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Comment by jakebasile | Hacker News Reader

As one of those vilified "gun extremists", I'm cautiously optimistic here. We'll see what happens when the decision comes out, but maybe we'll get nationwide constitutional carry out of this.

It's bizarre to me how many of the same people that say we need to massively rethink policing still think it's a good idea to put the right to defend yourself from people attempting to do you harm behind a piece of paper given out by the police. Or to say that someone should go to jail and lose the right to vote/own a gun for life because your barrel is 15.9" instead of 16". Or that you should have to wait a year and pay a tax to have slightly less hearing damage.

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The problem is gun advocacy, like many other issues in US politics, have been bundled into bipartisanism, and are now loaded, complex issues.

Most people around me who are pro-2A are staunchly pro-police, staunchly against movements like BLM, for authoritarian type figures, etc. Police are often very pro 2A.

I'm generally pro 2nd amendment. But I am strongly for police reform. Despite being a right, the 2nd amendment should never be a necessity. If it is, we've failed as a nation.

> Despite being a right, the 2nd amendment should never be a necessity

It's funny how many things this can be applied to, but a lot of people don't seem to get it, on both sides.

I don't understand why it's hypocritical to want police reform and want guns/carry to continue to require licenses, even if those licenses must come from the police. Also, it sounds like you're describing the consequences of regulations that people want, where those regulations fail for being too blunt, but are framing it as those people wanting those consequences, which would make these apparently-many people quite evil, and of course, the easiest thing is to cast those who disagree with you on policy as evil (and to cast yourself as vilified).

It's not but dividing people along connected issues makes PR (manipulation) easier and that's worth a lot of money.

> It's bizarre to me how many of the same people that say we need to massively rethink policing

Policing has many aspects, and some may be currently working while others may not. See "Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020":

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26924367

> […] it's a good idea to put the right to defend yourself from people attempting to do you harm behind a piece of paper given out by the police.

Waiting periods, background checks, and prohibitions associated with domestic violence reduce gun violence:

* https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy.html

Waiting periods also help reduce suicide (as does safe storage laws).

I sort of agree with you, except that your conflation of 'people who say we need to massively rethink policing' and gun control advocates seems off the mark. Advocates of institutional abolitionism tend to be well to the left of reform-minded liberals, and supportive of arms-bearing rights on principle.

I admit it's a somewhat broad brush - I should've said the _party_ that generally says we need to rethink policing and so on. It is hard to break away from the two-party system in the US.

Mandated Constitutional carry is probably a pipe dream. If SCOTUS rules against New York (and that isn't guaranteed by any means) I would expect that they tackle the "good cause" requirements that many states have for permits, where "good cause" often means "are you a personal friend or have you donated a large sum to my political campaign." Some states like Hawaii have the "good cause" language in their permitting system but they don't consider any reason at all to be "good cause" and blanket deny all applications.

>It's bizarre to me how many of the same people that say we need to massively rethink policing still think it's a good idea to put the right to defend yourself from people attempting to do you harm behind a piece of paper given out by the police.

... says someone who puts their right to keep and bear arms against the government behind that government's Constitution.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. I never stated that the right to keep and bear arms (or any right) is inherently given by the Constitution since that would be false. The Constitution does _protect_ and specifically enumerate some inherent human rights.

If the Second Amendment doesn't grant a legal right to keep and bear arms, why is it necessary?

If it does, and is, how is it any different than a gun license or permit in being a legal fiction whose legitimacy depends on a government whose motives can't be trusted?

He said that 2A doesn't give us the right. It recognizes a pre-existing natural right.

> The Constitution does _protect_ and specifically enumerate some inherent human rights.

This is a religious belief - that rights are inherent to human beings. It's debatable whether gun ownership is an inherent human right beyond how we define them.

So the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights is religious?

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