Gun Master Debate
- Thread starter King Richard
- Start date
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
I would argue that cultural homogeneity is the driver behind the generally low historical crime rate in Japan and other select industrialized nations. On the other hand, "melting pots" with strict gun bans/restrictions see increased crime, if not increased gun crime, in the face of restrictions and bans. It's astronomically more dangerous to be in the UK for example.
UA's logic, or lack thereof, is on great display here though, to the point where he even asserts it will be the "elites" who have guns in the Yakuza instead of the underlings. In what hierarchical organization is this the case? While they may own guns, generally speaking the leadership of any organization in one way expresses power by having others carry and kill for them.
Looking at the statistics: How accurate are numbers going to be for gang ownership of weapons or gang on gang violence (gang = organized crime syndicates)? These aren't just some 16 year olds doing drivebys in Detroit.
UA has no stats or facts, and a lack of logic. "Keep sucking on the Mother Jones teat".
Yeah, go ahead quoting articles that blame perceived gun violence in the USA on Soviet propaganda and getting your merit badge for "bluntest tool in the shed" at the same time, lad, and even if we ignore the preposterous nature of that statement it is still serves to show how outdated the article is. Lack of logic? Hahahahaha - what kind of logic dictates to you that everyone carrying around high-powered killing machines makes a society safer
? Wild Western fetishism combined with gun corporation brainwashing logic - that's what. 
Murder rates are almost always higher in countries with a rash of guns in civilian hands (as statistics posted earlier have shown), although I'd like to take a moment to reflect on how you earlier tried to illustrate Britain as a super-dangerous place because of all the pub-fights that place - which would no doubt be far more serious if all the drunken louts were carrying guns as they do in the U.S.A.
No matter how much you whine and whinge the fact remains is that if guns somehow deterred crime or made a society safer then the USA would be the safest country in the world, but it's miles off that mark. You may pitifully moan about "homogeneity of countries" but there are plenty of examples of pretty homogenous societies that are nevertheless bedeviled with specters of endless civil wars, bloody gang violence and turf wars, and general excessive gun crime (more serious than ordinary violent crime), all of which simply wouldn't be possible in such a scale if guns weren't so freely available in the societies. Also, there is no example anywhere in the world of a country that proves that having lots of guns on the street actually somehow deters crime or makes the society safer - and this is not surprising, considering that the concept MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE AT ALL.
Krow
Garbage Connoisseur
SentinelSlain
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I've lived in a country where concealed carry was legal everywhere except the parliament buildings (CZ) and one where there is a general hand gun ban and rifles and shotguns have to be individually licensed, with a reason for ownership given.
I find it hard not to at least partially buy into arguments from the right in America, because basically, in the UK, the castle doctrine doesn't exist at all and people get told on the phone, by the police, not to defend themselves, never mind their property, against burglars and intruders. It's all 100% ego worship for the effete intellectuals who would spend days in mourning over crack heads and rapists getting shot by families they'd attacked. One time I remember reading that some guy got targeted in an armed robbery, he and his family were tied up and beaten in their homes while the robbers asked where the money was. Anyway, after the robbers started to leave, he broke free, got some relatives and beat up one of the robbers. Because he beat up the robber, the robber was not sent to jail, but the victim. I literally want to spit in the face of the massively elitist liberal shitsucker that feels a sense of pious superiority out of making judgements like that. We need something written into the constitution that says something like "the order of man which previously held that aristocrats hold superior morals than those of the worker, the blacksmith, the miner, that was the order of man which held back the political and economic development of the world for hundreds of years and stagnated europe" That would just be one big fuck you to every bloody snivelling, quivering turd.
On a more intellectual note, how can anyone rationally have a view on this that bypasses the question of the legitimacy of authority and that ignores or poo poos the idea of there being a kind of vital human freedom to live your life and protect yourself from danger, at the expense of those who go out of their way to do your or you family harm.
On the question of legitimacy, all of the leftists in these arguments tend to assume the absolute legitimacy of the state to hold a monopoly on weapons and violence. Well, ever heard of the holocaust? Ever heard of famine? millions of people died in India in famines that were caused by colonial era policies and was ignored by the government, the last one was in WW2, it wasn't all hundreds of years ago. If all of those Indians had been armed to the teeth, the British would have got fucked off long before. Governments have a habit of creating mass slaughters, often partially to benefit companies that sell weapons. If you ignore this and just go, shit, guns are evil, give the government all the guns, then you're kind of being simplistic, as far as I can see.
The two biggest spree killers are Breivik and some Korean policeman. Well neither of them lived in countries with massively lax gun control, ie the US, Yemen or the Czech Republic. Also, their total kills were almost a joke compared to what happens in major wars. I strongly suspect that an exponentially higher number of people will have died in military accidents in world war 2.
Someone needs to start differentiating between conservative hunter / freedom fuck yeah type gun culture with hip hop gangsters and drug dealers, because I don't really see that there is that much similarity bar the liking of firearms. I actually looked it up, which required effort, which is standard if you ever want to know the truth about something, but anyway, I looked it up and about half of murders in the US with a firearm as the murder weapon are committed by someone who cannot legally own a gun.
I find it hard not to at least partially buy into arguments from the right in America, because basically, in the UK, the castle doctrine doesn't exist at all and people get told on the phone, by the police, not to defend themselves, never mind their property, against burglars and intruders. It's all 100% ego worship for the effete intellectuals who would spend days in mourning over crack heads and rapists getting shot by families they'd attacked. One time I remember reading that some guy got targeted in an armed robbery, he and his family were tied up and beaten in their homes while the robbers asked where the money was. Anyway, after the robbers started to leave, he broke free, got some relatives and beat up one of the robbers. Because he beat up the robber, the robber was not sent to jail, but the victim. I literally want to spit in the face of the massively elitist liberal shitsucker that feels a sense of pious superiority out of making judgements like that. We need something written into the constitution that says something like "the order of man which previously held that aristocrats hold superior morals than those of the worker, the blacksmith, the miner, that was the order of man which held back the political and economic development of the world for hundreds of years and stagnated europe" That would just be one big fuck you to every bloody snivelling, quivering turd.
On a more intellectual note, how can anyone rationally have a view on this that bypasses the question of the legitimacy of authority and that ignores or poo poos the idea of there being a kind of vital human freedom to live your life and protect yourself from danger, at the expense of those who go out of their way to do your or you family harm.
On the question of legitimacy, all of the leftists in these arguments tend to assume the absolute legitimacy of the state to hold a monopoly on weapons and violence. Well, ever heard of the holocaust? Ever heard of famine? millions of people died in India in famines that were caused by colonial era policies and was ignored by the government, the last one was in WW2, it wasn't all hundreds of years ago. If all of those Indians had been armed to the teeth, the British would have got fucked off long before. Governments have a habit of creating mass slaughters, often partially to benefit companies that sell weapons. If you ignore this and just go, shit, guns are evil, give the government all the guns, then you're kind of being simplistic, as far as I can see.
The two biggest spree killers are Breivik and some Korean policeman. Well neither of them lived in countries with massively lax gun control, ie the US, Yemen or the Czech Republic. Also, their total kills were almost a joke compared to what happens in major wars. I strongly suspect that an exponentially higher number of people will have died in military accidents in world war 2.
Someone needs to start differentiating between conservative hunter / freedom fuck yeah type gun culture with hip hop gangsters and drug dealers, because I don't really see that there is that much similarity bar the liking of firearms. I actually looked it up, which required effort, which is standard if you ever want to know the truth about something, but anyway, I looked it up and about half of murders in the US with a firearm as the murder weapon are committed by someone who cannot legally own a gun.
Carpe Mortem
Benevolently Batshit
- Aug 21, 2013
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No
Really.
You are really, really dumb.
You are just to dumb to see it.
Could point out so much with this kind of stupid:
But that would be a waste of time.
To all the rest here - Read the whole thing. It don't take long and it don't hurt at all.
SentinelSlain
Suck my joined date.
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UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
Well, I 've said it before, but since some people are apparently inacapable of reading, I'll say it again: in terms of self-defence, you DON'T need a gun if nobody else has one, since pepper spray or a taser or whatever would work just as well in that situation, without any chance of fatalities occurring. Other than pub brawls, Britain is generally very safe and peaceful compared to the USA in most areas, and most people simply don't feel the need to lug around killing machines on their hips mainly because they know the chances of encountering a criminal that has one themselves is very minimal.
Peddling guns to every Tom, Dick and Harry in the name of "self-defence" is little more than a money-making racket (killing machines cost a helluva lot more than pepper sprays), and statistics show (as posted earlier in the topic) that guns are generally far more likely to be used in a crime than in successful self-defence, the latter which is almost unheard of, which is unsurprising considering the minimal likelihood of winning a shootout when attacked while unawares/unprepared by a desparate armed and fully-prepared criminal (and even then, you've still murdered someone, even if it was in self-defence). As I mentioned before, there's no evidence that civillians possessing more guns somehow "frightens" criminals into inactive submission, but there is plenty to suggest that it turns more civillians into emboldened, violent criminals themselves.
As I mentioned earlier, I am in favor of people being allowed to own guns for hunting, as long as it is properly regulated along the lines of psychological evalution, background check, a valid hunter's license, and an annual renewal of the hunting rifle license accompanied by training in usage. This would be a good way to ensure that the vast majority of people that have hunting rifles are actually hunters, and not gangsters, criminals, or psychopaths. Whether people who commit crime with a gun they own legally is irrelevant in terms of the fact that they simply would not even be able to generally get their hands on said gun if it was a lot harder for everyone in the society to get guns.
Oh, and let's address this idiotic "we need guns to fight the government" redneck propaganda horseshit for a minute. Firstly, this is totally irrelevant in the U.S.A. because it has the largest and most powerful military in the history of the world (as the British did at the time they occupied India, and as Germany did at the time of Holocaust), and no matter how much the greedy gun corporations egg on the paranoid rednecks to stockpile assault rifles to overthrow the "evil government", it's not gonna happen, morons - you'd be better off throwing feathers at an elephant (at least that way you wouldn't be slaughtered en masse in a bloodbath of monumental proportions), while the entire country pays a bitter and bloody price in terms of rampant gun crime, related criminality, and general insecurity due to your paranoid delusions.
And what happens in countries where the general civillian populations actually do have enough firepower to overthrow the government? Well, that's where the rampant and persistant civil wars and related atrocities in Africa (info linked earlier in the topic) and elsewhere a born from: everyone is so busy forming militias and resistance groups to try carve out their own piece of the pie, and no sooner has the "old, oppressive regime" been overthrown than a new bunch of greedy gun-toting would-be rulers start assaulting them for their own piece of the pie, and so on and so forth.
One could make some very solid arguments to propose that a functional yet tyrannical government is generally (unless it's genocidal and Nazi-like) preferable to continual civil war, anarchy, and chaos in the lack of any government. And in tying it back to the U.S., the government there may be shitty in some ways, but it's hardly (and is hardly likely to become) an excessively-severe and dictatorial, Hitler-like monstrosity bent on the destruction of gun-hugging rednecks everywhere - regardless of what conspiracy theories the gun corporations have whispered in your ignorant ears.
So, yeah, when it comes to both the "self-defense" and "fighting the government" excuses for owning guns pedaled by for-profit gun corporations, they're just a bunch of horseshit to drain your wallets while the country suffers and bleeds.
Einherjar86
Active Member
This objection (which I'm not sure I agree with one way or another) still tolerates the unambiguous distinction between "government" and "citizen." The government, of course, is comprised of citizens. Ideally, the government is meant to reflect some near semblance of citizen desire, if not the psychic apparatus of desire itself (which may very well be why so many governments turn totalitarian).
The concept of an "evil government" (whatever this implies) suggests that soldiers (or most of them, at least) would turn against their families. Now, this may certainly be the case; but if brainwashing hasn't worked on the citizenry, then I'm unsure how likely it is that it will work on soldiers. Let me put this another way: the government likely wouldn't need to pursue a potentially violent takeover because ideology and hegemonic values do this work for it. There may be a more rigid framework of hierarchy and obedience in the military; but this only functions (paradoxically, of course) with the support of the ideology of American exceptionalism and individualism, which most Americans (supposedly) still believe in. It's certainly contradictory to have a strict hierarchy of rank that degrades the individual into no more than a piece of meat for slaughter; but they're told that what they fight for are "the rights of individual citizens."
So, what this somewhat long-winded post has attempted to explain is merely that the notion of "government takeover" is very much, in itself, a kind of fantasy. That isn't to say it isn't possible - of course it's possible; but its psychic support in the imaginations of many Americans is grounded in fantasy. The reason I offer for this is that ideology and cultural hegemony work just fine for government (for the time being, at least).
SentinelSlain
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Well, as a I indicated towards, banning guns in the US would probably only restrict firearm related suicides and maybe accidental shootings. There are so many in the hands of criminals already. Also, I don't see any US government getting away with actually going around people's homes taking the guns. That would just guarantee a right wing republican government coming to power in the next election. Large sections of the US public just wouldn't forget about that for decades. Due to this, all the US government can really do is put restrictions on the types of firearms available and on things like magazine size and so on. Well that isn't going to stop criminals, not criminals mentally capable of gunsmithing anyway.
As for Africa, well I can imagine there are articles that show or apparently show a major link between access to firearms and civil wars in the region. I've looked at some of that kind of data in the past. The thing is, the Rwandan genocide actually probably wouldn't have happened if everyone or a very high percentage of people, across ethnic lines, all had self defence fire arms. It mostly consisted of neighbours killing each other with machetes. Funnily enough a lot of genocides were like that. The Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides come to mind as well. The reason why there are Armenians in the world is because of them seeking refuge but also managing to fight off some of the rampaging turks and kurds. Obviously this is not a strategy for protecting ethnic minorities as such, as there will always be some that are so small a group it is impractical, but it's interesting to note.
Of the countries I listed as gun happy, Czech Republic, The United States and Yemen, only Yemen has had a lot of civil wars in recent times. They also have difficulties with the gun culture and murder rate. It strikes me that those are not actually issues totally bound to the existence of available fire arms. Yes, if the guns weren't there there perhaps could be fewer murders, but there are problems with the society that don't seem to be existent in countries like Switzerland or the Czech Republic (which allow civilians to own a range of firearms).
Switzerland has a militia, so why isn't it a war torn shithole? Lack of lootable resources? Lack of a youth bulge, unemployment? Maybe, but don't underestimate culture and tradition. No one in Switzerland uses their militia issued rifles to commit violent crime out of a feeling of it being shameful.
I kind of agree with you by the way though. I don't see it as rational for guns to be as easily accessible as they are in the US.
As for Africa, well I can imagine there are articles that show or apparently show a major link between access to firearms and civil wars in the region. I've looked at some of that kind of data in the past. The thing is, the Rwandan genocide actually probably wouldn't have happened if everyone or a very high percentage of people, across ethnic lines, all had self defence fire arms. It mostly consisted of neighbours killing each other with machetes. Funnily enough a lot of genocides were like that. The Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides come to mind as well. The reason why there are Armenians in the world is because of them seeking refuge but also managing to fight off some of the rampaging turks and kurds. Obviously this is not a strategy for protecting ethnic minorities as such, as there will always be some that are so small a group it is impractical, but it's interesting to note.
Of the countries I listed as gun happy, Czech Republic, The United States and Yemen, only Yemen has had a lot of civil wars in recent times. They also have difficulties with the gun culture and murder rate. It strikes me that those are not actually issues totally bound to the existence of available fire arms. Yes, if the guns weren't there there perhaps could be fewer murders, but there are problems with the society that don't seem to be existent in countries like Switzerland or the Czech Republic (which allow civilians to own a range of firearms).
Switzerland has a militia, so why isn't it a war torn shithole? Lack of lootable resources? Lack of a youth bulge, unemployment? Maybe, but don't underestimate culture and tradition. No one in Switzerland uses their militia issued rifles to commit violent crime out of a feeling of it being shameful.
I kind of agree with you by the way though. I don't see it as rational for guns to be as easily accessible as they are in the US.
SentinelSlain
Suck my joined date.
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I think that people have a kind of absolutist version of individualism and freedom in their mind, usually bound to a specific area of space, their house, or farm and wish it to pretty much be their own in a true sense of the word. The castle doctrine and its origin come to mind. It's more like, the desire for a break, a gap, in society, in socialisation, in the enforcement of norms and the centralisation of grouped interests and authority. It's probably a desire that a professor would link to mental illness, because it is basically someone wanting a breath of fresh air from the world.
Dak
mentat
Hey look, that repeated assertion of yours that flies in the face of empirical evidence already provided.
As far as "no one having guns", this again ignores that the "worst elements" don't generally respect the law. MS-13 or whatever is not quaking in its boots about potential gun restrictions. And even if criminals didn't have a gun, that's no reason not to have one for protection. Guns equalize: the 5 foot quasimidget doesn't have to worry about going toe-to-toe with Bane. Pepper spray nor tasers are guaranteed like a bullet.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Yes, I think I agree with this. I'm not sure all professors would equate it with madness; I could think of other terms that might get tossed around (hegemonic values, false consciousness, Freudian desire). But it is correct that madness may very well make it onto the list.
The absolutist version of individualism is what I really cannot agree with. It derives from an image of the liberal humanist subject (a tenuous subject to begin with), and when you get down to it it's a contradictory platform on which to erect individualist social values. It enforces an essentialism of the subject that can only be explained by a god or some other vitalist originary power; but even irreligious economists want to maintain the coherence of the subject as an ethical dimension. It's just all very confused and muddled, in my opinion.
Anyway, the appeal to radical individualism in the case of rampant uninhibited gun ownership is an extreme example of this absolutist variety, as you say, and it's definitely tied to notion of private property.
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
The logic that follows the lines of "the problem is too big to fix anyway so why even bother" is disturbingly illogical. Would you propose we follow the same logic with regard to global warming, environmental destruction, etc? Throwing up your hands in defeat and saying "Nobody can fix this pile of shit anyway" and not even taking any action is a pathetic and alarming attitude, and we'd no doubt still be stuck in the Dark Ages if we all followed that logic. Reducing the number of guns in a society will inevitable over time also reduce the number of guns in criminal hands, especially when they eventually find that they aren't able to buy more ammunition etc. Oh, and by the way, I'm not proposing banning guns, just putting proper restrictions and regulations on them like most normal countries in the world do.
"Handing everyone a gun to make it safer" is in fact typical NRA propoganda bullshit, and makes no sense whatsoever. There can be no arguing with the logic that everyone not having guns is a lot safer than everyone having guns, even a 10 year old kid could see the obvious logic in that. Think a genocide with machetes was bad? Try one with guns, it's guaranteed to be a lot worse due to the simple physics of the situation. Also, if you look at the statistics, historically far more people have been killed in civil wars where both sides had guns as opposed to genocides where only one side had weapons (not including the Holocaust though, but there's no way that random scattered communities of Jews could have somehow fought off the most powerful military force on the planet at the time regardless of how many guns they had). Genocides are relatively rare in modern times, but civil wars inspired by both sides having guns are a dime a dozen.
It is true that there are some economically-stable, prosperous, and relatively homogenous first world countries that have a lot of guns in civillian hands, but aren't savaged by constant civil wars or rampant violent crime - though they do still suffer from crazies that go bezerk and shoot everyone in sight, higher suicide rates (as was linked earlier, availabillity of guns does actually encourage people to themselves), and the inevitable maiming/killing firearm accidents that occur with disturbing regularity. But those societies aren't by any means made safer by the fact that many people own guns in any way whatsoever: the main reason that they're not awash in civil wars or violent crimes is because people in prosperous homogenous countries with a great degree of economic equality (note how the USA ranks very poorly in both the categories) don't generally have any need or desire to resort to war or violent crime precisely because of the situation they are in - it's not the guns somehow "magically" making the society safer. Conversely, though, there has been plenty of evidence linked here that proves that the existance of excessive numbers of guns in civillian hands in countries with poor economic equality, and/or fractured and isolated racial and ethnic groups, and/or rampant gangsterism very definitely DOES greatly increase the likelihood of civil war and/or excessive violent crime.
UltimateApathy
Infinite Idiocy
Oh, so this is what it's come down to: "I'd rather shoots a criminal with me gun than pepper spray him because that's more bad-ass-ly effective." Have you even thought about the implications of shooting an unarmed criminal trying to mug you or whatever? Even if in self-defence, you're still talking about FUCKING KILLING SOMEBODY as opposed to spraying some irritant in their eyes. You gung-ho types don't even think about the implications of your macho-talk bullshit until reality comes knocking with full force. If a criminal doesn't have a gun, there's no reason why you need anything more than pepperspray (unless you're a bloodthirsty redneck gun-fetishist).
Dak
mentat
You have made (at least) two erroneous assumptions:
1. Pepper spray is always effective.
2. Attackers are clearly armed or unarmed.
Way to go after the victim though. I suppose you slutshame rape survivors too.
1. Pepper spray is always effective.
2. Attackers are clearly armed or unarmed.
Way to go after the victim though. I suppose you slutshame rape survivors too.
Satanstoenail
My Larpstyle determines my Derpstyle
I'm becoming pro-gun purely because of UltimateApathy. If such a tremendous fuckshovel is against it, I'm all for it.
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