Wednesday open thread
Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.
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March 13, 2013 - 6:06 AM
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March 13, 2013 - 6:06 AM
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Wednesday, June 19, 2013
THE ROANOKE TIMES
So Mark Kelly (Mr. Gabby Giffords) wanted to prove how easy it is to buy an AR-15, a weapon that is perfectly legal to own in Arizona for:
- Anyone who has not been found to constitute a danger to self or to others…
- Anyone who has not been convicted of a felony, or who has been adjudicated delinquent for a felony…
- Anyone who is not, at the time of possession, serving a term of imprisonment…
- Anyone who is not, at the time of possession, serving a term of probation pursuant to a conviction for a domestic violence offense or a felony offense, parole, community supervision, work furlough, home arrest, etc…
- Anyone who is an not an undocumented alien, etc.
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So Mr. Kelly, who is not prohibited of owning a weapon as he does not qualify as any of the above, goes into a store and makes a perfectly legal purchase.
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Proving…what, exactly? That the system works, in that he was not denied a purchase?
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Wouldn’t it have been more effective if he had sent someone who IS prohibited by any of the above into the gun store to see if THEY were sold a weapon? (I’m sure that’s how most people who are prohibited from owning weapons in Arizona get their guns)
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It’s akin to me, a 46-year old, going into a bar and ordering and being served a bourbon and water, and then claiming that I am trying to show how easy it is to purchase liquor.
What if you went into a bar and ordered a bourbon, and the bartender took your money and said, “Okay, come back in two weeks for your shot.” So maybe that’s part of showing that it’s “too easy”: No waiting period. There are people who have committed violent crimes that have said they wouldn’t have done so if there had been a waiting period.
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Maybe he was checking to see if the background checks and other requirements would actually be carried out. That seems a legitimate thing to test.
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I am curious to know how it would be learned that he is not a danger to others aside from maybe the Vulcan Mind Meld.
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Maybe it’s only the first step. Maybe now he’s going to test and see how easy it is to sell the gun to someone without having to submit the buyer to any background checks.
2 – A nonsensical question, NW, as there is no waiting period to purchase liquor, assuming other restrictions (i.e., age, sobriety) do not also apply. Are you saying there is a waiting period and Arizona and the gun dealer violated that by selling to Mr. Kelly? Where do you get that information?
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I have seen nothing to indicate that the gun dealer violated any laws, and am convinced that if he had, we would have heard about it.
Maybe for the same reason Ted Nugent mowed down 455 pigs from a helicopter with a machine gun.
hoo try actually reading my post
You’re missing the point, NW. Mr. Kelly proved absolutely nothing, as there was nothing to prove. If he is proposing a waiting period, he should do so; other states have them, and he and his wife have enough political and media clout to make it happen. Again, all he did was show that the system works.
#3 Sorry for the quip (5). You said my post raised a “nonsensical question” because there is no waiting period to purchase liquor. But my post (2) started with “What if”. That indicates that the question was hypothetical. The point is that both the purchase of an AR-15 and> the purchase of a shot of Bourbon whiskey could be made more difficult (burdensome, if you wish) by introducing a waiting period.
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Maybe you’re not surprised that a normal citizen without a prison record or other black marks could walk into a gun shop and emerge with a very efficient killing machine in a matter of minutes, and I am not surprised by that either (but I would additionally like to know how many minutes it took), but there might be people who are surprised, and I don’t fault Mark Kelly for wanting to make that more widely known. If anything y’all gun lovers should be happy that he’s reminded everyone how easy it is.
7 – when I lived in Maryland, I had a friend who owned a gun shop (I’m not a gun owner, and was never in his shop), but he told me that the process was pretty extensive and involved (I have no other frame of reference).
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He also said local, state, and federal cops ran sting operations all the time. Recounted one time a fellow came in, purchased a weapon, went through all the background checks, etc., and then told him he lived in Pennsylvania. Well, it’s illegal to sell a gun to an out of state resident; so my friend told him he would – as per the law – have to send the gun to a shop in PA, and he – the purchaser – would have to pick it up there, plus submit to whatever background checks PA required. The guy kept trying to talk him – my buddy – into bending the rules “just this once”, so much so that my annoyed friend tossed him out of the shop and tore up the sale. Found out later he was a state cop on a sting operation.
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Again, purely anecdotal, but I found it interesting.
Not just interesting ‘Hoo…..entrapment.
9 – well, I think so, Jim. My buddy was less concerned about that (since he runs a clean operation) than he was over the fact that the guy wasted his time. Also was not an uncommon thing for him, and I assume other gun dealers.
Does not the ABC and ATF and CIA and FBI and even local police do such “sting” operations all the time. How do you think they catch the bad guys and bust up the “rings” we see on the news?
11 – yes, “the ABC and ATF and CIA and FBI and even local police” would qualify as “local, state, and federal cops [who run] sting operations all the time” I mentioned in number 8.
Ah, yes, the old sting operation.
Get those criminals right off the street!
Pack em tight in a prison where they can kill each other with nothing but their fists, and do so whilst us taxpayers pay for their 3 hots and a cot.
Perfect logic.
#11 Mrs. Saunders…..for one who….posts….often as….to…the Constitution. Have you ever heard of the 4th Amendment? How’bout the 5th?
Thanks for the explanation I was too ignorant to see, now please tell me, how do you think they catch the bad guys and bust up the “rings” we see on the news? Are you opposed to “stings” as a way to stop the bad guys?
The gun business must be lucrative if you can afford “tossed him out of the shop and tore up the sale” because of some wheedling. How did he find out, “he was a state cop on a sting operation”?
16 – I guess it was lucrative; probably much less so when so when someone was wasting his time trying to get him to break the law, a situation mitigated by short-circuiting the conversation and tossing him. And I don’t know how he found out. Does that matter?
#14 Mr. Lucas…..as one who….ripostes….often as….to…the Constitution, I have indeed “heard of the 4th Amendment”, as well as “the 5th” and “all of ‘em”, I also know that claiming such police operations are “entrapment”, proving it, and having it upheld by the courts is rather a bad bet.
#16 Sandi, Gun shop owners know their livelihoods depend on doing things properly. Some guy comes in the store and starts acting weird, it’s “no sale” and “get lost”. You asked whether gun business is good, and the answer is yes. I’m told that since Sandy Hook it’s been hard for some shops to maintain inventory.
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I’ve never understood how sting operations differ from entrapment, I mean what’s the legal basis for the difference. Presumably there is one.
Yes, the entrapment defense is a grey area. It was – in my admittedly non-lawyer opinion – entrapment, Sandi, because it was an attempt to get someone who was not predisposed to break the law to break the law through a dishonest act on the part of law enforcement (an attempt to get him to sell to allow a non-state resident to walk out of his shop with a weapon).
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As I said, my friend ran a clean shop, scrupulously so. He ran all required background checks, filed all required paperwork with all required agencies (at all levels) in a timely manner, underwent multiple audits without fuss…in short, he ran a scrupulously clean shop. In that regard, he may have stood out more than those who were a less honest in their business dealings, who DID occasionally break the rules without getting caught. That may have, ironically, invited more scrutiny.
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It reminds of a lady I used to date, many years ago, a woman from Canada who worked for one of the Catholic churches in northern Virginia (a very devout Catholic, which I am not). She was, um, religious about making sure her work visas were up to date, and responded to all INS correspondence, etc. and as a result was easier to find for government folks to be able to fill out their quotas of foreign visas checked and all that. Their excuse was always the threat of terrorists (this was after 9-11)…which always struck me as funny because she was a blue-eyed blonde Catholic, pretty much the polar opposite of a Middle Eastern terrorist.
#18 I didn’t know it was a crap game…..or that we should only support the brute-force winner.
Interseting, in that the thread here is the protection of individual rights against such undue force.
You talk alot about the Constitution, but IMO based on observation, you rarely miss a chance to rationalize it away.
#19 NW…absolutely correct sir, thank you.
And, to have that livelihood threatened, even as they do things properly, by an over zealous BATF& E…..depending on their leadership….depending on the immediate administration…..by executive fiat, rather than Constitutional legislation, is deplorable.
No, this president, AG, are not the first…..but in my many years of monitoring the “gun debate”, which I assure you I have done pretty darn comprehensively….this administration is the most onerous. Both on the surface….and the lies many bought as to his history & intent.
You are entitled to your interpretation of both the Constitution and my understanding of it, God knows I am used to being taunted as the idiot for not blindly following what you all consider the right way to view it.
I work and live in the real world and court after court after court, scholar after scholar after scholar, law enforcement, legislators and a huge swath of the people in this nation have upheld the “sting” operations you all want to label as “entrapment”. I did not say it was right, that I agreed with it or that innocent people do not get collected as collateral damage in their zeal. You all chose to read that into my remarks.
My point was that there are questions yet to be answered in the anecdote shared and anyone calling it “entrapment” without those answers is the one on shaky ground, not me.
#21, who wins “a crap game”…..by “brute-force”? And why does a discussion here need a “winner”? It is mostly an ‘old boys club’ as fewer and fewer women even come here anymore and I wish you all could figure out why.
If I am so wrong, it is easily proven. And like some of the boors who have posted here many times, what does being “wrong” have to do with expressing your opinion? I suppose I missed that the “thread here is the protection of individual rights against such undue force”. There’s my ignorance rearing its head in the air space like I was Putin!
Based on my own observation, some people do not understand the Constitution or the nation they live in.
#20 ‘Hoo….the scenario you describe is not “just” entrapment, in a general context, anecdotal. It is an excuse to hassle….and a way to deny your friend the ability to earn a living, in a legal context.
As to anyone’s personal experience, it is as you say, anecdotal. Yet, it by no means is…..(does anyone think only your friend was singled out)?
#23 The legal context is the manifest, predicate context. Your, or anyone else’s opinions as to right or wrong, irrespective. Thus the Constitutional protections….which once again, IMO, you rationalize away.
As to “anecdotal”, this type of action is not. Also….even if it were, are we not talking about individual rights? And is it not such cases that routinely are heard before the courts?
One’s rights are not a crap game, or a majority rule question.
i didnt say sting operations are entrapment. i just said that i dont know the legal difference. merely a confession of ignorance. i also dont know how dui checkpoints are not warrantless search.
#24 Please Mrs. Saunders, explain to the “boors”, at least this one, “why”.
“#21, who wins “a crap game”…..by “brute-force”? And why does a discussion here need a “winner”? It is mostly an ‘old boys club’ as fewer and fewer women even come here anymore and I wish you all could figure out why.”
And what it has do do with the discussion. Thank you.
stupid
partisan
racist
arming criminals
killing school children
boors
their orphanages….their pedophilia
the vatican hordes wealth beyond measure
presents pagentry that would be rebuked in any monarchy
and allows people to suffer
it just does
Ah, that beacon, that shining light, that progressive voice of tolerance & diversity.
What?
Seriously Jim Lucas, if you want to tolerate and approve of that list, please enjoy them all. Nothing about “tolerance & diversity” means putting up with or supporting any such behaviors.
Since that is your train of thought, does your anger over gun control measures mean you support criminals and mass shooters being able to get guns easily?
#31 Every word yours. All from this blog recently.
Stupid, Partisan….the SC when you disagree
Arming Criminals, Killing School Children…..your comments on the NRA
Boors….those males, this thread #24, who question your posts
and, Their Orphanages, through, It Just Does…..your #2 Media myopia in Rome, 3/14
There are many more, but think this suffices. BTW, my #29 never mentions your name, or refers to you directly. Did you recognize your words?
Sandi…Ted shot those 455 pigs for environmental reasons. Pigs destroy the environment plus the emit methane gas that is bad for global warming (for those who believe in global warming). Environmentalist should be thanking ole Ted.