Colorado’s Democratic-controlled House on Sunday passed a bill that would ban the sale and transfer of semiautomatic firearms, a major step for the legislation after roughly the same bill was swiftly killed by Democrats last year.
The bill, which passed on a 35-27 vote, is now on its way to the Democratic-led state Senate. If it passes there, it could bring Colorado in line with 10 other states — including California, New York and Illinois — that have prohibitions on semiautomatic guns.
But even in a state plagued by some of the nation’s worst mass shootings, such legislation faces headwinds.
Colorado’s political history is purple, shifting blue only recently. The bill’s chances of success in the state Senate are lower than they were in the House, where Democrats have a 46-19 majority and a bigger far-left flank. Gov. Jared Polis, also a Democrat, has indicated his wariness over such a ban.
Imagine still wanting gun control people after January 6th 2021 and the police violence of the George floydd protests.
We’re on our own, stop hiding your heads in the sand.
The only 2021 protests where people weren’t getting their eyes shot out by pepperballs and beanbags were the ones where people were armed. Message fucking received.
This will get struck down, and it’ll be the one thing I agree with when it does. You can’t just make everything except bolt-action rifles illegal. Semi-automatic firearms encompasses 99% of what people use for self defense in America. This is a clear violation of rights.
Agreed. The 2A is a right, full stop. Doesn’t matter if you or I like it, the courts agree, and have historically.
You’ll get a dozen dumb arguments, but none will address the fact of the 2A. And there’s no way it gets overturned given our amendment procedures.
This is actually a pretty dumb stunt. It’s going to lose in court, zero doubt. And now there’s more precedence.
Lever-Action FTW! ;)
Guess I’ll have to go chain-fed
Theyre used a lot more for homicides than for self defense
A lot more than what? Bolt action? Yes, because as the parent said, nearly all guns are semi auto.
A lot more than for self defense
But what are they used more than?
I disagree but this is the phrase in question:
more for homicides than for self defense
Take your time. Parse each word carefully.
I said more for not more than
Right or wrong it’s a constitutional right for a reason, and that reason has nothing to do with hunting.
Similar to GOP and abortion, dems need to drop this fight. Let’s fix healthcare and save/improve more lives than almost everything else you could spend time on.
I wish beyond wishing that O’rourke would have just shut the fuck up and deferred about coming after people’s guns in Texas. I really wonder if he could’ve squeaked a victory and Texas would be quite different today. Guns are a losing issue. Even more so than abortion or ‘the gays!’, guns bring single-issue voters out from everywhere.
Yup. The good news is that it looks like this year will be the best chance in a long time to ditch Ted Cruz.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/senate/2024/texas/
Yes, it was definitely a self-inflicted wound, or maybe a tacit acknowledgement that the campaign was doomed anyway, before the public numbers made it obvious. There is a career path to being on the record with that position, though not in statewide political office in Texas.
I grew up in Florida and lived most of my adult life in Texas, and guns have always been a presence. I still own several, but they’ve been locked in my father-in-law’s garage for several years now; I’m ambivalent about what to do with them, and I don’t find any joy in “target practice” or fetishizing them as a hobby. Skeet shooting with cheap bird-shot might still be pretty fun, but my single-shot 12ga will be perfectly adequate for that if I ever take it back up.
Chronic gun violence is a tragic, horrific thing that is a fact of life in the US, which is unique among stable democracies. It should be low-hanging fruit to regulate guns very heavily, but due to weird quirks of history and even fuckin’ grammar, it’s not. The only solace is that while gun violence in this country should be near zero, like it is in almost every other stable country in the world, it’s not actually a daily threat for most people. It’s a statistically significant cause of death for people who shouldn’t normally be dying, but it’s possible to overstate the impact of the actual numbers. It’s still rare, though unlike the other equally rare things on the list (e.g. cancer, heart attacks), it’s completely preventable, in theory, and therefore even sadder and more frustrating.
So theory is nice, but the history and legal framework around guns in this country means anything beyond baby steps is a political nonstarter and very nearly as hard as “curing cancer”. While I acknowledge it literally costs lives not to act, it will cost more, including more from gun violence, over the medium term, to campaign in ways that lose close elections to people who would love to dismantle the already inadequate social safety net and encourage “old timey” open racists and even worse foreign policy than we have now. Those who feel passionately about guns should not be silent, but if you’re running a surprisingly competitive campaign in a stubbornly red state, you should consider the political implications before committing to unrealistic goals that piss off people who could be persuaded to vote for you if they don’t think guns are your priority.
in theory,
Communism works… in theory. your entire argument works… in theory.
Reality is much different.
Hence my entire final paragraph.
in almost every other stable country in the world
Yeah, except that’s also not the US.
The other stable countries in the world have things like much lower rates of income inequality, single-payer health care, solid funding for education at all levels so that people aren’t going into eye-watering levels of debt, and so on. And the countries that do suck in many of the same ways that the US does also have staggeringly high rates of violent crime in general, if not an significant gun crime.
Yeah, this is something I stand firmly behind. Fundamentally, our issue is social and cultural. We are armed, and so when we lash out, that has greater impact.
That doesn’t mean we should disarm. We are armed for good reason. But we should address the underlying cultural issues.
One hundred percent agree.
I agree with you wholeheartedly.
You’re right. It has to due with being able to call up a militia. I don’t see any of these gun stores asking for militia papers before selling.
Militia didn’t mean the same thing back then. It meant “any able bodied adult to be called up at a moments notice.”
There’s also a (not surprisingly) racist background to the 2nd as well:
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002107670/historian-uncovers-the-racist-roots-of-the-2nd-amendment
“It was in response to the concerns coming out of the Virginia ratification convention for the Constitution, led by Patrick Henry and George Mason, that a militia that was controlled solely by the federal government would not be there to protect the slave owners from an enslaved uprising. And … James Madison crafted that language in order to mollify the concerns coming out of Virginia and the anti-Federalists, that they would still have full control over their state militias — and those militias were used in order to quell slave revolts. … The Second Amendment really provided the cover, the assurances that Patrick Henry and George Mason needed, that the militias would not be controlled by the federal government, but that they would be controlled by the states and at the beck and call of the states to be able to put down these uprisings.”
Context also matters. The authors also thought that a standing army was part of the park to tyranny, opting for a militia system in place of it. The purpose of the Second Amendment, by its own words, is to ensure that nothing could legally stand in the way of regular and irregular militia being able to protect the fledgling nation.
As it stands now, the Second Amendment is an anachronism that’s sole purpose for existing is no longer applicable. It needs to be re-evaluated and amended to fit the needs of a nation that has both a standing army and a problem with civilians shooting each other (police are civilians too).
lives in an era where vast swathes of the underclass live in de facto military occupation under a standing army in blue uniforms, where there is frequent murder with impunity and framing of innocent people to cover it up
“As it stands now, the Second Amendment is an anachronism that’s [sic] sole purpose for existing is no longer applicable.”
Unreal.
The trick with amending it is the process is such a high bar, it can’t be done given current political divisions.
290 Congressmen, 67 Senators, and 38 states all have to agree to the new terms to make it happen.
The last time we saw that kind of unity in the House was the 311 votes to bounce George Santos. LOL!
A pipedream at best, 36 States have flatly refused to even consider any amendment to the 2nd.
The constitution was specifically written to allow a standing army to exist. Not having one was a major failure of the articles of confederation. The second ammendment doesn’t exist for some obscure military purpose, it exists to give people the right to bear arms.
Because of the army. They knew an army was required, so they knew the populace must be permitted to keep their guns, to balance the power of the army.
This is factually incorrect.
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
- US Constitution Article I, Section 8, Clause 12
Casual reading of contextual documents by the authors of the Constitution makes it very clear that the reason for the time limit is the belief that standing armies ought not to exist and are tools of tyranny. The context of the Second Amendment is not done obscure military one, it is blatant in the Amendment’s text that it concerns militia, which was the founders’ alternative to a standing army. In that context, yes, it does require that all people be able to bear arms because the irregular militia was basically anyone capable of shouldering a musket.
However, as the country did move to have a standing army and police forces, the militia system is mostly obsolete. The closest thing to a militia in the country in modern times is the national guard but, they are closer to a “select militia” that was also looked upon unfavorably by the founders.
I’m not placing a judgement on the Second Amendment as being right or wrong but that it was written for a context that is mismatched with our own. It needs to be re-evaluated and updated to account for the difference in context in order to have a logical place in the law of the country.
The US has always had a standing army, so even the people that wrote the constitution voted to keep a standing army. The notion that it was intended to not have a standing army is a wilful misrepresentation.
No they knew an army was necessary to defend the nation, and therefore militias were to be allowed to counterbalance the army.
I don’t think that’s actually what we would want. Militias at this point would just be indoctrination machines.
Unless someone runs an LGBTQIA+ militia and pays for range days and safety classes every month, most militias people look to join are run by obese Right wing nutcases.
Somebody needs to do this. Freedom is endangered when only the right is armed.
There are some of us doing this, but not enough. The Socialist Rifle Association is very LGBTQIA+ friendly. They probably have a chapter near anyone in the US that happens to be reading this, if they are interested in learning how to defend and support their communities.
Like public schools aren’t already?
Agreed! That’s why we need to send more kids to CATHOLIC SCHOOLS!
I like how you specify public schools, as if private schools have no bias. 😂
private schools have no government oversight. public ones do. therefore my (and your) tax dollars to go those schools. This is why i specified public schools over private. Not everyone can afford to send their kids to a private school and if they do and don’t like the curriculum, that’s easily changed. Public school not so much. Broaden your mind a little bit instead of just being instantly confrontational.
private schools have no government oversight.
EXACTLY why they are indoctrination factories.
It is my CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to own a ROCKET LAUNCHER! You CAN’T Discriminate between Firearms! Also TRANS PEOPLE shouldn’t get Free Speech!
Keep shadowboxing those straw men buddy. It’s definitely working out well for you.
You can’t just make everything except bolt-action rifles illegal.
Britain did.
And if we’re going on the intent of the founders, they mostly had muzzle-loaders in mind. They certainly didn’t consider automatic weapons able to fire huge amounts of bullets extremely quickly.
Britain doesn’t have a 2nd Amendment.
Now, if you want to repeal it, sure, there’s a process for that…
Start by getting 290 votes in the House. The same body that struggles to get a simple 218 vote majority to decide who their own leader is.
Then you get 67 votes in the Senate. The same body that struggles to get 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.
Then, assuming you get all that, you need ratification from 38 states. In 2020, Biden and Trump split the states 25/25. So you need ALL the Biden states (good luck getting Georgia!) and 13 Trump states. For every Biden state you lose, you need +1 Trump state.
Unless you just have a sensible court that don’t claim to be “Originalists” while at the same time ignoring the fact that the arms the founders were think of were not ones that didn’t exist at the time.
Email and Twitter didn’t exist at the time either, but they are still protected under the First and Fourth Amendments. Cell phones with unlock codes didn’t exist, but they’re still covered under the Fourth Amendment That’s a spurious argument that holds zero merit.
The Second Amendment might not be something you like, but modern firearms are ABSOLUTELY covered. The second amendment must be altered or removed from the Constitution to come even close to what you’re asking. And that process was explained to you up the thread a little
And yet “originalist” judges say that we need to consider what the founders meant. Except, apparently, when it comes to one half of one amendment.
Well, then you need to spend 50 years dedicated to changing the makeup of the Court the way the Republicans did with Roe… see you in 2074! Well, not me PERSONALLY, but you get the idea. ;)
Was discussing this recently. A big bit of context that is important is how the founders intended for the military to be organized for their fledgling nation. Their intent was that there be no standing army because all of the powers that they knew that had them used them for imperialism and tyranny. So, the intent was to prevent states from getting in the way of raising regular (trained and uniformed) and irregular (anyone who could shoulder a musket) militia, should it be necessary to defend the nation against an incursion from a hostile power.
Now, it’s been well over a hundred years since the US has had a standing army. While that does not technically invalidate the Second Amendment, it does make it an anachronism that doesn’t fit in the context of the modern world. It should have been re-legislated as soon as a standing army became a thing.
Now, if only there were a mechanism built into the US Constitution to allow it to be updated to fit the needs of the nation. Maybe they could have called them “Changements”. /s
Agreed! It’s UNCONSTITUTIONAL to have ANY form of Regulation on Arms! Why is it ILLEGAL for me to not be able to own a Grenade Launcher? UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
Hey folks, this comment above mine is what’s called a ‘straw-man’ fallacy. It’s when you don’t have an argument against for the specific argument being stated, so you invent another similar but significantly different argument to argue against instead. The first comment states that it’s ridiculous to ban semi auto firearms when that’s the vast majority of guns you can buy, and the second commenter instead argues that they should be legally allowed to own a grenade launcher in sarcasm as an attempt to show how firearm legal restrictions are a good thing as they prevent the ownership of grenade launchers.
Also, it’s legal to own a grenade launcher in the US. It’s just not legal to own the grenades. Plus, a grenade launcher is really just any 37mm chambered weapon. It could fire grenades, flares, or smoke bombs. They’re also single shot weapons, so a semi-auto ban isn’t going to cover them.
I’m Pro Life and see NO PROBLEM with people with Mental Health issues having Grenade Launchers. After all ANY FORM OF Well Regulation is AGAINST the Constitution! And pointing out your Hypocrisy is OBVIOUSLY a Straw Man Fallacy!
Your use of randomly capitalized words does not, at all, make you look like a child screaming because his mom said no McDonalds. Definitely not.
I mean, it’d be kind of fun…
you CAN own a Grenade Launcher. you just have to jump through ATF hoops and pay hella tax.
Guess it isn’t a right in that case. Last time I checked I don’t have to pay money and fill out paperwork to express my political opinions.
What you’re describing is an infringement on a right.
This ban will apply to police as well?
Of course
You sure? Cali has cutouts for cops so the cops traffic guns there.
Just like police aren’t allowed to kill innocent people.
The law only applies to the rest of us.
And the military?
I first read they ban semiautomatic fire alarms, and was wondering why and what even a semiautomatic fire alarm is
An electronic voice:
Stupid human - your building seems to be burning. May I sound the alarm now?
How about now?
Perhaps before you die of smoke inhalation, then?
Hello?
If it passes there, it could bring Colorado in line with 10 other states — including California, New York and Illinois — that have prohibitions on semiautomatic guns.
Zero states ban semiautomatic firearms.
It’s an AWB, yes, some states do ban some semi-auto guns.
Yeah but AW is a meaningless label that means whatever the specific AWB says it means, AFAIK none of the states flat out prohibit the sale of all semiautomatic firearms, correct?
The co bill does ban all semi rifles.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I mean CO would be the first to do that, correct? Honest question.
What would they say if people started mass knifing?
I imagine there’d be discussion regarding how we might restrict a person’s ability to publicly and freely stab multiple people ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Which is the correct course of action. People should not be allowed to murder people, and things should be done to make it harder to do.
how about just prosecute the crime that is already happening? I mean murder is a crime. The most used murder weapon is a screwdriver. Should we also ban those?
I dunno. Check back in with us when that starts happening anywhere other than inside of your head.
In 2014 there was this guy in Taiwan that started mass knifing people in the MRT Train station. The MOST he was able to stab was 22 people and killed 4.
He actually had to sit down to rest before continuing to stab people because he was tired. In a documentary, he trained for months to have the stamina to maximize kills. It would be different if he had a handgun let alone a AR-15.
Taiwan is a total ban for all guns.
Seems like your stupid comment backfired.
That seems similar to the numbers that most “mass shooters” end up getting.
And a Uyghur in mainland China got 26, including killing four officers armed with automatic rifles (and this incident immediately preceded China throwing that part of their population into camps and ramping up their oppression against minority groups).
This still allows bolt action for hunting, revolvers and shotguns for defense. That should be plenty. If you’re spraying a dozen+ rounds in your own home for defense you’re more of a danger than an intruder at that point.
Democrats last year passed and Polis signed into law four less-expansive gun control bills. Those included raising the age for buying any gun from 18 to 21; establishing a three-day waiting period between the purchase and receipt of a gun; strengthening the state’s red flag law; and rolling back some legal protections for the firearms industry, exposing it to lawsuits from the victims of gun violence.
Common-sense gun regulation.
Republicans decried the legislation as an onerous encroachment on the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. They argued that mental illness and people who do not value life — not guns — are the issues that should be addressed. People with ill intent can use other weapons, such as knives, to harm others, they argued.
Lol. And yet healthcare is something Republicans fight against constantly. And “people who do not value life” is great from the forced-birth and no social safety nets crowd.
Democrats responded that semiautomatic weapons can cause much more damage in a short period of time.
Exactly. If you’re incredibly viscous and lucky you can get a lot of people, but rarely double digits with a hand-held blade. With a semi-automatic rifle you can get dozens with someone untrained. And we’ve seen it happen. Multiple times.
This still allows bolt action for hunting
Do you honestly believe bolt-action is adequate for hunting?
If you need more than one shot in under a second you are a shit hunter and need to get back to the range.
People bow hunt and hunted that way for hundreds of years.
People normally don’t bow hunt dangerous game, they bow hunt animals like deer and elk. Most hunters wouldn’t use a bow to hunt boars.
People also used lead plumbing for hundreds of years. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use modern alternatives.
Most people don’t hunt dangerous game. Why the fuck are you wanting to bear hunt? Get real and leave that to the wardens.
I was talking about animals like moose and boar, but people do hunt bears. Legally. It doesn’t sound like you know anything about hunting.
Let rangers deal with large animals.
If you need multiple shots for a boar, you’re fucking up. Go back to the range.
Really now, this is pathetic. Get back inside and let real hunters work. And stop trophy hunting FFS.
Let rangers deal with large animals.
If the rangers want to sell licenses to hunt mountain lions and bears, who am I to tell them they’re wrong? Stay in your lane.
And that’s why I appendix carry a S&W 500. One shot, anywhere in meat, is a show stopper.
For those wondering, the second sentence, while unnecessarily explicit, is accurate. This gun is a revolver and would not be impacted by this law.
At $2/rd for a kinda rare $2,000 gun, I’d rather throw literal money at assailants harassing me.
Try $3-5 a round, but yeah, throwing quarters might be as effective.
This still allows bolt action for hunting, revolvers and shotguns for defense. That should be plenty. If you’re spraying a dozen+ rounds in your own home for defense you’re more of a danger than an intruder at that point.
I mean, it allows this kind of semi-automatic shotgun, but not this kind of semi-automatic shotgun. Those firearms are functionally indistinguishable, but somehow that little grip thing makes one more deadly than the other. As a lefty hunter and outdoorsman, this kind of bill is absolutely ridiculous security theater that doesn’t meaningfully change the risk and/or damage from mass shootings but makes other people feel better, somehow.
I fundamentally don’t understand the fixation on pistol grips and thumb holes and threaded barrels. At least they left that last one off for shotguns.
I would argue that hunting, defense, and sport are not reasons we have the right to bear arms. Its to overthrow a tyrannical government.
Its to overthrow a tyrannical government.
It’s actually to have well-armed militias at the state level. Individuals, unorganized will have no chance to overthrow any government. Hence the militia part.
“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” verbatim text, the state ≠ the people. I’m sure the British thought the same thing when a rebellious colony started to fight.
The problem with that is that’s putting a lot of faith in the state both not being just a tool of the tyrannical government, or the state not being tyrannical themselves, which is why i support a more granular right to bear arms. But you are right that was the plain intention for the second amendment.
We’ve seen 2 attempts to overthrow the federal government. 1 in the 1860s and 1 in 2020. Neither time was the government acting tyrannically. Neither time did it work. Neither time did guns help. Maybe guns aren’t the answer to that problem, either.
Then it’s not protected/covered by the second amendment. The tyrannical qualifier prevents it from covering baseless coups. But there was a reason it was put in due to the harsh lessons learned from the revolutionary war.
I may reconsider my position on the second amendment if you can convince me that the government or the local police will not become tyrannical, ever…
I might change my position on the 2nd Amendment if you can show me that access to so many guns prevents a government from ever becoming tyrannical. So far, that access has only made society itself tyrannical and given the police all the excuse they needed to be able to use tanks, APCs, and other military equipment against us.
I mean, usually a rebellion against a government success is tied to its access to weaponry. I don’t know a single rebellion against tyranny that was successful without weapons.
I am for more regulations because obviously we got a massive problem here. but with my primary point being what i said above, how do you decide who can’t have a weapon without the government ultimately deciding who can have a gun, which defeats the purpose of having the right in the first place.
I was thinking about leaning into the militias where you have to be sponsored by a group that could have their rights to guns withdrawn as a whole when they foster a bad actor, to make sponsorships harder and to have a pressure to maintain connections with people and when someone starts throwing red flags or ghosting, there is a group with a vested interest to start interventions. But then there is the tricky bit of taking the guns when it’s time to enforce anything, still has the government choosing who can be armed. So i still am stuck.
That being said i don’t have a weapon.
Not really what this post is about, but can we get rid of the “common sense gun laws” mantra already? It’s implying that anyone who disagrees with it, for ANY reason, doesn’t have common sense. It’s not good for having a meaningful discussion on how we can work together to deal with this problem.
Personally, I don’t think guns are the underlying issue here. While I am not against regulation, I think plenty of events show that without firearms tragedies will still occur. So it would only be a small part of preventing these sort of events.
Gun culture is a major issue, even beyond the guns themselves. “Come and take em” and “fuck around and find out” are symptoms of a mentality that guns are a solution to solving problems that’s on par with discussion, leaving, or de-escalating. When ultimately, guns are the final answer that should only be used when all other options have been exhausted.
Socioeconomic pressures and inequality issues need to be addressed to deal with most gun crimes, since mass shootings are the minority cases in which gun deaths occur. Yes, when they happen they are atrocious and make headlines and everyone hears and talks about it, but when people are dieing literally every day from guns we can’t only focus on the events that catch media attention.
Mental health, and by extension, all health needs to be made a priority. Suicides by guns is by and far the most common method.
Media needs to stop stoking fear and divisiveness. We see too often than someone reacts with extreme actions to perceived threats that aren’t really there. They’ve been primed to be afraid ALL THE TIME. So when someone knocks at the wrong door or uses their driveway to turn around they violent “protect” themselves from a threat that never existed.
Stop the worshipping of property. It is NEVER worth the taking of life to protect property. This goes back to gun culture where people believe that using a gun to protect their own shit is somehow a valid solution. This also extends to the police. Fuck them for violently protecting property over people.
Fix the police problem. At the very least, teach them fucking patience. At every point they try to end a non-violent interaction as fast as possible that they are often the ones to escalate to violence. Unless someone’s life is directly and immediately threatened, chill the fuck out.
Personally, I don’t think guns are the underlying issue here. While I am not against regulation, I think plenty of events show that without firearms tragedies will still occur
Yes but it’s literally the magnitude of it, which I covered.
They specifically banned the rifle I like shooting: Daniel Defense M4A1.
Guns aren’t just for hunting or defense. I wasn’t on board until I went to the range. I’m now a fan of rifles.
I’m not a huge fan of California spec rifles. Unless you buy multiple mags, switching out is a pain.
Now what WOULD be neat, is if I could buy the rifle and then purchase a magazine of ammo at the range, returning the magazine and unspent ammo at the counter
Guns aren’t just for hunting or defense. I wasn’t on board until I went to the range. I’m now a fan of rifles.
I’m going to say that hobbies are less important than public safety.
I do agree with your notion about restricting ammo. I believe Switzerland does that. We’d also need to restrict ammo components because otherwise you’d just have people reloading (making bullets) at home.
I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. We basically agreed, except for I advocated for handing magazines and rounds back into the range and you didn’t think I did.
While I agree that safety is more important than hobbies and if they cannot coexist, I would choose safety; however I believe in this instance that they can
Cool.
Now pass some laws banning hate speech, and regulate what religions can and can’t talk about; the pope has no business saying that transgender ideology is sinful! While they’re at it, they should make sure that criminal defendants are required to confess if they have committed a crime, and it would probably be a lot easier to just forbid lawyers from working with people charged with crimes. Oh, and ban pot and booze, since those and TikTok are going to be the downfall of the youth.
They can’t even report things correctly. If I’m not mistaken this bill bans semiautomatic rifles only. Otherwise it would ban most modern handguns. It would be almost instantly overturned.
My .22 varmint rifle is semiauto. They take those too?
Sounds like it’s only a ban on sale and transfer. Keep that gun.
I is. It was a birfday giff from ma mamaw
I honestly don’t think action matters as much as magazine size. You could build a high capacity lever action and rack up one hell of a body count.
Didnt the bell tower shooter in Texas use a bolt action rifle?
This will never get past the Supreme Court because it is blatantly unconstitutional.
Nice job wasting money posturing for your base, colorado democrats.
You’re just like the grifters in florida.
People would still have access to the OG weapons that the Constitution was talking about?
Yeah I definitely remember the words “smoothbore musket” in the 2A. People thinking this law is a good idea have huge “but I love my local PD, they’re so helpful and I never get so much as a ticket, just flirt a little” energy.
I’ll take that deal if we can replace cops with militias too.
Cool I can have a 12 pound cannon and grape shot then?
Actually yes. I used to have one. Restored it for civil war reenactments. We would shoot pumpkins with it.
I don’t expect this to go over well with the federal supreme court…
We’ve already established a line that some weapons are too dangerous for the general public. I wonder why states can’t draw the line of what weapons it considers are too dangerous.
We have already established that some speech is too dangerous to be allowed in public. I wonder why states can’t decide what we are allowed to say or not.
Oh wait, I don’t. If you have an issue understanding opposition to a gun control law, try replacing gun with speech and see if you see the problem. Both are equally constitutionally protected rights.
The Supreme Court just this week made it much harder to collectively protest in three states, which is also in the First Amendment. So I think you’re argument is moot.
You’re right, it’s bad to restrict speech rights, but the law should be applied equally to gun rights.
Free speech is being weakened, so you’d rather lose even more of your rights?
People’s free access to guns puts my life more at risk. I don’t own a gun because it’s a stupid hobby and it’s dangerous.
So, in this specific instance, yes. It’s a good idea to revoke the second amendment completely.
Ok, so let’s imagine you’re able to revoke the 2nd amendment. What then? Your life was never at risk from law abiding gun owners to begin with. Now only the criminals have guns, and you and I have lost our right to bear arms. How does that help?
Personally, I don’t have an issue with gun ownership being regulated (within reason). I live in a state with fairly strict gun laws, and while some of them don’t make sense, I do see the need for it overall. I’d rather fix the things that aren’t working than throw the baby out with the bathwater.
No they didn’t. They didn’t give blanket immunity to organizers. They still have considerable protection established in other cases of what is required to meet non-protected speech.
But we have already established that some speech is too dangerous to be allowed? Yes, there is opposition to that notion, but it doesn’t change the reality that some people can and will kick up enough bullshit to start a Holocaust.
Allow me to help.
A common take is that semiautomatic firearms are a privilege to have because they’re not necessary for self defense. As a privilege, States have the right to regulate said semi automatic firearms. Including outlaw them.
The 1st ammendment reproduction here is
Documents of more than 800 words are a privilege to write and dessiminate because on average it takes less than 800 words to convey an argument or point. Therefore, as a privilege, a state has the right to regulate said level of speech since it exceeds the level of protected and becomes a privilege. A state therefore can outlaw forms of speech exceeding 800 words.
If that example doesng jive with you, another would be:
It takes on average 1m30s for a TV News agency to tell a story. TV News and their ability to tell stories is protected 1st ammendment speech, but, since it only takes 1m30s to tell a news story, anything on the news taking longer than 1m30s is a privilege and therefore can be regulated by the state. Including outlawed by the state.
A lot of people feel that regulation of the second ammendment is very scary because of the ramifications regulation like the ones proposed could have on other ammendments. Such as the like counterparts to regulating first ammendment speech I generated above.
As a real world example; I imagine if she could, Mayor Tiffany A. Henyard would see regulation of speech such as ive described above perfectly legal and in the best interest of her community in order to stop missinformation of her mayorship and the political agendas of The News in her area.
In a similar light, gun owners are seeing the regulation attempts of semi automatic firearms and are feeling very similar to how all of us would feel in the Henyard example above. For clarity, gun owners are feeling as though they are being told that the Government has the extreme authority to tell an individual citizen that has grown up with firearms, effectively and safely uses them, that said citizen doesn’t truly understand what it is they have and that an individual collective of politicians ultimately knows whats best and safest for them… Many dont feel OK with that idea of giving up personal freedoms to some weirdo on TV that says “it has to be done for your own best interest”. To those gun owners, it feels the same as Mayor Tiffany A. Henyard appearing on TV and saying “im regulating the local news agencies in the area based on average time to convey news that is not filled with political missinformation for the collective safety, progress, and betterment of our community and my ability to lead”.
Supreme Court shoots it down in 3-2-1…
The Heller ruling in 2008 already decided this.
Washington D.C. had effectively banned pistols, the court ruled then:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/
“As the quotations earlier in this opinion demonstrate, the inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right. The handgun ban amounts to a prohibition of an entire class of “arms” that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose. The prohibition extends, moreover, to the home, where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute. Under any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights,[Footnote 27] banning from the home “the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family,” 478 F. 3d, at 400, would fail constitutional muster.”
So, no, you can’t ban an entire class of weapon.
So, no, you can’t ban an entire class of weapon.
You absolutely can. Full-auto weapons are banned for general purchase in pretty much every state. Things like explosive-based guns are also banned. Flame-throwers, etc.
Heller is a clear violation of state’s rights to pass more-restrictive laws than the federal level. We’ve had tons of gun laws that restrict purchases and types of firearms for decades anyways on the state and local level.
General purchase, yes, but you can still buy one if you fill out the appropriate ATF paperwork and pay the HUGE transfer fees.
https://www.therange702.com/blog/can-you-legally-own-a-machine-gun/
"To legally own a machine gun, you first have to apply for approval from the federal government. After purchasing the gun, you must fill out an ATF Form 4 application and wait for approval before taking possession of the firearm. The FBI conducts a thorough background check using fingerprints and a photograph required with your application, which could take 9 to 12 months to process. The gun will need to stay in possession of the previous owner until the process is complete.
In addition, you will need to pay a $200 “NFA tax stamp” for each weapon transaction. If approved, you will receive your paperwork in the mail, including a permit with the listed lawful possessor of the firearm. Only then can you take the machine gun home and possess it legally."
This Colorado ruling doesn’t allow for that.
To be fair, even if it did, I could still see it being unconstitutional to the supreme court.
We don’t want to admit it, but we kind of weasled our way to ban automatic weapons which is why there is only a “practical” ban instead of an absolute one.
i.e. You can legally own full-auto weapons if you spend the money to do so.
I think it would be very interesting if some right-wingers tried to do something like this but frame it as though you can “only buy handguns/semiautomatics made before a certain date, gotta pay all these fees, etc.”
That could force the supreme court to look at whether the original “ban” on automatics is actually constitutional.
Oh, yeah, and with THIS court? That is absolutely a road Democrats should not even CONSIDER wanting to go down.
The ban was enacted as part of the Gun Control Act of 1968:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_Control_Act_of_1968
Can you imagine if they just tossed that out?
So, no, you can’t ban an entire class of weapon.
I don’t know about that. In general, rocket-propelled weapons and land mines are not legal for ownership. You even need special dispensation to own a fully automatic machine gun.
Those are explosives, completely different deal from firearms. Supreme court ruled on that too, Caetano, 2016:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/577/411/
“The Second Amendment covers all weapons that may be defined as ‘bearable arms,’ even if they did not exist when the Bill of Rights was drafted and are not commonly used in warfare."
Caetano is really my favorite of these rulings because it started out having nothing to do with guns.
Woman, scared of her ex, bought a stun gun for protection. Massachusetts arrested her, stated “stun guns didn’t exist back then, no 2nd Amendment right to a stun gun.”
Court “um, actually’d” them pretty hard.
So, you can’t ban a class of gun (Heller, 2008) and you can’t ban a bearable arm just because it didn’t exist 200 years ago (Caetano, 2016.)
And the court has only gotten MORE conservative since then, not less. :( This new ban is going to go nowhere fast, shame Colorado taxpayers are going to have to pay for a losing case.
Do stun guns use an explosive propellant? I never thought of it before, but it would make sense that they do. I only ask because I know that weapons that don’t aren’t classified as guns.
Stuff like coil guns, rail guns, and compressed air rifles aren’t controlled by gun laws and are unaffected by bans like this because they’re not “firearms.” For example, some states have a ban on putting a silencer on a gun, but nothing about owning a silencer. So it’s perfectly legal to put one on a compressed air rifle, and with how quiet they are, that makes them whisper quiet. Plus, 80% lowers aren’t considered guns either, so unless this law specifically calls them out, it’s still legal for anybody to go online and have one shipped right to their door. You usually don’t even need an F-ID card for that. Hell, even gunpowder doesn’t require a license below a certain amount.
Laws like this are, at best, a post hoc solution to a national and cultural problem, and more often than not just security theater.
Thank you for at least bringing the realistic approach to this conversation. It is by no means ideal, and sets us back from actually making streets safer. Anyone can purchase just about anything weapon-related in a country where political chaos and cultural divisions are a dime a dozen is really a cocktail for disaster. Of course people are going to lean on the argument that if the bad guys have the weapons than good guys shouldn’t be banned from having their own, because the number of untraceable weapons is already past critical mass.
State by state gun laws are SUPER weird too. As an Oregonian, I can own multiple weapons that are illegal in California. You can get in trouble just by crossing the border.
For example, this little guy (Bond Arms Ranger II) is legal in Oregon, illegal in California:
You might ask “What’s the big deal? It’s a pistol, not a rifle, it only holds 2 shots, it’s a breech loader, so not even semi-automatic… what’s the problem?”
Problem is that it’s a smooth bore .45 that can also fire .410 shotgun shells. California classifies it as a short barrelled shotgun.
I’ve never fired one of those, but it sounds like the kick on it would be crazy. Very small weapon with very large ammo just seems like a recipe for wild kickback. I could be wrong, though. Maybe the grip design helps?
Shotgun shells come in many varieties and loads of poweder, you absolutely can make that a wrist snapper but if you pick the right shells, especially for .410 you won’t be too bad. .45 would probably have a lot of muzzle raise but I wouldn’t imagine that to kick too forcefully, definitely handle-able but you’re probably not ripping fast on target follow up shots with that.
Grip and the weight. It’s 1.5 pounds.
You said ‘weapons,’ not ‘guns.’ If you meant guns, that would be a different issue. However, even there, fully-automatic machine guns are not generally available with a simple background check like other guns. You have to apply for a federal license to get them. So they are treated quite differently.
No, but as noted above, there IS a path to legal machine gun ownership, it’s just slightly more involved and expensive.
So restricted to the wealthy?
Pretty much, it’s a tax on the poors. They’ll have to be satisfied with bump stocks and hellfire triggers.
I would personally argue that expanding that to other guns would be a huge step up from what we have now. It might even prevent some mass shootings.
Fuck the pooooooooooor
Do you think maybe the fact that you are suggesting that poor people need guns to protect themselves is indicative of a much bigger problem?
It could, but as with the machine gun ban, it needs to be done at a Federal level.
The whole bit about being primarily used for a lawful purpose seems important.
Why? Does any other right depend on that?
Maybe it isn’t a right and maybe it was a temporary provision for a frontier society to quickly setup a temporary army to deal with slave revolts.
Yes, that lawful purpose. Self defense. It’s not just “any” or “a” lawful purpose. Self defense goes to the very heart of the Heller ruling.
It’s not a “Semi-Automatic Firearm Ban” it’s an Assault Weapons Tax. Seriously the only penalties in this bill are modest ($750) fines.
No matter which side of this debate you are on this legislation is a joke.
Are we reading the same link?
A person in violation of the prohibitions will be assessed a first-time penalty of $250,000 and $500,000 for each subsequent violation.
Here’s the actual text of the bill. Do you find that dollar amount listed anywhere but in the summary?
I read the link you posted, and is the summary of the actual text of the bill inaccurate? Not even trying to argue.
Either it is, or the bill was amended and one of the two is out of date.
I’m more concerned that something that important is only in the summary. Either I don’t understand how bills are written, granted in a state I don’t live in, or the text was changed but the summary not?
It might refer out to an already existing class of punishment. I will admit I don’t have the time to read it right now to see if that’s the case. I am severely disappointed though if it’s not actually all semi-auto weapons. Trying to divide military from civilian semi-auto rifles is ridiculous.
