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| Topic: Why the Gun is Civilization | |
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Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some. When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender. There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat–it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly. Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weightlifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable. When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation…and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act. http://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/why-the-gun-is-civilization/ |
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Edited by
JustDukkyMkII
on
Wed 01/02/13 10:21 AM
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Pointed one way, the gun is civilized equality and freedom. Pointed the other, it is uncivilized inequality and slavery.
Which way is the gun pointing where you live? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOGq_1710U4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P772Eb63qIY&feature=player_profilepage |
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Edited by
msharmony
on
Wed 01/02/13 10:34 AM
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we were more 'civilized' with muskets,,,,
Im guesses much fewer 'accidental' shootings in those days because to take a life took a BIT more skill and to take multiple lives took a bit more time,,, in one on one situations,,,a gun makes the weak person have strength great if he is the victim,, terrible if he is the offender in group settings, the gun is clearly the least desirable 'weapon' for an offender to have,, as any of those other 'weapons' take enough time and effort to make it much less likely for tne number of victims to climb rapidly as to violence in general, its about more than the weapon , there is also timing I am sure the person with the knife who surprises a gunman in their sleep or seated and comfortable, by walking up behind them and quickly slicing their neck,, has the upper hand over the man with the gun there are too many scenarios of what constitutes violence and what the end results are in terms of victims and offenders but in speaking MASS Death,,,, the gun is the great unequalizer,,,,particularly in the hands of an anxious/impulsive/unreasonable person |
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but in speaking MASS Death,,,, the gun is the great unequalizer,,,,particularly in the hands of an anxious/impulsive/unreasonable person The big guns are WMD's like nukes and plagues. When the US had a monopoly on nukes, what did they do with them? Why? Japan had already lost the war and history shows there was no need to invade, yet That irrational cowboy & mass murderer Truman ordered them to be dropped on two cities in Japan, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian people in a massive act of state terror. Has the US administration grown more calm, less impulsive, or more rational over the years? What is to stop them from unleashing another such holocaust?...absolutely NOTHING, except... DETERRENCE. It sounds absolutely MAD, but it's true.... The only way to stop a gun's being used...is with another gun. That is just the nature of our so-called "civilization." |
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criminal statutes DETER as well
thats also part of our 'civilization' |
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criminal statutes DETER as well thats also part of our 'civilization' Only reason they have some deterrence is because under all the Reams of Laws enacted there is one argument,a Gun pointed at the Offender! A government is an institution that holds the exclusive power to enforce certain rules of social conduct in a given geographical area. If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules. This is the task of a government—of a proper government—its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government. A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control—i.e., under objectively defined laws. The difference between political power and any other kind of social “power,” between a government and any private organization, is the fact that a government holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force. This distinction is so important and so seldom recognized today that I must urge you to keep it in mind. Let me repeat it: a government holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force. No individual or private group or private organization has the legal power to initiate the use of physical force against other individuals or groups and to compel them to act against their own voluntary choice. Only a government holds that power. The nature of governmental action is: *coercive *action. The nature of political power is: the power to force obedience under threat of physical injury—the threat of property expropriation, imprisonment, or death. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/government.html http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/physical_force.html If some men attempt to survive by means of brute force or fraud, by looting, robbing, cheating or enslaving the men who produce, it still remains true that their survival is made possible only by their victims, only by the men who choose to think and to produce the goods which they, the looters, are seizing. Such looters are parasites incapable of survival, who exist by destroying those who are capable, those who are pursuing a course of action proper to man. The men who attempt to survive, not by means of reason, but by means of force, are attempting to survive by the method of animals. But just as animals would not be able to survive by attempting the method of plants, by rejecting locomotion and waiting for the soil to feed them—so men cannot survive by attempting the method of animals, by rejecting reason and counting on productive men to serve as their prey. Such looters may achieve their goals for the range of a moment, at the price of destruction: the destruction of their victims and their own. As evidence, I offer you any criminal or any dictatorship. |
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Edited by
Bushidobillyclub
on
Wed 01/02/13 12:47 PM
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooa98FHuaU0 Crime stats, a lucid opinion.
sources FBI Uniform Crime Reports Table 1
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-... FBI Uniform Crime Reports Table 16 http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-... FBI Uniform Crime Repots Table 8 http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-... Crimes Detected in England and Wales 2011/2012 http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics The bulk of violent crime is in population centers of more than 250K people, The US has 186 metropolitan areas with more than 250K, The UK has 32 such population centers. In the last 20 years the violent crime rate in the US has dropped by 50% . . . . we know where the crime is coming from . . . population centers over 250K, we know the UK has a higher violent crime rate than the US, and we know that we have 6 times the number of population centers over 250K . . . Guns in the hands of every day people make violence perpetrated against them more risky. That is a fact. |
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criminal statutes DETER as well thats also part of our 'civilization' I am sure the person with the knife who surprises a gunman in their sleep or seated and comfortable, by walking up behind them and quickly slicing their neck,, has the upper hand over the man with the gun All rational attackers know to beware the armed. Violence against someone armed is very risky no matter the tactics used nor the situation involved risk is greater and it is that risk which is the real deterrent. |
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Edited by
JustDukkyMkII
on
Wed 01/02/13 03:05 PM
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I've been trying to put together my own statistical study to determine national criminal homicide rates vs gun ownership rates of various countries. This has proved very difficult to do, as it almost appears that the criminal homicide rates are "buried" to hide something (as in an inverse relationship between criminal homicide and gun ownership?).
In my "quest" to make some sense of stats provided on another thread, I have been "fooling around" with the stats I was originally given and made some interesting observations I'd like to share. For one thing, the percentage of firearm ownership in the various countries has a distinct inverse relationship with both the overall homicide rate which is made even more explicitly clear by the overall homicides per gun owner. In short, as the percentage of gun owners increases, the overall homicides per 100k (of gun owners) DECREASES. This inverse correlation suggests very strongly that gun ownership is a DETERRENT to homicide in general, and that nations with a higher ownership rate for guns have fewer homicides per capita. Further to that, it seems that there is a very weak correlation between the gun ownership rate and the firearm death rate (which one would expect to be in a near perfect correlation). This suggests that there is another variable at play in this regard, which as yet I have not determined, however the phrase "If we outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns." comes to mind. One interesting factoid buried in the stats is in the homicides per 100k gun owners rate: The USA stands in the lower middle of the sample at a rate of 5.41 Australia (with its barbaric gun laws) stands just ABOVE it at 6.67 and Canada (with its similarly barbaric gun laws) just below it at 5.19 the "Winners" at the bottom of the pile are Switzerland and Iceland, which stand at 1.53 and 0.99 respectively. The "losers" at the top are Netherlands and UK at 28.21 and 17.86 respectvely. It does not appear that most gun legislation has a "positive" impact on homicide at all. The impact appears to be quite the opposite, and countries with lower gun ownership rates are clearly less safe to live in. |
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That has got to be the singularly most pathetic pro gun argument yet.
Do you think that if some armed hooligan wants to rob you on the street he's going to walk up to you and say, "I beg your pardon. Do you happen to be armed?" Do you think he is going to stand twenty feet away and say, "Draw pardner!"? You'd be knocked on the head, rolled into the gutter and maybe even shot with your own weapon before you could get that smoke box out of your pocket. Do you really think you and your AR15 are going to hold of a company or even a squad of heavily armed well trained determend men for more than a few seconds? Think again. |
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Edited by
JustDukkyMkII
on
Wed 01/02/13 04:04 PM
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That has got to be the singularly most pathetic pro gun argument yet. Do you think that if some armed hooligan wants to rob you on the street he's going to walk up to you and say, "I beg your pardon. Do you happen to be armed?" Do you think he is going to stand twenty feet away and say, "Draw pardner!"? You'd be knocked on the head, rolled into the gutter and maybe even shot with your own weapon before you could get that smoke box out of your pocket. Do you really think you and your AR15 are going to hold of a company or even a squad of heavily armed well trained determend men for more than a few seconds? Think again. I hope you weren't referring to me, because I wasn't making a "pro-gun argument", merely quoting some stats I compiled, and what I "think" I might do in a given situation will be based largely upon my preparations for such a contingency. Who's got an AR-15?...Obviously much more would be needed for such a situation than a crummy semi-auto (which is why I advocate PROPER weaponry for a civil militia) though even a lousy AR-15 is better than nothing. |
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That has got to be the singularly most pathetic pro gun argument yet. Do you think that if some armed hooligan wants to rob you on the street he's going to walk up to you and say, "I beg your pardon. Do you happen to be armed?" Do you think he is going to stand twenty feet away and say, "Draw pardner!"? You'd be knocked on the head, rolled into the gutter and maybe even shot with your own weapon before you could get that smoke box out of your pocket. Do you really think you and your AR15 are going to hold of a company or even a squad of heavily armed well trained determend men for more than a few seconds? Think again. |
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In a nutshell, every citizen should be packing a deadly weapon?
-Chicago reached a grisly milestone last week when its 500 th murder victim died, bringing the city’s yearly total towards the number of homicides for all of Canada.
-In graphs that map income inequality alongside murder rates, the US stands far off in a class of its own, with both the highest levels of inequality and of homicides of any wealthy nation. -A mounting body of evidence suggests that income inequality erodes social cohesion and trust, and contributes to a breakdown in the fabric of the community. Extreme inequality has been identified as causing humility and loss of face, particularly among young males. These in turn can contribute to ‘competitive aggression,’ domestic abuse and violent crime. -Those at the bottom are more often the perpetrators – and victims – of gun violence. But just as conservative politicians are untouched by cuts to social assistance, they are unaffected by most of the gun crime that has turned the United States into a kind of war zone for the poor. |
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Edited by
Bushidobillyclub
on
Thu 01/03/13 02:07 PM
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In a nutshell, every citizen should be packing a deadly weapon? -Chicago reached a grisly milestone last week when its 500 th murder victim died, bringing the city’s yearly total towards the number of homicides for all of Canada. Right . . . the city with the outright ban on handguns . . .
-In graphs that map income inequality alongside murder rates, the US stands far off in a class of its own, with both the highest levels of inequality and of homicides of any wealthy nation. -A mounting body of evidence suggests that income inequality erodes social cohesion and trust, and contributes to a breakdown in the fabric of the community. Extreme inequality has been identified as causing humility and loss of face, particularly among young males. These in turn can contribute to ‘competitive aggression,’ domestic abuse and violent crime. Interesting that claim in light of one of the main methods of gun control is to raise the prices of common items taking self defense out of the reach of the poor. -Those at the bottom are more often the perpetrators – and victims – of gun violence. But just as conservative politicians are untouched by cuts to social assistance, they are unaffected by most of the gun crime that has turned the United States into a kind of war zone for the poor. Gun crime as a percentage of the population is tiny . . . we started down a road of sharing facts, lets not wander back into hyperbole. War zone as a description when looking at a few hundred deaths among millions is more than hyperbolic. Chicago has a population of 2,707,120 500 deaths comes out to whopping .018 Hardly a war zone, very much an area with more violent crime than the rest of our country, which is actually very low. We live in a civilized time where total violence is at an all time low. One of my main points has been that the media and political narrative of fear is not supported by the facts. |
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Edited by
Bushidobillyclub
on
Fri 01/04/13 11:18 AM
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Wanna talk about a war zone, how about ~60K killed in syria, and hundreds of thousands displaced.
That is a war zone, here we are quite pampered, and yet still scream to the heavens our despair and sensationalize the whole thing. That is .3% of the ENTIRE country that has died in the span of months. That is 286 per 100,000 people, with Chicago having 15 per 100,000. 19 times as much violence in a few months as Chicago has for a full year. As tragic as the shooting was, compared to the tragedy happening around the world we should be ashamed to even talk about it. |
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Edited by
Toodygirl5
on
Fri 01/04/13 01:54 PM
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Topic back on guns.
To carry a consealed gun is illegal in Illinois. Although.I feel that is should not be illegal, if a person is mentally responsible to carry a gun. That law will probably never be changed because of Chicago, IL having 3.5 million or more people and so much crime, it would make things worse,if criminals could legally carry guns. |
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Edited by
willowdraga
on
Fri 01/04/13 02:44 PM
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Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some. When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender. There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat–it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly. Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weightlifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable. When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation…and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act. http://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/why-the-gun-is-civilization/ Bullshyte. I would take a gun toters *** out by force without a gun myself. Gun totin leads to a false sense of security. It only works if your opponent is stupid enough to let you see what is coming....  and then just for fun I will use the gun toters gun against him so he can really be degraded....
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it would make things worse,if criminals could legally carry guns. How?...Legal or illegal means nothing to the criminal mind...Criminals always will have guns in any event. |
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Edited by
Toodygirl5
on
Fri 01/04/13 03:45 PM
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it would make things worse,if criminals could legally carry guns. How?...Legal or illegal means nothing to the criminal mind...Criminals always will have guns in any event. I know criminals will always get guns, that wasn't the point. Why would you want to make it legal for them to get guns! Then they would be more likely to get more guns. |
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it would make things worse,if criminals could legally carry guns. How?...Legal or illegal means nothing to the criminal mind...Criminals always will have guns in any event. I know criminals will always get guns, that wasn't the point. Why would you want to make it legal for them to get guns! Then they would be more likely to get more guns. We could shut down all the gun manufacturers & melt down every gun in existence and all the bullets with them and within a few months time the people who wanted guns would have them. It would be just like Prohibition. The new "bootleggers" would be thrilled with the new laws...more profitable for them. Legislating on guns is a waste of time. "If we outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns." |
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