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I think people have fewer qualms about cops seizing weapons than any other kind of property. Taking cash or a car from someone is not equivalent to taking their

by duped 2y ago

I think people have fewer qualms about cops seizing weapons than any other kind of property. Taking cash or a car from someone is not equivalent to taking their guns.

yieldcrv 2y ago
Property is property Until they start seizing bank branches under suspicion of being used in a crime, this selective scamming won’t stop
- duped 2y ago
  Ideological opposition to these laws without a frank understanding of their intent and impact is arguing in bad faith. Property is not all equal and not treated that way, for reasons that should be self evident. Guns are tools to kill people. Red flag laws exist to identify people who have them and are likely to use them. If a few people get caught up by the net by mistake, the societal impact is that we have fewer guns on the streets while those people are inconvenienced. Compare that to seizing people's cars. Sure, cars are dangerous, but people need them to travel to/from work/school/etc. The impact of seizing a car from someone by mistake is they could lose their job, their house if they lose income, etc. It's a lot worse than a gun owner not having access to their gun for a little bit. So no, property is not property.
  - abfan1127 2y ago
    I'd argue your argument is in bad faith. Guns are tools, that can be used to kill people, just like knives, clubs, or other weapons. Guns are also tools for ensuring equity in a potentially violent world. You don't need to be 6'2 250lbs to defend yourself with a gun from a criminal or violent government. Its also convenient for you to decide that others don't "need" to protect themselves from situations that they've deemed necessary.
    - duped 2y ago
      The overarching point I'm making is that the government seizing $2,000 in cash from you is not the same as seizing a $2,000 gun from you, because the $2,000 in cash isn't a potentially immediate threat to the public. Red flag laws are one of the very few pro-active tools for law enforcement. I think any argument around guns that focuses on ideological thought experiments like self defense from a "violent government" is not worth exploring. Because then you're talking about how to organize an armed insurrection, not how to reduce mass shootings and domestic partner violence. > Its also convenient for you to decide that others don't "need" to protect themselves from situations that they've deemed necessary. And it's convenient for the craziest people in our society to have easy access to weapons and ammunition because of widespread paranoia about defending yourself from those people. Seems like the easy solution is to make access to weapons harder!
      - giantg2 2y ago
        If they're actually crazy like you claim, then they lose their weapons upon an involuntary commitment. That is by far the better outcome (assuming peoper due process) since they'll get actual help for their problems and not just the removal of one of many deadly weapons they can use.
      - fasa99 2y ago
        What puts me off about the argument is along the lines of "and because of such and such, now numerically less guns exist in public, and that's -a good thing-" For me this smacks of California style government i.e. "we've made gas and energy so expensive that people use less energy, and environmentally that's -a good thing-" or "we've made permit regulations so bad nobody is able to build anything anymore and environmentally that's -a good thing-" The crux of these things is that if you presume that these are basic rights: not having property confiscating, building a house without too much red tape, free market energy economy - then we have arrived at -a good thing- via -an unethical thing- and thus it's a good outcome through an unethical means, or "fruit from the poison tree" as ethics states. From a legal perspective, these are trying to avoid a completely hypothetical scenario of Peter's hypothetical gun hypothetically shooting Paul, or Peter's hypothetical +20% pollution hurting the life of Paul, and George got jammed up by the law and hates it, but the lawmaker who is worried solely about Paul is quite pleased with himself about having saved Paul from the hypothetical which may or may not have actually happened.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    Your comparison is not correct. There are security guards, police, and others who rely on guns for their jobs, even more so that the typical person relies on their car to get to work (alternate rides are available, but being armed may be a requirement). Keep in mind that DUI suspects are allowed to drive until their hearing. Also, that there are habitual offenders who have already lost their license and still kill people with their car because their car isn't seized. The real differentiator here is simply the prejudices the speaker holds against one item or the other. For example, you conveniently leave out all manner of lawful and beneficial uses that the gun owner is inconvenienced with, including potential loss of life or victimization while unarmed.
  - yieldcrv 2y ago
    interesting. my "ideological opposition" had nothing to do with "guns" or the second amendment, or a government's interest in safety it was purely about assets, their attributes of valuation, in-kind transfers based on appraisal value to normalize it amongst a cash seizure. commonalities that all property shares. in that regard, to the government and its constitution, property is property. I did make a mistake in assuming this article was about civil asset forfeiture though, where my observation would apply more strongly as the property is charged instead of the person. This article is about something in between civil and criminal asset forefeiture.
    - duped 2y ago
      My point is that's too narrow a view. You can't treat property opaquely, or the reasons for the state for seizing it equally. Eminent domain, civil asset forfeiture, red flag laws, even economic sanctions and KYC compliance in finance are all different trees of the state asserting power over different classes of property, for different reasons from public safety to foreign policy, or just plain old corruption.
      - giantg2 2y ago
        All personal property should have adequate protections from seizures. We shouldn't be side stepping protections by moving things to the civil system to avoid the protections in the criminal system. It shouldn't be easier to side step the protections guaranteed as rights just because something seems scary. You've admitted it's fine to strip innocent people of their rights to protect society, and the numbers show that most red flag laws have not been successful and overwhelmingly impact people who pose no threat. If believing in basic protections and rights is too narrow a view, I'm happy to say that I support that narrow view.
  - commercialnix 2y ago
    [dead]
throw10920 2y ago
I don't know what country you're from, but in the US, a very large fraction of the population cares about the rights enumerated to them (not granted - enumerated) by the second amendment of our Constitution, and most of these people will have significantly more qualms about cops seizing their arms.

by duped 2y ago

I think people have fewer qualms about cops seizing weapons than any other kind of property. Taking cash or a car from someone is not equivalent to taking their guns.

yieldcrv 2y ago

Property is property Until they start seizing bank branches under suspicion of being used in a crime, this selective scamming won’t stop

duped 2y ago
Ideological opposition to these laws without a frank understanding of their intent and impact is arguing in bad faith. Property is not all equal and not treated that way, for reasons that should be self evident. Guns are tools to kill people. Red flag laws exist to identify people who have them and are likely to use them. If a few people get caught up by the net by mistake, the societal impact is that we have fewer guns on the streets while those people are inconvenienced. Compare that to seizing people's cars. Sure, cars are dangerous, but people need them to travel to/from work/school/etc. The impact of seizing a car from someone by mistake is they could lose their job, their house if they lose income, etc. It's a lot worse than a gun owner not having access to their gun for a little bit. So no, property is not property.
- abfan1127 2y ago
  I'd argue your argument is in bad faith. Guns are tools, that can be used to kill people, just like knives, clubs, or other weapons. Guns are also tools for ensuring equity in a potentially violent world. You don't need to be 6'2 250lbs to defend yourself with a gun from a criminal or violent government. Its also convenient for you to decide that others don't "need" to protect themselves from situations that they've deemed necessary.
  - duped 2y ago
    The overarching point I'm making is that the government seizing $2,000 in cash from you is not the same as seizing a $2,000 gun from you, because the $2,000 in cash isn't a potentially immediate threat to the public. Red flag laws are one of the very few pro-active tools for law enforcement. I think any argument around guns that focuses on ideological thought experiments like self defense from a "violent government" is not worth exploring. Because then you're talking about how to organize an armed insurrection, not how to reduce mass shootings and domestic partner violence. > Its also convenient for you to decide that others don't "need" to protect themselves from situations that they've deemed necessary. And it's convenient for the craziest people in our society to have easy access to weapons and ammunition because of widespread paranoia about defending yourself from those people. Seems like the easy solution is to make access to weapons harder!
    - giantg2 2y ago
      If they're actually crazy like you claim, then they lose their weapons upon an involuntary commitment. That is by far the better outcome (assuming peoper due process) since they'll get actual help for their problems and not just the removal of one of many deadly weapons they can use.
    - fasa99 2y ago
      What puts me off about the argument is along the lines of "and because of such and such, now numerically less guns exist in public, and that's -a good thing-" For me this smacks of California style government i.e. "we've made gas and energy so expensive that people use less energy, and environmentally that's -a good thing-" or "we've made permit regulations so bad nobody is able to build anything anymore and environmentally that's -a good thing-" The crux of these things is that if you presume that these are basic rights: not having property confiscating, building a house without too much red tape, free market energy economy - then we have arrived at -a good thing- via -an unethical thing- and thus it's a good outcome through an unethical means, or "fruit from the poison tree" as ethics states. From a legal perspective, these are trying to avoid a completely hypothetical scenario of Peter's hypothetical gun hypothetically shooting Paul, or Peter's hypothetical +20% pollution hurting the life of Paul, and George got jammed up by the law and hates it, but the lawmaker who is worried solely about Paul is quite pleased with himself about having saved Paul from the hypothetical which may or may not have actually happened.
- giantg2 2y ago
  Your comparison is not correct. There are security guards, police, and others who rely on guns for their jobs, even more so that the typical person relies on their car to get to work (alternate rides are available, but being armed may be a requirement). Keep in mind that DUI suspects are allowed to drive until their hearing. Also, that there are habitual offenders who have already lost their license and still kill people with their car because their car isn't seized. The real differentiator here is simply the prejudices the speaker holds against one item or the other. For example, you conveniently leave out all manner of lawful and beneficial uses that the gun owner is inconvenienced with, including potential loss of life or victimization while unarmed.
- yieldcrv 2y ago
  interesting. my "ideological opposition" had nothing to do with "guns" or the second amendment, or a government's interest in safety it was purely about assets, their attributes of valuation, in-kind transfers based on appraisal value to normalize it amongst a cash seizure. commonalities that all property shares. in that regard, to the government and its constitution, property is property. I did make a mistake in assuming this article was about civil asset forfeiture though, where my observation would apply more strongly as the property is charged instead of the person. This article is about something in between civil and criminal asset forefeiture.
  - duped 2y ago
    My point is that's too narrow a view. You can't treat property opaquely, or the reasons for the state for seizing it equally. Eminent domain, civil asset forfeiture, red flag laws, even economic sanctions and KYC compliance in finance are all different trees of the state asserting power over different classes of property, for different reasons from public safety to foreign policy, or just plain old corruption.
    - giantg2 2y ago
      All personal property should have adequate protections from seizures. We shouldn't be side stepping protections by moving things to the civil system to avoid the protections in the criminal system. It shouldn't be easier to side step the protections guaranteed as rights just because something seems scary. You've admitted it's fine to strip innocent people of their rights to protect society, and the numbers show that most red flag laws have not been successful and overwhelmingly impact people who pose no threat. If believing in basic protections and rights is too narrow a view, I'm happy to say that I support that narrow view.
- commercialnix 2y ago
  [dead]

throw10920 2y ago

I don't know what country you're from, but in the US, a very large fraction of the population cares about the rights enumerated to them (not granted - enumerated) by the second amendment of our Constitution, and most of these people will have significantly more qualms about cops seizing their arms.