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If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

jacquesmattheij.com

201–210 of 321 posts

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal experiences in some of the cases you have mentioned. 2 times house break, both times I confronted the burglars with a kitchen knife and gave them an avenue to escape which they took. I would never want to kill someone because they tried take my property. It's just stuff and quite frankly I value human life much higher, even if it is the life of a criminal who is taking my things. The fact that there are s…

Is that the advice you'd give to a 5'5" woman who lives alone? "When the attacker gets in your house, grab a kitchen knife"? 'Cause I'd say, grab a shotgun and shoot in their general direction. Good for you that as a brave man called Rory it's easy to get rid of invaders with a kitchen knife. You'll probably have the same results with a fake knife.

If I was a 5'5" woman I would get out of the house and call the cops. Still preferable to killing someone.

This comes to mind (particularly the part about "If he is in superior strength"):

"If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected." - Sun Tzu

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#202
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing like that has ever happened to me. In fact, I have never been in a situation where I would have been better off with a gun on me. Funny how people who own guns seem to end up in dangerous situations so often.

Funny part was, I didn't even own a gun for the break in or when I found the dude breaking into my neighbors house. In fact, I was lucky enough that there happened to be a cop driving by right as I ran out the door to try to grab his plate number. In the case of the carjacking, that happened to my boss when he pulled over to render assistance to a man who crashed his motorcycle. Him just trying to be a good Samaritan…

The Scouts aren't armed with concealed weapons.

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#203

"When you say I don't care about the right to privacy because I have nothing to hide, that is no different than saying I don't care about freedom of speech because I have nothing to say or freedom of the press because I have nothing to write." - Edward Snowden

This is such an odd statement and fundamentally confuses two very different ideas. First of all, there is no express right to privacy in the Constitution. There is however, the Bill of Rights which everybody is familiar with. It does outline protecting specific aspects of privacy which include such things as the First Amendment (freedom of religion) or the 4th Amendment, (privacy of your possessions against unlawful…

The US constitution doesn't hold a monopoly on defining human rights.

While that may be surprising to some Americans there are indeed other people and countries on this planet, that have their own constitutions that define human rights that the US constitution does not, privacy among them.

The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as unenforceabl as it unfortunately is, also defines privacy as a human right.

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#204
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or when someone breaks into your apartment and the police have an average response time of, what, 10 minutes or so? How about when you pull over to assist a crashed motorcyclist and it turns out he's a DUI-case and attempts to car-jack you? How about when you see someone waltz into your neighbors backyard and kick in the door? All things that have happened to either myself, or a coworker in the past year. Is it unrea…

My personal experiences in some of the cases you have mentioned. 2 times house break, both times I confronted the burglars with a kitchen knife and gave them an avenue to escape which they took. I would never want to kill someone because they tried take my property. It's just stuff and quite frankly I value human life much higher, even if it is the life of a criminal who is taking my things. The fact that there are s…

Wait a minute, so you are ok with brandishing a knife, but not a gun? That is silly.

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#205
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or when someone breaks into your apartment and the police have an average response time of, what, 10 minutes or so? How about when you pull over to assist a crashed motorcyclist and it turns out he's a DUI-case and attempts to car-jack you? How about when you see someone waltz into your neighbors backyard and kick in the door? All things that have happened to either myself, or a coworker in the past year. Is it unrea…

Yes, it is unreasonable to want a gun for this situation because you only escalate the situation with a gun present. Carrying a gun increases your risk to get shot: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17922-carrying-a-gun-i... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759797/ Saying that the cat is out of the bag so you need a gun is cold war logic were you need to be able to kill the other more times. So you ra…

Your New Scientist article is laughable....

So Charles Branas's team at the University of Pennsylvania analysed 677 shootings over two-and-a-half years to discover whether victims were carrying at the time, and compared them to other Philly residents of similar age, sex and ethnicity.

This study only looked at one side of the equation of people who carry guns, the ones who got shot. What about all the people who carry guns and never use them? Wouldn't they be excluded from this study?

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#206
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying a gun really only requires filling out a tiny slip, it took me less than 5 minutes and was not invasive in the least. Maybe this varies between states.

Does that tiny slip get filed somewhere, indexed and archived, triggering an invisible trawl through your personal record? Maybe it's the behind-the-scenes stuff that has gun enthusiasts worried.

Getting married certainly does end up getting filed somewhere, etc. It's part of the public record. So does having a child, or buying a house. Advertisers pay good money to figure out who new parents are. Voters are also registered, as are drivers.

Who should be more concerned about the behind-the-scenes stuff, gun enthusiasts, newlyweds, new parents, homeowners, registered voters, or drivers? And why?

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#207
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that tiny slip get filed somewhere, indexed and archived, triggering an invisible trawl through your personal record? Maybe it's the behind-the-scenes stuff that has gun enthusiasts worried.

Getting married certainly does end up getting filed somewhere, etc. It's part of the public record. So does having a child, or buying a house. Advertisers pay good money to figure out who new parents are. Voters are also registered, as are drivers. Who should be more concerned about the behind-the-scenes stuff, gun enthusiasts, newlyweds, new parents, homeowners, registered voters, or drivers? And why?

Who should be more concerned about the behind-the-scenes stuff, gun enthusiasts, newlyweds, new parents, homeowners, registered voters, or drivers? And why?

I suppose it depends on what threats you consider realistic.

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#208
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting married certainly does end up getting filed somewhere, etc. It's part of the public record. So does having a child, or buying a house. Advertisers pay good money to figure out who new parents are. Voters are also registered, as are drivers. Who should be more concerned about the behind-the-scenes stuff, gun enthusiasts, newlyweds, new parents, homeowners, registered voters, or drivers? And why?

Who should be more concerned about the behind-the-scenes stuff, gun enthusiasts, newlyweds, new parents, homeowners, registered voters, or drivers? And why? I suppose it depends on what threats you consider realistic.

Well, you brought it up as something "that [might have] gun enthusiasts worried." Why do you think they consider it realistic enough to mention?

Is it because they don't know just how much data mining governments and companies do to us, and prefer to limit themselves to issues that might reduce their enthusiasm?

In which case it's not really a meaningful objection, since it's true of nearly every hobby. I'm sure that back in the early 1900s some ham radio operators objected to licensing requirements and power limits placed on them. That doesn't mean those were unreasonable restrictions.

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#209
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is unreasonable to want a gun for this situation because you only escalate the situation with a gun present. Carrying a gun increases your risk to get shot: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17922-carrying-a-gun-i... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759797/ Saying that the cat is out of the bag so you need a gun is cold war logic were you need to be able to kill the other more times. So you ra…

Your New Scientist article is laughable.... So Charles Branas's team at the University of Pennsylvania analysed 677 shootings over two-and-a-half years to discover whether victims were carrying at the time, and compared them to other Philly residents of similar age, sex and ethnicity. This study only looked at one side of the equation of people who carry guns, the ones who got shot. What about all the people who carr…

No, it did not just look at one side of the equation.

"We enrolled 677 case participants that had been shot in an assault and 684 population-based control participants within Philadelphia, PA, from 2003 to 2006. We adjusted odds ratios for confounding variables."

How does this only look at people carrying a gun?

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in this case it might be. In a society where no one owns guns, the chance that some intruder has a gun is near to null, so you don’t need a gun either.

Clearly a 5'1", 105lb woman has no need of a gun when a 6'4", 240lb man breaks into her home.

How is that clear? Where is the data that backs up your claim?

The studies cited in http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/02/having-a... certainly point the other direction.

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