EDITED FOR BREVITY BY ME
Quoted:
It is a high bar to set, but for someone who so greviously broke the compact with their felon citizens, the standard should be set high.
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I believe he means "fellow citizens", if that is the case I agree.
Mere drug possession felonies should not be prohibitive unless there is a pattern of recidivism present. A person who otherwise holds down a job and is considered a stable individual should be able to recover his or her Second Amendment rights following normal judicial punishment and probation.
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We'll get to this one in a second.
Getting in a barfight once twenty years ago, or even ten years ago should not be prohibitive, but getting arrested in 15 bar fights is pretty indicative of poor impulse control and a tendancy toward violent confrontation.
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It may also not be a felony. In WI it's not Battery, if both people involved "consent" to the fight, unless ther is signifigant injury.
Mentally disturbed people (those with serious problems such as Schizophrenia with psychotic breaks and dementia, and a limited number of conditions wherein [red]judgement is impaired or lost are also an unsafe bet for firearms ownership.[/red]
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Impaired judgement, you mean like being on drugs?
Standard depression doesn't count here, neither do the myriad "illnesses" that psychiatrists come up with to label people with so they don't feel responsible for coping with their lives.
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Did you really think that through? So depressed people and people that feel it's not their responsibility for dealing with their own lives should be packing heat?
Now, if you aren't a violent criminal or a mentally imbalanced individual then you should be able to own guns of whatever type that you find practical or desireable to own so long as you do so in a responsible manner.
Obviously in my scheme the boundaries would have to be carefully and clearly drawn with as little wiggle room left for case law and precedent to water it down as possible.
It simply is not practical or preferable to have hardened criminals allowed to walk into a gun store and buy the tools for their next crime. Certainly such laws will not stop them from buying a gun, but it puts a barrier up to make it harder and potentially more hazardous for them to do so. It also adds a charge to increase their jail time when they get caught.
But again, aside from this limited group of violent offenders and mentally disturbed people, I am in favor of highly liberalized gun ownership.
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I disagree on some of that, a white collar criminal that embezzeled $1,000,000 from elderly clients has "greiviously broken the compact with their fellow citizens". And I would suggest that their judgement is seriously lacking. If the get caught for that felony, no guns for them.