swansont

I don't think that's a fair assessment. The states can pass gun restrictions. The Supreme Court can rule them to be unconstitutional. I don't think there's anything controversial in that position.

Federal law is enforced by federal officials, e.g. the FBI or ATF For example, the feds could (and recently threatened to) enforce marijuana laws despite legalization at the state level. If federal gun legislation is passed, the states will not be able to "thwart" it. The US has the opportunity to legally overthrow the bulk of the government every 2 years. All of the house and 1/3 of the senate.

Not so much. The elected officials are split to the point where nothing has been done, but the people elect them, and their sentiments are much more lopsided. Plus, there has already been some evidence of a swing away from the GOP. Their current hesitation to do anything may just galvanize young voters to turn out in much greater numbers, and be single-issue voters. So you vote out some of the resistance, and anyone who remains may re-evaluate their position before the next voting cycle.

strangerthanu has been banned as a sockpuppet of JohnLesser (and curiouscat)

seriously disabled has been suspended a year for continued disruption through thread hijacking. We are hoping the time can be spent getting help and sorting out personal issues. Disruptive posting to get attention is not the right path for that.

! Moderator Note This thread is not an invitation to advertise your own site (see rule 2.7), or some "alternative" viewpoint

YuanShenhau is suspended 3 days for repeatedly opening new threads on the same topic, after being told not to.

Since he learned nothing from his brief suspension and continues to hijack and post abusive comments, Furyan5 is suspended for a month

Furyan5 has been suspended for abusive posts and thread hijacking.

Thomasmariel has been banned as a sockpuppet of marieltrokan

Thomasmariel has been added

Vmedvil has declared that s/he "will not be back EVER!" so we have decided to close and lock the door, just to be sure.

SuperPolymath again suspended, for not kicking the hijacking habit, with a dash of soapboxing thrown in.

Dalo has been banned for refusing to get off of his soapbox and engage with people in a meaningful way.

Vmedvil has been suspended a week for thread hijacking and wholly inappropriate responses to feedback

generalrelativity has been banned as a sockpuppet of reerer and ivylove

Not really. Was already in use at that time (1986) https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content="anecdotal+evidence"&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2C" anecdotal evidence "%3B%2Cc0

SuperPolymath has been suspended a week for repeated hijacking.

waitforufo has been suspended a week for his pattern of posting innuendo and soapboxing to incite emotional response, rather than engaging in fact-based discussion.

Upon further review, it has been determined that reerer is a sockpuppet of ivylove (or vice-versa) and the suspension has been extended to a permanent ban, at no additional charge.

If you were in orbit around the sun (and away from the earth), and strapped a scale to your feet it would read zero. It has no direct effect on the weight here on earth. (There's a differential effect stemming from your location which are the tides.)

We're in free fall with respect to the sun, as we are in orbit.

PandaBear has been banned as asockpuppet of B. John Jones

PolishBoy has been banned as a sockpuppet of the Maciej Marosz pantheon

ProgrammingGodJordan has been banned for repeated spamming of topics after threads had been locked.