When you say “busted”, what do you mean? Was he doing something illegal, or just had a large collection?
Because if it’s the later, I’m not sure what the issue is. You can believe in (American style) gun control and still believe it’s fine to have a large collection.
Yes, type of gun rather than number of. How many can you use at once?
Correct. Having a collection of weapons that have been made safe by filling the barrels, that your ancestors have collected from various battlefields because they were soldiers going back to the civil war for example, is different from the rabid gun nut that goes out and buys the biggest most lethal weapon he can get his hands on.
But its moreso, in the USA only really extreme left people are arguing for restrictions on number of guns. The “central left” side of the debate is around banning assault weapons, registration and licensing, background checks, waiting periods, controls on storage, remove hold your ground, limits on carry concealed, etc. Simply banning all guns or limiting the number someone can own isn’t usually part of the policy arguments.
That’s obviously very different to what Australia would consider mainstream right/left arguments around gun control. But the USA is a special snowflake.
When you are rabbiting about gun-control then the last thing you need to do is collect 23 guns, including semi-automatics. They were not a collection of old guns. He was charged with actioning a shake-down of two businessmen, something he had been doing for a long time and had been getting away with. By busted I meant caught out holding this amount of guns as part of the criminal action.
He uses a loop-hole in the law that allows PI’s to carry guns, so he has a PI licence. Not sure why a PI would need 23 guns?
And if you are going to be a champion of gun-control then i don’t think it looks good for you to have that many weapons while you force others to give up theirs.
This guy is pretty left.
Here is another potential Dem candidate to look out for. He is from Ohio which should soothe the “heartland”.
Cannot agree less.
The few extreme Left is USA are gun nuts like the extreme right. Most own guns for perceived self protection, and the NRA are mostly very right and they own many guns.
I have a good friend in Texas, born in New York, married a blonde Texan Belle from Lubbock and they live in Austin. He collects guns and has over 200 rifles, shotgun and handguns. He votes Democrat and is liberal in his views, so I don’t reckon you can really pigeonhole the politics of gun owners, it is more a social phenomenon.
Yep spot on @Bacchusfox, gun control is certainly not a left/right issue at all. There are many, many people on the left who love their guns.
The Mad Hatters tea party.
No speech for you!
Does the US have our equivalent of a Royal Commission? The only people I have seen discuss gun control in the U.S has been the various TV and Internet Talking Heads. Most of them are partisan and spout opinion rather than fact.
They have something more intimidating; a Senate Hearing. You do not need an Act of Parliament to call one, and they have very wide powers.
Have they had a senate hearing on gun control? I do remember Obama saying in a Town Hall meeting that Congress refuse to discuss the matter. It would seem the best way to inject fact into the matter rather than endless cycles of opinion pieces.
I do remember discussions on proposed changes to the U.S gun laws.
They have them regularly. I think after one in 2013, the Gun Laws became softer !!
Um, you’re mostly agreeing with what I said. Maybe I should have said “some of the extreme left”, rather than “the extreme left”. But I think you’ll find the only people arguing for limits on gun numbers are on the extreme left. They just don’t represent the entirety of the extreme left.
My main point was that in the USA you can be simultaneously for gun control, have a large gun collection, and this isn’t seen as contradictory. Which is kind of what @IceTemple didn’t seem to be getting. He didn’t seem to understand that this isn’t contradictory in the USA, and doesn’t mean you’re only saying gun control for the little people. Your point mostly agrees with my main argument.
In my experience Ants, all extremists right or left are gun nutters. Extreme Left are not about progressive societies, but about total authoritarian control usually with guns or other violence. Extreme a Right are also not about progressive societies, they want no control and total freedoms to do as they want, again with guns and violence.
Fundamentalist communists or socialists are usually peaceful in their activism, unless it includes animal rights or trees, as then they go feral.
I think you’re painting a broad brush of the people who are “extreme left”, when there are various types of extreme left groups.
I was told about an interesting position taken by Guiliani in a CNN interview yesterday. He’s now saying that he’s never said there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. He’s now arguing he always said there was no collusion between Trump himself and Russia.
When Trump’s own lawyer appears to have given up arguing that there was no collusion between the campaign and Russia, you might want to rethink your position.
Yep
Which I can’t understand why this wasn’t his position from the start. Yelling zero collusion and witch hunt was just stupid. He can’t possibly know what all his staff did, allways better to leave some wriggle room.