Scroll up, I've already addressed your objection.

There's practically no situation where a gun, rather than some other form of self-defence, would be necessary. — Sapientia

I heard you the first time.

If you need to ask me what those other means are, then "you must have a very poor imagination". — Sapientia

Oh I can imagine them, but that still doesn't make them as effective as a gun. You still haven't shown that. You've merely repeated the claim.

Perhaps planting mines around my house would be most effective, so let's all go ahead and do that, and see where that gets us. — Sapientia

Perhaps? How so? I think you're just pulling these things out of your rear end.

It's excessive force to shoot someone that you could have disabled in a less dangerous way. — Sapientia

Could? How do you know that? Do you have experience warding off would-be murderers, thieves, and rapists by other means? What are those means? What if the intruder to your home is armed, for example? Are these means still the most effective in that case? If so, how do you know?

Your comments demonstrate that not only do you have precious little knowledge of firearms, you have little to no interest in learning more about them. If Jim Jeffries is your authority on the matter, who summarizes my side as saying "fuck off, I like guns," then you appear as the mirror opposite: "fuck off, I don't like guns." I keep waiting for a substantive reply from you, but none has been forthcoming. If you live in the U.S., I suggest you visit a gun shop or gun range or get in touch with one of those scary gun owners if you really want to know the ins and outs of gun storage. I suspect you don't really care, though. I myself may purchase a gun someday if circumstances seem to make doing so prudent, but I can tell you that I don't own one now and don't have a strong interest in them. I just think that the right to bear them is pretty unassailable. I'm open to being proven wrong, of course, but I don't think you'll be the one to do it, so this may be my last post to you.

You seem to be assuming that using a gun for self-defense is a form of excessive force. Why do you think that?

It is no more dogmatic or narrow minded for Westerners to study Western philosophy than it is for Easterners to study Eastern philosophy. Only the West, I notice, has a guilt-complex about its own accomplishments, interests, and history, resulting in a desperate attempt at inclusion of the other, as if truth and value can only be determined by a committee of ethnically and philosophically diverse individuals. I doubt philosophers in China who study Chinese philosophy are similarly wracked with guilt over having failed to adequately consider Western philosophers. I doubt they compose threads online asking whether they are racists for thinking Chinese values superior to Western ones. No, only the white man is so burdened. I for one am beyond tired of these questions.

Racist has to do with race, not with nation or culture. So saying my nation and my culture are superior to all others isn't the same as saying my race is superior to all others. The former is nationalism while the latter is racism. — Agustino

This.

On page one, I mentioned a drawer and a purse. That was a general statement, though, and wasn't meant to respond to your specific scenario of children finding a gun. Strong boxes and security cases exist, which can be hand activated, that are secure and enable quick access if needed. I don't even know why you keep pressing this, though, as there's something called Google which you're perfectly free to use.

Yes, you seem intent on staying there.

You must have a very poor imagination.

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/06/daniel-zimmerman/bad-arguments-for-gun-control-a-response-to-australian-comedian-jim-jefferies/

Huh? You want a philosophical discussion and yet post a video of a comedian strawmanning and insulting people.

playground insults — andrewk

And yet you attempted that very thing in your initial reply to me. You're a pot calling the kettle black.

That you composed a silly response?

It would practical against a tyrannical government or an invading force. — ProbablyTrue

I actually think that a smaller guerrilla force with less powerful weaponry can hold its own and even defeat stronger militaries, for the outcome of a war has as much if not more to do with the morale on either side as it does with advanced firepower. The U.S. has learned this the hard way in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

but it's not clear to me that it is necessary or is serving the intended purpose the majority of the time. — ProbablyTrue

Then you need to look up the statistics. There are conservatively tens of thousands more defensive gun uses each year than homicides due to guns. They clearly serve their intended purpose the majority of the time.

It would probably be the same burglar as the one the NRA thinks would wait for a responsible gun owner to retrieve the gun from their child-proof gun safe. — andrewk

Which would take more or less time than the calling the cops and waiting for them to show up with... guns to the scene?

You could, but owning a tank is an impractical means of self-defense. It would be hard to stow it in a drawer or a purse, for example. You can't drive it to work either. And even if you could park it in a garage, it would be a strange sort of burglar, rapist, or murderer who waited while you grabbed your keys and hopped inside a seventy ton vehicle with which to engage him.

Very well stated. In the other gun thread, the argument I gave in favor of retaining the constitutional right to bear arms is that this right is grounded in the natural right to self-defense. Put in a syllogism, it looks like this:

I have the natural right to defend my life and property.
I have the right to own the proper means of defending my life and property.
Firearms are one proper means of defending my life and property.
Therefore, I have a right to own firearms.

This was the chief principled argument I gave, but apparently, it's easier to endlessly compose infantile, sarcastic quips than engage with such arguments, judging by the responses.

Even idealists have to eat. — schopenhauer1

And thankfully, this fact doesn't exhaustively define me, as it does in your worldview.

It's all true, once again, but only if one assumes that materialism is true.

In each cases I can recollect, the revolution was a success despite the armed forces of the state (because they were otherwise engaged or simply not present), or because of them (because the revolutionnaries mostly coincided with the militaries). — Akanthinos

Right, this observation is not opposed to my point.

I'd say meaningless.

logical positivism — jospehus

Statements can still be meaningless without logical positivism being true.

But the general argument of a well-armed populace as a bulwark against state tyranny is a furphy, I’m sure. — Wayfarer

You've no reason for such surety.

Whenever there are armed conflicts between militia and the Department of Defence, then it’s pretty obvious who is going to win, and the upshot will only be yet more gun deaths. — Wayfarer

You might consult more the pages of history, which show that revolutions can and have occurred, despite the military power of the state being overthrown.

But if you wanted a slam-dunk case for the non-existence of God based on science, then Big Bang cosmology isn't going to give it to you. — Wayfarer

True, it works both ways. The atheist ought not to employ contingent scientific theories to prove his atheism just as much as the theist ought not to employ them to prove theism. Alas, the majority on both sides don't seem to heed this advice.

I can't see why those kinds of arguments are necessarily in conflict with the Thomistic-Aristotelian arguments. — Wayfarer

I'm not saying they're in conflict. I'm saying they're a different kind of argument, since they're based on different premises, and I think such arguments are bad for the reason I gave. Aquinas's cosmological argument is going to be of perennial relevance, whereas some Kalam cosmological argument predicated on the Big Bang is likely not and, unlike the former, ends up with a God of the gaps.

All of those things could still be immoral. Such changing cultural mores prove neither moral relativism nor some version of moral realism to be true.

The majority of gun deaths are suicides, while the majority of homicides are committed with handguns and are usually related to drugs in some way. I think that reforming our drug policy would go a long way to reducing gun violence.

That argument about ‘gun control’ and Hitler seems entirely vacuous. — Wayfarer

What argument are you talking about? The Weimar Republic had strict gun control laws, but the Nazis later relaxed them for everyone except the Jews. There are other historical examples of governments banning guns and confiscating them from a certain demographic about to be persecuted or undergo genocide.

Hmm, I think I get it now. Thanks for the clarification.

Were you? — Michael

Yes.

Because it seemed to me that you were offering reasons for why it would be impractical to repeal the Second Amendment and pass stricter gun control laws. — Michael

The reason I gave that you have focused on was about a scenario in which the state attempted to confiscate guns. It wasn't predicated on the second amendment being lawfully repealed and strict gun control passed, as I said in the clause right after the part you bolded above.

Yeah, that's fair.

God can command things as what we should do in order to be righteous and be closer to Him, but He doesn’t have to require these things to avoid hell. Jews are commanded to wear tassels but aren’t going to hell for not doing so. This is a Christian understanding of the Law which is not Jewish. — MysticMonist

You don't accept the Jewish or the Christian revelation. You've apparently received your own that is superior to them both, one that tells you all the secrets about heaven and hell, how to attain the former, and how the latter doesn't exist. That's great. You're the world's greatest prophet. But then you don't need to belong to any religion, which has been my point this entire time. If you do, it ought to conform to the truth you've already discovered.

Even if I don’t, I could easily become a universalit Quranist (i.e. Muslim). I’m sure there are other liberal Muslims, I know universalist Sufis exist. — MysticMonist

Easily? You don't know that.

Or I would be fully welcome with the Quakers. — MysticMonist

Again, how do you know?

If Bishop Spong is Episcopalian than so am I. — MysticMonist

The Episcopal church is swiftly becoming a church for liberals and atheists who appreciate church hymns and architecture, that's true. For confused, New Age hippies, it might be the perfect match. No commitments, just shallow emoting, posturing, and political activism sprinkled over top Christian aesthetics.

Labels don’t mean much. — MysticMonist

Except that they do. Spong is a hypocrite who wants Christianity to conform to his personal preferences, when in reality Christian identification works the other way around. One becomes a Christian on Christianity's terms, not one's own.

The best objection to religious membership meaning anything at all, is the vast number of people who say they are a certain religion and even be on the church rolls but only rarely go to services, do no practices at home, do not follow their faiths prohibitions, and know little of their faith’s theology. I would be a good Christian if I just didn’t like reading and cared more about football instead without any increase of faith. — MysticMonist

Except that you wouldn't. You're describing hypocrisy, which becomes worthy of public rebuke only if the person behaving in such a way isn't contrite.

You said earlier that if I reject all religions then I end up not believing anything. — MysticMonist

No, I never said this. I said that if one rejects all religions, then one is not religious. I was taking aim at the perennialist who conceives of himself as a religious person, despite not formally belonging to any one particular religion. "A religion of one is a religion of none."

You can obviously reject religion and still believe in something, i.e. have a particular worldview.

I’ve akready established there is no damnation — MysticMonist

I don't think you have, sorry.

Personally I’m drawn most strongly to Islam, Judaism and Baha’i, so I think I can practice a monotheism — MysticMonist

Why are you drawn to them? If not because you think one of them is true, then you're just expressing your aesthetic preferences, which I and most people here don't care about.

My entrance into heaven isn’t based on my theological accuracy nor my ability to articulate it. — MysticMonist

Oh, but now you contradict yourself. In the other thread, you claimed that God commands you not to commit suicide or murder, which is why you won't kill yourself or murder other people in order to attain heaven that much faster. But if getting to heaven requires accepting this particular dogma about suicide and murder, then theological accuracy and your ability to articulate do matter.

I am for gun control, yet also am against a ban on privately owned firearms, even if don't own myself guns. — ssu

This describes me completely. I appreciate your post.

So you're saying that because of British intervention in the 18th century, Americans are fearful of a tyrannical domestic government, and so will start a civil war to defend their gun ownership in the event that the Second Amendment is repealed and strict gun control introduced? — Michael

Yes, I think this is what would happen. And the founders who drafted the second amendment did so on the basis of said fear, which, as I tried to show by linking the article, didn't come out of nowhere.

I stand by my claim that there's something very wrong with American society if you would be willing to kill those who would simply be enforcing gun control laws. — Michael

Just as I stand by my claim that there is something wrong with a government that would forcibly try to confiscate the guns of law abiding citizens. You gave examples of countries that elected representatives who then passed laws that effectively banned guns, which means such laws had the consent of the people and in turn that the people were willing to give up their guns when the government enforced those laws. That is very different from a government attempting to seize guns unlawfully, which is what the "civil war" scenario is predicated on. Obviously, the second amendment can be lawfully repealed. However, you still haven't given me a reason why it ought to be and why, subsequent to that, guns ought to be effectively banned. That is what I have been asking for. So once again: why is it wrong for people to retain ownership of guns?

Certain cosmological arguments favored by Protestant natural theologians like William Lane Craig seem to employ the premise that "nothing" existed "before" the Big Bang, since time began with the Big Bang. There are a number of problems with this. One is that it misunderstands the nature of the Big Bang, which is technically a singularity, a term physicists use to describe the breakdown of their equations. The Big Bang is therefore the accepted term for our ignorance of cosmic origins, not our certitude about them, and doesn't permit one to conclude that there was "nothing" before the Big Bang or that time began with it or anything else.

What such cosmological arguments ultimately attempt to prove is a God of the gaps. We don't know what caused the Big Bang, therefore God did it. Any argument premised on certain contingent scientific theories, however, is easily falsified when those theories are modified or abandoned, which the history of science attests is not out of the ordinary. It could well be that an infinite multiverse exists and that two colliding bubble universes caused the Big Bang. Well, then, so much for the apparent "nothingness" that made it seem as though the Big Bang pointed to creation! Classical cosmological arguments, such as those given by Aquinas, begin with basic concepts like motion, not with contingent scientific theories. This is why they are still lively debated today: they cannot be falsified by any scientific theory.

At best you can argue, using historical precedent, that gun ownership is required to defend against foreign governments trying to impose their rule on the U.S – but then that's exactly what your armed forces are for. — Michael

But the second amendment was intended to enable the citizenry to protect against both foreign governments and domestic, should the latter descend into tyranny.

In the situation we're discussing, a legitimate legislature would have made it illegal to own guns, and would send designated officials to enforce the law. It would therefore be illegal to retain ownership of said guns, and even more so if you use violence (which is also against the law) to do so. — Michael

I don't know what you're talking about here. You seem to merely beg the question by assuming that a "legitimate" legislature would ban guns.

Alternatively, you might provide us with a reason for why there is something wrong with trying to retain ownership of guns. Thus far, you have not done so, but merely repeated the claim. I linked the article so that you might understand perhaps why Americans do not think it wrong to retain ownership of guns.

That Americans have already engaged in a revolutionary war, in part, to retain ownership of their guns, and that it would behoove you to understand why, rather than simply respond with incredulous disapprobation.

I was saying that there's something wrong with American society if you would engage in a civil war to retain ownership of your guns. — Michael

http://www.academia.edu/10621580/How_the_British_Gun_Control_Program_Precipitated_the_American_Revolution

We are in agreement then because I said that handguns are the most accurate after rifles. — Benkei

Alright, I might have read that sentence wrongly.

There's an article in this in the NYT today stating that the sheer amount of guns is the problem. — Benkei

What is the problem, specifically?

God clearly states to not murder, especially in the Torah — MysticMonist

You don't believe in revelation so far as I can tell, so this doesn't apply.

Shotguns, assault rifles are allowed too right? By rifle I mean a typical hunting rifle. One shot, reload, sort of thing. — Benkei

Shotguns and semi-automatic assault rifles can be legally purchased, yes.

What is? — Benkei

That rifles are much more accurate than handguns. I suppose a handgun with a dot sight might be equally accurate at short range, though.