Sucks to be an incompetent burgler

[JimC]

Does it blow to be a competent bugler?

[Tyrannical]

And how many British police get killed each year?

If you thought comparing civilian murders was warped you should see what it is for police

Typically we had less than one policeman murdered each year in the UK each year US its over 150. I know where I would rather be a policeman (idiot or otherwise)

Well, nice to know they can stay out of harm's way. And I'm sure the British people admire the bravery of their police force too .

[MrJonno]

The issue is choice.

Sure and that choice isn't always yours , there is no ''I' or 'me' in the people. Want an armed society start canvassing and get enough people to vote for it

[Seth]

The issue is choice.

Sure and that choice isn't always yours , there is no ''I' or 'me' in the people.

I'm not "the people." I'm an individual and I have individual rights, some of which supersede and overrule the collective desire...like my right to personal safety.

Want an armed society start canvassing and get enough people to vote for it

Er, been there, done that, got the Constitution to show for it.

That's rather the point. Our nation was founded on the principle of an armed society. It is the hoplophobes and Marxists who are trying to DISARM us that are the problem.

[MrJonno]

'm not "the people." I'm an individual and I have individual rights, some of which supersede and overrule the collective desire

The collective decide your rights for as long as you choose to be part of it (i.e breathe within a countries borders). Want to decide what your individual rights are then time to find a desert island

Any rights I have come from the society I'm born in, without that society there is no rights including the right to exist

[Seth]

'm not "the people." I'm an individual and I have individual rights, some of which supersede and overrule the collective desire

The collective decide your rights for as long as you choose to be part of it (i.e breathe within a countries borders).

The "collective" did decide my rights, and it expressed them in a written Constitution, which says that "...the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

What part of "shall not be infringed" is unclear to you?

Want to decide what your individual rights are then time to find a desert island

Any rights I have come from the society I'm born in, without that society there is no rights including the right to exist

Wrong. Your right to exist without a society is plenary and absolute and you can do anything you want to preserve it, including killing anyone or any thing that might interfere with the free exercise of that right. Now, whether you can be successful in that enterprise is another matter entirely.

[JimC]

'm not "the people." I'm an individual and I have individual rights, some of which supersede and overrule the collective desire

The collective decide your rights for as long as you choose to be part of it (i.e breathe within a countries borders). Want to decide what your individual rights are then time to find a desert island

Any rights I have come from the society I'm born in, without that society there is no rights including the right to exist

Here I'm leaning towards Seth (although there are certainly times when the collective process needs to override individual choices)

Taken at face value, your description is Orwellian to a worrying degree...

[Cormac]

'm not "the people." I'm an individual and I have individual rights, some of which supersede and overrule the collective desire

The collective decide your rights for as long as you choose to be part of it (i.e breathe within a countries borders). Want to decide what your individual rights are then time to find a desert island

Any rights I have come from the society I'm born in, without that society there is no rights including the right to exist

Here I'm leaning towards Seth (although there are certainly times when the collective process needs to override individual choices)

Taken at face value, your description is Orwellian to a worrying degree...

[DaveDodo007]

Stealing tools got escalated to someone threatening lethal force great success

Yeah buddy!! No tools stolen, no force used, total capitulation by the crooks. Doesn't get any better than that.

Fuck you, don't you care about the owners donkey and its need for a erm cracker.

[Seth]

'm not "the people." I'm an individual and I have individual rights, some of which supersede and overrule the collective desire

The collective decide your rights for as long as you choose to be part of it (i.e breathe within a countries borders). Want to decide what your individual rights are then time to find a desert island

Any rights I have come from the society I'm born in, without that society there is no rights including the right to exist

Here I'm leaning towards Seth (although there are certainly times when the collective process needs to override individual choices)

Taken at face value, your description is Orwellian to a worrying degree...

Yup. Of course there are times when the collective need override the individual need. That's why we have a hierarchy of rights. The collective's need for traffic safety override my desire to drive through stop signs.

But what we've been discussing this whole time is the right of the individual to personal safety in the face of criminal attack. In this, there is no compromise. The "needs" of the collective to deny or inhibit the individual's right to effective self-defense are completely illegitimate, and the right of the individual to be equipped and to utilize the necessary tools for defense against criminality always outweigh the purported "need" of the collective to control what arms the individual, and thus the collective, are allowed to have.

[pErvinalia]

In your opinion.

There's no natural rights. There's what society and/or the constitution grants. And yes, before you waste our time, I know your constitution grants that, but I'm talking wider than that. There simply aren't natural rights.

[Robert_S]

So, if things stay the way they are 1 person gets killed and the blood is on MrJonno's hands.

Yup, because Jonno did not give the 1 person the opportunity to decide for himself whether or not he needed to be armed.

If Seth convinces MrJonno to arm the police and 100 people die, then there is 100 people dead and the blood is on both your hands.

Nope. First you pose a false dilemma because there are other possibilities. Second, you fail to classify those who die and indicate whether they are innocent victims or whether they are violent criminals who engaged in activities that made it both reasonable, necessary and justifiable to kill them.

If 100 violent felons threatening the lives of others are killed, who cares? They needed to be dead because they did things that justified killing them and thereby forfeited their right remain alive.

But then, a single death is a tragedy, but 100 is a statistic.

The issue is choice. One person who dies because he was denied the right to arm himself for self-defense by his government is more important than 100 people who had the choice to either arm themselves or not arm themselves for self-defense.

It is moral and ethical to respect the decision of the individual who chooses to be or not to be armed and support their decision by accepting the consequences of their actions, for better or for worse and refusing to interfere with their free choice in that regard.

It is utterly immoral and unethical for one individual, or a group of individuals to deny the right to make that decision to even one person, and if any person denied their right to choose to be armed or unarmed, then those who support, advocate or enact laws that interfere with that free and sovereign individual decision are completely morally and ethically responsible for that individual's death and should be required to suffer the consequences of THEIR actions with appropriate retributive punishment.

To make it short and sweet, you can do whatever the hell you want regarding your personal safety, I could care less, but when you presume to support laws that dictate what I may and may not do by way of preparation or actual self-defense, you are endangering my life and the lives of my loved ones and I'll resist that despotism to the very end.

OK, let us say that 50 of the hypothetical dead people are cops who have recently been armed. And that they are dead precisely because the criminals decided to follow the police's lead and escalate the arms race. Remember, the individual police have no say in this. That's 50 dead innocent people (we're excluding corrupt cops for the sake of simplicity) people as the result of a decision.

Now mind you, just because your beat cop isn't armed doesn't necessarily imply that your average homeowner can't have a shotgun to ward off intruders. We're talking about people in the UK who took a job knowing the conditions beforehand. That makes it a much different thing than disarming the police in the US would be.

If nobody wanted to be an unarmed cop, the the UK would have to either conscript people or go without cops. They have done neither to my knowledge.

[Robert_S]

'm not "the people." I'm an individual and I have individual rights, some of which supersede and overrule the collective desire

The collective decide your rights for as long as you choose to be part of it (i.e breathe within a countries borders). Want to decide what your individual rights are then time to find a desert island

Any rights I have come from the society I'm born in, without that society there is no rights including the right to exist

Here I'm leaning towards Seth (although there are certainly times when the collective process needs to override individual choices)

Taken at face value, your description is Orwellian to a worrying degree...

That's just MrJonno trolling. He's taking the complete opposite position to Seth's rugged individualism.

[pErvinalia]

So, if things stay the way they are 1 person gets killed and the blood is on MrJonno's hands.

Yup, because Jonno did not give the 1 person the opportunity to decide for himself whether or not he needed to be armed.

If Seth convinces MrJonno to arm the police and 100 people die, then there is 100 people dead and the blood is on both your hands.

Nope. First you pose a false dilemma because there are other possibilities. Second, you fail to classify those who die and indicate whether they are innocent victims or whether they are violent criminals who engaged in activities that made it both reasonable, necessary and justifiable to kill them.

If 100 violent felons threatening the lives of others are killed, who cares? They needed to be dead because they did things that justified killing them and thereby forfeited their right remain alive.

But then, a single death is a tragedy, but 100 is a statistic.

The issue is choice. One person who dies because he was denied the right to arm himself for self-defense by his government is more important than 100 people who had the choice to either arm themselves or not arm themselves for self-defense.

It is moral and ethical to respect the decision of the individual who chooses to be or not to be armed and support their decision by accepting the consequences of their actions, for better or for worse and refusing to interfere with their free choice in that regard.

It is utterly immoral and unethical for one individual, or a group of individuals to deny the right to make that decision to even one person, and if any person denied their right to choose to be armed or unarmed, then those who support, advocate or enact laws that interfere with that free and sovereign individual decision are completely morally and ethically responsible for that individual's death and should be required to suffer the consequences of THEIR actions with appropriate retributive punishment.

To make it short and sweet, you can do whatever the hell you want regarding your personal safety, I could care less, but when you presume to support laws that dictate what I may and may not do by way of preparation or actual self-defense, you are endangering my life and the lives of my loved ones and I'll resist that despotism to the very end.

OK, let us say that 50 of the hypothetical dead people are cops who have recently been armed. And that they are dead precisely because the criminals decided to follow the police's lead and escalate the arms race. Remember, the individual police have no say in this. That's 50 dead innocent people (we're excluding corrupt cops for the sake of simplicity) people as the result of a decision.

Now mind you, just because your beat cop isn't armed doesn't necessarily imply that your average homeowner can't have a shotgun to ward off intruders. We're talking about people in the UK who took a job knowing the conditions beforehand. That makes it a much different thing than disarming the police in the US would be.

If nobody wanted to be an unarmed cop, the the UK would have to either conscript people or go without cops. They have done neither to my knowledge.

But they're Marxist useful idiots, or something..

[pErvinalia]

'm not "the people." I'm an individual and I have individual rights, some of which supersede and overrule the collective desire

The collective decide your rights for as long as you choose to be part of it (i.e breathe within a countries borders). Want to decide what your individual rights are then time to find a desert island

Any rights I have come from the society I'm born in, without that society there is no rights including the right to exist

Here I'm leaning towards Seth (although there are certainly times when the collective process needs to override individual choices)

Taken at face value, your description is Orwellian to a worrying degree...

That's just MrJonno trolling. He's taking the complete opposite position to Seth's rugged individualism.

Jonno actually believes what he says. He is quite authoritarian. But in a sense, he is right. There are no rights that aren't granted to you by society. The problem for Jonno is that he doesn't believe in constitutions, despite the fact that they genuinely work.