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why doesn't your government trust you?

ill take a break from here, its getting to involving

manfriday wrote:They say:
"American kids are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun,"

what reaction is that "statistic" designed to elicit?
An emotional one of course.
It makes people think 'oh no! our children are 16 times more likely to be murdered here in the US than anywhere else! WE HAVE TO GET RID OF THESE GUNS!"

And what about this 'statistic' : "11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun"

sounds like our children are 11 times more likely to commit suicide than children from another country!

But that is not what they are really saying is it?

That's how I read it, too. A very interesting spin on the numbers.

I think what scares most people about gun ownership (my wife especially, she has put her foot down on the issue) is accidental shootings in the home. I can't imagine that there are people who don't lock them up in their house so the kids don't play with it, but I suppose there are. Having experienced living in South Central LA during the '90s riots (heck, just the fact I have to specify WHICH LA riots I'm talking about), I wouldn't mind having a Glock in a locked box under my bed. But the media convinces us that I'm more likely to shoot myself than some meth-head that just took my sliding glass door off its track. Or by having a gun in a lockbox, I'm still endangering my unborn child who will one day pick the lock.

I'm sure that you and Gary can be trusted with guns but that is not the problem. Our country is filled with total inbred hate filled morons and alcoholics.That is why guns should never be legal.

In 2005 there were 16,900 murders in the United States. As you can imagine most with guns.

Hey! The guy with the Ed Grimley cowlick in the upper left corner of that picture is Gregory Despres, a pyscho who killed an old couple with a chainsaw, just up the road from where I'm living, and then hiked back to the states. Apparently he got across the border by telling the guards he was painting something red, that day... Eventually caught by the police in the states and returned to Canada.

This is gonna piss some people off. I'm a nonviolent person myself, never owned a gun, hope never to live where I need to. But if you told me you shot and killed a burglar, I probably would thank you because there's one less a-hole to break into MY house, now. I think the (US) problem is a violent, anonymous culture where guns etc are GLORIFIED (there's hardly a major movie nowadays that ISNT about revenge-fantasy, and TV shows sadly put ideas into peoples heads, making the unthinkable, thinkable). And people are isolated from each other, living in locked houses, and feel little compassion for each other, sometimes I'm surprised more people don't 'go postal'. And as Nestor put so well, the evil is in each of us, to some extent, and will find a way to express itself, guns or no guns.

I think what scares most people about gun ownership (my wife especially, she has put her foot down on the issue) is accidental shootings in the home. I can't imagine that there are people who don't lock them up in their house so the kids don't play with it, but I suppose there are. Having experienced living in South Central LA during the '90s riots (heck, just the fact I have to specify WHICH LA riots I'm talking about), I wouldn't mind having a Glock in a locked box under my bed. But the media convinces us that I'm more likely to shoot myself than some meth-head that just took my sliding glass door off its track. Or by having a gun in a lockbox, I'm still endangering my unborn child who will one day pick the lock.

Yup, I'm pretty much in the same boat.
My wife hates guns. The poor girl was forced to shoot a 22 when she was 9 or 10.
She missed the bottle she was aiming at and killed a frog in the pond behind the bottle.
She was traumatized.

I cant help but find the story funny, but she still gets a little teary over it.

But yeah, she doesn't want a gun in the house either, and I don't care about guns enough to argue it.
So, while I may sound like a gun-nut with my arguing here, I'm not.
I just value the right to own a gun should I choose to.

Sorry to poke a little more fun here, but we're talking about the rights & wrongs of gun laws in a nation that still glorify & aid bounty hunting for reward money. Is that because the nation's advertised & official public protection (the cops) are doing more important things or because they're permanently 'on lunch' ?

DAWG the bounty hunter ...

...the problem are not the weapons but the societal conditions

I do believe that to be correct sir.

It looks to me like the sense of power & freedom achieved from having 'the right' to own a gun amplifies the already installed false sense of freedom.

I'm free, I'm free, ...honestly !!

one thing's for sure. that right being reserved for the state means that one is not free. enjoy your national id and your surveilance cameras(all for your safety. you can't be trusted to take care of yourself)....

I didn't mean to be too light hearted on the issue Gary. In truth, I'm perfectly aware of the fact that our governments' don't have 'the people's' safety at the top of their agenda (as much as they'd like us to believe they do!)

I'd speculate that gun laws in the US don't still exist in their ancient state because it's in the interest of the public to have the right to bear arms. It's not in the interests of the public at all. It's in the interests of those who profit from the public at any given moment of the day.

gun laws don't exist in the original state, period.

until very recently, after ww2, it was considered very patriotic to be a gun owner. in many rural areas, kids might bring their rifles to school, to go target shooting after class. the guns would be placed in the corner until the day was done. to mess around was as unthinkable then, as the public being fully armed is to europeans today.

in the "wild west", it's generally thought that people were brandishing guns everywhere and playing shoot em up every chance. in reality, this was all a fabrication of the factory owners in the east, who didn't want their workers going out west and becoming land owners(don't go out west! there's too many guns and desperados. you'll get killed!). famous gunfights like the one at ok corral were the exception, not the norm, and that's why they're remembered to this day!(who remembers who was in the gun battle on the streets of kingston jamaica yesterday, or in watts or compton 15-20 minutes from where i live? all these guns are unregistered and many of them were found in abandoned railway cars loaded with weapons and ammo. hmmm how did that happen?) we are being conditioned to think of killing and to kill eachother by tv, movies and video games which were invented by the military to condition the "shoot reflex" in people. in ww1 less than 30% of the new soldiers could be convinced to murder, most freaked out, threw up, peed their pants and ran away. ww2 they did a little better, near 50%. today, with modern methods and video simulation, the natural reflex to not murder someone that you have no gripe with can easily be overcome. of course psychedelic drugs like paxil and zoloft, which create a dream state help too. in nearly 100% of the last 5 years' most heinous killings, mothers dismembering or drowning their children, or in mass shootings(including virginia tech), the perpetrator has be on seratonin uptake inhibitors(brave new world indeed).

no, these things are excuses to require backround checks and registration(all unconstitutional, unlawful even if they may help keep the public safe from the monsters that the powers that be breed), and eventually disarmament. when this is fully implemented, you'll begin to see the true face of evil, even in those nice places where everything is clean and safe and wealthy at the moment. how do i know this? well, i just read the elite's own policy papers and projections! ask the wealthy of new orleans after katrina who tried to stay in their dry homes on the hill, well protected from any trouble by their personal guns, that is until the army came in and shot the ones refusing to relinquish their arms. this old lady had been through hurricanes before, didn't need to go anywhere, had food and lived in a dry area. unfortunately, she didn't want to leave, the "authorities" pushed their way in, demanded her husband's gun, which she was going to give them and then.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1Qx0cTze0M what? nazis again.....nope, not free if we can't shoot these jerks who assualt us in our own house...

btw- the talk of "bacteria" is laughable. everytime that city has flooded, there's been e-coli. it's only dangerous if you play in infected water or if you drink it. when a sewr line ruptures in any city, there's massive contamination. people normally aren't evacuated unless it's in the living space. hell, a backed up toilet that floods the bathroom is more contaminated as the area the lady was in. soap and water and maybe some bleach is all it takes, but no, this lady was wrong in her thinking that the government was looking out for her and was there for her assistance. their idea of assistance was brutalization.

Maybe guns are so easily accuired because someone wants you to have them?

As for the whole guns & patriotism thing, that's all complete BS. The only thing it's actually good for is when 'shawn of the dead' comes to life.

what's bs? that it's all american to be your own army?, your own landlord?, your own king? that's not bs except in a land with a single lord conqueror king, even if you have a "vote" about what type of servitude you are engaged in.

i'm just reporting the difference in mindset, not justifying or explaining it.

but on the tip of "someone wants you to have them", the gun manufacturers want me to buy them for profit's sake, of course. the police(an element there) secretly want criminals to have them so that they have justification for heavy handed tactics and powerplays. the government(certain elements only) wants gangs to have them so that there's an excuse to impliment eugenics programs and to disarm the lawful citizens. a reread of 1984 might be in order. the gentelman who wrote that book wasn't writing fiction. he worked for the crown in the secret service. he was descibing reality in all his books.....

oh, btw-added some more fodder to the last screed.

It's like the death penalty for burglary . I would not say you are a non-violent person!


Liquid Len wrote:
Hey!
This is gonna piss some people off. I'm a nonviolent person myself, never owned a gun, hope never to live where I need to. But if you told me you shot and killed a burglar, I probably would thank you because there's one less a-hole to break into MY house, now. .

@ Gary, but just as a way to think loud for a while
You're talking rather cynical -to say the least- when talking about gouvernments in general, and i don't mean this morally
Is it really the way you think about government in general and anytime?

It's rather obvious that the European members think totally different from you.
Most of us don't like our 'democratic' leaders so much, but at least we trust the system we're living in, to an acceptable degree (namely not wanting guns in private hands).
This can't be occasional, isn't it?

Let's assume we live in a country where democratic rights are well implied, and where social justice is widely spread, and even where politicions are not currupt or inspired by selfish interests, let's assume all this
And let's agree about the assumption that this can only be the case if this imaginary society is perfectly based on the classic parting of the Trias Politica (not sure about the english terms, probably legislating, juridical and executive power).
And say democratic controll of all leadership on every level is ruling, garanteed by a free and independent press and public medea.

What would you say (assuming you agree about that build of a modern society)?

Should guns be available as is now in your country?
Should every sitizen have the constitutional right to defend himself by (having)guns?
Yes or No

Well, not the actual answer is important for me here.
What I'm after, is this:
If the answer is yes, the only conclusion would be that the parting of those three powers is not complete.
Not on a detail, no, on a substantial part of the basis of a society: being safe, as that is the most essential reason to start one; staying alife and safe.
To allow guns does in fact say:
ok, we are citizens from now on, but we don't trust each other really (therefor the new society), yet we also don't really trust the democraticly controlled institutions we setup for our safety.
Well that's undermining...

Whatever later generations would think about their society, it would be forever the Achilles' heel of the principal construction of the building.
The society as a whole get's blackmail-sensible, certain groups get actual power just because of they have actually guns.

As far as i understood, you bow to insist to have the right to have a gun in any circumstances
Don't you agree this means you will never accept any form of society, ultimately?
Someone could stand up and say, eh, I also don't trust the judges, so I feel free to kill the raper of my daughter by myself.
A lawer could defend this even as self defence I guess

In other words, it's A or B, imho, but I admit this is getting academic

Yet, I can understand better the position that Braincell takes.

He has also made an observation of his society, and gets to the conclusion that it should be different: social justice in a democratic(ly controlled) society, and therefor no weapons on the streets.
('Ich bin ein Europeaner', thank you B., but keep on loving your country anyway ).

Your -Gary's- approach however says, those who rule, srew you anyway, I never give away the right to defend myself by having a weapon.

If that's really the case, I only can bow my head and realize I live in a very privilaged society (which I think is true anyway, it's even built on international exploitation).
But it still is important to to think about the fundamental principles of society and the position you take in that environment, otherwise you loose certain believes.

It's even our friend Olive who made me thinking along these principal lines, as he put the same kind of questions to Gary and fellow Americans as I had in mind
Not completely unexpectable tho, as the idea of Trias Politica comes from french philosophers

I just refuse to believe that the right to have a gun is a natural right of a human being.
It would undermine all hope I could have for the future or mankind, no drama intended

edit; some old stuff hanging outside window deleted

all good questions.

it's too hard to have the coversation this way, i don't like typing........i'll just say that i'm all for the idea you put forward. such a government won't require weapons to use against citizens. i live in the real world, however. it's not like you suggest, unfortunately. as i said, a gilded cage is still a cage. i resent the prison planet, even if it's "for my own good", and those in charge ARE often corrupt. just the law of averages will tell you that. the fact that the corrupt are drawn to power, means that your leaders are the most likely to be corrupt. this is common sense.

will a gun really even save my life in the proper circumstance? yes, it might. maybe it wouldn't. it's my business at that moment, however, no one else's...

as the the cynical thing, once more i think i need to try and define terms. to my understanding:
an optimist will always lend uncle henry $50
a pessimist will never lend uncle henry $50
a cynic has already loaned uncle henry $50

yes, i'm cynical. i earned that.

garyb wrote:all good questions.

and other stuff: thanks man

garyb wrote: those in charge ARE often corrupt. just the law of averages will tell you that. the fact that the corrupt are drawn to power, means that your leaders are the most likely to be corrupt. this is common sense.

That's right, worldwide that is, as there are a few nice tries imho.
I mean, as in science, only one prove of being untrue is enough to prove it can be different, it just does exist
historically democracy is as young as a two days old baby, as 250 years at max is nothing.
I'm not pessimistic at all, thinking in a time scale of a 1000 years would be normal I'd say

garyb wrote: an optimist will always lend uncle henry $50
a pessimist will never lend uncle henry $50
a cynic has already loaned uncle henry $50

yes, i'm cynical. i earned that.

You wasn't actually, as I really meant
That's even the worst of it

I hope for better times, for anybody, even if it will take a few centuries

Another question that havn't really been clarified by Gary either is, do you believe that more or less people in the US are being killed each year because of the gunlaws as they are now, than would be the case if you had guncontrol?
I'm looking for a straight answer and not an answer based on the hypothetical sitauation that the state would morph into a corrupt and evil police state if people didn't have the right bear arms

Others are welcome to answer too, but only Gary and S4L seems to worry more about the potential police state than their present personal security, if guncontrolled were to be introduced in the US.

I'm quite willing to discuss the dangers of police states after the answer to my question above.

Also - I'd like to thank everybody who have participated in this thread, It has been very interesting reading indeed!

Cheers!
Thomas