Melissa Chen - There is simply no other country on earth that...
Davin Chee: What happens when guns are banned is not merely "the bad guys get guns" -- what happens when guns are banned is that the government retains their right to have guns, and their citizens are left completely hapless against any form of tyranny.
Bans are not magic, and there's is no magic bullet to solve this problem.
Joshua Insel: Try using a gun against tanks and drones.
Me: There is no magic bullet, but fewer bullets sure will help
NRA: "We need more guns!"
"We need even more guns!"
"More guns!"
"Why does this keep happening?"
Davin Chee: Anyway, I'm afraid that many here are missing the point - I'm not advocating for MORE guns - who is?
I'm saying that citizens having the right to properly arm themselves (which may or may not result in more guns) would lead to better outcomes to all. It's the right to self-defense I'm concerned about, not the amount of guns per se.
Brenan Nierman: That is a stupid argument that, taken to its logical conclusion, would entitle every citizen to an atomic bomb or, at the very least, a tank.
What happened to Original Intent?
Then anyone who wanted a flintlock could have one.
Jackson Piper: No amount of American citizens possessing any arsenal of weapons is going to make the American public an effective fighting force in the event that the government becomes totalitarian. The idea that citizen militias could fend of the government is ludicrous, and has been for quite some time - in fact, despite the mythologizing of the militias in the American Revolution, it was the regular army and the aid provided by France that won the war for us, not Johnny Tremain.
Chris Tunstall: What is it with gun nuts and their paranoia about the government coming to get them?
Davin Chee: Brenan Nierman I'm of the opinion that any citizen should have the right to own an atomic bomb/tank assuming that it does not pose a threat to anyone else's property except theirs. Possessing a gun is one thing - possessing a gun and pointing it at your neighbour's house; that's another.
Besides, why the double standard? Why is government allowed to own weapons of mass destruction but private citizens aren't? Is the government somehow beyond the law?
Me: If I take $100 from your wallet and threaten to lock you in a room if you say no, it's extortion
If the government takes $100 from your wallet and threatens to lock you in a room if you say no, it's taxation
This is only a double standard to a libertarian
Brenan Nierman: I think we dealt with that back in high school when we studied what the role of government is.
It’s kind of different from a private citizen.
J Leighton Leach: You said that the Second is an anti-tyranny mechanism, which is inane.
Apart from insinuating that the engineers of the Constitution actually intentionally included a self-destruct button into their painstakingly crafted system of government, you've implied that a loose-knit, paunchy army of Jasons and Travises could remotely expect to outfight the United States Armed forces, or even their local SWATs, or even a flock of drones.
Davin Chee: Gabriel Seah I don't get what you're trying to say. Both are morally abhorrent.
Brenan Nierman Right, and they're different because of magic. I get it! :P Only private citizens have to be accountable to the law. Government, which sets these laws, doesn't have to be.
Zubin Madon: Govts have been toppled in many countries by mass movements without using automatic weapons. That's the silliest excuse to allow guns. Countries with strict gun control have minuscule amounts of gun-related deaths compared to the US. That's a very plain fact. It's amazing how gun nuts can't see that.
Brenan Nierman: When private citizens elect the government and give it certain powers, this is normally what one expects.
If a guy flying under the radar can do this with an automatic — which in your universe you’d think him perfectly fine in having one or seventeen — just think what he’d do with an atomic bomb!
And if he’s some religious nutcase who thinks his pathetic deity will reward him for killing all the Jews and infidels he can, hey! In your universe, that’s just too bad!
Politics and statecraft are about real people, grown up people, making decisions that are, often, compromises at best with the rigid ideologies that read so well in books.
I advise a deep immersion in THE FEDERALIST PAPERS, DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO, Aristotle’s POLITICS, Locke’s SECOND TREATISE, Hobbes’s LEVIATHAN, Rousseau’s THE SOCIAL CONTRACT and the writings of Jefferson and Lincoln.
And then read Ayn Rand and see how she measures up against the big boys.
Here’s a clue: she doesn’t.
