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Leave George Zimmerman alone!

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Guns may be an equlizer, and I would love to have a gun if I was about to be attacked. But to make it legal for citizens to own guns is a recipe for social disaster.

Reality begs to disagree. Some of the US states with the highest gun ownership rates are also the most peaceful.

I guess reality is a gun toting lunatic. Ban reality. Or at least get it off the Internet. Reality and porn. For the children.

 

The notion that "a greater percentage of gun owners get shot, therefor if I buy a gun, I become more likely to be shot" defies Logic. You're just replacing logical thought with association. Edited by Nicky
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@Harrison: Are you arguing that it's just as effective to kill a person with [bare hands, knives, crowbars, etc] than with guns? If that were true, guns wouldn't be necessary tools at all- not even for our military.

Yes, it is exactly as effective to kill A person (singular) with anything on hand, provided either that you have the element of surprise or that they are unarmed.  War is different from murder; the requirements for killing are accordingly different.

 

Notice the distinct lack of muggings committed with tanks.

 

Do you see a massive problem of switchblade violence in the US or the UK where these items are banned?

There was a switchblade problem at my high school.

There was one day when I was walking down the hall with a friend of mine when this guy started walking towards us, and my friend smiled and offered him a high-five.

He had a razorblade tucked between his fingers, which slashed this kid's hand up right in front of the cameras.  (Later I found out it was over a girl)

 

So anyway, the answer to your question is 'yes'.

 

You say I view guns as an unnatural object - you are right - I do view them this way because they are designed to end human life with no other purpose. Only law enforcement and military people should have access to such technology.

First of all, there are other purposes for guns: hunting, fishing, killing large and aggressive spiders, releasing a man who is being hanged to death, disposal of whiskey bottles, disposal of bad literature, disabling the tires of my enemies, weighing down papers, propping up wobbly tables, emptying aquariums quickly and zero-G propulsion, just to name a few.

 

Second of all, if the government has all of the guns and regular citizens have none, what happens if the government decides to hurt its citizens?

 

 

With America's irrational gun culture however, a ban may be ineffective because in the short term, only law abiding citizens would hand guns in to the police.

Agreed.

 

As for the nature of this gun culture, I don't think it's actually about guns, at all.  Guns are simply tools.

This 'gun culture' is nothing more than a freedom-loving culture and it is based on the implicit premises that objects have no inherent moral value, that weapons may be used aggressively or defensively and that every human being alive has the right to use them defensively.

 

And if you outlaw guns then what will you do with all of your empty liquor bottles?  Collect them?

Smash them and use the jagged necks to rob people, obviously!  So after we outlaw guns and knives, we must next outlaw liquor!  And after liquor comes razorblades; we'll all be furry and safe, together!

 

Eventually you'll have to put everyone on Earth into their own padded play-pen of safety.  Do you realize that?

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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The notion that "a greater percentage of gun owners get shot, therefor if I buy a gun, I become more likely to be shot" defies Logic. You're just replacing logical thought with association.

If you buy a gun, you are actually more likely to be shot- IF YOU ARE STOOPID.

 

These statistics, which correlate gun ownership to gunshot wounds?  We need to cross-reference them with: propensity to play with loaded guns, gang membership, active military service and propensity to leave loaded guns lying around.

 

I think we'll find astonishing results.

 

Edit:  Not to imply that our soldiers are by any means stupid, but that they are more likely to be shot than I am.  Occupational hazard.

Gang members are both more likely to be shot and stoopid.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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It must sound radical for an American to hear of the police not carrying guns, but this is the result of not having a gun culture: a more peaceful society.

Nope; sounds like effective anarchy.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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I'm not aware of any knife bans. Source?

Automatic knives are banned in certain states and are banned from being carried in a few more. The thing is, automatic knives are no more deadly than completely legal folding blades which, nowadays, are just as fast (or faster) to open than automatic knives. They were banned because there was a perception that gangsters carried them. It's a completely irrational law that does literally nothing.

Edited by oso
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I was aware of those bans. I worked in firearms retail and we sold a few knives, too. We couldn't sell butterfly knives because our state bans them. We couldn't sell automatic knives. But knives with side-stud levers and spring-assisting mechanisms are as legal as cardboard.

Anyway, I guess I got the impression that she meant there was a ban on all knives - that seemed to present a better mirror for her argument that all guns should be banned. In any event, people in my state were once allowed to conceal any blade shorter than 6", and larger blades were not themselves banned. Concealed blades of all lengths have been permitted for at least a year or two.

Edited by FeatherFall
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"Gun culture" is a vague term to me because American culture is so diverse - where I live I don't think there is a "gun culture" except perhaps some guns in households, but nothing so far as there is a lot of talk about guns. I'm not opposed to regulation on gun ownership, provided that there is a means to judge a responsible gun owner versus an irresponsible gun owner. I'd even like such regulation because guns are weapons for killing, which no one has a right to do at all except in limited circumstances like self-defense. When it comes to Zimmerman, I'm undecided if he is an example of an irresponsible gun owner.

"First of all, there are other purposes for guns"
There is an essential purpose to guns, which is killing or causing severe bodily harm. You could use a gun as a paperweight, but that is nonessential. In fact, the whole point of gun ownership is about a right to self-defense, so bringing up anything besides killing or harm is dodging the main issue of contention. I do not understand how anyone could claim the purpose of a gun is anything but the use of force, which I think deserves regulation.

"Second of all, if the government has all of the guns and regular citizens have none, what happens if the government decides to hurt its citizens?"
Doesn't matter either way, there are tanks, jet planes, drones (!), armies, etc. The government is made of its people, so that threat is only sensible to be concerned over when there is actually totalitarianism. You can just as well ask "what if someone decides to hurt you with a gun that they acquired legally?" You're dead unless you have a gun. That's where regulation comes in - make it so that it's highly unlikely that any gun owner would be so irrational to go blasting people. When only responsible people have guns, I wouldn't be worried.

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[...]

Second of all, if the government has all of the guns and regular citizens have none, what happens if the government decides to hurt its citizens?

 

We've been over this. While the self-defense argument for guns might hold water in certain contexts, imagining your pop-guns any match for the US military is absurd. If "the government" wants to hurt its citizens, then it will. Not since the times of single-shot muskets have individually owned arms been relevant against a modern army like that of large country today.

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We've been over this. While the self-defense argument for guns might hold water in certain contexts, imagining your pop-guns any match for the US military is absurd.

Yes, we have been over this. Last time, you got caught vexing fantastic about things you know nothing about, like American gun laws and military culture.

Last time we've been over this, we've established that the US military and the US government are two very well defined entities, not to be used interchangeably. We have established that your assumption that the US military would deploy weapons of war against the American people, in support of a wannabe dictator, betrays your ignorance of American military structure and culture. The US military upholds the constitution, not the government.

We have also established that any administration that tried to grab dictatorial powers would arm their own thugs to suppress protests.

To all this, you had no reply. You went away, in the hopes it will all be forgotten and you can troll another day. Your day is yet to come. Crawl back under the bridge.

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"First of all, there are other purposes for guns"

There is an essential purpose to guns, which is killing or causing severe bodily harm. You could use a gun as a paperweight, but that is nonessential. In fact, the whole point of gun ownership is about a right to self-defense, so bringing up anything besides killing or harm is dodging the main issue of contention. I do not understand how anyone could claim the purpose of a gun is anything but the use of force, which I think deserves regulation.

Yes, but this essential purpose is to fire bullets- whether it's at people, animals, insects or rope.

 

To treat guns as if their ONLY use is to shoot people would be as fallacious as claiming that their ONLY use is to shoot wild game.

 

Ballpoint pens can be gutted and made to fire pellets, much like a cannon, with potentially lethal force.  Ask yourself this:

If people across America suddenly began doing so, would we consider banning PENS on the grounds of their newly-altered "essential use"?

 

 

While the self-defense argument for guns might hold water in certain contexts, imagining your pop-guns any match for the US military is absurd.

You're right.

 

In our modern day, small arms would be rather ineffective against the government.  In our modern day, with predator drones and smart missiles and remote-controlled artillery, your best defense by far is your personal computer.

 

But the overall effectiveness of small arms against a full-scale military assault is irrelevant.  They would prove helpful and, were they all taken away, millions of people would die needlessly- in the name of safety.

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Yes, we have been over this. Last time, you got caught vexing fantastic about things you know nothing about, like American gun laws and military culture.

Last time we've been over this, we've established that the US military and the US government are two very well defined entities, not to be used interchangeably. We have established that your assumption that the US military would deploy weapons of war against the American people, in support of a wannabe dictator, betrays your ignorance of American military structure and culture. The US military upholds the constitution, not the government.

We have also established that any administration that tried to grab dictatorial powers would arm their own thugs to suppress protests.

To all this, you had no reply. You went away, in the hopes it will all be forgotten and you can troll another day. Your day is yet to come. Crawl back under the bridge.

 

Glad you agree with me, Nicky. Thanks. I'm not sure what all of that other stuff is though.

 

The bottom line is, "the ability to overthrow the US government in case it degrades into a dictatorship" is not a justification for the right to firearms. Moreover, if the US military is indeed incorruptible as Nicky portends, then we wouldn't have any such need any in case.

Edited by CrowEpistemologist
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Glad you agree with me, Nicky. Thanks. I'm not sure what all of that other stuff is though.

 

The bottom line is, "the ability to overthrow the US government in case it degrades into a dictatorship" is not a justification for the right to firearms.

Why not???

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Glad you agree with me, Nicky. Thanks. I'm not sure what all of that other stuff is though.

 

The bottom line is, "the ability to overthrow the US government in case it degrades into a dictatorship" is not a justification for the right to firearms. Moreover, if the US military is indeed incorruptible as Nicky portends, then we wouldn't have any such need any in case.

 

There are more threats to survival requiring a right to firearms than just a possible dictatorship.

 

1) Ordinary criminal threats

2) Dangerous critters in the wild

 

This from thread at JREF:

 

There are more deer in Ohio and Michigan than have ever, as long as we can determine, existed there. Period. There are so many deer that they are having all kinds of problems, including being killed in huge numbers on roads, damaging crops, disease propogation, etc. This is an ecological catastrophy; about as "imaginary" as a mass extinction.

Oh, and my wife once had to have a guide with a gun in case of polar bear attacks. She was doing environmental surveys in Alaska, and in an area where polar bear attacks had occurred. She wasn't allowed to carry a gun (company policy), but they hired someone who's sole job was to keep them alive. A Fortune 500 company, one known on several continents for its emphasis on safety, hired a man to carry a gun to shoot bears. This wasn't after a disaster (it was monitoring in case of a pipeline failure), and this was in the United States of America.

I also dated a woman once who lived in a region where coydogs had been attacking humans. Everyone in the country there carried a side-arm after dark (when the coydogs hunted) because being eaten alive is a rather unpleasant way to go. That was in Ohio, hardly a backwater. Again, no disaster, no catastrophy; that area simply had beasts which required lethal force to address.

My dad has shot a squirrel twice in self-defence. Granted, we were hunting them both times--but it was literally my dad died, or the squirrel did. That's one reason I want a .22 semiautomatic pistol. I'm just not that good a shot with my left thumb and a rifle when my life is at stake.

Every man and half the women in my mom's family has shot an animal or fifty in defence of the livestock. I remember as a kid Grandpa shot a racoon that was harassing the chickens (well, at the time it was harassing the dog, who'd chased it out of the coop). We called a taxidermist about tanning the hide (no chance of using the brains--my family very strongly believes in one shot, one kill for threats). Had a REALLY fun conversation with the game warden that afternoon. It was outside hunting season for racoons, but since the law allows for killing anything endangering livestock (and racoons killing chickens certainly qualifies) we were all right.

It doesn't take much for Mother Nature to intrude on human civilization. You're not nearly as far away from a vicious animal that will, given half a chance, murder you if not eat you as you think.

 

 

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Yes, but this essential purpose is to fire bullets- whether it's at people, animals, insects or rope.

 

...no, "shooting bullets" is vague. The essential point of shooting bullets is to kill people. Shooting a rope is no more essential than using a gun as a paperweight. "Essential" doesn't mean "only feature that a gun can be used for". I mean essential in an epistemological sense where a particular feature makes a concept distinguishable from others. That includes how to distinguish ballpoint pens from guns. Both can be held in one's hand, both are utiltarian tools, and so on. With both being tools, what they are used to accomplish matters. So, guns shoot bullets in a way intended to cause severe harm to people. You can kill animals for protection, but that's mostly incidental and a borderline case of the purpose of guns. If someone made a James Bond-style ballpoint pen that fires bullets, then I think it should be categorized as a gun.

 

By the way, I wasn't talking about banning guns, I was talking about regulation. As pertaining to Zimmerman, this would mean determining if he was responsible with his gun anyway. Going off into "protection from dictatorship" territory is dropping the context of individuals interacting with individuals. If you're preparing for The Revolution, well, I can't reason with that.

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Why not???

 

Because it won't work, and, if you believe as Nicky does (which I don't), it will never, by definition, be necessary.

 

Using this as a justification for the right to have firearms is exactly like using the threat of Vulcans (who are a bunch of communists by all accounts) as a justification...

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There are more threats to survival requiring a right to firearms than just a possible dictatorship.

 

1) Ordinary criminal threats

2) Dangerous critters in the wild

 

This from thread at JREF:

 

 

Those two are certainly plausible, and examples of places where a firearm might help you. If the US military is made to turn against us, we're screwed, and our little pop-guns won't be worth dick.

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Because it won't work, 

Civil wars do occasionally succeed in toppling governments.  Syria is a current example of a civil war failing to displace the government but Libya was an example of a success.  Before that was Egypt, where the people en masse were not even well armed but succeeded because a full military response was withheld. 

 

America was separated by force from the British Empire by men fighting with personal firearms.  There was also foreign aid and French naval intervention but without those native rebels being a militarily potent force there have been nothing to merit foreign aid.   

 

In civil wars military force is either withheld from domestic use or it gets divided between the warring factions.  The arms in civilian hands do get a chance to be decisive.

Edited by Grames
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Civil wars do occasionally succeed in toppling governments.  Syria is a current example of a civil war failing to displace the government but Libya was an example of a success.  Before that was Egypt, where the people en masse were not even well armed but succeeded because a full military response was withheld. 

 

America was separated by force from the British Empire by men fighting with personal firearms.  There was also foreign aid and French naval intervention but without those native rebels being a militarily potent force there have been nothing to merit foreign aid.   

 

In civil wars military force is either withheld from domestic use or it gets divided between the warring factions.  The arms in civilian hands do get a chance to be decisive.

 

Interesting. I lost count: how many B-2 Stealth Bombers does the Syrian government possess? Also, drones with laser-guided missiles--how many of those? Are civilian modified AR-15s good against those? Wait, you can turn those into M-16s pretty easy... how about then? Will that make them effective against an M1 tank with computer-controlled target assistance from an AWACS?

 

And don't bring up the 1700s lest you want to risk making a mockery of the 2nd amendment altogether...

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Those two are certainly plausible, and examples of places where a firearm might help you.

 

My two examples are more than plausible and illustrate the need for the right to keep and bear arms well enough. 

 

If the US military is made to turn against us, we're screwed, and our little pop-guns won't be worth dick.

 

 

Under what circumstances would the military be made to turn against it's own citizens?  It's an all volunteer military and it's members are almost exclusively motivated by the desire to protect us, not to endanger us.  Apparently this was already explained well enough to you before.  In any case, any resistance is more likely to succeed if it is armed. 

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My two examples are more than plausible and illustrate the need for the right to keep and bear arms well enough. 

 

 

Under what circumstances would the military be made to turn against it's own citizens?  It's an all volunteer military and it's members are almost exclusively motivated by the desire to protect us, not to endanger us.  Apparently this was already explained well enough to you before.  In any case, any resistance is more likely to succeed if it is armed. 

 

Nicky is a liar. This is a well known fact. Don't believe anything he says.

 

Anyhow, the military won't "turn against its citizens", our government, in concert with the majority will of the citizens, will be slowly voted into dictatorship in some (rather unlikely) scenario. In this case, the military will be acting in perfect harmony with "the citizens". Its worth noting that the violations of liberty today are case and point: your payments to the IRS are enforced, ultimately, by the entire US government.

 

Now, if you do have a a propensity to believe Nicky, you will note that he finds a scenario in which the military acts in opposition to liberty impossible. (This of course means that our current system is therefore perfect liberty, but no matter). Anyhow, if you believe this, then it is not consistent to believe that personal firearms will be useful for a scenario that you believe cannot happen.

 

No matter who you believe, the argument that "personal firearms are necessary to defend ourselves against the US government" does not hold water.

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I don't know what you mean by "gun culture". Clearly, you don't mean "widespread ownership of guns". From the examples you gave, it sounds like you're not critiquing "gun culture", but laws that deny gun ownership to oppressed minorities. So, I cannot follow up on your point unless I know what you mean.

 

The gun culture includes:

  • Thinking its cool to hunt animals with guns for sport and it being legal to do so.
  • Having guns as fashion accessories - http://www.pinkgun.com/ and it being legal to sell these.
  • It being proposed that school teachers be armed.
  • Guns being for sale in Walmart.
  • Being obsessed with the 2nd amendment which is out of date.
  • Thinking its masculine to own a gun.
  • Excessive guns in movies.
  • Child guns being legal to sell - http://www.crickett.com

It was this gun culture which killed Martin. Without a gun, Zimmerman wouldn't have had the false confidence to follow Martin leaving it to the police to do their job.

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Interesting. I lost count: how many B-2 Stealth Bombers does the Syrian government possess? Also, drones with laser-guided missiles--how many of those? Are civilian modified AR-15s good against those? Wait, you can turn those into M-16s pretty easy... how about then? Will that make them effective against an M1 tank with computer-controlled target assistance from an AWACS?

 

And don't bring up the 1700s lest you want to risk making a mockery of the 2nd amendment altogether...

I think the point that you failed to address was the fact that when things degrade into war, factions emerge. The military potentially exists as its own faction which might refuse to deploy itself in a conflict between citizens and local police.

Edited by FeatherFall
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The gun culture includes:

  • Thinking its cool to hunt animals with guns for sport and it being legal to do so.
  • Having guns as fashion accessories - http://www.pinkgun.com/ and it being legal to sell these.
  • It being proposed that school teachers be armed.
  • Guns being for sale in Walmart.
  • Being obsessed with the 2nd amendment which is out of date.
  • Thinking its masculine to own a gun.
  • Excessive guns in movies.
  • Child guns being legal to sell - http://www.crickett.com
It was this gun culture which killed Martin. Without a gun, Zimmerman wouldn't have had the false confidence to follow Martin leaving it to the police to do their job.

You forgot to mention: Target shooting as a sport, your wife having a concealed hand gun license because she was followed by strangers in a van (firing a 45 once into the ground will deter most would-be rapists), hunting to fill your freezer with venison and goose meat, ....

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