So you think you know the 2nd Amendment

[redfox]

One of the things I most like about these fora is the wide range of differences in thinking & philosophy. I am a radical feminist & pacifist, who once owned & used a gun. I'm a progressive who loves those who choose to serve in government - I considered a run once myself - with an appreciative streak for libertarians. I'm an anti-capitalist with a serious talent for sales.

I value each & everyone's contributions, even if I shriek "are you KIDDING?!?" out loud when I read it. It's a big country. All of our voices are needed in this national convo. Please keep it up!

PS - a useful tool for thinking:
http://www.systems-thinking.org/loi/loi.htm

[peggy]

These gun control conversations almost always come down to this: bae & others on this forum, a very small number, are reasonable humans but those out there in gun totin' land are crazed jerks.

I don't buy it.

I don't either. The ones here are a bit out there as well, but we are trying to play nice..

[lucas]

I love the fact that so many american really seem to believe gun ownership 'protects them from the government'... that's hilarious...

[bae]

I don't either. The ones here are a bit out there as well, but we are trying to play nice..

I just sent the NRA $20,000 for you, Peggy. I hope it brings you many happy returns.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I love the fact that so many american really seem to believe gun ownership 'protects them from the government'... that's hilarious...

I am an American, yea I really and truly am, a real American, even have the birth certificate , and I believe no such thing, nor do many of us. I find the idea ridiculous. The government is just too well armed, and with more than just guns, it is the single largest armed force the world has ever known (and people wonder why we are always at war, maybe that's the inevitability of that ... of just having that kind of massive armed force ) I can't imagine any arsenal competing, and it grows better armed all the time (we just keep being so eager to finance that afterall). Anyone who worries about having to overthrow the government should at least be consistent and want to gut the defense department (um just basic sense here, you don't empower that which you might want to overthrow).

Ok but thinking through the idea ... guns protecting you from government ... hypotheticals. Suppose the government is a SWAT team unjustly breaking into your house (you haven't done anything but they think you are dealing drugs or something) and opening fire or something (these types of raids have happened, mostly to minorities). Well you might have a chance against that but you are still probably outgunned (and they are well dressed for just such an encounter) and what will you gain for that self-defense anyway, probably lifetime imprisonment! Authority protects itself, the courts mostly protect authority. But that's one SWAT team, the whole government being overthrown is absurd, thats tanks, and missles and drones (though non-government can build those) and nuclear weapons (um you don't want non-government building those!) ....

But we do need a revolution in this country, the utter and complete corruption of the political process is just something I see no way out of at this point (money out of politics might help some, but I see no way to even get that). But a violent revolution is unlikely to work like I said (short of a military coup maybe and I'm not sure that's an improvement). And the country is too divided politicaly to even make mass non-violent resistence work, people wouldn't even agree on the problems (at least yet). So I guess for now we will be ruled by utterly corrupt plutocratic oligarchs who care nothing about our lives (they really don't, they'd happily watch us die, in fact they often happily kill, riches are all that matter), life as such, or even the future of the planet.

[bunnys]

These people are mentally ill, and it's time decent intelligent people called them out as such.

No, they're not mentally ill but those who feel it's necessary to build their own personal arsenal to prepare to fight the US Government are not committed to the public good.

The public good requires that we buy into the compact we have made with our government to participate in it and give those running the country the benefit of the doubt when making decisions about how to govern. Those committed to the 235+ year old US democratic government participate in it and when they don't agree with how it's operating, work within its established parameters to change what they don't like. They don't establish an armed camp, ready to engage in warfare with the government. Those people who don't buy into this compact should actually not live in this country. They should go to some desert island somewhere and establish a government based on what they believe. For our government to work, the citizenry has to buy into the idea that it will work and if it currently isn't, it's been designed that it can be fixed without resorting to civil war.

Additionally, those who are establishing their own armed compounds are utterly deluding themselves if they think for one minute they can keep the US military out. It's preposterous thinking but it's not mentally ill.

Bae: Mentally ill people are not less than human. They're ill.

[Gregg]

But those who collect numerous lethal weapons, who take time to research every gun-supporting quote on the internet, who lobby for the right to have more and more weapons, all they might desire, no matter their killing capacity, no matter the fact that they already have more than enough firepower in the closet to kill a hundred invaders?

These people are mentally ill, and it's time decent intelligent people called them out as such.

Does it take a historical scholar to see this?

For some perspective... I once knew (of) a group of educated, articulate men. Natural leaders who were admired and respected. Between them they directed their flocks to design and build enough firepower to destroy the world 20 times over. Amassing the capability to murder 140 billion people when we only have seven billion living on the planet should probably cause sanity to be questioned.

I probably have enough food in my house to last my family a year with very few stops at the grocery store. I see possible disruptions to the food supply chain from natural disasters, peak oil, labor strikes, terrorist activity, economic collapse (the country's or my own), etc. I think all those and more are possible, but none are likely. It makes me feel like I will be able to provide for my family even in the face of some pretty extreme events. Am I compensating for some other shortcoming? Probably, but you'd have to ask a shrink to know for sure. Am I mentally ill because I want to be prepared for something that in all likelihood will never happen? I don't think I am. Is anybody else harmed by me having a large collection of canned goods?

We live in Nebraska where tornadoes are fairly common. We have a storm shelter even though the chance of our house actually being directly hit by a tornado is only a little better than my chance of winning the Power Ball jackpot. Am I mentally ill or prudent because I'm prepared even if it never happens? When a violent storm is baring down on us do you think my neighbor, who has no shelter, will simply sit in her kitchen and watch her house be destroyed or will she run next door and take shelter? When she comes running to my house do you suppose she will tell me how crazy I was for spending extra money to build our shelter or will she think it was a pretty good idea? Is anyone harmed by it's presence even if we never use that shelter?

I knew a man who collected instruments of torture. He found them fascinating. I know another person who was arrested for the most alarming collection of child pornography imaginable. A family member loves to salivate over the bloodiest battles in history, as though the only thing that happened on those fields was brilliant strategy. These people share a common trait with gun fanatics: they are able to completely see past the immense human suffering caused by the object of their love and affection, as though it simply doesn't exist. That breed of human is simply scary to me {shrug}

To be honest pug what scares me is the personification of these objects. The "immense human suffering" was caused by other humans. Unless it just happens to randomly fall on your head, no object has, by itself, ever caused suffering. ANY object has the potential to cause suffering if used to that end by someone with that intent, but none can do it on their own.

The comparison between child pornographers and gun owners is offensive. We all have our filters and mine tells me anyone who would use children in this way is a monster, but to apply that to someone even if they are "fanatic" about guns is wrong. The others in your example may be a bit macabre, but do they hurt anyone? Should we have the right to stop someone in their (perfectly legal) pursuit of happiness just because we find what they're doing icky? Is a guy with 1,000 guns in his closet a monster even if he has never and will never use one against anyone? What about a guy with 1,000 hammers? Or 1,000 books? The monsters are people that will harm others without cause or remorse. They are no more significantly represented among gun owners than they are among any other group you would care to name.

[Alan]

I love the fact that so many american really seem to believe gun ownership 'protects them from the government'... that's hilarious...

I agree that the idea of protection from government is an out-dated concept, although reminding the government that the people have a right to self protection and self determination, rights that the government itself used to acknowledge, is a very good thing.

[Gregg]

I love the fact that so many american really seem to believe gun ownership 'protects them from the government'... that's hilarious...

I agree with Alan regarding the practicality of citizens standing up against the government (think about it), but if the government doesn't see some kind of merit in that notion why is there so much emphasis put on tracking citizen's ownership of guns? Who owns what is no predictor of impending crime and once a crime has been committed does it really matter where a gun came from? Is there really any significant chance that will be determined in most cases?

[bae]

... They don't establish an armed camp, ready to engage in warfare with the government. ....

The nutball militia/sovereign citizen movement - what percentage of American gunowners belong, and have armed camps? (Hint, it's about 0%. I rounded down from 0.038%, and I didn't sift for the "have armed camp" requirement) And of those, how many of them are capable of any effective action? Let's round down to 0% again, especially since the data indicates that about 20% of their membership are FBI folks keeping an eye on things...

Is it reasonable to develop public policy that restricts and punishes the actions of 99.nn% of polite, law-abiding, contributing citizens in order to attempt to influence the actions of a miniscule minority? A minority that won't bother obeying any of these sorts of laws anyways? A minority that could simply produce what they want in their own workshops trivially?

I mean, heck, I have a machine shop here, and I could make just about anything I want in an afternoon or two. If I dropped ~$5k on some nice 3D printing technology, I could sit back and let my iPad do all the work even. If I were ambitious, I could build the 3D printer myself for a few hundred dollars. But that's overkill, you can make an AR-15 receiver out of a block of decent hardwood or plywood. Or an AK-47 receiver out of an old shovel, using only simple hand tools. Good thing I'm a happy member of society, eh?

And if I weren't, given my extensive engineering background, I wouldn't worry too much about me using a gun... You better start registering people with engineering and science degrees.