I don't think so. It's doubtful she had a clue what was in it aside from a broad overview of the key parts. It was after all over 2,000 pages, right? It was a glib assurance which we see in hindsight was unjustified.

Or they aren't at all ignorant of how US Congress works, where each congresscritter come with its own reality deflection system, and things, like the actual content of bills, don't really matter.

Irrelevant. The point was in response to the GP's ridiculous assertion about the "current understanding" of gun rights in the United States. It is not and never has been an "understanding" in the United States that everybody should or can have firearms.

I had to get permission from our County Court Judge before I could legally touch a handgun, never mind own or carry one. He could have said no for almost any reason that he wanted. The law says I can't have a license unless I have "proper cause" but does not define what proper cause is.

It is literally a felony to pick up a handgun in New York State without a license. If you so much as touch a pistol without a license you go directly to jail without passing go or collecting $200. That's been the "current understanding" in New York State since 1911, so you'll forgive me if I can't take people like the GP seriously.

You are wrong.

ok, I'll bite. I understand how the internet works as well as most people who don't spend most of their time writing RFCs (I owned an ISP back in the dial-up days and I've configured BGP as a network admin).

However, I also understand public choice economics and the fact that once the FCC begins to regulate the Internet (in the name of Net Neutrality), their incentives are driven by the politics of the commissioners (hence why this decision was 3 Dems vs. 2 Reps) and by the companies they regulate. It's nice when that sometimes coincides with the interests of the "regular guy", but it typically doesn't over time. Examples from history abound. See Baptists and Bootleggers.

I also understand that Comcast vs. Netflix was about contractual rights and was solved by the various parties making private agreements for bandwidth and transit usage, not by government regulation.

The supposed "reason" for the FCC regulations (prioritizing content providers by ISPs) isn't something that is actually happening in a widespread manner nor negatively affecting consumers, so why give a small government body control over the Internet so that they can over time regulate it pretty much however they want to.... and by want to, I mean how their political and embedded corporate interests want them to.

Shouldn't be done anywhere it's inappropriate for a heterosexual couple to do the same. I really don't feel like watching anybody go to first base while I'm trying to eat dinner, thank you very much....

Ah, gun nut, one of the favorite insults of the anti-rights crowd. Much easier to demean those that disagree with you rather than respond to their points, eh?

Personally, I object to Fedex's position because they're citing concerns about the law, when the law says nothing about gun-smithing tools.

And yes, a lot of guns get shipped despite their policy marked as 'machine parts'.

If they just said 'we don't want to ship this because we don't support gun-rights', then we could boycott them with a clear heart.

(Note: More libertarian than conservative).

Actually, it can. Beware of state rules, it has to have a maker's mark and serial #, and you definitely can't be 'in the business' without a FFL, But if you make a firearm, the decide to sell it(and it's the only one you sell) in a used condition 4 years later, having fed 1k rounds through it, then you're good to go. Selling a non-used individually manufactured firearm is an indication that you 'might' be in the business, so don't do that. Try to not make a profit on your hobby. Definitely don't make a business so you can deduct your tools & supplies.

But I still recommend on reading up on the rules first.

You've been able to get '80%' finished receivers for decades that didn't need much more than a drill press to finish. This does lower the bar, but not by much.

If I got something like this, I'd

Except of course... that photograph is of a highly regulated environment in India with strict government granted monopoly.

So in other words, the photo shows the exact opposite of your argument to be bad...

You're the one who claimed, emphasis mine: "the current understanding of gun rights in the USA is a late 1900s dirty harry style invention of anyone should have a gun ." Don't try and backpedal away from it now.

I could respond to your silly training argument by pointing out:

1. Driving is a privilege, not a constitutionally recognized right.
2. The prefatory clause is not a limiting clause. It was not imagined as such by the people who wrote it nor ever interpreted that way by a court.

Of course, what's the point of having that discussion? You've got the facts so hopelessly wrong that I believe your ignorance is willful. One bloody Google search would have been enough to dispel your misinformed belief about the "current understanding of gun rights in the usa" and you couldn't even be bothered to do that.

Personally, I'm in support of 'all of the above'. The internet today fills the place that phones did back then. I also think that the 1st applies to more than hand operated printing presses and the 2nd to more than muskets.

If a law doesn't make sense anymore, it's time to amend or repeal it.

Automatic weapons have been heavily regulated since the 1930s, were further regulated in the 1980s, and the civilian ownership thereof is exceedingly rare.

You're thinking of semi-automatic weapons, like the AR-15 which look like their automatic counterparts, but are in fact no deadlier than any semi-automatic firearm. The United States Government has been selling surplus semi-automatic military issue firearms to the general public for decades, so it's a bit late to claim that semi-automatic firearms represent a level of firepower that should be unavailable to civilians.

I will concede that the provocative asshats who open carry AR-15s into Starbucks are just that, provocative asshats trying to piss people off for no reason. I view them the same way I view gay couples that engage in PDA in inappropriate settings (read: anywhere it would be inappropriate for a heterosexual couple to do the same) solely to piss people off.

Excessively small control of waterways results in more economic harm because you get gridlock, so 'nobody' gets 'anything'.

For the pinkertons - I suggest studying history. It was bad, they were used more to enforce virtual slavery than libertarian freedom. It's part of the reason I'm a moderate - I keep the lessons of history in mind. That's actually conservative. ;)

An HOA is a form of government, if a limited and unofficial one. You have elected representatives, and it can pass 'laws', IE rules and regulations, that affect you in the future, and your only option is to campaign against them, summon help from a higher government power, or leave the community.

Also, leaving said community is only marginally easier than leaving the country. I've left the country multiple times, so I know just how hard it is. Fact is, once you have your bags packed, it's only marginally harder to leave the country than it is to move to another house in the same city.

And you keep flipping the goal posts. First you attack me for 'micromanaging', then you attack me for NOT micro-managing by dividing the country into arbitrarily small chunks for special treatment on the pollution front.

I've already outright acknowledged that it's not perfect, but that I consider the gain in efficiency and freedom to be worth it.

Please provide citations for the societies that have pursued my solution, and how they destroyed themselves. Heck, please provide a citation for a society that tried 'simply' charging for pollution, as opposed to issuing 'permits' and charging 'fines', often waiving them, and finding it a disaster.

'Groups of people' = groups of individuals. Do not mistake my referring to 'groups' as anything more than shorthand, and my admittedly flawed grasp of the english language. I also don't claim to be a fundamentalist libertarian. You're trying to shove me into a different pigeonhole, but if we got into topics where you weren't looking at something that causes wide amounts of generalized harm, you'd quickly get into where I'd be giving the progressives even more heart burn.

Especially given that pollution tends to affect LOTS of individuals, if not the country as a whole.

Though I guess you have convinced me - there needs to be something in the system where if the pollution is somehow concentrated enough to affect individuals specifically enough to separate out the harm, then said individuals should have the right to seek compensation from the polluter.

I'd only have the EPA charging for the 'generalized' harm, that is too diffuse for proper compensation.

You're forgetting the principle of non-aggression. Where I differ from fundie libertarianism is that I believe that there needs to be a recourse other than the expensive court system to try to manage and prevent the harm up front, rather than trying to bankrupt the company after the fact, leaving many harmed with no recourse from a bankrupt company.

Unless you:

1. Are a convicted felon.
2. Are a convicted domestic abuser.
3. Are currently charged with any crime punishable by a year or more in prison.
4. Are an unlawful user of any controlled substance.
5. Are addicted to any controlled substance, even one lawfully proscribed.
6. Have been dishonorably discharged from the United States military.
7. Have renounced your American citizenship.
8. Are the subject of an order of protection.
9. Are a fugitive from justice.
10. Are in the United States illegally.

Those are just the people proscribed from ownership under Federal law. Many States have tougher laws and add even more people to the list. Some (my home state, New York) go further and treat gun rights as a privilege, requiring a license, which is doled out at the whim of local bureaucrats who can deny you for virtually any reason they wish.

Point being, nowhere in the United States does the "current understanding" of gun rights say anyone should have firearms. Do you actually know what the existing body of Federal, State, and Local law has to say on this subject or are you just repeating talking points you read somewhere?

You realize that you're using the 1st Amendment on a computer, right? I'll turn in my modern firearm in favor of a musket when you exchange your computer for a printing press.