The Supreme Court on Monday turned away an appeal by a group of gun rights advocates seeking to overturn Maryland’s ban on assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines under the Second Amendment.
The decision, a major win for gun safety advocates, leaves in place a ruling by the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals which ruled that the state may constitutionally prohibit sale and possession of the weapons.
The state legislation, enacted in 2013 after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, specifically targets the AR-15 – the most popular rifle in America with 20-30 million in circulation. They are legal in 41 of the 50 states.
You’d think that if someone was about to slaughter as many people as possible they wouldn’t really be to worried about a 10-round mag law.
By that logic, why should anything be illegal?
That doesn’t follow logically at all unless you think a society with frequent mass murders is a foregone conclusion.
Well it doesn’t matter what you make illegal, because criminals will just get it anyway. That’s why every other country has the exact same gun death rate as the USA, even though guns are illegal in most of them, right?
Sorry what? No most other countries do not have gun death rates close to the US. The US also spans the crown. And that is not even saying anything about the amount of massacres in US schools compared to the rest of the world.
Yeah, I was being sarcastic to show how ridiculous that logic is.
I’m not saying don’t try to stop mass murders. I’m saying do it in a way that makes fucking sense. This part bans make no fucking sense, especially when they don’t grandfather in for existing owners. I wish we would put all the effort spent on supporting these piecemeal measures into pressuring legislators to provide access to a good education and medical / mental health services for everyone as I’m convinced lack of those things are the source of the violence, but all this stupid system can do is take from people and it bothers me to see people jump on that train so willingly when it happens.
Especially at a time where government agencies are committing acts of escalating terror against the population, like we’re seeing with ICE. It’s just so tone deaf.
So you are saying its easier to ensure everyone is happy nearly all the time than to pass gun regulation that minimizes the amount of guns in society? Tough sell don’t you think? Do you also think countries with lower gun crime are just happier in general? Do you think mental health isn’t an issue ib places like Australia?
A simple fact of life is that sometimes people get upset/sad/frustrated and then make mistakes. What tools are available at the time have a direct impact on how bad those mistakes are.
Americans are just like anyone else, with less guns we would still fight and argue but people wouldnt be put in a grave as often over it.
You must be right since every other country who’s already solved this problem solved it in the way you’re saying doesn’t work.
You’ll never convince me that guns aren’t the problem, because places that don’t have guns don’t have the problem. The evidence is thoroughly and definitively not on your side.
There are literally dozens of countries that allow private ownership of semi-auto long guns with a permit (Canada is one of them - I see your home instance is .ca), many of them don’t even require a stated reason. The legal difference in the US is that one of our founding documents specifies access as a right. Access to guns is not why we’re a violent county. We’re a violent country because we’re a genocidal settler-colonialist racial slaver society with no health care and piss-poor education. If all of our guns were to poof vanish tonight we’d just have more euro-style mass knifings in our schools and department stores. This shit is like water pressure, you can put your thumb on the hose with piecemeal measures but it’s going to burst out somewhere else so long as it’s still flowing.
Europe doesn’t even have a lot of stabbings either, you see that more in other continents outside Europe/NA. In Europe people just use a car to drive into society …
Ok, let’s try it and see if you’re right.
The second amendment has four clauses, each separated with commas. The way I interpret it (the way it was originally interpreted for over 200 years) is that it guarantees states the right to maintain well regulated militias of its citizens, and that the federal government can’t take away the firearms of those militias.
It’s only relatively recently (2008) that we’ve reinterpreted the amendment to basically forget about the first two clauses and the third command. That’s why the NRA only has the second half adorning their office buildings.
The text:
How I interpret it:
How republicans interpret it:
The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.
Quick question: where else is “the people” interpreted to mean “ostensibly the states, but ultimately the federal government for all practical purposes. Either way, definitely not individual persons.”?
I think you misunderstand. I’m not trying to stan the 2A. I’m trying to point out that the US is not at all unique when it comes to private access to the sort of gun that Maryland has banned.
Counterpoint is that these wouldn’t just be readily available everywhere if they were illegal.
You’re missing the point of these laws entirely. No one is saying that passing a law like this is going to remove every possible avenue for someone to get the most destructive gun on the planet and do the most damage possible.
What these laws are intended to do is make it less likely someone will have access to the most destructive gun on the planet. If someone plans multiple years ahead, they can go to the far ends of the Earth to get the most destructive gun possible. However, if they got pissed off at their boss that morning and decide to commit this kind of crime they’ll only have wants available to that morning. If they were a legal gun owner when the day started, that means they’ll only have 10 round magazines at most. Even if they drive to the local store nearby, they’d only be able to buy more 10 round magazines.
Lets even say that higher capacity magazines are available in the next state over. That may mean hours of planning and travel just to get to the other state to get the high capacity magazines, then all the time it takes to get back home to commit their crime. That’s a lot of time for someone to consider what they’re doing, the impact it will have on others, and even their own lives.
Will some still do it with all of that planning and bother needed? Yes. Will everyone? Doubtful.
It takes 5 minutes to change a 10 round magazine into a high capacity one
Why do you think if we can’t stop the most determined Luigi’s out there that regulation is impotent? We aren’t trying to stop the very edge cases, we are trying to stop crimes of passion, which most gun crime is.
Any magazine that can be changed in 5 minutes to hold more than 10 rounds likely doesn’t count as a legal magazine even with only 10 round capacity at that time of sale.
Here’s an example from the text California law with a piece on the 10 round magazine limits and exceptions:
“With limited exceptions, California law prohibits any person from manufacturing, importing into the state, keeping for sale, offering or exposing for sale, giving, lending, buying, or receiving a large capacity magazine.1 (A “large capacity magazine” is defined as any ammunition feeding device with the capacity to accept more than ten rounds, with exceptions for any .22 caliber tube ammunition feeding device, any feeding device that has been permanently altered so that it cannot accommodate more than ten rounds, or any tubular magazine that is contained in a lever-action firearm).2” source
That seems like an awfully fringe and roundabout improvement for a law that ruins the fun for everyone else. But I guess this is the flip side of the same leadership that’s engineered a society in which so many people decide to be mass murderers in the first place.
Ruining the fun? That seems to be an incredibly weak argument for gun proliferation. I can see an argument for strong 2nd Amendment proponents as the Constitution grants rights and freedoms, and restrictions on those granted in the Constitution could be a pathway to a bad place. However, I can also see an argument that the evolution of firearms has outpaced our society’s safe use of modern firearms and that the freedom of victims of gun violence are also having their even stronger Constitutional rights restricted and spirit of our nation with the Declaration’s “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. In this conversation I’m not advocating a position either way, but I can see the valid arguments on both sides.
In neither one of those is “ruining” the fun" even a fraction of a thought to consider. You do you though.
Have a good night.
Why, you have an issue with fun? You have an issue with a society where everyone can pursue their hobbies to the fullest extent, and find enjoyment in them? Do you not think it’s possible to provide responsible restrictions on firearms in a way that doesn’t prevent one from going out into the woods on a weekend with friends to merely enjoy nerding out on the intersection of machining and marksmanship? More importantly, do you not find it justified to argue for rights from the goal of having a good time? Fun isn’t covered in the constitution per se but I think this falls under the old “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be a part of your revolution”.
Then do paintball.
Guns, particularly handguns and AR-15s are specifically designed to kill humans. Do you really need someone to walk you through why that’s different than sewing or riding bikes?
If you’re not even capable of understanding why your need to have instruments of death in order to have “fun” isn’t more important than other peoples’ lives and safety, then you have no place in modern society and should remove yourself and go live in the woods or something.
Damn, dude! Better not learn about HEMA or fencing. Shit may give you an aneurism.
You didn’t even quote me correctly.
Have you ever driven a car?
Shame on you if you have. Some of those have been designed and used to kill people.
How dare you. Go live in the woods!
If you honestly don’t know the difference between a car and a gun and what their purposes are, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Honestly I believe you’re smart enough to understand, so either you’re being disingenuous, or you’re just refusing to allow yourself to go there because you’ve centered your entire personality around instruments of death.
Cars are designed to kill people? Consumer vehicles? Lol right… Do better.
Pft, your car doesnt have a giant unicorn spike on the front for spearing pedestrians?
Yeah, firearms have been the top cause of death of children in the US for years, but wouldn’t want to ruin the fun for you.
And before that it was cars, Detroit just had better lobbyists and didn’t use them to shelter Russian intelligence assets. Cars continue to get larger, faster, heavier, and with higher raised bumpers because fuck pedestrians.