Topic: Gun free zone - page 22. (Read 21968 times)

Hum, I wouldn't make them myself but I don't think that's your point.

To be clear I support the idea of making weapons even if they are able to kill human beings. What I want is an equilibrium between the dangers facing individuals and their right to bear arms so that the defensive purposes of weapons in the hands of people aren't outweighed by their offensive purposes. I want my chances of survival being the best and I'm willing to make compromises for that. This is after all, what a social contract is: when you agree to be part of a community you agree to a set of rules involving partial loss of liberties to gain various forms of security (food, physical protection, benefit from people knowing how to do make/do some things you don't/...). Unfortunately you don't usually choose your community but usually the trade-offs you make are better than being an outlaw and fend for yourself alone.

The best trade-off on gun control is a moving target because it depends on the behavior and the particular circumstances of the community you are part of. This is why I'm open to the right to bear arms in principle. If you can't rely on your community to protect you to the point that giving everyone the right to defend themselves with some kinds of weapon is more effective, I'm OK with people bearing arms until the community becomes safe enough (and if I live in such a community I'll probably arm myself accordingly).

So in an idealistic world, civilians wouldn't have the right to carry guns around because it would make less safe to do so. In our realistic world, where I live it makes no sense for me to carry a gun (and thus allowing others to do so too). Circumstances for other people could make it different. For example from what I understand of the Wild West, carrying guns was mandatory at least in some places and times. I'm just surprised it's still considered a good trade-off today in the US.


I don't agree. If we both were in an hostile environment and counting on each other to defend ourselves you would be in your right to ask me to bear arms to help both of us survive or leave me alone to fend for myself.


In my example using violence would be over the top (and counter productive for your own safety). But you would be in your right to ask for compensation later for refusing to help you defend your life when it would have had no negative impact on myself.

Not so good as you can read, but I know this kind of argument...

The answer is simple: if we are part of the same community and we decided as a community that we forbid making weapons and you are still willing to be part of the same community, you must abide by its rules or suffer the consequences (violent or not).
If you don't want to be part of our community, that's fine, but you can't expect any protection from us anymore and have to fend for yourself. If you are in our territories and violate our laws you'll have to live as an outlaw or escape us by exiting our territories. If your actions were serious enough according to our laws we reserve the right to pursue you even if you take refuge in another community. If this new community wants to defend you against our claim we move to inter-community relations. Diplomacy or war will resolve the dispute.

Now if we aren't part of the same community you can do whatever you want as long as you do it out of the borders of my community and don't attack it from abroad.

Unfortunately by that reasoning you deny the very existence of communities which agree on a set of rules so that individuals gain more than what they lose by following the rules. Thinking should always be allowed, expressing your ideas too but acting on ideas that violate rules established by your own community (particularly if it's to gain an advantage over the other members without giving anything back) is obviously not OK.

D'accord!

Have you all noticed how political conversations sound a lot like "pros and cons of X"?  On the surface, all these conversations pose as exchanges between people of the form ", because ".

Ahhh... If only that was true.

The reality is that "X is true", "X is false", "the pros and cons of X", all of that, is merely filler; "X" (the putative object of the conversation) is only a thick smokescreen to hide the unstated reality of the conversation.

In any political conversation, the issue is never about who's right about X.  It's about who gets punished for believing X and acting upon said belief.  Two or more groups vying to impose their beliefs on others, with the "winning" group exercising violence against the "losers" who resist.  The "reasons" often given to "persuade" the losers matter not, because the ultimate goal of the conversation is really "or else".  It doesn't matter how right you are, when someone is holding a gun to your temple.

Now you know why tempers flare hot whenever a political conversation happens.  Now you know why exchanging facts in a political conversation rarely, if ever, causes people to change their positions.  Now you know why you hate political conversations.  Now you know why political conversations accomplish absolutely nothing, other than endorsement of the malevolent dogma that using organized violence to get one's way is acceptable.

Want to defuse a political conversation?  Stop falling for the "pros and cons" nonsense.  Start pointing out the gun in the room.

Ok, so to your first item, you're letting the fear of one or two outliers color your policy toward the rest of the population? I suppose if you find one grape on a bunch that didn't fully develop or has gone sour, you throw out the whole bunch, then? If 1% of the population, given a gun, would go on a rampage, why would you take the guns from the other 99%, given that there is no practical way to keep that 1% from getting a gun, if they really want it?
As to the second point, you have 20 hunting deaths per year? Dude, in the US, more people than that die every year because the earth said to them, NO U!
All the interviews say that the guy was always "messed up," or "scary." They know there's a problem. They ignore it, or try to medicate it away. Clearly that's working great.


I'd like to second this question.

I agree but I think it's an "enabler". One gun on a table isn't dangerous by itself. I think one million guns on one million tables begin to have consequences:

• By making them widespread, you've established a dangerous mindset: this thing that under normal circumstances shouldn't be used becomes something to brag about (especially if it's more capable than another of killing people) and train yourself with without raising eyebrows even if you are a kid. Now a disturbed teenager has the opportunity to fool his family and train himself for a killing spree and becomes indistinguishable from another kid enjoying it like a sport. Allowing guns to be widespread make it easier for rampage killers to hide like wolves among the sheep.
• There's the problem of education. It seems most gun bearers are responsible but with millions around many of them are bound to be morons (in fact we have our share of those: we allow guns for hunting purposes in France and we have around 20 fatalities each year because we didn't find a way to properly regulate this to make it safer, another cultural problem). Unfortunately last time I looked around, morons aren't disappearing fast enough due to Darwin Awards and some of them kill themselves or innocent bystanders when they are allowed to play with fire. There's no easy way to separate morons from intelligent, responsible people so making laws based on moronic behavior/predisposition is rarely possible to contain the damage.

Terrorists are another problem although arguably most of them could be considered psychopaths. Picking the target might be an explanation although it seems most of the time when the shooting starts anything moving becomes a target so why not use a bomb in the first place. Rampage killers might not all think that far though.

Another line of thought. Thinking about how rampage killers manage to fool others long enough to plan their massacres makes me think that you might help alleviate the problem by having more social interactions in the community. It's easy to fool a family and/or close friends but if people interacted regularly with numerous other people on a regular basis they might not hide themselves as well. I see this as being a problem of modern society. It's not easy to keep the equivalent of the extended family that was a village or a small city where everybody knew everybody generations ago. This old model had the advantage of making it easier to integrate everyone (often at the cost of excluding strangers) avoiding the premises of the development of a sociopath and if somebody exhibited abnormal behavior it was easier to spot and address. I suppose we could try to reorganize our modern societies to make local communities more active even in big cities but people moving around a lot don't make it easy.

FYI: foggyb is on my ignore list for fogging and irrational behavior, so I can't read his nonsense.

As I stated above, I do not believe any country has ever entered into a conflict out of altruism.

If you can't answer that, telling you the answer may not help. I'll try anyway.

He says they are more "people" than you or I (this is exactly the same thing you said, by the way... that we've already been crushed, they have yet to be). This implies the answer, right there. Maybe you haven't guessed it yet, though.

They need to be treated like people. With respect, love, and kindness, the same as you would desire to be treated.

If you dismiss America's WWII struggle and sacrifice to defeat fascism as if they were criminals, your comments don't deserve any response. If you refer to the more recent administration, then you should be more specific.

I like how he starts off by saying he's not going look at the situation through any kind of worldview, and then proceeds to denounce other worldviews like Christianity. No one is nuetral. Stefan should at least be honest about that.

While its great that he wants to change the way we raise children by ensuring they get what they need, WHAT IS IT THAT THEY NEED? Stefan Molyneux never answered that. He does not have the answer because he is burdened with the same human condition as the rest of us. We cannot escape, this is the world we live in.

Ohhh!  OK, let's "against me" this question real quick.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but you clearly don't believe in making weapons.  You don't want to make them, you don't see a use for a weapon in your hands, you feel like you do not need a weapon.

Well, this might be a shocker, but I actually fully support that preference of yours and I believe you should have the right to hold that preference.

Of course, supporting your preference means supporting you acting consistently with it.  It'd be irrational of me to say "Yeah, I support your belief, but you aren't allowed to act upon your belief", as irrational as saying "You can have any color Model T, as long as it's black", or "You may believe in any God you want, but you must pray to MY God, or else".

That means I wouldn't dream of using threats or physical violence -- caging, brutalizing, ruining, killing -- against you to force you to make guns, and I wouldn't support anyone using violence to force you to make guns either.

OK, are you still with me?  You are.  Good.  Great!

Now, I, on the other hand, believe that making a weapon is very practical and useful.  I believe that I can protect myself using weapons I made myself.  I like the idea and I'd like to make a weapon too.  That is my preference.

Do you afford me the same courtesy and consideration to me, my preference, and my desire to act upon it?  Do you respect me equally?  Do you reject the use of punishment (threats, violence) against me for acting consistent with my beliefs?

Or do you advocate violent punishment against me?

That is a serious yes/no question.  I expect your answer shortly.

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If everyone handled "X should be legal / illegal" discussions as outlined above, the sociopaths in society would be very quickly unmasked for what they are: blood-thirsty and violent people who want to punish anyone who thinks for himself.

Hum, French ICBMs were quite effective by themselves: this was cold war era with assured mutual destruction... Before the WW2 France didn't have anything of value in the military because the WW1 nightmare made people reject any kind of military solution between the 2 wars. Lessons were learned...


I don't think the US isn't reaping enough economic advantages from its military interventions to make up for that. At least it's not easy to tell.

I disagree. We had wars after wars even before the US even existed, people never walked around with weapons in their village or city unless the front was nearby. I think the big difference in the US is the way the country was built. The conquest of the West and the American Revolutionary War maintained a long period were it was not only necessary for the military but for the civilians to bear arms too. There's a long history of internal conflict in the early stages of US' history that in my opinion anchored guns in the culture like no other country did (at least I don't see any other credible reason).

http://www.dillonprecision.com/
Home reloading is a popular hobby among gun enthusiasts.

Does a gun, sitting on a table, or in a pocket, hurt anyone? You're not allowed to hurt people. Having a few pounds of steel, shaped into a particular form hurts no one.

Bombs are used all the time by terrorists. Not so much by people who want to pick their targets. I'd point out that the Columbine kids did have a bomb. Thankfully it was a dud.

No, I just want you to elaborate on your argument.

Would you prefer preemptive criticism? I can make that happen. 

This is just retrospective criticism and brings nothing new to the argument.

Didn't know about the laser sinter printer tech.
I'm a little doubtful about the anyone can make bullets though: the ammo includes at least the bullet, casing and gun powder, that doesn't seem so simple to produce.

But assuming all that is true or will be in the short future, why should it be legal to make weapons? A law isn't meant to say what isn't doable but what you are allowed to do for the well being of the community.
You can already make bombs/grenades in your kitchen and kill tens of people with them. Should it be allowed (the making obviously)? By the way why is it that psychopaths nearly always choose guns and almost never bombs when they are out on a killing spree? A bomb is designed to kill many people at once, seems the obvious choice, especially if you are planning to die.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7EZCK-QtBY

That is just ignorant absolutism in response to the intelligent and rational comments by imanikin.

I am Russian, and was born in the Soviet Union. So, i am aware from people who participated in those wars that without American involvement France and other parts of Europe were unlikely to free themselves from the Third Reich. And if they did, they would have been under strong influence of the Soviet Union...

The Americans were even sending a lot of military equipment to the Russian front via Lend-Lease, which helped my people in the beginning of WW2.

The reality is only "more complex" until it was time to call for American heavy airlift, refueling and other military capabilities, which no other nation since the Soviet Union has anymore. Considering the numbers of equipment and soldiers with which the French and other countries were "in" those joint operations, these interventions were impossible without the US military.

Since it was surrounded on all sides by NATO countries, of course, France could afford to be out of NATO, and pretend that it could defend itself if the Soviet Union attacked it any better than when Germany did, for example.

That's exactly what i mean: the US has been more than a hired gun for most of Europe directly, France indirectly, and others; it has provided free defense departments for them. Nothing wrong with mooching off American defense department, if American tax payers are willing... 

Anyhow, the point is: the average citizens of a nation that's willing to do that war after war, decade after decade, are not likely to favor or have a society in which there are really "gun-free zones" and  "guns almost never show up".