Published Voting Lists (by gun ownership)...Follow

If it can be taken away at all, it isn't a right. It's a privilege. It's really something that naive high school kids fall for.

But let's get to the brass tacks to what really is going on here. You're trying to broaden your argument from "IT IS THE SECOND AMENDMENT!" to the entirety of the constitution, and not only that but you're trying to change it from the constitution itself to someone else's interpretation of the constitution hundreds of years later. Which, you know, can change at any point and isn't written in stone so your crying about it is highly amusing.

So is this the point where you shotgun other vaguely similar arguments instead of answering the original point and hope no one notices?

Yes. But I'm sure you'd agree that the government could not get around the fourth amendment by engaging in wiretapping, but then handing that information to private parties so that *they* could then use it in some way, right? Let's not forget that we're not talking about a private party sending out a survey and asking people about their gun ownership and then publishing the results. That would, as you say, be covered under a different section of our law. But in this case we're talking about a government registration which is a requirement to own a firearm (which we have a right to do), which is then handed to private parties without the consent of those who were forced to hand over that information in order to exercise their right in the first place.


As I've said a couple times already, the courts have consistently ruled that this sort of use of information absolutely does constitute an infringement of whatever rights are involved. If you argue that it doesn't in the case of firearms, you either need to argue that the court is wrong in that it also doesn't infringe applicable rights in the case of medical information, sexual activity, subscriptions to periodicals, associations, etc *or* that firearms somehow represent a special case which makes such infringement necessary. I think the latter is a difficult argument given the enumerated right aspect of firearm ownership, but you're free to try to make that case.

Here as well. And they patrol looking for houses with dogs outside that aren't licensed.

Oh, it has plenty of meaning. It's simply political semantics. It's what people of slightly above average intelligence use to get people of vastly below intelligence to do their bidding. It works wonders in religion as well. It is funny though. If it were rights, then everyone would have them but they're so easy to lose. Funny that.

But that's neither here nor there in your shotgunning. Or should we call it running from the original point at this point? Still got nothing tying right to privacy and the second amendment other than the broadest of broad semantic brush strokes?

Edited, Feb 25th 2013 7:36pm by lolgaxe

Which is funny given that you believe that because you've been taught it by those taking advantage of those with below average intelligence to effectively get you to accept whatever agenda they put in front of you. What does that make you? A sucker.

Intelligent people understand what rights are, understand that they aren't immutable, and therefor understand under which conditions we should or should not allow them to be infringed. They also understand the desire by some to convince the unintelligent that rights are absolute and therefor if they're infringed they aren't really rights, but if we call them rights then they must not be infringed. We understand that they do this to people like you so that you'll buy an absolute right to have an abortion, or receive health care, or food stamps, or whatever thing they decide you should support, while also also getting you to downplay the importance of things they want you to oppose.



The very fact that you worded it that way shows you have no clue what rights are or how they work within a societal framework. It's not about absolutes. It can't be,. The very act of forming a society requires that rights be infringed. The importance of rights isn't the assumption that they are absolute, but so that a free society may know what things to infringe the least and when/why to infringe them. When you lose sight of this, you're lost and will soon no longer have a free society because you no longer know what things make a society "free" in the first place.



There is as much tying the idea of a right to privacy to the 2nd amendment as there is to anything else. If you argue that it doesn't exist for gun ownership, then it also does not exist for medical records, subscriptions to magazines, association, and any other activity you engage in. Again, you're free to either argue for that, or to argue that firearm ownership is somehow special and should not deserve the same protection as those other things, but you've failed to do either.

Exactly, which is why they're really "privileges." Already mentioned that, keep up. "Rights" just sounds better, and idiots like you eat it up. Calling it such makes it sound like someone really really important, like a God or something, gave it to you. That's kind of the whole point. Seriously, it's like you don't understand how society or politics works at all or something, and have stopped trying at grade school. A vague non-answer. Surprise, surprise.

Edited, Feb 25th 2013 7:55pm by lolgaxe

The overall privacy concern isn't with your close friends and family, but indeed that "stranger", acquaintance or someone you abominate. Unless you live in Pleasantville, people grow up and move out of the nest, whether for school, work or personal reasons. Today's Internet allows a person to track you down much more conveniently and accurately than a phone book decades ago. If I know that you moved from L.A. to Nashville, I have a much better chance of getting your address than you would with a L.A. phone book.





If I know that you moved from L.A. to Nashville, I have a much better chance of getting your address than you would with a L.A. phone book in L.A.



If you have caller ID, then the caller has *69. How can you differentiate a land line number from a cell phone number? They both have the same area code. Unless, someone is calling within a 10 mile radius, a land line phone can look just like a cellphone number. In any case, we're talking about the ability to find a person's address not a land line vs cell phone. Your only tool of argument is a phone book, as that was the tool in question decades ago.



You're right that there is a difference between being free to do something if you want and being required to do so, but you're sadly in denial if you think that there would be a "huge outlash" for mandating a "beware of dog" sign. There are already policies for home visits, i.e. mail deliveries, with homes with dogs. So, if USPS (the government) already have policies on delivering mail to people with dogs, what makes you think that it would be a stretch to mandate a "Beware of Dog" sign?

I know you mentioned this before. And you were wrong then, just as you are this time around. Rights have a very specific meaning. They are those things you could do absent someone else denying you permission to do them (ie: no laws preventing it). Privileges are completely different. Those are things that are granted to you via some law or construct of law.

Free speech is a right because I'm free to speak unless someone passes a law that penalizes me for doing so. Similarly, owning guns is a right because I'm free to do that absent some law. Same thing with owning fuzzy bunny slippers. Unless someone passes a law infringing a right, that right exists, whether enumerated or not.

Privileges are legal constructs. Interestingly enough, while Smash used the term "enfranchised right" in the other thread, he really meant "privilege". Voting is actually not a right even though it's often called such. You don't normally get to vote and require everyone to comply with the results of the vote absent a law or rule saying that is the case. Complete freedom would entail us all doing whatever we wanted regardless of what other folks wanted us to do. Giving the government power to infringe our rights to some degree is necessary for a society to work at all. Using votes as a method to determine what laws should be passed by that government is one means of minimizing the degree of infringement. Um... Which is why we should treat it that way instead of thinking of it as a "majority gets what they want" tool.



You mean idiots who insist that universal health care is a right, and welfare assistance is a right, and education is a right. Those idiots? Cause those aren't me btw. I know exactly what rights are and what they aren't. It's usually the other side of the political spectrum that runs around labeling everything they want to do as a right (see "positive rights").



This is precisely the methodology used by the modern left to get people to support their agenda. They call things rights in order to get people to place weight on them, even when the things being so labeled are not rights at all. I'm the one usually making that argument, so it's a bit bizarre for you to try to ascribe that to me.



It's not vague at all. Do you believe that there is any right to privacy in any of the other things I've mentioned? If so, but you insist that it shouldn't with regard to firearms, then you need to make a case why. If you don't, then that's fine, but I'm sure most people disagree with you. This is like the third time I've pointed this out, yet you've refused to actually state if you think that those other areas have any degree of protection, so I can't really argue against your position, since I don't know what it is.

You could clarify that if you wanted to, but you seem to be the one who loves to live in the land of the vague. Where do you stand on privacy?

They are to the degree that anything is "private". The government cannot force a magazine to disclose its subscription list absent a warrant and sufficient cause. Same deal with club memberships, medical records, etc. And in many of those cases, even if the government does obtain information from such organizations, it's not allowed to disclose that to a third party. I already said that the degree to which private entities themselves may or may not keep client information private is a separate issue. We're talking here about the government disclosing information which it required citizens to provide it by the mere act of exercising an enumerated right.


That's a problem IMO. Would you be ok with the government passing a law that required you to inform it of any magazines you subscribed to? Probably not, right? Yet, subscribing to a magazine, while absolutely a right, is not an enumerated right. If we assume that we enumerated certain rights because those were the ones we were most concerned about being infringed, then isn't that backwards? Shouldn't we be much more outraged at the requirement when applied to gun ownership? Yes, we should.

And for the historically challenged, we have been all along. Gun registrations were accepted by the public on the grounds that they were necessary to aid in law enforcement with regard to the illegal use of firearms. So that if a gun were stolen, it could be returned to the proper owner, and if a gun were used in a crime, it could be more easily tracked to the owner. Such registration lists were not to be used for any purpose other than law enforcement. Yet, somewhere along the line, that changed and now apparently any newspaper can file a FOIA request and get a full list of all registered gun owners in a given area.

Which was not the intent of either law and is why so many people are upset about this and looking to pass legislation preventing that. The public would never have allowed gun registration in the first place if it had know that it would be used this way.

Irrelevant. The second amendment already assumes that firearms are deadly weapons and despite that provides significant protection for the ownership and carrying of them. Arguing that we should ignore or lessen the 2nd amendment's importance because guns are deadly and words aren't is not a good argument.



And yet, I assume you would not accept a government mandate that required everyone to install and maintain video surveillance of themselves continually fed to the government on the off chance that someone might plan to commit child sacrifice. I mean, think how much more easy it would be to prevent all acts of violence, child molestation, hate crimes, etc if only we required that everyone be watched every moment of every day. That would be a safer society, but it would be a vastly less free one.

And as a matter of degrees, while you could make the argument that we might be a safer society with gun registration and much more stringent controls and ownership rules, we would be a less free society as well. I'd rather live in a more free society instead of a more safe society. If for no other reason than there's no boundary to what freedoms can be infringed in the name of security given enough time and application of the argument in the other direction.

Them too, yes. Didn't say it was. Feeling guilty? Or did you think I'd argue against my own point and had to throw a preemptive "NOT ME!" in there? Them being idiots doesn't mean you're not an idiot as well. Just because you're easily fooled doesn't mean everyone is. But hey, way to argue how bad "labeling" is while going out of your way to do so about me. It's like you're actively trying to dismantle your own arguments. You're such a simpleton that you believe that anyone that doesn't agree with you must be a Democrat, so you have fun with that*.It's what you're doing. Crying about make believe "rights" to further your agenda. By your own argument that means you're a modern liberal. Congratulations, Obamalover. You know what the amazing thing about text is? It doesn't really go away. You asking the question is cute of you, since it's the point that got you into your newest weak argument in the first place. If you need help reading it, ask. Though, I guess it would explain why you're so easily fooled by political double talk in the first place.

Anyway, privacy (and double for your right to it) is more make believe than your right to free speech.

* SpoilerI know, I know. You're just being a contrarian, and the majority of this site do lean left and it's just simpler for you to label everyone as such. You lack the intellect to multitask. Hell, you seem to lack the intellect to singletask at times. As you've said yourself, if this were a more right leaning site you'd be arguing as the left. Paraphrased.

Oh, how I've been saying this for quite awhile...