Just clarifying that guns aren’t 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 hasn’t 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, you’re misunderstanding my point. Guns are neutral. They aren’t “made to kill only the right people.” 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 doesn’t 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 aren’t what stop tyranny—the tyrants’ *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.
Ok, that's a possible explanation, but the problem with it is you are trying to prove a negative, which is impossible. You have a belief that tyranny hasn't progressed as far as it has in other countries because of guns, but that's a non-testable hypothesis. A more reasonable hypothesis is that your constitution and laws have held tyranny back, and that's a totally provable hypothesis because we have many court decisions to point to which have done exactly that (and some which haven't). The second problem with this hypothesis is that it ignores countries with strict gun control laws which did not impose covid tyranny. Two examples that immediately come to mind are Sweden and Mexico. In conclusion I thank you for this reasonable presentation of an opposing view, I appreciate it.
History has proven it again and again and again. Every genocide requires the disarmament of the designated enemy.
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you’d be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur—what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!
“If . . . if . . . We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more—we had no awareness of the real situation. We spent ourselves in one unrestrained outburst in 1917, and then we hurried to submit. We submitted with pleasure!”
This, in your style, is a grand piece of rhetoric which deals with none of the actual problems you have in the States, and ignores the countries which have gun control and no genocides.
“and ignores the countries which have gun control and no genocides”—YET.
How would you defend yourself if the guards come to take you to the gulag?
You are aware of the democide that’s been underway for the past two+ years. You are aware of the escalating totalitarian laws enveloping the globe. You are aware of the countries that have already incarcerated dissenters in isolation camps. You are aware of the rights and freedoms that have been stripped in the name of “public health,” “safety,” and the “good of society.”
And yet you naively trust these governments never to overstep their bounds, as the citizens of every past totalitarian genocidal regime have done throughout history.
It’s time to flee the cult of safety and stop swallowing the propaganda you’ve been fed about guns by the tyrannical governments whose limits are inscribed by their presence:
I should add, I'm not sure who you're talking to who "naively trusts the government" and belongs to a "cult of safety". I think you may be arguing with someone you're imagining, but it's not me 😆
I don't have time to properly answer this right now, but I will briefly say: again, you're trying to prove a negative. "We have guns in the States and no genocides, you have no guns and no genocides BUT YOU MIGHT SOMEDAY" is not an argument. Secondly, what you are dealing with in this century is not armed warfare; you are dealing with totalitarian nanny statism which for the most part does not resort to violence to achieve its ends. Thirdly, please name me one recent example where someone or a group of people went up against the US government with guns and achieved its aims and did not end up either dead or in jail? What you *actually* have are mass shootings, high rates of gun homicides, suicides, and accidents. The rhetoric may be great on the other side, but that's what your gun rights look like in actuality.
Perfect illustration of the adage that when citizens are banned from having firearms for even just self protection against thugs, let alone against government tyranny, only the government and criminals will have guns.
Criminals in Mexico's case being the various drug and human trafficking 'Cartels' that effectively viciously and violently rule the populace whenever and wherever the government is not present. Pretty much every place at any given time.
For every Mexico example, there's another country that doesn't have as many armed citizens as the States and also doesn't have massive crime and violence problems, e.g. Canada. Mexico's problems are complex but I promise you that more guns will not reduce gun violence any more than it has in the US.
Well, Swedes have been more willing to get jabbed than Americans and I understand have rather enthusiastically accepted digital chipping, so there was no need for the government to resort to the kinds of measures that would be required here. And doesn't Mexico have these heavily armed drug cartels and other anti-governmental groups that the government might hesitate to rile up?
Hello from Sweden. The chipping bit is a small news item blown out of all proportion, and that's all it is. There's no need you see. 95%+ uses smart phones. As in, a 24/7 surveillance device they happily pay for and udgrade themselves.
As for gun control, we have among the hardest laws in the world. Along with the weirdest loopholes.
On one hand, the police decides upon application if you may purchase and own a firearm of any kind, including the more powerful kinds of air rifles, or crossbows, or slingshots. Basically, the policeman in question is the sole arbiter and is also the only instance of appeal. Old days, this worked well because the police would be a local handling the local's applications and thus having local knowledge on who's suitable and who's not. Today, not so much.
Another example: there's no legal limit to the amount of ammunition you may have at home. And if you have a construction company registred, you may buy and own explosives, again with no real limit - as long as you storage facilities are up to code. Different laws in conflict you see.
Also, we have about 450 000 hunters (out of 11 000 000) who all own on average three rifles/shotguns of different kinds, and also anywhere from 55 000 to 150 000 home guard/national guard depending on definitions. Those on active home guard duty keep AK-5s at home - and there has only ever for more than 100 years been a US-style shooting involving such a weapon and a soldier going whackaoodles.
Yet, we have per capita the same level of gun violence as Chicago almost. Why?
Well, the perps are not white men and women. They are african negroes, arab moslems, and gypises and afghans, syrians and other such ... people. And they behave as their races always do. They will happily spray a tenement building with fully automatic fire from a CZ Scorpion or an AK-47, or lob handgrenades at eachother during drive-bys.
You can take a fox out of the woods and let in your house, but that doesn't make it any less of a fox.
The solution for the US is quite obvious: look at the demographics of illegal fireamrs use, and impose harshest possible individual sanctions in a consistent manner. You have territory in Greenland - use it as a gulag for the Geroge floyds and others of his ilk. That will drop all costs associated so much you can then properly fund mental health care.
Swedes being more willing to get jabbed doesn't explain why the government didn't impose NPIs like lockdowns and masks. And you could always try to find rationalizations; the basic point is that the citizenry having guns or not does not correlate with whether any country's government imposed restrictions. Again, look at what actually happened in your country: Biden tried, the courts shot him down one by one (mostly, also no pun intended).
"Swedes being more willing to get jabbed doesn't explain why the government didn't impose NPIs like lockdowns and masks." Well, it certainly seems at least one part of why they didn't feel the need to impose measures designed to terrorize and intimidate them into compliance. I'm not suggesting that is the only reason, but likely was a factor.
"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).
If you lot ever want to be taken seriously, you really should consider actually engaging in a civil conversation rather than tossing out meaningless euphemisms that you refuse to define.
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.]
That's still not an argument. "Every thinking person recognizes" provides no evidence for the claim. There are many thinking people who don't recognize it as a "natural right", so the burden is on those who do to prove the claim. I would want to know first, what God are you talking about? Secondly, where is the source or evidence for this God giving gun possession as a right? (Note, we've gone from "guns" to "self defence", and from discussing mass shootings and homicide to self defence, which appears to evade the actual problem under discussion).
First, you are the one who brought 'God' into the equation - I was only responding to your framing of the question. I used the terms innate and natural. And I admidtedly reframed your 'carry a gun' to 'self-defense' - against individuals or entities including 'the government'.
Second, I will not ask you for 'proof' that there is no right to self defense, because you can simply refer me to the United Nations, an entity that exists primarily to maintain control over all individuals and governments on planet earth.
IF I subscribe to the United Nations as being my ruler [I vehemently do not], I have to agree that you are right - the UN must be the ultimate authority. I will turn in to the government any firearms I may have because according to the UN:
A subcommission of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) has declared that there is no human right to personal self-defense and that extremely strict gun control is a human right which all governments are required to enforce immediately.
Wow. I did not realize that. Sounds suspiciously authoritarian, but then we are sheep and accept the situation - it is all for our own good.
Eh?
Just clarifying that guns aren’t 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 hasn’t 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, you’re misunderstanding my point. Guns are neutral. They aren’t “made to kill only the right people.” 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 doesn’t 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 aren’t what stop tyranny—the tyrants’ *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.
Ok, that's a possible explanation, but the problem with it is you are trying to prove a negative, which is impossible. You have a belief that tyranny hasn't progressed as far as it has in other countries because of guns, but that's a non-testable hypothesis. A more reasonable hypothesis is that your constitution and laws have held tyranny back, and that's a totally provable hypothesis because we have many court decisions to point to which have done exactly that (and some which haven't). The second problem with this hypothesis is that it ignores countries with strict gun control laws which did not impose covid tyranny. Two examples that immediately come to mind are Sweden and Mexico. In conclusion I thank you for this reasonable presentation of an opposing view, I appreciate it.
History has proven it again and again and again. Every genocide requires the disarmament of the designated enemy.
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you’d be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur—what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!
“If . . . if . . . We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more—we had no awareness of the real situation. We spent ourselves in one unrestrained outburst in 1917, and then we hurried to submit. We submitted with pleasure!”
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “The Gulag Archipelago”
This, in your style, is a grand piece of rhetoric which deals with none of the actual problems you have in the States, and ignores the countries which have gun control and no genocides.
“and ignores the countries which have gun control and no genocides”—YET.
How would you defend yourself if the guards come to take you to the gulag?
You are aware of the democide that’s been underway for the past two+ years. You are aware of the escalating totalitarian laws enveloping the globe. You are aware of the countries that have already incarcerated dissenters in isolation camps. You are aware of the rights and freedoms that have been stripped in the name of “public health,” “safety,” and the “good of society.”
And yet you naively trust these governments never to overstep their bounds, as the citizens of every past totalitarian genocidal regime have done throughout history.
It’s time to flee the cult of safety and stop swallowing the propaganda you’ve been fed about guns by the tyrannical governments whose limits are inscribed by their presence:
https://academyofideas.com/2022/04/fear-psychosis-and-the-cult-of-safety/
I should add, I'm not sure who you're talking to who "naively trusts the government" and belongs to a "cult of safety". I think you may be arguing with someone you're imagining, but it's not me 😆
I don't have time to properly answer this right now, but I will briefly say: again, you're trying to prove a negative. "We have guns in the States and no genocides, you have no guns and no genocides BUT YOU MIGHT SOMEDAY" is not an argument. Secondly, what you are dealing with in this century is not armed warfare; you are dealing with totalitarian nanny statism which for the most part does not resort to violence to achieve its ends. Thirdly, please name me one recent example where someone or a group of people went up against the US government with guns and achieved its aims and did not end up either dead or in jail? What you *actually* have are mass shootings, high rates of gun homicides, suicides, and accidents. The rhetoric may be great on the other side, but that's what your gun rights look like in actuality.
Love your Mexico example.
Perfect illustration of the adage that when citizens are banned from having firearms for even just self protection against thugs, let alone against government tyranny, only the government and criminals will have guns.
Criminals in Mexico's case being the various drug and human trafficking 'Cartels' that effectively viciously and violently rule the populace whenever and wherever the government is not present. Pretty much every place at any given time.
So there is that.
For every Mexico example, there's another country that doesn't have as many armed citizens as the States and also doesn't have massive crime and violence problems, e.g. Canada. Mexico's problems are complex but I promise you that more guns will not reduce gun violence any more than it has in the US.
Well, Swedes have been more willing to get jabbed than Americans and I understand have rather enthusiastically accepted digital chipping, so there was no need for the government to resort to the kinds of measures that would be required here. And doesn't Mexico have these heavily armed drug cartels and other anti-governmental groups that the government might hesitate to rile up?
Hello from Sweden. The chipping bit is a small news item blown out of all proportion, and that's all it is. There's no need you see. 95%+ uses smart phones. As in, a 24/7 surveillance device they happily pay for and udgrade themselves.
As for gun control, we have among the hardest laws in the world. Along with the weirdest loopholes.
On one hand, the police decides upon application if you may purchase and own a firearm of any kind, including the more powerful kinds of air rifles, or crossbows, or slingshots. Basically, the policeman in question is the sole arbiter and is also the only instance of appeal. Old days, this worked well because the police would be a local handling the local's applications and thus having local knowledge on who's suitable and who's not. Today, not so much.
Another example: there's no legal limit to the amount of ammunition you may have at home. And if you have a construction company registred, you may buy and own explosives, again with no real limit - as long as you storage facilities are up to code. Different laws in conflict you see.
Also, we have about 450 000 hunters (out of 11 000 000) who all own on average three rifles/shotguns of different kinds, and also anywhere from 55 000 to 150 000 home guard/national guard depending on definitions. Those on active home guard duty keep AK-5s at home - and there has only ever for more than 100 years been a US-style shooting involving such a weapon and a soldier going whackaoodles.
Yet, we have per capita the same level of gun violence as Chicago almost. Why?
Well, the perps are not white men and women. They are african negroes, arab moslems, and gypises and afghans, syrians and other such ... people. And they behave as their races always do. They will happily spray a tenement building with fully automatic fire from a CZ Scorpion or an AK-47, or lob handgrenades at eachother during drive-bys.
You can take a fox out of the woods and let in your house, but that doesn't make it any less of a fox.
The solution for the US is quite obvious: look at the demographics of illegal fireamrs use, and impose harshest possible individual sanctions in a consistent manner. You have territory in Greenland - use it as a gulag for the Geroge floyds and others of his ilk. That will drop all costs associated so much you can then properly fund mental health care.
Swedes being more willing to get jabbed doesn't explain why the government didn't impose NPIs like lockdowns and masks. And you could always try to find rationalizations; the basic point is that the citizenry having guns or not does not correlate with whether any country's government imposed restrictions. Again, look at what actually happened in your country: Biden tried, the courts shot him down one by one (mostly, also no pun intended).
"Swedes being more willing to get jabbed doesn't explain why the government didn't impose NPIs like lockdowns and masks." Well, it certainly seems at least one part of why they didn't feel the need to impose measures designed to terrorize and intimidate them into compliance. I'm not suggesting that is the only reason, but likely was a factor.
NPIs were imposed (or not) long before the vaccines were available.
"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).
We have all those same dynamics in countries without mass shootings (or to be more precise, many fewer mass shootings).
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.
If you're interested in a civil conversation, I am too. Not interested in trading snark or answering "gotcha" attempts.
Uh huh.
About what I expected.
If you lot ever want to be taken seriously, you really should consider actually engaging in a civil conversation rather than tossing out meaningless euphemisms that you refuse to define.
😆😆😆
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.
That's still not an argument. "Every thinking person recognizes" provides no evidence for the claim. There are many thinking people who don't recognize it as a "natural right", so the burden is on those who do to prove the claim. I would want to know first, what God are you talking about? Secondly, where is the source or evidence for this God giving gun possession as a right? (Note, we've gone from "guns" to "self defence", and from discussing mass shootings and homicide to self defence, which appears to evade the actual problem under discussion).
First, you are the one who brought 'God' into the equation - I was only responding to your framing of the question. I used the terms innate and natural. And I admidtedly reframed your 'carry a gun' to 'self-defense' - against individuals or entities including 'the government'.
Second, I will not ask you for 'proof' that there is no right to self defense, because you can simply refer me to the United Nations, an entity that exists primarily to maintain control over all individuals and governments on planet earth.
IF I subscribe to the United Nations as being my ruler [I vehemently do not], I have to agree that you are right - the UN must be the ultimate authority. I will turn in to the government any firearms I may have because according to the UN:
A subcommission of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) has declared that there is no human right to personal self-defense and that extremely strict gun control is a human right which all governments are required to enforce immediately.
Wow. I did not realize that. Sounds suspiciously authoritarian, but then we are sheep and accept the situation - it is all for our own good.
Thanks for the enlightenment.