Gun law changes dropped by Tasmanian Liberals following community backlash - Polidicks

An election promise to change Tasmania's gun laws has been abandoned, with the Liberal Government acknowledging the community's "deeply held concerns" over safety and confidence in the law. The changes would have allowed some licence holders access to silencers and extend gun licence duration. The controversial gun law policy was circulated to interest groups, including farmers during the election campaign, but only came to public light on the day before the state election. On Friday, Premier Will Hodgman issued a statement saying the Tasmanian Government understood "there are deeply held concerns about public safety, and in an area as important to Tasmanians as gun laws, public confidence in our laws is essential". "We have consistently said that we will not do anything to undermine the National Firearms Agreement. Our firearms laws are among the toughest in the world and that is how they should remain." The Liberals had said the policy to relax firearms laws was aimed at sporting shooters and helping farmers do their jobs by allowing greater access to "tools of the trade" category C firearms, such as self-loading rifles and pump-action shotguns, and would have doubled some licences from five to 10 years. The National Firearms Agreement (NFA) specifies that licence duration should not exceed five years. Read more at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-17/gun-law-review-in-tasmania-dropped-by-liberals/10132610

What is wrong with any of these things..? Suppressors are used mostly for dealing with pest creatures, namely rabbits, feral dogs, and foxes. All of which have some damn good hearing, and will probably start bolting after you deal with the first ones. As for longer periods of time afforded with your gun license... Why exactly is this a bad thing? All of this license crap is just control based on income group. Bunch of rich tossers can have the licenses, no problem, but if you are a farmer who busts their ass on a small family farm and is trying to protect your livestock, you get told to fuck off by a bunch of nancy children in the big cities.

Oh please, it didn't come to light "the day before the election". I know I heard about it weeks before hand.

The proposed changes were only made public one single day before the last Tasmanian state election; there was no community consultation at all, except dialogue with the gun lobby behind closed doors. The government also recklessly jumped into this and bypassed a Legislative Council select committee, which will be publishing a report including recommendations later this year.

It was still a big problem for the libs during the election - it may not have been the very day before but the substance is correct - they attempted to delay the announcement of that policy to the public but circulated it to interest groups beforehand

Meh, they won the election showing they do have public support. The arguments against it are also stupid and are based on fearmongering.

It amazes me how quickly you're willing to dismiss dishonest politics as well as arguments against the policy because it aligns with your worldview, which isn't shared by the majority of people in Australia

Silencers are a safety feature and are good for shooting nearish populated areas as the sound of gunshots can carry for miles. The only reason you wouldn't want them to have them is because you hate guns so much that you consider any danger to the user to be their fault for having a gun.

Well can you blame us for taking the optics of gun politics extremely seriously? We all constantly read about the blight of shootings - singular and mass - in churches and schools and just about anywhere else in America. As far as most of us are concerned, advancing gun legislation even an inch closer to US laws is a full inch too far.

I'd like to remind American posters that there's a very different gun culture in Australia and no matter if you believe a ban on silencers or a relaxation of licensing is good or not, it's pretty clear the Australian public at large does not believe in the right to own a firearm nor particularly cares too much for them. And so far for them, it has worked, and I'd imagine a lot of them would like it to stay that way. You can argue all you want about how it may or may not be the actual reason that Australia has had no major mass shooting and a low rate of gun deaths, but that doesn't change the fact that different countries have different solutions to different problems. If you don't want other countries who do have gun control to have a bearing on the laws on your nation, then you'd be wise not to do the same to a country that has a different idea entirely about that culture.

Widespread ignorance is not a valid argument. You can make the 'different culture' argument when it comes to regulation schemes in general, but people are scared of suppressors largely based on information gleaned from Hollywood. Plus this kind of sentiment: In July, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) released a statement saying it had been "22 years since the Port Arthur massacre, if our gun control laws loosen, we will not just go back 22 years but the lives lost will tragically have been in vain". is just absurd hyperbole. Extending difficult-to-acquire licenses from five to ten years, and legalizing a common safety device, will completely negate the rest of the extremely restrictive legislative structure? Really? I'm not going to tell Australians what they should or should not do because it's not my place to decide, but fearmongering isn't something that deserves respect. I want a practical, educated understanding of guns to have bearing on the gun laws of every nation, and then they can make a cultural decision based on facts. I think that's a pretty reasonable expectation for any piece of technology, not just guns. This really isn't the gotcha you seem to think it is.

If you'll see what I posted after that in the edit, you'll understand what I'm talking about. If you want Australians to be sensible about suppressors, then we should expect much the same of the gun-loving world. That means something as simple as an institution of a basic gun license and registration that should be as easy to get as a car, but you'd never see any sort of a sensible legislation ever supported by guns-rights activists for much the same reasons as you stated, because any step towards gun control for them, is a complete reversal of the policy the united states has had for the last 200 years and is thus unacceptable.

Of course a clear majority of Australians won’t have a thorough understanding of guns and gun laws. I won’t pretend that I do, either. Many Australians probably haven’t ever seen a gun in real life, except pistols carried by some police officers. And we rarely if ever have debates about gun issues, because it’s hardly an issue here to begin with; we don’t need to arm ourselves (pun) with knowledge about gun regulation. The current issues in Australian society include a lack of doctors in rural areas, refugees, housing, wages, and the royal commission into the financial sector. Unlike say in the US where every Second Amendment-loving patriot probably constantly rehearses their stance for when yet another mass shooting happens, given the gun debate that follows every single time.

Sorry but your observation about our legislation is neither correct nor comparable to the situation in Australia. As far as I can tell, no one in Australia is running a dishonest campaign of misinformation to pass smaller pieces of pro gun legislation with the end goal of making guns unregulated. In the United States however, the IS 1000% undeniably an effort to pass as much anti-gun legislation as humanly possible with the end goal of total disarmament (or at least close as they can get to it). Our politicians consistently resort to fear mongering, ignorance, and twisting the facts in an effort to pass poorly thought out nonsolutions. What they’re trying to pass now in our country can’t even be called gun control anymore. It’s just straight up a mob mentality of “fuck you I don’t care about the facts or who this legislation harms, I just want it gone because everyone else whithin my favorite political sports team says it’s wrong. Therefore I DO NOT LIKE THING, STOP THING!” The logic behind the anti-gun movement within the United States is more or less the same as the Pro Life movement. Both are asking for unreasonable/unrealistic goals and both have become part of a large political platform for politicians to take advantage of. I know there is some need for good gun control policies, but that is not what ever gets proposed. Practically no proper firearms legislation has been written in good faith since 1934, and the ones which sound good always have a nasty caveat attached to them (such as giving government an avenue to deny people their second amendment rights if they are collecting social security benefits) so that the blame gets shifted onto whoever strikes down the bill. The same thing goes for a licensing and registration system because any form of firearms registration has historically always been abused in our country. We once had a registry for machine guns which worked great until the government decided to shut it down for no reason with an extremely controversial voice only vote where they “nays” were obviously louder than the “yays”. There was also that one time where a news organization doxxed the entire gun owning population of New York by publishing their entire registry. Massachusetts also used their registry to send threatening letters to every gun owner in the state after it passed a bump stock ban, but hilariously no one turned in any. etc... So no, I really don’t think you can make the argument honestly that extending the duration of firearms licensing in Australia and allowing suppressors is part of some grand scheme to make the rest of your firearms laws moot. Comparing any of that to the giant shitshow going on in my country just doesn’t make sense especially when we have turbo cunts like Dianne Feinstein on the record saying she wants to take all the guns.

Except yeah, it is very comparable, because even when sensible gun legislation based on actual fact does come up, gun-rights advocates start having a tempter tantrum, stick their head and heels to the sand, and just bring up facts about why guns which entire point is to cause damage to other living objects don't actually kill people even when the point of the legislation is not to ban guns or stop owners from getting them. I've talked to several more sensible guns-rights activists before about this and they all say the same thing; the reason they do this is because any gun control whatsoever invites further nonsensical gun legislation, despite the fact that if instead they waited for a better time to use their energy and money for when that nonsensical gun legislation is in legislation, more lives could be saved and more crimes could be stopped. Even if it's true with your disapproval of moderate gun control because it's lead to situations that powers have abused (which by the way, a decent bit of those could have easily been prevented if guns-right activists had stepped up when they needed to rather than sticking their head in the sand and going 'You passed gun legislation so fuck you I don't care"), the point is that's what Australians believe that as well, whether you like it or not, even if they don't have the same historical precedent that we do, and that's why they don't want any sort of sensible guns rights laws, just as we don't want sensible gun control legislation. And by the way, I'm American, not Australian. Trust me, I'm well aware of how things are in America.

So many people think that "silencers" work like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fOQlhdzcrA (great movie, baffling scene) I don't think there's a single conceivable way that suppresors would cause more violence/death. It's still loud as fuck. It's a safety measure first and foremost.

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't suppressors meant to help protect the hearing of the shooter/other people in proximity? I was under the impression suppressors are basically useless for stealth cause they are still pretty fucking loud.

I don’t think you’ve been informed about what people have been trying to pass off as “sensible gun control” legislation as of late. I’m sorry but there’s no other way to phrase it. As for “stepping up” when bad legislation is passed after the fact, you should know by now that’s not how things work. I don’t know what you’re even trying to argue with that logic. That we should just let bad legislation be passed against us because we should take the word of fear mongering politicians that “it saves lives” at face value? We’ve been trying to fight bad legislation which doesn’t prevent crime for decades with zero progress. For example, we were on the brink of reducing restrictions on suppressors to the same level of just buying another firearm with the Hearing Protection Act. Suppressors are already mindnumbingly simple to make, yet they are hardly ever used in the commission of any crimes, so it doesn’t make sense to put additional restrictions, taxation, and 6 month waiting periods on them. Then because some asshole in a completely unrelated incident decided to do a mass shooting, the Democrats dusted off and revved up their GUNS ARE EVIL propaganda machine to kill the bill and argue for additional restrictions based on ignorance and appeal to emotion. My point is once a gun restriction gets passed, it’s almost impossible to reverse regardless of how ineffective the law is. Despite this, you’re really going to pull the “why won’t you compromise” card and insist we’are the ones who are digging our heads in the sand. Lol fuck that noise. The only ones with their heads in the sand are the people like you who insist that attempting to pass terrible legislation 100 times over which benefits no one is somehow a form of “compromise”. Yes surely it’s our fault for not accepting legislation of any kind when it only serves to take more from us without any meaningful benefit to anyone. If these policies were really about public safety and compromising in good faith, we would require free proper safety courses before anyone could buy their own gun, NICS wouldn’t be a broken mess and actually be available and required for private sales, the ATF would do its fucking job to prosecute straw purchasers and gunrunners instead of assasinating people’s dogs/family members over the most trivial of violations. “Oh hey you have own a pistol which has any interchangeable parts with a rifle you own or vice versa? CONGRATULATIONS you’re now a felon even if both weapons are kept separate and you never had any intent of making an SBR!” In exchange we’d get some things back which don’t effect public safety such as the machine gun registry being reopened, short barreled rifles short barreled shotguns and suppressors wouldn’t require retarded amounts of paperwork or a registry to own, we wouldn’t have assault weapons bans anywhere in the country,

I think you've completely misunderstood me. I'm not someone who believes guns are evil and all the bills that are going through congress right now are just and right when they help no one at all. I really wouldn't mind if this bill in this thread was actually passed and I'm supportive of a lot of basic guns rights legislation such as concealed carry permits, a repeal of the Hughes Amendment, and a restructure of the NFA to prevent that kind of ATF bullshit. I'm just sick and fucking tired of gun owners who whine and moan about even the slightest hint of gun control even when something sensible would be proposed like required safety classes (which in my opinion would best be a necessary part to obtain a license), not realizing the only way you're ever going to stop the type of nonsensical gun control from being passed is if instead you direct the gun control yourselves, and ensure that nobody fucks it up. If gun owners actually attempted to police themselves and establish proper controls, then they wouldn't have this issue of the more uneducated populace popping up and supporting things like Assault Weapon Bans, and wouldn't have the government abusing their powers to take away gun rights. Instead, they always seems to stick their heads in the sand and come up with ANY excuse as to why they can't support the slightest amount of gun control, such as you arguing that since there's no current sensible gun legislation, that you shouldn't try to legislate at all. It just gives off this attitude of "fuck you, got mine" to me since it seems like they care more about their ability to have easy access to a firearm than they do about stopping crime and actually legitimately saving peoples lives, and that pisses me off to no end. Society doesn't work like that. You can't just say "No, I won't have any of it" especially when you're in the minority, as it will always lead to your rights being trampled on because others don't know any better. You have to be willing to compromise, and that means taking an active part in leading the compromise yourself, not sticking your fingers in your ears and not listening to the other side, which as far as I can tell you did exactly that to me considering you immediately assumed I'm a gun-hating ill-informed control-freak who thinks sensible legislation is putting more restrictions on suppressors. That fucking sucks man.

You keep saying "sensible legislation" without providing any real world examples. As far as I know, nothing sensible has been proposed in years. The idea of mandatory safety classes and licensing isn't sensible. Barring the constitutional violations those would propose, it wouldn't really do jack shit. You know how many people still fuck up and kill or hurt somebody while holding a drivers license? Do you know how many people drive unlicensed and uninsured? Imagine that x100 considering theres no firearms registration that can be enforced along with licensing, even with it its ineffectual in stopping crime. Canada even gave up on their long arms registration because it was so useless. The agency that would enforce licensing would be the ATF, which is the most worthless arm of the government. They dont have the funding or personnel to effectively moderate licensing for up to a 100,000,000 people, nor do they have the personnel to enforce it. The ATF is already take 3-12 months to process NFA tax stamps, and thats for a few thousand applications a year, not tens of millions. Licensing guns in America would be ineffectual, unenforceable, and impossible to navigate. Saying thats "sensible" is naive. I agree there should be safety classes, but it should be done in elementary, middle, and highschool. Not mandatory prerequisites for ownership. Whether you like it or not, theres between 300,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 guns in America, everyone will encounter one at some point in their life based on sheer probability and they should know how to act safely around them, regardless if they own one or hate guns outright. You speak as if we're actual people with a modicum of power within our government: newsflash, we're anonymous people posting on a forum for a mod for a 15 year old video game. Many of us are involved in safety and outreach programs, the issue is staunch willfull ignorance we're up against. Us as individuals cant change shit. We cant even change the minds of people on this forum even when we present hard evidence of their ignorance. How are we going to propose sensible gun legislations?

Sorry for the misunderstanding then. Normally 99% of the time people have the opposite reaction to what you did in these arguments. Still I don’t think you should really blame pro gun people too much for being openly hostile towards any new gun control legislation when it has been used so many times in the past to burn us for no apparent reason. That and the laws we already have are not being enforced properly.

First off licensing and registration would not violate any constitutional amendment. The second amendment guarantees you the right to bear arms, not to be right from freedom of the government ensuring you're not going to use those arms for a willful wrongdoing on the general populace. Every amendment has its restrictions to ensure the safety of the general populace, such as the "fighting words" rule of the first amendment. This would apply here as wells, especially the preferred system of licensing I'd like to see where bolt, lever or pump action long guns aren't regulated and you don't require a license to actually own one, as nobodies going to use a friggin bolt action to rob a car or shoot up a school, they're more for hunting and target shooting than anything. Secondly just as any fucking gun control, or control in general, the point isn't to stop all gun deaths or injuries, the point is to try to minimize them as much as possible. You're never going to stop someone if they really want to get a gun and kill someone, the point is that you try to stop most people who would use a gun for a malignant purpose from being able to have easy access to them. A robber is going to think a lot harder about going out and trying to hold people at knifepoint, especially when there's a good chance they will have a gun since they went through the licensing. A suicidal person is going to have to think about what their doing a bit more when tying a noose than being able to just put a gun up to their head and shoot instantly without a single second thought, a gun which they would have got from their family member had the family member not been instructed on proper safety measures in a required beforehand safety course. A school shooter isn't going to be able to get a gun from their dad for much the same reason. The point of licensing isn't to stop all possible bad things from happening for whatever it's controlling, it's to try and minimize what does actually happen. Imagine how many more accidents and subsequent deaths if we didn't have licensing for driving AT ALL. Thirdly, registration is more of a passive preventative measure than one that actively is supposed to stop crime. If a gun that's registered is dropped on the scene as often is when shootings occur, the gun can be traced back and found the owner of it who can further provide more information for a crime, whether they be the actual criminal or not. That fact lies in the criminal mind and would help prevent crime beforehand, and even if not it can still help solve a case and ensure the criminal is served due justice for what they've done. Perhaps it's not as necessary as licensing would be, but they go hand in hand well enough to provide an actual difference, as well as another point I'll talk about later. As for Canada's long arm registration failing to prevent gun crime, no shit it would. Like I said before, people don't commit gun crime with long arms. The statistics show it. Fourthly, you're absolutely right that the ATF right now is useless, which is why in addition to these reforms, there should also be reforms and a general increase in funding for the ATF. Much like how our Department of Transportation is underfunded and needs to be funded more in order to have a better effect on preventing car accidents, the ATF should similarly be funded as well to prevent gun deaths. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire reason the ATF is batshit crazy right now is entirely because they have to be otherwise they don't have the statistics to be able to put up for the funding that's necessary to do their fucking jobs. Our entire government needs an overhaul in this respect but Americans hate their taxes at the moment. As for safety courses, why in the hell would it not be useful as a mandatory prerequisite for gun ownership? I absolutely agree with you that gun safety courses should be reintroduced and mandatory in all high schools, that would help a lot with accidental gun deaths, but why the hell would it not be useful for someone who actually is going to own and come in direct daily contact with a firearm, to not be forced to go through specific training to ensure they don't misuse a tool that can fucking kill someone? That makes zero sense. All of what you just posted just brings up one question. Why the hell not? Even if I'm completely wrong, and licensing and registration wouldn't help one bit with preventing gun deaths or gun crime, then what exactly is lost? The only thing that licensing and registration would do is slightly inconvenience gun owners from being able to get access to a firearm. Is that really fucking worth the chance of being able to save someone else's life, limb and property? Are you really so callous as to care more about being able to easily buy a gun than about stopping someone from being hurt? Even if you bring up the possibility of licensing and registration being used to take away people's firearms, that can so very very very easily be prevented by ensuring there's rules in the police procedure as well as ensuring that proper litigation can occur if firearms are improperly removed from their owner and melted down or such. It's not that hard, you just have to apply yourself and think for a second about how society can be properly fucking ran rather than worrying about the government taking away your guns. Which brings me to my final point - stop with this defeatist attitude. Yes, you're one single individual out of millions. We all are. That's what a democracy is, that's what human society is. The point is that you have to speak up, talk to other people, get other people to agree with you, and trust me, you can. You're a gun owner, or at least someone who heavily supports gun rights. You and people like you have effectively blocked any and all gun control from passing congress for the last 20 years. You have a voice, and if you were to talk to other gun owners who you'd have much more clout with than a hardcore liberal like me, you'd be able to much more easily convince them than coming from a point of view from someone else completely. You don't change minds by winning arguments. You change them by understanding them and seeing their point of view. The reason you can't change an ignorant person's point of view is you make them feel like an idiot. Nobody wants to feel like an idiot. You have to both educate them as well as understand things from their point of view at the same time, which is why if you tried to come out with your own gun control and explained it well from your own point of view, people who normally hate guns would likely support you. It's the same with gun owners. You're a guns right activist yourself, you can sympathize and understand where their coming them and help them come to the same conclusion as you, not tell them what to do. That's how you change minds, and you of all people wield the greatest power when it comes to a subject like this. If you an everyone else got enough people together to spread your own idea of gun control, then shit would change, because no matter what democracy is based on the simple fact of what most people want. And most people are sick and tired of the gun violence that prevails through our society.

Wow a whole lot of Americans in here talking about America for some reason

Let's not forget who's talking here. I don't trust a word this worm says, and that includes this. It'd be the perfect thing for him to keep repeating if he was going to try to sabotage the investigation somehow, claiming all along that he was completely unbiased. Sessions is cut from the same cloth as Devin Nunes. Like Nunes, Sessions will likely be criminally implicated if Trump is brought down.

The community didn't want it. Whether you think they're right or wrong is irrelevant. It's their legislation and they've spoken. Some places just don't want guns and don't want to loosen restrictions. The UK and Australia are prime examples. The cultural perception of guns in these places is a lot more negative and therefore they don't like them as much and don't want legislation relaxed, and that's completely fine because that's democracy.

SC declared firearm registration as unconstitutional. Adding prerequisites to rights beyond criminal violations is absolutely unconstitutional. US vs Haynes. Licensing would be ruled unconstitutional were a case involving it made it to the SC. Just like voter ID laws, poll taxes, and other right bars are unconstitutional. Regulating certain types of guns and not regulating others based on its type of action is dumb. You might as well leave rifles and machine guns unregulated all together sincs theyre rarely used in crime in the first place. You know what would minimize or eliminate those deaths all together? By focusing on the actual causes of those problems instead of trying to infringe on the rights of a group of people who are almost completely comprised of law abiding users. Its just plain dumb dood. As I stated, adding prerequisites for ownership does nothing to impede accidents or crime. If a criminal wants a gun, theyre not buying one from Walmart. Theyre stealing it or buying it on the street. You might stop a few mass shootings, which are statistical anomalies in the first place, but that sort of thing is better conquered by better healthcare access. Except registrations dont really do shit to stop crime or help solve crimes. Criminals dont purposefully drop murder weapons at a crime scene, and if they do its not one that they bought themselves. For a gun registry to work, it requires compliance from law abiding citizens AND criminals. Why would a criminal register a weapon he intends to commit crimes with? Show me a paper that attributes more solved crimes to a gun registry. Because idiots exist regardless of how many courses they have to take. As I stated previously, how many people die a year in car accidents that took drivers ed before they got their license? All of them. Placing a financial barrier to a right isnt just unconstitutional, its not cool. Its also easily abused. Uh oh heres the part where you completely incriminate me because I refuse to give in to your nonsensical gun control demands. Registration can be used to build a comprehensive list of firearm owners and their firearms, which can be used as a christmas list for confiscation, as it was used in Australia. Licensing can be used to completely bar ownership by the government refusing to issue new licenses and confiscating old ones. Its an incredibly easy to abuse system that can change from strict to loose as administrations change. Youre basically asking me to give up one of the foundational rights of this nation based on a naive hunch you have thats not backed up with logic, facts, science, or research. Get real dood. Youre suggesting legislation thats not only ineffectual, but unconstitutional to boot. Why would I get on board with this? If you want to tackle murder and suicide, you need to go after the causes, not the consequences. Treating the symptoms hasnt worked and wont ever work. As I stated, I'm not in congress, or the senate, or on the SC, or in my state senate, or on my city council, or a mayor. I HAVE NO POLITICAL POWER. QUIT BLAMING PEOPLE FOR THE ACTIONS OF OTHERS. Jfc dood come on. Wanna know why we dont support any of the proposed gun controls? Because most of them have been AWB's, no fly list person ownershio bans, and fruitless background check expansions. Why would we support ineffectual legislation that further violates our rights? "Be reasonable, just give up your right so i can feel better about myself". Yea naw.

Then why do you still have to register NFA firearms? US vs Hayne has nothing to do with the second amendment, only the fifth. And you have no basis for the Licensing being ruled unconstitutional. Voter ID law is constitutional unfortunately, as according to Crawford vs Marion County. Do you even know what the fuck you're spouting at this point? Then why does Australia allow these guns to be legal? Because those guns are actually useful for hunting and such and not likely to be used in crime. I agree, but we can also minimize the damage by instituting gun laws until American citizens can prove themselves able to use guns without hurting other. Oh wait, dumbasses will always be around just as you say, so we're never going to get rid of the problem, just like you talk about later. Guess we'll just have to institute a more permanent solution then. Also owning guns is not a basic human right, only guaranteed by the Constitution, which the original amendment was entirely made for state militias to be able to rebel against the government if anyone gets too touchy. And yes, a robber holding someone at gunpoint for their money is a completely law abiding use. And where do you think that the illegal guns on the street are coming from, I might ask? That's not the point. Any extra information about the crime helps in the investigation, and if you can nab the murder weapon you can establish a history as to what happened to the gun from registration. That's why you'd need to report if your gun is missing. Would keep a better track of what weapons are out and the wild and such. You literally just ignored my argument that the point of control measures is not to eliminate all deaths, just try to minimize them. Good job Easy. Make gun safety courses free. No, I'm asking you a serious question if you really think your "right" to own a firearm is more important that someone elses right to live. And we have things to dispute those actions you know? They're called court cases, and I guarantee you any judge worth is salt would find those two things completely unconstitutional and force the government to pay damages or restart licensing. That's a true infringement on the second amendment and I'm sure almost anyone would support you. A hunch? It's basic fucking logic. Show me the facts, science and research if you really think that Licensing wouldn't fucking help us? Why the fuck is every other civilized nation on earth aside from Switzerland use incensing and registration if they do allow guns in their country? You've shown me no actual fucking proof that licensing and registration is unconstitutional, just spat at at me. "Has no political power." "Has the basic constitutional right to vote and get others to do so as well, much like a constitutional right to bear arms." Pick one. Oh my! It's almost like I can't pick and choose which legislation I support and which ones I don't! I just have to follow the crowd and *vote no on everything cause fuck you got muh guns*. Stop fucking acting like owning a gun is a basic human right. It's not. No where else in the world is owning a firearm even a right of a citizen. Hell up until recently it wasn't even a right of the citizen. Before about the 1960s, the second amendment was more about being able to form together a military organization in order to protect the rights of yours and other citizens. Even back when the constitution was made, it was never specifically about owning a firearm. Notice how the amendment states the "right to bear arms". It doesn't say what kind of arms you can bear, just "arms" which can easily be interpreted as swords and such. No, you can blame the entire last page of discussion on that. I tried to keep my posts about Australia versus America because of Americans coming in and acting like things are the same between the two, but then we got into debate about gun laws itself and that came on to the topic of American law. It's how gun debates go. I think your post proves well enough just how much of a rambling unjustified ideologue you are. You did nothing but completely ignore my arguments, substituted your own completely unjustified reasoning with zero actual sources to back it up, and used every trick and logical fallacy in the book to evade my actual arguments and try to make me look like an idiot. Good job "dood." I'm done here, there's no point in arguing any further as you'll just keep up your ramblings for the next 7 pages and nothing will change. This is the kind of gun-rights advocate I'm talking about @AlbertWesker . The kind that will do anything to justify his worship of dangerous tool and keep it at ready and easy access for everyone to obtain- even those who would use it to hurt someone else - just so he can have an easier time getting it for himself. He's honestly the kind of person I trust least with a firearm. I'm truly sorry I ever lumped you into that group. it's been a while since I've tried to debate gun rights and just like any other topic it seems to be getting harder to determine if you can reason with someone about things or if they're too radically entrenched in their opinions to try and even think about changing their minds and seeing things from a different point of view. You can see why I stopped in the first place, it's like smashing your head against a brick wall.

Doesnt matter what flavor of right you think it is, its a guaranteed right and the SC upholds it for citizens within and without a militia. If you dont like that, move. America doesn't change because naive misguided individuals like yourself or the broken ideals you hold. The NFA is constitutional because nobody has taken it to the SC. I dont think you know how the SC works, I know you didnt read US vs Hayne beyond the google brief, and you know what isnt constitutional? Poll taxes. Its almost like putting a financial barrier in front of a right makes it no longer be a right. Hmm I'm honestly not gonna take the time to respond to the rest of your post, sorry. Its basically one long winded "nuh uh" where youre pushing off the burden of proof because you know you cant prove yourself. Better luck next time.

These are both really terrible arguments and your post would be a lot better without them. Plenty of rights come at the cost of lives. Most people think your right to privacy is worth the lives lost to terror attacks that could have been prevented by 24/7 Orwellian security. The right to free speech was abridged during WW1 over concerns that seditious language could cost American lives, and today it's overwhelmingly regarded as a mistake. 'My right to live is more important than your right to [X]' has been the language used to erode freedoms for decades, you need a better reason than that. And your claims about the 2nd Amendment are just nonsense. I don't view the Constitution as infallible but it's clear from the historical context (please read the Militia Acts) that it was intended to ensure that civilians could own weapons comparable to that of the common soldiery, so that they could provide for the common defense against both foreign powers and domestic threats. Nobody tries to argue that the 1st Amendment only covers spoken words so it baffles me that people try to uniquely interpret the 2nd so literally and without respect for intent or historical context.

Yes they did, back in the '30s. The restrictions on short-barrelled guns were ruled constitutional because they "served no military purpose" since no military used guns with barrels that short at the time.