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The problem with "common-sense" gun laws


Euler

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Full article at CBS News

 

"Okay, gun haters -- now what?" That's the question many Second Amendment supporters are asking in the wake of the horrific shooting at Santa Fe High School.

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But would expanded background checks, or closing the alleged "gun show loophole" have had any impact on the Santa Fe shooter? How about bringing back the "assault weapon ban," or restricting the size of magazines, or raising the minimum age for legal gun purchases?

 

Answer: No.

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President Obama tells the story of traveling through rural Iowa during the 2008 campaign and his wife Michelle saying to him, "If I was living in a farmhouse, where the sheriff's department is pretty far away, and somebody could just turn off the highway and come up to the farm, I'd want to have a shotgun or a rifle to make sure I was protected."

 

President Obama's reply: "And she was right."

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CBS News' Margaret Brennan raised this point on Sunday during a "Face the Nation" interview with Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo:

 

"In this specific instance, ... what laws do you think need to be changed that would have prevented this attack," Brennan asked.

 

Sheriff Acevedo responded by talking about proper gun storage -- locking guns up so they can't be used without the owner's permission. This is a policy promoted by the NRA, too. But it's not one that's been advanced by the activists at anti-gun organizations like Everytown for Gun Safety or gun restrictionist members of Congress like Senator [Chris] Murphy [of Connecticut].

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Democrats could join conservatives in asking uncomfortable questions about whether government policies kept the Parkland shooter out of jail in the name of "social justice." And they could support efforts by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to enforce current gun laws to get more gun criminals behind bars.

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I even take issue with the term "common sense" when it comes to legislation, for two reasons.

 

First, "common sense" sounds like it's appealing to reason, but it's usually not. Lots of people on both sides of a lot of issues use the phrase "common sense" when they actually don't have a rational argument to support their position. They make an unsupported ideological assertion and just say "It's common sense," which, without a rational argument, really means it's an emotional appeal.

 

I also see the opposite on Internet forums quite a bit, too. If someone presents a logical, fact-based argument for some position, someone else asserts "That doesn't make any sense," but then fails to describe how, even qualitatively, the logic of the position fails. "Sensibility" in modern terms appears to have become "agreement," so "That doesn't make sense" really just means "I disagree with you, and I don't have to say why," while "It's common sense" means "Everyone must agree with me, and I don't have to say why."

 

Second, I never want to have "common sense" laws, especially ones that suspend civil liberties. In a constitutional democracy, laws are subject to varying levels of judicial scrutiny based on their scope and effect. The least strict review of a law is called "rational basis," because there's a federal law that specifies no law, even state and local law, should be arbitrary or capricious. The law has to have some rational basis, even an unsupported ideological assertion. That's why a lot of anti-2As want only rational basis review of anti-gun laws.

 

The next level, medium scrutiny, requires that there actually has to be some factual evidence to support that the law is effective at achieving its stated goal. The highest level, strict scrutiny, requires that the law is narrowly tailored. The Supreme Court has said that any law which attempts to limit constitutionally guaranteed rights must automatically invoke strict scrutiny. I believe it was Scalia that said that, if the only thing required to suspend a constitutionally protected civil liberty is a good reason, then the constitutional protection of that civil liberty is meaningless.

 

So I never want common sense gun laws. I want any guns laws to meet a higher standard.

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The CVS news article has it's issues with the common use of the term common sense, but if you read it as an everyday Joe I think it's a good article. It raises issues that need to be discussed and does so without triggering the cognitive dissonance switch that makes the more opinionated and polarized on either side of the issue immediately discount the story as propaganda from the other side. Not often to see balance like this.

 

I agree common sense is a lazy term.

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The Santa Fe shooting will do nothing but push the anti 2A people further left. Full ban and confiscation, which was their ultimate goal anyway. They can't talk about admiring Australia without having the same end game as their goal. This just accelerated it.

 

The good news for us is that they always get their way incrementally, so rights are only lost in small bits. This jump will it harder for them.

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The problem with "Common Sense" gun Laws is the phrase was made up to be Pablum for the middle of the road, (often uninformed) masses. For the longest time, politicians and Ant-Gun groups have known that John Q Public, would knee jerk to talk of gun confiscation, bans etc. Any such talk loses the 'fly over states' and really large chinks of the coasts as well. So, they came up with the Euphemism "Common Sense". After all, who can argue with "Common Sense" gun control. To go against it means one doesn't have Common Sense.

 

Those of us on this side of the debate, of course, knew, what they were hiding, what their real end game was. But, for a lot of people that were 'middle of the road' on this topic, it worked. Again, no one wants to think they don't have Common Sense.

 

Point of Fact, imho, they (The big anti gun groups) made a strategic error using Children as pawns to push their agenda. Teenagers are idealistic and generally see the world in Black or White, yin or yang. They don't see issues in nuanced terms. It is why revolutionary movements ALWAYS aim at the children. So, it wasn't long before the msg moved from "Common Sense" rhetoric with a little more meat, to their true beliefs, take them all. That is what you get with Teenagers, young adults like Mr Hogg, non nuanced, zealotry. It really was very predictable.

 

As such, they have harmed the "Common Sense: smoke screen euphemism. More middle of the roaders, see through it now (Thank you Mr Hogg et al). Oh, sure, they have recognized their mistake, and trying to reign it back in some circles of politicians, and put that cloud of BS in place again. But, the cat is out of the bag,. You're seeing more and more people asking for clarity, as in specifics now, when the term is used, from our side. "What specific Laws". It's not 'taboo' to question "common sense". AND, your seeing more and more from their side drop the "common sense" pretense all together and show their true gun grabbing colors. The problem is, this includes too many Judges, who mistakenly believe they can make law, or interpret it based on personal beliefs and not the Constitution.

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your seeing more and more from their side drop the "common sense" pretense all together and show their true gun grabbing colors. The problem is, this includes too many Judges, who mistakenly believe they can make law, or interpret it based on personal beliefs and not the Constitution.

A lot of judges still have the anti-gun mindset from decades past that the 2nd Amendment is the National Guard, as if Heller never happened. And SCOTUS refuses to put them in their place, as Justice Thomas rightly points out.

 

Something that would help the judicial situation IMO is if and when the warped logic behind anti-gun decisions starts showing up in other arguments before the courts.

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