> Can't believe all the Apple apologists here. Bribing public officials is a crime, period.
Apple or no Apple, no one in America should be deprived of their Constitutional rights. I'm more concerned that authoritarian states like California can get away with depriving the people of our explicit rights under American law than I am with people paying bribes just to exercise those rights.
Apple leaders have spoken publicly in favor of such deprivations. It would be interesting to check whether the company itself has made contributions to that cause under the guise of charity.
Fair enough. It is their right. The nature of rights being what they are, the Apple execs can publicly call for eradication of others' rights and the would-be gun owners can get their guns without each other's approval, unless very exacting political-legal hurdles were overcome.
Was there any indication that one of these security personnel failed a background check? Used a straw purchaser or gun show loophole? Had friends and family worried about what he planned to do? Had an active domestic violence case?
Unless your state is open carry you do in fact need a permit to carry in public. In fact, some open carry states (ex Texas) still require a permit to do so.
I'm always frustrated but amused at how uninformed many of my fellow Americans are about the gun laws here (frequently it's the ones pushing for additional laws).
Gun activists have been waiting for a Supreme Court majority that actually does its job. I would expect people’s 2nd amendment rights to be restored in CA soon.
The key language from the courts is "reasonable regulation" on the use of firearms. That's a bit vague, but "we've created a process to let you concealed carry, but we won't actually issue a permit to anyone" pretty obviously fails the "reasonableness" test. If the restriction was that concealed carry is flat out illegal, that might actually be more legally tenable than this discretionary nonsense in places like the Bay Area. Of course, CCW regulations that are clearly limited to safety and competence with firearms and limit the discretion of issuing officials are almost certainly compatible with the Constitution.
Just for the sake of comparison, the rule that was struck down in DC v. Heller (which firmly established that the Constitution protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for defense, subject to reasonable regulation by the state) required gun owners to keep their weapons "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock" at all times.
Bay Area Sheriffs withhold a constitutional right in the issuance of permits, which results in something of value being created that they can hold for political or financial favor.
Even if you disagree with concealed carry, 2/3 of the counties in CA will issue you a permit no problem that allows you to carry statewide. There is no reasonable argument for not issuing permits here.
I totally agree with you, but I think the clear implication of baryphonic's comment is that the State of CA was being "authoritarian" here by denying the permit, as opposed to the sheriffs dept. Which, I'd point out, doesn't make much sense given that it is in fact the State of California which is bringing the charges against these people in the sheriffs dept for demanding bribes in exchange for a constitutionally protected government service.
> I totally agree with you, but I think the clear implication of baryphonic's comment is that the State of CA was being "authoritarian" here by denying the permit, as opposed to the sheriffs dept.
I'd argue that the state is slightly authoritarian by allowing local officials such discretion, but that's more a matter of taste. However, if I was arrogant enough to think the Bay Area, LA and San Diego were representative of the entire state in terms of their approach to gun permits and this is actually not the case, then I apologize.
> Which, I'd point out, doesn't make much sense given that it is in fact the State of California which is bringing the charges against these people in the sheriffs dept for demanding bribes in exchange for a constitutionally protected government service.
Interesting framing. But the people who should have been entitled to these services and were coerced into paying bribes are also facing charges. The state's foremost goal appears be defending its own authority zealously, and worrying about things like legal rights after the dust settles.
California has the most stringent gun laws but also the a lowest gun violence death rate per capita.
More people were allowed to pursue the "life" option in the Declaration of Independence. The first item of unalienable rights our forefathers stated all people had.
What do you do when two rights directly infringe upon eachother?
26th in homicide according to wikipedia [0] but what is your point?
The 'typical' murder involves people that know each other and has a motive. Loose firearm regulations enable mass shootings [1][2] which are more indiscriminate.
Everyone has the right to bear arms but what do we do when that infringes on other peoples right to life? I think it's a cogent question.
> Everyone has the right to bear arms but what do we do when that infringes on other peoples right to life? I think it's a cogent question.
Clearly the state has laws against murder. And California even has laws that "enhance" sentencing criteria for anyone guilty of using a firearm in the commission of a felony.[1] Also, "mass shootings" are also illegal and are incredibly rare.
Also, I have a right to "property"/"pursuit of happiness" (per Fifth Amendment and the Declaration of Independence). In the Bay Area, if I leave my laptop in my trunk, it'll be stolen. If you leave CA (or at least the Bay Area) and visit a state with slightly looser restrictions, laptops can peacefully spend a dinner in the trunk without being stolen. I have to imagine that criminals who know they have very little to fear from armed ordinary citizens are emboldened by the restrictions on firearm ownership. By the logic above, the correlation (note: I have no data other than the ubiquitous "BRING YOUR LAPTOP INSIDE!!!" signs all over the place in the Bay Area) must mean that the state is neglecting a right to property, therefore the fun restrictions should be relaxed. Or maybe using aggregate statistics and correlations isn't the best approach to analyzing legal-political issues in the absence of a very strong signal.
I wonder, why is the auto-contents-theft thing so bad in the bay area? I’ve stopped even renting a car when I visit after two friends had separate break-ins on prior trips. Maybe I just got unlucky and these are anecdotes, but geish.
When California Proposition 47 passed in 2014 it reclassified many auto burglaries from felonies to misdemeanors. So DAs in many counties stopped prosecuting those.
Based on what is on the laptop possibly Texas, if the laptop had open access to your life savings or was your work laptop and one would lose a substantial sum given the loss of business from losing the laptop, or it held trade secrets then it may qualify as highly defensible property, in which case in Texas it would possibly not be prosecutable, but even those are long odds:
>the 'typical' murder involves people that know each other and has a motive. Loose firearm regulations enable mass shootings [1][2] which are more indiscriminate.
Mass shootings are a rounding errors and should not be used to motivate public policy. Catering to asinine edge cases like that is why we all have to take off our shoes when we fly.
If you want people to murder each other less then you need to reduce the size of the illegal economy (mostly drug trafficking) so that those industries can settle their disputes with contracts and court orders instead of violence. Basically everything else pales in comparison to that type of violence.
Don't worry. The government will be coming to restrict and backdoor your general purpose computer as well. Any device that could be hijacked by a botnet is a threat the utilities systems and to people's right to life.
I found those age adjusted rates some time after I posted. It strikes me as odd. I'm sure if we adjust by enough rates we can come to whatever conclusion we want. What if we adjusted for gang prevalence and suicide rate as well?
Apple or no Apple, no one in America should be deprived of their Constitutional rights. I'm more concerned that authoritarian states like California can get away with depriving the people of our explicit rights under American law than I am with people paying bribes just to exercise those rights.