Blogs Feb 16, 2013 at 9:24 am

Comments

1
For reference: "bullet buttons" are a way to sidestep California's law against removable magazines. While magazines that are removable by hand are one feature that defines an "assault weapon," the law allows for magazines that can be removed with a tool. So some people came up with a magazine release that can be actuated with the tip of a bullet as the "tool."

I am sort of curious what his proposal was to close this loophole; outlawing magazines that can be removed with tools would mean taking the most popular hunting rifles off the market, while trying to define "tool" to disallow bullet buttons would just lead to another workaround.
2
Nuts on both sides are quick to jump to threats. What was your point again?
3
Legislators get death threats seemingly for any action or inaction on any high-press political issue.

No?
4
@2:
gun nut threat: i will take my gun and shoot someone!
gun control nut threat: i will speculate out loud that the 2nd amendment is antiquated!
5
@2 @3

[Citation needed]
6
@5 Yeah, I'm being anecdotal... but Obamacare=death threats... Raising taxes=death threats... Gay rights=death threats... I'm trying to think of a conservative initiative that gets ye' old death threat news coverage but, hey, there must be some... Reagan got at least one as I recall.

I mean 'being a public figure'=death threats.
7
Yawn.
8
@6

You don't mean Hinckley, reaching back 32 years, do you? Who stalked Carter before he went after Reagan, obviously nonpartisan in his motive.

It's pretty clear that our modern history of domestic terrorism, assassination, and treason is extremely one sided. These right wing groups like the NRA that endlessly lecture us about the Constitution and about rights and about what the country was supposedly founded on don't in fact believe in America at all. In the end they're bandits and thugs putting up a smokescreen to hide their disloyalty.
9
@8 I concede the larger point that, in the political arena, death-threats DO SEEM to come almost entirely from conservative-ish folks. I don't know what we are to make of that ... I can't judge the whole of conservatism, or even gun-righters, based on the dangerous irrational extemists that lurk among them. ( Just as we liberals have irrationals - maybe of a less dangerous nature - whose actions and antics, nevertheless, set our causes back a bit. )
10
"Yee, who represents San Francisco and San Mateo County, is pushing a number of gun control measures, including a bill that would prohibit the use of 'bullet buttons,' which allow for quick reloading of of magazines on semiautomatic assault rifles."

That does not make any sense.
The "bullet buttons" already prevent "quick reloading" (swapping) of magazines.
So is it Senator Yee who does not know what he is talking about?
Or is it whomever wrote that article who does not know what he is talking about?

Or is Senator Yee really trying to ban anything other than 1 bullet per barrel?
11
@10

Not at all surprising that your instinct is to try to discredit Yee rather than condemn the threat made against him.
12
Yes, the Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting and everything to do with keeping tyrannical government in check.

So when you have a legislator advocating the removal of guns from society because he is skeerd of them (hoplophobe), there will be people who vociferously object to his tyranny. Its a First Amendment thing up to a point.
13
@12

You gun nuts are frauds. You'd stand by and watch every single one of our rights disappear as long as you kept your guns.
14
@12

When you keep that tyrannical government in check, make sure you kidnap a six-year-old disabled kid first. That way, you might survive six days before they come in and nail you.
15
I'm pretty sure the majority of politically motivated threats of violence/death come from the right wing.

There's perhaps some liberally motivated threats out there (maybe from the animal liberation front? Or some of the fringe environmental groups?) but not nearly as many as the right produces.
16
@13 Leland Yee hates the First Amendment just as much as he hates the Second Amendment. He's better known for his latter-day Frank Wertham act than he is for gun control.
17
@13 Leland Yee thinks the First Amendment is antiquated too. He's most famous for his latter-day Frank Werther act.
18
@12: Where were you, standing up to the "tyrannical government" when they stripped away rights via the Patriot Act, used the NSA to illegally spy on us, and now claim that anyone deemed a terrorist can be arrested and held without detention? Or is it just that, again, you only care about your precious 2nd amendment rights, all other rights be dammed? And I would love to see ya'll stand up, with your few guns, against the armed might of a so-called tyrannical government. Your delusion would be laughable if it weren't so pathetic.
19
@18 et al

And where were you? If it mattered to you so much, why didn't you use YOUR 2nd Amendment rights to do something about the "tyranny?"

Last time I checked Obamacare and the Patriot Act were constitutional. And the prior will do WAAAAAAY more harm to society (debt and quality of care) than the narrowly-focused latter.

@15 Urgutha Forka, cite your source yo. Sounds like you made that shit up.
20
@17

Werner? Werther? Warthog? You don't know, do you?

I don't have a problem AB1179 empowering parents. The First Amendment doesn't exist to let children buy violent games their parents don't want them to have. What's sad is what Scalia wrote when the law was struck down: "California's argument would fare better if there were a longstanding tradition in this country of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence, but there is none."

We give children unrestricted access to violence but remain true to our Puritan heritage when it comes to sex. We only have to look around to see how well that worked out.
21
@19

Was lynching Constitutional? Where was our militia then? Were white's only drinking fountains Constitutional? How come our well regulated militia did nothing to help the Civil Rights movement? If anything, your average red blooded American gun lover was on the wrong side of that one. What about the heinous act of interning thousands of Japanese Americans in World War II, without trial, based on zero evidence? Constitutional? Where were the gun owners then? Safeguarding freedom? No way.

You can reach as far back into history as you want, or look at yesterday's news. It's always the same: gun owners have never stood up for anybody's civil rights. Every instance in our history of standing up to tyranny and putting a stop to unjust government acts has been through speech, the press, protest and non-violent civil disobedience. Reaching for a gun would have been a step backwards for the Civil Rights movement, for gay rights activists, for the Japanese internees. You name it. If they'd started shooting it would have empowered the governemnt to crack down and justified the oppression instead of earning the public sympathy needed to achieve change.

Guns fail spectacularly at keeping you safe, and they fail spectacularly at protecting our rights and freedoms.
22
@19,
I did make that shit up, that's why I said "I'm pretty sure".

But it seems true anecdotally. Stereotypes don't come from nowhere.
23
@5: I tend to suspect that gun owners may be somewhat more likely to issue credible death threats than non-gun owners. Gun ownership and entertaining the idea of killing people seem to me to be related, somehow. Just sayin'.
24
IThe liberal argument to ban weapons is based on two and only two arguments. First argument is that 'no one really needs a rifle like the AR-15.' The second is that 'for the safety and common good, it is necessary to remove the right to own a weapon with military type features or a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds.'

So let me make something perfectly clear: At no time are we required to justify our 'need' of anything to the federal government. As big of a threat to individual liberty that a ban on some particular weapons is and as bad a president that it sets for further gun grabbing by the federal government, it pales in comparison to the concept that the government can begin to base policy on the government deciding what the American citizen 'needs.'

Really, when you come to think about it, removing a citizen's rights based on government defined needs is about as good a description of socialism as you can find and in reality, is the best explanation why citizens need the ability to defend themselves."

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