in. The simple naive logic of the left literally doesn't add up.
 
Dragonfly said:
I asked this earlier, never got an honest answer.

Are the Ar-15 and AK-47 weapons platforms the only way one can protect their homes, families, and/or themselves?

Or, are there plenty of other weapons just as capable of self-defense and protection?
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It is not just about Ar-15 and AK-47, the goal of the people who would remove the second amendment, is the removal of all guns.
The purpose of the second amendment is not solely about protecting homes and families,
but also having the citizens armed against threats against our rights, both foreign and domestic.
 
longview said:
It is not just about Ar-15 and AK-47, the goal of the people who would remove the second amendment, is the removal of all guns.
The purpose of the second amendment is not solely about protecting homes and families,
but also having the citizens armed against threats against our rights, both foreign and domestic.
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What percentage of the overall population of the USofA do you think wants to "remove all guns"?

Give us some indication.

2%?

80%?

All democrats?
 
Dragonfly said:
What percentage of the overall population of the USofA do you think wants to "remove all guns"?

Give us some indication.

2%?

80%?

All democrats?
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Less than 1%
 
Moderate Right said:
The simple naive logic of the left literally doesn't add up.
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Praying for things to change (in terms of mass shootings and gun violence in general) fixes absolutely nothing.

The simple naive logic of the right literally doesn't add up.
 
Dragonfly said:
What percentage of the overall population of the USofA do you think wants to "remove all guns"?

Give us some indication.

2%?

80%?

All democrats?
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Hmm... how is Beto doing in the polls?
 
Dragonfly said:
I asked this earlier, never got an honest answer.

Are the Ar-15 and AK-47 weapons platforms the only way one can protect their homes, families, and/or themselves?

Or, are there plenty of other weapons just as capable of self-defense and protection?
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That is a silly question much like: Is having a variety of vehicles for folks to choose among a good idea or should the government decide what is 'good enough' and allow only those vehicles to be owned? IMHO, a good rule of thumb would be - what guns do LEOs find necessary for use against criminal threats and for their own personal defense?
 
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