You seem to think of the US - model as the ideal one for everyone.
I'm done discussing things with you.
After saying (and repeating) that my "perfect" gun legislation for europe would be very different from my "ideal" gun legislation for the USA, you come up with this?
You're utterly wasting my time.
I didn't say you did, I asked a question.
We're not having the debate if it is fair or not, but that you can't even have that debate in the first place with the gun-nuts.
And yet you're having that debate right now, aren't you?
Are you saying I'm not a gun nut?
Yes, a few idiots always ruin the fun for the rest of us. But that's something that you have to deal with in a functioning society. Unless, you say that we should get used to all sorts of people geting killed, injured etc. and also dealing with the issues you named.
In broad strokes: yes, I do believe a moderate progressive approach from a responsibilization point of view is the way to go. Average Joe Sixpack should not be punished for the transgressions of a few.
I am with you on some topics, like surveilance - this alone could fill a topic for it self, I would like to see the NRA once rally the masses, at someting like the patriot act the same way they do when it comes to guns. Sometimes I almost think they would even vote for a character like Stalin if all he promised them was to never ever touch their guns ... almost.
Why would the NRA do that? They are an organization with a singular purpose. The people in the organization only agree on one thing. Branching out and using that organization for something else is how you break the support for your organization.
The NRA has no incentive to do any of this.
CDC:
You know, telling a government funded organization that it cannot use its funding to further the agenda of a political party, is a good thing?
They are still free to do research and they are still free to publish statistics and their analysis. They are just not allowed to say "we should ban guns".
Do you know who's the last person to have pulled funding for firearms related violence? Obama, after his famous "executive orders to combat gun violence". Do you know why the research got nipped in the bud? Because it was looking like the outcome would not have been in his favor. The last CDC & FBI published statistics actually favor a pro-gun narrative.
ATF records:
Background checks for acquiring of guns are supposed to be DESTROYED by law and are not to be kept. Why? Because the right to bear arms is linked to defense against tyranny in their legislation. How much opposition can you hope to give any tyrannic government or invader if they can just boot up a little database which tells you who bought which guns and where they are stored?
You might not agree with the fact this is necessary, but if you aim for the guns to be useful fighting tyranny, then you sure as hell have to agree the records shouldn't be able to be used to track down gun owners.
How big is that danger and how realistic is that scenario with the US?
I think most people didn't see it coming when Hitler, Stalin & Mao started murdering people by the millions. It's hypocritical to think that either humanity has changed and would be unable to do that again or that we are smarter and that we would be able to act in time.
Genocides are still a thing, worldwide sadly.
My point is, that to make an actuall difference, you need a hell of a lot more armed civilians then you currently have in the US or in most western nations.
Do you? Were Belgian, French & Polish resistance forces in the second world war were not relevant? There weren't that many of those guys either. They sure made a difference, though.
For me personaly, the BEST(!) protection of a constitution, liberty and democracy, today, are educated citizens that actually place some value in the constitution that goes further then lip service. We are not facing wars and conflicts these days, but demagoguery and mass surveilance. And here, guns are completely ineffective. Even after Snowden, and many other incidents where the constitution has been directly violated, we havn't seen people using their weapons to protect it.
If you carry a gun for self-defense, you hope you will never need to use it. But if you do end up needing it, you have it within reach.
You say the conflicts we face do not require guns or that guns have no influence on them, but which group of people is easier to repress? The ones where there are rifles hanging over the fireplace and the house is populated with people who know how to use it? Or the house where anything pointy has been removed for "the greater good"?
If you look at peaceful unarmed protests in the US recently, you see police brutality. You see a scumbag cop walk by sitting people and spray them in the face with mace.
When you look at peaceful ARMED protests in the US, cops are extremely respectful and entirely unprovocative.
And if you say that guns have not been used in protection of given rights, you are wrong. See what the Oathkeepers did during many of these protests. I might not agree with them, but they had a de-escalating effect on the violence.
But people have seemed to conveniently forget that freedom is earned through internal sacrifices as well. Freedom can only exist when you are willing to tolerate views that oppose your own, when you’re willing to give up some of your desires for the sake of a safe and healthy community, when you’re willing to compromise and accept that sometimes things don’t go your way and that’s fine.
Sure, but there we differ in what we should protect and how.
The damage done by giving up these gun rights (or privileges in Europe) is viewed (by gun nuts such as myself) as being higher than the cost to society in keeping those rights.
The problem here is that there is no way to quantify these freedoms. Nor the damage done.
Not really. It's the escalation of military tech. Even though we have automated drones, missiles, tanks and all that, for the most part (globally) we fight wars with infantry. And infantry uses guns, for the most part. So weapon research is still looking into how guns can be better designed to kill more people better.
Artillery and air support are responsible for 80-90% of all battlefield casualties in modern warfare.
Small arms are an important part of fighting mostly because our current morals do not allow us to employ the alternative tools on things where civilians might be present. If we had no such scruples, then artillery and air support would be responsible for 99.99% of the casualties of war.
You can see how this is a problem. Military tech in the hands of un-screened people = eventual disaster.
Who said anything about unscreened? Even the very gun friendly USA has largely implemented background checks?
The question is if they check for the right things.
Do you see the other 20% here taking up arms and fighting their government? For the rights of others? I don't. People usually don't work like that. We all value freedom and liberty, but only very very few people ACTUALLY take up actions if they have an alternative.
Tell that to the people who mobilized to go fight in the Middle East (ISIS, Kurdish resistance, and so on). If you look at wars like Korea or the Spanish revolution, a very large amount of the fighting forces were foreign volunteers.
I prefer to believe that for internal struggles, even more people would take up arms.
This means that we have also to accept decisions that might not seem great for us.
So if people vote to eat you for lunch, you'll accept that and do your part for society?
Simply because you have a majority, doesn't make you right. Some ideals are worth fighting for, even if you are a minority.
Weapons are inanimate objects. They hold no true power. You guys constantly say how weapons by them self don't do anything. Except, when it comes to defending freedom, liberty and the constitution? You can't have both worlds, I am afraid. People wield weapons. People defend constitutions and rights. Not weapons. A constitution is just a piece of paper that holds no true power and weapons don't decide what people think or how they feel about something.
No, we say guns aren't responsible for killings. But guns are tools of huge potential power.
Quite frankly, guns have done more for equality than any other thing in the history of man. After all, guns made a nobleman or rich man vulnerable to the common man. It can change the balance of power between a 120kg boxer and a frail young woman. We take this for granted today, but it was a huge game changer.
But guns have no will of their own. They are tools and not responsible for their misuse. We do not praise the gun which killed Osama, why do we blame the gun in spree shootings?
Isn't there some conceived notion nowadays that the first slave owner was black? I never studied slavery in depth.
There is still slavery in Africa and the Middle East to this very day.
The first slave traders on the European shores were Africans. And of the slaves shipped to the Americas, most of them were rounded up by other Africans, not Europeans.
Can you suggest some intermediates?
Belgium, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Norway, Finland, Italy, Austria,...
They make for more interesting observations as they are more similar in culture & wealth.
Just taking american statistics means you combine both the rural areas with hellholes like Detroit. That makes it very problematic to analyse.
All these countries in Europe use different metrics then. They all have lower homicide rates and gun crime rates than America. America uses different metrics and it still has vastly higher homicide and gun crime rates. Still proves gun control works in Europe.
Apples & oranges.
The largest hotspots of gun crime in the USA are also the places with the strictest gun laws...
Aren't doomsdaypreppers supposed to prepare for the worst btw? How will you defend yourself if you don't arm yourself?
