| Wiped said: You're right. We definitely need to ensure that as a society, as a people, we do not allow our freedoms to be impinged upon. We can't stand bu and watch 1984 become reality - that much is completely true. But we musn't make the mistake of thinking that guns are one of the freedoms we should have. That's like saying we should legalise drugs, because them being illegal is hurting our freedoms. They are illegal because they are massively destructive to us as individuals and as a collective society - the same reason, in fact, that guns are illegal in the UK. I don't complain that my rights to murder are impeded by the state's law against it. Revolt is simply not the answer. The American government spend billions of dollars every year on guns, arms, the army in general. If ever there was a revolt, the people pulling pistols out from under their pillows would change nothing, it would simply make the whole process much more messy. Sadly, if the American government wanted to change to an undemocratic society, there is very little that the people could do, guns or no guns. They'd have to hope that another nation would declare war to put a stop to it (much like how UK and US fought against Hitler's regime in WW2). The idea that guns should be a right simply because it might help a revolt against a government that may become undemocratic is absurd. For one thing, it's far too hypothetical. Let's say it never happens, and that the government more or less keeps within a modicum of power-restraint. Then all the innocent lives lost to the ready availability of guns - such as the little girl of this article - all of the crimes committed, all of the people killed by firearms. would be for nothing. The revolt argument is the one argument with a shred of credence, but it simply isn't strong enough to warrant such old-fashioned and destructive practice such as gun use (and abuse) to freely continue within a supposedly modern society. |
Your previous posts were pretty good, but this one is too easy to dismantle.
1. Saying that an armed populous (and you have to remember that in the US that means citizens armed with everything from pistols to semi-automatic weapons) has no real chance of resistance and overthrow of a repressive government is a little silly... it happened 200 years ago, and the American forces accomplished it against a much better trained, armed, and funded army. You also have to remember two things about armed forces, at least in the US: 1) the army, no matter how well equipped, is very tiny compared to the general population, and 2) many of those soldiers are going to be influenced by the fact that they would be fighting against family and friends. Those two considerations don't guarantee victory, but they certainly help. However, without an armed citizenry, open resistance would be virtually impossible.
2. Governments becoming "undemocratric" isn't the threat. Governments slowly eroding individual liberties to the point where personal freedom becomes meanlingless is the real threat. It doesn't do any good to have elections if a society reaches the "tipping point", i.e. - the threshold at which no amount of public pressure is effective in instrumenting meaningful change through legal means. The US Constitution is constructed differently than a typical body of laws. Most laws state what a citizen cannot do. The US Constitution works in reverse... it grants our government specific powers and states definitely that our government will have no additional powers beyond those in the Constitution. This is a mechanism designed to resist eroding of personal liberty through the expansion of government powers by government itself. The only way this can be defeated is a Constitutional Convention, i.e. - a very major, very public revision of the foundation itself, not via the normal legislative process.
3. Increases in gun ownership do not correlate to violent crimes... it's a myth perpetuated by those who fear firearms... or risk in general. I suggest you read this article: http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf. Here's another one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States. Here are some actual numbers for you:
a. 215 million guns were owned in the US in 2007
b. 24,000 Americans were killed by guns in 2007, including all war deaths and suicides
c. 1,500 Americans died in firearms accidents in 2007
d. 13,000 Americans were killed as a result of drunk driving in 2007
e. 41,000 Americans died in auto accidents in 2007
f. 560,000 Americans died from cancer in 2007
g. 600,000 Americans died from heart disease in 2007
Also, the accidental death rates from firearms in the US have been going down fairly steadily since the 1930s. In other words, talking about all the tragic gun deaths in the US each year is truly a tempest in a teapot. But this is the result of people going with an impression of the problem instead of actually doing real research.
By the way, violent crimes, in general, in the US have been going down for the past two decades, compared to those in the UK which have risen. I'll leave it up to you to do your own research on that... I've already done mine.
Just keep accepting conventional wisdom regarding person freedoms and risk... you will most likely lead a quiet, safe, protected life... just don't do something crazy like trying to get out of the fenced-in area... they don't like that. 
EDIT: that last was meant as a joke, not a serious comment
