US Philadelphia Student Carrying Legal Firearm Shoots It Out

[MrJonno]

Survival of the fittest, adapt or die.

And the best method of adapation is form a goverment and society

[Wumbologist]

Better than I'm an rugged individual master of my own destiny bullshit

I really will never understand how you think that a person being "rugged" or self-sufficient is a bad thing.

We are part of a collection of people (is collective really meant to be an insult?) and if it doesnt work together most of us die

Yeah, the people like you who absolutely rely on the state and don't know what to do without it die. If society were to collapse tomorrow, I could fish, forage, and hunt for my food. I'm no Bear Grylls, but I have a decent handle on survival skills. I enjoy the modern conveniences and comforts that only exist within our societies, but if necessary I could survive without them. How is this at all bad?

[Wumbologist]

Our police carry guns. Some of our criminals do, too, but they seem to mostly shoot each other. I don't cower.

What most non-Americans don't understand is that, while the US has an undeniably higher homicide rate than Canada or the UK, most of it is made up of exactly this. We have an inner city gang problem, fueled by socioeconomic inequality and the war on drugs, the likes of which neither the UK or Canada has ever seen. Though in fairness, the UK is starting to see more and more of it. But that is where most of the US's homicide rate comes from. I've tried in vain to find exacting statistics that could break it down, but I would hazard a guess that without that factor, we wouldn't be far off from a Canadian or UK homicide rate. For those of us who aren't in a gang, who don't associate with gang members, and who don't buy drugs from gang members, our risk of being killed walking down the street isn't much different than the rest of you.

[MrJonno]

Yeah, the people like you who absolutely rely on the state and don't know what to do without it die. If society were to collapse tomorrow, I could fish, forage, and hunt for my food. I'm no Bear Grylls, but I have a decent handle on survival skills. I enjoy the modern conveniences and comforts that only exist within our societies, but if necessary I could survive without them. How is this at all bad?

Maybe 7 million people could do the same with the right training but not 7 billion. Thats not a training or experience thats a resource issue . You can't hunter/gather with that many people around.

An attack on the state (as opposed to any one individual government) is quite simply an attack and threat to my life so I defend the state not via guns but something far more powerful taxes and working together

[Wumbologist]

mistermack presumably only wants police and military to have guns. I think the world he lives in is quite a dangerous one. That old saw about absolute power and corruption...

Guns are a tool. Anyone who knows tools knows that with my welding machine, some scrap steel and a bit of ingenuity, I can kill FAR more effectively than with any gun.

Same goes for my truck, hands, rocks...the ONLY dangerous weapon is one which walks on two legs and is capable of deceit.

if it doesn't work together most of us die

if the person who wrote this believes it, private gun ownership must be working very well indeed. Here in Canada, most people don't die because of guns. In the US, most people die of causes other than guns.

And UNLIKE most other weapons, manufactured or improvised, the firearm has the unique ability as an equalizer. In a fight with hands, sticks, rocks, knives, bats, bricks, etc, 9 times out of ten it will be the physically superior person that wins. Criminals typically want to come out on top in any encounter, and so they are even more likely to intentionally pick a physically weaker victim. The physically superior criminal attacker will win nearly every time.

In contrast, virtually anyone can operate a firearm. A 90 pound gymnast can handle a .380, a frail 80 year old woman can manage a .38 revolver. A paraplegic in a wheelchair, who might otherwise be vulnerable and unable to escape an attack, will have no problem using a .45 to defend themselves. And of course, they work great for people who aren't otherwise vulnerable, too. The one thing that is most important in effectively using a firearm is practice. This is good news for the law-abiding among us. I can go to the range as often as I want and put as many rounds downrange as I feel is necessary to become a competent marksman with the firearm I carry. Criminals typically don't have that luxury, and the odds are good that they may not have even fired any gun that they might have at their disposal. And so, beyond being a great equalizer, a firearm in the hands of a law-abiding citizen may in fact provide an advantage over even a similarly armed criminal.

[Wumbologist]

Yeah, the people like you who absolutely rely on the state and don't know what to do without it die. If society were to collapse tomorrow, I could fish, forage, and hunt for my food. I'm no Bear Grylls, but I have a decent handle on survival skills. I enjoy the modern conveniences and comforts that only exist within our societies, but if necessary I could survive without them. How is this at all bad?

Maybe 7 million people could do the same with the right training but not 7 billion. Thats not a training or experience thats a resource issue . You can't hunter/gather with that many people around.

Good for the self-sufficient among us that a good portion of that 7 billion will be sitting in their hands, hoping that their gubmint comes to save them in time. This is exactly the point that I'm making. Should society collapse through no fault of yours or mine, you will likely die and I will likely live. I don't see how that's a disadvantage to me, or something that I should be held in negative regard for.

An attack on the state (as opposed to any one individual government) is quite simply an attack and threat to my life so I defend the state not via guns but something far more powerful taxes and working together

Unless I missed something in one of Seth or Coito's posts, I don't think anyone is saying anything about an attack on the state. Being capable of surviving independently of the state is not the same thing as an attack on it.

[Pappa]

Sorry pappa I did miss your post.

If your statements were not any advocation to do with the argument then I retract my statement that they are ‘lame’.

They are only ‘lame’ as a refutation for my proposition.

In case you’ve missed my reasoning, I will say it again. I don’t want or think that cars should be banned.
What I stand by is that any arguments for banning guns should be applied to every other machine e.g. cars.
Otherwise it’s just an arbitrary and wilful, bullying, abuse of power.
No-one has yet refuted this argument.
They’ve said stuff which is either irrelevant or wrong.

No I don’t have a link to the stats you describe.

My view is as follows as an example.

If you make a right turn and collide with an oncoming vehicle, because you’ve misjudged his speed, that is not human error. It is carelessness.
Calling it human error is a cover up. If you make a right turn you must be absolutely sure that you are not endangering life. Now it’s quite easy to do that. You wait until there is no chance of a collision with such an oncoming vehicle, otherwise you are well within the definition of carelessness.
(Nb left turn in the US.). Driving a car is an actively dangerous process. Not exercising proper judgement is a crime That it is practically impossible to prove, is irrelevant.


Whether you call it accidental or carelessness/recklessness is irrelevant to the argument anyway.
One of the major claims against ‘lawful’ use of guns on this forum has been accidental deaths.

I've felt for a long time that our laws relating to road deaths and dangerous forms of driving are wrong. The penalty for causing death by dangerous driving is significantly higher than that for simply dangerous/careless. The only difference is that when a death is involved, someone was unlucky enough to get in the way, but that's not represented in the penalties for driving offences where nobody was injured or killed.

[colubridae]

I've felt for a long time that our laws relating to road deaths and dangerous forms of driving are wrong. The penalty for causing death by dangerous driving is significantly higher than that for simply dangerous/careless. The only difference is that when a death is involved, someone was unlucky enough to get in the way, but that's not represented in the penalties for driving offences where nobody was injured or killed.

I'm in complete agreement with you on that score Pappa. Maybe this discussion belongs on another thread.


My purpose for ranting on this thread is not to criticise/approve car usage per se.
My sole purpose is to make it clear that banning guns is an irrational/emotional abuse of power. Any moral or ethical reason for banning guns must be applied across the board, otherwise it amounts to wilful dictatorship.

The smoking ban applies to actually using cigarettes in a public place. You may own cigarettes and smoke yourself to oblivion if you so wish. But use of them near other people is not allowed. This is a sensible morally ethical acceptable use of power.

Why is this not the rule for guns?

Guns are more dangerous than cigarettes? Maybe, but irrelevant.
Cars are more dangerous than guns or cigarettes. So why doesn’t the rule apply to them.

If people want to ban guns that’s ok. But it sticks in my throat when they claim moral/ethical superiority for such a ban. It’s simply abuse of power.

Please please tell me where I am wrong!

[Pappa]

Cars are more dangerous than guns or cigarettes. So why doesn’t the rule apply to them.

If people want to ban guns that’s ok. But it sticks in my throat when they claim moral/ethical superiority for such a ban. It’s simply abuse of power.

Please please tell me where I am wrong!

Because cars have a massively significant and important function in our society that counterbalances the harm they also cause. They have become a necessary evil.

[Wumbologist]

Cars are more dangerous than guns or cigarettes. So why doesn’t the rule apply to them.

If people want to ban guns that’s ok. But it sticks in my throat when they claim moral/ethical superiority for such a ban. It’s simply abuse of power.

Please please tell me where I am wrong!

Because cars have a massively significant and important function in our society that counterbalances the harm they also cause. They have become a necessary evil.

Cigarettes don't have a massively significant and important function. Swimming pools don't have a massively significant and important function, yet more children die in the US from swimming pool accidents than they do from gun accidents. Estimates for the number of defensive gun uses in the US range from hundreds of thousands to two million per year. People using their guns to defend against crime is an important function.

[Coito ergo sum]

Cars are more dangerous than guns or cigarettes. So why doesn’t the rule apply to them.

If people want to ban guns that’s ok. But it sticks in my throat when they claim moral/ethical superiority for such a ban. It’s simply abuse of power.

Please please tell me where I am wrong!

Because cars have a massively significant and important function in our society that counterbalances the harm they also cause. They have become a necessary evil.

I reject the notion that cars are "evil' in the least. They are cars. Rocks aren't necessary evils, and knives aren't necessary evils. This has nothing to do with good vs evil, and guns aren't evil either (whether or not they are necessary or unnecessary). Guns are. Things in and of themselves are not "evil." It all depends on what one does with them. If one runs over another person with car, or shoots them with a gun, that would generally be an evil/bad thing, unless there was some good reason for what was done. People die in airplanes, but that doesn't make them "necessary evils."

I agree with the fact that it's easy to articulate a societal purpose for cars. However, guns also have articulable purposes - demonstrable purposes - that benefit society. Further, society as a whole is not the only interest to protect. We protect individual interest as well (not to the exclusion of society in general, but we balance both). It's in part the good reasons to have guns that almost nobody advocates a complete ban of all guns. The Swiss seem to find them quite useful, and that country is rife with guns. They have their regulatory scheme regarding them. They don't ban them.

Regarding cigarettes, they, like any other drug, in my view, should almost always be legal for adults, because of the individual interests involved. If you want to do heroin, it's not really the business of the nattering paternalists and bed-wetters to tell you want to do. Fuck them. They have all their nifty arguments about the ills heroin causes to society as a whole, and how a healthy society requires a drug free society and all that. But, fuck them. If Joe Blow wants to do some blow, then that's his thing.

We need more of that in this world today.

[Coito ergo sum]

Cars are more dangerous than guns or cigarettes. So why doesn’t the rule apply to them.

If people want to ban guns that’s ok. But it sticks in my throat when they claim moral/ethical superiority for such a ban. It’s simply abuse of power.

Please please tell me where I am wrong!

Because cars have a massively significant and important function in our society that counterbalances the harm they also cause. They have become a necessary evil.

Cigarettes don't have a massively significant and important function. Swimming pools don't have a massively significant and important function, yet more children die in the US from swimming pool accidents than they do from gun accidents. Estimates for the number of defensive gun uses in the US range from hundreds of thousands to two million per year. People using their guns to defend against crime is an important function.

Devil's Advocate: People don't use pools and cigarettes on purpose to kill other people, and we have a greater interest in protecting individuals from intentional harm, than in protecting them from themselves or accidents.

[Pappa]

Cars are more dangerous than guns or cigarettes. So why doesn’t the rule apply to them.

If people want to ban guns that’s ok. But it sticks in my throat when they claim moral/ethical superiority for such a ban. It’s simply abuse of power.

Please please tell me where I am wrong!

Because cars have a massively significant and important function in our society that counterbalances the harm they also cause. They have become a necessary evil.

Cigarettes don't have a massively significant and important function. Swimming pools don't have a massively significant and important function, yet more children die in the US from swimming pool accidents than they do from gun accidents. Estimates for the number of defensive gun uses in the US range from hundreds of thousands to two million per year. People using their guns to defend against crime is an important function.

I'm not arguing against guns here, as I said earlier in the thread, I think the decision to ban them or not is a risk/benefit judgement that each country takes independently. Whether or not a society perceives guns to have a massively significant and important function or not will obviously affect their decision about whether or not they want easy access to them.

[colubridae]

Cars are more dangerous than guns or cigarettes. So why doesn’t the rule apply to them.

If people want to ban guns that’s ok. But it sticks in my throat when they claim moral/ethical superiority for such a ban. It’s simply abuse of power.

Please please tell me where I am wrong!

Because cars have a massively significant and important function in our society that counterbalances the harm they also cause. They have become a necessary evil.

That’s not a valid argument. Simply describing the situation is not a valid argument.

If they are a necessary evil, where is the strong protest being made by the anti-car lobby. Why is it not at least as vociferous as the anti-gun lobby?
Why isn’t the anti-gun lobby say “fuck we’ve been fighting the wrong battle, cars are a much more dangerous aspect of modern life!”
Why isn’t everyone standing right beside me saying “wow col! You are right. We’ve posted page after page about how good it is to ban guns, never realising that there was
a much more serious problem right under our noses. Car deaths”

All I’ve received is mostly sarcasm (Clinton) and condescension (psychoserenity).

At least you tried to reason, it’s been wrong, but at least you tried.

Why is there not a strong lobby saying “wow! cars are really dangerous, and we seem to be tied up with them in modern life. It’s time we really reversed this trend and started convincing people not to use cars. And boy this is an urgent problem, because car deaths exceed, by a huge amount, even gun deaths”

I know I’m saying the same things over, that’s because I’m getting the same faulty arguments over and over.

The reasons anyone gives for banning guns applies to banning cars. I will keep saying this until someone comes up a with a valid reason for banning guns that can’t be applied elsewhere, be it cars or cigarettes.

Until then all the anti-gun lobby has is its bullying abuse of power.

If you are happy to go along with such an abuse of power fine, I'm not.

[Pappa]

I reject the notion that cars are "evil' in the least. They are cars. Rocks aren't necessary evils, and knives aren't necessary evils. This has nothing to do with good vs evil, and guns aren't evil either (whether or not they are necessary or unnecessary). Guns are. Things in and of themselves are not "evil." It all depends on what one does with them. If one runs over another person with car, or shoots them with a gun, that would generally be an evil/bad thing, unless there was some good reason for what was done. People die in airplanes, but that doesn't make them "necessary evils."

The phrase "necessary evil" has nothing at all to do with "evil" in the sense of good vs. evil.