Republican nominations - Page 298

On January 18 2012 23:21 Hider wrote:


Robes kill people? (robs should not be allowed).
Hands kill people (hands not allowed).
Big muscles......

Whats your point. WHat kind of universal rule can you apply that disallow private persons to be allowed to own guns, but still be allowed by own knifes and other stuff.

An pointing out the specific stuff that is allowed is not a an unisveral rule.

On January 19 2012 00:00 Hider wrote:


If everybody told you to jump from a cliff would you do it?

Oh i guess above example is too extreme as well. No you cant argue like that. My comparsion made perfect sense as I wanted to illustrate that i throught that you have been serisouly manipulated through governement. Whether ppl (i guess like 4 people or something commented my comparsion, which = everybody to you? I guess you like to manipulate facts to make your point stronger) agree with that is irrelevant, but that was my opinion of your logic.

2.) Two things here. First of all. Is your prefered system a "utility-maximising" society where the utility of the of the citzens is more important than their individual rights? So if you could kill 1.000 innocent people, to make the rest of the world much more happy would you do that? If you dont want to do that, then what kind of uniserval rule do you use to justfity that minimzy "unneeded" death and take away peoples individual rights.
What is unneeded btw, how do you define that?
Not gonna change anything, but I would still like fact that guns decreases unneeded kills (though I guess it depends on your definition).
How do you know if someone will attack you or not if soembody is robbing your house.If your face to face with a robber in your house would you A) rather have a gun (with ammo), or b) Not have a gun.
Even though you may for some (irrational) reason answer b, how can you justify allowing your personal preferences to deny other people their right to defend them self against the potential risk of the robber trying to attack them (I guess this answer will be indrectly anwered by your universal rule which I am looking forward to).

On January 19 2012 00:08 mcc wrote:

Easy, unless you are a hunter guns can be used only for entertainment and killing, knifes have other practical uses. So the universal rule would be based on the utility of the thing in question.

On January 19 2012 00:15 mcc wrote:

Your understanding of utilitarianism is pretty skewed. In any practical implementation of utilitarianism killing 1000 innocents would be permitted only if by doing so you would save more than 1000 other innocents. Not even mentioning that you can modify utilitarianism to even prohibit killing of bystanders to save people. But in no serious version of utilitarianism could you kill 1000 people just so others can live somewhat better.

On January 19 2012 00:16 Hider wrote:



The threat of defending your self (hence maximising your survival probability) is not an utility?
I mean according to you we can use guns if we are hunters to kill animals. But we cant use guns if we are humans who fear for our lifes and want to survive?

On January 19 2012 00:19 Hider wrote:


Im not even talking about practical implementation. IM just talking about theoretical uniserval rules. And I asked him what his "rules" were. I guess tehre are a lot of modificated utilitarinistisc rules that depends on subjective values.

On January 19 2012 00:26 mcc wrote:

Note that your self-defense using guns is included in my post under killing. Anyway you demanded a rule about ownership not usage. Hunters do not need to privately own the guns for hunting, similarly like policemen. My rule uses the level of practical utility, guns might have practical utility, but it is lower than knifes and a lot of other stuff. I would say they actually have negative practical utility all things considered, but I do not really claim this and I am not trying to say anything about gun ownership laws or whatever. I am just providing you with an quite easily constructed rule that prohibits guns and allows knifes and is actually pretty good at prohibiting things that are universally prohibited and allows things that are allowed. That means it is not an arbitrary rule.

2.) Two things here. First of all. Is your prefered system a "utility-maximising" society where the utility of the of the citzens is more important than their individual rights? So if you could kill 1.000 innocent people, to make the rest of the world much more happy would you do that? If you dont want to do that, then what kind of uniserval rule do you use to justfity that minimzy "unneeded" death and take away peoples individual rights.
What is unneeded btw, how do you define that?
Not gonna change anything, but I would still like fact that guns decreases unneeded kills (though I guess it depends on your definition).

How do you know if someone will attack you or not if soembody is robbing your house.If your face to face with a robber in your house would you A) rather have a gun (with ammo), or b) Not have a gun.
Even though you may for some (irrational) reason answer b, how can you justify allowing your personal preferences to deny other people their right to defend them self against the potential risk of the robber trying to attack them (I guess this answer will be indrectly anwered by your universal rule which I am looking forward to).

On January 19 2012 00:38 mcc wrote:

Actually there is only one rule in most cases, maximizing utility. They differ in how you measure the utility and what weights do you assign to different things. As for your specific question, increased gun ownership leads to increased number of deaths and other bad societal effects so if there is a way to decrease gun ownership (including criminals) it should be undertaken as utility will be maximized in the medium and long term. Note that it has assumptions that are satisfied in some place and not in other (US). From utilitarian point of view thousands of dead people are not worth it just so you can defend yourself in one rare case. On the other hand if the cases are not rare (again US maybe) it might be worth it.

On January 19 2012 00:49 Velr wrote:
If 4 people disagree with you and none seems to agree. Then yes, everyone disagrees. Ok?



WTF has what you just asked me to do with me thinking that shooting someone, which broke the law, that is most likely not wanting to hurt me phsyically is way to harsh and I therefore think guns aren't necessary? But funny how you jump to conclusions.
I also just don't get the direct connection of "the right to own arms" and "freedom"... Plenty of other stuff is forbidden and almost no one is crying about his freedom... But with the one tool most usefull to actaully take someone else freedom away it's suddenly really important?... Yeah, right.



I actually can answer this:
Robber has a gun, I don't: I would likely try to get away asap.. What else is there to do

Robber has a gun, me too (and I decide to face him):
The likely outcome is that me or the robber get shot. I most probably don't really want to kill someone so I probably would pull the trigger later/not at all. So the gun would actually give the robber more reason to shoot me while not granting me more protection than "running/hiding". Why should I want a gun again?

I have a gun, the robber not:
--> He runs. Most robbers do this anyway when they encounter the owner (they are robbers, not psychokillers). I won't shoot him when he runs.. Obviously... So what did I gain by having a gun?
--> He stays until the police arrives because he's afraid of me shooting him (what a retard). Well, that's actually a nice outcome but I'm not even sure if that could not be called "taking him hostage" which is a crime and I probably would get into trouble? (I think there are cases like this).
--> I shoot him. I just killed a human being, most likely a stupid kid, because he wanted to steal something from me that is assured anyway... EXCELLENT, i'm a hero! Yay, me! Call me Mr. Awesome!


See.. My problems are:
1. I'm not really willing to shoot someone just because he is entering my house whiteout my permission stealing something from me.
2. By drawing a gun I give the other guy a reason to actually shoot me which he probably is more likely to do than me (he is the criminal...).
3: To really be "safe" thanks to my gun I would have to shoot before asking/encountering the guy... Which I would call murder.

Would I shoot someone in self defense? Yes... But that would probably mean I already catched a bullet (or I just killed someone cold blooded). Guns create more harm than good in most scenarios. That’s why I am against guns and self defense with guns.

Btw: Robbers in Switzerland normally don't carry guns... Why would they?... They are robbers, not psycho killers entering random houses killing the inhabitants for fun....

On January 19 2012 01:00 Stratos_speAr wrote:
I feel like the argument of self-defense for gun ownership can't really hold up when the U.S. has higher crime rates than almost every western European country, and many of them have strict gun control laws. The argument for protection against an irrational government is ridiculous as well - that argument could maybe apply back when the Bill of Rights was written and the technology/training gap between the army and the people wasn't absurd, but nowadays, if the U.S. government were to become a police state, the U.S. military is too trained and technologically advanced for a militia to make a serious resistance. It's not like we're Libya. Our country spends roughly 6 times the amount of money on our military than the next highest spender (China) and spends the most money in the world on the military. It's a joke to think that allowing people to have a few guns will let them resist a police state should the U.S. become one.

On January 19 2012 00:59 Hider wrote:


First of all I dont like how you do math... lol. But lets ignore that.

One question: Do your situation on whether you want to have that gun fully depend on you optimizing your probability of surviving?
So as I see your logic you think you would survive more often than not by not owning a gun. Right?

On January 19 2012 00:43 Hider wrote:


So your rule is that: "weapons" with a limited usage utility of below XX % should be illegal to own?

On January 19 2012 01:10 HellRoxYa wrote:


Seems reasonable, doesn't it? Especially since it would only really apply to weapons.

On January 19 2012 01:11 Stratos_speAr wrote:


That doesn't make any statement about the idea that less gun control lets criminals commit more crimes. Even if we say, "Ok, people should have guns because it lets ordinary people defend themselves from crime enough to make it worth it." Why is it ok to support a political ideology that is taking the cheap way out and saying, "Give everyone guns!" instead of looking at the fact that we have significantly more crime here in the U.S. in the first place that we need to defend ourselves from.

Also, 1995 was 17 years ago. That can be considered fairly outdated for many social science topics.



Especially when the gun was invented with the sole intent to kill, whereas knives and many other "weapons" initially had other, far more practical uses.

On January 19 2012 00:59 Hider wrote:


First of all I dont like how you do math... lol (so bad way of counting. Sure a few ultrasocialists has disagreed with me directly. Other more rational people has disagreed with you). But anyway who agrees who is ireelevant, so lets ignore this debate.

One question: Do your situation on whether you want to have that gun fully depend on you optimizing your probability of surviving?
So as I see your logic you think you would survive more often than not by not owning a gun. Right?

On January 19 2012 01:23 Hider wrote:
[...]If you find some statistics that takes into account a lot of disturbing variables, then (while it wouldn't change my mind) it would be a fairly interesting read. [...]