Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

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"So essentially being able to charge and convict someone (with due process) of 'violent intent', with no financial or incarceration penalties, but temporary addition to a lists that preclude their being able to access dangerous material (guns, explosives, etc)."

I'm not sure what you're getting at on this one. This individual faces potential incarceration. He is on bail and would be denied access to dangerous things... in theory. Of course he manufactured explosives, so it's not like he has to pass a background check to come into possession of them again.

"and we'd all be able to be afforded greater freedom if we did a better job in managing those particular people's access to lethal things."

Do you have some examples of additional freedoms we're missing currently?

"Of course, the NRA has historically been the biggest lobbyist blocker to anything of that nature, given their paranoia that any legal government consequences will spiral into a panopticon."

I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to that they oppose. But the legal term for a slippery slope is the Overton Window. Speaking of gun regulations generally, it's not hard to understand why a pro-gun group would be against the types of additional regulations that are already present in other states that arguable do not improve safety or could even reduce it in legitimate use circumstances (eg hollowpoint bans, etc).

>Do you have some examples of additional freedoms we're missing currently?

Freedom from gun violence for thousands of US children annually?

I'm talking about freedoms as in things you can do that were previously restricted by law. People typically don't think of stuff like being negative for lyme disease as a "freedom" from lyme disease. But I also don't see how your claim would be applicable to the conversation at hand. It's jumping to conclusions to say a red flag law would protect thousands of children when places like RAND have not identified any evidence of their effectiveness beyond a possible reduction in suicide.

> This individual faces potential incarceration. He is on bail and would be denied access to dangerous things... in theory.

The current US justice system is based around conviction of a crime (which usually requires having already committed it, or a VERY high bar for having intended to do so) in order to impose consequences (usually severe).

Or limitations on individuals' rights after conviction of the above.

There's no lesser standard of 'at higher risk to commit a crime', aside from a patchwork of short-duration city/state red-flag type laws, most of which are being challenged in court.

> Do you have some examples of additional freedoms we're missing currently?

Access to NFA-controlled devices? [0]

E.g. a breach-loading potato gun

> I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to that they oppose. But the legal term for a slippery slope is the Overton Window.

The Overton Window isn't a legal term: it's a PR/clickbait term.

The NRA has and currently opposes red-flag laws [1], even when constructed with due process procedures, because of its mistrust of any government firearm regulation.

If they instead switched their lobbying approach to productively crafting due process procedures that would allow targeting individuals with a history of threats, abuse, and violence, the rest of us could benefit from greater freedom to dangerous devices.

Instead, their tunnel vision on absolute freedom requires repeatedly casting a blind eye to inconvenient situations where disturbed individuals leverage that freedom to kill others.

Solving problems requires clear-eyed appraisals of the risks and benefits of various approaches to arrive at optimal outcomes.

The NRA has fueled the exact opposite, by leveraging histrionics and fear mongering, not least for its own financial gain. Fuck em.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_II_weapons

[1] https://www.nraila.org/search/?t=79503

Oh, you're talking about red flag laws. What makes you think passing red flag laws will provide additional freedoms? It seems highly unlikely that those who support the current red flag laws would support any loosening of other firearm restrictions. Your statement also implicitly assumes that red flag laws would be significantly effective to allow looser restrictions overall. However, groups like RAND have found no conclusive evidence that red flags work. The best evidence they have is potentially reducing suicides. What would the protections you mention look like? The whole point of moving things like red flag laws or civil asset forfeiture to the civil side is because it lacks the protections on the criminal side - lower burden of proof, no right to representation, ex parte proceedings, etc. It's no wonder we see constant abuses of the process in traditional PFAs during divorces in many states. Surely we could fix the existing processes to ameliorate the problems and concerns thus providing a solid basis for the argument to expand them. Currently, the ACLU opposes most of the red flag laws due to civil liberties issues.

I would bet that the NRA will propose ammendments to any national red flag legislation introduced, just as they helped shape the 1968 legislation once it looked inevitable. That's all a part of the political game. Sure, the Overton Window is associated with some clickbait, but it's a real and valid concept in politics. This is why groups aren't going to volunteer to help implement things that are counter to their goals, be it the NRA or Everytown. Do you really think Everytown would support something like national reciprocity in exchange for red flag laws? No, as they are also a hardliner and playing the game.

"Solving problems requires clear-eyed appraisals of the risks and benefits of various approaches to arrive at optimal outcomes."

So what's the solution? What's the optimal outcome?

No, I'm talking about the need to have a discussion around moving access restrictions to before a crime is committed, while still ensuring individuals have access to due process.

The NRA's blanket opposition to red flag laws is simply one example their willingness to ideologically fight even the simplest approach to a priori restrictions.

> So what's the solution? What's the optimal outcome?

In my ideal world, the US would lean more heavily into universally-accessible but universally-required certification for access to dangerous devices.

Similar to motor vehicles, the default should be that no one has access to these things, but everyone has a right to obtain certification to have them.

As an example, that would look something like national "must issue" concealed weapons permits, but contingent on completing a non-trivial safety course and passing a background check (to ensure the individual isn't spending their free time talking about murdering people online / to their neighbors, appealable ofc).

Instead, we've spent ~60 years wringing our hands to try and square the circle between {everyone deserves access to dangerous things} and {some people are too irresponsible to have dangerous things}.

Why not just start with those facts and craft a viable system from there?

Yeah, that's going to be a tough sell considering the problems with the driving test being a joke and the history of requirements in some areas just being a pretext to deny rights to specific groups or individuals (still to this day). The main problem I see is that a safety course isn't going to prevent violent crime. It could prevent use of force issues or accidents, but those tend to occur at an extremely low rate already (for civilians). The background check part is already implemented depending on jurisdiction.

The way the current system is set up, it's supposed to weed people out before they get access to the more dangerous stuff. As juveniles, if they get convicted of certain offenses, they will be prohibited, at least until 35. We have eroded various aspects of this with selective enforcement, plea deals, and the promoting the continuation of childhood with delays in freedoms and responsibilities. Then for the of-age group we have stuff like conspiracy, voluntary/involuntary commitment, terroristic threats, and all manner of prohibiting offenses. There's certainly some room for improvement, but it hard to say what an effective improvement would be.

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