A discussion of Gun Control for schrafinator

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And this is where the contradiction comes in. You were not only not condemning, but actively promoting open conflict in the US. I think I even remember you were for use of "guns", and giving "guns" to Palestinians, as part of this.

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What? Thats absurd, I'm afraid. What I said was that from the perspective of many peiople in the middle east, the US is an aggressor and enemy which needs to be deterred; the only mechanism to do so is to inflict serious harm on the US mainland.I seperately argued that if we want the Palestinians to be able to confront the IDF in open battle, rather than they are operating as they are today, then we need to equipe them so that they can. And seeing as I know that this suggestion would be rejected, it demonstrates that the argument about civilians is actually about resistance AT ALL.

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Clearly anyone starting an open conflict in the US today would be reduced to fighting with privately owned weapons.

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Thats quite true. It would be an extraordinarily bad idea. I mean, even the Iraqi army, experienced and on its own ground, with lots of hardware, would not confront the US in open battle.

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But a rifle and handgun are effective in hitting targets and taking them down.

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Only people, and possibly unarmoured people. Not against tanks, APC's, and fighter bombers.

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Appropriate guerrila tactics can make them useful for protracted engagements. Of course I wouldn't suggest starting a war against the US unless you know a LOT of people are on your side.

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You can pursue a strategy of area denial IF you have very strong support from the local populace. But if you had that deghree of support, you can probably concentrate enough resources to buy heavier weaponry on the market.

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Except when addressing the Palestinian issue, as well as the Koresh and Weaver examples. We'll get to the latter two in a sec, but I have been waiting quite a while for you to show ANY real assessment of the material conditions of the Palestinians.

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Arguing your conclusion, Homes. I have been waiting for you to show a real assesement of the Palestinian situation.

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I agree that there is little need. There are people who do need them in remote areas for protection (I have relatives whose lives have been saved by firearms against snake and bear attacks... yeah attacks). They can also arguably help a person fend off human attacks in rural and urban areas, but this is not an everyday affair.

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Sure; it was actually touched on earlier in the thread. I fully accept the possible need for firearms if confronted by dangerous wildlife.

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Urban warfare and dense wilderness environments remove all practical value of those REAL arms you are talking about. Observation of our own activities within such regions show our troops routinely go back to those "civil small arms" you denigrate.

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Only as long as the military has some reason not to simply bomb the urban area flat. The military will quite happily reduce a whole building to rubble to kill one sniper.Incidentally, you previously argued in the Palestine thread that a military strategy that absorbed 2:12 losses was should be abandoned. What kind of losses would you expect to sustain confronting an armoured brigade with artillery and air cover with small arms?

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Thus both had lost the "war", which neither started, well before it began. The situation would have been vastly different if they had begun a war and acted as if they were in war conditions, before they had already lost.

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Surely "acting ass if they were under war coinditions" would include stockpiling heavy weaponry, forging international alliances and putting a foot in the black weapons market. Nevertheless, this demonstrates again the futility of the citizens militia concept - ANY such rising must necessarily occur in the middle of what instantly becomes enemy held territory.

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I'm still interested how you went on and on about the effectiveness of S American resistance fighters, and then talk here about apaches just going in and blowing everyone away. It doesn't work down there does it? Neither does it work in urban centers.

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Might that be because of the presence of jungle? In point of fact, what these moevements have managed to achieve is a small chunk of autonomy - they have not overthrown the state. And furthermore, those movements DO have access to heaveir weaponry such as RPG's, squad support machine guns and mortars. It is NOT a few dudes in hunting jackets wielding Browning HiPowers.

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In open battle, like a battlefield, it would be suicide. It would be a joke. Tell me what good fighter bombers and tanks are in a city, if a good population of that city stands against them with small arms?

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European bombing gradually got closer and closer to home, until the German military on behalf of Franco tested new kinds of bombs by dropping them on cities in Spain. Japan bombed civilian cities in China. Then in the 1940s, bombing of even the capital cities of combatant nations - Berlin, London, Tokyo - became a normal instrument of warfare, finally leading to the annihilation of the undefended cities of Hamburg and Dresden by British saturation firebombing, and of Hiroshima and much of Nagasaki by the U.S. atomic bomb.

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By that time, terror was not the only result of bombing. Fifty thousand civilians were killed in a single night in Hamburg, most of them women, children and elderly. Twice that number died in Dresden. Two atom bombs did fill Japan with shock and awe, and killed several hundred thousand civilians in the process.

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Bombing Baghdad into 'shock and awe'Thats what.

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Unless the goal is total annihilation of the city, the citizens would win... though a seige situation might be able to bring it to its knees over time.

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As I said - the only limitation is the political strategy that may require the city not be annihiliated. These rebels are therefore dependant on a decision made by their enemies.

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I think your assessments are bizarre when you try to pass handguns and rifles off as useless. Sure it would be great to have better arms, but that does not make them a joke.

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... and there you are over-extending my argument again. I have never said small-arms were useless: in fact I have repeatedly claimed they are very very dangerous. What I said was that smallarms do not empower you to defeat a formal army, UNLIKE the period in which the constitutional amendment was drafted. It remains the case that even widespread small-arms ownership by the population cannot resist the armed might of the state. The only mechanism by which guerillas do approach the violence of the state is by upgrading beyond civil small arms to military equipment.{Fixed 2 quote boxes - Adminnemooseus}This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 08-10-2004 05:13 AM

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So if people do not have the intent and the probability is low then it really doesn't matter if they have the power.

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Ha ha ha. It most certainly does. I mean otherwise, monarchy would be perfectly acceptable as long as you had a Good King, right? Its exactly this appeal to "intent" that demonstrates that I am dependant; I am at the mercy of their intent. And I cannot know their intent, becuase I do not, unlike you, have a mind-reading machine. And furthermore, they might kill me by accident, without INTENDING to. None of this will make any difference to my deadness.

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So all you are really saying is that guns are able to kill people. Yes, they are. That was never an argument so let's get back on subject.

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But you see, it IS the argument. I will not place my life in anothers hands. If a person with a gun is in my presence, I am dependant on their discretion, intent, and competence. That is unaccaptable. Waffling about intent changes nothing - they possess the material power, I do not.

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You were trying to imply that people with guns would use the guns when they could run.

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Do not tell me what I was "trying to imply". I have demonstrated my willingness to call racist scum racist scum, why do you think I would waste my time "implying " something when I can say it directly?

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Your direct quote was that people shoudl run instead of "seeking to escalate the conflict." SEEKING to escalate the conflict. And there are always situations where running is not an option. That is what the gun is for.

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Substitute with "choose" or "elect" if you prefer, it doesn't matter. And I'll happily conced that there may be situations in which running is not an option - I deem that a lesser risk than carrying a weapon or being in the presence of someone who does.

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You can play all the word games you want but that was clearly your intent.

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See how useless appeals to "intent" are?

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It can be used for self-defense up to and including killing someone. .... It's also good for hunting and other recreation. You were focusing solely on the killing part trying to make it seem like that's all people do with it. You were playing to your argument in order to overDRAMAtize your point. More rounds are put into targets and empty cans than into people.

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How bizarre. Now apparently the gun-supporters claim its overly dramatic to acknowledge guns can kill! What was I thinking!I am not over-dramatising the point. even if you use your gun for shooting cans, theres no denyoing the gun was built for killing. It is not overly dramatic to take a weapon seriously as a weapon. All the problems I have with weapons arise from the fact that yes, they are weapons. This merely confirms to me that you treat your weapon like a toy.[qupte] Or I could sell my mind reading maching on ebay and make a fortune! But it's actually your whole "nobody should have guns for any reason and all guns are evil" argument that shows me that.[/quote]That only shows you have NOT read what I have written. For example, I already saifd I am more comfortable with rifles than pistols, because rifles do have authentic military and hunting roles, and are much harder to carry, especially concealed. My "absolute" position is a projection of yours and does not reflect what I have actually argued.

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Sorry about missing that last quesiton. A small oversight. My ammo is stored in my closet. My guns are kept in a safe at night.

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Excellent. I was concerned that the ammo and the weapon might have been stored in the same location.[qupte]
Even if they weren't, so what? One purpose of my gun is for self defense and if I could not get to it quickly in my safe I would not keep it there at night.[/quote]Indeed. And that is why in practice MOST owners of firearms do NOT store their guns safely and are thus in fact irresponsible.

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You know that if I do show to be a responsible gun owner (which I am) then you can write it off as only "one instance" and not proving the general case. If I turn out to be irresponsible then you can write off EVERY argument I've made not only to yourself but to everyone else. It's just a win-win situation for you. That is indeed a crafty plot and I must say I am impressed.

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Not precisely; what I was trying to highlight was exactly the contradiction between safe storage and utility. You appear to be storing safely, but realise the limit to utility this poses. But this still does mean that I consider you pretty responsible in that regard.I really wish you would stop trying to tell me that I have an emotional hostility to weapons. If I lived in some wilderness area inhabited by hostile widlife, I would have a rifle - because that is a net reduction of risk. Much the same applies in time of war. In time of peace, however, it seems to me that introducing a gun to the family domicile only serves to increase risk to no good end. I don't need one; I don't want one, and having lived in both gun-carrying and not-gun-carrying cultures, I feel vastly freer and safer in the latter.

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Schraf's point was that the Raven failed the drop test yet there was no evidence presented that the Raven in fact did fail the drop test

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Not true; the point was illustrative of cheap guns with low quality control as a mass consumer product. Even if she was mistaken in the specific context of Raven, that does not militate against the point to which I actually replied: the fact that you are conceding (not least by admitting these are "bad guys") that weapons are being produced by irresponsible producers.This is a fine example of the disengenuous response Schraf accused you of. It is absolutely the case that irresponsible maniufacturers - whom you yourself label "bad guys" - are germane to gun control. Becuase it demonstrates how naive is the assumption of gun-ownership advocates that the industry will, or is likely to, behave in a proper and ethical manner out of free will.

So what you were doing was channeling the perspective of people in the midEast when you were telling me I should be active in their struggle? Thank you. This is the contradiction.You argue that resistance, even futile resistance, is worthwhile. Then argue that civilians should not be allowed access to weapons that give them a chance at resistance, because it would be futile.Is it resistance AT ALL, or resistance IF IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE?I should add that I am taking this from your perspective regarding the utility of guns. That's what I was talking about. Tanks, APCs, and fighter bombers cannot control a city, it ALWAYS comes down to man on man. And personal armor only goes so far. This is what I was talking about, and the fact that they can buy heavier weaponry does not take away one iota the usefullness of having guns, especially BEFORE they get their hands on larger weapons. I have discussed and given evidence for other strategies and tactics. You have done nothing but reassert your position that suicide bombing of random civilian population centers is all they have.If you need your memory refreshed, how about the assassination of the tourism minister? It had more political effect than any suicide bombing, and did not require a suicide attack, a bomb, or random killing. Indeed it was carried out with a gun... those things of little worth. Sorry I was not reading any of your posts before you addressed me, and then only those you wrote to me. So my mistake on that. But then I am left a bit confused. If people could need them for wildlife, why are you for their restriction, or how do you intend to restrict them? No. Never said that. The argument was a strategy which delivered 2:1 losses with no ability to achieve military objectives should be abandoned... unless one is truly fighting for ones ability to live at all. No no no. What is keeping you from understanding the tactical situation? They were surrounded from the outset, before they had even prepared for a war of some kind. It is not even known (in the case of Koresh) if they even wanted to.The government closing in and slaughtering a bunch of people that happen to have weapons, when they were not at war or even attempting war, and had no real public support outside their community, is simply no proper analogy to what we are discussing. Yes. I have already stated wilderness and urban areas are good cover. Not all, and that certainly isn't how all of them started (before getting outside aid). Individual members carry ordinary weapons and use them to effect.Yeah, if you get bigger support weapons that's nice, but they were not necessary. Who... and I mean really... WHO said anything about a few dudes in hunting jackets? You see how you keep making a person's position look absurd by not dealing with it at all? Total strawman here.Those rifles however, in the hands of NOT A FEW people, in dress which is not meant to stand out, can do quite a bit of damage. That's what? My position, if you read it entirely before addressing it line by line, was that bombers and tanks could be used to level an entire city. So yes if they were desiring a population's complete annihilation, as well as all structures, then you are in some big trouble.But then according to you, even resistance AT ALL is important right? And certainly having a gun will be better than a rock. Absolutely. Weighing in their favor is the fact that it is difficult for a government to wage absolute devastation against its own population (though it can and has happened), and that they can attack in other ways than just holing up like in a fortress. That is devastating even for modern forces. Except when you called them popguns and depicted people using them as small in number and wearing hunting gear.Again this is another of yoru contradictions. Well I understand that that is ONE of the positions you hold. In that I half agree with it.Back then personal arms meant more than they do today, however you are wrong about them being able to defeat a standing army.The American Revolution began and stood as guerilla warfare that could NOT stand in open combat with regular armies. They used this form to begin and operate until such time as they could gain allies with greater power, and so create more standard armies.This is the same capability people would have today. Starting with knives is possible, but highly unlikely and worse than what the FF's allowed for themselves.I should say I am not advocating the position that the only reason one should have the right to a gun is to fight one's own country, but am willing to argue that they are not totally useless in such an endeavour.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

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So what you were doing was channeling the perspective of people in the midEast when you were telling me I should be active in their struggle?

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Sigh, again. I never said you should be active in their struggle. All I ever said was that I disaproved of your criticism of their struggle. Please attack my actual claims.

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You argue that resistance, even futile resistance, is worthwhile. Then argue that civilians should not be allowed access to weapons that give them a chance at resistance, because it would be futile.

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Because those weapons do not give them a chance of resistance. Which is exactly why the Palestinians use suicide bombing, RPG's et
al.And I have also pointed out that where such a conflict breaks out, weapons - real weapons - can be sourced from the black market.There is still no basis for the private retail of say .45ACP.

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Is it resistance AT ALL, or resistance IF IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE?

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You are still resorting to Essentialism, Holmes, if you are asking which principle I consider operational in all circumstances and conditions. The answer is "none".Support for resistance - and recognition that people may practice resistance out of necessity, even when there is little hope of victory - does not imply that my consent must be granted to any measure that NOMINALLY works to the same purpose, such as the 2nd amendment. My opinion is that the right to own small-arms makes such a negligible difference to the popular capacity for resistance that the costs of firearm ownership outweigh the benefits.

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That's what I was talking about. Tanks, APCs, and fighter bombers cannot control a city, it ALWAYS comes down to man on man. And personal armor only goes so far.

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Sure. They can just flatten a city instead.

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This is what I was talking about, and the fact that they can buy heavier weaponry does not take away one iota the usefullness of having guns, especially BEFORE they get their hands on larger weapons.

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And for that we have to exchange all the deaths that arise from accidental and deliberate shootings of civilians by civilians? It doesn't appear to be worth the cost to me.

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If you need your memory refreshed, how about the assassination of the tourism minister? It had more political effect than any suicide bombing, and did not require a suicide attack, a bomb, or random killing. Indeed it was carried out with a gun... those things of little worth.

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Again with the overextension of the argument Holmes, please show where I have ever said guns are ineffective at killing individuals.I disagree that the assasination of the tourism minister had any effect different to that of a suicide bombing - it was widely condemned as yet another example of Palestiniain brutality.

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Sorry I was not reading any of your posts before you addressed me, and then only those you wrote to me. So my mistake on that. But then I am left a bit confused. If people could need them for wildlife, why are you for their restriction, or how do you intend to restrict them?

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Who in new york city is threatened by wildlife? And that despite the fact I read a tiger got loose the other day. As I say it appears to me that your are looking for a universalist principle rather than a situational adaptation. We touched on the fact that "firearms are illegal in the UK" without mentioning the fact that farmers are allowed to own shotguns to protect their livestock from predators.There is no contradiction between having a general default position that gun ownership is unnecessary for a civil population in time of peace, and recognising the specific circumstances that individuals need to deal with. There is a big difference between having a weapon because it is a necessary tool, and having a weapon just because you can.On Palestine:
Fair enough. It is my opinion that the Palestinians are indeed fighting for the ability to live at all. Thus we disagree about the situation, but agree on that principle.

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The government closing in and slaughtering a bunch of people that happen to have weapons, when they were not at war or even attempting war, and had no real public support outside their community, is simply no proper analogy to what we are discussing.

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I agree the tactical context is different, but I was drawing on the disparity of available force. In both cases, Koresh and Weaver were in defencible positions, with small-arms. Its a good analogy for the kind of action you would expect to fight in a popular uprising. I agreebthey didn't have popualr support - but considering that the military will have airlift and fuel reserves and so on, its highly likely that exactly this sort of oncentratyion of force will happen.Look at the seige of Saddams sons in their house - the US forces didn't go near it, they simply poured rifle and rocket fire in till everyone was dead - and those guys did have battle rifles and even RPG's.

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Not all, and that certainly isn't how all of them started (before getting outside aid). Individual members carry ordinary weapons and use them to effect.

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Like most armies, the bulk of the troops are infantry, yes.

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Yeah, if you get bigger support weapons that's nice, but they were not necessary.

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Not in order to achieve their local strategies - but the notional aim of the 2nd amendment is to be be able to confront and defeat the forces of the state in main battle. Not possible, IMO, without going down the route of all insurgents - and that renders private ownership of civil weapons moot.It occurs to me there is an interesting case study of the peoples militia concept, the invasion of Bophuthatswana by the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging and Afrikaner Volksfront in 1994. Bop was due to be effectively disbanded, reincorprated as a part of South Africa, which delivered a greivous blow to the AWB's designes on an ethnic homeland. Therefore the AWB launched an invasion of Bop to restore the "legitimate" government, raising several thousand troops, privately armed, and almost having had military training. Despite this, and being lead by highly competent ex- special forces general Constand Viljoen, their convoy came under mortar fire, and broke. The Tebbutt commission on the matter reported:

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11. CONCLUSION

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There can be no doubt that the events that took place in the former Bophuthatswana on 10 and 11 March 1994, represented a watershed in the political history of South Africa. The resistance of the black armed forces to the Afrikaner Volksfront and to the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, resulting in the deaths of some of the members of those organisations, brought with it a realisation on the part of the right-wing organisations that an ill-equipped, in terms of military equipment, largely untrained minority of civilians without proper arms and armoured vehicles, cannot hope to succeed in any armed confrontation with a well equipped, well-trained and disciplined army of professional soldiers.

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Except when you called them popguns and depicted people using them as small in number and wearing hunting gear.

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... by comparison to tanks, artillery, APC's and fighter-bombers. How do you use a pistol fight a 155mm cannon that can put a 30 kilo HE shell on any given square meter within radius of 35km?

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I should say I am not advocating the position that the only reason one should have the right to a gun is to fight one's own country, but am willing to argue that they are not totally useless in such an endeavour.

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Fair enough. But I think they are so close to useless as to not justify the inevitable accidental and deliberate deaths that occur when firearsm are commercially available, even when they are strongly traced and licensed. This is not a universalist position that "though shalt not own arms" - it is a cost/benfit analysis.This message has been edited by contracycle, 08-10-2004 08:45 AM

No, the point was that she made a statement about guns failing the drop test but then used a quote that contained nothing about safety to support it. Frankly, you are doing exactly the same thing now even though I informed you thatthe cheap guns made by the Davis clan pass the California Drop test.Even if the guns failed the drop test, you have not shown any reason that would even be unethical behavior.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

[qupte] Even if the guns failed the drop test, you have not shown any reason that would even be unethical behavior.[/quote]I know, that was my point. You have deliberately elided the thrust of the argument by seizing on an incidental error. You have conceded there are irresponsible manufacturers, which was the point, and you know it. Your answer was thus dishonest and manipulative.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You are still just ranting as far as I can tell.I said the people making the cheap guns make guns that pass the safety test.Now you, like the good old Fundies, change things to attacking the messenger.If you disagree with a point that I make, then fine, state that you disagree. That's certainly not unusual or even unexpected. In fact, I believe that the whole point of any discussion is taht two people either disagree and so want to express their point of view, or agree and so want to exchange insights on a subject.But in most cases, befoore you start calling someone dishonest, you at least try to establish a framework for your particular position.What is unethical about building a gun that fails a drop test?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Am I mistaken? Were you not the person suggesting I was a hopeless capitalist for not being more active, and lambasting me by asking when I had ever helped them? No changing now Contra. In the face of facts that the random civilian targeting had not done anything of military value, you said that sometimes just fighting for one's pride was all that was important, and putting up ANY resistance was justified.You do not get to slink back and say "well they have to have a CHANCE of resistance." You are then changing your definition to a military utility, which when I said that was my criteria for criticism you said it was no good.Resistance AT ALL (I might add you said this in caps yourself), or resistance with a chance of success?Pick a side. It is going to hurt one of your positions. I think the opinion stated at the end of this paragraph is a logical argument. I think it is wrong in practice, as it allows for the beginning offensive and defensive actions necessary for an uprising to get off the ground. But there is something more important here.The preceding sentences do not support your argument when it then comes to the Palestinian conflict. Their "right" to defense in the form of random bombings is just as "nominal" as gun ownership, maybe even worse.If you say ALL resistance is good, then that makes even NOMINAL resistance good.I am staying consistent in that I agree with you that for a full revolution to occur, people will ultimately need MORE than just small arms, and so a revolution based on that is NOT good. Likewise, the tactics being used by the Palestinians is resistance in name only, futile, and ultimately self-destructive.You are not because you say ALL, even champion ALL, even NOMINAL, and then say for citizens that just isn't good enough. Uhhhhhh... maybe you haven't heard the news but gun ownership has not been linked to either of those two. Carelessness and proneness to violence is not inherent to a culture where arms exist and are owned by citizens.People also have accidents in cars and kill people with cars, so what? That does not make the car responsible, or the existence of cars what we have to worry about. Poor analysis. The man was involved with extremist groups and so they hit a true member of their opposition. It certainly had more effect than killing people on the street level of Israeli life with no control over the extremists they are fighting.And what's worse you deny the very obvious (which happened to be my more important point). It did not involve Palestinians losing one of their own, so the person could continue fighting, and did not involve the killing of random mixes of people including those in support of Palestinian causes.So even if we say it had the same political clout as a random suicide bombing, the real military achievement was better all around. And it came from a simple gun. Heheheh... humans are animals too. While that might sound a bit glib, it is true. There are human predators just as there are animal predators.Personally I think guns are more prone to get onesself hurt because of overconfidence and lack of training, but for a well trained person they can be pretty good in defense. That is why I am for licensing with proper training, and ownership of weapons with proof of safe storage capability.But cutting them out altogether? I have not seen any evidence that this does anything for real.,, except switch method of killing?I am interested in how britain defines the difference between farmer and city dweller when it comes to ownership of a firearm. Is it only with ownership of livestock or something, or on population density? Yeah, we can agree to disagree on that point. But then I think you miss my further point springing off of it. Are YOU the arbiter of who is fighting for their ability to live at all? Is it society? Who?If, according to your theory, once in a fight for one's life all resistance is good, then why don't individuals get to make that decision and have preparations for that possibility?Just because there are stats which show others may be clumsy or have bad intentions? I just have to disagree here. They were in horrible positions. Ever since Verdun, the concept of fortress as a "defensible position" against mechanized forces has gone the way of the dodo.I would hope (at least if I belonged to an uprising) that they'd have the common sense to NOT isolate themselves and "dig in". They might as well wrap themselves up in ribbon. Absolutely, once in that position, you are pretty much dead. But what you should be looking at is what they (by which I mean the whole Saddam clan) were doing up to the moment they were killed and or captured. They had evaporated their forces into urban environments and moved around to keep up a resistance. If they actually had the support of Iraqis, they might even have "won".Although I hate the guy to pieces, he did a pretty good job of keeping up a guerilla campaign against unbelievable odds. And some are still keeping it up.The Hussein example pinpoints the mistake you made with Koresh and Weaver. There was an entity which lived on past the Hussein's because the forces were not all wrapped up in one spot. With Koresh and Weaver (since it was Weaver's family itself as the sole target) they were fish in a barrel. We are in agreement that for a successful insurgency against a major power of any kind, the insurgents will need some higher support. But that does not negate that at the outset regular weapons are not only useful, they are extremely useful.You don't go from kitchen knives to buying fighterbombers on the black market. This, does not match this... I have never said that totally untrained and ill equiped forces stand a chance in battle against trained and/or well equipped forces. You infiltrate and shoot dead the crew of the cannon. With a good rifle and scope, you may not even have to infiltrate far. Okay... THIS can be dealt with pretty forwardly. What is it about the ownership or existence of guns which necessarily creates these costs? And how does this differ than people accidentally or intentionally using some other device to hurt someone?On a sheer cost/benefit ratio, there would be no reason for popular sports either. The amounts of injuries and deaths involved with them (and these are pretty much all accidental) would knock them right out since all it's about is trying to have some fun.I agree that tracking is essentially useless. But I think licensing could be useful to ensure a person has had proper training, as well as the capacity to store weapons and ammunition.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

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Am I mistaken? Were you not the person suggesting I was a hopeless capitalist for not being more active, and lambasting me by asking when I had ever helped them?

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Yes you are mistaken. More precisely, that is a meaning you attributed to me. What I actually said was that your analysis was quite apparently one formed remot from the complexities of real struggle.

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No changing now Contra. In the face of facts that the random civilian targeting had not done anything of military value, you said that sometimes just fighting for one's pride was all that was important, and putting up ANY resistance was justified.

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Nothing has changed, but you have not offered facts that weapons killing civilians is not of mi.itary value. Of course its is, on multiple levels. Indeed - why do we have defence forces if not to protect civilians?

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You do not get to slink back and say "well they have to have a CHANCE of resistance." You are then changing your definition to a military utility, which when I said that was my criteria for criticism you said it was no good.

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No, I have constantly challenged your concept of military utility. I have persistently maintained that delivering a credible threat is a military and political necessity, and that the hostility to Israeli civilian deaths is hypocritical in the face of Israeli killings of civilians.

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Resistance AT ALL (I might add you said this in caps yourself), or resistance with a chance of success?

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In what sense - ontological right? Duty? What do you mean?I expect that if you were choking a cat, that cat will scratch you even if it has no hope of killing you. Whats it got to lose?

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I think the opinion stated at the end of this paragraph is a logical argument. I think it is wrong in practice, as it allows for the beginning offensive and defensive actions necessary for an uprising to get off the ground. But there is something more important here.

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Well thats a start at least, you're beginning to read my text without trying to tie it to universal principles of Right and Wrong.

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The preceding sentences do not support your argument when it then comes to the Palestinian conflict. Their "right" to defense in the form of random bombings is just as "nominal" as gun ownership, maybe even worse.

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That may be true. However, I think it is not true, because of the urgent need to create a credible threat. I do not share your position that these events damage their cause, or are ineffectiove ibn delivering a credible threat. therefore, I think suicide bombing is more than nominally useful.

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If you say ALL resistance is good, then that makes even NOMINAL resistance good.

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I have not said that all resistance is good - you will recall I specifically criticised Ghandian resistance for its theistic contempt of the lives of its followers. I said resistance is UNDERSTANDABLE, and I will sympathise with and support those who are in resistance.

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[qupte] You are not because you say ALL, even champion ALL, even NOMINAL, and then say for citizens that just isn't good enough.

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It only appears to you that this is the case because of your penchant for over-extending arguments. You have drawn my arguments erroneously, as I show above.

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[qupte] Uhhhhhh... maybe you haven't heard the news but gun ownership has not been linked to either of those two. Carelessness and proneness to violence is not inherent to a culture where arms exist and are owned by citizens.

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That is illogical - is there a field, any field of your practice, in which you have NEVER made a mistake? I bet not. It is reidiculous to say that gun ownership is not linked to gun accidents; without the presence of the gun, it could not have been a gun accident. I never alleged that carelessnes and proneness to violence exists in gun owning socieities; I have only said that people make mistakes, and with guns those mistakes are often fatal. The presence of a lot of guns in a lot of hands, unsruprisingly, means there are lot of mistakes - and that does not imply that anyone has been negligent or criminally culpable.[qupte] People also have accidents in cars and kill people with cars, so what? That does not make the car responsible, or the existence of cars what we have to worry about.[/quote]Well yes it does, actually. How can you be run down by a car if there are no cars? Is it not unremarkable that the number of people killed in car accidents is higher today than it was in 1066AD? Again, nobody has to be irresponsibly culpable for this to be true.

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Poor analysis. The man was involved with extremist groups and so they hit a true member of their opposition. It certainly had more effect than killing people on the street level of Israeli life with no control over the extremists they are fighting.

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True enough. It was a poor analysis.... by CNN. So in terms of the PR campaign of which you are so enamoured, it was another failure that showed why there can never be peace in Palestine.[qupte] So even if we say it had the same political clout as a random suicide bombing, the real military achievement was better all around. And it came from a simple gun.[/quote]Have I ever advocated suicide bombing RATHER THAN a firefight? No. I have only defended suicide bombing as the most effective weapon they have available. and as I have in fact pointed out, IMO if the Palestinians had adequate weapons to confront Israel, they would.

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If, according to your theory, once in a fight for one's life all resistance is good, then why don't individuals get to make that decision and have preparations for that possibility?

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Yeah well why can't you have a private nuke then? I mean, just cos other people have accidents with nukes doesn't mean you will.Because of the opportunity costs associated with that decision. But please not I have never said they cannot prepare - I have registered hostility only to the private ownership of firearms. You could learn a martial art, or to weild a melee weapon, or any other number of techniques that prepare you for that eventuality. IMO, owning a gun is actually counter-produictive to your survival, and I do not want own a gun precisely becuase I believe my chances of living to a ripe old age are higher if I do not.

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Just because there are stats which show others may be clumsy or have bad intentions?

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Yes, exactly.

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Personally I think guns are more prone to get onesself hurt because of overconfidence and lack of training, but for a well trained person they can be pretty good in defense. That is why I am for licensing with proper training, and ownership of weapons with proof of safe storage capability.

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Well, if you insist on having guns, that is only logical IMO.[qupte] I am interested in how britain defines the difference between farmer and city dweller when it comes to ownership of a firearm. Is it only with ownership of livestock or something, or on population density?[/quote]I expect you'd have to show you lived on a farm.And I point out the case of farmer Tony Martin, who was sentenced for using his shoptgun to shoot a burglar.

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The Hussein example pinpoints the mistake you made with Koresh and Weaver. There was an entity which lived on past the Hussein's because the forces were not all wrapped up in one spot. With Koresh and Weaver (since it was Weaver's family itself as the sole target) they were fish in a barrel.

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Well, I think the idea that baathist saddam sympathisers are behind the violence in Iraq is ridiculous, but as far as I can tell only goes to show the futility of the small arms proposition. If you can't fight them in the field, and you can't fight them from a fortress, where can you figt them?You just can't without heavy weapons.[qupte] We are in agreement that for a successful insurgency against a major power of any kind, the insurgents will need some higher support. But that does not negate that at the outset regular weapons are not only useful, they are extremely useful.You don't go from kitchen knives to buying fighterbombers on the black market.[/quote]You kinda pre-empted my next point. If you can take rifles from people by means of pistols, and artillery from people by means of rifles, then why are you not happy taking pistols away by use of knives?And why can you not go from kitchen knives to fighterbombers? All you need is money.

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This, does not match this...

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an ill-equipped, in terms of military equipment, largely untrained minority of civilians without proper arms and armoured vehicles,

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I have never said that totally untrained and ill equiped forces stand a chance in battle against trained and/or well equipped forces

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Actually it does. The boerkommando had a high degree of individual skill, but no operational unity, little experience in operating as a unit, and dubiously estabblished lines of command and control. and this despite a very higher proportion of military veterans in the ranks.A standing military institution is more than just its weaponry, but also elan and esprit decorps. A succesful guerilla campaign will dveelop an effective body, but starts out without one, regardless of the individual skills of its members, roughly speaking. And, having lots of smallarms does not make you well equipped by military standards.[qupte] Okay... THIS can be dealt with pretty forwardly. What is it about the ownership or existence of guns which necessarily creates these costs? And how does this differ than people accidentally or intentionally using some other device to hurt someone?[/quote]Human frailty.And it does not differ in any way from anyone accidentally injuring another with another device. But I am much less worried by the accident potential of teddy bears than I am of guns, even if it is true that someone somewhere was suffocated to death with a teddy bear.EWhat is deiffrent is the specifics of the physical object - all that energy, necessarily stored in such a way that it can be released exposively. Becuase of its capacity to kill people you can't even see. Because WEAPONS ARE DANGEROUS. If they were not dangerous, we would not call them weapons.

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On a sheer cost/benefit ratio, there would be no reason for popular sports either. The amounts of injuries and deaths involved with them (and these are pretty much all accidental) would knock them right out since all it's about is trying to have some fun.

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Yes true. But someone practicing the 100m sprint cannot kill me from the other side of a wall. They cannot kill me from a distance. Thus I am entitled to say, that form of fun is sufficiently safe that it doesn't bother me. But guns do bother me, not least becuase they are purpose built for homicide.Rudi Visagi, a rugby player, accidentally killed his daughter a few weeks ago. But he's likely to be sentenced for murder, because he certainly shot to kill - he thought she was a robber. If Rudi had had only a knife, his daughter would be alive today. Its that simple.No of course this does not rule out other types of accidents. But ruling out this accident would be a good start.

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I agree that tracking is essentially useless. But I think licensing could be useful to ensure a person has had proper training, as well as the capacity to store weapons and ammunition.

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I say well obviously, but again where I grew up every barrel had its markings recorded on a databse and if a bullet turned up in a body with those markings thw owbner would be automatically deemed to be culpable (unless they had already reported it stolen). If you must have guns, you MUST trace them.

No, although you also insulted me as you suggest above, you did insult me for not having gotten involved.If you are not even going to admit this, then I really have no use in talking to you, as you are certainly a liar. I love this contradiction in you. You rip up the US and Israel for killing civilians all the time, and point to the hypocrisy when they deny that ability to others. And then here you are saying it is legitimate.Which is it Contra?My position is that blowing up purely civilian targets has just about 0 military value, besides its reduction of possible recruits and demoralization of soldiers. Killing civilians is mainly a political tool.Killing civilians at military installations, working on military projects, or acting as military leaders (in a civilian capacity) does have military value.Because of this, I think Israel and the US are hypocritical in both targeting strictly civilian areas, as well as selecting targets of minor value that will entail major civilian losses, and then blaming others for doing the same thing.In addition, they are practicing poor military tactics and strategy. Yet you have not moved to show how the specific actions are a credible threat to the enemy state. That is where the debate is, and NOT what you just posed above. Absolutely, so please stop preaching to the choir. Again, what is your position? On the one hand you talk like being able to just scratch is a good thing... but then in this thread you argue well if nails are liable to get infections and accidentally scratch the furniture, then the cat should be declawed because the scratching won't do much anyway. True. Without guns there can be NO gun accidents, but... This is not true. There is no necessary link here. If so, then one would expect to see much greater rates of accidents in places where lots of guns are owned, irrespective of the training of those owning them.It is training and not just numbers of guns which will determine the number of accidents. Yes, it is unremarkable. Obviously where there are NO cars there will be NO car accidents. But it is not true that where there are more cars there will by necessity be more car accidents (at the very least not proportionally).Your logic would have us in padded rooms, never to be let out. Okay, here is your challenge LIAR. You find me the CNN analysis which said what I just said, and the evidence you used to come up with the connection from that analysis and my analysis.Here's the deal LIAR, I didn't get it from CNN and there is no connection. I am so sick of this kind of debate from you I can't hack it anymore.If you manage to find something that can at least show me reasonably how you could have come to that absolutely false conclusion, I will continue debate on this subject.Otherwise, just stay quiet. I want a good debate, not just ANY debate.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I don't think the use of liar is called for. People make mistakes and remember wrong.Emphasis is just showing your frustration. I think you need to take a few deep breaths. Don't make my give you time for it.

I don't want to debate your warning... I will cool it down... But I want to point out I wrote the piece as a whole knowing where I was going at the end.While the first use of liar might have been something he made a mistake about, the rest (which came hot and heavy at the end) were regarding his telling me where I got my information and analysis, so as to discredit my position. But on top of being wrong, it would also be impossible for him to know where I got my info.This means, at best he was fabricating information to throw at me. I've been through this before and am sick of it. I guess I could have said it nicer, but the charge would have to be the same wouldn't it?Am I free to point this out and challenge him to prove that he actually could have made such charges?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I haven't even looked at this thread, but I'm not all that far from the topic, if same has to do with the title.The National Rifle Association is having their Annual Fun(d) Raiser sic here locally in a couple of weeks. They have a big ad in the paper to sell tickets to the big event. I don't support them, ordinarily, but I wonder -
Should I register to attend?
Should I do so under my real name, or use an alias like...hmmm...Mohammed Abdul-Aziz? Or Louis Farrakhan, Jr.?

You're always free to point out where someone is wrong. I think you might even suggest that you are surprised that the person couldn't know that the time that what they had to say was wrong. (that is either calling them a liar or stupid but sounds like you are simply commenting on your mental state)