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Political power and arms


Altherion

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5 hours ago, SerHaHa said:

You realize that Canada has over 13 million firearms, and in most cities every 2nd home have at least one firearm according to RCMP/Firearms center statistics...Canada is nearly as well armed as the USA, just with more restrictions, but there are still hundreds of thousands of magazine fed semi auto rifles, and millions of handguns in Canadian hands.  Do Canadian gun control laws and initiatives make you feel any safer? (Hint, they shouldn't).

Someone missed the joke.

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Rippounet, James,

Private gun ownership saved my family (and a lot of other people in my country) from genocide during WWII.

When Germany conquered my country in 1941, they set up these assholes as leaders of their puppet state. They immediately started rounding up anyone who didn't fit their criteria for ethnically and ideologically pure Croatian state, and either shipping them into death camps, disappearing them, or rounding up entire villages and massacring them - for example, my grandfather's brother was rounded with eleven other men from their village and killed.

Fortunately, pretty much every rural household at the time owned a gun (a lot of them military rifles from defeated Yugoslavian army). Extra fortunately, they lived in an ideal terrain for guerrilla warfare. People started an uprising and moved their families to forests and mountains, where they would be safe from genocide.

Now, I am under no illusion that Yugoslavian Partisans would have been victorious without Western and Soviet help. However, if there weren't for private guns, hundreds of thousands more would have died before 1945 (probably including my grandfather).

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4 hours ago, Einheri said:

You can also load your firearm with less than lethal rounds, which decreases the risk of your attackers being killed, but if it buys you enough time to run away for help, it will have served its purpose.

Last but not least a firearm has a fear factor that is greater than its non lethal alternatives, and the mere sight of a firearm might be enough to convince your attackers to disengage before the fight has even begun.

Interesting. Basically, loading a firearm with non-lethal ammo could both preserve the fear factor you mention and prevent the loss of life.
Seems like a win-win to me. Especially since firearms are widespread already.

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

My question wasn't a trap.  It was an attempt to make sure you do see individual liberty as a positive in some situations.

Well our cultures are different, but not that different. :P

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The board will not let me edit to add that for the record I don't currently and have never owned a firearm.  It isn't about thrill for me.  Your characterization of the issue as such is inaccurate, in my case.

In all honesty Scott, I wasn't even 100% sure you were really arguing for private ownership of guns here. The lengthiest message you wrote was pretty much non-committal imho.

Not that I could really claim that all owners of guns are looking for the thrill of power anyway. Guns are something of a Pandora's box. Once massive proportions of a population become armed, the remaining people might arguably be better off having guns themselves, even if they were reluctant to have them in the first place. Again, that is my main argument: there is a point when widespread ownership of guns become as much as a threat to people (whether you look at them as individuals or collectively) as the threats they are supposed to protect from. Which is, I believe what we see in the US.
I hate to be the one writing that argument, because I don't fully subscribe to it, but some say that perhaps the problem is not private ownership of guns but the specificities of American gun culture.

1 hour ago, Gorn said:

Rippounet, James,

Private gun ownership saved my family (and a lot of other people in my country) from genocide during WWII. [...]

That's a pretty good example. If we go down that road, I've had a few family members who could claim that their guns saved their lives in a war or two. I guess if your country gets invaded, it's undeniably better to have weapons to protect your loved ones.
But that's opening a whole other can of worms. Yes, anyone who is genuinely threatened by a foreign invasion and/or a tyrannical government has a legitimate reason to arm themself. I don't believe one should draw the conclusion that populations should be armed because of hypothetical threats though.

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18 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Interesting. Basically, loading a firearm with non-lethal ammo could both preserve the fear factor you mention and prevent the loss of life.
Seems like a win-win to me. Especially since firearms are widespread already.

Well our cultures are different, but not that different. :P

In all honesty Scott, I wasn't even 100% sure you were really arguing for private ownership of guns here. The lengthiest message you wrote was pretty much non-committal imho.

Not that I could really claim that all owners of guns are looking for the thrill of power anyway. Guns are something of a Pandora's box. Once massive proportions of a population become armed, the remaining people might arguably be better off having guns themselves, even if they were reluctant to have them in the first place. Again, that is my main argument: there is a point when widespread ownership of guns become as much as a threat to people (whether you look at them as individuals or collectively) as the threats they are supposed to protect from. Which is, I believe what we see in the US.
I hate to be the one writing that argument, because I don't fully subscribe to it, but some say that perhaps the problem is not private ownership of guns but the specificities of American gun culture.

That's a pretty good example. If we go down that road, I've had a few family members who could claim that their guns saved their lives in a war or two. I guess if your country gets invaded, it's undeniably better to have weapons to protect your loved ones.
But that's opening a whole other can of worms. Yes, anyone who is genuinely threatened by a foreign invasion and/or a tyrannical government has a legitimate reason to arm themself. I don't believe one should draw the conclusion that populations should be armed because of hypothetical threats though.

Ripp,

Here's the problem once a hypothetical threat becomes an actual threat if the threat acts to keep people from possessing arms... how do you get them now that they are needed?

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24 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Yes, anyone who is genuinely threatened by a foreign invasion and/or a tyrannical government has a legitimate reason to arm themself. I don't believe one should draw the conclusion that populations should be armed because of hypothetical threats though.

I think this is the root of the disagreement. First, the threat is hypothetical, but the probability of it coming to pass is not small. How many societies in the history of the world have gone through, say, a century straight without foreign invasion or a tyrannical government? Second, an armed populace is a deterrent to both of these threats so it has value even before they become acute.

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13 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Here's the problem once a hypothetical threat becomes an actual threat if the threat acts to keep people from possessing arms... how do you get them now that they are needed?

That's pretty close to asking how you take away people's guns when there is no threat to defend from, and thus no legitimate reason for everyone to be up in arms. ;)

Except... There are ways for a country to prepare against a foreign invasion at least. I believe some countries do have (or have had) such programs.
A dictatorship or an autocracy would be something else. But no one has tried to address my point that private guns are just as much a means of establishing a dictatorship as a means of overthrowing one.

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4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Please share.

I'm First Nations, I have reason to think North America not being colonized or the US Revolution failing would be good things. Hence wanting gun control.

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2 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

That's pretty close to asking how you take away people's guns when there is no threat to defend from, and thus no legitimate reason for everyone to be up in arms. ;)

Except... There are ways for a country to prepare against a foreign invasion at least. I believe some countries do have (or have had) such programs.
A dictatorship or an autocracy would be something else. But no one has tried to address my point that private guns are just as much a means of establishing a dictatorship as a means of overthrowing one.

It is clearly a two edged sword.  Any tool can be misused... does that mean we shouldn't have tools?

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5 minutes ago, Altherion said:

I think this is the root of the disagreement. First, the threat is hypothetical, but the probability of it coming to pass is not small. How many societies in the history of the world have gone through, say, a century straight without foreign invasion or a tyrannical government?

Ironically, the US. The last foreign invasion was in 1812 (with no real occupation).

And it's hard to argue that here has ever been a tyrannical government in the US. It's considered a plutocracy nonetheless.
The irony being that this conversation started when you suggested Trump supporters could take arms if he were impeached. Meaning, you were suggesting that the rule of law might be threatened by the fact that right-wing extremists are armed...

5 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Second, an armed populace is a deterrent to both of these threats so it has value even before they become acute.

You've yet to prove that it is a deterrent to anything.

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It is clearly a two edged sword.  Any tool can be misused... does that mean we shouldn't have tools?

If you're not willing to trust your neighbor with a tool, then perhaps you shouldn't have it yourself. The flip-side of deterrence is mutually assured destruction. Or to put it differently, if a tool is as dangerous to yourself as it is to others, then perhaps it's best to limit its use to a select trained and trustworthy minority.

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32 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Ironically, the US. The last foreign invasion was in 1812 (with no real occupation).

And it's hard to argue that here has ever been a tyrannical government in the US. It's considered a plutocracy nonetheless.
The irony being that this conversation started when you suggested Trump supporters could take arms if he were impeached. Meaning, you were suggesting that the rule of law might be threatened by the fact that right-wing extremists are armed...

You've yet to prove that it is a deterrent to anything.

If you're not willing to trust your neighbor with a tool, then perhaps you shouldn't have it yourself. The flip-side of deterrence is mutually assured destruction. Or to put it differently, if a tool is as dangerous to yourself as it is to others, then perhaps it's best to limit its use to a select trained and trustworthy minority.

I believe in the right to keep and bear arms... with reasonable regulation, training and licensure requiments are reasonable, in my opinion.

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11 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

I'd think it would depend on if said insurrection could withstand the initial blows leveled against it. Yes modern militaries are powerful, but one of the reasons they're powerful is they use high-tech equipment that is expensive and once used/destroyed can be difficult to replace. 

 

Ask ISIS how that might go.

 

10 hours ago, Einheri said:

I realize that the issue of gun violence in the US runs deeper than just the fact that there is an abundance of guns, but when it comes to gun laws in general, it's more of question of which weapons should civilians be allowed to own (and for what purposes).

No, it isn't, actually.  it's a question of which weapons the government should be able to ban, and they need to provide the justification.  You have it precisely backwards.

 

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Now I come from a country where keeping an eye on your government is not considered a legit reason to get a firearms permit**, and if what you’re doing is mostly sport shooting or hunting anyway, you don’t really need an AR-15 with a 60-round drum magazine (or an automatic grenade launcher for that matter).

Again, this is not how it works.  The basis for any law is not 'we can ban this thing unless you can prove you need it.'

We had an 'assault weapon ban' and it provided no statistically relevant impact on crime rates.  

You don't really NEED to smoke.  You don't really NEED to drink soda.  You don't really NEED to drive a non electric car.  And so on and so on and so on....

Need is not the determining factor here.

 

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36 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

 

If you're not willing to trust your neighbor with a tool, then perhaps you shouldn't have it yourself. The flip-side of deterrence is mutually assured destruction. 

Uh... No.  Mutually assured destruction IS a deterrent.  It's not the flip side of a deterrent.

 

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Mutual assured destruction or mutually assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender (see pre-emptive nuclear strike and second strike).[1] It is based on the theory of deterrence, which holds that the threat of using strong weapons against the enemy prevents the enemy's use of those same weapons. 

 

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5 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I believe in the right to keep and bear arms... with reasonable regulation, training and licensure requiments are reasonable, in my opinion.

If I'm to trust my neighbor with a gun, I'll go for drastic limits. No assault rifles or any military-grade equipement (preferably small pistols and perhaps some types of hunting rifles). Extensive background checks and systematic registration of all guns. Obligatory permit with regular training sessions, psychological evaluations and new checks to renew it at least every year. Serious tracking of every piece of ammunition and a necessary justification for every single bullet fired.
And that's still assuming the whole idea has any merit in the first place. I'd rather trust my institutions (/constitution) to prevent the establishment of an autocracy. I'd rather trust my country's military and diplomacy to protect me from foreign invasion. If my institutions or military can't be trusted, then they should be changed and improved. I'm willing to concede that there are some circumstances when an armed population has some merit, but that's only because I can't have absolute faith in the world we live in.

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Just now, Rippounet said:

If I'm to trust my neighbor with a gun, I'll go for drastic limits. No assault rifles or any military-grade equipement (preferably small pistols and perhaps some types of hunting rifles). Extensive background checks and systematic registration of all guns. Obligatory permit with regular training sessions, psychological evaluations and new checks to renew it at least every year. Serious tracking of every piece of ammunition and a necessary justification for every single bullet fired.
And that's still assuming the whole idea has any merit in the first place. I'd rather trust my institutions (/constitution) to prevent the establishment of an autocracy. I'd rather trust my country's military and diplomacy to protect me from foreign invasion. If my institutions or military can't be trusted, then they should be changed and improved. I'm willing to concede that there are some circumstances when an armed population has some merit, but that's only because I can't have absolute faith in the world we live in.

I wish you luck in your pursuit of a constitutional amendment.

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