Charlie Kirk shot in Utah

[Toni]

Re firearms … Someone clue me in - what is the objection to the Australian model? Not enough guns (for some noble purpose)?

Australians are free to do as they please; I take it you mean the objection to importing their model to the USA. And surely you're already quite familiar with the whole rule-of-law issue -- confiscating the guns is constitutional in Australia and unconstitutional here -- so I take it you just don't mind when your rulers act lawlessly as long as they're doing your will. So setting legality aside...

The Australian model, to sum up, is "After a horrific mass shooting, the government orders most Australians to turn in their guns, and almost all of them comply." So the obvious objection to importing that model is it's impossible to import it. If our government ordered most Americans to turn in their guns, a huge fraction of us would cop a "when you pry it from my cold dead fingers" attitude. There'd be about a hundred million resisters filing lawsuits or simply hiding their guns, and reporting them stolen if they were registered. Americans on average aren't as obedient as Australians. Our self-appointed betters can't even make us give up our pounds, gallons and miles.

Guns tell Americans - obey us, and Americans obey, as they are conditioned to obey. That is why they have the pledge and flag worship, all part of the conditioning. People of other nations do not have this conditioning to obey. You think if your government ordered you to to give up your guns you would resist - not based on current conduct of Americans who are cowering to governments at all levels.
RE: the two bolded sentences - they contradict each other; this is because the second one isn't true.
Do you think that during the Vietnam draft, that those who obeyed and became soldiers were lesser, and those that didn't were better? Do you just like Trump think soldiers are losers?
The italicized bit above is not meant to be taken literally BTW.

I wanted to edit my response above, but the option wasn't available to me. I am adding this next section.
You are treating disobedience as a virtue - the disobedient child, the disobedient rioters, the POTUS who disobeys the Constitution and court judges, etcetera.
Australians and Europeans love freedom and obedience. Americans are disobedient slaves.
Many people such as service people make oaths of obedience. Pilots obey Air Traffic Controllers. Law abiding citizens obey traffic laws, and so on.
So obedience like honour, duty, loyalty honesty, is a virtue. So, I will change my previous answer to say yeah we are more obedient and more anti-authoritarian than Americans, whilst Americans are disobedient and pro-authoritarian.

Not all or even most of us.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Re firearms … Someone clue me in - what is the objection to the Australian model? Not enough guns (for some noble purpose)?

Australians are free to do as they please; I take it you mean the objection to importing their model to the USA. And surely you're already quite familiar with the whole rule-of-law issue -- confiscating the guns is constitutional in Australia and unconstitutional here -- so I take it you just don't mind when your rulers act lawlessly as long as they're doing your will. So setting legality aside...

The Australian model, to sum up, is "After a horrific mass shooting, the government orders most Australians to turn in their guns, and almost all of them comply." So the obvious objection to importing that model is it's impossible to import it. If our government ordered most Americans to turn in their guns, a huge fraction of us would cop a "when you pry it from my cold dead fingers" attitude. There'd be about a hundred million resisters filing lawsuits or simply hiding their guns, and reporting them stolen if they were registered. Americans on average aren't as obedient as Australians. Our self-appointed betters can't even make us give up our pounds, gallons and miles.

Guns tell Americans - obey us, and Americans obey, as they are conditioned to obey. That is why they have the pledge and flag worship, all part of the conditioning. People of other nations do not have this conditioning to obey. You think if your government ordered you to to give up your guns you would resist - not based on current conduct of Americans who are cowering to governments at all levels.
RE: the two bolded sentences - they contradict each other; this is because the second one isn't true.
Do you think that during the Vietnam draft, that those who obeyed and became soldiers were lesser, and those that didn't were better? Do you just like Trump think soldiers are losers?
The italicized bit above is not meant to be taken literally BTW.

I wanted to edit my response above, but the option wasn't available to me. I am adding this next section.
You are treating disobedience as a virtue - the disobedient child, the disobedient rioters, the POTUS who disobeys the Constitution and court judges, etcetera.
Australians and Europeans love freedom and obedience. Americans are disobedient slaves.
Many people such as service people make oaths of obedience. Pilots obey Air Traffic Controllers. Law abiding citizens obey traffic laws, and so on.
So obedience like honour, duty, loyalty honesty, is a virtue. So, I will change my previous answer to say yeah we are more obedient and more anti-authoritarian than Americans, whilst Americans are disobedient and pro-authoritarian.

And don't forget most of the Gravy Seals who claim they want a civil war wouldn't even pass basic training + are cowards.

 

[Bomb#20]

 District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
...
The ruling overturned longstanding precedent. Seems to me that a fundamental constitutional right would not need to overturn a longstanding precedent, because such a fundamental right would have been understood.

Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia overturned longstanding precedents*. Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?

Yes. Regulation of firearms dates back to the Bill of Rights (if not earlier).

Neither if your examples comes close to that longevity. Loving v Virginia hadn’t been in effect for 50 years when it was overturned.

You're confused. Loving v Virginia was never overturned -- it's been the law of the land these last 58 years. The decision it overturned was Pace v Alabama, which had held that states could prohibit interracial marriage; Pace had been in effect for 84 years when it was overturned. Historical memory is myopic -- nowadays people often forget how recent the civil rights era was and how long the Jim Crow era lasted.

In Heller the SC upheld the lower court's ruling. The longstanding precedent to the effect that the 2nd Amendment is a so-called "collective right" that the DC Court of Appeals declined to conform to was a 1942 ruling by the 1st Circuit -- appellate courts contradict one another all the time. And not only is 66 years less than 84 years, but the longstanding precedent didn't even stand the 66 years until Heller -- the 5th and 9th Circuits had both put in their 2 cents' worth on the issue earlier. Predictably, the 5th said the right was individual and the 9th said it was collective. I.e., this whole "settled law" narrative the anti-Heller folks have been pushing misrepresents the situation -- case law was two-to-two in the appellate courts, and the SC had never ruled on the question.

As far as regulation of firearms dating back to the Bill of Rights if not earlier goes, that's beside the point. In the first place, Heller didn't prohibit regulation of firearms, only regulation so extreme it amounted to a ban. And in the second place, regulating back to the BoR was done by the states, not by the feds. The usual view through most of that history was that the Bill of Rights restrained the feds only, not the states. In the 1800s the SC repeatedly expressed the view that, sure, the 2nd Amendment was an individual right, but it didn't matter because it wasn't the feds violating someone's right to bear arms. The SC only began adopting the modern doctrine that the 14th Amendment means the BoR applies to the states in 1925 -- and they did it piecemeal, starting with free speech. So the whole notion that all those 1800s-era gun laws mean the 2nd Amendment is a collective right is anachronistic as heck.

 

[laughing dog]

 District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
...
The ruling overturned longstanding precedent. Seems to me that a fundamental constitutional right would not need to overturn a longstanding precedent, because such a fundamental right would have been understood.

Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia overturned longstanding precedents*. Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?

Yes. Regulation of firearms dates back to the Bill of Rights (if not earlier).

Neither if your examples comes close to that longevity. Loving v Virginia hadn’t been in effect for 50 years when it was overturned.

You're confused. Loving v Virginia was never overturned -- it's been the law of the land these last 58 years. The decision it overturned was Pace v Alabama, which had held that states could prohibit interracial marriage; Pace had been in effect for 84 years when it was overturned. Historical memory is myopic -- nowadays people often forget how recent the civil rights era was and how long the Jim Crow era lasted.

Pedantic correction noted, but my point stands.

In Heller the SC upheld the lower court's ruling. The longstanding precedent to the effect that the 2nd Amendment is a so-called "collective right" that the DC Court of Appeals declined to conform to was a 1942 ruling by the 1st Circuit -- appellate courts contradict one another all the time. ….

Unless you are arguing that Heller doesn’t apply to the states, your historical narrative doesn’t alter my point.

 

[Bomb#20]

I take it you just don't mind when your rulers act lawlessly as long as they're doing your will.

I have long admired the US Constitution for its adaptability. If our lawmakers used it properly, accommodations could be made within it to reduce the proliferation of firearms by law.

Certainly. Congress could perfectly well read the SC decisions and craft a law that restricts guns without de facto banning them; or it could pass a constitutional amendment repealing the 2nd Amendment and try to get the states to ratify it. But if it did so, that would be a home-grown American model, not the Australian model you asked about.

It’s our collective unwillingness that is perpetuating the bloodbath, not some supposed sanctity of private armories that must be preserved. We require a collective willingness to stem the tide.
Like, you know -Australia.

To be like Australia, American gun-owners would need a collective willingness to give up their guns without even a vote of Congress, just the president's executive order to his executive branch bureaucrats to cut off federal funds to any state that doesn't fall into line and enact whatever gun prohibition laws he tells them to. Do you know any American gun-owners like that?

I take it you would object to “well regulated militias” excluding gangs of violent trumpsuckers thugs riding around brandishing rifles in lifted trucks like the Taliban?
I call that a failure of imagination.

Correct -- that is a failure of your imagination. Why on earth would you take it I'd object to anything of the sort? What did I say that could possibly imply that? What, the only people you can imagine objecting to rule by lawless leftists want rule by lawless rightists instead?!?

There's already a SC case upholding prohibition of private paramilitaries, and the recent gun-rights cases didn't touch it. I'm all for well-regulation and I don't even object to repealing the Second Amendment as long as it's done by getting the consent of 38 states, rather than by the expedient of just lying about what it means and leaving it on the books as a dead letter.

Aside; my father kept guns. A hunting rifle, a shotgun, a couple of pistols … but became irate if we kids referred to any of them as “guns”.
As a WWI - WWII naval officer, “guns” referred to the monstrosities on the decks of destroyers and battleships. Not anything that could legally be used by civilians.

Thank you for his service. But good lord, WWI?!? He must have been like sixty when you were born!

 

[Bomb#20]

Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia overturned longstanding precedents*. Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?

Yes. Regulation of firearms dates back to the Bill of Rights (if not earlier).

Neither if your examples comes close to that longevity. Loving v Virginia hadn’t been in effect for 50 years when it was overturned.

You're confused. Loving v Virginia was never overturned -- it's been the law of the land these last 58 years. The decision it overturned was Pace v Alabama, which had held that states could prohibit interracial marriage; Pace had been in effect for 84 years when it was overturned. Historical memory is myopic -- nowadays people often forget how recent the civil rights era was and how long the Jim Crow era lasted.

Pedantic correction noted, but my point stands.

In Heller the SC upheld the lower court's ruling. The longstanding precedent to the effect that the 2nd Amendment is a so-called "collective right" that the DC Court of Appeals declined to conform to was a 1942 ruling by the 1st Circuit -- appellate courts contradict one another all the time. ….

Unless you are arguing that Heller doesn’t apply to the states, your historical narrative doesn’t alter my point.

To be pedantic, Heller doesn't apply to the states -- it's a DC case and DC law is 100% federal. But the writing was on the wall, and the SC later applied the same principles to the states, in McDonald v. City of Chicago. As I mentioned, the whole "BoR + 14th = states have to respect our rights" doctrine developed one right at a time over a hundred years; McDonald was when the 2nd Amendment got its turn. There are some rights it still hasn't gotten around to yet.

But as to whether it alters your point, it's not clear what your point even is. You were arguing with Emily about whether gun rights are fundamental, but since it turned out you say not even the right to equal protection of the law is fundamental, one has to wonder what you do think is fundamental. Maybe you and Emily just use the word "fundamental" for different concepts. Be that as it may, you said that right was understood differently for around 200 years until SCOTUS changed that understanding. That's not really what happened. The SCOTUS understood the right one way for over a hundred years, then some of the lower courts changed their understanding and the SCOTUS didn't do anything about it for several decades, and then the SCOTUS settled the controversy among the lower courts by saying the SCOTUS's original understanding had been correct all along. But a whole different issue had changed in the interim: the understanding of the limits of federal authority. If changing from "It's an individual right we can't violate but aren't authorized to enforce against states" to "It's an individual right we can't violate and are authorized to enforce against states" is something you want to call "understood differently", that's fine, but the same thing is true of freedom of the press, so your same argument implies freedom of the press isn't a fundamental right either. That makes it sound like your point amounts to "It's not a fundamental right because nothing is." In your mind, what does it take for something to be fundamental?

 

[Elixir]

American gun-owners would need a collective willingness

Yeah that’s the nut of it. Spend enough billions painting such willingness as “unamurkin” and you never have to worry about any “collective willingness” getting in the way of good old fashioned greed.

Correct -- that is a failure of your imagination.

Lulz! Perhaps the FACT that I have never seen you decry AR-brandishing trumpsuckers is limiting “my imagination”.

Thank you for his service. But good lord, WWI?!? He must have been like sixty when you were born!

He would have been 54 when I was born. He was taken into and rushed through some kind of officer training crash course fresh out of Yale in 1917 and put into service. He was 20 years older than my mom. They met at Treasure Island Naval Base during WWII where my mom was stationed as a WAVE.
Later, during the Korean War he volunteered and served as a CG officer.

 

[laughing dog]

Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia overturned longstanding precedents*. Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?

Yes. Regulation of firearms dates back to the Bill of Rights (if not earlier).

Neither if your examples comes close to that longevity. Loving v Virginia hadn’t been in effect for 50 years when it was overturned.

You're confused. Loving v Virginia was never overturned -- it's been the law of the land these last 58 years. The decision it overturned was Pace v Alabama, which had held that states could prohibit interracial marriage; Pace had been in effect for 84 years when it was overturned. Historical memory is myopic -- nowadays people often forget how recent the civil rights era was and how long the Jim Crow era lasted.

Pedantic correction noted, but my point stands.

In Heller the SC upheld the lower court's ruling. The longstanding precedent to the effect that the 2nd Amendment is a so-called "collective right" that the DC Court of Appeals declined to conform to was a 1942 ruling by the 1st Circuit -- appellate courts contradict one another all the time. ….

Unless you are arguing that Heller doesn’t apply to the states, your historical narrative doesn’t alter my point.

To be pedantic, Heller doesn't apply to the states -- it's a DC case and DC law is 100% federal. But the writing was on the wall, and the SC later applied the same principles to the states, in McDonald v. City of Chicago. As I mentioned, the whole "BoR + 14th = states have to respect our rights" doctrine developed one right at a time over a hundred years; McDonald was when the 2nd Amendment got its turn. There are some rights it still hasn't gotten around to yet.

More unnecessary pedantry that ironically buttresses my point.

But as to whether it alters your point, it's not clear what your point even is. You were arguing with Emily about whether gun rights are fundamental, but since it turned out you say not even the right to equal protection of the law is fundamental,

In response to your question in post #2483 of " Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?" I responded "Yes" in post #2496. IMO, that is clear and unequivocal answer to your question.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

 District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
...
The ruling overturned longstanding precedent. Seems to me that a fundamental constitutional right would not need to overturn a longstanding precedent, because such a fundamental right would have been understood.

Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia overturned longstanding precedents*. Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?

Yes. Regulation of firearms dates back to the Bill of Rights (if not earlier).

Neither if your examples comes close to that longevity. Loving v Virginia hadn’t been in effect for 50 years when it was overturned.

Loving v Virginia over-ruled a Virginia law that forbade inter-racial marriage and criminalized getting married out of state and punishing both parties (that "equal protection" was the justification that the law was legal in the SCOTUS trial by Virginia). It has not yet been over-ruled, but Clarence Thomas has high hopes.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

 District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
...
The ruling overturned longstanding precedent. Seems to me that a fundamental constitutional right would not need to overturn a longstanding precedent, because such a fundamental right would have been understood.

Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia overturned longstanding precedents*. Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?

(* The longstanding precedents that had upheld segregation and prohibition of interracial marriage.)

Are we really comparing the outright violation of equal protection as it regards segregation with the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment?

Precedence was broken in Brown v BoE because Plessy v Ferguson was supremely fucked up. SCOTUS ruled 9-0 to make it "damn clear" that "this shit" should be over and "...buried tits up". It has been a while since I read the decision, so those quotes might be paraphrases. There was substantial generational harm being done in America via segregation and the Constitution itself didn't condone that. Just a 19th Century Supreme Court bench and a lot of bigotry. Violations of equal protection wasn't quite the issue for Heller.

 

[Bomb#20]

Loving v Virginia over-ruled a Virginia law that forbade inter-racial marriage and criminalized getting married out of state and punishing both parties (that "equal protection" was the justification that the law was legal in the SCOTUS trial by Virginia). It has not yet been over-ruled, but Clarence Thomas has high hopes.

If that's literal it's surprising, since CT is married to a white woman; but Alito certainly resurrected the same long-discredited legal argument in his dissent from a gay rights decision.

 District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
...
The ruling overturned longstanding precedent. Seems to me that a fundamental constitutional right would not need to overturn a longstanding precedent, because such a fundamental right would have been understood.

Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia overturned longstanding precedents*. Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?

(* The longstanding precedents that had upheld segregation and prohibition of interracial marriage.)

Are we really comparing the outright violation of equal protection as it regards segregation with the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment?

No, we're comparing the length of time that the old precedents stayed in force before they were overturned. Heller rejected a 66-year-old interpretation; BvBoE rejected a 58-year-old interpretation; Loving rejected an 84-year-old interpretation. LD implied a right can't be fundamental if denial of that right had stood too long; I disagreed -- I think there's no limit to how long judges can manage to keep breathing with their heads up their asses. What do you think? Do you think equal protection can't be fundamental because if it were fundamental then it wouldn't have been misunderstood for 84 years?

Precedence was broken in Brown v BoE because Plessy v Ferguson was supremely [misguided]. There was substantial generational harm being done in America via segregation and the Constitution itself didn't condone that. Just a 19th Century Supreme Court bench and a lot of bigotry.

Not sure what the antecedent of "that" is. If you mean the Constitution doesn't condone segregation, you're exactly right. If you mean the Constitution doesn't condone substantial generational harm, sure it does. Whether a practice is doing too much harm to be continued is a Congress question, not a SCOTUS question, although our current SCOTUS apparently doesn't know the difference and thinks it's a House of Lords.

Violations of equal protection wasn't quite the issue for Heller.

Of course it wasn't -- Heller concerned 2nd Amendment violations, not 14th Amendment violations. Doesn't change the fact that the SCOTUS is perfectly able to stay idiotic for 84 years straight.

 

[Bomb#20]

But as to whether it alters your point, it's not clear what your point even is. You were arguing with Emily about whether gun rights are fundamental, but since it turned out you say not even the right to equal protection of the law is fundamental,

In response to your question in post #2483 of " Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?" I responded "Yes" in post #2496. IMO, that is clear and unequivocal answer to your question.

Yes, that's what I said you said. I disagree -- I think equal protection of the law is a fundamental right. But my opinion is beside the point -- this is about you and Emily. Why should Emily or anyone else think your argument that gun rights aren't fundamental rights matters, when it comes from a guy who thinks not even equal protection is a fundamental right? Your personal bar for fundamental rights looks like it's overly limited.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

 District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
...
The ruling overturned longstanding precedent. Seems to me that a fundamental constitutional right would not need to overturn a longstanding precedent, because such a fundamental right would have been understood.

Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia overturned longstanding precedents*. Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?

(* The longstanding precedents that had upheld segregation and prohibition of interracial marriage.)

Are we really comparing the outright violation of equal protection as it regards segregation with the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment?

No, we're comparing the length of time that the old precedents stayed in force before they were overturned. Heller rejected a 66-year-old interpretation; BvBoE rejected a 58-year-old interpretation; Loving rejected an 84-year-old interpretation. LD implied a right can't be fundamental if denial of that right had stood too long; I disagreed -- I think there's no limit to how long judges can manage to keep breathing with their heads up their asses. What do you think? Do you think equal protection can't be fundamental because if it were fundamental then it wouldn't have been misunderstood for 84 years?

You are asking the wrong question. Precedence matters because it provides stability and elasticity. When overriding precedence, there generally needed to be a very important reason to do so, because otherwise the interpretation of law becomes plastic and breakable and worst of all... partisan. In general, between 1950 and 2004 or so, SCOTUS has broken precedence to expand access to civil rights. In general, the idea that a law has stood a certain way for a period of time implies a not broken / don't fix it sort of thing. Yes, SCOTUS has erred. Yes, mistakes can last a long while.

Regarding whether a right is fundamental feels like a red herring. Gun ownership was higher during the stretch of the SCOTUS precedence broken in Heller et al. than it is currently is now. This implies the rights as noted in the 2nd Amendment weren't being starved from the people. So what exactly was broken that needed to be fixed?

Precedence was broken in Brown v BoE because Plessy v Ferguson was supremely [misguided]. There was substantial generational harm being done in America via segregation and the Constitution itself didn't condone that. Just a 19th Century Supreme Court bench and a lot of bigotry.

Not sure what the antecedent of "that" is. If you mean the Constitution doesn't condone segregation, you're exactly right. If you mean the Constitution doesn't condone substantial generational harm, sure it does.

Harm is crucial when it comes to lawsuits. No harm, no standing, no case. Well, that was how it was working for a long while. This SCOTUS is charging even that.

The harm from segregation was generational, which is why SCOTUS decided to act firmly in Brown v BoE.

Whether a practice is doing too much harm to be continued is a Congress question, not a SCOTUS question, although our current SCOTUS apparently doesn't know the difference and thinks it's a House of Lords.

I think you are conflating a number of things here. Harm is most certainly a judicial thing. People go exclusively to court to manage harm.

 

[laughing dog]

But as to whether it alters your point, it's not clear what your point even is. You were arguing with Emily about whether gun rights are fundamental, but since it turned out you say not even the right to equal protection of the law is fundamental,

In response to your question in post #2483 of " Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?" I responded "Yes" in post #2496. IMO, that is clear and unequivocal answer to your question.

Yes, that's what I said you said. I disagree -- I think equal protection of the law is a fundamental right. But my opinion is beside the point -- this is about you and Emily. Why should Emily or anyone else think your argument that gun rights aren't fundamental rights matters, when it comes from a guy who thinks not even equal protection is a fundamental right? Your personal bar for fundamental rights looks like it's overly limited.

I apologize. I saw “fundamental” not “nonfundamental”. I think equal protection is a fundamental right.

 

[Emily Lake]

Once more, here you are intentionally misrepresenting my views. Why do you seem to believe that if you engage in a disinformation campaign, it will alter actual reality?

How about you tell the truth?

Is that an “I know you are but what am I?” or just a “nuh uh”?

It's a "stop making things up and repeating them over and over"

 

[Emily Lake]

Open carry of long guns is legal in *most* of the US, although it's usually (not always) prohibited in major cities for the rather obvious reason that it makes normal people get creeped out.

So were you just being needlessly, ridiculously, disingenuously argumentative when you made the stupid 'what she was wearing' brain fart when I said the same thing?

Not at all. It makes normal people get creeped out, sure - but it absolutely does NOT justify preemptive assault because guns are scary.

In exactly the same way, a sexy woman in revealing clothing will make normal red-blooded men take note and think about sex... but it absolutely does NOT justify them acting on that arousal.

 

[Emily Lake]

Your options facing down a semi-automatic are fewer than a revolver. Then there is the damage by the bullet.

Because six bullets from a pistol somehow do more damage than six bullets from a revolver? It takes the same amount of time to pull the trigger six times for both, you know that, don't you? Are you imagining that all revolvers are old-west single actions?

My meager understanding of magazines for semi-automatic weapons is that 6 bullets is the minimum number in a magazine. Depending on whether the weapon is a handgun or a rifle, magazines can hold much more than 6 bullets. Some revolvers can hold up to 9 bullets (at least that is my understanding).

My point is that your response ignores the basic point that semi-automatic weapons typically have a larger capacity for bullets which allows a shooter to shoot MORE BULLETS than the typical revolver. More bullets mean more potential damage.

That might be your point, not sure it's Jimmy's point.

In your case, the issue is capacity... which has virtually nothing at all to do with the firearm being semi-automatic.

 

[Emily Lake]

That may be, and if so that would reflect poorly on him indeed. But there is a world of difference between saying someone is indifferent to someone else being killed and suggesting that 'all people in category X DESERVE to die violet deaths' !

Well, I would suggest there's also a world of difference between not caring if a child dies and not caring if an adult dies, that's my opinion though.

Here, let me break your brain.

I don't care if some random child half a continent away dies. And neither do you. At best, you have some philosophical notion of such a death possibly being an injustice - and you care about justice. But you don't know the kid, you have no personal connection to them. You don't actually really care. You're not grieving for that child's death - at best you're using that child's death as a hammer so you can pound on whatever point you're trying to win. But you don't feel any real emotion for the death of that child.

Seriously, it's vital to mental well being and personal honesty to understand that you can care about a cause or about justice without actually caring about the individual people involved. If you can't maintain that separation, it'll drive you mad.

 

[Toni]

 District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
...
The ruling overturned longstanding precedent. Seems to me that a fundamental constitutional right would not need to overturn a longstanding precedent, because such a fundamental right would have been understood.

Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia overturned longstanding precedents*. Do you consider equal protection of the law to be a nonfundamental constitutional right?

Yes. Regulation of firearms dates back to the Bill of Rights (if not earlier).

Neither if your examples comes close to that longevity. Loving v Virginia hadn’t been in effect for 50 years when it was overturned.

Loving v Virginia over-ruled a Virginia law that forbade inter-racial marriage and criminalized getting married out of state and punishing both parties (that "equal protection" was the justification that the law was legal in the SCOTUS trial by Virginia). It has not yet been over-ruled, but Clarence Thomas has high hopes.

Which is interesting. He could just divorce his wife.

 

[Emily Lake]

I'm not even a conservative though! It's intensely frustrating,

It is was a free country; you can call yourself whatever you fancy.
I s’pose not worshiping Trump makes you a screaming lib’rul in his book.
Requiring legal oversight/second opinions on emergency abortions

That's a false statement with respect to my views.

and allowing punks carrying loaded rifles to demonstrations

You mean, allowing people to do legal things?

and shoot people with impunity

Again, a false statement with respect to my views.

might just make you a xenophobic conservotard to others.
My opinion is just my opinion, based on a presumably small sample of Emily. Don’t take it so hard.

It's a sample of your frothing imagination, not a reflection of reality.