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Comment by TheAdamAndChe | Hacker News Reader

Why not just live in a state with more strict gun laws and let people of other states live like they want? As someone in the rural US, guns are part of my heritage. Police response times can be 40+ minutes in non-urban areas, and removing legal guns would just make us vulnerable.

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Because the Republican party and the Supreme Court has been eroding the ability of states to HAVE more strict gun laws?

I live in California, why don't the folks who want guns GTFO themselves, instead of trying to change our laws through activist judges?

So we're in agreement that regional cultural differences need to be embraced and allowed in the legal system. Good! Now what do we need to do to make this a reality in our justice system?

I'm actually NOT convinced that such differences should be allowed, but given that you ARE: you should change the constitution - or the members of the courts interpreting it - to allow my state to restrict guns, because right now the claim is that such a thing violates the second amendment.

Why are you so concerned about how people in other states choose to live?

Guns don't stay where they start.

Hell, it's even an INTERNATIONAL thing - US guns end up enabling violence in Mexico, too!

> Guns don't stay where they start.

Neither do criminals, drugs or marriages, however I don't propose giving people in the next state over control of those things.

What are you talking about? States have been running wild passing unconstitutional gun laws for over a decade. All the Supreme Court has said on the 2nd amendment is the feds and states can't ban weapons in common use, specifically handguns - yet California has completely IGNORED this via it's handgun "roster" which is deliberately designed as a slow motion handgun ban. And you can't blame Republicans either - they have no power to stop California (which has a D supermajority) from passing gun laws.

"Over a decade" because pre-2008 it was much more of an open question what "constitutional" meant re: gun laws, no? Hence my claim of erosion: one party decided that their interpretation was now the law of the land, overruling what the populations of certain cities and states might want.

I thought activist judges were bad?

Is judicial activism now just any time a case is decided in a way you don't like?

Hah, I grew up listening to enough Rush Limbaugh to know that it's ALWAYS been that, I just like co-opting some of the terms.

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