Just to throw another viewpoint into the fray...
I'm against ANY sort of "no gun listing". I don't care if someone is as mad as a hatter. I don't care of someone is a felon. I don't care if they're a Muslim, a communist, a "dangerous right wing militiaman", or a bomb-tossing anarchist. There should be NO "no gun list", or any other kind of government kept and controlled listing.
Banning a former felon from owning guns (or voting, for that matter) amounts to a life sentence, and the government dodges the bullet by not even having to keep them up - they just turn them loose on the rest of us, and then cry and wring their hands if one behaves badly, and tries to blame an inanimate object for the bad behavior.
If you're going to give a felon a life sentence, WHY IN THE HELL ARE YOU LETTING THEM LOOSE ON THE REST OF US? If someone is so dangerous they can't own a gun, what in the hell are they doing walking among us with no bars? The question I'm asking here is if the government is so concerned about the citizens safety that they think depriving us of the means of protecting our own safety is mandatory, WHY ARE THEY ALLOWING SUCH DANGEROUS PREDATORS TO ROAM?
If you can't trust a person to bear arms, then either kill him or keep him locked up - don't just throw open the gate for him and say "there they are - sic 'em, boy!" fact is, if they're dangerous, they're dangerous. With or WITHOUT guns. They can still get crowbars, tire irons, claw hammers, kitchen knives, etc, etc. A dangerous man is a dangerous man, whether he has a gun, a knife, a stick, a rock, or just his teeth. he's goddamned DANGEROUS - what part of "dangerous" is not sinking in? It's not the tool that makes a fella dangerous.
"Mental issues" - ditto. if they're too dangerous for polite society, what are they doing in polite society? If I suspected that I had PTSD, no way in hell would I seek treatment for it - you KNOW there's gonna be a list in your future if you do... and when they start making these "lists", where does it stop? What about those scary Pentecostals in that church down the street? You know, they holler and dance and wave their arms around like possessed folks... awful excitable, that bunch... do you really want folks like that having WEAPONS? We better start a list on 'em! And cops... ever notice the shifty eyes cops have? Better start a list on THEM, too, and disarm them, lest they get out of hand! Republicans? you know they have that Trump fella just hell bent on destroying America... ain't you seen the tv ads about how scary he is? Better start a list on his followers.... hell, let's just extend it to ALL Republicans! All cut from the same cloth, that bunch is! What about them Democrats? barely a step up from Communists, I say! Start a list, don't let 'em carry so much as a toothpick! I've seen all the videos of how they act and get all violent and stuff at the Trump rallies! If you put 'em on a list so's they can't have guns, well, that's gonna calm them right down, make 'em downright docile, so they don't behave badly like that any more, right?
RIGHT?
Know who else used "mental health" as an excuse to curtail folks' rights and eventually imprison them? the Soviet Union, that's who! Folks pronounced "mentally defective" by a court here and there filled up the gulags... folks like that unstable Solzhenitsyn fella - what the hell was he thinking, criticizing the great government of the Motherland like that? Obviously, the man HAD to be crazy to dissent so! He got locked up for his dangerous thoughts.
Nope, I'm entirely against "black listing" anyone at all. Once you get it started, make it ok to list "the other guy" and deprive him of HIS rights, you never know where it's gonna end... but we've seen it get pretty far out of hand before, we just haven't seen how far it CAN go, despite how far we've seen it go. Once you start curtailing the rights of "the other guy", you are unwittingly placing YOUR OWN rights on the chop block, too.
.
I'm against ANY sort of "no gun listing". I don't care if someone is as mad as a hatter. I don't care of someone is a felon. I don't care if they're a Muslim, a communist, a "dangerous right wing militiaman", or a bomb-tossing anarchist. There should be NO "no gun list", or any other kind of government kept and controlled listing.
Banning a former felon from owning guns (or voting, for that matter) amounts to a life sentence, and the government dodges the bullet by not even having to keep them up - they just turn them loose on the rest of us, and then cry and wring their hands if one behaves badly, and tries to blame an inanimate object for the bad behavior.
If you're going to give a felon a life sentence, WHY IN THE HELL ARE YOU LETTING THEM LOOSE ON THE REST OF US? If someone is so dangerous they can't own a gun, what in the hell are they doing walking among us with no bars? The question I'm asking here is if the government is so concerned about the citizens safety that they think depriving us of the means of protecting our own safety is mandatory, WHY ARE THEY ALLOWING SUCH DANGEROUS PREDATORS TO ROAM?
If you can't trust a person to bear arms, then either kill him or keep him locked up - don't just throw open the gate for him and say "there they are - sic 'em, boy!" fact is, if they're dangerous, they're dangerous. With or WITHOUT guns. They can still get crowbars, tire irons, claw hammers, kitchen knives, etc, etc. A dangerous man is a dangerous man, whether he has a gun, a knife, a stick, a rock, or just his teeth. he's goddamned DANGEROUS - what part of "dangerous" is not sinking in? It's not the tool that makes a fella dangerous.
"Mental issues" - ditto. if they're too dangerous for polite society, what are they doing in polite society? If I suspected that I had PTSD, no way in hell would I seek treatment for it - you KNOW there's gonna be a list in your future if you do... and when they start making these "lists", where does it stop? What about those scary Pentecostals in that church down the street? You know, they holler and dance and wave their arms around like possessed folks... awful excitable, that bunch... do you really want folks like that having WEAPONS? We better start a list on 'em! And cops... ever notice the shifty eyes cops have? Better start a list on THEM, too, and disarm them, lest they get out of hand! Republicans? you know they have that Trump fella just hell bent on destroying America... ain't you seen the tv ads about how scary he is? Better start a list on his followers.... hell, let's just extend it to ALL Republicans! All cut from the same cloth, that bunch is! What about them Democrats? barely a step up from Communists, I say! Start a list, don't let 'em carry so much as a toothpick! I've seen all the videos of how they act and get all violent and stuff at the Trump rallies! If you put 'em on a list so's they can't have guns, well, that's gonna calm them right down, make 'em downright docile, so they don't behave badly like that any more, right?
RIGHT?
Know who else used "mental health" as an excuse to curtail folks' rights and eventually imprison them? the Soviet Union, that's who! Folks pronounced "mentally defective" by a court here and there filled up the gulags... folks like that unstable Solzhenitsyn fella - what the hell was he thinking, criticizing the great government of the Motherland like that? Obviously, the man HAD to be crazy to dissent so! He got locked up for his dangerous thoughts.
Nope, I'm entirely against "black listing" anyone at all. Once you get it started, make it ok to list "the other guy" and deprive him of HIS rights, you never know where it's gonna end... but we've seen it get pretty far out of hand before, we just haven't seen how far it CAN go, despite how far we've seen it go. Once you start curtailing the rights of "the other guy", you are unwittingly placing YOUR OWN rights on the chop block, too.
.
Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’