a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by cliffelam
cliffelam  ·  4518 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: My Month With a Gun: Week One

No, I concede nothing, because every point limiting gun ownership is not made in good faith by "the other side." Just like conceding that there are so-called free-speech zones means that you agree to abridge your speech in other places. That is BS. Conceding that the TSA has a right to grope your kid's genitals defeats the 4th amendment - ok, I over-egg the pudding, but you get my point.

How about less "Democrat" and "Republican" and more "Get your damn hands off my rights?"

-XC

PS - You don't have to know many of the answers. And I haven't taken the test in 15 years.

PPS - You sign a contract absolving the installer of liability, but nothing more, when you buy a pool. You sign nothing when you buy a house with a pool.





b_b  ·  4518 days ago  ·  link  ·  

IMO the gun debate is never going to be an honest one, because it treats all gun owners as equal when we know they are not. Take my fair city, Detroit. In the burbs there are throngs of dudes packing at all times, and the crime is negligible. In the inner city murder is an everyday occurrence, most often by gun. Most of these murders, so I am told, are drug/gang related. So the question isn't "how do we limit gun ownership?" but rather, "how do we stop gang violence?". But, as we live in civil society where we love to deflect real problems for imagined ones, truth for euphemism, the gun debate will always be about guns, and never about actual causes of violence. Personally, I have no idea how to solve this problem, but I'm damn sure that limiting the number of rounds in a magazine isn't going to help any of my neighbors get jobs and feed their families.

cliffelam  ·  4518 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That's certainly a true statement.

FWIW, my understanding is that it is all but impossible to legally own and carry a gun in Detroit. Perhaps leveling the playing field might be a good place to start.

-XC

b_b  ·  4518 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You're thinking Chicago. All of MI is regulated by a state law that makes it quite easy to get a CPL. Interestingly, municipalities can regulate knives however they want. Go figure.

cliffelam  ·  4518 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Ah, thanks, that violent Yankee land just blurs to me....

thenewgreen  ·  4518 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I took the test a year ago, I'm no dummy and a few of the questions had me sweating. You cannot get more than a few wrong or you fail.

cliffelam  ·  4518 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Dude, you only have to score a 70 to pass. Seven out of ten right. Free to retake the test in five days.

Nobody should fail the test. When I was 17 I took it cold and got a 96, IIRC.

-XC

thenewgreen  ·  4518 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Most of the questions have nothing to do with driving but have to do with punitive measures for wrong doing. IE failure to comply with a breathalyzer etc. At times, not exactly intuitive and definitely regionally specific. It sounds like gun laws are similarly so. Perhaps, a class and a test is a good idea?

http://www.ncdot.gov/dmv/driver/license/test/sample_test.htm...

cliffelam  ·  4518 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Well, the last time there was a test in the south to own guns, it was used to disarm black people. Hmmm, "racist, he explained."

More seriously, there is a serious test to get a CCW - and it is 99% about the legal implications of owning and carrying a gun and when to decide to use it. You do have to pass a very lame marksmanship test, but it's no more a test of marksmanship than the driving test is a test of driving.

-XC

_refugee_  ·  4517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Tell that to someone who failed the driving portion the first time around. Heh.

cliffelam  ·  4517 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Lol, sorry to hear that.

In high school a friend of mine got three tickets from the drivers test guy. So no license and hundreds of dollars in fines. Bad day.

-XC