New York Pistol Permit Owner List Leaked 899
An anonymous reader writes "On Friday, The Journal News caved under pressure of gun advocates and shut down the interactive maps which contained the names and addresses of licensed gun owners in upstate New York. The maps are still visible on the site, however they are simply static images. The Journal News published the interactive maps on December 23 which caused significant backlash. In a similar move, Gawker published the names of licensed gun owners in New York City without addresses. New York state Senator Greg Ball (Republican) called the removal of the data a 'huge win.' On Saturday, an anonymous user leaked the raw data used to build The Journal News maps."
rob this person for guns here (Score:3, Insightful)
i have to say i agree
all a criminal would have to do is sit there wait till you leave and go get a few
Or the reverse (Score:3)
Re:Or the reverse (Score:5, Insightful)
Either way, it's really not anyone's business. Should we also be putting people's personal information online for current driver's license holders?
What if one of those women holding a CHL did so owing to death threats from a jealous ex? They just put her life in danger.
Or, if you want to up the "obnoxious" factor, what if they published the names and addresses of women who have had abortions?
"Outing" people is a really low political tactic and needs to be illegal.
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Either way, it's really not anyone's business. Should we also be putting people's personal information online for current driver's license holders?
What if one of those women holding a CHL did so owing to death threats from a jealous ex? They just put her life in danger.
I don't see how her ex knowing she has a gun puts her life in danger. If anything, it would probably act as deterrent to the jealous ex.
Or, if you want to up the "obnoxious" factor, what if they published the names and addresses of women who have had abortions?
"Outing" people is a really low political tactic and needs to be illegal.
Medical records are already protected by law. There is no public record kept and the private records are protected by law.
"Outing" people is free speech in action. Sometimes it's not pretty.
What categories of outing would you ban in your nanny state? What if I out a business's record of consumer complaints? Is that an obnoxious action or a public service? What I I o
Re:Or the reverse (Score:5, Insightful)
Any category of outing where the information is only available because of the nanny state in the first place.
There isn't a database of permit holders because some marketing person decided to figure out who they can best sell gun range memberships to. There's a database because the government--you know, the same nanny state you're talking about--forcibly collected the information in the first place under threat of jail. If the government collects the information against people's will, it's not "nanny state" to prevent them from doing even more harm by releasing it. Anyone who really objects to a nanny state wouldn't want the government collecting the information to begin with, and if they didn't collect the information, nobody would be able to out anyone using it.
Its the address (Score:3)
How long till some on in this group sue the news paper for the costs of relocation - a nice little earner for the legal profession.
Re:Or the reverse (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no public interest knowing if a woman has had an abortion.
Unfortunately, there are many people who disagree with you on this.
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Re:Or the reverse (Score:5, Insightful)
And what would knowing do for you? Your neighbor, instead of hiding the fact that he has weapons like criminals do, follows the law and registers his legally obtained weapons. This information is already available to see. What people are mad about is when some asshat decides to conveniently collect all of this information so that only criminals have a use for it. Oh, criminals and idiots who think law-abiding citizens should be ostracized or treated differently because they are exercising their rights and acting in a responsible manner.
Re:Or the reverse (Score:4, Informative)
And what would knowing do for you? Your neighbor, instead of hiding the fact that he has weapons like criminals do, follows the law and registers his legally obtained weapons. This information is already available to see. What people are mad about is when some asshat decides to conveniently collect all of this information so that only criminals have a use for it. Oh, criminals and idiots who think law-abiding citizens should be ostracized or treated differently because they are exercising their rights and acting in a responsible manner.
Exactly!
The claim and exercise of a Constitutional Right cannot converted into a crime" Miller v. U.S. 230 F.2d 486 (1956) [resource.org]. But in New York, for example, they have done just that. If I were a gun owner in New York, I'd refuse to comply, based on the Supremacy of the 2nd Amendment. New York's law is clearly unconstitutional under the U.S. Constitution.
BTW, Certain members of Slashdot that want to get rid of all guns not owned by the government would do well to read this page [mgoa.com]; but they won't...
Re:Or the reverse (Score:5, Insightful)
You can only have pacifism, because someone else has a gun. That gun is not necessarily the shotgun I use for squirrel hunting on Saturdays. It is the gun that the Marine carries every day in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Germany, or the Azores, or anywhere else our troops have gone, and died to. Peace is a great thing to wish for, but someone else has to be put in harm's way for you to acheive it. Had it not been for guns, the world would be a much different place right now. We would still be honoring Queen Elizabeth as our monarch. It's even possible that some of us would still be the property of the rich people.
You may not like guns, and that's fine. But don't forget all the good that people wielding guns have done in the world. And don't forget all the evil that men wielding guns have done in this world either.
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In fact, in this age of our country, they have chosen to go into our military voluntarily so that our pacifist friends don't have to.
Many chose to go into our military to get free college. Not only did many of them not actually get it (I know too many enlisted and former enlisted to be bullshitted on this account) or appropriate health care for injuries or disorders sustained or developed during their tour but their enlistment is what makes it possible for the USA to project power unilaterally around the globe — and look at what we use it for.
not every member of our society needs to take on the moral burden of killing others, even if it is for a justified purpose.
Killing someone is right near the bottom of my list, but permitting someone to harm me or
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Of course, odds are good that even if you have a firearm you won't be able to actually protect someone with it.
If you have a gun, and it is loaded and ready to use when someone assults you, your family or your home the difference between having the gun taken away from you or it being used to defend you, your family and your home is training. Owning a gun without any sort of training is like owing a cyclotron - ok so you have one, now what do you do with it? Keeping it in a box on a high shelf and not knowing what to do with it is useless.
So owning a gun isn't all that important. Having sufficient training to pick
Re:Or the reverse (Score:5, Informative)
If you're going to tell the story, tell the WHOLE story. ... ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God, awaiting the day that God gives him the nod to come BACK to earth as the Avenger.
The Christ you speak of is not a pacifist, per se. He paid the price to win his Father's approval, and to satisfy the Law.
Believe the story or not, believe in God or not, that's your choice, but if you're going to tell the story, tell the entire story. This is the problem with so many "Christian" cults - they cut and paste parts of the story, to suit their own purposes.
If Christ really does descend from Heaven again, that fruitcake Muhammed is going to look like a candy ass child, in comparison with what the Christ does.
Re:Or the reverse (Score:4, Insightful)
Right back at ya! Knowing who has had an abortion would enable me to know who not to trade with, who not to vote for, and where not to live.
I can vote with my feet and with my wallet, and my votes go for life.
Re:Or the reverse (Score:4, Insightful)
Idealists survive on the backs of realists (Score:3)
You are a pacifist only because there are others willing to use violence to keep the peace. Without them, you would continually be on the move in search of safe neighborhoods as crime areas expand.
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I don't understand what pacifism has to do with guns...
I don't own a gun to shoot people. I own a gun to shoot paper. Is shooting paper somehow not pacifist?
Re:Or the reverse (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a pacifist too, but I have no beef with private ownership of firearms. Do you believe in arming the police? Is that anti-pacifistic? It seems like police carrying guns to protect society from violent people is no different than society itself carrying guns to protect themselves from aggression.
Pacifism doesn't mean not being armed; it means not being aggressive.
Re:Or the reverse (Score:5, Insightful)
We're not talking about the broader scale of one nation attacking another nation here. We're talking about neighborhoods. At the neighborhood level, safe communities very rarely meet aggressive, violent people. Therefore, people living in safe communities rarely feel the need to own firearms for personal protection.
If I were buying a house, I would see high gun ownership in a neighborhood as a very bad sign, because it means that a large percentage of the people live in constant fear for their lives. It is an indicator of insufficient police protection, gang activity, drug activity, or other serious problems. It is not the only indicator (bars on windows are another good one), but it is a good indicator.
But even if that correlation did not exist, a high number of gun owners would still be a red flag. There's a reason we create police forces and military forces. They represent an elite group of people with the proper training and psychological stability to use firearms for the public good. They are actively monitored for psychological problems, they are trained to distinguish friend from foe, and they are trained to store their service weapons properly.
By contrast, out of those registered gun owners, assuming they represent a random sampling of the population, 26.2% will "suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year." (Source: NIH [nih.gov]) Most of them lack any formal training. And their weapons are probably stored in their bedside tables, fully loaded, just waiting to be stolen and used by someone who didn't pass a background check.
So yeah, there's a very real public interest to having that information. That said, I don't agree with the GP that it should be used when deciding who to buy from or other such nonsense. The individual data points are uninteresting (except when you meet someone, conclude that he or she is nuts, and then find out that he or she owns a firearm). It is mostly in aggregate that the information is relevant.
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You're right that an area with lots of concealed-carry permits is probably an area where mostly retired LEOs live, which is probably low crime. However, nothing in the summary or the linked articles leads me to believe that the list is limited to concealed-carry permits. In New York state, AFAIK, all handgun possession requires a permit, even if it never leaves the premises. Therefore, one would expect most of the permits on that list to not be concealed carry.
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Can't have Ghandi without Great Britain, sad to say. He most likely would have died young, and as a nobody, had he done the exact same thing while under the rule of another country.
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Gandhi isn't a good example. He was opposed to the Arms Act which disarmed native Indians, and understood that violence in defense was perfectly acceptable if the alternative was abject cowardice (as opposed to reasoned pacifism, which is anything but).
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Re:Or the reverse (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty much this. Most people watch far too many hollywood movies. Burglar's goal is stealing your stuff with as little risk as possible.
That means that #1 rule of any decent burglar is to enter when there's no one at home. That's why they employ countless techniques, such as calling, ringing the bell and so on before trying to enter.
Real methods of fighting burglars usually involve either convincing them you're home when you're not, or getting security setup that makes them think they have a high chance of getting detected during the crime.
Re:Or the reverse (Score:5, Insightful)
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These statistics are either cooked, completely ignore the elephant in the room while focusing on the fly on the wall or just plain pulled out of your ass. It's a widely known fact that somewhere between 80 and 95 percent of all rapes happen inside family and friends circles. This is when going by modern Western model of rape, which counts raping family member and such as rape, and is fairly common regardless of culture. For example, Brazil has recently amended its rape law to include these, and has observed
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No true Scotsman fallacy.
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Then OBVIOUSLY, the government shouldn't be in control of the information. This is one of many databases that simply never should have been compiled. It's none of the government's business who owns weapons, how many, or what kind, and it's none of your business either.
Re:Or the reverse (Score:5, Insightful)
Anarchist gun nut? I don't get it. Oh - you're just name calling, because you don't have an argument of any type to offer. I get it now. Cool, I guess, 'cause it means I win.
Let's analyze that name though. Anarchist? Hardly. I'm more of an authoritarian, than I am an anarchist. I'm more of a socialist than an anarchist too, as far as that goes. I LIKE the idea of government. I like the idea of government controlling nutcases, criminals, illegal aliens, and more. What I DO NOT LIKE, is the government infringing on the lives of law abiding citizens.
Gun nut? Maybe we need to define "gun nut". To me, a gun is a tool. Like any other tool, it has limited uses. You don't use a hammer to clean windows, you don't use a gun to clean windows, you don't use a screwdriver to clean windows - all of these tools would cause more destruction than a window cleaner can tolerate. I'm not a gun nut, or a hammer nut, or a screwdriver nut. I use each tool for it's intended purpose.
I guess I could return the favor, and call you an anti-gun-nut. I'll refrain though, and just point out that you are naive and uninformed.
Re:Or the reverse (Score:5, Insightful)
If my neighbor carries loaded guns around I want to know about it.
And I want a pony. The issue is if you have the right to know. He has the constitutional right to those weapons. We may not (yet) have constitutional rights to privacy, but your wanting to know doesn't mean you have to know. Besides, if he has a concealed carry permit, the whole point is that you don't know.
Re:Or the reverse (Score:5, Insightful)
If my neighbor carries loaded guns around I want to know about it.
And I want a pony. The issue is if you have the right to know. He has the constitutional right to those weapons. We may not (yet) have constitutional rights to privacy, but your wanting to know doesn't mean you have to know. Besides, if he has a concealed carry permit, the whole point is that you don't know.
Apparently not. They're from publicly available records. If it's in the public interest to keep those records private, they're going to have to change the law to make it so.
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If it's in the public interest to keep those records private, they're going to have to change the law to make it so.
Good point.
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Re:Or the reverse (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree (Score:3)
I agree with him. Most libertarians would too I think, though I am not one.
Re:Or the reverse (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yet, another example of how information can be misused & misinterpreted - you have equated that a gun owner carries a loaded gun around just because they happen to be on that list; That statement may or many not be true. All that list shows, as some-point in time, a firearm was potentially known to be at that location - it doesn't mean that it is still there, it doesn't m
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Agree with what? With creating convenient maps of information that's already somewhat public and therefore entirely public in the American No-Curtains-So-No-Privacy-For-You view? With protesting that convenient map? With taking revenge on the complainers by, er, dumping the adress of every permit holder whether they're part of the discussion or not?
There are a few issues here, not least of which is that this approach to privacy isn't tenable in the modern age with its proliferation of convenient data mangli
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Take those away from the stats, and an amazing thing happens, our gun crime rate is in line with Europes. (Watch some idiots raise "racist" smokescreen out of my factual observation.
No, it's not your racism I draw attention to. It's your lack of knowledge that Europe also has non-european descent minorities. Guns are the difference, not the mix of races.
You're both wrong.
While a mix of different social and cultural norms does correlate (very slightly but significantly) with increased violent crime, it is by no means a large correlation. Gun ownership rates and gun control laws, have little to no correlation with rates of violent crime. Look at some of the high gun ownership rates in northern europe and the very low violent crime rates. Look at the relatively high mix of different races and cultures in places like Anaheim that have very low violent crime co
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If you read more detail in history, you'll see that the "historically high rates" from earlier years weren't actually extracted from those with wealth, as they all managed (and still do) to gain loopholes.
Not any more so than now, as far as I've read, unless you have some citation otherwise.
As far as the fairness of a 100% inheritance tax, what does that do to the families of entrepreneurs who build companies in their lifetimes, sometimes huge billion-dollar companies that employ thousands of people and provide goods and services for millions? Should those companies be liquidated to pay that tax, in order to achieve your vision of "fairness" and "equality" simply because "it's worked before" (it really hasn't)?
As I said, it engenders waste, but it is fair, and it's not like the company needs be shut down, it just means ownership of the shares is transferred to the state for sale on the market. Mind you, I'm not proposing that as an ideal solution, merely the "fairest" one.
Do you honestly believe that giving the government all the wealth that gets created by private citizens on their death is better than letting individuals decide what's best for their families?
???
I'm not sure what you're talking about. How does being born poor as hell into a family that can't provide you with any opportunities and having to take out
subject (Score:5, Insightful)
how can one leak data which has been made available through a FOIA request?
Re:subject (Score:5, Insightful)
But you bring up an excellent point.
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Re:subject (Score:5, Interesting)
When I think of FOIA, I think of individuals keeping tabs on government, not individuals keeping tabs on other individuals. Transparency on what the government does is very much different from transparency on what private citizens do.
Re:subject (Score:4, Interesting)
The other thing to consider is that the likely reason the newspaper published this list was to invite retaliation against the firearms owners. There also was no legitimate public interest in disclosing these names, such as there would have been if say, you published everybody who made a campaign contribution to $POLITICAL_FIGURE in excess of $AMOUNT. I suggest we publish the telephone numbers, home addresses, and a list of everybody in the households of the newspaper's editorial staff. It's only fair to know who is behind a media outlet and having disproportionate influence on the public, isn't it?
leaked huh ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why wasn't it "leaked" .. well.. before all this pressure to ban guns ?
It's "published", not leaked. Intentionally. Probably to apply pressure on gun owners or to get them into trouble of having a gun, somehow.
What's next ? We gonna ban hammers as well ? I read there are many people killing other people with a hammer. Maybe we can ban sugar.. Hell, more people died from sugar then from guns (not counting the military or criminals that will still have guns regardless of you ban them or not).
People, shit happ
Re:leaked huh ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. About 2/3 of those uses are suicides, and the rest are almost all homicides with illegal guns. Gun control has no significant effect reducing either of these numbers. There is a small remainder of homicides committed with legally owned guns and accidents, but many legal products are far more dangerous. Furthermore, there is no justification for creating intrusive government regulation that prevents me from committing suicide with a gun.
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> many legal products are far more dangerous
Citation needed.
Re:leaked huh ? (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_driving_in_the_United_States#Statistics [wikipedia.org]
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About twice as many people die from gunshots each year than from alcohol related auto accidents.
Citation still needed.
Re:leaked huh ? (Score:5, Informative)
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Yes. About 2/3 of those uses are suicides, and the rest are almost all homicides with illegal guns. Gun control has no significant effect reducing either of these numbers. There is a small remainder of homicides committed with legally owned guns and accidents, but many legal products are far more dangerous. Furthermore, there is no justification for creating intrusive government regulation that prevents me from committing suicide with a gun.
Actually...
In the US, we have no real numbers on gun control and suicide rates, homicide rates, or pretty much anything else because the gun lobby has worked to destroy any public funding for such research, and to end careers of anyone who tries to independently study them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/us/26guns.html?pagewanted=all [nytimes.com]
In Australia, they had real, significant reductions in suicides when they implemented their gun controls. Also, they had previously had a number of mass shootings, an
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Gawker and John Cook (Score:5, Informative)
In a similar move, Gawker published the names of licensed gun owners in New York City without addresses
The only reason John Cook didn't publish them is because the NYPD didn't give them to him.. John Cook made it pretty clear that he would have published the addresses if he had them.
Because the NYPD is more interested in raping and/or eating ladies and spying on Muslims than it is in honoring public records law, the list contains only the names, and not the addresses, of the licensees.
F*ck off, gun haters (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously. I'm in Canada and own no guns. You're doing it wrong.
All you idiots are doing is invading peoples' privacy, advocating vigilante justice against people who have broken no laws, and providing a database of places that criminals can go steal guns that won't be traced to them.
Proper education and required licensing country-wide is the direction you should be going in. And that involves posting your Congressmens' e-mail addresses and phone numbers. Not the constituents.
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Yeah, that works fine until someone shows up with a gun at your door. Then you see that having a gun yourself is not too bad after all.
On the contrary. If you're unarmed, there might not be an incentive for the criminal to shoot you. If you're packing, it becomes imperative that he does, or you will shoot him.
Criminals often carry guns for the same reason gun owners claim they carry guns - self-protection. But in a country where the police is always packing, and potential victims often are, it is a valid argument.
If I were a criminal in spe and wanted to burgle a store or home at night to steal valuables, and lived in, say, England, I w
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I really hate gun control morons like these (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they make any real, useful, gun control much less likely to happen. Their grandstanding is counter productive.
For example you try and say "Hey, we really should register firearms. After all you register your car, why not guns too? It would allow for some tracking and accountability, and in the event someone becomes a prohibited person easier allow courts to determine if they have any guns that need to be surrendered." Well the gun lobby shoots back with "No, unacceptable, if you have a registry it can be used to target gun owners." You respond "That's silly, it would be used only for lawful purposes by the proper authorities."
Then, this happens, in a place that has a gun registry. Now the gun lobby doesn't have to talk in hypotheticals, or other nations, they can point to something that happened right in America that is precisely the kind of shit they are talking about. Now more moderate gun owners, who might have been amenable, or at least accepting, of the idea hate it because they believe what the gun lobby is saying.
Gun haters have to accept and get over the fact that guns are NOT going to be banned, period, end of story, unless the second amendment is repealed. All kinds of arguments have been tried and all have failed, the supreme court has ruled that the 2nd does in fact mean that gun ownership is a protected, individual, right.
As such trying stupid shit to do things that are bans but not in name, or to harass or make things difficult for gun owners are counter productive. All they do is polarize things, convince gun owners that any and all controls are bad because they'll be abused.
Stunts like this are nothing but harmful.
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Re:I really hate gun control morons like these (Score:5, Insightful)
surely this a public service for burglars - now they know which homes *not* to target because they stand a chance of getting shot by the homeowner when they go to in take his valuables.
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What if Samsung published the addresses of every home that had a 55" TV? You were supposed to register that too.
Store locators are there because you go to them to buy stuff. if I go to your house can I go through your belongs and take what I want if i leave some cash on the counter?
Re:I really hate gun control morons like these (Score:5, Insightful)
I really don't see how posting this kind of information is harassing, or making things difficult for gun owners. I'm actually pretty pro-gun, AND reside/work in NYC but I see absolutely nothing wrong with this...The argument that this somehow puts gun owners in danger or subjects them to unfair scrutiny is absolutely ridiculous.
Really? I see. So, you won't mind if I publish a list of everyone who has a jewelry insurance rider for high-dollar valuables in their home, right? Perhaps you have a nice collection of diamonds. I'm certain you won't mind telling me all about them, as you see nothing wrong with sharing this kind of information. Yes, I'm sure you and everyone else would have nothing to fear at all when you leave your house, leaving your valuables unprotected.
Remove the fact that we're talking about guns here. These are valuables that are now listed online for every criminal to target while the vast majority of citizens leave an empty house behind for hours every day. At least try and think of the bigger picture here. The fact that we are talking about guns as the targeted valuable only makes the consequences of theft even more dire.
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> Really? I see. So, you won't mind if I publish a list
> of everyone who has a jewelry insurance rider for
> high-dollar valuables in their home, right?
Insurance riders are generally part of a private contract between an individual and another private, *non-government*, entity. That's completely a completely different situation from public records being... well... public, and available TO the public.
And the public certainly does have an interest in regulating firearms. It's even written into the s
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Re:I really hate gun control morons like these (Score:5, Insightful)
"That's silly, it would be used only for lawful purposes by the proper authorities."
Two of the homes listed in the first publication of gun owners' names have had their homes burglarized - and one of them only had their gun safe stolen.
Meanwhile, there have been calls by leglislators to confiscate guns - by forcing registration and/or using current registration lists.
Neither of those are "straw men." Indeed, they were mostly just predictions based on knowing how people think and act.
"Gun haters have to accept and get over the fact that guns are NOT going to be banned," ...then why are some people calling for gun bans? And trying to pass laws that effectively ban guns? And why are there many places in the US with fairly comprehensive gun bans, like Chicago?
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Gun haters have to accept and get over the fact that guns are NOT going to be banned, period, end of story, unless the second amendment is repealed. All kinds of arguments have been tried and all have failed, the supreme court has ruled that the 2nd does in fact mean that gun ownership is a protected, individual, right.
You seem to be ignorant of the fact that they will not fight to repeal the 2nd Amendment. That would be too difficult a battle. No, instead they simply re-define what rights an "individual" has, and look to disarm you. Today that happens to be anyone convicted of a felony, no matter how victimless that crime may have been, or unrelated to protecting ones self or family. Every convicted felon has lost that right to defend themselves.
Tomorrow that may be re-defined to include anyone who commits even the s
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Now more moderate gun owners, who might have been amenable, or at least accepting, of the idea hate it because they believe what the gun lobby is saying.
Actually, it simply proves the gun lobby correct. Obviously, we need to incorporate mental health records into state checks and do a background check on everyone who wants to buy any firearm, but "registering" them is a different animal and IS fraught with problems that the 2nd Amendment was created for. The system needs work, but registering isn't the so
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Please tell me one consumer good more highly regulated than firearms.
Let's publish a list of the newspaper employees (Score:2)
After all, it is legal right? I'm sure nothing bad would happen. :/
Re:Let's publish a list of the newspaper employees (Score:5, Informative)
How about coins? (Score:4, Insightful)
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So now a bunch of people are going to get shot... (Score:2)
...when thieves break into their houses looking for guns.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Now crawl back under your bridge.
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Freedom of speech guarantees speech free of governmental censorship. It doesn't defend you from public opinion. If anything, this case strenghtened free speech because it showed its opponents that even without governmental oversight, unacceptable speech is not without consequences.
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And here I thought people bought guns to protect themselves against crime. I guess there are many things I still don't understand about guns.
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And here I thought people bought guns to protect themselves against crime. I guess there are many things I still don't understand about guns.
There are arguments for both directions in this. Some people will argue that because guns are a high value commodity on the black market, they are a lucrative target for theft. Others will argue that there is an increased risk of getting injured or killed in an attempt to rob these homes.
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Some people will argue that because guns are a high value commodity on the black market, they are a lucrative target for theft.
Isn't it curious that many, if not most, of those same people argue that prohibition simply fuels a black market, like the "War On (some) Drugs" and alcohol prohibition?
If guns were less-tightly regulated, taxed, licensed, registered, etc, criminals wouldn't find law-abiding gun-owner's homes and their guns such an attractive target, due to the lack of high payoff along with the risk of being shot.
Not saying that convicted violent felons or those legally judged to be incapable of responsible gun ownership (
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more children are killed by firearms each year than by the people listed in certain databases who have already fully paid their debt to society yet will continue to be persecuted by the public, by the media and by the government, forever.
... despite recidivism rates for sex offenders being lower than for other categories of crime and recidivism rates for child molesters being lower than for sex offenders in general. It does call into question the need for maintaining these registries.
Re:please think of the children (Score:5, Insightful)
Thus speaks someone who thinks with his guts and not his brain.
When did all sex offenders become pedophiles? Most of them are not.
When did all pedophiles become criminals? Most of them never commit any crimes. You don't commit rapes because you are sexually attracted to women (or men), do you?
Do you know the recidivism rate for child molestation compared to other crimes? Like, for instance, gun crime?
Did you know that when you are willing to deny some people their rights, you also say that it's okay to deny you your rights when you disgust enough people?
All violent/abusive crimes are bad, whether they're sexual or not. But people are capable of changing for the better, which is why we do not give them life in prison, and consider their debt to society paid when they have served their sentence. In civilized societies, at least.
Re:please think of the children (Score:5, Insightful)
We are not denying them their rights, when they commit a crime and break the law, they are voluntarily giving up their rights.
What rights, and for how long? There's a prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment in the Bill of Rights for a reason; the punishment must fit the crime. In the case of sex crimes, the lifelong punishment that comes after all jail time has been served, fines paid, etc. is almost always excessive.
Re:please think of the children (Score:5, Interesting)
People who commit a crime think they'll get away with it. They aren't agreeing to get caught, much less give up their rights.
If you can't hold it and step behind some bushes to pee and get spotted by a ten year old kid, you can be convicted of indecent exposure in most states. That can get you placed on a sex offender list for life in many states (some, like Colorado, came to their senses and created a second crime for non-sexual exposure which is neither a sex crime nor a felony). Once you're on the sex offender list, your name, address and photo would be made available to anyone who cares to look for registered sex offenders in the area you live in. In some places, you'd no longer be able to live within 1000 feet of a school or day care center. You'd have to tell anyone you were trying to rent from that you were a convicted sex offender, too, so most places wouldn't take you as a tenant. It's also a felony, so you'd no longer be able to own a gun or vote. You'd be required to admit that you were convicted sex offender on job applications, which would severely limit your employment opportunities. The list of long-term affects on your life goes on and on, but basically you're screwed for life.
Cruel and unusual is a fitting description.
Do you really think that you would have been agreeing to all that when you decided to step behind a bush and take a leak? Of course not. You'd have thought you wouldn't be seen and it would be okay.
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In my limited understanding (I've never bothered to look it up) all felons lose the right to own firearms, and to vote.
But after a few years, felons can get their rights restored through a judicial process. Good luck ever getting your name off the sex offender registry.
Keep in mind also, that many of the registered sex offenders committed such heinous acts as having sex with their girlfriend when they were both under age, or taking a leak in what they thought was an empty field, with no one to see. It's also worth considering that many of those on the registries are actually innocent. The consequences of the major sex cri
Re:please think of the children (Score:5, Informative)
When someone commits a crime, that means they break law(s) set by society. Civilized Western countries (in this case, as with most cases related to criminal law being even remotely reasonable, US is not on the list) tend to have a legal process which causes loss of ability to inflict any more crimes of this nature for a period during which they try to rehabilitate that citizen so he will not commit those crimes when his freedom to act is restored.
This should not cause loss of any rights not directly related to the said crime. They are still humans, and still citizens of the country with all the legal protection granted to all other citizens.
US has a strong history of frontier justice due to its very recent colonial past, which causes it to have a very skewed "punish for vengeance, not prevention and rehabilitation" culture largely absent in most of the world. Restriction of rights not related to crime is VENGEANCE, not REHABILITATION. In vast majority of the Western world, avenging crimes by society is viewed as uncivilized brutality. A great example of this is Norway and its handling of Breivik.
It's one of the major cultural clashes that US tends to have with other countries, and one of the main reasons why prison populations in US are completely different from those in rest of Western world.
Re:please think of the children (Score:4, Funny)
It's true! <These> kill more children each year than pedophiles, so let's ban those!
To be fair, I don't think foot fetishists kill many children at all. It's kind of not their thing.
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The issue really is privacy rights vs the 1st amendment, not the 2nd amendment vs the 1st, but very large numbers of people seem to not care what the issue really is because they have an agenda (either banning guns or preventing the banning of guns) that trumps their abilities to discuss or think rationally about what just happened.
Suppose that was a list of Muslims, or Black people, or High school dropouts, or women who have had an abortion, or Smokers, or children on ADD meds,
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This is EXACTLY why gun owners are against registration. The government cannot be trusted to maintain confidentiality of the data. Regardless of whether someone publishes the data like in this case or the government itself uses the data to coerce gun owners to give up their guns the result is the same.
Cheers,
Dave