Invoking Orlando, Senate Republicans Set Up Vote To Expand FBI Spying (reuters.com) 660
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set up a vote late on Monday to expand the FBI's authority to use a secretive surveillance order without a warrant to include email metadata and some browsing history information. The move, made via an amendment to a criminal justice appropriations bill, is an effort by Senate Republicans to respond to last week's mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub after a series of measures to restrict guns offered by both parties failed on Monday. Privacy advocates denounced the effort, saying it seeks to exploit a mass shooting in order to expand the government's digital spying powers. The amendment would broaden the FBI's authority to use so-called National Security Letters to include electronic communications transaction records such as time stamps of emails and the emails' senders and recipients. NSLs do not require a warrant and are almost always accompanied by a gag order preventing the service provider from sharing the request with a targeted user. The amendment filed Monday would also make permanent a provision of the USA Patriot Act that allows the intelligence community to conduct surveillance on "lone wolf" suspects who do not have confirmed ties to a foreign terrorist group. A vote is expected no later than Wednesday, McConnell's office said. Last week, FBI Director James Comey said he is "highly confident that [the Orlando shooter] was radicalized at least in part through the internet."
Fuck ALL those assholes! (Score:5, Insightful)
The Democrats want to take our guns (totalitarianism); the Republicans want to spy on us (also totalitarianism). Can't one goddamn politician react appropriately (by recognizing that embracing totalitarianism means the terrorists WIN), for once?!
Re:Fuck ALL those assholes! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hard to argue with that statement.
I am sick and tired of our elected representatives passing laws like this and the USA PATRIOT ACT, claiming they "make us safer".
It's easy to pass these, hard to repeal them. We as a country are going to be living with this erosion of our rights for years to come.
Re:Fuck ALL those assholes! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and didn't the FBI investigate the Orlando shooter TWICE, and found nothing to justify further interest? So, how would passing this amendment have prevented Orlando?
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But...but...but... Terrists!!!!
Re:Fuck ALL those assholes! (Score:5, Insightful)
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In the meantime, though, we're definitely having our rights eroded by these expansions of invasive domestic spying. It's far more my concern at the moment than anything to do with loss of rights to firearms.
Re:Fuck ALL those assholes! (Score:5, Interesting)
I am sick and tired of our elected representatives passing laws like this and the USA PATRIOT ACT, claiming they "make us safer".
It's easy to pass these, hard to repeal them. We as a country are going to be living with this erosion of our rights for years to come.
The USA Patriot Act had provisions that had "sunset provisions." That is, they were to expire after a certain number of years, variously. In subsequent years, Congress has renewed most of them when they were about to go out-of-force.
You are right about "easy to pass; hard to repeal," but that isn't even the case for the USA Patriot Act. It's worse.
Oh, yeah. The people who passed it initially were smart enough to put the sunset provision in. Regardless of whether I think they should have passed it initially, the sunset provision was a very intelligent move. REMOVING it...not so much. I sometimes wonder if there shouldn't be an intelligence test for our elected representatives. Or, at least, a basic Civics class, with emphasis on governments and how they can, with the best of intentions, become Bad.
CSB: A friend of my daughter's works in the Sgt-at-Arms office on Capitol Hill. She has to explain, repeatedly, to Senators and Representatives, why her office can't arrest the President (for alleged crimes against America, but really, because he's black and they don't like him). Seriously.
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Why do you think that the two flavors of The Party would be different from each other except for, well, artificial flavoring?
Re:Fuck ALL those assholes! (Score:5, Insightful)
As for the other side of things, I think it's a bit exaggerated. Not all Democrats are for a complete ban on guns (which would involve repealing the second amendment) - I'd hazard to say they're a minority, and certainly a minority among elected Democrats. Most of the push is for greater controls and restrictions, which shouldn't be unreasonable - and yet it is, apparently, even for minor ones. I'm a gun owner, and I like going to the range, but it seems ridiculous to me that there's more regulation on operating a vehicle than there is on operating a deadly weapon, or that if I want to go hunting, there's more paperwork involved in getting the approval to kill the animal(s), not buying the firearm to do it with.
What was really fascinating in this latest round of votes in the Senate, was that the Democrats tried to cross the streams, by suggesting that people on the Terrorism watch list be restricted from buying guns. The ACLU lobbied against this, because of the obscurity/undemocratic nature/etc of the watch lists (you don't know if you're on, they won't confirm, and it's near impossible to get removed from it). At the same time, everyone in the Senate pretty much wound up voting on party lines - which I suppose shows that gun control is a stronger issue than the rest of it, at least at the moment.
Re:Fuck ALL those assholes! (Score:5, Insightful)
The Democrats want to take our guns (totalitarianism); the Republicans want to spy on us (also totalitarianism). Can't one goddamn politician react appropriately (by recognizing that embracing totalitarianism means the terrorists WIN), for once?!
Plenty do, such as Gary Johnson. They're derided as kooks, of course.
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Bernie Sanders.
Re:Fuck ALL those assholes! (Score:5, Informative)
-Rahm Emanuel
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The Democrats want to take our guns (totalitarianism); the Republicans want to spy on us (also totalitarianism).
The difference is that the Republicans actually pass things like that, while the Democrats only "take away guns" in the imaginations of Republicans.
The last significant gun control legislation was passed more than 2 decades ago, didn't take away a single gun from anyone who legally owned one prior to the law passing, was supported by Ronald Regan, and expired 10 years ago.
So given the two choices, I'd suggest you'd be far better served by opposing the party that actually has a proven track record of pro
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Or gun down the spies?
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The Second Amendment does not affirm our right to own guns for "personal defense;" it affirms our right to own guns for defense against tyranny. The "assault rifles" the Democrats tried to ban yesterday are exactly the most important kind to keep privately owned!
Re:Fuck ALL those assholes! (Score:5, Interesting)
The Second Amendment does not affirm our right to own guns for "personal defense;" it affirms our right to own guns for defense against tyranny.
Read the Second Amendment again and spot the word "tyranny" for me. Don't find it? Because the SA says that "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." It's easy to ignore the first half of the sentence and just pay attention to the second, but that's disingenuous.
Furthermore, you have to take it in the context of the times in which it was written. The United States at this point had no standing army. (Historical aside: the US was very averse to keeping a standing army until after World War II. On the eve of the Civil War, the whole strength of the US Army was 15,000 men; just before World War II, in 1940, the US Army's size was smaller than that of Belgium.) Much of this aversion was due to the fact that it was Britain's desire to keep a standing professional army in the colonies that necessitated the Intolerable Acts which taxed the colonists to pay for said army.
At any rate, the presumption of the framers in 1791 would likely have been that the US needed to call on a citizen militia if it was invaded (or if it had to put down internal rebellions, such as the Whiskey Rebellion [wikipedia.org] or Shays' Rebellion [wikipedia.org]). Therefore, the citizens of the US should be prepared to take up arms as needed under the direction of the government (i.e. a well regulated militia), not against it. I know it's easy to have a romantic view of the Founding Fathers that they somehow encoded into the Constitution the seeds of the government's demise if it became too "tyrannical," but it's just not there in the text of the Second Amendment.
Personally, I like guns. I don't think there's anything wrong with responsible gun ownership. But please don't try to use the Second Amendment as a source for saying Americans should be armed and prepared to fight their own government with military-grade firearms.
Re:Fuck ALL those assholes! (Score:5, Insightful)
What's disingenuous is failing to acknowledge that in the 16th Century, "well-regulated" was synonymous with "well-trained." If you want to "regulate" guns by, for example, instituting marksmanship training as part of the public school curriculum, that'd be fine with me!
The context of the times was that the Second Amendment was written by a bunch of terrorists* who had just finished violently overthrowing their government.
(* If the revolution were happening today, that's certainly the term King George would be throwing around -- whether it accurately described the revolutionaries' tactics or not.)
The Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, is a remarkably terse document (as opposed to some of the later Amendments, which became more verbose). Therefore, I certainly agree with you that it must be understood in context with the Federalist Papers and other writings of the Framers! But from that context, it is abundantly clear that they envisioned the militia as a check against the power of the State (and against the threat to freedom posed by a professional standing army in particular).
Jefferson has been quoted to death, so I'll cite others [thefederalistpapers.org] instead. Here's Washington's thought on the subject:
If that's not advocating for the use of arms as a defense against (your own) tyrannical government, what is it?
Patrick Henry is even more explicit:
And here's Alexander Hamilton, writing in Federalist #28:
Elbridge Gerry is a relatively obscure figure, but he didn't mince words:
Finally, here's George Mason, who helped write the Second Amendment itself:
I could keep going, but that should be more than enough evidence to prove my point to all but the densest (or most disingenuous) debater.
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
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If that shooting proved anything, then that you don't even have to be the silent type for the whole surveillance to be moot. That guy has been interrogated multiple times and still was sent out on the street again.
You can't fix incompetence by giving the incompetent more leeway.
Orlando Shooter was a rent-a-cop (Score:5, Informative)
CNN article: http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/1... [cnn.com]
For what it's worth, this has been down-played in media (haven't seen it blasting twitter and stuff much)
So basically NONE OF THE PROPOSALS would have prevented him from getting a gun.
As a voter, I'm sick of intelligent and informed voters being sidelined by media and legal cowboy politicians.
Re:Orlando Shooter was a rent-a-cop (Score:4, Interesting)
CNN article: http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/1... [cnn.com]
For what it's worth, this has been down-played in media (haven't seen it blasting twitter and stuff much)
So basically NONE OF THE PROPOSALS would have prevented him from getting a gun.
As a voter, I'm sick of intelligent and informed voters being sidelined by media and legal cowboy politicians.
He was denied a sale at a gun shop who also reported him to the FBI as they had a really bad feeling about the guy, they felt really uncomfortable with some of the questions he was asking and his general behavior. It wasn't the first time he had been report either but look what good that ended up doing.
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And yet... (Score:4, Interesting)
despite ALL the evidence gathered prior to the shooting, no one (gov't agency-wise) did anything. ...things that make you go "hmmmmm"
It's almost like they knew, but waited, so they could use it as an excuse to get more power...
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? How did they do nothing? The FBI checked him out multiple times but had no actionable cause.
Unless you want the FBI more flagrantly violating civil liverties there was nothing they can do. And these expanded powers will do fuck all either.
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No, we shouldn't. But then again, what should that increase in domestic spying and privacy elimination achieve? What information about this guy could have been gained by ANY additional privacy invasion that would have led to a different outcome?
What happened to small government? (Score:2)
What happened to the party of small government and suspicion of government interfering with people's personal lives?
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It was taken over by religious nutjobs that want to childproof the world. Of course without keeping you from ruining your life and finances by falling prey to corporate swindlers, nobody wants to take that liberty away from you!
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And really, their concern for "small government" primarily extends to "small in budget", and then for things like spending money on poor people. Spending on the military and law enforcement isn't a problem, as long as said law doesn't impact the sort of people that support them. FBI and CIA they like, but the BATF and IRS not so much.
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Good (Score:2)
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FBI interviewed suspect twice (Score:5, Insightful)
Counting the 50+ deaths in Orlando as the act of an Islamic terrorist, which is at least debatable, there have been fewer than 100 deaths in the US since 2001.
This is not exactly the sort of threat that sane men forfeit their liberty for.
Re:FBI interviewed suspect twice (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the noise, dummy...You cannot see the intelligence for all the noise.
Counting the 50+ deaths in Orlando as the act of an Islamic terrorist, which is at least debatable, there have been fewer than 100 deaths in the US since 2001.
This is not exactly the sort of threat that sane men forfeit their liberty for.
Wasn't Timothy McVeigh at least a self-proclaimed Christian? Why is he not referred to as a "Christian Terrorist"?
Pick up the phone (Score:4, Insightful)
And call his office and call your own congress critters instead of just spouting off here.
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You think I'm wealthy enough to own my own congress critter? What do I look like, one of the Koch brothers?
I suppose if you can't ban assault rifles (Score:3, Interesting)
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Note that Australia didn't just ban "assault weapons", they pretty much banned everything but shotguns.
As to "the shooter", I'm waiting to find out how many of the shootees were shot by the cops, not the "terrorist". The fact that the local government is refusing to release the information at least suggests that some of them were shot by cops (if they knew that none were, they'd be trumpeting that to high heaven, instead of saying "we're not going to discuss that"....
Legislation Can't Fix Incompetence (Score:5, Insightful)
This should be obvious, but I guess politicians need to be seen doing something, and apparently reasonable gun control in a country that makes up a 1/3 of violent gun crimes just isn't going to fly.
The guy was nuts. He had a documented history of being nuts. His friends thought he was nuts. His family thought he was nuts. And yet, he could still get plenty of ammo and guns. The problem wasn't that there wasn't enough surveillance. The problem is that no one was paying attention to the information that was ALREADY AVAILABLE.
"Oh, I see you have a history of being bat shit insane. Here, let me get you a special discount on our Sandy Hook signature line of guns."
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...so, all this is useless since the FBI can't do anything until the shooter does something. Which this guy didn't do until last week. At which point it was too late.
If having your friends and family report you to the FBI isn't suspicious enough then the FBI should just stop already. These guys don't break the law until they're ready to go.
Re:Legislation Can't Fix Incompetence (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you favour arresting people if their ex- calls the FBI? Interesting theory of Due Process you have.
Do note that what we're complaining about in this thread is a Bill proposing to allow the FBI to get around Due Process. Which means that suggesting alternate ways for them to get around Due Process probably won't be received all that well.
And who proposed this abomination ? (Score:4)
" Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican and sponsor of the amendment"
Why am I not surprised. McCain never saw a tyrannical action he couldn't embrace. . .
Because of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Because of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
And they already flagged him twice, interviewed him, got additional reports on him.... But if only there was MORE domestic spying, they would have actually stopped him. They swear it. Don't pay any attention to whether or not their fingers are crossed behind their back - that information is classified.
This is called the Shock Doctrine (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a good book of the same title by Naomi Klein.
It's a simple concept,. and the summary summarizes it for this situation: exploit a mass shooting in order to expand the government's digital spying powers.
Here's what we know:
1. Born in the US, thus a US citizen (child of immigrants, but most all of us are)
2. Had two wives (and one divorce) and a small child
3. Worked in security (where they carry guns)
4. Was investigated twice by the FBI (someone he attended religious things with had reported him)
5. Was legally able to purchase firearms
I'm sorry government of the United States, you weren't going to stop this guy. Except, he had been investigated and vetted as not a threat. THAT IS WHERE THE SYSTEM FAILED!
Could the system have been successful? We will probably never know. But:
* Him researching guns wouldn't have raised any eyes (it shouldn't have anyway).
* is father was rather wordy and seemed supportive of some "bad" groups (him searching for such things could have easily been painted as "know thy enemy" or simple curiosity).
He's basically Timothy McVeigh but against the gay community rather than the Federal government (and also no where near as deadly as Timothy).
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You're right.
He couldn't be stopped because he wasn't doing anything criminal, right up until the moment he did. This is part of the folly of gun laws. They don't stop people from deciding to commit a criminal act- there is simply no way to do such a thing.
If every firearm in the US were outlawed and he was unable to get or make one (unlikely, but let's pretend), maybe he'd have taken a few glass bottles filled with gas into the nightclub and firebombed it. What's the next step: outlawing glass bottles and
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So, laws don't generally deter criminals?
Then why have drug laws? They don't work.
Why have laws against theft? Criminals aren't gonna obey them.
Why have laws against murder? It won't generally deter criminals.
Do you see how utterly fucking ridiculous those statements are? And yet the gun lobby parrots them in regards to gun control in all seriousness and with a straight face.
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Are you seriously suggesting that if we repealed drug laws, use of dangerous drugs like crack and heroin would not increase?
I'm not the person you were asking, but yes, based on the experience of other nations - that is exactly what happens. The dangerous drug usage goes down because people get help for their addiction without risking jail. Also people switch to less serious drugs.
Gun control absolutely, positively does work (Score:5, Insightful)
Second reply: Yes, a determined killer will kill. But easy access to guns makes it much more likely that an unhinged person will take down a whole bunch of others. It's exceedingly unlikely that a guy with a glass bottle or a knife would kill 49 people before being stopped.
Look at Australia's experience with gun control. In the 18 years prior to 1996, they had 13 mass shootings (defined as 4 or more victims.) Since 1996 when they brought in draconian gun laws, they have had zero mass shootings. Zero.
Not only have mass shootings been drastically reduced, but the firearm homicide rate fell by 59 percent and the firearm suicide rate by 65 percent without a parallel increase in non-firearm homicides and suicides. That's because a lot of homicides and suicides are not planned, but occur in the heat of the moment, and are much likely to take place if there's easy access to deadly weapons. Here's the reference [andrewleigh.org] (PDF).
Where I do agree, though, is that gun control probably will not work in the US. You have way too many guns in circulation, and you're poisoned by 200+ years of the Second Amendment. Fixing that is well-nigh impossible, but just ignoring the problem is not going to help.
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You went from "glass bottle or knife" to "firebomb". Interesting.
How many people were killed in the United States by guns last year? And how many by firebombs?
The answer is about 13,000 people by firearms in 2015. I couldn't even find statistics for bombing attacks, but I bet it was fewer than 100.
Also, easy access to deadly weapons greatly increases the chances of spur-of-the-moment attacks or suicides, exactly as reported in that Australian study.
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But gun laws do work. It's not as if this is an untried experiment - there are many countries with strict gun laws, and they reap the benefits of not having stuff like this happen every other week. There are next to no mass shootings, people don't need guns for self defence (as those they need to defend themselves against are incredibly likely to not be armed with a gun), the police aren't on edge because every traffic stop or pat down might end up in a shoot-out, and so on and so on.
"He couldn't be stoppe
Yay! (Score:2)
Yay! More surveillance, who couldn't be super-duper happy about that? Remember, citizens, it's for our own good and it will never be used for anything bad, okay? Alrighty then, carry on!
Hmmm (Score:2)
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Harder. Faster. Harder. Faster. (Score:2)
Why don't they just (Score:3)
piss on the Constitution and wipe their dirty jackboots with the Stars and Stripes? I'm a Canadian so to a certain extent I don't have a horse in the race; but even so, this really bothers me, if for no other reason than the US government's history of getting its own laws and practices and Peeping Tom-ness implemented extraterritorially. If I actually lived in the States, I'd be ready to chew battleships and spit out nails over this latest attempt to circumvent due process.
Re:email.. (Score:5, Funny)
dear lawmakers. count to 10 before doing something really stupid after a major event.
It won't do any good, because that's exactly what they'll do: count to 10, then do something stupid.
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Two million dollars...
Now, how did you want me to vote again?
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It won't do any good, because that's exactly what they'll do: count to 10, then do something stupid.
It WILL slow them down - not all of them can count that high.
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I'd say they should count further, I just don't see any indicator that they are able to.
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They are definitely able to count higher than 10. That's how they tally up all the lobbyist money they take in.
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There is still something they do themselves and don't have their goons for?
Must be like in the old joke, "Boss, is fucking your wife work or leisure?" "Leisure you idiot, why?" "Thought so, if it was work I'm sure you'd have made me do it".
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If I only have the choice to hand over my gun or my privacy, the choice is pretty easy.
And please, don't gimme that "but the gun can defend your privacy" bullshit. My assault rifle against the US army. Yeah. Sure. The only reason you still have your guns is that they know pretty well that it's not even offering the pretense of you being able to defend against your government's whims.
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I think that's illegal for some odd reason.
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Keeping and bearing arms is a right. They aren't "for" any one purpose. You don't need a reason. That's what a right is.
Re:expanded (Score:5, Interesting)
So is (or should be) privacy....
Remember, the US Constitution does not "grant" rights....its purpose is to enumerate the supposedly LIMITED powers and responsibilities of the Federal Govt.
The bill of rights is an odd duck...in that it does actually list some rights...there was a lot of argument on that at the time, as that the founding fathers didn't want there to be the misconception that it granted rights.
But I would argue that privacy, is a right, not for any one purpose and that for privacy, you also "don't need a reason"....
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:expanded (Score:5, Insightful)
Amendment 1 is pretty much toast.
3 is not really applicable any more.
4 is a joke now.
5, gone.
6, nope.
7 is very dated, not really applicable.
8 is up for interpretation
9 is a joke
10 is a blanket statement.
http://uspolitics.about.com/od/usgovernment/a/bill_of_rights.htm [about.com]
But dammit, let us keep our 2nd amendment!
I'm going to start telling the gun lovers they should have used their firearms to protect the rest of our rights.
2nd (Score:3)
There's only one reason enumerated in the 2nd amendment, true enough.
However, if you are seriously going to argue that in 1790, the authors of the constitution were not considering hunting and self-defense as valid uses of arms... I'm afraid you've simply talked yourself out of any chance of being taken seriously.
Now about rights: Rights pre-exist the constitution. The cons
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Depends on who the rebels are. It doesn't matter how much the budget is if the soliders refuse to fight their own citizens.
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With proper planning and execution, a popularly supported armed rebellion against an overreaching government in the US would only last a few moments.
Before hostilities commenced all that would need to be related to those in power is that the American people have ensured their protection by and of their government by protecting those most vulnerable to counterattack by violent factions of disaffected Americans. Namely, the relatives, friends, and close associates of every elected official. They would be ta
Re:expanded (Score:4, Informative)
My assault rifle against the US army.
Federal law forbids the use of the military for domestic purpose. If the US army is fighting citizens on US soil then we have far, far greater problems than privacy.
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Federal Law my ass (Score:4, Insightful)
Hint: the men guarding the Japanese internment camps containing both naturalized and natural born citizens during WW2 are not civilians.
The government obeys law when it's convenient.
Re:expanded (Score:5, Informative)
Federal law, specifically the Posse Comitatus Act, restricts the use of the United States Army and the United States Air Force in enforcing US Federal Government domestic policy in the US - it does not cover the US Navy, nor the US Marine Corp, and it does not apply to the National Guard (Army or Air) when invited to act in a law enforcement capacity by a state governor.
The Insurrection Act can be used to deploy US military capability within US borders against US citizens without violating the Posse Comitatus Act.
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Those wars were not won or lost by fat accountant weekend warriors who've watched too much Red Dawn, lacking logistical support, training, and anything approaching a chain of command. The conflicts you named did use guns, true, but the real danger faced by those fighting were explosives - either IEDs, mortars, artillery, dropped/shot from aircraft, etc. Guns were used, but they were not even close to being the decisive weapon.
Ask someone who came back from Iraq or Afghanistan what their biggest fear was -
Re:expanded (Score:5, Informative)
Did I miss the article on Democrats expanding gun control laws?
There is enough stupid going around that there is no need to make up new stupid to supplement what is already there.
The Democrats proposed 4 bills in the senate fully knowing that they would not go anywhere due to GOP opposition in both the house and senate. However, if you look at what the bills proposed, there really wasn't much "control" in them. One was universal background checks, which is a measure that over 80% of Americans - and a majority of gun owners - support. Another was to prevent purchases by people on the FBI no fly list, which also has broad support.
Nowhere was there a bill proposing to take away an existing gun from an owner who is legally entitled to have a gun. Nowhere was there a bill that would restrict sale of guns between legal owners. Nowhere was there a bill that would make guns or ammo more expensive or difficult to obtain for legal purchasers.
If you don't like what was proposed, that's fine. At least be honest about it, rather than making up shit and pretending that the proposals contained things they did not.
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Did I miss the article on Democrats expanding gun control laws?
There is enough stupid going around that there is no need to make up new stupid to supplement what is already there.
The Democrats proposed 4 bills in the senate fully knowing that they would not go anywhere due to GOP opposition in both the house and senate. However, if you look at what the bills proposed, there really wasn't much "control" in them. One was universal background checks, which is a measure that over 80% of Americans - and a majority of gun owners - support. Another was to prevent purchases by people on the FBI no fly list, which also has broad support.
Glad to see you love using secret lists with no due process for controlling the population.
Re:expanded (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to say, I'm not a gun nut by any possible stretch of the imagination, and I'm glad the bill that would restrict firearms purchases for people on the no-fly list got blocked.
It would have been declared unconstitutional so fast, it wouldn't even be funny. Mind you, the fact that a bill is clearly unconstitutional on it's face has never really stopped a fair number of Congresscritters (or state legislators) from trying to pass bills.
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Background checks are already done. Disallowing people on the FBI no-fly list allows the government to arbitrarily ban people from purchasing guns without due process in court and is massively open to abuse.
And while none of it would have directly outlawed firearms - that's because the democrats know they cannot get away with total and complete bans. Instead they try to chip away, bit by bit, until there are so many regulations and laws that you have to be rich or politically connected to own a firearm; an
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More importantly, carrying a gun on my person is so that I am not reliant on the police to solve my problems. I find myself in a bad situation where deadly force is required, I'd rather have my gun than wait on the police to come and save me.
Re:expanded (Score:5, Insightful)
The security had guns, but clearly one can't start shooting into a crowd and hope to only hit the perpetrator. Throw some more guns into the mix and you'd end up with people trying to be the "good guy with a gun" they hear so much about, and shooting the shit out of each other every time a car backfired or a champagne cork popped.
If you live in a place where you feel you need to carry a gun, it's too late for you. That's not civilization, it's pathetic.
Re:expanded (Score:4, Interesting)
How much of your guns helped out in Orlando?
Now that's a question we cannot answer because the bar was a "gun free zone" legally. Meaning that law abiding folks who enter the establishment where not able to bring their weapons along. Concealed Carry Permits in FL do not allow you to carry in establishments where adult drinks are sold. The only one with a gun inside was the shooter until the police entered the building a couple of hours later.
Now I'm not saying that having a bunch of drinking folks carrying guns is a good idea, but I am saying that a couple of armed individuals inside the club would have a good chance of disrupting the carnage and lowering the death toll. However, we will never know the answer to all these "what if" questions.
But we DO know that putting guns into law abiding hands LOWERS violent crime rates (such as shootings) not the other way around. The statistics don't lie, and they tell a totally different story than what you think, especially if you tend to be on the left side politically. We also know that mass shooters seek out gun free zones to ply their trade. According to his diary, Adam Landza passed up shooting up the Denver airport and instead decided on a movie theatre which explicitly prohibited guns because he understood it was unlikely he'd encounter armed resistance and could kill more people.
So, let's be honest, you need to disarm the bad guys, not the good guys. Suggest laws that do that for a change and I'll bet you find there is a lot of support for your suggestions... However, this "assault weapon" ban garbage or the attack on the AR-15 in particular is a non-starter as is most of the "gun control" legislation coming from the lefties. But I'm beginning to think that this is really about political posturing and not really about doing anything, it's about blaming the other side for saying "no" to them on a topic that garners them emotional support from the sob stories, and not anything else...
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There was an armed individual in the club - Officer Adam Gruler, member of OPD since 2001. He was armed, in uniform, and completely incapable of reacting, as you can't really shoot into a crowd of people and expect to only hit the assailant.
You might want to change your argument, as the facts seem to disagree with your little dangerous fantasy.
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He did react. Unfortunately, since he was the only one there armed, all the gunman had to do was go on the other side of the crowd.
On June 12, 2016, just after 2 a.m., an Orlando Police Officer working extra duty at the Pulse Nightclub, located at 1912 S. Orange Ave., responded to shots fired. Our officer engaged in a gun battle with that suspect and the suspect went deeper into the club where more shots were fired. The incident then turned into a hostage situation.
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What? You mean politicians are trying to pass/block laws that wouldn't really affect anything? Merely for soundbites? DURING AN ELECTION YEAR?
Lol, shocking, isn't it? But don't worry, the NEXT set of laws we come up with, they'll really work, fer sure, we promise!
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The guy was also a religious nutjobs. Can we disarm all religious nutjobs as well?
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And the bad part about this being...?
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the number of fags in the population is very low
Most of the democrats are gay
If there are so few democrats, then they're probably not going to be a very relevant party for much longer.
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What's there left to hate?
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It's already been worked on, but something this big takes time.
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