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> It’s enough that now I’ve had enough. I want ID required. I understand and agree with the sentiment. I worry, though, about placing too many administrative h

> It’s enough that now I’ve had enough. I want ID required. I understand and agree with the sentiment. I worry, though, about placing too many administrative hurdles in front of a fundamental right. ID is already required; but I assume you mean photo ID. But photo IDs aren't free, and neither is transportation or time off work. Some part of me is concerned that photo ID laws amount to a poll tax. I'd be interested to know your thoughts on that.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>I worry, though, about placing too many administrative hurdles in front of a fundamental right >Some part of me is concerned that photo ID laws amount to a poll tax. All the arguments against ID requirements, poll taxes and other measures used to disenfranchise poor people can be turned right around and used to argue against licensing requirements, fees and other typical tactics used to keep (mostly poor) people from exercising their right to keep and bear arms. Either restricting people's fundamental human rights is ok or it isn't. I know which hill I'm dying on.
- kbenson 8y ago
  > Either restricting people's fundamental human rights is ok or it isn't. Are you equating the right to bear arms (as part of a well regulated militia) with fundamental human rights? I think that one might need a bit more explanation.
  - benjohnson 8y ago
    My opinion is that the individual right to self-defense is a fundamental human right.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - kbenson 8y ago
      Okay, but self defense does not necessarily mean firearms. Applying the argument to firearms restrictions is like applying the right to have a voice in governance by requiring a specific type of governance (such as a true democracy instead of a representative one). I don't believe there's a fundamental human right to have a firearm any more than I think there is one to have a nuclear bomb. Both can be (and have been) used for defense, but we do not allow individuals (or even all countries!) to have both. A firearm is one tool of many that can be used to defend yourself. Voting is the method for the citizens to control government in a Democracy. Once you take away or impede someone's ability to own and operate firearms, you have hampered their ability to protect themselves in some small or large part, but there are other methods available to them. Once you take away or impede someone's ability to vote, you are affecting their only way to actually affect their own governance. (all the above all assumes legal recourses are considered). Note: This isn't to say I think we should ban guns or anything, I just think as fundamental rights go, what was presented originally was not equivalent in my eyes, as explained above.
      - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        >Okay, but self defense does not necessarily mean firearms. There is a fundamental human right to defend yourself from physical violence. If there are tools that are used for that task then it follows that one has a fundamental human right to posses tools that give one the means to do so. If the year was 1018 we'd be discussing bows and swords instead of firearms. In 3018 we'll be discussing lasers or something like that. In 2018 (or 1788 for that matter) the tool is firearms. >Voting is the method for the citizens to control government in a Democracy. Once you take away or impede someone's ability to own and operate firearms, you have hampered their ability to protect themselves in some small or large part, but there are other methods available to them. Once you take away or impede someone's ability to vote, you are affecting their only way to actually affect their own governance. (all the above all assumes legal recourses are considered). While I understand where you're coming from I think you're wrong because I don't believe there is a meaningful distinction. The union of all fundamental human rights is greater than the sum of them individually and each right is so important in the context of the others that a threat to any one human right is a threat to them all. >Once you take away or impede someone's ability to own and operate firearms, you have hampered their ability to protect themselves in some small or large part, but there are other methods available to them. Once you take away or impede someone's ability to vote, you are affecting their only way to actually affect their own governance. (all the above all assumes legal recourses are considered). So is it ok that the government routinely tries to side step the people's right to not be subject to unreasonable searches and seizures and right to due process because people can still vote for a government that won't do that? I don't think the right to vote is any more important than any other fundamental human right.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Yes. The right to keep and bear arms is just an awkward way of wording "people have the right to have the means to defend themselves". It just so happens that firearms are the current gold standard when it comes to defending one's person. If something else comes along the people have the right to that too.
    - majewsky 8y ago
      > It just so happens that a functioning society is the current gold standard when it comes to defending one's person. FTFY
      - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        Tell that to the people who live in neighborhoods with 30min police response times. Even in a "functioning society" we are all at each other's mercy to a greater extent than many would like to admit.
- belltaco 8y ago
  Something that we can all agree on, lets give everyone a free photo ID and a free assault rifle as soon as they turn 18. Oh wait...
  - dev_dull 8y ago
    You’ve basically described Switzerland. http://world.time.com/2012/12/20/the-swiss-difference-a-gun-culture-that-works/ http://world.time.com/2012/12/20/the-swiss-difference-a-gun-...
- torstenvl 8y ago
  There is a Constitutional right to "keep and bear arms," not to purchase them free from fees and taxes. You have no right to "keep and bear" something you have not yet purchased. Additionally, it's not "a" right, it's "the" right. The text of the Constitution recognizes a pre-existing right. "We look to ['the historical background'] because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right." District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 592 (2008). Just like the pre-existing right of free speech was scoped so as not to provide immunity to suit for libel, the pre-existing right to keep and bear arms has never in its "historical background" been described as prohibiting purchase-time taxes. You're wholly inventing that aspect of the right; you'd have a stronger argument if we were talking about yearly personal property taxes levied on firearms.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >There is a Constitutional right to "keep and bear arms," not to purchase them free from fees and taxes. You have no right to "keep and bear" something you have not yet purchased. >Additionally, it's not "a" right, it's "the" right. The text of the Constitution recognizes a pre-existing right. "We look to ['the historical background'] because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right." District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 592 (2008). I generally agree with this. >the pre-existing right to keep and bear arms has never in its "historical background" been described as prohibiting purchase-time taxes. You're wholly inventing that aspect of the right; you'd have a stronger argument if we were talking about yearly personal property taxes levied on firearms. That's exactly what I'm talking about. The $200 NFA stamp that was intentionally supposed to be a hurdle for poor people back in the early 1900s. The $100 fee you need for any gun license in MA (other states have similiar) is a poll tax if there ever was one. Shall issue licensing in any real world implementation almost always passes the duck test for institutionalized discrimination.
gus_massa 8y ago
> Some part of me is concerned that photo ID laws amount to a poll tax. Here in Argentina, everyone has a national ID ("DNI") and it cost about US$10 and you have to pay it two or three times in your lifetime, not every year or at every election. I don't understand how something like can be so expensive to make someone avoid voting. (Anyway, here you can get your national ID for free if you really can't pay for it.)
- alphabettsy 8y ago
  That’s pretty reasonable, but here we have a patchwork of states with different laws and requirements. From my own experience, I moved from one state to another and it took two trips to the necessary official office (DMV) with a total of about 4 working hours out of my week. Is everyone willing to do this or able to?
  - hulahoof 8y ago
    It depends how frequently you move interstate/are required to re-prove your identity. If it's several times over the course of your life it's definitely reasonable. Maybe not once it approaches yearly.
- mcphage 8y ago
  > I don't understand how something like can be so expensive to make someone avoid voting. Because the point of making it expensive is to make people stop voting. It's not an accident, or an oversight. It's the purpose.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

>I worry, though, about placing too many administrative hurdles in front of a fundamental right >Some part of me is concerned that photo ID laws amount to a poll tax. All the arguments against ID requirements, poll taxes and other measures used to disenfranchise poor people can be turned right around and used to argue against licensing requirements, fees and other typical tactics used to keep (mostly poor) people from exercising their right to keep and bear arms. Either restricting people's fundamental human rights is ok or it isn't. I know which hill I'm dying on.

kbenson 8y ago
> Either restricting people's fundamental human rights is ok or it isn't. Are you equating the right to bear arms (as part of a well regulated militia) with fundamental human rights? I think that one might need a bit more explanation.
- benjohnson 8y ago
  My opinion is that the individual right to self-defense is a fundamental human right.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - kbenson 8y ago
    Okay, but self defense does not necessarily mean firearms. Applying the argument to firearms restrictions is like applying the right to have a voice in governance by requiring a specific type of governance (such as a true democracy instead of a representative one). I don't believe there's a fundamental human right to have a firearm any more than I think there is one to have a nuclear bomb. Both can be (and have been) used for defense, but we do not allow individuals (or even all countries!) to have both. A firearm is one tool of many that can be used to defend yourself. Voting is the method for the citizens to control government in a Democracy. Once you take away or impede someone's ability to own and operate firearms, you have hampered their ability to protect themselves in some small or large part, but there are other methods available to them. Once you take away or impede someone's ability to vote, you are affecting their only way to actually affect their own governance. (all the above all assumes legal recourses are considered). Note: This isn't to say I think we should ban guns or anything, I just think as fundamental rights go, what was presented originally was not equivalent in my eyes, as explained above.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      >Okay, but self defense does not necessarily mean firearms. There is a fundamental human right to defend yourself from physical violence. If there are tools that are used for that task then it follows that one has a fundamental human right to posses tools that give one the means to do so. If the year was 1018 we'd be discussing bows and swords instead of firearms. In 3018 we'll be discussing lasers or something like that. In 2018 (or 1788 for that matter) the tool is firearms. >Voting is the method for the citizens to control government in a Democracy. Once you take away or impede someone's ability to own and operate firearms, you have hampered their ability to protect themselves in some small or large part, but there are other methods available to them. Once you take away or impede someone's ability to vote, you are affecting their only way to actually affect their own governance. (all the above all assumes legal recourses are considered). While I understand where you're coming from I think you're wrong because I don't believe there is a meaningful distinction. The union of all fundamental human rights is greater than the sum of them individually and each right is so important in the context of the others that a threat to any one human right is a threat to them all. >Once you take away or impede someone's ability to own and operate firearms, you have hampered their ability to protect themselves in some small or large part, but there are other methods available to them. Once you take away or impede someone's ability to vote, you are affecting their only way to actually affect their own governance. (all the above all assumes legal recourses are considered). So is it ok that the government routinely tries to side step the people's right to not be subject to unreasonable searches and seizures and right to due process because people can still vote for a government that won't do that? I don't think the right to vote is any more important than any other fundamental human right.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Yes. The right to keep and bear arms is just an awkward way of wording "people have the right to have the means to defend themselves". It just so happens that firearms are the current gold standard when it comes to defending one's person. If something else comes along the people have the right to that too.
  - majewsky 8y ago
    > It just so happens that a functioning society is the current gold standard when it comes to defending one's person. FTFY
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      Tell that to the people who live in neighborhoods with 30min police response times. Even in a "functioning society" we are all at each other's mercy to a greater extent than many would like to admit.
belltaco 8y ago
Something that we can all agree on, lets give everyone a free photo ID and a free assault rifle as soon as they turn 18. Oh wait...
- dev_dull 8y ago
  You’ve basically described Switzerland. http://world.time.com/2012/12/20/the-swiss-difference-a-gun-culture-that-works/ http://world.time.com/2012/12/20/the-swiss-difference-a-gun-...
torstenvl 8y ago
There is a Constitutional right to "keep and bear arms," not to purchase them free from fees and taxes. You have no right to "keep and bear" something you have not yet purchased. Additionally, it's not "a" right, it's "the" right. The text of the Constitution recognizes a pre-existing right. "We look to ['the historical background'] because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right." District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 592 (2008). Just like the pre-existing right of free speech was scoped so as not to provide immunity to suit for libel, the pre-existing right to keep and bear arms has never in its "historical background" been described as prohibiting purchase-time taxes. You're wholly inventing that aspect of the right; you'd have a stronger argument if we were talking about yearly personal property taxes levied on firearms.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >There is a Constitutional right to "keep and bear arms," not to purchase them free from fees and taxes. You have no right to "keep and bear" something you have not yet purchased. >Additionally, it's not "a" right, it's "the" right. The text of the Constitution recognizes a pre-existing right. "We look to ['the historical background'] because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right." District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 592 (2008). I generally agree with this. >the pre-existing right to keep and bear arms has never in its "historical background" been described as prohibiting purchase-time taxes. You're wholly inventing that aspect of the right; you'd have a stronger argument if we were talking about yearly personal property taxes levied on firearms. That's exactly what I'm talking about. The $200 NFA stamp that was intentionally supposed to be a hurdle for poor people back in the early 1900s. The $100 fee you need for any gun license in MA (other states have similiar) is a poll tax if there ever was one. Shall issue licensing in any real world implementation almost always passes the duck test for institutionalized discrimination.

gus_massa 8y ago

> Some part of me is concerned that photo ID laws amount to a poll tax. Here in Argentina, everyone has a national ID ("DNI") and it cost about US$10 and you have to pay it two or three times in your lifetime, not every year or at every election. I don't understand how something like can be so expensive to make someone avoid voting. (Anyway, here you can get your national ID for free if you really can't pay for it.)

alphabettsy 8y ago
That’s pretty reasonable, but here we have a patchwork of states with different laws and requirements. From my own experience, I moved from one state to another and it took two trips to the necessary official office (DMV) with a total of about 4 working hours out of my week. Is everyone willing to do this or able to?
- hulahoof 8y ago
  It depends how frequently you move interstate/are required to re-prove your identity. If it's several times over the course of your life it's definitely reasonable. Maybe not once it approaches yearly.
mcphage 8y ago
> I don't understand how something like can be so expensive to make someone avoid voting. Because the point of making it expensive is to make people stop voting. It's not an accident, or an oversight. It's the purpose.