Gun control - US vs. rest of the world

[Pandaemoni]

The point is not to prevail in a frontal confrontation with the American government (although such a scenario would probably lead to its dissolution, even if the yokels were initially crushed), but rather to raise the stakes sufficiently that the government has to think twice about actions that impact the rights of citizens.

You seem to be advocating insurrection (or terrorism). The government acts to limit the rights of citizens all the time...that's what laws do. If you don't like a limitation on your rights, you already have options like (i) vote those responsible out of office and tell others to do the same or (ii) advocate that the laws be repealed. You do not get to kill (or even physically threaten) those you deem responsible.

IMO, that makes you exactly the wrong sort of person to own firearms, as that's the sort of thinking that leads people to blowing up federal buildings.

 

[The Devil Inside]

Any one who is more scared of an automatic rifle(or Mac10 or whatever spray n' pray) over a good, well sighted 30-06(or similar) scoped rifle, needs to do a reality check.

amen. im not afraid of a thousand 9mm bullets the way im afraid of a 30-06 slug making a hole the size of a bowling ball in me.

 

[mikenostic]

amen. im not afraid of a thousand 9mm bullets the way im afraid of a 30-06 slug making a hole the size of a bowling ball in me.

Which it can from up to 1000+ yards away.

 

[Buffalo Roam]

That said, i do not think owning firearms to defend yourself against the federal government is a good reason to own them. The U.S. government can make slaves of us right now. They have the tanks, grenades, rocket launchers, cruise missiles, spy satellites, gunships, fighter jets, nuclear weapons and a million trained soldiers, I don't think they're afraid of yokels with handguns. (The European Union has yet to enslave their unarmed population...)

I'm far more alarmed by the more real possibility that they may be monitoring my phone calls than I am of the farfetched possibility that they might someday try to make me a slave.

I find your reasoning flawed, one of the reasons that the Government would have a problem making slaves out of us, is the those individuals in the Military, the right to own guns, has a side benefit that goes beyond protecting yourself from the scum of the earth and the Blood Sucking Governments, Gun ownership impart a independent thought process, those millions of soldiers, have a independent streak in them that would screw up any Government attempt to over throw the Constitution and the Rights of the citizens of this country.

A few years ago there was a survey of the Troops to find out if they would follow orders to search and seize weapons from the Citizens of the United States, guess what? 80% said they would refuse such a order, and a even higher percentage said they would refuse to fire on Citizens, the scary thing is the fact that there was 20% who said they would.

The ability to own weapons imparts a independence of thought, and back bone that don't exist in any other place around the world were the citizen is dependent on the government for their protection.

 

[Pandaemoni]

I find your reasoning flawed, one of the reasons that the Government would have a problem making slaves out of us, is the those individuals in the Military, the right to own guns, has a side benefit that goes beyond protecting yourself from the scum of the earth and the Blood Sucking Governments, Gun ownership impart a independent thought process, those millions of soldiers, have a independent streak in them that would screw up any Government attempt to over throw the Constitution and the Rights of the citizens of this country.

A few years ago there was a survey of the Troops to find out if they would follow orders to search and seize weapons from the Citizens of the United States, guess what? 80% said they would refuse such a order, and a even higher percentage said they would refuse to fire on Citizens, the scary thing is the fact that there was 20% who said they would.

The ability to own weapons imparts a independence of thought, and back bone that don't exist in any other place around the world were the citizen is dependent on the government for their protection.

I do agree that the military would likely refuse the orders to enslave the population en masse, I'm not sure that it's their personal firearm ownership that would lead them to refuse.

I never had the sense that gun owners are more independent thinkers than anyone else, at least in the U.S. (where gun ownership is common). I would need to see pretty convincing backup for me to accept that gun ownership somehow causes people to be less likely to follow illegal or immoral orders. I think I'd need to see backup to really accept there was even a mere correlation between gun ownership and that sort of independent thought, but causation strikes me as a particular stretch.

There might be such evidence that I don't know about...there are studies like the Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment, I've just never heard that gun ownership made one more likely to do well with respect to such tests. So let me know if it's there and I missed it.

 

[The Devil Inside]

Which it can from up to 1000+ yards away.

well, i dont think a 30-06 has that kind of accuracy (i grew up in michigan among deerhunters, i know a bit )....

but there is a reason germans during ww1 killed american soldiers on sight, if they had rifles of that sort...rather than taking them prisoner.

 

[quadraphonics]

You seem to be advocating insurrection (or terrorism).

You seem to have trouble comprehending what I wrote. Supporting gun rights as a check against tyrrany is not the same thing as advocating the violent overthrow of the current government. In fact, it's a means for ensuring that the government won't need to be overthrown in the first place.

The government acts to limit the rights of citizens all the time...that's what laws do.

Wow, I hardly even know where to start with that one. First of all, a right is something that the government is consitutionally forbidden to impinge upon without due cause (i.e., in order to protect some more-important rights). The fundamental check-and-balance structure of the US government was designed explicitly to ensure that no law violates the rights of the citizens. There's an entire co-equal branch of government dedicated specifically to ensuring that the other branches aren't tempted to do this.

If you don't like a limitation on your rights, you already have options like (i) vote those responsible out of office and tell others to do the same or (ii) advocate that the laws be repealed.

I could also sue the government and get the Supreme Court to overturn the law, or petition the executive to veto it (supposing I find out in time). Pointing these things out would be relevant if I'd advocated the violent overthrow of the government. Since I haven't, however, all they add up to is a laughable straw-man argument. The point is that if there is no possibility of substantial resistance from the populace, there is no fundamental check on the government's ability to revoke your rights to seek peaceful redress of grievances. If they take away the right to vote and speak freely, will you still insist that the proper recourse is voting and advocacy?

You do not get to kill (or even physically threaten) those you deem responsible.

Not while there are peacable means of redress available, no. But the definition of tyrrany is a government where there are no peaceful means of redress, and the government does not respect your right to life, liberty and property. In this case, you're justified in threatening and using force to defend your rights.

The great thing about liberal democracy is that citizens don't have to use force to defend their freedoms from their government. But that doesn't mean that the citizens should be stripped of their ability to fight back; if you do that, you open yourself up to the situation where the government ceases to be a liberal democracy, and there's nothing the people can do about it. It's one of those "if you want peace, prepare for war" type of connundrums.

IMO, that makes you exactly the wrong sort of person to own firearms, as that's the sort of thinking that leads people to blowing up federal buildings.

Well, fortunately for everyone, gun rights are not decided based on your half-cocked, unsubstantiated characterizations of strangers. For the record, I've never even held a real gun, so you can see how badly you've missed the mark with your characterization of me as some kind of back-woods militia terrorist. You have, on the other hand, provided a fairly compelling portrait of yourself as judgemental, reactionary, and unsophisticated.

 

[S.A.M.]

But the definition of tyrrany is a government where there are no peaceful means of redress, and the government does not respect your right to life, liberty and property. In this case, you're justified in threatening and using force to defend your rights.

And such a government would be scared off by an armed insurgency?

Its illogical.

 

[Pandaemoni]

I disagree with your understanding of the word "right"/*, but if I mischaracterized your position, then I apologize. I still maintain that in any realistic scenario there will *always* be legal means of preventing the U.S. from transforming itself into a burgeoning tyranny that do not involve guns. It's not like it will transform over night or that warning signs won't appear. Guns play no role in preventing the U.S. from becoming tyrannical, voting does, legal challenges do, speech does. Guns as an end of the line "insurance policy" has zero effect imo, if all the privately owned guns melted tomorrow, the government would be no more likely to start oppressing us.

----------
/* A "right" is not necessarily something the constitution protects. A "legal right" is merely something the law will protect, and if the law changes to stop protecting it, you lose the right. Hypothetically, if my employer fires me for being black, I have the right to sue him under Title VII. Prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, my employer had the *right* to fire or not hire me on the basis of race. If my employer fires me for being "unsophisticated" that is his right. If a lack of sophistication becomes a protected category under the law, then he loses that right. Not all legal rights are constitutional rights. (For that matter, not all rights are necessarily legal rights, it depends on context.)

 

[quadraphonics]

And such a government would be scared off by an armed insurgency?

Its illogical.

It's not as if there aren't examples of tyrranical governments being beaten by armed insurgencies. But, anyway, the point was not how successful one stands to be in such a situation, but whether one is justified in forcefully resisting (and one is). As far as how gun rights affect the larger question of the ultimate nature of the government, the point is that an armed populace is a good check on the emergence of such a government, not so much that it can overthrow it after it rises to power.

 

[S.A.M.]

It's not as if there aren't examples of tyrranical governments being beaten by armed insurgencies. But, anyway, the point was not how successful one stands to be in such a situation, but whether one is justified in forcefully resisting (and one is). As far as how gun rights affect the larger question of the ultimate nature of the government, the point is that an armed populace is a good check on the emergence of such a government, not so much that it can overthrow it after it rises to power.

I disagree. The poor focus on education, the large credit bubble and other such conditions in the US show that the people are but puppets of the government measures. They have already been suppressed, only they don't realise it. An insecure populace is subject to any brainwashing the government provides, guns are poor remedy against recession when the government is playing to the corporate tune.

 

[quadraphonics]

I still maintain that in any realistic scenario there will *always* be legal means of preventing the U.S. from transforming itself into a burgeoning tyranny that do not involve guns. It's not like it will transform over night or that warning signs won't appear.

The issue isn't how quickly or apparently it'll happen, but what options will be available to stop it. The fact of an armed populace produces a situation in which there are more peaceful means of recourse, and said means are more effective. Again, "if you want peace...."

Guns play no role in preventing the U.S. from becoming tyrannical, voting does, legal challenges do, speech does. Guns as an end of the line "insurance policy" has zero effect imo, if all the privately owned guns melted tomorrow, the government would be no more likely to start oppressing us.

You're entitled to your opinion but, given that the US population has been armed throughout US history, there's no direct evidence to support it. On the contrary, what we have is circumstantial evidence that an armed populace does indeed contribute to a lack of tyrrany in the US.

To make an analogy, America won the Cold War without having to use nuclear weapons. But that doesn't imply that America would have won if it hadn't had nuclear weapons.

 

[iceaura]

/* A "right" is not necessarily something the constitution protects.

The right to keep and bear arms is something the Constitution protects.

Guns play no role in preventing the U.S. from becoming tyrannical, voting does, legal challenges do, speech does. Guns as an end of the line "insurance policy" has zero effect imo, if all the privately owned guns melted tomorrow, the government would be no more likely to start oppressing us.

The government is always trying to start oppressing us. It's a constant pressure. All kinds of things make a difference, day to day - including (jsut one example) the fact that too much indifference to a homeowner's civil rights leads not only to some theoretical risk in court to the local officialdom if said homeowner is rich and powerful, but a risk to the actual police officer making the decision of getting themselves shot by even the poorest and least powerful of citizens.

 

[James R]

Again, an interesting set of responses from the Americans since I last looked. So defensive.

I think the real problem American gun supporters have, aside from issues of being brainwashed by the NRA and living in a culture of fear, is that Americans are generally unwilling to give up any individual freedom, even if doing so would obviously benefit the populace as a whole.

Americans react instinctively to anything that threatens to reduce or "take away" what they think are their God-given rights. It really doesn't matter how much evidence of benefit you stack up, it will never overcome that need for personal control that these Americans feel. Every American is an island.

quadruphonics:

Wow, so you're setting the pace for the entire world now, huh?

The poll results speak for themselves, don't you think?

The right question to ask is "at what stage do you engage in a meaningful conversation about the differences in gun legislation between the United States and <pick a demographic>?" And the answer is: "when someone suggests an explanation capable of producing some insights into the question."

See above, and please feel free to comment.


The Devil Inside:

i also notice that in your original post, you single americans out.

There is no mention of Americans in my opening post.

perhaps we should take a vote as to whether australia needs an equivalent to the department of homeland security....or perhaps we could superimpose china's birth limitations on australia?

The aim of the poll, which it seems you missed, was to highlight a divergence of opinion between Americans and sciforums members of other nationalities.

Try starting a similar poll on "Should Australia have a one child policy?", and split the results between Australian citizens and the rest of the world, in the same way as I have done in this thread. Do you expect any divergence of opinion between the Australians and the rest of the world, as we see for the issue of gun control in the current thread?

Stop the knee-jerk and start thinking.

it doesnt matter. you are just trying to stir some shit here. its obvious that you already knew the outcome of your poll, so why bother with it if you arent intentionally trying to cause trouble?

Of course I expected the result we're seeing. But what you see as stirring shit, I see as attempting to start a discussion or to provoke some reflection. And, I must say, it is working a treat so far.

playing word games is unbecoming, and you know it. as it sits, you specifically singled out americans, and havent had much to say here, other than "americans seem to be out of step with the rest of us"....dont say the poll isnt about america, if you are going to single out american citizens.

Of course it's about America. It's about how Americans view the issue of gun control in a radically different way to much of the rest of the western world (at least).

im american, and so the only way the "hypothetical" poll could affect me would be if it took place where i live......its interesting that you dont require justification from people of other countries voting the way they do....but for some reason you "dont need to know shit about america" in your own words, to know why americans responded the way they did.

If you feel the need to defend your position, go ahead.

its obvious that you dont know shit about america, or americans, by how high and mighty of a position you have taken here.

Oh, I think I do.

But please don't make the mistake of thinking I'm generally anti-American just because I think some Americans are nuts when it comes to guns. There are things I love about America, and I know many wonderful Americans. I just think you guys have a blind spot on guns.

<-- NRA lifetime member

Of course you are. That makes you unbiased.


nietzschefan:

See Max, they just want all those terrible guns gone. They are KILLING people. THEY ALL HAVE TO GO. That is the goal of these people.

First they start with hey lets get everyone to register them. Then hey why do you need an M60 *look up everyone who owns a M60 in the registry and confiscate it*. They Hey why do you need any automatic weapon *look up everyone who owns an auto in the registry and confiscate it*. And so on, till we are forced to invent some new martial art that works well against people that love to tell other people how to live.

This is a good example of the culture of fear I often mention, and in particular the fear of the erosion of individual rights.

It's worth noting that there is zero evidence of the actual existence of this slippery slope you're so afraid of.


madanthonywayne:

But if you're talking about preventing criminals or those certified as being insane from getting guns, I'm all for it.

It's like you think the world is divided into two classes of people - the "normals" and the "criminals". You might want to reconsider that.

iceaura:

An unarmed citizenry is subject to slavery at any time. But less dramatically, and more to the point, the procedures and intrusions involved in the disarmament of an unwilling and already armed citizenry require far more justification than some variable, multi-sourced level of street crime and gun violence. These intrusions are not compatible with civil liberties and ordinary freedoms.

More confirmation of the point I made above. Individual freedom is top of the list, even at the expense of community safety and wellbeing.

Pandaemoni:

It's hard for me to imagine the U.S. general attitude turning against guns as tools of self-defense the way they have in much of the rest of the industrialized world so long as the mythology (real or fictional) of the self-sufficient gun-toting man exists.

...

That said, i do not think owning firearms to defend yourself against the federal government is a good reason to own them. ...

The people who are planning for the revolution need to take off the tin foil hats and realize that, if that fight were ever to come, we've already lost. That so many people are irrational, paranoid and armed is a recipe for disaster.

I'm far more alarmed by the more real possibility that they may be monitoring my phone calls than I am of the farfetched possibility that they might someday try to make me a slave.

I entirely agree. Well said.

 

[S.A.M.]

Every American is an island.

I think that is the best description of American mentality I have ever read.

 

[quadraphonics]

I think the real problem American gun supporters have, aside from issues of being brainwashed by the NRA and living in a culture of fear,

Riiiight. The reasons Americans disagree with you is because they're brainwashed and terrorized, not because reasonable people can differ on the subject. Way to foster a useful dialogue.

is that Americans are generally unwilling to give up any individual freedom, even if doing so would obviously benefit the populace as a whole.

First of all, I haven't seen it demonstrated that the changes in gun laws you proposed would "obviously benefit the populace as a whole." There are plenty of other heavily-armed countries that are quite peaceful and idyllic (Switzerland or Finland, say) and plenty of gunless countries that suck terribly. Secondly, any such benefit has to be weighed against the loss of the freedoms it would cost. There are plenty of examples of Americans giving up individual rights when it's necessary to protect rights or causes they consider to be more important. The fact is that America is a liberal democracy, and so the gun laws reflect the collective judgement of the American people on said cost-benefit analysis. There are plenty of gun-control types out there making the case for it, so it's not as if people aren't being exposed to both sides of the story.

It is pretty funny to see how vexed you get when 300 million people shrug off the conclusions you consider to be so self-evident though. Perhaps a more plausible explanation is not that hundreds of millions of people suffer from some kind of conspiracy/personality deficiency, but that the policy prescriptions you offer are not nearly as self-evidently beneficial as you believe.

Americans react instinctively to anything that threatens to reduce or "take away" what they think are their God-given rights.

The reaction is visceral, but it is not instinctive. We have a healthy ongoing national debate about guns (and everything else), to which you are not contributing in the least with your silly propaganda threads. And, yes, Americans, like everyone else, tend to react very negatively when their rights are threatened.

It really doesn't matter how much evidence of benefit you stack up, it will never overcome that need for personal control that these Americans feel.

It would be nice if you'd at least tried to stack up *some* evidence before descending into derrogatory generalizations. Characterizing people for their presumed responses to an argument you don't bother to make in the first place is not exactly a great way to get through to them.

The poll results speak for themselves, don't you think?

Yes, but they don't say what you seem to think they say. In order to read them as "America is out of step with the rest of the world," we'd have to presume that SciForums represents a meaningful sample of the world population, which it manifestly does not. Apart from the United States, posters here are overwhelmingly from Australia, Canada and the UK. Considering that these countries have a combined population that is less than half that of the United States, it would be more correct to ask why they're out of step with the United States. Of course, that framing wouldn't accord with your obvious bias, or satisfy your apparent need to speak from a position of presumed (and laughably unearned) authority...

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Maybe he did, and maybe it wasn't critical to his point. Perhaps it could be considered that our alignment was already decided before Pearl Harbor. But I don't want to go off topic. The reason I responded to your post is because I think Fraggle is one of our older posters so definitely not a product of modern education.

I graduated from high school in 1960. WWII was too recent to be covered in our classes. They didn't teach us about anything after the Civil War. They didn't believe in discussing current events with kids, that would have been a usurpation of parental rights. Sort of like how bad it would have been to arrest parents who beat their kids because they always had a really good reason.

Nonetheless, from what I was able to learn by talking to older people, it seemed to me that in the 1930s America had already made it clear that it was an ally of Stalin and an enemy of Hitler. One of my aunts and her husband emigrated to the USSR in the 1930s and after her husband disappeared into a gulag she returned, and nobody thought anything of it. Hard as it is to believe today, Americans were pretty sanguine about what was going on in Russia.

Not to demean Hilter's concentration camps--in which distant members of my own homogenized American family died--but virtually no Americans knew that it was going on. The abuses of Stalin--which my own aunt could attest to--were considered less reprehensible than the results of Woodrow Wilson's machinations at the end of WWI that are largely to blame for the rise of Nazism.

Hitler knew that if America were to enter the war we would fight on the side of the Allies, so after Pearl Harbor it was a given. Declaring on us was a mere formality. We were fighting with the Brits against the Japanese and we would have fought with them against the Germans. America always sides with Britain, no matter what.

I'm not really complaining, I love dear old England as much as any American. King Arthur, Shakespeare, the Beatles, James Bond. God save the Queen. But love is not rational and it often has dire consequences.

Still, I don't really know whether the world would have turned out better if WWII had gone the other way. But the way it did turn out was surely no better than it was before the war. Was it really worth sixty million deaths? The genie of nuclear weapons out of the bottle? A brand new Jewish nation built--in the stooopidest possible place? A billion people living under communism?

Sixty years later, it's as clear as ever that war is NEVER worth it. Clear to everyone except the selfish, corrupt morons who rule our countries.

 

[superluminal]

I think that is the best description of American mentality I have ever read.

It's a fairly drastic and all-encompassing description that I can easily see would feed the eager appetites of certain people.

 

[S.A.M.]

It's a fairly drastic and all-encompassing description that I can easily see would feed the eager appetites of certain people.

I would appreciate it if you indicated in what way you disagree with the description.

 

[superluminal]

Still, I don't really know whether the world would have turned out better if WWII had gone the other way.

Really? I'm having trouble even forming a response to that.

Sixty years later, it's as clear as ever that war is NEVER worth it. Clear to everyone except the selfish, corrupt morons who rule our countries.

War is bad. Yes. But what do you mean by "worth it"? The American revolutionary war was certainly "worth it" to us. You and I both know that it's not as simple as your statement would indicate. Wars of defense against invaders are clearly worth it to the defenders.