Would you support the Superhuman Registration Act?

[xcoijoi]

"For those powers that can actually pose a threat to others (e.g., explosive energy blasts), there's a point here..."

Good. Now we're getting somewhere, Vitruvian. There's a case to be made, for taking special precautions for low-probability, high-impact events, when they've suddenly become a bit more likely.

It doesn't necessarily mean that all such individuals have to monitored or have their identities revealed to power structures, who themselves haven't fully justified their own existence. But it does mean, that in THAT case there's room for debate, for a funneling of tax revenue to help lessen the impact of Black Swan events. And a discussion - not a threat - with such individuals is justified.

When it comes to other types of superpowers, like perceptual enhancements which might be useful for activities like whistle blowing, then it would be an absolute mistake to trust the authorities to deal with such individuals wisely. Nevertheless, I wouldn't blame them for trying to do so; in their position, they would feel like they had no choice.

[Mark]

That's a case for even more regulation than the SHRA offered. Let's remove individual corruption from the equation: let's say the Ant-Regs acted exactly like the Pro-Regs, and the pure issue were the only thing being debated, not "a pro-reg raped a kitten so pro-reg is wrong!" Then Pro-Reg would obviously be the pro-accountability, pro-justice, pro real freedom in an adult context side of the debate. The corruption of individuals doesn't change that. Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice isn't settled because an individual Pro-Choicer or Pro-Lifer rapes a kitten.

Doesn't work that way though. Even removing the corruption from the equation something like the SHRA would still be a violation of one groups civil rights just to make another group feel safer, a pre-emptive strike against a threat that might not even exist. A disruption of the individuals life for something he might do later in life. That is just not right no matter how you phrase it.

[Mark]

"For those powers that can actually pose a threat to others (e.g., explosive energy blasts), there's a point here..."

Good. Now we're getting somewhere, Vitruvian. There's a case to be made, for taking special precautions for low-probability, high-impact events, when they've suddenly become a bit more likely.

It doesn't necessarily mean that all such individuals have to monitored or have their identities revealed to power structures, who themselves haven't fully justified their own existence. But it does mean, that in THAT case there's room for debate, for a funneling of tax revenue to help lessen the impact of Black Swan events. And a discussion - not a threat - with such individuals is justified.

When it comes to other types of superpowers, like perceptual enhancements which might be useful for activities like whistle blowing, then it would be an absolute mistake to trust the authorities to deal with such individuals wisely. Nevertheless, I wouldn't blame them for trying to do so; in their position, they would feel like they had no choice.

But how could the US government ever have a conversation without a threat being part of it? Even after the SHRA was done away with Dazzler while working for SHIELD walked into someones home and because she was threatened she blew the house apart and then carted someone off for interrogation. Without a lawyer, without miranda, without any legal frame work at all. If you can find a way to take that out of the equation... but you can't. Not in a world where the US Government puts the Green Goblin in charge of national security.

[vitruvian]

"For those powers that can actually pose a threat to others (e.g., explosive energy blasts), there's a point here..."

Good. Now we're getting somewhere, Vitruvian. There's a case to be made, for taking special precautions for low-probability, high-impact events, when they've suddenly become a bit more likely.

It doesn't necessarily mean that all such individuals have to monitored or have their identities revealed to power structures, who themselves haven't fully justified their own existence. But it does mean, that in THAT case there's room for debate, for a funneling of tax revenue to help lessen the impact of Black Swan events. And a discussion - not a threat - with such individuals is justified.

When it comes to other types of superpowers, like perceptual enhancements which might be useful for activities like whistle blowing, then it would be an absolute mistake to trust the authorities to deal with such individuals wisely. Nevertheless, I wouldn't blame them for trying to do so; in their position, they would feel like they had no choice.

Note that openly destructive powers such energy blasts or being a flying 'brick' that can toss around cars or bust through buildings are not the only dangerous powers.

The government might be able to make a case for requiring disclosure of things like the ability to phase through solid matter, telepathy with or without mind control included (since even just mind reading alone allows for espionage or insider trading galore), invisibility, and so on, both as a matter of national security and for regular law enforcement reasons. Whether they could require preemptive disclosure of such things when people don't need to disclose potentially dangerous knowledge and skills (like ability with computer cracking and hacking, explosives, infectious diseases, etc.) until and unless they actually misuse them in some way, would be for the courts to decide and seems like a tricky one. Even enhanced senses might get included in this, since they implicate some of the same espionage and insider trading concerns as mind reading.

There's also the matter that so long as a potential draft and the requirement for Selective Service registration continue to pass muster in the courts (and there's no indication the courts will reverse themselves on this issue any time soon), questions about special abilities that could make potential draftees more useful to the military could potentially be included as required under amendments to the Selective Service Act and themselves be deemed perfectly constitutional. After all, if the government can require you to tell them whether you're 4F and unfit for duty, or your level of educational attainment, in deciding whether to potentially draft you, why not whether you can take on tanks and fighter jets one on one, or teleport fellow soldiers out of a fire zone? An actual draft into a superpowered army would require a separate draft law, of course, and there are still some remnants of Posse Comitatus as a doctrine to deal with if the government wanted a controlled cadre of superheroes on staff working domestically (as opposed to just recruiting superhumans as G-Men and Marshals and so on), and unless they amended the SSA to include women, they'd only be asking these questions of males 18 and up.... but it's a direction they could go to justify things.

But the SHRA as presented in the comics was not any kind of careful expansion of existing laws to cover superhumans and costumed vigilantes in a rational way that accords with what's been found constitutional in the courts so far.... it came off as a ham-fisted, semi-totalitarian measure that nobody thought through fully on either a Doylist (writers and editors) or Watsonian (fictional Congresscritters) level.

[Dabrikishaw]

I'm against it because I don't see any Marvel government as worth trusting with that kind of power over others.

[People Of The Earth]

For those powers that can actually pose a threat to others (e.g., explosive energy blasts), there's a point here, although that bare minimum in such cases would simply be how to not activate them if they have no intention of using them in crime fighting... which was not the case with the SHRA as portrayed.

No, not just the obvious dangerous powers like shooting laser beams or lightning bolt. Someone having power over milk could be just as lethal.
All powers. Why ? Because of the versatility of powers, of people, of situations.
Without a technology to act on the powers and given the sheer number of situations and environments one could end-up in, the only variable who can be acted upon are the people.

For plenty of other powers, though, such as invulnerability, enhanced senses, regeneration, breathing underwater even arguably superstrength if somebody has no history of brawling or flight if somebody is willing to stay out of controlled airspace (and even there, it could be argued that self-powered flyers are no more subject to FAA regulation than birds)... in these cases, there doesn't seem to be any compelling government interest in either registration or mandatory training.

The training is as much to protect others from harm than to protect oneself.
Someone unable to control his/her invulnerability could end-up maimed or die unecessarily in an accident.
Same with breathing underwater or regeneration: them being passively on is not a rule of thumb.
Someone unable to control his/her enhanced senses would either have to renounce community or be driven crazy very fast (especially in our giant metropolis).
As for super-strength, how is that even debatable ? One doesn't have to get into a fight to be dangerous to others or to oneself. The simple practice of sport with uncontrolled strength comes to mind, same thing for working with tools. Heck, what do you think would happen with someone unable to control his or her strength while driving a car ?
Even flyers better learn how to actually fly, how long they can fly before fatigue, at which speed, and under different meteorological conditions they might encounter BEFORE letting them jump out of a window...
And those are just the examples you cited...
Training in controlling one's power is fundamental if said person is to be part of his/her society/community, actively or not.
Registration to prove said training was underwent goes hand-in-hand with this.

Now, if we're talking would be superheroes as opposed to just those with superhuman powers, it's a little different, but even there, existing citizens arrest statutes and standards for justifiable self-defense (which always includes defense of others as well) don't require any special registration to apply to individuals. If somebody's going to be running around on a regular basis patrolling for crime in a mask or acting as a first responder, you'd want some level of identification and training, true enough, but that would be more a local or state matter than a federal one.

I won't speak for the US, but for a country like mine, such an important subject wouldn't be decided regionally but nationally.
Then, there's also the issue of how many super-individuals would be concerned by it. I can imagine in the US that the New-York State would have a vested interest in legiferring, much more so than say Alaska for example.

[Cosimo]

In the Marvel Universe? I oppose registration. If we had Marvel characters and superheroes in the real world? I would DEFINITELY support registration. Governments enforce arms control legislation (like gun permits) for a good reason.

[xcoijoi]

But how could the US government ever have a conversation without a threat being part of it? Even after the SHRA was done away with Dazzler while working for SHIELD walked into someones home and because she was threatened she blew the house apart and then carted someone off for interrogation. Without a lawyer, without miranda, without any legal frame work at all. If you can find a way to take that out of the equation... but you can't. Not in a world where the US Government puts the Green Goblin in charge of national security.

I don't know, if I had some kind of augmentation which invoked some paranoia, I'd be ok if they called me on the phone, and asked me if they could discuss how best to deal with intentional or accidental uses of such abilities. I'd insist on a lawyer being present, of course. But I'd want to help, as long as it doesn't involve pulling super-beings into concentration camps, 'just in case'.

But still, they don't have the right to force their way into our lives, or suggest incarceration, simply because we are different, whether that difference is being smarter than most of them them or stronger them most of them, or skin color or gender.

I think the core problem here, is that extreme augmentations, or superpowers, aren't something we have had to deal with in the real world, yet, not on this level. The system we have in place, can't predict or control, or protect itself from such things. I hope we're ready, before it happens.

[vitruvian]

The training is as much to protect others from harm than to protect oneself.
Someone unable to control his/her invulnerability could end-up maimed or die unecessarily in an accident.

No reason for mandatory anything. You're not going to hurt somebody else, and even if your invulnerability is only sometimes on, you're still better off than most folks in an accident. If you're reckless driving because you think you can't be hurt, of course, that's an entirely different matter... but one fully covered by reckless driving laws.

Same with breathing underwater or regeneration: them being passively on is not a rule of thumb.

Whether passively on or switchable, what's the compelling government interest in knowing that you can scuba dive without equipment or heal really fast? Let alone require you to train in the use of these abilities, much less join the Initiative for an indefinite term of service?

Someone unable to control his/her enhanced senses would either have to renounce community or be driven crazy very fast (especially in our giant metropolis).

By all means, have help available for such people. There's still no purpose to a law requiring those with enhanced senses to either register or serve the government, so long as they're not posing a danger to anybody or actively invading privacy.... which don't really require new laws, since they're already crimes.

As for super-strength, how is that even debatable ? One doesn't have to get into a fight to be dangerous to others or to oneself. The simple practice of sport with uncontrolled strength comes to mind, same thing for working with tools. Heck, what do you think would happen with someone unable to control his or her strength while driving a car ?

Plenty of people already get hurt with the existing variation of strength present in sport, and certainly specific leagues and associations would be free to bar those who can't play safely with others. Beyond that, I don't think we've ever seen a Marvel character injure others due to superstrength use of regular tools or wrecking a car while driving it, so the complete lack of control you seem to be talking about doesn't seem to exist. Therefore, regulating everybody who has supernormal strength on the basis that somebody might someday show up who can't help but wreck everything around them by accident seems far off the mark.

Even flyers better learn how to actually fly, how long they can fly before fatigue, at which speed, and under different meteorological conditions they might encounter BEFORE letting them jump out of a window...

Yes, and we need inspectors to sign off before any baby birds fly out of the nest... if there was evidence of superhuman flyers in the MU who have posed a danger to themselves or others simply because they were flying without a license, as opposed to deliberately abusing their flight to commit theft (e.g., Vulture, though his flight was technological) or being unwise enough to interfere with controlled airspace, or having somebody depower them in midflight, then you might have a point. Since I've never seen any such thing in a Marvel story, though, I have to question whether the problem such regulations would address even exists in this world.

And those are just the examples you cited...
Training in controlling one's power is fundamental if said person is to be part of his/her society/community, actively or not.
Registration to prove said training was underwent goes hand-in-hand with this.

You're assuming a complete lack of control of such powers that's simply not in evidence. You get the occasional new mutant who explodes or something without meaning to, but by and large, when people gain the ability to fly, they just fly, and so on.

I won't speak for the US, but for a country like mine, such an important subject wouldn't be decided regionally but nationally.
Then, there's also the issue of how many super-individuals would be concerned by it. I can imagine in the US that the New-York State would have a vested interest in legiferring, much more so than say Alaska for example.

What is legiferring? In any case, laws concerning what constitutes self-defense or a citizen's arrest are at the state level in the US for the most part, are as those for most crimes that don't cross state lines, from murder to rape to theft. On the other hand, they're actually pretty uniform across most of the states; for example, with citizen's arrest, the main variations are whether it's actually called that, and whether the private citizen effecting an arrest on somebody they actually witness committing a felony is allowed to take the perpetrator from that spot while still restraining them so they can deliver them to the police (most states), or whether they need to stay on the scene and wait for law enforcement to come to them (e.g., North Carolina). Likewise, self-defense law mostly varies in terms of whether there's a duty to retreat rather than fight if at all possible (which usually doesn't apply when superheroes defend civilians without much ability to retreat from supervillains menacing them), or whether some variation of Stand Your Ground has been enacted. Going beyond that to actual sanction as law enforcement officers of some kind, that could be handled at any level from federal down to the state or even municipality; it's certainly not unheard of for a local sheriff's office or PD to deputize people as needed.

[vitruvian]

In the Marvel Universe? I oppose registration. If we had Marvel characters and superheroes in the real world? I would DEFINITELY support registration. Governments enforce arms control legislation (like gun permits) for a good reason.

Sure, but the difference from a gun permit, if your powers are innate, would be that if you're denied the permit, you're not allowed to live, or at least to roam free. That's really problematic, even if your powers are potentially dangerous.

Now if your powers are actually, actively, and currently dangerous, there are such things as laws enabling quarantine for public safety, but if you're talking solely about what Raygun Hand Man might choose to do with his ability to shoot destructive rays from his hand, and there's no evidence that he shoots off accidentally or has a tendency toward criminal behavior, requiring a license for him to be who he is, or contemplating, what, removal of his hand if he doesn't qualify for that license for some reason, would be an abrogation of his civil rights. That much more with Scuba Girl, who just doesn't need an oxygen tank to stay underwater for hours.

[tg1982]

Also? Steve doesn't support the US government. He supports the ideals that America is supposed to represent.

One of those ideals was summed up by Thomas Jefferson: "When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty."

I love that quote. It's one of my favorites.

For those who can not control powers do you kill them or just penal colony them like lepers?

just because it is a Law does not make it right.

Slavery was legal but helping free slaves was not>

Many states used to offer bounties for the scalps of Native Americans that is legal paid murder.

It is still legal in some lands to kill gays or those found guilty of Withcraft.

You could beat your wife legaly in some lands so long as the cain or stick was no wider than your thumb.

It used to be legal to mate with prepubescent children in certain lands.

Things are not right just because they are legal.

This kind of re-enforces Cap's "No, you move." speech.

And nothing happened to Tony, Reed, and Pym when their "fake" Thor killed Goliath (pretty sure those experiments were illegal). Tony just chalked it up to being no different than a cop shooting a criminal, despite the fact that a clone/cyborg or a demigod is in no way a officer of the law, and that it was mentally unstable.

Yeah, that was complete BS to me. At least when Thor came back he beat the holy snot out of Stark for what he did (IIRC).

Bad characterization was one of the worst parts of the story, common sense was the other and Sally came off as a very bad reporter.

Is she the reporter who said Cap was bad because he didn't get social media, or something like that? I can't remember.

[tg1982]

To me the Captain America story which involved him being used by the Government for its own ends and Steve decides to no longer be CA should be the touchstone by which the SRA should never see the light of day. Would rather trust the heroes and keep their identities a secret than government officials with their own intentions that won't necessarily serve the public good.

Yeah, I agree. But that was a great Cap story though. To me, this just highlights one of the biggest problems of the SHRA. An overzealous government agency, or politician using the SHRA as their own spec ops squad.

Or someone like Osborn coming into power and getting the list of revealed super-heroes. Which he tried to do, right? And Stark had to mind wipe himself? Am I remembering this correctly?

[Sandy Hausler]

So, with the MCU getting it's own version of Civil War I was hoping to hear peoples' opinions on the law. As you know the Superhuman Registration Act forced superheroes to reveal their identities to certain government and military authorities and sign up with SHIELD (or other government/military groups?). What is necessary? Was it right? And was it dangerous (considering has a history of being infiltrated by enemies like HYDRA)?

Thoughts? And..Who's Side Are You On?

One rule for the debates! No creating homicidal clones of demigods!

In a universe where super heroes have been saving the world time and again? Not a chance.

Sandy Hausler

[xcoijoi]

"At least when Thor came back he beat the holy snot out of Stark for what he did"

Yep, fried his suit. That story alone, was a form of closure for the entire event.

[Darth Phoenix]

But how could the US government ever have a conversation without a threat being part of it? Even after the SHRA was done away with Dazzler while working for SHIELD walked into someones home and because she was threatened she blew the house apart and then carted someone off for interrogation. Without a lawyer, without miranda, without any legal frame work at all. If you can find a way to take that out of the equation... but you can't. Not in a world where the US Government puts the Green Goblin in charge of national security.

That was mystique and as many pointed out SHIELD is not good about respecting rights and laws anyway.