Gun Control - Page 33

Helwyr · 2013-02-12, 08:16 PM

You're from the UK Figment? For some reason I thought you were American... my mistake. Have you ever lived in the United States?

What do you mean by me "not being fair to soldiers"? My point in the previous post was that not all the Military are immune from taking a similar path that the Wehrmacht did in Hitler's Germany. Fortunately many are beyond taking orders without question, and thanks to groups like the Oath Keepers and alternative media, many and especially Veterans can be counted on to be a bulwark to tyranny, not it's instrument.

I think your experiences in UK are blinding you to the realities of the United States that make your comments on Katrina seem grossly out of touch.

The US is a very large country by comparison. In terms of Firearms there are hundreds of millions in circulation, there is no reasonable possible way that all guns could be removed even with the compliance of all legal gun owners. Drugs are illegal yet they're still available everywhere, the US can't even control people coming across it's border, millions live and work here illegally. At most what the government can achieve in terms of eliminating firearms, is take them away from all law abiding people. Do you see where this is going Figment? In Katrina it was mostly law abiding people defending their lives and homes that had weapons confiscated. People that go on looting rampages, mug and murder others aren't law abiding to begin with, they are not those that will be disarmed by making firearms illegal.

Then there's Mexico to the South, they outlawed guns from civilians, but it hasn't seemed to help much. That's America's fault you say since the Mexicans get guns from here... That's in part true. Unfortunately, the provider of those guns is as likely to be the very people you're telling American's to disarm and put their trust in.. that's right agencies within the government. Read up on Eric Holder and "Fast and Furious" for more info. And if your not familiar with the situation in Mexico, the Cartels there make Al Qaeda look positively humanitarian their so nasty. Vice News has some great news stories on the Cartels and many other things going on around the world if you're interested, but I'm not linking it here, they don't censor any of their footage and it can be very graphic.

I think as you can tell I'm not by any means saying the political system in the United States is great and everywhere else sucks. Actually I'd say they all suck to one degree or another. This is where I do admire the founders of the United States, they knew no system of government was perfect and set about as best as they could to ensure limitations on it's reach and powers. As I understand it, there was even resistance to having a Bill of Rights, not because they disagreed with the rights listed, but feared future leaders might interpret such a bill as the sum of peoples rights and choose to ignore those the writers of the Bill had not at the time considered.

Is the US Constitution and Bill of Rights perfect, no. I'm sure it can be approved upon and there already exists a legal process for that. But all laws and rules are meaningless when they're being undermined and broken by those intrusted to uphold them, and unfortunately that's what happening here. Your linked NYT article was just one tiny piece of the propaganda war that's aimed at making Americans accept and even wish for the removal of the legal constraints on government and protection of their individual rights. However, at their core those rights are God given or Natural (for those of us that aren't religious), you can wipe them from law, but they remain by right to be claimed.

...Which leads us to the crux of this firearms discussion. Many people here in the US fear the government, especially the current administration is set upon denying them their natural rights, first by law by undermining the Constitution etc and then by force of arms through the ever expanding police state. In a world where all the criminals have guns, and your own government is increasing looking like criminals, wouldn't you want to yourself, family, and neighbors to be as well armed as all the crooks? And it isn't about wishing for some violent conflict with crooks of any type, it's having the capacity to fight so you most likely don't have to. Exemplified by the message of the Gadsden flag you see so many waving about these days... "don't tread on me."

And once again Figment everything I said to you is meant in the spirit of understanding, I'm not simply trying to win points over you. If you're not a criminal bankster looking to leech of the rest of us or some hairbrained socialist set about stomping on our individual liberties in the name of collectivism then you need to wake up to what's really going on around you and not put so much faith in your supposed leaders and the media which speaks for them.

Frankly the UK has enough of it's own problems without people living there focusing on the proliferation of firearms in the USA. On the positive side it's good to see there's still some reasoned voices coming out of the UK like Nigel Farage, he seems to have a lot to say on the state of your beloved democracy.

Figment · 2013-02-13, 04:36 AM

Worse, I'm dutch actually.

But I think you are falling for the trap that is assumptions about who would or would not give up their weapons. Would all criminals give up their arms? You're right, of course not. Does that mean you should ensure they have them though? Because that's what the current US policy is:

"Here's weapons. Let God sort them out."

I don't care how many weapons are in roulation. If you just keep piling them up, you're only making things worse. You feel you've passed the point of no return. I find that defeatist attitude (akin to "if you can't beat them, join them") to be the main cause of most problems in the world: "Eh, we can't do much about it, so let's either do nothing and accept it or make it worse". Personally I feel you should draw a line in the sand and state "enough is enough", but that takes courage.

It took you a civil war to abolish slavery. That was about actual freedoms of people. Guns simply aren't worth it. If you look at the firearms confiscated in New York, despite the weapon laws, the majority of handguns used in crime is brought in along the I95 from the southern states. I've said that before elsewhere in this thread: local bans aren't going to work if you can just import them from around the corner without going through customs.

And regarding illegal immigration, the US have an issue, but so does the EU. You don't want to know how many Africans and Asians migrate to Europe on a daily basis through Spain, Italy, Eastern Europe and Greece. The US isn't special in that regards either. We have our own immigration problems, but we tend not to give new arrivals with next to no education or money and therefore a very poor social-economic outlooks access to guns so they can find an "alternative" source of income.

You could start by making those criminal groups law abiding citizens. Sounds crazy? Nah. It just means investing in those groups through education and creating job opportunities and breaking the sub-culture that does the opposite and glorifies violence and a gangster life. That's mostly education and expectation management. Drug-programs and keeping the youngsters busy helps a lot more. Look at how Dinkins and Giuliani reduced the New York crime rates. Something like a stop-and-frisk policy may sound like a police state, but if it helps bring down crime, who can complain? I've noticed there's a significant complaint that it'd be used in a racist, prejudiced manner, due to focusing on those demographic groups with the highest crime rates or focusing on particular districts with the most crime (weird, huh?

), but is that simply efficiency or racism? I understand these sort of things are sensitive by being associated to oppression, but pretending everything's fine and dandy doesn't help.

Please note that there's a big grey area between a police state and a state of anarchy. Simply because there's some restrictions, or measures taken to stop excesses, doesn't make something a police state. It's very easy to point at a slippery slope, but it's also easy to ignore cliffs. Fiscal ones or otherwise.

Speaking of law enforcement side of things:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tu...2013/ray-kelly

The very least that should be done is weapons tracking. If you don't know where they are, how the hell are you going to ensure they're not being used by criminals?!

I'm well aware of the situation in Mexico and the role your government agencies have played there. And you're stimulating the exact same thing: give all people, educated or not, sensible or insane, benevolent or malevolent, weapons.

What if we reverse the argument, do you think that giving firearms to the people of Mexico would help stop the drug kartels, or rather strengthen them or stimulate new criminals?

As for the EU, I'm a dutch liberal, we're not in favour of more political power to Brussels, but we do favour an European market (see prime-minister Rutte's stances on Europe, quite close to Cameron's). It's the greens, social-democrats and republicans that move for a political unification of Europe. The communists and right-wing nationalists are against both a union and shared market. The religious right and christian-democrats vary on the subject: they love subsidies for farmers though.

Helwyr · 2013-02-13, 06:52 AM

Dutch, ah ok.. never been to Holland. I should also confess I'm not actually an American (yet) either, although I do live here as a permanent resident.

I suffered through the John Stewart clip you linked, the guy doesn't know what he's talking about. He said Hollow Point bullets are only used for military application. The reality is Hollow Points are illegal via the Geneva convention to be used in War. The police use them, as do civilians for self defense. Homeland Security (which is separate from the military) has ordered or bought over a billion of these bullets! They also ordered 7000 AR15's for "personal defense"

Did you watch the very first video I linked? The NY police have already demonstrated and stated they're not there to protect you from becoming a victim of an attack..even when their a few feet away from you. Put in that context the Stewart clip is pretty much exposed as a farce.

Anyway I didn't want to get into a tit for tat about guns that doesn't lead anywhere. It's a pointless exercise with an American "Liberal" I doubt it would be any more productive with a Dutch one. So, I think this is the end of my participation in this thread. I'd be interested in you PMing me some recent Dutch news articles on the topic assuming there's a translation. I was reading some from the German Der Spiegel the other week... mostly just showed their ignorance on the issue, but sometimes it's interesting to see what's being said. If your genuinely interested in what's going on in the US and the various political opinions don't stick to the major network news and broadsheets like the NYT. Also, don't be fooled into thinking Fox is the mouth piece for grassroots American's on the Political Right, their real voice is generally heard on talk radio, not network/cable TV.

I'll conclude on guns, by saying this... I feel much more secure surrounded by responsible gun owners, and doubly so if they're also Libertarians or American constitutionalists, than I do by the minions of a big government that trades liberty for the presumption of safety. I'll tell my American neighbors they should think about giving up their guns when no one else has them, and by that I include both the criminals and the agents of governments both foreign and domestic.

Effective · 2013-02-13, 09:33 AM

http://www.theonion.com/articles/mex...ug-deal,18109/

Obviously satire, but still funny.

belch · 2013-02-15, 12:17 PM

As usual, Figment is talking out of the crack of his ass on this topic.

Originally Posted by Figment

Something like a stop-and-frisk policy may sound like a police state, but if it helps bring down crime, who can complain? I've noticed there's a significant complaint that it'd be used in a racist, prejudiced manner, due to focusing on those demographic groups with the highest crime rates or focusing on particular districts with the most crime (weird, huh? ), but is that simply efficiency or racism? I understand these sort of things are sensitive by being associated to oppression, but pretending everything's fine and dandy doesn't help.

I mean, what exactly is he advocating here? That to detain and search people based on their ethnicity is not racism? Oh wait, "efficiency". Well, you soft hearted bag of feelings, the world knows what "European efficiency" looks like. It's sad that you have forgotten.

Or this gem:

Originally Posted by Figment

I'm well aware of the situation in Mexico and the role your government agencies have played there. And you're stimulating the exact same thing: give all people, educated or not, sensible or insane, benevolent or malevolent, weapons.

What if we reverse the argument, do you think that giving firearms to the people of Mexico would help stop the drug kartels, or rather strengthen them or stimulate new criminals?

What does he like to say? Oh yes:

Ignorant troll is ignorant.

Maybe by "well aware of the situation" he means that he reads mainstream and biased media blurbs and considers himself informed. And what is with his assertion that we are "giving" people weapons? Is there some program where can just pick them up at that no American knows about?

Hamma · 2013-02-15, 10:35 PM

Topic, stay on it. This thread is entirely to many pages long now.

ChipMHazard · 2013-02-16, 07:29 AM

I assume that someone has pointed out what happened after Australia introduced stricter gun regulations and started the buyback program, yes?

belch · 2013-02-16, 12:26 PM

Originally Posted by ChipMHazard

I assume that someone has pointed out what happened after Australia introduced stricter gun regulations and started the buyback program, yes?

It has been pointed out. In fairness to both sides of the debate, the violent crime stats in Australia could be used to illustrate the case both for and against private ownership...as at times the rate of violent crimes has increased, and decreased. An honest look would probably state that more factors than stricter gun regulations were also a factor, but it seems most are looking for validation of their views, not necessarily a fact based answer.

Helwyr · 2013-02-16, 03:52 PM

Originally Posted by Hamma

Topic, stay on it. This thread is entirely to many pages long now.

Gun Control at it's core isn't really about Guns at all, it's principally about the relationship between Government and the Individual. That is a very broad topic.

ChipMHazard · 2013-02-16, 05:41 PM

Originally Posted by belch

It has been pointed out. In fairness to both sides of the debate, the violent crime stats in Australia could be used to illustrate the case both for and against private ownership...as at times the rate of violent crimes has increased, and decreased. An honest look would probably state that more factors than stricter gun regulations were also a factor, but it seems most are looking for validation of their views, not necessarily a fact based answer.

Ah, good. Didn't want to spend much time on something that has already been pointed out.
There have certainly been contradictionary studies, some show a significant decrease in gun related violence, without a corresponding increase in other areas, others show basicly no decrease and an increase in other areas. Depending on the source.

The Australian government's own statistics, which I would certainly regard as being more unbiased than most other internet sources, show a decrease in the use of firearms, the general amount of homicides, with or without a gun, has decreased and there's been an increase in assaults. These are just examples.
So yes, you're certainly right that different people will use the facts for their own purpose, not really caring about showing the full picture.

If one was to take the changes as showing what will always happen, which is a silly notion since no country is the same and there can be many factors to take into consideration, then Australia has shown that decreasing gun related violence and suicides will also increase the amount of assaults, sexual assaults and robbery... By varying degrees.

belch · 2013-02-16, 07:18 PM

Originally Posted by Helwyr

Gun Control at it's core isn't really about Guns at all, it's principally about the relationship between Government and the Individual. That is a very broad topic.

+1

Originally Posted by ChipMHazard

Ah, good. Didn't want to spend much time on something that has already been pointed out.
There have certainly been contradictionary studies, some show a significant decrease in gun related violence, without a corresponding increase in other areas, others show basicly no decrease and an increase in other areas. Depending on the source.

The Australian government's own statistics, which I would certainly regard as being more unbiased than most other internet sources, show a decrease in the use of firearms, the general amount of homicides, with or without a gun, has decreased and there's been an increase in assaults. These are just examples.
So yes, you're certainly right that different people will use the facts for their own purpose, not really caring about showing the full picture.

If one was to take the changes as showing what will always happen, which is a silly notion since no country is the same and there can be many factors to take into consideration, then Australia has shown that decreasing gun related violence and suicides will also increase the amount of assaults, sexual assaults and robbery... By varying degrees.

I think you are onto something. The idea that stricter legislation of firearms might somehow cure humanity of it's apparent violent streak is absolutely ridiculous, and indefensible as a position. The fact that violence continues unabated in the absence of firearms appears to mean little to those who have yet to feel it's impact. But further, acknowledgement that the line between civility and tyranny might be tenuous or fragile is apparently unacceptable to some.

ChipMHazard · 2013-02-16, 08:01 PM

Gun legislation should probably, realisticly speaking, be more about minimizing one type of violence and less about trying to remove crime from the society, which would be an impossible prospect by use of legislation alone.
Personally I have always seen legislations as being the poor man's, or perhaps rather the politician's, way of fixing social issues. Too many politicians seem to regard it as being a magical cure-it-all, probably because it's easier to pass a law than it is to make social changes.
I guess I am just biased because of my own views "[...]I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law."

Anywho, that's enough of my ramblings

Figment · 2013-02-18, 09:38 AM

Originally Posted by ChipMHazard

Gun legislation should probably, realisticly speaking, be more about minimizing one type of violence and less about trying to remove crime from the society, which would be an impossible prospect by use of legislation alone.
Personally I have always seen legislations as being the poor man's, or perhaps rather the politician's, way of fixing social issues. Too many politicians seem to regard it as being a magical cure-it-all, probably because it's easier to pass a law than it is to make social changes.
I guess I am just biased because of my own views "[...]I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law."

Anywho, that's enough of my ramblings

Can definitely agree with most of that, the biggest source of violent crime of any kind is afterall humans with social issues. Be it on a personal, mental, economical, relationship or other social deficiency.

To me, legislation is just one way of curbing excesses. I don't see it as a be all end all method. The main way of fixing problems from my perspective is providing a stable and secure social basis and to try and ensure and stimulate a proper upbringing and education.

But that too doesn't suffice to stop insane people from violence. Making it extremely difficult to get the tools to do something hurtful is simply a way to limit the amount of people that might potentially do something hurtful. Making those go to extreme lengths before they can even try would save so many lives.

Would the amount of other forms of assault rise? Depends if it's a substitute or if gun ownership could be seen as an actual deterent, since one doesn't know who does or does not carry.

Either way, setting up armed posse's trained by Steven Seagal (coincidentally containing pedophile sex offenders, drug addicts and people with a history of violent crime... Ehr... about those background checks?) to protect schools, doesn't... really seem like all such a good idea to me.

Also:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tu...---gun-control

belch · 2013-02-18, 08:45 PM

That's right, just trust your government to look after your best interests...

http://seattletimes.com/html/localne...neat17xml.html

Sadly, such initiatives are only going to further polarize the sides of this issue.

belch · 2013-02-19, 10:19 PM

Better yet...

"I said, 'Jill, if there's ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony ... take that double-barrel shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house,'" Biden said. "You don't need an AR-15. It's harder to aim, it's harder to use and in fact, you don't need 30 rounds to protect yourself." -Vice President Joe Biden

http://news.yahoo.com/biden-says-sho...214106218.html

So, I am to infer that the VP believes that discharging both barrels of a double barreled shotgun (leaving said shotgun empty and needing a reload btw) is somehow a good deterrent to would be intruders? We could get into the wisdom in just discharging firearms "outside of the house" (yeah, who needs to have a threat visible...just shoot randomly), but seriously...this is what happens when people who have no clue about what they are talking about start making statements or passing themselves off as subject matter experts. The danger here is in anyone taking the VP's advice on tactical useage of a double barreled shotgun in residential areas seriously.