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Comment by 2OEH8eoCRo0 | Hacker News Reader

Take social media activity into account during background checks. Increase the age to purchase to 21. 1 month waiting period.

I'm a gun owner btw.

I also wonder what interesting things would happen if in order to own a gun you must drill with a militia.

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What do you mean by take social media activity into account?

Should people who have unfashionable or unpopular opinions be not allowed to purchase a firearm? Or is it that they made a threat of violence at some point?

I think the latter should be somewhat disqualifying! Obviously, a standard would need to be created, but it's not impossible to draw that line.

It'd have to be threat of violence.

Nope. When doing a background check for a clearance they do it just fine. I worked with all sorts of nutjobs in defense. They just weren't violent nutjobs.

You don't have a constitutional right to work in the defense industry.

The 2nd Amendment has limits. Why do I need stricter background checks for machine guns and short barreled rifles?

That's not the Second Amendment. That's the NFA. The Second Amendment is very clear with its intent ("shall not be infringed"). It's the opinion of some folks that we have laws, like the NFA, that violate the Second Amendment.

Does the constitution define "the people" as something that necessarily belongs to and devolves to individuals?

Or for instance, does it mean that the federal government can't ban state organized militias?

Yes, actually, it does very clearly mean individuals. To quote the relevant amendments that cite "The People":

9th: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 10th: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

What meaning would the 4th have, if "The People" were state assemblies? "The right of the people to be secure in their persons"... Would that mean it was up to individual states to decide if you are secure in... What, exactly?

Or consider the 1st, "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"... Why would a state need to petition "The Government", as it is "The Government".

There is no reasonable reading of the constitution that reads the second amendment as anything but an individual right.

only rich democrats would be allowed to own guns - for evidence see how concealed carry permits are handed out in blue areas. The government is incapable of wielding that level of power without massive corruption.

A modest $90,000 in donations to a very specific charity in Santa Clara county, though in years before I've heard it can be had for a bit less if you're not in a rush.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/10/19/main-witness-in-santa...

The age restriction is illegal, just ruled on by CA Supreme Court.

Social Media activity check is a violation of the 4th amendment.

You can't tax or gate a right by requiring someone to join a militia.

Just a thought: If the constitution prevents things that would work to prevent this problem form reoccuring, maybe the constitution needs fixing. After all it is rather old and contains a whole bunch of other bugs as well.

> contains a whole bunch of other bugs as well.

You might get agreement on that point. You won't get agreement on what the bugs are, though, so fixing them by changing the Constitution is rather difficult.

The constitution already has that in account however you need a constitutional amendment that would require 3/4 majority in both houses of Congress to approve that.

However right now trust in the government is so low that even if the constitution was amended many gun owners would probably be unlikely to accept the result.

>require 3/4 majority in both houses of Congress

2/3rds of each house, 3/4ths of the states

The ruling you're talking about was not the CA supreme court, which would be unlikely to rule that way. It's a federal appeals court; it was a politically motivated 2-1 decision. https://news.yahoo.com/californias-under-21-gun-ban-23182808...

Checking your activity on social media during a firearms background check is not a violation of the 4th amendment.

You can certainly enforce the second amendment militia requirement, although it will require a vast different SCOTUS than the one we have now.

You cannot gate a right with a requirement to be in a militia. Even if you could, you only need one person to be a militia.

The government looking through your personal information requires due process, otherwise its a violation of the 4th amendment.

Militia is a big part of the 2nd amendment. Why is that mentioned at all?

Unfortunately the current definition of "well regulated militia" per the Supreme Court doesn't require either regulation (in the sense of laws, or even discipline and training) or a militia.

If that's allowed then let's just go the whole hog and consider "keep and bear arms" as null and void meaningless words too.

Who knew the solution was so easy.

Unfortunately, that phrase is apparently immutable.

It's an explantory/reasoning clause. I saw this somewhere and think it's a good example: If there were an amendment that said "A well educated electorate being necessary to the functioning of the democracy, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed", you'd have a very hard time convincing me (or I think most people) that said amendment limits the right to keep and read books only to those that are either well educated already, or by only the electorate (and not say, children or felons).

Likewise, if the first amendment said something along the lines of "A personal connection with his creator being necessary for a upstanding and moral citizen, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." I think you'd also have a hard time arguing that athiests and agnostics don't have a right to free expression or to not have a religion forced upon them by the government.

You don't need a warrant to view public social media content.

> Checking your activity on social media during a firearms background check is not a violation of the 4th amendment.

If it was non-public activity, I could imagine a court finding that it is. I could also imagine courts finding using social media activity that doesn't unambiguously indicate intent to commit a crime as part of a firearms background check to be a violation of the 1st and 2nd amendments.

> Take social media activity into account during background checks.

Besides the blatant first amendment violations, this would be incredibly subjective and abuse prone.

> Increase the age to purchase to 21.

We should take away 18 year olds right to vote as well. If they’re incapable of owning a firearm then they’re clearly incapable of having a voice in deciding the rules around them.

>I also wonder what interesting things would happen if in order to own a gun you must drill with a militia.

Given the nature of American militias, likely white supremacist radicalization.

If everyone must? I think the opposite. Militias would become less white and less radical.

This is a great example of an actually productive, comparatively low-cost solution that we aren't willing to do as a society because of right-wing politics.

My personal view is that anyone can own a gun but should be required to take mandatory "militia" training courses twice a year (like 8 hours). This alone will probably limit the number of people wanting to go through the process. Another thought is that people could keep their guns in their locally ran armory that they could go and practice whenever they want and checkout guns for hunting purposes. Also no semi-auto for hunting (so no need to checkout a semi-auto from the armory), we already limit shotgun capacity to 3 for bird hunting so maybe this could happen.

Sorry, that requirement is illegal.

This is not how discussion works. Please try adding to the discussion.

Never said it was legal, just what I think it ought to be. If you could ever amend the constitution, it would never be a ban of all guns, or even semi-autos, but perhaps you could bring people along by allowing people to have any kind of weapon they want (even full auto) if kept in an armory. Being locally run and not by the state or feds would also make it a bit more appealing. Basically strengthening the idea and legitimacy of the militia rather than being an antiquated concept. Personally I wouldn't actually mind going to training like this a coupe times a year, but ya still not likely to happen.

So anyone who can vote should take 8 hours long courses twice a year, with a deep dive into history and civics, right? Because, let's be honest, if the clueless crowd votes in a chaotic autocrat, the damage will far exceed those few thousand deaths by guns.

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