by zeroday 49 Replies latest jw friends
I prefer to go with real statistics from reputable sources rather than news headlines.
Gun crime is clearly a subset of violent crime but that does not mean that levels of violent crime is linked to gun ownership. The link between gun crime and gun ownership in the US is clear however you choose to spin it.
I think you may have missed my point regarding shoplifting!
How on earth is gun ownership going to be be a check on the government in a parliamentary democracy? Please tell me, I would love to know exactly how owning a gun is going to effect change in a democracy. Are you suggesting that owning a big stick is a good method for effecting lasting political change?
You ask how gun ownership is useful in a democracy. Well it is. It acts as a check on the monopoly of violence that the State possesses. If the State ever violates the will of the populace, then they can defend their rights. Read your history, here in the US the first gun laws were enacted to keep oppressed blacks from defending their rights after the civil war. An unarmed black could be kept under control in a reign of terror, as happened in many places. The Armenians were disarmed by the Ottomans. The Jews were disarmed in Nazi Germany also. The only place that saw a strong resistance to the genocide was the Warsaw Ghetto, and this was because they had a handful of firearms at their disposal. Castro disarmed the Cuban populace also. Had they been armed, they could have defended themselves and secured their rights. If the ballot does not work, and the law is corrupted, people have the right to secure themselves by force. The last check against tyrrany is the people themselves, and if you remove the ability of individuals to defend themselves, you have removed a great part of the ability to resist. Name me one totalitarian regime that has allowed the people to retain the means of self defense. You live in a parliamentary democracy now, but you do not know what the future could hold. You feel safe now. As it stands now, the British people have been reduced to bleating, dehorned cattle.
http://www.a-human-right.com/introduction.html
BTS
I think you may have missed my point regarding shoplifting!
I don't think I did but regardless. I prefer to have the immediate means to defend my life and the innocent ones with me than to make a call and wait on a response. It is all about me.
Ceades...statistics aside.
You miss the point. Americans can still defend against corrupt government, rouge military and common criminal that elect to violate their rights. Our law allows us to own arms (or not), yours (along with the Aussies and Canada is heading towards it) does not.
It a culture you will never understand.
Hill
Caedes, there is a problem with anti-gun laws. The problem is that when law-abiding citizens are banned from having guns - or any other weapon for that matter - then by default only criminals have weapons. This makes the law-abiding citizens targets. When law-abiding citizens are in posession of weapons, there is no additional threat. There is no additional criminal intent. The already law-abiding citizens just happen to have a weapon in his or her posession. Caedes, because you live in the UK, I assume you don't own a gun. But if you did, would you automatically go out in the street and start shooting people or robbing convenience stores? No, you wouldn't, and neither do any of the thousands of lawfully armed United States citizens who carry a gun. In fact, crime statistics in the US support the claim that crime of all types, but particularly armed robbery, are reduced when gun laws are more liberal. So, it is safer for everyone, including those who chose not to carry a weapon.
In a perfect world, we wouldn't need guns, but since there are people who have them that shouldn't, it makes it a necessity for the rest of us to have access to them.
Americans can still defend against corrupt government...
I think that what the forefathers meant with the provision for citizen to have the right and to bear arms was that each state had a militia and that militia was made up of ordinary men who owned their own arms. If, in the event of invasion the militias could be called up to help defend the Union.
It was felt, at least by Jefferson, that sooner or later the people would have to rise up and clean out a corrupt government. This provision was allowed for with the right to bear arms.
Two hundred some years later and the world of arms has changed and the United States has changed.
For one thing, the firearms that the common man can own (even illegal ones) are no match for the arsenal of the Federal government. Trying to overthrow a corrupt govenment with a people's militia would be a slaughter. The people are smart enough to know that to change government they have to work within the system of voting to hopefully make change. The government has been smart enough (or lucky enough) to be able to lull the people into a sense of patriotism that would ever preclude enough people willing to stand up in arms against the government.
Also, the US is no longer a united group of states but has become The United States.
The War Between the States was a major change in how the nation became such. The war happened because a group of states rose up to fight off the policies of the government that threatened to take away their rights as states. (Slavery was only part of the issue). The South had Constitional right to secede. The North refused to recoginize it and war ensued. The North won and the South was occupied by Northern politicians and carpet baggers for decades to come. But in the end, it did solidify the Union as one whole nation with a much stronger federal government.
This group of Southern states was unable to fight off the federal army of the Union, though better led by better generals. They didn't have the overall manpower or the shipyards or the mills to produce war equipment. The North basically wore them down and then handed them the death blow (Sherman's March).
There are other examples of groups of people who stood up to the US government only to lose. While the US may not win every war they blindly jump into, they can more than squelch any homegrown, organized group of militants. The terrorists of any belief or cause know this. That's why they use terror. They don't stand a chance with conventional military action against a much better armed and trained army.
Any argument that citizens have the right to bear arms to defend against a corrupt government is over-simplified rationalization and not based on reality.
We lost in Vietnam,,, yea, the North got a ton of help from China... but what whipped up was not a army of professional troops
We are being held at bay in two countries today...by irregulars
You really dont think that with the amount of arms and past military experience America could not hold the government at bay if it went nuts? I know you have an opinion ...but I figure the people of this country could hold out a long time.
Maybe thats why the US and Canada have a treaty that allows mutual help if an uprising occurs?
Hill
I haven't taken the time to read every single one of these responses. But, it's funny....my hubby and I were
talking just yesterday on a quick day trip about what it might be like if someone came up through the
ranks of politics and situated themselves in a position to allow some element to take over our country. We
decided that the capital and perhaps other state capitals and government buildings might by some stretch of
the imagination be overrun and invaded, but they would have a really tough time taking over the PEOPLE. Yes,
most of us do have guns. There was a time I carried mine in a purse specifically designed to obscure its presence
because I had to walk a great distance after dark to the parking area. I felt safe because I knew if someone attempted
to attack me, I would blow his brains out without flinching. My gun was in a pocket made to look like a seam, and my
hand was between that "seam" with my fingers on the trigger. Most Americans are not violent and wouldn't harm a flea,
but a large majority of us don't suffer criminals lightly, and the elements that want to take guns out of the hands of THE PEOPLE
are highly suspect to most of us. Even though the more left-wing liberal elements want to put practically EVERYTHING under government
control, most Americans, whether Democrat or Republican are very much aware that the government is by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE,
and of the PEOPLE. America, no matter how it seems to the outsiders and even to some within, is still THE PEOPLE (and we are not about to
hand over our right to bear arms without a fight). As Mr. T used to say, "I pity the poor fool."
There was a time I carried mine in a purse specifically designed to obscure its presencebecause I had to walk a great distance after dark to the parking area. I felt safe because I knew if someone attempted
to attack me, I would blow his brains out without flinching.
Now that's sexy!
BTS
Now that's sexy!
or is it this one:
There's just something about a lady and a gun, isn't there?
