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Comment by post_break | Hacker News Reader

This helps eliminate a victimless crime. The criminals will still carry illegally and this bill actually upgrades the felony for those who are caught carrying who legally could not.

Now someone who needs to carry who can't afford the overpriced classes, fingerprints, waiting for the state to mail you a card to give you your rights is gone. A lot of poor people need to carry a gun for protection, and either cant afford the other hurdles, or just can't make time to jump through all the hoops.

Remember, we're not the first state to allow this, not even the top 10, permits continued to go UP in states that passed these laws, and crime did not go up.

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"A lot of poor people need to carry a gun for protection"

How utterly dystopian.

It's true though and has always been the case. Working odd hours not the usual 8-5, might not have a car so walking to work sometimes at night, living in heavy crime areas because it's affordable. I'm not projecting, just calling it like it is and why this bill is a good thing in the eyes of the people who don't even consider this sane.

A gun wants to be used. Let's let it simmer a few more decades and see what happens.

Ok Vermont has had it for decades. You can be 16 years old and carry in that state. Resident and non-resident. Wait and see has passed.

Vermont's largest city has a whopping 42k inhabitants - at this scale it isn't surprising that this has no noticeable negative effects.

" Don't carry a gun if you're not ready to draw it, don't draw a gun if you're not ready to shoot. "

-Every gun instructor ever.

The issue is if someone wnat to jump on you and you have a gun, especially with no training, you'll be more dangerous to yourself than anyone wanting your wallet. I got robbed three time, because i was in the situation you describe (no money so have to live in high crime area, no car, and odd hours coz i had to finance my studies). I resisted one time, the first one. Trip to the hospital, police station, wasted a day for nothing after the robbery.

The two others i was polite, gave them my money ( rarely have more than 20 on me) and they let me keep my credit cards, ID and my phone (my shitty firefox OS did not impress them). I wouldn't be able to shoot at someone, so a gun on me is lost, and i think especially in a high crime area, walking with a gun would be a bad idea (and i know how to use one)

And i hope you have good armorers in TX with this law, because is someone want to buy a SW500 or the new tech S&W (don't have the name) and never used a gun before, they might kill their aggressor, but most likely not touch them, loose a hand in the process.

I mean, the Second Amendment doesn't come with restrictions, requirements or qualifiers, and American gun culture is the reason owning a gun is seen as an unrestricted, inalienable right, and not a responsibility.

This is what the people of Texas want, let them get it good and hard, I say.

I mean, the Second Amendment doesn't come with restrictions, requirements or qualifiers

I mean... it does. It's right there, in the first dozen words.

It's confusingly written, and the Supreme Court has decided it doesn't mean anything at all. But it seems weird to pretend that it just doesn't exist.

It's so bleak that people think the solution to violent lawlessness is more guns, more violence.

Now in the hands of untrained civilians. Normally you could say their unadulterated freedom allows them to commit accidents, but that's hard to swallow when you've just said the poor are desperate and without sufficient support from law enforcement. That's not freedom.

What’s wrong with giving people options?

Um. Yes. Giving people more options to live their lives as they see fit, rather than forcing them to rely on the benevolence of a government, is indeed freedom. By definition. Please don't post in bad faith.

People living in places where they feel they need a gun, can't afford the lessons aren't empowered by this, they're a hostage to poverty and undercontrolled crime. Any rational person of means would move away. All they can do is pick up a gun and hope it isn't stolen and used on them.

Law enforcement isn't governmental benevolence, it's the foundation of society that stops people violently taking everything you have. Life without fear gives people options. Fund effective policing and social programmes (which directly and demonstrably improve L&O outcomes), education, get [all] guns off the streets.

The supreme court has decided that the police have no obligation to interrupt a crime or protect you from violence, only to investigate afterwards. Even if they decide to, they're minutes or sometimes hours away.

> The supreme court has decided

We shouldn't give up on progress because of how five judges read a bit of old parchment. I'm talking about societal aims, and of course, they're just my opinion.

We should want to decrease crime, not just shoot at it. That's not just education, drug rehab, it's a solid police presence and community engagement. A world where the top earning 10% still interact with the bottom earning 10%. We keep moving in the wrong direction.

Castle Rock was 7-2 and indeed was unanimous on the question at issue as a federal matter.

From Justice Stevens' dissent: "It is perfectly clear, on the one hand, that neither the Federal Constitution itself, nor any federal statute, granted respondent or her children any individual entitlement to police protection."

The basis for the dissent was that Justices Stevens and Ginsburg believed, out of deference to federalism, that the Supreme Court should not have ruled on the issue of whether state law provided for such a right, but instead should have deferred to the federal district court or certified the question to the state Supreme Court.

Moreover, the Constitution is emphatically not "a bit of old parchment." For shame.

You ignored what I said.

Tomorrow's progress isn't dependent the Constitution. What we want for our future does not rely on the permissions of what came before it.

What you said was "We shouldn't give up on progress because of how five judges read a bit of old parchment"

It isn't five judges. It isn't a bit of old parchment. Your dishonesty is unbecoming.

> "Now someone who needs to carry who can't afford the overpriced classes, fingerprints, waiting for the state to mail you a card to give you your rights is gone. A lot of poor people need to carry a gun for protection, and either cant afford the other hurdles, or just can't make time to jump through all the hoops."

The same could be said for voting. Interesting that Texas went the exact opposite direction in that regard.

But why not make the classes state-provided and cheap?

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