Should Guns be Banned in the US?

Skizm


Here is a short version –

The false sense of power that guns can give people also seems to appear in the idea that they are a protection against government persecution.

For example over the years several pro-gun people have implied that the Jews would have been safe and the holocaust may never have happened if the Jews had just been armed.

The problem is that the German people had been taught the Jews were dangerous. So what if some of them had fired on the police that had come to take them away, do you think the German people would have seen this as a justified reaction and come to their defence or just seen it as proof the Jews were indeed dangerous and needed taking care of?

Think about US history, did the Native Americans that fought back against the treaty breaking US government get the support of the American citizenry? What if the US citizens of Japanese decent had resisted the unconstitutional internment imposed on them after Pearl Harbour and had shot at the police, do you think they would have got general and popular support? What about those hauled in front of McCarthy or the un-American committees, would Americans have rallied to them if they had refused to go before such witch hunts and opened fire on those that came to take them?

Here is the long version –

Can guns save you from suppression?
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...&postcount=217

 

i wonder how the greeks managed . . .

 

This thread always turns into a US vs Canada or US vs UK... I wonder why.

 

It's completely true, it is a false sense of security that far too many buy into. However, I seem to recall this little thing in the past called the Revolutionary War... I wonder how that turned out?

Anyway, onto something more relevant. When I say that guns are vital to democracy, I mean it in a worst-case-scenario way (AKA, revolution!) I've always said you do not plan for what people might do, you plan for what they can do. A heavily armed group of people is much harder to coerce than a group of people with no protection.

Will guns solve many problems? Probably not. I just believe that the scope of problems you open yourself up to without them are far worse than the problems they cause.

 

Guns are not a symptom. Guns are just one of various means. If guns are part of the disease, than going by all the empirical evidence, no matter how many times I've had to post it:
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?p=6696967#post6696967
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?p=6695720#post6695720

Either we can agree that guns are in fact no part of the symptoms that cause violent crime and just wind up the means to the end in the commission of a crime, or we admit guns do a play role in crime........they lower it. Now I prefer to think guns are completely irrelevant to the discussion of violent crime, its symptoms, its prognosis and gun laws played really no part in crime rates both here, and in the UK and Australia after their knee jerk legislative reactions. But if we're going to bring them up, than you can't ignore the fact the empirical evidence points to the fact that the loosening of gun laws and higher ownership in the past 20 years has correlated to massively lower violent crime rates while Britain and Australia had both their crime rates go up.

Now you can't have both ways, so which is it, guns are good, or guns are irrelevant except to investigators to the discussion of violent crime.

*edit*
Just cause I didn't have this in any of the posts I linked:

 

Just in case anyone is curious about the 2nd amendment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/us/29scotus.html

@Balbus, if i may, how or what actions should be taken to remove illegal guns from the streets. It seems to be an infeasible task. Realistically i have never needed a gun for protection and probably never will. However banning them, (while infuriating much of the population and costing time and money to actually try to round up all the guns in the USA) will not get rid of them, just as the war on drugs hasn't quite worked either.

This has always been my view: If you ban guns it will lead to a black market, which inevitably leads to more crime amongst (now) illegal gun traffickers. That is why i voted the way i did in this poll, i don't believe banning guns is the answer.

The answer? I don't have it.. The real problem is people,

 

Skizm

Yes I recall that, I heard the French won it

But many governments have been toppled without a revolutionary shooting war.

Two things here –

(1) The thing is that many people who are pro-gun also lean to the right politically and are therefore not seen as a threat by many if not most of the political establishment but rather as an ally.

When some tea party extremist talks about being a gun owner and being willing to stop America going socialist it doesn’t have this establishment worried, it has them smiling.


If they remain allies I think the US establishment will continue to stand by them.

But if they stop being seen as allies things would be different, imagine if the demographic of gun owners changed and started to go from right wingers to left wingers, from people who claim they would use their guns to stop socialism to people that claimed they would use their guns to spread socialism. I think that long before that change came about there would be a scramble by the right leaning establishment to bring in gun control at state and federal levels.

Now many are going to cry ‘YES that’s why we need guns’ but what I’m trying to point out is that those guns are unlikely to save them.

Because once the system - which the establishment is happy with - is threatened the thing threatening it is put under pressure (see Can guns save you from suppression?
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...&postcount=217)

(2) A worst-case-scenario is usually just bad for everyone you could end up all too easily with an Afghanistan political dustbowl or knee deep in radioactive rubble.

 

Mad

Brilliant, thank you, this is exactly a display of the type of mentality I’ve been trying to highlight.

To repeat yet again, I’ve got nothing against responsible and law abiding people owning a gun. And if you had read my posts - rather than getting all huffy at what I haven’t said - you’d realise that my view is that in the US the mentality that often goes with gun ownership is the big problem, as it seems to see suppression and threat as the best means of dealing with social, economic and political problems and ignores or dismisses alternatives.

They see guns as a means to tackle the symptoms of the problems. And so it is not surprising that this mentality also promotes gun ownership as a means of tackling such things.

You are doing it again in your reply - you are promoting the idea that it is a ‘fact’ uncontested and undisputable that more gun ownership correlates directly (and by implication solely) to lower crime rates.

You almost scream the assertion - admit guns do play a role in crime........they lower it.

Well first that isn’t a ‘fact’ it is an opinion and one that is strongly and vigorously contested and disputed by others because it often seems based on a very subjective interpretation of the evidence and/or methodically dubious data. At best it is an unproven assertion, at worst a myth.

As to me bringing up the difference in crime figures between the UK and US, well in every discussion I’ve been in as soon as an American pro-gunner has discovered I’m a Brit they’ve brought it up not me.

And as both you and I (and the US department of Justice along with most reputable statisticians) have pointed out because of differences in policing methods and record keeping and interpretation of what constitutes certain crimes, other than homicide figures, the other statistics are difficult if not impossible to compare.

But that is a side issue the point here is that this is yet again an example of the mentality I’ve been talking about the problem is not so much legitimate gun ownership but the attitudes and mentality of gun owners, their viewpoint and outlook on their society.

They fear their society, they fear that a pistol totting, crack addicted gangbanger might at any moment break through their door with rape and murder on their minds; they fear their government is conspiring to make them into slaves and federal agents are poised in every shadow to strip them of all rights and freedoms.

And frightened people are seldom rational.

I’d hope that one day they will step back from their fear and stop clutching their guns to their breasts like a talisman against evil and start tackling the causes of the problems in their society.

 

America was tested = FAIL.
The amendment to bare arms was specific in its purpose.
To ensure a safeguard against tyranny.
To be sure [FOR EXAMPLE] fraudulent belections could not empower a dictator, to keep power in the hands of the people.
The hands with the guns !

2 fraudulent elections later, people drugged in front of the TV
blaring trash at then have done NOTHING
as the whole world watches AMERICA as the EXAMPLE OF THE EARTH !

Hmmm

So ... you get the vright to have guns SPECIFICALLY to kill your own leaders
IF they become corrupted, but when it happens and is reported globally with the world watching you do NOTYHING ?

Now lets debate if ppl should even HAVE guns ?

WOW !
America EXAMPLE TO THE WORLD
WOW !

Remember the 2 Bush elections declared FRAUD
I think this was your cue to ride on the whitehouse and kill em all.
But I could be wrong PHILOSOPHICALLY theoretically if America did that ... and the world was watching .... and America is the LAMP of the globe

that would mean OTHER corrupt countries would also rise up
that might be whore-i-bull
ppl would get killed ...

0h my word ... horrible ... the thought of ppl dying instead of living under tyranny !
1am canadian ... IF only I could get a gun Id shoot myself out of SHAME belonging to such a sissy society !

read between the sarcasm

Remember the founding fathers of Amy
SPECIFIED the right to have guns specifically to kill congressmen, presidents, senators and anyone else corrupted and leading the only [then] free nation on earth into tyranny.
The constitution had to be amended for Gods sake !
To protect YOUR freedom !

Now you want to debate that right ?
SHAME !

You deserve the fascist tyrannt !
The fight for freedom never ends ... ppl die anyways ... they will always die ... some with integrity and some even with glory ! Bush said on inauguration America wouldnt use its guns abroad ... NO! THe place to use the guns is at home, clean your house FIRST
know the whole world is watching, and they WILL follow suit.

 

Soul

Exactly what I’ve been saying, so many pro-gunner have just given up (or don’t care) – and since there isn’t an alternative the only way to protect yourself from that pistol totting crack addicted gangbanger that at any moment could break through your door and rape your wife and child before putting a bullet in your head is to get yourself a gun, no get two or maybe three…..

It a way of promoting guns and the mentality that goes with it of there being no alternatives.

And before someone shouts back asking me to explain what the problems are and how they should be tackled I’d just like to point out that the very fact you’d ask me was indicative of the very mentality I’ve been trying to explain.

 

people have been living under various forms of tyranny for thousands and thousands of years

if we kill our tyrants, we become indistinguishable from them

[the russian revolution ended at ekaterinburg]

 

MAN I lived with hippie siritualist frauds long ENOUGH to tell you to your face
you ARE already LIKE THEM
youre human for crapsc sake, and subject to all human weaknesees and fallicies.

You want to use this as an excuse to lay low
maybe itll all blow over
WEAK man WEAK verrry WEAK !

As a human you allowed even encouarged by the creator to take a stand.
NOT to be weak, to be strong.
Remember Nazi Gernany?
The weak thought by laying low it would all blow over ...
it didnt and those WHO DID NOTHING live in eternal shame !

Your already like those you judge ! Human !
Act like it, stop being a FAKE HIPPIE.
The fakes who were in Germany are still in shame.

Will you live forever in peace laying low, eating vegetables, pretending you dont hate, have conflict, or want to be free, or even live a better life?
What about your kids?
What about the WORLD ?
Watching ....
Waiting ...
tick, tick, tick ,

Maybe your RIGHT !
Make LOVE not war ... but what to do with all the LOVE BABIES ???
How [and WHERE] will they live ???

You dont have answers to your own formulas !
Sterilizae the population ... remove all weapons
LIONS will begin eating STRAW ... just like in tnhe bible !
Everyone can have unlimited sex becuase all sisease will be cured
tech will supply 20,000 year lifespan to the sterilzed ppl ?

WHAT are YOU proposing ?
Be clear.
Youve provided no SOLUTIONS
only critisism !
ARE you smarter than the founding fathers who gave you the privilage of protecting your freedom ?

 

i don't believe in a creator

obama is not hitler

i have never had any children

[wipe the spittle off your keyboard]

the founding fathers are dead

 

You contradict yourself
Saying THERE IS NO FREEDOM
then
OBAMA isnt hitler

You indicate youre aware 0bama is only a puppet show doll.
[the pretty black man to stop black unrest in America = fraud = mindcontrol]
Theres no freedom, BUT 0bamas OK ?
WHAT ?
Youre not making sense !
Maybe you missed obama's move with the bankers, wall st, and his meeting with the queen he objected to. He took tax money from Americans to pay off thieves, so they can rob again !

No creator=no creativity=no creation
SO you dont believe in any of that?
Hmmm.
[thats going nowhere]

I might refer you to the DUCK.
I didnt have kids either, one thing in common, population being the prime reason, the buck [or that other word that sounds like UK] has to stop somewhere.

Yet ppl are breeeding like ants in a sugar factory.
THAT didnt stop. [yet] The making love AND war.

ALL you do is argue, I maintain that you have provided no viable solutions, just argue those presented.

Present a viable comprehensive plan/solution !

 

you really think obama is hitler?

you really need help . . .

and you think shooting people is one?

then i say:

yru2b9 is hitler

 

You are making things up !
= Fraud !

Quote where I said what byou accuse or admit Fraud to members watching !
Your in the spotlight, nowhere to hide here.

I say you LIED about me
slandered libeled me in public which is a felony and fraud.
http://www.dba-oracle.com/oracle_news/news_states_criminal_libel_web_internet.htm
THATS NOT HIP bud

18 months in prison for libel bud
better HIDE !

 

the reason i offer no viable solutions to any problems is that there are no easy, quick answers to the problems of the world today

there are difficult, long-term solutions, and i'm sure you know or can guess what those might be

the majority of people want to live stupid, wasteful lives - and convincing them to change will change everything

and how are you going to do that? with a gun? a lot of them are armed too, i'd wager . . .

 

i'll do better, i'll change my signature

okay, sweetie?

 

Thats a grown up way to discuss an issue
looks like YOU LOSE !