US Philadelphia Student Carrying Legal Firearm Shoots It Out

[FBM]

...and I don't appreciate sniping about Oz or UK rules from from a minority of US posters ranting on about "sheeple" and the rest of the libertarian crap. Save it for within your own borders...

I was guilty of that a while back. If I didn't apologize before, let me do so now. I agree with everything you said, Jim.

That said, there are a lot of non-US citizens sniping at US rules from outside the borders. If we're to keep our sniping within our own borders, that should apply evenly across the board, I think.

[JimC]

...and I don't appreciate sniping about Oz or UK rules from from a minority of US posters ranting on about "sheeple" and the rest of the libertarian crap. Save it for within your own borders...

I was guilty of that a while back. If I didn't apologize before, let me do so now. I agree with everything you said, Jim.

That said, there are a lot of non-US citizens sniping at US rules from outside the borders. If we're to keep our sniping within our own borders, that should apply evenly across the board, I think.

Agreed.

Far too much polarization in this debate, from the "people who own guns are twisted morons" end to the "countries who restrict gun ownership are leftist dens of iniquity"

[charlou]

I like where this is going.

[charlou]

In the case of the US, I concede 2 things:
1. They have a strong history and tradition of gun ownership, and a high proportion of people that do not want to see significant reductions on gun ownership.

A history of civil unrest and war, and struggle to achieve the values many, if not most, seem to hold important ... yes, I understand it. I also have had reservations about government restrictions on gun ownership from the perspective of knowing that a disarmed populace is closer to apathy and/or impotence than one who is ready to acknowledge a struggle for values may become necessary if/when oppression sets in, or law and order breaks down. I can see all sorts of possibilities there, both historically precedented, and projection based on realities of survival difficulties and human nature.

[FBM]

Yup. There's a whole buttload of space between the two extremes. Not all people who support legal firearm ownership also support total, unfettered access. I sure don't want to see a return to the "Wild West."

[charlou]

Far too much polarization in this debate, from the "people who own guns are twisted morons" end to the "countries who restrict gun ownership are leftist dens of iniquity"

There have also been assumptions about what people think based on tangental elements of the debate.

[Seth]

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.

So what? That's not even the issue. The issue is whether one has the CAPACITY to survive under difficult circumstances, not whether all of society would need to do so. Given your dubious logic, you would deny anyone the right to learn how to survive during a societal collapse merely because everyone is not capable of effectively utilizing such knowledge.

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

But carrying personal defensive arms is not an attack upon the state, it's the defense of the individual, and therefore the state, by the law-abiding against the criminals who would use chaos and disorder to take from others for their own benefit. You falsely equate armed self-defense with an attack on the state when it's nothing of the kind. The entire purpose of the 2nd Amendment to the American Constitution is to give the citizenry the weapons with which to fight to maintain and preserve the proper, lawful and constitutional state against tyrants and despots who would misuse the power of the state to oppress the citizenry.

No one here has suggested an attack on a legitimate, democratic state. Quite the opposite. But knowing how to survive the collapse of the state (which is to say government and social order) is hardly the same thing as advocating the collapse of the state.

And survival skills are of use in situations far less widespread than social collapse. All it takes is for one to fall down a slot canyon and have one's hand pinned between a boulder and the canyon wall for the knowledge and will to survive by cutting off one's own arm to be of use. Which is not to say that anyone plans to be trapped like Aaron Ralston was.

And learning to use weapons (of all kinds), and obtaining weapons to be used as tools in the event of emergency, be it social collapse or merely armed thugs kicking in your door to rob you, is merely another form of preparation and learning that does not advocate either social collapse or robbery.

[Seth]

...and I don't appreciate sniping about Oz or UK rules from from a minority of US posters ranting on about "sheeple" and the rest of the libertarian crap. Save it for within your own borders...

I was guilty of that a while back. If I didn't apologize before, let me do so now. I agree with everything you said, Jim.

That said, there are a lot of non-US citizens sniping at US rules from outside the borders. If we're to keep our sniping within our own borders, that should apply evenly across the board, I think.

Agreed.

Far too much polarization in this debate, from the "people who own guns are twisted morons" end to the "countries who restrict gun ownership are leftist dens of iniquity"

They aren't dens of iniquity so much as dens of stupidity.

And the problem arises when the forces of stupidity from outside our borders try to infiltrate our borders and infringe on our right to keep and bear arms, which the UK is participating in as a part of the UN small-arms treaty that proposes to control how and what Americans may own and use by way of arms within America.

If the UK were satisfied to keep it's anti-gun notions to itself, I wouldn't care at all, but they aren't, and as a result there is a substantial danger that they, other members of the UN, and the Progressives in the US will try to use the UN and the treaty power to infringe on MY rights here in the US.

That cannot be permitted or allowed, even if trying to suborn the 2nd Amendment using the treaty power is itself unconstitutional. One of the metrics for civil war in the US is, I suspect, the day that the blue helmets are deployed inside the borders of the US with the intent to confiscate our arms, just as the deployment of the Redcoats at Lexington and Concord to confiscate the arms of the Colonists were the trigger for the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

[Seth]

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?

I know that you are making a rhetorical point, but I would like to point out that it IS the rule, and there are plenty of other rules about using guns that control with great precision and severe penalties how and when guns are used. The problem is that hoplophobes conflate gun possession and gun use improperly. Your cigarette analogy is flawed for exactly the same reason. You don't distinguish between cigarette smoking and simple cigarette possession clearly enough to make the analogy apt.

I may own and possess cigarettes wherever I choose to possess them without causing any harm to anyone. My possession of cigarettes is only proscribed in the act of smoking one in proximity to others because it poses a danger to others, so the circumstances under which I may light up are constrained by society. The exact same thing is true of my possession of a firearm in public. My possession of that firearm is not harmful to anyone, it's only harmful if I discharge it improperly, and society strictly regulates when and where I may do so for that reason.

But possession is not use, and hoplophobes need to acknowledge and understand the difference, because when they argue for banning the lawful carrying of arms by law-abiding citizens on the premise that it's "too dangerous" for people to merely possess arms, they are no longer arguing that guns are dangerous, they are arguing that people cannot be trusted to possess them without creating an extraordinary and unreasonable risk to others. And the simple facts of the two-century long experience of the United States with an armed citizenry (and the rapidly expanding authority to carry firearms concealed) demonstrates that this fear is a purely irrational fear that ought not be the basis for public policy.

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!

You're not, but hoplophobes are not rational thinkers, so your reason and logic is lost on them. They are emotional thinkers who can't get past the idea that they are at personal risk from the merely possession and carrying (keeping and bearing) of arms by other law-abiding citizens. This is because they are inherently distrustful of others, and are irrationally fearful.

[Seth]

Survival of the fittest, adapt or die.

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

No one is disputing that, Jonno my boy. What we are saying is that not all forms of government are equally useful in preserving society while maximizing individual liberty and happiness to the greatest extent possible within the confines of ordered liberty. Many, and indeed most forms of government may preserve some semblance of order, but they accomplish it by oppressing the individual and placing the interests of the collective above the interests of the individual. This is true of all socialist forms of government, which depend on the enslavement of the individual to the interests of the collective over his own needs and desires, which is tyrannical and corrupt and always ends in societal failure and collapse.

But the beauty of the American system is that it carefully balances the needs of society against the rights of the individual to liberty and it acknowledges that it is through the protection of the individual and his rights, and not the protection of the collective, that the society is best protected as a whole. Society, you see, is best protected, and functions best, when the individuals who make up that society are happy and free, as opposed to unhappy and enslaved. This is because a happy, free people will always work together spontaneously and without government coercion to preserve that society which best protects and enhances their individual happiness and the happiness of others.

Enslaved peoples (as in the victims of all socialist/collectivist societies, among other forms of despotism), who are forced to serve the interests of others rather than being free to serve their own interests first, and then being free to choose to serve the interests of others out of the natural propensity of humans to act cooperatively, altruistically, charitably and with rational self-interest, are never happy and never free, which makes society highly unstable and prone to collapse.

[Seth]

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.

So do personal arms, notwithstanding the fact that you don't acknowledge or accept this massively significant and important function in society.

[Seth]

I file and a bit of illegally spent time and a common semi-auto can be made into a full-auto. I feel quite safe with my neighbours knowing that.

Well, not really. One of the criteria that the BATFE uses in approving the manufacture and sale of all semi-automatic weapons is that they CANNOT be "easily converted to fully-automatic fire." Yes, any semi-auto CAN be made to fire automatically, but not effectively as a weapon because such modifications result in the uncontrolled emptying of the magazine once the trigger is pulled. That can happen merely through a defect or damage to the sear and disconnector.

My father told me that when he was in basic training just prior to the Korean war, his drill sergeant was going through the reloading drill on the Colt Model 1911 semi-automatic pistol. The sergeant said "...and then you hold the pistol with the muzzle held vertically..." as he held the pistol vertically beside his right ear, "...and then you insert the magazine smartly into the magazine well..." at which point he did so with a loaded magazine...and when he did the pistol malfunctioned and fired all seven rounds in the magazine through the brim of his DI hat. The sergeant, not flinching at all, paused for a moment, and then barked, "And that's WHY you hold the pistol with the muzzle held vertically!"

In actual fact, to "convert" most semi-auto weapons to full auto fire requires substantial machining and modification. There are some older model Colt AR-15's, the civilian-legal semi-automatic equivalent of the military M-16, which will accept a "drop in sear" that, combined with a change to the safety lever and bolt carrier will create an operable select-fire machine gun. But under BATFE rules, it is the drop-in sear package that is itself classified as the "machine gun" and which must be registered, and which cannot have been manufactured after 1986. Owning such a sear pack without proper registration is a crime, as is owning an AR-15 with M-16 parts like the bolt carrier, trigger package and safety selector lever.

But yes, many models CAN be converted, though it's highly illegal to do so and takes some skill in drilling, machining and fitting of proscribed parts. That's what got 86 people killed at Waco.

[Seth]

Point taken. I sincerely apologise. I assumed by ‘propaganda’ you meant the car/gun comparison, not the phobia slight.
I have been insulted several times during this thread, so my insult-scanner is on an hair trigger at the moment.

I will rephrase (again).

All I point out is that a gun ban perforce demands a plethora of more restrictive bans against machines that cause death, otherwise it’s just an anti-X lobby forcing their agenda/desires/views onto others.

Have you a point to make concerning:-

Banning guns will end gun deaths (practical absurdities aside)
Banning cars will end car deaths.
Where is the difference?

So far no-one has successfully refuted this.

"Banning guns" is an absolutist statement which is purely rhetorical. In all societies, there is a spectrum of restrictions on gun ownership. The question might be better phrased:
"In a given society, will an intelligently applied increase in restrictions on gun ownership and carrying (particularly hand guns and semi-automatic rifles) lead to a reduction in deaths or injuries involving guns?"
Earlier, Seraph gave some convincing statistics that an increase in the restrictions in Australia after the Port Arthur massacre indeed lead to such a reduction.

Yes, but the fallacy of that argument is inherent in the last part of your question "involving guns." While it might (and I stress the "might" part) reduce GUN deaths or injuries, at least temporarily, it INCREASES crime victimization and the use of OTHER weapons. That's why violent crime in the UK, particularly knife crime, is rampant, to a greater degree than it is in the US.

The fallacy is in restricting the analysis of violent crime reduced by gun bans ONLY to reductions in "gun crimes" while utterly ignoring the fact that criminals not only can and do use other weapons to injure and kill people, but when guns are banned, they STILL use guns (because they don't abide by bans) and they merely shift to other weapons and continue to predate, and actually INCREASE the rate of predation because they are less fearful that their potential victims will use force to defend themselves and put the crook at risk of death.

And that particular mental process on the part of criminals is proven by the US's experiment with shall-issue concealed carry, where in all places where concealed carry has been made lawful, criminals become afraid of getting shot and the violent crime rate drops substantially and stays down, which is, I suspect, in part directly responsible for our present 45-year low in violent crime.

As a corollary to that, I am extremely happy to be living in a society with severe restrictions on gun ownership (and that from the point of view of someone who loved rifle shooting and hunting), and I don't appreciate sniping about Oz or UK rules from from a minority of US posters ranting on about "sheeple" and the rest of the libertarian crap. Save it for within your own borders... (not directed at you, Col... )

1) We are perfectly justified in excoriating the UK and those who support gun bans in the UK as "sheeple" because the right to be armed for effective self defense is a UNIVERSAL right of mankind. It's not restricted by this, that or the other cultural memes, it is a universal and unalienable right of every human being on the face of the planet, period. What this means is that ANYONE, anywhere, who advocates for disarming any law-abiding citizen is violating the unalienable human rights of everyone, and that is unconscionable and evil. YOU may make a PERSONAL decision not to keep and bear arms and I will support that decision fully, but NO ONE has the smallest authority to disarm SOMEONE ELSE in order to pander to their own fear, not you, not me, and certainly not any government. Any government that supports or implements bans on personal defensive arms for law-abiding citizens is, ipso facto and per se a despotic tyranny that disrespects and abuses the inherent natural rights of its citizens to effective armed self-defense and that government is illegitimate and must be overthrown, no matter how many people voted for it. This is because it is not within the just powers of any government, or any person, to vote away the fundamental civil rights of another person. You can no more legitimate vote to, or approve of your government writing laws that ban personal defensive arms than you can vote to arbitrarily arrest, imprison and execute persons innocent of a capital crime merely because they are members of a disfavored religion or political group. It's neither moral nor ethical for you, or your government to do either thing.

Therefore, I excoriate the UK government, and those who advocate arms bans, because they are despots, tyrants and the sycophants and supporters of despotism and tyranny who are imposing their personal preferences on others in a completely immoral and unethical manner.

Only the individual has the rightful power and authority to decide whether or not it is necessary or desirable for him to carry effective weapons of lawful self-defense.

That power CANNOT be legitimately exercised by any other person and certainly not by government.

So I'm fully justified in defending the interests of those whom you would see harmed as helpless, disarmed victims through your advocacy of an immoral and unethical practice of disarming the law-abiding. You do not speak for all of the UK and all of it's people. You speak only for yourself, but when you support tyranny and despotism of this sort, you are negatively affecting the rights of others and therefore I'm justified in taking you to task, personally.

2) I'm justified in excoriating anyone from the UK or anywhere else who advocates for or supports gun bans if that nation is a member of the United Nations, because in so doing, you are supporting a DIRECT ATTACK on my rights as a US citizen and sovereign citizen of the US. This is because the UN, and its constituent members, is advancing a number of firearms control treaties that directly and egregiously threaten my personal civil rights within the United States, and I will not allow or tolerate that, and will not allow such arguments to pass unrebutted because to do so is to abandon the vigilance that keeps my rights secure.

When the UK stops supporting the UN's attempts to ban guns and denigrate my rights, then I'll consider moderating my arguments. Until then, this is war, and I'll fight it using whatever tools are most effective at that particular moment, and that may eventually include using my private arms in defense of the sovereignty of the United States and my, and my fellow citizens natural and unalienable civil rights.

[Seth]

Yup. There's a whole buttload of space between the two extremes. Not all people who support legal firearm ownership also support total, unfettered access. I sure don't want to see a return to the "Wild West."

Certainly that is true universally of those who support the private ownership of arms who are participating in this debate. It is a strawman argument to suggest otherwise.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

You do not speak for all of the UK and all of it's people. You speak only for yourself, but when you support tyranny and despotism of this sort, you are negatively affecting the rights of others and therefore I'm justified in taking you to task, personally.

Not very observant, are we Seth. I happen to live on the far side of the Earth to the UK...

Anyway, luckily the mindless ranting of your various diatribes will have no effect whatsoever on the firearms regulations in Australia, the UK and other civilised parts of the world...