Bowling for Virginia Tech

[DrTodd13]

you don't see how gun ownership enters into it, but tell me how the governed in a free country can impose their will on those governing when the governed is disarmed...

 

A somewhat opposite but confiming approach was proposed by Thomas Jefferson:

The idea was, instead of a standing army, for every able-bodied man in the nation to be a member of a local militia, under local control, with a gun in his house. If the nation was invaded, word would come down to the local level and every man in the country would be the army

 

With no standing army, the government holds no threat against an armed governed.

 

However, Helene is right about today's America - there is simply no way the governed could defeat the standing army's military superiority. Today in America, the only thing that stands between the governed and a dictator is the side taken by the standing army if the President attempted to declare himself king.

 

A rather chilling group is Blackwater, a private paramilitary organization that has over 20,000 "contractors" - many call them mercenaries. These contractors are used extensively in Iraq and were used on patrol in New Orlean after hurrican Katrina. Being a private army, this group is not subject to any oversight to which this country's standard military is subject. Founded in 1996 by an rich ex-navy seal, a conservative christian, is it any wonder this group's government contracts have expanded exponentially with the increased presence of like-minded conservatives in high-level political jobs.

 

There is a story from The Nation about Blackwater here: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070402/scahill_vid

Really? The Iraqis seem to be doing a pretty good job of fighting the US military to a standstill with small arms. All the big budget weaponry the military has is quite useless against a guerilla force embedded with the population. Guerillas can't win outright but they can wear you down until you give up. There may be some power hungry monsters at the top but if the resistance is widespread enough you'll get defections higher and higher up the military which can promote a coup to remove the tyrant. My view is that people need whatever weapons are necessary to make the military cease to have the will to suppress them. You don't need much more than rifles for this but you do need a lot of them and they need to be spread out. People are very naive. If politicians don't fear the populace they will do anything. Look at Russia...Putin is essentially a dictator now.

[cherdano]

I've been away from this for a few days.

 

For those that are in favor of handgun control, are you just against handguns in general, or are you OK with handguns, as long as they can't be concealed?

If you are asking how my ideal society looks like, I would prefer the Japanese approach where no civilian is allowed to carry handguns, and even the mafia can do without. If you are asking about what I would like to see changed in the reality of the US, I would like the ban on semi-automatic weapons reinstated (letting this run out was an unforgiveable mistake), and make it impossible to own a handgun without a license that is bound to some serious requirements (that are enforced in practice).

I would prefer to have concealed carry forbidden, but I care less about that.

I am aware that none of this will happen.

 

Last but not least, I would like to see the astronomically high crime risk among black American men to be understood as a problem that requires and is worth a lot of resources; if a complete ban of handguns in some city could help towards that, it would certainly be worth the sacrifice by some "law-abiding citizens". (Why do are handgun owners always called "law-abiding citizens" instead of handgun owners by gun advocates?)

[cherdano]

People are very naive. If politicians don't fear the populace they will do anything. Look at Russia...Putin is essentially a dictator now.

Yeah right. Russia was a perfectly fine democracy before Putin came along, but since there are no handguns or weapons around in Russia, he could become dictator. It has nothing to do with free speech, it is all about forbidding civilians to carry handguns.

 

I disagree with many here, but I can respect everyone's opinion except yours.

[Winstonm]

you don't see how gun ownership enters into it, but tell me how the governed in a free country can impose their will on those governing when the governed is disarmed...

 

A somewhat opposite but confiming approach was proposed by Thomas Jefferson:

The idea was, instead of a standing army, for every able-bodied man in the nation to be a member of a local militia, under local control, with a gun in his house. If the nation was invaded, word would come down to the local level and every man in the country would be the army

 

With no standing army, the government holds no threat against an armed governed.

 

However, Helene is right about today's America - there is simply no way the governed could defeat the standing army's military superiority. Today in America, the only thing that stands between the governed and a dictator is the side taken by the standing army if the President attempted to declare himself king.

 

A rather chilling group is Blackwater, a private paramilitary organization that has over 20,000 "contractors" - many call them mercenaries. These contractors are used extensively in Iraq and were used on patrol in New Orlean after hurrican Katrina. Being a private army, this group is not subject to any oversight to which this country's standard military is subject. Founded in 1996 by an rich ex-navy seal, a conservative christian, is it any wonder this group's government contracts have expanded exponentially with the increased presence of like-minded conservatives in high-level political jobs.

 

There is a story from The Nation about Blackwater here: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070402/scahill_vid

Really? The Iraqis seem to be doing a pretty good job of fighting the US military to a standstill with small arms. All the big budget weaponry the military has is quite useless against a guerilla force embedded with the population. Guerillas can't win outright but they can wear you down until you give up. There may be some power hungry monsters at the top but if the resistance is widespread enough you'll get defections higher and higher up the military which can promote a coup to remove the tyrant. My view is that people need whatever weapons are necessary to make the military cease to have the will to suppress them. You don't need much more than rifles for this but you do need a lot of them and they need to be spread out. People are very naive. If politicians don't fear the populace they will do anything. Look at Russia...Putin is essentially a dictator now.

 

I have no overwhelming disagreement, Dr. Todd, because I know you are speaking about the necessities if an event like this were to occur - but in this day and age nothing so overt in America would ever occur - this kind of risk is no longer needed by the ruling parties and it would take the cooperation of the standing army. However, I concur that without a fear of the people, governments are more prone to do as they please.

 

The big risk today in America is that the illusion of a Republic could be maintained while a coup goes unnoticed, and power could be centralized with hardly a question asked. Even after it had occured, most of the public would be unaware of what had transpired and not nearly enough who realized what had occured could be organized to be an effective malitia/guerilla freedom fighter - they would be painted as conspiracy theorists, whackos, domestic terrorists, hate groups....nope, there wouldn't be a chance with the media no longer a government watchdog. So the reasoning of totally unrestricted weapon ownership in order to stop a would-be king is simply fanciful thinking - it might be right in a perfect world with a clearly identified declaration of Monarchy, but that will never happen.

 

Any coup that might occur now or in the future will be subtle and well-planned to present its face to the pubic as continuation of the status quo. And thus, no need to win over the army as a blatant coup would require.

 

So we might as well create sane gun control laws that protects individual rights while eliminating as much unnecessary violence as possible. I really don't see the need for Billy Bob Badass, freshly home after being wounded in the head in Iraq, with a serious drinking problem and a healthy case of post-traumatic stress syndrome, owning an Uzi so he can be part of the guerilla war against the government. Something in that scenario about the risk/reward ratio that seems skewed to me. :)

 

IMHO

[mike777]

you don't see how gun ownership enters into it, but tell me how the governed in a free country can impose their will on those governing when the governed is disarmed...

 

A somewhat opposite but confiming approach was proposed by Thomas Jefferson:

The idea was, instead of a standing army, for every able-bodied man in the nation to be a member of a local militia, under local control, with a gun in his house. If the nation was invaded, word would come down to the local level and every man in the country would be the army

 

With no standing army, the government holds no threat against an armed governed.

 

However, Helene is right about today's America - there is simply no way the governed could defeat the standing army's military superiority. Today in America, the only thing that stands between the governed and a dictator is the side taken by the standing army if the President attempted to declare himself king.

 

A rather chilling group is Blackwater, a private paramilitary organization that has over 20,000 "contractors" - many call them mercenaries. These contractors are used extensively in Iraq and were used on patrol in New Orlean after hurrican Katrina. Being a private army, this group is not subject to any oversight to which this country's standard military is subject. Founded in 1996 by an rich ex-navy seal, a conservative christian, is it any wonder this group's government contracts have expanded exponentially with the increased presence of like-minded conservatives in high-level political jobs.

 

There is a story from The Nation about Blackwater here: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070402/scahill_vid

Really? The Iraqis seem to be doing a pretty good job of fighting the US military to a standstill with small arms. All the big budget weaponry the military has is quite useless against a guerilla force embedded with the population. Guerillas can't win outright but they can wear you down until you give up. There may be some power hungry monsters at the top but if the resistance is widespread enough you'll get defections higher and higher up the military which can promote a coup to remove the tyrant. My view is that people need whatever weapons are necessary to make the military cease to have the will to suppress them. You don't need much more than rifles for this but you do need a lot of them and they need to be spread out. People are very naive. If politicians don't fear the populace they will do anything. Look at Russia...Putin is essentially a dictator now.

 

I have no overwhelming disagreement, Dr. Todd, because I know you are speaking about the necessities if an event like this were to occur - but in this day and age nothing so overt in America would ever occur - this kind of risk is no longer needed by the ruling parties and it would take the cooperation of the standing army. However, I concur that without a fear of the people, governments are more prone to do as they please.

 

The big risk today in America is that the illusion of a Republic could be maintained while a coup goes unnoticed, and power could be centralized with hardly a question asked. Even after it had occured, most of the public would be unaware of what had transpired and not nearly enough who realized what had occured could be organized to be an effective malitia/guerilla freedom fighter - they would be painted as conspiracy theorists, whackos, domestic terrorists, hate groups....nope, there wouldn't be a chance with the media no longer a government watchdog. So the reasoning of totally unrestricted weapon ownership in order to stop a would-be king is simply fanciful thinking - it might be right in a perfect world with a clearly identified declaration of Monarchy, but that will never happen.

 

Any coup that might occur now or in the future will be subtle and well-planned to present its face to the pubic as continuation of the status quo. And thus, no need to win over the army as a blatant coup would require.

 

So we might as well create sane gun control laws that protects individual rights while eliminating as much unnecessary violence as possible. I really don't see the need for Billy Bob Badass, freshly home after being wounded in the head in Iraq, with a serious drinking problem and a healthy case of post-traumatic stress syndrome, owning an Uzi so he can be part of the guerilla war against the government. Something in that scenario about the risk/reward ratio that seems skewed to me. :P

 

IMHO

 

Since a few are talking about estimating risk, humans are rather poor at this. We worry more about poison apples than car crashes.

 

 

Malevolent Strong AI?

 

Ok I guess nothing like this could ever happen, but I hope someone gets paid the big bucks to think out of the box and not linear.

 

 

Of course 250 million shotguns may also not be the best way to stop it. :)

[helene_t]

The big risk today in America is that the illusion of a Republic could be maintained while a coup goes unnoticed, and power could be centralized with hardly a question asked.

Exactly. Some would say that this has already happened, or that it was very close to happening and was avoided 1 minute before midnight, during the latest midway elections.

 

The current U.S. president was initially elected by fraud and there have been rumors about preparations of more fraud in the future through connections between the government and the makers of ballot machine software. There have been many illegal attempts to silence the opposition (see Winston's many posts in this forum) and I'm sure at least parts of the establishment would like to go much further in that direction if they could get away with it.

 

Suppose the FBI knocks on Winston's door for some vague cover-up reason, probably the real reason being his posts about the 9/11 on this forum. Would the local NRA branch defend Winston?

 

Where does that fantasy about armed civilians protecting the democracy against upcoming totalitarianism, such as what the U.S. has experienced during this decade, come from? Surely we haven't seen civilians using their weapons to resist the deterioration of U.S. democracy so far.

 

Is the theory based on parallels from other countries? Like parts of Latin America, where the death patrols enforced their own law because the government was too soft?

 

The DoD was very visionary when they launched an information infrastructure deliberately designed to be impossible for a central government to control. I'm talking about the Internet. Not only has it brought us enormous wealth, it has also saved democracy in several countries. Yes, there has been some nasty side effects of the free flow of information as well.

 

Forget about weapons, when it comes to politics. It's a security issue, maybe even an important security issue. And not always a straight-forward security issue (it could be argued that the Peruvian government was right in giving the peasants weapon for defense against the guerrilla). But political power is based on information, not weapon.

[hotShot]

For those that are in favor of handgun control, are you just against handguns in general, or are you OK with handguns, as long as they can't be concealed?

No average citizen needs a gun/handguns.

 

The only people you should be allowed to have firearms are:

1) Police

2) Park ranger

3) Members of private security companies

 

4) Official Military forces inside their training areas.

 

5) If someone can proof that he needs a gun, he should be allowed ask for an exception, which can be granted by something like a court.

(e.g. living isolated in a polar bear region)

 

Weapons used for sport or hunting have to be designed to minimal firepower to make sure they usually won't kill a being of human size.

 

A weapons owner may not have a criminal record, he and his weapon must be registered together with a DNS-Sample, fingerprints and a sample shot.

This way both weapon and owner can be identified in case of a crime.

[bid_em_up]

The next day I went and purchased a shotgun with ammunition that is only used for large game.  I did this for only one reason - the feeling of total vulnerability, of total helplessness in being unarmed when facing an armed aggressor is so chillingly horrific as to be impossible to describe - it took years to get over - that I simply could not allow myself to be in that situation again if there was an alternative.

Thanks for sharing, Winston. I'll have to take back my phrasing that I cannot understand why anyone would want to own a gun.

 

Strange that this guy was released on bail. But OK, I'm not going to post jokes about the American justice system here. It could probably have hapened in Europe as well.

Helene, you state that you find it is strange that the guy was released on bail.

 

This may be part of the "problem". In a justice system, such as ours, you are presumed innocent until proven guilty by a reasonable doubt. Unless the crimes you are charged with are so heinous that bail is out of the question, or you are considered a flight risk, the American justice system almost always grants bail. Now, that bail/bond may be so high that you can't afford it (effectively meaning no bail was granted). But you are usually at least given the opportunity to post one.

 

Now, there are several cases in my location of the country, where certain gang members have been arrested and charged with murder, when they were already out on bail for other charges (drug possession, robbery, etc.), only to bail out again on the murder charge and be subsequently arrested and charged with further crimes......only to be bonded out again. This, imo, is ridiculous, but the courts allow it to happen for a variety of reasons.

 

If the courts would lock these SOB's up the first time and not let them out, then maybe we wouldn't have the crime problem we do, nor would we feel the need to be able to protect ourselves from these hoodlums. In which case, the gun-ownership issue might be become less of a concern to many law-abiding citizens who otherwise would not feel the need to own a gun.

 

The hoodlums know the prisons are overcrowded and it is unlikely they will be given much punishment for anything other than the most serious offenses. And thats assuming they even get caught. When they are actually sentenced to time in prison, life in jail for them is a better life than they have on the streets. Jail is frequently referred to as "3 hots and a cot" in street terminology. Meaning they get three hot meals and a place to sleep. They don't have to work. They are provided with medical care. For a lot of the U.S. subculture, this is the ideal life. There are even some people who will commit crimes deliberately TO BE arrested for this reason. They would rather be in jail where they are essentially taken care of and provided for, than to perform in the "real world" where they would need to actually get off of their lazy asses and go to work.

 

This mentality is hard to perceive, especially if you have never witnessed it (maybe you have, I do not know). But our jails are overflowing with people who would rather take the easy way of stealing from others, than the way of working to earn them for themselves.

 

Sad, but true.

[Winstonm]

Now, there are several cases in my location of the country, where certain gang members have been arrested and charged with murder, when they were already out on bail for other charges (drug possession, robbery, etc.), only to bail out again on the murder charge and be subsequently arrested and charged with further crimes......only to be bonded out again.

 

The obvious solution is to define them as "enemy combattants" and make them subject to the Military Commissions Act - no bail, no habeus corpus, no right to a speedy trail - besides, what else are we going to do with the "Gitmo" when we run out of accused-terrorist to torture?

[mike777]

Now, there are several cases in my location of the country, where certain gang members have been arrested and charged with murder, when they were already out on bail for other charges (drug possession, robbery, etc.), only to bail out again on the murder charge and be subsequently arrested and charged with further crimes......only to be bonded out again.

 

The obvious solution is to define them as "enemy combattants" and make them subject to the Military Commissions Act - no bail, no habeus corpus, no right to a speedy trail - besides, what else are we going to do with the "Gitmo" when we run out of accused-terrorist to torture?

Well if you are looking for suggestions, Winston, maybe we can start with World Chess champions as Russia is doing now.

 

I assume Mrs. Clinton will empty out the place when elected, we got to use if for something. Can we rent it out to the Chinese for big bucks?

 

Maybe Cuba has some use for it? Their prisons are overflowing but I guess no one wants to protest that.

[helene_t]

Helene, you state that you find it is strange that the guy was released on bail.[.....]

 

Now, there are several cases in my location of the country, where certain gang members have been arrested and charged with murder, when they were already out on bail for other charges (drug possession, robbery, etc.), only to bail out again on the murder charge and be subsequently arrested and charged with further crimes......only to be bonded out again. This, imo, is ridiculous, but the courts allow it to happen for a variety of reasons.  [....]

 

The hoodlums know the prisons are overcrowded and it is unlikely they will be given much punishment for anything other than the most serious offenses.[...]

 

This mentality is hard to perceive, especially if you have never witnessed it (maybe you have, I do not know). [....]

It's quite similar over here. We don't have bails, though. But it's possible that the guy in question would have been released before he came to serve his sentence, either because the judge found that the trial took too long or because the prison was full so he was put on a waiting list.

 

I'm surprised to hear that you have similar problems in the U.S. As I understand it, U.S prison population is several times that of Europe, while crime rates (the high murder rates nothwithstanding) are generally similar to the European ones.

 

What we also have a lot of over here is murder and rape commited by convicted psycopats and other hard-core criminals on "vacation". Some of those culture-relativist Freudians who work as prison psychiatrists got the great idea that they could create extra employment for themselves by allowing prisoners to be released gradually, with the first vacation being after a fraction of the term. It didn't surprise me when I read in "The wisdom of crowds" that one of the few academic professions who have been demonstrated to perform consistently worse than random laypersons asked to do the same job, were prison psychiatrists.

For those that are in favor of handgun control, are you just against handguns in general, or are you OK with handguns, as long as they can't be concealed?

As a European I may not have a qualified opinion about this American issue. It's possible that gun control would be unfeasible in the U.S. Btw, due to the opening of our Eastern borders, gun control is becoming more and more of an illusion over here as well.

 

Those pragmatic issues asside, I'd like to get rid of all firearms except those used by special police forces with a very strong training in their usage. Toy guns should not be allowed to look too realistic. Kitchen knives should either be non-pointed or limited to some say 10 cm blade length. Knives made a ceramic materials (which does not appear on X-ray scans) should be illegal.

 

As for capsicum sprays, I'm somewhat ambivalent. I can see they have merrits. I think they should be registered, though. As for a ban on cricket bats, I can see it would be impopular in the U.K. and maybe also a bad move since cricket promotes less violence than a certain other popular sport.