🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <369b71c7.69035460@news.dimensional.com>,
Scott Weiser <weiser@dimensional.com> wrote:
>On 12 Jan 1999 02:28:47 -0700, mackys@dim.com (Ben Cantrick) wrote:
>>>With no Second Amendment, there's nothing to stop them from slowly
>>>deleting the rest.
>>
>>  Pah. If that's truly the case, then put your money where your mouth is
>>and lead an armed revolution now. You're crossing into gun nut territory
>>here saying that guns are the first, last and only recourse to any problem.
>>Ever hear of "soap box, ballot box, jury box, ammo box - use in that order"?
>>Seems like a lot of gun nuts want to use the ammo box first. As often as
>>they quote the founders, they seem to forget that the founders put not
>>only the second amendment in the constitution but also a bunch of stuff
>>about due process and redress of grievances. Stuff that seems to work
>>pretty well, most of the time. We're a young nation yet, but I predict
>>that if we last a good long time, it's going to be because we managed
>>to form a system of government that encourages non-violent ways to
>>solve problems.
>
>Non sequitur. Nobody said it's necessary to resort to arms yet.
>
>The statement was that the gradual erosion of the RKBA, resulting in
>an emasculated right exercised only under the strict scrutiny of the
>government, which then has the information and tools to confiscate
>firearms poses a grave danger of removing the ultimate tool of
>government control.   The Framers knew that a disarmed populace would
>be *incapable* of putting a leash on government, so it stringently
>protected the right of the people to always have sufficient arms
>available to put down a tyrant.

  Even if the second amendment is compromised, there will always be
people who own guns. Certanly in sufficient numbers to overthrow a
tyrannical government they aren't propogandized into liking. I'm
not worried about those scenarios.

>Nobody has even mentioned that it's time to resort to the ammo box,
>and what we are doing in this thread is precisely what you suggest, we
>are banding together to sway political opinion to secure our RKBA.
>Stating that the elimination of the RKBA is dangerous to *all*
>liberties is absolutely true, but says nothing about armed
>intervention.

  Yes, I agree that having an armed populace is a great way to keep
the government in check, which is why I'm not opposed to private
ownership of firearms.

>>  No, you give other people too little credit, as usual. We may not agree
>>with your opinions, but there are people out there who have thought well
>>through their beliefs and believe them for rational rather than dogmatic
>>reasons. And I don't care when some religious nuts claim the ultimate savior
>>of mankind (ha!) was born - I'll just take any excuse to go party that I can.
>
>No decision to ban firearms for "life and liberty" reasons can
>possibly be rational, because history has proven time and time again
>that when governments collect the guns, tyranny is not far behind.
>Such decisions to ban firearms are usually made out of irrational
>*fear* of firearms and a short-sighted, self-indulgent and ignorant
>agenda which denies the greater harms which inevitably result from the
>confiscation of private arms.

  You know Scott, you've got to get over thinking I'm a gun-banner.
It just isn't true. The two target pistols in my closet should be
enough testimony to that.

>>>I know, you've been propagandized badly. It takes the recognition of the
>>>fact that gun ban and control laws only take liberty from the already law
>>>abiding. By definition, criminals don't obey laws. They don't care. They
>>>don't have to.
>>
>>  Har! Here we are again with the "You don't agree with me, so you must be
>>stupid or brainwashed." I know criminals don't obey laws, but let me repeat
>>my mantra: That doesn't mean laws prohibiting criminal behavior shouldn't
>>be passed.
>
>You miss the point.   Gun control laws have nothing to do with
>prohibiting criminal behavior, they have only to do with prohibiting
>law-abiding citizens from owning firearms.   Criminals by their nature
>don't obey such laws, and thus the only guns which will be collected
>will be the ones belonging to law-abiding citizens...not the
>criminals.

  Au contrair, I think that passing extremely rigid gun control laws
will reduce the number of criminals using guns. I don't favor this
solution, but I do think it would work. I also think that pulling a
Switzerland and mandating that everyone own a full-auto rifle would
reduce gun violence, but I'm not in favor of that approach either.

>Possessing a gun is *not* "criminal behavior", and you're trying to
>conflate two issues.  Nobody is suggesting that laws which *regulate
>firearms use* are not appropriate.....it's perfectly reasonable to
>have a law saying that you can't target shoot on the Mall....but what
>we are talking about when we say "gun control" is the "control of the
>supply and possession of firearms by otherwise law abiding citizens.",
>nothing more.

  Except if they're underage or mentally ill, yeah? Break on this one,
you want _some_ gun control that is not based on conduct alone. You
just disagree about how much and what kind.

>>>> Even if these classes you're talking were offered free, there
>>>>will always be the people who claim they're too busy, or those whose
>>>>ego makes them think they already know how to safely handle a gun despite
>>>>evidence to the contrary. These "ignoramouses" and "cowboys" are exactly
>>>>the ones who need training to educate them. So unfortunately we have to
>>>>dictate that everyone take classes just to catch the idiots. It's stupid,
>>>>but I can't think of any better way.
>>>
>>>Most authoritarians can't. :)
>>
>>  Well, I'm open to suggestions. If you think you have a better way, do tell.
>
>It's quite simple, we do with them as we do with all people in all
>activities, we dictate the boundaries of proper behavior and we punish
>those who contravene those rules.    

  That would be fine if we weren't literally dealing with matter of
life and death here.

>>  Just as an example, let's consider the following situation... Why don't
>>we have my little brother live at your house for a year. We'll give him a
>>Glock, something in double-action with a 15 round magazine. He'll keep it
>>under his pillow. You and anyone else won't be allowed to train him in the
>>proper use, storage, or even the most elementary safety precautions
>>related to firearms. What do you think of that scenario? Sound a little
>>dangerous?
>
>How old is your little brother? 

  Who cares? He's either competent or not. Drawing an arbitrary line and
saying "okay, those of you older than this age are magically capable of
handing firearms safely, and those of you under this age couldn't
possibly know how to handle a gun safely" is exactly the kind of dumb
logic that I'm trying to fight against. I didn't magically become more
responsible overnight when I turned 21, yet for some reason the bartender
seemed to think that I was more qualified to drink on the day after my
birthday. Again, "this is Chewbacca."

>If he's of legal age to possess a Glock, then he has a *Constitutional
>right* to do so

  Okay, check me here - someone has a constitutional right to unduly
endanger others?

>which may not be infringed just because YOU don't believe he's responsible
>enough to exercise it.

  Uh, pardon me, but who besides my dad and mom is more qualified to
sit in judgement of my little brother? If I, say, knew he was violent
and impulsive and hated people and had repeatedly made death threats,
would you still insist he has a right to own a gun? That's just nuts,
Scott. You're throwing out the baby with the bath water.

>That's the nature of rights, we don't exercise prior restraint, we
>*presume* that a person of proper age is "qualified" to exercise those
> rights. We *do not* condition his exercise of those fundamental rights
> on the passing of some test.

  I never suggested a test, I suggested training. Can you see the
difference?

>The reason we do not do so is because such a system denies the existence
>of rights, and it poses a grave danger of improper infringement of those
>rights by a government which sets the standards under which one can pass
>the test.

  Here we are back to the bullet-box argument.

>In the case of guns, if we establish a test one must pass before
>owning a gun, we acknowledge the authority of the government to
>dictate the *conditions* of that test, and we subordinate the right to
>the whim and caprice of the government, which can decide that the
>standard will be an impossibly high one which no person can meet, thus
>denying the exercise of the right entirely.  Or, the government can
>make the taking of the test so inconvienent as to create a defacto
>denial of the right, which is *precisely* the case in Chicago and New
>York City, where in the former case, to apply for a permit to own
>*any* handgun, you must use a particular city form, no substitutions
>allowed, which they *refuse to print and provide to applicants*, thus
>denying the RKBA by bureaucratic fiat.   In NYC, they'll give you the
>form, but you have to take a class, that's offered once a year, to a
>maximum of 35 people or so in each class.

  As usual, I'll say that even though bad laws are created doesn't
mean that no laws should be created. And also that NYC is obviously
violating the second amendment and needs to be taken to the supreme court.

>We're not paranoid, we have *reams* of such evidence of the deliberate
>misuse of government authority to deny and seize guns from law-abiding
>citizens.   In New Jersey, an "assault weapons" registration law was
>passed on the solemn promise that the registration files would *never*
>be used to confiscate the registered arms, but barely 3 years later,
>the law was changed to an outright ban and the State Police went door
>to door with their registration list and collected them.

  Well, go grab your rifle and overthrow the government than. As usual,
the fact that bad laws get passed doesn't mean no laws should be passed.
It means that bad laws need to be repealed and new, correct ones put in
their place. As with the Colorado CC law that started this whole thread.

>With the oft-proven agenda of governments to abuse their powers in
>mind, it's perfectly reasonable of us to desire to simply *deny*
>government the authority to intervene *at all* in the lawful
>possession of firearms.

  Now this is an interesting sentence... the government, who makes
the laws that determine who may and may not own guns, is not allowed
to intervene at all in the "lawful" posession of firearms. Hm.

>And if your brother *misuses* his right, then he will pay the very,
>very harsh penalties for doing so, which is the way it's supposed to
>work.

  Yeah, _after_ he's already irrevocably taken away one or more lives.
It's too late at that point.

>>  So how come you advocate people who have the same gun safety knowledge
>>as my little brother being able to carry a gun, concealed, on the street?
>
>Because we don't presume to know what the knowledge of another is when
>it comes to gun safety, and we *do* presume that they will carry and
>use them safely, because that's what the law requires.  If they fail
>in that duty, then we will punish them.

  Right, _after_ it's already too late. We're back to the ounce of
prevention pound of cure argument. You think it's unreasonable to
assume that there are idiots out there and require training. I think
it's unreasonable NOT to assume there are idiots out there and NOT
require training. Frankly, I think you need to work in retail for a
year or two...

>>To quote South Park... "This... is Chewbacca! This... does not make sense!"
>>
>>  If there's any logic at all to your position besides repetition of the
>>statement "people should be able to do whatever they want even if it
>>endangers others," please tell me what it is. Even free speech is not
>>allowed if it unduly endangers other people.
>
>Correct, but you make the mistaken presumption that the mere
>possession of a firearm by someone not "certified safe" by the
>government is "unduly dangerous."

  I think that in general, posession in public of someone who has
not had training in the safe carry and use of a firearm is dangerous.
Is that an unreasonable assumption? Or are we all born knowing how to
handle guns safely?

>This is not the case, as is demonstrated by history. There are 70 million
>guns in private ownership in the US, and only a small fraction of those
>are *ever* used improperly, with the vast majority of those improper uses
>being done by *criminals*, and an even smaller number (which grows smaller
>every year thanks to the NRA) are used improperly by non-criminal
>citizens (ie: accidents or negligent conduct).

  Okay, and how many of those 70 million are carried by untrained
people, concealed, in public. And what percentage of THEM do the
negligent discharge thing?

>This conflation of the "possession" of firearms being equal to "public
>endangerment" is one of HCI's BIG LIES, and the facts simply don't
>bear it out.   The vast majority of gun owners handle their guns in
>perfect safety their whole lives, and thus there is no legitimate
>basis for a presumption of danger when it comes to lawful firearms
>possession.

  In one's own home, perhaps not. (Though that idiot who put a bullet
through his apartment wall and into his neighbor's skull certanly
gives one pause.) In public, and without safety training, that's not
the case.

>More people misuse their *bathtubs* every year than misuse firearms.
>
>More people misuse their *trampolines* every year than misuse
>firearms.
>
>More people misuse their *smoke detectors* every year than misuse
>firearms.
>
>This list goes on and on.
>
>And yet I don't see you calling for "training classes" and "licenses"
>for bathtubs, trampolines and smoke detectors.   Why is that?

  Because in general, people who misuse their bathtubs, trampolines and
smoke detectors can only harm themselves. And I believe that people should
be able to harm themselves by their own stupidity. But they may not harm
the rest of us.

>The specious argument that people need to be "tested" before they can
>safely exercise their RKBA is based in an unrealistic and utterly
>irrational fear of firearms, which is fostered and created by the
>liberal media and anti-gun zealots such as HCI, and the argument has
>NO BASIS IN FACT.   None whatsoever.

  No, I don't want a test. I don't want a license. I don't care about
those things. What I want is training. That simple. And that is not at all
an unreasonable request, IMO.


  But, we've been over all this before. There's no point. I don't see
the logic in your viewpoint and you don't see the logic in mine. I'm
done with this thread. I've wasted too much bandwidth already.


          -Ben
-- 
Ben Cantrick (mackys@dim.com)        |     Yes, the BGC dubs still suck.
BGC Nukem:     http://www.dim.com/~mackys/bgcnukem.html
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"Sometimes you bake the brownies, and sometimes the brownies bake you. ;]" -CJA