Iuz the Evil

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/30/europe/turkey-vote-finland-nato-membership-intl/index.html
 

Finland will be admitted to NATO, Sweden pending approval but hopefully soon.

33 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I left CA in 2003, so I'm not up to date with their laws. What restrictions are in place? How are their numbers before and after the restrictions? Did they grandfather in any existing weapons?

I live in California and have been following the latest restrictions and court proceedings. It’s a bit more complicated than that, California’s 2013 and later regulations are certainly among the most restrictive in the nation. California’s mortality rate due to firearms is quite low, although mass casualty events continue to occur. 

 Separate and apart from the ostensible public safety benefit of these regulations, it is not at all clear they are legally sound. Multiple court cases challenging the California firearms roster (such as Boland v Bonta which just issued a preliminary injunction against the State) and the cases before judge Benitez (assault weapons ban, magazine ban, etc) are very active and expected to resolve in the lower courts by this summer. The 9th circuit may overturn those rulings, I would guess. Then it’ll be up to the SCOTUS. The ruling on the Boland case injunction is really an interesting read and focuses specifically on some of the feature restrictions.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/64860477/lance-boland-v-robert-bonta/

 Then there’s the firearms law modeled after the Texas abortion ban. It’s every bit the legal abomination as Texas’s law, for the same reasons. AG Bonta, who is about as anti firearms as you can imagine, declined to defend it. The Governor is choosing to do so with his own attorneys, in a move that is reminiscent of his counterparts in other regions of the nation.

It’s a complicated issue here, very regional and very polarizing. If you are outside the Urban population centers your are likely to get a very different answer than in the Bay Area or Los Angeles.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/26/middleeast/israel-judicial-overhaul-legislation-intl/index.html
 

Yikes. What’s happening with the Israeli judiciary is really scary stuff. I don’t love all the aspects of our current Supreme Court, but giving congress the power to manage them in this way would eliminate one of the branches of government - essentially making it totally subordinate to the legislative branch.

 Very unpopular with the public too, apparently. Likely to go through anyway. Pretty alarming.

3 minutes ago, Old Man said:

 

Yes, California firearms regs are much more sanely written than federal ones.

They are certainly more restrictive. Their sanity is subject to debate, such as with micro stamping and the fact the roster has not added a new firearm since 2014, but we have very strong regulation.

Edit: it’s far more complex than what I said regarding adding new firearms to the roster. But it is factually correct that commonly used firearms in most States, are not presently added. And additionally there is a caveat that for every model added, three must be removed. There are significant questions about the legality of that latter regulation, which is currently being challenged and pending ruling, but is the law until overturned.

I found this and it seems to summarize the Shockwave legality, from a California perspective. It’s not a firearm you can just roll into your local FFL and buy here, or even bring into the State.

2 hours ago, DShomshak said:

I expect it is indeed complicated. But I think it's also necessary to sift out attitudes based on kind of gun and their utility (hunting, target shooting, personal defense, etc) and intensity of attitudes. Most forms of gun ownership, for most purposes, I can understand as rational. I understand hunting, or target shooting, or wanting a weapon if someone breaks into your home. I have greater difficulty understanding the desire to own weapons capable of killing lots of people in very short times, other than... somebody wants to kill lots of people in a very short time. And I can see gun ownership as a right that must be balanced with other rights of other people, just like every other right in society. A demand for an absolute and unlimited right to lethal force makes me think something else is going on, and I want study on who holds such views and why.

 

Dean Shomshak

There are a number of alternative explanations I’ve heard that various proponents of essentially unlimited 2A rights (of which I am not one, albeit my views also do not align with the “No firearms more advanced than single shot bolt action deer rifles” either). Typically they are fierce individual Liberty folks, who do not want to rely on law enforcement or any aspect of government and oppose many kinds of regulation. Or they are former military who want to be able to defend themselves and their loved ones, and do not want the force of law to place restrictions on how they do so. Or they are constitutional originalists who do not believe an amendment should be modified causally (or at all) without adherence to the process for doing so. There are regional cultural beliefs even here in California that inform this (San Francisco being very difficult than say, Red Bluff). Some are fringe or very odd and certainly some are motivated in the way you describe, I could not say how many. I haven’t personally ran across that group significantly in my dabbling as a hobbyist. They aren’t really a single bloc of political or philosophical beliefs, so it’s hard to put that into a simple category other than they do not like firearms regulations. Certainly you could argue the merits of their beliefs as you can with any position discussed. They often see this as a fundamental individual rights issue, while their opponents see it as a pubic safety imperative. There’s rarely a middle ground for constructive dialogue as a result, so any changes are almost inevitably going to be decided on in court irrespective of legislation or my personal opinions.

 As noted in the Pew study, it’s also a consequential number of folks who don’t love the idea of additional regulation in this area. The reasons are varied from what I’ve seen. And not limited to a single party or group, which can be uncomfortable to contemplate. It skews to one political axis, but it’s not limited to that.

 Anyway, that’s my observation. I’m not going to get into this topic further as I enjoy the perspectives on this site. It saves a useful role for me to reflect on Progressive perspectives, I’ve got a different one for the other side.

3 hours ago, DShomshak said:

I suspect there's a good deal of cultural paranoia and just plain racism, too. IIRC, an episode of "The Daily" (the NYTimes podcast) delved into the weird world of 2A absolutist political activists, and found that many of them are also active in White Nationalist activism. (Though it's been more than a year, so it might have been "On the Media.")

 

"Be prepared" for what? Who is the enemy for which you need an arsenal?

 

Though the connection seems highly plausible to me from a psychological viewpoint, I don't personally know of any rigorous study to establish a statistically valid correlation. I am willing to hear contrary evidence.

 

Dean Shomshak

Without getting into subjective perspectives on “why” here’s some data from the Pew Research center.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/13/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/

There are certainly divides on race. And Urban versus Rural. And gun ownership versus non gun ownership. It’s complicated.

They are, it’s unfortunate they were allowed to go as far as they did, but given the behavior exhibited a day in court is their legal right. May the former POTUS also receive the opportunity to exercise that right.

I would hope that the responsible institutions will be prepared if they need arises again.

21 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

If Trump's cultists want to cause violence, the State has to be prepared to meet it. The State loses all credibility if it can be so easily intimidated.

Whenever violence is used as an attempted tool of political change, the State should be prepared to meet it with all necessary force to ensure the rule of law. The exceptions to this, where no recourse is available through legal and political mechanisms, are not the case in this nation. Trump can have his day in court. His followers can seek redress for their concerns at the ballot box. Whether they are likely to be successful in that effort is beside the point, they have lawful options. The January 6th insurrection was unacceptably meek in terms of governmental response (intentionally so, given apparent refusals to deploy the National Guard and other information that has since come to light).

I have no sympathy for rioters, of any ilk. The followers of Donald Trump who espouse this are particularly odious because of other elements of their dogma, and in any case should be greeted with the full legal force of the government in the event they respond in an illegitimate manner.

There are, in fact, many resources to manage such an incident. It just depends on the will to take action, and willingness to live with the consequences of that decision. Hopefully, elected leadership is up to the task they signed up for. 

42 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Ukrainian fighter pilots know how to fly the MiG-29, so could put them into service as soon as they arrive. But the MiGs are outdated compared to what the Russians are flying now. Any additional aircraft will help Ukraine, but will not mark a turning point in the war. Ukraine will need more modern fighters like the American F-16, superior to the likes of the Russian Sukhoi Su series, for a decisive advantage in the air.

Indeed, it’s mainly noteworthy as it breaks from the NATO stance and applies pressure on other allies to do the same. It’s a first though and crosses the official Washington line of “No planes”, so that’s interesting. There are a couple other NATO members who might evaluate that as cover to do the same, be interesting to see how it plays out.

https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-poland-russia-war-jets-migs-6d843ccbd50fef5f96091a5bff8f3e01
 

Poland provides military aircraft to Ukraine. That’s interesting, as it breaks from the rest of NATO.

28 minutes ago, Tom said:

 

 

Coming back to this a bit, I thought I'd provide a bit of context for the typical (from a gun person perspective) on inclusion of selective fire as part of the definition of an 'assault rifle' and one possible explanation for why the term 'assault weapon' seems so hard to pin down.

 

For someone with a historic interest in military firearms, the 'assault rifle' is an actual thing.  We know what it is and what characteristics define it.  We can even point to a specific gun and say: "this is where it all begins..."

 

We might debate whether 'this' gun or 'that' gun is an 'assault rifle' or a 'battle rifle' (gun nerds can be as bad as Hero gamers tearing apart a character sheet -- well, maybe not that bad), but we can agree on what isn't an 'assault rifle' and selective fire is part of the core definition.

 

'Assault weapon' as we are seeing, is a nice vague term that sounds threatening, but that we're having a hard time (though we haven't really dug that deep into things here) actually defining it.  Sort of like 'pornography' - "I know it when I see it."  Or, more simply, it's whatever I say it is.

 

For anyone interested in a bit of military history:

 

 

Totally. And that new “assault pistol” thing being bandied about hurts my head. A .22 center fire pistol with a threaded barrel is an “assault weapon” in California. Seriously, a .22 pistol, being equated to a military weapon.

 It’s dilution of language to the point it becomes meaningless. 

Well, I don’t live in California because I love the politics. I live here because my family and friends are here, and because of the geography. So probably not, but not because of their government.

 Edit: I did live in Oklahoma for about seven years. There were things I can look back and say were better than here (sense of community, as in if the older person in the neighborhood got sick the neighbors signed up to mow their lawn… that actually happened once). There were differences I appreciated but had costs (greater value on self reliance than here versus expectations of government). And things I hated (the casual sexism in stratified gender roles, that sort of thing). The weather was horrific. The people were lovely, much nicer overall. I moved back for many reasons, but mainly the weather and wanted to raise my kids in my home State. They had as many misconceptions about California as admittedly I had about them moving there. 

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/07/politics/gigi-sohn-withdraws-fcc-nomination/index.html
 

Gigi Sohn will not be an FCC regulator, this is challenging because her personal politics were heavily the reason for this versus her competency to hold the office. I don’t love that as a trend, and it is a good reminder why I have no social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, etc.). 

2 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I saw that. Stewart's argument is kind of weak when "children" are defined as up to 21 years old in those stats, and the majority of those deaths are gang violence related. The more accurate conclusions from that "statistic" are that a) statistics can lie to play on emotions, and b) gang violence and diversion needs to be addressed. To address the number one killer of children, as Stewart laid it out, you would first spend massive funding on gang diversion and gang intervention (encouraging and teaching gangs how to resolve conflicts without killing one another) programs across the country.

 

The fact that we have a politician sitting there who couldn't come to that simple counter to Stewart's argument and that Stewart has (I've recently watched several of his "take down" videos regarding different topics recently) has begun restoring to poor research and talking over his interviewee are both disheartening.

 

My takeaway? The best argument for taking weapons from the population is that we have become an infantile society who as a whole doesn't possess the capacity to be trusted with the power over life and death. People can't even sit down and weigh the pros and cons of an issue with each other from different ideological standpoints without resorting to dirty debate tactics (Stewart) and without the awareness required by their office of public responsibility (any of his victim "interviewees").

 

I'm saying this as a fan of Stewart who mostly agrees with him and respects a lot of the things he's done. He's become deeply (or at least demonstrably) emotional and "fed up" when it comes to 2nd Amendment issues the last few years. He needs to get back to good research and critical analysis of all of his information sources, and be more aware of his own confirmation bias.

 

 

Agreed. There’s also a massive historic spike in Suicide rates following the social isolation and disruptions associated with the recent pandemic. Firearms are heavily associated with Suicide death rate, due to high lethality as a method. So that’s also a contributor, in addition to the questionable statistical modeling (increasing the age of a “child” for CDC data is at best questionable).

5 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

And ironic, in that during the 19th Century the term "liberalism" also stood for freedom for enterprising people to accumulate capital with minimal government interference. Many economists of the day assumed that a free marketplace was essentially self-correcting.   Although to be fair, ethical capitalism including social responsibility also had many adherents through the first half of the 20th Century.

True enough, that’s not the 20th century use really. The point definitely is supported by that, that these terms in common usage tend to change and don’t belong to the originators (who would have balked at the “classical liberalism” evolution which is typically socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and extremely moderate by today’s political standard). Individual autonomy, limited government, social freedoms, and particularly a focus on political freedoms and freedom of speech. Government by rule of law. All of that remains very appealing to me. 
 

I blame Newt Gingrich for many things. His interview on crime remains timeless, when he stated (to paraphrase, in response to declining FBI crime rates) “you can have your facts, and I’ll take how people feel every time”. 
 

That’s pretty much where we are at with American politics these days. 

The definitions provided by the attendees appear pretty sorry, and it is also a bit of a trap because “Woke” is a slang term which is changing in common usage - whatever the origin. Currently it’s something like “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice”.

“Woke” comes up in my Bay Area governmental DEI trainings all the time, and has been used by trainers in every way from the original one (related to awareness of societal racism) to a general “Pro progressive” context to one related to “allyship”. It is poorly defined, and candidly is something of a pejorative as well at this point (the clients who receive our services often use it in a way similar to the term “Karen”). I suspect this is something of a campaign by conservatives in the same way liberal took on negative tones, and it’ll likely be similarly effective. While I describe myself as a liberal, in the sense of classical liberalism, pretty much nobody running for elected office does so using the term “Progressive” instead. 

Well I think an assault rifle (not “weapon” although now we are hearing about “assault pistols” and I have no idea what that could possibly be) is generally “a selective fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine.” They were designed for military use.

Selective fire being an operative term. The expansion of the term in California law is currently being litigated and the ruling anticipated in the next few weeks. Semi automatic rifles, including those with magazines (like the 5 rounds you can find in several variants of the .30-06) are commonly used for legal hunting and sporting purposes. Mostly they are 41-42” in length, but I could not speak exhaustively on that. Center fire rifles aren’t unusual at all. I would consider the ability to switch between fully automatic and semi automatic to be central to whether a weapon is an “assault rifle”, but others might argue that point.

2 minutes ago, Ranxerox said:

Both Both Republicans And Democrats Severely Overestimate How Extreme The Other Side Is

 

The ironic thing about this is that all the factors that one would expect to lead to more accurate assessments only make things worse.

Thanks! That is a very interesting article

56 minutes ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

Unfortunately for 2A rights, I do have to agree that the greater presence of guns in our culture and society has a marked effect on it - that is to say, the greater amount of deaths by guns.

 

It's just not my priority right now one way or another. 😕

I can understand the perspective. There’s a mechanism to change that Amendment with another one if enough folks agree, after all. It could get there, at some point.

https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution

 It’s intentionally difficult to remove rights, I’m pretty comfortable with that as it can cut in another direction around those other ensconced rights I was talking about before.

 For now, it’s on the same list that I support until it isn’t.

59 minutes ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

Yar.  I guess I'm interpreting this past conversation on guns, versus lets say trans or gay rights.

 

Mostly cause SB1443 is on the brain

Different regions and groups of people prioritize different rights ensconced in the Constitution. With that being said, I personally am opposed to the restriction of individual Liberty, and am therefore opposed to SB1443 as an infringement on freedom of expression and apparent targeted persecution of a specific group. 

I am personally opposed to excessive restriction on the Second Amendment (deemed the right to self defense by the Supreme Court) as well. Individual interpretations may vary on all of these, including freedom of expression, and none of them are unlimited rights. But I tend to favor the expansion of rights rather than restricting them as a philosophy. I also like our right to assemble. To avoid self incrimination. There’s a lot of good rights in there, I prefer to have them protected rather than curtailed.

 Others will surely see that differently, just sharing my perspective such as it is.

27 minutes ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

Yeah, I do consider things like a 'minimum standard of rights' to kind of go beyond local government though.  ie- the primary benefits of having a 'Constitution' are to set a minimum standard (a public benefit for those living there) and a set of rules and agreements so we don't 'Sengoku Jidai' every time a leader dies off (a reason why the constitution/country doesn't get destroyed every decade or two, aka stability).  So public benefit + stability are a pretty decent motivation to follow a constitution, which sets a third benefit (ie a reason to fight or defend a country other than to protect another politician's career/riches)

 

So I guess what I'm suggesting is that while we can debate what some quantifications of a 'minimum standard' are, my interpretation is that those rights aren't just a set of rules but the entire reason people/public abide by them to begin with.  Interpreting it as a 'minimum standard' is kind of the point.

Oh certainly agree. That’s why we have parallel State and Federal court systems, after all. And there are areas that are not up to local discretion. The Bill of Rights is cross jurisdictional, but interpretation may vary.

6 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

 

And this is an excellent summary of why I like working in Local government. Putting power in the hands of the barbarians in local communities.

58 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Sometimes you guys almost sound like the European Union. Try telling that to a Trumpist.

It’s even more complicated than we are describing actually. Every County has somewhat different laws and rules as well, at least in CA, so that’s 58 jurisdictions with 58 slightly different standards (San Francisco City and County is materially different than El Dorado County and the city of Placerville). 
 

I’m not sure that’s a bug though, more of a feature. Local government makes decisions based on the interests of their community. It does make it difficult to know what the rules are though.