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On January 30 2013 11:31 Mohdoo wrote: Can't believe people are thinking guns would help you against the government. Ever heard of drones? Good luck.
People arguing for the right to defend themselves (right to bear arms) often do a bad job of describing why this may make sense. This is not the scenario they should be illustrating:
The US Government has wrongfully accused Bob of a crime he did not commit. They know he's innocent. They just don't care.
This summer, one man is going to exterminate the entire US government with his AR-15. Available in 3D.
Nor is it
New City voted against the president-elect. On his first day in office he is going to scramble several F-18s to bomb the city to the ground. Good thing New City has 5000 registered gun owners.
It is very difficult to predict what will happen in a country 50 or 100 years from now. In the wake of an economic meltdown, a major natural disaster, or other calamity, almost anything becomes possible. To say that there's no reason why you would need weaponry to protect your family, possibly from a government entity (not the entirety of the government obviously), is to be very optimistic. You don't keep and bear arms to stop the local swat team from assassinating you, or to destroy Fort Knox. For all I know the tea party could start to receive more and more support, at which point I suggest we all bunker in.
Can you describe a situation where owning a gun could help against the government? I can see the value in having a gun in some post-disaster free for all where people compete for clean water. I can not imagine any situation where an armed population would be able to push back any amount of government will. Its not like the revolutionary war, where both sides pew pew against each other across some field. Nowadays, we just throw drones at a situation and don't even deploy troops to a lot of places. Just look at all the shit we killed in Pakistan with drones. Now lets imagine actual air-force action. Or the fact that a lot of our navy could get missiles pretty deep into our country from out of range of anything else that would go against it. Its just not possible. Send one plane at an area, bomb their power plants and its completely fucked. How about send 2 and wipe out a bunch of houses, their hospitals, and some other shit. Or level an entire city from the ocean.
Those would most likely not be the goals of the government entity. Their goal would more likely be control than destruction. If their goal was destruction then yes, a neighborhood of gun owners couldn't do much. Even so, the military would not allow itself to be used for such a purpose, I would hope (but there have been exceptions in history).
In a situation where a government entity with tons of guns starts to lose power, how do you think they'll get power back? The point is that in a situation where any amount of fighting is necessary, it will be a steam roll.
If one government agent were to come to your house to take your child away, and you were armed, it would not necessarily be a steamroll. I'm not advocating shooting child protective services tomorrow, but in extreme cases (akin to the Nazi era which happened less than 100 years ago) there are many possible scenarios like that.
Yes, but an example on this scale has no place in the common discussion because we're talking about gun laws for law abiding citizens. I doubt that people who would willingly murder a government official would shy away from buying a gun on the street. Regardless, they're criminals, and the law should not be formed with their interests in mind.
In the type of situation I'm describing perhaps guns are no longer easily available, even on the street, because people like you had their way.
When the government is coming for your child to put them into the mandatory neo-nazi training program (or whatever situations we can't even conceive of) you probably won't care about whether or not you are a criminal.
Just to make sure I am not misreading this: If the law (government) ordered you to hand over your child to a state child protection agency, would you shoot the people that came to your house to physically take the child away?
If it was a government that had already exterminated tens of thousands of people for their opinions or religious affiliation, or that had just nuked half the countries in the world without a good reason, then very possibly yes. I would not do it because I disagree with a recent tax reform. Also, if the government actually had a justification for picking up the kid, that would be different. It is just an example where a citizen might be driven to use a gun against the government in an extreme situation.
Friends: Man shot dead after pulling into wrong driveway LILBURN, Ga. —
Lilburn police are investigating the fatal shooting of a 22-year-old man.
Police said they were called out to a man's home on Hillcrest Drive on Saturday night.
A group of friends said they were going to pick up a girl who lived in the area to go ice skating around 10 p.m. when their GPS system sent them to the wrong home.
The friends said they pulled into the driveway and saw a man peer out the window. They said they waited in the car for a bit and then the man, Phillip Sailors, 69, came out of the home with a handgun, firing a round into the air.
“The guy came out. He went in again and he came out with a gun in his hand and he shot into the air,” 15-year-old passenger Yeson Jimenez said.
The friends said that's when they tried leaving the house, and said Sailors pointed the gun at the car and shot Rodrigo Diaz, 22, who was driving the car. An arrest warrant said Sailors had a .22-caliber pistol. The passengers said Sailors never asked what they were doing there.
“’Shut up.’ That’s the only thing that came out of his mouth,” passenger Gandy Cardenas said.
The friends said Sailors held the rest of the people in the car at gunpoint until police arrived at the home. All three passengers in the car are Parkview High School students.
Sailors is being held on no bond on charges of malice murder. He has no known criminal history.
The warrant said the Diaz was struck on the left side of the head.
Friends told Channel 2's Tony Thomas that Diaz had just arrived here from Colombia three months ago.
Thomas has also learned Sailors is a war veteran and a former church missionary. Sailors' attorney told Thomas that the man believed he and his wife were being attacked.
“He is very distraught over the loss of life from the defense of his home. This incident happened late in the evening hours when he was home with his wife and he assumed it was a home invasion and he maintains his innocence,” the attorney said.
Stories like this that make me want a license to own any firearm to be required in this country. A license that requires something similar to what is required to earn a driver's license: a written test of basic knowledge (including law and when you can and cannot fire your weapon in self defense) and a basic test at a firing range to prove you know how to handle a firearm. I don't see how that is such a horrible thing. Firearm owners that I know are all competent, and would have no problem passing such a test.
That is how germany handles the issue. You have to pay arround 1200€ (1500$) for a drivers license and about double for a document that allows you to buy, own and carry a ready to operate handgun. You have to pay about 4 times the amount to get a license to hunt and use a rifle in "public areas" such as forests. People who have commited crimes are banned from getting gunlicense.
Basicly : Take 3000$ for a license, make rules that a 2000$ 400pound safe is required to store guns and another 1000$ one for ammunition. Make the fee for not meeting theses standards about 5000$
You can to get most people through their wallet.
I have seen AR-15 style rifles at walmart.com for arround 600€. With scope and ammo.
Friends: Man shot dead after pulling into wrong driveway LILBURN, Ga. —
Lilburn police are investigating the fatal shooting of a 22-year-old man.
Police said they were called out to a man's home on Hillcrest Drive on Saturday night.
A group of friends said they were going to pick up a girl who lived in the area to go ice skating around 10 p.m. when their GPS system sent them to the wrong home.
The friends said they pulled into the driveway and saw a man peer out the window. They said they waited in the car for a bit and then the man, Phillip Sailors, 69, came out of the home with a handgun, firing a round into the air.
“The guy came out. He went in again and he came out with a gun in his hand and he shot into the air,” 15-year-old passenger Yeson Jimenez said.
The friends said that's when they tried leaving the house, and said Sailors pointed the gun at the car and shot Rodrigo Diaz, 22, who was driving the car. An arrest warrant said Sailors had a .22-caliber pistol. The passengers said Sailors never asked what they were doing there.
“’Shut up.’ That’s the only thing that came out of his mouth,” passenger Gandy Cardenas said.
The friends said Sailors held the rest of the people in the car at gunpoint until police arrived at the home. All three passengers in the car are Parkview High School students.
Sailors is being held on no bond on charges of malice murder. He has no known criminal history.
The warrant said the Diaz was struck on the left side of the head.
Friends told Channel 2's Tony Thomas that Diaz had just arrived here from Colombia three months ago.
Thomas has also learned Sailors is a war veteran and a former church missionary. Sailors' attorney told Thomas that the man believed he and his wife were being attacked.
“He is very distraught over the loss of life from the defense of his home. This incident happened late in the evening hours when he was home with his wife and he assumed it was a home invasion and he maintains his innocence,” the attorney said.
Stories like this that make me want a license to own any firearm to be required in this country. A license that requires something similar to what is required to earn a driver's license: a written test of basic knowledge (including law and when you can and cannot fire your weapon in self defense) and a basic test at a firing range to prove you know how to handle a firearm. I don't see how that is such a horrible thing. Firearm owners that I know are all competent, and would have no problem passing such a test.
Not to discount the pointless loss of life, but I would like to point to a detail in this story that I'm sure many will overlook in their zeal.
.22 caliber pistol.
This is not an "assault weapon". This isn't an AR. No "evil" scary features, fewer than 10 rounds used.
Literally, if there was going to be one firearm left available to the public in the face of an otherwise complete ban, it would almost certainly be chambered in .22 LR. A load that's almost invariably used more for target shooting than anything else, whether it be hunting or self defense. A small, light load that can't overpenetrate anything.
Shot out of a gun that can't mount a bayonet. Shot out of a gun that (most likely) came with a magazine well under 30 rounds. The report seems to show 2 shots fired, one in the air, one at the driver.
Like I said, I'm not trying to discount a tragedy here, I'm merely using the details of it to demonstrate exactly how it perfectly highlights how ineffectual knee-jerk "assault weapons" bans would be.
On a further note, I'm sure people have seen this one by now, but I also find it to be amusingly telling.
Someone else sent me the link. Regardless, a lot of people have been commenting on it. Homeland Security seems to think that an AR-15 is very suitable for Personal Defense.
Friends: Man shot dead after pulling into wrong driveway LILBURN, Ga. —
Lilburn police are investigating the fatal shooting of a 22-year-old man.
Police said they were called out to a man's home on Hillcrest Drive on Saturday night.
A group of friends said they were going to pick up a girl who lived in the area to go ice skating around 10 p.m. when their GPS system sent them to the wrong home.
The friends said they pulled into the driveway and saw a man peer out the window. They said they waited in the car for a bit and then the man, Phillip Sailors, 69, came out of the home with a handgun, firing a round into the air.
“The guy came out. He went in again and he came out with a gun in his hand and he shot into the air,” 15-year-old passenger Yeson Jimenez said.
The friends said that's when they tried leaving the house, and said Sailors pointed the gun at the car and shot Rodrigo Diaz, 22, who was driving the car. An arrest warrant said Sailors had a .22-caliber pistol. The passengers said Sailors never asked what they were doing there.
“’Shut up.’ That’s the only thing that came out of his mouth,” passenger Gandy Cardenas said.
The friends said Sailors held the rest of the people in the car at gunpoint until police arrived at the home. All three passengers in the car are Parkview High School students.
Sailors is being held on no bond on charges of malice murder. He has no known criminal history.
The warrant said the Diaz was struck on the left side of the head.
Friends told Channel 2's Tony Thomas that Diaz had just arrived here from Colombia three months ago.
Thomas has also learned Sailors is a war veteran and a former church missionary. Sailors' attorney told Thomas that the man believed he and his wife were being attacked.
“He is very distraught over the loss of life from the defense of his home. This incident happened late in the evening hours when he was home with his wife and he assumed it was a home invasion and he maintains his innocence,” the attorney said.
Stories like this that make me want a license to own any firearm to be required in this country. A license that requires something similar to what is required to earn a driver's license: a written test of basic knowledge (including law and when you can and cannot fire your weapon in self defense) and a basic test at a firing range to prove you know how to handle a firearm. I don't see how that is such a horrible thing. Firearm owners that I know are all competent, and would have no problem passing such a test.
That is how germany handles the issue. You have to pay arround 1200€ (1500$) for a drivers license and about double for a document that allows you to buy, own and carry a ready to operate handgun. You have to pay about 4 times the amount to get a license to hunt and use a rifle in "public areas" such as forests. People who have commited crimes are banned from getting gunlicense.
Basicly : Take 3000$ for a license, make rules that a 2000$ 400pound safe is required to store guns and another 1000$ one for ammunition. Make the fee for not meeting theses standards about 5000$
You can to get most people through their wallet.
I have seen AR-15 style rifles at walmart.com for arround 600€. With scope and ammo.
I
"Right" to bear arms, not "privilege if you can afford it".
It'd be one thing to have a process for licensing/education in there, another thing entirely to intentionally make it so that owning a firearm is restricted to the independently wealthy.
On January 31 2013 02:54 RCMDVA wrote: The Personal Defense Weapon bid that DHS is looking for is more along the lines of a SIG 556 pistol, if I read it correctly. And it has select fire.
But that's just differences in stock and barrell length.
No, I know what a PDW typically entails, it's more the part where they're discussing 30 round mags and 5.56 in an AR type receiver as "suitable for personal defense" that makes it interesting.
Remember, right now, a lot of the government is trying to tell us we should have a double barrel shotgun for home defense, anything even vaguely related to an AR with more than 10 rounds is useless for self defense.
Also, if you take that, and slap a different upper receiver on that (not a serial # part, doesn't change the weapon officially), you have an AR. At least, that should be the case, since they specify they want the AR platform.
Besides, if an AR is evil, wouldn't a PDW built off the same general concepts be worse? It's easier to conceal.
Read the PDF, they definitely want a stock, and from the description it sounds like they definitely want a short barreled M4 with a very short stock.
On January 30 2013 11:15 white_horse wrote: People who argue that guns should be completely unrestricted in order to prevent a dictatorship or tyrannical US government just seem like guns are personal extensions of their deep hatred and mistrust of the federal government and almost want an apocalyptic evil government attack its own citizens just so that they can prove themselves right.
Few people argue that guns should be completely unrestricted. To use a parallel argument, even though most people believe that citizens should have the right to drive automobiles, that doesn't imply that those people believe that driving cars should be completely unrestricted.
On January 30 2013 11:15 white_horse wrote: How some people think that there is a chance that the US government is somehow going to devolve into some facist or dictatorship-type government doesn't make any logical sense. Your arguing against logic. The military is made up of citizens just like yourselves and they aren't going to start dropping bombs on US cities or go shoot up neighborhoods just because a government official tells them to.
History as well as modern events suggest otherwise. Take a look at the Arab Spring for examples of governments using military force against citizens and armed populaces acting as the only possible defense against it.
Right, because the Egyptian army is pretty much the same as the US army... oh wait...
What exactly is your point? Please spell it out, since there are a number of flawed arguments and fallacies you could be referring to with your vague statement.
Sorry, I just got sick of all the arguments with about 2 seconds of thought put into them and I stooped to their level. I suppose if you're willing to give me a serious discussion, I'll start with a few things that jump out at me.
1) Although anecdotal, I seem to see many gun advocates arguing for unrestricted access. Obviously I have the sense to understand this is not how most people feel, but the media is filled with people (e.g. the NRA) who scream and shout any time gun control is even mentioned. I would think most people would be behind 'sensible' gun control laws that are both effective at dealing with crime but do not infringe upon responsible gun owners' "rights." That being said, a lot of the arguments I see simply aim to defend the responsibility of every person to carry a gun. Perhaps you could present an argument against the common gun control position with a little more sense than I usually see and I'll try to respond as best as I can.
2) The US military is, by many standards, the most powerful military in the world. It would take a very contrived situation to try and see another military defeat them in conventional warfare.
3) Obviously guerrilla warfare would be much for effective for a US citizen militia to attempt, but this I think is quite ridiculous to speculate about. What tyrannical superpowers in the past have had is popular support, not a lack of an armed enemy. The US isn't exactly very close to civil war right now in my opinion, and so such a massive societal shift would mean a lot more people being concerned about being attacked by their government than we currently see in the US. Perhaps if this changed then there 'would' be popular support for gun ownership, but right now it simply doesn't make sense to me.
4) A civilian's ability to fight the US government would be shockingly limited if their electricity was cut off. Sure, there are many people who can survive just fine, but the vast majority, I would argue, would simply die because of lack of survival skills, not lack of a gun to shoot back with.
5) Arguing for the benefit of automatic or other weapons as integral for defeating a hypothetical US dictator and his crazy plot is tough enough, but that's far from the only flaw. There have been huge shifts in social values through movements that were pretty much non-violent. Of course there are examples like India's independence and the US civil rights movement, but there are other examples as well. People rarely smoke cigarettes anymore. The public has been educated better and there have been restrictions placed on the sale of them that don't prevent their use but do limit their negative impact.
6) Just to add more of the common arguments - carrying a gun around on the street for self defence from mugging or something is quite likely to escalate the situation.
7) Statistically the US owns more guns and has more gun crime than other so called 'developed' countries like the UK or Canada. Perhaps this is more than just a correlation...
1) I'm fine with background checks and keeping guns away from felons/psychos. Everyone else though should be allowed to have pretty much any gun they want. You can have the more powerful ones require more thorough checks, but there should be nothing outright forbidden. As for the NRA, of course they're filling the media, they're the loudest. Just like how Piers Morgan on your side is constantly yelling about guns. The media isn't about truth, it's about profit, and sensible discussion doesn't make money.
2) Totally. That's why the rebels would fight a guerrilla war. There are plenty of forests and swamps too dense for drones to find you, or you can hide in dense cities where collateral damage would be too great for them to bomb you. And you've got plenty of targets, i.e. every powerplant, factory, refinery, and bridge in the country.
3) Most dictatorships had popular indifference, with a fervently dedicated, vocal minority. The opposition was quite often disarmed before things got too out of hand. Mao did it, Stalin did it, Hitler did it.
4) Any citizen who would be deterred by simply losing electricity wouldn't have the stomach for rebellion in the first place. But I do not believe this is such a vast majority that a rebellion would be impossible. Besides, in an urban environment, they can't shut your electricity off if they don't know who or where you are.
5) I'm all for peaceful movements, when they work they're great. But why bet everything on peaceful protest? Why not at least keep the capability to fight back if push comes to shove?
6) Maybe the mugger should've thought of that.
7) First, Canada isn't as densely populated, the socioeconomic conditions don't foster crime as badly in Canada as in the US. A better comparison is between the US and the UK. Still, the US does have higher gun-crime. But the UK has much higher violent crime in general. Why is gun-crime somehow worse than regular crime?
On January 30 2013 12:44 StayPhrosty wrote:
On January 30 2013 11:56 Maesy wrote: This is my opinion in one video. I'm not sure if this channel has been brought up since there's so many pages on this subject. I was borderline on the subject and this guys logic alone made me pro-gun. Go through a lot of his videos if one doesn't convince you. I know this specific one is only about one part of the issue (Specifically, Obama's Gun Law).
Also the argument on why anybody 'needs' an assault rifle.
Okay, so I get that the clip law is a little irrational, but I really don't agree with your conclusion. The guy's whole premise is that we should all carry as powerful of a gun as we can get our hands on. We need more bullets and better guns to 'protect' ourselves on the street. Is that really a world you want to live in? Do you want every person in wal-mart to be slinging an AK around their back? Do you want to be standing in line at a grocery store and be afraid that you will literally be shot at any moment? Do you want to live your life honestly terrified that you might bump somebody and they'll shoot you? If everyone carries around a gun then the result is that everyone shoots each other to solve their problems. I don't know about you but I see people shout at each other in traffic every day, I can't imagine what the death toll would be if these idiots had guns instead of horns. Then again, perhaps your real fear is that one day, out of the blue, you're being shot at. Somehow I think my chances would be marginal, at best. Perhaps I'm facing one attacker, and they have an equally powerful gun (or weaker), and neither of us is caught off guard, and both of us carry the same amount of ammunition and are standing in equally covered positions. Oh yeah, and then you have to assume we both have equal aim, and that we both are equally physically fit. Assuming all that, then yeah, having a gun would give you a 50/50 chance of making it out. Then again the chances are kind of low of an attacker not planning to carry a bigger/better gun, or not trying to surprise you, or not bringing a friend or two, or not carrying more ammunition, or not preparing in a firing position, and so on and so on. Oh yeah, and now it's a competition between who has better aim, well i sure hope every law-abiding citizen spends more hours a day getting in shape and practising his aim than this imaginary criminal who has decided to use a gun to make a living. Now society really is survival of the fittest - sure sounds like somewhere I want to live...
Perhaps having fewer guns and fewer criminals would mean fewer people getting shot... Golly, what a crazy utopia that is... oh wait it's called Canada.
Having a gun slung over your shoulder doesn't hurt anyone. Plenty of people ALREADY carry guns, both openly and concealed, and this whole "Bump into them and they shoot you" thing doesn't happen.
1) Okay, so at least we agree on a small part. That being said, I have ran into more drunk guys yelling 'come at me bro' than I can count. As well, plenty of people get road rage already, so I really would feel unsafe if all of them were carrying a weapon.
As well, with more people 'packing', you also have an attitude that follows it. Right now, I feel safe, so I don't carry a gun. Others don't fear me because as one of many in a crowd I'm probably not carrying a gun. If I'm surrounded by people with guns then the atmosphere changes. When you feel as if you need a gun for protection at all times then you are assuming that you could be in danger at all times. Perhaps you're just playing it safe, but if everybody 'plays it safe', then everybody will have something to fear - everybody else. I'm not sure about you, but I really would rather trust to military and the police to protect me, rather than pray I have a better gun than the guy trying to kill me. You see, the only situation I can imagine where I'm just dead on sight without a gun is one where someone is hunting me down. In such a case, well, then I can train hard but the bottom 50% are just fucked. Now it's survival of the fittest and somebody's got to lose those gunfights. I'm getting off topic though. My main point is that when a society has decided that there is significant enough danger to warrant shooting people for defence, then the society is in deep, deep trouble. It would be better to work towards keeping EVERYONE safe, rather than just equipping every individual and saying 'i hope you get the best of him'.
2) okay, agreement here as well. But the thing I'm getting at is that we have no contemporary example of a western democratic government turning violent and killing it's people for some tyrannical reason. That type of situation would be near impossible to predict or prepare for by carrying a handgun right now.
3) Right, but I still can't see a situation where some evil dude takes over the US government and turns it's guns on the public. I mean, tell me what the most likely situation is here? Are they killing everybody? Because in that case the electricity/survival argument holds immense weight. Are they just targeting a select few? Who? Why? Why doesn't the public stand up for them? Why isn't the leader impeached? Why isn't a new congress elected? Why don't the soldiers refuse to fight?
I'm not saying there cannot possibly exist a situation where the people need to shoot back, I'm just saying that preparing for these kinds of things in the US is about as necessary as the public preparing for an alien invasion. Statistically it's possible, but in reality there are ways for people to flee or get protection illegally rather than relying on their 'government approved handgun' to help them fight off the special forces to save their family in the middle of the night.
Wouldn't you say it's more important for the laws created by the majority to be valued more than the ability of each individual to illegally resist those laws? Because what I see here is a problem with the public influence over the government, and that IS something I agree with. And it is something I fight for by getting involved in politics, not by carrying a glock around with me.
5) I guess the thing is that is our society, right now, I feel that the benefits of an armed public are vastly outweighed by the harm it would bring. Imagine of the occupy wallstreet guys started shooting at the cops when they maced them for no reason. Obviously the police violated a LOT of rights, but nobody died en-mass. Also, as I mentioned earlier, by having guns as a 'backup' you're harming everyday life for the public.
6) Okay, let's assume the mugger brings a knife and swings at me so I shoot him. Great. What have I accomplished? A guy is dead now. In my eyes, it was self defence, but if nobody had died at all would that not be a VASTLY better alternative? Pretend I don't bring the gun, then what? At best I talk the guy down or someone calls the police real quick and I keep my wallet and everything ends okay. Maybe it ends worse though, maybe he gets mad or even for no reason at all he kills me. How is this somehow worse from society's perspective? Either way somebody dies. Sure, as an individual I don't want it to happen to me, but there are many other factors that impact if you're going to get mugged. I can change all of these other things like where I live and what dark alleys I walk down alone at night, etc. I don't NEED a gun, and I think it's far too narrow-sighted to assume that just because I want one that everybody should have one. We cannot ALL be packing more heat than every criminal on the street.
7) from wikipedia, just one example of a densely populated city not far from Detroit... "Crime in Toronto has been relatively low for a very long period of time; the low crime rate in Toronto has resulted in the city having a reputation as one of the safest large cities in North America. Recent data from Statistics Canada shows that crime has been falling steadily in Toronto's census metropolitan area since 1998, a total drop of 33% for all crimes reported between the period of 1998–2008.[1]
For comparisons to various cities in North America, in 2007 for example, the homicide rate for the city of Toronto was 3.3 per 100,000 people, yet for Detroit (33.8), Atlanta (19.7), Chicago (15.5), San Francisco (13.6), Boston (10.3) and New York City (6.3) it was higher, while it was only marginally lower in Vancouver (3.1), San Jose (2.9) and Montreal (2.6). Toronto's robbery rate also ranks low, with 207.1 robberies per 100,000 people, compared to Detroit (675.1), Chicago (588.6), Los Angeles (348.5), Vancouver (266.2), New York City (265.9), Montreal (235.3) and San Diego (158.8).[2][3][4][5][6][7]"
You quote socio-economic conditions as being the major factor. I would say the gun ownership is a major piece of those 'socio-economic factors'. I mean, the US has more guns than anyone else. "The Congressional Research Service in 2009 estimated there were 310 million firearms in the United States, not including weapons owned by the military. " I mean, when you feel more powerful than a criminal when you have a gun, you also feel more powerful than some random person you pass on the street when you have a gun, it's only natural. This power, though, comes with consequences.
My argument about AK's in walmart, while exaggerated, still stand I feel. People don;t walk around with machine guns to the grocery store, but if they did i think it would change the atmosphere of going shopping. That being said, I still don't see a mystical connection between more people carrying guns but fewer people using them...
1) That sucks. I would hope the background checks would weed out the people who will get drunk and still carry. I'm ok with CUI, Carrying Under the Influence being a crime. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't already actually.
2) I personally do not care about handguns, mostly because they're pretty much pointless for overthrowing a tyranny. I still support them, but I am willing to compromise here. Handguns can have stricter background checks for two reasons, in my opinion. First, like I said, can't overthrow the next Hitler with a glock. Second, they actually are used in a huge majority of gun-related crimes.
3) I don't know. The exact details don't really matter too much though. Democracies in developed have fallen to to tyrants as recently as the 30's (maybe more recently, but I can't think of any at the moment). The public doesn't stand up for the oppressed because A) its not happening to them, and B) the few who do "Disappear". It happened in Spain, Italy, and Germany in the 30's, and in China in the 50's.
5) How are you harming every day life by owning guns? Will my rifle shoot someone on its own? Is it going to break its way out of its gun-safe and start killing people? You can't blame the guns, you have to blame the person holding them, or there's no accountability.
6) It is worse for you to die because you are innocent. If you kill your attacker, that's sad, but he knew the risks. And you don't really need to pack more heat than everyone else. A common thug is going to want something concealable, which basically means small. At the distances you're likely to face, any hand-gun will do, they're all basically the same inside 20 yards.
7) How is the War on Drugs going in Canada? Did it make your urban centers hellish wastelands like it did here? I honestly don't know. If it didn't, then the socioeconomic conditions aren't similar enough for that comparison to be valid. Anyways, of those 310 million guns, a very small percentage are used in crimes, we're talking single digit percentages.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/guns.cfm 5.1 million violent crimes involving guns. Even if every gun-crime was committed with a unique gun, i.e. 1 gun = 1 crime, that's only 1.6 percent of all guns in the country are used in crimes.
Okay so you kind of ignored a huge chunk of my argument but I'll try to state it a little better this time.
Guns change society. Guns change societal atmosphere and gun culture has a negative impact on the public. This is my main point. When I punch you, you punch back, when I pull a gun on you, you pull a gun on me. If we have fists then somebody gets beaten up, when we have guns then somebody gets shot. It's really as simple as that. You multiply that by millions of people and you have americans dying en-masse. If nobody has a gun then nobody gets shot.
Okay, that was simplified, but the point still stands. Fewer guns mean fewer gun crimes, more guns mean more gun crimes. Sure you can kill people with knives but it's not as easy as pulling a trigger anymore. Then again, you seem to be against the masses carrying glocks. So please elaborate because at this point I don't know if you understand the negative impact that comes with this gun culture.
Long rifles and semi-auto assault rifles though you seem to support. Well, like I said those would not be very pleasant to encounter on the street. One guy with a knife cuts a few people and gets stopped, another guy brings an AK and 100 rounds and slaughters a crowd before being stopped.
Maybe you support keeping those guns out of the hands of the irresponsible though. Well, that's going to take A LOT of government oversight to make it safe enough for a lot more people to own them safely. And then what happens when this tyrranical government turns? Now they have a list of everybody who has trained at a gun range to fight them. Now they have controls and know exactly what areas and what cities have whichever guns.
To me if you want better government control over weapons you start to lose some of this ability to 'fight back' against your own military. In my opinion though this is okay, because I really don't see how it would be beneficial to form a civilian militia to defeat the US military.
You seem to have trouble describing exactly how or when or in what conditions you might need to fight the US government, well perhaps this is part of the irrationality if you 'needing protection' from them.
the 30's elsewhere and the 50's in china seem far too disconnected from us today to be relevant in a discussion of the citizens overthrowing the government. Did they have the internet? Did they have a modern democratic government with a modern military? How successful were the citizens at overthrowing this tyranny again? Please, I would actually be interested in a case where such a contemporary violent revolution turned out great for the public.
in reference to 6) - of course its too bad that the innocent person died, but someone still died. Having a gun or not having one didn't somehow prevent anyone from dying ever. I mean, tell me how the situation is going to end peacefully when we both pull out a gun? This guy who pulls a gun on me for money is somehow now less ballsy than me? Now he's likely to put his gun down? The situation just doesn't improve for me when I have a gun. Maybe I kill him, great now I'm a murderer. I don't approve of the death penalty because I believe people can still contribute to society and there is no purpose for revenge. So on the street I don't find it any more justified that I should be able to kill him. It would be better that neither of us died - that neither of us had the ability to end the other's life so easily.
Pretend that we all start carrying bigger guns for proper self defence. Would some thug on the street really come at me with a pocket knife when he knows people generally have an assault rifle for defence? No, he's just going to bring an even bigger gun, or he'll bring friends and surround/surprise me. The criminals aren't going to obey any restrictions I have to adhere to, they're simply going to be better armed than I am. The solution is not to hope I have a bigger gun than them, the solution is to have fewer guns for fewer people causing fewer crimes.
7-right so you really don't know how socioeconomic conditions are outside of the US. Ok well here for example the war of drugs is bullshit and we have gang/crime problems in major cities just like the US, only our homicide rates are much lower. There are many things that contribute to this, and I don't see how gun ownership provides any benefits.
just some statistics on gun ownership causing harm in the US-
wikipedia on gun violence "In 2009, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 66.9% of all homicides in the United States were perpetrated using a firearm.[5]"
States in the highest quartile for gun ownership had homicide rates 114% higher than states in the lowest quartile of gun ownership.[84]
Among juveniles (minors under the age of 16, 17, or 18, depending on legal jurisdiction) serving in correctional facilities, 86% had owned a gun, with 66% acquiring their first gun by age 14.[2] There was also a tendency for juvenile offenders to have owned several firearms, with 65% owning three or more.[2] Juveniles most often acquired guns illegally from family, friends, drug dealers, and street contacts.[2] Inner-city youths cited "self-protection from enemies" as the top reason for carrying a gun.[2]
In 2005, almost 18% of U.S. households possessed handguns, compared to almost 3% of households in Canada that possessed handguns.[9] In 2011, the number was increased to 34% of adults in the United States personally owned a gun; 46% of adult men, and 23% of adult women.
"The United States has about five percent of the total world population but residents of the United States own about 42 percent of all the world's civilian-owned firearms."
and crime in the US The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. As of 2006, a record 7 million people were behind bars, on probation or on parole, of which 2.2 million were incarcerated. The People's Republic of China ranks second with 1.5 million. The United States has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's incarcerated population.[33][dated info]
The US homicide rate, which has declined substantially since 1991 from a rate per 100,000 persons of 9.8 to 4.8 in 2010, is still among the highest in the industrialized world. In 2004, there were 5.5 homicides for every 100,000 persons, roughly three times as high as Canada (1.9) and six times as high as Germany (0.9).
Your gun culture example doesn't work. Specifically because guns are more dangerous. The repercussions are much greater, so you don't just pull guns as freely as you start fist-fights. People carrying guns don't just draw for nothing. They don't get cut-off in a parking lot and start shooting people.
The AR15 is the most commonly owned rifle in the US. It's an "Assault Weapon". In many jurisdictions, it is already legal to open carry it. But "Assault Weapons" are used in less than 1% of all fire-arm related crimes. Carrying a gun doesn't mean you WILL shoot someone. My point is, is that this gun culture idea, the idea that people will shoot each other over everything and nothing, has already been tested. People already carry guns, and it doesn't happen.
It doesn't take too much government oversight. All you need is background checks. As long as there's no database of gun-owners, it doesn't really matter if they know you're allowed to own a gun. A tyrant would need to know whether you actually do or not.
I'm not Nostradamus, I can't predict the future. But democracies can, and have become tyrannies, and that should be good enough. Sure, I can't say every little detail that would be necessary for armed rebellion, but neither did the founding fathers. 15 years before the revolution, no one had any desire for independence. 15 years isn't that long.
Europe in the 30's DID have a modern democracy, and they had an almost-modern military. Sure, they didn't have the internet, and things may have turned out differently if they did, but they were never given the chance for open rebellion. Any people with opposition sympathies were at least disarmed, and they often just "Disappeared". I'll be honest, I don't know enough about China to say much there, besides the fact that before Mao, they were a functional democracy, and after he took power, they weren't.
This arms race between civilians and criminals also doesn't happen. Plenty of civilians already have guns, and you don't see criminals getting bigger and better guns. Criminals need cheap, concealable guns. They need to be concealable so they can sneak up on you, and they need to be cheap so they can throw them away before the cops show up. Cheap, concealable guns are not very big or powerful.
What is worse, a civilian who did nothing wrong getting killed, or a criminal who knew the risks getting killed? And please don't give me the whole "You don't know him, maybe he just wanted to feed his family." nonsense. Soup kitchens are a thing. Foodstamps exist. And besides, you have to admit that this would be a pretty rare occurrence. Most (I'd wager almost all) thefts aren't because the person will starve otherwise, they're because the thief wants to buy a new TV or more cocaine. Last, you do not know what he plans on doing to you. You have no idea if he's just going to take your wallet, or if he's going to kill you. Sure, it might be rare, but if you want to talk about the one-in-a-million dad's who steal to feed their family, I can talk about the one-in-a-million muggers who also kill.
I didn't say I don't know socioeconomics anywhere outside the US, I said I don't know them in Canada. I'm happy for you that you seem to have solved all your problems. But look at the UK. They have almost no guns, and have one of the highest crime rates in Europe. Clearly guns are not the only factor, or even the main factor
3.12 Overall Length. 3.12.1 The overall length of the firearm shall not exceed 30 inches with the stock fully extended. 3.12.2 The overall length of the firearm shall not exceed 20 inches with the stock fully retracted and/or folded.
Settlers need weapons, they live in areas without strong police protection, they need to be able to defend themselves. However, once you do have a strong police presence, guns no longer protect a society. The best method to stop criminals is to have the police investigate a crime and arrest the culprits. Therefore, you no longer need guns in the United States. In Europe you basically never needed them.
This absurd fantasy of violent uprising against a tyrannical government is so dumb. If the US government would go rogue then the only thing you'd achieve is to have several blood baths as some militia groups make a few futile attempt at fighting the powers that be. You can't fight modern military power that easily.
Also, I know that the exact people that would be most likely to start a tyrannical government would be some more extreme version of the Bush government, who are the people the NRA supports the most.
I thought this just had to be posted. Former astronaut and husband of Gabby Giffords, Mark Kelley, took a giant shit on NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre during the senate judiciary hearing on guns.
During the hearing, LaPierre repeatedly voiced the talking point that there’s no need to expand the background check system because criminals don’t cooperate with background checks. Kelly responded:
The Tuscon shooter was an admitted drug user. He was rejected from the U.S. Army because of his drug use. He was clearly mentally ill. And when he purchased that gun in November, his plan was to assassinate my wife and commit mass murder at that Safeway in Tucson. He was a criminal. Because of his drug use, and because of what he was planning on doing. But because of these gaps in the mental health system, in this case, those 121,000 records, I admit did not include a record on him. But it could have.
And if it did, he would have failed that background check. he would have likely gone to a gun show, or a private seller, and avoided that background check. But if we close that gun show loophole, if we require private sellers to complete a background check, and we get those 121,000 records and others into the systems, we will prevent gun crime. That is an absolute truth. It would have happened in Tucson. My wife would not have been sitting here today if we had stronger background checks.
On January 30 2013 11:15 white_horse wrote: People who argue that guns should be completely unrestricted in order to prevent a dictatorship or tyrannical US government just seem like guns are personal extensions of their deep hatred and mistrust of the federal government and almost want an apocalyptic evil government attack its own citizens just so that they can prove themselves right.
Few people argue that guns should be completely unrestricted. To use a parallel argument, even though most people believe that citizens should have the right to drive automobiles, that doesn't imply that those people believe that driving cars should be completely unrestricted.
On January 30 2013 11:15 white_horse wrote: How some people think that there is a chance that the US government is somehow going to devolve into some facist or dictatorship-type government doesn't make any logical sense. Your arguing against logic. The military is made up of citizens just like yourselves and they aren't going to start dropping bombs on US cities or go shoot up neighborhoods just because a government official tells them to.
History as well as modern events suggest otherwise. Take a look at the Arab Spring for examples of governments using military force against citizens and armed populaces acting as the only possible defense against it.
Right, because the Egyptian army is pretty much the same as the US army... oh wait...
What exactly is your point? Please spell it out, since there are a number of flawed arguments and fallacies you could be referring to with your vague statement.
Sorry, I just got sick of all the arguments with about 2 seconds of thought put into them and I stooped to their level. I suppose if you're willing to give me a serious discussion, I'll start with a few things that jump out at me.
1) Although anecdotal, I seem to see many gun advocates arguing for unrestricted access. Obviously I have the sense to understand this is not how most people feel, but the media is filled with people (e.g. the NRA) who scream and shout any time gun control is even mentioned. I would think most people would be behind 'sensible' gun control laws that are both effective at dealing with crime but do not infringe upon responsible gun owners' "rights." That being said, a lot of the arguments I see simply aim to defend the responsibility of every person to carry a gun. Perhaps you could present an argument against the common gun control position with a little more sense than I usually see and I'll try to respond as best as I can.
2) The US military is, by many standards, the most powerful military in the world. It would take a very contrived situation to try and see another military defeat them in conventional warfare.
3) Obviously guerrilla warfare would be much for effective for a US citizen militia to attempt, but this I think is quite ridiculous to speculate about. What tyrannical superpowers in the past have had is popular support, not a lack of an armed enemy. The US isn't exactly very close to civil war right now in my opinion, and so such a massive societal shift would mean a lot more people being concerned about being attacked by their government than we currently see in the US. Perhaps if this changed then there 'would' be popular support for gun ownership, but right now it simply doesn't make sense to me.
4) A civilian's ability to fight the US government would be shockingly limited if their electricity was cut off. Sure, there are many people who can survive just fine, but the vast majority, I would argue, would simply die because of lack of survival skills, not lack of a gun to shoot back with.
5) Arguing for the benefit of automatic or other weapons as integral for defeating a hypothetical US dictator and his crazy plot is tough enough, but that's far from the only flaw. There have been huge shifts in social values through movements that were pretty much non-violent. Of course there are examples like India's independence and the US civil rights movement, but there are other examples as well. People rarely smoke cigarettes anymore. The public has been educated better and there have been restrictions placed on the sale of them that don't prevent their use but do limit their negative impact.
6) Just to add more of the common arguments - carrying a gun around on the street for self defence from mugging or something is quite likely to escalate the situation.
7) Statistically the US owns more guns and has more gun crime than other so called 'developed' countries like the UK or Canada. Perhaps this is more than just a correlation...
1) I'm fine with background checks and keeping guns away from felons/psychos. Everyone else though should be allowed to have pretty much any gun they want. You can have the more powerful ones require more thorough checks, but there should be nothing outright forbidden. As for the NRA, of course they're filling the media, they're the loudest. Just like how Piers Morgan on your side is constantly yelling about guns. The media isn't about truth, it's about profit, and sensible discussion doesn't make money.
2) Totally. That's why the rebels would fight a guerrilla war. There are plenty of forests and swamps too dense for drones to find you, or you can hide in dense cities where collateral damage would be too great for them to bomb you. And you've got plenty of targets, i.e. every powerplant, factory, refinery, and bridge in the country.
3) Most dictatorships had popular indifference, with a fervently dedicated, vocal minority. The opposition was quite often disarmed before things got too out of hand. Mao did it, Stalin did it, Hitler did it.
4) Any citizen who would be deterred by simply losing electricity wouldn't have the stomach for rebellion in the first place. But I do not believe this is such a vast majority that a rebellion would be impossible. Besides, in an urban environment, they can't shut your electricity off if they don't know who or where you are.
5) I'm all for peaceful movements, when they work they're great. But why bet everything on peaceful protest? Why not at least keep the capability to fight back if push comes to shove?
6) Maybe the mugger should've thought of that.
7) First, Canada isn't as densely populated, the socioeconomic conditions don't foster crime as badly in Canada as in the US. A better comparison is between the US and the UK. Still, the US does have higher gun-crime. But the UK has much higher violent crime in general. Why is gun-crime somehow worse than regular crime?
On January 30 2013 12:44 StayPhrosty wrote:
On January 30 2013 11:56 Maesy wrote: This is my opinion in one video. I'm not sure if this channel has been brought up since there's so many pages on this subject. I was borderline on the subject and this guys logic alone made me pro-gun. Go through a lot of his videos if one doesn't convince you. I know this specific one is only about one part of the issue (Specifically, Obama's Gun Law).
Okay, so I get that the clip law is a little irrational, but I really don't agree with your conclusion. The guy's whole premise is that we should all carry as powerful of a gun as we can get our hands on. We need more bullets and better guns to 'protect' ourselves on the street. Is that really a world you want to live in? Do you want every person in wal-mart to be slinging an AK around their back? Do you want to be standing in line at a grocery store and be afraid that you will literally be shot at any moment? Do you want to live your life honestly terrified that you might bump somebody and they'll shoot you? If everyone carries around a gun then the result is that everyone shoots each other to solve their problems. I don't know about you but I see people shout at each other in traffic every day, I can't imagine what the death toll would be if these idiots had guns instead of horns. Then again, perhaps your real fear is that one day, out of the blue, you're being shot at. Somehow I think my chances would be marginal, at best. Perhaps I'm facing one attacker, and they have an equally powerful gun (or weaker), and neither of us is caught off guard, and both of us carry the same amount of ammunition and are standing in equally covered positions. Oh yeah, and then you have to assume we both have equal aim, and that we both are equally physically fit. Assuming all that, then yeah, having a gun would give you a 50/50 chance of making it out. Then again the chances are kind of low of an attacker not planning to carry a bigger/better gun, or not trying to surprise you, or not bringing a friend or two, or not carrying more ammunition, or not preparing in a firing position, and so on and so on. Oh yeah, and now it's a competition between who has better aim, well i sure hope every law-abiding citizen spends more hours a day getting in shape and practising his aim than this imaginary criminal who has decided to use a gun to make a living. Now society really is survival of the fittest - sure sounds like somewhere I want to live...
Perhaps having fewer guns and fewer criminals would mean fewer people getting shot... Golly, what a crazy utopia that is... oh wait it's called Canada.
Having a gun slung over your shoulder doesn't hurt anyone. Plenty of people ALREADY carry guns, both openly and concealed, and this whole "Bump into them and they shoot you" thing doesn't happen.
1) Okay, so at least we agree on a small part. That being said, I have ran into more drunk guys yelling 'come at me bro' than I can count. As well, plenty of people get road rage already, so I really would feel unsafe if all of them were carrying a weapon.
As well, with more people 'packing', you also have an attitude that follows it. Right now, I feel safe, so I don't carry a gun. Others don't fear me because as one of many in a crowd I'm probably not carrying a gun. If I'm surrounded by people with guns then the atmosphere changes. When you feel as if you need a gun for protection at all times then you are assuming that you could be in danger at all times. Perhaps you're just playing it safe, but if everybody 'plays it safe', then everybody will have something to fear - everybody else. I'm not sure about you, but I really would rather trust to military and the police to protect me, rather than pray I have a better gun than the guy trying to kill me. You see, the only situation I can imagine where I'm just dead on sight without a gun is one where someone is hunting me down. In such a case, well, then I can train hard but the bottom 50% are just fucked. Now it's survival of the fittest and somebody's got to lose those gunfights. I'm getting off topic though. My main point is that when a society has decided that there is significant enough danger to warrant shooting people for defence, then the society is in deep, deep trouble. It would be better to work towards keeping EVERYONE safe, rather than just equipping every individual and saying 'i hope you get the best of him'.
2) okay, agreement here as well. But the thing I'm getting at is that we have no contemporary example of a western democratic government turning violent and killing it's people for some tyrannical reason. That type of situation would be near impossible to predict or prepare for by carrying a handgun right now.
3) Right, but I still can't see a situation where some evil dude takes over the US government and turns it's guns on the public. I mean, tell me what the most likely situation is here? Are they killing everybody? Because in that case the electricity/survival argument holds immense weight. Are they just targeting a select few? Who? Why? Why doesn't the public stand up for them? Why isn't the leader impeached? Why isn't a new congress elected? Why don't the soldiers refuse to fight?
I'm not saying there cannot possibly exist a situation where the people need to shoot back, I'm just saying that preparing for these kinds of things in the US is about as necessary as the public preparing for an alien invasion. Statistically it's possible, but in reality there are ways for people to flee or get protection illegally rather than relying on their 'government approved handgun' to help them fight off the special forces to save their family in the middle of the night.
Wouldn't you say it's more important for the laws created by the majority to be valued more than the ability of each individual to illegally resist those laws? Because what I see here is a problem with the public influence over the government, and that IS something I agree with. And it is something I fight for by getting involved in politics, not by carrying a glock around with me.
5) I guess the thing is that is our society, right now, I feel that the benefits of an armed public are vastly outweighed by the harm it would bring. Imagine of the occupy wallstreet guys started shooting at the cops when they maced them for no reason. Obviously the police violated a LOT of rights, but nobody died en-mass. Also, as I mentioned earlier, by having guns as a 'backup' you're harming everyday life for the public.
6) Okay, let's assume the mugger brings a knife and swings at me so I shoot him. Great. What have I accomplished? A guy is dead now. In my eyes, it was self defence, but if nobody had died at all would that not be a VASTLY better alternative? Pretend I don't bring the gun, then what? At best I talk the guy down or someone calls the police real quick and I keep my wallet and everything ends okay. Maybe it ends worse though, maybe he gets mad or even for no reason at all he kills me. How is this somehow worse from society's perspective? Either way somebody dies. Sure, as an individual I don't want it to happen to me, but there are many other factors that impact if you're going to get mugged. I can change all of these other things like where I live and what dark alleys I walk down alone at night, etc. I don't NEED a gun, and I think it's far too narrow-sighted to assume that just because I want one that everybody should have one. We cannot ALL be packing more heat than every criminal on the street.
7) from wikipedia, just one example of a densely populated city not far from Detroit... "Crime in Toronto has been relatively low for a very long period of time; the low crime rate in Toronto has resulted in the city having a reputation as one of the safest large cities in North America. Recent data from Statistics Canada shows that crime has been falling steadily in Toronto's census metropolitan area since 1998, a total drop of 33% for all crimes reported between the period of 1998–2008.[1]
For comparisons to various cities in North America, in 2007 for example, the homicide rate for the city of Toronto was 3.3 per 100,000 people, yet for Detroit (33.8), Atlanta (19.7), Chicago (15.5), San Francisco (13.6), Boston (10.3) and New York City (6.3) it was higher, while it was only marginally lower in Vancouver (3.1), San Jose (2.9) and Montreal (2.6). Toronto's robbery rate also ranks low, with 207.1 robberies per 100,000 people, compared to Detroit (675.1), Chicago (588.6), Los Angeles (348.5), Vancouver (266.2), New York City (265.9), Montreal (235.3) and San Diego (158.8).[2][3][4][5][6][7]"
You quote socio-economic conditions as being the major factor. I would say the gun ownership is a major piece of those 'socio-economic factors'. I mean, the US has more guns than anyone else. "The Congressional Research Service in 2009 estimated there were 310 million firearms in the United States, not including weapons owned by the military. " I mean, when you feel more powerful than a criminal when you have a gun, you also feel more powerful than some random person you pass on the street when you have a gun, it's only natural. This power, though, comes with consequences.
My argument about AK's in walmart, while exaggerated, still stand I feel. People don;t walk around with machine guns to the grocery store, but if they did i think it would change the atmosphere of going shopping. That being said, I still don't see a mystical connection between more people carrying guns but fewer people using them...
1) That sucks. I would hope the background checks would weed out the people who will get drunk and still carry. I'm ok with CUI, Carrying Under the Influence being a crime. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't already actually.
2) I personally do not care about handguns, mostly because they're pretty much pointless for overthrowing a tyranny. I still support them, but I am willing to compromise here. Handguns can have stricter background checks for two reasons, in my opinion. First, like I said, can't overthrow the next Hitler with a glock. Second, they actually are used in a huge majority of gun-related crimes.
3) I don't know. The exact details don't really matter too much though. Democracies in developed have fallen to to tyrants as recently as the 30's (maybe more recently, but I can't think of any at the moment). The public doesn't stand up for the oppressed because A) its not happening to them, and B) the few who do "Disappear". It happened in Spain, Italy, and Germany in the 30's, and in China in the 50's.
5) How are you harming every day life by owning guns? Will my rifle shoot someone on its own? Is it going to break its way out of its gun-safe and start killing people? You can't blame the guns, you have to blame the person holding them, or there's no accountability.
6) It is worse for you to die because you are innocent. If you kill your attacker, that's sad, but he knew the risks. And you don't really need to pack more heat than everyone else. A common thug is going to want something concealable, which basically means small. At the distances you're likely to face, any hand-gun will do, they're all basically the same inside 20 yards.
7) How is the War on Drugs going in Canada? Did it make your urban centers hellish wastelands like it did here? I honestly don't know. If it didn't, then the socioeconomic conditions aren't similar enough for that comparison to be valid. Anyways, of those 310 million guns, a very small percentage are used in crimes, we're talking single digit percentages.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/guns.cfm 5.1 million violent crimes involving guns. Even if every gun-crime was committed with a unique gun, i.e. 1 gun = 1 crime, that's only 1.6 percent of all guns in the country are used in crimes.
Okay so you kind of ignored a huge chunk of my argument but I'll try to state it a little better this time.
Guns change society. Guns change societal atmosphere and gun culture has a negative impact on the public. This is my main point. When I punch you, you punch back, when I pull a gun on you, you pull a gun on me. If we have fists then somebody gets beaten up, when we have guns then somebody gets shot. It's really as simple as that. You multiply that by millions of people and you have americans dying en-masse. If nobody has a gun then nobody gets shot.
Okay, that was simplified, but the point still stands. Fewer guns mean fewer gun crimes, more guns mean more gun crimes. Sure you can kill people with knives but it's not as easy as pulling a trigger anymore. Then again, you seem to be against the masses carrying glocks. So please elaborate because at this point I don't know if you understand the negative impact that comes with this gun culture.
Long rifles and semi-auto assault rifles though you seem to support. Well, like I said those would not be very pleasant to encounter on the street. One guy with a knife cuts a few people and gets stopped, another guy brings an AK and 100 rounds and slaughters a crowd before being stopped.
Maybe you support keeping those guns out of the hands of the irresponsible though. Well, that's going to take A LOT of government oversight to make it safe enough for a lot more people to own them safely. And then what happens when this tyrranical government turns? Now they have a list of everybody who has trained at a gun range to fight them. Now they have controls and know exactly what areas and what cities have whichever guns.
To me if you want better government control over weapons you start to lose some of this ability to 'fight back' against your own military. In my opinion though this is okay, because I really don't see how it would be beneficial to form a civilian militia to defeat the US military.
You seem to have trouble describing exactly how or when or in what conditions you might need to fight the US government, well perhaps this is part of the irrationality if you 'needing protection' from them.
the 30's elsewhere and the 50's in china seem far too disconnected from us today to be relevant in a discussion of the citizens overthrowing the government. Did they have the internet? Did they have a modern democratic government with a modern military? How successful were the citizens at overthrowing this tyranny again? Please, I would actually be interested in a case where such a contemporary violent revolution turned out great for the public.
in reference to 6) - of course its too bad that the innocent person died, but someone still died. Having a gun or not having one didn't somehow prevent anyone from dying ever. I mean, tell me how the situation is going to end peacefully when we both pull out a gun? This guy who pulls a gun on me for money is somehow now less ballsy than me? Now he's likely to put his gun down? The situation just doesn't improve for me when I have a gun. Maybe I kill him, great now I'm a murderer. I don't approve of the death penalty because I believe people can still contribute to society and there is no purpose for revenge. So on the street I don't find it any more justified that I should be able to kill him. It would be better that neither of us died - that neither of us had the ability to end the other's life so easily.
Pretend that we all start carrying bigger guns for proper self defence. Would some thug on the street really come at me with a pocket knife when he knows people generally have an assault rifle for defence? No, he's just going to bring an even bigger gun, or he'll bring friends and surround/surprise me. The criminals aren't going to obey any restrictions I have to adhere to, they're simply going to be better armed than I am. The solution is not to hope I have a bigger gun than them, the solution is to have fewer guns for fewer people causing fewer crimes.
7-right so you really don't know how socioeconomic conditions are outside of the US. Ok well here for example the war of drugs is bullshit and we have gang/crime problems in major cities just like the US, only our homicide rates are much lower. There are many things that contribute to this, and I don't see how gun ownership provides any benefits.
just some statistics on gun ownership causing harm in the US-
wikipedia on gun violence "In 2009, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 66.9% of all homicides in the United States were perpetrated using a firearm.[5]"
States in the highest quartile for gun ownership had homicide rates 114% higher than states in the lowest quartile of gun ownership.[84]
Among juveniles (minors under the age of 16, 17, or 18, depending on legal jurisdiction) serving in correctional facilities, 86% had owned a gun, with 66% acquiring their first gun by age 14.[2] There was also a tendency for juvenile offenders to have owned several firearms, with 65% owning three or more.[2] Juveniles most often acquired guns illegally from family, friends, drug dealers, and street contacts.[2] Inner-city youths cited "self-protection from enemies" as the top reason for carrying a gun.[2]
In 2005, almost 18% of U.S. households possessed handguns, compared to almost 3% of households in Canada that possessed handguns.[9] In 2011, the number was increased to 34% of adults in the United States personally owned a gun; 46% of adult men, and 23% of adult women.
"The United States has about five percent of the total world population but residents of the United States own about 42 percent of all the world's civilian-owned firearms."
and crime in the US The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. As of 2006, a record 7 million people were behind bars, on probation or on parole, of which 2.2 million were incarcerated. The People's Republic of China ranks second with 1.5 million. The United States has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's incarcerated population.[33][dated info]
The US homicide rate, which has declined substantially since 1991 from a rate per 100,000 persons of 9.8 to 4.8 in 2010, is still among the highest in the industrialized world. In 2004, there were 5.5 homicides for every 100,000 persons, roughly three times as high as Canada (1.9) and six times as high as Germany (0.9).
Your gun culture example doesn't work. Specifically because guns are more dangerous. The repercussions are much greater, so you don't just pull guns as freely as you start fist-fights. People carrying guns don't just draw for nothing. They don't get cut-off in a parking lot and start shooting people.
The AR15 is the most commonly owned rifle in the US. It's an "Assault Weapon". In many jurisdictions, it is already legal to open carry it. But "Assault Weapons" are used in less than 1% of all fire-arm related crimes. Carrying a gun doesn't mean you WILL shoot someone. My point is, is that this gun culture idea, the idea that people will shoot each other over everything and nothing, has already been tested. People already carry guns, and it doesn't happen.
It doesn't take too much government oversight. All you need is background checks. As long as there's no database of gun-owners, it doesn't really matter if they know you're allowed to own a gun. A tyrant would need to know whether you actually do or not.
I'm not Nostradamus, I can't predict the future. But democracies can, and have become tyrannies, and that should be good enough. Sure, I can't say every little detail that would be necessary for armed rebellion, but neither did the founding fathers. 15 years before the revolution, no one had any desire for independence. 15 years isn't that long.
Europe in the 30's DID have a modern democracy, and they had an almost-modern military. Sure, they didn't have the internet, and things may have turned out differently if they did, but they were never given the chance for open rebellion. Any people with opposition sympathies were at least disarmed, and they often just "Disappeared". I'll be honest, I don't know enough about China to say much there, besides the fact that before Mao, they were a functional democracy, and after he took power, they weren't.
This arms race between civilians and criminals also doesn't happen. Plenty of civilians already have guns, and you don't see criminals getting bigger and better guns. Criminals need cheap, concealable guns. They need to be concealable so they can sneak up on you, and they need to be cheap so they can throw them away before the cops show up. Cheap, concealable guns are not very big or powerful.
What is worse, a civilian who did nothing wrong getting killed, or a criminal who knew the risks getting killed? And please don't give me the whole "You don't know him, maybe he just wanted to feed his family." nonsense. Soup kitchens are a thing. Foodstamps exist. And besides, you have to admit that this would be a pretty rare occurrence. Most (I'd wager almost all) thefts aren't because the person will starve otherwise, they're because the thief wants to buy a new TV or more cocaine. Last, you do not know what he plans on doing to you. You have no idea if he's just going to take your wallet, or if he's going to kill you. Sure, it might be rare, but if you want to talk about the one-in-a-million dad's who steal to feed their family, I can talk about the one-in-a-million muggers who also kill.
I didn't say I don't know socioeconomics anywhere outside the US, I said I don't know them in Canada. I'm happy for you that you seem to have solved all your problems. But look at the UK. They have almost no guns, and have one of the highest crime rates in Europe. Clearly guns are not the only factor, or even the main factor
Suggesting that the US federal government is somehow going to devolve into a dictatorship/tyranny, and then using that as an argument for more guns is bullshit. I don't know how some people always bring it up and not be able to think to themselves how stupid the entire idea is. That's just a childish fantasy gun proponents secretly want to happen just so they can tell everyone else how wrong they were. So please...stop pulling the what-if-tyranny-1776-nazi-hitler-stalin-happens-in-america because you're just telling every sensible person how stupid your logic is. If you want to actually convince people that more guns/stronger gun rights is better for the country, use another argument that actually makes some sense.
And yes, you are honest about not knowing a lot about china. They weren't a "functional democracy" before Mao (whatever that means). China never had the opportunity to become a real democracy early in the 20th century because of (1) WWII (2) their nationalism vs. communism civil war and (3) their decades-long war against Japan, which had occupied china.
On January 30 2013 11:15 white_horse wrote: People who argue that guns should be completely unrestricted in order to prevent a dictatorship or tyrannical US government just seem like guns are personal extensions of their deep hatred and mistrust of the federal government and almost want an apocalyptic evil government attack its own citizens just so that they can prove themselves right.
Few people argue that guns should be completely unrestricted. To use a parallel argument, even though most people believe that citizens should have the right to drive automobiles, that doesn't imply that those people believe that driving cars should be completely unrestricted.
On January 30 2013 11:15 white_horse wrote: How some people think that there is a chance that the US government is somehow going to devolve into some facist or dictatorship-type government doesn't make any logical sense. Your arguing against logic. The military is made up of citizens just like yourselves and they aren't going to start dropping bombs on US cities or go shoot up neighborhoods just because a government official tells them to.
History as well as modern events suggest otherwise. Take a look at the Arab Spring for examples of governments using military force against citizens and armed populaces acting as the only possible defense against it.
Right, because the Egyptian army is pretty much the same as the US army... oh wait...
What exactly is your point? Please spell it out, since there are a number of flawed arguments and fallacies you could be referring to with your vague statement.
Sorry, I just got sick of all the arguments with about 2 seconds of thought put into them and I stooped to their level. I suppose if you're willing to give me a serious discussion, I'll start with a few things that jump out at me.
1) Although anecdotal, I seem to see many gun advocates arguing for unrestricted access. Obviously I have the sense to understand this is not how most people feel, but the media is filled with people (e.g. the NRA) who scream and shout any time gun control is even mentioned. I would think most people would be behind 'sensible' gun control laws that are both effective at dealing with crime but do not infringe upon responsible gun owners' "rights." That being said, a lot of the arguments I see simply aim to defend the responsibility of every person to carry a gun. Perhaps you could present an argument against the common gun control position with a little more sense than I usually see and I'll try to respond as best as I can.
2) The US military is, by many standards, the most powerful military in the world. It would take a very contrived situation to try and see another military defeat them in conventional warfare.
3) Obviously guerrilla warfare would be much for effective for a US citizen militia to attempt, but this I think is quite ridiculous to speculate about. What tyrannical superpowers in the past have had is popular support, not a lack of an armed enemy. The US isn't exactly very close to civil war right now in my opinion, and so such a massive societal shift would mean a lot more people being concerned about being attacked by their government than we currently see in the US. Perhaps if this changed then there 'would' be popular support for gun ownership, but right now it simply doesn't make sense to me.
4) A civilian's ability to fight the US government would be shockingly limited if their electricity was cut off. Sure, there are many people who can survive just fine, but the vast majority, I would argue, would simply die because of lack of survival skills, not lack of a gun to shoot back with.
5) Arguing for the benefit of automatic or other weapons as integral for defeating a hypothetical US dictator and his crazy plot is tough enough, but that's far from the only flaw. There have been huge shifts in social values through movements that were pretty much non-violent. Of course there are examples like India's independence and the US civil rights movement, but there are other examples as well. People rarely smoke cigarettes anymore. The public has been educated better and there have been restrictions placed on the sale of them that don't prevent their use but do limit their negative impact.
6) Just to add more of the common arguments - carrying a gun around on the street for self defence from mugging or something is quite likely to escalate the situation.
7) Statistically the US owns more guns and has more gun crime than other so called 'developed' countries like the UK or Canada. Perhaps this is more than just a correlation...
1) I'm fine with background checks and keeping guns away from felons/psychos. Everyone else though should be allowed to have pretty much any gun they want. You can have the more powerful ones require more thorough checks, but there should be nothing outright forbidden. As for the NRA, of course they're filling the media, they're the loudest. Just like how Piers Morgan on your side is constantly yelling about guns. The media isn't about truth, it's about profit, and sensible discussion doesn't make money.
2) Totally. That's why the rebels would fight a guerrilla war. There are plenty of forests and swamps too dense for drones to find you, or you can hide in dense cities where collateral damage would be too great for them to bomb you. And you've got plenty of targets, i.e. every powerplant, factory, refinery, and bridge in the country.
3) Most dictatorships had popular indifference, with a fervently dedicated, vocal minority. The opposition was quite often disarmed before things got too out of hand. Mao did it, Stalin did it, Hitler did it.
4) Any citizen who would be deterred by simply losing electricity wouldn't have the stomach for rebellion in the first place. But I do not believe this is such a vast majority that a rebellion would be impossible. Besides, in an urban environment, they can't shut your electricity off if they don't know who or where you are.
5) I'm all for peaceful movements, when they work they're great. But why bet everything on peaceful protest? Why not at least keep the capability to fight back if push comes to shove?
6) Maybe the mugger should've thought of that.
7) First, Canada isn't as densely populated, the socioeconomic conditions don't foster crime as badly in Canada as in the US. A better comparison is between the US and the UK. Still, the US does have higher gun-crime. But the UK has much higher violent crime in general. Why is gun-crime somehow worse than regular crime?
On January 30 2013 12:44 StayPhrosty wrote:
On January 30 2013 11:56 Maesy wrote: This is my opinion in one video. I'm not sure if this channel has been brought up since there's so many pages on this subject. I was borderline on the subject and this guys logic alone made me pro-gun. Go through a lot of his videos if one doesn't convince you. I know this specific one is only about one part of the issue (Specifically, Obama's Gun Law).
Okay, so I get that the clip law is a little irrational, but I really don't agree with your conclusion. The guy's whole premise is that we should all carry as powerful of a gun as we can get our hands on. We need more bullets and better guns to 'protect' ourselves on the street. Is that really a world you want to live in? Do you want every person in wal-mart to be slinging an AK around their back? Do you want to be standing in line at a grocery store and be afraid that you will literally be shot at any moment? Do you want to live your life honestly terrified that you might bump somebody and they'll shoot you? If everyone carries around a gun then the result is that everyone shoots each other to solve their problems. I don't know about you but I see people shout at each other in traffic every day, I can't imagine what the death toll would be if these idiots had guns instead of horns. Then again, perhaps your real fear is that one day, out of the blue, you're being shot at. Somehow I think my chances would be marginal, at best. Perhaps I'm facing one attacker, and they have an equally powerful gun (or weaker), and neither of us is caught off guard, and both of us carry the same amount of ammunition and are standing in equally covered positions. Oh yeah, and then you have to assume we both have equal aim, and that we both are equally physically fit. Assuming all that, then yeah, having a gun would give you a 50/50 chance of making it out. Then again the chances are kind of low of an attacker not planning to carry a bigger/better gun, or not trying to surprise you, or not bringing a friend or two, or not carrying more ammunition, or not preparing in a firing position, and so on and so on. Oh yeah, and now it's a competition between who has better aim, well i sure hope every law-abiding citizen spends more hours a day getting in shape and practising his aim than this imaginary criminal who has decided to use a gun to make a living. Now society really is survival of the fittest - sure sounds like somewhere I want to live...
Perhaps having fewer guns and fewer criminals would mean fewer people getting shot... Golly, what a crazy utopia that is... oh wait it's called Canada.
Having a gun slung over your shoulder doesn't hurt anyone. Plenty of people ALREADY carry guns, both openly and concealed, and this whole "Bump into them and they shoot you" thing doesn't happen.
1) Okay, so at least we agree on a small part. That being said, I have ran into more drunk guys yelling 'come at me bro' than I can count. As well, plenty of people get road rage already, so I really would feel unsafe if all of them were carrying a weapon.
As well, with more people 'packing', you also have an attitude that follows it. Right now, I feel safe, so I don't carry a gun. Others don't fear me because as one of many in a crowd I'm probably not carrying a gun. If I'm surrounded by people with guns then the atmosphere changes. When you feel as if you need a gun for protection at all times then you are assuming that you could be in danger at all times. Perhaps you're just playing it safe, but if everybody 'plays it safe', then everybody will have something to fear - everybody else. I'm not sure about you, but I really would rather trust to military and the police to protect me, rather than pray I have a better gun than the guy trying to kill me. You see, the only situation I can imagine where I'm just dead on sight without a gun is one where someone is hunting me down. In such a case, well, then I can train hard but the bottom 50% are just fucked. Now it's survival of the fittest and somebody's got to lose those gunfights. I'm getting off topic though. My main point is that when a society has decided that there is significant enough danger to warrant shooting people for defence, then the society is in deep, deep trouble. It would be better to work towards keeping EVERYONE safe, rather than just equipping every individual and saying 'i hope you get the best of him'.
2) okay, agreement here as well. But the thing I'm getting at is that we have no contemporary example of a western democratic government turning violent and killing it's people for some tyrannical reason. That type of situation would be near impossible to predict or prepare for by carrying a handgun right now.
3) Right, but I still can't see a situation where some evil dude takes over the US government and turns it's guns on the public. I mean, tell me what the most likely situation is here? Are they killing everybody? Because in that case the electricity/survival argument holds immense weight. Are they just targeting a select few? Who? Why? Why doesn't the public stand up for them? Why isn't the leader impeached? Why isn't a new congress elected? Why don't the soldiers refuse to fight?
I'm not saying there cannot possibly exist a situation where the people need to shoot back, I'm just saying that preparing for these kinds of things in the US is about as necessary as the public preparing for an alien invasion. Statistically it's possible, but in reality there are ways for people to flee or get protection illegally rather than relying on their 'government approved handgun' to help them fight off the special forces to save their family in the middle of the night.
Wouldn't you say it's more important for the laws created by the majority to be valued more than the ability of each individual to illegally resist those laws? Because what I see here is a problem with the public influence over the government, and that IS something I agree with. And it is something I fight for by getting involved in politics, not by carrying a glock around with me.
5) I guess the thing is that is our society, right now, I feel that the benefits of an armed public are vastly outweighed by the harm it would bring. Imagine of the occupy wallstreet guys started shooting at the cops when they maced them for no reason. Obviously the police violated a LOT of rights, but nobody died en-mass. Also, as I mentioned earlier, by having guns as a 'backup' you're harming everyday life for the public.
6) Okay, let's assume the mugger brings a knife and swings at me so I shoot him. Great. What have I accomplished? A guy is dead now. In my eyes, it was self defence, but if nobody had died at all would that not be a VASTLY better alternative? Pretend I don't bring the gun, then what? At best I talk the guy down or someone calls the police real quick and I keep my wallet and everything ends okay. Maybe it ends worse though, maybe he gets mad or even for no reason at all he kills me. How is this somehow worse from society's perspective? Either way somebody dies. Sure, as an individual I don't want it to happen to me, but there are many other factors that impact if you're going to get mugged. I can change all of these other things like where I live and what dark alleys I walk down alone at night, etc. I don't NEED a gun, and I think it's far too narrow-sighted to assume that just because I want one that everybody should have one. We cannot ALL be packing more heat than every criminal on the street.
7) from wikipedia, just one example of a densely populated city not far from Detroit... "Crime in Toronto has been relatively low for a very long period of time; the low crime rate in Toronto has resulted in the city having a reputation as one of the safest large cities in North America. Recent data from Statistics Canada shows that crime has been falling steadily in Toronto's census metropolitan area since 1998, a total drop of 33% for all crimes reported between the period of 1998–2008.[1]
For comparisons to various cities in North America, in 2007 for example, the homicide rate for the city of Toronto was 3.3 per 100,000 people, yet for Detroit (33.8), Atlanta (19.7), Chicago (15.5), San Francisco (13.6), Boston (10.3) and New York City (6.3) it was higher, while it was only marginally lower in Vancouver (3.1), San Jose (2.9) and Montreal (2.6). Toronto's robbery rate also ranks low, with 207.1 robberies per 100,000 people, compared to Detroit (675.1), Chicago (588.6), Los Angeles (348.5), Vancouver (266.2), New York City (265.9), Montreal (235.3) and San Diego (158.8).[2][3][4][5][6][7]"
You quote socio-economic conditions as being the major factor. I would say the gun ownership is a major piece of those 'socio-economic factors'. I mean, the US has more guns than anyone else. "The Congressional Research Service in 2009 estimated there were 310 million firearms in the United States, not including weapons owned by the military. " I mean, when you feel more powerful than a criminal when you have a gun, you also feel more powerful than some random person you pass on the street when you have a gun, it's only natural. This power, though, comes with consequences.
My argument about AK's in walmart, while exaggerated, still stand I feel. People don;t walk around with machine guns to the grocery store, but if they did i think it would change the atmosphere of going shopping. That being said, I still don't see a mystical connection between more people carrying guns but fewer people using them...
1) That sucks. I would hope the background checks would weed out the people who will get drunk and still carry. I'm ok with CUI, Carrying Under the Influence being a crime. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't already actually.
2) I personally do not care about handguns, mostly because they're pretty much pointless for overthrowing a tyranny. I still support them, but I am willing to compromise here. Handguns can have stricter background checks for two reasons, in my opinion. First, like I said, can't overthrow the next Hitler with a glock. Second, they actually are used in a huge majority of gun-related crimes.
3) I don't know. The exact details don't really matter too much though. Democracies in developed have fallen to to tyrants as recently as the 30's (maybe more recently, but I can't think of any at the moment). The public doesn't stand up for the oppressed because A) its not happening to them, and B) the few who do "Disappear". It happened in Spain, Italy, and Germany in the 30's, and in China in the 50's.
5) How are you harming every day life by owning guns? Will my rifle shoot someone on its own? Is it going to break its way out of its gun-safe and start killing people? You can't blame the guns, you have to blame the person holding them, or there's no accountability.
6) It is worse for you to die because you are innocent. If you kill your attacker, that's sad, but he knew the risks. And you don't really need to pack more heat than everyone else. A common thug is going to want something concealable, which basically means small. At the distances you're likely to face, any hand-gun will do, they're all basically the same inside 20 yards.
7) How is the War on Drugs going in Canada? Did it make your urban centers hellish wastelands like it did here? I honestly don't know. If it didn't, then the socioeconomic conditions aren't similar enough for that comparison to be valid. Anyways, of those 310 million guns, a very small percentage are used in crimes, we're talking single digit percentages.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/guns.cfm 5.1 million violent crimes involving guns. Even if every gun-crime was committed with a unique gun, i.e. 1 gun = 1 crime, that's only 1.6 percent of all guns in the country are used in crimes.
Okay so you kind of ignored a huge chunk of my argument but I'll try to state it a little better this time.
Guns change society. Guns change societal atmosphere and gun culture has a negative impact on the public. This is my main point. When I punch you, you punch back, when I pull a gun on you, you pull a gun on me. If we have fists then somebody gets beaten up, when we have guns then somebody gets shot. It's really as simple as that. You multiply that by millions of people and you have americans dying en-masse. If nobody has a gun then nobody gets shot.
Okay, that was simplified, but the point still stands. Fewer guns mean fewer gun crimes, more guns mean more gun crimes. Sure you can kill people with knives but it's not as easy as pulling a trigger anymore. Then again, you seem to be against the masses carrying glocks. So please elaborate because at this point I don't know if you understand the negative impact that comes with this gun culture.
Long rifles and semi-auto assault rifles though you seem to support. Well, like I said those would not be very pleasant to encounter on the street. One guy with a knife cuts a few people and gets stopped, another guy brings an AK and 100 rounds and slaughters a crowd before being stopped.
Maybe you support keeping those guns out of the hands of the irresponsible though. Well, that's going to take A LOT of government oversight to make it safe enough for a lot more people to own them safely. And then what happens when this tyrranical government turns? Now they have a list of everybody who has trained at a gun range to fight them. Now they have controls and know exactly what areas and what cities have whichever guns.
To me if you want better government control over weapons you start to lose some of this ability to 'fight back' against your own military. In my opinion though this is okay, because I really don't see how it would be beneficial to form a civilian militia to defeat the US military.
You seem to have trouble describing exactly how or when or in what conditions you might need to fight the US government, well perhaps this is part of the irrationality if you 'needing protection' from them.
the 30's elsewhere and the 50's in china seem far too disconnected from us today to be relevant in a discussion of the citizens overthrowing the government. Did they have the internet? Did they have a modern democratic government with a modern military? How successful were the citizens at overthrowing this tyranny again? Please, I would actually be interested in a case where such a contemporary violent revolution turned out great for the public.
in reference to 6) - of course its too bad that the innocent person died, but someone still died. Having a gun or not having one didn't somehow prevent anyone from dying ever. I mean, tell me how the situation is going to end peacefully when we both pull out a gun? This guy who pulls a gun on me for money is somehow now less ballsy than me? Now he's likely to put his gun down? The situation just doesn't improve for me when I have a gun. Maybe I kill him, great now I'm a murderer. I don't approve of the death penalty because I believe people can still contribute to society and there is no purpose for revenge. So on the street I don't find it any more justified that I should be able to kill him. It would be better that neither of us died - that neither of us had the ability to end the other's life so easily.
Pretend that we all start carrying bigger guns for proper self defence. Would some thug on the street really come at me with a pocket knife when he knows people generally have an assault rifle for defence? No, he's just going to bring an even bigger gun, or he'll bring friends and surround/surprise me. The criminals aren't going to obey any restrictions I have to adhere to, they're simply going to be better armed than I am. The solution is not to hope I have a bigger gun than them, the solution is to have fewer guns for fewer people causing fewer crimes.
7-right so you really don't know how socioeconomic conditions are outside of the US. Ok well here for example the war of drugs is bullshit and we have gang/crime problems in major cities just like the US, only our homicide rates are much lower. There are many things that contribute to this, and I don't see how gun ownership provides any benefits.
just some statistics on gun ownership causing harm in the US-
wikipedia on gun violence "In 2009, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 66.9% of all homicides in the United States were perpetrated using a firearm.[5]"
States in the highest quartile for gun ownership had homicide rates 114% higher than states in the lowest quartile of gun ownership.[84]
Among juveniles (minors under the age of 16, 17, or 18, depending on legal jurisdiction) serving in correctional facilities, 86% had owned a gun, with 66% acquiring their first gun by age 14.[2] There was also a tendency for juvenile offenders to have owned several firearms, with 65% owning three or more.[2] Juveniles most often acquired guns illegally from family, friends, drug dealers, and street contacts.[2] Inner-city youths cited "self-protection from enemies" as the top reason for carrying a gun.[2]
In 2005, almost 18% of U.S. households possessed handguns, compared to almost 3% of households in Canada that possessed handguns.[9] In 2011, the number was increased to 34% of adults in the United States personally owned a gun; 46% of adult men, and 23% of adult women.
"The United States has about five percent of the total world population but residents of the United States own about 42 percent of all the world's civilian-owned firearms."
and crime in the US The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. As of 2006, a record 7 million people were behind bars, on probation or on parole, of which 2.2 million were incarcerated. The People's Republic of China ranks second with 1.5 million. The United States has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's incarcerated population.[33][dated info]
The US homicide rate, which has declined substantially since 1991 from a rate per 100,000 persons of 9.8 to 4.8 in 2010, is still among the highest in the industrialized world. In 2004, there were 5.5 homicides for every 100,000 persons, roughly three times as high as Canada (1.9) and six times as high as Germany (0.9).
Your gun culture example doesn't work. Specifically because guns are more dangerous. The repercussions are much greater, so you don't just pull guns as freely as you start fist-fights. People carrying guns don't just draw for nothing. They don't get cut-off in a parking lot and start shooting people.
The AR15 is the most commonly owned rifle in the US. It's an "Assault Weapon". In many jurisdictions, it is already legal to open carry it. But "Assault Weapons" are used in less than 1% of all fire-arm related crimes. Carrying a gun doesn't mean you WILL shoot someone. My point is, is that this gun culture idea, the idea that people will shoot each other over everything and nothing, has already been tested. People already carry guns, and it doesn't happen.
It doesn't take too much government oversight. All you need is background checks. As long as there's no database of gun-owners, it doesn't really matter if they know you're allowed to own a gun. A tyrant would need to know whether you actually do or not.
I'm not Nostradamus, I can't predict the future. But democracies can, and have become tyrannies, and that should be good enough. Sure, I can't say every little detail that would be necessary for armed rebellion, but neither did the founding fathers. 15 years before the revolution, no one had any desire for independence. 15 years isn't that long.
Europe in the 30's DID have a modern democracy, and they had an almost-modern military. Sure, they didn't have the internet, and things may have turned out differently if they did, but they were never given the chance for open rebellion. Any people with opposition sympathies were at least disarmed, and they often just "Disappeared". I'll be honest, I don't know enough about China to say much there, besides the fact that before Mao, they were a functional democracy, and after he took power, they weren't.
This arms race between civilians and criminals also doesn't happen. Plenty of civilians already have guns, and you don't see criminals getting bigger and better guns. Criminals need cheap, concealable guns. They need to be concealable so they can sneak up on you, and they need to be cheap so they can throw them away before the cops show up. Cheap, concealable guns are not very big or powerful.
What is worse, a civilian who did nothing wrong getting killed, or a criminal who knew the risks getting killed? And please don't give me the whole "You don't know him, maybe he just wanted to feed his family." nonsense. Soup kitchens are a thing. Foodstamps exist. And besides, you have to admit that this would be a pretty rare occurrence. Most (I'd wager almost all) thefts aren't because the person will starve otherwise, they're because the thief wants to buy a new TV or more cocaine. Last, you do not know what he plans on doing to you. You have no idea if he's just going to take your wallet, or if he's going to kill you. Sure, it might be rare, but if you want to talk about the one-in-a-million dad's who steal to feed their family, I can talk about the one-in-a-million muggers who also kill.
I didn't say I don't know socioeconomics anywhere outside the US, I said I don't know them in Canada. I'm happy for you that you seem to have solved all your problems. But look at the UK. They have almost no guns, and have one of the highest crime rates in Europe. Clearly guns are not the only factor, or even the main factor
Suggesting that the US federal government is somehow going to devolve into a dictatorship/tyranny, and then using that as an argument for more guns is bullshit. I don't know how some people always bring it up and not be able to think to themselves how stupid the entire idea is. That's just a childish fantasy gun proponents secretly want to happen just so they can tell everyone else how wrong they were. So please...stop pulling the what-if-tyranny-1776-nazi-hitler-stalin-happens-in-america because you're just telling every sensible person how stupid your logic is. If you want to actually convince people that more guns/stronger gun rights is better for the country, use another argument that actually makes some sense.
And yes, you are honest about not knowing a lot about china. They weren't a "functional democracy" before Mao (whatever that means). China never had the opportunity to become a real democracy early in the 20th century because of (1) WWII (2) their nationalism vs. communism civil war and (3) their decades-long war against Japan, which had occupied china.
What part of it is bullshit? Is it that you think democracy is somehow perfect?
Tell that to Spain, Italy, and Germany in the 30's, and France in the 1800's. Tell that to everyone who died at Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Kent State.
Is it that you feel guerrillas would be completely outmatched? They wouldn't. Sure, they'd get slaughtered in a conventional fight, but guerrilla warfare is amazingly effective. And if it happened in the US, it'd be even more effective, because the Guerrillas would have far more targets and each one would be more strategically important. All the guerrillas in Vietnam and Iraq could do is ambush a patrol or two here and there. Homegrown guerrillas could target every factory, bridge, and powerplant in the country.
Is it that you feel peaceful protest is a better option? Good, I do too. But it shouldn't be the only option. Skydivers wear two parachutes for a reason.
Friends: Man shot dead after pulling into wrong driveway LILBURN, Ga. —
Lilburn police are investigating the fatal shooting of a 22-year-old man.
Police said they were called out to a man's home on Hillcrest Drive on Saturday night.
A group of friends said they were going to pick up a girl who lived in the area to go ice skating around 10 p.m. when their GPS system sent them to the wrong home.
The friends said they pulled into the driveway and saw a man peer out the window. They said they waited in the car for a bit and then the man, Phillip Sailors, 69, came out of the home with a handgun, firing a round into the air.
“The guy came out. He went in again and he came out with a gun in his hand and he shot into the air,” 15-year-old passenger Yeson Jimenez said.
The friends said that's when they tried leaving the house, and said Sailors pointed the gun at the car and shot Rodrigo Diaz, 22, who was driving the car. An arrest warrant said Sailors had a .22-caliber pistol. The passengers said Sailors never asked what they were doing there.
“’Shut up.’ That’s the only thing that came out of his mouth,” passenger Gandy Cardenas said.
The friends said Sailors held the rest of the people in the car at gunpoint until police arrived at the home. All three passengers in the car are Parkview High School students.
Sailors is being held on no bond on charges of malice murder. He has no known criminal history.
The warrant said the Diaz was struck on the left side of the head.
Friends told Channel 2's Tony Thomas that Diaz had just arrived here from Colombia three months ago.
Thomas has also learned Sailors is a war veteran and a former church missionary. Sailors' attorney told Thomas that the man believed he and his wife were being attacked.
“He is very distraught over the loss of life from the defense of his home. This incident happened late in the evening hours when he was home with his wife and he assumed it was a home invasion and he maintains his innocence,” the attorney said.
Stories like this that make me want a license to own any firearm to be required in this country. A license that requires something similar to what is required to earn a driver's license: a written test of basic knowledge (including law and when you can and cannot fire your weapon in self defense) and a basic test at a firing range to prove you know how to handle a firearm. I don't see how that is such a horrible thing. Firearm owners that I know are all competent, and would have no problem passing such a test.
Not to discount the pointless loss of life, but I would like to point to a detail in this story that I'm sure many will overlook in their zeal.
.22 caliber pistol.
This is not an "assault weapon". This isn't an AR. No "evil" scary features, fewer than 10 rounds used.
Literally, if there was going to be one firearm left available to the public in the face of an otherwise complete ban, it would almost certainly be chambered in .22 LR. A load that's almost invariably used more for target shooting than anything else, whether it be hunting or self defense. A small, light load that can't overpenetrate anything.
Shot out of a gun that can't mount a bayonet. Shot out of a gun that (most likely) came with a magazine well under 30 rounds. The report seems to show 2 shots fired, one in the air, one at the driver.
Like I said, I'm not trying to discount a tragedy here, I'm merely using the details of it to demonstrate exactly how it perfectly highlights how ineffectual knee-jerk "assault weapons" bans would be.
On a further note, I'm sure people have seen this one by now, but I also find it to be amusingly telling.
Someone else sent me the link. Regardless, a lot of people have been commenting on it. Homeland Security seems to think that an AR-15 is very suitable for Personal Defense.
Friends: Man shot dead after pulling into wrong driveway LILBURN, Ga. —
Lilburn police are investigating the fatal shooting of a 22-year-old man.
Police said they were called out to a man's home on Hillcrest Drive on Saturday night.
A group of friends said they were going to pick up a girl who lived in the area to go ice skating around 10 p.m. when their GPS system sent them to the wrong home.
The friends said they pulled into the driveway and saw a man peer out the window. They said they waited in the car for a bit and then the man, Phillip Sailors, 69, came out of the home with a handgun, firing a round into the air.
“The guy came out. He went in again and he came out with a gun in his hand and he shot into the air,” 15-year-old passenger Yeson Jimenez said.
The friends said that's when they tried leaving the house, and said Sailors pointed the gun at the car and shot Rodrigo Diaz, 22, who was driving the car. An arrest warrant said Sailors had a .22-caliber pistol. The passengers said Sailors never asked what they were doing there.
“’Shut up.’ That’s the only thing that came out of his mouth,” passenger Gandy Cardenas said.
The friends said Sailors held the rest of the people in the car at gunpoint until police arrived at the home. All three passengers in the car are Parkview High School students.
Sailors is being held on no bond on charges of malice murder. He has no known criminal history.
The warrant said the Diaz was struck on the left side of the head.
Friends told Channel 2's Tony Thomas that Diaz had just arrived here from Colombia three months ago.
Thomas has also learned Sailors is a war veteran and a former church missionary. Sailors' attorney told Thomas that the man believed he and his wife were being attacked.
“He is very distraught over the loss of life from the defense of his home. This incident happened late in the evening hours when he was home with his wife and he assumed it was a home invasion and he maintains his innocence,” the attorney said.
Stories like this that make me want a license to own any firearm to be required in this country. A license that requires something similar to what is required to earn a driver's license: a written test of basic knowledge (including law and when you can and cannot fire your weapon in self defense) and a basic test at a firing range to prove you know how to handle a firearm. I don't see how that is such a horrible thing. Firearm owners that I know are all competent, and would have no problem passing such a test.
That is how germany handles the issue. You have to pay arround 1200€ (1500$) for a drivers license and about double for a document that allows you to buy, own and carry a ready to operate handgun. You have to pay about 4 times the amount to get a license to hunt and use a rifle in "public areas" such as forests. People who have commited crimes are banned from getting gunlicense.
Basicly : Take 3000$ for a license, make rules that a 2000$ 400pound safe is required to store guns and another 1000$ one for ammunition. Make the fee for not meeting theses standards about 5000$
You can to get most people through their wallet.
I have seen AR-15 style rifles at walmart.com for arround 600€. With scope and ammo.
I
"Right" to bear arms, not "privilege if you can afford it".
It'd be one thing to have a process for licensing/education in there, another thing entirely to intentionally make it so that owning a firearm is restricted to the independently wealthy.
Would have been nice if when you read my post you commented on it instead of ignoring all of it except three words and then proceeded to give a speech about something else entirely. =/
I mean, you complain about something not mentioned in the article or my post, while there is an implication (perhaps I am wrong on this) that any attempts to solve problems should be based more around common sense, non 'knee jerk' solutions. I thought my post, and the person responding to my post seemed more in line with that, so why ignore that part?
On January 31 2013 04:13 farvacola wrote: I thought this just had to be posted. Former astronaut and husband of Gabby Giffords, Mark Kelley, took a giant shit on NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre during the senate judiciary hearing on guns.
During the hearing, LaPierre repeatedly voiced the talking point that there’s no need to expand the background check system because criminals don’t cooperate with background checks. Kelly responded:
The Tuscon shooter was an admitted drug user. He was rejected from the U.S. Army because of his drug use. He was clearly mentally ill. And when he purchased that gun in November, his plan was to assassinate my wife and commit mass murder at that Safeway in Tucson. He was a criminal. Because of his drug use, and because of what he was planning on doing. But because of these gaps in the mental health system, in this case, those 121,000 records, I admit did not include a record on him. But it could have.
And if it did, he would have failed that background check. he would have likely gone to a gun show, or a private seller, and avoided that background check. But if we close that gun show loophole, if we require private sellers to complete a background check, and we get those 121,000 records and others into the systems, we will prevent gun crime. That is an absolute truth. It would have happened in Tucson. My wife would not have been sitting here today if we had stronger background checks.
So is he saying an arrest on possession of weed should disqualify you from owning a firearm? Well at least for at least 4 years? That would disqualify...what? 100 million people?
edit.... So the Feds are going to enforce Form 1 Question 11e? Are you an unlawful user of marijuana?
In regards to democracies turning to dictatorships... I'm not sure if Germany is the best example as the Weimar Republic wasn't exactly that many years removed from the Kaiser and there was also Article 48 in their constitution.
Friends: Man shot dead after pulling into wrong driveway LILBURN, Ga. —
Lilburn police are investigating the fatal shooting of a 22-year-old man.
Police said they were called out to a man's home on Hillcrest Drive on Saturday night.
A group of friends said they were going to pick up a girl who lived in the area to go ice skating around 10 p.m. when their GPS system sent them to the wrong home.
The friends said they pulled into the driveway and saw a man peer out the window. They said they waited in the car for a bit and then the man, Phillip Sailors, 69, came out of the home with a handgun, firing a round into the air.
“The guy came out. He went in again and he came out with a gun in his hand and he shot into the air,” 15-year-old passenger Yeson Jimenez said.
The friends said that's when they tried leaving the house, and said Sailors pointed the gun at the car and shot Rodrigo Diaz, 22, who was driving the car. An arrest warrant said Sailors had a .22-caliber pistol. The passengers said Sailors never asked what they were doing there.
“’Shut up.’ That’s the only thing that came out of his mouth,” passenger Gandy Cardenas said.
The friends said Sailors held the rest of the people in the car at gunpoint until police arrived at the home. All three passengers in the car are Parkview High School students.
Sailors is being held on no bond on charges of malice murder. He has no known criminal history.
The warrant said the Diaz was struck on the left side of the head.
Friends told Channel 2's Tony Thomas that Diaz had just arrived here from Colombia three months ago.
Thomas has also learned Sailors is a war veteran and a former church missionary. Sailors' attorney told Thomas that the man believed he and his wife were being attacked.
“He is very distraught over the loss of life from the defense of his home. This incident happened late in the evening hours when he was home with his wife and he assumed it was a home invasion and he maintains his innocence,” the attorney said.
Stories like this that make me want a license to own any firearm to be required in this country. A license that requires something similar to what is required to earn a driver's license: a written test of basic knowledge (including law and when you can and cannot fire your weapon in self defense) and a basic test at a firing range to prove you know how to handle a firearm. I don't see how that is such a horrible thing. Firearm owners that I know are all competent, and would have no problem passing such a test.
Not to discount the pointless loss of life, but I would like to point to a detail in this story that I'm sure many will overlook in their zeal.
.22 caliber pistol.
This is not an "assault weapon". This isn't an AR. No "evil" scary features, fewer than 10 rounds used.
Literally, if there was going to be one firearm left available to the public in the face of an otherwise complete ban, it would almost certainly be chambered in .22 LR. A load that's almost invariably used more for target shooting than anything else, whether it be hunting or self defense. A small, light load that can't overpenetrate anything.
Shot out of a gun that can't mount a bayonet. Shot out of a gun that (most likely) came with a magazine well under 30 rounds. The report seems to show 2 shots fired, one in the air, one at the driver.
Like I said, I'm not trying to discount a tragedy here, I'm merely using the details of it to demonstrate exactly how it perfectly highlights how ineffectual knee-jerk "assault weapons" bans would be.
On a further note, I'm sure people have seen this one by now, but I also find it to be amusingly telling.
Someone else sent me the link. Regardless, a lot of people have been commenting on it. Homeland Security seems to think that an AR-15 is very suitable for Personal Defense.
On January 31 2013 01:59 plgElwood wrote:
On January 30 2013 22:22 Saryph wrote:
Friends: Man shot dead after pulling into wrong driveway LILBURN, Ga. —
Lilburn police are investigating the fatal shooting of a 22-year-old man.
Police said they were called out to a man's home on Hillcrest Drive on Saturday night.
A group of friends said they were going to pick up a girl who lived in the area to go ice skating around 10 p.m. when their GPS system sent them to the wrong home.
The friends said they pulled into the driveway and saw a man peer out the window. They said they waited in the car for a bit and then the man, Phillip Sailors, 69, came out of the home with a handgun, firing a round into the air.
“The guy came out. He went in again and he came out with a gun in his hand and he shot into the air,” 15-year-old passenger Yeson Jimenez said.
The friends said that's when they tried leaving the house, and said Sailors pointed the gun at the car and shot Rodrigo Diaz, 22, who was driving the car. An arrest warrant said Sailors had a .22-caliber pistol. The passengers said Sailors never asked what they were doing there.
“’Shut up.’ That’s the only thing that came out of his mouth,” passenger Gandy Cardenas said.
The friends said Sailors held the rest of the people in the car at gunpoint until police arrived at the home. All three passengers in the car are Parkview High School students.
Sailors is being held on no bond on charges of malice murder. He has no known criminal history.
The warrant said the Diaz was struck on the left side of the head.
Friends told Channel 2's Tony Thomas that Diaz had just arrived here from Colombia three months ago.
Thomas has also learned Sailors is a war veteran and a former church missionary. Sailors' attorney told Thomas that the man believed he and his wife were being attacked.
“He is very distraught over the loss of life from the defense of his home. This incident happened late in the evening hours when he was home with his wife and he assumed it was a home invasion and he maintains his innocence,” the attorney said.
Stories like this that make me want a license to own any firearm to be required in this country. A license that requires something similar to what is required to earn a driver's license: a written test of basic knowledge (including law and when you can and cannot fire your weapon in self defense) and a basic test at a firing range to prove you know how to handle a firearm. I don't see how that is such a horrible thing. Firearm owners that I know are all competent, and would have no problem passing such a test.
That is how germany handles the issue. You have to pay arround 1200€ (1500$) for a drivers license and about double for a document that allows you to buy, own and carry a ready to operate handgun. You have to pay about 4 times the amount to get a license to hunt and use a rifle in "public areas" such as forests. People who have commited crimes are banned from getting gunlicense.
Basicly : Take 3000$ for a license, make rules that a 2000$ 400pound safe is required to store guns and another 1000$ one for ammunition. Make the fee for not meeting theses standards about 5000$
You can to get most people through their wallet.
I have seen AR-15 style rifles at walmart.com for arround 600€. With scope and ammo.
I
"Right" to bear arms, not "privilege if you can afford it".
It'd be one thing to have a process for licensing/education in there, another thing entirely to intentionally make it so that owning a firearm is restricted to the independently wealthy.
Would have been nice if when you read my post you commented on it instead of ignoring all of it except three words and then proceeded to give a speech about something else entirely. =/
Within the last few pages I've commented on licensing and training. I've done it over and over. I'm tired of it. And frankly, the part of "your" post that was most relevant to gun control as a debate overall was what I actually commented on.
You personally didn't say anything about licensing or training that I felt was particularly in need of response, whereas the article had something worth discussion. So I discussed it instead.
I mean, you complain about something not mentioned in the article or my post, while there is an implication (perhaps I am wrong on this) that any attempts to solve problems should be based more around common sense, non 'knee jerk' solutions. I thought my post, and the person responding to my post seemed more in line with that, so why ignore that part?
And then I followed it up by responding to the person who answered you directly, following the logical path of that discussion to encompass all that had been said, and gave my opinion on his suggestion of making it prohibitively expensive to own a gun, making licensing into money, rather than education.
In fact, asking me why I didn't discuss something I responded to makes me wonder whether you're even looking for rational discourse.
On January 31 2013 06:40 Falling wrote: In regards to democracies turning to dictatorships... I'm not sure if Germany is the best example as the Weimar Republic wasn't exactly that many years removed from the Kaiser and there was also Article 48 in their constitution.
I don't know, the Patriot Act sure seems like an Emergency Power to me. Even then, Spain and Italy still became Fascist.
On January 31 2013 04:13 farvacola wrote: I thought this just had to be posted. Former astronaut and husband of Gabby Giffords, Mark Kelley, took a giant shit on NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre during the senate judiciary hearing on guns.
During the hearing, LaPierre repeatedly voiced the talking point that there’s no need to expand the background check system because criminals don’t cooperate with background checks. Kelly responded:
The Tuscon shooter was an admitted drug user. He was rejected from the U.S. Army because of his drug use. He was clearly mentally ill. And when he purchased that gun in November, his plan was to assassinate my wife and commit mass murder at that Safeway in Tucson. He was a criminal. Because of his drug use, and because of what he was planning on doing. But because of these gaps in the mental health system, in this case, those 121,000 records, I admit did not include a record on him. But it could have.
And if it did, he would have failed that background check. he would have likely gone to a gun show, or a private seller, and avoided that background check. But if we close that gun show loophole, if we require private sellers to complete a background check, and we get those 121,000 records and others into the systems, we will prevent gun crime. That is an absolute truth. It would have happened in Tucson. My wife would not have been sitting here today if we had stronger background checks.
So is he saying an arrest on possession of weed should disqualify you from owning a firearm? Well at least for at least 4 years? That would disqualify...what? 100 million people?
edit.... So the Feds are going to enforce Form 1 Question 11e? Are you an unlawful user of marijuana?
So now what... make the gun dealers piss test all new gun buyers?
Yeah, I'm sure the focus is on Loughner's small time marijuana offenses and not his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.........not. The point is that communication between authorities is not what it should be and mental health record negligence is abound.
I would say the point is "if background checks were stronger" which is what Kelly says. And Kelly also calls him a criminal (for his weed arrest).
A) What did Jared Loghner lie about on his Form #1 Questions 11a through 11l (maybe the weed question) B) How would you know? C) If 11a-11l aren't good enough then what else you you going to ask? D) How do you plan on catching the folks who lie?
On January 31 2013 06:40 Falling wrote: In regards to democracies turning to dictatorships... I'm not sure if Germany is the best example as the Weimar Republic wasn't exactly that many years removed from the Kaiser and there was also Article 48 in their constitution.
I don't know, the Patriot Act sure seems like an Emergency Power to me. Even then, Spain and Italy still became Fascist.
You history lacks depth.
Spain went through a civil war in the process of becoming fascist, the war was pretty much inevitable considering what was going on in the country. A heavily armed populace might have changed things but that's just wild speculation on your part. The king was the person who ceded power to Mussolini so that isn't a great example of a democracy turning to tyranny. Just one tyrant giving control to another. (He was somewhat constrained by the constitution but this was in no way a "modern democracy")
Hitler loosened gun control laws and Mao was too busy giving guns to people and raising armies because of the wars that were going on to spend much time taking them away. These groups came to power with popular support not despite it. If anything a more heavily armed populace would just have made them seizing power easier.
After all, if the French fascists had more guns they might have succeeded in a coup against the French government. Fortunately, they just got control after the nazis rolled in, not before.
Millitron, what weapons and equipment do you think a population needs to be able to wage effective guerrilla combat? I was thinking that a modern military is too powerful an enemy, but maybe there are ways to fight them. I doubt using only guns is effective though.
EPT
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