The Curious Case of the Fall in Crime.

[Blind groper]

Seth

I am pleased that your armed forces give their loyalty to the proper place. In that case, of course, the people do not need guns. No tyrant can hold power unless he has the support of the military. If your military is, as you say, dedicated to the constitution and the people, then no leader can take total power. As a result, your argument falls apart, since under those conditions, the people will never need guns.

On your other examples.
7 million Jews in Germany.
60 million Chinese under Mao.
Cambodia, Stalin's USSR etc.

What caused their tragedy was that they did not fight back. Not that they had no guns. If they chose to fight back, they would have got the guns.

This, of course, was the case in Syria until the protests began. The tyrant kept power, not because the people lacked guns, but because the people chose not to unite and fight. Today, the tyrant's days are numbered. He will be deposed, and either flee or get killed, and then in due course he will be replaced by the next tyrant. Until the people once more choose to rise up.

It is not guns. It is the willingness to stand up and fight for something better. Guns can always be obtained. Fighting spirit is rarer.

[Seth]

Seth

I am pleased that your armed forces give their loyalty to the proper place. In that case, of course, the people do not need guns. No tyrant can hold power unless he has the support of the military. If your military is, as you say, dedicated to the constitution and the people, then no leader can take total power. As a result, your argument falls apart, since under those conditions, the people will never need guns.

Um, the point of the 2nd Amendment is (in part) that the body of the People always have sufficient arms and equipment to defeat the standing army should it, or some part of it, decide to violate it's duty to the People and support a tyrant. So if some cabal of General Officers in and near DC decide to stage a coup, it is not only presumed that those members of the military loyal to the Constitution will stand against the traitors, but also that the "militia" in the form of the "citizen-soldiers" of the National and State guards will refuse to march upon or kill Americans and will instead take up arms against the traitors as well. Syria is a prime example. Many members of the military "deserted" and took up arms against the tyrant, but the populace in general did not, and still does not have sufficient arms to successfully take down the tyrant because of the number of people and military units who decided to support the regime.

In the United States the principle is that the body of the citizenry have a right to keep and bear arms even if they are not formal or designated members of the Unorganized or Organized Militia. This has a two-fold purpose; first, it's to give any and all citizens the physical ability to resist tyranny and crime, whenever and wherever it may crop up; and second so that in the event of a military coup the loyal Militia will have a pool of arms which can be appropriated for use in putting down the coup that neither the Congress nor the military in rebellion have control of, access to or even knowledge of the location and owners of.

If you've ever watched the original "Red Dawn," one of the scenes shows the invading military commander ordering his soldiers to go to every gun store in the area to seize the written paper records of gun transactions which are written down and must be kept perpetually by the FFL licensee in his place of business. This is the Form 4473 that every person buying a firearm in the United States from a licensed dealer must by law fill out. Those forms are then used to go to the shop owners and confiscate weapons and ammunition, and when firearms are found missing and unaccounted for the store owner (the father of two of the teenager who escape) are executed by the Cuban troops. The movie may be fiction, but the danger it exposes is very real and accurate.

That is in fact a "gun registry," and the movie accurately points out the danger of such records, even something as antidiluvian as paper records, much less a computer database of gun sales transactions. The whole reason that the paper form is used is because Congress recognizes the inherent danger to the rights and liberty of gun owners created by making a "paper trail" of firearms transactions. It is very easy to turn those records into lists of people the police or military will go visit for confiscation of firearms, and Congress knows it. One of the compromises made in the 1968 Gun Control Act that mandated the Form 4473 was that the BATFE was absolutely PROHIBITED from computerizing or centralizing those written records. It was also explicitly forbidden to keep NICS background check information for more than 24 hours for exactly the same reason.

And the fear of abuse of these records is very well founded. The BATFE has been caught at least THREE TIMES illegally collecting and archiving NICS data, and it's also been caught trying to enter Form 4473s that have been shipped to it by defunct FFL licensees (yet another requirement) in to a computer system.

State level experiences with "assault weapon" registration in both California and New Jersey amply demonstrate how a "voluntary" registration system set up to "keep track" of such weapons can be, are, and have been used to create lists for state and local police to use to physically go to the registrant's home to seize duly-registered weapons that have been made "contraband" by a state law. It has happened, and it will continue to happen.

And then there's the abuse of privacy that happens when state-level records of gun owners that are mandated by some states, like New Jersey, get released to the public under Freedom of Information laws. We saw this happen in New Jersey, where a newspaper took those registry records for two entire counties and made up an indexed and searchable on-line map showing exactly where each and every licensed and registered gun owner in those counties resided. This caused a real furor and it was also directly responsible for a number of burglaries of homes on the list precisely targeted at the weapons revealed by the "public records."

And THAT is precisely why state Senator John Morse of Colorado is one of two Colorado legislators now facing the first recall election of a state-level elected representative in Colorado's history...because he was the driving force in getting a "universal background check" law that mandates record keeping for all private firearms transfers (not to mention a 15 round magazine limit) rammed through the then-democrat-controlled legislature. Enough people in his district feel betrayed by Morse's blatant violation of both the 2nd Amendment and the Colorado Constitution that they petitioned the recall onto the ballot of a special election to be held in September.

We, the People do not want and will not allow our government to keep track of the location or ownership of our firearms because the consequences of doing so are potentially far, far more grave and destructive of our essential liberties than the very, very small problem of criminals buying guns from gun shows or private individuals, both of which comprise less than 4% of the firearms obtained by criminals, who most often get them by stealing them...like from households and persons who are in a database of gun owners.

On your other examples.
7 million Jews in Germany.
60 million Chinese under Mao.
Cambodia, Stalin's USSR etc.

What caused their tragedy was that they did not fight back. Not that they had no guns. If they chose to fight back, they would have got the guns.

I'm sorry, what? Are you really that ignorant? Ever here of the Warsaw Ghetto? How about the "Liberty Pistol?" For fuck's sake go read some history sometime.

This, of course, was the case in Syria until the protests began. The tyrant kept power, not because the people lacked guns, but because the people chose not to unite and fight. Today, the tyrant's days are numbered. He will be deposed, and either flee or get killed, and then in due course he will be replaced by the next tyrant. Until the people once more choose to rise up.

You're just plain wrong.

It is not guns. It is the willingness to stand up and fight for something better. Guns can always be obtained. Fighting spirit is rarer.

"Guns can always be obtained." What ignorant, stupid hogwash. If the whole of the Syrian people had been armed, or were even allowed to be armed as the people of the US are they wouldn't have a hundred thousand slaughtered, mostly unarmed civilians. They tried peaceful protest and political pressure and were murdered wholesale by Morsi's military.

And when they finally did rise up, they had insufficient arms with which to defeat the military, and they still have insufficient arms to prevail. And yet they fight on.

So where, exactly, are all those guns that are simply going to pop into existence, presumably by random chance from the quantum foam of the universe?

Why did the US have to ship PRIVATE arms donated by Americans to the British Home Guard in WWII? Where were the magical guns that just appear whenever a body politic decides to rise up against a tyrant?

How many hundreds of thousands or millions of people have to die trying to oppose a tyrant and his army with rocks and bottles before these magical arms pop into existence? Evidently a lot, given the 40 million Stalin killed and the 60 million Maoists killed...where are those arms for the peons of rural China? Where were they for the 12 million starving scarecrows of Ukraine?

How fucking ignorant can one person be?

[Blind groper]

When a revolution begins, guns pour in from other nations. From the nations that are enemies to the government that is totalitarian. Where the hell do you think the IRA got its weapons? Where do you think the Syrian revolutionaries get their guns?

You atre so hung up on the need to own your own lethal toys that you cannot see that such ownership by private individuals is totally unnecessary.

[MrJonno]

Definition of a tyrannical government is one that starts giving guns to everyone, its the first thing they tend to do stick everyone in the military . Iraq was a very good example just about every household there had a firearm.

Governments don't kill people the milita/military they arm do and they consist of the 'people'.

Do you know what Hitler did when he got into power liberalised gun ownership of civilians and started mass conscription, he truly loved an armed public. Strangely enough the first real restrictions on personal firearms in Germany came from the UK/USA in 1945

[piscator]

Definition of a tyrannical government is one that starts giving guns to everyone, its the first thing they tend to do stick everyone in the military . Iraq was a very good example just about every household there had a firearm.

Governments don't kill people the milita/military they arm do and they consist of the 'people'.

Do you know what Hitler did when he got into power liberalised gun ownership of civilians and started mass conscription, he truly loved an armed public. Strangely enough the first real restrictions on personal firearms in Germany came from the UK/USA in 1945

Jesus Fucking Christ. Is the education system where you come from really that fucked up?


The Famous German Totalitarian liberalized gun ownership for NASD members and government employees about a week before he invaded Poland, but the telling point is that he prohibited Jews from not only possessing and using firearms, but also the manufacture, shipping, and sale of firearms and ammunition.

Pull your head out of your ass, Beavis. If there were no restrictive German gun laws, how could Hitler have liberalized them in the first place?

[Seth]

When a revolution begins, guns pour in from other nations. From the nations that are enemies to the government that is totalitarian. Where the hell do you think the IRA got its weapons? Where do you think the Syrian revolutionaries get their guns?

Um...has EITHER group prevailed against their government enemies?

Nope. Quod erat demonstrandum.

You atre so hung up on the need to own your own lethal toys that you cannot see that such ownership by private individuals is totally unnecessary.

Until it is.

That's why it's not a "Bill of Needs" it's a "Bill of Rights."

[piscator]

?

You atre so hung up on the need to own your own lethal toys that you cannot see that such ownership by private individuals is totally unnecessary.

That doesn't matter. We do anyway.
Don't like it? Awww.

[Collector1337]

You atre so hung up on the need to own your own lethal toys that you cannot see that such ownership by private individuals is totally unnecessary.

It is so sad you are so deluded that you actually believe such idiocy.

"Unnecessary" according to you. A completely ignorant and intolerant position. Tough shit for you.

Who's going to come and take them from me?

You going to volunteer to be the first in the door?



Good luck.

[Blind groper]

If the Jews in WWII had wanted guns, they would have got them. Germany was awash with guns.

Although, as I said before, that was not the problem. The problem was that the Jews did not resist. If they had guns, they would still have walked to the gas chambers.

A major reason why Israel is so bloody minded and violent is a reaction to the passivity of their forebears in Germany. Like so many such pendulum swings, it went too far.

[Seth]

What do you guys think would have happened if all the German Jews in WWII were armed?

That's right. It is called a blood bath. Twice as many people die.

Well, at least half of them would have been Nazis, so that's a good thing...And that would have significantly reduced the number of Nazis the rest of the Allied forces would have had to deal with, not to mention keeping them busy quelling "rebellion" in Germany rather than invading Poland and the rest of Europe. Net result is fewer people who deserve to live unmolested by evil fucks being left alive and unharmed. Which makes it worth it.

You seem to have this silly idea that there's never anybody on the face of the earth who needs to be made dead for the betterment of society and the species as a whole.

How...anti-Darwinian of you.

[piscator]

If the Jews in WWII had wanted guns, they would have got them. Germany was awash with guns.

Although, as I said before, that was not the problem. The problem was that the Jews did not resist. If they had guns, they would still have walked to the gas chambers.

What the hell are you trying to say?

[Blind groper]

To Seth

I am not anti-Darwin.
However, you seem to fail to understand that survival depends not on shooting people, but on cooperation. Homo sapiens has two reasons for its success.
1. Technology.
2. Social cooperation.

Social cooperation is the thing I am talking about here. Working together, rather than shooting people. Think about it.

[Robert_S]

What do you guys think would have happened if all the German Jews in WWII were armed?

That's right. It is called a blood bath. Twice as many people die.

Well, at least half of them would have been Nazis, so that's a good thing...And that would have significantly reduced the number of Nazis the rest of the Allied forces would have had to deal with, not to mention keeping them busy quelling "rebellion" in Germany rather than invading Poland and the rest of Europe. Net result is fewer people who deserve to live unmolested by evil fucks being left alive and unharmed. Which makes it worth it.

You seem to have this silly idea that there's never anybody on the face of the earth who needs to be made dead for the betterment of society and the species as a whole.

How...anti-Darwinian of you.

Groper, did you mean to do that? Did you mean to imply that Jews not having the firearms to shoot the Nazis who were exterminating them was a good thing because it would have resulted in dead Nazis?

What the fuck?

Seriously: What the fuck?

[Seth]

To Seth

I am not anti-Darwin.
However, you seem to fail to understand that survival depends not on shooting people, but on cooperation. Homo sapiens has two reasons for its success.
1. Technology.
2. Social cooperation.

Social cooperation is the thing I am talking about here. Working together, rather than shooting people. Think about it.

Sometimes it works. I'd even grant that MOST times it works, except when when it doesn't work. Then, on a societal scale, people tend to die in large numbers in various horrible ways unless they are capable of preventing someone else from killing them. That requires that they be armed. And since it's utterly impossible to predict on a day-to-day basis, much less an individual basis, when social cooperation will fail in relations between two or more particular individuals, knowing that when such failures are severe enough one or more of the individuals involved is going to be victimized, injured, seriously harmed or killed, it therefore behooves each individual to arm themselves against the possibility, however unlikely you think it might be, that the mechanisms and practices of social cooperation and technology utterly fail and the only remaining option is pure Darwinian law-of-the-jungle survival skills.

How else do you explain the Holocaust and Stalin's 40 million and Mao's 60 million, etc.?

Your willful utopian blindness really harms your arguments.

[Hermit]

You atre so hung up on the need to own your own lethal toys that you cannot see that such ownership by private individuals is totally unnecessary.

Until it is.

That's why it's not a "Bill of Needs" it's a "Bill of Rights."

When I was about twelve years old I collected stamps. There was a philatelic club in my town that had meetings every other Tuesday evening. In order to save money it booked a room of a restaurant in a village quite a few kilometres away, but there was no problem to get to it by train. One day, while travelling to one of those meetings I noticed a man taking some powder out of a tin and sprinkling it out of the window. I asked him what he was doing. He explained that the the stuff he spread out into the countryside is anti-tiger powder. "But, there are no tigers roaming about within thousands of kilometres of us." I noted. "See," he replied, "it's working already."