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A suspected Islamic terrorist opened fire at a gay nightclub in Florida, killing 50 people and wounding another 53 before he was killed by police. While authorities continue to investigate to determine whether this man had ties to ISIS, the terror organization has not been quiet in praising the attack. This comes three days after ISIS announced they would attack somewhere in Florida. Today's attack marks the largest act of terrorism on US soil since 9/11.
takyon: The gunman reportedly called 911 emergency services to pledge allegiance to ISIS. The President will hold a briefing momentarily. Compare this article to the original submission.
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Islamic Terrorist Opens Fire on Florida Nightclub; 50 Killed, 53 Wounded
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You can't have your cake and let your neighbor eat it too.
-- Ayn Rand
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @01:38AM
Not bad. Problem is, the first thing you need to do for that is a constitutional amendment to revoke the second amendment.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Monday June 13 2016, @02:07AM
Not necessarily. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and I am particularly not a Constitutional lawyer).
The Second Amendment, taken literally, is absolute. You can bear arms - weapons, any weapons. A strict literal reading would say that citizens can own and use nuclear missiles. Which is patently absurd, which is why no current Supreme Court justice is a strict constructionist. I believe every right granted in the Bill of Rights has been given some sort of exception, save the Third, to avoid extreme cases. Direct threats are not protected by freedom of speech. Riots are not protected by freedom of assembly. Being near the border wipes away your protection from unreasonable search and seizure (which is IMO wrong but that's not what the courts have ruled).
And so it is with the Second Amendment. The government may regulate the possession of arms. The federal government has regulations under Title I and Title II - this is why you can't buy an RPG-7 at Wal-Mart. You already need all manner of papers and to pay a lot more taxes than you really should in order to possess certain weapons. My proposal merely smooths out that curve - adding incremental amounts of licensing in order to reach further levels of firepower.
Not to mention that a lot of state or local governments have restricted firearms, sometimes to ludicrous degrees (coughcoughcaliforniacough).
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday June 13 2016, @03:24AM
The Second Amendment, taken literally, is absolute. You can bear arms - weapons, any weapons. A strict literal reading would say that citizens can own and use nuclear missiles.
Yeah.
Which is patently absurd
If you feel that way, move to amend the constitution. Don't just ignore it.
which is why no current Supreme Court justice is a strict constructionist.
And nor are they friends to the concept of a limited government which follows the highest law of the land, as evidenced by countless authoritarian decisions.
Keep in mind that there is a stark difference between what is actually constitutional and what the courts claim is constitutional.
I believe every right granted in the Bill of Rights has been given some sort of exception
Often in utter defiance of the constitution, mind you. The courts also approved of citizens of Japanese descent being put in internment camps, the jailing of war protesters, the existence of obscenity laws and other types of censorship. They have also been entirely ineffective thus far at putting a stop to blatantly unconstitutional surveillance practices. The courts are not exactly friends to liberty.
My proposal merely smooths out that curve - adding incremental amounts of licensing in order to reach further levels of firepower.
Your proposal would make an already bad situation even worse. But this sort of thinking seems common. If there is a long history of the government ignoring the constitution, we should try to correct that, not just allow them to violate it even more while ignoring what's happening. Either create an amendment or knock it off; simply interpreting the constitution in ways that are convenient for you so that the government can have more power is unacceptable.
Not to mention that a lot of state or local governments have restricted firearms, sometimes to ludicrous degrees (coughcoughcaliforniacough).
Which isn't constitutional either.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday June 14 2016, @08:36AM
I believe every right granted in the Bill of Rights has been given some sort of exception
Often in utter defiance of the constitution, mind you. The courts also approved of citizens of Japanese descent being put in internment camps, the jailing of war protesters, the existence of obscenity laws and other types of censorship. They have also been entirely ineffective thus far at putting a stop to blatantly unconstitutional surveillance practices. The courts are not exactly friends to liberty.
This is incorrect. The Supreme Court *decides* what is constitutional. This was decided in 1803 in via Marbury v. Madison [wikipedia.org].
While this decision was not greeted warmly by many (Jefferson, notably, thought it very bad), there has been ample time to modify the court's power (in fact there have been seventeen amendments passed since that decision), yet this has not been done. Would you care to speculate as to why that's the case?
As such, it's clear that the Supreme Court is the arbiter of what is constitutional in the United States. You may disagree with their decisions (I certainly have issue with a bunch!), but unless and until there is a constitutional amendment destroying the independent judiciary, that's the way it is.
Despite the fact that I find fault with how some (if not many) cases are decided by the court, I am glad that we have an independent judiciary that is co-equal to the Legislative and Executive branches of our government.
Feel free to disagree (I'm sure you will), but you'll just be tilting at windmills, friend.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2016, @03:24PM
The US Supreme Court usurped for itself powers it had no authority to grant. It's no different than Congress with the War on Some Drugs: Congress "did its thing" (passed a law) and gave itself powers it had no authority to grant. It is no diffferent when the Supreme Court "did its thing" (wrote a brief on a case) and gave itself powers it had no authority to grant. It's a violation of law and literally criminal.
I've written a couple [soylentnews.org] journals [soylentnews.org] on the topic in case you'd like a few more details (and I reference the logically-inconsistent Marbury decision, to boot).
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday June 14 2016, @04:32PM
The US Supreme Court usurped for itself powers it had no authority to grant. It's no different than Congress with the War on Some Drugs: Congress "did its thing" (passed a law) and gave itself powers it had no authority to grant. It is no diffferent when the Supreme Court "did its thing" (wrote a brief on a case) and gave itself powers it had no authority to grant. It's a violation of law and literally criminal.
I've written a couple journals on the topic in case you'd like a few more details (and I reference the logically-inconsistent Marbury decision, to boot).
As I pointed out to Anal Pumpernickel, you're tilting at windmills friend.
Regardless of what you think of Supreme Court decisions, or legislation duly passed by Congress and signed into law by the President, those are the rules that control our government.
If you don't like it, you have several options:
Perhaps there are other options as well.
However, until such time as some or all of the above are successful, we have the governmental structure that we have.
The government we have is the government we (as Americans) created and have modified over the past 229 years or so. I don't like many of the things that the Federal government does, nor do I condone many of the unethical and downright nasty things it's done to us and to citizens of other countries.
I'd like to make things better for all of us. But claiming that Supreme Court rulings are "unconstitutional" or "criminal" isn't even wrong. It's meaningless prattle, devoid of semantic content.
Some (or many or all) of those rulings may be (and have been -- Plessy v. Ferguson [wikipedia.org] and Korematsu v. United States [wikipedia.org] come to mind) antithetical to the ideals of liberty, equality under the law and just plain fairness. One might even go so far as to say they are unethical, unprincipled and possibly even evil.
But to say that they are illegal or unconstitutional shows a lack of understanding of the governmental structures we, as a people, have placed over ourselves.
You don't have to like it. You don't need to support it. And if it's too burdensome, you don't even need to live under such a government. The choice is yours.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2016, @09:45PM
If you make the choice to believe that a verifiable falsehood is reality, I cannot (and will not try to) force you to change your mind. I can identify and define what appears to be literal insanity, albeit a comfortable state of mind considering the alternatives, in an attempt to shake you and others out of the despondant viewpoint which says "this new verifiable lie the Supreme Court emitted must now be considered by myself to be truth or else I'm a bad American/terrorist/rebel".
You seem not to have read my journals, as the meaning behind my use of the term "criminal" is plainly defined: when the authority of the individual is trespassed by an agent of government whose authority is a derivative of said individual's, that act is a crime. While the SCOTUS' mere act of declaring a lie to be truth is arguably not a criminal act in and of itself, it is not arguable that the lie will be imposed upon others at gunpoint by agents of government using the SCOTUS' lie as the justification for such criminal acts in the Nuremberg flavor of "just following orders".
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday June 14 2016, @10:16PM
If you make the choice to believe that a verifiable falsehood is reality, I cannot (and will not try to) force you to change your mind. I can identify and define what appears to be literal insanity, albeit a comfortable state of mind considering the alternatives, in an attempt to shake you and others out of the despondant viewpoint which says "this new verifiable lie the Supreme Court emitted must now be considered by myself to be truth or else I'm a bad American/terrorist/rebel".
I didn't say that Supreme Court rulings were "the truth." I said that they were the law of the land and, in a bunch of cases, unethical, unprincipled and possibly evil.
Nor did I even insinuate that disagreeing with the Supreme Court made you (or anyone else for that matter) a "bad American/terrorist/rebel."
You seem not to have read my journals, as the meaning behind my use of the term "criminal" is plainly defined: when the authority of the individual is trespassed by an agent of government whose authority is a derivative of said individual's, that act is a crime.
I did read the journal entry you linked and found it puerile and rather unconvincing.
There are many things that the Federal government does that I find to be unconscionable and downright disgusting.
The question is, "What are we going to do about it?" Are there options other than that which I suggested that you'd like to see attempted?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2016, @10:53PM
There were two linked journal entries, and aside from the directness and simplicity, what particular aspect(s) do you find to be silly, childish, or trivial?
My goal with the journals and my comments here is to resolve the contradiction of "law is what government says it is" with a government/law that is self-contradictory, easily seen in Dred Scott vs Sandford and also in the very existence of laws restricting possession of weapons within the same government which pays lip service to the Second Amendment.
The question of "what to do about [a criminal/evil] government" is another matter entirely. What people have done about criminal/evil laws is a matter of historical record: many ignored them (e.g. the Underground Railroad, First Prohibition, the Battle of Athens [jpfo.org], and the ongoing Battle of Bunkerville [thenationalpatriot.com] saga). For myself, I look at each claimed law that passes into my awareness and judge its validity according to the principles I wrote about in those two journal entries. I believe this is my responsibility and duty as an USian, rather putting any further effort into the futile and wholly corrupt existing federal political process (they may yet be some hope at the local level). I choose not to be a criminal, nor to support other criminals, and to treat everyone else I come across as equal or better than my own self by default. A random sampling of people who have met me will produce a positive picture of a person, with likely notable comments on my "strange" views that came up in conversation when it seemed appropriate and of interest to them according to my (hopefully correct) judgement. Naturally, when the US federal government gets around to prosecuting me, the indictment is going to be pages long, calling me a horrible crook who must spend decades if not centuries locked away in a cage.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday June 15 2016, @12:32AM
I look at each claimed law that passes into my awareness and judge its validity according to the principles I wrote about in those two journal entries.
So you've chosen option 4:
Promote and engage in peaceful civil disobedience to get the Federal government to do what you want it to do, promote and engage in armed rebellion against the Federal government, or both;
A valid choice. Good for you. It's certainly better than doing nothing.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2016, @01:06AM
No. When I disregard a law as Constitutionally-void and break it (while harming no one, mind you), that is not "civil disobedience". It is exactly the same in principle as disregarding an order from MS-13 to carry large amounts of cash everywhere I go while forbidding me from being armed: an order by criminals with no principle behind it other than the naked use of force. When a person is killed by government agents over a legally-void law, that killing is a murder no different in principle than any other intentional taking of human life outside of self-defense. Criminals are criminals no matter the costume they may wear and are deserving of equal treatment when they confront you.
"Civil disobedience" recognizes the law in question as valid yet objectionable. Most of the federal government's so-called laws are in fact not valid law at all. A law's maximum authority is limited to that of a single human being's, since the supreme law of the USA's is a mere derivative of said individual's authority: it cannot exceed the authority of its source. Laws that attempt to do so are unconstitutional by definition. (Else, I could start a kidnapping gang, and at some arbitary threshhold become lawful once I had enough members/supporters.) An unconstitutional act is not law; it has no legal power, it justifies no government action, and it was invalid as law the very moment it was "passed".
If you've read my journals, that last bit may seem familiar to you in regards to Norton vs Shelby County's recognition (not establishment of) of that same principle.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday June 14 2016, @06:55PM
This is incorrect. The Supreme Court *decides* what is constitutional.
What the legal system says is true and what is actually true in reality are different matters. If the Supreme Court was always correct, then how could previous decisions ever be overridden, aside from a situation where the constitution has changed between the rulings? Did reality magically change in that time? So what you're talking about clearly only applies to the legal system. This is because there is a need to have someone decide matters at the end of the day, not because those people are always correct. When they are wrong, we must attempt to correct the issue.
You may disagree with their decisions (I certainly have issue with a bunch!)
Well, that's what I was doing. I'm not opposed to the courts ruling on constitutional matters, but I simply disagree with many of the decisions they have made. These terrible rulings need to be fixed, one way or another.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday June 14 2016, @08:00PM
What the legal system says is true and what is actually true in reality are different matters.
I never said anything about "truth." I specifically said "constitutional." What is legal/constitutional does not necessarily coincide with what's true or right. Until the passage of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, it was "legal" in the United States to own other human beings. In fact, it was enshrined in the original text of the Constitution. This was clearly not right, nor is it "true" in an ethical sense. However, it was the law of the land.
If the Supreme Court was always correct, then how could previous decisions ever be overridden, aside from a situation where the constitution has changed between the rulings? Did reality magically change in that time? So what you're talking about clearly only applies to the legal system. This is because there is a need to have someone decide matters at the end of the day, not because those people are always correct. When they are wrong, we must attempt to correct the issue.
[...]
Well, that's what I was doing. I'm not opposed to the courts ruling on constitutional matters, but I simply disagree with many of the decisions they have made. These terrible rulings need to be fixed, one way or another.
I don't take any issue with your analysis or the sentiment behind it.
Please see my response to an AC [soylentnews.org] above.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Interesting) by deimtee on Monday June 13 2016, @03:45AM
The anti-gunners need to take a cue from jiu-jitsu and let the second amendment collapse under its own weight. They should argue that it is literally correct. There are no limits on who can own weapons, or what weapons they can own, or where they can take them.
Go shopping with a shotgun. Start turning up to PTA meetings carrying an SMG wearing a bandolier full of grenades. Mount a homemade cannon on the back of the pickup or the roof of the SUV. Convert an AR15 into fully automatic and stand on their second amendment rights. Use a flamethrower to clear weeds in the front yard and light the BBQ.
Then agitate for a constitutional amendment.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday June 13 2016, @04:17PM
Thank you, I will.
I would like a world where weapons are unnecessary. Communities that feel secure in their rights don't feel the need to carry weapons. Many Europeans now, for example, are content to live without guns because they know they can get most of what they want with a well-attended strike.
That is not true in the United States. We know on some visceral, genetic level, that the only guarantee of freedom we have is our weaponry and willingness to strike back at overbearing government.
Bureaucrats, politicians, elected members of office, should perennially rest assured that if they abuse the powers of their offices too much, then angry citizens will hunt them down. We are at that point now, and only all await the appropriate spark.
Note: I am not a gun-totin' conservative, but a progressive.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday June 13 2016, @03:50PM
A strict literal reading would say that citizens can own and use nuclear missiles.
Strictly literally speaking, "to bear" means "to carry." So unless you have a nuclear missile you can lift yourself...
So talking man-portable weapons clears up this whole silly argument. Oh wait, I suppose you can easily carry a vial of smallpox...hmm.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2016, @03:17AM
Strictly literally speaking
Er, no. Using that interpretation, there would be no right to actually use the weapons for anything at all, since the 2nd amendment only speaks of keeping and bearing arms. If that was the case, why even bother mentioning such a worthless right?
Words have multiple meanings. Clearly, "to bear" means something more than "to carry" here.
(Score: 1) by BenFenner on Tuesday June 14 2016, @05:24PM
The Second Amendment, taken literally, is absolute. You can bear arms - weapons, any weapons. A strict literal reading would say that citizens can own and use nuclear missiles.
This is incorrect. The 2nd amendment, taken literally, is absolute. I will give you that. However, you can bear "arms", which is not the same as "weapons". In the context in which the second amendment was written, there were two types of weapons. "Arms" and "ordinance". Arms are smaller weapons able to be carried by a single person over a reasonable distance in battle and the like. Ordinance describes larger pieces of weapons equipment carried by horses at the time (think cannons) or assembled on site after being carried by mules (think mountain guns) and as technology has moved on it now includes tanks, planes, and your aforementioned nuclear missiles. The 2nd amendment does not provide US citizens the rights to bear these ordinances.
Reasonably carry and operate on your own? Arms.
Larger weapon system? Ordinance.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Tuesday June 14 2016, @07:06PM
I highly doubt that is correct.
The earliest attestations of "ordnance" (or "ordinance", as it was originally) in a martial context have it meaning "anything a military needs to operate", including weapons of all types, ammunition, clothing, and food. Its current meaning focuses more on weapons and ammunition, particularly for the artillery, but even today you can refer to a carbine as "ordnance" and be correct (otherwise, the term "heavy ordnance" would be meaninglessly repetitive, because all ordnance would be heavy). It would be improbable for a word to condense in meaning to an extremely strict subset, and then relax back to more-or-less the original meaning. Particularly in only six centuries.
The same holds true for "arms". You can trace that back to Latin and still get a meaning that covered everything from "swords" to "catapults" (the main difference in meaning is that Latin "arma" included armor as well as weapons, with the two distinguished as "arma noctiva" and "arma defensiva"). We've dropped "defensive arms" from the meaning but "arms" still refers to any weapon.