Red Mosquito

The question isn't-what has non-violence and peace ever done for this world-the question is what has war done?



you can use that on an individual level.....however, this BS of trading privacy and liberty for security has gotten to a point where the gov't can't be the only institution allowed to have firearms. there are too many cases and examples, some that show the problem is systemic, of individuals or precincts operating outside the law. they're human, (i'm assuming) and subject to all the temptations everybody else is.

So....to ban the gun would be to basically completely surrender to this imperfect authority, made up of imperfect individuals, with the idea that we would have less bloodshed. I'm not so sure i buy that.

fundamentally things must change in the US, as far as how the society operates and the motivation behind labor, before any specific issues can be addressed. Most of the problems we see today can be solved with how we organize ourselves in this society, and crucially what we decide the motivation behind an individual's labor is to be.

The bottom line seems to be that, among developed nations, places with fewer guns have far fewer mass murders and gun deaths. That's a hard stat to work around

stip wrote:The bottom line seems to be that, among developed nations, places with fewer guns have far fewer mass murders and gun deaths. That's a hard stat to work around

And until recently, most of those similarly developed countries didn't have a large racial underclass. Or a significant history of firearm ownership. But otherwise, completely the same thing.

A significant history of firearms ownership explains the proliferation of guns. It's not a refutation of that point.

And racial tensions may explain a motivation behind some violence (I am assuming the majority if gun violence is NOT blacks and whites killing each other), but it also doesn't change the above point. It may be all the more reason to push back against proliferation

how big was gun ownership in australia before they cracked down?

Chud's, you've got my favorite avatar on RM these days.

stip wrote:A significant history of firearms ownership explains the proliferation of guns. It's not a refutation of that point.

And racial tensions may explain a motivation behind some violence (I am assuming the majority if gun violence is NOT blacks and whites killing each other), but it also doesn't change the above point. It may be all the more reason to push back against proliferation

I wasn't trying to get at inter-racial violence, but that the existence of a (seemingly) permanent underclass and a lack of social trust between these distinct groups would tend to there being more violence, less reliance on the state for protection, etc.

simple schoolboy wrote:...and a lack of social trust between these distinct groups would tend to there being more violence...

I think you are edging closer to my view here (but this is just one piece of larger pie that I don't feel like going into here)

The conflation of nationalism with racism (a whole other thread's worth of discussion) has taken the concept of the "melting pot" version of multiculturalism and flipped into a bad thing. People get bucketed by their various intersections, as determined and prioritized by someone other than themselves, and they must uphold the characteristics of that group or they are accused of all sorts of nasty, shameful things. It creates a overwhelming fear of the "other" and this fear causes the groups to feel the need to defend themselves from the "other" and that leads to guns violence because the more guns, the more opportunity for violence (both inter and intra-group). If we were allowed to see ourselves as Americans first, allowed to focus on what we have in common instead being force into distinct "communities", this distrust would slowly evaporate and the fear that drives so many to arm themselves would vanish along side it.

Even taking this as a given (and let's not overstate this as strictly an American thing - Europe has grappled with racial and ethnic tensions while we were still a water route to Asia) these simply explain why Americans may have more violence. They are not arguments against gun control. If anything they enhance the need for it - like how you don't leave sharp knives out for toddlers

How are we going to teach those kids to respect sharp knives, stip?

That's what the public schools are for

Redemption wrote:you can use that on an individual level.....however, this BS of trading privacy and liberty for security has gotten to a point where the gov't can't be the only institution allowed to have firearms. there are too many cases and examples, some that show the problem is systemic, of individuals or precincts operating outside the law. they're human, (i'm assuming) and subject to all the temptations everybody else is.

So....to ban the gun would be to basically completely surrender to this imperfect authority, made up of imperfect individuals, with the idea that we would have less bloodshed. I'm not so sure i buy that.

I find the above highlighted comments incredible, hideous and wretched all at once.

zeb wrote:

Redemption wrote:you can use that on an individual level.....however, this BS of trading privacy and liberty for security has gotten to a point where the gov't can't be the only institution allowed to have firearms. there are too many cases and examples, some that show the problem is systemic, of individuals or precincts operating outside the law. they're human, (i'm assuming) and subject to all the temptations everybody else is.

So....to ban the gun would be to basically completely surrender to this imperfect authority, made up of imperfect individuals, with the idea that we would have less bloodshed. I'm not so sure i buy that.

I find the above highlighted comments incredible, hideous and wretched all at once.

I wholeheartedly agree Zeb.

USA, Motherfuckers!

LetMeSleep wrote:

zeb wrote:

Redemption wrote:you can use that on an individual level.....however, this BS of trading privacy and liberty for security has gotten to a point where the gov't can't be the only institution allowed to have firearms. there are too many cases and examples, some that show the problem is systemic, of individuals or precincts operating outside the law. they're human, (i'm assuming) and subject to all the temptations everybody else is.

So....to ban the gun would be to basically completely surrender to this imperfect authority, made up of imperfect individuals, with the idea that we would have less bloodshed. I'm not so sure i buy that.

I find the above highlighted comments incredible, hideous and wretched all at once.

I wholeheartedly agree Zeb.

I mean this is a pretty fundamental concept to the formation of the Union.

So was slavery. It's important not to reify history. Firearms, the nature of our military, urbanization, the relationship between citizen and state--all of these things have changed dramatically. We've left that world behind us a long long time ago.

zeb wrote:

Redemption wrote:
So....to ban the gun would be to basically completely surrender to this imperfect authority, made up of imperfect individuals, with the idea that we would have less bloodshed. I'm not so sure i buy that.

I find the above highlighted comments incredible, hideous and wretched all at once.

There is also (unless I have this wrong) fairly compelling evidence that the states that do just this HAVE less bloodshed. You don't get to buy that or not buy that. It IS the case. Now you can dispute the causal mechanisms that lead to that result, but not the result itself.

stip wrote:So was slavery. It's important not to reify history. Firearms, the nature of our military, urbanization, the relationship between citizen and state--all of these things have changed dramatically. We've left that world behind us a long long time ago.

I disagree that slavery was a fundamental cornerstone of rights that this nation was based on. It was a divisive, political issue, and for many it was seen as the cost of creating the nation.

But either way I was just pointing out that the ideas that poster found so repugnant are essentially what this nation was founded upon. I don't disagree that times have changed dramatically and that the right to bear arms today isn't really related to that original intention anymore.

4/5 wrote:

LetMeSleep wrote:

zeb wrote:

Redemption wrote:you can use that on an individual level.....however, this BS of trading privacy and liberty for security has gotten to a point where the gov't can't be the only institution allowed to have firearms. there are too many cases and examples, some that show the problem is systemic, of individuals or precincts operating outside the law. they're human, (i'm assuming) and subject to all the temptations everybody else is.

So....to ban the gun would be to basically completely surrender to this imperfect authority, made up of imperfect individuals, with the idea that we would have less bloodshed. I'm not so sure i buy that.

I find the above highlighted comments incredible, hideous and wretched all at once.

I wholeheartedly agree Zeb.

I mean this is a pretty fundamental concept to the formation of the Union.

Who cares?