I am opposed to DHS (TSA, mostly). How can I be in favor of gun control?

[Stinky The Clown]

I have to noodle my way through that seeming dichotomy.

It never dawned on me before that the two positions were at odds.

I do not want the government poking through the dirty laundry in the plastic bag in my suitcase. I don't want them doing preemptive "security" checks on me because I choose to fly someplace.

Yet I seem to want them to do the same sorts of things to someone who chooses to buy a gun. I really want them to actually confiscate all guns (yes, I'm a gun grabber, gawdammit) even as I know that will never happen. I want the government right up the ass of every gun owner in the country.

I guess I'm okay just living with the dichotomy and plead to being complicated and human.

Or not.

[badtoworse]

1. At least you're honest about the hypocrisy. - nt

[snappyturtle]

2. I look at that this way. I can only carry so many rounds of 3 oz. bottles

limited by a 1 qt. plastic bag. How many ammunition rounds can a gun owner carry at a time?

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

32. yeah, but it's an absurd restriction... it does notng to actually stop determined terrorists.

For example, say several terrorists decide to make/bring a bomb on a plane. One of them may not be able to get all the ingredients on the plane. However, if EACH one brings the limit of 3oz bottles, about 15-18 ounces total, then the one terrorist making the bomb now has LOTS of chemicals past the security checkpoint. As long as there is one terrorist at a terminal (past security) to hold onto the items while they are accumulated, other terrorists can incrementally bring the needed items and quantities a little bit at a time.

So, in the end, your liquid limitation laws & rules only exist to make the lives of ordinary people (the one's who don't blw up planes) more annoying. Other people intent on, say, blowing up a plane... they carry on as usual (they just use more 3z containers). There is no real security at airports - its all just a dog and pony show. I would not want gun laws to become the same in terms of meaninglessness.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. That's just hypocrisy, nothing more. And I understand it.

But it is hypocrisy. You feel one thing should apply to you, another standard for others.That is not at all complicated, it is simple as can be. One set of rules for you, another for others.

[Fumesucker]

4. Do you or did you have to piss in a jar to get or keep a job?

Not trying to be personal or insulting but I don't see the difference..

We all know that workplace drug testing is driven by government policy even if it isn't the government doing the actual testing.

[TheKentuckian]

6. That is something you want to encourage and perpetuate?

I think I'm also missing the point of your point, are you establishing a precedent? If so you are building on a foundation of sewage and muck.

[Fumesucker]

7. There doesn't seem to be any social movement against workplace drug testing..

Certainly nothing significant..

Somone rummaging through your stuff looking for guns is more repugnant to you than someone rummaging through your urine looking for drug byproducts?

[Lizzie Poppet]

11. And that's a damn shame.

Workplace drug testing (without demonstrable probable cause) has always been a flagrant and outrageous violation of the 4th amendment (and possibly the 5th...), and the court decisions permitting it were a travesty.

[Go Vols]

31. +1

Voted down drug testing many times in my local union before retiring.

[TheKentuckian]

20. I'm pretty fiercely against either invasion but the urine being substituted, diluted, or artificial

is effectively less intrusive because it isn't my urine. Plus, the non-universal aspect with the ability to refuse is a big seller. If I refuse the drug test, I go on about my job search but if I refuse my home inspection we're talking jail, confiscation of my property, fines, and/or maybe end up beaten or even at risk of life.

I'll grant some similarities but will scoff at you for trying to even pretend they are anything like the same. I also suspect you understand both are pretty well fucked up and should discourage the whole line of reasoning.

Of course there is no significant movement against work place drug test, there are no significant movements to secure higher wages, job security, increase family leave, or for more vacation time.

We are in an anti-labor, "lucky to have a job...any job" era and more than half the country believes in job creator myths, the invisible hand, and that labor is subject to the absolute master of capital. Many, maybe most see a job as indentured servitude on a at will basis.

You also have a multi-decade war on drugs as a backdrop that distorts everything it touches. To some minds peeing in little cups for no plausible reason is like patriotic (as I imagine you might feel saluting with flag waving while your house is searched for contraband weapons, doing your part to make America safe) duty.

There is also the sticky part about the ramifications. An employer isn't going to be locking you up for non-compliance or failing. Government policy is a driver of the drug tests (policy I'm all about changing rather than trying to use it as an apples to tuna casserole precedent) but it isn't mandated (yes, you can find jobs that do not test) and any problem is between you and that employer. You can go home, you can go out of state, you are not going to be incarcerated, there is no fine, in fact you might get another job that pays more the same day.

[HuckleB]

15. So what?

That has nothing to do with proposed gun policy.

[Fumesucker]

17. From the OP..

I do not want the government poking through the dirty laundry in the plastic bag in my suitcase. I don't want them doing preemptive "security" checks on me because I choose to fly someplace.

I was wondering what the OP routinely puts up with in the way of invasive searches quite possibly without giving it much if any mind at all..

Ho hum, another day another jar to piss in.

The government is really interested in what we have in our urine..

[HuckleB]

28. Context.

The OP failed to make a full equation with all the variables.

I pointed that out. Your response is to ignore some of the variables?

Odd.

[Fumesucker]

29. My reply was to the OP, not you..

My point is that the OP may well already put up with searches far more personal and intrusive than what he was complaining about in his post and those searches would probably be on the part of his employer, a private entity..

If you allow a private entity that does not have your best interests at heart to rummage around in your very biochemistry you really don't have a lot of room to complain about the government searching your bags.

[frazzled]

5. I'm all for airport security

So I have no problem also being for sensible gun control laws.

[Edweird]

8. That's because you travel and don't own (or want to own) guns.

It's 'different' when it's you. I'm not saying that as a an insult, I'm pointing out that when your rights are impinged upon it tends to get your hackles up. It's the same with cars. Cars kill more than guns, but the anti-gun DU'ers have cars - so car deaths are OK.

[HuckleB]

14. What's different is the level of actual public safety concern.

[Edweird]

18. >Implying DHS/TSA is anything more than police state theatrics.

[HuckleB]

27. So you can't answer.

I'm shocked.

[HopeHoops]

9. The TSA has no reason. Gun control does - there are reasonable limits.

[Lizzie Poppet]

12. I concur. Surprised?

Mind you, I consider the current level of gun control to be "reasonable," and support only certain additional measures (background checks for ammunition purchases and possibly liability insurance requirements*), but I absolutely agree that the TSA is rubbish. There has to be a better way to conduct that portion of the "war on terruh."

*I'd like to see any gun liability insurance proposal include a way to ensure that it doesn't deny poor people their rights.

[HopeHoops]

16. I still think restrictions on clip sizes would go a long way. Nobody needs 100 rounds.

[Lizzie Poppet]

21. I don't honestly think it would make much difference.

Yeah, 100 round magazines are pretty silly. Not just excessive...silly. They're prone to jamming and horribly upset the balance of the weapon. I don't think it would be any great burden to eliminate them...but I also don't think it would accomplish much in terms of saving lives. They're uncommon (the Aurora tragedy is the only incidence of use in homicide that comes to mind...they're simply not that popular on the market), and with minimal practice, a person can change regular magazines in less that two seconds flat.

Bottom line, I wouldn't miss 100 round magazines...but I don't think banning them would accomplish much, either.

I don't really support the concept of making laws on the basis of extremely rare events like mass shootings or people flying airliners into skyscrapers. Mass murders seem more common than they are because they're so horrible, they loom large in our consciousness (and they make great "if it bleeds, it leads" fodder for the news media). Heck, murders with rifles (all rifles, not just military-style semi-automatics) account for less than 5% of all gun-related murder per annum. I'd much rather concentrate on figuring out how to get handguns out of criminal possession. That's where the real damage is being done.

[aikoaiko]

37. IMO, the higher the limit the more support you will get.

There is a big gap between 100 rounds and the arbitrarily small 10 rounds of previous mag limit attempts.

I have a number in my head that I could live with, but I'd also like to see this be a compromise where gun owners and RKBA supporters get something like eliminating all import bans on firearms that would be legal to own if they were made in the US. The may be one of the stupidest, irritating laws on the books.

[TheKentuckian]

10. It is a similar them not me attitude that "small government" types have

that want government small enough to drown in a bathtub but big enough to supervise the bedrooms, doctors offices, and every vagina from sea to shining sea.

In my mind, you grant powers to the government or you do not but then I am a die hard limited government person, that being the government's authority is granted from and held in trust for the people rather than our rights being granted by the state.

Complicated and human or not, you know you have reached a point of cognitive dissonance. An exception has undone your rule. A hypocrite believes two morally at odds positions, you are in extreme danger of taking a step further to holding two mutually exclusive positions, which means you are essentially and fundamentally dishonest about one of them. You cannot be against the security state and for initiatives that require it.
You are actually acting in concert with the "terra terra" types in building the security state consensus. You have your reasons and they have theirs and eventually both will meet in the middle and we'll just have a security state and we'll all be miserable though you will be more put out than your opposite number because they don't give a shit about anything but your exception.

There is much more to be lost than to be gained and you will not be one bit more safe just more under control.

It may well be human but it isn't complicated. The concept is old as humans or older, wanting to have your cake and eat it to.

[HuckleB]

13. There is nothing inherently at odds here.

You see the gun side as a genuine public health issue, which it clearly is. You don't see the TSA as providing a public health service.

No hypocrisy in that.

[TheKentuckian]

22. No, he is at fundamental odds. He'd authorize house to house searches of the general population

absolutely crushing any concept of privacy and being secure in one's possession but is against searches of a far more limited group of people both in the name of public safety.

He is more than smart enough to know he'd nuke unreasonable search to go on the gun grab. Every search would be reasonable, they can always being looking for guns and it is established that is "reasonable" and the TSA shit is exactly the same except we cut and paste in terrorist or make a fun mix of weapons of terror.

I believe both concepts are out of line but I can't possibly see how airplane security makes less sense, at least there you are in a describable unique situation which means the power at least can be limited to the conditions at hand.
To actually want confiscation and verification means you are demanding (yes, demanding) 24/7, 365 police access to your home, vehicle, and of course your person subject to invasive search.

I wish I was an artist, I'd be able to get the point across much easier. There would be several people at Rapscan machines, with sunglass wearing people in various uniforms putting rubber gloves. One person would look at the one next to them and ask "What are you in for?". "Terrorism, and you". "Gun check" the first person replies. A third person chimes in "I'm here for drugs, myself".

It is the same rights being surrendered, only the rationale and rhetoric differ and it is all fear based mental gymnastics from folks claiming to be free people but refusing to accept risk and choices you'd not make which is part and parcel.

I suspect the OP will either back down from the "grabber" mentality to a ban the sale and manufacture of type kat or alternatively reluctantly accept the mission of the TSA (if not the effectiveness) and maybe the broader war on terror bullshit. I don't know the poster personally but from following them for years I'm inclined to say that his "grabber" position is highly ideologically inconsistent to the point of break down when it actually is applied in the real world and they know it, which prompted the post. The more they think about it the more obvious it becomes.

One cannot overcome mutually exclusive. Mutually inclusive also applies.

[HuckleB]

24. Thanks for posting a whole lot of nothing.

Why are you pushing so many logical fallacies?

[TheKentuckian]

30. Please elaborate. I'm not aware of any logical fallacies presented in the post.

Nothing you agree with is not the same as nothing but mileage tends to vary.

[Remmah2]

19. Seems there was a underwear bomber and a shoe bomber.

Neither having to do with guns. The TSA came into being because of a handful of dicks with box cutters.

[HuckleB]

25. Who cares?

They had to do with explosives.

That doesn't mean guns are something we just let anyone have for no good reason at all.

[Lasher]

23. Cognitive Dissonance

Mental growing pains, maybe?

[HuckleB]

26. There's no dissonance.

He simply missed the part of the equation that addresses public safety and public health.

Ivory towers are dismissed for good reason.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

33. Well, you can either choose to live with the hypocricy, or not.

For example, I personally don't like abortion.

In most circumstance, I don't feel it is the right choice and would not choose that option if we were in such a perdicament (although I would defer entirely to my wife). However, given that I am a big supporter if indivual choices and freedoms, I realized the hypocrisy of telling women what they can do with their bodies. Through my own personal support of MY freedom to make choices regarding other rights, I have grown to understand other women's choices and positions and made the choice never to stand in the way of the choice or work/vote to limit that choice... even if it's a choice I wouldn't personally make. Nowadays, when I see the prolifers marching aroud with their ghastly signs, I no longer see the issue itself... I see the limiting of freedom, invasion of privacy, mysogyny and oppression that they represent. I say, Fuck that.

So you can choose to accept the hypocrisy or not. You'll never like guns and probably never choose to own them - I get that. We are who we are and we can't lie t ourselves. Please understand that liking something is not analagous to letting other people make that choice. But at the very least, whether you continue to actively support gun control or actively support gun rights (or remain neutral) perhaps you can learn from the insight/undersanding of how shooting enthusiats feel about legislation affecting something imprtant to them. Remember that not liking guns, even not wanting anyone to own the things, is not mutually inclusive to supporting their abolishment nor mutually exclusive to allowing other to own them.


*** Edited to add (so there's no misunderstanding): Since women's rights is a hot topic her at DU, I just want to make it clear that I 100% do support a women's right to choose and to control her body. I am 100% pro-choice, for sure... even though it would not be the course of action I would ever want to take myself.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

34. Me and the TSA

They have a job to do, and it's important. Like most people who fly, I'm all in favor of whatever needs to be done to reasonably ensure airline security and safety. If I have to stand in line, at least the TSA personnel should be courteous (mostly they are, but sometimes not). But let's face it, if YOU had a job where you poked through people's dirty laundry all day long, would YOU be "Up With People" through your whole shift? So I cut them some slack.

I also have no problem with background checks and waiting periods to buy a gun. It's an inconvenience, but it's one I can live with. Literally.

[IdaBriggs]

35. You drive a car. You want the other people on the road to know what they are doing.

The gun people have been treating guns in a very un serious way. When people don't take responsibility for their toys, you have a problem. Since you aren't a criminal, don't see any benefit from taking your shoes off (my pet peeve), and don't know anyone planning up a plane, the security theater is an obvious annoyance.

You make sense to me.

[4th law of robotics]

36. Generally it's easier to agree to strip others of their rights

than to agree to strip yourself of rights.

You presumably don't own guns so restrictions there wouldn't hurt you.

You quite possibly have gone through or interacted with the TSA, so those infringements do affect you.