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Comment by cityofdelusion | Hacker News Reader

You may want to consider viewing things more neutrally. As someone who doesn't care about guns, your dishonest take on the gun control "debate" is obvious. If you are going to apply a silly caricature at least do it to both sides ("they want to take all your guns" vs "they don't care if children get shot at school").

A nuanced view of the actual debate is that one side believes the second amendment is absolute and the other believes that it allows for some restrictions similar to the free speech / "fire in a theater" situation. The posturing you see around this is just to rally votes, that is the meta-game. Too many Americans are unable to separate the rules of the game and the underlying issues at stake.

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> A nuanced view of the actual debate is that one side believes the second amendment is absolute and the other believes that it allows for some restrictions similar to the free speech / "fire in a theater" situation.

You presume that there is agreement among the first group that the First Amendment is not just as absolute as the Second.

BTW, that "falsely yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theater" bit was actually a threadbare excuse to punish people for protesting the draft, something many would consider protected political speech. The hypothetical scenario is not very well reasoned, either, even ignoring the context. If anyone is hurt during the evacuation the fault lies with those who panicked and trampled them in their haste to escape, not the person who claimed there was a fire, regardless of whether that report was true or false. The most they could reasonably be held responsible for is the interruption of the show for an orderly evacuation.

I don't think this is accurate description of guns debate I have seen.

> The posturing you see around this is just to rally votes, that is the meta-game. Too many Americans are unable to separate the rules of the game and the underlying issues at stake.

What you call meta game is in fact the real thing. The posturing is expression of values and opinions. It is reflected in laws and court judgements. Too many people domt take it seriously and even worst blame those who take it seriously.

Then the "posturing" becomes policy and laws. While the same people oretend to be all surprised ... who could have guess they would do exactly what they said they will do.

I don't think my description of right wing talking points is caricature. The right wing do see any reasonable reform as "taking our guns away", their side is the one that fails to see nuance. That absolutist, literalist read of the constitution is the side without nuance, categorically. My view of gun control is neutral, I want to protect the rights of citizens to stand against their government and I acknowledge that loose gun laws can lead to harm, direct or indirect. That is the most neutral position possible and sitting members of Congress would consider me far-left and fascist for it. The Right is seemingly allergic to nuance, incapable of digesting reasonable objection. How do you meet in the middle with that?

How far right are we talking? In your previous comment you said Republicans. Now you say right wing. There may be extremist groups that say any regulation is unconstitutional (which can apply to guns, speech, etc). But that doesn't represent everyone. Gun groups have supported past restrictions/laws. Even fairly recently the NRA said that they support banning bump stocks.

The real question is, what is considers an infringement? This is true of other rights as well. It's hard to define without trampling rights, especially for minority interests in a democracy.

fair, I do use right-wing and republican interchangeably. In this context I do mean republican politicians and media commentators that largely follow the conservative party line, and not the more nuanced voting base that is potentially open to debate.

> The real question is, what is considered an infringement?

gee itd be great if that question was discussed in right-wing media instead of uncritically painting every attempt at discussion as a violation.

"gee itd be great if that question was discussed in right-wing media"

I don't just mean on this issue, but in general. We see vastly different controls on guns/abortion/voting/etc from state to state. When is a restriction an infringement? Who decides that and on what basis? It seems that it's up to judges, but what happens if none of the judges are members of the minority group who are being restricted (think segregation)? That's the part I find interesting.

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