For the life of me, I will never understand how the political Left claims to be all about individual rights and freedoms, and yet is (apparently) unable to get behind groups like this one:
Furthermore, I still won't get it until they can answer simple questions like this:
Nor will I ever understand how any woman can call herself a "feminist" without being able to answer this simple question:
So let me be very clear: I am a member and supporter of the National Rifle Association. I hope that, regardless of your partisan political affiliation, you are one too.
Because you should be one. As a firm defender of the 1st amendment, I must tell you what I honestly believe: it is the 2nd amendment which protects and guarantees the 1st, as well as all the others.
(Images taken from A Human Right.)
I'm not aware of the political left not being behind the pink pistols. They got a huge amount of coverage in the gay press (yes, there is a gay press for those of you not in the know), and the overall sentiment was, "Hell yeah I'll shoot a guy if he tries to gay-bash me."
There are a lot of liberals who want gun control when it applies to things like rocket launchers and automatic assault rifles, and there are some liberals who are against things like concealed weapons (the numbers on just how much crime this "prevents" are unclear as they're getting crunched with too much bias), but I'm not aware of the political left being against citizens protecting themselves.
I'd be more interested, frankly, in hearing from law enforcement officers who are against concealed weapons and why.
But since you busted out with the Pink Pistols and all, have you read anything lately about the FMA (Federal Marriage Amendment)? Seems like lots of constitutional scholars have read it and decided it's not only horrible for gay liberation, it's bad for states' rights too. On this site and many others I've been contradicted on that point, yet the silence on the issue -- now that we know just how anti-gay this amendment is -- is deafening.
Since when was the left about individual liberties? That's never been the case. It has been true that self-proclaimed "liberals" promoted individual liberty, but that was before the progressives hijacked the term "liberal." Today's classical liberals still support liberty; it's just that they aren't called liberals anymore.
John,
Spin went out of style on January 20th, 2001.
The left is determined that the American populace be disarmed - also, de-educated and de-nationalised and, eventually, turned over to the United Nations.
Why this should be is for the rather strange reason that the left thinks the United States, and its citizens, are a baleful influence upon the world.
John,
I have no idea what you are talking about, as I have many liberal friends who think the 2nd Amendment does nothing more than justify hunting and keeping a small weapon locked up at home for "defense". Unfortunately you miss the major point Dean was trying to get at, that without the 2nd Amendment there is no way to gaurantee the others, especially the 1st.
And your attempt to switch topics and try to take a swipe at conservatices is pathetic. I personally believe myself to be pretty strict when it comes to the Constitution, and I have been bitching about the FMA since it was first mentioned. There are many other conservatives who agree with me on the same points you mention above and many are part of the blogosphere.
The answer to violence is more violence! Yeeeeehaw!
Put a cork in it, dowingba. My mother has two handguns, and she enjoys shooting down at the range, but (unless my father's been censoring the news from the old homestead to avoid upsetting me) she hasn't taken up armed robbery just because she has the equipment and leisure time. Guns don't magically incite violence of themselves. It's just kind of nice for her, out in the boonies, to know she can take action if the house is broken into while my father's on night shift.
John's right about the Pink Pistols, by the way: the gay press coverage that I saw was bemused but positive. Of course, the tone was frequently on the order of, "We wouldn't have to do this if the police did their jobs." I don't remember having read much about them in garden-variety liberal publications, but it's not hard to imagine plenty of hard lefties having epilepsy over having to decide whether to support the queers or the gun control types.
This is a wonderful set of some quotes from our founding fathers that pertain to this issue:
http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndfqu.html
They also have debunked some false quotes that have been attributed to our founding fathers.
dowingba:
My opinion is that as per the circumstances, yes the solution to violence can at times, be the application of the same.
Spin went out of style on January 20th, 2001.
But apparently not so for irony.
Nope. Irony--like snarking--is still in style!
Oh, here in Australia everyone loves weapons too!
- Yeah, pitty after the Port Arthur Massacre where 35 people were killed indiscriminatly by luntic Martin Bryant, semi-automatic weapons became illegal, let alone automatic...
---http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial/bryant/
- Oh, and now the police are trying to buy-back more weapons off people so that bikers and gangs cannot access the weapons so easily...
(I'm sorry, but I can't see the point in allowing these sort of weapons in an urban population, country yes, but urban setting no.)
First of all, fully-automatic firearms are sufficiently regulated in the U.S. that of the at least quarter million (some claim the number is much larger but that may include all Class III stuff including short-barrelled shotguns and sound suppressors ("silencers")) only one legally owned one has been used for a murder since the end of WWII.
Secondly, semi-automatic assault rifle is technically an oxymoron, but in any case the scary-looking rifles currently the main target of the victim disarmament movement are no more dangerous than any others. At the time banning them was first being proposed in the U.S. the FBI statistics showed more people murdered by strangling with undergarments.
As for the Port Arthur Massacre it is fascinating to note that the specific rifle used by the known-dangerous individual had previously been in police possesion; siezed in another state's scary-looking rifle ban.
As for "country yes, but urban setting no," it only takes me 45 minutes to drive from my inner-city home to the outdoor rifle range and public hunting grounds. Surprisingly, the M16 is legal for deer-hunting in Wisconsin. Most states prohibit them because they are not powerful enough.
I agree with Jared, guns in the country, I can understand but not in the urban areas.
I don't think concealed weapons (like handguns for instance) make sense from a "defence" point of view. If you're walking down the street with a big rifle slung across your back, no one's gonna fuck with you. Having a handgun hiding in your pocket isn't gonna stop someone from "inciting" violence, in which case yes, your only option then would be to blow their face to smitherines.
What you don't hear Dean talking about here is the uproarious silence on the Pink Pistols from the NRA, the Republican party, and from other conservative sources. While the Pink Pistols themselves to claim some level of acceptance in NRA ranks, not once is this gay organization mentioned on the NRA website -- in fact Google searches reveal very little on any relationship between the Pink Pistols and conservative organizations.
So wouldn't it be appropriate to also ask the question, "Why won't the political right get behind these groups?"
And Mark: don't insult me by scolding me for spin. You just don't want to see spin where you happen to agree, and I will not entertain your convenient arguments that are based on nothing other than what feels good to you.
As opposed to your arguments, which must feel rotten to you, fellow-person-named John?
Heh. You're right, though, the Right must get behind the Pink Pistols, among other groups. So let me be among the politically conservatives who say "Go them!"
Dowingba:
It sounds like you don't believe in the effectiveness of concealed weapons for "pre-emptive discouragement" of criminal attack. Your criticism says nothing about the effectiveness of concealed weapons for "defense."
Blowing someone's face to smithereens (statistically one of the least-likely outcomes of drawing down on a criminal) is a very effective means of defending one's person.
Amphitryon: it's all about trust. If I were a leftist and considered my fellow citizens to be barely-evolved monkey descendants, I'd have trouble trusting them with lethal force, too. Raise your opinion of your fellow law-abiding citizens (and lower your opinion of criminals) and I guarantee you'll raise your comfort level with concealed weapon licensing.
Jared: ever stop to think about what would have been the outcome if Martin Bryant had been surrounded with concealed weapon carriers? I'm guessing he wouldn't have gotten off enough shots to kill 35 people.
I would think you would always be in a position to return fire, why should criminals get to have guns.
of course that should read would always WANT to be in position to return fire, I really need to proofread
Dowingba, if you walk down the street with a slung rifle, you could be escalating things to where bandit snipers will become a problem. Surely anyone that well armed has something worth robbing. Criminals change their behavior based on risk analysis. The reason crime isn't down in shall-issue concealed carry states is that it takes three bad checks to yield as much as one armed robbery.
Someone please post the link to the report from the woman who came out of a roadside restroom to encounter a would-be rapist with a lasso. Had he known she was armed, she most likely would have roped her from behind instead of announcing his intentions.
Forgive the directness, but the NRA is a bunch of compromising pussies. That said, they don't recommend ANY other group on their website except the NRA. So to claim that there is some sort of gay bias against the Pink Pistols because of what the NRA does is just silly.
The NRA doesn't recognize National Ammo Day (and won't) either, but that's because they don't want people to support Ammo Day, they want people to support the NRA. It's become a bloated excuse to keep the NRA in business.
There are conservatives who are anti-gay and therefore anti-Pink Pistols, and that's the damn point of owning a gun. But, there are just as many on the left who are dismissive of gay rights, unless they cow-tow to the rest of the left's demands.
Stalin wasn't too kind to gays either, remember.
The head of the Houston Chapter of the Pink Pistols signs his emails, "We're here. We're queer. And now we have guns." I can't help but chuckle every time I read that. "An armed society is a polite society." Conservatives respect that--they respect those who take responsibility for their own lives and security.
The other quote from by my Houston Pink Pistols pal is, "Gun control is the theory that Matthew Shepherd hanging from a fence post in Wyoming is morally superior to Matthew Shepherd explaining to the local sheriff how his attackers got those fatal bullet wounds."
Matthew Shepherd would be alive today if he'd been carrying a gun.
It makes just as much sense, and is just as realistic, to try convincing everyone to stop owning guns. You'll never accomplish it. So all you're accomplishing is getting the balance of power more in favour of the armed, dangerous side of the spectrum, much to the dismay of the increasingly shrinking unarmed, defenseless side. You are adding to the problem. At least try to make the gun owners the minority which would at least accomplish: a) less gun-related killings, b) harder to get away with gun-related killings, and so forth and so on.
The only way your pro-gun campaign can possibly better the world is if it convinces 100% of the population of the planet to own a gun, which it won't.
P.S. Where's your campaign to give every country nukes? I mean, look, there's tons of defenseless, nukeless countries out there!
Jonathan, you defeat the reason, you consider the world as it is, not as the world could be, I mean without the violence. I cannot agree with you, because I believe that anyone has the ability to defeat the violence without the violence.
And personally, I do not believe to have any right to say if people are monkeys or criminals, lower or upper. I cannot follow you.
"Jonathan, you defeat the reason, you consider the world as it is, not as the world could be, I mean without the violence." - Amphitryon
That sounds to me a lot like "defeating the reason". The world is as it is, not as we would have it be. Trying to make the world conform to a polyanna view that "violence would go away if we banned all the objects" in this can be lethal.
*shug* When it's your risk and it's only lethal to you, I don't care. But when the imposition of your views are lethal to me and mine, we have a problem.
I think being a gay is a defect of at least partially character, but being a human being with a flaw is not good enough cause to get lynched (otherwise, lets start stringing up drug addicts, and then move on to adulterers, and finally reach my category of mild gluttons{need to lose about ten pounds}). So, here's one social con who says, go Pink Pistols! And I'm glad to see some people starting to stop prison rape as well.
Tadeusz
Hey Guys:
Dowingba: It makes just as much sense, and is just as realistic, to try convincing everyone to stop owning guns.
This is incorrect for several reasons.
1) It's impossible to stop criminals from getting guns. It is not impossible to make guns available to all law-abiding citizens, understanding that many of them may prefer not to carry, and respecting their adult decision not to.
2) The results of the imperfect attempt are radically different. Imperfectly attempting to get all of the guns off the street leaves huge swathes of unarmed citizens ripe for the picking by armed thugs. Imperfectly attempting to arm law-abiding citizens results in an environment much more hazardous to criminals.
The major defect in this portion of your thinking is to equate "armed" with "dangerous," and to ascribe personality characteristics to a tool. The prevalence of armed citizens does nothing to degrade my security if these people are properly trained (as is required to receive a permit) and conscientious about securing their firearms. The fact that they move among us should logically have a deterrent effect on general criminality by diminishing each criminal's certainty of success in any given criminal act, and raising the probability of extremely negative consequences for performing the act.
Just as logic has abandoned you, so have the statistics compiled by the CDC, which has found no or negative correlation between prevalence of concealed carriers and incidence of violence.
The only way your pro-gun campaign can possibly better the world is if it convinces 100% of the population of the planet to own a gun, which it won't.
That's completely ridiculous. Would every single victim of the Port Arthur massacre have had to put a round into Martin Bryant? Maybe if they were all carrying .22s, but my guess is that a single well-aimed .38 special would have done the trick handily.
If we follow your insanity to its logical conclusion, we would disarm the police. After all, police represent a subset of our population, not the entire population, so their possessing guns cannot possibly have any impact on our security.
It would be easier for me to laugh at you if I knew you couldn't vote.
Amphitryon: I realize that you're using English as a second language and I appreciate the efforts you're making to participate in this discussion, but I again have no earthly idea what point you're trying to make.
What I can say is: I do not have the ability to determine criminals' decisions to visit gun- and nongun violence on my fellow citizens. All that I can (partially, indirectly) control is whether or not those citizens are equipped to defend themselves.
Do you believe we can stop the flow of illegal drugs into our country? No, that would be moronic. Do you believe we can stop the flow of illegal immigrants into our country? Not in any reasonably humane way. So you obviously understand that criminals will arm themselves. The gun violence will exist. But by arming law-abiding citizens, we can help increase the ratio of times that the violence is done in prevention of crimes vs. in furtherance of them.
Oddly, the two of us have precisely the same goal of eliminating gun violence. But eliminating "guns" and eliminating "gun violence" are diametrically opposite goals. The more guns the citizens have, the less occasion criminals will have to use their guns in the commission of violence. The more criminals are killed in the commission of crimes, the fewer will be left alive to commit further acts of gun violence.
11,464 deaths due to firearms in the United States last year. That's nearly 10 times the number in all of Europe. I support the second amendment, but I feel we should be limited to the types of firearms that were available at the time the constitution was written. I doubt our framers envisioned glocks and AR-15s being sold at tents in Georgia, or wherever. Of course, they did fear the possibility of a tyrannical government....does anyone fear that now?
Tim the Soldier
"Jonathan, you defeat the reason, you consider the world as it is, not as the world could be, I mean without the violence." - Amphitryon
The thing is Amphitryon, we must live in the world as it is - not as it could be. The reality of our world is such that there will always be those that prey upon others they percieve to be weak and defenseless. A gay basher doesn't go up to a group of gay men and try and beat them all up, he gets a group of fellow morons and they go pick off someone who looks alone and defenseless. Denying that person the right to carry a gun is like saying, "Gosh, I feel really bad that Mathew Shepard was beaten to death - but not bad enough to make sure the next guy has a chance to defend himself."
Similarly, rape is about dominance and submission, and most rapist don't pick on "hard targets", they prefer women who are vulnerable. Give that woman a handgun and she's no logner vulnerable - she doesn't have to be a victim. In the world as it ought to be, no one should have to make a choice between being safe and being victimized, but in the world as it is that's what it's really about - being able to choose wether or not you're a victim.
"I'm sorry, but I can't see the point in allowing these sort of weapons in an urban population, country yes, but urban setting no."
Can't, or won't? It's not as though no one in urban settings ever needs to defend himself. Personally, I sleep better at night knowing that the Thomas Hamiltons and the Martin Bryants of the world don't have nearly as much political influence here in the States as they seem to have in Britain and Australia.
Jonathan, there is a strong difference between having a gun and being able to use it. When you're a cop you learn to target first the legs, then the shoulders, eventually the heart, lastly the head. When you practice self defense you learn first to discourage your enemy, then inflict to you enemy a hurt, then immobilize him, then broke his arm, knees or shoulders, and lastly the neck. Self defense means to know how to defend one self. Having a gun does not mean to be able to defend oneself if you do not know to use your gun, at least to escape the laws that the one against who you defend might want to use against yourself.
The point is that some people are collecting guns while they do not even know how to use them. They practice to target, but they are not instructed to know how and where and when to target. I am not against someone having a sword if that person knows to use it, and comparatively, I could not be against someone having a gun, if that person knows how to use it, but a gun is not a game, and personally I would not tolerate a short rifle at home.
I think that guns need a particular ability to have one, like psychological tests, alcohol, drugs (also medicine), practice anything that a cop is obliged to do into his professional functions. People who are supposed to secure the society are obliged to rules that people don't have, and I think that if guns are made to secure, at least they should secure following the laws.
I am not against the fact having guns, not completely, but I am against the fact that anyone can have a gun. A society should mean that the best ones are securing the others who ever they are men and women. But only the best ones who have self control and full knowledge of the use they can make of their gun. When I see some people that I won't name to be pictured with their guns and make an absolute promotion of guns, I only have doubts about the purpose of it and the ability they have to use their guns. Worst, when I see someone pictured with a gun and a bottle of whisky, I only think that those pictures are inciting to wear a gun for a purpose that is not only the self defense.
Hey John (Kusch): What others say is right, you won't find ANY groups on the NRA web site other than the NRA.
However, the conservative press has mentioned the Pink Pistols favorably more than once. Of course, they are a relatively new, small, grass roots organization. So it'll take time for them to get more exposure. But many conservatives I know say the same thing: Go Pink Pistols!
I've read a lot of gay press, and I find a lot of it unbelievably lopsided, politically and otherwise. They're also big on demonizing people on the "right," cherry-picking the people and the quotes that seem most outrageous and smeering everyone else by association.
Which is, frankly, part of why there are still so many closeted queers. Because being gay does not determine your views of issues like abortion, or gun control, or taxes, or defense policy. Yet if you read much of the gay press (which I have), it often seems as if that's the assumption. Indeed, the Log Cabin Republicans get bashed more by the gay press than they ever do in the "right wing" press, from what I've seen. Not to mention the unbelievably vicious things that get said about people like Andrew Sullivan, almost all of it coming from the gay press.
I think a reasonable thing to do, if one's going to be liberal about these things, is to regularly read what people on the other side of the political fence are saying. You'll inevitably find people who offend you, but you'll also find reasonable people you can agree with. That's the nature of political discussions.
As for the Federal Marriage Amendment, or whatever they're calling it: a lot of conservatives think it's a horrible idea. Are you not aware of that?
You idiots will never accept it: A gun should not be given to civilists. The only thing you Americans are able to do with guns, is to shoot each other - or let your children shoot themselves.
If you first would use your brain, instead of shooting, awww... I shut up... you won't understand it.
Oh btw:
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/irak/14562/14562_2.jpg
and:
You should watch Michael Moore's 'Bowling for Columbine' - believe me.. everythings true!
Hey Guys:
Amphitryon: we may be closer to agreeing than I had thought at first.
1) Concealed weapons licensees are required to go through gun safety / training courses as a condition of getting their licenses. If someone wishes to have a gun in his or her house, no license is needed (and there is presumably no threat to Society at Large from a well-secured house-bound gun) but a license is needed to carry a gun concealed in public.
2) I don't strongly object to the idea that people with self-control should be the ones with guns, but who gets to decide who has self-control? I have very little trust of government, and prefer that the power of lethal force be distributed evenly among all noncriminals.
3) I question whether most police are actually trained to make disabling shots, except in rare circumstances. My understanding is that are mostly trained to deliver two or three shots to the head or torso, then pause before firing again if necessary. This isn't what they do in movies, but I believe it's the current doctrine. Any cops in the audience could expand on this.
4) Most responsible gun owners and sportsmen share your disgust towards anyone who mixes guns and alcohol. The combination is as dangerous or more than alcohol and vehicles. These people convey a terrible, stereotypable image of a gun owner group which is (in my experience) kind, responsible and borderline leftist in its defense of the environment.
Most practiced shooters are better shots, have better equipment, and spend more time practicing than the police. They also have a better track record of accidental shootings.
To compare gun deaths with Europe is just silly. Let's look at Britain first: they've banned all self-defense guns and all handguns.... so we can't compare THEM. Oh, wait! They do have murders and assults with guns. How can that be? They are illegal. ;)
Let's compare violent deaths in, say, Switzerland and Sweden. Oops! Switzerland has a policy of a gun in every household, yet the suicide rate in Sweden and their crime rate is higher. That can't be right!
OK, let's look at suicide... nope, that won't work either, because the suicide rate in the U.S. is a constant (compared to Europe), when you compare population size to the suicide rate. Only the method differs between the U.S. and Europe.
Wowie zowie. All those stats and no facts or basis for the contention that guns are the problem. CRIMINALS are problem and they don't obey the laws. If the Koom-buy-ya fairie managed to come by and eliminate all the guns in the world, I guess we'd be back to sticks, knives, clubs, and stones. Then we could ban those eeeeeeevil rocks.
"OK, let's look at suicide... nope, that won't work either, because the suicide rate in the U.S. is a constant (compared to Europe), when you compare population size to the suicide rate. Only the method differs between the U.S. and Europe."
Ah, but didn't you know that people who kill themselves with guns are "more dead" than people who kill themselves by other means?
Licenses are not the only problem of guns. Personally, I am shocked to see women, young women, promoting the use of guns at home. Children are always the one exposed to the gun shots. At least, the guns should be secured as much as detergents, with a special closing/opening security that a children cannot move. Not every kind of guns should be allowed either. With a long rifle, you never leave the munitions in, but you put the munitions where you know you might need to access them easily. The problem of short guns is that munitions are usually in, and that a child, any time can fire if found the gun. With a short gun, it is also easier for a children to target his own head than any other one, and most accidents are children self shots while it never happen with long rifles. A long rifle does always pertains to somebody, a father, a mother, but any time an adult, and there is not any comparison with toys. A long rifle is heavy, it needs to have big arms to be able to carry it, and here again, it does clearly explains who is the owner of the rifle, which child mostly respect, more than short guns. The law should fit with those simple rules that some guns bring more risks than some other guns, and that anytime, a training is important, if not in a training center, at least with TV screen shots to explain each of the dangers and how to caution.
A good film about that, cops, guns, violence, shooting, killing, attack, defense and self defense is The Devil's Own. It's all about terrorism, in New York, and it does show the spirit of each one at the different times of life. It is a working film, to meditate on the function of being a cop.
Sorry for the sarcastic post... but back to the subject at hand...
When gay people carry guns and start shooting a few of the folks who harass them, the harassment will STOP. You can't stop people from being anti-gay--that is their opinion and their right. What you CAN prevent is their ability to ACT on those opinions, by making it impossible to successfully commit violent acts against gays. Because they are prepared to defend themselves!
Not too many lynchings in the South after Malcolm X showed up with an armed and trained militia. Not much chance of him being hanged in the jail with 100 armed men keeping vigil outside.
The idea that the world would be a better place if we could just get rid of guns is a logical fallacy (not to mention immature and childish). If the world WAS the non violent place you wish it to be, the guns would not be an issue. They'd be used merely for sport or they'd be gathering dust and rust. It is BECAUSE the world is not the place you think it should be that we're even having the discussion.
Jonathan / Amphitryon - The police are most DEFINTELY not trained to shoot in the leg first. What a complete folly that is. They are trained not to fire their weapon unless absolutely necessary i.e. their life is threatened. When that becomes the case you don't mess around trying to shoot someone in the damn leg. It is square in the torso. Shoot to kill. To do otherwise could cost them their lives.
Hell, here in Syracuse a couple weeks ago a cop stopped in a suburban neighborhood to get some information from some people who had been robbed recently. They weren't home at the time and their dog - inside an invisible fence bit at the cop twice. So he shot and killed it with 2 shots. These are the guys shooting people with guns in the leg to disable them ? Are you kidding me ?
Amphitryon, cars are a helluva lot more dangerous on average than guns. You cannot make a rational argument that guns should be banned because there might be an accident and someone might accidentally be killed.
If that's your argument then ban cars. LOTS more people die in accidents with cars than guns, and cars aren't even designed to kill.
Amphitryon, you are either lying or incredibly misinformed.
How many children are killed accidently by coming into contact with a gun in their home?
Now, contrast that with the number of crimes that are prevented, because the children or their parents have a gun in the home. That's crimes that are prevented without a shot being fired--just the showing of a gun is enough.
Does the ratio 1:250,000 mean anything to you?
Women SHOULD be armed and they SHOULD have a gun in the home as they are the least able to defend against an attacker--who is usually male and usually stronger than her. It is those in society who are the most vulnerable who should be the first to have a gun to protect themselves: women, gays, the handicapped, etc.
It's time to stop all this nonsense about it being For The Children™. It's a lie. Those stats were debunked years ago. More children drown in plastic buckets than are killed by guns left carelessly about the home.
Mrs. du Toit, I still believe that we cannot reply to the violence with violence. At one time or an other, the society is responsible of the violence which does happen, or because there is not enough prevention done at school, then at work and in the daily life, or because any violence is always rise with any other violence and that none of any dialogues does exist. Sometimes, having a gun only brings the psychological compensation to feel secured which does not mean to be more secured because the risks are not those to be more secured with a gun, but to feel secured only. The society must be able to reveal those differences between the feeling, the willing and the need, and here again, school is made to help the children feel more secured themselves, to feel that they are a society and that this strong society, with its laws, are a dissuasion against the violence because they can control it how they be, how they are one each other.
There are sports to complete some particular feelings, some needs to feel stronger, more secured, more able to reply against an aggression, and the problem of the modern societies is that usually the people do not take the time needed for that. Sport, practice, training, all that need some efforts that most people do not conceive to fulfill. They prefer the easiest way to say, "there is danger, I must have a gun to protect me against this danger", but they do not value the real danger, they do not value their own needs, because most of them are not ready to make the effort it involves. And here the point, little training, also if a real compulsion to them, should be as much important as having a driving license, also if the purpose is only to have a gun at home, because it asks the question: "do I really need to have a gun". If yes, there is involvement to this, as much as someone caring a gun in a street is responsible of the use he can make of his gun. There is involvement in this, and anyone should have the consciousness of the involvement it takes.
It reminds me while I was a little girl, I had training in rescuing with the Red Cross. I have not only learnt how to rescue, I have first learnt to know if I was able to rescue, to see someone dieing and do anything that involve to save his life. It is not as easy as it seems to be. Saving a life is really hard, and each time I have seem someone injured, I can say that anytime it was psychologically a hurt. To have a gun is the same. One must know if he is psychologically able to value his real needs and make a comparison between the risks taken having a gun and the risks taken not having a gun. Some people die with their own gun, and here is a real problem, because it does only question the fact that those people did not have any license to carry the gun that killed them.
Xrlq, you are right, "people who kill themselves with guns are "more dead" than people who kill themselves by other means".
Sherard, I never said I was against guns, I only said that I would only tolerate a long rifle at home while a short gun is propper for town, but that both cases need a trained license.
I still believe that we cannot reply to the violence with violence
My parents raised me to "turn the other cheek".
It didn't and doesn't work.
The categoric rejection of self-defense has exacted a terrible price. You can deny it all you want, but that does not does not change reality. It doesn't work.
What do you mean Dishman, do you mean that self defense does not work ?
Mrs. du Toit: Matthew Shepherd (sp?) might have also ended up in jail if he'd been carrying a gun. In the past, murderers of gay people were often acquitted if even the suggestion was made that their victims "made advances" toward them. In fact, a "gay panic" defense was, in fact, attempted during the trial of Matthew's killers.
Given the history of not only social but governmental and judicial injustice against gay persons, I have a hard time believing that victims of gay-bashing, having been denied justice so many times due to "gay panic", might not also be denied self-defense acquittals because of similar prejudice.
In short, I do not trust the straight majority in power to treat gay persons equitably, no matter what side of the criminal equation they lie. It was mere months ago that gay people could be arrested for merely having sex, and not long before that gay people could be imprisoned or institutionalize for merely being gay.
Stalin wasn't gay-friendly, but neither was Joseph McCarthy, and neither was George Bush I, and neither is George Bush II. Conservatives are, as a group, overwhelmingly unsupportive of gay liberation -- whether in the case of sodomy laws or gay marriage, which Dean has taken many easy-to-take stances on -- and I find it disheartening that a group of gay persons would seek validation through the NRA rather than organizing gay Americans and teaching us how to defend ourselves without firearms.
Take it from me: nothing deters a gay-basher like having his happy ass beaten to a pulp by a "faggot".
I work in a jail. None of the guards carry guns. And they want it that way. Take jail life to the streets, with individuals with less-comprehensive training than a deputy, a state trooper, or other jail officer, and see what happens.
Gay people have enough martyrs to last us a while.
Hey Amphitryon:
I appreciate your idealism, but by speaking in such theoretical and abstract terms about "society," you undercut your credibility with people like me, who just see a bunch of people.
No one doubts that we need to make sure that there is equality of opportunity so that criminals' incentives to steal are minimized. And we should try to treat one another respectfully, so potential rapists hopefully develop empathy for the people who could otherwise end up as their victims. But the emerging medical evidence seems to indicate that murderers have brains with distinctly different brain development, visibile on an MRI, than that of the rest of us. No amount of special treatment is likely to prevent them from stealing, raping and/or murdering their fellow citizens. No amount of calm and rational discussion is going to dissuade them from their mission.
Unless we scan them and pre-emptively imprison them (a very un-American way to handle criminality) then we must sit and await them. And we await their inevitable violence against us either armed or unarmed.
I have also heard the ratio which Mrs. du Toit quotes: exponentially more crimes are prevented by the simple display of a gun than are actually committed with guns.
I also share her unstated suspicion that Leftists' agendas extend well beyond controlling guns, and that this issue is symptomatic of their overarching desire to control their fellow citizens in dozens of invasive, freedom-depriving ways. I believe they see guns as symbolic of resistance to this control, and hate the guns because they represent independence.
I agree with part of your point about handguns in the home. Handguns are inherently more dangerous than shotguns or rifles because of the ease of creating unsafe muzzle angles. It is critical that guns in the home be secured from children (and untrained adults) until they are properly trained in gun safety. But putting them completely out of the reach of trained users of any age simply makes them ineffective for deterring crime.
I have no idea why you seem to seriously agree with Xrlq's sarcastic point about gun suicides being "more dead" than other suicides. Surely you realize that is not medically true.
I have been holding back on this one because I am a strong opponent of gun control. I think everyone should have the right to own a gun.
But, I feel need to comment on the myth of the weak, whimpering, defenseless gay victim -- it is a stereotype. I'm not saying that gay people aren't victimized every day -- that's true. However, gay people are quite able to defend themselves WITHOUT guns. I've busted the heads of a number of morons who thought they could take me on without a fight. I didn't have to shoot anybody to defend myself.
The majority of gays and lesbians can kick butt just as well as straights. I have a buddy who threw gaybasher through a plate glass window. Another beat a guy to death with his motorcycle helmet. Sure, shooting them would be easier -- but it wouldn't change anything!
The media only reports on cases in which someone has been victimized. You never hear about the instances in which a gay person successfully defended himself.
A few years ago, I was in West Hollywood and a car full of jerks kept driving by a group of about 200 men waiting in line outside a gay club, shouting "faggots". They got stopped at a red light down the street and were immediately yanked out of the car, beaten bloody, and their car was torched. But, other morons still keep coming to West Hollywood to shout at the "fags".
I've witnessed a group of gay bodybuilders in Santa Monica beat the hell out of a couple of guys for shouting insults at them. After the beating, they took away their bikes and threw them in the ocean. The crowd (mostly straight people) just cheered them on!
Now, if people start shooting us instead of trying to beat us up, I'll get my permit to carry a consealed weapon. Luckily, that doesn't happen too often.
Also friends, even if he had a gun Matthew Shepard would still have ended up tragicly dead. He gotten falling-down drunk with a couple of men he didn't know and went to a remote location with them. You have to be at least conscious and aware to use a gun.
I'm disappointed that nobody beat me to answering Tim's suggestion that the 2nd Amendment should apply only to those arms available at the time it was enacted (which would, by the way include cannons).
Would you then agree that in the interest of consistancy that the freedom of the press should apply to hand set type, with the output to be distributed only by conveyances available at the time? Clearly modern media make it far easier to spread dangerous ideas.
lol! Tricale. Great analogy.
The right to bear arms is really quite simple to translate. "Arms" are weapons you can carry. That would rule out things like nuclear weapons (at least be serious), tanks, and bomber jets, etc.
And the greater point is that criminals do not use "assault rifles" or any of the scary looking weapons that the anti-gun lobby fears so much. Their ban is purely psychological and has had no impact on crime. While it is not impossible, a criminal is not interested in robbing a 7/11 with a rocket launcher or an AK-47. A simple shotgun or handgun will do nicely for his purposes--the ones that are not banned.
As long as we are focusing on the gun itself and anthropomorphizing it, we're not dealing with the real problem and facing reality. Guns do not commit crimes. I know that's trivial and over used, but it is the basic truth and starting point. Guns do not load themselves. Bullets do not come flying out the other end by some magic happening or some evil spell. A gun cannot unlock the safe and sneak out to murder the children in the house. A gun does not make an otherwise sane and happy individual decide to kill themselves. A gun in the hand of an individual does not make him have deep thoughts to rape, murder, or plunder. Guns cannot hate people or discriminate based on anything. Guns are neither evil nor good--they are inanimate. Blaming the gun for the crime problem is like blaming the car instead of the driver.
Crime exists. It always has and always will exist. There will always be oppressors and the oppressed. That means that adults capable of accepting reality will need to protect themselves from the 5% of the population that commits 95% of all the crimes.
But the Second Amendment is NOT about an individual’s right to self defense. That is an unarticulated right which needed no articulation in the Bill of Rights. The right to self defense, with arms, against the murderer or the thief is not the purpose of the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment protects the individual from the potential tyranny of the State, not the burglar. To suggest that we give the State the authority to regulate the device (via license or registration) that enables us to protect ourselves from licensing or regulating authority, is preposterous.
This man and his family would be dead right now at the hands of some racist low-lifes, were it not for his taking his Second Amendment rights to their conclusion.
The right to self defense, with arms, against the murderer or the thief is not the purpose of the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment protects the individual from the potential tyranny of the State, not the burglar.
True, but defense against the burglar is a nice fringe benefit. The woman I married had, before I met her, driven off a home invader (a foot taller than her and 100 lbs. heavier; does it matter whether he had a gun?) with a couple of rounds in his general direction. Several other people I know report having averting loss or harm thru the display of a firearm. To the best of my knowledge, no US citizens have succesfully displaced a tyrannical government by force of arms since 1946.
"I'm sorry, but I can't see the point in allowing these sort of weapons in an urban population, country yes, but urban setting no."
This after I pointed out that travel time from my urban location (on a nice day with good shoes I can walk to the heart of downtown) to rural locations specifically set aside for their use is no more than 45 minutes. In fact, I pass a gun club skeet range during my commute to work. You'll have to come up with a better excuse for peeling my fingers from my long guns.
It is an important distinction, Tric, one in which the NRA (which is one of the reasons I do not like them) does not make.
There are many rights which were unnecessary to articulate in the Bill of Rights (the right to eat, drink, and breathe, for example). Defending yourself against crime is one of those unnecessary to articulate givens. It is actually quite shocking that some people believe it is morally superior to hand over your wallet to a criminal than it is to defend what is rightfully yours or that the rapist's life is more valuable than the victim’s. He only wanted to rape her, not kill her.
Those who truly support the Second Amendment understand that it is a right articulated by the Founders because of their knowledge of history--of what happens to a peaceful citizenry when they are banned from owning weapons. For that reason, there can be no compromise on the Second, such as those offered by the NRA.
The Second Amendment isn't about having rifles for hunters. It isn't about sport shooting. It isn't about protecting the noble savage or some fantasy-like portrait of the American hunter, happy dogs in tow, off to find game. It is about the last resort.
A government that fears its citizens armed is the one the citizens should fear. Or as Patrick Henry stated, Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?
The REASON we have not had to displace a tyrannical government is because we have had arms.
Those arms in the hands of private citizens are also why we haven't had to fight invading armies. Kruschev himself admitted, when asked if he had ever planned to invade the U.S., "the United States? No. They have too many guns."
More important, however, are these two quotes:
“A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie.”
-- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed the subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty."
-- Adolf Hitler
The reason we have the Second Amendment is so that people like Matthew Shepherd, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and countless others, can stand before the great majority and the State itself and have a fighting chance to demand their rights, because he may be armed against that majority and that government.
The Left has not been anything but a hindrance to gays and women achieving equal standing. The Left has no platform if people take responsibility for themselves. They encourage victimhood, defeatism, and poverty. They’ll lose their constituency without misery. It is Conservative groups who raise funds to buy guns for women in battered shelters and assemble groups of volunteers to teach them how to use them. It is Conservative groups who stand side-by-side with the Pink Pistols and offer advice and assistance to take their message to the masses. Conservatives, as a general rule (there are always exceptions, on both sides) will support anyone who refuses to adorn a victim label and take responsibility for themselves and their neighbors.
Dean, I apologize for the long post. This is a subject near and dear.
Jonathan, I am as this black person Juliette was linking to. As long as I am single I take my scares over me. I may react differently with a children at home. I don't know.
I had a problem once with a burglar that I helped the police to arrest, and who tracked me during 8 months after he went out of prison. The man knew that my neighbors would protect me, but he tried to scare me, and in fact he scared me. He followed me everywhere in the streets, waiting for me after school, when back home, everywhere. I was about to buy a gun, and lastly I have changed my mind. I was living first floor, and I could do the job killing him without a gun if he would try again to enter from the window. I have slept 8 months in a armchair front the windows. I have waited for him to kill him during eight months, but I never bought a gun.
Maybe I am not a feminist... my neighbor was a butcher, with long knifes and big arms and his wife was insomniac... I did not buy a gun. I knew I could push him over the window and kill him.
I have traveled alone in the biggest Muslim country, Indonesia, and I have never felt the need of a gun. I have lived in Paris, two years, and never felt the need to buy a gun.
As for the sarcasm of Xrlq, I believe that someone who suicides with a gun cannot change his mind before it is too late. Many people intent to suicide, and phone the police or the doctor before they die. They only want to be rescued, and they suicide because they do not find an issue to their problems. The rescue generally is what they expect in their life, but without the suicide. I don't think that Xrlq was pretending to make a joke, guns are generally without any "come back". Other means are. People usually finish in a psychiatric hospital, but at least they are safe, they can be cured and usually the associations help them to find the solutions they did not have. Church, at least, is there usually to help them.
About women wearing a gun, I can promise I have really studied the point. A woman that wears a gun in her bag does not have the time to take it out if she is raped. A man still be stronger. The only thing that she can do is prevent herself from any situation, or places where such things could happen, never have an apartment ground floor, or a bed room ground floor, and shut the windows at night.
I more believe about gadgets, self defense umbrellas, iron into the bag, and sport shoes to run fast. And color spray to mark the person before running, for the police to get him easier later. My favorite weapon is the BO as used in aikido. Within two seconds you castrate a man without any flow of blood. Iron knees are more discreet, and I promise you that it is more effective than a gun. Still, I think that the weapons are not enough studied for the real needs of the women, such car truncheons, gadgets and special weaponry, and here again, all this depends of the need you have, to secure your house, yourself, your family. What anyone must care is that his weapon does not turn over to him, as a gun left in a car, that you find in your own back.
I still think that there are alternatives to guns, and personally, at home, I would prefer my husband to use a gun rather than myself also if shooting with a long rifle is among my abilities. I think also that school should have the ability to train the young girls in self defense sports with the common gadgets that a woman can wear. Self defense is like war, there are some kinds of knowledge that only experience can bring and better is to learn it rather than to improve it. If women could learn how to protect themselves with the means that they have, they could feel more prepared, stronger, and more able to react. School is able to train on self defense. I am not sure that school could have a vocation in training using guns.
Amphitryon, the kinds of self-defense skills you advocate sound great to the ignorant but your advice couldn't be worse. Many career criminals have far more experience in street fighting skills than the law-abiding have the time or funds to acquire. Further, the kinds of techniques you allude to are far from reliable in stopping a violent attacker. Many of the weapons you list are in fact the subject of legal restriction in many states.
Earlier in this thread you made many assertions about firearms accidents that simply are not borne out in reality.
Firearms remain, for many people albeit not all, cost-effective, and efficient self-defense tools.
Amphitryon, not to pick on you too much, but I point this out not as a flaw in you, but as a common argument presented by women. And an opinion, I must admit, I once had myself.
You may want to refer to yourself as a "feminist" or as a responsible human being and good citizen, but you are not behaving as one.
If you "would rather your husband use a gun than yourself" or you would allow your neighbors to risk their lives to protect you, but you cannot and will not reciprocate, then you are not behaving responsibly. And more importantly, it is immoral.
You appear, like many women, to agree that there may be a time and a place for a gun, as long as you don't have to get your hands dirty, or deal with the emotional turmoil of having to take that moral risk for yourself. We can maintain the facade that women without arms are better than men, or the local cop, or the soldier--we're superior because we will not yield their weapons.
It also is an attempt to maintain the fantasy that we are not at risk of crime or harm, if we do not accept the reality of having to defend ourselves. To buy that gun and learn to use it, we must take the first step to live in the adult world and accept that the Great Knight will not come to rescue us if we are in danger.
You do not want a handgun in your home because you do not trust yourself (or your husband) to be responsible enough to keep it out of children’s reach. You extend that fear and weakness to others, who are responsible and do take the proper precautions.
Simply, women's biases against guns are based on fear, emotion, and childlike fantasies (living in denial). Their biases are not based on reality, responsibility, and reason.
Women, so much more than men, attempt to find fault with the victim, in a never ending attempt to blame her, rather than the criminal, so we do not have to see the possibility of danger for ourselves. It is women, not men, who look at the rape victim and ask what she was wearing, what she might have said that was suggestive, or any behavior that we can put our noses into the air and say, “ohhhh, I’m safe, because I neeeeeever to that.”
Women, typically, don't have a problem with a police officer using a gun to defend them from a criminal. They don't have a problem with a solider using a gun to defend their country against a foreign invader.
But protect ourselves? Why is it OK for women to ask others to do for them what they are not willing to do for themselves? Women would be aghast if it was suggested that they are not capable of earning money to support themselves and men should do it for them, but they have no problem with saying that men should protect them.
To accept that others are better at it because of their gender, or more suited to it, is to accept the idea that we, as women, are infantile and immature, and truly are not entitled to all the equal benefits of society which require our equal participation. If we are not fully participating citizens, in every respect, then we are children or leeches on a society that must look out for us, because we refuse to do it ourselves. We are the worst stereotype of women when we do that: Demanding yet irresponsible.
Do not ring the bell of the neighbor. Do not call out for help. Do not wake your husband if you hear a noise. Do not do ask anything of anyone that you are not willing to do for yourself, or for others.
Taking full responsbility, with all the moral consequences and choices, all the risks and dangers, is what defines an emancipated human being.
I can assure you, that taking that step to learn to defend yourself with a gun is the most liberating feeling there can be.
I extend to you (and any woman) an open invitation, if you should ever find yourself in the Dallas area, to go to the range with me and I will teach you how to use a gun--any gun of your choosing.
Amphitryon, I know that this is a nitpick, but I lost a young friend who took a drug overdose as a 'suicide attempt - call for help' which the hospital did not handle succesfully. An assistant leader of my son's Cub Scout pack hung himself, and there is reason to believe he may have been flirting with the idea of suicide but had not intended to go thru with it.
As for the womanly art of self defense, I had mentioned above my wee wifey's defensive use of a gun. She's very small, had been sickly as a child, and had been away from the parents who had raised her to be upper class and artistic (in other words weak and helpless) for less than a year. No skill she could have acquired in her spare time while living hand to mouth would have made her a match for the man who kicked in her door.
Mrs. du Toit, we don't live in the same world. You permit yourself to make a judgment on false affirmations while you do not know me. You do not know what I would do or not to the others and you do not know if I would or not defend myself or the others. Don't make the general debate to be a personal case or eventually, weight the real measure that during 8 months I have manage myself my safety without "a man at home to carry a gun" or neither protect me.
And you seem to not have understood me. I am not a feminist, or precisely I am for the fact that women who carry a weapon at work leave their weapon at work and be women at home. Most civilians would like to be streets fighters. They don't even know what is a fight, and they make everyday their film for the fight. Put yourself in the target of the enemy, walk anyway with the head straight stood and come back later, I'll teach you also about safety and security and good standing in life. I am quite sure that I know more than you about taking the responsibilities that you're talking about. But I am not here to play Clint Eastwood, I am just arguing into the conversation because into my experience of life I found alternatives to the use of guns.
You have a kind of perversion while talking about the women. It seems that you argue that a woman that would be raped while she would not wear a gun would pretend to a consent or worst would be the one inciting the rape. You are going too far, or sorry to say that, but you have such an experience of life that you need to open your mind on the world. All the world is not what you are talking about, and don't make of your personal violences a general case. You are so vile perverting what the people say to say it your way, and no, I would not go to Dallas get in on one of your trainings. I don't even think I would go to America. I loved America before I met with you and your tribe, and you are among few of the people that have convinced me that America was a wild land that was not nice to live. Is that what you intended to ?
You've got your point. There is not need to pursue the debate.
What has always pissed me off about Christians and gun right advocates is that there a high correlation between the two...there are many exceptions granted, but tell me, would Jesus own a gun? Would he allow any of his disciples to carry guns? Would he even advocate that a society have guns as a basic right? So, Christians that own guns and advocate the ownership of guns have missed the boat. What about turning the other cheek? I missed the part about locking and loading a 20-round magazine...it probably got edited out by a liberal translator.
Here is my question: Would Jesus support the 2nd amendment? If so, WWJP? (what would Jesus Pack?)
Tim the Soldier
I think you'd have to ask him, Tim. I'm an atheist, so I can't answer that question.
But you can quote these folks if you are looking for moral guidance on the issue:
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
-- Mahatma Gandhi (Autobiography, by M.K. Gandhi, p.446)
"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun."
The Dalai Lama, (May 15, 2001, The Seattle Times) speaking at the "Educating Heart Summit" in Portland, Oregon, when asked by a girl how to react when a shooter takes aim at a classmate.
Tritical, anyone should be able to do what is feeling more secured to them. That's not the point. The point is that having a gun needs some experience to be able to use it, and a licence is not an interdiction, but a way to be trained properly to know how to use a gun properly also.
As for Mrs. du Toit, personally, I would be sorry that my children go at school and say to the other children "my mother has killed a burglar". I would not be shocked them to say that their father has killed a burglar, because I believe that some things at home are the woman duty while some other things at home are the man duty, and because I am firmly convinced that it is the only way to help a children to grow up with a judgment that is made of values not only of reacts.
I have been taught to use a gun while child, I would probably teach my children to use a gun, but not to defend themselves or not to target people. Hunting is a good sport, funfairs are what they are, there are many occasions to learn to use a gun without the idea to kill someone. The perversion of the people promoting the use of guns is that they never plan to use it other than targeting a potential person. They rise their children with the idea that a gun is made to kill the people. That's not how I have been educated. To me, to target someone is being exposed to commit a crime. And here again, cops are trained to value this meaning and I think that people should also be trained and educated to value this meaning, because there are consequences both in the language and the education to the children.
Here again, I am not a feminist. I believe in some values that men and women are made different to be able to educate their children properly. That's what love is made of, that's why men and women are complementary.
Tim, you'll find your answer in Luke 22.
He among you who who is without a sidearm, let him sell his cloak to buy one. Seems to me there was also a verse suggesting packing something effective.
Remember, if a man smiteth you on the cheek, that is a blow to the ego, the traditional challenge to a duel. Turning the other cheek to that and coldcocking someone who actually is trying to hurt you are not incompatible.
Tim, for a pastor's take on Jesus and rightous violence,, take a look at http://www.thecitizennews.com/main/archive-031010/opinion/op-01.html
Others here are sure to enjoy this. Link via mcgehee.
"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun."
The Dalai Lama, (May 15, 2001, The Seattle Times) speaking at the "Educating Heart Summit" in Portland, Oregon, when asked by a girl how to react when a shooter takes aim at a classmate.
It's all that reincarnating that does it: you start seeing the Big Picture after about the third or fourth lifetime. Fifth lifetime, tops.
Yep, I was right. Trying to actually discuss the issues with the trolls and doctrinaires around here has damn near become impossible due to the pedantic, dishonest, ad hominem, ad hoc, and (generally) bad arguments.
When someone actually wants to discuss real issues like adults, please call me, ok?
About police officers being able to (or even being trained and expected to); I have long been under the impression that officers are trained only to shoot at the body core. I know that police marksmen are trained to fire at the head and body. Certainly some officers are capable of amazing feats using firearms, but I'm quite sure that is not the norm.
It is hard enough to hit a moving target under high stress situations, but to ask anyone as a matter of procedure to fire at something that is not only hard to hit, but also will not likely incapacitate is assinine.
I remember a retired officer telling me that the lethal distance for a knife wielding subject is Twenty Feet. That officers are trained to fire if a subject is determined to be hostile, is wielding a knife, and is within that range. It seems unlikely that an officer, or anyone else for that matter, would be expected to cycle through target points on a person as the situation which warranted the firing of the weapon unfolds.
John: Stalin wasn't gay-friendly, but neither was Joseph McCarthy, and neither was George Bush I, and neither is George Bush II.
And neither was Bill Clinton, and neither was Howard Dean until very recently, and neither are quite a few Democrats still in office around the country.
The Bush white house is now loaded with gay people. The Log Cabin republicans get consulted on a regular basis by the administration's political people. There has been no effort at all to derail Clinton's "don't ask don't tell policy," (although no effort to change it either--just as Clinton made no such effort) and the White House has been resistant to signing onto the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment. I call that progress.
Conservatives are, as a group, overwhelmingly unsupportive of gay liberation...
...so the solution is to never work with conservatives, keep as far away from them as possible, and demonize them at every opportunity? To treat with contempt those who are NOT gay-unfriendly? To criticize gays who try reach out to them, influence them, change their minds?
...and I find it disheartening that a group of gay persons would seek validation through the NRA rather than organizing gay Americans and teaching us how to defend ourselves without firearms.
1) The NRA has never taken a position on anything but guns, so why must we label them as "conservative?" I think of them as a civil rights organization myself. I used to be a card-carrying member of both the NRA and the ACLU, and saw no conflict there.
Yes, the NRA has a lot of support among Republicans, but they used to have a lot of support among Democrats. The Democrats have rejected them now, and I think they've paid a price for that.
2) As someone who's got considerable martial arts training, I can assure you that what Bruce Lee said is quite true: it doesn't matter how good you are if you're facing an opponent with a gun, or with a another serious weapon, or facing multiple opponents.
I, for one, am absolutely thrilled to see gay people moving out of the political ghetto that so many people seem to want keep them in. Being gay does not determine a person's views on countless political issues, nor should it. I see the Pink Pistols as a fantastic group that's not only defending something I believe is noble, but is also expanding the boundaries of where gay people can find acceptance.
"Jonathan, there is a strong difference between having a gun and being able to use it. When you're a cop you learn to target first the legs, then the shoulders, eventually the heart, lastly the head." - Amphityron
I'm not a cop, but I've been friends with a number of police oficers, including border patrolmen. You're either in error, or you're refferncing a country with a much different police training than the US.
Police are trained to not fire unless it's a lethal situation [and most allow judgement, but all shootings undego a review board], and when they do fire, to aim for the center of body mass: center torso.
Drill for defensive use of a sidearm for counter terrorism and similar is "Two in the body, pause, one in the head". But that's slightly different training from standard police work.
Don't take my word for it, call Gunsite or Ray Chapman's or any of the schools that do both private and law enforcement training in sidearms.
"Mrs. du Toit, I still believe that we cannot reply to the violence with violence." - Amphityron
Ah. You're not living in the same world as any number of us. Responding to the violence with nonviolence tends to be less than effective.
*waves up the thread* Hello Mrs. duToit. Good to "see" you again. Give my regards to Kim.
Casey:
Yep, I was right. Trying to actually discuss the issues with the trolls and doctrinaires around here has damn near become impossible due to the pedantic, dishonest, ad hominem, ad hoc, and (generally) bad arguments.
When someone actually wants to discuss real issues like adults, please call me, ok?
Bravo! I couldn't have put it better myself.
Somehow I'm reminded of a quote from Neal Stephenson:
Not a quote of universal applicability. But where it applies, it sadly applies all too well.
Paul,
I have to disagree with you slightly on your take of this discussion. Where else could you find this diverse a discussion group? Emotionally charged issues bring out heated arguments, but no one is hurting anyone...at least not that I've seen. Words are just words. I've been attacked (verbally as a fool, anti-christian bigot, left-wing stooge) but these don't hurt me because I know myself.
Now, what I do find to be true, and somewhat sad, it that the great majority of people who post on Dean's World CANNOT be swayed by these discussions to change their viewpoints. This is not keeping with the liberal tradition that Dean inspires. I know my opinion on an issue has been changed more than once by reading such discussions, but more often than not, when I decide to post, my mind is made up and it would take a strong, logical argument to dissuade me.
That being said, on the issue of guns, I still can't get over the 11,000 people who are killed by guns each year in America. I have decided, after reading this thread and watching "Bowling for Columbine" is that ultimately, we need to rid our society of handguns plain and simple. Now, people have the right to own rifles for hunting, sport, and home defense. We should preserve that right forever.
Tim the Soldier
Casey/Paul:
I can't even tell what side of the debate you're on, but what a pair of total cop-out comments to hear from you! I'm surprised and disappointed.
The "adult" response to a fallacious argument is to debunk it point-by-point, not to retreat like an octopus behind a screen of your own bodily emissions.
If defending your opinions using persuasive logic and reason isn't worth your time, I suggest you aren't worth democracy.
Tim: you raise a good point about gun-toting Christians, and it's a paradox I haven't personally worked through, though it leaves me open to your accusation of hypocrisy. I consider myself a Christian, yet I've seen such powerful positive effects from the select, regretful application of violence that I can't bring myself to discard it as a tool.
Touche, at any rate.
Mrs. du Toit: excellent points, right up the line.
Tim, please do a little research. Half of those 11,000 are suicides who, statistically, would be just as dead by other means without guns. The only proven effect of the so-called Brady bill, which wouldn't have stopped Brady from having been shot, has been to shift those over 50 who commit suicide toward other methods than guns. Most of the rest are inner city criminals or their victims; this country will not be better off if they start getting their guns from smugglers.
As for Bowling for Columbine, it has been documented to be a steaming pile of lies. The supposed documentary footage of Charlton Heston is edited from two speeches, one before and one after the Columbine incident. Walking out of the bank with that lovely Weatherby? He lied to the bank officials to let him film that. Actual depositers got a certificate of ownership to take to the gun shop, and got the gun only after a background check.
Heck, I could make a case that more students would have died at Columbine if those two kids hadn't had guns.
Tim:
Thanks for your thoughtful and civil response. I know you and I disagree on certain topics (the Christian faith and certain points of gun control among them), and sometimes you get more heated in debate than I would if I were in your shoes— but in my book you're one of the good guys.
I think you're right— people who know themselves (or I myself prefer John
Calvin's formulation: "Know God and know yourself") can keep steering ahead on their chosen course without being deflected or deterred by those who can't or won't conduct themselves with civility.
Now I'd better stop fiddling around, and get back to work on tomorrow morning's sermon.
Best regards!
Paul,
You know, I follow the principles of Jesus' teachings...for the most part. I find them to be the most pragmatic with regards to how we as humans interact. I never rejected the philosophical message, but I do reject the questions of divinity and existence of God. My social conflict has never been with "religion" per say, but rather with the end result of organized religion (especially those intolerant of other beliefs). Fundamental Christianity and Islam must, by their very natures, reject anything other than their "truth". You no doubt see this problem. This type of dogma inevitably leads to polarized societies, nations, conflict, and occassional violence. I am thankful for the fact that the moderates tend to outnumber the fanatics. I appreciate your dialogue.
Tim the Soldier
I think a lot of the folks who are pro-gun control, or who think their views about guns ought to dictate gun policy, are basing their decisions on biased data, or data that is presented without context.
I found this site relatively enlightening after being mildly duped by Bowling for Columbine myself.
http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html
"As for the sarcasm of Xrlq, I believe that someone who suicides with a gun cannot change his mind before it is too late. Many people intent to suicide, and phone the police or the doctor before they die. They only want to be rescued, and they suicide because they do not find an issue to their problems. The rescue generally is what they expect in their life, but without the suicide. I don't think that Xrlq was pretending to make a joke, guns are generally without any "come back". Other means are."
Good God, is there nothing I can say that is so obviously sarcastic that no one will mistake it for a serious comment? Contrary to the rheotoric of the gunophobes, death is permamanent, regardless of how it is achieved.
Dean writes:
"Yes, the NRA has a lot of support among Republicans, but they used to have a lot of support among Democrats. The Democrats have rejected them now, and I think they've paid a price for that."
Indeed, Dean, the NRA wasn't partisan until the Democrats made gun control their party issue. Many Democrats still are members and last time I counted there were several on the NRA board of directors.
The NRA doesn't want to be Republican.
I find it disheartening that a group of gay persons would seek validation through the NRA rather than organizing gay Americans and teaching us how to defend ourselves without firearms.
Take it from me: nothing deters a gay-basher like having his happy ass beaten to a pulp by a "faggot".
False dichotomies and poor logic. Sure, fag-bashers are deterred by being beaten to a pulp -- if that is possible. That does not limit the tiny, frail Matthew Shepherd to the use of his fists. Guns work!
Mrs. du Toit is absolutely right.
The mischaracterization of the Pink Pistols's goal as seeking "validation through the NRA" (as opposed to teaching unarmed self-defense) should not obscure their message that being armed for self defense is a basic human right -- and a duty of all people who respect their own lives. Whether the NRA has "validated" any group (or any group seeks help from them) is ludicrously irrelevant.
Because self-defense (armed or otherwise) is a basic human right, those who would use government force to take it away are advocates of tyranny. Opposing such tyranny was one of the many reasons the founders stated for the Second Amendment, and I am glad we have it.
Great post, Dean!
I feel like I'm a little late the to party, however I'll throw in a couple thoughts. I'm the group organizer for the Los Angeles Chapter of the Pink Pistols. I've given presentations to the local NRA council about the Pink Pistols. The overwhelming response we've had there - or at any other gun-related function - is they're thrilled to learn about another gun-friendly group.
The gay/lesbian issue is a whole lot less important to those who value the 2nd amendment than our interest in shooting straight. Once they realize that we have the same core values, the "gay stuff" goes out the window. (They just don't care.)
The Virginia chapter of the Pink Pistols has their range days on NRA headquarters property.
I'm not going to suggest that 100% of (non-gay) gun enthusiasts embrace the Pink Pistols. My experience has been that an overwhelming majority of them are totally cool with the intent of the group. And some of them even come to our range days.
We have a much more difficult time gaining acceptance from gay/lesbian folks than we do straight folks.
(I appreciate this thoughtful discussion. Thanx to the blog owner.)