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When I can buy and carry a gun in New Jersey, or better yet any state in the union, I will listen to demands to respect the ultimate authority of the court system from the left. Not until then. Yes, Eisenhower executed on rulings he didn't like. He turned out to be a chump to do so, because it meant the left got the benefit of favorable court rulings in all circumstances, whereas the right got them only when the enforcement and the lower courts were ALSO controlled by the right.
"until the courts rule the exact way I want, I shouldn't have to respect them" is to be quite frank, anti-American. Not just in disrespecting our legal system as a whole, but in disrespecting one of the fundamental values America and western democracy is built on, the rule of law and proper legal process.
Eisenhower despite his different views on racial segregation still agreed in this fundamental principle of the American system and faithfully executed on the rulings because of that, not because he was a chump.
Many of us have spent a considerable amount of time and effort cataloguing the ways in which Blue Tribe has done exactly this for literally decades. Guns, illegal immigration, and drugs have all demonstrated the pattern of victory through sustained refusal to recognize rule of law. The comment you are replying to is pointing out that multiple Supreme Court victories over more than a decade were categorically ignored when Progressives found it convenient to do so, and so appeals to lesser court decisions in favor of progressives hold no water.
When a Tribe systematically breaks the rules, they don't get to appeal to those rules any more.
"America" is dead, and has been for some time. The current situation is not America dying, but the rotting of the national corpse.
This is probably a very persuasive argument for people who do not have an extremely long catalogue of previous "rule of law" violations to point to, and who do not have a working understanding of the phrase "manipulation of procedural outcomes" or "isolated demand for rigor".
I do not believe that Blue Tribe can credibly offer "rule of law" because I have observed them violate the principle too many times without significant consequence. Guns, drugs, illegal immigration, "no justice, no peace", tenure for communist terrorists, a long history of government corruption... the list of objections is quite long. You are appealing to phrases that lost their meaning for many people a long time ago. And maybe you are the sole remaining principled Progressive, but you are not the Pope of Blue Tribe, and if your bespoke principles do not generalize at the population level, of what use are they?
People have been pointing out for a long time that the principles you appeal to were not sustainable without significant reform. Reforms were rejected, and now those principles are no longer being sustained.
You will not get any more Eisenhowers, because post-Eisenhower events built durable common knowledge among Red Tribe that Eisenhower was, in fact, a chump. None of this is new; we've been debating this for about a decade at this point, and the point of view you're arguing against is supported by quite a bit of solid evidence.
Yeah if you just make up stuff about all the evils the "enemy" is doing where they're just straight up ignoring court orders over and over then I guess it would look like the country is dead.
Hey if Americans agree with you on this specific point, start pushing for politicians to write a new amendment! We have a process established since the founding fathers for this and it's been done 27 times already. Start a movement to electorally challenge politicians that won't cooperate with it. We're in a democracy, use your voice and convince your fellow citizens. If they don't agree, then tough shit.
And if I have a large amount of evidence showing Blue states and federal regimes have in fact made a habit of ignoring court orders and otherwise flouting rule of law, then would you agree that the country does in fact appear to be dead from your perspective as well?
What would be the point of such an approach?
I used to argue that the Constitution was whatever five Justices said it was, but now it is not even that. We won multiple Supreme Court decisions on the Second Amendment over the past few decades. Blue states and their circuit courts ignored the rulings, and then we got to observe how unified defiance from "subordinate" legislatures and courts shapes Supreme Court jurisprudence, as the Justices refuse to take cases or deliver decisions that would spark further defiance. And it's not as though Federal law worked any better. We decided that Tribal interests should be protected by law. We won elections, drafted laws, and passed them by the legitimate process. Then Blue Tribe simply ignored them, and the courts have let them do it.
Blue Tribe could have done this with immigration. Red Tribe offered them a compromise, an amnesty for existing illegals, paired with actual border enforcement. They took the amnesty and then not only failed to deliver any border enforcement, but spent decades actively undermining what enforcement existed and thumbing their noses at the law. They did the same with narcotics laws. They did the same with laws aimed at protecting freedom of religion.
The funniest part, though, is that you don't recognize that we are in fact following your advice. We have not rioted nation-wide. We are not actively fomenting assassins. We are not burning down the homes and offices of people we don't like. We organized and won an election, and now we are playing the game according to the existing rules.
That doesn't make any sense given the rest of your argument is "it's ok to ignore the rules".
It's also an interesting question in general, if one is so willing to abandon a principle simply because they believe others don't follow it, then was it really a principle of theirs to begin with? Perhaps those people are simply against the classic American values to begin with and they are seeking an excuse to abandon it.
I'm simply trying to communicate on your level. I'm willing to agree that we're "ignoring the rules", if you'll account for the evidence that we are, in fact, ignoring the rules significantly less than Blue Tribe has for decades, and then explain why their violations of the rules were acceptable but ours are not. Likewise, if you believe that Blue Tribe has not been "ignoring the rules", fine, neither are we.
If your argument is that their violations of the rules were also unacceptable, I ask that you define what "unacceptable" means. If it means negative consequences for the rulebreakers, I ask that you show where these negative consequences were in fact implemented. If they weren't, then in what sense were they "unacceptable" if they were, in fact, accepted?
If on the other hand "unacceptable" means that you frowned real hard about it, well by all means, frown away.
And look, I get it. I and others pointing out your isolated demands for rigor makes it much more difficult to employ those isolated demands for rigor, and that's probably pretty frustrating. But maybe the solution is to not base an argument on isolated demands for rigor? Maybe, if you're arguing for "rule of law", you should actually put some effort into demonstrating how law has in fact been ruling in some meaningful sense previously, and why people should regard the present situation as discontinuous with what has gone before.
No, it isn't. I do not hold "rule following" as a terminal goal. Neither do most other people, and I'm highly skeptical that "principled" people such as yourself are the exception. I am not going to accept "rules for thee but not for me". Neither are most other people. If your model of the world is based on the idea that people will generally accept being cheated without recourse indefinitely, well, it seems to me that you're going to be routinely surprised by real-world outcomes.
"I've been cheated" is a pretty good excuse to stop playing with a cheater, especially if one has proof of the cheating. We tried to keep the game going for decades, but at some point one must face the realities of the situation. In any case, shaming is quite a bit more effective when employed against people who seek your esteem. If you want to conclude that I'm a mean person who just hates good things, while repeatedly ignoring every gesture toward evidence that I offer and supplying no evidence of your own, I'm comfortable allowing third parties to draw their own conclusions.
Interesting how you and "others" know me well enough to know that I've apparently never pushed back on left wing activists or government officials ignoring the courts.
I wonder what other things you must totally know about me, have I been doxxed by this site??? But serious note, I see no need to engage in a conversation with someone who ignores my stated words in favor of their imagined beliefs about who I am.
I am very specifically critiquing the arguments you are presenting here, nothing less and nothing more; I make no claims about your previous behavior or positions; they are entirely irrelevant to me.
I am not claiming that you've never pushed back on left-wing activists or government officials ignoring the courts. I am observing that the material outcome of that pushback was zero accountability in any significant form for the left-wing activists or government officials in question, across a very large number of issues and specific cases. I am entirely willing to accept as much pushback as you and others wish to provide against my side, provided that this pushback is similarly ineffectual. As I said above, frown away.
But your position seems to be that this time is different, and that this time, something must be done. And I and others are asking "why now? What changed"? Why does frowning no longer suffice, such that you expect actual accountability all of a sudden? Why can we not agree that this is "totally unacceptable" in a way where absolutely nothing will be done about it, as is the long-established norm stretching back decades?
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The Supreme Court has ruled. Several times. In favor of my side. I still don't get my gun, because there has been resistance all down the line, including lower Federal courts, state courts, state legislators, and governors. What is most likely to happen is the Supreme Court will note that it has made an order it cannot enforce and modify or reverse that order to maintain the appearance of its own authority. At which point the anti-gun side will have won, not by obeying the system but by defying it. So clearly this is an acceptable tactic on the part of the same people crying about the sanctity of (lower!) court decisions now, and I should reject their appeals to said sanctity.
His counterparts on the left did not agree with that fundamental principle of the American system and did not faithfully execute on rulings that went against them. So Eisenhower was, indeed, a chump, though perhaps he could not have known at the time. It has been 17 years since Heller and 3 since Bruen... when do citizens of anti-gun states get their right to keep and bear arms enforced?
You either misunderstand the specifics of the rulings (like Heller and Bruen do allow for some restrictions or "Shall-issue permitting" for instance) and fail to pass those lawful restrictions, or you have a great court case in your hands and there are plenty of gun groups and lawyers who would be willing to fund and help your case if they believe it's likely to win.
New Jersey while more restrictive than other states still has 20% of homes with a gun in it so I have to wonder why you don't have a gun if you're wanting one so bad.
Do you have a felony? A conviction for domestic violence? What is it that's restricting you but not 20% of homes?
New Jersey's "shall issue" purchase permit requires anyone who wants to buy a gun to submit the names of two adults, who have known the applicant for three years, and will vouch for that person. While the statute itself only requires those adults to be unrelated for carry permits and does not require those adults to be NJ residents, many jurisdictions will reject purchase permit requests not matching these 'rules' (sometimes as explicit policy). This is not a trivial ask for a large portion of people working in New Jersey, given that the state has gone out of its way to smother gun culture and slaughter the hostages; if you don't work in police or military sectors, you may not have any gun-friendly people among your coworkers or neighbors.
If you've ever seen a mental health professional, you're required to provide their contact information. Don't know it, or a shrink you saw twenty years ago happen to be antigun? Gfl. This includes not just involuntary commitment -- the recent A4769 explicitly prohibits purchase permits for anyone who's ever had a "voluntary commitment", and the permit form itself now asks if applicants have ever "attended, treated or observed by any doctor or psychiatrist or at any hospital or mental institution".
In all cases, failure to provide accurate information has been used to reject later applications with correct info, even where a genuine mistake occurred. There's a still-used "To any person where the issuance would not be in the interest of the public health, safety or welfare because the person is found to be lacking the essential character of temperament necessary to be entrusted with a firearm" prong that many jurisdictions have been throwing for pretty much whatever reason they want.
All of these things are readily discoverable through a quick google search. And The_Nybbler has mentioned most of them here, in ways that can be discovered by doing an author:the_nybbler "new jersey" search. Instead, you've thrown allegations of a felony or domestic violence condition, and pointed to a survey run by an explicitly antigun policy outfit, which gets numbers that are wildly out of line with every other analysis and the state's own estimates.
Similarly, New Jersey's response to Breun's explicit text that :
hasn't been quite as bad a tantrum as Hawaii declaring multiple islands a sensitive place, but it's pretty close.
There are a few challenges to these laws pending, but they have threefold problems:
And that's ignoring the 'special cases' bullshit, like Koons taking seventeen months (and counting) from oral args before a decision was released, or Bianchi having a judge sit on a dissent long enough to have a separate case she was also sitting on conflict with it to block the majority of judges from publishing an opinion.
No, I asked you why you are unable to access a gun when 20% of households can and a common answer in the population is being a criminal so it's a pretty likely possible reason for it.
Do you not know two adults who will vouch for you? That seems a red flag on its own.
20% of household have guns, I doubt 20% of households have never seen a doctor ever so it seems like there's a misunderstanding on your side. Either that or it is violating rights and there is really just a large portion of people who have never seen a doctor before.
Somehow they've been able to do it and while I don't know the specific of state law if they're specifically violating court rulings there are processes to punish them for it in court. Either they're "skirting' the rulings by doing something not yet ruled against, you misunderstand the rulings in question, SCOTUS is compromised by gun haters (despite as you say ruling in favor of the 2nd amendment multiple times), or you're in the middle of a legal correction and are just frustrated that procedures can take time.
@OliveTapenade, this too. It's a RIGHT to keep and bear arms. Here we have defection; the insistence that the right to keep and bear arms requires two adults (three to bear) to vouch to the state that you are indeed moral enough to own a weapon, before you can own one. That's not a reasonable condition on a right, as we would easily see if we applied it to speech or worship. But the defector will not even acknowledge the defection; no, this is presented as if OF COURSE it is right and just the way thing work.
I'm here to yeschad and say the world would be a marginally better place if speech or worship required two people to vouch for you.
Even parliamentary debate requires only a single person to vouch for you (the "second" to a motion).
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Take it up with the courts, there will be plenty of gun rights organizations who like to fight for gun ownership freedom.
Neither of the cases you cited cover such a restriction, and while I said courts are generally not blind they are also not all encompassing. I never said it was right for such a restriction to exist, I'm just curious as to why it's an obstacle for you in particular given you're saying you can not get a gun.
If you want my personal opinion, it shouldn't be a restriction. But until this is taken up in courts and properly ruled on, the analogy does not work because they are not disobeying court orders. And I can not say whether or not it is, only if I personally think it should or should not be, it is the courts who will rule on the actual constitutionality of it.
As for any particular individual (regardless of whether or not such a restriction is allowed under the constitution), I still do find it a red flag if someone doesn't have two other adult humans willing to say they trust them.
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Yeah, yeah, there's always some excuse that the victory of my side doesn't count. Nevertheless, I still cannot lawfully get a gun in my home state of New Jersey or any other state, if I had a legal gun I could not carry it, and further restrictions on guns keep getting past and either upheld by the lower courts or simply shielded from scrutiny. Having seen my advocates go through the process the whole way TWICE (Heller and Bruen), winning both times, and the situation on the ground not changing, I do not believe this process actually works, except in a very selective manner.
So you are a violent felon or something? I hope you understand why even most gun advocates, including in Republican states are fine with limiting you having access to firearms.
You are crossing the line between "Source?" and personal antagonism.
There are very few things I can think of that would make it illegal to own a gun in every state beyond the status of being a violent felon.
Like I literally just double checked with Chatgpt and the groups it gave me
Felony Convicts
People Convicted of Domestic Violence Misdemeanors
People Subject to Domestic Violence Protective Orders
Fugitives from Justice
Drug Addicts and Users
People with Certain Mental Health Conditions
Illegal Immigrants
People Dishonorably Discharged from the Military
People Who Renounce U.S. Citizenship
People Under Age 18 (for certain firearms)
People Who Are Under Criminal Investigation
And that's what he said. So they're presumably a felon (particularly a violent felon since state laws tend to be less forgiving of that for gun ownership), done domestic violence, a fugitive of justice, under 18 or one of those other groups. Either that, or there's a category I'm not aware of/he's lying about not being able to get a gun in any other state.
Whichever one of these categories he is in, I think it's a fair thing to hope he can understand why society even in the pro gun states isn't particularly wanting felons, domestic abusers, the insane, etc to be owning firearms.
I already posted a response to you, clarifying that New Jersey's requirements are stricter than those of other states, and The_Nybbler falls afoul of those unreasonable requirements.
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@OliveTapenade, this is why there is no hope to return to a cooperate-cooperate equilibrium.
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IIRC, he's explained it before like this:
In order to buy a gun in New Jersey, you must get a permit. (NJ Statutes tit. 2C ch. 58 § 3 ¶ a.1)
In order to get the permit, you must provide, not just two references, but also a list of all psychiatrists that have ever "attended, treated, or observed" you "for any mental or psychiatric condition". (NJ Statutes tit. 2C ch. 58 § 3 ¶ e)
Filling out any part of the permit application falsely is a felony with strict liability—that is, there is no requirement that you "knowingly" violate the law, and lack of records is not a defense. (NJ Statutes tit. 2C ch. 39 § 10 ¶ c)
Therefore, if you don't have any records of a psychiatrist that your parents made you visit as a child multiple decades ago (or if your parents have the records but refuse to give them to you), then you're out of luck—you can't buy a gun in New Jersey.
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