|
|
Post by beth on Oct 15, 2015 9:31:10 GMT -5
California official to propose major gun initiative SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Lt. Gov.Gavin Newsom is proposing a 2016 ballot initiative that would ask voters to strengthen the state’s gun laws by restricting ammunition sales, requiring owners to turn in assault-style magazines that have a large capacity and requiring gun owners to report lost or stolen guns to law enforcement. If adopted, the proposal Newsom planned to release Thursday would make California the first state in the nation to require background checks at the point of sale for ammunition, although other states require purchasers to obtain licenses and go through background checks ahead of time. The proposal was drafted by Newsom, a candidate for California governor in 2018, and sponsored by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. It comes in the wake of high-profile killings nationwide and three recent San Francisco Bay Area killings in which the shooters allegedly used stolen guns to commit the crimes. The ballot initiative would ask voters to make five changes to state law: — Eliminate the stockpile of now-banned large-capacity magazines with 11 rounds or more: Owners would be required to sell them to a licensed firearms dealer, take them out of state or turn them in to law enforcement to be destroyed. State law already bans manufacturing or selling magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. — Background checks for ammunition purchases: Ammunition dealers would need to conduct a background check at the point-of-sale for all ammunition, and dealers would need a license similar to those required to sell firearms. Stores also would be required to report to law enforcement if ammunition has been lost or stolen. — Reporting lost and stolen guns: California would join 11 other states in requiring that lost or stolen firearms be reported to law enforcement. — Felons must relinquish weapons: California courts would set up a clear process to relinquish weapons. The authors say that more than 17,000 Californians who are prohibited from owning firearms currently have guns. — Firearms database: The California Department of Justice would have to notify the federal instant criminal background check system when someone is added to the database of those prohibited from purchasing or possessing a firearm. California currently reports to the federal system voluntarily. Polls have shown California voters are more generally more supportive of restricting access to guns than voters in other states. A poll last month by the Public Policy Institute of California found that two-thirds of adults believe California’s gun control laws should be stricter than they are now. It found that 57 percent of adults said controlling gun ownership is more important than protecting the right of Americans to own guns, while 40 percent said protecting gun ownership is more important. www.msnbc.com/msnbc/california-official-propose-major-gun-initiative
|
|
|
|
Post by beth on Oct 15, 2015 9:32:49 GMT -5
The big question, to me, is ... why do individuals need (or want) assault weaponry.
|
|
josephdphillips
Global Facilitator
January 2015 Member of the Month
Posts: 3,494
|
Post by josephdphillips on Oct 15, 2015 18:24:07 GMT -5
The big question, to me, is ... why do individuals need (or want) assault weaponry. Because the U.S. Constitution says it's a right. It's none of your business why they want them, Beth. |
|
|
|
Post by men an tol on Oct 15, 2015 20:02:18 GMT -5
The big question, to me, is ... why do individuals need (or want) assault weaponry. Because the U.S. Constitution says it's a right. It's none of your business why they want them, Beth. You're right Joesph except I would word it a little differently. The right to be armed is from the Common Law and predates the Constitution. The courts have supported that right and in US verses Miller it is recognized that citizens have the right to be armed with military weapons. Why someone wants a gun and if so which gun is no body's business as long as they meet legal gun control laws. |
|
|
|
Post by beth on Oct 16, 2015 0:04:31 GMT -5
The big question, to me, is ... why do individuals need (or want) assault weaponry. Because the U.S. Constitution says it's a right. It's none of your business why they want them, Beth. ummm That's what I thought. Don't take it so seriously, Joeeph. It was a figure of speech. Do you see a question mark? |
|
|
|
Post by mouse on Oct 16, 2015 2:40:41 GMT -5
Because the U.S. Constitution says it's a right. It's none of your business why they want them, Beth. You're right Joesph except I would word it a little differently. The right to be armed is from the Common Law and predates the Constitution. The courts have supported that right and in US verses Miller it is recognized that citizens have the right to be armed with military weapons. Why someone wants a gun and if so which gun is no body's business as long as they meet legal gun control laws. ah yes common law..from the common law of England but do you all know WHY it was common law..this right to bear arms..and it was nothing to do with being safe or liberty or anything else useful to the owner of weaponry it was to do with monies....the king had the right to ask his lords to form an army from the people of their fiefdom or area ie the call to arms the lords in turn had the right to Tell their people to present them selves for fighting in the kings and their lords names initallly the pikes and arrows/bows etc would where necessary be provided by the said king/ lords...with the onset of guns it became a very expensive outlay .. weapons were collected from battle fields etc and the fighting men would after the battle/war/dispute take the weaponry home..keep them in good repair for use the next time..they were also handed down the family line so the right to bear arms became the norm as a matter of policy in the days long before there was a standing army and all for the benefit of the lords and king |
|
|
|
Post by mouse on Oct 16, 2015 2:47:22 GMT -5
The big question, to me, is ... why do individuals need (or want) assault weaponry. Because the U.S. Constitution says it's a right. It's none of your business why they want them, Beth. but the constitution is not written in stone ...seems to me no different than saying its in the koran and therefore cannot be questioned as for the type of weaponry being none of any ones business...mmm but what sort of person would even thing of need the various weaponry which is sold....all sounds very dodgy and a tad unsettling |
|
|
|
Post by men an tol on Oct 16, 2015 9:48:56 GMT -5
You're right Joesph except I would word it a little differently. The right to be armed is from the Common Law and predates the Constitution. The courts have supported that right and in US verses Miller it is recognized that citizens have the right to be armed with military weapons. Why someone wants a gun and if so which gun is no body's business as long as they meet legal gun control laws. ah yes common law..from the common law of England but do you all know WHY it was common law..this right to bear arms..and it was nothing to do with being safe or liberty or anything else useful to the owner of weaponry it was to do with monies....the king had the right to ask his lords to form an army from the people of their fiefdom or area ie the call to arms the lords in turn had the right to Tell their people to present them selves for fighting in the kings and their lords names initallly the pikes and arrows/bows etc would where necessary be provided by the said king/ lords...with the onset of guns it became a very expensive outlay .. weapons were collected from battle fields etc and the fighting men would after the battle/war/dispute take the weaponry home..keep them in good repair for use the next time..they were also handed down the family line so the right to bear arms became the norm as a matter of policy in the days long before there was a standing army and all for the benefit of the lords and king You are quite right Mouse, and that 'Old English' Common Law was also the law of the people in the Americas. During the 1700s that Old English Common Law developed in the Americas in ever increasing divergence with individual rights taking on more significance. So too with the laws being codified on a foundation of written documents with the written Constitutions for each of the Colonies come States and of course the written Constitution of the United States. However, those rights that emerged within the evolving English Common Law are recognized within the legal process in the United States. That evolution of the English Common Law (in the Americas) took on increasing recognition of Individual Rights and appeared as such in several of the State Constitutions prior to the Constitution of the United States. In sort of a summary, it was recognized that attempts to list the individual rights would never be totally inclusive of all rights and therefore it was accepted that all rights (and associated necessary sovereignty) were (are) within the individual whether mentioned specifically in a list of rights or not. This is true of the right to keep and bear arms which has evolved into a recognized (by the Court System) right to be individual with no reliance on any other element. That is, that right (to keep and bear arms) is an individual right without regard to being armed to support militia activity. More over, the type of weapon is not a requirement except that the court has recognized that this individual right is inclusive of the individual having weapons as used in the military. While whether to be armed or not, whether to carry that weapon of not, and the type of that weapon is not a question of right or not, as that right is individual. At the same time there can be some controls on on an individual and their weapon. For example, any business owner or residence owner can make the decision as to whether guns are allowed or not on that property. This is one of those clashes of rights and is a clash between the individual right to be armed and the individual right of property ownership and in this case the property right trumps the gun owner right. There are also codes which govern some aspects of types of guns. Here I am specifically referencing what is generally referred to as Assault weapons. This is a poorly understood definition and in many people's minds this is inclusive of Assault look-a-like weapons and that isn't true. While there are a number of weapon attributes that correctly define an Assault weapon, for purposes here they can be defined as automatic firing weapons (they continue to fire as long as the trigger is held back) as distinct from semiautomatic weapons (they fire one bullet for each pull of the trigger) which are not assault weapons. Fully automatic weapons can only be owned by the individual with a special federal license which is difficult to obtain. Semiautomatic weapons can be owned without such special license. |
|
Jessiealan
xr
Member of the Month, October 2013
Posts: 8,726 
|
Post by Jessiealan on Oct 16, 2015 10:04:39 GMT -5
Because the U.S. Constitution says it's a right. It's none of your business why they want them, Beth. but the constitution is not written in stone ...seems to me no different than saying its in the koran and therefore cannot be questioned as for the type of weaponry being none of any ones business...mmm but what sort of person would even thing of need the various weaponry which is sold....all sounds very dodgy and a tad unsettling Indeed, Mouse. I think it is everyone's business. |
|
Jessiealan
xr
Member of the Month, October 2013
Posts: 8,726
|
Post by Jessiealan on Oct 16, 2015 10:10:41 GMT -5
Men an tol, the United States Constitution pertained to the world as it was centuries ago. It has obviously become your religion. Being obsessive about it keeps you from being able to be less anxious about the views of others. Please try to realize your opinions have no more right to exist than those of others. Freedom of speech also includes freedom of thought I should think.
|
|
|
|
Post by men an tol on Oct 16, 2015 15:06:35 GMT -5
Men an tol, the United States Constitution pertained to the world as it was centuries ago. It has obviously become your religion. Being obsessive about it keeps you from being able to be less anxious about the views of others. Please try to realize your opinions have no more right to exist than those of others. Freedom of speech also includes freedom of thought I should think. Men an tol, the United States Constitution pertained to the world as it was centuries ago. It has obviously become your religion. Being obsessive about it keeps you from being able to be less anxious about the views of others. Please try to realize your opinions have no more right to exist than those of others. Freedom of speech also includes freedom of thought I should think. Jessiealan, Thank you again for defining for me as to what I think, that is, that the Constitution of the United States has become my religion. That is truly a surprise to me. If I may be so presumptuous as to suggest that I may have a differing perspective. Do I believe that the Constitution of the United States is important? Absolutely! After all it is the supreme law of the land, is it not: Here I offer not my opinion but the Constitution itself on the Supremacy of the Constitution: “Article VI Clause 2: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution of Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.“ I'm guessing that my providing here the actual words of the Constitution are not sufficient for your personal requirements as to the Constitution being the Supreme Law of the land, therefore I'll offer a little more (very little) of the words of Chief Justice John Marshall from his opinion in Gibbons v. Ogden [1824]: for edification this was a case between the federal government and the State of New York (I. e., relative to jurisdiction on issuing of licenses for steam navigation and the court found for the United States and made the laws of New York null and void. “ . . . In argument, however, it has been contended, that if a law passed by a State, in exercise of its acknowledged sovereignty, comes into conflict with a law passed by Congress in pursuance of the Constitution, they affect the subject, and each other, like equal opposing powers. . . . . . . . . . . in every such case, the act of Congress, or the treaty, is supreme; and the law of the State, though enacted in the exercise of powers not controverted, must yield to it.” If you wish there is more than enough reference here for you to access the syllabus of the case and read it in full. But the point here is that the federal law is Constitutionally supreme and that is yet active today although it was opined 191 years ago. What was written in that Constitution is as valid today as it was at that time. To understand that it helps to view the Constitution as a contract, a contract between the States. That contract stands as a rock until it is dissolved or Amended. It has been Amended 27 times and has been altered 'only' by those Amendments. It has not been dissolved although it nearly came to that with the Civil War. As with all contracts there is the effort required to understand it. Not from the federal government as that is what was created by the contract (it is the creature of the contract) but rather in the words and word meanings of those who wrote it and those who ratified it. That is, the creators. In this sense (although there are other opinions) the method of interpretation is that of Original word meaning, an Origialist word meaning. This follows the perspective of Justice Scalia and of Justice Thomas and most of the rulings of the Chief Justice. Your comment, “ . . . . Please try to realize your opinions have no more right to exist than those of others. Freedom of speech also includes freedom of thought I should think. . . . .” is interesting because this is what I have taught for many years in private seminars. But then opinions are like leaves in the fall, that is, another one will drop on top of another one. Having an opinion doesn't make it significant but an opinion backed by evidence and credible sources is always worthy of consideration even when we do not agree with it. And that is all I ask, just provide the evidence to support the opinion. |
|
Omega
