You Don't Mess with the Gura:
Odd factoid that I didn't know until today -- Alan Gura, the winning lawyer in the Heller v. D.C. Second Amendment case, was born in Israel.
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I knew it. But then I'm in Youtube all the time.
I also remember when some psychopath drove from Washington state to LA to shoot up a Jewish community center, because he was quite certain no one there would be armed.
--- I also remember when some psychopath drove from Washington state to LA to shoot up a Jewish community center, because he was quite certain no one there would be armed. ---
I assume you are talking about the incident linked to below. The killer was not a psychopath, but rather a white supremacist looking to kill Jews. He did shoot up a Jewish community center rather than other Jewish institutions because those institutions had security.
Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting
I think that incident is an example of why Jews disproportionately support gun control; it is not an example of why Jews irrationally oppose gun control. For cultural reasons, the type of people who work in Jewish community centers are not likely to be armed, regardless of whether there are gun control laws or not. But without gun control, it is easier for the type of people who want to shoot up Jewish community centers to obtain weapons.
I think it is unfair to suggest Jews disproportionately support gun control. Maybe it's true in America, but I doubt it's true if you consider Jews everywhere.
Unfortunately, that "suggestion" reflects the FACT that every anti-gun bill in my state legislature has been authored by a Jewish legislator. Their free choice. All of them voted against the right of proven law-abiding citizens to carry a firearm for self-protection. And so forth for over twenty years.
After a while, one has to believe that their anti-gun words combined with their anti-gun actions means that they ARE anti-gun. Not every Jew, obviously (Gura, Kopel, Volokh, et al), but every American Jewish leader and a majority of their backers.
Give it a rest, VFB. "Gun control" NEVER stops a criminal from obtaining whatever weapon he wants, including guns. Might have to get one on the streetcorner or steal one instead of buying it at a store, but he'll get whatever he wants. Criminals don't care about the law - if they did they wouldn't be criminals.
Try hard to remember that in reality "Gun-Free Zone" is a lie; it only means no law-abiding citizens have guns there. If they were truthfully labeled, they'd be called "Target-Rich Environment For Any Nutcase Looking for Publicity."
What's a "Jewish leader." Do you mean anyone who forms a Jewish organization of some kind? If that's the case then how about the leader of the Jewish Defense League? No one speaks for American Jews, they are far too heterogeneous in their beliefs even about religion.
Yes, but if you listened to Steve Wright's BBC radio show a lot, then you will also accept "factoid" as a true information of maybe lesser importance.
What really breaks my heart is that you don't believe in lemmings jumping off cliffs overlooking the ocean. They really do that ...although sometimes they get pushed off as more lemmings join them at the shore. (But fear not, they do know how to swim!)
I agree with you that gun control is largely ineffective at reducing most crimes, because most criminals will obtain guns illegally. For that reason, I do not support gun control. But I was commenting on a particular crime, namely the Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting, which Tony Tutins raised.
Gun control would certainly reduce the risk of impulsive spree shooters, most of whom do not have criminal histories. There is no doubt that gun control laws would have deterred the Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho. You write about criminals buying guns on the street corner. But one would doubt that an isolated loner would be sufficiently tuned in, to know at which street corner he could obtain one.
While you are right to note that when guns are illegal, criminals will still have them, you are wrong to assume that when they are legal, a substantial percentage of law abiding citizens would have guns. When the Amish School shooting happened, everyone on the Volokh Conspiracy was commenting about how if only people at the school had guns, the tragedy would have been minimized. But what they failed to realize is that there is a certain personality type that walks around armed, and Amish schoolteachers do not fit that profile.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_school_shooting
I share Gura's dismay at the sheer number of big government jews out there, and for exactly the same reasons.
Oy vay -- don't get me started on this one...
However, Jews are also represented disproportionately in pro-gun leadership.
Thinking about all this makes my head hurt!
For any one who doubts the veracity of this, examine Eldred v. Ashcroft and Mr. Lessig's subsequent book, Free Culture, where Lessig describes the unfortunate mistake in appealing to the Court's sense of Law, rather than their economic faculties.
Thinking about all this makes my head hurt!
It's very simple--Judaism being one of the earliest and most famous examples of an elaborate intellectual system built around a fairly simple central thesis, Jews seem culturally attracted to such systems--socialism, Zionism, and libertarianism being prominent modern examples.
Worse news. Not just Israeli. I just got my email from the Pope, and am unlocking my gun safe. Deus vult!!!
Easy for you to say. You didn't invest your life savings in the world's largest manufacturer of civilian ground to air missiles, bioweapons, and backpack nukes. Then he wimps out on it, and there goes anthrax and little plutonium toys, all to protect pistols and rifles and shotguns.
DTH (who does own full auto, and likes it, but would have regarded any attempt to argue for them in SCOTUS as sufficient detachment from reality to call for a mental committment, at least for observation).
The case ended with a hung jury on all of the serious charges, apparently because some juror(s) bought into his insanity defense. Although he indeed had a history of mental illness, his level of planning in choosing his target and weapons, and the efforts he took to conceal his plans, showed he had strong pre-meditation and understanding of right &wrong.
It seems then that since he believes Allah told him to do it, he must be insane? This seems like very bizarre reasoning to me, since I assume most terrorists have the same belief. Should being a religious fanatic make Mr. Hak exempt from responsibility for his crime?
The current date for the beginning of his retrial is September 21.
These assumptions are based on what, exactly? I submit that you are merely speculating on the unknowable. Even if you are correct--and nothing I see suggests you are--it is just plain wrong to assume that keeping a gun out of the hands of a homicidal lunatic does the same thing as effectively de-fanging him. I'm thinking "Happyland disco", here. People can be insane, and still be quite resourceful. Normal people often become distracted from achieving their immediate goals by emergency parent-teacher meetings, arguments with the spouse, internet porn, or whatever. Homicidal maniacs tend to obsess about whatever perceived slights and injustices drive their actions. They usually don't just "snap", either. Mr. Cho began assembling his weapons cache a couple of months before his rampage, and had a video DVD ready to mail on the fateful day.
1. Felons losing their right to own a gun. Is this a federal law? Or does it depend on each state's laws, or on each jx within a state?
2. In the situations where felons are prohibited from owning guns, does this apply equally to all felons? (I am assuming that they regain the right once their probationary period is over, correct?) If so, why is this? It would not make sense for a convicted tax avoider to lose his 2nd Amendment rights, while it might make sense for one who used a gun in the commission of a crime.
3. When there is a law that a convicted felon loses his/her right to own a gun, does there need to be an additional factual finding? I know that is some rare cases (eg, in the occasional high-level computer hacking), a judge will order that the convicted not own a computer, or will forbid/restrict/monitor any internet access. This makes sense to me...there is a burden on that persons 1st Amendment rights, but there has been a specific factual finding explaining why there needs to be an exception. It would seem to me at a law that says, in effect: "That in every case where XX happens, the convicted loses the right to own a gun" would be unconstitutional.
In the media discussions of the Heller aftermath, I have heard everyone (well, all the conservatives and liberals that have been interviewed on the TV, radio, and newspapers I get) just assuming that, of course, felons lose the rights that the rest of us have re guns.
Can you guys help me understand if that is really true? And if it's true, why it's permissible?
[hope this does not equate to a hijack of the thread]
It's not just felons, but all people who have been convicted of crimes that are classified as domestic abuse even if they are not felonies. Additionally, certain misdemeanor convictions are also state disqualifiers. However there are a couple of federal economic crime felony convictions that do not result in eternal loss of federal rights--but you still have state issues.
There are a myriad of overlapping federal, state and local gun laws; 20,000 is a number that has been bandied around so you are getting a very abbreviated answer.
With some exception, gun rights, once lost, are lost forever.
Hopefully, your grandchildren will never have to ask that question.
Kissinger was actually an adherent of "realism", a coherent (though flawed) school of geopolitical analysis before its name was co-opted by the partisan left. Like the trio of "isms" I listed, realism is "an elaborate intellectual system built around a fairly simple central thesis"--in this case, the premise that nations always act in defense of their (well-defined) national interests. Kissinger's academic work focused on proto-realist Metternich.
You can read it here for yourself - this document is what gun buyers attest to under penalty of perjury (Federal). See questions 12 b and c for specifics - i.e. no guns for convicted felons OR for those under indictment for a felony. All retail commercial firearms transactions must be supported with Form 4473. There are a few exceptions for used guns which in some states can be sold person to person. California for instance does not allow this type of private sale. What's more is that there are numerous laws forbidding convicted felons from being in possession of a firearm, so it doesn't matter if they bought it, stole it or borrowed it.
http://www.atf.gov/forms/4473/
1. Felons lose their right to own a gun under federal and usually state law as well. Historically this was not a federal law issue but since the federal government took over the interstate firearms business in 1968, they have involved themselves here as well. It's illegal to transfer firearms to prohibited persons and most federal crimes provide enhancements for using guns during those crimes.
2. The definition of felon varies from place to place and whether it ends varies from place to place. To put it simply, if you can (even if you only got probation) serve more than a year for your crime, you are barred from firearms ownership, regardless of the jurisdiction of the court that found you guilty.
The complicated part is restoration of rights. If all your rights (voting, holding public office, owning firearms, jury duty, etc) are restored after a state law felony conviction, you regain your federal firearms rights as well. If you crime was federal, congress has never funded the rights restoration program so nothing short of a pardon will restore your rights.
3. No, there is no additional factual finding. This applies even for Lautenerg, which treats people convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors as if they were felons (ie, making them federal prohibited persons). This is true even if it was routine to plead guilty to such crime because no one suffered any disability from doing so. There have been various accusations that this violates ex post facto, but they have been dismissed by the courts.
4. It's permissible because people who have been shown to abuse their liberties can be deprived of them as a punishment. I think the current rules that treat tax evaders as seriously as murderers and armed robbers is asinine. Stripping away the RKBA should be part of the penalty phase, just like any other deprivation of right after a conviction. I personally think the entire idea of prohibited persons except as applied to people still on probation/parole is unconstitutional as a matter of due process. It's also stupid policy.
Dave, there you go reading the Letters of Marque and Reprisal section again... For shame...
Why would one doubt that?
Thanks to various drug laws, the US has an underground economy that is everywhere. Even the drug warriors admit that anyone who wants drugs can find a seller.
Do you really want to argue that a significant fraction of the drug dealers won't sell a gun or give a referral?
Back when I was travelling more, I was offered guns for sale in both the UK and Japan. Maybe it was a sting aimed at bearded folks with US accents, maybe I just give off a vibe, but I'm fairly skeptical that gun laws meaningfully reduce availability to those so inclined. FWIW, the before/after numbers support that conclusion - gun laws are not associated with dramatic reductions in with-gun violence.
Many will rent you one.
Deus vault more like it
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