The Second amendment

[Seth]

...requires physicians to refrain from broaching a concededly sensitive topic when they lack any good-faith belief that such information is relevant to their patients' medical care or safety, or the safety of others...

That seems reasonably broad, in that it should allow them to inform authorities if there is a reasonable chance of one of their patients harming themselves or others with a gun...

All it does is stops them gossiping about private information if there is no good reason to do so.

The purpose of the First Amendment is not to stop gossip, and the patient has every right to refuse to answer.

Indeed, but the point here is primarily about children and their relationship with their doctor. The intent of the federal efforts to get doctors to ask about guns in the home is NOT aimed at adults, who are as you say fully capable of deciding not to reveal such information, it is aimed at CHILDREN, who the feds want to unknowingly inform on their parents about guns in the home, which the doctor then enters in the medical record of the child, which the parents NEVER SEE, but to which Social Services and the IRS (among others) CAN get access and use as evidence of parental neglect when seizing children from their parents merely because there is a gun in the home.

This is a typically devious and Machiavellian plot on the part of the liberal anti-gun forces in government to create systems that give the government the power to coerce people into giving up their guns under threat of having their children taken away from them.

Liberals like to characterize such things as "common sense gun safety measures" in a pure Marxist Big Lie attempt to persuade people to give up their rights, but they never, ever admit the actual agenda they have. They learned long ago that directly addressing gun ownership in the US is a poison pill for politicians so now they dress their true agenda, which is to ban and confiscate ALL guns, in multiple onion-like layers of lies, half-truths, high-sounding rhetoric and deviousness so that they can achieve what they truly want using back-door methods exactly like this one.

But wise and rational people never, ever take gun-banning fuckwit proposals at face value precisely because we know full well that "common sense gun safety" is pure propaganda that has absolutely nothing whatever to do with gun safety, common sensical or otherwise, and everything to do with finding ways around peoples right to keep and bear arms in order to ban and seize firearms.

It's just exactly that simple. We know what they are trying to do and we will not allow it.

[Hermit]

...requires physicians to refrain from broaching a concededly sensitive topic when they lack any good-faith belief that such information is relevant to their patients' medical care or safety, or the safety of others...

That seems reasonably broad, in that it should allow them to inform authorities if there is a reasonable chance of one of their patients harming themselves or others with a gun...

All it does is stops them gossiping about private information if there is no good reason to do so.

The purpose of the First Amendment is not to stop gossip, and the patient has every right to refuse to answer.

Indeed, but the point here is primarily about children and their relationship with their doctor.

No, the point is primarily about impinging on the right of free expression. All three judges sitting on the case agree on this. Two of them said so quite explicitly. The privacy act, and I quote the judges again "someone who believes that there is no such thing as private property in the first place. That clearly flies in the face of the First Amendment.

Furthermore, trying to shift the focus to a concern about the welfare of the poor widdle children is a devious and mendacious manoeuvre. It will not stand up to a reading of the judge's verdict in either appeal, nor a reading of the Act itself. All of them are publicly available here, here and here The act itself does not mention children once.

But wise and rational people never, ever take gun-banning fuckwit proposals at face value precisely because we know full well that "common sense gun safety" is pure propaganda that has absolutely nothing whatever to do with gun safety

No matter how often you say that, "common sense gun safety" does not equal "gun-banning fuckwit proposals". It is what you keep labelling "the fallacy of composition". There are plenty of campaigners for effective gun control who are not advocates for total gun control. I bet some of them are members of a militia themselves. And don't tell me about the 50 trillion gun control laws already in existence again. They vary from one state to the next and leave gaps wide enough to march a battalion of drug dealers followed by a division of part time crims through. The ease with which you can buy unregistered guns without needing to undergo a security check alone is frightening.

[Seth]

Indeed, but the point here is primarily about children and their relationship with their doctor.

No, the point is primarily about impinging on the right of free expression. All three judges sitting on the case agree on this. Two of them said so quite explicitly. The privacy act, and I quote the judges again "someone who believes that there is no such thing as private property in the first place. That clearly flies in the face of the First Amendment.

Sorry, perhaps I was unclear, the point of the legislation, whatever the judges might be thinking, was as I have explained it. Whether or not that legislative intent is constitutional is of course for the courts to decide. I was simply explaining how and why the legislation came into being in the first place.

Besides, you might want to read the references you cited, in which the court upholds the statue, stating specifically that:

We sua sponte vacate and reconsider our revised opinion in this matter, reported at 797 F.3d 859. We substitute in its place the following opinion.

The Governor of the State of Florida, other Florida officials, and members of the Board of Medicine of the Florida Department of Health (collectively, the “State”), appeal from the District Court's grant of summary judgment and an injunction in favor of a group of physicians and physician-advocacy groups (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) enjoining enforcement of Florida's Firearm Owners Privacy Act1 (the “Act”) on First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds.

The Act seeks to protect patient privacy by restricting irrelevant inquiry and record-keeping by physicians on the sensitive issue of firearm ownership and by prohibiting harassment and discrimination on the basis of firearm ownership. The Act does not prevent physicians from speaking with patients about firearms generally. Nor does it prohibit specific inquiry or record-keeping about a patient's firearm-ownership status when the physician determines in good faith, based on the circumstances of that patient's case, that such information is relevant to the patient's medical care or safety, or the safety of others.

Society has traditionally accorded physicians a high degree of deference due to their superior knowledge, educational pedigree, position of prestige, and “charismatic authority,” resulting from their “symbolic role as conquerors of disease and death.” Paula Berg, Toward A First Amendment Theory of Doctor–Patient Discourse and the Right to Receive Unbiased Medical Advice, 74 B.U. L.Rev. 201, 226 (1994). This deference reaches its apex in the examination room where patients are in a position of relative powerlessness. Patients must place their trust in the physicians' guidance and submit to the physicians' authority.

With this great authority comes great responsibility. To protect patients, society has long imposed upon physicians certain duties and restrictions that define the boundaries of good medical care. In keeping with this tradition, the State passed the Act. The Act codifies the commonsense conclusion that good medical care does not require inquiry or record-keeping regarding firearms when unnecessary to a patient's care—especially not when that inquiry or record-keeping constitutes such a substantial intrusion upon patient privacy—and that good medical care never requires the discrimination or harassment of firearm owners.

In doing so, the Act plays an important role in protecting what gets into a patient's record, thereby protecting the patient from having that information disclosed, whether deliberately or inadvertently. The Act closes a small but important hole in Florida's larger patient-privacy-protection scheme. Given this understanding of the Act, and in light of the longstanding authority of States to define the boundaries of good medical practice, we hold that the Act is, on its face, a permissible restriction of physician speech. Physicians remain free—as they have always been—to assert their First Amendment rights as an affirmative defense in any actions brought against them. But we will not, by striking down the Act, effectively hand Plaintiffs a declaration that such a defense will be successful.

Accordingly, we reverse the District Court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Plaintiffs, and vacate the injunction against enforcement of the Act (emphasis added).

- See more at: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-11th-circ ... QRKa3.dpuf

Furthermore, trying to shift the focus to a concern about the welfare of the poor widdle children is a devious and mendacious manoeuvre. It will not stand up to a reading of the judge's verdict in either appeal, nor a reading of the Act itself. All of them are publicly available here, here and here The act itself does not mention children once.

Of course it doesn't, but they are the primary victims of government-compelled interrogation by their doctors, which is what the legislation under review was attempting to prevent.

But wise and rational people never, ever take gun-banning fuckwit proposals at face value precisely because we know full well that "common sense gun safety" is pure propaganda that has absolutely nothing whatever to do with gun safety

No matter how often you say that, "common sense gun safety" does not equal "gun-banning fuckwit proposals". It is what you keep labelling "the fallacy of composition". There are plenty of campaigners for effective gun control who are not advocates for total gun control.

Never yet seen, heard or met one. You see, we already have effective gun control in this country and have for decades. What gun-banners mean by "effective gun control" is deliberately left vague because their true agenda is not "gun control" it's "complete elimination of gun rights and confiscation of all civilian owned guns" and nothing else. They recognize that they can't get that in one fell swoop, so they use the "death of a thousand cuts" procedure instead. We know this. We see it happening. We understand what the sub-rosa agenda is and how the "common sense" things gun banners put forth are stalking horses for yet another brick on the load of burdening our right to keep and bear arms. Virtually ALL such proposals will have zero effect on preventing criminals from obtaining guns, and they know it.

I bet some of them are members of a militia themselves. And don't tell me about the 50 trillion gun control laws already in existence again. They vary from one state to the next and leave gaps wide enough to march a battalion of drug dealers followed by a division of part time crims through.

They don't vary very much from state to state, as it happens. Most of the outliers are unconstitutional regulations that affect lawful gun ownership and infringe on the rights of law-abiding gun owners. The ones that affect the criminal use and possession of firearms are pretty much exactly the same everywhere in the US, and are largely duplicated by federal laws as well.

The ease with which you can buy unregistered guns without needing to undergo a security check alone is frightening.

Well, that's a matter of public policy you see. We, the public, do not care to empower our government to "register" guns at all, for reasons I've elucidated before having to do with the dangers of granting such authority to a government that might, and often does, become hostile to the concept of private ownership of firearms. If government (any government) could be trusted to keep such records and never abuse that authority by illegally using them to go out and round up "illegal" weapons made illegal by legislative fiat, which is exactly what happened in Australia, we might not object. But we know that if the government is permitted to collect that information, it will inevitably be used to illegally and unconstitutionally confiscate disfavored firearms. And as we have seen, both here in the US and in Australia, the definition of disfavored firearms is quite fluid and once one type of disfavored firearm has been confiscated and melted down the gun banners proceed on to making some other type of firearm the disfavored one, and so on and so on.

We know exactly how this works. Australia is one of the most important examples of government abuse of firearms registration records outside of Hitlerian Germany, and it is the most recent example of exactly why we will NEVER allow our government to register our guns.

As for "security checks" the same problem applies. The power to license is the power to deny. Once you grant to government the power to exercise arbitrary prior-restraint control over the exercise of a fundamental civil right like the RKBA, or free speech, you grant the government the power to suppress that exercise pretty much at will.

I have no objections whatever to preventing and prohibiting persons who have been disqualified from possessing firearms from doing so, but I am not willing to authorize government to interfere with MY rights in the process of doing so. And unfortunately that is ALL that any of the "common sense" gun control plans of the gun banners does...interfere with MY rights without having any credible or identifiable effect on achieving the goal of keeping guns away from criminals. We know this to be true because research has demonstrated that a very small percentage of criminals get their guns from "gun shows" or through private transactions with law-abiding gun owners. The vast majority of crime guns are stolen and are the product of illegal criminal transfers of guns from criminal to criminal which no mandatory background check system or requirement can possibly prevent. This is true because obviously a criminal in illegal possession of a gun who wishes to sell it to another criminal who will be illegally possessing that gun is not going to submit the transaction to the NICS system in the first place. Mandatory background check requirements cannot stop the "back alley" illegal transfer of guns to and between criminals. All such checks do is to interfere with the lawful commerce in legal firearms between law-abiding citizens who are not prohibited from possessing guns.

Sure, occasionally the NICS system will turn down a transaction between a FFL dealer and someone who is disqualified, but the VAST majority of the time either the disqualification is in error to begin with, or the person trying to buy the gun did not know he was disqualified from attempting to do so. Actual criminals who want guns don't even attempt to buy them at dealers, and about the ONLY people who try to induce private sellers at gun shows to illegally sell them a firearm are undercover BATFE agents trying to entrap honest, law abiding citizens into committing a technical crime. I had one of those cocksuckers try it on me one time. All it took was for me to raise my voice and say "Hey everybody, this BATFE undercover agent is trying to illegally buy a gun from me!" when he "admitted" he wanted to buy from me for cash because he was not legally able to do so, and he beat feet to the exit and was not seen again.

And while dealer NICS checks and even gun-show NICS checks, like we have in Colorado, are not particularly effective they are not all that objectionable, although they are largely unnecessary, expensive and time-consuming, particularly when the feds DELIBERATELY go into slow-mode and obstruct the completion of such checks.

But a requirement to obtain a NICS check from a licensed dealer for every single private "transfer" (which includes loaning a friend or family member a rifle for deer season) is not only obstructive and pointless, it's absolutely unenforceable, and since it was enacted here I do not think ONE SINGLE CASE of a non-NICS private transfer has ever been prosecuted. In fact the only people you have to fear in making such a private transfer are BATFE and CBI undercover agents trying to entrap you.

So, you see, "common sense gun control" really isn't, it's propagandized as that, but its actual intent is to continue to build the wall between law-abiding citizens and their right to keep and bear arms, one brick at a time. Trust me, as soon as Obama's unlawful "administrative actions" are in place (if they survive both the courts and the Congeress), they will be scheming for the next racheting-up of infringements. It never, ever ends with gun banners short of complete bans and confiscations of guns from everyone, and we know this full well, and will not rest or fail to oppose them at every single turn because they are dishonest, disloyal, treasonous cocksuckers and have proven this many, many times in the past, as far back as 1934 and before.

When you say "security check" what do you mean, exactly? Precisely what criteria do you think should be applied to a permit to possess a firearm. Please be specific so we can discuss each criteria and I can demonstrate to you how such systems are routinely abused in practice to deny people's rights and why our system of laws does not generally authorize such prior restraint government interference with the exercise of our rights. We prefer to trust people to exercise their rights appropriately and then we sanction them only when and if they fail to do so.

Anything else is pure bureaucratic tyranny.

[Hermit]

Sorry, perhaps I was unclear, the point of the legislation, whatever the judges might be thinking, was as I have explained it. Whether or not that legislative intent is constitutional is of course for the courts to decide. I was simply explaining how and why the legislation came into being in the first place.

You explained your point clearly enough, and you are clearly wrong. If "the point here", as you put it, were "primarily about children and their relationship with their doctor", "child" or "children" would have appeared in Florida's Firearm Owners Privacy Act at least once. It doesn't so that's not the primary point. Instead, the act is exclusively about firearms owners' privacy. The very title of the act is a bit more than a hint, don't you think?

Besides, you might want to read the references you cited, in which the court upholds the statue,

I cited three references, of which I read two in full and the third in good part. Before reading all that I also read several news articles in which the fact that the injunction was lifted in 2014 and remained lifted on appeal in 2015 was made crystal clear. And I never argued, or as much as implied that this was not the case. In any case, that is not relevant to my argument. What you don't realise is that even the majority of judges that lifted the injunction against enforcement of the Act agreed that this act, and I quote the text of their decision again, "requires physicians to refrain from broaching a concededly sensitive topic when they lack any good-faith belief that such information is relevant to their patients' medical care or safety, or the safety of others." That, to reiterate, what I said in my first post on about the privacy act, "If initiating conversations with their patients about the safe storage of guns in the home contravenes the second amendment, the prohibition of initiating such conversations contravenes the first."

There is nothing in your rant about gun control and tyranny that you have not ranted about too many times before. And no, the grab bag of piecemeal laws leaves the gate for obtaining a firearm without a prior security check wide open. If you can't buy one in a private transaction without such a check in one location, you just go to another, interstate if necessary. Another easy way to obtain a gun without the necessity of any paperwork whatsoever, is to steal one that lies around unsecured. Even cops have their privately guns stolen while they are at work. And the latter is the sort of thing medical practitioners are no longer allowed to talk about. I guess you'll say that all medical practitioners are communists or at least useful idiots whose ultimate motive is to turn freedom loving Americans into defenceless victims of tyrannical governments next.

[Tero]

Another easy way to obtain a gun without the necessity of any paperwork whatsoever, is to steal one that lies around unsecured. Even cops have their privately guns stolen while they are at work.

Absolutely. The vapor pressure of guns in the US is very high. At police stations, about 100% saturated. Just pick up a new gun from a pile with filed away serial numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapor_pressure

Serial numbers! That must be made illegal! The feds could come after you even without you registering!

[Seth]

Sorry, perhaps I was unclear, the point of the legislation, whatever the judges might be thinking, was as I have explained it. Whether or not that legislative intent is constitutional is of course for the courts to decide. I was simply explaining how and why the legislation came into being in the first place.

You explained your point clearly enough, and you are clearly wrong. If "the point here", as you put it, were "primarily about children and their relationship with their doctor", "child" or "children" would have appeared in Florida's Firearm Owners Privacy Act at least once. It doesn't so that's not the primary point. Instead, the act is exclusively about firearms owners' privacy. The very title of the act is a bit more than a hint, don't you think?

It doesn't have to say that in either the title or text of the bill. The Act protects firearms owners and their privacy. The threat comes from pressures put on doctors by the feds to interrogate patients about guns in the home. The patients who pose the greatest risk of inadvertently or unknowingly revealing that information are children, who are the most likely to answer any question a doctor asks without considering the impact of doing so. It is also true that adults may not perceive the threat that revealing such information might cause but the primary target of the federal government and anti-gun zealots is children, precisely because they are vulnerable and don't understand notions of family privacy. Those who wrote the law knew and understood this based on the actions and statements of anti-gun lobbyists and anti-gun federal legislators, and anti-gun federal administrators, and anti-gun federal bureaucrats, all of whom constantly use the "do it for the children" canard in their anti-gun rhetoric, and from actual events where children have been taken from parents based on a child telling some anti-gun government functionary, from a teacher to a social services worker to a doctor that there is a gun in their home.

The law, however, is written more broadly than just covering children in order to address the other potential sources for government abuse of individual gun rights so that it forestalls and prevents other privacy leakage points that anti-gun forces might try to exploit.

Besides, you might want to read the references you cited, in which the court upholds the statue,

I cited three references, of which I read two in full and the third in good part. Before reading all that I also read several news articles in which the fact that the injunction was lifted in 2014 and remained lifted on appeal in 2015 was made crystal clear. And I never argued, or as much as implied that this was not the case. In any case, that is not relevant to my argument. What you don't realise is that even the majority of judges that lifted the injunction against enforcement of the Act agreed that this act, and I quote the text of their decision again, "requires physicians to refrain from broaching a concededly sensitive topic when they lack any good-faith belief that such information is relevant to their patients' medical care or safety, or the safety of others." That, to reiterate, what I said in my first post on about the privacy act, "If initiating conversations with their patients about the safe storage of guns in the home contravenes the second amendment, the prohibition of initiating such conversations contravenes the first."

Except it doesn't because, as the court ALSO said, "... we find that the Act is a legitimate regulation of professional conduct. The Act simply codifies that good medical care does not require inquiry or record-keeping regarding firearms when unnecessary to a patient’s care. It is uncontroversial that a state may police the boundaries of good medical practice by routinely subjecting physicians to malpractice liability or administrative discipline for all manner of activity that the state deems bad medicine, much of which necessarily involves physicians speaking to patients."

There is nothing in your rant about gun control and tyranny that you have not ranted about too many times before.

And about which I will expound at length again, every time you present a fallacious argument in favor of gun control.

And no, the grab bag of piecemeal laws leaves the gate for obtaining a firearm without a prior security check wide open.

How so? I've explained already that no "gate" you (fail to) propose as a "security check" will have any practical effect on achieving the goal you (allegedly) wish to achieve.

Criminals who want to obtain firearms criminally for criminal purposes can and will do so regardless of any sort of "security check" you might propose. Therefore, the ONLY people a "security check" will affect are law-abiding citizens who have no intention of obtaining or using their firearms for criminal purposes. And those are the people the government shouldn't be too concerned about. Thus, the ONLY reason for such "security checks" is to try to obtain transaction records that can be used later for the purposes of gun confiscation. This is a fact proven conclusively by the several times the BATFE has been caught red-handed archiving NICS checks in direct, deliberate and knowing violation of federal law explicitly prohibiting them from doing so, ever.

There is no reason other than a completely illegal agenda of eventually using those records for gun confiscations for them to archive that data. None whatsoever.

That's why Congress made it unlawful to do so and mandated that ALL such transaction records be permanently and completely destroyed within 3 days of the completion of the check and made it a federal offense not to do so. And yet no one at the FBI or BATFE has ever faced criminal prosecution for blatantly violating the law.

So, what we see is that these "security checks" you seem to support are largely ineffective and pose a grave danger of facilitating future actions by a government hostile to gun ownership (like this administration) in identifying gun owners and seizing guns once they have been banned. This dishonesty is why we refuse to allow gun registration, despite the protestations of gun-banners like you that it's "common sense gun safety" to do so. We would rather deal with criminals who have guns on a case-by-case basis than allow the potential tyranny that results from gun registration schemes, something that has been seen in actual historical practice time and time again.

Perhaps if gun-banners weren't universally lying sacks of shit things might be different, but they are, so it's their fault if we resist their lies.

If you can't buy one in a private transaction without such a check in one location, you just go to another, interstate if necessary.

Which, in the case of handguns, is a criminal offense...two of them actually...soliciting unlawful interstate transfer of a handgun and unlawful interstate transfer of a handgun. This sort of activity being illegal already it means that for such an unlawful transaction to take place it must take place between two criminals, neither of whom would submit the transfer to a "security check" in the first place, even if the law could actually require them to do so, which it can't, because that would require an admission of a criminal act to get the "security check", which is a violation of the right against self incrimination.

In order to LAWFULLY transfer a handgun to a resident of another state the law ALREADY requires that the transfer take place through TWO licensed FFL holders, and it requires a NICS check.

Another easy way to obtain a gun without the necessity of any paperwork whatsoever, is to steal one that lies around unsecured. Even cops have their privately guns stolen while they are at work.

Which is a crime that no "security check" or "paperwork" is going to prevent. Your implication seems to be that guns should be banned because criminals might steal them, which makes as much sense as banning wristwatches, wallets, purses and automobiles because criminals might steal them.

Should we advocate proper storage of firearms? Of course we should. Should we educate children on proper gun safety and what to do should they encounter a gun somewhere? Of course, and we already do in many places, largely through the efforts of the NRA and it's educational programs. Should we prosecute parents who leave guns lying about where a child is harmed as a result? We already do because doing so is already a crime...several of them actually. So what good would another "safe storage" law do that the present child endangerment and criminal negligence laws do not already do? If you screw up with a gun, pretty much in any way at all, and someone is injured or killed, or even subjected to an imminent THREAT of being injured or killed, our "grab bag of piecemeal laws" deals quite well with such incidents when, where and if they occur. "Safe Storage" laws therefore would have little to no effect on preventing gun accidents, which are increasingly rare each year due in main to the NRA and its gun safety education programs because people who handle their guns properly and safely already secure them against theft and unauthorized access, and those who do not handle their guns properly do not do so in spite of the many tools and reasons to do so, which includes severe criminal penalties for misuse. Thus, such laws are nothing more than burdensome on people who don't need to be further burdened and pretty much utterly useless at preventing theft or misuse.

Responsible gun owners don't want their guns stolen for the obvious reason that they don't want their guns stolen. Responsible gun owners don't leave their guns loaded and lying about where children can find them. Responsible gun owners teach their children gun safety and what to do, and what not to do, if they encounter an unexpected firearm. Responsible gun owners know that misuse or negligence with their guns is a very serious criminal and civil matter so they take pains to handle their guns safely and properly. Responsible gun owners comprise the vast, vast, overwhelming majority of gun owners.

Irresponsible gun owners are irresponsible in spite of all the laws and regulations that will bite them in the ass if something bad happens, so more laws will not make them responsible gun owners. Education might, if it's started early enough and is consistent enough as children grow up and mature, but pointless and useless new gun control laws won't do a damned thing more than the laws we already have on the books nationwide.

Therefore, the ONLY reason you can possibly have for demanding more pointless and useless gun control laws is not to reduce either crimes with guns, gun accidents or negligent use/storage of guns, it can ONLY be that you want to make it harder for law-abiding citizens who own guns to have, use and enjoy those guns. This is demonstrated by, for example, the laws in the UK that require what guns there are in private hands to be disassembled and locked in an "approved" gun safe with the ammunition stored in a completely separate place and subject to random, invasive (and in this country entirely unconstitutional) search and seizure by the police.

Such laws are not "safe storage" laws at all, they are laws intended to obstruct the ability of the gun owner to access and use his gun quickly for the purposes of self-defense and they are intended to intimidate people into not owning guns by threatening them with unannounced, random, warrantless, invasive searches by the police, which is something we EXPLICITLY outlawed as the result of precisely the same behavior on the part of British soldiers prior to the Revolutionary War.

The habit of British soldiers of kicking in people's doors and searching their houses and papers for whatever they thought might be incriminating, and for the purposes of confiscating arms was one of the primary reasons we rebelled against the King and kicked their puny asses out of the United States.

We're not about to let that happen again here, under any circumstances whatsoever.

And the latter is the sort of thing medical practitioners are no longer allowed to talk about.

Not true. As the law says, it's only "irrelevant inquiry and record-keeping by physicians regarding firearms" that's prohibited.

I guess you'll say that all medical practitioners are communists or at least useful idiots whose ultimate motive is to turn freedom loving Americans into defenceless victims of tyrannical governments next.

That's exactly what the gun-banners in the federal government were trying to turn them into and what the State of Florida is determined to prevent. Florida acted to prevent the federal government from turning doctors into compulsory political informants for the anti-gun movement.

[Seth]

Another easy way to obtain a gun without the necessity of any paperwork whatsoever, is to steal one that lies around unsecured. Even cops have their privately guns stolen while they are at work.

Absolutely. The vapor pressure of guns in the US is very high. At police stations, about 100% saturated. Just pick up a new gun from a pile with filed away serial numbers.

You're just so completely full of shit.

Serial numbers! That must be made illegal! The feds could come after you even without you registering!

Indeed. What purpose does a serial number actually serve? It's not to prevent theft or misuse because stamping some numbers doesn't do that. The legitimate purpose a serial number serves is to identify the weapon as being the property of some individual in the event it is lost or stolen. Indirectly this means that a reported-stolen gun found in the possession of someone not the owner facilitates charges of possession of stolen property. Therefore it is in the true owner's best interests to keep careful records of the serial numbers of the guns he owns so that in the event one of them is stolen he can report that theft and the identifying marks on the gun so that it can be returned to him should it be recovered. Indirectly it also allows the police to prosecute the thief.

So, serial numbers, or other unique identifying marks, have a legitimate purpose to the owner of the firearm.

Federal law requires that manufacturers put serial numbers on all firearms manufactured for sale. This is ostensibly an anti-theft program, but actually it is the first necessary step in creating a gun registry, because without serial numbers it's hard to register a firearm to an individual owner. The anti-theft part is the "legal" (constitutionally acceptable) reason for the requirement, but the true purpose is to make it possible to eventually register all firearms to individual owners if and when a national gun registry is created.

However, an individual has a right to manufacture as many firearms as he likes for his own personal use that are not for sale and such firearms do not have to be marked at all. In the past it was pretty rare for someone to go to the trouble of making their own personal firearm so the government didn't really care whether or not such guns were marked with identifying information because there were so few of them.

Today however you can buy a machine about one foot square on a side that will manufacture the receiver of America's most popular sporting rifle, the AR-15 pattern rifle, right in your home with the push of a button, entirely autonomously and entirely anonymously. It costs under $2000 and will manufacture several receivers a day, and programming for other types of receivers and therefore guns are in the works.

So, the gun banners are all up in arms about the new-found ability of anyone at all to make for themselves the "regulated" part of the most liberal-despised firearm on the planet, the evil Black Gun. Well fuck them and the horse they rode in on. Pretty damned soon there will be so many unmarked AR pattern rifles about that it will become pointless and useless to require manufacturers to mark their receivers either.

Of course, smart AR owners will indeed mark their firearms with specific identifying marks (my mark is a laser-engraved family crest) that, should the weapon be stolen can be given to police to facilitate recovery and return of the weapon. But the manner of marking will NOT allow the BATFE or anyone else to make a list of what firearms I own, what they are, or where I keep them, thus frustrating the gun banner schemes of creating seizure lists like they did in Australia.

So fuck you gun banners. The more you try to infringe on our rights the harder we will resist and the more creative we will become in sidestepping your efforts...and 3D printing is a grand step forward in that respect. If that means that more criminals get guns it's your fault, not ours.

Now, if you would just cease and desist from your ultimate gun-ban and confiscation agenda and concentrate on things that might actually improve the situation, we'd be much more likely to cooperate with you. But you won't because your sole goal is the complete elimination of all civilian owned firearms worldwide and nothing less, and there's not a chance in hell that we are going to let you get away with it here in the US, no matter what, because we know that hundreds of millions more people will die if you succeed than if we do.

[Tero]

http://www.postandcourier.com/article/2 ... /160119390
and the rebuttal:

http://www.postandcourier.com/article/2 ... 160129712/

the practical uses of the Militia and the amendment were outlined in Wiki but fizzled out in the early 1800s and a standing army had to be recruited

Militia in the decades following ratification

Ketland brass barrel smooth bore pistol common in Colonial America
During the first two decades following the ratification of the Second Amendment, public opposition to standing armies, among Anti-Federalists and Federalists alike, persisted and manifested itself locally as a general reluctance to create a professional armed police force, instead relying on county sheriffs, constables and night watchmen to enforce local ordinances.[61] Though sometimes compensated, often these positions were unpaid—held as a matter of civic duty. In these early decades, law enforcement officers were rarely armed with firearms, using billy clubs as their sole defensive weapons.[61] In serious emergencies, a posse comitatus, militia company, or group of vigilantes assumed law enforcement duties; these individuals were more likely than the local sheriff to be armed with firearms.[61] On May 8, 1792, Congress passed "[a]n act more effectually to provide for the National Defence, by establishing an Uniform Militia throughout the United States" requiring:

[E]ach and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia...[and] every citizen so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear, so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise, or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack.[116]

The act also gave specific instructions to domestic weapon manufacturers "that from and after five years from the passing of this act, muskets for arming the militia as herein required, shall be of bores sufficient for balls of the eighteenth part of a pound."[116] In practice, private acquisition and maintenance of rifles and muskets meeting specifications and readily available for militia duty proved problematic; estimates of compliance ranged from 10 to 65 percent.[117] Compliance with the enrollment provisions was also poor. In addition to the exemptions granted by the law for custom-house officers and their clerks, post-officers and stage drivers employed in the care and conveyance of U.S. mail, ferrymen, export inspectors, pilots, merchant mariners and those deployed at sea in active service; state legislatures granted numerous exemptions under Section 2 of the Act, including exemptions for: clergy, conscientious objectors, teachers, students, and jurors. And though a number of able-bodied white men remained available for service, many simply did not show up for militia duty. Penalties for failure to appear were enforced sporadically and selectively.[118] None are mentioned in the legislation.[116]


The Model 1795 Musket was made in the U.S. and used in the War of 1812
The first test of the militia system occurred in July 1794, when a group of disaffected Pennsylvania farmers rebelled against federal tax collectors whom they viewed as illegitimate tools of tyrannical power.[119] Attempts by the four adjoining states to raise a militia for nationalization to suppress the insurrection proved inadequate. When officials resorted to drafting men, they faced bitter resistance. Forthcoming soldiers consisted primarily of draftees or paid substitutes as well as poor enlistees lured by enlistment bonuses. The officers, however, were of a higher quality, responding out of a sense of civic duty and patriotism, and generally critical of the rank and file.[61] Most of the 13,000 soldiers lacked the required weaponry; the war department provided nearly two-thirds of them with guns.[61] In October, President George Washington and General Harry Lee marched on the 7,000 rebels who conceded without fighting. The episode provoked criticism of the citizen militia and inspired calls for a universal militia. Secretary of War Henry Knox and Vice-President John Adams had lobbied Congress to establish federal armories to stock imported weapons and encourage domestic production.[61] Congress did subsequently pass "[a]n act for the erecting and repairing of Arsenals and Magazines" on April 2, 1794, two months prior to the insurrection.[120] Nevertheless, the militia continued to deteriorate and twenty years later, the militia's poor condition contributed to several losses in the War of 1812, including the sacking of Washington, D.C., and the burning of the White House in 1814.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Am ... tification

To summarize, this is what the Constitution gives you Seth, start shopping. I'm sending Hillary for your other guns
a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges,

[Seth]

"The Anti-Federalists were adamantly opposed to federally-funded armed forces, arguing that state militias had successfully defended the country against Great Britain in the Revolutionary War and were capable of defending the country again, if ever necessary. Guaranteeing the continuation of states’ militias was the true and only purpose of the Second Amendment, and those who try to argue otherwise are doing an injustice to our Founding Fathers."

Wrong. Helen Young Dolan and Franke Drive are simply expressing their opinion on the subject, to which they are entitled. They are not, however, entitled to their own facts. As it happens the facts about the meaning of the 2nd Amendment were carefully reviewed by the branch of government tasked with doing so and with announcing the official constitutional meaning of the phrase. That body is the United States Supreme Court, which has ruled twice now that the RKBA referred to in the 2nd Amendment is an individual right unconnected with militia service.

Now, it is true that one of the reasons for protecting that right is so that a militia can be formed quickly using individually owned arms, but that, as the Supreme Court says, is not the ONLY nor even necessarily the primary reason for doing so.

the practical uses of the Militia and the amendment were outlined in Wiki but fizzled out in the early 1800s and a standing army had to be recruited

Um, not quite. Ever hear of the "National Guard?" Do you understand that National Guard soldiers are actually members of their respective state militia forces and operate under the command of the Governor of the state unless and until called into federal duty by Congress.

So no, state militias are not outmoded, they exist in every state in the Union.

To summarize, this is what the Constitution gives you Seth, start shopping. I'm sending Hillary for your other guns
a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges,

You are still incapable of understanding that "arms" in the Constitution is an expansive term, not a restrictive one. Moreover, what a particular state might mandate as the minimum acceptable military arms and kit does not represent a list of arms and equipment that citizens are restricted to owning. None of your citations uses any sort of language suggesting that those arms, and only those arms may be possessed. The laws merely itemize the absolute legal minimum of arms and equipment that every individual subject to militia duty MUST possess.

As I've said before, both the 2nd Amendment and Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution authorize Congress to make the acquisition, possession and competency with any list of arms and equipment it deems necessary MANDATORY for EVERY person subject to militia duty. Thus, at least every male between 17 and 45 can be compelled to buy, at their own expense, an M-4 military (select fire) assault rifle, a set number of magazines and amount of required ammunition, a bayonet or knife, approved military backpack and/or body armor/chest rig, Kevlar helmet, shelter half, sleeping bag and quite literally any other military kit Congress deems it desirable for Unorganized Militia members to possess. Congress can, at its sole and absolute discretion require all such members of the Unorganized militia to report on a regular basis for inspection, instruction, drill and marksmanship practice.

But that authority on the part of Congress, or a state Governor with respect to his state unorganized militia members, is not restrictive either when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms that "the people" (not just "the militia" or "members of the unorganized militia") have and which is protected by the 2nd Amendment. While Congress and the states may require and compel certain individuals subject to duty when called in the Organized Militias to keep and bear particular arms and equipment, neither Congress nor a state may infringe upon the pre-existing right to keep and bear "arms" that each and every individual member of "the people" enjoys under the Constitution because both agencies are prohibited from doing so by the 2nd Amendment.

So, while the Governor might mandate that I posses a smooth-bore rifle and other kit defined in the statutes you mention (which were long ago modified), neither he nor the Congress, much less the President or some bureaucrat prohibit me from possessing an M-4 select-fire military assault rifle, magazines, ammunition, a bayonet, body armor, or anything else I wish to keep and bear that falls under the extremely broad definition of "arms."

So, you lose again. You really should give it up because you're always wrong. Aren't you embarrassed to always be wrong, it makes you look not just ignorant but profoundly stupid and uneducable.

By the way, I look forward to the day that Hillary shows up to try and take my guns. And I emphasize the "try" part. How about you? You want some? Come get some. Or are you just a pusillanimous coward who will send someone else in your place because you're too afraid to do your own dirty work?

[rainbow]

The founding fathers were a bunch of cotton picking and sotweed planting yokels.
Who cares what they said.

[piscator]

I don't think they picked their own cotton.

[rainbow]

I don't think they picked their own cotton.

Yes, it is the mentality rather than the action that is important.
These colonial upstarts sitting on their verandas drinking cheap rum and smoking Jimson weed. Did anyone actually expect them to come up with anything worthwhile?

[Tero]

Gun activists did not finish high school, so they can only communicate with gun in hand. Some try to write hate blogs.

The rest, he said, were drawn from various factions of the Patriot movement.

This coalition first emerged, Mr. Pitcavage said, in the crucible of the Bundy ranch standoff in 2014, during which a group of volunteer gunmen assumed positions on a highway near the town of Bunkerville, Nev., and chased off agents from the federal Bureau of Land Management who wanted to collect grazing fees from Cliven Bundy.

“Before the Bundy ranch, I’d be hard pressed to think of something similar,” Mr. Pitcavage said. “It was the first major example of militiamen and Sagebrush Rebellion types spending time together and getting to know each other personally. It set the stage for what’s happening today.”

Some people who have studied such movements say the Oregon occupation’s new recruits have been encouraged by the inaction of the federal government, which has largely left the matter to be handled by the county sheriff, David Ward.

The federal authorities have so far avoided any confrontation with the occupiers, wary of provoking a shootout.

“When you have a high-profile event like this, lots of people want to get in on the action,” said Mark Pitcavage, the senior research fellow for the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. “It has the ability to draw all sorts out of the woodwork.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/us/st ... ances.html

[Seth]

The founding fathers were a bunch of cotton picking and sotweed planting yokels.
Who cares what they said.

We do.

[Seth]

I don't think they picked their own cotton.

Yes, it is the mentality rather than the action that is important.
These colonial upstarts sitting on their verandas drinking cheap rum and smoking Jimson weed. Did anyone actually expect them to come up with anything worthwhile?

You mean other than things like the personal computer, the ONLY men to land on the moon and come back, the light bulb, the airplane...the list goes on and on. Oh, and kicking Mad King George's sorry ass and sending his troops back to England in shame and defeat as we sat on our verandas drinking good American whiskey and smoking fine Virginia tobacco...which was the whole reason England came to North America in the first place.

What have YOU done for civilization? Nothing is my guess.