Guns and Their Use(s)
I don't understand this debate at all. Can someone give me a number of the amount of deaths over the last century because of mass shootings? I have my own numbers but want to get others thoughts. Next, I want everyone to take those numbers and question if those deaths are worth preventing for a gun ban or whatever form of regulation you wish to place on guns. The purpose of the second amendment is to stop a corrupt government from taking away the rights of its citizenry. Not to hunt game. Not to shoot others in light of your misanthropy. But to arm the citizens against their government. They knew (founders), like most others have throughout history that "the only true power someone has is the sword". Diplomacy, kindness, favor, jurisprudence all fall apart without the ability to enforce them or keep them safe.
Are those deaths depressing? Deeply. Are they preventable? Perhaps. Regulation of some sort needed? Yes, everything has restrictions so why shouldn't guns? The conversation, in my opinion, has been distorted and the wrong one is constantly being brought up. Apparently not enough know why the guns are there in the first place and it seems that we are heading towards conclusions that completely obfuscate the reason the amendment was put there in the first place. Having a way to protect those you care about and the ideas you value means taking the risk of being shot by those same tools. That is the way the world works. Also, please keep in mind that more die yearly in alcohol related incidents and smoking then ever have from all the mass shootings, yet we do not ban them. Another example would be cars. More die from cars than horse but most have deemed the lose in life worth the cost, in exchange for the efficiency provided from those cars.
I don't know where to go from here. The debate is already lost in my opinion and the narrative lines have already been drawn by the media, the misnomers, and partisans on "both sides". I can only hope we find a solution through this mess, that doesn't lead to a world gunless against the most sophisticated technology we've ever seen in the hands of "our" governments. Thousands of years of human suffering shows us what happens when the citizens have no way of fighting back. In an age of A.I. and automation I can only wonder what will happen. On the other side I feel great sadness over the shootings. They speak of the despair of this world and the many that are lost for lack of kindness or care for themselves (or others of them)... Not to mention those that were killed in the way of their despair. As with everything in politics it seems like both sides just want to paint the other in the worst possible way, as if all don't want a world that is happy and void of mass shootings. It's saddening and very unmotivating to put it lightly. Thank you for reading this far if you have. Have a nice day everyone! : )
Are those deaths depressing? Deeply. Are they preventable? Perhaps. Regulation of some sort needed? Yes, everything has restrictions so why shouldn't guns? The conversation, in my opinion, has been distorted and the wrong one is constantly being brought up. Apparently not enough know why the guns are there in the first place and it seems that we are heading towards conclusions that completely obfuscate the reason the amendment was put there in the first place. Having a way to protect those you care about and the ideas you value means taking the risk of being shot by those same tools. That is the way the world works. Also, please keep in mind that more die yearly in alcohol related incidents and smoking then ever have from all the mass shootings, yet we do not ban them. Another example would be cars. More die from cars than horse but most have deemed the lose in life worth the cost, in exchange for the efficiency provided from those cars.
I don't know where to go from here. The debate is already lost in my opinion and the narrative lines have already been drawn by the media, the misnomers, and partisans on "both sides". I can only hope we find a solution through this mess, that doesn't lead to a world gunless against the most sophisticated technology we've ever seen in the hands of "our" governments. Thousands of years of human suffering shows us what happens when the citizens have no way of fighting back. In an age of A.I. and automation I can only wonder what will happen. On the other side I feel great sadness over the shootings. They speak of the despair of this world and the many that are lost for lack of kindness or care for themselves (or others of them)... Not to mention those that were killed in the way of their despair. As with everything in politics it seems like both sides just want to paint the other in the worst possible way, as if all don't want a world that is happy and void of mass shootings. It's saddening and very unmotivating to put it lightly. Thank you for reading this far if you have. Have a nice day everyone! : )
Comments (37)
So should we allow citizens to possess nuclear weapons to ensure they cannot be oppressed by their nuclear-armed governments? If not, why not?
According to this, there were 1,077 since August 1st, 1966 (in the United States).
However, it's worth noting that this figure only includes cases where "four or more people were killed by a lone shooter (two shooters in a few cases)".
A better figure to consider is the total number of firearm homicides. According to this, there were 1.5 million gun deaths between 1968 and 2014, and in 2013 33% of gun deaths were homicides. I don't know how typical this proportion is, but assuming it's average, that gives us a figure of 495,000, or 10,760 a year. That's a bit lower than the 13,000 figure given here – I guess this latter figure just uses recent years, and the rate has gone up?
And, of course, this is just fatalities. There's going to be a lot of non-fatal gun assaults too. According to this, "for every one person killed with guns, two more are injured". Assuming (perhaps a big assume) that the death-to-injury ratio is consistent across causes (assault, suicide, accident) and years, that gives 990,000 non-fatal gun assaults (although this is the same source that gives a figure of 13,000 deaths a year, and so this might be a liberal figure).
So as a rough estimate, the total number of victims from gun attacks between 1968 and 2014 is 1,485,000.
I wonder how this compares to the number of lives saved/injuries avoided by civilians owning guns.
Quoting Pseudonym
Huh. Well, first of all that would be very unrealistic. haha But if it were possible I would be definitely be for it. It would be the ultimate threat towards an oppressive regime. The biggest point of having guns is to have some semblance of force to oppose the governments as well as the uncertainty by having those guns available and of unknown amounts within the population. The same would be true of nuclear weapons but to an even greater degree. They would be a collective threat and would not be owned by individuals, just as the military is a group threat, so is the nuclear threat.
Then you just get someone like today's mass shooters who decides to detonate a nuke for whatever awful reasons they have for doing what they do.
You're not thinking this through at all.
Thank you for your research and numbers! : ) That is roughly what I have. I don't know how you could estimate the amount of people saved. I'm sure there are some numbers out there but I would be hard pressed to verify them. I would say my points and questions still stand as is. Even on the high end and with everything totaled in it is still much less than even the low end estimates of alcohol or tobacco, not to mention other causes annually.
Quoting Michael
I mentioned it would be a group threat just as a militia is and not something that is under private ownership, so that would be a non issue.
Then can we say the same about guns? No private ownership.
Quoting Michael
That would be nice but the threat in the militia comes from the anonymity and presence in the population. If it exists as a public "resource" the government would never allow it and if it did it would be much easier to eliminate and manipulate by the vary government it would try and oppose.
OK, so then the same can be said about nukes.
You're not being very consistent.
Quoting Michael
Really? You are going to compare widespread gun ownership to GROUP ownership of nuclear warheads? Can you not see that they are worlds apart in scale and not fungible? Every person can own a gun and it be a group force. A group can own a nuclear warhead and have the same threat but no individual would own it. For guns to be effective they have to be owned individually because they do not operate like nuclear weapons do.
They simply can't be compared so there is no point of inserting them into a debate vs guns. And most importantly they are completely impractical as I said above.
But really, this is all nonsense. Nuclear weapons in the hands of ordinary folk? That's the worst idea I've ever heard.
Quoting Michael
Fair points. So would it be a fund where we add guns to it in support of protecting ourselves from the government? I just don't know how it would be organized and if you could trust those in charge from betraying the citizens. It seems much more feasible just to give private ownership and to organize it like that then to trust you could hide or trust anyone to keep those guns just in case you need them. But yes, I stand corrected, if that were possible I would be ok with doing that as an alternative ( no private ownership and just a collective fund ).
It sounds really bad but if there were a way to get the government to fear its citizens it would be that. haha (stares intensely)
Quoting Bitter Crank
AND, right on cue, here you are!
So, I don't know how serious you are about this. Maybe you're just being provocative. But there are people running around out there who are not merely being provocative.
"The government coming to get us" has been a leitmotif of a deranged (paranoid) subset somewhere out on the far right wing for a good share of our history. It isn't clear to me exactly what happens to people that they think this way. Harsh toilet training? Siblings snatching their toys away from them? Brain infections? Worms?
So, come in, lay down on the couch, and tell me about your innermost thoughts.
I would assume by using force? What other way is there? Currently a quarter of Americans own guns, approximately 81 million people. The American military stands at about 1.5 million so even a tenth of those people protesting at different times around the country would be pretty alarming. The success of their revolution isn't really important, it's the causalities involved. Would the government be able to imprison or kill such a large amount of people to maintain power? How would that look to the rest of the world? What about those that aren't fighting? Wouldn't they scream out in horror making the oppressive governments control of power even harder to maintain? In this world of social media and cameras? No doubt they would probably lose the war. But at the very least America would have the people and enough guns to force the hand of their government. No other country could come close and would be easy to control in our current climate.
Quoting Chany
Not many. That is why the founders of America were so ahead of the curve. Making sure those values stand the test of time and the test of authoritarian leaders is something they payed close attention to. Something other countries completely missed out on, either for not seeing the importance of it, or because they are corrupt. Lets be real, what government would want to make sure it's quest for power could be threatened by their citizens by establishing those laws? lol
I agree but you are really underestimating their ability to manipulate the narrative, and the law to control their voters. Gerrymandering, excessive lobbying, control of media and narrative through ownership of monopolies. This takes time and doesn't happen overnight, and now guns are being threatened? The only reasonable way to stand a chance against an ever growing federal government? We don't live in a democracy. I would call it a plutocracy. The fact someone like Donald Trump can get into office should tell you the state of the media and how money has corrupted any form of representative democracy we ever had.
It should be a part of everyone's inner monologue when it comes to trusting a government this big with every facet of our lives. I really enjoy your comments by the way and I agree with you at least 99% of the time. I just can not understand why you are ok with trusting a government growing this big but you can't stand the control corporations have over our lives and the respective effects they've had on wages in America and opportunity. I have studied and lived through enough at only 25 to know that neither of those entities should be trusted. Which one is worse with power is questionable to me. But in America it isn't. If you are on the left it is the Corporation, on the right the government. Like they aren't literally the same thing in different attire. At the end of the day they are humans and they want security and power. So no, I'm not being provocative, I am asking as a person. Why do you trust the government so much to not have any way to protect the people from said government?
I was only a child when my parents were forced to relocate to the states because of the Bosnian war. I know have volatile and pointless it is to fight against those in control. Fight or don't eat, they told my father. That is what humans do. They have done it throughout history in every part of life. From the American revolutions, to France, across the Mediterranean in Egypt, all the way to early Korea during the times of the Joseon/Ming Dynasties (China). Governments that just did what they wanted, conscription at the hands of select few, controlling the citizens lives. It's sickening. So what happened to "us"? History happened. Only in America could the question of which one is trying to control you be a reality. Everywhere else in the world it's always been both. No wonder they are so cozy with each other in American politics. They have and will always be best of friends. Very nice couch by the way. :^)
I just see it as the reality. I would love a world where logic, debate, laws, democratic voting system dominates but we haven't evolved that much. The fact we still have wars is testimony to that. Like I said in my initial post, the sword is still probably the only true power we have when everything comes down to it.
That is a fair question. My answer has to be somewhat equivocal and lengthy.
I do not think the federal government (the level we are talking about) is an unalloyed good. On the one hand, the government pursued an extremely and existentially dangerous atomic weapons program from 1942 to the present. The federal government has pursued a series of "limited" conventional wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan towards no clear and achievable purpose. They have also pursued a policy of destabilization and interference in Central and South America (for instance, in 1973 supporting Pinochet's violent coup against President Allende in Chile). They have interfered in Middle Eastern political affairs since the 1950s (like, assisting in the overthrow of the democratically elected Mohammad Mosaddegh, considered to be the leading champion of secular democracy and resistance to foreign domination in Iran's modern history, then installed the "crowned cannibal" Shah of Iran, Pavlavi).
The federal government has been something of a corporate adversary at times -- such as in the progressive era (early 1900s) when it broke up the giant corporate trusts. At times the federal government has regulated corporations energetically, and at times it has done very little. Generally, the federal government has been a friend of the corporate establishment.
On the other hand, the federal government finally began acting to promote the civil rights of black Americans, starting in 1954. At the same time Federal Housing Administration (FHA) continued a formal policy of economic discrimination against black people.
The federal government is primarily responsible for funding many social services, such as Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Disability Programs, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Assistance, some welfare programs, and so on.
The saving grace of the federal government is that Congress and President are elected. They can be replaced by the people--theoretically at least. The Supreme Court isn't elected, and is pretty much there for the lifetime of its appointed judges. The "permanent government" -- the civil service and the military establishment -- are somewhat independent of Congress and the President. This is both good and bad.
So, some actions of the government are good, some actions are bad. It's a mixed bag.
The PRIMARY reason to NOT plan on resisting the federal government by force, is that the federal government has overwhelming resources for violence at its disposal. Most central governments possess the means to suppress their population's discontents. That's just part of the deal of having governments that are capable of defending the nation against foreign aggression: they can also defend themselves against domestic aggression.
So far, our federal government hasn't often found it necessary to engage in combat with citizens in the streets. State and local governments have, however, found it necessary, convenient, or both.
Quoting yatagarasu
If I have more hostility towards corporations than toward government, it is because I interact with corporate entities much more often than with government agencies. Plus, while the government is theoretically the servant of the people, corporations are more openly predatory. What saves the corporations from being even worse than they are, is that they are competing with each other. This alone has helped keep them from being overly aggressive. Except when they achieve monopoly status, then its a different story.
Before the American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation, the Bell System, was broken up by the government in 1982, it was a very reliable but inflexible company. A joke about AT&T was "We don't care; we don't have to." They were the only telephone company that served the whole country and provided long distance and local service in most areas. They owned the telephone on your desk. They had no competition: they were a protected monopoly. If you didn't like their service, you could just do without telephone service altogether.
Modern societies have tended towards being unfriendly and alienating as they have grown in complexity and size. This applies to governments at many levels, corporations (especially large ones), systems (like markets), religious organizations--all kinds of large institutions in a society.
Feeling hostility, fear, and loathing towards one, several, or all institutions is really a perfectly normal human response. It's actually desirable that people not love these huge, distant, unresponsive, uncaring institutions.
Unfortunately, and it is unfortunate, huge populations require huge service establishments, whether they be governmental, corporate, military, religious, or educational. If one wants to avoid falling into existential despair, anomie, alienation, pervasive hostility and fear, and all that bad stuff, one has to find friendly local community--and that is fortunately possible. Difficult at times, but possible.
Every citizen armed isn't going to solve any of our problems, because the most dangerous attacks on your personhood won't be in the form of armed assault. It will be more insidious, bureaucratic, omnidirectional, insubstantial. Shooting at it won't help. There will be no specific target to hit.
Thank you for your response. I really appreciate it and don't mind it's length at all. : )
With that said. I liked the examples you gave of the government. In the same way corporations aren't all bad and they do bring quite a bit to the table. I've been on the positive side of government as a child and I can say that without it I'm not sure my parents could have survived in a new country, not knowing the language. It was just enough to help us make it by until I was able to attend university and help them.
And overall I feel more negatively towards the corporation but I just find it strange that most don't seem to have any worries when it comes to the government. It continues to grow even as it takes on more and more debt. It has involved itself in so many proxy wars over the years that it's hard to remember whose side they are even on anymore... And for me I've seen a trend towards removing anti-trust legislation and taxes have dropped dramatically on those corporations since right after the Great Depression. Thank goodness for the checks and balances but my biggest issue is the money slipping into the government. It is effectively undermining the vote of the citizens as those same citizens argue who is at fault, just as the talking heads want.
In my other post I responded to the idea that technological advancements would crush any resistance. I agree that it would be impossible to deal with a military that is so expansive and powerful but I wonder if this would be worth it from the point of the view of that government. Social media would be huge nowadays and would at the very least alert the rest of the world to what the American government is doing. The force applied to government would be in a last case scenario regardless. I never meant as something like, "I'm upset my taxes are this way. REVOLUTION". It's more like, Brave New World is coming and they have systematically (through bureaucracy and the like), taken away the basic rights we have for their benefit, and there is no option but to fight. Then it would be really nice to have guns, whether or not they are effective is another story. I was just asking if those lives lost now are worth the possible ability to prevent that Brave New World. I am very concerned about the inevitability of that world in the future. If corporations are kept in check via completion (competition that seems to be fading day by day), and the government is held in check by it's establishments (3 branches). What happens when the citizens are too much of weight or no longer viable means of income. A world where AI has replaced a good % of humans. We know what happens in 3rd world countries when the GDP does not derive from it's citizens. It is absolute hell for those citizens and they are effectively useless to those in power.
Maybe it's a mute point. Maybe not having guns would lead to the same results. Then I would truly feel horrible for the future victims of shootings. But in the off chance it gives the citizens a chance to combat a authoritative government those ~13,000 lives yearly from gun violence will look minuscule in comparison... That is a risk I'm not sure of but that I'm willing to take. Which is terrible to say but nonetheless feel would lead to a more utilitarian end. We should try and reduce the chance of the incidents of course, through other means. More mental health facilities, security, lessen the stigma on mental disease, and increase the standard of living for the citizens but we probably aren't fixing the issue completely.
Finally, I wanted to thank you again for the history you injected into your post and the observations about the reason many dislike those large scale institutions, as well as the thoughtfulness of your post. Everything you said was spot on. It would probably take months to even get a pencil if you asked the government to do it. : / Trying to find the community you mentioned is really important and it has eluded me for most of my life. Even at university or work. As I look at the world now it feels even more apparent that the nihilism is creeping up on me. It just feels like humanity is headed down the wrong path and I am lost in that thought. Anyways, I've went on long enough. >_> Hope you are well!
I would encourage you to avoid nihilistic thinking. Granted, it can seem like there are too damn many things going wrong in the world. But what we worry about usually becomes selective, and we start picking out the worst-case-scenarios to think about. Not a good idea. Bad for your mental health, and it doesn't help.
In the middle of everything that seems to be going wrong, there are also things that are going right. Good things happen to people--not all the time, not enough, the deserving get overlooked, but it just isn't all bad. Even Government, Banks, and Big Corporations do good things. Target, for instance, had blueberries on sale for $3 a pint, a couple of weeks ago. From Chile--yeah, I know--very unecological, air freight from Chile to Minnesota; but they were very good.
Brave New World is a good book. If you have not read it, you might want to read 1984, too. It's a grim book, but it will provide you with lots of rhetorical fuel for future posts. George Orwell was a very good writer. He wrote several books which are not novels that are enjoyable writing. The Road to Wigan Pier and Down and Out in Paris and London are two that I read and enjoyed. The subject matter is the depression of the 1930s and British domestic policy, but Orwell is just such a good writer its enjoyable to read. (I suppose you need to be in the right mood, but that's true of every book.) He worked in several kitchens in Paris during the Great Depression, and described how the restaurant staff hated the people who were buying the fancy food they prepared. Someone in the kitchen not infrequently spat on the food before sending it out to the dining room.
The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin is a science fiction novel that is (among other things) about a society organized along a strict anarchist model. It's a good story on its own, but her development of the society is quite thought provoking.
You might like the writing of James Howard Kunstler. He is... what? An environmental critic? He wrote a series of novels, one A World Made By Hand which is about survival after some sort of apocalyptic event, when electricity and oil products disappear. A History of the Future and The Harrows of Spring are two additional novels in the series. He also wrote The Long Emergency and Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation. The last two are about what a post peak-oil future means.
Here's a question, would you even want to live in an apocalyptic dystopian world where there is armed struggle between the citizenry and government in an anarchic state of "anything goes" regarding weapons? At that point, the structures of civilization itself has lost, and it is doubtful it will be a good world worth trying to thrive in anyways. So the argument that guns will play a role in some apocalyptic end game against a tyrannical government seems like a dead one from the start.
Also, as some posters suggested, the government has tanks, nuclear weapons, large-scale missiles, and you name it. You think your assault rifles or other pitly firearms matter much to that? The Founders had muskets and cannons- that was it. What would they say with modern weapons? Would they possibly say the idea of a competently armed citizenry is ridiculous in the face of military grade weapons that have been stockpiled since WWI in the US Government?
Thirdly, your premise that the only reason for the 2nd Amendment was a tyrannical government is false. One of the main reasons was actually much more nefarious. Southerners, especially in places like Virginia, were suspicious of the new federal government's formation of a standing army. They thought that if there was a federal army, they might take away the local militias. Now, why did many southerners want local militias? Because the slaveowners were reliant on regional volunteer militias to keep the slave population from revolting. These slaveholders did not want the government interfering with their ability to control their slave population. James Madison, a Virginian himself, the primary drafter of the Bill of Rights, knew this concern, and it was a factor in the prominence of this amendment.
Maybe @Bitter Crank can comment on this too.
Southerns long practiced a kind of local self-sufficiency. They practiced do-it-yourself justice (quite often lynchings). The are anti-federal government, more likely to be anti-black, anti-working class (even if they are southern trailer trash). Guns play into the picture, because if you are going to resist the state, you need to be armed. And here the state could just as well be the state, county, or city as the federal government.
Where does this come from? Two sources: The first contribution was by the Cavaliers who settled in the south, set up the plantations, established the social hierarchy. They were kind of a lawless bunch. The second was the plantation system, which created micro-states on the land. The owner of the plantation was lord and master to the slaves and everybody else.
Southern society was, by and large, organized along quite different lines than the agrarian or industrial north.
Indeed.
Unsure where you stand politically, but wanted to co-opt this statement to illuminate the hypocrisy of some Conservatives, who, on one hand want to increase military spending, yet simultaneously promote the second amendment as a bulwark against Government, on the other.
Alright, let's go into detail of why this is scenario does not make sense.
In order for a government to function, it requires the de facto (matter of fact) consent of an overwhelming majority of its population. By de facto consent, I mean that one must, no matter how begrudgingly, accept the authority of the government. The laws and institutions that comprise the government must both be recognized as the legal authority of the land and its citizens must accept, to some degree, the basic legal authority of the government. One could find the government completely morally bankrupt at a conceptual level, but so long as one accepts the government as the law of the land and generally follow rules, you consent to the government. The part about not accepting the entire government's rules is rather important for two reasons. Everyone has a gripe with the government and certain laws, but respects the authority of said laws anyway. I do not think the electoral college should exist, as the entire system is screwy and seems to serve no purpose but to serve as an unnecessary fail-safe against the masses, but I accept when the president is elected to office, even if said president only won via the electoral college.
When one establishes oneself as a open, democratic society, it means that overt uses of unjustified violence are not approved of and risk losing de facto consent. Fear of violence only works on marginalized and socially dismissed sections of society. You cannot use overt violence in a democracy without some sort of justification that can stand to a basic degree of public scrutiny. The threat of an overt police state with North Korea levels of oppression is so minimal that if it ever reaches that point, the guns will not help much anyway.
So, we really have two options: overt violent authoritarian government who gains consent primarily through direct fear or subtle maniplulative government that gains consent through acceptance. If the government ever decided to become, say, a dictatorship and rule primarily through fear, they would cease to really care about public opinion. They would still have limits, but I doubt that North Korea really cares about how the outside world views it or how its citizens fear it, so long as they can gain general acceptance. At this point, armed resistance would have to engage in such asymmetric warfare that I doubt having a handgun that the government probably knows about anyway is going to help.
Much more likely, the government would simply normalize the oppression. It would not be obvious. It would most likely be years in the making and involve shifting public opinion, at least enough to make it accepted as just a part of life. You make the majority either agree with the oppression or accept the oppression as a valid mode of life. One of the potential upsides of a democracy is that power and paradigm shifts tend to produce less violence because the responsiblity is always ultimately placed on the population. This means that people are going to be more accepting of political victories and, more importantly, that governments have a legitimate reason to squash violent resistance. It becomes hard to justify your cause by shooting up an army base when you can just use democratic institutions to enact change. The government does not need to worry about human rights violations when the party in question is has a gun and is shooting at people.
So, either you have guns and are overwhelmed by a government that doesn't care, or the government would make anyone who rebelled with a gun appear as a criminal. If the population reached the point that no one cared if the government was oppressive, then you already lost, and no amount of rifles, shotguns, and handguns is going to change that. The best safeguard against tyranny is a system of checks and balances and a population that cares enough about rights that a government is worried to cross those boundaries. The amount of support a rebellion would require is about the same amount to vote someone else in.
Quoting yatagarasu
I don't want to go super in-depth in terms of history, but I tend to think the framers of the Constitution get more credit than they deserve. Some of them wanted a stronger federal government, but political realities prevented them from doing so (Hamilton had to play politics just to get people together to draft the Constitution). They put many measures in place that were barriers in-between elected officials and the people they represented (senators were not originally elected by the people directly and the Electoral College for the presidency). Hell, they didn't even protect your basic rights. The Bill of Rights was designed to limit the federal government and protect the states; it did not apply to the people themselves at the state and local level. The 2nd Amendment wasn't incorporated and guaranteed at the state level until the 21st century!
Bloc.
That’s good to hear! : D My apologizes on the later response. I’ve been a bit busy the last few days. I’ve been fairing ok, albeit feeling a bit cold with this weather. >__>/ My family is doing very well! : )
I’m not sure if it’s a personality trait or not but I’ve had these feelings for a while now. Probably since I was a teenager. The recent events have just intensified those feelings, to the point where I feel as if just not caring at all would be the best course. I’ve tried this actually before, to little effect. Maybe practicing mindfulness would help me. Reading some more books? I don’t know. Haha
$3 dollars a pint???? O__O wow… (stares at my somewhat moldy blueberries, mumbles to self) haha Moments like this make you wonder why you would buy blueberries only to forget about them… I guess I wouldn’t feel as bad if they were only $3 though. : D I can’t believe they got it to that price and it came from Chile.
I have read 1984! Excellent book! I only brought up Brave New World because I think it was a more likely outcome for our world. I guess I would agree with Huxley that humans are more easily manipulated through preying on their pleasure circuits, then their fears. I’ll have to read those ones he wrote, along with the other suggestions you had! : D Thanks a bunch by the way! Always looking for new books to read! Also… On the kitchens in Paris… ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Hahaha Couldn’t really think of anything to say on that, except that humans are weird sometimes. Very strange indeed.
If you’ve ever heard about the video game series, Fallout, it is about a world where humanity never developed computing technology as it is now and instead used nuclear energy. They eventually run out of oil and China invades America for their reserves, triggering a nuclear war. In that series you play as a character living out the post nuclear fallout world in different parts of the Americas. I’ve been into that type of fiction (and hopefully it stays fiction : /) for a long time.
Quick question: In The Dispossessed. What type of anarchist model is used for the society? It is a form of anarcho-syndicalism/capitalism/communism or is it something else entirely? Thanks again! Look forward to your response and seeing you around these forums!
Good question. I was mainly hoping to avoid that type of world but if it were like that I would feel it would be best to have those guns against that government. I guess, “give me liberty, or give me death” type of thing. It would be better to have guns and be that world then to not in my honest opinion.
Yeah. That is probably the biggest point against it. Again, I feel like it would be better than nothing and the government might as well be shooting themselves in the foot. They will be hard pressed to try and maintain any form of civility while also claiming a higher ground. They would be actively killing members of their own state. The very people they need for the society to function properly. Killing is a lot less tolerable than just imprisoning then, at least in the eyes of the people. They would have to respond with violence because they people have a way to shoot at them. Without weapons of any sort they could basically squash any resistance without having to kill that many people. With guns, I would find that very difficult. They would have to switch to a fully totalitarian regime, which would not bode well for them or the people. I don’t know what they would say if they knew about current technology. They might agree with me or you, I’m not really sure. Maybe they would arm the citizens even more? I don’t know honestly.
Very good point, although I didn’t say that it was the exclusive reason. I meant it was the primary reason I would accept in reference to guns vs lives. In so far as I thought protecting the citizens from a future regime might possibly be worth the lives lost. I wouldn’t say about hunting or just collecting guns, as I don’t believe those are even slightly worth considering in regard to the shootings. Even still, you make a great point in context of what I know about that time period and the writers of those documents. Thanks for bringing that up, I honestly hadn’t considered it as a reason. I’ve seen similar fears to those that the southerners had, in Korea namely ( right around the time of the second king of Joseon, King Taejong). The generals of the region were hesitant about giving up their local militias, but eventually were forced into it, centralizing the military to strengthen the Monarchy. It’s a common theme by those in power to destroy competitors, in this case other militia. Like I said to Bitter Crank above… Apologizes on the late response. xD
Yeah. It's strange. People just have those built in biases or contradictions. What can you do? : / (shrugs)
This is all based on the idea that we even have a democracy in the first place. We used to have a representative democracy and now we have representative oligarchy. Any system based on representation will most likely lead to an oligarchy. That is the danger. The slow corruption and striping of values to the point where people become indifferent or accustomed to their lack of rights, mainly through the degradation of the standard of living, education and the concentration of capital. The size of the federal government and the control it holds over our lives makes democratic institutions a formality at a certain point. Until of course those checks and balances become overwhelmed by the need to “represent the oligarchs”. The fact that we have a 2 party system is testimony to the fears the founding fathers had about pure democracy, the fact that we don’t have a % based electoral distribution is also another reason to be skeptical about this supposed “democracy”. My worries stem from the fact that we are in the second form government you are talking about, the slow but steady manipulation of consent through acceptance, and that we are about to lose the only source of power we might have. The fact that humans are starting to forget where we came from is exactly their power. Humans have always held arms, not because they don’t want to talk and hold diplomacy but because it helps assure equal talking grounds. There is no better way to stop people from cheating you then to have a gun pointing at their back. If the population doesn’t have their guns they don’t really have much guarantee of anything and are at the whims of a corruptible checks and balances system and a corruptible leadership. The brutality and desperation of human need for power does not disappear just because we want it to or because “we agreed to it” implicitly via a social contract. It would be nice if that were the case, but like I said earlier, all of hopes of diplomacy and “talking it out” are held together by the fear of mutual understanding of violence by both sides, if anyone side tries to pull something. Unfortunately, the government has gotten way too big and powerful on the military front to beat at this point, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have some ability to force their hand in the end. Diplomacy will always be first and should be the way we try and fix our issues, but I see it as an insurance policy (albeit a weak one). I agree that they do get more credit than they deserve but they still put together one of the best documents in human history. Based on humans had acted throughout history it’s really remarkable that anyone would go so far to try and form a secular state. I’m sorry if it went on and I repeated myself. I’m feeling a bit tired. Take care.
While I don't personally own guns of any sort, I've since self-taught myself enough about history to see the validity of the second amendment. As a result, I'm often surprised by how often those who say they understand the second amendment don't really know it beyond the phrase "the right to bear arms".
Arguments about AR15s being a fun pastime or a concealed handgun being needed for self defense at a dance club leave me questioning whether the correct debate is being had.
Anyways, years ago I wrote up a theoretical solution that I thought might stay true to the constitution, while tackling gun violence. It would never be adopted though, as everyone seems to hate the idea.
Briefly, the idea works like this. Virtually all non-discriminatory weapons would be banned from ownership, such as nuclear weapons, but virtually all other weapons could be owned. This includes fully-automatic, missiles, and even tanks. The catch is these weapons would need to be stored at organized militia depots, regulated armories, and police stations. The government would have very limited control over these facilities: generally just enough access to monitor.
Use or transport of such weapons however would need permits, which would be obtained on-demand by those already registered in an intelligent government database. Generally, you'd still need to demonstrate a need to obtain a free permit (hunting/occupation/gunrange), and even then the permit would be constrained by location, duration, and weapon. Ammunition would be tied to the permit as well, so generally unused ammunition would need to be returned when the permit expires. Machine learning is pretty powerful these days, so I'd trust it to red flag those in a database with odd permit requests.
While there would be some permits that would allow for extended at-home carry, mainly rifles out in country or for police officers, the vast number of permits would have limitations that exclude at-home defense. As a result, the second aspect of this all would be to allow for a second class of permit issuance that is for smart weapons. These are weapons that either lockup/alarm if taken off of the premise they are restricted to; also they may alarm if used or tampered with, and perhaps come fitted with a non-removable 10-round magazines, etc.
Such weapons would need to be developed, but if there were no other allowable options for home defense, they perhaps could see adoption. Government incentives would likely be needed to ensure the R&D into these weapons is seen as a low-risk investment by gun manufactures. Permits for such weapons could require the weapons be given maintenance yearly, to ensure they were not tampered with and to ensure they are still functional.
Anyways, that's the general idea; I wrote several pages more with added details. Ultimately, I believe if the goal is to given the population the means to defend itself from an evil government, it needs more than AR15's; the government doesn't just use muskets anymore -- it has drones and tanks. Smart weapons for personal defense I feel fills in a gap that made this idea a bit weak previously, but I also know that people really hate smart guns. Overall then, I doubt this idea would ever stick.