The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
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User ID: 174
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
2d ago
· Edited 2d ago
The constitution is not a suicide pact, case law establishes restrictions to constitutional rights
So we've reached the "There are limitations, therefore this limitation is OK" stage of vitiating the Second Amendment.
The same for 2A. Jihadis can't have a right to nukes just because they are American citizens. That is not sensible. You can still be pro-2A and think that murders have lost their right to guns.
American citizen Jihadis absolutely have the right to guns if they haven't been convicted of crimes. We can't just have a member of the priesthood point to them and say "Man, those are some BAD muzzies" and no guns for them.
Ultimately your right to live supersedes my example crazy guys right to own a gun. If you believe otherwise you are in a gross minority.
You're not asking for a right to live; it's illegal to shoot you. You're asking for a right to safety, by taking away the guns of those who you think might shoot you based on some very lightweight procedure amounting to the word of a doctor. There's no such right.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
2d ago
You have not proposed an alternative.
Nor do I need to. If you're actually a 2A advocate, it's not somehow the "default" that if a psychiatrist thinks a person deserves to be committed that they lose their gun rights forever. If you think that for gun rights to apply, the proponents of gun rights must come up with a solution to all crimes which could be prevented by taking away someone's gun rights, you're not a 2A advocate.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
2d ago
This is not about NJ gun laws this is about the more general involuntary commitment process.
It's not about the more general involuntary commitment process. It's about whether entering into that process should carry the same stigma as a felony conviction with respect to gun rights.
For other rights we prohibit people from abusing them (see: restrictions on free speech such as harassment).
We don't, however, take away their typewriters, computers, or pen and paper.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
2d ago
"There was an analogous restriction at the Founding" is not a talisman you can wave around to justify any gun restriction, using precedent that is considerably later than the founding. Bruen is a dead letter, but if it were actually followed it would protect a hell of a lot more gun rights than NJ -- or even the Federal Government -- allows.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
2d ago
-Involuntary commitments are always correct.
I'm already off the train.
-The type of people who are involuntary committed are not safe to own guns.
Certainly many of the type of people who are involuntarily committed are not safe to own guns. However, I know one person who was involuntarily committed as a result of a drug reaction (to prescription drugs); while the commitment may have been correct at the time, they certainly shouldn't have their gun rights taken away forever.
-Even if both of those true, you need a trial to take the guns away.
Yes. Taking someone's constitutional rights away, especially on a lasting or even permanent basis, is a Big Deal. It shouldn't be done without a trial.
If the problem is the third option, how much are you willing to pay to facilitate that? Are you willing to have people temporarily held in custody in some form until after the hearing, because they've been tentatively described as someone who can't have guns for safety reasons but they can't be taken yet?
We already have this; the problem is that just being held means they lose their gun rights forever.
Your frustration with overall NJ gun laws (which are braindead) make it easy to miss Chesterton's fence, the alternatives are force.
The relevant fence is Schelling's, not Chesterton's. There isn't one on this slope, as the NJ gun laws demonstrate. And when I bring up NJ gun laws, the first argument from many "2A advocates" I get is "they aren't the way you say". If I demonstrate they are, the answer is "good". That's not being a 2A advocate.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
The NIST-accepted theory is that the fire caused the floor trusses (not beams) to lose stiffness, sag, and pull the outer columns inward, which initiated the collapse. Loss of stiffness and strength due to the fire was a cause, but not the proximate cause, of the collapse -- the buckling of the columns was.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
And Kansas ca 1860 would be appropriate for finding 19th century tradition.
The United States was founded in the late 18th century.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
For the rest of this, well you have a trained professional (in the case of NJ I believe it's two physicians spread out over multiple days)
A "trained professional" is not the same as an adversarial process. A police officer is a trained professional, for instance.
NJ allows for at least a 3-day involuntary commitment with no court order, just on the word of a health facility, and 6 days in many circumstances. Then they can be held up to 20 days on an ex parte court order. Only then does the patient get an actual hearing. Any of this disqualifies you from gun ownership in NJ.
And though some of this can be sued over, the burden of proof is then on the patient to prove the commitment was unreasonable. And even that doesn't restore gun rights.
Importantly the alternative is ass - does every temporary psychiatric hold involve the legal system?
If you want it to take away legal rights, especially permanently, it sure as hell ought to.
And if you want to claim to be a strong 2A advocate, you need to accept that this sometimes means accepting that people that you'd look at and say "Naa, that guy shouldn't have a gun" have gun rights too. Otherwise you end up rationalizing yourself (as many "conservatives" do) into finding even NJs gun laws to be perfectly OK.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
For example, PA prohibited firearm ownership to "Any person going about from place to place begging, asking or subsisting upon charity, and for the purpose of acquiring money or living, and who shall have no fixed place of residence, or lawful occupation in the county or city".
This isn't a permanent restriction.
Or more aptly, Kansas
Entered the union in 1861.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
This means default to no for gun acquisition for people in those categories. People deserve rights including the right not to be limited in their behavior when possible, however other individuals deserve the right to be free of molestation and incidents of bad behavior skyrocket once you look at the pot of the population that are felons or involuntarily committed.
Once you start doing balancing tests like this -- "What's the potential of harm if we let the applicant have a gun" -- you're not really talking about a right.
Felony and involuntary committment are quite different. Felony conviction is a judicial and adversarial process, and pretty damned heavyweight. Involuntary commitment can happen on the word of a cop and a doctor, or sometimes a family member and a doctor. No hearing, no advocate against commitment for the patient. Taking away someone's rights for involuntary commitment isn't anything like taking them away for felony conviction; it's like taking them away for any arrest.
(and of course NJ makes voluntary commitment, by which they mean any treatment in a psychiatric facility, and also involuntary outpatient treatment, a permanent bar to gun ownership)
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
These committment laws are all much later than the founding; there was not an analogous restriction at the founding. There were restrictions for crime, but no one has demonstrated crime.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
This man has been convicted of no crime.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
I believe a normal person should not have their rights abridged.
And a "normal person" will never have seen a mental health professional, will never have been confused about the names of his medications, will have three friends willing to swear he's moral enough to buy a firearm, etc, etc. In fact, perhaps a "normal person" wouldn't want a gun at all.
No. If you want to be a strong advocate of the Second Amendment, you must think those carveouts must be small and strongly limited. Carving out those convicted of a felony is OK. Carving out those who some psychiatrist once thought wasn't in such great shape is not. Carving out those who aren't socially connected enough to get people to vouch for them is not. Yeah, this is really hard, because it means some people who you probably don't want having a gun will (if you get your way) lawfully be able to get one whether you like it or not, but that's part of the cost of being a strong Second Amendment advocate.
Important to note is that you can sue for inappropriate involuntary commitment and that this is a major cause of malpractice claims. The opportunity to defend yourself from malfeasance is there. Yes psychiatrists have notoriously cheap malpractice insurance.
Sure, who are the courts going to believe, the psychiatrist or the crazy person?
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
Grenfell tower
A much smaller concrete building.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
and I'm a very strong 2A advocate
If you claim to be a strong 2A advocate yet your reasoning keeps leading to people not being allowed to keep and bear arms, you are not actually a strong 2A advocate.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
but the licensing procedure is devolved to a local County Level gun club.
Oh, great, bring small-group politics into it, that'll surely make things good.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
True, but the theory isn't that the beams melted, it's that they weakened due to the temperature.
That's not quite true either, though. In fact, one of the reasons the conspiracy theory is wrong is there weren't any steel beams to begin with. The NIST theory is the floor trusses on the damaged floors lost stiffness (not strength), sagged, pulled the (remaining) structural columns inward, and the cascade started from that.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
Nerds were the first to have access to online conspiracy content.
Almost tautological because of "online".
Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams!
The Jet A open air burn temperature is 1,030 °C, considerably less than the melting point of even lower melting point steels. Alas, sneering at the actual TRUE things conspiracy theorists find is pretty typical for deboonkers, and demonstrates they are merely accepting authority rather than thinking.
Muh Magic Bullet!
That's a lot older than online conspiracy theories.
I want the old America back where children were born without marriage, didn't try to change their gender, and got all the vaccines their pediatrician recommended.
There were a lot fewer recommended vaccines.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
Because it is not, in fact, true. In New Jersey (and perhaps other states) if you check yourself into a mental hospital you are disqualified from buying a gun. If you're involuntarily committed you can remove the disqualification by getting your record expunged, but I do not believe there is an expungement process for voluntary committement.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
Not so. New Jersey makes voluntary admission to an inpatient mental health program cause for denial of a firearm permit. They also ask on their firearms form for ANY interaction with a mental health professional:
"Have you ever been attended, treated, or observed by any doctor or psychiatrist or at any hospital or mental institution on an inpatient or outpatient basis for any mental or psychiatric condition?" If yes, give the name and location of the doctor, psychiatrist, hospital, or institution and the date(s) of such occurrence
They're not asking for your health.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
In NJ, any commitment or mental health diagnosis is grounds for denial of a gun permit, and once you've been diagnosed the burden of proof is on you to show it's not unsafe for you to own a gun.
(and a 302 or equivalent is a nonjudicial process, which means you get to lose your gun rights forever nationwide on the word of a cop and a doctor)
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
Do you actually know anything about the circumstances under which a man can "lose most of his assets and future income" in a divorce?
Yes, he gets divorced.
In fact alimony is pretty rare nowadays (and almost never close to "most" of his assets and future income), child support is to support the children
Spousal support is rare but not non-existent (my father paid it, and he was divorced far later than the 1960s), but child support is very high and doesn't have to be spent on the children. If his income goes up he has to pay more; if it goes down he still has to pay the same.
and the number of men paying "unreasonable" child support (however you define that) is exceeded by the number of men not actually paying their child support.
Which is irrelevant, as they were still demanded to have been paying it. And if they get caught, they have their wages garnished down to subsistence or less, they lose their driver's licenses, professional licenses, go to jail for contempt for indefinite periods, etc.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
this will only discourage people who want to own guns from interacting with the mental health system
This is exactly what you should do. If your rights can be taken away permanently by interacting with the mental health system, you should avoid interacting with it. The Catholic Church has it right in this case -- what you say to your confessor is between you, him, and presumably God, and fuck the interests of society. If mental health professionals can't live up to that, they should be avoided.
In New Jersey, being New Jersey, it's even worse. You have to tell them every interaction with the mental health system you have (not just committment, any time you ever saw one), including name and affiliation of the doctor. If you don't have that information you can't even apply for a permit; you can't challenge this because there's nothing to challenge.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
3d ago
That said, you need to know what you take, when, how, and why - otherwise you are at significant risk of increased bad outcome (although this obviously depends on what conditions you have).
Quick, what blood thinner are you on? Adoxaban? No, I'm sorry, it's apixaban, no gun for you.
As I said, you are not a strong 2A advocate. You are not willing to, shall we say, "bite the bullet" and accept that there may be bad consequences to that right that cannot be fully ameliorated.
No, postulating Jihadis with nukes was bad faith, because it conflated the subject we were discussing -- people who should be denied Second Amendment rights -- with the extent of the Second Amendment for everyone, in a way attempting to make limits on the latter justify limits on the former. Anyway, Jihadis have so far killed more people with guns than they have with nukes.
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