591–600 of 1001 posts
There's something admirable about the idea that a government would not take away all the guns. The idea that people should not have to give up all of their ability to fight. The idea that people should not be entirely dependent on police for their defense. And the idea that physically weaker people (often women) can defend themselves against the strong. Does this idea work? Surprisingly well. If you had to guess the…
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I agree with most of your post. One small quibble though: > There's something admirable about the idea that a government would not take away all the guns. The whole point is that the government Can Not take away guns, not that they "would not". Inalienable rights preceed government, they are not granted by it. In fact, the government is supposed to exist to safe guard them. I think that's an important philosophical p…
> Inalienable rights preceed government, they are not granted by it. That's a nice ideal, but in reality governments can do and take away whatever they want, and a guarantee that they won't take away your "inalienable" rights is only as good as the system built around that government, and the willingness of its people to fight (physically or legally) for their rights.
We need to acknowledge that human beings have a right to self-governance, that this includes the right to form new governments via democratic referenda, and that governments that prevent this are engaged in something which, upon inspection, cannot be distinguished from imperialism.
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Situations like China effectively exterminating populations they don’t like are why gun rights are so important. Order men to re-education camps and forcing their women to sleep in same bed as police/watchdogs gets a lot less appealing if the woman can shoot their government mandated rapist.
Yeah, I cannot fathom the carnage and full blown civil war in Northwestern China if Uighers had guns.
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I do not at all accept that guns empower the weak. We can see all over the world they are a massive force multiplier for criminals, the violent and the murderous. Guns are only potent in the hands of those willing and able to use violence. For those unwilling to do so, they are massively disenfranchising. They essentially tilt the balance of power in society decisively in favour of those most willing to kill, and mos…
>Speech are only potent in the hands of those willing and able to say destabilizing things. For those unwilling to do so, they are massively disenfranchising. They essentially tilt the balance of power in society decisively in favour of those most willing to do this, and most enthusiastic about preparing to do so. It's really not that different; speech, much like guns, is capable of bringing an entire nation to its k…
The US is a free democracy. Nobody is coming to seize your children and beat their culture out of them. Even if they were, or planned to bulldoze your cemetery, the US has a very well trained, staffed and equipped paramilitary police system and full on militarised domestic National Guard. Largely because they are policing such a gunned up population. So thanks for that. If they are coming for your children, a few light arms are not going to stop them, and they have a huge amount of practical experience in making sure that’s true.
Widespread access to firearms simply escalates conflict in society. It escalates personal disputes, escalates interactions with law enforcement, escalates disparities in power between the violent and nonviolent.
Many developed nations, in fact almost all of them, have very low gun ownership rates, yet these abuses you seem to think would be inevitable have not happened in them. It turns out liberal democracy (liberal as in free and equal, not as in socialist) is pretty robust as long as it has solid support by the population. The best way to maintain that trust is the ability to exercise your rights and express your opinions without fear.
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A rational person compares risks on an absolute scale first. Out of all the things that could happen on a given day, is getting murdered a real concern? For people in the U.S., it's not really worth worrying about unless you have some other risk factors for murder, like criminal activity. If you are selling lion repellant that makes a lion attack 80% less likely, that's not something I'd be interested in. That being…
You said, "the U.S. murder rate is not all that remarkable". Someone pointed out that claim is demonstrably false. So your response is, "is getting murdered a real concern?" You established a metric, and when it was shown not to support your world view, you try to discredit your own metric. That's called moving the goal post. It is not something a "rational person" does. An irrational person uses irrelevant data as j…
Your odds of being murdered in the U.S. are very low compared to many other ways of dying (see e.g. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db395.htm), so yeah, it'd be great to see the murder rate lowered (that's always good, right?), but even if you did something drastic that managed to cut the odds in half, it would not have any discernible impact on most people's day to day lives nor on their ultimate cause of death because so few people end up dying that way.
There's something admirable about the idea that a government would not take away all the guns. The idea that people should not have to give up all of their ability to fight. The idea that people should not be entirely dependent on police for their defense. And the idea that physically weaker people (often women) can defend themselves against the strong. Does this idea work? Surprisingly well. If you had to guess the…
I think the simplest counterpoint is Britain. The US Second Amendment is a direct descendant of the British Common Law right to bear arm. And Britain is arguably our national parent with a similar culture and history and a modern pluralistic culture. They effectively ended their right to private gun ownership in the 20th century to the point that it's now extremely difficult to procure one and there are very few guns…
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PS: I am strong supporter of Gun rights and proud gun owner. I fully agree with anti-gun crowd that having vast majority of guns in hands of citizens (legally or illegally) leads to more deaths. USA's comparison with Angola is actually more serious than the numbers tell you because you need to realize that USA has far better medical response and doctors trained to handle gunshot wounds. So to truly compare Angola and…
> PS: I am strong supporter of Gun rights and proud gun owner. I don't understand the pride bit. It seems like a regrettable situation where your distrust of your fellow citizens is so strong that you are comforted by the ability to kill them with minimal effort. (I'm in Australia, where we have some truly horrendous legislation, but I totally agree with our gun ownership laws here, and echo other people's observatio…
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My comment is not limited to political discourse. The rates of firearm use in domestic and personal disputes in the US are a disgrace. Half of women killed in domestic disputes are shot. But even then, it only shows those cases where guns were actually used. We can only guess how often the threat of such violence, either explicit or implicit is enough to coerce or intimidate. The attitude that the correct way to fix…
> Promoting willingness to kill as a path to a voice or Liberty in personal relationships or society is utterly immoral. That is not the kind of society we should be aspiring to build. Statements like this remind me how lucky we are to have created such a safe space for people to be born, raised, and live so that they can maintain this view. You’re lucky and hopefully people like you can help us build a better societ…
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Mexico is a big country. There are places in Mexico where you can go random places alone, and places that it would be ill-advised. There are places in the US where you can go random places alone, and places that it would be ill-advised. There are places in the Baltimore metro area where you can go random places alone, and places that it would be ill-advised.
That's true for every sufficiently-large section of the world. But different places have different statistical properties. Look, my grandpa took me shooting when I was young. I remember doing target practice under a bridge when I was like 7, using a freakin' magnum revolver of all things. It was next to a very small river, and someone further downstream was trying to fish. I asked gramps "Do you think he heard us?" a…
If you want to go and rob houses or join a gang, you'll get a gun, legally or illegally. This happens everywhere, not only where guns are legal. If you can't get a gun, you'll get a big knife or a baseball bat.
The USA is rich in GDP per capita but has patches with poor people with little to lose. In many EU countries there is far less people with little to lose, even among the poor ones. Crime in EU is, similarly, disproportionally caused by those who have little to lose, eg. illegal immigrants.
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Note this is just murder, but murder is merely a small fraction of gun deaths. The multiplier for all firearm-related deaths between the US and EU average for example is around 12X, more than an order of magnitude [1]. The elephant in the room however is that the main argument simply doesn't hold up. Owning a gun doesn't just make the owner slightly more likely to get shot, but also everyone around them [2] Or, as th…
Of course a country with more firearms is going to have more firearm-related deaths. The same is true for automobiles or bridges or baseball bats. The relevant question is what the overall death rate is. For instance, Japan, per capita, has fewer firearms-related suicides than the US, but it has more suicides. I’d be willing to bet it has more train-related suicides than the US. Does this mean Japan’s suicide rate wo…
My grandmother's high school had an elective class where they would even shoot at the school.