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Guns and stuff

Post #1

Post by 2ndRateMind »

One's heart goes out the bereft relatives and blameless wounded of Las Vegas. And one's prayers for the innocent dead.

Yet, one notices that this is hardly an isolated occurrence. Quite why civilians need a right to buy and bear arms in the form of automatic assault weapons evades me. The more that are sold, the more likely they will fall into the hands of the mentally unstable, the criminal, and the downright malicious. No civilised country could or should or would tolerate such lax gun laws for long.

Best wishes, 2RM.

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Post #61

Post by Bust Nak »

bluethread wrote: Federal government is empowered by the Constitution to secure the borders and arbitrates disputes between the states. It is also empowered to muster sufficient troops to fulfill those duties and enforce the judgements related to those arbitrations. Apart from that the responsibility for maintaining order is reserved to the various states and the people respectively.
Right, where does private gun ownership factor in this? Your state cannot afford to armed its militia?
I have never called for mandatory gun ownership. However, part of the reason that members of the government armed forces and state approved constabulary hold that view is the understanding that the maintenance of order requires the cooperation of the citizenry.
Okay, but that still doesn't tell me who are you are going to shoot, if the military is already on your side.
Well, you are the only one in this conversation who has suggested assassination. I have spoken to the concept of tyranny, and as I have also stated, the overthrow of tyranny does not necessary lead to the empowering of despot.
The record shows otherwise. See post#33. You joined mid conversation.

Besides, whether I was the only one or not, your comment still a red herring, given I made it clear the context is assassination.
Yes, constitutional democratic republicanism does provide a great degree of protection against tyranny. However, Great Britain's form of democracy has been developed incrementally as their empire waned. This is primarily do to armed conflicts with the citizenry outside of England. Also, Australia has had the luxury of isolation and were the beneficiaries of the waning of England's power that was put in motion by our armed rebellion. So, the cultural contexts in England and Australia are different. In short, the experiment continues and if one believes that the Anglican approach is the best, the solution, in these United States is a constitutional amendment. Disarming the citizenry by extraconstitutional means is itself an overthrow of our current form of government.
Right you are, it is a cultual problem. Fix the culture, amend the constitution, do it without threatening to shoot anyone.
The odds of overthrowing the government aren't good, however, the odds of deterring government overreach are good. An armed citizenry causes the government to hesitate in imposing it's will one the citizenry, this provides the opportunity for less immediate solutions to take effect, i.e. negotiations, elections, law suits, etc.
Does it really though? The threat of being voted out in the next election is the one main cause for the government to hesitate in imposing it's will on the citizenry. It far outweight the threat of an armed uprising.
The first thing that tyrants do is disarm the citizenry. This permits them the ability to use the force of arms to strip away those other less immediate solutions.
The problem here, and the meat of my whole counter argument, is that your guns can't stop the force of arms to disarm the citizenry in the first place, not when we are talking about the US military. The only thing you can do is to stop the US armed forces from turning on you in the first place. You do that primarily with education of the citizenry, from which you draw your soliders and law makers. The US is already doing a fine job in that aspect. The system is at worse, on par with the Anglican approach as you called it - you don't need guns to fight domestic tyranny, and you already have the army for external ones.
So, it is the threat of armed resistance that assures the citizenry the right to redress of grievances. The fact that it rarely comes to that does not mean that it is not significant, but rather establishes that it is significant.
Again, who exactly are you gonna shoot when the citizenry have a grievances against the state? It has never came to that because there are more effective ways: The threat of your guns is insignificant compared to your power to vote.

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Post #62

Post by Rufus21 »

bluethread wrote: ...Waco and Ruby Ridge became rallying cries for those who would reign in federal overreach.
They were also a rallying cry for those who want to keep massive numbers of firearms out of the hands of mentally ill people. Those events were double-edged swords.

bluethread wrote: So, "rednecks" are imprisoned and antifa(ree speech) activists are allowed to destroy public and private property.
Are anarchists allowed to run free? Are they not being arrested for the senseless destruction and injuries they cause? Are their actions not being denounced? I mean, it's not like they are marching through the streets with semi-auto weapons screaming about murder and genocide, running over people with their cars while the government blames both sides for the violence.

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Post #63

Post by bluethread »

Rufus21 wrote:
bluethread wrote: ...Waco and Ruby Ridge became rallying cries for those who would reign in federal overreach.
They were also a rallying cry for those who want to keep massive numbers of firearms out of the hands of mentally ill people. Those events were double-edged swords.

bluethread wrote: So, "rednecks" are imprisoned and antifa(ree speech) activists are allowed to destroy public and private property.
Are anarchists allowed to run free? Are they not being arrested for the senseless destruction and injuries they cause? Are their actions not being denounced? I mean, it's not like they are marching through the streets with semi-auto weapons screaming about murder and genocide, running over people with their cars while the government blames both sides for the violence.
Marching through the streets is protected speech subject to proper time and place limitations. Also, the carrying of weapons, whether they be semi-auto or knives and clubs is also subject to time and place limitations. Screaming about murder and genocide in general is protected speech, as long as there is no direct threat. The one individual who drove the vehicle into the crowd was arrested and charged. If the white supremacist marchers can be blamed for him, why can't the counter protesters by blamed for the actions of antifa. Maybe we should outlaw sports cars, since one was used as a deadly weapon in that case. Regarding antifa, it was reported that no one was arrested in that UC Berkley riot last February and, without getting into the weeds, several similar cases have been handled with stand down and hold orders. So, it appears that many think that simply carrying a gun should not be protected, while actual rioting and destruction is not the fault of the one engaging in such activities, but the fault of those that they oppose.

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Post #64

Post by Rufus21 »

bluethread wrote: The one individual who drove the vehicle into the crowd was arrested and charged. If the white supremacist marchers can be blamed for him, why can't the counter protesters by blamed for the actions of antifa.
The individual who drove the car was a white supremacist. Most of the counter protesters, including the ones that were killed and injured, were not members of antifa. Many of them were just local residents and clergy members. Why blame a peaceful group for the actions of an unrelated violent group?

bluethread wrote: So, it appears that many think that simply carrying a gun should not be protected, while actual rioting and destruction is not the fault of the one engaging in such activities, but the fault of those that they oppose.
Perhaps that's being a bit dramatic?

There is no problem when people are simply carrying a gun. It happens every day all across the world. The problem comes when groups with a long history of violence are screaming about genocide, committing murder, and terrorizing their communities. At what point do we stop protecting threats from a groups who's entire mission is to kill people?

And should we not expect that kind of behavior to be met with equal and opposite behavior? Hate breeds hate, violence breeds violence.

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Post #65

Post by bluethread »

Bust Nak wrote:
Okay, but that still doesn't tell me who are you are going to shoot, if the military is already on your side.
Whoever threatens me or my family without due process. All gun owners are asking for is that they be left alone.
Well, you are the only one in this conversation who has suggested assassination. I have spoken to the concept of tyranny, and as I have also stated, the overthrow of tyranny does not necessary lead to the empowering of despot.
The record shows otherwise. See post#33. You joined mid conversation.

Besides, whether I was the only one or not, your comment still a red herring, given I made it clear the context is assassination.
Sorry, I was talking about the conversation between you and me, not the general discussion. To that point, I do not think that the purpose of the second amendment is to facilitate assassinations. It is to resist the imposition of tyranny in general. It is a resistance measure, not a proactive measure.
Yes, constitutional democratic republicanism does provide a great degree of protection against tyranny. However, Great Britain's form of democracy has been developed incrementally as their empire waned. This is primarily do to armed conflicts with the citizenry outside of England. Also, Australia has had the luxury of isolation and were the beneficiaries of the waning of England's power that was put in motion by our armed rebellion. So, the cultural contexts in England and Australia are different. In short, the experiment continues and if one believes that the Anglican approach is the best, the solution, in these United States is a constitutional amendment. Disarming the citizenry by extraconstitutional means is itself an overthrow of our current form of government.
Right you are, it is a cultual problem. Fix the culture, amend the constitution, do it without threatening to shoot anyone.
My point was that, if one wishes to take armed resistance off of the table, one must change the constitution. Currently, according to the constitution, armed resistance to tyranny is the primary justification for the right to keep and bear arms. It is a last resort measure, but it is an option.
The odds of overthrowing the government aren't good, however, the odds of deterring government overreach are good. An armed citizenry causes the government to hesitate in imposing it's will one the citizenry, this provides the opportunity for less immediate solutions to take effect, i.e. negotiations, elections, law suits, etc.
Does it really though? The threat of being voted out in the next election is the one main cause for the government to hesitate in imposing it's will on the citizenry. It far outweight the threat of an armed uprising.
No, that does not outweight the threat of an armed uprising. It poses a more credible threat in the current climate. However, should the credibility of elections be undermined, as Hillary, Rachel and others suggest, armed resistance serves as a credible fall back position and it appears that some on the left agree with that. However, let's not bother with them, because they are PC, right?
The first thing that tyrants do is disarm the citizenry. This permits them the ability to use the force of arms to strip away those other less immediate solutions.
The problem here, and the meat of my whole counter argument, is that your guns can't stop the force of arms to disarm the citizenry in the first place, not when we are talking about the US military. The only thing you can do is to stop the US armed forces from turning on you in the first place. You do that primarily with education of the citizenry, from which you draw your soliders and law makers. The US is already doing a fine job in that aspect. The system is at worse, on par with the Anglican approach as you called it - you don't need guns to fight domestic tyranny, and you already have the army for external ones.
At the moment and in general. However, I believe that it is the fact that we have an armed citizenry, with a history of private arms ownership, initially including battleships, that has preserved the principle of domestic nonintervention on the part of the military. The tendency for the government to violate this principle, i.e. Kent State and Waco, has been held at bay, not by the decrease in private arms ownership, but the increase in private arms ownership.
So, it is the threat of armed resistance that assures the citizenry the right to redress of grievances. The fact that it rarely comes to that does not mean that it is not significant, but rather establishes that it is significant.
Again, who exactly are you gonna shoot when the citizenry have a grievances against the state? It has never came to that because there are more effective ways: The threat of your guns is insignificant compared to your power to vote.
Again, whoever threatens me or my family without due process, after other options have been exhausted. Yes, an armed citizenry is the option of last resort. However, if that option is preemptively removed, it is much more difficult, if not impossible, to reestablish that option. The bottom line is does one wish to take responsibility for one's own security, or does one wish to delegate that to a government instituted among men, who have their own priorities and may not realize that they derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

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Post #66

Post by Rufus21 »

bluethread wrote:
Again, who exactly are you gonna shoot when the citizenry have a grievances against the state?
Again, whoever threatens me or my family without due process, after other options have been exhausted.
What about if they have followed due process? You mentioned Waco and Ruby Ridge already. I remember the Cliven Bundy standoff as well. In each of those cases the government had been in contact with the individuals for a long time in order to peacefully resolve the illegal activity they were involved in. Unfortunately, sometimes a few fanatics can ruin it for the honest folks.

In the case of the LV shooter, he had at least 47 guns with him. Can we all agree that an individual citizen should not need that many weapons for the purposes of self defense? Perhaps if he was a collector, perhaps if 20-30 people were with him, but not for individual self defense.

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Post #67

Post by bluethread »

Rufus21 wrote:
bluethread wrote: The one individual who drove the vehicle into the crowd was arrested and charged. If the white supremacist marchers can be blamed for him, why can't the counter protesters by blamed for the actions of antifa.
The individual who drove the car was a white supremacist. Most of the counter protesters, including the ones that were killed and injured, were not members of antifa. Many of them were just local residents and clergy members. Why blame a peaceful group for the actions of an unrelated violent group?
Well, it appears that CNN has no problem doing that. In it's article on Charlottesville, they quoted Mark Naison, a political activist and history professor at Fordham University in New York City, saying, ""We are a country with a few million passionate white supremacists -- and tens of millions of white supremacists by default," So, it is ok to blame local citizens and clergy who just went about their lives, along with all of those who took part in a demonstration against the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, because some neo-Nazi's took part? Remember this was originally about a statue. Yet, because there were local citizens and clergy in the counter demonstration, they are not to blame for the members of Antifa who took part? Why don't we just call those who engaged in violence thugs, regardless of their ideology and then discuss the ideologies on there merits.
bluethread wrote: So, it appears that many think that simply carrying a gun should not be protected, while actual rioting and destruction is not the fault of the one engaging in such activities, but the fault of those that they oppose.
Perhaps that's being a bit dramatic?

There is no problem when people are simply carrying a gun. It happens every day all across the world. The problem comes when groups with a long history of violence are screaming about genocide, committing murder, and terrorizing their communities. At what point do we stop protecting threats from a groups who's entire mission is to kill people?

And should we not expect that kind of behavior to be met with equal and opposite behavior? Hate breeds hate, violence breeds violence.
Your lumping together gun rights with genocide, murder and terror is not a bit dramatic? Violence breeds violence was the justification that the Neo-Nazis used when they were threatened by Antifa. Regarding the nature of the speech, that has already been determine by the supreme court. We stop protecting threats when they "inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace". Note that we can not do this preemptively and ignore the context. Also, it has been decided that this rule does not apply when such can be avoided by other means, i.e. a police presence or time and place restrictions. In short, the phrase "hate speech", as it is commonly used, does not constitute "fighting words". There must also be a credible and immediate threat that can not be mitigated by other means.

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Post #68

Post by bluethread »

Rufus21 wrote:
bluethread wrote:
Again, who exactly are you gonna shoot when the citizenry have a grievances against the state?
Again, whoever threatens me or my family without due process, after other options have been exhausted.
What about if they have followed due process? You mentioned Waco and Ruby Ridge already. I remember the Cliven Bundy standoff as well. In each of those cases the government had been in contact with the individuals for a long time in order to peacefully resolve the illegal activity they were involved in. Unfortunately, sometimes a few fanatics can ruin it for the honest folks.
That is true. However, I did say after other options have been exhausted. Let's not muddy this up with the multitude of issues related to each incident. The issue is the right to keep and bear arms as a last resort remedy to tyranny.
In the case of the LV shooter, he had at least 47 guns with him. Can we all agree that an individual citizen should not need that many weapons for the purposes of self defense? Perhaps if he was a collector, perhaps if 20-30 people were with him, but not for individual self defense.
Can we all agree that ownership of the guns is just one of the issues? Steve Wynn said, the Las Vegas shooter's behavior "would have triggered a whole bunch of alarms here", not the least of which is he didn't let anyone in the room for two or three days. There are a lot of unanswered questions around that case and they are being investigated. Before we start using this case to support all kinds of legislation, maybe we should wait to find out all of the details.

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Post #69

Post by Rufus21 »

bluethread wrote: Your lumping together gun rights with genocide, murder and terror is not a bit dramatic?
I don’t believe I did that. I said that ordinary people owning and carrying guns is not a problem. You complained that "rednecks" were being arrested while Antifa runs free, so I pointed out that Antifa members are being arrested while murderous racists are only receiving vague disapproval from our president.

bluethread wrote: Why don't we just call those who engaged in violence thugs, regardless of their ideology and then discuss the ideologies on there merits.
Okay, let’s do that.

The white supremacists are violent thugs. Their goal is to commit genocide.
The members of Antifa are violent thugs. Their goal is to stop racism through intimidation and violence.
The peaceful protesters are not thugs. Their goal is to preserve confederate monuments that symbolize racism.
The peaceful counter-protesters are not thugs. Their goal is to stop racism passively.

I think a lot of people conflate the supremacists and the confederate flag/statue supporters because they are both fighting for things that represent racism. I know that many people do not think that the flag/monuments are symbols of racism because they apply their own personal meanings to them, but the real meaning of these symbols cannot be ignored.

bluethread wrote: Violence breeds violence was the justification that the Neo-Nazis used when they were threatened by Antifa.
Perhaps they should have said “Violence breeds violence breeds more violence.� It seems a little hypocritical to be a violent hate group that blames your anger on your critics. Sort of a chicken-egg situation if you ask me.

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Post #70

Post by Rufus21 »

bluethread wrote: Can we all agree that ownership of the guns is just one of the issues?
Not only is it the main issue, it is the defining characteristic. Men with guns are like women with cats. If you meet a lady who owns a cat you think, “Oh, that’s nice. She has a pet.� If the woman has 3 cats you say, “Okay, this lady really likes cats.� If the woman has 10 cats you think, “Yikes, this a warning sign.� If the woman is living with 42 cats you immediately call the men in white coats.

And that’s my fool-proof solution to recognizing dangerous lunatics (both male and female). You’re welcome America.

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