Gun ownership itself is a slight mental illness

Holly

No that wasn’t said by Jefferson it seems to be originally from Cesare Beccaria's Essay on Crimes and Punishments, originally published in Italian in 1764 you seem to be quoting a translation by Henry Palolucci done in 1963

The English translation of this passage, which appeared in the 1809 edition that Jefferson later owned, is as follows:

A principal source of errors and injustice are false ideas of utility. For example: that legislator has false ideas of utility who considers particular more than general conveniencies, who had rather command the sentiments of mankind than excite them, who dares say to reason, "Be thou a slave;" who would sacrifice a thousand real advantages to the fear of an imaginary or trifling inconvenience; who would deprive men of the use of fire for fear of their being burnt, and of water for fear of their being drowned; and who knows of no means of preventing evil but by destroying it.

The laws of this nature are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent. Can it be supposed, that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, and the most important of the code, will respect the less considerable and arbitrary injunctions, the violation of which is so easy, and of so little comparative importance? Does not the execution of this law deprive the subject of that personal liberty, so dear to mankind and to the wise legislator? and does it not subject the innocent to all the disagreeable circumstances that should only fall on the guilty? It certainly makes the situation of the assaulted worse, and of the assailants better, and rather encourages than prevents murder, as it requires less courage to attack unarmed than armed persons.4

The English translation of this passage originally quoted above, and the one most often seen on other Internet sites, is most likely a later translation. It may be taken from a 1963 translation by Henry Palolucci.5

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...(Spurious Quotation) | Thomas Jefferson's Monticello

 

Holly

The thing is that there should always be a balance between private and public good - between the rights of individual and group to act as they wish and the rights of the community to protect themselves from such acts.

That is why we have regulations to limit harm.

Let us take a line from Cesare Beccariaquoted above

who would deprive men of the use of fire for fear of their being burnt, and of water for fear of their being drowned

But we do have regulations to limit people starting fires in places they shouldn’t we do have regulations against people polluting the water supply.

We have regulations to limit people's ability to cause communal harm.

I have nothing against someone owning a gun for defence (although I’d ask why they feel they need one) but I do think the community has a right to properly regulate guns and gun ownership to limit the harm ease of access to guns can cause.

 

Nobody is acting coy. You can pretend most of my posts are invisible just to try to make a straw man argument - that's fine. Would people have to kill cops? If they were coming to your door to do harm, of course. The point is that the amount of police in your given police station wouldn't stand a chance against a revolt if the people were armed. I couldn't even tell your how many tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of percent armed people would outnumber the police in a situation like that. But one thing you have to learn is that it never happens that way. A tyrannical government in this scenario would cave overnight if people were armed - and not even all people have to be, just a large enough population.

 

Ok, you are right that he didn't write the original notion, though he supported it and professed it. I had to dig up the book on my kindle to verify what you said. Though either way, it changes nothing.

 

I get what you're saying. Designing regulations is going to be tough when we consider the intent of the amendment. That's why there so so much pressure to change what people believe the intent of the amendment was. What sort of regulations would you personally impose?

 

Holly

What book?

 

Holly

LOL sorry but since I've been basically going through you posts line by line I think you are been a little creative in your accusations

Their seems to be a contradiction here - you seems to be saying that you wouldn’t kill police officers or your political opponents but then you say you would if they were doing what you considered ‘harm’ and that you’d be happy and willing to wipe out a whole police station if they resisted your uprising?

Well first you haven’t actually explained when you thought a government was acting tyrannical – when would you begin killing the police officers you though were doing ‘harm’?

And you really expecting that there would be no resistance to your armed uprising - that the ‘tyrannical’ government would just fold when you began threatening it?

Presumably the ‘intent’ you are talking about is the armed overthrow of the government but again when would you begin that, when do you begin killing those you see as your political opponents

 

This is the first post in the thread Gun Control Proposals For The Usa, I suppose we could use that for going on with.

Gun Control Proposals For The Usa

Gun control proposals

I thought I’d put together a couple of lists me and MeAgain have presented in the past (I hope MeAgain doesn’t mind) of things we think could be done in relation to gun control

Educate people about what the new legislation is about and would entail (Not taking away all guns, the goal is to reduce harm by limiting easy access to the criminal and irresponsible)

Reinforcing, enhancing, and mandating back ground checks.

Immediate destruction of any weapon, ammunition, etc. used or acquired illegally.

Limiting the amount of legal ammunition that can be bought and retained.

Buyback programs - to get rid of or lower the number of midnight specials, assault weapons, etc.

All gun owners would need to pass a test of competence and responsibility to get a gun licence (part of which would be to pass a psychological evaluation)

A gun owner would need an up to date licence and insurance to carry on owning a gun.

Mandatory records of all sells or transfers of all firearms and immediate destruction of any that are discovered to be not recorded.

Any gun kept at home or place of work would have to be held in a secure manner (eg safe or other secure locking system). People that didn’t have an approved system would not be allowed to own a gun

If a person loses or has their gun stolen, and it is shown that they did not show due diligence in securing their weapon they would be subject to a heavy fine and/or banned from owning a gun.

Any guns would have to be presented for inspection 6 months after purchase then again one year after purchase and then every five years after that. Not presenting the gun would mean losing the owner’s gun license and being banning from owning a gun. If the gun has been lost or stolen and that has not been reported that would result in heavy fine and/or custodial sentence.

*

These would be national laws the same through all the states and a department would be set up to monitor them and make sure they are been enforced equally throughout the country.

*

These are just suggestions and if people think of improvements please post your ideas.

 

Whoa whoa whoa. This is what I mean when I said I don't like putting words in people's mouths. When did I say I would be happy and willing to wipe out a police station? You really got that from me saying I would defend if they came to my door to harm me?

This is what I mean. I'm more than happy to have a reasonable discussion, but I'm so sick and tired of wasting my time posting corrections to all the straw man arguments. I'm headed to work, and I'll respond when I get a chance if there is some reasonable debate. Nearly nothing in your post was accurate to what I said about my values in being armed over the last day. You just repeatedly attack to demonize my stance, and you don't even do it subtly. You say the most wacky extremes.

 

Of course you don't. And you're set in your ways so learning's not going to interfere with that.

Instead of asking stupid, dead end, gotcha style questions - why not open that mind and let the good vibes in???

Tools are tools, dude. It ain't rocket science. Why would you suggest we want tools for nefarious means? It's like your reality is based on your imagination. Next thing you know you'll be petitioning to take away my air impact wrench because you're concerned I might use it to spin your big toe off your foot to get you to think reasonably.

I wish.

But I digress.

Go check out Venezuelans posting up videos on YouTube about current conditions in their country. Maybe you'll learn something useful. I don't know if there's a translator or subtitles or what. (I guess there's ventajas to knowing a second language, and you can't confiscate it)

Me extraña araña que siendo de la misma telaraña me salgas con esa maña.

 

So you dont support the right to bear arms as a means to overthrow the government then?

Because you said you did, and now you're being asked to clarify what that means in practical term. You did mention a civil war between liberals and "sensible people" (still makes me laugh) earlier in the thread. So if you overthrew the government through violent means would you kill liberals or anyone who doesmt agree with you politically, or just focus on government agents?

 

Holly

That’s the problem I don’t know what your stance is because you seem unwilling to explain it, you are refusing to address the criticisms levelled at you and you ignore the questions posed.

I posed a question you seem unwilling or unable to answer it, I will repeat it –

Their seems to be a contradiction here - you seem to be saying that you wouldn’t kill police officers or your political opponents but then you say you would if they were doing what you considered ‘harm’ and that you’d be happy and willing to wipe out a whole police station if they resisted your uprising?

That question was raised because you said

So you admit you would kill cops if you thought they were doing ‘harm’ you then go on to say that the police in a police station wouldn't stand a chance implying that if gun owners like you are championing could wipe them out if they didn’t comply with their demands.

Now your argument seems to be that the police officers that you pulled a gun on would back down as would the police in the station if it was attacked by what they would see as an armed mob, which seems extremely naive or disingenuous.

Anyway I ask AGAIN – can you please explained at what point you would act, when would it be that you thought a government was acting tyrannically – when would you be willing to kill police officers?

 

We're all for and fully support your second amendment rights! We just want to make sure you don't hurt yourselves so just a couple reasonable restrictions I'm sure you all can agree with (under breath: to make it so much of a hassle that it's virtually impossible for you to obtain and keep one bwahahaha gotcha now).

We'll sign right on! I mean nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

 

You can't just go around spewing reason, logic, and facts without expecting to be attacked for it! You know there's Democrats in here and their brand is twisting words, creating alternate "facts", invoking illogical arguments that on face value come across as valid (some are real crafty this way), and working to reduce excellence to mediocrity. They want an army of automatrons who do as they're told without hesitation nor questioning. They don't want people competing for position by using intelligence, work ethic, personal conduct, morals, grooming, health habits, etc. Of course they'll say anything to get the unsuspecting people to believe they're looking out for all our best interests while in reality only considering their own. It's a real Schitt show. Why do you think they're against charter and private schools?? Same reason; it sure ain't because they want children to be all they can be! Almost all their policies decry the excellence of the people. And understandably that has appeal to mediocre minds. But if we want our country to be an excellent place for our kids and theirs, we have to actively resist this subversive form of tyranny.

There was a debate last night among the candidates competing to run against our president next year. Many of them flat out publicly accused our president of being racist with no evidence to support it. That's another example of the twisted tactics they use to poison the well being of the country and promote division. That's their game toward dominance of the people. Make up Schitt. If they gain control of everything like they're giddy about, that's when Latin America will become Yuuuge. Because there'll eventually be a mass exodus of the most productive people from here to there, and they'll create a new paradigm. Some people will not be repressed, just ask Cuban expats - some of the brightest and most productive people you can meet. It's AMF to these domineering destructive people who smile in your face while stabbing you in the back.

 

:-/

Did you go to school and witness bullying?

Were the big guys bullied?

 

I believe Holly and Trudgin support insurrection against a tyrannical government. There is a distinction.

 

Trudg

Reading that put me in mind of this quote from John Rogers

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

 

That's what I got out of him: He wants to use his gun to go against the government and other Americans! Trump has energized the extremists.