Opinion of Obama's gun speech today

[Mr. Reactionary]

Unfortunately gun nuts, NRA and their Republican stooges prefer to see children massacred by madmen rather than accept common sense reforms.

Yup. And Democrats absolutely love to see rape and sexual assault rather than dump rapist defender Hillary Clinton and serial harasser Bill Clinton.

[Mr. Reactionary]

If there were no gunshow loophole, then you wouldn't be so strongly opposed to closing it now would you?

The concern is that Congress may only regulate interstate commerce; that's why they can require gun dealers in interstate commerce to get an FFL which requires background checks. When a father gives his rifle to a daughter, or a grandson inherits a rifle from his grandfather, or a man loans his rifle to his boyfriend for a hunting trip, that is not interstate commerce. Closing the "gunshow loophole" is the idea that non-gun dealers must also get a federal license to sell or transfer guns, even if they only have one. This is not just a bill of rights issue, its a separation of powers issue. And federal law, passed by Congress specifically states that the occasional buying, selling, trading, or transferring of guns by hobbyists is NOT commerce subject to federal regulation. To quote Justice O'Connor from the abysmal Gonzales v. Raich case, you're trying to empower the federal government to regulate local "quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers."

What I do have a problem with is the way these background checks have been expanded to those who have not committed any crimes or shown any propensity for violence due to their receiving certain services - this has been the case for a while with mental health services at the VA, and now it is being expanded to those who Social Security has determined are not able to manage their finances on their own.  The stigmatization and establishment of an incentive not to seek help is very troubling.  I don't know why this hasn't gotten more play.

Excellent point. Just because an elderly or physically disabled person is somewhat confused about managing their finances does not make them a danger to society or themselves. Conditioning the surrender of a constitutional right on the receipt of government benefits which many on the left would say these people "earned" or are "entitled to" is despicable and pointless. Even Obama's own Council on Disability Policy has expressed concern for this proposal: http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/2016/ncd-reacts-president%E2%80%99s-gun-control-proposals

[Mr. Reactionary]

If there were no gunshow loophole, then you wouldn't be so strongly opposed to closing it now would you?

The concern is that Congress may only regulate interstate commerce; that's why they can require gun dealers in interstate commerce to get an FFL which requires background checks. When a father gives his rifle to a daughter, or a grandson inherits a rifle from his grandfather, or a man loans his rifle to his boyfriend for a hunting trip, that is not interstate commerce. Closing the "gunshow loophole" is the idea that non-gun dealers must also get a federal license to sell or transfer guns, even if they only have one.

Unless SCOTUS has reversed Wickard v. Filburn when I wasn't looking, those examples of yours all constitute interstate commerce.  You'd be on far firmer ground sticking to the separation of powers issue you raised than on whether transfers of property constitute interstate commerce.  That said, closing the gun show loophole isn't about restricting transfers of single guns but those of multiples by people who are acting as dealers without registering as such because they don't use a fixed location of business.

Nominally. I keep thinking about how its been implemented at the State level though. Washington State closed the loophole last year, but in so doing, expressly considered any individual transfer as triggering the background check requirement. That likely includes if two friends are target shooting a shared rifle on one's property, years after the gun was purchased. I know the Wickard-Raich threshold is low, but NFIB v. Sebelius recognized some limits to when actions in the aggregate = commerce. Wickard and Raich both involved the production of a new commodity (previously unexisting wheat/marijuana). Loaning an already existing tool to a friend does not create a new product. It would be like requiring a car owner to perform a background check on any future passengers, regardless of where the car is being driven and for what purpose. It's not so much a commercial regulation as it is a regulation on property. Again, some of these laws expand well beyond commercial transactions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/11/02/how-everytowns-background-check-law-impedes-firearms-safety-training-and-self-defense/

[Mr. Reactionary]

No one ever asks Gun Control Advocates the tough questions.  If you don't think I have a right to a firearm, do I have a right to self defense?  And if I don't have the right to either does the government have the right to use force to disarm me? 

[Mr. Reactionary]

Gun rights are not more important then human rights. The founders who wrote the constitution would he rolling in there grave if they saw the gun nuts today. More guns equals more gun deaths that's a fact.

How are they mutually exclusive?  The right to self defense is an integral part of human rights.  Murder is murder no matter what it is committed with. 

 Americans are dying in mass shooting at an increasingly horrific rate and gun sales are also going up. That's how they are mutual.

According to the mass shooter database at leftist Mother Jones, there were 32 mass shootings in the US between 1981 and 2001. There were 41 mass shootings in the US between 2001 and 2015. In that time, the number of private guns has increased by around 1/3rd. So when for controlling for the increase in sales, mass shootings really haven't increased that horrifically; they're just more widely reported now that we have cable news and Huffington Post. Gun rights ARE human rights.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data

[Mr. Reactionary]

Gun control policy should reflect the original intent of the Founders. Accordingly, everyone should be allowed to own and openly carry as many muzzle-loading flintlock muskets as they would like.

The Constitution never explicitly says that people have a right to get abortions or a right to marry people of the same sex, but you folks on the left consider them constitutional rights regardless of that. How is the notion that the Constitution guarantees a right to own AR-15s (just to give an example of a modern gun) more absurd than the notion that it guarantees a right to get an abortion or guarantees two men a right to marry each other?

You sir are nuts.

When the Bill of Rights was ratified, all guns were military-style, so if anything a right to AR-15s is less permissive than it should be, since the common military infantryman uses an M-16.

[Mr. Reactionary]

I don't see why my one neighbor's hobby deserves Constitutional protection and the other's doesn't, though. 

What if your hobby is composing music, or blogging, or photography, or painting murals outside, or performance art, or organizing political campaigns, or traveling, or hunting, or teaching children to speak a foreign language, or running a religious camp for teens on the weekend? Because all of these hobbies are constitutionally protected rights. (Hunting in many state constitutions anyway). Some hobbies receive constitutional protection because they involve the exercise of an actually recognized right. Performance art involves the right to speak, going to church functions involves the right to freely exercise religion and to peaceably assemble, and collecting guns involves the right to keep and bear arms. Guns aren't protected because they are a hobby, they are protected because they are a right. The fact that some people enjoy this right does not mean that it is somehow entitled to less protection.