Guns, Guns Guns

While channel surfing 0 dark to early this morning, I caught the tail end of someone saying that the US doesn't need any more gun control laws, all it needs is enforcement of 7,165 laws already on the books. One of the reasons laws are disrespected so universally is that even when the laws are broken, no one cares, especially those charged with enforcing them. Fifty plus years of contradictory legislation, declining sentencing times and inflated egos have left the people who must make sense of laws (cops and citizens) with too many interpretations of each law. As a result, they do not even think about the consequences of their actions or inactions. Why should they? They will probably break some law no matter what they do.

KNick wrote:While channel surfing 0 dark to early this morning, I caught the tail end of someone saying that the US doesn't need any more gun control laws, all it needs is enforcement of 7,165 laws already on the books. One of the reasons laws are disrespected so universally is that even when the laws are broken, no one cares, especially those charged with enforcing them. Fifty plus years of contradictory legislation, declining sentencing times and inflated egos have left the people who must make sense of laws (cops and citizens) with too many interpretations of each law. As a result, they do not even think about the consequences of their actions or inactions. Why should they? They will probably break some law no matter what they do.

Maybe its time for all the gun laws to be thrown out, and a country wide, single set of laws appllied. this will remove most of the loopholes, prevent transport of arms from legal to illegal areas, simplify enforcement for law officers, help reduce crime as more of the illegalities are removed or prevented, and maybe solve at least some of the USA's gun problems.


Probably too much of an idealistic view, as The US politics seem to view compromise as a dirty swear word....

A couple of problems there.

1) The right to keep and bare arms is either an individual right or not. It's like Slavery prior to the Civil War it either exists or not. Thus compromise is difficult, as both sides are hardened in their positions.

2) The several states have and jealously guard their power in this issue. One size fits all laws are hated and detested.

Thus I foresee Uncle Sam mucking about without a resolution for a while passing what general laws can garner a consensus, or an actual Civil War if the progressives keep poking the caged lion with their sticks (executive orders from Pharaoh Obama) through the bars of the cage.

Spacekiwi wrote:

KNick wrote:While channel surfing 0 dark to early this morning, I caught the tail end of someone saying that the US doesn't need any more gun control laws, all it needs is enforcement of 7,165 laws already on the books. One of the reasons laws are disrespected so universally is that even when the laws are broken, no one cares, especially those charged with enforcing them. Fifty plus years of contradictory legislation, declining sentencing times and inflated egos have left the people who must make sense of laws (cops and citizens) with too many interpretations of each law. As a result, they do not even think about the consequences of their actions or inactions. Why should they? They will probably break some law no matter what they do.

Maybe its time for all the gun laws to be thrown out, and a country wide, single set of laws appllied. this will remove most of the loopholes, prevent transport of arms from legal to illegal areas, simplify enforcement for law officers, help reduce crime as more of the illegalities are removed or prevented, and maybe solve at least some of the USA's gun problems.


Probably too much of an idealistic view, as The US politics seem to view compromise as a dirty swear word....

Poker

pokermind wrote:A couple of problems there.

1) The right to keep and bare arms is either an individual right or not. It's like Slavery prior to the Civil War it either exists or not. Thus compromise is difficult, as both sides are hardened in their positions.

2) The several states have and jealously guard their power in this issue. One size fits all laws are hated and detested.

Thus I foresee Uncle Sam mucking about without a resolution for a while passing what general laws can garner a consensus, or an actual Civil War if the progressives keep poking the caged lion with their sticks (executive orders from Pharaoh Obama) through the bars of the cage.


Poker

To bare arms, all you need is a muscle shirt... =D

Regarding point 1: yes it may be a constitutional right, but with rights come responsibilities,, which in this case should be ensuring that they are only used for legal purposes etc.

And point 2: yeah, thats probably the main problem regarding laws in the USA. If I read it right, can't you have county laws, state laws, and federal laws, all slightly different, regarding the same thing? no wonder lawyers make so much money in the states.....

Much simpler here. you have the government write laws, and the local councils (a cross between counties and states im guessing, but much closer to counties) make bylaws regarding rubbish and where you park. One main set of rules, that cant be easily loopholed out of. Most of the people over here avoid prosecution due to paperwork stuff ups and the like.

Regarding your response to the second point, that wouldn't work well here for the simple reason that our country is (legally speaking) a federation of individual states rather than one single country. The federal government has a very limited right to enact laws so if they want to do something a lot of times there's a contortion act to put whatever the subject of the law is into terms that they can makes laws about. Basically most of what they do is fund things they want done, don't fund things they don't want done, and come up with inventive ways to phrase laws to make it so they're constitutionally allowed to make the law about that subject.

It's a fairly screwy system in the context of the modern world with communications the way they are, so is our method of presidential elections (the electoral college system). They both made perfect sense when news couldn't travel faster than a horse or ship. Unfortunately fixing those things would require rewriting much of the Constitution and I don't think that's likely to work out well.

Pokermind: Don't go throwing stones in glass houses or calling kettles black. Republican presidents have done unpopular -with part of the country anyway- things with executive orders too. And when you get down to it, Obama is one of the most centrist presidents in decades.

Spacekiwi wrote:

pokermind wrote:A couple of problems there.

1) The right to keep and bare arms is either an individual right or not. It's like Slavery prior to the Civil War it either exists or not. Thus compromise is difficult, as both sides are hardened in their positions.

2) The several states have and jealously guard their power in this issue. One size fits all laws are hated and detested.

Thus I foresee Uncle Sam mucking about without a resolution for a while passing what general laws can garner a consensus, or an actual Civil War if the progressives keep poking the caged lion with their sticks (executive orders from Pharaoh Obama) through the bars of the cage.


Poker

To bare arms, all you need is a muscle shirt... =D

Regarding point 1: yes it may be a constitutional right, but with rights come responsibilities,, which in this case should be ensuring that they are only used for legal purposes etc.

And point 2: yeah, thats probably the main problem regarding laws in the USA. If I read it right, can't you have county laws, state laws, and federal laws, all slightly different, regarding the same thing? no wonder lawyers make so much money in the states.....

Much simpler here. you have the government write laws, and the local councils (a cross between counties and states im guessing, but much closer to counties) make bylaws regarding rubbish and where you park. One main set of rules, that cant be easily loopholed out of. Most of the people over here avoid prosecution due to paperwork stuff ups and the like.

Agreed on the screwy bit. 3 sets of government telling you how to live? and down here they complain about one! And yeah, a re-write of the constitution wouldnt go down well with many i'm assuming. but if its not increasing the federal powers, would decreasing state powers work? or preventing the states from passing laws that contradict federal laws, or writing laws that deviate too much from the federal laws?

Failing that, to get simple laws for everyone, you might have to break up the USA into ~50 countries..... =D (joking)

Donnachaidh wrote:Regarding your response to the second point, that wouldn't work well here for the simple reason that our country is (legally speaking) a federation of individual states rather than one single country. The federal government has a very limited right to enact laws so if they want to do something a lot of times there's a contortion act to put whatever the subject of the law is into terms that they can makes laws about. Basically most of what they do is fund things they want done, don't fund things they don't want done, and come up with inventive ways to phrase laws to make it so they're constitutionally allowed to make the law about that subject.

It's a fairly screwy system in the context of the modern world with communications the way they are, so is our method of presidential elections (the electoral college system). They both made perfect sense when news couldn't travel faster than a horse or ship. Unfortunately fixing those things would require rewriting much of the Constitution and I don't think that's likely to work out well.

Pokermind: Don't go throwing stones in glass houses or calling kettles black. Republican presidents have done unpopular -with part of the country anyway- things with executive orders too. And when you get down to it, Obama is one of the most centrist presidents in decades.

Spacekiwi wrote:To bare arms, all you need is a muscle shirt... =D

Regarding point 1: yes it may be a constitutional right, but with rights come responsibilities,, which in this case should be ensuring that they are only used for legal purposes etc.

And point 2: yeah, thats probably the main problem regarding laws in the USA. If I read it right, can't you have county laws, state laws, and federal laws, all slightly different, regarding the same thing? no wonder lawyers make so much money in the states.....

Much simpler here. you have the government write laws, and the local councils (a cross between counties and states im guessing, but much closer to counties) make bylaws regarding rubbish and where you park. One main set of rules, that cant be easily loopholed out of. Most of the people over here avoid prosecution due to paperwork stuff ups and the like.

And there you run into another problem, each state also has some form of constitution as well.

The way laws work here is Fed Constitution > Federal Law > State Constitution > State Law > County Law > City Law

Spacekiwi wrote:Agreed on the screwy bit. 3 sets of government telling you how to live? and down here they complain about one! And yeah, a re-write of the constitution wouldnt go down well with many i'm assuming. but if its not increasing the federal powers, would decreasing state powers work? or preventing the states from passing laws that contradict federal laws, or writing laws that deviate too much from the federal laws?

Failing that, to get simple laws for everyone, you might have to break up the USA into ~50 countries..... =D (joking)

Donnachaidh wrote:Regarding your response to the second point, that wouldn't work well here for the simple reason that our country is (legally speaking) a federation of individual states rather than one single country. The federal government has a very limited right to enact laws so if they want to do something a lot of times there's a contortion act to put whatever the subject of the law is into terms that they can makes laws about. Basically most of what they do is fund things they want done, don't fund things they don't want done, and come up with inventive ways to phrase laws to make it so they're constitutionally allowed to make the law about that subject.

It's a fairly screwy system in the context of the modern world with communications the way they are, so is our method of presidential elections (the electoral college system). They both made perfect sense when news couldn't travel faster than a horse or ship. Unfortunately fixing those things would require rewriting much of the Constitution and I don't think that's likely to work out well.

Pokermind: Don't go throwing stones in glass houses or calling kettles black. Republican presidents have done unpopular -with part of the country anyway- things with executive orders too. And when you get down to it, Obama is one of the most centrist presidents in decades.

Donnachaidh wrote:And there you run into another problem, each state also has some form of constitution as well.

The way laws work here is Fed Constitution > Federal Law > State Constitution > State Law > County Law > City Law

0.o Crap, but that sounds like a the setup for a lawyers heaven.... How does everything function so well? there must be situations you could find loopholes to drive a aircraft carrier through.

Same as in Australia. It works if you have a Federal Administration courageous enough to bring in a law that overrides the state laws forcing them to comply. My long term preference here would be to abolish the states altogether.

Spacekiwi wrote:

Donnachaidh wrote:And there you run into another problem, each state also has some form of constitution as well.

The way laws work here is Fed Constitution > Federal Law > State Constitution > State Law > County Law > City Law

0.o Crap, but that sounds like a the setup for a lawyers heaven.... How does everything function so well? there must be situations you could find loopholes to drive a aircraft carrier through.

Going back to my post of a couple of days ago, I realized that I was somewhat unclear. The number I gave is not the total number of gun laws in the US. It is simply the total number of Federal gun laws. That number does not include State, county, city/town or neighborhood ordinances. So yes, it is a system designed to make lawyers both rich and hated. Also, that number does not include directives and advisories issued by the Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco and Firearms, since they do not come under the heading of laws. That number is simply those actual laws passed by the US Congress in the last 220 years.

Does that give you some insight into why people like Pokermind and myself oppose more gun laws?