It appears that I have denigrated someone's favored choice of music. Tough. In any event, I was targeting the culture.

Gangsta rap music is an effect. Gangsta culture is a cause.

... and an effect of many things, primarily the War on Some Drugs.

My favorite music is more of this flavor:

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But yes, clearly the gangster thing is a culture issue. Spanning from white guilt and prior to Jim Crow laws all the way through Grand Theft Auto 4 (a video game) and the hoodlums across the street who may have been stealing a car stero an hour or so ago. I used to be in the business of trying to do a little to make it better. .. adressing the causes on the painfully slow, individual level & would take another job in the field given the opportunity. There are people doing things to make it better, it is just really daunting and hard to keep moving forward when the funding gets cut or a new company VP axes your dept. Put me back to work.

Getting back on topic though -

Yes. +1. Replacing bad laws with m ore bad laws doesn't get at the heart of it. We need to look at striking some B.S. from the books.

"Gangsta-rap" can definitely be blamed for legitimatizing violence, crime, and gang culture. Various cultures themselves can be blamed for many of the problems in society. That being said, you can't just quantify all music in a genre as being bad or harmful most of the time... Punk Rock and the Hardcore scenes have been links to gangs like neo-nazi's and FSU too.





Fully understood. What I was trying to suggest is that we make more "compromises" that address problems the media, press, and gun control groups play off of. In doing so, we can author new legislation that allows for more freedom than before, and fixes actual issues to some degree.

The Minnesota Permit to Purchase would be a great example. A national or state weapons permit system could be created, and could be referenced when people rent, buy or sell firearms. The legislation could be authored to exclude all of the privacy, confiscation, fees and other issues gun owners are concerned about.

It would be interesting to watch the gun control groups choke and try to fight against legislation that solves the issues they're pretending to.

Personally, I think the whole "Permit to Purchase" thing is bullshit. But, so is the "Waiting Period". WTF happened to innocent until proven guilty? I have to prove to them I'm not a murderous, felonious piece of human waste, and then I can buy a gun? Why dont they have to prove I AM before they infringe all over me and the rights that are CLEARLY spelled out in The Bill Of Rights? The burden of proof should be on them, not me.

And why the HELL would anyone suggest an expansion of this infringement? Have they started putting things in the tap water up here?

Oswald killed Kennedy?! I thought is was the guy on the grassy knoll.

back on topic; "gangsta-rap" is music (well at least is some people's opinion) I don't think music causes violence and crime. If that was the case then with all the horror movies I've seen I would have butchered all kinds of people by now - I haven't. Gangsta culture is spawned from allot of factors probably not the least of which is bad or nonexistent parenting.

As all of this applies to gun laws, I believe Traveler is correct. Kennedy was not killed because of mail-order guns. I know many people who bought mail order guns including some supplied by the Federal Government through the DCM. None of them went out and committed any crimes with them. I have always said that you cannot pass a law to prevent crime. Criminals, by definition. don't obey laws. The proposed "gunshow loophole" laws are just another attempt to get the government further involved in the sale (and registration) of guns. All of the attention to trying to regulate the tools used in the crime takes time and resources away from the real problem which is the crimes and the people who commit them.

I do not care what "self-defining" type of music people listen to. I was talking about the negative culture that has embraced "gangsta" rap music. However, if rap concerning forced prostitution, drugs, murder, and other general mayhem enhances your personal make-up feel free to listen away.

"Innocent until proven guilty" has nothing to do with the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Obviously there are "murderous, felonious piece(s) of human waste" that society wants to prevent from owning firearms.

Obtaining a permit does not put the "burden of proof" on you. Waiting to obtain a permit or firearm does infringe on your rights though.

I'm not trying to suggest that more of your rights are infringed upon. I'm suggesting that new system or legislation could address concerns about the gun show loophole (private sales) and restore some of our rights as law abiding citizens.

There is no reason you shouldn't be able to walk into a gun store and use your State ID to get a instant background check. Additionally if you were selling a firearm in a private sale, you could call to verify the person you were selling it to wasn't a criminal.

This way if a firearm owner/seller doesn't check if someone is legally able to posses a weapon, they can be held responsible.

Not to play devils advocate, but I'll have to disagree with you on passing laws to prevent crime. If laws do not prevent crime, why are they needed at all?

My point in starting this discussion was that we all know the "gunshow loophole" is "another attempt to get the government further involved in the sale (and registration) of guns."...

Why not cut them off in the pass before they can, and at the same time restore more of our rights?

Laws act to authorize responses to crime. They don't prevent crime, they permit punishment for crime, after the fact.

Yep. The simple truth is that the people who will abide by these laws are the ones we don't need to be worried about.

But, the Permit to Purchase shows a way of doing a background check while the risks of de-facto registration. The fact that the current proposals - or NICS, for that matter - are not designed to avoid de-facto registration is, IMO, an indication that they are in large part designed to create a de-facto registration.

If they want background checks, let them propose a mechanism for providing background checks that does not also establish the mechanism for a registry. Minnesota's Permit to Purchase system demonstrates that this could easily be done.

So long as their proposals include de-facto registration, I will consider them to be primarily registration and will oppose them on those grounds.

You are making the fundamental mistake that we always make when dealing with these vermin. You are assuming that their stated concerns are their real concerns, and that if we can find a way of addressing those concerns they will be satisfied.

That's not the case.

Like I said, we have a system in Minnesota that was very carefully structured to address their stated concerns. Were they satisfied? Not in the slightest.

You have to recognize that everything they say about what they want is a lie, and has always been a lie.

They don't give a damn about the gun show loophole. What they want is to end gun shows. Gun shows provide a means by which individuals who believe in individual liberty can meet, exchange ideas, and organize.

This isn't about making the world a safer place, it's about destroying the political power of the gun rights movement.

gyrfalcon wrote:


Laws are a set of rules in a civilized society that state what is unacceptable behavior in that society and what the punishment will be for violating those rules. There are things that I don't do because because they are illegal, so I suppose you could say that the law prevented me from committing that crime. But therein lies the difference between a law-abiding citizen and a criminal. If laws prevented crime then there would be no murder,or rape, or assault, or auto theft etc because those things are illegal, yet they still occur. That is what I mean when I say you can't prevent crime by passing a law.

I agree with both of you as hard as that may seem. I am envisioning something like I'd write it thus:


A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. This section sets forth the complete and exclusive criteria and establishes their nature and scope. No sheriff, police chief, governmental unit, State, Legislature, tax enforcement agency, government official, government employee, or other person or body acting under color of law or governmental authority may change, modify, or supplement these criteria or procedures, or limit the exercise of right of the People to keep and bear arms.

There ya have it. This is the only acceptable legislation I can think of that could adress those concerned about gun show loop holes. The problem is best solved by passing laws against it being a problem