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Gun Control Discussion 2


TerraPrime

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2 hours ago, Mother Cocanuts said:

And again, I don't give any credit to the right to bear arms because the founding fathers conceived it. As I said numerous times, the government doesn't dictate rights; it protects them (allegedly.)

How come, in your mind, the "government" and "the people" are not the same thing in a Republic? It's not like you live in a dictatorship - you can change what rights are, and dictate them yourself. But applying them to a society-wide level requires government.

Government is a social collective for organising the state. You're part of it, you know.

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7 hours ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

Sometimes I wonder if it would be more worthwhile for us gun control advocates  to argue strongly, steadfastly and unashamedly for a complete repeal of the second amendment,

Of course.

Otherwise, every time there is this discussion, conservatives will simply retreat behind the safety of the US Constitution and whatever interpretation of the 2nd amendment suits their needs.

Of course, repealing the 2nd amendment would take decades or generations of hard campaigning, assuming it's even possible. But at least it would get to the heart of the problem.

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5 hours ago, Yukle said:

I don't disagree that they had automatic weapons, they were probably even used during the war with Britain.

I disagree that they understood their capacity for danger and destruction. That was not widely understood at the time we're discussing. I disagree that you can say that they anticipated their technological development and future usage. You were responding to this comment:

The rubric you're setting doesn't hold much weight. It doesn't matter what you believe they understood. It matters only that they took action to acquire them because they desired the ends these guns would bring.

5 hours ago, Yukle said:

... which I also disagree with.

Knowing that automatic weapons exist is not the same as knowing what they can do.

They did know what they could do. That's the point. They commissioned it because they knew what they could do.

5 hours ago, Yukle said:

And, as I point out above, there is no way that the USA of the time knew how dangerous such guns were because the great powers of WWI were shocked at the effectiveness of machine guns when deployed en masse. It took more than two years to have any working solution against them; indeed the Russian Empire originally dismissed them as using ammunition too quickly and were caught out when the German Empire used them against their positions.

Again, none of this matters. You cannot analyze what people did or did not understand based off of what others did or did not understand. And apparently, the "shock" didn't prevent them from commissioning more sophisticated and destructive weapons as the years went on.

5 hours ago, Yukle said:

You cannot reasonably say that the Second Amendment was written with the full understanding of how personal arms would develop in future. They probably had it in mind but nowhere near the scale of what would happen. 

Ultimately, you're just speculating. They wrote what they wrote.

5 hours ago, Yukle said:

How come, in your mind, the "government" and "the people" are not the same thing in a Republic?

First, this assumes that this government is a "republic." It's not (not anymore.) It's a quasi-communist state. Second, the government can never be its people. Because every action the government takes against a particular person would be "self-inflicted" (not far from the narrative the media perpetuates.)
 

6 hours ago, Yukle said:

Government is a social collective for organising the state. You're part of it, you know.

That's a boy's answer. A boy who goes chasing horcruxes on the word of a man who wouldn't even tell you where to start. YOU'RE LYING! Not just to me -- that doesn't matter -- but to yourself as well.

In all seriousness, a government is not a "social collective." It's an enforcement agency. Ideally, this enforcement agency would protect rights and resolve disputes. The United States government has in the last century undermined both.

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2 hours ago, Mother Cocanuts said:

They wrote what they wrote.

Indeed. A bit sad, but this post Heller interpretation we've seen over the last nine years is as Chief Justice Warren Burger famously said,"a fraud on the American public.”

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Nothing I can find suggests that the Belton Flintlock was an automatic weapon. It was certainly a repeating one though. Not that it would remotely prepare people for what a true modern automatic weapon is capable of (or really even some of the first ones) between the differences in firing speed and reload time there's an order of magnitude of difference. Like claiming because someone had a radio in 1903 he would have been able to predict the internet.

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34 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

Nothing I can find suggests that the Belton Flintlock was an automatic weapon. It was certainly a repeating one though. Not that it would remotely prepare people for what a true modern automatic weapon is capable of (or really even some of the first ones) between the differences in firing speed and reload time there's an order of magnitude of difference.

That's all semantic irrelevancy.

36 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

Like claiming because someone had a radio in 1903 he would have been able to predict the internet.

Not even close.

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1 minute ago, HelenaExMachina said:

The US is a quasi-communist State now? 

For the brand of right-wing anarchism and libertarianism that is so common in the US, assuming one does not know the proper definition of communism, it might be.

It's not surprising that many people strongly advocating the right to bear arms are really right-wing anarchists. In fact, the opposite would be far more surprising. After all, the modern defense of the 2nd amendment is pretty much based on the rejection of the very idea of society as a collective.

Of course, often unbeknownst to many of these right-wing anarchists, such ideas, when taken to their logical conclusion, mean the end of the democratic principle. Again, this is hardly surprising. If you want to base a society on natural rights with government as a mere enforcer of such rights, then there is no need for any form of social or political public life, as the public affairs can be run through the market.

I personally believe that such ideas are as of now the greatest ideological threat that mankind has to deal with. They are extremely insidious because it is very difficult to realize what their real-life implementation actually mean, and because they twist the meanings of words ("liberty," "democracy," "society" ... ) so that they end up describing the very opposite of what they are supposed to mean.

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17 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I personally believe that such ideas are as of now the greatest ideological threat that mankind has to deal with. They are extremely insidious because it is very difficult to realize what their real-life implementation actually mean, and because they twist the meanings of words ("liberty," "democracy," "society" ... ) so that they end up describing the very opposite of what they are supposed to mean.

100% agree.

eta- lol - so predictable.

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16 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

For the brand of right-wing anarchism and libertarianism that is so common in the US, assuming one does not know the proper definition of communism, it might be.

It's not surprising that many people strongly advocating the right to bear arms are really right-wing anarchists. In fact, the opposite would be far more surprising. After all, the modern defense of the 2nd amendment is pretty much based on the rejection of the very idea of society as a collective.

Of course, often unbeknownst to many of these right-wing anarchists, such ideas, when taken to their logical conclusion, mean the end of the democratic principle. Again, this is hardly surprising. If you want to base a society on natural rights with government as a mere enforcer of such rights, then there is no need for any form of social or political public life, as the public affairs can be run through the market.

I personally believe that such ideas are as of now the greatest ideological threat that mankind has to deal with. They are extremely insidious because it is very difficult to realize what their real-life implementation actually mean, and because they twist the meanings of words ("liberty," "democracy," "society" ... ) so that they end up describing the very opposite of what they are supposed to mean.

This is not a sound argument. It's just one long ad hominem.

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20 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

For the brand of right-wing anarchism and libertarianism that is so common in the US, assuming one does not know the proper definition of communism, it might be.

It's not surprising that many people strongly advocating the right to bear arms are really right-wing anarchists. In fact, the opposite would be far more surprising. After all, the modern defense of the 2nd amendment is pretty much based on the rejection of the very idea of society as a collective.

Of course, often unbeknownst to many of these right-wing anarchists, such ideas, when taken to their logical conclusion, mean the end of the democratic principle. Again, this is hardly surprising. If you want to base a society on natural rights with government as a mere enforcer of such rights, then there is no need for any form of social or political public life, as the public affairs can be run through the market.

I personally believe that such ideas are as of now the greatest ideological threat that mankind has to deal with. They are extremely insidious because it is very difficult to realize what their real-life implementation actually mean, and because they twist the meanings of words ("liberty," "democracy," "society" ... ) so that they end up describing the very opposite of what they are supposed to mean.

Wait, wait, wait?

 

Greed is...not good? What about Atlas and his invisible hand on the shining hill or w/e? 

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26 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Greed is...not good? What about Atlas and his invisible hand on the shining hill or w/e? 

I'm sure a great many gun owners love picturing themselves as heroes of an Ayn Rand novel.

In fact, it would go a long way to explain the whole debate over guns in the US.

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5 hours ago, Mother Cocanuts said:

First, this assumes that this government is a "republic." It's not (not anymore.) It's a quasi-communist state. Second, the government can never be its people. Because every action the government takes against a particular person would be "self-inflicted" (not far from the narrative the media perpetuates.)
 

That's a boy's answer. A boy who goes chasing horcruxes on the word of a man who wouldn't even tell you where to start. YOU'RE LYING! Not just to me -- that doesn't matter -- but to yourself as well.

In all seriousness, a government is not a "social collective." It's an enforcement agency. Ideally, this enforcement agency would protect rights and resolve disputes. The United States government has in the last century undermined both.

...

I'm not sure how to take you seriously any more.

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4 hours ago, TrueMetis said:

Nothing I can find suggests that the Belton Flintlock was an automatic weapon. It was certainly a repeating one though. Not that it would remotely prepare people for what a true modern automatic weapon is capable of (or really even some of the first ones) between the differences in firing speed and reload time there's an order of magnitude of difference. Like claiming because someone had a radio in 1903 he would have been able to predict the internet.

This is well put. It expresses the point well: you cannot say that anybody can reasonably predict the future with accuracy.

If it was so easy for Americans to know when they wrote the Second Amendment what guns would soon become, then it stands to reason that we should already know in advance which seemingly normal technology we have now is about to change the world in ways that will leave it unrecognisable in a generation.

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1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

Oh, its Ayn Rand's fault? That makes SO much sense.

Actually, and in spite of my hatred for her ideas, it seems Ayn Rand was rather rational and measured on the issue, on the rare occasions she addressed it.

Quote

Q: What is your opinion of gun control laws?
A: I do not know enough about it to have an opinion, except to say that it is not of primary importance. Forbidding guns or registering them is not going to stop criminals from having them; nor is it a great threat to the private, non-criminal citizen if he has to register the fact that he has a gun. It is not an important issue, unless you’re ready to begin a private uprising right now, which isn’t very practical. [Ford Hall Forum, 1971]

Quote

Q: What’s your attitude toward gun control?
A: It is a complex, technical issue in the philosophy of law. Handguns are instruments for killing people — they are not carried for hunting animals — and you have no right to kill people. You do have the right to self-defense, however. I don’t know how the issue is going to be resolved to protect you without giving you the privilege to kill people at whim.[Ford Hall Forum, 1973]

Quote

Raymond Newman: You have stated that the government ought to be the exclusive agent for the use of force under objective rules of law and justice --

Ayn Rand: That's right.

Newman: -- and yet at the same time today we see an alarming rise in violent crimes in this country and more and more people applying for gun permits and wanting to protect themselves. Do you see this as a dangerous trend, number one; and number two, do you favor any form of gun control laws?

Rand: I have given it no thought at all and, off-hand, I would say, no, the government shouldn't control guns except in very marginal forms. I don't think it's very important because I don't think it is in physical terms that the decisions and the fate of this country will be determined. If this country falls apart altogether, if the government collapses bankrupt, your having a handgun in your pocket isn't going to save your life. What you would need is ideas and other people who share those ideas and fighting towards a proper civilized government, not handguns for personal protection.

I don't know whether these quotes are genuine, and I can't really be bothered to check, but if any one of them is, I would say she at least understood the complexity of the issue. Unsurprisingly she wasn't in favor of strong gun control, but she was also clear-eyed on the limits and dangers of the right to bear arms, which is more than I can say of many of today's defenders of the 2nd amendment.

Edit:

6 minutes ago, Yukle said:

If it was so easy for Americans to know when they wrote the Second Amendment what guns would soon become, then it stands to reason that we should already know in advance which seemingly normal technology we have now is about to change the world in ways that will leave it unrecognisable in a generation.

My vote goes to the 3D-printer. I expect humanity to master much better sources of energy in the next decades than today's, and the 3D-printer progressively becoming close to a Star Trek replicator.

 

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5 hours ago, TrueMetis said:

Nothing I can find suggests that the Belton Flintlock was an automatic weapon. It was certainly a repeating one though. Not that it would remotely prepare people for what a true modern automatic weapon is capable of (or really even some of the first ones) between the differences in firing speed and reload time there's an order of magnitude of difference. Like claiming because someone had a radio in 1903 he would have been able to predict the internet.

Yeah, I googled the Belton Flintlock expecting to find some sort of early gatling gun type forerunner.  But, nope.  I'm not even sure it counts as a repeater either*, as each firing seems to be one long succession of timed charges, rather than the capacity to fire once, and then fire again and again.

Also, if i was going to suggest that the founders could've had some sort of prescience on the future of arms tech, I might give an example of a design they had some faith in, rather than one deemed too pie in the sky for investment. 

*not an expert

 

eta: Also, the second or third google result for Belton Flintlock was an article entitled "These Guns Dispel The Notion That The Founding Fathers Could Never Have Imagines Modern Assault Rifles".  I'd link it but… Daily Caller.  Just so we're clear where this talking point is coming from.

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4 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

The US is a quasi-communist State now? 

 

4 hours ago, Rippounet said:

For the brand of right-wing anarchism and libertarianism that is so common in the US, assuming one does not know the proper definition of communism, it might be.

You're defining it too narrowly. Many traditional, main stream Republicans and conservatives brand benign acts that Democrats take as socialist or communist by nature. And they'll do it even when Democrats do nothing just for the sake of a cheap political attack line. For example, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently said (paraphrasing) that if Republicans don't support his terrible healthcare bill that everyone knew was terrible, America will become a socialist state (because a small minority of Democratic senators want to push for universal healthcare).  This type of attack line is a lot more common than you would think.

Also, keep in mind that most Americans have no idea what these terms actually mean. We're special that way. 

51 minutes ago, Yukle said:

...

I'm not sure how to take you seriously any more.

You've only now reached this point? 

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43 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You're defining it too narrowly. Many traditional, main stream Republicans and conservatives brand benign acts that Democrats take as socialist or communist by nature. And they'll do it even when Democrats do nothing just for the sake of a cheap political attack line. For example, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently said (paraphrasing) that if Republicans don't support his terrible healthcare bill that everyone knew was terrible, America will become a socialist state (because a small minority of Democratic senators want to push for universal healthcare).  This type of attack line is a lot more common than you would think.

Yeah I know, but Mother Cocanuts's description of government as a mere "enforcement agency" whose role it is to "protect rights and resolve disputes" struck me as something more than the usual name-calling that Republicans like to engage in.
And funny semantics aside, it does lend some coherence to his passionate defense of the 2nd amendment.
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but it does start with how you view the relationship between the individual and society, or between the individual and government. There's something fiercely individualistic behind the opposition to gun control, especially when it appears in the wake of an atrocious mass shooting.

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