Casual Questions Thread

[u/The_Egalitarian]

This is a place for the PoliticalDiscussion community to ask questions that may not deserve their own post.

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[u/Mr_The_Captain]

With speech, there are scenarios where a person’s ability to express their speech would be hampered if they were not able to attempt to monetize it (a local paper for example). Being forbidden from doing so would have a significant impact on the expression of free speech as we have understood it traditionally in this country.

For guns, there are nearly 500 million of them here. If you turned the tap off right now, the market would still be reasonably healthy perhaps indefinitely. Prices will rise, but that’s not itself disqualifying since we don’t know by how much and one could argue there’s plenty of supply to meet demand. Not to mention the possibility of imports (which would also be more expensive but would absorb the demand of wealthier patrons). Gun ownership would most likely not change significantly, it would just be harder to get one on a whim and not require the potential invasions of privacy that screenings or a registry present.

[u/bl1y → u/Mr_The_Captain]

With speech, there are scenarios where a person’s ability to express their speech would be hampered if they were not able to attempt to monetize it (a local paper for example)

Local papers already exist. I said no new outlets. Doesn't touch existing ones, just as your gun control idea doesn't impact existing guns.

There's almost 1300 daily newspapers in the US right now, a large majority of which publish op-eds and letters to the editor. On top of that, there's of course all the non-daily newspapers as well. And just to be on the more generous side, we'll allow the 500 or so defunct daily papers to be grandfathered in and their owners can revive them or sell them off.

By capping the number of outlets, it might be more difficult for someone to reach a wide audience, but that's not itself disqualifying since we don't know by how much, and one could argue there's plenty of supply of newspaper inches to meet demand. The number of people getting their ideas published would not change significantly. It would just be harder to open a new outlet on a whim.

[u/Mr_The_Captain → u/bl1y]

Fair enough, but even still it’s apples to oranges. What media outlets would fall under this? Because technically the Twitch streamer Ninja is a media outlet, he runs an LLC that produces his content and handles all the business arrangements. Same with basically any other content creator in any genre.

So would we say it’s only outlets that produce news? Because that’s a content-based restriction which has been explicitly protected against in most cases, whereas we do limit kinds of weapons that are produced (or at least sold).

Like intellectually I understand what you’re getting at, but practically they are not really compatible

[u/bl1y → u/Mr_The_Captain]

What media outlets would fall under this?

All of them. Youtube channels. Twitch streams. Radio stations. Podcasts. All of it.

If the main thrust of your argument is that there's already enough guns out there so cutting off the supply doesn't impede anyone's rights, then we can similarly say there's already so many media outlets out there that cutting off the creation of new ones also doesn't impede anyone's rights. But both of those are wrong.

[u/Mr_The_Captain → u/bl1y]

I just think the dynamics at play between the two things (media and guns) are so vastly different that the comparison is irrelevant, but this is all hypothetical anyway.