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What is meant by terror suspect? Who does the suspecting? If it is left up to the seller of the gun, then one man's suspect might be another man's patron.

Well, I'm sure that the government keeps track of terror suspects for public display.

Well in Texas, down the street from where I used to live, an old man ran the gun shop. I'd bet my life he didn't cross reference a government list before selling a gun.

Well Jeremy, if gov't passed a law, they would have to check the list.

Yeah, what do you mean by suspect. You can't take away legal rights of a citizen simply because you "suspect" them of something.

There are lots of people on government watch lists who are either on their by error (try looking at data mining where people's names are mixed together) or who you would probably not ordinarily associated with the stereotypical assumption of "terrorist". Ie, you'll have a fair margin of people who probably wouldn't buy guns anyway but are in fact activists or even terrorists of some sort and a fair margin of religious fundamentalist gun nuts.

So long as you're okay with that, I guess I don't discount this as a legitimate viewpoint. I should think there are much stronger cases against mental disorders and criminal priors being a good predictor for violent action than a label as a possible terror suspect.

I believe the government shouldn't let terror suspects, those with mental disorders, and criminals, to have guns but a substitute.

Why take the chance of having them doing something we will later regret?

Ain't the way things get done in Texas.

So by that logic if we think someone is going to commit a crime, without any evidence to suggest that they will, it is okay to penalize them for it?

What's the "substitute"? And why is that okay and a gun not?

At least until we know they are innocent. Get a gun with rubber bullets instead of real ones, or something like that.

Is protecting the lives of ours really less-valuable than letting a guy have a loaded gun as a weapon. There are alternatives.

That argument can be applied to the rest of us as well. That's my point. You're essentially saying that there is no second amendment.

Getting a gun illegally is easier than most people think. Better to have security at places like airports and not to infringe on gun ownership rights. If terrorists are going to have guns, then I want law abiding citizens to have guns too.

Second ammendement is the right to bear arms against the government, not literally with guns and stuff.

*ammendment

Yea, that's the police department's fault. Most of the terrorists are citizens.

I really think that there should be an alternative to guns though, like rubber bullets or something. They knock out the person unconsciously. You shouldn't have to kill someone to get away from them.

Well I live in New York State. They've even made mace illegal here. All the laws are so strict here, that the only people who are armed (In the cities at least) are the criminals. In the UK they went through a huge gun ban and crack down to virtually eliminate gun control, now they have huge knife crime problems. Criminals are going to get the most dangerous thing they can get hold of. It doesn't make this discussion easier, but it's the truth.

The word 'control' was a typo in my last post. Obviously they got rid of guns, not gin control.

Yea, it's strict here in New York City and it's the most powerful city in the world. We have to come up with some Minority Report stuff to prevent crimes from happening.

Police do not exist to protect you. They exist to investigate crimes in accordance with due process of law.

So what happens when you call 911 when a robber is in the house, do they tell you to wait until something happens or do they rush to get to your home and arrest the suspect?

You're still sort of glazing over this with a focus on guns, which is understandable given the subtextual heading. It doesn't matter if they use different non-lethal ammunition for all I care. They could all get tasers or katanas or go get jujitsu training. Those are still weapons to be used to induce harm and damage. The idea is to prevent legal access to weapons of any kind to the people who would use them deliberately to commit harm (by means of a serious medically documented mental imbalance or a previous record of violence) . Not specifically to make blanket assessments of "this person seems dangerous" and deny that person a weapon of their choice. That's a rather more dangerous precedent to enable.

You can still kill people with rubber bullets in case you weren't aware. Most "non-lethal" weapons can at worst still inflict serious bodily harm. If used wrongly, you can very easily kill someone with a taser for example.

It's still better than a loaded gun.

I have a solution to all of this. How about everyone is allowed to have a gun once they pass a government weapons test.

If you actually watched the movie they got rid of that program at the end. Perhaps it simply never crossed your mind to wonder why that would be. It was not simply explained by the morally questionable actions of the program's director.

They would do so, yes. But they don't generally respond in time for you to actually defend yourself against an intruder. Their function in that case is to arrest the perpetrator in the act, making criminal prosecution easier.

No. It isn't. It's still a weapon. You still don't get to use them for any purpose you like but rather for very specific purposes like self-defence. Just as we have for guns.

That takes a negative right accorded to the public that can only be denied under certain well defined legal circumstances and turns it into a positive right that the government grants you. I don't think that's the best solution at all.

Who the heck would say yes to that?

If you meant allowing terror suspects to have guns; I did for one. More or less.

Who determines who is and who is not a terrorist?

The currant administration now wants to prosecute those who interrogated terrorists from the last administration, and they have already said that those of us who have been to war defending your freedom are ripe to be recruited by terrorist organizations.

Somebody needs to get a grip on life here, and it ain't me!

Anybody who believes that people are innocent until proven guilty, and believes in the fundamental right of personal protection.

This of course goes double for a secret government list where one cannot see what names are on it, nor how the names were placed there, or what stipulations must be met to get ones name OFF the list.

Actually no. For an FFL to sell a gun the ATF forms need to be properly completed and then a National instant Background Check needs to be performed (I believe the FBI runs the system) What the anti-freedom bigots want to do is link the Terror Suspect list (again people who have committed no crimes, and are likely unaware they are on a list, or why) with the NICS. So you try to buy the gun, and you'll flunk….no reason given.

So no cross-checking of lists need be done.

Just violations of the US Constitution as well as local laws…..

Sure, once a person is allowed to freely speak once they take a government free speech test. Freely assemble and gather once they take a government ettiquette test.

be free from illegal search and seizures once they pass a government law test.

Ect ect. Also who gets to write the test? Obviously we should make it REALLY hard, otherwise it isn't really worth giving a test.

Human rights SHOULD be subject denial by the government, and should be granted only when a "legitimate" need is given, right?

Jared, you really scare me.

There's still time for him to test his assertions against the real world yet.

I hope anyway.

I hope you're right….