patrick.net

Goran_K says

I don't usually click WaPO articles but I did this time just to see what you were referencing and I wasn't disappointed. It doesn't say that blacks are arrested while whites let go for crimes involving marijuana, it simply says blacks are arrested more for marijuana crime. Why is this important? It's dishonest wordplay. What if blacks are simply committing more drug crime? Unless you can show that whites are being "let go" for the same crime and blacks are not, that article is simply saying blacks commit more drug related crime, which is of course more likely IMO than whites being let go for the same crime.

If you don't like WaPO, I can reference dozens of other newspapers and reports that say the exact same thing. And no, it's not that cops are "letting go" whites, it's that they aren't even targeting whites while they do blacks. There is no dishonesty here on the part of the article, but let me get another source... actually, I'll let Adam handle this one. He's already done the leg work.

If you think the War on Drugs isn't about racism, then watch this.

www.youtube.com/embed/sXPOw2unxy0

You cannot honestly say that the War on Drugs has nothing to do with racism, even if the racism is just a means to an end, rigging elections by preventing citizens from voting.

The thing about history is that it's well documented. It's not hard to prove historical facts.

Goran_K says

A nice bolt action custom build probably. I want to get into long distance target shooting.

Isn't the AK the wrong platform for that?

Dan8267 says

it's that they aren't even targeting whites while they do blacks.

The article you pasted doesn't present much evidence to prove that claim.

rpanic01 says

Isn't the AK the wrong platform for that?

Yeah that's why I want a nice bolt action rifle. Maybe a Tikka T3.

Wow nice

Goran_K says

The article you pasted doesn't present much evidence to prove that claim.

There were numerous references quoted by Adam. And if you need more, here's what to do. Do I really have to spoon feed you everything?

Dan8267 says

Australia proves this beyond any doubt,

Little known fact- Australia has more guns now than before the "ban". The million guns destroyed after the Port Arthur shooting have all been replaced. Lower capacity firearms but more guns nevertheless.

Robert Sproul says

Little known fact- Australia has more guns now than before the "ban".

Yes, that fact is so little known, it merits evidence.

Dan8267 says

Robert Sproul says

Little known fact- Australia has more guns now than before the "ban".

Yes, that fact is so little known, it merits evidence.

"Australia has more privately owned guns than before the Port Arthur massacre that led to the introduction of strict gun control laws, University of Sydney researchers say."
"Associate Professor Philip Alpers from the University of Sydney said "the million guns destroyed after Port Arthur have been replaced with 1,026,000 new ones".
"By 2015 the arms trade had broken all previous records, and last financial year Australia ported 104,000 firearms,"
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-28/australia-has-more-guns-than-before-port-arthur-massacre/7366360

While I agree with the choice of the 7.62x39 caliber (my favorite), you could have bought a much better gun for just a little bit more money. The CMMG Mutant is an AR platform chambered in 7.62x39 that accepts any standard AK magazine (even drums) with all the ergonomic benefits of the AR platform. It is also built to eat steel case ammo. The metallurgy of the barrel is also superior. They use a case hardening process where they use a molten salt containing lots of carbon and nitrogen to form a very hard layer around the entire barrel of the rifle to a depth of a few microns. They call it salt bath nitriding. This case hardened exterior is extremely tough and hard. You could run many rounds through it an never see any wear.

Along with the top notch barrel, they designed this platform to accept basic AR-15 parts like triggers, and butt stocks. The bolt carrier of this rifle is also a great innovation. Instead of milling out a 5.56x45 bolt to accept the 7.62x39 case, they started with an AR-10 bolt (7.62x51), cut the bolt carrier down by a few inches, and made a custom lower and upper. The bolt carrier group is not as large as the AR-10 but a lot beefier than the AR-15.

It comes with a nice free floating hand guard that is either Keymod or Mlok depending on your preference. On my Mutant I have a simple QD Sling swivel mounting point and a set of Mbus Pro Iron sights. The Mbus Pro sights are awesome because they have a M1 style aperture sight system with both elevation and windage adjustments on the rear sight and elevation adjustments on the front sight. The sight radius of my Mutant Rifle is 21" which is 1" longer than an AR-15 A2 setup.

I took the rifle to an Appleseed event over the weekend and was getting quarter sized groups from a seated position at 25 meters. I can usually keep it to about 3 MOA at 100 yards in the prone position. I have shot it with limited success at 500 yards. The round is just not designed for the extreme ranges that a full powered rifle round like the .308 or .30-06 will give you. I was however able to adjust the rear sight to raise the elevation by 12 MOA to mortar the rounds in (7.62x39 has about a 63 inch drop at 500 yards) and was getting about 50% hits on a 24" steel plate at 500 yards.

I don't like the AK platform for rifle calibers. My opinion changes if you use the AK platform in a shotgun because that is where the AK platform shines. The AK sights just plain suck and adding aftermarket sights with a long sight radius is just not an option with the dust cover design. The "looseness" of the gun that makes it so reliable also reduces the precision of the rounds.

The only thing that I don't like about the Mutant is the lack of a bolt hold open device. This is not an oversight of CMMG because the AK was never designed with a bolt hold open feature and there is no way to make one work with the standard AK magazine. You would have to trade off the many options of AK magazines for a more expensive magazine redesign in order to get this feature. The fact that I can buy 40 rounds of steel cased TulAmmo for $10 at Walmart makes me think that CMMG made the right choice.

Disclaimer I am not a CMMG employee nor do I have a financial interest in their company. I just happen to like this brand a lot after seeing, buying and, using many of their innovative products over the last few years. Their dedicated .22 LR uppers and .22 LR conversion kits for the AR-15 has been some of the best money that I have spend on firearms. They just announced their new Guard rifle which is an AR platform chambered in the .45 ACP (accepts Glock 21 magazines). I was puzzled at first expecting it to be another one of those direct blowback designs with a 5 lb bolt. To my delight and a pleasant surprise, they figured out a way to make a delayed blowback system that allows them to use a much lighter bolt.

CMMG Mutant

The Muzzle brake on the end really reduces the recoil based on my comparison to how a Yugoslavian SKS feels. The guys off to your sides on the firing line however may not like the concussive muzzle blasts that are being directed at them.

Goran_K says

A nice bolt action custom build probably. I want to get into long distance target shooting.

Take a look at the Ruger Scout Rifles. They come in a 7.62x51 (.308) or 5.56x45 (.223) flavor. The Scout rifle has a Mauser style bolt, detachable box magazine, iron sights, and the ability to mount a standard optic over the bolt or a scout scope forward of the receiver. The other alternatives would be a M1 Garand, M1A, or a standard AR-15 A2 with a 20" barrel.

You should also go attend an Appleseed to learn the skills and techniques for shooting a rifle at long ranges. Their metric for success is shooting at 4 MOA or better using nothing but your self, a USGI web sling, and the rifle.

Goran_K says

Which voter ID laws? How are voter ID laws "racist"?

India has voter ID and a much higher percentage of the population participate in voting

thenuttyneutron says

Appleseed

Did you make Rifleman score?

Straw Man says

thenuttyneutron says

Appleseed

Did you make Rifleman score?

Yes. I scored a 210 (minimum score for Rifleman) last year, and a 212 last Winter with a Ruger 10/22. The Ruger 10/22 is has some Techsights on it and I used CCI Minimag ammo (40 grain). I also scored a 211 last weekend with a RRA NM A2 AR-15. I shot 55 grain American Eagle bulk ammo.

I am signed up for a KD (Known Distance) event in June. I plan to use my RRA NM rifle and American Eagle 62 grain M855 bulk ammo for this event.

thenuttyneutron says

While I agree with the choice of the 7.62x39 caliber (my favorite), you could have bought a much better gun for just a little bit more money. The CMMG Mutant is an AR platform chambered in 7.62x39 that accepts any standard AK magazine (even drums) with all the ergonomic benefits of the AR platform. It is also built to eat steel case ammo. The metallurgy of the barrel is also superior. They use a case hardening process where they use a molten salt containing lots of carbon and nitrogen to form a very hard layer around the entire barrel of the rifle to a depth of a few microns. They call it salt bath nitriding. This case hardened exterior is extremely tough and hard. You could run many rounds through it an never see any wear.

That looks like a cool gun. I have been thinking about getting an AR15 or AR type rifle. Thanks for the review and input.

MMR says

India has voter ID and a much higher percentage of the population participate in voting

That seems to show that voter ID laws are actually helpful in the voting process.

Dan8267 says

There were numerous references quoted by Adam. And if you need more, here's what to do. Do I really have to spoon feed you everything?

This isn't the first time someone has tried to tell me on the internet that systemic racism exist in law enforcement agencies. I have never found any peer reviewed research that has proven, backed by credible studies, that law enforcement are more likely to specifically arrest or target black people over whites.

Robert Sproul says

"Australia has more privately owned guns than before the Port Arthur massacre that led to the introduction of strict gun control laws, University of Sydney researchers say."

OK, let's examine the facts and the claim you are trying to make. Since you haven't explicitly made your claim, but rather tried to imply it, I'll explicitly state the claim you are conveying to the audience. If this isn't the claim you intended, then you should explicitly and clearly state your central point. However, it is clear that the claim implied to the audience is as follows.

Claim: Because there are more guns today in Australia than during or before the Port Arthur massacre, the prevalence of guns has absolutely no impact on the frequency of mass shootings.

This claim is easily refuted. A simple Google search of "gun ownership in australia by year" and "I'm feeling lucky" reveals an article completely debunking this talking point.

ABC News Australia: The truth about gun ownership after Port Arthur

For the first time in 20 years, Australia's national arsenal of private guns is larger than it was before the Port Arthur massacre. But this statistic belies the gains that have been made, writes Philip Alpers.

In recent years, arms dealers have imported more guns than ever before. And last year we crossed a symbolic threshold: for the first time in 20 years, Australia's national arsenal of private guns is larger than it was before the Port Arthur massacre.

This increase must be seen in context. Australia's population grew by five million in the same period, so per-capita firearm ownership remains 23 per cent lower than it was before Port Arthur.

From the late 1970s, gun deaths in Australia have trended downwards. The risk of an Australian dying by gunshot remains less than half what it was before Port Arthur. Research shows that murderers did not move to other methods.

But although Australia hasn't seen a public mass shooting since 1996, we have no shortage of firearm-related crime. Gun owners who know each other well - be they family members or gang members - have always been the ones to kill each other most frequently.

The million guns destroyed after Port Arthur have been replaced with 1,026,000 new ones. And the surge only shows upward momentum.

But here's the thing: fewer Australians now own guns. Since 1988, the proportion of households with a firearm fell by 75 per cent.

The reason? Those who already possess several guns have bought more. Until recently, the average Australian shooter owned three to five firearms. The same people now keep a larger collection, and a proportion of their guns continue to leak into the illicit market.

As no law is effective until taken seriously, enforcement and resistance to backsliding are now key. Realising the potential of our toughened firearm legislation, police have led two decades of national attitude adjustment reminiscent of the 1980s turnaround on drink-driving enforcement.

These days, dedicated gun-crime taskforces target armed career criminals; firearm-related prosecutions have soared; police launch "nationwide blitzes" on gun owners' homes and seize thousands of firearms; lethal weapons are removed from violence-prone or suicide-risk households; and actual sanctions are imposed on shooters who ignore safe storage regulations.

All this adds up to a new generation of police and political awareness.

But perhaps the most profound change has been in public attitude. At this 20th anniversary of the Port Arthur massacre, we've seen in media coverage a resurgence of public scepticism about the motives of self-interested groups seeking to wind back gun laws.

So, here are the facts.

1. The gun control laws passed in Australia after the Port Arthur massacre worked. This is indisputable. Mass shootings were common before the laws and non-existent after the laws. And don't think a rare mass shooting would invalidate the effectiveness of the laws. It would still be an enormous improvement.

2. The per capita gun ownership is still lower than before the gun control laws were pass. This obviously relevant fact was omitted by you because it does not support your claim. This is called cherry picking. The article you referenced, which comes from the same source as the one I referenced, explicitly states

However, the greater number of firearms has been outpaced by Australia's growth in population, so per capita firearm ownership remains 23 per cent lower than it was before the Port Arthur massacre.

"The proportion of households with a firearm fell by 75 per cent since 1988. Those who already possess several guns have bought more," Associate Professor Alpers said.

That's identical to part of the article I reference. It is also a hell of big oversight to make unless you are intentionally cherry picking evidence to support your claim regardless of what the truth is.

3. More importantly, the percent of households possessing guns is still far less than it was before the anti-gun laws. This statistic is far more important than the per capita gun possession because...

4. Gun owners are the primary victims of gun violence, and that's completely discarding suicide. Gun owners shoot other gun owners.

5. The enhanced law enforcement raiding the homes of gun owners and seizing illegal arms has kept crime under control.

6. Changes in public attitude towards guns has kept crime down.

7. The rise in per capita gun ownership, although concentrated in the hands of a few, has created problems in terms of illegal arms smuggling and trade. So gun ownership, even by a few individuals, generates crime.

8. The number of murders went down. The myth that restricting or banning guns will cause people to just choose different methods of killing like stabbing is simply false.

Look, it's obvious that you like guns so much that none of these facts matter to you. You value guns and the manly feeling they give you more than you value actual safety. Maybe you even feel safer with guns. But that does not mean you are safer with them. The indisputable facts prove otherwise. If you want to make the case that guns are so fun and manly that public safety should take a backseat to recreational shooting and threatening home invaders, then make that case. But don't make the clearly false case that society is better off with guns being prevalent.

If the facts supported your claim, I'd be the first to defend your claim. But the facts contradict your claim. The more people with guns in a society, the more murder in the society.

Patnet goon squad needs to show up at Berkeley tomorrow to resist Antifa thugs at Coulter's speech. I'm not saying bring a gun, but a few baseball bats would be helpful.

Dan8267 says

Mass shootings were common before the laws

Were they?

I don't think anyone doubts that "gun homicides" are down in Australia since guns have been effectively taken away from the population. But the stats shows the effects on overall homicides/murders has been negligible. So instead of people getting killed by guns, they are being killed in other ways.

Here what happened after the handgun ban in the UK:

Gun bans do not solve the core problem of people being murdered, it just changes the method of how people are murdered.

Goran_K says

This isn't the first time someone has tried to tell me on the internet that systemic racism exist in law enforcement agencies. I have never found any peer reviewed research that has proven, backed by credible studies, that law enforcement are more likely to specifically arrest or target black people over whites.

Then you haven't been looking.

First off, the entire War on Drugs was created with the sole intent of political gain by Richard Nixon. This fact is indisputable.
CNN: Aide says Nixon's war on drugs targeted blacks, hippies

"You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

Ehrlichman's comment is the first time the war on drugs has been plainly characterized as a political assault designed to help Nixon win, and keep, the White House.

This fact alone is evidence enough of racially motivated crime legislation and enforcement.

If you are stating that nothing less than the police admitting that they are the bad guys will suffice, then your standard is ridiculous. The police will never admit they do anything wrong even when they shoot a sleeping 9-year-old girl in the head and frame the grandmother for the murder and get caught in that lie. You might as well ask ISIS to make an official statement that they are the bad guys and that the "one true god" isn't on their side. It's a ridiculous false standard.

Statistics cannot tell you whether or not a particular criminal case is affected by racism. However, statistics absolutely can mathematically confirm that x% of criminal cases within a margin of error e% are affected by racism. If you don't understand why this works, you simply need to take a math class. The bottom line is that statistics absolutely proves beyond any doubt that racism does affect arrest and sentencing. Whether or not this racism is conscious is irrelevant. It is mathematically demonstrated, and math does not lie.

There are a plethora of articles and government reported statistics that demonstrate the War on Drugs is racially enforced. Here is an example.

The war on drugs remains as racist as ever, statistics show

The federal government released a new batch of data Monday about drug prosecutions in 2016, and the statistics show that African-Americans and Hispanics are still prosecuted far more frequently than white people for nearly every type of drug crime.

The report from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent agency that advises Congress and the White House about “the development of effective and efficient crime policy,” shows that of the 19,766 total federal drug cases in 2016, 50 percent of offenders were Hispanic, 23.6 percent were black, 22.8 percent were white, and 3 percent were classified as “other.”

Those stats are relative to an overall American population that is 77 percent white, 13 percent black, and 17 percent Hispanic.

Research has consistently shown that white people are actually more likely than African-Americans and Hispanics to sell drugs and about as likely to consume them, but they are still arrested and prosecuted less often than people of color.

“Higher arrest and incarceration rates for African Americans and Latinos are not reflective of increased prevalence of drug use or sales in these communities, but rather of a law enforcement focus on urban areas, on lower-income communities and on communities of color as well as inequitable treatment by the criminal justice system,” according to the Drug Policy Alliance, a New York City-based nonprofit that seeks to end the war on drugs.

So whites do drugs at the same rate as blacks and whites sell drugs at a higher rate than blacks, but blacks are arrested and imprison way the hell more often than whites. This is, by definition, racism. The math is indisputable.

And as for the raw data...
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/RHI225215/00
http://www.ussc.gov/research/sourcebook-2016
https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=datool&surl=/arrests/index.cfm
https://www.bjs.gov/nps/resources/documents/QT_age%20sex%20race%20distribution_counts_2015.xlsx

So yes, peer reviewed research that has proven, backed by credible studies, that law enforcement are more likely to specifically arrest or target black people over whites. And if you don't believe the studies did the statistics right, then do the damn math yourself. That's the thing about math, is that the right answer is repeatable no matter who does the math or when. So do the math and show me where everyone else went wrong or accept the math.

Goran_K says

Here what happened after the handgun ban in the UK:

Different law, different affect. The answer is simple. Don't adopt the UK laws. Adopt the Australian laws.

Goran_K says

Gun bans do not solve the core problem of people being murdered, it just changes the method of how people are murdered.

Your statement is empirically disproved by the Australian example. The only thing you have shown is that the UK laws did not go far enough to be effective and that stricter gun control is needed.

However, even the UK gun laws are clearly better than US gun laws. Gun violence rare in U.K. compared to U.S.

The gun homicide rate in England and Whales is about one for every 1 million people, according to the Geneva Declaration of Armed Violence and Development, a multinational organization based in Switzerland.

In a population of 56 million, that adds up to about 50 to 60 gun killings annually. In the USA, by contrast, there are about 160 times as many gun homicides in a country that is roughly six times larger in population. There were 8,124 gun homicides in 2014, according to the latest FBI figures.

Gun violence in the UK is far less per capita than in the US because guns are far more rare. The fact that a particular law didn't further diminish gun violence does not demonstrate that reducing guns is ineffective. You are cherry picking data to support a claim that the facts simply don't support.

Dan8267 says

Different law, different affect. The answer is simple. Don't adopt the UK laws. Adopt the Australian laws.

It's not so simple. The majority of gun homicides in the US are done with a handgun, not long guns. In fact more people die getting kicked or punched to death than getting shot by a rifle (of any kind).

Yet you want a blanket ban?

Perhaps white drug dealers are just better at being criminals than black drug dealers. Perhaps black or Latino drug dealers sample their own product way more and wind up so high they make bad choices that lead to their arrest.
Perhaps neither of these are true, but the point is that your numbers are only correlation and do not show causation! Any scientist could tell you the same, Dan, which is why you are not one and just a code monkey.

Goran_K says

Yet you want a blanket ban?

My only opinion on what the law should be is we should use what has been proven to work. I believe in empirical evidence and the scientific method. Where those two things lead me is irrelevant. I will accept the results of the experiments regardless of whether those results confirm or disprove my hypothesis. The scientific method is the only valid method for testing empirical truth.

Goran_K says

Okay I didn't read the whole study.

That's your first problem.

Goran_K says

Can you show me where the study claims it's simply not black people committing more crimes than whites/asians/etc and how it proves that?

I already did that. I even gave you links to the raw statistical data. What more do you want? Does the god of mathematics have to appear before you and show you his holy algorithm?

Goran_K says

Ah. So "bad PEOPLE" caused the spike in gun crime, not law abiding citizens.

Interesting point. I like where you're going with this.

Sorry, but every criminal is, by definition, a law-abiding person until he commits his first crime. Sometimes that first crime is murder.

The Economist: Data suggest guns do in fact kill people

There were 622 homicides in England and Wales in 2011. In America, with a population 5.5 times as large, there were 14,022.

How much of that difference should be chalked up to the presence of guns? Well, gun-rights advocates often argue that there's no point taking away people's guns, because you can kill someone with a knife. This is true, but in practice people are nowhere near as likely to get killed with a knife. In America, of those 14,022 homicides in 2011, 11,101 were committed with firearms. In England and Wales, where guns are far harder to come by, criminals didn't simply go out and equip themselves with other tools and commit just as many murders; there were 32,714 offences involving a knife or other sharp instrument (whether used or just threatened), but they led to only 214 homicides, a rate of 1 homicide per 150 incidents. Meanwhile, in America, there were 478,400 incidents of firearm-related violence (whether used or just threatened) and 11,101 homicides, for a rate of 1 homicide per 43 incidents. That nearly four-times-higher rate of fatality when the criminal uses a gun rather than a knife closely matches the overall difference in homicide rates between America and England.

Then there's the related argument that people have a right to defend themselves against aggressors carrying firearms, and that if you criminalise gun ownership, only criminals will have guns (which is perhaps what Ice-T was getting at). That may be valid in the abstract. In practice, 0.8% of victims of gun violence say they responded to their attackers by either using or threatening to use a gun. Not much of a risk for the criminal, it seems.

None of this should be particularly surprising. We know that overall, firearm deaths are lower in states with stricter gun-control laws. More recently, we've learned that the expiration of America's assault-weapons ban was responsible for a substantial portion of the subsequent increase in gun deaths in northern Mexico. It's really not terribly shocking that making it harder to get your hands on machines designed to kill people results in fewer people being killed. But we've worked very hard over the past few decades to convince ourselves otherwise.

Facts are a bitch, aren't they?

Dan8267 says

I already did that. I even gave you links to the raw statistical data. What more do you want? Does the god of mathematics have to appear before you and show you his holy algorithm?

I simply want you to show me that blacks are not committing the violent crime and murders that are being reported by the CDC/FBI every year, and show me that somehow this data is wrong and being misinterpreted somehow. Basically, show me systemic racism that somehow explains why blacks are committing 50% of the violent crime ever year in the United States despite being only 13% of the population.

NY Times: More Guns = More Killing

Scientific studies have consistently found that places with more guns have more violent deaths, both homicides and suicides. Women and children are more likely to die if there’s a gun in the house. The more guns in an area, the higher the local suicide rates. “Generally, if you live in a civilized society, more guns mean more death,” said David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. “There is no evidence that having more guns reduces crime. None at all.”

How much clearer can we make it?

Goran_K says

I simply want you to show me that blacks are not committing the violent crime and murders that are being reported by the CDC/FBI every year, and show me that somehow this data is wrong and being misinterpreted somehow.

If you reduce the prevalence of guns in society, blacks would be committing far fewer murders and violent crimes. Your conclusion is wrong. It is empirically wrong.

zzyzzx says

OK, so the real problem is overpopulation. Ban Overpopulation!!!

Actually, yes, we should do that, but such an effort is not mutually exclusive with strict gun control.

Think about it this way. Why should guns be exempt from the kind of legislative controls we accept on other pure weapons with high destructive power? No one calls to end laws prohibiting citizens from using land mines, tanks, nuclear bombs, biological viruses, or the vast majority of armaments. Why are guns the one and only kind of weapon that is sacred? Answer: they aren't.

Dan8267 says

If you reduce the prevalence of guns in society, blacks would be committing far fewer murders and violent crimes. Your conclusion is wrong. It is empirically wrong.

So why not just ban blacks from having guns?

errc says

When everything is a crime, everyone is a criminal

Ain't that the truth. :)

Goran_K says

So why not just ban blacks from having guns?

Some of us respect the Constitution and the principles of our country including the 14th Amendment.

Goran_K says

So I need a very strong argument to curb a civil liberty.

The liberty to possess guns infringes upon the liberty of others to live. That's a damn strong argument, and it's backed up with plenty of empirical evidence.

Just think about it this way. The liberty to possess nuclear weapons infringes upon the liberty of others to live. You believe that and there is damn little evidence to support that statement while there are mountains of evidence to support the similar statement about guns. The number of people murdered with guns far exceeds those murdered with nukes but only because people don't have easy access to nuclear weapons.

errc says

When everything is a crime, everyone is a criminal

Actually, that statement is empirically false, and it is important to understand why.

Many states, including the U.S., over-criminalize things and then selectively enforce the law. In essence, every citizen commits a dozen crimes a day simply by going through the motions of living. The police can then use those crimes to punish people for completely unrelated things like political views, personal grudges, sexual rivalry, or anything else. Every person is a criminal, but only the tiniest percentages of crimes are prosecuted, and then not for the sake of the crime, but for unrelated personal reasons.

It is illegal to have oral sex with your spouse in some states. Flirting or kissing for too long is also illegal in some places. Such laws are always highly selectively enforced.

Politicians can and do pass laws for perverted reasons. The entire War on Drugs was created solely to prevent minorities from voting and to demonize them. It is continued for other perverted reasons including profiting at the expense of the victims of that war. Cops, prosecutors, and judges fully take advantage of selective enforcement and arbitrary and inconsistent sentencing to push tribal, personal, and political agendas.

Discretion in the law invites corruption and abuse.

Dan8267 says

The liberty to possess guns infringes upon the liberty of others to live.

It does? How?

Dan8267 says

The liberty to possess guns infringes upon the liberty of others to live.

How the fuck? The mere possession of the weapon does not infringe on anything.

Straw Man says

How the fuck? The mere possession of the weapon does not infringe on anything.

So then you would have no problem with U.S. citizens or foreigners having nuclear weapons? Somehow, I think not.

Drunk driving infringes upon the rights of others by risking their safety. Same can be said of possessing weapons. Would you say that your right to safety is not infringed upon if random individuals around the world had doomsday devices capable of destroying the entire world at the push of a button? Would they have to actually push the button before the law could take action? Would you OK with North Korea or ISIS having nukes since neither has ever used one yet?

Dan8267 says

Drunk driving infringes upon the rights of others by risking their safety. Same can be said of possessing weapons.

Possession of cars infringes upon the right of others by risking their safety. Same can be said of drunk shooting.

See, I can play this idiotic game too.

Dan8267 says

So then you would have no problem with U.S. citizens or foreigners having nuclear weapons? Somehow, I think not.

It's funny that the only way you can keep your point salient is by mentioning "bearable nuclear weapons". Don't you think that's sort of telling?