Response to Fellow Steemian Regarding Gun Control
"Sure, if the AR-15 or any assault weapon were made illegal there would undoubtedly be a black market for criminals to obtain the guns anyways. That doesn't mean it wouldn't at least reduce the risk of a criminal obtaining a highly destructive rifle."
Well, the only thing that makes a weapon an assault weapon is if someone uses it to assault people with. A pistol or a knife can be an assault weapon, if that's what someone chooses to do with it. An AR-15 is a semi-auto, so if the weapon was banned, an individual could simply get a hunting style semi-auto, the only difference is the aesthetics. One looks more modern, and the other looks like something you might go hunting deer with.
Another thing to consider is because of the second amendment, the way in which they banned firearms was a trick of the law. Anyone can go out and buy an 80% lower reciever in the U.S. The lower is what is considered to be a firearm. So if you buy an AR-15 kit, and then an 80% lower, and then mill the lower to 100%, you've created your own weapon.
All of the regulations schemes and permits are designed around regulating firearms involved in commerce. Creating your own bypasses that necessity entirely, and does not require permission, or registration. For more on that, search ghost guns on YouTube.
"Raising the legal age to 21 would have prevented Nikolas Cruz from personally buying a gun. If assault weapons were banned period, i am doubtful he would have access to a weapons black market (as a mentally deranged high schooler)."
That might work in theory, but we can't even prevent kids from smoking cigarettes, or weed, or doing drugs, or driving drunk. It's not that they are robbing gas stations, or pharmacies, not most of them anyhow. So they are gaining access well before the age of 21, and it's usually facilitated by someone who is old enough to purchase these things legally.
"I also disagree with your hypothetical, in that I don't think there should be, or are any "good guys" with guns- outside of people hired for security/the police. The notion of arming more people in public areas and facilities is not intelligent- you don't necessarily have to be mentally ill to get angry enough to pull the trigger. People who own guns should go through strict training (and potentially licensing) that requires clear evidence of responsible gun ownership."
We might disagree here, I don't think that a piece of paper, or a badge or a license, necessarily has anything to do with the content of a person’s character. I'm sure you have, just as I have seen cops make the wrong decisions and kill people who clearly didn't deserve it. I've seen it more times than I can count.
So the idea that their badge makes them more entitled to protect my life, well, I disagree. Not to mention even if you are blessed enough to get a responsible cop/security guard on scene, there is a high chance they will have arrived when the damage was already done. I do agree with you about gun safety. In fact I think it should be taught in schools.
Not only gun safety, but also how people can have different opinions without being offended or resorting to hostility. In this new snowflake era all we're doing is teaching people how to be butthurt. So do I want to see a bunch of emo snowflakes armed to the teeth, no but technically they have the right.
"Also, I don't think the march for our lives movement is as willfully ignorant as many believe.. there are many smart kids who can see past our distorted view of how we must think about guns."
If everyone had good intentions, I doubt that people would feel the need to carry their weapons outside of places of sport, and or hunting areas. But the fact of life is, there are some really bad apples out there. Most kids, haven't had enough experience with reality to comprehend this, and without the ability to protect yourself against them, it puts you in a position to lose, without even a fighting chance to win.
"If there is anything that comes with this movement, I support delegitimizing all of the congressmen who are NRA puppets... the NRA has had a huge grip on congress for decades now. I am more indifferent on which weapons to ban and more interested in bringing down the gun lobby."
If you ask me, the NRA is speaking for millions of Americans who simply agree with a major tenant of the constitution. The second amendment is what backs the first. Take that away, and soon we'll be micro-regulating what people can, or cannot say, and if they say the wrong things, the force of the State will be used to persecute people for the language that they use.
"I think any responsible gun owner can see there needs to be some degree of further regulation, required training and background checks when it comes to guns. The fact I can go to a gun show and purchase a high capacity mag AR with minimal difficulty scares me. We spend years training kids to drive, we created strict boundaries and laws for driving and ultimately driving has become safer. I want the same to occur with guns."
Most responsible gun owners believe in, and agree with the constitution. If they own a gun, but don't respect the reason why they are able to, I would personally see that as irresponsible. I think you are right about the training, it should start in Kindergarten with training guns that have an alarm go off if the kid pulls the trigger. The child would lose privileges for pulling that trigger inappropriately, or at the wrong time. This would all be made clear before the training began.
This type of training should not only start in Kindergarten, but also continue into grade school as a refresher course, and into high school as well. By the time they are old enough to purchase a gun, they will know how to responsibly handle it. In addition to gun safety like I said; we need to teach children that it's okay to disagree with someone else's ideas, we need to teach them how to be secure in their own ideas, and not feel threatened by the ideas of others.
This whole safe spaces nonsense has gone to far, and it's making people weak and overly emotional. I mean it's no wonder that social justice warrior types rabidly want to ban guns. If they had one, they'd shoot at someone every time they got triggered, and they know that they get triggered at least a dozen times on any given day.
Inspired by comments derived from this link.
The fact I can go to a gun show and purchase a high capacity mag AR with minimal difficulty scares me.
Then be calm...cause you can't do it.
Curated for #informationwar (by @openparadigm)
Relevance: Gun Control Discussion
Our Purpose
The interesting thing omitted is that gangs, such as those in LA, are getting AK-47s straight off the boat from China.
They cannot stop bad people from getting guns, ever.
Even an areas that are locked down by US military forces.
That leaves the only possible explanation for what they are doing is to disarm good people.
You could really expand your rebuttal to this point even further. The proposition that the legal age should be 21 excludes all adults between the ages of 18-21 the right to self preservation. What about a single 19 year old mother that lives in a lower income part of town, should she not have access to a firearm to preserve her life and that of her child? Why is her right to self preservation okay to be infringed upon because somebody else had hate in their heart and committed a heinous crime.
The proposition to increase the age for purchasing a firearm beyond the age that constitutes legal adult status is not only bad because it wouldn't be effective in practice, it's unconstitutional and would adversely impact many law abiding citizens.
Excellent point @mjo!
If you ask me, the NRA is speaking for millions of Americans who simply agree with a major tenant of the constitution. The second amendment is what backs the first. Take that away, and soon we'll be micro-regulating what people can, or cannot say, and if they say the wrong things, the force of the State will be used to persecute people for the language that they use.
Is there any hard evidence to suggest that the only thing standing between the oppression of the American people either by a foreign power or indeed by it's own Federal government is due to the rights enshrined by the 2nd amendment? Are there not other, dare I say more effective ways, with which to guarantee your freedom as opposed to the taking up of arms? I'm reminded of what the fictional character Saldor Hardin said in Isaac Asimov's classic Foundation series of books (highly recommended if you've not read them) - "violence is the last refugee of the incompetent"
When I see what's going on in the world. Take for example this guy in the UK called 'Count Dankula'. He was trying to troll, or play a joke on his girlfriend with a distasteful joke. He was basically conditioning her dog to perform the Nazi salute in response to certain, lets say very distasteful commands. Mind you, this was all a joke to him, and he even prefaced that video thusly.
Ultimately, he is going to go to jail, because his country does not have freedom of speech. In his country, unpopular speech can be regulated. The problem with regulating speech is that, this has the effect of regulating how people think. People will tend to not think about things that will get them put in jail. The whole business of speech regulation is very nasty. I mean people get into it because of their good intentions, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It will only continue to progressively get worse and worse.
The ironic part about this whole situation is that Nazi Germany was big into censorship too; newspapers, literature, music, public events, they were all censored. You can't censor any of those things, without claiming the right to censor free speech. Had the Jews known what was about to go down, I have a feeling they would have much rather been armed and dangerous. The fact that they weren't, might have been more of a sign of incompetence, as they were unable to protect themselves.
I think disarming Americans would also make them a prime target for foreign invasion. If a free people would like to retain their freedom, from time to time, maybe generations apart, they'll be tested. If they fail the test even once, it will condemn future generations to social constructs that prohibit freedom.
Let me ask @talesfrmthecrypt, if Saldor Hardin was correct, and violence truly is the last refuge of the incompetent. Then doesn't that make government incompetent for resorting to force and violence in order to subdue someone's free speech?
If i'm walking down the street, and someone who is so incompetent that they can't get a job and work for their money, decides he'd like to have all of mine and use violence to do so. Then my resorting to violence in response, that in my book that is self defense, not incompetence.
First they'll start telling you what you can't say, then they start telling you what you have to say (Excuse me zhir!). Then they start telling you which religions are unacceptable. Then they tell you what religions you have to be part of. It's a slippery slope, if government had it's way, it would take it all, it would control it all.
@talesfrmthecrypt - I should also ask, do you know of some "other more effective ways". I am always open to solutions that work. Especially ones that are peaceful!
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago)
I'm British - i'm not aware of the example given but i'd suggest we have a robust enough legal system that if he has been wrongly imprisoned then he will stand a better chance of being freed by going through "the proper channels" as unpalatable as that may sound, than he would by taking up arms. In fact I don't think him owning a gun would have made any difference to the outcome of this event or any future actions that arise from his imprisonment whether he lived in the UK or anywhere else for that matter. My argument isn't to say that governments don't and won't restrict individuals from time to time. It is to say that the way to combat this isn't through violence or the latent threat of violence.
To give you another example from the UK - we recently voted to leave the European Union. An institution that many in the UK felt was to use your phrase "micro-regulating" British citizens lives in the same way you described a Federal and in this case largely undemocratic power might. The British people were able to force the government of that time into holding a referendum that they didn't want. The will of the people opposed that of all mainstream political parties by voting to leave the EU. Freedom to consume curvy bananas, own inefficient vacuum cleaners and whatever other perceived freedoms that'd been lost to the EU will be restored. This was all achieved without the average man on the street owning a gun.
Lets not forget that that the examples you are using to support your stance (Nazis and Soviet Communists) both started uprisings that encouraged acts of violence against the their respective governments before they came to power. Violence breeds violence - they are prime examples of why any society in it's right mind should be looking to exhaust all other possibilities before looking to take up arms.
I'm not naive enough to think that there is not a time when violence against an oppressive force (or indeed someone trying to mug me as in your example) would not be necessary but the 2nd amendment and more importantly most American's interruption of it is in my opinion not responsible for providing the average individual any greater freedoms than he would have without the gun. Furthermore, large spread ownership of guns brings with it the many documented problems of violence in society as a whole and I believe actually distracts people from looking at the many non-violent actions that could have an equal if not greater effect on securing personal freedoms.
This is an excellent point.
The truth is the UK is still in the EU, and will remain in the EU--because they can ignore you, because you are disarmed.
The 'Hitler dog' guy couldn't have outgunned government empowered by decades of monopoly on force. He's doomed not by his personal lack of firearms, but, as Brexit demonstrates, by the rendering of the entire population subject to the will of oppressors by being disarmed.
Had people retained their personal arms in the UK, none of this censorship could be entertained. Back when you were an armed people to be reckoned with, it wasn't.
Edit: regarding your legal system, I recommend you read up on the Isle of Jersey, and the Haut de la Garenne child trafficking/murder scandal. Your legal system is the best money can buy, just like the American system.
I think you underestimate the anti-sentiment towards the EU within certain parts of the UK population. Even supporters of the remain campaign would be more likely to rise up in protest if the EU was seen to be subjugating the democratic will of the people. I actually think one of the worst thinks the remain campaign did was to get Obama over to the UK telling us to stay in the EU or else - no one likes being told what to do and threatened in their own country.
p.s. Jersey is a Crown Dependency and generally sets it's own domestic legislation independent from Westminster
Who cares? What are they gonna do about it? Wave placards at passing limousines? Write their local parliamentarian? What they're not going to do is show up in armed mobs and demand their will prevail.
Nothing short of that matters.
Which is why you are allowed to vote. It keeps you feeling you are in the loop, and responsible for the decision they make to subjugate you. Same here in the USA.
I know. The Queen owns it personally, and that is why the trafficking of children from Haut de la Garenne by Jimmy Saville et al (personal friend of Prince Charles) will never result in prosecution, and why it's such an excellent example of the corruption of your legal system.
I'm not picking on the UK particularly, except that it is what you know personally. The Dutroux scandal in Belgium, the Franklin coverup in the USA, the UN everywhere it goes, all reveal child trafficking being permitted moneyed interests while ordinary people are demonized for making a bad pass.
My point is that nations are mechanisms to subjugate their populations for the real overlords of the transnational corporations, including both the UK and the US.
This is why Russia is being demonized today, as Putin has paid off Russia's national debt, depriving the transnationals of their rent money (interest payments). If you look at the list of 'Evil' countries, you will see that they are the only countries without national debt, or that threaten to nationalize the industries that deliver money to the international banksters.
This is why we are so furiously being disarmed. Slaves can't be allowed to own arms, or uprisings like Haiti conducted to throw off the French can happen. I'm surprised you are allowed metal utensils at all. Brits are proven dangerous people when cornered.
Who knows perhaps we will end needing to resort to violence to get what we want in regards our sovereignty? But I'm willing to give other options a try before turning to that.
"My point is that nations are mechanisms to subjugate their populations for the real overlords of the transnational corporations, including both the UK and the US."
I fully agree
"Brits are proven dangerous people when cornered."
You better believe it! Our island mentality still runs strong
Some people in the UK have complained about the rape culture that some (not all) Muslim migrants are bringing with them from their respective countries of birth. If I were in the UK, I could be damn near arrested for a hate crime for simply mentioning this fact.
I am against all rape, no matter what religion or ethnicity a person is who commits it. However, if my country were importing people who because of their culture may be more statistically inclined to commit that offense, and my country would not allow me to speak about it. Yep, that would piss me off to no end. Without the ability to enforce your right to speak freely, things get out of control pretty fast.
Imagine the UK in the 70's if a Muslim immigrant raped someone, they'd suffer the same consequences as anyone else. However, in today's age of political correctness. People are discouraged from talking about the facts. Maybe even discouraged from pressing charges, I mean they don't want to be accused of being racist. It's just madness the things that are going on. IMO.
Mind you, this is coming from a country where if someone tries to rape us, or someone that we care about, we can shoot them dead 007 style (in self-defense).
I can talk about rape in the UK. Look I'm doing it now!
What I can't do is be threatening, abusive or insulting towards anyone while I do it. I appreciate that these are very grey areas as what one person considers insulting is difficult to gauge. I could easily offend someone through no intention on my part. These points of law in the UK and i'd guess most liberal democracies are always going to cause contention and raise the question of free speech v other generally accepted liberties which include being able to live a life without fear and persecution.
Unfortunately most cases of sexual assault and rape go unreported but I feel this has little to do with the fear of being labelled racist and more to do with the victims fear of not being believed and the stigma attached to it. Statistically though more cases of sexual assault are being reported and it is believed that this is due to the various campaigns that are now being run around the issue. At the University at which I work, as part of the talk on sexual content, we use the 'cup of tea' analogy. This compulsory talk is given to all 1st year undergrad and postgrad students from all the many nationalities and cultures that attend the institution. I'm not sure which news sources you've been reading that suggest that political correctness has somehow won over common sense and indeed the law in the UK but young people in particular are more than happy to discuss these kind of issues in a frank and constructive manner.
As for the advantage of guns in self-defence sure you can shoot an assailant, that's if he's not shot you first. But driving down the street of my town I can also be confident that if i'm involved in a fender bender or any other interaction with another individual where tempers might get frayed, that no one is going to shoot me in the face - a point that i believe @studgriffin had previously made. Is there any evidence that more guns leads to less crime?
I agree that fear of not being believed, and stigma, those too might prevent a rape from being reported. "Is there evidence that more guns lead to less crime?" I do not know for certain, if there is evidence I'm not sure that it would be uniform world-wide.
As far as america is concerned someone actually wrote a book with that exact title and makes his argument that yes indeed violent crime rates go down in states with concealed carry laws. So maybe it's not more guns per se.
Just the wild card factor that anybody could be packing, that would prevent people criminals from randomly picking marks because s/he thinks the person is not armed.
Guy goes fishing in America, almost loses his shoes!
My guess is if we took America from the headline and replaced it with the UK, it might have gone down like this; and I could be way off base here, so if I am please tell me how you think it would go. If this were the UK, I think he would have a blackened eye, and no shoes to show for it. He'd think about reporting it to the police, but then those criminals might have their buddy's come back to hurt him or worse, and he'd have no way to protect himself if he did, because he doesn't own a gun, or knife, because it's illegal. Ultimately, I would predict that he'd just end up buying new Nikes out of his own pocket cash, and chalk it up to the game.
I'd imagine if that's me i'd have lost a pair of shoes! But i'd still live in a country where my kids are far less likely to be shot walking down the street. Seems a small price to pay. Also please see previous comment about guns vs crime levels. Is there any evidence to support the idea that crime diminishes as gun ownership increases?
And yes, i would absolutely report the crime.
In terms of repercussions, are you saying this Texan is now safe? Maybe next time instead of swaggering over confidently to ask him about the shoes prior to stealing them those gentleman will just shoot him in the back?
In regards the question in a previous comment about how to protect free speech within a society other than gun ownership - how about community building? The Solzhenitsyn quote you gave is disturbing and i feel unfortunately all too real. If the shit hits the fan and a government or whomever else tries to repress your freedoms then at the end of the day, if you don't have a community behind you you're just going to be a guy with a gun and sure you'll make a great slow motion movie clip as you come out blazing when they come to take you away but ultimately they are going to win the war.
Solzhenitsyn wishes the community had risen up. Guns do not build communities. Guns destroy communities. It is what they have been built to do! A community standing together with clenched fists in the face of oppression is more powerful than one that is divided, selfish and scared regardless of the number of firearms that it possesses.
I hear you, not all of the U.S. is like the wild-wild west. Some areas are rough though. I think it's nice to have the option to be able to protect yourself. I can't speak much to community building. There is a quote though
If you think about it, it makes sense, and if the book 'More Guns, Less Crime' is correct, that might be the psychology behind why that is the case.
I don't know how a community can stand together with out basic principles. America, has had freedom of speech, and the second amendment for quite some time. I'm hoping these principles stick around. It's kind of the glue that holds U.S. together.
You keep thinking of lone defenders, instead of armed communities. Who would dare to be a mugger in a community where people are generally armed? These guys expect their victims to be disarmed, because that's common in cities in the USA today. That's why they even bother to be criminals.
If they tried to shoot a guy in the back, every other guy around could be prepared to shoot back, not just the guy fishing. It isn't one superhero defender of Gotham that is the real power of personal arms.
It's that there are no potential victims at all, so crime like muggings just don't happen, since the likelihood of getting a wallet from someone without being significantly endangered is very low.
This is one reason crime disproportionately victimizes the poor, since they either can't afford weapons to defend themselves, or can only afford crappy ones.
How many crimes do police prevent? Practically zero. They commit orders of magnitude more crimes than they prevent. At best they can investigate and seek to punish criminals AFTER they commit a crime.
Personal arms prevent millions of crimes every year. They keep the crimes from happening at all. Cops don't.
Think of personal arms like antibodies. Vaccination programs seek to create herd immunity, so virulent pathogens can't cause epidemics. Disarmed people are vectors for epidemics of crime, Typhoid Mary's of Tyranny.
"You keep thinking of lone defenders, instead of armed communities."
No i don't. In fact you've made my point for me. It's the strength of the community that matters armed or otherwise.
There are far better ways, but we have neglected to avail ourselves of them, and typically do.
Sun Tzu teaches that combat is won or lost before it begins, and this is obvious upon reflection. Training, practice, preparation, logistics, etc., all determine who will win combat, regardless of the reason for the conflict or weapons used.
The fact that people are incompetent to avoid violence is demonstrated daily.
I do a lot of things to prevail in conflicts with killers who have sworn to kill me personally. The primary thing I do is to preclude combat.
All that being said, it has nothing to do with whether we have a right to defend our lives with the best means available, which is what the Second Amendment actually means.
Either you believe in an individual's natural right to defend him/herself or you don't. It's as simple as that.
You got it!!! I see part of the problem as an entitlement issue. It's fantastic that some police are willing to put their life on the line to protect innocent citizens. However, it's unrealistic to think they can protect everyone. Also, I think it's egregious that people think they have a right to someone else having to put their life on the line for them. My life is far too important to me to hand over to a third party. It's my responsibility to protect myself and my family and I wouldn't want it any other way.
This is the essence of the problem. World view is delivered to people via media, which replaces actual culture today. People are designed to be incapable of being trustworthy of handling their own affairs, as dependents are the product that enriches their overlords.
The fact is that logic and reason won't reach the decision making processes of such people, as the painful transformation into someone not dependent on overlords and competent to responsibly handle their business is something they are trained from birth to preclude.
I've seen this graphically demonstrated in a conversation recently. An interviewer asked one of the totalitarian gun grabbers why they thought people shouldn't be allowed to have guns. The rabid communist answered that people commit bad acts with guns, and only police/government should have guns.
The interviewer asked if they supported Trump. They said (of course) 'NO!'
The interviewer asked them why they were marching to make Trump's government the only legal gun owners.
Blank stare.
They didn't stop marching and demanding that government be a monopoly on force, however. They just ignored logic and facts. That's what you will face in your debate. It's what the entire debate boils down to: the abnegation of logic and facts.
Mountain Guerrilla (on a different post than this one) relates that he will just say 'No.' to those proposing to restrict gun ownership, as a result of this.
I have to disagree, as some people just haven't yet digested the red pill, and facts do plant seeds that lead to the flower of freedom.
Thanks!
Thank's @valued-customer! - Wow, that story about the man and his blank stare was funny, I wonder if it ever clicked for him.
I do not like this violent content.
This is the absolute opposite of violence. This is civilised discussion.
I am glad you have the option to not read it. Yay!
Freedom is great, isn't it?
Wouldn't it be far worse if you were legally obligated to view certain media, under penalty of law?
That's exactly the future we advocates of personal firearms ownership are acting to prevent.
There will be actual violence in your future, rather than civil discussions you can mischaracterize as violent. Will you be prepared for it, or will you be destroyed by it?
Thimk.
Where is the violence?
I think gun holders should do brain check-up maybe four times in a year to ensure they are okay
I reckon that'd be better applied to TV owners, as that directly and negatively impacts the brain.