Should the United Nations Be Allowed To Disarm Amerika ??ns

Rick

Your contention is that gun control

The problem is that there seems to be more anti-government sentiment amongst armed pro-gunners than among the majority of ‘unarmed’ British.
Also there seems to be more fear of there society amongst pro-gunners (or at least many that I’ve talked) than among the brits I talk to.
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Rick

You still haven’t addressed the important question I posed above -

You were arguing that you believe civilian gun ownership somehow protected your ‘liberty’.

What I’m saying is that the false sense of power that guns can give people can give them the impression that they are a protection against government persecution - and I’m asking the question – is that true.

I mean in what way does that gun protect your ‘liberty’ from ‘government’ and has it done so in the past?

Did the Native Americans that fought back against the treaty breaking US government get the support of the American citizenry? What if the US citizens of Japanese decent had resisted the unconstitutional internment imposed on them after Pearl Harbour and had shot at the police, do you think they would have got general and popular support? What about those hauled in front of McCarthy or the un-American committees, would Americans have rallied to them if they had refused to go before such witch hunts and opened fire on those that came to take them?


Imagine a police officer comes to a gun owner’s house and finds a big bag of heroin, the homeowner knows it wasn’t there before and that the police officer must have planted it, if the person used their gun to threaten or even shoot the police officer, do you think that would make the situation better or worse for them?

My point is at what point is the gun going to be used to protect liberty?

Civilian gun ownership doesn’t seem to have been of much use in the past and it didn’t help at Ruby Ridge or Waco. My argument is that many people that are looking to the gun as protection against government suppression would be better off putting more effort into having a political system that they had confidence in and didn’t fear.

 

Rick

No - it is a disputed opinion, for example here -

Myths about Defensive Gun Use and Permissive Gun Carry Laws
http://www.bmsg.org/pdfs/myths.pdf

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But my point is that there is this perception amongst pro-gunners that guns are the thing that makes the difference, while other socio-economic factors are largely or totally ignored even when those have a much greater impact on the levels of crime in a society.

I mean if you take out gun related homicides from the US crime figures they are not that much different from those of many European countries that have gun restrictions (although it is incredible difficult to compare any crime statistics other than homicide).

This would mean that the assertion by some pro-gunners that crime would be much greater without legal gun ownership would mean that the US had far greater social problems than those other countries and that tackling those problems might have a greater impact on crime than more gun ownership.

And bless you, you actually seem to support that idea.

You point out that your chances of being a victim of crime are rather small; the victims are more likely to be associated with socio-economic problems that don’t affect you directly.

Now it is my contention that the problem with many American attitudes towards guns is that they come to see them as a as way of dealing with and also ignoring many of the social problems within their society.

And thank you, once again you actually support that theory.

Your attitude seems to be – you have a gun, so you believe you can protect yourself from the symptoms of socio-economic problems so why should you do anything to tackle those problems.

 

Scratcho

Nice rant but you don’t address anything that has been raised.

To understand what I’m saying the first thing to do is actually read what I’ve said, and if you don’t understand it, I’d be happy to go through it with you, but to just throw you hands in the air and say you just can figure it out is like a six year old saying they can’t figure out reading so they are just going to stop trying.

Just presenting something does not make it valid (and that including my theories) it is a matter of them standing up to rational scrutiny it doesn’t matter how many and how diverse the ‘arguments’ that have been presented to try and refute something what’s important is if they stand up to criticism.

I have presented theories and so far some seem to be supported by the statements of people coming to these forums.

For example look at what Rick says above –

My theory is – many people who have guns come to see them as a way and means of dealing with or ignoring socio-political problems.

Basically they do not see any urgency in dealing with the social or economic roots of crime since they are armed and believe that if a criminal comes for them they will have the means of dealing with them.

And Rick replies with a very clear “Yup”

Meaning, yes, he very clearly does supports my theory.

Are you contending that you don’t and if so why not when many statements (like Ricks) clearly do?

 

If you are defending yourself, you are already attacked.

 

Well, I've stated that centuries of restricted liberties (including gun ownership) has conditioned the Brits away from eying their government with a suspicion to blissfully suckling at the teat of a government they rely on to tell them when to piss. A significant percentage of US citizens maintain the complete opposite of that sentiment. Of course Euro-Weenie Social Democrats like Obama have eroded that individual spirit but thankfully, such bankruptcy of dignity is not yet the dominant mindset.

The pro-gun arguments about armed self defense being a legitimate response to criminal attack aren't so much statements of "fear" about society or derogatory racist statements or evidence of an uncaring attitude about the less fortunate . . . They are just oppositional arguments made in a debate regarding the power of the state to restrain the action of citizens.

You or others arguing against general gun ownership and specifically the right of citizens to defend themselves with guns are, at their core, arguments that a), you first believe the government possesses the power to disarm the citizens and b), that the security vacuum created by government disarming the citizens can be filled by government because it is a satisfactory engine to protect the citizens from criminal attack . . .

Neither of those sentiments has any basis in logic, reality or the law if the discussion is really about crime control (If the suggested disarmament is really to promote a political agenda cloaked in crime control then that is an entirely different discussion).

In the USA, police and government in general are under no duty to protect the citizen. The only circumstance when government or its agents can be said to be responsible for any person's protection is when that person is in custody or placed within a custodial service such as child services.

The legal standard across the USA is that one's personal security is the sole domain and responsibility of the individual.

Thus, arguments that government has the power (if not the duty) to disarm law-abiding citizens to "protect" society from guns is an legal absurdity dipped in logical insanity.

That you misinterpret, misunderstand and misrepresent rebuttals to your illogical, illegitimate and unlawful argument is not the pro-gun side's problem.

 

Well, let's start at the beginning . . .

Firstly, the most fundamental principles of the US Constitution and thus the government established by it are the intermingled principles of conferred powers and retained rights.

Government can only legitimately exercise the powers specifically granted to it through the Constitution -- all powers not conferred to government by the people are retained by the people.

Since no power was ever granted to government to impact in any fashion (or even contemplate for that matter) the personal arms of the private citizen, NONE EXISTS.

Secondly, government only exercises those precisely defined thus limited powers with the consent of the governed. That sounds nice and everyone superficially believes that maxim is evident when we vote but in truth it is larger than that. It is larger because "consent to be governed" is an empty concept if the people do not possess the right to rescind their consent to be governed with violence if necessary.

Nothing has transpired in the years since those unalterable principles were enshrined on paper and ratified so it is immaterial to the discussion at hand whether your question can be answered to your satisfaction today. It could be an interesting thought experiment but it is not a item worthy of discussion within the topic of discussion here.

It is interesting to note that the framers of the Constitution envisioned the "standing army" to be outnumbered ("opposed" is the word Madison used in 1788) by armed citizens by a ratio of 17-20 to 1. Today that ratio has widened to as much as 27 to 1 if upper estimates of gun ownership are accepted.

That ratio is what the framers intended to preserve with the enactment of the 2nd Amendment; whether the scope of modern armament has rendered that superiority moot is, like I said, a secondary discussion because, again, nothing has transpired that has rendered that original, unalterable component of the US liberty based system, the armed citizenry outnumbering the standing army by 20 to 1, into a legal and philosophical dead letter.

Arguing that something should be altered or removed without any authority existing to facilitate that altering or removal is just tilting at windmills . . .

 

You've got issues.

But first of all: NO ONE will take you seriously when you can't even spell the countries you're talking about. You're not being witty.

We've had a gun control thread. I mean, we've had a few. We've had, and still have, somewhere, one big one, in which I totally raped the anti gun arguments. Go read it. About the best comeback was "but guns kill people".

However, you're totally right about china. They're NOT our friends, and it's a horrible mistake that we've sent our manufacturing over there. If we cared about the economy, we'd put up red tape that makes imports ONLY feasible for things that can NOT be made here, like fruits that won't grow here.

 

I did not offer Lott as support for my statements; this paper is nothing but a rebuttal to Lott's work. I also consider this paper suspect because it was funded by the Joyce Foundation; a virulent anti-gun foundation that bankrolls all the large anti-gun organizations and also the outcome based, made to order surveys, studies and books disseminated by anti-gun establishments in academia.

I used US Dept of Justice numbers from actual FBI crime reporting to establish 170 defensive uses of guns a day.

I used US Dept of Justice numbers to establish that victims who used guns to defend against criminal attack are the least likely to get injured of any means of defense and also less likely to be injured than victims offering no defense whatsoever.

I used a paper in the public domain quoting a peer reviewed article from respected criminologists noting that criminals fear meeting armed victims more than they fear the police.

I have met the burden that it is an "indisputable fact" that criminals fear armed victims.

Which was all I was trying to do.

If I were to reduce MY argument to the simplest components, I denounce the theory that "more guns = more gun crime" and also that gun control enacted as crime control is effective.

That does not mean that I am arguing that more guns = less crime nor that I want all gun laws rescinded.

If anything, I'm the one saying that socio-economic factors and real crime fighting efforts are the leading factors in movements in the crime stats.

I'm the one arguing that gun access determined by law really doesn't make much difference either way; either very restrictive gun control to the point of complete bans to the other extreme, very little controls over ownership and use. (Which is why I brought Jamaica into the discussion!)

Well bless you, you actually seem to have put me into a pretty little box and wrapped it in gift paper with a nice bow and put me on a table inside the castle in the sky you have erected.

That are often found within leftist controlled urban hellholes that have strict gun control, yes . . .

And I view your theory as a need to characterize gun rights supporters as sadistic sociopaths who have no regard for the plight of their fellow man and only desire to rid the planet of any unwashed street urchin that has the audacity to step in their path.

And I consider such a prejudiced opinion as purely projection on your part.

That is quite a stretch. Actually (and much to your chagrin I'm certain) the reason I carry a gun sometimes has no greater significance than why I sometimes carry an umbrella . . .

It is better to have it and not need it than to be caught needing it and not have it.

 

Rick

Again your posts seem mostly made up of a mixture of bilious indignation and tangential waffle, can you try and just keep to the point by actually answering or addressing what’s being said?

You say they – ‘aren't so much statements of’ - which means they are in your view at least a part of the pro-gunners stance. This is good you have decided to buy into my argument; it is now just a matter of haggling over the amount.

The bit about – “the state to restrain the action of citizens” – falls down because you seem unable to answer the question set above asking at what point is the gun going to be used to protect you from ‘the state’?

AND again please read my posts – “To repeat yet again, I’ve got nothing against responsible and law abiding people owning a gun. And if you had read my posts - rather than getting all huffy at what I haven’t said - you’d realise that my view is that in the US the mentality that often goes with gun ownership is the big problem, as it seems to see suppression and threat as the best means of dealing with social, economic and political problems and ignores or dismisses alternatives. They see guns as a means to tackle the symptoms of the problems. And so it is not surprising that this mentality also promotes gun ownership as a means of tackling such things”.

To which you have already replied ‘yup’

 

Rick

Oh hell that post had a lot of waffle in it just to say you haven’t got an answer.

Basically you are saying that you think the US constitution should work in a way you think it should work and if it did work that way things would be fine but if it didn’t work that way ‘the people’ could bring down the government by force of arms.

The problem is at what point is the gun going to be used to protect you from a malfunctioning state?

I mean as I’ve pointed out, the America people have not risen up to curtail US government suppression in the past (even when the constitution seems to have been violated) and that on occasion the very groups that are pro-gun have actually supported such government suppression.

Try reading –

Can guns save you from suppression?
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...&postcount=217

To me the false sense of power that guns can give people can give them the impression that they are a protection against government persecution - and I’m asking the question – is that true.

You see my argument is that many people that are looking to the gun as protection against government suppression would be better off putting more effort into having a political system and society that they had confidence in and didn’t fear.

 

Rick

Your attitude seems to be – you have a gun, so you believe you can protect yourself from the symptoms of socio-economic problems so why should you do anything to tackle those problems.

So why did you basically say that was your viewpoint?

Oh more chestnuts from the pro-gunners manual. Been there got the T-shirt…

The umbrella argument –

• but a gun is not an umbrella it was not designed as a weapon, it can’t be used to threaten the rain into stopping, it cannot maim the rain or kill it, it is passive not aggressive.
• I don’t personally fear rain (or sunshine if it is being used for shade). I live in a country where it rains a lot but I don’t personally own an umbrella because I’m not that worried about getting wet, my wife does have umbrellas but she can never seem to find them and although she might not be happy to step out into rain, she’s not frightened to do so.
• Crime is not rain. Crime is a socio-economic problem, rain isn’t and fundamentally rain is a good thing, we don’t want to stop it from happening, we don’t even want to reduce the amount of rain we get. But it would be a good thing to reduce crime and the best way of doing that is by tackling the socio-economic roots of it. If you say that crime is just like rain then you are basically saying nothing can be done about it, an attitude that backs up my theories.
• I could go on but I think you and other can see how silly the comparison is.

Better to have it –

• And the reason you want it is because you are so frightened of the society you are in that you feel you need a lethal weapon to protect your self from it.

Which begs the question why not try and work toward creating a society that you were not afraid of?

 

Crime can also be a cultural issue too. Gang members and their ilk often prefer stealing and robbing over getting jobs or starting legitimate businesses.

As far as the issue of guns goes, I have some rifles I use for target shooting and hunting. Does that make me a bad person?

 

Guns are not bad.

Guns are totally morally neutral, and if someone would hurt other people with a gun, they would hurt other people with anything, for example.... a car with a full tank of gas has much more killing capacity than a gun with a full magazine.

Guns are a scapegoat, for people too lazy to tackle the problems that make people misuse guns. It's a lot easier for a politician to rail against guns than to rail against his own social policies that create job loss and desperation and other problems leading to crime.

As balbus said: crime's a socio-economic problem. What he forgot to say is that gun crime is a socio-economic problem, just like any other crime, and the solution is the same.

 

Was reading bout King William of Orange on Wilkpedia.

It says that upon His successful putsch, in 1688 ...English Parliment had him sign a Bill of Rights, one of the clauses which was Protestant men were to remain armed with thier personal weapons.

Perhaps a distant ancestor of the American fixation with personal weaponry?

For those Whigs,in 1688, it was all about keeping what you got. perhaps in America, firearm posession equates from a similar feel that you need to protect your posessions, and freedoms.

 

Or it is a lot easier for a politician to rail against ‘gun control’ than to rail against their own social policies that create job loss and desperation and other problems leading to crime.

Remember it is the right who have traditionally concentrated on “guns, god, and gays” during elections.



To me the gun issue is a symptom of a wider mental and attitudinal problem, it is about an outlook that not only colours how guns are looked at but how a wide range of other things are looked at as well.

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My theory is that there is a general attitude among many Americans that accepts threat of violence, intimidation and suppression as legitimate means of societal control and this mindset gets in the way of them actually working toward solutions to their social and political problems.

This is because that attitude colours the way they think about and view the world from personal interaction to how they see other countries.

They can come to see the world as threatening, they can feel intimidated and fear that they are or could be the victim of criminal or political suppression.

This attitude can lead to a near paranoid outlook were everything and everyone is seen as a potential threat that is just waiting to attack or repress them. This taints the way they see the government, how criminality can be dealt with, how they see their fellow citizens, differing social classes, differing ethnic groups, and even differing political philosophies or ideas.

Within the framework of such a worldview guns seem attractive as a means of ‘equalising’ the individual against what they perceive as threats, it makes them feel that they are also ‘powerful’ and intimidating and that they too, if needs be, can deal with, in other words suppress the threatening.

The problem is that such attitudes can build up an irrational barrier between reality and myth, between what they see as prudent and sensible and what actually is prudent and sensible.

 

back to the op,
that would be virtually impossible. now, another international organization that didn't already have the U.S. as a member might be able to, but chances are no.

 

The point here is not about putting guns against the government, the point here is to make the nation more strong by participating equally for you rights and helping equally for the welfare of the nation. Only then the nation will succeed to its utmost goal.

 

I address the point in the context of what is possible and what the real conditions are. Your castle in the sky theories have no relationship with what is real and implementable. You have created this mindset of American gun owners and how this drives every fiber of our being and controls how we view society and interact with it . . . I refuse to address or try to rebut such foolishness; that you want to keep pounding away at that wall with your disconnected from reality theories isn't my problem.

Yes, I'm stipulating that there is some "fear" of crime in some pro-gun arguments . . . Me saying that, certainly isn't "buying into your arguments". My mentions of crime (and of other pro-gunners I agree with) are just discussing reality and how much inequity is evident in saying that honest people should be disarmed by governmental decree and then go out and must face criminals that government can not control. I don't fear crime or society, I just reject the notion that it is legitimate for government to tell me I can not defend myself while government is so ineffective and actually bears no responsibility for securing society.

If there was some expectation that crime was being controlled and that criminal actions were being restrained perhaps I wouldn't be so resistant to the notion that government should control the law-abiding and restrain the actions of the law-abiding.

Disarming the citizenry and brutally enforcing statutory violations of the gun ban while ignoring other crimes would be a perfect example of illegitimate government action (and in some nations, that is the present situation, i.e., Jamaica). In America we are presently racing in the opposite direction, removing restraints on the actions of the law-abiding as far as guns are concerned.

Except that the reasons that they own them is because "the mentality that often goes with gun ownership is the big problem" and is only a selfish, uncaring exercise because American gun owners are so misguided that they mistake the "suppression and threat" inherent in gun ownership for liberty and self-determination. This misguided focus on the individual and embracing force as an appropriate response to force is actually a subconsious defect in cognition that views gun ownership, "as the best means of dealing with social, economic and political problems."

I mean yeah, you are a big supporter, I get that LOL.

For all your deriding of the pro-gun side for over-valuing the effect of gun ownership you sure instill a lot of power and see the fruition of a myriad of social impact motives upon simple gun ownership. Of all the extravagant descriptions of the effects of gun ownership I have ever heard from the pro-gun side, your theories are the most wide ranging and assign the greatest impact of gun ownership on society . . . Congratulations!

 

And that you think that was all waffle only demonstrates that you have no real and honest interest in the US system or condition. You clearly only desire to dwell in your fantasies about Americans and to vigorously argue against those Americans you've created. You talk about avoiding answering but you are the one who considers cut and paste your earlier posts as reasoned rebuttal to people who reply to you.

It is actually impossible to discuss this intelligently until you understand that it is immaterial to my right to arms whether there exists today a provable tactical outcome in the insurrectionist principle when the original principle remains part of the governing system.

The simple fact that US gun owners outnumber the US armed forces by 25 to 1 should give you pause but no, you have your theory and you will furiously masturbate it and remain blind to the greater issue.

I tried to explain as succinctly as I could the fundamental, original principles at work and why your argument is tangential at best. As I said, nothing has transpired that has altered that principle and goofy theories of why it doesn't apply in modern times are just useless diversions.

I'll know it when I see it . . .

Perhaps, but the principle is still there.

I've read it, I remain unmoved and nothing you state there alters the original principle so again, it is a useless diversion.

Well, it is definitely, without a doubt and indisputably true that you feel that gun ownership gives Americans a false sense of power.

As to whether your feeling is true, I'm going to offer a big NO for myself.

Jeez . . . A statement about crime being a reason I'm armed isn't a statement that I "fear" crime or the dysfunctional society that breeds criminals . . . A statement that a primary foundational principle of the 2nd Amendment is so the people can throw off a tyrannical government doesn't mean that I am looking to my gun to protect me from the tax man, the zoning board or the local cop . . .

Your theories and feelings are entirely products of your prejudices about Americans and ignorance of the US system.