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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   27303 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023

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Well sure, blue states are trying their damnedest to ignore federal gun rights. I won’t dispute that because it isn’t wrong.

I do want to point out that, in practice, the usual anarchy-tyranny thesis will not apply. The cops are by and large able to tell who’s law abiding other than guns, and have to wish to get into a confrontation over laws they privately think are silly. Yes, some people will get unlucky- but a lot of them will get their cases overturned, either by federal court or by state level authorities trying to give federal courts an excuse for the ‘no standing’ game. If anything, it’ll be the opposite- the cops will mostly arrest for gun violations where they expect to find weed or something else that lets them keep the feds away, and red tribers who don’t otherwise break the law will increasingly ignore gun laws.

I do want to point out that, in practice, the usual anarchy-tyranny thesis will not apply.

It absolutely applied in the recent spate of rioting, where legal outcomes were markedly better for rioters than for the law-abiding attempting to defend themselves.

It absolutely is applying in administrative actions, like the longstanding de-facto policy to ignore straw purchases by associates of gang members and violent criminals, compared to the aggressive pursuit of law-abiding Federal Firearms License holders over minor clerical errors or even no error at all, provided the statutes can be subjected to sufficient creative interpretation.

...Your basic argument is that pro-gun-control politicians are not actually aiming their coordinated meanness at the law-abiding gun culture. That assertion is patently absurd.

...Your basic argument is that pro-gun-control politicians are not actually aiming their coordinated meanness at the law-abiding gun culture.

No, my basic argument is that pro-gun-control politicians are not capable of coordinating meanness, and don't fundamentally care enough to become capable.

...okay, what's your standard for coordinated meanness? What set of facts would convince you of the contrary?

Yes, some people will get unlucky- but a lot of them will get their cases overturned, either by federal court or by state level authorities trying to give federal courts an excuse for the ‘no standing’ game.

it's the opposite, most people who get involved will have their lives permanently damaged and a small few lucky ones will have the money or principle to go to trial, get convicted, perhaps spend time in prison, and maybe get their case overturned

people uninvolved in the system vastly overestimate the amount of justice which is dolled out by it; the truth is the vast majority of people will simply be ground into dust, plead out, pay their legal bills, and attempt to move on damaged whether the specific case against them is constitutional or legal

you see a case in the news about a court overturning a case and it gives you the perception of this being common in many of these scenarios when the reality is it's not common, it's extremely expensive, and the entire time the outcome is in doubt and many who go this route do not make it to the just outcome you think is a regular remedy and even when they succeed, they've had this affect years of their lives and likely lost a fortune in cash to pay legal bills and opportunity cost

Unfortunately, the opposite effect exists as well. Normal high-functioning law-abiding citizens who technically break a law will often get it enforced on them over low-functioning criminals because it's less risky and/or an easy way to make numbers look good. And this especially happens on people whom the police is biased again in the first place, which is the entire point of anarcho-tyranny. A typical example is that honest & otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants will often get into more trouble with the state than criminal immigrants, because the former will naively seek out directions from the state, while the latter will just actively avoid the state entirely. Independent on whether you think the former should be here, this is often a misallocation of resources & attention away from the difficult but truly important towards the easy but overall meaningless (aside from also setting up terrible incentives).

Existing examples of gun laws in blue states don’t work that way, though. The cops ignore rednecks with their guns and affirmative defense to obviously illegal gun restrictions are common.

That's a little complicated. The cops up western Massachusetts or upstate New York don't religiously enforce the laws. If you stop to piss in Albany or live in New Jersey, they will absolutely love to come down on a rando like a stack of bricks. Gets their numbers up, no one that matters is gonna complain, and it's not like a law-abiding gun owner is going to resist arrest or shoot back, right?

Anarcho tyranny is in full effect. Use a gun for a proper purpose, like defending yourself from a rioter, and you will end up in the clink. The rioter, not so much.

Yes, some people will get unlucky- but a lot of them will get their cases overturned, either by federal court or by state level authorities trying to give federal courts an excuse for the ‘no standing’ game.

They'll plead out to whatever's offered just to avoid being killed on Rikers Island. Because you know the soft-on-crime prosecutor won't be offering bail to white collar gun criminals.

What chance does the average white collar criminal have of getting murdered on Rikers lol

As our local black pill Nybbler points about below, Rikers is a jail, not a prison, and as such hasn't segregated the population into violent pyschopaths and others.

There are thousands of assaults at Riker's each year, and in 2021, 15 inmates died.

If an otherwise upstanding citizen were to defend himself from rioters using a gun in NYC, he could absolutely end up at Riker's where there is a high chance of being assaulted and a non-trivial chance of death.

From searching, it seems almost all deaths at Rikers are suicide or drug related, not homicide.

We separate prison pop by gender and bad-dude-ness, why exactly aren't we separating by ethnicity too?

Prison is effectively segregated by race in several states, most notably California.

Rikers is technically a jail, not a prison. And its reputation is very useful for exactly the reason stated -- it can be used to force people who aren't hardened criminals to accept a deal. Why would the city want it to be any better?

We do, just not until you get in.

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