EPTOn February 01 2013 02:09 FallDownMarigold wrote:
No, it is perfectly accurate to tell someone they sound like a 14-year old when their response focuses on the importance of using the correct military jargon-vocabulary rather than directly respond to the point. I don't care if it sounds a bit harsh, it's absolutely true. I said something, and instead of responding to it, he tells me I'm using "bomb" when I should be using "JDAM" -- I mean, really? That's ludicrous and immediately tells me "you're dealing with someone arguing on the level of a child, stop now". Sorry, but that's what that kind of response tells people.
I think that based on where we are today and what we have been through (esp. WWII), we are well aware of how dangerous it is to go down the path of that sort of thing. Comparing the order to bomb a city with Kent State or Waco is totally irrational. Therefore I believe it would be highly unlikely for an order to level a city or murder thousands of US citizens to occur, and even less likely for it to be carried out. No, I don't have scientific analysis and support for this thought and opinion. It's utterly fallacious to ask me to provide evidence for this "feeling" -- what, you want me to go take a census of all military personnel and ask them "would you bomb chicago if your second LT. told you to do so?" It's my opinion and I absolutely could care less if you want to believe that the order to bomb a city in the US is likely or very realistic. I simply disagree. I don't need to provide scientific evidence to disagree -- I'm not trying to prove anything, I'm just sharing my opinion. Feel free to personally disagree.
Finally, claiming that you know better because "you were in the military" is just as bad, if not worse, than telling someone their argument or thought processes sound very immature. I mean, are you serious?
This thread is absolutely ridiculous and I really am shocked at many of the replies, just looking over the last couple of pages. I'm outta here, this is absurd. Should not have gotten myself into the mess. Adios
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On January 31 2013 22:20 kmillz wrote:
Why is that so obvious to you? Do you think the people who died in Jonestown (918) thought that they would be forced to kill themselves? They had no weapons, only the people in weapons had control (Jim Jones' personal little army). Saying "sounds like ur 14" is immature, ad hominem, and pointless. Maybe using facts and logic would work for you, instead of making the incorrect assumption that its so obvious the *vast* majority in the military would put down their weapons, maybe you could consider that you don't know that for sure. This is a conclusion with nothing to back it up besides your feeling of it being "obvious". I was in the military, 4 years USMC, do you think you would know better than me what our military could do?
Of course they won't go away overnight...they won't go away period, are you serious? Where would they go?
On January 31 2013 13:44 FallDownMarigold wrote:
... Really?
It should be completely obvious that the *vast* majority in the military would simply put down their weapons and give the bird to the chain of command that said "bomb Chicago" (and this chain of orders wouldn't happen in the first place because it require every single person up the chain of command to be batshit insane).
He's dead-on accurate when he says "sounds like a 14 year old". It's not an insult, it's an apt observation.
On January 31 2013 08:29 kmillz wrote:
You act as if most of the people in the military wouldn't follow orders that would be bad for the American people. Sure you might have a few who refuse, but the majority of them would be more concerned about the consequences of disobeying a direct order for fear of their own life or their families life. Why do you live in this fantasy land where tyranny is impossible? Telling someone they sound like a 14 year old makes you look like the childish one. Being condescending doesn't help your argument.
On January 31 2013 07:46 white_horse wrote:
The people in the US military are people just like you and me. The people that work in federal government are american citizens just like you and me. Intelligent people not only learn, but also carry with them the knowledge that the american government is made up of checks and balances. Have you? There's a reason why we've had a peaceful transfer of government for 250 years without any problems. And I thought pro-gun supporters were the ones who knew all about the constitution. The idea that someone in the federal government or a high ranking military general would decide that he wanted to become Supreme Dictator of Facist America is batshit crazy with a daily forecast chance of 0%.
If we really wanted to be hypothetical, do you really think american soldiers would go shoot up an american neighborhood because the Supreme Dictator wanted them to so that he could start taking control of our country? Somebody down the line would say no. Somebody else in similar power in the government would say no. Someone might kill him first. Do you really think A-10s and F-16s from wright-patterson would start bombing chicago and cincinatti just because the Supreme Dictator wanted them to? Why does something like these even need an explanation?
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Jesus christ, you sound like a 14 year old.
On January 31 2013 06:10 Millitron wrote:
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.
On January 31 2013 04:48 white_horse wrote:
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 31 2013 03:01 Millitron wrote:
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
On January 30 2013 15:10 StayPhrosty wrote:
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-
http://www.businessinsider.com/shooting-gun-laws-2012-12
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).
On January 30 2013 14:15 Millitron wrote:
[quote]
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.
[quote]
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-
http://www.businessinsider.com/shooting-gun-laws-2012-12
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.
The people in the US military are people just like you and me. The people that work in federal government are american citizens just like you and me. Intelligent people not only learn, but also carry with them the knowledge that the american government is made up of checks and balances. Have you? There's a reason why we've had a peaceful transfer of government for 250 years without any problems. And I thought pro-gun supporters were the ones who knew all about the constitution. The idea that someone in the federal government or a high ranking military general would decide that he wanted to become Supreme Dictator of Facist America is batshit crazy with a daily forecast chance of 0%.
If we really wanted to be hypothetical, do you really think american soldiers would go shoot up an american neighborhood because the Supreme Dictator wanted them to so that he could start taking control of our country? Somebody down the line would say no. Somebody else in similar power in the government would say no. Someone might kill him first. Do you really think A-10s and F-16s from wright-patterson would start bombing chicago and cincinatti just because the Supreme Dictator wanted them to? Why does something like these even need an explanation?
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Sure, they'd get slaughtered in a conventional fight, but guerrilla warfare is amazingly effective.
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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.
Jesus christ, you sound like a 14 year old.
You act as if most of the people in the military wouldn't follow orders that would be bad for the American people. Sure you might have a few who refuse, but the majority of them would be more concerned about the consequences of disobeying a direct order for fear of their own life or their families life. Why do you live in this fantasy land where tyranny is impossible? Telling someone they sound like a 14 year old makes you look like the childish one. Being condescending doesn't help your argument.
... Really?
It should be completely obvious that the *vast* majority in the military would simply put down their weapons and give the bird to the chain of command that said "bomb Chicago" (and this chain of orders wouldn't happen in the first place because it require every single person up the chain of command to be batshit insane).
He's dead-on accurate when he says "sounds like a 14 year old". It's not an insult, it's an apt observation.
Why is that so obvious to you? Do you think the people who died in Jonestown (918) thought that they would be forced to kill themselves? They had no weapons, only the people in weapons had control (Jim Jones' personal little army). Saying "sounds like ur 14" is immature, ad hominem, and pointless. Maybe using facts and logic would work for you, instead of making the incorrect assumption that its so obvious the *vast* majority in the military would put down their weapons, maybe you could consider that you don't know that for sure. This is a conclusion with nothing to back it up besides your feeling of it being "obvious". I was in the military, 4 years USMC, do you think you would know better than me what our military could do?
On January 31 2013 18:20 Rannasha wrote:
If guns are less readily available, criminals have a much harder time getting guns. In countries that have strict gun control laws in western Europe, only organized crime really has access to guns and they primarily use it to kill eachother. Your everyday burglar or small-time crook doesn't have the resources or the connections to obtain a firearm.
Of course, the issue is that if you transition from no (or little) gun control to strict gun control in a country where guns are readily available, such as the US, it will take a long time before gun possession among small-time criminals drops to the level of that in countries that have had gun control for a long time already. The millions of guns in circulation in the US aren't going to go away overnight once a gun control law is introduced.
On January 31 2013 18:10 Ryuhou)aS( wrote:
A thought i had on gun control laws. So, the main reason behind gun control laws (or what we're told/most people believe) is to keep criminals from using guns in crimes. What makes people think they'll actually follow these laws? They're criminals, they don't follow the laws.
A thought i had on gun control laws. So, the main reason behind gun control laws (or what we're told/most people believe) is to keep criminals from using guns in crimes. What makes people think they'll actually follow these laws? They're criminals, they don't follow the laws.
If guns are less readily available, criminals have a much harder time getting guns. In countries that have strict gun control laws in western Europe, only organized crime really has access to guns and they primarily use it to kill eachother. Your everyday burglar or small-time crook doesn't have the resources or the connections to obtain a firearm.
Of course, the issue is that if you transition from no (or little) gun control to strict gun control in a country where guns are readily available, such as the US, it will take a long time before gun possession among small-time criminals drops to the level of that in countries that have had gun control for a long time already. The millions of guns in circulation in the US aren't going to go away overnight once a gun control law is introduced.
Of course they won't go away overnight...they won't go away period, are you serious? Where would they go?
No, it is perfectly accurate to tell someone they sound like a 14-year old when their response focuses on the importance of using the correct military jargon-vocabulary rather than directly respond to the point. I don't care if it sounds a bit harsh, it's absolutely true. I said something, and instead of responding to it, he tells me I'm using "bomb" when I should be using "JDAM" -- I mean, really? That's ludicrous and immediately tells me "you're dealing with someone arguing on the level of a child, stop now". Sorry, but that's what that kind of response tells people.
I think that based on where we are today and what we have been through (esp. WWII), we are well aware of how dangerous it is to go down the path of that sort of thing. Comparing the order to bomb a city with Kent State or Waco is totally irrational. Therefore I believe it would be highly unlikely for an order to level a city or murder thousands of US citizens to occur, and even less likely for it to be carried out. No, I don't have scientific analysis and support for this thought and opinion. It's utterly fallacious to ask me to provide evidence for this "feeling" -- what, you want me to go take a census of all military personnel and ask them "would you bomb chicago if your second LT. told you to do so?" It's my opinion and I absolutely could care less if you want to believe that the order to bomb a city in the US is likely or very realistic. I simply disagree. I don't need to provide scientific evidence to disagree -- I'm not trying to prove anything, I'm just sharing my opinion. Feel free to personally disagree.
Finally, claiming that you know better because "you were in the military" is just as bad, if not worse, than telling someone their argument or thought processes sound very immature. I mean, are you serious?
This thread is absolutely ridiculous and I really am shocked at many of the replies, just looking over the last couple of pages. I'm outta here, this is absurd. Should not have gotten myself into the mess. Adios
It's not about jargon, and if you actually think it is, you're being absurd. It's about your absurd strawman that it would be "bombing Chicago". They'd be able to bomb a specific building, with minimal collateral damage, which I stated, and you ignored in your self-righteous zeal.
The fact that you continue to suggest they would have to "level a city" in your own words, as part of your fantasy, well, it's inaccurate. I tried to point that out and you decided to respond by calling names, because you had no actual response to the fact that something along those lines can occur without civilian casualties.
![[image loading]](http://mark.reid.name/images/figures/deaths-vs-guns.png)
