“should felons have the right to carry guns”
If it is illegal for a “felon” to carry a gun, the government will just make every crime a felony. This is already happening. Take a look at restraining orders or hate speech legislation for some examples. Then, the government will invent new crimes and make them felonies too. Take a look at seatbelt laws, smoking laws, and transfat legislation for some examples.
When you get out of jail, you have paid your debt to society. You regain all the rights you had before your crime. Voting rights included, even if a few ex-cons were to vote for somebody we don’t like. If you don’t believe the perpetrators of some crimes should ever have a gun again, then give those criminals the death penalty.
As a corollary, if the “Mentally Ill” are not allowed to carry a gun, then eventually everybody who has ever gone for treatment at a mental hospital or a physiatrist/psychologist/counselor will lose their gun rights. How do you prove you aren’t crazy? Next, the government will make psychiatric evaluation mandatory (perhaps under a socialist medicine system), and it will find that nobody is mentally fit enough to carry a gun (except those in power and their enforcers). This is already happening. Take a look at some of the stories here on FR about doctors that ask children if their parents own guns and if they “seem violent”.
Keep in mind that the people that want to commit crimes with firearms will commit crimes without them if need be, and these same people do not go through the normal channels to get their weapons anyway. They rarely go to mental health professionals for treatment, either. Also, the crimes themselves are already illegal, and you will never stop evil from occurring no matter how many freedoms you give up. Gun laws only affect non-criminals, and the goal is to remove guns from legal use in hopes to make them more difficult to obtain for use in crimes. Take a look at illegal drugs to see how well this philosophy works in practice.
This is all Dictatorship 101. Useful idiots who are fooled by bad ideas that look good on paper will open the door for 1984. You were warned.
An excellent post.
I believe that most counties in Kalifornia require a psychological assessment of some sort to qualify for a concealed carry permit. Unlike most states, Kalifornia gives the chief law enforcement heads the power to say who may or may not carry a concealed firearm. In most counties, the number of such people is in the dozens and it is suspected that most of them are financial supporters of the local sheriff or politically well-connected like Diane Feinstein.
outership, robert, well, we'll just have to disagree on this one i guess. i just don't think a background check is too much to ask. at least there is some record of who buys a gun if it is eventually used in a crime.
the whole speech about every law becoming a felony and everyone being mentally ill is too much right now. i have a hangover.