The constitution is decided by the Supreme Court in the end. The American system of government makes the selection of justices political appointees for life. That is why you have Republican and Democrat justices. Political. So the constitution gets bent into any political shape according to power possession.

Don’t for a second believe that the United States can’t sleepwalk into a dictatorship. People are already describing Jan 6 as an ordinary tourist visit. What will it take for the public to see the danger with their own eyes.

You went into a ton of detail, thank you. But it is meaningless under the original definition of the act.

“The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.”

A bump stock modifies the frame of the gun which converts it into a fully automatic weapon. Don’t just get stuck on the trigger part of the action. The act covers everything, you just can’t cherry pick a single clause and ignore everything else. Otherwise they just might make you into one of Trump’s Supreme Court justices.

So much twaddle and dancing around definitions. You could definitely qualify for a spot on Trump’s Supreme Court.

All they are a modification to turn a semiautomatic gun into a full automatic weapon. That’s it. All the intricate dribble into the contrary doesn’t change that. Water is wet, sky blue, and modifications allowing automatic fire are machine guns.

What I find fascinating is the total number of numbskulls and cartoon villains, all collected under the Trump banner, and that lunatic mob may very well take government.

What’s the hell wrong with American voters?

That excellent quote of the text you provided spells out that any modifications to a gun that allows any more than a single shot is to be prohibited. A court that is very big on textual meaning, as it purports to be, would readily agree, unless bias is in the driver’s seat.

This conservative supreme court despised regulatory agencies . For decades the US government has relied upon such agencies as subject experts and has allowed them to regulate their areas. This court just wants to reverse this common sense and established way of doing things. I might remind you that the bump stock thing wasn’t a democrat initiative, but a bipartisan Trump one.

I disagree with the accuracy of what you just said, but 100% agree with your sentiments.

I actually looked up the legalisation one time. Congress described a machine gun and gave all the definitions that were forbidden to alter it to make it automatic fire. It was pretty comprehensive, particularly given that it was written in the 80s. However this supreme court said that the magic words ‘bump stock’ wasn’t in the legalisation. Words that didn’t even exist until 2003, or thereabouts. The court ignored the legislative text completely.

And I don’t believe that you are a gun nut at all. You seem perfectly reasonable and make a good point.

I’m not calling the insurrectionists good people, I’m calling the defenders of the constitution who might catch an AR 15 round good people.

I guess my point is not that they’ll necessarily be successful, it’s more that a great many good people won’t go home to their families that night.

They weren’t successful last time and the Republican Congress welcomed the traitor-in-chief back to DC last week as a hero.

The Republicans get away with so much despicable action and each time the Dems get pants by the audacity of the attempt. That’s how we are here now.

The conservatives will try absolutely anything, up to and including armed insurrection. Now with AR15s, and probably with bumpstocks fitted.

Don’t think that it could never happen. The MAGA element love being underestimated.

I have to inform you that that US has some of the best spy satellite networks on the planet.

People shocked that other countries play the spook game too is amazing.

The country that makes ALL your shit has nothing to fear in a trade war. Unless you want to forgo ALL your shit?

Who would have thought that sending all those jobs overseas to increase company profits and depress wages would have a downside?

Welcome to Marx 101.

“Property is theft”

Only in the US. The rest of the world buys them. It still is a major market lose, but China still makes Huawei phones.

*Land of the free!

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That is an interesting suggestion, and has been made many times before. Australia (for instance) is pretty much handcuffed to the US. Ever since WW2 we have been in lockstep with you guys. Every damn war and conflict. It would be nice to have a small say in who drags is into war that we never ask for.

But still, we do it to ourselves. Other countries don’t.

I guess that we shall have to agree to disagree.

Kids should have nothing to do with the corporate world until they are old enough to deal with it rationally. Whatever the rationale is for doing so, fast food joints want to materially exploit people and having kids as young as 5 play as burger slingers is beyond creepy. Feel free to have alternative views about it.

Perhaps just let kids play and forget all about training to be “future workers”.

Is this what we’ve become? Jesus!

With respect, and I mean it. There is a world of difference between a kid brushing a horse and a training camp for a fast food joint. I mean, really?

Want to bond with your kid, take them to the park, not some corporate hellscape.