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.
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.
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 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.
in theory,
Communism works… in theory. your entire argument works… in theory.
Reality is much different.
Hence my entire final paragraph.
I agree with you wholeheartedly.
I would prefer much stronger gun control laws and I still agree with you. There are better fights to fight and more likely to win. This feels like empty posturing in an election year.
People always want to make it more difficult to get a gun, but when it comes to them actually paying for it (extra taxes covering free licensing, free safety classes, whatever) it’s crickets
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’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).
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!
This is also true. Would be better chances if there was actual proportionality in the House.
A pipedream at best, 36 States have flatly refused to even consider any amendment to the 2nd.
This is, unfortunately true.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Agreed! That’s why we need to send more kids to CATHOLIC SCHOOLS!
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
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!
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.
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’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
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They certanly did, as Thomas Jefferson owned two of them, each carrying 35 rounds of .29mm. One is on display at Monticello, the one he lent to the Lewis & Clark Expedition that was used to successfully defeat a 50-man raiding party, is kept at The Smithsonian.
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I’ll give up my guns when the cops do it first.
I hope you can fight!
You gonna win a shootout with cops?
You ever seen cops shoot?
I’ve seen a bunch of 'em get DQ’d from matches for being unsafe, or drop out when it was clear their scores were trash.
they’ve got a pretty good kda ratio
They use hacks like ESP and wallhacks.
In all seriousness, though, it’s only because they always outnumber and have more resources than the person/people that they are in a shootout with. Not because they are better with firearms than an average gun owner who also trains with their firearm.
and have more resources than the person/people that they are in a shootout with.
Yeah, and that’s what you’re up against thinking your guns are keeping the government in check.
…And yet, when cops see protestors that are as heavily armed as they are, historically they suddenly get very, very respectful. When the Proud Man-Children discover that the BLM protestors are armed and disciplined, they suddenly lose all their courage. Cops suddenly get really, really nervous when they realize that if they start shit, they aren’t going to have a numerical advantage. When you’ve got one suspect and 20 cops though?
Cops aren’t there to protect or serve the people; they’re there to protect and serve the status quo.
But damn, people sure do hop on cops’ dicks whenever someone says they might want to be able to protect themselves rather than hoping that cops will do it.
Gun grabbers will say they don’t trust police and then say they’re the only ones who should be armed in the same paragraph. It’s wild.
I think most examples of armed protests in the US are on the side of police. But US police are also an example of America’s problem with too many guns, they kill way too many people and should also have fewer guns.
Not really. At the point where there’s consensus that we are, in fact, in a civil war, then:
A) you’re not some nutjob holed up in his house using his neighbor as a hostage B) there are others, and organization is doable
Yes, the government has organization and experience. Hopefully, it’ll just never be an issue. Likely, there would be internal divisions, as well. But being ready for it to be an issue can both help prevent it becoming one, and give one the capacity to have an impact if it does become an issue.
If things get to an actual civil war where tyrannical government is willing to use its resources, i think you are severely underestimating the resources. The satellite and drone intel, the ability to destroy routes civilian vehicles can take, the aerial strikes. Civilians arent gonna get together no matter the heads they can put together and build competing anti air capabilities. Its not like a battle of damage numbers in a game, its ability to even play the games that they can. Like a well armored knight fighting against squirrels, the numbers dont matter, the little claws cant get through steel.
Likely, there would be internal divisions, as well.
Thats all you can hope for, thats the only way civilians in any developed country survives:having a government that doesnt want to kill them. Armed population or not, it really has no effect.
The goal isn’t to beat the cops. It’s to defend against neonazis.
Do you think the cops are gonna disarm neonazis? Or will they just use gun bans as an excuse to murder more black people?
Do you think the cops are gonna disarm neonazis? Or will they just use gun bans as an excuse to murder more black people?
You think black people with firearms are less likely to be shot by police?
The goal isn’t to beat the cops. It’s to defend against neonazis.
How’s that going? Because from the outside, it looks like this.
Do you not think cops are more likely to kill black people if there’s a gun ban regardless whether they are armed?
Yes, I’m well aware of how it looks. They are trying to use public massacres to ignite a civil war. Of course it’s horrible.
And yet we do almost nothing to prosecute their talking heads who incite those same shootings and the billionaires who fund their rallies. Because hate speech is still somehow free speech. We need to clean up the loopholes in the first amendment before addressing the second.
Trump is campaigning to become the next fuhrer, not president, yet you dingalings are bound and determined to make sure that we’re disarmed in advance. How stupid is that?
Do you not think cops are more likely to kill black people if there’s a gun ban regardless whether they are armed?
That’s some wicked grammar there, but… no? Why would the cops kill less black people if specific firearms are banned?
They are trying to use school shootings to ignite a civil war.
What?
Also, I feel Americans need to see this, and maybe consider that all these children dying isn’t necessary for their hobby or ‘self defense’ claims:
That means the USA has 800 times the rare of firearms deaths as the UK. So when this mysterious ‘civil war’ happens, how many children will have died so that you can have that semi-auto AR-15 to fight off the drones of the American military, or the armoured vehicles of your cops?
Instead of pretending One Man With A Gun is going to do something, maybe try voting locally. Maybe try de-arming your cops?
Yes. Cops have always used gun bans as an excuse to kill more black people, regardless whether or not they are armed.
Yes. They are trying to use school shootings to ignite a civil war. It’s in their manifestos they leave behind. They say so on their forums. The same talking heads who formented the insurrection are same ones who encourage incels to commit public massacres, then deny all culpability immediately after. They even claim the shootings never happened.
Yes. They are trying to use school shootings to ignite a civil war. It’s in their manifestos they leave behind. They say so on their forums. The same talking heads who formented the insurrection are same ones who encourage incels to commit public massacres, then deny all culpability immediately after. They even claim the shootings never happened.
You think this is a push, from the NRA amongst others, to get people to… ban specific firearms? How exactly does banning semi-auto firearms prevent your Totally-Going-To-Work-Later uprising?
[Because congratulations, your efforts to keep your firearms only cost the lives of 4,357 children (ages 1-19 years old) in the U.S. in 2020.
By comparison, motor-vehicle deaths accounted for 4,112 deaths in that age range.](https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/03/29/guns-leading-deaths-children-us/)
So, your argument is “just submit and it’ll be fine”?
Where did I say that?
And none of these We Need Our Guns For Defense! comments are address that the main cause of death of your children is firearms. How many children have to die to prevent this theoretical tyrannical takeover? Where were all you guys with your guns when a coup was attempted?
Standing clear of it, waiting for the government to do its job. Which they did, admirably.
So we’re agreed, firearms aren’t necessary.
Guns dont defend shit. We have all the guns, its not going well. A gun ban at least slows down supply. And starts a long path to becoming like developed countries that arent murderous gun nuts like we are.
It’s going better here than it is in Myanmar or Gaza.
How’s that weapons ban going for Gaza?
Ukraine lets their citizens have weapons now too.
Tell you what. How about you pass a law to disarm people based on their hateful ideologies FIRST. Make Nazism illegal, then disarm, prosecute, and imprison the neonazis, by force of law. They are currently trying to ignite a new Civil War against America, yet you want to disarm the rest of us in the face of that.
Fix that, then we can discuss disarming law abiding citizens.
You gonna address the question I asked? Cops only use gun bans as an excuse to kill more black people.
Imagine trusting a neoliberal government to take the guns away from those leftists deem dangerous. You really don’t see how that might go awry?
I don’t see you offering a better suggestion.
I didn’t think I needed to state the obvious: armed leftists are much more difficult to oppress.
I could go for a law that states something like:
To the degree that you attempt to control or suppress another person or group, you may be controlled or suppressed accordingly.
This is magical law, but we may as well make it mundane law, too.
You actually downvoted the idea of making Nazism illegal. How does that make you feel?
Like I’m in a different category than the Nazis, who rounded up and murdered Communists and Trade Unionists during the Holocaust.
Read a book dude. History is well-documented.
And yet you downvoted the suggestion of making Nazism illegal. You’ve read books, and despite that, still thought that banning Nazism was a bad idea.
I think youd have a hard time defining and identifying nazis in legal terms.
And i dont trust any gun owner to be a law abiding citizen, we’re all animals that can get very emotional. And we have the results of that in our horrendous homicide rate.
Really? Because Germany managed it. Nazism is illegal there. They prosecute anyone who professes Nazi ideas. I don’t care how hard it would be. You think confiscating all the guns is easier?
I don’t care who you trust. I care that this nation is too foolish and cowardly to root out the cancer it has harbored since long before it was founded. Ban sympathy for the Confederacy. Ban Nazi ideology. Prosecute those who profess it. Ruin those who fund them. Cleanse the police departments of all the Nazi cops. We will never be free of them until the day we make their ideologies illegal.
Until then, piss off trying to disarm the millions of people who only wish to defend their homes from exactly those people pushing for civil war.
Gee whiz, you sure don’t want to address the fact that cops only use gun bans as an excuse to murder black people.
just a heads up, west germany famously integrated nazis into the government and still has them to this day.
I would love to do how Germany does, no one gets a gun.
Most of their nazi ban entails antisemitism, which i dont think covers a lot of people you wouldnt want to have guns. It also entails self labeling nazis, people wearing nazi uniforms, using swastikas, etc. Again, i dont think thats gonna cover most of the people youd want it to. Its better than nothing and id support it here, but its not gonna be very effective at keeping guns away from people with various nazi beliefs.
Gee whiz, you sure don’t want to address the fact that cops only use gun bans as an excuse to murder black people.
What gun bans?
There a better way: if you don’t have a valid reason* to have a gun, you can’t have it. If you have a valid reason* but not to carry it, you can’t carry it and you can only use it in a target range.
- Hunting, basically.
All I see is you not thinking about anything I’ve said.
Many countries do almost what I said and are safer that the US by far.
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You rooting for the fascists for a reason?
When did that happen?
You called for disarmament of the people, even Marx thought that was a stupid idea
Yeah, most of the least fascist countries in the world dont have very armed people
He’s just gonna be a punk to the gangbangers like in El Salvador before the crackdown.
Im just always flabbergasted when ever someone thinks theyre keeping the government in line with their civilian arms. Like they suddenly dont know what kinda firepower the US government has.
How’d Afghanistan go?
Savage.
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It’s always obvious when someone has watched every Rambo movie, but has never been within 10 miles of a military base. Good luck to them…
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.
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?
According to Interstate Commerce and the Supremacy Clauses, the States actually do not have that right, they just haven’t been sued on those grounds directly.
The whole bit about being primarily used for a lawful purpose seems important.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You can own both of those things, you just need the explosives permit from the BAFTE, and they are very strict about the permitting and furthermore the storage, etc of those items. If you don’t mind the FBI examining your butthole and the buttholes of everyone you know, along with massive fees and regular inspections of the items and their storage facility, then have at it.
This just seems like a stupid time to be pressing legislation like this. I don’t even disagree with it myself. I just think it’s idiotic from a political perspective. The Dems can see the GoP struggling with the fall out of Roe v. Wade, and they still want to step into this fight now?
Step in and lose as it’s swiftly struck down by one of the most conservative courts in history.
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed
You don’t have to be a conservative to recognize it’s a violation of the 2nd amendment.
Looks well regulated to me!
Man people really love to drop off the first half of that sentence when quoting the second amendment.
Who’s being denied access to arms? It doesn’t say you get any firearm you want and there’s plenty of precedent keeping certain firearms regulated.
Also, which militia are you a member of, specifically?
It doesn’t say you get any firearm
It says shall not be infringed which means what it says. There is no prescription for what is allowed but instead the opposite. The government cannot and should not prevent the population from arming itself. If people think that’s disagreeable then they should amend the constitution not defy it.
The constitution was written by people who had just overthrown a government. This amendment wasn’t written to protect the rights of hunters. It’s specifically to enable the people to take control if the government gets out hand.
Also, which militia are you a member of, specifically?
Do you think the US would allow a militia to exist when it’s entire purpose is to be a check on government power?
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Also the idea that the founding fathers wrote down the bill of rights, still battle weary with fear of future governments is completely false.
The bill of rights was written ten years after the war had been settled, with a significant faction of the founders worried about another revolution.
They had just come out of the Articles of Confederation, a government that had no authority to tax or raise an army. The second amendment was written to address specifically that issue. That we need a militia to defend the country since we really can’t do it any other way, and don’t want to. So might as well let farmers have guns, much to the dismay of the federalists.
The amendment specifically states that it’s there to aid the common defense.
You really aught to read the entire amendment.
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.
Isn’t that like… most guns people actually use other than some shotguns and some handguns? And even then, why you would use a pump action over a semi-automatic shotgun is beyond me…
Anything but revolvers, bolt-action, and pump-action. …well, there’s muzzle loaders, too… Kinda extreme.
I’d consider a revolver to be semi automatic as well. It shoots each time you squeeze the trigger.
Strictly speaking “one pull of the trigger, one round out of the barrel,” maybe. There is a distinction though.
A double-action revolver gets the energy for moving the next round into firing position and cocking the action from the shooter’s trigger finger. This results in a rather long and heavy trigger pull, or you have to cock the hammer manually with your thumb, if the gun allows it. So with a double-action revolver, there’s an upper limit to rapid, accurate fire. You often get one or the other, seldom both.
Semi-automatics use energy from the cartridge to eject the spent cartridge, strip a new one from the magazine and cock the action for another shot. Because the shooter doesn’t have to do all that work with their fingers, it is much easier to shoot rapidly while maintaining accuracy.
Revolvers seldom hold more than 6 shots before requiring a fairly lengthy and fiddly reload, semi-automatics hold 7 shots minimum with some guns holding as many as 17 rounds before requiring a much simpler magazine swap.
Because of the gap between the cylinder and the barrel allowing hot gases to escape, revolving rifles are rare, which is why they tend to go from a manual loading system like a bolt action to semi-automatic.
Thing is, it doesn’t really matter. Firearm engineering isn’t the cause of shootings. President Kennedy was killed with a bolt action rifle. Columbine was a failed bombing, the murders were done with a shotgun and an open-bolt pistol which AFAIK has successfully been banned. Virginia Tech was done with handguns. A large number of them have been done with AR-15 patterned semi-automatic rifles.
As much fun as it would be to ban all guns, if for no other reason than to hurt the Republicans’ feelings as punishment for being such thoroughly shitty “people”, it’s just not a thing that’s going to happen. Pandora has opened that box. There’s other things that need to happen, like, reality needs to contain the possibility for ordinary people to survive on wages they’ll actually be paid. But, recall that the Republicans are thoroughly shitty, they don’t want that to happen either.
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A non-double action revolver would fit the bill, but I don’t think those even exist
The Colt Single Action Army is likely one of the most iconic pistols in the US, “The gun that won the west.” You’ve seen them in many movies without realizing it.
The term you’re looking for his “single action” or sometimes “cowboy action” though that will also include lever action rifles and shotguns, and break actions as well.
Single Action is defined by the trigger having the single function of releasing the hammer (you thumb and cocks the hammer which rotates the cylinder separately). Double action trigger pull will rotate the cylinder and cycle the hammer.deleted by creator
1st, yes, single-action revolvers are analogous to bolt action rifles. 2nd, no single actions are not considered semi-automatic. Single Action or double action refers specifically to the trigger function(s).
Semi-automatic or fully-automatic refers to functions after the hammer falls. Semi-autos automatically cock the hammer and load the next round, then waits for you to pull the trigger again. One trigger pull fires one round, and loads one round. Fully automatic will fire a round, cock the hammer, load the next round and automatically fire it, continuously until the trigger is released or source of ammo runs dry.
A semi-auto pistol can be single-action (see:1911) or double-action (see: M9).deleted by creator
Look up cowboy action shooting and guns like the Ruger Vaquero. They do exist.
It’s back to revolvers, boys! Yee haw!
Conservatives are demanding the widespread oppression and even slaughter of our nation’s most vulnerable groups and the best we can come up with is “let’s disarm ourselves”. FFS
Why not outlaw far-right ideologies like nazism? The conservatives would oppose that too, but it’s something all the normal people can agree on.
While not opposed to the last statement it would be a terrible idea in the real world with corrupt government
Because of the 1st amendment. Kind of the foundation of the USA outside money.
I think you’re missing the hyperbole in their statement. They’re suggesting they’re both misguided ideas.
We could also argue, but the 2nd Amendment protects the 1st.Sounds like a loophole in the 1st amendment that needs fixing.
If the government ever decides to take up arms against us, we are already screwed even with the massive oversupply of civilian weapons of war.
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?
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.
As long as it’s not concealed on your person.
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.
If only Americans could be like the Swiss, y’all could have your guns and none of the problems.
Our ability to self govern is non-existent. We can’t even put shopping carts in the return carousel. We definitely won’t take gun ownership seriously.
You have a carousel to return your shopping carts and you still don’t put them back 😱
Here we just go to the place they’re stored and put the chain back in, and we get our coin / token back.
Yeah, and we have people that mess with them.
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
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.
I don’t expect this to go over well with the federal supreme court…
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?
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?
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