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New York, 2:04 AM
Sun Nov 29
12 posts in the last 24 hours
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02/17/09
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
In any case, the people I know that love guns aren't what I call members of a "well-REGULATED (emphasis mine) militia."
02/17/09
It's a tough question for originalists, who tend to be conservative and pro-gun, but who would then have to conclude that such a clause was non-limiting...which I don't think is a common move for that school of interpretation.
02/17/09
Sounds almost like a constitutional right for states to have National Guards.
In any case, the was written before the age of semi-auto GLOCK's with 26-round extended clips and nylon covered bullets and AK47s in the hands of young punks on the streets of Treme.
02/16/09
Yes, of course. Frightened bantam weight abuse victims, serially raped and beaten, who moved to another address to try to get away from some hulking abusive spouse, should be outed because they were fearful and have gotten a concealed carry permit. Your compassion, and the CA's is thus demonstrated.
Facts are interesting things. Fact is, I worked in homicide investigations in the Memphis medical examiner's office for a little more than 3 years in the 1980's. I suspect that I have a pretty fair idea of how well a handgun can protect someone. I also suspect that the only practical experience that you have with weapons is reading chapter and verse from a blog.
And a correction. You called the gun lobby 'radical'. I think they more properly are termed 'reactionary'. Historic 'radicalism' was absorbed into what is now better known as the 'liberal' movement.
Such blythe disregard for the fact of the effects of editorial policy, is irrational, despite your apparent appeal to reason. You understand this I am sure. I find it somewhat drole to think that you are recommending Mccarthyist tactics to advance a liberal agenda. This can't be very well thought out. Give it another go.
02/17/09
"This can't be very well thought out"? "Give it another go"? Doc, if you're going to criticize someone else's expression of thought as improper, make sure you can express one properly yourself.
This is not the work of someone who attended grad school, is it?
02/17/09
Oh come on. Can't argue with the logic, so you become a Spelling Nazi? We'll see how well you do after a few glasses of Glenfiddich. Conflation of the river with the emotion in no way undermines the thought. Putting silly accents around letters isn't de rigueur on English speaking blogs, and McCarthyist is proper usage.
My argument was with the content of the ideas, not editorial critique of English usage. That apparently is YOUR gig. Which is important to someone, I guess.
"..This is not the work of someone who attended grad school, is it?.."
Non sequitur. Besides, your pedantry hardly advances the argument that outing these people was a good idea. It simply wasn't. That's why the CA is falling all over itself to backpedal.
Any argument of substance, here?
Or are you going to masturbate in a dictionary all day?
02/17/09
I just thought your criticism of thunkmonkeychides was overstated. Inadvertent conflation of words doesn't undermine the thought behind them -- we can definitely agree on that -- but I'd argue it does limit the amount of trust one can place in a criticism phrased that way.
I'm no usage Nazi and am constantly reminded of how frequently I commit my own howlers. But I do think comments like "This can't be very well thought out" and "Give it another go" are best earned by inviting strict scrutiny upon oneself. Which I gather from your suggestion is not entirely compatible with typing under the influence of Scotch whiskey.
And what's this business about accents? Why do you think I was raising them as an issue?
02/17/09
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02/17/09
Both usages are correct. The original, as you may have guessed, is French. It passed into English as used by Shaw and others frequently, much as my quote above uses the term de rigueur, the original French, which is rendered in English occasionally as de rigeur. English derivation from the Old French resulted in droll, but those you will find that English has absorbed large numbers of French words which have variant spellings. Attempts to rectify and standardize it leave us with some odd stuff. Speaking both French and English can make things even more confusing. And we won't even get into Dutch, which has roots that really bamboozle me.
Good call.
02/16/09
The argument that 'It's all information that is open to the public' is a red herring. There is much information which we cede to the government which, while not dangerous incidentally, can be used in aggregate to target us. Before the internet, it was impractical to do this. But the tools to search databases for specific individuals are all too easy to use today, to target people.
Many people carry sidearms, because they have abusive ex-spouses and the like, have restraining orders, and have even gone to the extent of moving residences to try to put anonymity between them and their tormentors. To not even consider the legitimate concerns of handgun owners such as this, because of some self-righteous political motive, is terrifyingly heartless.
I'm afraid that I have treated too many patient like that.
People who can't admit to the political intent of this involuntary 'outing' don't understand how minorities can be targeted, and should look back a bit in history to how McCarthy, or the Nazis published their 'lists', to see what the real effect of such tactics is.
There are many sincere, hardworking people that believe no one should keep handguns in a home. That is a legitimate point of view. But public discourse and political efforts to change the law in the legislature and courts, are much much different things, than using a newspaper to pillory and target private citizens by targeting them on a list.
02/16/09
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02/17/09
It's just a couple of columns in a newspaper, doc.
No one reads newspapers anymore, anyway. And I have a feeling that goes double for criminals.
02/16/09
02/16/09
Not to say I wouldn't get one. Utah is processing my paperwork as we speak.
02/16/09
02/17/09
And thus that people carrying CWs are doing it for some other reason than deterrence?
02/16/09
Anyone who can look at that picture and not get the instant urge to blow shit up while singing the Star Spangled Banner needs to fucking pack up their tampons and go move to France.
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02/16/09
Way to give the criminals ideas.
Finally, when somebody who has a permit for a concealed weapon messes up with a gun, they lose their right to have that concealed weapon. For example, Harry Raymond "Ray" Coleman, the Cordova man charged recently with shooting a man to death after an argument about whether the dead man's SUV was parked too close to Coleman's vehicle, will lose his permit to carry a concealed weapon. Isn't that the way it should be?
Thank god that cold-blooded murderer will lose his PERMIT!
But aside from these two ridiculous paragraphs, basically the story was saying, "We have the right to make this information available. And so it is. Tough." Right? Did I miss something ... they didn't take down the list, right?
02/16/09
I'm glad they left it up, though. There is this amendment that comes before the second one!
02/16/09
02/16/09
Well, either way, I need to move.
02/16/09
02/16/09
[www.myeyewitnessnews.com]
and
+ Watch video
You can find a bunch more stuff googling "Duanna Johnson."
02/16/09
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02/16/09
The state and the police have traditionally been granted a "monopoly of coercion" to carry out the duties that the citizens have entrusted them with executing. It would be next to impossible for police to keep public order -- which, in theory, is a boon to the citizens as a whole -- without their being able to use force or bend the truth a little. If the legitimate institutions of a state support the use of force, then I say it's okay.
With that being said, however, I completely agree that the police are in the regular habit of abusing this monopoly.
02/16/09
And can you imagine how much it costs to clean and lube that thing up each time?
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02/16/09
That's what she said. That's what she always says.
02/16/09
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02/16/09
Did the Mr.'s issue resolve ok?
02/16/09
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02/16/09
"If the CA is in the business of distributing information, then I'm sure it won't mind publishing a list of HIV-positive Tennesseans. After all, doesn't a mom have the right to know if someone at her child's sleepover has a deadly disease? It's only fair."
Oh lord. What exactly is it about guns that make people so passionately crazy? I think it's probably the fact that for the first time in their neglected, bumbling lives they actually have the direct power of almost-magical death over the lives of their fellow man. I don't think you're ever going to get guns away from these people. It's really all they have.
02/16/09
Don't forget the Bible!
02/16/09
So, I mean, it doesn't explain how the psychosis works, but it gives you an idea of how it manifests itself.
Then again, he also "reasoned" that you shouldn't help homeless people unless they're crippled, because the cripples can't fend for themselves, see?
I lost of lot of brain cells listening to Ted Nugent.
02/16/09
I don't think there is much of a safety risk to those on the list to having their information posted (namely because it seems to only be a query page for an already-online state DB). If anything it'd be a pretty usefull tool for would-be B&E-ers. 1) Case Area 2) Discover names and addresses from mailboxes/mail in said boxes 3) Search handy DB to discover liklyhood of resident being armed.
Personally, I'd be more pissed about not being on the list (although I do have a nice "Security Provided by Smith & Wesson" sticker in my front window).
02/16/09
02/16/09
If Memphis has as bad a crime problem as last night's King of the Hill lead me to believe, these people who have gone to the trouble of getting a license to legally carry their guns outside of the home now have to concern themselves about their homes being burglarized when they are out.
Where I live, the average response time for a police officer on an emergency is a little over five minutes. That's a long time to sit there and be a victim if you have another choice.
Besides, haven't you ever seen Die Hard? Where would John McLean be if he hadn't been packing.
You also should give that tired "embarrassed to be an American" line a rest. There are three hundred million people in this country. You're not going to love every one of them.
02/16/09
But nobody's talking about a right to bear weapons. What the issue IS is that a newspaper published a public database of however many tens of thousands of people are packing in the city. A weird if interesting little tidbit, and people went bat-fucking-shit insane. Not because of any reasoned response, but out of a combination of fear, paranoia and righteosness that basically typifies an American.
02/16/09
I know it may be a bitter pill, but suck it up... If you want the Government to do things for you, you have to do things for it. That's how the system works.
02/16/09
yeah, that's right, if you have a gun you don't want any privacy you ignorant fool. Anyone with a gun must be an asshole who want people to know.
02/16/09
As you point out, "nobody's talking about a right to bear arms," including me. I was discussing the merits of bearing arms. Perhaps a distinction without a difference. If the newspaper had run with a story that was about the number of people with concealed weapons permits and listed some interesting stats I would say that they are within their purview and trying to sell a few papers. When they waste valuable print space recreating the list of the peoples' names who have concealed weapons permits, I smell an anti-gun agenda.
I guess the paper is a handy tool so that you could keep it up in your kitchen and look up anyone you know to see if they had a permit or not. Next week the paper can list all of the people that have DUI's so you can see who has one on their record and who doesn't. The week after they can do traffic tickets, and then cannabis arrests then they can start listing peoples incomes. Memphis can be a great town where no one has any secret from anyone else. Sounds a bit like a little country in central Europe in the 1930's.
I realize that everything that I mentioned is public record information, but there is still a bit of privacy within the vastness of government archives.
02/16/09
02/17/09
Your suggestion that they should be is weird and Big Brotherish.
Equating earning a living with owning a registered firearm shows a lack of familiarity with one or the other.
02/17/09
What demonstrates a lack of familiarity with gun laws on your part is the fact that not every state requires gun registration including Tennessee. The newspaper printed a list of concealed weapons permit holders, not registered gun owners. The latter doesn't exist in TN. The next time that you call someone out on a point of fact, you may try google searching your own or at least reading the subject article:
"The Memphis Commercial-Appeal posted on its website a publicly available list of citizens who have concealed weapons permits."
It was in the first line.
02/17/09
Because owning property is an act with enough of a public dimension to make disclosure of the significant facts an important consideration, while simply earning a living isn't.
That's what makes something akin to owning a firearm, which has a similar public dimension that is illustrated by the necessity of registering for a permit.
I accept the distinction you draw between registering a weapon and registering for a permit. Is the official repository of permit information not called a "registry" or something equivalent in Tennessee?
02/17/09
If they had listed a grand total and some statistics like: "that's a concealed weapon permit for every four people in the county" or "there are more concealed weapons permits than dogs," I would have had no issue with the article.
They could even have detailed the information on how to obtain the names of people in the area with concealed weapons permits and I would have backed the newspaper. I just don't see how a regurgitation of a government database serves the purpose of the story or the interests of the public.
02/17/09
Your criticisms on that point are pretty strong, and I defer to your greater knowledge of the context in which this editorial decision was made.
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