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curl-6 on 23 May 2012
SamuelRSmith said:
curl-6 said:
Never said control laws were the ONLY factor. (And the effectiveness of these laws have to be taken into account too) In Brazil, for example, they may be fewer guns, but they are very uncontrolled in practice.

Guns, like driving a car, (and reproduction in my opinion) shouldn't be a right, you should have to be rigorously tested to see if you are deemed responsible enough for it.


Why is defending yourself not a right?

The Founders of the United States did not agree on much, just about everything in the Bill of Rights was heavily debated. The one thing they all agreed on, however, was the 2nd Amendment. After all, they know that without guns, they still would have been under the tyranny of a king.

There are plenty of ways to defend oneself besides guns.

And fair enough back in the 18th century but the US is no longer fighting for independence.





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SamuelRSmith on 23 May 2012
curl-6 said:
SamuelRSmith said:
curl-6 said:
Never said control laws were the ONLY factor. (And the effectiveness of these laws have to be taken into account too) In Brazil, for example, they may be fewer guns, but they are very uncontrolled in practice.

Guns, like driving a car, (and reproduction in my opinion) shouldn't be a right, you should have to be rigorously tested to see if you are deemed responsible enough for it.


Why is defending yourself not a right?

The Founders of the United States did not agree on much, just about everything in the Bill of Rights was heavily debated. The one thing they all agreed on, however, was the 2nd Amendment. After all, they know that without guns, they still would have been under the tyranny of a king.

There are plenty of ways to defend oneself besides guns.

And fair enough back in the 18th century but the US is no longer fighting for independence.

How do you defend yourself without a gun when the other person has a gun?

As for your second point...

What about when Hitler first took the guns from the Jews before he started rounding them up?

What about China?  Would Tiananmen Square had been such a massacre if the students carried guns?

Would Burma/Myanmar or North Korea be in the same situation today if the people had guns?

Your argument is ridiculous. Sure, Americans are free from tyranny now. But that's only because of guns. By removing guns you make it so much harder to repel tyranny in the future. To think that "it won't happen" is a foolish notion.

As Jefferson said "When the people fear the Government, there is tyranny. When the Government fears the people, there is liberty". An armed populace is the number one way to keep the Government fearful.



Mr Khan on 23 May 2012
SamuelRSmith said:
curl-6 said:
SamuelRSmith said:
curl-6 said:
Never said control laws were the ONLY factor. (And the effectiveness of these laws have to be taken into account too) In Brazil, for example, they may be fewer guns, but they are very uncontrolled in practice.

Guns, like driving a car, (and reproduction in my opinion) shouldn't be a right, you should have to be rigorously tested to see if you are deemed responsible enough for it.


Why is defending yourself not a right?

The Founders of the United States did not agree on much, just about everything in the Bill of Rights was heavily debated. The one thing they all agreed on, however, was the 2nd Amendment. After all, they know that without guns, they still would have been under the tyranny of a king.

There are plenty of ways to defend oneself besides guns.

And fair enough back in the 18th century but the US is no longer fighting for independence.

How do you defend yourself without a gun when the other person has a gun?

As for your second point...

What about when Hitler first took the guns from the Jews before he started rounding them up?

What about China?  Would Tiananmen Square had been such a massacre if the students carried guns?

Would Burma/Myanmar or North Korea be in the same situation today if the people had guns?

Your argument is ridiculous. Sure, Americans are free from tyranny now. But that's only because of guns. By removing guns you make it so much harder to repel tyranny in the future. To think that "it won't happen" is a foolish notion.

As Jefferson said "When the people fear the Government, there is tyranny. When the Government fears the people, there is liberty". An armed populace is the number one way to keep the Government fearful.

Myanmar's been fighting brutal revolts for decades. Part of the reason they have a dictatorship in the first place is that the ethnic minorities have guns, which scared the Burmese majority enough to give the army dictatorial power to stop the gun-people.

There was a time when various groups thought it was a good idea to widely distribute firearms amongst the Chinese people. This was the 1910s-1940s, and arguably a worse time to be around than either the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution.

The government shouldn't need to fear the people, nor should the people need to fear the government. It's that kind of narrow-minded paranoia that leads to the problems we currently face.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

SamuelRSmith on 23 May 2012
Mr Khan said:

Myanmar's been fighting brutal revolts for decades. Part of the reason they have a dictatorship in the first place is that the ethnic minorities have guns, which scared the Burmese majority enough to give the army dictatorial power to stop the gun-people.

There was a time when various groups thought it was a good idea to widely distribute firearms amongst the Chinese people. This was the 1910s-1940s, and arguably a worse time to be around than either the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution.

The government shouldn't need to fear the people, nor should the people need to fear the government. It's that kind of narrow-minded paranoia that leads to the problems we currently face.

They shouldn't, but that's the way it will always work out.



Rath on 23 May 2012

How do you stop a person attacking you with a tank if you don't have a tank? Clearly we all need tanks.



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SamuelRSmith on 23 May 2012
Rath said:
How do you stop a person attacking you with a tank if you don't have a tank? Clearly we all need tanks.


Well, you should be allowed to own one as long as you can afford it. I wouldn't reccommend it, though, the mileage on those things are terrible.



Rath on 23 May 2012
SamuelRSmith said:
Rath said:
How do you stop a person attacking you with a tank if you don't have a tank? Clearly we all need tanks.


Well, you should be allowed to own one as long as you can afford it. I wouldn't reccommend it, though, the mileage on those things are terrible.

You seriously think people should be allowed tanks? (and I mean tanks with working guns and ammunition)



SamuelRSmith on 23 May 2012
Rath said:
SamuelRSmith said:
Rath said:
How do you stop a person attacking you with a tank if you don't have a tank? Clearly we all need tanks.


Well, you should be allowed to own one as long as you can afford it. I wouldn't reccommend it, though, the mileage on those things are terrible.

You seriously think people should be allowed tanks?

Yes.

A fundamental cornerstone of libertarian philosophy is that people create the Government, and that when they do, they give that Government powers. The one thing they cannot do, however, is give the Government powers that the people do not have. In essense, I cannot steal your property, which means in libertarian philosophy, I cannot vote for somebody else to steal your property. This is one of the reasons as to why libertarians are opposed to taxation.

So, essentially, anything a Government can do, the people can do. If a Government can have a tank, so can the people. That doesn't mean that the Government has to give everybody tanks, but it means that the Government can't stop somebody from owning a tank.

Actually, I just Googled it, Americans can legally own tanks and fighter jets. However, they must be disarmed. Still, pretty cool, and somewhat surprising.



Rath on 23 May 2012
SamuelRSmith said:
Rath said:
SamuelRSmith said:
Rath said:
How do you stop a person attacking you with a tank if you don't have a tank? Clearly we all need tanks.


Well, you should be allowed to own one as long as you can afford it. I wouldn't reccommend it, though, the mileage on those things are terrible.

You seriously think people should be allowed tanks?

Yes.

A fundamental cornerstone of libertarian philosophy is that people create the Government, and that when they do, they give that Government powers. The one thing they cannot do, however, is give the Government powers that the people do not have. In essense, I cannot steal your property, which means in libertarian philosophy, I cannot vote for somebody else to steal your property. This is one of the reasons as to why libertarians are opposed to taxation.

So, essentially, anything a Government can do, the people can do. If a Government can have a tank, so can the people. That doesn't mean that the Government has to give everybody tanks, but it means that the Government can't stop somebody from owning a tank.

Actually, I just Googled it, Americans can legally own tanks and fighter jets. However, they must be disarmed. Still, pretty cool, and somewhat surprising.

Your worldview seems completely nutty to me. People should not be allowed tanks. Tanks are weapons of offence, not self-defence. There is no practical reason to own a working tank except for killing a large number of people.

What about nuclear bombs? The government can have them so people can too?



SamuelRSmith on 23 May 2012
Rath said:

Your worldview seems completely nutty to me. People should not be allowed tanks. Tanks are weapons of offence, not self-defence. There is no practical reason to own a working tank except for killing a large number of people.

What about nuclear bombs? The government can have them so people can too?


People shouldn't be allowed to use the tank for offence, just defence. Sure, the scenarios where a tank would be neccessary for defence are extremely rare (to the point where, yeah, it's basically nutty to own one). But if you're one of those tin-foil hat guys who believes that the USA is going to be a military dictatorship in 10 years, then, why not?

Remember that the Government is only supposed to go to war for defense purposes. If a Government can be allowed to own tanks for defense, so can you. Would I suggest you buy one? Not really, unless you're a multi-millionaire with large amounts of land and lots of stuff to blow up.

Actually, with nuclear bombs, I'd argue the case that, no, nobody should be allowed that kind of destructive power. Governments included.