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Guns, a fresh start.

chocolatepossum

Critical Thinker
chocolatepossum
Joined
Mar 23, 2005
Messages
295
Who here, if they could, would click there fingers and have all the guns not in the hands of the police or army of their country disappear?

I would, and I'm interested to hear about Americans' views on this issue in particular. For the record, I'm not sure if I lived in the US that I would be in favour of much tighter gun laws. I'd probably think "If the muggers have them I want them too!" or something to that effect. I did, however, see a couple of American gun enthusiasts asked this question on TV and being completely put off their whole cause when they said "HELL NO!" (or something to that effect).
 
chocolatepossum said:
Who here, if they could, would click there fingers and have all the guns not in the hands of the police or army of their country disappear?

I would...
Click to expand...
Why?

ETA: Based on your sentence construction I'm not exactly sure of your meaning.
 
chocolatepossum said:
Who here, if they could, would click there fingers and have all the guns not in the hands of the police or army of their country disappear?
Click to expand...

In my country, this is already true. Not even the police carry guns here :)
 
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by chocolatepossum
Who here, if they could, would click there fingers and have all the guns not in the hands of the police or army of their country disappear?

I would...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why?

ETA: Based on your sentence construction I'm not exactly sure of your meaning.
Click to expand...

Sorry. What I meant was, if you could get rid of all the privately held guns IN YOUR COUNTRY, would you? This includes all currently illegally and legally held guns. Why you would choose, or choose not, to do this is up to you...
 
chocolatepossum said:
Sorry. What I meant was, if you could get rid of all the privately held guns IN YOUR COUNTRY, would you? This includes all currently illegally and legally held guns. Why you would choose, or choose not, to do this is up to you...
Click to expand...
Thank you.

No, history has demonstrated that governments are not very good at policing themselves when it comes to the use of force.
 
So a government armed to the teeth and a completely unarmed populace. Is that it?
 
I would not. Guns are the most effective means of self defense. It is not guns that result in the high murder rate in the US. It is other factors, mostly related to our culture and to our legal system. I mentioned this in another thread, discussing comparisons of gun ownership rates to murder rates among many countries. They do not correlate as you would expect them to, if guns were the problem. It may look like they do , if all you do is compare the US to other countries. But when you start comparing other countries to each other, there is not such a correlation.
 
Ed said:
So a government armed to the teeth and a completely unarmed populace. Is that it?
Click to expand...

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms." - Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787.

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." - Thomas Jefferson

One of the greatest human beings that ever lived...
 
Freakshow said:
I would not. Guns are the most effective means of self defense. It is not guns that result in the high murder rate in the US. It is other factors, mostly related to our culture and to our legal system. I mentioned this in another thread, discussing comparisons of gun ownership rates to murder rates among many countries. They do not correlate as you would expect them to, if guns were the problem. It may look like they do , if all you do is compare the US to other countries. But when you start comparing other countries to each other, there is not such a correlation.
Click to expand...

I did such an analysis and posted it here some time ago. There are outliers but by and large there is no correlation.
 
So a government armed to the teeth and a completely unarmed populace. Is that it?
Click to expand...

If there were no privately owned guns then the police wouldn't routinely carry guns either. The army would be "armed to the teeth" though.

But basically, in answer to your question, yes. I don't really see the problem with that either. I thought all democratic societies accepted the fact that the government has a near monoploly on the legitimate use of force. If we take the US as an example then surely the army is so overwhelmingly superior to private citizens in terms of firepower as to make the idea of an armed uprising of citizens using 9mms seem ridiculous, even if one considered that a desirable way of resolving a political impasse, which I do not.
 
chocolatepossum said:
If there were no privately owned guns then the police wouldn't routinely carry guns either. The army would be "armed to the teeth" though.

But basically, in answer to your question, yes. I don't really see the problem with that either. I thought all democratic societies accepted the fact that the government has a near monoploly on the legitimate use of force.
Click to expand...

Well, you have an absolute right to use deadly force if your life or that of a loved one is in danger.
 
chocolatepossum said:
I would, and I'm interested to hear about Americans' views on this issue in particular. For the record, I'm not sure if I lived in the US that I would be in favour of much tighter gun laws.
Click to expand...

Candidly now (I have had this discussion innumerable times with ferriners so I suspect I know the answer) do you have the slightest idea of the status of gun laws in the US?
 
chocolatepossum said:
If there were no privately owned guns then the police wouldn't routinely carry guns either. The army would be "armed to the teeth" though.

But basically, in answer to your question, yes. I don't really see the problem with that either. I thought all democratic societies accepted the fact that the government has a near monoploly on the legitimate use of force. If we take the US as an example then surely the army is so overwhelmingly superior to private citizens in terms of firepower as to make the idea of an armed uprising of citizens using 9mms seem ridiculous, even if one considered that a desirable way of resolving a political impasse, which I do not.
Click to expand...

So an Army armed to the teeth, and no one else has guns.
Have you studied Roman history? Just curious.


At any rate, the Army's advantage would be in technology, not firepower. A cruise missle is hard to argue with. The problem you would have is the classical problem of any society, the few trying to control the many. Take the problems in Iraq, give the people better technology and more know-how, then multiply it by the land area/population ratio between Iraq and the US, and you'll begin to see what problems that would bring. An armed populace is merely harder to control than an unarmed populace. It's like home security. Your mission isn't necessarily to fight the guy to the death, but rather make it unworthwhile for him to continue.

If I were paranoid, I might think that the spike in gas prices was a planned event to try to make America less mobile. After all, a WALKING populace is easier to control, still....

Fortunately, I don't have THAT much faith in our government's abilities.
 
Candidly now (I have had this discussion innumerable times with ferriners so I suspect I know the answer) do you have the slightest idea of the status of gun laws in the US?
Click to expand...

Well, I gather it varies a whole deal from state to state, but while I would say I have some idea about US gun laws (not as strict as over here) I wouldn't claim any detailed knowledge.
 
Clarsct and Ed.

So can I take your position to be that it is desirable for the general population of a country to posess handguns so that a group of them can attempt to take control of the country if they want to?
 
chocolatepossum said:
I thought all democratic societies accepted the fact that the government has a near monoploly on the legitimate use of force. If we take the US as an example then surely the army is so overwhelmingly superior to private citizens in terms of firepower as to make the idea of an armed uprising of citizens using 9mms seem ridiculous, even if one considered that a desirable way of resolving a political impasse, which I do not.
Click to expand...
The British army was overwhelmingly superior to the militia of the United States. If the nation wanted to oppress its people it is ever so much easier if the populace is unarmed. Sure, the United States would likely win any skirmishes but at what cost to itself? (see Ruby Ridge) and would if it openly attacked armed citizens to disarm them would many in the military begin to desert and would it cause civil war.

It's not so simple to say that America forces are superior and therefore guns would have no effect.
 
If the government has become tyrannical, then yes. You've stumbled on one of our founding tenets. A tyrannical government cannot last in a society that has the use of arms and the courage to use them. All of our 'rights' come with responsibilities. Any militia group could stage a coup, but unless the populace was behind them, they know they would not succeed.

Our government is our responsibility, which is why I get upset when people don't get upset. Sometimes they should. A country that allows itself to fall to sheer apathy doesn't deserve to exist.
 
The British army was overwhelmingly superior to the militia of the United States.
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Where they though? I am by no means a scholar of this period, but I thought the Americans and British were armed fairly similarly. In fact, didn't the Americans have rifles? Also, didn't the Americans have French support? And weren't the British armies miles from home in a largely hostile country?

Correct me if I'm wrong because I love to learn about war!

:)
 
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