The logic required to connect cause with effect is nearing extinction in the human species, and those of us who still possess that capacity risk ostracization, incarceration, and ultimately elimination for threatening the collective psychosis. A risk well-worth taking, I might add.
The logic required to connect cause with effect is nearing extinction in the human species, and those of us who still possess that capacity risk ostracization, incarceration, and ultimately elimination for threatening the collective psychosis. A risk well-worth taking, I might add.
I dunno. Suppose I ride my bicycle down to the bar, drink 14 shots of tequila and a 6 pack of cheap bear, then start to ride home, and crash into a ditch. Now who's fault was that crash? It's the bicycle's fault, obviously!
How widespread this is, I don't know, but the link cites Pennsylvania as an example of a state where if a bartender lets you get sh*tfaced and then you proceed to ride your bike into a ditch and crack your skull, you could come after the bartender for damages caused entirely by your own stupidity.
Sweden too, but you (the drinker) wouldn't get any damages in your example.
Instead, you would lose your driver's license (for your car) for riding a bike while drunk, the logic being that anyone mature enough to have a license should know better. Also, the pub could lose it's license to serve alcohol, and it's license to have late opening hours (we have licenses and certificates for things you wouldn't believe - 12 different ones for chainsaws f.e.).
In fact, in Stockholm, the pub can lose it's license if it allows its patrons to be "too merry", especially if they are singing at the table. Or if they allow a patron who ordered at the bar to carry their beers to their table. Or if a minor is found on the premises, no matter if the staff or owner was aware. Or...
I guess personal responsibility is a hate crime nowadays. No wonder our polish cousins (our real royal houses shares origin - King Vasa I) just shakes their heads at us the way you about a friend who's slipping into dementia.
Nah, it's a question of knowing when and how to dodge the rules, is all. Never do it as an open display of contempt and revolt against power, because as we say, "the nobility does not carry the sword in vain". Don't set yourself up against the political system, just do your thing on the QT downlow and you'll be left alone most of the time.
Easy peasy example: homeschooling as in not sending your kid to school is illegal (as is not sending your kid to school period) - but homeschooling as a group of parents running a small non-profit alternative school is legal, and will be granted funding from the commune (city/county council).
See what I mean? If those hypothetical parents had done the theatrical thing, yellng about "muh rights" and such they would of been stomped on. Instead, they game the system into giving them what they wanted in the first place.
Want to sing at the pub? Host a karaoke contest. Suddenly it's legal.
That's something I think americans find hard to understand about much of the European nations: we have had to learn how to handle authoritarian and totalitarian systems of governements, and are wuite adept at it by now, especially here in the north - after all, when everyone thinks everyone else is compliant and pliable, no one bothers to actually check under the cover so to speak.
Or the bar tenderтАЩs faultтАж or the booze manufacturer, whoever dug the ditch, the cycle manufacturer for not fitting safety equipment, worse! making bikes with only two wheels and so inherently unstable - well we could put together a long list.
Since WWII responsibility for everything has gradually been moved from the individual to the State. During the last two years the presumption by the political class was that individuals could not take responsibility for themselves and granny, and the masses didnтАЩt want the responsibility and presumed the State would take responsibility - an opportunity too good to miss to consolidate total empowerment of the State over the individual and centralise economic planning and control - the Socialist and Fascist Dream.
The alcohol would be the reason, which is why you are breaking the law when driving under influence. But the US will not make it an offence to carry an assault weapon in the street, yet it is a tool far more deadly that your bicycle.
You are not a serious person. The answer is concealed carry..even in schools. Gun free zones are magnets for crazy people who want to kill people. Kinda like chicago
Here's how we can know that gun-free zones are idiotic, and that those who advocate for gun-free zones as a means of safety are dishonest aholes:
NO anti-gunner who advocates for gun-free zones posts prominent signs around their homes alerting the world to the absence of guns in their homes.
But that's EXACTLY what they do with gun-free zones in hospitals, schools, certain workplaces, movie theaters (see: Aurora, CO), post offices, the list is long. They make THOSE soft targets public knowledge, but they DON'T tell the world that their own homes are soft targets.
Given that some 98% of mass shootings happen in gun-free zones, one could almost think that those that continue to implement them don't really have the welfare of children, or anyone else for that matter, in mind, but do so for some other, unstated reason.
But that would, of course, be a conspiracy theory.
the goal is not safety, the goal is to reimage society and culture to bring about the rational, planned, regimented world where everything is done efficiently. this is supposed to avoid conflict arising from competition for limited resources and services. Your rights to do what you want and refuse to obey impede this New Eden, and so it becomes important to remove your ability to resist.
The next time some demented leftist (redundant?) starts babbling about GFZs, ask he/she/it/that exactly what sort of additional "common sense" gun control could have prevented the murder of 276 children in Chicago in 2021.
Chicago is teeming with your fellow 2nd Amendment Enthusiasts, teeming! Practicing self defense everyday, like whenever someone disses their sneakers. Give us some support, it's the gun-topia that you want!
Spork - or is it Sport? I know you are smarter than that.
Those inner-city folks you speak of are - I am willing to bet not-inconsiderable-dollars - exactly the people we are talking about. They are people who could not pass a Federal Firearms Background Check because they have felony convictions or equivalent that would preclude them from legally purchasing or possessing any type of firearm under our existing firearm laws.
There are criminal gang-bangers or worse fighting to protect their felonious little fiefdoms - not to denigrate the sneaker-envy rationale -and likely killing/injuring innocents from time to time, because they are not part of the respect-your-fellow-man law-abiding second amendment loving US citizenry.
As for 'whatever-topias' - if you actually believe what you wrote, then you are living in your own leftist utopia that glorifies all the authoritarian governments in history - governments who first disarmed their citizenry in order to more readily transform them into compliant subjects, AKA 'sheeple'.
I am but a spoon/fork hybrid, using humor in the Bad Cats house. Nowhere in the hallowed, glorious 2nd Amendment is there anything about background checks or felony convictions. Which is why I point out that it is like the Utopia of ubiquitous Carry that some y'all advocate for the whole country. And, doing so in the face of quite restrictive, oppressive gun laws and regulations, meaning, they ACT on the courage and necessity of their 2A beliefs. As the Bad Cat says "Become Ungovernable" amirite?
By assault, I mean a rapid-fire, high velocity, maximum damage on impact, quick reload, easy to carry weapon, designed to kill the maximum number of people in the shortest space of time. Try killing 21 people with a baseball bat or a hammer in a matter of minutes. The fact they are more deadly than a bicycle is neither here nor there because none of them were used in the US mass killings of the past 12 months.
How are you proposing to prevent psychopaths using assault rifles, their weapon of choice, to commit mass murder? What good use could ANY civilian possibly have for this kind of weapon?
What's "rapid-fire"? Automatic? Automatic firearms haven't been available to the general public for decades.
Or is "one trigger pull per shot" rapid fire? In that case, are you saying firearms should only be bolt-action or slower? Or two trigger pulls per shot? Kinda like double-clicking a mouse?
At what velocity is a projectile's "high velocity" sufficient to render its firearm an "assault weapon"?
"Quick reload" as opposed to, what, going in the direction of how muskets are reloaded? With magazines, you cannot avoid "quick reloads". So are you calling for the abolition of magazines?
"Easy to carry" defines pistols, which are easy to conceal (which makes them easy to carry). Are you saying that ALL pistols (because all are concealable and easy to carry) are "assault weapons"?
Most people who throw around the term "assault weapon" are referring to rifles, in particular ARs. A rifle is not as "easy to carry weapon" inasmuch as it's very visible.
What, exactly would you like to ban in the way of "assault weapons"?
You ask, What good use could ANY civilian possibly have for "this" kind of weapon (what you refer to as an assault rifle)? The answer is found in the plain language of the Second Amendment, which is found in the Bill of Rights, not the Bill of Needs. The answer is also found in the 250 million dead, unarmed citizens of communist and totalitarian countries last century.
As for psychopaths' weapon of choice, the Virginia Tech killer "killed 32 people and wounded 17 others with two semi-automatic pistols." No "assault rifle".
The Ft. Hood killer "fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 others" using two handguns. No "assault rifle".
At the Aurora, CO movie theater "twelve people were killed" by a shooter using a rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol (2 of 3 weapons of choice NOT "assault rifles").
The weapons used in the Columbine shooting included an Intratec TEC-9 Mini, Hi-Point 995 Carbine, Savage 67H pump-action shotgun, Stevens 311D double barreled sawed-off shotgun, 99 explosives, and four knives. Most of the weapons of choice were NOT "assault rifles".
26 dead at Sandy Hook, killed by a madman wielding a rifle, a pistol, and a bolt-action (e.g. NOT rapid-fire and NOT quick reload) rifle. Just 1 of the 3 was an "assault rifle".
49 dead at the Pulse nightclub using a rifle and a pistol. So only 1 of 2 were the alleged "weapon of choice" of psychopaths to commit mass murder.
Your mistaken perception that psychopaths' weapon of choice to commit mass murder is an "assault rifle" is the byproduct of something, I don't know what, maybe too great a reliance on the alphabet legacy media. Whatever the reason, the facts don't support your perception.
As for the hammer and baseball bat comparison, you are the one whose reference point was a "tool more deadly than a bicycle." I was only observing that many things - legal things - are more deadly than a bicycle, so your comparison was inapt.
It never fails to astonish how this lot never appears to have any idea what they are talking about, but nevertheless feel entitled to vociferously opine on the subject du jour, especially firearms.
This toxic combination of ignorance and arrogance is among the defining characteristics of the modern leftist.
And to chime in with others, you miss another point. China. Australia. UK. They have few mass shootings. They do not allow their subjects - I mean citizens [not really] - to possess any effective weaponry.
However, in turn, those governments are therefore able to easily restrict the rights of their entire populace with absolutely no fear of effective pushback.
They can lockdown the populace in Shanghai - even weld the apartment complex doors shut. Australia can send you to a 'Covid Camp' should the government feel the desire to do so in the name of protecting the тАШotherтАЩ subjects from an overblown disease with a 99.9+ 'Infection Survival Rate' for the overwhelming part of the population. UK has long since had any true freedom of speech, so it is a matter of time . . . they are on the slippery slope.
From reading your question 'What good use could ANY civilian possibly have for this kind of weapon?', I infer that you must not live in or be a US citizen - or you do and are, but you are the product of a US 'education' system infiltrated/hijacked by corrupted socialist-communist teacher sand education-industry organizations that no longer teach the founding principles of our Constitutional Representative Republic.
FYI, the US Constitution was written with safeguards designed to forestall the worst instincts of human behavior from infecting our government and depriving the inalienable rights of the populace, who to this date can still claim to be citizens not subjects - barely. One of the safeguards - arguably the most concrete one that is the backbone of all the others - is of course the ratified Amendment 2 of the US Constitution.
Without that, the government - comprised of fallible and corruptible human beings - would run TOTALLY roughshod over the rights of its citizens, as they do in China and Australia and many other UN-backed authoritarian regimes who claim to be the exact opposite. [One of the first things Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia and Communist China and other authoritarian regimes did/do is dis arm the populace. The rest becomes easy.]
And although civilian-owned 'modern sporting rifles' have been used to save many innocent lives during the course of home invasions or other violent crimes, that is incidental to the reason we legitimately possess such weaponry. The ultimate reason is to make sure that any corrupted government 'leadership' knows that there is a high price to pay should they overstep the authority granted to them by We-The-People beyond a tolerable level. They have recently come close to that point in the US of A with their overreaching and unconstitutional responses to the fake 'plandemic' and the ensuing stolen elections and continuing undoing of the successes of the last administration [like gas prices doubling in a short 18 months].
So what is the workable solution to the 'mass-shootings'? The left-wing authoritarians in and out of government are against the simplest solution consistent with our form of government, and that is to simply get past the stupidity of the тАЩno-guns-allowed-on-school-propertyтАЩ policy that is never adhered to by criminals or mental defectives. You simply allow trained and vetted school staff [those US Citizens charged with educating and protecting our children under their care] to have access to firearms at all times - as supplements to or even substitutes for тАЩSchool Resource OfficersтАЩ. Criminals and crazies would not know who among the staff was armed. Had that approach been followed - and keeping the door entrances locked and monitored at all times during тАШbusiness hoursтАЩ, which apparently was not done in the latest Texas case - the perpetrator would have been taken down or neutralized before he could inflict such horrendous carnage. I blame the people who prevent such policies from being implemented.
So, I am not going to sacrifice my inalienable rights to protect myself from a common thug OR an overreaching out-of-control bunch of authoritarian government thugs - and yes, as a retiree with a light schedule I would volunteer my time to serve in a school-student-protection capacity should such a program be rolled out nationwide.
To this point - "and that is to simply get past the stupidity of the тАЩno-guns-allowed-on-school-propertyтАЩ policy that is never adhered to by criminals or mental defectives" - I submit Exhibit 1:
"A mental health caseworker is dead and a doctor and his patient wounded after a bizarre gunfight at a gun-free-zoned hospital in Yeadon, near Philadelphia, on Thursday. As police prepare murder charges against the wounded patient, focus is shifting to the gun-toting psychiatrist who stopped the mayhem, likely saving other lives." ~ Philadelphia, 2014
Note the irony (that is always lost on - or ignored by - folks like LM and other Leftists) that the only - the ONLY - reason the death toll wasn't higher in that GUN-FREE-ZONED HOSPITAL is because one citizen understood the abject STUPIDITY of gun-free zones and thus was armed with a pistol and was able to stop the madman before he could kill more people.
A gun-free-zone massacre was averted BY A GOOD GUY WITH A GUN, not by the "Gun-Free-Zone" signs posted prominently around that hospital.
This sht is so g/d obvious that the only conclusion to be reached is that Liberalism and Leftism are mental disorders if not outright illnesses.
"I mean a rapid-fire, high velocity, maximum damage on impact, quick reload, easy to carry weapon, designed to kill the maximum number of people in the shortest space of time."
Can you really be so ignorant of modern firearms that you don't know this describes pretty much every sidearm and rifle produced in the last century?
And what, exactly, is your proposal for preventing psychopaths from using anything *other* than "assault rifles" - you know, like planes, trains and automobiles, say - to commit mass murder?
Edged weapons can do amazing amounts of damage to a lot of people fast, too. Problem in Japan, China, India. Today's assault rifle is tomorrow's police patrol carbine. My assault rifle is because I might need it, I can hunt and I can run off/run down threats with it, I can deal with some things at a distance. May I never need it. For me it's like keeping a fire extinguisher handy. Handguns are the weapons of choice for most mass murders, because rifles have their own issues in close quarters. Ramos would have preferred handgun, but his age and access was rifle. I'm still wondering who gave him the $, it may have been the grandparents. Preventing psychopaths is the normies being armed. Next to that, fathers, social cohesion, properly operating "systems," treatment, accountability, family, police and authority figures with moral fiber. That police chief is a lazy leftie pro Beto anti-gun narcissist (open sources). Most disasters have the rule of 3 involved, 3 things that fail. Airliners, massive pileups, shootings, fires, etc. Look at surveillance, 2 cops watched Ramos go by. Chief didn't take his hand radio. Door not locked. Actually many failures, opportunities and judgments not made.
No, Dear LM, the person drinking the alcohol is the reason. How quickly we look to deflect.
How foolish to compare alcohol, a mind altering, intoxicating, drug to a rifle.
Maybe better to compare that drug, or any other, to a doctrine, or a psychosis, or a "ism" or anything that warps a mind. A handful of radicals, with warped minds, and a little bit of aeronautics training did not need your dreaded "assault weapon" to kill over 3,000 people in one morning.
A totalitarian government, unchecked by an armed citizenry with "assault rifles" did not need anything other than a warped mind to murder millions of people. In multiple countries, mind you, so please don't claim it was a one-off, never to be seen again phenomenon. Unchecked, it is ubiquitous; it is destiny.
Yet, here you stand, claiming my scary looking black rifle that in your civilized mind just can't be continenced is the reason for the latest horror.
It is not. It is the very protection against it. And, I carry it, and other weapons, daily, because your silly laws outlawing violence are nonsensical.
But cars kill far more people per year than guns, yet nearly everyone in this country owns, leases, or at least has a license to drive one. People routinely violate laws against driving under the influence, but no matter how many lethal drunk driving accidents you pass on the highway, you'll never hear someone say "we need to ban these assault weapons from our streets."
Or, some locales, stone cold sober. In some U.S. States it's legal to openly carry a firearm most places. In most, probably not. In my State (FL) we are not open carry, but curiously, a loaded handgun in the glove box is legal (with exceptions, of course, don't try it on school property.) You don't even need a concealed weapon permit, although those are readily available. Yet in many States, that gun in the glove compartment might be a felony.
Like, your sister in laws party 30 miles away, with the sheet cake, and you brought her that extra lawn mower, for sure you would have walked there and back if you didn't have the Ram tough Ram pickup with the semi. Inarguable!
This is as good a place to give my psychology lesson. ЁЯзР I'd like to point out some facts that are all too easily forgotten:
[Late edit: I realized I made a HUGE error here. See if you can spot it. I will reveal it at the end (Item "Epilogue").]
1. The media almost never presents an accurate picture of reality. Even if there were no editorial, ideological or other bias (and let me assure you, there are, big time!) and only straight factual reporting of news items happened, it would STILL be inaccurate. Why? Simple! Because it's nearly only the bad news. What about the good news? No headline or bulletin ever reported "100,000 passenger jets landed safely today." The same principle applies to most of the other lurid press you consume.
2. Primarily due to editorial choices (a form of "cherry picking," if you like) the news consumer is fed carefully curated items generally shaped to fit a certain agenda. Yes, it's been a bad month for mass shootings in the USA, two so far by troubled 18-year-olds. One white, the other Mexican, who will be called "white," of course. (By the way: that's an important point too: the government has been inconsistent in categorizing "Hispanic." White or not? Depends on the year/locale reporting.)
3. Regardless of one's beliefs, if one can set one's ideology aside, it's possible to look up boring government statistics. These will often present a dramatically different picture of what the "average" is. It is true that most killings in the USA are by firearm, this is at variance with nations with strict gun control. What is less well known is that roughly 60% of gun deaths are suicides. Of the remaining 40%, about 80% of it is young black and brown men shooting each other. Whites and everybody else (yes, that includes this Month's insane teenage killers) all fit into that 20%.
4. Historical/Social interest: while not as readily available, one thing I've found interesting is the dramatic rise in crime, especially violent crime, since the mid-20th century. In America, Blacks have been rightly blamed (or equivalently, victimized) by such crime for as long as records have been kept. What's not widely known is that crime is many multiples of what it was in more peaceful times, such as 1945. And arguing against those who blame race/genetics as a factor, consider that Blacks have seen dramatic increases in dysfunction (crime and other indices of problem behavior) over the same time period. That could not be explained by biology. Thus the environment would seem a prime suspect.
5. (Demographic interest) Are Blacks the most crime or violence prone? In the USA perhaps, but let's look at international rankings. Far and away the leader in homicide is El Salvador, which if one reads about its demographics, has virtually zero African descended population. Like most of Central America, it is dominant mestizo (European, mostly Spanish, mix with indigenous tribes.)
Violent as we are, USA is ranked #55 at 5.3 per 100,000. In contrast, the UK is #124, with a homicide rate less than 1/3 of ours. Most Western European nations seem to fit that pattern. Curiously, Russia is much more violent than us, and I suspect, the most violent majority "white" nation.
I've researched these items before, yet today's exercise opened my eyes a bit. Apparently the link between race and crime is not quite as hard and fast as some would claim.
If there is any lesson to this long-winded post, please make it this one: The media usually is full of lies. At best, it is presenting you a tiny, biased sampling of "truth." Often their objective is to manipulate; don't let them do this to you. If a topic is really of importance to you, often you can do some simple investigation and find a clearer approach to the truth, one that is often dramatically at odds with what the media would have you believe.
Epilogue: After I had posted the above essay, I realized I had made a fundamental mistake. Recall where I said in several places that one should not accept the media without question? A fundamental rule of sages back when they spoke or at least wrote Latin was "In omnibus dubitandum." It means, approximately "Everything should be doubted." Well, I confess I made a huge error above. Did you spot it? Simple: my statistics. Just how reliable are those sources? Well, the short answer is of course "I can't be sure, but there are plenty of reasons to doubt their accuracy." Yes, ladies and gentlemen, here I was guilty of the very same sin that I routinely jump on Gato and anyone else (usually when the cite Covid-19 statistics.) The nugget of wisdom, of course is that the statistics are often extremely flawed. But they're often all we have to work with.
What follows is probably by no means complete, but will give you an idea of the problems of relying on government data. Remember those FBI crime statistics? Well they are culled from (probably) thousands of different agencies in fifty States and even more territories. Reporting is voluntary. How do we know consistent standards were used? Now wrap your mind around those international statistics. We have all the same issues we'd have domestically, but even worse. Every American jurisdiction has varying laws on what constitutes a homicide. For example, if a person is legally killed, whether by law enforcement or a private citizen (justifiable homicide), should it be counted in the homicide statistics? Its a judgment call. There's no disputing a killing had occurred, but it's distinguished by being legal. Except in the case of a shooting war, we can probably assume that legal deaths are a tiny fraction of the total. But it's a confounder. So would be wartime. Now consider that there are about two hundred different nations in the world, each with differing legal systems. Sometimes differing enormously. In one nation (say) dueling might be legal, so any deaths resulting from that aren't included. Or maybe they are in another. How about survival time? If a person is wounded in Nation A but doesn't die within a week, he may not be considered a murder victim, even if he dies the next week of his affliction. Do you see the problem? We potentially have each nation, or even each State and city's police department, using inconsistent standards of reporting. As with the ever-changing Covid-19 testing and reporting "standards," this may be an innocent factor in studying (say) gunshot victims over long time periods, even in the same nation. For example, isn't it likely that medical science is far better today at saving gunshot victims than fifty, or even ten years ago? A gunshot victim is more likley to survive today, probably. This obviously will skew deaths one way or the other, making those from decades past worse, and today's perhaps better. In this case, a better metric would be to compare total victims shot, whether they lived or died.
The real world is at times a very complicated place, and as the old saying goes, when you ASSUME you often make an ASS out of U and ME.
Please pardon the length of this essay; perhaps I need my own Substack!
I think the racial comparisons are a red herring. There are too many other conflating factors which vary from country to country and influence inter-racial relations within countries to ever get a clear signal, even if there is any real difference. There are much more data to support environmental triggers.
For example, increases in lead levels as measured in preschoolers (due to ubiquitous use of leaded gasoline) in the US over the second half of the 20th century correlate very closely with crime rates if you add 20 years (https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/blog_lead_crime_main_chart.gif). So, it looks like those preschoolers whose lead levels peaked in the late 60s, early 70s, may have grown up to be responsible for the high crimes of the late 80s, early 90s. I haven't looked at this in-depth but since lead has been shown to correlate with increased aggression among individuals studied, it's plausible that it might apply on the population level.
With regard to the more recent phenomenon of mass shootings, many people have speculated that they may be triggered by psychiatric drugs being given to teenage boys, specifically certain types of SSRIs and certain ADHD drugs, which have, in clinical studies, been associated with increased rates of homocidal and suicidal ideation in a statistically significant portion of the population, especailly among boys aged 15-24. (See https://robertyoho.substack.com/p/antidepressants-are-the-root-cause?utm_source=email&s=r#details and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0051hkjB9po for in-depth discussions; the latter includes a review of the cited clinical data).
Funny story.. Some years ago, I was living overseas in a country with VERY strict gun control. Like zero private guns anywhere.
One day the news came from America of yet another mass shooting.
But on that same day the local news covered a local mass stabbing.
It had a pretty good backstory - young lovers who wanted to get married, but the girl's family wasn't having any of that. End of the story was, a young man sliced up an entire family dinner party with his machete - like a dozen people - before being shot by the coppers.
The coincidence of those two events happening at the same time really put things in perspective for me.
Whatever small benefit to safety may (or may not) be gained by disarming the common people, it is in no way worth the de facto loss of popular sovereignty that entails.
They have slaughtered people (bodies, etc.). Souls can't be slaughtered. I've seen that word "soul" or "souls" used many times over the years for being killed, but always thought it not the right word to use.
From a theological standpoint, you are of course correct, but I find that using it in this way, as it has been in common parlance for quite some time, adds a dimension of seriousness, and is thus more likely to sway the reader than other terms.
"The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - when the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees.
However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."
~ Judge Alex Kozinski, dissenting in Silveira v. Lockyer, 328 F.3d 567 (9th Circuit 2003)
Just clarifying that guns arenтАЩt made to kill people. They are a tool, just like a knife or anything else that can be wielded by evil people or anyone else, and they can be used to defend the vulnerable from the psychopathic, the weak from the strong, the citizen from the tyrant. The only reason tyranny hasnтАЩt gotten further along in America is 2A, and every people that has ever given up that right to its government has come to regret that decision bitterly.
That's a fancy way of saying that guns are made to kill only the right people, the people we don't like. And I can assure you that in countries with better gun control we don't walk around "bitterly regretting" it at all. Definitely is not at all the reason tyranny hasn't gotten further in the States. How many shootouts have you had with your government lately? What you have are good constitution and laws and courts willing to enforce those laws, and you all should very well be thankful for that.
No, youтАЩre misunderstanding my point. Guns are neutral. They arenтАЩt тАЬmade to kill only the right people.тАЭ Mentally ill, psychopathic people will find whatever ways to kill they can, and guns help vulnerable people defend themselves against criminals. There are far more knife stabbings than gun murders. Taking away guns doesnтАЩt prevent evil people from doing evil things, but it prevents innocent people from being able to defend themselves from criminals and tyrannical governments.
The shootouts arenтАЩt what stop tyrannyтАФthe tyrantsтАЩ *awareness* that so many good citizens are armed and willing to defend the Constitution and our freedoms against tyranny is what stops them from overstepping their bounds into outright totalitarianism.
We do have a good constitution, thankfully, but we can no longer rely on the increasingly corrupted courts to defend our laws against those who are pushing to violate them. 2A provides a bulwark against the most egregious forms of tyranny, and that is precisely why the constitutional framers included it.
I was always rather on the fence about the Second Amendment, going back and forth on it. But 2020 knocked my right off the fence and onto my ass squarely into a 2A supporter. I think you are extremely naive if you don't think that the fact that so many Americans are armed and know how to use their weapons hasn't had a dampening effect on the government's desire to intrude on our rights. Think about countries where the police are locking citizens in their homes (Shanghai is only the most recent and extreme example, remember what has happened in Australia) and going to people's homes to arrest them for posting things on Facebook the authorities don't like, for "testing and tracing", and countless other intrusive things including jabbing people. It's not happening here, much as they so very much want it to. Don't you think that the knowledge that a "tester and tracer" or some other public health department minion would have a good chance of facing down a double-barrel shotgun makes these people think twice? And I would add that it is not just that people have guns, but that there are plenty with serious training and organization. We like to make fun of militias and treat them as rag-tag groups of ignorant, fat racists with insecurities about their manhood, but is that really what they are, or what the government would like them to be, instead of disciplined patriots including ex-military and law-enforcement, both of which have doubtless swelled in numbers as a result of the insane, immoral jab mandates. Yes, so far there are been few shootouts with the government. But perhaps that's simply because the tyrants have been careful to avoid crossing some red lines.
"This is exactly why you'll keep getting these mass murders in the States." There are many, many other reasons why we are getting mass murders in this country--cultural, sociological and, I think perhaps most importantly, pharmacologically (the number of young people on anti-depressants and other mind altering drugs in this country is outrageous and obscene and as another poster has pointed out, every single mass shooter has been or recently stopped taking these drugs).
I have no problem with rural people using guns for hunting and defence against animals. There's a long way from that though to "anybody who wants one should have an assault weapon". (Also, there is bear spray).
You ask about USA Shootouts with government - lately.
Well, Susanna, in my lifetime without a lot of research, Ruby Ridge, Branch Davidian Compound, and Bundy Ranch incidents stand out. And they were pretty one-sided 'shootouts', as the citizens were mostly defending against much more heavily armed government 'intruders' on their property under 'color of law'. Truly disgraceful mis-uses of government power and overreach.
Before my time in 1947 I believe, an entire county had severely corrupted public officials - I believe it was in Tennessee - who overstepped their authority, and - can you believe it - included running a fraudulent vote count. This culminated in the returning World War 2 veterans forming a coalition of citizens to resist, and resulted in what is termed 'The Battle of Athens' - the county seat. The citizens had an initial supply of firearms, but had to resort to storming the National Guard [?] Armory to bring sufficient firepower to bear against what the combined police and sheriff departments had on hand. The citizens prevailed. I believe the corrupt county officials petitioned the state and/or federal government to intervene, but based on public outcry, they declined to intervene.
Tell that to the Aussies who were unceremoniously sent to 'Covid Camps' just like Japanese Americans were unconstitutionally sent to Internment Camps in WW2.
Oh Susanna, in the last 30 days, I have used my guns to kill a fox (5.56 AR-15 "assault weapon" style rifle at about 150 yards, a really good shot, by the way,) a really large snake I didn't want around, because my daughters get weird about that (12 gauge semi-auto shotgun with a 18" barrel,) and an aged animal that needed to be culled (.45 cal pistol at very close range, an emotionally draining task.) Three different guns, by the way, each with a different reach and effect. Not a single one made "specifically to kill people." Each, exactly what I need for the task at hand.
But, in that same 30 days, I've conceal carried a .45 caliber SA XDS2 with laser, a Kimber 9mm, and a Bersa .380 with Crimson Trace laser grip. My intent was to be able to kill anything trying to kill me. Say, a mass shooter.
It's a tool. Like the axe I've used in the same period, the 8 lb sledge I've used in the same period, and the Ram 2500 truck I use every day.
What other God given right are you willing to give away because you don't like how someone misuses it? Free speech? Free religion?
They're made specifically to kill people, if used by the wrong people, in the wrong way. Say a government.
OK - we now get you. You are a product of the corrupt US educational 'system'.
You see, guns are already in the hands of people that given the choice, would enslave us or kill us.
That includes as I have mentioned elsewhere common thugs and evil-doers, as well as corrupted individuals who have been given limited powers in their capacity of implementing government, but who illegally overstep their limited authorities.
[See Communist China, Nazi Germany, etc. American Pre-Revolutionary battles at Lexington and Concord happened partly because the British government attempted to disarm the colonials so they would have no means to resist the out-of-control British government.]
I am guessing that every thinking person other than yourself recognizes - without 'evidence' - that the right to self defense is an innate natural [some say God-given] right we have because we are human beings. That means 'carrying guns', or cross-bows, axes, swords, or whatever else helps fulfill that purpose at a particular point in history/time. I suspect that you must know this, but just want to obfuscate because it goes against leftist narratives. [Actually even animals have this right - bears and mountain lions will usually demonstrate this if cornered or threatened.]
Hunting is nice to do with firearms, or with bows-and-arrows, although I personally do not subscribe to it.
Too many incorrect assumptions about me to answer this comment. Why do we do this online? I'm happy to have a civil, good faith discussion with people who disagree, and this isn't that.
Sorry if I made you do tedious reading to get to the answer to your question.
Q: What evidence do you have that carrying guns is a God-given right?
A: I am guessing that every thinking person other than yourself recognizes - without 'evidence' - that the right to self defense is an innate natural [some say God-given] right we have because we are human beings.
[Your question presumes- without evidence - that there is NOT a natural right to self defense so we are at an impasse given that is your argument.]
Yes of course guns are made to kill people and other animals.
The point is that we have an innate right of self defense against thugs and any other entity that would do us harm.
Therefore, people - the citizenry - need to possess effective weaponry in order to defend against these evil-doers, be they the common thuggery or an organized group of folks acting in the capacity of an out-of-control government. See Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist China, Pol-Pot era Cambodia, Cartel-Ruled Mexico and South American countries, ad nauseam.
Andvknifings every nite in london ..not to mention violent breaking and enterings. By population the uk is now the most dangerous country in the world.
That's based on a manifestly false premise: "if guns weren't around"
It's the same false premise at the root of the nuclear disarmament movement, the notion that nukes would disappear if everyone got rid of their nukes (because NOT everyone would get rid of them, just as there will never be a situation where "guns aren't around").
I mean, you even concede this in the construct of your comment. You don't say that there would be NO mass shootings if guns weren't around, you say there'd be less of them if guns weren't around.
But if guns aren't around - if there are no guns - how would there be ANY mass shootings?
Furthermore, if guns were only possessed by government and bad guys, how do you know the carnage would be less? Bad guys knowing there are no good guys with guns are far more incentivized to commit gun crimes, and far more able to succeed.
On April 19th, 1993, heavily armed agents of the Federal government burned 76 people alive in Waco Texas.
The victims included 25 children and 2 pregnant women.
This after a 51 day siege where the Feds terrorized them with tanks, attack helicopters and various forms of psychological warfare.
The government investigation into the government's actions found no fault with any government actions, and the only people prosecuted were those who escaped being shot or incinerated.
This atrocity was the direct result of gun control laws.
This is the reality of the government violating the 2nd Amendment.
This is a question that you can answer scientifically. The only way to do this is to look at the empirical evidence.
And the evidence is crystal clear that there is no relation between how armed a population is and the number of mass shootings. Slice it by country, by state, or whatever you want.
True. But unfortunately, only double blind random controlled placebo studies will do anymore...
You know, like how the Surgisphere Lancet published fraudulent randomized peer reviewed controlled placebo study...which took out any empirical data on HCQ, just like Fauci wanted....
Yes, yes, now you are onto something. Stay with that. The bicycle is at fault. Keep shoveling all the virtues outward till they are finally located in the circle of fantasy.
Agreed. I live in Canada where there are not many guns. Some people do mass stabbings but it is a lot harder and takes a lot longer than a mass shooting so you canтАЩt kill as many people all at once.
But the *government* can, once the people are disarmed. History has shown this over and over and over. Tens and hundreds of millions of deaths later, how is this lesson still not learned?
"...and those of us who still possess that capacity risk ostracization, incarceration, and ultimately elimination for threatening the collective psychosis."
...and then there are still some among us with no fucks to give about what other people think, or whether they feel safer in their bubble because they ostracize us... that's kinda like the trash taking itself to the kerb...
We're rapidly returning to the demon-haunted world Sagan warned us about, which is right where they want us. People scared of demons can be talked into anything, especially a permanent aristocracy "protecting" them from said demons.
Yes, we do "risk ostracization, incarceration, and ultimately elimination for threatening the collective psychosis" for the best of reasons: to try to head off the collective psychosis.
I suspect that the vast majority of human beings currently alive on the planet are occupied with trying to live their lives and are not on display for us to enjoy the sport of generalizing to ascertain the intelligence or the stupidity of the rest.
тАЬthe vast majority of human beings currently alive on the planet are occupied with trying to live their livesтАЭтАФand lazily failing to take ownership of their own knowledge is what has caused them to fall under mass formation and sleepwalk the planet into a totalitarian technocratic dystopia that they will only awaken to after itтАЩs too late, if ever.
Shaking off the hypnosis and recognizing that they have entrusted their lives to sociopathic tyrants is the only way they will have a chance of achieving the simple pleasure of тАЬtrying to live their lives,тАЭ but right now, choosing to remain in that state of subjugation to tyranny is the definition of stupidity according to Bonhoeffer (https://sproutsschools.com/bonhoeffers-theory-of-stupidity/).
YouтАЩre right, SCA. I donтАЩt know you well enough to make that accusation, so I apologize. From the limited exchanges IтАЩve had with you, however, you have demonstrated a resistance to learning about both menticide and mass formation while defending the hypnotized for simply тАЬtrying to live their lives,тАЭ which is exactly what the Good Germans did while the Nazis went about their merry business because there werenтАЩt enough Badass Germans (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/are-you-a-good-german-or-a-badass) to stop them.
It's pretty easy to ascertain the intelligence or stupidity of the population by doing nothing more than watching their "leaders". The "leadership" is a mirror of the population.
The logic required to connect cause with effect is nearing extinction in the human species, and those of us who still possess that capacity risk ostracization, incarceration, and ultimately elimination for threatening the collective psychosis. A risk well-worth taking, I might add.
Blaming inanimate objects for animate actions is a common symptom of the mental disorder known as leftism.
They really do seem to believe that there is no objective reality.
I dunno. Suppose I ride my bicycle down to the bar, drink 14 shots of tequila and a 6 pack of cheap bear, then start to ride home, and crash into a ditch. Now who's fault was that crash? It's the bicycle's fault, obviously!
Secondarily, the ditch's.
But never yours.
And we must sue the bicycle manufacturers into oblivion. Or at least as far away as, limited to the elite.
It's the bartenders fault. They didn't stop you from drinking into inebriation.
You may be joking, but there are states where you could make that assertion, and you'd win:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/dram_shop_rule
How widespread this is, I don't know, but the link cites Pennsylvania as an example of a state where if a bartender lets you get sh*tfaced and then you proceed to ride your bike into a ditch and crack your skull, you could come after the bartender for damages caused entirely by your own stupidity.
Sweden too, but you (the drinker) wouldn't get any damages in your example.
Instead, you would lose your driver's license (for your car) for riding a bike while drunk, the logic being that anyone mature enough to have a license should know better. Also, the pub could lose it's license to serve alcohol, and it's license to have late opening hours (we have licenses and certificates for things you wouldn't believe - 12 different ones for chainsaws f.e.).
In fact, in Stockholm, the pub can lose it's license if it allows its patrons to be "too merry", especially if they are singing at the table. Or if they allow a patron who ordered at the bar to carry their beers to their table. Or if a minor is found on the premises, no matter if the staff or owner was aware. Or...
I guess personal responsibility is a hate crime nowadays. No wonder our polish cousins (our real royal houses shares origin - King Vasa I) just shakes their heads at us the way you about a friend who's slipping into dementia.
Wow - thank God I don't live in Sweden! It sounds grim and cheerless.
Nah, it's a question of knowing when and how to dodge the rules, is all. Never do it as an open display of contempt and revolt against power, because as we say, "the nobility does not carry the sword in vain". Don't set yourself up against the political system, just do your thing on the QT downlow and you'll be left alone most of the time.
Easy peasy example: homeschooling as in not sending your kid to school is illegal (as is not sending your kid to school period) - but homeschooling as a group of parents running a small non-profit alternative school is legal, and will be granted funding from the commune (city/county council).
See what I mean? If those hypothetical parents had done the theatrical thing, yellng about "muh rights" and such they would of been stomped on. Instead, they game the system into giving them what they wanted in the first place.
Want to sing at the pub? Host a karaoke contest. Suddenly it's legal.
That's something I think americans find hard to understand about much of the European nations: we have had to learn how to handle authoritarian and totalitarian systems of governements, and are wuite adept at it by now, especially here in the north - after all, when everyone thinks everyone else is compliant and pliable, no one bothers to actually check under the cover so to speak.
I was joking and said it, because I know of those court cases. Massachusetts had their share of them as well.
And in Australia!
I thought of that as well. NO PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITIES!
But of course it is, comrade, but only if you are not white.
Yeah! after all, Cars don't go places, people do!
Or the bar tenderтАЩs faultтАж or the booze manufacturer, whoever dug the ditch, the cycle manufacturer for not fitting safety equipment, worse! making bikes with only two wheels and so inherently unstable - well we could put together a long list.
Great! Spread the responsibility that way the individual has none. ItтАЩs just like the government and pseudo government bureaucracy.
Since WWII responsibility for everything has gradually been moved from the individual to the State. During the last two years the presumption by the political class was that individuals could not take responsibility for themselves and granny, and the masses didnтАЩt want the responsibility and presumed the State would take responsibility - an opportunity too good to miss to consolidate total empowerment of the State over the individual and centralise economic planning and control - the Socialist and Fascist Dream.
Exactly.
Or the ditch.
Based on that, I just might reconsider my position. : )
The alcohol would be the reason, which is why you are breaking the law when driving under influence. But the US will not make it an offence to carry an assault weapon in the street, yet it is a tool far more deadly that your bicycle.
You are not a serious person. The answer is concealed carry..even in schools. Gun free zones are magnets for crazy people who want to kill people. Kinda like chicago
> Gun free zones
Don't call them that. Call them what they really are:
Victim Disarmament Zones.
(h/t: Vin Suprynowicz)
Here's how we can know that gun-free zones are idiotic, and that those who advocate for gun-free zones as a means of safety are dishonest aholes:
NO anti-gunner who advocates for gun-free zones posts prominent signs around their homes alerting the world to the absence of guns in their homes.
But that's EXACTLY what they do with gun-free zones in hospitals, schools, certain workplaces, movie theaters (see: Aurora, CO), post offices, the list is long. They make THOSE soft targets public knowledge, but they DON'T tell the world that their own homes are soft targets.
Given that some 98% of mass shootings happen in gun-free zones, one could almost think that those that continue to implement them don't really have the welfare of children, or anyone else for that matter, in mind, but do so for some other, unstated reason.
But that would, of course, be a conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy theories are on a hot winning streak of at least 2 years.
I second that motion/notion!
Well, those asinine rainbow "Love is Love, Science is Real", blah blah blah signs are a good proxy.
Huh... always wondered what that tautology "Love is love" is for Pete's sake supposed to mean anyway....
Probably that it should be legal to marry one's dog.
Maybe there could be a month dedicated to celebrating it.
My Dad has been saying for years that this was where we are going.
Just so.
This anti-2A lot have it completely ass-backwards.
They should all read John R. Lott Jr's *More Guns Less Crime* and stop making fools of themselves.
the goal is not safety, the goal is to reimage society and culture to bring about the rational, planned, regimented world where everything is done efficiently. this is supposed to avoid conflict arising from competition for limited resources and services. Your rights to do what you want and refuse to obey impede this New Eden, and so it becomes important to remove your ability to resist.
Yup. That's why we should never, even in casual conversation, say "gun control". Instead always say "disarming the common people".
Unfortunately, you are correct.
We keep trying to argue about safety, but what we need to remember is
to not argue with what they ostensibly say it is about, but about their
underlying agenda. I keep forgetting myself. But this is how they
operate.
Chicago.
The next time some demented leftist (redundant?) starts babbling about GFZs, ask he/she/it/that exactly what sort of additional "common sense" gun control could have prevented the murder of 276 children in Chicago in 2021.
Yes - as a thinking person, I would always rather there be a gun fight than a massacre/mass-murder.
Chicago is teeming with your fellow 2nd Amendment Enthusiasts, teeming! Practicing self defense everyday, like whenever someone disses their sneakers. Give us some support, it's the gun-topia that you want!
Spork - or is it Sport? I know you are smarter than that.
Those inner-city folks you speak of are - I am willing to bet not-inconsiderable-dollars - exactly the people we are talking about. They are people who could not pass a Federal Firearms Background Check because they have felony convictions or equivalent that would preclude them from legally purchasing or possessing any type of firearm under our existing firearm laws.
There are criminal gang-bangers or worse fighting to protect their felonious little fiefdoms - not to denigrate the sneaker-envy rationale -and likely killing/injuring innocents from time to time, because they are not part of the respect-your-fellow-man law-abiding second amendment loving US citizenry.
As for 'whatever-topias' - if you actually believe what you wrote, then you are living in your own leftist utopia that glorifies all the authoritarian governments in history - governments who first disarmed their citizenry in order to more readily transform them into compliant subjects, AKA 'sheeple'.
I am but a spoon/fork hybrid, using humor in the Bad Cats house. Nowhere in the hallowed, glorious 2nd Amendment is there anything about background checks or felony convictions. Which is why I point out that it is like the Utopia of ubiquitous Carry that some y'all advocate for the whole country. And, doing so in the face of quite restrictive, oppressive gun laws and regulations, meaning, they ACT on the courage and necessity of their 2A beliefs. As the Bad Cat says "Become Ungovernable" amirite?
Well, don't get too draconian. Open carry would be okay, too.
What do you mean when you say "assault" weapon? Specifically asking about the term "assault".
A hammer, a baseball bat, they're tools "far more deadly" than a bicycle. But the US doesn't make it an offense to carry those in the street, either.
By assault, I mean a rapid-fire, high velocity, maximum damage on impact, quick reload, easy to carry weapon, designed to kill the maximum number of people in the shortest space of time. Try killing 21 people with a baseball bat or a hammer in a matter of minutes. The fact they are more deadly than a bicycle is neither here nor there because none of them were used in the US mass killings of the past 12 months.
How are you proposing to prevent psychopaths using assault rifles, their weapon of choice, to commit mass murder? What good use could ANY civilian possibly have for this kind of weapon?
What's "rapid-fire"? Automatic? Automatic firearms haven't been available to the general public for decades.
Or is "one trigger pull per shot" rapid fire? In that case, are you saying firearms should only be bolt-action or slower? Or two trigger pulls per shot? Kinda like double-clicking a mouse?
At what velocity is a projectile's "high velocity" sufficient to render its firearm an "assault weapon"?
"Quick reload" as opposed to, what, going in the direction of how muskets are reloaded? With magazines, you cannot avoid "quick reloads". So are you calling for the abolition of magazines?
"Easy to carry" defines pistols, which are easy to conceal (which makes them easy to carry). Are you saying that ALL pistols (because all are concealable and easy to carry) are "assault weapons"?
Most people who throw around the term "assault weapon" are referring to rifles, in particular ARs. A rifle is not as "easy to carry weapon" inasmuch as it's very visible.
What, exactly would you like to ban in the way of "assault weapons"?
You ask, What good use could ANY civilian possibly have for "this" kind of weapon (what you refer to as an assault rifle)? The answer is found in the plain language of the Second Amendment, which is found in the Bill of Rights, not the Bill of Needs. The answer is also found in the 250 million dead, unarmed citizens of communist and totalitarian countries last century.
As for psychopaths' weapon of choice, the Virginia Tech killer "killed 32 people and wounded 17 others with two semi-automatic pistols." No "assault rifle".
The Ft. Hood killer "fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 others" using two handguns. No "assault rifle".
At the Aurora, CO movie theater "twelve people were killed" by a shooter using a rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol (2 of 3 weapons of choice NOT "assault rifles").
The weapons used in the Columbine shooting included an Intratec TEC-9 Mini, Hi-Point 995 Carbine, Savage 67H pump-action shotgun, Stevens 311D double barreled sawed-off shotgun, 99 explosives, and four knives. Most of the weapons of choice were NOT "assault rifles".
26 dead at Sandy Hook, killed by a madman wielding a rifle, a pistol, and a bolt-action (e.g. NOT rapid-fire and NOT quick reload) rifle. Just 1 of the 3 was an "assault rifle".
49 dead at the Pulse nightclub using a rifle and a pistol. So only 1 of 2 were the alleged "weapon of choice" of psychopaths to commit mass murder.
Your mistaken perception that psychopaths' weapon of choice to commit mass murder is an "assault rifle" is the byproduct of something, I don't know what, maybe too great a reliance on the alphabet legacy media. Whatever the reason, the facts don't support your perception.
As for the hammer and baseball bat comparison, you are the one whose reference point was a "tool more deadly than a bicycle." I was only observing that many things - legal things - are more deadly than a bicycle, so your comparison was inapt.
Bravo.
It never fails to astonish how this lot never appears to have any idea what they are talking about, but nevertheless feel entitled to vociferously opine on the subject du jour, especially firearms.
This toxic combination of ignorance and arrogance is among the defining characteristics of the modern leftist.
And to chime in with others, you miss another point. China. Australia. UK. They have few mass shootings. They do not allow their subjects - I mean citizens [not really] - to possess any effective weaponry.
However, in turn, those governments are therefore able to easily restrict the rights of their entire populace with absolutely no fear of effective pushback.
They can lockdown the populace in Shanghai - even weld the apartment complex doors shut. Australia can send you to a 'Covid Camp' should the government feel the desire to do so in the name of protecting the тАШotherтАЩ subjects from an overblown disease with a 99.9+ 'Infection Survival Rate' for the overwhelming part of the population. UK has long since had any true freedom of speech, so it is a matter of time . . . they are on the slippery slope.
From reading your question 'What good use could ANY civilian possibly have for this kind of weapon?', I infer that you must not live in or be a US citizen - or you do and are, but you are the product of a US 'education' system infiltrated/hijacked by corrupted socialist-communist teacher sand education-industry organizations that no longer teach the founding principles of our Constitutional Representative Republic.
FYI, the US Constitution was written with safeguards designed to forestall the worst instincts of human behavior from infecting our government and depriving the inalienable rights of the populace, who to this date can still claim to be citizens not subjects - barely. One of the safeguards - arguably the most concrete one that is the backbone of all the others - is of course the ratified Amendment 2 of the US Constitution.
Without that, the government - comprised of fallible and corruptible human beings - would run TOTALLY roughshod over the rights of its citizens, as they do in China and Australia and many other UN-backed authoritarian regimes who claim to be the exact opposite. [One of the first things Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia and Communist China and other authoritarian regimes did/do is dis arm the populace. The rest becomes easy.]
And although civilian-owned 'modern sporting rifles' have been used to save many innocent lives during the course of home invasions or other violent crimes, that is incidental to the reason we legitimately possess such weaponry. The ultimate reason is to make sure that any corrupted government 'leadership' knows that there is a high price to pay should they overstep the authority granted to them by We-The-People beyond a tolerable level. They have recently come close to that point in the US of A with their overreaching and unconstitutional responses to the fake 'plandemic' and the ensuing stolen elections and continuing undoing of the successes of the last administration [like gas prices doubling in a short 18 months].
So what is the workable solution to the 'mass-shootings'? The left-wing authoritarians in and out of government are against the simplest solution consistent with our form of government, and that is to simply get past the stupidity of the тАЩno-guns-allowed-on-school-propertyтАЩ policy that is never adhered to by criminals or mental defectives. You simply allow trained and vetted school staff [those US Citizens charged with educating and protecting our children under their care] to have access to firearms at all times - as supplements to or even substitutes for тАЩSchool Resource OfficersтАЩ. Criminals and crazies would not know who among the staff was armed. Had that approach been followed - and keeping the door entrances locked and monitored at all times during тАШbusiness hoursтАЩ, which apparently was not done in the latest Texas case - the perpetrator would have been taken down or neutralized before he could inflict such horrendous carnage. I blame the people who prevent such policies from being implemented.
So, I am not going to sacrifice my inalienable rights to protect myself from a common thug OR an overreaching out-of-control bunch of authoritarian government thugs - and yes, as a retiree with a light schedule I would volunteer my time to serve in a school-student-protection capacity should such a program be rolled out nationwide.
To this point - "and that is to simply get past the stupidity of the тАЩno-guns-allowed-on-school-propertyтАЩ policy that is never adhered to by criminals or mental defectives" - I submit Exhibit 1:
"A mental health caseworker is dead and a doctor and his patient wounded after a bizarre gunfight at a gun-free-zoned hospital in Yeadon, near Philadelphia, on Thursday. As police prepare murder charges against the wounded patient, focus is shifting to the gun-toting psychiatrist who stopped the mayhem, likely saving other lives." ~ Philadelphia, 2014
Note the irony (that is always lost on - or ignored by - folks like LM and other Leftists) that the only - the ONLY - reason the death toll wasn't higher in that GUN-FREE-ZONED HOSPITAL is because one citizen understood the abject STUPIDITY of gun-free zones and thus was armed with a pistol and was able to stop the madman before he could kill more people.
A gun-free-zone massacre was averted BY A GOOD GUY WITH A GUN, not by the "Gun-Free-Zone" signs posted prominently around that hospital.
This sht is so g/d obvious that the only conclusion to be reached is that Liberalism and Leftism are mental disorders if not outright illnesses.
https://archive.triblive.com/news/pennsylvania/armed-doctors-actions-in-philly-shooting-reinvigorates-debate-on-gun-carry/
"I mean a rapid-fire, high velocity, maximum damage on impact, quick reload, easy to carry weapon, designed to kill the maximum number of people in the shortest space of time."
Can you really be so ignorant of modern firearms that you don't know this describes pretty much every sidearm and rifle produced in the last century?
And what, exactly, is your proposal for preventing psychopaths from using anything *other* than "assault rifles" - you know, like planes, trains and automobiles, say - to commit mass murder?
Do tell.
Edged weapons can do amazing amounts of damage to a lot of people fast, too. Problem in Japan, China, India. Today's assault rifle is tomorrow's police patrol carbine. My assault rifle is because I might need it, I can hunt and I can run off/run down threats with it, I can deal with some things at a distance. May I never need it. For me it's like keeping a fire extinguisher handy. Handguns are the weapons of choice for most mass murders, because rifles have their own issues in close quarters. Ramos would have preferred handgun, but his age and access was rifle. I'm still wondering who gave him the $, it may have been the grandparents. Preventing psychopaths is the normies being armed. Next to that, fathers, social cohesion, properly operating "systems," treatment, accountability, family, police and authority figures with moral fiber. That police chief is a lazy leftie pro Beto anti-gun narcissist (open sources). Most disasters have the rule of 3 involved, 3 things that fail. Airliners, massive pileups, shootings, fires, etc. Look at surveillance, 2 cops watched Ramos go by. Chief didn't take his hand radio. Door not locked. Actually many failures, opportunities and judgments not made.
No, Dear LM, the person drinking the alcohol is the reason. How quickly we look to deflect.
How foolish to compare alcohol, a mind altering, intoxicating, drug to a rifle.
Maybe better to compare that drug, or any other, to a doctrine, or a psychosis, or a "ism" or anything that warps a mind. A handful of radicals, with warped minds, and a little bit of aeronautics training did not need your dreaded "assault weapon" to kill over 3,000 people in one morning.
A totalitarian government, unchecked by an armed citizenry with "assault rifles" did not need anything other than a warped mind to murder millions of people. In multiple countries, mind you, so please don't claim it was a one-off, never to be seen again phenomenon. Unchecked, it is ubiquitous; it is destiny.
Yet, here you stand, claiming my scary looking black rifle that in your civilized mind just can't be continenced is the reason for the latest horror.
It is not. It is the very protection against it. And, I carry it, and other weapons, daily, because your silly laws outlawing violence are nonsensical.
Outlaw evil, why don't you.
Ah, sweet confusion. Screwtape would be most delighted.
But cars kill far more people per year than guns, yet nearly everyone in this country owns, leases, or at least has a license to drive one. People routinely violate laws against driving under the influence, but no matter how many lethal drunk driving accidents you pass on the highway, you'll never hear someone say "we need to ban these assault weapons from our streets."
It is, however, illegal in many places to carry a firearm while under the influence.
Or, some locales, stone cold sober. In some U.S. States it's legal to openly carry a firearm most places. In most, probably not. In my State (FL) we are not open carry, but curiously, a loaded handgun in the glove box is legal (with exceptions, of course, don't try it on school property.) You don't even need a concealed weapon permit, although those are readily available. Yet in many States, that gun in the glove compartment might be a felony.
Like, name one time ever someone took a car for a trip, that they wouldn't a walked there and back!
Like, your sister in laws party 30 miles away, with the sheet cake, and you brought her that extra lawn mower, for sure you would have walked there and back if you didn't have the Ram tough Ram pickup with the semi. Inarguable!
This is as good a place to give my psychology lesson. ЁЯзР I'd like to point out some facts that are all too easily forgotten:
[Late edit: I realized I made a HUGE error here. See if you can spot it. I will reveal it at the end (Item "Epilogue").]
1. The media almost never presents an accurate picture of reality. Even if there were no editorial, ideological or other bias (and let me assure you, there are, big time!) and only straight factual reporting of news items happened, it would STILL be inaccurate. Why? Simple! Because it's nearly only the bad news. What about the good news? No headline or bulletin ever reported "100,000 passenger jets landed safely today." The same principle applies to most of the other lurid press you consume.
2. Primarily due to editorial choices (a form of "cherry picking," if you like) the news consumer is fed carefully curated items generally shaped to fit a certain agenda. Yes, it's been a bad month for mass shootings in the USA, two so far by troubled 18-year-olds. One white, the other Mexican, who will be called "white," of course. (By the way: that's an important point too: the government has been inconsistent in categorizing "Hispanic." White or not? Depends on the year/locale reporting.)
3. Regardless of one's beliefs, if one can set one's ideology aside, it's possible to look up boring government statistics. These will often present a dramatically different picture of what the "average" is. It is true that most killings in the USA are by firearm, this is at variance with nations with strict gun control. What is less well known is that roughly 60% of gun deaths are suicides. Of the remaining 40%, about 80% of it is young black and brown men shooting each other. Whites and everybody else (yes, that includes this Month's insane teenage killers) all fit into that 20%.
[source]
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls
4. Historical/Social interest: while not as readily available, one thing I've found interesting is the dramatic rise in crime, especially violent crime, since the mid-20th century. In America, Blacks have been rightly blamed (or equivalently, victimized) by such crime for as long as records have been kept. What's not widely known is that crime is many multiples of what it was in more peaceful times, such as 1945. And arguing against those who blame race/genetics as a factor, consider that Blacks have seen dramatic increases in dysfunction (crime and other indices of problem behavior) over the same time period. That could not be explained by biology. Thus the environment would seem a prime suspect.
5. (Demographic interest) Are Blacks the most crime or violence prone? In the USA perhaps, but let's look at international rankings. Far and away the leader in homicide is El Salvador, which if one reads about its demographics, has virtually zero African descended population. Like most of Central America, it is dominant mestizo (European, mostly Spanish, mix with indigenous tribes.)
[source]
https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5/rankings
Violent as we are, USA is ranked #55 at 5.3 per 100,000. In contrast, the UK is #124, with a homicide rate less than 1/3 of ours. Most Western European nations seem to fit that pattern. Curiously, Russia is much more violent than us, and I suspect, the most violent majority "white" nation.
I've researched these items before, yet today's exercise opened my eyes a bit. Apparently the link between race and crime is not quite as hard and fast as some would claim.
If there is any lesson to this long-winded post, please make it this one: The media usually is full of lies. At best, it is presenting you a tiny, biased sampling of "truth." Often their objective is to manipulate; don't let them do this to you. If a topic is really of importance to you, often you can do some simple investigation and find a clearer approach to the truth, one that is often dramatically at odds with what the media would have you believe.
Epilogue: After I had posted the above essay, I realized I had made a fundamental mistake. Recall where I said in several places that one should not accept the media without question? A fundamental rule of sages back when they spoke or at least wrote Latin was "In omnibus dubitandum." It means, approximately "Everything should be doubted." Well, I confess I made a huge error above. Did you spot it? Simple: my statistics. Just how reliable are those sources? Well, the short answer is of course "I can't be sure, but there are plenty of reasons to doubt their accuracy." Yes, ladies and gentlemen, here I was guilty of the very same sin that I routinely jump on Gato and anyone else (usually when the cite Covid-19 statistics.) The nugget of wisdom, of course is that the statistics are often extremely flawed. But they're often all we have to work with.
What follows is probably by no means complete, but will give you an idea of the problems of relying on government data. Remember those FBI crime statistics? Well they are culled from (probably) thousands of different agencies in fifty States and even more territories. Reporting is voluntary. How do we know consistent standards were used? Now wrap your mind around those international statistics. We have all the same issues we'd have domestically, but even worse. Every American jurisdiction has varying laws on what constitutes a homicide. For example, if a person is legally killed, whether by law enforcement or a private citizen (justifiable homicide), should it be counted in the homicide statistics? Its a judgment call. There's no disputing a killing had occurred, but it's distinguished by being legal. Except in the case of a shooting war, we can probably assume that legal deaths are a tiny fraction of the total. But it's a confounder. So would be wartime. Now consider that there are about two hundred different nations in the world, each with differing legal systems. Sometimes differing enormously. In one nation (say) dueling might be legal, so any deaths resulting from that aren't included. Or maybe they are in another. How about survival time? If a person is wounded in Nation A but doesn't die within a week, he may not be considered a murder victim, even if he dies the next week of his affliction. Do you see the problem? We potentially have each nation, or even each State and city's police department, using inconsistent standards of reporting. As with the ever-changing Covid-19 testing and reporting "standards," this may be an innocent factor in studying (say) gunshot victims over long time periods, even in the same nation. For example, isn't it likely that medical science is far better today at saving gunshot victims than fifty, or even ten years ago? A gunshot victim is more likley to survive today, probably. This obviously will skew deaths one way or the other, making those from decades past worse, and today's perhaps better. In this case, a better metric would be to compare total victims shot, whether they lived or died.
The real world is at times a very complicated place, and as the old saying goes, when you ASSUME you often make an ASS out of U and ME.
Please pardon the length of this essay; perhaps I need my own Substack!
You are just my sort of shrink.
I think the racial comparisons are a red herring. There are too many other conflating factors which vary from country to country and influence inter-racial relations within countries to ever get a clear signal, even if there is any real difference. There are much more data to support environmental triggers.
For example, increases in lead levels as measured in preschoolers (due to ubiquitous use of leaded gasoline) in the US over the second half of the 20th century correlate very closely with crime rates if you add 20 years (https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/blog_lead_crime_main_chart.gif). So, it looks like those preschoolers whose lead levels peaked in the late 60s, early 70s, may have grown up to be responsible for the high crimes of the late 80s, early 90s. I haven't looked at this in-depth but since lead has been shown to correlate with increased aggression among individuals studied, it's plausible that it might apply on the population level.
With regard to the more recent phenomenon of mass shootings, many people have speculated that they may be triggered by psychiatric drugs being given to teenage boys, specifically certain types of SSRIs and certain ADHD drugs, which have, in clinical studies, been associated with increased rates of homocidal and suicidal ideation in a statistically significant portion of the population, especailly among boys aged 15-24. (See https://robertyoho.substack.com/p/antidepressants-are-the-root-cause?utm_source=email&s=r#details and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0051hkjB9po for in-depth discussions; the latter includes a review of the cited clinical data).
I think I've come to the conclusion that leftism is a Church of Satan, or more nicely said, atheistic collectivism.
Or make that, universal atheistic collectivism, encompassing the totality of all things.
"Atheism is indeed the most daring of all dogmas... for it is the assertion of a universal negative."
~ G. K. Chesterton
Like quote very much!!!
They also believe that you have no free will because of, wellтАж science: https://youtu.be/zpU_e3jh_FY
ItтАЩs the same with these shots. No cause and effect even considered by the brain washed masses. ItтАЩs like 2 + 2 = elephants. ЁЯд╖тАНтЩАя╕П
ЁЯШЖЁЯСН
Soon to be deprecated by the Ministry of Truth...
Come on. Guns donтАЩt cause mass shootings but theyтАЩd be less of them if guns werenтАЩt around
Funny story.. Some years ago, I was living overseas in a country with VERY strict gun control. Like zero private guns anywhere.
One day the news came from America of yet another mass shooting.
But on that same day the local news covered a local mass stabbing.
It had a pretty good backstory - young lovers who wanted to get married, but the girl's family wasn't having any of that. End of the story was, a young man sliced up an entire family dinner party with his machete - like a dozen people - before being shot by the coppers.
The coincidence of those two events happening at the same time really put things in perspective for me.
Whatever small benefit to safety may (or may not) be gained by disarming the common people, it is in no way worth the de facto loss of popular sovereignty that entails.
We had a mass slicing at my sleepy hometown Reading Berkshire a couple years ago.
The answer to such things in the U.K. is ... "BAN POINTY OBJECTS".
And?
There would be less automotive fatalities if cars weren't around.
Perhaps "we" should ban them.
The tyrants would love that. Ask Australia.
By far the greatest perpetrators of violence are governments.
In the last century, they've collectively slaughtered at least 250 million souls, most of whom were their own citizens.
The USG alone has murdered some 20 million since WWII.
If people were really serious about preventing violence, they would disarm the State.
ЁЯТпЁЯТп
Don't forget the deaths of 6.25 million people worldwide due to Covid and lack of early treatment, and deaths after the "safe and effective"vaccine!
They have slaughtered people (bodies, etc.). Souls can't be slaughtered. I've seen that word "soul" or "souls" used many times over the years for being killed, but always thought it not the right word to use.
From a theological standpoint, you are of course correct, but I find that using it in this way, as it has been in common parlance for quite some time, adds a dimension of seriousness, and is thus more likely to sway the reader than other terms.
It would most likely depend on the reader, whether or not he/she would be swayed.
"The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - when the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees.
However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."
~ Judge Alex Kozinski, dissenting in Silveira v. Lockyer, 328 F.3d 567 (9th Circuit 2003)
Look up 'The Battle of Athens, Tennessee'. It came down to it on a localized level. Don't use any links to WikiPedia.
I'm aware of it.
All back to horse and buggy. Beware, a few days ago a horse and buggy rammed into a car !
Cars are not specifically made to kill people.
Neither are tools of defense.
Eh?
Just clarifying that guns arenтАЩt made to kill people. They are a tool, just like a knife or anything else that can be wielded by evil people or anyone else, and they can be used to defend the vulnerable from the psychopathic, the weak from the strong, the citizen from the tyrant. The only reason tyranny hasnтАЩt gotten further along in America is 2A, and every people that has ever given up that right to its government has come to regret that decision bitterly.
That's a fancy way of saying that guns are made to kill only the right people, the people we don't like. And I can assure you that in countries with better gun control we don't walk around "bitterly regretting" it at all. Definitely is not at all the reason tyranny hasn't gotten further in the States. How many shootouts have you had with your government lately? What you have are good constitution and laws and courts willing to enforce those laws, and you all should very well be thankful for that.
No, youтАЩre misunderstanding my point. Guns are neutral. They arenтАЩt тАЬmade to kill only the right people.тАЭ Mentally ill, psychopathic people will find whatever ways to kill they can, and guns help vulnerable people defend themselves against criminals. There are far more knife stabbings than gun murders. Taking away guns doesnтАЩt prevent evil people from doing evil things, but it prevents innocent people from being able to defend themselves from criminals and tyrannical governments.
The shootouts arenтАЩt what stop tyrannyтАФthe tyrantsтАЩ *awareness* that so many good citizens are armed and willing to defend the Constitution and our freedoms against tyranny is what stops them from overstepping their bounds into outright totalitarianism.
We do have a good constitution, thankfully, but we can no longer rely on the increasingly corrupted courts to defend our laws against those who are pushing to violate them. 2A provides a bulwark against the most egregious forms of tyranny, and that is precisely why the constitutional framers included it.
Yup I know and I've heard it all before. This is exactly why you'll keep getting these mass murders in the States.
I was always rather on the fence about the Second Amendment, going back and forth on it. But 2020 knocked my right off the fence and onto my ass squarely into a 2A supporter. I think you are extremely naive if you don't think that the fact that so many Americans are armed and know how to use their weapons hasn't had a dampening effect on the government's desire to intrude on our rights. Think about countries where the police are locking citizens in their homes (Shanghai is only the most recent and extreme example, remember what has happened in Australia) and going to people's homes to arrest them for posting things on Facebook the authorities don't like, for "testing and tracing", and countless other intrusive things including jabbing people. It's not happening here, much as they so very much want it to. Don't you think that the knowledge that a "tester and tracer" or some other public health department minion would have a good chance of facing down a double-barrel shotgun makes these people think twice? And I would add that it is not just that people have guns, but that there are plenty with serious training and organization. We like to make fun of militias and treat them as rag-tag groups of ignorant, fat racists with insecurities about their manhood, but is that really what they are, or what the government would like them to be, instead of disciplined patriots including ex-military and law-enforcement, both of which have doubtless swelled in numbers as a result of the insane, immoral jab mandates. Yes, so far there are been few shootouts with the government. But perhaps that's simply because the tyrants have been careful to avoid crossing some red lines.
"This is exactly why you'll keep getting these mass murders in the States." There are many, many other reasons why we are getting mass murders in this country--cultural, sociological and, I think perhaps most importantly, pharmacologically (the number of young people on anti-depressants and other mind altering drugs in this country is outrageous and obscene and as another poster has pointed out, every single mass shooter has been or recently stopped taking these drugs).
Your dismissiveness is insulting.
I spent a great deal of my childhood in a very rural area.
It was bear country, and our preferred bear gun was the 1911 .45 semi-automatic pistol.
Do you know what we called people who ventured out into the open country unarmed?
Dinner.
I have no problem with rural people using guns for hunting and defence against animals. There's a long way from that though to "anybody who wants one should have an assault weapon". (Also, there is bear spray).
So what, exactly, is an "assault weapon"?
Do try to be specific.
You ask about USA Shootouts with government - lately.
Well, Susanna, in my lifetime without a lot of research, Ruby Ridge, Branch Davidian Compound, and Bundy Ranch incidents stand out. And they were pretty one-sided 'shootouts', as the citizens were mostly defending against much more heavily armed government 'intruders' on their property under 'color of law'. Truly disgraceful mis-uses of government power and overreach.
Before my time in 1947 I believe, an entire county had severely corrupted public officials - I believe it was in Tennessee - who overstepped their authority, and - can you believe it - included running a fraudulent vote count. This culminated in the returning World War 2 veterans forming a coalition of citizens to resist, and resulted in what is termed 'The Battle of Athens' - the county seat. The citizens had an initial supply of firearms, but had to resort to storming the National Guard [?] Armory to bring sufficient firepower to bear against what the combined police and sheriff departments had on hand. The citizens prevailed. I believe the corrupt county officials petitioned the state and/or federal government to intervene, but based on public outcry, they declined to intervene.
So there you have some examples.
Not much else to say about that, is there?
"And I can assure you that in countries with better gun control we don't walk around "bitterly regretting" it at all." YET.
If I'm not regretting it after the last two years in Canada, I'm not sure when I would.
Tell that to the Aussies who were unceremoniously sent to 'Covid Camps' just like Japanese Americans were unconstitutionally sent to Internment Camps in WW2.
Oh Susanna, in the last 30 days, I have used my guns to kill a fox (5.56 AR-15 "assault weapon" style rifle at about 150 yards, a really good shot, by the way,) a really large snake I didn't want around, because my daughters get weird about that (12 gauge semi-auto shotgun with a 18" barrel,) and an aged animal that needed to be culled (.45 cal pistol at very close range, an emotionally draining task.) Three different guns, by the way, each with a different reach and effect. Not a single one made "specifically to kill people." Each, exactly what I need for the task at hand.
But, in that same 30 days, I've conceal carried a .45 caliber SA XDS2 with laser, a Kimber 9mm, and a Bersa .380 with Crimson Trace laser grip. My intent was to be able to kill anything trying to kill me. Say, a mass shooter.
It's a tool. Like the axe I've used in the same period, the 8 lb sledge I've used in the same period, and the Ram 2500 truck I use every day.
What other God given right are you willing to give away because you don't like how someone misuses it? Free speech? Free religion?
They're made specifically to kill people, if used by the wrong people, in the wrong way. Say a government.
Dana, nice response.
What evidence do you have that carrying guns is a God-given right? (I have no problem with using guns for hunting, by the way).
OK - we now get you. You are a product of the corrupt US educational 'system'.
You see, guns are already in the hands of people that given the choice, would enslave us or kill us.
That includes as I have mentioned elsewhere common thugs and evil-doers, as well as corrupted individuals who have been given limited powers in their capacity of implementing government, but who illegally overstep their limited authorities.
[See Communist China, Nazi Germany, etc. American Pre-Revolutionary battles at Lexington and Concord happened partly because the British government attempted to disarm the colonials so they would have no means to resist the out-of-control British government.]
I am guessing that every thinking person other than yourself recognizes - without 'evidence' - that the right to self defense is an innate natural [some say God-given] right we have because we are human beings. That means 'carrying guns', or cross-bows, axes, swords, or whatever else helps fulfill that purpose at a particular point in history/time. I suspect that you must know this, but just want to obfuscate because it goes against leftist narratives. [Actually even animals have this right - bears and mountain lions will usually demonstrate this if cornered or threatened.]
Hunting is nice to do with firearms, or with bows-and-arrows, although I personally do not subscribe to it.
Too many incorrect assumptions about me to answer this comment. Why do we do this online? I'm happy to have a civil, good faith discussion with people who disagree, and this isn't that.
Sorry if I made you do tedious reading to get to the answer to your question.
Q: What evidence do you have that carrying guns is a God-given right?
A: I am guessing that every thinking person other than yourself recognizes - without 'evidence' - that the right to self defense is an innate natural [some say God-given] right we have because we are human beings.
[Your question presumes- without evidence - that there is NOT a natural right to self defense so we are at an impasse given that is your argument.]
Thanks.
Best to leave those in the hands of our trusted government. Surely only good things will will come of it.
Love the sarcasm!
Nor are hunting rifles. Or anti-vehicle mines. Or kitchen knifes. Or...
You might want to take a look at South American history. The Aztecs did just fine with stone weapons.
Indeed. Doesn't make the case that we shouldn't prevent people from having high-powered killing weapons.
Yes of course guns are made to kill people and other animals.
The point is that we have an innate right of self defense against thugs and any other entity that would do us harm.
Therefore, people - the citizenry - need to possess effective weaponry in order to defend against these evil-doers, be they the common thuggery or an organized group of folks acting in the capacity of an out-of-control government. See Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist China, Pol-Pot era Cambodia, Cartel-Ruled Mexico and South American countries, ad nauseam.
Thank goodness our nation's founders realized this.
Even if that were true, and it's not, so what?
Wut?
Even if that were true, and it's not, so what?
And a lot more knife stabbings and truck massacres.
Case in point, London.
We've got about ten guns in the UK and still manage gun massacres. The latest in Plymouth a couple of years ago.
Andvknifings every nite in london ..not to mention violent breaking and enterings. By population the uk is now the most dangerous country in the world.
That's based on a manifestly false premise: "if guns weren't around"
It's the same false premise at the root of the nuclear disarmament movement, the notion that nukes would disappear if everyone got rid of their nukes (because NOT everyone would get rid of them, just as there will never be a situation where "guns aren't around").
I mean, you even concede this in the construct of your comment. You don't say that there would be NO mass shootings if guns weren't around, you say there'd be less of them if guns weren't around.
But if guns aren't around - if there are no guns - how would there be ANY mass shootings?
Furthermore, if guns were only possessed by government and bad guys, how do you know the carnage would be less? Bad guys knowing there are no good guys with guns are far more incentivized to commit gun crimes, and far more able to succeed.
On April 19th, 1993, heavily armed agents of the Federal government burned 76 people alive in Waco Texas.
The victims included 25 children and 2 pregnant women.
This after a 51 day siege where the Feds terrorized them with tanks, attack helicopters and various forms of psychological warfare.
The government investigation into the government's actions found no fault with any government actions, and the only people prosecuted were those who escaped being shot or incinerated.
This atrocity was the direct result of gun control laws.
This is the reality of the government violating the 2nd Amendment.
But it was OK, because they were DANGEROUS EXTREMISTS.
Case in point: Chicago USA
Ongoing violence does not arouse a headline nor empower the elites with passionate argument to further enslave the common man.
Exactly wrong. The more concealed carry the less shootings of any kind
Right. In England, they don't have mass shootings. Instead, they have beheadings, acid attacks, and pedophile gangs.
Have you seen the number of knife crimes in UK?
This is a question that you can answer scientifically. The only way to do this is to look at the empirical evidence.
And the evidence is crystal clear that there is no relation between how armed a population is and the number of mass shootings. Slice it by country, by state, or whatever you want.
True. But unfortunately, only double blind random controlled placebo studies will do anymore...
You know, like how the Surgisphere Lancet published fraudulent randomized peer reviewed controlled placebo study...which took out any empirical data on HCQ, just like Fauci wanted....
Less mass shootings, more mass "something-else."
Indeed. In the UK, the crime of choice is currently stabbings.
Yes, yes, now you are onto something. Stay with that. The bicycle is at fault. Keep shoveling all the virtues outward till they are finally located in the circle of fantasy.
that's silly.
Agreed. I live in Canada where there are not many guns. Some people do mass stabbings but it is a lot harder and takes a lot longer than a mass shooting so you canтАЩt kill as many people all at once.
And it sure is a lot easier and takes a lot less time to impose tyranny all at once.
тАв тАЬLetter to Justin TrudeauтАЭ (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/letter-to-justin-trudeau)
тАв тАЬProfiles in Courage: The Canadian TruckersтАЭ (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/profiles-in-courage-the-canadian)
The Stockholm Syndrome is strong in this one.
"...so you can't kill as many people all at once"
But the *government* can, once the people are disarmed. History has shown this over and over and over. Tens and hundreds of millions of deaths later, how is this lesson still not learned?
Mmmm, I see. Now do the Nice truck attack.
Per capita, Canada is one of the top countries for privately owned firearms. #7 in the world if you believe Wikipedia.
I never believe wikipedia
"...and those of us who still possess that capacity risk ostracization, incarceration, and ultimately elimination for threatening the collective psychosis."
...and then there are still some among us with no fucks to give about what other people think, or whether they feel safer in their bubble because they ostracize us... that's kinda like the trash taking itself to the kerb...
Absolutely worth taking!
We're rapidly returning to the demon-haunted world Sagan warned us about, which is right where they want us. People scared of demons can be talked into anything, especially a permanent aristocracy "protecting" them from said demons.
Yes, we do "risk ostracization, incarceration, and ultimately elimination for threatening the collective psychosis" for the best of reasons: to try to head off the collective psychosis.
I suspect that the vast majority of human beings currently alive on the planet are occupied with trying to live their lives and are not on display for us to enjoy the sport of generalizing to ascertain the intelligence or the stupidity of the rest.
тАЬthe vast majority of human beings currently alive on the planet are occupied with trying to live their livesтАЭтАФand lazily failing to take ownership of their own knowledge is what has caused them to fall under mass formation and sleepwalk the planet into a totalitarian technocratic dystopia that they will only awaken to after itтАЩs too late, if ever.
Shaking off the hypnosis and recognizing that they have entrusted their lives to sociopathic tyrants is the only way they will have a chance of achieving the simple pleasure of тАЬtrying to live their lives,тАЭ but right now, choosing to remain in that state of subjugation to tyranny is the definition of stupidity according to Bonhoeffer (https://sproutsschools.com/bonhoeffers-theory-of-stupidity/).
God bless you margaret anna alice
You're sure fond of jargon, ain't ya?
YouтАЩre sure fond of tyranny, ainтАЩt ya?
Wanna back that statement up?
YouтАЩre right, SCA. I donтАЩt know you well enough to make that accusation, so I apologize. From the limited exchanges IтАЩve had with you, however, you have demonstrated a resistance to learning about both menticide and mass formation while defending the hypnotized for simply тАЬtrying to live their lives,тАЭ which is exactly what the Good Germans did while the Nazis went about their merry business because there werenтАЩt enough Badass Germans (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/are-you-a-good-german-or-a-badass) to stop them.
I don't join churches.
Great! YouтАЩre off to a good start toward reclaiming your mind.
Oh, I never let it get out of my sight...
ЁЯШЖ I wonтАЩt worry about you anymore, then :-)
I guess that was a lot easier than refuting the points.
It's pretty easy to ascertain the intelligence or stupidity of the population by doing nothing more than watching their "leaders". The "leadership" is a mirror of the population.
Regarding C A U S E and E F F E C T,
Margaret Anna Alice, study my messages :
#################################
Forwarded Message :
My below post is found in here :
https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/dear-friends-sorry-to-announce-a/comment/6843593?s=r
#################################
JungianINTPMay 29
Dr. Naomi Wolf,
Re: In Search of Root Causes
Forwarded Message :
Dear BearingArms Editor,
Regarding тАЬTroubling QuestionsтАЭ :
https://bearingarms.com/tomknighton/2022/05/27/uvalde-police-n58779
я╗┐There exists a failure in
CRITICAL Analyses because
leadership FAILS to search
for ROOT Causes, as IтАЩve done
in my below letter to WND
editor, Joseph Farah. -Rick :
тАФ The Great Debasement ( my term )
Explains How We Got to Here : тАФ
Dear Joseph Farah,
This analyst blames
dumb-as-box-of-bent-nails
C O N S E R V A T I V E S,
especially emasculated,
donтАЩt-understand-J E S U S
evangelical Christians ( they
await AmericaтАЩs destruction !,
as prelude/necessary for the
Second Coming ! ? ).
Badly Bullied White
Kid Gets Revenge
in Texas ? :
Root Causes :
PORN, DIVORCE, Violent Videos, SSRI Drugs,
and a total absence of TEN Commandments
and PRAYER in the public square and
in schools.
Blame the American Communist
Lawyers Union ( ACLU ), which began its
assaults on good, White, Christian, Civilized
Society by shutting down S A N I T A R I -
U M S across the U.S. - throughout the Sixties
and Seventies - and removed Ten Command-
ments and school prayer thereafter( they
A R E the Marxian SOCIAL / CULTURAL
engineersтАФushering in decay via their sex-/
violence-drenched Hollywood movies,
( violence and sex in VIDEOS and MusicтАФand
having control of major news/book/magazine
publishing venues ).
Blame that bad aspect of an
otherwise moral TRIBE,
which bad and corrupt few
in there canтАЩt be called out in
any way/fashion without being
charged an anti-Semite/bigot.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin may
be the most COURAGEOUS
among all TRIBE membersтАФ
to write a truth-telling report
about that bad segment of his
Tribe ( linked by Rense dot
Com, below ) :
Forwarded Message :
Christian Kruse,
It has been a multi-front war
against the Christian/meritorious
/virtuous/constitutional WEST for
many decades!, by masked Com-
munists embedded EVERYWHERE
( and in our State Department ),
and called, тАЬThe Deep State.тАЭ
Orthodox Rabbi Daniel Lapin,
had written a powerful, truth-telling
warning ( study this to its very end,
or miss his pointed/shocking charge ) :
http://www.rense.com/general62/deb.htm
-Rick
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