The Argument for Guns

[Deacon923]

Gun nuts just make me nervous. What's a gun nut you ask? It's the type of person who feels it necessary to come to Chipotle like this

just because the Constitution permits them to. Why the fuck is that necessary? You're just intimidating/scaring a lot of people.

Very similar to the donk I ran into open-carrying with his super-cool shoulder holster in Gamestop a while back. Totally unnecessary and likely indicative of a lot of personal insecurity.

 

[WFU Lurker]

I'm sorry, Lurker, but people who can afford to go to Wake Forest really don't understand the definition of "The American Citizens". They belong to a teeny-tiny privileged & elitist subset of "The American Citizens". They are not among the 47 million of those citizens who do not have healthcare coverage....and are, for the most part, incapable of really having any empathy with those people who are far less fortunate than they.

If you are looking for a cross-section of the views of "The American Citizens", you aren't going to find it on a Wake Forest chatboard.

What about people who go to Harvard?

When I looked last night, per Gallup, the majority of citizens disapprove of ACA. Hard to work around that.

 

[RevDeac06]

indicative of a lot of personal insecurity.

Sounds like exactly the sort of person who should be carrying :rulz:

 

[RJKarl]

 

[RJKarl]

Once TX and AZ go blue in the next 10-20 years, the GOP will be relegated to being a totally southern and grassland party.

Barring more classist, racist voter suppression laws, TX could be in play 2020 if the GOP continues it's anti-immigration stance.

 

[Mbadvisor]

According to the Chicago Tribune, Angelou told TIME magazine about her love for guns during a 2013 interview:
TIME: Your mother, she was your protector. She often carried a gun, she seemed very fond of guns. Did you inherit your mother's fondness for guns?
ANGELOU: Well, I do like to have guns around. I don't like to carry them. But if someone is going to come into my house, and I have not put out the welcome mat, I want to stop them.
TIME: Have you every fired a weapon?
ANGELOU: Of course!
TIME: At a person?
ANGELOU: I've fired it period, not at a person I hope. I was in my house in North Carolina. It was fall. I heard someone walking on the leaves. And somebody actually turned the knob, so I said, "Stand four feet back because I'm going to shoot now!" BOOM! BOOM! The police came by and said, "Ms. Angelou, the shots came from inside the house." I said, "Well, I don't know how that happened."

 

[Baconwfu]

Case for guns:
1. Hunting/livestock defense. This is a perfectly legitimate reason for someone to own and use certain types of guns, mainly rifles and shotguns. Still plenty of hunters and sheep farmers in more civilized countries with sensible firearms laws.
2. Defense against criminals. This is also a legitimate reason for someone to own and use certain types of guns, especially people who live in remote or crime-prone areas, or are engaged in occupations with a high risk of encountering criminals.

I don't feel that either of these arguments are sufficient to make a case that ANY PERSON can own ANY GUN for ANY REASON at ANY TIME and in ANY PLACE. In other words, I support gun rights, but I am not a gun rights absolutist.


Clearly a rational society weighs the potential harm to society from easy availability of guns vs. the potential harm to individuals from being unable to own/carry whatever gun they want, whenever and wherever they want to. That weighing can happen in a number of ways; you can outlaw certain types of guns; you can prohibit certain categories of people from owning guns (which presumes all others can own them); you can set thresholds for gun ownership (which presume all others cannot own them); you can put in place a system whereby gun owners compensate the rest of society for the risks created by their gun ownership; or a combination of these. I have advocated on the long gun violence thread for a mandatory insurance scheme.

ETA: I don't think "protection from the gummint" is a legitimate reason for gun ownership. If you want to live in a society where shooting at government officials is an acceptable expression of your freedoms, move to Somalia. There are plenty of democratic countries with robust individual freedoms where hardly anyone has a gun. The idea that democracy requires everyone to be armed is just silly.

I agree with your post, but would say the argument for protection from government (at least in my eyes) isn't necessarily protection from the US government as it stands, but as a check against some potential oppressive regime that could form in the future.
I would think any American who says, "I own guns to protect myself from my government" is batshit crazy because the US government isn't oppressing people to the point where they need to take up arms against it and any attempt to do so is insane. However, I would agree that the right to gun ownership is a check on the power that any future government has over it's people. There is an important distinction.

 

[RevDeac06]

So gun ownership can't exist in a vacuum, it has baggage. From the standpoint of ethics, we need to decide which way the scale tips with these goods in conflict.

On the one hand, guns can provide security. But I'd argue that's a false sense of security. You want to keep your family safe? You'd do better to mount a cell phone jammer on your car so that idiots around you aren't on their phones while driving. That's a greater threat than a situation where you need a gun. Safety is an illusion, and a part of our culture's denial of death. It's coming for all of us. Hopefully we can all die good deaths after a long life, but nothing is promised. All the guns in the world can't make you safe from the boogie men of the world, or from any other sort of untimely death/accident.

On the other side, we have all the things that go along with gun ownership- a violent culture, accidental gun deaths, etc. Walter Brueggemann has an outstanding section of his book Sabbath as Resistance in which he talks about our lack of rest/gratitude has led to the commoditization of the world, and thus created false gods that go unchallenged (safety and security being two such false gods). One by product of serving these false gods is an overly violent culture.

Also, the 2nd amendment has been so perverted and taken out of context that it's not really helpful in this discussion. But I guess that's par for the course, as most people have done the same to the Bible.

It's also not logically possible to reconcile America's gun obsession with the percentage of its citizens that claim to be Christian. Followers of the Prince of Peace don't carry weapons of death, period. Nor do they obey false gods. Unless you give people a reason to kill you, you're more than likely going to be okay (sure, there are always random things that happen, but you can never protect against that).

*There are, of course, exceptions: law enforcement, secret service, hunters, farmers that need to protect livestock, etc. But the amount and types of weapons needed for these purposes needs to be reexamined.

There's my 2 cents. No refunds or exchanges.

 

[RevDeac06]

I agree with your post, but would say the argument for protection from government (at least in my eyes) isn't necessarily protection from the US government as it stands, but as a check against some potential oppressive regime that could form in the future.
I would think any American who says, "I own guns to protect myself from my government" is batshit crazy because the US government isn't oppressing people to the point where they need to take up arms against it and any attempt to do so is insane. However, I would agree that the right to gun ownership is a check on the power that any future government has over it's people. There is an important distinction.

I'm not a historian- but it seems to me like the places where real change has happened, it has come not through violence, but non-violent protest (Civil Rights, S. Africa, etc.). Sure, in the 18th century you could stand against an oppressive government, but not today, at least not in the US. Sure, what's going on in Sudan, Libya, Ukraine are situations where there are real clashes against the government, but those really are more of a civil war of sorts. As I said in my post before it, at the end of the day, people have to choose what gods they'll worship.

 

[leftcoastdeac]

Gun nuts just make me nervous. What's a gun nut you ask? It's the type of person who feels it necessary to come to Chipotle like this

just because the Constitution permits them to. Why the fuck is that necessary? You're just intimidating/scaring a lot of people.

Fuck those guys. So hard. Their actions are counter productive to the pro-gun movement and they level of jackassery on display should be a felony. The dwarf looks like he's about to trip over the barrel and I can only hope that Jabba the gun nut was there for a veggie burrito. They claim that open carrying is to make people comfortable? Then don't wear combat slings in a restaurant and keep your fucking fat fingers away from the trigger. These clowns were in Chipotle, not Kabul. The point of carrying is to safely make sure you can protect yourself if you need to, not poke everyone you run into in the eye with your right to bear arms. These guys need give their guns back to an adult until they can learn to stop acting like over-armed teenagers.

 

[RJKarl]

I agree with your post, but would say the argument for protection from government (at least in my eyes) isn't necessarily protection from the US government as it stands, but as a check against some potential oppressive regime that could form in the future.
I would think any American who says, "I own guns to protect myself from my government" is batshit crazy because the US government isn't oppressing people to the point where they need to take up arms against it and any attempt to do so is insane. However, I would agree that the right to gun ownership is a check on the power that any future government has over it's people. There is an important distinction.

Think about this statement. If a group has the power to overthrow the US government, your piddly weapons are of no consequence to them. Well, unless you had the ability to send and track smart bombs, armed drones and weapons that can take out tanks.

You'd also need either a Seal Team 6 or a group of ninjas to protect yourself against an "oppressive government". For any "oppressive government" to take power in the US, Canada or any other industrialized nation, they would have to have weaponry that you don't have access to or ever will. They would also have to a large standing army with quick and overwhelming strike capabilities.

The concept that home based weapons would have any impact against an "oppressive" 21st century government is laughable.

 

[Deacon923]

I agree with your post, but would say the argument for protection from government (at least in my eyes) isn't necessarily protection from the US government as it stands, but as a check against some potential oppressive regime that could form in the future.
I would think any American who says, "I own guns to protect myself from my government" is batshit crazy because the US government isn't oppressing people to the point where they need to take up arms against it and any attempt to do so is insane. However, I would agree that the right to gun ownership is a check on the power that any future government has over it's people. There is an important distinction.

I grant you the distinction. Nonetheless, I am concerned with weighing the rights of gun owners against the rights of the rest of us to be free from gun crime. I think hunting and personal defense, within reasonable limits, have significant weight. I do not believe that protection against some future imagined oppressive government has any substantial weight.

First of all, such a scenario appears incredibly unlikely, and so must be subject to discounting on the basis of low probability. Second, it is not clear to me that the ability of citizens to stage an armed rebellion is a deterrent to oppressive government (see, e.g. Syria, Libya, and many other third world countries that simultaneously have shitty governments and heavily armed rebellions. Russia may even be in this category). Third, due to the lethality of modern armaments, armed rebellions against repressive governments have largely been unsuccessful since WWII, and have resulted not in liberation but in a spiral of death and destruction for the country in question. I think there are a lot of people in the world today that would prefer the repressive government they used to have over the ongoing devastation of a never-ending quest for "liberation" (which is usually just one ethnic group trying to get power at the expense of another).

 

[jhmd2000]

The primary reason that guns are necessary is the response time from public safety is unreliable at best. I own personal protection firearms and hunting rifles and shotguns. I enjoy the hobby of shooting sporting clays, have a gun safe and believe in responsible gun ownership.

The key in "responsible" gun ownership means limiting necessary types of guns to people who can be trusted with them. That does not include kids or crazies. How we have a background check without mental health clearance is completely beyond me. No civilian has use for an automatic weapon. Even if you did, Janet Reno will light your house on fire and drive over the burning corpses of your children with an armored tank. No automatic weapons will protect you from our government.

 

[RevDeac06]

The primary reason that guns are necessary is the response time from public safety is unreliable at best. I own personal protection firearms and hunting rifles and shotguns. I enjoy the hobby of shooting sporting clays, have a gun safe and believe in responsible gun ownership.

The key in "responsible" gun ownership means limiting necessary types of guns to people who can be trusted with them. That does not include kids or crazies. How we have a background check without mental health clearance is completely beyond me. No civilian has use for an automatic weapon. Even if you did, Janet Reno will light your house on fire and drive over the burning corpses of your children with an armored tank. No automatic weapons will protect you from our government.

I agree with this, and am glad that you are a responsible gun owner. I think the question needs to be- is our desire (or even, right) to own guns for hunting/sporting reason worth the price of having such a heavily armed populace? I don't own a gun, and a large part of the reason why I don't is because I don't want to live in a society that has guns. It's not that different from people who do their best to live "green" in an effort to care for the earth. Sure they could drive an SUV, but they choose a Prius/bike/walking because that's the sort of world they want to live in.

It might not be fair that we have to live differently because some idiots can't play nice, but that's reality.

 

[TuffaloDeac10]

I agree with this, and am glad that you are a responsible gun owner. I think the question needs to be- is our desire (or even, right) to own guns for hunting/sporting reason worth the price of having such a heavily armed populace? I don't own a gun, and a large part of the reason why I don't is because I don't want to live in a society that has guns. It's not that different from people who do their best to live "green" in an effort to care for the earth. Sure they could drive an SUV, but they choose a Prius/bike/walking because that's the sort of world they want to live in.

It might not be fair that we have to live differently because some idiots can't play nice, but that's reality.

Again, the Australian example demonstrates pretty clearly that well-regulated sporting and hunting gun ownership (licenses, mandatory gun safes, participating in competition regularly) is compatible with a safe society. False choice there. I don't think something like the 1996 NFA is going to happen here any time soon, but active hunters and sport shooters aren't really a public health menace.

 

[RJKarl]

The right has a myth that instant gun checks are possible. They aren't. Many states don't have fully integrated systems from criminal and civil records to mental health systems.

If you've waited 21 years or more to purchase that specific weapon, there's no reason you can't wait a few more days.

If you aren't buying a collection of antique weapons and don't own a licensed, armed security company, there is no reason that you should be able to buy 5, 10, 20 or more production weapons at a time.

There's also no reason that if you sell, give trade or transfer a gun to a felon that you shouldn't go to jail. "I didn't know" is not a legitimate excuse. Just because the person tells you he isn't doesn't mean you should believe him. All you have to do is go to your PD or gun shop to check. It should be a non-plea bargainable felony.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

This is fucking absurd. The military could annihilate its citizenry in a fucking day if given the order.

Yeah the government has drones the size of big birds flying over countries and killing people from the sky without sending anyone near the location and somehow Johnny America will be able to ward of an oppressive regime with his trusty handgun.

 

[RevDeac06]

Again, the Australian example demonstrates pretty clearly that well-regulated sporting and hunting gun ownership (licenses, mandatory gun safes, participating in competition regularly) is compatible with a safe society. False choice there. I don't think something like the 1996 NFA is going to happen here any time soon, but active hunters and sport shooters aren't really a public health menace.

And I'm not against hunting/sporting uses for guns. But if the purpose of the gun is to use it only for recreational purposes, why can't the guns be kept at a locker at the shooting range? It's the dual purposing that is a slippery slope- "I have it for hunting, but it keeps me safe too." I think the second half of that thought is the problem.

 

[TuffaloDeac10]

And I'm not against hunting/sporting uses for guns. But if the purpose of the gun is to use it only for recreational purposes, why can't the guns be kept at a locker at the shooting range? It's the dual purposing that is a slippery slope- "I have it for hunting, but it keeps me safe too." I think the second half of that thought is the problem.

I think it could be kept at the range. Biggest public health gain is from putting guns in a locker more than where that locker is, though.

 

[jhmd2000]

I agree with this, and am glad that you are a responsible gun owner. I think the question needs to be- is our desire (or even, right) to own guns for hunting/sporting reason worth the price of having such a heavily armed populace? I don't own a gun, and a large part of the reason why I don't is because I don't want to live in a society that has guns. It's not that different from people who do their best to live "green" in an effort to care for the earth. Sure they could drive an SUV, but they choose a Prius/bike/walking because that's the sort of world they want to live in.

It might not be fair that we have to live differently because some idiots can't play nice, but that's reality.

Sure. My Remington 1100 shotgun has a very focused capacity to do a specific task at short distances a limited number of times. For instance, if an intruder is in my hallway at night, there's a pretty good chance he will be all over that hallway in small pieces. It's not a high capacity, long distance killing machine. It's the essence of a home defense firearm. THAT is responsible gun ownership. I have no use for a high capacity AR-15. None.