| |
|
Disco - No, guns do not have flood stopping power. Thank you for the hilarious joke though.
People turned violent after Hurricane Katrina. A lot of the violence reported in the media turned out to be untrue, but a significantly huge amount of it was. My girlfriend was down there with the Red Cross after it happened. People she knew had to steal guns from a gun shop in order to keep other people from raping them or killing them. Real violence happened down there. It was very bad.
You're quite right when you say that the right to own guns has not kept the government from becoming corrupt. They haven't. But we're not in the type of situation where people should be using guns to solve the problems of government. I didn't say guns should be used to solve those types of problems. I didn't say they should be used to solve any type of problem. People just need to educate themselves and stop using voting machines. I am absolutely against the use of guns against any other living thing in all but the most extreme situations. Like there's an actual war happening where you are, or somebody's physically trying to murder you. I do not own a gun. I do not plan on getting one. I do not believe in violence against the government. I don't have any shootout fantasies i want to live out. I was just responding to what somebody else above asked about gun laws before the argument got too one-sided.
This is all part of the same problem. One of the main issues around gun culture is the assumption that a deadly weapon will solve problems, full stop. If you think you're living in an action movie, of course you're going to think that the only solution to the problems of the world is guns. But the world is not an action movie.
This is why I said in my post that gun culture was annoying. At no time did I suggest that I thought of the world as an action movie. A lot of people do believe we live in an action movie though, and that is a big part of the reason why there is so much violence in this country. Children are raised in this country that their entire purpose in life, as Americans, is to do the right thing no matter what. As adults though, we learn that doing the right thing is the last thing anybody you believed in wants to do, they just want to pretend to do the right thing, and never ever admit that they aren't. Cowboys kill Indians. GI Joe uses napalm. This is hard to reconcile for a lot of people, so instead of admitting that things aren't the way their parents and teachers told them they were, they cling to stupid ideals and flip out over minor things and violence is the only thing they can figure out. That's why I hate gun culture so much. They're just most assholes who wish they had something dramatic to stand for, so they make gun ownership a religion.
Western psychology is completely fucked up, and crimes like these are screaming of deep deep problems in our society's collective soul.
Quantum - So, how's that working out for you guys? Bushgov already seems pretty corrupt and oppressive and yet people haven't taken to the streets with their guns and overthrown him. In any case, are you seriously suggesting that having an armed populace fight the army (and probably national guard) to overthrow the government is a) a realistic scenario
Well that depends on what you mean by realistic doesn't it? Do you mean is it capable of happening in real life? I'm pretty sure physics does allow for it, as does stupidity. Is it likely to happen? Of course not. The US government primarily oppresses people outside of it's borders (unless you're Mexican, from the Middle East, or you've ever used drugs), so that people within its borders can feel elite and superior. Americans are much too fat and full of denial to rebel even in a political sense, let alone the action movie sense the gun nuts dream of.
or b) a good idea?
Obviously not. As I said above, people need to educate themselves, stop fighting over petty wedge-issues, and fix the corrupt election system so that we can get people who aren't mobsters into office. People also need to legalize drugs, because the war on drugs is what perpetuates gang violence, which is the source of almost all gun violence in the country.
Hell, the war on drugs is is responsible for most of the gun violence in the Western hemisphere. And a good amount of it in the Eastern hemisphere too.
Do you really believe it's the people vs. the government, so you have to have guns?
Well, in broad philosophical sense, yes. Though "vs" is a pretty loaded term. I just think of it as a political line in the sand.
Even if the cost of those guns is lots of people getting shot to death?
Making guns illegal doesn't make them go away, it just makes sure only criminals have them.
I can see that gun legislation wouldn't stop gun crime because it's too late, your country is flooded with guns.
See, you just said so yourself. The guns are all out there already. There's a huge black market for it.
But I can't understand how anyone can think it's a good idea to give almost everyone the right to own a device specifically made for killing people.
If they're already everywhere, then why should we stop the people who want to get them legally?
Jack Fear - I can see what you mean by that interpretation of the second amendment, but mine is different. I won't say mine is right, because it's a pretty vague phrasing, and the founding fathers disagreed on a lot of things. (Plus they were all slave owning bastards so who cars what they have to say anyways.) I think it depends on what is meant by "free State," "State," and "the people." Does "State" mean government, because the government leads/rules the people? Or does it meant the entire country, of which the government is really just a organization point? And what about "the people"? Does that literally mean the people of the united states? Or does it mean the government in that "we represent the people" sort of way?
I interpret the second amendment as meaning that the citizens have the right to bear arms to protect against invasion, and to protect against government corruption, as both of these would make the state less secure. I base this interpretation on the writings of Thomas Jefferson, who was always going on about not trusting the government (I'm paraphrasing there) and people needing to have revolutions every twenty years. But I won't say that this is the only interpretation, because he wasn't the only one worked on the Bill of Rights.
I understand all the arguments against gun control, and I have a lot of respect for them, but as long as we live on a planet where so many people are insane and so many governments (especially my own) are corrupt, I can't bring myself to support most gun control legislation.
And as Hurricane Katrina illustrates, in a stunning example, the government is quite keen to engage its own 'citizens' in a shooting war.
Exactly.
(Moore, as a note, has gone on the record saying Americans should have their guns taken away until they get rid of the fear.)
%That Michael Moore sounds like a real right wing nut-case to me.% |
|
|
