Are all hippies anti-gun?

I haven't got a switchblade, as they are illegal in the UK (and many other places, I think).

I don't really see the point of such a ban, though. I can see that having a switchblade might be an advantage in a knife-fight (if one person can open their knife before the other), but for a criminal wanting to rob someone, an ordinary kitchen knife seems to be quite adequate (after all, the victim won't be armed, because that would be illegal).

On the other hand, I can think of a few situations where a knife that could be opened one-handed would be useful. (E.g. if you were in a car-crash, and your seat-belt was stuck, one hand was injured, and you needed to cut yourself free. Okay, that doesn't happen very often, but its not inconceivable.)

A friend of mine at university had a switchblade. (She was Italian; I guess they are legal there, and that she had brought it here without realising it was banned). She was a very sweet, gentle girl, and would never hurt anyone.


As for the other weapons you mentioned...
I'm pretty libertarian, and generally dislike the idea of banning something just because its "unnecessary" or potentially abusabe. However, as an anti-aircraft missile could be very dangerous if misused, and has no use for ordinary people, I would accept a ban on them. (Guns on the other hand are less potentially dangerous, and in my opinion can have vitally important uses in self-defence).


As for nukes:

I believe attacking other people is wrong, although if someone attacks you first, it can be acceptable to use force to defend yourself, including potentially lethal force, if the attacker is trying to kill you or do something comparably abhorent, e.g. rape.

A gun cannot harm someone unless it is fired, and can be fired without harming anyone. And in circumstances where lethal force is moraly justified, it can be used to defend yourself or others.


On the other hand, if you set off a nuke, you will be simultaneously attacking everyone in a 10 to 20 mile radius, and creating pollution that will harm others for decades to come. And if the person you are nuking is far enough away that you wont also nuke yourself, then by definition they are too far away to have been a threat to you. So there can never be a moral justification for setting off a nuke, so banning them is perfectly acceptable to me.


In summery:
Knives and guns can be abused, can be life-saving, and can be entierly neutral, and so are reasonable to own. Anti-aircraft weapons could be abused, have no obvious legitimate use, and so on balance can reasonably be banned. Using a nuke can never be morally justified, and so are rightly banned.

 

yea in a perfect world we dont need any weapons , but in reality they have been useful in many situations .

 

or is it?



NICKEL MINES, Pa. - A milk-truck driver carrying three guns and a childhood grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three of them before committing suicide.

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At least seven other victims were critically wounded, authorities said.

It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County's bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent.

Most of the victims had been shot execution-style at point-blank range after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said.

"This is a horrendous, horrific incident for the Amish community. They're solid citizens in the community. They're good people. They don't deserve ... no one deserves this," State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.

The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 31-year-old truck driver from the nearby town of Bart, was bent on killing young girls as a way of "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago" when he was a boy, Miller said.

Miller refused to say what that long-ago hurt was.

Roberts was not Amish and appeared to have nothing against the Amish community, Miller said. Instead, Miller said, he apparently picked the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.

The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.

Miller said Roberts was apparently preparing for a long siege, arming himself with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a rifle, along with a bag of about 600 rounds of ammunition, two cans of smokeless powder, two knives and a stun gun on his belt. He also had rolls of tape, various tools and a change of clothes.

Roberts had left several rambling notes to his wife and three children that Miller said were "along the lines of suicide notes." The gunman also called his wife during the siege by cell phone to tell her he was getting even for some long-ago offense, according to Miller.

From the suicide notes and telephone calls, it was clear Roberts was "angry at life, he was angry at God," Miller said. And it was clear from interviews with his co-workers at the dairy that his mood had darkened in recent days and he had stopped chatting and joking around with fellow employees and customers, the officer said.

Miller said that Roberts had been scheduled to take a random drug test on Monday. But the officer said it was not clear what role that may have played in the attack.

Miller said investigators were looking into the possibility the attack may have been related to the death of one of Roberts' own children. According to an obituary, Roberts and his wife, Marie, lost a daughter shortly after she was born in 1997.

As rescue workers and investigators tromped over the surrounding farmland, looking for evidence around this tiny village about 55 miles west of Philadelphia, dozens of people in traditional plain Amish clothing watched — the men in light-colored shirts, dark pants and broad-brimmed straw farmer's hats, the women in bonnets and long dark dresses.

Reporters were kept away from the school after the shooting, and the Amish were reluctant to speak with the media, as is their custom.

The victims were members of the Old Order Amish. Lancaster County is home to some 20,000 Old Order Amish, who eschew automobiles, electricity, computers, fancy clothes and most other modern conveniences, live among their own people, and typically speak a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch.

Bob Allen, a clerk at a bookstore in the Amish country tourist town of Intercourse, said residents see the area as being safe and the Amish as peaceful people. "It just goes to show there's no safe place. There's really no such thing," he said.

The shooting took place at the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School, a neat white building set amid green fields, with a square white horse fence around the schoolyard. The school had about 25 to 30 students, ages 6 to 13.

According to investigators, Roberts walked his children to the school bus stop, then backed his truck up to the Amish school, unloaded his weapons and several pieces of lumber, and walked in around 10 a.m. He released about 15 boys, a pregnant woman and three women with babies, Miller said.

He barricaded the doors with two-by-fours and two-by-sixes nailed into place, piled-up desks and flexible plastic ties; made the remaining girls line up along a blackboard; and tied their feet together with wire ties and plastic ties, Miller said.

The teacher and another adult at the school fled to a farmhouse nearby, and someone there called 911 to report a gunman holding students hostage.

Roberts apparently called his wife around 11 a.m., saying he was taking revenge for an old grudge, Miller said. Moments later, Roberts told a dispatcher he would open fire on the children if police didn't back away from the building. Within seconds, troopers heard gunfire. They smashed the windows to get inside, and found his body.

Miller said he had no immediate evidence that the victims were sexually assaulted.

Killed were two students, and a female teacher's aide who was 15 or 16 years old, authorities said.

No one answered the door at Roberts' small, one-story home on Tuesday afternoon. Children's toys were strewn on the porch and in the yard.

A family spokesman, Dwight LeFever, read a short statement from Roberts' wife that said, in part, "Our hearts are broken, our lives are shattered, and we grieve for the innocence and lives that were lost today. Above all, please pray for the families who lost children and please pray too for our family and children."

The shootings were disturbingly similar to an attack last week at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., where a man singled out several girls as hostages in a school classroom and then killed one of them and himself. Authorities said the man in Colorado sexually molested the girls.

"If this is some kind of a copycat, it's horrible and of concern to everybody, all law enforcement," said Monte Gore, undersheriff of Park County, Colo.

Miller, though, said he believed the Pennsylvania attack was not a copycat crime: "I really believe this was about this individual and what was going on inside his head."

On Friday, a school principal was shot to death in Cazenovia, Wis. A 15-year-old student, described as upset over a reprimand, was charged with murder.

The Pennsylvania attack was the deadliest school shooting since a teenager went on a rampage last year on an Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minn., killing 10 people in all, including five students, a teacher, a security guard and himself.

Nationwide, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., remains the deadliest school shooting, with 15 dead, including the two teenage gunmen.

In Pennsylvania's insular Amish country, the outer world has intruded on occasion. In 1999, two Amish men were sent to jail for buying cocaine from a motorcycle gang and selling it to young people in their community.

There were four murders in Lancaster County in 2005, including the killings of a non-Amish couple were shot to death in their Lititz home in November by their daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend.

Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm in Cleveland, said the Colorado and Pennsylvania crimes underscore the lesson that no school is automatically safe from an attack.

"These incidents can happen to a one-classroom schoolhouse to a large urban school," he said. "The only thing that scares me more than an armed intruder in a school is school and safety officials who believe it can't happen here."
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Maybe its the institutions fault!

Guns are made for killing, and thats it, if you want to hunt, use a bow.

Anyone who uses a gun is a wuss.

Schools are made for brainwashing, if you want to learn something, read a book and/or just do it.

Screw all forms of Institution!!!!!!!

 

Hahahahaha!

I actually laughed out loud!

 

LOL, as I'm drinking coffee, caffeinated as you so rightly guessed, maybe I should switch?

 

Maybe we should arm the schools,give Sally a gun?Make a hell of an exciting game of tag.

 

speaking to the original question, I can't speak for "hippies" because I wouldn't want to speak for anyone, plus who's to say if I'm what is even considered a "hippie", but I can say that I hate guns. when I see them and if i am around people with guns I become instantly nervous and on edge. I grew up with people who just love guns. and I have seen nothing good come from guns in my life except food (for those of us who are not vegitarian or vegan). using guns for food is o.k. as far as I'm concerned it seems much safer these days to get your food from the natural source than the store. so anyhow yeah, I hate guns and wish I could change the new conceal and carry law in my state that I voted against.

 

So only adults need guns for protection and the kids are left defenseless?

 

I;m not allowed to own anyway-I have allows wondired how a person could develope love of guns-There is the Fruedian aspect to it!-Old Dad are ya listenin?-HAHA-During the glroious days of peace and love in San Francisco I was held up with a gun to the face; on two occasions.So; if I had a gun on me I would have used it but I didn;t and that idiot went on to rob again-A heoin slave don;t need to be killed-Their life has been one big pressure coocker anyway-Guns look good with flower sticking out of them-Hey! Another Frueidian slipup-

 

i guess if we're gonna sacrafice them due to our paranoia we might as well let them shoot each other instead.Like i said,hell of a game of tag.

 

I came back to check on this thread, and what do I see?

Strawmen arguments and other types, such as:

Argumentum ad nauseam

Cum hoc ergo propter hoc

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

Dicto simpliciter

The use of these Latin terms are not intended to make me appear more intelligent, or knowledgeable, as anyone with the internet and a google search can learn to understand these. If you don't know what they mean, look them up, then come back and post.

Please, do it for the good of the internet.

 

Well, I wasn't, but I am now.

Let's see, the thread topic is, "Are all Hippies anti-gun". In this old hippies' opinion guns, from the smallest handgun to artillery, are instruments of violence. And don't give me that crap about needing to get food. A couple years before I was born (maybe earlier), agriculture and domestication of animals were developed, and are now wide spread. And don't give me that crap about defending yourself. Haven't heard of a gun owner defending him(her)self against a pack of wolves. And don't give me that crap about getting a gun to defend yourself against someone else with a gun, who then gets a bigger gun, then so do you, then more guns ... that's called an arms race and can easily lead to a lot more violence, and that's not good.

By the way, Sigmund Freud in fact did address violence in his essay "Civilization and Its Discontents" was originally published in 1930. I disagree with his conclusions, but what the hell do I know.

But anyway, it's hard to get a lot of folks to agree on what a hippie is, but most of us agree on some things that disqualify someone from being a hippie. And I think doing or supporting anything that leads to violence, or tools of violence is a disqualifier.

So, "Are all Hippies anti-gun"? I'd say yes. Are pro-gun people hippies? In my opinion - no.

But, like I said, that's just this old hippies' opinion.

Peace,
poor_old_dad

 

Generally Hippies are against guns, but back in the 60's when that was put in action the crime wasn't like it is today. I would use a gun for protection if it was there, but only last resort. I'd never just have one because I feel it is a symbol for power, and the two roots of evil are people trying to overpower people and money. I wish there wasn't a need for them, but I'd much rather kill someone with my bow if I had to kill.

 

ha ha ha ha

 

for sure they're the only ones who do. i am wondering what nationality you are my dear. maybe i can make you reconsider your incredibly biased post?

 

Maybe not wolves, but definitely bears.

Do you really think it happens like that, like in some Bugs Bunny versus Daffy Duck cartoon?

As many as 200,000 women use a gun every year to defend themselves against sexual abuse. - SOURCE: Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime," at 185.

Armed citizens kill more crooks than do the police. Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606). - SOURCE: Kleck, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, (1991):111-116, 148.

And readers of Newsweek learned that "only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The 'error rate' for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high." - SOURCE: George F. Will, "Are We 'a Nation of Cowards'?," Newsweek (15 November 1993):93.

Justice Department study:

* 3/5 of felons polled agreed that "a criminal is not going to mess around with a victim he knows is armed with a gun."

* 74% of felons polled agreed that "one reason burglars avoid houses when people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime."

* 57% of felons polled agreed that "criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police."

- SOURCE: U.S., Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, "The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons," Research Report (July 1985): 27

I disagree that firearms lead to violence, humans are, and always have been violent towards each other.

Let's say you could magic away all weapons in the hands of the general population somehow. New ones could easily still be made (zip guns, CNC machined AR15/AK47 rifles), or if no new weapons were made, then the strong unarmed people would be able to control and harm the weaker unarmed people.

N.B

A good portion of this post used material from http://www.gunowners.org/sk0802.htm , so I thought it best to adknowledge them.

 

^^^good post! i like the fact that criminal acts are deterred by the knowledge of gun ownership. but i don't like the fact that it says that a good percentage of citizens with guns kill simple robbers. obviously cops shoot less robbers, cuz the cops job is not to kill, its to protect. they have an obligation to protect both the innocent citizen and the robber, so he/she can be sent to trial.

I'm anti-violence, not anti-gun.

do i think you could own a gun and never harm another living thing-yes.

do i think that many people own guns for the soul purpose of harming another living thing-yes.

do i think that its right to shoot someone intruding in your house-no

do i know of another option-yes, alarm systems scare off intruders, and also inform authorities.

 

Yes, it is definitely worthwhile having a decent alarm and locks fitted.

I'd like to say that I do appreciate that most people here seem to be genuinely good-natured, rational people, and that is admirable.

Many thanks to those of you who are conversing and debating politely.

 

I hate guns myself, but the reality is that I don't want our government/police being the only ones with rights to carry them...that's a very scary thought. I think that we should have the right to bare arms if we choose.