Unfortuantely my email was not working for that account. — Count Radetzky von Radetz

Gotcha! Enjoy~

Glad to be here again. — Count Radetzky von Radetz

Yay! Might we know you by another nickname? Count Radetzky" maybe?

@Count Radetzky von Radetz
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Morality without an emotional commitment is not worth thinking about. — Bitter Crank

Very wise

Please don't tell him the bad things I've said about civil engineers. Wouldn't want to discourage him. — T Clark

:wink: No worries, he is in a Simulated Science program. He is one of 14 students in this Sim/Science Bachelors degree as opposed to 200 students in the various "engineering" degrees. STEM is awesome but it really needs to be STEAM as the "Arts" are so important to our society and in Simulated Science it is a necessity.

@Nop
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I already like your style!
Enjoy your stay~

I am so grateful my son is home from college, he is such a cool kid! Always thinking...always solving...always listening.

@MTravers
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@Sydasis
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@CanadianEden
Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!'
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What? Benkei? Are there congratulations in order? Wooo Hoooo! Do you know the gender of no. 2? :cheer: :hearts: :clap: :party:

I understand. Thanks. — Sam26

Thank you for your understanding. :up:

You know, recently I became aware that many people on this forum don't understand this privacy issue with regards to business. Some seem to be entirely convinced that if you have a business, then you ought to just put your stuff everywhere, as that is advertisement — Agustino

I know intellectual property was private but I had no idea a picture would be. Actually now that I read what I just wrote I am kinda surprised with myself not 'getting' that sooner.

Why was Obama outstanding? He left the US in tatters. Even to this day, Americans are still asking - where is the American dream? — Agustino

Have you ever read the book "Who Moved My Cheese?" that is where the American dream is now.
We are adapting to Trumps new route of finding the cheese, definitely a road less traveled then the one chosen by Obama.

Do you have any pics of what he restored? — Sam26

Yes, there are pictures but for whatever privacy reason he doesn't want his cars posted on a forum.
Who knew? Not me, not before asking, glad I did.

@frank
Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!
My first discussion was with Banno as well and 'fruitful' would be an understatement for me. I have learned so much via his style of philosophizing, you are in good company.
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@wayne kaye
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@Sam26
Excellent choice!
In the event that you want to start collecting Corvettes or know someone who does, my father in law has been restoring Corvettes for 50 years for the Top Flight competitions. His Duntov award winning cars are painstakingly cared for and are providing nicely for his retirement. But the 'extra' parts that have been acquired along the way that were not needed for this or that car or you had to take the whole box of parts to get the one that you want, have left us with an inventory that could build another fleet of Corvettes. So if you ever find yourself in need of a Bezel or a switch, just drop me a note. :wink:

As I said, the States are fucked. — Banno

I know that is how you feel which is why I looked into the Aussie way of solving the gun problem, knowing it wouldn't be a perfect templet but looking for a better way than what we in the USA are doing.

Yes, the buy back was compulsory; yes, people went to gaol rather than hand back their guns There are also plenty of gun stashes out in the bush. Organised bad guys still get illegal guns and bring them in. People are allowed hunting rifles and pistols for legitimate use.

We do not give guns to teenagers and children. — Banno

Just so we are clear, I never allowed my children to play with toy guns, they were never allowed to receive them as gifts, to the extreme of not allowing water guns to play with in the blazing summers. I never wanted to own a gun, I never wanted to have a gun in my home, nor did I want my children to be around any home that had a firearm. It was my first question when my children were invited to a play date. Do you have any firearms in the home? and if you do, are they secured out of the children's reach?

When a legal firearm did come into my home, both of my children were enrolled classes at Ben Avery Firing Range where they were professionally trained by a certified marksman how to safely approach, responsibly handle, understand the applicable laws and finally how to fire a firearm. The instructors take no shit and people who want to be responsible gun owners are not signing up for classes at a range where the local Sheriffs and police train.

We even have a Shooter's party in politics. Our equivalent of the NRA. They get 2.8% of the national vote.

We have problems with family violence that end tragically with bashings or stabbings. We have home invasions and aggravated robbery, more often with a machete than a machine gun. — Banno

It sounds like our countries share violence in common, just a different choice of weapon.

We are not the United States. We are not trapped by our own rhetoric into believing that we are no more than an agglomeration of individuals, a temporarily paused anarchy. — Banno

I think it is fair to say that both of our countries have our own challenges in being a better society.

We even have a health system that we can all use. — Banno

And we take in refugees that have sought political asylum in Australia because the Australian government does not believe in the humane treatment of illegal immigrants. But what has that got to do with the gun control debate?

@Issac Scoggins
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that's what the NRA wants you to think. Most likely people aren't that attached to their guns. — Benkei

I am not sure you realize how attached people are to their guns.

Illegally — Benkei

Holy crap! I really did read it as I wrote it "legally". If you illegally obtain a tank then you are a criminal and should be charged. But. BUT if you obtained the tank legally they shouldn't be able to take it from you. Now why you would want such a piece of metal is a bit extreme but if having a tank makes you sleep better at night? Then go for it. Protect your property and your right to own it.

They won't be law abiding if the law requires they turn them in and they refuse. — Michael

I fear the result would literally be a civil war.

As far as I know, that hasn't been applied to guns in the U.S. Perhaps that's how the Aussie government got them, though. — Ciceronianus the White

I fear the day they try to apply "eminent domain" to forcefully confiscate a law abiding Americans' firearm.

There is emotion, and then there's talk about gun laws after a massacre as 'mallet to starfish'. — StreetlightX

A massacre (which by definition is an illegal act) which was carried out by how many law abiding citizens?
I am in no way making light of any loss of life, I am looking to follow the logic of taking away other citizens rights because of how one person behaved. That is what I mean by taking a mallet to a starfish.

Why? If I'd illegally obtain a tank are they supposed to take it with sticks and stones? — Benkei

If you legally obtain a tank, why would anyone be trying to take it from you?

Isn't that how all contraband is seized (when the owner won't cooperate with the law)? I'm sure you don't have a problem with a force of arms being used to confiscate illegally owned drugs. — Michael

Yes that is how contraband is seized, I am not arguing that is not how illegal drugs are seized. What I am trying to show is where the rub is between the two opposing sides. The fact that government guns would be used to confiscate citizens guns is a non starter.

No, a murderer took a gun to 35 of our citizens who were shot dead in real life. They died and their hearts stopped beating. It wasn't a metaphor. The kind of thing that happens on the regular in the US. We stopped that.
Again, not a metaphor. — StreetlightX

I understand what you are saying StreetlightX and the passion behind it.
What I am actively trying to do, is what I expressed above in putting in a stop gap to look at the facts, ideas and trying to look at this from a different perspective, one that does not allow my emotion to lead me as is my nature.

@Banno
I listen to you speak of the 'gun collection/turn in' that the Australian government implemented in your country, what a popular move it was and how much safer the Australian citizen is now.
I was curious as to how your government convinced the average Aussie to turn in their firearms. How you could convince someone who had the right to purchase a product, possess it, maybe even have used it, that they are no longer in need of having it.

I was under the impression that it was a voluntary collection and the Australian citizens that owned firearms were convinced that such a theory would work. As I dug deeper into this action, I came across some ideas, some facts and some enforcement that I was not aware of, nor is it offered up when the idea of the solution to the American Gun Control Debate would be to do what Australia did.

The Australian Law Banned and Confiscated Guns

"The crucial fact they omit is that the buyback program was mandatory. Australia’s vaunted gun buyback program was in fact a sweeping program of gun confiscation. Only the articles from USA Today and the Washington Post cited above contain the crucial information that the buyback was compulsory. The article by Smith-Spark, the latest entry in the genre, assuredly does not. It’s the most important detail about the main provision of Australia’s gun laws, and pundits ignore it. That’s like writing an article about how Obamacare works without once mentioning the individual mandate."

I had no idea that the turn in was mandatory and you would be breaking the law if you did not comply. It makes me wonder who really wanted the guns off the street, the government? the average Aussie? possibly a mix of both? Am I wrong when I suggest that there were likely Aussies on both sides of the mandatory gun turn in? Has the Australian government done this to the Australian citizen with any other product or just guns?

For me, there has to be a willingness on both the governments position and the citizens, to work towards a solution and that just doesn't come across in what happened in Australia. Willingness on both parts comes across in the sound bites and the suggestion that if America were really wanting to solve the school shootings that America would do what Australia did.

What Australia did was not voluntary it was coercion and although that part is buried deep within the "Australian gun control fallacy" it appears in the art of the lead up to the confiscation.



By Christmas of 1996, the Australian citizen had to give up their personal firearm(s) to the government or be prosecuted and serve 12 months in jail for not complying. I understand the logic that if a government is going to impose a law, there is a consequence for those that break that law, it is pretty simple to understand. What I don't understand is why there is a shower scene of naked men in jail, on a poster promoting this movement that both the Australian government and the Australian citizen are supposedly in support of. Why not just a standard mug shot of the average Aussie that didn't comply? What do you think the choice of picture was meant to imply?

The quote below explains so much of how 2nd amendment is viewed by gun owners and the possible/probable scenario that would have to happen for America to do what Australia did.

"Let there be no doubt.Gun confiscation would have to be administered by force of arms. I do not expect that those who dismissed their fellow citizens for clinging bitterly to their guns are so naïve that they imagine these people will suddenly cease their bitter clinging when some nice young man knocks on their door and says, “Hello, I’m from the government and I’m here to take your guns.” As though somehow those who daily espouse their belief that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to allow citizens to resist government oppression and tyranny will not use the Second Amendment to resist what they see as government oppression and tyranny. Or maybe they are so naïve."

I think what he is expressing is a fair reality of how things might work out but he doesn't go far enough into what would happen after word spread through the first "confiscation" community and how the government would be received from there on.

As I said a few days ago, I feel movement in my position but coercion is not the way to go about it here in the United States, under the Constitution we agree to. I feel like Australia took a mallet to something as delicate as a Starfish and we can do better, I just haven't figured out the way. But I am looking...

@Mr Phil O'Sophy
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@Benkei You are far to kind~
@Banno Cheers my dear friend~

I am grateful for you, my family here. :heart:

Lololol an old insult we should bring back:

Rakefire
You'd think this term would mean you were kind of cool, right? Wrong. The BBC defines it as: "someone so uncool that they would outstay their welcome in someone's house until long after the fire had burned down to just the last few embers."

Mother in Law anyone? :snicker:

@Pangloss
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Dunno. Never 'appened. — Banno

:smirk: Love that bravado!

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@Londoner
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@Pippen
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@emancipate
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:joke: