politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Why is it that states have nearly absolute power when it's something a Republican wants but if it's something a Democrat wants the state is a tyrant?
California has a long history of trying to keep guns out of black people's hands. Black Panthers, for example. In other words, it's not only about Republican vs. Democrat here. Interesting history.
Shhh, they don't understand nuance, you might hurt their brain with the knowledge that gun control started as a racist thing (and often still is bigoted, look at republicans whining about pride events arming up after that nightclub shooting a few months ago)
Modern gun laws were never designed to be used against white people and some people wonder how we keep hearing how white conservatives shooters get guns legally despite flags like psych holds on their record.
Probably because carrying and owning firearms is a right, turns out it's pretty hard to restrict people's rights.
The same law would get blocked if it banned free speech in public
We all know that rights aren't universal. 1A isn't, 2A isn't, none of them are. In other words, it's easy to restrict people's rights. The question is always how much the courts will allow.
I mean, it isn't. You name the right, I'll name how it's restricted.
To go with your example, these are examples of illegal speech, i.e. restrictions on free speech in public:
All of those things are things that cause real, direct harms, with speech as the weapon. (Also, defamation is a tort, not a crime.) On the other hand, lying, for instance, is absolutely legally protected speech, except in fairly limited circumstances. I can quite legally lie on my resume to get a job that I wouldn't otherwise get, and about the worst that can happen is that I can be fired. I can lie about being a Navy Seal and having gotten a Medal of Honor in Afghanistan, and there's pretty much fuck-all anyone can do about it ("stolen valor" laws were deemed unconstitutional by SCOTUS).
Mere ownership of a firearm, or even carrying, does not cause a direct harm. Brandishing a firearm--which is usually defined something like 'threatening someone with a firearm'--is the rough equivalent of the things that you list.
Neither Federal nor State legislators - nor judges - care whether or not a crime is victimless. See e.g. the War on Drugs.
That makes defamatory speech easier to restrict by reducing the plaintiff's burden of proof.
Defamation is also a 3-pronged test, assuming that you aren't talking about a public figure. It needs to be false (truth is an absolute defense against defamation), you need to have either known that it was false, or have had reckless indifference to the truth, and you need to have caused some kind of measurable harm (and hurting your feelings isn't a measurable harm). All of that is played out against a field of lawyers in a civil suit that charge by the hour. Defamation is actually quite challenging to win in the US, unless the person that is alleging defamation has a lot of money to spend on attorneys to buy the defendant.
That's ridiculous and you know it. The second amendment wasn't meant for cosplaying in the first place. You can tell if you actually read it.
Good thing rights are literally just and social construct and aren't limited to what's specifically in the Constitution. Anyway the Supreme Court basically rewrote history in 2008 and 2010 and decided the second amendment was totally intended to protect the individual right to a firearm. I think they're wrong, but I also think that humans have a right to personal weapons, so we'll just pretend they're right. Anyway, you can come up with come creative reinterpretations of the Constitution after the post-civil war amendments decided that the bill of rights applied to state laws. But really, you depend on that reinterpretation to protect you from cops and other forms of state-level tyranny so picking and choosing gets a little iffy.
This is a specifically enshrined Constitutional right. That's literally the purpose of the Bill of Rights and states don't get to ignore them.
Which well regulated militia are you in?
"The people." Also the US Air Force but that's a whole different matter. I literally just addressed this in a different post so I'll just copy and paste.
The "but it says well regulated militia" argument has never been in good faith or intended to be intellectual. It's just a blatant fallacy that gets repeated over and over in echo chambers hoping to sway uneducated bystanders. It has never held water or been supported by any court case/precedent (to include Miller which was literally argued one-sided without opposition). It is absurd at face value that literally the 2nd right in the list of things the framers wanted to protect the citizens from their government is the government giving itself permission to have arms. It is never meant to make sense or be intellectual, it's literally just circle-jerking to pretend that it gives them moral superiority for hating a right that they don't like.
Yes I'm the one arguing in bad faith but this copy pasta which never actually makes an argument isn't
It's something I personally typed out right before you responded, not just "copypasta." It also does make an argument explaining that no court precedent has ever existed limiting the 2A to a collective militia and has been specifically expressed as an individual right in SCOTUS rulings going back well into the mid 19th century. I also explained the ridiculous fallacy of implying that right in-between saying the government can't restrict your speech, religion or right to privacy they decided that it was super important to specify the government itself had the right to an armed militia. The militia is and has always been the people, so naturally, the people need the right to keep and bear arms. It's almost like that is why it is exactly what the 2A says and why during it's creation they even discussed and re-worded it to make sure it was stronger and couldn't be misconstrued as allowing the government to restrict individuals. But yes, just keep repeating the same argument that has never survived a single court case and has been disproven at every step of the way going back to when the Bill of Rights was written, if you repeat it enough in your echo chamber you might convince some 12 year old that hasn't actually read any facts yet.
This is the most laughable hogwash I've seen today. Needless to say I couldn't disagree more with the bizarre fantasy you call an opinion
So literally binding supreme court precedent dating back over a century is a bizarre fantasy but a repeatedly debunked fallacy that happens to suit your fancy is just perfect. Got it. Repeating what you want to be true over and over against all reason and evidence doesn't make it true.
Actually, SCOTUS precedent on the second amendment referring to a personal right only goes back to the Heller decision in 2008.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
I will also note that this decision further held that some restrictions on the second amendment are permissible, although it left the precise boundaries open.
The only thing novel about the reasoning in Heller was it was the first time revisionists tried to argue to SCOTUS that the 2A meant anything but an individual right. Prior to Heller it was very clearly understood to be individual and as the first time it was actually proposed it was specifically shut down. Even Miller, which is often seen as a gun control "win," references it as an individual right. Now neither Miller nor his lawyer actually showed up for arguments so SCOTUS was limited to only ruling based on the government's side alone but even with the cards massively stacked the ruling was "sawed off shotguns aren't useful to the militia so Miller's 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms doesn't extend to them." It was very clearly held that he had an individual right, just not to the type of arm he was charged with having. I also drive past short barrel shotguns regularly since they are used all over the Air Force base where I work, but it's a shame that there is no "use" for them in the military meaning they "aren't covered..." Gun control started with attempts to disarm Native Americans and flourished in the 20th century to disarm African Americans and other minorities. It has always been routed in racism and one of the most obvious examples is found in the terrible Dred Scott decision. It was brought up that if African Americans received rights and privileges under the Constitution it would include the right to own firearms. It was very specifically known and understood that this was not a collective right at this time and this absolute fact was used as a reasoning to deprive minorities of any rights whatsoever.
Obviously no right is unlimited, but that single sentence from Heller isn't a "do anything you want" gun control freebie. You can't ban someone's speech because they might say something you don't like. You can't ban a religion for not being an officially recognized one, look at the CFSM and Scientology. There is absolutely a limit to what constitutes a "bearable arm" so the standard nuke hyperbole is obvious to anyone arguing in good faith. Bearing arms is also not carte blanche to actively brandish and threaten/harm people. It's illegal to murder someone with a gun and that is obviously not an infringement. Saying that I can't have the same gun the military protects itself from danger with because there is no use of it in the military isn't one of these "limits" that was referred to, nor is saying that when vulnerable in public where the government or a 3rd party aren't actively responsible for my safety I need to disarm to allow criminals the path of least resistance.
The supreme clearly has been wrong before and I don't know why the fuck you'd even pretend otherwise
They've also been right and usually aren't wrong over and over again spanning back several generations, especially when the intent of the founding fathers was quite clear to any but those wishing to strip rights from people.
Says the person trying to strip people of rights because you want to consolidate power for your side. Thankfully the Constitution specifically protects us all from you.
Extremist assholes fucks gonna extremist asshole fuck. You cannot even conceive of a position that isn't an extreme to either end. What a miserable existence. Because of this psychosis, children die and will continue to. And this happens barely at all in any other country. Let's keep it up eh
And you are exactly why the right was enumerated in the Constitution. Our rights don’t stop at your power grab. Thankfully they very explicitly wrote it in unambiguous language, despite what your blind hatred for personal rights wants to believe. You may want your victims unarmed but some of us cherish the right to be able to protect ourselves.
What a psycho