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Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

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Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#181

Post by jeffdavis »

ptcampbell wrote: post #164
jeffdavis wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that rifles are involved in such a small number of murders, why go to all the effort of including rifles in the ban? Seems like a big logistical challenge and you'd make a lot of your fellow citizens unhappy. If your proposal is to ban all semi-auto pistols (including from police) but allow all semi-auto rifles (without allowing state/local restrictions), you might get some traction. Such a plan would be better…

I'm not naive enough to think any ban would be easy, but the logistics aren't insurmountable. There has been a ban on assault weapons before. Eventually, there must be legislation to reduce access to military-style assault rifles such as those used in mass shootings.

Why must there be? We are talking about small numbers of deaths and a large number of people who want (and/or currently own) rifles.

Sometimes you just need to be practical and look at the numbers. Just because you don't want a rifle doesn't mean a ban has zero cost or that the cost is somehow not a valid one. Many of our fellow citizens want the freedom to own rifles and you should have some respect for that.

The better case for gun control in every possible way is pistols. But nobody will ever budge on pistols if they sense that it's just a "first step" to confiscating rifles as well. The only way to get any kind of gun control is to earn trust by showing respect for ordinary citizens owning rifles, and from that point of respect you can make reasonable suggestions on pistols.

Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#182

Post by robomartin »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #176
robomartin wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very concept of a civilized society requires everyone to living by the laws and rules that society agreed to as their guiding principles. When you live in the US the Constitution, perhaps, the most important of these rules. If we are going to talk about government derailing and doing as they wish then no piece of paper can protect anyone. At that point it becomes about guns and blood. Which sort of drives the poi…

How does any of that make your original statement true? Also: > If we are going to talk about government derailing and doing as they wish then no piece of paper can protect anyone. At that point it becomes about guns and blood. No, it doesn't, if there is sufficient consensus for authoritarianism. I mean, except for the few people who don't agree, maybe. > That scenario is very, very far from reality in the US for mo…

I have lived and I am from three different cultures. I have lived and experienced military dictatorships, utterly corrupt Latin American fake democracies and, yes, life in the US. I have traveled and done work in many countries around the world. I am not an expert, but, yeah, I am not an "ignorant American" as many like to paint anyone from the US.

You still don't understand the key difference and I am not sure I can explain it well enough for you to internalize it.

That piece of paper and the words on it mean a lot.

They drive a massive legal system that takes that piece of paper and the words on it very seriously.

And so, if a bad politician, from the President on down to a local city official, a law enforcement person or any inhabitant of the US for that matter, behaves in a way that violates those words, the legal system makes them pay the consequences of their actions.

This does not mean that we are 100% infalible in this regard. Nobody is. There will be bad politicians, cops and people from time to time who will get away with misbehaving. That's just reality.

However, in the US, for the most part, these laws are respected AND enforced. They mean something and, in particular, the Bill of Rights exists outside of government. They can't take away your freedom of speech or engage in unreasonable search and seizure, etc. without suffering devastating legal consequences.

The only way this would not be so is if society as we know it in the US derailed to the point of anarchy. That is very far from reality. Impossible? Nothing is. Highly improbable? Absolutely. This isn't Venezuela. Yet.

Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#183

Post by robomartin »

ptcampbell wrote: post #174
robomartin wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven't seen any evidence of an arms race in Australia or NZ, for example. Their laws prevent it. That's the problem with these comparisons. You have to compare apples to apples. I'm sure they have pretty good gun control in North Korea. There's an app for that. > Could it be that no one has satisfactorily answered your hypothetical questions because despite you obviously thinking that you've cornered someone wit…

> Their laws prevent it. That's the problem with these comparisons. You have to compare apples to apples. Oh, OK. Different then. Had better move on. > I'm sure they have pretty good gun control in North Korea. There's an app for that. But this glib comparison with North Korea makes a lot more sense. > No. People don't answer the question because the only honest answer exposes the fallacy in their thinking. Well, fir…

No, your questions aren't even close to being equivalent.

My questions go to the core of the problem. They expose the fallacy in the thinking. That's why gun-control advocates don't want to answer them.

Have you ever seen this website:

https://heyjackass.com/

Check it out.

So far, this year, in Chicago, 100 people have been shot and 25 have died.

Last week alone 9 people where shot and killed.

Yet NOBODY is talking about it in the media. NOBODY.

Last year?

2293 shot; 461 killed; 516 homicides.

NOBODY TALKS ABOUT IT. EVER!

Why?

Because Chicago has some of the strictest anti-gun laws in the nation. And Chicago is proof that the approach is nothing less than stupid.

When there's a shooting at a mall and 8 people get shot it is all over every single TV network for days and days. Every single politician goes on TV talking about banning guns (mostly "assault rifles"). And yet, that is happening in Chicago EVERY SINGLE WEEK and nobody talks about it.

Guns are NOT the problem my friend. Criminals and crazy people are. Period.

I can't turn an honest person into a killer by giving them guns.

Give criminals and crazy people guns and you have a problem in your hands.

The nexus is stupidly clear and yet we seem to, for some incomprehensible reason, not want to talk about it. It's far easier to blame the hardware than the software I guess.

Go study the FBI crime data for a bit. Last I looked THOUSANDS of people were murdered using knives, hammers, baseball bats and other objects. These murders didn't happen because someone got a shiny new baseball bat or happened to find a rock! What, they were walking around, saw a rock and though: I need to kill someone!

C'mon. Let's get real. That's the only way to save lives.

Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#184

Post by vidarh »

robomartin wrote: post #158
vidarh wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're conflating SCOTUS role as an arbiter of law vs. whether or not their decision is factually correct. A 5-4 decision is binding, but no decision is automatically factually correct just because SCOTUS made it, whether it is unanimous or 5-4.

> You're conflating SCOTUS role as an arbiter of law Well, that's what they do! How else do we decide then? Do I get to drive 150 miles per hour because I don't think the speed limit laws are factually correct? After all, I am quite capable, I have spent thousands of dollars learning and practicing race car driving and if I am on an absolutely empty road... You can't pick and choose what laws you should obey. We are…

The comment above was not talking about what the laws are, but about fact. That the laws are what they are does not change facts. If SCOTUS rules tomorrow that the sun orbits the earth, that does not make it fact.

You're doing the exact same thing again of conflating an argument about fact with an argument about law.

Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#185

Post by vidarh »

robomartin wrote: post #150
vidarh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This distinction is mostly philosophical and historical in as much as it forms part of how these issues are framed. No person except perhaps a few strange fanatical monarchists goes around in the UK and thinks of themselves as subjects of the queen rather than citizens, for example. The framing of where rights comes from can affect debate, but in and of itself it says very little about to what extent you can expect e…

> This distinction is mostly philosophical and historical Not in a court of law, where it matters. We can be dismissive, but this distinction has true and legal significance. As I mentioned in one of my notes, this is the reason the government of New Zealand can decide to confiscate weapons while, in the US, it is so close to impossible that it is. > laws, even constitutions, can be changed, and regularly are Laws an…

> Not in a court of law, where it matters.

Pretty much the entire thrust of what I wrote was about the legislative process, which makes what happens in a court irrelevant, as they are confined to interpret it.

> The US Constitution can be changed, yes, but it virtually impossible. This is particularly true of REMOVING rights in the Bill of Rights.

The US constitution has been changed on a regular basis. To me the number of substantial changes shows that it is not "virtually impossible", but of course you're free to have an interpretation of "virtually impossible" that is different from mine.

Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#187

Post by aabeshou »

esoterica wrote: post #66
robomartin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All individual rights are carved out from the default government Not sure this is how you meant it. If you mean to say that rights come from governments that is not quite correct, at least not in the US. Rights, in the US, are not GRANTED by government, they are RECOGNIZED by the US Constitution to exist OUTSIDE OF GOVERNMENT (upper case is for emphasis only). In other words, these rights don't require government i…

> Rights, in the US, are not GRANTED by government, they are RECOGNIZED by the US Constitution to exist OUTSIDE OF GOVERNMENT (upper case is for emphasis only). In other words, these rights don't require government in order to exist. This is semantically vacuous verbiage. Rights have no meaning unless you have a system of human organization (e.g. a government) that allows those rights to be enforced and respected. In…

This is excessively pedantic bordering on bad faith

Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#188

Post by vidarh »

robomartin wrote: post #155
vidarh wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is exactly the point: These things have weight and meaning as a consequence of there being a country of laws that recognizes them. Without a political entity to recognize or enforce them, they are just words. They're not some inherent property of people or nature, but concepts created through law and enforcement of law. As such how they are worded is no protection - only peoples willingness to resist changes is…

I think what's missing from this conversation is the mindset. In the United States, those words on paper are are respected by government and the people demand this to be the case. The culture is such that these things are not optional. Your right to free speech being a simple example. If don't live in a country that behaves this way it is likely very difficult to understand how this could be. I lived in Argentina dur…

> I think what's missing from this conversation is the mindset.

That was exactly my point. Hence why I wrote:

> only peoples willingness to resist changes is actual protection against rights being eroded.

Re: Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

#189

Post by ptcampbell »

jeffdavis wrote: post #181
ptcampbell wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not naive enough to think any ban would be easy, but the logistics aren't insurmountable. There has been a ban on assault weapons before. Eventually, there must be legislation to reduce access to military-style assault rifles such as those used in mass shootings.

Why must there be? We are talking about small numbers of deaths and a large number of people who want (and/or currently own) rifles. Sometimes you just need to be practical and look at the numbers. Just because you don't want a rifle doesn't mean a ban has zero cost or that the cost is somehow not a valid one. Many of our fellow citizens want the freedom to own rifles and you should have some respect for that. The be…

I am not advocating a blanket ban on all guns. Rifles, sure. For hunting, sport, farming etc. But semi-automatic AR-15s have no place in a civil society. Preventing access to them seems like a sensible compromise, and it has been demonstrated to be effective in other countries. My friend's son had active-shooter training at school. He is six. That is an unacceptable situation.
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