Doctor Cleveland's picture

    An Armed Society Is a Bloody Society

    Gun-rights advocates love to quote Robert Heinlein's line that "An armed society is a polite society." Heinlein argued that in a culture where many are packing lethal weapons, people are more careful with their manners because they're afraid of being killed over a minor lapse of etiquette. Heinlein is wrong on his facts; history makes it very clear that real armed societies don't work that way. But what's really ghastly is that Heinlein and his fans imagine his fantasy as a good thing. The belief that "an armed society is a polite society" depends on a conviction that murder is better than bad manners.

    So we have Chad Oulson shot to death for texting before a movie started. We have Jordan Davis killed for refusing to turn down his music in a parking lot. We have two teenagers killed in separate incidents for egging cars. 18-year-old Tavarus Erving was killed in Atlanta on Halloween by someone who thought Erving had egged his Mercedes; his killer fired ten rounds. 15-year-old Adrian Broadway was killed with a shotgun last Saturday night in Arkansas; she was with four friends, egging the car of a boy who had earlier played a prank on them, and the boy's father responded with deadly force.

    Those four killings happened in the last three-and-a-half months, between October 31 and February 15. That's an average of one meaningless gun death every 29.5 days.

    What all four killers had in common was the idea that they were allowed to kill people who were not being sufficiently respectful to them. They were armed, so everyone else had to be polite, and the man with the gun got to decide what was polite.

    Let's not pretty this up. None of this was self-defense. The killers weren't interested in self-defense. All four assailants knew damned well that their victims weren't armed. Two of killers actually fired into fleeing vehicles. This was always about using a weapon to extort deference from other people. That is what today's twisted and mutated "gun rights" movement actually wants. An armed society is a polite society.

    The movie-theater murderer allegedly told his victim, "I'll teach you to throw popcorn at me." The loud-music murderer, who was willing to kill a teenager rather than tolerate rap music on his way into and out of a store, writes letters from jail opining that more black people would have better manners if more of them were killed:


    “The jail is full of blacks and they all act like thugs. This may sound a bit radical but if more people would arm themselves and kill these (expletive) idiots, when they’re threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior.”


    The killer wrote that letter to his grandmother.

    This senseless violence isn't a side effect of Stand Your Ground laws. It is one of their primary goals: a feature, not a bug. Extracting "respect" through intimidation is what today's sick version of the gun-rights movement is about. The whole point of Stand Your Ground laws is to take away the idea of necessity from self-defense. Today's gun-rights advocates don't think it's fair that they can only shoot someone dead if they absolutely have to. They believe they have a right to kill someone in order to teach them a lesson in manners: I'll teach you to throw popcorn at me. Stand-Your-Ground advocates consider the right to shoot someone else dead a privilege to which they are entitled. That is their idea of The Polite Society.

    Comments

    Crickets here. No way to argue with such a cogent and well-written piece.


    Well, you sure know how to unleash teh nutz...


    I agree, nicely done.


    In Heinlein's world, everyone is armed, at least all the cheiftains.  In the cases DC presents, only one side is known to be armed. Not sure that would make a difference when the assailants are clearly insane, but I think Heinlein is right that the overall level of civility would be higher, even exaggerated as in traditional Japanese culture and the Ole South.

     


    The politesse of aristocratic societies of the past demanded all sorts of formal restraints upon members of their warrior class. This kind of civility did not extend far beyond the established volume of peers who could claim to belong to that class.

    Heinlein explicitly espoused a libertarian view of each man finding his place in a field of equal conditions. But all his stories are about the few finding out who they are when faced with violence or extreme conditions.

    In stories like Starship Trooper, he promotes the formation of an aristocracy that is based upon a code of absolute service.

    The Bushido code with nice picnics thrown in.


    This kind of civility did not extend far beyond the established volume of peers who could claim to belong to that class.

    But it did extend to their fiefs.
     

    There has never been a society in which everyone is armed.

    There have been societies where the "chieftains" were all armed. And they did, in fact, use their weapons to extort exaggerated deference from their alleged inferiors. If a "polite society" is a society where 95% of the population has to bow and scrap before a 5% who are allowed to mistreat them horribly, then those would be good examples.


    Well you did say polite, not nice.

    Ultra polite societies also produce a lot of passive aggressive behavior and that is often what wins in the end; hence the saying, "Just shoot me!"

    I was not going to comment on your very well written post but then MW said no one could argue with it and .....

    Regrets,

     


    If an "armed society is a bloody society" then why is there only around 12,000+ murders where a firearm is used in a nation with 300-400 million+ firearms?  It would seem that if the presence of firearms leads to violence and death then the nation's population should be wiped out in only a year's time.  


    I'm glad that 1000 murders every month seems minor to you. We've lost about 5300 soldiers and Marines in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. More than twice as many people get murdered at home every year, because we have so many guns.

    If an armed society is not  bloody society, why is the murder rate so much lower in countries with better gun control? The numbers really don't help your argument.

    And it's not just 12,000 murders. It's a steady average of around 30,000 gun deaths a year. The person you are most likely to kill with a gun is yourself.


    Exactly correct Doc. I hate that we live in NRALandia, it truly sucks. Excellent blog. 


    Yes, let's blame the American gun owner for the actions of a few evil people.  The people mentioned in the article were selfish, acted badly and deserve prison time.  I have not noticed any responsible gun owners jumping to the defense of these people. I also noticed how you failed to mention the many murders committed in the same time frame by gang members and other criminals over narcotics.   Millions of other concealed carry permit holders properly handled their guns and carried them safely during that time.  Some of those people correctly used those guns in self-defense in accordance with their state's law.  No, it's all the American gun owners' fault for the actions of a few.

    Too bad you are not able to discern the difference between good and ill intent.

    "This senseless violence isn't a side effect of Stand Your Ground laws. It is one of their primary goals: a feature, not a bug."

    Your assertion is ridiculous and is made for propaganda purposes.  You know as well as I that SYG may only be invoked when the conditions for lawful self-defense are met.  Stating that SYG applies to all these cases is disingenuous.  Then again, the article was not written for honest and clear thinking Americans.

     


    Doc didn't state that SYG laws applied to all those cases. He brought that in as another trend pointing to a change in our society.


    SYG does not apply in the Oulson case.  This was specifically refuted by, but certainly implied by the media.  Remember, SYG only applies in a narrow set of circumstances after the requirements for lawful self-defense have been met.  The MSM would have you believe SYG applies first in a very wide way based upon "feelings".  

    Next, vandalizing property does not justify lawful self-defense in ANY jurisdiction.  The standard is that there must be IMMEDIATE fear of death or great bodily injury for the possibility that lethal force to be lawful.  There must still be motive, opportunity and ability--and the person claiming defense must be able to demonstrate why he or she fought.  This is why Dunn is rightfully going to prison:  he could not show there was an attack in the first place.  The person claiming self-defense must not be part of problem; the opposite was true in the Dunn case.  SYG never came up, despite the MSM's wish, because the first requirements for lawful use of lethal force were never met.  


    This is why Dunn is rightfully going to prison:  he could not show there was an attack in the first place.  The person claiming self-defense must not be part of problem; the opposite was true in the Dunn case.

    This is not true at all.

    He was not convicted nor is he going to jail for having killed Davis, whom you allow was not shown to have attacked Dunn in the first place.

    Had killing Davis without a provoking initial attack been the entire case, Dunn would have walked away (unless retried) based on these results.

    He's going to jail for attempted murder in shooting at a car that was pulling away filled with other kids whom no one claims (that I know of) were attacking him.

    And even if he had been attacked initially by Davis, I'm not sure it would have been legal to shoot in self defense at a retreating car (though I don't know).


    While he was not convicted of the murder, he did attempt to claim self-defense as an answer to the charges.  So, he is still doing the time, just not for the murder. 


    Self defense against a car moving away from him? With no one shooting except him? One of the odder self defense pleas, I'd say.


    Was it ever brought up whether the victim was dead, before the car moved away?


    Remember, SYG only applies in a narrow set of circumstances after the requirements for lawful self-defense have been met.

    If SYG only applies in a situation in which the requirements for lawful self defense (of the old variety) has been met, then why is this addition necessary? What does it add to what a person can do?

    Under the old definition, it's only self defense if the guy can't get away. If there were other options, he can be prosecuting for killing the other person.

    Under this new definition, he doesn't have to try to get away even if there is a way to get away. So what formerly would not have been self defense, suddenly qualifies.


    SYG is not indicative of a changing society unless you approach it from the angle of prosecutors incorrectly prosecuting people who lawfully used lethal force for self-defense.  It also corrects the problem of criminals or their families misusing civil court to bankrupt people who defended themselves.   SYG is merely additional legal protection against these abuses and does not loosen the requirements for lawful use of lethal force.


    Except that the NRA has yet to present even a single case in which a self-defender was wrongly accused/convicted prior to the passage of the SYG law.

    IOW, traditional self defense laws have been perfectly adequate to protect the rights of people who've been defending themselves legitimately.


    I don't blame gun owners for violence personally.  I blame their professional activists who have lobbied our elected officials at the state and federal levels into fearing the kind of reasonable regulation of firearms that even Justice Scalia was forced to admit in the most tepid sentence he has ever written was permissible.  But Congress is frozen, and the state legislatures are in a state of suspended animation -- and it's just dumb, stupid, and yes in many cases it leads to violence.

    I come from a gun-owning town (believe it or not Daggers :)).  One of my "buddies" on FB recently wrote how angry it made him that he wasn't allowed to blame all muslims for acts of terror made allegedly in the name of Islam, but that liberals like me were blaming all gun owners for the violence committed by irresponsible gun owners.  I think that reflects the feelings of lots of folks who choose to display faux or real anger about any effort to reasonably regulate guns -- and any effort to restore self defense doctrine to its legitimate common law-based and time-tested legitimate essence.

    Do you feel oppressed?  Really?  The gun owner lobby has milked folks like you into an irrational frenzy that is just plain dumb and, yes, makes this nation far more dangerous.

    And, yes, that same gun owner lobby or whatever it is bears full and indisputable responsibility for the emasculation of the time-honored common law concept of self defense and replaced it with this Stand Your Ground poison that has nothing at all to do with self defense.   

    It is a national disgrace.


    I must differ from the "Doc fans" commenting. "Gun rights" advocates have NOTHING to do with the concept of 'demanding respect, or else'.  That's a perspective found more commonly in the culture of urban gangs than among law abiding gun owners!

    I've been blessed to live in a state where I've been legally armed for over 20 years. Not once during those years have I been tempted to use a weapon to exercise a "right" to "shoot someone dead".  Instead, like most concealed weapons carriers, I find myself acutely aware of my need for personal self control - specifically to avoid escalating minor problems into big ones -  where I might be forced to defend myself. 

    Doc is simply building a "straw man" argument that does not apply in the real world of responsible gun owners.


    You are absolutely correct.  People that carry go out of their way to be polite and avoid all conflicts.  

    Concealed Carry License Holders More Law-Abiding Than the Population.

    http://www.thetruthaboutguns.c...

    Police Officers Three Times More Likely to Murder Than Concealed Carry Permit Holders

    https://www.lewrockwell.com/20...

    Texas study: Concealed carry permit holders commit less than 1% of the crimes.

    http://www.beaufortobserver.ne...


    Oh crap Doc, you are being spammed by the Libertarian/Austrian Economic Horde! I guess you hit a nerve Doc, expect a number of flamers to come by now.


    expect a number of flamers to come by now.

    The difference between a Flamer and somebody who merely disagrees is that a flamer is inappropriate in their responses.

    It appears your lips have done you in again,  You attack other people who were not inappropriate and your reason for attack....... is that they disagreed with doc.

    How unfortunate these new people met up with your usual inappropriate remarks and insulting welcome 

     

    To the new posters/contributors  WELCOME


    Except that these new people seem completely unaware of your existence:

    I have not noticed any responsible gun owners jumping to the defense of these people.


    Yep, as one person noted, Michael Dunn is rightfully going to jail.


    I was was defending the right of the accused, to have fair trial without all the race baiting; but you and others didn't want to hear of that right; just as you don't want to hear about the Constitutional Right granted by the Second Amendment.


    There is reasonable doubt. You were arguing irrational doubt. You argued a nonexistent shotgun that a Dunn didn't mention to his fiancé . You were biased in thinking that the nun chuks were automatically the teenagers. You gave more than reasonable doubt to Dunn and stereotyped the teenagers as thugs. You were biased.

    Even in the face of his comments about Blacks from prison, you label Michael Dunn a good guy with a gun. You would have found a reason to hang the jury.


    NOTICE TO MODERATORS is their no way to stop these ad hominem attacks? 

    Now you come here with your harassment. 

    Provide the citation where according to you I said  

    Michael Dunn a good guy with a gun.

     


    What you are complaining about is not an ad hominen. You are complaining about straw man tactics, or "putting words in your mouth." And that's not an easy thing for someone to do to you if your communication is perfectly clear.


    Thank you. When you repeat his own words, he takes offense.


    Resistance, the impression you gave was that Michael Dunn was justified in his fear. The shotgun defense made no sense. You tried to accuse the teenagers of having the silencer  and nun chuks despite a citation from a local news channel that the items were in Dunn's car. You  cried prosecutorial misconduct as a rationale. Go back a read your characterizations of the Black teenagers, you assumed they were guilty.

    You presented the video clip with the nun chuks and assumed it was in Davis' vehicle. I rationalized that if the teens had nun chuks and a silencer, Dunn's lawyers would have shouted it to the rooftop. I knew there was a possibility that it was the teens I took the next step and looked for the items in Dunn's car. When you were presented with the report on Dunn's car with Dunn's lawyer's comment, you still blamed the Black teens. That is bias.

    You continued to press that Dunn was innocent. In essence, you said a Dunn was the good guy with a gun. You did not view the teens as innocent at any time. That is bias.


    You pressed on despite knowing of his racist letters.


    When did I know of his racist letters? All knowing rmrd


    Abusive

    Abusive ad hominem usually involves attacking the traits of an opponent as a means to invalidate their arguments. 

    Ad hominem abuse is not to be confused with slander or libel, which employ falsehoods and are not necessarily leveled to undermine otherwise sound stands with character attacks.

    Maybe I should have stated,  I am tired of his abusive slander? Would that have been a more appropriate response to his repeated charges of racial bias and lying misrepresenting that I associate myself with murderers or killers of children? . Had Dunn killed a white youth I would have been just as concerned about the accused, getting a fair trial.

    The constant race baiting by this individual, because a black youth was killed, allows some to ignore fairness and due process  As they slander anyone who rejects their bigoted view?


    As noted above I repeated the sentiment that you used. You included "Blame Whitey" when I brought up bias in the judicial system.

    When did you ever give the Black teens the benefit of the doubt. After listening to the testimony of the fiancé who noted his attitude and lack of mention of a weapon, you continued to push on supporting his statement about a shotgun

    You were certain that the fighting sticks belonged to a Davis and his companions despite the illogic of that position. Dunn's lawyers would have loudly yelle about the nun chuks.

    It is not abuse when I point out the flaws in your logic.


    Beginning @ 1:56   “Shotgun didn’t need to exist”  

    According to an attorney  I prefer to believe because of his extensive knowledge, rather than you or your blind  legal opinions

    O'Mara compares Dunn, Zimmerman cases - HLN


    Resistance, you have argued not only that Dunn thought he saw a weapon, but that the teens drove away and got rid of the shotgun.

    From a prior post

    http://dagblog.com/link/jordan-davis-murder-trial-verdict-18227#comment-...

     

    What makes you think they would find evidence after the scene was neglected for 4 days? 
    Spoliated ? No one in the car, had a cell phone to call 911 at the 100 feet away from the initial contact ? Instead they drove the vehicle back to the front, where the crime scene initially occurred to call 911? Was this to throw off investigators? Maybe a crime was committed at the 100 feet marker  The hiding of evidence? 
    If there was evidence of a weapon, it was 100 feet away, in another parking lot, picked up by friends later. Convenient isn't it;  Wheres the evidence? 
    by Resistance 2/17/2014 - 9:10 pm (re: Aaron Carine) reply
    Exactly, where IS the evidence of this gun/pipe/anything?
    If we're now putting the kid on trial posthumously, then the prosecution--in this case, the defense--needs to find the weapon.
    by Peter Schwartz 2/18/2014 - 10:57 am (re: Resistance) reply
      NCD is right. Resistance's "they had a shotgun; they threw it away and picked it up later" theory is nothing but speculation. And if they were aiming a shotgun at him, why didn't they return fire?
    by Aaron Carine 2/18/2014 - 2:23 pm (re: Resistance) reply
     
     
     

    Take your repeated harassment back to that post.  You don't need to high jack this one for your vendetta. 


    Resistance, posting the words you posted to prove that I was telling the truth is not harassment.

    You did suggest that the teens had a shotgun.


    Take it outside this post, what part of that don't you understand? 


    Those are your words on the same case. What part of that do you not understand? Your words. Not abuse. Not libel. Not slander. Your words. Are you ashamed?


    S h o u l d    I    s a y     i t    s l o w e r? 


    I recommend saying it in front of a mirror...

     

    Even if it's not more comprehensible, you're bound to feel better..


    I was thinking about cans of alphabet soup and him eating words


    So thats it,,,,You want to get aggressive and FORCE me to eat my words because I found the testimony of the kids not credible?  Or that I failed to put a maybe or a ? mark

    You win.  Peace,   or it that not enough for you , as you insist on rubbing my nose in the floor. Or embarrassing others brings you great joy? 


    I don't feel that threatened, by his aggressiveness on the internet  but if he knew where I lived and he continued this aggressive behavior, I might feel threatened by someone with his characteristics. I am trying to avoid his continual "in your face charges"

     I am backing off and refuse fighting with him here on Doc's Post  

    A sort of "last chance" to avoid arguing here on this thread 

    I invited him, to get back to the original post where he found the link he brought to this thread    If he wants to link words I have used in another thread I'll meet him there, but he doesn't need to high jack this one, to continue the previous post and old arguments. It's still there. 

    I'd rather hear from the New folks with a different perspective, about Docs message, than to hear rmrd's tireless complaints and whining.

    He started the fight here and I'm trying my best to avoid him on someone elses turf.

    Rephrased 

    Next rmrd  will be acting like some reported  Dunn did, when he objected to the loud music;  rmrd with similar action,  because rmrd finds something I said objectionable?


    Great that you've welcomed them. Now are you going to argue with TexTopCat how requiring concealed carry permits are an affront to the Second Amendment like you have with me and others? Shouldn't TexTopCat get equal ire to that received by Dick Metcalf for supporting some licensing? Some of us have no problem with concealed carry permit holders or other types of licensing and registering of gun ownership, we think it is a good idea, like with automobiles.


    Point weeelllll taken.


    Toll me....I live in Florida and it is a stupid law...period.  It is a growing issue with how the courts have to deal with it.  It is going to help turn the state of Florida over to the Democrats.

    Too many guns have become a public health issue and a pandemic of gun related deaths.  If you throw in all the injuries from guns, then you have a really nasty pandemic.

    Have you ever had a bullet come through the ceiling of your kitchen?  I have.  I can tell you lots of other personal stories about gun fire.  But I won't, because you are a responsible gun owner and don't want to hear it.  There are many like me that feel differently about it and have good reason too. In fact the majority of the country feels the same way.  That means laws about gun ownership is going to be tighten sometime in the near future.  


    Lame attempt at turning all gun owners into mindless racists. The Arkansas shooter was black. The author cites four shooters that made poor decisions but fails to mention the thousands of annual gang banger, trailer trash that misuse illegal guns and the hundreds of legally armed potential victims that stop them. The biggest con of the article is that the author promotes a society of utopia, willingly with ignorance. Such a society will never exist. The truth: our country is at an all time low when it comes to crime. The 2nd amendment practitioners played a key role in that reduction. That's a fact that has been backed by the FBI, CDC and the DOJ.


    The 2nd amendment practitioners played a key role in that reduction. That's a fact that has been backed by the FBI, CDC and the DOJ.

    yes

     


    [citation needed]


    Whoa, you're on fire.

    A link in time saves nine.


    It's such a crucial point, though it is off-topic from what Doc Cleveland is saying (I for one see nothing wrong with challenging Doc's thoughts on topic, Deadman was basically doing the same thing when he posted at the time of the Sandy Hook shooting.)

    Licensing and registration is what many of us want, and what police forces and mayors want, licensing and registration to lower the numbers of hotheads, gang members, criminals and mentally ill that have access to guns.

    People like Resistance say (from the link) The assailants have no clue who is registered or not, only that you may be armed that in its self is a deterrent. The element of surprise is a good defense. People like TexTopCat (and Dick Metcalf, another gun lover) are not the enemy to those of us supporting licensing. Resistance is, he has consistently opposed any kind of licensing. Tex sounds very proud that he is licensed, Everyone should note that not all the respondents to Doc Cleveland's post are saying the same thing.


    The assailants have no clue who is registered or not, only that you may be armed that in its self is a deterrent. The element of surprise is a good defense. 

    It could have been worded better, but you and others will hang all your arguments on any unintentional error I make, So what is else new? 


    So I think you're making an important point: Gotcha moves are a waste of time. It doesn't matter if "we" catch some guy named "Resistance" in a contradiction.

    Or Peter Schwartz for that matter.

    What matters more, at least to me, is whether the positions and policies are contradictory or lead to bad results or are otherwise misguided, regardless of who holds them. And this is where I think AA is going.

    So I read through that thread and here's what I think you were saying: 1) You were against the Government knowing who had a gun and who didn't. This is what licensing amounts to (I think) and you're worried about the opportunity for abuse by the government, i.e., confiscation of fire arms and the like. So you were, in fact, against licensing simpliciter, regardless of the benefits we derive from it.

    2) You're also saying that licensing doesn't add much to deterrence because being armed and licensed is no different from just being armed when confronted with a threat. But this second point sort of turns against you because a criminal won't know that you're licensed and thus your license won't diminish the protective power of having a gun, either.

    The license isn't the deterrent ......... IT'S THE PISTOL;  IT'S THE PISTOL;   IT'S THE PISTOL 

    How many more times must I say it 

    Let me spell it out for the mentally challenged. What difference does it make whether you have a CPL or you just came out of the service and you just carried one without the permit? 

    The assailant you run off /deter isn't asking you to show him your license.

    Assailant: OOOHHHH  I 'm so afraid of your license.

    Here's the difference from the pro-license point of view. It has nothing to do with the deterrent value of a gun, which is your focus, and which is unaffected by the addition of a license.

    If we require a license, we gain some control over who gets to carry a gun. We get to check their mental stability, their record, their skill level and any number of things like this.

    As you point out, this does nothing to diminish the self defense capability of carrying a gun. The criminal doesn't know whether you're carrying a gun either way.

    However, it does give society a better shot at keeping guns out of the hands of people whom everyone, at least rhetorically, thinks shouldn't have them. That's why licensing could potentially be a benefit. Will there be mistakes? Yes. But I think one has to admit that there are plenty of mistakes now.

    Clearly, Dunn had "no business" carrying a gun in society. Nor did he need it for self defense. Just adopting a tidge of the self control you recommended for the boys, and he would have been avoided this confrontation altogether. His gun did nothing to move this event toward a happy outcome; just the opposite.

    Would licensing have caught Dunn before he did harm? Perhaps he was licensed. There are no 100% guarantees, but it gives us a better chance at stopping these kinds of tragedies and of conducting productive police work once a license-identified gun has been used in a crime.


    I "hang on" not "errors" but your very consistent argument over years against licensing or registration of guns. And your very consistent arguments about what guns can theoretically protect against, which I almost always find virtually without any factual merit and often find absurd. I.E., your gun is not going to protect against government drones or tanks or terrorist bombs, and your gun is just as likely to hurt your family as protect them, etc. etc. I am not against licensed gun ownership. And I think people who argue like you do (often crazy stuff) hurt the cause of gun ownership. I hope there is a future where people who want guns for fearful, paranoid reasons like you do are not allowed to have them, I think that is warning sign that they might be dangerous and very liable to hurt someone innocent in fear or anger. I would prefer confident, rational and well-trained people without irrational paranoid fears be allowed to wield them, and that includes people who have a rational understanding of what they can do and what they cannot do--as it says, a "'well regulated militia"....


    I believe the officer meant well by insisting there be a registration or licensing requirement (or did he?, but again why should their be any burden placed upon Lawful citizens, exercising their Second Amendment Right. 

    The officer in no way stated, it was the permit that deterred crime only that responsible gun owners did. and the article said armed citizens  You're blinded by your insistence of the added qualifier "CDL"  "CPL"  Edited to correct spelling 

    According to a March 2013 anonymous poll of 15,000 officers by the law enforcement website policeone.com., almost 90 percent of the respondents believed casualties would be decreased if armed citizens were present during shooting incidents, while more than 80 percent supported arming teachers who were trained with firearms.

    Although Craig said more responsible gun owners would likely lower crime,

    Detroit police chief: Legal gun owners can deter crime | The Detroit ...

    Responsible gun owners are protected by the Second Amendment  "the right* of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" 

    *(Citizens who have not forfeited their right)


    Doc made no reference to racists. There is also no reference to a society of utopia. He is challenging the concept that common courtesy and mutual respect is based purely on the threat of deadly force being used by anybody at anytime. Your reference to gang bangers and "trailer trash" provides excellent support for his thesis.


    I second Verified Atheist and request citation.


    The gun stuff is becoming really more insane by the minute.  A law school buddy of mine was the president of his synagogue in Northern Virginia.  The synagogue board became embroiled in a bitter dispute because of the fact that certain congregants demanded the right to carry their concealed penis enlargers weapons into the temple -- where inter alia really bad parents take their kids to Hebrew School and other youth programs.  Some people even go to the place to pray.  I kid you not.

     


    Unbelievable. Yet all too believable.


    You should tell the guy with the strapped bomb, dropping ball bearings on the floor "Bombs are not allowed" 


    Well I hear you, but our synagogue, like most in Manhattan, relies on New York's finest, the NYPD, buttressed with private and trained security.  I think that's better than private vigilantes, no?


    NO I don't agree. ...I believe every citizen has a right to self defense.


    Sounds like a recipe for blowing the whole congregation to smithereens. There is a reason urban police forces have a special bomb squad with many hours of training per year whose main weapon is not guns but their knowledge of bombs. There is also a reason many well-armed American soldiers are victims of IED's: their guns cannot help them against bombs.


    Sounds like a recipe for blowing the whole congregation to smithereens

    You surprise me, you figured it out so quick   That is the intention of the terrorist 


    So terrorists are hoping that the congregation has guns to help set off the bomb and not access to a bomb squad?


    BTW, this is not a theoretical issue with people of bslev's faith in NYC, it's a real, actual threat.


    Lets just hope another major city doesn't have to cut it\s police force because of budget restraints. 

    CPRC participates in CNN discussion on Detroit Police Chief's ...

    crimepreventionresearchcenter.org/.../cprc-participates-in-cnn-discussion...‎     

    Jan 4, 2014 - We cannot be everywhere.” An article in the Detroit News by George Hunter gives a much more complete story of what Police Chief James  ...

    Also 

    Visit Detroit at your own risk, police union warns - U.S. News


    Yeah..... That is why I brought the realization to his house. A couple of evil men take out a guard and what is the defenseless congregation to do

    Call 911?. 

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Jewish_Community_Center_shooting

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toulouse_and_Montauban_shootings

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozar_Hatorah

    Or maybe after services, your group decides to go to a cafeteria 

    Luby's massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


    You started out presenting the scenario that armed worshippers could help against a suicide bomber. I pointed out how ridiculous that was. (If you still don't see the ridiculousness: a suicide bomber has already planned to committ suicide! So threatening him with death not only does not help, doing so with a gun might make him detonate all the sooner or the gun itself will end up causing the bomb to detonate.) And guns are also of absolutely no use against remotely controlled bombs as well!

    So you switch to shootings and leave the bomber topic. Without saying "sorry, my mistake" or "oops, I didn't think how that didn't make sense." You just switch in midstream without admitting error.

    You do this all the time, that's why you are constantly ridiculed by many and why I have suggested you think more and compose more before you write.

    All it looks like when you do this is that you have no real argument but are just searching for any crazy example that will fit your belief. And it doesn't seem to matter much to you if the reasons end up conflicting or contradicting. Further, in my experience, it's often been the case you haven't even read the entire articles you link to, and some end up contradicting what you are trying to say.

    This modus operandi could easily be considered insulting to the intelligence of the readers of your comments, you know.  It can be taken like this: if the suckers don't buy one argument, you'll try anything, run the whole gamut, see what they fall for, flimflam man style. This is also why you see so many "gotchas," because of the factor of being insulting to readers' intelligence. People have a hard time leaving that kind of nonsense alone without saying something, because they feel that maybe they are being considered a sucker if they don't say something.


    You're correct, I should have said both, a gun or a bomb

    I just cant leave it at;  they'll figure it out, they're intelligent enough to  see another application like ie gun. Maybe I give the readers to much ability or credit.  

    As for the bomb;  In movies  the terrorists are depicted as wanting  to do the most damage, injure the most people and to do this, they want to get  positioned, where that is possible.

    a suicide bomber has already planned to committ suicide! So threatening him with death not only does not help, doing so with a gun might make him detonate all the sooner 

    You're correct they don't care if they die; but wouldn't it make more sense to limit their ability to do maximum damage, rather than just stand there and do nothing? The bombs is going to go off,  make a decision;  if sooner causes fewer casualties; you want a few or many casualties? 

    Because the terrorist is going to benefit by your indecision.


    It is infuriating when he claims libel, slander and abuse when his own words and obvious interpretations are shown to him.


    What particular word.? You cut and paste a bunch of words, and I am left wondering, What did he/she find so offensive 

    is this the comment? 

    Maybe      a crime was committed at the 100 feet marker  The hiding of evidence?  Speculative 

    If    there was evidence of a weapon,

    Speculative 

     (The next sentence is where I must have made the error? I didn’t realize I made an error)  was  it the word  it** was 100 feet away, in another parking lot, picked up by friends later.

    I could have looked and looked, and never realized that my use of Maybe  and  If wasn’t  enough  for some;  to conclude, I was  Speculating  all along .  Looking for a reason;, a possibility of how the jury made the decisions they did , because  they might have thought the same thing about the 100 feet away .  Just speculation, as all court observers tend to do.

    BTW  especially after the witnesses had changed their stories about events and as far I was concerned, it cast doubt on their credibility, and this was twisted by you to assume,  I hate something about blacks kids?

    Again... I just don't understand the bias you see, in the Judicial system  (Wonder who that could be, that is biased? The Jury? )  and all the other words you could twist to slander me, as a Racist.  

    Rather than acting with kindness, at an imperfection, as most civil people would do Pointing out the offensive word or giving the benefit of asking  Dont you mean Maybe  instead of it , because I forgot,    I missed and should have added the word  Maybe … it**  The provocation never ceased , even if ignored.

    Not enough to let the festering wound alone in the other post, you continued on to Docs post, to continue your racial bias accusations. 

    and if this isn't the offending words, you claim make me a racist.  I still don't know,  and I haven't the time to play your gotcha games. 


    I don't understand your sentence about bias. Are you saying the judicial system isn't biased? Are you saying the judicial system is biased?. Are you saying the jury was biased? Are you saying the judicial system is not biased? Keep in mind when I brought up bias in the judicial system, you accused me of "Blaming Whitey", so I conclude that you do not think there is bias in the system. My impression is based on your words. 

    Since you used "Blame Whitey" and you persisted in your " speculation", one concludes that you were biased in favor of Michael Dunn. If you note, I am not the only one pointing out the impression your writing style leaves.

    Regarding bias in the judicial system, read the Brennan Center report.


    How many more times are you going to repeat this. You  stated as much  over on the other post and you want to bring it here again,  now. I cant help it you see so much bias, what do you want me to do? You might as well ask me to help you catch the wind.  I know I cant, but you'll insist we try  We live in an imperfect world, no thanks to those who made it so.  

    Are you saying the judicial system is not biased?

    Who in the judicial system, do you think is responsible for this bias? Point him or her out and we'll get after them.  


    It really might lead to a useful clarity, Res, if you could avoid responding to a question with a question. (This ain't Talmudic deconstruction, if you catch my meaning...)

    Trust me, 90% of the questions addressed to you are not rhetorical, the are sincere (even, desperate) requests for information.

     

    Much of what you experience as gotchas, or personal attacks, are really attempts to define the universe of discourse.

     

    I just read DoubleA's intervention at which I smiled knowingly, lauding her good intentions but doubting her chances of efficacy, and yet, here am I in emulation.

     

    Just answer the question, so the discussion can move forward.

     

    Folks are confused as to what you intend to say--trust me on this.


    Thanks Jolly, despite are sometime disagreements,  I do trust you   and often times would like to commend you on your ability to write so eloquently,

    I feel more comfortable in oral conversations,  than I do in writing. You should hear me speak in an undertone, as I am writing a reply or comment, it just doesn't come through in print. 

    I failed in English class writing, isn't it obvious. My punctuation sucks, and although I see the point I am trying to make, it just doesn't come through as well as I had hoped. 

    BTW I used your kibble and bits story in conversation this AM and many chuckles were heard. 


    English is not a very logical language. We can understand.

    In your post above, I truly wasn't clear on why you were saying. It was not an attack.


    Res, if you could avoid responding to a question with a question.

    I asked “Who in the judicial system, do you think is responsible for this bias? 

    Is this a question not worth asking? In light of the term Whitey, some individuals find objectionable?

    Maybe I was wrong to assume that in some circles, the Whiteman is always the devil, for he writes the laws and enforces them too. Whether it is the slaves who had to live under white masters  or the Indians who had to obey the Great white father

    Some would find the term the term Whitey objectionable, 

    But was I wrong to assume, although they wouldn’t want to say who they thought was to blame?  They knew, not to be so forth coming and expose themselves to accusations of racial bias. In this judicial system; who else could people blame, for the injustices felt by minorities? 


    I asked “Who in the judicial system, do you think is responsible for this bias? Is this a question not worth asking?

    It most definitely is.

    It's also worth admitting that bias exists when the statistics make that clear.

    Just because someone can't name individuals (on the fly) in the justice system who are biased doesn't mean bias doesn't exist. Or those individuals don't exist.

    Moreover, bias can exist in a system even when individuals don't overtly hate a group or won't admit to thinking certain things or holding certain beliefs.

    Sometimes, bias is kept alive by thinking that gets passed along without ever being questioned. For example, ideas about black on black violence. "Everyone knows" X is true when, upon reflection, it turns out not to be true.

    We learn to trust our "gut" but often don't know what's in our "gut" or whether it's trustworthy.

     


    I am normally not one to work as an editor for free, but anyway.  Let's imagine this dialog:

    rmrd: Do you believe that the justice system is unfair in that people of color when defendants are more likely to be wrongly convicted, than whites, more likely to be more harshly sentenced than whites, when white defendants are accused of victimizing persons of color, they are more likely to be wrongly acquitted?

     

    Res: Yes.  Do these unfair outcomes proceed from the actions of individuals operating from  simple racial bias or the consequences of class inequality ?(ie, Judges believing or disbelieving allegations of coerced confessions, Prosecutors over or under charging, Bail Bondsmen refusing to provide bail, Public Defenders making inadequate efforts through overwork or lack of sympathy, jurors manifesting a greater or lesser willingness to empathize with a particular defendant or victim as their class and race differ from or align based on  class or race, etc.

     

    Bear in mind, we live in a profoundly racist society, where every aspect of life is suffused with a fundamental judgement that occurs at the outset of every face to face transaction.  Is this person "other" or "not-other"

     

    Add to this the impact of class, (with which you have frequently shown a well thought through familiarity) and the built in outcomes on class of 400 years of racism, and you have an amalgam of exogenous factors which make virtually every transaction in (what we have the temerity to call) the administration of equal justice fraught with the likelihood  certainty of error.

     

    Now, bearing all that in mind, you may well acknowledge that race plays a part in the outcome of the OJ trial and the Dunn trial--but it would be obtuse to imagine that because one rich African American celebrity escaped conviction where the premiere criminal defense attorneys in the whole fucking nation, (including the incomperable Mr. Johnny!) were on his side and he had the luck to draw some real stumblebums as prosecutors, any further examination of the impact of race on trials like Dunn's amounts to a chorus of "get Whitey!"

     

    Don't ya think?


    yes


    As I said before, you are really good  Jolly,   smiley

    Totally agree yes . You reopened my mind to remind us all, who the real culprit is; in this unjust world.

    Very well put Jolly. Thank You  


    "Happy are the peace makers .....


    Kumbaya...

     


    In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the hero uses fancy sword work to deflect the thousands of poison darts the Evil Woman shoots at him from her blow gun.

    Maybe a gun-toter with a million rounds in his barrel clip could deflect the ball bearings and nails flying in all directions after the bomb explodes.

    Cautionary note: Even with all his martial skill, one poison dart makes it through, and the hero dies (as I recall).


    NEO is the best 


    I don't think you understand how things work in NYC.  We've got our problems, have problems with our men and women in blue, but they risk their lives every day to give our kids the right to walk into a temple or a mosque without fear of being slaughtered.   They station themselves in front of our targets and they really do risk their friggin lives doing it, every day.  Ask my Cousin Linda, whose husband was killed on the job forty years ago, and she's finally retired from the job herself with a cough that won't go away since 9/11.  I'll take her and her colleagues any day over some shmegagie head with a pistol in his tallis bag.   Things are real here.  G-d forgive me, I risk my kid's life walking into a house of worship, and you're telling me that she's better off with some moron packing a piece?  Damn it Resistance, I hate the way you get pounced on sometimes around here but this isn't fodder for screwing around.


    Thank God,     but do you assume some of these parishioners? might not be as well trained as any other police officer?   Do these fine people or friends get personally escorted by an officer, when going home or to their cars?

    When police officers go home  they have their weapons for self defense. 

    Maybe some have became afraid, after the horrible incident that occurred with the landlord? 

    and you're telling me that she's better off with some moron packing a piece? 

    NO! that moron?  probably only cares about saving his own life.

    Sometimes theres just not enough policemen or women. 

    Did you even read the links I provided? 

    If I said something to offend you, it was not my intent 


    No offense taken Resistance.  It's an issue that means quite a bit to you and others  who I know a very long time.   We have a fundamental disagreement on an issue that is hard to resolve by agreeing to disagree.  


    Thank God,     but do you assume some of these parishioners? might not be as well trained as any other police officer?

    It takes time and dedication to be well trained. It's not impossible for a civilian to do it. However, the civilian also has a job. Generally, he can't devote the same amount of time to it unless he's very dedicated to it.


    The fear of the vigilante who does harm is real. In South Carolina, a vigilante who killed an unarmed, innocent teen when he was trying to protect his daughter from a group of girls who were threatening her. The man went free because under South Carolina's 2006 Stand Your Ground law, his fear gave him the right to shoot. The life of the innocent teen meant nothing under the law.


    How is that guy going to be stopped by a gun?


    In "Gunfight", UCLA law professor Adam Winkler argues that there was strict gun control in Wild West towns like Tombstone and Dodge City. He also notes that the NRA used to be OK with background checks.


    Mas Ayoob weighs in on the Dunn case.  It is as I thought;  read it for yourself.  

    http://backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/

     


    Second Amendment activists have become the greatest enemy the Second Amendment has. And if I felt any qualms about calling today's gun-rights movement sick and mutated, this thread has allayed them. Lots of dysfunction is on display here.

    If it comes down to a choice between having no guns at all or no guns at all, we will someday have no guns at all. That's just how it will be.

    First "Second Amendment" activists resisted any minor or sensible restrictions: background checks, restrictions on assault weapons, restrictions on teflon bullets. Now "Second Amendment" activists keep pushing the envelope, suing to override sensible local rules, rallying with guns in public, and watering down the age-old legal definition of self-defense.

    The idea that right of self-defense should be based in the killer's intentions, his state of mind, is a radical and crazy idea. It violates a thousand years of common law and common sense. It is fundamentally the Coward's Right to Kill.

    Self-defense has always been defined by necessity and imminent, unambiguous danger. That means clear and present danger, where the words clear and present mean what they actually mean: "clear" as in "no doubt" and "present" as in "now." Not "I was afraid he might have a weapon," or "I was afraid he would come back with a weapon" or "How did I know if he had a weapon or not?" Self-defense is for people who are in actual peril of their lives.

    And self-defense is for people who have no other realistic choice. If there is anything you could do besides kill someone, you do that. That's it. If that seems unfair to you, I would suggest that you are morally depraved.

    This is actually not a complicated question. There's a word for killing someone you don't have to kill. That word is murder.


    If it comes down to a choice between having no guns at all or no guns at all, we will someday have no guns at all. That's just how it will be.

    I don't know many people who would care to be the victim of a violent crime, just so we can rid the Nation of guns. 

    The U.K.’s strict gun controls mean it has a lower homicide rate than the U.S. even though there’s more violent crime, …….. According to the Sydney-based Institute for Economics and Peace, the U.K. had 933 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2012, down from 1,255 in 2003. In the U.S., the figure for 2010 was 399 violent crimes per 100,000 people.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-24/u-k-gun-curbs-mean-more-violence-yet-fewer-deaths-than-in-u-s-.html


    Seems to me your link blows your theory out of the water.  Did you even read it?

    “You’ve got 10 times the likelihood of being killed in violent crime in the U.S. than you have in the U.K.,” Steve Killelea, the founder of the institute, told the BBC today. “The strict gun controls in the U.K. are one of the reasons you’ve got such good homicide rates.”


    Yeah; that's right.


    One caveat on this, though.

    This may be because the UK starts off with a low level of gun ownership and relatively few guns out and about.

    If you start off, as we do, with lots of guns floating around, then the situation may be different unless and until we find a way to remove a lot of guns from society.

    Remove a lot of the illegal guns, that is, and find ways to keep legal guns from finding their way into the wrong hands.

    Of course, the sheer number of guns (legal and non) floating around in and of itself makes that difficult.

    My point is this: The more guns we have floating about in society, the more people feel the need to carry guns to protect themselves against those guns. It escalates.

    Davis's friends could draw the unfortunate lesson from this encounter that, even if they didn't have a shotgun at the time, they should have one going forward. And be ready to use it.

    They might also assume--not without reason--that any guy (white or not) who asks them to turn down their music is probably armed and ready to shoot if he's turned down or in any way feels threatened.

    This might cause them to feel threatened any time someone knocks on their car window and asks them to turn down their music. And so on...

    Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.


    My point is this: The more guns we have floating about in society, the more people feel the need to carry guns to protect themselves against those guns. It escalates.

    Davis's friends could draw the unfortunate lesson from this encounter that, even if they didn't have a shotgun at the time, they should have one going forward. And be ready to use it.

    That's the dilemma now.  I don't know how we got to this point, I honestly don't, but there's something really crazy about how we deal with guns in this country.  We used to have some respect for the lethality of guns. 

    Who even a few years ago would have believed we'd get to the point where guns were encouraged in schools, churches and public buildings?  I read the justifications for the need for unlicensed, unregistered guns and I hate to think where this kind of mindless fear and paranoia will lead us.

    Go to any book store and marvel at the numbers of magazines devoted to the love affair with guns.  It's nuts.  I saw two magazines entirely devoted to women and guns.  The ads were full of sexy, half-dressed women posing with the big ones. 

    There is that website selling guns for kids--pink, pretty, cool--all capable of shooting real projectiles.

    There are some of us who fight against allowing this to become the new normal but we're losing the battle.  The gun fight is now entertainment.  Too many people getting too much pleasure sticking it to those of us who want a return to sanity.


    Does the 10 times include the death of the perp?


    Someday, Resistance, you're going to have to take this seriously.  There's nothing funny about it.


    What the heck are you talking about? Something I stated is construed as funny?   

    People are killing one another and some violent criminals ie rapists don't need a gun, they'll still be violent without one. What are the law abiding citizens to do; become a victim? 


    This is a good example of a writer blaming a reader for his lack of communication skills, instead of apologizing for not writing in a way that expressed very clearly what he meant.

    This sounded very flippant and ill-thought out to me:

    Does the 10 times include the death of the perp?

    I don't think I'm risking being caught out by saying there's probably a majority in this country who wouldn't look positively on the idea that there would be lots of vigilante executions. (Even Adam Lanza and James Holmes were probably convinced they were doing the right thing, fighting evil or protecting themselves or whatever, at the time they did it.)


    vigilante executions..................?

    Is this a strawman argument? Why would anyone who is  fighting off a beast,  to be considered vigilante execution?  
    When I hear the term vigilantism, I think of someone or a group, who actively hunts down another, to impose vengeance.  
    Self protection is not vengeance. 

    The relationship between violent crime and homicide that Hutton makes in the article is not supported by the study he cites.

    The cover page of the study makes the following point about data compatibility:

    The data used in the UKPI is harmonised across England and Wales, however both Scotland and Northern Ireland have different definitions and collection systems for crime data. Therefore only areas in England and Wales can be directly compared.

    The comparisons Hutton makes with the U.S. numbers blows right through this constraint with gusto.

    The study itself doesn't square with the idea that gun ownership is a contributor to the suppression of violent crime when it asserts the most significant correlation to be:

    Poverty has a stronger association with violence than income. The disparity between income levels (the Gini coefficient), while still significant, has a much weaker correlation with peace than poverty.
     

    Hutton is like a lot of bloggers who use sources to make causal links between phenomena when the sources actually undermine their logic when given more than a cursory glance.


    Remember that seen in Godfather I where Corleone calls a meeting of the five families to stop the internecine warfare? His first son, Santino "Sonny", has been assassinated, and he determines something must be done to stop the killing (at least of each other).

    Brando opens the meeting with a question that he's posing even more to himself than to the others assembled...

    "How did we get here? I don't know (drifting off)... Tatalia's lost a son. I've lost a son."

    This is a bit how I feel during these 2nd amendment/gun control/licensing debates. The 2nd amendment defenders paint a picture of the world, fraught with assailants hiding behind every lamppost, that I just don't recognize. Without a gun on them, they feel as vulnerable as I do when I drive without a seat belt fastened. I don't get it.

    And it's not as if I've been living in some safe gated community all these years. I moved to D.C. in 1970 when it was considered our "murder capital" and lived there until 1999 mostly on the edge, meaning one street over, from "dangerous" neighborhoods. The ghetto, if you will.

    I went out at night on foot all the time. And in all that time, I was mugged only once, and it was only because I failed to respond to clear warning signals. I lost $40, a leather jacket and a key chain I'd bought in Mexico at Chichen Itza. I prized those possessions. Afterward, I did fantasize about blowing the two guys away, but was glad I hadn't had a gun on me. What's a leather jacket compared to a life and all the ensuing karma that comes with killing someone, even in "self defense"?

    I grew in semi-country in CT. A lot of people hunted and fished. No one questioned a person's ability to buy a gun. Buying guns was easy, though perhaps not as easy as it is now. No one felt hampered from buying a gun that I know of--and no one felt the need to walk around armed lest someone jump out at them from behind a pine tree. Even my relatives in NYC didn't talk like that.

    IOW, the right or ability to buy a gun was never questioned, nor did anyone walk around talking about how they needed a piece to protect themselves against X. Now, the irony is, we're more awash in all kinds of (much more powerful) guns than ever before, and we're more afraid of those guns being taken away from us or someone trying to kill us with them.

    One thing I noticed after the Iraq war had wound down was: People who were inclined to be afraid of Muslims were more afraid after we'd defeated Saddam. Of course, Saddam was secular, but as you recall, he was supposed to have been in cahoots with AQ and other religious extremists bent on our destruction. So we defeat Saddam in the most thorough of ways and we end up feeling more afraid and more vulnerable than we were before.

    Edit to add: So when I look at the "gun debate" the question that pops out at me is, "How did we get here?" The whole debate has lost its connection to anything I recognize as reality.


    "How did we get here?"

    Because the men of lawlessness are  increasing and getting more violent, with or without a gun. Our moral values have worsened. and that didn't happen because of the gun.

    Without a gun, rapists, murderers and others that would do violent crimes, would find another weapon

    The attackers of the "Good Samaritan"  didn't have guns probably clubs and rocks? These instruments of death have been around for years........ since the days of Cain and Able.  "How did we get here?"  People really don't to want to know.  


    You mean while crime rates were going down?

    Because crime rates, and especially violent crime rates, have gone down over the last several decades. 


    In cases like a Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, the Black community is criticized for not being outraged by the mythical black on black crime. Black on Black crime is mythical because killers strike near where they live. If there is black on black crime, there is white on white crime.

    If we are going to  use black on black crime, we should note that is at a 40 year low. We should also note that the black community does complain about crime in their neighborhoods. Note the outrage after Hadiya Pendleton was murdered. There was no sympathy for the murderer. Michelle Obama attended the funeral.

    MSM generally does not cover the lives of murdered Black youth in detail and thus the public doesn't see protests of the murders. Adrian Broadway's murderer is Black and there will be no protests when he is sentenced

    We need to focus on how to continue to lower crime rates. It is amazing that this is happening in a time of economic strife.


    Besides which, hasn't the much-maligned Jesse Jackson been speaking and marching about gang violence since forever?

    Don't quite get why he and Sharpton come in for so much criticism, especially during racially-charged trials like this.


    Jackson the baggage of Hymie-town and Sharpton has Tawana Brawley.


    I think you and I might agree that the root cause of many of our ills is a "spiritual sickness." Leaving specific religions aside for the moment...the real solution to these ills lies in a "spiritual healing."

    Normally, you want to treat the root cause of illness because it's the only way to truly heal someone. Treating the symptom (gun violence) doesn't touch the illness.

    But as with physical illness, sometimes the symptoms need to be treated or else they'll kill the patient. Fevers need to be brought down, even when the fever isn't the root cause of the illness nor the illness itself.

    For me--and here we probably disagree--gun violence is this kind of symptom. Even though gun violence isn't the root problem, it needs to be addressed directly because it's killing people, and they can't wait for society to undergo a spiritual awakening.

     


    Close to agreement  smiley  A few word changes and we got a deal 

    Even though gun violence isn't the root problem, it  (violence) needs to be addressed directly because it's killing people, and they can't wait for society to undergo a spiritual awakening.*

    added * because we will never undergo the spiritual awakening until the Good Lord comes and removes, the lovers of violence. 


    I didn't see this before I responded above.  Fear is a big part of it, I agree, but more and more I'm seeing guns as entertainment.  Even the fear is entertainment.

    It's fun to be the hotshot with the gun.  It's fun to go against The Man.  When the big Macho Guys strapped on their guns and walked into government buildings just to see what would happen, I saw a sea change.  No going back. It's not only big business, it's entertainment. 

    How do we fight that?

     


    It would require many books discussing many facets of our past and present lives to say how we got to this place. The following is only an assortment of what I think about a lot, not a theory of the world.

    The language of the Second Amendment ties the right to bear arms to the idea that our nation's defense would be based upon various combinations of units formed and organized by communities. The Revolutionary War was won by using such units combined with methods of a regimented army learned by years of working in the British system. This combination of Local and Federal elements was the structure of the Armed Forces at the beginning of the Republic and continued until the Civil War. After that, our Armed Forces became purely professional organizations that worked on a strictly top down fashion. This change in our system negated an essential role the Second Amendment was intended to play in safeguarding against an overweening central authority. The present arguments (Scalia, etcetera) that the "spirit" of the amendment refers to a right to personal self defense is weak beer compared to the ambitions of its authors. The connection "Second Amendment activists" make between the right to self-defense and the capacity to resist central authority is a sort of vestigial memory of a limb removed long ago.

    Hobbes said that the natural state of Man is War. Each man is at war with all other men to get what they need to live or want. This form of life really sucks so men often agree to bind themselves to forms of authority and this agreement is what gives force to laws. Many arguments against accepting any limitations being placed upon the right to bear arms assert that this "natural state" is the reality and that the system of law is a thin fig leaf covering it. So you have a group arguing for certain legal forms in the name of something they declare is outside of it. The future they are preparing for is outside of anything we could produce as a society. They are not obligated to fix anything but are prepared for the moment when it all breaks down. It is a form of despair.

    Lethal force is a commodity and there is huge market for it. The guns we kill ourselves with in our country are only a portion of what is being used by others in the world. If the capacity to kill is a market variable, killing becomes a part of the market. Not because anybody set up a body of laws to sanction that killing but because nobody set up a body of laws to forbid it.


    ***applause***


    Good food for thought, Moat

    I am tired; so briefly   2nd Paragraph

    If there is a lesson in all of this it is that our Constitution is neither a self-actuating nor a self-correcting document. It requires the constant attention and devotion of all citizens. There is a story, often told, that upon exiting the Constitutional Convention Benjamin Franklin was approached by a group of citizens asking what sort of government the delegates had created. His answer was: "A republic, if you can keep it." The brevity of that response should not cause us to under-value its essential meaning: democratic republics

    are not merely founded upon the consent of the people, they are also absolutely dependent upon the active and informed involvement of the people for their continued good health.

    Perspectives on the Constitution: A RepublicIf You Can Keep It ...

    Moat:  the right to self-defense and the capacity to resist central authority is a sort of vestigial memory of a limb removed long ago.

    Not so fast Moat, Only those with short memories, would ignore a long history of why the people need a way to resist.  

    What would we do, if  our government ignored the people and favored special interests?  

    Why are the Ukrainians rioting and about to have a civil war?  After the Orange Revolution didn't the people have a Constitution?.  Usurped by powerful interests .  Now the people are outgunned and being slaughtered

    Our forefathers knew the history of the World and they knew how every government before; had failings

    “In order to form a more perfect union (government)”  doesn’t guarantee or mean we will always have one.


    I think the flaw in your argument is your belief that our current government is one that needs constant resistance.  By your code, there is nothing redeemable about the government we the people have elected, and they all must go. (No mention of who might be better to replace them.)

    You give no credit to any move toward fixes that have already been proven to help our citizens.  You refuse to back those efforts or even to acknowledge they exist.

    You talk about using violence--keeping the guns strapped on in case they come after you--with no evidence that such a thing is likely to happen. 

    If your arguments against this government are salted only with "what if's" or "it could happen", and nothing happens, you might eventually have to come to terms with the problems with that logic.  You might even have to open your eyes and look around.

    There is much to complain about.  I think we're all on board with that.  But most of us would rather work toward fixing what ails this country than to fixate on ways to overthrow the government. 

    With all its faults, there is nothing so seriously wrong with our government that we're ready to arm ourselves and take to the streets. 

    Right?


    Just because there is no immediate danger, doesn't mean we ignore the possibility. 

    We don't let the gun control advocates, disarm this generation; so that future generations are left defenseless. 

    Self protection is also a  right for all generations of people to follow. A Inalienable right.


    That's no answer.  Read my comment again.  Ignore it if you choose, but at least make an attempt to answer honestly without using the same old canned comment you use no matter what the topic.


    Apparently it's not the answer you wanted to hear? 

    What part of my response, didn't address or "answer" the main points of your comment? 

    (Highlighted words are mine) 

    Ramona:  “I think the flaw in your argument is your belief that our current government ....

    Resistance:  “Just because there is no immediate danger, doesn't mean we ignore the possibility” . 

    Ramona Straw man:  “By your code, there is nothing redeemable about the government we the people have elected, and they all must go

    Ramona: “You give no credit to any move toward fixes that have already been proven to help our citizens”.

    Resistance:   "What fixes the corruption and influence by powerful special interests?

    As discussed prior in my reply to Moat. 

    Ramona Straw man or misrepresentation  Ramona: “You talk about using violence--keeping the guns strapped on in case they come after you”……with no evidence that such a thing is likely to happen. 

    To include Ramona’s later comment “You might even have to open your eyes and look around.

    No Ramona, it is you that needs to “open your eyes and look around.”

    Resistance:  As I pointed out earlier in my reply to Moat. Our learned forefathers had enough knowledge of history to have seen enough evidence that bad government does happen and the record is clear throughout all of  history, but not only was it our forefathers who knew of it, in my reply to Moat,I gave  a CURRENT example of Ukraine’s current government, usurping power from the people.

    Ramona:  “But most of us would rather work toward fixing what ails this country”.  

    How’s that working out? While this country continues its slide towards complete plutocratic rule and those in power serving their needs and not the people’s needs?  Unless you want to say, Plutocrats are people too and they should come ahead of everyone else?

    Fix it if you can but don’t disarm those who realize;  it’s like catching the wind, a futile exercise. 

    Notice; Executive orders are now needed in this country to override our Constitution’s stated principles, of Separation of Powers. We were supposed to be free from the potential of tyranny by the executive.

    Just as I suppose the folks in the Ukraine had WISHED

    Ask the folks in the Ukraine if they thought their idea of free elections would give the current President the power to become a dictator.

    Ramona: ”With all its faults, there is nothing so seriously wrong with our government that we're ready to arm ourselves and take to the streets.

    Resistance prior reply: “ Just because there is no immediate danger, doesn't mean we ignore the possibility.  We don't let the gun control advocates; disarm this generation; so that future generations are left defenseless.” 

    A little more reflection, on what I wrote, instead of charging me with canned responses would go a long ways to open many eyes, to the realities

    So again I ask; what part of my response, didn't address the main points of your comment and not straw man arguments or misrepresentations? 

    $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

    As an aside:  What if; A possibility? (or would you say their is no possibility)

    Someday The Moral Majority comes into power;  all three branches controlled by them  and they decided arbitrarily, "the problem in America, is the peoples lack of moral values" and they decided to FORCE a religion down every ones throat? Using the same tactics, the gun control advocates employ?  

    Rephrased The Moral Majority in power saying  "those who spread the idea of Freedom from Religion, have led this country on the course of moral decay"

    Sound familiar to the Gun control advocates message,  Guns have led this country down a bad road.    Get the guns similar to Get the Heathens. 

    They would convince many  It is the lack of moral values, that needs to to be addressed today and for future generations, because the Constitution really didn't mean, Freedom of from Religion.


    Never mind.


    "no law respecting the establishment of religion..."

     

    "No law means no law" Hugo Black, J.

     

    Edit to add:  Yes, I have a constitutional right to be free from religion.


    "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." 

    "no law respecting the establishment of religion..."

    Someday, someone  might say "Looking at the cost/benefit ratio vs Liberty, Moral decay is having an enormous effect on society,  "our forefathers couldn't have possibly intended, for the societal ills to be ignored. Times have surely changed. from our forefathers days and for the common good, the lessons of Morality, that only the Church could teach, would go a long ways of not only ending gun violence but all violence"  "By this one single step, we as a Nation who are in need of healing, would be respecting (the value of)  the establishment of Religion"

    It's a slippery slope to attack the Second Amendment. "What price the First"


    Owning guns and lots of ammo will come in very handy if the war of all against all breaks out. You will probably last longer than me during the time of Trouble you often speak about because you are actively preparing for the event. Planning is the key element in any enterprise.  My articles of faith forbid that sort of planning.

    But to assert that the Second Amendment still serves as the same counterbalance to central authority as it did when it was drafted is a fantasy. You have often been challenged to explain how the ownership of firearms by individuals is supposed to withstand the force the military is capable of bringing to a fight. I cannot recall an instance where you have answered that challenge. Correct me if I am wrong.

    Having a gun gives a person a leg up in a fight. Having an advantage gives one a sense of power. When it comes to war, the sensation of power is not a valid measure of relative strengths. Consider the Boxer Rebellion in China. The tradition of martial arts developed astounding abilities in each generation. It is easy to understand how this demonstration of power gave people confidence they could use this strength in battle. But those incredibly skilled martial artists were shot down by bullets like they were bottles on a fence.

    War has always been about a lot more than the fight that takes place. Control of what can be made by whom, how people will eat, and who will help you when you are the weakest, are just as important as skill and valor demonstrated in the heat of battle. The people who drafted the Second Amendment had just gone through a crash course in those subjects. The communitarian emphasis in the language of the amendment was not an idealistic proposition about the balance of power in government but the call for a practical means of the production of war work that involved the population as a necessary condition for anything like war to happen. To not acknowledge how far we are from that arrangement is more disrespectful of the “intentions” of the Founders than attempts to stop guns being used by crazy people.

    If it should come about that our government starts using the military to fight the population, the application of force would be the start of a Civil War. Nobody owns anybody, no matter how often they repeat the proposition. The “centrality” of our government will far apart pretty quickly when they send citizens to kill citizens.

    In this truth, I do trust.


    Well said.


    A legally blind guy who shot and killed a man during a fight in the blind man's home, got acquitted of murder based on Stand Your Grounds. His guns will be given back. This was in the site of the Trayvon Martin murder, Sanford FL.


    Why isn't anyone asking the obvious follow up question: How does he see well enough to hit anything except by accident?

    Moreover, why doesn't he hit many unintended targets in the process?


    Justice is blind

    the decision makes perfect sense smiley


    yes


    Nonsense and a straw-man to boot.  Clearly, the author has no idea what gun-owners think and is unqualified to speak for anyone.  His premise is also provably flawed since we are more armed than ever and crime has been on a downtrend for 20+ years.  

    Stand you ground laws do not mean that you can shoot someone dead over manners.  If the author is so stupid to actually believe such a thing, he should please try it.  He would be convicted of murder in any court in the nation, but I suspect he knows that quite well. 

    YOU, Dear Reader, should be offended that the thinks so little of you, that he figures you just might believe it.

     


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