VA. Tech-- a PC liberal/rightwing joint venture?

[chiggerbit]

Look, I'll admit that I own a gun, and I'm thinking about buying another one, one that's easier to carry around down in the gully.

But I live in a big deer-hunting area of the Midwest, I mean BIG. And every year all these idiots are out there dying to make their kill. And every year one of those idiots shoots someone, usually in their party, often a family member, all too often their own child. Now, a lot of these hunters come out from the cities, and a lot of them city slickers are responsible for the accidents, but not all. Hell, one idiot in Wisconsin shot a woman in her backyard, who was a few yards from her house hanging out the clothes on the line, thinking she was a deer. Every single hunting season--and there a a lot of them here, turkey, deer, whatever--I wear orange on my own property because you just can't trust these creeps to respect property rights. Most of those responsible for shooting others are experienced hunters, but they get buck fever, lose their common sense.

I have a feeling that those who feel strongest about gun rights are just drooling over an opportunity to kill someone, be a hero. I don't think that can be said about the local hunters, but people die anyway. Problem is that I don't trust them to keep their heads. For every life that might be saved because a gun-toter was present would most likely be out-weighed by the idiot accidents and the ragers. And I imagine that women are the biggest losers when it comes to gun toters. But what it boils down to for me is that I just don't trust the idiots.

[Sweejak]

Banning all guns would be fine with me, as long as it is 100% across the board and nobody, including governments, can have one. Id certinaly love to see that. I dont particularly like guns but they are an important part of sustaining any notion of real freedom against tyranny. Bottom line.

To assume we can ban all guns is utopian, it makes great literary fiction but it is not reality.

Lets add nukes to the list.

Right, I think it's rather like trying to ban fire.
And, my take on the 2nd amendment is that it is there precisely to resist government. Forget about the hunting defense!

I'd love to ask the student survivors what they think and I wonder what the parents would think if they knew their kids were hiding in lockdown in a killing zone. Don't even try to tell me they wouldn't hope someone had a gun while the college was typing emails and the police were apparently hiding behind trees.

On the other hand I think that there is something wrong in US culture and that glorifies 'gun culture' but, frankly given the situation I understand that along with freedom comes abuse of freedom. It's a price I'm willing to pay.

The Swiss system has often been held up as an alternative example. Indeed, isn't that the system that the founders used? It's a good one. Things may have changed now, but they had more firing ranges per capita than anyone, they were given real "assault guns" ie fully automatic weapons, they took them home, they were expected to have them at the ready, know how to use them and be qualified.

About the VTech massacre, if emotions and sociological agendas are taken out of it it's clear that if the students were armed this would probably never have happened and if it did it would have been over soon.

Meanwhile given the gun culture we live in I think it would be reasonable to teach the consequences of using guns and how to use them in schools.

[MASONIC PLOT]

That is an important point, CHIG. Alot of pro gun advocates who pack heat wherever they go are trigger happy and just itching to take someone out and be the hero of the moment. That is absolutely NOT the way one should be thinking when it comes to guns. Guns are an absolute last resort and should only be used to save your life or the life of another if either life is being directly threatened with deadly force.

I own guns and I know how to use my guns. Ive been trained properly and I take them quite serious. I hope and pray I never have to use them for any reason other than target practice.

I used to be a hunter but I no longer get any thrills from killing animals and gave that up years ago.

SWEEJAK, you make excellent points and I appreciate your view on the matter. Make no mistake, I agree with you.

[Sweejak]

So Chigger, who should own guns?

I'm in a big gun rights state and a big deer hunting state. Last thing I shot was my TV (bullseye) so I don't follow the MSM on hunting accidents, but I don't think there are a lot of them.

Everyone out here has guns. There is almost never an incident. Kids are trained to use them, how to clean them etc.
Weapons have been brandished at robbers and drug addled psychos but I haven't heard of them being fired.

[MASONIC PLOT]

SWEEJAK you must be in Arizona, like me. LOL

[Sweejak]

Nah, the Republic of Texas LOL.

BTW I agreed with your take in the latest 9-11 thread... only read it last night.

[yathrib]

Just to be clear: I favor the right of people to own and shoot guns, insofar as it's consistent with public safety. That means gun ownership should be at least as regulated as the right to own and drive cars. But this whole idea of guns as a kind of panacea is pretty darned offensive, and typical of the libertarian/conservative mentality, i.e. that people are incapable of being moral, kind and courteous unless they're afraid of being shot. *I'm* not like that. Nobody I know is like that. People who *are* like that are eventually going to be a liability to society anyway, no matter how many armed people are around.

[rothbardian]

A few people here are making some good args I agree with. I'm a little surprised to see some fairly strong libertarian-type sentiments being expressed. That's encouraging. I believe that inside every intellectually honest lib or con...there is a libertarian struggling to get out. (Very presumptuous of me, I know.)

Anyway..to address a few comments from OccultMH--

You stated-- "...views don't kill people. People kill people." That is incorrect. Certain views do have deadly consequences. There is the old saying-- "Ideas have consequences."

Because the FoxNews worldview has prevailed with many Americans, there is massive bloodshed going on in Iraq. The contest of ideas is a life-and-death struggle. If it isn't...why are you bothering to forward your ideas here? That's a contradiction.

You also state-- "the potential for "isolated incidents" becomes more widespread when everyone has a gun."

That is precisely wrong. The potential for restraint becomes more widespread. If the occasional crazy person is inclined to go on a shooting spree, he'll be greatly calmed by the prospect of facing a host of other armed individuals. For example, I've seen a lot of people with severe anger and abuse issues who, when they encounter someone twice or thrice their size, become very amiable and cooperative. Gee, what a miracle.

There is a saying-- "A gun-toting society is a polite society." Switzerland is an example-- There are multiple weapons in every Swiss household...and the crime of murder is virtually non-existent. (The entire male population of Switzerland constitutes a militia.)

And your argument that all 9000 students at VA. Tech needed to be armed in order to prevent the massacre...is absurd.

yathrib (on edit)--

"Guns as a panacea" is a straw man. What is really illogical is the idea that people wearing blue hats have magical moral superiority. Whatever rights they have...I should have.

[Sweejak]

Look at it this way, there IS a massively armed predator among us, one who takes our children, our money, lies, cheats and steals.

[chiggerbit]

Sweejak asked:

So Chigger, who should own guns?

I really don't know, Sweejak. Kids are trained around here, too. It's a very rural area, with a county population of under 8000. Guns are useful, even needed. Sometimes these locally-trained people accidentally kill their kids during hunting season. But, there's a big difference between owning a gun and using it on your own property, and packing a gun. Maybe police-quality training would help. But that still wouldn't filter out the ragers, domestic abusers. We don't seem to hear much about the domestic abuse gun-toting murderers. I guess they're not very...important. Nor are the drive-by or road-rage shootings. Remember that gal who shot another gal on the freeway because she didn't like the other's driving? Wow! Oh, well, ~not my problem~

[Sweejak]

I think we can all agree that education is a good way to start on the problem, assuming of course that we agree there is a problem, and as you point out I think there is.

I didn't own a gun in the city. Too many walls to hit, too much likelihood for an accident. I'd probably own one now though.

I think there ought to be, like driver's ed, an easy way to get training about the consequences of gun use. Call it 2nd amendment class. Can you hear the outrage from the "left' that such an unusual and sensible (IMO) proposition would make, or is that my imagination.

[erosoplier]

erosoplier--

You also are dodging the simple points I have made, AND erecting some ridiculous 'straw men' in the process.

I simply want freedom. And I see utter presumption and illogic in the idea of one human (or group of humans) declaring that the other humans may not have the right to self-defense.

I see presumption and illogic in your attitude, roth.

Presumption - that guns are a legitimate, civilized form of "self-defense."

And, to live in a world free of guns is an order of magnitude more "freedom" than to live in a world where everyone is free to own guns. To give one person (or group of people) access to guns is to reduce the freedom of all other people. This bit you have right. But to then give everyone access to guns, it follows, is to multiply the reduction of freedom caused by guns. There is no logic in giving everybody the right to reduce everyone else's freedom.

[rothbardian]

What in the world.

If someone comes after me or my family with a gun (or other deadly force)...then my gun becomes a "legitimate, civilized form of self-defense". How would it not be? That is astoundingly nonsensical.

And there is no such thing as "a world free of guns". Therefore, if all the 'good' people cooperatively give up their guns in a quest for a gun-free world...only the 'bad people' will still have guns. Your idea is utterly unworkable, and worse than that...it is dangerously and foolishly murderous, in it's net effect. You see the results over there at VA Tech--the 'cooperative' folks had no guns..the uncooperative guy didn't go along with the program.

You talk about whether or not "we" should "give everyone access to guns". Somehow you are overlooking a gigantic point--Who is "we"? It requires a coercive (governmental) power monopolyto impose a virtual gun ban on law-abiding people. But Power Monopolists have been the very culprits who have driven our world to the brink of the abyss.

And that is precisely my point--PC libs love power monopolists. PC libs (and cons) adore, support, fawn over...power monopolists. (Who is the 'flavor of the month' wannabe--Obama?) PC libs are paving the way for the world's (invariably evil) power monopolists. VA Tech is a PC lib/"power monopolist" joint venture.

[erosoplier]

Why tolerate a world where it is even remotely likely that someone may come after you or your family with a gun or other deadly force? Why adapt permanently to such a world? Why not do what is necessary to (as peacefully as possible) make such a world extinct instead?

The world has survived for most of its history without guns - it's only been for the blink of an eye that guns have been present. And I think the life cycle of the gun is nearing its finish. Gun culture - weapon culture - is running out of suitable habitat. It will either lead to species die-off, or the species will evolve away from it. Weapons have helped define what humans are, we evolved with them in our hand after all, but we're at a fork in the road - if we keep the weapons, and the corresponding attitude, we sure as hell are gonna need them.

Don't get me wrong - if I felt threatened, and guns were prevalent where I lived, I dare say I'd want a gun too. But not feeling threatened and not living in a place where guns are prevalent at least gives me some perspective on the problem, and the way I see it everyone would be better off if there were no guns. So simple! I don't want anyone in particular to be the first to give up their guns - it's far more important that we kill off the "defense" industries of the world. But kissing privately owned weapons goodbye is all part of the same philosophy.

Yet where is the will to do anything like this going to come from?

There's going to be a "coercive (governmental) power monopoly" whether we like it or not for the forseeable future. We're already waist-deep in a pond full of rules and regulations, and the sheer number of us means rules aren't going to go out of style any time soon. The question is do we attempt to put a human face on that power? Do we attempt to make the government do what we think is best? Or, driven by ideology - "libertarian" ideology or some other kind - do we fail to see any advantage to be gained in joining together - in forming a "we" - and enforcing rules which make life better for us all?

[orz]

we should go back to swords.