The right to bear arms

CorporateWhore

JordyWordy wrote:

There are other ways of defending Liberty than through weapons. The idea that individual citizens have "the right to defend their Liberty" sounds dangerously close to "asserting their Liberty over another person" from this conversation....which is not the intention of a right granted under your constitution, and which is not an absolute right either

Defending your liberty against a government which has designs to oppress you.

That is something that the Irish know all too well. You know how the British subdued the Irish so well. They kept all the guns in the armory - for British soldiers. You know how the IRA fought back? Well of course you do. They stormed the British garrisons and stole the guns. That's how you keep a government in check - you point guns at it.

The Irish free state would not have been born but from the use of firearms. The point of an armed citizenry is to ensure that the government does not oppress the people. If it does, it has an armed citizenry to deal with and that's more difficult to deal with than one that is unarmed.

Additionally, you own a weapon because criminals may have designs to take away your freedoms. Your right to life, for instance. The defend that right by shooting a criminal who would kill you.

JordyWordy

i didnt say we dont have guns! i said gangs / drug dealers have guns and so do hunters! huge shipments of guns come into Ireland every year on dinghys, same way drugs get here! theres a gun in my house which was my grandfathers for hunting - but we need adequate storage, proof of purpose, garda checks, licenses, etc etc etc and i dont like having it in the house.

my last paragraph was sarcastic - we're not afraid to go out at night!

if i was unclear i think that there is some value to taking a step back from the rights / constitutional / procedural aspects to the gun issue and looking at societies that do not have a gun culture. thats all.

CorporateWhore

JordyWordy wrote:

but we need adequate storage, proof of purpose, garda checks, licenses, etc etc etc and i dont like having it in the house.

I think I know why you don't like having it in the house. The government is fucking nosey as hell! You have every right to have that gun in your home and to not have a government harrassing you about it. You're not going to kill anybody with it.

Come live in America and we'll let you walk through the streets with that gun.

JordyWordy

wow, most people here feel safer with the political climate within the country (despite the troubles in northern ireland over the past 30-odd years), and the idea of owning a gun to protect myself from a possible oppressive government never once entered my head until you said it! (im lucky to say)

but thats interesting because i didnt know that an american could have feelings that extreme about their government...the US government has far more oppressive power than the irish one does...so maybe thats another reason for the difference.

regarding the irish history you are completely correct about the past BUT the attitude here is that it is in the past - it served a purpose against an oppressive FOREIGN government at the time, but now we are a self-governed neutral republic, so why have armed civilians? leave that to our army. not the same historical background for the use of guns...its not in our constitution either...

JordyWordy

CorporateWhore wrote:

I think I know why you don't like having it in the house. The government is fucking nosey as hell! You have every right to have that gun in your home and to not have a government harrassing you about it. You're not going to kill anybody with it.

Come live in America and we'll let you walk through the streets with that gun.

i have no idea if you're joking! thanks for the invite tho! but ill leave it where it is! i dont like having it because there are young children in my home, and kids will always find whats hidden...it doesnt feel natural to me to have a gun anywhere near a kid

Nothingman54

If nobody had guns, nobody would die by them.

69charger

Nothingman54 wrote:

If nobody had guns, nobody would die by them.

Guns don't kill people...

...bullets do

Collin

CorporateWhore wrote:

If one person had a gun in that Virginia Tech building

One person had a gun, he killed 32 people and wounded 25. he wasn't a criminal when he bought the guns. Just a law-abiding citizen like yourself.

CorporateWhore

Collin wrote:

One person had a gun, he killed 32 people and wounded 25. he wasn't a criminal when he bought the guns. Just a law-abiding citizen like yourself.

He broke the law when he brought the guns on campus.

The fact is, one person with a gun besides the psychotic could've ended the death toll right there. I'll let you be a victim in that type of situation, but suppose a professor had a gun in his desk or suitcase? He'd be a hero.

onelongsong

CorporateWhore wrote:

He broke the law when he brought the guns on campus.

The fact is, one person with a gun besides the psychotic could've ended the death toll right there. I'll let you be a victim in that type of situation, but suppose a professor had a gun in his desk or suitcase? He'd be a hero.

prior to d b cooper; people carried guns on airplanes regularly. there were no hijackings prior. once guns were forbidden; hijackings became a regular part of life. the answer after 9/11 was to put guns on planes. be it pilots or marshalls.

Collin

CorporateWhore wrote:

He broke the law when he brought the guns on campus.

The fact is, one person with a gun besides the psychotic could've ended the death toll right there. I'll let you be a victim in that type of situation, but suppose a professor had a gun in his desk or suitcase? He'd be a hero.

He did break the law when he brought the guns on campus, but so would the professor or anyone else with a gun. So are you saying there should be more guns on campus?

Arctangent

CorporateWhore wrote:

Listening to Europeans talk about gun laws is pretty depressing.

If one person had a gun in that Virginia Tech building, they could have shot the perp. He killed himself immediately when he discovered that people with guns (i.e. the late arriving police who have no responsibility to protect you individually) were entering the building.

When you criminalize guns, only criminals will have guns.

that statement could only be made by someone in a country where guns are legal. does it not occur to you that if guns were illegal then the 'perp' would likely not have had a gun himself and the whole sad incident would never have happened?

when you criminalize guns it makes it very easy to spot who the criminals carrying guns are.

CorporateWhore

Collin wrote:

He did break the law when he brought the guns on campus, but so would the professor or anyone else with a gun. So are you saying there should be more guns on campus?

Look:

If the psycho is willing to kill someone with his guns, he's not too worried about breaking the law to take the guns on campus in the first place.

Therefore, we need to allow weapons on campus for at least professors. Currently there are NO guns allowed on Virginia campuses. We've seen what that results in: the only person with a gun is the psycho who isn't afraid of being caught with a gun on campus.

You think making it illegal to have a gun on campus is keeping criminals from bringing them on campus? Do you really believe that's working?

CorporateWhore

Arctangent wrote:

does it not occur to you that if guns were illegal then the 'perp' would likely not have had a gun himself and the whole sad incident would never have happened?

FALSE FALSE FALSE

2% of legally purchased guns are involved in a crime. That means all other violent crimes are perpetrated by someone with an illegal weapon!! That means that criminalizing guns would have done nothing to stop the perpetrator because they didn't obtain their gun through legal means in the first place!! They got it on the street!!

Arctangent

CorporateWhore wrote:

FALSE FALSE FALSE

2% of legally purchased guns are involved in a crime. That means all other violent crimes are perpetrated by someone with an illegal weapon!! That means that criminalizing guns would have done nothing to stop the perpetrator because they didn't obtain their gun through legal means in the first place!! They got it on the street!!

it was reported in the uk that the guy got his guns from a gun shop.

there are remarkably few deaths in the uk from shooting. 100% of them are due to crminals. if guns were legal in the uk the number of gun deaths would shoot up. i wouldn't trust 90% of the population of this country with a water pistol let alone a real one. you would have people killing their neighbours because they parked in the wrong place.

1970RR

Arctangent wrote:

that statement could only be made by someone in a country where guns are legal. does it not occur to you that if guns were illegal then the 'perp' would likely not have had a gun himself and the whole sad incident would never have happened?

when you criminalize guns it makes it very easy to spot who the criminals carrying guns are.

Yeah, just like making drugs illegal has eliminated that scourge from our society.

Royals32

1970RR wrote:

Yeah, just like making drugs illegal has eliminated that scourge from our society.

If everybody was given the constitutional right to possess and use the drugs that are now illegal, wouldn't there more overdoses and addicts?

1970RR

Royals32 wrote:

If everybody was given the constitutional right to possess and use the drugs that are now illegal, wouldn't there more overdoses and addicts?

Addicts - probably
Overdoses - maybe
I believe that overdoses are directly related to the illegality of the drug. Prohibition creates an environment where the potency of a drug is unknown to the user, which leads to overdoses.

Either way, I prefer people being able to decide on their own what is best for them rather than a police state with the highest incarceration rate in the world.

onelongsong

Arctangent wrote:

that statement could only be made by someone in a country where guns are legal. does it not occur to you that if guns were illegal then the 'perp' would likely not have had a gun himself and the whole sad incident would never have happened?

when you criminalize guns it makes it very easy to spot who the criminals carrying guns are.

dude; if guns were outlawed; only outlaws would have guns. i know the queen disarmed you. if you check your history books; she disarmed you EXACTLY the way hitler disarmed germany. so who has guns in the uk now. CRIMINALS. where there's drugs there's guns. so we know the drug smugglers have guns. being illegal makes a black market for them. so they're easy to sell on the street.
the us has about 150 MILLION legal guns and i imagine just as many illegal guns. i own 30 myself. so using the 150 million guns compared to under 10,000 shooting deaths (which i believe includes police shootings) the percentage of deaths per gun has to be under 1%. my calculator doesn't go past 6 digits but using that percentage; if the uk has 1 shooting death; there must be at least 100,000 guns in the uk.
on the other hand; since the uk banned guns; bombings have increased dramatically. now if you count the deaths from bombings; and project the number of deaths for the bombs found before ignition; the uk would have 4 times as many criminal caused deaths now; as compared to criminal deaths when the population had guns.
since everything you need to make a bomb can be purchased at any garden shop; i'd rather have guns. less than 1% of gunshot wounds are fatal.

onelongsong

1970RR wrote:

Addicts - probably
Overdoses - maybe
I believe that overdoses are directly related to the illegality of the drug. Prohibition creates an environment where the potency of a drug is unknown to the user, which leads to overdoses.

Either way, I prefer people being able to decide on their own what is best for them rather than a police state with the highest incarceration rate in the world.

spot on dude. look at alcohol prohibition. look what happened. my grandfather made a killing making illegal wiskey. why? because it was illegal; everyone wanted it.
now; for those of you with some common sense:
when alcohol was illegal; it created a black market and didn't curb posession; only increased it.
when drugs became illegal; it created a black market and didn't curb posession; only increased it.
the firearms act of 1968 created a black market and didn't curb posession; only increased it.
i was 12 in 1968 and i remember my dad and his friends saying they had to run out and buy some guns before they're made illegal. the threat of a ban caused a jump in sales. prior to the brady ban; i bought all the assault weapons i could afford. after the ban took effect i sold the PRE-BAN assault weapons for 3 to 4 times what i paid for them.
prior to 1968; gun deaths were nil. we were a civilized society and only sportsmen owned guns. when we finally got a tele in the 60's; i would watch shows like the rifleman; gunsmoke; and other westerns. i recall asking my dad why people don't carry guns anymore and he told me we don't need to anymore. but everything changed in 1968. the government created a black market and now we needed a gun for protection.