No one will remember what the argument was about by dreamtrove

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

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Guns put power into individual hands. You can have the power, or you can surrender it to govt. That's it.

No, thought puts the power into individual hands. First, in order to be free one must think freely. A person enslaved mentally, emotionally, and economically will always be enslaved, no matter how many gowns he or she owns. Then, one must be able to communicate and cooperate... gather information, and coordinate activity. People who are immersed in a media which reflects only one viewpoint and which doesn't allow free communication will also be enslaved, despite guns. One need only to look at various churches, who have their membership convinced of all sorts of nonsense, to see that propaganda works. Guns are a last resort, and an ineffective one at that.

AFA guns guaranteeing freedom... Canada, as far as I know, is a democracy. When did they have their revolution? Oh, that's right... they didn't. They got to the same place... some would argue an even better one... by different means, which did not involve armed revolt.

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Absence of street crime is usually not a good sign. It is usually a sign of an overbearing despotic government.

Yes, we can see how despotic Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, etc are, since they all have much lower rates of street crime than we do!

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 7:49 AM

... fully loaded, safety off...

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
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Did you use guns to break up the Hell Camps?

Originally we tried arson, actually.
Then we tried violence of a more personal sort, usually involving a tire iron and combat boots, combined with excessive property destruction.
But in the end it was cameras that got the job done.

Although, make NO mistake about it, it took the violence and property destruction to GET to the point where cameras were gonna do any good - people tend to forget that, cause that fact is pretty unpalatable to them that would prefer the world not work like it does, yet were it not for the reputation and absolute certainty of massive retaliation, them with the cameras woulda got their heads bashed in.

Only once was there ever a situation where firearms were deployed on both sides, and in that our course of action was more getting the hell to cover than actually responding in kind, although had we not been armed that might have gone badly, yeah - still firearms are just a tool, and you use the right tool for the job.
I woulda no more used firearms for that than I would use a crescent wrench on a wood screw.

Don't make the mistake of lumping me in with what your perception of 2A advocates is before listening to what I actually say, if you'd be so kind.

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I call it faulty logic. BOTH are bad, one doesn't prove the other. And while we're here... what did the government use to kill all those people...?

Other people.
People who just followed orders.

Now, if you wanna seperate personal, individual self-defense from the Second Amendment, you're going to have the wee little problem of me pointing out that almost all self-defense is effectively individual whether it's against a mugger or a goon with a badge - cause for my part a lotta the time there's not very damn much difference; case in point.
http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2011/01/oakland_county_aut
horities_rai_1.html
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In Wednesday's raid, officers wore bulletproof vests, and one wore a mask, said attorney Jim Rasor, who represents Big Daddy's Enterprises. But they took nothing except about $20,000 in cash, gathered from receipts, the offices and wallets of about 10 employees and patients, he said.

Mind you, they made no arrests - ergo, does it really MATTER whether the jerk who stuck a gun in your face and emptied your wallet was a gangbanger or a goon with a badge ?
Past a certain point, what exactly is the difference other than some level of perceived legitimacy ?

Now if you wanna seperate points, better that we seperate the points between defending against each other, and defending against the government - that we might be able to argue seperately, but self-defense is almost always an individual act, you see.

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I think you completely misunderstood what Frem was saying. In fact, I suspect your understanding is 180 degrees at odds with what he meant.

I'm not sure how you mean this, Siggy - you've have to explain that one better, cause I think you might be mistaken, but I am not sure.

I will say that even a single pistol in the hands of an untrained person, again, *CAN* (but not necessarily will, yes) stop an act of tyranny, and cited an example which was conveniently ignored.

Thing is, also, listen to me the person instead of letting your own perceptions paint over what I am saying here - guns, by themselves, mean nothing - consider this from a perspective of physical security, you cannot feasibly make something impossible to take by someone determined enough to take it, what you DO is raise the difficulty level to where it's not worth the effort they're willing to expend to take it.

The weapons themselves are but one single tool in a much larger arsenal, right along with cameras, cooperation, communication, coordination, information, one small part of a unified collective whole, but a vital part I do believe, as vital as any other - take the distributor cap out of a car and see how far you get.

And yes, I too have "issues" with folks who are unwilling to defend a constitutional right for those they hate as well as themselves, or are willing to defend specific ones but not others, cause when it comes to the bill of rights I am of the mind that's an all or nothing - you defend em ALL, or you miss the goddamn point of having em in the first place, sure.

Anyhows, I'm out of time - a weapon is just a tool, and like any powerful tool can be dangerous, but end of the day it's just a THING, an object, it has no will or motivation of it's own till a person picks it up and operates it - without that key factor, it endangers no one.
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It's just an object, doesn't mean what you think.
-River Tam

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

I appreciate your frankness, always. It's a double edged sword - I think "Frem has surely seen the worst side of people and knows more than most how evil they can be, surely he wouldn't want them to be armed..." But then on the other hand I think maybe that's the why of it.
For my part, I will not give up the notion that it's something we need to get past if we're going to evolve further as a society.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 7:51 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

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not an innate quality we possess

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The gun, as a tool, creates the opportunity to make mistakes on a scale that no one should have to.

I agree, and on this issue, DT, you and I are like peas in a pod, from all you've written here. I, too, in no way advocate for a gunless society--aside from the fact that it's impossible now, I see the same dangers other do. So for me it's also a case of

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I'm waiting to hear a better argument if you guys have one. I get that the board is pro-2nd amendment. I want a definition or implementation that would not allow some neighbor of mine to flip out and shoot my kids because he thought they were an army of invading goblins for a minute and a half.

If there were some way to actually ENFORCE the current laws, I think that would be a start. Putting an end to gun dealers selling guns to "themselves" in order to sell them to someone else, would be a small start, as would prosecuting people (parents) who are irresponsible about their gun ownership, tho' that has its own flaws. I'd be happy to discuss small solutions which would at least minimize the kind of senseless violence committed by guns, but that doesn't seem to be possible.

In essence, the argument here seems to always go immediately to "gun freedom" v. "government only having guns". There seems to be little ability to see anything in the middle, which I (and I believe you) would like to discuss. It seems unable to be discussed, or maybe even unable to be conceptualized by those making the pro-gun arguments.

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Well, we've already offered our arguments. If none of it meets with your expectations of "logical solidity" (whatever that is), maybe you just aren't going to find it here.

I think that reflects the problem with discussing it here; no arguments for any kind of middle ground HAVE been offered, only the usual "all or nothing" stance.

Pizmo, you make some excellent points. Unfortunately, the "veil" through which they're seen is too srong to get through, in my opinion.

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For my part, I will not give up the notion that it's something we need to get past if we're going to evolve further as a society.

Don't look for that kind of evolution in your lifetime; certainly not in mine!

I will disagree about Hong Kong, by the way; been there, and it's as dangerous in its way as many places in America. Yes, large parts of it are safer than our cities in that the violence is kept out of the main streets, but there are areas just as dangerous as any U.S. inner city. Of course, I was there 50 years ago, so things may have changed. I kind of doubt it, tho'. And there are many, many things about Hong Kong which are far WORSE than what we have in other ways.

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Absence of street crime is usually not a good sign. It is usually a sign of an overbearing despotic government.

Yes, we can see how despotic Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, etc are, since they all have much lower rates of street crime than we do!

There it is, "no guns = despotic government". Nothing in between.

I hear it going back and forth, but what I don't hear is any effort to come up with the answers you seek, DT, and I don't expect there will be. Guns always get talked about as some kind of safety net against an oppressive government, and there seems to be acceptance of the violence they bring as if that's something we just have to accept in order to keep the government in check. They aren't, and they haven't. Beyond that, asking for some kind of alternative(s) to what we have now when it comes to gun violence seems to be impossible to debate. Interesting that people who are capable of such nuanced debates on so many other subjects seem to be stuck in black-and-white thinking when it comes to guns.

Again, I in NO way seek a gunless society, but I, too, would like to conceive of some solutions to the kind of situation you first enumerated. I just don't look for it here.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 7:51 AM

... fully loaded, safety off...

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
"What if a magic fairy made that possible without you having to make that sacrifice?"

Hello,

Oh yes, I think we would all enjoy having a magic fairy miraculously reduce violent crime.

I'll have my magic fairy contact your deity.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 7:59 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

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You give ONE psycho ONE gun, let him loose - even if he had unlimited ammo, even if no one fought back, he could not in a single lifetime, possibly kill as many people as a government does in that same time.- Frem

I tried to say that. But you say it so much better. I call it Fremagic.-CTS

What I got out of this was that CTS thinks that you are merely pointing out that governments are evil... a point on which you both agree on 110%. However, the point I believe that YOU are making, Frem, is that individuals with guns are powerless... that guns change the balance of power between a government and its people only with cooperation and planning among the many.

And curiously... a point which 2a-ers seem blissfully unaware... while individual gun ownership is legal, the one thing which would make gun ownership a truly power-balancing right... the constitution of a militia (not feeling like going into the definition here)... is illegal. The real, useful tool of power would be called conspiracy.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 8:17 AM

Auraptor,

I've known several. It's an issue, I suspect it is in Georgia as well.

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Guns are just tools.

Anthony, so are nukes.

I feel overall that 2a is a poorly defended position. It talks much about lofty ideals of liberty, but the practice is friends dying from gunshots, and no liberty. I'm not sold on the product.

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very few people are fighting the government

Here there is quite a vicious fight over fracking. I can see others happening. It's just that these battles are more civil.

The battles over guns seem to be about who put a ding in whose brand new pickup. That speaks to Auraptor's point.

Sometimes the battles are about some group declaring they have rights, and guns to defend them. The govt. kills those people right away.

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Guns are efficient means to the end, but if someone really wants to kill you because you are a demon or some such, then I suspect they'll broaden their horizons.

I think this fails to properly address the problem. These thoughts of anger are fleeting ones, which you so recently said that you were familiar with.

Sanity is really thought + perspective and time. Given enough time, everyone comes to the right conclusion. Sure, at the fringes, there are serial killers who take ten years to come up with a reasonable take on their crimes, but they're a minute minority. Most people who kill will take seconds, minutes or perhaps hours to do so. Being able to make a massive mistake in a split second is not a benefit to such a species.

It reminds me of interviews with suicides discussed here earlier, many of those who had tried and failed said it took only seconds to realize their error.

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Waco … was less about armed resistance to the government and more about religious intolerance.

Partly. I think that the govt. was out to get the branch davidians, because we live in a fascist police state. My point about Waco was that the assertion of rights by the citizens using as their defense "guns" just prompted the government to return with tanks and chemical weapons. Since the govt. has predator drones and tomahawk missiles, there is no point at which this escalation would ever end for the citizens.

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native americans

Point taken, though my brother says the track record of Native Americans vs. the US Govt. is almost always govt. victory, and the Amish vs. the Govt. always went to the Amish.

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they probably weren't clustered together

They also had a legit legal claim.

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well-regulated militia

This being the point. An armed militia of the people is what defends against gun violence from the outside. Now, the US govt. fed govt is the outside invader, and they have taken over the militias, so there is no defense.

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tools I'd consider more efficient and less lethal

Non-lethals is another good solution. A friend of mine said that his best tool against jihadist was the quran. If you get them to stop shooting at you long enough, most people will listen to reason.

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I call BS - you know me.

Frem, just speaking to my personal experience. I can't think of an incident connected to my life and those I know in which someone defended themselves against an attacker with a gun.

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most of the time there's been some kind of encouragement or chicanery intent on disarming me there's been ill intent behind it

I wouldn't doubt it.
Which is why I'm not calling for an end to guns, but you can see where I'm not comfy with you having your arsenal next door knowing full well that for some split moment we may all look like an army of giant attacking spiders, and at the same time recognizing that this is a reasonable expectation of a rational human populous, not the sign of an aberrant human being.

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I disagree

No kidding.

But seriously, no, I don't. I think that humans and animals are innately insane. The process which produces our thoughts is not orderly, structured or computational, but in fact based on random chaos.

Let me give you a rough analogy: The human brain, comprised of some billion independent thinking cells creates consciousness through communication, not totally unlike wikipedia. The result of this product is a reasonable analysis of reality 99.9% of the time. I'm fine with that person having a gun.

However, on several occasions, I have gone to wikipedia and gotten bad or malicious data, and one two specific ones, I got wikipedia's self definition as "wikipedia is cr@p" and just yesterday as "Orthography is death. Advertising 2 Elmer Fudd." I'm not sure what that means except in an abstract sense, but I do know how it happened as a thought process.

I know that the brain does the same thing, and can come up with the same logical result. I also know that time will correct it, as other brain cells compete with their versions of the truth. It's this 0.1% of the time that I think represents a danger, because that person still has the gun that they had before they thought they were Elmer Fudd. They will still have it afterwords, too, but they will have killed a wabbit in the meantime, something which cannot be undone.

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knee-jerk reaction here

Not a knee-jerk reaction. I've been pondering this quietly for about six months. I think there is a very serious question here, and it's not an emotional reaction to the story, I'm just using these people's tragedy for a selfish reason to voice my own doubts on the topic.

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Cause frankly a lot of public school and other social conditioning is bent towards destroying that sanity

Sure, and many other things, ie, the Merchants of Death, but there are two points where I would haggle:
1) Those merchants of death will always be with us, and their products will always be with us, which is one of the mistakes I felt the enlightenment had: Yes, sure, if people were perfect, but you gotta deal with the people you actually have.
2) The process of human reason was never perfect. That's part of how we got into this mess. It will always fail at some point. Even for the Amish, though the result was that they grab a knife and cut off each other's hair instead, but there was a snap element to that incident.

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Therefore it is innate by default

With time. Humans are built to come up with reasonable judgments with perspective and time, not every second of every day. You know damn well that we all lose sight of the ball from time to time, and sometimes radically.

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the powers that be would not have set such massive mechanisms toward its destruction

Okay, so they make it worse, but that doesn't invalidate either point.

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kitchen knives

But we all know the statistics on this. Yes, if you has no guns there would be more stabbings, but nowhere near as many.

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the ONLY reason such a big to-do is being made of it is that it's handy fodder for them that'd see us all disarmed and therefore unable to resist whatever nefarious doings they have in mind for us.

Is it? Or are they intentionally giving us guns so we will kill each other knowing damn well than they are useless for defense.
Also, apply your own cynical mind to this: If guns could really protect you against TPTB, do you think for a second that they would let you have them?
The only reason you are allowed to have guns is that the GOP stands up for the right every election, and I know you don't think that the GOP is actually an opponent of TPTB.

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And make no mistake, even a handful of armed people can seriously fuck up attempted tyranny, and sometimes, even ONE.

If so, then how did tyranny happen?

Sig,

I knew you'd agree with me here, let me only add to your list that "people with guns" also help TPTB rationalize their attack against them, and say to the people "but, they were bad guys, they had guns" which usually sells pretty well in the american press.

John,

I knew I could count on you to bring the crazy.

Frem, again, sure, but the govt. actually does rely on the guns to shepherd the jews into the cattle cars. That said, it's the people's believing the nonsense.

But that's a major problem. We also have this minor problem: Humans do not possess a stable rational reality, and if everyone had a nuke, eventually NY would be disintegrated because one guy would wake up and decide to end it all.

You know how those people who go on shooting sprees always off themselves at the end? Why don't they do it in reverse order? Plan to kill themselves first, then come back and kill everyone else. Because they want everyone else to share their pain. That's why they're doing it at all. So, yeah, someone would nuke us all if we all had nukes. The whole population shouldn't suffer from the momentary lack of judgment of one, and ultimately, no one should.

Anthony.

It's the gun. I'm saying it's the gun. Here's why: It's a tool that enables you to make large scale mistakes in a very short time frame that ends other people's lives. They get no say in it. Their lives just end because of your passing lapse in judgment. They might try to defend themselves, but they might be asleep. Or they might be kids. But none of them gets any say in what you do to their lives. That scenario doesn't remotely resemble freedom to me.

I'm still batting a zero on a solution that would give me a world in which my neighbor doesn't kill my family because he mistakes them for invading goblins. I also don't buy that you can prevent that event from ever happening.

A successful model needs to prevent that from happening, even if the person who snaps is in govt.

Let's face it, that was Hitler's real problem: He wanted all the jews to pay for what some banker did that wrecked his world, and he was ultimately going to kill himself, but he had to kill millions of others first. He permanently snapped, and also happened to be head of state. I think he was pretty sinister but I don't think he really completely snapped until '38.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 8:33 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

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Now, if you wanna seperate personal, individual self-defense from the Second Amendment, you're going to have the wee little problem of me pointing out that almost all self-defense is effectively individual

Unless, of course, they have missiles, gunships, conventional bombs, radiological agents, chemical weapons, and biological agents. There IS such a thing as mass destruction, and there is nothing individual about it... certainly not something that an individual with a gun is going to change.

AFA the individual with a gun preventing tyranny... there have been several hypothetical examples of how one well-placed individual might assassinate a tyrant or would-be tyrant, but this to me seems to fall into the "ticking time bomb" example of where torture might work... more theoretical than actual.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 8:35 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
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You give ONE psycho ONE gun, let him loose - even if he had unlimited ammo, even if no one fought back, he could not in a single lifetime, possibly kill as many people as a government does in that same time.- Frem

I tried to say that. But you say it so much better. I call it Fremagic.-CTS
What I got out of this was that CTS thinks that you are merely pointing out that governments are evil... a point on which you both agree on 110%. However, the point I believe that YOU are making, Frem, is that individuals with guns are powerless... that guns change the balance of power between a government and its people only with cooperation and planning among the many.

"Govts are evil" is not at all what I got out of what Frem said.

What I got out of what Frem said (in the top quotation above) is: A crazy individual with guns kills a lot less people than a crazy government with guns. I tried to say this too, but much less eloquently.

Thank you again, Siggy, for asking me what I meant instead of assuming and accusing willy nilly. As always, I appreciate your kind thoughtfulness.

-----
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 8:42 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
A crazy individual with guns kills a lot less people than a crazy government with guns.

I guess what I got out of it was Even a crazy person with a gun is no match for a government. Therefore, ineffective.

So, I have to ask myself... what is it about government that makes it more effective than individuals, even taking out the superiority of weapons? That is coordination. And it's what I said before: Individual gun-ownership is not a game-changer. And curiously, the one thing that WOULD make a difference... the formation of a militia (training, drills, uniforms, issuance of orders... there is a legal description of what constitutes a militia) ... is the one thing that is the exclusive right of "the state".

In some ways, we are seeing the same thing, but drawing completely different conclusions.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 8:46 AM

http://youtu.be/VUnGTXRxGHg

1. Guns are inanimate objects. Like knives. Like hammers. Like cars. Like planes. Like swords. Like axes. Like bricks. Like rope. Like nukes. Like bombs. Etc. They cannot be used without humans purposefully operating them.

2. You are completely free to NOT own a gun.

3. You do NOT have the right to deprive me of the best tool available to defend myself, my property, my family, my friends, or someone in need.

4. Laws only matter to those that obey them.

5. A person with a firearm is better able to stop an attack then a person with a cellphone. Or a knife. Or a bat. Or a sharply worded editorial.

6. To those that say only the government (or its agents) should be armed... tell that to the Cambodians, the Jews, the North Koreans, the Native Americans, the Mexicans, the Africans, etc.

7. A rape victim is NOT morally superior to a woman who shot her attacker.

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 8:53 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
To those that say only the government (or its agents) should be armed... tell that to the Cambodians, the Jews, the North Koreans, the Native Americans, the Mexicans, the Africans, etc.

I think my point, Wulf, is that individual gun ownership by itself, while good for individual self-defense, is pretty damn ineffective to corral a tyrannical government. You need a lot more than that! And if you have masses of people on your side, you can even wind up with a velvet revolution... by the will of the people.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 9:10 AM

http://youtu.be/VUnGTXRxGHg

"I think my point, Wulf, is that individual gun ownership by itself, while good for individual self-defense, is pretty damn ineffective to corral a tyrannical government."

I don't fear the chain of command, I fear the chain of obedience.

One man, one bullet, one gun... if they were next to Hitler, would have stopped WW2.

Same with Pol Pot, Lenin, and all the rest.

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 9:57 AM

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One man, one bullet, one gun... if they were next to Hitler, would have stopped WW2.

Actually, there were some attempts on Hitler's life. There was even a few planned by members of the Nazi armed forces...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_July_plot

Though none so effective as Hitler's attempt on his own life.

And, there's no knowing if a replacement government for Germany would necessarily have been better than the Nazis...

Pretty much like how both the Bolsheviks and the family of the Tsar weren't the best people ever.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 10:48 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"I think this fails to properly address the problem. These thoughts of anger are fleeting ones, which you so recently said that you were familiar with."

Hello,

Actually, I was referring to your example of the neighbor who has delusions instructing him to kill you.

If you want to talk about fleeting anger, I am indeed familiar with it. And I have never brandished a firearm at anyone. So it is clearly possible to feel rage and not go around shooting people, even when guns are available.

"Sometimes the battles are about some group declaring they have rights, and guns to defend them. The govt. kills those people right away."

Actually, I think the government rarely kills such people. We can probably enumerate instances on our fingers.

"I think that humans and animals are innately insane."

I do not believe this, which is probably a central philosophical disconnect between us.

"for some split moment we may all look like an army of giant attacking spiders, and at the same time recognizing that this is a reasonable expectation of a rational human populous, not the sign of an aberrant human being."

I don't see how such a perception is rational. But anyway, I think that most people who get guns and go shoot up a bunch of strangers have thought about it for a lot longer than a split moment.

Split moment concerns are about cutting some guy off in traffic and finding him shooting at you. But this is an occurrence less frequent than drowning.

"Not a knee-jerk reaction. I've been pondering this quietly for about six months."

The discussion seemed like a split moment decision to the rest of us, but was in fact carefully considered over the course of months.

"You know damn well that we all lose sight of the ball from time to time, and sometimes radically."

This is true, but you also know that most people who go sideways don't become violent killers.

"It's the gun. I'm saying it's the gun. Here's why: It's a tool that enables you to make large scale mistakes in a very short time frame that ends other people's lives. They get no say in it. Their lives just end because of your passing lapse in judgment. They might try to defend themselves, but they might be asleep. Or they might be kids. But none of them gets any say in what you do to their lives. That scenario doesn't remotely resemble freedom to me."

It's not the gun, Dream. It's the people.

************************

http://gothamist.com/2010/11/24/sword-killer_believed_mother_was_po.ph
p

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1363888/Joseph-McAndrew-23-ext
erminated-mother-father-twin-samurai-sword.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-16336368

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-16342371

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/938142/posts

****************************

I don't think focusing on the gun is the key to solving the problem.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 11:15 AM

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"I think that humans and animals are innately insane."

I do not believe this, which is probably a central philosophical disconnect between us.

I actually do, though I think very little of it probably justifies medical diagnosis or prescriptions. But essentially I think any concept of "normal" human thought process must not be representative. You might have noticed on your Deity thread that a side conversation started up about voices in our heads, from one to many, and from seemingly sane to confirmed insane board members.

And even people who are sane most of the time do on occasion stray into insanity.

However, I also agree that this insanity may not be a quick, momentary thing. Often leading up to a suicide there are months of preparation and depression and putting affairs in order, even if for most people they almost instantly regret the attempt. Similarly a kid can be bullied for years, pushing them further and further over the edge until there is no rebound and only revenge.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 11:22 AM

M52NICKERSON

DALEK!

Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
1. Guns are inanimate objects. Like knives. Like hammers. Like cars. Like planes. Like swords. Like axes. Like bricks. Like rope. Like nukes. Like bombs. Etc. They cannot be used without humans purposefully operating them.

...and it is easier for a human to kill others if they have a gun to purposefully operate.

Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
2. You are completely free to NOT own a gun.

You also have a right to be protected from people should not have guns, but do.

Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
3. You do NOT have the right to deprive me of the best tool available to defend myself, my property, my family, my friends, or someone in need.

A gun is not the best tool, that would be your intelligence.

Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
4. Laws only matter to those that obey them.

...and those who get caught not obeying them.

Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
5. A person with a firearm is better able to stop an attack then a person with a cellphone. Or a knife. Or a bat. Or a sharply worded editorial.

....but is ultimatly more likely to use the gun in a moment of stupidity. Road rage anyone?

Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
6. To those that say only the government (or its agents) should be armed... tell that to the Cambodians, the Jews, the North Koreans, the Native Americans, the Mexicans, the Africans, etc.

So...none of them had guns? Or are you suggesting that if they all had guns they could have stood up to trained armies?

Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
7. A rape victim is NOT morally superior to a woman who shot her attacker.

I agree, but the statistics say that the it is more likely the women would end up getting killed with her own weapon.

.....also Jesus would disagree ;)

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 11:33 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
I don't fear the chain of command, I fear the chain of obedience. One man, one bullet, one gun...

One man (or woman), one bullet, one gun... it might kill the one commander, but not stop the many conditioned to the habit of obedience. Killing the commander without killing the chain(s) of command only creates a power vacuum, to be filled with another fearless leader. The only thing that stops the habit of obedience is free thought.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 11:36 AM

http://youtu.be/VUnGTXRxGHg

m52nickerson:

Your counter statements are, as Mal would put it,

weak tea.

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 11:47 AM

M52NICKERSON

DALEK!

Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
m52nickerson:

Your counter statements are, as Mal would put it,

weak tea.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 11:52 AM

Read this story yesterday. Thought it belonged on this thread.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/22/man-misses-mouse-and-shoots-room
mate-revealing-child-rapist/

Possibly drunken roommate shoots at mouse, hits a roommate, and exposes another roommate as child rapist, while 4th roommate sleeps through it all.

ETA: Here is another one:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/12/soldier-christopher-sull
ivan-shot-at-his-homecoming-party-in-california/

Soldier shot at an altercation at his homecoming party.

-----
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 12:30 PM

I love my state, but sometimes, it is a BACKWARDS one. I wouldn't be surprised if we have the highest percentage of creeps and weirdos in the whole country.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 12:34 PM

http://youtu.be/VUnGTXRxGHg

8. Most people would rather live in a world where the government is an adviser, not a parent.

9. Every single time there is a "mass shooting", ONLY the intelligent ask: "Why didn't anyone shoot back?"

10. Again, you are free to not own a gun. I won't force one on you. But if you try to take mine, or make it difficult for me to obtain one, I'll use it against you. And, I'll sleep well that night.

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 12:49 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

CTS- what I get out of the pair of links is that guns are a random element. They can as easily create mayhem, freedom, or oppression, that it is all up to the person behind the gun what the result is.

I think that is what DT is saying, and what Wulf is saying, and what Frem is saying, all from different perspectives. But if guns are a random force, then it is just as likely to expect freedom to result from gun ownership as as from the toss of dice. One does not automatically create the other, nor negate the other.

Perhaps the question comes into being: Is individual gun ownership necessary but insufficient to create freedom? Or, more simply, are guns even necessary at all?

I guess what I would suggest is that, until people are able to think without being limited by what they should think... without the chains of "patriotism", or religion, or political correctness, or fear ... then we will never know.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 1:11 PM

http://youtu.be/VUnGTXRxGHg

11. Free people own guns. Slaves (and subjects) don't.

Your choice. Be a subject, or be a citizen.

As for me and mine, we are citizens. And will remain so until we run out of bullets.

Why is this so hard to understand? Its such a simple concept.

You want to be a victim, a slave? Go ahead. But trying to force that on us? Are you kidding me?

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 1:26 PM

There are many ways to be a slave, few ways to free oneself.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 2:06 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Indeed, Byte. And there are none so enslaved as those who believe themselves to be free, but aren't.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 3:12 PM

I'm taking time off the forum to work on other projects, so anyone responding to me, I ask a small favor, quote my green text so I can see me being quoted and will know to respond without having to read through 200 posts of Nick and Wulf killing each other.

That said, two things, the first is Anthony,

You dream, do you not? So you are familiar with being surrounded by giant spiders or something similar. Your brain is capable of this perception. You do not feel this during the day, but it is not impossible for you to feel it, and act as you have in dreams, even if this has not happened to you yet, trust me it can happen.

Comment on two novel arguments you put forth here:

Quote:

If you want to talk about fleeting anger, I am indeed familiar with it. And I have never brandished a firearm at anyone. So it is clearly possible to feel rage and not go around shooting people, even when guns are available.

This was the weaker of the two, because though it is possible, there is no way to guarantee unwavering restraint on the populous. This does not guarantee my neighbor will not shoot my family. I'm not sure it even discourages it, unless you are my neighbor.

Quote:
I think that most people who get guns and go shoot up a bunch of strangers have thought about it for a lot longer than a split moment.

This was the stronger one, but I still disagree with it. My personal experience, albeit anecdotal, is that the *decision* to act was spontaneous in every case. In fact, the underlying anger was spontaneous, whether they shot someone else, got into a gun battle, or shot themselves.

What preceded over a long time, typically several months, so the comparison is fair, is the preparation. This preparation was not targeted at a particular individual or event in any case, but in general, as in "I get into these situations, I want to be able to defend myself (they all talked of it this way, even the suicides) and so I will make this preparation" and often they had spent a lot of time talking about or planning how, in general, to respond to situations with violence.

So, I guess I half a agree, but it was a pro-violence lifestyle change, and this was the tool they chose. If they had planned for self defense with a less lethal tool which required more thought to exercise, like martial arts, they still might have been violent, but the death toll I suspect would have been lower, considering that this sort of preparation must happen in gunless societies which have a lower violent death rate.

Quote:

This is true, but you also know that most people who go sideways don't become violent killers.

But I do not know how to tell these people from other people, nor do I trust any authority to make that judgment.

Quote:

It's not the gun, Dream. It's the people.

If it is, then there is no solution, because the people will always be irrational. However, we statistically know it to be not the case: fewer guns, fewer homocides. Now, yes, more holocausts, over the long haul. I'm saying there has to be a better solution.

If the random snapping of people can result in the death of my family and I have no defense against it, then I do not live in a free society. A free society is not necessarily without dangers, but it should be without random extermination, regardless of who is pulling the trigger.

I don't fly, I haven't for some time, but it took a number of close calls to convince me. One was at one point holding a ticket for a flight that crashed, yet not being on the plane. Pirate News might say this is because I'm a jew, but that's only partly true: My dad is jewish, and it's his fault I wasn't on the plane. He had something to stop and get, he does this whenever we go somewhere, he has to stop and do this errand or that, and so we missed the plane. Good thing. But it made me think. Here's what I don't like about flying, more than the DHSS: I don't like my death being a random event. I'm okay with fighting a losing battle and being responsible for my losses, but if something goes wrong on the plane, I'm not fighting a battle at all, I'm sitting there like a sheep waiting to be slaughtered, and it's a completely hopeless situation.

So, I have to consider the real world possibilities. I suspect the most likely scenario would be having a teenage son who, while going through the emotional rollercoaster of teen years, were to shoot himself, because this is the most common story. The easiest way out of this one is to not have a gun in the house. However, the 2a society automatically puts those without guns at a lower level, and in more danger, so as the only family without guns, we become in more danger of random violence from others, esp. a robbery or mugging, etc. I'm not liking any of these scenarios.

Additionally, I think that the home ownership model of 2a interpretation has had a pathetic record at stopping tyranny, which is a point that I would feel as strongly about as anyone else here. I would like a 2a interpretation that actually does help stop tyranny, since that is why the 2a exists at all, and not for my personal protection against robbers.

The second is this, reposted by request:

My own solution would look something like this:

Guns are kept at the militia hall. To take a gun out of a militia hall you had to have the consent of your fellow militia members. For the militia to act against any part would basically take the unanimous consent of the militia members, and the militia would defend against anyone trying to take over the state or anyone trying to take over the militia.

Also, that each state should have its own militia involves considering seriously what the founders had in mind as a "state." Most of the states at the time were more or less like Mat-Su. Enormous pieces of land with a few thousand people. The bill of rights originally written in 1689 being resubmitted in 1781, and then 1789, not a lot had changed in america during that century. Ergo, a state was a vast hard to control piece of land with a few thousand, and not a few million, people. Also, worth noting, almost the entire population lived in small coastal towns. I think that even with the large land claims, if one were to look at the actively occupied populations and land areas, the parallel to the state of the founding fathers would really be the county.

ETA: I'm fine with non-lethal deterrents in the house.

ETA2: I agree with Sig that guns are a random element, and one of destruction, and I see no reason to include them in the day to day lives of the citizenry, only in the wartime lives of the citizenry.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 3:42 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

I think Pizmo is acting very naive in this thread.

I think CTS is acting creepy in this thread, she thinks its okay for people to own their own nuclear weapons? I hope she's never in charge.

Niki, I think there are some middle ground things I can support, like a required class when you get your first gun, background checks, waiting periods, certain kinds of automatics you can't own etc. I said that before too. Its true though that this subject does invoke strong feelings.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 4:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by RionaEire:
I think CTS is acting creepy in this thread, she thinks its okay for people to own their own nuclear weapons? I hope she's never in charge.

LOL

Government owns nuclear weapons. Who is govt? Monkeys? No, they are people. Human beings. People like you and me. If we can trust those people, why can't we trust other people?

I do not support individual ownership of nuclear weapons. People who are in charge of nuclear weapons now have a specific group of people who have to make the decision to fire unanimously. It is a lot harder for a large group of people to snap irrationally than an individual. So unanimous group decision is the safeguard.

If we had a militia with a group safeguard, I do not see why the civilian militia couldn't be trusted exactly in the same way we trust the military now.

It would be very much like DT's proposal for a civilian armory of weapons, except the civilian armory does not have to be limited to only guns.

-----
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 4:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Guns are kept at the militia hall. To take a gun out of a militia hall you had to have the consent of your fellow militia members.

I like this idea. But I want more.

I like the Swiss model. All Swiss males are conscripted and trained to use military weapons. Then they are required to store those military weapons in their homes. The entire population has military grade weapons in each home and knows how to use them.

So if one guy snaps, all his neighbors have the guns and training to kill him.

The Swiss model, PLUS DT's civilian armory for larger weapons, would be my ideal.

http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/articles/guns-crime-swiss.html

Guns do not cause violence. Something wrong in people's heads cause violence.

It is obvious to me that there is something wrong with American heads that is not in Swiss heads.

Blaming violence on guns is as illogical as blaming bad spelling on pencils.

-----
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 5:17 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"Guns are kept at the militia hall. To take a gun out of a militia hall you had to have the consent of your fellow militia members. For the militia to act against any part would basically take the unanimous consent of the militia members, and the militia would defend against anyone trying to take over the state or anyone trying to take over the militia."

Hello,

Some concerns with this plan.

First, how do you get unanimous consent of militia members? Do they all agree on a criteria, or do they all have to actually be there to vote yay or nay? Also, what prevents everyone from checking out a gun to keep at home? Having guns at home is what you wanted to prevent.

Second, if all the guns are at a central location, it seems to make it easy to prevent people from getting the guns, or to confiscate them.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 5:27 PM

From Wiki: These facts aside, some Swiss gun laws are more restrictive than those in the US. Unlicensed persons are not permitted to carry weapons except under special certain circumstances such as travel to military training. Owners are legally responsible for third party access and usage of their weapons. Licensure is similar to other Germanic countries.

So, yes, they seem to do it effectively, it merits more looking into.

Quote:
First, how do you get unanimous consent of militia members? Do they all agree on a criteria, or do they all have to actually be there to vote yay or nay? Also, what prevents everyone from checking out a gun to keep at home? Having guns at home is what you wanted to prevent.

If a gun was taken out, there would be reasons for it. The militia members don't have to all be there, if they can access the internet.

Quote:

Second, if all the guns are at a central location, it seems to make it easy to prevent people from getting the guns, or to confiscate them.

That's a valid concern, re: Harper's Ferry 1859 and 1862.

One approach would be to use modern technology to decentralize the militia.

ETA: I concur with CTS. I would expand the civilian militia arsenal to include defensive technology only. That said, it should be able to defend against any form of attack, drone, missile, nuclear, or even chemical or biological weapons.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 7:01 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Piz

Quote:
I appreciate your frankness, always. It's a double edged sword - I think "Frem has surely seen the worst side of people and knows more than most how evil they can be, surely he wouldn't want them to be armed..." But then on the other hand I think maybe that's the why of it.
For my part, I will not give up the notion that it's something we need to get past if we're going to evolve further as a society.

Fair enough, although I think this is as usual a case of misplaced blame, cause the blame for violence in our society doesn't really lie with the tools used to carry it out so much as how our society has curdled into a form of mass insanity, the lack of empathy and pure viciousness is more a factor than guns, knives, tools, what-have-you.

That they play a part, I will not deny, but I feel no need to hack at the everspawning branches of this problem when I've got lock on what the root of it is and have worked my whole life to address it, especially when a potentially unintended consequence of doing so would be to render folks less able to defend themselves against a society gone rabid and the bastards in power who've been a substantial factor in the cause - I'd rather sane people with guns, than insane people without em, yanno ?

Siggy

Quote:
What I got out of this was that CTS thinks that you are merely pointing out that governments are evil... a point on which you both agree on 110%. However, the point I believe that YOU are making, Frem, is that individuals with guns are powerless... that guns change the balance of power between a government and its people only with cooperation and planning among the many.

And curiously... a point which 2a-ers seem blissfully unaware... while individual gun ownership is legal, the one thing which would make gun ownership a truly power-balancing right... the constitution of a militia (not feeling like going into the definition here)... is illegal. The real, useful tool of power would be called conspiracy.

Oh, yeah - I suppose I was making both points but yes exactly that, however I dispute that constitution of a militia is illegal since due to the fluke of the military refusing to ever discharge me and dumping me on inactive reserve for all eternity one of my "duties" (although this isn't often taken seriously by anyone) is to found/assist local militia and gather/deploy them in case of civic emergency, natural disaster and whatnot, which I have interpreted as assisting the Wolverines who despite all the demonization are for the most part decent sorts, and just the thing for stuff like search and rescue or devils night when you need a buttload of boots on the ground and discipline/training isn't crucial.

But oh yes, allies > weapons, indeed - as for conspiracy that goes both ways, TPTB against us, us against TPTB... and me bein me, I don't much care what THEY have to say about it since they think the rule of law doesn't apply to them.

That said, sometimes it only takes a few, and on a really rare occasion, only ONE.
But mostly, yeah, you need the bodies more than the guns, indeed.

Quote:
One man (or woman), one bullet, one gun... it might kill the one commander, but not stop the many conditioned to the habit of obedience. Killing the commander without killing the chain(s) of command only creates a power vacuum, to be filled with another fearless leader. The only thing that stops the habit of obedience is free thought.

Okay, I admit it, that was fuckin beautiful.
We most CERTAINLY have an accord on that one, given it's what I been sayin for a long time.

Byte

Quote:
I love my state, but sometimes, it is a BACKWARDS one. I wouldn't be surprised if we have the highest percentage of creeps and weirdos in the whole country.

Nah, I am pretty sure Washington D.C. has ya beat by a longshot.

Oh, and Re: Decentralisation, one step ahead of ya, there.

-Frem
PS. Typing with frozen fingers sucks, damn glad my primitive laptop is frost-hardened!

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 7:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

Nah, I am pretty sure Washington D.C. has ya beat by a longshot.

Technically, not a state. Not really the city either that's the problem. I think you're thinking of Washington's bad neighborhood.

Quote:
Oh, and Re: Decentralisation, one step ahead of ya, there.

Only one?

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 8:36 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:

The only reason we have a police state despite gun ownership is because people aren't using the guns they own.

I am convinced that we would have had a police state a lot sooner had we not been gun owners. Witness the rest of the world.

Oh yes, the poor old rest of the world. Just one big hideous police state because of lack of gun ownership by citizens. if only everywhere could be like the US.....sigh.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 8:36 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

yup

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011 8:49 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

Nothing good ever comes out of violence, and I've never known anyone whose life was saved by a gun, nor for whom things improved because guns enter the scene. However, I've known many people killed by guns, shot, suicided, or shot by accident.

I've never known anyone saved by a gun, or killed, suicided, threatened or held up by a gun. I don't know anyone who owns a gun. I've never seen a gun held in anyone's hand. Most parents I know would not buy a toy gun for their child, at least not one that looks gun like (nerf stuff doesn't seem to count)Nobody I know talks about guns. I live on the outskirts of a large city - 4 million people. Guns are a non issue. I could say I don't get gun issues in the US, but I have talked to enough Americans over the net in the past few years to get the issues. Needless to say, I don't generally agree with many of them.

Quote:
My own solution would look something like this:

Guns are kept at the militia hall. To take a gun out of a militia hall you had to have the consent of your fellow militia members. For the militia to act against any part would basically take the unanimous consent of the militia members, and the militia would defend against anyone trying to take over the state or anyone trying to take over the militia.

Also, that each state should have its own militia involves considering seriously what the founders had in mind as a "state." Most of the states at the time were more or less like Mat-Su. Enormous pieces of land with a few thousand people. The bill of rights originally written in 1689 being resubmitted in 1781, and then 1789, not a lot had changed in america during that century. Ergo, a state was a vast hard to control piece of land with a few thousand, and not a few million, people. Also, worth noting, almost the entire population lived in small coastal towns. I think that even with the large land claims, if one were to look at the actively occupied populations and land areas, the parallel to the state of the founding fathers would really be the county.

ETA: I'm fine with non-lethal deterrents in the house.

ETA2: I agree with Sig that guns are a random element, and one of destruction, and I see no reason to include them in the day to day lives of the citizenry, only in the wartime lives of the citizenry.

Yeah, I've posted this before. I like the idea of miitias, local ones preferable, arms kept locked up and not for general use or personal protection. The biggest plus is the disbandment of a standing army. More than no guns = tyranny which I don't personally believe at all, I believe government + strong military = tyranny.

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011 1:28 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Just one big hideous police state because of lack of gun ownership by citizens.

Yes.

Quote:
if only everywhere could be like the US.....sigh.

No.

Core planets in the verse are a police state. The Alliance is a police state. But it is a very nice and comfortable police state for most people living there.

Outer planets are not a police state. But they have people like Patience ruling the moons, and Reavers marauding everyone. Should we wish that the Core Planets become like the outer ones? No.

Most people in the world are very happy with police states. There is no reason for them to want to be "free." Freedom is not all that great, if you look at it carefully.

I don't want my country, the USA, to become a police state. But that is a personal preference.

-----
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011 3:56 AM

Magon,

I agree. Though I've had guns pointed at me many times, so has Frem. It's not a matter of fear, it's our differing ideas of what kind of collateral damage we're willing to accept in pursuit of freedom. I find I also want to be free from collateral damage, because numerically, the tally is getting pretty high over here. I wanted to include, in addition to guns and car crashes, the number of people I've known who died from pollution* is also getting quite high.

* I think that this is fair to say when talking about "cancer hotspots" which appear in the world after an industrial spill. It's referred to as a curious statistical phenomenon, but our society still isn't officially admitting that it happens. But when you have an area that has the same rare forms of cancer at 1000 times the national average, non-smokers getting lung cancer, Neighborhoods with 100% cancer rates, it's pretty damned irregular.

CTS

But your country, or old country, is becoming a police state right now, in spite of our freewheeling guns. I suspect Australia is freer than the US.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011 4:13 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
But your country, or old country, is becoming a police state right now, in spite of our freewheeling guns. I suspect Australia is freer than the US.

It's still my country. My country's been a police state for a while now, since about 1913 or so. But it woulda been sooner if it hadn't been for all the guns.

Yes, Australia may very well be a freer police state than our police state. Yes, some police states are freer than others.

-----
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011 4:34 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"If a gun was taken out, there would be reasons for it. The militia members don't have to all be there, if they can access the internet."

Hello,

I'm not sure how this works with your idea of unanimous consent. In the described scenario, the militia would find out about the gun being checked out after it has already been removed, via the internet it seems.

It really seems like a cumbersome and inefficient system, and ultimately it seems like a system that produces results no different than what we have now.

i.e. militia members can check out guns and bring them home, hence we return to the original situation that prompted you to have concerns.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011 4:41 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
i.e. militia members can check out guns and bring them home, hence we return to the original situation that prompted you to have concerns.

The time delay would help.

Anyway, for all you 2a-ers out there IMHO you got it all wrong. The current modes of control are money and media. The guns are merely there to protect those with money (who also own the media). You want to be REALLY free? Have democratic control of the currency. Make it possible to create MORE currencies. Have democratic control of the media. This focus on guns as the fount of all freedom? It's misplaced, and furthermore, it gets in the way of any talk about REAL freedom.

You want to know how I know this? People who own guns aren't getting pepper-sprayed en masse. You obviously have not touched TPTB because you have not gotten a significant reaction, and until you become a real threat, you never will. So, keep your guns for protection if you feel you must, but work on a different angle if you want real freedom.

And that is why I will quit this thread. Gun ownership is nothing more than a pacifier, a substitute for real power. an idea whose time has come and gone, You're all fighting the last war. Sheesh. You'll never get anywhere.

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011 4:49 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"The time delay would help."

Hello,

If I bring home the gun, then there is effectively no more time delay between me deciding to deploy it and me deploying it.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011 4:50 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Please read what I added to my post in the intervening time, thanks.

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011 5:40 AM

Quote:
You want to be REALLY free? Have democratic control of the currency. Make it possible to create MORE currencies. Have democratic control of the media.

You might be surprised to hear it, but I agree.

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011 5:43 AM

CAVETROLL

I used to have a temper. When I bought my first carry gun I realized I no longer could afford a temper. I still get irritated when drivers do stupid things or selfish and ignorant people perform actions that cost me time. But the cost of airing those problems comes at too high a price now.

You have a gun, you cannot have a temper. Peace, consideration and patience have to be the watchwords you live by. The gun is there for the defense of myself, my family and my friends. If a stranger benefits by my use of a gun, or even the mere possession of a gun in the right time and place, then that is fine. I will not go out of my way to defend a person I do not know. You are responsible for your own defense. If you choose to allow the police to provide that defense, then that is your decision.

Children and to a lesser extent, defenseless animals are exceptions to this rule. My life, my decision on where that line of exception gets drawn.

But if the time ever comes that it will take my over the hill ass to pick up a rifle and take arms against an intolerable government then I weep for my country and her citizens.

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011 5:46 AM

... fully loaded, safety off...

Quote:
Originally posted by RionaEire:
I think Pizmo is acting very naive in this thread.

Nah, you just don't like me challenging RWED TPTB.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011 5:49 AM

... fully loaded, safety off...

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Piz
Quote:
I appreciate your frankness, always. It's a double edged sword - I think "Frem has surely seen the worst side of people and knows more than most how evil they can be, surely he wouldn't want them to be armed..." But then on the other hand I think maybe that's the why of it.
For my part, I will not give up the notion that it's something we need to get past if we're going to evolve further as a society.

Fair enough, although I think this is as usual a case of misplaced blame, cause the blame for violence in our society doesn't really lie with the tools used to carry it out so much as how our society has curdled into a form of mass insanity, the lack of empathy and pure viciousness is more a factor than guns, knives, tools, what-have-you.

That they play a part, I will not deny, but I feel no need to hack at the everspawning branches of this problem when I've got lock on what the root of it is and have worked my whole life to address it, especially when a potentially unintended consequence of doing so would be to render folks less able to defend themselves against a society gone rabid and the bastards in power who've been a substantial factor in the cause - I'd rather sane people with guns, than insane people without em, yanno ?

I completely agree - I don't see why one excludes the other though. It's like we have not "grown up" enough to handle the responsibility. Let's work on both at the same time.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011 6:06 AM