The hoplophobia is strong in this thread.
If someone is a threat to society, laws will not magically make them safe by depriving them the means to cause harm.
All disarmament laws do is make ordinary, peaceful citizens rely completely on the government for defense. And governments have shown themselves repeatedly incapable of providing the security they are ethically bound to provide, having stripped the citizenry of arms.
These are not opinions. They are statements of reality, easily confirmed simply by paying attention to the world around us.
Gun control does nothing to prevent crime. If that was the real reason governments disarm their citizens, I'd call it an abject failure. However, the real reason governments disarm their citizens is so they can control them. A government monopoly on the use of deadly force is a statist's wet dream.
How many mass killings and genocides have been prefaced by strict gun control laws? The Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, untold millions dead in China, likewise in the Soviet Union, Khmer Rouge, Guatemala, Uganda, Rwanda... All in the last 100 years. Tell me again how it's a great idea to hand over my guns to the government?
Oh, no doubt I'll be considered a kook for imagining that such things could happen in the US or another Western country. Things are different here!
Only, the US government doesn't have such a great track record itself, does it? Ignoring all the fun stuff that happened before the 20th century, we interned over 100,000 people, mostly American citizens, simply for having the wrong ancestry. At least we didn't kill them; I guess that's a bit of silver lining on a rather dark cloud.
If I need to point out all the alarming things the US government has been doing domestically since 9/11, you must have been living under a rock down a mine shaft.
To address the original point about privately owned and carried guns being a net plus or minus in society, if the government is not capable of protecting the citizenry at the micro level, the most rational response--assuming the safety of individual citizens is a good thing--is allowing citizens the means to defend themselves everywhere they go. That increases the odds that there will be a "white hat" with a gun nearby when things go sideways, in a position to do something about it.
"Blood in the streets!" they cry, "Anarchy!"
"Shootouts over parking spaces!"
Yes, yes. I've heard it all before, several times. And yet those doomsday predictions have never manifested, even when states passed laws allowing all adults to carry weapons without so much as a training class or permit.
So, it would seem that reality disagrees with the gun controllers' notion that an armed citizenry is a bad thing. The best you can claim is it is a net neutral, and my research suggests rather that widespread ownership and carry of firearms results in lower violent crime than strict gun control laws.
But it's okay. I know that gun controllers are either uneducated on the matter or allowing their emotions to guide them, rather than relying on careful thought and research.
So don't think I'm trying to change your minds; that's not possible until you get your own swift, sharp shock someday: when you realize that holy shit, the dangerous situation you were just in would've been a lot less harrowing if you were armed. Hopefully you will be able to skate through life hating weapons and espousing gun control without ever having to face the limits of your beliefs for real, and I mean that sincerely, because I certainly don't wish you all to come to harm simply for believing something silly.
I'm simply writing this for the peanut gallery, so to speak, to provide some food for thought.
I assure you that the victims of mass shootings, and the people in the vicinity who are lucky enough to escaped unscathed, are not thinking 'boy I'm glad the government outlawed guns!' when they're in mortal peril, or bleeding out on the sidewalk.
If someone is a threat to society, laws will not magically make them safe by depriving them the means to cause harm.
All disarmament laws do is make ordinary, peaceful citizens rely completely on the government for defense. And governments have shown themselves repeatedly incapable of providing the security they are ethically bound to provide, having stripped the citizenry of arms.
These are not opinions. They are statements of reality, easily confirmed simply by paying attention to the world around us.
Gun control does nothing to prevent crime. If that was the real reason governments disarm their citizens, I'd call it an abject failure. However, the real reason governments disarm their citizens is so they can control them. A government monopoly on the use of deadly force is a statist's wet dream.
How many mass killings and genocides have been prefaced by strict gun control laws? The Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, untold millions dead in China, likewise in the Soviet Union, Khmer Rouge, Guatemala, Uganda, Rwanda... All in the last 100 years. Tell me again how it's a great idea to hand over my guns to the government?
Oh, no doubt I'll be considered a kook for imagining that such things could happen in the US or another Western country. Things are different here!
Only, the US government doesn't have such a great track record itself, does it? Ignoring all the fun stuff that happened before the 20th century, we interned over 100,000 people, mostly American citizens, simply for having the wrong ancestry. At least we didn't kill them; I guess that's a bit of silver lining on a rather dark cloud.
If I need to point out all the alarming things the US government has been doing domestically since 9/11, you must have been living under a rock down a mine shaft.
To address the original point about privately owned and carried guns being a net plus or minus in society, if the government is not capable of protecting the citizenry at the micro level, the most rational response--assuming the safety of individual citizens is a good thing--is allowing citizens the means to defend themselves everywhere they go. That increases the odds that there will be a "white hat" with a gun nearby when things go sideways, in a position to do something about it.
"Blood in the streets!" they cry, "Anarchy!"
"Shootouts over parking spaces!"
Yes, yes. I've heard it all before, several times. And yet those doomsday predictions have never manifested, even when states passed laws allowing all adults to carry weapons without so much as a training class or permit.
So, it would seem that reality disagrees with the gun controllers' notion that an armed citizenry is a bad thing. The best you can claim is it is a net neutral, and my research suggests rather that widespread ownership and carry of firearms results in lower violent crime than strict gun control laws.
But it's okay. I know that gun controllers are either uneducated on the matter or allowing their emotions to guide them, rather than relying on careful thought and research.
So don't think I'm trying to change your minds; that's not possible until you get your own swift, sharp shock someday: when you realize that holy shit, the dangerous situation you were just in would've been a lot less harrowing if you were armed. Hopefully you will be able to skate through life hating weapons and espousing gun control without ever having to face the limits of your beliefs for real, and I mean that sincerely, because I certainly don't wish you all to come to harm simply for believing something silly.
I'm simply writing this for the peanut gallery, so to speak, to provide some food for thought.
I assure you that the victims of mass shootings, and the people in the vicinity who are lucky enough to escaped unscathed, are not thinking 'boy I'm glad the government outlawed guns!' when they're in mortal peril, or bleeding out on the sidewalk.
![[Image: 8304207-omarbedrebillede.jpg]](http://b.bimg.dk/node-images/304/8/620x411-c/8304207-omarbedrebillede.jpg)
![[Image: angel.gif]](https://rooshvforum.network/images/smilies/angel.gif)
![[Image: B93i3m5IIAAKLlC-598x264.jpg]](http://www.samtiden.nu/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/B93i3m5IIAAKLlC-598x264.jpg)
