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6th December 2012, 08:48 AM | #1 |
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Guns v Nonviolence
Over on a Conservative gun forum:
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6th December 2012, 09:09 AM | #2 |
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The problem with that is that it suggests you can meaningful defend yourself with a gun against an enemy who has really decided to take the gloves off in an era of drone warfare and atomic weapons.
Even if the nominal oppressor doesn't just shell your neighbourhood to dust the weapon mix held by US gun owners is all wrong. Not enough RPGs, MANPADS or 155mm shells with some radio-shack kit attached. Weapon distribution is also all wrong. Far to many held by respectable middle aged people with families rather than angry young men with criminal records. |
6th December 2012, 09:29 AM | #3 |
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He left out any quotes by King.
However, it would perhaps be more fair to characterize King as advocating non-violence specifically vis-a-vis the civil rights struggle. He never spoke on the matter of individual self-defense. Ghandi, likewise, was decidedly against war and adamant that his countrymen's civil rights struggle remain non-violent; but as we can now see, when it came to personal self-defense, he had quite a different opinion. |
6th December 2012, 09:35 AM | #4 |
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Clearly what the gay rights movement needs is more direct violence. If they used proper terrorist techniques they would have their rights.
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6th December 2012, 10:04 AM | #5 |
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Non-violence demonstrably does not work in many instances.
Besides, owning a gun is a powerful deterrent. No one is stupid enough to invade the USA--they'd have to fight for every square inch of territory, and invasion armies are horrible against gurilla tactics (sorry if I misspelled the word). Our recent adventures in Iraq demonstrated that well enough. And when it comes to minor crime, show me someone who was murdered at the Coon Dog Trials and I'll agree that guns aren't a deterrent. 10,000 drunks buying, trading, and selling enough guns and ammunition to start several good-sized wars should, if the anti-gun people were right, be a bloodbath. Instead, everyone's very polite. |
6th December 2012, 10:10 AM | #6 |
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6th December 2012, 10:14 AM | #7 |
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Non-violent resistance is the moral choice where there is a reasonable chance of the oppressor being shamed by your conduct. (i.e. where your opponent will recognize that you have taken the moral high ground and be swayed by that).
This has worked with some societies (say America and civil rights)... not so much with others (i.e. the Nazis - Hitler's famous advice to to the British: just shoot Gandhi). Where there is no path via which non-violence protest can reasonably expect to achieve its goal then violence may be justified (depending on the justness of the grievance). |
6th December 2012, 10:29 AM | #8 |
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Not really. Plently of people with guns have been terminated over the years.
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Firstly there are various accepted methods for dealing with guerrilla tactics. Firstly of course you can just kill the civilian population. Alternatively you can lock them up in concentration camps (see recent events in Sri lanka). In both cases you can effectively neutralise the guerrilla unit's logistics support. Secondly a bunch of older guys with families aren't much of a threat. Guerrilla units largely rely on young men who think they have nothing to lose. Are you really going to go to war if you think that carries a significant risk of your kids getting tortured to death over a number of days? Give up your nice middle class life for a few days living on poor food and with limited shelter untill someone who really knows the business of war guns you down? The shia may be prepared to put up with being on the wrong end of 10:1 kill ratios but most americans? I don't think so. Sure there are exceptions but well how many are in favor of giving more guns to your urban gangs. |
6th December 2012, 10:31 AM | #9 |
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6th December 2012, 10:38 AM | #10 |
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Given their respective circumstances, Ghandi and King got it right. If they tried the same tactics in 1840's, they both would have ended up dead in very short order. Moreover, they both seem to have realized it.
Just like prisoner going on a hunger strike can only succeed if someone outside prison cares whether he lives or dies. |
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6th December 2012, 10:39 AM | #11 |
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6th December 2012, 10:44 AM | #12 |
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Have to agree with Geni here. The myth of "invincible guerilla" has been prevalent since Vietnam, but that's only because US in Vietnam and elsewhere has been unwilling to utilize these "accepted methods". Conquerors from Xerxes to Hitler knew how to neutralize guerillas. Hang everyone who helps guerillas, carry out indiscrimanant reprisals every time guerillas succeed in killing one of your men. Make population afraid of guerillas succeeding, and population will turn against them. It's not rocket science. Just not acceptable to modern democracies.
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6th December 2012, 10:45 AM | #13 |
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6th December 2012, 10:47 AM | #14 |
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When did you stop beating your wife/partner/husband/etc. ?
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6th December 2012, 11:05 AM | #15 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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6th December 2012, 11:24 AM | #16 |
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True.
During Sherman's "march to the sea" Confederate guerillas tried to slow down the march by planting IEDs (really!) along the way. This infuriated Sherman, so he selected one Confederate prisoner at random and had him shot in a very public demonstration, saying more would be similarly executed if any more IEDs were planted along the way. The IEDs were not a problem after that. Such tactics are no longer acceptable to civilized countries, but of course less civilized people have no issues with such tactics. |
6th December 2012, 11:38 AM | #17 |
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People with guns are often non violent. Especially around other people with guns.
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6th December 2012, 11:40 AM | #18 |
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Is there a causal link between a government that is tyrannical and the number of armed citizens it has? I do not think that there is, so that is that argument blown out of the water.
As for protecting against street thugs, there are numerous unarmed ways of doing that, number one being no contact, so don't buy drugs off them and follow common sense, crime prevention personal safety advice. So that is that argument dealt with. I think many Americans like to scare the bejesus out of themselves with stories of tyrannical governments and terrible crime gangs to have an excuse to keep guns for self defence. |
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6th December 2012, 01:13 PM | #19 |
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Originally Posted by geni
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Are you REALLY suggesting that the past 200 years haven't chanced things a tad? Because that's the only way this argument can possibly be a rebuttal to anything I've said.
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By the way, the fallacy you're committing here is Context Dropping. You went from discussing how to deal with an invasion to handing out guns to gangs right now. Unless we're being invaded and they forgot to tell everyone on the West Coast (the most logical place for China to invade), the two situations are completely different.
Originally Posted by Nessie
Originally Posted by Soapy Sam
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6th December 2012, 01:27 PM | #20 |
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So having said that... well funny thing, we don't seem to have lost our right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness to either street thugs or tyrannical governments. I guess you can separate the "sanctity of the unalienable right from the guarantor of that right" without incurring the certain loss of both. Not that I actually believe in unalienable rights anyway. |
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6th December 2012, 01:35 PM | #21 |
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Again, this is the Nirvahna Fallacy. The fact that I would be arrested if I went into your bedroom at night and screamed profanity at you in no way means that I don't have the right to free speech. Similarly, the fact that we put murderers in jail in no way means we don't have the right to freedom of association. No kidding courts and governments have put some restrictions on gun ownership/use--those things are dangerous, after all. We still have the right to own them.
And you seem to assume that I agree with all restrictions to gun ownership. I don't. Some make sense. Some are nothing more than the attempts of political reactionaries to capitalize on tragedy. And some are just-plain wrong. Each restriction needs to be examined and stand or fall on its own merits--with the acknowledgement that the USA was based on the concept of individual liberty. |
6th December 2012, 01:58 PM | #22 |
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How can you conclude that it's blown out of the water if you don't actually know?
Tyrannical governments pretty always institute gun control. That doesn't mean gun control leads to tyranny, and perhaps gun rights don't stop tyranny, but it is absolutely true that tyrants always try to disarm the masses.
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The problem, though, is that evidence backs up my position, not yours. Gun ownership decreases violence, it doesn't increase it. |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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6th December 2012, 01:58 PM | #23 |
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6th December 2012, 02:07 PM | #24 |
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Who is "we"? The UK as a whole? Perhaps not. But some people definitely have lost their life (along with all their other rights) to street thugs. The question is whether there are more or less of them because of gun restrictions.
Originally Posted by JOYCE LEE MALCOLM, GUNS AND VIOLENCE: THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE 204 (2002)
Gun control may not destroy society, but the evidence actually indicates that it hurts more than it helps.
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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6th December 2012, 02:42 PM | #25 |
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Europe has known for thousands of years that an important feature of civilised society is that you don't have open season on citizens wandering around with weapons.
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6th December 2012, 02:45 PM | #26 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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6th December 2012, 02:50 PM | #27 |
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Did you fail to notice the flag?
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6th December 2012, 02:58 PM | #28 |
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It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. -- JayUtah I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871) |
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6th December 2012, 03:36 PM | #29 |
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I guess it depends on what you consider the population to consist of ..
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6th December 2012, 03:46 PM | #30 |
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6th December 2012, 04:11 PM | #31 |
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Yes, I did. Oops.
Anyways, the point stands: you personally may not feel like you've lost any rights, but people killed by street thugs (and they exist in NZ too) certainly have lost their rights.
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I think you need to examine some of your assumptions. Let's start with Egypt, since that's been the most stable of the countries on your list. Egypt's gun policies are restrictive. Civilians cannot own long guns and must get a permit to own hand guns. Permits are only granted if you can prove you have a need for the handgun (and guess who gets to make that determination?), and re-licensing is required every three years. Private gun ownership stands at 3.5 guns per 100 people, far less than the 88 guns per 100 persons in the US, the 31 in France, and the 22 in New Zealand. So contrary to your impression, Egypt is not, in fact, armed to the teeth. Palestine, Syria, and Afghanistan actually have similarly low numbers. Libya is higher at 15, but this is largely due to the inability of the government to enforce its laws: under the mad duck, civilian gun ownership was categorically illegal. Iraq is the highest of the bunch at 34 (similar to France), but that's recent figures. I can't find earlier figures easily, but if Iraq was that high when Saddam was in power, that would make it an anomaly among dictatorships. In short, you got your facts completely wrong. Those countries are not armed to the teeth. |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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6th December 2012, 06:08 PM | #32 |
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Zig, a possible flaw in your counter: Are the numbers actual gun ownership, or registered, legal guns?
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6th December 2012, 06:30 PM | #33 |
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6th December 2012, 06:34 PM | #34 |
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6th December 2012, 07:07 PM | #35 |
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I'm very respectable, well over 50, but with a whole bunch of downrange experience and 3 MOS.
There are more combat MOS qualified civilians in the US than serving in the military. If you believe the kid with a felony jacket is more dangerous than an 18B with downrange time, you might need to acquire some knowledge of the subject matter. |
6th December 2012, 07:22 PM | #36 |
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6th December 2012, 07:25 PM | #37 |
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6th December 2012, 09:34 PM | #38 |
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The purpose of the Second Amendment is not for the citizenry to be a force equal to any standing national army. This is fiction. The purpose is twofold:
1. Personal possession of firearms provides tangible proof that Government has not overreached. A man with a rifle will not prevail against the US Marines, or even a competent police department. But he can cause a lot of trouble. If he is still trusted to have that rifle by his community and his nation, he is holding concrete evidence of extant rights and responsibilities.Pacifism and arms go together fine. My parents were hippies. They were also well armed. I support my troops. Mainly by trying to bring them home, and to keep them out of BS wars that should never have started in the first place. I also teach rifle classes. I'm ready to go, but I certainly don't want to hurt anyone. Ever. |
6th December 2012, 09:50 PM | #39 |
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Actually, that's not a flaw. I said that tyrannies tried to control guns. If guns are owned illegally, then that merely indicates that the tyranny is not completely successful in its attempt, not that it isn't attempting it. We know that's the case with Libya, for example, since civilians weren't legally permitted to have guns at all, yet some still did.
But in any case, the listed number is for both legal and illegal guns, according to their definition. |
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6th December 2012, 11:19 PM | #40 |
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