But those are all from half a century ago, aren't they? My impression is that from about the end of WW2 up to the 1970s, the US was ahead in these sort of things, but has been increasingly lagging behind since the neoliberalism of the 1980s and 1990s, and has been extremely reluctant to add any new regulations since.

Basically, the whole capitalism philosophy is "better to wipe a whole planet then to allow an existing monopoly to lose one dollar".

Since Reagan, USA are only the leading capitalist country, followed by UK and everybody laughing at Europe for being "socialist" (never understood why this one was a bad word and, to be clear, most Europe is completely capitalist too. Only not as much as USA which are leading with some pretty interesting examples of capitalism.

Like: "better having our children killed in school than allowing firearms producers to lose one dollar". or "better have lot of the population dying from lung cancers/asthma than having tobacco producers losing one dollar".

>Like: "better having our children killed in school than allowing firearms producers to lose one dollar"

This has nothing to do with firearm producers but the second amendment: the right to bear arms is codified in our constitution. Firearms hold a special legal place.

Question. What will it mean for the 2nd amendment when the police and armed forces of the world consists of semi-autonomous bullet proof robots and drones?

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

If guns that fire bullets aren't relevant to the security of a free state does it change the legal arguments?

I think you guys should probably amend the 2nd amendment already

Every man needs a semi-autonomous bullet proof drone.

Or the means to stop them. EMP of some sort?

How about if militia isn't relevant to the security of a free state? The US has had a standing army for quite some time now, and by far the most powerful one in the world. And the only thing that looks like a "well regulated militia" is the National Guard.

The second amendment could be interpreted as meaning that only members of the national guard can own guns, but it's not.

I'm pretty sure Article 1 Section 8 was supposed to prevent us from having a perpetual standing army, but here we are.

> How about if militia isn't relevant to the security of a free state?

This is the interesting thing: in the context of the framers, a standing army would not diminish the importance of the rights of militias at all (and might increase its importance).

Keep in mind that the US declared independence due to perceived government overreach from Britain, which had a huge standing army. One of the primary functions of the second amendment is to ensure that ad hoc militias are possible, to keep the government and its army from overreach.

A militia, by definition, cannot be professional soldiers. Americans owning guns is a well regulated militia.

The US constitution can be changed, which is why it's the second "amendment" rather than the second "article" or the second "clause".

And yet it hasn't. The fact that the second amendment could be removed, but hasn't, is what gives it it's legitimacy.

The broader argument, as I understand it, is:

1. The 2A happened

2. Substantial gun industry developed

3. Tech changed, people increasingly concerned

4. Gun industry now big enough to lobby against any changes to the 2A

Thus, #4 causes the lack of removal of the 2A.

Does it have democratic legitimacy? Probably, but no more so than the 18th had.

Does that contradict "(the preference of the USA is that it is) better having our children killed in school than allowing firearms producers to lose one dollar"? Not at all.

Passing any kind of a constitutional change in the US is by design a herculean task, you don't even need gun industry lobbying against changes.

The NRA has 5 million members. Nearly half of American households have a gun. You can't just waive this off as "muh lobbying". Americans like their guns.

Gun owners don't care if sig sauer loses a buck. They care about their cool toys.

Size tells you very little.

5 million is bigger by headcount than Big Tech, while half the households is smaller.

Big tech lobbies for what serves its interests. NRA lobbies likewise. So does Stonewall, effecting change with fewer members and fewer interested parties.

When it comes to guns, what makes the USA different from the rest of the world? Tradition ("we've always had the 2nd A so it must be good") and lobbying ("nothing can prevent this" says only nation on earth where this regularly happens).

In the context of democracy, size is everything. Like, by definition. If the majority of Americans want guns, then you're never going to get a super-majority to vote to take guns away.

> Big tech lobbies for what serves its interests. NRA lobbies likewise.

The difference is that the NRA isn't a trillion dollar corporation. Its millions of individual Americans participating in the democratic process.

Do you think that people should never campaign for what they believe in? That people should not participate in the democratic process? Or do you only think that when the people in question disagree with you?

> In the context of democracy, size is everything. Like, by definition.

But (a) not in the context of lobbying, and (b) that still demonstrates a preference for dead children over lower gun sales.

> Do you think that people should never campaign for what they believe in? That people should not participate in the democratic process? Or do you only think that when the people in question disagree with you?

You're putting words in my mouth there.

They're free to campaign for things that I'm free to denounce as dangerous and myopic.

> (b) that still demonstrates a preference for dead children over lower gun sales.

How in the world, when the left supports abortion, can you come to this opinion? We prioritize personal safety, not dollars.

By understanding that a fetus isn't a grown children and that the woman bodily autonomy and medical care are no one else business except hers.

Also abortions aren't performed in primary schools 7 years after birth using an AR-15.

They still result in the same. A child is still dead. So yes, to me they are the same.

Let's assume the thing growing inside the womb is a child.

Imagine a person you've never met. They will die if not for a miraculous treatment that requires some of your blood everyday for 9 months. But for the treatment to work, it also requires that everyday the person blood is mixed in your body. There is a small chance you'll die because of this treatment.

Should we force you to accept the treatment or should you have the option to not do it?

If you refuse the treatment and the person dies, would it be fair to equate you to a murderer?

You’re creating a twisted, unrealistic example. A pregnancy is not out of the norm and can be stopped prior to impregnating. There is no force, the person made a decision and changed their mind. Murdering a child in the process.

>You’re creating a twisted, unrealistic example.

Imagine here is a terrible earthquake and many people need blood transfusion to survive. You happen to have the blood type O negative and know it can be used to save lives. You go to the donation center and right before the needle goes in, you panic and change your mind.

The same day a woman has a miscarriage because of trauma from the earthquake and a lack of emergency blood transfusion. Did you murder that child?

It was later revealed that this woman was 12 years old and raped by her father, but the miscarriage was judged suspicious by the authorities and are charging her with murder.

After all people who get pregnant made that decision. Pregnancy can be stopped prior to impregnation. She probably changed her mind and faked getting hurt in the earthquake. Also if she's a murderer, it's not a stretch to assume she's also a liar. She lied about her father and probably got pregnant by seducing one of her male friend.

Remember people, a child is dead! We have to investigate.

Abortion isn't done by gun, so that's a red herring.

Also, pro-choice has two disjoint aspects, such that any given pro-choice may be either one alone or both together:

1. "Are unborn foetuses persons? No, they are not."

2. "Can you force someone to donate a kidney to save someone else's life, which is about the same risk? No, you can't even do that if the donor is already dead."

> We prioritize personal safety, not dollars

You think you do; I argue that the meme that guns provide safety is a false belief promoted by the people with an interest in guns.

Abortion still kills a child. Why is it ok prior to its birth but not afterward? Seems like an arbitrary line to draw.

> You think you do; I argue that the meme that guns provide safety is a false belief promoted by the people with an interest in guns.

That seems ridiculous given that a gun levels the field on attacker vs aggressor. Since you provided no evidence, that could be easily flipped right back around.

If an unborn child isn’t a person, then how come when someone murders a pregnant woman they are charged with 2 murders? Are we saying all of those charges are now invalid and we need to re-hear some cases?

> Abortion still kills a child

People with the position 1. I gave earlier specifically deny this statement.

I agree the line is arbitrary, which is also why I'm vegetarian — I draw the line for personhood to include many non-humans, and thus think killing (some) animals has moral equivalence to murder.

Conversely, a foetus starts off with no brain, so there is definitely a developmental level where I don't see it as a person — I won't care about squashing a fly, why care about a foetus whose brain is less complex than a fly?

There's some pictures floating around of the foetuses of different species, and it takes a long time for human ones to be differentiable from any others, so a moral position that they are already persons by this point should also make someone vegetarian for the same moral reasons they don't eat babies. (Obviously people don't work like that; consistency just isn't part of how humans do this sort of thing).

I'm in the second category of pro-choice, in that while I take no strong position on the personhood or absence thereof for an unborn foetus (I do take a strong position that embryos are not), I do value bodily autonomy to the level of "you can't force someone to do something as risky as donating a kidney even to save another life". Also that organ donation should be opt-out rather than opt-in, but that's a different topic.

> Why is it ok prior to its birth but not afterward?

We don't even have to think about whether or not the arbitrary line is that side of birth, because adoption is a thing.

It's like how nobody's going to care if barbers sell the hair they cut off, even though it's bad if a surgeon sold someone's amputated leg.

> That seems ridiculous given that a gun levels the field on attacker vs aggressor.

(I'm assuming you meant "attacker vs defender" because attacker and aggressor are synonyms).

It does no such thing outside of war, attackers have first-move advantage. Inside a war, the only reason it gives equality is that you tell who the enemy are well before they're in weapon range.

Also, guns aren't a single thing: a pistol, a hunting rifle, shotgun all have different qualities with regards to damage, range, and accuracy. I'm not going to look up which weapons are and aren't allowed in the USA as a whole (I'm not that interested in foreign law) but even limiting to just pistols gets you a significant variation in accuracy and destructive power.

> If an unborn child isn’t a person, then how come when someone murders a pregnant woman they are charged with 2 murders?

Charges are a legal question not a moral one, and that varies by jurisdiction and time. Whatever the moral reality is, it didn't change with the passage of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unborn_Victims_of_Violence_Act nor does it change when leaving the borders of the USA. However, even here, looking at the background to that law, that would still be analogous to "if someone has ingested a poison which will kill their liver, but they can be saved by going to hospital, is it homicide to kill them before they get to hospital?" as the apparent inspiration for the law was people who wanted kids but the unborn were subjected to fatal injuries before birth.

> Conversely, a foetus starts off with no brain, so there is definitely a developmental level where I don't see it as a person — I won't care about squashing a fly, why care about a foetus whose brain is less complex than a fly?

Except the fetus' brain will develop into the most complex brain on the planet, if left alone. The fly's will not. A fly carries disease as well, that's why we kill them. (Humans also carry disease but only some of us consider them vermin)

> I'm in the second category of pro-choice, in that while I take no strong position on the personhood or absence thereof for an unborn foetus (I do take a strong position that embryos are not), I do value bodily autonomy to the level of "you can't force someone to do something as risky as donating a kidney even to save another life". Also that organ donation should be opt-out rather than opt-in, but that's a different topic.

The choice was already made. There are many ways to continue to have sex but not impregnate or get impregnated. What you're saying here is we must continue to allow this type of birth control to exist. We have pills, condoms, various spermicides, "pulling out", and the rhythm method (probably even forgetting some) and yet we have to continue to allow this "after the fact" method?

> We don't even have to think about whether or not the arbitrary line is that side of birth, because adoption is a thing. It's like how nobody's going to care if barbers sell the hair they cut off, even though it's bad if a surgeon sold someone's amputated leg.

I have no idea what you're saying here. Viewing a child the same as hair or an amputated leg is a disturbing thought / visual.

> It does no such thing outside of war, attackers have first-move advantage. Inside a war, the only reason it gives equality is that you tell who the enemy are well before they're in weapon range.

It absolutely does. If someone robs you on the street, they are the aggressor. If they have a knife and you have a gun, guess who wins? If both of you have a gun, well now you're equal. The size of the gun doesn't particularly matter in this situation.

> Also, guns aren't a single thing: a pistol, a hunting rifle, shotgun all have different qualities with regards to damage, range, and accuracy. I'm not going to look up which weapons are and aren't allowed in the USA as a whole (I'm not that interested in foreign law) but even limiting to just pistols gets you a significant variation in accuracy and destructive power.

What is this even supposed to mean? Of course different guns have different characteristics. They all use various ammo and have different barrel lengths. Bullet weight, powder amount and barrel length all determine the velocity, and therefore the force, of the bullet impact.

> However, even here, looking at the background to that law, that would still be analogous to "if someone has ingested a poison which will kill their liver, but they can be saved by going to hospital, is it homicide to kill them before they get to hospital?" as the apparent inspiration for the law was people who wanted kids but the unborn were subjected to fatal injuries before birth.

Again not sure what this has to do with anything.

US constitution can be changed in theory. Hardly so in practice.

Portraying any of the first ten amendments as an after the fact is beyond dishonest. No version predating the bill of rights was ever run in prod. They decided that those ten features were necessary before they even released the thing.

I'm not American, to even partake at this level I have to Google which amendment is guns, which one is speech, and which one is self-incrimination.

But Googling did reveal a few surprises like #27 being proposed during the same Bill Of Rights era of amendments, it only got ratified in 1992.

And Delaware ratifying the constitution in 1787, the BoR amendments being proposed in 1789, Rhode Island ratifying the constitution in 1790, and the BoR amendments being completed in 1791.

Stuff was weird back then.

Eh, give it 200 years, people will say stuff will have been weird back now.

"Grandpa, what was it like before the Von Neumann swarm disassembled the Moon?" ;)

That doesn’t change the original argument that we allow gun ownership because we want corporations to make money.

Yet the right to free speech and assembly have far more restrictions in place.

> Yet the right to free speech and assembly have far more restrictions in place.

That’s patently false. There’s an incredible number of federal and State regulations involved in the purchase, transfer, transport, and even storage of a firearm.

What restrictions on speech and assembly would you consider more onerous than any of those?

I find that most people that claim guns themselves are the problem, and that there aren't already enough restrictions, don't have much or any experience with them.

I don't really know how people manage to read the second amendment any other way than "due to the fact that a militia comprised of every able-bodied person is fundamental to a free society, every person has the right to own, carry, and operate anything that constitutes arms." It's pretty simple, really.

Better go renew my warrantless search and seizure immunity permit, and my journalism permit.

America has an amazing level of freedom of expression, to the point I've seen a lot of Europeans get outright shocked that the concept of "hate speech" doesn't exist in our laws.

But also that you can't say "shit" on American TV.

> But also that you can't say "shit" on American TV.

Yes, you can. South Park is on American TV, after all.

It is most definitely not on the air in the US. It is only available through “private” cable and satellite networks. We still have, and enforce censorship laws on public over-the-air broadcasts.

Here’s the overview of the rules, and you can in fact say shit on the air:

https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/obscene-indecent-and-pr...

Some channels won't air swearing, so they can reach better deals with providers. That's not a law.

You may have noticed that the firearms industry is one of the biggest proponents and lobbyists for the current interpretation of the second amendment. Other interpretations are possible, and of course it can be amended again, if people decide it's harmful. But that's unlikely to happen as long as there's a powerful lobby interested in keeping things the way they are, even if it means hundreds of children are shot in schools every year.

More like it’s unlikely to happen while people like me still exist. Take away the NRA and we’ll just create a new one. Why are some determined to stifle citizens voices?

Firearm law has not been a constant through the years. There were pragmatic restrictions that have slowly been eroded and left us with where we are now.

You mean like the assault weapons ban that had no effect on safety yet keeps getting pushed for? Or magazine limits that somehow miss that you can carry and load more than one magazine thereby still accomplishing nothing? Or the red flag laws that were just used to take an individual’s property without due process because someone doesn’t like guns?

Which gun control laws actually work to stop criminals from getting guns? Especially when they can be 3D printed.

> Which gun control laws actually work to stop criminals from getting guns?

This is a terrible argument. Lawmakers codify crimes, not deterrents.

The corollary to your point would be that, since criminals exist, that implies laws don't work as crime deterrents, thus most should be abolished.

> that implies laws don't work as crime deterrents, thus most should be abolished

When it’s related to the second amendment, I’m absolutely in favor of abolishing them.

Which frankly sounds a lot like “rules for thee, not for me”.

I get that some people love their hobbies, and don’t like to be inconvenienced by the law. But, I find trying to justify gun ownership, and their relationship with abolishing tyrannical governments, childish and comedic to an extreme nowadays. Like, I want a drone, but I’m not going to throw a tantrum every time the FAA issues a new ruling.

We get it. You like guns. You don’t want to give them up. Stop making shit up, you will never stand in arms against the government, and you will not be part of a “well regulated militia”. Hell, I bet all my savings that, if there was a draft right now, to strengthen the military against a genuine and imminent threat, most gun owners would not volunteer, because shooting at cans, and at the clouds during the 4th of July is pretty much all they really do.

I’m wondering why fireworks aren’t constitutionally protected, though.

> I get that some people love their hobbies, and don’t like to be inconvenienced by the law. But, I find trying to justify gun ownership, and their relationship with abolishing tyrannical governments, childish and comedic to an extreme nowadays. Like, I want a drone, but I’m not going to throw a tantrum every time the FAA issues a new ruling.

The FAA introducing a new ruling around drones cannot lead to a tyrannical gov. Full stop, your example is not the same.

> We get it. You like guns. You don’t want to give them up. Stop making shit up, you will never stand in arms against the government, and you will not be part of a “well regulated militia”.

Now you're getting irrational and can predict the future. Not gonna respond to this part.

> if there was a draft right now, to strengthen the military against a genuine and imminent threat, most gun owners would not volunteer, because shooting at cans, and at the clouds during the 4th of July is pretty much all they really do.

You're talking to a wartime veteran. Please tell me more how I didn't honor my oath.

> I’m wondering why fireworks aren’t constitutionally protected, though.

Because it's not a firearm.

Clearly you're being juvenile in your opinions and ready to throw a right away because you, just you, don't believe it's valuable. You believe people do not have a right to protection and likely want guns banned so that the left can turn this place into a dictatorship without any resistance.

> You believe people do not have a right to protection and likely want guns banned so that the left can turn this place into a dictatorship without any resistance.

Finally.

You said I’m being “juvenile”. You are clearly delusional.

What would any sane person call someone who thinks that the “left” in the US, whatever that means, is out to create a “dictatorship”? What will your guns do against an Apache helicopter?

If there is a danger to democracy, that would be the loads of people who clutch to their guns thinking that the “left” is coming for them, people who claim that they are “ready to resist”.

Because these paranoid types are two Breitbart articles away from becoming Three Percenters.

> What would any sane person call someone who thinks that the “left” in the US, whatever that means, is out to create a “dictatorship”? What will your guns do against an Apache helicopter?

You call me delusional, then ask what Id do when the gov uses their weapons against its people. Not realizing this is exactly what we’re protecting against and clearly forgot natives have the advantage.

You’re also forgetting that Marxism requires a conversion to a dictatorship, and then that dictator giving their power up to bring in socialism. This should’ve never been said.

The rest of your post is a bigoted insult, which I won’t respond to (and is in fact against the rules here).

Do you think your irrationality changed my mind that the left doesn’t care about kids and in fact wants the murdering of kids to be legal nationwide? Do you think because you called me delusional that I’m more or less willing to have a gun control conversation?

Wow.

Cheers.

Yes, you solved nothing, disproved nothing. The only thing you were successful at was creating more division and showing just how much the left hates kids and breeding.

I have to say, I don't get the recent attribution of some sort of ethics into capitalism. Capitalism as a system provides methods to optimize whatever you want -- it just defines mechanisms of self-interested parties participating in markets.

It is absolutely fair to say that the things the US is optimizing for are not what one might like, but the issue is with the objective function, not the algorithm.

European social democracies are still absolutely capitalist, they just provide guardrails and regulations to focus markets more toward producing social output. See the recent US push to green energy -- the government points the optimization machine at a target, and the markets react.

We can and should complain when our government isn't steering investment to the areas we want. When that happens, though, capitalism as a system isn't the problem (and would be just as functional if you incentivized the things you liked instead.)

When I want to go to Canada but my driver takes me to Mexico, I don't blame the car.

You highlight past efforts but we talk about now - there is no reason US shouldn't have same or better food safety standards than say EU or Switzerland, if consumer safety and health is priority. But reality is a far cry from that and everybody knows that. We talk about baseline, not premium products that most population doesn't buy, ie how safe are the cheapest things that are legally sold in given market.

The reason is simple - food lobby, pushing for example HFCS everywhere despite everybody knows how damaging it is to health, for decades. But half of US grows corn. I am sure there are few categories where US leads but that's not overall trend.

It goes deeper, much deeper, see Boeing 737 Max and global loss of trust in FAA, that was just too big to fail corporation pushing through regulation like knife through butter, until SHTF repeatedly and they couldn't keep blaming foreign pilots for incompetence anymore.

US is simply much more corporate friendly rather than population friendly compared to say Europe, be it employee protection, general food safety, fines to corporations etc.

> there is no reason US shouldn't have same or better food safety standards than say EU or Switzerland, if consumer safety and health is priority.

This is the crux of my point though, everything is relative and composed of trade-offs. A more strict standard is not necessarily better.

We know mercury is toxic and builds up over a lifetime: why is it acceptable to sell any fish which is known to aggregate mercury? Why not only allow extremely low mercury fish?

We know red meat has some carcinogenic effects: why not ban its sale, or only allow species of animals with less of this effect?

> We talk about baseline [...] how safe are the cheapest things that are legally sold in given market.

This is the other side of that trade-off here. Everyone wants access to products. We could reduce the risk of basically any product by increasing its cost.

A very reasonable heuristic for regulators might be "Find an acceptable risk point at which further risk reduction would not warrant the marginal increase in cost". Another reasonable heuristic might be "Minimize risk at all costs: if the market can't bear the product, so be it". Another reasonable heuristic might be "Label all risks, then let individuals sort things out".

We're focusing on the first one here, but we accept the others in different cases: the second applies more to medical testing, the third to items like tobacco and alcohol.

I'm all for reducing the risks that we can reduce -- nobody is arguing against keeping turpentine out of your juice.

My whole point is just that we can't look at two acceptable safety limits, see one that's more stringent, and then conclude that it's a better regulation.

As an outsider I get the impression that the US works in bursts on these things. For your examples:

* Massively using DDT, therefore seeing the problems before others or worse than others, so banning it.

* Putting commercial interests ahead of safety in food production, then having issues with that and snapping back with inspection regimes. (things seem to have swung back the other way significantly on this one though – the various food lobbies seem to have a lot of power)

* Putting easy business and fast growth ahead of worker safety, then noticing the problem with that (broken workers are not efficient workers!), and establishing OSHA to try deal with the issue.

So the US looks to have a high risk tolerance generally, but when a limit is passed things snap back hard. A few things seem to be overdue a snap-back: HFCS levels in food, guns, etc. – maybe we'll see these in coming years.

The US was a world leader in this sort of thing for a while, before losing interest, is a reasonable way to think about it.

I wonder how much of an influence thalidomide was. The US failed to authorise thalidomide essentially because one person in the FDA put up a huge fight. This was, in retrospect, clearly correct, and would have given a lot of political cover for introducing safety regulations (in the thalidomide aftermath the FDA was a leader in introducing more modern safety requirements, say).

The stuff you’re talking about is old, though. It’s more difficult to find areas where the US is _still_ leading on this. For better or for worse, the EU is increasingly the world’s regulator (in much the same way that California is the US’s regulator on certain matters; when a really big market regulates, it tends to drag everyone else along with it).

On food, in particular, the US has a slightly weird approach; certain things which would clearly never be approved today are allowed if they’ve been around long enough. The US is virtually the only place to allow use of potassium bromate in food, say; if it was submitted today it would likely be barred as a carcinogen, but it predates the ban on carcinogens in food.

Incidentally, as to _why_ this is, I suspect that it's

(a) because safety, as a concept, has somehow become highly politicised in the US (albeit recently in weird directions; bundling of anti-vax-ism into the far-right and increasingly the mainstream right has lead to the odd situation where the traditionally anti-safety faction are pushing for _higher_ regulation in one narrow area) and

(b) because the US's regulatory apparatus is much more politically influenced than that in most developed countries, due to how the US civil service works.

> the less strict rule shouldn't necessarily be interpreted as "putting corporations before health" or the like; it's absolutely possible that US consumer safety bodies determined that the added risk from some tradeoff isn't high enough to warrant the additional cost, but...

Not that I'd blame it on figs, but one look at the US healthcare system (i.e., costs, as well as the health / illnesses of the people who need that system) and it highlights the need to question *everything*.

The problem with say "X is low amounts is safe" and "Y is liw amounts is safe" is that we don't understand the effects of X + Y, nor what happens when adding some unknown Z.

The more that comes out on gut bacteria (i.e., maybe the human body can handle X and/or Y, but our bacteria friends can not) the more our safety levels look suspect.