The case against guns

[Tero]

You've never convinced me that distributing guns among the population somehow helps me.

[Seth]

You've never convinced me that distributing guns among the population somehow helps me.

You're unconvincible. But the point is that YOU get to make choices about how YOU protect your life, or other people's lives whom you love.

And I get to make choices about how I go about it.

What neither you nor anyone else gets to do is tell me or anyone else how we may or may not go about it, unless you're willing and able to take on all legal, moral, ethical and financial responsibility for defending and compensating every single person whose right to make self-defense choices and preparations you interfere with in even the smallest way.

I don't care at all about what decisions you make about your life, but I do care very much when people like you interfere in my personal safety. Doing so makes you accessories before and after the fact to any crime I might be harmed by.

[Hermit]

Problem: Gun violence.
Solution: More guns.
Ayup, that must be it.

[Svartalf]

Problem: Gun violence.
Solution: More guns.
Ayup, that must be it.

The problem is not gun violence, it's guns in the hands of criminals, leaving the honest people defenceless. When honest people can be armed and defend themselves, criminals will be more cautious, having to be in fear of their lives.

[rainbow]

Problem: Gun violence.
Solution: More guns.
Ayup, that must be it.

It worked in Somalia, why can't it work elsewhere?

[Tero]

But a key reason why the nation is frozen in a shocking paralysis, unable to protect even little children, is that the American Right has sold much of the country on a false history regarding the Second Amendment. Right-wingers and other gun-rights advocates insist that the carnage can’t be stopped because it is part of what the Framers designed.
Yet that is not and never was the actual history. When the First Congress passed the Second Amendment in 1789, the goal was to promote state militias for the maintenance of order in a time of political violence, potential slave revolts and simmering hostilities with both European powers and Native Americans on the frontiers.
The amendment was never intended as a blank check for some unstable person to massacre fellow Americans. Indeed, it defined its purpose as achieving “security” against disruptions to the country’s new republican form of government. The Second Amendment read:
“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” In other words, if read in context, you would see that the Second Amendment was enacted so each state would have the specific right to form “a well-regulated militia” to maintain “security,” i.e. to put down armed disorder.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/1 ... tory-kills

[Seth]

Problem: Gun violence.
Solution: More guns.
Ayup, that must be it.

Yes, it is, however counterintuitive it might seem to the ignorami.

The actual problem is, and has always been too many guns in the hands of criminals and NOT ENOUGH guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens, which skews the calculus of power strongly in favor of armed criminals.

Since it is functionally and factually impossible to effectively prevent criminals from obtaining firearms, the only possible solution to rebalancing that equation to tilt the balance in favor of the law-abiding is to allow the law-abiding to arm themselves as they deem reasonable and necessary so that they can effectively defend themselves against criminal attack.

It's amazing to me how putatively intelligent and "rational" Atheists and liberals simply cannot understand this simple fact.

[Sean Hayden]

I understand what you're saying, I just don't feel I'm at great enough risk to justify owning a gun for self-defense, and unfortunately -perhaps- I'm open to being convinced that your feelings -strong as they are- don't correlate with reality and therefore may not be enough to prevent the government from restricting some of your freedoms.

[Hermit]

Problem: Gun violence.
Solution: More guns.
Ayup, that must be it.

The problem is not gun violence, it's guns in the hands of criminals, leaving the honest people defenceless. When honest people can be armed and defend themselves, criminals will be more cautious, having to be in fear of their lives.

Oh, yes, of course. How could I forget that mantra.

[Seth]

I understand what you're saying, I just don't feel I'm at great enough risk to justify owning a gun for self-defense, and unfortunately -perhaps- I'm open to being convinced that your feelings -strong as they are- don't correlate with reality and therefore may not be enough to prevent the government from restricting some of your freedoms.

Fortunately our forefathers thought of this problem, disagreed completely with your position, and addressed it conclusively when they wrote the words "shall not be infringed" at the end of the 2nd Amendment.

[Ian]

The founding fathers also saw fit to declare a black man's vote as counting 3/5 of a white man's vote.

Quit running to the founding fathers. They did not write the constitution to cover your selfishness. They wrote it to protect the country. Considering there was no standing army back then, no police forces, a hostile frontier, the possibility of repeated European invasions (thus the "well-organized militia" part that you don't like to dwell on), and a common need to hunt dinner for one's family, the 2nd amendment made plenty of sense back then.

It is now the 21st century, and that amendment is about as necessary as the 3rd Amendment.

[Seth]

But a key reason why the nation is frozen in a shocking paralysis, unable to protect even little children, is that the American Right has sold much of the country on a false history regarding the Second Amendment. Right-wingers and other gun-rights advocates insist that the carnage can’t be stopped because it is part of what the Framers designed.
Yet that is not and never was the actual history. When the First Congress passed the Second Amendment in 1789, the goal was to promote state militias for the maintenance of order in a time of political violence, potential slave revolts and simmering hostilities with both European powers and Native Americans on the frontiers.
The amendment was never intended as a blank check for some unstable person to massacre fellow Americans. Indeed, it defined its purpose as achieving “security” against disruptions to the country’s new republican form of government. The Second Amendment read:
“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” In other words, if read in context, you would see that the Second Amendment was enacted so each state would have the specific right to form “a well-regulated militia” to maintain “security,” i.e. to put down armed disorder.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/1 ... tory-kills

Except that this is a complete lie. It's a desperate misstatement of the truth, which has been acknowledged and affirmed by the Supreme Court in Heller and McDonald.

The right to keep and bear arms is NOT predicated on membership in any Militia whatsoever, It is NOT a right or power that accrues only to the state, it is an individual right that accrues to each and every person. Thus sayeth the Supreme Court. And while ONE purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to maintain a pool of armed and competent marksmen who may be called to duty in the Militia, another reason was to ensure that there is always a pool of WEAPONS of military utility within the body of the People which CANNOT be found, identified or seized by a tyrant, which is the first thing every tyrant in history has done: seized private arms. The purpose of this pool of arms is to permit the People themselves to take up arms and put down a tyrant who may have control over the standing army and its resources (which threat is precisely why our system forces our standing military to remain small and requires an appropriation for its operation every two years).

Yet ANOTHER purpose for forbidding the government to infringe on the RKBA is because each individual has a right to be armed for the purposes of self-defense against criminals.

You''re parroting outdated and overturned leftist rhetoric that has been conclusively and absolutely debunked by the Supreme Court and thus is complete non-sequitur and nothing more than a desperate attempt to perpetrate the Big Lie.

[Ian]

True, militia membership is not required.

So what?

[Seth]

The founding fathers also saw fit to declare a black man's vote as counting 3/5 of a white man's vote.

Do you know WHY that made it into the Constitution? No, I bet you don't.

Quit running to the founding fathers

.

Er, no, sorry I won't because what they had to say on the subject defines how what they wrote is to be interpreted today.

They did not write the constitution to cover your selfishness.

Correct.

They wrote it to protect the country.

They wrote it to protect the PEOPLE. Actually they wrote it to constrain the government and to protect the ability of the People to protect themselves at need,

Considering there was no standing army back then, no police forces, a hostile frontier, the possibility of repeated European invasions (thus the "well-organized militia" part that you don't like to dwell on), and a common need to hunt dinner for one's family, the 2nd amendment made plenty of sense back then.

And it still does today, perhaps more so than back then. The threat to the sovereignty of the People and their liberty has never been greater, even during the Cold War. We now have a Marxist in the White House and his minions are working hard to "fundamentally transform" this nation into a Marxist state, and it may become necessary to restore the Constitution to its rightful place over the machinations of Marxists and tyrants one day, so preserving our individual right to keep and bear arms is more essential to our liberty and the safety of the Republic now than it has been at any time since the Revolution itself.

It is now the 21st century, and that amendment is about as necessary as the 3rd Amendment.

That's what the Marxist fucks who are trying to suborn the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would have us believe. Fortunately we don't believe them and are determined NOT to allow our RKBA to be infringed. I'm headed for Knob Creek for a demonstration of just how seriously we take our rights in a couple of weeks. Then I'm going to a carbine training course to exercise my individual right to keep and bear arms and maintain proficiency with those arms in the event I'm called upon to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and the people of this nation.

Your opinion on the matter is of no relevance or interest whatsoever. Those who do not stand to defend the Constitution are its enemies and will be treated accordingly.

[Collector1337]

Why would you think atheism somehow connects to guns? Life is prescious to us, we only get one.

I seriously need to explain this?

What the fuck?

This is not complicated.

Let's call your religion, being anti-gun.

I want no part of your religion.

I am an atheist to your shitty religion of demonizing and fearing firearms.

So...

Stop imposing your fucking asinine and shitty religion on me. I want no part of it.

In this case, I am the atheist, and you are the theist, trying to impose your shit on me.

Well guess what, you can shove it up your ass. I refuse to conform to your garbage anti-gun religion.

Get it yet, or is abstract thought just too much for you?