What things should be legal
 

Just an informal straw poll. Check all that you think should be legal. "Legal" for these purposes can include taxing and regulating the activity. The devil can be in the details with this stuff--but for this, I am just curious about broad thoughts.

I picked everything except hard drugs and heavy weapons. Too many hard drugs are addictive with a single use and heavy weapons are too dangerous, IMO, for mass use.

Same, except someone needs to stand up for the trout, might as well be me.

Is body armor illeagal?

+1

I voted for everything, but I'd would seriously regulate and tax hard drugs. You'd have to pay up front and then stay basically locked up until you come down. I figure it'd be a good way to kill off some undesirables. You also of course, would have to sign a waiver declining participation in any government health care plan.

Hate to sound like an NRA mouthpiece here but a lot of the freest countries in the world also have the highest gun ownership. (USA, Switzerland, Australia, Finland, France, Canada, Norway, Sweden...)

My guess is that it is a lot harder to adopt a totalitarian type regime when the country's citizens have guns and can fight back.

That argument doesn't really hold water. In 2007 the top five gun ownership per capita countries included Serbia, iraq and Yemen.

I will take a wild guess... because of the wars going on there?

I don't know, but it makes arguing a correlation between gun ownership and freedom rather difficult.

Hard drugs are kind of a difficult one for me. I don't think you should be able to go into the corner 7-11 and buy an 8 ball of cocaine. But under doctor supervision for any number of reasons, I don't have a problem. Heroin is probably a better example, as I'm not sure the medicinal value of cocaine except in dentistry.

I think most historians will tell you that a combination of the Alps and well armed citizens who would shoot officers are one of the reasons the Nazi's left the Swiss alone. (and the Alps part is questionable seeing as they decided to go into Russia in the middle of the winter) Doesn't seem that difficult at all to understand the outliers of Iraq, Afganistan, Serbia, and Yemen on the list of basically the freest counties in the world. But that isn't the purpose of this thread so I will leave it at that.

I pretty much went where everyone else did.

I would have liked to see online gambling on there as well. These are things that should be legal and have the shit taxed out of them.

I'm not really sure that is accurate. I think it is more they needed the banking system there and that they felt people of Nordic heritage were Aryan and in general left them alone.

I am about to go to class, the subject, Science in Nazi Germany, so maybe I can find out.

So the Nazis were so afraid of personal firearms among the Swiss population that they instead decided to attack the Red Army's tanks, artillery and air force?

Just curious what you mean since I know you're a player. Are you just talking about on the house side or do you think winnings should be taxed higher than they currently are (when they are legitimately played)?

Everything but hard drugs and heavy weapons.

Ask about the famous Swiss quote about how they would fight off a million man army. "Each man will have to shoot twice." They are quite known for thier citizen militia. (Swiss army?)

I picked everything except trout fishing... damn fishermen :mad:

Read a history book.

Only with a felony conviction.

Not trying to call anyone out, but is there really someone who thinks caffeine should be illegal?

And worse ... 18 people so far think trout fishing should be illegal.

Dammit. I forgot gambling. Crap. Oh well, I assume, based on this board, that it would have ~90% approval as well.

I said everything except assault weapons (and I may have forgotten to click Trout Fishing). I took the Libertarian bend on hard drugs, but that's one I am on the fence on. I wouldn't mind if that remained illegal.

I did the standard all but heavy weapons and heavy drugs. That said, I'm all for pretty strong sin taxes on any of the above including caffeine and even something like unhealthy food where the tax goes into a health care fund. People are still free to pay extra and do those things that can be viewed as harmful to society but if it has an additional cost to society, they should pay that *on top of* the price that it's most profitable for a company to sell those wares.

SI

Portugal tried decriminalizing hard drugs. Not full-blown legalization, but if you are caught by police (if I'm reading it right), the only punishment is voluntary rehab, no jail time. Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work? - TIME

Aren't most of those countries called "socialist" by many people in this country?

As for the poll, I would have added gambling to the list.

Why is prostitution so accepted? Is it because it is viewed as a victimless-consensual act? this profession is overwhelming driven by abuse, addiction and poverty

I think the angle is that it would be safer for everyone involved if it was legal and the women were protected. Plus, we need room in jails for violent criminals.

I think there should be a distinction on the personal firearms. I'd be fine with people having rifles and shotguns, but I don't think people should have handguns. I can defend myself from the Nazi's just fine with a rifle, but it's harder to sneak one into a club or conceal one in my pants.

FOFC Card ... you've just forfeited it.

I went with everything but hard drugs. I think we need more military weapons in teh hands of citizens not less. I agree not stuff like missiles or nukes or anything, but I totally would be for limited purchases of things like assault guns and body armor and RPGs and stuff.

I voted for everything. I don't care what other people do. Speaking only for myself, the only thing that should be illegal is getting near me without my permission.

Who exactly are the folks wanting assault guns and body armor afraid of?

It was only once, and I was just trying to get a peek!

Touche. Wish I had thought of that one.

Except I have and that is why I know a lot about Switzerland and it's citizen militia. Whereas your agrument seemed to show little understanding of how the Swiss are able to stay neutral all these years.

Because every non felony convicted citizen might need a little extra armor from time to time, when they are hunting or something.

You can rightly point out that the Swiss have a relatively strong militia and a high firearm ownership rate. What you claimed, that you haven't been able to back up, is that the Nazi's didn't invade Switzerland because they were worried about the high rate of firearm ownership. When you can show me actual German military leaders saying that's why they didn't invade I'll listen. You're just upset because you can't prove a correlation between gun ownership rates and political freedom.

I'm no expert, but I'll gladly go book for book on WWII with you.

Exactly, they get everything for free...

Nobody needs extra firepower, but nobody needs any of the other things on this list either. And firearms are the only thing on the list that have some, debatable, constitutional protection.

I voted everything but heavy artillery...even then, I wouldn't care too much if someone wanted an assault rifle.

I disagree. The 14th Amendment covers the other items on the list.

I voted for everything but the trout fishing.

Just TRY to take my coffee from me.

Who knew Deadwood was such a Utopia?

I'm not afraid of anything, but I think to understand the Constitution's protections, you have to understand the era it was in. The idea that the government would serve best if its citizen was armed in order to keep it in line was important. In order to secure that, a citizen could have muskets, guns, etc.

Here's whats important though. The reason the government could be checked by citizens with muskets and such in case it became too dictatorial, was because the government itself had muskets and such. Citizens had the same military hardware the military had. There were even large numbers of private ships owned. The only major thing the USA that its citizens generally did not were cannons, and you could build a cannon in time of open conflict in a short time, and there were very few.

It makes sense, if you want the citizens to be he ultimate check on govenrment's abuse of power, then they need weapons that can do it. Today we allow citizens to have a much smaller quality of weapon than the military, and the result is that if the government were to start taking away our property, rights, and cancel elections, we would be unable to fight back with our hunting rifles and handguns. The original intent was to ensure that citizens were there to step in front of the govenrment if it went to far, and that is no longer the case. So I would support citizens owning military jeeps, body armor, RPGs, LAW rockets, etc. However, missiles are to me the modern version of cannons then, and I think that goes too far. You don;t need a nuke to have a fighting chance, but you have to have a way of destroying materiel like armored jeeps and such. Therefore, based on the original intent of the Constitution, I think things like assault rifles, body armor and heavy weapons and armored vehicles should be legally possessable.


It's not a right or wrong issue, it's just that I think that's what the Constitution says, and you should go with it until amended. Similarly, I think there is no legal right to privacy, because it's not mentioned there, but I would support an amendment to the Constitution to add it. Again, it's not an issue of right or wrong, because I don;t think that applies to gun ownership or privacy, but I think you have to go by what the document says ,not your hundreds of years later version of what it means.

I think it's somewhat interesting that prostitution is trending higher than tobacco.

I like the Canada legality of prostitution.

The document says arms. So shouldn't that mean suitcase nukes and grenade launchers should be legal?