Your view on gun laws...?

[PureX]

I'd have to disagree with you there. Government's only justifiable reason is to protect the rights of the individual.

But this does not constitute a disagreement. Who do you think the government must protect these individual's from? The answer is each other, and foreign nations.

The real question is what constitutes a "reasonable government."

I agree. And in the U.S., this has been sketched out by the founding documents, and by our ongoing interpretation of them. No one individual citizen gets to have it his own way, completely. To live together in a society requires some sacrifices on everyone's part. And that includes some sacrifice of individual freedom. You think we should pay less taxes. Someone else may think we should pay more. You think the markets should be less regulated, someone else may think they should be more regulated. The deciding factors are the people we elect to represent our desires, and the laws that protect and regulate our individual rights.

Unfortunately, Americans today all seem to think they should have everything their way. The Christians want to stop abortion and homosexuality. The businessmen want deregulation. The wealthy don't want to pay taxes to support the poor. No one seems to recognize the fact that to live together in a society, we must make some sacrifices. We aren't going to get everything our way. Nor should we.

Don't look at the military, that is the distraction. Look at the rise in the number of SWAT teams, mostly equipped with "surplus" military gear. Look at the number of "no-knock" warrants, or in some cases, no warrants at all. Look at the willingness of local governments to ignore Constitutional protections in the name of "economic development" or "blight prevention." Look at the willingness of some Congressmen to suppress any dissent from their own views, especially around election time. Look at the FCC's newly found mission against obscenity with fines that increased tenfold overnight.

First, look at the number of citizens who WANT this sort of governmental force. You and I get nervous when we see the government giving itself more and more power. But unfortunately, there are many Americans who fear freedom, and fear their fellow citizens so much that they feel the government needs all that power to better protect them.

Once again, the real threat is not from the government, but from a fearful and ignorant citizenry. Democracies are only going to be as good as their citizens are responsible and well informed. The more we citizens think and behave like idiots, the more controlling our government will need to become (and the more they will be able to become controlling), to protect us from our own selfish stupidity.

So much depends on the definitions. Today's patriots may be tomorrow's idiots, or yesterday's undesirables.

That's very true. And all the more reason why we should be intently scrutinizing this recent trend in America of redefining political terms to produce misleading and even hateful impressions.

As with any government, ours teeters on the brink of tyranny. You'd be hard pressed to find a single activity that isn't affected by government regulation. That didn't used to be true even just a few decades ago, and the benefits don't outweigh the costs.

I agree, but this has nothing to do with guns, and it could easily be stopped, today. Our problem isn't that we need more guns, it's that we need smarter citizens.

The free markets are just the best example of choice that I know of, no one requires you to buy X brand of oatmeal, or even to buy oatmeal at all. Or even to walk into the store. It's your choice to do this or that, or indeed neither.

True, and such luxury items can be left to a free market to regulate. But you do have to buy gasoline for the car that you do need to have to get to your job that you also must have to live. You do have to have a phone. You do have to heat your home. You do have to have clean water and a sewer system to remove the waste. You do have to buy food of some kind. We must buy these things, and the people selling them to us know it. Most of them used to be owned communally, but have been "deregulated", and as a result we have created monopolies that are now gouging citizens horribly because the citizens have to buy from them.

Other than protecting rights, I don't think government should have any power at all. Yes, there should be anti-fraud laws, products should do what they promise. Yes, companies and people should be held accountable for their actions if they interfere with another's rights. But imposing ergonomic standards on home offices? Requiring banks and other financial companies to spy on their customers? Creating wheelchair accessibility that makes it harder for the blind to get around?

A healthy democracy is a continuous experiment and debate. No one is going to get it all their way. Everyone wants something different. It's a system based on compromise and tolerance. And the more we become selfish and unwilling to compromise or tolerate the needs, rights, and desires of others, the more tyrannical the government will have to become to keep us from fighting amongst ourselves. With freedom, comes responsibility. Right now we don't appear to be a society that deserved freedom, as we don't appear to be responsible enough to handle it. And adding a bunch of fools with hand guns to this situation is not going to help it at all.

I am not talking about walking around like a policeman, I am talking about self-defense.

You already have policemen trained to defend you in the way that the rest of society needs and approves. If this isn't good enough protection for you, then you could hire a personal policeman to protect you, or you could become a policeman, yourself. But what the rest of society can't let you do is buy a gun and carry it around untrained and unsupervised. You would be a danger to yourself, to them, and that's a burden that you do not have the right to expect them to endure.

It's no different than driving a car or flying an airplane. These activities are very dangerous, and the people who engage in them must be trained and supervised.

Part of this rests heavily on the deterrent value.

There is no deterrent value. America has more people running around with guns than almost any nation on Earth, and we are still a most violent society, probably because of all the guns. You can't stop violence by arming more and more people. That's just plain irrational.

If Joe Criminal doesn't know if Granny at the ATM is armed or not, he is going to think twice about trying to rob her. If John Law doesn't know what kind of weapons they'll be facing when they kick down the door on the narcotics warrant, you better believe they'll think twice.

If Joe Criminal were that logical and reasonable about his behavior he wouldn't be a criminal in the first place. Most people who are killed and injured with guns are not attacked by unknown criminals. They are attacked by drunken and drugged up family members, neighbors, lovers, and friends.

The "responsibility" issue is the most slippery part of the whole slope. Arguably it is not the same as driving a car because the Constitution doesn't say one word about cars.

At some point common sense must take precedent over the ideas of men who lived in another century. The founding documents have to be interpreted for the times and conditions that exist, today. We know their basic intention: to establish and protect the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And to do so by establishing a government appointed by the people, buy holding to a set of unalienable individual rights. The right to bear arms was an amendment to these rights for the times, just as the equal rights amendment was necessitated by later times. It's not sacred, nor should it be considered so.

Once people in government start deciding that Group Z "can't be trusted," there is nothing in principle from those same people from deciding that Groups A-Y can't be trusted either.

We decide who can be trusted and who can't, not the "government". WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT. And these decisions HAVE TO BE MADE. Children can't drive cars. Adolescents can't drink alcohol. There are lots of exclusionary rules in any society that have to exist by common sense. They aren't "fair", but they are necessary.

 

[c0da]

The thing I've found so surprising with the US, are the instances where the criminals have been better equipped than the police. There have been several instances (the documentary I was watching a couple of months ago outlined about half a dozen), where the police had to commandeer weapons from nearby gun stores in order to be able to deal with people considerably better armed than they were.
Maybe just me, but there's something wrong with that picture.:areyoucra

That situation happens often in the UK too, as only police from certain units are given guns (eg. anti terrorist). Considering just how easy it is to aquire a gun illegaly here, I think thats putting the police at unecessary risks.

 

[NeoWayland]

But this does not constitute a disagreement. Who do you think the government must protect these individual's from? The answer is each other, and foreign nations.

But it is a disagreement. I suspect that you are using what I call the French model of liberty, where rights are defined by group and granted by a higher authority to members of that group.

I'm using what I call the American model where rights exist even if they haven't been defined, and the only restrictions are when someone interferes witht the rights of another.

The French model tends to put great trust in that higher authority, usually calling it something like the "common good." The American model tends to place it's trust in results, government has no merit simply because it is government, it has to prove itself.

I agree. And in the U.S., this has been sketched out by the founding documents, and by our ongoing interpretation of them. No one individual citizen gets to have it his own way, completely. To live together in a society requires some sacrifices on everyone's part. And that includes some sacrifice of individual freedom. You think we should pay less taxes. Someone else may think we should pay more. You think the markets should be less regulated, someone else may think they should be more regulated. The deciding factors are the people we elect to represent our desires, and the laws that protect and regulate our individual rights.

Another difference. I'd say that the Constitution restricts government, mainly because the Founders knew from experience that unrestricted government would take whatever power it could.

To protect individuals from the "tyranny of the majority," there are some very explicit protections to prevent government from acting in most situations.

This is not an accident.

Unfortunately, Americans today all seem to think they should have everything their way. The Christians want to stop abortion and homosexuality. The businessmen want deregulation. The wealthy don't want to pay taxes to support the poor. No one seems to recognize the fact that to live together in a society, we must make some sacrifices. We aren't going to get everything our way. Nor should we.

Some of us would just like to be left alone without government interference. Starhawk, a Pagan author, put it remarkably well. "Power with versus power over." I don't care what people choose to do as long as they don't try to use the government to make me do the same.

If I can choose to go to work or not, I can make any adult choice that may be needed. Otherwise, we're just waiting on Big Daddy Government to give us the high sign for each single activity.

I'm pretty sure that we are perfectly capable of muddling along without a higher authority mandating low-flow toilets, hamburgers that taste like cardboard, and the maximum amount of money we can move between bank accounts.

We don't need permission to live. Or as Charles Murray put it, "Mindful human beings require freedom and personal responsibility to live satisfying lives." Sounds a lot like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, doesn't it?

First, look at the number of citizens who WANT this sort of governmental force. You and I get nervous when we see the government giving itself more and more power. But unfortunately, there are many Americans who fear freedom, and fear their fellow citizens so much that they feel the government needs all that power to better protect them.

And their wants should supersede my freedom why?

Once again, the real threat is not from the government, but from a fearful and ignorant citizenry. Democracies are only going to be as good as their citizens are responsible and well informed. The more we citizens think and behave like idiots, the more controlling our government will need to become (and the more they will be able to become controlling), to protect us from our own selfish stupidity.

I've great faith in human nature. If individuals are free to choose and have to deal with the consequences of their choices, they tend to make better ones as time goes on.

But the trend since the Great Depression (and accelerating since the Great Society) has been to relieve people of responsibility. In my opinion, that is one of the very worst things we can do. We're telling people that no matter what they do, no matter how hard they try, we will never trust them to be full adults.

That's very true. And all the more reason why we should be intently scrutinizing this recent trend in America of redefining political terms to produce misleading and even hateful impressions.

Yep.

I agree, but this has nothing to do with guns, and it could easily be stopped, today. Our problem isn't that we need more guns, it's that we need smarter citizens.

It can't be stopped if the system is rigged to prevent outside interference. Those citizens were educated in the public schools, and I have yet to see an American ballot that had those magic words, "None Of The Above."

Meanwhile, honest people are being oppressed by both crimminals and their own government with no way to fight back.

Not even the method of the American Revoution.

True, and such luxury items can be left to a free market to regulate. But you do have to buy gasoline for the car that you do need to have to get to your job that you also must have to live. You do have to have a phone. You do have to heat your home. You do have to have clean water and a sewer system to remove the waste. You do have to buy food of some kind. We must buy these things, and the people selling them to us know it. Most of them used to be owned communally, but have been "deregulated", and as a result we have created monopolies that are now gouging citizens horribly because the citizens have to buy from them.

A free market encourages competition, which means lower prices and higher quality over time.

Monopolies can not exist without government sanction and enforcement. Emphasis on the force.

Government regulation tends to prevent competition.

A healthy democracy is a continuous experiment and debate. No one is going to get it all their way. Everyone wants something different. It's a system based on compromise and tolerance. And the more we become selfish and unwilling to compromise or tolerate the needs, rights, and desires of others, the more tyrannical the government will have to become to keep us from fighting amongst ourselves. With freedom, comes responsibility. Right now we don't appear to be a society that deserved freedom, as we don't appear to be responsible enough to handle it. And adding a bunch of fools with hand guns to this situation is not going to help it at all.

Again, that is the result of public eductation and a disarmed populace. The whole dynamic changes if people know they are responsible for their own actions and that the other guy might be armed too.

You already have policemen trained to defend you in the way that the rest of society needs and approves. If this isn't good enough protection for you, then you could hire a personal policeman to protect you, or you could become a policeman, yourself. But what the rest of society can't let you do is buy a gun and carry it around untrained and unsupervised. You would be a danger to yourself, to them, and that's a burden that you do not have the right to expect them to endure.

Who guards the guardians?

I haven't made enough posts here to put up a link yet, but there is a paper by Radley Balko at Cato dot org that examines some of the misuse of local SWAT teams.

On a personal level, I have had some good and some very bad experiences with the police. There are some I trust, but only because I know them as individuals.

Frankly, until I interfere with someone else's rights, it's no business of society what I do or do not do.

 

[NeoWayland]

continued.

It's no different than driving a car or flying an airplane. These activities are very dangerous, and the people who engage in them must be trained and supervised.

I always liked L. Neil Smith's idea that insurance companies should be the ones providing driver's licenses.

There is no deterrent value. America has more people running around with guns than almost any nation on Earth, and we are still a most violent society, probably because of all the guns. You can't stop violence by arming more and more people. That's just plain irrational.

If Joe Criminal were that logical and reasonable about his behavior he wouldn't be a criminal in the first place. Most people who are killed and injured with guns are not attacked by unknown criminals. They are attacked by drunken and drugged up family members, neighbors, lovers, and friends.

The states with concealed carry laws have a lower violent crime rate per capita.

At some point common sense must take precedent over the ideas of men who lived in another century. The founding documents have to be interpreted for the times and conditions that exist, today. We know their basic intention: to establish and protect the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And to do so by establishing a government appointed by the people, buy holding to a set of unalienable individual rights. The right to bear arms was an amendment to these rights for the times, just as the equal rights amendment was necessitated by later times. It's not sacred, nor should it be considered so.

If we were talking about honoring the spirit and intent, I would agree with you.

But as I said earlier, the Constitution was written to protect freedoms and restrict government, not the other way around.

We decide who can be trusted and who can't, not the "government". WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT.

Except most of us are prohibited from participating, much less changing. Have you ever heard of an election NOT producing a winner? Isn't not voting as valid a choice as voting? How many third party candidates get on the ballot for general elections? Why not? Why doesn't every state have a ballot initiative?

The system has been rigged by lawyers and politicos to keep the citizens at bay.

And these decisions HAVE TO BE MADE.

Generally speaking, when you have to keep making the rules more complicated, it's because the assumptions behind the original rules were severely flawed.

Or in other words, government keeps itself in business by picking up after it's own mistakes and blaming it on someone else.

Children can't drive cars. Adolescents can't drink alcohol.

Both of these are fairly modern assumptions. My own grandfather for example, was driving a tractor at ten and a truck at fourteen.

There are lots of exclusionary rules in any society that have to exist by common sense. They aren't "fair", but they are necessary.

Government is not the only means that can create or enforce those "necessary" rules.

On the other hand, I do think a nervous government is more likely to protect the rights of individuals.

The question is how do you keep them nervous?

There is a saying among some libertarians. "First the jury box, then the ballot box, then the cartridge box."

Guns are a last resort, I will agree. But you can't restrict guns and still have guns available as that last resort. If you do, then at the first sign of trouble, government will go after all the guns that the bureaucrats and politicos think are a threat.

I know this because it has happened before.

It is no accident that the Gun Control Act of 1968 was largely based on a Nazi law used to disarm Jews before WWII.

 

[niceguy]

I would love for a test to be required, but am worried that this may be non-constitutional.

Then make a constitutional amendment, static contitutions are useless, they need to be modernised and improved upon.

 

[NeoWayland]

PureX,

I don't think either one of us is going to convince the other, and I don't want to shut everyone else out of the thread.

I may be oversimplifying, but I think you tend to trust governments but tend to distrust individuals. I tend to trust individuals but tend to distrust governments.

 

[Booko]

I always liked L. Neil Smith's idea that insurance companies should be the ones providing driver's licenses.

Given the way insurance companies decide who gets health care, thanks but no thanks.

They'll only give licenses out to people who don't need to drive.

Except most of us are prohibited from participating, much less changing. Have you ever heard of an election NOT producing a winner? Isn't not voting as valid a choice as voting? How many third party candidates get on the ballot for general elections? Why not? Why doesn't every state have a ballot initiative?

The system has been rigged by lawyers and politicos to keep the citizens at bay.

And our political parties have made sure, through law, that no new parties will be able to break their little deadlock.

On the other hand, I do think a nervous government is more likely to protect the rights of individuals.

The question is how do you keep them nervous?

I have taught my children that the only way to get bureaucrats to do the right thing is to threaten them with public embarassment. Nothing else seems to work very well.

My thanks to Boortz' radio programme that originates in Atlanta. All you have to do around here is drop a hint that it would make a good conversation on the air on his show, and bureaucrats actually start listening to what you're trying to say and try to work with you. It works especially well with public school administrators, when logic and reason and plain good sense prove ineffective.

It is no accident that the Gun Control Act of 1968 was largely based on a Nazi law used to disarm Jews before WWII.

Indeed not. The Jews in Warsaw managed to hold off the Nazis for quite some time with a paltry couple of dozen handguns.

There is always a balancing act going on between individuals and gov'ts. Gov'ts, even good ones, will always try to remove weapons in the name of security. And many individuals, out of genuine concerns for lives, will agree. But as the saying goes, those who trade liberty for security deserve neither.

I wonder what would've happened in WW2 if the Americans of Japanese descent had looked like they might fight back? Do you suppose they would've had their businesses and all their possessions taken from them so easily? Do you suppose the gov't would've dared even try, if they thought they might encounter an armed resistance?

 

[Booko]

First, look at the number of citizens who WANT this sort of governmental force. You and I get nervous when we see the government giving itself more and more power. But unfortunately, there are many Americans who fear freedom, and fear their fellow citizens so much that they feel the government needs all that power to better protect them.

Once again, the real threat is not from the government, but from a fearful and ignorant citizenry. Democracies are only going to be as good as their citizens are responsible and well informed. The more we citizens think and behave like idiots, the more controlling our government will need to become (and the more they will be able to become controlling), to protect us from our own selfish stupidity.

Who the heck do you think is working to ensure that the citizenry remain fearful and ignorant?

It's not mere accident that this is happening.

 

[Mercy Not Sacrifice]

In an ideal America, people would lose their fear and their guns with little reserve.

In a real America, too many people are too damn scared to forfeit their "right" to kill another human being.

It is for this reason that my stance on gun control is similar to my stance on abortion: Personally, I am against the ownership of heavy firearms, but I do not believe that laws should excessively restrict them. I'm afraid that modest regulation is about all that we can safely push for.

 

[PureX]

I may be oversimplifying, but I think you tend to trust governments but tend to distrust individuals. I tend to trust individuals but tend to distrust governments.

You're not over-simplifying, you're just wrong. I don't differentiate between the government and the people. The government IS the "the people", especially in the United States. The problem is that some of "the people" want to exploit everyone else. And some of "the people" want to make everyone else bow to their idea of freedom and righteousness. And some of "the people" are insane, and want to do harm to others for irrational reasons or no reason at all. And we ALL have a little bit of "these people" in us. It's not the government we need to fear, it's those among us who would use the government to exploit us, control us, and harm us. And sometimes you and I are "them".

In you above post you say you just want to be left alone, to fend for yourself, but this is an impossible fantasy, and it always was. There is nowhere on this Earth you can go and just be "left alone". There are billions of human beings, and they will find you no matter where you go, and when they do, some of them will want to exploit you, and some will want to control you, and some will want to harm you for no rational reason at all. This is how it is, and always has been. And no matter how good you are at protecting yourself and your family, there will always be someone stronger than you, and sooner or later they will find you and do as they please with you.

Human beings have realized this long ago, and have struggle to invent ways of living that would enable them to protect themselves. And they've found that by banding together they can be a lot stronger in standing against external threats. But unfortunately, this didn't help them with the internal threats.

The United States is one of the more recent experiments in people banding together to protect themselves from exploitation, oppression, and physical violence. It's a limited democratic republic based on a belief that the fundamental rights of individuals supersede even the will of the majority, but unfortunately believing so and saying so didn't make it so, because the threat comes from within the citizenry as well as from without.

Until we recognize this, and begin to address it, we are doomed. Being able to shoot politicians will not help or even effectively change anything. The threat is within us. The threat continues to exist as long as we want to exploit our neighbors, control our neighbors, and use violence against them for our own selfish purposes.

The problem of gun violence in America isn't coming from the politicians. They aren't shooting anyone. The problem is in US. And that's the only place where we'll find a solution. We need some way of regulating our own lust for violence against ourselves and our neighbors. The only way I can think of to do that effectively is by government oversight. I realize that there are risks involved with giving the government any power, especially the power to control guns, but at this moment I think they're far lower than the risk of allowing ourselves to all be carrying guns around with us. I feel certain that I'm far more in danger of being shot by some moron with a hand gun than by any politician or their paid henchmen. Though I will admit that if Bush tries to declare Marshall Law to keep himself in office, I will be the first in line to buy an illegal fire arm.

 

[Comet]

It's not just about handling the guns, themselves, it's about handling one's self.

I had a guy at work recently tell me a story about how one of his friends finally went out and bought a hand gun, and how this is good because now he's more sure of himself, or something like that. And as an example, he told me about how he and this friend got cut off by some guys in a cadillac and so they they raced up behind them to give them "the finger" and then the cadillac pulls over and the guys get out with a ball bat so this friend (the previously timid one) pulls out his pistol and the other guys run back to their car and drive off.

He's telling me this story to show me that hand guns are good because they gave his friend the "backbone" to confront these guys with the bats. But of course I'm thinking that everyone in the story is a complete moron and NONE of them should EVER be allowed to own a gun of any kind. They can't even drive their cars responsibly, let alone own a gun! And sadly, this idiot-tough guy thing is real common around here, and all over the rest of the U.S., too. And these are exactly the people who are buying guns: the very people who should never be allowed to have them. I'm sure they know how to work the mechanism, and most of them know how to hit what they're aiming at. The problem is that they don't know when to KEEP IT HOLSTERED! They think they're living in a John Wayne movie. They think guns are for bracing up weak self-esteem. And these are the same idiots that will get drunk some night and shoot their girlfriend because she wants to break it off with them, or one of their kids will find the gun and shoot himself with it because dim-wit daddy had to keep a loaded pistol in the night stand for the robbers and rapists that he's so sure are just waiting outside the bedroom window. And then when someone does break in, of course it will be when the dim-wit's not home (as any robber will do) and then the thief will steal all of dim-wit's guns, and sell them illegally on the street to other thieves and miscreants who will now show up at someone else's house armed.

I want people to be able to own and carry guns, but they MUST be strictly governed. They should be exactly as qualified as a police officer. And I feel quite sure that most of the dim-wit's I'm aware of that are now carrying around hand guns in their cars and night tables at home would not be able to pass such a rigorous qualification procedure. Which is exactly as it should be.

I would agree that it is not about the guns, but the people who carry them. Many people can be trained in gun use, but having one goes to their head or they get careless. I believe everybody has the right to own a gun, but something needs to change.