The fundamental stupidity of US gun laws

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The people calling for ACTION NAO! are saying they don't want to take the guns, but rather tell us what we can and cannot have.

Last edited by PM on 17 Dec 2012, 5:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Shift it from what? Inanimate objects? Yes, nature is more responsible than inanimate objects.

I'm spotting a theme here...

In some computer games, if a value gets too high, it becomes a very negative value, punishing the player for success. Have you ever played such computer games?

The US had an assault weapons ban for 10 years, there were still mass shootings during that time.

I got this from an article. I think it will open up a few thought process here.

The result of criminalizing hate under certain circumstances is that only certain types of people get protected. In a state with hate crime legislation, penalties levied for an assault on me would be milder by statutory requirement than for the very same assault on a homosexual. Why? Because as a straight, white male I do not belong to a class protected by this law.

Hate crime legislation, then, turns out to be not really about hate, but politics. It's not hatred for the victim that is punished. That's covered under existing statutes. Rather, it's hatred for a protected class--African-Americans, Jews, homosexuals, etc.--that's punished under hate crime laws.

Such legislation makes two crimes out of one. The assault is a crime against the victim. The hate is a crime against the victim's group. Yet how does one make sense of a crime against a group that is a different crime from the one against the victim? Groups have no rights according to the Constitution.

Hate crime laws create a whole new category of faceless, personless victims--the injured class. They identify crimes against no one in particular, but crimes nonetheless, offenses that are punishable. They don't prohibit all hate, only politically incorrect hate.

Best Regards,

Jake

In the US, the "discriminatory" part is irrelevant to the law, only an actual incitement to violence is proscribed, and even then it must be quite explicit. You're trying to make this into less than it is, when in actuality this is a very large and fundamental difference between free speech in the US and "free" speech in much of the rest of the world.




In America you can deny the Holocaust, insult ethnic, sexual, and religious minorities, and otherwise express your personal opinions, no matter how vile, without fear of criminal charges. Try that in the UK or much of Europe. I'd call that more than a minor difference.

That is not true. As a straight white male, I am confident that if I got attacked at a Gay Pride parade for being straight, or attacked by a gang of non-white youths for being white, or a bunch of women for being a man, they would receive a comparable sentence to if the roles were reversed.

The law (in the UK) doesn't say "hateful behaviour towards black people", it says "hateful behaviour based on (perceived) membership of a racial group". It also says "sexual orientation", which includes straight people. The only group that receives special protection is the disabled, you can't be prosecuted for a hate crime for attacking someone for not being disabled.

That is not true. As a straight white male, I am confident that if I got attacked at a Gay Pride parade for being straight, or attacked by a gang of non-white youths for being white, or a bunch of women for being a man, they would receive a comparable sentence to if the roles were reversed.

I would argue not because they are under a certain protected class. They can claim you "assaulted" them for no reason and call it a hate crime. It's a double-standard. If you are a straight, white male you do not receive that protection. It is a extremely slippery slope.

Best Regards,

Jake

The First Amendment does its magic. In America we have a right to hurt other people's feelings. Anti-Semitism and Racism as attitudes and beliefs are perfectly legal. In America we are given great latitude by the Law. I for one, am thankful for that.

ruveyn